AY. Most fickle, but most charming of all the months that round the year. Notwithstanding the flattery of the poets, cruel in its stinginess as well as sweet in its pleasantness is May. It has pelted me with its hailstorms and half-blinded me with its driving snows. Now, however, its smile is as soft as that of innocence, and its breath as calm and gentle as an infant's. The heavens are kind and the earth is joyful. Was there ever any green so fresh and lively as the green of a genuine English May? Meadow, field, wood, and hedgerow are now in their newest and richest attire. The earth like a young bride throws around her thousands of floral wreaths in delight at the warm embraces of her bridegroom the Sun, while the birds celebrate the union with a ceaseless marriage-song.

It is early morning. The dew is yet upon the grass. The sun has not long celebrated his victory over night and darkness by hurling long lightning spears from the east to the west, and making his lordship felt from the south even to the sullen north.

"Look, Hettie," I said, "what a change! an hour ago, and here where we stand were coldness, darkness, and silence. Now we have warmth, light, and the stir and song of life. What a majestic presence! What a daily mercy is the rising of the sun, and what a recurring

miracle is his march!"

"No," she said with much naïveté; "it is no marvel that he has pursued his march steadily for millions of days, but the miracle is that he should for one day have paused in his march and hasted not to go down."

66 "Ah, that is in accordance with our conventional modes of thought. We daily enjoy the glory of the sun and we think nothing of it. It is the old story. That which is common is unappreciated. If monarchs were as plentiful as the rank and file of ordinary creatures, who would run after a royal show? I have never forgotten some sentences of Emerson: 'If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore, and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown. But every night come out these preachers of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.' Every night the stars shine, and therefore thousands of eyes never look beyond the gas-lamps. Every day the sun rolls on, and therefore its rise and its march are but vulgar events. Strange that the marvel should be not in the exercise of power, but in its cessation!"

"Then do you really think," said Willie, who was by Hettie's side, "that the sun did stand still as recorded in Joshua? If you do, you have a rational creed!"

"I believe the Book of Joshua, and yet I am not under the necessity of believing that the sun stood still in the sense of your present thought. The expression is copied from a book of poems or parables called Jasher. That the sun stood still was not, of course, a historical fact. It was simply a poetical phrase. It is written that the stars fought against Sisera. This also was not a literal

fact, but a poetical phrase. In the one case it means literally that darkness did not come on till the Israelites had exterminated their enemies, and in the other that all natural order was adverse to Sisera. But beyond this, both the statements are written as the embodiment of heavenly truth.”

"I anticipated that would be your argument," said Willie; "but, Hettie,

'While the earth herself is adorning

This sweet May morning,

And the children are pulling

On every side,

In a thousand valleys far and wide,
Fresh flowers,'

I scarcely feel inclined to enter into a disquisition on theological topics. I have no doubt Mr. Romaine has pretty well indoctrinated you with his peculiar views respecting the Bible, and I confess there is much in the book that surpasses my previous conceptions. But in one respect I am like Wordsworth's Wanderer. He had early learned to reverence the Bible, but, says the poet,

'In the mountains did he feel his faith;

There did he see the writing; all things there
Breathed immortality, revolving life,
And greatness still revolving infinite.

There littleness was not; the least of things
Seemed infinite.'

I feel my faith here-in the glorious sun, the balmy air, the flash of the silvery waters, the breath of the flowers, the blue sky, and the murmurous music of the grove."

"I sympathize with you," I said, "and I am sure Hettie does."

"Yes," she replied, "for are not all these visible and sensible things a dim reflection of the beauty and glory of the invisible and of the insensible to be revealed hereafter?"

"She has learned, Willie, that nature is, as Carlyle says, the 'Time-vesture of God,' which 'reveals Him to the wise' but 'hides Him from the foolish.' She has comprehended in a wonderful way the mystery of Goethe's earth spirit's song in 'Faust'—

'At the roaring loom of Time I ply,

And weave for God the garment thou seest Him by.'

As God is thus revealed in nature, all nature must be a symbol of Him."

"Come now," said Willie, "I am curious about this matter. Since our Christmas party I have often pondered over the extraordinary way in which we were enabled to get out of the Scriptures meanings that I never before anticipated. How was it? Everything was treated as a symbol, and now you tell me that all nature is a symbol of God. How do you read and understand the symbols?"

