Collected essays and papers, 1875-1920

Preface

If the old reproach of crambe repetita be to some extent valid against the two preceding volumes, it is so against this to a much less. Nearly two-thirds of its contents have never before been collected; and two of the papers — those on Spelling Reform and on The Permanent and the Temporary in Literature — both of which I hope may have some interest — have never been printed till now. The "miscellaneous "-ness of the contents may seem exaggerated; but is quite deliberate. I am sure Dr Johnson himself would have admitted that Literature, Politics, and Cookery form an excellent leash of interests.

With regard to the "Historical Novel" essays I should like to acknowledge, not out of vanity but with due gratitude, the fact that Professor Firth quoted them recently with distinct approval. His Majesty's Navy has not always thus treated privateers.

For original and other dates of appearance, &c, see General Preface, Vol. i. But I can now give that of The Permanent and the Temporary in Literature as October 1910.

G. S.

Contents

I. The Historical Novel .

I. THE DAYS OF IGNORANCE II. SCOTT AND DUMAS .

III. THE SUCCESSORS

II

In the days when I had to study the two great Histories of Greece which England produced in the eighteenth century, a thought, which has most probably often presented itself to other students, frequently occurred to me. Much as the two works differ in plan, in views, and in manner of execution, their difference never struck me so much as in the point of style. And the remarkable feature of this difference is, that it is not by any means the natural variation which we allow for, and indeed expect, in the productions of any two men of decided and distinct literary ability. It is not as the difference between Hume and Gibbon, or the difference between Clarendon and Taylor. In the styles of these great writers, and in those of many others, there is the utmost conceivable diversity; but at the same time they are all styles. We can see (we see it, indeed, so clearly that we hardly take the trouble to think about it) that each of them made a distinct effort to arrange his words into their clause, his clauses into their sentence, and his sentences into their paragraph according to certain forms, and that though these forms varied in the subtle and indescribable measure of the taste and idiosyncrasy of each writer, the effort was always present, and was only accidentally if inseparably connected with the intention to express certain thoughts, to describe certain facts, or to present certain characters. But when we come to compare Thirlwall with Grote, we find not a variation of the kind just mentioned, but the full opposition of the presence of style on the one hand and the absence of it on the other. The late Bishop of

St David's will probably never be cited among the greatest masters of English prose style, but still we can see without difficulty that he has inherited its traditions. It would be difficult, on the other hand, to persuade a careful critic that Grote ever thought of such things as the cadence of a sentence or the composition of a paragraph. That he took so much trouble as might suffice to make his meaning clear and his language energetic is obvious; that in no case did he look beyond this is, I think, certain.

But the difference between these two great historians is very far from being a mere isolated fact. It marks with extraordinary precision the date and nature of a change which has affected English literature to a degree and in a manner worthy of the most serious consideration. What this change is, and whether it amounts to an actual decay or to a mere temporary neglect of style in English prose writing, are questions which are certainly of importance, and the answers to which should not, as it seems to me, lack interest.

If, then, we take up almost any book of the eighteenth century, we shall find that within varying limits the effort of which I have just spoken is distinctly present. The model upon which the writer frames his style may be and probably is faulty in itself, and still more probably is faultily copied; there may be too much Addison in the mixture, or too much Johnson; but still we shall see that an honest attempt at style, an honest endeavour at manner as apart from matter, has been made, however clumsy the attempt may be, and however far short of success it may fall. But if we take up any book of the mid-nineteenth, save a very few, the first thing that will strike us is the total absence of any attempt or endeavour of the kind. The matter will, as a rule, have been more or less carefully attended to, and will be presented to the reader with varying degrees of clearness and precision. But the manner, except in so far as certain peculiarities of manner may be conducive or prejudicial to clearness and precision of statement — sometimes perhaps to apparent precision with any sacrifice of clearness — will in most cases be found to have been totally neglected, if a thing may be said to be neglected which does not appear to have even presented itself within the circumference of the field of view. In other words, and to adopt a convenient distinction, though there may be a difference of manner, there is usually no difference of style, for there is no style at all.

Before going any further, it may be well to follow a commendable, if antiquated and scholastic practice, and to set down accurately what is here meant by style, and of what it consists. Style is the choice and arrangement of language with only a subordinate regard to the meaning to be conveyed. Its parts are the choice of the actual words to be used, the further selection and juxtaposition of these words, the structure of the clauses into which they are wrought, the arrangement of the clauses into sentences, and the composition of the sentences into paragraphs. Beyond the paragraph style can hardly be said to go, but within that limit it is supreme. The faults incident to these parts (if I may be allowed still to be scholastic) are perhaps also worthy of notice. Every one can see, though every one is by no means careful to put his knowledge into practice, that certain words are bad of themselves, and certain others to be avoided wherever possible. The next stage introduces difficulties of a higher order, though these also are more or less elementary, such as combination of incongruous notions and unintentional repetitions of the same word. But these are mere rudiments; it is in the breach or neglect of the rules that govern the structure of clauses, of sentences, and of paragraphs that the real secret of style consists, and to illustrate this breach or observation is less easy. The task will be perhaps made easier if we consider first, in the rough, how the prevalent English style of the present day differs from that of past times.

