Words; Their Use and Abuse

by William Mathews

May rend the night of a whole world of lies.

Much speech, much thought, may often be but seeming,

But in one truth might boundless ever lies.”

FOOTNOTES:

[18] Shedd’s “Homiletics.”

[19] Perhaps Choate justified himself by the authority of Burke, who sometimes harnessed five adjectives to a noun; e.g., in his diatribe against the metaphysicians, he says: “Their hearts are like that of the principal of evil himself,—incorporeal, pure, unmixed, dephlegmated, defecated evil.”

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[CHAPTER VII.]
SAXON WORDS, OR ROMANIC?

I cannot admire the constant use of French or Latin words, instead of your own vernacular. My Anglo-Saxon feelings are wounded to the quick ... by such words as chagrin instead of “grief,” malediction instead of “curse,” etc.—Count De Montalembert, in letter to Mrs. Oliphant.