become cold and commonplace, not by any number of rekindlings in men's
bosoms, but by out-of-door reflections without inward kindling. Saying
is the royal son of Seeing; but there is many a pretender to the
throne; and when these supposititious people usurp, age after age, the
honors that are not theirs, the throne and government are disgraced.

Truisms are corpses of truths; and statements are to be found in every
stage of approach to this final condition. Every time there is an
impotency or unreality in their enunciation, they are borne a step
nearer the sepulchre. If the smirking politician, who wishes to delude
me into voting for him, bid me his bland "Good-morning," not only does
he draw a film of eclipse over the sun, and cast a shadow on city and
field, but he throws over the salutation itself a more permanent
shadow; and were the words never to reach us save from such lips, they
would, in no long time, become terms of insult or of malediction. But
so often as the sweet greeting comes from wife, child, or friend, its
proper savors are restored. A jesting editor says that "You tell a
telegram" is the polite way of giving the lie; and it is quite possible
that his witticism only anticipates a serious use of language some
century hence. Terms and statements are perpetually saturated by the
uses made of them. Etymology and the dictionary resist effects in vain.
And as single words may thus be discharged of their lawful meaning, so
the total purport of words, that is, truths themselves, may in like
manner be disgraced. If the man of ordinary heart ostentatiously
patronize the maxims of perfect charity, if the traditional priest or
feeble pietist repeat the word _God_ or recite the raptures of
adoring bards, the sentences they maunder and the sentiments they belie
are alike covered with rust; and in due time some Shelley will turn
atheist in the interest of religion, and some Johnson in the interest
of morality aver that he writes for money alone.