CHAPTER V.

THE PRINCIPLE OF BEAUTY.

It is not enough that a man has clearness of Vision, and reliance on

Sincerity, he must also have the art of Expression, or he will remain

obscure. Many have had

"The visionary eye, the faculty to see

The thing that hath been as the thing which is,"

but either from native defect, or the mistaken bias of education, have

been frustrated in the attempt to give their visions beautiful or

intelligible shape. The art which could give them shape is doubtless

intimately dependent on clearness of eye and sincerity of purpose, but

it is also something over and above these, and comes from an organic

aptitude not less special, when possessed with fulness, than the

aptitude for music or drawing. Any instructed person can write, as any

one can learn to draw; but to write well, to express ideas with

felicity and force, is not an accomplishment but a talent. The power of

seizing unapparent relations of things is not always conjoined with the

power of selecting the fittest verbal symbols by which they can be made

apparent to others: the one is the power of the thinker, the other the

power of the writer.

"Style," says De Quincey, "has two separate functions---first, to

brighten the INTELLIGIBILITY of a subject which is obscure to the

understanding; secondly, to regenerate the normal POWER and

impressiveness of a subject which has become dormant to the

sensibilities. . . . . Decaying lineaments are to be retraced and faded

colouring to be refreshed." To effect these purposes we require a rich

verbal memory from which to select the symbols best fitted to call up

images in the reader's mind, and we also require the delicate selective

instinct to guide us in the choice and arrangement of those symbols, so

that the rhythm and cadence may agreeably attune the mind, rendering it

receptive to the impressions meant to be communicated. A copious verbal

memory, like a copious memory of facts, is only one source of power,

and without the high controlling faculty of the artist may lead to

diffusive indecision. Just as one man, gilted with keen insight, will

from a small stock of facts extricate unapparent relations to which

others, rich in knowledge, have been blind; so will a writer gifted

with a fine instinct select from a narrow range of phrases symbols of

beauty and of power utterly beyond the reach of commonplace minds. It

is often considered, both by writers and readers, that fine language

makes fine writers; yet no one supposes that fine colours make a fine

painter. The COPIA VERBORUM is often a weakness and a snare. As Arthur

Helps says, men use several epithets in the hope that one of them may

fit. But the artist knows which epithet does fit, uses that, and

rejects the rest. The characteristic weakness of bad writers is

inaccuracy: their symbols do not adequately express their ideas. Pause

but for a moment over their sentences, and you perceive that they are

using language at random, the choice being guided rather by some

indistinct association of phrases, or some broken echoes of familiar

sounds, than by any selection of words to represent ideas. I read the

other day of the truck system being "rampant" in a certain district;

and every day we may meet with similar echoes of familiar words which

betray the flaccid condition of the writer's mind drooping under the

labour of expression.

Except in the rare cases of great dynamic thinkers whose thoughts are

as turning-points in the history of our race, it is by Style that

writers gain distinction, by Style they secure their immortality. In a

lower sphere many are remarked as writers although they may lay no

claim to distinction as thinkers, if they have the faculty of

felicitously expressing the ideas of others; and many who are really

remarkable as thinkers gain but slight recognition from the public,

simply because in them the faculty of expression is feeble. In

proportion as the work passes from the sphere of passionless

intelligence to that of impassioned intelligence, from the region of

demonstration to the region of emotion, the art of Style becomes more

complex, its necessity more imperious. But even in Philosophy and

Science the art is both subtle and necessary; the choice and

arrangement of the fitting symbols, though less difficult than in Art,

is quite indispensable to success. If the distinction which I formerly

drew between the Scientific and the Artistic tendencies be accepted, it

will disclose a corresponding difference in the Style which suits a

ratiocinative exposition fixing attention on abstract relations, and an

emotive exposition fixing attention on objects as related to the

feelings. We do not expect the scientific writer to stir our emotions,

otherwise than by the secondary influences which arise from our awe and

delight at the unveiling of new truths. In his own researches he should

extricate himself from the perturbing influences of emotion, and

consequently he should protect us from such suggestions in his

exposition. Feellng too often smites intellect with blindness, and

intellect too often paralyses the free play of emotion, not to call for

a decisive separation of the two. But this separation is no ground for

the disregard of Style in works, of pure demonstration--as we shall see

by-and-by.

The Principle of Beauty is only another name for Style, which is an

art, incommunicable as are all other arts, but like them subordinated

to laws founded on psychological conditions. The laws constitute the

Philosophy of Criticism; and I shall have to ask the reader's

indulgence if for the first time I attempt to expound them

scientifically in the chapter to which the present is only an

introduction. A knowledge of these laws, even presuming them to be

accurately expounded, will no more give a writer the power of

felicitous expression than a knowledge of the laws of colour,

perspective, and proportion will enable a critic to paint a picture.

But all good writing must conform to these laws; all bad writing will

be found to violate them. And the utility of the knowledge will be that

of a constant monitor, warning the artist of the errors into which he

has slipped, or into which he may slip if unwarned.

How is it that while every one acknowledges the importance of Style,

and numerous critics from Quinctilian and Longinus down to Quarterly

Reviewers have written upon it, very little has been done towards a

satisfactory establishment of principles? Is it not partly because the

critics have seldom held the true purpose of Style steadily before

their eyes, and still seldomer justified their canons by deducing them

from psychological conditions? To my apprehension they seem to have

mistaken the real sources of influence, and have fastened attention

upon some accidental or collateral details, instead of tracing the

direct connection between effects and causes. Misled by the splendour

of some great renown they have concluded that to write like Cicero or

to paint like Titian must be the pathway to success; which is true in

one sense, and profoundly false as they understand it. One pestilent

contagious error issued from this misconception, namely, that all

maxims confirmed by the practice of the great artists must be maxims

for the art; although a close examination might reveal that the

practice of these artists may have been the result of their peculiar

individualities or of the state of culture at their epoch. A true

Philosophy of Criticism would exhibit in how far such maxims were

universal, as founded on laws of human nature, and in how far

adaptations to particular individualities. A great talent will discover

new methods. A great success ought to put us on the track of new

principles. But the fundamental laws of Style, resting on the truths of

human nature, may be illustrated, they cannot be guaranteed by any

individual success. Moreover, the strong individuality of the artist

will create special modifications of the laws to suit himself, making

that excellent or endurable which in other hands would be intolerable.

If the purpose of Literature be the sincere expression of the

individual's own ideas and feelings it is obvious that the cant about

the "best models" tends to pervert and obstruct that expression. Unless

a man thinks and feels precisely after the manner of Cicero and Titian

it is manifestly wrong for him to express himself in their way. He may

study in them the principles of effect, and try to surprise some of

their secrets, but he should resolutely shun all imitation of them.

They ought to be illustrations not authorities, studies not models.

The fallacy about models is seen at once if we ask this simple

question: Will the practice of a great writer justify a solecism in

grammar or a confusion in logic? No. Then why should it justify any

other detail not to be reconciled with universal truth? If we are

forced to invoke the arbitration of reason in the one case, we must do

so in the other. Unless we set aside the individual practice whenever

it is irreconcilable with general principles, we shall be unable to

discriminate in a successful work those merits which SECURED from those

demerits which ACCOMPANIED success. Now this is precisely the condition

in which Criticism has always been. It has been formal instead of being

psychological: it has drawn its maxims from the works of successful

artists, instead of ascertaining the psychological principles involved

in the effects of those works. When the perplexed dramatist called down

curses on the man who invented fifth acts, he never thought of escaping

from his tribulation by writing a play in four acts; the formal canon

which made five acts indispensable to a tragedy was drawn from the

practice of great dramatists, but there was no demonstration of any

psychological demand on the part of the audience for precisely five

acts.

[English critics are much less pedantic in adherence to "rules" than

the French, yet when, many years ago, there appeared a tragedy in three

acts, and without a death, these innovations were considered

inadmissible; and if the success of the work had been such as to elicit

critical discussion, the necessity of five acts and a death would

doubtless have been generally insisted on].

Although no instructed mind will for a moment doubt the immense

advantage of the stimulus and culture derived from a reverent

familiarity with the works of our great predecessors and

contemperaries, there is a pernicious error which has been fostered by

many instructed minds, rising out of their reverence for greatness and

their forgetfulness of the ends of Literature. This error is the notion

of "models," and of fixed canons drawn from the practice of great

artists. It substitutes Imitation for Invention; reproduction of old

types instead of the creation of new. There is more bad than good work

produced in consequence of the assiduous following of models. And we

shall seldom be very wide of the mark if in our estimation of youthful

productions we place more reliance on their departures from what has

been already done, than on their resemblances to the best artists. An

energetic crudity, even a riotous absurdity, has more promise in it

than a clever and elegant mediocrity, because it shows that the young

man is speaking out of his own heart, and struggling to express himself

in his own way rather than in the way he finds in other men's books.

