激情晨读英语美文 第四章 充实你的思想:适合为上

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Suit Is Best
By William Hazlitt
The proper force of words lies not in the words themselves,
but in their application.
A word may be a fine-sounding word, of an unusual length,
and very imposing from its learning and novelty,
and yet in the connection in which it is introduced
may be quite pointless and irrelevant.
It is not pomp or pretension,
but the adaptation of the expression to the idea,
that clenches a writer’s meaning: —
as it is not the size or glossiness of the materials,
but their being fitted each to its place,
that gives strength to the arch;
or as the pegs and nails are as necessary
to the support of the building as the large timbers,
and more so than the mere showy, unsubstantial ornaments.
I hate any thing that occupies more space than it is worth.
I hate to see a load of bandboxes go along the street,
and I hate to see a parcel of big words without any thing in them.
A person who does not deliberately dispose of
all his thoughts alike in cumbrous draperies
and flimsy disguises may strike out
twenty varieties of familiar everyday language,
each coming somewhat nearer to the feeling he wants to convey,
and at last not hit upon that particular and only one
which may be said to be identical
with the exact impression in his mind.
This would seem to show that Mr. Cobbett   is hardly right
in saying that the first word that occurs is always the best.
It may be a very good one;
and yet a better may present itself on reflection
or from time to time.
It should be suggested naturally, however,
and spontaneously,
from a fresh and lively conception of the subject.