It is human nature to take delight in exciting admiration. It is what
prompts children to say "smart" things and do absurd ones, and in other
ways "show off" when company is present. It is what makes gossips turn out
in rain and storm to go and be the first to tell a startling bit of news.
Think, then, what a passion it becomes with a guide, whose privilege it is,
every day, to show to strangers wonders that throw them into perfect
ecstacies of admiration! He gets so that he could not by any possibility
live in a soberer atmosphere.
After we discovered this, we never went into ecstacies any more,--we never
admired anything,--we never showed anything but impassable faces and stupid
indifference in the presence of the sublimest wonders a guide had to
display. We had found their weak point. We have made good use of it ever
since. We have made some of those people savage at times, but we never lost
our serenity.
The doctor asks the questions generally, because he can keep his
countenance, and look more like an inspired idiot, and throw more
imbecility into the tone of his voice than any man that lives.
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