25 NOVEMBER 1899, Page 12

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]

Sin,—In Mr. Whibley's letter on "English Prose" he claims music as the mark of style, and puts aside both propriety and conciseness of diction, lucidity and simplicity, as false tests. Measure, rhythm, what may be called music, is no doubt essential to the best style, but lucidity and simplicity must not be sacrificed to it, and reason must not be lulled by the rhythm which enchants the ear. This may pass in poetry, where analysis may be cruel, but in prose we must beware of siren strains. Now in the next page of the Spectator there is an apposite extract from a letter by Stevenson, one of the writers whom Mr. Whibley honours as a master of style. I reproduce the extract; it is worth reading again :—" Why was Jenkin

an amateur in my eyes ? The reason is this : I never, or almost never, saw two pages of his work that I could not have put in one without the smallest loss of material. That is the only test I know of writing. If there is anywhere a. thing said in two sentences that could have been as clearly and as engagingly and as forcibly said in one, then it's amateur work." I need not go beyond the pages of the same Spectator to show that rhythm, however necessary to perfec- tion of style, is not the mark of style. For in the excellent article on "England's Debt to Milton" the distinctive quality of his style is stated to be its "superb austerity," which, says Matthew Arnold, will save us from the contagion of Anglo- Saxon vulgarity. This, I take it, is the encroachment on written style of our vulgar speech, loose in construction, permeated with slang or the catch-phrases of the day, its pronunciation limp, taking the line of least resistance in hurried and slipshod talk. It is not only the rhythm of Milton that makes him master of style, it is the combination of diction with rhythm; the right words, concise, harmonious, in their right places. Thus they feed the mind, satisfy the imagination, and please the ear. But there is another quality in good style, a little thing, but we know that if genius in not an infinite capacity for taking pains, yet its work is often spoilt for want of that capacity extending to some small detail. Good style must not afford openings to the printer in the matter of punctuation. The printer is to the writer

what the bureau is to the General, a very necessary agent, a good servant, but a bad master ; he will never lose an oppor- tunity of putting in a comma, and the Nemesis of bad style is that the writer, when correcting his proofs, finds himself unable to resist the red-tape logic of the compositor, and resigns himself to let the comma pass rather than have to write the sentence anew. I will take for an instance of good style the very extract from a letter by Stevenson which I have reproduced above. There is not a superfluous comma in it, not a chink to allow the entrance of the parasite. Con- trast with it a sentence from an essay by Matthew Arnold, an essay on style :—" Milton's style, moreover, has the same propriety and soundness in presenting plain matters, as in the comparatively smooth task for a poet of presenting grand ones." The position of " moreover " gives an entrance to two commas which check the flow of the sentence, while a third comma cuts it and necessitates an effort to see through the am- bignitythus introduced into an already ill-constructed sentence. Fortunately, Milton's style cannat be spoilt by punctuation, native or parasitic ; otherwise, I know no better instance of the disastrous effect of bad punctuation than the opening sentence of "Areopagitica " as presented by the editor, Pro- fessor Morley, in " Caseell's National Library." This edition affords an excellent exercise to youth in deleting the commas and colons, and in extricating what Milton said from what the compositor is made or allowed to make him say. But when, instead of good style disfigured by bad punctuation, we have to read bad style patched with commas, the effect is deplorable, and may be absolutely deterrent. A shocking example of this may be found in Mill's "Political Economy." I tried to read it repeatedly, but always in vain ; the spirit is willing, but bad style, aggravated by punctuation, is a weariness to the flesh. No wonder that political economy was considered the dismal science when its masters expounded it in so wearisome a manner. But turn from Mill to Edmond About, from the "Political Economy" to the "A B C du Travailleur "; now we find style, and the reader can absorb the science with pleasure and turn to the book again and again with delight. Is this subject of punctuation a part of diction or of rhythm ? It is of both; diction cannot be good where the sentence has to be patched with commas; rhythm is spoilt when the reader is stumbling over stops.—I am, Sir, Liverpool, November 20th.

[ Without being able to endorse unreservedly all Mr. Whibley's remarks as to style, we are entirely with him in his sugges- tion that the great tradition of English prose flows through the Elizabethans—Hooker, Milton, Browne, Raleigh, and the rest—and not through the typical writers of the eighteenth century. Their method was not so true to the genius of our tongue as that of the men of the generation behind them. We certainly did not understand Mr. Whibley to make music the only essential element of great prose. As we understand him, he assumes lucidity, propriety of diction, and conciseness as all necessary. If, however, there is nothing else bat these the building may be a good piece of construction, but it is not architecture.—ED. Spectator.]