When you get started reading worth-while books on science, on history, on geography, on travel, on natural history, you tap an inexhaustible field of pleasure and satisfaction. At any time, you can pick up your book and be happy. Waits in railway stations will be opportunities; trips on trains will be pleasant; evenings alone will be enjoyable, if you can get into a book you like. Mental pleasures are best. Material pleasures are merely passing shadows--to be enjoyed for the brief moment before they disappear. 17. [Sidenote: Verbomania.] The malady Verbomania is spreading rapidly. What's that? You have never heard of Verbomania? Well, then, it's taken from _verbosus_, the Latin word meaning "abounding in words," the using of more words than is necessary. _Mania_, also Latin, means "to rage"--excessive or unreasonable desire. Therefore, Verbomania is the excessive desire to use more words than are necessary. There is too much talk nowadays and too little thinking. Some persons start their gab carburetors, and they talk and talk mechanically, without any effort spent in thinking. Just like walking, the motion just goes by itself. Scientists have suggested that perhaps too much talking without thinking is a disease. I don't see that there is any _perhaps_ about it. Disease is an unnatural condition--a function of the mind or body out of its natural order of working. We know we can sit down and run ideas through our brain without words, and we can use a lot of words without ideas. You have read whole pages in a book without receiving an idea. One can rattle off words and not have ideas. When the fountain of words flows in a desert of ideas, it's Verbomania. [Sidenote: Think More, Talk Less.] People in all walks of life have the disease; they talk together too much without any reason other than to take up time or make themselves at ease. Pink teas, receptions and society functions are great rookeries for these Verbomania birds to gather and indulge in their gabfest. The pianist through long practice is able to play a difficult composition without thinking about it; it's automatic; it's habit in action. The society dodo bird is just as dexterous in spinning words without thought, as the pianist with his difficult piece. Our rapid mode of living, our conventions and customs are responsible for much of the Verbomania. I should like to take my Dictophone to a fussy "afternoon" and record the word evacuations, the footless conversation, the forced pleasantries, the set sentences that mingle into a hum and buzz. A wilderness of words in a barrenness of ideas. This abuse of the use of speech makes headaches, weariness, worry, unrest; it saps strength, lowers pep, and lessens resistance. The cure for Verbomania is to keep away from these butterfly buzz bees; put the clothes-pin of caution on your lips; spend more time alone with your thoughts. Nourish your idea plants that have been starved; prune your word plants.