It’s true: I try to be concise. Sometimes this has worked out well. For instance, a favorite professor once wrote on a paper of mine: “Short, sweet, to the point.” On the other hand, my current boss continually presses me to flesh out what he calls my “orphic utterances.”
Well, here’s what Marianne Moore had to say.
To a Snail
If “compression is the first grace of style,”
you have it. Contractility is a virtue
as modesty is a virtue.
It is not the acquisition of any one thing
that is able to adorn,
or the incidental quality that occurs
as a concomitant of something well said,
that we value in style,
but the principle that is hid:
in the absence of feet, “a method of conclusions”;
“a knowledge of principles,”
in the curious phenomenon of your occipital horn.
In a note, Moore points to Demetrius (see paragraph 137).
Orphic, huh—a new word for me, I figured Delphic at first.
I did, too. Maybe I should edit it—might make for a better (clearer) post. But no:
(I love quoting Nixon.)
Actually, upon further consideration, I think he meant what he said. (It’s a good word, orphic.) The fault is mine for conflating that comment (imputing “crypticism,” if I may be permitted an early-morning barbarism) with others (implying terseness—e.g., calling me “Silent Cal”).
You know that old story about Coolidge, I’m sure. A woman was in a receiving line at the White House.
Woman: “I bet my friend that I could get you to say more than two words.”
Coolidge: “You lose.”