Style is the physiognomy of the mind, and a safer index to character
than the face. To imitate another man's style is like wearing a mask,
which, be it never so fine, is not long in arousing disgust and
abhorrence, because it is lifeless; so that even the ugliest living
face is better. Hence those who write in Latin and copy the manner of
ancient authors, may be said to speak through a mask; the reader, it
is true, hears what they say, but he cannot observe their physiognomy
too; he cannot see their _style_. With the Latin works of writers
who think for themselves, the case is different, and their style is
visible; writers, I mean, who have not condescended to any sort
of imitation, such as Scotus Erigena, Petrarch, Bacon, Descartes,
Spinoza, and many others. An affectation in style is like making
grimaces. Further, the language in which a man writes is the
physiognomy of the nation to which he belongs; and here there are many
hard and fast differences, beginning from the language of the Greeks,
down to that of the Caribbean islanders.
To form a provincial estimate of the value of a writer's productions,
it is not directly necessary to know the subject on which he has
thought, or what it is that he has said about it; that would imply
a perusal of all his works. It will be enough, in the main, to know
_how_ he has thought. This, which means the essential temper or
general quality of his mind, may be precisely determined by his style.
A man's style shows the _formal_ nature of all his thoughts--the
formal nature which can never change, be the subject or the character
of his thoughts what it may: it is, as it were, the dough out of which
all the contents of his mind are kneaded. When Eulenspiegel was asked
how long it would take to walk to the next village, he gave the
seemingly incongruous answer: _Walk_. He wanted to find out by the
man's pace the distance he would cover in a given time. In the same
way, when I have read a few pages of an author, I know fairly well how
far he can bring me.
Every mediocre writer tries to mask his own natural style, because in
his heart he knows the truth of what I am saying. He is thus forced,
at the outset, to give up any attempt at being frank or naïve--a
privilege which is thereby reserved for superior minds, conscious of
their own worth, and therefore sure of themselves. What I mean is that
these everyday writers are absolutely unable to resolve upon writing
just as they think; because they have a notion that, were they to do
so, their work might possibly look very childish and simple. For
all that, it would not be without its value. If they would only go
honestly to work, and say, quite simply, the things they have really
thought, and just as they have thought them, these writers would be
readable and, within their own proper sphere, even instructive.
But instead of that, they try to make the reader believe that their
thoughts have gone much further and deeper than is really the case.
They say what they have to say in long sentences that wind about in a
forced and unnatural way; they coin new words and write prolix periods
which go round and round the thought and wrap it up in a sort of
disguise. They tremble between the two separate aims of communicating
what they want to say and of concealing it. Their object is to dress
it up so that it may look learned or deep, in order to give people
the impression that there is very much more in it than for the moment
meets the eye. They either jot down their thoughts bit by bit, in
short, ambiguous, and paradoxical sentences, which apparently mean
much more than they say,--of this kind of writing Schelling's
treatises on natural philosophy are a splendid instance; or else
they hold forth with a deluge of words and the most intolerable
diffusiveness, as though no end of fuss were necessary to make the
reader understand the deep meaning of their sentences, whereas it is
some quite simple if not actually trivial idea,--examples of which
may be found in plenty in the popular works of Fichte, and the
philosophical manuals of a hundred other miserable dunces not worth
mentioning; or, again, they try to write in some particular style
which they have been pleased to take up and think very grand, a style,
for example, _par excellence_ profound and scientific, where the
reader is tormented to death by the narcotic effect of longspun
periods without a single idea in them,--such as are furnished in
a special measure by those most impudent of all mortals, the
Hegelians[1]; or it may be that it is an intellectual style they have
striven after, where it seems as though their object were to go crazy
altogether; and so on in many other cases. All these endeavors to put
off the _nascetur ridiculus mus_--to avoid showing the funny little
creature that is born after such mighty throes--often make it
difficult to know what it is that they really mean. And then, too,
they write down words, nay, even whole sentences, without attaching
any meaning to them themselves, but in the hope that someone else will
get sense out of them.
