, I am wise in sticking to the conclusion. And yet
we are to know how to wind the string to all notes, and the sharpest is
that which is the most seldom touched. There is at least as much
perfection in elevating an empty as in supporting a weighty thing. A man
must sometimes superficially handle things, and sometimes push them home.
I know very well that most men keep themselves in this lower form from
not conceiving things otherwise than by this outward bark; but I likewise
know that the greatest masters, and Xenophon and Plato are often seen to
stoop to this low and popular manner of speaking and treating of things,
but supporting it with graces which never fail them.

Farther, my language has nothing in it that is facile and polished; 'tis
rough, free, and irregular, and as such pleases, if not my judgment, at
all events my inclination, but I very well perceive that I sometimes give
myself too much rein, and that by endeavouring to avoid art and
affectation I fall into the other inconvenience:

"Brevis esse laboro,
Obscurus fio."

[ Endeavouring to be brief, I become obscure."
--Hor., Art. Poet., 25.]

Plato says, that the long or the short are not properties, that either
take away or give value to language. Should I attempt to follow the
other more moderate, united, and regular style, I should never attain to
it; and though the short round periods of Sallust best suit with my
humour, yet I find Caesar much grander and harder to imitate; and though
my inclination would rather prompt me to imitate Seneca's way of writing,
yet I do nevertheless more esteem that of Plutarch. Both in doing and
speaking I simply follow my own natural way; whence, peradventure, it
falls out that I am better at speaking than writing. Motion and action
animate words, especially in those who lay about them briskly, as I do,
and grow hot. The comportment, the countenance; the voice, the robe, the
place, will set off some things that of themselves would appear no better
than prating. Messalla complains in Tacitus of the straitness of some
garments in his time, and of the fashion of the benches where the orators
were to declaim, that were a disadvantage to their eloquence.

My French tongue is corrupted, both in the pronunciation and otherwise,
by the barbarism of my country. I never saw a man who was a native of
any of the provinces on this side of the kingdom who