expression, 'palmy.' It will,
of course, be immediately recognized as being from the 'palm' tree; that
is to say, _palm-abounding_. And what visions of orient splendor does it
bear with it, wafting on its wings the very aroma of the isles of the
blest--[Greek: makaron nesoi]--or

'Where the gorgeous East, with richest hand,
Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold!'

It bears us away with it, and we stand on that sun-kissed land

'Whose rivers wander over sands of gold,'

with a houri lurking in every 'bosky bourne,' and the beauteous palm,
waving its umbrageous head, at once food, shade, and shelter.

The palm being to the Oriental of such passing price, we can easily
imagine how he would so enhance its value as to make it the type of
everything that is prosperous and glorious and 'palmy,' the _beau-ideal_
of everything that is flourishing. Hear what Sir Walter Raleigh says on
this subject: 'Nothing better proveth the excellency of this soil than
the abundant growing of the _palm trees_ without labor of man. _This
tree alone giveth unto man whatsoever his life beggeth at nature's
hand._'

'Paradise,' too, is oriental in all its associations. It is [Greek:
paradeisos],[8] that is, a _park_ or _pleasure ground_, in which sense
it is constantly employed by Xenophon, as every weary youth who has
_parasanged_ it with him knows. By the LXX it was used in a metaphorical
sense for the garden of Eden:

'The glories we have known,
And that imperial palace whence we came;'

but a still loftier meaning did it acquire when the Christ employed it
as descriptive of the splendors of the 'better land'--of the glories and
beauties of the land Beulah.

But, look out, fellow strollers, for we are off in a tangent!

What a curiously humble origin has 'literature,' contrasted with the
magnitude of its present import. It is just 'litteral'--_letters_ in
their most primitive sense; and [Greek: grammata] is nought other. Nor
can even all the pomposity of the 'belles-lettres' carry us any farther
than the very fine 'letters' or _litteral_; while even Solomon So-so may
take courage when he reflects (provided Solomon be ever guilty of
reflecting) that the 'literati' have 'literally' nothing more profound
about them than the knowledge of their 'letters.' The Latins were
prolific in words of this kind; thus they had the _literatus_ and the
_literator_--making some such discrimination between them as we do
between