Talks on Writing English. First Series

I said in another talk that I am not willing to concede that conversation is an art which comes by nature, and the justice of this must be especially felt by one who listens whe...

That conversation should be in keeping with the characters speaking is one of those things so obvious that it is unsafe to leave them unsaid. It is another application of the pr...

Largely, too, is a sense of reserved force imparted by smoothness and ease of style. A style which is rough generally seems hard and labored. To carry the reader forward easily...

Sometimes he describes amply by the merest hint, as where the Friar, before setting himself down, drives away the cat. We know without need of more words that he has chosen the...

One important matter in reasoning is never to claim too much. Care must be taken not to put upon a proof a greater strain than it will bear. It is also an obvious rule that it i...

As a reason for departing from the time-honored custom of putting Description and Narrative before Exposition and Argument, I might perhaps content myself with saying that it is...

In the one case there is a statement of particulars, and from these separate features the reader is expected to build up the scene before his mental vision. In the other there i...

Here the lack of lucidity is intentional. The author has sacrificed it to the particular effect which he wished to produce. He sought to give to what he wrote an air of bizarre...

There has never before been a time when there has been so much talk about the art as in the latter half of this century, and seldom a time when there has been less of the genuin...

On the other hand, it is a mistake to expect the reader to share an emotion simply from being told that it is felt by the writer. Every phrase like “I felt,” “I was amused,” “I...

the words denote a certain common flower beside a stone covered with another common and ordinary vegetable growth; they connote all the beauty of the azure blossom, the sweetnes...

It has often been remarked that authors are apt to be most fond of works which are not their best, and it is notorious that the most passionately poetic mood may be that in whic...

As I have more than once used Carlyle in warning, it is no more than fair to mention him here as one of the masters of emotional emphasis. He had an instinct for the proportion...

As the intimate intercourse of the inhabitants of the earth increases, the necessity of setting over literature from one tongue to another is every day greater. One nation is no...

It is true that to consider only details is to deprive the work of all unity. It is like finishing carefully all the pieces which are to be set in a mosaic and neglecting to con...

In the former, the writer’s point of view is that of one looking out of a window at a crowd, and it is proper that he should say “turns, departs;” but after the crowd has depart...

These talks were given in the autumn of 1894 as a course on Advanced English Composition in the Lowell Free Classes, and that they are now printed is largely due to the fact tha...

There is a general vagueness on the subject of the mechanical forms employed in written or printed language which affects the nerves as if it were connected with the moral laxit...

Before beginning a chain of reasoning it is wise to fix what is named the burden of proof. In other words it is well to decide how much one is called upon to prove. It is import...

The ability to command a variety of forms gives to the writer the power of repetition without seeming to repeat. Often it happens that it is well to re-say a thing, either for t...

This may sound extravagant, but when the influence upon young readers and young writers is considered it hardly seems possible to state the matter too strongly. It is true that...