STYLE 241 



always successful — witness Mr. 's improvements (?) 



on my article — but on the whole it answers, especially 

 the reading aloud to oneself, for I would not, on any 

 account, have any one to hear me. Another thing in 

 " revision " which I have found useful is to get rid of 

 every word (adjectives especially) that has not an 

 eJQTective meaning, and to reduce every sentence to the 

 smallest number of words. Here, again, it seems from 



Mr. 's treatment, I don't always succeed, and so 



in all humility I offer these suggestions. It more than 

 once struck me in reading your MS. that it was capable 

 of being strengthened in places by omitting a word or 

 two here and there, or by recasting a sentence. My 

 own experience goes to show that these emendations 

 occur to one when one is reading aloud, for then the 

 ear tells one that this, that, or the other might be 

 bettered.* 



His own writings were distinguished by a marked 

 simplicity of style ; every word was well chosen and 

 seldom was one redundant. 



You will see that I have always taken exception to 

 the use of " central " as applied to tail feathers. I dare 

 say this may be a bit of pedantry on my part, but my 

 notion of " centre " (and therefore of its adjective) 

 always implies a certain spot in a definite enclosed 

 space, and accordingly the word is inapplicable to the 

 middle feathers of the tail, though I am well aware 

 that it is often so used by authors who don't care for 

 accuracy. " Middle " is a good old plain English word 

 which may well be employed instead, f 



... In the report (Migration) there are only two 

 things other than ordinary composition " fads " that 

 seem to need correction — one is "most of" into 

 " nearly all " because a " most " occurs in the next 



* Letter to R. Holt- White, May 5, 1900. 

 t Letter to T. Southwell, October 30, 1888. 



R 



