The poem was written under the dread of diffuseness which had just then taken possession of Mr. Browning's mind, and we have sometimes to struggle through a group of sentences out of which he has so laboured to squeeze every unnecessary word, that their grammatical connection is broken up, and they present a compact mass of meaning which without previous knowledge it is almost impossible to construe.
"A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.)"
Mrs. Sutherland Orr
Pliny's theory that the mere length of a speech is a great element in its excellence, that swift directness is inartistic, that lingering diffuseness is an oratorical charm, that laboured manufacture of turgid phrases may produce the effect of the impetuous rush of Demosthenes and Cicero in their moments of inspiration, makes us rather glad, who love him, that we have not more of Pliny's oratory.
"Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius"
Samuel Dill
Who has not heard and read repeatedly the now common-place injunctions to be appropriate and consistent in character-drawing; to avoid, on the one hand, clearness at the cost of diffuseness, and, on the other, brevity at the cost of obscurity; to choose subject-matter suited to one's powers; to respect the authority of the masterpiece and to con by night and by day the great Greek exemplars; to feel the emotion one wishes to rouse; to stamp the universal with the mark of individual genius; to be straightforward and rapid and omit the unessential; to be truthful to life; to keep the improbable and the horrible behind the scenes; to be appropriate in meter and diction; to keep clear of the fallacy of poetic madness; to look for the real sources of successful writing in sanity, depth of knowledge, and experience with men; to remember the mutual indispensability of genius and cultivation; to combine the pleasant and the useful; to deny one's self the indulgence of mediocrity; never to compose unless under inspiration; to give heed to solid critical counsel; to lock up one's manuscript for nine years before giving it to the world; to destroy what does not measure up to the ideal; to take ever-lasting pains; to beware of the compliments of good-natured friends?
"Horace and His Influence"
Grant Showerman
