Perversely, it became his most impressive quality, as if what was best in the man was most removed from the surface, so valuable that it must be protected by a hundred reservations, a thousand cautions, as if finally he had such huge respect for words that they were like tangible omens and portents, zephyrs and beasts of psychic presence, as if finally something deep, delicate and primitive would restrain him from uttering a single word of fear for fear of materializing his dread. So, once, men had been afraid to utter the name of the Lord, or even to write it in such a way as to suggest the
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