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PARERGA AND PARALIPOMENA: SHORT PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS |
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[b]CHAPTER 23: On Authorship and Style[/b]
§ 272
First there are two kinds of authors, those who write for the sake of the subject and those who write for the sake of writing. The former have had ideas or experiences which seem to them worth communicating; the latter need money and thus write for money. They think for the purpose of writing. We recognize them by the way in which they spin out their thoughts as long as possible and also amplify ideas that are half-true, queer, forced, and indefinite. They are frequently fond of twilight in order to appear other than they are; and so their writing lacks definiteness and absolute clearness, and one soon observes that they write in order to fill up paper. We can sometimes see this even in our best authors, for example in some passages of Lessing's Dramaturgie and also in many of Jean Paul's novels. As soon as we observe this, we should throw the book away, for time is precious. In point of fact, as soon as an author writes for the purpose of covering paper, he is cheating the reader, for he professes to write because he has something to say. Copy-money and the reservation of copyright are at bottom the ruin of literature. Anything worth writing is written only by those who write solely for the sake of the subject. What an inestimable boon it would (be if in all branches of literature there existed only a few admirable books! But we can never come to this as long as fees and cash are to be earned. For it is as though a curse lay on the money since every author degenerates as soon as he writes in any way for the sake of profit. The most excellent works of great men are all from the time when they still had to write for nothing, or for very little money. Therefore here too the Spanish proverb applies: honra y provecho no caben en un saco. (Honour and money do not go into the same purse.) The wretchedness of present-day literature in Germany and abroad has its root in the writing of books for money. Everyone who needs money sits down and writes a book and the public is stupid enough to buy it. A secondary consequence of this is the ruin of language.
A great many inferior writers live solely on the public's folly of not wanting to read anything except what has just been printed; I refer to journalists. How aptly named! In plain language they would be called 'journeymen', ['day-labourers'].*
§ 273
Again we can say that there are three kinds of authors; first those who write without thinking. They write from memory, from reminiscences, or even directly from the books of others. This class is the most numerous. Secondly, those who think while they are writing; they think in order to write. They are very numerous. Thirdly, those who have thought before they started to write; they write merely because they have thought. They are rare.
That author of the second class who puts off his thinking until he writes, is comparable to the sportsman who goes out at random and is unlikely to bring home very much. On the other hand, the writing of an author of the third and rare class will be like a battue where the game has been caught in advance and put into an enclosure whence it is afterwards let out in flocks into another space that is also enclosed. Here it cannot escape the sportsman, so that all he now has to do is to aim and shoot (his description). This is the pursuit that produces something.
But again, even of the small number of authors who really and seriously think before they write, there are indeed very few who think about things themselves; the rest think only of books, of what has been said by others. Thus to think at all, they need the more direct and powerful stimulus through the ideas which are furnished by others and now become their immediate theme. They therefore always remain under the influence thereof and consequently never attain to real originality. Very rare authors, on the other hand, are stimulated to think by the things themselves, to which their thinking is, therefore, immediately directed. Only among them are to be found those who will survive and become immortal. It goes without saying that here we are speaking of the higher branches of knowledge, not of authors who write about the distilling of brandy.
Now only that author is worth reading who, when he writes, takes the material directly from his own head. But makers of books, writers of compendiums, the ordinary run of history-writers, and others take their material directly from books, whence it goes straight to their finger tips without even paying transit duty in their heads or undergoing examination, to say nothing of elaboration. (How learned would many a man be if only he knew all that existed in his own books!) The meaning of what they are talking about is, therefore, often so vague that in vain do we rack our brains to make out what they are ultimately thinking. But they are thinking of nothing at all. Sometimes the book from which they copy is written in just the same way, so that writing of this sort resembles the plaster cast of a cast, and in the end Antinous becomes the mere outline of a face that is hardly recognizable. We should, therefore, read compilers as rarely as possible, though it is difficult to avoid them entirely since compilations include even those compendiums which in a small space contain the accumulated knowledge of many centuries.
There is no greater error than to imagine that the finally spoken word is always the more correct, that everything written later is an improvement on everything previously written, and that every change is a step in the right direction. Men who think, those of correct judgement, and those who take their subject seriously are only exceptions; everywhere in the world dregs and riff-raff are the rule. These are always at hand and eagerly endeavour in their own way to bowdlerize and 'improve' what has been said by thinkers after mature consideration. And so whoever wants to obtain information on a subject should beware of at once rushing after the latest books, on the assumption that the sciences are always making progress and that, when these newest books were written, the older ones had been used. They have been, of course, but how? Often the writer of the new book does not thoroughly understand the older works, yet he is reluctant to use their exact words and therefore' corrects' and spoils what the older authors have said very much better and more clearly, for they wrote from their own vivid knowledge of the subject. He frequently omits the best things they have said, their most striking explanations of the subject, and their most felicitous remarks, because he does not recognize their value, nor does he appreciate how pregnant they are. Only the shallow and insipid appeal to him. An older and excellent book has often been supplanted by newer and inferior works which have been written for the sake of money, but put in a pretentious appearance and are puffed up by their authors' colleagues and comrades. To assert himself and exert his authority, everyone tries to bring out in the sciences something new which often consists merely in his overthrowing what was hitherto regarded as correct in order to put in its place his own stuff and humbug. Occasionally, this succeeds for a time, and then a return is made to the old and correct theory. Those modern writers are not serious about anything in the world except their own precious persons; it is this that they wish to assert. Now this is said to be done quickly by a paradox; the sterility of their minds recommends to them the path of negation. Truths, long since recognized and acknowledged, are now denied, for example, vital force, the sympathetic nervous system, generatio aequivoca, Bichat's separation of the effect of the passions from that of intelligence. A return is made to crass atomism and the like. Therefore the course of science is often retrograde. To authors of this class belong also those translators who at the same time correct and touch up their author, which to me always seems to be an impertinence. I feel like saying to such men: 'Write books yourselves which are worth translating and leave as they are those of others!' If possible, therefore, we should read the real originators, founders, and inventors of things, or at any rate those great authors who are the acknowledged masters of their subject. We should buy books secondhand rather than read their purport in new ones. But, of course, since inventis aliquid addere facile est,[1] we shall, after a good grounding in the subject, have to make ourselves acquainted with the more recent additions. In general, therefore, the rule holds good, here as everywhere, that the new is seldom good because the good is new only for a short time.*
What the address is to a letter, the title should be to a book; and so its primary object should be to bring the book to the notice of those members of the public who may be interested in its contents. The title should, therefore, be descriptive; and as it is essentially brief, it should be concise, laconic, pregnant, and, if possible, a monogram of the contents. Accordingly, those titles are bad which are lengthy, meaningless, ambiguous, obscure, or even false and misleading, which last may involve their book in the same fate that overtakes a wrongly addressed letter. But the worst are the stolen titles, those that are already borne by other books; for in the first place, they are a plagiarism and in the second, the most convincing proof of a complete and total lack of originality. For whoever has not enough originality to invent a new title for his book, will be even less capable of giving it new contents. Akin to them are the titles that have been imitated, that is, half-stolen, for example, Oersted wrote On the Mind in Nature long after I wrote On the Will in Nature.
How little honesty there is among authors is seen in the unscrupulous way in which they interpolate and tamper with the quotations from the works of others. I find that passages quoted from my works are generally falsified, and here only my most professed and avowed followers form an exception to this. The falsification often occurs through carelessness, for the trivial and trite expressions and turns of phrase of such authors are already on the tips of their pens and are written down from force of habit. Sometimes it is the result of an impertinence that attempts to correct and improve me; but only too often it is the result of an evil intention, and then it is base and disgraceful, a piece of knavery like the counterfeiting of coin, which once for all deprives its author of the character of a man of honour.
§ 274
A book can never be more than the image and impression of the author's ideas. The value of these will be either in the subject-matter and hence in that about which he has thought; or it will be in the form, that is, in the elaboration of the material and so in what he has thought about the subject-matter.
The subject-matter is very varied and so too are the merits which it imparts to books. Included here is all empirical material and thus everything founded on historical or physical fact, taken in itself and in the widest sense. The characteristic feature is to be found in the object; and so the book can be important whoever its author may be.
On the other hand, with regard to the What of a book, the characteristic feature is to be found in the author, the subject. The matters dealt with can be those that are accessible and known to everyone; but the form of interpretation, the What of the thinking, here imparts value to the book and is to be found in the subject (the author). And so if from this point of view a book is excellent and incomparable, so too is its author. It follows from this that the merit of an author who is worth reading is the greater, the less this is due to the subject-matter and hence the better known and more hackneyed this is. Thus, for instance, the three great Greek tragedians have all worked at the same subject-matter.
If, therefore, a book is famous, we should carefully note whether it is so on account of the subject-matter or of the form.
In virtue of the subject-matter, quite ordinary and shallow men may produce very important works, since to them alone was such matter accessible; for example, descriptions of distant countries, rare natural phenomena, experiments, historical events which they witnessed or in connection with which they spent much time and went to a great deal of trouble in searching and specially studying the sources.
On the other hand, where it is a question of the form, since the subject-matter is accessible or even very well known to everyone; and thus where only the essence of the thought concerning the matter can give value to the work, then only the eminent mind is capable of producing something worth reading. For the others will always think only what everyone else can think. They give the impression of their own minds, but of this everyone himself already possesses the original.
The public, however, shows much more interest in the subject-matter than in the form and for this reason is backward in higher culture. It shows this tendency most ludicrously in the case of poetical works, in that it carefully investigates the real events or the poet's personal circumstances that served as the occasion of such works. In fact, to the public such events and circumstances are ultimately of more interest than are the works themselves. Thus it reads more about Goethe than the poet's works, and studies more industriously the Faust legend than the poem Faust. And when Burger says that 'they will carry out learned investigations as to who Leonora really was', we see this literally fulfilled in the case of Goethe, for we already have many learned disquisitions on Faust and the Faust legend. They are and remain of a material nature. This preference for the material as opposed to the form is as if one were to ignore the form and painting of a beautiful Etruscan vase in order to investigate the chemical properties of its clay and colours.
The attempt to produce an effect through the subject-matter, an attempt which panders to that evil tendency of the public, becomes thoroughly objectionable in those branches of literature where merit should lie expressly in the form, and thus in poetical works. Nevertheless, we frequently see inferior dramatists endeavouring to fill the house by means of the subject-matter. For instance, they introduce on the stage some famous man, however bare of dramatic events his life may have been; in fact, they sometimes do this without even waiting till the persons appearing with him are dead.
The distinction, here discussed, between subject-matter and form asserts itself even as regards conversation. Thus a man is enabled to converse well primarily by his intelligence, judgement, wit, and vivacity, qualities which give form to the conversation. But then its subject-matter will soon come under consideration, namely that whereof we can speak to the man and thus his knowledge. If this is very little, only an exceptionally high degree of the above-mentioned qualities of form can render his conversation valuable. For as regards its subject-matter, it then refers only to those human and natural circumstances and things that are known to everyone. It is the very opposite when a man lacks those qualities of form, but nevertheless has knowledge of some kind which will impart value to his conversation. But such will then depend entirely on the subject-matter of the conversation, according to the Spanish proverb: mas sabe el necio en su casa, que el sabio en la agena. [2]
§ 275
The actual life of a thought lasts only till it has reached the extreme point of words; it is then petrified and thereafter is dead; but it is indestructible, like the fossilized animals and plants of the primeval world. Its momentary life proper can also be compared to that of the crystal at the moment of crystallization.
Thus as soon as our thinking has found words, it is then no longer sincere or profoundly serious. When it begins to exist for others, it ceases to live in us, just as the child is separated from the mother when it enters an existence of its own. Indeed the poet says:
[quote]I must not be confused when you gainsay!
Whene'er we speak, we start to go astray.
-- Goethe[/quote]
§ 276
The pen is to thinking what the stick is to walking; but the easiest walking is without a stick and the most perfect thinking occurs when there is no pen in the hand. Only when we begin to grow old do we like to make use of a stick and to take up a pen.
§ 277
In the head in which it has once gained a footing or has even been born, a hypothesis leads a life like that of an organism in so far as it assimilates from the external world only what is homogeneous and beneficial to it; on the other hand, what is heterogeneous and injurious is either not allowed to approach at all or, if it is unavoidably introduced, is again thrown off wholly intact.
§ 278
Like algebra, the satire should operate merely with abstract and indeterminate, not with concrete, values or quantities. We are no more entitled to practise it on living human beings than we are permitted to practise anatomy, on pain of having in danger our own skin and life.
