It has been truly observed that the formal study of rhetoric never has
made a single successful writer, and a great many writers have succeeded
preeminently without ever having opened a rhetorical textbook. It has
not been difficult, therefore, to come to the conclusion that writing
well or ill comes by nature alone, and that all we can do is to pray for
luck,---or, at the most, to practise incessantly. Write, write, write;
and keep on writing; and destroy what you write and write again; cover
a ton of paper with ink; some day perhaps you will succeed---says the
literary adviser to the young author. And to the business man who has
letters to write and wishes to write them well, no one ever says
anything. The business man himself has begun to have a vague impression
that he would like to improve his command of language; but who is there
who even pretends to have any power to help him? There is the school
grind of "grammar and composition," and if it is kept up for enough
years, and the student happens to find any point of interest in it, some
good may result from it. That is the best that anyone has to offer.
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