"Very easily when once you are put in possession of the key. I should pay a poor compliment to your understanding if I did not say that it is at least equal to my own. And yet when we were at Mr. Freeheart's you were comparatively helpless, while I was enabled to rub and supply cleansed wheat for all. The reason was because you had only your naked hands, while I had a certain little threshing and winnowing instrument between my palms."

"And which I now possess," said Hettie, laughing. "Perhaps you could communicate it to me," said Willie, "that we may work on equal terms."

We had been standing upon an upland in the full glow of the morning sun and in the unobstructed current of the fresh breeze. We now turned down into a long

lane illumined on either bank with primroses and overshadowed with hawthorn showering down its wealth of bloom.

"Well," I said, "the symbolical character of the objects of nature may be understood from their CORRESPONDENCE. Things natural correspond to things spiritual." Correspond," said Willie thoughtfully.

"Yes," I continued; "observe: they CO-RESPOND. They respond or answer together and to each other. They respond in their nature and in their uses. The sun,

for instance, now filling the earth with life and glory, corresponds to the Lord Himself, the DIVINE LUMINARY, who fills the Church or man's spirit with blessings innumerable and unutterable."

"See how the golden beams strike through the interlacing boughs overhead," said Hettie.

"Just so," I replied; "however we may shut ourselves out from the Divine bounties, they follow us, and shine in upon us through the smallest inlet. The sun in all its aspects and in all its effusiveness corresponds to God in all His attributes and their effluence to man. See how the earth and the things upon it flourish and rejoice in the glorious light. So does the Church-so does the human spirit-and all the things by which it is adorned and beautified, flourish and rejoice in the beams of the DAYSPRING from on high. The earth therefore corresponds to the Church in general and in the human soul."

"The poets," said Hettie, "seem to have almost an intuitive perception of the correspondence of things. Don't you remember, Willie, that Milton makes Satan say in his address to the sun,

'Oh thou that with surpassing glory crowned,
Look'st from thy sole dominion like THE GOD
Of this new world'?

The sun is said to be the 'god' of the world, to have sole dominion in the heavens, and to be crowned with surpassing glory. In all these respects how wonderfully does it typify the Lord!"

"Don't take too much credit to yourself, lassie," said Willie, "for your discovery. The ancient Persians saw all that ages ago. They absolutely considered the sun a god, and worshipped it.'

"Those more ancient than the ancient Persians did not consider it a god," I remarked. "They saw with open eye its correspondence, and venerated it not as the Creator, but as the symbol of the Creator. The Parsees had lost the vision of the fathers, but continued their practice. They They worshipped the Sun itself as the Creator, while their progenitors worshipped the Creator Himself as the sun."

"That is a wide question," said Willie.

"Yes; too wide for discussion now."

'Again," said Hettie, "how universal is the action of the sun, and with what impartiality he distributes his bounties. As Shakespeare says,

'The self-same sun that shines upon the court
Hides not his visage from the cottage, but
Looks on both alike.'

Hettie's little speech was interrupted by a loud laugh from Willie at the speedy fulfilment of his prediction that her poetical memory would be too strong for her resolution.

"Never mind, my dear," I said; "his laughter is only a transparent veil to hide the pleasure it more fully reveals. But now, turning from the 'skiey influences' which correspond with heaven and its bounties, consider the earth and its condition, which correspond with human society and its internal state. What the skies dispense the earth receives, and it is beautiful and fruitful just in proportion as it appropriates what it receives. So with society. In proportion as man receives God, he teems with spirit-flowers and immortal fruits. Nor does the correspondence end here. Observe the plants around us that lift up their flowers like cups of gold, or ray out their petals like silver stars. They correspond with the plants planted by our Heavenly Father in the celestial garden of the well-ordered and beautified Spirit, which owe all their vigour to the Divine Sun, to the beams of a never-failing Love."

"Looking around us," said Hettie, "we may indeed

say,

'Earth's crammed with heaven,

And every common bush afire with God;'

and by correspondence we may add the virtuous soul is filled with the Divine, and all its common loves are Christ's own flowers."

"Ah, I see," said Willie, laughing, "I am an ignoramus, and have learned nothing since Christmas."