§ 279
To be immortal, a work must have so many excellent qualities that it will rarely be possible to find anyone who will grasp and appreciate them all; on the contrary, one man will recognize and admire one excellent quality, another another; and the credit of the work is thereby maintained throughout many centuries, in spite of constantly changing interests. For it is admired first in one sense and then in another and is never exhausted. However, the author of such a work; namely he who claims to survive in future generations, can only be one who not merely seeks in vain his peer among his contemporaries all over the world and is very obviously and noticeably different from everyone else, but also one who, even if he travelled for several generations like the wandering Jew, would still always find himself in the same position; in short, one to whom Ariosto's words actually apply: lo fece natura, e poi ruppe lo stampo. [3] Otherwise it would be impossible to see why his ideas should not perish like all others.
§ 280
At almost all times there prevails in art as in literature some false fundamental view, fashion, or mannerism which is admired. Men of ordinary mentality eagerly endeavour to adopt and practise it. The man of insight recognizes and rejects it and remains out of fashion. After a few years, however, even the public comes to recognize the foolery for what it is and then laughs at it. The admired make-up of all those stilted and affected works falls off like bad plaster from a wall that was covered with it and then, like this, they stand out. Therefore we should not be annoyed but pleased when some false fundamental view that has long been secretly operating is now decidedly, loudly, and dearly expressed. For its false nature is soon recognized, felt, and finally also expressed. It is as if an abscess had burst.
§ 281
Against the unconscionable ink-slinging of our times and thus against the ever-rising flood of useless and inferior books, the literary journals should act as a dam. For they should judge incorruptibly, fairly, and strictly, and should ruthlessly scourge every piece of bungled work from an incompetent writer, every piece of scribbling whereby an empty head tries to come to the aid of an empty purse, and consequently nine-tenths of all the books that are published. In this way, they would fulfil a duty by opposing the itch to write and by counteracting trickery and fraud instead of encouraging such things by their mean and scurvy tolerance that is in league with author and publisher in order to rob the public of time and money. As a rule, authors are professors or men of letters who, with their low salaries and poor fees, write because they are in need of money. Now as their aim is a common one, they have a common interest, stick together, and support one another; each has a good word for the other. The result of this is seen in all those laudatory accounts of inferior books that constitute the subject-matter of the literary journals, whose motto should therefore be: 'Live and let live!' (And the public is simple enough to prefer reading what is new to what is good.) Is or was there ever one which can boast of never having praised the most worthless scribblings, of never having censured or run down what is excellent, or of never having craftily treated a meritorious work as unimportant, for the purpose of diverting public attention therefrom? Is there a journal which always conscientiously aims at selecting the books to be announced in accordance with their importance, and not on the recommendation of friends, out of deference to colleagues, or even because of publishers' palm-oil? Does not everyone who is not a mere tiro at once look back almost mechanically at the name of the publishing firm, as soon as he finds a book that is highly praised or severely censured? Reviews of books are written generally in the interests of publishers and booksellers instead of in those of the public. If, on the other hand, there existed a literary journal, as called for in the foregoing, then every bad author, every brainless compiler, every plagiarist of other people's books, every hollow, incapable, place-hunting philosophaster, every colourless and conceited poetaster, would have his itching fingers paralysed by the prospect of the pillory, where his miserable piece of bungling would soon have to stand. This would be a real benefit to literature where inferior work is not merely useless, but positively harmful. Now most books are bad and should never have been written; consequently, praise should be as rare as blame now is under the influence of personal considerations and the maxim accedas socius, laudes lauderis ut absens. [4] It is absolutely wrong to attempt to extend to literature the tolerance that we must necessarily show to the stupid and brainless who in society swarm everywhere. For in literature such men are impudent and impertinent intruders, and to suppress here what is bad is a duty to what is good; whoever fails to see what is bad will also fail to see what is good. Generally speaking, politeness that springs from society is in literature a strange and often very harmful element, for it demands that the bad shall be called good, and thus is directly opposed to the aims of both science and art. Naturally, such an ideal literary journal of the kind that I would like to see, could be written only by those who combined incorruptible honesty with rare knowledge and an even rarer power of judgement. Accordingly, even the whole of Germany could hardly produce one such literary journal; but then it would stand out as a just Areopagus and everyone of its members would have to be elected by all the others. Instead of this, literary journals are now run by university guilds or literary cliques, and perhaps in secret even by publishers and booksellers, for the benefit of the book-trade; and there are, as a rule, a few coalitions of inferior minds who prevent good work from rising to the top. Even Goethe said that nowhere was there more dishonesty than in literature; I have gone into this more fully in On the Will in Nature, 'Physiology and Pathology'.
Above all, that shield of literary knavery, anonymity, would therefore have to be discarded. It was introduced into literary journals on the plea of protecting the honest reviewer, the monitor of the public, from the pique and animosity of the author and his promoters. But for one such case there will be a hundred where it merely serves to absolve from all responsibility the man who cannot back up what he says, or even to hide the shame of the person who, for a financial consideration from the publisher, is mercenary and mean enough to recommend to the public an inferior book. It often serves also to conceal the obscurity, insignificance, and incompetence of the critic. It is incredible to see the audacity of the fellows and the sharp practices at which they do not shrink when they know they are safe under the cover of anonymity. Just as there are universal medicines, so is the following a universal anti-critique against all anonymous reviewers, it matters not whether they have praised the bad or censured the good. 'Your name, you scoundrel! For to mask and disguise yourself and to attack those who go about undisguised is not the act of an honourable man, but of knaves and rascals. Therefore your name, you scoundrel!' probatum est. [5]
In the preface to his Nouvelle Heloise Rousseau said: tout honnete homme doit avouer les livres qu'il publie. [6] In plain language this means that' every honest man puts his name to what he writes', and universally affirmative propositions may be converted per contrapositionem. [7] How very much more this applies to polemical writings, such as are reviews in most cases! Therefore Riemer is quite right when he says on page xxix of the preface to his Mittheilungen uber Goethe: 'An open opponent who shows his face is an honourable and reasonable man with whom we can come to an understanding, make it up, and be reconciled. On the other hand, a hidden opponent is a mean and cowardly rascal who has not the courage to admit that he is the author of a criticism. His opinion is, therefore, not even of any concern to him, but he is merely interested in the secret delight of venting his spleen with impunity and without being recognized.' This may have been Goethe's opinion, for he often expressed it through Riemer. Rousseau's rule applies generally to every line that is printed. Should a masked man be allowed to harangue a crowd or address a meeting? Should we also allow him to attack others and shower reproaches on them? Would he not be at once kicked out of doors by the others?
No sooner is the freedom of the press finally attained in Germany, than it is most disgracefully abused. It should at least be conditioned by a prohibition of every kind of anonymity and pseudonymity, so that everyone might be held responsible, at least with his honour if he still has any, for what he publicly proclaims through the far-reaching trumpet of the press, and also that, if he is without honour, his words might be neutralized by his name. It is obviously dishonourable to attack anonymously those who have not so written. An anonymous reviewer is a fellow who will not stand by what he tells to, or conceals from, the world concerning other people and their work and who, therefore, withholds his name. And is anything like this tolerated? No lie is so shameless that an anonymous reviewer will not venture to use it; indeed he is not responsible. All anonymous reviewing aims at falsehood and imposture. Therefore just as the police do not allow us to walk about the streets in masks, so should they not tolerate anonymous writing. Anonymous literary journals are the very place where ignorance with impunity sits in judgement on scholarship, and stupidity on intelligence, and where the public is deceived and through the praise of inferior work is cheated of its time and money, again with impunity. For is not anonymity the stronghold of all literary, and especially publicist, rascality? It must, therefore, be pulled down to the very ground, in other words, so that every article in a journal shall always be accompanied by the name of the author and the editor shall accept the heavy responsibility for the correctness of the signature. Since even the most insignificant man is known in the place where he lives, two-thirds of the lies in journals would thus disappear and the audacity of many a venomous tongue would be kept within bounds. Just now in France the matter is being tackled in this way.
But as long as that prohibition does not exist, all honest authors should unite in proscribing anonymity by publicly branding it with the mark of their utmost contempt, daily and hourly expressed. They should make it known in every possible way that anonymous reviewing is contemptible and dishonourable. Whoever writes and carries on a controversy anonymously, is eo ipso presumed to be trying to deceive the public or to injure the reputation of others without risk to himself. And so whenever we speak of an anonymous reviewer, even when we do this quite incidentally and do not otherwise find fault with him, we should use only such expressions as: 'the cowardly, anonymous rogue at such and such a place', or 'in that periodical the masked, anonymous scoundrel', and so on. This is really the right and proper tone in which to speak of such fellows in order to put them out of conceit with their business. For obviously everyone can claim some personal consideration only in so far as he enables us to see who he is, so that we know with whom we are dealing, but not the man who slinks around disguised in a mask, and who is then pert and saucy. On the contrary, such a man is ipso facto proscribed and outlawed. He is [x], [8] Mr. Nobody [Herr Niemand], and it is up to everyone to declare that Mr. Nobody is a scoundrel. We should, therefore, at once call every anonymous reviewer a knave and a cur, especially in anti-critiques, and not talk of' the honoured and respected reviewer', as do some of the pack of defiled authors through cowardice. 'A cur who withholds his name!' must be the cry of all honourable authors. And now if anyone distinguishes himself by removing the mist-cap from such a fellow who has run the gauntlet, and by seizing his ear and dragging him forward, then the night-owls will be delighted to see such sport. When a slander comes to our ears, the first outburst of indignation is usually the question 'Who said that?' But anonymity returns no answer.
A particularly absurd impertinence of such anonymous critics is their use of the royal pronoun 'We', whereas they should speak not only in the singular, but in the diminutive and in all humility, in such phrases as 'my mean and unworthy self, my cowardly cunning, my masked incompetence, my wretched rascality', and so on. It is proper for masked swindlers, for those blind worms that hiss from the dark holes of a 'literary local sheet', to speak of themselves in this way, and one should now put a stop to their business. Anonymity in literature is what material swindling is in ordinary life. 'Your name, you scoundrel, or hold your tongue!' must be the cry. Until then, we may add at once to every unsigned criticism the word' cheat'. The business may bring in money, but certainly not honour. For in his attacks Mr. Anonymous is just plain Mr. Rogue, and we can bet a hundred to one that, whoever refuses to give his name, does so for the purpose of deceiving the public.* Only anonymous books are we justified in anonymously reviewing. Generally speaking, with the disappearance of anonymity, ninety-nine literary rascalities out of a hundred would disappear. Until the business is proscribed, we should, whenever the occasion arises, hold the man running it (the head and principal of the Institute of Anonymous Reviewing) directly responsible for the sins committed by those in his pay, and should adopt a tone that his business gives us the right to use.** For my part, I would sooner run a gambling den or a brothel than such a hovel of anonymous reviewing.
§ 282
Style is the physiognomy of the mind and such is more infallible than is that of the body. To imitate another's style is equivalent to wearing a mask. However fine this may be, it soon becomes insipid and insufferable because it is lifeless, so that even the ugliest living face is better. Therefore those authors, who write in Latin and imitate the style of the ancients, are really like those who wear masks. Thus we certainly hear what they have to say, but do not see in addition their physiognomy or style. But this we do see in the Latin works of those who think for themselves, in those who have not been content to imitate, such as, for instance, Scotus Erigena, Petrarch, Bacon, Descartes, Spinoza, Hobbes, and others.
Affectation in style is like making faces. The language in which a man writes is the physiognomy of his nation; it establishes great differences, for example, from the Greek to the Caribbean.
We should discover faults of style in the writings of others in order to avoid them in our own.
§ 283
To form a provisional estimate of the value of an author's mental products, it is not absolutely necessary to know the subject of his thoughts or what he has thought about it, for this would entail our reading through all his works. On the contrary, it is enough to know in the first place how he has thought. Now his style is an exact impression of this how, this essential nature and general quality of his thinking. Thus a man's style shows the formal nature of all his ideas and this must always remain the same, no matter what the subject of his thoughts, or what he thinks about it. Here we have, so to speak, the dough from which he kneads all his forms, however varied they may be. To the man who asked Eulenspiegel how long it would take to reach the next place, he gave the apparently absurd answer 'walk! ' with the object of first finding out from his pace how far he would go in a given time. In the same way, I read a few pages of an author and then know to what extent he can be useful to me.