The early works of original writers are usually very bad; then succeeds

a short interval of imitation in which the influence of some favourite

author is distinctly traceable; but this does not last long, the native

independence of the mind reasserts itself, and although perhaps

academic and critical demands are somewhat disregarded, so that the

original writer on account of his very originality receives but slight

recognition from the authorities, nevertheless if there is any real

power in the voice it soon makes itself felt in the world. There is one

word of counsel I would give to young authors, which is that they

should be humbly obedient to the truth proclaimed by their own souls,

and haughtily indifferent to the remonstrances of critics founded

solely on any departure from the truths expressed by others. It by no

means follows that because a work is unlike works that have gone before

it, therefore it is excellent or even tolerable; it may be original in

error or in ugliness; but one thing is certain, that in proportion to

its close fidelity to the matter and manner of existing works will be

its intrinsic worthlessness. And one of the severest assaults on the

fortitude of an unacknowledged writer comes from the knowledge that his

critics, with rare exceptions, will judge his work in reference to

pre-existing models, and not in reference to the ends of Literature and

the laws of human nature. He knows that he will be compared with

artists whom he ought not to resemble if his work have truth and

originality; and finds himself teased with disparaging remarks which

are really compliments in their objections. He can comfort himself by

his trust in truth and the sincerity of his own work. He may also draw

strength from the reflection that the public and posterity may

cordially appreciate the work in which constituted authorities see

nothing but failure. The history of Literature abounds in examples of

critics being entirely at fault missing the old familiar landmarks,

these guides at once set up a shout of warning that the path has been

missed.

Very noticeable is the fact that of the thousands who have devoted

years to the study of the classics, especially to the "niceties of

phrase" and "chastity of composition," so much prized in these

classics, very few have learned to write with felicity, and not many

with accuracy. Native incompetence has doubtless largely influenced

this result in men who are insensible to the nicer shades of

distinction in terms, and want the subtle sense of congruity; but the

false plan of studying "models" without clearly understanding the

psychological conditions which the effects involve, without seeing why

great writing is effective, and where it is merely individual

expression, has injured even vigorous minds and paralysed the weak.

From a similar mistake hundreds have deceived themselves in trying to

catch the trick of phrase peculiar tn some distinguished contemporary.

In vain do they imitate the Latinisms and antitheses of Johnson, the

epigrammatic sentences of Macaulay, the colloquial ease of Thackeray,

the cumulative pomp of Milton, the diffusive play of De Quincey: a few

friendly or ignorant reviewers may applaud it as "brilliant writing,"

but the public remains unmoved. It is imitation, and as such it is

lifeless.

We see at once the mistake directly we understand that a genuine style

is the living body of thought, not a costume that can be put on and

off; it is the expression of the writer's mind; it is not less the

incarnation of his thoughts in verbal symbols than a picture is the

painter's incarnation of his thoughts in symbols of form and colour. A

man may, if it please him, dress his thoughts in the tawdry splendour

of a masquerade. But this is no more Literature than the masquerade is

Life.

No Style can be good that is not slncere. It must be the expression of

its author's mind. There are, of course, certain elements of

composition which must be mastered as a dancer learns his steps, but

the style of the writer, like the grace of the dancer, is only made

effective by such mastery; it springs from a deeper source. Initiation

into the rules of construction will save us from some gross errors of

composltion, but it will not make a style. Still less will imitation of

another's manner make one. In our day there are many who imitate

Macaulay's short sentences, iterations, antitheses, geographical and

historical illustrations, and eighteenth century diction, but who

accepts them as Macaulays? They cannot seize the secret of his charm,

because that charm lies in the felicity of his talent, not in the

structure of his sentences; in the fulness of his knowledge, not in the

character of his illustrations. Other men aim at ease and vigour by

discarding Latinisms, and admitting colloquialisms; but vigour and ease

are not to be had on recipe. No study of models, no attention to rules,

will give the easy turn, the graceful phrase, the simple word, the

fervid movement, or the large clearness; a picturesque talent will

express itself in concrete images; a genial nature will smile in

pleasant firms and inuendos; a rapid, unhesitating, imperious mind will

deliver its quick incisive phrases; a full deliberating mind will

overflow in ample paragraphs laden with the weight of parentheses and

qualifying suggestions. The style which is good in one case would be

vicious in another. The broken rhythm which increases the energy of one

style would ruin the LARGO of another. Both are excellencies where both

are natural.

We are always disagreeably impressed by an obvious imitation of the

manner of another, because we feel it to be an insincerity, and also

because it withdraws our attention from the thing said, to the way of

saying it. And here lies the great lesson writers have to

learn--namely, that they should think of the immediate purpose of their

writing, which is to convey truths and emotions, in symbols and images,

intelligible and suggestive. The racket-player keeps his eye on the

ball he is to strike, not on the racket with which he strikes. If the

writer sees vividly, and will say honestly what he sees, and how he

sees it, he may want something of the grace and felicity of other men,

but he will have all the strength and felicity with which nature has

endowed him. More than that he cannot attain, and he will fall very

short of it in snatching at the grace which is another's. Do what he

will, he cannot escape from the infirmities of his own mind: the

affectation, arrogance, ostentation, hesitation, native in the man will

taint his style, no matter how closely he may copy the manner of

another. For evil and for good, LE STYLE EST DE L'HOMME MEME.

The French critics, who are singularly servile to all established

reputations, and whose unreasoning idolatry of their own classics is

one of the reasons why their Literature is not richer, are fond of

declaring with magisterial emphasis that the rules of good taste and

the canons of style were fixed once and for ever by their great writers

in the seventeenth century. The true ambition of every modern is said

to be by careful study of these models to approach (though with no hope

of equalling) their chastity and elegance. That a writer of the

nineteenth century should express himself in the manner which was

admirable in the seventeenth is an absurdity which needs only to be

stated. It is not worth refuting. But it never presents itself thus to

the French. In their minds it is a lingering remnant of that older

superstition which believed the Ancients to have discovered all wisdom,

so that if we could only surprise the secret of Aristotle's thoughts

and clearly comprehend the drift of Plato's theories (which unhappily

was not clear) we should compass all knowledge. How long this

superstition lasted cannot accurately be settled; perhaps it is not

quite extinct even yet; but we know how little the most earnest

students succeeded in surprising the secrets of the universe by reading

Greek treatises, and how much by studying the universe itself.

Advancing Science daily discredits the superstition; yet the advance of

Criticism has not yet wholly discredited the parallel superstition in

Art. The earliest thinkers are no longer considered the wisest, but the

earliest artists are still proclaimed the finest. Even those who do not

believe in this superiority are, for the most part, overawed by

tradition and dare not openly question the supremacy of works which in

their private convictions hold a very subordinate rank. And this

reserve is encouraged by the intemperate scorn of those who question

the supremacy without having the knowledge or the sympathy which could

fairly appreciate the earlier artists. Attacks on the classics by men

ignorant of the classical languages tend to perpetuate the superstition.

But be the merit of the classics, ancient and modern, what it may, no

writer can become a classic by imitating them. The principle of

Sincerity here ministers to the principle of Beauty by forbidding

imitation and enforcing rivalry. Write what you can, and if you have

the grace of felicitous expression or the power of energetic expression

your style will be admirable and admired. At any rate see that it be

your own, and not another's; on no other terms will the world listen to

it. You cannot be eloquent by borrowing from the opulence of another;

you cannot be humorous by mimicking the whims of another; what was a

pleasant smile dimpling his features becomes a grimace on yours.

It will not be supposed that I would have the great writers

disregardod, as if nothing were to be learned from them; but the study

of great writers should be the study of general principles as

illustrated or revealed in these writers; and if properly pursued it

will of itself lead to a condemnation of the notion of models. What we

may learn from them is a nice discrimination of the symbols which

intelligibly express the shades of meaning and kindle emotion. The

writer wishes to give his thoughts a literary form. This is for others,

not for himself; consequently he must, before all things, desire to be

intelligible, and to be so he must adapt his expressions to the mental

condition of his audience. If he employs arbitrary symbols, such as old

words in new and unexpected senses, he may be clear as daylight to

himself, but to others, dark as fog. And the difficulty of original

writing lies in this, that what is new and individual must find

expression in old symbols. This difficulty can only be mastered by a

peculiar talent, strengthened and rendered nimble by practice, and the

commerce with original minds. Great writers should be our companions if

we would learn to write greatly; but no familiarity with their manner

will supply the place of native endowment. Writers are born, no less

than poets, and like poets, they learn to make their native gifts

effective. Practice, aiding their vigilant sensibility, teaches them,

perhaps unconsciously, certain methods of effective presentation, how

one arrangement of words carries with it more power than another, how

familiar and concrete expressions are demanded in one place, and in

another place abstract expressions unclogged with disturbing

suggestions. Every author thus silently amasses a store of empirical

rules, furnished by his own practice, and confirmed by the practice of

others. A true Philosophy of Criticism would reduce these empirical

rules to science by ranging them under psychological laws, thus

demonstrating the validity of the rules, not in virtue of their having

been employed by Cicero or Addison, by Burke or Sydney Smith, but in

virtue of their conformity with the constancies of human nature.

The importance of Style is generally unsuspected by philosophers and

men of science, who are quite aware of its advantage in all departments

of BELLES LETTRES; and if you allude in their presence to the

deplorably defective presentation of the ideas in some work

distinguished for its learning, its profundity or its novelty, it is

probable that you will be despised as a frivolous setter up of manner

over matter, a light-minded DILLETANTE, unfitted for the simple

austerities of science. But this is itself a light-minded contempt; a

deeper insight would change the tone, and help to remove the

disgraceful slovenliness and feebleness of composition which deface the

majority of grave works, except those written by Frenchmen, who have

been taught that composition is an art and that no writer may neglect

it. In England and Germany, men who will spare no labour in research,

grudge all labour in style; a morning is cheerfully devoted to

verifying a quotation, by one who will not spare ten minutes to

reconstruct a clumsy sentence; a reference is sought with ardour, an

appropriate expression in lleu of the inexact phrase which first

suggests itself does not seem worth seeking. What are we to say to a

man who spends a quarter's income on a diamond pin which he sticks in a

greasy cravat? A man who calls public attention on him, and appears in

a slovenly undress? Am I to bestow applause on some insignificant

parade of erudition, and withhold blame from the stupidities of style

which surround it?

