It may appear somewhat paradoxical to commence a chapter on the uses of conversation, by pointing out the uses of being silent; yet such is the importance to a woman, of knowing exactly when to cease from conversation, and when to withhold it altogether, that the silence of the female sex seems to have become proverbially synonymous with a degree of merit almost too great to be believed in as a fact. There could be no agreeable conversation carried on, if there were no good listeners; and from her position in society, it is the peculiar province of a woman, rather to lead others out into animated and intelligent communication, than to be intent upon making communications from the resources of her own mind.

Besides this, there are times when men, especially if they are of moody temperament, are more offended, and annoyed by being talked to, than they could be by the greatest personal affront from the same quarter; and a woman of taste will readily detect the forbidding frown, the close-shut lips, and the averted eye, which indicate a determination not to be drawn out. She will then find opportunity for the indulgence of those secret trains of thought and feeling which naturally arise in every human mind; and while she plies her busy needle, and sits quietly musing by the side of her husband, her father, or her brother, she may be adding fresh materials from the world of thought to that fund of conversational amusement, which she is ever ready to bring forward for their use.