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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/1038-0.txt b/1038-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b07591a --- /dev/null +++ b/1038-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2690 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Style, by Walter Raleigh + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Style + + +Author: Walter Raleigh + + + +Release Date: April 14, 2013 [eBook #1038] +[This file was first posted on September 2, 1997] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STYLE*** + + +Transcribed from the 1904 Edward Arnold edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + + STYLE + + + * * * * * + + BY + + WALTER RALEIGH + + AUTHOR OF ‘THE ENGLISH NOVEL,’ + AND ‘ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, A CRITICAL ESSAY’ + + * * * * * + + _FIFTH IMPRESSION_ + + * * * * * + + LONDON + EDWARD ARNOLD + Publisher to the India Office + 1904 + + * * * * * + + JOANNI SAMPSON + + BIBLIOTHECARIO OPTIMO + + VIRO OMNI SAPIENTIA ÆGYPTIORUM + + ERUDITO + + LABORUM ET ITINERUM SUORUM + + SOCIO + + HUNC LIBELLUM + + D · D · D + + AUCTOR + + + + +TABLE OF THE PRINCIPAL MATTERS +CONTAINED IN THIS ESSAY + + PAGE +The Triumph of Letters 1 +The Problem of Style 3 +The Instrument and the Audience, with a Digression on the 4 +Actor +The Sense-Elements 8 +The Functions of Sense 10 +Picture 11 +Melody 14 +Meaning, Exampled in Negation 17 +The Weapons of Thought 21 +The Analogy from Architecture 23 +The Analogy Rectified. The Law of Change 24 +The Good Slang 27 +The Bad Slang 29 +Archaism 32 +Romantic and Classic 36 +The Palsy of Definition 39 +Distinction 43 +Assimilation 45 +Synonyms 46 +Variety of Expression 49 +Variety Justified 50 +Metaphor and Abstraction: Poetry and Science 55 +The Doctrine of the _Mot Propre_ 61 +The Instrument 65 +The Audience 65 +The Relation of the Author to his Audience 71 +The Poet and his Audience 71 +Public Caterers 77 +The Cautelous Man 78 +Sentimentalism and Jocularity 81 +The Tripe-Seller 83 +The Wag 85 +Social and Rhetorical Corruptions 87 +Sincerity 88 +Insincerity 93 +Austerity 94 +The Figurative Style 98 +Decoration 100 +Allusiveness 102 +Simplicity and Strength 104 +The Paradox of Letters 107 +Drama 108 +Implicit Drama 111 +Words Again 115 +Quotation 116 +Appropriation 119 +The World of Words 123 +The Teaching of Style 124 +The Conclusion 127 + + + + +STYLE + + +STYLE, the Latin name for an iron pen, has come to designate the art that +handles, with ever fresh vitality and wary alacrity, the fluid elements +of speech. By a figure, obvious enough, which yet might serve for an +epitome of literary method, the most rigid and simplest of instruments +has lent its name to the subtlest and most flexible of arts. Thence the +application of the word has been extended to arts other than literature, +to the whole range of the activities of man. The fact that we use the +word “style” in speaking of architecture and sculpture, painting and +music, dancing, play-acting, and cricket, that we can apply it to the +careful achievements of the housebreaker and the poisoner, and to the +spontaneous animal movements of the limbs of man or beast, is the noblest +of unconscious tributes to the faculty of letters. The pen, scratching +on wax or paper, has become the symbol of all that is expressive, all +that is intimate, in human nature; not only arms and arts, but man +himself, has yielded to it. His living voice, with its undulations and +inflexions, assisted by the mobile play of feature and an infinite +variety of bodily gesture, is driven to borrow dignity from the same +metaphor; the orator and the actor are fain to be judged by style. “It +is most true,” says the author of _The Anatomy of Melancholy_, “_stylus +virum arguit_, our style bewrays us.” Other gestures shift and change +and flit, this is the ultimate and enduring revelation of personality. +The actor and the orator are condemned to work evanescent effects on +transitory material; the dust that they write on is blown about their +graves. The sculptor and the architect deal in less perishable ware, but +the stuff is recalcitrant and stubborn, and will not take the impress of +all states of the soul. Morals, philosophy, and æsthetic, mood and +conviction, creed and whim, habit, passion, and demonstration—what art +but the art of literature admits the entrance of all these, and guards +them from the suddenness of mortality? What other art gives scope to +natures and dispositions so diverse, and to tastes so contrarious? +Euclid and Shelley, Edmund Spenser and Herbert Spencer, King David and +David Hume, are all followers of the art of letters. + +In the effort to explain the principles of an art so bewildering in its +variety, writers on style have gladly availed themselves of analogy from +the other arts, and have spoken, for the most part, not without a +parable. It is a pleasant trick they put upon their pupils, whom they +gladden with the delusion of a golden age, and perfection to be sought +backwards, in arts less complex. The teacher of writing, past master in +the juggling craft of language, explains that he is only carrying into +letters the principles of counterpoint, or that it is all a matter of +colour and perspective, or that structure and ornament are the beginning +and end of his intent. Professor of eloquence and of thieving, his +winged shoes remark him as he skips from metaphor to metaphor, not daring +to trust himself to the partial and frail support of any single figure. +He lures the astonished novice through as many trades as were ever housed +in the central hall of the world’s fair. From his distracting account of +the business it would appear that he is now building a monument, anon he +is painting a picture (with brushes dipped in a gallipot made of an +earthquake); again he strikes a keynote, weaves a pattern, draws a wire, +drives a nail, treads a measure, sounds a trumpet, or hits a target; or +skirmishes around his subject; or lays it bare with a dissecting knife; +or embalms a thought; or crucifies an enemy. What is he really doing all +the time? + + * * * * * + +Besides the artist two things are to be considered in every art,—the +instrument and the audience; or, to deal in less figured phrase, the +medium and the public. From both of these the artist, if he would find +freedom for the exercise of all his powers, must sit decently aloof. It +is the misfortune of the actor, the singer, and the dancer, that their +bodies are their sole instruments. On to the stage of their activities +they carry the heart that nourishes them and the lungs wherewith they +breathe, so that the soul, to escape degradation, must seek a more remote +and difficult privacy. That immemorial right of the soul to make the +body its home, a welcome escape from publicity and a refuge for +sincerity, must be largely foregone by the actor, who has scant liberty +to decorate and administer for his private behoof an apartment that is +also a place of business. His ownership is limited by the necessities of +his trade; when the customers are gone, he eats and sleeps in the +bar-parlour. Nor is the instrument of his performances a thing of his +choice; the poorest skill of the violinist may exercise itself upon a +Stradivarius, but the actor is reduced to fiddle for the term of his +natural life upon the face and fingers that he got from his mother. The +serene detachment that may be achieved by disciples of greater arts can +hardly be his, applause touches his personal pride too nearly, the +mocking echoes of derision infest the solitude of his retired +imagination. In none of the world’s great polities has the practice of +this art been found consistent with noble rank or honourable estate. +Christianity might be expected to spare some sympathy for a calling that +offers prizes to abandonment and self-immolation, but her eye is fixed on +a more distant mark than the pleasure of the populace, and, as in +gladiatorial Rome of old, her best efforts have been used to stop the +games. Society, on the other hand, preoccupied with the art of life, has +no warmer gift than patronage for those whose skill and energy exhaust +themselves on the mimicry of life. The reward of social consideration is +refused, it is true, to all artists, or accepted by them at their +immediate peril. By a natural adjustment, in countries where the artist +has sought and attained a certain modest social elevation, the issue has +been changed, and the architect or painter, when his health is proposed, +finds himself, sorely against the grain, returning thanks for the +employer of labour, the genial host, the faithful husband, the tender +father, and other pillars of society. The risk of too great familiarity +with an audience which insists on honouring the artist irrelevantly, at +the expense of the art, must be run by all; a more clinging evil besets +the actor, in that he can at no time wholly escape from his phantasmal +second self. On this creature of his art he has lavished the last doit +of human capacity for expression; with what bearing shall he face the +exacting realities of life? Devotion to his profession has beggared him +of his personality; ague, old age and poverty, love and death, find in +him an entertainer who plies them with a feeble repetition of the +triumphs formerly prepared for a larger and less imperious audience. The +very journalist—though he, too, when his profession takes him by the +throat, may expound himself to his wife in phrases stolen from his own +leaders—is a miracle of detachment in comparison; he has not put his +laughter to sale. It is well for the soul’s health of the artist that a +definite boundary should separate his garden from his farm, so that when +he escapes from the conventions that rule his work he may be free to +recreate himself. But where shall the weary player keep holiday? Is not +all the world a stage? + +Whatever the chosen instrument of an art may be, its appeal to those +whose attention it bespeaks must be made through the senses. Music, +which works with the vibrations of a material substance, makes this +appeal through the ear; painting through the eye; it is of a piece with +the complexity of the literary art that it employs both channels,—as it +might seem to a careless apprehension, indifferently. + +For the writer’s pianoforte is the dictionary, words are the material in +which he works, and words may either strike the ear or be gathered by the +eye from the printed page. The alternative will be called delusive, for, +in European literature at least, there is no word-symbol that does not +imply a spoken sound, and no excellence without euphony. But the other +way is possible, the gulf between mind and mind may be bridged by +something which has a right to the name of literature although it exacts +no aid from the ear. The picture-writing of the Indians, the hieroglyphs +of Egypt, may be cited as examples of literary meaning conveyed with no +implicit help from the spoken word. Such an art, were it capable of high +development, would forsake the kinship of melody, and depend for its +sensual elements of delight on the laws of decorative pattern. In a land +of deaf-mutes it might come to a measure of perfection. But where human +intercourse is chiefly by speech, its connexion with the interests and +passions of daily life would perforce be of the feeblest, it would tend +more and more to cast off the fetters of meaning that it might do freer +service to the jealous god of visible beauty. The overpowering rivalry +of speech would rob it of all its symbolic intent and leave its bare +picture. Literature has favoured rather the way of the ear and has given +itself zealously to the tuneful ordering of sounds. Let it be repeated, +therefore, that for the traffic of letters the senses are but the +door-keepers of the mind; none of them commands an only way of +access,—the deaf can read by sight, the blind by touch. It is not amid +the bustle of the live senses, but in an under-world of dead impressions +that Poetry works her will, raising that in power which was sown in +weakness, quickening a spiritual body from the ashes of the natural body. +The mind of man is peopled, like some silent city, with a sleeping +company of reminiscences, associations, impressions, attitudes, emotions, +to be awakened into fierce activity at the touch of words. By one way or +another, with a fanfaronnade of the marching trumpets, or stealthily, by +noiseless passages and dark posterns, the troop of suggesters enters the +citadel, to do its work within. The procession of beautiful sounds that +is a poem passes in through the main gate, and forthwith the by-ways +resound to the hurry of ghostly feet, until the small company of +adventurers is well-nigh lost and overwhelmed in that throng of insurgent +spirits. + +To attempt to reduce the art of literature to its component +sense-elements is therefore vain. Memory, “the warder of the brain,” is +a fickle trustee, whimsically lavish to strangers, giving up to the +appeal of a spoken word or unspoken symbol, an odour or a touch, all that +has been garnered by the sensitive capacities of man. It is the part of +the writer to play upon memory, confusing what belongs to one sense with +what belongs to another, extorting images of colour at a word, raising +ideas of harmony without breaking the stillness of the air. He can lead +on the dance of words till their sinuous movements call forth, as if by +mesmerism, the likeness of some adamantine rigidity, time is converted +into space, and music begets sculpture. To see for the sake of seeing, +to hear for the sake of hearing, are subsidiary exercises of his complex +metaphysical art, to be counted among its rudiments. Picture and music +can furnish but the faint beginnings of a philosophy of letters. +Necessary though they be to a writer, they are transmuted in his service +to new forms, and made to further purposes not their own. + +The power of vision—hardly can a writer, least of all if he be a poet, +forego that part of his equipment. In dealing with the impalpable, dim +subjects that lie beyond the border-land of exact knowledge, the poetic +instinct seeks always to bring them into clear definition and bright +concrete imagery, so that it might seem for the moment as if painting +also could deal with them. Every abstract conception, as it passes into +the light of the creative imagination, acquires structure and firmness +and colour, as flowers do in the light of the sun. Life and Death, Love +and Youth, Hope and Time, become persons in poetry, not that they may +wear the tawdry habiliments of the studio, but because persons are the +objects of the most familiar sympathy and the most intimate knowledge. + + How long, O Death? And shall thy feet depart + Still a young child’s with mine, or wilt thou stand + Full grown the helpful daughter of my heart, + What time with thee indeed I reach the strand + Of the pale wave which knows thee what thou art, + And drink it in the hollow of thy hand? + +And as a keen eye for the imagery attendant on a word is essential to all +writing, whether prose or poetry, that attempts the heart, so languor of +the visual faculty can work disaster even in the calm periods of +philosophic expatiation. “It cannot be doubted,” says one whose daily +meditations enrich _The People’s Post-Bag_, “that Fear is, to a great +extent, the mother of Cruelty.” Alas, by the introduction of that brief +proviso, conceived in a spirit of admirably cautious self-defence, the +writer has unwittingly given himself to the horns of a dilemma whose +ferocity nothing can mitigate. These tempered and conditional truths are +not in nature, which decrees, with uncompromising dogmatism, that either +a woman is one’s mother, or she is not. The writer probably meant merely +that “fear is one of the causes of cruelty,” and had he used a colourless +abstract word the platitude might pass unchallenged. But a vague desire +for the emphasis and glamour of literature having brought in the word +“mother,” has yet failed to set the sluggish imagination to work, and a +word so glowing with picture and vivid with sentiment is damped and +dulled by the thumb-mark of besotted usage to mean no more than “cause” +or “occasion.” Only for the poet, perhaps, are words live winged things, +flashing with colour and laden with scent; yet one poor spark of +imagination might save them from this sad descent to sterility and +darkness. + +Of no less import is the power of melody which chooses, rejects, and +orders words for the satisfaction that a cunningly varied return of sound +can give to the ear. Some critics have amused themselves with the hope +that here, in the laws and practices regulating the audible cadence of +words, may be found the first principles of style, the form which +fashions the matter, the apprenticeship to beauty which alone can make an +art of truth. And it may be admitted that verse, owning, as it does, a +professed and canonical allegiance to music, sometimes carries its +devotion so far that thought swoons into melody, and the thing said seems +a discovery made by the way in the search for tuneful expression. + + What thing unto mine ear + Wouldst thou convey,—what secret thing, + O wandering water ever whispering? + Surely thy speech shall be of her, + Thou water, O thou whispering wanderer, + What message dost thou bring? + +In this stanza an exquisitely modulated tune is played upon the syllables +that make up the word “wandering,” even as, in the poem from which it is +taken, there is every echo of the noise of waters laughing in sunny +brooks, or moaning in dumb hidden caverns. Yet even here it would be +vain to seek for reason why each particular sound of every line should be +itself and no other. For melody holds no absolute dominion over either +verse or prose; its laws, never to be disregarded, prohibit rather than +prescribe. Beyond the simple ordinances that determine the place of the +rhyme in verse, and the average number of syllables, or rhythmical beats, +that occur in the line, where shall laws be found to regulate the +sequence of consonants and vowels from syllable to syllable? Those few +artificial restrictions, which verse invents for itself, once agreed on, +a necessary and perilous license makes up the rest of the code. +Literature can never conform to the dictates of pure euphony, while +grammar, which has been shaped not in the interests of prosody, but for +the service of thought, bars the way with its clumsy inalterable +polysyllables and the monotonous sing-song of its inflexions. On the +other hand, among a hundred ways of saying a thing, there are more than +ninety that a care for euphony may reasonably forbid. All who have +consciously practised the art of writing know what endless and painful +vigilance is needed for the avoidance of the unfit or untuneful phrase, +how the meaning must be tossed from expression to expression, mutilated +and deceived, ere it can find rest in words. The stupid accidental +recurrence of a single broad vowel; the cumbrous repetition of a +particle; the emphatic phrase for which no emphatic place can be found +without disorganising the structure of the period; the pert intrusion on +a solemn thought of a flight of short syllables, twittering like a flock +of sparrows; or that vicious trick of sentences whereby each, unmindful +of its position and duties, tends to imitate the deformities of its +predecessor;—these are a select few of the difficulties that the nature +of language and of man conspire to put upon the writer. He is well +served by his mind and ear if he can win past all such traps and +ambuscades, robbed of only a little of his treasure, indemnified by the +careless generosity of his spoilers, and still singing. + +Besides their chime in the ear, and the images that they put before the +mind’s eye, words have, for their last and greatest possession, a +meaning. They carry messages and suggestions that, in the effect +wrought, elude all the senses equally. For the sake of this, their prime +office, the rest is many times forgotten or scorned, the tune is +disordered and havoc played with the lineaments of the picture, because +without these the word can still do its business. The refutation of +those critics who, in their analysis of the power of literature, make +much of music and picture, is contained in the most moving passages that +have found utterance from man. Consider the intensity of a saying like +that of St. Paul:—“For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor +angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to +come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to +separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” + +Do these verses draw their power from a skilful arrangement of vowel and +consonant? But they are quoted from a translation, and can be translated +otherwise, well or ill or indifferently, without losing more than a +little of their virtue. Do they impress the eye by opening before it a +prospect of vast extent, peopled by vague shapes? On the contrary, the +visual embodiment of the ideas suggested kills the sense of the passage, +by lowering the cope of the starry heavens to the measure of a +poplar-tree. Death and life, height and depth, are conceived by the +apostle, and creation thrown in like a trinket, only that they may lend +emphasis to the denial that is the soul of his purpose. Other arts can +affirm, or seem to affirm, with all due wealth of circumstance and +detail; they can heighten their affirmation by the modesty of reserve, +the surprises of a studied brevity, and the erasure of all impertinence; +literature alone can deny, and honour the denial with the last resources +of a power that has the universe for its treasury. It is this negative +capability of words, their privative force, whereby they can impress the +minds with a sense of “vacuity, darkness, solitude, and silence,” that +Burke celebrates in the fine treatise of his younger days. In such a +phrase as “the angel of the Lord” language mocks the positive rivalry of +the pictorial art, which can offer only the poor pretence of an +equivalent in a young man painted with wings. But the difference between +the two arts is even better marked in the matter of negative suggestion; +it is instanced by Burke from the noble passage where Virgil describes +the descent of Æneas and the Sibyl to the shades of the nether world. +Here are amassed all “the images of a tremendous dignity” that the poet +could forge from the sublime of denial. The two most famous lines are a +procession of negatives:— + + _Ibant obscuri sola sub nocte per umbram_, + _Perque domos Ditis vacuas et inania regna_. + + Through hollow kingdoms, emptied of the day, + And dim, deserted courts where Dis bears sway, + Night-foundered, and uncertain of the path, + Darkling they took their solitary way. + +Here is the secret of some of the cardinal effects of literature; strong +epithets like “lonely,” “supreme,” “invisible,” “eternal,” “inexorable,” +with the substantives that belong to them, borrow their force from the +vastness of what they deny. And not these alone, but many other words, +less indebted to logic for the magnificence of reach that it can lend, +bring before the mind no picture, but a dim emotional framework. Such +words as “ominous,” “fantastic,” “attenuated,” “bewildered,” +“justification,” are atmospheric rather than pictorial; they infect the +soul with the passion-laden air that rises from humanity. It is +precisely in his dealings with words like these, “heated originally by +the breath of others,” that a poet’s fine sense and knowledge most avail +him. The company a word has kept, its history, faculties, and +predilections, endear or discommend it to his instinct. How hardly will +poetry consent to employ such words as “congratulation” or +“philanthropist,”—words of good origin, but tainted by long immersion in +fraudulent rejoicings and pallid, comfortable, theoretic loves. How +eagerly will the poetic imagination seize on a word like “control,” which +gives scope by its very vagueness, and is fettered by no partiality of +association. All words, the weak and the strong, the definite and the +vague, have their offices to perform in language, but the loftiest +purposes of poetry are seldom served by those explicit hard words which, +like tiresome explanatory persons, say all that they mean. Only in the +focus and centre of man’s knowledge is there place for the hammer-blows +of affirmation, the rest is a flickering world of hints and half-lights, +echoes and suggestions, to be come at in the dusk or not at all. + +The combination of these powers in words, of song and image and meaning, +has given us the supreme passages of our romantic poetry. In +Shakespeare’s work, especially, the union of vivid definite presentment +with immense reach of metaphysical suggestion seems to intertwine the +roots of the universe with the particular fact; tempting the mind to +explore that other side of the idea presented to it, the side turned away +from it, and held by something behind. + + It will have blood; they say blood win have blood: + Stones have been known to move and trees to speak; + Augurs and understood relations have + By maggot-pies and choughs and rooks brought forth + The secret’st man of blood. + +This meeting of concrete and abstract, of sense and thought, keeps the +eye travelling along the utmost skyline of speculation, where the heavens +are interfused with the earth. In short, the third and greatest virtue +of words is no other than the virtue that belongs to the weapons of +thought,—a deep, wide, questioning thought that discovers analogies and +pierces behind things to a half-perceived unity of law and essence. In +the employ of keen insight, high feeling, and deep thinking, language +comes by its own; the prettinesses that may be imposed on a passive +material are as nothing to the splendour and grace that transfigure even +the meanest instrument when it is wielded by the energy of thinking +purpose. The contempt that is cast, by the vulgar phrase, on “mere +words” bears witness to the rarity of this serious consummation. Yet by +words the world was shaped out of chaos, by words the Christian religion +was established among mankind. Are these terrific engines fit +play-things for the idle humours of a sick child? + +And now it begins to be apparent that no adequate description of the art +of language can be drawn from the technical terminology of the other +arts, which, like proud debtors, would gladly pledge their substance to +repay an obligation that they cannot disclaim. Let one more attempt to +supply literature with a parallel be quoted from the works of a writer on +style, whose high merit it is that he never loses sight, either in theory +or in practice, of the fundamental conditions proper to the craft of +letters. Robert Louis Stevenson, pondering words long and lovingly, was +impressed by their crabbed individuality, and sought to elucidate the +laws of their arrangement by a reference to the principles of +architecture. “The sister arts,” he says, “enjoy the use of a plastic +and ductile material, like the modeller’s clay; literature alone is +condemned to work in mosaic with finite and quite rigid words. You have +seen those blocks, dear to the nursery: this one a pillar, that a +pediment, a third a window or a vase. It is with blocks of just such +arbitrary size and figure that the literary architect is condemned to +design the palace of his art. Nor is this all; for since these blocks or +words are the acknowledged currency of our daily affairs, there are here +possible none of those suppressions by which other arts obtain relief, +continuity, and vigour: no hieroglyphic touch, no smoothed impasto, no +inscrutable shadow, as in painting; no blank wall, as in architecture; +but every word, phrase, sentence, and paragraph must move in a logical +progression, and convey a definite conventional import.” + +It is an acute comparison, happily indicative of the morose angularity +that words offer to whoso handles them, admirably insistent on the chief +of the incommodities imposed upon the writer, the necessity, at all times +and at all costs, to mean something. The boon of the recurring +monotonous expanse, that an apprentice may fill, the breathing-space of +restful mechanical repetition, are denied to the writer, who must needs +shoulder the hod himself, and lay on the mortar, in ever varying +patterns, with his own trowel. This is indeed the ordeal of the master, +the canker-worm of the penny-a-liner, who, poor fellow, means nothing, +and spends his life in the vain effort to get words to do the same. But +if in this respect architecture and literature are confessed to differ, +there remains the likeness that Mr. Stevenson detects in the building +materials of the two arts, those blocks of “arbitrary size and figure; +finite and quite rigid.” There is truth enough in the comparison to make +it illuminative, but he would be a rash dialectician who should attempt +to draw from it, by way of inference, a philosophy of letters. Words are +piled on words, and bricks on bricks, but of the two you are invited to +think words the more intractable. Truly, it was a man of letters who +said it, avenging himself on his profession for the never-ending toil it +imposed, by miscalling it, with grim pleasantry, the architecture of the +nursery. Finite and quite rigid words are not, in any sense that holds +good of bricks. They move and change, they wax and wane, they wither and +burgeon; from age to age, from place to place, from mouth to mouth, they +are never at a stay. They take on colour, intensity, and vivacity from +the infection of neighbourhood; the same word is of several shapes and +diverse imports in one and the same sentence; they depend on the building +that they compose for the very chemistry of the stuff that composes them. +The same epithet is used in the phrases “a fine day” and “fine irony,” in +“fair trade” and “a fair goddess.” Were different symbols to be invented +for these sundry meanings the art of literature would perish. For words +carry with them all the meanings they have worn, and the writer shall be +judged by those that he selects for prominence in the train of his +thought. A slight technical implication, a faint tinge of archaism, in +the common turn of speech that you employ, and in a moment you have +shaken off the mob that scours the rutted highway, and are addressing a +select audience of ticket-holders with closed doors. A single natural +phrase of peasant speech, a direct physical sense given to a word that +genteel parlance authorises readily enough in its metaphorical sense, and +at a touch you have blown the roof off the drawing-room of the villa, and +have set its obscure inhabitants wriggling in the unaccustomed sun. In +choosing a sense for your words you choose also an audience for them. + +To one word, then, there are many meanings, according as it falls in the +sentence, according as its successive ties and associations are broken or +renewed. And here, seeing that the stupidest of all possible meanings is +very commonly the slang meaning, it will be well to treat briefly of +slang. For slang, in the looser acceptation of the term, is of two +kinds, differing, and indeed diametrically opposite, in origin and worth. +Sometimes it is the technical diction that has perforce been coined to +name the operations, incidents, and habits of some way of life that +society despises or deliberately elects to disregard. This sort of +slang, which often invents names for what would otherwise go nameless, is +vivid, accurate, and necessary, an addition of wealth to the world’s +dictionaries and of compass to the world’s range of thought. Society, +mistily conscious of the sympathy that lightens in any habitual name, +seems to have become aware, by one of those wonderful processes of chary +instinct which serve the great, vulnerable, timid organism in lieu of a +brain, that to accept of the pickpocket his names for the mysteries of +his trade is to accept also a new moral stand-point and outlook on the +question of property. For this reason, and by no special masonic +precautions of his own, the pickpocket is allowed to keep the admirable +devices of his nomenclature for the familiar uses of himself and his +mates, until a Villon arrives to prove that this language, too, was +awaiting the advent of its bully and master. In the meantime, what +directness and modest sufficiency of utterance distinguishes the dock +compared with the fumbling prolixity of the old gentleman on the bench! +It is the trite story,—romanticism forced to plead at the bar of +classicism fallen into its dotage, Keats judged by _Blackwood_, +Wordsworth exciting the pained astonishment of Miss Anna Seward. Accuser +and accused alike recognise that a question of diction is part of the +issue between them; hence the picturesque confession of the culprit, made +in proud humility, that he “clicked a red ’un” must needs be interpreted, +to save the good faith of the court, into the vaguer and more general +speech of the classic convention. Those who dislike to have their +watches stolen find that the poorest language of common life will serve +their simple turn, without the rich technical additions of a vocabulary +that has grown around an art. They can abide no rendering of the fact +that does not harp incessantly on the disapproval of watch-owners. They +carry their point of morals at the cost of foregoing all glitter and +finish in the matter of expression. + +This sort of slang, therefore, technical in origin, the natural +efflorescence of highly cultivated agilities of brain, and hand, and eye, +is worthy of all commendation. But there is another kind that goes under +the name of slang, the offspring rather of mental sloth, and current +chiefly among those idle, jocular classes to whom all art is a bugbear +and a puzzle. There is a public for every one; the pottle-headed lout +who in a moment of exuberance strikes on a new sordid metaphor for any +incident in the beaten round of drunkenness, lubricity, and debt, can set +his fancy rolling through the music-halls, and thence into the street, +secure of applause and a numerous sodden discipleship. Of the same lazy +stamp, albeit more amiable in effect, are the thought-saying contrivances +whereby one word is retained to do the work of many. For the language of +social intercourse ease is the first requisite; the average talker, who +would be hard put to it if he were called on to describe or to define, +must constantly be furnished with the materials of emphasis, wherewith to +drive home his likes and dislikes. Why should he alienate himself from +the sympathy of his fellows by affecting a singularity in the expression +of his emotions? What he craves is not accuracy, but immediacy of +expression, lest the tide of talk should flow past him, leaving him +engaged in a belated analysis. Thus the word of the day is on all lips, +and what was “vastly fine” last century is “awfully jolly” now; the +meaning is the same, the expression equally inappropriate. Oaths have +their brief periods of ascendency, and philology can boast its +fashion-plates. The tyrant Fashion, who wields for whip the fear of +solitude, is shepherd to the flock of common talkers, as they run hither +and thither pursuing, not self-expression, the prize of letters, but +unanimity and self-obliteration, the marks of good breeding. Like those +famous modern poets who are censured by the author of _Paradise Lost_, +the talkers of slang are “carried away by custom, to express many things +otherwise, and for the most part worse than else they would have exprest +them.” The poverty of their vocabulary makes appeal to the brotherly +sympathy of a partial and like-minded auditor, who can fill out their +paltry conventional sketches from his own experience of the same events. +Within the limits of a single school, or workshop, or social circle, +slang may serve; just as, between friends, silence may do the work of +talk. There are few families, or groups of familiars, that have not some +small coinage of this token-money, issued and accepted by affection, +passing current only within those narrow and privileged boundaries. This +wealth is of no avail to the travelling mind, save as a memorial of home, +nor is its material such “as, buried once, men want dug up again.” A few +happy words and phrases, promoted, for some accidental fitness, to the +wider world of letters, are all that reach posterity; the rest pass into +oblivion with the other perishables of the age. + +A profusion of words used in an ephemeral slang sense is evidence, then, +that the writer addresses himself merely to the uneducated and +thoughtless of his own day; the revival of bygone meanings, on the other +hand, and an archaic turn given to language is the mark rather of authors +who are ambitious of a hearing from more than one age. The accretions of +time bring round a word many reputable meanings, of which the oldest is +like to be the deepest in grain. It is a counsel of perfection—some will +say, of vainglorious pedantry—but that shaft flies furthest which is +drawn to the head, and he who desires to be understood in the +twenty-fourth century will not be careless of the meanings that his words +inherit from the fourteenth. To know them is of service, if only for the +piquancy of avoiding them. But many times they cannot wisely be avoided, +and the auspices under which a word began its career when first it was +imported from the French or Latin overshadow it and haunt it to the end. + +Popular modern usage will often rob common words, like “nice,” “quaint,” +or “silly,” of all flavour of their origin, as if it were of no moment to +remember that these three words, at the outset of their history, bore the +older senses of “ignorant,” “noted,” and “blessed.” It may be granted +that any attempt to return to these older senses, regardless of later +implications, is stark pedantry; but a delicate writer will play shyly +with the primitive significance in passing, approaching it and circling +it, taking it as a point of reference or departure. The early faith of +Christianity, its beautiful cult of childhood, and its appeal to +unlearned simplicity, have left their mark on the meaning of “silly”; the +history of the word is contained in that cry of St. Augustine, _Indocti +surgunt et rapiunt coelum_, or in the fervent sentence of the author of +the _Imitation_, _Oportet fieri stultum_. And if there is a later +silliness, altogether unblest, the skilful artificer of words, while +accepting this last extension, will show himself conscious of his +paradox. So also he will shun the grossness that employs the epithet +“quaint” to put upon subtlety and the devices of a studied workmanship an +imputation of eccentricity; or, if he falls in with the populace in this +regard, he will be careful to justify his innuendo. The slipshod use of +“nice” to connote any sort of pleasurable emotion he will take care, in +his writings at least, utterly to abhor. From the daintiness of elegance +to the arrogant disgust of folly the word carries meanings numerous and +diverse enough; it must not be cruelly burdened with all the laudatory +occasions of an undiscriminating egotism. + +It would be easy to cite a hundred other words like these, saved only by +their nobler uses in literature from ultimate defacement. The higher +standard imposed upon the written word tends to raise and purify speech +also, and since talkers owe the same debt to writers of prose that these, +for their part, owe to poets, it is the poets who must be accounted chief +protectors, in the last resort, of our common inheritance. Every page of +the works of that great exemplar of diction, Milton, is crowded with +examples of felicitous and exquisite meaning given to the infallible +word. Sometimes he accepts the secondary and more usual meaning of a +word only to enrich it by the interweaving of the primary and +etymological meaning. Thus the seraph Abdiel, in the passage that +narrates his offer of combat to Satan, is said to “explore” his own +undaunted heart, and there is no sense of “explore” that does not +heighten the description and help the thought. Thus again, when the poet +describes those + + Eremites and friars, + White, Black, and Gray, with all their trumpery, + +who inhabit, or are doomed to inhabit, the Paradise of Fools, he seems to +invite the curious reader to recall the derivation of “trumpery,” and so +supplement the idea of worthlessness with that other idea, equally +grateful to the author, of deceit. The strength that extracts this +multiplex resonance of meaning from a single note is matched by the grace +that gives to Latin words like “secure,” “arrive,” “obsequious,” +“redound,” “infest,” and “solemn” the fine precision of intent that art +can borrow from scholarship. + +Such an exactitude is consistent with vital change; Milton himself is +bold to write “stood praying” for “continued kneeling in prayer,” and +deft to transfer the application of “schism” from the rent garment of the +Church to those necessary “dissections made in the quarry and in the +timber ere the house of God can be built.” Words may safely veer to +every wind that blows, so they keep within hail of their cardinal +meanings, and drift not beyond the scope of their central employ, but +when once they lose hold of that, then, indeed, the anchor has begun to +drag, and the beach-comber may expect his harvest. + +Fixity in the midst of change, fluctuation at the heart of sameness, such +is the estate of language. According as they endeavour to reduce letters +to some large haven and abiding-place of civility, or prefer to throw in +their lot with the centrifugal tendency and ride on the flying crest of +change, are writers dubbed Classic or Romantic. The Romantics are +individualist, anarchic; the strains of their passionate incantation +raise no cities to confront the wilderness in guarded symmetry, but +rather bring the stars shooting from their spheres, and draw wild things +captive to a voice. To them Society and Law seem dull phantoms, by the +light cast from a flaming soul. They dwell apart, and torture their +lives in the effort to attain to self-expression. All means and modes +offered them by language they seize on greedily, and shape them to this +one end; they ransack the vocabulary of new sciences, and appropriate or +invent strange jargons. They furbish up old words or weld together new +indifferently, that they may possess the machinery of their speech and +not be possessed by it. They are at odds with the idiom of their country +in that it serves the common need, and hunt it through all its +metamorphoses to subject it to their private will. Heretics by +profession, they are everywhere opposed to the party of the Classics, who +move by slower ways to ends less personal, but in no wise easier of +attainment. The magnanimity of the Classic ideal has had scant justice +done to it by modern criticism. To make literature the crowning symbol +of a world-wide civilisation; to roof in the ages, and unite the elect of +all time in the courtesy of one shining assembly, paying duty to one +unquestioned code; to undo the work of Babel, and knit together in a +single community the scattered efforts of mankind towards order and +reason;—this was surely an aim worthy of labour and sacrifice. Both have +been freely given, and the end is yet to seek. The self-assertion of the +recusants has found eulogists in plenty, but who has celebrated the +self-denial that was thrown away on this other task, which is farther +from fulfilment now than it was when the scholars of the Renaissance gave +up their patriotism and the tongue of their childhood in the name of +fellow-citizenship with the ancients and the œcumenical authority of +letters? Scholars, grammarians, wits, and poets were content to bury the +lustre of their wisdom and the hard-won fruits of their toil in the +winding-sheet of a dead language, that they might be numbered with the +family of Cicero, and added to the pious train of Virgil. It was a noble +illusion, doomed to failure, the versatile genius of language cried out +against the monotony of their Utopia, and the crowds who were to people +the unbuilded city of their dreams went straying after the feathered +chiefs of the rebels, who, when the fulness of time was come, themselves +received apotheosis and the honours of a new motley pantheon. The tomb +of that great vision bears for epitaph the ironical inscription which +defines a Classic poet as “a dead Romantic.” + +In truth the Romantics are right, and the serenity of the classic ideal +is the serenity of paralysis and death. A universal agreement in the use +of words facilitates communication, but, so inextricably is expression +entangled with feeling, it leaves nothing to communicate. Inanity dogs +the footsteps of the classic tradition, which is everywhere lackeyed, +through a long decline, by the pallor of reflected glories. Even the +irresistible novelty of personal experience is dulled by being cast in +the old matrix, and the man who professes to find the whole of himself in +the Bible or in Shakespeare had as good not be. He is a replica and a +shadow, a foolish libel on his Creator, who, from the beginning of time, +was never guilty of tautology. This is the error of the classical creed, +to imagine that in a fleeting world, where the quickest eye can never see +the same thing twice, and a deed once done can never be repeated, +language alone should be capable of fixity and finality. Nature avenges +herself on those who would thus make her prisoner, their truths +degenerate to truisms, and feeling dies in the ice-palaces that they +build to house it. In their search for permanence they become unreal, +abstract, didactic, lovers of generalisation, cherishers of the dry bones +of life; their art is transformed into a science, their expression into +an academic terminology. Immutability is their ideal, and they find it +in the arms of death. Words must change to live, and a word once fixed +becomes useless for the purposes of art. Whosoever would make +acquaintance with the goal towards which the classic practice tends, +should seek it in the vocabulary of the Sciences. There words are fixed +and dead, a botanical collection of colourless, scentless, dried weeds, a +_hortus siccus_ of proper names, each individual symbol poorly tethered +to some single object or idea. No wind blows through that garden, and no +sun shines on it, to discompose the melancholy workers at their task of +tying Latin labels on to withered sticks. Definition and division are +the watchwords of science, where art is all for composition and creation. +Not that the exact definable sense of a word is of no value to the +stylist; he profits by it as a painter profits by a study of anatomy, or +an architect by a knowledge of the strains and stresses that may be put +on his material. The exact logical definition is often necessary for the +structure of his thought and the ordering of his severer argument. But +often, too, it is the merest beginning; when a word is once defined he +overlays it with fresh associations and buries it under new-found moral +significances, which may belie the definition they conceal. This is the +burden of Jeremy Bentham’s quarrel with “question-begging appellatives.” +A clear-sighted and scrupulously veracious philosopher, abettor of the +age of reason, apostle of utility, god-father of the panopticon, and +donor to the English dictionary of such unimpassioned vocables as +“codification” and “international,” Bentham would have been glad to +purify the language by purging it of those “affections of the soul” +wherein Burke had found its highest glory. Yet in censuring the ordinary +political usage of such a word as “innovation,” it was hardly prejudice +in general that he attacked, but the particular and deep-seated prejudice +against novelty. The surprising vivacity of many of his own +figures,—although he had the courage of his convictions, and laboured, +throughout the course of a long life, to desiccate his style,—bears +witness to a natural skill in the use of loaded weapons. He will pack +his text with grave argument on matters ecclesiastical, and indulge +himself and literature, in the notes with a pleasant description of the +flesh and the spirit playing leap-frog, now one up, now the other, around +the holy precincts of the Church. Lapses like these show him far enough +from his own ideal of a geometric fixity in the use of words. The claim +of reason and logic to enslave language has a more modern advocate in the +philosopher who denies all utility to a word while it retains traces of +its primary sensuous employ. The tickling of the senses, the raising of +the passions, these things do indeed interfere with the arid business of +definition. None the less they are the life’s breath of literature, and +he is a poor stylist who cannot beg half-a-dozen questions in a single +epithet, or state the conclusion he would fain avoid in terms that +startle the senses into clamorous revolt. + +The two main processes of change in words are Distinction and +Assimilation. Endless fresh distinction, to match the infinite +complexity of things, is the concern of the writer, who spends all his +skill on the endeavour to cloth the delicacies of perception and thought +with a neatly fitting garment. So words grow and bifurcate, diverge and +dwindle, until one root has many branches. Grammarians tell how “royal” +and “regal” grew up by the side of “kingly,” how “hospital,” “hospice,” +“hostel” and “hotel” have come by their several offices. The inventor of +the word “sensuous” gave to the English people an opportunity of +reconsidering those headstrong moral preoccupations which had already +ruined the meaning of “sensual” for the gentler uses of a poet. Not only +the Puritan spirit, but every special bias or interest of man seizes on +words to appropriate them to itself. Practical men of business transfer +such words as “debenture” or “commodity” from debt or comfort in general +to the palpable concrete symbols of debt or comfort; and in like manlier +doctors, soldiers, lawyers, shipmen,—all whose interest and knowledge are +centred on some particular craft or profession, drag words from the +general store and adapt them to special uses. Such words are sometimes +reclaimed from their partial applications by the authority of men of +letters, and pass back into their wider meanings enhanced by a new +element of graphic association. Language never suffers by answering to +an intelligent demand; it is indebted not only to great authors, but to +all whom any special skill or taste has qualified to handle it. The good +writer may be one who disclaims all literary pretension, but there he is, +at work among words,—binding the vagabond or liberating the prisoner, +exalting the humble or abashing the presumptuous, incessantly alert to +amend their implications, break their lazy habits, and help them to +refinement or scope or decision. He educates words, for he knows that +they are alive. + +Compare now the case of the ruder multitude. In the regard of +literature, as a great critic long ago remarked, “all are the multitude; +only they differ in clothes, not in judgment or understanding,” and the +poorest talkers do not inhabit the slums. Wherever thought and taste +have fallen to be menials, there the vulgar dwell. How should they gain +mastery over language? They are introduced to a vocabulary of some +hundred thousand words, which quiver through a million of meanings; the +wealth is theirs for the taking, and they are encouraged to be +spendthrift by the very excess of what they inherit. The resources of +the tongue they speak are subtler and more various than ever their ideas +can put to use. So begins the process of assimilation, the edge put upon +words by the craftsman is blunted by the rough treatment of the confident +booby, who is well pleased when out of many highly-tempered swords he has +manufactured a single clumsy coulter. A dozen expressions to serve one +slovenly meaning inflate him with the sense of luxury and pomp. “Vast,” +“huge,” “immense,” “gigantic,” “enormous,” “tremendous,” “portentous,” +and such-like groups of words, lose all their variety of sense in a +barren uniformity of low employ. The reign of this democracy annuls +differences of status, and insults over differences of ability or +disposition. Thus do synonyms, or many words ill applied to one purpose, +begin to flourish, and, for a last indignity, dictionaries of synonyms. + +Let the truth be said outright: there are no synonyms, and the same +statement can never be repeated in a changed form of words. Where the +ignorance of one writer has introduced an unnecessary word into the +language, to fill a place already occupied, the quicker apprehension of +others will fasten upon it, drag it apart from its fellows, and find new +work for it to do. Where a dull eye sees nothing but sameness, the +trained faculty of observation will discern a hundred differences worthy +of scrupulous expression. The old foresters had different names for a +buck during each successive year of its life, distinguishing the fawn +from the pricket, the pricket from the sore, and so forth, as its age +increased. Thus it is also in that illimitable but not trackless forest +of moral distinctions. Language halts far behind the truth of things, +and only a drowsy perception can fail to devise a use for some new +implement of description. Every strange word that makes its way into a +language spins for itself a web of usage and circumstance, relating +itself from whatsoever centre to fresh points in the circumference. No +two words ever coincide throughout their whole extent. If sometimes good +writers are found adding epithet to epithet for the same quality, and +name to name for the same thing, it is because they despair of capturing +their meaning at a venture, and so practise to get near it by a maze of +approximations. Or, it may be, the generous breadth of their purpose +scorns the minuter differences of related terms, and includes all of one +affinity, fearing only lest they be found too few and too weak to cover +the ground effectively. Of this sort are the so-called synonyms of the +Prayer-Book, wherein we “acknowledge and confess” the sins we are +forbidden to “dissemble or cloke;” and the bead-roll of the lawyer, who +huddles together “give, devise, and bequeath,” lest the cunning of +litigants should evade any single verb. The works of the poets yield +still better instances. When Milton praises the _Virtuous Young Lady_ of +his sonnet in that the spleen of her detractors moves her only to “pity +and ruth,” it is not for the idle filling of the line that he joins the +second of these nouns to the first. Rather he is careful to enlarge and +intensify his meaning by drawing on the stores of two nations, the one +civilised, the other barbarous; and ruth is a quality as much more +instinctive and elemental than pity as pitilessness is keener, harder, +and more deliberate than the inborn savagery of ruthlessness. + +It is not chiefly, however, for the purposes of this accumulated and +varied emphasis that the need of synonyms is felt. There is no more +curious problem in the philosophy of style than that afforded by the +stubborn reluctance of writers, the good as well as the bad, to repeat a +word or phrase. When the thing is, they may be willing to abide by the +old rule and say the word, but when the thing repeats itself they will +seldom allow the word to follow suit. A kind of interdict, not removed +until the memory of the first occurrence has faded, lies on a once used +word. The causes of this anxiety for a varied expression are manifold. +Where there is merely a column to fill, poverty of thought drives the +hackney author into an illicit fulness, until the trick of verbiage +passes from his practice into his creed, and makes him the dupe of his +own puppets. A commonplace book, a dictionary of synonyms, and another +of phrase and fable equip him for his task; if he be called upon to +marshal his ideas on the question whether oysters breed typhoid, he will +acquit himself voluminously, with only one allusion (it is a point of +pride) to the oyster by name. He will compare the succulent bivalve to +Pandora’s box, and lament that it should harbour one of the direst of +ills that flesh is heir to. He will find a paradox and an epigram in the +notion that the darling of Apicius should suffer neglect under the frowns +of Æsculapius. Question, hypothesis, lamentation, and platitude dance +their allotted round and fill the ordained space, while Ignorance +masquerades in the garb of criticism, and Folly proffers her ancient +epilogue of chastened hope. When all is said, nothing is said; and +Montaigne’s _Que sçais-je_, besides being briefer and wittier, was +infinitely more informing. + +But we dwell too long with disease; the writer nourished on thought, +whose nerves are braced and his loins girt to struggle with a real +meaning, is not subject to these tympanies. He feels no idolatrous dread +of repetition when the theme requires, it, and is urged by no necessity +of concealing real identity under a show of change. Nevertheless he, +too, is hedged about by conditions that compel him, now and again, to +resort to what seems a synonym. The chief of these is the indispensable +law of euphony, which governs the sequence not only of words, but also of +phrases. In proportion as a phrase is memorable, the words that compose +it become mutually adhesive, losing for a time something of their +individual scope, bringing with them, if they be torn away too quickly, +some cumbrous fragments of their recent association. That he may avoid +this, a sensitive writer is often put to his shifts, and extorts, if he +be fortunate, a triumph from the accident of his encumbrance. By a +slight stress laid on the difference of usage the unshapeliness may be +done away with, and a new grace found where none was sought. Addison and +Landor accuse Milton, with reason, of too great a fondness for the pun, +yet surely there is something to please the mind, as well as the ear, in +the description of the heavenly judgment, + + That brought into this world a world of woe. + +Where words are not fitted with a single hard definition, rigidly +observed, all repetition is a kind of delicate punning, bringing slight +differences of application into clear relief. The practice has its +dangers for the weak-minded lover of ornament, yet even so it may be +preferable to the flat stupidity of one identical intention for a word or +phrase in twenty several contexts. For the law of incessant change is +not so much a counsel of perfection to be held up before the apprentice, +as a fundamental condition of all writing whatsoever; if the change be +not ordered by art it will order itself in default of art. The same +statement can never be repeated even in the same form of words, and it is +not the old question that is propounded at the third time of asking. +Repetition, that is to say, is the strongest generator of emphasis known +to language. Take the exquisite repetitions in these few lines:— + + Bitter constraint and sad occasion dear + Compels me to disturb your season due; + For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime, + Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer. + +Here the tenderness of affection returns again to the loved name, and the +grief of the mourner repeats the word “dead.” But this monotony of +sorrow is the least part of the effect, which lies rather in the +prominence given by either repetition to the most moving circumstance of +all—the youthfulness of the dead poet. The attention of the discursive +intellect, impatient of reiteration, is concentrated on the idea which +these repeated and exhausted words throw into relief. Rhetoric is +content to borrow force from simpler methods; a good orator will often +bring his hammer down, at the end of successive periods, on the same +phrase; and the mirthless refrain of a comic song, or the catchword of a +buffoon, will raise laughter at last by its brazen importunity. Some +modern writers, admiring the easy power of the device, have indulged +themselves with too free a use of it; Matthew Arnold particularly, in his +prose essays, falls to crying his text like a hawker, + + Beating it in upon our weary brains, + As tho’ it were the burden of a song, + +clattering upon the iron of the Philistine giant in the effort to bring +him to reason. These are the ostentatious violences of a missionary, who +would fain save his enemy alive, where a grimmer purpose is glad to +employ a more silent weapon and strike but once. The callousness of a +thick-witted auditory lays the need for coarse method on the gentlest +soul resolved to stir them. But he whose message is for minds attuned +and tempered will beware of needless reiteration, as of the noisiest way +of emphasis. Is the same word wanted again, he will examine carefully +whether the altered incidence does not justify and require an altered +term, which the world is quick to call a synonym. The right dictionary +of synonyms would give the context of each variant in the usage of the +best authors. To enumerate all the names applied by Milton to the hero +of _Paradise Lost_, without reference to the passages in which they +occur, would be a foolish labour; with such reference, the task is made a +sovereign lesson in style. At Hell gates, where he dallies in speech +with his leman Sin to gain a passage from the lower World, Satan is “the +subtle Fiend,” in the garden of Paradise he is “the Tempter” and “the +Enemy of Mankind,” putting his fraud upon Eve he is the “wily Adder,” +leading her in full course to the tree he is “the dire Snake,” springing +to his natural height before the astonished gaze of the cherubs he is +“the grisly King.” Every fresh designation elaborates his character and +history, emphasises the situation, and saves a sentence. So it is with +all variable appellations of concrete objects; and even in the stricter +and more conventional region of abstract ideas the same law runs. Let a +word be changed or repeated, it brings in either case its contribution of +emphasis, and must be carefully chosen for the part it is to play, lest +it should upset the business of the piece by irrelevant clownage in the +midst of high matter, saying more or less than is set down for it in the +author’s purpose. + +The chameleon quality of language may claim yet another illustration. Of +origins we know nothing certainly, nor how words came by their meanings +in the remote beginning, when speech, like the barnacle-goose of the +herbalist, was suspended over an expectant world, ripening on a tree. +But this we know, that language in its mature state is fed and fattened +on metaphor. Figure is not a late device of the rhetorician, but the +earliest principle of change in language. The whole process of speech is +a long series of exhilarating discoveries, whereby words, freed from the +swaddling bands of their nativity, are found capable of new relations and +a wider metaphorical employ. Then, with the growth of exact knowledge, +the straggling associations that attended the word on its travels are +straitened and confined, its meaning is settled, adjusted, and balanced, +that it may bear its part in the scrupulous deposition of truth. Many +are the words that have run this double course, liberated from their +first homely offices and transformed by poetry, reclaimed in a more +abstract sense, and appropriated to a new set of facts by science. Yet a +third chance awaits them when the poet, thirsty for novelty, passes by +the old simple founts of figure to draw metaphor from the latest +technical applications of specialised terms. Everywhere the intuition of +poetry, impatient of the sturdy philosophic cripple that lags so far +behind, is busy in advance to find likenesses not susceptible of +scientific demonstration, to leap to comparisons that satisfy the heart +while they leave the colder intellect only half convinced. When an +elegant dilettante like Samuel Rogers is confronted with the principle of +gravitation he gives voice to science in verse:— + + That very law which moulds a tear, + And bids it trickle from its source, + That law preserves the earth a sphere, + And guides the planets in their course. + +But a seer like Wordsworth will never be content to write tunes for a +text-book of physics, he boldly confounds the arbitrary limits of matter +and morals in one splendid apostrophe to Duty:— + + Flowers laugh before thee on their beds; + And fragrance in thy footing treads; + Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong; + And the most ancient heavens, through thee, are fresh and strong. + +Poets, it is said, anticipate science; here in these four lines is work +for a thousand laboratories for a thousand years. But the truth has been +understated; every writer and every speaker works ahead of science, +expressing analogies and contrasts, likenesses and differences, that will +not abide the apparatus of proof. The world of perception and will, of +passion and belief, is an uncaptured virgin, airily deriding from afar +the calculated advances and practised modesty of the old bawd Science; +turning again to shower a benediction of unexpected caresses on the most +cavalier of her wooers, Poetry. This world, the child of Sense and +Faith, shy, wild, and provocative, for ever lures her lovers to the +chase, and the record of their hopes and conquests is contained in the +lover’s language, made up wholly of parable and figure of speech. There +is nothing under the sun nor beyond it that does not concern man, and it +is the unceasing effort of humanity, whether by letters or by science, to +bring “the commerce of the mind and of things” to terms of nearer +correspondence. But Literature, ambitious to touch life on all its +sides, distrusts the way of abstraction, and can hardly be brought to +abandon the point of view whence things are seen in their immediate +relation to the individual soul. This kind of research is the work of +letters; here are facts of human life to be noted that are never like to +be numerically tabulated, changes and developments that defy all metrical +standards to be traced and described. The greater men of science have +been cast in so generous a mould that they have recognised the partial +nature of their task; they have known how to play with science as a +pastime, and to win and wear her decorations for a holiday favour. They +have not emaciated the fulness of their faculties in the name of +certainty, nor cramped their humanity for the promise of a future good. +They have been the servants of Nature, not the slaves of method. But the +grammarian of the laboratory is often the victim of his trade. He +staggers forth from his workshop, where prolonged concentration on a +mechanical task, directed to a provisional and doubtful goal, has dimmed +his faculties; the glaring motley of the world, bathed in sunlight, +dazzles him; the questions, moral, political, and personal, that his +method has relegated to some future of larger knowledge, crowd upon him, +clamorous for solution, not to be denied, insisting on a settlement +to-day. He is forced to make a choice, and may either forsake the +divinity he serves, falling back, for the practical and æsthetic conduct +of life, on those common instincts of sensuality which oscillate between +the conventicle and the tavern as the poles of duty and pleasure, or, +more pathetically still, he may attempt to bring the code of the +observatory to bear immediately on the vagaries of the untameable world, +and suffer the pedant’s disaster. A martyr to the good that is to be, he +has voluntarily maimed himself “for the kingdom of Heaven’s sake”—if, +perchance, the kingdom of Heaven might come by observation. The +enthusiasm of his self-denial shows itself in his unavailing struggle to +chain language also to the bare rock of ascertained fact. Metaphor, the +poet’s right-hand weapon, he despises; all that is tentative, individual, +struck off at the urging of a mood, he disclaims and suspects. Yet the +very rewards that science promises have their parallel in the domain of +letters. The discovery of likeness in the midst of difference, and of +difference in the midst of likeness, is the keenest pleasure of the +intellect; and literary expression, as has been said, is one long series +of such discoveries, each with its thrill of incommunicable happiness, +all unprecedented, and perhaps unverifiable by later experiment. The +finest instrument of these discoveries is metaphor, the spectroscope of +letters. + +Enough has been said of change; it remains to speak of one more of those +illusions of fixity wherein writers seek exemption from the general lot. +Language, it has been shown, is to be fitted to thought; and, further, +there are no synonyms. What more natural conclusion could be drawn by +the enthusiasm of the artist than that there is some kind of preordained +harmony between words and things, whereby expression and thought tally +exactly, like the halves of a puzzle? This illusion, called in France +the doctrine of the _mot propre_, is a will o’ the wisp which has kept +many an artist dancing on its trail. That there is one, and only one way +of expressing one thing has been the belief of other writers besides +Gustave Flaubert, inspiriting them to a desperate and fruitful industry. +It is an amiable fancy, like the dream of Michael Angelo, who loved to +imagine that the statue existed already in the block of marble, and had +only to be stripped of its superfluous wrappings, or like the indolent +fallacy of those economic soothsayers to whom Malthus brought rough +awakening, that population and the means of subsistence move side by side +in harmonious progress. But hunger does not imply food, and there may +hover in the restless heads of poets, as themselves testify— + + One thought, one grace, one wonder, at the least, + Which into words no virtue can digest. + +Matter and form are not so separable as the popular philosophy would have +them; indeed, the very antithesis between them is a cardinal instance of +how language reacts on thought, modifying and fixing a cloudy truth. The +idea pursues form not only that it may be known to others, but that it +may know itself, and the body in which it becomes incarnate is not to be +distinguished from the informing soul. It is recorded of a famous Latin +historian how he declared that he would have made Pompey win the battle +of Pharsalia had the effective turn of the sentence required it. He may +stand for the true type of the literary artist. The business of letters, +howsoever simple it may seem to those who think truth-telling a gift of +nature, is in reality two-fold, to find words for a meaning, and to find +a meaning for words. Now it is the words that refuse to yield, and now +the meaning, so that he who attempts to wed them is at the same time +altering his words to suit his meaning, and modifying and shaping his +meaning to satisfy the requirements of his words. The humblest processes +of thought have had their first education from language long before they +took shape in literature. So subtle is the connexion between the two +that it is equally possible to call language the form given to the matter +of thought, or, inverting the application of the figure, to speak of +thought as the formal principle that shapes the raw material of language. +It is not until the two become one that they can be known for two. The +idea to be expressed is a kind of mutual recognition between thought and +language, which here meet and claim each other for the first time, just +as in the first glance exchanged by lovers, the unborn child opens its +eyes on the world, and pleads for life. But thought, although it may +indulge itself with the fancy of a predestined affiance, is not confined +to one mate, but roves free and is the father of many children. A belief +in the inevitable word is the last refuge of that stubborn mechanical +theory of the universe which has been slowly driven from science, +politics, and history. Amidst so much that is undulating, it has pleased +writers to imagine that truth persists and is provided by heavenly +munificence with an imperishable garb of language. But this also is +vanity, there is one end appointed alike to all, fact goes the way of +fiction, and what is known is no more perdurable than what is made. Not +words nor works, but only that which is formless endures, the vitality +that is another name for change, the breath that fills and shatters the +bubbles of good and evil, of beauty and deformity, of truth and untruth. + +No art is easy, least of all the art of letters. Apply the musical +analogy once more to the instrument whereon literature performs its +voluntaries. With a living keyboard of notes which are all incessantly +changing in value, so that what rang true under Dr. Johnson’s hand may +sound flat or sharp now, with a range of a myriad strings, some falling +mute and others being added from day to day, with numberless permutations +and combinations, each of which alters the tone and pitch of the units +that compose it, with fluid ideas that never have an outlined existence +until they have found their phrases and the improvisation is complete, is +it to be wondered at that the art of style is eternally elusive, and that +the attempt to reduce it to rule is the forlorn hope of academic +infatuation? + + * * * * * + +These difficulties and complexities of the instrument are, nevertheless, +the least part of the ordeal that is to be undergone by the writer. The +same musical note or phrase affects different ears in much the same way; +not so the word or group of words. The pure idea, let us say, is +translated into language by the literary composer; who is to be +responsible for the retranslation of the language into idea? Here begins +the story of the troubles and weaknesses that are imposed upon literature +by the necessity it lies under of addressing itself to an audience, by +its liability to anticipate the corruptions that mar the understanding of +the spoken or written