profound insight of the masterpiece of the poet is required of him who would adequately utter the word indeed in the following passage of Othello! "It contains in it," says an English writer, "the gist of the chief action of the play, and it implies all that the plot develops. It ought to be spoken with such an intonation as to suggest the diabolic scheme of Iago's conduct. There is no thought of the grammatical structure of the compound, consisting of the preposition in and the substantive deed, which is equivalent to act, fact, or reality. All this vanishes and is lost in the mere iambic dissyllable which is employed as a vehicle for the feigned tones of surprise."

Iago. I did not think he had been acquainted with her.

Oth. O yes, and went between us very oft.

The

The English language is preeminently a language of small words. Its fondness for monosyllables is even stronger than that of the Anglo-Saxon. Not a few words of this class, such as the verbs to love, bake, beat, slide, swim, bind, blow, brew, were, in the Anglo-Saxon, dissyllables. English language cuts down its words to the narrowest possible limits, lopping and condensing, never expanding. Sometimes it cuts off an initial syllable, as in "gin" for "engine," "van" for "carryvan," "bus" for "omnibus," "'wig" for "periwig;" sometimes it cuts off a final syllable, or syllables, as in "aid" for "aid-de-camp," "prim" for "primitive," "grog" for "grogram," "pants" for "pantaloons," "tick" for (pawnbroker's) "ticket;" sometimes it strikes out a letter, or letters, from the middle

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of a word; as "last" for "latest,' lark" for "laverock," "since" for "sithence." Again, it contracts a word, as in "sent" for "sended," "built" for "builded," "chirp" for "chirrup" or "cheer up," "fag" for "fatigue," "consols" for "consolidated annuities," etc. In speaking, we clip our vowels shorter than any other people; Voltaire said that the English gained two hours a day by clipping their words. The same love of brevity has shown itself in rendering the final e in English always mute. In Chaucer the final e must often be sounded as a separate syllable, or the verse will limp. To the same cause we owe the hissing s, so offensive to foreign ears, and which has been compared to the sound of red-hot iron plunged in water. The old termination of the verb, th, has given way to s in the third person singular, and en to s in the third person plural.

The Anglo-Saxon, the substratum of our modern English, is emphatically monosyllabic; yet many of the grandest passages in our literature are made up almost exclusively of Saxon words. The English Bible abounds in grand, sublime, and tender passages, couched almost entirely in words of one syllable. The passage in Ezekiel, which Coleridge is said to have considered the sublimest in the whole Bible: "And he said unto me, son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, thou knowest," contains seventeen monosyllables to three others. What passage in Holy Writ surpasses in energetic brevity that which describes the death of Sisera,— "At her feet he bowed, he fell; at her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down; where he bowed, there he fell down dead"? Here are twenty-two monosyllables, to one dissyllable thrice repeated, and that a word which is usually

pronounced as a monosyllable. The lament of David over Saul and Jonathan is not surpassed in pathos by any similar passage in the whole range of literature; yet a very large proportion of these touching words are of one or two syllables:-"The beauty of Israel is slain upon the high places; how are the mighty fallen! . . Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew, neither let there be rain upon you, nor fields of offerings. . . Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided. They were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions. . . How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle! O Jonathan, thou wast slain in thine high places. I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women."

The early writers, the "pure wells of English undefiled," abound in small words. Shakspeare employs them in his finest passages, especially when he would paint a scene with a few masterly touches. Hear Macbeth:

"Here lay Duncan,

His silver skin laced with his golden blood;

And his gash'd stabs look'd like a breach in Nature
For ruin's wasteful entrance. There the murderers,
Steep'd in the colors of their trade, their daggers
Unmannerly breech'd with gore."

Are monosyllables passionless? Listen, again, to the "Thane of Cawdor":

"That is a step

On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap,
For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires,
Let not light see my black and deep desires.
The eye winks at the hand. Yet, let that be
Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see."

Two dissyllables only among fifty-two words!

Bishop Hall, in one of his most powerful satires, speaking of the vanity of "adding house to house and field to field," has these beautiful lines:

"Fond fool! six feet shall serve for all thy store,

And he that cares for most shall find no more."

"What harmonious monosyllables!" exclaims the critic, Gifford; yet they may be paralleled by others in the same writer, equally musical and equally expressive.

Was Milton tame? He knew when to use polysyllables of "learned length and thundering sound"; but he knew also when to produce the grandest effects by the small words despised by inferior artists. Read his account of the journey of the fallen angels:

"Through many a dark and dreary vale

They passed, and many a region dolorous,

O'er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp,

Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and shades of death,

A universe of death.

In what other language shall we find in the same number of words a more vivid picture of desolation than this? Hear, again, the lost archangel calling upon hell to receive its new possessor:

"One who brings

A mind not to be changed by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be-all but less than he
Whom thunder hath made greater? Here, at least,
We shall be free; the Almighty hath not built

Here for His envy; will not drive us hence;
Here we may reign secure, and, in my choice,
To reign is worth ambition, though in hell;
Better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven."

Did Byron lack force or fire? His skilful use of monosyllables is often the very secret of his charm. Listen to

the words in which he describes the destruction of Sennacherib:

"For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;
And the eyes of the sleepers wax'd deadly and chill,

And their hearts beat but once, and forever lay still."

Here, out of forty-three words, all but three are monosyllables; and yet how exquisitely are all these monosyllables linked into the majestic and animated movement of the anapestic measure! Again, what can be more musical and more melancholy than the opening verse of the lines in which the same poet bids adieu to his native land?

"Adieu! adieu! my native shore

Fades o'er the waters blue,

The night-winds sigh, the breakers roar,
And shrieks the wild sea-mew.

"Yon sun that sets upon the sea
We follow in his flight;
Farewell awhile to him and thee,
My native land, good night!"

"With thee, my bark, I'll swiftly go
Athwart the foaming brine;

Nor care what land thou bear'st me to,

So not again to mine.

"Welcome, welcome, ye dark blue waves!

And when you fail my sight,

Welcome, ye deserts and ye caves!

My native land, good night!"

Three Latin words, native, cave, and desert; one French, adieu; the rest, English purely. The third and fourth lines paint the scene to the life; yet all the words but one are monosyllables.

The following brief passage from one of Landor's poems strikingly illustrates the metrical effect of simple words of one syllable: