Selective Tendencies, etc.
“He had a good chance to succeed,” in fine, his venture was hopeful of success—it might have succeeded—the hazard was less than the probability of success. I can not see why the sentence would be better with opportunity in the place of chance. The same sensitive critic (Bierce) condemns chivalrous as “archaic, stilted, and fantastic.” Why not relegate the word mother to the limbo of the “archaic,” as a term too old-fashioned and too elastic to be tolerated in this precise and refined age?
“In climbing one ascends.” Very well. It is true that one way of ascending is by climbing; and there are as many ways of descending, plus one, as there are of ascending. If one has reached an altitude by climbing and if he declines to tumble and if he wishes to descend by reversing his method of ascending, why should he not be permitted to climb down—and to say so if it please him? Whatever may be said against this colloquialism, this surely may be said. in its favor: it is descrip-
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