Secretly aware of this state of affairs, every mediocre writer tries to mask his style which is peculiar and natural to him. This compels him in the first place to give up all naivete, whereby this remains the prerogative of superior minds who feel their own superiority and are, therefore, sure of themselves. Thus those commonplace minds are quite unable to resolve on writing just as they think because they suspect that their work might then appear very silly and simple. But yet it might still be of some value. And so if only they would go to work honestly and tell us simply the few ordinary things they have thought, just as they have thought them, they would be readable and, in their appropriate sphere, even instructive. But instead of this, they try to appear as though they have gone much further and more deeply in their thoughts than is actually the case. Accordingly, they express what they have to say in affected and intricate turns of phrase, new-coined words, and long and complicated periods that go round and round the thought and disguise it. They hesitate between the wish to communicate the thought and the desire to conceal it. They would like to embellish it so that it might look learned or profound and we might think there is much more in it than we are aware of at the time. They accordingly write it down piecemeal in short, ambiguous, and paradoxical sentences that appear to suggest much more than they state (splendid instances of this kind are afforded by Schelling's works on the philosophy of nature). Or they express their thought in a long rigmarole of words with the most insufferable prolixity, as if it needed a marvellous amount of preparation to make its profound meaning intelligible, whereas it is quite a simple and even trivial idea. (Examples in profusion are afforded by Fichte in his popular works and in their philosophical manuals by a hundred other wretched dunces who are not worth mentioning.) Or again, they endeavour to write in some style which they have assumed and is supposed to be very grand, for example in a really profound and scientific style [x], [10] where we are tormented to death by the narcotic effect of the long-spun periods with no ideas in them. (Examples of this are given especially by those most shameless of all mortals, the Hegelians, in their Hegel-journal, vulgo Jahrbucher der wissenschaftlichen Litteratur.) Or they have even aimed at a smart and clever style of writing where they then seem to want to go crazy; and there are many other instances. All such attempts whereby they try to put off the nascetur ridiculus mus, [11] often make it difficult for one to discover from their works what they really mean. Moreover, they write down words and even whole periods in which they think nothing but yet hope that someone else will think something. Underlying all such efforts is simply the untiring endeavour to sell words for thoughts in new ways and by means of new expressions or such as are used in a new sense, turns of phrase and combinations of every kind, to produce the appearance of intellect in order to make up for the painfully felt want thereof. It is amusing to see how, for this purpose, first one mannerism and then another is attempted, so that it may be put on as a mask that represents intellect. For a time, this may deceive the inexperienced until even it is recognized as a dead mask, is laughed at, and then exchanged for another. We then see authors write in a dithyrambic style, as if they were tipsy, and then on the very next page in a pompous, serious, profoundly erudite style, amounting to the most ponderous prolixity and verbosity, like that of the late Christian Wolff, although in modern guise. Longest of all lasts the mask of obscurity and unintelligibility, yet only in Germany where it was introduced by Fichte, perfected by Schelling, and finally brought to its highest pitch in Hegel, always with the greatest success. And yet nothing is easier than to write so that no one understands, just as, on the other hand, nothing is more difficult than to express important ideas so that everyone is bound to understand them. The unintelligible is akin to the unintelligent and it is always infinitely more probable that beneath it is to be found concealed a mystification rather than great profundity of thought. The actual presence of brains, however, renders unnecessary the above-mentioned tricks; for this allows a man to show himself as he is and at all times confirms the words of Horace:
[quote] seribendi recte sapere est et principium et fons. [12] [/quote]
But those authors are like certain metal workers who experiment with a hundred different compounds to take the place of gold, the one and only metal that can never be replaced. On the contrary, there is nothing against which an author should be more on his guard than the obvious endeavour to exhibit more intellect than he has. For this arouses in the reader the suspicion that the author has very little, since always and in every way a man affects only what he does not actually possess. For this reason, we are praising an author when we say that he is naive, since it means that he is at liberty to show himself as he is. What is naive is generally attractive, whereas a want of naturalness is everywhere repulsive. We see also that every real thinker is anxious to express his ideas as purely, clearly, positively, and briefly as possible. Accordingly, simplicity has always been a sign not only of truth, but also of genius. Style obtains beauty from the thought it expresses; but with those pseudo-thinkers the thoughts are supposed to become beautiful through the style. Indeed style is the mere silhouette of the thought; obscure or bad writing is equivalent to dull or confused thinking.
Therefore the first rule of good style is that an author should have something to say; in fact, by itself alone, this rule is almost sufficient, and what a long way we can go with it! The neglect of this rule, however, has been a fundamental characteristic of philosophical authors and generally of all who reflect in Germany, especially since the time of Fichte. Thus we notice that such writers want to appear to say something, whereas they have nothing to say. This method of writing which was introduced by the pseudo-philosophers of the universities, can be observed everywhere even among the leading literary notabilities of the age. It is the mother of that strained and vague style where there are two or even more meanings in the sentence; likewise of that prolix and ponderous style, the stile empese; [13] again of the useless flood of words; finally also of that trick of concealing the direst poverty of thought under a never-ending chatter that clatters like a windmill and stupefies. We can read such stuff for hours without getting hold of any clearly expressed and definite idea. Choice samples of this kind of writing are furnished almost everywhere by those notorious Halle'sche Jahrbucher, later known as the Deutsche Jahrbucher. Whoever has anything worth saying, does not need to disguise it in affected and unnatural expressions, intricate phrases, and obscure allusions. On the contrary, he can express it simply, clearly, and naively and thus be certain that it will not fail in its effect. Thus whoever uses the foregoing artificial means thereby betrays his poverty of thought, intellect, and knowledge. Meanwhile German patience and placidity have become accustomed to reading page after page of such idle displays of words without having any special idea of what the writer really means. They imagine that all this is as it should be, and fail to see that he writes for the sake of writing. On the other hand, a good author, fertile in ideas, soon gains the confidence of his reader that he is in earnest and really has something to say when he speaks. This gives the intelligent reader patience to follow him attentively. Just because such an author really has something to say, he will always express himself in the simplest and most straightforward manner. For his object is to awaken in the reader the very thought that he himself has, and no other. Accordingly, he will be able to say with Boileau:
[quote]Ma pensee au grand jour partout s'offre et s'expose, Et mons vers, bien ou mal, dit toujours quelque chose; [14][/quote]
whereas the same poet's words: et qui parlant beaucoup ne disent Jamais rien [15] apply to those authors previously described. Now another characteristic of those writers is that, where possible, they avoid all positive and decided expressions so that, in case of need, they can always effect their escape. Hence in all cases they choose the more abstract expression, whereas men of intellect select the more concrete because the latter expression brings things nearer to distinct perceptibility, which is the source of all evidence. There are many instances demonstrating that preference for the abstract; but a particularly absurd one is where we find almost everywhere in the German literature of the last ten years the verb bedingen [to condition] instead of bewirken [to produce] or verursachen [to cause] because, being abstract and indefinite, this says less (namely' not without this' instead of 'through this'), and thus always leaves open the little backdoor that is agreeable to those whose secret awareness of their own incapacity imbues them with a constant dread of all positive and decided expressions. With others, however, there is here at work simply the national tendency to imitate at once every stupidity in literature, as also every impudent trick in ordinary life; and such tendency is seen in the rapidity with which these two evils spread on all sides. Both in what he writes and what he does, an Englishman consults his own judgement, whereas the German is the last person of whom this could be said to his credit. In consequence of this state of affairs, the words bewirken and verursachen have almost entirely disappeared from the books that have been published in the last ten years and men everywhere speak only of bedingen. The thing is worth mentioning on account of its characteristic absurdity.
The dullness and tediousness of the writings of ordinary commonplace minds could be inferred even from the fact that, when they talk, they are always only half-conscious and thus do not themselves really understand the meaning of their own words; for with them such words are something acquired and picked up ready-made. They therefore put together whole phrases (phrases banales) rather than words. From this arises that palpable lack of clearly expressed ideas which characterizes them just because the die for stamping such ideas, namely their own clear thinking, is wanting in them. Instead of these, we find a vague and obscure tissue of words, current phrases, hackneyed and fashionable expressions.* In consequence of this, the foggy stuff they write is like a page printed with worn-out type. On the other hand, men of intellect actually speak to us in their writings and are, therefore, able to stimulate and sustain us; they alone quite consciously and intentionally choose and put together individual words. Their style is, therefore, related to that of ordinary writers as is a picture actually painted to one that has been produced by a stencil. Thus in the one case, there is to be found a special purpose in every word, as also in every touch of the brush, whereas in the other, everything is put down mechanically.** The same distinction can be observed in music. For it is always and everywhere the omnipresence of intellect in all its parts which characterizes the work of genius; it is analogous to the omnipresence of Garrick's soul in all the muscles of his body, as was observed by Lichtenberg.
With regard to the above-mentioned tediousness of ordinary works, however, the general observation can be made that of this there are two kinds, objective and subjective. Objective tediousness always springs from the defect we are discussing, from the fact that the author has absolutely no perfectly clear ideas or knowledge to convey to us. For whoever has such ideas, works directly to the attainment of his purpose, namely their communication. And so he always furnishes us with clearly expressed conceptions and in consequence is not diffuse, futile, colourless, confused, and thus tedious. Even when his fundamental idea is erroneous, it is in such a case clearly thought out and carefully considered, and so is at any rate formally correct, and his work, therefore, always has some value. On the other hand, an objectively tedious work is, for the same reasons, always worthless. Subjective tediousness, however, is merely relative; it is based on the reader's lack of interest in the question dealt with, but such want of interest may be due to some narrowness of view on his part. Therefore even an excellent work may be subjectively tedious to this man or that, just as, on the other hand, the most inferior work can be subjectively engrossing to this or that person because he is interested in the question discussed or in the writer.
It would generally be a good thing for German authors if they were to see that, where possible, one should think like a great mind, but like everyone else should speak the same language. One should use common words to say uncommon things; but those authors do the very opposite. Thus we find them trying to wrap up trivial ideas in grand words and to clothe their very common ideas in the most uncommon expressions and in the most far-fetched, affected, and fantastic phrases. Their sentences constantly stalk and strut on stilts. As regards this pleasure in bombast and generally in that high-flown, bloated, affected, hyperbolical, and aerobatic style, their type is Pistol, the standard-bearer in Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part II, Act v, Scene 3, to whom his friend Falstaff calls out impatiently: 'I pray thee, now, deliver them (the news) like a man of this world!' I commend the following announcement to those who are fond of examples: 'Weare shortly publishing a theoretically practical, scientific physiology, pathology and therapy of pneumatic phenomena known by the name of windiness and flatulence wherein these are systematically described and explained in their organic and causal connection, according to their being and essence, as also with all the genetic factors, internal and external, which condition them, in the fullness of their appearance and activity, both for scientific and human knowledge generally. A free translation with notes, corrections, and explanatory commentaries of the French work L' Art de peter.' [16]
There is no expression corresponding exactly to the French stile empese; but the thing itself is none the less frequent. When associated with affectation, it is in books what affected pomposity, airs and graces, and affectation are in society, and is just as intolerable. Poverty of intellect likes to cloak itself in this style, just as in ordinary life stupid people like to be demure and formal.
Whoever writes in an affected style, is like a man who dresses himself up to avoid being confused and mixed up with the crowd, a risk that is never run by the gentleman, even when he is in his worst clothes. Therefore just as the plebeian is recognized by a certain showiness of attire and by his being tire a quatre epingles, [17] so is the commonplace writer by his pretentious and affected style.
It is nevertheless false for us to try to write exactly as we speak. On the contrary, every style of writing should bear a certain trace of kinship with the lapidary style that is the ancestor of them all. Therefore to write exactly as we speak is just as reprehensible as is the opposite fault of our trying to speak as we write; for this makes us pedantic and at the same time scarcely intelligible.
Obscurity and vagueness of expression are always and everywhere a very bad sign; for in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred they come from vagueness of thought, which again springs almost invariably from an original incongruity, inconsistency, and thus incorrectness of the thought itself. When a correct idea arises in the mind, it strives for distinctness and will not be long in reaching this; for what is clearly thought out easily finds its most appropriate expression. Whatever a man is capable of thinking can always be expressed in clear, intelligible, and unambiguous words. Those who construct difficult, obscure, involved, and ambiguous sentences, certainly do not know what they want to say; on the contrary, they have of it only a dull consciousness that is still struggling for an idea. Often they wish to conceal from themselves and from others the fact that they really have nothing to say. Like Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, they want to appear to know what they do not know, to think what they do not think, and to say what they do not say. Will anyone who has something real and positive to convey, endeavour to speak vaguely or distinctly? Even Quintilian (Institutiones oratoriae, lib. II, c. 3) says: plerumque accidit ut faciliora sint ad intelligendum et lucidioro multo, quae a doctissimo quoque dicuntur ... Erit ergo etiam obscurior, quo quisque deterior. [18]
In the same way, we should not express ourselves in riddles, but should know whether or not we want to say a thing. Indecision in the way in which they express themselves makes German authors so unattractive and uninteresting. An exception is allowed only in those cases where one has to convey something that is in some way unlawful and prohibited.
