FORE:But even the most perfect mastery of Greek would not284 have made Plotinus a successful writer. We are told that before taking up the pen he had thoroughly thought out his whole subject; but this is not the impression produced by a perusal of the Enneads. On the contrary, he seems to be thinking as he goes along, and to be continually beset by difficulties which he has not foreseen. The frequent and disorderly interruptions by which his lectures were at one time disturbed seem to have made their way into his solitary meditations, breaking or tangling the thread of systematic exposition at every turn. Irrelevant questions are constantly intruding themselves, to be met by equally irrelevant answers. The first mode of expressing an idea is frequently withdrawn, and another put in its place, which is, in most cases, the less intelligible of the two; while, as a general rule, when we want to know what a thing is, Plotinus informs us with indefatigable prolixity what it is not.I had to repeat everything about the advance of the French and the landing of the British, whilst they followed my story on the map. But I was soon in a cold sweat, for of course I knew practically nothing, neither of the French nor of the British, and each time when one of the officers pressed for details I was in mortal fear that I might contradict myself. But I stuck to my guns until the end, and assured them that the French had crossed the Belgian frontier near Givet, and were now near Namur, whereas the British, disembarking at Ostend, had advanced as far as Ghent.
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