To be wholly successful, the journalist--at
least the English journalist--must not be too eloquent, or too witty,
or too humorous, or too ingenious, or too profound. Yet the English
reader likes, or thinks he likes, eloquence; he has a keen sense of
humour, and a fair appreciation of wit; and he would be much hurt if he
were told that ingenuity and profundity were in themselves distasteful
to him. How, then, to give him enough of these qualities to please and
not enough to offend him--as much eloquence as will stir his emotions,
but not enough to arouse his distrust; as much wit as will carry home
the argument, but not enough to make him doubt its sincerity; as much
humour as will escape the charge of levity, as much ingenuity as can be
displayed without incurring suspicion, and as much profundity as may
impress without bewildering? This is a problem which is fortunately
simplified for most journalists by the fact of their possessing these
qualities in no more than, if in so much as, the minimum required. But
Coleridge, it must be remembered, possessed most of them in
embarrassing superfluity. Not all of them indeed, for, though he could
be witty and at times humorous, his temptations to excess in these
respects were doubtless not considerable.
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