Bentley had sent the
snuff-box to the buttery of St. John's College instead of Trinity,
it would not have been language, for there would have been no
covenant between sayer and sayee as to what the symbol should
represent, there would have been no previously established
association of ideas in the mind of the butler of St. John's between
beer and snuff-box; the connection was artificial, arbitrary, and by
no means one of those in respect of which an impromptu bargain might
be proposed by the very symbol itself, and assented to without
previous formality by the person to whom it was presented. More
briefly, the butler of St. John's would not have been able to
understand and read it aright. It would have been a dead letter to
him--a snuff-box and not a letter; whereas to the butler of Trinity
it was a letter and not a snuff-box. You will also note that it was
only at the moment when he was looking at it and accepting it as a
message that it flashed forth from snuff-box-hood into the light and
life of living utterance.
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