“Of Man’s Activity and Attainment the chief results are aeriform, mystic, and preserved in Tradition only:  such are his Forms of Government, with the Authority they rest on; his Customs, or Fashions both of Cloth-habits and of Soul-habits; much more his collective stock of Handicrafts, the whole Faculty he has acquired of manipulating Nature:  all these things, as indispensable and priceless as they are, cannot in any way be fixed under lock and key, but must flit, spirit-like, on impalpable vehicles, from Father to Son; if you demand sight of them, they are nowhere to be met with.  Visible Ploughmen and Hammermen there have been, ever from Cain and Tubal-cain downwards:  but where does your accumulated Agricultural, Metallurgic, and other Manufacturing SKILL lie warehoused?  It transmits itself on the atmospheric air, on the sun’s rays (by Hearing and by Vision); it is a thing aeriform, impalpable, of quite spiritual sort.  In like manner, ask me not, Where are the LAWS; where is the GOVERNMENT?  In vain wilt thou go to Schonbrunn, to Downing Street, to the Palais Bourbon; thou findest nothing there but brick or stone houses, and some bundles of Papers tied with tape.  Where, then, is that same cunningly devised almighty GOVERNMENT of theirs to be laid hands on?  Everywhere, yet nowhere:  seen only in its works, this too is a thing aeriform, invisible; or if you will, mystic and miraculous.  So spiritual (geistig) is our whole daily Life:  all that we do springs out of Mystery, Spirit, invisible Force; only like a little Cloud-image, or Armida’s Palace, air-built, does the Actual body itself forth from the great mystic Deep.

“Visible and tangible products of the Past, again, I reckon up to the extent of three:  Cities, with their Cabinets and Arsenals; then tilled Fields, to either or to both of which divisions Roads with their Bridges may belong; and thirdly—­Books.  In which third truly, the last invented, lies a worth far surpassing that of the two others.  Wondrous indeed is the virtue of a true Book.  Not like a dead city of stones, yearly crumbling, yearly needing repair; more like a tilled field, but then a spiritual field:  like a spiritual tree, let me rather say, it stands from year to year, and from age to age (we have Books that already number some hundred and fifty human ages); and yearly comes its new produce of leaves (Commentaries, Deductions, Philosophical, Political Systems; or were it only Sermons, Pamphlets, Journalistic Essays), every one of which is talismanic and thaumaturgic, for it can persuade men.  O thou who art able to write a Book, which once in the two centuries or oftener there is a man gifted to do, envy not him whom they name City-builder, and inexpressibly pity him whom they name Conqueror or City-burner!  Thou too art a Conqueror and Victor; but of the true sort, namely over the Devil:  thou too hast built what will outlast all marble and metal, and be a wonder-bringing