so they have their strength too, as in a pike or javelin. As we must take the care that our words and sense be clear, so, if the obscurity happen through the hearer's or reader's want of understanding, I am not to answer for them, no more than for their not listening or marking; I must neither find them ears nor mind.
All must remember how the second great dictator of literary London who bore the name of Johnson expressed the same very rational objection:—'I have found you a reason, sir; I am not bound to find you an understanding.'
The following precept is of perennial value—and of perennial application.
We should therefore speak what we can the nearest way, so as we keep our gait, not leap; for too short may as well be not let into the memory, as too long not kept in. Whatsoever loseth the grace and clearness, converts into a riddle: the obscurity is marked, but not the value. That perisheth, and is passed by, like the pearl in the fable. Our style should be like a skein of silk, to be carried and found by the right thread, not ravelled and perplexed: then all is a knot, a heap.
Nor is this less weighty or less true:—
