But as often as they have gone gadding abroad
to a strange Delphi and her mad priestess, their age has been
dark and leaden. Such were garrulous and noisy eras, which no
longer yield any sound, but the Grecian or silent and melodious
era is ever sounding and resounding in the ears of men.
A good book is the plectrum with which our else silent lyres are
struck. We not unfrequently refer the interest which belongs to
our own unwritten sequel, to the written and comparatively
lifeless body of the work. Of all books this sequel is the most
indispensable part. It should be the author's aim to say once
and emphatically, "He said,"
. This is the most the
book-maker can attain to. If he make his volume a mole whereon
the waves of Silence may break, it is well.
It were vain for me to endeavor to interrupt the Silence. She
cannot be done into English. For six thousand years men have
translated her with what fidelity belonged to each, and still she
is little better than a sealed book. A man may run on confidently
for a time, thinking he has her under his thumb, and shall one
day exhaust her, but he too must at last be silent, and men
remark only how brave a beginning he made; for when he at length
dives into her, so vast is the disproportion of the told to the
untold, that the former will seem but the bubble on the surface
where he disappeared.
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