If certain keen and decided people were believed, words would be too verbose to express feelings: you would have to communicate with them in signs, or make yourself understood without speaking. Whatever care you take to be compact and concise, and whatever reputation you have for being so, they will find you diffuse. You must leave it to them to supply everything, and write for nobody else. They understand a phrase from the word that begins it, and a whole chapter from a phrase: if you have read them a single part of your work, that is enough, they have experienced it and understand everything. A web of enigmas would be a pleasure for them to read; and it's unfortunate for them that this maimed style is so rare, and that few writers work toward it. Comparisons of a flood whose course, though rapid, is smooth and uniform, or of a fire that, driven by the wind, spreads far over a forest and consumes oaks and pines, give them no idea of eloquence. Give them a surprising greek fire, or a dazzling bolt of lightening, and they will leave you what is good and beautiful.