thought, unambiguously expressed, we shall sometimes have to face the wrath of the critics and say is being, followed by a perfect participle.

We would not speak disrespectfully of the critics and purists. They are a terror to mankind generally, and we come under this head. But they are not merely a terror, like the fallen angels. They perform many a kind and useful service. We, in fact, count those men among our chief benefactors, who have pointed out to us the faults in our language, who have suggested to us how we might speak and write with more perspicuity and purity; and hence, how we might think with more precision. Language is one of the most important instruments which we have to use. Our success in life depends vastly more on this instrument than we at first suppose. He, therefore, who aids us in improving it, in rendering it as perfect as possible, is a great benefactor. Such is the wise, high-minded, intelligent, accomplished critic. At a great remove from this ideal is the so-called critic whose only delight is in fault-finding; who dare not say anything, and will not allow us to say anything, except in the oldest stereotyped phrase; who will reject every fresh, nervous, bold expression of thought, if be it new and homely. Such men- and they are to be found too often do infinitely more harm than good. Their touch is like that of the torpedo to men of delicate nerves. They can benumb, even fatally; but they have no power to animate, and quicken into activity, slumbering, latent genius. Their methods of examination are false, and they seem incapable of choosing the right point of view. They would look at St. Peter's Church with a microscope. They can see a single, minute point, one at a time; but they can take no general comprehensive view. Too many such men have found "chairs" in our American colleges; and we have sometimes thought one

reason why the so-called self-educated men often show so much more vigor of language and boldness of conception than the graduates of the colleges, lies in the fact that they have not been pruned to death.

Language must have freedom of movement. It must flow onward. Remaining stationary, it soon becomes stagnant. The rapidity with which living languages change will surprise any man who has not looked into this sav ject. We had intended to dwell at some length on this topic, and to present some views from the lectures of Professor Whitney on "Language and the Study of Language," but our space forbids. We can emphatically recommend this work as one of the ablest that we have seen on linguistic science. The first two lectures speak more particularly of the changes and growth of language. Incidentally, some words, that have been condemned by crities of the microscopic sort, are introduced. Thus, the word reliable has been proscribed on the ground that we do not say to rely a person, but to rely on a person; and hence the word, if used at all, ought to be reli-on-able, which would be ridiculous. Professor Whitney replies to this: "English etymology is by no means so precise in its application of the suffix able as the objectors claim; it admits laughable, meaning 'worthy to be laughed at ;' unaccountable, not to be accounted for;' and even objectionable, liable to objection;' marriageable, 'fit for marriage,' and so forth." Again, it is said the word reliable "is low-caste; A, B, and C, those prime authorities in English style, are careful never to let it slip from their pens." The reply is, "Whatever A, B, and C may do, it is certain that D, F, and H, with most of the lower part of the alphabet, (including nearly all the X's, Y's and Z's, the unknown quantities,) use the new form freely; and it is vain to stand out against the full ac

ceptance of a word which is supported by so much and so respectable authority." Such is the character of the dispute about the word reliable, and about many other words, as well as many forms of expression. The result of such a controversy can not be doubtful.

Everybody is acquainted with the old rhetorical canon, usually expressed in the words of Horace, usus norma loquendi-usage is the rule of speech. This maxim, says Professor Whitney, "is of supreme and uncontrolled validity in every part and parcel of every human tongue."

In the application of this rule, it is not the "6 usage" of the select few that determines the result in doubtful cases. Not only in our own democratic country, but in the most despotic lands as well, the usage of the many is "of supreme and uncontrolled validity." Max Müller, in a most interesting discussion,* shows quite conclusively that languages do not grow from above downward, but from beneath, upward. "Literary dialects," says he, "or what are called classical languages, pay for their temporary greatness by inevitable decay. They are like stagnant lakes at the side of great rivers." * * * * "Or it may be more accurate to compare a literary idiom with the frozen surface of a river, brilliant and smooth, but stiff and cold. It is mostly by political commotions that this surface of the more polite and cultivated speech is broken and carried away by the waters rising underneath."

* * *

*

"As

soon as a language loses its unbounded capability of change, its carelessness about what it throws away, and its readiness in always supplying instantaneously the wants of mind and heart,

* LECTURES ON THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE.-Lecture Second: The Growth of Language.

its natural life is changed into a merely artificial existence. It may live on for a time, but while it seems to be the leading shoot, it is in reality but a broken and withering branch, slowly falling from the stock from which it sprang."

