第40章

I always believed in life rather than in books.I suppose every day of earth, with its hundred thousand deaths and something more of births, - with its loves and hates, its triumphs and defeats, its pangs and blisses, has more of humanity in it than all the books that were ever written, put together.I believe the flowers growing at this moment send up more fragrance to heaven than was ever exhaled from all the essences ever distilled.

- Don't I read up various matters to talk about at this table or elsewhere? - No, that is the last thing I would do.I will tell you my rule.Talk about those subjects you have had long in your mind, and listen to what others say about subjects you have studied but recently.Knowledge and timber shouldn't be much used, till they are seasoned.

- Physiologists and metaphysicians have had their attention turned a good deal of late to the automatic and involuntary actions of the mind.Put an idea into your intelligence and leave it there an hour, a day, a year, without ever having occasion to refer to it.

When, at last, you return to it, you do not find it as it was when acquired.It has domiciliated itself, so to speak, - become at home, - entered into relations with your other thoughts, and integrated itself with the whole fabric of the mind.- Or take a simple and familiar example; Dr.Carpenter has adduced it.You forget a name, in conversation, - go on talking, without making any effort to recall it, - and presently the mind evolves it by its own involuntary and unconscious action, while you were pursuing another train of thought, and the name rises of itself to your lips.

There are some curious observations I should like to make about the mental machinery, but I think we are getting rather didactic.

- I should be gratified, if Benjamin Franklin would let me know something of his progress in the French language.I rather liked that exercise he read us the other day, though I must confess Ishould hardly dare to translate it, for fear some people in a remote city where I once lived might think I was drawing their portraits.

- Yes, Paris is a famous place for societies.I don't know whether the piece I mentioned from the French author was intended simply as Natural History, or whether there was not a little malice in his description.At any rate, when I gave my translation to B.F.to turn back again into French, one reason was that I thought it would sound a little bald in English, and some people might think it was meant to have some local bearing or other, - which the author, of course, didn't mean, inasmuch as he could not be acquainted with anything on this side of the water.

[The above remarks were addressed to the school-mistress, to whom I handed the paper after looking it over.The divinity-student came and read over her shoulder, - very curious, apparently, but his eyes wandered, I thought.Fancying that her breathing was somewhat hurried and high, or THORACIC, as my friend, the Professor, calls it, I watched her a little more closely.- It is none of my business.- After all, it is the imponderables that move the world, - heat, electricity, love.HABET?]

This is the piece that Benjamin Franklin made into boarding-school French, such as you see here; don't expect too much; - the mistakes give a relish to it, I think.

LES SOCIETES POLYPHYSIOPHILOSOPHIQUES.

CES Societes la sont une Institution pour suppleer aux besoins d'esprit et de coeur de ces individus qui ont survecu a leurs emotions a l'egard du beau sexe, et qui n'ont pas la distraction de l'habitude de boire.

Pour devenir membre d'une de ces Societes, on doit avoir le moins de cheveux possible.S'il y en reste plusieurs qui resistent aux depilatoires naturelles et autres, on doit avoir quelques connaissances, n'importe dans quel genre.Des le moment qu'on ouvre la porte de la Societe, on a un grand interet dans toutes les choses dont on ne sait rien.Ainsi, un microscopiste demontre un nouveau FLEXOR du TARSE d'un MELOLONTHA VULGARIS.Douze savans improvises, portans des besicles, et qui ne connaissent rien des insectes, si ce n'est les morsures du CULEX, se precipitent sur l'instrument, et voient - une grande bulle d'air, dont ils s'emerveillent avec effusion.Ce qui est un spectacle plein d'instruction - pour ceux qui ne sont pas de ladite Societe.Tous les membres regardent les chimistes en particulier avec un air d'intelligence parfaite pendant qu'ils prouvent dans un discours d'une demiheure que O6 N3 H5 C6 etc.font quelque chose qui n'est bonne a rien, mais qui probablement a une odeur tres desagreable, selon l'habitude des produits chimiques.Apres cela vient un mathematicien qui vous bourre avec des a+b et vous rapporte enfin un x+y, dont vous n'avex pas besoin et qui ne change nullement vos relations avec la vie.Un naturaliste vous parle des formations speciales des animaux excessivement inconnus, dont vous n'avez jamais soupconne l'existence.Ainsi il vous decrit les FOLLICULESde L'APPENDIX VERMIFORMIS d'un DZIGGUETAI.Vous ne savez pas ce que c'est qu'un FOLLICULE.Vous ne savez pas ce que c'est qu'un APPENDIX UERMIFORMIS.Vous n'avez jamais entendu parler du DZIGGUETAI.Ainsi vous gagnez toutes ces connaisances a la fois, qui s'attachent a votre esprit comme l'eau adhere aux plumes d'un canard.On connait toutes les langues EX OFFICIO en devenant membre d'une de ces Societes.Ainsi quand on entend lire un Essai sur les dialectes Tchutchiens, on comprend tout cela de suite, et s'instruit enormement.

Il y a deux especes d'individus qu'on trouve toujours a ces Societes: 1 (degree) Le membre a questions; 2 (degree) Le membre a "Bylaws."La QUESTION est une specialite.Celui qui en fait metier ne fait jamais des reponses.La question est une maniere tres commode de dire les choses suivantes: "Me voila! Je ne suis pas fossil, moi, - je respire encore! J'ai des idees, - voyez mon intelligence!