tells him when his language should be
homely, and when it should be more elevated; and it is precisely in the
imperceptible blending of the plain with the ornate that a great writer
is distinguished. He uses the simplest phrases without triviality, and
the grandest without a suggestion of grandiloquence.

Simplicity of Style will therefore be understood as meaning absence of
needless superfluity:

"Without o'erflowing full."

Its plainness is never meagreness, but unity. Obedient to the primary
impulse of ADEQUATE expression, the style of a complex subject should
be complex; of a technical subject, technical; of an abstract subject,
abstract; of a familiar subject, familiar; of a pictorial subject,
picturesque. The structure of the "Antigone" is simple; but so also is
the structure of "Othello," though it contains many more elements; the
simplicity of both lies in their fulness without superfluity.

Whatever is outside the purpose, or the feeling, of a scene, a speech,
a sentence, or a phrase, whatever may be omitted without sacrifice of
effect, is a sin against this law. I do not say that the incident,
description, or dialogue, which may be omitted without injury to the
unity of the work, is necessarily a sin against art; still less that,
even when acknowledged as a sin, it may not sometimes be condoned by
its success. The law of Simplicity is not the only law of art; and,
moreover, audiences are, unhappily, so little accustomed to judge works
as wholes, and so ready to seize upon any detail which pleases them, no
matter how incongruously the detail may be placed,

["Was hilft's, wenn ihr ein Ganzes dargebracht!
Das I'ublicum wird es euch doch zerpfiucken."--GOETHE].

that a felicitous fault will captivate applause, let critics shake
reproving heads as they may. Nevertheless the law of Simplicity remains
unshaken, and ought only to give way to the pressure of the law of
Variety.

The drama offers a good opportunity for studying the operation of this
law, because the limitations of time compel the dramatist to attend
closely to what is and what is not needful for his purpose. A drama
must compress into two or three hours material which may be diffused
through three volumes of a novel, because spectators are more impatient
than readers, and more unequivocally resent by their signs of weariness
any disregard of economy, which in the novel may be skipped. The
dramatist having little time in which to evolve his sto