"Well," said Brooke, "but apart from the great question of one another which is just now fixing us on the rack, or on the wheel, or pressing us to any other kind of torment, and considering the great subject of mirthfulness merely in the abstract, do you not see how true it is that it is and must be the salt of life, that it preserves all living men from sourness, and decay, and moral death? Now, there's Watts, for instance--Isaac Watts, you know, author of that great work, 'Watts's Divine Hymns and Spiritual Songs for Infant Minds,' or it may have been 'Watts's Divine Songs and Spiritual Hymns for Infant Mind.' I really don't remember. It's of no consequence. Now, what was Watts? Why, on my side altogether. Read his works. Consult him in all emergencies. If anything's on your mind, go and find Watts on the mind. It'll do you good. And as the song says: "'Oh, the Reverend Isaac Watts, D.D., Was a wonderful boy at rhyme; So let every old bachelor fill up his glass And go in for a glorious time. _Chorus_.--Let dogs delight To bark and bite, But we'll be jolly, my lads, to-night.'" During this last little diversion Brooke never turned his eyes toward Talbot. She was close by his side; but he stood looking out of the window, and in that attitude kept rattling on in his most nonsensical way. It was only in this one fact of his careful manner of eluding the grasp, so to speak, of Talbot's eyes, that an observer might discern anything but the most careless gayety. To Talbot, however, there was something beneath all this, which was very plainly visible; and to her, with her profound insight into Brooke's deeper nature, all this nonsense offered nothing that was repellent; on the contrary, she found it most touching and most sad. It seemed to her like the effort of a strong man to rid himself of an overmastering feeling--a feeling deep within him that struggled forever upward and would not be repressed. It rose up constantly, seeking to break through all bounds; yet still he struggled against it; and still, as he felt himself grow weaker in the conflict, he sought refuge in fresh outbursts of unmeaning words. But amidst it all Talbot saw nothing except the man who had gone forth to die for her, and in all his words heard nothing except the utterance of that which proved the very intensity of his feelings. "Oh yes," continued Brooke, "there are lots of authorities to be quoted in favor of mirthfulness. I've already mentioned Bunyan and Watts. I'll give you all the rest of the old divines. "'Oh, Baxter is the boy for me, So fall of merriment and glee: And when I want a funny man, I turn to any old Puritan:-- A Puritan, A funny man, I read the works of a Puritan! Among the Puritan divines Old Cotton Mather brightest shines, And he could be a funny man, Because he was a Puritan:-- A Puritan, A funny man, Old Mather was a Puritan!