66

"Now," I said, we have touched on some topics of the first importance. Why should we not continue them? This is the season when the Church formerly commemor ated in its own peculiar way the Day of Pentecost and the baptism of the Apostles with the Holy Ghost and with fire. The world now carefully observes the season in its own worldly fashion. I should not like to burden our conversations during these lovely walks with serious talk. It is enough in our rambles to see, to hear, and to observe. While we are in the open air let the flowers charm us with their beauty and the birds entrance us with their melody. But let us as occasion serves endeavour to get the Divine baptism by conning over the lessons which these objects teach, and, by means of the Word, from the world in which we are, strive to learn something of that to which we go."

My interesting companions agreed, and during the remainder of our walk we suspended our discussion, and gave ourselves up to drink in "the spirit of the season."

A LAY SERMON TO INSOLVENTS.

S there a niche in Life for each one of us, in which alone we can really show to advantage whatever of beauty or usefulness we possess? Is there some portion of the machinery of existence left vacant for each of us, in which, and in which alone, we shall find our power to sustain or propel so exactly balanced to the other parts of the machine as to leave us no sense of strain, but rather healthful exercise of our faculties in promot- | ing the usefulness of the whole? These are questions which peculiarly interest us, who, suffering the reality of failure, are oppressed with a sense of it, and burdened with the care and sorrow, misfortune and loss, which we have brought on others as well as on ourselves. For, alas! for us who sincerely mourn over our mistakes, we cannot, however willing, take all the consequences on ourselves. Society at large, those who have trusted our character and ability, as well as those nearer and dearer to us, must suffer with us; and, misery of miseries! to a sensitive nature, we, if brave and manly enough to stay and face these consequences, must look on and see them suffer till we can, in some measure at least, repair the evil we have done.

Let us then seek out the cause, that we may, each one for himself, apply the remedy. That there is a causethat there is a remedy-who can doubt who believes in a "Providence which shapes our ends"? God sends no one into this world without some wise and beneficent end in view for the individual so sent, as well as for the community. There is some work for which each is peculiarly fitted-in which he can be eminently useful to his fellows. If he does it, they will be constrained to rise up and call him blessed. He will earn at least his bread, even if it be by the sweat of his brow; and if poor in worldly wealth, will be still no bankrupt in honour among his fellows.

We believe, then, that the answer to these two questions must be an affirmative one. There is some part of the working machinery of the world left weak for want of each one of us. There is some niche in the world's gallery of honour left vacant for each to fill with the loveliness of duty fulfilled-the sculptured grandeur of that repose which ensues when our activities have become concreted for ever into the rounded form of enduring truth-truth towards our own nature and capabilities, truth to the service of others. It is because we have missed this aim, perhaps neither known nor thought of it, that we have failed. But the result of our errors has come. We are awake to the facts. We have still capacities within us seeking more eagerly than ever their true outlet. Consciously and really distressed at the disastrous results of our actions, we desire sincerely and humbly to make amends to the world in honest service which shall benefit humanity.

To the less experienced but more fortunate or worthy Traders who have always been attended with a fair measure of success, who estimate success as not only the test of merit but of honesty of purpose, such a description of the feelings of any bankrupt may seem like the wildest dream; but it is nevertheless the fact, that ninetenths of the numerous bankruptcies among us are caused, not by deliberate dishonesty of purpose, but by errors in judgment regarding either the possibilities of trade or our own capabilities. We may fairly claim that ninetenths of the failures that occur are attributable to needless but honest-intentioned over-trading, incapacity to grapple with the practical difficulties of the trade undertaken, or an utter lack of business capacity. In some few cases excess of honesty, begetting excessive trustful

ness of others, is the one sole cause. Excessive cupidity is also sometimes the primary reason of failure. To grasp after the control of the trade of a whole city or district, to the extinction of all competitors, is so remarkably like the game of draw-poker, in which one stakes his all in beating down and "weakening" his adversary's "hand," that it hardly requires the gift of prophecy to foretell ultimate disaster. This class, however, belongs to the one-tenth of dishonest insolvencies.

But the one cause of by far the most failures is the utter unfitness, by natural aptitude, for the special trade engaged in. Men with the thews and sinews of a Hercules are found electing, for the sake of a sham gentility, to spend their strength in measuring ribbons and coaxing the fair sex into purchasing dress goods. Heaven-born mechanics become, for similar reasons, dealers in tea and sugar. Men whose natures lead them to intellectual pursuits merge themselves, for family reasons perhaps, into the eminently practical trade of hardware, which requires much of the skill and experience of the trained mechanic. Others, with the honest pride and inborn independence generally attributed to the "village Hampden," allow themselves to start as Commission Agents, that vague style of commercial life which is destined to run them into truckling to both constituent and customer to make sales, force them to "become all things to all men" that they may gain a slender commission. Which kind of dishonour to choose is apt soon to become a practical problem solved by Insolvency.

