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by which other arts obtain relief, continuity, and vigour: no
hieroglyphic touch, no smoothed impasto, no inscrutable shadow, as
in painting; no blank wall, as in architecture; but every word,
phrase, sentence, and paragraph must move in a logical progression,
and convey a definite conventional import.
Now the first merit which attracts in the pages of a good writer,
or the talk of a brilliant conversationalist, is the apt choice and
contrast of the words employed. It is, indeed, a strange art to
take these blocks, rudely conceived for the purpose of the market
or the bar, and by tact of application touch them to the finest
meanings and distinctions, restore to them their primal energy,
wittily shift them to another issue, or make of them a drum to
rouse the passions. But though this form of merit is without doubt
the most sensible and seizing, it is far from being equally present
in all writers. The effect of words in Shakespeare, their singular
justice, significance, and poetic charm, is different, indeed, from
the effect of words in Addison or Fielding. Or, to take an example
nearer home, the words in Carlyle seem electrified into an energy
of lineament, like the faces of men furiously moved; whilst the
words in Macaulay, apt enough to convey his meaning, harmonious
enough in sound, yet glide from the memory like undistinguished
elements in a general effect. But the first class of writers have
no monopoly of literary merit. There is a sense in which Addison
is superior to Carlyle; a sense in which Cicero is better than
Tacitus, in which Voltaire excels Montaigne: it certainly lies not
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