Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863

THE WONDERS OF WORDS

Every nation has its legend of a 'golden age' – when all was young and fresh and fair – 'comme les couleurs primitives de la nature' – even before the existence of this gaunt shadow of Sorrow —the shadow of ourselves– that ever stalks in company with us; – an epoch of Saturnian rule, when gods held sweet converse with men, and man primeval bounded with all the elasticity of god-given juvenility:

And even now, in spite of our atheism and our apathism, amid all the overwhelming world-influences of this great 'living Present' – the ghost of the dead Past will come rushing back upon us with its solemn voices and its infinite wailings of pity: but soft and faint it comes; for the wild jarrings of the Now almost prevent us from hearing its still, small voices. It

Besides, what is History but the story of the bygone? The elegy, too, comes to us as the last lamenting, sadly solemn swan-song of that glorious golden time. And, indeed, are not all poesies but various notes of that mighty diapason of Thought and Feeling, that has, through the ages, been singing itself in jubilee and wail?

So it is in the individual – (for is not the individual ever the rudimental, formula-like expression of that awful problem which nations and humanity itself are slowly and painfully working out?): in the 'moonlight of memory' these sorrowful mementos revisit every one of us; and

and vanitas vanitatum! are not only the satisfied croakings of blasé Childe Harolds, but our universal experience; while from childhood's gushing glee even unto manhood's sad satiety, we feel that all are nought but the phantasmagoria

Listen now to a snatch of melody:

So saith the mild Braminical Wordsworth. Now it will be remembered that Wordsworth, in that glorious ode whence we extract the above, develops the Platonic idea (shall we call Platonic that which has been entertained by the wise and the feeling of all times?) of a shadowy recollection of past and eternal existence in the profundities of the Divine Heart. 'It sounds forth here a mournful remembrance of a faded world of gods and heroes – as the echoing plaint for the loss of man's original, celestial state, and paradisiacal innocence.' And then we have those transcendent lines that come to us like aromatic breezes blowing from the Spice Islands:

But,

what have the golden age and Platonic dicta to do with our word-ramble? A good deal. For we will endeavor to show that words, being the very sign-manual of man's convictions, contain the elements of what may throw light on both. To essay this:

Why is it that we generally speak of death as a 'return,' or a 'return home'? And how is it that this same idea has so remarkably interwoven itself with the very warp and woof of our language and poetry? – so that in our fervency, we can sing:

Does not the very idea (not to mention the composition of the word) of a 'return' involve a previously having been in the place? And we can scarcely call that 'home' where we have never been before. So, that 'old Hebrew book' sublimely tells us that 'the spirit of the man returneth to God who gave it.'

Is it possible that these can be obscure intimations of that bygone time when WE were rocked in the bosom of the Divine consciousness? Perhaps… And now if the reader will pardon a piece of moralizing, we would say that these expressions teach us in the most emphatic way that – 'This is not our rest.' So that when we have dived into every mine of knowledge and drunk from every fountain of pleasure; when, with Dante, we arrive at the painful conclusion that

(since, indeed, the Finite can never gain entire satisfaction in itself) – we may not despair, but still the heart-throbbings, knowing that He who has – for a season – enveloped us in the mantle of this sleep-rounded life, and thrown around himself the drapery of the universe – spangling it with stars – will again take us back to his fatherly bosom.

Somewhat analogous to these, and arguing the eternity of our existence, we have such words as 'decease,' which merely imports a withdrawal; 'demise,' implying also a laying down, a removal. By the way, it is rather curious to observe the notions in the mind of mankind that have given rise to the words expressing 'death.' Thus we have the Latin word mors– allied, perhaps, to the Greek μὁιρα and μοἱρα,1 from μεἱρομαι – to portion out, to assign. Even this, however, there was a repulsion to using; and both the Greeks and Romans were wont to slip clear of the employment of their θἁνατος, mors, etc., by such circumlocutions as vitam suam mutare, transire e seculo; κοιμἡσατο chalkeon hypnon] —he slept the brazen sleep (Homer's Iliad, λ, 241); δἑ σκὁτος οσσ εκἁλυψεν —and darkness covered his eyes (Iliad, Ζ, 11); or he completeth the destiny of life, etc. This reminds us of the French aversion to uttering their mort. These expressions, again, are suggestive of our 'fate,' with an application similar to the Latin fatum, which, indeed, is none other than 'id quod fatum est a deis' – a God's word. So that in this sense we may all be considered 'fatalists,' and all things fated. Why not? However, in the following from Festus, it is the 'deil' that makes the assertion:

In which we may agree that his majesty was not so very far wrong.

