The necessity of the word

THERE is an ancient legend which tells us that when a man first achieved
a most notable deed he wished to explain to his tribe what he had done.
As soon as he began to speak, however, he was smitten with dumbness,
he lacked words, and sat down. Then there arose - according to the story - a masterless man, one who had taken no part in the action of his fellow,
who had no special virtues, but afflicted - that is the phrase - with the magic of the necessary words. He saw, he told, he described the merits
of the notable deed in such a fashion, we are assured, that the words
"became alive and walked up and down in the hearts of all his hearers." Thereupon, the tribe seeing that the words were certainly alive,
and fearing lest the man with the words would hand down untrue tales
about them to their children, they took and killed him.
But later they saw that the magic was in the words,
not in the man.

"The record of the tribe is in its enduring. The magic of literature lies in words and not in any man. Witness, a thousand excellent, strenuous words can leave us quite cold or put us to sleep, whereas a bare half- hundred words breathed by some man in his agony or in his exaltation, or in his idleness, ten generations ago, can still lead a whole nation into and out of its captivity, can open to us the doors of three worlds, or stir us so intolerably that we can scarcely abide to look at own souls."

-Kipling, Kipling's Analysis of True Literature, The Scrap book