criticism, and the publishers do not give it to them. Criticism as it
is to-day practiced as a matter of literary work, is apt to mean the
writing of perfunctory book-reviews, notices of plays and concerts and
pictures, all to entertain the reader or to provoke him to buy. There
are a great many persons, moreover, who either have no time to read, or
no mind to read the books of the day, yet who wish to appear to have
opinions in regard to them. It is for this class that the great bulk of
book-reviews are written. The publisher of a newspaper is aware that by
furnishing what will with the unthinking pass for opinions he can on
the one hand please unintelligent subscribers and on the other gratify
the book publishers from whom come advertisements. There are very many
reviewers who are too honest to say a thing which they do not believe,
yet who are aware that if they said all that they think they would not
be able to hold their places for a day. I do not wish to be unjust to
the newspapers. I am too lately out of an editorial chair myself to be
in a position to reflect upon them too hardly. I must say, however,
that it is the aim of every newspaper to please the publishers if it
is possible, and that there are not half a dozen in the country--if
there are any--which are not in their reviews influenced by other
considerations besides the merit of the works noticed. I should as
soon think of taking my political opinions from a paid stump-speaker
as my literary judgments from the book-reviews in a newspaper. The
intellectual furnishing of a mind which is guided by them is like the
plenishings of a room supplied with second-hand furniture purchased
on the installment plan and decorated with cigarette-advertising
lithographs.
In its high and proper sense, however, criticism is not alone a matter
of literature, but of life as well. Culture is mainly a matter of
self-criticism. We do not really know unless we are fully aware what
we know. In other words, the distinction between conscious knowledge
and vague impression is the measure of development. The correctness
of self-estimate marks the difference between the cultivated and the
uncultivated mind. It might on first thought seem as if this confounded
culture with self-consciousness. On the contrary it distinguishes it
from that painful weakness. Self-consciousness arises from a doubt
of the mind; an inability to tell what is one’s true value and one’s
true place. Culture is a fair and reasonable appreciation at once of
one’s mental merits and shortcomings; a knowledge of one’s intellectual
rank. This fairness of estimate enables the possessor of this quality
to take his intellectual place without false shame on the one hand or
false pride on the other; two faults which are the warp and woof of
self-consciousness. Education is not acquisition, but assimilation;
and assimilation is impossible without that mental judgment which is
the best and final form of criticism. Mental advancement is possible
only by the establishment in the mind of well-defined standards, and
the measuring by them of the thoughts, the ideas, the opinions; and to
establish definite standards and to measure by them is criticism, the
tonic of the mind.
XXII
STYLE
The question which these talks set out to consider was what one can
do to learn to write well. I began by saying that there are two sorts
of power which enter into literary production, the communicable and
the incommunicable, that which may be taught and that which is inborn,
the technical and the imaginative. Naturally we have discussed chiefly
the power which may be learned, those details of structure and of
quality which depend upon means which we are able to analyze. The
subject of which I wish now to say a little is connected rather with
those powers and qualities which can be directly neither acquired nor
imparted. We cannot close without some consideration of Style, that
thing most elusive and intangible in its elements, yet most definite
and recognizable in its effects; and Style in its more exact sense is a
matter which has to do less with the mechanics of literature than with
the creative impulse of the mind. Regarded in its higher aspect it is
closely linked with the imagination, that faculty which, if the figure
were not too mathematical, one might call reason raised to the _n_th
power.
The term style is commonly used rather indefinitely to indicate either
technical finish or the more subtle qualities of literary expression.
Of course as far as it is to be understood in the former sense, we
have been discussing it from the very beginning of these talks. If we
understand it to mean merely correctness or even elegance of language,
the proper proportion of the different parts of a composition, the
accurate choice of words and the judicious employment of figures and of
ornaments, we may be said to have dealt with all this in the previous
lectures.