Moreover, 'Why should we mourn departed friends?' – since we know that they are but lying in the μοιμητἡριον (cemetery) – the sleeping place; or, as the vivid old Hebrew faith would have it, the house of the living (Bethaim). Is not this testimony for the soul's immortality worth as much as all the rhapsody written thereon, from Plato to Addison?

Some words are the very essence of poetry; redolent with all beauteous phantasies; odoriferous as flowers in spring, or discoursing an awful organ-melody, like to the re-bellowing of the hoarse-sounding sea. For instance, those two noble old Saxon words 'main' and 'deep,' that we apply to the ocean – what a music is there about them! The 'main' is the maegen– the strength, the strong one; the great 'deep' is precisely what the name imports. Our employment of 'deep' reminds of the Latin altum, which, properly signifying high or lofty, is, by a familiar species of metonymy, put for its opposite.

By the way, how exceedingly timid are our poets and poetasters generally of the open sea —la pleine mer. They linger around the shores thereof, in a vain attempt to sit snugly there à leur aise, while they 'call spirits from the vasty deep' – that never did and never would come on such conditions, though they grew hoarse over it. We all remember how Sandy Smith labors with making abortive grabs at its amber tails, main, etc. (rather slippery articles on the whole) – but he is not

Hail shade of Thomson! But hear how the exile sings it:

This we, for our part, would pronounce one of the very best open-sea sketches we have ever met with; and if the reader will take even our unequal rendering, he may think so too.

'Aurora' comes to us as a remnant of that beautiful Grecian mythology that deified and poetized everything; and even to us she is still the 'rosy-fingered daughter of the morn.' The 'Levant,' 'Orient,' and 'Occident' are all of them poetical, for they are all true translations from nature. The 'Levant' is where the sun is levant, raising himself up. 'Orient' will be recognized as the same figure from orior; while 'occident' is, of course, the opposite in signification, namely, the declining, the 'setting' place.

'Lethe' is another classic myth. It is ὁ τἡς λἡθης ροταμὁς – the river of forgetfulness, 'the oblivious pool.' Perhaps is it that all of us, as well as the son of Thetis, had a dip therein.

There exists not a more poetic expression than 'Hyperborean,' i. e. υπερβὁρεος —beyond Boreas; or, as a modern poet finely and faithfully expands it:

Homer never manifested himself to be more of a poet than in the creation of this word. By the way, the Hyperboreans were regarded by the ancients as an extremely happy and pious people.

How few of those who use that very vague, grandiloquent word 'Ambrosial' know that it has reference to the 'ambrosia' (ἁμβροτος, immortal), the food of the gods! It has, however, a secondary signification, namely, that of an unguent, or perfume, hence fragrant; and this is probably the prevailing idea in our 'ambrosial': instance Milton's 'ambrosial flowers.' It was, like the 'nectar' (νἑκταρ, an elixir vitæ), considered a veritable elixir of immortality, and consequently denied to men.

The Immortals, in their golden halls of 'many-topped Olympus,' seem to have led a merry-enough life of it over their nectar and ambrosia, their laughter and intrigues.

But not half as jolly were they as were Odin and the Iotun – dead drunk in Valhalla over their mead and ale, from

The daisy (Saxon Daeges ege) has often been cited as fragrant with poesy. It is the Day's Eye: we remember Chaucer's affectionate lines:

Nor is he alone in his love for the

An odoriferous-enough (etymologic) bouquet could we cull from the names of Flora's children. What a beauty is there in the 'primrose,' which is just the prime-rose; in the 'Beauty of the Night' and the 'Morning Glory,' except when a pompous scientific terminology, would convert it into a convolvulus! So, too, the 'Anemone' (ἁνεμος, the wind-flower), into which it is fabled Venus changed her Adonis. What a story of maiden's love does the 'Sweet William' tell; and how many charming associations cluster around the 'Forget-me-not!' Again, is there not poetry in calling a certain family of minute crustacea, whose two eyes meet and form a single round spot in the centre of the head, 'Cyclops' – (κὑκλοψ, circular-eyed)?

