His acquaintance with the English tongue is unsurpassed. He "hates
false words, and seeks with care, difficulty, and moroseness, those
that fit the thing." He knows the value of his own words. "They are
not," he says, "written on slate." He never stoops to explanation,
nor uses seven words where one will do. He is a master of
condensation and suppression, and that in no vulgar way. He knows
the wide difference between compression and an obscure elliptical
style. The dense writer has yet ample room and choice of phrase, and
even a gamesome mood often between his valid words. There is no
inadequacy or disagreeable contraction in his sentence, any more than
in a human face, where in a square space of a few inches is found
room for every possible variety of expression.
Yet it is not as an artist, that Mr. Landor commends himself to
us. He is not epic or dramatic, he has not the high, overpowering
method, by which the master gives unity and integrity to a work of
many parts. He is too wilful, and never abandons himself to his
genius. His books are a strange mixture of politics, etymology,
allegory, sentiment, and personal history, and what skill of
transition he may possess is superficial, not spiritual.
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