"There are two sorts of eloquence. The one
indeed scarce deserves the name of it, which consists chiefly in laboured and
polished periods, an over-curious and artificial arrangement of figures,
tinselled over with a gaudy embellishment of words, which glitter, but convey
little or no light to the understanding. This kind of writing is for the most
part much affected and admired by people of weak judgment and vicious taste….
The other sort of eloquence is quite the reverse of this; and which may be said
to be the true characteristic of the holy Scriptures; where the excellence does
not arise from a laboured and far-fetched elocution, but from a surprising
mixture of simplicity and majesty, which is a double character, so difficult to
be united, that it is seldom to be met with in compositions merely
human."—Laurence Sterne,
"Sermon 42: Search the Scriptures," 1760, in The Works of Laurence Sterne: Sermons (1790)
(The image of the Tristram Shandy novelist accompanying this post is the 1760 Sir
Joshua Reynolds painting in London’s National Portrait Gallery.)
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