There is no expression in any other language exactly answering to the
French _stile empesé_; but the thing itself exists all the more often.
When associated with affectation, it is in literature what assumption
of dignity, grand airs and primeness are in society; and equally
intolerable. Dullness of mind is fond of donning this dress; just as
an ordinary life it is stupid people who like being demure and formal.

An author who writes in the prim style resembles a man who dresses
himself up in order to avoid being confounded or put on the same level
with a mob--a risk never run by the _gentleman_, even in his worst
clothes. The plebeian may be known by a certain showiness of attire
and a wish to have everything spick and span; and in the same way, the
commonplace person is betrayed by his style.

Nevertheless, an author follows a false aim if he tries to write
exactly as he speaks. There is no style of writing but should have a
certain trace of kinship with the _epigraphic_ or _monumental_ style,
which is, indeed, the ancestor of all styles. For an author to write
as he speaks is just as reprehensible as the opposite fault, to speak
as he writes; for this gives a pedantic effect to what he says, and at
the same time makes him hardly intelligible.

An obscure and vague manner of expression is always and everywhere a
very bad sign. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred it comes from
vagueness of thought; and this again almost always means that there is
something radically wrong and incongruous about the thought itself--in
a word, that it is incorrect. When a right thought springs up in the
mind, it strives after expression and is not long in reaching it; for
clear thought easily finds words to fit it. If a man is capable of
thinking anything at all, he is also always able to express it