TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
Footnote anchors are denoted by [number], and the footnotes have been
placed at the end of each chapter.
Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.
BY
WILLIAM MATHEWS, LL.D.,
AUTHOR OF “GETTING ON IN THE WORLD,” “ORATORY AND ORATORS,”
ETC., ETC.
Die Sprache ist nichts anderes als der in die Erscheinung tretende Gedankeund beide sind innerlich nur eins und dasselbe.—Becker.
CHICAGO
SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY
1907
Copyright, 1876,
By S. C. GRIGGS AND COMPANY.
Copyright, 1884,
By S. C. GRIGGS AND COMPANY.
Language and thought are inseparable. Words without thought are deadsounds; thoughts without words are nothing. To think is to speak low; tospeak is to think aloud. The word is the thought incarnate.—Max Müller.
A winged word hath struck ineradically in a million hearts, and envenomedevery hour throughout their hard pulsation. On a winged word hathhung the destiny of nations. On a winged word hath human wisdom beenwilling to cast the immortal soul, and to leave it dependent for all its futurehappiness.—W. S. Landor.
Words are things; and a small drop of ink, falling like dew upon a thought,produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.—Byron.
A dead language is full of all monumental remembrances of the people whospoke it. Their swords and their shields are in it; their faces are picturedon its walls; and their very voices ring still through its recesses.—B. W.Dwight.
Every sentence of the great writer is like an autograph.... If Milton hadendorsed a bill of exchange with half-a-dozen blank-verse lines, it would beas good as his name, and would be accepted as good evidence in court.—AlexanderSmith.
If there be a human talent, let it get into the tongue, and make melodywith that organ. The talent that can say nothing for itself, what is it?Nothing; or a thing that can do mere drudgeries, and at best make moneyby railways.—Carlyle.
Human language may be polite and powerless in itself, uplifted withdifficulty into expression by the high thoughts it utters, or it may in itselfbecome so saturated with warm life and delicious association that everysentence shall palpitate and thrill with the mere fascination of the syllables.—T.W. Higginson.
Accustom yourself to reflect on the words you use, hear, or read, theirbirth, derivation, and history. For if words are not things, they are livingpowers, by which the things of most importance to mankind are actuated,combined, and harmonized.—Coleridge.
Words possess an endless, indefinable, tantalizing charm. They painthumanity in its thoughts, longings, aspirations, struggles, failures—paint itupon a canvas of breath, in the colors of life.—Anon.
Ye know not what hurt ye do to Learning, that care not for Words, butfor Matter, and so make a Divorce betwixt the Tongue and the Heart.—Ascham.
Let him who would rightly understand the grandeur and