Every excess of an impression often produces the very opposite of what was intended; in the same way, words certainly help to make ideas intelligible, yet only up to a certain point. If they are piled up beyond this, they again render ever more obscure the ideas that are to be conveyed. To determine that point is the problem of style and the business of the faculty of judgement; for every superfluous word has an effect that is the very opposite of the one intended. In this sense, Voltaire says that l' adjectif est l'ennemi du substantif. [19] But naturally many authors try to conceal beneath a flood of words their poverty of ideas.
Accordingly, we should avoid all prolixity and the insertion of every unimportant remark that is not worth reading. We must be sparing of the reader's time, effort, and patience; and we shall in this way lead him to believe that what we have written is worthy of his attention and will repay the effort he has to devote to it. It is always better to leave out something good than to insert something meaningless and futile. Hesiod's words [x] (Opera et dies, 1. 40) [20] here find their right application. In any case, do not say everything! Le secret pour etre ennuyeux, c'est de tout dire. [21] Hence, if possible, nothing but the quintessence, nothing but the main points, nothing that the reader would think of by himself. To use many words for the purpose of conveying few ideas is everywhere the infallible sign of mediocrity; whereas that of an eminent mind is the inclusion of many ideas into few words.
Truth is most beautiful when naked and the impression it makes is the deeper, the simpler its expression. This is, to some extent, because it takes unobstructed possession of the hearer's entire mind which is not distracted by any secondary idea, and also because he feels that here he is not being corrupted or deceived by the tricks of rhetoric, but that the whole effect comes from the thing itself. For instance, what declamation on the vanity and emptiness of human existence will make a greater impression than Job's homo, natus de muliere, brevi vivit tempore, repletus multis miseriis, qui, tanquam flos, egreditur et conteritur, et fugit velut umbra? [22] For this reason, Goethes' naive poetry is incomparably greater than Schiller's rhetorical verses. Hence too the powerful effect of many popular songs. Therefore as in architecture we have to beware of being excessively ornate, so in the arts of speech we must guard against all unnecessary rhetorical refinement, all useless amplifications, and generally all superfluity of expression; thus we must aspire to chastity of style. Everything that is superfluous has a harmful effect. The law of simplicity and naivete applies to all the fine arts, since these are compatible even with what is the most sublime.
Dullness and insipidity assume all forms with the object of hiding behind them. They exist in the guise of haughtiness, bombast, a tone of superiority and fine airs, and in a hundred other forms, but not in that of naivete, since here they would stop short and produce mere silliness and stupidity. Even a good head dare not be naive, for it would appear dry and poor; and so naivete remains the robe of honour for genius, just as nakedness is that of beauty.
Genuine brevity of expression consists in our always saying only what is worth saying and, on the other hand, in avoiding lengthy and involved explanations of what everyone can add for himself in his thoughts. It also entails a correct discrimination between what is necessary and what is superfluous. On the other hand, we should never sacrifice to brevity clearness, not to mention grammar. To mar the expression of an idea, or even to obscure and stunt the meaning of a period, for the sake of economy of words, is a deplorable lack of intelligence. But this is precisely the business of that false brevity which is the fashion nowadays and consists in the omission of what is useful and expedient and even grammatically or logically necessary. In Germany at the present time inferior literary hacks are smitten with this brevity as with a mania and practise it with incredible folly and stupidity. Thus to save a word and to kill two birds with one stone, they make one verb or one adjective simultaneously serve several different periods, indeed in different ways. The reader must then go through all these without understanding them groping in the dark as it were, until the last word is reached which throws some light on the matter. Or again by many other quite improper word economies, they try to produce what their silliness and stupidity imagine to be brevity of expression and conciseness of style. Thus by economizing on a word which would have at once thrown light on a period, they make a riddle thereof, which the reader tries to unravel by going through it over and over again. In particular, the particles wenn and so are proscribed by them and must everywhere be made good by putting the verb first, and this without the necessary discrimination, too subtle for their minds of course, whether or not this turn of the sentence is suitable. The result of this is often not only inelegant roughness and affectation, but also incomprehensibility. Akin to this, is a grammatical blunder which is nowadays a universal favourite and is best shown by an example. In order to say: kame er zu mir, so wurde ich ihm sagen, and so on, nine-tenths of our present-day ink-slingers write: wurde er zu mir kommen, ich sagte ihm, and so on, which is not only inelegant, but wrong; for only an interrogative period can really begin with wurde, a hypothetical sentence being at most only in the present and not in the future. But now their talent for brevity of expression does not go beyond counting words and devising tricks for expunging at any price some word, or even only a syllable. It is solely in this respect that they attempt conciseness of style and pithiness of enunciation. Accordingly, every syllable whose logical, grammatical, or euphonic value escapes their dull brains, is promptly lopped off; and as soon as one ass has performed such a heroic deed, a hundred others follow and cheerfully emulate him. And nowhere is there any opposition to this folly, but as soon as one fellow has made a really asinine blunder, others admire it and hasten to imitate it. Accordingly, in the 1840s these ignorant ink-slingers entirely eliminated from the German language the perfect and pluperfect by everywhere replacing them with the imperfect for the sake of their beloved brevity, so that this remains the only preterite in the language. This they did at the expense not only of all the finer shades of accuracy or even only of all grammatical correctness of phrase but also of all common sense, since sheer nonsense is the result. Therefore of all those mutilations of the language, this is the most scurvy because it attacks logic and hence the meaning of speech. It is a linguistic infamy.* I am willing to bet that in the last ten years whole books have appeared in which not a single pluperfect, and perhaps not even a perfect, tense is to be found. Do these gentlemen really imagine that imperfect and perfect have the same meaning and that each can, therefore, be used indiscriminately? If this is their opinion, a place must be found for them in the fourth form of a grammar-school. What would have become of ancient authors if they had written so carelessly? Almost without exception this outrage is committed on the language in all the newspapers and for the most part in learned periodicals as well.** For, as I have already mentioned, in Germany every folly in literature and every impudent trick in ordinary life find hosts of imitators, and no one dares to stand on his own feet, just because the power of judgement is not at home with us, but with neighbours who come to visit us, a fact I cannot conceal. Through this extirpation of those two important tenses, a language sinks to the level of the coarsest and crudest. To put the imperfect instead of the perfect is a sin not merely against German grammar but against the universal grammar of all languages. And so it would be a good thing if for German authors a small school were established in which one taught the difference between the imperfect, perfect, and pluperfect and that between genitive and ablative; for with the utmost unconcern the latter is invariably written instead of the former. For instance, das Leben van Leibniz and der Tod von Andreas Hofer are written instead of Leibnizens Leben, Hofers Tod. How would such a blunder be taken in other languages? What, for example, would the Italians say if an author confused di and da (i.e. genitive and ablative)? But since in French these two particles are represented by the dull and colourless de and a knowledge of modern languages on the part of German writers of books does not usually go beyond a small modicum of French, they imagine they are allowed also to impose on the German language that French weakness and, as is usual with follies, they meet with approbation and imitation.* For the same worthy reason, because the French language is so poor that the preposition pour has to do duty for four or five German prepositions, the preposition fur is used by our brainless ink-slingers wherever gegen, um, auf, or some other preposition should be used, or even where there should be no preposition at all, merely for the sake of aping and imitating the French pour. In this connection things have come to such a pass that five times out of six the preposition fur is wrongly used.** Von instead of aus is also a Gallicism. Also turns of phrase such as Diese Menschen, sie haben keine Urtheilskraft instead of Diese Menschen haben keine Urtheilskraft, and generally the introduction of the meagre grammar of an agglutinated patois like French into the much nobler German language constitute pernicious Gallicisms. But this does not apply, as some narrow-minded purists imagine, to the introduction of individual foreign words that are assimilated and enrich the language. Almost half the German words can be derived from Latin, although there is still some doubt as to which words were actually taken from the Romans and which came to us merely from Sanskrit, the great mother language. The proposed school of language for German authors might set prize questions and problems, for example, on the difference in meaning between the two questions: Sind Sie gestern im Theater gewesen? and Waren Sie gestern im Theater?
Yet another example of mistaken brevity is furnished by the false use of the word nur, which has gradually become general. It is well known that its meaning is definitely limiting and restrictive and states 'only' in the sense of 'not more than'. Now I do not know who was the first queer fellow to use it in the sense of 'not otherwise', which is quite a different idea. But on account of that lucrative word economy, this blunder at once met with the most zealous imitation, so that now the wrong use of the word is by far the most frequent, although in this way the writer often states the very opposite of what he intended. For example, Ich kann es nur loben means 'I cannot do more than praise it (I cannot therefore reward or imitate it).' Ich kann es nur missbilligen, 'I can do nothing but disapprove of it (therefore I cannot punish it)'. In this connection we have also the now universal adverbial use of many adjectives, such as ahnlich and einfach, which may boast of a few old examples but nevertheless always sounds to me like a discord. For in no language are we allowed to use adjectives as adverbs with no more to it than that. What would be said if a Greek author wrote [x], instead of [x], [x] instead of [x], or if in other languages one were to write:
[quote]similis instead of similiter
simplex instead of simpliciter pareil instead of pareillement simple instead of simplement like instead of likely simple instead of simply somigliante instead of somigliantemente semplice instead of semplicemente[/quote]
It is only the German who does not stand on ceremony and who treats the language in accordance with his whims, narrow-mindedness, and ignorance, all of which is in keeping with the nation's intellectual physiognomy.
These are no light matters; they are the mutilation of grammar and of the spirit of the language by worthless ink-slingers, nemine dissentiente. [23] Scholars, so called, who should oppose this, men of superior education, eagerly imitate the writers of periodicals and newspapers. It is a competition in lack of sense and lack of ears. The German language has fallen entirely among squab biers ; everyone grabs what he can and every miserable ink-slinger pounces on it.
As far as possible, we should distinguish everywhere between the adjective and the adverb and therefore should not write sicher when sicherlich is meant.* Speaking generally, we should never make the slightest sacrifice to brevity at the expense of distinctness and precision of expression; for it is the possibility of these that gives a language its value. Only by virtue of these does it succeed in expressing precisely and unequivocally every nuance and modulation of an idea and thus enable it to appear as if in a wet clinging garment and not in a sack. It is precisely in these that a fine, powerful, and pregnant style consists which makes the classical author. It is this very possibility of distinctness and precision of expression which is entirely lost through our chopping and mincing the language by cutting off prefixes and affixes and likewise those syllables that distinguish the adverb from the adjective, by leaving out the auxiliary, by using the imperfect instead of the perfect, and so on. All this has now seized every German pen like a raging monomania and all vie with one another in this business with a brainlessness such as could never become general in England, France, and Italy; and there is no opposition of any kind. This chopping and mincing of the language is as if someone were to cut up valuable material into small pieces in order to be able to pack it more tightly. In this way, the language is turned into a miserable, half-intelligible jargon, and German will soon be this.
