ineteenth century, but what shall we say
to this? "As when a bar of iron or silver, having been well hammered, is
newly taken off of the anvil; though the eye can discern no motion in it,
yet the touch will readily perceive it to be very hot, and if you spit
upon it, the brisk agitation of the insensible parts will become visible
in that which they will produce in the liquor." He takes a bar of tin,
and tries whether by bending it to and fro two or three times he cannot
"procure a considerable internal commotion among the parts "; and having
by this means broken or cracked it in the middle, finds, as he expected,
that the middle parts had considerably heated each other. There are many
other curious and interesting observations in the volume which I should
like to tell you of, but these will serve my purpose.

--Which book furnished you the old cover you wanted?--said I.

--Did he kill the owl?--said the Master, laughing. [I suppose you, the
reader, know the owl story.]--It was Number Two that lent me one of his
covers. Poor wretch! He was one of three, and had lost his two
brothers. From him that hath not shall be taken even that which he hath.
The Scripture had to be fulfilled in his case. But I couldn't help
saying to myself, What do you keep writing books for, when the stalls are
covered all over with 'em, good books, too, that nobody will give ten
cents apiece for, lying there like so many dead beasts of burden, of no
account except to strip off their hides? What is the use, I say? I have
made a book or two in my time, and I am making another that perhaps will
see the light one of these days. But if I had my life to live over again,
I think I should go in for silence, and get as near to Nirvana as I
could. This language is such a paltry tool! The handle of it cuts and
the blade doesn't. You muddle yourself by not knowing what you mean by a
word, and send out your unanswered riddles and rebuses to clear up other
people's difficulties. It always seems to me that talk is a ripple and
thought is a ground swell. A string of words, that mean pretty much
anything, helps you in a certain sense to get hold of a thought, just as
a string of syllables that mean nothing helps you to a word; but it's a
poor business, it's a poor business, and the more you study definition
the more you find out how poor it is. Do you know I sometimes think our
little entomological neighbor is doing a sounder business than we people
t