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. But a man cannot put a word
so in sense but something about it will illustrate it, if the writer
understand himself; for order helps much to perspicuity, as
confusion hurts. (Rectitudo lucem adfert; obliquitas et
circumductio offuscat. {116a}) 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. There are words
that do as much raise a style as others can depress it. Superlation
and over-muchness amplifies; it may be above faith, but never above
a mean.
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