Andrew Sullivan joins me in feeling cautionary about Bill Buckley:

I know we shouldn’t speak ill of the dead - but am I the only person who found Buckley close to unreadable a lot of the time? I never read his fiction, but his nonfiction was packed the endless sentences, ridiculously long words, and meaning that sometimes took several reads to excavate. I don’t know how many times I finished a Buckley column with the thought: what on earth was he trying to say? But then, my gold standard for prose style is Orwell. Never use a long word when a short one will do is not exactly advice Buckley followed.

Orwell is a high standard, but Andrew’s right: When Orwell wrote, one got the feeling that his words were used in the service of something greater than himself; when Buckley wrote, one got the feeling that he wasn’t sure there was anything greater than himself.

If an economy of words reflects a humility of self, then what is the suggestion of sesquipedalianism?