was my surprise to hear her remark: "I--I--can't think of anything to
say." "Try it again," I told her. She took another long breath, and
again gave up because she could not think of anything to say. She did
not like that little game very much, and thought she would not make
another effort, and in about three minutes she began the chatter, and
went on talking until some necessary interruption parted us.

This woman's talking was nothing more nor less than a nervous habit.
Her thought and her words were not practically connected at all. She
never said what she thought for she never thought. She never said
anything in answer to what was said to her, for she never listened.

Nervous talkers never do listen. That is one of their most striking
characteristics.

I knew of two well-known men--both great talkers--who were invited to
dine. Their host thought, as each man talked a great deal and--, as he
thought--talked very well, if they could meet their interchange of
ideas would be most delightful. Several days later he met one of his
guests in the street and asked how he liked the friend whom he had met
for the first time at his house.

"Very pleasant, very pleasant," the man said, "but he talks too much."

Not long after this the other guest accosted him unexpectedly in the
street "For Heaven's sake, don't ask me to dine with that Smith
again--why, I could not get a word in edgewise."

Now, if only for selfish reasons a man might realize that he needs to
absorb as well as give out, and so could make himself listen in order
to be sure that his neighbor did not get ahead of him. But a conceited
man, a self-centered man or a great talker will seldom or never listen.

That being the case, what can you expect of a woman who is a nervous
talker? The more tired such a woman is the more she talks; the more ill
she is the more she talks. As the habit of nervous talking grows upon a
woman it weakens her mind. Indeed, nervous talking is a steadily
weakening process.

Some women talk to forget. If they only knew it was slow mental suicide
and led to worse than death they would be quick to avoid such false
protection. If we have anything we want to forget we can only forget it
by facing it until we have solved the problem that it places before us,
and then working on, according to our best light: We can never really
cover a thing up in our minds by talking constantly about something
else.

Many women think they are going to pe