On Familiar Style
It is not easy to write a familiar style. Many people mistake a familiar for a vulgar style, and suppose that to write without affectation is to write at random. On the contrary, there is nothing that requires more precision, and, if I may so say, purity of expression, than the style I am speaking of. It utterly rejects not only all unmeaning pomp, but all low, cant phrases, and loose, unconnected, slipshod allusions. It is not to take the first word that offers, but the best word in common use; it is not to throw words together in any combinations we please, but to follow and avail ourselves of the true idiom of the language. To write a genuine familiar or truly English style, is to write as any one would speak in common conversation who had a thorough command and choice of words, or who could discourse with ease, force, and perspicuity, setting aside all pedantic and oratorical flourishes. Or, to give another illustration, to write naturally is the same thing in regard to common conversation as to read naturally is in regard to common speech. It does not follow that it is an easy thing to give the true accent and inflection to the words you utter, because you do not attempt to rise above the level of ordinary life and colloquial speaking. You do not assume, indeed, the solemnity of the pulpit, or the tone of stage declamation; neither are you at liberty to gabble on at a venture, without emphasis or discretion, or to resort to a vulgar dialect or clownish pronunciation. You must steer a middle course. You are tied down to a given and appropriate articulation, which is determined by the habitual associations between sense and sound, and which you can only hit by entering into the author's meaning, as you must find the proper words and style to express yourself by fixing your thoughts on the subject you have to write about. Any one may mouth out a passage with a theatrical cadence, or get upon stilts to tell his thoughts; but to write or speak with propriety and simplicity is a more difficult task. Thus it is easy to affect a pompous style, to use a word twice as big as the thing you want to express: it is not so easy to pitch upon the very word that exactly fits it. Out of eight or ten words equally common, equally intelligible, with nearly equal pretensions, it is a matter of some nicety and discrimination to pick out the very one the preferableness of which is scarcely perceptible, but decisive. The reason why I object to Dr. Johnson's style is that there is no discrimination, no selection, no variety in it. He uses none but "tall, opaque words, "taken from the "first row of the rubric" -- words with the greatest number of syllables, or Latin phrases with merely English terminations. If a fine style depended on this sort of arbitrary pretension, it would be fair to judge of an author's elegance by the measurement of his words and the substitution of foreign circumlocutions (with no precise associations) for the mother-tongue.2 How simple is it to be dignified without ease, to be pompous without meaning! Surely, it is but a mechanical rule for avoiding what is low, to be always pedantic and affected. It is clear you cannot use a vulgar English word if you never use a common English word at all. A fine tact is shown in adhering to those which are perfectly common, and yet never falling into any expressions which are debased by disgusting circumstances, or which owe their signification and point to technical or professional allusions. A truly natural or familiar style can never be quaint or vulgar, for this reason, that it is of universal force and applicability, and that quaintness and vulgarity arise out of the immediate connection of certain words with coarse and disagreeable, or with confined ideas. The last form what we understand by cant or slang phrases. -- To give an example of what is not very clear in the general statement. I should say that the phrase "To cut with a knife," or "To cut a piece of wood," is perfectly free from vulgarity, because it is perfectly common; but to cut an acquaintance is not quite unexceptionable, because it is not perfectly common or intelligible, and has hardly yet escaped out of the limits of slang phraseology. I should hardly, therefore, use the word in this sense without putting it in italics as a license of expression, to be received com grano salis. All provincial or bye-phrases come under the same mark of reprobation -- all such as the writer transfers to the page from his fireside or a particular coterie, or that he invents for his own sole use and convenience. I conceive that words are like money, not the worse for being common, but that it is the stamp of custom alone that gives them circulation or value. I am fastidious in this respect, and would almost as soon coin the currency of the realm as counterfeit the King's English. I never invented or gave a new and unauthorized meaning to any words but one single one (the term impersonal applied to feelings), and that was in an abstruse metaphysical discussion to express a very difficult distinction. I have been (I know) loudly accused of revelling in vulgarisms and broken English. I cannot speak to that point; but so far I plead guilty to the determined use of acknowledged idioms and common elliptical expressions. I am not sure that the critics in question know the one from the other, that is can distinguish any medium between formal pedantry and the most barbarous solecism. As an author I endeavour to employ plain words and popular modes of construction, as, were I a chapman and dealer, I should common weights and measures.
