One does well to have by one a few jottings that will enable one
to add to one’s compositions what one calls style in case it is
demanded of one by an editor.
I would not insist too much upon the point; it is simple enough,
and the necessity of which I speak does not often crop up. But
editors differ very much among themselves, and every now and then
one gets a manuscript returned with the note, “please improve
style,” in blue pencil, on the margin. If one had no idea as to the
meaning of this a good deal of time might be wasted, so I will add
here what are considered to be the five principal canons of style
or good English.
The first canon, of course, is that style should have
_Distinction_. Distinction is a quality much easier to
attain than it looks. It consists, on the face of it, in the
selection of peculiar words and their arrangement in an odd and
perplexing order, and the objection is commonly raised that such
irregularities cannot be rapidly acquired. Thus the Chaplain of
Barford, preaching upon style last Holy Week, remarked “there is a
natural tendency in stating some useless and empty thing to express
oneself in a common or vulgar manner.” That is quite true, but it
is a tendency which can easily be corrected, and I think that that
sentence I have just quoted throws a flood of light on the reverend
gentleman’s own deficiencies.
Of course no writer is expected to write or even to speak in this
astonishing fashion, but what is easier than to go over one’s work
and strike out ordinary words? There should be no hesitation as
to what to put in their place. Halliwell’s “Dictionary of Archaic
and Provincial Words” will give one all the material one may
require. Thus “lettick” is charming Rutlandshire for “decayed”
or “putrescent,” and “swinking” is a very good alternative for
“working.” It is found in Piers Plowman.
It is very easy to draw up a list of such unusual words, each
corresponding with some ordinary one, and to pin it up where it
will meet your eye. In all this matter prose follows very much the
same rules as were discovered and laid down for verse on page 86.
The second canon of style is that it should be _obscure_,
universally and without exception. The disturbance of the natural
order of words to which I have just alluded is a great aid, but it
is not by any means the only way to achieve the result. One should
also on occasion use several negatives one after the other, and
the sly correction of punctuation is very useful. I have known a
fortune to be made by the omission of a full stop, and a comma put
right in between a noun and its adjective was the beginning of
Daniel Witton’s reputation. A foreign word misspelt is also very
useful. Still more useful is some allusion to some unimportant
historical person or event of which your reader cannot possibly
have heard.
As to the practice, which has recently grown up, of writing
only when one is drunk, or of introducing plain lies into every
sentence, they are quite unworthy of the stylist properly so
called, and can never permanently add to one’s reputation.
The third canon of style is the _occasional omission_ of a verb or
of the predicate. Nothing is more agreeably surprising, and nothing
more effective. I have known an honest retired major-general, while
reading a novel in his club, to stop puzzling at one place for an
hour or more in his bewilderment at this delightful trick, and for
years after he would exclaim with admiration at the style of the
writer.
The fourth canon of style is _to use metaphors_ of a striking,
violent, and wholly novel kind, in the place of plain statement:
as, to say “the classics were grafted on the standing stirp of
his mind rather than planted in its soil,” which means that the
man had precious little Greek, or again, “we propose to canalize,
not to dam the current of Afghan development,” which means that
the commander of our forces in India strongly refused to campaign
beyond the Khyber.
This method, which is invaluable for the purpose of flattering the
rich, is very much used among the clergy, and had its origin in our
great Universities, where it is employed to conceal ignorance, and
to impart tone and vigour to the tedium of academic society. The
late Bishop of Barchester was a past master of this manner, and
so was Diggin, the war correspondent, who first talked of a gun
“coughing” at one, and was sent home by Lord Kitchener for lying.
The fifth canon of style is, that when you are bored with writing
and do not know what to say next, you should hint at unutterable
depths of idea by the introduction of a row of asterisks.
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