neck would swell and his face flush and his eyes glitter, until he
seemed on the verge of apoplexy. The hydraulic arrangements for

supplying the brain with blood are only second in importance to its
own organization. The bulbous-headed fellows that steam well when

they are at work are the men that draw big audiences and give us
marrowy books and pictures. It is a good sign to have one's feet

grow cold when he is writing. A great writer and speaker once told
me that he often wrote with his feet in hot water; but for this,

ALL his blood would have run into his head, as the mercury
sometimes withdraws into the ball of a thermometer.

- You don't suppose that my remarks made at this table are like so
many postage-stamps, do you, - each to be only once uttered? If

you do, you are mistaken. He must be a poor creature that does not
often repeat himself. Imagine the author of the excellent piece of

advice, "Know thyself," never alluding to that sentiment again
during the course of a protracted existence! Why, the truths a man

carries about with him are his tools; and do you think a carpenter
is bound to use the same plane but once to smooth a knotty board

with, or to hang up his hammer after it has driven its first nail?
I shall never repeat a conversation, but an idea often. I shall

use the same types when I like, but not commonly the same
stereotypes. A thought is often original, though you have uttered

it a hundred times. It has come to you over a new route, by a new
and express train of associations.

Sometimes, but rarely, one may be caught making the same speech
twice over, and yet be held blameless. Thus, a certain lecturer,

after performing in an inland city, where dwells a LITTERATRICE of
note, was invited to meet her and others over the social teacup.

She pleasantly referred to his many wanderings in his new
occupation. "Yes," he replied, "I am like the Huma, the bird that

never lights, being always in the cars, as he is always on the
wing." - Years elapsed. The lecturer visited the same place once

more for the same purpose. Another social cup after the lecture,
and a second meeting with the distinguished lady. "You are

constantly going from place to place," she said. - "Yes," he
answered, "I am like the Huma," - and finished the sentence as

before.
What horrors, when it flashed over him that he had made this fine

speech, word for word, twice over! Yet it was not true, as the
lady might perhaps have fairly inferred, that he had embellished

his conversation with the Huma daily during that whole interval of
years. On the contrary, he had never once thought of the odious

fowl until the recurrence of precisely the same circumstances
brought up precisely the same idea. He ought to have been proud of

the accuracy of his mental adjustments. Given certain factors, and
a sound brain should always evolve the same fixed product with the

certainty of Babbage's calculating machine.
- What a satire, by the way, is that machine on the mere

mathematician! A Frankenstein-monster, a thing without brains and
without heart, too stupid to make a blunder; that turns out results

like a corn-sheller, and never grows any wiser or better, though it
grind a thousand bushels of them!

I have an immense respect for a man of talents PLUS "the
mathematics." But the calculating power alone should seem to be

the least human of qualities, and to have the smallest amount of
reason in it; since a machine can be made to do the work of three

or four calculators, and better than any one of them. Sometimes I
have been troubled that I had not a deeper intuitive apprehension

of the relations of numbers. But the triumph of the ciphering
hand-organ has consoled me. I always fancy I can hear the wheels

clicking in a calculator's brain. The power of dealing with
numbers is a kind of "detached lever" arrangement, which may be put

into a mighty poor watch - I suppose it is about as common as the
power of moving the ears voluntarily, which is a moderately rare

endowment.
- Little localized powers, and little narrow streaks of specialized

knowledge, are things men are very apt to be conceited" target="_blank" title="a.自负的；自夸的">conceited about.
Nature is very wise; but for this encouraging principle how many

small talents and little accomplishments would be neglected! Talk
about conceit as much as you like, it is to human character what

salt is to the ocean; it keeps it sweet, and renders it endurable.
Say rather it is like the natural unguent of the sea-fowl's

plumage, which enables him to shed the rain that falls on him and
the wave in which he dips. When one has had ALL his conceit taken

out of him, when he has lost ALL his illusions, his feathers will
soon soak through, and he will fly no more.

"So you admire conceited" target="_blank" title="a.自负的；自夸的">conceited people, do you?" said the young lady who
has come to the city to be finished off for - the duties of life.

I am afraid you do not study logic at your school, my dear. It
does not follow that I wish to be pickled in brine because I like a

salt-water plunge at Nahant. I say that conceit is just as natural
a thing to human minds as a centre is to a circle. But little-

minded people's thoughts move in such small circles that five
minutes' conversation gives you an arc long enough to determine

their whole curve. An arc in the movement of a large intellect
does not sensibly differ from a straight line. Even if it have the

third vowel as its centre, it does not soon betray it. The highest
thought, that is, is the most seeminglyimpersonal; it does not

obviously imply any individual centre.
Audacious self-esteem, with good ground for it, is always imposing.

What resplendent beauty that must have been which could have
authorized Phryne to "peel" in the way she did! What fine speeches

are those two: "NON OMNIS MORTAR," and "I have taken all knowledge
to be my province"! Even in common people, conceit has the virtue

of making them cheerful; the man who thinks his wife, his baby, his
house, his horse, his dog, and himself severally unequalled, is

almost sure to be a good-humored person, though liable to be
tedious at times.

- What are the great faults of conversation? Want of ideas, want
of words, want of manners, are the principal ones, I suppose you

think. I don't doubt it, but I will tell you what I have found
spoil more good talks than anything else; - long arguments on

special points between people who differ on the fundamental
principles upon which these points depend. No men can have

satisfactory relations with each other until they have agreed on
certain ULTIMATA of belief not to be disturbed in ordinary

conversation, and unless they have sense enough to trace the
secondary questions depending upon these ultimatebeliefs to their

source. In short, just as a written constitution is essential to
the best social order, so a code of finalities is a necessary

condition of profitable talk between two persons. Talking is like
playing on the harp; there is as much in laying the hand on the

strings to stop their vibrations as in twanging them to bring out
their music.

- Do you mean to say the pun-question is not clearly settled in
your minds? Let me lay down the law upon the subject. Life and

language are alike sacred. Homicide and VERBICIDE - that is,
violent treatment of a word with fatal results to its legitimate

meaning, which is its life - are alike forbidden. Manslaughter,
which is the meaning of the one, is the same as man's laughter,

which is the end of the other. A pun is PRIMA FACIE an insult to
the person you are talking with. It implies utter indifference to

or sublimecontempt for his remarks, no matter how serious. I
speak of total depravity, and one says all that is written on the

subject is deep raving. I have committed my self-respect by
talking with such a person. I should like to commit him, but

cannot, because he is a nuisance. Or I speak of geological
convulsions, and he asks me what was the cosine of Noah's ark;

also, whether the Deluge was not a deal huger than any modern
inundation.

A pun does not commonly justify a blow in return. But if a blow
were given for such cause, and death ensued, the jury would be

judges both of the facts and of the pun, and might, if the latter
were of an aggravated character, return a verdict of justifiable

homicide. Thus, in a case latelydecided before Miller, J., Doe
presented Roe a subscription paper, and urged the claims of

suffering humanity. Roe replied by asking, When charity was like a
top? It was in evidence that Doe preserved a dignified silence.

Roe then said, "When it begins to hum." Doe then - and not till
then - struck Roe, and his head happening to hit a bound volume of