Rereading Abraham Lincoln’s proclamation establishing the fourth Thursday of November as Thanksgiving Day, I couldn’t help but be struck by the elegant sentences that gird the document. Here is but one:

To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God.

Subordinate clause upon subordinate clause unites a complex thought into a single sentence. Young people today, most of whom are no longer expected to read Charles Dickens or Charlotte Bronte where such elaboration is commonplace, probably find it annoyingly obtuse. The simplistic repetitiveness so often employed by our current President more befits an age where attention spans extend only to a sound bite.

As is so often expressed on this forum, change is inevitable but it is noble to resist the erosion of humankind’s greatest achievements.