STYLE.
STYLE cannot be taught and cannot be acquired by practice, and yet a man may improve his style by care and study. This sounds like a contradiction, and yet it is the final experience in regard to style. He who would under- stand style and know its secrets, after he has studied the subject and apparently reached the goal of his endeavour feels much as did he who was initiated into one of the ancient mysteries. The would-be initiate heard many tantalising stories of the wonders which he would see and hear when he was admitted to the sacred company. He would be given a fresh insight into life, and know and understand clearly things now dark and uncertain. Yet when the neophyte had achieved his initiation his disappointment must have been extreme. Instead of direct truth he was greeted with symbolism. Instead of knowledge he received paradox. He was told, no doubt, the secret name of the god; but when he came to reflect, it was only a new name, and gave him no fresh light on the nature of the divine. Where he expected to hear the rule of life and the guide to achievement, he was put off with what seemed an empty paradox, told that he who seeks least finds most, that you must die before you are born, or that it is only possible to gain the true path when you know it. It is much the same with him who tries to fathom the mysteries of style. From afar off they seem real and certain if secret. Though the way may be long and hard, it is clear that those who strive may obtain initiation. As soon, however, as the student of letters has reached the temple, has forced his way in and obtained his initiation, he finds that mystery there is none, and that the so-called secrets are bare and empty paradoxes. He must learn that properly there is no such thing as style, or rather that its esoteric name is thought. He will hear, too, that it is impossible to possess style unless the world of words has been explored and the true meaning of each word understood, and yet that to know the dictionary by heart is useless without an inborn instinct. He will be told that style needs labour, nay, devotion, and yet that labour and devotion ruin style, since style must always be spontaneous. Then he will learn that the gift for style is born in men, and cannot be taught. Lastly, he finds that style is a fairy gift, and that through labour to him that hath is it given, while from him that hath not, labour will take away even that which he hath.
One might suppose that the result of such an initiation must be to make every man of letters who has got far enough to know so much a complete sceptic, or rather necessitarian, as to style. The secret of style is that there is no such thing, or if there is, that it is born in a man, and though it can hardly be improved by pain and labour, it may be destroyed thereby. Why, then, should I bother my head any more about it ? It is clear that one does quite as well by letting the words come out of one's pen, as by taking an infinity of pains to assign them their places.' No doubt that is the first impulse of those who are brought face to face with the naked truth in regard to style, just as, doubtless, a similar impulse of indignant disappointment was the first that came to the sincerer spirits when they heard Demeter's secret name—some mere apt assortment of vocables—or were told that the way to reach the valley was uphill. Yet in both cases a little reflection must show that,. though there is in a sense no explanation of the mystery and no secret, yet it is quite worth while to have gone through the initiation, and that there still remains much to learn and to do. Though it is literally true that style cannot be taught, and that it is rather a gift than an accomplishment, it is also true that the gift may be judiciously developed and enlarged. Hence the inner shrine of the temple is not so bare as it seemed at first, but may be profitably examined. The para- doxes, too, and riddling sentences may, if studied, yield something practical, something worth having. Therefore it is worth while to study and to write about style. A proof of this statement is to be found in Mr. Raleigh's fascinating little volume, "Style," published by Mr. Edward Arnold. Properly the book should be called " Thoughts about Style," for this is what in truth it is. Mr. Raleigh travels over almost the whole field of style, and has some- thing true and suggestive to say about the whole machinery of words. And in writing about style Mr. Raleigh does not belie his art. The book is excellently and closely written and argued, there is little or no affectation, and almost nothing that is unintelligible. To have achieved that in writing on a purely abstract subject is no small feat. Take it altogether, this essay is in its way comparable to South's sermon on " Plainness of Speech,"—one of the greatest unconscious essays on style ever written. But Mr. Raleigh's book is one of those books which are rather to be read than criticised. We do not agree with every word of it, but where we differ the matter is not one of argument but of individual opinion. Mr. Raleigh has as good a right to his view as we to ours. We will, then, only commend especially the sound sense and clear insight of the section devoted to- synonyms, and pass on to what of practical wisdom emerges from this world-wide and time-wide controversy as to style. The only way to get a good style is to think clearly. With. out clear and definite thinking there can be no style worth having. With clear thinking style comes almost of itself. A. single piece of human experience will prove this. It is a notorious fact that the dullest and stupidest and most muddle - headed girls and young men, people who are apparently incapable of expression, will once in their lives write well. They can each and all write a good love-letter. If a man or a maid is really and deeply in love, and not shamming, he or she will be sure to write well. The
reason is plain,—for once in their lives they have some- thing to say. They know what to say, and so can say it. There is no such thing as people being incapable of expressing themselves. They are incapable of thinking. If they could think clearly the words would come of them- selves. The main, the essential, thing, then, is to have something to say. If you have, style will take care of itself.
