Style.

In our last issue we quoted some remarks by Mr Froude on the subject of style. They are worthy of consideration by all young writers (and many old ones, but their case is generally hopeless), whose besetting sin is the striving after fine writing. The inevitable results are bathos, mixed metaphor, and a weak and turgid composition, which only wearies, if it does not disgust, the reader it is intended to dazzle. Such writing carries little weight, for embellishment and accuracy are not often found in company. The penny-a-liner who writes of the Fire Fiend and the Devouring Element, who tells us of the Guardian of the Peace who arrived on the Scene of Action with Praiseworthy Promptitude, who misapplies all manner of technical terms, and the epithet « phenomenal » in particular—daily supplies a typical specimen of the debased style; and his model—like the celebrated sermon on Mother Hubbard—is of value as an example of all that those who aim to excel should studiously avoid. In the stress of composition, the most careful writer is guilty of faults of style and expression. He repeats himself; begins a sentence with one idea and finishes it with another, strikes out a phrase or epithet that displeases him, while allowing its complementary to stand—and finds, when he reads what he has written, numerous slips that need correction. Writers for the daily press too often have no opportunity to revise their work, and the burden rests upon the compositor and proof-reader. Hence arise many grammatical and other errors of the press, over which the reader is sometimes inclined to make merry. For the hurried editor or reporter there is every excuse. For the magniloquent scribe who falls into the ridiculous, there is very little.

To Mr Froude's advice there is little to add. The more simple, direct, and unadorned the style, the better. The majestic rhythm which distinguishes the work of the masters of prose, and which reaches its highest perfection in the authorized version of the Scriptures, is quite apart from adventitious ornament. It is largely a matter of the ear, and will be insensibly acquired by the writer who makes a study of good models. In the best work there is always evidence of reserve—something is left to the reader's intelligence. In revision, says Mr Froude, « I find myself striking out superfluous epithets, reducing superlatives into positives, bringing subjunctive moods into indicative, and in most instances passing my pen through every passage which had seemed, while I was writing it, to be particularly fine. » This, we think, is the experience of every judicious writer. If this necessary work is not accomplished in manuscript, he will take little pleasure in his production when he has the opportunity of going over it critically in print. As an « awful example » of nearly every vice in composition, we quote elsewhere part of a contribution published by a clergyman in a New Zealand newspaper. Nakedness as regards fact or argument is thinly disguised by sarcasm as weak and witless as it is ill-natured. It is difficult to say which element predominates—bombast, conceit, or bad grammar. When a public teacher, who presumably has had educational advantages, makes so humiliating an exhibition of himself, those who have been less favored may well beware of the fatal habit of writing down in all their crudity whatever ideas may first occur to them.

When some facility of expression is acquired, there is no better exercise than the practice of versification. Not for publication, by any means—for it cannot be too strongly impressed on the writers of verse that their work, even though faultless in metre and rhyme, may not contain a spark of poetry. Versifying is within the power of any one who takes the necessary trouble—poetry is the highest and rarest form of literary expression. The verses when written may be only fit for the flames; but the exercise of constructing them is of use, as tending to concise and precise expression, and cultivating the sense of rhythm. It is a familiar observation that the minor poets stand high as prose-writers and essayists.

In some, the appreciation of beauty or force of language is entirely wanting. It may quite safely be asserted that the worst-written and shallowest periodicals, the most pointless and imbecile « comics, » and the most foolish songs, have the widest popularity. In literature, as in all else, that which ministers to vanity and folly pays the best. Half-a-dozen literary English men and women could be named who, at this moment, after a lifetime of useful work, are spending their declining years in neglect and poverty, while the singer of an idiotic song in a London music-hall earns nightly a sum equal to the annual income of many a well-known writer. That the vulgar and illiterate should appreciate literary graces is not to be expected; but according to a leading English review, the cultured public have little appreciation of poetry. It is somewhat startling to read in the Spectator the following indictment against ordinary English readers: « We believe that we should be within the mark if we said that of the reading public—the public, that is to say, of good education, and with a certain pretension to literary taste—not one man in twenty ever reads any poetry at all. 'Since the day I left school, where I had to learn it by heart, I never remember to have read two lines of poetry for my own pleasure,' was a speech overheard from a lady, who had deservedly the reputation of being well instructed and well read in the literature of the day; and that confession was cheerfully endorsed by more than one of her hearers. Novels, biographies, books of travel, and even works of science, could amuse her or interest her, and give her pleasure—poetry bored her, for she could never see the use of it. And that is the candid opinion of a great many other people. There is nothing, they contend, that is said in poetry that could not be infinitely better expressed in prose. »

