"All mounted volunteers and all determined to fight, judging from myself, for I felt wolfish all over. I verily believe that the whole army was of the real grit." Is _felt wolfish all over_ a fine phrase? Is it an expressive phrase? What was to be judged from himself--that all were determined to fight, or that the whole army was of the real grit? Does the fact that Crockett felt wolfish all over show that he was determined to fight, or that he had real grit? What is the literal meaning of _grit_? What does it mean as Crockett uses it here? Is it proper to use the word as Crockett uses it? Probably it is not worth while to push this critical study any farther. It will be seen by this time that Crockett wrote as he talked, and accordingly, his story lacks the polish and literary beauties that men trained to write could have given it. _The Impeachment of Warren Hastings_ (Volume IX, page 32) Words are interesting things, and people who have never tried the experiment will be surprised to learn how much pleasure there is to be found in the use of the dictionary. We consult the dictionary only when we wish to know the meaning of a word, or its pronunciation, but there are numberless other facts in the volume that are more interesting, if not more valuable, than the definitions and marks of pronunciation. In the history and derivation of words may be found many interesting and surprising facts which, if they are known, give increased force and meaning to the words. There is a great difference among writers in the kinds of words they use. Some naturally use simple words of Anglo-Saxon origin, while others use longer and more sonorous words which come from the Latin and the Greek. It is interesting to take paragraphs from different writers, say, for instance, from Hawthorne, Lamb, Longfellow, Tennyson, Macaulay and Irving, make a list of the leading words in the paragraphs, and then look up their derivations and see how many Anglo-Saxon, how many Latin and how many Greek words are found in each paragraph. It will be seen that it is a characteristic of Macaulay to use numerous many-syllabled words, most of which come directly from the Latin. His essay on the _Impeachment of Warren Hastings_ shows this trait. Probably that furnishes as good an illustration as anything in the books of the kind of literature from which studies in words may best be made. Taking two paragraphs at random, let us look them over and see what interesting facts may be gleaned from the dictionary concerning the words we find: