LETTERS 45 
I would say that it is well worth the trouble of learning this 
admirable language merely for the pleasure of reading this 
admirable man’s admirable letters. 
All Leeuwenhoek’s recorded observations were described 
in letters. He never wrote a book or a scientific paper—only 
letters, and still more letters, addressed to all manner of 
people. His letters were all written by himself in his own 
old-fashioned Dutch, though they were often translated by 
others into other languages, published in many different ways, 
and collected in various volumes at divers dates by different 
editors. All his own original writings are distinguished by 
a certain businesslike formality, but almost total lack of 
coherence. After presenting his compliments, he just wrote 
down what he wanted to say at the moment—recording now 
perhaps a few experiments, with his speculations about their 
significance, then adding a few personal remarks, and winding 
up with a mass of further observations and thoughts on some 
totally different topic. He wrote much as he must have 
spoken, so that his letters have an extraordinarily colloquial 
and familiar flavour which conveys—to me, at least—a strange 
sense of intimacy. He wrote as loosely and discursively as 
other people usually speak—just as though he were talking 
to a friend who obviously understood his common everyday 
speech: and he was always so intent on telling what he had 
seen or thought that he had no time to worry about grammar 
or the niceties of literary composition. Consequently, his 
writings are more like conversations than formal letters. He 
would certainly have agreed with his sweet English con- 
temporary, Dorothy Osborne,’ when she said: “ All letters, 
methinks, should be free and easy as one’s discourse; not 
studied as an oration, nor made up of hard words like a charm. 
Tis an admirable* thing to see how some people will labour 
to find out terms that will obscure a plain sense... .”’ And 
he would also have agreed with James Howell’ that “ we 
* Dorothy Osborne (1627-1695) ; afterwards wife of Sir William Temple, 
sometime English Ambassador to Holland. I quote from Letter 33 of 
Parry’s edition of her letters to Temple. The words quoted were written at 
some unknown date in 1653. 
* Meaning, of course, “ wonderful” or ‘‘ marvellous’”’—not ‘‘ admirable”’ 
(=to be admired or approved) in the modern sense. 
* James Howell (1594 ?-1666), celebrated author, linguist, and letter- 
writer. I quote from the 1705 edition of his Hpistolae, p.1 (letter dated 
25 July 1625). 
