e opposite of
that aimed at; so words, it is true, serve to make thought
intelligible--but only up to a certain point. If words are heaped up
beyond it, the thought becomes more and more obscure again. To find
where the point lies is the problem of style, and the business of the
critical faculty; for a word too much always defeats its purpose. This
is what Voltaire means when he says that _the adjective is the enemy
of the substantive_. But, as we have seen, many people try to conceal
their poverty of thought under a flood of verbiage.

Accordingly let all redundancy be avoided, all stringing together of
remarks which have no meaning and are not worth perusal. A writer must
make a sparing use of the reader's time, patience and attention; so as
to lead him to believe that his author writes what is worth careful
study, and will reward the time spent upon it. It is always better to
omit something good than to add that which is not worth saying at all.
This is the right application of Hesiod's maxim, [Greek: pleon aemisu
pantos][1]--the half is more than the whole. _Le secret pour
etre ennuyeux, c'est de tout dire_. Therefore, if possible, the
quintessence only! mere leading thoughts! nothing that the reader
would think for himself. To use many words to communicate few thoughts
is everywhere the unmistakable sign of mediocrity. To gather much
thought into few words stamps the man of genius.

[Footnote 1: _Works and Days_, 40.]

Truth is most beautiful undraped; and the impression it makes is deep
in proportion as its expression has been simple. This is so, partly
because it then takes unobstructed possession of the hearer's whole
soul, and leaves him no by-thought to distract him; partly, also,
because he feels that here he is not being corrupted or cheated by the
arts of rhetoric, but that all the effect of what is said comes from
the thing itself. For instance, what declamation on the vanity of
human existence could ever be more telling than the words of Job? _Man
that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live and is full of
misery. He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it
were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay_.

For the same reason Goethe's naive poetry is incomparably greater than
Schiller's rhetoric. It is this, again, that makes many popular songs
so affecting. As in architecture an excess of decoration is to be
avoided, so in the art of literature a writer must guard against