If I were to attempt to sum up concisely the more important points
of what I have said, hitherto, it would be possible to cover a large
portion of the ground by saying that the secret of literary ease and
finish lies in attention to details. In my youth and in the dame-school
in which I began to learn to write it was the fashion to set down moral
and improving sentiments in the copy-books, and one of them was the
sententious maxim with which you are all familiar,--“Trifles make up
perfection, but perfection is no trifle.” The hackneyed saying is a
good deal nearer to being exact than are most didactic aphorisms. It is
certainly true that though perfection is above all trifles yet a trifle
may spoil it. The slightest touch breaks a bubble, and a single bad
epithet will spoil a passage otherwise effective. To neglect details is
to neglect the whole.
It is true that to consider only details is to deprive the work of all
unity. It is like finishing carefully all the pieces which are to be
set in a mosaic and neglecting to consider the design of the whole. I
need not repeat here what has been said of the need of dealing with any
literary work as a unit; but it is necessary to keep this in mind.
Conceive a thing as broadly as possible. Look at it in the large; see
it as clearly as you are able in its general outlines; and make it the
aim of your labor to embody in words this broad conception firmly and
clearly. When this is accomplished go over your work with a microscope
to discover if there be anything in it which will prevent or injure the
effect. Indeed, if you hope to be finished artists in words, it will
be necessary that you see to it that every detail not only does not
lessen the effect of the whole, but that it is a positive advantage
and addition. It is only by such care in the management of trifling
particulars that the finest results are to be obtained.
Going beyond all these largely mechanical matters, we come to the
consideration of a more intangible, and yet a higher thing.
Suppose that you came upon these three passages in some book which did
not give their authorship. Could you, although you had never seen them
before, suppose that they had been written by the same author?--
Of this thing, however, be certain: wouldst thou plant for
Eternity, then plant into the deep infinite faculties of man, his
Fantasy and Heart; wouldst thou plant for a Year and Day, then
plant into his shallow superficial faculties, his Self-love and
Arithmetical Understanding, what will grow there. A Hierarch,
therefore, and Pontiff of the World-will we called him, the
Poet and inspired Maker; who, Prometheus-like, can shape new
Symbols, and bring new Fire from Heaven to fix it there.--_Sartor
Resartus_, iii. 3.
The figure of that first ancestor, invested by family tradition
with a dim and dusky grandeur, was present to my boyish
imagination, as far back as I can remember. It still haunts me,
and induces a sort of home-feeling with the past, which I scarcely
claim in reference to the present phase of the town. I seem to
have a stronger claim as a resident here on account of this grave,
bearded, sable-cloaked and steeple-crowned progenitor,--who came
so early, with his Bible and his sword, and trode the unworn
street with such a stately port, and made so large a figure, as
a man of war and peace,--a stronger claim than for myself, whose
name is seldom heard and my face hardly known.--_The Custom House._
An obese person, with his waistcoat in closer connection with his
legs than is quite reconcilable with the established ideas of
grace, with that cast of feature which is figuratively called a
bottle-nose, and with a face covered all over with pimples. He had
been a tender plant once upon a time, but, from constant blowing
in the fat air of funerals, had run to seed.--_Martin Chuzzlewit._
Whether the reader recognized in these passages the hand of Carlyle, of
Hawthorne, and of Dickens would of course depend upon his experience;
but if he had any susceptibility to literary expression, he would
appreciate the fact that they are somehow different. He would feel
the distinction which arises from those essential qualities, both of
matter and of manner, which distinguish one piece of literature from
every other composition whatever. To the sum of these qualities we give
the name Style. Style in this sense is the individuality of a work.
What personality is to a human being, that is style to a composition.
Indeed, one would be doing no great violence to language who defined
this quality as the “personal equation” of a work.
