In blogging, as it is writing, we would do well to consider this instruction by example from Robert Louis Stevenson in The Art of Writing and Other Essays:
"Communication may be made in broken words, the business of life be carried on with substantives alone; but that is not what we call literature; and the true business of the literary artist is to plait or weave his meaning, involving it around itself; so that each sentence, by successive phrases, shall first come into a kind of knot, and then, after a moment of suspended meaning, solve and clear itself. In every properly constructed sentence there should be observed this knot or hitch; so that (however delicately) we are led to foresee, to expect, and then to welcome the successive phrases. The pleasure may be heightened by an element of surprise, as, very grossly, in the common figure of the antithesis, or, with much greater subtlety, where an antithesis is first suggested and then deftly evaded. Each phrase, besides, is to be comely in itself; and between the implication and the evolution of the sentence there should be a satisfying equipoise of sound; for nothing more often disappoints the ear than a sentence solemnly and sonorously prepared, and hastily and weakly finished. Nor should the balance be too striking and exact, for the one rule is to be infinitely various; to interest, to disappoint, to surprise, and yet still to gratify; to be ever changing, as it were, the stitch, and yet still to give the effect of an ingenious neatness."
I have to turn this from prose into poetry, becuse I can't help myself:
Communication may be made in broken words,
the business of life be carried on with substantives alone;
but that is not what we call literature;
and the true business of the literary artist
is to plait or weave his meaning,
involving it around itself;
so that each sentence, by successive phrases,
shall first come into a kind of knot,
and then, after a moment of suspended meaning,
solve and clear itself.
In every properly constructed sentence
there should be observed this knot or hitch;
so that (however delicately) we are led to foresee,
to expect, and then to welcome
the successive phrases.
The pleasure may be heightened
by an element of surprise, as,
very grossly,
in the common figure of the antithesis,
or, with much greater subtlety,
where an antithesis is first suggested
and then deftly evaded.
Each phrase, besides, is to be comely in itself;
and between the implication
and the evolution of the sentence
there should be a satisfying equipoise of sound;
for nothing more often disappoints the ear
than a sentence solemnly and sonorously prepared,
and hastily and weakly finished.
Nor should the balance be too striking and exact,
for the one rule is to be infinitely various;
to interest, to disappoint, to surprise,
and yet still to gratify;
to be ever changing, as it were,
the stitch,
and yet still to give the effect
of an ingenious neatness.
Now that's georgeous. Thanks to Project Gutenberg and Marek.
