Here we are at the final seance. For the last time, my patient comrade, I ask you to make yourself comfortable upon the old green settee, to look up at the oaken shelves, and to bear with me as best you may while I preach about their contents. The last time! And yet, as I look along the lines of the volumes, I have not mentioned one out of ten of those to which I owe a debt of gratitude², nor one in a hundred of the thoughts which course through my brain as I look at them. As well perhaps, for the man who has said all that he has to say has invariably said too much.  
Let me be didactic for a moment! I assume this solemn—oh, call it not pedantic³!—attitude because my eye catches the small but select corner which constitutes my library of Science. I wanted to say that if I were advising a young man who was beginning life, I should counsel him to devote one evening a week to scientific reading. Had he the perseverance⁴ to adhere to his resolution, and if he began it at twenty, he would certainly find himself with an unusually well-furnished mind at thirty, which would stand him in right good stead in whatever line of life he might walk. When I advise him to read science, I do not mean that he should choke himself with the dust of the pedants⁵, and lose himself in the subdivisions of the Lepidoptera, or the classifications of the dicotyledonous plants. These dreary⁶ details are the prickly bushes in that enchanted⁷ garden, and you are foolish indeed if you begin your walks by butting⁸ your head into one. Keep very clear of them until you have explored the open beds and wandered down every easy path. For this reason avoid the text-books, which repel⁹, and cultivate that popular science which attracts. You cannot hope to be a specialist upon all these varied¹⁰ subjects. Better far to have a broad idea of general results, and to understand their relations to each other. A very little reading will give a man such a knowledge of geology, for example, as will make every quarry¹¹ and railway cutting an object of interest. A very little zoology¹² will enable you to satisfy your curiosity as to what is the proper name and style of this buff-ermine moth¹³ which at the present instant is buzzing round the lamp. A very little botany will enable you to recognize every flower you are likely to meet in your walks abroad, and to give you a tiny thrill of interest when you chance upon one which is beyond your ken¹. A very little archaeology¹⁴ will tell you all about yonder British tumulus, or help you to fill in the outline of the broken Roman camp upon the downs. A very little astronomy will cause you to look more intently at the heavens, to pick out your brothers the planets, who move in your own circles, from the stranger stars, and to appreciate the order, beauty, and majesty¹⁵ of that material universe which is most surely the outward sign of the spiritual force behind it. How a man of science can be a materialist¹⁶ is as amazing to me as how a sectarian can limit the possibilities of the Creator. Show me a picture without an artist, show me a bust¹⁷ without a sculptor¹⁸, show me music without a musician, and then you may begin to talk to me of a universe without a Universe-maker, call Him by what name you will.
 
Here is Flammarion's "L'Atmosphere"—a very gorgeous though weather-stained copy in faded scarlet¹⁹ and gold. The book has a small history, and I value it. A young Frenchman, dying of fever on the west coast of Africa, gave it to me as a professional fee. The sight of it takes me back to a little ship's bunk²⁰, and a sallow face with large, sad eyes looking out at me. Poor boy, I fear that he never saw his beloved Marseilles again!
 
Talking of popular science, I know no better books for exciting a man's first interest, and giving a broad general view of the subject, than these of Samuel Laing. Who would have imagined that the wise savant and gentle dreamer of these volumes was also the energetic secretary of a railway company? Many men of the highest scientific eminence²¹ have begun in prosaic²² lines of life. Herbert Spencer was a railway engineer. Wallace was a land surveyor. But that a man with so pronounced a scientific brain as Laing should continue all his life to devote his time to dull routine work, remaining in harness until extreme old age, with his soul still open to every fresh idea and his brain acquiring new concretions of knowledge, is indeed a remarkable²³ fact. 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 tact²⁴ and discretion²⁵. 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 prehistoric²⁶ remains²⁷ in the valley of the Somme. I knew all about those, and showed him that I did. I then threw out some allusion²⁸ to the rock temples of Yucatan, which he instantly picked up and enlarged upon. He spoke²⁹ of ancient Peruvian civilization, and I kept well abreast³⁰ 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-drawn³¹ 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. Where between four covers will you find greater evidence of patience, of industry, of thought, of discrimination, of that sweep of mind which can gather up a thousand separate facts and bind³² them all in the meshes³³ of a single consistent system? Darwin has not been a more ardent³⁴ collector in zoology than Myers in the dim regions of psychic³⁵ research, and his whole hypothesis, so new that a new nomenclature and terminology³⁶ had to be invented to express it, telepathy, the subliminal³⁷, and the rest of it, will always be a monument of acute reasoning, expressed in fine prose and founded upon ascertained³⁸ fact.
 
