adjectives, badly as the superlative degree of some of them has been
used. They are capable of being qualified when they become too weak--or,
rather, when our taste becomes too strong--just as old ladies _qualify_
their tea when they begin to find the old excitement insufficient. But
even this must be done with reason, or we shall soon find with the new
supply, as we are now finding with the old, that the bottle gives out
before the tea-caddy. The whole language is sufficient, except in the
_excessives_--the _ultimates_.

Why use up the sublime to express the ridiculous? Why be only noticeable
from the force of your language as compared with the feebleness of what
you have to say? Why chain Pegasus to an ox cart, or make your
Valenciennes lace into horse blankets? If the noble tools did the
ignoble work any better, it might be some satisfaction; but cutting
blocks with a razor is proverbially unprofitable, and a
million-magnifying microscope does not help a bit to tell the time by
the City Hall clock. And again: the beggar doth but make his mishaps the
more conspicuous by climbing a tree, while the poor bird of paradise,
when once fairly on the ground, must needs stay and die, being kept from
rising into her more natural element by the very weight of her beauties.
Like this last-named victim of misdirected ambition, poetical
expressions, being once fairly reduced to the level of ordinary use, so
that all feel at liberty to take them in vain, can never 'revocare
gradem.'

The elegant, however, is not so much of a loss, as the strong and
serviceable part of the language;--which, so far, is like grain in a
hopper, always being added to at the top, and ground away at the bottom.
The good old unmistakable words seem to sink the faster from their
greater specific gravity compared to the chaff that surrounds them; for
example: _Indeed_ used to be a fine and reliable word for impressing an
assertion, but now it is almost discarded except as a sort of
questioning expression of surprise, which might advantageously be
shortened thus:?! Strictly interpreted, it denotes a lack of faith,
suggesting a possible discrepancy between the words of the speaker and
the deeds they relate to. It is but one step removed from the politeness
of the Sligo Irishwomen, who say, 'You are a liar,' meaning exactly
what an American lady does in saying 'You don't mean so!'

I suppose it seemed as if the force of language could no further go,
when men