Nor have even these great writers, marvellous and varied as is their excellence, fathomed the powers of the language for grand and harmonious expression, or used them to the full. It has “combinations of sound grander than ever rolled through the mind of Milton; more awful than the mad gasps of Lear; sweeter than the sighs of Desdemona; more stirring than the speech of Antony; sadder than the plaints of Hamlet; merrier than the mocks of Falstaff.” To those, therefore, who complain of the poverty or harshness of our tongue, we may say, in the words of George Herbert:
“Let foreign nations of their language boast,
What fine variety each tongue affords;
I like our language, as our men and coast:—
Who cannot dress it well, want WIT, not WORDS.”
[CHAPTER IV.]
SMALL WORDS.
It is with words as with sunbeams,—the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn.—Southey.
Language is like the minim immortal among the infusoria, which keeps splitting itself into halves.—Coleridge.