Had there been a clear understanding of Style as the living body of

thought, and not its "dress," which might be more or less ornamental,

the error I am noticing would not have spread so widely. But,

naturally, when men regarded the grace of style as mere grace of

manner, and not as the delicate precision giving form and relief to

matter--as mere ornament, stuck on to arrest incurious eyes, and not as

effective expression--their sense of the deeper value of matter made

them despise such aid. A clearer conception would have rectified this

error. The matter is confluent with the manner; and only THROUGH the

style can thought reach the reader's mind. If the manner is involved,

awkward, abrupt, obscure, the reader will either be oppressed with a

confused sense of cumbrous material which awaits an artist to give it

shape, or he will have the labour thrown upon him of extricating the

material and reshaping it in his own mind.

How entirely men misconceive the relation of style to thought may be

seen in the replies they make when their writing is objected to, or in

the ludicrous attempts of clumsy playfulness and tawdry eloquence when

they wish to be regarded as writers.

"Le style le moins noble a pourtant sa noblesse,"

and the principle of Sincerity, not less than the suggestions of taste,

will preserve the integrity of each style. A philosopher, an

investigator, an historian, or a moralist so far from being required to

present the graces of a wit, an essayist, a pamphleteer, or a novelist,

would be warned off such ground by the necessity of expressing himself

sincerely. Pascal, Biot, Buffon, or Laplace are examples of the

clearness and beauty with which ideas may be presented wearing all the

graces of fine literature, and losing none of the severity of science.

Bacon, also, having an opulent and active intellect, spontaneously

expressed himself in forms of various excellence. But what a pitiable

contrast is presented by Kant! It is true that Kant having a much

narrower range of sensibility could have no such ample resource of

expression, and he was wise in not attempting to rival the splendour of

the NOVUM ORGANUM; but he was not simply unwise, he was extremely

culpable in sending forth his thoughts as so much raw material which

the public was invited to put into shape as it could. Had he been aware

that much of his bad writing was imperfect thinking, and always

imperfect adaptation of means to ends, he might have been induced to

recast it into more logical and more intelligible sentences, which

would have stimulated the reader's mind as much as they now oppress it.

Nor had Kant the excuse of a subject too abstruse for clear

presentation. The examples of Descartes, Spinoza, Hobbes, and Hume are

enough to show how such subjects can be mastered, and the very

implication of writing a book is that the writer has mastered his

material and can give it intelligible form.

A grave treatise, dealing with a narrow range of subjects or moving

amid severe abstractions, demands a gravity and severity of style which

is dissimilar to that demanded by subjects of a wider scope or more

impassioned impulse; but abstract philosophy has its appropriate

elegance no less than mathematics. I do not mean that each subject

should necessarily be confined to one special mode of treatment, in the

sense which was understood when people spoke of the "dignity of

history," and so forth. The style must express the writer's mind; and

as variously constituted minds will treat one and the same subject,

there will be varieties in their styles. If a severe thinker be also a

man of wit, like Bacon, Hobbes, Pascal, or Galileo, the wit will flash

its sudden illuminations on the argument; but if he be not a man of

wit, and condescends to jest under the impression that by jesting he is

giving an airy grace to his argument, we resent it as an impertinence.

I have throughout used Style in the narrower sense of expression rather

than in the wider sense of "treatment" which is sometimes affixed to

it. The mode of treating a subject is also no doubt the writer's or the

artist's way of expressing what is in his mind, but this is Style in

the more general sense, and does not admit of being reduced to laws

apart from those of Vision and Sincerity. A man necessarily sees a

subject in a particular light--ideal or grotesque, familiar or

fanciful, tragic or humorous, he may wander into fairy-land, or move

amid representative abstractions; he may follow his wayward fancy in

its grotesque combinations, or he may settle down amid the homeliest

details of daily life. But having chosen he must be true to his choice.

He is not allowed to represent fairy-land as if it resembled Walworth,

nor to paint Walworth in the colours of Venice. The truth of

consistency must be preserved in his treatment, truth in art meaning of

course only truth within the limits of the art; thus the painter may

produce the utmost relief he can by means of light and shade, but is

peremptorily forbidden to use actual solidities on a plane surface. He

must represent gold by colour, not by sticking gold on his fIgures.

[This was done with naivete by the early painters, and is really very

effective in the pictures of Gentile da Fabriano--that Paul Veronese of

the fifteenth century--as the reader will confess if he has seen the

"Adoration of the Magi," in the Florence Academy; but it could not be

tolerated now]. Our applause is greatly determined by our sense of

difficulty overcome, and to stick gold on a picture is an avoidance of

the difficulty of painting it.

Truth of presentation has an inexplicable charm for us, and throws a

halo round even ignoble objects. A policeman idly standing at the

corner of the street, or a sow lazily sleeping against the sun, are not

in nature objects to excite a thrill of delight, but a painter may, by

the cunning of his art, represent them so as to delight every

spectator. The same objects represented by an inferior painter will

move only a languid interest; by a still more inferior painter they may

be represented so as to please none but the most uncultivated eye. Each

spectator is charmed in proportion to his recognition of a triumph over

difficulty which is measured by the degree of verisimilitude. The

degrees are many. In the lowest the pictured object is so remote from

the reality that we simply recognise what the artist meant to

represent. In like manner we recognise in poor novels and dramas what

the authors mean to be characters, rather than what our experience of

life suggests as characteristic.

Not only do we apportion our applause according to the degree of

versimilitude attained, but also according to the difficulty each

involves. It is a higher difficulty, and implies a nobler art to

represent the movement and complexity of life and emotion than to catch

the fixed lineaments of outward aspect. To paint a policeman idly

lounging at the street corner with such verisimilitude that we are

pleased with the representation, admiring the solidity of the figure,

the texture of the clothes, and the human aspect of the features, is so

difficult that we loudly applaud the skill which enables an artist to

imitate what in itself is uninteresting; and if the imitation be

carried to a certain degree of verisimilitude the picture may be of

immense value. But no excellence of representation can make this high

art. To carry it into the region of high art, another and far greater

difficulty must be overcome; the man must be represented under the

strain of great emotion, and we must recognise an equal truthfulness in

the subtle indications of great mental agitation, the fleeting

characters of which are far less easy to observe and to reproduce, than

the stationary characters of form and costume. We may often observe how

the novelist or dramatist has tolerable success so long as his

personages are quiet, or moved only by the vulgar motives of ordinary

life, and how fatally uninteresting, because unreal, these very

personages become as soon as they are exhibited under the stress of

emotion: their language ceases at once to be truthful, and becomes

stagey; their conduct is no longer recognisable as that of human beings

such as we have known. Here we note a defect of treatment, a mingling

of styles, arising partly from defect of vision, and partly from an

imperfect sincerity; and success in art will always be found dependent

on integrity of style. The Dutch painters, so admirable in their own

style, would become pitiable on quitting it for a higher.

But I need not enter at any length upon this subject of treatment.

Obviously a work must have charm or it cannot succeed; and the charm

will depend on very complex conditions in the artist's mind. What

treatment is in Art, composition is in Philosophy. The general

conception of the point of view, and the skilful distribution of the

masses, so as to secure the due preparation, development, and

culmination, without wasteful prodigality or confusing want of

symmetry, constitute Composition, which is to the structure of a

treatise what Style--in the narrower sense--is to the structure of

sentences. How far Style is reducible to law will be examined in the

next chapter.

EDITOR.

THE LAWS OF STYLE.

From what was said in the preceding chapter, the reader will understand

that our present inquiry is only into the laws which regulate the

mechanism of Style. In such an analysis all that constitutes the

individuality, the life, the charm of a great writer, must escape. But

we may dissect Style, as we dissect an organism, and lay bare the

fundamental laws by which each is regulated. And this analogy may

indicate the utility of our attempt; the grace and luminousness of a

happy talent will no more be acquired by a knowledge of these laws,

than the force and elasticity of a healthy organism will be given by a

knowledge of anatomy; but the mistakes in Style, and the diseases of

the organism, may be often avoided, and sometimes remedied, by such

knowledge.

On a subject like this, which has for many years engaged the researches

of many minds, I shall not be expected to bring forward discoveries;

indeed, novelty would not unjustly be suspected of fallacy. The only

claim my exposition can have on the reader's attention is that of being

an attempt to systematise what has been hitherto either empirical

observation, or the establishment of critical rules on a false basis. I

know but of one exception to this sweeping censure, and that is the

essay on the Philosophy of Style, by Mr. Herbert Spencer, [Spencer's

ESSAYS: SCIENTIFIC, POLITICAL, AND SPECULATIVE. First Series. 1858].

where for the first time, I believe, the right method was pursued of

seeking in psychological conditions for the true laws of expression.