The proper force of words lies not in the words themselves, but in their application. A word may be a find-sounding word, of an unusual length, and a 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 clinches a writer's meaning : -- as it is not the size of 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 larger timber, and more so than the mere showy, unsubstantial ornaments. I hate anything that occupies more space than it is worth. I hate to see a load of band-boxes go along the street, and I hate to see a parcel of big words without anything 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 every-day 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 Cobbet 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. We seldom succeed by trying at improvement, or by merely substituting one word for another that we are not satisfied with, as we cannot recollect the name of a place or person by merely plaguing ourselves about it. We wander farther form the point by persisting in a wrong scent; but it start up accidentally in the memory when we least expect it, by touching some link in the chain of previous association.
There are those who hoard up and make a cautious display of nothing but rich and rare phraseology -- ancient medals, obscure coins, and Spanish pieces of eight. They are very curious to inspect, but I myself would neither offer not take them in the course of exchange. A sprinkling of archaisms is not amiss, but a tissue of obsolete expressions is more fit for keep than wear. I do not say I would not use any phrase that had been brought into fashion before the middle or the end of the last century, but I should be shy of using any that had not been employed by any approved author during the whole of that time. Words, like clothes, get old-fashioned, or mean and ridiculous, when they have been for some time laid aside. Mr. Lamb is the only imitator of old English style I can read with pleasure; and he is so thoroughly imbued with the spirit of his authors that the idea of imitation is almost done away. There is an inward unction, a marrowy vein, both in the thought and feeling, an intuition, deep and lively, of his subject, that carries off any quaintness or awkwardness arising from an antiquated style and dress. The matter is completely his own, though the manner is assumed. Perhaps his ideas are altogether so marked and individual as to require their point and pungency to be neutralised by the affectation of a singular but traditional form of conveyance. Tricked out in the prevailing costume, they would probably seem more startling and out of the way. The old English authors, Burton, Fuller, Coryate, Sir Thomas Browne, are a kind of mediators between us and the more eccentric and whimsical modern, reconciling us to his peculiarities. I do not, however, know how far this is the case or not, till he condescends to write like one of us. I must confess that what I like best of his papers under the signature of Elia (still I do no presume amidst such excellence, to decide what is most excellent) is the account of "Mrs Battle's Opinions on Whist," which is also the most free from obsolete allusions and turns of expression --
"A well of native English undefiled."
To those acquainted with his admired prototypes, these Essays of the ingenious and highly gifted author have the same sort of charm and relish that Erasmus's Colloquies or a fine piece of modern Latin have to the classical scholar. Certainly, I do not know any borrowed pencil that has more power or felicity of execution than the one of which I have here been speaking.
