method on the gentlest soul resolved to stir them. But he whose
message is for minds attuned and tempered will beware of needless
reiteration, as of the noisiest way of emphasis. Is the same word
wanted again, he will examine carefully whether the altered
incidence does not justify and require an altered term, which the
world is quick to call a synonym. The right dictionary of synonyms
would give the context of each variant in the usage of the best
authors. To enumerate all the names applied by Milton to the hero
of Paradise Lost, without reference to the passages in which they
occur, would be a foolish labour; with such reference, the task is
made a sovereign lesson in style. At Hell gates, where he dallies
in speech with his leman Sin to gain a passage from the lower
World, Satan is "the subtle Fiend," in the garden of Paradise he is
"the Tempter" and "the Enemy of Mankind," putting his fraud upon
Eve he is the "wily Adder," leading her in full course to the tree
he is "the dire Snake," springing to his natural height before the
astonished gaze of the cherubs he is "the grisly King." Every
fresh designation elaborates his character and history, emphasises
the situation, and saves a sentence. So it is with all variable
appellations of concrete objects; and even in the stricter and more
conventional region of abstract ideas the same law runs. Let a
word be changed or repeated, it brings in either case its
contribution of emphasis, and must be carefully chosen for the part
it is to play, lest it should upset the business of the piece by
irrelevant clownage in the midst of high matter, saying more or
less than is set down for it in the author's purpose.

The chameleon quality of language may claim yet another
illustration. Of origins we know nothing certainly, nor how words
came by their meanings in the remote beginning, when speech, like