In a world where messages are short and anything ornate is regarded as frivolous, it can be wise to take a vacation from tweeting and text-messaging and dive into a pool of rich language. Shakespeare, Trollope, and Dickens will do the trick but so too will more recent writers. I recommend Mark Helprin and Nick Harkaway.
They will take you to other worlds via beautifully written passages. An excerpt from Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin:
The horse has escaped from his master's small clapboard stable in Brooklyn. He trotted alone over the carriage road of the Williamsburg Bridge, before the light, while the toll keeper was sleeping by his stove and many stars were still blazing above the city. Fresh snow on the bridge muffled his hoofbeats, and he sometimes turned his head and looked behind him to see if he was being followed. He was warm from his own effort and he breathed steadily, having loped four or five miles through the dead of Brooklyn past silent churches and shuttered stores. Far to the south, in the black, ice-choked waters of the Narrows, a sparkling light marked the ferry on its way to Manhattan, where only market men were up, waiting for the fishing boats to glide down through Hell Gate and the night.
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