e Atlantic it is universally heard and written.
There the word "autumn" is almost unknown; and though there is a dignity
in the Latin word ennobled by our orators and poets, there is no one
with a sense of style who will not applaud the choice of America.

But if she may take a lawful pride in "fall," America need not boast the
use of "gotten." The termination, which suggests either wilful archaism
or useless slang, adds nothing of sense or sound to the word. It is like
a piece of dead wood in a tree, and is better lopped off. Nor does the
use of "bully" prove a wholesome respect for the past. It is true that
our Elizabethans used this adjective in the sense of great or noble.
"Come," writes Ben Jonson in "The Poetaster," "I love bully Horace."
{*} But in England the word was never of universal application, and was
sternly reserved for poets, kings, and heroes. In modern America there
is nothing that may not be "bully" if it meet with approval. "A bully
place," "a bully boat," "a bully blaze,"--these show how far the word
has departed from its origin. Nor, indeed, does it come down from
English in an unbroken line. Overlooked for centuries, it was revived
(or invented) in America some fifty years ago, and it is not to Dekker
and Ben Jonson that we must look for palliation of its misuse.

* Innumerable examples might be culled from the literature
of the seventeenth century. One other will suffice here,
taken from Dekker's "Shoemaker's Holiday ": "Yet I'll
shave it off," says the shoemaker, of his beard, "and stuff
a tennis-ball with it, to please my bully king."

Words have their fates. By a caprice of fortune one is taken, another
is left. This is restricted to a narrow use; that wanders free over
the plain of meaning. And thus we may explain many of the variations
of English and of American speech. A simple word crosses the ocean and
takes new tasks upon itself. The word "parlour," for instance, is dying
in our midst, while "parlor" gains a fresh vigour from an increasing
and illegitimate employment. Originally a room in a religious house, a
parlour (or parloir) became a place of reception or entertainment. Two
centuries ago an air of elegance hung about it. It suggested spinnets
and powdered wigs. And then, as fashion turned to commonness, the
parlour grew stuffy with disuse, until it is to-day the room reserved
for a vain display, consecrated to wax-flowers and framed photographs,
hermetica