if you are impressed by what an author has said to you,
but are aware of verbal clumsinesses in his work, you need worry about
his "bad style" exactly as much and exactly as little as
you would worry about the manners of a kindhearted, keen-brained friend
who was dangerous to carpets with a tea-cup in his hand.
The friend's antics in a drawing-room are somewhat regrettable,
but you would not say of him that his manners were bad.
Again, if an author's style dazzles you instantly and blinds you to
everything except its brilliant self, ask your soul, before you begin
to admire his matter, what would be your final opinion of a man
who at the first meeting fired his personality into you like a broadside.
Reflect that, as a rule, the people whom you have come to esteem
communicated themselves to you gradually, that they did not begin
the entertainment with fireworks. In short, look at literature
as you would look at life, and you cannot fail to perceive that,
essentially, the style is the man. Decidedly you will never assert
that you care nothing for style, that your enjoyment of an author's matter
is unaffected by his style. And you will never assert, either,
that style alone suffices for you.


If you are undecided upon a question of style, whether leaning to
the favourable or to the unfavourable, the most prudent course
is to forget that literary style exists. For, indeed, as style
is understood by most people who have not analysed their impressions
under the influence of literature, there *is* no such thing
as literary style. You cannot divide literature into two elements
and say: This is matter and that style. Further, the significance
and the worth of literature are to be comprehended and assessed
in the same way as the significance and the worth of any other phenomenon: