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
the fire kindled, and the flame rose; for the blood is a stream that,
like burning rock-oil, at once kindles, and is itself the fuel. You can't
order these organic processes, any more than a milliner can make a rose.
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