of fastidiousness, the other of placid
stupidity: the one shrinks from originality lest it should be regarded
as impertinent; the other lest, being new, it should be wrong. We
detect the one in the sensitive discreetness of the style. We detect
the other in the complacency of its platitudes and the stereotyped
commonness of its metaphors. The writer who is afraid of originality
feels himself in deep water when he launches into a commonplace. For
him who is timid because weak, there is no advice, except suggesting
the propriety of silence. For him who is timid because fastidious,
there is this advice: get rid of the superstition about chastity, and
recognise the truth that a style may be simple, even if it move amid
abstractions, or employ few Saxon words, or abound in concrete images
and novel turns of expression.

III. THE LAW OF SEQUENCE.

Much that might be included under this head would equally well find its
place under that of Economy or that of Climax. Indeed it is obvious
that to secure perfect Economy there must be that sequence of the words
which will present the least obstacle to the unfolding of the thought,
and that Climax is only attainable through a properly graduated
sequence. But there is another element we have to take into account,
and that is the rhythmical effect of Style. Mr. Herbert Spencer in his
Essay very clearly states the law of Sequence, but I infer that he
would include it entirely under the law of Economy; at any rate he
treats of it solely in reference to intelligibility, and not at all in
its scarcely less important relation to harmony. We have A PRIORI
reasons," he says, "for believing that in every sentence there is one
order of words more effective than any other, and that this order is
the one which presents the elements of the proposition in the
succession in which they may be most readily put together. As in a
narrative, the events should be stated in such sequence that the mind
may not have to go backwards and forwards in order rightly to connect
them; as in a group of sentences, the arrangement should be such that
each of them may be understood as it comes, without waiting for the
subsequent ones; so in every sentence, the sequence of the words should
be that which suggests the constituents of the thought in the order
most convenient for building up that thought."

But Style appeals to the emotions as well as to the intellect, and the
arrangement of words and sentences which w