"'But still you use words,' said the townsman, 'you irreconcilables.'
"'Yes. When we had degraded their fame and humbled them so that they came to us fawningly, asking to be used, we exalted them to be our servants. Now we are masters over them, and not they over us. They are content to be used, if but for a moment, and then forgotten for ever. We use them to reproduce in other minds the thoughts that are in our own. Woe if they ever get out of hand and become our masters again! They are our exchange metals. Woe if ever again we melt down those metals and recast them as idols!
"'Come with me into the country,' I urged; and the townsman, as if foreseeing release from the bondage of his soul, allowed my flowing life to float him away from the haunts of his idolatry. Then as we passed from under the canopy of smoke and entered into the bright outside universe, I went on:
"'Words are become but a small part of our language. We converse in more ways and with more people than of yore. All nature speaks to us; mountain and sea, river and plain, valley and forest; and we reveal our hearts to them, our longing, our hope, our happiness. And yet never entirely reveal. Not with words only do we converse, but with pictures, with music, with scent, with … but words cannot name the sacred nameless mediums. And man speaks to man without words; with his eyes, with his hands, with his love…."
"With that we walked some way together silently till at last the townsman put his arm in mine and said: 'In my temple also is an altar with an effaced inscription, methinks to the Ever-Living God. By your words you have revealed it to me. Let me accompany you into the beauty of the world, and interpret thou to me the mystery of its beauty.'
"As if I could interpret!
"'Behold,' I said, 'forest and mountain, the little copse and the grass under it, and delicate little flowers among the grass. List to the lark's song in the heavens, the wind soughing in the trees, the whispering of the leaves. In the air there is a mysterious incense spread from God's censers, the very language of mystery. Now you see far into the beauty of the world and hear tidings from afar. All the horizons of your senses have been extended. Are you not glad for all these impressions, these pictures and songs and perfumes? Every impression is a shrine, where you may kneel to God.'
"'It is a beautiful world,' said he.
"'It is beautiful in all its parts and beautiful every moment,' I replied. 'My soul constantly says "Yes" to it. Its beauty is the reminder of our immortal essence. The town is dangerous in that it has little beauty. It causes us to forget. It is exploring the illusion of trade, and its whole song is of trade. If you understand this, you have a criterion for Life—
"'The sacred is that which reminds us; the secular is that which bids us forget.