"They study a given subject when death has driven out all life from it. They do not trouble about language as a living organism, full of fight, of movement, of ruses, of intrigues, of sins and graces; but only of language when it lies motionless, a veritable corpse, on the table of the anatomical dissector and dictionary-fiend. They do not study a butterfly when it is in full life, flirting, pilfering, gossiping, merrymaking; but only when it is motionless, lifeless, pierced by a pin. This is how they get their specialities. "Death indeed is the greatest of all specialisers. As soon as a man is dead, each hair or bone on or in his body takes up a separate line of decay, caring nothing for the other, full of scorn for its immediate neighbour, sulking by itself, wandering to the Styx alone and sullen. "In England they have pushed that belief in specialities to a funereal degree. I wonder they allow a man to play one of their instruments, called the piano, with both his hands at a time. I wonder they do not insist that a given piece by Chopin be played by two men, one of whom should first play the part for the right hand, and afterwards the other man the part for the left hand. To play both parts at a time, and to have that done by one single man too,--what presumption! How superficial! "In law they have long acted in this sense. There is one man, called the solicitor (--a very good name--), who plays the bass, or left-hand part with a vengeance, for several weeks. When that is done; when the 'hearer' or client lies prostrate on the ground from the infernal noise made by the solicitor's music, the solicitor hands over the whole case to the other man, the barrister, who plays the most tortuous treble, in a manner likely to madden Pan himself. "The idea, accepted by all the other nations of Europe, that the whole prejudicial business of a legal contention might very well be left to one man, to a lawyer proper,--what presumption! How superficial! "But when you tell them that they browbeat their own principle of specialisation by taking their judges from amongst late barristers, then they wax into an august anger. Yet no other nation does that. The function of a judge is radically different from that of a barrister. After a man has been a barrister for twenty years; after all his mind has taken the creases and folds of barristerdom; after he has quite specialised himself in that particular line, he is unlikely to have the best qualities of a judge. If a barrister cannot be a solicitor; why should he be at once, and suddenly able to become judge? "Their arguments to that effect are most amusing. They dance a real war-dance round the truth that they mean to scalp.