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CHAPTER X. 



THE BARK. 



I. T)HILOLOGISTS are continually collecting 

 instances, like our friend the French critic 

 of Virgil, of the beauty of finished language, or 

 the origin of unfinished, in the imitation of natural 

 sounds. But such collections give an entirely false 

 idea of the real power of language, unless they are 

 balanced by an opponent list of the words which 

 signally fail of any such imitative virtue, and whose 

 sound, if one dwelt upon it, is destructive of their 

 meaning. 



2. For instance. Few sounds are more distinct 

 in their kind, or one would think more likely 

 to be vocally reproduced in the word which sig- 

 nified them, than that of a swift rent in strongly 

 woven cloth ; and the English words ' rag ' and 

 ragged, with the Greek prjyvvjxi, do indeed in a 

 measure recall the tormenting effect upon the ear. 

 But it is curious that the verb which is meant 

 to express the actual origination of rags, should 



