Mince Pie | Page 9

nine days' wonder--so young that she doesn't even know
what you are doing to her. But you are not going to have the laugh on
me by luring me into resolutions. I know my weaknesses. I know that I
shall probably continue to annoy newsdealers by reading the magazines
on the stalls instead of buying them; that I shall put off having my hair
cut; drop tobacco cinders on my waistcoat; feel bored at the idea of
having to shave and get dressed; be nervous when the gas burner pops
when turned off; buy more Liberty Bonds than I can afford and have to
hock them at a grievous loss. I shall continue to be pleasant to
insurance agents, from sheer lack of manhood; and to keep library
books out over the date and so incur a fine. My only hope, you see, is
resolutely to determine to persist in these failings. Then, by sheer
perversity, I may grow out of them.
[Illustration]
What avail, indeed, for any of us to make good resolutions when one
contemplates the grand pageant of human frailty? Observe what I
noticed the other day in the Lost and Found column of the New York
Times:
LOST--Hotel Imperial lavatory, set of teeth. Call or communicate Flint,
134 East 43d street. Reward.
Surely, if Mr. Flint could not remember to keep his teeth in his mouth,
or if any one else was so basely whimsical as to juggle them away from
him, it may well teach us to be chary of extravagant hopes for the
future. Even the League of Nations, when one contemplates the sad
case of Mr. Flint, becomes a rather anemic safeguard. We had better
keep Mr. Flint in mind through the New Year as a symbol of human
error and disappointment. And the best of it is, my dear Time, that you,
too, may be a little careless. Perhaps one of these days you may doze a
little and we shall steal a few hours of timeless bliss. Shall we see a
little ad in the papers:
LOST--Sixty valuable minutes, said to have been stolen by the
unworthy human race. If found, please return to Father Time, and no

questions asked.
Well, my dear Time, we approach the Zero Hour. I hope you will have
a Happy New Year, and conduct yourself with becoming restraint. So
live, my dear fellow, that we may say, "A good Time was enjoyed by
all." As the hands of the clock go over the top and into the No Man's
Land of the New Year, good luck to you!
Your obedient servant!

WHAT MEN LIVE BY
What a delicate and rare and gracious art is the art of conversation!
With what a dexterity and skill the bubble of speech must be
maneuvered if mind is to meet and mingle with mind.
There is no sadder disappointment than to realize that a conversation
has been a complete failure. By which we mean that it has failed in
blending or isolating for contrast the ideas, opinions and surmises of
two eager minds. So often a conversation is shipwrecked by the very
eagerness of one member to contribute. There must be give and take,
parry and thrust, patience to hear and judgment to utter. How uneasy is
the qualm as one looks back on an hour's talk and sees that the
opportunity was wasted; the precious instant of intercourse gone
forever: the secrets of the heart still incommunicate! Perhaps we were
too anxious to hurry the moment, to enforce our own theory, to adduce
instance from our own experience. Perhaps we were not patient enough
to wait until our friend could express himself with ease and happiness.
Perhaps we squandered the dialogue in tangent topics, in a multitude of
irrelevances.
[Illustration]
How few, how few are those gifted for real talk! There are fine merry
fellows, full of mirth and shrewdly minted observation, who will not
abide by one topic, who must always be lashing out upon some new
byroad, snatching at every bush they pass. They are too excitable, too

ungoverned for the joys of patient intercourse. Talk is so solemn a rite
it should be approached with prayer and must be conducted with nicety
and forbearance. What steadiness and sympathy are needed if the
thread of thought is to be unwound without tangles or snapping! What
forbearance, while each of the pair, after tentative gropings here and
yonder, feels his way toward truth as he sees it. So often two in talk are
like men standing back to back, each trying to describe to the other
what he sees and disputing because their visions do not tally. It takes a
little time for minds to turn face to face.
Very often conversations are better among three than between