lung, the thundering or the tender vocal chords. Don't talk to me
of your Archimedes' lever. He was an absent-minded person with a
mathematical imagination. Mathematics command all my respect, but I have
no use for engines. Give me the right word and the right accent and I
will move the world.

What a dream--for a writer! Because written words have their accent too.
Yes! Let me only find the right word! Surely it must be lying somewhere
amongst the wreckage of all the plaints and all the exultations poured
out aloud since the first day when hope, the undying, came down on
earth. It may be there, close by, disregarded, invisible, quite at hand.
But it's no good. I believe there are men who can lay hold of a needle
in a pottle of hay at the first try. For myself, I have never had such
luck.

And then there is that accent. Another difficulty. For who is going to
tell whether the accent is right or wrong till the word is shouted,
and fails to be heard, perhaps, and goes downwind leaving the world
unmoved. Once upon a time there lived an Emperor who was a sage and
something of a literary man. He jotted down on ivory tablets thoughts,
maxims, reflections which chance has preserved for the edification of
posterity. Amongst other sayings--I am quoting from memory--I remember
this solemn admonition: "Let all thy words have the accent of heroic
truth." The accent of heroic truth! This is very fine, but I am thinking
that it is an easy matter for an austere Emperor to jot down grandiose
advice. Most of the working truths on this earth are humble, not heroic:
and there have been times in the history of mankind when the accents of
heroic truth have moved it to nothing but derision.

Nobody will expect to find between the covers of this little book words