In this day’s silly Sunday Times; says Samuel Butler, There is an article
on Mrs. Browning’s, which begins with some remarks about style. “It recovered
,” says the writer, “of Plato, that in a rough draft of one of this Dialogues,
found after his death, the first paragraph was written in seventy different
forms. Wordswort spared no pains to sharpen and polish to the
utmost
the gifts with which nature had endowed him; and Cardinal Newman, one of
the greatest masters of English style, has related in an amusing essay
the pains he took to acquire his style.”
‘I never knew a written yet who took smallest pains with his style and
was at the same time readable. Plato’s having had seventy shies at one
sentence is quite enough to explain to me why I hate him; What, in
fact, is style’? A dead metaphor. It meant originally ‘a writing-implement’
– a pointed object, of bone or word stylus ‘; then generally, his way of
expressing
himself’,
has acquired further senses. As in French, it has been narrowed to signify
‘a good way of e4xpressing oneself – “his writing lacked style’; and it
has been extended to other arts than literature, even to the art of living
–‘her behavior showed always a certain style’. But the two main meanings
which concern us here, are (1) ‘a way of writing’; (2) ‘a good way of writing’.
Our subject, then, is simply the effective use of language, especially
in prose, whether to make statements or to rouse emotions. It involves,
of all, the power to put facts with clarity brevity; but fact are usually
none the worse for being put also with as much grace and interest as the
subject permits. For grace or interest, indeed, if the subject is purely
practical, like coins
or
conchology, there may not be much room; thought even cookery books have
been slated with occasional irony; and even mathematicians have indulge
in jests, as of going to Heaven in a perpendicular straight line. But,
further, men need also to express and convery their emotions (even animals
do): and kindle emotions in others. Without emotion, no art of literature;
not
any
other art,
For two thousand years Christendom has been rent with controversy because
men could not agree about the meaning of passage in Holy Writ; both old
and New Testament have been more disputed than human will. The gardens
and porticoes of philosophy are hung with philosophers entangled in their
own verbal cobwebs. Statesmen meet at Yalta or Potsdam to make
agreements,
about the meaning of which they then proceed to disagree. Employers and
workers reach settlement that lead only to fresh unsettlement, because
they misunderstand the understandings they themselves have made. Sharp
legal minds spend their lives drafting documents in a verbose jargon of
their own which shall be knave-proof and fool - proof; but it is seldorn
that other legal minds as sharp cannot find in those documents, if they
try, some fruitful points for litigation. Even in war, where clarity may
be a matter of life or death for thousands, disasters occur through orders
misunderstood. Some adore ambiguities in poetry; in prose they can be a
constant curse.
But men not only underestimate the difficulty of language; they often underestimate
also its appalling power. True, the literary (for very human reasons) are
sometimes tempted, on the contrary, to exaggerate it. We may well smile
at writers who too confidently claim that the pen is mightier than the
sword. Fletcher of Saltoun’s exaltation of the songs of a people
as more
important
than laws, shelley’s glorification of poets as the unacknowledged legislators
of mankind, Tennyson’s poet whose word shakes the world, O’Shaughnessy’s
three men who trample down empires with the lilt of a new song- these,
I feel, are somewhat too complacent half-truths. With all his powers of
speech, Demostheeness could not save Greece; nor Cicero the
Roman
Republic; nor Milton the English Commonwealth. Yet it does seem rational
to say that Voltaire and Burke became, in a sense European power; that
Rousseau’s Contract social left a permanent mark on the history of Europe,
Paine’s and Common Sense on that of America. This if we brush away the
blur of familiarity, remains astonishing enough. And these men, I think,
won their triumphs not more (if so much) by force of thought than by force
of style. Nor let us forget the influence of the English Bible.
Style, I repeat, is a means by which a human being gains contact with,
it is personality clothed in words, character embodied in speech. If handwriting
reveals character, style reveals it still more – unless it is so colourless
and lifeless as not really to be a style at all. The fundamental thing,
therefore, is not technique, useful though that may be; If a writer’s personality
repels, it will not avail him to eschew split infinitives, to master the
difference between “that” and ‘which’, top have fowler’s modern English
Usage by heart. Soul is more than syntax. If your readers dislike you,
they will dislike what you say. Indeed, such is human nature; unless they
like you they will mostly deny you even justice. Any literary written is
concerned with (a) statements, (B)
feelings
(A) He makes his statement in a certain way. (B) (1) He arouses certain
feelings I his audience about his statement (A) intentionally, (B) unintentionally.
(2) He reveals certain feelings of his own (A) intentionally (unless he
is deliberately impersonal), (B) unintentionally. (3) He arouses certain
feelings in his audience about himself and his feelings (A) intentionally,
(B)
unintentionally.
In short, a writer may be doing seven different things at once; four of them, consciously. Literature is complicated.
Consider, for example, Mark Antony’s speech in the Forum. (A) Statement.
Caesar has been killed by honorable men, who say he was ambitious. (B)
Feelings (1) while pretending deference to the murderers, Antony rouses
his hearers to rage against them. (2) He reveals his own feelings. (A)
(Intentionally): Loyal resentment. (B) (Unintentionally): secret ambition.
(3) He arouses feelings in his audience towards himself. (A) (Intentionally):
he poses as the moderate statesman, yet loyal friend. (B)
(Unintentionally):
he moves the more knowing theatre-audience to ironic amusement at his astuteness.
(Reference not indicated)
