have picked them up unconsciously, and we continue to utter them in the
course of familiar conversation.

I am concerned with a degradation of language which is of an importance
far beyond the trifling corruption caused by the introduction of terms
from the gipsy's caravan, the betting ring, or the thieves' kitchen; one
cannot help being made angry and sad by observing a tendency to belittle
all things that are great, to mock all earnestness, to vulgarize all
beauty. There is not a quarter where the subtle taint has not crept in,
and under its malign influence poetry has all but expired, good
conversation has utterly ceased to exist, art is no longer serious, and
the intercourse of men is not straightforward. The Englishman will
always be emotional in spite of the rigid reserve which he imposes upon
himself; he is an enthusiast, and he does truly love earnestness,
veracity, and healthy vigour. Take him away from a corrupt and petty
society and give him free scope, and he at once lets fall the film of
shams from off him like a cast garment, and comes out as a reality. Shut
the same Englishman up in an artificial, frivolous, unreal society, and
he at once becomes afraid of himself; he fears to exhibit enthusiasm
about anything, and he hides his genuine nature behind a cloud of slang.
He belittles everything he touches, he is afraid to utter a word from
his inner heart, and his talk becomes a mere dropping shower of verbal
counters which ring hollow. The superlative degree is abhorrent to him
unless he can misuse it for comic purposes; and, like the ridiculous
dummy lord in "Nicholas Nickleby," he is quite capable of calling
Shakespeare a "very clayver man." I have heard of the attitude taken by
two flowers of our society in presence of Joachim. Think of it! The
unmatched violinist had achieved one of those triumphs which seem to
permeate the innermost being of a worthy listener; the soul is
entranced, and the magician takes us into a fair world where there is
nothing but loveliness and exalted feeling. "Vewy good fellow, that
fiddle fellow," observed the British aristocrat. "Ya-as," answered his
faithful friend. Let any man who is given to speaking words with a view
of presenting the truth begin to speak in our faint, super-refined,
orthodox society; he will be looked at as if he were some queer object
brought from a museum of curiosities and pulled out for exhibition. The
shallowest and most impudent being that ever tal