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"We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should count time by heart-throbs."

So saith Festus. And so did the Boy through childhood's long, various, agonizing years, away far up in the "green, airy Pentlands," lulled by the mellow music of thy dashing waters, thou loveliest waterfa' of Habbies How. Then he measured time, not by the rigid exactitude of days and weeks and months and years; but years by the springing of the primroses on the sun-kissed braes; and months and weeks and days, by the exuberance of his emotions, and that was boundless.

The gustatory propensities of mankind have left significant seals on Words. Thus, we express one of our strongest mental repugnances by 'DISGUST,' that is just 'DISTASTE'; while everything that is unsystematic and chaotic in intellect finds expression in 'CRUDITY' which is simply the being-crudusuncooked. 'PALATE,' also, we employ in the same sense as taste: thus, " men of nice palates could not relish Aristotle as dressed up by the schoolmen." How utterly sensuous! Shakespeare, however, follows in the same direction:

"Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude,
I have no relish of them."

Now, of the force of 'RELISH,' we all have a keen enough appreciation; but our unexpressed, passive understanding of it is brought out in alto relievo by Minsheu's etymology thereof, from relecher-that which is so pleasing to the palate as to tempt one to lick his lips!

'CAUSTIC,' 'MORDANT' and 'PIQUANT' have also a like reference to the sense of taste, and sufficiently explain themselves, in their burning, biting and stinging allusions. 'SAUCY' is just salsus, salted: 'saucy'talk is therefore talk too highly peppered with salt-in general, too 'spicy.' And 'RACY' always reminds us of the root whence it springs. Thus Cowley's

"Rich, racy verses in which we

The soil from which they come, taste, smell and see."

'SAVORY' and 'INSIPID' are both from one rootsapio, to taste: the one signifying 'tasty' and the other 'tasteless;' while the highest intellectual endowments can result in nothing more exalted than a man of 'SAPIENCE,' which is also just a man of taste. So, too, our Parisians have sublimated their conceptions of all that is highest in modes or morals into their 'BON GOÛT.' But this is not much to be wondered at, since they are constitutionally rather Epicurean in their philosophy; and it is so natural, with the smack of ClosVougeot or Chateau-Lafitte on the lips, to transfer the figure, not without gusto, to one's æsthetic judgments. However, so be it: since De gustibus non est disputandum.

Now besides all this, we are acquainted with at least one northern European nation (not to mention the Chinese), who hold that the soul lies in the abdomen, and in whose language those two distinctly divergent facts-soul and stomach, find expression in one and the same term. Moreover the Greek for mindPHREN-is (what is remarkable for so introspective a race) that which also expresses midriff or diaphragm ! What a lesson do these words read us on the gastronomic proclivities of our race! Should we not join in the pious ejaculation of Dan Chaucer?

"Adam, our father, and his wif also,
Fro Paradis to labour and to wo,
Were driven for that vice, it is no drede.
For while that Adam fasted, as I rede,
He was in Paradis, and whan that he
Ete of the fruit defended on a tree,
Anon he was outcast to wo and peine.
O glotonie, on thee wel ought us plaine!"

The Pardoneres Tale.*

* Tyrwhitt's Chaucer, vol. ii. p. 182.

The contributions from the sense of Sight are numerous and interesting. Nor will they, if questioned, yield less significant replies than such as have just engaged our attention. 'FANCY,' 'PHANTASY' (fantasy), 'FANTASTICAL,' 'PHANTOM,' 'PHANTASM,' 'PHASE' and 'PHENOMENA' are all drawn from the Greek verb to see to seem, to appear-phaino: 'FANCY' and 'PHANTASY' being the image-forming faculty; 'PHANTOM' and 'PHANTASM' mere images, spectres (specio, to see); 'PHASE' an aspect, and 'PHENOMENA' being but the apparent, the seeming, in opposition to the absolute, the real (realis, having relation to thingsres). 'THEORY' and 'SPECULATION' have an analogous origin, both of them implying a contemplating abstractly, without reference to the practical. Shakespeare furnishes an instance of the use of 'SPECULATION' in its primary sense of sight:

"Thou hast no speculation in those eyes;"

and 'SPECULATION' in its commercial application has reference to the keen look-out that is required to take advantage of ups and downs of the market. 'VISIONARY' should be mentioned in the same connection, implying as it does the being given to indulging in mere vague visions. And 'PROVIDENCE' is precisely fore-sight: while, applied to deity, it is indicative of Him whose luminous glance penetrates the farthest abysses of the coming time, and in whose divine scheme all is provided for.

'INTUITION' finely expresses that mental insight, that 'MIND'S EYE' that reads omens where it goes and lights up nature with luminous provocations. 'IDEA,' too, is just an image or picture formed in the mind through perceptions of sight. But that was a splendid translation which the term received in the hands of Plato when he raised IDEAI to mean the archetypes or patterns existing in the Divine mind, and of which all material forms and embodiments are but projections.

I have already referred to the word 'ENVY' as finely picturing that side-long covetous glance that this passion inspires. 'INVIDIOUS' is precisely the same, with a Latin origin. Nor less pictorial is 'RESPECT,' which its analogue 'REGARD' will well interpret for us. For our 'REGARD' primarily implies a looking at, an observing: so, 'RESPECT' is properly just-respectus a looking back. The metamorphosis they undergo is curious. For a 'respectable' person is just one so worthy of 'regard' as to cause us to look back again at him! 'RESPECTABLE' has, however, been sadly degenerating these late years, being now chiefly employed to designate decayed gentility or mental mediocrity.

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