Ingersoll: 'A purer, sweeter, or superior spirit seldom has departed. He
belonged to a peerage of which there are very few members.' We doubt not
this important record will obtain a wide recognition.
RAMBLES AMONG WORDS: their Poetry, History, and Wisdom. By
WILLIAM SWINTON. Revised Edition. New York: Dion Thomas, 142
Nassau street.
We are glad to welcome a new edition of this interesting book. Some
fifteen hundred illustrations of the Poetry, History, and Wisdom of
Words are presented to the reader in these pages, the greater number of
which have never before been etymologically analyzed. Mr. Swinton's
classifications are ingenious and suggestive. We have 'The Work of the
Senses, 'The Idealism of Words,' 'Fossil Poetries,' 'Fossil Histories,'
'Words of Abuse,' 'Growth of Words,' 'Verbal Ethics,' 'English in
America,' &c. Our author says: 'In the growth of Words all the
activities of the mind conspire. Language is the mirror of the living
inward consciousness. Language is concrete metaphysics. What rays does
it let in on the mind's subtile workings! There is more of what there is
of essential in metaphysics--more of the structural action of the human
mind, in Words, than in the concerted introspection of all the
psychologists.' And very skilfully has Mr. Swinton elicited the pregnant
meanings, the rich coloring, the 'concrete metaphysics,' the terrors,
delights, and wonders of words.
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