What excuse can one possibly find for himself when blaming another for not holding his tongue? If the matter ought not to [Sidenote: F] have been known, it was wrong to tell it to any one else. If you let the secret slip from yourself, and yet ask another person to keep it, you take refuge in the loyalty of some one else while abandoning loyalty to yourself. And if he turns out as bad as you, you are deservedly undone; if better, you are saved by a miracle, through finding another person more faithful to you than yourself. ‘But So-and-So is my friend.’ So is a second person _his_ friend, whom _he_ again will trust as _I_ trust _him_. So with that person and a third, and thus the talk will go on [Sidenote: 507] increasing and extending in link after link of weak betrayal. The Unit never goes beyond its own limit, but is, once and for all, ‘oneness’—whence its name. But the number ‘two’ is the indefinite beginning of difference, for by the duplication it at once shifts in the direction of multitude. In the same way, so long as a piece of information is confined to the first possessor, it is really and truly a ‘secret’. But if it passes by him to a second, it must be classed as a ‘report’. ‘_Winged words_,’ says the poet. If you let go from your hand a thing with wings, it is not easy to get it back into your grasp; and if you let an observation slip from your lips, it is impossible to seize and secure it, but away it flies _on nimbly-whirling wing_, and circulates in all directions from one set of people to another. When a ship is caught by a wind, they put a check upon it [Sidenote: B] and deaden its speed with cables and anchors; but let a speech run—so to speak—out of port, and it finds no place to cast and ride at anchor. It is carried away with a roar, till he who has uttered it is dashed and sunk upon some great and terrible danger. _From but a little torch-light Ida’s heights May all be set ablaze; so, tell but one, And all the town will know it._