It is easy to see, from these facts, what an obstacle the language of the savage presents to his civilization. Let us suppose a savage to possess extraordinary natural endowments, and to learn any one of the leading languages of Europe; is it not easy to see that he would find himself prepared for labor in departments of mental effort which had been before utterly inaccessible to him, and that he would feel that his powers had been cheated out of their action by this possession of only inferior tools? Hence the knowledge of words is not an elegant accomplishment only, not a luxury, but a positive necessity of the civilized and cultivated man. It is necessary not only to him who would express himself, but to him who would _think_, with precision and effect. There is, indeed, no higher proof of thorough and accurate culture than the fact that a writer, instead of employing words loosely and at hap-hazard, chooses only those which are the exact vesture of his thought. As he only can be called a well dressed man whose clothes exactly fit him, being neither small and shrunken, nor loose and baggy, so it is the first characteristic of a good style that the words fit close to the ideas. They will be neither too big here, hanging like a giant’s robe on the limbs of a dwarf, nor too small there, like a boy’s garments into which a man has painfully squeezed himself; but will be the exact correspondents and perfect exponents of his thought. Between the most synonymous words a careful writer will have a choice; for, strictly speaking, there are no synonyms in a language, the most closely resembling and apparently equivalent terms having some nice shade of distinction,--a fine illustration of which is found in Ben Jonson’s line, “Men may _securely_ sin, but _safely_ never”; and, again, in the reply with which Sydney Smith used to meet the cant about popular education in England: “Pooh! pooh! it is the worst _educated_ country in the world, I grant you; but it is the best _instructed_.” William Pitt was a remarkable example of this precision of style. Fox said of him: “Though I am myself never at a loss for a word, Pitt not only has _a_ word, but _the_ word,--the very word,--to express his meaning.” Robert Hall chose his words with a still more fastidious nicety, and he gave as one reason for his writing so little, that he could so rarely approach the realization of his own _beau-idéal_ of a perfect style. It is related of him that, when he was correcting the proofs of his sermon on “Modern Infidelity,” on coming to the famous passage, “Eternal God, on what are thine enemies intent? What are those enterprises of guilt and horror, that, for the safety of their performers, require to be enveloped in a darkness which the eye of Heaven must not penetrate?”--he exclaimed to his friend, Dr. Gregory: “_Penetrate!_ did I say _penetrate_, sir, when I preached it?” “Yes.” “Do you think, sir, I may venture to alter it? for no man who considers the force of the English language would use a word of three syllables there but from absolute necessity. For _penetrate_ put _pierce_: _pierce_ is the word, sir, and the only word, to be used there.”