I have
often noticed, however, that a hopelessly dull discourse acts
_inductively_, as electricians would say, in developing strong
mental currents. I am ashamed to think with what accompaniments and
variations and _fioriture_ I have sometimes followed the droning
of a heavy speaker,--not willingly,--for my habit is reverential,--but
as a necessary result of a slight continuous impression on the senses
and the mind, which kept both in action without furnishing the food
they required to work upon. If you ever saw a crow with a king-bird
after him, you will get an image of a dull speaker and a lively
listener. The bird in sable plumage flaps heavily along his
straight-forward course, while the other sails round him, over him,
under him, leaves him, comes back again, tweaks out a black feather,
shoots away once more, never losing sight of him, and finally reaches
the crow's perch at the same time the crow does, having cut a perfect
labyrinth of loops and knots and spirals while the slow fowl was
painfully working from one end of his straight line to the other.
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