The Mistaken Critic, or a Discourse on the Word (23-24)

Does it not, then, fit such a man to a hair to call him nefandous? But why in the name of Zeus should you take it upon yourselfto kiss us after such performances? In so doing you behave very offensively, especially to those who ought least of all to be so treated, your pupils, for whom it would have been enough to get only those other horrid boons from your lips—barbarity of language, harshness of voice, indistinctness,

confusedness, complete tunelessness, and the like, but to kiss you—forfend it, Averter of Ill! Better kiss an asp or a viper; then the risk is a bite and a pain which the doctor cures when you call him. But from the venom of your kiss, who could approach victims or altars? What god would listen to one’s prayer? How many bowls of holy water, how many rivers are required?

And you, who are of that sort, laughed at others in the matter of words and phrases, when you were doing such terrible deeds! For my part, had I not known the word nefandous, I should have been ashamed, so far am I from denying that I used it. In your own case, none of us criticised you for saying “bromologous” and “tropomasthletes” and “to rhesimeter,” and “Athenio,” and “anthocracy” and “sphendicise” and “‘cheiroblime.”[*] May Hermes, Lord of Language, blot you out miserably, language and all, for the miserable wretch that you are! Where in literature do you find these treasures? Perhaps buried somewhere in the closet of some composer of dirges, full of mildew and spiders’ webs, or from the Tablets of Philaenis,[*] which you keep in hand. For you, however, and for your lips they are quite good enough.