The Composer's Powers not to be Economized.

5. The Composer's Powers not to be Economized.

Our general law of style regards the economy of mental power on the part of the interpreter as the great aim of expression. It should not be supposed that the composer's powers are to be economized. He who would attain perfect clearness and accuracy of expres¬sion must be prodigal of his own powers, and so use them as to leave the least possible labor to the inter¬preter. It may be useful to remember that all the confessed masters of expression have been lavish of their toil. The aspirant after literary honors should recollect that Demosthenes spent three months toiling by a dim lamp in a subterranean study, while elaborat¬ing and retouching a single oration ; that Virgil pro¬nounced the " lEneid " imperfect, after eleven years of labor on it ; that Tasso's manuscript was almost ille¬gible with corrections ; that Pascal sometimes spent twenty days on a single one of those famous "Provincial Letters" which even Voltaire called "one of the best books ever published in France." Nor should it be forgotten, on the other hand, that the nameless multi¬tude of those whom oblivion has buried were too indo¬lent or too hasty "to file off the mortal part of glow¬ing thought with Attic art."