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A SPECIFIC STYLE POOR.

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Empire" would be more interesting if its style was more varied.

On this subject Mr. Herbert Spencer has well said :

"To have a specific style is to be poor in speech. If we remember that in the far past men had only nouns and verbs to convey their ideas with, and that from then to now the growth has been toward a greater number of implements of thought, and consequently toward a greater complexity and variety in their combinations, we may infer that we are now, in our use of sentences, much what the primitive man was in his use of words; and that a continuance of the process that has hitherto gone on must produce heterogeneity in our modes of expression."

CHAPTER VIII.

IDIOMS AND PROVERBS.

CRITICS often characterize some particular author as employing an idiomatic style, but what is properly meant by the phrase has perhaps never been accurately defined.

48. Definition.-An Idiom is a collection of words justified by custom, and yet used so peculiarly that other words, meaning nearly or quite the same thing, can not with propriety be used in the same way. It is also applied to expressions in which the strict rules of general grammar are not obeyed, so that they can not be translated literally into another language and be understood. "Not at all" is an Idiom. Substitute neither for not, and the phrase "neither at all" becomes unpleasant, though perhaps in some combinations it might barely be excused. Substitute for "all" every one, and "not at every one" becomes absurd; nor can "not at all" be translated literally into any other language. And yet this unconstruable expression is so convenient and strong that we can not at all think of sparing it from our language.

49. Every Language has peculiar Idioms. - Every language has its own stock of idioms. The Latins, instead of saying with their own words "I have a

ANCIENT IDIOMS.

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book," would generally have said "To me is a book" (mihi est liber). The Greeks, though very critical in the use of words, still allowed their best speakers to use two negatives in one expression without destroying each other, such as, "He was not able neither to speak nor to act," meaning, as we should say, "He able neither to speak nor to act."

was

50. Idioms abound in our ancient best Writings.-English idioms abound in our oldest authors. We subjoin a few: "Get you gone," for "Begone, or take yourself away." "You had best," or "You were best," for "It would be best for you," as

"Answer every man directly,
Ay, and truly, you were best."

"The onset was so terrible that the soldiers could not stand their ground." Substitute abide for “stand," or place for "ground," and observe at once the anomaly of the expression, and yet shall "stand your ground" be banished from our language?

The "Pilgrim's Progress" contains many such idioms as "hold me to it," "be of good cheer," ""all this while," " come to a point," " you lie at the catch," "let us mend our pace," etc. Montaigne says, "To know by heart is not to know," in which "to know by heart" means merely to have in the memory, and not to think out as an original thought. "He is an out and out gentleman." "I will come by-and-by," which used to mean immediately, but now means some little time hence. In Matthew xxi. 13, we read, "When tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, byand-by he is offended," meaning immediately.

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The signification has degenerated to "before long." So careful a writer as Marsh, when writing on the English language, said, "The project took air," for the project became public. "Get out of the way," "Made over his property;" "He sings a good song," for he sings well, "Our debts and our sins are generally greater than we think for," are expressions that we cull from the classic writers of the English language. “A good character should be employed as a means of doing good," instead of a mean of doing good, though such a writer as Sir William Hamilton, and many others, have lately revived the old custom of using mean for means in similar expressions. "In our midst " is an expression justified by honorable usage, but the pruning and hypercritical spirit of modern times begins to discard it. Cowper wrote, "I had much rather be myself the slave;" and Shakspeare wrote, "Had you rather Cæsar were living, and die all slaves, than that Cæsar were dead, to live all freemen?" A modern American would write, "Would you rather choose that Cæsar should live, and you all die slaves, or that Cæsar should die, and you all live freemen?" But which is the more nervous? "As it were " is used for "if you will allow the expression or thought." "When saw we thee a hungered, and fed thee?" "No matter what fields are desolated, what fortresses surrendered," etc. The phrase no matter is an English idiom, forcible, and that can not be spared. "Methinks I see it now," said Everett, in introducing a vision of the Mayflower, with its cargo of Puritans, using an old Anglo-Saxon idiom, meaning something more than I

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think, and similar to "it occurs to me,' ," "it rises involuntarily to my sight." "The more he knows, the more he is desirous of knowing." "The words took effect." "Who is as often out in his encomiums as in his censure," says Sir William Hamilton.

Observe the idiomatic strength of the following from a justly admired passage of Milton:

"Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously by licensing and prohibiting her. Let her and Falsehood grapple. Who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter ?"

Take another much-admired passage from the same author:

"As good almost kill a man as kill a book; who kills a man, kills a reasonable creature-God's image; but he who destroys a good book kills reason itself; kills the image of God, as it were, in the eye."

51. An Idiomatic Style. - A writer who uses freely and naturally the idioms of the English language may with propriety be termed an idiomatic writer. It will be found, however, that the oldest writers in the language use the most of them, and that as grammatical cultivation is attended to, there are more of the writers who, either from a fear of criticism or from disinclination, seldom or never use a good, strong, healthy idi

om.

Their expressions are toned down to such grammatical accuracy that they could be literally translated into any other language without exciting any more attention than they do in their own!

52. Proverbs. But, besides idioms, there are proverbs, many of which are peculiar in style as well as in thought. A proverb is a sententious expression,

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