cellence. Now if you will recall our
further conclusion, that writing to be good must be persuasive (since
persuasion is the only true intellectual process), and will test this by
a passage of Newman's I am presently to quote to you, from his famous
'definition of a gentleman,' I think you will guess pretty accurately the
general law of excellence I would have you, as Cambridge men, tribally
and particularly obey.

Newman says of a gentleman that among other things:

He is never mean or little in his disputes, never takes unfair
advantage, never mistakes personalities or sharp sayings for arguments,
or insinuates evil which he dare not say out.... If he engages in
controversy of any kind, his disciplined intellect preserves him from
the blundering discourtesy of better perhaps, but less educated minds;
who, like blunt weapons, tear and hack instead of cutting clean, who
mistake the point in argument, waste their strength on trifles,
misconceive their adversary, and leave the question more involved than
they found it. He may be right or wrong in his opinion: but he is too
clear-sighted to be unjust. He is simple as he is forcible, and as
brief as he is decisive.

Enough for the moment on this subject: but commit these words to your
hearts, and you will not only triumph in newspaper controversy. You will
do better: you will avoid it.

To proceed.--We found further that our writing should be _accurate_:
because language expresses thought--is, indeed, the only expression of
thought--and if we lack the skill to speak precisely, our thought will
remain confused, ill-defined. The editor of a mining paper in Denver,
U.S.A., boldly the other day laid down this law, that niceties of
language were mere 'frills': all a man needed was to 'get there,' that
is, to say what he wished in his own way. But just here, we found, lies
the mischief. You will not get there by hammering away on your own
untutored impulse. You must first be your own reader, chiselling out the
thought definitely for yourself: and, after that, must carve out the
intaglio yet more sharply and neatly, if you would impress its image
accurately upon the wax of other men's minds. We found that even for Men
of Science this neat clean carving of words was a very necessary
accomplishment. As Sir James Barrie once observed, 'The Man of Science
appears to be the only man who has something to say, just now--and the
only man who does not know how to