The aims of Literature being instruction and delight, Style must in

varying degrees appeal to our intellect and our sensibilities,

sometimes reaching the intellect through the presentation of simple

ideas, and at others through the agitating influence of emotions;

sometimes awakening the sensibilities through the reflexes of ideas,

and sometimes through a direct appeal. A truth may be nakedly expressed

so as to stir the intellect alone; or it may be expressed in terms

which, without disturbing its clearness, may appeal to our sensibility

by their harmony or energy. It is not possible to distinguish the

combined influences of clearness, movement, and harmony, so as to

assign to each its relative effect; and if in the ensuing pages one law

is isolated from another, this must be understood as an artifice

inevitable in such investigations.

There are five laws under which all the conditions of Style may be

grouped.--1. The Law of Economy. 2. The Law of Simplicity. 3. The Law

of Sequence. 4, The Law of Climax. 5. The Law of Variety.

It would be easy to reduce these five to three, and range all

considerations under Economy, Climax, and Variety; or we might amplify

the divisions; but there are reasons of convenience as well as symmetry

which give a preference to the five. I had arranged them thus for

convenience some years ago, and I now find they express the equivalence

of the two great factors of Style---Intelligence and Sensibility. Two

out of the five, Economy and Simplicity, more specially derive their

significance from intellectual needs; another two, Climax and Variety,

from emotional needs; and between these is the Law of Sequence, which

is intermediate in its nature, and may be claimed with equal justice by

both. The laws of force and the laws of pleasure can only be

provisionally isolated in our inquiry; in style they are blended. The

following brief estimate of each considers it as an isolated principle

undetermined by any other.

1. THE LAW OF ECONOMY.

Our inquiry is scientific, not empirical; it therefore seeks the

psychological basis for every law, endeavouring to ascertain what

condition of a reader's receptivity determines the law. Fortunately for

us, in the case of the first and most important law the psychological

basis is extremely simple, and may be easily appreciated by a reference

to its analogue in Mechanics.

What is the first object of a machine? Effective work--VIS VIVA. Every

means by which friction can be reduced, and the force thus economised

be rendered available, necessarily solicits the constructor's care. He

seeks as far as possible to liberate the motion which is absorbed in

the working of the machine, and to use it as VIS VIVA. He knows that

every superfluous detail, every retarding influence, is at the cost of

so much power, and is a mechanical defect though it may perhaps be an

aesthetic beauty or a practical convenience. He may retain it because

of the beauty, because of the convenience, but he knows the price of

effective power at which it is obtained.

And thus it stands with Style. The first object of a writer is

effective expression, the power of communicating distinct thoughts and

emotional suggestions. He has to overcome the friction of ignorance and

pre-occupation. He has to arrest a wandering attention, and to clear

away the misconceptions which cling around verbal symbols. Words are

not llke iron and wood, coal and water, invariable in their properties,

calculable in their effects. They are mutable in their powers, deriving

force and subtle variations of force from very trifling changes of

position; colouring and coloured by the words which precede and

succeed; significant or insignificant from the powers of rhythm and

cadence. It is the writer's art so to arrange words that they shall

suffer the least possible retardation from the inevitable friction of

the reader's mind. The analogy of a machine is perfect. In both cases

the object is to secure the maximum of disposable force, by diminishing

the amount absorbed in the working. Obviously, if a reader is engaged

in extricating the meaning from a sentence which ought to have

reflected its meaning as in a mirror, the mental energy thus employed

is abstracted from the amount of force which he has to bestow on the

subject; he has mentally to form anew the sentence which has been

clumsily formed by the writer; he wastes, on interpretation of the

symbols, force which might have been concentrated on meditation of the

propositions. This waste is inappreciable in writing of ordinary

excellence, and on subjects not severely tasking to the attention; but

if inappreciable, it is always waste; and in bad writing, especially on

topics of philosophy and science, the waste is important. And it is

this which greatly narrows the circle for serious works. Interest in

the subjects treated of may not be wanting; but the abundant energy is

wanting which to the fatigue of consecutive thinking will add the

labour of deciphering the language. Many of us are but too familiar

with the fatigue of reconstructing unwieldy sentences in which the

clauses are not logically dependent, nor the terms free from equivoque;

we know what it is to have to hunt for the meaning hidden in a maze of

words; and we can understand the yawning indifference which must soon

settle upon every reader of such writing, unless he has some strong

external impulse or abundant energy.

Economy dictates that the meaning should be presented in a form which

claims the least possible attention to itself as form, unless when that

form is part of the writer's object, and when the simple thought is

less important than the manner of presenting it. And even when the

manner is playful or impassioned, the law of Economy still presides,

and insists on the rejection of whatever is superfluous. Only a

delicate susceptibility can discriminate a superfluity in passages of

humour or rhetoric; but elsewhere a very ordinary understanding can

recognise the clauses and the epithets which are out of place, and in

excess, retarding or confusing the direct appreciation of the thought.

If we have written a clumsy or confused sentence, we shall often find

that the removal of an awkward inversion liberates the ides, or that

the modification of a cadence increases the effect. This is sometimes

strikingly seen at the rehearsal of a play: a passage which has fallen

flat upon the ear is suddenly brightened into effectiveness by the

removal of a superfluous phrase, which, by its retarding influence, had

thwarted the declamatory crescendo.

Young writers may learn something of the secrets of Economy by careful

revision of their own compositions, and by careful dissection of

passages selected both from good and bad writers. They have simply to

strike out every word, every clause, and every sentence, the removal of

which will not carry away any of the constituent elements of the

thought. Having done this, let them compare the revised with the

unrevised passages, and see where the excision has improved, and where

it has injured, the effect. For Economy, although a primal law, is not

the only law of Style. It is subject to various limitations from the

pressure of other laws; and thus the removal of a trifling superfluity

will not be justified by a wise economy if that loss entails a

dissonance, or prevents a climax, or robs the expression of its ease

and variety. Economy is rejection of whatever is superfluous; it is not

Miserliness. A liberal expenditure is often the best economy, and is

always so when dictated by a generous impulse, not by a prodigal

carelessness or ostentatious vanity. That man would greatly err who

tried to make his style effective by stripping it of all redundancy and

ornament, presenting it naked before the indifferent public. Perhaps

the very redundancy which he lops away might have aided the reader to

see the thought more clearly, because it would have kept the thought a

little longer before his mind, and thus prevented him from hurrying on

to the next while this one was still imperfectly conceived.

As a general rule, redundancy is injurious; and the reason of the rule

will enable us to discriminate when redundancy is injurious and when

beneficial. It is injurious when it hampers the rapid movement of the

reader's mind, diverting his attention to some collateral detail. But

it is beneficial when its retarding influence is such as only to detain

the mind longer on the thought, and thus to secure the fuller effect of

the thought. For rapid reading is often imperfect reading. The mind is

satisfied with a glimpse of that which it ought to have steadily

contemplated; and any artifice by which the thought can be kept long

enough before the mind, may indeed be a redundancy as regards the

meaning, but is an economy of power. Thus we see that the phrase or the

clause which we might be tempted to lop away because it threw no light

upon the proposition, would be retained by a skilful writer because it

added power. You may know the character of a redundancy by this one

test: does it divert the attention, or simply retard it? The former is

always a loss of power; the latter is sometlmes a gain of power. The

art of the writer consists in rejecting all redundancies that do not

conduce to clearness. The shortest sentences are not necessarily the

clearest. Concision gives energy, but it also adds restraint. The

labour of expanding a terse sentence to its full meaning is often

greater than the labour of picking out the meaning from a diffuse and

loitering passage. Tacitus is more tiresome than Cicero.

There are occasions when the simplest and fewest words surpass in

effect all the wealth of rhetorical amplification. An example may be

seen in the passage which has been a favourite illustration from the

days of Longinus to our own. "God said: Let there be light! and there

was light." This is a conception of power so calm and simple that it

needs only to be presented in the fewest and the plainest words, and

would be confused or weakened by any suggestion of accessories. Let us

amplify the expression in the redundant style of miscalled eloquent

writers: "God, in the magnificent fulness of creative energy,

exclaimed: Let there be light! and lo! the agitating fiat immediately

went forth, and thus in one indivisible moment the whole universe was

illumlned." We have here a sentence which I am certain many a writer

would, in secret, prefer to the masterly plainness of Genesis. It is

not a sentence which would have captivated critics.

Although this sentence from Genesis is sublime in its simplicity, we

are not to conclude that simple sentences are uniformly the best, or

that a style composed of propositions briefly expressed would obey a

wise Economy. The reader's pleasure must not be forgotten; and he

cannot be pleased by a style which always leaps and never flows. A

harsh, abrupt, and dislocated manner irritates and perplexes him by its

sudden jerks. It is easier to write short sentences than to read them.

An easy, fluent, and harmonious phrase steals unobtrusively upon the

mind, and allows the thought to expand quietly like an opening flower.

But the very suasiveness of harmonious writing needs to be varied lest

it become a drowsy monotony; and the sharp short sentences which are

intolerable when abundant, when used sparingly act like a trumpet-call

to the drooping attention.

II. THE LAW OF SIMPLICITY.

The first obligation of Economy is that of using the fewest words to

secure the fullest effect. It rejects whatever is superfluous; but the

question of superfluity must, as I showed just now, be determined in

each individual case by various conditions too complex and numerous to

be reduced within a formula. The same may be said of Simplicity, which

is indeed so intimately allied with Economy that I have only given it a

separate station for purposes of convenience. The psychological basis

is the same for both. The desire for simplicity is impatience at

superfluity, and the impatience arises from a sense of hindrance.

