On English Composition and Other Matters - Page 2

the symmetry of this world's arrangement, is always, if a fair one, interesting; every simile is amiss that leads the mind from the contemplation of its object to the contemplation of its author. This will apply equally to the heaping up of unnecessary illustrations: it is as great a fault to supply the reader with too many as with too few; having given him at most two, it is better to let him read slowly and think out the rest for himself than to surfeit him with an abundance of explanation. Hood says well,

And thus upon the public mind intrude it; As if I thought, like Otaheitan cooks, No food was fit to eat till I had chewed it.

A book that is worth reading will be worth reading thoughtfully, and there are but few good books, save certain novels, that it is well to read in an arm-chair. Most will bear standing to. At the present time we seem to lack the impassiveness and impartiality which was so marked among the writings of our forefathers, we are seldom content with the simple narration of fact, but must rush off into an almost declamatory description of them; my meaning will be plain to all who have studied Thucydides. The dignity of his simplicity is, I think, marred by those who put in the accessories which seem thought necessary in all present histories. How few writers of the present day would not, instead of [Greek text which cannot be reproduced] rather write, "Night fell upon this horrid scene of bloodshed." {1} This is somewhat a matter of taste, but I think I shall find some to agree with me in preferring for plain narration (of course I exclude oratory) the unadorned gravity of Thucydides. There are, indeed, some writers of the present day who seem returning to the statement of facts rather than their adornment, but these are not the most generally admired. This simplicity, however, to be truly effective must be unstudied; it will not do to write with affected terseness, a charge which, I think, may be fairly preferred against Tacitus; such a style if ever effective must be so from excess of artifice and not from that artlessness of simplicity which I should wish to see prevalent among us.

{1} This was called to my attention by a distinguished Greek scholar of this University.

Neither again is it well to write and go over the ground again with the pruning knife, though this fault is better than the other; to take care of the matter, and let the words take care of themselves, is the best safeguard.

To this I shall be answered, "Yes, but is not a diamond cut and polished a more beautiful object than when rough?" I grant it, and more valuable, inasmuch as it has run chance of spoliation in the cutting, but I maintain that the thinking man, the man whose thoughts are great and worth the consideration of others, will "deal in proprieties," and will from the mine of his thoughts produce ready-cut diamonds, or rather will cut them there spontaneously,