But this mistaken attempt at brevity is seen most strikingly in the mutilation of individual words. Wage-earning book-compilers, scandalously ignorant literary hacks and mercenary newspaper-writers clip German words in every way, just as sharpers clip coins, all simply for the sake of their beloved brevity as they understand it. In these attempts they are like those boisterous babblers who, in order to splutter out a great deal in a short time and in one breath, suppress and swallow letters and syllables and, hastily gasping for breath, reel off their sentences in a moan and thus only half-pronounce the words. In much the same way, letters are cut out from the middle, and whole syllables from the beginning and end, of words by those writers for the purpose of cramming a great deal into a small space. Thus in the first place, the diphthongs that help prosody, pronunciation, and euphony and the lengthening h are everywhere cut out; and so everything that can be severed is removed. This vandalism and destructive mania of our word-nibblers have been turned on to the final syllables -ung and -keit, simply because they do not understand or feel their meaning and importance. With their thick skulls they cannot possibly observe that fine sense with which our ancestors applied those modulations of syllables when they instinctively formed the language. Thus, as a rule, they distinguished by -ung the subjective, the action [Handlung], from the objective, the object [Gegenstand]; whereas by -keit they expressed in most cases that which endures, permanent qualities; thus the former in Todtung, Zeugung, Befolgung, Ausmessung, and so on; the latter in Freigebigkeit, Gutmuthigkeit, Freimuthigkeit, Unmoglichkeit, Dauerhaftigkeit, and so on. Just consider, for example, the words Entschliessung, Entschluss, and Entschlossenheit. Far too stupid, however, to recognize such things, our 'present time' [jetztzeitigen] crude language reformers write Freimuth; but then they should also write Gutmuth and Freigabe, as well as Ausfuhr instead of Ausfuhrung, Durchfuhr instead of Durchfuhrung. It is rightly called Beweis [proof]; on the other hand, it is not Nachweis [information], as touched up by our stupid duffers, but Nachweisung [indication]. For Beweis is something objective (mathematischer Beweis, faktischer Beweis, unwiderleglicher Beweis, and so on); whereas Nachweisung is something subjective, something coming from the subject, in other words, the act of indicating. They usually write Vorlage when they mean not the document to be submitted, as this word states, but the act of submitting and hence Vorlegung. The difference is analogous to that between Beilage and Beilegung, Grundlage and Grundlegung, Einlage and Einlegung, Versuch and Versuchung, Eingabe and Eingebung, and hundreds of similar words.* But when even the law courts sanction the dilapidation of the language by writing not only Vorlage instead of Vorlegung, but also Vollzug instead of Vollziehung, and** order someone to appear in Selbstperson, that is, in his own person and not in someone else's,*** we need not be surprised when we see a journalist report the Einzug einer Pension, when he means its Einziehung, and that in consequence it will not make its entrance [Einzug] in future. For of course, on him is entirely lost the wisdom of the language, which speaks of the ,Ziehung [drawing] of a lottery, but of the Zug [train] of an army. But what can we expect from such a newspaper writer when even the learned Heidelberger Jahrbucher (No. 24 of 1850) speak of the Einzug seiner Guter? At any rate, there might be some excuse for them for it is only a professor of philosophy who so writes. I am surprised that I have not yet found Absatz [deduction] instead of Absetzung [dismissal, removal], Ausfuhr [export] instead of Ausfuhrung [performance], Empfang [reception] instead of Empfangniss [conception], or even the Abtritt [w.c.] of a house instead of its Abtretung [conveyance], which would be just as consistent as this language reformer is respectable and might give rise to delightful misunderstandings.**** But in a much-read newspaper I have actually found, and indeed several times, Unterbruch instead of Unterbrechung, whereby one might be misled into thinking that here is meant the ordinary hernia in contrast to the inguinal rupture.* Indeed, the newspapers least of all have cause for clipping words, since the longer these are, the more columns they will fill and, if this is done through harmless syllables, they can in return send fewer lies into the world. But speaking quite seriously, I must here draw attention to the fact that certainly more than nine-tenths of those who read at all read nothing but the newspapers and therefore almost inevitably model thereon their spelling, grammar, and style. In their innocence they even regard such language mutilation as brevity of expression, facile elegance, and astute and subtle improvements of language. In fact, because the newspaper is printed, it is generally regarded by young people of the uneducated classes as an authority. Seriously speaking, therefore, so far as the State is concerned, care should be taken that newspapers are, from the point of view of their language, absolutely faultless. For this purpose, a censor could be appointed who, instead of receiving a salary, would have to fine the newspaper-man a golden louis for every word mutilated or not to be found in the works of good authors; also for every grammatical and even merely syntactical mistake and for every preposition used in an incorrect combination or a wrong sense. For impudently scorning all grammar and for the scribbler who writes hinsichts instead of hinsichtlich, the fine should be three golden louis and double that amount for a repetition of the offence. Commonplace minds should keep to the beaten track and not undertake to reform the language. Or is the German language outlawed, a trifling affair, that is not worth the protection of the law, such as is enjoyed by every muck-heap? Wretched Philistines! What on earth will become of the German language if scribblers and journalists retain powers of discretion to play fast and loose with it according to their whim and want of understanding? But the mischief we are considering is by no means limited to newspapers; on the contrary, it is universal and is carried on in books and learned periodicals with the same enthusiasm and with little more thought and consideration. We find prefixes and affixes ruthlessly suppressed, for example, Hingabe for Hingebung;* Missverstand for Missverstandniss; Wandeln for Verwandeln; Lauf for Verlauf Meiden for Vermeiden; Rathschlagen for Berathschlagen; Schlusse for Beschlusse; Fuhrung for Auffuhrung; Vergleich for Vergleichung; Zehrung for Auszehrung, and hundreds of other tricks of this kind; some even worse.** Even in very learned works we find the same fashion. For example, in the Chronologie der Aegypter by Lepsius, 1849, it says on page 545: Manethos fugte seinem Geschichtswerke ... eine Uebersicht ... , nach Art agyptischer Annalen, zu. Thus to save a syllable, he used the verb zufugen (infligere) for the verb hinzufugen (addere). In I837 the same Herr Lepsius gave a title to an essay: Uber den Ursprung und die Verwandtschaft der Zahlworter in der Indogermanischen, Semitischen, und Koptischen Sprache. But it must be Zahlenworter because it comes from Zahlen [numbers], like Zahlensysteme, Zahlenverhaltniss, Zahlenordnung, and so on. It does not come from the verb zahlen (from which we get bezahlen [to pay]), as in Zahltag, Zahlbar, Zahlmeister, and so on. Before these gentlemen take up the Semitic and Coptic languages, they should first learn properly to understand German. On the other hand, all bad authors at the present time mutilate the German language with this clumsy business of clipping off syllables everywhere; and it will not be possible to put it right again. Therefore such language' reformers' must be chastised like school-children, irrespective of the person. And so every well-disposed man of insight should take my part against German stupidity for the sake of the German language. How would such arbitrary and even impudent treatment of the language, as indulged in at the present time by every ink-slinger in Germany, be received in England, France, or Italy, which is to be envied its Academia della crusca? For example, let us see in the Biblioteca de'Classici Italiani (Milan, I804, etc. Tom. cxlii) the life of Benvenuto Cellini, how the editor takes into consideration every variation, even the slightest, from the pure Tuscan and how, if it concerns even one letter, he at once criticizes it in a footnote. It is the same with the editors of the Moralistes francais, 1838. For example, Vauvenargues writes: Ni le degout est une marque de sante, ni l' appetit est une maladie; [24] whereupon the editor remarks that it must be n' est. With us everyone writes what he likes! If Vauvenargues wrote: La difficulte est a les connaitre, the editor observed: Il faut, je crois, 'de les connaitre'. In an English newspaper I found a speaker severely censured for having said 'my talented friend' which is not English; and yet we have' spirited' from 'spirit'. So strict are other nations with regard to their languages.* On the other hand, every German scribbler boldly concocts any fantastic word and, instead of having to run the gauntlet in the papers, he meets with approbation and imitators. No writer, not even the meanest ink-slinger, hesitates to use a verb in a sense never before assigned to it. If only it is used in such a manner that the reader can at all events guess what is meant, then it passes for an original idea and finds imitators.** Without any regard for grammar, usage of language, meaning, and common sense, every fool writes down whatever passes through his head and the crazier it is the better! I have just read 'Centro-America' instead of 'Central America'. Once again a letter is saved at the expense of the above-mentioned powers! It means that in all things the German hates rule, law, and order. He is fond of individual arbitrary action and of his own whim, mixed with a somewhat absurd reasonableness according to his own precise discrimination. Therefore I doubt whether the Germans will ever learn to walk always on the right in streets and on roads and paths, as everyone invariably does in the United Kingdom and the British colonies-no matter how great and obvious would be the advantage of observing this rule. Even in clubs and other social centres, we can see how fond many people are of wantonly breaking the most suitable laws of society, even without any advantage to their own comfort and convenience. But Goethe says:
[quote]'Tis common to live according to desire; The noble to law and order should aspire.
-- Nachlass, vol. xvii, p. 297.[/quote]
The mania is universal; all rush ruthlessly and mercilessly to demolish the language; in fact everyone tries to cut off a bit wherever he can, no matter how, just as if he were out shooting birds. Thus at a time when in Germany there is not one living author whose works show any promise of immortality, makers of books, literary hacks, and newspaper writers dare to reform the language. We then see the present generation which, in spite of all its long beards, is impotent, that is, is incapable of any intellectual production of a higher order, devote its leisure to the most wanton and shameless mutilation of the language in which great authors have written, in order to set up for themselves a memorial as notorious as that of Herostratus. If in the past the master minds of literature ventured individually to put forward a well-considered improvement of language, every ink· slinger, every newspaper-writer, or every editor of an obscure aesthetic sheet now thinks himself entitled to put his paws on the language in order to tear out, according to his whim, what does not please him, or else to insert new words.
As I have said, the mania of these word-clippers is directed principally to the prefixes and affixes of all words. Now what they try to attain by such amputation must, of course, be brevity and thus a greater pregnancy and energy of expression; for, after all, the economy in paper is much too trifling. They would, therefore, like to contract as much as possible what they have to say. For this purpose, however, quite a different procedure is required from that of word-nibbling, namely an ability to think concisely and to the point; but this is precisely what none of them has at his command. Moreover, striking and convincing brevity, energy, and pregnancy of expression are possible only if the language possesses for every concept a word and for every modification and even nuance of this concept a modification of the word which exactly corresponds to it. For only in a correct application of this is it possible for every period, as soon as it has been expressed, to awaken in the listener the precise and exact idea intended by the speaker, without leaving him, even for one moment, in doubt as to what is meant. Now for this purpose, every radical word of the language must be a modificabile multimodis modificationibus, [25] so that it can fit all the nuances of the concept and thus the subtleties and elegances of an idea, like a wet clinging garment. Now this is rendered possible principally by those very prefixes and affixes; they are the modulations of every fundamental concept on the keyboard of the language. The Greeks and Romans, therefore, by means of prefixes obtained a modulation and shade of meaning of almost all verbs and of many substantives. Every main verb in Latin can furnish examples of this; for instance, from ponere we get as modifications imponere, deponere, disponere, exponere, componere, adponere, subponere, superponere, seponere, praeponere, proponere, interponere, transponere, and so on. We see the same thing in German; thus the substantive Sicht is modified into Aussicht, Einsicht, Durchsicht, Nachsicht, Vorsicht, Hinsicht, Absicht, and so on. Or again, the verb suchen is modified into aufsuchen, aussuchen, untersuchen, besuchen, ersuchen, versuchen, heimsuchen, durchsuchen, nachsuchen, and so on.* This, then, is what the prefixes achieve; if, through an attempt at brevity, we omit them and in any given case say merely ponere, or Sicht, or suchen, instead of all the above-mentioned modifications, then it is impossible to express all the finer determinations of a very wide basic concept, and heaven knows what interpretation the reader will give them. Thus the language is made poor and also stiff and crude. Nevertheless, this is precisely the trick of the smart and clever language reformers of the' present time' [Jetztzeit]. In their gross ignorance, they really imagine that our sensible and thoughtful forefathers had laid down these prefixes out of pure idle folly; and for their part they think they have committed a stroke of genius by eagerly and hastily clipping them off wherever they perceive only one thing. Now in the language there is no prefix without a meaning, none that does not help to carry the fundamental concept through all its modulations. In this way, it renders possible precision, lucidity, and elegance of expression which can then lead to an energy and pregnancy thereof. On the other hand, through the cutting off of the prefixes from several words one word is made, whereby the language is impoverished. But more than this; not only words, but concepts are lost in this way, since we then lack the means for fixing these, and now in our speaking and even in our thinking we have to be content with the apeu pres, [26] whereby we lose energy of speech and clearness of thought. Thus we cannot reduce the number of words, as happens through such clipping, without at the same time extending the meaning of those that are left; and again this does not happen without our depriving the meaning of its distinctness and precision, and consequently without our playing into the hands of ambiguity and thus of confusion. In this way, all precision and clearness, not to mention energy and pregnancy, of expression are then rendered impossible. An illustration of this is furnished by the extension of the meaning of the word nur which I have already censured and which at once gives rise to ambiguity and sometimes to falseness of expression. What does it matter if a word has two more syllables when the concept is thereby more clearly defined? Is it possible to believe that there are those with warped minds who write indifference when they mean indifferentism, just to save a couple of syllables?
