The key to the
difference may be that in the speech the personality of the orator
before our eyes gives of itself that oneness and continuity of
communication, which the writer has to seek in the orderly sequence and
array of marshalled sentence and well-sustained period. One of the
traits that every critic notes in Emerson's writing, is that it is so
abrupt, so sudden in its transitions, so discontinuous, so
inconsecutive. Dislike of a sentence that drags made him unconscious of
the quality, that French critics name _coulant_. Everything is thrown in
just as it comes, and sometimes the pell-mell is enough to persuade us
that Pope did not exaggerate when he said that no one qualification is
so likely to make a good writer, as the power of rejecting his own
thoughts.
His manner as a lecturer, says Dr. Holmes, was an illustration of his
way of thinking. 'He would lose his place just as his mind would drop
its thought and pick up another, twentieth cousin or no relation at all
to it.' The same manner, whether we liken it to mosaic or to
kaleidoscope, marks his writing. It makes him hard to follow, oracular,
and enigmatical. 'Can you tell me,' asked one of his neighbour, while
Emerson was lecturing, 'what connection there is between that last
sentence and the one that went before, and what connection it all has
with Plato?' 'None, my friend, save in God!' This is excellent in a
seer, but less so in the writer.
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