50 



Degraded Words. 



eagerly, the French convoiter, and the expression was formerly em- 

 ployed, as by the translators of the Bible in First Corinthians (xii, 31), 

 "covet earnestly the best things" — without that implication of 

 evil which man's bad habit, his proneness to covet more particularly 

 what he knows he ought not to have, has fastened upon it. 



The expression " to inflame^'''' which we seldom hear now-a-days 

 except in connection with some evil feeling, was used of old in re- 

 ference to the good passions quite as freely as the bad, examples of 

 which practice can be found in many hymns still sung. " To de- 

 nounce^^ also, "to instigate^ "to conspire^^ and ''^ to provoke,'''' are 

 verbs that we hardly ever employ at the present day except in re- 

 ference to wrong doing, though just as correctly applicable to 

 endeavors in the most praiseworthy directions, and once so used. 



Animosity^ in Sir Thomas Browne's " Urn Burial," 1658, meant 

 courage, as where he tells us that Cato confirmed " his wavering 

 hand to animosit}^ " by reading the Greek philosophers. " To have 

 words " with a man, is now in most cases to quarrel with him, 

 so great is the tendency of animated discussions, those in which we 

 notice chiefly the great flow of words on both sides, to degenerate 

 into heated disputes. 



But perhaps the most striking instance of the spoiling of words of 

 this class is that which is furnished by the verbs retaliate, resent, 

 and their derivatives. The writer was once present at the parting 

 of that scholarly but somewhat eccentric divine, the Rev. Dr. Samuel 

 Hanson Cox, from a gentleman to whom he was indebted for hos- 

 pitality, and to whom he said: " You may be certain, sir, that I shall 

 be glad of any opportunity to display my resentment of your at- 

 tentions." The host looked rather blank, as well he might, and the 

 doctor explained: "That word resentment, sir, is a good word that 

 has been brought into disgrace by man's wickedness. It only indi- 

 cates a feeling-back, a desire to reciprocate, and was once employed 

 as well in relation to benefits as to injuries. But we have so short a 

 meuiory for kindness, and so vague an intention of returning it, while 

 our perceptions of wrong done us are so acute, and our inclination 

 toward revengeful purposes so strong, that one is actually not un- 

 derstood in these days if he speaks of resenting anything but an 

 affront or an attack ! " This position is unquestionably sound; and 

 almost the same remarks apply also to the companion words retalia- 

 tion and retaliate, which certainly no one would think of employing 

 now except in connection with some kind of injury. Yet to retaliate 



