r should
guard against using all unnecessary rhetorical adornment, all useless
amplification, and in general, just as in architecture he should guard
against an excess of decoration, all superfluity of expression--in other
words, he must aim at _chastity_ of style. Everything that is redundant
has a harmful effect. The law of simplicity and naivete applies to all
fine art, for it is compatible with what is most sublime.

True brevity of expression consists in a man only saying what is worth
saying, while avoiding all diffuse explanations of things which every
one can think out for himself; that is, it consists in his correctly
distinguishing between what is necessary and what is superfluous. On the
other hand, one should never sacrifice clearness, to say nothing of
grammar, for the sake of being brief. To impoverish the expression of a
thought, or to obscure or spoil the meaning of a period for the sake of
using fewer words shows a lamentable want of judgment. And this is
precisely what that false brevity nowadays in vogue is trying to do, for
writers not only leave out words that are to the purpose, but even
grammatical and logical essentials.[7]

_Subjectivity_, which is an error of style in German literature, is,
through the deteriorated condition of literature and neglect of old
languages, becoming more common. By _subjectivity_ I mean when a writer
thinks it sufficient for himself to know what he means and wants to say,
and it is left to the reader to discover what is meant. Without
troubling himself about his reader, he writes as if he were holding a
monologue; whereas it should be a dialogue, and, moreover, a dialogue in
which he must express himself all the more clearly as the questions of
the reader cannot be heard. And it is for this very reason that style
should not be subjective but objective, and for it to be objective the
words must be written in such a way as to directly compel the reader to
think precisely the same as the author thought. This will only be the
case when the author has borne in mind that thoughts, inasmuch as they
follow the law of gravity, pass more easily from head to paper than from
paper to head. Therefore the journey from paper to head must be helped
by every means at his command. When he does this his words have a purely
objective effect, like that of a completed oil painting; while the
subjective style is not much more certain in its effect than spots on
the wall, and it is only th