their thoughts that are said to be fine because of their style. Style is
merely the silhouette of thought; and to write in a vague or bad style
means a stupid or confused mind.

Hence, the first rule--nay, this in itself is almost sufficient for a
good style--is this, _that the author should have something to say_. Ah!
this implies a great deal. The neglect of this rule is a fundamental
characteristic of the philosophical, and generally speaking of all the
reflective authors in Germany, especially since the time of Fichte. It
is obvious that all these writers wish _to appear_ to have something to
say, while they have nothing to say. This mannerism was introduced by
the pseudo-philosophers of the Universities and may be discerned
everywhere, even among the first literary notabilities of the age. It is
the mother of that forced and vague style which seems to have two, nay,
many meanings, as well as of that prolix and ponderous style, _le stile
empes�_; and of that no less useless bombastic style, and finally of
that mode of concealing the most awful poverty of thought under a babble
of inexhaustible chatter that resembles a clacking mill and is just as
stupefying: one may read for hours together without getting hold of a
single clearly defined and definite idea. The _Halleschen_, afterwards
called the _Deutschen Jahrb�cher_, furnishes almost throughout excellent
examples of this style of writing. The Germans, by the way, from force
of habit read page after page of all kinds of such verbiage without
getting any definite idea of what the author really means: they think it
all very proper and do not discover that he is writing merely for the
sake of writing. On the other hand, a good author who is rich in ideas
soon gains the reader's credit of having really and truly _something to
say_; and this gives the intelligent reader patience to follow him
attentively. An author of this kind will always express himself in the
simplest and most direct manner, for the very reason that he really has