De Quincey, when the century was not yet at the midmost of its way, had already noticed and deplored the deterioration of which we speak. In his Essay on Style more particularly, as well as in other places, he undertakes to discuss at some length the symptoms and causes of the disease. Now De Quincey, as any one who is at all acquainted with his works is aware, gave considerable attention to the subject of style, and professed to be no mean authority thereon. There were, indeed, two peculiarities about him which prevented him from deserving the highest place as a referee on such matters. The first was his mistaken idea that extremely ornate prose — the prose which his ally John Wilson called "numerous," and which others have called Asiatic — was the highest form attainable, and that any writer who did not aim at this fell naturally into a lower class. The other was his singular crotchetiness, which made him frequently refuse to see any good in the style of writers to whom, for some reason or for no reason, he had taken a dislike. It will probably be allowed, not merely by persons who hold traditional opinions, but by all independent students of literature, that we must look with considerable distrust on the dicta of a critic who finds fault with the styles of Plato and of Conyers Middleton1. The Essay on Style, however (at least its first part, for the latter

1 I have kept this name out of honesty. But it is very many years since I disjoined it from the other (1923).

portions go off into endless digressions of no pertinence whatever), is much more carefully written and much more carefully reasoned than most of De Quincey's work. The purport of it is, that the decay of style is to be attributed chiefly to the prevalence of journalism. No one will deny that the influence of newspaper writing is in many ways bad, and that to it is due much of the decadence in style of which complaint is made. But either the prevalent manner of journalism has undergone a remarkable change during the past generation, or else the particular influence which De Quincey supposes it to have had was mistaken by him. I do not myself pretend to a very intimate acquaintance with the periodical literature of the second quarter of the century, and I am afraid that not even in the pursuit of knowledge could I be tempted to plunge into such a dreary and unbuoyant mare mortuum1. With respect to the papers of to-day it is certainly not difficult to discern some peculiarities in their styles, or in what does duty for style in them. But in most of all this we shall find little to bear out De Quincey's verdict. Long and involved sentences, unduly stuffed with fact and meaning, are what he complains of; and though there is no doubt that we should not have to go far in order to find such at the present day, yet it does not appear, to me at least, that the main fault of contemporary English style is of this kind. On the contrary, the sin of which I should chiefly complain is the sin of over-short sentences, of mere gasps instead of balanced periods. Such a paragraph as the following will illustrate what I mean: "That request was obeyed by the massacre of six out of the surviving princes of the imperial family. Two alone escaped. With such a mingling of light and darkness did Constantine close

1 But I had to do so, later I (1923)- his career." I think that any one who considers this combination of two mutilated clauses with an interjectional copula, and who perceives with what ease its hideous cacophony might have been softened into a complete and harmonious sentence, must feel certain that its present form is to some extent intentional. The writer might very well have written: "That request was obeyed by the massacre of six out of the eight surviving princes of the imperial family, and the career of Constantine was closed in a mixture of light and darkness." Why did he not?

Again, let us take a book of recent [1876] date, whose style has received considerable praise both in England and abroad — Mr Green's Short History of the English People. The character of Elizabeth is perhaps the most carefully written, certainly the most striking, passage in the book, and contains a most elaborate statement of that view of the great queen which many historical students now take. It enforces this view with the greatest energy, and sets it before us in every detail and difference of light and shade. But how inartistic it is ! how thoroughly bad in conception, composition, and style! In the first place it occupies some seven printed pages of unusual extent and closeness, each of which is at least equal to two of the ordinary octavo pages of an English classic author. Let any one, if he can, imagine one of the great masters who could both draw and compose — Hume or Chesterfield1, Clarendon or Swift — giving us a character of fourteen pages. A portrait on the scale of Brobdingnag, with all features and all defects unnaturally emphasised and enlarged, could hardly be more disgusting2.

1 "Middleton" again in original. I cannot think what I was about!

