ace, the description of which is desired by
all around her. If your mind is alive to the wishes and claims of
others, you will easily perceive when it is a virtue to talk and when to
be silent. It is undue pre-occupation with self which blinds people, and
prevents their seeing what the occasion requires.

Sometimes the most kind and sympathizing person will not do justice to
her nature, but will appear to be cold and inattentive, because she
does not know that it is necessary to give some sign that she is
attending to what is addressed to her. She averts her eye from the
speaker, and listens in such profound silence, and with a countenance so
immovable, that no one could suppose her to be at all interested by what
she is hearing. This is very discouraging to the speaker and very
impolite. Good manners require that you should look at the person who
speaks to you, and that you should put in a word, or a look, from time
to time, that will indicate your interest in the narrative. A few
interjections, happily thrown in by the hearer, are a great comfort and
stimulus to the speaker; and one who has always been accustomed to this
evidence of sympathy, or comprehension, in their friends, feels, when
listened to without it, as if she were talking to a dead wall.

For the encouragement of those who feel themselves deficient in
conversational powers, we will subjoin a notice of the lately-deceased
wife of a clergyman in this state:

"I saw and felt, when with her, as few others have ever made me feel,
the power and uses of conversation. With her it was always promotive of
intellectual and moral life. And here let me inform you, for the
encouragement of those who may be thinking they would gladly do as she
did in society, if they were able, that when I first knew Mrs. B., her
powers of conversation were very small. She was embarrassed whenever she
attempted to convey her thoughts to others. She labored for expression
so much, that it was sometimes painful to hear her. Still, her social,
affectionate nature longed for communion with other minds and hearts, on
all subjects of deepest import. Her persevering efforts at length
prevailed, and her ardent love of truth gave her utterance: yes, an
utterance that often delighted, and sometimes surprised, those who heard
her; a readiness and fluency that are seldom equalled. Learn, then, from
her, my friends, to _exercise_ your faculties, whatever they may be. In
this way only can you impr