[Footnote 1: In their Hegel-gazette, commonly known as _Jahrbücher der
wissenschaftlichen Literatur_.]
And what is at the bottom of all this? Nothing but the untiring effort
to sell words for thoughts; a mode of merchandise that is always
trying to make fresh openings for itself, and by means of odd
expressions, turns of phrase, and combinations of every sort, whether
new or used in a new sense, to produce the appearence of intellect in
order to make up for the very painfully felt lack of it.
It is amusing to see how writers with this object in view will attempt
first one mannerism and then another, as though they were putting
on the mask of intellect! This mask may possibly deceive the
inexperienced for a while, until it is seen to be a dead thing, with
no life in it at all; it is then laughed at and exchanged for another.
Such an author will at one moment write in a dithyrambic vein, as
though he were tipsy; at another, nay, on the very next page, he will
be pompous, severe, profoundly learned and prolix, stumbling on in the
most cumbrous way and chopping up everything very small; like the late
Christian Wolf, only in a modern dress. Longest of all lasts the mask
of unintelligibility; but this is only in Germany, whither it was
introduced by Fichte, perfected by Schelling, and carried to its
highest pitch in Hegel--always with the best results.
And yet nothing is easier than to write so that no one can understand;
just as contrarily, nothing is more difficult than to express deep
things in such a way that every one must necessarily grasp them. All
the arts and tricks I have been mentioning are rendered superfluous if
the author really has any brains; for that allows him to show himself
as he is, and confirms to all time Horace's maxim that good sense is
the source and origin of good style:
_Scribendi recte sapere est et principium et fons_.
But those authors I have named are like certain workers in metal, who
try a hundred different compounds to take the place of gold--the only
metal which can never have any substitute. Rather than do that, there
is nothing against which a writer should be more upon his guard than
the manifest endeavor to exhibit more intellect than he really has;
because this makes the reader suspect that he possesses very little;
since it is always the case that if a man affects anything, whatever
it may be, it is just there that he is deficient.
That is why it is praise to an author to say that he is _naïve_; it
means that he need not shrink from showing himself as he is. Generally
speaking, to be _naïve_ is to be attractive; while lack of naturalness
is everywhere repulsive. As a matter of fact we find that every
really great writer tries to express his thoughts as purely, clearly,
definitely and shortly as possible. Simplicity has always been held to
be a mark of truth; it is also a mark of genius. Style receives its
beauty from the thought it expresses; but with sham-thinkers the
thoughts are supposed to be fine because of the style. Style is
nothing but the mere silhouette of thought; and an obscure or bad
style means a dull or confused brain.
The first rule, then, for a good style is that _the author should
have something to say_; nay, this is in itself almost all that is
necessary. Ah, how much it means! The neglect of this rule is a
fundamental trait in the philosophical writing, and, in fact, in
all the reflective literature, of my country, more especially since
Fichte. These writers all let it be seen that they want to appear as
though they had something to say; whereas they have nothing to say.
Writing of this kind was brought in by the pseudo-philosophers at the
Universities, and now it is current everywhere, even among the first
literary notabilities of the age. It is the mother of that strained
and vague style, where there seem to be two or even more meanings in
the sentence; also of that prolix and cumbrous manner of expression,
called _le stile empesé_; again, of that mere waste of words which
consists in pouring them out like a flood; finally, of that trick
of concealing the direst poverty of thought under a farrago of
never-ending chatter, which clacks away like a windmill and quite
stupefies one--stuff which a man may read for hours together without
getting hold of a single clearly expressed and definite idea.[1]
However, people are easy-going, and they have formed the habit of
reading page upon page of all sorts of such verbiage, without having
any particular idea of what the author really means. They fancy it is
all as it should be, and fail to discover that he is writing simply
for writing's sake.
