On the Individuality and Oneness

Conceive of this printed page as a plane-world in which every letter is a person; every word a family; and phrases and sentences are larger communities and groups. These "innumerable individualities, distinguished by their variations" must needs seem to themselves as "distant from one another," their very differences of form and arrangement a barrier to any superior unity. Yet all the while, solely by reason of this diversity, they are cooperating towards an end of which they cannot be aware. The mind of the reader unities and interprets the letters into continuous thought, though they be voiceless as stones to one another. Even so may our sad and stony identities spell out a world's word which we know not of, by reason of our singularity and isolation. Moreover, in the electrotype block, the solid of which the printed page constitutes a place presentment, all the letters are actually "united in such a manner that the whole is one." The metal that has molded each into its significant form amalgamates them into a higher unity. So also the power that makes us separate is the same power that makes us one.

Related Text: Islands in the Sea