Quote:DHBirr wrote:Sorry for reviving this thread, but just to point out: Johnson was talking in a time of rampant Purple Prose, and saying it of what he viewed as a really Purplely Author.Quote:Morganite wrote:Similarly, there's that famous line, Samuel Johnson claiming to be quoting someone else, about going through whatever you've written and if you come to "a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out." Following that strictly has always struck me as a recipe for bland writing.
On the other hand, there's another interpretation that sounds more like "If you really loved writing a scene, delete it." Which sounds like a good way to become a bad writer to me. How often is someone who does that actually going to get published?
The exact quote, and context:
Quote:Goldsmith being mentioned; JOHNSON. 'It is amazing how little GoldsmithThanks,
knows. He seldom comes where he is not more ignorant than any one else.'
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 'Yet there is no man whose company is more liked.'
JOHNSON. 'To be sure, Sir. When people find a man of the most
distinguished abilities as a writer, their inferiour while he is with
them, it must be highly gratifying to them. What Goldsmith comically
says of himself is very true,—he always gets the better when he argues
alone; meaning, that he is master of a subject in his study, and can
write well upon it; but when he comes into company, grows confused, and
unable to talk[692]. Take him as a poet, his Traveller is a very fine
performance; ay, and so is his Deserted Village, were it not sometimes
too much the echo of his Traveller. Whether, indeed, we take him as a
poet,—as a comick writer,—or as an historian, he stands in the first
class.' BOSWELL. 'An historian! My dear Sir, you surely will not rank
his compilation of the Roman History with the works of other historians
of this age?' JOHNSON. 'Why, who are before him[693]?' BOSWELL. 'Hume,—
Robertson[694],—Lord Lyttelton.' JOHNSON (his antipathy to the Scotch
beginning to rise). 'I have not read Hume; but, doubtless, Goldsmith's
History is better than the verbiage of Robertson[695], or the foppery
of Dalrymple[696].' BOSWELL. 'Will you not admit the superiority of
Robertson, in whose History we find such penetration—such painting?'
JOHNSON. 'Sir, you must consider how that penetration and that painting
are employed. It is not history, it is imagination. He who describes
what he never saw, draws from fancy. Robertson paints minds as Sir
Joshua paints faces in a history-piece: he imagines an heroic
countenance. You must look upon Robertson's work as romance, and try it
by that standard[697].History it is not. Besides, Sir, it is the great
excellence of a writer to put into his book as much as his book will
hold. Goldsmith has done this in his History. Now Robertson might have
put twice as much into his book. Robertson is like a man who has packed
gold in wool: the wool takes up more room than the gold. No, Sir; I
always thought Robertson would be crushed by his own weight,—would be
buried under his own ornaments. Goldsmith tells you shortly all you want
to know: Robertson detains you a great deal too long. No man will read
Robertson's cumbrous detail a second time; but Goldsmith's plain
narrative will please again and again. I would say to Robertson what an
old tutor of a college said to one of his pupils: "Read over your
compositions, and where ever you meet with a passage which you think is
particularly fine, strike it out." Goldsmith's abridgement is better
than that of Lucius Florus or Eutropius; and I will venture to say, that
if you compare him with Vertot[698], in the same places of the Roman
History, you will find that he excels Vertot. Sir, he has the art of
compiling, and of saying every thing he has to say in a pleasing
manner[699]. He is now writing a Natural History and will make it as
entertaining as a Persian Tale.'
I cannot dismiss the present topick without observing, that it is
probable that Dr. Johnson, who owned that he often 'talked for victory,'
rather urged plausible objections to Dr. Robertson's excellent
historical works, in the ardour of contest, than expressed his real and
decided opinion; for it is not easy to suppose, that he should so widely
differ from the rest of the literary world[700].
Luc "One Eyed One Horned Flying Purple Prose Eater" French