Is it any wonder, then, that such men, so placed, fail in attaining any result satisfactory to themselves or others who trust them? Is it not, as an eminent writer has said, a constant recurrence of the "round peg filling the square hole, and the square peg trying to jam itself into the round hole"? The one falls out; the other cannot get in. Did either succeed in maintaining its place, could it feel comfortable there?

It is an axiom in morals-that most practical of all sciences-that amendment cannot be begun till we see and acknowledge to ourselves the cause of the evil within ourselves. So is it in so-called "practical life." We must see and acknowledge the error we ourselves have made, and perceive that as the cause of failure. The cause once seen, the remedy is not far to seek. If for social reasons Hercules has taken to selling trimmings and dress goods and failed to shine in that pursuit, let him bring his magnificent muscular development into play in some other more congenial occupation, and there is yet a career before him. The man with the deft hands and inventive brain of the skilled mechanic, must cease to attempt the mechanical (?) pursuit of weighing out tea and sugar, and employ his talents on what is more akin to his nature. Never mind the grime on his hands and clothes. It will wash off more easily and more thoroughly than the stain of uselessness and failure he has inflicted on his honour. We who have thought more highly of ourselves and our abilities than we ought to think, have perhaps been taught by the results of that overweening self-confidence to think soberly and rightly of our powers, and to estimate more correctly what God has fitted us to do usefully, because perfectly. If we have found we lack the ability to lead, let us cease to try, but rather follow some other leader, selling him our labour, to be guided by his superior ability. There need be no degradation in this. Brains are no more useful in their degree than hands are in their degree. Each would be useless without the other. Good "hands" are an invaluable blessing to a sound "head," and the latter cannot afford to treat the former with disrespect. Those of us who have trusted too generously, too confidingly,

and through being ourselves deceived, deceived others, have perhaps much sympathy from all, even from those whom we have wronged. Still, that sympathy is mingled with some measure of contempt. Nor is this altogether unjust. We have actually injured those we trusted too largely, as well as those who trusted us. We have lacked wisdom, and the natural consequence has come upon us in loss of respect for our judgment from those who are wiser than ourselves. We have gratified our emotions of generosity without sufficiently regarding the true aim of

usefulness to others. That most refined of all the forms which selfishness assumes has been ours-doing good and bestowing trust and confidence for the pleasure it gave ourselves, not for the good it did to others. We must swallow the penalty, and if we have learned the lesson, start again with the more limited powers afforded us, but, let us hope, better applied.

Then there are among our ranks, and not perhaps the least conspicuous, men of ultra sanguineness of disposition, who, over-confident in their power of brain and industry to conquer lack of capital or credit, have launched out boldly into enterprises far beyond their financial strength. They had perhaps both brain and industry surpassing that of their competitors, but they lacked the needful tools to work with. Their bark, too heavily freighted, took the ground and missed that "tide which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune." At the critical moment there was not water enough to float them. Talents like these need not be lost-must not be lost. There are men of capital lacking just that element of success which they can supply. He who has light and brilliancy in him must find a golden candlestick on which to rest that he may irradiate the community and complete the usefulness both of that candlestick and himself.

What of the ten per cent. of deliberately dishonest among us? For them, too, there is hope, if they choose to begin now to cease to plan, and do, evil, and learn to do well. A man can live down any sin-any disgraceif he wills to do it. Nor let any of us dare to hinder him. Let men take heed that they offend not any of such little ones, only beginning their flight towards the Eternal Light -as yet in the early stage of childhood-which may develop into the perfect manhood of goodness and truth.

All the various forms of failure and disaster are traceable to one great cause which underlies them. It is selfishness-regarding self more than others-seeking gain, reputation, or éclat, for the sake of self, or those dependent on self. Losing sight of the true aim of life, usefulness, we have tried, not to fill a vacant space in the universe with our best labour, our highest devotion of thought and purpose, but to fill a longing in our own bosom with the things of time and of sense. This was hardly sensible. These can never satisfy our true nature. Loving service to others-not for self-is the end which, kept steadily in view in all our actions, will guide us ever aright, and make every sacrifice of personal ease or comfort the truest ease, the truest comfort in the happiness it brings to others. Serving our brethren from love to them, we will ere long begin to find we are simply serving God, carrying out His purposes towards us, by forming of ourselves a channel along which His Gospel of "peace on earth, good-will to men," may flow. Then we shall begin to realize that he who loves God loves his brethren also, and become conscious that it is possible to obey the Divine commandment-"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength," by "loving thy neighbour as thyself." In that pursuit there can be no failure, for God is with us, overcoming the evil in us with good.

