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"Hence the language of symbolism, being so purely a language of ideas, is, in one respect, more perfect than any ordinary language can be: it possesses the variegated elegance of synonymes without any of the obscurity which arises from the use of ambiguous terms." On the Prophecies, ii. p. 63.
And again he says, the inquiry is to be conducted 'stripped of all circumstances of climate, locality, etc. The error into which our critic has fallen, in this case, undoubtedly resulted in part from the unfortunate confounding of the words Philosophy and Science, which pervades the Positive System. Philosophy and Science are not, in any proper use of the terms, synonymes.
Never buy the first edition of Soule's Synonymes because it is cheap, but insist upon the revised and enlarged edition of 1892. Never acquire an antiquated Lempriere's or Anthon's Classical Dictionary, because some venerable library director, who used it in his boyhood, suggests it, when you can get Professor H. T. Peck's "Dictionary of Classical Antiquities," published in 1897.
* The delicate reader will appreciate the omission of certain articles for which English synonymes are forbidden. A Frenchwoman never grows old. "Will you write me up?" The scene was near Temple Bar. The speaker was the famous rebel Mary McGillup, a young girl of fragile frame, and long, lustrous black hair.
As, for instance, should I say in French, 'la lettre que je vous ai ECRIT', or, 'la lettre que je vous ai ECRITE'? in which, I think, the French differ among themselves. There is a short French grammar by the Port Royal, and another by Pere Buffier, both which are worth your reading; as is also a little book called 'Les Synonymes Francois.
These collateral associations are the cause why there are so few exact synonymes; and why the dictionary meaning, or Definition, is so bad a guide to its uses, as compared with its history, since the latter explains the law of the succession by showing the causes which determined the successive uses. Two counter-movements are always going on in language.
The chief cause of the misapprehension which has so long existed with regard to the point under consideration is that the language of the aborigines of Australia abounds in synonymes, many of which are, for a time, altogether local; so that, for instance, the inhabitants of a particular district will use one word for water, whilst those of a neighbouring district will apply another, which appears to be a totally different one.
W. Taylor's recent volume of synonymes I have not yet seen ; but his specification of the terms in question has been clearly shown to be both insufficient and erroneous by Mr. Wordsworth in the Preface added to the late collection of his Poems. The explanation which Mr. Wordsworth has himself given, will be found to differ from mine, chiefly, perhaps as our objects are different.
The love of God, the love of country, the love of family, the love of friends, were phrases of the same sort, delicate and convenient synonymes for the love of self. Thinking thus of mankind, Charles naturally cared very little what they thought of him. Honour and shame were scarcely more to him than light and darkness to the blind.
Especially do not indulge any fantastic preference for either Latin or Anglo-Saxon, the two great wings on which our magnificent English soars and sings; we can spare neither. The combination gives an affluence of synonymes and a delicacy of discrimination such as no unmixed idiom can show.
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