"I love you and always will," that is the best possible use of the plain style. For the faithful husband it is a felt truth and a promise. For the seducer it is an effective means to an end. When a God, or the God, became man, and his message was love, he spoke in parables. You could say that the alternative was premature crucifixion, and that the style was meant as a cloak, or to keep the wrong people from getting saved, as St Mark says, they mustn't, but also because the natural language of moral truth is indirection. "Tell all the Truth but tell it slant -- Success in Circuit lies," as Emily Dickinson wrote, as if to herself, alone in her room. Bearing witness: the best models say the moment of truth is best postponed, if only to the end of a stanza.
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