s down, and its shattering makes an
end of him: thus poised the sable bird while one might count one, two,
and three, and four, and five, and six, but hardly seven--"

So they continued; but Manuel listened to no more. "What is the meaning
of all this?" he asked, of Freydis.

"It is an experimental incantation," she replied, "in that it is a bit
of unfinished magic for which the proper words have not yet been found:
but between now and a while they will be stumbled on, and then this rune
will live perpetually, surviving all those rhymes that are infected with
thought and intelligent meanings such as are repugnant to human nature."

"Are words, then, so important and enduring?"

"Why, Manuel, I am surprised at you! In what else, pray, does man differ
from the other animals except in that he is used by words?"

"Now I would have said that words are used by men."

"There is give and take, of course, but in the main man is more
subservient to words than they are to him. Why, do you but think of such
terrible words as religion and duty and love, and patriotism and art,
and honor and common-sense, and of what these tyrannizing words do to
and make of people!"

"No, that is chop-logic: for words are only transitory noises, whereas
man is the child of God, and has an immortal spirit."

"Yes, yes, my dearest, I know you believe that, and I think it is
delightfully quaint and sweet of you. But, as I was saying, a man has
only the body of an animal to get experiences in, and the brain of an
animal to think them over with, so that the thoughts and opinions of the
poor dear must remain always those of a more or less intelligent animal.
But his words are very often magic, as you will comprehend by and by when
I have made you the greatest of image-makers."

"Well, well, but we can let that wait a bit," said Manuel.

And thereafter Manuel talked with Freydis, confessing that the
appearance of these magic-workers troubled Manuel. He had thought it, he
said, an admirable thing to make images that lived, until he saw and
considered the appearance of these habitual makers of images. They were
an ugly and rickety, short-tempered tribe, said Manuel: they were
shiftless, spiteful, untruthful, and in everyday affairs not far from
imbecile: they plainly despised all persons who could not make images,
and they apparently detested all those who could. With Manuel they were
particularly high and mighty, assuring him that he was only a pr