Those very prefixes which carry a radical word through all the modifications and nuances of its applicability are, therefore, an indispensable means to all clearness and definiteness of expression and thus to genuine brevity, energy, and pregnancy of speech. It is the same as regards affixes and thus the different kinds of final syllables of substantives which are derived from verbs, as already illustrated in the words Versuch and Versuchung, and so on. The two methods of modulating words and concepts have, therefore, been very sensibly, wisely, and prudently impressed on the language and its words by our ancestors. But in our times, they have been followed by a generation of crude, ignorant, and incapable scribblers who, by dilapidating words, unite in making a business of destroying that ancient work of art. For, of course, these pachydermata have no sense for the artificial means that are intended to help in expressing finely shaded ideas; but they are naturally well versed in the counting of letters. If, therefore, such a pachyderm has the choice between two words, one of which through its prefix or affix exactly fits the concept or idea to be expressed, whereas the other expresses it only approximately and in a general way and yet has three letters less, he will without hesitation seize on the latter and be satisfied with the a peu pres, so far as the sense is concerned. His thinking does not require those refinements, for it is done indiscriminately and in bulk; it needs only a few letters, for on these depend the brevity and power of expression and the beauty of the language! For example, if he has to say: So etwas ist nicht vorhanden, he will say: So etwas ist nicht da, for the sake of this marvellous economy of letters. Their principal maxim is always to sacrifice the fitness and accuracy of an expression to the brevity of another which has to serve as a substitute; whence there must gradually result an exceedingly feeble and ultimately incomprehensible jargon. And so the only real advantage the Germans have over other European nations, namely their language, is wantonly reduced to naught. Thus it is the only language in which we can write almost as well as we can in Greek and Latin; and it would be ludicrous to attribute this good quality to the other principal languages of Europe which are mere patois. Compared with them, German, therefore, has something uncommonly noble and sublime. But how could such a pachyderm have any feelings for the delicate essence of a language, that precious and sensitive material which is handed down to thinking minds for the purpose of taking up and preserving a precise and fine idea? Counting letters, on the other hand, is something that pachydermata like! See, then, how these noble sons of the' present time' [Jetztzeit] revel in mutilating the language! Just look at them! Look at their bald heads, long beards, spectacles instead of eyes, a cigar in their animal mouths as a substitute for ideas, on their backs a baggy sacklike jacket instead of a coat, loafing about instead of working hard, arrogance instead of knowledge, insolence and camaraderie instead of merit.* Noble 'present time', splendid race of epigones, reared on the mother's milk of Hegelian philosophy! You want to thrust your paws into our ancient language as an everlasting souvenir, in order that the marks may as an ichnolith preserve for all time the trace of your dull and shallow existence. But Di meliora! [27] Be off, you pachydermata! This is the German language, the language in which human beings have expressed themselves, indeed great poets have sung and great thinkers have written. Paws off! or you shall starve! (This is the only thing that terrifies them.)
Punctuation has also fallen a victim to the 'present day' [jetztzeitige]tinkering with the language by boys who have run away from school too soon and have grown up in ignorance, tinkering that has already been censured. Today punctuation is almost universally treated with deliberate and complacent carelessness. It is difficult to say what the scribblers really have in mind, but in all probability folly is supposed to represent a French amiable legerete, [28] or else to attest and presuppose ease of interpretation. In printing, punctuation stops are treated as if they were made of gold, and so about three-quarters of the necessary commas are left out (find your way out if you can!); but where there should be a full stop, there is only a comma, or at most a semicolon, and so on. The direct result of this is that we have to read every period twice. Now in the punctuation is to be found a part of the logic of every period in so far as this is thereby marked. Such deliberate carelessness is, therefore, positively criminal, but most of all when, as frequently happens at the present time, it is applied even by si Deo placet [29] philologists to the editions of ancient authors, whereby the understanding of them is made very much more difficult. In its more recent editions, not even the New Testament has been spared. But if the purpose of the brevity, to which you aspire by clipping syllables and counting letters, is to save the reader's time, then you will achieve this much better by enabling him to recognize at once through adequate punctuation which words belong to one period and which to another.* It is obvious that a lax punctuation, such as is permitted by the French language on account of its strictly logical and hence abrupt word-order and by English because of the great poverty of its grammar, is not applicable to relative ancient languages which, as such, have a complicated and scientific grammar that renders possible more artistic periods; such languages are Greek, Latin, and German.**
To return to the brevity, conciseness, and pregnancy of expression we are really considering here, actually these result solely from an abundance and significance of ideas and therefore least of all need that contemptible clipping of words and phrases which is resorted to as a means of abbreviating expression and which I have here rightly censured. For weighty pregnant ideas and hence those that are generally worth recording in writing are bound to furnish material and substance enough to fill out adequately the periods that express them, even in the grammatical and lexical completeness of all their parts. It will be done so adequately that they will never be deemed hollow, empty, or feeble. On the contrary, the diction will everywhere remain brief and pregnant, whilst the idea therein will find its intelligible and suitable expression and will even develop and move with grace. We should, therefore, not contract words and forms of speech, but enlarge our ideas. In the same way, a man who is convalescent should be able to wear again the clothes that formerly fitted him by regaining his fullness of figure and not by cutting them to a smaller size.
§ 284
With the low and degraded state of literature and the neglect of the ancient languages, there is today a fault of style, namely subjectivity, which is becoming ever more frequent, but is indigenous only to Germany. Subjectivity of style consists in an author's being satisfied that he himself knows what he means and wants to say, the reader being left to unravel the mystery as best he can. Unconcerned about the reader, he writes as though he were holding a monologue, whereas it should be a dialogue, and in fact one wherein he has to express himself the more clearly, as he cannot hear the questions of the other partner. For this reason, style should not be subjective but objective; and it is, therefore, necessary for the words to be set down so that they compel the reader to think exactly what the author has thought. But this will come about only if the author has always borne in mind that ideas observe the law of gravity in so far as they travel from head to paper much more easily than from paper to head; and so in this they must be helped by all the means at our disposal. If this has been done, the words have a purely objective effect, like that of a finished picture in oils; whereas the subjective style is not much more certain in its effect than are the spots on a wall, where only the man whose imagination has been accidentally stirred by them sees figures, the rest seeing only dots and blobs. The difference we are discussing extends to the whole method of expressing ideas in language, but is often traceable even in particular cases. For example, quite recently I read in a new book: 'I have not written to increase the number of existing books.' This states the opposite of what the author meant and moreover is nonsense.
§ 285
Whoever writes carelessly thereby confesses at the very outset that he himself does not attach any great value to his own ideas. For only if we are convinced of the truth and importance of our ideas does the necessary enthusiasm arise to be intent on their clearest, finest, and most powerful expression, everywhere with untiring persistence, just as we use silver and gold receptacles only for sacred objects or priceless works of art. Therefore the ancients, whose thoughts have survived in their own words for thousands of years and who thus bear the honoured title of classics, always wrote carefully. Indeed Plato is said to have written the introduction to his Republic seven times, differently modified. The Germans, on the other hand, are more conspicuous than other nations by their carelessness of style as also of dress, and both kinds of slovenliness spring from the same source that resides in the national character. But just as neglect of dress betrays a disrespect for the company in which a man moves, so is a cursory, hasty, careless, and bad style evidence of an offensive want of respect for the reader, which he then rightly punishes by refusing to read the book. But especially amusing are those reviewers who, in the most careless style of the literary hack, criticize the work of others. This is as if one were to sit in court in dressing-gown and slippers. On the other hand, how carefully written are the Edinburgh Review and the Journal des savants! Just as I hesitate at first to enter into conversation with one who is badly and shabbily dressed, so do I lay a book aside the moment I am struck by the carelessness of its style.
Up to about a hundred years ago, scholars, especially those in Germany, wrote in Latin, where a blunder would have been discreditable. But most men were very anxious to write elegant Latin and many succeeded in so doing. After they had thrown off these fetters and had acquired the great convenience of being able to write in their own tongue, one would have expected them to be most anxious to do this with the greatest possible accuracy and elegance. This is still the case in France, England, and Italy, but not in Germany where, like paid hacks, men hasten to scribble down what they have to say in the first expressions that come to their unwashed mouths, without style and indeed without grammar and logic. Everywhere they put the imperfect instead of the perfect and pluperfect, the ablative instead of the genitive. They invariably use the one particle fur instead of all the others, which is, therefore, wrong five times out of six; in short, they commit all the asinine stupidities of style about which I have already had something to say.
§ 285a
I regard as a corruption of the language the wrong use of the word Frauen instead of Weiber, which is becoming ever more general, whereby the language is once more impoverished. For Frau means uxor, wife, spouse, whereas Weib means mulier, woman. (Girls are not Frauen, although they would like to be.) Such a confusion was said to have existed in the thirteenth century, and only later were separate names supposed to have been given. Women no longer want to be called Weiber for the same reason that Jews wish to be called Israelites and cutters habit-makers, and merchants call their cash-desks their offices. Every joke or witticism goes by the name of humour, since to the word is attributed not that which attaches to it, but to the thing. It is not the word that has brought the thing into contempt, but vice versa; therefore after two hundred years, the parties interested would again suggest an exchange of words. But in no case can the German language become one word poorer on account of a feminine whim. And so in this matter we must not let women and their shallow literary tea-table friends have their own way, but rather bear in mind that this feminine mischief or ladyhood in Europe may in the end lead us into the arms of Mormonism. Moreover, the word Frau seems to me elderly and worn-out and sounds like the word grau [grey]. Hence videant mulieres ne quid detrimenti res publica capiat. [30]
§ 286
Few write in the way that an architect builds who has previously sketched and thought out his plan down to the smallest detail. On the contrary, the majority write only as one plays dominoes. Thus just as in this game the pieces are added to one another partly by design and partly by chance, so is it the same with the sequence and connection of their sentences. They hardly know, even approximately, what form their work as a whole will take, and where it will lead. Many do not know even this, but write in the way that coral insects build. Period is added to period, and heaven knows where it all ends. Moreover, life at the present time [Jetztzeit] is a great galopade which in literature shows itself as extreme superficiality and slovenliness.
§ 287
The leading principle of good style should be that a man can have only one clear idea at a time and, therefore, should not be expected to think of two or more things at one and the same moment. But this is expected of him by the writer who inserts these, as parenthetical clauses, into the gaps that are made when a main period is broken up for this purpose. He is thus unnecessarily and wantonly confused by the writer. This is done mainly by German authors and better by their language than by other living languages, a circumstance that renders the thing possible, it is true, but not praiseworthy. No prose reads so easily and pleasantly as does French because, as a rule, it is free from this fault. A French author arranges his ideas generally in the most logical and natural order possible, and thus presents them to the reader one after the other for his convenient consideration. In this way, the reader is able to give his undivided attention to each of the ideas in turn. The German author, on the other hand, weaves his ideas into one another to form a period that is for ever crossed and twisted because he tries to say six things at once, instead of bringing them forward in succession. Say what you have to say one thing after another, not six things all at once and in confusion! Instead of trying to attract and hold his reader's attention, our German author demands that he break the above-mentioned law of the unity of apprehension and think of three or four ideas simultaneously, or, since that is not possible, in rapidly vibrating variation. In this way, an author lays the foundation of his stile empese that is then perfected by pretentious and pompous expressions for conveying the simplest matters and by other artificial methods of this kind.
The true national character of the Germans is ponderosity. It shows itself in the way in which they walk, in their actions, their language, their talking, their narrating, their understanding and thinking, but especially in the style of their writing, in the pleasure they derive from long, cumbersome, and involved periods. With these the memory patiently learns, quite alone and for five minutes, the lesson inflicted on it until finally at the end of the period the intellect comes to a conclusion and the riddles are solved. This pleases them and if they can also introduce fastidiousness, bombast, and affected [x], [31] the author revels in them; but heaven grant the reader patience! But above all they strive generally for the greatest possible vagueness and indefiniteness of expression, so that everything seems to be in a fog. The object appears to be first, to leave open a back-door to every proposition; secondly, to assume an air of importance that pretends to say more than has been thought. But really underlying this characteristic are drowsiness and stupidity, and it is precisely these that make foreigners dislike all German writings because they are averse to groping in the dark, a thing that seems to be so congenial to the Germans.*
Through those long periods which are enriched by parenthetical clauses inserted in one another like a set of boxes and are stuffed with these like roast geese with apples, and which we dare not tackle without previously looking at the clock, it is really the memory which in the first instance is taxed; whereas it is rather our understanding and judgement which should be called into play, but whose activity in precisely this way is impeded and impaired. For such periods furnish the reader with nothing but half-completed phrases which his memory must now carefully collect and preserve, like the bits of a torn-up letter, until they are later supplemented by their other respective halves and then acquire a meaning. Consequently, he must go on reading for a while without thinking anything, but merely memorizing everything, in the hope that at the end he will be given a light whereby he shall then receive something to think about. He gets so much to learn by heart before he obtains something to understand. This is obviously bad and an abuse of the reader's patience. But the unmistakable preference of commonplace minds for this kind of writing is due to the fact that it enables the reader to understand, only after a certain amount of time and trouble, what he would otherwise have understood at once. In this way, it now looks as if the writer had more depth and intelligence than the reader. This is also one of those tricks previously mentioned whereby mediocrities unconsciously and instinctively endeavour to conceal their intellectual poverty and produce a semblance of the opposite. In this respect, their inventiveness is really astonishing.
But obviously it is contrary to all sound reason to cut across one idea by another, like a wooden cross. Yet this is done when an author interrupts what he has begun to say in order to insert something quite different and thus deposits with his reader a half-finished period, still without meaning, until its completion follows. It is like the host who puts in the hands of his guest an empty plate in the hope that something will appear on it. Intermediate commas really belong to the same family as do footnotes and parentheses in the middle of the text; fundamentally in fact all three differ only in degree. If Demosthenes and Cicero sometimes inserted such parenthetical periods, they would have done better to refrain from so doing.
