yet when clearly apprehended they are as
important for the purposes of language as the minute differences between
similar substances are for the purposes of chemistry. Often definition
itself is best secured by the comparison of kindred terms and the
pointing out where each differs from the other. We perceive more clearly
and remember better what each word is, by perceiving where each divides
from another of kindred meaning; just as we see and remember better the
situation and contour of adjacent countries, by considering them as
boundaries of each other, rather than by an exact statement of the
latitude and longitude of each as a separate portion of the earth's
surface.

The great mass of untrained speakers and writers need to be reminded, in
the first place, _that there are synonyms_--a suggestion which they
would not gain from any precision of separate definitions in a
dictionary. The deplorable repetition with which many slightly educated
persons use such words as "elegant," "splendid," "clever," "awful,"
"horrid," etc., to indicate (for they can not be said to express) almost
any shade of certain approved or objectionable qualities, shows a
limited vocabulary, a poverty of language, which it is of the first
importance to correct. Many who are not given to such gross misuse would
yet be surprised to learn how often they employ a very limited number of
words in the attempt to give utterance to thoughts and feelings so
unlike, that what is the right word on one occasion must of necessity be
the wrong word at many other times. Such persons are simply unconscious
of the fact that there are other words of kindred meaning from which
they might choose; as the United States surveyors of Alaska found "the
shuddering tenant of the frigid zone" wrapping himself in furs and
cowering over a fire of sticks with untouched coal-mines beneath his
feet.

Such poverty of language is always accompanied with poverty of thought.
One who is content to use the same word for widely different ideas has
either never observed or soon comes to forget that there is any
difference between the ideas; or perhaps he retains a vague notion of a
difference which he never attempts to define to himself, and dimly hints
to others by adding to his inadequate word some such phrase as "you see"
or "you know," in the helpless attempt to inject into another mind by
suggestion what adequate words would enable him simply and distinctly to
say. Such a mind res