Style is the personal impress which a writer inevitably sets upon his
production. It is that character in what is written which results
from the fact that these thoughts and emotions have been those of the
author rather than of any other human being. It is the expression
of one man’s individuality, as sure and as unique as the sound of
his voice, the look from his eye, or the imprint of his thumb. It
is the quality which gives to the work of a master-mind, a mind in
which the intellectual individuality is well developed, a flavor so
unique that no man familiar with literary effects can mistake it
for that of any other. It is style in this sense which is proof of
authorship so conclusive that if we had authenticated and solemnly
sworn declarations from both Shakespeare and Bacon that the latter
wrote the plays attributed to the former, we should still know beyond
all peradventure that this could not be. The final appeal in a case of
doubt of authorship is the internal evidence. I do not mean to assert
that mistakes may not arise here as in all other human affairs; but I
do mean that it is inconceivable that any great imaginative work should
be produced which should fail of bearing in it the incontestable mark
of its author’s personality. We say that one writer imitates another’s
style so cleverly that it is not possible for the counterfeit to
be distinguished from the real. This may sometimes be true of the
trifles of literature, though I doubt if even here the genuine expert
could not detect the imposition. In those writings in which a genius
has expressed his inner being, in which his imagination has unveiled
itself, in which that true self that dwells in every human creature
and with which we sometimes feel that we are hardly acquainted in our
own case,--in these it is impossible that the stamp of his personality
should not be impressed upon the work. It follows in the case mentioned
that one thing of which a literary man is pretty likely to be sure is
that whoever wrote the plays attributed to William Shakespeare, it
is outside the limits of conceivable literary or human possibilities
that they were written by the author of the poems and essays avowedly
the work of Francis Bacon. There are those who would deny the truth
of this illustration, I believe, but there is nobody who denies that
an imaginative writer stamps the character of his mind upon his
productions.
This matter of individualism is one of the most elusive and yet one of
the most tangibly persuasive of all matters connected with literary
art. Suppose two authors to be equally correct, equally well informed,
well trained, and to write upon subjects in which we are equally
interested. It will still be true that one will please us more than the
other. There will be a certain quality, an almost intangible flavor
about one book which is lacking in the other. One author will maintain
a dignity in his attitude toward his subject, or he will possess
a persuasive manner; in one way or another his individuality will
charm us. We say that we are pleased with his style. We mean that the
individual quality of what he writes has attracted us. To go back a
little farther in analysis, what we say means practically that in the
nature of the mind and the character of the author there is that which
appeals to us as human beings or to us in particular as individuals.
Here we touch upon an important principle which underlies this whole
matter. The secret of charm in style lies in character. You have all
heard innumerable times the saying that “Style is the man.” In other
words, style as a matter of structure in composition is the indication
of what a man can do; style as a matter of quality is an indication of
what he is.
The ways in which individuality shows itself are numerous. Each writer,
for instance, may be said to make his own vocabulary. He consciously
increases his knowledge of words, deliberately chooses certain terms
for particular uses, and carefully decides upon the especial term which
in each case seems to him best adapted to convey his meaning. Besides
this he unconsciously has a preference toward this word or that, he is
influenced by association, by the suggestions which are aroused in his
mind by this synonym or that, and is in every decision swayed in one
direction or another by the fineness of his perceptions, the nature of
his temperament, and by all those minute and mingled elements which
make up what we know as character. All these conscious and all these
unconscious causes help to bring it about that every writer shall
make for himself what Walter Pater calls a “vocabulary faithful to
the coloring of his own spirit;” and the same principle may easily be
traced through all the divisions of the literary art, whether they be
of structure or of quality.
It follows that to talk of style in the higher sense is to consider
character in its broadest and deepest extent. It is impossible to
discuss any question of human life to its farthest limits without
finding that it rests upon an ethical basis. The best method of
phrasing aspiration and passion in art cannot be determined until we
have searched out the nature of passion and of aspiration; until we
have fixed upon some theory of man’s relation to life and truth, and
this is what is meant by ethics. If one examined far enough, it is
probable that it would appear that the same is true of things which
seem to us infinitely trivial. There is as truly a moral reason why
children making mud pies in the gutter should not quarrel as there is
that Dante’s “Divine Comedy” is an immortal work. If we search deep
enough, the reason why the children are amused by their mud pies is as
surely to be found in the relations of human beings to life as is the
reason of the spiritual exaltation which may come from the appreciative
reading of the poet. I said the other evening that it might seem that
I had a tendency to speak of English Composition as if it involved the
whole duty of man; we have now come to the place where it is evident
that it does. We cannot go into so extensive an examination as the
foundation of morals and the elements of character, so that I shall
content myself with pointing this out, leaving each to make--or not to
make, as he pleases--such reflections and such deductions as fit his
own need and his own inclinations.
