Any one not a born fool can resolve to keep silence on certain points, but it takes a master-mind to be able to talk, and yet not tell. Silence indeed, self-evident and without disguise, though a safe method, is but a clumsy one, and to be tolerated only in very timid or very young people. "Le silence est le parti plus sûr pour celui qui se défie de soi-même," says Rochefoucauld. So is total abstinence for him who cannot control himself. Yet we do not preach total abstinence as the best order of life for a wise and disciplined person, any more than we would put strong ankles into leg-irons, or forbid a rational man to handle a sword. Besides, silence may be as expressive, as tell-tale even, as speech; and at the best there is no science in shutting one's lips and sitting mute; though indeed too few people have got even so far as this in the art of reticence, but tell everything they know so surely as water flows through a sieve, and are safe just in proportion to their ignorance.
But there is art, the most consummate art, in appearing absolutely frank, yet never telling anything which it is not wished should be known; in being pleasantly chatty and conversational, yet never committing oneself to a statement nor an opinion which might be used against one afterwards—ars celare artem being a true maxim in keeping one's own counsel as well as in other things. It is only after a long acquaintance with this kind of person that you find out he has been substantially reticent throughout, though apparently so frank. Caught by his easy manner, his genial talk, his ready sympathy, you have confided to him not only all that you have of your own, but all that you have of other people's; and it is only long after, when you reflect quietly, undisturbed by the magnetism of his presence, that you come to the knowledge of how reticent he has been in the midst of his seeming frankness, and how little reciprocity there has been in your confidences together. You know such people for years, and you never really know more of them at the end than you did in the beginning. You cannot lay your finger on a fact that would in any way place them in your power; and though you did not notice it at the time, and do not know how it has been done now, you feel that they have never trusted you, and have all along carefully avoided anything like confidence. But you are at their mercy by your own rashness, and if they do not destroy you it is because they are reticent for you as well as towards you; perhaps because they are good-natured; perhaps because they despise you for your very frankness too much to hurt you; but above all things not because they are unable. How you hate them when you think of the skill with which they took all that was offered to them, yet never let you see they gave back nothing for their own part—rather by the jugglery of manner made you believe that they were giving back as much as they were receiving! Perhaps it was a little ungenerous; but they had the right to argue that if you could not keep your own counsel you would not be likely to keep theirs, and it was only kind at the time to let you hoodwink yourself so that you might not be offended.
In manner genial, frank, conversational, sympathetic—in substance absolutely secret, cautious, never taken off their guard, never seduced into dangerous confidences, as careful for their friends as they are for themselves, and careful even for strangers unknown to them—these people are the salvation as they are the charm of society; never making mischief, and, by their habitual reticence, raising up barriers at which gossip halts and rumour dies. No slander is ever traced to them, and what they know is as though it were not. Yet they do not make the clumsy mistake of letting you see that they are better informed than yourself on certain subjects, and know more about the current scandals of the day than they choose to reveal. On the contrary, they listen to your crude mistakes with a highly edified air, and leave you elated with the idea that you have let them behind the scenes and told them more than they knew before. If only they had spoken, your elation would not have been very long-lived.
Of all personal qualities this art of reticence is the most important and most valuable for a professional man to possess. Lawyer or physician, he must be able to hold all and hear all without betraying by word or look—by injudicious defence no more than by overt treachery—by anger at a malicious accusation no more than by a smile at an egregious mistake. His business is to be reticent, not exculpatory; to maintain silence, not set up a defence nor yet proclaim the truth. To do this well requires a rare combination of good qualities—among which are tact and self-respect in about equal amount—self-command and the power of hitting that fine line which marks off reticence from deception. No man was ever thoroughly successful as either a lawyer or physician who did not possess this combination; and with it even a modest amount of technical skill can be made to go a long way.
