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may not rise, perhaps, but it can never sink. . . . 'Silence, the great Empire of Silence,' says Carlyle again—he who understood so well the empire of the life which holds us—'higher than the stars, deeper than the Kingdom of Death! . . . Silence, and the great silent men! . . . Scattered here and there, each in his department; 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 to leaves and boughs; which must soon wither and be no forest.'

But the real silence, which is greater still and more difficult of approach than the material silence of which Carlyle speaks—the real silence is not one of those gods that can desert mankind. It surrounds us on every side; it is the source of the