e of our
modern differences in religion; by unmasking many wild errors, that
shelter themselves under the disguise of affected phrases; which being
philosophically unfolded, and rendered according to the genuine and
natural importance of words, will appear to be inconsistencies and
absurdities.' Nor would he have gone very far astray had he put
_philosophy_ and _politics_ under the same category. Strip the gaudy
dress and trappings from an expression, and it will have a most marked
result. Analysis is a terrible humiliation to your mysticism and your
grandiloquence--and an awful bore to those who depend for effect on
either. We have something to say hereafter on those astonishingly
profound oracles whose only depth is in the terminology they employ. In
the mean time, expect not too much of words. Never, in all our
philologic researches, must we lose sight of the fact that _words are
but the daughters of earth, while things are the sons of heaven_. This
expecting too much of words has been the fruitful source of innumerable
errors. To resume:

Take a dozen words (to prove our generosity, we will let it be a baker's
dozen) illustrative of this same principle of metaphor that governs the
mechanism of language, and sheds a glory and a beauty around even our
every-day fireside words; so that even those that seem hackneyed, worn
out, and apparently tottering with the imbecility of old age--would we
but get into the core of them--will shine forth with all the expressive
meaning of their spring time--with the blush and bloom of poesy--

'All redolent with youth and flowers,'

and prove their very abusers--poets.

The 'halcyon' days! What a balmy serenity hovers around them--basking in
the sunlight of undisturbed tranquillity. This we feel; but how we
realize it after reading the little _family secret_ that it wraps up!
The [Greek: Halkyon] (halcyon)--_alcedo hispida_--was the name applied
by the Greeks to the _kingfisher_ (a name commonly derived from [Greek:
hals, kyo], i. e., _sea-conceiving_, from the fact of this bird's being
said to lay her eggs in rocks near the sea); and the [Greek: halkyonides
hemerai]--_halcyon days_--were those fourteen 'during the calm weather
about the winter solstice,' during which the bird was said to build her
nest and lay her eggs; hence, by an easy transition, perfect quietude in
general.

Those who have felt the bitter, biting effect of 'sarcasm,' will hardly
be disposed to consider it