The
secondary effect of this is the ruin of language.
A great many bad writers make their whole living by that foolish
mania of the public for reading nothing but what has just been
printed,--journalists, I mean. Truly, a most appropriate name. In
plain language it is _journeymen, day-laborers_!
Again, it may be said that there are three kinds of authors. First
come those who write without thinking. They write from a full memory,
from reminiscences; it may be, even straight out of other people's
books. This class is the most numerous. Then come those who do their
thinking whilst they are writing. They think in order to write; and
there is no lack of them. Last of all come those authors who think
before they begin to write. They are rare.
Authors of the second class, who put off their thinking until they
come to write, are like a sportsman who goes forth at random and is
not likely to bring very much home. On the other hand, when an author
of the third or rare class writes, it is like a _battue_. Here the
game has been previously captured and shut up within a very small
space; from which it is afterwards let out, so many at a time, into
another space, also confined. The game cannot possibly escape the
sportsman; he has nothing to do but aim and fire--in other words,
write down his thoughts.
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