The Grammar of English Grammars, page 248 by Gould Brown
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of what may be considered a regular definition; thus the question, "What is it _to read?_" is nearly the same as, "What is _reading?_" "What is it _to be wise?_" is little different from, "What is _wisdom?_" and a true answer might be, in either case, a true definition. Nor are those mere translations or explanations of words, with which our dictionaries and vocabularies abound, to be dispensed with in teaching: they prepare the student to read various authors with facility, and furnish him with a better choice of terms, when he attempts to write. And in making such choice, let him remember, that as affectation of hard words makes composition ridiculous, so the affectation of easy and common ones may make it unmanly. But not to digress. With respect to grammar, we must sometimes content ourselves with such explications of its customary terms, as cannot claim to be perfect definitions; for the most common and familiar things are not always those which it is the most easy to define. When Dr. Johnson was asked, "What is _poetry_?" he replied, "Why, sir, it is easier to tell what it is not. We all know what light is: but it is not easy to tell what it is."--_Boswell's Life of Johnson_, Vol. iii, p. 402. This was thought by the biographer to have been well and ingeniously said.
12. But whenever we encounter difficulties of this sort, it may be worth while to seek for their cause. If we find it, the understanding is no longer puzzled. Dr. Johnson seemed to his biographer, to show, by this ready answer, the acuteness of his wit and discernment. But did not the wit consist in adroitly excusing himself, by an illusory comparison? What analogy is there between the things which he compares? Of the difficulty of defining poetry, and the difficulty of defining light, the reasons are as different as are the two things themselves, poetry and light. The former is something so various and complex that it is hard to distinguish its ess