I have argued — tongue only half in cheek — that the remark should be a literary form. I think remarks sometimes stand alone and don’t need to fit into some larger context, such as an essay.
Here’s Thoreau with the same idea:
I do not know but thoughts written down thus in a journal might be printed in the same form to greater advantage — than if the related ones were brought together into separate essays. They are now allied to life — & are seen by the reader not to be far-fetched — It is more simple — less artful — I feel that in the other case I should have no proper frame for my sketches.
Here’s Winfield Townley Scott on the same notion:
I am trying to put down things I have thought — collecting them as well as I can remember … It is more fun than writing essays: arrangement, progression, transition, are hard for me to manage …
In my mind, remarks, thoughts and notebook entries are the same thing.
I’ve been reading Thoreau’s Journal and thinking about journals, diaries and collections of aphorisms. The question about what we think of remarks seems relevant to me in the age where we post a lot of what we write. Maybe I’m doing the same thing when I post a note online and when I compose something. But I’m not sure my old English teacher would see it that way.
• Sources: Thoreau’s remark was from his Journal on Jan. 27, 1852. I think the source is Henry David Thoreau, Journal, edited by John C. Broderick et. al.; Princeton University Press, 1981-. But, alas, it’s now a lost soul in an old notebook.
A similar version of the entry is in Selected Journals of Henry David Thoreau, edited by Carl Bode; New York: Signet Classics, 1967, p. 15.
A Dirty Hand: The Literary Notebooks of Winfield Townley Scott, University of Texas Press, 1969. I’ve quoted it at least three times, most recently in “On turning 5, Aug. 26, 2026.” It’s here:
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