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LEWES 335
by its retarding influence, had thwarted the declamatory
crescendo.
Young writers may learn something of the secrets of
Economy by careful revision of their own compositions, and
by careful dissection of passages selected both from good
and bad writers. They have simply to strike out every word,
even* clause, and every sentence, the removal of which will
not carry away any of the constituent elements of the thought.
Having done this, let them compare the revised with the unrevised
passages, and see where the excision has improved,
and where it has injured, the effect. For Economy, although
a primal law, is not the only law of Style. It is subject to
various limitations from the pressure of other laws; and thus
the removal of a trifling superfluity will not be justified by a
wise economy if that loss entails a dissonance, or prevents a
climax, or robs the expression of its ease and variety. Economy
is rejection of whatever is it
superfluous;
is not Miserliness.
A liberal expenditure is often the best economy, and
is
always so when dictated by a generous impulse, not by a
prodigal carelessness or ostentatious vanity. That man would
greatly err who tried to make his style effective by stripping
it of all
redundancy and ornament,
it
presenting naked before
the indifferent public. Perhaps the very redundancy which
he lops away might have aided the reader to see the thought
more clearly, because it would have kept the thought a little
longer before his mind, and thus prevented him from hurrying
on to the next while this one was still imperfectly coned.
As a general rule, redundancy is injurious;
and the reason
of the rule- will enable us to discriminate when redundancy
is
injuriou- and when beneficial. It i- injurious when it
hampers the rapid movement of the reader's mind, diverting
his attention to some collateral detail. But it is beneficial