transmits itself on the
atmospheric air, on the sun's rays (by Hearing and by Vision); it is a
thing aeriform, impalpable, of quite spiritual sort. In like manner, ask
me not, Where are the LAWS; where is the GOVERNMENT? In vain wilt thou
go to Schonbrunn, to Downing Street, to the Palais Bourbon; thou findest
nothing there but brick or stone houses, and some bundles of Papers
tied with tape. Where, then, is that same cunningly devised almighty
GOVERNMENT of theirs to be laid hands on? Everywhere, yet nowhere: seen
only in its works, this too is a thing aeriform, invisible; or if you
will, mystic and miraculous. So spiritual (_geistig_) is our whole daily
Life: all that we do springs out of Mystery, Spirit, invisible Force;
only like a little Cloud-image, or Armida's Palace, air-built, does the
Actual body itself forth from the great mystic Deep.

"Visible and tangible products of the Past, again, I reckon up to the
extent of three: Cities, with their Cabinets and Arsenals; then tilled
Fields, to either or to both of which divisions Roads with their Bridges
may belong; and thirdly--Books. In which third truly, the last invented,
lies a worth far surpassing that of the two others. Wondrous indeed
is the virtue of a true Book. Not like a dead city of stones, yearly
crumbling, yearly needing repair; more like a tilled field, but then
a spiritual field: like a spiritual tree, let me rather say, it stands
from year to year, and from age to age (we have Books that already
number some hundred and fifty human ages); and yearly comes its new
produce of leaves (Commentaries, Deductions, Philosophical, Political
Systems; or were it only Sermons, Pamphlets, Journalistic Essays), every
one of which is talismanic and thaumaturgic, for it can persuade men.
O thou who art able to write a Book, which once in the two centuries
or oftener there is a man gifted to do, envy not him whom they name
City-builder, and inexpressibly pity him whom they name Conqueror or
City-burner! Thou too art a Conqueror and Victor; but of the true sort,
namely over the Devil: thou too hast built what will outlast all marble
and metal, and be a wonder-bringing City of the Mind, a Temple and
Seminary and Prophetic Mount, whereto all kindreds of the Earth will
pilgrim.--Fool! why journeyest thou wearisomely, in thy antiquarian
fervor, to gaze on the stone pyramids of Geeza, or the clay ones of
Sacchara? These stand there, as I can tell thee, idle and inert, look