For answer take thou this, The prudent penning of a letter.
Thou hast not lost an hour, whereof there is a record;
A written thought at midnight shall redeem the livelong day.
Idea is as a shadow that departeth, speech is fleeting as the wind,
Reading is an unremembered pastime; but a writing is eternal:
For therein the dead heart liveth, the clay-cold tongue is eloquent,
And the quick eye of the reader is cleared by the reed of the scribe.
As a fossil in the rock, or a coin in the mortar of a ruin,
So the symbolled thoughts tell of a departed soul:
The plastic hand hath its witness in a statue, and exactitude of vision in a picture,