the grass grow. Or you may hold the opposite opinion, that they are

"Deafer than the blue-eyed cat."

But whichever theory you adopt, in practice, if you are a wise
fisherman, you will steer a middle course, between one thing which must
be left undone and another thing which should be done. You will refrain
from stamping on the bank, or knocking on the side of the boat, or
dragging the anchor among the stones on the bottom; for when the water
vibrates the fish are likely to vanish. But you will indulge as freely
as you please in pleasant discourse with your comrade; for it is certain
that fishing is never hindered, and may even be helped, in one way or
another, by good talk.

I should therefore have no hesitation in advising any one to choose, for
companionship on an angling expedition, long or short, a person who has
the rare merit of being TALKABLE.

II. THEME--ON A SMALL, USEFUL VIRTUE

"Talkable" is not a new adjective. But it needs a new definition, and
the complement of a corresponding noun. I would fain set down on paper
some observations and reflections which may serve to make its meaning
clear, and render due praise to that most excellent quality in man
or woman,--especially in anglers,--the small but useful virtue of
TALKABILITY.

Robert Louis Stevenson uses the word "talkable" in one of his essays
to denote a certain distinction among the possible subjects of human
speech. There are some things, he says in effect, about which you can
really talk; and there are other things about which you cannot properly
talk at all, but only dispute, or harangue, or prose, or moralize, or
chatter.

After mature consideration I have arrived at the opinion that this
distinction among the themes of speech is an illusion. It does not
exist. All subjects, "the foolish things of the world, and the weak
things of the world, and base things of the world, yea, and things that
are not," may provide matter for good talk, if only the right people are
engaged in the enterprise. I know a man who can make a description of
the weather as entertaining as a tune on the violin; and even on the
threadbare theme of the waywardness of domestic servants, I have heard a
discreet woman play the most diverting and instructive variations.

No, the quality of talkability does not mark a distinction among things;
it denotes a difference among people. It is not an attribute unequally
distributed among material objects and abst