egin immediately all over again.

Now, not all the drawings of M. Ingres could have done that. And the
piece of torn music-paper in the glass case at Montauban had made me,
for a few faint seconds, live it through again. And I know what I don't
care for, and what I do.

AGAINST TALKING

As towards most other things of which we have but little personal
experience (foreigners, or socialists, or aristocrats, as the case may
be), there is a degree of vague ill-will towards what is called
_Thinking_. It is reputed to impede action, to make hay of instincts
and of standards, to fritter reality into doubt; and the career of
Hamlet is frequently pointed out as a proof of its unhappy effects.
But, as I hinted, one has not very often an opportunity of verifying
these drawbacks of thinking, or its advantages either. And I am
tempted to believe that much of the mischief thus laid at the door of
that poor unknown quantity _Thinking_ is really due to its ubiquitous
twin-brother _Talking_.

I call them twins on the analogy of Death and Sleep, because there is
something poetical and attractive in such references to family
relations; and also because, as many people cannot think without
talking, and talking, at all events, is the supposed indication that
thinking is within, there has arisen about these two human activities a
good deal of that confusion and amiable not-caring-which-is-which so
characteristic of our dealings with twins. But _Talking_, take my word
for it, is the true villain of the couple.

Talking, however, should never be discouraged in the young. Not talking
_with them_ (largely reiteration of the word "Why?"), but talking among
themselves. Its beneficial effects are of the sort which ought to make
us patient with the crying of infants. Talking helps growth. M. Renan,
with his saintly ironical sympathy for the young and weak, knew it when
he excused the symbolists and decadents of various kinds with that
indulgent sentence, "Ce sont des enfants qui s'amusent." It matters
little what litter they leave behind, what mud pies they make and little
daily dug-up gardens of philosophy, ethics, literature, and general
scandal; they will grow out of the need to make them--and meanwhile,
making this sort of mess will help them grow.

Besides, is it nothing that they should be amusing themselves once in
their lives (we cannot be sure of the future)? And what amusement, what
material revelry can be compared with the