It is strictly in the line of literary work, however, to comment once
more upon the use of books in intellectual development as applied
to style. What a man reads affects what he writes indirectly by its
effect upon what he is, as we have before seen that it has a direct and
swift agency in shaping his methods of expression. What the company
he keeps is to a man’s character, this to his style are the books he
reads. A writer cannot accustom himself to the pages of the masters
of literature and be content to write meanly and incorrectly. He may
not consciously contrast his work with theirs, but the influence of
their example is with him always. In very trying circumstances, I
once said to a workman against whom falsehood seemed to be proved,
“In spite of everything, I do believe that you have been telling me
the truth.” He answered me with a simplicity which was nothing less
than noble, “If you knew my wife, sir, you’d know that I couldn’t live
with her and lie.” I learned afterward that this was the exact state
of the case. His wife was a rather silent woman, and I do not believe
that she had ever lectured her husband on truth-telling. It was simply
that one could not live in her influence and be willing to be guilty
of falsehood. In the same way one cannot live familiarly with good
literature and knowingly write bad.
It is not that one imitates good authors. Any imitation is bad art,
because there should always be in what is done the ring of genuine,
personal conviction. The imitator is not giving expression to that
within him which is so real and so strong that it will not be
suppressed. He is trying to show that he can feel as some one else has
felt, that he can write as somebody else has written. It is a sham, and
the reader feels that it is a sham. Imitation, moreover, is at best
but a reproduction of the more obvious peculiarities of work, while at
worst it is a catching of tricks, mannerisms, and faults. It may be
added, too, that it is oftener at its worst than at its best. Anybody
can imitate the defects of a style, and few its virtues.
In these days nobody reads avowedly for style directly. There was
once an idea that it was well to select an author of standing and
deliberately attempt to catch his manner, or, as the phrase went,
to “form one’s style on the master.” The idea was about as sensible
as would be the notion that it were well for a young man not wholly
satisfied with his features to “form” his nose after that of the
Apollo Belvedere. Style is the expression of selfhood. No writer can
embody his own individuality in the expression of the individuality
of another. Learn from the masterpieces what is good use in diction,
in construction, in arrangement; learn from them to be strenuous,
persuasive, and sincere in whatever you do; but do not for a moment
think of obtaining from them that personal flavor which can come only
from the writer himself, and which is the thing which makes style in
its highest sense.
It is the development of the personality of the writer which saves a
composition from becoming mechanical. In the first of these talks I
quoted the instructions which Flaubert gave to Guy de Maupassant, in
which he said:--
Whatever may be the thing which one wishes to say, there is but
one word for expressing it; only one verb to animate it, only one
adjective to qualify it. It is essential to search for this word,
for this verb, for this adjective, until they are discovered, and
to be satisfied with nothing else.
This I commended to you as sound and necessary advice. From our present
point of view, however, it is to be seen that this is the attitude of
a student rather than that of an artist. In other words it is rather
the way to learn to write than the way to write. So painfully minute
a method as that which Flaubert recommended to his pupil would bring
to an end all spontaneous or impassioned writing. The mind should
be trained by these severe and careful methods until exactness of
expression becomes a second nature. Then for good or for bad one must
write as one is impelled to write at the particular moment. In revision
the most strict requirements may be held to, so long as there is kept
in mind the danger of revising the life out of imaginative writing and
of refining until spontaneity is lost. Work should be revised with
patient, with inexhaustible care; but it must be revised delicately. No
formal correctness, no perfection of epithet or propriety of diction,
can atone for the sacrifice of the intangible qualities which in the
original form express the mood of the writer, and are to a composition
what the personality is to a human being.
