But heaven protect us from the
foreigner who pauses, searches, fumbles, revises, comes to
standstills, has recourse to dumb-show! Away with him, by the first
train to Dover! And this, we may be sure, is the very train M. Tel and
Mme. Chose would like to catch whenever they meet me--or you?
LAUGHTER
1920.
M. Bergson, in his well-known essay on this theme, says...well, he
says many things; but none of these, though I have just read them, do
I clearly remember, nor am I sure that in the act of reading I
understood any of them. That is the worst of these fashionable
philosophers--or rather, the worst of me. Somehow I never manage to
read them till they are just going out of fashion, and even then I
don't seem able to cope with them. About twelve years ago, when every
one suddenly talked to me about Pragmatism and William James, I found
myself moved by a dull but irresistible impulse to try Schopenhauer,
of whom, years before that, I had heard that he was the easiest
reading in the world, and the most exciting and amusing. I wrestled
with Schopenhauer for a day or so, in vain. Time passed; M. Bergson
appeared `and for his hour was lord of the ascendant;' I tardily
tackled William James. I bore in mind, as I approached him, the
testimonials that had been lavished on him by all my friends.
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