his feeble grasp the dignity and functions of High Pontiff.W. W. CAPES.

2. Rearrange as effectively as possible the various elements of the following sentence (quoted from Whately's Rhetoric):

We came to our journey's end, at last, with no small difficulty, after much fatigue, through deep roads and bad weather.

3. Choose the best among the six possible arrangements of the following three sections of a sentence. De Quincey wrote the sentence in one way when it was first printed (Blackwood's, vol. 66, p. 750), and in another in his revised works ("The English Mail Coach," near the end of Section II).

We ran past them in our inexorable flight faster than ever mill-race.

WORDS AND PHRASES.

The choice of words is the least mechanical process of composition and therefore the most difficult to bring under law. Taste is frequently the sole arbiter, and there is a strong disposition at the present time to allow a writer great latitude. Perhaps originality finds its widest scope here. We detect a Carlyle, a Stevenson, a Kipling, quite as much by the flavor of a word and the turn of a phrase as by anything else. Further, the choice of the word naturally comes last. Even when chosen, it may still at any time be revised or replaced. Giving the "finishing touch" to a composition often means supplying the unique word.

We shall consider words in three aspects: in their relation to thought, in their relation to structure, and in their relation to style.

I. RELATION TO THOUGHT.

51. Unequivocalness.-The word should have but one possible meaning in the connection in which it is used. Words are equivocal in several ways. Two wholly different words may be alike in spelling or in pronunciation or in both. The same word may take on widely different meanings in the course of linguistic development. The same derivative may be any one of several parts of speech. This last source of ambiguity is most frequently illustrated by the participles, both present and past.

Creede Will Contest. [A newspaper headline. Each word was meant to be read as a noun. Compare the triple equivocation in

the foot-note to 1.]

Macaulay delighted in thus presenting the contrary, in telling what was not true before telling what was true. [What may be either the interrogative (= what things) or the compound relative (= that which).]

It was impossible to avoid entangling alliances. [Entangling may either govern alliances or qualify it.]

EXERCISE.

Point out words of equivocal meaning:

There is no little jealousy in Bismarck.

The importance of these questions arising in Goethe's mind at that age is very great.

However, one afternoon I was called over to the Executive Chamber and found, to my surprise, the President alone with Dr. Leyds, and both prepared to help me.

On the night of his arrival, too, the few Flemish pilots that he had slipped overboard in the darkness, stole the cock-boats, set their shirts for sails, and made for Flushing.-FROUDE.

52. Precision.-The word should convey the exact idea, and not an allied one. As thought grows more complicated, and as distinctions grow more subtle, language must grow more precise. Words are gradually set apart for special meanings. Accordingly, the writer must study his Vocabulary, make himself familiar with the accepted signification of words, and never rest content until his words convey exactly his meaning. For example, in the sentence just written, significance could not replace signification-it implies too much. A look has significance. course a word may have significance also, in addition to its signification. So for rhetorical ambiguity we use the awkward word equivocalness, because equivocation has come to signify intentional ambiguity. Indeed, so strong

Of

is this latter idea in the adjective equivocal that even equivocalness is hardly the colorless word we could desire. Affection must be distinguished from love, and love from charity. Observance does not mean observation. The necessity of living is a very different thing from the necessaries of life. Many words are relative in their meaning. Do not write, "He lives in the lower portion of the city." Portion implies division, allotment. Do not write "He was hit by a ball." Write struck, for hit implies aim. "He was hit with a ball," may be all right, since with signifies the instrument, which in turn implies agency, which in turn may imply intention and aim. Avoid the vague use of such words as factor, phase, element, quality, feature.

Again, avoid the colloquial abuse of words that should. have a very definite, and frequently a very strong, meaning. Do not apply elegant to a pie, nor splendid to a drive, nor lovely to a spring bonnet, nor awful to an otherwise unqualified time. Keep these words pure and raise your own credit for logical thinking and conscientious writing.

What English may become in the hands of one who is ignorant of the exact meaning of words and reckless in their use may be illustrated by an extreme and ludicrous example accredited to a country newspaper whose name it is only charity to withhold:

An element that often forms a baricadure to enjoyments at a dance is the rowdy group that is witnessed at almost each and every dance that is given at the dancing halls.

Their unrelenting and remarkable desire to raise a disturbance proves a great detriment to the proceedings of a jolly evening, and in many cases entirely disbands the favored gatherings and leaves the hall to the possession of the disturbers.

Eager with the fire of disturbance, they haunt the unmolester until he is overcharged, when he, too, will raise to fever heat, and the result is in most occasions a rough-and-tumble deal

which, if not immediately depressed, will lead others to enter, making the whole affair a disgusting one, and the lively spirit of the people present seems to be doomed in the wink of an eye, the result of which is an entire jolly spirit abandonment.

EXERCISES.

1. Replace with precise words all words that are used loosely or incorrectly:

He yielded to dissipation.

The earth bears a sombre look.

Experienced horsemen give much attention to the developing of good stalls.

Spenser and his household had to escape for their lives.

In the immediate block lived his three nephews.

His sudden appearance at the fire is pretty good proof of his guilt.

The front view of the building presents to the eye a striking appearance.

A dominant feature of the age is the development of physical science.

Too little thought has been given in our schools to the essential qualities of a useful and happy life.

It has been the essential duty of the philosopher to study those forces which tend to increase the happiness or destroy the pleasures of society. Foremost among these forces is novel-reading, a practice which is becoming more prevalent every day and which has already grown to enormous propensities.

No sociologist has ever set forth in clear and concise terms the causes of divorce. At this juncture I shall attempt to offer a few remarks which may throw light upon the subject. By studying the laws of inheritance we are taught that the offspring is strongly addicted to the habits of his ancestors. We find also that those tendencies which have been inherited from the greatest number of progenitors in unbroken line are smothered with the greatest difficulty.

2. Criticise the use of the following words in the selections in the Appendix: B VII 1, anxiously, conscious; B