Swosh

There is a kind of ill-balanced brain in which the reflective and the imaginative very much out weight the perceptive. Men to whom this kind of an organization has been given generally have active minds, but their minds never present anything clearly. To their mental vision all is ill-defined, chaotic. They see everything in a haze. Whether such men talk or write, they are verbose, illogical, intangible, will-o'-the-wispish. Their thoughts are phantomlike; like shadows, they continually escape their grasp. In their talk they will, after long di ertations, tell you that they have not said just what they would like to say; there is always a subtle, lurking something still unexpre ed, which something is the real e ence of the matter, and which your penetration is expected to divine. In their writings they are eccentric, vague, labyrinthine, pretentious, transcendental, [35] and frequently ungrammatical. These men, if write they must, should confine themselves to the descriptive; for when they enter the e ayist's domain, which they are very prone to do, they write what I will venture to call swosh . We find examples in plenty of this kind of writing in the e ays of Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson. Indeed, the impartial critic who will take the trouble to examine any of Mr. Emerson's e ays at all carefully, is quite sure to come to the conclusion that Mr. Emerson has seen everything he has ever made the subject of his e ays very much as London is seen from the top of Saint Paul's in a fog. Mr. Emerson's definition of Nature runs thus: "Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul. Strictly speaking, therefore, all that is separate from us, all which philosophy distinguishes from the Not Me —that is, both Nature and Art, and all other men, and my own body—must be ranked under this name ' Nature .' In enumerating the values of Nature and casting up their sum, I shall use the word in both senses—in its common and in its philosophical import. In inquiries so general as our present one, the inaccuracy is not material; no confusion of thought will occur. Nature , in the common sense, refers to e ences unchanged by man: space, the air, the river, the leaf. Art is applied to the mixture of his will with the same things, as in a house, a canal, a picture, a statue. But his operations, taken together, are so insignificant—a little chipping, baking, patching, and washing—that in an impre ion so grand as that of the world on the human mind they do not vary the result." In "Letters and Social Aims" Mr. Emerson writes: "Eloquence is the power to translate a truth into language perfectly intelligible to the person to whom you speak. He who would convince the worthy Mr. Dunderhead of any truth which Dunderhead does not see, must be a master of his art. Declamation is common; but such po e ion of thought as is here required, such practical chemistry as the conversion of a truth written in God's language into a truth in Dunderhead's language, is one of the most beautiful and cogent weapons that is forged in the shop of the Divine Artificer." The first paragraph of Mr. Emerson's "E ay on Art" reads: "All departments of life at the present day—Trade, Politics, Letters, Science, or Religion—seem to feel, and to labor to expre , the identity of their law. They are rays of one sun; they translate each into a new language the sense of the other. They are sublime when seen as emanations of a Nece ity contradistinguished from the vulgar Fate by being instant and alive, and di olving man, as well as his works, in its flowing beneficence. This influence is conspicuously visible in the principles and history of Art." Another paragraph from Mr. Emerson's "E ay on Eloquence": "The orator, as we have seen, must be a substantial personality. Then, first, he must have power of statement—must have the fact, and know how to tell it. In a knot of men conversing on any subject, the person who knows most about it will have the ear of the company, if he wishes it, and lead the conversation, no matter what genius or distinction other men there present may have; and, in any public a embly, him who has the facts, and can and will state them, people will listen to, though he is otherwise ignorant, though he is hoarse and ungrateful, though he stutters and screams." Mr. Emerson, in his "E ay on Prudence," writes: "There are all degrees of proficiency in knowledge of the world. It is sufficient to our present purpose to indicate three. One cla live to the utility of the symbol, esteeming health and wealth a final good. Another cla live above this mark to the beauty of the symbol, as the poet and artist, and the naturalist and man of science. A third cla live above the beauty of the symbol to the beauty of the thing signified; these are wise men. The first cla have common sense; the second, taste; and the third, spiritual perception. Once in a long time a man traverses the whole scale, and sees and enjoys the symbol solidly; then, also, has a clear eye for its beauty; and, lastly, whilst he pitches his tent on this sacred volcanic isle of nature, does not offer to build houses and barns thereon, reverencing the splendor of God which he sees bursting through each chink and cranny." Those who are wont to accept others at their self-a e ment and to see things through other people's eyes—and there are many such—are in danger of thinking this kind of writing very fine, when in fact it is not only the veriest swosh , but that kind of swosh that excites at least an occasional doubt with regard to the writer's sanity. We can make no greater mistake than to suppose that the reason we do not understand these rhetorical contortionists is because they are so subtle and profound. We understand them quite as well as they understand themselves. At their very best, they are but incoherent diluters of other men's ideas. They have but one thing to recommend them—honesty. They believe in themselves. "Whatever is dark is deep. Stir a puddle, and it is deeper than a well."—Swift.