In reading some critical or pretended text books on construction since
that time I came across this sentence used to illustrate tautology. It
was pointed out that the bonds couldn't be "burst" without necessarily
being asunder. The confoundedest outrages in this world are the capers
that precisionists cut upon the bodies of the noble dead. And with
impunity too. Think of a village surveyor measuring the forest of Arden
to discover the exact acreage! Or a horse-doctor elevating his eye-brow
with a contemptuous smile and turning away, as from an innocent, when
you speak of the wings of that fine horse, Pegasus! Any idiot knows
that bonds couldn't be burst without being burst asunder. But, let the
impregnable Jackass think--what would become of the noble rhythm and the
majestic roll of sound? Shakespeare was an ignorant dunce also when he
characterized the ingratitude that involves the principle of public
honor as "the unkindest cut of all." Every school child knows that it is
ungrammatical; but only those who have any sense learn after awhile the
esoteric secret that it sometimes requires a tragedy of language to
provide fitting sacrifice to the manes of despair. There never was yet
a man of genius who wrote grammatically and under the scourge of
rhetorical rules. Anthony Trollope is a most perfect example of the
exact correctness that sterilizes in its own immaculate chastity.
Thackeray would knock a qualifying adverb across the street, or thrust
it under your nose to make room for the vivid force of an idea. Trollope
would give the idea a decent funeral for the sake of having his adverb
appear at the grave above reproach from grammatical gossip. Whenever I
have risen from the splendid psychological perspective of old Job, the
solemn introspective howls of Ecclesiasticus and the generous living
philosophy of Shakespeare it has always been with the desire--of course
it is undignified, but it is human--to go and get an English grammar
for the pleasure of spitting upon it. Let us be honest. I understand