mind of the butler of St. John's between
beer and snuff-box; the connection was artificial, arbitrary, and by
no means one of those in respect of which an impromptu bargain might
be proposed by the very symbol itself, and assented to without
previous formality by the person to whom it was presented. More
briefly, the butler of St. John's would not have been able to
understand and read it aright. It would have been a dead letter to
him--a snuff-box and not a letter; whereas to the butler of Trinity
it was a letter and not a snuff-box. You will also note that it was
only at the moment when he was looking at it and accepting it as a
message that it flashed forth from snuff-box-hood into the light and
life of living utterance. As soon as it had kindled the butler into
sending a single quart of beer, its force was spent until Mrs.
Bentley threw her soul into it again and charged it anew by wanting
more beer, and sending it down accordingly.

Again, take the ring which the Earl of Essex sent to Queen
Elizabeth, but which the queen did not receive. This was intended
as a sentence, but failed to become effectual language because the
sensible material symbol never reached those sentient organs which
it was intended to affect. A book, again, however full of excellent
words it may be, is not language when it is merely standing on a
bookshelf. It speaks to no one, unless when being actually read, or
quoted from by an act of memory. It is potential language as a
lucifer-match is potential fire, but it is no more language till it
is in contact with a recipient mind, than a match is fire till it is
struck, and is being consumed.

A piece of music, again, without any words at all, or a song with
words that have nothing in the world to do with the ideas which it
is nevertheless made to convey, is very often effectual language.
Much lying, and all irony depends on tampering with covenanted
symbols, and making those that are usually associated with one set
of ideas convey by a sleight of mind others of a different nature.
That is why irony is intolerably fatiguing unless very sparingly
used. Take the song which Blondel sang under the window of King
Richard's prison. There was not one syllable in it to say that
Blondel was there, and was going to help the king to get out of
prison. It was about some silly love affair, but it was a letter
all the same, and the king made language of what would otherwise
have been no language, b