Benjamin Haydon
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
This is an age of intellectual sauces, of essence, of distillation. We have "conclusions" without deductions, "abridgments of history" and "abridgments of science" without leading facts. We have "animals" for literature, "Cabinet" Encyclopaedias, "Family" Libraries, "Diffusion" Societies, and heaven knows what else! What is all this for? Not to add knowledge to the learned, but to tell points to the ignorant, without giving them the trouble to acquire the links. Oh! it is sad work. And the result will be injurious to all classes.
—Benjamin Haydon, Correspondence and Table-Talk, 1876
Posted on March 4, 1999 at 10:05 AM
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