Word: talks
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Dates: during 1870-1879
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...will read. For a man's life cannot help being more or less evident in his appearance and his conversation; and a person whose existence is as deliberately monotonous as that of most of our compatriots will almost infallibly wear the same coat from morning till night, and talk nothing but shop. I have lately been reminded of this fact, in a rather disagreeable way, by meeting a certain number of college men. As I felt some interest in what was going on in Cambridge, I tried to talk with them upon the subject; and I found them, without exception...
...same time my powers of conversation were utterly insufficient to induce them to talk intelligently upon any subject that I could think of, other than college matters. And, as a matter of course, they resented the slightest difference of opinion, or, if they happened to be particularly amiable, they mercifully attributed it to the senile idiocy incident to my advanced years...
Although, as I have said, people in this part of the world usually talk shop, and nothing else, there are a few bright exceptions to this rule, - there are a few who have made it their business to get hold of a good deal of general information, and who are sensible enough to keep it to themselves when it is not asked for. And this blessed few, when they find themselves in a company where shop must perforce be talked, are willing to talk your shop instead of their own. To mention names would be invidious, but I think that...
...crew, men of suitable physique who have never had an oar in their hands, and to send them to the fountain-head for their rowing education. THIS IS ENGLAND. There is no mistake at all about this fact, and I lose all patience when I hear the talk about a "Harvard stroke" or an "American stroke." If a member of the London Rowing Club could be installed as coach to these new men, nothing would be wanting to insure their education in the best school; but this is undoubtedly impracticable, and English works on rowing must be resorted...
...young lady opposite me say (once or twice on the way out I had freed myself from my meditations so far as to think her pretty, but how ugly does she seem to me as I remember her now!) - I accidentally overheard her say to a friend, "You talk about the intellectual face of a student; that one looked like a dolt. I should say he had stopped thinking." And I had been thinking about abstract truth and the immensity of space! I groaned, reeled, and staggered out of the car. A pedantic classmate met me at the door...