Page:Fors Clavigera, Letters to the Workmen and Labourers of Great Britain.djvu/23

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Fors Clavigera.
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habit of finger, yet not dashing or flourishing, but with perfect command of direction in advance, and moment of pause, at any point.

You may at first, and very naturally, suppose, good reader, that it will not advance your power of English writing to copy a Greek sentenced. But, with your pardon, the first need, for all beautiful writing, is that your hand should be, in the true and virtuous sense, free; that is to say, able to move in any direction it is ordered, and not cramped to a given slope, or to any given form of letter. And also, whether you can learn Greek or not, it is well, (and perfectly easy,) to learn the Greek alphabet, that if by chance a questionable word occur in your Testament, or in scientific books, you may be able to read it, and even look it out in a dictionary. And this particular manner of Greek writing I wish you to notice, because it is such as Victor