Nor will it do to cite your
examples from deceased authors. You cannot do so without assailing
some form of expression which an eager, listening enemy is himself
in the habit of using, and is waiting for you to take up, and
through which he hopes to bring you to shame.
No man, moreover, can perform the process without taking on airs
which rouse his victim to madness, because he assumes a position not
only of grammatical, but, as we have said, of social superiority. He
says plainly enough, no matter how polite or scientific he may try
to seem, "I was better born and bred than you, and acquired these
correct turns of expression, of which you know nothing, from
cultivated relatives;" or, "I live in cultivated circles, and am
consequently familiar with the best usage, which you, poor fellow!
are not. I am therefore able to decide this matter without argument
or citations, and your best course is to take my corrections in
silence or with thankfulness." It is easy to understand how all
interest in orthography, etymology, syntax, and prosody speedily
disappears in a controversy of this sort, and how the disputants
begin to burn with mutual dislike, and how each longs to inflict
pain and anguish on his opponent, and make him, no matter by what
means, an object of popular pity and contempt, and make his parts of
speech odious and ridiculous.
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