When a man begins to write and finds he can hardly spell his name, he
looks at Bolingbroke for style, or at Goldsmith, and gets help from both;
but woe to him if he falls in love with such rickety writers as were De
Quincy, or Carlyle! Both had bandy pens. As a man gets older, if he has
anything to say, he is contented with being himself, and covering his
thoughts with words that exactly fit them, as the skin fits a race-horse.
An affected style betrays an affected character, with its self-respect in
abeyance. He finds that some long words contain his idea ready made, but
he does better to shun them, and express it in his own way, and this I
have done in writing these my memoirs.
Whatever my style was before visiting Italy, I cannot now say; probably
the word did not then apply. I think that a man who is an agreeable
companion should write as he would talk to himself; by such means only
can he be what is called a stylist.
Macaulay wrote as he would have preached, had he been a parson; but, as a
layman, he used stilts for a pulpit.
Thackeray spent a good deal of his time on stilts. He wrote, too, as he
talked; but, then, he was a very disagreeable companion to those who
did not want to boast that they knew him. In his society people had to
do two things when one would have been quite enough; they had to smile
titteringly as well as to listen.
Perhaps the reason why no author has hitherto described a perfect
gentleman is, that it would require his being one himself; and some
people think that no perfect gentleman ever lived except—not irreverently
speaking—the Christian founder. Richardson’s Sir Charles was a muff,
Bulwer’s Pelham a prig, Thackeray’s Major a fop, Dickens’s Mr. Dean an
unfinished portrait.
Was the true gentleman ever meant to be? The only one accredited with
that character—the only Lord—was not unacquainted with the use of irony,
even with invective itself which served his end, and that with far
greater effect than remonstrance.
I conceive the gentleman, like genius itself, to be fragmentary. How men
differ in their conception of the character!
A lady whom I knew at one time very intimately, conceiving that her
husband was on his death-bed, asked him to have his sons before him,
and to give them some good advice before he died. The husband readily
consented. “My sons,” he said, “your dear mother wishes me to say a few
words that may be of benefit to you when I am gone, and I am most anxious
to acquiesce in her desire. If there is anything that I can advise to
your advantage, it would be this: never to repel the advances of women;
it is not gentlemanly.”
But a perfect lady—has such a thing ever been? Who has described it?
No one; it is indescribable!
But even the temporary gentleman has a great charm; it is based on
a model which may last for an hour, even a day; and then crumble.
Amiability goes a long way in constructing this model; it is so
conciliating, and sometimes so gentle, that it seems to purr. Henry VIII.
no doubt handed Woburn Abbey over to Lord John’s ancestor in a most
gentlemanly style; yet, what a wild beast he was; his mouth was always
daubed with human blood.
It was amiable of Lord John to bring in the first Reform Bill, because
one of its effects will ultimately be to make Henry-Eighths of the
people, who will re-confiscate all the Woburns in the land, and all the
Convent Gardens.
I was on intimate terms with a man who was private secretary to Lord
John, and who obtained a baronetcy of him. That appreciative individual
told me that no one knew, really, what a kind, amiable, and gentlemanly
man the Lord John Russell was. No one knew it! Did he imply that he was
himself no one?
But, happily for us, we have still George IV. left us as a study.
Is it true that the women are to have the franchise—will it come true?
Is it true that they are to have cushions in the Houses of Commons and
of Lords, because they are fitted for the highest offices of State;—will
it come true? If so, it is to be hoped that the perfect lady will be
evolved; one who even, for purposes of policy, will not exercise her
charms; such a one might be trusted, because, in negotiating with a
foreign plenipotentiary she would not use her eyes.
Until that happy evolution is achieved, one might certainly appoint ugly
women; they would be obliged to rely on their intellectual gifts alone.
A woman’s style of speaking in private is often very pleasant; less so in
public, unless she is a Siddons.
Everything will happen in turn, and awkward things will even come about.
The Press might have to hint that Lady Mary, our minister for foreign
affairs, has been much talked about of late, as giving too frequent
interviews to the Home Secretary, Mr. Tristram Shandy; that it is even
insinuated, at present only in private circles, that the husband of the
right honourable lady contemplates taking law proceedings. This would
prove a heavy blow to petticoat government: it would inevitably lead to
the breaking up of the administration.
Thus demeanour has its peculiar style, as well as writing.
Women are often great stylists; they have the merit of writing as they
would talk. Every one knows when a book is written by a woman; she is so
good at drapery, still more at male beauty.
There are two styles of writing derived from anatomy—the nervous, and
muscular. Trelawny, about whom I would say something, for his book has
come out afresh, had both of these in one—he made them dramatic and
pictorial.
Women are the best mistresses of the nervous style; they supply its
instances at first hand, from flirting to hysterics; while men, like
Borrow and Trelawney, are masters of the muscular style.
I could give a valuable hint to writers who would be effective, exact,
and pleasing; let them master the methods followed in the scientific
style, as in an article on “Light,” by Herschel in the “Encyclopædia
Metropolitana.”