[Footnote 1: Select examples of the art of writing in this style are
to be found almost _passim_ in the _Jahrbücher_ published at Halle,
afterwards called the _Deutschen Jahrbücher_.]
On the other hand, a good author, fertile in ideas, soon wins his
reader's confidence that, when he writes, he has really and truly
_something to say_; and this gives the intelligent reader patience to
follow him with attention. Such an author, just because he really has
something to say, will never fail to express himself in the simplest
and most straightforward manner; because his object is to awake the
very same thought in the reader that he has in himself, and no other.
So he will be able to affirm with Boileau that his thoughts are
everywhere open to the light of the day, and that his verse always
says something, whether it says it well or ill:
_Ma pensée au grand jour partout s'offre et s'expose,
Et mon vers, bien ou mal, dit toujours quelque chose_:
while of the writers previously described it may be asserted, in the
words of the same poet, that they talk much and never say anything at
all--_quiparlant beaucoup ne disent jamais rien_.
Another characteristic of such writers is that they always avoid a
positive assertion wherever they can possibly do so, in order to leave
a loophole for escape in case of need. Hence they never fail to choose
the more _abstract_ way of expressing themselves; whereas intelligent
people use the more _concrete_; because the latter brings things more
within the range of actual demonstration, which is the source of all
evidence.
There are many examples proving this preference for abstract
expression; and a particularly ridiculous one is afforded by the use
of the verb _to condition_ in the sense of _to cause_ or _to produce_.
People say _to condition something_ instead of _to cause it_, because
being abstract and indefinite it says less; it affirms that _A_ cannot
happen without _B_, instead of that _A_ is caused by _B_. A back door
is always left open; and this suits people whose secret knowledge of
their own incapacity inspires them with a perpetual terror of all
positive assertion; while with other people it is merely the effect of
that tendency by which everything that is stupid in literature or bad
in life is immediately imitated--a fact proved in either case by the
rapid way in which it spreads. The Englishman uses his own judgment in
what he writes as well as in what he does; but there is no nation of
which this eulogy is less true than of the Germans. The consequence
of this state of things is that the word _cause_ has of late almost
disappeared from the language of literature, and people talk only
of _condition_. The fact is worth mentioning because it is so
characteristically ridiculous.
The very fact that these commonplace authors are never more than
half-conscious when they write, would be enough to account for their
dullness of mind and the tedious things they produce. I say they are
only half-conscious, because they really do not themselves understand
the meaning of the words they use: they take words ready-made and
commit them to memory. Hence when they write, it is not so much words
as whole phrases that they put together--_phrases banales_. This is
the explanation of that palpable lack of clearly-expressed thought in
what they say. The fact is that they do not possess the die to give
this stamp to their writing; clear thought of their own is just
what they have not got. And what do we find in its place?--a vague,
enigmatical intermixture of words, current phrases, hackneyed terms,
and fashionable expressions. The result is that the foggy stuff they
write is like a page printed with very old type.
On the other hand, an intelligent author really speaks to us when he
writes, and that is why he is able to rouse our interest and commune
with us. It is the intelligent author alone who puts individual words
together with a full consciousness of their meaning, and chooses them
with deliberate design. Consequently, his discourse stands to that of
the writer described above, much as a picture that has been really
painted, to one that has been produced by the use of a stencil. In the
one case, every word, every touch of the brush, has a special purpose;
in the other, all is done mechanically. The same distinction may be
observed in music. For just as Lichtenberg says that Garrick's soul
seemed to be in every muscle in his body, so it is the omnipresence of
intellect that always and everywhere characterizes the work of genius.
I have alluded to the tediousness which marks the works of these
writers; and in this connection it is to be observed, generally, that
tediousness is of two kinds; objective and subjective. A work is
objectively tedious when it contains the defect in question; that is
to say, when its author has no perfectly clear thought or knowledge to
communicate. For if a man has any clear thought or knowledge in him,
his aim will be to communicate it, and he will direct his energies
to this end; so that the ideas he furnishes are everywhere clearly
expressed. The result is that he is neither diffuse, nor unmeaning,
nor confused, and consequently not tedious. In such a case, even
though the author is at bottom in error, the error is at any rate
clearly worked out and well thought over, so that it is at least
formally correct; and thus some value always attaches to the work. But
for the same reason a work that is objectively tedious is at all times
devoid of any value whatever.
The other kind of tediousness is only relative: a reader may find a
work dull because he has no interest in the question treated of in it,
and this means that his intellect is restricted. The best work may,
therefore, be tedious subjectively, tedious, I mean, to this or
that particular person; just as, contrarity, the worst work may be
subjectively engrossing to this or that particular person who has an
interest in the question treated of, or in the writer of the book.
It would generally serve writers in good stead if they would see that,
whilst a man should, if possible, think like a great genius, he should
talk the same language as everyone else. Authors should use common
words to say uncommon things. But they do just the opposite. We find
them trying to wrap up trivial ideas in grand words, and to clothe
their very ordinary thoughts in the most extraordinary phrases, the
most far-fetched, unnatural, and out-of-the-way expressions. Their
sentences perpetually stalk about on stilts. They take so much
pleasure in bombast, and write in such a high-flown, bloated,
affected, hyperbolical and acrobatic style that their prototype is
Ancient Pistol, whom his friend Falstaff once impatiently told to say
what he had to say _like a man of this world._[1]
[Footnote 1: _King Henry IV_., Part II. Act v. Sc. 3.]
There is no expression in any other language exactly answering to the
French _stile empesé_; but the thing itself exists all the more often.
When associated with affectation, it is in literature what assumption
of dignity, grand airs and primeness are in society; and equally
intolerable. Dullness of mind is fond of donning this dress; just as
an ordinary life it is stupid people who like being demure and formal.
An author who writes in the prim style resembles a man who dresses
himself up in order to avoid being confounded or put on the same level
with a mob--a risk never run by the _gentleman_, even in his worst
clothes. The plebeian may be known by a certain showiness of attire
and a wish to have everything spick and span; and in the same way, the
commonplace person is betrayed by his style.
Nevertheless, an author follows a false aim if he tries to write
exactly as he speaks. There is no style of writing but should have a
certain trace of kinship with the _epigraphic_ or _monumental_ style,
which is, indeed, the ancestor of all styles. For an author to write
as he speaks is just as reprehensible as the opposite fault, to speak
as he writes; for this gives a pedantic effect to what he says, and at
the same time makes him hardly intelligible.
An obscure and vague manner of expression is always and everywhere a
very bad sign. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred it comes from
vagueness of thought; and this again almost always means that there is
something radically wrong and incongruous about the thought itself--in
a word, that it is incorrect. When a right thought springs up in the
mind, it strives after expression and is not long in reaching it; for
clear thought easily finds words to fit it. If a man is capable of
thinking anything at all, he is also always able to express it
in clear, intelligible, and unambiguous terms. Those writers who
construct difficult, obscure, involved, and equivocal sentences, most
certainly do not know aright what it is that they want to say: they
have only a dull consciousness of it, which is still in the stage of
struggle to shape itself as thought. Often, indeed, their desire is to
conceal from themselves and others that they really have nothing at
all to say. They wish to appear to know what they do not know, to
think what they do not think, to say what they do not say. If a
man has some real communication to make, which will he choose--an
indistinct or a clear way of expressing himself? Even Quintilian
remarks that things which are said by a highly educated man are often
easier to understand and much clearer; and that the less educated
a man is, the more obscurely he will write--_plerumque accidit ut
faciliora sint ad intelligendum et lucidiora multo que a doctissimo
quoque dicuntur_.... _Erit ergo etiam obscurior quo quisque deterior_.
An author should avoid enigmatical phrases; he should know whether he
wants to say a thing or does not want to say it. It is this indecision
of style that makes so many writers insipid. The only case that offers
an exception to this rule arises when it is necessary to make a remark
that is in some way improper.
