rsuade you of their point of view
by talking. A woman comes to you with her head full of an idea and
finds you do not agree with her. She will talk, talk, talk until you
are blind and sick and heartily wish you were deaf, in order to prove
to you that she is right and you are wrong.

She talks until you do not care whether you are right or wrong. You
only care for the blessed relief of silence, and when she has left you,
she has done all she could in that space of time to injure her point of
view. She has simply buried anything good that she might have had to
say in a cloud of dusty talk.

It is funny to hear such a woman say after a long interview, "Well, at
any rate, I gave him a good talking to. I guess he will go home and
think about it."

Think about it, madam? He will go home with an impression of rattle and
chatter and push that will make him dread the sight of your face; and
still more dread the sound of your voice, lest he be subjected to
further interviews. Women sit at work together. One woman talks, talks,
talks until her companions are so worn with the constant chatter that
they have neither head nor nerve enough to do their work well. If they
know how to let the chatter go on and turn their attention away from
it, so that it makes no impression, they are fortunate indeed, and the
practice is most useful to them. But that does not relieve the strain
of the nervous talker herself; she is wearing herself out from day to
day, and ruining her mind as well as hurting the nerves and
dispositions of those about her who do not know how to protect
themselves from her nervous talk.

Nervous talking is a disease.

Now the question is how to cure it. It can be cured, but the first
necessity is for a woman to know she has the disease. For, unlike other
diseases, the cure does not need a physician, but must be made by the
patient herself.

First, she must know that she has the disease. Fifty nervous talkers
might read this article, and not one of them recognize that it is aimed
straight at her.

The only remedy for that is for every woman who reads to believe that
she is a nervous talker until she has watched herself for a month or
more--without prejudice--and has discovered for a certainty that she is
not.

Then she is safe.

But what if she discover to her surprise and chagrin that she is a
nervous talker? What is the remedy for that? The first thing to do is
to own up the truth to herself without equivoca