To conclude: there is one startling fact connected with words, which should make all men ponder what they utter. Not only is every wise and every idle word recorded in the book of divine remembrance, but modern science has shown that they produce an abiding impression on the globe we inhabit. Plunge your hand into the sea, and you raise its level, however imperceptibly, at the other side of the globe. In like manner, the pulsations of the air, once set in motion, never cease; its waves, raised by each sound, travel the entire round of earth’s and ocean’s surface; and in less than twenty-four hours, every atom of atmosphere takes up the altered movement resulting from that sound. The air itself is one vast library, on whose pages are written in imperishable characters all that man has spoken, or even whispered. Not a word that goes from the lips into the air can ever die, until the atmosphere which wraps our huge globe in its embrace has passed away forever, and the heavens are no more. There, till the heavens are rolled together as a scroll, will still live the jests of the profane, the curses of the ungodly, the scoffs of the atheist, “keeping company with the hours,” and circling the earth with the song of Miriam, the wailing of Jeremiah, the low prayer of Stephen, the thunders of Demosthenes, and the denunciations of Burke.
“Words are mighty, words are living; Serpents, with their venomous stings, Or, bright angels, crowding round us With heaven’s light upon their wings; Every word has its own spirit, True or false, that never dies; Every word man’s lips have uttered Echoes in God’s skies.”
[7] “Language and the Study of Language,” by W. D. Whitney.
[9] “Literature and Life,” by Edwin P. Whipple.
The fool hath planted his memory with an army of words.--SHAKESPEARE.
In the commerce of speech use only coin of gold and silver.... Be profound with clear terms, and not with obscure terms.--JOUBERT.
The more you have studied foreign languages, the more you will be disposed to keep Ollendorff in the background; the proper result of such acquirements is visible in a finer ear for words.--T. W. HIGGINSON.
Never be grandiloquent when you want to drive home a searching truth. Don’t whip with a switch that has the leaves on, if you want to tingle.--H. W. BEECHER.