As exaggeration generally produces an effect the opposite of
that aimed at; so words, it is true, serve to make thought
intelligible--but only up to a certain point. If words are heaped up
beyond it, the thought becomes more and more obscure again. To find
where the point lies is the problem of style, and the business of the
critical faculty; for a word too much always defeats its purpose. This
is what Voltaire means when he says that _the adjective is the enemy
of the substantive_. But, as we have seen, many people try to conceal
their poverty of thought under a flood of verbiage.
Accordingly let all redundancy be avoided, all stringing together of
remarks which have no meaning and are not worth perusal. A writer must
make a sparing use of the reader's time, patience and attention; so as
to lead him to believe that his author writes what is worth careful
study, and will reward the time spent upon it. It is always better to
omit something good than to add that which is not worth saying at all.
This is the right application of Hesiod's maxim, [Greek: pleon aemisu
pantos][1]--the half is more than the whole. _Le secret pour
être ennuyeux, c'est de tout dire_. Therefore, if possible, the
quintessence only! mere leading thoughts! nothing that the reader
would think for himself. To use many words to communicate few thoughts
is everywhere the unmistakable sign of mediocrity. To gather much
thought into few words stamps the man of genius.
[Footnote 1: _Works and Days_, 40.]
Truth is most beautiful undraped; and the impression it makes is deep
in proportion as its expression has been simple. This is so, partly
because it then takes unobstructed possession of the hearer's whole
soul, and leaves him no by-thought to distract him; partly, also,
because he feels that here he is not being corrupted or cheated by the
arts of rhetoric, but that all the effect of what is said comes from
the thing itself. For instance, what declamation on the vanity of
human existence could ever be more telling than the words of Job? _Man
that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live and is full of
misery. He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it
were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay_.
For the same reason Goethe's naïve poetry is incomparably greater than
Schiller's rhetoric. It is this, again, that makes many popular songs
so affecting. As in architecture an excess of decoration is to be
avoided, so in the art of literature a writer must guard against all
rhetorical finery, all useless amplification, and all superfluity of
expression in general; in a word, he must strive after _chastity_ of
style. Every word that can be spared is hurtful if it remains. The law
of simplicity and naïveté holds good of all fine art; for it is quite
possible to be at once simple and sublime.
True brevity of expression consists in everywhere saying only what
is worth saying, and in avoiding tedious detail about things which
everyone can supply for himself. This involves correct discrimination
between what it necessary and what is superfluous. A writer should
never be brief at the expense of being clear, to say nothing of being
grammatical. It shows lamentable want of judgment to weaken the
expression of a thought, or to stunt the meaning of a period for the
sake of using a few words less. But this is the precise endeavor
of that false brevity nowadays so much in vogue, which proceeds by
leaving out useful words and even by sacrificing grammar and logic. It
is not only that such writers spare a word by making a single verb or
adjective do duty for several different periods, so that the reader,
as it were, has to grope his way through them in the dark; they also
practice, in many other respects, an unseemingly economy of speech,
in the effort to effect what they foolishly take to be brevity of
expression and conciseness of style. By omitting something that might
have thrown a light over the whole sentence, they turn it into a
conundrum, which the reader tries to solve by going over it again and
again.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note._--In the original, Schopenhauer here
enters upon a lengthy examination of certain common errors in the
writing and speaking of German. His remarks are addressed to his own
countrymen, and would lose all point, even if they were intelligible,
in an English translation. But for those who practice their German by
conversing or corresponding with Germans, let me recommend what he
there says as a useful corrective to a slipshod style, such as can
easily be contracted if it is assumed that the natives of a country
always know their own language perfectly.]
It is wealth and weight of thought, and nothing else, that gives
brevity to style, and makes it concise and pregnant. If a writer's
ideas are important, luminous, and generally worth communicating, they
will necessarily furnish matter and substance enough to fill out the
periods which give them expression, and make these in all their parts
both grammatically and verbally complete; and so much will this be
the case that no one will ever find them hollow, empty or feeble. The
diction will everywhere be brief and pregnant, and allow the thought
to find intelligible and easy expression, and even unfold and move
about with grace.