It is as easy to write a gaudy style without ideas as it is to spread a pallet of showy colours or to smear in a flaunting transparency. "What do you read?" "Words, words, words."-- What is the matter? "Nothing, "it might be answered. The florid style is the reverse of the familiar. The last is employed as an unvarnished medium to convey ideas; the first is resorted to as a spangled veil to conceal the want of them. When there is nothing to be set down but words, it costs little to have them fine. Look through the dictionary and cull out a florilegium, rival the tulippomania. Rouge high enough, and never mind the natural complexion. The vulgar, who are not in the secret, will admire the look of preternatural health and vigour; and the fashionable, who regard only appearances, will be delighted with the imposition. Keep to your sounding generalities, your tinkling phrases, and all will be well. Swell out an unmeaning truism to a perfect tympany of style. A thought, a distinction is the rock on which all this brittle cargo of verbiage splits at once. Such writers have merely verbal imaginations, that retain nothing but words. Or their puny thoughts have dragon-wings, all green and gold. They soar far above the vulgar failing of the Sermo humi obrepens -- their most ordinary speech is never short of an hyperbole, splendid, imposing, vague, incomprehensible, magniloquent, a cento of sounding common-places. If some of us, whose "ambition is more lowly, "pry a little too narrowly into nooks and corners to pick up a number of "unconsidered trifles," they never once direct their eyes or lift their hands to seize on any but the most gorgeous, tarnished, thread-bare, patchwork set of phrases, the left-off finery of poetic extravagance, transmitted down through successive generations of barren pretenders. If they criticise actor and actresses, a huddled phantasmagoria of feathers, spangles, floods of light, and oceans of sounds float before their morbid sense, which they paint in the style of Ancient Pistol. Not a glimpse can you get of the merits of defects of the performers: they are hidden in a profusion of barbarous epithets and wilful rhodomontade. Our hypercritics are not thinking of these little fantoccini beings --
"That strut and fret their hour upon the stage -- "
but of tall phantoms of words, abstractions, genera and species, sweeping clauses, periods that unite the Poles, forced alliterations, astounding antitheses --
"And on their pens Fustian sits plumed."
If they describe kings and queens, it is an Eastern pageant. The Coronation at either House is nothing to it. We get at four repeated images, a curtain, a throne, a sceptre, and a foot-stool. These are with them the wardrobe of a lofty imagination; and they turn their servile strains to servile uses. Do we read a description of pictures? It is not a reflection of tones and hues which "nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on, "put piles of precious stones, rubies, pearls, emeralds, Golconda's mines, and all the blazonry of art. Such persons are in fact besotted with words, and their brains are turned with the glittering but empty and sterile phantoms of things. Personifications, capital letters, seas of sunbeams, visions of glory, shining inscriptions the figures of a transparency, Britannia with her shield, or Hope leaning on an anchor, make up their stock-in-trade. They may be considered hieroglyphical writers. Images stands out in their minds isolated and important merely in themselves, without any ground-work of feeling-- there is no context in their imaginations. Words affect them in the same way, by the mere sound, that is, by their possible not by their actual application to the subject in hand. They are fascinated by first appearances, and have no sense of consequences. Nothing more is meant by them than meets the ear: they understand or feel nothing more than meet their eye. The web and texture of the universe, and of the heart of man, is a mystery to them: they have no faculty that strikes a chord in unison with it. They cannot get beyond the daubings of fancy, the varnish of sentiment. Objects are not linked to feelings, words to things, but images revolve in splendid mockery, words represent themselves in their strange rhapsodies. The categories of such a mind are pride and ignorance -- pride in outside show, to which they sacrifice everything, and ignorance of the true worth and hidden structure both of words and things. With a sovereign contempt for what is familiar and natural, they are the slaves of vulgar affectation -- of a routine of high-flown phrases. Scorning to imitate realities, they are unable to invent anything, to strike out one original idea. They are not copyists of nature, it is true; but they are the poorest of all plagiarists, the plagiarists of words. All is far-fetched, dear bought, artificial, oriental in subject and allusion; all is mechanical, conventional, vapid, formal, pedantic in style and execution. They startle and confound the understanding of the reader by the remoteness and obscurity to their illustrations; they sooth the ear by the monotony of the same everlasting round of circuitous metaphors. They are the mock-school in poetry and prose. They flounder about between fustian in expression and bathos in sentiment. They tantalize the fancy, but never reach the head nor touch the heart. Their Temple of Fame is like a shadow structure raised by Dulness to Vanity, or like Cowper's description of the Empress of Russia's palace of ice, "as worthless as in show 'twas glittering" --
"It smiled, and it was cold!"
