Hadrian the Seventh

Frederick Baron Corvo

He was looking askance at his ms. In two hours, he had written no more than fourteen lines; and these were deformed by erasures of words and sentences, by substitutions and additions. He struck an upward line from left to right across the sheet: laid down his pen: lifted board, c at, books, and ms., from his knees; and laid them by. He could not work.

Oh, how horrible! But we’re all Christians, Flavio; and this is only one of the many funny ways in which we love one another.

Much may be done with the eye in wordy warfare. You may challenge: you may intimidate: you may quell: but you may do none of these things while your opponent refuses to lend his eye to yours.

Neither in woes nor in welcome prosperity, may I be associated with women: for, when they prevail, one cannot tolerate their audacity; and, when they are frightened, they are still greater mischief to their house and their city.

All through the bitter bitter years of His struggle for life, He had known Himself for a fighter. As a fighter, He had expected blows in return for those which He gave. And, when all was said and done, His fighting had not been to Him a source of unmitigated pain. For one thing, He had had pleasure in knowing that He scrupulously fought unscrupulous foes, that He fought a losing battle, that he fought a million times His weight, that he fought bare-handed against armed champions all the time. That knowledge it was—the knowledge that He had contended (not as a hero but) as heroes have contended—which alone upheld him.

Wrong must thou do, or wrong must thou suffer. Then, grant, O blind dumb gods, that we, rather the sufferers than the doers be.

After storm, this was calm and peace, with a vengeance.

The Church of God is not narrow, nor ‘Liberal,’ but Catholic with room for all: for ‘there are diversities of gifts.’

Persuade, if ye can persuade, and if the world will permit you to persuade: but seek not to persuade. Better to live so that men will convince themselves through the contemplation of your ensample. That way only satisfaction lies. Accept, but claim not, obedience.

Jerry Sant became observed. He had the haggard florid aspect, the red-lidded prominent eyes, the pendulous lip of a sorry sort of man. He stood up and began to speak, sometimes dragging a sandy rag or moustache or fingering shiny conical temples, but generally holding on by the lapels of a short-skirted broad-cloth frock-coat, protruding black-nailed thumbs through the buttonholes in a manner acquired during a week in Paris. His style was geological, so to speak, consisting of various strata deposited at various periods. The surface stratum, representing the Kainozoic Time, consisted of the platitudinous bombast characteristic of the common or oratorical demagogue. Below that, corresponding to the Mesozoic Time, came the ridiculous obsequious slang of the bagman of commerce. Below that again, corresponding to the Paleozoic Time, appeared the gelded English which muscleless feckless unfit-for-handicraft little sciolists acquire in school-board spawning-beds. And these rested on stratum of the Azoic Time, to wit the native Pictish Presbyterian jargon of Mr. Sant’s sententious pettifogging spiteful self. These different strata occurred as irregularly as natural strata. They ran one into the other like veins in a fissure, causing displacements resembling those which technically are called Faults; and the tracing and stripping of the same is a task for the ingenious geophilologist.

I have not read such exquisite writing in a while--not good writing, mind you, exquisite. Good writing is something else, probably better because it goes down a good deal smoother; but Corvo's writing is like some incredibly fine meal, not a good idea for standard fare, but on occasion, little is better.
Corvo brings a combination of style and insight that will make your skin tingle. Look at the passage about "wordy warfare." Or the last passage, the geologic description of a man. Corvo may strike you as pedantic--I often found myself lost in his forests of multisyllabic words, bumping into towering trunk after towering trunk of unknown words. But, O, what a writer!
His tolutiloquence, I don't think, is due to a sesquipedalian nature, but rather comes from an attempt to mundify his readers by a contorpulicative prose that combats the lethific writing of so many of his contemporaries. But, he, looking back, probably thought it was all a rhodomontade.

Forgive me, and pray for the repose of His soul. He was so tired.