Man knows that there are in the soul tints more bewildering, more numberless, and more nameless than the colours of the autumn forest;.. Yet he seriously believes that these things can every one of them, in all their tones and semi-tones, in all their blends and unisons, be accurately represented by an arbitrary system of grunts and squeals. He believes that an ordinary stockbroker can really produce out of his own inside noises which denote all the mysteries of memory and all the agonies of desire.
Every time one man says to another, “Tell us plainly what you mean?” he is assuming the infallibility of language: that is to say, he is assuming that there is a perfect scheme of verbal expression for all the internal moods and meanings of men. He knows that there are in the soul tints more bewildering, more numberless, and more nameless than the colours of an autumn forest. Yet he seriously believes that these things can every one of them, in all their tones and semitones, in all their blends and unions, be accurately represented by an arbitrary system of grunts and squeals. He believes that an ordinary civilized stockbroker can really produce out of his own inside noises which denote all the mysteries of memory and all the agonies of desire.