no less useless bombastic style, and finally of that mode of concealing the most awful poverty of thought under a babble of inexhaustible chatter that resembles a clacking mill and is just as stupefying:  one may read for hours together without getting hold of a single clearly defined and definite idea.  The Halleschen, afterwards called the Deutschen Jahrbuecher, furnishes almost throughout excellent examples of this style of writing.  The Germans, by the way, from force of habit read page after page of all kinds of such verbiage without getting any definite idea of what the author really means:  they think it all very proper and do not discover that he is writing merely for the sake of writing.  On the other hand, a good author who is rich in ideas soon gains the reader’s credit of having really and truly something to say; and this gives the intelligent reader patience to follow him attentively.  An author of this kind will always express himself in the simplest and most direct manner, for the very reason that he really has something to say; because he wishes to awaken in the reader the same idea he has in his own mind and no other.  Accordingly he will be able to say with Boileau—­

  “Ma pensee au grand jour partout s’offre et s’expose,
  Et mon vers, bien ou mal, dit toujours quelque chose;”

while of those previously described writers it may be said, in the words of the same poet, et qui parlant beaucoup ne disent jamais rien.  It is also a characteristic of such writers to avoid, if it is possible, expressing themselves definitely, so that they may be always able in case of need to get out of a difficulty; this is why they always choose the more abstract expressions:  while people of intellect choose the more concrete; because the latter bring the matter closer to view, which is the source of all evidence.  This preference for abstract expressions may be confirmed by numerous examples:  a specially ridiculous example is the following.  Throughout German literature of the last ten years we find “to condition” almost everywhere used in place of “to cause” or “to effect.”  Since it is more abstract and indefinite it says less than it implies, and consequently leaves a little back door open to please those whose secret consciousness of their own incapacity inspires them with a continual fear of all definite expressions.  While with other people it is merely the effect of that national tendency to immediately imitate everything that is stupid in literature and wicked in life; this is shown in either case by the quick way in which it spreads.  The Englishman depends on his own judgment both in what he writes and what he does, but this applies less to the German than to any other nation.  In consequence of the state of things referred to, the words “to cause” and “to effect” have almost entirely disappeared from the literature of the last ten years, and people everywhere talk of