Read those books, and
you will be a fuller man.
It is an excellent device to talk about what you have recently read.
Rather hard upon your audience, you may say; but without wishing to
be personal, I dare bet it is more interesting than your usual small
talk. It must, of course, be done with some tact and discretion. It
is the mention of Laing's works which awoke the train of thought
which led to these remarks. I had met some one at a table d'hote
or elsewhere who made some remark about the prehistoric remains in
the valley of the Somme. I knew all about those, and showed him
that I did. I then threw out some allusion to the rock temples of
Yucatan, which he instantly picked up and enlarged upon. He spoke
of ancient Peruvian civilization, and I kept well abreast of him.
I cited the Titicaca image, and he knew all about that. He spoke of
Quaternary man, and I was with him all the time. Each was more and
more amazed at the fulness and the accuracy of the information of
the other, until like a flash the explanation crossed my mind. "You
are reading Samuel Laing's 'Human Origins'!" I cried. So he was, and
so by a coincidence was I. We were pouring water over each other,
but it was all new-drawn from the spring.
There is a big two-volumed book at the end of my science shelf which
would, even now, have its right to be called scientific disputed
by some of the pedants. It is Myers' "Human Personality." My own
opinion, for what it is worth, is that it will be recognized a
century hence as a great root book, one from which a whole new
branch of science will have sprung.
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