the brutes, of our mothers. The other is the
maturity and experience of that; if that is our mother tongue, this is
our father tongue, a reserved and select expression, too significant
to be heard by the ear, which we must be born again in order to speak.
The crowds of men who merely spoke the Greek and Latin tongues in the
Middle Ages were not entitled by the accident of birth to read the
works of genius written in those languages; for these were not written
in that Greek or Latin which they knew, but in the select language of
literature. They had not learned the nobler dialects of Greece and
Rome, but the very materials on which they were written were waste
paper to them, and they prized instead a cheap contemporary
literature. But when the several nations of Europe had acquired
distinct tho rude written languages of their own, sufficient for the
purposes of their rising literatures, then first learning revived, and
scholars were enabled to discern from that remoteness the treasures of
antiquity. What the Roman and Grecian multitude could not hear, after
the lapse of ages a few scholars read, and a few scholars only are
still reading it.

However much we may admire the orator's occasional bursts of
eloquence, the noblest written words are commonly as far behind or
above the fleeting spoken language as the firmament with its stars is
behind the clouds. There are the stars, and they who can may read
them. The astronomers forever comment on and observe them. They are
not exhalations like our daily colloquies and vaporous breath. What is
called eloquence in the forum is commonly found to be rhetoric in the
study. The orator yields to the inspiration of a transient occasion,
and speaks to the mob before him, to those who can hear him; but the
writer, whose more equable life is his occasion, and who would be
distracted by the event and the crowd which inspire the orator, speaks
to the intellect and heart of mankind, to all in any age who can
understand him.

No wonder that Alexander carried the Iliad with him on his expeditions
in a precious casket. A written word is the choicest of relics. It is
something at once more intimate with us and more universal than any
other work of art. It is the work of art nearest to life itself. It
may be translated into every language, and not only be read but
actually breathed from all human lips; not be represented on canvas or
in marble only, but be carved out of the breath of life itse