Chapter 30: Selection of Words

Since, certainly, the conception of a speech and writing and its phrasing are often thoroughly blended, each into the other, let us see also whether anything about phrasing has been left out for us to deal with. Now, though the selection of the most important words wonderfully stirs and enchants those who hear them, and though it is the highest practice in all public speakers and prose-writers, by itself enabling speeches and writings to flower in greatness, with (all at the same time) fineness, patina, weightiness, strength, power, and, besides, a kind of luster, just as we find in the finest statues, setting, as it were, a kind of vocal soul in things-perhaps, for those who understand, it may be superfluous to go through all this. Fine words, you see, are thought’s own light. 2. But, of course, a bold diction is not useful everywhere, since to place great and impressive words around petty matters would appear to be just like putting a tragic mask on an infant child, except that in poetry and hist…

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