'antibody' has no such respectable derivation. It is, in fact, a
barbarism, and a mongrel at that. The man who uses it debases the
currency of learning: and I suggest to you that it is one of the many
functions of a great University to maintain the standard of that
currency, to guard the _jus et norma loquendi_, to protect us from such
hasty fellows or, rather, to suppeditate them in their haste.

Let me revert to our list of the qualities necessary to good writing, and
come to the last--_Persuasiveness_; of which you may say, indeed, that it
embraces the whole--not only the qualities of propriety, perspicuity,
accuracy, we have been considering, but many another, such as harmony,
order, sublimity, beauty of diction; all in short that--writing being an
art, not a science, and therefore so personal a thing--may be summed up
under the word _Charm_. Who, at any rate, does not seek after Persuasion?
It is the aim of all the arts and, I suppose, of all exposition of the
sciences; nay, of all useful exchange of converse in our daily life. It
is what Velasquez attempts in a picture, Euclid in a proposition, the
Prime Minister at the Treasury box, the journalist in a leading article,
our Vicar in his sermon. Persuasion, as Matthew Arnold once said, is the
only true intellectual process. The mere cult of it occupied many of the
best intellects of the ancients, such as Longinus and Quintilian, whose
writings have been preserved to us just because they were prized. Nor can
I imagine an earthly gift more covetable by you, Gentlemen, than that of
persuading your fellows to listen to your views and attend to what you
have at heart.

Suppose, sir, that you wish to become a journalist? Well, and why not? Is
it a small thing to desire the power of influencing day by day to better
citizenship an unguessed number of men, using the best thought and
applying it in the best language at your command?... Or are you, perhaps,