Art and Science 



match is fire till it is struck, and is being 

 consumed. 



A piece of music, again, without any words 

 at all, or a song with words that have nothing 

 in the world to do with the ideas which it is 

 nevertheless made to convey, is often very 

 effectual language. Much lying, and all irony 

 depends on tampering with covenanted sym- 

 bols, and making those that are usually asso- 

 ciated with one set of ideas convey by a sleight 

 of mind others of a different nature. That is 

 why irony is intolerably fatiguing unless very 

 sparingly used. Take the song which Blondel 

 sang under the window of King Richard's 

 prison. There was not one syllable in it to 

 say that Blondel was there, and was going to 

 help the king to get out of prison. It was 

 about some silly love affair, but it was a letter 

 all the same, and the king made language 

 of what would otherwise have been no lan- 

 guage, by guessing the meaning, that is to 

 say by perceiving that he was expected to 

 enter then and there into a new covenant 

 as to the meaning of the symbols that 



were presented to him, understanding what 



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