to day, with numberless permutations and combinations, each of
which alters the tone and pitch of the units that compose it, with
fluid ideas that never have an outlined existence until they have
found their phrases and the improvisation is complete, is it to be
wondered at that the art of style is eternally elusive, and that
the attempt to reduce it to rule is the forlorn hope of academic
infatuation?


These difficulties and complexities of the instrument are,
nevertheless, the least part of the ordeal that is to be undergone
by the writer. The same musical note or phrase affects different
ears in much the same way; not so the word or group of words. The
pure idea, let us say, is translated into language by the literary
composer; who is to be responsible for the retranslation of the
language into idea? Here begins the story of the troubles and
weaknesses that are imposed upon literature by the necessity it
lies under of addressing itself to an audience, by its liability to
anticipate the corruptions that mar the understanding of the spoken
or written word. A word is the operative symbol of a relation
between two minds, and is chosen by the one not without regard to
the quality of the effect actually produced upon the other. Men
must be spoken to in their accustomed tongue, and persuaded that
the unknown God proclaimed by the poet is one whom aforetime they
ignorantly worshipped. The relation of great authors to the public
may be compared to the war of the sexes, a quiet watchful
antagonism between two parties mutually indispensable to each
other, at one time veiling itself in endearments, at another
breaking out into open defiance. He who has a message to deliver
must wrestle with his fellows before he shall be permitted to ply