Finally, let us banish from our critical superstitions the notion that chastity of composition, or simplicity of Style, is in any respect allied to timidity.  There are two kinds of timidity, or rather it has two different origins, both of which cripple the free movement of thought.  The one is the timidity of fastidiousness, the other of placid stupidity:  the one shrinks from originality lest it should be regarded as impertinent; the other lest, being new, it should be wrong.  We detect the one in the sensitive discreetness of the style.  We detect the other in the complacency of its platitudes and the stereotyped commonness of its metaphors.  The writer who is afraid of originality feels himself in deep water when he launches into a commonplace.  For him who is timid because weak, there is no advice, except suggesting the propriety of silence.  For him who is timid because fastidious, there is this advice:  get rid of the superstition about chastity, and recognise the truth that a style may be simple, even if it move amid abstractions, or employ few Saxon words, or abound in concrete images and novel turns of expression.

III.  The law of sequence.

Much that might be included under this head would equally well find its place under that of Economy or that of Climax.  Indeed it is obvious that to secure perfect Economy there must be that sequence of the words which will present the least obstacle to the unfolding of the thought, and that Climax is only attainable through a properly graduated sequence.  But there is another element we have to take into account, and that is the rhythmical effect of Style.  Mr. Herbert Spencer in his Essay very clearly states the law of Sequence, but I infer that he would include it entirely under the law of Economy; at any rate he treats of it solely in reference to intelligibility, and not at all in its scarcely less important relation to harmony.  We have A priori reasons,” he says, “for believing that in every sentence there is one order of words more effective than any other, and that this order is the one which presents the elements of the proposition in the succession in which they may be most readily put together.  As in a narrative, the events should be stated in such sequence that the mind may not have to go backwards and forwards in order rightly to connect them; as in a group of sentences, the arrangement should be such that each of them may be understood as it comes, without waiting for the subsequent ones; so in every sentence, the sequence of the words should be that which suggests the constituents of the thought in the order most convenient for building up that thought.”

But Style appeals to the emotions as well as to the intellect, and the arrangement of words and sentences which will be the most economical may not be the most musical, and the most musical may not be the most pleasurably effective.  For Climax and Variety it may be necessary to sacrifice something of rapid intelligibillty:  hence involutions, antitheses, and suspensions, which disturb the most orderly arrangement, may yet, in virtue of their own subtle influences, be counted as improvements on that arrangement.