Malcolm Cowley remarked that writers who began as compositors, e.g. Mark Twain, learned concision simply because making up a page of type was so much work. You

Malcolm Cowley remarked that writers who began as compositors, e.g. Mark Twain, learned concision simply because making up a page of type was so much work. You make an interesting point--on the other hand, the telegraph brought a tremendous amount of news within reach of a newspaper: there was then more to fit in.