On the other hand, is silence always gold? I used to think so but I’ve begun to have my doubts. Silence is often associated with strength, as people tend to treat a “strong silent man” with respectful awe. But what is the good of respect when it is accompanied by awe? It only estranges you from people who always keep a respectful distance from you. In fact you’ve lost your power of communication, and a breakdown in communication can often land you in trouble, as I once learnt from my bitter experience.
It happened when I was still a raw young man just turning twenty, feeling very grown-up and proud of being an Oxford undergraduate. Once I accompanied a group of visiting Chinese scholars on a visit to Stratford-on-Avon. We had to take a train there from Oxford and at the station the most senior member, an elderly professor, gave me what he thought was a lot of money (I forget how much it was as the denominations were quite different and much smaller then) and told me to buy the tickets for the whole group. There were only four or five of us but what he gave me was far from enough, as I was told at the ticket window. Instead of going back to him to ask for more, I thought it would be much simpler to foot the difference myself as I was sure he would make it up for me later. But I soon found I was sadly mistaken of also showing him the loose changes I got left after paying for the difference. I thought that they would help me in explaining what I regarded as a very complicated business — the price for each ticket, the sum he had given me, how much short it was, how much I had paid to make up the difference and so on and so forth. I had hardly started when the old man lost his patience. He grabbed the tickets and all the money from my hands and said quite magnanimously: “That’s quite all right. Everything is on me.” Then pocketing my money, he started to hand out the tickets.