it is just there that he is deficient.

That is why it is praise to an author to say that he is _naive_; it
means that he need not shrink from showing himself as he is. Generally
speaking, to be _naive_ 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 empese_; 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 _Jahrbuecher_ published at Halle,
afterwards called the _Deutschen Jahrbuecher_.]

On the other