Therefore instead of contracting his words and forms of speech, let a
writer enlarge his thoughts. If a man has been thinned by illness and
finds his clothes too big, it is not by cutting them down, but by
recovering his usual bodily condition, that he ought to make them fit
him again.
Let me here mention an error of style, very prevalent nowadays,
and, in the degraded state of literature and the neglect of ancient
languages, always on the increase; I mean _subjectivity_. A writer
commits this error when he thinks it enough if he himself knows what
he means and wants to say, and takes no thought for the reader, who is
left to get at the bottom of it as best he can. This is as though the
author were holding a monologue; whereas, it ought to be a dialogue;
and a dialogue, too, in which he must express himself all the more
clearly inasmuch as he cannot hear the questions of his interlocutor.
Style should for this very reason never be subjective, but
_objective_; and it will not be objective unless the words are so set
down that they directly force the reader to think precisely the same
thing as the author thought when he wrote them. Nor will this result
be obtained unless the author has always been careful to remember that
thought so far follows the law of gravity that it travels from head to
paper much more easily than from paper to head; so that he must assist
the latter passage by every means in his power. If he does this, a
writer's words will have a purely objective effect, like that of a
finished picture in oils; whilst the subjective style is not much more
certain in its working than spots on the wall, which look like figures
only to one whose phantasy has been accidentally aroused by them;
other people see nothing but spots and blurs. The difference in
question applies to literary method as a whole; but it is often
established also in particular instances. For example, in a recently
published work I found the following sentence: _I have not written in
order to increase the number of existing books._ This means just the
opposite of what the writer wanted to say, and is nonsense as well.
He who writes carelessly confesses thereby at the very outset that he
does not attach much importance to his own thoughts. For it is only
where a man is convinced of the truth and importance of his thoughts,
that he feels the enthusiasm necessary for an untiring and assiduous
effort to find the clearest, finest, and strongest expression for
them,--just as for sacred relics or priceless works of art there are
provided silvern or golden receptacles. It was this feeling that led
ancient authors, whose thoughts, expressed in their own words, have
lived thousands of years, and therefore bear the honored title of
_classics_, always to write with care. Plato, indeed, is said to
have written the introduction to his _Republic_ seven times over in
different ways.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note._--It is a fact worth mentioning that
the first twelve words of the _Republic_ are placed in the exact order
which would be natural in English.]
As neglect of dress betrays want of respect for the company a man
meets, so a hasty, careless, bad style shows an outrageous lack of
regard for the reader, who then rightly punishes it by refusing to
read the book. It is especially amusing to see reviewers criticising
the works of others in their own most careless style--the style of
a hireling. It is as though a judge were to come into court in
dressing-gown and slippers! If I see a man badly and dirtily dressed,
I feel some hesitation, at first, in entering into conversation
with him: and when, on taking up a book, I am struck at once by the
negligence of its style, I put it away.
Good writing should be governed by the rule that a man can think only
one thing clearly at a time; and, therefore, that he should not be
expected to think two or even more things in one and the same moment.
But this is what is done when a writer breaks up his principal
sentence into little pieces, for the purpose of pushing into the gaps
thus made two or three other thoughts by way of parenthesis; thereby
unnecessarily and wantonly confusing the reader. And here it is again
my own countrymen who are chiefly in fault. That German lends itself
to this way of writing, makes the thing possible, but does not justify
it. No prose reads more easily or pleasantly than French, because, as
a rule, it is free from the error in question. The Frenchman strings
his thoughts together, as far as he can, in the most logical and
natural order, and so lays them before his reader one after the other
for convenient deliberation, so that every one of them may receive
undivided attention. The German, on the other hand, weaves them
together into a sentence which he twists and crosses, and crosses and
twists again; because he wants to say six things all at once, instead
of advancing them one by one. His aim should be to attract and hold
the reader's attention; but, above and beyond neglect of this aim, he
demands from the reader that he shall set the above mentioned rule at
defiance, and think three or four different thoughts at one and the
same time; or since that is impossible, that his thoughts shall
succeed each other as quickly as the vibrations of a cord. In this way
an author lays the foundation of his _stile empesé_, which is then
carried to perfection by the use of high-flown, pompous expressions to
communicate the simplest things, and other artifices of the same kind.
