and I found myself reviving a boyish memory of a passage in Abbott's
_Life of Napoleon_ dealing with Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt and
narrating the attacks of the Mamelukes, when the order was given to
form squares with '_savans_ and asses in the center'.

An otherwise fine passage of Ruskin's has always been spoilt for me by
the wilful incursion of two French words, which seem to me to break the
continuity of the sentence: 'A well-educated gentleman may not know many
languages; may not be able to speak any but his own; may have read very
few books. But whatever language he knows, he knows precisely; whatever
word he pronounces, he pronounces rightly; above all, he is learned in
the peerage of words; knows the words of true descent and ancient blood
at a glance from words of modern _canaille_; remembers all their
ancestry, their intermarriages, distantest relationships, and the extent
to which they were admitted, and offices they hold, among the national
_noblesse_ of words, at any time and in any country.' Are not _canaille_
and _noblesse_ distracting? Do they not interrupt the flow? Do they not
violate what Herbert Spencer aptly called the Principle of Economy of
Attention, which he found to be the basis of all the rules of rhetoric?

Since I have made one quotation from Ruskin, I am emboldened to make two
from Spencer, well known as his essay on 'Style' ought to be:--'A reader
or listener has at each moment but a limited amount of mental power
available. To recognize and interpret the symbols presented to him,
requires part of his power; to arrange and combine the images suggested
requires a further part; and only that part which remains can be used
for realizing the thought conveyed. Hence, the more time and attention
it takes to receive and understand each sentence, the less time and
attention can be given to the contained idea; and the less vividly will
that idea be conceived.'--'Carrying out the metaphor that language is