of the desert, and suffering Extended on the burning sand in the the greatest pain from fever brought on by excessive fatigue and want of proper nourishment, I should have perished, had it not been for the extreme kindness and attention of my Arab guides. In the of these imminent and appalling dangers, he did not betray a sign of fear, but gave his orders with the same calmness and composure as usual. “ A station of life is within reach of those conveniences which the lower orders of mankind must necessarily want, and yet without embarrassment of greatness.' While is from the Saxon hwile, and signifies time. Whilst is a superlative form, or a more intensive degree of while, and is used for during the whole time. "I shall write while you work,” means that during the time that you are working, I shall occupy myself (perhaps occasionally) in writing. "I shall write whilst you work," means that during the whole time that you are occupied in working, I shall not cease from writing. Whilst is also used to mark a contrast or strong distinction between two things or actions. "Make your mirth whilst I bear my misery." [Hor. While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred. The two ruffians rushed out upon the traveller unawares; and having the other rifled his pock knocked him down, the one held his hands ets of his watch and money. How did these two men behave in the same circumstances? The one seized with a malicious joy the opportunity thus offered him of gratifying his revenge; the other, with a noble generosity, pardoned his enemics for those offences against him which he could have then so easily punished. we were all engaged in conversation, we heard some beautiful music under our windows, which was continued at intervals during the remainder of the evening. "Can he imagine that God sends forth an irresistible strength against somo sins; in others he allows men a power of repelling his grace?" Cæsar was at Rome, an insurrection broke out among his troops, who were too impatient to wait for the triumph, and the advantages they hoped to derive from it. SECTION IV. POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE SYNONYMES. ANOTHER principle by which we may frequently discover a difference between two approximating meanings, is where one term is positive, and the other negative; that is, where the first expresses some idea independently, and the second, the negation of another idea. The two verbs, to shun and to avoid, show a difference of this sort; to shun is positively to turn away from, to avoid is merely not to approach, or go in the way of. Between many approximating words, we shall have no difficulty in distinguishing, by the application of this test. The difference between unable and not able, inability and disability, and many others, becomes thus immediately clear. The two words have the same idea in common, but the one has a negative quality not found in the other, and thus a distinction can be made. The pairs of words treated in this section differ from each other in consequence of this principle. Despair-Hopelessness. Despair is positive; hopelessness is negative. spairs, once hoped, but has now lost his hope He who de The hopeless man may never have hoped; desperate is deprived of hope; hopeless is wanting hope. Affairs are said to be hopeless when their state is such as not to raise any hope of their being successful. An enterprise is said to be desperate when all hope is lost which we once entertained of its success. To be desperate, we must have previously hoped. [Hel. Oft expectation fails, and most oft there Where most it promises; and oft it hits, Where hope is coldest and despair most sits. All's Well, &c., ii. 1. Richard II., i. 3 K. Rich. The hopeless word of-never to return, Nor am I in the list of them that hope: Exercise. P. L, iv. 74. S. A., 648 WORDSWORTH. 'Dion. 'Lament of Mary, Queen of Scots.'] “In a part of Asia, the sick, when their case comes to be thought are carried out and laid on the earth, before they are dead, and left there." Are they indifferent, being used as signs of immoderate and entation for the dead? I am a man of lam fortunes, that is, a man whose friends are dead, for I never aimed at any other fortune than in friends. "The Eneans wish in vain their wanted chief, is the thought of the unattainableness of any good, which works differently in men's minds, sometimes producing uneasiness or pain, sometimes rest and indolence." of ransom, and condemned to lie In durance, doomed a lingering death to die." "We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in "Before the ships a stand they made, And fired the troops, and called the gods to aid." "[He] watches with greedy hope to find to circumvent us joined, where each Disability-Inability. Inability is a natural want of power to act; disability is a want of qualification. One who confesses his inability to account for some phenomenon, gives us to understand that nature has not endowed him with power to explain its cause. One who is disqualified, by reason of his nonage, from entering into a contract, labours under a legal disability. [Val. Leave off discourse of disability. Exercise. Two Gent. of Verona, ii. 4.] There are many questions which have baffled the most sagacious penetration of the human intellect, and which the deepest philosophy is to this day obliged to confess its to fathom. In the tenth and eleventh centuries, the Jews were persecuted in England with unrelenting cruelty, and even at this moment they labour under many legal in that country. He accepted, though much against his will, the office vacant by the death of the professor, as he could plead neither ignorance nor cuse for refusing it. as an ex The party on the other side grounded their hopes of success on the alleged of the plaintiff, and on the presumption that as he was a minor, he could not be a party to the contract in question. One who confesses his declares that he is not able to perform some action, or explain some question. He who labours under unable to enter into certain contracts or agréements. "It is not from in practice." Want of age is a legal is to discover what they ought to do, that men err to contract a marriage. This disadvantage which the Dissenters at present lie under, of a to receive church preferments, will be easily remedied by the repeal of the test. Disbelief-Unbelief. Unbelief is a want of belief; disbelief is an unwillingness or refusal to believe. I express my unbelief of what I am willing to believe, but am not convinced is true. I express my disbelief of what I have reason to think is false. Unbelief is open to conviction; disbelief is already convinced of the falseness of what it does not believe. Many men have The magistrate having heard the prisoner's story, expressed his unqualified of every word he had uttered, and turning to the clerk of the office, directed him immediately to make out his committal. Notwithstanding all the pretensions to the art of magic which this impostor so unblushingly asserted, few, even in those superstitious times, were so far deceived by his artifices as not to suspect him of fraud, and many even openly expressed their of the art he professed. It is well known that a firm faith in the power of magic is to this day common in all parts of the East; and a dangerous experiment would it be for any European traveller who, in the pride of his philosophy, should venture there publicly to express his in its agency. One of the most pernicious effects of a close acquaintance with the world is, that it renders us so familiar with the worst parts of human nature, as almost to lead to our in many good qualities which really exist among men. Freedom-Liberty. Freedom represents a positive-liberty, a negative quality. The former denotes a natural state; the latter, an exemption from bonds or slavery. Those who have never been slaves enjoy freedom; Those who are exempt from slavery enjoy liberty. Freedom supposes a right; liberty supposes a previous restraint. Freedom is the birthright of every Englishman. A prisoner who is set at liberty regains his freedom We are at liberty to speak on any subject we choose, but circumstances may prevent our speaking with freedom. [Bru. And, waving our red weapons o'er our heads, Let's all cry, Peace! Freedom! and Liberty! Julius Cæsar, iii. 1. Pro. Shortly shall all my labours end, and thou Shalt have the air at freedom Jaq. Withal, as large a charter as the wind Tempest, iv. 1. I must have liberty As You Like It, ïì. 7 To blow on whom I please The conquered also, and enslaved in war Shall, with their freedom lost, all virtue lose. P. L., xi. 798. |