it I begin to want it, and then I think I need it. The county fair
is a great psychological institution, because it causes people to
want things and then to think they need them. The worst of it is the
less able I am to buy a thing the more I want it and seem to need it.
I'd like to have money enough to make an experiment on myself just to
see if I could ever reach the point, as did the Caliph, where the
only want I'd have would be a want. Possibly, that's what the man
means by complete living. I wonder.




CHAPTER VIII

MY SPEECH

For some time I have had it in mind to make a speech. I don't know
what I would say nor where I could possibly find an audience, but, in
spite of all that, I feel that I'd like to try myself out on a
speech. I can't trace this feeling back to its source. It may have
started when I heard a good speech, somewhere, or, it may have
started when I heard a poor one. I can't recall. When I hear a good
speech I feel that I'd like to do as well; and, when I hear a poor
one, I feel that I'd like to do better. The only thing that is
settled, as yet, about this speech that I want to make is the
subject, and even that is not my own. It is just near enough my own,
however, to obviate the use of quotation-marks. The hardest part of
the task of writing or speaking is to gain credit for what some one
else has said or written, and still be able to omit quotation-marks.
That calls for both mental and ethical dexterity of a high order.