Nobody talks much that doesn't say unwise things,--things he did not mean to say; as no person plays much without striking a false note sometimes. Talk, to me, is only spading up the ground for crops of thought. I can't answer for what will turn up. If I could, it wouldn't be talking, but "speaking my piece." Better, I think, the hearty abandonment of one's self to the suggestions of the moment, at the risk of an occasional slip of the tongue, perceived the instant it escapes, but, just one syllable too late, than the royal reputation of never saying a foolish thing.
----What shall I do with this little man?--There is only one thing to do,--and that is, to let him talk when he will. The day of the "Autocrat's" monologues is over.
----My friend,--said I to the young fellow whom, as I have said, the boarders call "John,"--My friend,--I said, one morning, after breakfast,--can you give me any information respecting the deformed person who sits at the other end of the table?
What! the Sculpin?--said the young fellow.
The diminutive person, with angular curvature of the spine,--I said,--and double _talipes varus_,--I beg your pardon,--with two club-feet.
Is that long word what you call it when a fellah walks so?--said the young man, making his fists revolve round an imaginary axis, as you may have seen youth of tender age and limited pugilistic knowledge, when they show how they would punish an adversary, themselves protected by this rotating guard,--the middle knuckle, meantime, thumb-supported, fiercely prominent, death-threatening.
It is,--said I.--But would you have the kindness to tell me if you know anything about this deformed person?
About the Sculpin?--said the young fellow.
My good friend,--said I,--I am sure, by your countenance, you would not hurt the feelings of one who has been hardly enough treated by Nature to be spared by his fellows. Even in speaking of him to others, I could wish that you might not employ a term which implies contempt for what should inspire only pity.
A fellah's no business to be so----crooked,--said the young man called John.
Yes, yes,--I said, thoughtfully,--the strong hate the weak. It's all right. The arrangement has reference to the race, and not to the individual. Infirmity must be kicked out, or the stock run down. Wholesale moral arrangements are so different from retail!--I understand the instinct, my friend,--it is cosmic,--it is planetary,--it is a conservative principle in creation.