Occasionally it is the dullness of the reader, but oftener
the obtuseness of the writer.
A strong vigorous writer is not obscure--at any rate, not habitually
so; never leaves his reader in doubt, or compels him to mount the
lever and help to raise his burden; but clutches it in his mighty
grasp and hurls it into the air, so that it is not only unencumbered
by the soil that gave it birth, but is wholly detached and relieved,
and set off against the clear blue of his imagination. His thought
is not like a rock propped up but still sod-bound, but is like a
rock held aloft, or built into a buttress, with definite shape and
outline.
Let me next quote from "A Thought on Culture," which appeared in
the same publication a little later, and which is the first to
bear his signature:--
In the conduct of life a man should not show his knowledge, but his
wisdom; not his money--that were vulgar and foolish--but the result
of it--independence, courage, culture, generosity, manliness, and
that noble, humane, courteous air which wealth always brings to the
right sort of a man.
A display of mere knowledge, under most circumstances, is pedantry;
an exercise of wisdom is always godlike. We cannot pardon the absence
of knowledge, but itself must be hid. We can use a thing without
absolutely showing it, we can be reasonable without boring people
with our logic, and speak correctly without parsing our sentences.
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