Simplicity of diction is
integrity of speech; that which admits of least equivocation, that
which by the clearest verbal symbols most readily calls up in the
reader's mind the images and feelings which the writer wishes to call
up. Such diction may be concrete or abstract, familiar or technical;
its simplicity is determined by the nature of the thought. We shall
often be simpler in using abstract and technical terms than in using
concrete and familiar terms which by their very concreteness and
familiarity call up images and feelings foreign to our immediate
purpose. If we desire the attention to fall upon some general idea we
only blur its outlines by using words that call up particulars. Thus,
although it may be needful to give some definite direction to the
reader's thoughts by the suggestion of a particular fact, we must be
careful not to arrest his attention on the fact itself, still less to
divert it by calling up vivid images of facts unrelated to our present
purpose. For example, I wish to fix in the reader's mind a conception
of a lonely meditative man walking on the sea-shore, and I fall into
the vicious style of our day which is lauded as word-painting, and
write something like this :--
"The fishermen mending their storm-beaten boats upon the shore would
lay down the hammer to gaze after him as he passed abstractedly before
their huts, his hair streaming in the salt breeze, his feet crushing
the scattered seaweed, his eyes dreamily fixed upon the purple heights
of the precipitous crags.
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