They have simply to
strike out every word, every clause, and every sentence, the removal of
which will not carry away any of the constituent elements of the
thought. Having done this, let them compare the revised with the
unrevised passages, and see where the excision has improved, and where
it has injured, the effect. For Economy, although a primal law, is not
the only law of Style. It is subject to various limitations from the
pressure of other laws; and thus the removal of a trifling superfluity
will not be justified by a wise economy if that loss entails a
dissonance, or prevents a climax, or robs the expression of its ease
and variety. Economy is rejection of whatever is superfluous; it is not
Miserliness. A liberal expenditure is often the best economy, and is
always so when dictated by a generous impulse, not by a prodigal
carelessness or ostentatious vanity. That man would greatly err who
tried to make his style effective by stripping it of all redundancy and
ornament, presenting it naked before the indifferent public. Perhaps
the very redundancy which he lops away might have aided the reader to
see the thought more clearly, because it would have kept the thought a
little longer before his mind, and thus prevented him from hurrying on
to the next while this one was still imperfectly conceived.
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