The height of absurdity is reached in this phrase structure when the parenthetical clauses are not even organically inserted, but are wedged in by directly breaking up a period. If, for example, it is impertinent to interrupt others, so too is it to interrupt oneself, as happens in a phrase structure which has for some years been used and liked by all bad, careless, and hasty writers who have their eyes on their bread and butter. It will be found five times on every page of their works, and consists in-we should, if we can, give rule and example at the same time-our breaking up a phrase in order to glue in another between the parts. This they do, however, not merely from laziness, but also from stupidity, since they regard it as an amiable legerete that enlivens what they have to say. In rare isolated cases it may be pardonable.
§ 288
Incidentally, it might be observed in logic with the theory of analytical judgements that they should not really occur in good style because they produce a silly effect. This is most conspicuous when something is predicated of the individual which by right already belongs to the species; for example, when we speak of an ox which had horns, of a doctor whose business it was to cure patients, and so on. Therefore they are to be used only where an explanation or a definition is to be given.
§ 289
Similes are of great value in so far as they refer an unknown relation to a known. Even the more lengthy similes which grow into the parable or allegory, are only the reference of some relation to its simplest, most visible, and most palpable presentation. Even the formation of concepts rests at bottom on similes in so far as it results from our taking up what is similar in things and discarding what is dissimilar. Further, every case of mental grasp in the real sense ultimately consists in a seizing of relations (un saisir de rapports); but we shall the more purely and clearly grasp every relation when we again recognize it as the same in widely varying cases and between quite different things. Thus as long as a relation is known to me as existing only in a particular case, I have merely an individual knowledge of it and thus one of intuitive perception. But as soon as I grasp the same relation even only in two different cases, I have a concept of its whole nature and hence a deeper and more complete knowledge.
Just because similes are such a powerful lever for knowledge, the furnishing of surprising and yet striking similes is evidence of profound intelligence. Accordingly, Aristotle says: [x] (at longe maximum est, metaphoricum esse: solum enim hoc neque ab alio licet assumere, et boni ingenii signum est. Bene enim transferre est simile intueri.) [32] De poetica, c. 22. Similarly: [x] (etiam in philosophia simile, vel in longe distantibus, cernere perspicacis est.) [33] Rhetoric, III. II.
§ 289a
How great and admirable were those original minds of the human race who, wherever it may have been, invented the grammar of language, that most wonderful work of art, who created the partes orationis and distinguished and established genders and cases in substantives, adjectives and pronouns, and tenses and moods in verbs. Here they finely and carefully separated imperfect, perfect, and pluperfect between which there are also the aorists in Greek. All this was done with the noble object of having for the complete and worthy expression of human thought an appropriate and adequate material organ which could take up and accurately reproduce every nuance and modulation thereof. Let us consider, on the other hand, our present-day reformers of that work of art, those dull, stupid, and crude German journeymen of the scribblers' guild. To save space, they attempt to set aside as superfluous those nice and precise distinctions and accordingly lump all the preterites together into the imperfect and then talk in nothing but imperfects. In their eyes, the inventors of grammatical forms, whom I have just commended, must have been real fools and duffers who did not see that we can treat everything, absolutely everything, alike, and manage with the imperfect as the one and only universal preterite. In their view, the Greeks must seem so simple because, not content with three preterites, they added the two aorists.* Further, they zealously cut off all prefixes as useless excrescences, and clever will be the man who can make anything of what is left! Essential logical particles such as nur, wenn, um, zwar, und, and so on, which would have shed light on a whole period, are expunged for the purpose of saving space, and the reader is left in the dark. This, however, is welcome to many an author who purposely tries to write obscurely so that it will be difficult to understand him, since the miserable fellow imagines he will thereby inspire the reader with respect. In short, to save syllables, they impudently venture to commit every grammatical and lexical mutilation of the language. There is no end to the paltry tricks they employ to expunge here and there a syllable under the silly and erroneous notion that they thereby achieve brevity and conciseness of expression. But, my dear simpletons, brevity and conciseness of expression depend on things quite different from the mere deletion of syllables, and call for qualities which you neither understand nor possess. But for this they are not blamed; on the contrary, they are at once imitated by a whole host of even bigger donkeys. That the above-mentioned 'improvements' of the language meet with great and universal imitation, indeed almost without exception, can be explained from the fact that the clipping of syllables whose meaning is not understood, calls for just as much intelligence as is possessed by the stupidest fool.
Language is a work of art and should be regarded as such and thus objectively. Everything expressed therein should, therefore, be according to rules and in keeping with its purpose. In every sentence it must be possible actually to demonstrate, as objectively lying therein, what it ought to state. We should not regard language merely subjectively and express ourselves in a perfunctory manner, in the hope that others will guess what we mean. This is done by those who never indicate the case, who express all preterites by the imperfect, who leave out the prefixes, and so forth. What a difference, indeed, there is between those who once invented and distinguished the tenses and moods of verbs, and the cases of substantives and adjectives, and those miserable fellows who would like to throw all this out of the window in order to be left with a Hottentot jargon, well suited to them, for expressing themselves so casually! They are the mercenary ink-slingers of the present period of literature which is bankrupt of all intelligence.
The mutilation of the language which comes from journalists meets with submissive and admiring imitation on the part of scholars in literary journals and books. Instead of this, they should try to stop the business at any rate by their opposite example and thus by preserving and retaining good and genuine German. But no one does this; not one do I see opposing it. Not a single person comes to the aid of the language which is so badly treated by the lowest literary rabble. No; they follow like sheep and follow the asses. This is because no nation is so little inclined as are the Germans to judge for themselves and accordingly to condemn, for which life and literature hourly give occasion. (On the contrary, they imagine that, by their prompt imitation of every brainless mutilation of the language, they show themselves to be 'abreast of the times', up to the mark, and authors after the latest fashion.) They are without gall, like pigeons; [34] but whoever is without gall is without understanding. This already gives birth to a certain acrimonia which in life, art, and literature necessarily evokes every day a hearty condemnation and ridicule of a thousand things, a condemnation that prevents us from imitating them.
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[b]Notes:[/b]
* What characterizes great authors (of the superior kind) as well as artists and is, therefore, common to them all, is that they are in earnest about their subject. The rest are not serious about anything except their advantage and emolument.
If an author acquires fame through a book he has written from inner inclination and impulse, but afterwards, on the strength of it, becomes a prolific writer, then he has sold his reputation for filthy lucre. As soon as a man writes because he wants to make something, he writes badly.
Only in this century are there authors by profession. Hitherto there were authors by inclination and qualification.
1 ['It is easy to enrich what has been discovered.']
* To ensure the public's permanent attention and interest, we must either write something of permanent value, or keep on writing something new which for that very reason will prove to be ever inferior.
[quote]If near the top I will repose, Then every mass must I compose.
-- Tieck [/quote]
2 ['A fool is better acquainted with his own house than is a clever man with that of another.' (See § 48.)]
3 ['Nature stamped it and then smashed the mould.'] 4 ['Become a pal and praise, so that you are again praised when you are away.' (Horace, Satires, n, 5, 72.)]
5 ['It is approved and recommended.']
6 ['Every man of honour ought to endorse and be responsible for the books he publishes.']
7 ['By contra position'.]
8 [Odysseus took the name '[x]', 'No man', in order to escape from Poly phemus.]
* From the very beginning, an anonymous reviewer has to be regarded as a swindler who is out to deceive. Reviewers in respectable literary journals are sensitive of this and sign their reviews. The anonymous reviewer wishes to deceive the public and to injure the reputation of authors, the former often for the benefit of a publisher or bookseller and the latter for giving vent to his envy. In short, the literary roguery of anonymous reviewing must be stopped.
** The man who edits and publishes anything should himself be made directly responsible for the sins of an anonymous reviewer, just as if he had written it himself, in the same way as a foreman is held responsible for the bad work of the men under him. We should treat such a fellow without ceremony, as his trade deserves. Anonymity is literary swindling to which we should exclaim at once: 'You rogue, if you will not own up to what you say against other people, then hold your slanderous tongue!' An anonymous review has no more authority than has an anonymous letter and, like this, should be accepted with the same suspicion. Or are we to assume that the name of the man who lends it, to run such a real societe anonyme, is a guarantee of the truthfulness of his fellows?
9 [In this long paragraph, common errors in German are discussed. No attempt has been made to translate the examples that are given by Schopenhauer for the purpose of illustrating the points which he raises.] 10 ['Par excellence'.]
11 ['(Mountains are in labour and) a ridiculous mouse will be brought forth.' 'Much ado about nothing.' (Horace, Ars poetica, 139.)]
12 ['A condition of good writing is that a man thinks rationally and sensibly.' (Ars poctiea, 309.)]
13 ['Stiff and starchy style'.] 14 ['What I think can venture into the full light of day, And my verse, whether good or bad, has always something to say.']
15 ['And who speak a lot and never say anything'.]
* It is the same with striking expressions, original sayings, and felicitous turns of phrase as with clothes. When they are new, they are showy and very effective. But they are at once taken up by everyone and thus in a short time become worn and faded, so that in the end they are entirely without effect.
** The scribblings of commonplace minds are laid on as if by a stencil and thus consist of nothing but ready-made expressions and phrases which happen to be in vogue and fashion and are put down on paper without anything being thought in connection with them. The superior mind fashions every phrase expressly for the case with which he is at present concerned.
16 ['The art of farting'.]
I7 [' Spick and span'; 'as if out of a bandbox'.]
18 ['It often happens that what is said by an expert is easier to understand and far more lucid ... Consequently, a man will be the more obscure, the more worth· less he is.']
19 ['The adjective is the enemy of the substantive.']
20 ['The half is more than the whole.']
21 ['The secret of being dull and tedious consists in our saying everything.']
22 ['Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.' (Job 14: 1-2.)]
* Of all the infamies perpetrated today on the German language, the elimination of the perfect and the substitution of the imperfect is the most pernicious; for it directly affects the logical aspect of speech, destroys its sense, abolishes fundamental distinctions, and causes it to say something different from what was intended. In German the imperfect and perfect may be put only where we should put them in Latin; for the leading principle is the same in both languages, namely to distinguish an uncompleted action still going on from one that is completed and already lies entirely in the past.
** In the Gottingische Anzeigen which claims to be literary and learned (Feb. 1856), I found, instead of the pluperfect subjunctive, so definitely required if there is to be any sense in the phrase, the simple imperfect in the phrase er schien instead of er wurde geschienen haben, all for the sake of that beloved brevity. My retort was: 'miserable wretch!'
* The ablative with von has become a regular synonym for the genitive. Everyone imagines he is at liberty to use which he likes. Gradually it will entirely replace the genitive and everyone will write like a Franco-German. Now this is scandalous; grammar has lost all authority and the arbitrary action of scribblers has taken its place. The genitive in German is expressed by des and der, and van expresses the ablative. Take note of this, my dear fellows, once for all when you want to write German and not Franco-German jargon!
** Soon fur will be the only preposition in German. There are no limits to its abuse. Liebe fur Andere instead of zu. Beleg fur x instead of zu. wird fur die Reparatur der Mauern gebraucht instead of zur. Professor fiir Physik instead of der. ist fiir die Untersuchung erforderlieh instead of zur. die Jury hat ihn fur schuldig erkannt : abundat [is superfluous]. Fur den izten dieses erwartet man den Herzog instead of am or zum. Beitrage fur Geologie instead of zur. Rucksicht fur Jemanden instead of gegen. Reif fur etwas instead of zu. Er braucht es fur seine Arbeit instead of zu. Die Steuerlast fur unertraglich finden. Grund fur etwas instead of zu. Liebe fur Musik instead of zur. Dasjenige, was fruher fur nothig erschienen, jetzt ... (Postzeitung). fur nothig finden, erachten is found almost without exception in all the books and papers of the last ten years, but is a blunder of which in my young days no sixth-form boy would have been guilty. For in German we say nothig erachten; on the other hand, we say fur nothig halten. When such a writer requires some preposition, he does not for one moment stop to think, but writes fur, whatever it may signify. This preposition has to stand up and take the place of all the others. Gesuch fur die Gestattung instead of um. Fur die Dauer instead of auf. Fur den Fall instead of auf. Gleichgultig fur instead of gegen. Mitleid fur mich instead of mit mir (in a criticism of me!) Rechenschaft fir eine Sache geben instead of von. Dafur befahigt instead of dazu. Fur den Fall des Todes des Herzogs muss sein Bruder auf den Thron kommen instead of im. Fur Lord R. wird ein neuer Englischer Gesandter ernannt werden instead of an Stelle. Schlussel fur das Verstandniss instead of zum. Die Grunde fur diesen Schritt instead of zu. ist eine Beleidigung fur den Kaiser instead of des Kaisers. Der Konig von Korea will an Frankreich ein Grundstuck fur eine Niederlassung abtreten (Postzeitung). This means that France is giving the King a colony for a plot of land. Er reist fur sein Vergnugen instead of zum. Er fand es fur zweckmassig (Postzeitung). Beweis fur instead of Beweis der Sache. 1st nicht ohne Einfluss fur die Dauer des Lebens instead of auf (Prof. Suckow in Jena). Fur einige Zeit verreist! (Fur means pro and can be used only where pro can he used in Latin.) Indignation fur die Grausamkeiten instead of gegen (Postzeitung). Abneigung fur instead of gegen. Fur schuldig erkennen and also erklaren, ubi abundat [where it is superfluous]. Das Motive dafur instead of dazu. Verwendung fur diesen zweck instead of zu. Unempfindlichkeit fur Eindrucke instead of gegen. Title: Beitrage fur die Kunde des Indischen Alterthums instead of zur. Die Verdienste unsers Konigs fur Landwirtschaft, Handel und Gewerbe instead of um (Postzeitung). Ein Heilmittel fur ein Uebel instead of gegen. Neues Werk: das Manuskript dafur ist fertig instead of dazu. Schritt fur Schritt instead of vor is written by everybody and is meaningless. Freundschaftliche Gesinnung fur instead of gegen. Even Freundschaft fur Jemand is wrong; it must be gegen. The German preposition gegen means adversus as well as contra. Unempfindlichkeit fur den Schmerzensruf instead of gegen. Er wurde fur todt gesagt! fur wurdig erachten, ubi abundat [where it is superfluous]. Eine Maske erkannte er fur den Kaiser instead of als. fur einen Zweck bestimmt instead of zu. Dafur ist es jetzt noch nicht an der Zeit instead of dazu. Sie erleiden eine fur die jetzige Kalte sehr harte Behandlung instead of bei. Rucksicht fur Ihre Gesundheit instead of auf. Rucksicht fur Sie instead of gegen. Eifordemiss fur den Aufschwung instead of zu. Neigung und Beruf fur Komodie instead of zur. These last two by a famous German scholar. (J. Grimm Rede uber Schiller, according to an extract in the Litterarische Blatter, Jan. 1860.)
