“[P]ure naturalness and truth, in whatever age, still find their time and their place.”
— Michel de Montaigne
So do I believe.
And earnestly wish.
I myself have strived to achieve “pure naturalness and truth” in my writing. Here and elsewhere. In writings and communiques, public and private.
Some narrow minded, mean spirited critics, who feel it incumbent upon themselves to keep an eagle eye on this site, feel otherwise. They are always carping and finding fault. They never have a complimentary word for my writing. In fact, incredibly, they find me to be pompous and feel that I pay fast and loose with “the truth,” as they see it. This, they feel, makes them entitled to correct and scold me, instead of offering constructive criticism.
My most admired writers, those whom I wish to emulate, include, along with Montaigne, Samuel Johnson and (in various works, including prose) Walt Whitman. It’s unlikely that my detractors are well acquainted with their works.
— Roger W. Smith
September 2017
Here’s some food for thought, Roger:
“One never speaks of oneself without losing something. What one says in his or her disfavor is always believed, but when one commends oneself, one arouses mistrust.” — Michel de Montaigne
“The proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorbed it.” — Walt Whitman
“Every man is prompted by the love of himself to imagine that he possesses some qualities, superior, either in kind or degree, to those which he sees allotted to the rest of the world; and, whatever apparent disadvantages he may suffer in the comparison with others, he has some invisible distinctions, some latent reserve of excellence, which he throws into the balance, and by which he generally fancies that it is turned in his favour.” — Samuel Johnson
The point of these quotations is …. WHAT? Are you trying to prove that you, too, have read these writers? Have you?