■ I cannot refrain from noticing an instance from this writer of the absurdity into which the passion for picturesque epithet betrays many

5-2

It is not necessary to multiply examples, which, if all the defects of contemporary style were to be noticed and illustrated, would occupy a space longer than the present chapter. In all but a very few writers we shall observe with certain variations the same defects — inordinate copiousness of treatment combined with an utter inability, or at best an extreme unwillingness, to frame a sentence of due proportion and careful structure. It should certainly be possible to trace the origin and examine the nature of a phenomenon so striking and so universal.

The secret of the manner will not long escape us if we notice or can disengage the intention with which, willingly or unwillingly, this manner has been adopted. Nor is this intention very hard to discover. It is, as it appears to me, a desire to present the subject, whatever it may be, to the reader in the most striking and arresting fashion. The attention of the reading public generally has, from causes to be presently noticed, become gradually concentrated almost wholly upon subject-matter. Among what may be called, intellectually speaking, the lower classes, this concentration shows itself not in the preference but in the exclusive study of novels, newspapers, and sometimes of so-called books of information. A book must be, as they say, " about something," or it fails altogether to arrest their attention. To such persons a page with (as it has been quaintly put) no "resting-places," no proper names and capital letters to fix the eye, is an intolerable

contemporary authors. At Newbury, we are told, "the London train bands flung Rupert's horsemen roughly off their front of pikes." Here roughly is in the Polonian sense "good." Visions of the sturdy and pious citizen discomfiting the debauched cavalier are aroused. But let us consider it with the sobriety proper to history and to art, and perhaps we shall ask Mr Green to show us how to fling an enemy softly off a pike. Roaring like a sucking-dove would be nothing to this gymnastic effort. [It is now (1892 and still more in 1923) unfortunately impossible to ask him. But the instance is too characteristic to be omitted.]

weariness, and to them it is evident that style can be only a name. Somewhat above them come the (intellectually) middle classes. They are not absolutely confined to personal adventure, real or fictitious, or to interesting facts. They can probably enjoy the better class of magazine articles, superior biographies, travels, and the other books that everybody reads and nobody buys. This class will even read poetry if the poet's name be known, and would consider it a grave affront if it were hinted to them that their appreciation of style is but dull and faulty. A certain amount of labour is therefore required on work which is to please these readers: labour, however, which is generally bestowed in a wrong direction, on ornament and trick rather than on really artistic construction and finish. Lastly there is the highest class of all, consisting of those who really possess, or might possess, taste, culture, and intellect. Of these the great majority are now somewhat alienated from pure literature, and devoted rather to social matters, to science, or to the more fashionable and profitable arts of design. Their demand for style in literature is confined chiefly to poetry. They also are interested more by their favourite subjects treated anyhow, than by subjects for which they care little treated well, so that even by them little encouragement is given to the cultivation and little hindrance to the decay of prose style.

Intimately connected with the influences that arise from this attitude and temper of the general reader, are some other influences which spring from such prevalent forms and subjects of literature as present themselves to the general writer. The first of these forms, and unquestionably the most constant and pervading in its influence, is now, as it was in De Quincey's days, journalism. No one with the slightest knowledge of the subject will pretend that the influence of journalism upon writing is wholly bad. Whatever may have been the case formerly, a standard of excellence which is in some respects really high is usually aimed at, and not seldom reached, in the better class of newspapers. Some appropriateness in the use of words, a rigid avoidance of the more glaring grammatical errors, and a respectable degree of clearness in statement, are expected by the reader and usually observed by the writer. In these respects, therefore, there is no falling off to be complained of, but rather a marked improvement upon past times to be perceived. Yet, as regards the higher excellences of style, it is not possible that the influence of journalism should be good. For it must at any cost be rapid, and rapidity is absolutely incompatible with style. The journalist has as a rule one of two things to do; he has either to give a rapid account of certain facts, or to present a rapid discussion of certain arguments. In either case it becomes a matter of necessity for him to adopt stereotyped phrases and forms of speech which, being ready cut and dried, may abbreviate his labour and leave him as little as possible to invent in his limited time. Now there is nothing more fatal to the attainment of a good style than the habit of using such stereotyped phrases and forms. With the imperiousness natural to all art, style absolutely refuses to avail itself of, or to be found in company with, anything that is ready made. The rule must be a leaden one, the mould made for the occasion, and broken after it has passed. Every one who has ever seriously tried to write must be conscious how sorely he has been beset, and how often he has been overcome, by the almost insensible temptation to adopt the current phrases of the day. Bad, however, as the influence of journalism is in this respect, it is perhaps worse in its tendency to sacrifice everything to mere picturesqueness of style (for the word must be thus misused because there is no other). The journalist is bound to be picturesque by the law of his being. The old phrase, segnius irritant, is infinitely truer of pseudo-picturesque style as compared with literature which holds to its proper means of appeal, than it is of literal spectacle as compared with narrative. And the journalist is obliged at any cost irritare animos, and that in the least possible time.

