u prefer 'Cobra' polish, madam? For high-grade shoes
such as you wear we find this brand more generally serviceable and
liked."

Telling expression, whether in business or in the drawing-room, depends
as much upon how one says a thing as upon what one says; as much upon
what one refrains from saying as upon what one does say.

What is the secret of the ability to put thought into tactful as well as
vivid words? Or is there a secret? There are those who invariably say
the right word in the right way. The question is: how have they found it
possible to do this; how have they learned; how have they brought the
faculty of expression to a perfected art? Or was this ability born in
them? Or, if there is a secret of proficiency, do the adroit managers
of words guard their secret carefully? And if so, why?

Piano artists, and violin artists, and canvas artists, and singing
artists, are uniformly proud of the persevering practise by which they
win success. Why should not ready writers and ready talkers be just as
proud of honest endeavor? Are they so vain of the praise of "natural
facility for expression" that they seldom acknowledge the steps of
progression by which they falteringly but tenaciously climb the ladder
of their attainment? A few great souls and masters of words have been
very honest about the ways and means by which they became skilful
phrase-builders. Robert Louis Stevenson, as perfect in his talk as in
his written expression, said of himself: "Tho considered an idler at
school, I was always busy on my own private ends, which was to learn to
use words. I kept two books in my pocket, one to read, one to write in.
As I walked my mind was busy fitting what I saw with appropriate words.
As I sat by the roadside a penny version book would be in my hand, to
note down the features of the scene. Thus I lived with words. And what I
thus wrote was written consciously for practise. I had vowed that I
would learn to write; it was a proficiency that tempted me, and I
practised to acquire it. I worked in other ways also; often accompanied
my walks with dialogs and often exercised myself in writing down
conversations from memory. This was excellent, no doubt; but there was
perhaps more profit, as there was certainly more effort, in my secret
labors at home.[B] That is the way to learn expression. It was so Keats
learned, and there was never a finer temperament for literature than
Keats's; it was so, if we could trace it out, t