I once overheard a lady say to a popular author, “What I most admire
about your books is their fine style.” “But I never think about my
style” was his reply. “I know you don’t,” said his admirer, “and that
is why I like it so much.” But we may regard him as thinking about
his style, when he fancied himself thinking only about his matter. In
his case the style and the matter were one. When he was consciously
occupied only with the substance and texture of his thought, he was
occupied with his style. Every effort to make the idea flow clear and
pure, to give it freshness and fillip, or to seize and embody in words
a mental or emotional impression in all its integrity, without blur
or confusion, is an effort in style. It is like taking the alloys and
impurities out of a metal; the style or beauty of it is improved. The
making of iron into steel is a process of purification. When Froude
was questioned about his style, he confessed that he had never given
any thought to the subject; his aim had been to say what he had to say
in the most direct and simple way possible. He was conscious only of
trying to see clearly and to speak truly. I suppose this is the case
with all first-class minds, in our day at least: the main endeavor is
directed toward the matter, and not toward the manner; or rather, it
is to make the one identical with the other. In no page of Froude’s,
nor in any writer of equal range and seriousness, are we conscious
of the style as something apart and that claims our admiration on its
own account, as we are in the case of Walter Pater, for example. Such
men as Pater are enamored of style itself, and cultivate it for its
own sake. They conceive of it as an independent grace and charm that
may be imparted to any subject by dint of an effort directed to verbal
arrangement and sequence alone.