This sentence gives to the ear a sense of rhythm that is somewhere interrupted and disturbed. Examination shows that the rhythm comes from the alliterations “failed to fill” and “criticism had created,” and the disturbance arises from the interjection between them of the word “destructive.” Destructive is a good word here, but not essential to the sense and not worth the interruption it makes in the smoothness of the sentence. So it had to go.
Avoid long words wherever possible, and never use a word you do not understand. As an example of the vast picture which half a dozen short words of Saxon English will conjure up, take these lines from “The Ancient Mariner”:
“Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide, wide sea.”
The power of expression in a single word, appears in Keats’ description of Ruth, in his “Ode to the Nightingale.”
“The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown;
Perhaps the selfsame song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn.”