His style wonderfully improved
from eighteen to twenty-five; and he tells us himself why it did. He
discovered, he says, that the value, as well as the force, of a
sentence, depends chiefly upon its meaning, not its language; and that
great writing is that in which much is said in few words, and those
words the simplest that will answer the purpose. Having made this
notable discovery, he became a great eraser of adjectives, and toiled
after simplicity and directness. Mr. Everett quotes a few sentences
from his Fourth-of-July oration of 1806, when he was twenty-four,
which shows an amazing advance upon the effort of his eighteenth year,
quoted above:--
"Nothing is plainer than this: if we will have commerce, we
must protect it. This country is commercial as well as
agricultural. _Indissoluble bonds connect him who ploughs
the land with him who ploughs the sea_. Nature has placed us
in a situation favorable to commercial pursuits, and no
government can alter the destination. Habits confirmed by
two centuries are not to be changed. An immense portion of
our property is on the waves.
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