THE ART OF AUTHORSHIP.
THE old question, as old as literature itself : What is style, and how can it be acquired P—has been revived in a characteristically modern form. Mr. George Bainton desired to give a lecture to a number of young men on the art of composition. It occurred to him that the best means he could adopt for qualifying himself for this task, was to take a sort of plibiscite among living authors. If any one could tell him, and through him his young men, how style was to be acquired, it was they. Accordingly, he addressed a series of letters to almost every writer, distinguished and obscure, in England and America, and even to one or two on the Continent, asking them to set forth their opinions on the subject. An ordinary man might have regarded the notion of obtaining replies full enough -to be worth having, as chimerical; but Mr. Bainton was either too simple-minded to doubt the generosity and good-nature of the Republic of Letters, or else was a profound enough student of human nature to know that it is hardly possible for an author who is questioned about the machinery of his craft to refrain from delivering a disquisition thereon. Mr. Stevenson, with his usual happy instinct for moral diagnosis, has pointed out the attraction which " technicalities " always exert over men's minds. Especially is this true of the writer by pro- fession. There is nothing in the whole world which interests him so much, or which he is so willing to open his heart about, as "style,"—the technicality of his trade. Mr. Bainton, whether consciously or unconsciously, thus chose a question which made him absolutely certain of his answers. The replies vouchsafed by some two hundred writers, among whom are included Mr. Freeman, Mr. Fronde, Mr. George Meredith, Professor Huxley, the Duke of Argyll, Professor Bryce, Mr. Thomas Hardy, the Master of Balliol, Mr. Kinglake, Mr. Lecky, Mr. John Symonds, Mr. Pater, M. Henan, and M. Taine, have enabled him to piece together an exceedingly curious book.* That it will help, even in the slightest degree, those persons whom Mr. Bainton, considering the subject of his work, somewhat inartistically describes as "young beginners," we should very much doubt. Those, how- ever, who are curious as to the manner in which the great writers of the day regard their craft, will turn to his volume with a considerable expectation of delight. Most students of the great writers named in the above list have, at some time or other, amused themselves by forming opinions as to what their favourite authors were trying to accomplish in the art of composition, and as to how they approached the problem of bridging the gulf between two minds by written words. For all such persons, Mr. Fronde's, Mr. George Meredith's, and M. Renan's " disclosures " have a priori a special interest, for they seem to promise the pleasure which always comes from a peep at the works of a peculiarly intricate machine.
Unfortunately, however, the book, considered from this point of view, is not a little disappointing. The distinguished authors talk very good sense, but tell little or nothing that brings the conditions of their art home to us. For the most part, they can only say, as Opie said to the student who inquired what medium he used to mix his paints with,—" Brains." As might have been expected, the writers whose opinions are worth having, declare, almost without exception, that there are no rules for good composition, and that style—that is, the form of expression appropriate to the thing written about—comes from clear thinking, and from clear thinking only. If a man knows what he means to say, and is determined that we shall know also, the words will come of them- selves. The secret, says Mr. George Meredith, is "to be full of meaning warm with the matter to be delivered." "To write well is to think well; there is no art of style distinct from the culture of the mind," declares M. Renan ; and in the same sense is the Duke of Argyll's dictum,—" I have always held that clear thinking will find its own expression in clear writing." "The style is the man," reiterate at least a dozen distinguished men of letters, quoting Buffon's pronounce- ment, and explaining it to mean "the articulation to oneself of one's own meaning—one's real condition of mind." That all this is perfectly true, no one who has ever thought upon the subject will deny for a moment. As Mr. Morley pointed out in praising the manner of Mr. Cobden's first pamphlet, the style of the young commercial traveller who, judged by the academic standard, was uneducated, is far purer and stronger than that of hundreds of men brought up on Livy and Plato. Mr. Cobden wrote well because he had a message to deliver. It is having something to say, not the study of classical writers, ancient or modern, that is the essential condition precedent to a good style. But. admitting this, is it not somewhat parodoxical to put it forth as an answer to the question : How can a man best obtain a good style? Of course he cannot have a good style unless he has something to say, and unless he can think clearly, any more than he can paint well if he does not exactly know what it is he is painting. It appears to us, then, that the distinguished authors have for the most part missed the real point. They have probably noticed that whenever they have been obliged to write about a subject on which they had nothing to say, or rather, in regard to which they did not really know what they wanted to say, even though they greatly desired to say something, they failed completely to cast the spell that usually worked so easily. This circumstance they have communicated to the public, through Mr. Bainton, as if it were an important discovery in the art of authorship, whereas it is only a repetition of the truism that words reflect thought, and that when the thought is blurred and confused, the words reproduce those qualities. But if style is dependent upon
• Published by James Clarke and Co. 1890.
