THE POWER OF SIMPLICITY:
The Bible, Franklin, Lincoln.
We have all heard that the simplest style is the strongest; and no doubt
most of us have wondered how this could be, as we turned over in our
minds examples of what seemed to us simplicity, comparing them with the
rhetorical, the lofty, and the sublime passages we could call to mind.
Precisely this wonder was in the minds of a number of very well
educated people who gathered to attend the dedicatory exercises of the
Gettysburg monument, and Abraham Lincoln gave them one of the very finest
illustrations in the whole range of the world's history, of how simplicity
can be stronger than rhetoric. Edward Everett was the orator of the day,
and he delivered a most polished and brilliant oration. When he sat down
the friends of Lincoln regretted that this homely countryman was to be
asked to “say a few words,” since they felt that whatever he might say
would be a decided anticlimax. The few words that he did utter are the
immortal “Gettysburg speech,” by far the shortest great oration on record.
Edward Everett afterward remarked, “I wish I could have produced in two
hours the effect that Lincoln produced in two minutes.” The tremendous
effect of that speech could have been produced in no other way than by the
power of simplicity, which permits the compression of more thought into a
few words than any other style-form. All rhetoric is more or less windy.
The quality of a simple style is that in order to be anything at all it
must be solid metal all the way through.
The Bible, the greatest literary production in the world as atheists and
Christians alike admit, is our supreme example of the wonderful power
of simplicity, and it more than any other one book has served to mould
the style of great writers. To take a purely literary passage, what could
be more affecting, yet more simple, than these words from Ecclesiastes?
From “Ecclesiastes.”
Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days
come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no
pleasure in them; while the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the
stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain: In the day
when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall
bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those
that look out of the windows be darkened; and the doors shall be shut
in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise
up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of music shall be
brought low; also when they shall be afraid of that which is high,
and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and
the grasshoppers shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man
goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets: Or ever
the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher
be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. Then shall
the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto
God who gave it.
This is the sort of barbaric poetry that man in his natural and original
state might be supposed to utter. It lacks the nice logic and fine
polish of Greek culture; indeed its grammar is somewhat confused. But
there is a higher logic than the logic of grammar, namely the logic of
life and suffering. The man who wrote this passage had put a year of
his existence into every phrase; and that is why it happens that we can
find here more phrases quoted by everybody than we can even in the best
passage of similar length in Shakspere or any other modern writer.
We see in proverbs how by the power of simplicity an enormous amount of
thought can be packed into a single line. Some of these have taken
thousands of years to grow; and because so much time is required in the
making of them, our facile modern writers never produce any. Their
fleeting epigrams appear to be spurious coin the moment they are
placed side by side with Franklin's epigrams, for instance. Franklin
worked his proverbs into the vacant spaces in his almanac during a
period of twenty-five years, and then collected all those proverbs
into a short paper entitled, “The Way to Wealth.” It may be added,
also, that he did not even originate most of these sayings, but only
gave a new stamp to what he found in Hindu and Arabic records. For all
that, Poor Richard's Almanac is more likely to become immortal than even
Franklin's own name and fame.
The history of Bacon's essays is another fine example of what simplicity
can effect in the way of greatness. These essays were originally
nothing more than single sentences jotted down in a notebook, probably
as an aid to conversation. How many times they were worked over we have
no means of knowing; but we have three printed editions of the essays,
each of which is immensely developed from what went before.
In reading the following lines from Franklin, let us reflect that not
less than a year went to the writing of every phrase that can be called
great; and that if we could spend a year in writing a single sentence,
it might be as well worth preserving as these proverbs. Some men have
been made famous by one sentence, usually because it somehow expressed
the substance of a lifetime.
From “Poor Richard's Almanac.”
Father Abraham stood up and replied, “If you would have my advice, I will
give it you in short; _for a word to the wise is enough, and essay words
won't fill a bushel,_ as POOR RICHARD says.”
They all joined him and desired him to speak his mind; and gathering them
around him, he proceeded as follows:
Friends, says he, and neighbors! The taxes are indeed very heavy; and if
those laid on by the Government were the only ones we had to pay, we might
the more easily discharge them; but we have many others, and much more
grievous to some of us. We are taxed twice as much by our idleness,
three times as much by our Pride, and four times as much by our Folly;
and from these taxes the Commissioners cannot ease or deliver us by
allowing an abatement. However, let us hearken to good advice, and
something may be done for us, _God helps them that helps themselves,_ as
POOR RICHARD says in his _Almanac_ of 1733. It would be thought a hard
government that should tax its people one tenth part of their time, to be
employed in its service. But idleness taxes many of us much more; if we
reckon all that is spent in absolute sloth, or doing of nothing; with that
which is spent in idle employments or amusements that amounts to nothing.
Sloth, by bringing on disease, absolutely shortens life. Sloth,
_like Rust, consumes faster than Labor_ wean; while _the used keg
is always bright,_ as POOR RICHARD says. _But dost thou love Life?
Then do_ not _squander time_! for _that's the stuff Life is made of,_
as POOR RICHARD says.
How much more time than is necessary do we spend in sleep? forgetting that
the _sleeping fox catches no poultry;_ and that _there will be sleeping
enough in the grave, as_ POOR RICHARD says.
If Time be of all things the most precious, wasting _of Time must be_
(as POOR RICHARD says) _the greatest prodigality;_ and since, as he
elsewhere tells us, _Lost time is never found again;_ and _what we_ call
Time enough! always proves little enough, let us then up and be doing,
and doing to the purpose: so, by diligence, shall we do more with less
perplexity. _Sloth makes all things difficult, but Industry all things
easy,_ as POOR RICHARD says: and _He_ that _riseth late, must trot all
day; and shall scarce overtake his business at night. While Laziness
travels so slowly, that Poverty soon over-takes him, as we read in_ POOR
RICHARD who adds, _Drive thy business! Let not that drive thee_! and
_Early to bed and early to rise,
Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise_.
As Franklin extracted these sayings one by one out of the Arabic and
other sources, in each case giving the phrases a new turn, and as Bacon
jotted down in his notebook every witty word he heard, so we will make
reputations for ourselves if we are always picking up the good things
of others and using them whenever we can.
THE GETTYSBURG SPEECH
By Abraham Lincoln.
Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this
continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a
great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived
and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield
of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a
final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation
might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot
hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here,
have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The
world will little note, nor long remember, what we, say here, but it can
never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be
dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have
thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to
the great task remaining before us,―that from these honored dead we take
increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure
of devotion,―that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have
died in vain,―that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of
freedom,―and that government of the people, by the people, for the people,
shall not perish from the earth.