could not pay ; all right, better luck next time. If
he was thoroughly competent and honest he could ob-
tain credit anywhere, twice as much as before. But
if he was a mean man, if he had resorted to any
trick, or subterfuge, or had attempted to cover any
cunning; or if he was low in his ideas, grovelling in
his tastes, close-fisted and contemptible, a mangy dog
were better than he.
As in other abnormal accomplishments, so in pro- fanity, the miner aimed at the highest excellence. The ordinary insipid swearing he scorned, and so in- vented new terms of blasphemy befitting his more exalted ideas. Since the days of Cain God was never so cursed. Profanity was adopted as a fine art, and practised with the most refined delicacy and tact. From morning till night men mouthed their oaths and then swallowed them. The language of blas- phemy, with its innumerable dialects and idioms, de- veloped into a new tongue, which displayed great depth and variety, with delicate shades befitting the idiosyncrasies of individual swearers. The character of the man was nowhere more clearly defined than in the quality and quantity of his oaths; one who could not or would not swear was scarcely a man at all, and but little better than a pious hypocrite or a woman. Among the most cultivated blasphemers, who made swearing a study, euphony was first of all regarded; and this was effected by alliteration, an adjective followed by a substantive both beginning with the same letter. The style though studied might be of the simple or florid cast, but it was sure to be both orio-inal and eflective.
Not that all men swore, or that all the swearing of the world during this epoch was done here ; I only claim that it was here original, if not abnormal and artistic.
Oaths have their mood and tense and number, their individuality, and nationality. There is th
