Talking About Myself

Into the Coach there sometimes came a young woman whom I knew well, . . During a silence that must have been caused by my having to pause for breath, she said 'Why don't you come and talk to our lot? '. . . no opportunity to speak uninterrupted could be allowed to pass without investigation. I began to question her. 'They're raving,' I said and she agreed. It transpired that she spent much of her spare time organizing entertainment for the patients of a day hospital for mental cases.

A few days later she informed me that she had spoken to the doctors with whom she worked and that they had given permission for me to tell all. So, one Sunday afternoon, weighed down with notes, I went to her hospital and spoke and spoke and spoke.

I found that even 'giving a talk' had its own technique and that I was reading my notes instead of addressing my audience. However, the doctor in charge was polite enough to appear satisfied. He was chiefly glad that what I had said had provoked my hearers to question me and to converse with one another.

The conversation which followed my talk was sad. It was all in psychological terminology. . . Why should anyone bother whether he steals or not, once he need not say, 'I'm dishonest,' but can claim to be a kleptomaniac?