"One inconvenience I sometimes experience in so small a house, the difficulty of getting to a sufficient distance from my guest when we begin to utter the big thoughts in big words. You want room for your thoughts to get into sailing trim and run a course or two before they make their port. The bullet of your thought must have overcome its lateral and ricochet motion and fallen into its last and steady course before it reaches the ear of the hearer, else it may plough out again through the side of his head. Also, our sentences want room to unfold and form their columns in the interval. Individuals, like nations, must have suitable broad and natural boundaries, even a considerable neutral ground, between them. I have found it a singular luxery to talk across my pond to a companion on the opposite side. In my house we were so near that we could not begin to hear, we could not speak low enough to be heard; as when you throw two stones into calm water so near that they break each other's undulations." (pg. 137-138)
The difficulty I find in conversation is how the distance between two people is ofen not large enough for the size of their heads. The smaller the room, the more likely they are to bump into one another. Like two babes in the womb, they grow untill you cannot converse with or even view your companion. Only be way of circling through the ambiotic fluid, may the message reach the listner's ear. It is most likely to be swallowed up in the darkness which exists between two people.
To truly listen, we must stand at a distance relative to the intensity of our words. I have repeatedly discovered the futility of having crucial discussions with your parents face to face. It is much easier accomplished over the phone. People need room to breath. It is a happy occasion when you find someone whose thoughts overlap with your own, so your ripples not only meet, but understand one another.
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