Page:The king's English (IA kingsenglish00fowlrich).pdf/193
It is natural that Sir Charles Edward Bernard should be introduced to us under his full name; natural, also, that an abbreviation should be chosen for working purposes. But why two abbreviations? If Sir Charles and he are judiciously employed, they will last out to the end of the longest article, without any assistance from Sir Edward.
Among the instances here given, there is scarcely one in which variation might not have been avoided with a little trouble. There are some, indeed, in which it is not gratuitous; and if in these the effect upon the reader were as negative as the writer's intention, there would be nothing to complain of. But it is not; the artistic concealment of art is invariably wanting. These elephantine shifts distract our attention from the matter in hand; we cannot follow His Majesty's movements, for wondering what the King will be called next time; will it be plain Edward VII? or will something be done, perhaps, with 'the Emperor of India'? When the choice lies between monotonous repetition on the one hand and clumsy variation on the other, it may fairly be laid down that of two undesirable alternatives the natural is to be preferred to the artificial.
But variation of this kind is, at the worst, less offensive than that which, in violation of our second principle above, is employed as a medium for the conveyance of sprightly allusion, mild humour or (commonest of all) parenthetic information.
When people looked at his head, they fek he ought to have been a giant, but he was far from rivalling the children of Anak.—H. Caine.
'Far from it', in fact.
He never fuddled himself with rum-and-water in his son's presence, and only talked to his servants in a very reserved and polite manner; and those persons remarked...—Thackeray.
'What made ye sae late?' said Mr. Jarvie, as I entered the dining-parlour of that honest gentleman.—Scott.
The parlour was Mr. Jarvie's.
At the sixth round, there were almost as many fellows shouting out 'Go it, Figs', as there were youths exclaiming 'Go it, Cuff'.—Thackeray.
N 2