His intellect, ever enkindled by his emotions,
exacted logical sequence, and thus a rapid forward movement is
overspread by a glow of generous feeling, which, being refined by his
poetic sensibility made his style luminous and flowing.
De Quincey, treating of aphoristic writing, says, "Any man [he of
course means any man with good things in him] as he walks
through the streets may contrive to jot down an independent thought, a
short-hand memorandum of a great truth; but the labor of composition
begins when you have to put your separate threads of thought into a
loom; to weave them into a continuous whole; to connect, to introduce
them; to blow them out or expand them; to carry them to a close."
Buffon attached the greatest importance to sequence, to close
dependence, to continuous enchainment. He detested a chopped, jerky
style, that into which the French are prone to fall. Certain it is,
and from obvious causes, that much of the secret of style lies in
aptness of sequence, thought and word, through an irresistible
impulsion and pertinence, leaping forth nimbly, each taking its place
promptly, because naturally and necessarily.
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