Over-scrupulous manipulation of words is liable to the "defect of
its qualities"; as with unskilful goldsmiths of whom old Latin
writers tell us, the file goes too deep, trimming away more of the
first fine minting than we can afford to lose. Ruskin has
explained to us how the decadence of Gothic architecture commenced
through care bestowed on window tracery for itself instead of as an
avenue or vehicle for the admission of light. Read "words" for
tracery, "thought" for light, and we see how inspiration avenges
itself so soon as diction is made paramount; artifice, which
demands and misses watchful self-concealment, passes into
mannerism; we have lost the incalculable charm of spontaneity.
Comparison of "Eothen" with the "Crimea" will I think exemplify
this truth. The first, to use Matthew Arnold's imagery, is Attic,
the last has declined to the Corinthian; it remains a great, an
amazingly great production; great in its pictorial force, its
omnipresent survey, verbal eloquence, firm grasp, marshalled
delineation of multitudinous and entangled matter; but it is not
unique amongst martial records as "Eothen" is unique amongst books
of travel: it is through "Eothen" that its author has soared into
a classic, and bids fair to hold his place.
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