No food was fit to eat till I had chewed it.


A book that is worth reading will be worth reading thoughtfully, and
there are but few good books, save certain novels, that it is well
to read in an arm-chair. Most will bear standing to. At the
present time we seem to lack the impassiveness and impartiality
which was so marked among the writings of our forefathers, we are
seldom content with the simple narration of fact, but must rush off
into an almost declamatory description of them; my meaning will be
plain to all who have studied Thucydides. The dignity of his
simplicity is, I think, marred by those who put in the accessories
which seem thought necessary in all present histories. How few
writers of the present day would not, instead of [Greek text which
cannot be reproduced] rather write, "Night fell upon this horrid
scene of bloodshed." {1} This is somewhat a matter of taste, but I
think I shall find some to agree with me in preferring for plain
narration (of course I exclude oratory) the unadorned gravity of
Thucydides. There are, indeed, some writers of the present day who
seem returning to the statement of facts rather than their
adornment, but these are not the most generally admired. This
simplicity, however, to be truly effective must be unstudied; it
will not do to write with affected terseness, a charge which, I
think, may be fairly preferred against Tacitus; such a style if ever
effective must be so from excess of artifice and not from that
artlessness of simplicity which I should wish to see prevalent among
us.

Neither again is it well to write and go over the ground again with
the pruning knife, though this fault is better than the other; to