One result of words being used euphemistically is that they often cease to have their milder original meaning, and cease therefore to seem euphemistic at all. _Vile_, which now means everything that is bad, is in its literal and earlier use merely "cheap." _Base_, which has the meaning of unutterable meanness, is literally merely "low." _Mercenary_ is not exactly a complimentary description now. It means that a person thinks far too much of money, but originally it merely meant "serving for pay," a thing which most men are obliged to do. _Transgression_ is generally used now to describe some rather serious offence, but it literally means only a "stepping across." The "step" which it describes being, however, in the wrong direction, the word has come to have a more and more serious meaning. The study of euphemisms can teach us much about men's thoughts and manners in the past and the present. CHAPTER XIX. THE MORAL OF THESE STORIES. Most stories have a moral. At least grown-up people have a habit of tacking a little lesson on to the end of the stories they tell to children. And as a rule the children will listen to the moral for the sake of the story. And so even the stories which words tell us have their lessons for us too, and, let us hope, the stories are sufficiently interesting to pay for the moral. One thing that these stories must have shown us is that the English language is a very ancient and wonderful thing. We have only been able to get mere glimpses of its wonderful development since the days when the ancestors of the peoples of Europe and many of the peoples of India spoke the one Aryan tongue. All the history of Europe and of India--we might almost say of the world--is contained in the languages which have descended from that Aryan tongue. Another point which these stories have impressed upon us is that language is a kind of mirror to thought. For every new idea people must find a word, and as ideas change words change with them. These stories have given us some idea of the wonderful growth of ideas in the minds of men in the past; they have shown us men daring all dangers for the sake of adventure and discovery and for pride of country; they have shown us the growth of new ideas of religion and kindness, new notions about science and learning: in fact, they have given us glimpses of the whole story of human progress. The great lesson which these stories ought to teach us is respect for words. Seeing as we do what a beautiful and wonderful thing the English language has become, it ought to be the resolution of each one of us never to do anything to spoil that beauty. Every writer ought to choose his words carefully, neither inventing nor copying ugly forms of speech. We have seen also from these stories, especially in the chapter on "Slang," how people have misused certain words, until speakers and writers of good taste can no longer use them in their original sense, and therefore do not use them at all.