The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson by Stephen Coleridge
page 7 of 149 (04%)
page 7 of 149 (04%)
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Inniskilling Dragoons, who, on their return from the Pole in
March, 1912, willingly walked to his death in a blizzard to try and save his comrades beset with hardship." All this was done, said, and written, very nobly by all concerned. In St. Paul's Cathedral there lies a recumbent effigy of General Gordon, who gave his life for the honour of England at Khartoum, and upon it are engraven these words:-- "He gave his strength to the weak, his substance to the poor, his sympathy to the suffering, his heart to God." Even the concentrated terseness of Latin cannot surpass these examples of the power of the simplest and shortest English sentences to penetrate to the heart. English can be used, by those who master it as an organ of expression, to convey deep emotion under perfect control, than which nothing is more moving, nothing better calculated to refine the mind, nothing more certain to elevate the character. Whenever a man has something fine to communicate to his fellow-men he has but to use English without affectation, honestly and simply, and he is in possession of the most splendid vehicle of human thought in the world. All the truly great writers of English speak with simplicity from their hearts, they all evince a spirit of unaffected reverence, they all teach us to look up and not down, and by the nobility of their |
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