I can
imagine Job, or Griselda, or Socrates liking to have a telephone
about them as exercise. Socrates, in particular, would have made
quite a reputation for himself out of a three months' subscription
to a telephone. Myself, I am, perhaps, too sensitive. I once lived
for a month in an office with a telephone, if one could call it
life. I was told that if I had stuck to the thing for two or three
months longer, I should have got used to it. I know friends of
mine, men once fearless and high-spirited, who now stand in front of
their own telephone for a quarter of an hour at a time, and never so
much as answer it back. They tell me that at first they used to
swear and shout at it as I did; but now their spirit seems crushed.
That is what happens: you either break the telephone, or the
telephone breaks you. You want to see a man two streets off. You
might put on your hat, and be round at his office in five minutes.
You are on the point of starting when the telephone catches your
eye. You think you will ring him up to make sure he is in. You
commence by ringing up some half-dozen times before anybody takes
any notice of you whatever. You are burning with indignation at
this neglect, and have left the instrument to sit down and pen a
stinging letter of complaint to the Company when the ring-back
re-calls you.
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