and unambiguous words.  Those writers who construct difficult, obscure, involved, and ambiguous phrases most certainly do not rightly know what it is they wish to say:  they have only a dull consciousness of it, which is still struggling to put itself into thought; they also often wish to conceal from themselves and other people that in reality they have nothing to say.  Like Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, they wish to appear to know what they do not know, to think what they do not think, and to say what they do not say.

Will a man, then, who has something real to impart endeavour to say it in a clear or an indistinct way?  Quintilian has already said, plerumque accidit ut faciliora sint ad intelligendum et lucidiora multo, quae a doctissimo quoque dicuntur....  Erit ergo etiam obscurior, quo quisque deterior.

A man’s way of expressing himself should not be enigmatical, but he should know whether he has something to say or whether he has not.  It is an uncertainty of expression which makes German writers so dull.  The only exceptional cases are those where a man wishes to express something that is in some respect of an illicit nature.  As anything that is far-fetched generally produces the reverse of what the writer has aimed at, so do words serve to make thought comprehensible; but only up to a certain point.  If words are piled up beyond this point they make the thought that is being communicated more and more obscure.  To hit that point is the problem of style and a matter of discernment; for every superfluous word prevents its purpose being carried out.  Voltaire means this when he says:  l’adjectif est l’ennemi du substantif. (But, truly, many authors try to hide their poverty of thought under a superfluity of words.)

Accordingly, all prolixity and all binding together of unmeaning observations that are not worth reading should be avoided.  A writer must be sparing with the reader’s time, concentration, and patience; in this way he makes him believe that what he has before him is worth his careful reading, and will repay the trouble he has spent upon it.  It is always better to leave out something that is good than to write down something that is not worth saying.  Hesiod’s [Greek:  pleon haemisu pantos][6] finds its right application.  In fact, not to say everything! Le secret pour etre ennuyeux, c’est de tout dire.  Therefore, if possible, the quintessence only! the chief matter only! nothing that the reader would think for himself.  The use of many words in order to express little thought is everywhere the infallible sign of mediocrity; while to clothe much thought in a few words is the infallible sign of distinguished minds.