word. A word is the operative symbol of a relation +between two minds, and is chosen by the one not without regard to the +quality of the effect actually produced upon the other. Men must be +spoken to in their accustomed tongue, and persuaded that the unknown God +proclaimed by the poet is one whom aforetime they ignorantly worshipped. +The relation of great authors to the public may be compared to the war of +the sexes, a quiet watchful antagonism between two parties mutually +indispensable to each other, at one time veiling itself in endearments, +at another breaking out into open defiance. He who has a message to +deliver must wrestle with his fellows before he shall be permitted to ply +them with uncomfortable or unfamiliar truths. The public, like the +delicate Greek Narcissus, is sleepily enamoured of itself; and the name +of its only other perfect lover is Echo. Yet even great authors must lay +their account with the public, and it is instructive to observe how +different are the attitudes they have adopted, how uniform the +disappointment they have felt. Some, like Browning and Mr. Meredith in +our own day, trouble themselves little about the reception given to their +work, but are content to say on, until the few who care to listen have +expounded them to the many, and they are applauded, in the end, by a +generation whom they have trained to appreciate them. Yet this noble and +persevering indifference is none of their choice, and long years of +absolution from criticism must needs be paid for in faults of style. +“Writing for the stage,” Mr. Meredith himself has remarked, “would be a +corrective of a too-incrusted scholarly style into which some great ones +fall at times.” Denied such a corrective, the great one is apt to sit +alone and tease his meditations into strange shapes, fortifying himself +against obscurity and neglect with the reflection that most of the words +he uses are to be found, after all, in the dictionary. It is not, +however, from the secluded scholar that the sharpest cry of pain is wrung +by the indignities of his position, but rather from genius in the act of +earning a full meed of popular applause. Both Shakespeare and Ben Jonson +wrote for the stage, both were blown by the favouring breath of their +plebeian patrons into reputation and a competence. Each of them passed +through the thick of the fight, and well knew that ugly corner where the +artist is exposed to cross fires, his own idea of masterly work on the +one hand and the necessity for pleasing the rabble on the other. When +any man is awake to the fact that the public is a vile patron, when he is +conscious also that his bread and his fame are in their gift—it is a +stern passage for his soul, a touchstone for the strength and gentleness +of his spirit. Jonson, whose splendid scorn took to itself lyric wings +in the two great Odes to Himself, sang high and aloof for a while, then +the frenzy caught him, and he flung away his lyre to gird himself for +deeds of mischief among nameless and noteless antagonists. Even Chapman, +who, in _The Tears of Peace_, compares “men’s refuse ears” to those gates +in ancient cities which were opened only when the bodies of executed +malefactors were to be cast away, who elsewhere gives utterance, in round +terms, to his belief that + + No truth of excellence was ever seen + But bore the venom of the vulgar’s spleen, + +—even the violences of this great and haughty spirit must pale beside the +more desperate violences of the dramatist who commended his play to the +public in the famous line, + + By God, ’tis good, and if you like’t, you may. + +This stormy passion of arrogant independence disturbs the serenity of +atmosphere necessary for creative art. A greater than Jonson donned the +suppliant’s robes, like Coriolanus, and with the inscrutable honeyed +smile about his lips begged for the “most sweet voices” of the journeymen +and gallants who thronged the Globe Theatre. Only once does the wail of +anguish escape him— + + Alas! ’tis true, I have gone here and there, + And made myself a motley to the view, + Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear. + +And again— + + Thence comes it that my name receives a brand, + And almost thence my nature is subdued + To what it works in, like the dyer’s hand, + Pity me then, and wish I were renewed. + +Modern vulgarity, speaking through the mouths of Shakesperian +commentators, is wont to interpret these lines as a protest against the +contempt wherewith Elizabethan society regarded the professions of +playwright and actor. We are asked to conceive that Shakespeare humbly +desires the pity of his bosom friend because he is not put on the same +level of social estimation with a brocaded gull or a prosperous stupid +goldsmith of the Cheap. No, it is a cry, from the depth of his nature, +for forgiveness because he has sacrificed a little on the altar of +popularity. Jonson would have boasted that he never made this sacrifice. +But he lost the calm of his temper and the clearness of his singing +voice, he degraded his magnanimity by allowing it to engage in +street-brawls, and he endangered the sanctuary of the inviolable soul. + +At least these great artists of the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries +are agreed upon one thing, that the public, even in its most gracious +mood, makes an ill task-master for the man of letters. It is worth the +pains to ask why, and to attempt to show how much of an author’s literary +quality is involved in his attitude towards his audience. Such an +inquiry will take us, it is true, into bad company, and exhibit the +vicious, the fatuous, and the frivolous posturing to an admiring crowd. +But style is a property of all written and printed matter, so that to +track it to its causes and origins is a task wherein literary criticism +may profit by the humbler aid of anthropological research. + +Least of all authors is the poet subject to the tyranny of his audience. +“Poetry and eloquence,” says John Stuart Mill, “are both alike the +expression or utterance of feeling. But if we may be excused the +antithesis, we should say that eloquence is heard, poetry is overheard. +Eloquence supposes an audience; the peculiarity of poetry appears to us +to lie in the poet’s utter unconsciousness of a listener.” Poetry, +according to this discerning criticism, is an inspired soliloquy; the +thoughts rise unforced and unchecked, taking musical form in obedience +only to the law of their being, giving pleasure to an audience only as +the mountain spring may chance to assuage the thirst of a passing +traveller. In lyric poetry, language, from being a utensil, or a medium +of traffic and barter, passes back to its place among natural sounds; its +affinity is with the wind among the trees and the stream among the rocks; +it is the cry of the heart, as simple as the breath we draw, and as +little ordered with a view to applause. Yet speech grew up in society, +and even in the most ecstatic of its uses may flag for lack of +understanding and response. It were rash to say that the poets need no +audience; the loneliest have promised themselves a tardy recognition, and +some among the greatest came to their maturity in the warm atmosphere of +a congenial society. Indeed the ratification set upon merit by a living +audience, fit though few, is necessary for the development of the most +humane and sympathetic genius; and the memorable ages of literature, in +Greece or Rome, in France or England, have been the ages of a literary +society. The nursery of our greatest dramatists must be looked for, not, +it is true, in the transfigured bear-gardens of the Bankside, but in +those enchanted taverns, islanded and bastioned by the protective decree— + + _Idiota_, _insulsus_, _tristis_, _turpis_, _abesto_. + +The poet seems to be soliloquising because he is addressing himself, with +the most entire confidence, to a small company of his friends, who may +even, in unhappy seasons, prove to be the creatures of his imagination. +Real or imaginary, they are taken by him for his equals; he expects from +them a quick intelligence and a perfect sympathy, which may enable him to +despise all concealment. He never preaches to them, nor scolds, nor +enforces the obvious. Content that what he has spoken he has spoken, he +places a magnificent trust on a single expression. He neither explains, +nor falters, nor repents; he introduces his work with no preface, and +cumbers it with no notes. He will not lower nor raise his voice for the +sake of the profane and idle who may chance to stumble across his +entertainment. His living auditors, unsolicited for the tribute of +worship or an alms, find themselves conceived of in the likeness of what +he would have them to be, raised to a companion pinnacle of friendship, +and constituted peers and judges, if they will, of his achievement. +Sometimes they come late. + +This blend of dignity and intimacy, of candour and self-respect, is +unintelligible to the vulgar, who understand by intimacy mutual +concession to a base ideal, and who are so accustomed to deal with masks, +that when they see a face they are shocked as by some grotesque. Now a +poet, like Montaigne’s naked philosopher, is all face; and the +bewilderment of his masked and muffled critics is the greater. Wherever +he attracts general attention he cannot but be misunderstood. The +generality of modern men and women who pretend to literature are not +hypocrites, or they might go near to divine him,—for hypocrisy, though +rooted in cowardice, demands for its flourishing a clear intellectual +atmosphere, a definite aim, and a certain detachment of the directing +mind. But they are habituated to trim themselves by the cloudy mirror of +opinion, and will mince and temporise, as if for an invisible audience, +even in their bedrooms. Their masks have, for the most part, grown to +their faces, so that, except in some rare animal paroxysm of emotion, it +is hardly themselves that they express. The apparition of a poet +disquiets them, for he clothes himself with the elements, and apologises +to no idols. His candour frightens them: they avert their eyes from it; +or they treat it as a licensed whim; or, with a sudden gleam of insight, +and apprehension of what this means for them and theirs, they scream +aloud for fear. A modern instance may be found in the angry +protestations launched against Rossetti’s Sonnets, at the time of their +first appearance, by a writer who has since matched himself very exactly +with an audience of his own kind. A stranger freak of burgess criticism +is everyday fare in the odd world peopled by the biographers of Robert +Burns. The nature of Burns, one would think, was simplicity itself; it +could hardly puzzle a ploughman, and two sailors out of three would call +him brother. But he lit up the whole of that nature by his marvellous +genius for expression, and grave personages have been occupied ever since +in discussing the dualism of his character, and professing to find some +dark mystery in the existence of this, that, or the other trait—a love of +pleasure, a hatred of shams, a deep sense of religion. It is common +human nature, after all, that is the mystery, but they seem never to have +met with it, and treat it as if it were the poet’s eccentricity. They +are all agog to worship him, and when they have made an image of him in +their own likeness, and given it a tin-pot head that exactly hits their +taste, they break into noisy lamentation over the discovery that the +original was human, and had feet of clay. They deem “Mary in Heaven” so +admirable that they could find it in their hearts to regret that she was +ever on earth. This sort of admirers constantly refuses to bear a part +in any human relationship; they ask to be fawned on, or trodden on, by +the poet while he is in life; when he is dead they make of him a +candidate for godship, and heckle him. It is a misfortune not wholly +without its compensations that most great poets are dead before they are +popular. + +If great and original literary artists—here grouped together under the +title of poets—will not enter into transactions with their audience, +there is no lack of authors who will. These are not necessarily +charlatans; they may have by nature a ready sympathy with the grossness +of the public taste, and thus take pleasure in studying to gratify it. +But man loses not a little of himself in crowds, and some degradation +there must be where the one adapts himself to the many. The British +public is not seen at its best when it is enjoying a holiday in a foreign +country, nor when it is making excursions into the realm of imaginative +literature: those who cater for it in these matters must either study its +tastes or share them. Many readers bring the worst of themselves to a +novel; they want lazy relaxation, or support for their nonsense, or +escape from their creditors, or a free field for emotions that they dare +not indulge in life. The reward of an author who meets them half-way in +these respects, who neither puzzles nor distresses them, who asks nothing +from them, but compliments them on their great possessions and sends them +away rejoicing, is a full measure of acceptance, and editions unto +seventy times seven. + +The evils caused by the influence of the audience on the writer are many. +First of all comes a fault far enough removed from the characteristic +vices of the charlatan—to wit, sheer timidity and weakness. There is a +kind of stage-fright that seizes on a man when he takes pen in hand to +address an unknown body of hearers, no less than when he stands up to +deliver himself to a sea of expectant faces. This is the true panic +fear, that walks at mid-day, and unmans those whom it visits. Hence come +reservations, qualifications, verbosity, and the see-saw of a wavering +courage, which apes progress and purpose, as soldiers mark time with +their feet. The writing produced under these auspices is of no greater +moment than the incoherent loquacity of a nervous patient. All +self-expression is a challenge thrown down to the world, to be taken up +by whoso will; and the spirit of timidity, when it touches a man, suborns +him with the reminder that he holds his life and goods by the sufferance +of his fellows. Thereupon he begins to doubt whether it is worth while +to court a verdict of so grave possibilities, or to risk offending a +judge—whose customary geniality is merely the outcome of a fixed habit of +inattention. In doubt whether to speak or keep silence, he takes a +middle course, and while purporting to speak for himself, is careful to +lay stress only on the points whereon all are agreed, to enlarge +eloquently on the doubtfulness of things, and to give to words the very +least meaning that they will carry. Such a procedure, which glides over +essentials, and handles truisms or trivialities with a fervour of +conviction, has its functions in practice. It will win for a politician +the coveted and deserved repute of a “safe” man—safe, even though the +cause perish. Pleaders and advocates are sometimes driven into it, +because to use vigorous, clean, crisp English in addressing an ordinary +jury or committee is like flourishing a sword in a drawing-room: it will +lose the case. Where the weakest are to be convinced speech must stoop: +a full consideration of the velleities and uncertainties, a little +bombast to elevate the feelings without committing the judgment, some +vague effusion of sentiment, an inapposite blandness, a meaningless +rodomontade—these are the by-ways to be travelled by the style that is a +willing slave to its audience. The like is true of those +documents—petitions, resolutions, congratulatory addresses, and so +forth—that are written to be signed by a multitude of names. Public +occasions of this kind, where all and sundry are to be satisfied, have +given rise to a new parliamentary dialect, which has nothing of the +freshness of individual emotion, is powerless to deal with realities, and +lacks all resonance, vitality, and nerve. There is no cure for this, +where the feelings and opinions of a crowd are to be expressed. But +where indecision is the ruling passion of the individual, he may cease to +write. Popularity was never yet the prize of those whose only care is to +avoid offence. + +For hardier aspirants, the two main entrances to popular favour are by +the twin gates of laughter and tears. Pathos knits the soul and braces +the nerves, humour purges the eyesight and vivifies the sympathies; the +counterfeits of these qualities work the opposite effects. It is +comparatively easy to appeal to passive emotions, to play upon the +melting mood of a diffuse sensibility, or to encourage the narrow mind to +dispense a patron’s laughter from the vantage-ground of its own small +preconceptions. Our annual crop of sentimentalists and mirth-makers +supplies the reading public with food. Tragedy, which brings the naked +soul face to face with the austere terrors of Fate, Comedy, which turns +the light inward and dissipates the mists of self-affection and +self-esteem, have long since given way on the public stage to the +flattery of Melodrama, under many names. In the books he reads and in +the plays he sees the average man recognises himself in the hero, and +vociferates his approbation. + +The sensibility that came into vogue during the eighteenth century was of +a finer grain than its modern counterpart. It studied delicacy, and +sought a cultivated enjoyment in evanescent shades of feeling, and the +fantasies of unsubstantial grief. The real Princess of Hans Andersen’s +story, who passed a miserable night because there was a small bean +concealed beneath the twenty eider-down beds on which she slept, might +stand for a type of the aristocracy of feeling that took a pride in these +ridiculous susceptibilities. The modern sentimentalist works in a +coarser material. That ancient, subtle, and treacherous affinity among +the emotions, whereby religious exaltation has before now been made the +ally of the unpurified passions, is parodied by him in a simpler and more +useful device. By alleging a moral purpose he is enabled to gratify the +prurience of his public and to raise them in their own muddy conceit at +one and the same time. The plea serves well with those artless readers +who have been accustomed to consider the moral of a story as something +separable from imagination, expression, and style—a quality, it may be, +inherent in the plot, or a kind of appendix, exercising a retrospective +power of jurisdiction and absolution over the extravagances of the piece +to which it is affixed. Let virtue be rewarded, and they are content +though it should never be vitally imagined or portrayed. If their eyes +were opened they might cry with Brutus—“O miserable Virtue! Thou art but +a phrase, and I have followed thee as though thou wert a reality.” + +It is in quite another kind, however, that the modern purveyor of +sentiment exercises his most characteristic talent. There are certain +real and deeply-rooted feelings, common to humanity, concerning which, in +their normal operation, a grave reticence is natural. They are universal +in their appeal, men would be ashamed not to feel them, and it is no +small part of the business of life to keep them under strict control. +Here is the sentimental hucksters most valued opportunity. He tears +these primary instincts from the wholesome privacy that shelters them in +life, and cries them up from his booth in the market-place. The +elemental forces of human life, which beget shyness in children, and +touch the spirits of the wise to solemn acquiescence, awaken him to +noisier declamation. He patronises the stern laws of love and pity, +hawking them like indulgences, cheapening and commanding them like the +medicines of a mountebank. The censure of his critics he impudently +meets by pointing to his wares: are not some of the most sacred +properties of humanity—sympathy with suffering, family affection, filial +devotion, and the rest—displayed upon his stall? Not thus shall he evade +the charges brought against him. It is the sensual side of the tender +emotions that he exploits for the comfort of the million. All the +intricacies which life offers to the will and the intellect he lards and +obliterates by the timely effusion of tearful sentiment. His +humanitarianism is a more popular, as it is an easier, ideal than +humanity—it asks no expense of thought. There is a scanty public in +England for tragedy or for comedy: the characters and situations handled +by the sentimentalist might perchance furnish comedy with a theme; but he +stilts them for a tragic performance, and they tumble into watery bathos, +where a numerous public awaits them. + +A similar degradation of the intellectual elements that are present in +all good literature is practised by those whose single aim is to provoke +laughter. In much of our so-called comic writing a superabundance of +boisterous animal spirits, restrained from more practical expression by +the ordinances of civil society, finds outlet and relief. The grimaces +and caperings of buffoonery, the gymnastics of the punster and the +parodist, the revels of pure nonsense may be, at their best, a +refreshment and delight, but they are not comedy, and have proved in +effect not a little hostile to the existence of comedy. The prevalence +of jokers, moreover, spoils the game of humour; the sputter and sparkle +of their made jokes interferes with that luminous contemplation of the +incongruities of life and the universe which is humour’s essence. All +that is ludicrous depends on some disproportion: Comedy judges the actual +world by contrasting it with an ideal of sound sense, Humour reveals it +in its true dimensions by turning on it the light of imagination and +poetry. The perception of these incongruities, which are eternal, +demands some expense of intellect; a cheaper amusement may be enjoyed by +him who is content to take his stand on his own habits and prejudices and +to laugh at all that does not square with them. This was the method of +the age which, in the abysmal profound of waggery, engendered that +portentous birth, the comic paper. Foreigners, it is said, do not laugh +at the wit of these journals, and no wonder, for only a minute study of +the customs and preoccupations of certain sections of English society +could enable them to understand the point of view. From time to time one +or another of the writers who are called upon for their weekly tale of +jokes seems struggling upward to the free domain of Comedy; but in vain, +his public holds him down, and compels him to laugh in chains. Some day, +perchance, a literary historian, filled with the spirit of Cervantes or +of Molière, will give account of the Victorian era, and, not disdaining +small things, will draw a picture of the society which inspired and +controlled so resolute a jocularity. Then, at last, will the spirit of +Comedy recognise that these were indeed what they claimed to be—comic +papers. + +“The style is the man;” but the social and rhetorical influences +adulterate and debase it, until not one man in a thousand achieves his +birthright, or claims his second self. The fire of the soul burns all +too feebly, and warms itself by the reflected heat from the society +around it. We give back words of tepid greeting, without improvement. +We talk to our fellows in the phrases we learn from them, which come to +mean less and less as they grow worn with use. Then we exaggerate and +distort, heaping epithet upon epithet in the endeavour to get a little +warmth out of the smouldering pile. The quiet cynicism of our everyday +demeanour is open and shameless, we callously anticipate objections +founded on the well-known vacuity of our seeming emotions, and assure our +friends that we are “truly” grieved or “sincerely” rejoiced at their +hap—as if joy or grief that really exists were some rare and precious +brand of joy or grief. In its trivial conversational uses so simple and +pure a thing as joy becomes a sandwich-man—humanity degraded to an +advertisement. The poor dejected word shuffles along through the mud in +the service of the sleek trader who employs it, and not until it meets +with a poet is it rehabilitated and restored to dignity. + +This is no indictment of society, which came into being before +literature, and, in all the distraction of its multifarious concerns, can +hardly keep a school for Style. It is rather a demonstration of the +necessity, amid the wealthy disorder of modern civilisation, for poetic +diction. One of the hardest of a poet’s tasks is the search for his +vocabulary. Perhaps in some idyllic pasture-land of Utopia there may +have flourished a state where division of labour was unknown, where +community of ideas, as well as of property, was absolute, and where the +language of every day ran clear into poetry without the need of a +refining process. They say that Cædmon was a cow-keeper: but the +shepherds of Theocritus and Virgil are figments of a courtly brain, and +Wordsworth himself, in his boldest flights of theory, was forced to allow +of selection. Even by selection from among the chaos of implements that +are in daily use around him, a poet can barely equip himself with a +choice of words sufficient for his needs; he must have recourse to his +predecessors; and so it comes about that the poetry of the modern world +is a store-house of obsolete diction. The most surprising characteristic +of the right poetic diction, whether it draw its vocabulary from near at +hand, or avail itself of the far-fetched inheritance preserved by the +poets, is its matchless sincerity. Something of extravagance there may +be in those brilliant clusters of romantic words that are everywhere +found in the work of Shakespeare, or Spenser, or Keats, but they are the +natural leafage and fruitage of a luxuriant imagination, which, lacking +these, could not attain to its full height. Only by the energy of the +arts can a voice be given to the subtleties and raptures of emotional +experience; ordinary social intercourse affords neither opportunity nor +means for this fervour of self-revelation. And if the highest reach of +poetry is often to be found in the use of common colloquialisms, charged +with the intensity of restrained passion, this is not due to a greater +sincerity of expression, but to the strength derived from dramatic +situation. Where speech spends itself on its subject, drama stands idle; +but where the dramatic stress is at its greatest, three or four words may +enshrine all the passion of the moment. Romeo’s apostrophe from under +the balcony— + + O, speak again, bright Angel! for thou art + As glorious to this night, being o’er my head, + As is a winged messenger of heaven + Unto the white-upturned wond’ring eyes + Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him, + When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds, + And sails upon the bosom of the air— + +though it breathe the soul of romance, must yield, for sheer effect, to +his later soliloquy, spoken when the news of Juliet’s death is brought to +him, + + Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee to-night. + +And even the constellated glories of _Paradise Lost_ are less moving than +the plain words wherein Samson forecasts his approaching end— + + So much I feel my genial spirits droop, + My hopes all flat; Nature within me seems + In all her functions weary of herself; + My race of glory run and race of shame, + And I shall shortly be with them that rest. + +Here are simple words raised to a higher power and animated with a purer +intention than they carry in ordinary life. It is this unfailing note of +sincerity, eloquent or laconic, that has made poetry the teacher of +prose. Phrases which, to all seeming, might have been hit on by the +first comer, are often cut away from their poetical context and robbed of +their musical value that they may be transferred to the service of prose. +They bring with them, down to the valley, a wafted sense of some region +of higher thought and purer feeling. They bear, perhaps, no marks of +curious diction to know them by. Whence comes the irresistible pathos of +the lines— + + I cannot but remember such things were + That were most precious to me? + +The thought, the diction, the syntax, might all occur in prose. Yet when +once the stamp of poetry has been put upon a cry that is as old as +humanity, prose desists from rivalry, and is content to quote. Some of +the greatest prose-writers have not disdained the help of these borrowed +graces for the crown of their fabric. In this way De Quincey widens the +imaginative range of his prose, and sets back the limits assigned to +prose diction. So too, Charles Lamb, interweaving the stuff of +experience with phrases quoted or altered from the poets, illuminates +both life and poetry, letting his sympathetic humour play now on the warp +of the texture, and now on the woof. The style of Burke furnishes a +still better example, for the spontaneous evolution of his prose might be +thought to forbid the inclusion of borrowed fragments. Yet whenever he +is deeply stirred, memories of Virgil, Milton, or the English Bible rise +to his aid, almost as if strong emotion could express itself in no other +language. Even the poor invectives of political controversy gain a +measure of dignity from the skilful application of some famous line; the +touch of the poet’s sincerity rests on them for a moment, and seems to +lend them an alien splendour. It is like the blessing of a priest, +invoked by the pious, or by the worldly, for the good success of whatever +business they have in hand. Poetry has no temporal ends to serve, no +livelihood to earn, and is under no temptation to cog and lie: wherefore +prose pays respect to that loftier calling, and that more unblemished +sincerity. + +Insincerity, on the other hand, is the commonest vice of style. It is +not to be avoided, except in the rarest cases, by those to whom the +written use of language is unfamiliar; so that a shepherd who talks +pithy, terse sense will be unable to express himself in a letter without +having recourse to the _Ready Letter-writer_—“This comes hoping to find +you well, as it also leaves me at present”—and a soldier, without the +excuse of ignorance, will describe a successful advance as having been +made against “a thick hail of bullets.” It permeates ordinary +journalism, and all writing produced under commercial pressure. It +taints the work of the young artist, caught by the romantic fever, who +glories in the wealth of vocabulary discovered to him by the poets, and +seeks often in vain for a thought stalwart enough to wear that glistering +armour. Hence it is that the masters of style have always had to preach +restraint, self-denial, austerity. His style is a man’s own; yet how +hard it is to come by! It is a man’s bride, to be won by labours and +agonies that bespeak a heroic lover. If he prove unable to endure the +trial, there are cheaper beauties, nearer home, easy to be conquered, and +faithless to their conqueror. Taking up with them, he may attain a brief +satisfaction, but he will never redeem his quest. + +As a body of practical rules, the negative precepts of asceticism bring +with them a certain chill. The page is dull; it is so easy to lighten it +with some flash of witty irrelevance: the argument is long and tedious, +why not relieve it by wandering into some of those green enclosures that +open alluring doors upon the wayside? To roam at will, spring-heeled, +high-hearted, and catching at all good fortunes, is the ambition of the +youth, ere yet he has subdued himself to a destination. The principle of +self-denial seems at first sight a treason done to genius, which was +always privileged to be wilful. In this view literature is a fortuitous +series of happy thoughts and heaven-sent findings. But the end of that +plan is beggary. Sprightly talk about the first object that meets the +eye and the indulgence of vagabond habits soon degenerate to a +professional garrulity, a forced face of dismal cheer, and a settled +dislike of strenuous exercise. The economies and abstinences of +discipline promise a kinder fate than this. They test and strengthen +purpose, without which no great work comes into being. They save the +expenditure of energy on those pastimes and diversions which lead no +nearer to the goal. To reject the images and arguments that proffer a +casual assistance yet are not to be brought under the perfect control of +the main theme is difficult; how should it be otherwise, for if they were +not already dear to the writer they would not have volunteered their aid. + +It is the more difficult, in that to refuse the unfit is no warrant of +better help to come. But to accept them is to fall back for good upon a +makeshift, and to hazard the enterprise in a hubbub of disorderly claims. +No train of thought is strengthened by the addition of those arguments +that, like camp-followers, swell the number and the noise, without +bearing a part in the organisation. The danger that comes in with the +employment of figures of speech, similes, and comparisons is greater +still. The clearest of them may be attended by some element of grotesque +or paltry association, so that while they illumine the subject they +cannot truly be said to illustrate it. The noblest, including those +time-honoured metaphors that draw their patent of nobility from war, +love, religion, or the chase, in proportion as they are strong and of a +vivid presence, are also domineering—apt to assume command of the theme +long after their proper work is done. So great is the headstrong power +of the finest metaphors, that an author may be incommoded by one that +does his business for him handsomely, as a king may suffer the oppression +of a powerful ally. When a lyric begins with the splendid lines, + + Love still has something of the sea + From whence his mother rose, + +the further development of that song is already fixed and its knell +rung—to the last line there is no escaping from the dazzling influences +that presided over the first. Yet to carry out such a figure in detail, +as Sir Charles Sedley set himself to do, tarnishes the sudden glory of +the opening. The lady whom Burns called Clarinda put herself in a like +quandary by beginning a song with this stanza— + + Talk not of Love, it gives me pain, + For Love has been my foe; + He bound me in an iron chain, + And plunged me deep in woe. + +The last two lines deserve praise—even the praise they obtained from a +great lyric poet. But how is the song to be continued? Genius might +answer the question; to Clarinda there came only the notion of a valuable +contrast to be established between love and friendship, and a tribute to +be paid to the kindly offices of the latter. The verses wherein she gave +effect to this idea make a poor sequel; friendship, when it is +personified and set beside the tyrant god, wears very much the air of a +benevolent county magistrate, whose chief duty is to keep the peace. + +Figures of this sort are in no sense removable decorations, they are at +one with the substance of the thought to be expressed, and are entitled +to the large control they claim. Imagination, working at white heat, can +fairly subdue the matter of the poem to them, or fuse them with others of +the like temper, striking unity out of the composite mass. One thing +only is forbidden, to treat these substantial and living metaphors as if +they were elegant curiosities, ornamental excrescences, to be passed over +abruptly on the way to more exacting topics. The mystics, and the +mystical poets, knew better than to countenance this frivolity. +Recognising that there is a profound and intimate correspondence between +all physical manifestations and the life of the soul, they flung the +reins on the neck of metaphor in the hope that it might carry them over +that mysterious frontier. Their failures and misadventures, familiarly +despised as “conceits,” left them floundering in absurdity. Yet not +since the time of Donne and Crashaw has the full power and significance +of figurative language been realised in English poetry. These poets, +like some of their late descendants, were tortured by a sense of hidden +meaning, and were often content with analogies that admit of no rigorous +explanation. They were convinced that all intellectual truth is a +parable, though its inner meaning be dark or dubious. The philosophy of +friendship deals with those mathematical and physical conceptions of +distance, likeness, and attraction—what if the law of bodies govern souls +also, and the geometer’s compasses measure more than it has entered into +his heart to conceive? Is the moon a name only for a certain tonnage of +dead matter, and is the law of passion parochial while the law of +gravitation is universal? Mysticism will observe no such partial +boundaries. + + O more than Moon! + Draw not up seas to drown me in thy sphere, + Weep me not dead in thine arms, but forbear + To teach the sea what it may do too soon. + +The secret of these sublime intuitions, undivined by many of the greatest +poets, has been left to the keeping of transcendental religion and the +Catholic Church. + +Figure and ornament, therefore, are not interchangeable terms; the +loftiest figurative style most conforms to the precepts of gravity and +chastity. None the less there is a decorative use of figure, whereby a +theme is enriched with imaginations and memories that are foreign to the +main purpose. Under this head may be classed most of those allusions to +the world’s literature, especially to classical and Scriptural lore, +which have played so considerable, yet on the whole so idle, a part in +modern poetry. It is here that an inordinate love of decoration finds +its opportunity and its snare. To keep the most elaborate comparison in +harmony with its occasion, so that when it is completed it shall fall +back easily into the emotional key of the narrative, has been the study +of the great epic poets. Milton’s description of the rebel legions +adrift on the flaming sea is a fine instance of the difficulty felt and +conquered: + + Angel forms, who lay entranced + Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks + In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades + High over-arched embower; or scattered sedge + Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion armed + Hath vexed the Red-Sea coast, whose waves o’erthrew + Busiris and his Memphian chivalry, + While with perfidious hatred they pursued + The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld + From the safe shore their floating carcases + And broken chariot-wheels. So thick bestrown, + Abject and lost, lay these, covering the flood, + Under amazement of their hideous change. + +The comparison seems to wander away at random, obedient to the slightest +touch of association. Yet in the end it is brought back, its majesty +heightened, and a closer element of likeness introduced by the skilful +turn that substitutes the image of the shattered Egyptian army for the +former images of dead leaves and sea-weed. The incidental pictures, of +the roof of shades, of the watchers from the shore, and the very name +“Red Sea,” fortuitous as they may seem, all lend help to the imagination +in bodying forth the scene described. An earlier figure in the same book +of _Paradise Lost_, because it exhibits a less conspicuous technical +cunning, may even better show a poet’s care for unity of tone and +impression. Where Satan’s prostrate bulk is compared to + + that sea-beast + Leviathan, which God of all his works + Created hugest that swim the ocean-stream, + +the picture that follows of the Norse-pilot mooring his boat under the +lee of the monster is completed in a line that attunes the mind once more +to all the pathos and gloom of those infernal deeps: + + while night + Invests the sea, and wishèd morn delays. + +So masterly a handling of the figures which usage and taste prescribe to +learned writers is rare indeed. The ordinary small scholar disposes of +his baggage less happily. Having heaped up knowledge as a successful +tradesman heaps up money, he is apt to believe that his wealth makes him +free of the company of letters, and a fellow craftsman of the poets. The +mark of his style is an excessive and pretentious allusiveness. It was +he whom the satirist designed in that taunt, _Scire tuum nihil est nisi +te scire hoc sciat alter_—“My knowledge of thy knowledge is the knowledge +thou covetest.” His allusions and learned periphrases elucidate nothing; +they put an idle labour on the reader who understands them, and extort +from baffled ignorance, at which, perhaps, they are more especially +aimed, a foolish admiration. These tricks and vanities, the very +corruption of ornament, will always be found while the power to acquire +knowledge is more general than the strength to carry it or the skill to +wield it. The collector has his proper work to do in the commonwealth of +learning, but the ownership of a museum is a poor qualification for the +name of artist. Knowledge has two good uses; it may be frankly +communicated for the benefit of others, or it may minister matter to +thought; an allusive writer often robs it of both these functions. He +must needs display his possessions and his modesty at one and the same +time, producing his treasures unasked, and huddling them in uncouth +fashion past the gaze of the spectator, because, forsooth, he would not +seem to make a rarity of them. The subject to be treated, the groundwork +to be adorned, becomes the barest excuse for a profitless haphazard +ostentation. This fault is very incident to the scholarly style, which +often sacrifices emphasis and conviction to a futile air of encyclopædic +grandeur. + +Those who are repelled by this redundance of ornament, from which even +great writers are not wholly exempt, have sometimes been driven by the +force of reaction into a singular fallacy. The futility of these +literary quirks and graces has induced them to lay art under the same +interdict with ornament. Style and stylists, one will say, have no +attraction for him, he had rather hear honest men utter their thoughts +directly, clearly, and simply. The choice of words, says another, and +the conscious manipulation of sentences, is literary foppery; the word +that first offers is commonly the best, and the order in which the +thoughts occur is the order to be followed. Be natural, be +straightforward, they urge, and what you have to say will say itself in +the best possible manner. It is a welcome lesson, no doubt, that these +deluded Arcadians teach. A simple and direct style—who would not give +his all to purchase that! But is it in truth so easy to be compassed? +The greatest writers, when they are at the top of happy hours, attain to +it, now and again. Is all this tangled contrariety of things a kind of +fairyland, and does the writer, alone among men, find that a beaten +foot-path opens out before him as he goes, to lead him, straight through +the maze, to the goal of his desires? To think so is to build a childish +dream out of facts imperfectly observed, and worthy of a closer +observation. Sometimes the cry for simplicity is the reverse of what it +seems, and is uttered by those who had rather hear words used in their +habitual vague acceptations than submit to the cutting directness of a +good writer. Habit makes obscurity grateful, and the simple style, in +this view, is the style that allows thought to run automatically into its +old grooves and burrows. The original writers who have combined real +literary power with the heresy of ease and nature are of another kind. A +brutal personality, excellently muscular, snatching at words as the +handiest weapons wherewith to inflict itself, and the whole body of its +thoughts and preferences, on suffering humanity, is likely enough to +deride the daintiness of conscious art. Such a writer is William +Cobbett, who has often been praised for the manly simplicity of his +style, which he raised into a kind of creed. His power is undeniable; +his diction, though he knew it not, both choice and chaste; yet page +after page of his writing suggests only the reflection that here is a +prodigal waste of good English. He bludgeons all he touches, and spends +the same monotonous emphasis on his dislike of tea and on his hatred of +the Government. His is the simplicity of a crude and violent mind, +concerned only with giving forcible expression to its unquestioned +prejudices. Irrelevance, the besetting sin of the ill-educated, he +glories in, so that his very weakness puts on the semblance of strength, +and helps to wield the hammer. + +It is not to be denied that there is a native force of temperament which +can make itself felt even through illiterate carelessness. “Literary +gentlemen, editors, and critics,” says Thoreau, himself by no means a +careless writer, “think that they know how to write, because they have +studied grammar and rhetoric; but they are egregiously mistaken. The +_art_ of composition is as simple as the discharge of a bullet from a +rifle, and its masterpieces imply an infinitely greater force behind +them.” This true saying introduces us to the hardest problem of +criticism, the paradox of literature, the stumbling-block of +rhetoricians. To analyse the precise method whereby a great personality +can make itself felt in words, even while it neglects and contemns the +study of words, would be to lay bare the secrets of religion and life—it +is beyond human competence. Nevertheless a brief and diffident +consideration of the matter may bring thus much comfort, that the seeming +contradiction is no discredit cast on letters, but takes its origin +rather from too narrow and pedantic a view of the scope of letters. + +Words are things: it is useless to try to set them in a world apart. +They exist in books only by accident, and for one written there are a +thousand, infinitely more powerful, spoken. They are deeds: the man who +brings word of a lost battle can work no comparable effect with the +muscles of his arm; Iago’s breath is as truly laden with poison and +murder as the fangs of the cobra and the drugs of the assassin. Hence +the sternest education in the use of words is least of all to be gained +in the schools, which cultivate verbiage in a highly artificial state of +seclusion. A soldier cares little for poetry, because it is the exercise +of power that he loves, and he is accustomed to do more with his words +than give pleasure. To keep language in immediate touch with reality, to +lade it with action and passion, to utter it hot from the heart of +determination, is to exhibit it in the plenitude of power. All this may +be achieved without the smallest study of literary models, and is +consistent with a perfect neglect of literary canons. It is not the +logical content of the word, but the whole mesh of its conditions, +including the character, circumstances, and attitude of the speaker, that +is its true strength. “Damn” is often the feeblest of expletives, and +“as you please” may be the dirge of an empire. Hence it is useless to +look to the grammarian, or the critic, for a lesson in strength of style; +the laws that he has framed, good enough in themselves, are current only +in his own abstract world. A breath of hesitancy will sometimes make +trash of a powerful piece of eloquence; and even in writing, a thing +three times said, and each time said badly, may be of more effect than +that terse, full, and final expression which the doctors rightly commend. +The art of language, regarded as a question of pattern and cadence, or +even as a question of logic and thought-sequence, is a highly abstract +study; for although, as has been said, you can do almost anything with +words, with words alone you can do next to nothing. The realm where +speech holds sway is a narrow shoal or reef, shaken, contorted, and +upheaved by volcanic action, beaten upon, bounded, and invaded by the +ocean of silence: whoso would be lord of the earth must first tame the +fire and the sea. Dramatic and narrative writing are happy in this, that +action and silence are a part of their material; the story-teller or the +playwright can make of words a background and definition for deeds, a +framework for those silences that are more telling than any speech. Here +lies an escape from the poverty of content and method to which +self-portraiture and self-expression are liable; and therefore are epic +and drama rated above all other kinds of poetry. The greater force of +the objective treatment is witnessed by many essayists and lyrical poets, +whose ambition has led them, sooner or later, to attempt the novel or the +play. There are weaknesses inherent in all direct self-revelation; the +thing, perhaps, is greatly said, yet there is no great occasion for the +saying of it; a fine reticence is observed, but it is, after all, an easy +reticence, with none of the dramatic splendours of reticence on the rack. +In the midst of his pleasant confidences the essayist is brought up short +by the question, “Why must you still be talking?” Even the passionate +lyric feels the need of external authorisation, and some of the finest of +lyrical poems, like the Willow Song of Desdemona, or Wordsworth’s +_Solitary Reaper_, are cast in a dramatic mould, that beauty of diction +may be vitalised by an imagined situation. More than others the dramatic +art is an enemy to the desultory and the superfluous, sooner than others +it will cast away all formal grace of expression that it may come home +more directly to the business and bosoms of men. Its great power and +scope are shown well in this, that it can find high uses for the +commonest stuff of daily speech and the emptiest phrases of daily +intercourse. + +Simplicity and strength, then, the vigorous realistic quality of +impromptu utterance, and an immediate relation with the elementary facts +of life, are literary excellences best known in the drama, and in its +modern fellow and rival, the novel. The dramatist and novelist create +their own characters, set their own scenes, lay their own plots, and when +all has been thus prepared, the right word is born in the purple, an +inheritor of great opportunities, all its virtues magnified by the +glamour of its high estate. Writers on philosophy, morals, or æsthetics, +critics, essayists, and dealers in soliloquy generally, cannot hope, with +their slighter means, to attain to comparable effects. They work at two +removes from life; the terms that they handle are surrounded by the +vapours of discussion, and are rewarded by no instinctive response. +Simplicity, in its most regarded sense, is often beyond their reach; the +matter of their discourse is intricate, and the most they can do is to +employ patience, care, and economy of labour; the meaning of their words +is not obvious, and they must go aside to define it. The strength of +their writing has limits set for it by the nature of the chosen task, and +any transgression of these limits is punished by a fall into sheer +violence. All writing partakes of the quality of the drama, there is +always a situation involved, the relation, namely, between the speaker +and the hearer. A gentleman in black, expounding his views, or narrating +his autobiography to the first comer, can expect no such warmth of +response as greets the dying speech of the baffled patriot; yet he too +may take account of the reasons that prompt speech, may display sympathy +and tact, and avoid the faults of senility. The only character that can +lend strength to his words is his own, and he sketches it while he states +his opinions; the only attitude that can ennoble his sayings is implied +in the very arguments he uses. Who does not know the curious blank +effect of eloquence overstrained or out of place? The phrasing may be +exquisite, the thought well-knit, the emotion genuine, yet all is, as it +were, dumb-show where no community of feeling exists between the speaker +and his audience. A similar false note is struck by any speaker or +writer who misapprehends his position or forgets his disqualifications, +by newspaper writers using language that is seemly only in one who stakes +his life on his words, by preachers exceeding the license of fallibility, +by moralists condemning frailty, by speculative traders deprecating frank +ways of hazard, by Satan rebuking sin. + +“How many things are there,” exclaims the wise Verulam, “which a man +cannot, with any face or comeliness, say or do himself! A man’s person +hath many proper relations which he cannot put off. A man cannot speak +to his son but as a father; to his wife, but as a husband; to his enemy +but upon terms; whereas a friend may speak as the case requires, and not +as it sorteth with the person.” The like “proper relations” govern +writers, even where their audience is unknown to them. It has often been +remarked how few are the story-tellers who can introduce themselves, so +much as by a passing reflection or sentiment, without a discordant +effect. The friend who saves the situation is found in one and another +of the creatures of their art. + +For those who must play their own part the effort to conceal themselves +is of no avail. The implicit attitude of a writer makes itself felt; an +undue swelling of his subject to heroic dimensions, an unwarrantable +assumption of sympathy, a tendency to truck with friends or with enemies +by the way, are all possible indications of weakness, which move even the +least skilled of readers to discount what is said, as they catch here and +there a glimpse of the old pot-companion, or the young dandy, behind the +imposing literary mask. Strong writers are those who, with every reserve +of power, seek no exhibition of strength. It is as if language could not +come by its full meaning save on the lips of those who regard it as an +evil necessity. Every word is torn from them, as from a reluctant +witness. They come to speech as to a last resort, when all other ways +have failed. The bane of a literary education is that it induces +talkativeness, and an overweening confidence in words. But those whose +words are stark and terrible seem almost to despise words. + +With words literature begins, and to words it must return. Coloured by +the neighbourhood of silence, solemnised by thought or steeled by action, +words are still its only means of rising above words. “_Accedat verbum +ad elementum_,” said St. Ambrose, “_et fiat sacramentum_.” So the +elementary passions, pity and love, wrath and terror, are not in +themselves poetical; they must be wrought upon by the word to become +poetry. In no other way can suffering be transformed to pathos, or +horror reach its apotheosis in tragedy. + +When all has been said, there remains a residue capable of no formal +explanation. Language, this array of conventional symbols loosely strung +together, and blown about by every wandering breath, is miraculously +vital and expressive, justifying not a few of the myriad superstitions +that have always attached to its use. The same words are free to all, +yet no wealth or distinction of vocabulary is needed for a group of words +to take the stamp of an individual mind and character. “As a quality of +style” says Mr. Pater, “soul is a fact.” To resolve how words, like +bodies, become transparent when they are inhabited by that luminous +reality, is a higher pitch than metaphysic wit can fly. Ardent +persuasion and deep feeling enkindle words, so that the weakest take on +glory. The humblest and most despised of common phrases may be the +chosen vessel for the next avatar of the spirit. It is the old problem, +to be met only by the old solution of the Platonist, that + + Soul is form, and doth the body make. + +The soul is able to inform language by some strange means other than the +choice and arrangement of words and phrases. Real novelty of vocabulary +is impossible; in the matter of language we lead a parasitical existence, +and are always quoting. Quotations, conscious or unconscious, vary in +kind according as the mind is active to work upon them and make them its +own. In its grossest and most servile form quotation is a lazy folly; a +thought has received some signal or notorious expression, and as often as +the old sense, or something like it, recurs, the old phrase rises to the +lips. This degenerates to simple phrase-mongering, and those who +practise it are not vigilantly jealous of their meaning. Such an +expression as “fine by degrees and beautifully less” is often no more +than a bloated equivalent for a single word—say “diminishing” or +“shrinking.” Quotations like this are the warts and excremental parts of +language; the borrowings of good writers are never thus superfluous, +their quotations are appropriations. Whether it be by some witty turn +given to a well-known line, by an original setting for an old saw, or by +a new and unlooked-for analogy, the stamp of the borrower is put upon the +goods he borrows, and he becomes part owner. Plagiarism is a crime only +where writing is a trade; expression need never be bound by the law of +copyright while it follows thought, for thought, as some great thinker +has observed, is free. The words were once Shakespeare’s; if only you +can feel them as he did, they are yours now no less than his. The best +quotations, the best translations, the best thefts, are all equally new +and original works. From quotation, at least, there is no escape, +inasmuch as we learn language from others. All common phrases that do +the dirty work of the world are quotations—poor things, and not our own. +Who first said that a book would “repay perusal,” or that any gay scene +was “bright with all the colours of the rainbow”? There is no need to +condemn these phrases, for language has a vast deal of inferior work to +do. The expression of thought, temperament, attitude, is not the whole +of its business. It is only a literary fop or doctrinaire who will +attempt to remint all the small defaced coinage that passes through his +hands, only a lisping young fantastico who will refuse all conventional +garments and all conventional speech. At a modern wedding the frock-coat +is worn, the presents are “numerous and costly,” and there is an “ovation +accorded to the happy pair.” These things are part of our public +civilisation, a decorous and accessible uniform, not to be lightly set +aside. But let it be a friend of your own who is to marry, a friend of +your own who dies, and you are to express yourself—the problem is +changed, you feel all the difficulties of the art of style, and fathom +something of the depth of your unskill. Forbidden silence, we should be +in a poor way indeed. + +Single words too we plagiarise when we use them without realisation and +mastery of their meaning. The best argument for a succinct style is +this, that if you use words you do not need, or do not understand, you +cannot use them well. It is not what a word means, but what it means to +you, that is of the deepest import. Let it be a weak word, with a poor +history behind it, if you have done good thinking with it, you may yet +use it to surprising advantage. But if, on the other hand, it be a +strong word that has never aroused more than a misty idea and a +flickering emotion in your mind, here lies your danger. You may use it, +for there is none to hinder; and it will betray you. The commonest Saxon +words prove explosive machines in the hands of rash impotence. It is +perhaps a certain uneasy consciousness of danger, a suspicion that +weakness of soul cannot wield these strong words, that makes debility +avoid them, committing itself rather, as if by some pre-established +affinity, to the vaguer Latinised vocabulary. Yet they are not all to be +avoided, and their quality in practice will depend on some occult ability +in their employer. For every living person, if the material were +obtainable, a separate historical dictionary might be compiled, recording +where each word was first heard or seen, where and how it was first used. +The references are utterly beyond recovery; but such a register would +throw a strange light on individual styles. The eloquent trifler, whose +stock of words has been accumulated by a pair of light fingers, would +stand denuded of his plausible pretences as soon as it were seen how +roguishly he came by his eloquence. There may be literary quality, it is +well to remember, in the words of a parrot, if only its cage has been +happily placed; meaning and soul there cannot be. Yet the voice will +sometimes be mistaken, by the carelessness of chance listeners, for a +genuine utterance of humanity; and the like is true in literature. But +writing cannot be luminous and great save in the hands of those whose +words are their own by the indefeasible title of conquest. Life is spent +in learning the meaning of great words, so that some idle proverb, known +for years and accepted perhaps as a truism, comes home, on a day, like a +blow. “If there were not a God,” said Voltaire, “it would be necessary +to invent him.” Voltaire had therefore a right to use the word, but some +of those who use it most, if they would be perfectly sincere, should +enclose it in quotation marks. Whole nations go for centuries without +coining names for certain virtues; is it credible that among other +peoples, where the names exists the need for them is epidemic? The +author of the _Ecclesiastial Polity_ puts a bolder and truer face on the +matter. “Concerning that Faith, Hope, and Charity,” he writes, “without +which there can be no salvation, was there ever any mention made saving +only in that Law which God himself hath from Heaven revealed? There is +not in the world a syllable muttered with certain truth concerning any of +these three, more than hath been supernaturally received from the mouth +of the eternal God.” Howsoever they came to us, we have the words; they, +and many other terms of tremendous import, are bandied about from mouth +to mouth and alternately enriched or impoverished in meaning. Is the +“Charity” of St. Paul’s Epistle one with the charity of +“charity-blankets”? Are the “crusades” of Godfrey and of the great St. +Louis, where knightly achievement did homage to the religious temper, +essentially the same as that process of harrying the wretched and the +outcast for which the muddle-headed, greasy citizen of to-day invokes the +same high name? Of a truth, some kingly words fall to a lower estate +than Nebuchadnezzar. + +Here, among words, our lot is cast, to make or mar. It is in this +obscure thicket, overgrown with weeds, set with thorns, and haunted by +shadows, this World of Words, as the Elizabethans finely called it, that +we wander, eternal pioneers, during the course of our mortal lives. To +be overtaken by a master, one who comes along with the gaiety of assured +skill and courage, with the gravity of unflinching purpose, to make the +crooked ways straight and the rough places plain, is to gain fresh +confidence from despair. He twines wreaths of the entangling ivy, and +builds ramparts of the thorns. He blazes his mark upon the secular oaks, +as a guidance to later travellers, and coaxes flame from heaps of +mouldering rubbish. There is no sense of cheer like this. Sincerity, +clarity, candour, power, seem real once more, real and easy. In the +light of great literary achievement, straight and wonderful, like the +roads of the ancient Romans, barbarism torments the mind like a riddle. +Yet there are the dusky barbarians!—fleeing from the harmonious tread of +the ordered legions, running to hide themselves in the morass of vulgar +sentiment, to ambush their nakedness in the sand-pits of low thought. + + * * * * * + +It is a venerable custom to knit up the speculative consideration of any +subject with the counsels of practical wisdom. The words of this essay +have been vain indeed if the idea that style may be imparted by tuition +has eluded them, and survived. There is a useful art of Grammar, which +takes for its province the right and the wrong in speech. Style deals +only with what is permissible to all, and even revokes, on occasion, the +rigid laws of Grammar or countenances offences against them. Yet no one +is a better judge of equity for ignorance of the law, and grammatical +practice offers a fair field wherein to acquire ease, accuracy and +versatility. The formation of sentences, the sequence of verbs, the +marshalling of the ranks of auxiliaries are all, in a sense, to be +learned. There is a kind of inarticulate disorder to which writers are +liable, quite distinct from a bad style, and caused chiefly by lack of +exercise. An unpractised writer will sometimes send a beautiful and +powerful phrase jostling along in the midst of a clumsy sentence—like a +crowned king escorted by a mob. + +But Style cannot be taught. Imitation of the masters, or of some one +chosen master, and the constant purging of language by a severe +criticism, have their uses, not to be belittled; they have also their +dangers. The greater part of what is called the teaching of style must +always be negative, bad habits may be broken down, old malpractices +prohibited. The pillory and the stocks are hardly educational agents, +but they make it easier for honest men to enjoy their own. If style +could really be taught, it is a question whether its teachers should not +be regarded as mischief-makers and enemies of mankind. The Rosicrucians +professed to have found the philosopher’s stone, and the shadowy sages of +modern Thibet are said, by those who speak for them, to have compassed +the instantaneous transference of bodies from place to place. In either +case, the holders of these secrets have laudably refused to publish them, +lest avarice and malice should run amuck in human society. A similar +fear might well visit the conscience of one who should dream that he had +divulged to the world at large what can be done with language. Of this +there is no danger; rhetoric, it is true, does put fluency, emphasis, and +other warlike equipments at the disposal of evil forces, but style, like +the Christian religion, is one of those open secrets which are most +easily and most effectively kept by the initiate from age to age. +Divination is the only means of access to these mysteries. The formal +attempt to impart a good style is like the melancholy task of the teacher +of gesture and oratory; some palpable faults are soon corrected; and, for +the rest, a few conspicuous mannerisms, a few theatrical postures, not +truly expressive, and a high tragical strut, are all that can be +imparted. The truth of the old Roman teachers of rhetoric is here +witnessed afresh, to be a good orator it is first of all necessary to be +a good man. Good style is the greatest of revealers,—it lays bare the +soul. The soul of the cheat shuns nothing so much. “Always be ready to +speak your minds” said Blake, “and a base man will avoid you.” But to +insist that he also shall speak his mind is to go a step further, it is +to take from the impostor his wooden leg, to prohibit his lucrative +whine, his mumping and his canting, to force the poor silly soul to stand +erect among its fellows and declare itself. His occupation is gone, and +he does not love the censor who deprives him of the weapons of his +mendicity. + +All style is gesture, the gesture of the mind and of the soul. Mind we +have in common, inasmuch as the laws of right reason are not different +for different minds. Therefore clearness and arrangement can be taught, +sheer incompetence in the art of expression can be partly remedied. But +who shall impose laws upon the soul? It is thus of common note that one +may dislike or even hate a particular style while admiring its facility, +its strength, its skilful adaptation to the matter set forth. Milton, a +chaster and more unerring master of the art than Shakespeare, reveals no +such lovable personality. While persons count for much, style, the index +to persons, can never count for little. “Speak,” it has been said, “that +I may know you”—voice-gesture is more than feature. Write, and after you +have attained to some control over the instrument, you write yourself +down whether you will or no. There is no vice, however unconscious, no +virtue, however shy, no touch of meanness or of generosity in your +character, that will not pass on to the paper. You anticipate the Day of +Judgment and furnish the recording angel with material. The Art of +Criticism in literature, so often decried and given a subordinate place +among the arts, is none other than the art of reading and interpreting +these written evidences. Criticism has been popularly opposed to +creation, perhaps because the kind of creation that it attempts is rarely +achieved, and so the world forgets that the main business of Criticism, +after all, is not to legislate, nor to classify, but to raise the dead. +Graves, at its command, have waked their sleepers, oped, and let them +forth. It is by the creative power of this art that the living man is +reconstructed from the litter of blurred and fragmentary paper documents +that he has left to posterity. + + * * * * * + + THE END + + * * * * * + + _Printed by_ R. & R. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Style + + +Author: Walter Raleigh + + + +Release Date: April 14, 2013 [eBook #1038] +[This file was first posted on September 2, 1997] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STYLE*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1904 Edward Arnold edition by David +Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<h1>STYLE</h1> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span +class="GutSmall">BY</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center">WALTER RALEIGH</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">AUTHOR OF +‘THE ENGLISH NOVEL,’</span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall">AND ‘ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, A +CRITICAL ESSAY’</span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>FIFTH IMPRESSION</i></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">LONDON<br /> +EDWARD ARNOLD<br /> +Publisher to the India Office<br /> +1904</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="pagev"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. v</span>JOANNI SAMPSON</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span +class="GutSmall">BIBLIOTHECARIO OPTIMO</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">VIRO OMNI +SAPIENTIA ÆGYPTIORUM</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span +class="GutSmall">ERUDITO</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">LABORUM ET +ITINERUM SUORUM</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span +class="GutSmall">SOCIO</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">HUNC +LIBELLUM</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">D · D +· D</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span +class="GutSmall">AUCTOR</span></p> +<h2><a name="pagevii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +vii</span>TABLE OF THE PRINCIPAL MATTERS<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">CONTAINED IN THIS ESSAY</span></h2> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">PAGE</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Triumph of Letters</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page1">1</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Problem of Style</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page3">3</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Instrument and the Audience, with a Digression on the +Actor</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page4">4</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Sense-Elements</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page8">8</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Functions of Sense</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page10">10</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Picture</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page11">11</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Melody</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page14">14</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Meaning, Exampled in Negation</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page17">17</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Weapons of Thought</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page21">21</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Analogy from Architecture</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page23">23</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Analogy Rectified. The Law of Change</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page24">24</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Good Slang</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page27">27</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Bad Slang</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page29">29</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Archaism</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page32">32</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Romantic and Classic</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page36">36</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Palsy of Definition</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page39">39</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Distinction</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page43">43</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Assimilation</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page45">45</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Synonyms</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page46">46</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><a name="pageviii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +viii</span>Variety of Expression</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page49">49</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Variety Justified</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page50">50</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Metaphor and Abstraction: Poetry and Science</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page55">55</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Doctrine of the <i>Mot Propre</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page61">61</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Instrument</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page65">65</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Audience</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page65">65</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Relation of the Author to his Audience</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page71">71</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Poet and his Audience</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page71">71</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Public Caterers</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page77">77</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Cautelous Man</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page78">78</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Sentimentalism and Jocularity</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page81">81</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Tripe-Seller</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page83">83</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Wag</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page85">85</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Social and Rhetorical Corruptions</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page87">87</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Sincerity</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page88">88</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Insincerity</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page93">93</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Austerity</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page94">94</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Figurative Style</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page98">98</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Decoration</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page100">100</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Allusiveness</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page102">102</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Simplicity and Strength</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page104">104</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Paradox of Letters</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page107">107</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Drama</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page108">108</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Implicit Drama</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page111">111</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Words Again</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page115">115</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Quotation</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page116">116</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Appropriation</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page119">119</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The World of Words</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page123">123</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Teaching of Style</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page124">124</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Conclusion</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page127">127</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<h2><a name="page1"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +1</span>STYLE</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Style</span>, the Latin name for an iron +pen, has come to designate the art that handles, with ever fresh +vitality and wary alacrity, the fluid elements of speech. +By a figure, obvious enough, which yet might serve for an epitome +of literary method, the most rigid and simplest of instruments +has lent its name to the subtlest and most flexible of +arts. Thence the application of the word has been extended +to arts other than literature, to the whole range of the +activities of man. The fact that we use the word +“style” in speaking of architecture and sculpture, +painting and music, dancing, play-acting, and cricket, that we +can apply it to the careful achievements of the housebreaker and +the poisoner, and to the spontaneous animal movements of the +limbs of man or beast, is the noblest of <a +name="page2"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 2</span>unconscious +tributes to the faculty of letters. The pen, scratching on +wax or paper, has become the symbol of all that is expressive, +all that is intimate, in human nature; not only arms and arts, +but man himself, has yielded to it. His living voice, with +its undulations and inflexions, assisted by the mobile play of +feature and an infinite variety of bodily gesture, is driven to +borrow dignity from the same metaphor; the orator and the actor +are fain to be judged by style. “It is most +true,” says the author of <i>The Anatomy of Melancholy</i>, +“<i>stylus virum arguit</i>, our style bewrays +us.” Other gestures shift and change and flit, this +is the ultimate and enduring revelation of personality. The +actor and the orator are condemned to work evanescent effects on +transitory material; the dust that they write on is blown about +their graves. The sculptor and the architect deal in less +perishable ware, but the stuff is recalcitrant and stubborn, and +will not take the impress of all states of the soul. +Morals, philosophy, and æsthetic, mood and conviction, +creed and whim, habit, passion, and demonstration—<a +name="page3"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 3</span>what art but +the art of literature admits the entrance of all these, and +guards them from the suddenness of mortality? What other +art gives scope to natures and dispositions so diverse, and to +tastes so contrarious? Euclid and Shelley, Edmund Spenser +and Herbert Spencer, King David and David Hume, are all followers +of the art of letters.</p> +<p>In the effort to explain the principles of an art so +bewildering in its variety, writers on style have gladly availed +themselves of analogy from the other arts, and have spoken, for +the most part, not without a parable. It is a pleasant +trick they put upon their pupils, whom they gladden with the +delusion of a golden age, and perfection to be sought backwards, +in arts less complex. The teacher of writing, past master +in the juggling craft of language, explains that he is only +carrying into letters the principles of counterpoint, or that it +is all a matter of colour and perspective, or that structure and +ornament are the beginning and end of his intent. Professor +of eloquence and of thieving, his winged shoes remark him as he +skips <a name="page4"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 4</span>from +metaphor to metaphor, not daring to trust himself to the partial +and frail support of any single figure. He lures the +astonished novice through as many trades as were ever housed in +the central hall of the world’s fair. From his +distracting account of the business it would appear that he is +now building a monument, anon he is painting a picture (with +brushes dipped in a gallipot made of an earthquake); again he +strikes a keynote, weaves a pattern, draws a wire, drives a nail, +treads a measure, sounds a trumpet, or hits a target; or +skirmishes around his subject; or lays it bare with a dissecting +knife; or embalms a thought; or crucifies an enemy. What is +he really doing all the time?</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>Besides the artist two things are to be considered in every +art,—the instrument and the audience; or, to deal in less +figured phrase, the medium and the public. From both of +these the artist, if he would find freedom for the exercise of +all his powers, must sit decently aloof. It is the +misfortune of the actor, the singer, and the dancer, <a +name="page5"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 5</span>that their +bodies are their sole instruments. On to the stage of their +activities they carry the heart that nourishes them and the lungs +wherewith they breathe, so that the soul, to escape degradation, +must seek a more remote and difficult privacy. That +immemorial right of the soul to make the body its home, a welcome +escape from publicity and a refuge for sincerity, must be largely +foregone by the actor, who has scant liberty to decorate and +administer for his private behoof an apartment that is also a +place of business. His ownership is limited by the +necessities of his trade; when the customers are gone, he eats +and sleeps in the bar-parlour. Nor is the instrument of his +performances a thing of his choice; the poorest skill of the +violinist may exercise itself upon a Stradivarius, but the actor +is reduced to fiddle for the term of his natural life upon the +face and fingers that he got from his mother. The serene +detachment that may be achieved by disciples of greater arts can +hardly be his, applause touches his personal pride too nearly, +the mocking echoes of derision infest the solitude of his retired +imagination. <a name="page6"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +6</span>In none of the world’s great polities has the +practice of this art been found consistent with noble rank or +honourable estate. Christianity might be expected to spare +some sympathy for a calling that offers prizes to abandonment and +self-immolation, but her eye is fixed on a more distant mark than +the pleasure of the populace, and, as in gladiatorial Rome of +old, her best efforts have been used to stop the games. +Society, on the other hand, preoccupied with the art of life, has +no warmer gift than patronage for those whose skill and energy +exhaust themselves on the mimicry of life. The reward of +social consideration is refused, it is true, to all artists, or +accepted by them at their immediate peril. By a natural +adjustment, in countries where the artist has sought and attained +a certain modest social elevation, the issue has been changed, +and the architect or painter, when his health is proposed, finds +himself, sorely against the grain, returning thanks for the +employer of labour, the genial host, the faithful husband, the +tender father, and other pillars of society. The risk of +too <a name="page7"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 7</span>great +familiarity with an audience which insists on honouring the +artist irrelevantly, at the expense of the art, must be run by +all; a more clinging evil besets the actor, in that he can at no +time wholly escape from his phantasmal second self. On this +creature of his art he has lavished the last doit of human +capacity for expression; with what bearing shall he face the +exacting realities of life? Devotion to his profession has +beggared him of his personality; ague, old age and poverty, love +and death, find in him an entertainer who plies them with a +feeble repetition of the triumphs formerly prepared for a larger +and less imperious audience. The very +journalist—though he, too, when his profession takes him by +the throat, may expound himself to his wife in phrases stolen +from his own leaders—is a miracle of detachment in +comparison; he has not put his laughter to sale. It is well +for the soul’s health of the artist that a definite +boundary should separate his garden from his farm, so that when +he escapes from the conventions that rule his work he may be free +to recreate himself. But <a name="page8"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 8</span>where shall the weary player keep +holiday? Is not all the world a stage?</p> +<p>Whatever the chosen instrument of an art may be, its appeal to +those whose attention it bespeaks must be made through the +senses. Music, which works with the vibrations of a +material substance, makes this appeal through the ear; painting +through the eye; it is of a piece with the complexity of the +literary art that it employs both channels,—as it might +seem to a careless apprehension, indifferently.</p> +<p>For the writer’s pianoforte is the dictionary, words are +the material in which he works, and words may either strike the +ear or be gathered by the eye from the printed page. The +alternative will be called delusive, for, in European literature +at least, there is no word-symbol that does not imply a spoken +sound, and no excellence without euphony. But the other way +is possible, the gulf between mind and mind may be bridged by +something which has a right to the name of literature although it +exacts no aid from the ear. The picture-writing of the +Indians, the hieroglyphs <a name="page9"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 9</span>of Egypt, may be cited as examples of +literary meaning conveyed with no implicit help from the spoken +word. Such an art, were it capable of high development, +would forsake the kinship of melody, and depend for its sensual +elements of delight on the laws of decorative pattern. In a +land of deaf-mutes it might come to a measure of +perfection. But where human intercourse is chiefly by +speech, its connexion with the interests and passions of daily +life would perforce be of the feeblest, it would tend more and +more to cast off the fetters of meaning that it might do freer +service to the jealous god of visible beauty. The +overpowering rivalry of speech would rob it of all its symbolic +intent and leave its bare picture. Literature has favoured +rather the way of the ear and has given itself zealously to the +tuneful ordering of sounds. Let it be repeated, therefore, +that for the traffic of letters the senses are but the +door-keepers of the mind; none of them commands an only way of +access,—the deaf can read by sight, the blind by +touch. It is not amid the bustle of the live senses, but in +<a name="page10"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 10</span>an +under-world of dead impressions that Poetry works her will, +raising that in power which was sown in weakness, quickening a +spiritual body from the ashes of the natural body. The mind +of man is peopled, like some silent city, with a sleeping company +of reminiscences, associations, impressions, attitudes, emotions, +to be awakened into fierce activity at the touch of words. +By one way or another, with a fanfaronnade of the marching +trumpets, or stealthily, by noiseless passages and dark posterns, +the troop of suggesters enters the citadel, to do its work +within. The procession of beautiful sounds that is a poem +passes in through the main gate, and forthwith the by-ways +resound to the hurry of ghostly feet, until the small company of +adventurers is well-nigh lost and overwhelmed in that throng of +insurgent spirits.</p> +<p>To attempt to reduce the art of literature to its component +sense-elements is therefore vain. Memory, “the warder +of the brain,” is a fickle trustee, whimsically lavish to +strangers, giving up to the appeal of a spoken word or unspoken +<a name="page11"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 11</span>symbol, an +odour or a touch, all that has been garnered by the sensitive +capacities of man. It is the part of the writer to play +upon memory, confusing what belongs to one sense with what +belongs to another, extorting images of colour at a word, raising +ideas of harmony without breaking the stillness of the air. +He can lead on the dance of words till their sinuous movements +call forth, as if by mesmerism, the likeness of some adamantine +rigidity, time is converted into space, and music begets +sculpture. To see for the sake of seeing, to hear for the +sake of hearing, are subsidiary exercises of his complex +metaphysical art, to be counted among its rudiments. +Picture and music can furnish but the faint beginnings of a +philosophy of letters. Necessary though they be to a +writer, they are transmuted in his service to new forms, and made +to further purposes not their own.</p> +<p>The power of vision—hardly can a writer, least of all if +he be a poet, forego that part of his equipment. In dealing +with the impalpable, dim subjects that lie beyond the border-land +of exact <a name="page12"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +12</span>knowledge, the poetic instinct seeks always to bring +them into clear definition and bright concrete imagery, so that +it might seem for the moment as if painting also could deal with +them. Every abstract conception, as it passes into the +light of the creative imagination, acquires structure and +firmness and colour, as flowers do in the light of the sun. +Life and Death, Love and Youth, Hope and Time, become persons in +poetry, not that they may wear the tawdry habiliments of the +studio, but because persons are the objects of the most familiar +sympathy and the most intimate knowledge.</p> +<blockquote><p>How long, O Death? And shall thy feet +depart<br /> + Still a young child’s with mine, or wilt thou +stand<br /> +Full grown the helpful daughter of my heart,<br /> + What time with thee indeed I reach the strand<br /> +Of the pale wave which knows thee what thou art,<br /> + And drink it in the hollow of thy hand?</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And as a keen eye for the imagery attendant on a word is +essential to all writing, whether prose or poetry, that attempts +the heart, so languor of the visual faculty can work disaster +even in the calm periods of philosophic expatiation. +“It <a name="page13"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +13</span>cannot be doubted,” says one whose daily +meditations enrich <i>The People’s Post-Bag</i>, +“that Fear is, to a great extent, the mother of +Cruelty.” Alas, by the introduction of that brief +proviso, conceived in a spirit of admirably cautious +self-defence, the writer has unwittingly given himself to the +horns of a dilemma whose ferocity nothing can mitigate. +These tempered and conditional truths are not in nature, which +decrees, with uncompromising dogmatism, that either a woman is +one’s mother, or she is not. The writer probably +meant merely that “fear is one of the causes of +cruelty,” and had he used a colourless abstract word the +platitude might pass unchallenged. But a vague desire for +the emphasis and glamour of literature having brought in the word +“mother,” has yet failed to set the sluggish +imagination to work, and a word so glowing with picture and vivid +with sentiment is damped and dulled by the thumb-mark of besotted +usage to mean no more than “cause” or +“occasion.” Only for the poet, perhaps, are +words live winged things, flashing with colour and laden with +scent; yet one poor <a name="page14"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +14</span>spark of imagination might save them from this sad +descent to sterility and darkness.</p> +<p>Of no less import is the power of melody which chooses, +rejects, and orders words for the satisfaction that a cunningly +varied return of sound can give to the ear. Some critics +have amused themselves with the hope that here, in the laws and +practices regulating the audible cadence of words, may be found +the first principles of style, the form which fashions the +matter, the apprenticeship to beauty which alone can make an art +of truth. And it may be admitted that verse, owning, as it +does, a professed and canonical allegiance to music, sometimes +carries its devotion so far that thought swoons into melody, and +the thing said seems a discovery made by the way in the search +for tuneful expression.</p> +<blockquote><p> What thing +unto mine ear<br /> + Wouldst thou convey,—what secret thing,<br /> +O wandering water ever whispering?<br /> + Surely thy speech shall be of her,<br /> +Thou water, O thou whispering wanderer,<br /> + What message +dost thou bring?</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In this stanza an exquisitely modulated tune <a +name="page15"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 15</span>is played +upon the syllables that make up the word “wandering,” +even as, in the poem from which it is taken, there is every echo +of the noise of waters laughing in sunny brooks, or moaning in +dumb hidden caverns. Yet even here it would be vain to seek +for reason why each particular sound of every line should be +itself and no other. For melody holds no absolute dominion +over either verse or prose; its laws, never to be disregarded, +prohibit rather than prescribe. Beyond the simple +ordinances that determine the place of the rhyme in verse, and +the average number of syllables, or rhythmical beats, that occur +in the line, where shall laws be found to regulate the sequence +of consonants and vowels from syllable to syllable? Those +few artificial restrictions, which verse invents for itself, once +agreed on, a necessary and perilous license makes up the rest of +the code. Literature can never conform to the dictates of +pure euphony, while grammar, which has been shaped not in the +interests of prosody, but for the service of thought, bars the +way with its clumsy inalterable polysyllables and <a +name="page16"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 16</span>the +monotonous sing-song of its inflexions. On the other hand, +among a hundred ways of saying a thing, there are more than +ninety that a care for euphony may reasonably forbid. All +who have consciously practised the art of writing know what +endless and painful vigilance is needed for the avoidance of the +unfit or untuneful phrase, how the meaning must be tossed from +expression to expression, mutilated and deceived, ere it can find +rest in words. The stupid accidental recurrence of a single +broad vowel; the cumbrous repetition of a particle; the emphatic +phrase for which no emphatic place can be found without +disorganising the structure of the period; the pert intrusion on +a solemn thought of a flight of short syllables, twittering like +a flock of sparrows; or that vicious trick of sentences whereby +each, unmindful of its position and duties, tends to imitate the +deformities of its predecessor;—these are a select few of +the difficulties that the nature of language and of man conspire +to put upon the writer. He is well served by his mind and +ear if he can win past all <a name="page17"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 17</span>such traps and ambuscades, robbed of +only a little of his treasure, indemnified by the careless +generosity of his spoilers, and still singing.</p> +<p>Besides their chime in the ear, and the images that they put +before the mind’s eye, words have, for their last and +greatest possession, a meaning. They carry messages and +suggestions that, in the effect wrought, elude all the senses +equally. For the sake of this, their prime office, the rest +is many times forgotten or scorned, the tune is disordered and +havoc played with the lineaments of the picture, because without +these the word can still do its business. The refutation of +those critics who, in their analysis of the power of literature, +make much of music and picture, is contained in the most moving +passages that have found utterance from man. Consider the +intensity of a saying like that of St. Paul:—“For I +am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor +principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to +come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be +able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ +Jesus our Lord.”</p> +<p><a name="page18"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 18</span>Do +these verses draw their power from a skilful arrangement of vowel +and consonant? But they are quoted from a translation, and +can be translated otherwise, well or ill or indifferently, +without losing more than a little of their virtue. Do they +impress the eye by opening before it a prospect of vast extent, +peopled by vague shapes? On the contrary, the visual +embodiment of the ideas suggested kills the sense of the passage, +by lowering the cope of the starry heavens to the measure of a +poplar-tree. Death and life, height and depth, are +conceived by the apostle, and creation thrown in like a trinket, +only that they may lend emphasis to the denial that is the soul +of his purpose. Other arts can affirm, or seem to affirm, +with all due wealth of circumstance and detail; they can heighten +their affirmation by the modesty of reserve, the surprises of a +studied brevity, and the erasure of all impertinence; literature +alone can deny, and honour the denial with the last resources of +a power that has the universe for its treasury. It is this +negative capability of words, their privative force, whereby <a +name="page19"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 19</span>they can +impress the minds with a sense of “vacuity, darkness, +solitude, and silence,” that Burke celebrates in the fine +treatise of his younger days. In such a phrase as +“the angel of the Lord” language mocks the positive +rivalry of the pictorial art, which can offer only the poor +pretence of an equivalent in a young man painted with +wings. But the difference between the two arts is even +better marked in the matter of negative suggestion; it is +instanced by Burke from the noble passage where Virgil describes +the descent of Æneas and the Sibyl to the shades of the +nether world. Here are amassed all “the images of a +tremendous dignity” that the poet could forge from the +sublime of denial. The two most famous lines are a +procession of negatives:—</p> +<blockquote><p><i>Ibant obscuri sola sub nocte per umbram</i>,<br +/> +<i>Perque domos Ditis vacuas et inania regna</i>.</p> +<p>Through hollow kingdoms, emptied of the day,<br /> +And dim, deserted courts where Dis bears sway,<br /> + Night-foundered, and uncertain of the path,<br /> +Darkling they took their solitary way.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Here is the secret of some of the cardinal <a +name="page20"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 20</span>effects of +literature; strong epithets like “lonely,” +“supreme,” “invisible,” +“eternal,” “inexorable,” with the +substantives that belong to them, borrow their force from the +vastness of what they deny. And not these alone, but many +other words, less indebted to logic for the magnificence of reach +that it can lend, bring before the mind no picture, but a dim +emotional framework. Such words as “ominous,” +“fantastic,” “attenuated,” +“bewildered,” “justification,” are +atmospheric rather than pictorial; they infect the soul with the +passion-laden air that rises from humanity. It is precisely +in his dealings with words like these, “heated originally +by the breath of others,” that a poet’s fine sense +and knowledge most avail him. The company a word has kept, +its history, faculties, and predilections, endear or discommend +it to his instinct. How hardly will poetry consent to +employ such words as “congratulation” or +“philanthropist,”—words of good origin, but +tainted by long immersion in fraudulent rejoicings and pallid, +comfortable, theoretic loves. How eagerly will the poetic +imagination seize on a word <a name="page21"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 21</span>like “control,” which +gives scope by its very vagueness, and is fettered by no +partiality of association. All words, the weak and the +strong, the definite and the vague, have their offices to perform +in language, but the loftiest purposes of poetry are seldom +served by those explicit hard words which, like tiresome +explanatory persons, say all that they mean. Only in the +focus and centre of man’s knowledge is there place for the +hammer-blows of affirmation, the rest is a flickering world of +hints and half-lights, echoes and suggestions, to be come at in +the dusk or not at all.</p> +<p>The combination of these powers in words, of song and image +and meaning, has given us the supreme passages of our romantic +poetry. In Shakespeare’s work, especially, the union +of vivid definite presentment with immense reach of metaphysical +suggestion seems to intertwine the roots of the universe with the +particular fact; tempting the mind to explore that other side of +the idea presented to it, the side turned away from it, and held +by something behind.</p> +<blockquote><p><a name="page22"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +22</span>It will have blood; they say blood win have blood:<br /> +Stones have been known to move and trees to speak;<br /> +Augurs and understood relations have<br /> +By maggot-pies and choughs and rooks brought forth<br /> +The secret’st man of blood.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>This meeting of concrete and abstract, of sense and thought, +keeps the eye travelling along the utmost skyline of speculation, +where the heavens are interfused with the earth. In short, +the third and greatest virtue of words is no other than the +virtue that belongs to the weapons of thought,—a deep, +wide, questioning thought that discovers analogies and pierces +behind things to a half-perceived unity of law and essence. +In the employ of keen insight, high feeling, and deep thinking, +language comes by its own; the prettinesses that may be imposed +on a passive material are as nothing to the splendour and grace +that transfigure even the meanest instrument when it is wielded +by the energy of thinking purpose. The contempt that is +cast, by the vulgar phrase, on “mere words” bears +witness to the rarity of this serious consummation. Yet by +words the world was shaped out of chaos, by words the <a +name="page23"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 23</span>Christian +religion was established among mankind. Are these terrific +engines fit play-things for the idle humours of a sick child?</p> +<p>And now it begins to be apparent that no adequate description +of the art of language can be drawn from the technical +terminology of the other arts, which, like proud debtors, would +gladly pledge their substance to repay an obligation that they +cannot disclaim. Let one more attempt to supply literature +with a parallel be quoted from the works of a writer on style, +whose high merit it is that he never loses sight, either in +theory or in practice, of the fundamental conditions proper to +the craft of letters. Robert Louis Stevenson, pondering +words long and lovingly, was impressed by their crabbed +individuality, and sought to elucidate the laws of their +arrangement by a reference to the principles of +architecture. “The sister arts,” he says, +“enjoy the use of a plastic and ductile material, like the +modeller’s clay; literature alone is condemned to work in +mosaic with finite and quite rigid words. You have seen +those blocks, dear to the nursery: <a name="page24"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 24</span>this one a pillar, that a pediment, a +third a window or a vase. It is with blocks of just such +arbitrary size and figure that the literary architect is +condemned to design the palace of his art. Nor is this all; +for since these blocks or words are the acknowledged currency of +our daily affairs, there are here possible none of those +suppressions by which other arts obtain relief, continuity, and +vigour: no hieroglyphic touch, no smoothed impasto, no +inscrutable shadow, as in painting; no blank wall, as in +architecture; but every word, phrase, sentence, and paragraph +must move in a logical progression, and convey a definite +conventional import.”</p> +<p>It is an acute comparison, happily indicative of the morose +angularity that words offer to whoso handles them, admirably +insistent on the chief of the incommodities imposed upon the +writer, the necessity, at all times and at all costs, to mean +something. The boon of the recurring monotonous expanse, +that an apprentice may fill, the breathing-space of restful +mechanical repetition, are denied to the writer, who must needs +shoulder <a name="page25"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +25</span>the hod himself, and lay on the mortar, in ever varying +patterns, with his own trowel. This is indeed the ordeal of +the master, the canker-worm of the penny-a-liner, who, poor +fellow, means nothing, and spends his life in the vain effort to +get words to do the same. But if in this respect +architecture and literature are confessed to differ, there +remains the likeness that Mr. Stevenson detects in the building +materials of the two arts, those blocks of “arbitrary size +and figure; finite and quite rigid.” There is truth +enough in the comparison to make it illuminative, but he would be +a rash dialectician who should attempt to draw from it, by way of +inference, a philosophy of letters. Words are piled on +words, and bricks on bricks, but of the two you are invited to +think words the more intractable. Truly, it was a man of +letters who said it, avenging himself on his profession for the +never-ending toil it imposed, by miscalling it, with grim +pleasantry, the architecture of the nursery. Finite and +quite rigid words are not, in any sense that holds good of +bricks. They move and change, they wax and <a +name="page26"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 26</span>wane, they +wither and burgeon; from age to age, from place to place, from +mouth to mouth, they are never at a stay. They take on +colour, intensity, and vivacity from the infection of +neighbourhood; the same word is of several shapes and diverse +imports in one and the same sentence; they depend on the building +that they compose for the very chemistry of the stuff that +composes them. The same epithet is used in the phrases +“a fine day” and “fine irony,” in +“fair trade” and “a fair goddess.” +Were different symbols to be invented for these sundry meanings +the art of literature would perish. For words carry with +them all the meanings they have worn, and the writer shall be +judged by those that he selects for prominence in the train of +his thought. A slight technical implication, a faint tinge +of archaism, in the common turn of speech that you employ, and in +a moment you have shaken off the mob that scours the rutted +highway, and are addressing a select audience of ticket-holders +with closed doors. A single natural phrase of peasant +speech, a direct physical sense given to a word that genteel <a +name="page27"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 27</span>parlance +authorises readily enough in its metaphorical sense, and at a +touch you have blown the roof off the drawing-room of the villa, +and have set its obscure inhabitants wriggling in the +unaccustomed sun. In choosing a sense for your words you +choose also an audience for them.</p> +<p>To one word, then, there are many meanings, according as it +falls in the sentence, according as its successive ties and +associations are broken or renewed. And here, seeing that +the stupidest of all possible meanings is very commonly the slang +meaning, it will be well to treat briefly of slang. For +slang, in the looser acceptation of the term, is of two kinds, +differing, and indeed diametrically opposite, in origin and +worth. Sometimes it is the technical diction that has +perforce been coined to name the operations, incidents, and +habits of some way of life that society despises or deliberately +elects to disregard. This sort of slang, which often +invents names for what would otherwise go nameless, is vivid, +accurate, and necessary, an addition of wealth to the +world’s dictionaries and of compass to the world’s <a +name="page28"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 28</span>range of +thought. Society, mistily conscious of the sympathy that +lightens in any habitual name, seems to have become aware, by one +of those wonderful processes of chary instinct which serve the +great, vulnerable, timid organism in lieu of a brain, that to +accept of the pickpocket his names for the mysteries of his trade +is to accept also a new moral stand-point and outlook on the +question of property. For this reason, and by no special +masonic precautions of his own, the pickpocket is allowed to keep +the admirable devices of his nomenclature for the familiar uses +of himself and his mates, until a Villon arrives to prove that +this language, too, was awaiting the advent of its bully and +master. In the meantime, what directness and modest +sufficiency of utterance distinguishes the dock compared with the +fumbling prolixity of the old gentleman on the bench! It is +the trite story,—romanticism forced to plead at the bar of +classicism fallen into its dotage, Keats judged by +<i>Blackwood</i>, Wordsworth exciting the pained astonishment of +Miss Anna Seward. Accuser and accused alike recognise that +a question of diction <a name="page29"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 29</span>is part of the issue between them; +hence the picturesque confession of the culprit, made in proud +humility, that he “clicked a red ’un” must +needs be interpreted, to save the good faith of the court, into +the vaguer and more general speech of the classic +convention. Those who dislike to have their watches stolen +find that the poorest language of common life will serve their +simple turn, without the rich technical additions of a vocabulary +that has grown around an art. They can abide no rendering +of the fact that does not harp incessantly on the disapproval of +watch-owners. They carry their point of morals at the cost +of foregoing all glitter and finish in the matter of +expression.</p> +<p>This sort of slang, therefore, technical in origin, the +natural efflorescence of highly cultivated agilities of brain, +and hand, and eye, is worthy of all commendation. But there +is another kind that goes under the name of slang, the offspring +rather of mental sloth, and current chiefly among those idle, +jocular classes to whom all art is a bugbear and a puzzle. +There is a public for every <a name="page30"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 30</span>one; the pottle-headed lout who in a +moment of exuberance strikes on a new sordid metaphor for any +incident in the beaten round of drunkenness, lubricity, and debt, +can set his fancy rolling through the music-halls, and thence +into the street, secure of applause and a numerous sodden +discipleship. Of the same lazy stamp, albeit more amiable +in effect, are the thought-saying contrivances whereby one word +is retained to do the work of many. For the language of +social intercourse ease is the first requisite; the average +talker, who would be hard put to it if he were called on to +describe or to define, must constantly be furnished with the +materials of emphasis, wherewith to drive home his likes and +dislikes. Why should he alienate himself from the sympathy +of his fellows by affecting a singularity in the expression of +his emotions? What he craves is not accuracy, but immediacy +of expression, lest the tide of talk should flow past him, +leaving him engaged in a belated analysis. Thus the word of +the day is on all lips, and what was “vastly fine” +last century is “awfully jolly” now; the meaning <a +name="page31"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 31</span>is the same, +the expression equally inappropriate. Oaths have their +brief periods of ascendency, and philology can boast its +fashion-plates. The tyrant Fashion, who wields for whip the +fear of solitude, is shepherd to the flock of common talkers, as +they run hither and thither pursuing, not self-expression, the +prize of letters, but unanimity and self-obliteration, the marks +of good breeding. Like those famous modern poets who are +censured by the author of <i>Paradise Lost</i>, the talkers of +slang are “carried away by custom, to express many things +otherwise, and for the most part worse than else they would have +exprest them.” The poverty of their vocabulary makes +appeal to the brotherly sympathy of a partial and like-minded +auditor, who can fill out their paltry conventional sketches from +his own experience of the same events. Within the limits of +a single school, or workshop, or social circle, slang may serve; +just as, between friends, silence may do the work of talk. +There are few families, or groups of familiars, that have not +some small coinage of this token-money, issued and accepted <a +name="page32"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 32</span>by affection, +passing current only within those narrow and privileged +boundaries. This wealth is of no avail to the travelling +mind, save as a memorial of home, nor is its material such +“as, buried once, men want dug up again.” A few +happy words and phrases, promoted, for some accidental fitness, +to the wider world of letters, are all that reach posterity; the +rest pass into oblivion with the other perishables of the +age.</p> +<p>A profusion of words used in an ephemeral slang sense is +evidence, then, that the writer addresses himself merely to the +uneducated and thoughtless of his own day; the revival of bygone +meanings, on the other hand, and an archaic turn given to +language is the mark rather of authors who are ambitious of a +hearing from more than one age. The accretions of time +bring round a word many reputable meanings, of which the oldest +is like to be the deepest in grain. It is a counsel of +perfection—some will say, of vainglorious +pedantry—but that shaft flies furthest which is drawn to +the head, and he who desires to be understood in the +twenty-fourth century will <a name="page33"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 33</span>not be careless of the meanings that +his words inherit from the fourteenth. To know them is of +service, if only for the piquancy of avoiding them. But +many times they cannot wisely be avoided, and the auspices under +which a word began its career when first it was imported from the +French or Latin overshadow it and haunt it to the end.</p> +<p>Popular modern usage will often rob common words, like +“nice,” “quaint,” or “silly,” +of all flavour of their origin, as if it were of no moment to +remember that these three words, at the outset of their history, +bore the older senses of “ignorant,” +“noted,” and “blessed.” It may be +granted that any attempt to return to these older senses, +regardless of later implications, is stark pedantry; but a +delicate writer will play shyly with the primitive significance +in passing, approaching it and circling it, taking it as a point +of reference or departure. The early faith of Christianity, +its beautiful cult of childhood, and its appeal to unlearned +simplicity, have left their mark on the meaning of +“silly”; the history of the word is contained in that +<a name="page34"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 34</span>cry of St. +Augustine, <i>Indocti surgunt et rapiunt coelum</i>, or in the +fervent sentence of the author of the <i>Imitation</i>, +<i>Oportet fieri stultum</i>. And if there is a later +silliness, altogether unblest, the skilful artificer of words, +while accepting this last extension, will show himself conscious +of his paradox. So also he will shun the grossness that +employs the epithet “quaint” to put upon subtlety and +the devices of a studied workmanship an imputation of +eccentricity; or, if he falls in with the populace in this +regard, he will be careful to justify his innuendo. The +slipshod use of “nice” to connote any sort of +pleasurable emotion he will take care, in his writings at least, +utterly to abhor. From the daintiness of elegance to the +arrogant disgust of folly the word carries meanings numerous and +diverse enough; it must not be cruelly burdened with all the +laudatory occasions of an undiscriminating egotism.</p> +<p>It would be easy to cite a hundred other words like these, +saved only by their nobler uses in literature from ultimate +defacement. The higher standard imposed upon the written +word tends to <a name="page35"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +35</span>raise and purify speech also, and since talkers owe the +same debt to writers of prose that these, for their part, owe to +poets, it is the poets who must be accounted chief protectors, in +the last resort, of our common inheritance. Every page of +the works of that great exemplar of diction, Milton, is crowded +with examples of felicitous and exquisite meaning given to the +infallible word. Sometimes he accepts the secondary and +more usual meaning of a word only to enrich it by the +interweaving of the primary and etymological meaning. Thus +the seraph Abdiel, in the passage that narrates his offer of +combat to Satan, is said to “explore” his own +undaunted heart, and there is no sense of “explore” +that does not heighten the description and help the +thought. Thus again, when the poet describes those</p> + +<blockquote><p> Eremites +and friars,<br /> +White, Black, and Gray, with all their trumpery,</p> +</blockquote> +<p>who inhabit, or are doomed to inhabit, the Paradise of Fools, +he seems to invite the curious reader to recall the derivation of +“trumpery,” and so supplement the idea of +worthlessness with that other <a name="page36"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 36</span>idea, equally grateful to the author, +of deceit. The strength that extracts this multiplex +resonance of meaning from a single note is matched by the grace +that gives to Latin words like “secure,” +“arrive,” “obsequious,” +“redound,” “infest,” and +“solemn” the fine precision of intent that art can +borrow from scholarship.</p> +<p>Such an exactitude is consistent with vital change; Milton +himself is bold to write “stood praying” for +“continued kneeling in prayer,” and deft to transfer +the application of “schism” from the rent garment of +the Church to those necessary “dissections made in the +quarry and in the timber ere the house of God can be +built.” Words may safely veer to every wind that +blows, so they keep within hail of their cardinal meanings, and +drift not beyond the scope of their central employ, but when once +they lose hold of that, then, indeed, the anchor has begun to +drag, and the beach-comber may expect his harvest.</p> +<p>Fixity in the midst of change, fluctuation at the heart of +sameness, such is the estate of language. According as they +endeavour to reduce <a name="page37"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +37</span>letters to some large haven and abiding-place of +civility, or prefer to throw in their lot with the centrifugal +tendency and ride on the flying crest of change, are writers +dubbed Classic or Romantic. The Romantics are +individualist, anarchic; the strains of their passionate +incantation raise no cities to confront the wilderness in guarded +symmetry, but rather bring the stars shooting from their spheres, +and draw wild things captive to a voice. To them Society +and Law seem dull phantoms, by the light cast from a flaming +soul. They dwell apart, and torture their lives in the +effort to attain to self-expression. All means and modes +offered them by language they seize on greedily, and shape them +to this one end; they ransack the vocabulary of new sciences, and +appropriate or invent strange jargons. They furbish up old +words or weld together new indifferently, that they may possess +the machinery of their speech and not be possessed by it. +They are at odds with the idiom of their country in that it +serves the common need, and hunt it through all its metamorphoses +to subject it to their private will. <a +name="page38"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 38</span>Heretics by +profession, they are everywhere opposed to the party of the +Classics, who move by slower ways to ends less personal, but in +no wise easier of attainment. The magnanimity of the +Classic ideal has had scant justice done to it by modern +criticism. To make literature the crowning symbol of a +world-wide civilisation; to roof in the ages, and unite the elect +of all time in the courtesy of one shining assembly, paying duty +to one unquestioned code; to undo the work of Babel, and knit +together in a single community the scattered efforts of mankind +towards order and reason;—this was surely an aim worthy of +labour and sacrifice. Both have been freely given, and the +end is yet to seek. The self-assertion of the recusants has +found eulogists in plenty, but who has celebrated the self-denial +that was thrown away on this other task, which is farther from +fulfilment now than it was when the scholars of the Renaissance +gave up their patriotism and the tongue of their childhood in the +name of fellow-citizenship with the ancients and the +œcumenical authority of letters? Scholars, +grammarians, wits, and poets were content to bury <a +name="page39"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 39</span>the lustre of +their wisdom and the hard-won fruits of their toil in the +winding-sheet of a dead language, that they might be numbered +with the family of Cicero, and added to the pious train of +Virgil. It was a noble illusion, doomed to failure, the +versatile genius of language cried out against the monotony of +their Utopia, and the crowds who were to people the unbuilded +city of their dreams went straying after the feathered chiefs of +the rebels, who, when the fulness of time was come, themselves +received apotheosis and the honours of a new motley +pantheon. The tomb of that great vision bears for epitaph +the ironical inscription which defines a Classic poet as “a +dead Romantic.”</p> +<p>In truth the Romantics are right, and the serenity of the +classic ideal is the serenity of paralysis and death. A +universal agreement in the use of words facilitates +communication, but, so inextricably is expression entangled with +feeling, it leaves nothing to communicate. Inanity dogs the +footsteps of the classic tradition, which is everywhere lackeyed, +through a long decline, by the pallor of reflected glories. +Even the irresistible novelty <a name="page40"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 40</span>of personal experience is dulled by +being cast in the old matrix, and the man who professes to find +the whole of himself in the Bible or in Shakespeare had as good +not be. He is a replica and a shadow, a foolish libel on +his Creator, who, from the beginning of time, was never guilty of +tautology. This is the error of the classical creed, to +imagine that in a fleeting world, where the quickest eye can +never see the same thing twice, and a deed once done can never be +repeated, language alone should be capable of fixity and +finality. Nature avenges herself on those who would thus +make her prisoner, their truths degenerate to truisms, and +feeling dies in the ice-palaces that they build to house +it. In their search for permanence they become unreal, +abstract, didactic, lovers of generalisation, cherishers of the +dry bones of life; their art is transformed into a science, their +expression into an academic terminology. Immutability is +their ideal, and they find it in the arms of death. Words +must change to live, and a word once fixed becomes useless for +the purposes of art. Whosoever <a name="page41"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 41</span>would make acquaintance with the goal +towards which the classic practice tends, should seek it in the +vocabulary of the Sciences. There words are fixed and dead, +a botanical collection of colourless, scentless, dried weeds, a +<i>hortus siccus</i> of proper names, each individual symbol +poorly tethered to some single object or idea. No wind +blows through that garden, and no sun shines on it, to discompose +the melancholy workers at their task of tying Latin labels on to +withered sticks. Definition and division are the watchwords +of science, where art is all for composition and creation. +Not that the exact definable sense of a word is of no value to +the stylist; he profits by it as a painter profits by a study of +anatomy, or an architect by a knowledge of the strains and +stresses that may be put on his material. The exact logical +definition is often necessary for the structure of his thought +and the ordering of his severer argument. But often, too, +it is the merest beginning; when a word is once defined he +overlays it with fresh associations and buries it under new-found +moral significances, which may <a name="page42"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 42</span>belie the definition they +conceal. This is the burden of Jeremy Bentham’s +quarrel with “question-begging appellatives.” A +clear-sighted and scrupulously veracious philosopher, abettor of +the age of reason, apostle of utility, god-father of the +panopticon, and donor to the English dictionary of such +unimpassioned vocables as “codification” and +“international,” Bentham would have been glad to +purify the language by purging it of those “affections of +the soul” wherein Burke had found its highest glory. +Yet in censuring the ordinary political usage of such a word as +“innovation,” it was hardly prejudice in general that +he attacked, but the particular and deep-seated prejudice against +novelty. The surprising vivacity of many of his own +figures,—although he had the courage of his convictions, +and laboured, throughout the course of a long life, to desiccate +his style,—bears witness to a natural skill in the use of +loaded weapons. He will pack his text with grave argument +on matters ecclesiastical, and indulge himself and literature, in +the notes with a pleasant description of the flesh and <a +name="page43"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 43</span>the spirit +playing leap-frog, now one up, now the other, around the holy +precincts of the Church. Lapses like these show him far +enough from his own ideal of a geometric fixity in the use of +words. The claim of reason and logic to enslave language +has a more modern advocate in the philosopher who denies all +utility to a word while it retains traces of its primary sensuous +employ. The tickling of the senses, the raising of the +passions, these things do indeed interfere with the arid business +of definition. None the less they are the life’s +breath of literature, and he is a poor stylist who cannot beg +half-a-dozen questions in a single epithet, or state the +conclusion he would fain avoid in terms that startle the senses +into clamorous revolt.</p> +<p>The two main processes of change in words are Distinction and +Assimilation. Endless fresh distinction, to match the +infinite complexity of things, is the concern of the writer, who +spends all his skill on the endeavour to cloth the delicacies of +perception and thought with a neatly fitting garment. So +words grow and bifurcate, diverge and dwindle, until one root has +many branches. <a name="page44"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 44</span>Grammarians tell how +“royal” and “regal” grew up by the side +of “kingly,” how “hospital,” +“hospice,” “hostel” and +“hotel” have come by their several offices. The +inventor of the word “sensuous” gave to the English +people an opportunity of reconsidering those headstrong moral +preoccupations which had already ruined the meaning of +“sensual” for the gentler uses of a poet. Not +only the Puritan spirit, but every special bias or interest of +man seizes on words to appropriate them to itself. +Practical men of business transfer such words as +“debenture” or “commodity” from debt or +comfort in general to the palpable concrete symbols of debt or +comfort; and in like manlier doctors, soldiers, lawyers, +shipmen,—all whose interest and knowledge are centred on +some particular craft or profession, drag words from the general +store and adapt them to special uses. Such words are +sometimes reclaimed from their partial applications by the +authority of men of letters, and pass back into their wider +meanings enhanced by a new element of graphic association. +Language never suffers <a name="page45"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 45</span>by answering to an intelligent +demand; it is indebted not only to great authors, but to all whom +any special skill or taste has qualified to handle it. The +good writer may be one who disclaims all literary pretension, but +there he is, at work among words,—binding the vagabond or +liberating the prisoner, exalting the humble or abashing the +presumptuous, incessantly alert to amend their implications, +break their lazy habits, and help them to refinement or scope or +decision. He educates words, for he knows that they are +alive.</p> +<p>Compare now the case of the ruder multitude. In the +regard of literature, as a great critic long ago remarked, +“all are the multitude; only they differ in clothes, not in +judgment or understanding,” <a name="page46"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 46</span>and the poorest talkers do not +inhabit the slums. Wherever thought and taste have fallen +to be menials, there the vulgar dwell. How should they gain +mastery over language? They are introduced to a vocabulary +of some hundred thousand words, which quiver through a million of +meanings; the wealth is theirs for the taking, and they are +encouraged to be spendthrift by the very excess of what they +inherit. The resources of the tongue they speak are subtler +and more various than ever their ideas can put to use. So +begins the process of assimilation, the edge put upon words by +the craftsman is blunted by the rough treatment of the confident +booby, who is well pleased when out of many highly-tempered +swords he has manufactured a single clumsy coulter. A dozen +expressions to serve one slovenly meaning inflate him with the +sense of luxury and pomp. “Vast,” +“huge,” “immense,” +“gigantic,” “enormous,” +“tremendous,” “portentous,” and such-like +groups of words, lose all their variety of sense in a barren +uniformity of low employ. The reign of this democracy +annuls differences of status, and insults over differences of +ability or disposition. Thus do synonyms, or many words ill +applied to one purpose, begin to flourish, and, for a last +indignity, dictionaries of synonyms.</p> +<p>Let the truth be said outright: there are no synonyms, and the +same statement can never be repeated in a changed form of +words. Where the <a name="page47"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 47</span>ignorance of one writer has +introduced an unnecessary word into the language, to fill a place +already occupied, the quicker apprehension of others will fasten +upon it, drag it apart from its fellows, and find new work for it +to do. Where a dull eye sees nothing but sameness, the +trained faculty of observation will discern a hundred differences +worthy of scrupulous expression. The old foresters had +different names for a buck during each successive year of its +life, distinguishing the fawn from the pricket, the pricket from +the sore, and so forth, as its age increased. Thus it is +also in that illimitable but not trackless forest of moral +distinctions. Language halts far behind the truth of +things, and only a drowsy perception can fail to devise a use for +some new implement of description. Every strange word that +makes its way into a language spins for itself a web of usage and +circumstance, relating itself from whatsoever centre to fresh +points in the circumference. No two words ever coincide +throughout their whole extent. If sometimes good writers +are found adding epithet to epithet for the same quality, and +name to name <a name="page48"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +48</span>for the same thing, it is because they despair of +capturing their meaning at a venture, and so practise to get near +it by a maze of approximations. Or, it may be, the generous +breadth of their purpose scorns the minuter differences of +related terms, and includes all of one affinity, fearing only +lest they be found too few and too weak to cover the ground +effectively. Of this sort are the so-called synonyms of the +Prayer-Book, wherein we “acknowledge and confess” the +sins we are forbidden to “dissemble or cloke;” and +the bead-roll of the lawyer, who huddles together “give, +devise, and bequeath,” lest the cunning of litigants should +evade any single verb. The works of the poets yield still +better instances. When Milton praises the <i>Virtuous Young +Lady</i> of his sonnet in that the spleen of her detractors moves +her only to “pity and ruth,” it is not for the idle +filling of the line that he joins the second of these nouns to +the first. Rather he is careful to enlarge and intensify +his meaning by drawing on the stores of two nations, the one +civilised, the other barbarous; and ruth is a quality as much +more <a name="page49"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +49</span>instinctive and elemental than pity as pitilessness is +keener, harder, and more deliberate than the inborn savagery of +ruthlessness.</p> +<p>It is not chiefly, however, for the purposes of this +accumulated and varied emphasis that the need of synonyms is +felt. There is no more curious problem in the philosophy of +style than that afforded by the stubborn reluctance of writers, +the good as well as the bad, to repeat a word or phrase. +When the thing is, they may be willing to abide by the old rule +and say the word, but when the thing repeats itself they will +seldom allow the word to follow suit. A kind of interdict, +not removed until the memory of the first occurrence has faded, +lies on a once used word. The causes of this anxiety for a +varied expression are manifold. Where there is merely a +column to fill, poverty of thought drives the hackney author into +an illicit fulness, until the trick of verbiage passes from his +practice into his creed, and makes him the dupe of his own +puppets. A commonplace book, a dictionary of synonyms, and +another of phrase and fable equip him for his task; if he <a +name="page50"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 50</span>be called +upon to marshal his ideas on the question whether oysters breed +typhoid, he will acquit himself voluminously, with only one +allusion (it is a point of pride) to the oyster by name. He +will compare the succulent bivalve to Pandora’s box, and +lament that it should harbour one of the direst of ills that +flesh is heir to. He will find a paradox and an epigram in +the notion that the darling of Apicius should suffer neglect +under the frowns of Æsculapius. Question, hypothesis, +lamentation, and platitude dance their allotted round and fill +the ordained space, while Ignorance masquerades in the garb of +criticism, and Folly proffers her ancient epilogue of chastened +hope. When all is said, nothing is said; and +Montaigne’s <i>Que sçais-je</i>, besides being +briefer and wittier, was infinitely more informing.</p> +<p>But we dwell too long with disease; the writer nourished on +thought, whose nerves are braced and his loins girt to struggle +with a real meaning, is not subject to these tympanies. He +feels no idolatrous dread of repetition when the theme requires, +it, and is urged by no necessity of concealing real <a +name="page51"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 51</span>identity +under a show of change. Nevertheless he, too, is hedged +about by conditions that compel him, now and again, to resort to +what seems a synonym. The chief of these is the +indispensable law of euphony, which governs the sequence not only +of words, but also of phrases. In proportion as a phrase is +memorable, the words that compose it become mutually adhesive, +losing for a time something of their individual scope, bringing +with them, if they be torn away too quickly, some cumbrous +fragments of their recent association. That he may avoid +this, a sensitive writer is often put to his shifts, and extorts, +if he be fortunate, a triumph from the accident of his +encumbrance. By a slight stress laid on the difference of +usage the unshapeliness may be done away with, and a new grace +found where none was sought. Addison and Landor accuse +Milton, with reason, of too great a fondness for the pun, yet +surely there is something to please the mind, as well as the ear, +in the description of the heavenly judgment,</p> +<blockquote><p>That brought into this world a world of woe.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Where words are not fitted with a single hard <a +name="page52"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 52</span>definition, +rigidly observed, all repetition is a kind of delicate punning, +bringing slight differences of application into clear +relief. The practice has its dangers for the weak-minded +lover of ornament, yet even so it may be preferable to the flat +stupidity of one identical intention for a word or phrase in +twenty several contexts. For the law of incessant change is +not so much a counsel of perfection to be held up before the +apprentice, as a fundamental condition of all writing whatsoever; +if the change be not ordered by art it will order itself in +default of art. The same statement can never be repeated +even in the same form of words, and it is not the old question +that is propounded at the third time of asking. Repetition, +that is to say, is the strongest generator of emphasis known to +language. Take the exquisite repetitions in these few +lines:—</p> +<blockquote><p>Bitter constraint and sad occasion dear<br /> +Compels me to disturb your season due;<br /> +For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,<br /> +Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Here the tenderness of affection returns again <a +name="page53"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 53</span>to the loved +name, and the grief of the mourner repeats the word +“dead.” But this monotony of sorrow is the +least part of the effect, which lies rather in the prominence +given by either repetition to the most moving circumstance of +all—the youthfulness of the dead poet. The attention +of the discursive intellect, impatient of reiteration, is +concentrated on the idea which these repeated and exhausted words +throw into relief. Rhetoric is content to borrow force from +simpler methods; a good orator will often bring his hammer down, +at the end of successive periods, on the same phrase; and the +mirthless refrain of a comic song, or the catchword of a buffoon, +will raise laughter at last by its brazen importunity. Some +modern writers, admiring the easy power of the device, have +indulged themselves with too free a use of it; Matthew Arnold +particularly, in his prose essays, falls to crying his text like +a hawker,</p> +<blockquote><p>Beating it in upon our weary brains,<br /> +As tho’ it were the burden of a song,</p> +</blockquote> +<p>clattering upon the iron of the Philistine giant in the effort +to bring him to reason. These are the <a +name="page54"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 54</span>ostentatious +violences of a missionary, who would fain save his enemy alive, +where a grimmer purpose is glad to employ a more silent weapon +and strike but once. The callousness of a thick-witted +auditory lays the need for coarse method on the gentlest soul +resolved to stir them. But he whose message is for minds +attuned and tempered will beware of needless reiteration, as of +the noisiest way of emphasis. Is the same word wanted +again, he will examine carefully whether the altered incidence +does not justify and require an altered term, which the world is +quick to call a synonym. The right dictionary of synonyms +would give the context of each variant in the usage of the best +authors. To enumerate all the names applied by Milton to +the hero of <i>Paradise Lost</i>, without reference to the +passages in which they occur, would be a foolish labour; with +such reference, the task is made a sovereign lesson in +style. At Hell gates, where he dallies in speech with his +leman Sin to gain a passage from the lower World, Satan is +“the subtle Fiend,” in the garden of Paradise he is +“the Tempter” and “the Enemy of Mankind,” +<a name="page55"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 55</span>putting +his fraud upon Eve he is the “wily Adder,” leading +her in full course to the tree he is “the dire +Snake,” springing to his natural height before the +astonished gaze of the cherubs he is “the grisly +King.” Every fresh designation elaborates his +character and history, emphasises the situation, and saves a +sentence. So it is with all variable appellations of +concrete objects; and even in the stricter and more conventional +region of abstract ideas the same law runs. Let a word be +changed or repeated, it brings in either case its contribution of +emphasis, and must be carefully chosen for the part it is to +play, lest it should upset the business of the piece by +irrelevant clownage in the midst of high matter, saying more or +less than is set down for it in the author’s purpose.</p> +<p>The chameleon quality of language may claim yet another +illustration. Of origins we know nothing certainly, nor how +words came by their meanings in the remote beginning, when +speech, like the barnacle-goose of the herbalist, was suspended +over an expectant world, ripening on a tree. But this we +know, that language in its <a name="page56"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 56</span>mature state is fed and fattened on +metaphor. Figure is not a late device of the rhetorician, +but the earliest principle of change in language. The whole +process of speech is a long series of exhilarating discoveries, +whereby words, freed from the swaddling bands of their nativity, +are found capable of new relations and a wider metaphorical +employ. Then, with the growth of exact knowledge, the +straggling associations that attended the word on its travels are +straitened and confined, its meaning is settled, adjusted, and +balanced, that it may bear its part in the scrupulous deposition +of truth. Many are the words that have run this double +course, liberated from their first homely offices and transformed +by poetry, reclaimed in a more abstract sense, and appropriated +to a new set of facts by science. Yet a third chance awaits +them when the poet, thirsty for novelty, passes by the old simple +founts of figure to draw metaphor from the latest technical +applications of specialised terms. Everywhere the intuition +of poetry, impatient of the sturdy philosophic cripple that lags +so <a name="page57"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 57</span>far +behind, is busy in advance to find likenesses not susceptible of +scientific demonstration, to leap to comparisons that satisfy the +heart while they leave the colder intellect only half +convinced. When an elegant dilettante like Samuel Rogers is +confronted with the principle of gravitation he gives voice to +science in verse:—</p> +<blockquote><p>That very law which moulds a tear,<br /> + And bids it trickle from its source,<br /> +That law preserves the earth a sphere,<br /> + And guides the planets in their course.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>But a seer like Wordsworth will never be content to write +tunes for a text-book of physics, he boldly confounds the +arbitrary limits of matter and morals in one splendid apostrophe +to Duty:—</p> +<blockquote><p> Flowers laugh before thee on +their beds;<br /> + And fragrance in thy footing treads;<br /> + Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong;<br /> +And the most ancient heavens, through thee, are fresh and +strong.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Poets, it is said, anticipate science; here in these four +lines is work for a thousand laboratories for a thousand +years. But the truth has been understated; every writer and +every speaker <a name="page58"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +58</span>works ahead of science, expressing analogies and +contrasts, likenesses and differences, that will not abide the +apparatus of proof. The world of perception and will, of +passion and belief, is an uncaptured virgin, airily deriding from +afar the calculated advances and practised modesty of the old +bawd Science; turning again to shower a benediction of unexpected +caresses on the most cavalier of her wooers, Poetry. This +world, the child of Sense and Faith, shy, wild, and provocative, +for ever lures her lovers to the chase, and the record of their +hopes and conquests is contained in the lover’s language, +made up wholly of parable and figure of speech. There is +nothing under the sun nor beyond it that does not concern man, +and it is the unceasing effort of humanity, whether by letters or +by science, to bring “the commerce of the mind and of +things” to terms of nearer correspondence. But +Literature, ambitious to touch life on all its sides, distrusts +the way of abstraction, and can hardly be brought to abandon the +point of view whence things are seen in their immediate relation +to the <a name="page59"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +59</span>individual soul. This kind of research is the work +of letters; here are facts of human life to be noted that are +never like to be numerically tabulated, changes and developments +that defy all metrical standards to be traced and +described. The greater men of science have been cast in so +generous a mould that they have recognised the partial nature of +their task; they have known how to play with science as a +pastime, and to win and wear her decorations for a holiday +favour. They have not emaciated the fulness of their +faculties in the name of certainty, nor cramped their humanity +for the promise of a future good. They have been the +servants of Nature, not the slaves of method. But the +grammarian of the laboratory is often the victim of his +trade. He staggers forth from his workshop, where prolonged +concentration on a mechanical task, directed to a provisional and +doubtful goal, has dimmed his faculties; the glaring motley of +the world, bathed in sunlight, dazzles him; the questions, moral, +political, and personal, that his method has relegated to some +future of larger <a name="page60"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +60</span>knowledge, crowd upon him, clamorous for solution, not +to be denied, insisting on a settlement to-day. He is +forced to make a choice, and may either forsake the divinity he +serves, falling back, for the practical and æsthetic +conduct of life, on those common instincts of sensuality which +oscillate between the conventicle and the tavern as the poles of +duty and pleasure, or, more pathetically still, he may attempt to +bring the code of the observatory to bear immediately on the +vagaries of the untameable world, and suffer the pedant’s +disaster. A martyr to the good that is to be, he has +voluntarily maimed himself “for the kingdom of +Heaven’s sake”—if, perchance, the kingdom of +Heaven might come by observation. The enthusiasm of his +self-denial shows itself in his unavailing struggle to chain +language also to the bare rock of ascertained fact. +Metaphor, the poet’s right-hand weapon, he despises; all +that is tentative, individual, struck off at the urging of a +mood, he disclaims and suspects. Yet the very rewards that +science promises have their parallel in the domain of +letters. The discovery of likeness <a +name="page61"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 61</span>in the midst +of difference, and of difference in the midst of likeness, is the +keenest pleasure of the intellect; and literary expression, as +has been said, is one long series of such discoveries, each with +its thrill of incommunicable happiness, all unprecedented, and +perhaps unverifiable by later experiment. The finest +instrument of these discoveries is metaphor, the spectroscope of +letters.</p> +<p>Enough has been said of change; it remains to speak of one +more of those illusions of fixity wherein writers seek exemption +from the general lot. Language, it has been shown, is to be +fitted to thought; and, further, there are no synonyms. +What more natural conclusion could be drawn by the enthusiasm of +the artist than that there is some kind of preordained harmony +between words and things, whereby expression and thought tally +exactly, like the halves of a puzzle? This illusion, called +in France the doctrine of the <i>mot propre</i>, is a will +o’ the wisp which has kept many an artist dancing on its +trail. That there is one, and only one way of expressing +one thing has <a name="page62"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +62</span>been the belief of other writers besides Gustave +Flaubert, inspiriting them to a desperate and fruitful +industry. It is an amiable fancy, like the dream of Michael +Angelo, who loved to imagine that the statue existed already in +the block of marble, and had only to be stripped of its +superfluous wrappings, or like the indolent fallacy of those +economic soothsayers to whom Malthus brought rough awakening, +that population and the means of subsistence move side by side in +harmonious progress. But hunger does not imply food, and +there may hover in the restless heads of poets, as themselves +testify—</p> +<blockquote><p>One thought, one grace, one wonder, at the +least,<br /> +Which into words no virtue can digest.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Matter and form are not so separable as the popular philosophy +would have them; indeed, the very antithesis between them is a +cardinal instance of how language reacts on thought, modifying +and fixing a cloudy truth. The idea pursues form not only +that it may be known to others, but that it may know itself, and +the body in which it becomes incarnate is not to be distinguished +from <a name="page63"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 63</span>the +informing soul. It is recorded of a famous Latin historian +how he declared that he would have made Pompey win the battle of +Pharsalia had the effective turn of the sentence required +it. He may stand for the true type of the literary +artist. The business of letters, howsoever simple it may +seem to those who think truth-telling a gift of nature, is in +reality two-fold, to find words for a meaning, and to find a +meaning for words. Now it is the words that refuse to +yield, and now the meaning, so that he who attempts to wed them +is at the same time altering his words to suit his meaning, and +modifying and shaping his meaning to satisfy the requirements of +his words. The humblest processes of thought have had their +first education from language long before they took shape in +literature. So subtle is the connexion between the two that +it is equally possible to call language the form given to the +matter of thought, or, inverting the application of the figure, +to speak of thought as the formal principle that shapes the raw +material of language. It is not until the two become one +that they can be <a name="page64"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +64</span>known for two. The idea to be expressed is a kind +of mutual recognition between thought and language, which here +meet and claim each other for the first time, just as in the +first glance exchanged by lovers, the unborn child opens its eyes +on the world, and pleads for life. But thought, although it +may indulge itself with the fancy of a predestined affiance, is +not confined to one mate, but roves free and is the father of +many children. A belief in the inevitable word is the last +refuge of that stubborn mechanical theory of the universe which +has been slowly driven from science, politics, and history. +Amidst so much that is undulating, it has pleased writers to +imagine that truth persists and is provided by heavenly +munificence with an imperishable garb of language. But this +also is vanity, there is one end appointed alike to all, fact +goes the way of fiction, and what is known is no more perdurable +than what is made. Not words nor works, but only that which +is formless endures, the vitality that is another name for +change, the breath that fills and shatters the bubbles of good +and <a name="page65"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 65</span>evil, +of beauty and deformity, of truth and untruth.</p> +<p>No art is easy, least of all the art of letters. Apply +the musical analogy once more to the instrument whereon +literature performs its voluntaries. With a living keyboard +of notes which are all incessantly changing in value, so that +what rang true under Dr. Johnson’s hand may sound flat or +sharp now, with a range of a myriad strings, some falling mute +and others being added from day to day, with numberless +permutations and combinations, each of which alters the tone and +pitch of the units that compose it, with fluid ideas that never +have an outlined existence until they have found their phrases +and the improvisation is complete, is it to be wondered at that +the art of style is eternally elusive, and that the attempt to +reduce it to rule is the forlorn hope of academic +infatuation?</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>These difficulties and complexities of the instrument are, +nevertheless, the least part of the ordeal that is to be +undergone by the writer. The <a name="page66"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 66</span>same musical note or phrase affects +different ears in much the same way; not so the word or group of +words. The pure idea, let us say, is translated into +language by the literary composer; who is to be responsible for +the retranslation of the language into idea? Here begins +the story of the troubles and weaknesses that are imposed upon +literature by the necessity it lies under of addressing itself to +an audience, by its liability to anticipate the corruptions that +mar the understanding of the spoken or written word. A word +is the operative symbol of a relation between two minds, and is +chosen by the one not without regard to the quality of the effect +actually produced upon the other. Men must be spoken to in +their accustomed tongue, and persuaded that the unknown God +proclaimed by the poet is one whom aforetime they ignorantly +worshipped. The relation of great authors to the public may +be compared to the war of the sexes, a quiet watchful antagonism +between two parties mutually indispensable to each other, at one +time veiling itself in endearments, at another breaking out into +open <a name="page67"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +67</span>defiance. He who has a message to deliver must +wrestle with his fellows before he shall be permitted to ply them +with uncomfortable or unfamiliar truths. The public, like +the delicate Greek Narcissus, is sleepily enamoured of itself; +and the name of its only other perfect lover is Echo. Yet +even great authors must lay their account with the public, and it +is instructive to observe how different are the attitudes they +have adopted, how uniform the disappointment they have +felt. Some, like Browning and Mr. Meredith in our own day, +trouble themselves little about the reception given to their +work, but are content to say on, until the few who care to listen +have expounded them to the many, and they are applauded, in the +end, by a generation whom they have trained to appreciate +them. Yet this noble and persevering indifference is none +of their choice, and long years of absolution from criticism must +needs be paid for in faults of style. “Writing for +the stage,” Mr. Meredith himself has remarked, “would +be a corrective of a too-incrusted scholarly style into which +some great ones fall at times.” Denied such a +corrective, the <a name="page68"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +68</span>great one is apt to sit alone and tease his meditations +into strange shapes, fortifying himself against obscurity and +neglect with the reflection that most of the words he uses are to +be found, after all, in the dictionary. It is not, however, +from the secluded scholar that the sharpest cry of pain is wrung +by the indignities of his position, but rather from genius in the +act of earning a full meed of popular applause. Both +Shakespeare and Ben Jonson wrote for the stage, both were blown +by the favouring breath of their plebeian patrons into reputation +and a competence. Each of them passed through the thick of +the fight, and well knew that ugly corner where the artist is +exposed to cross fires, his own idea of masterly work on the one +hand and the necessity for pleasing the rabble on the +other. When any man is awake to the fact that the public is +a vile patron, when he is conscious also that his bread and his +fame are in their gift—it is a stern passage for his soul, +a touchstone for the strength and gentleness of his spirit. +Jonson, whose splendid scorn took to itself lyric wings in the +two great Odes to Himself, sang <a name="page69"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 69</span>high and aloof for a while, then the +frenzy caught him, and he flung away his lyre to gird himself for +deeds of mischief among nameless and noteless antagonists. +Even Chapman, who, in <i>The Tears of Peace</i>, compares +“men’s refuse ears” to those gates in ancient +cities which were opened only when the bodies of executed +malefactors were to be cast away, who elsewhere gives utterance, +in round terms, to his belief that</p> +<blockquote><p>No truth of excellence was ever seen<br /> +But bore the venom of the vulgar’s spleen,</p> +</blockquote> +<p>—even the violences of this great and haughty spirit +must pale beside the more desperate violences of the dramatist +who commended his play to the public in the famous line,</p> +<blockquote><p>By God, ’tis good, and if you like’t, +you may.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>This stormy passion of arrogant independence disturbs the +serenity of atmosphere necessary for creative art. A +greater than Jonson donned the suppliant’s robes, like +Coriolanus, and with the inscrutable honeyed smile about his lips +begged for the “most sweet voices” of the journeymen +<a name="page70"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 70</span>and +gallants who thronged the Globe Theatre. Only once does the +wail of anguish escape him—</p> +<blockquote><p>Alas! ’tis true, I have gone here and +there,<br /> + And made myself a motley to the view,<br /> +Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And again—</p> +<blockquote><p>Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,<br +/> + And almost thence my nature is subdued<br /> +To what it works in, like the dyer’s hand,<br /> + Pity me then, and wish I were renewed.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Modern vulgarity, speaking through the mouths of Shakesperian +commentators, is wont to interpret these lines as a protest +against the contempt wherewith Elizabethan society regarded the +professions of playwright and actor. We are asked to +conceive that Shakespeare humbly desires the pity of his bosom +friend because he is not put on the same level of social +estimation with a brocaded gull or a prosperous stupid goldsmith +of the Cheap. No, it is a cry, from the depth of his +nature, for forgiveness because he has sacrificed a little on the +altar of popularity. Jonson would <a +name="page71"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 71</span>have boasted +that he never made this sacrifice. But he lost the calm of +his temper and the clearness of his singing voice, he degraded +his magnanimity by allowing it to engage in street-brawls, and he +endangered the sanctuary of the inviolable soul.</p> +<p>At least these great artists of the sixteenth and nineteenth +centuries are agreed upon one thing, that the public, even in its +most gracious mood, makes an ill task-master for the man of +letters. It is worth the pains to ask why, and to attempt +to show how much of an author’s literary quality is +involved in his attitude towards his audience. Such an +inquiry will take us, it is true, into bad company, and exhibit +the vicious, the fatuous, and the frivolous posturing to an +admiring crowd. But style is a property of all written and +printed matter, so that to track it to its causes and origins is +a task wherein literary criticism may profit by the humbler aid +of anthropological research.</p> +<p>Least of all authors is the poet subject to the tyranny of his +audience. “Poetry and eloquence,” <a +name="page72"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 72</span>says John +Stuart Mill, “are both alike the expression or utterance of +feeling. But if we may be excused the antithesis, we should +say that eloquence is heard, poetry is overheard. Eloquence +supposes an audience; the peculiarity of poetry appears to us to +lie in the poet’s utter unconsciousness of a +listener.” Poetry, according to this discerning +criticism, is an inspired soliloquy; the thoughts rise unforced +and unchecked, taking musical form in obedience only to the law +of their being, giving pleasure to an audience only as the +mountain spring may chance to assuage the thirst of a passing +traveller. In lyric poetry, language, from being a utensil, +or a medium of traffic and barter, passes back to its place among +natural sounds; its affinity is with the wind among the trees and +the stream among the rocks; it is the cry of the heart, as simple +as the breath we draw, and as little ordered with a view to +applause. Yet speech grew up in society, and even in the +most ecstatic of its uses may flag for lack of understanding and +response. It were rash to say that the poets need no +audience; the loneliest have <a name="page73"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 73</span>promised themselves a tardy +recognition, and some among the greatest came to their maturity +in the warm atmosphere of a congenial society. Indeed the +ratification set upon merit by a living audience, fit though few, +is necessary for the development of the most humane and +sympathetic genius; and the memorable ages of literature, in +Greece or Rome, in France or England, have been the ages of a +literary society. The nursery of our greatest dramatists +must be looked for, not, it is true, in the transfigured +bear-gardens of the Bankside, but in those enchanted taverns, +islanded and bastioned by the protective decree—</p> +<blockquote><p><i>Idiota</i>, <i>insulsus</i>, <i>tristis</i>, +<i>turpis</i>, <i>abesto</i>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The poet seems to be soliloquising because he is addressing +himself, with the most entire confidence, to a small company of +his friends, who may even, in unhappy seasons, prove to be the +creatures of his imagination. Real or imaginary, they are +taken by him for his equals; he expects from them a quick +intelligence and a perfect sympathy, which may enable him to +despise all <a name="page74"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +74</span>concealment. He never preaches to them, nor +scolds, nor enforces the obvious. Content that what he has +spoken he has spoken, he places a magnificent trust on a single +expression. He neither explains, nor falters, nor repents; +he introduces his work with no preface, and cumbers it with no +notes. He will not lower nor raise his voice for the sake +of the profane and idle who may chance to stumble across his +entertainment. His living auditors, unsolicited for the +tribute of worship or an alms, find themselves conceived of in +the likeness of what he would have them to be, raised to a +companion pinnacle of friendship, and constituted peers and +judges, if they will, of his achievement. Sometimes they +come late.</p> +<p>This blend of dignity and intimacy, of candour and +self-respect, is unintelligible to the vulgar, who understand by +intimacy mutual concession to a base ideal, and who are so +accustomed to deal with masks, that when they see a face they are +shocked as by some grotesque. Now a poet, like +Montaigne’s naked philosopher, is all face; and the +bewilderment of his masked and muffled critics <a +name="page75"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 75</span>is the +greater. Wherever he attracts general attention he cannot +but be misunderstood. The generality of modern men and +women who pretend to literature are not hypocrites, or they might +go near to divine him,—for hypocrisy, though rooted in +cowardice, demands for its flourishing a clear intellectual +atmosphere, a definite aim, and a certain detachment of the +directing mind. But they are habituated to trim themselves +by the cloudy mirror of opinion, and will mince and temporise, as +if for an invisible audience, even in their bedrooms. Their +masks have, for the most part, grown to their faces, so that, +except in some rare animal paroxysm of emotion, it is hardly +themselves that they express. The apparition of a poet +disquiets them, for he clothes himself with the elements, and +apologises to no idols. His candour frightens them: they +avert their eyes from it; or they treat it as a licensed whim; +or, with a sudden gleam of insight, and apprehension of what this +means for them and theirs, they scream aloud for fear. A +modern instance may be found in the angry protestations launched +<a name="page76"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 76</span>against +Rossetti’s Sonnets, at the time of their first appearance, +by a writer who has since matched himself very exactly with an +audience of his own kind. A stranger freak of burgess +criticism is everyday fare in the odd world peopled by the +biographers of Robert Burns. The nature of Burns, one would +think, was simplicity itself; it could hardly puzzle a ploughman, +and two sailors out of three would call him brother. But he +lit up the whole of that nature by his marvellous genius for +expression, and grave personages have been occupied ever since in +discussing the dualism of his character, and professing to find +some dark mystery in the existence of this, that, or the other +trait—a love of pleasure, a hatred of shams, a deep sense +of religion. It is common human nature, after all, that is +the mystery, but they seem never to have met with it, and treat +it as if it were the poet’s eccentricity. They are +all agog to worship him, and when they have made an image of him +in their own likeness, and given it a tin-pot head that exactly +hits their taste, they break into noisy lamentation over the +discovery <a name="page77"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +77</span>that the original was human, and had feet of clay. +They deem “Mary in Heaven” so admirable that they +could find it in their hearts to regret that she was ever on +earth. This sort of admirers constantly refuses to bear a +part in any human relationship; they ask to be fawned on, or +trodden on, by the poet while he is in life; when he is dead they +make of him a candidate for godship, and heckle him. It is +a misfortune not wholly without its compensations that most great +poets are dead before they are popular.</p> +<p>If great and original literary artists—here grouped +together under the title of poets—will not enter into +transactions with their audience, there is no lack of authors who +will. These are not necessarily charlatans; they may have +by nature a ready sympathy with the grossness of the public +taste, and thus take pleasure in studying to gratify it. +But man loses not a little of himself in crowds, and some +degradation there must be where the one adapts himself to the +many. The British public is not seen at its best when it is +enjoying a holiday in a foreign country, nor when <a +name="page78"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 78</span>it is making +excursions into the realm of imaginative literature: those who +cater for it in these matters must either study its tastes or +share them. Many readers bring the worst of themselves to a +novel; they want lazy relaxation, or support for their nonsense, +or escape from their creditors, or a free field for emotions that +they dare not indulge in life. The reward of an author who +meets them half-way in these respects, who neither puzzles nor +distresses them, who asks nothing from them, but compliments them +on their great possessions and sends them away rejoicing, is a +full measure of acceptance, and editions unto seventy times +seven.</p> +<p>The evils caused by the influence of the audience on the +writer are many. First of all comes a fault far enough +removed from the characteristic vices of the charlatan—to +wit, sheer timidity and weakness. There is a kind of +stage-fright that seizes on a man when he takes pen in hand to +address an unknown body of hearers, no less than when he stands +up to deliver himself to a sea of expectant faces. This is +the true panic fear, that walks at mid-day, and <a +name="page79"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 79</span>unmans those +whom it visits. Hence come reservations, qualifications, +verbosity, and the see-saw of a wavering courage, which apes +progress and purpose, as soldiers mark time with their +feet. The writing produced under these auspices is of no +greater moment than the incoherent loquacity of a nervous +patient. All self-expression is a challenge thrown down to +the world, to be taken up by whoso will; and the spirit of +timidity, when it touches a man, suborns him with the reminder +that he holds his life and goods by the sufferance of his +fellows. Thereupon he begins to doubt whether it is worth +while to court a verdict of so grave possibilities, or to risk +offending a judge—whose customary geniality is merely the +outcome of a fixed habit of inattention. In doubt whether +to speak or keep silence, he takes a middle course, and while +purporting to speak for himself, is careful to lay stress only on +the points whereon all are agreed, to enlarge eloquently on the +doubtfulness of things, and to give to words the very least +meaning that they will carry. Such a procedure, which +glides over essentials, and handles truisms <a +name="page80"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 80</span>or +trivialities with a fervour of conviction, has its functions in +practice. It will win for a politician the coveted and +deserved repute of a “safe” man—safe, even +though the cause perish. Pleaders and advocates are +sometimes driven into it, because to use vigorous, clean, crisp +English in addressing an ordinary jury or committee is like +flourishing a sword in a drawing-room: it will lose the +case. Where the weakest are to be convinced speech must +stoop: a full consideration of the velleities and uncertainties, +a little bombast to elevate the feelings without committing the +judgment, some vague effusion of sentiment, an inapposite +blandness, a meaningless rodomontade—these are the by-ways +to be travelled by the style that is a willing slave to its +audience. The like is true of those +documents—petitions, resolutions, congratulatory addresses, +and so forth—that are written to be signed by a multitude +of names. Public occasions of this kind, where all and +sundry are to be satisfied, have given rise to a new +parliamentary dialect, which has nothing of the freshness of +individual emotion, is powerless to deal with <a +name="page81"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 81</span>realities, +and lacks all resonance, vitality, and nerve. There is no +cure for this, where the feelings and opinions of a crowd are to +be expressed. But where indecision is the ruling passion of +the individual, he may cease to write. Popularity was never +yet the prize of those whose only care is to avoid offence.</p> +<p>For hardier aspirants, the two main entrances to popular +favour are by the twin gates of laughter and tears. Pathos +knits the soul and braces the nerves, humour purges the eyesight +and vivifies the sympathies; the counterfeits of these qualities +work the opposite effects. It is comparatively easy to +appeal to passive emotions, to play upon the melting mood of a +diffuse sensibility, or to encourage the narrow mind to dispense +a patron’s laughter from the vantage-ground of its own +small preconceptions. Our annual crop of sentimentalists +and mirth-makers supplies the reading public with food. +Tragedy, which brings the naked soul face to face with the +austere terrors of Fate, Comedy, which turns the light inward and +dissipates the mists of self-affection and self-esteem, <a +name="page82"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 82</span>have long +since given way on the public stage to the flattery of Melodrama, +under many names. In the books he reads and in the plays he +sees the average man recognises himself in the hero, and +vociferates his approbation.</p> +<p>The sensibility that came into vogue during the eighteenth +century was of a finer grain than its modern counterpart. +It studied delicacy, and sought a cultivated enjoyment in +evanescent shades of feeling, and the fantasies of unsubstantial +grief. The real Princess of Hans Andersen’s story, +who passed a miserable night because there was a small bean +concealed beneath the twenty eider-down beds on which she slept, +might stand for a type of the aristocracy of feeling that took a +pride in these ridiculous susceptibilities. The modern +sentimentalist works in a coarser material. That ancient, +subtle, and treacherous affinity among the emotions, whereby +religious exaltation has before now been made the ally of the +unpurified passions, is parodied by him in a simpler and more +useful device. By alleging a moral purpose he is enabled to +gratify the prurience of his public and to raise <a +name="page83"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 83</span>them in their +own muddy conceit at one and the same time. The plea serves +well with those artless readers who have been accustomed to +consider the moral of a story as something separable from +imagination, expression, and style—a quality, it may be, +inherent in the plot, or a kind of appendix, exercising a +retrospective power of jurisdiction and absolution over the +extravagances of the piece to which it is affixed. Let +virtue be rewarded, and they are content though it should never +be vitally imagined or portrayed. If their eyes were opened +they might cry with Brutus—“O miserable Virtue! +Thou art but a phrase, and I have followed thee as though thou +wert a reality.”</p> +<p>It is in quite another kind, however, that the modern purveyor +of sentiment exercises his most characteristic talent. +There are certain real and deeply-rooted feelings, common to +humanity, concerning which, in their normal operation, a grave +reticence is natural. They are universal in their appeal, +men would be ashamed not to feel them, and it is no small part of +the business of life to keep them under strict control. +Here is the sentimental <a name="page84"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 84</span>hucksters most valued +opportunity. He tears these primary instincts from the +wholesome privacy that shelters them in life, and cries them up +from his booth in the market-place. The elemental forces of +human life, which beget shyness in children, and touch the +spirits of the wise to solemn acquiescence, awaken him to noisier +declamation. He patronises the stern laws of love and pity, +hawking them like indulgences, cheapening and commanding them +like the medicines of a mountebank. The censure of his +critics he impudently meets by pointing to his wares: are not +some of the most sacred properties of humanity—sympathy +with suffering, family affection, filial devotion, and the +rest—displayed upon his stall? Not thus shall he +evade the charges brought against him. It is the sensual +side of the tender emotions that he exploits for the comfort of +the million. All the intricacies which life offers to the +will and the intellect he lards and obliterates by the timely +effusion of tearful sentiment. His humanitarianism is a +more popular, as it is an easier, ideal than humanity—it +asks no expense <a name="page85"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +85</span>of thought. There is a scanty public in England +for tragedy or for comedy: the characters and situations handled +by the sentimentalist might perchance furnish comedy with a +theme; but he stilts them for a tragic performance, and they +tumble into watery bathos, where a numerous public awaits +them.</p> +<p>A similar degradation of the intellectual elements that are +present in all good literature is practised by those whose single +aim is to provoke laughter. In much of our so-called comic +writing a superabundance of boisterous animal spirits, restrained +from more practical expression by the ordinances of civil +society, finds outlet and relief. The grimaces and +caperings of buffoonery, the gymnastics of the punster and the +parodist, the revels of pure nonsense may be, at their best, a +refreshment and delight, but they are not comedy, and have proved +in effect not a little hostile to the existence of comedy. +The prevalence of jokers, moreover, spoils the game of humour; +the sputter and sparkle of their made jokes interferes with that +luminous contemplation of the incongruities <a +name="page86"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 86</span>of life and +the universe which is humour’s essence. All that is +ludicrous depends on some disproportion: Comedy judges the actual +world by contrasting it with an ideal of sound sense, Humour +reveals it in its true dimensions by turning on it the light of +imagination and poetry. The perception of these +incongruities, which are eternal, demands some expense of +intellect; a cheaper amusement may be enjoyed by him who is +content to take his stand on his own habits and prejudices and to +laugh at all that does not square with them. This was the +method of the age which, in the abysmal profound of waggery, +engendered that portentous birth, the comic paper. +Foreigners, it is said, do not laugh at the wit of these +journals, and no wonder, for only a minute study of the customs +and preoccupations of certain sections of English society could +enable them to understand the point of view. From time to +time one or another of the writers who are called upon for their +weekly tale of jokes seems struggling upward to the free domain +of Comedy; but in vain, his public holds him down, and compels +him to laugh <a name="page87"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +87</span>in chains. Some day, perchance, a literary +historian, filled with the spirit of Cervantes or of +Molière, will give account of the Victorian era, and, not +disdaining small things, will draw a picture of the society which +inspired and controlled so resolute a jocularity. Then, at +last, will the spirit of Comedy recognise that these were indeed +what they claimed to be—comic papers.</p> +<p>“The style is the man;” but the social and +rhetorical influences adulterate and debase it, until not one man +in a thousand achieves his birthright, or claims his second +self. The fire of the soul burns all too feebly, and warms +itself by the reflected heat from the society around it. We +give back words of tepid greeting, without improvement. We +talk to our fellows in the phrases we learn from them, which come +to mean less and less as they grow worn with use. Then we +exaggerate and distort, heaping epithet upon epithet in the +endeavour to get a little warmth out of the smouldering +pile. The quiet cynicism of our everyday demeanour is open +and shameless, we callously anticipate objections founded on the +<a name="page88"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 88</span>well-known +vacuity of our seeming emotions, and assure our friends that we +are “truly” grieved or “sincerely” +rejoiced at their hap—as if joy or grief that really exists +were some rare and precious brand of joy or grief. In its +trivial conversational uses so simple and pure a thing as joy +becomes a sandwich-man—humanity degraded to an +advertisement. The poor dejected word shuffles along +through the mud in the service of the sleek trader who employs +it, and not until it meets with a poet is it rehabilitated and +restored to dignity.</p> +<p>This is no indictment of society, which came into being before +literature, and, in all the distraction of its multifarious +concerns, can hardly keep a school for Style. It is rather +a demonstration of the necessity, amid the wealthy disorder of +modern civilisation, for poetic diction. One of the hardest +of a poet’s tasks is the search for his vocabulary. +Perhaps in some idyllic pasture-land of Utopia there may have +flourished a state where division of labour was unknown, where +community of ideas, as well as of property, was absolute, and +where the language of every day ran <a name="page89"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 89</span>clear into poetry without the need of +a refining process. They say that Cædmon was a +cow-keeper: but the shepherds of Theocritus and Virgil are +figments of a courtly brain, and Wordsworth himself, in his +boldest flights of theory, was forced to allow of +selection. Even by selection from among the chaos of +implements that are in daily use around him, a poet can barely +equip himself with a choice of words sufficient for his needs; he +must have recourse to his predecessors; and so it comes about +that the poetry of the modern world is a store-house of obsolete +diction. The most surprising characteristic of the right +poetic diction, whether it draw its vocabulary from near at hand, +or avail itself of the far-fetched inheritance preserved by the +poets, is its matchless sincerity. Something of +extravagance there may be in those brilliant clusters of romantic +words that are everywhere found in the work of Shakespeare, or +Spenser, or Keats, but they are the natural leafage and fruitage +of a luxuriant imagination, which, lacking these, could not +attain to its full height. Only by the <a +name="page90"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 90</span>energy of the +arts can a voice be given to the subtleties and raptures of +emotional experience; ordinary social intercourse affords neither +opportunity nor means for this fervour of self-revelation. +And if the highest reach of poetry is often to be found in the +use of common colloquialisms, charged with the intensity of +restrained passion, this is not due to a greater sincerity of +expression, but to the strength derived from dramatic +situation. Where speech spends itself on its subject, drama +stands idle; but where the dramatic stress is at its greatest, +three or four words may enshrine all the passion of the +moment. Romeo’s apostrophe from under the +balcony—</p> +<blockquote><p>O, speak again, bright Angel! for thou art<br /> +As glorious to this night, being o’er my head,<br /> +As is a winged messenger of heaven<br /> +Unto the white-upturned wond’ring eyes<br /> +Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him,<br /> +When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds,<br /> +And sails upon the bosom of the air—</p> +</blockquote> +<p>though it breathe the soul of romance, must yield, for sheer +effect, to his later soliloquy, spoken when the news of +Juliet’s death is brought to him,</p> +<blockquote><p><a name="page91"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +91</span>Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee to-night.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And even the constellated glories of <i>Paradise Lost</i> are +less moving than the plain words wherein Samson forecasts his +approaching end—</p> +<blockquote><p>So much I feel my genial spirits droop,<br /> +My hopes all flat; Nature within me seems<br /> +In all her functions weary of herself;<br /> +My race of glory run and race of shame,<br /> +And I shall shortly be with them that rest.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Here are simple words raised to a higher power and animated +with a purer intention than they carry in ordinary life. It +is this unfailing note of sincerity, eloquent or laconic, that +has made poetry the teacher of prose. Phrases which, to all +seeming, might have been hit on by the first comer, are often cut +away from their poetical context and robbed of their musical +value that they may be transferred to the service of prose. +They bring with them, down to the valley, a wafted sense of some +region of higher thought and purer feeling. They bear, +perhaps, no marks of curious diction to know them by. +Whence comes the irresistible pathos of the lines—</p> +<blockquote><p><a name="page92"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +92</span>I cannot but remember such things were<br /> +That were most precious to me?</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The thought, the diction, the syntax, might all occur in +prose. Yet when once the stamp of poetry has been put upon +a cry that is as old as humanity, prose desists from rivalry, and +is content to quote. Some of the greatest prose-writers +have not disdained the help of these borrowed graces for the +crown of their fabric. In this way De Quincey widens the +imaginative range of his prose, and sets back the limits assigned +to prose diction. So too, Charles Lamb, interweaving the +stuff of experience with phrases quoted or altered from the +poets, illuminates both life and poetry, letting his sympathetic +humour play now on the warp of the texture, and now on the +woof. The style of Burke furnishes a still better example, +for the spontaneous evolution of his prose might be thought to +forbid the inclusion of borrowed fragments. Yet whenever he +is deeply stirred, memories of Virgil, Milton, or the English +Bible rise to his aid, almost as if strong emotion could express +itself in no other <a name="page93"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +93</span>language. Even the poor invectives of political +controversy gain a measure of dignity from the skilful +application of some famous line; the touch of the poet’s +sincerity rests on them for a moment, and seems to lend them an +alien splendour. It is like the blessing of a priest, +invoked by the pious, or by the worldly, for the good success of +whatever business they have in hand. Poetry has no temporal +ends to serve, no livelihood to earn, and is under no temptation +to cog and lie: wherefore prose pays respect to that loftier +calling, and that more unblemished sincerity.</p> +<p>Insincerity, on the other hand, is the commonest vice of +style. It is not to be avoided, except in the rarest cases, +by those to whom the written use of language is unfamiliar; so +that a shepherd who talks pithy, terse sense will be unable to +express himself in a letter without having recourse to the +<i>Ready Letter-writer</i>—“This comes hoping to find +you well, as it also leaves me at present”—and a +soldier, without the excuse of ignorance, will describe a +successful advance as having been made against “a thick +hail of bullets.” It permeates <a +name="page94"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 94</span>ordinary +journalism, and all writing produced under commercial +pressure. It taints the work of the young artist, caught by +the romantic fever, who glories in the wealth of vocabulary +discovered to him by the poets, and seeks often in vain for a +thought stalwart enough to wear that glistering armour. +Hence it is that the masters of style have always had to preach +restraint, self-denial, austerity. His style is a +man’s own; yet how hard it is to come by! It is a +man’s bride, to be won by labours and agonies that bespeak +a heroic lover. If he prove unable to endure the trial, +there are cheaper beauties, nearer home, easy to be conquered, +and faithless to their conqueror. Taking up with them, he +may attain a brief satisfaction, but he will never redeem his +quest.</p> +<p>As a body of practical rules, the negative precepts of +asceticism bring with them a certain chill. The page is +dull; it is so easy to lighten it with some flash of witty +irrelevance: the argument is long and tedious, why not relieve it +by wandering into some of those green enclosures that open +alluring doors upon the wayside? To roam <a +name="page95"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 95</span>at will, +spring-heeled, high-hearted, and catching at all good fortunes, +is the ambition of the youth, ere yet he has subdued himself to a +destination. The principle of self-denial seems at first +sight a treason done to genius, which was always privileged to be +wilful. In this view literature is a fortuitous series of +happy thoughts and heaven-sent findings. But the end of +that plan is beggary. Sprightly talk about the first object +that meets the eye and the indulgence of vagabond habits soon +degenerate to a professional garrulity, a forced face of dismal +cheer, and a settled dislike of strenuous exercise. The +economies and abstinences of discipline promise a kinder fate +than this. They test and strengthen purpose, without which +no great work comes into being. They save the expenditure +of energy on those pastimes and diversions which lead no nearer +to the goal. To reject the images and arguments that +proffer a casual assistance yet are not to be brought under the +perfect control of the main theme is difficult; how should it be +otherwise, for if they were not already dear to the writer they +would not have volunteered their aid.</p> +<p><a name="page96"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 96</span>It is +the more difficult, in that to refuse the unfit is no warrant of +better help to come. But to accept them is to fall back for +good upon a makeshift, and to hazard the enterprise in a hubbub +of disorderly claims. No train of thought is strengthened +by the addition of those arguments that, like camp-followers, +swell the number and the noise, without bearing a part in the +organisation. The danger that comes in with the employment +of figures of speech, similes, and comparisons is greater +still. The clearest of them may be attended by some element +of grotesque or paltry association, so that while they illumine +the subject they cannot truly be said to illustrate it. The +noblest, including those time-honoured metaphors that draw their +patent of nobility from war, love, religion, or the chase, in +proportion as they are strong and of a vivid presence, are also +domineering—apt to assume command of the theme long after +their proper work is done. So great is the headstrong power +of the finest metaphors, that an author may be incommoded by one +that does his business for him handsomely, as a <a +name="page97"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 97</span>king may +suffer the oppression of a powerful ally. When a lyric +begins with the splendid lines,</p> +<blockquote><p>Love still has something of the sea<br /> +From whence his mother rose,</p> +</blockquote> +<p>the further development of that song is already fixed and its +knell rung—to the last line there is no escaping from the +dazzling influences that presided over the first. Yet to +carry out such a figure in detail, as Sir Charles Sedley set +himself to do, tarnishes the sudden glory of the opening. +The lady whom Burns called Clarinda put herself in a like +quandary by beginning a song with this stanza—</p> +<blockquote><p>Talk not of Love, it gives me pain,<br /> + For Love has been my foe;<br /> +He bound me in an iron chain,<br /> + And plunged me deep in woe.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The last two lines deserve praise—even the praise they +obtained from a great lyric poet. But how is the song to be +continued? Genius might answer the question; to Clarinda +there came only the notion of a valuable contrast to be +established between love and friendship, and a tribute to be paid +to the kindly offices of the latter. The <a +name="page98"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 98</span>verses +wherein she gave effect to this idea make a poor sequel; +friendship, when it is personified and set beside the tyrant god, +wears very much the air of a benevolent county magistrate, whose +chief duty is to keep the peace.</p> +<p>Figures of this sort are in no sense removable decorations, +they are at one with the substance of the thought to be +expressed, and are entitled to the large control they +claim. Imagination, working at white heat, can fairly +subdue the matter of the poem to them, or fuse them with others +of the like temper, striking unity out of the composite +mass. One thing only is forbidden, to treat these +substantial and living metaphors as if they were elegant +curiosities, ornamental excrescences, to be passed over abruptly +on the way to more exacting topics. The mystics, and the +mystical poets, knew better than to countenance this +frivolity. Recognising that there is a profound and +intimate correspondence between all physical manifestations and +the life of the soul, they flung the reins on the neck of +metaphor in the hope that it might carry them over that +mysterious frontier. Their <a name="page99"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 99</span>failures and misadventures, +familiarly despised as “conceits,” left them +floundering in absurdity. Yet not since the time of Donne +and Crashaw has the full power and significance of figurative +language been realised in English poetry. These poets, like +some of their late descendants, were tortured by a sense of +hidden meaning, and were often content with analogies that admit +of no rigorous explanation. They were convinced that all +intellectual truth is a parable, though its inner meaning be dark +or dubious. The philosophy of friendship deals with those +mathematical and physical conceptions of distance, likeness, and +attraction—what if the law of bodies govern souls also, and +the geometer’s compasses measure more than it has entered +into his heart to conceive? Is the moon a name only for a +certain tonnage of dead matter, and is the law of passion +parochial while the law of gravitation is universal? +Mysticism will observe no such partial boundaries.</p> +<blockquote><p>O more than Moon!<br /> +Draw not up seas to drown me in thy sphere,<br /> +Weep me not dead in thine arms, but forbear<br /> +To teach the sea what it may do too soon.</p> +</blockquote> +<p><a name="page100"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 100</span>The +secret of these sublime intuitions, undivined by many of the +greatest poets, has been left to the keeping of transcendental +religion and the Catholic Church.</p> +<p>Figure and ornament, therefore, are not interchangeable terms; +the loftiest figurative style most conforms to the precepts of +gravity and chastity. None the less there is a decorative +use of figure, whereby a theme is enriched with imaginations and +memories that are foreign to the main purpose. Under this +head may be classed most of those allusions to the world’s +literature, especially to classical and Scriptural lore, which +have played so considerable, yet on the whole so idle, a part in +modern poetry. It is here that an inordinate love of +decoration finds its opportunity and its snare. To keep the +most elaborate comparison in harmony with its occasion, so that +when it is completed it shall fall back easily into the emotional +key of the narrative, has been the study of the great epic +poets. Milton’s description of the rebel legions +adrift on the flaming sea <a name="page101"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 101</span>is a fine instance of the difficulty +felt and conquered:</p> + +<blockquote><p> Angel +forms, who lay entranced<br /> +Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks<br /> +In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades<br /> +High over-arched embower; or scattered sedge<br /> +Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion armed<br /> +Hath vexed the Red-Sea coast, whose waves o’erthrew<br /> +Busiris and his Memphian chivalry,<br /> +While with perfidious hatred they pursued<br /> +The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld<br /> +From the safe shore their floating carcases<br /> +And broken chariot-wheels. So thick bestrown,<br /> +Abject and lost, lay these, covering the flood,<br /> +Under amazement of their hideous change.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The comparison seems to wander away at random, obedient to the +slightest touch of association. Yet in the end it is +brought back, its majesty heightened, and a closer element of +likeness introduced by the skilful turn that substitutes the +image of the shattered Egyptian army for the former images of +dead leaves and sea-weed. The incidental pictures, of the +roof of shades, of the watchers from the shore, and the very name +“Red Sea,” fortuitous as they may seem, all lend help +to the imagination in bodying forth <a name="page102"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 102</span>the scene described. An +earlier figure in the same book of <i>Paradise Lost</i>, because +it exhibits a less conspicuous technical cunning, may even better +show a poet’s care for unity of tone and impression. +Where Satan’s prostrate bulk is compared to</p> + +<blockquote><p> that +sea-beast<br /> +Leviathan, which God of all his works<br /> +Created hugest that swim the ocean-stream,</p> +</blockquote> +<p>the picture that follows of the Norse-pilot mooring his boat +under the lee of the monster is completed in a line that attunes +the mind once more to all the pathos and gloom of those infernal +deeps:</p> + +<blockquote><p> while +night<br /> +Invests the sea, and wishèd morn delays.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>So masterly a handling of the figures which usage and taste +prescribe to learned writers is rare indeed. The ordinary +small scholar disposes of his baggage less happily. Having +heaped up knowledge as a successful tradesman heaps up money, he +is apt to believe that his wealth makes him free of the company +of letters, and a fellow craftsman of the poets. The mark +of his style <a name="page103"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +103</span>is an excessive and pretentious allusiveness. It +was he whom the satirist designed in that taunt, <i>Scire tuum +nihil est nisi te scire hoc sciat alter</i>—“My +knowledge of thy knowledge is the knowledge thou +covetest.” His allusions and learned periphrases +elucidate nothing; they put an idle labour on the reader who +understands them, and extort from baffled ignorance, at which, +perhaps, they are more especially aimed, a foolish +admiration. These tricks and vanities, the very corruption +of ornament, will always be found while the power to acquire +knowledge is more general than the strength to carry it or the +skill to wield it. The collector has his proper work to do +in the commonwealth of learning, but the ownership of a museum is +a poor qualification for the name of artist. Knowledge has +two good uses; it may be frankly communicated for the benefit of +others, or it may minister matter to thought; an allusive writer +often robs it of both these functions. He must needs +display his possessions and his modesty at one and the same time, +producing his treasures unasked, and huddling them in uncouth <a +name="page104"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 104</span>fashion +past the gaze of the spectator, because, forsooth, he would not +seem to make a rarity of them. The subject to be treated, +the groundwork to be adorned, becomes the barest excuse for a +profitless haphazard ostentation. This fault is very +incident to the scholarly style, which often sacrifices emphasis +and conviction to a futile air of encyclopædic +grandeur.</p> +<p>Those who are repelled by this redundance of ornament, from +which even great writers are not wholly exempt, have sometimes +been driven by the force of reaction into a singular +fallacy. The futility of these literary quirks and graces +has induced them to lay art under the same interdict with +ornament. Style and stylists, one will say, have no +attraction for him, he had rather hear honest men utter their +thoughts directly, clearly, and simply. The choice of +words, says another, and the conscious manipulation of sentences, +is literary foppery; the word that first offers is commonly the +best, and the order in which the thoughts occur is the order to +be followed. Be natural, be straightforward, they urge, and +what <a name="page105"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 105</span>you +have to say will say itself in the best possible manner. It +is a welcome lesson, no doubt, that these deluded Arcadians +teach. A simple and direct style—who would not give +his all to purchase that! But is it in truth so easy to be +compassed? The greatest writers, when they are at the top +of happy hours, attain to it, now and again. Is all this +tangled contrariety of things a kind of fairyland, and does the +writer, alone among men, find that a beaten foot-path opens out +before him as he goes, to lead him, straight through the maze, to +the goal of his desires? To think so is to build a childish +dream out of facts imperfectly observed, and worthy of a closer +observation. Sometimes the cry for simplicity is the +reverse of what it seems, and is uttered by those who had rather +hear words used in their habitual vague acceptations than submit +to the cutting directness of a good writer. Habit makes +obscurity grateful, and the simple style, in this view, is the +style that allows thought to run automatically into its old +grooves and burrows. The original writers who have combined +real <a name="page106"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +106</span>literary power with the heresy of ease and nature are +of another kind. A brutal personality, excellently +muscular, snatching at words as the handiest weapons wherewith to +inflict itself, and the whole body of its thoughts and +preferences, on suffering humanity, is likely enough to deride +the daintiness of conscious art. Such a writer is William +Cobbett, who has often been praised for the manly simplicity of +his style, which he raised into a kind of creed. His power +is undeniable; his diction, though he knew it not, both choice +and chaste; yet page after page of his writing suggests only the +reflection that here is a prodigal waste of good English. +He bludgeons all he touches, and spends the same monotonous +emphasis on his dislike of tea and on his hatred of the +Government. His is the simplicity of a crude and violent +mind, concerned only with giving forcible expression to its +unquestioned prejudices. Irrelevance, the besetting sin of +the ill-educated, he glories in, so that his very weakness puts +on the semblance of strength, and helps to wield the hammer.</p> +<p><a name="page107"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 107</span>It is +not to be denied that there is a native force of temperament +which can make itself felt even through illiterate +carelessness. “Literary gentlemen, editors, and +critics,” says Thoreau, himself by no means a careless +writer, “think that they know how to write, because they +have studied grammar and rhetoric; but they are egregiously +mistaken. The <i>art</i> of composition is as simple as the +discharge of a bullet from a rifle, and its masterpieces imply an +infinitely greater force behind them.” This true +saying introduces us to the hardest problem of criticism, the +paradox of literature, the stumbling-block of rhetoricians. +To analyse the precise method whereby a great personality can +make itself felt in words, even while it neglects and contemns +the study of words, would be to lay bare the secrets of religion +and life—it is beyond human competence. Nevertheless +a brief and diffident consideration of the matter may bring thus +much comfort, that the seeming contradiction is no discredit cast +on letters, but takes its origin rather from too narrow and +pedantic a view of the scope of letters.</p> +<p><a name="page108"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 108</span>Words +are things: it is useless to try to set them in a world +apart. They exist in books only by accident, and for one +written there are a thousand, infinitely more powerful, +spoken. They are deeds: the man who brings word of a lost +battle can work no comparable effect with the muscles of his arm; +Iago’s breath is as truly laden with poison and murder as +the fangs of the cobra and the drugs of the assassin. Hence +the sternest education in the use of words is least of all to be +gained in the schools, which cultivate verbiage in a highly +artificial state of seclusion. A soldier cares little for +poetry, because it is the exercise of power that he loves, and he +is accustomed to do more with his words than give pleasure. +To keep language in immediate touch with reality, to lade it with +action and passion, to utter it hot from the heart of +determination, is to exhibit it in the plenitude of power. +All this may be achieved without the smallest study of literary +models, and is consistent with a perfect neglect of literary +canons. It is not the logical content of the word, but the +whole mesh of its conditions, <a name="page109"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 109</span>including the character, +circumstances, and attitude of the speaker, that is its true +strength. “Damn” is often the feeblest of +expletives, and “as you please” may be the dirge of +an empire. Hence it is useless to look to the grammarian, +or the critic, for a lesson in strength of style; the laws that +he has framed, good enough in themselves, are current only in his +own abstract world. A breath of hesitancy will sometimes +make trash of a powerful piece of eloquence; and even in writing, +a thing three times said, and each time said badly, may be of +more effect than that terse, full, and final expression which the +doctors rightly commend. The art of language, regarded as a +question of pattern and cadence, or even as a question of logic +and thought-sequence, is a highly abstract study; for although, +as has been said, you can do almost anything with words, with +words alone you can do next to nothing. The realm where +speech holds sway is a narrow shoal or reef, shaken, contorted, +and upheaved by volcanic action, beaten upon, bounded, and +invaded by the ocean of silence: whoso would be lord of <a +name="page110"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 110</span>the earth +must first tame the fire and the sea. Dramatic and +narrative writing are happy in this, that action and silence are +a part of their material; the story-teller or the playwright can +make of words a background and definition for deeds, a framework +for those silences that are more telling than any speech. +Here lies an escape from the poverty of content and method to +which self-portraiture and self-expression are liable; and +therefore are epic and drama rated above all other kinds of +poetry. The greater force of the objective treatment is +witnessed by many essayists and lyrical poets, whose ambition has +led them, sooner or later, to attempt the novel or the +play. There are weaknesses inherent in all direct +self-revelation; the thing, perhaps, is greatly said, yet there +is no great occasion for the saying of it; a fine reticence is +observed, but it is, after all, an easy reticence, with none of +the dramatic splendours of reticence on the rack. In the +midst of his pleasant confidences the essayist is brought up +short by the question, “Why must you still be +talking?” Even the passionate lyric feels the need of +external <a name="page111"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +111</span>authorisation, and some of the finest of lyrical poems, +like the Willow Song of Desdemona, or Wordsworth’s +<i>Solitary Reaper</i>, are cast in a dramatic mould, that beauty +of diction may be vitalised by an imagined situation. More +than others the dramatic art is an enemy to the desultory and the +superfluous, sooner than others it will cast away all formal +grace of expression that it may come home more directly to the +business and bosoms of men. Its great power and scope are +shown well in this, that it can find high uses for the commonest +stuff of daily speech and the emptiest phrases of daily +intercourse.</p> +<p>Simplicity and strength, then, the vigorous realistic quality +of impromptu utterance, and an immediate relation with the +elementary facts of life, are literary excellences best known in +the drama, and in its modern fellow and rival, the novel. +The dramatist and novelist create their own characters, set their +own scenes, lay their own plots, and when all has been thus +prepared, the right word is born in the purple, an inheritor of +great opportunities, all its virtues magnified by <a +name="page112"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 112</span>the glamour +of its high estate. Writers on philosophy, morals, or +æsthetics, critics, essayists, and dealers in soliloquy +generally, cannot hope, with their slighter means, to attain to +comparable effects. They work at two removes from life; the +terms that they handle are surrounded by the vapours of +discussion, and are rewarded by no instinctive response. +Simplicity, in its most regarded sense, is often beyond their +reach; the matter of their discourse is intricate, and the most +they can do is to employ patience, care, and economy of labour; +the meaning of their words is not obvious, and they must go aside +to define it. The strength of their writing has limits set +for it by the nature of the chosen task, and any transgression of +these limits is punished by a fall into sheer violence. All +writing partakes of the quality of the drama, there is always a +situation involved, the relation, namely, between the speaker and +the hearer. A gentleman in black, expounding his views, or +narrating his autobiography to the first comer, can expect no +such warmth of response as greets the dying speech of the baffled +patriot; yet he <a name="page113"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +113</span>too may take account of the reasons that prompt speech, +may display sympathy and tact, and avoid the faults of +senility. The only character that can lend strength to his +words is his own, and he sketches it while he states his +opinions; the only attitude that can ennoble his sayings is +implied in the very arguments he uses. Who does not know +the curious blank effect of eloquence overstrained or out of +place? The phrasing may be exquisite, the thought +well-knit, the emotion genuine, yet all is, as it were, dumb-show +where no community of feeling exists between the speaker and his +audience. A similar false note is struck by any speaker or +writer who misapprehends his position or forgets his +disqualifications, by newspaper writers using language that is +seemly only in one who stakes his life on his words, by preachers +exceeding the license of fallibility, by moralists condemning +frailty, by speculative traders deprecating frank ways of hazard, +by Satan rebuking sin.</p> +<p>“How many things are there,” exclaims the wise +Verulam, “which a man cannot, with any face or comeliness, +say or do himself! A man’s <a +name="page114"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 114</span>person hath +many proper relations which he cannot put off. A man cannot +speak to his son but as a father; to his wife, but as a husband; +to his enemy but upon terms; whereas a friend may speak as the +case requires, and not as it sorteth with the +person.” The like “proper relations” +govern writers, even where their audience is unknown to +them. It has often been remarked how few are the +story-tellers who can introduce themselves, so much as by a +passing reflection or sentiment, without a discordant +effect. The friend who saves the situation is found in one +and another of the creatures of their art.</p> +<p>For those who must play their own part the effort to conceal +themselves is of no avail. The implicit attitude of a +writer makes itself felt; an undue swelling of his subject to +heroic dimensions, an unwarrantable assumption of sympathy, a +tendency to truck with friends or with enemies by the way, are +all possible indications of weakness, which move even the least +skilled of readers to discount what is said, as they catch here +and there a glimpse of the old pot-companion, or the young <a +name="page115"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 115</span>dandy, +behind the imposing literary mask. Strong writers are those +who, with every reserve of power, seek no exhibition of +strength. It is as if language could not come by its full +meaning save on the lips of those who regard it as an evil +necessity. Every word is torn from them, as from a +reluctant witness. They come to speech as to a last resort, +when all other ways have failed. The bane of a literary +education is that it induces talkativeness, and an overweening +confidence in words. But those whose words are stark and +terrible seem almost to despise words.</p> +<p>With words literature begins, and to words it must +return. Coloured by the neighbourhood of silence, +solemnised by thought or steeled by action, words are still its +only means of rising above words. “<i>Accedat verbum +ad elementum</i>,” said St. Ambrose, “<i>et fiat +sacramentum</i>.” So the elementary passions, pity +and love, wrath and terror, are not in themselves poetical; they +must be wrought upon by the word to become poetry. In no +other way can suffering be transformed to pathos, or horror reach +its apotheosis in tragedy.</p> +<p><a name="page116"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 116</span>When +all has been said, there remains a residue capable of no formal +explanation. Language, this array of conventional symbols +loosely strung together, and blown about by every wandering +breath, is miraculously vital and expressive, justifying not a +few of the myriad superstitions that have always attached to its +use. The same words are free to all, yet no wealth or +distinction of vocabulary is needed for a group of words to take +the stamp of an individual mind and character. “As a +quality of style” says Mr. Pater, “soul is a +fact.” To resolve how words, like bodies, become +transparent when they are inhabited by that luminous reality, is +a higher pitch than metaphysic wit can fly. Ardent +persuasion and deep feeling enkindle words, so that the weakest +take on glory. The humblest and most despised of common +phrases may be the chosen vessel for the next avatar of the +spirit. It is the old problem, to be met only by the old +solution of the Platonist, that</p> +<blockquote><p>Soul is form, and doth the body make.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The soul is able to inform language by some <a +name="page117"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 117</span>strange +means other than the choice and arrangement of words and +phrases. Real novelty of vocabulary is impossible; in the +matter of language we lead a parasitical existence, and are +always quoting. Quotations, conscious or unconscious, vary +in kind according as the mind is active to work upon them and +make them its own. In its grossest and most servile form +quotation is a lazy folly; a thought has received some signal or +notorious expression, and as often as the old sense, or something +like it, recurs, the old phrase rises to the lips. This +degenerates to simple phrase-mongering, and those who practise it +are not vigilantly jealous of their meaning. Such an +expression as “fine by degrees and beautifully less” +is often no more than a bloated equivalent for a single +word—say “diminishing” or +“shrinking.” Quotations like this are the warts +and excremental parts of language; the borrowings of good writers +are never thus superfluous, their quotations are +appropriations. Whether it be by some witty turn given to a +well-known line, by an original setting for an old saw, or by a +new and <a name="page118"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +118</span>unlooked-for analogy, the stamp of the borrower is put +upon the goods he borrows, and he becomes part owner. +Plagiarism is a crime only where writing is a trade; expression +need never be bound by the law of copyright while it follows +thought, for thought, as some great thinker has observed, is +free. The words were once Shakespeare’s; if only you +can feel them as he did, they are yours now no less than +his. The best quotations, the best translations, the best +thefts, are all equally new and original works. From +quotation, at least, there is no escape, inasmuch as we learn +language from others. All common phrases that do the dirty +work of the world are quotations—poor things, and not our +own. Who first said that a book would “repay +perusal,” or that any gay scene was “bright with all +the colours of the rainbow”? There is no need to +condemn these phrases, for language has a vast deal of inferior +work to do. The expression of thought, temperament, +attitude, is not the whole of its business. It is only a +literary fop or doctrinaire who will attempt to remint all the +small defaced coinage <a name="page119"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 119</span>that passes through his hands, only +a lisping young fantastico who will refuse all conventional +garments and all conventional speech. At a modern wedding +the frock-coat is worn, the presents are “numerous and +costly,” and there is an “ovation accorded to the +happy pair.” These things are part of our public +civilisation, a decorous and accessible uniform, not to be +lightly set aside. But let it be a friend of your own who +is to marry, a friend of your own who dies, and you are to +express yourself—the problem is changed, you feel all the +difficulties of the art of style, and fathom something of the +depth of your unskill. Forbidden silence, we should be in a +poor way indeed.</p> +<p>Single words too we plagiarise when we use them without +realisation and mastery of their meaning. The best argument +for a succinct style is this, that if you use words you do not +need, or do not understand, you cannot use them well. It is +not what a word means, but what it means to you, that is of the +deepest import. Let it be a weak word, with a poor history +behind it, if you <a name="page120"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +120</span>have done good thinking with it, you may yet use it to +surprising advantage. But if, on the other hand, it be a +strong word that has never aroused more than a misty idea and a +flickering emotion in your mind, here lies your danger. You +may use it, for there is none to hinder; and it will betray +you. The commonest Saxon words prove explosive machines in +the hands of rash impotence. It is perhaps a certain uneasy +consciousness of danger, a suspicion that weakness of soul cannot +wield these strong words, that makes debility avoid them, +committing itself rather, as if by some pre-established affinity, +to the vaguer Latinised vocabulary. Yet they are not all to +be avoided, and their quality in practice will depend on some +occult ability in their employer. For every living person, +if the material were obtainable, a separate historical dictionary +might be compiled, recording where each word was first heard or +seen, where and how it was first used. The references are +utterly beyond recovery; but such a register would throw a +strange light on individual styles. The eloquent trifler, +whose stock of words <a name="page121"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 121</span>has been accumulated by a pair of +light fingers, would stand denuded of his plausible pretences as +soon as it were seen how roguishly he came by his +eloquence. There may be literary quality, it is well to +remember, in the words of a parrot, if only its cage has been +happily placed; meaning and soul there cannot be. Yet the +voice will sometimes be mistaken, by the carelessness of chance +listeners, for a genuine utterance of humanity; and the like is +true in literature. But writing cannot be luminous and +great save in the hands of those whose words are their own by the +indefeasible title of conquest. Life is spent in learning +the meaning of great words, so that some idle proverb, known for +years and accepted perhaps as a truism, comes home, on a day, +like a blow. “If there were not a God,” said +Voltaire, “it would be necessary to invent +him.” Voltaire had therefore a right to use the word, +but some of those who use it most, if they would be perfectly +sincere, should enclose it in quotation marks. Whole +nations go for centuries without coining names for certain +virtues; is it credible <a name="page122"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 122</span>that among other peoples, where the +names exists the need for them is epidemic? The author of +the <i>Ecclesiastial Polity</i> puts a bolder and truer face on +the matter. “Concerning that Faith, Hope, and +Charity,” he writes, “without which there can be no +salvation, was there ever any mention made saving only in that +Law which God himself hath from Heaven revealed? There is +not in the world a syllable muttered with certain truth +concerning any of these three, more than hath been supernaturally +received from the mouth of the eternal God.” +Howsoever they came to us, we have the words; they, and many +other terms of tremendous import, are bandied about from mouth to +mouth and alternately enriched or impoverished in meaning. +Is the “Charity” of St. Paul’s Epistle one with +the charity of “charity-blankets”? Are the +“crusades” of Godfrey and of the great St. Louis, +where knightly achievement did homage to the religious temper, +essentially the same as that process of harrying the wretched and +the outcast for which the muddle-headed, greasy citizen of <a +name="page123"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 123</span>to-day +invokes the same high name? Of a truth, some kingly words +fall to a lower estate than Nebuchadnezzar.</p> +<p>Here, among words, our lot is cast, to make or mar. It +is in this obscure thicket, overgrown with weeds, set with +thorns, and haunted by shadows, this World of Words, as the +Elizabethans finely called it, that we wander, eternal pioneers, +during the course of our mortal lives. To be overtaken by a +master, one who comes along with the gaiety of assured skill and +courage, with the gravity of unflinching purpose, to make the +crooked ways straight and the rough places plain, is to gain +fresh confidence from despair. He twines wreaths of the +entangling ivy, and builds ramparts of the thorns. He +blazes his mark upon the secular oaks, as a guidance to later +travellers, and coaxes flame from heaps of mouldering +rubbish. There is no sense of cheer like this. +Sincerity, clarity, candour, power, seem real once more, real and +easy. In the light of great literary achievement, straight +and wonderful, like the roads of the ancient Romans, barbarism +torments <a name="page124"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +124</span>the mind like a riddle. Yet there are the dusky +barbarians!—fleeing from the harmonious tread of the +ordered legions, running to hide themselves in the morass of +vulgar sentiment, to ambush their nakedness in the sand-pits of +low thought.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>It is a venerable custom to knit up the speculative +consideration of any subject with the counsels of practical +wisdom. The words of this essay have been vain indeed if +the idea that style may be imparted by tuition has eluded them, +and survived. There is a useful art of Grammar, which takes +for its province the right and the wrong in speech. Style +deals only with what is permissible to all, and even revokes, on +occasion, the rigid laws of Grammar or countenances offences +against them. Yet no one is a better judge of equity for +ignorance of the law, and grammatical practice offers a fair +field wherein to acquire ease, accuracy and versatility. +The formation of sentences, the sequence of verbs, the +marshalling of the ranks of auxiliaries are all, in a sense, to +be learned. There <a name="page125"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 125</span>is a kind of inarticulate disorder +to which writers are liable, quite distinct from a bad style, and +caused chiefly by lack of exercise. An unpractised writer +will sometimes send a beautiful and powerful phrase jostling +along in the midst of a clumsy sentence—like a crowned king +escorted by a mob.</p> +<p>But Style cannot be taught. Imitation of the masters, or +of some one chosen master, and the constant purging of language +by a severe criticism, have their uses, not to be belittled; they +have also their dangers. The greater part of what is called +the teaching of style must always be negative, bad habits may be +broken down, old malpractices prohibited. The pillory and +the stocks are hardly educational agents, but they make it easier +for honest men to enjoy their own. If style could really be +taught, it is a question whether its teachers should not be +regarded as mischief-makers and enemies of mankind. The +Rosicrucians professed to have found the philosopher’s +stone, and the shadowy sages of modern Thibet are said, by those +who speak for them, to have compassed the <a +name="page126"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +126</span>instantaneous transference of bodies from place to +place. In either case, the holders of these secrets have +laudably refused to publish them, lest avarice and malice should +run amuck in human society. A similar fear might well visit +the conscience of one who should dream that he had divulged to +the world at large what can be done with language. Of this +there is no danger; rhetoric, it is true, does put fluency, +emphasis, and other warlike equipments at the disposal of evil +forces, but style, like the Christian religion, is one of those +open secrets which are most easily and most effectively kept by +the initiate from age to age. Divination is the only means +of access to these mysteries. The formal attempt to impart +a good style is like the melancholy task of the teacher of +gesture and oratory; some palpable faults are soon corrected; +and, for the rest, a few conspicuous mannerisms, a few theatrical +postures, not truly expressive, and a high tragical strut, are +all that can be imparted. The truth of the old Roman +teachers of rhetoric is here witnessed afresh, to be a good +orator it is first of all necessary to be a good man. Good +<a name="page127"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 127</span>style is +the greatest of revealers,—it lays bare the soul. The +soul of the cheat shuns nothing so much. “Always be +ready to speak your minds” said Blake, “and a base +man will avoid you.” But to insist that he also shall +speak his mind is to go a step further, it is to take from the +impostor his wooden leg, to prohibit his lucrative whine, his +mumping and his canting, to force the poor silly soul to stand +erect among its fellows and declare itself. His occupation +is gone, and he does not love the censor who deprives him of the +weapons of his mendicity.</p> +<p>All style is gesture, the gesture of the mind and of the +soul. Mind we have in common, inasmuch as the laws of right +reason are not different for different minds. Therefore +clearness and arrangement can be taught, sheer incompetence in +the art of expression can be partly remedied. But who shall +impose laws upon the soul? It is thus of common note that +one may dislike or even hate a particular style while admiring +its facility, its strength, its skilful adaptation to the matter +set forth. Milton, a chaster and more unerring <a +name="page128"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 128</span>master of +the art than Shakespeare, reveals no such lovable +personality. While persons count for much, style, the index +to persons, can never count for little. +“Speak,” it has been said, “that I may know +you”—voice-gesture is more than feature. Write, +and after you have attained to some control over the instrument, +you write yourself down whether you will or no. There is no +vice, however unconscious, no virtue, however shy, no touch of +meanness or of generosity in your character, that will not pass +on to the paper. You anticipate the Day of Judgment and +furnish the recording angel with material. The Art of +Criticism in literature, so often decried and given a subordinate +place among the arts, is none other than the art of reading and +interpreting these written evidences. Criticism has been +popularly opposed to creation, perhaps because the kind of +creation that it attempts is rarely achieved, and so the world +forgets that the main business of Criticism, after all, is not to +legislate, nor to classify, but to raise the dead. Graves, +at its command, have waked their sleepers, oped, and <a +name="page129"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 129</span>let them +forth. It is by the creative power of this art that the +living man is reconstructed from the litter of blurred and +fragmentary paper documents that he has left to posterity.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">THE +END</span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Printed by</i> R. & R. <span +class="smcap">Clark</span>, <span class="smcap">Limited</span>, +<i>Edinburgh</i></p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STYLE***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 1038-h.htm or 1038-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/0/3/1038 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Style + +Author: Walter Raleigh + +Release Date: September, 1997 [EBook #1038] +[This file was first posted on September 2, 1997] +[Most recently updated: May 23, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, STYLE *** + + + + +Transcribed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + +STYLE + + + + +Style, the Latin name for an iron pen, has come to designate the +art that handles, with ever fresh vitality and wary alacrity, the +fluid elements of speech. By a figure, obvious enough, which yet +might serve for an epitome of literary method, the most rigid and +simplest of instruments has lent its name to the subtlest and most +flexible of arts. Thence the application of the word has been +extended to arts other than literature, to the whole range of the +activities of man. The fact that we use the word "style" in +speaking of architecture and sculpture, painting and music, +dancing, play-acting, and cricket, that we can apply it to the +careful achievements of the housebreaker and the poisoner, and to +the spontaneous animal movements of the limbs of man or beast, is +the noblest of unconscious tributes to the faculty of letters. The +pen, scratching on wax or paper, has become the symbol of all that +is expressive, all that is intimate, in human nature; not only arms +and arts, but man himself, has yielded to it. His living voice, +with its undulations and inflexions, assisted by the mobile play of +feature and an infinite variety of bodily gesture, is driven to +borrow dignity from the same metaphor; the orator and the actor are +fain to be judged by style. "It is most true," says the author of +The Anatomy of Melancholy, "stylus virum arguit, our style bewrays +us." Other gestures shift and change and flit, this is the +ultimate and enduring revelation of personality. The actor and the +orator are condemned to work evanescent effects on transitory +material; the dust that they write on is blown about their graves. +The sculptor and the architect deal in less perishable ware, but +the stuff is recalcitrant and stubborn, and will not take the +impress of all states of the soul. Morals, philosophy, and +aesthetic, mood and conviction, creed and whim, habit, passion, and +demonstration--what art but the art of literature admits the +entrance of all these, and guards them from the suddenness of +mortality? What other art gives scope to natures and dispositions +so diverse, and to tastes so contrarious? Euclid and Shelley, +Edmund Spenser and Herbert Spencer, King David and David Hume, are +all followers of the art of letters. + +In the effort to explain the principles of an art so bewildering in +its variety, writers on style have gladly availed themselves of +analogy from the other arts, and have spoken, for the most part, +not without a parable. It is a pleasant trick they put upon their +pupils, whom they gladden with the delusion of a golden age, and +perfection to be sought backwards, in arts less complex. The +teacher of writing, past master in the juggling craft of language, +explains that he is only carrying into letters the principles of +counterpoint, or that it is all a matter of colour and perspective, +or that structure and ornament are the beginning and end of his +intent. Professor of eloquence and of thieving, his winged shoes +remark him as he skips from metaphor to metaphor, not daring to +trust himself to the partial and frail support of any single +figure. He lures the astonished novice through as many trades as +were ever housed in the central hall of the world's fair. From his +distracting account of the business it would appear that he is now +building a monument, anon he is painting a picture (with brushes +dipped in a gallipot made of an earthquake); again he strikes a +keynote, weaves a pattern, draws a wire, drives a nail, treads a +measure, sounds a trumpet, or hits a target; or skirmishes around +his subject; or lays it bare with a dissecting knife; or embalms a +thought; or crucifies an enemy. What is he really doing all the +time? + + +Besides the artist two things are to be considered in every art,-- +the instrument and the audience; or, to deal in less figured +phrase, the medium and the public. From both of these the artist, +if he would find freedom for the exercise of all his powers, must +sit decently aloof. It is the misfortune of the actor, the singer, +and the dancer, that their bodies are their sole instruments. On +to the stage of their activities they carry the heart that +nourishes them and the lungs wherewith they breathe, so that the +soul, to escape degradation, must seek a more remote and difficult +privacy. That immemorial right of the soul to make the body its +home, a welcome escape from publicity and a refuge for sincerity, +must be largely foregone by the actor, who has scant liberty to +decorate and administer for his private behoof an apartment that is +also a place of business. His ownership is limited by the +necessities of his trade; when the customers are gone, he eats and +sleeps in the bar-parlour. Nor is the instrument of his +performances a thing of his choice; the poorest skill of the +violinist may exercise itself upon a Stradivarius, but the actor is +reduced to fiddle for the term of his natural life upon the face +and fingers that he got from his mother. The serene detachment +that may be achieved by disciples of greater arts can hardly be +his, applause touches his personal pride too nearly, the mocking +echoes of derision infest the solitude of his retired imagination. +In none of the world's great polities has the practice of this art +been found consistent with noble rank or honourable estate. +Christianity might be expected to spare some sympathy for a calling +that offers prizes to abandonment and self-immolation, but her eye +is fixed on a more distant mark than the pleasure of the populace, +and, as in gladiatorial Rome of old, her best efforts have been +used to stop the games. Society, on the other hand, preoccupied +with the art of life, has no warmer gift than patronage for those +whose skill and energy exhaust themselves on the mimicry of life. +The reward of social consideration is refused, it is true, to all +artists, or accepted by them at their immediate peril. By a +natural adjustment, in countries where the artist has sought and +attained a certain modest social elevation, the issue has been +changed, and the architect or painter, when his health is proposed, +finds himself, sorely against the grain, returning thanks for the +employer of labour, the genial host, the faithful husband, the +tender father, and other pillars of society. The risk of too great +familiarity with an audience which insists on honouring the artist +irrelevantly, at the expense of the art, must be run by all; a more +clinging evil besets the actor, in that he can at no time wholly +escape from his phantasmal second self. On this creature of his +art he has lavished the last doit of human capacity for expression; +with what bearing shall he face the exacting realities of life? +Devotion to his profession has beggared him of his personality; +ague, old age and poverty, love and death, find in him an +entertainer who plies them with a feeble repetition of the triumphs +formerly prepared for a larger and less imperious audience. The +very journalist--though he, too, when his profession takes him by +the throat, may expound himself to his wife in phrases stolen from +his own leaders--is a miracle of detachment in comparison; he has +not put his laughter to sale. It is well for the soul's health of +the artist that a definite boundary should separate his garden from +his farm, so that when he escapes from the conventions that rule +his work he may be free to recreate himself. But where shall the +weary player keep holiday? Is not all the world a stage? + +Whatever the chosen instrument of an art may be, its appeal to +those whose attention it bespeaks must be made through the senses. +Music, which works with the vibrations of a material substance, +makes this appeal through the ear; painting through the eye; it is +of a piece with the complexity of the literary art that it employs +both channels,--as it might seem to a careless apprehension, +indifferently. + +For the writer's pianoforte is the dictionary, words are the +material in which he works, and words may either strike the ear or +be gathered by the eye from the printed page. The alternative will +be called delusive, for, in European literature at least, there is +no word-symbol that does not imply a spoken sound, and no +excellence without euphony. But the other way is possible, the +gulf between mind and mind may be bridged by something which has a +right to the name of literature although it exacts no aid from the +ear. The picture-writing of the Indians, the hieroglyphs of Egypt, +may be cited as examples of literary meaning conveyed with no +implicit help from the spoken word. Such an art, were it capable +of high development, would forsake the kinship of melody, and +depend for its sensual elements of delight on the laws of +decorative pattern. In a land of deaf-mutes it might come to a +measure of perfection. But where human intercourse is chiefly by +speech, its connexion with the interests and passions of daily life +would perforce be of the feeblest, it would tend more and more to +cast off the fetters of meaning that it might do freer service to +the jealous god of visible beauty. The overpowering rivalry of +speech would rob it of all its symbolic intent and leave its bare +picture. Literature has favoured rather the way of the ear and has +given itself zealously to the tuneful ordering of sounds. Let it +be repeated, therefore, that for the traffic of letters the senses +are but the door-keepers of the mind; none of them commands an only +way of access,--the deaf can read by sight, the blind by touch. It +is not amid the bustle of the live senses, but in an under-world of +dead impressions that Poetry works her will, raising that in power +which was sown in weakness, quickening a spiritual body from the +ashes of the natural body. The mind of man is peopled, like some +silent city, with a sleeping company of reminiscences, +associations, impressions, attitudes, emotions, to be awakened into +fierce activity at the touch of words. By one way or another, with +a fanfaronnade of the marching trumpets, or stealthily, by +noiseless passages and dark posterns, the troop of suggesters +enters the citadel, to do its work within. The procession of +beautiful sounds that is a poem passes in through the main gate, +and forthwith the by-ways resound to the hurry of ghostly feet, +until the small company of adventurers is well-nigh lost and +overwhelmed in that throng of insurgent spirits. + +To attempt to reduce the art of literature to its component sense- +elements is therefore vain. Memory, "the warder of the brain," is +a fickle trustee, whimsically lavish to strangers, giving up to the +appeal of a spoken word or unspoken symbol, an odour or a touch, +all that has been garnered by the sensitive capacities of man. It +is the part of the writer to play upon memory, confusing what +belongs to one sense with what belongs to another, extorting images +of colour at a word, raising ideas of harmony without breaking the +stillness of the air. He can lead on the dance of words till their +sinuous movements call forth, as if by mesmerism, the likeness of +some adamantine rigidity, time is converted into space, and music +begets sculpture. To see for the sake of seeing, to hear for the +sake of hearing, are subsidiary exercises of his complex +metaphysical art, to be counted among its rudiments. Picture and +music can furnish but the faint beginnings of a philosophy of +letters. Necessary though they be to a writer, they are transmuted +in his service to new forms, and made to further purposes not their +own. + +The power of vision--hardly can a writer, least of all if he be a +poet, forego that part of his equipment. In dealing with the +impalpable, dim subjects that lie beyond the border-land of exact +knowledge, the poetic instinct seeks always to bring them into +clear definition and bright concrete imagery, so that it might seem +for the moment as if painting also could deal with them. Every +abstract conception, as it passes into the light of the creative +imagination, acquires structure and firmness and colour, as flowers +do in the light of the sun. Life and Death, Love and Youth, Hope +and Time, become persons in poetry, not that they may wear the +tawdry habiliments of the studio, but because persons are the +objects of the most familiar sympathy and the most intimate +knowledge. + + +How long, O Death? And shall thy feet depart +Still a young child's with mine, or wilt thou stand +Full grown the helpful daughter of my heart, +What time with thee indeed I reach the strand +Of the pale wave which knows thee what thou art, +And drink it in the hollow of thy hand? + + +And as a keen eye for the imagery attendant on a word is essential +to all writing, whether prose or poetry, that attempts the heart, +so languor of the visual faculty can work disaster even in the calm +periods of philosophic expatiation. "It cannot be doubted," says +one whose daily meditations enrich The People's Post-Bag, "that +Fear is, to a great extent, the mother of Cruelty." Alas, by the +introduction of that brief proviso, conceived in a spirit of +admirably cautious self-defence, the writer has unwittingly given +himself to the horns of a dilemma whose ferocity nothing can +mitigate. These tempered and conditional truths are not in nature, +which decrees, with uncompromising dogmatism, that either a woman +is one's mother, or she is not. The writer probably meant merely +that "fear is one of the causes of cruelty," and had he used a +colourless abstract word the platitude might pass unchallenged. +But a vague desire for the emphasis and glamour of literature +having brought in the word "mother," has yet failed to set the +sluggish imagination to work, and a word so glowing with picture +and vivid with sentiment is damped and dulled by the thumb-mark of +besotted usage to mean no more than "cause" or "occasion." Only +for the poet, perhaps, are words live winged things, flashing with +colour and laden with scent; yet one poor spark of imagination +might save them from this sad descent to sterility and darkness. + +Of no less import is the power of melody which chooses, rejects, +and orders words for the satisfaction that a cunningly varied +return of sound can give to the ear. Some critics have amused +themselves with the hope that here, in the laws and practices +regulating the audible cadence of words, may be found the first +principles of style, the form which fashions the matter, the +apprenticeship to beauty which alone can make an art of truth. And +it may be admitted that verse, owning, as it does, a professed and +canonical allegiance to music, sometimes carries its devotion so +far that thought swoons into melody, and the thing said seems a +discovery made by the way in the search for tuneful expression. + + +What thing unto mine ear +Wouldst thou convey,--what secret thing, +O wandering water ever whispering? +Surely thy speech shall be of her, +Thou water, O thou whispering wanderer, +What message dost thou bring? + + +In this stanza an exquisitely modulated tune is played upon the +syllables that make up the word "wandering," even as, in the poem +from which it is taken, there is every echo of the noise of waters +laughing in sunny brooks, or moaning in dumb hidden caverns. Yet +even here it would be vain to seek for reason why each particular +sound of every line should be itself and no other. For melody +holds no absolute dominion over either verse or prose; its laws, +never to be disregarded, prohibit rather than prescribe. Beyond +the simple ordinances that determine the place of the rhyme in +verse, and the average number of syllables, or rhythmical beats, +that occur in the line, where shall laws be found to regulate the +sequence of consonants and vowels from syllable to syllable? Those +few artificial restrictions, which verse invents for itself, once +agreed on, a necessary and perilous license makes up the rest of +the code. Literature can never conform to the dictates of pure +euphony, while grammar, which has been shaped not in the interests +of prosody, but for the service of thought, bars the way with its +clumsy inalterable polysyllables and the monotonous sing-song of +its inflexions. On the other hand, among a hundred ways of saying +a thing, there are more than ninety that a care for euphony may +reasonably forbid. All who have consciously practised the art of +writing know what endless and painful vigilance is needed for the +avoidance of the unfit or untuneful phrase, how the meaning must be +tossed from expression to expression, mutilated and deceived, ere +it can find rest in words. The stupid accidental recurrence of a +single broad vowel; the cumbrous repetition of a particle; the +emphatic phrase for which no emphatic place can be found without +disorganising the structure of the period; the pert intrusion on a +solemn thought of a flight of short syllables, twittering like a +flock of sparrows; or that vicious trick of sentences whereby each, +unmindful of its position and duties, tends to imitate the +deformities of its predecessor;--these are a select few of the +difficulties that the nature of language and of man conspire to put +upon the writer. He is well served by his mind and ear if he can +win past all such traps and ambuscades, robbed of only a little of +his treasure, indemnified by the careless generosity of his +spoilers, and still singing. + +Besides their chime in the ear, and the images that they put before +the mind's eye, words have, for their last and greatest possession, +a meaning. They carry messages and suggestions that, in the effect +wrought, elude all the senses equally. For the sake of this, their +prime office, the rest is many times forgotten or scorned, the tune +is disordered and havoc played with the lineaments of the picture, +because without these the word can still do its business. The +refutation of those critics who, in their analysis of the power of +literature, make much of music and picture, is contained in the +most moving passages that have found utterance from man. Consider +the intensity of a saying like that of St. Paul:- "For I am +persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor +principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, +nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to +separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our +Lord." + +Do these verses draw their power from a skilful arrangement of +vowel and consonant? But they are quoted from a translation, and +can be translated otherwise, well or ill or indifferently, without +losing more than a little of their virtue. Do they impress the eye +by opening before it a prospect of vast extent, peopled by vague +shapes? On the contrary, the visual embodiment of the ideas +suggested kills the sense of the passage, by lowering the cope of +the starry heavens to the measure of a poplar-tree. Death and +life, height and depth, are conceived by the apostle, and creation +thrown in like a trinket, only that they may lend emphasis to the +denial that is the soul of his purpose. Other arts can affirm, or +seem to affirm, with all due wealth of circumstance and detail; +they can heighten their affirmation by the modesty of reserve, the +surprises of a studied brevity, and the erasure of all +impertinence; literature alone can deny, and honour the denial with +the last resources of a power that has the universe for its +treasury. It is this negative capability of words, their privative +force, whereby they can impress the minds with a sense of "vacuity, +darkness, solitude, and silence," that Burke celebrates in the fine +treatise of his younger days. In such a phrase as "the angel of +the Lord" language mocks the positive rivalry of the pictorial art, +which can offer only the poor pretence of an equivalent in a young +man painted with wings. But the difference between the two arts is +even better marked in the matter of negative suggestion; it is +instanced by Burke from the noble passage where Virgil describes +the descent of AEneas and the Sibyl to the shades of the nether +world. Here are amassed all "the images of a tremendous dignity" +that the poet could forge from the sublime of denial. The two most +famous lines are a procession of negatives:- + + +Ibant obscuri sola sub nocte per umbram, +Perque domos Ditis vacuas et inania regna. + + +Through hollow kingdoms, emptied of the day, +And dim, deserted courts where Dis bears sway, +Night-foundered, and uncertain of the path, +Darkling they took their solitary way. + + +Here is the secret of some of the cardinal effects of literature; +strong epithets like "lonely," "supreme," "invisible," "eternal," +"inexorable," with the substantives that belong to them, borrow +their force from the vastness of what they deny. And not these +alone, but many other words, less indebted to logic for the +magnificence of reach that it can lend, bring before the mind no +picture, but a dim emotional framework. Such words as "ominous," +"fantastic," "attenuated," "bewildered," "justification," are +atmospheric rather than pictorial; they infect the soul with the +passion-laden air that rises from humanity. It is precisely in his +dealings with words like these, "heated originally by the breath of +others," that a poet's fine sense and knowledge most avail him. +The company a word has kept, its history, faculties, and +predilections, endear or discommend it to his instinct. How hardly +will poetry consent to employ such words as "congratulation" or +"philanthropist,"--words of good origin, but tainted by long +immersion in fraudulent rejoicings and pallid, comfortable, +theoretic loves. How eagerly will the poetic imagination seize on +a word like "control," which gives scope by its very vagueness, and +is fettered by no partiality of association. All words, the weak +and the strong, the definite and the vague, have their offices to +perform in language, but the loftiest purposes of poetry are seldom +served by those explicit hard words which, like tiresome +explanatory persons, say all that they mean. Only in the focus and +centre of man's knowledge is there place for the hammer-blows of +affirmation, the rest is a flickering world of hints and half- +lights, echoes and suggestions, to be come at in the dusk or not at +all. + +The combination of these powers in words, of song and image and +meaning, has given us the supreme passages of our romantic poetry. +In Shakespeare's work, especially, the union of vivid definite +presentment with immense reach of metaphysical suggestion seems to +intertwine the roots of the universe with the particular fact; +tempting the mind to explore that other side of the idea presented +to it, the side turned away from it, and held by something behind. + + +It will have blood; they say blood win have blood: +Stones have been known to move and trees to speak; +Augurs and understood relations have +By maggot-pies and choughs and rooks brought forth +The secret'st man of blood. + + +This meeting of concrete and abstract, of sense and thought, keeps +the eye travelling along the utmost skyline of speculation, where +the heavens are interfused with the earth. In short, the third and +greatest virtue of words is no other than the virtue that belongs +to the weapons of thought,--a deep, wide, questioning thought that +discovers analogies and pierces behind things to a half-perceived +unity of law and essence. In the employ of keen insight, high +feeling, and deep thinking, language comes by its own; the +prettinesses that may be imposed on a passive material are as +nothing to the splendour and grace that transfigure even the +meanest instrument when it is wielded by the energy of thinking +purpose. The contempt that is cast, by the vulgar phrase, on "mere +words" bears witness to the rarity of this serious consummation. +Yet by words the world was shaped out of chaos, by words the +Christian religion was established among mankind. Are these +terrific engines fit play-things for the idle humours of a sick +child? + +And now it begins to be apparent that no adequate description of +the art of language can be drawn from the technical terminology of +the other arts, which, like proud debtors, would gladly pledge +their substance to repay an obligation that they cannot disclaim. +Let one more attempt to supply literature with a parallel be quoted +from the works of a writer on style, whose high merit it is that he +never loses sight, either in theory or in practice, of the +fundamental conditions proper to the craft of letters. Robert +Louis Stevenson, pondering words long and lovingly, was impressed +by their crabbed individuality, and sought to elucidate the laws of +their arrangement by a reference to the principles of architecture. +"The sister arts," he says, "enjoy the use of a plastic and ductile +material, like the modeller's clay; literature alone is condemned +to work in mosaic with finite and quite rigid words. You have seen +those blocks, dear to the nursery: this one a pillar, that a +pediment, a third a window or a vase. It is with blocks of just +such arbitrary size and figure that the literary architect is +condemned to design the palace of his art. Nor is this all; for +since these blocks or words are the acknowledged currency of our +daily affairs, there are here possible none of those suppressions +by which other arts obtain relief, continuity, and vigour: no +hieroglyphic touch, no smoothed impasto, no inscrutable shadow, as +in painting; no blank wall, as in architecture; but every word, +phrase, sentence, and paragraph must move in a logical progression, +and convey a definite conventional import." + +It is an acute comparison, happily indicative of the morose +angularity that words offer to whoso handles them, admirably +insistent on the chief of the incommodities imposed upon the +writer, the necessity, at all times and at all costs, to mean +something. The boon of the recurring monotonous expanse, that an +apprentice may fill, the breathing-space of restful mechanical +repetition, are denied to the writer, who must needs shoulder the +hod himself, and lay on the mortar, in ever varying patterns, with +his own trowel. This is indeed the ordeal of the master, the +canker-worm of the penny-a-liner, who, poor fellow, means nothing, +and spends his life in the vain effort to get words to do the same. +But if in this respect architecture and literature are confessed to +differ, there remains the likeness that Mr. Stevenson detects in +the building materials of the two arts, those blocks of "arbitrary +size and figure; finite and quite rigid." There is truth enough in +the comparison to make it illuminative, but he would be a rash +dialectician who should attempt to draw from it, by way of +inference, a philosophy of letters. Words are piled on words, and +bricks on bricks, but of the two you are invited to think words the +more intractable. Truly, it was a man of letters who said it, +avenging himself on his profession for the never-ending toil it +imposed, by miscalling it, with grim pleasantry, the architecture +of the nursery. Finite and quite rigid words are not, in any sense +that holds good of bricks. They move and change, they wax and +wane, they wither and burgeon; from age to age, from place to +place, from mouth to mouth, they are never at a stay. They take on +colour, intensity, and vivacity from the infection of +neighbourhood; the same word is of several shapes and diverse +imports in one and the same sentence; they depend on the building +that they compose for the very chemistry of the stuff that composes +them. The same epithet is used in the phrases "a fine day" and +"fine irony," in "fair trade" and "a fair goddess." Were different +symbols to be invented for these sundry meanings the art of +literature would perish. For words carry with them all the +meanings they have worn, and the writer shall be judged by those +that he selects for prominence in the train of his thought. A +slight technical implication, a faint tinge of archaism, in the +common turn of speech that you employ, and in a moment you have +shaken off the mob that scours the rutted highway, and are +addressing a select audience of ticket-holders with closed doors. +A single natural phrase of peasant speech, a direct physical sense +given to a word that genteel parlance authorises readily enough in +its metaphorical sense, and at a touch you have blown the roof off +the drawing-room of the villa, and have set its obscure inhabitants +wriggling in the unaccustomed sun. In choosing a sense for your +words you choose also an audience for them. + +To one word, then, there are many meanings, according as it falls +in the sentence, according as its successive ties and associations +are broken or renewed. And here, seeing that the stupidest of all +possible meanings is very commonly the slang meaning, it will be +well to treat briefly of slang. For slang, in the looser +acceptation of the term, is of two kinds, differing, and indeed +diametrically opposite, in origin and worth. Sometimes it is the +technical diction that has perforce been coined to name the +operations, incidents, and habits of some way of life that society +despises or deliberately elects to disregard. This sort of slang, +which often invents names for what would otherwise go nameless, is +vivid, accurate, and necessary, an addition of wealth to the +world's dictionaries and of compass to the world's range of +thought. Society, mistily conscious of the sympathy that lightens +in any habitual name, seems to have become aware, by one of those +wonderful processes of chary instinct which serve the great, +vulnerable, timid organism in lieu of a brain, that to accept of +the pickpocket his names for the mysteries of his trade is to +accept also a new moral stand-point and outlook on the question of +property. For this reason, and by no special masonic precautions +of his own, the pickpocket is allowed to keep the admirable devices +of his nomenclature for the familiar uses of himself and his mates, +until a Villon arrives to prove that this language, too, was +awaiting the advent of its bully and master. In the meantime, what +directness and modest sufficiency of utterance distinguishes the +dock compared with the fumbling prolixity of the old gentleman on +the bench! It is the trite story,--romanticism forced to plead at +the bar of classicism fallen into its dotage, Keats judged by +Blackwood, Wordsworth exciting the pained astonishment of Miss Anna +Seward. Accuser and accused alike recognise that a question of +diction is part of the issue between them; hence the picturesque +confession of the culprit, made in proud humility, that he "clicked +a red 'un" must needs be interpreted, to save the good faith of the +court, into the vaguer and more general speech of the classic +convention. Those who dislike to have their watches stolen find +that the poorest language of common life will serve their simple +turn, without the rich technical additions of a vocabulary that has +grown around an art. They can abide no rendering of the fact that +does not harp incessantly on the disapproval of watch-owners. They +carry their point of morals at the cost of foregoing all glitter +and finish in the matter of expression. + +This sort of slang, therefore, technical in origin, the natural +efflorescence of highly cultivated agilities of brain, and hand, +and eye, is worthy of all commendation. But there is another kind +that goes under the name of slang, the offspring rather of mental +sloth, and current chiefly among those idle, jocular classes to +whom all art is a bugbear and a puzzle. There is a public for +every one; the pottle-headed lout who in a moment of exuberance +strikes on a new sordid metaphor for any incident in the beaten +round of drunkenness, lubricity, and debt, can set his fancy +rolling through the music-halls, and thence into the street, secure +of applause and a numerous sodden discipleship. Of the same lazy +stamp, albeit more amiable in effect, are the thought-saying +contrivances whereby one word is retained to do the work of many. +For the language of social intercourse ease is the first requisite; +the average talker, who would be hard put to it if he were called +on to describe or to define, must constantly be furnished with the +materials of emphasis, wherewith to drive home his likes and +dislikes. Why should he alienate himself from the sympathy of his +fellows by affecting a singularity in the expression of his +emotions? What he craves is not accuracy, but immediacy of +expression, lest the tide of talk should flow past him, leaving him +engaged in a belated analysis. Thus the word of the day is on all +lips, and what was "vastly fine" last century is "awfully jolly" +now; the meaning is the same, the expression equally inappropriate. +Oaths have their brief periods of ascendency, and philology can +boast its fashion-plates. The tyrant Fashion, who wields for whip +the fear of solitude, is shepherd to the flock of common talkers, +as they run hither and thither pursuing, not self-expression, the +prize of letters, but unanimity and self-obliteration, the marks of +good breeding. Like those famous modern poets who are censured by +the author of Paradise Lost, the talkers of slang are "carried away +by custom, to express many things otherwise, and for the most part +worse than else they would have exprest them." The poverty of +their vocabulary makes appeal to the brotherly sympathy of a +partial and like-minded auditor, who can fill out their paltry +conventional sketches from his own experience of the same events. +Within the limits of a single school, or workshop, or social +circle, slang may serve; just as, between friends, silence may do +the work of talk. There are few families, or groups of familiars, +that have not some small coinage of this token-money, issued and +accepted by affection, passing current only within those narrow and +privileged boundaries. This wealth is of no avail to the +travelling mind, save as a memorial of home, nor is its material +such "as, buried once, men want dug up again." A few happy words +and phrases, promoted, for some accidental fitness, to the wider +world of letters, are all that reach posterity; the rest pass into +oblivion with the other perishables of the age. + +A profusion of words used in an ephemeral slang sense is evidence, +then, that the writer addresses himself merely to the uneducated +and thoughtless of his own day; the revival of bygone meanings, on +the other hand, and an archaic turn given to language is the mark +rather of authors who are ambitious of a hearing from more than one +age. The accretions of time bring round a word many reputable +meanings, of which the oldest is like to be the deepest in grain. +It is a counsel of perfection--some will say, of vainglorious +pedantry--but that shaft flies furthest which is drawn to the head, +and he who desires to be understood in the twenty-fourth century +will not be careless of the meanings that his words inherit from +the fourteenth. To know them is of service, if only for the +piquancy of avoiding them. But many times they cannot wisely be +avoided, and the auspices under which a word began its career when +first it was imported from the French or Latin overshadow it and +haunt it to the end. + +Popular modern usage will often rob common words, like "nice," +"quaint," or "silly," of all flavour of their origin, as if it were +of no moment to remember that these three words, at the outset of +their history, bore the older senses of "ignorant," "noted," and +"blessed." It may be granted that any attempt to return to these +older senses, regardless of later implications, is stark pedantry; +but a delicate writer will play shyly with the primitive +significance in passing, approaching it and circling it, taking it +as a point of reference or departure. The early faith of +Christianity, its beautiful cult of childhood, and its appeal to +unlearned simplicity, have left their mark on the meaning of +"silly"; the history of the word is contained in that cry of St. +Augustine, Indocti surgunt et rapiunt coelum, or in the fervent +sentence of the author of the Imitation, Oportet fieri stultum. +And if there is a later silliness, altogether unblest, the skilful +artificer of words, while accepting this last extension, will show +himself conscious of his paradox. So also he will shun the +grossness that employs the epithet "quaint" to put upon subtlety +and the devices of a studied workmanship an imputation of +eccentricity; or, if he falls in with the populace in this regard, +he will be careful to justify his innuendo. The slipshod use of +"nice" to connote any sort of pleasurable emotion he will take +care, in his writings at least, utterly to abhor. From the +daintiness of elegance to the arrogant disgust of folly the word +carries meanings numerous and diverse enough; it must not be +cruelly burdened with all the laudatory occasions of an +undiscriminating egotism. + +It would be easy to cite a hundred other words like these, saved +only by their nobler uses in literature from ultimate defacement. +The higher standard imposed upon the written word tends to raise +and purify speech also, and since talkers owe the same debt to +writers of prose that these, for their part, owe to poets, it is +the poets who must be accounted chief protectors, in the last +resort, of our common inheritance. Every page of the works of that +great exemplar of diction, Milton, is crowded with examples of +felicitous and exquisite meaning given to the infallible word. +Sometimes he accepts the secondary and more usual meaning of a word +only to enrich it by the interweaving of the primary and +etymological meaning. Thus the seraph Abdiel, in the passage that +narrates his offer of combat to Satan, is said to "explore" his own +undaunted heart, and there is no sense of "explore" that does not +heighten the description and help the thought. Thus again, when +the poet describes those + + +Eremites and friars, +White, Black, and Gray, with all their trumpery, + + +who inhabit, or are doomed to inhabit, the Paradise of Fools, he +seems to invite the curious reader to recall the derivation of +"trumpery," and so supplement the idea of worthlessness with that +other idea, equally grateful to the author, of deceit. The +strength that extracts this multiplex resonance of meaning from a +single note is matched by the grace that gives to Latin words like +"secure," "arrive," "obsequious," "redound," "infest," and "solemn" +the fine precision of intent that art can borrow from scholarship. + +Such an exactitude is consistent with vital change; Milton himself +is bold to write "stood praying" for "continued kneeling in +prayer," and deft to transfer the application of "schism" from the +rent garment of the Church to those necessary "dissections made in +the quarry and in the timber ere the house of God can be built." +Words may safely veer to every wind that blows, so they keep within +hail of their cardinal meanings, and drift not beyond the scope of +their central employ, but when once they lose hold of that, then, +indeed, the anchor has begun to drag, and the beach-comber may +expect his harvest. + +Fixity in the midst of change, fluctuation at the heart of +sameness, such is the estate of language. According as they +endeavour to reduce letters to some large haven and abiding-place +of civility, or prefer to throw in their lot with the centrifugal +tendency and ride on the flying crest of change, are writers dubbed +Classic or Romantic. The Romantics are individualist, anarchic; +the strains of their passionate incantation raise no cities to +confront the wilderness in guarded symmetry, but rather bring the +stars shooting from their spheres, and draw wild things captive to +a voice. To them Society and Law seem dull phantoms, by the light +cast from a flaming soul. They dwell apart, and torture their +lives in the effort to attain to self-expression. All means and +modes offered them by language they seize on greedily, and shape +them to this one end; they ransack the vocabulary of new sciences, +and appropriate or invent strange jargons. They furbish up old +words or weld together new indifferently, that they may possess the +machinery of their speech and not be possessed by it. They are at +odds with the idiom of their country in that it serves the common +need, and hunt it through all its metamorphoses to subject it to +their private will. Heretics by profession, they are everywhere +opposed to the party of the Classics, who move by slower ways to +ends less personal, but in no wise easier of attainment. The +magnanimity of the Classic ideal has had scant justice done to it +by modern criticism. To make literature the crowning symbol of a +world-wide civilisation; to roof in the ages, and unite the elect +of all time in the courtesy of one shining assembly, paying duty to +one unquestioned code; to undo the work of Babel, and knit together +in a single community the scattered efforts of mankind towards +order and reason;--this was surely an aim worthy of labour and +sacrifice. Both have been freely given, and the end is yet to +seek. The self-assertion of the recusants has found eulogists in +plenty, but who has celebrated the self-denial that was thrown away +on this other task, which is farther from fulfilment now than it +was when the scholars of the Renaissance gave up their patriotism +and the tongue of their childhood in the name of fellow-citizenship +with the ancients and the oecumenical authority of letters? +Scholars, grammarians, wits, and poets were content to bury the +lustre of their wisdom and the hard-won fruits of their toil in the +winding-sheet of a dead language, that they might be numbered with +the family of Cicero, and added to the pious train of Virgil. It +was a noble illusion, doomed to failure, the versatile genius of +language cried out against the monotony of their Utopia, and the +crowds who were to people the unbuilded city of their dreams went +straying after the feathered chiefs of the rebels, who, when the +fulness of time was come, themselves received apotheosis and the +honours of a new motley pantheon. The tomb of that great vision +bears for epitaph the ironical inscription which defines a Classic +poet as "a dead Romantic." + +In truth the Romantics are right, and the serenity of the classic +ideal is the serenity of paralysis and death. A universal +agreement in the use of words facilitates communication, but, so +inextricably is expression entangled with feeling, it leaves +nothing to communicate. Inanity dogs the footsteps of the classic +tradition, which is everywhere lackeyed, through a long decline, by +the pallor of reflected glories. Even the irresistible novelty of +personal experience is dulled by being cast in the old matrix, and +the man who professes to find the whole of himself in the Bible or +in Shakespeare had as good not be. He is a replica and a shadow, a +foolish libel on his Creator, who, from the beginning of time, was +never guilty of tautology. This is the error of the classical +creed, to imagine that in a fleeting world, where the quickest eye +can never see the same thing twice, and a deed once done can never +be repeated, language alone should be capable of fixity and +finality. Nature avenges herself on those who would thus make her +prisoner, their truths degenerate to truisms, and feeling dies in +the ice-palaces that they build to house it. In their search for +permanence they become unreal, abstract, didactic, lovers of +generalisation, cherishers of the dry bones of life; their art is +transformed into a science, their expression into an academic +terminology. Immutability is their ideal, and they find it in the +arms of death. Words must change to live, and a word once fixed +becomes useless for the purposes of art. Whosoever would make +acquaintance with the goal towards which the classic practice +tends, should seek it in the vocabulary of the Sciences. There +words are fixed and dead, a botanical collection of colourless, +scentless, dried weeds, a hortus siccus of proper names, each +individual symbol poorly tethered to some single object or idea. +No wind blows through that garden, and no sun shines on it, to +discompose the melancholy workers at their task of tying Latin +labels on to withered sticks. Definition and division are the +watchwords of science, where art is all for composition and +creation. Not that the exact definable sense of a word is of no +value to the stylist; he profits by it as a painter profits by a +study of anatomy, or an architect by a knowledge of the strains and +stresses that may be put on his material. The exact logical +definition is often necessary for the structure of his thought and +the ordering of his severer argument. But often, too, it is the +merest beginning; when a word is once defined he overlays it with +fresh associations and buries it under new-found moral +significances, which may belie the definition they conceal. This +is the burden of Jeremy Bentham's quarrel with "question-begging +appellatives." A clear-sighted and scrupulously veracious +philosopher, abettor of the age of reason, apostle of utility, god- +father of the panopticon, and donor to the English dictionary of +such unimpassioned vocables as "codification" and "international," +Bentham would have been glad to purify the language by purging it +of those "affections of the soul" wherein Burke had found its +highest glory. Yet in censuring the ordinary political usage of +such a word as "innovation," it was hardly prejudice in general +that he attacked, but the particular and deep-seated prejudice +against novelty. The surprising vivacity of many of his own +figures,--although he had the courage of his convictions, and +laboured, throughout the course of a long life, to desiccate his +style,--bears witness to a natural skill in the use of loaded +weapons. He will pack his text with grave argument on matters +ecclesiastical, and indulge himself and literature, in the notes +with a pleasant description of the flesh and the spirit playing +leap-frog, now one up, now the other, around the holy precincts of +the Church. Lapses like these show him far enough from his own +ideal of a geometric fixity in the use of words. The claim of +reason and logic to enslave language has a more modern advocate in +the philosopher who denies all utility to a word while it retains +traces of its primary sensuous employ. The tickling of the senses, +the raising of the passions, these things do indeed interfere with +the arid business of definition. None the less they are the life's +breath of literature, and he is a poor stylist who cannot beg half- +a-dozen questions in a single epithet, or state the conclusion he +would fain avoid in terms that startle the senses into clamorous +revolt. + +The two main processes of change in words are Distinction and +Assimilation. Endless fresh distinction, to match the infinite +complexity of things, is the concern of the writer, who spends all +his skill on the endeavour to cloth the delicacies of perception +and thought with a neatly fitting garment. So words grow and +bifurcate, diverge and dwindle, until one root has many branches. +Grammarians tell how "royal" and "regal" grew up by the side of +"kingly," how "hospital," "hospice," "hostel" and "hotel" have come +by their several offices. The inventor of the word "sensuous" gave +to the English people an opportunity of reconsidering those +headstrong moral preoccupations which had already ruined the +meaning of "sensual" for the gentler uses of a poet. Not only the +Puritan spirit, but every special bias or interest of man seizes on +words to appropriate them to itself. Practical men of business +transfer such words as "debenture" or "commodity" from debt or +comfort in general to the palpable concrete symbols of debt or +comfort; and in like manlier doctors, soldiers, lawyers, shipmen,-- +all whose interest and knowledge are centred on some particular +craft or profession, drag words from the general store and adapt +them to special uses. Such words are sometimes reclaimed from +their partial applications by the authority of men of letters, and +pass back into their wider meanings enhanced by a new element of +graphic association. Language never suffers by answering to an +intelligent demand; it is indebted not only to great authors, but +to all whom any special skill or taste has qualified to handle it. +The good writer may be one who disclaims all literary pretension, +but there he is, at work among words,--binding the vagabond or +liberating the prisoner, exalting the humble or abashing the +presumptuous, incessantly alert to amend their implications, break +their lazy habits, and help them to refinement or scope or +decision. He educates words, for he knows that they are alive. + +Compare now the case of the ruder multitude. In the regard of +literature, as a great critic long ago remarked, "all are the +multitude; only they differ in clothes, not in judgment or +understanding," and the poorest talkers do not inhabit the slums. +Wherever thought and taste have fallen to be menials, there the +vulgar dwell. How should they gain mastery over language? They +are introduced to a vocabulary of some hundred thousand words, +which quiver through a million of meanings; the wealth is theirs +for the taking, and they are encouraged to be spendthrift by the +very excess of what they inherit. The resources of the tongue they +speak are subtler and more various than ever their ideas can put to +use. So begins the process of assimilation, the edge put upon +words by the craftsman is blunted by the rough treatment of the +confident booby, who is well pleased when out of many highly- +tempered swords he has manufactured a single clumsy coulter. A +dozen expressions to serve one slovenly meaning inflate him with +the sense of luxury and pomp. "Vast," "huge," "immense," +"gigantic," "enormous," "tremendous," "portentous," and such-like +groups of words, lose all their variety of sense in a barren +uniformity of low employ. The reign of this democracy annuls +differences of status, and insults over differences of ability or +disposition. Thus do synonyms, or many words ill applied to one +purpose, begin to flourish, and, for a last indignity, dictionaries +of synonyms. + +Let the truth be said outright: there are no synonyms, and the +same statement can never be repeated in a changed form of words. +Where the ignorance of one writer has introduced an unnecessary +word into the language, to fill a place already occupied, the +quicker apprehension of others will fasten upon it, drag it apart +from its fellows, and find new work for it to do. Where a dull eye +sees nothing but sameness, the trained faculty of observation will +discern a hundred differences worthy of scrupulous expression. The +old foresters had different names for a buck during each successive +year of its life, distinguishing the fawn from the pricket, the +pricket from the sore, and so forth, as its age increased. Thus it +is also in that illimitable but not trackless forest of moral +distinctions. Language halts far behind the truth of things, and +only a drowsy perception can fail to devise a use for some new +implement of description. Every strange word that makes its way +into a language spins for itself a web of usage and circumstance, +relating itself from whatsoever centre to fresh points in the +circumference. No two words ever coincide throughout their whole +extent. If sometimes good writers are found adding epithet to +epithet for the same quality, and name to name for the same thing, +it is because they despair of capturing their meaning at a venture, +and so practise to get near it by a maze of approximations. Or, it +may be, the generous breadth of their purpose scorns the minuter +differences of related terms, and includes all of one affinity, +fearing only lest they be found too few and too weak to cover the +ground effectively. Of this sort are the so-called synonyms of the +Prayer-Book, wherein we "acknowledge and confess" the sins we are +forbidden to "dissemble or cloke;" and the bead-roll of the lawyer, +who huddles together "give, devise, and bequeath," lest the cunning +of litigants should evade any single verb. The works of the poets +yield still better instances. When Milton praises the Virtuous +Young Lady of his sonnet in that the spleen of her detractors moves +her only to "pity and ruth," it is not for the idle filling of the +line that he joins the second of these nouns to the first. Rather +he is careful to enlarge and intensify his meaning by drawing on +the stores of two nations, the one civilised, the other barbarous; +and ruth is a quality as much more instinctive and elemental than +pity as pitilessness is keener, harder, and more deliberate than +the inborn savagery of ruthlessness. + +It is not chiefly, however, for the purposes of this accumulated +and varied emphasis that the need of synonyms is felt. There is no +more curious problem in the philosophy of style than that afforded +by the stubborn reluctance of writers, the good as well as the bad, +to repeat a word or phrase. When the thing is, they may be willing +to abide by the old rule and say the word, but when the thing +repeats itself they will seldom allow the word to follow suit. A +kind of interdict, not removed until the memory of the first +occurrence has faded, lies on a once used word. The causes of this +anxiety for a varied expression are manifold. Where there is +merely a column to fill, poverty of thought drives the hackney +author into an illicit fulness, until the trick of verbiage passes +from his practice into his creed, and makes him the dupe of his own +puppets. A commonplace book, a dictionary of synonyms, and another +of phrase and fable equip him for his task; if he be called upon to +marshal his ideas on the question whether oysters breed typhoid, he +will acquit himself voluminously, with only one allusion (it is a +point of pride) to the oyster by name. He will compare the +succulent bivalve to Pandora's box, and lament that it should +harbour one of the direst of ills that flesh is heir to. He will +find a paradox and an epigram in the notion that the darling of +Apicius should suffer neglect under the frowns of AEsculapius. +Question, hypothesis, lamentation, and platitude dance their +allotted round and fill the ordained space, while Ignorance +masquerades in the garb of criticism, and Folly proffers her +ancient epilogue of chastened hope. When all is said, nothing is +said; and Montaigne's Que scais-je, besides being briefer and +wittier, was infinitely more informing. + +But we dwell too long with disease; the writer nourished on +thought, whose nerves are braced and his loins girt to struggle +with a real meaning, is not subject to these tympanies. He feels +no idolatrous dread of repetition when the theme requires, it, and +is urged by no necessity of concealing real identity under a show +of change. Nevertheless he, too, is hedged about by conditions +that compel him, now and again, to resort to what seems a synonym. +The chief of these is the indispensable law of euphony, which +governs the sequence not only of words, but also of phrases. In +proportion as a phrase is memorable, the words that compose it +become mutually adhesive, losing for a time something of their +individual scope, bringing with them, if they be torn away too +quickly, some cumbrous fragments of their recent association. That +he may avoid this, a sensitive writer is often put to his shifts, +and extorts, if he be fortunate, a triumph from the accident of his +encumbrance. By a slight stress laid on the difference of usage +the unshapeliness may be done away with, and a new grace found +where none was sought. Addison and Landor accuse Milton, with +reason, of too great a fondness for the pun, yet surely there is +something to please the mind, as well as the ear, in the +description of the heavenly judgment, + + +That brought into this world a world of woe. + + +Where words are not fitted with a single hard definition, rigidly +observed, all repetition is a kind of delicate punning, bringing +slight differences of application into clear relief. The practice +has its dangers for the weak-minded lover of ornament, yet even so +it may be preferable to the flat stupidity of one identical +intention for a word or phrase in twenty several contexts. For the +law of incessant change is not so much a counsel of perfection to +be held up before the apprentice, as a fundamental condition of all +writing whatsoever; if the change be not ordered by art it will +order itself in default of art. The same statement can never be +repeated even in the same form of words, and it is not the old +question that is propounded at the third time of asking. +Repetition, that is to say, is the strongest generator of emphasis +known to language. Take the exquisite repetitions in these few +lines:- + + +Bitter constraint and sad occasion dear +Compels me to disturb your season due; +For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime, +Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer. + + +Here the tenderness of affection returns again to the loved name, +and the grief of the mourner repeats the word "dead." But this +monotony of sorrow is the least part of the effect, which lies +rather in the prominence given by either repetition to the most +moving circumstance of all--the youthfulness of the dead poet. The +attention of the discursive intellect, impatient of reiteration, is +concentrated on the idea which these repeated and exhausted words +throw into relief. Rhetoric is content to borrow force from +simpler methods; a good orator will often bring his hammer down, at +the end of successive periods, on the same phrase; and the +mirthless refrain of a comic song, or the catchword of a buffoon, +will raise laughter at last by its brazen importunity. Some modem +writers, admiring the easy power of the device, have indulged +themselves with too free a use of it; Matthew Arnold particularly, +in his prose essays, falls to crying his text like a hawker, + + +Beating it in upon our weary brains, +As tho' it were the burden of a song, + + +clattering upon the iron of the Philistine giant in the effort to +bring him to reason. These are the ostentatious violences of a +missionary, who would fain save his enemy alive, where a grimmer +purpose is glad to employ a more silent weapon and strike but once. +The callousness of a thick-witted auditory lays the need for coarse +method on the gentlest soul resolved to stir them. But he whose +message is for minds attuned and tempered will beware of needless +reiteration, as of the noisiest way of emphasis. Is the same word +wanted again, he will examine carefully whether the altered +incidence does not justify and require an altered term, which the +world is quick to call a synonym. The right dictionary of synonyms +would give the context of each variant in the usage of the best +authors. To enumerate all the names applied by Milton to the hero +of Paradise Lost, without reference to the passages in which they +occur, would be a foolish labour; with such reference, the task is +made a sovereign lesson in style. At Hell gates, where he dallies +in speech with his leman Sin to gain a passage from the lower +World, Satan is "the subtle Fiend," in the garden of Paradise he is +"the Tempter" and "the Enemy of Mankind," putting his fraud upon +Eve he is the "wily Adder," leading her in full course to the tree +he is "the dire Snake," springing to his natural height before the +astonished gaze of the cherubs he is "the grisly King." Every +fresh designation elaborates his character and history, emphasises +the situation, and saves a sentence. So it is with all variable +appellations of concrete objects; and even in the stricter and more +conventional region of abstract ideas the same law runs. Let a +word be changed or repeated, it brings in either case its +contribution of emphasis, and must be carefully chosen for the part +it is to play, lest it should upset the business of the piece by +irrelevant clownage in the midst of high matter, saying more or +less than is set down for it in the author's purpose. + +The chameleon quality of language may claim yet another +illustration. Of origins we know nothing certainly, nor how words +came by their meanings in the remote beginning, when speech, like +the barnacle-goose of the herbalist, was suspended over an +expectant world, ripening on a tree. But this we know, that +language in its mature state is fed and fattened on metaphor. +Figure is not a late device of the rhetorician, but the earliest +principle of change in language. The whole process of speech is a +long series of exhilarating discoveries, whereby words, freed from +the swaddling bands of their nativity, are found capable of new +relations and a wider metaphorical employ. Then, with the growth +of exact knowledge, the straggling associations that attended the +word on its travels are straitened and confined, its meaning is +settled, adjusted, and balanced, that it may bear its part in the +scrupulous deposition of truth. Many are the words that have run +this double course, liberated from their first homely offices and +transformed by poetry, reclaimed in a more abstract sense, and +appropriated to a new set of facts by science. Yet a third chance +awaits them when the poet, thirsty for novelty, passes by the old +simple founts of figure to draw metaphor from the latest technical +applications of specialised terms. Everywhere the intuition of +poetry, impatient of the sturdy philosophic cripple that lags so +far behind, is busy in advance to find likenesses not susceptible +of scientific demonstration, to leap to comparisons that satisfy +the heart while they leave the colder intellect only half +convinced. When an elegant dilettante like Samuel Rogers is +confronted with the principle of gravitation he gives voice to +science in verse:- + + +That very law which moulds a tear, +And bids it trickle from its source, +That law preserves the earth a sphere, +And guides the planets in their course. + + +But a seer like Wordsworth will never be content to write tunes for +a text-book of physics, he boldly confounds the arbitrary limits of +matter and morals in one splendid apostrophe to Duty:- + + +Flowers laugh before thee on their beds; +And fragrance in thy footing treads; +Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong; +And the most ancient heavens, through thee, are fresh and strong. + + +Poets, it is said, anticipate science; here in these four lines is +work for a thousand laboratories for a thousand years. But the +truth has been understated; every writer and every speaker works +ahead of science, expressing analogies and contrasts, likenesses +and differences, that will not abide the apparatus of proof. The +world of perception and will, of passion and belief, is an +uncaptured virgin, airily deriding from afar the calculated +advances and practised modesty of the old bawd Science; turning +again to shower a benediction of unexpected caresses on the most +cavalier of her wooers, Poetry. This world, the child of Sense and +Faith, shy, wild, and provocative, for ever lures her lovers to the +chase, and the record of their hopes and conquests is contained in +the lover's language, made up wholly of parable and figure of +speech. There is nothing under the sun nor beyond it that does not +concern man, and it is the unceasing effort of humanity, whether by +letters or by science, to bring "the commerce of the mind and of +things" to terms of nearer correspondence. But Literature, +ambitious to touch life on all its sides, distrusts the way of +abstraction, and can hardly be brought to abandon the point of view +whence things are seen in their immediate relation to the +individual soul. This kind of research is the work of letters; +here are facts of human life to be noted that are never like to be +numerically tabulated, changes and developments that defy all +metrical standards to be traced and described. The greater men of +science have been cast in so generous a mould that they have +recognised the partial nature of their task; they have known how to +play with science as a pastime, and to win and wear her decorations +for a holiday favour. They have not emaciated the fulness of their +faculties in the name of certainty, nor cramped their humanity for +the promise of a future good. They have been the servants of +Nature, not the slaves of method. But the grammarian of the +laboratory is often the victim of his trade. He staggers forth +from his workshop, where prolonged concentration on a mechanical +task, directed to a provisional and doubtful goal, has dimmed his +faculties; the glaring motley of the world, bathed in sunlight, +dazzles him; the questions, moral, political, and personal, that +his method has relegated to some future of larger knowledge, crowd +upon him, clamorous for solution, not to be denied, insisting on a +settlement to-day. He is forced to make a choice, and may either +forsake the divinity he serves, falling back, for the practical and +aesthetic conduct of life, on those common instincts of sensuality +which oscillate between the conventicle and the tavern as the poles +of duty and pleasure, or, more pathetically still, he may attempt +to bring the code of the observatory to bear immediately on the +vagaries of the untameable world, and suffer the pedant's disaster. +A martyr to the good that is to be, he has voluntarily maimed +himself "for the kingdom of Heaven's sake"--if, perchance, the +kingdom of Heaven might come by observation. The enthusiasm of his +self-denial shows itself in his unavailing struggle to chain +language also to the bare rock of ascertained fact. Metaphor, the +poet's right-hand weapon, he despises; all that is tentative, +individual, struck off at the urging of a mood, he disclaims and +suspects. Yet the very rewards that science promises have their +parallel in the domain of letters. The discovery of likeness in +the midst of difference, and of difference in the midst of +likeness, is the keenest pleasure of the intellect; and literary +expression, as has been said, is one long series of such +discoveries, each with its thrill of incommunicable happiness, all +unprecedented, and perhaps unverifiable by later experiment. The +finest instrument of these discoveries is metaphor, the +spectroscope of letters. + +Enough has been said of change; it remains to speak of one more of +those illusions of fixity wherein writers seek exemption from the +general lot. Language, it has been shown, is to be fitted to +thought; and, further, there are no synonyms. What more natural +conclusion could be drawn by the enthusiasm of the artist than that +there is some kind of preordained harmony between words and things, +whereby expression and thought tally exactly, like the halves of a +puzzle? This illusion, called in France the doctrine of the mot +propre, is a will o' the wisp which has kept many an artist dancing +on its trail. That there is one, and only one way of expressing +one thing has been the belief of other writers besides Gustave +Flaubert, inspiriting them to a desperate and fruitful industry. +It is an amiable fancy, like the dream of Michael Angelo, who loved +to imagine that the statue existed already in the block of marble, +and had only to be stripped of its superfluous wrappings, or like +the indolent fallacy of those economic soothsayers to whom Malthus +brought rough awakening, that population and the means of +subsistence move side by side in harmonious progress. But hunger +does not imply food, and there may hover in the restless heads of +poets, as themselves testify - + + +One thought, one grace, one wonder, at the least, +Which into words no virtue can digest. + + +Matter and form are not so separable as the popular philosophy +would have them; indeed, the very antithesis between them is a +cardinal instance of how language reacts on thought, modifying and +fixing a cloudy truth. The idea pursues form not only that it may +be known to others, but that it may know itself, and the body in +which it becomes incarnate is not to be distinguished from the +informing soul. It is recorded of a famous Latin historian how he +declared that he would have made Pompey win the battle of Pharsalia +had the effective turn of the sentence required it. He may stand +for the true type of the literary artist. The business of letters, +howsoever simple it may seem to those who think truth-telling a +gift of nature, is in reality two-fold, to find words for a +meaning, and to find a meaning for words. Now it is the words that +refuse to yield, and now the meaning, so that he who attempts to +wed them is at the same time altering his words to suit his +meaning, and modifying and shaping his meaning to satisfy the +requirements of his words. The humblest processes of thought have +had their first education from language long before they took shape +in literature. So subtle is the connexion between the two that it +is equally possible to call language the form given to the matter +of thought, or, inverting the application of the figure, to speak +of thought as the formal principle that shapes the raw material of +language. It is not until the two become one that they can be +known for two. The idea to be expressed is a kind of mutual +recognition between thought and language, which here meet and claim +each other for the first time, just as in the first glance +exchanged by lovers, the unborn child opens its eyes on the world, +and pleads for life. But thought, although it may indulge itself +with the fancy of a predestined affiance, is not confined to one +mate, but roves free and is the father of many children. A belief +in the inevitable word is the last refuge of that stubborn +mechanical theory of the universe which has been slowly driven from +science, politics, and history. Amidst so much that is undulating, +it has pleased writers to imagine that truth persists and is +provided by heavenly munificence with an imperishable garb of +language. But this also is vanity, there is one end appointed +alike to all, fact goes the way of fiction, and what is known is no +more perdurable than what is made. Not words nor works, but only +that which is formless endures, the vitality that is another name +for change, the breath that fills and shatters the bubbles of good +and evil, of beauty and deformity, of truth and untruth. + +No art is easy, least of all the art of letters. Apply the musical +analogy once more to the instrument whereon literature performs its +voluntaries. With a living keyboard of notes which are all +incessantly changing in value, so that what rang true under Dr. +Johnson's hand may sound flat or sharp now, with a range of a +myriad strings, some falling mute and others being added from day +to day, with numberless permutations and combinations, each of +which alters the tone and pitch of the units that compose it, with +fluid ideas that never have an outlined existence until they have +found their phrases and the improvisation is complete, is it to be +wondered at that the art of style is eternally elusive, and that +the attempt to reduce it to rule is the forlorn hope of academic +infatuation? + + +These difficulties and complexities of the instrument are, +nevertheless, the least part of the ordeal that is to be undergone +by the writer. The same musical note or phrase affects different +ears in much the same way; not so the word or group of words. The +pure idea, let us say, is translated into language by the literary +composer; who is to be responsible for the retranslation of the +language into idea? Here begins the story of the troubles and +weaknesses that are imposed upon literature by the necessity it +lies under of addressing itself to an audience, by its liability to +anticipate the corruptions that mar the understanding of the spoken +or written word. A word is the operative symbol of a relation +between two minds, and is chosen by the one not without regard to +the quality of the effect actually produced upon the other. Men +must be spoken to in their accustomed tongue, and persuaded that +the unknown God proclaimed by the poet is one whom aforetime they +ignorantly worshipped. The relation of great authors to the public +may be compared to the war of the sexes, a quiet watchful +antagonism between two parties mutually indispensable to each +other, at one time veiling itself in endearments, at another +breaking out into open defiance. He who has a message to deliver +must wrestle with his fellows before he shall be permitted to ply +them with uncomfortable or unfamiliar truths. The public, like the +delicate Greek Narcissus, is sleepily enamoured of itself; and the +name of its only other perfect lover is Echo. Yet even great +authors must lay their account with the public, and it is +instructive to observe how different are the attitudes they have +adopted, how uniform the disappointment they have felt. Some, like +Browning and Mr. Meredith in our own day, trouble themselves little +about the reception given to their work, but are content to say on, +until the few who care to listen have expounded them to the many, +and they are applauded, in the end, by a generation whom they have +trained to appreciate them. Yet this noble and persevering +indifference is none of their choice, and long years of absolution +from criticism must needs be paid for in faults of style. "Writing +for the stage," Mr. Meredith himself has remarked, "would be a +corrective of a too-incrusted scholarly style into which some great +ones fall at times." Denied such a corrective, the great one is +apt to sit alone and tease his meditations into strange shapes, +fortifying himself against obscurity and neglect with the +reflection that most of the words he uses are to be found, after +all, in the dictionary. It is not, however, from the secluded +scholar that the sharpest cry of pain is wrung by the indignities +of his position, but rather from genius in the act of earning a +full meed of popular applause. Both Shakespeare and Ben Jonson +wrote for the stage, both were blown by the favouring breath of +their plebeian patrons into reputation and a competence. Each of +them passed through the thick of the fight, and well knew that ugly +corner where the artist is exposed to cross fires, his own idea of +masterly work on the one hand and the necessity for pleasing the +rabble on the other. When any man is awake to the fact that the +public is a vile patron, when he is conscious also that his bread +and his fame are in their gift--it is a stern passage for his soul, +a touchstone for the strength and gentleness of his spirit. +Jonson, whose splendid scorn took to itself lyric wings in the two +great Odes to Himself, sang high and aloof for a while, then the +frenzy caught him, and he flung away his lyre to gird himself for +deeds of mischief among nameless and noteless antagonists. Even +Chapman, who, in The Tears of Peace, compares "men's refuse ears" +to those gates in ancient cities which were opened only when the +bodies of executed malefactors were to be cast away, who elsewhere +gives utterance, in round terms, to his belief that + + +No truth of excellence was ever seen +But bore the venom of the vulgar's spleen, + + +- even the violences of this great and haughty spirit must pale +beside the more desperate violences of the dramatist who commended +his play to the public in the famous line, + + +By God, 'tis good, and if you like't, you may. + + +This stormy passion of arrogant independence disturbs the serenity +of atmosphere necessary for creative art. A greater than Jonson +donned the suppliant's robes, like Coriolanus, and with the +inscrutable honeyed smile about his lips begged for the "most sweet +voices" of the journeymen and gallants who thronged the Globe +Theatre. Only once does the wail of anguish escape him - + + +Alas! 'tis true, I have gone here and there, +And made myself a motley to the view, +Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear. + + +And again - + + +Thence comes it that my name receives a brand, +And almost thence my nature is subdued +To what it works in, like the dyer's hand, +Pity me then, and wish I were renewed. + + +Modern vulgarity, speaking through the mouths of Shakesperian +commentators, is wont to interpret these lines as a protest against +the contempt wherewith Elizabethan society regarded the professions +of playwright and actor. We are asked to conceive that Shakespeare +humbly desires the pity of his bosom friend because he is not put +on the same level of social estimation with a brocaded gull or a +prosperous stupid goldsmith of the Cheap. No, it is a cry, from +the depth of his nature, for forgiveness because he has sacrificed +a little on the altar of popularity. Jonson would have boasted +that he never made this sacrifice. But he lost the calm of his +temper and the clearness of his singing voice, he degraded his +magnanimity by allowing it to engage in street-brawls, and he +endangered the sanctuary of the inviolable soul. + +At least these great artists of the sixteenth and nineteenth +centuries are agreed upon one thing, that the public, even in its +most gracious mood, makes an ill task-master for the man of +letters. It is worth the pains to ask why, and to attempt to show +how much of an author's literary quality is involved in his +attitude towards his audience. Such an inquiry will take us, it is +true, into bad company, and exhibit the vicious, the fatuous, and +the frivolous posturing to an admiring crowd. But style is a +property of all written and printed matter, so that to track it to +its causes and origins is a task wherein literary criticism may +profit by the humbler aid of anthropological research. + +Least of all authors is the poet subject to the tyranny of his +audience. "Poetry and eloquence," says John Stuart Mill, "are both +alike the expression or utterance of feeling. But if we may be +excused the antithesis, we should say that eloquence is heard, +poetry is overheard. Eloquence supposes an audience; the +peculiarity of poetry appears to us to lie in the poet's utter +unconsciousness of a listener." Poetry, according to this +discerning criticism, is an inspired soliloquy; the thoughts rise +unforced and unchecked, taking musical form in obedience only to +the law of their being, giving pleasure to an audience only as the +mountain spring may chance to assuage the thirst of a passing +traveller. In lyric poetry, language, from being a utensil, or a +medium of traffic and barter, passes back to its place among +natural sounds; its affinity is with the wind among the trees and +the stream among the rocks; it is the cry of the heart, as simple +as the breath we draw, and as little ordered with a view to +applause. Yet speech grew up in society, and even in the most +ecstatic of its uses may flag for lack of understanding and +response. It were rash to say that the poets need no audience; the +loneliest have promised themselves a tardy recognition, and some +among the greatest came to their maturity in the warm atmosphere of +a congenial society. Indeed the ratification set upon merit by a +living audience, fit though few, is necessary for the development +of the most humane and sympathetic genius; and the memorable ages +of literature, in Greece or Rome, in France or England, have been +the ages of a literary society. The nursery of our greatest +dramatists must be looked for, not, it is true, in the transfigured +bear-gardens of the Bankside, but in those enchanted taverns, +islanded and bastioned by the protective decree - + + +Idiota, insulsus, tristis, turpis, abesto. + + +The poet seems to be soliloquising because he is addressing +himself, with the most entire confidence, to a small company of his +friends, who may even, in unhappy seasons, prove to be the +creatures of his imagination. Real or imaginary, they are taken by +him for his equals; he expects from them a quick intelligence and a +perfect sympathy, which may enable him to despise all concealment. +He never preaches to them, nor scolds, nor enforces the obvious. +Content that what he has spoken he has spoken, he places a +magnificent trust on a single expression. He neither explains, nor +falters, nor repents; he introduces his work with no preface, and +cumbers it with no notes. He will not lower nor raise his voice +for the sake of the profane and idle who may chance to stumble +across his entertainment. His living auditors, unsolicited for the +tribute of worship or an alms, find themselves conceived of in the +likeness of what he would have them to be, raised to a companion +pinnacle of friendship, and constituted peers and judges, if they +will, of his achievement. Sometimes they come late. + +This blend of dignity and intimacy, of candour and self-respect, is +unintelligible to the vulgar, who understand by intimacy mutual +concession to a base ideal, and who are so accustomed to deal with +masks, that when they see a face they are shocked as by some +grotesque. Now a poet, like Montaigne's naked philosopher, is all +face; and the bewilderment of his masked and muffled critics is the +greater. Wherever he attracts general attention he cannot but be +misunderstood. The generality of modern men and women who pretend +to literature are not hypocrites, or they might go near to divine +him,--for hypocrisy, though rooted in cowardice, demands for its +flourishing a clear intellectual atmosphere, a definite aim, and a +certain detachment of the directing mind. But they are habituated +to trim themselves by the cloudy mirror of opinion, and will mince +and temporise, as if for an invisible audience, even in their +bedrooms. Their masks have, for the most part, grown to their +faces, so that, except in some rare animal paroxysm of emotion, it +is hardly themselves that they express. The apparition of a poet +disquiets them, for he clothes himself with the elements, and +apologises to no idols. His candour frightens them: they avert +their eyes from it; or they treat it as a licensed whim; or, with a +sudden gleam of insight, and apprehension of what this means for +them and theirs, they scream aloud for fear. A modern instance may +be found in the angry protestations launched against Rossetti's +Sonnets, at the time of their first appearance, by a writer who has +since matched himself very exactly with an audience of his own +kind. A stranger freak of burgess criticism is everyday fare in +the odd world peopled by the biographers of Robert Burns. The +nature of Burns, one would think, was simplicity itself; it could +hardly puzzle a ploughman, and two sailors out of three would call +him brother. But he lit up the whole of that nature by his +marvellous genius for expression, and grave personages have been +occupied ever since in discussing the dualism of his character, and +professing to find some dark mystery in the existence of this, +that, or the other trait--a love of pleasure, a hatred of shams, a +deep sense of religion. It is common human nature, after all, that +is the mystery, but they seem never to have met with it, and treat +it as if it were the poet's eccentricity. They are all agog to +worship him, and when they have made an image of him in their own +likeness, and given it a tin-pot head that exactly hits their +taste, they break into noisy lamentation over the discovery that +the original was human, and had feet of clay. They deem "Mary in +Heaven" so admirable that they could find it in their hearts to +regret that she was ever on earth. This sort of admirers +constantly refuses to bear a part in any human relationship; they +ask to be fawned on, or trodden on, by the poet while he is in +life; when he is dead they make of him a candidate for godship, and +heckle him. It is a misfortune not wholly without its +compensations that most great poets are dead before they are +popular. + +If great and original literary artists--here grouped together under +the title of poets--will not enter into transactions with their +audience, there is no lack of authors who will. These are not +necessarily charlatans; they may have by nature a ready sympathy +with the grossness of the public taste, and thus take pleasure in +studying to gratify it. But man loses not a little of himself in +crowds, and some degradation there must be where the one adapts +himself to the many. The British public is not seen at its best +when it is enjoying a holiday in a foreign country, nor when it is +making excursions into the realm of imaginative literature: those +who cater for it in these matters must either study its tastes or +share them. Many readers bring the worst of themselves to a novel; +they want lazy relaxation, or support for their nonsense, or escape +from their creditors, or a free field for emotions that they dare +not indulge in life. The reward of an author who meets them half- +way in these respects, who neither puzzles nor distresses them, who +asks nothing from them, but compliments them on their great +possessions and sends them away rejoicing, is a full measure of +acceptance, and editions unto seventy times seven. + +The evils caused by the influence of the audience on the writer are +many. First of all comes a fault far enough removed from the +characteristic vices of the charlatan--to wit, sheer timidity and +weakness. There is a kind of stage-fright that seizes on a man +when he takes pen in hand to address an unknown body of hearers, no +less than when he stands up to deliver himself to a sea of +expectant faces. This is the true panic fear, that walks at mid- +day, and unmans those whom it visits. Hence come reservations, +qualifications, verbosity, and the see-saw of a wavering courage, +which apes progress and purpose, as soldiers mark time with their +feet. The writing produced under these auspices is of no greater +moment than the incoherent loquacity of a nervous patient. All +self-expression is a challenge thrown down to the world, to be +taken up by whoso will; and the spirit of timidity, when it touches +a man, suborns him with the reminder that he holds his life and +goods by the sufferance of his fellows. Thereupon he begins to +doubt whether it is worth while to court a verdict of so grave +possibilities, or to risk offending a judge--whose customary +geniality is merely the outcome of a fixed habit of inattention. +In doubt whether to speak or keep silence, he takes a middle +course, and while purporting to speak for himself, is careful to +lay stress only on the points whereon all are agreed, to enlarge +eloquently on the doubtfulness of things, and to give to words the +very least meaning that they will carry. Such a procedure, which +glides over essentials, and handles truisms or trivialities with a +fervour of conviction, has its functions in practice. It will win +for a politician the coveted and deserved repute of a "safe" man-- +safe, even though the cause perish. Pleaders and advocates are +sometimes driven into it, because to use vigorous, clean, crisp +English in addressing an ordinary jury or committee is like +flourishing a sword in a drawing-room: it will lose the case. +Where the weakest are to be convinced speech must stoop: a full +consideration of the velleities and uncertainties, a little bombast +to elevate the feelings without committing the judgment, some vague +effusion of sentiment, an inapposite blandness, a meaningless +rodomontade--these are the by-ways to be travelled by the style +that is a willing slave to its audience. The like is true of those +documents--petitions, resolutions, congratulatory addresses, and so +forth--that are written to be signed by a multitude of names. +Public occasions of this kind, where all and sundry are to be +satisfied, have given rise to a new parliamentary dialect, which +has nothing of the freshness of individual emotion, is powerless to +deal with realities, and lacks all resonance, vitality, and nerve. +There is no cure for this, where the feelings and opinions of a +crowd are to be expressed. But where indecision is the ruling +passion of the individual, he may cease to write. Popularity was +never yet the prize of those whose only care is to avoid offence. + +For hardier aspirants, the two main entrances to popular favour are +by the twin gates of laughter and tears. Pathos knits the soul and +braces the nerves, humour purges the eyesight and vivifies the +sympathies; the counterfeits of these qualities work the opposite +effects. It is comparatively easy to appeal to passive emotions, +to play upon the melting mood of a diffuse sensibility, or to +encourage the narrow mind to dispense a patron's laughter from the +vantage-ground of its own small preconceptions. Our annual crop of +sentimentalists and mirth-makers supplies the reading public with +food. Tragedy, which brings the naked soul face to face with the +austere terrors of Fate, Comedy, which turns the light inward and +dissipates the mists of self-affection and self-esteem, have long +since given way on the public stage to the flattery of Melodrama, +under many names. In the books he reads and in the plays he sees +the average man recognises himself in the hero, and vociferates his +approbation. + +The sensibility that came into vogue during the eighteenth century +was of a finer grain than its modern counterpart. It studied +delicacy, and sought a cultivated enjoyment in evanescent shades of +feeling, and the fantasies of unsubstantial grief. The real +Princess of Hans Andersen's story, who passed a miserable night +because there was a small bean concealed beneath the twenty eider- +down beds on which she slept, might stand for a type of the +aristocracy of feeling that took a pride in these ridiculous +susceptibilities. The modern sentimentalist works in a coarser +material. That ancient, subtle, and treacherous affinity among the +emotions, whereby religious exaltation has before now been made the +ally of the unpurified passions, is parodied by him in a simpler +and more useful device. By alleging a moral purpose he is enabled +to gratify the prurience of his public and to raise them in their +own muddy conceit at one and the same time. The plea serves well +with those artless readers who have been accustomed to consider the +moral of a story as something separable from imagination, +expression, and style--a quality, it may be, inherent in the plot, +or a kind of appendix, exercising a retrospective power of +jurisdiction and absolution over the extravagances of the piece to +which it is affixed. Let virtue be rewarded, and they are content +though it should never be vitally imagined or portrayed. If their +eyes were opened they might cry with Brutus--"O miserable Virtue! +Thou art but a phrase, and I have followed thee as though thou wert +a reality." + +It is in quite another kind, however, that the modern purveyor of +sentiment exercises his most characteristic talent. There are +certain real and deeply-rooted feelings, common to humanity, +concerning which, in their normal operation, a grave reticence is +natural. They are universal in their appeal, men would be ashamed +not to feel them, and it is no small part of the business of life +to keep them under strict control. Here is the sentimental +hucksters most valued opportunity. He tears these primary +instincts from the wholesome privacy that shelters them in life, +and cries them up from his booth in the market-place. The +elemental forces of human life, which beget shyness in children, +and touch the spirits of the wise to solemn acquiescence, awaken +him to noisier declamation. He patronises the stern laws of love +and pity, hawking them like indulgences, cheapening and commanding +them like the medicines of a mountebank. The censure of his +critics he impudently meets by pointing to his wares: are not some +of the most sacred properties of humanity--sympathy with suffering, +family affection, filial devotion, and the rest--displayed upon his +stall? Not thus shall he evade the charges brought against him. +It is the sensual side of the tender emotions that he exploits for +the comfort of the million. All the intricacies which life offers +to the will and the intellect he lards and obliterates by the +timely effusion of tearful sentiment. His humanitarianism is a +more popular, as it is an easier, ideal than humanity--it asks no +expense of thought. There is a scanty public in England for +tragedy or for comedy: the characters and situations handled by +the sentimentalist might perchance furnish comedy with a theme; but +he stilts them for a tragic performance, and they tumble into +watery bathos, where a numerous public awaits them. + +A similar degradation of the intellectual elements that are present +in all good literature is practised by those whose single aim is to +provoke laughter. In much of our so-called comic writing a +superabundance of boisterous animal spirits, restrained from more +practical expression by the ordinances of civil society, finds +outlet and relief. The grimaces and caperings of buffoonery, the +gymnastics of the punster and the parodist, the revels of pure +nonsense may be, at their best, a refreshment and delight, but they +are not comedy, and have proved in effect not a little hostile to +the existence of comedy. The prevalence of jokers, moreover, +spoils the game of humour; the sputter and sparkle of their made +jokes interferes with that luminous contemplation of the +incongruities of life and the universe which is humour's essence. +All that is ludicrous depends on some disproportion: Comedy judges +the actual world by contrasting it with an ideal of sound sense, +Humour reveals it in its true dimensions by turning on it the light +of imagination and poetry. The perception of these incongruities, +which are eternal, demands some expense of intellect; a cheaper +amusement may be enjoyed by him who is content to take his stand on +his own habits and prejudices and to laugh at all that does not +square with them. This was the method of the age which, in the +abysmal profound of waggery, engendered that portentous birth, the +comic paper. Foreigners, it is said, do not laugh at the wit of +these journals, and no wonder, for only a minute study of the +customs and preoccupations of certain sections of English society +could enable them to understand the point of view. From time to +time one or another of the writers who are called upon for their +weekly tale of jokes seems struggling upward to the free domain of +Comedy; but in vain, his public holds him down, and compels him to +laugh in chains. Some day, perchance, a literary historian, filled +with the spirit of Cervantes or of Moliere, will give account of +the Victorian era, and, not disdaining small things, will draw a +picture of the society which inspired and controlled so resolute a +jocularity. Then, at last, will the spirit of Comedy recognise +that these were indeed what they claimed to be--comic papers. + +"The style is the man;" but the social and rhetorical influences +adulterate and debase it, until not one man in a thousand achieves +his birthright, or claims his second self. The fire of the soul +burns all too feebly, and warms itself by the reflected heat from +the society around it. We give back words of tepid greeting, +without improvement. We talk to our fellows in the phrases we +learn from them, which come to mean less and less as they grow worn +with use. Then we exaggerate and distort, heaping epithet upon +epithet in the endeavour to get a little warmth out of the +smouldering pile. The quiet cynicism of our everyday demeanour is +open and shameless, we callously anticipate objections founded on +the well-known vacuity of our seeming emotions, and assure our +friends that we are "truly" grieved or "sincerely" rejoiced at +their hap--as if joy or grief that really exists were some rare and +precious brand of joy or grief. In its trivial conversational uses +so simple and pure a thing as joy becomes a sandwich-man--humanity +degraded to an advertisement. The poor dejected word shuffles +along through the mud in the service of the sleek trader who +employs it, and not until it meets with a poet is it rehabilitated +and restored to dignity. + +This is no indictment of society, which came into being before +literature, and, in all the distraction of its multifarious +concerns, can hardly keep a school for Style. It is rather a +demonstration of the necessity, amid the wealthy disorder of modern +civilisation, for poetic diction. One of the hardest of a poet's +tasks is the search for his vocabulary. Perhaps in some idyllic +pasture-land of Utopia there may have flourished a state where +division of labour was unknown, where community of ideas, as well +as of property, was absolute, and where the language of every day +ran clear into poetry without the need of a refining process. They +say that Caedmon was a cow-keeper: but the shepherds of Theocritus +and Virgil are figments of a courtly brain, and Wordsworth himself, +in his boldest flights of theory, was forced to allow of selection. +Even by selection from among the chaos of implements that are in +daily use around him, a poet can barely equip himself with a choice +of words sufficient for his needs; he must have recourse to his +predecessors; and so it comes about that the poetry of the modern +world is a store-house of obsolete diction. The most surprising +characteristic of the right poetic diction, whether it draw its +vocabulary from near at hand, or avail itself of the far-fetched +inheritance preserved by the poets, is its matchless sincerity. +Something of extravagance there may be in those brilliant clusters +of romantic words that are everywhere found in the work of +Shakespeare, or Spenser, or Keats, but they are the natural leafage +and fruitage of a luxuriant imagination, which, lacking these, +could not attain to its full height. Only by the energy of the +arts can a voice be given to the subtleties and raptures of +emotional experience; ordinary social intercourse affords neither +opportunity nor means for this fervour of self-revelation. And if +the highest reach of poetry is often to be found in the use of +common colloquialisms, charged with the intensity of restrained +passion, this is not due to a greater sincerity of expression, but +to the strength derived from dramatic situation. Where speech +spends itself on its subject, drama stands idle; but where the +dramatic stress is at its greatest, three or four words may +enshrine all the passion of the moment. Romeo's apostrophe from +under the balcony - + + +O, speak again, bright Angel! for thou art +As glorious to this night, being o'er my head, +As is a winged messenger of heaven +Unto the white-upturned wond'ring eyes +Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him, +When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds, +And sails upon the bosom of the air - + + +though it breathe the soul of romance, must yield, for sheer +effect, to his later soliloquy, spoken when the news of Juliet's +death is brought to him, + + +Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee to-night. + + +And even the constellated glories of Paradise Lost are less moving +than the plain words wherein Samson forecasts his approaching end - + + +So much I feel my genial spirits droop, +My hopes all flat; Nature within me seems +In all her functions weary of herself; +My race of glory run and race of shame, +And I shall shortly be with them that rest. + + +Here are simple words raised to a higher power and animated with a +purer intention than they carry in ordinary life. It is this +unfailing note of sincerity, eloquent or laconic, that has made +poetry the teacher of prose. Phrases which, to all seeming, might +have been hit on by the first comer, are often cut away from their +poetical context and robbed of their musical value that they may be +transferred to the service of prose. They bring with them, down to +the valley, a wafted sense of some region of higher thought and +purer feeling. They bear, perhaps, no marks of curious diction to +know them by. Whence comes the irresistible pathos of the lines - + + +I cannot but remember such things were +That were most precious to me? + + +The thought, the diction, the syntax, might all occur in prose. +Yet when once the stamp of poetry has been put upon a cry that is +as old as humanity, prose desists from rivalry, and is content to +quote. Some of the greatest prose-writers have not disdained the +help of these borrowed graces for the crown of their fabric. In +this way De Quincey widens the imaginative range of his prose, and +sets back the limits assigned to prose diction. So too, Charles +Lamb, interweaving the stuff of experience with phrases quoted or +altered from the poets, illuminates both life and poetry, letting +his sympathetic humour play now on the warp of the texture, and now +on the woof. The style of Burke furnishes a still better example, +for the spontaneous evolution of his prose might be thought to +forbid the inclusion of borrowed fragments. Yet whenever he is +deeply stirred, memories of Virgil, Milton, or the English Bible +rise to his aid, almost as if strong emotion could express itself +in no other language. Even the poor invectives of political +controversy gain a measure of dignity from the skilful application +of some famous line; the touch of the poet's sincerity rests on +them for a moment, and seems to lend them an alien splendour. It +is like the blessing of a priest, invoked by the pious, or by the +worldly, for the good success of whatever business they have in +hand. Poetry has no temporal ends to serve, no livelihood to earn, +and is under no temptation to cog and lie: wherefore prose pays +respect to that loftier calling, and that more unblemished +sincerity. + +Insincerity, on the other hand, is the commonest vice of style. It +is not to be avoided, except in the rarest cases, by those to whom +the written use of language is unfamiliar; so that a shepherd who +talks pithy, terse sense will be unable to express himself in a +letter without having recourse to the Ready Letter-writer--"This +comes hoping to find you well, as it also leaves me at present"-- +and a soldier, without the excuse of ignorance, will describe a +successful advance as having been made against "a thick hail of +bullets." It permeates ordinary journalism, and all writing +produced under commercial pressure. It taints the work of the +young artist, caught by the romantic fever, who glories in the +wealth of vocabulary discovered to him by the poets, and seeks +often in vain for a thought stalwart enough to wear that glistering +armour. Hence it is that the masters of style have always had to +preach restraint, self-denial, austerity. His style is a man's +own; yet how hard it is to come by! It is a man's bride, to be won +by labours and agonies that bespeak a heroic lover. If he prove +unable to endure the trial, there are cheaper beauties, nearer +home, easy to be conquered, and faithless to their conqueror. +Taking up with them, he may attain a brief satisfaction, but he +will never redeem his quest. + +As a body of practical rules, the negative precepts of asceticism +bring with them a certain chill. The page is dull; it is so easy +to lighten it with some flash of witty irrelevance: the argument +is long and tedious, why not relieve it by wandering into some of +those green enclosures that open alluring doors upon the wayside? +To roam at will, spring-heeled, high-hearted, and catching at all +good fortunes, is the ambition of the youth, ere yet he has subdued +himself to a destination. The principle of self-denial seems at +first sight a treason done to genius, which was always privileged +to be wilful. In this view literature is a fortuitous series of +happy thoughts and heaven-sent findings. But the end of that plan +is beggary. Sprightly talk about the first object that meets the +eye and the indulgence of vagabond habits soon degenerate to a +professional garrulity, a forced face of dismal cheer, and a +settled dislike of strenuous exercise. The economies and +abstinences of discipline promise a kinder fate than this. They +test and strengthen purpose, without which no great work comes into +being. They save the expenditure of energy on those pastimes and +diversions which lead no nearer to the goal. To reject the images +and arguments that proffer a casual assistance yet are not to be +brought under the perfect control of the main theme is difficult; +how should it be otherwise, for if they were not already dear to +the writer they would not have volunteered their aid. + +It is the more difficult, in that to refuse the unfit is no warrant +of better help to come. But to accept them is to fall back for +good upon a makeshift, and to hazard the enterprise in a hubbub of +disorderly claims. No train of thought is strengthened by the +addition of those arguments that, like camp-followers, swell the +number and the noise, without bearing a part in the organisation. +The danger that comes in with the employment of figures of speech, +similes, and comparisons is greater still. The clearest of them +may be attended by some element of grotesque or paltry association, +so that while they illumine the subject they cannot truly be said +to illustrate it. The noblest, including those time-honoured +metaphors that draw their patent of nobility from war, love, +religion, or the chase, in proportion as they are strong and of a +vivid presence, are also domineering--apt to assume command of the +theme long after their proper work is done. So great is the +headstrong power of the finest metaphors, that an author may be +incommoded by one that does his business for him handsomely, as a +king may suffer the oppression of a powerful ally. When a lyric +begins with the splendid lines, + + +Love still has something of the sea +From whence his mother rose, + + +the further development of that song is already fixed and its knell +rung--to the last line there is no escaping from the dazzling +influences that presided over the first. Yet to carry out such a +figure in detail, as Sir Charles Sedley set himself to do, +tarnishes the sudden glory of the opening. The lady whom Burns +called Clarinda put herself in a like quandary by beginning a song +with this stanza - + + +Talk not of Love, it gives me pain, +For Love has been my foe; +He bound me in an iron chain, +And plunged me deep in woe. + + +The last two lines deserve praise--even the praise they obtained +from a great lyric poet. But how is the song to be continued? +Genius might answer the question; to Clarinda there came only the +notion of a valuable contrast to be established between love and +friendship, and a tribute to be paid to the kindly offices of the +latter. The verses wherein she gave effect to this idea make a +poor sequel; friendship, when it is personified and set beside the +tyrant god, wears very much the air of a benevolent county +magistrate, whose chief duty is to keep the peace. + +Figures of this sort are in no sense removable decorations, they +are at one with the substance of the thought to be expressed, and +are entitled to the large control they claim. Imagination, working +at white heat, can fairly subdue the matter of the poem to them, or +fuse them with others of the like temper, striking unity out of the +composite mass. One thing only is forbidden, to treat these +substantial and living metaphors as if they were elegant +curiosities, ornamental excrescences, to be passed over abruptly on +the way to more exacting topics. The mystics, and the mystical +poets, knew better than to countenance this frivolity. Recognising +that there is a profound and intimate correspondence between all +physical manifestations and the life of the soul, they flung the +reins on the neck of metaphor in the hope that it might carry them +over that mysterious frontier. Their failures and misadventures, +familiarly despised as "conceits," left them floundering in +absurdity. Yet not since the time of Donne and Crashaw has the +full power and significance of figurative language been realised in +English poetry. These poets, like some of their late descendants, +were tortured by a sense of hidden meaning, and were often content +with analogies that admit of no rigorous explanation. They were +convinced that all intellectual truth is a parable, though its +inner meaning be dark or dubious. The philosophy of friendship +deals with those mathematical and physical conceptions of distance, +likeness, and attraction--what if the law of bodies govern souls +also, and the geometer's compasses measure more than it has entered +into his heart to conceive? Is the moon a name only for a certain +tonnage of dead matter, and is the law of passion parochial while +the law of gravitation is universal? Mysticism will observe no +such partial boundaries. + + +O more than Moon! +Draw not up seas to drown me in thy sphere, +Weep me not dead in thine arms, but forbear +To teach the sea what it may do too soon. + + +The secret of these sublime intuitions, undivined by many of the +greatest poets, has been left to the keeping of transcendental +religion and the Catholic Church. + +Figure and ornament, therefore, are not interchangeable terms; the +loftiest figurative style most conforms to the precepts of gravity +and chastity. None the less there is a decorative use of figure, +whereby a theme is enriched with imaginations and memories that are +foreign to the main purpose. Under this head may be classed most +of those allusions to the world's literature, especially to +classical and Scriptural lore, which have played so considerable, +yet on the whole so idle, a part in modern poetry. It is here that +an inordinate love of decoration finds its opportunity and its +snare. To keep the most elaborate comparison in harmony with its +occasion, so that when it is completed it shall fall back easily +into the emotional key of the narrative, has been the study of the +great epic poets. Milton's description of the rebel legions adrift +on the flaming sea is a fine instance of the difficulty felt and +conquered: + + +Angel forms, who lay entranced +Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks +In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades +High over-arched embower; or scattered sedge +Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion armed +Hath vexed the Red-Sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew +Busiris and his Memphian chivalry, +While with perfidious hatred they pursued +The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld +From the safe shore their floating carcases +And broken chariot-wheels. So thick bestrown, +Abject and lost, lay these, covering the flood, +Under amazement of their hideous change. + + +The comparison seems to wander away at random, obedient to the +slightest touch of association. Yet in the end it is brought back, +its majesty heightened, and a closer element of likeness introduced +by the skilful turn that substitutes the image of the shattered +Egyptian army for the former images of dead leaves and sea-weed. +The incidental pictures, of the roof of shades, of the watchers +from the shore, and the very name "Red Sea," fortuitous as they may +seem, all lend help to the imagination in bodying forth the scene +described. An earlier figure in the same book of Paradise Lost, +because it exhibits a less conspicuous technical cunning, may even +better show a poet's care for unity of tone and impression. Where +Satan's prostrate bulk is compared to + + +that sea-beast +Leviathan, which God of all his works +Created hugest that swim the ocean-stream, + + +the picture that follows of the Norse-pilot mooring his boat under +the lee of the monster is completed in a line that attunes the mind +once more to all the pathos and gloom of those infernal deeps: + + +while night +Invests the sea, and wished morn delays. + + +So masterly a handling of the figures which usage and taste +prescribe to learned writers is rare indeed. The ordinary small +scholar disposes of his baggage less happily. Having heaped up +knowledge as a successful tradesman heaps up money, he is apt to +believe that his wealth makes him free of the company of letters, +and a fellow craftsman of the poets. The mark of his style is an +excessive and pretentious allusiveness. It was he whom the +satirist designed in that taunt, Scire tuum nihil est nisi te scire +hoc sciat alter--"My knowledge of thy knowledge is the knowledge +thou covetest." His allusions and learned periphrases elucidate +nothing; they put an idle labour on the reader who understands +them, and extort from baffled ignorance, at which, perhaps, they +are more especially aimed, a foolish admiration. These tricks and +vanities, the very corruption of ornament, will always be found +while the power to acquire knowledge is more general than the +strength to carry it or the skill to wield it. The collector has +his proper work to do in the commonwealth of learning, but the +ownership of a museum is a poor qualification for the name of +artist. Knowledge has two good uses; it may be frankly +communicated for the benefit of others, or it may minister matter +to thought; an allusive writer often robs it of both these +functions. He must needs display his possessions and his modesty +at one and the same time, producing his treasures unasked, and +huddling them in uncouth fashion past the gaze of the spectator, +because, forsooth, he would not seem to make a rarity of them. The +subject to be treated, the groundwork to be adorned, becomes the +barest excuse for a profitless haphazard ostentation. This fault +is very incident to the scholarly style, which often sacrifices +emphasis and conviction to a futile air of encyclopaedic grandeur. + +Those who are repelled by this redundance of ornament, from which +even great writers are not wholly exempt, have sometimes been +driven by the force of reaction into a singular fallacy. The +futility of these literary quirks and graces has induced them to +lay art under the same interdict with ornament. Style and +stylists, one will say, have no attraction for him, he had rather +hear honest men utter their thoughts directly, clearly, and simply. +The choice of words, says another, and the conscious manipulation +of sentences, is literary foppery; the word that first offers is +commonly the best, and the order in which the thoughts occur is the +order to be followed. Be natural, be straightforward, they urge, +and what you have to say will say itself in the best possible +manner. It is a welcome lesson, no doubt, that these deluded +Arcadians teach. A simple and direct style--who would not give his +all to purchase that! But is it in truth so easy to be compassed? +The greatest writers, when they are at the top of happy hours, +attain to it, now and again. Is all this tangled contrariety of +things a kind of fairyland, and does the writer, alone among men, +find that a beaten foot-path opens out before him as he goes, to +lead him, straight through the maze, to the goal of his desires? +To think so is to build a childish dream out of facts imperfectly +observed, and worthy of a closer observation. Sometimes the cry +for simplicity is the reverse of what it seems, and is uttered by +those who had rather hear words used in their habitual vague +acceptations than submit to the cutting directness of a good +writer. Habit makes obscurity grateful, and the simple style, in +this view, is the style that allows thought to run automatically +into its old grooves and burrows. The original writers who have +combined real literary power with the heresy of ease and nature are +of another kind. A brutal personality, excellently muscular, +snatching at words as the handiest weapons wherewith to inflict +itself, and the whole body of its thoughts and preferences, on +suffering humanity, is likely enough to deride the daintiness of +conscious art. Such a writer is William Cobbett, who has often +been praised for the manly simplicity of his style, which he raised +into a kind of creed. His power is undeniable; his diction, though +he knew it not, both choice and chaste; yet page after page of his +writing suggests only the reflection that here is a prodigal waste +of good English. He bludgeons all he touches, and spends the same +monotonous emphasis on his dislike of tea and on his hatred of the +Government. His is the simplicity of a crude and violent mind, +concerned only with giving forcible expression to its unquestioned +prejudices. Irrelevance, the besetting sin of the ill-educated, he +glories in, so that his very weakness puts on the semblance of +strength, and helps to wield the hammer. + +It is not to be denied that there is a native force of temperament +which can make itself felt even through illiterate carelessness. +"Literary gentlemen, editors, and critics," says Thoreau, himself +by no means a careless writer, "think that they know how to write, +because they have studied grammar and rhetoric; but they are +egregiously mistaken. The ART of composition is as simple as the +discharge of a bullet from a rifle, and its masterpieces imply an +infinitely greater force behind them." This true saying introduces +us to the hardest problem of criticism, the paradox of literature, +the stumbling-block of rhetoricians. To analyse the precise method +whereby a great personality can make itself felt in words, even +while it neglects and contemns the study of words, would be to lay +bare the secrets of religion and life--it is beyond human +competence. Nevertheless a brief and diffident consideration of +the matter may bring thus much comfort, that the seeming +contradiction is no discredit cast on letters, but takes its origin +rather from too narrow and pedantic a view of the scope of letters. + +Words are things: it is useless to try to set them in a world +apart. They exist in books only by accident, and for one written +there are a thousand, infinitely more powerful, spoken. They are +deeds: the man who brings word of a lost battle can work no +comparable effect with the muscles of his arm; Iago's breath is as +truly laden with poison and murder as the fangs of the cobra and +the drugs of the assassin. Hence the sternest education in the use +of words is least of all to be gained in the schools, which +cultivate verbiage in a highly artificial state of seclusion. A +soldier cares little for poetry, because it is the exercise of +power that he loves, and he is accustomed to do more with his words +than give pleasure. To keep language in immediate touch with +reality, to lade it with action and passion, to utter it hot from +the heart of determination, is to exhibit it in the plenitude of +power. All this may be achieved without the smallest study of +literary models, and is consistent with a perfect neglect of +literary canons. It is not the logical content of the word, but +the whole mesh of its conditions, including the character, +circumstances, and attitude of the speaker, that is its true +strength. "Damn" is often the feeblest of expletives, and "as you +please" may be the dirge of an empire. Hence it is useless to look +to the grammarian, or the critic, for a lesson in strength of +style; the laws that he has framed, good enough in themselves, are +current only in his own abstract world. A breath of hesitancy will +sometimes make trash of a powerful piece of eloquence; and even in +writing, a thing three times said, and each time said badly, may be +of more effect than that terse, full, and final expression which +the doctors rightly commend. The art of language, regarded as a +question of pattern and cadence, or even as a question of logic and +thought-sequence, is a highly abstract study; for although, as has +been said, you can do almost anything with words, with words alone +you can do next to nothing. The realm where speech holds sway is a +narrow shoal or reef, shaken, contorted, and upheaved by volcanic +action, beaten upon, bounded, and invaded by the ocean of silence: +whoso would be lord of the earth must first tame the fire and the +sea. Dramatic and narrative writing are happy in this, that action +and silence are a part of their material; the story-teller or the +playwright can make of words a background and definition for deeds, +a framework for those silences that are more telling than any +speech. Here lies an escape from the poverty of content and method +to which self-portraiture and self-expression are liable; and +therefore are epic and drama rated above all other kinds of poetry. +The greater force of the objective treatment is witnessed by many +essayists and lyrical poets, whose ambition has led them, sooner or +later, to attempt the novel or the play. There are weaknesses +inherent in all direct self-revelation; the thing, perhaps, is +greatly said, yet there is no great occasion for the saying of it; +a fine reticence is observed, but it is, after all, an easy +reticence, with none of the dramatic splendours of reticence on the +rack. In the midst of his pleasant confidences the essayist is +brought up short by the question, "Why must you still be talking?" +Even the passionate lyric feels the need of external authorisation, +and some of the finest of lyrical poems, like the Willow Song of +Desdemona, or Wordsworth's Solitary Reaper, are cast in a dramatic +mould, that beauty of diction may be vitalised by an imagined +situation. More than others the dramatic art is an enemy to the +desultory and the superfluous, sooner than others it will cast away +all formal grace of expression that it may come home more directly +to the business and bosoms of men. Its great power and scope are +shown well in this, that it can find high uses for the commonest +stuff of daily speech and the emptiest phrases of daily +intercourse. + +Simplicity and strength, then, the vigorous realistic quality of +impromptu utterance, and an immediate relation with the elementary +facts of life, are literary excellences best known in the drama, +and in its modern fellow and rival, the novel. The dramatist and +novelist create their own characters, set their own scenes, lay +their own plots, and when all has been thus prepared, the right +word is born in the purple, an inheritor of great opportunities, +all its virtues magnified by the glamour of its high estate. +Writers on philosophy, morals, or aesthetics, critics, essayists, +and dealers in soliloquy generally, cannot hope, with their +slighter means, to attain to comparable effects. They work at two +removes from life; the terms that they handle are surrounded by the +vapours of discussion, and are rewarded by no instinctive response. +Simplicity, in its most regarded sense, is often beyond their +reach; the matter of their discourse is intricate, and the most +they can do is to employ patience, care, and economy of labour; the +meaning of their words is not obvious, and they must go aside to +define it. The strength of their writing has limits set for it by +the nature of the chosen task, and any transgression of these +limits is punished by a fall into sheer violence. All writing +partakes of the quality of the drama, there is always a situation +involved, the relation, namely, between the speaker and the hearer. +A gentleman in black, expounding his views, or narrating his +autobiography to the first comer, can expect no such warmth of +response as greets the dying speech of the baffled patriot; yet he +too may take account of the reasons that prompt speech, may display +sympathy and tact, and avoid the faults of senility. The only +character that can lend strength to his words is his own, and he +sketches it while he states his opinions; the only attitude that +can ennoble his sayings is implied in the very arguments he uses. +Who does not know the curious blank effect of eloquence +overstrained or out of place? The phrasing may be exquisite, the +thought well-knit, the emotion genuine, yet all is, as it were, +dumb-show where no community of feeling exists between the speaker +and his audience. A similar false note is struck by any speaker or +writer who misapprehends his position or forgets his +disqualifications, by newspaper writers using language that is +seemly only in one who stakes his life on his words, by preachers +exceeding the license of fallibility, by moralists condemning +frailty, by speculative traders deprecating frank ways of hazard, +by Satan rebuking sin. + +"How many things are there," exclaims the wise Verulam, "which a +man cannot, with any face or comeliness, say or do himself! A +man's person hath many proper relations which he cannot put off. A +man cannot speak to his son but as a father; to his wife, but as a +husband; to his enemy but upon terms; whereas a friend may speak as +the case requires, and not as it sorteth with the person." The +like "proper relations" govern writers, even where their audience +is unknown to them. It has often been remarked how few are the +story-tellers who can introduce themselves, so much as by a passing +reflection or sentiment, without a discordant effect. The friend +who saves the situation is found in one and another of the +creatures of their art. + +For those who must play their own part the effort to conceal +themselves is of no avail. The implicit attitude of a writer makes +itself felt; an undue swelling of his subject to heroic dimensions, +an unwarrantable assumption of sympathy, a tendency to truck with +friends or with enemies by the way, are all possible indications of +weakness, which move even the least skilled of readers to discount +what is said, as they catch here and there a glimpse of the old +pot-companion, or the young dandy, behind the imposing literary +mask. Strong writers are those who, with every reserve of power, +seek no exhibition of strength. It is as if language could not +come by its full meaning save on the lips of those who regard it as +an evil necessity. Every word is torn from them, as from a +reluctant witness. They come to speech as to a last resort, when +all other ways have failed. The bane of a literary education is +that it induces talkativeness, and an overweening confidence in +words. But those whose words are stark and terrible seem almost to +despise words. + +With words literature begins, and to words it must return. +Coloured by the neighbourhood of silence, solemnised by thought or +steeled by action, words are still its only means of rising above +words. "Accedat verbum ad elementum," said St. Ambrose, "et fiat +sacramentum." So the elementary passions, pity and love, wrath and +terror, are not in themselves poetical; they must be wrought upon +by the word to become poetry. In no other way can suffering be +transformed to pathos, or horror reach its apotheosis in tragedy. + +When all has been said, there remains a residue capable of no +formal explanation. Language, this array of conventional symbols +loosely strung together, and blown about by every wandering breath, +is miraculously vital and expressive, justifying not a few of the +myriad superstitions that have always attached to its use. The +same words are free to all, yet no wealth or distinction of +vocabulary is needed for a group of words to take the stamp of an +individual mind and character. "As a quality of style" says Mr. +Pater, "soul is a fact." To resolve how words, like bodies, become +transparent when they are inhabited by that luminous reality, is a +higher pitch than metaphysic wit can fly. Ardent persuasion and +deep feeling enkindle words, so that the weakest take on glory. +The humblest and most despised of common phrases may be the chosen +vessel for the next avatar of the spirit. It is the old problem, +to be met only by the old solution of the Platonist, that + + +Soul is form, and doth the body make. + + +The soul is able to inform language by some strange means other +than the choice and arrangement of words and phrases. Real novelty +of vocabulary is impossible; in the matter of language we lead a +parasitical existence, and are always quoting. Quotations, +conscious or unconscious, vary in kind according as the mind is +active to work upon them and make them its own. In its grossest +and most servile form quotation is a lazy folly; a thought has +received some signal or notorious expression, and as often as the +old sense, or something like it, recurs, the old phrase rises to +the lips. This degenerates to simple phrase-mongering, and those +who practise it are not vigilantly jealous of their meaning. Such +an expression as "fine by degrees and beautifully less" is often no +more than a bloated equivalent for a single word--say "diminishing" +or "shrinking." Quotations like this are the warts and excremental +parts of language; the borrowings of good writers are never thus +superfluous, their quotations are appropriations. Whether it be by +some witty turn given to a well-known line, by an original setting +for an old saw, or by a new and unlooked-for analogy, the stamp of +the borrower is put upon the goods he borrows, and he becomes part +owner. Plagiarism is a crime only where writing is a trade; +expression need never be bound by the law of copyright while it +follows thought, for thought, as some great thinker has observed, +is free. The words were once Shakespeare's; if only you can feel +them as he did, they are yours now no less than his. The best +quotations, the best translations, the best thefts, are all equally +new and original works. From quotation, at least, there is no +escape, inasmuch as we learn language from others. All common +phrases that do the dirty work of the world are quotations--poor +things, and not our own. Who first said that a book would "repay +perusal," or that any gay scene was "bright with all the colours of +the rainbow"? There is no need to condemn these phrases, for +language has a vast deal of inferior work to do. The expression of +thought, temperament, attitude, is not the whole of its business. +It is only a literary fop or doctrinaire who will attempt to remint +all the small defaced coinage that passes through his hands, only a +lisping young fantastico who will refuse all conventional garments +and all conventional speech. At a modern wedding the frock-coat is +worn, the presents are "numerous and costly," and there is an +"ovation accorded to the happy pair." These things are part of our +public civilisation, a decorous and accessible uniform, not to be +lightly set aside. But let it be a friend of your own who is to +marry, a friend of your own who dies, and you are to express +yourself--the problem is changed, you feel all the difficulties of +the art of style, and fathom something of the depth of your +unskill. Forbidden silence, we should be in a poor way indeed. + +Single words too we plagiarise when we use them without realisation +and mastery of their meaning. The best argument for a succinct +style is this, that if you use words you do not need, or do not +understand, you cannot se them well. It is not what a word means, +but what it means to you, that is of the deepest import. Let it be +a weak word, with a poor history behind it, if you have done good +thinking with it, you may yet use it to surprising advantage. But +if, on the other hand, it be a strong word that has never aroused +more than a misty idea and a flickering emotion in your mind, here +lies your danger. You may use it, for there is none to hinder; and +it will betray you. The commonest Saxon words prove explosive +machines in the hands of rash impotence. It is perhaps a certain +uneasy consciousness of danger, a suspicion that weakness of soul +cannot wield these strong words, that makes debility avoid them, +committing itself rather, as if by some pre-established affinity, +to the vaguer Latinised vocabulary. Yet they are not all to be +avoided, and their quality in practice will depend on some occult +ability in their employer. For every living person, if the +material were obtainable, a separate historical dictionary might be +compiled, recording where each word was first heard or seen, where +and how it was first used. The references are utterly beyond +recovery; but such a register would throw a strange light on +individual styles. The eloquent trifler, whose stock of words has +been accumulated by a pair of light fingers, would stand denuded of +his plausible pretences as soon as it were seen how roguishly he +came by his eloquence. There may be literary quality, it is well +to remember, in the words of a parrot, if only its cage has been +happily placed; meaning and soul there cannot be. Yet the voice +will sometimes be mistaken, by the carelessness of chance +listeners, for a genuine utterance of humanity; and the like is +true in literature. But writing cannot be luminous and great save +in the hands of those whose words are their own by the indefeasible +title of conquest. Life is spent in learning the meaning of great +words, so that some idle proverb, known for years and accepted +perhaps as a truism, comes home, on a day, like a blow. "If there +were not a God," said Voltaire, "it would be necessary to invent +him." Voltaire had therefore a right to use the word, but some of +those who use it most, if they would be perfectly sincere, should +enclose it in quotation marks. Whole nations go for centuries +without coining names for certain virtues; is it credible that +among other peoples, where the names exists the need for them is +epidemic? The author of the Ecclesiastial Polity puts a bolder and +truer face on the matter. "Concerning that Faith, Hope, and +Charity," he writes, "without which there can be no salvation, was +there ever any mention made saving only in that Law which God +himself hath from Heaven revealed? There is not in the world a +syllable muttered with certain truth concerning any of these three, +more than hath been supernaturally received from the mouth of the +eternal God." Howsoever they came to us, we have the words; they, +and many other terms of tremendous import, are bandied about from +mouth to mouth and alternately enriched or impoverished in meaning. +Is the "Charity" of St. Paul's Epistle one with the charity of +"charity-blankets"? Are the "crusades" of Godfrey and of the great +St. Louis, where knightly achievement did homage to the religious +temper, essentially the same as that process of harrying the +wretched and the outcast for which the muddle-headed, greasy +citizen of to-day invokes the same high name? Of a truth, some +kingly words fall to a lower estate than Nebuchadnezzar. + +Here, among words, our lot is cast, to make or mar. It is in this +obscure thicket, overgrown with weeds, set with thorns, and haunted +by shadows, this World of Words, as the Elizabethans finely called +it, that we wander, eternal pioneers, during the course of our +mortal lives. To be overtaken by a master, one who comes along +with the gaiety of assured skill and courage, with the gravity of +unflinching purpose, to make the crooked ways straight and the +rough places plain, is to gain fresh confidence from despair. He +twines wreaths of the entangling ivy, and builds ramparts of the +thorns. He blazes his mark upon the secular oaks, as a guidance to +later travellers, and coaxes flame from heaps of mouldering +rubbish. There is no sense of cheer like this. Sincerity, +clarity, candour, power, seem real once more, real and easy. In +the light of great literary achievement, straight and wonderful, +like the roads of the ancient Romans, barbarism torments the mind +like a riddle. Yet there are the dusky barbarians!--fleeing from +the harmonious tread of the ordered legions, running to hide +themselves in the morass of vulgar sentiment, to ambush their +nakedness in the sand-pits of low thought. + + +It is a venerable custom to knit up the speculative consideration +of any subject with the counsels of practical wisdom. The words of +this essay have been vain indeed if the idea that style may be +imparted by tuition has eluded them, and survived. There is a +useful art of Grammar, which takes for its province the right and +the wrong in speech. Style deals only with what is permissible to +all, and even revokes, on occasion, the rigid laws of Grammar or +countenances offences against them. Yet no one is a better judge +of equity for ignorance of the law, and grammatical practice offers +a fair field wherein to acquire ease, accuracy and versatility. +The formation of sentences, the sequence of verbs, the marshalling +of the ranks of auxiliaries are all, in a sense, to be learned. +There is a kind of inarticulate disorder to which writers are +liable, quite distinct from a bad style, and caused chiefly by lack +of exercise. An unpractised writer will sometimes send a beautiful +and powerful phrase jostling along in the midst of a clumsy +sentence--like a crowned king escorted by a mob. + +But Style cannot be taught. Imitation of the masters, or of some +one chosen master, and the constant purging of language by a severe +criticism, have their uses, not to be belittled; they have also +their dangers. The greater part of what is called the teaching of +style must always be negative, bad habits may be broken down, old +malpractices prohibited. The pillory and the stocks are hardly +educational agents, but they make it easier for honest men to enjoy +their own. If style could really be taught, it is a question +whether its teachers should not be regarded as mischief-makers and +enemies of mankind. The Rosicrucians professed to have found the +philosopher's stone, and the shadowy sages of modern Thibet are +said, by those who speak for them, to have compassed the +instantaneous transference of bodies from place to place. In +either case, the holders of these secrets have laudably refused to +publish them, lest avarice and malice should run amuck in human +society. A similar fear might well visit the conscience of one who +should dream that he had divulged to the world at large what can be +done with language. Of this there is no danger; rhetoric, it is +true, does put fluency, emphasis, and other warlike equipments at +the disposal of evil forces, but style, like the Christian +religion, is one of those open secrets which are most easily and +most effectively kept by the initiate from age to age. Divination +is the only means of access to these mysteries. The formal attempt +to impart a good style is like the melancholy task of the teacher +of gesture and oratory; some palpable faults are soon corrected; +and, for the rest, a few conspicuous mannerisms, a few theatrical +postures, not truly expressive, and a high tragical strut, are all +that can be imparted. The truth of the old Roman teachers of +rhetoric is here witnessed afresh, to be a good orator it is first +of all necessary to be a good man. Good style is the greatest of +revealers,--it lays bare the soul. The soul of the cheat shuns +nothing so much. "Always be ready to speak your minds" said Blake, +"and a base man will avoid you." But to insist that he also shall +speak his mind is to go a step further, it is to take from the +impostor his wooden leg, to prohibit his lucrative whine, his +mumping and his canting, to force the poor silly soul to stand +erect among its fellows and declare itself. His occupation is +gone, and he does not love the censor who deprives him of the +weapons of his mendicity. + +All style is gesture, the gesture of the mind and of the soul. +Mind we have in common, inasmuch as the laws of right reason are +not different for different minds. Therefore clearness and +arrangement can be taught, sheer incompetence in the art of +expression can be partly remedied. But who shall impose laws upon +the soul? It is thus of common note that one may dislike or even +hate a particular style while admiring its facility, its strength, +its skilful adaptation to the matter set forth. Milton, a chaster +and more unerring master of the art than Shakespeare, reveals no +such lovable personality. While persons count for much, style, the +index to persons, can never count for little. "Speak," it has been +said, "that I may know you"--voice-gesture is more than feature. +Write, and after you have attained to some control over the +instrument, you write yourself down whether you will or no. There +is no vice, however unconscious, no virtue, however shy, no touch +of meanness or of generosity in your character, that will not pass +on to the paper. You anticipate the Day of Judgment and furnish +the recording angel with material. The Art of Criticism in +literature, so often decried and given a subordinate place among +the arts, is none other than the art of reading and interpreting +these written evidences. Criticism has been popularly opposed to +creation, perhaps because the kind of creation that it attempts is +rarely achieved, and so the world forgets that the main business of +Criticism, after all, is not to legislate, nor to classify, but to +raise the dead. Graves, at its command, have waked their sleepers, +oped, and let them forth. It is by the creative power of this art +that the living man is reconstructed from the litter of blurred and +fragmentary paper documents that he has left to posterity. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, STYLE *** + +This file should be named style10.txt or style10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, style11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, style10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END* + diff --git a/old/style10.zip b/old/style10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6063237 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/style10.zip diff --git a/old/style10h.htm b/old/style10h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bcc3f4d --- /dev/null +++ b/old/style10h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2550 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Style</title> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">Style, by Walter Raleigh</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Style, by Walter Raleigh +(#2 in our series by Walter Raleigh) + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Style + +Author: Walter Raleigh + +Release Date: September, 1997 [EBook #1038] +[This file was first posted on September 2, 1997] +[Most recently updated: May 23, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<h1>STYLE</h1> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<p>Style, the Latin name for an iron pen, has come to designate the +art that handles, with ever fresh vitality and wary alacrity, the fluid +elements of speech. By a figure, obvious enough, which yet might +serve for an epitome of literary method, the most rigid and simplest +of instruments has lent its name to the subtlest and most flexible of +arts. Thence the application of the word has been extended to +arts other than literature, to the whole range of the activities of +man. The fact that we use the word “style” in speaking +of architecture and sculpture, painting and music, dancing, play-acting, +and cricket, that we can apply it to the careful achievements of the +housebreaker and the poisoner, and to the spontaneous animal movements +of the limbs of man or beast, is the noblest of unconscious tributes +to the faculty of letters. The pen, scratching on wax or paper, +has become the symbol of all that is expressive, all that is intimate, +in human nature; not only arms and arts, but man himself, has yielded +to it. His living voice, with its undulations and inflexions, +assisted by the mobile play of feature and an infinite variety of bodily +gesture, is driven to borrow dignity from the same metaphor; the orator +and the actor are fain to be judged by style. “It is most +true,” says the author of <i>The Anatomy of</i> <i>Melancholy</i>, +“<i>stylus virum arguit</i>, our style bewrays us.” +Other gestures shift and change and flit, this is the ultimate and enduring +revelation of personality. The actor and the orator are condemned +to work evanescent effects on transitory material; the dust that they +write on is blown about their graves. The sculptor and the architect +deal in less perishable ware, but the stuff is recalcitrant and stubborn, +and will not take the impress of all states of the soul. Morals, +philosophy, and aesthetic, mood and conviction, creed and whim, habit, +passion, and demonstration—what art but the art of literature +admits the entrance of all these, and guards them from the suddenness +of mortality? What other art gives scope to natures and dispositions +so diverse, and to tastes so contrarious? Euclid and Shelley, +Edmund Spenser and Herbert Spencer, King David and David Hume, are all +followers of the art of letters.</p> +<p>In the effort to explain the principles of an art so bewildering +in its variety, writers on style have gladly availed themselves of analogy +from the other arts, and have spoken, for the most part, not without +a parable. It is a pleasant trick they put upon their pupils, +whom they gladden with the delusion of a golden age, and perfection +to be sought backwards, in arts less complex. The teacher of writing, +past master in the juggling craft of language, explains that he is only +carrying into letters the principles of counterpoint, or that it is +all a matter of colour and perspective, or that structure and ornament +are the beginning and end of his intent. Professor of eloquence +and of thieving, his winged shoes remark him as he skips from metaphor +to metaphor, not daring to trust himself to the partial and frail support +of any single figure. He lures the astonished novice through as +many trades as were ever housed in the central hall of the world’s +fair. From his distracting account of the business it would appear +that he is now building a monument, anon he is painting a picture (with +brushes dipped in a gallipot made of an earthquake); again he strikes +a keynote, weaves a pattern, draws a wire, drives a nail, treads a measure, +sounds a trumpet, or hits a target; or skirmishes around his subject; +or lays it bare with a dissecting knife; or embalms a thought; or crucifies +an enemy. What is he really doing all the time?</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Besides the artist two things are to be considered in every art,—the +instrument and the audience; or, to deal in less figured phrase, the +medium and the public. From both of these the artist, if he would +find freedom for the exercise of all his powers, must sit decently aloof. +It is the misfortune of the actor, the singer, and the dancer, that +their bodies are their sole instruments. On to the stage of their +activities they carry the heart that nourishes them and the lungs wherewith +they breathe, so that the soul, to escape degradation, must seek a more +remote and difficult privacy. That immemorial right of the soul +to make the body its home, a welcome escape from publicity and a refuge +for sincerity, must be largely foregone by the actor, who has scant +liberty to decorate and administer for his private behoof an apartment +that is also a place of business. His ownership is limited by +the necessities of his trade; when the customers are gone, he eats and +sleeps in the bar-parlour. Nor is the instrument of his performances +a thing of his choice; the poorest skill of the violinist may exercise +itself upon a Stradivarius, but the actor is reduced to fiddle for the +term of his natural life upon the face and fingers that he got from +his mother. The serene detachment that may be achieved by disciples +of greater arts can hardly be his, applause touches his personal pride +too nearly, the mocking echoes of derision infest the solitude of his +retired imagination. In none of the world’s great polities +has the practice of this art been found consistent with noble rank or +honourable estate. Christianity might be expected to spare some +sympathy for a calling that offers prizes to abandonment and self-immolation, +but her eye is fixed on a more distant mark than the pleasure of the +populace, and, as in gladiatorial Rome of old, her best efforts have +been used to stop the games. Society, on the other hand, preoccupied +with the art of life, has no warmer gift than patronage for those whose +skill and energy exhaust themselves on the mimicry of life. The +reward of social consideration is refused, it is true, to all artists, +or accepted by them at their immediate peril. By a natural adjustment, +in countries where the artist has sought and attained a certain modest +social elevation, the issue has been changed, and the architect or painter, +when his health is proposed, finds himself, sorely against the grain, +returning thanks for the employer of labour, the genial host, the faithful +husband, the tender father, and other pillars of society. The +risk of too great familiarity with an audience which insists on honouring +the artist irrelevantly, at the expense of the art, must be run by all; +a more clinging evil besets the actor, in that he can at no time wholly +escape from his phantasmal second self. On this creature of his +art he has lavished the last doit of human capacity for expression; +with what bearing shall he face the exacting realities of life? +Devotion to his profession has beggared him of his personality; ague, +old age and poverty, love and death, find in him an entertainer who +plies them with a feeble repetition of the triumphs formerly prepared +for a larger and less imperious audience. The very journalist—though +he, too, when his profession takes him by the throat, may expound himself +to his wife in phrases stolen from his own leaders—is a miracle +of detachment in comparison; he has not put his laughter to sale. +It is well for the soul’s health of the artist that a definite +boundary should separate his garden from his farm, so that when he escapes +from the conventions that rule his work he may be free to recreate himself. +But where shall the weary player keep holiday? Is not all the +world a stage?</p> +<p>Whatever the chosen instrument of an art may be, its appeal to those +whose attention it bespeaks must be made through the senses. Music, +which works with the vibrations of a material substance, makes this +appeal through the ear; painting through the eye; it is of a piece with +the complexity of the literary art that it employs both channels,—as +it might seem to a careless apprehension, indifferently.</p> +<p>For the writer’s pianoforte is the dictionary, words are the +material in which he works, and words may either strike the ear or be +gathered by the eye from the printed page. The alternative will +be called delusive, for, in European literature at least, there is no +word-symbol that does not imply a spoken sound, and no excellence without +euphony. But the other way is possible, the gulf between mind +and mind may be bridged by something which has a right to the name of +literature although it exacts no aid from the ear. The picture-writing +of the Indians, the hieroglyphs of Egypt, may be cited as examples of +literary meaning conveyed with no implicit help from the spoken word. +Such an art, were it capable of high development, would forsake the +kinship of melody, and depend for its sensual elements of delight on +the laws of decorative pattern. In a land of deaf-mutes it might +come to a measure of perfection. But where human intercourse is +chiefly by speech, its connexion with the interests and passions of +daily life would perforce be of the feeblest, it would tend more and +more to cast off the fetters of meaning that it might do freer service +to the jealous god of visible beauty. The overpowering rivalry +of speech would rob it of all its symbolic intent and leave its bare +picture. Literature has favoured rather the way of the ear and +has given itself zealously to the tuneful ordering of sounds. +Let it be repeated, therefore, that for the traffic of letters the senses +are but the door-keepers of the mind; none of them commands an only +way of access,—the deaf can read by sight, the blind by touch. +It is not amid the bustle of the live senses, but in an under-world +of dead impressions that Poetry works her will, raising that in power +which was sown in weakness, quickening a spiritual body from the ashes +of the natural body. The mind of man is peopled, like some silent +city, with a sleeping company of reminiscences, associations, impressions, +attitudes, emotions, to be awakened into fierce activity at the touch +of words. By one way or another, with a fanfaronnade of the marching +trumpets, or stealthily, by noiseless passages and dark posterns, the +troop of suggesters enters the citadel, to do its work within. +The procession of beautiful sounds that is a poem passes in through +the main gate, and forthwith the by-ways resound to the hurry of ghostly +feet, until the small company of adventurers is well-nigh lost and overwhelmed +in that throng of insurgent spirits.</p> +<p>To attempt to reduce the art of literature to its component sense-elements +is therefore vain. Memory, “the warder of the brain,” +is a fickle trustee, whimsically lavish to strangers, giving up to the +appeal of a spoken word or unspoken symbol, an odour or a touch, all +that has been garnered by the sensitive capacities of man. It +is the part of the writer to play upon memory, confusing what belongs +to one sense with what belongs to another, extorting images of colour +at a word, raising ideas of harmony without breaking the stillness of +the air. He can lead on the dance of words till their sinuous +movements call forth, as if by mesmerism, the likeness of some adamantine +rigidity, time is converted into space, and music begets sculpture. +To see for the sake of seeing, to hear for the sake of hearing, are +subsidiary exercises of his complex metaphysical art, to be counted +among its rudiments. Picture and music can furnish but the faint +beginnings of a philosophy of letters. Necessary though they be +to a writer, they are transmuted in his service to new forms, and made +to further purposes not their own.</p> +<p>The power of vision—hardly can a writer, least of all if he +be a poet, forego that part of his equipment. In dealing with +the impalpable, dim subjects that lie beyond the border-land of exact +knowledge, the poetic instinct seeks always to bring them into clear +definition and bright concrete imagery, so that it might seem for the +moment as if painting also could deal with them. Every abstract +conception, as it passes into the light of the creative imagination, +acquires structure and firmness and colour, as flowers do in the light +of the sun. Life and Death, Love and Youth, Hope and Time, become +persons in poetry, not that they may wear the tawdry habiliments of +the studio, but because persons are the objects of the most familiar +sympathy and the most intimate knowledge.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>How long, O Death? And shall thy feet depart<br />Still a young +child’s with mine, or wilt thou stand<br />Full grown the helpful +daughter of my heart,<br />What time with thee indeed I reach the strand<br />Of +the pale wave which knows thee what thou art,<br />And drink it in the +hollow of thy hand?</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>And as a keen eye for the imagery attendant on a word is essential +to all writing, whether prose or poetry, that attempts the heart, so +languor of the visual faculty can work disaster even in the calm periods +of philosophic expatiation. “It cannot be doubted,” +says one whose daily meditations enrich <i>The People’s Post-Bag</i>, +“that Fear is, to a great extent, the mother of Cruelty.” +Alas, by the introduction of that brief proviso, conceived in a spirit +of admirably cautious self-defence, the writer has unwittingly given +himself to the horns of a dilemma whose ferocity nothing can mitigate. +These tempered and conditional truths are not in nature, which decrees, +with uncompromising dogmatism, that either a woman is one’s mother, +or she is not. The writer probably meant merely that “fear +is one of the causes of cruelty,” and had he used a colourless +abstract word the platitude might pass unchallenged. But a vague +desire for the emphasis and glamour of literature having brought in +the word “mother,” has yet failed to set the sluggish imagination +to work, and a word so glowing with picture and vivid with sentiment +is damped and dulled by the thumb-mark of besotted usage to mean no +more than “cause” or “occasion.” Only +for the poet, perhaps, are words live winged things, flashing with colour +and laden with scent; yet one poor spark of imagination might save them +from this sad descent to sterility and darkness.</p> +<p>Of no less import is the power of melody which chooses, rejects, +and orders words for the satisfaction that a cunningly varied return +of sound can give to the ear. Some critics have amused themselves +with the hope that here, in the laws and practices regulating the audible +cadence of words, may be found the first principles of style, the form +which fashions the matter, the apprenticeship to beauty which alone +can make an art of truth. And it may be admitted that verse, owning, +as it does, a professed and canonical allegiance to music, sometimes +carries its devotion so far that thought swoons into melody, and the +thing said seems a discovery made by the way in the search for tuneful +expression.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>What thing unto mine ear<br />Wouldst thou convey,—what secret +thing,<br />O wandering water ever whispering?<br />Surely thy speech +shall be of her,<br />Thou water, O thou whispering wanderer,<br />What +message dost thou bring?</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>In this stanza an exquisitely modulated tune is played upon the syllables +that make up the word “wandering,” even as, in the poem +from which it is taken, there is every echo of the noise of waters laughing +in sunny brooks, or moaning in dumb hidden caverns. Yet even here +it would be vain to seek for reason why each particular sound of every +line should be itself and no other. For melody holds no absolute +dominion over either verse or prose; its laws, never to be disregarded, +prohibit rather than prescribe. Beyond the simple ordinances that +determine the place of the rhyme in verse, and the average number of +syllables, or rhythmical beats, that occur in the line, where shall +laws be found to regulate the sequence of consonants and vowels from +syllable to syllable? Those few artificial restrictions, which +verse invents for itself, once agreed on, a necessary and perilous license +makes up the rest of the code. Literature can never conform to +the dictates of pure euphony, while grammar, which has been shaped not +in the interests of prosody, but for the service of thought, bars the +way with its clumsy inalterable polysyllables and the monotonous sing-song +of its inflexions. On the other hand, among a hundred ways of +saying a thing, there are more than ninety that a care for euphony may +reasonably forbid. All who have consciously practised the art +of writing know what endless and painful vigilance is needed for the +avoidance of the unfit or untuneful phrase, how the meaning must be +tossed from expression to expression, mutilated and deceived, ere it +can find rest in words. The stupid accidental recurrence of a +single broad vowel; the cumbrous repetition of a particle; the emphatic +phrase for which no emphatic place can be found without disorganising +the structure of the period; the pert intrusion on a solemn thought +of a flight of short syllables, twittering like a flock of sparrows; +or that vicious trick of sentences whereby each, unmindful of its position +and duties, tends to imitate the deformities of its predecessor;—these +are a select few of the difficulties that the nature of language and +of man conspire to put upon the writer. He is well served by his +mind and ear if he can win past all such traps and ambuscades, robbed +of only a little of his treasure, indemnified by the careless generosity +of his spoilers, and still singing.</p> +<p>Besides their chime in the ear, and the images that they put before +the mind’s eye, words have, for their last and greatest possession, +a meaning. They carry messages and suggestions that, in the effect +wrought, elude all the senses equally. For the sake of this, their +prime office, the rest is many times forgotten or scorned, the tune +is disordered and havoc played with the lineaments of the picture, because +without these the word can still do its business. The refutation +of those critics who, in their analysis of the power of literature, +make much of music and picture, is contained in the most moving passages +that have found utterance from man. Consider the intensity of +a saying like that of St. Paul:- “For I am persuaded, that neither +death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things +present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, +shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ +Jesus our Lord.”</p> +<p>Do these verses draw their power from a skilful arrangement of vowel +and consonant? But they are quoted from a translation, and can +be translated otherwise, well or ill or indifferently, without losing +more than a little of their virtue. Do they impress the eye by +opening before it a prospect of vast extent, peopled by vague shapes? +On the contrary, the visual embodiment of the ideas suggested kills +the sense of the passage, by lowering the cope of the starry heavens +to the measure of a poplar-tree. Death and life, height and depth, +are conceived by the apostle, and creation thrown in like a trinket, +only that they may lend emphasis to the denial that is the soul of his +purpose. Other arts can affirm, or seem to affirm, with all due +wealth of circumstance and detail; they can heighten their affirmation +by the modesty of reserve, the surprises of a studied brevity, and the +erasure of all impertinence; literature alone can deny, and honour the +denial with the last resources of a power that has the universe for +its treasury. It is this negative capability of words, their privative +force, whereby they can impress the minds with a sense of “vacuity, +darkness, solitude, and silence,” that Burke celebrates in the +fine treatise of his younger days. In such a phrase as “the +angel of the Lord” language mocks the positive rivalry of the +pictorial art, which can offer only the poor pretence of an equivalent +in a young man painted with wings. But the difference between +the two arts is even better marked in the matter of negative suggestion; +it is instanced by Burke from the noble passage where Virgil describes +the descent of AEneas and the Sibyl to the shades of the nether world. +Here are amassed all “the images of a tremendous dignity” +that the poet could forge from the sublime of denial. The two +most famous lines are a procession of negatives:-</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Ibant obscuri sola sub nocte per umbram,<br />Perque domos Ditis +vacuas et inania regna.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Through hollow kingdoms, emptied of the day,<br />And dim, deserted +courts where Dis bears sway,<br />Night-foundered, and uncertain of +the path,<br />Darkling they took their solitary way.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Here is the secret of some of the cardinal effects of literature; +strong epithets like “lonely,” “supreme,” “invisible,” +“eternal,” “inexorable,” with the substantives +that belong to them, borrow their force from the vastness of what they +deny. And not these alone, but many other words, less indebted +to logic for the magnificence of reach that it can lend, bring before +the mind no picture, but a dim emotional framework. Such words +as “ominous,” “fantastic,” “attenuated,” +“bewildered,” “justification,” are atmospheric +rather than pictorial; they infect the soul with the passion-laden air +that rises from humanity. It is precisely in his dealings with +words like these, “heated originally by the breath of others,” +that a poet’s fine sense and knowledge most avail him. The +company a word has kept, its history, faculties, and predilections, +endear or discommend it to his instinct. How hardly will poetry +consent to employ such words as “congratulation” or “philanthropist,”—words +of good origin, but tainted by long immersion in fraudulent rejoicings +and pallid, comfortable, theoretic loves. How eagerly will the +poetic imagination seize on a word like “control,” which +gives scope by its very vagueness, and is fettered by no partiality +of association. All words, the weak and the strong, the definite +and the vague, have their offices to perform in language, but the loftiest +purposes of poetry are seldom served by those explicit hard words which, +like tiresome explanatory persons, say all that they mean. Only +in the focus and centre of man’s knowledge is there place for +the hammer-blows of affirmation, the rest is a flickering world of hints +and half-lights, echoes and suggestions, to be come at in the dusk or +not at all.</p> +<p>The combination of these powers in words, of song and image and meaning, +has given us the supreme passages of our romantic poetry. In Shakespeare’s +work, especially, the union of vivid definite presentment with immense +reach of metaphysical suggestion seems to intertwine the roots of the +universe with the particular fact; tempting the mind to explore that +other side of the idea presented to it, the side turned away from it, +and held by something behind.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>It will have blood; they say blood win have blood:<br />Stones have +been known to move and trees to speak;<br />Augurs and understood relations +have<br />By maggot-pies and choughs and rooks brought forth<br />The +secret’st man of blood.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>This meeting of concrete and abstract, of sense and thought, keeps +the eye travelling along the utmost skyline of speculation, where the +heavens are interfused with the earth. In short, the third and +greatest virtue of words is no other than the virtue that belongs to +the weapons of thought,—a deep, wide, questioning thought that +discovers analogies and pierces behind things to a half-perceived unity +of law and essence. In the employ of keen insight, high feeling, +and deep thinking, language comes by its own; the prettinesses that +may be imposed on a passive material are as nothing to the splendour +and grace that transfigure even the meanest instrument when it is wielded +by the energy of thinking purpose. The contempt that is cast, +by the vulgar phrase, on “mere words” bears witness to the +rarity of this serious consummation. Yet by words the world was +shaped out of chaos, by words the Christian religion was established +among mankind. Are these terrific engines fit play-things for +the idle humours of a sick child?</p> +<p>And now it begins to be apparent that no adequate description of +the art of language can be drawn from the technical terminology of the +other arts, which, like proud debtors, would gladly pledge their substance +to repay an obligation that they cannot disclaim. Let one more +attempt to supply literature with a parallel be quoted from the works +of a writer on style, whose high merit it is that he never loses sight, +either in theory or in practice, of the fundamental conditions proper +to the craft of letters. Robert Louis Stevenson, pondering words +long and lovingly, was impressed by their crabbed individuality, and +sought to elucidate the laws of their arrangement by a reference to +the principles of architecture. “The sister arts,” +he says, “enjoy the use of a plastic and ductile material, like +the modeller’s clay; literature alone is condemned to work in +mosaic with finite and quite rigid words. You have seen those +blocks, dear to the nursery: this one a pillar, that a pediment, a third +a window or a vase. It is with blocks of just such arbitrary size +and figure that the literary architect is condemned to design the palace +of his art. Nor is this all; for since these blocks or words are +the acknowledged currency of our daily affairs, there are here possible +none of those suppressions by which other arts obtain relief, continuity, +and vigour: no hieroglyphic touch, no smoothed impasto, no inscrutable +shadow, as in painting; no blank wall, as in architecture; but every +word, phrase, sentence, and paragraph must move in a logical progression, +and convey a definite conventional import.”</p> +<p>It is an acute comparison, happily indicative of the morose angularity +that words offer to whoso handles them, admirably insistent on the chief +of the incommodities imposed upon the writer, the necessity, at all +times and at all costs, to mean something. The boon of the recurring +monotonous expanse, that an apprentice may fill, the breathing-space +of restful mechanical repetition, are denied to the writer, who must +needs shoulder the hod himself, and lay on the mortar, in ever varying +patterns, with his own trowel. This is indeed the ordeal of the +master, the canker-worm of the penny-a-liner, who, poor fellow, means +nothing, and spends his life in the vain effort to get words to do the +same. But if in this respect architecture and literature are confessed +to differ, there remains the likeness that Mr. Stevenson detects in +the building materials of the two arts, those blocks of “arbitrary +size and figure; finite and quite rigid.” There is truth +enough in the comparison to make it illuminative, but he would be a +rash dialectician who should attempt to draw from it, by way of inference, +a philosophy of letters. Words are piled on words, and bricks +on bricks, but of the two you are invited to think words the more intractable. +Truly, it was a man of letters who said it, avenging himself on his +profession for the never-ending toil it imposed, by miscalling it, with +grim pleasantry, the architecture of the nursery. Finite and quite +rigid words are not, in any sense that holds good of bricks. They +move and change, they wax and wane, they wither and burgeon; from age +to age, from place to place, from mouth to mouth, they are never at +a stay. They take on colour, intensity, and vivacity from the +infection of neighbourhood; the same word is of several shapes and diverse +imports in one and the same sentence; they depend on the building that +they compose for the very chemistry of the stuff that composes them. +The same epithet is used in the phrases “a fine day” and +“fine irony,” in “fair trade” and “a fair +goddess.” Were different symbols to be invented for these +sundry meanings the art of literature would perish. For words +carry with them all the meanings they have worn, and the writer shall +be judged by those that he selects for prominence in the train of his +thought. A slight technical implication, a faint tinge of archaism, +in the common turn of speech that you employ, and in a moment you have +shaken off the mob that scours the rutted highway, and are addressing +a select audience of ticket-holders with closed doors. A single +natural phrase of peasant speech, a direct physical sense given to a +word that genteel parlance authorises readily enough in its metaphorical +sense, and at a touch you have blown the roof off the drawing-room of +the villa, and have set its obscure inhabitants wriggling in the unaccustomed +sun. In choosing a sense for your words you choose also an audience +for them.</p> +<p>To one word, then, there are many meanings, according as it falls +in the sentence, according as its successive ties and associations are +broken or renewed. And here, seeing that the stupidest of all +possible meanings is very commonly the slang meaning, it will be well +to treat briefly of slang. For slang, in the looser acceptation +of the term, is of two kinds, differing, and indeed diametrically opposite, +in origin and worth. Sometimes it is the technical diction that +has perforce been coined to name the operations, incidents, and habits +of some way of life that society despises or deliberately elects to +disregard. This sort of slang, which often invents names for what +would otherwise go nameless, is vivid, accurate, and necessary, an addition +of wealth to the world’s dictionaries and of compass to the world’s +range of thought. Society, mistily conscious of the sympathy that +lightens in any habitual name, seems to have become aware, by one of +those wonderful processes of chary instinct which serve the great, vulnerable, +timid organism in lieu of a brain, that to accept of the pickpocket +his names for the mysteries of his trade is to accept also a new moral +stand-point and outlook on the question of property. For this +reason, and by no special masonic precautions of his own, the pickpocket +is allowed to keep the admirable devices of his nomenclature for the +familiar uses of himself and his mates, until a Villon arrives to prove +that this language, too, was awaiting the advent of its bully and master. +In the meantime, what directness and modest sufficiency of utterance +distinguishes the dock compared with the fumbling prolixity of the old +gentleman on the bench! It is the trite story,—romanticism +forced to plead at the bar of classicism fallen into its dotage, Keats +judged by <i>Blackwood</i>, Wordsworth exciting the pained astonishment +of Miss Anna Seward. Accuser and accused alike recognise that +a question of diction is part of the issue between them; hence the picturesque +confession of the culprit, made in proud humility, that he “clicked +a red ’un” must needs be interpreted, to save the good faith +of the court, into the vaguer and more general speech of the classic +convention. Those who dislike to have their watches stolen find +that the poorest language of common life will serve their simple turn, +without the rich technical additions of a vocabulary that has grown +around an art. They can abide no rendering of the fact that does +not harp incessantly on the disapproval of watch-owners. They +carry their point of morals at the cost of foregoing all glitter and +finish in the matter of expression.</p> +<p>This sort of slang, therefore, technical in origin, the natural efflorescence +of highly cultivated agilities of brain, and hand, and eye, is worthy +of all commendation. But there is another kind that goes under +the name of slang, the offspring rather of mental sloth, and current +chiefly among those idle, jocular classes to whom all art is a bugbear +and a puzzle. There is a public for every one; the pottle-headed +lout who in a moment of exuberance strikes on a new sordid metaphor +for any incident in the beaten round of drunkenness, lubricity, and +debt, can set his fancy rolling through the music-halls, and thence +into the street, secure of applause and a numerous sodden discipleship. +Of the same lazy stamp, albeit more amiable in effect, are the thought-saying +contrivances whereby one word is retained to do the work of many. +For the language of social intercourse ease is the first requisite; +the average talker, who would be hard put to it if he were called on +to describe or to define, must constantly be furnished with the materials +of emphasis, wherewith to drive home his likes and dislikes. Why +should he alienate himself from the sympathy of his fellows by affecting +a singularity in the expression of his emotions? What he craves +is not accuracy, but immediacy of expression, lest the tide of talk +should flow past him, leaving him engaged in a belated analysis. +Thus the word of the day is on all lips, and what was “vastly +fine” last century is “awfully jolly” now; the meaning +is the same, the expression equally inappropriate. Oaths have +their brief periods of ascendency, and philology can boast its fashion-plates. +The tyrant Fashion, who wields for whip the fear of solitude, is shepherd +to the flock of common talkers, as they run hither and thither pursuing, +not self-expression, the prize of letters, but unanimity and self-obliteration, +the marks of good breeding. Like those famous modern poets who +are censured by the author of <i>Paradise Lost</i>, the talkers of slang +are “carried away by custom, to express many things otherwise, +and for the most part worse than else they would have exprest them.” +The poverty of their vocabulary makes appeal to the brotherly sympathy +of a partial and like-minded auditor, who can fill out their paltry +conventional sketches from his own experience of the same events. +Within the limits of a single school, or workshop, or social circle, +slang may serve; just as, between friends, silence may do the work of +talk. There are few families, or groups of familiars, that have +not some small coinage of this token-money, issued and accepted by affection, +passing current only within those narrow and privileged boundaries. +This wealth is of no avail to the travelling mind, save as a memorial +of home, nor is its material such “as, buried once, men want dug +up again.” A few happy words and phrases, promoted, for +some accidental fitness, to the wider world of letters, are all that +reach posterity; the rest pass into oblivion with the other perishables +of the age.</p> +<p>A profusion of words used in an ephemeral slang sense is evidence, +then, that the writer addresses himself merely to the uneducated and +thoughtless of his own day; the revival of bygone meanings, on the other +hand, and an archaic turn given to language is the mark rather of authors +who are ambitious of a hearing from more than one age. The accretions +of time bring round a word many reputable meanings, of which the oldest +is like to be the deepest in grain. It is a counsel of perfection—some +will say, of vainglorious pedantry—but that shaft flies furthest +which is drawn to the head, and he who desires to be understood in the +twenty-fourth century will not be careless of the meanings that his +words inherit from the fourteenth. To know them is of service, +if only for the piquancy of avoiding them. But many times they +cannot wisely be avoided, and the auspices under which a word began +its career when first it was imported from the French or Latin overshadow +it and haunt it to the end.</p> +<p>Popular modern usage will often rob common words, like “nice,” +“quaint,” or “silly,” of all flavour of their +origin, as if it were of no moment to remember that these three words, +at the outset of their history, bore the older senses of “ignorant,” +“noted,” and “blessed.” It may be granted +that any attempt to return to these older senses, regardless of later +implications, is stark pedantry; but a delicate writer will play shyly +with the primitive significance in passing, approaching it and circling +it, taking it as a point of reference or departure. The early +faith of Christianity, its beautiful cult of childhood, and its appeal +to unlearned simplicity, have left their mark on the meaning of “silly”; +the history of the word is contained in that cry of St. Augustine, <i>Indocti +surgunt et rapiunt</i> <i>coelum</i>, or in the fervent sentence of +the author of the <i>Imitation, Oportet fieri stultum</i>. And +if there is a later silliness, altogether unblest, the skilful artificer +of words, while accepting this last extension, will show himself conscious +of his paradox. So also he will shun the grossness that employs +the epithet “quaint” to put upon subtlety and the devices +of a studied workmanship an imputation of eccentricity; or, if he falls +in with the populace in this regard, he will be careful to justify his +innuendo. The slipshod use of “nice” to connote any +sort of pleasurable emotion he will take care, in his writings at least, +utterly to abhor. From the daintiness of elegance to the arrogant +disgust of folly the word carries meanings numerous and diverse enough; +it must not be cruelly burdened with all the laudatory occasions of +an undiscriminating egotism.</p> +<p>It would be easy to cite a hundred other words like these, saved +only by their nobler uses in literature from ultimate defacement. +The higher standard imposed upon the written word tends to raise and +purify speech also, and since talkers owe the same debt to writers of +prose that these, for their part, owe to poets, it is the poets who +must be accounted chief protectors, in the last resort, of our common +inheritance. Every page of the works of that great exemplar of +diction, Milton, is crowded with examples of felicitous and exquisite +meaning given to the infallible word. Sometimes he accepts the +secondary and more usual meaning of a word only to enrich it by the +interweaving of the primary and etymological meaning. Thus the +seraph Abdiel, in the passage that narrates his offer of combat to Satan, +is said to “explore” his own undaunted heart, and there +is no sense of “explore” that does not heighten the description +and help the thought. Thus again, when the poet describes those</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Eremites and friars,<br />White, Black, and Gray, with all their +trumpery,</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>who inhabit, or are doomed to inhabit, the Paradise of Fools, he +seems to invite the curious reader to recall the derivation of “trumpery,” +and so supplement the idea of worthlessness with that other idea, equally +grateful to the author, of deceit. The strength that extracts +this multiplex resonance of meaning from a single note is matched by +the grace that gives to Latin words like “secure,” “arrive,” +“obsequious,” “redound,” “infest,” +and “solemn” the fine precision of intent that art can borrow +from scholarship.</p> +<p>Such an exactitude is consistent with vital change; Milton himself +is bold to write “stood praying” for “continued kneeling +in prayer,” and deft to transfer the application of “schism” +from the rent garment of the Church to those necessary “dissections +made in the quarry and in the timber ere the house of God can be built.” +Words may safely veer to every wind that blows, so they keep within +hail of their cardinal meanings, and drift not beyond the scope of their +central employ, but when once they lose hold of that, then, indeed, +the anchor has begun to drag, and the beach-comber may expect his harvest.</p> +<p>Fixity in the midst of change, fluctuation at the heart of sameness, +such is the estate of language. According as they endeavour to +reduce letters to some large haven and abiding-place of civility, or +prefer to throw in their lot with the centrifugal tendency and ride +on the flying crest of change, are writers dubbed Classic or Romantic. +The Romantics are individualist, anarchic; the strains of their passionate +incantation raise no cities to confront the wilderness in guarded symmetry, +but rather bring the stars shooting from their spheres, and draw wild +things captive to a voice. To them Society and Law seem dull phantoms, +by the light cast from a flaming soul. They dwell apart, and torture +their lives in the effort to attain to self-expression. All means +and modes offered them by language they seize on greedily, and shape +them to this one end; they ransack the vocabulary of new sciences, and +appropriate or invent strange jargons. They furbish up old words +or weld together new indifferently, that they may possess the machinery +of their speech and not be possessed by it. They are at odds with +the idiom of their country in that it serves the common need, and hunt +it through all its metamorphoses to subject it to their private will. +Heretics by profession, they are everywhere opposed to the party of +the Classics, who move by slower ways to ends less personal, but in +no wise easier of attainment. The magnanimity of the Classic ideal +has had scant justice done to it by modern criticism. To make +literature the crowning symbol of a world-wide civilisation; to roof +in the ages, and unite the elect of all time in the courtesy of one +shining assembly, paying duty to one unquestioned code; to undo the +work of Babel, and knit together in a single community the scattered +efforts of mankind towards order and reason;—this was surely an +aim worthy of labour and sacrifice. Both have been freely given, +and the end is yet to seek. The self-assertion of the recusants +has found eulogists in plenty, but who has celebrated the self-denial +that was thrown away on this other task, which is farther from fulfilment +now than it was when the scholars of the Renaissance gave up their patriotism +and the tongue of their childhood in the name of fellow-citizenship +with the ancients and the oecumenical authority of letters? Scholars, +grammarians, wits, and poets were content to bury the lustre of their +wisdom and the hard-won fruits of their toil in the winding-sheet of +a dead language, that they might be numbered with the family of Cicero, +and added to the pious train of Virgil. It was a noble illusion, +doomed to failure, the versatile genius of language cried out against +the monotony of their Utopia, and the crowds who were to people the +unbuilded city of their dreams went straying after the feathered chiefs +of the rebels, who, when the fulness of time was come, themselves received +apotheosis and the honours of a new motley pantheon. The tomb +of that great vision bears for epitaph the ironical inscription which +defines a Classic poet as “a dead Romantic.”</p> +<p>In truth the Romantics are right, and the serenity of the classic +ideal is the serenity of paralysis and death. A universal agreement +in the use of words facilitates communication, but, so inextricably +is expression entangled with feeling, it leaves nothing to communicate. +Inanity dogs the footsteps of the classic tradition, which is everywhere +lackeyed, through a long decline, by the pallor of reflected glories. +Even the irresistible novelty of personal experience is dulled by being +cast in the old matrix, and the man who professes to find the whole +of himself in the Bible or in Shakespeare had as good not be. +He is a replica and a shadow, a foolish libel on his Creator, who, from +the beginning of time, was never guilty of tautology. This is +the error of the classical creed, to imagine that in a fleeting world, +where the quickest eye can never see the same thing twice, and a deed +once done can never be repeated, language alone should be capable of +fixity and finality. Nature avenges herself on those who would +thus make her prisoner, their truths degenerate to truisms, and feeling +dies in the ice-palaces that they build to house it. In their +search for permanence they become unreal, abstract, didactic, lovers +of generalisation, cherishers of the dry bones of life; their art is +transformed into a science, their expression into an academic terminology. +Immutability is their ideal, and they find it in the arms of death. +Words must change to live, and a word once fixed becomes useless for +the purposes of art. Whosoever would make acquaintance with the +goal towards which the classic practice tends, should seek it in the +vocabulary of the Sciences. There words are fixed and dead, a +botanical collection of colourless, scentless, dried weeds, a <i>hortus +siccus</i> of proper names, each individual symbol poorly tethered to +some single object or idea. No wind blows through that garden, +and no sun shines on it, to discompose the melancholy workers at their +task of tying Latin labels on to withered sticks. Definition and +division are the watchwords of science, where art is all for composition +and creation. Not that the exact definable sense of a word is +of no value to the stylist; he profits by it as a painter profits by +a study of anatomy, or an architect by a knowledge of the strains and +stresses that may be put on his material. The exact logical definition +is often necessary for the structure of his thought and the ordering +of his severer argument. But often, too, it is the merest beginning; +when a word is once defined he overlays it with fresh associations and +buries it under new-found moral significances, which may belie the definition +they conceal. This is the burden of Jeremy Bentham’s quarrel +with “question-begging appellatives.” A clear-sighted +and scrupulously veracious philosopher, abettor of the age of reason, +apostle of utility, god-father of the panopticon, and donor to the English +dictionary of such unimpassioned vocables as “codification” +and “international,” Bentham would have been glad to purify +the language by purging it of those “affections of the soul” +wherein Burke had found its highest glory. Yet in censuring the +ordinary political usage of such a word as “innovation,” +it was hardly prejudice in general that he attacked, but the particular +and deep-seated prejudice against novelty. The surprising vivacity +of many of his own figures,—although he had the courage of his +convictions, and laboured, throughout the course of a long life, to +desiccate his style,—bears witness to a natural skill in the use +of loaded weapons. He will pack his text with grave argument on +matters ecclesiastical, and indulge himself and literature, in the notes +with a pleasant description of the flesh and the spirit playing leap-frog, +now one up, now the other, around the holy precincts of the Church. +Lapses like these show him far enough from his own ideal of a geometric +fixity in the use of words. The claim of reason and logic to enslave +language has a more modern advocate in the philosopher who denies all +utility to a word while it retains traces of its primary sensuous employ. +The tickling of the senses, the raising of the passions, these things +do indeed interfere with the arid business of definition. None +the less they are the life’s breath of literature, and he is a +poor stylist who cannot beg half-a-dozen questions in a single epithet, +or state the conclusion he would fain avoid in terms that startle the +senses into clamorous revolt.</p> +<p>The two main processes of change in words are Distinction and Assimilation. +Endless fresh distinction, to match the infinite complexity of things, +is the concern of the writer, who spends all his skill on the endeavour +to cloth the delicacies of perception and thought with a neatly fitting +garment. So words grow and bifurcate, diverge and dwindle, until +one root has many branches. Grammarians tell how “royal” +and “regal” grew up by the side of “kingly,” +how “hospital,” “hospice,” “hostel” +and “hotel” have come by their several offices. The +inventor of the word “sensuous” gave to the English people +an opportunity of reconsidering those headstrong moral preoccupations +which had already ruined the meaning of “sensual” for the +gentler uses of a poet. Not only the Puritan spirit, but every +special bias or interest of man seizes on words to appropriate them +to itself. Practical men of business transfer such words as “debenture” +or “commodity” from debt or comfort in general to the palpable +concrete symbols of debt or comfort; and in like manlier doctors, soldiers, +lawyers, shipmen,—all whose interest and knowledge are centred +on some particular craft or profession, drag words from the general +store and adapt them to special uses. Such words are sometimes +reclaimed from their partial applications by the authority of men of +letters, and pass back into their wider meanings enhanced by a new element +of graphic association. Language never suffers by answering to +an intelligent demand; it is indebted not only to great authors, but +to all whom any special skill or taste has qualified to handle it. +The good writer may be one who disclaims all literary pretension, but +there he is, at work among words,—binding the vagabond or liberating +the prisoner, exalting the humble or abashing the presumptuous, incessantly +alert to amend their implications, break their lazy habits, and help +them to refinement or scope or decision. He educates words, for +he knows that they are alive.</p> +<p>Compare now the case of the ruder multitude. In the regard +of literature, as a great critic long ago remarked, “all are the +multitude; only they differ in clothes, not in judgment or understanding,” +and the poorest talkers do not inhabit the slums. Wherever thought +and taste have fallen to be menials, there the vulgar dwell. How +should they gain mastery over language? They are introduced to +a vocabulary of some hundred thousand words, which quiver through a +million of meanings; the wealth is theirs for the taking, and they are +encouraged to be spendthrift by the very excess of what they inherit. +The resources of the tongue they speak are subtler and more various +than ever their ideas can put to use. So begins the process of +assimilation, the edge put upon words by the craftsman is blunted by +the rough treatment of the confident booby, who is well pleased when +out of many highly-tempered swords he has manufactured a single clumsy +coulter. A dozen expressions to serve one slovenly meaning inflate +him with the sense of luxury and pomp. “Vast,” “huge,” +“immense,” “gigantic,” “enormous,” +“tremendous,” “portentous,” and such-like groups +of words, lose all their variety of sense in a barren uniformity of +low employ. The reign of this democracy annuls differences of +status, and insults over differences of ability or disposition. +Thus do synonyms, or many words ill applied to one purpose, begin to +flourish, and, for a last indignity, dictionaries of synonyms.</p> +<p>Let the truth be said outright: there are no synonyms, and the same +statement can never be repeated in a changed form of words. Where +the ignorance of one writer has introduced an unnecessary word into +the language, to fill a place already occupied, the quicker apprehension +of others will fasten upon it, drag it apart from its fellows, and find +new work for it to do. Where a dull eye sees nothing but sameness, +the trained faculty of observation will discern a hundred differences +worthy of scrupulous expression. The old foresters had different +names for a buck during each successive year of its life, distinguishing +the fawn from the pricket, the pricket from the sore, and so forth, +as its age increased. Thus it is also in that illimitable but +not trackless forest of moral distinctions. Language halts far +behind the truth of things, and only a drowsy perception can fail to +devise a use for some new implement of description. Every strange +word that makes its way into a language spins for itself a web of usage +and circumstance, relating itself from whatsoever centre to fresh points +in the circumference. No two words ever coincide throughout their +whole extent. If sometimes good writers are found adding epithet +to epithet for the same quality, and name to name for the same thing, +it is because they despair of capturing their meaning at a venture, +and so practise to get near it by a maze of approximations. Or, +it may be, the generous breadth of their purpose scorns the minuter +differences of related terms, and includes all of one affinity, fearing +only lest they be found too few and too weak to cover the ground effectively. +Of this sort are the so-called synonyms of the Prayer-Book, wherein +we “acknowledge and confess” the sins we are forbidden to +“dissemble or cloke;” and the bead-roll of the lawyer, who +huddles together “give, devise, and bequeath,” lest the +cunning of litigants should evade any single verb. The works of +the poets yield still better instances. When Milton praises the +<i>Virtuous Young Lady</i> of his sonnet in that the spleen of her detractors +moves her only to “pity and ruth,” it is not for the idle +filling of the line that he joins the second of these nouns to the first. +Rather he is careful to enlarge and intensify his meaning by drawing +on the stores of two nations, the one civilised, the other barbarous; +and ruth is a quality as much more instinctive and elemental than pity +as pitilessness is keener, harder, and more deliberate than the inborn +savagery of ruthlessness.</p> +<p>It is not chiefly, however, for the purposes of this accumulated +and varied emphasis that the need of synonyms is felt. There is +no more curious problem in the philosophy of style than that afforded +by the stubborn reluctance of writers, the good as well as the bad, +to repeat a word or phrase. When the thing is, they may be willing +to abide by the old rule and say the word, but when the thing repeats +itself they will seldom allow the word to follow suit. A kind +of interdict, not removed until the memory of the first occurrence has +faded, lies on a once used word. The causes of this anxiety for +a varied expression are manifold. Where there is merely a column +to fill, poverty of thought drives the hackney author into an illicit +fulness, until the trick of verbiage passes from his practice into his +creed, and makes him the dupe of his own puppets. A commonplace +book, a dictionary of synonyms, and another of phrase and fable equip +him for his task; if he be called upon to marshal his ideas on the question +whether oysters breed typhoid, he will acquit himself voluminously, +with only one allusion (it is a point of pride) to the oyster by name. +He will compare the succulent bivalve to Pandora’s box, and lament +that it should harbour one of the direst of ills that flesh is heir +to. He will find a paradox and an epigram in the notion that the +darling of Apicius should suffer neglect under the frowns of AEsculapius. +Question, hypothesis, lamentation, and platitude dance their allotted +round and fill the ordained space, while Ignorance masquerades in the +garb of criticism, and Folly proffers her ancient epilogue of chastened +hope. When all is said, nothing is said; and Montaigne’s +<i>Que sçais-je</i>, besides being briefer and wittier, was infinitely +more informing.</p> +<p>But we dwell too long with disease; the writer nourished on thought, +whose nerves are braced and his loins girt to struggle with a real meaning, +is not subject to these tympanies. He feels no idolatrous dread +of repetition when the theme requires, it, and is urged by no necessity +of concealing real identity under a show of change. Nevertheless +he, too, is hedged about by conditions that compel him, now and again, +to resort to what seems a synonym. The chief of these is the indispensable +law of euphony, which governs the sequence not only of words, but also +of phrases. In proportion as a phrase is memorable, the words +that compose it become mutually adhesive, losing for a time something +of their individual scope, bringing with them, if they be torn away +too quickly, some cumbrous fragments of their recent association. +That he may avoid this, a sensitive writer is often put to his shifts, +and extorts, if he be fortunate, a triumph from the accident of his +encumbrance. By a slight stress laid on the difference of usage +the unshapeliness may be done away with, and a new grace found where +none was sought. Addison and Landor accuse Milton, with reason, +of too great a fondness for the pun, yet surely there is something to +please the mind, as well as the ear, in the description of the heavenly +judgment,</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>That brought into this world a world of woe.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Where words are not fitted with a single hard definition, rigidly +observed, all repetition is a kind of delicate punning, bringing slight +differences of application into clear relief. The practice has +its dangers for the weak-minded lover of ornament, yet even so it may +be preferable to the flat stupidity of one identical intention for a +word or phrase in twenty several contexts. For the law of incessant +change is not so much a counsel of perfection to be held up before the +apprentice, as a fundamental condition of all writing whatsoever; if +the change be not ordered by art it will order itself in default of +art. The same statement can never be repeated even in the same +form of words, and it is not the old question that is propounded at +the third time of asking. Repetition, that is to say, is the strongest +generator of emphasis known to language. Take the exquisite repetitions +in these few lines:-</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Bitter constraint and sad occasion dear<br />Compels me to disturb +your season due;<br />For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,<br />Young +Lycidas, and hath not left his peer.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Here the tenderness of affection returns again to the loved name, +and the grief of the mourner repeats the word “dead.” +But this monotony of sorrow is the least part of the effect, which lies +rather in the prominence given by either repetition to the most moving +circumstance of all—the youthfulness of the dead poet. The +attention of the discursive intellect, impatient of reiteration, is +concentrated on the idea which these repeated and exhausted words throw +into relief. Rhetoric is content to borrow force from simpler +methods; a good orator will often bring his hammer down, at the end +of successive periods, on the same phrase; and the mirthless refrain +of a comic song, or the catchword of a buffoon, will raise laughter +at last by its brazen importunity. Some modem writers, admiring +the easy power of the device, have indulged themselves with too free +a use of it; Matthew Arnold particularly, in his prose essays, falls +to crying his text like a hawker,</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Beating it in upon our weary brains,<br />As tho’ it were the +burden of a song,</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>clattering upon the iron of the Philistine giant in the effort to +bring him to reason. These are the ostentatious violences of a +missionary, who would fain save his enemy alive, where a grimmer purpose +is glad to employ a more silent weapon and strike but once. The +callousness of a thick-witted auditory lays the need for coarse method +on the gentlest soul resolved to stir them. But he whose message +is for minds attuned and tempered will beware of needless reiteration, +as of the noisiest way of emphasis. Is the same word wanted again, +he will examine carefully whether the altered incidence does not justify +and require an altered term, which the world is quick to call a synonym. +The right dictionary of synonyms would give the context of each variant +in the usage of the best authors. To enumerate all the names applied +by Milton to the hero of <i>Paradise Lost</i>, without reference to +the passages in which they occur, would be a foolish labour; with such +reference, the task is made a sovereign lesson in style. At Hell +gates, where he dallies in speech with his leman Sin to gain a passage +from the lower World, Satan is “the subtle Fiend,” in the +garden of Paradise he is “the Tempter” and “the Enemy +of Mankind,” putting his fraud upon Eve he is the “wily +Adder,” leading her in full course to the tree he is “the +dire Snake,” springing to his natural height before the astonished +gaze of the cherubs he is “the grisly King.” Every +fresh designation elaborates his character and history, emphasises the +situation, and saves a sentence. So it is with all variable appellations +of concrete objects; and even in the stricter and more conventional +region of abstract ideas the same law runs. Let a word be changed +or repeated, it brings in either case its contribution of emphasis, +and must be carefully chosen for the part it is to play, lest it should +upset the business of the piece by irrelevant clownage in the midst +of high matter, saying more or less than is set down for it in the author’s +purpose.</p> +<p>The chameleon quality of language may claim yet another illustration. +Of origins we know nothing certainly, nor how words came by their meanings +in the remote beginning, when speech, like the barnacle-goose of the +herbalist, was suspended over an expectant world, ripening on a tree. +But this we know, that language in its mature state is fed and fattened +on metaphor. Figure is not a late device of the rhetorician, but +the earliest principle of change in language. The whole process +of speech is a long series of exhilarating discoveries, whereby words, +freed from the swaddling bands of their nativity, are found capable +of new relations and a wider metaphorical employ. Then, with the +growth of exact knowledge, the straggling associations that attended +the word on its travels are straitened and confined, its meaning is +settled, adjusted, and balanced, that it may bear its part in the scrupulous +deposition of truth. Many are the words that have run this double +course, liberated from their first homely offices and transformed by +poetry, reclaimed in a more abstract sense, and appropriated to a new +set of facts by science. Yet a third chance awaits them when the +poet, thirsty for novelty, passes by the old simple founts of figure +to draw metaphor from the latest technical applications of specialised +terms. Everywhere the intuition of poetry, impatient of the sturdy +philosophic cripple that lags so far behind, is busy in advance to find +likenesses not susceptible of scientific demonstration, to leap to comparisons +that satisfy the heart while they leave the colder intellect only half +convinced. When an elegant dilettante like Samuel Rogers is confronted +with the principle of gravitation he gives voice to science in verse:-</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>That very law which moulds a tear,<br />And bids it trickle from +its source,<br />That law preserves the earth a sphere,<br />And guides +the planets in their course.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>But a seer like Wordsworth will never be content to write tunes for +a text-book of physics, he boldly confounds the arbitrary limits of +matter and morals in one splendid apostrophe to Duty:-</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Flowers laugh before thee on their beds;<br />And fragrance in thy +footing treads;<br />Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong;<br />And +the most ancient heavens, through thee, are fresh and strong.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Poets, it is said, anticipate science; here in these four lines is +work for a thousand laboratories for a thousand years. But the +truth has been understated; every writer and every speaker works ahead +of science, expressing analogies and contrasts, likenesses and differences, +that will not abide the apparatus of proof. The world of perception +and will, of passion and belief, is an uncaptured virgin, airily deriding +from afar the calculated advances and practised modesty of the old bawd +Science; turning again to shower a benediction of unexpected caresses +on the most cavalier of her wooers, Poetry. This world, the child +of Sense and Faith, shy, wild, and provocative, for ever lures her lovers +to the chase, and the record of their hopes and conquests is contained +in the lover’s language, made up wholly of parable and figure +of speech. There is nothing under the sun nor beyond it that does +not concern man, and it is the unceasing effort of humanity, whether +by letters or by science, to bring “the commerce of the mind and +of things” to terms of nearer correspondence. But Literature, +ambitious to touch life on all its sides, distrusts the way of abstraction, +and can hardly be brought to abandon the point of view whence things +are seen in their immediate relation to the individual soul. This +kind of research is the work of letters; here are facts of human life +to be noted that are never like to be numerically tabulated, changes +and developments that defy all metrical standards to be traced and described. +The greater men of science have been cast in so generous a mould that +they have recognised the partial nature of their task; they have known +how to play with science as a pastime, and to win and wear her decorations +for a holiday favour. They have not emaciated the fulness of their +faculties in the name of certainty, nor cramped their humanity for the +promise of a future good. They have been the servants of Nature, +not the slaves of method. But the grammarian of the laboratory +is often the victim of his trade. He staggers forth from his workshop, +where prolonged concentration on a mechanical task, directed to a provisional +and doubtful goal, has dimmed his faculties; the glaring motley of the +world, bathed in sunlight, dazzles him; the questions, moral, political, +and personal, that his method has relegated to some future of larger +knowledge, crowd upon him, clamorous for solution, not to be denied, +insisting on a settlement to-day. He is forced to make a choice, +and may either forsake the divinity he serves, falling back, for the +practical and aesthetic conduct of life, on those common instincts of +sensuality which oscillate between the conventicle and the tavern as +the poles of duty and pleasure, or, more pathetically still, he may +attempt to bring the code of the observatory to bear immediately on +the vagaries of the untameable world, and suffer the pedant’s +disaster. A martyr to the good that is to be, he has voluntarily +maimed himself “for the kingdom of Heaven’s sake”—if, +perchance, the kingdom of Heaven might come by observation. The +enthusiasm of his self-denial shows itself in his unavailing struggle +to chain language also to the bare rock of ascertained fact. Metaphor, +the poet’s right-hand weapon, he despises; all that is tentative, +individual, struck off at the urging of a mood, he disclaims and suspects. +Yet the very rewards that science promises have their parallel in the +domain of letters. The discovery of likeness in the midst of difference, +and of difference in the midst of likeness, is the keenest pleasure +of the intellect; and literary expression, as has been said, is one +long series of such discoveries, each with its thrill of incommunicable +happiness, all unprecedented, and perhaps unverifiable by later experiment. +The finest instrument of these discoveries is metaphor, the spectroscope +of letters.</p> +<p>Enough has been said of change; it remains to speak of one more of +those illusions of fixity wherein writers seek exemption from the general +lot. Language, it has been shown, is to be fitted to thought; +and, further, there are no synonyms. What more natural conclusion +could be drawn by the enthusiasm of the artist than that there is some +kind of preordained harmony between words and things, whereby expression +and thought tally exactly, like the halves of a puzzle? This illusion, +called in France the doctrine of the <i>mot</i> <i>propre</i>, is a +will o’ the wisp which has kept many an artist dancing on its +trail. That there is one, and only one way of expressing one thing +has been the belief of other writers besides Gustave Flaubert, inspiriting +them to a desperate and fruitful industry. It is an amiable fancy, +like the dream of Michael Angelo, who loved to imagine that the statue +existed already in the block of marble, and had only to be stripped +of its superfluous wrappings, or like the indolent fallacy of those +economic soothsayers to whom Malthus brought rough awakening, that population +and the means of subsistence move side by side in harmonious progress. +But hunger does not imply food, and there may hover in the restless +heads of poets, as themselves testify -</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>One thought, one grace, one wonder, at the least,<br />Which into +words no virtue can digest.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Matter and form are not so separable as the popular philosophy would +have them; indeed, the very antithesis between them is a cardinal instance +of how language reacts on thought, modifying and fixing a cloudy truth. +The idea pursues form not only that it may be known to others, but that +it may know itself, and the body in which it becomes incarnate is not +to be distinguished from the informing soul. It is recorded of +a famous Latin historian how he declared that he would have made Pompey +win the battle of Pharsalia had the effective turn of the sentence required +it. He may stand for the true type of the literary artist. +The business of letters, howsoever simple it may seem to those who think +truth-telling a gift of nature, is in reality two-fold, to find words +for a meaning, and to find a meaning for words. Now it is the +words that refuse to yield, and now the meaning, so that he who attempts +to wed them is at the same time altering his words to suit his meaning, +and modifying and shaping his meaning to satisfy the requirements of +his words. The humblest processes of thought have had their first +education from language long before they took shape in literature. +So subtle is the connexion between the two that it is equally possible +to call language the form given to the matter of thought, or, inverting +the application of the figure, to speak of thought as the formal principle +that shapes the raw material of language. It is not until the +two become one that they can be known for two. The idea to be +expressed is a kind of mutual recognition between thought and language, +which here meet and claim each other for the first time, just as in +the first glance exchanged by lovers, the unborn child opens its eyes +on the world, and pleads for life. But thought, although it may +indulge itself with the fancy of a predestined affiance, is not confined +to one mate, but roves free and is the father of many children. +A belief in the inevitable word is the last refuge of that stubborn +mechanical theory of the universe which has been slowly driven from +science, politics, and history. Amidst so much that is undulating, +it has pleased writers to imagine that truth persists and is provided +by heavenly munificence with an imperishable garb of language. +But this also is vanity, there is one end appointed alike to all, fact +goes the way of fiction, and what is known is no more perdurable than +what is made. Not words nor works, but only that which is formless +endures, the vitality that is another name for change, the breath that +fills and shatters the bubbles of good and evil, of beauty and deformity, +of truth and untruth.</p> +<p>No art is easy, least of all the art of letters. Apply the +musical analogy once more to the instrument whereon literature performs +its voluntaries. With a living keyboard of notes which are all +incessantly changing in value, so that what rang true under Dr. Johnson’s +hand may sound flat or sharp now, with a range of a myriad strings, +some falling mute and others being added from day to day, with numberless +permutations and combinations, each of which alters the tone and pitch +of the units that compose it, with fluid ideas that never have an outlined +existence until they have found their phrases and the improvisation +is complete, is it to be wondered at that the art of style is eternally +elusive, and that the attempt to reduce it to rule is the forlorn hope +of academic infatuation?</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>These difficulties and complexities of the instrument are, nevertheless, +the least part of the ordeal that is to be undergone by the writer. +The same musical note or phrase affects different ears in much the same +way; not so the word or group of words. The pure idea, let us +say, is translated into language by the literary composer; who is to +be responsible for the retranslation of the language into idea? +Here begins the story of the troubles and weaknesses that are imposed +upon literature by the necessity it lies under of addressing itself +to an audience, by its liability to anticipate the corruptions that +mar the understanding of the spoken or written word. A word is +the operative symbol of a relation between two minds, and is chosen +by the one not without regard to the quality of the effect actually +produced upon the other. Men must be spoken to in their accustomed +tongue, and persuaded that the unknown God proclaimed by the poet is +one whom aforetime they ignorantly worshipped. The relation of +great authors to the public may be compared to the war of the sexes, +a quiet watchful antagonism between two parties mutually indispensable +to each other, at one time veiling itself in endearments, at another +breaking out into open defiance. He who has a message to deliver +must wrestle with his fellows before he shall be permitted to ply them +with uncomfortable or unfamiliar truths. The public, like the +delicate Greek Narcissus, is sleepily enamoured of itself; and the name +of its only other perfect lover is Echo. Yet even great authors +must lay their account with the public, and it is instructive to observe +how different are the attitudes they have adopted, how uniform the disappointment +they have felt. Some, like Browning and Mr. Meredith in our own +day, trouble themselves little about the reception given to their work, +but are content to say on, until the few who care to listen have expounded +them to the many, and they are applauded, in the end, by a generation +whom they have trained to appreciate them. Yet this noble and +persevering indifference is none of their choice, and long years of +absolution from criticism must needs be paid for in faults of style. +“Writing for the stage,” Mr. Meredith himself has remarked, +“would be a corrective of a too-incrusted scholarly style into +which some great ones fall at times.” Denied such a corrective, +the great one is apt to sit alone and tease his meditations into strange +shapes, fortifying himself against obscurity and neglect with the reflection +that most of the words he uses are to be found, after all, in the dictionary. +It is not, however, from the secluded scholar that the sharpest cry +of pain is wrung by the indignities of his position, but rather from +genius in the act of earning a full meed of popular applause. +Both Shakespeare and Ben Jonson wrote for the stage, both were blown +by the favouring breath of their plebeian patrons into reputation and +a competence. Each of them passed through the thick of the fight, +and well knew that ugly corner where the artist is exposed to cross +fires, his own idea of masterly work on the one hand and the necessity +for pleasing the rabble on the other. When any man is awake to +the fact that the public is a vile patron, when he is conscious also +that his bread and his fame are in their gift—it is a stern passage +for his soul, a touchstone for the strength and gentleness of his spirit. +Jonson, whose splendid scorn took to itself lyric wings in the two great +Odes to Himself, sang high and aloof for a while, then the frenzy caught +him, and he flung away his lyre to gird himself for deeds of mischief +among nameless and noteless antagonists. Even Chapman, who, in +<i>The</i> <i>Tears of Peace</i>, compares “men’s refuse +ears” to those gates in ancient cities which were opened only +when the bodies of executed malefactors were to be cast away, who elsewhere +gives utterance, in round terms, to his belief that</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>No truth of excellence was ever seen<br />But bore the venom of the +vulgar’s spleen,</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>- even the violences of this great and haughty spirit must pale beside +the more desperate violences of the dramatist who commended his play +to the public in the famous line,</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>By God, ’tis good, and if you like’t, you may.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>This stormy passion of arrogant independence disturbs the serenity +of atmosphere necessary for creative art. A greater than Jonson +donned the suppliant’s robes, like Coriolanus, and with the inscrutable +honeyed smile about his lips begged for the “most sweet voices” +of the journeymen and gallants who thronged the Globe Theatre. +Only once does the wail of anguish escape him -</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Alas! ’tis true, I have gone here and there,<br />And made +myself a motley to the view,<br />Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap +what is most dear.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>And again -</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,<br />And almost thence +my nature is subdued<br />To what it works in, like the dyer’s +hand,<br />Pity me then, and wish I were renewed.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Modern vulgarity, speaking through the mouths of Shakesperian commentators, +is wont to interpret these lines as a protest against the contempt wherewith +Elizabethan society regarded the professions of playwright and actor. +We are asked to conceive that Shakespeare humbly desires the pity of +his bosom friend because he is not put on the same level of social estimation +with a brocaded gull or a prosperous stupid goldsmith of the Cheap. +No, it is a cry, from the depth of his nature, for forgiveness because +he has sacrificed a little on the altar of popularity. Jonson +would have boasted that he never made this sacrifice. But he lost +the calm of his temper and the clearness of his singing voice, he degraded +his magnanimity by allowing it to engage in street-brawls, and he endangered +the sanctuary of the inviolable soul.</p> +<p>At least these great artists of the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries +are agreed upon one thing, that the public, even in its most gracious +mood, makes an ill task-master for the man of letters. It is worth +the pains to ask why, and to attempt to show how much of an author’s +literary quality is involved in his attitude towards his audience. +Such an inquiry will take us, it is true, into bad company, and exhibit +the vicious, the fatuous, and the frivolous posturing to an admiring +crowd. But style is a property of all written and printed matter, +so that to track it to its causes and origins is a task wherein literary +criticism may profit by the humbler aid of anthropological research.</p> +<p>Least of all authors is the poet subject to the tyranny of his audience. +“Poetry and eloquence,” says John Stuart Mill, “are +both alike the expression or utterance of feeling. But if we may +be excused the antithesis, we should say that eloquence is heard, poetry +is overheard. Eloquence supposes an audience; the peculiarity +of poetry appears to us to lie in the poet’s utter unconsciousness +of a listener.” Poetry, according to this discerning criticism, +is an inspired soliloquy; the thoughts rise unforced and unchecked, +taking musical form in obedience only to the law of their being, giving +pleasure to an audience only as the mountain spring may chance to assuage +the thirst of a passing traveller. In lyric poetry, language, +from being a utensil, or a medium of traffic and barter, passes back +to its place among natural sounds; its affinity is with the wind among +the trees and the stream among the rocks; it is the cry of the heart, +as simple as the breath we draw, and as little ordered with a view to +applause. Yet speech grew up in society, and even in the most +ecstatic of its uses may flag for lack of understanding and response. +It were rash to say that the poets need no audience; the loneliest have +promised themselves a tardy recognition, and some among the greatest +came to their maturity in the warm atmosphere of a congenial society. +Indeed the ratification set upon merit by a living audience, fit though +few, is necessary for the development of the most humane and sympathetic +genius; and the memorable ages of literature, in Greece or Rome, in +France or England, have been the ages of a literary society. The +nursery of our greatest dramatists must be looked for, not, it is true, +in the transfigured bear-gardens of the Bankside, but in those enchanted +taverns, islanded and bastioned by the protective decree -</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p><i>Idiota, insulsus, tristis, turpis, abesto.</i></p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>The poet seems to be soliloquising because he is addressing himself, +with the most entire confidence, to a small company of his friends, +who may even, in unhappy seasons, prove to be the creatures of his imagination. +Real or imaginary, they are taken by him for his equals; he expects +from them a quick intelligence and a perfect sympathy, which may enable +him to despise all concealment. He never preaches to them, nor +scolds, nor enforces the obvious. Content that what he has spoken +he has spoken, he places a magnificent trust on a single expression. +He neither explains, nor falters, nor repents; he introduces his work +with no preface, and cumbers it with no notes. He will not lower +nor raise his voice for the sake of the profane and idle who may chance +to stumble across his entertainment. His living auditors, unsolicited +for the tribute of worship or an alms, find themselves conceived of +in the likeness of what he would have them to be, raised to a companion +pinnacle of friendship, and constituted peers and judges, if they will, +of his achievement. Sometimes they come late.</p> +<p>This blend of dignity and intimacy, of candour and self-respect, +is unintelligible to the vulgar, who understand by intimacy mutual concession +to a base ideal, and who are so accustomed to deal with masks, that +when they see a face they are shocked as by some grotesque. Now +a poet, like Montaigne’s naked philosopher, is all face; and the +bewilderment of his masked and muffled critics is the greater. +Wherever he attracts general attention he cannot but be misunderstood. +The generality of modern men and women who pretend to literature are +not hypocrites, or they might go near to divine him,—for hypocrisy, +though rooted in cowardice, demands for its flourishing a clear intellectual +atmosphere, a definite aim, and a certain detachment of the directing +mind. But they are habituated to trim themselves by the cloudy +mirror of opinion, and will mince and temporise, as if for an invisible +audience, even in their bedrooms. Their masks have, for the most +part, grown to their faces, so that, except in some rare animal paroxysm +of emotion, it is hardly themselves that they express. The apparition +of a poet disquiets them, for he clothes himself with the elements, +and apologises to no idols. His candour frightens them: they avert +their eyes from it; or they treat it as a licensed whim; or, with a +sudden gleam of insight, and apprehension of what this means for them +and theirs, they scream aloud for fear. A modern instance may +be found in the angry protestations launched against Rossetti’s +Sonnets, at the time of their first appearance, by a writer who has +since matched himself very exactly with an audience of his own kind. +A stranger freak of burgess criticism is everyday fare in the odd world +peopled by the biographers of Robert Burns. The nature of Burns, +one would think, was simplicity itself; it could hardly puzzle a ploughman, +and two sailors out of three would call him brother. But he lit +up the whole of that nature by his marvellous genius for expression, +and grave personages have been occupied ever since in discussing the +dualism of his character, and professing to find some dark mystery in +the existence of this, that, or the other trait—a love of pleasure, +a hatred of shams, a deep sense of religion. It is common human +nature, after all, that is the mystery, but they seem never to have +met with it, and treat it as if it were the poet’s eccentricity. +They are all agog to worship him, and when they have made an image of +him in their own likeness, and given it a tin-pot head that exactly +hits their taste, they break into noisy lamentation over the discovery +that the original was human, and had feet of clay. They deem “Mary +in Heaven” so admirable that they could find it in their hearts +to regret that she was ever on earth. This sort of admirers constantly +refuses to bear a part in any human relationship; they ask to be fawned +on, or trodden on, by the poet while he is in life; when he is dead +they make of him a candidate for godship, and heckle him. It is +a misfortune not wholly without its compensations that most great poets +are dead before they are popular.</p> +<p>If great and original literary artists—here grouped together +under the title of poets—will not enter into transactions with +their audience, there is no lack of authors who will. These are +not necessarily charlatans; they may have by nature a ready sympathy +with the grossness of the public taste, and thus take pleasure in studying +to gratify it. But man loses not a little of himself in crowds, +and some degradation there must be where the one adapts himself to the +many. The British public is not seen at its best when it is enjoying +a holiday in a foreign country, nor when it is making excursions into +the realm of imaginative literature: those who cater for it in these +matters must either study its tastes or share them. Many readers +bring the worst of themselves to a novel; they want lazy relaxation, +or support for their nonsense, or escape from their creditors, or a +free field for emotions that they dare not indulge in life. The +reward of an author who meets them half-way in these respects, who neither +puzzles nor distresses them, who asks nothing from them, but compliments +them on their great possessions and sends them away rejoicing, is a +full measure of acceptance, and editions unto seventy times seven.</p> +<p>The evils caused by the influence of the audience on the writer are +many. First of all comes a fault far enough removed from the characteristic +vices of the charlatan—to wit, sheer timidity and weakness. +There is a kind of stage-fright that seizes on a man when he takes pen +in hand to address an unknown body of hearers, no less than when he +stands up to deliver himself to a sea of expectant faces. This +is the true panic fear, that walks at mid-day, and unmans those whom +it visits. Hence come reservations, qualifications, verbosity, +and the see-saw of a wavering courage, which apes progress and purpose, +as soldiers mark time with their feet. The writing produced under +these auspices is of no greater moment than the incoherent loquacity +of a nervous patient. All self-expression is a challenge thrown +down to the world, to be taken up by whoso will; and the spirit of timidity, +when it touches a man, suborns him with the reminder that he holds his +life and goods by the sufferance of his fellows. Thereupon he +begins to doubt whether it is worth while to court a verdict of so grave +possibilities, or to risk offending a judge—whose customary geniality +is merely the outcome of a fixed habit of inattention. In doubt +whether to speak or keep silence, he takes a middle course, and while +purporting to speak for himself, is careful to lay stress only on the +points whereon all are agreed, to enlarge eloquently on the doubtfulness +of things, and to give to words the very least meaning that they will +carry. Such a procedure, which glides over essentials, and handles +truisms or trivialities with a fervour of conviction, has its functions +in practice. It will win for a politician the coveted and deserved +repute of a “safe” man—safe, even though the cause +perish. Pleaders and advocates are sometimes driven into it, because +to use vigorous, clean, crisp English in addressing an ordinary jury +or committee is like flourishing a sword in a drawing-room: it will +lose the case. Where the weakest are to be convinced speech must +stoop: a full consideration of the velleities and uncertainties, a little +bombast to elevate the feelings without committing the judgment, some +vague effusion of sentiment, an inapposite blandness, a meaningless +rodomontade—these are the by-ways to be travelled by the style +that is a willing slave to its audience. The like is true of those +documents—petitions, resolutions, congratulatory addresses, and +so forth—that are written to be signed by a multitude of names. +Public occasions of this kind, where all and sundry are to be satisfied, +have given rise to a new parliamentary dialect, which has nothing of +the freshness of individual emotion, is powerless to deal with realities, +and lacks all resonance, vitality, and nerve. There is no cure +for this, where the feelings and opinions of a crowd are to be expressed. +But where indecision is the ruling passion of the individual, he may +cease to write. Popularity was never yet the prize of those whose +only care is to avoid offence.</p> +<p>For hardier aspirants, the two main entrances to popular favour are +by the twin gates of laughter and tears. Pathos knits the soul +and braces the nerves, humour purges the eyesight and vivifies the sympathies; +the counterfeits of these qualities work the opposite effects. +It is comparatively easy to appeal to passive emotions, to play upon +the melting mood of a diffuse sensibility, or to encourage the narrow +mind to dispense a patron’s laughter from the vantage-ground of +its own small preconceptions. Our annual crop of sentimentalists +and mirth-makers supplies the reading public with food. Tragedy, +which brings the naked soul face to face with the austere terrors of +Fate, Comedy, which turns the light inward and dissipates the mists +of self-affection and self-esteem, have long since given way on the +public stage to the flattery of Melodrama, under many names. In +the books he reads and in the plays he sees the average man recognises +himself in the hero, and vociferates his approbation.</p> +<p>The sensibility that came into vogue during the eighteenth century +was of a finer grain than its modern counterpart. It studied delicacy, +and sought a cultivated enjoyment in evanescent shades of feeling, and +the fantasies of unsubstantial grief. The real Princess of Hans +Andersen’s story, who passed a miserable night because there was +a small bean concealed beneath the twenty eider-down beds on which she +slept, might stand for a type of the aristocracy of feeling that took +a pride in these ridiculous susceptibilities. The modern sentimentalist +works in a coarser material. That ancient, subtle, and treacherous +affinity among the emotions, whereby religious exaltation has before +now been made the ally of the unpurified passions, is parodied by him +in a simpler and more useful device. By alleging a moral purpose +he is enabled to gratify the prurience of his public and to raise them +in their own muddy conceit at one and the same time. The plea +serves well with those artless readers who have been accustomed to consider +the moral of a story as something separable from imagination, expression, +and style—a quality, it may be, inherent in the plot, or a kind +of appendix, exercising a retrospective power of jurisdiction and absolution +over the extravagances of the piece to which it is affixed. Let +virtue be rewarded, and they are content though it should never be vitally +imagined or portrayed. If their eyes were opened they might cry +with Brutus—“O miserable Virtue! Thou art but a phrase, +and I have followed thee as though thou wert a reality.”</p> +<p>It is in quite another kind, however, that the modern purveyor of +sentiment exercises his most characteristic talent. There are +certain real and deeply-rooted feelings, common to humanity, concerning +which, in their normal operation, a grave reticence is natural. +They are universal in their appeal, men would be ashamed not to feel +them, and it is no small part of the business of life to keep them under +strict control. Here is the sentimental hucksters most valued +opportunity. He tears these primary instincts from the wholesome +privacy that shelters them in life, and cries them up from his booth +in the market-place. The elemental forces of human life, which +beget shyness in children, and touch the spirits of the wise to solemn +acquiescence, awaken him to noisier declamation. He patronises +the stern laws of love and pity, hawking them like indulgences, cheapening +and commanding them like the medicines of a mountebank. The censure +of his critics he impudently meets by pointing to his wares: are not +some of the most sacred properties of humanity—sympathy with suffering, +family affection, filial devotion, and the rest—displayed upon +his stall? Not thus shall he evade the charges brought against +him. It is the sensual side of the tender emotions that he exploits +for the comfort of the million. All the intricacies which life +offers to the will and the intellect he lards and obliterates by the +timely effusion of tearful sentiment. His humanitarianism is a +more popular, as it is an easier, ideal than humanity—it asks +no expense of thought. There is a scanty public in England for +tragedy or for comedy: the characters and situations handled by the +sentimentalist might perchance furnish comedy with a theme; but he stilts +them for a tragic performance, and they tumble into watery bathos, where +a numerous public awaits them.</p> +<p>A similar degradation of the intellectual elements that are present +in all good literature is practised by those whose single aim is to +provoke laughter. In much of our so-called comic writing a superabundance +of boisterous animal spirits, restrained from more practical expression +by the ordinances of civil society, finds outlet and relief. The +grimaces and caperings of buffoonery, the gymnastics of the punster +and the parodist, the revels of pure nonsense may be, at their best, +a refreshment and delight, but they are not comedy, and have proved +in effect not a little hostile to the existence of comedy. The +prevalence of jokers, moreover, spoils the game of humour; the sputter +and sparkle of their made jokes interferes with that luminous contemplation +of the incongruities of life and the universe which is humour’s +essence. All that is ludicrous depends on some disproportion: +Comedy judges the actual world by contrasting it with an ideal of sound +sense, Humour reveals it in its true dimensions by turning on it the +light of imagination and poetry. The perception of these incongruities, +which are eternal, demands some expense of intellect; a cheaper amusement +may be enjoyed by him who is content to take his stand on his own habits +and prejudices and to laugh at all that does not square with them. +This was the method of the age which, in the abysmal profound of waggery, +engendered that portentous birth, the comic paper. Foreigners, +it is said, do not laugh at the wit of these journals, and no wonder, +for only a minute study of the customs and preoccupations of certain +sections of English society could enable them to understand the point +of view. From time to time one or another of the writers who are +called upon for their weekly tale of jokes seems struggling upward to +the free domain of Comedy; but in vain, his public holds him down, and +compels him to laugh in chains. Some day, perchance, a literary +historian, filled with the spirit of Cervantes or of Molière, +will give account of the Victorian era, and, not disdaining small things, +will draw a picture of the society which inspired and controlled so +resolute a jocularity. Then, at last, will the spirit of Comedy +recognise that these were indeed what they claimed to be—comic +papers.</p> +<p>“The style is the man;” but the social and rhetorical +influences adulterate and debase it, until not one man in a thousand +achieves his birthright, or claims his second self. The fire of +the soul burns all too feebly, and warms itself by the reflected heat +from the society around it. We give back words of tepid greeting, +without improvement. We talk to our fellows in the phrases we +learn from them, which come to mean less and less as they grow worn +with use. Then we exaggerate and distort, heaping epithet upon +epithet in the endeavour to get a little warmth out of the smouldering +pile. The quiet cynicism of our everyday demeanour is open and +shameless, we callously anticipate objections founded on the well-known +vacuity of our seeming emotions, and assure our friends that we are +“truly” grieved or “sincerely” rejoiced at their +hap—as if joy or grief that really exists were some rare and precious +brand of joy or grief. In its trivial conversational uses so simple +and pure a thing as joy becomes a sandwich-man—humanity degraded +to an advertisement. The poor dejected word shuffles along through +the mud in the service of the sleek trader who employs it, and not until +it meets with a poet is it rehabilitated and restored to dignity.</p> +<p>This is no indictment of society, which came into being before literature, +and, in all the distraction of its multifarious concerns, can hardly +keep a school for Style. It is rather a demonstration of the necessity, +amid the wealthy disorder of modern civilisation, for poetic diction. +One of the hardest of a poet’s tasks is the search for his vocabulary. +Perhaps in some idyllic pasture-land of Utopia there may have flourished +a state where division of labour was unknown, where community of ideas, +as well as of property, was absolute, and where the language of every +day ran clear into poetry without the need of a refining process. +They say that Caedmon was a cow-keeper: but the shepherds of Theocritus +and Virgil are figments of a courtly brain, and Wordsworth himself, +in his boldest flights of theory, was forced to allow of selection. +Even by selection from among the chaos of implements that are in daily +use around him, a poet can barely equip himself with a choice of words +sufficient for his needs; he must have recourse to his predecessors; +and so it comes about that the poetry of the modern world is a store-house +of obsolete diction. The most surprising characteristic of the +right poetic diction, whether it draw its vocabulary from near at hand, +or avail itself of the far-fetched inheritance preserved by the poets, +is its matchless sincerity. Something of extravagance there may +be in those brilliant clusters of romantic words that are everywhere +found in the work of Shakespeare, or Spenser, or Keats, but they are +the natural leafage and fruitage of a luxuriant imagination, which, +lacking these, could not attain to its full height. Only by the +energy of the arts can a voice be given to the subtleties and raptures +of emotional experience; ordinary social intercourse affords neither +opportunity nor means for this fervour of self-revelation. And +if the highest reach of poetry is often to be found in the use of common +colloquialisms, charged with the intensity of restrained passion, this +is not due to a greater sincerity of expression, but to the strength +derived from dramatic situation. Where speech spends itself on +its subject, drama stands idle; but where the dramatic stress is at +its greatest, three or four words may enshrine all the passion of the +moment. Romeo’s apostrophe from under the balcony -</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>O, speak again, bright Angel! for thou art<br />As glorious to this +night, being o’er my head,<br />As is a winged messenger of heaven<br />Unto +the white-upturned wond’ring eyes<br />Of mortals that fall back +to gaze on him,<br />When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds,<br />And +sails upon the bosom of the air -</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>though it breathe the soul of romance, must yield, for sheer effect, +to his later soliloquy, spoken when the news of Juliet’s death +is brought to him,</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee to-night.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>And even the constellated glories of <i>Paradise</i> <i>Lost</i> +are less moving than the plain words wherein Samson forecasts his approaching +end -</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>So much I feel my genial spirits droop,<br />My hopes all flat; Nature +within me seems<br />In all her functions weary of herself;<br />My +race of glory run and race of shame,<br />And I shall shortly be with +them that rest.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Here are simple words raised to a higher power and animated with +a purer intention than they carry in ordinary life. It is this +unfailing note of sincerity, eloquent or laconic, that has made poetry +the teacher of prose. Phrases which, to all seeming, might have +been hit on by the first comer, are often cut away from their poetical +context and robbed of their musical value that they may be transferred +to the service of prose. They bring with them, down to the valley, +a wafted sense of some region of higher thought and purer feeling. +They bear, perhaps, no marks of curious diction to know them by. +Whence comes the irresistible pathos of the lines -</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>I cannot but remember such things were<br />That were most precious +to me?</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>The thought, the diction, the syntax, might all occur in prose. +Yet when once the stamp of poetry has been put upon a cry that is as +old as humanity, prose desists from rivalry, and is content to quote. +Some of the greatest prose-writers have not disdained the help of these +borrowed graces for the crown of their fabric. In this way De +Quincey widens the imaginative range of his prose, and sets back the +limits assigned to prose diction. So too, Charles Lamb, interweaving +the stuff of experience with phrases quoted or altered from the poets, +illuminates both life and poetry, letting his sympathetic humour play +now on the warp of the texture, and now on the woof. The style +of Burke furnishes a still better example, for the spontaneous evolution +of his prose might be thought to forbid the inclusion of borrowed fragments. +Yet whenever he is deeply stirred, memories of Virgil, Milton, or the +English Bible rise to his aid, almost as if strong emotion could express +itself in no other language. Even the poor invectives of political +controversy gain a measure of dignity from the skilful application of +some famous line; the touch of the poet’s sincerity rests on them +for a moment, and seems to lend them an alien splendour. It is +like the blessing of a priest, invoked by the pious, or by the worldly, +for the good success of whatever business they have in hand. Poetry +has no temporal ends to serve, no livelihood to earn, and is under no +temptation to cog and lie: wherefore prose pays respect to that loftier +calling, and that more unblemished sincerity.</p> +<p>Insincerity, on the other hand, is the commonest vice of style. +It is not to be avoided, except in the rarest cases, by those to whom +the written use of language is unfamiliar; so that a shepherd who talks +pithy, terse sense will be unable to express himself in a letter without +having recourse to the <i>Ready Letter-writer</i>—“This +comes hoping to find you well, as it also leaves me at present”—and +a soldier, without the excuse of ignorance, will describe a successful +advance as having been made against “a thick hail of bullets.” +It permeates ordinary journalism, and all writing produced under commercial +pressure. It taints the work of the young artist, caught by the +romantic fever, who glories in the wealth of vocabulary discovered to +him by the poets, and seeks often in vain for a thought stalwart enough +to wear that glistering armour. Hence it is that the masters of +style have always had to preach restraint, self-denial, austerity. +His style is a man’s own; yet how hard it is to come by! +It is a man’s bride, to be won by labours and agonies that bespeak +a heroic lover. If he prove unable to endure the trial, there +are cheaper beauties, nearer home, easy to be conquered, and faithless +to their conqueror. Taking up with them, he may attain a brief +satisfaction, but he will never redeem his quest.</p> +<p>As a body of practical rules, the negative precepts of asceticism +bring with them a certain chill. The page is dull; it is so easy +to lighten it with some flash of witty irrelevance: the argument is +long and tedious, why not relieve it by wandering into some of those +green enclosures that open alluring doors upon the wayside? To +roam at will, spring-heeled, high-hearted, and catching at all good +fortunes, is the ambition of the youth, ere yet he has subdued himself +to a destination. The principle of self-denial seems at first +sight a treason done to genius, which was always privileged to be wilful. +In this view literature is a fortuitous series of happy thoughts and +heaven-sent findings. But the end of that plan is beggary. +Sprightly talk about the first object that meets the eye and the indulgence +of vagabond habits soon degenerate to a professional garrulity, a forced +face of dismal cheer, and a settled dislike of strenuous exercise. +The economies and abstinences of discipline promise a kinder fate than +this. They test and strengthen purpose, without which no great +work comes into being. They save the expenditure of energy on +those pastimes and diversions which lead no nearer to the goal. +To reject the images and arguments that proffer a casual assistance +yet are not to be brought under the perfect control of the main theme +is difficult; how should it be otherwise, for if they were not already +dear to the writer they would not have volunteered their aid.</p> +<p>It is the more difficult, in that to refuse the unfit is no warrant +of better help to come. But to accept them is to fall back for +good upon a makeshift, and to hazard the enterprise in a hubbub of disorderly +claims. No train of thought is strengthened by the addition of +those arguments that, like camp-followers, swell the number and the +noise, without bearing a part in the organisation. The danger +that comes in with the employment of figures of speech, similes, and +comparisons is greater still. The clearest of them may be attended +by some element of grotesque or paltry association, so that while they +illumine the subject they cannot truly be said to illustrate it. +The noblest, including those time-honoured metaphors that draw their +patent of nobility from war, love, religion, or the chase, in proportion +as they are strong and of a vivid presence, are also domineering—apt +to assume command of the theme long after their proper work is done. +So great is the headstrong power of the finest metaphors, that an author +may be incommoded by one that does his business for him handsomely, +as a king may suffer the oppression of a powerful ally. When a +lyric begins with the splendid lines,</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Love still has something of the sea<br />From whence his mother rose,</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>the further development of that song is already fixed and its knell +rung—to the last line there is no escaping from the dazzling influences +that presided over the first. Yet to carry out such a figure in +detail, as Sir Charles Sedley set himself to do, tarnishes the sudden +glory of the opening. The lady whom Burns called Clarinda put +herself in a like quandary by beginning a song with this stanza -</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Talk not of Love, it gives me pain,<br />For Love has been my foe;<br />He +bound me in an iron chain,<br />And plunged me deep in woe.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>The last two lines deserve praise—even the praise they obtained +from a great lyric poet. But how is the song to be continued? +Genius might answer the question; to Clarinda there came only the notion +of a valuable contrast to be established between love and friendship, +and a tribute to be paid to the kindly offices of the latter. +The verses wherein she gave effect to this idea make a poor sequel; +friendship, when it is personified and set beside the tyrant god, wears +very much the air of a benevolent county magistrate, whose chief duty +is to keep the peace.</p> +<p>Figures of this sort are in no sense removable decorations, they +are at one with the substance of the thought to be expressed, and are +entitled to the large control they claim. Imagination, working +at white heat, can fairly subdue the matter of the poem to them, or +fuse them with others of the like temper, striking unity out of the +composite mass. One thing only is forbidden, to treat these substantial +and living metaphors as if they were elegant curiosities, ornamental +excrescences, to be passed over abruptly on the way to more exacting +topics. The mystics, and the mystical poets, knew better than +to countenance this frivolity. Recognising that there is a profound +and intimate correspondence between all physical manifestations and +the life of the soul, they flung the reins on the neck of metaphor in +the hope that it might carry them over that mysterious frontier. +Their failures and misadventures, familiarly despised as “conceits,” +left them floundering in absurdity. Yet not since the time of +Donne and Crashaw has the full power and significance of figurative +language been realised in English poetry. These poets, like some +of their late descendants, were tortured by a sense of hidden meaning, +and were often content with analogies that admit of no rigorous explanation. +They were convinced that all intellectual truth is a parable, though +its inner meaning be dark or dubious. The philosophy of friendship +deals with those mathematical and physical conceptions of distance, +likeness, and attraction—what if the law of bodies govern souls +also, and the geometer’s compasses measure more than it has entered +into his heart to conceive? Is the moon a name only for a certain +tonnage of dead matter, and is the law of passion parochial while the +law of gravitation is universal? Mysticism will observe no such +partial boundaries.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>O more than Moon!<br />Draw not up seas to drown me in thy sphere,<br />Weep +me not dead in thine arms, but forbear<br />To teach the sea what it +may do too soon.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>The secret of these sublime intuitions, undivined by many of the +greatest poets, has been left to the keeping of transcendental religion +and the Catholic Church.</p> +<p>Figure and ornament, therefore, are not interchangeable terms; the +loftiest figurative style most conforms to the precepts of gravity and +chastity. None the less there is a decorative use of figure, whereby +a theme is enriched with imaginations and memories that are foreign +to the main purpose. Under this head may be classed most of those +allusions to the world’s literature, especially to classical and +Scriptural lore, which have played so considerable, yet on the whole +so idle, a part in modern poetry. It is here that an inordinate +love of decoration finds its opportunity and its snare. To keep +the most elaborate comparison in harmony with its occasion, so that +when it is completed it shall fall back easily into the emotional key +of the narrative, has been the study of the great epic poets. +Milton’s description of the rebel legions adrift on the flaming +sea is a fine instance of the difficulty felt and conquered:</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Angel forms, who lay entranced<br />Thick as autumnal leaves that +strow the brooks<br />In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades<br />High +over-arched embower; or scattered sedge<br />Afloat, when with fierce +winds Orion armed<br />Hath vexed the Red-Sea coast, whose waves o’erthrew<br />Busiris +and his Memphian chivalry,<br />While with perfidious hatred they pursued<br />The +sojourners of Goshen, who beheld<br />From the safe shore their floating +carcases<br />And broken chariot-wheels. So thick bestrown,<br />Abject +and lost, lay these, covering the flood,<br />Under amazement of their +hideous change.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>The comparison seems to wander away at random, obedient to the slightest +touch of association. Yet in the end it is brought back, its majesty +heightened, and a closer element of likeness introduced by the skilful +turn that substitutes the image of the shattered Egyptian army for the +former images of dead leaves and sea-weed. The incidental pictures, +of the roof of shades, of the watchers from the shore, and the very +name “Red Sea,” fortuitous as they may seem, all lend help +to the imagination in bodying forth the scene described. An earlier +figure in the same book of <i>Paradise Lost</i>, because it exhibits +a less conspicuous technical cunning, may even better show a poet’s +care for unity of tone and impression. Where Satan’s prostrate +bulk is compared to</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>that sea-beast<br />Leviathan, which God of all his works<br />Created +hugest that swim the ocean-stream,</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>the picture that follows of the Norse-pilot mooring his boat under +the lee of the monster is completed in a line that attunes the mind +once more to all the pathos and gloom of those infernal deeps:</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>while night<br />Invests the sea, and wishèd morn delays.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>So masterly a handling of the figures which usage and taste prescribe +to learned writers is rare indeed. The ordinary small scholar +disposes of his baggage less happily. Having heaped up knowledge +as a successful tradesman heaps up money, he is apt to believe that +his wealth makes him free of the company of letters, and a fellow craftsman +of the poets. The mark of his style is an excessive and pretentious +allusiveness. It was he whom the satirist designed in that taunt, +<i>Scire tuum nihil est nisi te scire hoc sciat alter—</i>“My +knowledge of thy knowledge is the knowledge thou covetest.” +His allusions and learned periphrases elucidate nothing; they put an +idle labour on the reader who understands them, and extort from baffled +ignorance, at which, perhaps, they are more especially aimed, a foolish +admiration. These tricks and vanities, the very corruption of +ornament, will always be found while the power to acquire knowledge +is more general than the strength to carry it or the skill to wield +it. The collector has his proper work to do in the commonwealth +of learning, but the ownership of a museum is a poor qualification for +the name of artist. Knowledge has two good uses; it may be frankly +communicated for the benefit of others, or it may minister matter to +thought; an allusive writer often robs it of both these functions. +He must needs display his possessions and his modesty at one and the +same time, producing his treasures unasked, and huddling them in uncouth +fashion past the gaze of the spectator, because, forsooth, he would +not seem to make a rarity of them. The subject to be treated, +the groundwork to be adorned, becomes the barest excuse for a profitless +haphazard ostentation. This fault is very incident to the scholarly +style, which often sacrifices emphasis and conviction to a futile air +of encyclopaedic grandeur.</p> +<p>Those who are repelled by this redundance of ornament, from which +even great writers are not wholly exempt, have sometimes been driven +by the force of reaction into a singular fallacy. The futility +of these literary quirks and graces has induced them to lay art under +the same interdict with ornament. Style and stylists, one will +say, have no attraction for him, he had rather hear honest men utter +their thoughts directly, clearly, and simply. The choice of words, +says another, and the conscious manipulation of sentences, is literary +foppery; the word that first offers is commonly the best, and the order +in which the thoughts occur is the order to be followed. Be natural, +be straightforward, they urge, and what you have to say will say itself +in the best possible manner. It is a welcome lesson, no doubt, +that these deluded Arcadians teach. A simple and direct style—who +would not give his all to purchase that! But is it in truth so +easy to be compassed? The greatest writers, when they are at the +top of happy hours, attain to it, now and again. Is all this tangled +contrariety of things a kind of fairyland, and does the writer, alone +among men, find that a beaten foot-path opens out before him as he goes, +to lead him, straight through the maze, to the goal of his desires? +To think so is to build a childish dream out of facts imperfectly observed, +and worthy of a closer observation. Sometimes the cry for simplicity +is the reverse of what it seems, and is uttered by those who had rather +hear words used in their habitual vague acceptations than submit to +the cutting directness of a good writer. Habit makes obscurity +grateful, and the simple style, in this view, is the style that allows +thought to run automatically into its old grooves and burrows. +The original writers who have combined real literary power with the +heresy of ease and nature are of another kind. A brutal personality, +excellently muscular, snatching at words as the handiest weapons wherewith +to inflict itself, and the whole body of its thoughts and preferences, +on suffering humanity, is likely enough to deride the daintiness of +conscious art. Such a writer is William Cobbett, who has often +been praised for the manly simplicity of his style, which he raised +into a kind of creed. His power is undeniable; his diction, though +he knew it not, both choice and chaste; yet page after page of his writing +suggests only the reflection that here is a prodigal waste of good English. +He bludgeons all he touches, and spends the same monotonous emphasis +on his dislike of tea and on his hatred of the Government. His +is the simplicity of a crude and violent mind, concerned only with giving +forcible expression to its unquestioned prejudices. Irrelevance, +the besetting sin of the ill-educated, he glories in, so that his very +weakness puts on the semblance of strength, and helps to wield the hammer.</p> +<p>It is not to be denied that there is a native force of temperament +which can make itself felt even through illiterate carelessness. +“Literary gentlemen, editors, and critics,” says Thoreau, +himself by no means a careless writer, “think that they know how +to write, because they have studied grammar and rhetoric; but they are +egregiously mistaken. The <i>art</i> of composition is as simple +as the discharge of a bullet from a rifle, and its masterpieces imply +an infinitely greater force behind them.” This true saying +introduces us to the hardest problem of criticism, the paradox of literature, +the stumbling-block of rhetoricians. To analyse the precise method +whereby a great personality can make itself felt in words, even while +it neglects and contemns the study of words, would be to lay bare the +secrets of religion and life—it is beyond human competence. +Nevertheless a brief and diffident consideration of the matter may bring +thus much comfort, that the seeming contradiction is no discredit cast +on letters, but takes its origin rather from too narrow and pedantic +a view of the scope of letters.</p> +<p>Words are things: it is useless to try to set them in a world apart. +They exist in books only by accident, and for one written there are +a thousand, infinitely more powerful, spoken. They are deeds: +the man who brings word of a lost battle can work no comparable effect +with the muscles of his arm; Iago’s breath is as truly laden with +poison and murder as the fangs of the cobra and the drugs of the assassin. +Hence the sternest education in the use of words is least of all to +be gained in the schools, which cultivate verbiage in a highly artificial +state of seclusion. A soldier cares little for poetry, because +it is the exercise of power that he loves, and he is accustomed to do +more with his words than give pleasure. To keep language in immediate +touch with reality, to lade it with action and passion, to utter it +hot from the heart of determination, is to exhibit it in the plenitude +of power. All this may be achieved without the smallest study +of literary models, and is consistent with a perfect neglect of literary +canons. It is not the logical content of the word, but the whole +mesh of its conditions, including the character, circumstances, and +attitude of the speaker, that is its true strength. “Damn” +is often the feeblest of expletives, and “as you please” +may be the dirge of an empire. Hence it is useless to look to +the grammarian, or the critic, for a lesson in strength of style; the +laws that he has framed, good enough in themselves, are current only +in his own abstract world. A breath of hesitancy will sometimes +make trash of a powerful piece of eloquence; and even in writing, a +thing three times said, and each time said badly, may be of more effect +than that terse, full, and final expression which the doctors rightly +commend. The art of language, regarded as a question of pattern +and cadence, or even as a question of logic and thought-sequence, is +a highly abstract study; for although, as has been said, you can do +almost anything with words, with words alone you can do next to nothing. +The realm where speech holds sway is a narrow shoal or reef, shaken, +contorted, and upheaved by volcanic action, beaten upon, bounded, and +invaded by the ocean of silence: whoso would be lord of the earth must +first tame the fire and the sea. Dramatic and narrative writing +are happy in this, that action and silence are a part of their material; +the story-teller or the playwright can make of words a background and +definition for deeds, a framework for those silences that are more telling +than any speech. Here lies an escape from the poverty of content +and method to which self-portraiture and self-expression are liable; +and therefore are epic and drama rated above all other kinds of poetry. +The greater force of the objective treatment is witnessed by many essayists +and lyrical poets, whose ambition has led them, sooner or later, to +attempt the novel or the play. There are weaknesses inherent in +all direct self-revelation; the thing, perhaps, is greatly said, yet +there is no great occasion for the saying of it; a fine reticence is +observed, but it is, after all, an easy reticence, with none of the +dramatic splendours of reticence on the rack. In the midst of +his pleasant confidences the essayist is brought up short by the question, +“Why must you still be talking?” Even the passionate +lyric feels the need of external authorisation, and some of the finest +of lyrical poems, like the Willow Song of Desdemona, or Wordsworth’s +<i>Solitary Reaper</i>, are cast in a dramatic mould, that beauty of +diction may be vitalised by an imagined situation. More than others +the dramatic art is an enemy to the desultory and the superfluous, sooner +than others it will cast away all formal grace of expression that it +may come home more directly to the business and bosoms of men. +Its great power and scope are shown well in this, that it can find high +uses for the commonest stuff of daily speech and the emptiest phrases +of daily intercourse.</p> +<p>Simplicity and strength, then, the vigorous realistic quality of +impromptu utterance, and an immediate relation with the elementary facts +of life, are literary excellences best known in the drama, and in its +modern fellow and rival, the novel. The dramatist and novelist +create their own characters, set their own scenes, lay their own plots, +and when all has been thus prepared, the right word is born in the purple, +an inheritor of great opportunities, all its virtues magnified by the +glamour of its high estate. Writers on philosophy, morals, or +aesthetics, critics, essayists, and dealers in soliloquy generally, +cannot hope, with their slighter means, to attain to comparable effects. +They work at two removes from life; the terms that they handle are surrounded +by the vapours of discussion, and are rewarded by no instinctive response. +Simplicity, in its most regarded sense, is often beyond their reach; +the matter of their discourse is intricate, and the most they can do +is to employ patience, care, and economy of labour; the meaning of their +words is not obvious, and they must go aside to define it. The +strength of their writing has limits set for it by the nature of the +chosen task, and any transgression of these limits is punished by a +fall into sheer violence. All writing partakes of the quality +of the drama, there is always a situation involved, the relation, namely, +between the speaker and the hearer. A gentleman in black, expounding +his views, or narrating his autobiography to the first comer, can expect +no such warmth of response as greets the dying speech of the baffled +patriot; yet he too may take account of the reasons that prompt speech, +may display sympathy and tact, and avoid the faults of senility. +The only character that can lend strength to his words is his own, and +he sketches it while he states his opinions; the only attitude that +can ennoble his sayings is implied in the very arguments he uses. +Who does not know the curious blank effect of eloquence overstrained +or out of place? The phrasing may be exquisite, the thought well-knit, +the emotion genuine, yet all is, as it were, dumb-show where no community +of feeling exists between the speaker and his audience. A similar +false note is struck by any speaker or writer who misapprehends his +position or forgets his disqualifications, by newspaper writers using +language that is seemly only in one who stakes his life on his words, +by preachers exceeding the license of fallibility, by moralists condemning +frailty, by speculative traders deprecating frank ways of hazard, by +Satan rebuking sin.</p> +<p>“How many things are there,” exclaims the wise Verulam, +“which a man cannot, with any face or comeliness, say or do himself! +A man’s person hath many proper relations which he cannot put +off. A man cannot speak to his son but as a father; to his wife, +but as a husband; to his enemy but upon terms; whereas a friend may +speak as the case requires, and not as it sorteth with the person.” +The like “proper relations” govern writers, even where their +audience is unknown to them. It has often been remarked how few +are the story-tellers who can introduce themselves, so much as by a +passing reflection or sentiment, without a discordant effect. +The friend who saves the situation is found in one and another of the +creatures of their art.</p> +<p>For those who must play their own part the effort to conceal themselves +is of no avail. The implicit attitude of a writer makes itself +felt; an undue swelling of his subject to heroic dimensions, an unwarrantable +assumption of sympathy, a tendency to truck with friends or with enemies +by the way, are all possible indications of weakness, which move even +the least skilled of readers to discount what is said, as they catch +here and there a glimpse of the old pot-companion, or the young dandy, +behind the imposing literary mask. Strong writers are those who, +with every reserve of power, seek no exhibition of strength. It +is as if language could not come by its full meaning save on the lips +of those who regard it as an evil necessity. Every word is torn +from them, as from a reluctant witness. They come to speech as +to a last resort, when all other ways have failed. The bane of +a literary education is that it induces talkativeness, and an overweening +confidence in words. But those whose words are stark and terrible +seem almost to despise words.</p> +<p>With words literature begins, and to words it must return. +Coloured by the neighbourhood of silence, solemnised by thought or steeled +by action, words are still its only means of rising above words. +“<i>Accedat verbum ad elementum</i>,” said St. Ambrose, +“<i>et fiat sacramentum</i>.” So the elementary passions, +pity and love, wrath and terror, are not in themselves poetical; they +must be wrought upon by the word to become poetry. In no other +way can suffering be transformed to pathos, or horror reach its apotheosis +in tragedy.</p> +<p>When all has been said, there remains a residue capable of no formal +explanation. Language, this array of conventional symbols loosely +strung together, and blown about by every wandering breath, is miraculously +vital and expressive, justifying not a few of the myriad superstitions +that have always attached to its use. The same words are free +to all, yet no wealth or distinction of vocabulary is needed for a group +of words to take the stamp of an individual mind and character. +“As a quality of style” says Mr. Pater, “soul is a +fact.” To resolve how words, like bodies, become transparent +when they are inhabited by that luminous reality, is a higher pitch +than metaphysic wit can fly. Ardent persuasion and deep feeling +enkindle words, so that the weakest take on glory. The humblest +and most despised of common phrases may be the chosen vessel for the +next avatar of the spirit. It is the old problem, to be met only +by the old solution of the Platonist, that</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Soul is form, and doth the body make.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>The soul is able to inform language by some strange means other than +the choice and arrangement of words and phrases. Real novelty +of vocabulary is impossible; in the matter of language we lead a parasitical +existence, and are always quoting. Quotations, conscious or unconscious, +vary in kind according as the mind is active to work upon them and make +them its own. In its grossest and most servile form quotation +is a lazy folly; a thought has received some signal or notorious expression, +and as often as the old sense, or something like it, recurs, the old +phrase rises to the lips. This degenerates to simple phrase-mongering, +and those who practise it are not vigilantly jealous of their meaning. +Such an expression as “fine by degrees and beautifully less” +is often no more than a bloated equivalent for a single word—say +“diminishing” or “shrinking.” Quotations +like this are the warts and excremental parts of language; the borrowings +of good writers are never thus superfluous, their quotations are appropriations. +Whether it be by some witty turn given to a well-known line, by an original +setting for an old saw, or by a new and unlooked-for analogy, the stamp +of the borrower is put upon the goods he borrows, and he becomes part +owner. Plagiarism is a crime only where writing is a trade; expression +need never be bound by the law of copyright while it follows thought, +for thought, as some great thinker has observed, is free. The +words were once Shakespeare’s; if only you can feel them as he +did, they are yours now no less than his. The best quotations, +the best translations, the best thefts, are all equally new and original +works. From quotation, at least, there is no escape, inasmuch +as we learn language from others. All common phrases that do the +dirty work of the world are quotations—poor things, and not our +own. Who first said that a book would “repay perusal,” +or that any gay scene was “bright with all the colours of the +rainbow”? There is no need to condemn these phrases, for +language has a vast deal of inferior work to do. The expression +of thought, temperament, attitude, is not the whole of its business. +It is only a literary fop or doctrinaire who will attempt to remint +all the small defaced coinage that passes through his hands, only a +lisping young fantastico who will refuse all conventional garments and +all conventional speech. At a modern wedding the frock-coat is +worn, the presents are “numerous and costly,” and there +is an “ovation accorded to the happy pair.” These +things are part of our public civilisation, a decorous and accessible +uniform, not to be lightly set aside. But let it be a friend of +your own who is to marry, a friend of your own who dies, and you are +to express yourself—the problem is changed, you feel all the difficulties +of the art of style, and fathom something of the depth of your unskill. +Forbidden silence, we should be in a poor way indeed.</p> +<p>Single words too we plagiarise when we use them without realisation +and mastery of their meaning. The best argument for a succinct +style is this, that if you use words you do not need, or do not understand, +you cannot se them well. It is not what a word means, but what +it means to you, that is of the deepest import. Let it be a weak +word, with a poor history behind it, if you have done good thinking +with it, you may yet use it to surprising advantage. But if, on +the other hand, it be a strong word that has never aroused more than +a misty idea and a flickering emotion in your mind, here lies your danger. +You may use it, for there is none to hinder; and it will betray you. +The commonest Saxon words prove explosive machines in the hands of rash +impotence. It is perhaps a certain uneasy consciousness of danger, +a suspicion that weakness of soul cannot wield these strong words, that +makes debility avoid them, committing itself rather, as if by some pre-established +affinity, to the vaguer Latinised vocabulary. Yet they are not +all to be avoided, and their quality in practice will depend on some +occult ability in their employer. For every living person, if +the material were obtainable, a separate historical dictionary might +be compiled, recording where each word was first heard or seen, where +and how it was first used. The references are utterly beyond recovery; +but such a register would throw a strange light on individual styles. +The eloquent trifler, whose stock of words has been accumulated by a +pair of light fingers, would stand denuded of his plausible pretences +as soon as it were seen how roguishly he came by his eloquence. +There may be literary quality, it is well to remember, in the words +of a parrot, if only its cage has been happily placed; meaning and soul +there cannot be. Yet the voice will sometimes be mistaken, by +the carelessness of chance listeners, for a genuine utterance of humanity; +and the like is true in literature. But writing cannot be luminous +and great save in the hands of those whose words are their own by the +indefeasible title of conquest. Life is spent in learning the +meaning of great words, so that some idle proverb, known for years and +accepted perhaps as a truism, comes home, on a day, like a blow. +“If there were not a God,” said Voltaire, “it would +be necessary to invent him.” Voltaire had therefore a right +to use the word, but some of those who use it most, if they would be +perfectly sincere, should enclose it in quotation marks. Whole +nations go for centuries without coining names for certain virtues; +is it credible that among other peoples, where the names exists the +need for them is epidemic? The author of the <i>Ecclesiastial +Polity</i> puts a bolder and truer face on the matter. “Concerning +that Faith, Hope, and Charity,” he writes, “without which +there can be no salvation, was there ever any mention made saving only +in that Law which God himself hath from Heaven revealed? There +is not in the world a syllable muttered with certain truth concerning +any of these three, more than hath been supernaturally received from +the mouth of the eternal God.” Howsoever they came to us, +we have the words; they, and many other terms of tremendous import, +are bandied about from mouth to mouth and alternately enriched or impoverished +in meaning. Is the “Charity” of St. Paul’s Epistle +one with the charity of “charity-blankets”? Are the +“crusades” of Godfrey and of the great St. Louis, where +knightly achievement did homage to the religious temper, essentially +the same as that process of harrying the wretched and the outcast for +which the muddle-headed, greasy citizen of to-day invokes the same high +name? Of a truth, some kingly words fall to a lower estate than +Nebuchadnezzar.</p> +<p>Here, among words, our lot is cast, to make or mar. It is in +this obscure thicket, overgrown with weeds, set with thorns, and haunted +by shadows, this World of Words, as the Elizabethans finely called it, +that we wander, eternal pioneers, during the course of our mortal lives. +To be overtaken by a master, one who comes along with the gaiety of +assured skill and courage, with the gravity of unflinching purpose, +to make the crooked ways straight and the rough places plain, is to +gain fresh confidence from despair. He twines wreaths of the entangling +ivy, and builds ramparts of the thorns. He blazes his mark upon +the secular oaks, as a guidance to later travellers, and coaxes flame +from heaps of mouldering rubbish. There is no sense of cheer like +this. Sincerity, clarity, candour, power, seem real once more, +real and easy. In the light of great literary achievement, straight +and wonderful, like the roads of the ancient Romans, barbarism torments +the mind like a riddle. Yet there are the dusky barbarians!—fleeing +from the harmonious tread of the ordered legions, running to hide themselves +in the morass of vulgar sentiment, to ambush their nakedness in the +sand-pits of low thought.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>It is a venerable custom to knit up the speculative consideration +of any subject with the counsels of practical wisdom. The words +of this essay have been vain indeed if the idea that style may be imparted +by tuition has eluded them, and survived. There is a useful art +of Grammar, which takes for its province the right and the wrong in +speech. Style deals only with what is permissible to all, and +even revokes, on occasion, the rigid laws of Grammar or countenances +offences against them. Yet no one is a better judge of equity +for ignorance of the law, and grammatical practice offers a fair field +wherein to acquire ease, accuracy and versatility. The formation +of sentences, the sequence of verbs, the marshalling of the ranks of +auxiliaries are all, in a sense, to be learned. There is a kind +of inarticulate disorder to which writers are liable, quite distinct +from a bad style, and caused chiefly by lack of exercise. An unpractised +writer will sometimes send a beautiful and powerful phrase jostling +along in the midst of a clumsy sentence—like a crowned king escorted +by a mob.</p> +<p>But Style cannot be taught. Imitation of the masters, or of +some one chosen master, and the constant purging of language by a severe +criticism, have their uses, not to be belittled; they have also their +dangers. The greater part of what is called the teaching of style +must always be negative, bad habits may be broken down, old malpractices +prohibited. The pillory and the stocks are hardly educational +agents, but they make it easier for honest men to enjoy their own. +If style could really be taught, it is a question whether its teachers +should not be regarded as mischief-makers and enemies of mankind. +The Rosicrucians professed to have found the philosopher’s stone, +and the shadowy sages of modern Thibet are said, by those who speak +for them, to have compassed the instantaneous transference of bodies +from place to place. In either case, the holders of these secrets +have laudably refused to publish them, lest avarice and malice should +run amuck in human society. A similar fear might well visit the +conscience of one who should dream that he had divulged to the world +at large what can be done with language. Of this there is no danger; +rhetoric, it is true, does put fluency, emphasis, and other warlike +equipments at the disposal of evil forces, but style, like the Christian +religion, is one of those open secrets which are most easily and most +effectively kept by the initiate from age to age. Divination is +the only means of access to these mysteries. The formal attempt +to impart a good style is like the melancholy task of the teacher of +gesture and oratory; some palpable faults are soon corrected; and, for +the rest, a few conspicuous mannerisms, a few theatrical postures, not +truly expressive, and a high tragical strut, are all that can be imparted. +The truth of the old Roman teachers of rhetoric is here witnessed afresh, +to be a good orator it is first of all necessary to be a good man. +Good style is the greatest of revealers,—it lays bare the soul. +The soul of the cheat shuns nothing so much. “Always be +ready to speak your minds” said Blake, “and a base man will +avoid you.” But to insist that he also shall speak his mind +is to go a step further, it is to take from the impostor his wooden +leg, to prohibit his lucrative whine, his mumping and his canting, to +force the poor silly soul to stand erect among its fellows and declare +itself. His occupation is gone, and he does not love the censor +who deprives him of the weapons of his mendicity.</p> +<p>All style is gesture, the gesture of the mind and of the soul. +Mind we have in common, inasmuch as the laws of right reason are not +different for different minds. Therefore clearness and arrangement +can be taught, sheer incompetence in the art of expression can be partly +remedied. But who shall impose laws upon the soul? It is +thus of common note that one may dislike or even hate a particular style +while admiring its facility, its strength, its skilful adaptation to +the matter set forth. Milton, a chaster and more unerring master +of the art than Shakespeare, reveals no such lovable personality. +While persons count for much, style, the index to persons, can never +count for little. “Speak,” it has been said, “that +I may know you”—voice-gesture is more than feature. +Write, and after you have attained to some control over the instrument, +you write yourself down whether you will or no. There is no vice, +however unconscious, no virtue, however shy, no touch of meanness or +of generosity in your character, that will not pass on to the paper. +You anticipate the Day of Judgment and furnish the recording angel with +material. The Art of Criticism in literature, so often decried +and given a subordinate place among the arts, is none other than the +art of reading and interpreting these written evidences. Criticism +has been popularly opposed to creation, perhaps because the kind of +creation that it attempts is rarely achieved, and so the world forgets +that the main business of Criticism, after all, is not to legislate, +nor to classify, but to raise the dead. Graves, at its command, +have waked their sleepers, oped, and let them forth. It is by +the creative power of this art that the living man is reconstructed +from the litter of blurred and fragmentary paper documents that he has +left to posterity.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<p>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, STYLE ***</p> +<pre> + +******This file should be named style10h.htm or style10h.zip****** +Corrected EDITIONS of our EBooks get a new NUMBER, style11h.htm +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, style10ah.htm + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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