* Sicher instead of gewiss: it is an adjective whose adverb is sicherlich. Sicher must not be used as an adverb instead of gewiss, as is now done everywhere without any justification.
Only Germans and Hottentots take such liberties and write sicher instead of sicherlich, and then instead of gewiss.
23 ['Without anyone protesting'.]
* Zuruckgabe instead of Zuruckgebung; similarly Hingebung, Vergebung; Vollzug instead of Vollziehung. Gabe is the thing given; Gebung is the act of giving. These are the lexical refinements of the language.
** Ein Vergleich zwischen den Niederlanden und Deutschland (Heidelberger Jahrbucher), where a comparison [Vergleichung] not a compromise is meant.
*** The law courts write Ladung instead of Vorladung [summons]; but guns and ships are loaded [Ladung], banquets have an invitation [Einladung], and the law courts a summons [Vorladung]. The courts should always remember that the reputation of their judgement is in their hands and that they should, therefore, not frivolously compromise with this. In England and France men are more prudent in this respect and always stick to the old legal style. Hence almost every decree begins with Whereas or Pursuant to.
****Ersatz instead of Ersetzung, Hingabe instead of Hingebung; then they must also write Ergabe instead of Ergebung. Instead of sorgfaltig a writer puts sorglich; yet it comes not from Sorge [grief, worry], but from Sorgfalt [care, solicitude]. Jakob Grimm writes Einstimmungen instead of Uebereinstimmungen in his short work Ueber die Namen des Donners, 1855 (according to a passage quoted from it in the Centralblatt), whereby two entirely different concepts are identified! The bad German is the 'grimness' in the poor fellow! (They are asses who have no ears, horribile dictu!- horrible to relate!) How am I to retain my respect for such a German scholar even if the reputation persistently circulated about him for thirty years had inspired me with such respect? Read and see what language was used by Winckelmann, Lessing, Klopstock, Wieland, Goethe, Burger, and Schiller, and emulate it, not the stupidly invented jargon of present-day literary beggars and of the professors who go with them to the school of language! In a much-read weekly paper (Kladderadatsch) I saw schadlos [unharmed] for unschadlich [harmless]! The scribbler had counted the letters and, in his excitement at saving a few, had overlooked the fact that he had written the very opposite of what he wanted to say, namely the passive instead of the active. The ruin of the language has been always and everywhere the constant attendant and infallible symptom of a decline in literature and is certainly so even now.
* Verband (valid only in the surgical sense) instead of Verbindung. Dichtheit instead of Dichtigkeit. Mitleid instead of Mitleidenschaft, Ueber instead of Uebrig, ich bin gestanden instead of habe gestanden, mir erubrigt instead of bleibt ubrig, Nieder instead of Niedrig, Abschlag instead of abschlagige Antwort (Benfey in the Gottingische Gelehrte Anzeigen). Die Frage ist von instead of nach. When someone in Germany has once produced a real folly of this kind, a hundred fools at once rush at it as if it were a godsend in order to adopt it. If there existed any power of judgement then, instead of being adopted, such a stupidity would be pilloried. The infamous clipping of syllables threatens to ruin the language. In a newspaper I found an impossible word behoben instead of aufgehoben! They do not shrink from any nonsense if a syllable is to be gained.
* We can say: Die Ausgebung der neuen Ausgabe wird erst uber acht Tage stattfinden.
** Sachverhalt instead of Sachverhaltniss: Verhalt is not a word at all; there is only Verhaltung (retention of urine) which we naturally think of in connection with Verhalt. Ansprache everywhere instead of Anrede; but ansprechen is precisely adire [to call on] instead of alloqui [to address]. Instead of Unbild we have Unbill which is no word at all, for there is no such word as Bill; here they are thinking of Billig! It reminds me of someone who, in my youth, had put ungeschlachtet instead of ungeschlacht [uncouth]. I do not see anyone stand up to this systematic dilapidation and mutilation of the language by the literary mob. We certainly have German scholars who are puffed-up with patriotism and Germanism, but I do not see them writing correct German themselves and keeping clear of the embellishments of language which are here criticized and come from that mob. We have Standig instead of Bestandig, as if Stand and Bestand were the same thing! Why not reduce the whole language to one word? Instead of die umgeworfenen Baume, die geworfenen Baume; Langsschnitt instead of Langsfaser; Vorgangige Bestatigung instead of vorhergangige. Geblichen instead of abgeblichen (of colour), but that which loses colour without our intention fades [bleicht ab], intransitive verb; whereas that which loses colour with our intention is bleached [geblichen], transitive verb. This is the richness of the language which they have thrown away. Billig instead of wohlfeil comes from shopkeepers; this vulgarity has become universal. Zeichnen instead of unterzeichnen; vorragen instead of hervorragen. They cut off syllables everywhere and do not know what these are worth. And who are these correctors of the language of our classical authors? A miserable race, incapable of producing genuine works of their own, whose fathers lived only by the grace of vaccines without which they would be cut off at an early age by the natural smallpox that eliminated all weaklings in their youth and thus kept the race strong. We now see the consequences of that act of grace in the long-bearded dwarfs who continue to swarm everywhere; and their minds are as small as their bodies. I have found nahebei instead of beinahe and Untergrund des Theaters instead of Hintergrund. Thus our literary rabble are capable of any assurance and presumption in their mutilation of the language. One fellow writes: Die Aufgabe des Kopernikanismus, but he refers not to the problem or task, but to giving it up [Aufgebung]! Likewise the Postzeitung, 1858, had Die Aufgabe dieses Unternehmens instead of Aufgebung. Another speaks of the Abnahme eines aufgehangten Bildes, where he means Abnehmung. Abnahme means imminutio [a lessening]. If you write Nachweis instead of Nachweisung, then, to be consistent, you must write Verweis instead of Verweisung; and this might be most welcome to many a delinquent under sentence. Instead of Verfalschung, Falschung which in German means exclusively a Falsum, a forgery! Erubrigt instead of bleibt ubrig. To make one word out of two is to rob the language of a concept. Instead of Verhesserung they write Besserung and steal a concept from the language. A thing can be suitable and useful, but still be capable of improvement [Verbesserung]. On the other hand, in a sick person and in a sinner we hope to see a change for the better [Besserung). Von instead of aus, Schmied instead of Schmidt, the sole correctness of which is proved by the name of a hundred thousand families. But an ignorant pedant is the most insufferable thing under the sun. * This strictness of Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Italians is certainly not pedantry but prudence, so that every ink-slinging rascal shall not be permitted to desecrate the national shrine of language, as is done in Germany.
** The worst of it is that in Germany there is absolutely no opposition to such mutilations of the language which come often from the lowest literary circles. Frequently hatched out in political journals, mutilated or shamelessly misused words pass without let or hindrance and with honour into the learned periodicals coming from universities and academies, and even into every book. No one resists or feels called upon to protect the language, but all try to outdo one another in folly. The real scholar, in the narrower sense, should recognize his mission and pledge his honour in resisting error and deception of every kind, in acting as a breah"ater against the current of all kinds of stupidity, in never sharing the infatuation of the masses or taking part in their follies, but in walking always in the light of scientific knowledge, and in setting others a shining example of truth and thoroughness. It is this that constitutes the dignity of the scholar. Our professors, on the other hand, imagine that this dignity consists in titles and ribbons, but when they accept these, they put themselves on a level with post-office officials and similar uneducated state servants. Every scholar should disdain such titles and treat them with a certain aloofness, as does the theoretical, i.e. purely intellectual, class in face of everything practical that serves urgent needs.
24 ['Neither is disgust a sign of health, nor is appetite a disease.']
* Fuhren is modified into mitfuhren, ausfuhren, verfuhren, einfuhren, auffuhren, abfuhren, durchfuhren.
25 ['Something capable of modification through modifications of many kinds'.]
26 ['Approximation'.]
* Up to about forty years ago, smallpox carried off two-fifths of the children, thus all the weaker, and left only the stronger who had withstood this fiery ordeal. Vaccines have taken the former under their protection; and now look at the long-bearded dwarfs who run everywhere between your legs, and whose parents were kept alive solely by the grace of those vaccines!
27 ['God forbid!'] 28 ['Lightness'.] 29 ['If it please God'; 'Deo volente!']
* In their Latin prospectuses grammar-school professors leave out three-quarters of the necessary commas, whereby they render their rough and unpolished Latin even more difficult to understand. We see how delighted with the idea these fools are. A real sample of slovenly punctuation is the Plutarch edited by Sintenis. The punctuation marks are almost all left out, as if it were the intention to make it more difficult for the reader to understand.
** As I have quite rightly placed these three languages together, attention should here be drawn to the height of that silly national vanity of the French which for centuries has afforded the whole of Europe with material for laughter; here is its non plus ultra. In 1857 a book was published in its fifth edition for use at universities: Notions elementaires de grammaire comparee, pour servir a l'etude des trois langues classiques, redige sur l'invitation du ministre de l'intruction publique, p. Eggre, membre de l'institut, etc., etc. And (credite posteri! [believe it posterity!], the third classical language here meant is French! And so this most wretched Romance jargon, this very bad mutilation of Latin words, this language that should look up with veneration to Italian, her older and much nobler sister, this language that has as its exclusive characteristic the nauseating nasal sounds of en, on, and un, as well as the hiccoughing and unspeakably disagreeable accent on the last syllable, whereas all other languages have the long penultimate that acts gently and smoothly, this language where there is no metre but only rhyme constitutes the form of poetry which often ends in e or on -- this miserable language, I say, is here classed with Greek and Latin as a langue classique! I call upon the whole of Europe to join in a general huee in order to humiliate these most shameless of all fools.
30 ['Let women take care that the State suffers no harm.' (Parody of the well-known 'Videant consules ... )] * Instead of von Seiten seitens, which is not German. Instead of Zeither they write the meaningless Seither, and gradually begin to use this instead of Seitdem. Should I not call them asses? Our language-reformers have no notion of euphony and cacophony; on the contrary, they try to pile the consonants more and more closely together by cutting out the vowels, and thus to produce words whose pronunciation affords their animal mouths an exercise that is repulsive to watch. Sundzoll! As they understand no Latin, they do not know the difference between liquid sounds and other consonants.
31 ['Solemnity', 'dignity'.]
32 ['It is by far the greatest thing to find metaphors. For this alone cannot be learnt from others, but is the mark of genius. For to make good similies, one must recognize the homogeneous.'] * What a pity our ingenious language reformers did not live among the Greeks! They would have cut up Greek grammar to such an extent that a Hottentot grammar would have been the result.
33 ['Also in philosophy the ability to discover the homogeneous, even in widely separated things, is a sign of sagacity.'] 34 [Cf. Shakespeare's Hamlet, Act II, Sc, 2, at the end: 'But I am pigeon-liver'd, and lack gall."]
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