eaning or a concrete
image the vivacity of which, like a boulder in a shallow stream,
disturbs the equable current of thought, and in such a case the more
beautiful the image the greater the obstacle, so that the laws of
simplicity and economy are violated by it,--while each clause really
requires for its interpretation a proposition that is however kept
suspended till the close, is a defect."

The weariness produced by such writing as this is very great, and yet
the recasting of the passage is easy. Thus:--

"It is a defect when a sentence is constructed with many loosely and
not obviously dependent clauses, each of which requires for its
interpretation a preposition that is kept suspended till the close; and
this defect is exaggerated when each clause contains an important
meaning, or a concrete image which, like a boulder in a shallow stream,
disturbs the equable current of thought: the more beautiful the image,
the greater its violation of the laws of simplicity and economy."

In this second form the sentence has no long suspension of the main
idea, no diversions of the current. The proposition is stated and
illustrated directly, and the mind of the reader follows that of the
writer. How injurious it is to keep the key in your pocket until all
the locks in succession have been displayed may be seen in such a
sentence as this:--

"Phantoms of lost power, sudden intuitions and shadowy restorations of
forgotten feelings, sometimes dim and perplexing, sometimes by bright
but furtive glimpses, sometimes by a full and steady revelation
overcharged with light, throw us back in a moment upon scenes and
remembrances that we have left full thirty years behind us."

Had De Quincey liberated our minds from suspense by first presenting
the thought which first arose in his own mind,--namely, that we are
thrown back upon scenes and remembrances by phantoms of lost power,
&c.--the beauty of his language in its pregnant suggestiveness would
have been felt at once. Instead of that, he makes us accompany him in
darkness, and when the light appears we have to travel backwards over
the ground again to see what we have passed. The passage continues:--

"In solitudes, and chiefly in the solitudes of nature, and, above all,
amongst the great and enduring features of nature, such as mountains
and quiet dells, and the lawny recesses of forests, and the silent
shores of lakes--features with which (as being themselves less liable
to cha