The Tongue Is The Only Instrument That

It Was, As I Have Said, A Fine Autumnal Day; The Sky Was Clear And Serene, And Nature Wore That Rich And Golden Livery Which We Always Associate With The Idea Of Abundance. The Forests Had Put On Their Sober Brown And Yellow, While Some Trees Of The Tendered Kind Had Been Nipped By The Frosts Into Brilliant Dyes Of Orange, Purple, And Scarlet.

Critics Are A Kind Of Freebooters In The Republic Of Letters--who, Like Deer, Goats And Divers Other Graminivorous Animals, Gain Subsistence By Gorging Upon Buds And Leaves Of The Young Shrubs Of The Forest, Thereby Robbing Them Of Their Verdure, And Retarding Their Progress To Maturity.

There Rise Authors Now And Then, Who Seem Proof Against The Mutability Of Language, Because They Have Rooted Themselves In The Unchanging Principles Of Human Nature. They Are Like Gigantic Trees That We Sometimes See On The Banks Of A Stream; Which, By Their Vast And Deep Roots, Penetrating Through The Mere Surface, And Laying Hold On The Very Foundations Of The Earth, Preserve The Soil Around Them From Being Swept Away By The Ever-flowing Current, And Hold Up Many A Neighboring Plant, And Perhaps Worthless Weed, To Perpetuity.

The Tongue Is The Only Instrument That Gets Sharper With Use.

It Is The Divine Attribute Of The Imagination, That It Is Irrepressible, Unconfinable; That When The Real World Is Shut Out, It Can Create A World For Itself, And With A Necromantic Power Can Conjure Up Glorious Shapes And Forms, And Brilliant Visions To Make Solitude Populous, And Irradiate The Gloom Of A Dungeon.