g as in a mirror, the mental energy thus employed
is abstracted from the amount of force which he has to bestow on the
subject; he has mentally to form anew the sentence which has been
clumsily formed by the writer; he wastes, on interpretation of the
symbols, force which might have been concentrated on meditation of the
propositions. This waste is inappreciable in writing of ordinary
excellence, and on subjects not severely tasking to the attention; but
if inappreciable, it is always waste; and in bad writing, especially on
topics of philosophy and science, the waste is important. And it is
this which greatly narrows the circle for serious works. Interest in
the subjects treated of may not be wanting; but the abundant energy is
wanting which to the fatigue of consecutive thinking will add the
labour of deciphering the language. Many of us are but too familiar
with the fatigue of reconstructing unwieldy sentences in which the
clauses are not logically dependent, nor the terms free from equivoque;
we know what it is to have to hunt for the meaning hidden in a maze of
words; and we can understand the yawning indifference which must soon
settle upon every reader of such writing, unless he has some strong
external impulse or abundant energy.

Economy dictates that the meaning should be presented in a form which
claims the least possible attention to itself as form, unless when that
form is part of the writer's object, and when the simple thought is
less important than the manner of presenting it. And even when the
manner is playful or impassioned, the law of Economy still presides,
and insists on the rejection of whatever is superfluous. Only a
delicate susceptibility can discriminate a superfluity in passages of
humour or rhetoric; but elsewhere a very ordinary understanding can
recognise the clauses and the epithets which are out of place, and in
excess, retarding or confusing the direct appreciation of the thought.
If we have written a clumsy or confused sentence, we shall often find
that the removal of an awkward inversion liberates the ides, or that
the modification of a cadence increases the effect. This is sometimes
strikingly seen at the rehearsal of a play: a passage which has fallen
flat upon the ear is suddenly brightened into effectiveness by the
removal of a superfluous phrase, which, by its retarding influence, had
thwarted the declamatory crescendo.

Young writers may learn something of the secrets of Econom