having something definite to say—that is, upon clear thinking —the question which Mr. Bainton is seeking to get answered must be moved a step back, and we must ask : Is there any way of acquiring the habit of clear thinking P We believe there is. To begin with, it can be obtained by dealing at first-hand with human affairs. The Duke of Wellington, in becoming a great General, trained himself to think clearly, and hence the admirable qualities of style possessed by his despatches. Still more successfully can the faculty of style be developed by the man who consciously trains himself to think clearly in the abstract. Without deciding the great controversy as to whether thoughts can exist without words, it may be taken for granted that the relationship between thoughts and words is so intimate, that a precise vocabulary is the greatest possible assistance to thought. The man who is endeavouring to work out in his own mind a theory based on newly discovered phenomena, must in practice give those phenomena names even while they are confined to his own head, and before he has endeavoured to transfer his conclusions to other minds. Words, every one must admit, are powerful aids to thought. The more exactly, then, that a man understands and appreciates the uses of words, the more easy he will find it to think clearly, and so to write well. Words, not for their sound, but for the shades of meaning they are capable of conveying, must be studied by the writer, and studied, as it were, for their own sake, and apart from any par- ticular occasion for their use. "The exact, characteristic, extreme impression of the thing he writes about "—the phrase is Hazlitt's—is what the writer has to obtain, and this be can only get by mastering the full resources of language, and so of human thought. The writer, not to ornament his sentences but to clarify his thoughts, must pay an unwearying attention to words and their meanings. Most men of letters do this un- consciously, though some, like Theophik Gautier, study directly the vocabulary of the language in which they write. It is this circumstance which has made all great masters of style on the one hand intolerant of ill-constructed and misapplied words, and on the other resolved not to see expressions ruled out of the language merely because they are new, and in spite of the fact that they convey a thought which cannot otherwise be so exactly represented. Mr. Stevenson, in his essay entitled "A College Magazine," has told us how he worked at words and phrases as men in a studio work at models, learning thereby to become the "master of his materials." "It is only," he says, "after years of such gymnastic that he (the man of letters) can set down at last, legions of words swarming to his call, dozens of turns of phrase simultaneously bidding for his choice, and he himself knowing what he wants to do, and (within the narrow limit of a man's ability) able to do it." No doubt by such efforts he has learned to think rather than,, as some might imagine, to piece words together ; but that must not prevent us from admitting that, since clear thinking comes from the study of words, style can be best acquired by obtaining a complete mastery over language.
The Master of Balliol, in the few but pregnant words he has to say about style, remarks that "connection is the soul of good writing." Unquestionably this is true, for a perfect piece of prose must rise like the Eddystone Lighthouse, where each layer of stone is dovetailed into the one below. But these connections are often exceedingly hard to make both neatly and firmly, and here the study of great authors is distinctly of service. In their books, a man may look and see how difficulties exactly like those with which he is contending have been overcome, for, like him, the great writers had to make joins, and to make them so as not to show. No doubt he can also think out each problem for himself, as probably did Bunyan; but this is an unnecessary labour, when the knack can be more easily acquired by study and observation. Possibly this is only a small matter ; but in considering literary style, it is worth noticing that what may be not inaptly termed the mechanical part of composition can be learned. Many a beginner who is conscious that his transitions are too abrupt, will learn to get over his difficulties by seeing now they were met and overcome by others. The best advice that can be given to a writer who fulfils the essential condition of knowing what he wants to say, and who has no perverted theories as to ornament for the sake of ornament, is to suggest an exact study of words and phrases; and, further, to point out that when any mechanical difficulties arise as to the co-ordination of his sentences and phrases, the beat plan is to go to the great writers and to learn from them how they managed to surmount similar obstacles. To try and catch the ring of some particular master's manner is foolish, for it must be unsuccessful; but to learn by example whether it is best to say, "Belle Marquise, vos beaux yeux," or, " Vos- beaux yeux, belle Marquise," is a very sensible and reasonable course of action.
Previous page
