tune._

'Absurd uses with _chief_, &c.: _The chief protagonist is a young
Nonconformist minister. / Unlike a number of the leading protagonists
in the Home Rule fight, Sir Edward Carson was not in Parliament
when.... / It presents a spiritual conflict, centred about its two
chief protagonists, but shared in by all its characters._

'Absurd plural uses: _One of the protagonists of that glorious fight
for Parliamentary Reform in 1866 is still actively among us. / One
of these immense protagonists must fall, and, as we have already
foreshadowed, it is the Duke. / By a tragic but rapid process of
elimination most of the protagonists have now been removed. / As on
a stage where all the protagonists of a drama assemble at the end of
the last act. / That letter is essential to a true understanding of
the relations of the three great protagonists at this period. / The
protagonists in the drama, which has the motion and structure of a
Greek tragedy_ (Fy! fy!--a Greek tragedy and protagonists?).

'Confusions with _advocate_, &c.: _The new Warden is a strenuous
protagonist of that party in Convocation. / Mr ----, an enthusiastic
protagonist of militant Protestantism. / The chief protagonist on
the company's side in the latest railway strike, Mr ----. / It was a
happy thought that placed in the hands of the son of one of the great
protagonists of Evolution the materials for the biography of another.
/ But most of the protagonists of this demand have shifted their
ground. / As for what the medium himself or his protagonists may think
of them--for etymological purposes that is neither here nor there._

'Perhaps we need not consider the Greek scholar's feelings; he
has many advantages over the rest of us, and cannot expect that in
addition he shall be allowed to forbid us a word that we find useful.
Is it useful? or is it merely a pretentious blundering substitute for
words that are useful? _Pro-_ in _protagonist_ is not the opposite of
_anti-_; _-agonist_ is not the same as in _antagonist_; _advocate_
and _champion_ and _defender_ and _combatant_ are better words for the
wrong senses given to _protagonist_; and _protagonist_ in its right
sense of _the_ (not _a_) chief actor in an affair has still work to do
if it could only be allowed to mind its own business.'

* * * * *

AMERICAN APPRECIATION

We are glad to reprint the following short extracts from the _New York
Times Book Review and Magazi