I would have
hesitated, did I say? Griffins' tails! Nay--Hippogriffs and other things
of the night! I would not have dared to write it at all! For this
journalist made a law and promulgated it, and the law was this: that no
man should write that English which could not be understood if all the
punctuation were left out. Punctuation, I take it, includes brackets,
which the Lord of Printers knows are a very modern part of punctuation
indeed.
Now let the horripilised reader look up again at the first paragraph (it
will do him no harm), and think how it would look all written out in
fair uncials like the beautiful Gospels of St. Chad, which anyone may
see for nothing in the cathedral of Lichfield, an English town famous
for eight or nine different things: as Garrick, Doctor Johnson, and its
two opposite inns. Come, read that first paragraph over now and see what
you could make of it if it were written out in uncials--that is, not
only without punctuation, but without any division between the words.
Wow! As the philosopher said when he was asked to give a plain answer
"Yes" or "No."
And now to cheese. I have had quite enough of digressions and of
follies. They are the happy youth of an article. They are the springtime
of it. They are its riot. I am approaching the middle age of this
article. Let us be solid upon the matter of cheese.
I have premised its antiquity, which is of two sorts, as is that of a
nobleman.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25