Hot day and a hot night, but breezy and tolerable enough. Quite refreshing after the three days of suffocating sultriness we have just passed through. . . .
Reading Ruskin's Modern Painters, volume five and last. Less vigorous than the other four. Effort at fine writing is manifest, and a “sensation” style; that is, a style that aims at astonishing the reader or stimulating his curiosity, and does not seek exclusively to convey the writer’s meaning with the maximum of clearness and brevity, which I suppose to be the sole office of language and test of “style.” A feeling of despondency and doubt is very manifest. He thinks the prospects of Christendom and its civilization discouraging, and the real value of discussions about art questionable.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, p. 39
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