More than mere ornament …

… The Substance of Style | The Russell Kirk Center. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

While most books on writing style emphasize how to avoid mistakes, “the more meaningful decline of the language doesn’t involve the presence of mistakes.” Farnsworth stresses the lesser-known stylistic virtues: “the selection of words, the arrangement of sentences, the creation of cadence.” As with his earlier forays into rhetoric and metaphor, Farnsworth teaches by showing, by drawing on historical examples from the undisputed masters of English style.