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The Treasure of the Humble

much clearer are thy purposes and duties; what wreck and rubbish have these mute workmen within thee swept away, when intrusive noises were shut out! Speech is too often not, as the Frenchman defined it, the art of concealing Thought, but of quite stifling and suspending Thought, so that there is none to conceal. Speech, too, is great, but not the greatest. As the Swiss inscription says: Sprechen ist Silbern, Schweigen ist goldern (Speech is silver, Silence is golden); or, as I might rather express it, Speech is of Time, Silence is of Eternity.

'Bees will not work except in darkness; Thought will not work except in Silence; neither will Virtue work except in secrecy.'

It is idle to think that, by means of words, any real communication can ever pass from one man to another. The lips or the

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