the most drastic changes," she says, "as well as for the most scrupulous and anxious preservation of our existing resources all over the world. I want Greek; I want Chaucer; I want Esperanto, or rather its worthier successor, when that shall appear. I want the Zulu clicks." She wants in vain. All the wishing in the world will not extend the boundaries of speech. No man by taking thought shall add new or old words to our tongue. It is our sternest obligation to obey the rules of the game. If it makes the task of expression more difficult, it makes it also better worth accomplishing.

It is, then, by a proper use of words, and by the assurance that they who hear them have learned to understand, that language may be made expressive. But at all hazards the personal element of style and speech must be guarded. No good can come of compelling a uniformity of language. There is no worse danger than the danger of a standard. Two men of genius in the history of the world have welded their speech into a perfect instrument of expression Cicero and Voltaire. No writers of prose have ever been more lucid, more highly polished, more gravely sonorous when they wished sonority, than these, and no writers have inflicted heavier injuries upon their mother-tongues in the follies of their disciples. What the worship of Cicero did for Latin, when Latin was a spoken and written speech, has been demonstrated by

Erasmus. Swathed in the clothes provided for it by the genius of Cicero, it became lifeless and mummified, and to-day it exists only in the exercises of anxious schoolboys. Yet its example was not lost to the modern world, and much of the dead formality of English prose is still due to the tyranny of Ciceronianism. The influence of Voltaire may be more easily detected. It lies like a blight upon French literature. The freedom of Rabelais and Bossuet is no longer the heritage of France. All men believe that they can write because they have learned to imitate Voltaire. And thus we find a vast amount of printed matter untouched by individuality expert and meaningless, which has all the appearance of literature and is not.

our true

"The nearest nearest approach," says Lady Welby, "to the mastery, which is our birthright, was achieved in what we call the classical era." That is perfectly true, and it points the way to salvation. The proper use and understanding of language are to be sought and will be found in the intelligent, not the slavish, study of Greek and Latin. These two tongues-the wisest vehicles of expression ever fashioned by human intelligence are the origin and should be the model of our speech. They possess in the highest degree all those elements of accuracy and precision of which our more loosely constructed languages are deprived. Their elaborate inflections, their stern syntax,

teach those who learn them a lesson in economy of speech which no modern language can impart. They who, in obedience to the old curriculum now passing away, spent some years in converse with Greek and Latin, gained a clear perception of the use of words, even if they forgot every line of Virgil and Euripides that they had committed to memory, and were thus the richer by one piece of knowledge which they could not otherwise have obtained. By a foolish paradox the determination to suppress Greek and Latin in our schools coincides with a general desire to attain a nicer sense of expression in our own language, and we shall not be wholly conscious of the debt which our living speech owes to the languages which are called dead until we have lost them.

One proof of our inexpressiveness in speaking and writing is the careless use of ridiculous and meaningless words. A kind of fashion imposes upon us for a while a set of absurd symbols. For some years the journalist, thinking the verb "to be" not good enough for his high purpose, substituted for it the monstrosity "materialise."

"The event did not materialise," he wrote, with the pride of one who is doing his work well. And now that "materialise" has become somewhat stale, the word of his choice is "adumbrate," which may mean, in his facile hands, almost everything except that to which its etymology and classic usage entitles it. The

same love of fashion inspires the ready writer to speak of an author's "output"-a barbarous indignity-and to note what he is pleased to call the "trend" of everything. But even now he has not scaled the height of folly attained by his French colleague, who, in defiance of sense and significance, uses the word "avatar" when he means no more than an accident.