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE.
"Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas."
CHAPTER XIV.

NOTHER interesting derivative from the onomato-
poetic st exists in the name of stone, which

substance is so called because of its fixity and insensitiveness. From designating physical qualities, the words "stone" and "stony" thence pass to the designation of corresponding emotional conditions, and in their metaphorical use have a thousand illustrations. "O graceful Amaryllis, O dark-browed nymph, you that look all beautiful, yet are altogether stone!"* The Propœtides, the fable tells us, the first women who lost their sense of shame, were parvo discrimine, by slight transition, "changed into rigid stones." Othello exclaims, "My heart is turned to stone; I strike it, and it hurts my hand." So in the "Winter's Tale," where Leontes says of the statue,

"Does not the stone rebuke me

For being more stone than it ?"

Hence, too, the wording of God's promise to the repentant, that he will remove their "stony heart," and will give them a "heart of flesh." But a stone, from its very character of endurance and fixedness, is the emblem likewise of anything that owes its worth and excellence to being firm and indestructible; and this is by far the most beautiful aspect under which to contemplate its use in metaphor. All objects have a twofold relation. They correspond in their high sense with what is good and heavenly. In their lower, or earthly relation, they denote what is evil. The glorious sun itself on the one hand ripens the golden harvests, and mediately sustains the earth in life and beauty; on the other, it parches the soil, and raises malaria, and is productive of the most direful ills: the wind, so grateful a visitant when gentle, when it swells into a tempest ravages and destroys with remorseless and appalling cruelty. In the consideration of figures, the context, therefore, must always be taken as well as the image itself, just as the occasion, the circumstances, and the tone of voice have to be regarded, in order that in ordinary conversation we may distinguish between seriousness and irony. Attending properly to the context, figures are perceived to be always consis tent; they are never unintelligible, and need not be perplexing.

"Wise is he

Who scans and construes all in harmony.
A sacred side there is to everything,
As given or forbidden, false or true;
According to the greater truth involved,
One side is always bright, one always dark,
Leaf-like and moon-like."

Accordingly, when we find the Lord called by Moses "the stone of Israel," we see that the expression refers not to hard-heartedness, but to the solidity and permanence of His attributes: so, too, in Isaiah, where He is called "a tried stone, a precious corner-stone." In other places the word is put for His power, His love, or His truth, individually. David took, on the memorable occasion above referred to, not only his "staff,” but "five smooth stones out of the brook." These stones represent the heavenly truths with which we must in like manner arm ourselves when we would re-enact the shepherd's conduct; this little episode of his life being not a mere piece of ancient history, but a Divine and everlasting representative of the method by which spiritual evils can alone be overcome.

Bearing these facts in view, we are also enabled to perceive the meaning of that remarkable verse in the Psalms: "Happy shall he be (O Babylon) that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones." The "little ones of Babylon" are the first inclinations towards pride, and he who destroys them in their infancy by dashing them against the truths and ordinances of the Divine law, procures for himself the truest happiness.

The onomatopoetic st is the parent also of the word "star," in the Persian language stareh, in Greek a-στηp, and in Latin stella, which last is by permutation from the older form stera, like tenella from tenera. If not absolutely and directly so, "star" is at any rate one of the very many words which "an imperious instinct, the workings of which are powerfully apparent in language, has forced into an imitative form;"-one of the innumerable results of that "inward and inexplicable harmony" in the procedures of the human mind which constantly makes sound the "co-efficient of sense,” and impels us to give to words an onomatopoetic character, although they may be derived proximately from a nononomatopoetic source. The mind is for ever reverting to its original principles of operation. What more natural and reasonable than that the stars should be so called on account of their fixedness? Their positions with regard to the eye of the observer change with the rotation of the earth, diurnal and orbital, but their relative places are the same everlastingly. In the language of metaphor, in poësy, in Scripture, they denote what is true, and especially truths of the highest class. A fine singer, a clever actor, is called a "star," because the embodiment of the highest excellence or truth current in his particular profession. Musæus, narrating the history of the celebrated but unfortunate Hero and Leander (who lived, it will be remembered, on opposite sides of the Hellespont), says of the two lovers

