No More Learning

Sent for the doctor. Called into requisition
the services of the family
physician.

The mayor of the The chief magistrate
city in a short of the metropolis, in well-
speech welcomed. chosen and eloquent
language, frequently
interrupted by the
plaudits of the
surging multitude,
officially tendered the
hospitalities.

I shall say a few I shall, with your
words. permission, beg
leave to offer
some brief observations.

Began his answer. Commenced his rejoinder.

Asked him to dine. Tendered him a banquet.

A bystander advised. One of those omnipresent
characters who, as if
in pursuance of some
previous arrangement,
are certain to be
encountered in the
vicinity when an accident
occurs, ventured
the suggestion.

He died. He deceased, he passed
out of existence, his
spirit quitted its
earthly habitation,
winged its way to
eternity, shook off
its burden, etc.

In one sense this is nothing new.
The school of Pope in verse ended by
wire-drawing its phrase to such thinness that it could bear no weight of
meaning whatever. Nor is fine writing by any means confined to America.
All writers without imagination fall into it of necessity whenever they
attempt the figurative. I take two examples from Mr. Merivale's 'History
of the Romans under the Empire,' which, indeed, is full of such. 'The
last years of the age familiarly styled the Augustan were singularly
barren of the literary glories from which its celebrity was chiefly
derived. One by one the stars in its firmament had been lost to the
world; Virgil and Horace, etc. , had long since died; the charm which the
imagination of Livy had thrown over the earlier annals of Rome had
ceased to shine on the details of almost contemporary history; and if
the flood of his eloquence still continued flowing, we can hardly
suppose that the stream was as rapid, as fresh, and as clear as ever. ' I
will not waste time in criticising the bad English or the mixture of
metaphor in these sentences, but will simply cite another from the same
author which is even worse. 'The shadowy phantom of the Republic
continued to flit before the eyes of the Caesar. There was still, he
apprehended, a germ of sentiment existing, on which a scion of his own
house, or even a stranger, might boldly throw himself and raise the
standard of patrician independence. ' Now a ghost may haunt a murderer,
but hardly, I should think, to scare him with the threat of taking a new
lease of its old tenement. And fancy the _scion_ of a _house_ in the act
of _throwing itself_ upon a _germ of sentiment_ to _raise a standard! _ I
am glad, since we have so much in the same kind to answer for, that this
bit of horticultural rhetoric is from beyond sea. I would not be
supposed to condemn truly imaginative prose. There is a simplicity of
splendor, no less than of plainness, and prose would be poor indeed if
it could not find a tongue for that meaning of the mind which is behind
the meaning of the words.