They forget that a
platitude is not turned into a profundity by being dressed up as a
conundrum. Pithiness in him dwindles into tenuity in them; honest
discontinuity in the master is made an excuse for finical incoherencies
in the disciples; the quaint, ingenious, and unexpected collocations of
the original degenerate in the imitators into a trick of unmeaning
surprise and vapid antithesis; and his pregnant sententiousness set the
fashion of a sententiousness that is not fertility but only hydropsy.
This curious infection, which has spread into divers forms of American
literature that are far removed from philosophy, would have been
impossible if the teacher had been as perfect in expression as he was
pure, diligent, and harmonious in his thinking.
Yet, as happens to all fine minds, there came to Emerson ways of
expression deeply marked with character. On every page there is set the
strong stamp of sincerity, and the attraction of a certain artlessness;
the most awkward sentence rings true; and there is often a pure and
simple note that touches us more than if it were the perfection of
elaborated melody. The uncouth procession of the periods discloses the
travail of the thought, and that too is a kind of eloquence. An honest
reader easily forgives the rude jolt or unexpected start, when it shows
a thinker faithfully working his way along arduous and unworn tracks.
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