hat men
should not pretend to believe opinions which they really reject, or
express emotions they do not feel. And this rule is universal. Even
truthful and modest men will sometimes violate the rule under the
mistaken idea of being eloquent by means of the diction of eloquence.
This is a source of bad Literature. There are certain views in
Religion, Ethics, and Politics, which readily lend themselves to
eloquence, because eloquent men have written largely on them, and the
temptation to secure this facile effect often seduces men to advocate
these views in preference to views they really see to be more rational.
That this eloquence at second-hand is but feeble in its effect, does
not restrain others from repeating it. Experience never seems to teach
them that grand speech comes only from grand thoughts, passionate
speech from passionate emotions. The pomp and roll of words, the trick
of phrase, the rhytlnn and the gesture of an orator, may all be
imitated, but not his eloquence. No man was ever eloquent by trying to
be eloquent, but only by being so. Trying leads to the vice of "fine
writing"--the plague-spot of Literature, not only unhealthy in itself,
and vulgarising the grand language which should be reserved for great
thoughts, but encouraging that tendency to select only those views upon
which a spurious enthusiasm can most readily graft the representative
abstractions and stirring suggestions which will move public applause.
The "fine writer" will always prefer the opinion which is striking to
the opinion which is true. He frames his sentences by the ear, and is
only dissatisfied with them when their cadences are ill-distributed, or
their diction is too familiar. It seldom occurs to him that a sentence
should accurately express his meaning and no more; indeed there is not
often a definite meaning to be expressed, for the thought which arose
vanished while he tried to express it, and the sentence, instead of
being determined by and moulded on a thought, is determined by some
verbal suggestion. Open any book or periodical, and see how frequently
the writer does not, cannot, mean what he says; and you will observe
that in general the defect does not arise from any poverty in our
language, but from the habitual carelessness which allows expressions
to be written down unchallenged provided they are sufficiently
harmonious, and not glaringly inadequate.

The slapdash insincerity of modern style entirely sets at nought t