find it in Walt Whitman's heartfelt lament for Lincoln, 'O Captain, my
Captain', I cannot but feel it to be a blemish:--

'For you _bouquets_ and ribbon'd wreaths--for you the shore's a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning.'


It may be hypercriticism on my part, but _bouquet_ strikes me as sadly
infelicitous; and a large part of its infelicity is due to its having
kept its French spelling and its French pronunciation. It is not in
keeping; it diverts the flow of feeling; it is almost indecorous--much
as a quotation from Voltaire in the original might be indecorous in a
funeral address delivered by an Anglican bishop in a cathedral.

[Footnote 2: _Savan_ is quite obsolete in British use, and is not in the
_Century Dictionary_ or in Webster, 1911. _Savant_ is common, and often
written without italics, but the pronunciation is never
anglicized.--H.B.]



VII


There are several questions which writers and speakers who give thought
to their expressions will do well to ask themselves when they are
tempted to employ a French word or indeed a word from any alien tongue.
The first is the simplest: Is the foreign word really needed? For
example, there is no benefit in borrowing _impasse_ when there exists
already in English its exact equivalent, 'blind-alley', which carries