gloomy master of Newstead’:  overleaf he is reincarnated into ‘the meteoric darling of society’:  and so proceeds through successive avatars—­’this arch-rebel,’ ’the author of Childe Harold,’ ‘the apostle of scorn,’ ’the ex-Harrovian, proud, but abnormally sensitive of his club-foot,’ ‘the martyr of Missolonghi,’ ’the pageant-monger of a bleeding heart.’  Now this again is Jargon.  It does not, as most Jargon does, come of laziness; but it comes of timidity, which is worse.  In literature as in life he makes himself felt who not only calls a spade a spade but has the pluck to double spades and re-double.

For another rule—­just as rough and ready, but just as useful:  Train your suspicions to bristle up whenever you come upon ‘as regards,’ ’with regard to,’ ‘in respect of,’ ‘in connection with,’ ’according as to whether,’ and the like.  They are all dodges of Jargon, circumlocutions for evading this or that simple statement:  and I say that it is not enough to avoid them nine times out of ten, or nine-and-ninety times out of a hundred.  You should never use them.  That is positive enough, I hope?  Though I cannot admire his style, I admire the man who wrote to me, ’Re Tennyson—­your remarks anent his “In Memoriam” make me sick’:  for though re is not a preposition of the first water, and ‘anent’ has enjoyed its day, the finish crowned the work.  But here are a few specimens far, very far, worse:—­

     The special difficulty in Professor Minocelsi’s case [our old friend
     ‘case’ again] arose in connexion with the view he holds relative
     to the historical value of the opening pages of Genesis.

That is Jargon.  In prose, even taking the miserable sentence as it stands constructed, we should write ’the difficulty arose over the views he holds about the historical value,’ etc.

From a popular novelist:—­

     I was entirely indifferent as to the results of the game, caring
     nothing at all as to whether I had losses or gains—­

Cut out the first ‘as’ in ‘as to,’ and the second ‘as to’ altogether, and the sentence begins to be prose—­’I was indifferent to the results of the game, caring nothing whether I had losses or gains.’

But why, like Dogberry, have ‘had losses’?  Why not simply ‘lose.’  Let us try again.  ’I was entirely indifferent to the results of the game, caring nothing at all whether I won or lost.’

Still the sentence remains absurd:  for the second clause but repeats the first without adding one jot.  For if you care not at all whether you win or lose, you must be entirely indifferent to the results of the game.  So why not say ‘I was careless if I won or lost,’ and have done with it?

     A man of simple and charming character, he was fitly associated
     with the distinction of the Order of Merit.