These are important truths worthy of much reflection. They should teach us to use more freedom in the choice of words and expressions; to be less afraid of adopting what is new, even before it has received the endorsement of the select few; to avail ourselves of every thing truly valuable, in the wide range of common speakers and writers; to borrow even from the humbler walks of life whatever will enable us to express our thoughts with more freshness and clearness and force. That which is coarse, which offends against correct taste, will be instinctively avoided; but a word or phrase is not necessarily vulgar and coarse, because it has thus far been heard only among the lowly many. It may be only a wild plant, which but needs to be transferred to our gardens, to become a very queen in the flowerbed.

These remarks have been suggested by the discussion respecting is being done. Perhaps they may seem irrelevant; but they may teach us, if we accept them as truth, more unconcern for hypercriticism, more freedom and boldness of style, and may lead us into a wider field for the choice of words and phrases. Perhaps there is little need in our country of such teachings as these, but freedom, and even negligence, when attended with a certain dignified strength, is far preferable to the timid, prim, conventional style, which has been pruned down so as to be beyond the reach of criticism.

T was a sultry evening in July. All

I day the sun had burnt and glared in

the cañons, scorched the spare verdure of the streams, and melted the snow upon the mountain tops. All day the flowers had leant languidly over the streams, and the trout had floated listlessly in the deepest shadows of the rocks. All day the sky had been cloudless-piteously bright and prom

ising.

This is what the day had been. The sun went down gorgeously in a golden sea, whose waves were purple and flame. The gold faded to gray, the purple to ashes, and the short western twilight drew on.

There was a little cañon in the Wasatch Range, where the sun seemed to linger, as if it found pleasure in blazing on the granite rocks and sparkling on the glistening sand. Even the scruboaks threw long shadows, and the dingy sage-bush looked soft and hazy in the waning light.

Just as the last flush faded from the western sky, and the rocks were putting on their evening frown, the sharp sound of a bell resounded through the upper part of the cañon, and, at the same moment, a noisy mill-which had all day been waking the unwilling echoesstopped for the night. The mill was a large, roughly-built building, standing in the widest part of the cañon, which there opened out into space enough for two or three fields. Opposite it, on the other side of the road, stood the millhouse, a low log building, with small windows and widely open door, from which issued the odor of the evening meal. There was neither garden nor tree near the house; only a potato-field

behind, and a cattle shed near by. Beyond rose an almost perpendicular wall of rock-bare, brown, rugged, but fringed in some places with a low growth of hardy firs. High up, in the crevices of the rocks, waved delicate little blossoms, tiny yellow lilies, little purple cups, with their circle of green leaves; but lower down the earth seemed to have been left to man's care, and there little grew save the wild sage and wilder weeds.

Meanwhile the workmen had left the mill, and, after washing themselves in an old wash-basin which stood on a bench in front of the house, were talking and laughing together in the road. They were four in number-rough, strongly-built men, who had been miners, loggers, cattle-tenders, woodchoppers, and were ready for any work that came to hand.

"Wa'al," said the shortest, and apparently also the youngest, of the party, "'t's time that supper was ready; what in creation 're they waiting for?"

"Guess th' old man haint ready yet— seein' t' th' oxen or suthin'," replied another. "Guess you're hungry, Bill!"

"You bet!" replied the first speaker. "But where's Mat?" he added, looking round; "I don't see her no where."

That gal's got the sulks or suthin'," said Jack Wheet, the shingle-maker. "She works awful-beats everything I ever see; but ye can't get a decent word out of her."

"I reckon she's got suthin' on her mind, Jack, an' don't you be hard on her," replied Bill. "She's a good galMat is."

"You think well on her," retorted the other, "an' its a pity she don't re

turn the compliment; but ef ye had to see that glum face o' hern all day, while she piled up shingles like blazes, an' ye couldn't get a civil word out o' her, ye wouldn't like it neither."

"I know," returned the other, "Mat ain't like what she used to be; she's sort o' down-in-the-mouth like."

Here the supper bell rang, and Bill whispered, under cover of the noise, "That fellow's been using her bad, an' she ain't got over it yet."

Jack smiled scornfully, and whistling "There are as good fish in the sea as ever were caught," went in to supper.

When supper was nearly over, a figure came slowly up a rough path that led down to the stream, and entered the house. She was a strongly-built young woman of twenty or thereabouts, of medium hight, dressed in a coarse dark working suit. The face was large and broad, from which the thick brown hair had been carelessly brushed away; the mouth was full and firmly closed; the cheeks colorless, and the eyes were of a dark intense gray, which to-night wore an expression of dogged resistance.

As she entered the house a noisy laugh greeted her, and a sarcastic:

"Well, Mat, I suppose you've been mooning by the brook. Which are most plenty, fishes or beaus ?"

Without reply, Martha seated herself by the girl in pink ribbons who had thus addressed her, and began to eat her supper. The conversation went on-conjectures about a coming storm, some repairs wanted in the mill-dam, and the likelihood of catching some trout after supper, with an occasional interruption from the baby in the cradle.

