5 Study the following quotations, each of which casts a ray of light on beauty. Which of them, if any, do you fail to understand? Loveliness Needs not the foreign aid of ornament, But is, when unadorn'd, adorn'd the most.-THOMSON Plain truth needs no flowers of speech.-HORACE The perfection of art is to conceal art.-QUINTILIAN Beauty is truth, truth beauty.-KEATS NOTE.-Beauty is best studied, perhaps, in connection with poetry. For additional exercises, see Chapter xix. CHAPTER VI STYLE The steel pen in common use today was unknown to the ancients, the nearest approach to it being a bone or metal instrument, in shape resembling a sharpened Derivation of pencil, with which the scribe wrote on tab- the word lets thinly coated with wax. This instrument was called a stylus, and from stylus is derived the modern word style. It is well to keep this derivation in mind, together with the pleasing fiction suggested by it; namely, that authors differ one from another because no two employ the same pen. A miscon ception The meaning of the word as applied to articles of wearing apparel, or furniture, or architecture is not at all difficult to comprehend; we employ the expression freely and in its proper sense. When employed as a rhetorical term, its meaning is not so clear-cut; it may convey a number of different impressions, owing to certain misconceptions. Perhaps the most common misconception is that only authors of note possess style. But since style means almost the same thing as manner or individuality, it follows that everyone possesses it, the school-boy as truly as the great Shakespeare. It is discernible in conversation, in familiar letters, in school compositions, as well as in the prose and poetry of the masters; for everyone possesses something of individuality and this individuality is manifest whenever he speaks or writes. One may not have a good style, and through imitation of others, or through suppression due to shame or reserve, may for a time conceal his real nature disguise himself; yet style of some sort, genuine or artificial, he continues to have. A second misconception A second misconception is that style is something external, to be put on as one puts on a garment, and to be changed at will much as we slip from a blue suit to a gray; that it has to do merely with the manner of expression, or the skill with which words are employed. This idea of style as the garment of thought is directly opposed to a famous and generally accepted definition which states that style is the man himself. By this is meant that all of the man—his mind, his heart, his spirit, no less than his literary skill-goes toward the making of his style. From this conception come two very wholesome truths. Milton expresses one of these when he asserts that a man must be a poem before he can write one, a thought also conveyed in the familiar adage, Two wholesome truths The stream cannot rise higher than the fountain source. Words, whether written or spoken, reveal but what we are; sooner or later the good and the bad in us, the strength and the weakness, come to the light. The second truth, closely allied to the one just stated, is that one cannot become a great writer through "catching the trick" from others-through imitating the externals of style. Studying the art of others is doubtless profitable in some measure, since it enables us to correct faults and discover effective ways of expression. Intimate acquaintance with the works of the masters is helpful in so far as it supplies the mind with noble thoughts and stimulates the emotions, just as character is formed through association with those who are refined. But servile imitation of the manners of others is as artificial in composition as in society. Putting on a soldier's uniform and spicing one's speech with a few military terms will not make one a brave warrior. Nationality in style Nationality is one of the larger factors contributing to style. For each nation has its peculiar conceptions of right and wrong, conceptions of what is beautiful and what is ugly, ideals traceable to its history and its environment. If all German literature could be condensed into a single volume, all French literature into a second, all English into a third, and so on throughout the realm of letters, it would be found that though these volumes contained much in common, yet each would differ from the others not alone in language but in subject matter, in thought and temperament and art. Racial traits, that is to say, and national ideals, are reflected in literature. One reason why English literature is at once difficult and exceedingly interesting to study is that the English are not only a mixed people, the combined product of several races, but from time to time they have been strongly influenced by other nations. Time element The Queen Anne Style is also a matter of time influence. Nations grow, and as they develop from age to age, their literatures change. The literature of King Alfred's day differs from that of Chaucer's genera- in style tion, and the works of Chaucer differ from those of Shakespeare and Milton. writers are in a class by themselves, possessing marked characteristics; and so too are the writers of Queen Victoria's day. No author, not even one so great as Shakespeare, is wholly uninfluenced by the times in which he lives. Each individual is in part the product of the race to which he belongs and in part the product of his day and generation. From these influences he cannot wholly escape; they are betrayed in his words, oral and written. Style is the product not only of race or nationality and of time, but of strong personal influence. We know how it is in school life-how a single strong Schools personality, a popular boy of vigorous character, will sway his mates till they, through conscious or unconscious imitation, become in some ways like him. So in literature a writer often becomes the center of a "school" of authors, all influenced strongly by their leader. Just as English and French and Italian are used to describe national styles, and such terms as Queen Anne, Elizabethan, and Victorian to describe the style common to a given age in a nation's life, so the adjectives Wordsworthian and Byronic and Hawthornesque are employed to describe works written by Wordsworth or Byron or Hawthorne or their followers. And yet, powerful though these larger influences are, and for the most part unescapable, we all retain a conIndividuality siderable degree of individuality. Ancestry, strongest home life, natural surroundings, associates, factor education, occupation-how different are the forces, some of our own choosing, some far beyond our control, that shape us. No two individuals can be alike. The surest evidence of strong character is ability to retain individuality regardless of conditions which tend to destroy it. The great secret of good style rests in a willingness to express ourselves, to be ourselves whenever we speak or write. This does not mean that we should neglect opportunities for improvement lest through much study or through taking great pains in composition we lose our individuality; for even genius needs cultivation or it grows rank and ungainly. It means, rather, that timidity and servile imitation are fatal to effective expression. Purity, clearness, force, and beauty are the fundamental qualities of good style. Attention has been called to the |