bring forth fruit. Their seed is human progress and a larger life for
men. Think, for instance, who first flung the word _freedom_ into
space!--_gravitation, evolution, atom, soul!_ There is no power like the
power of a word: a word like _liberty_ can dethrone kings.

We get out of a word just what we put into it, plus the individuality of
the man who uses it. Some men read into noble words only their own
silliness, vulgarity, prejudice, or preconceived ideas. Another man
reads with his heart open for new impressions, new insight, new fancies
and ideals.

Words have not only their inherent meaning; they have their allied
meanings. A word may mean one thing by itself. It may mean quite another
thing when another word stands beside it; even marks of punctuation give
words a curiously different sound and shade. Literature is a mastery,
not only of the moods of men, but of the moods of words. Corot takes a
stream, some grass and trees, a flitting patch of sky. By means of a few
strokes of his brush, he manages to present that tree, sky, stream, in a
way which suggests the pastoral experience of the ages. Where did that
misty veil come from? the trembling lights and shadows, the half-heard
sounds and silence of the woods, the changing cloud, the dim reflection,
the atmosphere of mystery and peace?

So each man goes to the dictionary. He takes a word here, a word there,
common words that everybody knows. He puts them together: the result is
a presentation of the life of man, and lays hold of his inmost spirit.

"_Our birth is but a deep and a forgetting;
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting