{weekend words}

If "compression is the first grace for style",

you have it. Contractility is a virtue

as modesty is a virtue.

It is not the acquisition of any on thing

that is able to adorn,

or the incidental quality that occurs

as a concomitant of something well said,

that we value in style,

but the principle that is hid:

in the absence of feet, "a method of conclusions";

"a knowledge of principles",

in the curious phenomenon of your occipital horn.

Marianne Moore (1887-1972), 'To a Snail' (1924) in Complete Poems (Penguin).