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ON MIND AND ON STYLE
15

the same words in their different arrangement form different thoughts!


23

Words differently arranged have a different meaning, and meanings differently arranged have different effects.


24

Language.—We should not turn the mind from one thing to another, except for relaxation, and that when it is necessary and the time suitable, and not otherwise. For he that relaxes out of season wearies, and he who wearies us out of season makes us languid, since we turn quite away. So much does our perverse lust like to do the contrary of what those wish to obtain from us without giving us pleasure, the coin for which we will do whatever is wanted.


25

Eloquence.—It requires the pleasant and the real; but the pleasant must itself be drawn from the true.


26

Eloquence is a painting of thought; and thus those who, after having painted it, add something more, make a picture instead of a portrait.


27

Miscellaneous. Language.—Those who make antitheses by forcing words are like those who make false windows for symmetry. Their rule is not to speak accurately, but to make apt figures of speech.


28

Symmetry is what we see at a glance; based on the fact that there is no reason for any difference, and based also on the face of man; whence it happens that symmetry is only wanted in breadth, not in height or depth.