译文：
平易的文体并非轻易得来。不少人误认为文字俚俗便是文风平易，信笔写去即为不加雕饰。其实恰恰相反。我说的这种文体比任何文字都更加需要精确，或者说，需要语言纯净。它不但要摒除一切华而不实之词，也要摒除一切陈言套语以及那些若即若离、不相连属、胡拼乱凑的比喻。飘然自来的浮词切不可使用，而要在通行词语中选优拔萃；也不可随心所欲将各种词语任意搭配，必须在习惯用语中确有所本方可加以发挥。所谓写出一手纯正、平易的英语文体，意思是说：要像一个完全精通词章之道的人在日常谈话中那样，说话行云流水，娓娓动人，明晰畅达，却无掉书袋、炫口才之嫌。换句话说，朴素的作文与日常谈话的关系，正和朴素的朗读与日常口语的关系相同。这并非说，只要不去超越日常口头表达规范，你便可轻而易举地出口字正腔圆，发音抑扬适度。当然，你无须像在教堂里讲道或在舞台上朗诵那样拿腔作势；然而，你也不可不分轻重，不讲分寸，信口哇啦哇啦，再不然就乞灵于粗俗方言和油腔滑调。中间之道才是应当采取的办法。某种疾徐适度的发音制约着你，而这种发音方法又受制于某种约定俗成的以音表意的关系，要想找到它只有去体察作者的本意——这就正如你要想找到恰当的字眼和风格来表达自己的意思，必须凝神细思自己要写的内容一样。用演戏似的调子朗诵一段文章，或者用夸张的方式把自己的思想表达一番，这样的事人人会做；但是，要想做文、说话恰到好处，朴实无华，可就比较难了。华丽的文章好做，只要在叙事状物之际采用夸大一倍的字眼就行，然而，要想找出确切的字眼，与那一事物铢两悉称，纤毫不差，可就不那么容易了。从十个八个同样通俗易懂，也几乎同样可供采用的字眼当中，选出某一个字眼，这个字眼的优长之处极难分辨但又至关紧要，这是要有明察秋毫的眼力的。我之所以不赞成约翰逊博士的文体，原因就在于那种文体缺乏明辨，缺乏汰选，缺乏变化。他使用的全是从“朱红字体训告”中挑出来的那些“高大、晦涩的字眼”——这些音缀很长，或者是加上英语词尾的拉丁词。要是这样随心所欲地矫饰就能形成优美的文体，那么只要对某位作家使用的单词长度加以计算，或者只看他如何把本国语言换成累赘的外来语词（不管和内容关系如何），便可判定文风的典雅了。这么说来，为高雅而舍平易，因典丽而失本意，岂不是太容易了吗？要想避免文风卑下，只要机械似地在文章中一味卖弄学问，装腔作势也就是了。你在文章中连一个普通的字眼也不用，自然不会犯用词粗俗之病。然而，真正的文字圆熟却表现在一方面坚持使用那些人人通用的字眼，而又回避那些在某些可厌的环境中用滥了的字眼，以及那些仅仅对于某种技术或某种行业才有意义的词语。真正平易自然的文体不可给人以怪僻或粗俗之感，因为这种文体要通行四方，说服公众，而冷僻粗俗之词却容易使人联想到某些粗野、不快或狭隘的概念。这里指的是所谓“切口”或“俚语”。笼统议论，难以说明，且举一例：像To cut with a knife （用刀子来切）To cut a piece of wood（切开一块木头）这样的短语，完全不会给人以粗俗之感，因为它们是到处通用的；然而，To cut an acquaintance（切断和熟人的来往）这个说法，就不能说是无懈可击了，因为它并非处处通行，人人明了，它还没有走出俚语的范围。因此，我将这个单词用于此种意义时，不得不写成斜体字样，以表明这是一种破格用法，在采用时要cum grano salis（加以斟酌）。