These
literary spinners forget the example of Macaulay, who was quite
contented if he turned out two foolscap pages as his actual completed
task in mere writing for one day. He was never tired of laying in new
stores, and he persistently refreshed his memory by running over books
which he had read oftentimes before. The books and manuscripts which
Gibbon read in twenty years reached such an enormous number that, when
he attempted to form a catalogue of them, he was compelled to give up
the task in despair; he was constantly adding to the enormous
reservoir of knowledge which he had at command, and thus his work
never grew stale, and he was ready instantly with a hundred
illustrative lights on any point which chanced to crop up either in
conversation or in the course of his reading. The cheap and flashy
writer is inclined to disdain the men who are thorough in their
studies; but, while his work grows thin and poor, the judicious
reader's becomes marked by more and more of richness and fulness.
Burke kept his vast accumulations of knowledge perfectly fresh; and I
notice in him that, instead of growing more staid and commonplace in
his style as he increased in years, he grew more vigorous, until he
actually slid into the excess of gaudy redundancy.
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