You have carried the study of individuals farther. You have come to know
words inside and out. Such knowledge not only assists you in your dealings
with your contemporaries; it illuminates for you great literature of the
past that otherwise would remain obscure. How much keener, for example, is
your understanding of Shakespeare's passage on the Seven Ages of Man
because of your thorough acquaintance with the single word
_pantaloon_! How quickly does the awe for big words slip from you
when you perceive that _precocious is_ in origin the equivalent of
_half-baked!_ What intimacy of insight into words you feel when you
find that a _companion is_ a _sharer of one's bread_! What a
linking of language with life you discover when you learn the original
signification of _presently_, of _idiot_, of _rival_, of
_sandwich_, of _pocket handkerchief_! And what revelations as
into a mystic fraternalism with words do you obtain when you confront
such a phrase as "the bank _teller_" or "cut to the _quick"!
_Not only have words become more like living beings to you; you have
learned to think of them in relations analogous to the human. You can
detect the blood kinship, for example, between _prescribe_ and
_manuscript_, and know that the strain of _fact_ or fie or fy in
a word is pretty sure to betoken making or doing.
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