23（）

A. in great measure
B. in brief
C. all in all
D. at least

Silence is unnatural to man. He begins life with a cry and ends it in stillness. In the interval he does all he can to make a noise in the world, and there are few things 21 he stands in more fear than of the 22 of noise. Even his conversation is 23 a desperate attempt to pr a dreadful silence. If he is introduced to a fellow mortal and a number of pauses occur in the conversation, he regards himself as a failure, a worthless person, and is full of 24 of the emptiest-headed chatterbox. He knows that ninety-nine percent of human conversation means 25 the buzzing of a fly, but he longs to join in the buzz and to prove that he is man and not a wax-work figure. The object of conversation is not, 26 the most part, to communicate ideas; it is to keep up the buzzing sound. Most buzzing, 27 is agreeable to the ear, and some of it is agreeable even to the 28 . He would be a foolish man, however, who waited until he had a wise thought to take part in the buzzing with his neighbors. Those who despise the weather as a conversational opening seem to be ignorant of the reason why human beings wish to talk. Very few human beings join in a conversation in the hope of learning anything new. Some of them are 29 if they are merely allowed to go on a noise into other people’s ears though they have nothing to tell them except that they have seen a new play. At the end of an evening during which they have said nothing at immense length, they justly 30 themselves on their success as conversationalists.