Valuable in society, at home the reticent are so many forms of living death. Eyes have they and see not; ears and hear not; and the faculty of speech seems to have been given them in vain. They go out and they come home, and they tell you nothing of all they have seen. They have heard all sorts of news and seen no end of pleasant things, but they come down to breakfast the next morning as mute as fishes, and if you want it you must dig out your own information bit by bit by sequential, categorical questioning. Not that they are surly nor ill-natured; they are only reticent. They are really disastrous to those who are associated with them, and make the worst partners in the world in business or marriage; for you never know what is going on, nor where you are, and you must be content to walk blindfold if you walk with them. They tell you nothing beyond what they are obliged to tell; take you into no confidence; never consult you; never arrest their own action for your concurrence; and the consequence is that you live with them in the dark, for ever afraid of looming catastrophes, and more like a captive bound to the car of their fortunes than like the coadjutor with a voice in the manner of the driving and the right to assist in the direction of the journey. This is the reticence of temperament, and we see it in children from quite an early age—those children who are trusted by the servants, and are their favourites in consequence, because they tell no tales; but it is a disposition that may become dangerous unless watched, and that is always liable to degenerate into falsehood. For reticence is just on the boundary of deception, and it needs but a very little step to take one over the border.
That obtrusive kind of reticence which parades itself—which makes mysteries and lets you see there are mysteries—which keeps silence and flaunts it in your face as an intentional silence brooding over things you are not worthy to know—that silence which is as loud as words, is one of the most irritating things in the world and can be made one of the most insulting. If words are sharp arrows, this kind of dumbness is paralysis, and all the worse to bear because it puts it out of your power to complain. You cannot bring into court a list of looks and shrugs, nor make it a grievance that a man held his tongue while you raved, and to all appearance kept his temper when you lost yours. Yet all of us who have had any experience that way know that his holding his tongue was the very reason why you raved, and that if he had spoken for his own share the worst of the tempest would have been allayed. This is a common manner of tormenting with reticent people who have a moral twist; and to fling stones at you from behind the shield of silence by which they have sheltered themselves is a pastime that hurts only one of the combatants. Reticence, though at times one of the greatest social virtues we possess, is also at times one of the most disastrous personal conditions.
Half our modern novels turn on the misery brought about by mistaken reticence; and though novelists generally exaggerate the circumstances they deal with, they are not wrong in their facts. If the waters of strife have been let loose because of many words, there have been broken hearts before now because of none. Old proverbs, to be sure, inculcate the value of reticence, and the wisdom of keeping one's own counsel. If speech is silvern, silence is golden, in popular philosophy; and the youth is ever enjoined to be like the wise man, and keep himself free from the peril of words. Yet for all that, next to truth, on which society rests, mutual knowledge is the best working virtue, and a state of reticent distrust is more prudent than noble.
Many people think it a fine thing to live with their most intimate friends as if they would one day become their enemies, and never let even their deepest affections strike root so far down as confidence. They rearrange La Bruyère's famous maxim, 'L'on peut avoir la confiance de quelqu'un sans en avoir le cœur,' and take it quite the contrary way; but perhaps the heart which gives itself, divorced from confidence, is not worth accepting; and reticence where there is love sounds almost a contradiction in terms. Indeed, the certainty of unlimited confidences where there is love is one of the strongest of all the arguments in favour of general reticence. For in nine cases out of ten you tell your secrets and open your heart, not only to your friend, but to your friend's wife, or husband, or lover; and secondhand confidence is rarely held sacred if it can be betrayed with impunity.
By an apparent contradiction, reticent people who tell nothing are often the most charming letter-writers. Full of chit-chat, of descriptions dashed off with a warm and flowing pen, giving all the latest news well authenticated and not scandalous, and breathing just the right amount of affection according to the circumstances of the correspondents—a naturally eloquent person who has cultivated the art of reticence writes letters unequalled for charm of manner. The first impression of them is superb, enchanting, enthralling, like the bouquet of old wine; but, on reconsideration, what have they said? Absolutely nothing. This charming letter, apparently so full of matter, is an answer to a great, good, honest outpour wherein you laid bare that foolish heart of yours and delivered up your soul for anatomical examination; and you looked for a reply based on the same lines. At first delighted, you are soon chilled and depressed by such a return, and you feel that you have made a fool of yourself, and that your correspondent is laughing in his sleeve at your insane propensity to gush. So must it be till that good time comes when man shall have no need to defend himself against his fellows; when confidence shall not bring sorrow nor trust betrayal; and when the art of reticence shall be as obsolete as the art of fence, or the Socratic method.