Bothering about words and their meaning is no good then, and it is useless to study great models ? By no means. The meaning of words is worth thinking about, because there is a reflex action in words. They help us to think, help us to have something to say. They are tools no doubt. But when an intelligent workman sees a new tool, or an old tool with a specially good edge on it, it stimulates him to try a new piece of work or to better an old piece. Hence, though we cannot acquire style directly by "pottering over words," the study of words may help us indirectly by making us think more deeply and more clearly, and so make us more capable of expression. For example, it is worth while to know as many synonyms as possible, because, as Mr. Raleigh points out, there is really no such thing as a synonym. A so-called synonym is another word not with the same but with a slightly different meaning. Therefore he who knows all the synonyms for a word may, when he is thinking out a subject connected with that word, clear and help his thought very greatly by being able to fit to it the exactest shade of meaning. There is yet another point where study may help style. The object of a sentence, i.e., a thought expressed in words, is never merely to make a pleasant noise. Its object is double. Firstly, to express or state the thought as clearly and justly and unambiguously as possible. Next, since men write not for themselves but for others, its object is also to convey the thought into the minds of others,—to express it, that is, in the form which will give it the easiest entry into other minds. Mere clear thinking would be quite enough to carry out the first object. It is often, but not always, enough to carry out the second. Therefore the writer has in his style to cultivate the art of getting entrance through the barred doors of other minds. He must carry men's hearts by assault. He must, to borrow from South, not merely state the bare need of salvation, but pierce men's hearts, and make them cry aloud, " Men and masters, what must we doe" Now, for this assault on other minds style wants, besides clear thinking, first of all the power to provoke what Hazlitt called " the extreme charac- teristic expression of the thing written about." That is, if you mean sapphire you must not hint bine or mumble blue, but call up the sense of translucency and of hardness and of flashing light as well as of blue, for unless you express these also you will not get the extreme characteristic expression of a sapphire, and so get entry for the thought of sapphire into your neighbour's mind. Next, you must remember that everything is not won by force, and recognise that harmony and melody mesmerise men's minds and make them impression- able. Thus the style that wins its way easiest will always be beautiful in sound, and hence the melody of prose. The walls of the mental Jericho fall down before the sound of the lute as well as of the trumpet. Hence no one who would gain a quick and easy reception for his thought can possibly reject the aid of melody,—though be it always under- stood that melody is a melody different, both in kind and degree, from the melody or poetry. Style depends, then, first on thought, secondly on expressiveness, which is how- ever in reality allied to thought, and thirdly on melody. The first two may to some extent be acquired by mental training ; and the last, though it is in its highest expression a gift, may be improved by study. We come, then, back to this, that style in the last resort is a gift, for the power of thought, like the instinct for melody, is born in a man. But the gift is one which can be improved. The possessor, indeed, is as a rule impelled to improve it. The man who is born with the gift of style, whatever his lot, will perforce spend his energies in improving it. Abraham Lincoln, for example, was born with this gift. He did not become a man of letters ; but for all that, he gradually and consciously, or unconsciously, improved his gift till his style in the Second Inaugural gave forth the thrilling yet sonorous tones of some great organ- pipe. What, then, the initiated scholar hears in the inner shrine of the temple of letters is true. Unless you are born with the gift of style, it is useless to try to acquire it. If you are born with it, it will improve itself even without your
conscious care. That this is a very commonplace conclusion to have reached in two columns we fully admit. Yet it is the only conclusion possible. Only one more word need be said. It is impossible to teach style, but it is possible to teach grammar, and by teaching grammar you teach people to think. Therefore, at two removes, you are helping people to get style by teaching them grammar.
Previous page