The first obligation of Simplicity is that of using the simplest means

to secure the fullest effect. But although the mind instinctlvely

rejects all needless complexity, we shall greatly err if we fail to

recognise the fact, that what the mind recoils from is not the

complexity, but the needlessness. When two men are set to the work of

one, there is a waste of means; when two phrases are used to express

one meaning twice, there is a waste of power; when incidents are

multiplied and illustrations crowded without increase of illumination,

there is prodigality which only the vulgar can mistake for opulence.

Simplicity is a relative term. If in sketching the head of a man the

artist wishes only to convey the general characteristics of that head,

the fewest touches show the greatest power, selecting as they do only

those details which carry with them characteristic significance. The

means are simple, as the effect is simple. But if, besides the general

characteristics, he wishes to convey the modelling of the forms, the

play of light and shade, the textures, and the very complex effect of a

human head, he must use more complex means. The simplicity which was

adequate in the one case becomes totally inadequate in the other.

Obvious as this is, it has not been sufficiently present to the mind of

critics who have called for plain, familiar, and concrete diction, as

if that alone could claim to be simple; who have demanded a style

unadorned by the artifices of involution, cadence, imagery, and

epigram, as if Simplicity were incompatible with these; and have

praised meagreness, mistaking it for Simplicity. Saxon words are words

which in their homeliness have deep-seated power, and in some places

they are the simplest because the most powerful words we can employ;

but their very homeliness excludes them from certain places where their

very power of suggestion is a disturbance of the general effect. The

selective instinct of the artist tells him when his language should be

homely, and when it should be more elevated; and it is precisely in the

imperceptible blending of the plain with the ornate that a great writer

is distinguished. He uses the simplest phrases without triviality, and

the grandest without a suggestion of grandiloquence.

Simplicity of Style will therefore be understood as meaning absence of

needless superfluity:

"Without o'erflowing full."

Its plainness is never meagreness, but unity. Obedient to the primary

impulse of ADEQUATE expression, the style of a complex subject should

be complex; of a technical subject, technical; of an abstract subject,

abstract; of a familiar subject, familiar; of a pictorial subject,

picturesque. The structure of the "Antigone" is simple; but so also is

the structure of "Othello," though it contains many more elements; the

simplicity of both lies in their fulness without superfluity.

Whatever is outside the purpose, or the feeling, of a scene, a speech,

a sentence, or a phrase, whatever may be omitted without sacrifice of

effect, is a sin against this law. I do not say that the incident,

description, or dialogue, which may be omitted without injury to the

unity of the work, is necessarily a sin against art; still less that,

even when acknowledged as a sin, it may not sometimes be condoned by

its success. The law of Simplicity is not the only law of art; and,

moreover, audiences are, unhappily, so little accustomed to judge works

as wholes, and so ready to seize upon any detail which pleases them, no

matter how incongruously the detail may be placed,

["Was hilft's, wenn ihr ein Ganzes dargebracht!

Das I'ublicum wird es euch doch zerpfiucken."--GOETHE].

that a felicitous fault will captivate applause, let critics shake

reproving heads as they may. Nevertheless the law of Simplicity remains

unshaken, and ought only to give way to the pressure of the law of

Variety.

The drama offers a good opportunity for studying the operation of this

law, because the limitations of time compel the dramatist to attend

closely to what is and what is not needful for his purpose. A drama

must compress into two or three hours material which may be diffused

through three volumes of a novel, because spectators are more impatient

than readers, and more unequivocally resent by their signs of weariness

any disregard of economy, which in the novel may be skipped. The

dramatist having little time in which to evolve his story, feels that

every scene which does not forward the progress of the action or

intensify the interest in the characters is an artistic defect; though

in itself it may be charmingly written, and may excite applause, it is

away from his immediate purpose. And what is true of purposeless scenes

and characters which divert the current of progress, is equally true,

in a minor degree, of speeches and sentences which arrest the

culminating interest by calling attention away to other objects. It is

an error which arises from a deficient earnestness on the writer's

part, or from a too pliant facility. The DRAMATIS PERSONAE wander in

their dialogue, not swayed by the fluctuations of feeling, but by the

author's desire to show his wit and wisdom, or else by his want of

power to control the vagrant suggestions of his fancy. The desire for

display and the inability to control are weaknesses that lead to almost

every transgression of Simplicity; but sometimes the transgressions are

made in more or less conscious obedience to the law of Variety,

although the highest reach of art is to secure variety by an opulent

simplicity.

The novelist is not under the same limitations of time, nor has he

to contend against the same mental impatience on the part of his

public. He may therefore linger where the dramatist must hurry; he may

digress, and gain fresh impetus from the digression, where the

dramatist would seriously endanger the effect of his scene by retarding

its evolution. The novelist with a prudent prodigality may employ

descriptions, dialogues, and episodes, which would be fatal in a drama.

Characters may be introduced and dismissed without having any important

connection with the plot; it is enough if they serve the purpose of the

chapter in which they appear. Although as a matter of fine art no

character should have a place in a novel unless it form an integral

element of the story, and no episode should be introduced unless it

reflects some strong light on the characters or incidents, this is a

critical demand which only fine artists think of satisfying, and only

delicate tastes appreciate. For the mass of readers it is enough if

they are mused; and indeed all readers, no matter how critical their

taste, would rather be pleased by a transgression of the law than

wearied by prescription. Delight condones offence. The only question

for the writer is, whether the offence is so trivial as to be submerged

in the delight. And he will do well to remember that the greater

flexibility belonging to the novel by no means removes the novel from

the laws which rule the drama. The parts of a novel should have organic

relations. Push the licence to excess, and stitch together a volume of

unrelated chapters,--a patchwork of descriptions, dialogues, and

incidents,--no one will call that a novel; and the less the work has of

this unorganised character the greater will be its value, not only in

the eyes of critics, but in its effect on the emotions of the reader.

Simplicity of structure means organic unity, whether the organism be

simple or complex; and hence in all times the emphasis which critics

have laid upon Simplicity, though they have not unfrequently confounded

it with narrowness of range. In like manner, as we said just now, when

treating of diction they have overlooked the fact that the simplest

must be that which best expresses the thought. Simplicity of diction is

integrity of speech; that which admits of least equivocation, that

which by the clearest verbal symbols most readily calls up in the

reader's mind the images and feelings which the writer wishes to call

up. Such diction may be concrete or abstract, familiar or technical;

its simplicity is determined by the nature of the thought. We shall

often be simpler in using abstract and technical terms than in using

concrete and familiar terms which by their very concreteness and

familiarity call up images and feelings foreign to our immediate

purpose. If we desire the attention to fall upon some general idea we

only blur its outlines by using words that call up particulars. Thus,

although it may be needful to give some definite direction to the

reader's thoughts by the suggestion of a particular fact, we must be

careful not to arrest his attention on the fact itself, still less to

divert it by calling up vivid images of facts unrelated to our present

purpose. For example, I wish to fix in the reader's mind a conception

of a lonely meditative man walking on the sea-shore, and I fall into

the vicious style of our day which is lauded as word-painting, and

write something like this :--

"The fishermen mending their storm-beaten boats upon the shore would

lay down the hammer to gaze after him as he passed abstractedly before

their huts, his hair streaming in the salt breeze, his feet crushing

the scattered seaweed, his eyes dreamily fixed upon the purple heights

of the precipitous crags."

Now it is obvious that the details here assembled are mostly foreign to

my purpose, which has nothing whatever to do with fishermen, storms,

boats, sea-weeds, or purple crags; and by calling up images of these I

only divert the attention from my thought. Whereas, if it had been my

purpose to picture the scene itself, or the man's delight in it, then

the enumeration of details would give colour and distinctness to the

picture.

The art of a great writer is seen in the perfect fitness of his

expressions. He knows how to blend vividness with vagueness, knows

where images are needed, and where by their vivacity they would be

obstacles to the rapid appreciation of his thought. The value of

concrete illustration artfully used may be seen illustrated in a

passage from Macaulay's invective against Frederick the Great: "On his

head is all the blood which was shod in a war which raged during many

years and in every quarter of the globe, the blood of the column at

Fentonoy, the blood of the mountaineers who were slaughtered at

Culloden. The evils produced by his wickedness were felt in lands where

the name of Prussia was unknown; and in order that he might rob a

neighbour whom he had promised to defend, black men fought on the coast

of Coromandel and red men scalped each other by the great lakes of

North America." Disregarding the justice or injustice of the thought,

note the singular force and beauty of this passage, delightful alike to

ear and mind; and observe how its very elaborateness has the effect of

the finest simplicity, because the successive pictures are constituents

of the general thought, and by their vividness render the conclusion

more impressive. Let us suppose him to have wrltten with the vague

generality of expression much patronised by dignified historians, and

told us that "Frederick was the cause of great European conflicts

extending over long periods; and in consequence of his political

aggression hideous crimes were perpetrated in the most distant parts of

the globe." This absence of concrete images would not have been

simplicity, inasmuch as the labour of converting the general

expressions into definite meanings would thus have been thrown upon the

reader.

