The first object of a writer is
effective expression, the power of communicating distinct thoughts and
emotional suggestions. He has to overcome the friction of ignorance and
pre-occupation. He has to arrest a wandering attention, and to clear
away the misconceptions which cling around verbal symbols. Words are
not llke iron and wood, coal and water, invariable in their properties,
calculable in their effects. They are mutable in their powers, deriving
force and subtle variations of force from very trifling changes of
position; colouring and coloured by the words which precede and
succeed; significant or insignificant from the powers of rhythm and
cadence. It is the writer's art so to arrange words that they shall
suffer the least possible retardation from the inevitable friction of
the reader's mind. The analogy of a machine is perfect. In both cases
the object is to secure the maximum of disposable force, by diminishing
the amount absorbed in the working. Obviously, if a reader is engaged
in extricating the meaning from a sentence which ought to have
reflected its meaning 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.
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