In strictly fashionable society the stupid man is not conspicuous,
because one never has time to comprehend that one is not understood.
If he nods his head sagely and says nothing, one is probably grateful
and passes on to the next, thinking that he is most entertaining. But
in that society where one sometimes sits down and breathes, where
conversation is considered as a fine art, and where talk is a mutual
game of battledoor and shuttlecock, then it is that your stupid man
looms up on the horizon like a blanket of clouds.
In America, particularly, conversation is something which not even the
French, who approach it most nearly, can thoroughly understand, for
with all its blinding nimbleness and kaleidoscopic changes there is a
substratum of Puritan morality which holds some things sacred--too
sacred even to argue in public--and one who transgresses turns off the
colored lights, and lo! your conversation is all in grays and browns.
To converse properly in America one must possess not only a nimble wit
and a broad understanding, but he must take into consideration one's
pedigree, and the effect of the climate.
This practically bars the stupid man from ever hearing the sound of
his own voice outside the secluded walls of his own home--or should.
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