Nevada County picayune., 1889-04-10
STYLE IN WRITING.

SuaSe. AS II IS StTlCltN npntal CT fort. it's foundation must be laid in |: cultivated and disciplined mind, ir the exercise of vigorous thought, or reading and observation, and an at. tentive study of the meaning and force of language. Logic" says k. C.. Parker, must direct us in the selection of ideas. rhetoric must clothe them in q suitable dress, and grammar must adapt the dress to the peculiar form of the idea
 Style is the manner in which the author expresses his meaning-the fitness of the words to the thought as arranged in the mind. Whatever is clearly conceived in our minds we will be able to express with clearness whatever is earnestly conceived in our minds we will he able to express with earnestness.
 The principal styles of composition arc known as the dry, the plain, the neat, the elegant, and the lorid. The dry style excludes ornament of every kind, of which Aristotle's is the most complete example. The plain style is not dry one; it possesses some ornament, and force and liveliness are consistent with it, The neat style reaches the region of ornament, while tho elegant style possesses all the virtues of ornament without any of its excesses or defects. A ilorid style is one in which the ornaments are too rich and gaudy for the sub ject It Is the term generally used to signify an excess of ornament. The words are more luxuriant than the ideas, and a lahored attempt to rise to the grandeur of composition is vishle. The young writer is most apt to adopt the llorid style, but gen erally very sensibly abandons It later on in his experience. Luxuriance will admit of pruning, but for barren ness there Is no remedy.
 There are also the simple, the af- fected and the vehement styles, the adjectives somewhat plainly deter mining them. The simple writer is one who expresses himself in such man. ner that every one thinks he could have written in the same way. His words flow without an effort; there is a sOftness and case about them. His simplicity charms us; but it is not the simplicity that is equivalent to plainness, but that which is sus- ceptible of the highest ornament. The models of beautiful simplicity among Greek writers were Homer, Hesiod, Anacreon and Xenophon, and among the Roman writers were Terence, Lucretius and Julius Caesar. Among later authors of note Arch bishop Tillotson, Sir William Temple and Addison might be quoted.
 The affected style is pedantic, and almost the reverse of the simple, It is the pomposity of language. Dr. Johnson rarely expressed anything with simplicity; the Photographer is visible in all he wrote. The vehe- ment style implies strength, and is not inconsistent with simplicity. It is born of vivid imagination, is fired by passion and gushes forth with the fullness of a torrent. It is expected from an orator rather than from a writer, and the orations of Demos- themes and Lord Boilingbroke are ex- amples of copious impetuosity.
 The concise writer congresses his thoughts into the fewest words posi- ble, selecting those which are the most expressive, His sentences are arranged with compactness and pre- cision, and they generally suggest more than they express. Addresses to the passions ought to be concise, because it is difficult to maintain the proper warmth for any length of time. Tacitus, Homer and Milton were con- else writers. Aristotle was an author of so much brevity that his frugality of words frequently obscures his meaning. The diffuse writer unfolds his thought fully; he places it in va rious lights, and his periods natur- ally run out into some length, and wh at he wants in strength he supplies by copiousness. There is a "happy medium" between the concise and the diffuse. The extreme of the one is ahruptness and obscurity, and of the other languor and insipidty.
 Independent of the styles classified in rhetoric. adiectiYes have been