1. The Effect of Words on Thoughts.

When Lawrence Sterne exhorted all god-fathers not "to Nicodemus a man into nothing," he grasped an important principle of style ; namely, the force of implication, or what a word may suggest in distinction from what it includes. The influence of names on thoughts is almost magical. Their effect on the sen¬sibilities is so powerful that the author who has little • to say may lull the mind to soothing slumber by visions of dreamy beauty. The operations of the interpreting powers depend largely on the condition of the sensibili¬ties. A man enraptured by sweet music does not pause to work out a problem in the calculus ; and the reader whose sensibilities are touched by joy, love, hate, envy, anger, revenge, or the sense of beauty, is borne on the current of his emotions, and the fancy plays while the reason sleeps.