uniformity of low employ. The reign of this democracy annuls
differences of status, and insults over differences of ability or
disposition. Thus do synonyms, or many words ill applied to one
purpose, begin to flourish, and, for a last indignity, dictionaries
of synonyms.

Let the truth be said outright: there are no synonyms, and the
same statement can never be repeated in a changed form of words.
Where the ignorance of one writer has introduced an unnecessary
word into the language, to fill a place already occupied, the
quicker apprehension of others will fasten upon it, drag it apart
from its fellows, and find new work for it to do. Where a dull eye
sees nothing but sameness, the trained faculty of observation will
discern a hundred differences worthy of scrupulous expression. The
old foresters had different names for a buck during each successive
year of its life, distinguishing the fawn from the pricket, the
pricket from the sore, and so forth, as its age increased. Thus it
is also in that illimitable but not trackless forest of moral
distinctions. Language halts far behind the truth of things, and
only a drowsy perception can fail to devise a use for some new
implement of description. Every strange word that makes its way
into a language spins for itself a web of usage and circumstance,
relating itself from whatsoever centre to fresh points in the
circumference. No two words ever coincide throughout their whole
extent. If sometimes good writers are found adding epithet to
epithet for the same quality, and name to name for the same thing,
it is because they despair of capturing their meaning at a venture,
and so practise to get near it by a maze of approximations. Or, it
may be, the generous breadth of their purpose scorns the minuter
differences of related terms, and includes all of one affinity,