poetry in it lies back of a double hypothesis. Supposing the
original sounds to have once been imitations of the voices of Nature,
those sounds have now run completely away from what they once
represented; and supposing that letters were once imitations of natural
signs, they have long since lost the resemblance, and have become
independent entities. Whatever else is done by human artifice has in it
some relic of Nature, some touch of life. Painting copies to the eye,
music charms the ear, and all the useful arts have something of the
aboriginal way of doing things about them. Even speech has a living
grace and power, by the play of the voice and eye, and by the billowy
flushes of the countenance. Mental energy culminates in its modulations,
while the finest physical features combine to make them a consummate
work of art. But all the musical, ocular, and facial beauties are absent
from writing. The savage knows, or could quickly guess, the use of the
brush or chisel, the shuttle or locomotive, but not of the pen. Writing
is the only dead art, the only institute of either gods or men so
artificial that the natural mind can discover nothing significant in it.

For instance, take one of the disputed statements of the Nicene Creed,
examine it by the nicest powers of the senses, study it upwards,
downwards, and crosswise, experiment to learn if it has any mysterious
chemical forces in it, consider its figures in relation to any
astrological positions, to any natural signs of whirlwinds, tempests,
plagues, famine, or earthquakes, try long to discover some hidden
symbolism in it, and confess finally that no man unregenerate to
letters, by any _a priori_ or empirical knowledge, could have at all
suspected that a bit of dirty parchment, with an ecclesiastical scrawl
upon it, would have power to drive the currents of history, inspire
great national passions, and impel the wars and direct the ideas of an
epoch. The conflicts of the iconoclasts can be understood even by a
child in its first meditations over a picture-book; hieroglyphics may
represent or suggest their objects by some natural association; but the
literary scrawl has a meaning only to the initiated. A book is the
prince of witch-work. Everything is contained in it; but even a superior
intelligence would have to go to school to get the key to its mysterious
treasures.

And as the art is thus removed from Nature, so its devotees withdraw
themselves from life. Of no ot