From Francis Bacon's essay *Of Studies* (1625). Select the word that fits the blank. "Studies serve for delight, for ______, and for ability. Their chief use for delight, is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment, and disposition of business."

Bacon's triplet — *delight, ornament, ability* — is then unpacked one phrase at a time in the next sentence: "for delight, is in privateness… for **ornament**, is in discourse… for ability, is in the judgment." The structure of the following sentence telegraphs the missing term. "Profit" would make sense in isolation but is contradicted by the second sentence, which uses *ornament*. "Vanity" and "consolation" don't appear in Bacon's gloss. **Ornament** here carries its early-modern sense of *adornment of discourse* — the decorative use of learning in conversation, distinct from its merely practical use.