一切土语冷词也应在摒弃之列——因为作者把此类字眼写在纸上，是为了谈论他自己家里或某个“小圈子”的私事，再不然就是他为了某种个人方便自己生造的。我想，词汇就像货币，愈通用愈好，而且，它们也只有靠着习俗的批准才能流通、才有价值。在这个问题上，我是宁缺毋滥的——我宁愿去冒险私造国家货币，也不肯去私造国王陛下的英语（注：即地地道道的英语）。我从未生造过什么单词，也不曾毫无根据的给哪个单词添加什么新的意义，只有一次例外——用impersonal（非个人的）这个词去形容感情，那还是在讨论深奥的形而上学问题时，为了表示某种非常难以界说的特征时才使用的。我知道，我曾经被人强烈谴责，说我爱用粗鄙字眼和蹩脚英语。对此我不想辩解。不过，我倒愿意自己招认：对于那些公认的习惯用语和通行省略句型，我是坚决采用的。而且，我相信，那些评论家们自己也未必能够把这两回事分得清清楚楚，就是说，在煞有介事掉书袋和不顾文理、野调无腔这两者之间还能看出点别的什么名堂。作为一个作家，我竭力使用那些普普通通的字眼和那些家喻户晓的语言结构，正像假如我是一个商贩，我一定使用大家通用的度量衡器具一样。
词汇的力量不在词汇本身，而在词汇的应用。一个音节嘹亮的长字，就其本身的学术性和新奇感来说，可能是令人叹赏的，然而，把它放在某句上下文之中，说不定倒会牛头不对马嘴。这是因为要确切表达作者的意思，关键并不在文词是否华丽，堂皇，而在于文词是否切合内容；正像在建筑中，要使拱门坚固，关键不在于材料的大小和光泽，而在于它们用在那里是否恰好严丝合缝。因此，在建筑物中，竹头木钉有时竟与大件木料同等重要，而其支撑作用肯定远远胜过那些徒有其表、不切实用的装饰部件。我最见不得那些白占地位的东西，见不得一大堆空纸盒装在车上招摇过市，也见不得那些写在纸面上的大而无当的字眼。一个人写文章，只要他不是立志要把自己的真意用重重锦绣帐幔、层层多余伪装完全遮掩起来，他总会从熟悉的日常用语中想出一二十种说法，一个比一个接近他所要表达的情感，只怕到了最后，他竟会拿不定主意要用哪一种说法才能恰如其分地表达自己的心意哩！如此说来，考拜特先生（注：威廉·考拜特[1763-1835]，农民出身的英国政论家，属于小资产阶级激进派，散文代表作为《骑马乡行记》）所谓最先闪现脑际之词自然最好的说法未必可靠。这样出现的字眼也许很好，然而经过一次又一次推敲，还会发现更好的字眼。这种字眼，要经过围绕内容进行清醒而活泼的构思，才能够自自然然出现。碰上一个字眼不满意，只顾在那里改来换去，是不济事的，正像我们有时忘记一个人名、地名，光逼迫脑子苦思呆想无用一样。路子走偏了，愈坚持就离目标愈远。但是，沿着本来的思路，一旦想到点子上，需要的词儿说不定就会在意料不到的时候一下子出现。
有人专爱搜藏华丽奇巧的词藻，就像珍藏着古老的奖章、年代不明的钱币和西班牙八里尔的小钱那样，郑重其事向人炫耀。这些玩意儿拿来猎奇欣赏是很好玩的，但我却不愿在流通过程中接受它们，使用它们。文章中带上一点儿古色古香并不妨事，但若满篇古语废词，那就“仅可供摆设而不切实用”了。我并不是说，凡是在上一世纪中叶或末期曾经流行过的习语，我统统摒弃不用；我是说，在那个时期的习语中，凡是未经有定评的作家使用过的，我也尽量小心，以不用为是。词汇，像衣服一样，经过一段时间弃置不用，就会失去时效，变得相形见绌，甚至滑稽可笑。只有兰姆先生的文章，虽然摹拟古老的英语文体，我仍然能够高高兴兴地读下去，原因是他和那些作家在精神上浑然相通，让人不觉其为摹拟。