By a slight transposition,
natural enough to untrained organs, "doxology" became "socdollager."
We are not making a dictionary of Americanisms, but merely wandering a
little way into our native forests. We refer to the prevalent habit of
idiomatic speech as a fact that makes part of our literature. It cannot
be ignored, nor do we see how it is to be avoided. It is well, of
course, to retain the sterling classic basis of our speech as we
received it from abroad, and to this all that is best and purest in our
literature past and present will tend. But we hold to no Know-Nothing
platform which denies a right of naturalization to the worthy. As Ruskin
says of the river, that it does not make its bed, but finds it, seeking
out, with infinite pains, its appointed channel, so thought will seek
its expression, guided by its inner laws of association and sympathy. If
the mind and heart of a nation become barbarized, no classic culture can
keep its language from corruption. If its ideas are ignoble, it will
turn to the ignoble and vulgar side of every word in its tongue, it will
affix the mean sense it desires to utter where it had of old no place.
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