Out of that leaf-writing, and bark-etching, and later rune, have grown the printed writings of mankind.  Homer, Dante, Milton, and Shakespeare are the lineal descendants of the man who made holes in a leaf, or lines on a wave-washed sand.  Out of the finger-counting have grown up book-keeping, geometry, mathematical astronomy and a knowledge of the higher curves.  Out of the prehistoric shrugs and sounds and grimaces we have oral speech—­much of it worthless, and not all of it yet wholly intelligible.  We are still continually being understood to say what we never meant to say:  we are forever putting our private interpretation on the words of other men.  Even yet, we are all too stupid.  In our dreariest moments does there not come to us sometimes a voice which cries:  Up, awake!  Cease blinking, and begin to see!

Language is electric.  Words have a curious power within themselves.  They rain upon the heart with the soft memories of centuries of old associations, or thoughts of love, vigils, and patience.  They have a power of suggestion which goes beyond all that we may dream.  Just as a man shows in himself traces of a long-dead ancestry, so words have the power to revive emotions of past generations and the experiences of former years.  The man of letters, the Thinker, strews a handful of words into the air, breathes a little song.  The words spring up and bring forth fruit.  Their seed is human progress and a larger life for men.  Think, for instance, who first flung the word freedom into space!—­gravitation, evolution, atom, soul! There is no power like the power of a word:  a word like liberty can dethrone kings.

We get out of a word just what we put into it, plus the individuality of the man who uses it.  Some men read into noble words only their own silliness, vulgarity, prejudice, or preconceived ideas.  Another man reads with his heart open for new impressions, new insight, new fancies and ideals.

Words have not only their inherent meaning; they have their allied meanings.  A word may mean one thing by itself.  It may mean quite another thing when another word stands beside it; even marks of punctuation give words a curiously different sound and shade.  Literature is a mastery, not only of the moods of men, but of the moods of words.  Corot takes a stream, some grass and trees, a flitting patch of sky.  By means of a few strokes of his brush, he manages to present that tree, sky, stream, in a way which suggests the pastoral experience of the ages.  Where did that misty veil come from? the trembling lights and shadows, the half-heard sounds and silence of the woods, the changing cloud, the dim reflection, the atmosphere of mystery and peace?

So each man goes to the dictionary.  He takes a word here, a word there, common words that everybody knows.  He puts them together:  the result is a presentation of the life of man, and lays hold of his inmost spirit.