Pictorial illustration has its dangers, as we daily see in the clumsy

imitators of Macaulay, who have not the fine instinct of style, but

obey the vulgar instinct of display, and imagine they can produce a

brilliant effect by the use of strong lights, whereas they distract the

attention with images alien to the general impression, just as crude

colourists vex the eye with importunate splendours. Nay, even good

writers sometimes sacrifice the large effect of a diffusive light to

the small effect of a brilliant point. This is a defect of taste

frequently noticeable in two very good writers, De Quincey and Ruskin,

whose command of expression is so varied that it tempts them into

FIORITURA as flexibility of voice tempts singers to sin against

simplicity. At the close of an eloquent passage De Quincey writes :--

"Gravitation that works without holiday for ever and searches every

corner of the universe, what intellect can follow it to its fountains?

And yet, shyer than gravitation, less to be counted on than the

fluxions of sun-dials, stealthier than the growth of a forest, are the

footsteps of Christianity amongst the political workings of man."

The association of holidays and shyness with an idea so abstract as

that of gravitation, the use of the learned word fluxions to express

the movements of the shadows on a dial, and the discordant suggestion

of stealthiness applied to vegetable growth and Christianity, are so

many offences against simplicity. Let the passage be contrasted with

one in which wealth of imagery is in accordance with the thought it

expresses:--

"In the edifices of man there should be found reverent worship and

following, not only of the spirit which rounds the pillars of the

forest, and arches the vault of the avenue--which gives veining to the

leaf and polish to the shell, and grace to every pulse that agitates

animal organisation but of that also which reproves the pillars of the

earth, and builds up her barren precipices into the coldness of the

clouds, and lifts her shadowy cones of mountain purple into the pale

arch of the sky; for these and other glories more than these refuse not

to connect themselves in his thoughts with the work of his own hand;

the grey cliff loses not its nobleness when it reminds us of some

Cyclopoan waste of mural stone; the pinnacles of the rocky promontory

arrange themselves, undegraded, into fantastic semblances of fortress

towns; and even the awful cone of the far-off mountain has a melancholy

mixed with that of its own solitude, which is cast from the images of

nameless tumuli on white sea-shores, and of the heaps of reedy clay

into which chambered cities melt in their mortality." [Ruskin].

I shall notice but two points in this singularly beautiful passage. The

one is the exquisite instinct of Sequence in several of the phrases,

not only as to harmony, but as to the evolution of the meaning,

especially in "builds up her barren precipices into the coldness of the

clouds, and lifts her shadowy cones of mountain purple into the pale

arch of the sky." The other is the injurious effect of three words in

the sentence, "for these and other glories more than these REFUSE NOT

TO connect themselves in his thoughts." Strike out the words printed in

italics, and you not only improve the harmony, but free the sentence

from a disturbing use of what Ruskin has named the "pathetic fallacy."

There are times in which Nature may be assumed as in sympathy with our

moods; and at such times the pathetic fallacy is a source of subtle

effect. But in the passage just quoted the introduction seems to me a

mistake: the simplicity of the thought is disturbed by this hint of an

active participation of Nature in man's feelings; it is preserved in

its integrity by the omission of that hint.

These illustrations will suffice to show how the law we are considering

will command and forbid the use of concrete expressions and vivid

imagery according to the purpose of the writer. A fine taste guided by

Sincerity will determine that use. Nothing more than a general rule can

be laid down. Eloquence, as I said before, cannot spring from the

simple desire to be eloquent; the desire usually leads to

grandiloquence. But Sincerity will save us. We have but to remember

Montesquieu's advice: "Il faut prendre garde aux grandes phrases dans

les humbles sujets; elles produisent l'effet d'une masque a barbe

blanche sur la joue d'un enfant."

Here another warning may be placed. In our anxiety lest we err on the

side of grandiloquence we may perhaps fall into the opposite error of

tameness. Sincerity will save us here also. Let us but express the

thought and feeling actually in our minds, then our very grandiloquence

(if that is our weakness) will have a certain movement and vivacity not

without effect, and our tameness (if we are tame) will have a

gentleness not without its charm.

Finally, let us banish from our critical superstitions the notion that

chastity of composition, or simplicity of Style, is in any respect

allied to timidity. There are two kinds of timidity, or rather it has

two different origins, both of which cripple the free movement of

thought. The one is the timidity of fastidiousness, the other of placid

stupidity: the one shrinks from originality lest it should be regarded

as impertinent; the other lest, being new, it should be wrong. We

detect the one in the sensitive discreetness of the style. We detect

the other in the complacency of its platitudes and the stereotyped

commonness of its metaphors. The writer who is afraid of originality

feels himself in deep water when he launches into a commonplace. For

him who is timid because weak, there is no advice, except suggesting

the propriety of silence. For him who is timid because fastidious,

there is this advice: get rid of the superstition about chastity, and

recognise the truth that a style may be simple, even if it move amid

abstractions, or employ few Saxon words, or abound in concrete images

and novel turns of expression.

III. THE LAW OF SEQUENCE.

Much that might be included under this head would equally well find its

place under that of Economy or that of Climax. Indeed it is obvious

that to secure perfect Economy there must be that sequence of the words

which will present the least obstacle to the unfolding of the thought,

and that Climax is only attainable through a properly graduated

sequence. But there is another element we have to take into account,

and that is the rhythmical effect of Style. Mr. Herbert Spencer in his

Essay very clearly states the law of Sequence, but I infer that he

would include it entirely under the law of Economy; at any rate he

treats of it solely in reference to intelligibility, and not at all in

its scarcely less important relation to harmony. We have A PRIORI

reasons," he says, "for believing that in every sentence there is one

order of words more effective than any other, and that this order is

the one which presents the elements of the proposition in the

succession in which they may be most readily put together. As in a

narrative, the events should be stated in such sequence that the mind

may not have to go backwards and forwards in order rightly to connect

them; as in a group of sentences, the arrangement should be such that

each of them may be understood as it comes, without waiting for the

subsequent ones; so in every sentence, the sequence of the words should

be that which suggests the constituents of the thought in the order

most convenient for building up that thought."

But Style appeals to the emotions as well as to the intellect, and the

arrangement of words and sentences which will be the most economical

may not be the most musical, and the most musical may not be the most

pleasurably effective. For Climax and Variety it may be necessary to

sacrifice something of rapid intelligibillty: hence involutions,

antitheses, and suspensions, which disturb the most orderly

arrangement, may yet, in virtue of their own subtle influences, be

counted as improvements on that arrangement.

Tested by the Intellect and the Feelings, the law of Sequence is seen

to be a curious compound of the two. If we isolate these elements for

the purposes of exposition, we shall find that the principle of the

first is much simpler and more easy of obedience than the principle of

the second. It may be thus stated:--

The constituent elements of the conception expressed in the sentence

and the paragraph should be arranged in strict correspondence with an

inductive or a deductive progression.

All exposition, like all research, is either inductive or deductive. It

groups particulars so as to lead up to a general conception which

embraces them all, but which could not be fully understood until they

had been estimated; or else it starts from some general conception,

already familar to the mind, and as it moves along, casts its light

upon numerous particulars, which are thus shown to be related to it,

but which without that light would have been overlooked.

If the reader will meditate on that brief statement of the principle,

he will, I think, find it explain many doubtful points. Let me merely

notice one, namely, the dispute as to whether the direct or the

indirect style should be preferred. Some writers insist, and others

practise the precept without insistance, that the proposition should be

stated first, and all its qualifications as well as its evidences be

made to follow; others maintain that the proposition should be made to

grow up step by step with all its evidences and qualifications in their

due order, and the conclusion disclose itself as crowning the whole.

Are not both methods right under different circumstances? If my object

is to convince you of a general truth, or to impress you with a

feeling, which you are not already prepared to accept, it is obvious

that the most effective method is the inductive, which leads your mind

upon a culminating wave of evidence or emotion to the very point I aim

at. But the deductive method is best when I wish to direct the light of

familiar truths and roused emotions, upon new particulars, or upon

details in unsuspected relation to those truths; and when I wish the

attention to be absorbed by these particulars which are of interest in

themselves, not upon the general truths which are of no present

interest except in as far as they light up these details. A growing

thought requires the inductive exposition, an applied thought the

deductive.

This principle, which is of very wide application, is subject to two

important qualifications--one pressed on it by the necessities of

Climax and Variety, the other by the feebleness of memory, which cannot

keep a long hold of details unless their significance is apprehended;

so that a paragraph of suspended meaning should never be long, and when

the necessities of the case bring together numerous particulars in

evidence of the conclusion, they should be so arranged as to have

culminating force: one clause leading up to another, and throwing its

impetus into it, instead of being linked on to another, and dragging

the mind down with its weight.

It is surprising how few men understand that Style is a Fine Art; and

how few of those who are fastidious in their diction give much care to

the arrangement of their sentences, paragraphs, and chapters--in a

word, to Composition. The painter distributes his masses with a view to

general effect; so does the musician: writers seldom do so. Nor do they

usually arrange the members of their sentences in that sequence which

shall secure for each its proper emphasis and its determining influence

on the others--influence reflected back and influence projected

forward. As an example of the charm that lies in unostentatious

antiphony, consider this passage from Ruskin:--"Originality in

expression does not depend on invention of new words; nor originality

in poetry on invention of new measures; nor in painting on invention of

new colours or new modes of using them. The chords of music, the

harmonies of colour, the general principles of the arrangement of

sculptural masses, have been determined long ago, and in all

probability cannot be added to any more than they can be altered." Men

write like this by instinct; and I by no means wish to suggest that

writing like this can be produced by rule. What I suggest is, that in

this, as in every other Fine Art, instinct does mostly find itself in

accordance with rule; and a knowledge of rules helps to direct the

blind gropings of feeling, and to correct the occasional mistakes of

instinct. If, after working his way through a long and involved

sentence in which the meaning is rough hewn, the writer were to try its

effect upon ear and intellect, he might see its defects and re-shape it

into beauty and clearness. But in general men shirk this labour, partly

because it is irksome, and partly because they have no distinct

conception of the rules which would make the labour light.

