thought or knowledge to communicate. For if a writer possesses any clear
thought or knowledge it will be his aim to communicate it, and he will
work with this end in view; consequently the ideas he furnishes are
everywhere clearly defined, so that he is neither diffuse, unmeaning,
nor confused, and consequently not tedious. Even if his fundamental idea
is wrong, yet in such a case it will be clearly thought out and well
pondered; in other words, it is at least formally correct, and the
writing is always of some value. While, for the same reason, a work that
is objectively _tedious_ is at all times without value. Again,
_subjective_ tediousness is merely relative: this is because the reader
is not interested in the subject of the work, and that what he takes an
interest in is of a very limited nature. The most excellent work may
therefore be tedious subjectively to this or that person, just as, _vice
vers�_, the worst work may be subjectively diverting to this or that
person: because he is interested in either the subject or the writer of
the book.

It would be of general service to German authors if they discerned that
while a man should, if possible, think like a great mind, he should
speak the same language as every other person. Men should use common
words to say uncommon things, but they do the reverse. We find them
trying to envelop trivial ideas in grand words and to dress their very
ordinary thoughts in the most extraordinary expressions and the most
outlandish, artificial, and rarest phrases. Their sentences perpetually
stalk about on stilts. With regard to their delight in bombast, and to
their writing generally in a grand, puffed-up, unreal, hyperbolical, and
acrobatic style, their prototype is Pistol, who was once impatiently
requested by Falstaff, his friend, to "say what you have to say, _like a
man of this world_!"[5]