clear, they
should not immediately begin to rewrite, but instead set themselves to
find out whether their _thoughts_ are perfectly clear.

There is no idea which has no word to fit it. Of course some writers
must use difficult language. The ordinary reader can sometimes not
understand a sentence of a book of philosophy. This is not because the
philosophers do not write clearly, but because the ideas with which
they have to deal are very subtle, and hard for the ordinary person to
understand.

But for ordinary people writing on ordinary things there is no excuse
for writing so as not to be clearly understood, or for writing in such
a long and round-about way that people are tired instead of refreshed
by reading. Nor is there any excuse for the use of words and phrases
which are vulgar or too colloquial for the subject; yet how often is
this done in the modern newspaper. It may seem unnecessary to speak to
boys and girls of the faults of newspaper writers. But the boys and
girls of to-day are the newspaper writers and readers of the future,
and the habits which young writers form cling to them afterwards. Of
course many of the faults which the worse kind of journalists commit
in writing would not occur to boys and girls; but one fault leads to
another. The motive at the root of most poor and showy writing is the
desire to "shine." The faults which seem so detestable to the critical
reader seem very ingenious and brilliant to the writer of poor taste.
To the journalist, as to the schoolboy and the schoolgirl, the golden
rule is, "Be simple."

Let us see what some of the commonest faults of showy and poor writers
of English are--always with the moral before us that they are to be
avoided.

One great fault of newspaper writers and of young writers in general
is to sprinkle their compositions thickly with quotations, until some
beautiful and expressive lines from the greatest poetry and prose have
almost lost their force through the ear having become tired by hearing
them too often. Some such phrases are--

"Tell it not in Gath;"

"Heap coals of fire upon his head;"

"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof:"

all fine and picturesque lines, the apt quotation of which must have
been very impressive, until, through frequent repetition, they have
become almost commonplace.

A similar hackneyed fault is the too frequent application of the name
of some historical or Biblical personage to describe the character of