The law of Sequence, we have seen, rests upon the two requisites of

Clearness and Harmony. Men with a delicate sense of rhythm will

instinctively distribute their phrases in an order that falls agreeably

on the ear, without monotony, and without an echo of other voices; and

men with a keen sense of logical relation will instinctively arrange

their sentences in an order that best unfolds the meaning. The French

are great masters of the law of Sequence, and, did space Permit, I

could cite many excellent examples. One brief passage from Royer

Collard must suffice:--"Les faits que l'observation laisse epars et

muets la causalite les rassemble, les enchaine, leur prete un langage.

Chaque fait revele celui qui a precede, prophetise celui qui va suivre."

The ear is only a guide to the harmony of a Period, and often tempts us

into the feebleness of expletives or approximative expressions for the

sake of a cadence. Yet, on the other hand, if we disregard the subtle

influences of harmonious arrangement, our thoughts lose much of the

force which would otherwise result from their logical subordination.

The easy evolution of thought in a melodious period, quietly taking up

on its way a variety of incidental details, yet never lingering long

enough over them to divert the attention or to suspend the continuous

crescendo of interest, but by subtle influences of proportion allowing

each clause of the sentence its separate significance, is the product

of a natural gift, as rare as the gift of music, or of poetry. But

until men come to understand that Style is an art, and an amazingly

difficult art, they will continue with careless presumption to tumble

out their sentences as they would lilt stones from a cart, trusting

very much to accident or gravitation for the shapeliness of the result.

I will write a passage which may serve as an example of what I mean,

although the defect is purposely kept within very ordinary limlts--

"To construct a sentence with many loosely and not obviously dependent

clauses, each clause containing an important meaning or a concrete

image the vivacity of which, like a boulder in a shallow stream,

disturbs the equable current of thought, and in such a case the more

beautiful the image the greater the obstacle, so that the laws of

simplicity and economy are violated by it,--while each clause really

requires for its interpretation a proposition that is however kept

suspended till the close, is a defect."

The weariness produced by such writing as this is very great, and yet

the recasting of the passage is easy. Thus:--

"It is a defect when a sentence is constructed with many loosely and

not obviously dependent clauses, each of which requires for its

interpretation a preposition that is kept suspended till the close; and

this defect is exaggerated when each clause contains an important

meaning, or a concrete image which, like a boulder in a shallow stream,

disturbs the equable current of thought: the more beautiful the image,

the greater its violation of the laws of simplicity and economy."

In this second form the sentence has no long suspension of the main

idea, no diversions of the current. The proposition is stated and

illustrated directly, and the mind of the reader follows that of the

writer. How injurious it is to keep the key in your pocket until all

the locks in succession have been displayed may be seen in such a

sentence as this:--

"Phantoms of lost power, sudden intuitions and shadowy restorations of

forgotten feelings, sometimes dim and perplexing, sometimes by bright

but furtive glimpses, sometimes by a full and steady revelation

overcharged with light, throw us back in a moment upon scenes and

remembrances that we have left full thirty years behind us."

Had De Quincey liberated our minds from suspense by first presenting

the thought which first arose in his own mind,--namely, that we are

thrown back upon scenes and remembrances by phantoms of lost power,

&c.--the beauty of his language in its pregnant suggestiveness would

have been felt at once. Instead of that, he makes us accompany him in

darkness, and when the light appears we have to travel backwards over

the ground again to see what we have passed. The passage continues:--

"In solitudes, and chiefly in the solitudes of nature, and, above all,

amongst the great and enduring features of nature, such as mountains

and quiet dells, and the lawny recesses of forests, and the silent

shores of lakes--features with which (as being themselves less liable

to change) our feelings have a more abiding associatlon,--under these

circumstances it is that such evanescent hauntings of our forgotten

selves are most apt to startle and waylay us."

The beauty of this passage seems to me marred by the awkward yet

necessary interruption, "under these circumstances it is," which would

have been avoided by opening the sentence with "such evanescent

hauntings of our forgotten selves are most apt to startle us in

solitudes," &c. Compare the effect of directness in the following:--

"This was one of the most common shapes of extinguished power from

which Coleridge fled to the great city. But sometimes the same decay

came back upon his heart in the more poignant shape of intimations and

vanishing glimpses recovered for one moment from the Paradise of youth,

and from fields of joy and power, over which for him too certainly he

felt that the cloud of night was settling for ever."

Obedience to the law of Sequence gives strength by giving clearness and

beauty of rhythm; it economises force and creates music. A very

trifling disregard of it will mar an effect. See an example both of

obedience and trifling disobedience in the following passage from

Ruskin:--

"People speak in this working age, when they speak from their hearts,

as if houses and lands and food and raiment were alone useful, and as

if Sight, Thought, and Admiration were all profitless, so that men

insolently call themselves Utilitarians, who would turn, if they had

their way, themselves and their race into vegetables; men who think, as

far as such can be said to think, that the meat is more than life and

the raiment than the body, who look on earth as a stable and to its

fruit as fodder; vinedressers and husbandmen who love the corn they

grind and the grapes they crush better than the gardens of the angels

upon the slopes of Eden."

It is instinctive to contrast the dislocated sentence, "who would turn,

if they had their way, themselves and their race," with the sentence

which succeeds it, "men who think, as far as such men can be said to

think, that the meat," &c. In the latter the parenthetic interruption

is a source of power: it dams the current to increase its force; in the

former the inversion is a loss of power: it is a dissonance to the ear

and a diversion of the thought.

As illustrations of Sequence in composition, two passages may be quoted

from Macaulay which display the power of pictorial suggestions when,

instead of diverting attention from the main purpose, they are arranged

with progressive and culminating effect.

"Such, or nearly such, was the change which passed on the Mogul empire

during the forty years which followed the death of Aurungzebe. A series

of nominal sovereigns, sunk in indolence and debauchery, sauntered away

life in secluded palaces, chewing bang, fondling dancing girls, and

listening to buffoons. A series of ferocious invaders had descended

through the western passes to prey on the defenceless wealth of

Hindostan. A Persian conqueror crossed the Indus, marched through the

gates of Delhi, and bore away in triumph those treasures of which the

magnificence had astounded Roe and Bernier;--the peacock throne, on

which the richest jewels of Golconda had been disposed by the most

skilful hands of Europe, and the inestimable Mountain of Light, which,

after many strange vicissitudes, lately shone in the bracelet of

Runjeet Sing, and is now destined to adorn the hideous idol of Prista.

The Afghan soon followed to complete the work of devastation which the

Persian had begun. The warlike tribe of Rajpoots threw off the

Mussulman yoke. A band of'mercenary soldiers occupied the Rohilcund.

The Seiks ruled on the Indus. The Jauts spread terror along the Jumnah.

The high lands which border on the western sea-coast of India poured

forth a yet more formidable race--a race which was long the terror of

every native power, and which yielded only after many desperate and

doubtful struggles to the fortune and genius of England. It was under

the reign of Aurungzebe that this wild clan of plunderers first

descended from the mountains; and soon after his death every corner of

his wide empire learned to tremble at the mighty name of the Mahrattas.

Many fertile viceroyalties were entirely subdued by them. Their

dominions stretched across the peninsula from sea to sea. Their

captains reigned at Poonah, at Gualior, in Guzerat, in Berar, and in

Tanjore."

Such prose as this affects us like poetry. The pictures and suggestions

might possibly have been gathered together by any other historian; but

the artful succession, the perfect sequence, could only have been found

by a fine writer. I pass over a few paragraphs, and pause at this

second example of a sentence simple in structure, though complex in its

elements, fed but not overfed with material, and almost perfect in its

cadence and logical connection. "Scarcely any man, however sagacious,

would have thought it possible that a trading company, separated from

India by fifteen thousand miles of sea, and possessing in India only a

few acres for purposes of commerce, would in less than a hundred years

spread its empire from Cape Comorin to the eternal snows of the

Himalayas--would compel Mahratta and Mahomedan to forget their mutual

feuds in common subjection--would tame down even those wild races which

had resisted the most powerful of the Moguls; and having established a

government far stronger than any ever known in those countries, would

carry its victorious arms far to the east of the Burrampooter, and far

to the west of the Hydaspes--dictate terms of peace at the gates of

Ava, and seat its vassals on the throne of Candahar."

Let us see the same principle exhibited in a passage at once pictorial

and argumentative. "We know more certainly every day," says Ruskin,

"that whatever appears to us harmful in the universe has some

beneficent or necessary operation; that the storm which destroys a

harvest brightens the sunbeams for harvests yet unsown, and that a

volcano which buries a city preserves a thousand from destruction. But

the evil is not for the time less fearful because we have learned it to

be necessary; and we can easily understand the timidity or the

tenderness of the spirit which could withdraw itself from the presence

of destruction, and create in its imagination a world of which the

peace should be unbroken, in which the sky should not darken nor the

sea rage, in which the leaf should not change nor the blossom wither.

