which they have been pleased to take up and think very grand, a style,
for example, _par excellence_ profound and scientific, where the
reader is tormented to death by the narcotic effect of longspun
periods without a single idea in them,--such as are furnished in
a special measure by those most impudent of all mortals, the
Hegelians[1]; or it may be that it is an intellectual style they have
striven after, where it seems as though their object were to go crazy
altogether; and so on in many other cases. All these endeavors to put
off the _nascetur ridiculus mus_--to avoid showing the funny little
creature that is born after such mighty throes--often make it
difficult to know what it is that they really mean. And then, too,
they write down words, nay, even whole sentences, without attaching
any meaning to them themselves, but in the hope that someone else will
get sense out of them.

[Footnote 1: In their Hegel-gazette, commonly known as _Jahrbücher der
wissenschaftlichen Literatur_.]

And what is at the bottom of all this? Nothing but the untiring effort
to sell words for thoughts; a mode of merchandise that is always
trying to make fresh openings for itself, and by means of odd
expressions, turns of phrase, and combinations of every sort, whether
new or used in a new sense, to produce the appearence of intellect in
order to make up for the very painfully felt lack of it.

It is amusing to see how writers with this object in view will attempt
first one mannerism and then another, as though they were putting
on the mask of intellect! This mask may possibly deceive the
inexperienced for a while, until it is seen to be a dead thing, with
no life in it at all; it is then laughed at and exchanged for another.