There are two different way of thinking about colons and semicolons

you can think of them as commas and as such they are purely servile or you can think of them as periods and then using them can make you feel adventurous I can see that one might feel about them as periods but I myself never have, I began unfortunately to feel them as a comma and commas are servile they have no life of their own they are dependent upon use and convenience and they are put there just for practical purposes.

Semi-colons and colons had for me from the first completely this character the character that a comma has and not the character that a period has and therefore and definitely I have never used them.

But now dimly and definitely I do see that they might well possibly they might have in them something of the character of the period and so it might have been an adventure to use them.

I really do not think so.

I think however lively they are or disguised they are they are definitely more comma than period and so really I cannot regret not having used them.

They are more powerful more imposing more pretentious
than a comma

but they are a comma all the same.

They really have within them deeply within them fundamentally within them the comma nature.

And now what does a comma do and what has it to do and why do I feel as I do about them.

What does a comma do.

I have refused them so often and left the out so much and did without them so continually that I have come finally to be indifferent to them.

I do not now care whether you put them in or not but for a long time I felt very definitely about them and would have nothing to do with them.

As I say commas are servile and they have no life of their own, and their use is not a use, it is a way of replacing one’s own interest and I do decidedly like to like my own interest my own interest in what I am doing.

A comma by helping you along holding your coat for you and putting on your shoes keeps you from living your life as actively as you should lead it and to me for many years and I still do feel that way about it only now I do not pay as much attention to them, the use of them was positively degrading.

When I was writing those long sentences of The Making of Americans, verbs active present verbs with long dependent adverbial clauses became a passion with me.

I have told you that I recognize verbs and adverbs aided by prepositions and conjunctions with pronouns as possessing the whole of the active life of writing.

Complications make eventually for simplicity and therefore I have always liked dependent adverbial clauses.

I have like dependent adverbial clauses because of their variety of dependence and independence.

You can see how loving the intensity of complication of these things that commas would be degrading.

Why if you want the pleasure of concentrating on the final simplicity of excessive complication would you want any artificial aid to bring about that simplicity.

Do you see now why I feel about that simplicity.

Do you see now why I feel about the comma as I did and as I do.

Think about anything you really like to do and you will see what I mean.

When it gets really difficult
you want to disentangle rather than
to cut the knot, at least of anybody feels who
is working with any thread so anybody feels who is working
with any tool so anybody feels who is writing any sentence or reading
it after it has been written.

And what does a comma do, a comma does nothing

but make easy a thing that if you like it enough is easy enough without the comma.

A long complicated sentence should force itself upon you, make you know yourself knowing it and the comma, well at the most a comma is a poor period that lets you stop and take a breath but if you want to take a breath you ought to know yourself that you want to take a breath.

It is not

like stopping altogether

has something to do

with going on, but taking a breath

well you are always taking a breath

and why emphasize one breath.

rather than another breath.

Anyway that is the way I felt about it and I felt that about it very very strongly.

And so I almost never used a comma.

The longer, the more complicated the sentence the greater the number of the same kinds of words I had following one after another, the more the very more I had of them the more I felt the passionate need of their taking care of themselves by themselves and not helping them, and thereby enfeebling them by putting in a comma.

So that is the way I felt about punctuation in prose, in poetry it is a little different but more so and later I will go into that.

But that is the way I felt about punctuation in prose.