他那内在的温情，藏在思想感情深处的禀性，那通过深邃、灵敏的直觉而获得的题材，冲淡了古色古香的文体外衣所带来的古怪、别扭之感。内容全是他自己的，风格却是摹拟他人的。也许正因为他那种思想太与众不同了，才不得不采用一种特别的传统表达方式，把他那尖锐的锋芒加以收敛。因为，以他那样的思想，再用时新的服装打扮起来，恐怕就太惊世骇俗了。伯尔顿、付莱、科雷亚特、托马斯·勃朗爵士（注：伯尔顿、付莱、科雷亚特、托马斯·勃朗——这四人都是17世纪的英国散文作家，为兰姆所喜爱和摹拟）这几位古老的英国作家，夹在我们和我们这位当代奇才（注：指兰姆）之间，似乎起着一种调解人的作用，使得我们对于他的怪癖能够不以为奇。当然，情况是否果真如此，我不敢说，那还要等他自己肯像我们普通人这样写作，才能见个分晓。但我得承认，在他使用伊利亚为笔名所发表的那些篇子里（尽管对于如此妙文，我不敢妄评甲乙），我最喜爱的乃《拜特尔太太谈打牌》（注：兰姆《伊利亚随笔》中的一篇文章），因为，这篇纪事摆脱了陈旧的典故和词藻，真像是——
一泓清泉，贮存着纯净、地道的英语（注：此句引自英国著名诗人斯宾塞的长诗《仙后》第四部，原意是赞美乔叟的语言）。
对于这位才思敏捷、天赋高超的作者，在了解他的文学师承关系之后，再读他这些随笔，人们所感到的魅力和兴味，恰如一个古典学者读到伊拉斯谟斯（注：伊拉斯谟斯[约1466－1536]，欧洲文艺复兴时期的荷兰人文主义学者和作家，《对话集》是他的拉丁文作品）的《对话集》或者一部优美的近代拉丁文作品。说实话，我不知道还有什么人摹拟他人笔法，竟能比我现在谈到的这位作者更有气势，效果更为完满。
内容空洞、词藻华丽的文章写来容易，因为那就如同把调色板上的颜料五颜六色任意涂抹，或者把画面涂得一片明亮，令人目眩。“你读的是什么？”“词儿，词儿，词儿。”（注：《哈姆雷特》第二幕第二场的台词）“里边说的什么？”回答也许是：“空话。”华丽的文体和平易的文体截然不同——后者如实表达思想，不加粉饰；前者却拿闪光的外表把思想的空洞掩盖起来。既然除了文字以外再也没有什么可说，那么把文字写得漂漂亮亮就不必花什么力气了。“爱花人迷”这个说法不好，打开词典，挑出“雅好群芳”来换上。“绯红”高雅之至，拿来使用，不必管人脸上到底是什么颜色。一般人不明底细，见了这样的盛颜花貌，只顾赞叹不止；那些赶时髦的人，以浮光掠影为满足，对此等瞒骗文字更是欣然接受。这么一来，写文章时只要语言响亮，内容模糊，就能万事大吉。结果废话大大膨胀，造成文风臃肿。然而，思想，或者说，明辨力，是一块试金石，在这上面，一切脆弱的冗词赘语都要碰得粉碎的。那样的作家只有语言方面的想象力，除了词藻以外他们再也抓不住什么了。或者说，他们那孱弱的思想长上了蜻蜓似的金碧辉煌的翅膀。他们翱翔于芸芸众生之上，对于“土生土长的语言”不屑一顾——他们的语言至低也带上夸张修辞法，那是漂亮、气派、含糊，叫人不懂却又堂皇典雅，总之，是一堆铿然锵然的陈词滥调。如果说，像我们这样“胸无大志”的人专爱盯住角角落落，打听那些“无人关心的小事”，那么他们一睁眼，一抬手就会老去光顾那些华丽的、晦涩的、陈腐的、拼拼凑凑的连篇空话——那像陈年留下来的锦绣碎片一样，是经过一代一代无才思的冒牌作家承袭下来的诗歌破烂儿。如果让他们写戏评，他们那病态的感官只能看到舞台上羽毛飞舞，金片闪烁，灯光似波涛翻滚，人声如海洋鼎沸，于是，他们就拿出火枪军曹（注：火枪军曹，莎士比亚《享利四世》中的一个人物，爱吵吵嚷嚷、乱引诗文）那样说话的腔调儿，如此这般描绘一番。至于演员表演的长短，你却休想窥见半点——它们完全被一派大言狂语所淹没了。我们的胡批乱评家不肯去想一想那些可怜的小戏子——
