232 PROSERPINA. 



were made to be tasted, much more than to be eaten ; 

 and in their various methods of ministry to, and tempta- 

 tion of, human appetites, have their part in the history, 

 not of elements merely, but of souls ; and of the soul- 

 virtues, which from the beginning of the world have 

 bade the barrel of meal not waste, nor the cruse of oil 

 fail ; and have planted, by waters of comfort, the fruits 

 which are for the healing of nations. 



8. And, again, therefore, I must repeat, with insist- 

 ance, the claim I have made for the limitation of lan- 

 guage to the use made of it by educated men. The 

 word * carp ' could never have multiplied itself into the 

 absurdities of endo-carps and epi-carps, but in the 

 mouths of men who scarcely ever read it in its original 

 letters, and therefore never recognized it as meaning 

 precisely the same thing as ' fructus,' which word, being 

 a little more familiar with, they would have scarcely 

 abused to the same extent ; they would not have called 

 a walnut shell an intra-fruct or a grape skin an extra- 

 fruct ; but again, because, though they are accustomed 

 to the English ' fructify,' ' frugivorous ' and ' usu- 

 fruct,' they are unaccustomed to the Latin " fruor,' and 

 unconscious therefore that the derivative 'fructus' 

 must always, in right use, mean an enjoyed thing, they 

 generalize every mature vegetable product under the 

 term ; and we find Dr. Gray coolly telling us that there 

 is no fruit so " likely to be mistaken for a seed," as a 

 grain of corn ! a grain, whether of corn, or any other 



