STYLE.


Thought, act, and speech are of one substance. Where the best things
have been done, the best things have been said. The history of Attica
is richer and more significant than that of her sister-states of old
Greece, and among them her literature is supreme. So of England in
modern Europe. And where good thoughts have been uttered the form of
those will be finest which carry the choicest life. The tree gets its
texture from the quality of its sap. Were I asked what author is the
most profitable to the student of English on account of style, I
should answer, study Shakespeare.

Have something to say, and say it in the best and fewest words, were a
good recipe for style. In this brief precept there are more
ingredients than at first view appear. To have something to say
implies that a man must write out of himself, and not chiefly out of
his memory; and so to write involves much more than many people
are aware of; in order that his style have freshness, which is a
primary need of a good style, the writer's thought must be fresh.
Then, to say his thought in the best and fewest words implies faculty
of choice in words, and faculty of getting rid of all verbal
superfluity; and these two faculties betoken proficiencies and some of
the finer æsthetic forces.

Style itself is a gift (or more properly an issue of several gifts),
not an acquisition; it cannot be taught. As to teaching style to one
with inharmonious or defective natural powers, you might as well
attempt to teach a thrush to sing the songs of the nightingale. To be