258 PROSERPINA. 



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 

 insistence, the claim I have made for the limi- 

 tation of language 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 precise!}' 

 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 'usufruct,' they are unaccus- 

 tomed to the Latin ' fruor,' and unconscious there- 

 fore that the derivative ' fructus ' must always, in 

 right use, mean an enjoyed thing, they gene- 

 ralize 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 



