Happy Fourth of July. The Declaration of Independence is famous for a number of phrases that concern the human condition (all men are created equal, truths to be self-evident, lives/fortunes/sacred honor, etc., etc.), but Mr. Jefferson packs into his exposition some nice prose about less universal subjects. Here is one of my favorites, taken from the list charges against George III:

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

In an eighteen word sentence, we get four Bruce Willis action verbs (plundered/ravaged/burnt/destroyed), a progression of ideas that starts afar and ends in the hearth (the sea to the coast to the town), and a catchy cadence that builds to crescendo (the lives of our people!). The structure is beautiful, and the diction affects one viscerally. Not a single word of it is of classical origin; it is concrete language that hits the heart. Compare the plunder-and-ravage diction in this sentence to the Latinate reserve that describes the ideas in the Declaration’s opening, fraught with phrases like “governments instituted” and “impel to separation.” Jefferson could articulate an argument, for sure, but just as salient to his purpose, the man could make an image stick.