To which it can only be replied that such people simply suffer from atrophy of an important mental faculty. They are to be commiserated, like sufferers from aphasia or color-blindness. The man or woman with « no ear » for poetry is even more to be pitied than the man who could only recognize two tunes when he listened to music. One was the Old Hundred—all the rest was « the other. » But the Spectator writer greatly over-estimates the number thus afflicted. Among intelligent readers, they probably about equal the color-blind —one in fifty. To suppose that such a defect is general is a mistake. page 2We have already had occasion to demonstrate the fallacy by reference to the fact that no single class of literature is more popular than poetry. Editions of the standard poets, issued in vast numbers by every publisher, find ready sale; and not only this, but the works of minor poets of our own day, whose very names were unknown a few years ago, have passed through scores of editions.

The assertion that « nothing is said in poetry that could not be infinitely better expressed in prose » is simply absurd. It is as if a blind man should claim that his ears could convey to him all the impressions that others received through their eyes—and « infinitely better. » A smart young collegian once told his professor that he could easily write better proverbs than those of Solomon. The professor did not dispute his ability. « Make a few, » he replied. That happened a good many years ago, but the new Book of Proverbs remains unwritten. So with these clever people who think poetry useless. We would not ask them to do anything so difficult as to originate anything. Let them take some of our English poetical classics—one or two of Milton's or Wordsworth's incomparable sonnets, Campbell's « Rainbow, » Shelley's « Skylark, » even the « Homes of England » of the much-depreciated Mrs Hemans. Let them express these identical thoughts « infinitely better in prose, » and give the result to an admiring world. We would greatly like to see it.

It is as easy to underrate as to overrate the mere form of expression. An unborn thought is as imperfect as a disembodied ghost. And the ultimate form which it takes depends not only on the individuality of the thinker, but on the kind of expression he selects. The three methods of expression—by speech, by ordinary written language, or by verse—have each their separate afflatus. The identical thought, which may have long had possession of the mind without finding expression, will take a shape new even to the man who gives it utterance, according to the method he adopts. On a public platform, with the reflex inspiration of the multitude he is addressing, he will find an entirely different sequence of images, illustrations, and arguments from those that would naturally arise if he were in solitude, committing his thought in an orderly and systematic manner to writing. Should he be able to express the idea in verse, the very exigencies of rhyme, rhythm, and metre would be suggestive of new, striking, and forcible methods of treatment which could never have occurred to him under any other conditions, and which, indeed, would have been inappropriate. And similarly, the oration, essay, or poem would each produce a specific and quite different effect upon the mind of the hearer or reader.

There is no better method of acquiring a good style than the loving study of the best models—for assimilation, not for imitation. Imitators have adopted a gifted writer's tricks of style, as ambitious young practitioners used to ape Abernethy's uncouth address—but in neither case did they succeed in abstracting any share of their model's genius. And no better literature is to be found than that of our English authors. There is a craze just now after exotic writers —stilted, artificial, stupid, turgid, and impure. A certain class of critics profess to find in their works the ideal literature. A few English writers, including certain unwomanly women, are simulating their peculiarities, not omitting their indecencies. It is a passing whim, and a nasty one, but our grand old heritage of English literature will remain when Zola, Ibsen, and Tolstoï are forgotten names.