This tendency of journalism is assisted and intensified by that of another current form of literature, novel-writing. A very little thought will show that if the novel-writer attains to style it is almost a marvel. Of the four constituent elements of the novel, — plot, character, description, and dialogue, — none lend themselves in any great degree to the cultivation of the higher forms of style, and some are distinctly opposed to it. The most cunning plot may be developed equally in the style of Plato and in the style of a penny dreadful. Character drawing, as the novelist understands or should understand it, is almost equally unconnected with style. On the other hand, description and dialogue, unless managed with consummate skill, distinctly tend to develop and strengthen the crying faults of contemporary style: its picturesqueness at any cost, its grasping and ungraceful periods, its neglect of purely literary effect.

Lastly, there must be noticed the enormous influence necessarily exerted by the growth of what is called scientific study (to use the term in its largest and widest sense), and by the displacement in its favour of many, if not most, of the departments of literature which were most favourable to the cultivation of style. In whatever quarter we look, we shall see that the primary effort of the writer and the primary desire of the reader are both directed to what are called scientific or positive results, in other words, to matter instead of manner. In using the word science here, I have not the slightest intention of limiting its meaning, as it is too often limited, to physical science. I extend it to every subject which is capable of being treated in a scientific way. And I think we shall find that all subjects and all kinds of prose literature which are not capable of this sort of treatment, or do not readily lend themselves to it, are yearly occupying less and less the attention of both artists and audiences. Parliamentary oratory of the elaborate kind, which furnished a vigorous if a somewhat dangerous stimulant to the cultivation of style, is dead utterly. Pulpit eloquence, which at its worst maintained "stylistic" traditions, and at its best furnished some of the noblest examples of style, is dying, partly owing to the gradual divorce between the best men of the universities and the clerical profession, partly to the absence of the serene security of a settled doctrine and position, but most of all to the demands upon the time of the clergy which modern notions enforce, and which make it utterly impossible for the greater number to devote a proper time to study. Philosophy, another great nurse of style, has now turned stepmother, and turns out her nurselings to wander in "thorniest queaches" of terminology and jargon, instead of the ordered gardens wherein Plato and Berkeley walked. History even, the last or almost the last refuge of a decent and comely prose, is more busy about records and manuscripts than about periods and paragraphs. Only criticism, the youngest and most hopeful birth of time as far as prose style is concerned, has not yet openly apostatized. It is true that even here signs of danger are not wanting, and that already we are told that criticism must be scientific, that its reading must not be desultory, and so forth. But on the whole there is little fear of relapse. The man who would cut himself a coat from another's cloth must bring to the task the care and labour of a skilled fashioner if he is to make good his claim of ownership. The man who has good work in perpetual contemplation is not likely to be satisfied with the complacent production of what is bad.

There is, moreover, one influence, or rather one set of influences, hostile to the attainment of style in the present day which I have as yet left unnoticed, and the approach to which is guarded by ground somewhat dangerous to the tread. It will, I think, appear to any one who contemplates the subject fully and impartially that style is essentially an aristocratic thing; and it is already a commonplace to say that the spirit of to-day, or perhaps the spirit of the times immediately behind us, is essentially democratic. It is democratic not in any mere political sense, but in the intolerance with which it regards anything out of the reach of, or incomprehensible to, the ordinary Philistine, working by the methods of Philistia. Intellectual and artistic pre-eminence, except in so far as it ministers to the fancies of the vulgar (great or small), is perhaps especially the object of this intolerance. Every one has witnessed or shared the angry impatience with which the ordinary Briton resents anything esoteric, fastidious, or fine. And the charms of prose style especially merit these epithets, and are not to be read by any one who runs, or tasted by any one who swallows in haste. Gaudy ornament is intelligible, "graphic" drawing is intelligible; but the finer cadences of the period, the more intricate strokes of composition, fall unregarded on the common ear and pass unnoticed by the common eye. To be tickled, to be dazzled, to be harrowed, are impressions of which the uncultured man is capable; they require little intellectual effort, and scarcely any judgment or taste in the direction of that little.

