What's In A Word

Theodore Tilton wrote in his Memorial to Elizabeth Barrett Browning the following:

She knew the true art of choosing words. The rule to use Saxon words instead of Latin is easy to give and hard to follow: nor is it always the best rule, though it is generally. Words are instruments of music: an ignorant man uses them for jargon, but when a master touches them they have unexpected life and soul. Some words sound out like drums; some breathe memories sweet as flutes; some call like a clarionet; some shout a charge like trumpets; some are as sweet as children's talk; others rich as a mother's answering back. The words which have universal power are those that have been keyed and chorded in the great orchestral chamber of the human heart. Some words touch as many notes at a stroke as when an organist strikes ten fingers upon a keyboard. There are single words which contain life-histories; and to hear them spoken is like the ringing of chimes. He who knows how to touch and handle skillfully the home-words of his mother-tongue, need ask nothing of style. No finer instance of this skill is found in the whole realm of good English, out of Shakespeare, than in the writings of Mrs. Browning, particularly in those which pay homage to the affections.

What's in a word?

My husband says letters. Thud.