William Atkinson - The Essential Works of William Walker Atkinson - 50+ Books in One Edition

Palmer, in his “Self-Cultivation in English” says: “It is important, therefore, for anybody who would cultivate himself in English to make strenuous and systematic efforts to enlarge his vocabulary. * * * Let anyone who wants to see himself grow, resolve to adopt two new words each week. It will not be long before the endless and en· chanting variety of the world will begin to reflect itself in his speech, and in his mind as well. I know that when we use a word for the first time we are startled, as if a firecracker went off in our neighborhood. We look about hastily to see if anyone has noticed. But, finding that no one bas, we may be emboldened. A word used three times slips off the tongue with entire naturalness. Then it is ours forever, and with it some phase of life which had been lacking hitherto. For each word presents its own point of view, discloses a special aspect of things, reports some little importance not otherwise conveyed, and so contributes its small emancipation to our tied-up minds and tongues.”

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IN ORDER to speak or write clearly and forcibly it is necessary that we exercise an intelligent choice of the words in our vocabulary. As Hill says: “A writer or speaker should, in the first place, choose that word or phrase which will clearly convey his meaning to the reader or listener. It is not enough to use language that may be understood; he should use language that must be understood. He should remember that, so far as the attention is called to the medium of communication, so far is it withdrawn from the ideas communicated, and this even when the medium is free from flaws. How much more serious the evil when the medium obscures or distorts an object.” And as Herrick says: “Even the newest of thoughts may be made to seem flat if tritely phrased; the most precise thinking looks vague if it is couched in generalities; the most dignified matter becomes trivial if it is overadorned. The demands upon our taste in the choice of words are manifold; every sentence is a new problem in diction.”

The first essential in the choice of words is clearness . The faults opposed to Clearness are:

I. Obscurity , or the use and arrangement of words in such a manner that it is difficult to understand the real meaning thereof;

II. Equivocation , or the use and arrangement of words so as to render them capable of more than one interpretation;

III. Ambiguity , or the use and arrangement of words so as to leave the hearer in doubt between two opposing meanings or interpretations.

Macaulay was one of the clearest of writers. Morley says of him: “He never wrote an obscure sentence in his life.” , Trevelyan says of him and his methods of work: “The main secret of Macaulay’s success lay in this, that to extraordinary fluency and facility he united patient, minute, and persistent diligence. * * * If his method of composition ever comes into fashion, books probably will be better, and undoubtedly will be shorter. As soon as he had got into his head all the information relating to any particular episode in his ‘History’ (such, for instance, as Argyll’s expedition to Scotland, or the attainder of Sir John Fenwick, or the calling in of the clipped coinage), he would sit down and write off the whole story at a headlong pace, sketching in the outlines under the genial and audacious impulse of a first conception, and securing in black and white each idea and epithet and turn of phrase, as it flowed straight from his busy brain to his rapid fingers. * * * As soon as Macaulay ·had finished his rough draft, he began to fill it in at the rate of six sides of foolscap every morning, written in so large a hand and with such a multitude of erasures, that the whole six pages were, on the average, compressed into two pages of print. This portion he called his ‘task,’ and he was never quite easy until he had completed it daily. More he seldom sought to accomplish; for he had learned by long experience that this was as much as he could do at his best; and except when at his best, he never would work at all. * * * Macaulay never allowed a sentence to pass muster until it was as good as he could make it. He thought little of recasting a chapter in order to obtain a more lucid arrangement, and nothing whatever of reconstructing a paragraph for the sake of one happy stroke of apt illustration. Whatever the worth of his labor, at any rate it was a labor of love.”

The following paragraph from “Essay on Milton” will furnish a brief example of Macaulay’s style:

“Ariosto tells a pretty story of a fairy, who, by some mysterious law of her nature, was condemned to appear at certain seasons in the form of a foul and poisonous snake. Those who Injured her during the period of her disguise were forever excluded from participation in the blessings which she bestowed. But to those who, in spite of her loathsome aspect, pitied and protected her, she afterwards revealed herself in the beautiful and celestial form which was natural to her, accompanied their steps, granted all their wishes, filled their houses with wealth, made them happy In love and victorious in war. Such a spirit is Liberty. At times she takes the form of a hateful reptile. She grovels, she hisses, she stings. But woe to those who in disgust shall venture to crush her! And happy are those who, having dared to receive her in her degraded and frightful shape, shall at length be rewarded by her in the time of her beauty and her glory!”

And yet as Hill says: “Clearness is a relative term. The same treatment cannot be given to every subject, nor to the same subject under different conditions. Words that are perfectly clear in a metaphysical treatise may be obscure in a didactic poem; those that are admirably adapted to a political pamphlet may be ambiguous in a sermon; a discourse written for an association of men of science will not answer for a lyceum lecture; a speaker must be clearer than a writer , since a speaker’s meaning must be caught at once if at all.”

Emerson says: “ Eloquence is the power to translate a truth into a language perfectly intelligible to the person to whom you speak . He who would convince the worthy Mr. Dunderhead of any truth which Dunderhead does not see, must be a master of his art. Declamation is common; but such possession of thought as is here required, such practical chemistry as the conversion of a truth in Dunderhead’s language, is one of the most beautiful and coherent weapons that is forged in the shop of the Divine Artificer.”

Newman speaking upon the subject of the necessity of clearness in the use and arrangement of words says: “Reflect how many disputes you must have listened to which were interminable because neither party understood either his opponent or himself. Consider the fortunes of an argument in a debating society, and the need there so frequently is, not simply of some clear thinker to disentangle the perplexities of thought, but of capacity in the combatants to do justice to the clearest explanations which are set before them,—so much so, that the luminous arbitration only gives rise, perhaps, to more hopeless altercation. ‘Is a constitutional government better for a population than an absolute rule!’ What a number of points have to be clearly apprehended before we are in a position to say one word on such a question. What is meant by ‘constitution!’ by ‘constitutional government!’ by ‘better!’ by ‘a population!’ and by ‘absolutism!’ The ideas represented by these various words ought, I do not say, to be as perfectly defined and located in the minds of the speakers as objects of sight in a landscape, but to be sufficiently, even though incompletely, apprehended before they have a right to speak.”