Foreword: Eloquence

Eloquence comes from the meaning of phrases. With his words, style, and the limits he chooses, the writer’s words resonates with the reader’s emotions and imagination. What he puts in. What he leaves out. All serve for the reader to perceive his words as he intended.

To present the facts of life through writing or poetry is to transform the perceived tone into a more complete, a more accurate, and a more beautiful one. Meanings magnified. Hidden and complex facts uncovered and sorted out. That is true art. Completes the missing. Reveals the secret. Unleashes the bound. Limits the unlimited. Unveils beauty. It is life’s meaning leveled up. As if the words have found a mind of their own.

A true writer doesn’t merely write. He’s but a tool in the hands of a purposeful force using him to present parts of its work. A mysterious wisdom seeking explanation of the truth. An apparent false seeking revelation of the true. A random chaos seeking harmony. The meta world is connecting to the real world through his thinking. In fact, the whole world is passing through his psyche, lifting his spirit or depressing it. The artist’s soft heart is one that always have ready-to-burn parts. The muse permeates those parts generating inspiration.

When a writer is chosen for delivering an idea, he feels as if he had yielded to a greater force. This force provides him with his opinion, his evidence, and the beauty of his work. Transforming him into something more than his usual existence. With it, he’s more than himself. He becomes an element of good or evil based on its directions. He bears a secret similar to the trees bearing the secret of fruit. This natural fruit-bearing seems easy come harvest time. But it is difficult indeed at the planting stage.

This force inspires him to see not mere words, but full meanings. Every sentence is a story. Each observation is a revelation of truth. It extracts him from the world so that he can judge the world. Or it could immerse him in the world so that it can judge him. It creates his style. And similar to the radiations that created the world, with it, his words’ eloquence is radiant.

Eloquence is necessary for artists who want to express freely. The truth’s superiority and subtlety make it difficult to grasp only with sensation. If the truth is limited, it seizes to be true. Same as angels would seize to be angels if they’re to become flesh and blood. And so, eloquent images is the only way to present the eloquent truth to humanity.

Spring is not eloquent to the grass-eating animal, except for the extent that provides it with food. Spring is only one image in the animal’s stomach. But for humans, the images of spring across different nations and locations is almost as many as its flowers. Eloquent images that become more beautiful with each blooming flower.

Therefore, every absolute truth such as faith, beauty, love, and goodness will remain in need to new writing from new minds in every age.

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Some noble writers think and write aiming for coherence and structure only. Eloquence in their words, therefore, happens only by chance; similar to green grass in a dry land. Eloquent art, on the other hand, rises above that to aim for superiority of expression next to accuracy, powerful meanings next to truthfulness, and innovation of image next to its beauty. The mere writers are like a bird pushing its wings to run. The artists are like birds using their wings to run and to fly. If writers and inspired writers write to express the same meaning, you’ll find the logic in one writing saying: I’m here with my words and meanings. And in the other, you’ll find the inspiration saying: I’m here with my colorful, glorious, and beautiful images.

The cycle of the artistic phrase in the heart of the eloquent writer is one of compounding and creation, where words come out more than they are; as if they grew in his heart, and stronger than they are; as if they drew power from his soul, and more meaningful than they are, as if he added to them with his craft. The scientific writer works as the memory for the language; it comes out as it came in. The eloquent writer, however, works as a factory; where he adds his own style to the language. The writers have displaced the language from its rank, and the artists have risen with it to the highest rank. With the former, only your thinking and judgement are engaged. But with the latter, all of you is engaged. Your thinking, imagination, emotions, feelings, and opinion.

The artist adds to the value of life the joy of life. And adds to the complete creation the beauty of creation. And so: his work is transcendent, seen, and loved.

People might call the superior literature rare, but good is, too. They might call it odd, but truth is, too. They might call it mystifying, but beauty is, too. They might call it costly, but freedom is, too.

You can’t look for pearls where there’s no sea. You can’t look for rays where there’s no star. You can’t look for flowers where there’s no tree. And you can’t look for literature where there’s no eloquence.