altiloquent talker may be called a _word-fancier_, searching for all
the fine words discoverable, and then putting them together in a sort of
mosaic-pavement style or artificial-flower order, making something to be
considered _pretty_, or _fascinating_, or _profound_.

"Was it not beautiful?" asked Miss Bunting of Mr. Crump, after hearing
one of these talkers. "Did you ever hear anything like it?"

"No, I did not," answered Mr. Crump, "and I do not wish to hear anything
like it again. Too much like a flourishing penman, Miss Bunting, who
makes more of his flourishes than of his sense, and which attract the
reader more than his communication."

"But was he not very deep, Mr. Crump?"

"No, Miss Bunting, he was not deep. You remind me of an occasion some
time past when reading a book of an altiloquent style. A friend of mine
asked, 'Is it not deep?' I answered, 'Not deep, but drumlie.' The
drumlie often looks deep, and is liable to deceive; but it is shallow,
as shallow as a babbling brook, as shallow as the beauty of the rose or
the human countenance. Sometimes you may think you have a pearl; but it
is only a dewdrop into which a ray of light has happened to fall. Such
kind of talk, wherever it may be, is only like the aurora-borealis, or
like dissolving views which for the moment please. But you know, Miss
Bunting, it is the light of the sun that makes the day, and it is
substantial food that feeds and strengthens.

"Balloons are very good things for rising in the air and floating over
people's heads; but they are worthless for practical use in the stirring
and necessary activities of life. Gew-gaws are pretty things to call
forth the wonder of children and ignorant gazers; but the judicious pass
them with an askant look and careless demeanour. A table well spread
with fine-looking artificial flowers and viands may be nice for the eye,
but who can satisfy his hunger and thirst with them? Thus it is with
your altiloquent talkers, Miss Bunting. They give you, as a rule, only
the tinsel, the varnish, the superficial, which vanishes into thin
nothing under your analysis of thought or your reflection of intelligent
light."

XXVI.

_THE DOUBLE-TONGUED._

"Think'st thou there are no serpents in the world
But those who slide along the glassy sod,
And sting the luckless foot that presses them?
There are who in the path of social life
Do bask their spotted skins in fortune's sun,
And