Volume Ii Part 45 (2/2)

128.

GLOOMY AND SERIOUS AUTHORS.-He who commits his sufferings to paper becomes a gloomy author, but he becomes a serious one if he tells us what he _has_ suffered and why he is now enjoying a pleasurable repose.

129.

HEALTHINESS OF TASTE.-How is it that health is less contagious than disease-generally, and particularly in matters of taste? Or are there epidemics of health?

130.

A RESOLUTION.-Never again to read a book that is born and christened (with ink) at the same moment.

131.

IMPROVING OUR IDEAS.-Improving our style means improving our ideas, and nothing else. He who does not at once concede this can never be convinced of the point.

132.

CLa.s.sICAL BOOKS.-The weakest point in every cla.s.sical book is that it is written too much in the mother tongue of its author.

133.

BAD BOOKS.-The book should demand pen, ink, and desk, but usually it is pen, ink, and desk that demand the book. That is why books are of so little account at present.

134.

PRESENCE OF SENSE.-When the public reflects on paintings, it becomes a poet; when on poems, an investigator. At the moment when the artist summons it it is always lacking in the right sense, and accordingly in presence of sense, not in presence of mind.

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