Yet this error is frequently
committed.
In the drama all laws of Style are more imperious than in fiction or
prose of any kind, because the art is more intense. But Climax is
demanded in every species of composition, for it springs from a
psychological necessity. It is pressed upon, however, by the law of
Variety in a way to make it far from safe to be too rigidly followed.
It easily degenerates into monotony.
V. THE LAW OF VARIETY.
Some one, after detailing an elaborate recipe for a salad, wound up the
enumeration of ingredients and quantities with the advice to "open the
window and throw it all away." This advice might be applied to the
foregoing enumeration of the laws of Style, unless these were
supplemented by the important law of Variety. A style which rigidly
interpreted the precepts of economy, simplicity, sequence, and climax,
which rejected all superfluous words and redundant ornaments, adopted
the easiest and most logical arrangement, and closed every sentence and
every paragraph with a climax, might be a very perfect bit of mosaic,
but would want the glow and movement of a living mind.
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