grows any wiser or better, though it grind a thousand bushels of them!

I have an immense respect for a man of talents _plus_ "the mathematics."
But the calculating power alone should seem to be the least human of
qualities, and to have the smallest amount of reason in it; since a machine
can be made to do the work of three or four calculators, and better than
any one of them. Sometimes I have been troubled that I had not a deeper
intuitive apprehension of the relations of numbers. But the triumph of the
ciphering hand-organ has consoled me. I always fancy I can hear the wheels
clicking in a calculator's brain. The power of dealing with numbers is a
kind of "detached lever" arrangement, which may be put into a mighty poor
watch. I suppose it is about as common as the power of moving the ears
voluntarily, which is a moderately rare endowment.

--Little localized powers, and little narrow streaks of specialized
knowledge, are things men are very apt to be conceited about. Nature is
very wise; but for this encouraging principle how many small talents and
little accomplishments would be neglected! Talk about conceit as much as
you like, it is to human character what salt is to the ocean; it keeps it
sweet, and renders it endurable. Say rather it is like the natural unguent
of the sea-fowl's plumage, which enables him to shed the rain that falls on
him and the wave in which he dips. When one has had _all_ his conceit taken
out of him, when he has lost _all_ his illusions, his feathers will soon
soak through, and he will fly no more.

So you admire conceited people, do you? said the young lady who has come to
the city to be finished off for--the duties of life.

I am afraid you do not study logic at your school, my dear. It does not
follow that I wish to be pickled in brine because I like a saltwater plunge