touched without giving a shock. A fellow is n't all battery, is he? The
idea that a Gymnotus can't swallow his worm without a coruscation of
animal lightning is hard on that brilliant but sensational being. Good
talk is not a matter of will at all; it depends--you know we are all
half-materialists nowadays--on a certain amount of active congestion of
the brain, and that comes when it is ready, and not before. I saw a man
get up the other day in a pleasant company, and talk away for about five
minutes, evidently by a pure effort of will. His person was good, his
voice was pleasant, but anybody could see that it was all mechanical
labor; he was sparring for wind, as the Hon. John Morrissey, M. C., would
express himself. Presently,--

Do you,--Beloved, I am afraid you are not old enough,--but do you
remember the days of the tin tinder-box, the flint, and steel? Click!
click! click!--Al-h-h! knuckles that time! click! click! CLICK! a spark
has taken, and is eating into the black tinder, as a six-year-old eats
into a sheet of gingerbread.

Presently, after hammering away for his five minutes with mere words, the
spark of a happy expression took somewhere among the mental combustibles,
and then for ten minutes we had a pretty, wandering, scintillating play
of eloquent thought, that enlivened, if it did not kindle, all around it.
If you want the real philosophy of it, I will give it to you. The chance
thought or expression struck the nervous centre of consciousness, as the
rowel of a spur stings the flank of a racer. Away through all the
telegraphic radiations of the nervous cords flashed the intelligence that
the brain was kindling, and must be fed with something or other, or it
would burn itself to ashes.

And all the great hydraulic engines poured in their scarlet blood, and