他们台上指手画脚，辛辛苦苦做戏（注：引自莎士比亚《麦克白》第五幕第五场）。在这些作者心目中，只有堂皇的词汇影子，抽象概念，门类概念和种属概念，只有以气势凌人的子句，只有几乎能把南北极连起来的掉尾长句，牵强的头韵，惊人的对仗——
浮夸踞笔端，搔首自得意。
如果让他们描写君主和皇后，他们一定会写得像东方的赛会一般豪华，连国王在议院的加冕典礼也无法与之相比。读者只能反复看到四样东西：帐幔，宝座，王笏，脚凳——这些，对于作者来说，就是崇高想象的全部依据，翻来覆去运用，直到用滥为止。另外，难道我们没有读过这一类的图画评论吗？它根本不去反映“大自然的妙手涂抹”所造成的光影和色彩，而是满纸宝石，红玉，珍珠，绿翠，果尔康大的宝藏（注：果尔康大，印度的金刚石产地，转义为“宝藏”、“富源”），一派人工造成的珠光宝气。这种人被词藻弄糊涂了，他们头脑里总是转悠着那些亮闪闪、空洞洞的事物假象。拟人化，大写字母，阳光的海洋，光荣的幻景，闪光的题词，鲜丽的藻饰，拿着盾牌的不列颠女神（注：象征英国的带有盾牌的女神），倚锚而立的希望女神——这些就是他们的看家本领。他们可以叫做“象形文字作家”（注：“象形文字作家”，意即：专门写文字华丽、内容晦涩的作品的作家）。在他们心中，意象脱离感情基础，可以独立存在，不受制约——他们的想象力可以不顾内容的连贯，任意驰骋。词汇打动他们，只是由于声音响亮，只是由于它们与内容或许有关，而不是因为它们能够贴切表达内容。他们对于词汇一见倾心，并不考虑后果——只要听来顺耳，看来悦目，此外他们什么也不管，不问，不理。宇宙的构造，人心的素质，对他们来说，都是漆黑一团——他们无法与之同声相应，息息相通。他们只能在胡思乱想、粉饰感情中度日，无力自拔。在他们的奇文中，物体脱离了感情，形象自顾自地在那里光怪陆离地旋转；词藻脱离了事物，独来独往，狂飞乱舞。这样一种精神状态的特点是狂妄与无知：表面看来狂妄，因为他们牺牲一切，不以为意；实质上对于语言的真正价值和事物的内在构造却是全然无知。他们以最高的轻蔑对待一切平易自然的事物，却做了粗鄙的矫揉造作和陈腐的夸夸其谈的奴隶。他们不屑于摩拟现实，又无力进行任何创造，提不出一点新意。他们当然不肯做大自然的记录者，却做了最拙劣的剽窃家——剽窃前人的词藻。在他们那里，从题材到典故，一切都是牵强附会，华美离奇，匠气十足，得不偿失；从文风到手法，也都是机械呆板、陈陈相因，索然寡味，拘泥形式，装腔作势。他们那些朦朦胧胧、令人费解的例证搅乱了读者的理解力；他们在读者耳边一遍又一遍重复着那些单调无味、迂回含糊的比喻。他们属于诗坛文苑中的蹩脚摹拟派。他们使出浑身解数，也走不出夸大其词或无病呻吟的范围。他们逗弄着读者的想象力，但永远不能启发他们的头脑，感动他们的心灵。他们的荣誉的殿堂，是由愚蠢为虚荣而树立的一座虚无缥缈的建筑物——那就像库柏（注：威廉·库柏[1731--1800]，英国诗人，诗句引自他的诗歌《任务》）诗里所描写的俄国女皇的冰宫，“外表光彩夺目，实际一文不值”：
它笑容可掬，但却冷酷无情！
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