_April_ 10. 1832.
HARMONY.
All harmony is founded on a relation to rest--on relative rest. Take a
metallic plate, and strew sand on it; sound an harmonic chord over the
sand, and the grains will whirl about in circles, and other geometrical
figures, all, as it were, depending on some point of sand relatively at
rest. Sound a discord, and every grain will whisk about without any order
at all, in no figures, and with no points of rest.
The clerisy of a nation, that is, its learned men, whether poets, or
philosophers, or scholars, are these points of relative rest. There could
be no order, no harmony of the whole, without them.
April 21. 1832.
INTELLECTUAL REVOLUTIONS.--MODERN STYLE.
There have been three silent revolutions in England:--first, when the
professions fell off from the church; secondly, when literature fell off
from the professions; and, thirdly, when the press fell off from
literature.
* * * * *
Common phrases are, as it were, so stereotyped now by conventional use,
that it is really much easier to write on the ordinary politics of the day
in the common newspaper style, than it is to make a good pair of shoes.
An apprentice has as much to learn now to be a shoemaker as ever he had;
but an ignorant coxcomb, with a competent want of honesty, may very
effectively wield a pen in a newspaper office, with infinitely less pains
and preparation than were necessary formerly.
Pages:
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266