THE PLAIN 'ENGLISH' OF IT. 



187 



with an old one : for of all the powerful stimulants to 

 deeper thought upon a subject in your own mind, what 

 so powerful as the first sustained effort to develope 

 your antecedent conceptions upon it by the slow and 

 detailed process of conversation, and that with a not 

 too easy or imobjective listener ? Idle and valueless 

 as yet as the unsmelted Ore is the Thought that has 

 not been struck out into the current coin of simplest 

 words. And this once accomplished, who shall say 

 where that currency may lead, or in whose hands it 

 may yet thrive, hereafter ? 



1 Steam-power, no more to do with the Plough than a horse has to 

 do with a Spade.' 



