Insincerity, on the other hand, is the commonest vice of style. It
is not to be avoided, except in the rarest cases, by those to whom
the written use of language is unfamiliar; so that a shepherd who
talks pithy, terse sense will be unable to express himself in a
letter without having recourse to the Ready Letter-writer--"This
comes hoping to find you well, as it also leaves me at present"--
and a soldier, without the excuse of ignorance, will describe a
successful advance as having been made against "a thick hail of
bullets." It permeates ordinary journalism, and all writing
produced under commercial pressure. It taints the work of the
young artist, caught by the romantic fever, who glories in the
wealth of vocabulary discovered to him by the poets, and seeks
often in vain for a thought stalwart enough to wear that glistering
armour. Hence it is that the masters of style have always had to
preach restraint, self-denial, austerity. His style is a man's
own; yet how hard it is to come by! It is a man's bride, to be won
by labours and agonies that bespeak a heroic lover. If he prove
unable to endure the trial, there are cheaper beauties, nearer
home, easy to be conquered, and faithless to their conqueror.
Taking up with them, he may attain a brief satisfaction, but he
will never redeem his quest.

As a body of practical rules, the negative precepts of asceticism
bring with them a certain chill. The page is dull; it is so easy
to lighten it with some flash of witty irrelevance: the argument
is long and tedious, why not relieve it by wandering into some of
those green enclosures that open alluring doors upon the wayside?
To roam at will, spring-heeled, high-hearted, and catching at all
good fortunes, is the ambition of the youth, ere yet he has subdued