I do not know exactly what this "Science" may be; and I do not think that
anybody else knows; but that is the information stated shortly. It is
contained in a book reposing under my thoughtful eyes. {5} I know it is
not a censored book, because I can see for myself that it is not a novel.
The author, on his side, warns me that it is not philosophy, that it is
not metaphysics, that it is not natural science. After this
comprehensive warning, the definition of the book becomes, you will
admit, a pretty hard nut to crack.

But meantime let us return for a moment to my opening remark about the
physical effect of some common, hired books. A few of them (not
necessarily books of verse) are melodious; the music some others make for
you as you read has the disagreeable emphasis of a barrel-organ; the
tinkling-cymbals book (it was not written by a humorist) I only met once.
But there is infinite variety in the noises books do make. I have now on
my shelves a book apparently of the most valuable kind which, before I
have read half-a-dozen lines, begins to make a noise like a buzz-saw. I
am inconsolable; I shall never, I fear, discover what it is all about,
for the buzzing covers the words, and at every try I am absolutely forced
to give it up ere the end of the page is reached.

The book, however, which I have found so difficult to define, is by no
means noisy. As a mere piece of writing it may be described as being
breathless itself and taking the reader's breath away, not by the
magnitude of its message but by a sort of anxious volubility in the
delivery. The constantly elusive argument and the illustrative
quotations go on without a single reflective pause. For this reason
alone the reading of that work is a fatiguing process.

The author himself (I use his own words) "suspects" that what he has