Amongst the most serious secondary causes of nerve-deterioration in modern times we find one to which attention has recently been drawn by many writers of distinction. It is not merely overwork, hurry, and excitement that are injurious to our organisms, but a lack of the solitude and calm in which impressions are combined and ideas created. Many of us live in the midst of such a whirl of rapidly succeeding sights, sounds, and sensations, that only a confused recollection of them is left in our minds. It is as though we were to eat incessantly, leaving no leisure for digestion; as though we were so eager to know, that we should refuse to wait to learn. We forget that the sure test of knowledge and progress is the power to reproduce the impressions we have assimilated; not the very elementary capability of putting down on paper the undiluted and undigested detail which has been stuffed into the outer chamber of our minds for that purpose. We must create; we must see, and show to others, “the light that never was on sea or land.” How is this to be accomplished? In attempting to answer the question, let us consider what we do when we wish to obtain the photograph of a face that does not exist. We photograph a number of faces one over the other on the same plate. Is that enough? Does it suffice us to obtain a series of impressions on our plate? No; we now need the dark room, the developing and fixing solutions, and the presiding genius of a higher intelligence, before we can obtain the negative of a face that never yet was seen. And if in this age we expose ourselves to an abundance of impressions, but ignore or underrate the solitude of the dark room, the imaginative faculty which combines and develops, to say nothing of the presiding genius of a higher intelligence, what is to become of our creative power? What, indeed, is to become of our sanity? Moreover, we must remember that there is one great difference between ourselves and the photographic plate. The plate is sensitised once for all; it receives its picture and its work is done. But we are, or may be, always absorbing into ourselves that which sensitises us more and more highly, and of receiving more and more perfect pictures. In addition to which great privilege, we may not only communicate to others, but eventually hand down to others, the faculty thus obtained.