But it does not always require verbal infelicity to produce a "Thing one would rather have expressed differently." The mere misplacement of a comma will do it. A distinguished graduate of Oxford determined to enter the Nonconformist ministry, and, quite unnecessarily, published a manifesto setting forth his reasons and his intentions. In his enumeration of the various methods by which he was going to mark his aloofness from the sacerdotalism of the Established Church, he wrote; "I shall wear no clothes, to distinguish me from my fellow-Christians." Need I say that all the picture-shops of the University promptly displayed a fancy portrait of the newly fledged minister clad in what Artemus Ward called "the scandalous style of the Greek slave," and bearing the unkind inscription--"The Rev. X.Y.Z. distinguishing himself from his fellow-Christians"? If a comma too much brought ruin into Mr. Z.'s allocution, a comma too little was the undoing of a well-remembered advertisement. "A PIANO for sale by a lady about to leave England in an oak case with carved legs." An imperfect sympathy with the prepossessions of one's environment may often lead the unwary talker to give a totally erroneous impression of his meaning. Thus the Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford once brought an Indian army chaplain to dine at the high table of Oriel, and in the common room after dinner the Fellows courteously turned the conversation to the subject of life and work in India, on which the chaplain held forth with fluency and zest. When he had made an end of speaking, the Professor of Anglo-Saxon, who was not only a very learned scholar but also a very devout clergyman, leaned forward and said, "I am a little hard of hearing, sir, but from what I could gather I rejoice to infer that you consider the position of an army chaplain in India a hopeful field." "Hopeful field indeed," replied the chaplain; "I should rather think so! You begin at £400 a year." A too transparent honesty which reveals each transient emotion through the medium of suddenly chosen words is not without its perils. None that heard it could ever forget Norman Macleod's story of the Presbyterian minister who, when he noticed champagne-glasses on the dinner-table, began his grace, "Bountiful Jehovah!" but, when he saw only claret-glasses, subsided into, "We are not worthy of the least of Thy mercies." I deny the right of Bishop Wilberforce in narrating this story in his diary to stigmatize this good man as "gluttonous." He was simply honest, and his honesty led him into one of those "Things one would rather have expressed differently." But, however expressed, the meaning would have been the same, and equally sound.