' At last, wearied out, he retorted one day:
'Wal, Dr. B., I guess ef I was to leave the _nots_ out o' some o' the
c'man'ments, 't'ould soot you full ez wal!'
If I had taken the pains to write down the proverbial or pithy phrases I
have heard, or if I had sooner thought of noting the Yankeeisms I met
with in my reading, I might have been able to do more justice to my
theme. But I have done all I wished in respect to pronunciation, if I
have proved that where we are vulgar, we have the countenance of very
good company. For, as to the _jus et norma loquendi_, I agree with
Horace and those who have paraphrased or commented him, from Boileau to
Gray. I think that a good rule for style is Galiani's definition of
sublime oratory,--'l'art de tout dire sans etre mis a la Bastille dans
un pays ou il est defendu de rien dire.' I profess myself a fanatical
purist, but with a hearty contempt for the speech-gilders who affect
purism without any thorough, or even pedagogic knowledge of the
engendure, growth, and affinities of the noble language about whose
_mesalliances_ they profess (like Dean Alford) to be so solicitous.
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