, or simply retard it? The former is
always a loss of power; the latter is sometlmes a gain of power. The
art of the writer consists in rejecting all redundancies that do not
conduce to clearness. The shortest sentences are not necessarily the
clearest. Concision gives energy, but it also adds restraint. The
labour of expanding a terse sentence to its full meaning is often
greater than the labour of picking out the meaning from a diffuse and
loitering passage. Tacitus is more tiresome than Cicero.

There are occasions when the simplest and fewest words surpass in
effect all the wealth of rhetorical amplification. An example may be
seen in the passage which has been a favourite illustration from the
days of Longinus to our own. "God said: Let there be light! and there
was light." This is a conception of power so calm and simple that it
needs only to be presented in the fewest and the plainest words, and
would be confused or weakened by any suggestion of accessories. Let us
amplify the expression in the redundant style of miscalled eloquent
writers: "God, in the magnificent fulness of creative energy,
exclaimed: Let there be light! and lo! the agitating fiat immediately
went forth, and thus in one indivisible moment the whole universe was
illumlned." We have here a sentence which I am certain many a writer
would, in secret, prefer to the masterly plainness of Genesis. It is
not a sentence which would have captivated critics.

Although this sentence from Genesis is sublime in its simplicity, we
are not to conclude that simple sentences are uniformly the best, or
that a style composed of propositions briefly expressed would obey a
wise Economy. The reader's pleasure must not be forgotten; and he
cannot be pleased by a style which always leaps and never flows. A
harsh, abrupt, and dislocated manner irritates and perplexes him by its
sudden jerks. It is easier to write short sentences than to read them.
An easy, fluent, and harmonious phrase steals unobtrusively upon the
mind, and allows the thought to expand quietly like an opening flower.
But the very suasiveness of harmonious writing needs to be varied lest
it become a drowsy monotony; and the sharp short sentences which are
intolerable when abundant, when used sparingly act like a trumpet-call
to the drooping attention.

II. THE LAW OF SIMPLICITY.

The first obligation of Economy is that of using the fewest words to
secure the fullest effect. It rejects whatever is su