He who is not a man of letters, simply is not one; it
is not too audacious a paradox to affirm that doing will not avail him
who fails in being. 'Lay your deadly doing down,' sang once some old
hymn known to Calvinists. Certain poets, a certain time ago, ransacked
the language for words full of life and beauty, made a vocabulary of
them, and out of wantonness wrote them to death. To change somewhat the
simile, they scented out a word--an earlyish word, by preference--ran it
to earth, unearthed it, dug it out, and killed it. And then their
followers bagged it. The very word that lives, 'new every morning,'
miraculously new, in the literature of a man of letters, they killed and
put into their bag. And, in like manner, the emotion that should have
caused the word is dead for those, and for those only, who abuse its
expression. For the maker of a portable vocabulary is not content to
turn his words up there: he turns up his feelings also, alphabetically or
otherwise. Wonderful how much sensibility is at hand in such round words
as the New Literature loves. Do you want a generous emotion? Pull forth
the little language. Find out moonshine, find out moonshine!
Take, as an instance, Mr. Swinburne's 'hell.' There is, I fear, no doubt
whatever that Mr.
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