Very often conversations are better among three than between two, for the reason that then one of the trio is always, unconsciously, acting as umpire, interposing fair play, recalling wandering wits to the nub of the argument, seeing that the aggressiveness of one does no foul to the reticence of another.  Talk in twos may, alas! fall into speaker and listener:  talk in threes rarely does so.

It is little realized how slowly, how painfully, we approach the expression of truth.  We are so variable, so anxious to be polite, and alternately swayed by caution or anger.  Our mind oscillates like a pendulum:  it takes some time for it to come to rest.  And then, the proper allowance and correction has to be made for our individual vibrations that prevent accuracy.  Even the compass needle doesn’t point the true north, but only the magnetic north.  Similarly our minds at best can but indicate magnetic truth, and are distorted by many things that act as iron filings do on the compass.  The necessity of holding one’s job:  what an iron filing that is on the compass card of a man’s brain!

We are all afraid of truth:  we keep a battalion of our pet prejudices and precautions ready to throw into the argument as shock troops, rather than let our fortress of Truth be stormed.  We have smoke bombs and decoy ships and all manner of cunning colorizations by which we conceal our innards from our friends, and even from ourselves.  How we fume and fidget, how we bustle and dodge rather than commit ourselves.

In days of hurry and complication, in the incessant pressure of human problems that thrust our days behind us, does one never dream of a way of life in which talk would be honored and exalted to its proper place in the sun?  What a zest there is in that intimate unreserved exchange of thought, in the pursuit of the magical blue bird of joy and human satisfaction that may be seen flitting distantly through the branches of life.  It was a sad thing for the world when it grew so busy that men had no time to talk.  There are such treasures of knowledge and compassion in the minds of our friends, could we only have time to talk them out of their shy quarries.  If we had our way, we would set aside one day a week for talking.  In fact, we would reorganize the week altogether.  We would have one day for Worship (let each man devote it to worship of whatever he holds dearest); one day for Work; one day for Play (probably fishing); one day for Talking; one day for Reading, and one day for Smoking and Thinking.  That would leave one day for Resting, and (incidentally) interviewing employers.