But the music of the spheres would form but a sorry attraction in a music-hall programme, and Christopher Sly is not willing to accept nectar in exchange for a pot of even the smallest ale. And if the angry resentment of not a few readers gives the votary of style but little chance of an audience, it must be admitted that the lack of what I have called an aristocratic spirit gives the audience little chance of a performer. The conditions of modern life are unfavourable to the attainment of the peculiar mood of somewhat arrogant indifference which is the characteristic of the scholar. Every one knows Dean Gaisford's three reasons for the cultivation of the Greek language; and I for my part have no doubt that one of them most accurately describes an important feature of the Wesen des Gelehrten. It may not be necessary for him "to read the words of Christ in the original"; it may not be of absolute importance that he should "have situations of affluence opened to him." But it certainly is essential that he should "look down on his fellow-creatures from a proper elevation"; and this is what the tendency of modern social progress is making more and more difficult, at any rate in appearance. You cannot raise the level of the valleys without diminishing the relative height of the hills; and you cannot scatter education and elementary cultivation broadcast without diminishing the value of the privileges which appertain to superior culture. The old republic of letters was, like other old republics, a democracy only in name, but in reality a more or less close oligarchy, looking down on metics and slaves whose degradations and disabilities heightened its courage and gave a zest to its freedom. In letters, as in politics, we are doing our best to change all this; and the possible result maybe, that every one will soon be able to write a newspaper article, and that no one will aspire to anything beyond1.

The general characteristics of style which the influence, combined or partial, of these forces has produced have been already indicated, but may perhaps now be summed up. Diffuseness ; sacrifice of the graces of literary proportion to real or apparent clearness of statement ; indulgence in cut-and-dried phrases ; undue aiming at pictorial effect; gaudiness of unnatural ornament; preference of gross and glaring effects en bloc to careful composition. Certain authors who are either free from these defects, or have vigour enough to excuse or transform them, must now be noticed.

For reasons obvious, though various, it is not my intention to discuss in any way at the present time the style of the author of Sartor Resartus. Mr Carlyle being thus removed, there can be little question who must take the foremost place in a discussion as to the merits and demerits of modern English prose style. And yet, it is at least doubtful whether in strictness we can assign to Mr Ruskin a position in the very highest rank of writers if we are to adopt style as a criterion. The objection to his manner of writing is an obvious one, and one which he might very likely take as a compliment; it is too spontaneous in the first place, and

1 I have for the present thought it better to leave out of consideration the probable effect of the diminished study of classics in modern school and university education. That this effect is decidedly adverse to the cultivation of style is sufficiently obvious, but the subject is too complicated to be incidentally treated, and perhaps the diminution itself is too recent for its effects to have been as yet much felt. [They have made themselves much more sensible in the nearly fifty years which have passed since this article was written. (1923)]

too entirely subordinate to the subject in the second. I hope that it may be very clearly understood that I can see passages in his works which, for splendour of imaginative effect, for appropriateness of diction, for novelty and grandeur of conception, stand beyond all chance of successful rivalry, almost beyond all hope of decent parallel among the writings of ancient and modern masters. But in most cases this marvellous effect will, when carefully examined, be found to depend on something wholly or partially extrinsic to the style. Mr Ruskin writes beautifully because he thinks beautifully, because his thoughts spring, like Pallas, ready armed, and the fashion of the armour costs him nothing. Everybody has heard of the unlucky critic whose comment on Scott's fertility was that "the invention was not to be counted, for that came to him of its own accord." So it is with Mr Ruskin. His beauties of style "come to him of their own accord," and then he writes as the very gods might dream of writing. But in the moments when he is off the tripod, or is upon some casual and un-Delphic tripod of his own construction or selection, how is his style altered ! The strange touches of unforeseen colour become splashed and gaudy, the sonorous roll of the prophetic sentence-paragraphs drags and wriggles like a wounded snake, the cunning interweaving of scriptural or poetic phrase is patched and seamy. A Balaam on the Lord's side, he cannot curse or bless but as it is revealed to him, whereas the possessor of a great style can use it at will. He can shine on the just and on the unjust; can clothe his argument for tyranny or for liberty, for virtue or for vice, with the same splendour of diction, and the same unperturbed perfection of manner; can convince us, carry us with him, or leave us unconvinced but admiring, with the same unquestioned supremacy and the same unruffled calm. Swift can write ajeu d' 'esprit and a libel on the human race, a political pamphlet and a personal lampoon, with the same felicity and the same vigour. Berkeley can present tar-water and the Trinity, the theory of vision and the follies of contemporary free-thinking, with the same perfect lucidity and the same colourless fairness. But with Mr Ruskin all depends on the subject, and the manner in which the subject is to be treated. He cannot even blame as he can praise; and there must be many who are ready to accept everything he can say of Tintoret or of Turner, and who feel no call to object to any of his strictures on Canaletto or on Claude, who yet perceive painfully the difference of style in the panegyrist and the detractor, and who would demand the stricter if less obvious justice, and the more artistic if apparently perverted sensitiveness, of the thorough master of style.