New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-04-30

on the keyboards OF our nteraVi' We
learn now that just as all unnecessary
,o,.os must be eliminated in the process o.
soldering tin top on can OF asparagus 81
must all unnecessary words be eliminated III
the making of story.
no,n the aises of the literary workshops
Of today saunters the efficiency expert dic'a'
graph in hand, suggesting that TINS "ri'er
make his descriptions in two moves lns'eau VI
seven. or that the poet next to him express HIS
delight at the advent Of May in half the 'nne'
co that they may have the rest of the PERIOD
USUALLY devoted to writing for thinking out
ether schemes for saving time and printers INK
The dismal result of this striving alter
stories that shall have "the punch" Is that II
brings to our minds what the authors OF the
Old School missed by not knowing OF It, HOW
much better stuff Dickens for instance mgn'
have given us. had he only realized the precious
value Of the printed word and the penalty Tor
souandering it, Had he ever given suhcient
,bopgbt TO the matter we should never have
boen burdened with such wasteful surplus OF
words as arc found in the following passage;
"Fog everywhere. Fog up the river where
it flows among green ats and meadows; log
down the river, where it rolls defiled among the
tiers Of shipping, and the waterside pollutions
of a great land dirty city. Fog on the Essex
marshes fog on the Kentish heights Fog
creeping into the cabooses of colller-brigs;
foo living in the yards, and lowering in the
rigging of great ships; fog dropping on the
ounwales of barges and small boats. Fog in
the eyes and throats of ancient Greenwich
prisoners, wheeling by the fresides of their
wards: fog in the stem and bowl of the after
noon pipe of the wrathful skipper, down IN his
close cabin; fog cruelty pinching the toes and
fingers of his shivering little prentice boy on
deck. Chance people on the bridges peeping
over the parapets into neither sky Of fog,
with fog all around them as if they were in
balloon and hanging in the misty clouds.
"Gas looming through the fog in divers
places in the streets much as the sun may,
from the spongy fields be seen to loom by nus
bandman and ploughboy. Most of the shops
lighted two hours before their time, as the gas
seems to know, for it has haggard and un-
willing look.
"The raw afternoon is rawest, and the dense
fog is densest and the muddy streets are mud
dest. near that leaden-headed old obstruction
appropriate ornament for the threshold OF
leaden-headed old corporation: Temple Bar.
And hard by Temple Bar, in Lincoln's Inn
Hall. at the very heart of the fog, sits the
Lord High Chancellor in his High Court of
Chancery."
Here we have fourteen superfuous repeti-
tons of the word "fog," requiring, as Dickens
must have written it in long-hand, ninety
seven extra motions of the thumb and second
digit. not to mention nnumerabe unnecessary
phrases. all taking valuable time in the COM
posing room where these useless words must
be set in type and requiring as much energy
on the part of the reader in moving his eye
balls to follow the lines as would be expended
in lifting a pound of sugar two feet.
On the other hand, suppose that man with
a true sense of literary values had written
"Bleak House" In one line we should have
had the following:
ut was foggy day in London"
That would have left room on the page for
a graphic chart showing by means of cluster
of black projections of varying lengths just
how many more naphtha launches Sweden has
than the United States.