The
selective instinct of the artist tells him when his language should be
homely, and when it should be more elevated; and it is precisely in the
imperceptible blending of the plain with the ornate that a great writer
is distinguished. He uses the simplest phrases without triviality, and
the grandest without a suggestion of grandiloquence.
Simplicity of Style will therefore be understood as meaning absence of
needless superfluity:
"Without o'erflowing full."
Its plainness is never meagreness, but unity. Obedient to the primary
impulse of ADEQUATE expression, the style of a complex subject should
be complex; of a technical subject, technical; of an abstract subject,
abstract; of a familiar subject, familiar; of a pictorial subject,
picturesque. The structure of the "Antigone" is simple; but so also is
the structure of "Othello," though it contains many more elements; the
simplicity of both lies in their fulness without superfluity.
Whatever is outside the purpose, or the feeling, of a scene, a speech,
a sentence, or a phrase, whatever may be omitted without sacrifice of
effect, is a sin against this law.
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