As for the graces of expression,
a great thought is never found in a mean dress; but though it
proceed from the lips of the Woloffs, the nine Muses and the
three Graces will have conspired to clothe it in fit phrase. Its
education has always been liberal, and its implied wit can endow
a college. The world, which the Greeks called Beauty, has been
made such by being gradually divested of every ornament which was
not fitted to endure. The Sibyl, "speaking with inspired mouth,
smileless, inornate, and unperfumed, pierces through centuries by
the power of the god." The scholar might frequently emulate the
propriety and emphasis of the farmer's call to his team, and
confess that if that were written it would surpass his labored
sentences. Whose are the truly _labored_ sentences? From the
weak and flimsy periods of the politician and literary man, we
are glad to turn even to the description of work, the simple
record of the month's labor in the farmer's almanac, to restore
our tone and spirits. A sentence should read as if its author,
had he held a plough instead of a pen, could have drawn a furrow
deep and straight to the end.
Pages:
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168