"Mat," whispered Bill, as they left the table, "come down to the green trout-hole after a while."

Mat nodded, and began to gather up the supper things. Then Fanny took herself and the pink ribbons out to flirt with the young men in front of the

door, and the millman's wife and Mat put the house to rights.

It was nearly nine o'clock when Mat got away, and found Bill waiting for her on the rock overhanging the green trouthole. He made room for her to sit down beside him, which she did; but he kept on kicking loose stones into the water, and did not say a word.

Mat also was silent. She sat quietly looking up at the pale moon — -struggling with the fleecy clouds which now overspread the sky — with a dull pain at her heart, and a feeling of pity for herself, as if she were pitying some one else.

"Bill," she said at last, "what do you want to say to me? It's late, an' I'm tired."

"I know, Mat, an' I'm a fool; but I'm yer friend, an' I wanted t say that I'd be yer friend, an' stand by ye, if no body else don't; an' Mat," he added in an almost savage whisper, "if that fellow don't use you right, I'll pay, him; by God, I will !”

"Don't, Bill," said Mat, with a gasp, clenching her hands lest she should cry out, "don't Bill-you can't-no body can't help me."

"But he'll break yer heart-the villain-an' I could break his neck-I could," and he sent down a stone that almost splashed the water into their faces.

"Bill," said Mat, "ye mean well, an' I thank ye kindly; but 't isn't so. Don't ye nor nobody say that Alf Wert's breakin' my heart. He ain't. He's his own master; he kin do 's he likes, an' my heart ain't breakin'. I've had some trouble, Bill, that I can't tell ye about; but don't you nor nobody ever say that it's Alf Wert's doin's."

"But, Mat, O Mat!" said the boy, as the moonlight fell on her face, and he saw how white it was, "if ye ever need a friend, come to me."

As she turned to him and heard that tremor in his voice, it may have been

that she saw the shadow of a sorrow as heavy as her own.

"Bill," she said softly, "I will."

It was a hard wearing life that Martha Helyer lived-bundling shingles in the old mill. Hers had always been a hard life; there had been little in it save toil. When the girl first found herself, she was a dependent without home or kin. She had worked ever since. Hers had been the old treadmill life; she had worked, eaten and slept perhaps with scarce a thought of any thing beyond. But she had capacity for better things. Her earnest nature, her passionate loving heart, her strong though almost untaught mind, clinging to right and honor, might have made her a woman to be loved and reverenced. And she was

worthy. She was a poor ignorant drudge; her path had always lain in the dark ways of life; no helping hand had ever been held out to her. But she was pure she was true; her lamp was not the brightest, but she lived in its purest flame.

And she had a lover-Alf Wert of the "Lower Mill." He was different from her-less ignorant-more refined; he had mingled with more civilized people; and it was a proud day for Mat when she first knew that he came to see her. And she loved him. Without a thought of his returning it, she gave her love as freely as God gives us all his care. And she gave it all. She was a whole-souled loving woman, and she used her right of love as if she had been a man. Then Mat had lived. Then there had come to her the vision of a home, no matter how poor or humble, if only shared with him; a place where she could work for him, live for him, and as gladly die for him. No life could have been too hard if shared with him. All the passion and power of her womanhood went out to him; her heart gloried and triumphed in her love.

But possession sometimes tempts to indifference; and when Alf knew that her heart was his, he did not seem to value it so highly as when he was uncertain what her answer would be. Then Fanny came to see her aunt, and flirt her ribbons; and it promised to be a repetition of the old old story. Fanny was pretty and selfish; Alf unstable and flattered by the new admiration; and Mat's heart was very heavy.

But there was something that lay more heavily on the poor girl's heart than Alf's indifference. It is hard to bury those we love-to know that there will be "voice no more, heart no more, hand no more"-that what has been is past and gone forever; it is hard to lose our friends-to know that the world's tide has swept between us and shut them from our sight; but it is hardest of all to lose faith in them- -to know that it was not them we loved, but an ideal we called by their names-that our love is objectless, our arms are empty!

Mat carried a sorrow that she was too loyal to breathe even to herself. She was more jealous of Alf's honor than of her own; and, as she walked back to the house that night, she was striving to crush down the fears and doubts that arose in her mind. She looked up at the hurrying clouds-at the wan moon that seemed so sad and lonely—and she swore to herself that it was not true; that she would not believe it; that Alf was true and honest to himself, if not to her; that she would prove it so, and then little matter if he did not love her if he were only true.

"And so, Mattie, you don't care for me any more, and don't want to marry me; and a week ago you were jealous if I spoke to another girl! What do you mean, and what is it all about?"

Alfred Wert looked rather angry and very much perplexed, as he talked to Martha, leaning against the half-open

door.