The extraradius of a writer may be said to be made up of his literary
opinions and inclinations. I wish to expose the literary cell from the
nucleus out and to unfold it, instead of proceeding in from the
covering.

The term may seem pedantic and histological, but it has the attraction
to my mind of a reminiscence of student days.




RHETORIC AND ANTI-RHETORIC


If I were to formulate my opinions upon style, I should say: "Imitations
of other men's styles are bad, but a man's own style is good."

There is a store of common literary finery, almost all of which is in
constant use and has become familiar.

When a writer lays hands on any of this finery spontaneously, he makes
it his own, and the familiar flower blossoms as it does in Nature.

When an author's inspiration does not proceed from within out, but
rather from without in, then he becomes at once a bad rhetorician.

I am one of those writers who employ the least possible amount of this
common store of rhetoric. There are various reasons for my being anti-