. . .ret tendency may be the deciding factor in the choice of a friend. But the need for a friend surely is in direct relation to the need for confession.

It is customary to ridicule the Germans’ passion for forming clubs, and societies of all kinds. But do these founders of fraternal associations seek for anything but an opportunity to fraternise, to have a good talk, something from which they are barred at home? The [Pg 28]innumerable speeches that are delivered during the course of a year, and which are being poured out every second in an endless stream in some house at some meeting are apparently being spoken only for the benefit of the auditors. But every speech is a kind of relief to the speaker’s “I,” and people who have the craving to speak before the whole world are very often the keepers of a great secret which they must conceal from the world and which they are imparting in this indirect way in homœopathic doses. Just as. . . Read More