River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1890-05-29
EFFECTIVE LANGUAGE.
The Art of Putting Together Words Tha
Laugh And

Did it ever strike you that there was
any thing queer about the capacity of
written words to absorb and convey
feelings? Taken separately, they are
mere Symbols with no more feeling
than so many bricks, but string them
along in row under certain mysterious
conditions, and you find yourself laugh
ing or crying as your eye runs over
them. That words should convey mere
ideas is not so remarkable. THE boy
is fat" ''the cat has nine tails" and
statements that seem obviously enough
within the power of written language.
But it is different with feelings. They
are no more visible in the symbols that
hold them than electricity is visible
on the wire, and yet there they
are, always ready to respond
when the right test is applied by the
right person. That spoken words
charged with human tones and lighted
by human eyes, should carry feelings,
is not so astonishing. The magnetic
sympathy of the orator one understands;
he might affect his audience, possibly,
IL he spoke In language they did not
know. But written words: How can
they do it! Suppose, for example, that
you possess reasonable facility in
grouping language, and that you have
strong feelings upon some subject,
which finally you determine to commit
to paper Your pen runs along; the
proper words present themselves, or are
dragged out, and fall into their places.
You are good deal moved; here you
chuckle 10 yourself, and half dozen
of lines further down a lump comes into
your throat and perhaps you have to
wipe your eyes. You finish, and the
copy goes to the printer. When it gets
into print a reader sees il. His eyes
run along the lines and down the page
until it comes to the place where you
chuckled as you wrote; then he smiles,
and six lines below he has to swallow
several times and shuttle and wink TO
restrain an exhibition of weakness.
And then some one else comes along
who is not SD good a word juggler as you
are, or who has no feelings, and sways
the words about little, and twists the
sentences and beh old, the spell IS gone,
and you have left parcel of written
language, duly charged with facts, but
without single feeling.
No one can iuggle with words with
any degree of success without getting a
vast respect for their Independent abili-
ty. They will catch the best idea
man ever mad as it flashes through his
brain, and hold ON to it, to surprise him
with i long fter, and make him won
der tlat he was ever man enough to
have such an idea. And often they will
catch an idea on its way from the brain
to the pen point, turn, twist and inn
prove on it as the eye winks, and in an
instant there they are, strung hand in
hand across the page and grinnig back
at the writer: This is our idea, old
man; not yours"
As for poetry, every word that expects
to earn its salt in poetry should have
head and pair OF legs of it's own, to go
and find its place, carrying another
word if necessary on its back. The
most that should be expected of any
competent poet in regular practice is to
serve general summons and notice of
action on the language. If the words
won't do the rest for him it indicates
that he is out of sympaty with his tools
N " SIM