And even when the
manner is playful or impassioned, the law of Economy still presides,
and insists on the rejection of whatever is superfluous. Only a
delicate susceptibility can discriminate a superfluity in passages of
humour or rhetoric; but elsewhere a very ordinary understanding can
recognise the clauses and the epithets which are out of place, and in
excess, retarding or confusing the direct appreciation of the thought.
If we have written a clumsy or confused sentence, we shall often find
that the removal of an awkward inversion liberates the ides, or that
the modification of a cadence increases the effect. This is sometimes
strikingly seen at the rehearsal of a play: a passage which has fallen
flat upon the ear is suddenly brightened into effectiveness by the
removal of a superfluous phrase, which, by its retarding influence, had
thwarted the declamatory crescendo.
Young writers may learn something of the secrets of Economy by careful
revision of their own compositions, and by careful dissection of
passages selected both from good and bad writers.
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