Αμφοτέρων πολίων περικαλλέες ἀστέρες ἄμφω. "Of either shore each was the lovely star." Shakespeare uses the figure many times, and always in the easy and graceful way which shows that there is no real distinction or line of difference between the consummately poetical and the spontaneous language of nature. Thus :

"Whose starlike nobleness gave life and influence To their whole being."-Timon of Athens, v. I. Shelley speaks of the "starlight smile of children," depicting herein its consummate innocence and truth. A smile may be "put on" by an adult, even for purposes of deception; "a man may smile and smile and be a villain," but the smile of a child conveys only the truthful.

An ultimate reference to the stars in their representative character is involved also in the word to "steer," which primarily denotes the piloting of a ship at sea, by means of observations made on the stars, the only possible method before the discovery of the mariners' compass. In the 5th Æneid the pilot says to the king

"Nec litora longè

Fida reor fraterna Erycis, portusque Sicanos;
Si modo ritè memor servata remetior astra."*

We have another pretty illustration of this fact in the name of the celebrated constellation the Pleiades, which is derived from λée, "to sail," and was given to it because marking the period when the Greeks were accustomed to commence their voyages, as illustrated in

"I deem neither the trusty shores of your brother Eryx, nor the Sicilian ports far distant, if I rightly remember the stars I observed before."

the famous story of the Argonauts.* The pole-star was called by the Anglo-Saxons scip-steorra, the "shipstar."

From its use as a nautical term, the word "steer naturally passed on to the corresponding acts of civil life, and to procedures emotional and moral. Hence a man is said to "steer his way," a guide to "steer the right road," and a prime minister to be "at the helm " of the country's affairs. In all of these acts the particular method in which they are conducted is governed by the individual's perceptions of what is best, or in other words, of what is true to him. So that when performing them he is literally watching the stars shining in the firmament of his mind; and as he moves along, thus governed and directed by his truths, it is in the same manner correspondentially, that the primeval navigator steered his bark across the waves, his eyes continually directed to the bright and guiding heavens.

Every other member of the innumerable progeny of st might be treated of in manner similar to the above. It is unnecessary, however, to do more here than simply quote a few of the derivatives which most plainly convey their meaning. A statue, for instance, is a model of an animal carved in some imperishable material calculated to stand for ever. Natural affection, affection which stands or endures, like that of a mother for her child, the Greeks called σropyn. Hence the name of the bird called the stork, which is celebrated for its affection. Stagnant water is literally that which stands or is motionless. Virgil beautifully applies the equivalent Latin term to the profound depths of the ocean, which are quiet and undisturbed save during the most violent storms. Shelley says as finely,

"Ye icy springs, stagnant with wrinkling frost!" The laws of the realm are called statutes, because presumed to be made in perpetuity, just as anything placed upon a solid basis is said to be established. Sic Di statuistis, "so the gods decreed," says Ovid. Stability is the quality of such things; instability of their opposites. Stupor is a state marked by the cessation of the activities proper to humanity; and stupid, in its metaphorical sense, is the character of one who is too dull to be intellectually moved. The Latin name for such a person is "stultus." "Substance "t is that which has being or reality (i.e. stands). Existence denotes such being; and its contracted form, essence, signifies the vital quality or principle of a thing. Thence the adjective "essential," each word having both a physical and a metaphorical meaning. Taciturnity, or standing of the tongue, the Greeks called στεγνότης. Their word for "inexorable" was σrvyvòs, as in Bion's description of death

Station is a fixed locality. Staid denotes a demeanour characterized by the absence of animation. To be steady is to be firm and unyielding. A steadfast character is one that does not vacillate. Its worth is spoken of as sterling. To be stern is to behave with a rigour that will not be moved. To stare is literally to look with the eyes standing still. The student is he who concentrates his mind on any given subject. Studies, therefore, properly speaking, are "fixed employments," not intellectual ones merely. Virgil, in charming use of this figure, applies

Vide Theocritus, xiii. 25, and compare Apollonius Rhodius, i. 107, and Sophocles, Ed. Tyr. 795.

+ The occurrence of the radical in the middle of a word, or at the end, comes of one of the operations which gave rise to "compound" words, a department of our subject to be dealt with presently.