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It�s not how long you make a sentence that matters � it�s how you make it long.

Look at two sentences (below) that fairly well represent the prose styles of the renowned and acclaimed authors who wrote them. Which of these two sentences is more easily readable, the short one or the long one?

Henry James � �He left it to Miss Gostrey to name, with the fine, full bravado, as it almost struck him, of her �Mr. Waymarsh!� what was to have been what � he more than ever felt as his short stare of suspended welcome took things in � would have been, but for herself, his doom.� (The Ambassadors)

Mark Twain � �The first thing to see, looking away over the water, was a kind of dull line � that was the woods on t�other side; you couldn�t make nothing else out; then a pale place in the sky; then more paleness spreading around; then the river softened up away off, and warn�t black any more, but gray; you could see little dark spots drifting along ever so far away � trading scows, and such things; and long black streaks � rafts; sometimes you could hear a sweep screaking; or jumbled-up voices, it was so still, and sounds come so far; and by and by you could see a streak on the water which you know by the look of the streak that there�s a snag there in a swift current which breaks on it and makes that streak look that way; and you see the mist curl up off of the water, and the east reddens up, and the river, and you make out a log cabin in the edge of the woods, away on the bank on t�other side of the river, being a wood-yard, likely, and piled by them cheats so you can throw a dog through it anywheres; then the nice breeze springs up, and comes fanning you from over there, so cool and fresh and sweet to smell on account of the woods and the flowers; but sometimes not that way, because they�ve left dead fish laying around, gars and such, and they do get pretty rank; and next you�ve got the full day, and everything smiling in the sun, and the song-birds just going it!� (Adventures of Huckleberry Finn)

But the length of the sentence isn�t what�s important. The first, last, and only consideration that matters is how easy it is to read.

That sentence from Henry James�s famous and touted novel ought to be longer � more than one sentence, if necessary. Maybe that sentence from Mark Twain�s great American novel could be shorter. But there�s no question (is there?) which of the two sentences is easier to read.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Ya don't suppose James had comma-itis, do yah? �

Some "writers" seemed to have used (liberally) salt-shakers filled with commas.

"Generally, the fewer the words that fully communicate or evoke the intended ideas and feelings, the more effective the communication." -- Mark Twain

"I came, I saw, I conquered." -- Julius Caesar

"Nuts!" -- General Anthony McAuliffe�s response to surrender Bastogne

i get more comprehension from Mark Twain and an elaborate picture as well ,I get nothing out of the other