The word "style" has been so grossly abused during the
last thirty years that one mentions it with diffidence. Matthew
Arnold well said that when people came to him and asked
to be told how to write a good style he was unable to reply;
for indeed it is not a thing to be taught. It is a by-product,
though a necessary by-product, of good thinking. But when
Matthew Arnold went on to say that there was no such thing
as style except knowing clearly what you wanted to say, and
saying it as clearly as you could, he was talking nonsense.
There is such a thing as style. It is that combination of
rhythm, lucidity, and emphasis, which certainly must not
be consciously produced, but which if it arise naturally from
a man's pen and from his method of thought makes all the
difference between what is readable and what is not readable.
If any one doubt this let him compare the French Bible
with the English--both literal and lucid translations of the
same original; or again let him contrast the prose phrases of
Milton when he is dealing with the claims of the Church
in the Middle Ages with those of Mr. Bryce in the same
connection.

Now I say that just as the excellences of Froude's prose
proceeded from this universality of his so did the errors into
which that prose fell, and it is remarkable that these errors
are slips of detail. They proceed undoubtedly from rapid
writing and from coupling his scholarship with a very general
and ephemeral reading.

A few examples drawn from these essays will prove what