Another result of contemning the classics is a confusion of imagery. "Our metaphors," says Lady Welby, "are divorced from our facts." Worse than this, they are inextricably mixed. They resemble not a picture, but a composite photograph of inconsistent objects. Here again is a fault which the study of Latin and Greek might correct. At this very moment a discussion is active in France concerning the ancient tongues. To write good French, says M. Barrès, it is necessary to learn Latin and Greek. We are of M. Barrès' opinion, and would extend his argument to the writing of good English. With perfect justice the French critics have pitched upon the mixture of metaphors as the worst sign of unstudied speech. Even M. Barrès himself, the champion of the dead languages and an Academician, is not faultless. He is, for instance, guilty of the following courageous sentence: "The silver altar is less brilliant than this stone, frozen by burning kisses." More greatly daring, he has told us that "Venice has her caprices but

ON the morning of the Coronation London was transformed into a vast theatre. Wherever the procession was to pass, the fronts of houses were changed to tier upon tier of boxes. The streets were like armed camps. Everywhere the lines were held by quiet, wellordered troops. As you crossed the Park, if you were fortunate enough to gain entrance, you saw the white tents of the soldiers glimmering in the morning sun, as though for joust or tourney. The patience and forethought of the crowd were perfect. It was the pose of every one to help the progress of his neighbour. On all sides were loyalty and goodnature. It was difficult not to feel pride in a people, which at this moment of poignant feeling could bear itself with so benign a composure. The Coronation of George V., in truth, demands a new chapter in the Psychology of the Crowd.

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As I went to the Abbey there was no disorder, no discomfort. All had but one object in view,

to see their King pass to his Crowning. None could attain this object at the expense of his fellow. It was a unique experience of good-humour and amiable bearing. And the restraint of the throng must not be taken as a sign of apathy. The excitement of the people was as keen as its forbearance was admirable. The whole city watched its monarch. There was no space which lacked an eager spectator. "You would have thought,' in Shakespeare's noble words, "the very windows spoke "

"So many greedy looks of young and old Through casements darted their desiring eyes

Upon his visage; and that all the walls

With painted imagery, had said at once, 'Jesu, preserve thee.""

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The scene in the Abbey was scene of dignified magnificence. All was arranged for the great ceremony of the Coronation. It was with difficulty that the spectator disengaged the familiar architecture. The grouped pillars

at the crossing still soared to the roof. The rest of the Church was swathed in the suits of pomp and rejoicing The carpet of deep blue which covered the floor was relieved by the brilliant hues of the East. The uniforms of scarlet

and gold, the white dresses of the ladies, made a background of vivid splendour. Hither and thither moved the high officers of State. The regalia are carried from the Altar in solemn procession. The Bishops ranged themselves in what was called the Theatre. The Peers took their places in the South Transept. Then a long pause, and as the time of waiting grew from minutes to hours, we felt not the tedium of delay. To gaze upon this setting of vivid and various colour was sufficient for curiosity. We would not, if we could, have hastened the opening of the drama. At last there are the sounds of martial music. The trumpets blare, the drums beat, and the Procession of the Queen enters with measured solemnity. Seven ladies hold the Queen's embroidered train, and follow her footsteps up the nave, until she reaches her seat in the Theatre. The organ plays, "I was glad when they said unto me, We will go into the house of the Lord." And the King follows the Queen to his place in the Choir.

Thus began the profoundly religious service of the crowning of the King. In one sense it was a pageant, as all processions are pageants, to whatever end and with whatever purpose they are made.

No

spectator could help admiring the splendid spectacle unfolded before his eyes. It is true that every effect was rehearsed. Without rehearsal it would have been plainly impossible to

perform the high ceremonial. But in the pageant there was nothing theatrical. In every gesture, in every movement, there was a sincere intensity of aim which could not but seize upon the imagination of us all. We were confronted, not by a dramatic representation, but by a real experience of human life. The King and Queen, the Archbishops and Bishops, the mighty officers of State, the Earl Marshal, the Lord Great Chamberlain and the rest, were all living personages, performing such duties as were prescribed them a thousand years ago; and as we watched their gestures, and heard the beautiful words which their presences evoked, we felt that we, one and all, were taking our part too in this august ceremonial of Kingship.

As the King entered all was in readiness. The simple words of the service suggested that no step in the preparation had been neglected. "In the morning upon the day of the Coronation early," thus it runs, "care is to be taken that the Ampulla be filled with Oil and, together with the Spoon, be laid ready upon the Altar in the Abbey Church." Then there followed a series of historical pictures, old yet familiar, simple yet grandiose. As we looked upon them we lost all sense of time, and kept a very vivid memory of the place in which we sat. We might have been thrust back into the fourteenth century. We saw and heard nothing which we might not have seen and heard in this same Church of