WORDS, WORDS, WORDS !*
The Handling of Words suggests a disquisition upon technical- ities interesting only to those who themselves practise writing as an art ; but Vernon Lee's examination of the subject leads
her to inferences and conclusions which often throw unexpected light, both critical and philosophical, on literature in general and on the several writers of whom she treats specifically, and thus results in a book of much wider appeal than the title may seem to imply. Her thesis is that " the craft of the writer consists .. . in manipulating the contents of his reader's mind, that is to say . . . in construction," and she proceeds to inquire " which of the reader's stored-up images and feelings are thus being drawn upon to produce a particular effect ? Among which of those memories is the writer compelling him to dwell and to move ? "
The most interesting side of the book is, in our opinion, the analytical side : the passages, that is, in which Vernon Lee is either showing the action of the writer's mind during the process of composition or dissecting the already accomplished work of certain well-known authors. In the former of these directions she has much that is interesting to say, in the chapter " On
Style," on the subject of adjectives. She maintains, for instance, as one of the first principles of writing that " no adjective, by which I mean no qualifier, is ever without a result." You may, perhaps, waste principal items, facts, nouns, and
verbs which are not acting as qualifiers ; but you cannot merely waste an adjective or qualifier : an adjective, if it does not help you, goes against you." And then she goes on very acutely to point out that the adjective does not, as might be assumed, add something to the noun it qualifies. On the ' contrary, it cuts off something—limits the noun to one or more of its many possible meanings. In fact, it brings the noun out from its generality, its abstractness, towards a more
or less clearly defined concreteness. The word night, for example, has many potentialities. It may suggest blackness, mist, moonlight, stillness, mystery, danger, until with a single adjective, such as bright, stormy or what not, we single out one
of its possible qualities and by so doing banish all others which are irreconcilable with it, thus making ready the reader's mind for other impressions which we are preparing for him. That is an example of one method in which Vernon Lee treats her theme. But perhaps the most interesting part of the book is that in which she takes at random passages of 500 words from Meredith, Kipling, Stevenson, Hardy, Henry James and Maurice Hewlett and submits them to a rigorous dissection, applied not only to their syntax, but also to the process whereby they produce their effects on the reader's mind. Her method is a searching one, and we have been pardonably delighted by the discovery that when we apply it to Vernon Lee herself it reveals her in more than one instance as a none too accurate writer. The results of her analysis are interesting and sometimes surprising. For instance, they show Stevenson's construction as supremely good and Hardy's as seriously defective. That discovery alone is enough to warn 'us of the limitations of the method and the danger of un- reservedly accepting its valuations as an ultimate criterion, for Hardy with all his glaring imperfections is an immeasurably greater writer than Stevenson. It is necessary to remind ourselves that in the end it is fine emotion that counts and not accurate expression, though the two are not totally separable, and, as Vernon Lee rightly remarks with reference to Kipling,
" the origin of the faulty construction, even of the misuse of tenses, lies ... in the slackness and poverty of the thought. Where ignorance of the habits of a language cannot come into account... had syntax, bad grammar, bad rhetoric can be traced to a lapse in the power of thinking and feeling a subject. Literature, more than any other art, is a matter of intellectual and emotional strength and staying
• power."
What in the end, it may pertinently be asked, is the use of all this careful analysis, this inspection of the behaviour of adjectives and the principles of literary construction ? Writers
• Thl Handling of Words. By Vernon Lee. London: J. Lane. tss. ed. net.]
are born, not made, Readers are interested in results, not means and methods.
It is useful because accuracy of thought and expression is supremely useful to everyone, be he writer or reader. It is the discipline, the physical drill of the mind, and it is only the man of clear, athletic, adventurous mind who can learn to know himself and his fellows. In those two complementaiy halves of human knowledge lies the beginning of wisdom.
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