But the dumb Russians too, as I said, they, drilling all wild Asia and wild Europe into military rank and file, a terrible yet hitherto a prospering enterprise, are still dumber. The old Romans also could not _speak,_ for many centuries:--not till the world was theirs; and so many speaking Greekdoms, their logic- arrows all spent, had been absorbed and abolished. The logic- arrows, how they glanced futile from obdurate thick-skinned Facts; Facts to be wrestled down only by the real vigour of Roman thews!--As for me, I honour, in these loud-babbling days, all the Silent rather. A grand Silence that of Romans;--nay the grandest of all, is it not that of the gods! Even Triviality, Imbecility, that can sit silent, how respectable is it in comparison! The 'talent of silence' is our fundamental one. Great honour to him whose Epic is a melodious hexameter Iliad; not a jingling Sham-Iliad, nothing true in it but the hexameters and forms merely. But still greater honour, if his Epic be a mighty Empire slowly built together, a mighty Series of Heroic Deeds,--a mighty Conquest over Chaos; _which_ Epic the 'Eternal Melodies' have, and must have, informed and dwelt in, as it sung itself! There is no mistaking that latter Epic. Deeds are greater than Words. Deeds have such a life, mute but undeniable, and grow as living trees and fruit-trees do; they people the vacuity of Time, and make it green and worthy. Why should the oak prove logically that it ought to grow, and will grow? Plant it, try it; what gifts of diligent judicious assimilation and secretion it has, of progress and resistance, of _force_ to grow, will then declare themselves. My much-honoured, illustrious, extremely inarticulate Mr. Bull!-- Ask Bull his spoken opinion of any matter,--oftentimes the force of dulness can no farther go. You stand silent, incredulous, as over a platitude that borders on the Infinite. The man's Churchisms, Dissenterisms, Puseyisms, Benthamisms, College Philosophies, Fashionable Literatures, are unexampled in this world. Fate's prophecy is fulfilled; you call the man an ox and an ass. But set him once to work,--respectable man! His spoken sense is next to nothing, nine-tenths of it palpable _nonsense:_ but his unspoken sense, his inner silent feeling of what is true, what does agree with fact, what is doable and what is not doable,--this seeks its fellow in the world. A terrible worker; irresistible against marshes, mountains, impediments, disorder, in civilisation; everywhere vanquishing disorder, leaving it behind him as method and order. He 'retires to his bed three days,' and considers!