The mere³⁹ suspicion of scientific thought or scientific methods has a great charm in any branch of literature, however far it may be removed from actual research. Poe's tales, for example, owe much to this effect, though in his case it was a pure illusion. Jules Verne also produces a charmingly credible⁴⁰ effect for the most incredible things by an adept⁴¹ use of a considerable amount of real knowledge of nature. But most gracefully⁴² of all does it shine in the lighter⁴³ form of essay, where playful thoughts draw their analogies and illustrations from actual fact, each showing up the other, and the combination presenting a peculiar⁴⁴ piquancy⁴⁵ to the reader.
 
Where could I get better illustration of what I mean than in those three little volumes which make up Wendell Holmes' immortal⁴⁶ series, "The Autocrat," "The Poet," and "The Professor at the Breakfast Table"? Here the subtle, dainty, delicate thought is continually reinforced by the allusion or the analogy which shows the wide, accurate knowledge behind it. What work it is! how wise, how witty⁴⁷, how large-hearted and tolerant! Could one choose one's philosopher in the Elysian fields, as once in Athens, I would surely join the smiling group who listened to the human, kindly⁴⁸ words of the Sage⁴⁹ of Boston. I suppose it is just that continual leaven⁵⁰ of science, especially of medical science, which has from my early student days given those books so strong an attraction for me. Never have I so known and loved a man whom I had never seen. It was one of the ambitions of my lifetime to look upon his face, but by the irony⁵¹ of Fate I arrived in his native city just in time to lay a wreath upon his newly-turned grave. Read his books again, and see if you are not especially struck by the up-to-dateness of them. Like Tennyson's "In Memoriam," it seems to me to be work which sprang into full flower fifty years before its time. One can hardly open a page haphazard⁵² without lighting⁵³ upon some passage which illustrates⁵⁴ the breadth of view, the felicity of phrase, and the singular power of playful but most suggestive analogy. Here, for example, is a paragraph—no better than a dozen others—which combines all the rare qualities:—
 
"Insanity⁵⁵ is often the logic⁵⁶ of an accurate mind overtasked. Good mental machinery⁵⁷ ought to break its own wheels and levers, if anything is thrust upon them suddenly which tends to stop them or reverse their motion. A weak mind does not accumulate force enough to hurt itself; stupidity often saves a man from going mad. We frequently see persons in insane hospitals, sent there in consequence of what are called religious mental disturbances⁵⁸. I confess that I think better of them than of many who hold the same notions, and keep their wits and enjoy life very well, outside of the asylums⁵⁹. Any decent person ought to go mad if he really holds such and such opinions…. Anything that is brutal⁶⁰, cruel, heathenish, that makes life hopeless for the most of mankind, and perhaps for entire races—anything that assumes the necessity for the extermination⁶¹ of instincts which were given to be regulated—no matter by what name you call it—no matter whether a fakir, or a monk⁶², or a deacon believes it—if received, ought to produce insanity in every well-regulated mind."
 
There's a fine bit of breezy polemics⁶³ for the dreary fifties—a fine bit of moral courage too for the University professor who ventured to say it.
 
I put him above Lamb as an essayist, because there is a flavour of actual knowledge and of practical acquaintance with the problems and affairs of life, which is lacking in the elfin Londoner. I do not say that the latter is not the rarer quality. There are my "Essays of Elia," and they are well-thumbed as you see, so it is not because I love Lamb less that I love this other more. Both are exquisite⁶⁵, but Wendell Holmes is for ever touching⁶⁶ some note which awakens⁶⁷ an answering vibration⁶⁸ within my own mind.
 
The essay must always be a somewhat repellent form of literature, unless it be handled with the lightest and deftest⁶⁹ touch. It is too reminiscent of the school themes of our boyhood—to put a heading and then to show what you can get under it. Even Stevenson, for whom I have the most profound admiration⁷⁰, finds it difficult to carry the reader through a series of such papers, adorned⁷¹ with his original thought and quaint⁶⁴ turn of phrase. Yet his "Men and Books" and "Virginibus Puerisque" are high examples of what may be done in spite of the inherent unavoidable difficulty of the task.
 
But his style! Ah, if Stevenson had only realized how beautiful and nervous was his own natural God-given style, he would never have been at pains to acquire another! It is sad to read the much-lauded anecdote⁷² of his imitating this author and that, picking up and dropping, in search of the best. The best is always the most natural. When Stevenson becomes a conscious stylist, applauded by so many critics, he seems to me like a man who, having most natural curls, will still conceal⁷³ them under a wig⁷⁴. The moment he is precious he loses his grip. But when he will abide⁷⁵ by his own sterling⁷⁶ Lowland Saxon, with the direct word and the short, cutting sentence, I know not where in recent years we may find his mate. In this strong, plain setting the occasional happy word shines like a cut jewel. A really good stylist is like Beau Brummell's description of a well-dressed man—so dressed that no one would ever observe him. The moment you begin to remark a man's style the odds⁷⁷ are that there............