And if any one thinketh that there cannot be poetry even in the dry technicalities of science, let him take such an expression as 'coral,' which, in the original Greek, κορἁλιον, signifies a sea damsel; or the chemical 'cobalt,' 'which,' remarks Webster, 'is said to be the German Kobold, a goblin, the demon of the mines; so called by miners, because cobalt was troublesome to miners, and at first its value was not known.' Ah! but these terms were created before Science, in its rigidity, had taught us the truth in regard to these matters. Yes! and fortunate is it for us that we still have words, and ideas clustering around these words, that have not yet been chilled and exanimated by the frigid touch of an empirical knowledge. For

And may benign heaven deliver us from those buckram individuals who imagine that Nature is as narrow and rigid as their own contracted selves, and who would seek to array her in their own exquisite bottle-green bifurcations and a gilet à la mode! These characters always put us in mind of the statues of Louis XIV, in which he is represented as Jupiter or Hercules, nude, with the exception of the lion's hide thrown round him —and the long, flowing peruke of the times! O Jupiter tonans! let us have either the lion or the ass – only let it be veracious!

To proceed: 'Auburn' is probably connected with brennan, and means sun-burned, analogous, indeed, to 'Ethiopian' (Ἁθἱοψ), one whom the sun has looked upon.

How seldom do we think, in uttering 'adieu,' that we verily say, I commend you à Dieu– to God; that the lightly-spoken good-by means God be wi' you,3 or that the (if possible) still more frequent and unthinking 'thank you,' in reality assures the person addressed —I will think often of you.

'Eld' is a word that has the poetic aroma about it, and is an example (of which we might adduce additional cases from the domain of 'poetic diction') of a word set aside from a prose use and devoted exclusively to poetry. It is, as we know, Saxon, signifying old or old age, and was formerly in constant use in this sense; as, for instance, in Chaucer's translation of Boethius de Consolatione Philosophiæ, we find thus:

'At laste no drede ne might overcame tho muses, that thei ne weren fellowes, and foloweden my waie, that is to saie, when I was exiled, thei that weren of my youth whilom welfull and grene, comforten now sorrowfull weirdes of me olde man: for elde is comen unwarely upon me, hasted by the harmes that I have, and sorowe hath commaunded his age to be in me.'

So in the Knightes Tale:

Oh! what an overflowing fulness of truth and beauty is there wrapped up in the core of these articulations that we so heedlessly utter, would we but make use of the wizard's wand wherewith to evoke them! What an exhaustless wealth does there lie in even the humblest fruitage and flowerage of language, and what a fecundity have even dry 'roots'!

'Thinkest thou there were no poets till Dan Chaucer?' asks our great Thomas; 'no heart burning with a thought, which it could not hold, and had no word for; and needed to shape and coin a word for – what thou callest a metaphor, trope, or the like? For every word we have, there was such a man and poet. The coldest word was once a glowing new metaphor, and bold questionable originality. 'Thy very ATTENTION, does it not mean an attentio, a STRETCHING-TO?' Fancy that act of the mind which all were conscious of, which none had yet named – when this new 'poet' first felt bound and driven to name it! His questionable originality and new glowing metaphor was found adoptible, intelligible; and remains our name for it to this day.'4

This seems to be a pet etymology of Carlyle, as he makes Professor Teufelsdröckh give it to us also.

Nor less of a poet was that Grecian man who first named this beauteous world – with its boundless unity in variety – the κὁσμος,5 the order, the adornment. But

and

that first induced some luckless mortal to give to certain mysterious compounds the appellation of cosmetics! But here is an atonement; for even in our unmythical, unbelieving days, the god 'Terminus' is made to stand guard over every railway station! Again, how finely did the Roman call his heroism his 'virtus' – his virtue – his manliness. With the Italians, however, it became quite a different thing; for his 'virtu' is none other than his love of the fine arts (these being to him the only subject of manly occupation), a mere objet de vertu; and his virtuoso has no more virtuousness or manliness about him than what appertains to being skilled in these same fine arts. With us, our 'virtue' is … well, as soon as we can find out, we will tell you.