That man is greater, however, who contemplates with an equal mind the

alternations of terror and of beauty; who, not rejoicing less beneath

the sunny sky, can also bear to watch the bars of twilight narrowing on

the horizon; and, not less sensible to the blessing of the peace of

nature, can rejoice in the magnificence of the ordinances by which that

peace is protected and secured. But separated from both by an

immeasurable distance would be the man who delighted in convulsion and

disease for their own sake; who found his daily food in the disorder of

nature mingled with the suffering of humanity; and watched joyfully at

the right hand of the Angel whose appointed work is to destroy as well

as to accuse, while the corners of the house of feasting were struck by

the wind from the wilderness."

I will now cite a passage from Burke, which will seem tame after the

pictorial animation of the passages from Macaulay and Ruskin; but

which, because it is simply an exposition of opinions addressed to the

understanding, will excellently illustrate the principle I am

enforcing. He is treating of the dethronement of kings. "As it was not

made for common abuses, so it is not to be agitated by common minds.

The speculative line of demarcation, where obedience ought to end and

resistance must begin, is faint, obscure, and not easily definable. It

is not a single act or a single event which determines it. Governments

must be abused and deranged, indeed, before it can be thought of; and

the prospect of the future must be as bad as the experience of the

past. When things are in that lamentable condition, the nature of the

disease is to indicate the remedy to those whom nature has qualified to

administer in extremities this critical, ambiguous, bitter potion to a

distempered state. Times and occasions and provocations will teach

their own lessons. The wise will determine from the gravity of the

case; the irritable from sensibility to oppression; the high-minded

from disdain and indignation at abusive power in unworthy hands; the

brave and bold from love of honourable danger in a generous cause. But

with or without right, a revolution will be the very last resource of

the thinking and the good."

As a final example I will cite a passage from M. Taine:--"De la encore

cette insolence contre les inferieurs, et ce mepris verse d'etage en

etage depuis le premier jusqu'au dernier. Lorsque dans une societe la

loi consacre les conditions inegales, personne n'est exempt d'insulte;

le grand seigneur, outrage par le roi, outrage le noble qui outrage le

peuple; la nature humaine est humilie a tous les etages, et la societe

n'est plus qu'un commerce d'affronts."

The law of Sequence by no means prescribes that we should invariably

state the proposition before its qualifications--the thought before its

illustrations; it merely prescribes that we should arrange our phrases

in the order of logical dependence and rhythmical cadence, the order

best suited for clearness and for harmony. The nature of the thought

will determine the one, our sense of euphony the other.

IV. THE LAW OF CLIMAX.

We need not pause long over this; it is generally understood. The

condition of our sensibilities is such that to produce their effect

stimulants must be progressive in intensity and varied in kind. On this

condition rest the laws of Climax and Variety. The phrase or image

which in one position will have a mild power of occupying the thoughts,

or stimulating the emotions, loses this power if made to succeed one of

like kind but more agitating influence, and will gain an accession of

power if it be artfully placed on the wave of a climax. We laugh at

"Then came Dalhousie, that great God of War,

Lieutenant-Colonel to the Earl of Mar,"

because of the relaxation which follows the sudden tension of the mind;

but if we remove the idea of the colonelcy from this position of

anti-climax, the same couplet becomes energetic rather than ludicrous--

"Lieutenant-Colonel to the Earl of Mar,

Then came Dalhousie, that great God of War."

I have selected this strongly marked case, instead of several feeble

passages which might be chosen from the first book at hand, wherein

carelessness allows the sentences to close with the least important,

phrases, and the style droops under frequent anti-climax. Let me now

cite a passage from Macaulay which vividly illustrates the effect of

Climax:--

"Never, perhaps, was the change which the progress of civilisation has

produced in the art of war more strikingly illustrated than on that

day. Ajax beating down the Trojan leader with a rock which two ordinary

men could scarcely lift; Horatius defending the bridge against an army;

Richard, the lion-hearted, spurring along the whole Saracen line

without finding an enemy to withstand his assault; Robert Bruce

crushing with one blow the helmet and head of Sir Harry Bohun in sight

of the whole array of England and Scotland,--such are the heroes of a

dark age. [Here is an example of suspended meaning, where the suspense

intensifies the effect, because each particular is vividly apprehended

in itself, and all culminate in the conclusion; they do not complicate

the thought, or puzzle us, they only heighten expectation]. In such an

age bodily vigour is the most indispensable qualification of a warrior.

At Landen two poor sickly beings, who, in a rude state of society,

would have been regarded as too puny to bear any part in combats, were

the souls of two great armies. In some heathen countries they would

have been exposed while infants. In Christendom they would, six hundred

years earlier, have been sent to some quiet cloister. But their lot had

fallen on a time when men had discovered that the strength of the

muscles is far inferior in value to the strength of the mind. It is

probable that among the hundred and twenty thousand soldiers that were

marshalled round Neerwinden, under all the standards of Western Europe,

the two feeblest in body were the hunchbacked dwarf, who urged forward

the fiery onset of France, and the asthmatic skeleton who covered the

slow retreat of England."

The effect of Climax is very marked in the drama. Every speech, every

scene, every act, should have its progressive sequence. Nothing can be

more injudicious than a trivial phrase following an energetic phrase, a

feeble thought succeeding a burst of passion, or even a passionate

thought succeeding one more passionate. Yet this error is frequently

committed.

In the drama all laws of Style are more imperious than in fiction or

prose of any kind, because the art is more intense. But Climax is

demanded in every species of composition, for it springs from a

psychological necessity. It is pressed upon, however, by the law of

Variety in a way to make it far from safe to be too rigidly followed.

It easily degenerates into monotony.

V. THE LAW OF VARIETY.

Some one, after detailing an elaborate recipe for a salad, wound up the

enumeration of ingredients and quantities with the advice to "open the

window and throw it all away." This advice might be applied to the

foregoing enumeration of the laws of Style, unless these were

supplemented by the important law of Variety. A style which rigidly

interpreted the precepts of economy, simplicity, sequence, and climax,

which rejected all superfluous words and redundant ornaments, adopted

the easiest and most logical arrangement, and closed every sentence and

every paragraph with a climax, might be a very perfect bit of mosaic,

but would want the glow and movement of a living mind. Monotony would

settle on it like a paralysing frost. A series of sentences in which

every phrase was a distinct thought, would no more serve as pabulum for

the mind, than portable soup freed from all the fibrous tissues of meat

and vegetable would serve as food for the body. Animals perish from

hunger in the presence of pure albumen; and minds would lapse into

idiocy in the presence of unadulterated thought. But without invoking

extreme cases, let us simply remember the psychological fact that it is

as easy for sentences to be too compact as for food to be too

concentrated; and that many a happy negligence, which to microscopic

criticism may appear defective, will be the means of giving clearness

and grace to a style. Of course the indolent indulgence in this laxity

robs style of all grace and power. But monotony in the structure of

sentences, monotony of cadence, monotony of climax, monotony anywhere,

necessarily defeats the very aim and end of style; it calls attention

to the manner; it blunts the sensibilities; it renders excellences

odious.

"Beauty deprived of its proper foils and adjuncts ceases to be enjoyed

as beauty, just as light deprived of all shadow ceases to be enjoyed as

light. A white canvas cannot produce an effect of sunshine; the painter

must darken it in some places before he can make it look luminous in

others; nor can the uninterrupted succession of beauty produce the true

effect of beauty; it must be foiled by inferiority before its own power

can be developed. Nature has for the most part mingled her inferior and

noble elements as she mingles sunshine with shade, giving due influence

to both. The truly high and beautiful art of Angelico is continually

refreshed and strengthened by his frank portraiture of the most

ordinary features of his brother monks, of the recorded peculiarities

of ungainly sanctity; but the modern German and Raphaelesque schools

lose all honour and nobleness in barber-like admiration of handsome

faces, and have in fact no real faith except in straight noses and

curled hair. Paul Veronese opposes the dwarf to the soldier, and the

negress to the queen; Shakspeare places Caliban beside Miranda, and

Autolycus beside Perdita; but the vulgar idealist withdraws his beauty

to the safety of the saloon, and his innocence to the seclusion of the

cloister; he pretends that he does this in delicacy of choice and

purity of sentiment, while in truth he has neither courage to front the

monster nor wit enough to furnish the knave.'' [Ruskin].

And how is Variety to be secured? The plan is simple, but like many

other simple plans, is not without difficulty. It is for the writer to

obey the great cardinal principle of Sincerity, and be brave enough to

express himself in his own way, following the mood of his own mind,

rather than endeavouring to catch the accents of another, or to adapt

himself to some standard of taste. No man really thinks and feels

monotonously. If he is monotonous in his manner of setting forth his

thoughts and feelings, that is either because he has not learned the

art of writing, or because he is more or less consciously imitating the

manner of others. The subtle play of thought will give movement and

life to his style if he do not clog it with critical superstitions. I

do not say that it will give him grace and power; I do not say that

relying on perfect sincerity will make him a fine writer, because

sincerity will not give talent; but I say that sincerity will give him

all the power that is possible to him, and will secure him the

inestimable excellence of Variety.

EDITOR.