LISTENING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 April 1938, Page 5

LISTENING

PRACTICALLY A LOST ART AS FAR AS WOMEN CONCERNED Without doubt men are better listeners than women. There are exceptions, of course, but, on the whole, one is tolerably sure of a quiet hearing from a male listener. His thoughts may be many miles away—probably are if the subject has no interest for him but he generally manages to force his patience to last out the breath of the narrator, especially if the latter be a woman, states a writer in a Sydney newspaper. Listening nowadays seems to be practically a lost art so far ■as many women are concerned. Here again are exceptions, but the fact remains that the precious grace of a quiet, attentive listener is indeed a rarity. The feverish impatience to be heard often makes a ridiculous farce of conversation. One simply cannot wait until the other has finished what she had in mind to say, but must “barge” in; each voice rising in its attempt to drown the other. Sometimes half a dozen or more may be in the vocal melee, the final honours falling to the most strident voice and longest breath. To listen quietly and courteously with due attention to what another has to say connotes a certain self-discip-line, which seems to be sadly lackingin these days of hurry, scurry, and fretful patience. To listen with one's mind as well as ears in indeed a gracious act and affords unspeakable comfort to the troubled and harassed mind of one seeking human sympathy. The modern, high-pitched metallic voice, the craze of talking one another down—and often the wireless as well —and the loss of this gracious art of listening, are robbing much of our social intercourse of its old-world charm, making it commonplace and often distinctly irritating instead. ' The grace of a quiet listener is as a precious oasis in a wilderness, or as “still small voice” when life has become a fever.