epartment; silently thinking; silently working; whom no Morning
Newspaper makes mention of! They are the salt of the Earth. A country
that has none or few of these is in a bad way. Like a forest which had
no _roots_; which had all turned into leaves and boughs;--which must
soon wither and be no forest. Woe for us if we had nothing but what
we can _show_, or speak. Silence, the great Empire of Silence: higher
than the stars; deeper than the Kingdoms of Death! It alone is great;
all else is small.--I hope we English will long maintain our _grand
talent pour le silence_. Let others that cannot do without standing on
barrel-heads, to spout, and be seen of all the market-place, cultivate
speech exclusively,--become a most green forest without roots! Solomon
says, There is a time to speak; but also a time to keep silence. Of
some great silent Samuel, not urged to writing, as old Samuel Johnson
says he was, by _want of money_ and nothing other, one might ask, "Why
do not you too get up and speak; promulgate your system, found your
sect?" "Truly," he will answer, "I am _continent_ of my thought
hitherto; happily I have yet had the ability to keep it in me, no
compulsion strong enough to speak it. My 'system' is not for
promulgation first of all; it is for serving myself to live by.
That is the great purpose of it to me. And then the 'honor'? Alas,
yes;--but as Cato said of the statue: So many statues in that Forum of
yours, may it not be better if they ask, Where is Cato's statue?"

But now, by way of counterpoise to this of Silence, let me say that
there are two kinds of ambition: one wholly blamable, the other
laudable and inevitable. Nature has provided that the great silent
Samuel shall not be silent too long. The selfish wish to shine over
others, let it be accounted altogether poor and miserable. "Seekest
thou great things, seek them not:" this is most true. And yet, I say,
there is an irrepressible tendency in every man to develop himself
according to the magnitude which Nature has made him of; to speak out,
to act out, what Nature has laid in him. This is proper, fit,
inevitable; nay, it is a duty, and even the summary of duties for a
man. The meaning of life here on earth might be defined as consisting
in this: To unfold your _self_, to work what thing you have the
faculty for. It is a necessity for the human being, the first law of
our existence. Coleridge beautifully remarks that the infant learns to
_speak_ by this