Page:Ralcy H. Bell - The Mystery of Words (1924).pdf/171

 wisdom stirs in his brain and blossoms from his lips. New ideas, fresh imagery, new-born concepts and emotions must find suitable signs to represent them in the objective world, since the word itself must remain forever subjective.

There is another aspect of this matter that is too common to be overlooked: the sign of the concept, image, or feeling, takes the place of the concept, etc., by a kind of reflex action. This phenomenon accounts for the desert wastes in language, for the infinite mediocrity of literature, for the inanities of current speech. The relations between word and concept are displaced by relations merely between words. The longer process is sacrificed to the shorter. Words become empty of meaning; they multiply hollow sounds; they are as tinkling cymbals.

This phenomenon has little to recommend it as the conservator of intellectual dignity and integrity. It is admirable only for the facility which it lends to automatic expres-