So let any stammerer (and there are many such) take comfort from my cure, and pray against the trouble as I did, and courageously stand up against the multitude to claim before heaven and earth man's proudest prerogative--the privilege of speech.

In my Proverbial Essay "Of Speaking" will be found two contrasted pictures drawn from my own experiences: one of the stifled stammerer, the other of the unbridled orator: which you can turn to as you will.

As, however, some of my old groanings after utterance are not equally accessible, I will here give a few lines of mine from the "Stammerer's Complaint," printed in the medical book of one of my Galens:-- "...

And is it not in truth A poisoned sting in every social joy, A thorn that rankles in the writhing flesh, A drop of gall in each domestic sweet, An irritating petty misery,-- That I can never look on one I love And speak the fulness of my burning thoughts?
That I can never with unmingled joy Meet a long-loved and long-expected friend Because I feel, but cannot vent my feelings,-- Because I know I ought, but must not, speak,-- Because I mark his quick impatient eye Striving in kindness to anticipate The word of welcome strangled in its birth?
Is it not sorrow, while I truly love Sweet social converse, to be forced to shun The happy circle, from a nervous sense-- An agonising poignant consciousness-- That I must stand aloof, nor mingle with The wise and good in rational argument, The young in brilliant quickness of reply, Friendship's ingenuous interchange of mind, Affection's open-hearted sympathies?
But feel myself an isolated being, A very wilderness of widowed thought!" All this is only sad stern truth; nothing morbid here: let any poor stammerer testify to my faithfulness.

Amongst others afflicted like myself was Charles Kingsley, whom I knew well at a time when I had overcome my calamity; whereas he carried his to the grave with him; though he had frequent gleams of a forced and courageous eloquence, preaching energetically in a somewhat artificial voice,--in private he stammered much, as once I used to do, no doubt to his mortification, though humbly acquiescing in God's will.
* * * * * Chess is a chief intellectual resource to the stammerer; for therein he can conquer in argument without the toil of speech, and prove himself practically more eloquent than the men full of talk whom he so much envies.