VARIATIONS IN MEANING OF TEKMS. 275 



interests us in them, and the close contemplation of 

 which generally diminishes their charm to the ima- 

 gination. The practice thus grows up among culti- 

 vated people, of speaking of common things in a way 

 much less literal and definite than is the custom of 

 the vulgar ; in a way which indicates the thing meant, 

 with the faintest possible suggestion of its charac- 

 teristic qualities ; and the mere words used would 

 often not suffice to convey the meaning, unless there 

 were something in the accompanying circumstances 

 to assist in exciting the idea. The vulgar, meanwhile, 

 continue to use the appropriate, peculiar, and, if 

 scientific fitness were the only thing to be considered, 

 the best phraseology, because unambiguous; while, 

 for purposes of refinement, ambiguity is often the very 

 quality desired. 



Now this practice of using more general terms 

 where specific ones might have been employed, is con- 

 stantly spoiling the general terms by rendering them 

 specific. They become the terms particularly associ- 

 ated with the very specialities of meaning which it 

 was desired not to suggest. A ridiculous instance is 

 the anecdote of a lady of the court of Louis XIV., 

 who having stated to her confessor that she felt 

 esteem for a certain cavalier, (this being, it seems, the 

 phrase of the day to express a meaning which persons 

 usually prefer to convey by a circumlocution,) was 

 asked by the priest, " Combien de fois vous a-t-il 

 estimee?" which story, whether true or invented, 

 got into circulation, and led to the abandonment 

 of the phrase in that peculiar sense. If it had 

 not been abandoned in that sense, it would soon 

 have been discarded in any other sense ; and finally, 

 perhaps, lost altogether, because when confined to 

 that particular meaning, it would no longer have 



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