By the way, in what a bathos of mystery are most of our terms expressing the moral relations plunged! Some philosophers have declared that truth lies at the bottom of a well; – the well in which the truth in regard to these matters lies would seem to stretch far enough down – reaching, in fact, almost to the kingdom of the Inane. The beautiful simplicity of Bible truths has often become so perverted – so overloaded by the vain works (and words) of man's device – as barely to escape total extinction. Witness 'repentance'; in what a farrago of endless absurdities and palpable contradictions has this word (and, more unfortunately still, the thing itself along with it) been enveloped! According to the 'divines,' what does it not signify? Its composition, we very well know, gives us pœnitentia, from pœnitere, to be sorry, to regret– and such is its true and only meaning. 'This design' (that of the analysis of language in its elementary forms), says Wilkins, 'will likewise contribute much to the clearing of some 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 —

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 Ἁλκυὡν (halcyon) —alcedo hispida– was the name applied by the Greeks to the kingfisher (a name commonly derived from Ἁλς, κυλ, i. e., sea-conceiving, from the fact of this bird's being said to lay her eggs in rocks near the sea); and the ἁλκκυονἱδες ἡμἑραι —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 a metaphor even, should we trace it back to the Greek σαρκἁζω —to tear off the flesh (σαρξ), literally, to 'flay.' 'Satire,' again, has an arbitrary-enough origin; it is satira, from satur, mixed; and the application is as follows: each species of poetry had, among the Romans, its own special kind of versification; thus the hexameter was used in the epic, the iambic in the drama, etc. Ennius, however, the earliest Latin 'satirist,' first disregarded these conventionalities, and introduced a medley (satira) of all kinds of metres. It afterward, however, lost this idea of a melange, and acquired the notion of a poem 'directed against the vices and failings of men with a view to their correction.'

Perhaps we owe to reviewing the metaphorical applications of such terms as 'caustic,' 'mordant,' 'piquant,' etc., in their burning, biting, and pricking senses.

But 'review,' itself, we are to regard as pure metaphor. Our friend 'Snooks,' at least, found that out; for, instead of re-viewing —i. e., viewing again and again his book, they pronounced it to be decidedly bad without any examination whatever. A 'critic' we all recognize in his character of judge or umpire; but is it that he always possesses discrimination – has he always insight (for these are the primary ideas attaching themselves to κρἱνω, whence κριτικὁς comes) – does he divide between the merely arbitrary and incidental, and see into the absolute and eternal Art-Soul that vivifies a poem or a picture? If so, then is he a critic indeed.

How perfectly do 'invidiousness' and 'envy'6 express the looking over against (in-video) – the askance gaze– the natural development of that painful mental state which poor humanity is so subject to! So with 'obstinacy' (ob-sto), which, by the way, the phrenologists represent, literally enough, by an ass in a position which assuredly Webster had in his mind when he wrote his definition of this word; thus: … 'in a fixedness in opinion or resolution that cannot be shaken at all, or without great difficulty.'

Speaking of this reminds us of those very capital 'Illustrations of Phrenology,' by Cruikshank, with which we all are familiar, and where, for example, 'veneration is exemplified by a stout old gentleman, with an ample paunch, gazing with admiring eyes and uplifted hands on the fat side of an ox fed by Mr. Heavyside, and exhibited at the stall of a butcher. In this way a Jew old-clothes man, holding his hand on his breast with the utmost earnestness, while in the other he offers a coin for a pair of slippers, two pairs of boots, three hats, and a large bundle of clothes, to an old woman, who, evidently astonished all over, exclaims, 'A shilling!' is an illustration of conscientiousness. A dialogue of two fishwomen at Billingsgate illustrates language, and a riot at Donnybrook Fair explains the phrenological doctrine of combativeness.'

But peace to the 'bumps,' and pass we on. Could anything be more completely metaphorical than such expressions as 'egregious' and 'fanatic?' 'Egregious' is chosen, e-grex—out of the flock, i. e., the best sheep, etc., selected from the rest, and set aside for sacred purposes; hence, distingué. This word, though occupying at present comparatively neutral ground, seems fast merging toward its worst application. Can it be that an 'egregious' rogue is an article of so much more frequent occurrence than an 'egregiously' honest man, that incongruity seems to subsist between the latter? 'Fanatic,' again, is just the Roman 'fanaticus,' one addicted to the fana,7 the temples in which the 'fanatici' or fanatics were wont to spend an extraordinary portion of their time. But besides this, their religious fervor used to impel them to many extravagances, such as cutting themselves with knives, etc., and hence an 'ultraist' (one who goes beyond (ultra) the notions of other people) in any sense. Whereupon it might be remarked that though