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Why do we all talk so much and write so little except to criticize or Comment.
We can all command the pleased attention of our friends when we have the mind; our occasional jets of wit play high in the air midst applause.
But when this delicate spray has vanished, then what seems corporal melts as a breath into the wind, and nothing remains.
We ought to write more for what is written is a permanent creation and is always with us.
Few of us seem to realize this. If we did, we would write every day.
With a little practice our written words would outdo our spoken for we can work and work at our writing, score it out and try again as we cannot do with our talking, which for many of us is spontaneous, and at the mercy of our temporary situation.
Moreover, writing gives precision and point to our employment of words and powers of imagination and indeed, in time improves the quality of our conversation! Why, therefore, do we leave this potent art to a mere handful among us.
It seems that most of us would rather use out leisure time in other ways; when we have no mind to talk we prefer to read; if we can resist the temptations of that time and mind-consuming gargantuan - Television.
Reading is commendable for it helps to widen the horizons of our learning.
We certainly cannot write ourselves unless we are 'living with writers', which is what we are doing when we read. But why should we read perhaps a hundred books a year and ourselves not write a hundred words except those prescribed by our profession? Because maybe we're only lotus-eaters without ambition, or possibly of all labor we like mental labor the least.
Yet writing does not the demand the knowledge of Homer, the wisdom of Socrates, the prudence of Augustus, the subtlety of Hannibal, the strength of Samson, the promiscuity of Hitler or even the iron resolve of Bismarck, but simply the deployment of our inherent capacity to think.
And it has one significant compensation - It makes us live.
We cannot write much unless we have much to write about, and our material for thought can only come from our own observation of things and the world about us. There is no other source.
-M
We can all command the pleased attention of our friends when we have the mind; our occasional jets of wit play high in the air midst applause.
But when this delicate spray has vanished, then what seems corporal melts as a breath into the wind, and nothing remains.
We ought to write more for what is written is a permanent creation and is always with us.
Few of us seem to realize this. If we did, we would write every day.
With a little practice our written words would outdo our spoken for we can work and work at our writing, score it out and try again as we cannot do with our talking, which for many of us is spontaneous, and at the mercy of our temporary situation.
Moreover, writing gives precision and point to our employment of words and powers of imagination and indeed, in time improves the quality of our conversation! Why, therefore, do we leave this potent art to a mere handful among us.
It seems that most of us would rather use out leisure time in other ways; when we have no mind to talk we prefer to read; if we can resist the temptations of that time and mind-consuming gargantuan - Television.
Reading is commendable for it helps to widen the horizons of our learning.
We certainly cannot write ourselves unless we are 'living with writers', which is what we are doing when we read. But why should we read perhaps a hundred books a year and ourselves not write a hundred words except those prescribed by our profession? Because maybe we're only lotus-eaters without ambition, or possibly of all labor we like mental labor the least.
Yet writing does not the demand the knowledge of Homer, the wisdom of Socrates, the prudence of Augustus, the subtlety of Hannibal, the strength of Samson, the promiscuity of Hitler or even the iron resolve of Bismarck, but simply the deployment of our inherent capacity to think.
And it has one significant compensation - It makes us live.
We cannot write much unless we have much to write about, and our material for thought can only come from our own observation of things and the world about us. There is no other source.
-M