In all the talks which preceded this we have been considering work as
that of the student who is preparing to write rather than as that of
the author who is actually producing. When we talk of style we are
dealing with the production of literature. The student who has not
mastered details in the most painfully minute manner has not fitted
himself for that perception of a subject on broad lines which is the
condition of successful production. William Blake has said: “In order
to know what is enough, it is necessary to know what is more than
enough.” The student must have acquired thoroughly the highest degree
of elaboration possible in order that he may be able to judge what is
proper and effective in any given case. He cannot fairly judge how far
it is safe to go, unless he is keenly aware of what it is to go too far.
In considering a literary work as a whole and in treating it as an
expression of his own particular and peculiar individuality, it is well
for a writer to bear in mind a phrase of Mr. George Saintsbury, the
English critic. “The first rule of literature,” he says, “is that what
is presented shall be presented not merely as it is, but transformed,
and, if I may say so, _dis_realized.” This is easily and obviously true
of fiction. It is manifestly impossible to give a realized picture of
life as it actually exists, to tell everything which must have happened
to characters, how they eat and sleep, shiver when getting into their
baths in the morning, find their egg too much or too little cooked
at breakfast, get out of breath in hurrying to catch a street-car,
and all the rest of the innumerable trifles which make up the bulk of
life. On this plan the simplest story would be expanded into as many
volumes as “Clarissa Harlowe.” The same principle of selection and
departure from reality is no less true of everything which is written.
The thoughts which a philosopher weaves into a profound system do not
come to him in sequence, beautifully arranged. If he followed the
actual order of nature, he would put down a heterogeneous mass of
reflections, good and bad mingled together, with no system apparent
in them except after a painful study which no reader would be at all
likely to give to the confused and confusing pages. Art is not nature.
It is not the reproduction of nature. It is the invention of man to
produce at will and to enshrine in permanent form those impressions,
those emotions which come to him in rare and fleeting instants when
his own consciousness reaches for a quick moment to the secret of that
life which informs nature. Remember that the object of writing is not
to reproduce the actual; that it is not even wholly that very different
thing, to produce an impression of the actual; it is to embody and
to make evident the truth which actualities express. Whoever takes up
his pen to produce literature undertakes to make clearer the relation
of man to nature and to life. He sets out to say in all sincerity
what some fact of existence means to him. If he is content to be a
mere scribe, simply an artisan of letters, he may deal with words
in a mechanical fashion, and manufacture composition as one makes a
deal table. This is honest work enough, but it is not the production
of literature. It is the work of the hack-writer; of the reporter of
life and not of the interpreter of life. To produce literature there
must be an earnest attempt to embody the writer’s conception of some
phase of existence. There must be that expression of his convictions
and character which is what we mean when we use the word style in its
higher meaning.
It is of style in this sense that Goethe was thinking, when he said:--
It is not language in itself and independently which is accurate,
vigorous, lucid, or graceful, but the spirit which is embodied in
it; and so it is not in the power of every one to give to his work
the good qualities of expression that should belong to it. The
question is whether nature has given to the writer intellectual
and moral qualities which demand and shape out for themselves
such an embodiment [as he has given them]--intellectual powers
of intuition and penetration; and not less moral power, that
he may be able to resist the evil demons who would hinder him
in the unswerving loyalty that he must pay to truth.--Goethe:
_Natur-Aphorismen_, iv.
There is no better way of testing what one has written than by
comparing it with the work of great writers. See wherein their work
excels yours. Do not thereupon say to yourself, “Oh, of course I am
not to be expected to do as well as they.” Say rather: “In so far as
my work has fallen short of the best that has been done, it has fallen
short of what has been shown to be possible. Let me see how far I can
bring it nearer to the standard.”