In acquiring an automatic habit, which technique should become, principles tend to crystallize into rules, and a few such I have; counsels of perfection many of these, too often unrealized. I do not like the same word repeated in the same paragraph, though this lays a heavy tax on so-called synonymes. Assonances jar me, even two terminations "tion" near together. I will not knowingly use "that" for "which," except to avoid two "whiches" between the same two periods. The split infinitive I abhor, more as a matter of taste than argument. I recognize that it is at times very tempting to snuggle the adverb so close to the verb; but I hold fast my integrity. Once, indeed, I took it into my head not to split compound tenses, and carried this fad somewhat remorselessly through a series of republished articles; but the result has not pleased me. Boswell tells us that Johnson would have none of "former" and "latter;" that he would rather repeat the noun than resort to this subterfuge. I see no good reason for rejecting these convenient alternatives; but nevertheless I have obsequiously bowed to the autocrat and taken a skunner to the words--the only literary snobbishness of which I am conscious. I can stand out against Macaulay's proscription of prepositions ending sentences. Although I generally twist them round, they often please my ear there. It is not exactly in point, but I have always rejoiced over "Silver was nothing accounted of" in the days of King Solomon; indeed, I was brought to book by a proofreader for concluding a sentence with "accounted of." I let it stand, so taking was it to me. The question doubtless occurs to most authors how far they are under bonds to the King's English. As to grammar, I submit; the consequences of anarchy dismay me; but I question whether in words coinage is an attribute of sovereignty. There is, of course, plenty of false money going around, current because accepted; but I think a man is at liberty to pass a new word, a word without authority in dictionaries, if it be congruous to standard etymology. I once wrote "eventless;" but, on looking, found it not. Yet why not? "Homeless," "heartless," "shoeless," etc.; why merely "uneventful," a form only one letter longer, it is true, but built up to "eventful" to be pulled down to "uneventful"? Besides, "uneventful" does not mean the same as "eventless." "Doubtless" and "undoubtedly" differ by more than a shade in sense, and we have both. So we have "anywhere," "nowhere," "somewhere," "everywhere;" why not "manywhere," if you need it? Again, if "hitherto" be good--and it is--why not "thitherto"? In the case of "eccentric" as a military term, I felt forced to frame "ex-centric;" the former--I ask Dr. Johnson's pardon--has, in America at least, become so exclusively associated with the secondary though cognate idea of singularity that it would not convey its restricted military significance to a lay reader.