you may often detect extempore speakers in piling in adjectives, because
they have not yet hit on the right noun. In writing, this is not to be
excused. "You have all the time there is," when you write, and you do
better to sink a minute in thinking for one right word, than to put in two
in its place,--because you can do so without loss of time. I hope every
school-girl knows, what I am sure every school-boy knows, Sheridan's
saying, that "Easy writing, is hard reading." In general, as I said
before, other things being equal,

"The Fewer Words, The Better,"

"as it seems to me." "As it seems to me" is the quiet way in which Nestor
states things. Would we were all as careful!

There is one adverb or adjective which it is almost always safe to leave
out in America. It is the word "very." I learned that from one of the
masters of English style. "Strike out your 'verys,'" said he to me, when I
was young. I wish I had done so oftener than I have.

For myself, I like short sentences. This is, perhaps, because I have read
a good deal of modern French, and I think the French gain in clearness by
the shortness of their sentences. But there are great masters of
style,--great enough to handle long sentences well,--and these men would
not agree with me. But I will tell you this, that if you have a sentence
which you do not like, the best experiment to try on it is the experiment
Medea tried on the old goat, when she wanted to make him over:--

Cut It To Pieces.

What shall I take for illustration? You will be more interested in one of