[Toddsterpatriot]

Slowly at first, then all at once.

[Steely Tom]

Actually, the original quote (from Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises) is "Gradually, then suddenly."

Illustrating the power of his commitment to brevity.

Hemingway believed that words — once removed by aggressive editing — left behind a sort of ghostly residue that could be detected by the reader; that these "word ghosts" provided a subtle sort of "heft" to the remaining prose.