se, spiritual and practical, might
blow itself away, as mere torrents of chaff whole trade-winds of chaff,
many miles deep, rushing continually with the voice of whirlwinds
towards a certain FIRE, which knows how to deal with it! Ninety-nine
hundredths blown away; all the lies blown away, and some skeleton of a
spiritual and practical Universe left standing for us which were true:
O Heavens, is it forever impossible, then? By a generation that had
no tongue it really might be done; but not so easily by one that had.
Tongues, platforms, parliaments, and fourth-estates; unfettered presses,
periodical and stationary literatures: we are nearly all gone to tongue,
I think; and our fate is very questionable.

Truly, it is little known at present, and ought forthwith to become
better known, what ruin to all nobleness and fruitfulness and
blessedness in the genius of a poor mortal you generally bring about, by
ordering him to speak, to do all things with a view to their being seen!
Few good and fruitful things ever were done, or could be done, on those
terms. Silence, silence; and be distant ye profane, with your
jargonings and superficial babblements, when a man has anything to do!
Eye-service,--dost thou know what that is, poor England?--eye-service
is all the man can do in these sad circumstances; grows to be all he has
the idea of doing, of his or any other man's ever doing, or ever having
done, in any circumstances. Sad, enough. Alas, it is our saddest woe of
all;--too sad for being spoken of at present, while all or nearly all
men consider it an imaginary sorrow on my part!

Let the young English soul, in whatever logic-shop and nonsense-verse
establishment of an Eton, Oxford, Edinburgh, Halle, Salamanca, or other
High Finishing-School, he may be getting his young idea taught how to
speak and spout, and print sermons and review-articles, and thereby show
himself and fond patrons that it _is_ an idea,--lay this solemnly to
heart; this is my deepest counsel to him! The idea you have once spoken,
if it even were an idea, is no longer yours; it is gone from you, so
much life and virtue is gone, and the vital circulations of your self
and your destiny and activity are henceforth deprived of it. If you
could not get it spoken, if you could still constrain it into silence,
so much the richer are you. Better keep your idea while you can: let
it still circulate in your blood, and there fructify; inarticulately
inciting you to g