harmonies may be spoiled by the intrusion of a single harsh note.
Therefore conversation which is suggestive rather than

argumentative, which lets out the most of each talker's results of
thought, is commonly the pleasantest and the most profitable. It

is not easy, at the best, for two persons talking together to make
the most of each other's thoughts, there are so many of them.

[The company looked as if they wanted an explanation.]
When John and Thomas, for instance, are talking together, it is

natural enough that among the six there should be more or less
confusion and misapprehension.

[Our landlady turned pale; - no doubt she thought there was a screw
loose in my intellects, - and that involved the probable loss of a

boarder. A severe-looking person, who wears a Spanish cloak and a
sad cheek, fluted by the passions of the melodrama, whom I

understand to be the professionalruffian of the neighboring
theatre, alluded, with a certain lifting of the brow, drawing down

of the corners of the mouth, and somewhat rasping VOCE DI PETTO, to
Falstaff's nine men in buckram. Everybody looked up. I believe

the old gentleman opposite was afraid I should seize the carving-
knife; at any rate, he slid it to one side, as it were carelessly.]

I think, I said, I can make it plain to Benjamin Franklin here,
that there are at least six personalities distinctly to be

recognized as taking part in that dialogue between John and Thomas.
Three Johns.

1. The real John; known only to his Maker.
2. John's ideal John; never the real one, and often very unlike

him.
3. Thomas's ideal John; never the real John, nor John's John, but

often very unlike either.
Three Thomas.

1. The real Thomas.
2. Thomas's ideal Thomas.

3. John's ideal Thomas.
Only one of the three Johns is taxed; only one can be weighed on a

platform-balance; but the other two are just as important in the
conversation. Let us suppose the real John to be old, dull, and

ill-looking. But as the Higher Powers have not conferred on men
the gift of seeing themselves in the true light, John very possibly

conceives himself to be youthful, witty, and fascinating, and talks
from the point of view of this ideal. Thomas, again, believes him

to be an artful rogue, we will say; therefore he is, so far as
Thomas's attitude in the conversation is concerned, an artful

rogue, though really simple and stupid. The same conditions apply
to the three Thomases. It follows, that, until a man can be found

who knows himself as his Maker knows him, or who sees himself as
others see him, there must be at least six persons engaged in every

dialogue between two. Of these, the least important,
philosophically speaking, is the one that we have called the real

person. No wonder two disputants often get angry, when there are
six of them talking and listening all at the same time.

[A very unphilosophical application of the above remarks was made
by a young fellow, answering to the name of John, who sits near me

at table. A certain basket of peaches, a rare vegetable, little
known to boarding-houses, was on its way to me VIA this unlettered

Johannes. He appropriated the three that remained in the basket,
remarking that there was just one apiece for him. I convinced him

that his practical inference was hasty and illogical, but in the
mean time he had eaten the peaches.]

- The opinions of relatives as to a man's powers are very commonly
of little value; not merely because they sometimes overrate their

own flesh and blood, as some may suppose; on the contrary, they are
quite as likely to underrate those whom they have grown into the

habit of considering like themselves. The advent of genius is like
what florists style the BREAKING of a seedling tulip into what we

may call high-caste colors, - ten thousand dingy flowers, then one
with the divinestreak; or, if you prefer it, like the coming up in

old Jacob's garden of that most gentlemanly little fruit, the
seckel pear, which I have sometimes seen in shop-windows. It is a

surprise, - there is nothing to account for it. All at once we
find that twice two make FIVE. Nature is fond of what are called

"gift-enterprises." This little book of life which she has given
into the hands of its joint possessors is commonly one of the old

story-books bound over again. Only once in a great while there is
a stately poem in it, or its leaves are illuminated with the

glories of art, or they enfold a draft for untold values signed by
the million-fold millionnaire old mother herself. But strangers

are commonly the first to find the "gift" that came with the little
book.

It may be questioned whether anything can be conscious of its own
flavor. Whether the musk-deer, or the civet-cat, or even a still

more eloquently silent animal that might be mentioned, is aware of
any personal peculiarity, may well be doubted. No man knows his

own voice; many men do not know their own profiles. Every one
remembers Carlyle's famous "Characteristics" article; allow for

exaggerations, and there is a great deal in his doctrine of the
self-unconsciousness of genius. It comes under the great law just

stated. This incapacity of knowing its own traits is often found
in the family as well as in the individual. So never mind what

your cousins, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, and the rest, say
about that fine poem you have written, but send it (postage-paid)

to the editors, if there are any, of the "Atlantic," - which, by
the way, is not so called because it is A NOTION, as some dull wits

wish they had said, but are too late.
- Scientific knowledge, even in the most modest persons, has

mingled with it a something which partakes of insolence. Absolute,
peremptory facts are bullies, and those who keep company with them

are apt to get a bullying habit of mind; - not of manners, perhaps;
they may be soft and smooth, but the smile they carry has a quiet

assertion in it, such as the Champion of the Heavy Weights,
commonly the best-natured, but not the most diffident of men, wears

upon what he very inelegantly calls his "mug." Take the man, for
instance, who deals in the mathematical sciences. There is no

elasticity in a mathematical fact; if you bring up against it, it
never yields a hair's breadth; everything must go to pieces that

comes in collision with it. What the mathematician knows being
absolute, unconditional, incapable of suffering question, it should

tend, in the nature of things, to breed a despotic way of thinking.
So of those who deal with the palpable and often unmistakable facts

of external nature; only in a less degree. Every probability - and
most of our common, working beliefs are probabilities - is provided

with BUFFERS at both ends, which break the force of opposite
opinions clashing against it; but scientificcertainty has no

spring in it, no courtesy, no possibility of yielding. All this
must react on the minds which handle these forms of truth.

- Oh, you need net tell me that Messrs. A. and B. are the most
gracious, unassuming people in the world, and yet preeminent in the

ranges of science I am referring to. I know that as well as you.
But mark this which I am going to say once for all: If I had not

force enough to project a principle full in the face of the half
dozen most obvious facts which seem to contradict it, I would think

only in single file from this day forward. A rash man, once
visiting a certain noted institution at South Boston, ventured to

express the sentiment, that man is a rational being. An old woman
who was an attendant in the Idiot School contradicted the

statement, and appealed to the facts before the speaker to disprove
it. The rash man stuck to his hasty generalization,

notwithstanding.
[ - It is my desire to be useful to those with whom I am associated

in my daily relations. I not unfrequently practise the divine art
of music in company with our landlady's daughter, who, as I