Page:Compromises (Repplier).djvu/98

 82 by some happy alchemy into leather-bound volumes, and upon time only as a possession which could be exchanged for a wider acquaintance with literature, understood better than any scholar in England the limitations and futilities of print. He did not say with Hobbes, "If I had read as much as other men, I should doubtless have shared their ignorance," because he had read more than other men, and was very widely informed; but he pointed out with startling lucidity that a flexible mind fortifies itself rather by conversation, which is the gift of the few, than by reading, which is the resource of the many. "Books," he said, "are written in response to a demand for recreation by minds roused to intelligence, but not to intellectual activity." There is something pathetic in his frankly envious admiration of the French, who can and do convey their thoughts to one another in a language wrought up to be "the perfect medium of wit and wisdom,—the wisdom of the serpent,—the incisive medium of the practical intelligence." He quoted with melancholy appreciation Lord Houghton's story of the