subtilties of thought must be named as well as sentiments in the gross and lump. To do this, and in a time when Latin was the recognized language of learning, men had recourse more to the Latin than to the native Saxon resources; hence the strong classical coloring and body given to our composite tongue.

In the Latin element, therefore, are to be found the more erudite and precise terms of the language, terms that deal with abstruse ideas and with the close discriminations of scholarship. This same scholarly quality lends dignity and formalism to the words of Latin origin. Being also, on the average, longer and more euphonious, these derivatives have greater flow and volume, are more readily graduated to a climax; and thus from their value on the score of sound they frequently serve well the higher requirements of poetry and oratory.1

If the requirements of precision, fineness, and sonority are not especially present, it is best to keep as near as possible to the Saxon basis of the language, because that, as the speech of common people and common events, is less studied and artificial. And further, if one's style is predominantly Saxon, the more unusual words occasionally employed are more distinguished and effective, having the power of beaconwords.2

12. The False Garnish of "Fine Writing." "Fine writing," what journalists call "flub," is the name given to the use of pretentious words for trivial ideas, or the attempt by highsounding language to dress up something whose real importance is not great enough to bear it. Under the same head comes also the habit of interlarding one's language with scraps of trite quotation and outworn phrases for the sake of smartness and display.

1 See below, under coloring of words and figures, p. 94, 3.

2 For beacon-words, see above, pp. 60, 64.

EXAMPLE. Dickens makes his character of Micawber a representative of this pretentious kind of style; the following paragraph will exemplify his manner of saying a commonplace thing in a very big way: —

“Under the impression,' said Mr. Micawber, 'that your peregrinations in this metropolis have not as yet been extensive, and that you might have some difficulty in penetrating the arcana of the Modern Babylon in the direction of the City Road-in short,' said Mr. Micawber, in another burst of confidence, that you might lose yourself - I shall be happy to call this evening, and instal you in the knowledge of the nearest way.'

Since Lowell, in the introduction to The Biglow Papers, Pt. ii, has shown up this kind of style, its real character and lack of taste have been more generally recognized, and as a consequence the newspapers and popular literature have been less infested with it. The copious list of words that he there gives illustrates this vice of “fine writing” very fully.

As words and phrases are continually becoming worn, and as novelty in expression is a perennial claim, there is a constant effort on the part of writers to put familiar thoughts and facts in fresh and striking ways. Beyond this, too, there is the unceasing quest after an ever-refining ideal of expression, the desire, as Landor puts it, for "finer bread than can be made of wheat." These objects are natural and legitimate; but they need to be tempered and kept sane by good The requirements, or at least the susceptibilities of the thought must furnish the justification. Governed by good taste, the use of words a little more pretentious than the literal subject warrants is one of the acknowledged instruments of humor. Attempted by a coarse or inexperienced hand, it is a case of fools rushing in where angels fear to tread; and the result, while it may happen to be felicitous, may be, and often is, such as to make the judicious grieve.

taste.

EXAMPLE OF HUMOROUS EXAGGERATION. The good taste of the following from Hawthorne, if we grant him the initial privilege of writing about so trivial a matter at all, will not be impeached:

"The child, staring with round eyes at this instance of liberality, wholly unprecedented in his large experience of cent-shops, took the man of gingerbread, and quitted the premises. No sooner had he reached the sidewalk

1 DICKENS, David Copperfield, Chap. xi.

As

(little cannibal that he was!) than Jim Crow's head was in his mouth. he had not been careful to shut the door, Hepzibah was at the pains of closing it after him, with a pettish ejaculation or two about the troublesomeness of young people, and particularly of small boys. She had just placed another representative of the renowned Jim Crow at the window, when again the shop-bell tinkled clamorously, and again the door being thrust open, with its characteristic jerk and jar, disclosed the same sturdy little urchin who, precisely two minutes ago, had made his exit. The crumbs and discoloration of the cannibal feast, as yet hardly consummated, were exceedingly visible about his mouth."1

13. Stock Expressions and Cant. It is not the slang of the day alone that is ephemeral. Good expressions also, happy terms and phrases, may lose their power by becoming worn; as soon, in fact, as they become stock expressions they are liable to creep into one's speech unbidden, and thus to become not representatives of thought but substitutes for it. And just then the use of them seems to strike the note of insincerity; the writer seems to be saying what he does not fully mean. This may or may not be the case; the outworn phrase may just express the writer's thought; but the chances are that it does not, and at least the reader also should recognize it as freshly and independently expressed, and should be convinced of it by the individual manner of expression. The name given to speech or manner of thinking which by becoming conventional has become insincere is cant.

3

The matter resolves itself into a plea for self-reliance and independence. Use no expression thoughtlessly, or merely because it is current, but from your own recognition of its fitness, plainly because, whether new or old, it represents your own thought.

ILLUSTRATION. - Boswell once asked Dr. Johnson, of certain poems just published, “Is there not imagination in them, Sir?" "Why, Sir,”

1 HAWTHORNE, The House of the Seven Gables, p. 69.

2 See above, p. 64.

3 Compare the first artistic fault mentioned, p. 6.

replied the Doctor, "there is in them what was imagination, but it is no more imagination in him, than sound is sound in the echo. And his diction too is not his own. We have long ago seen white-robed innocence and flower-bespangled meads."

1. The way in which phrases may become stock expressions may be illustrated by the old religious expressions, now going by, as: "the sacred desk" for pulpit; "the vale of tears"; "worms of the dust"; "to hold out faithful." Also by words and phrases much over-worked to-day; as, "to be in touch" with something; "survival of the fittest"; "the trend" of things or events; "to go without saying" (a foreign idiom translated; see above, p. 61).

2. The following happily illustrates the breaking up of the trite phrase "without let or hindrance": "No one will question that the whole nature of the holiest being tends to what is holy without let, struggle, or strife — it would be impiety to doubt it." The good effect of this is easily felt.

CHAPTER IV.

WORDS AND FIGURES FOR CONNOTATION.

But there is

HITHERTO We have considered the various problems involved in the choice of words for what they literally say, literally (litera), that is, according to the letter. a way of employing not only words but sentences and whole compositions, in which more is meant than meets the ear. A writer may talk about something entirely aside from his theme, yet in such a way that the theme is not departed from but vivified and illustrated; or he may use such terms and colorings of expression as serve to infuse into the passage some indication of how he feels, and how he would have his reader feel, about the idea he is conveying. This is figurative language; or to use a more comprehensive and scientific term, connotation,1 — conveying, besides the literal meaning of the word, a secondary force or meaning.

Practical Value of Figures. Figures of speech are popularly regarded as ornaments and artifices of style. This they are not, primarily, as is shown by the fact that any suspicion of artifice or over-elaboration in the management of them destroys their flavor at once. They generally add beauty to the style, it is true; but this is because the associated idea, brought in for usefulness, is in itself beautiful; besides this, there is an intrinsic beauty in the art of crowding expression with manifold suggestion and enlisting imagination and emotion in it. Under all this, however, is the sturdy basis of

1 Further definition of denotation and connotation need not be dwelt on here; see above, pp. 9, 29, 34, 46.