In those long sentences rich in involved parenthesis, like a box of
boxes one within another, and padded out like roast geese stuffed with
apples, it is really the _memory_ that is chiefly taxed; while it is
the understanding and the judgment which should be called into play,
instead of having their activity thereby actually hindered and
weakened.[1] This kind of sentence furnishes the reader with mere
half-phrases, which he is then called upon to collect carefully and
store up in his memory, as though they were the pieces of a torn
letter, afterwards to be completed and made sense of by the other
halves to which they respectively belong. He is expected to go on
reading for a little without exercising any thought, nay, exerting
only his memory, in the hope that, when he comes to the end of the
sentence, he may see its meaning and so receive something to think
about; and he is thus given a great deal to learn by heart before
obtaining anything to understand. This is manifestly wrong and an
abuse of the reader's patience.
[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note._--This sentence in the original is
obviously meant to illustrate the fault of which it speaks. It does
so by the use of a construction very common in German, but happily
unknown in English; where, however, the fault itself exists none the
less, though in different form.]
The ordinary writer has an unmistakable preference for this
style, because it causes the reader to spend time and trouble in
understanding that which he would have understood in a moment without
it; and this makes it look as though the writer had more depth and
intelligence than the reader. This is, indeed, one of those artifices
referred to above, by means of which mediocre authors unconsciously,
and as it were by instinct, strive to conceal their poverty of thought
and give an appearance of the opposite. Their ingenuity in this
respect is really astounding.
It is manifestly against all sound reason to put one thought obliquely
on top of another, as though both together formed a wooden cross. But
this is what is done where a writer interrupts what he has begun
to say, for the purpose of inserting some quite alien matter; thus
depositing with the reader a meaningless half-sentence, and bidding
him keep it until the completion comes. It is much as though a man
were to treat his guests by handing them an empty plate, in the hope
of something appearing upon it. And commas used for a similar purpose
belong to the same family as notes at the foot of the page and
parenthesis in the middle of the text; nay, all three differ only in
degree. If Demosthenes and Cicero occasionally inserted words by ways
of parenthesis, they would have done better to have refrained.
But this style of writing becomes the height of absurdity when the
parenthesis are not even fitted into the frame of the sentence, but
wedged in so as directly to shatter it. If, for instance, it is an
impertinent thing to interrupt another person when he is speaking, it
is no less impertinent to interrupt oneself. But all bad, careless,
and hasty authors, who scribble with the bread actually before their
eyes, use this style of writing six times on a page, and rejoice in
it. It consists in--it is advisable to give rule and example together,
wherever it is possible--breaking up one phrase in order to glue in
another. Nor is it merely out of laziness that they write thus. They
do it out of stupidity; they think there is a charming _légèreté_
about it; that it gives life to what they say. No doubt there are a
few rare cases where such a form of sentence may be pardonable.
Few write in the way in which an architect builds; who, before he
sets to work, sketches out his plan, and thinks it over down to its
smallest details. Nay, most people write only as though they were
playing dominoes; and, as in this game, the pieces are arranged half
by design, half by chance, so it is with the sequence and connection
of their sentences. They only have an idea of what the general shape
of their work will be, and of the aim they set before themselves.
Many are ignorant even of this, and write as the coral-insects build;
period joins to period, and the Lord only knows what the author means.
Life now-a-days goes at a gallop; and the way in which this affects
literature is to make it extremely superficial and slovenly.