say that there is any prevailing style that marks the nineteenth century. A hundred years hence, when the small men have sunk out of sight, and only a few great authors emerge from the level of forgotten medocrity, the future historian may be able to characterize nineteenthcentury English, but it cannot be done by a contemporary. In one and the same author, we often find marked preciosity of phrase cheek by jowl with the baldest colloquialism. Affected brutality of diction associates itself on the same page with equally affected sentimental refinement. In some particulars, however, we can hardly go wrong. It is certain, as we have already remarked, that the progress of science and mechanics, and the widespread popular interest in discovery and invention, have profoundly modified our vocabulary. Another influence, of a widely different kind, has come from the almost passionate study of literature as a fine art, and from the consequent development of literary criticism. And, finally, there has never been a time in the history of our language when 'syntactical correctness' has ruled with so capricious and tyrannical a sway. The proof-reader has become a court of last resort for many of us.

We have now considered not only the great movements which brought the English language to pass, but some of the modifying influences or fashions' to which it has been subjected from age to age. Among the fashions, we have counted mere tricks of style, like the Anglo-Saxon tautology, and such far-reaching social and religious forces as Puritanism. Despite all these modifying influences, we observe that the English tongue is still the English tongue. It has changed much since the East Midland became the literary language five hundred years ago, yet all the changes have not essentially modified

its character. The genius of the language' is still the

same.

Such persistence of uniformity in the face of chance and change challenges our attention. Words, as we know, are but the signs of thought. They do nothing of themselves, and have only such senses as the mind of the speaker and the hearer gives them. Yet, when we observe their conduct in the presence of various forces that act upon them, they almost seem to have an independent life, apart from the mind of the man who uses them.

And, indeed, this is in a manner true. For no sooner has an idea been expressed in words than the form of expression reacts on the speaker and influences his subsequent thought. If this happens in the case of a casual utterance, phrased in a conventional way, how much more powerful must have been the reaction in the minds of those whose first acquaintance with that idea was associated with the particular form of language in which it was couched! Every one knows how a peculiar or striking phrase, embodying a certain thought, may recur to the memory whenever the thought comes back to us, and thus, by a kind of haunting persistence, make it difficult to phrase the thought otherwise. We all have our favorite catchwords, which, originating in this way, have become as much a part of our individuality as our tricks of gait or gesture or facial expression.

Now, in long lapses of time the continuance of similar impressions produces in one speaker a mode or habit of thought consonant with that of others. The several impressions in the mind as a particular word is constantly used act somewhat like objects in a composite photograph: all that is alike is constantly accumulating, while that

or not.

which is individual or peculiar is as rapidly dissipated. Thus there arises a regular and persistent mode of thought, and consequently of expression, which more or less dominates the form of the language in the mouths of all its speakers, whether they mean to be guided by it To this tendency the Germans have given the expressive name Sprachgefühl, or 'speech-feeling.' We have no settled term for it in English,- that is, no name which our Sprachgefühl has accepted, so that we are more or less in the habit of employing the German word. It is of course absurd to ascribe feeling to language, except in a metaphorical way. Fortunately, however, the vague syntax of composition (see p. 177) allows the German word to mean a feeling for speech' as well as 'feeling of speech,' and by-and-by we shall either adopt the term as an English word, or the feeling itself will accept some other suitable phrase to express the idea. For the Sprachgefühl is a very real thing in a long-cultivated language like our own. It affects every word that we utter, though we may think that we are speaking as the whim of the moment dictates; and thus it is the strongest and most pervasive of all conservative forces, and has kept our language true to itself through all the vicissitudes which we have been describing.

6

The writer has a thousand times had occasion to notice the difference in this Sprachgefühl in the use of Latin, French, and English, and has constantly been surprised at the way in which the language insisted upon writing itself almost in spite of him. Thus a monumental simplicity of style and a single point of view are almost inseparable from a Latin essay; French must make itself scintillating and epigrammatic; and it is almost impossible not to be copious and diffuse in writing English.

No author, however eminent, can disregard this subtle and pervasive law. Men of genius may take great liberties with their mother tongue without offence; but let them once run counter to its characteristic tendencies, let them violate the English Sprachgefühl, and their mannerism becomes, as it were, a foreign language. They are writing not English, but-say Carlylese.

CHAPTER X

COMPLEXITY OF THE ENGLISH VOCABULARY

No language has so complex and varied a vocabulary as English. Our everyday speech includes a multitude of words from all periods of history, and every quarter of the globe. All the great civilizations have contributed to our vocabulary. Indeed, the history of English words is the history of our civilization in all its aspects. A few examples will illustrate these truths in a striking way. Only familiar words have been chosen, but these have been made as miscellaneous as possible in order to bring out the complexity of the subject.

6

Candy comes from the Arabic qand, 'sugar'; the Arabs got their word from the Persian, and its ultimate source seems to be Indian, for it is connected in some manner with a Sanskrit verb which means 'break' (fragments of crystallized sugar'). Sugar has a similar history, being derived from Arabic, and by Arabic from Sanskrit. Molasses, on the contrary, is from L. mellaceus, 'honeylike' (from mel 'honey,' whence melli-fluous, honey-flowing,' which we use of a sweet sound). Rum, the name of a third product of sugar-cane, seems to be of English origin; an older form is rumbullion, apparently a dialectic English word for disturbance,' or 'racket'; thus in its original application to a kind of liquor it was a mere bit of humorous slang. Treacle for 'sugar-syrup' (also for 'molasses') is ultimately derived from a Greek word signifying 'an an