STYLE AND THE MAN 97 



When I meet the stylist, with his straining for ver 

 bal effects, I love to recall this passage from Whit 

 man. " The great poet," he says, " swears to his art, 

 I will not be meddlesome. I will not have in my 

 writing any elegance or effect or originality to hang 

 in the way between me and the rest, like curtains. I 

 will have nothing hang in the way, not the richest 

 curtains. What I tell I tell for precisely what it is. 

 Let who may, exalt or startle or fascinate or soothe ; I 

 will have purpose, as health or heat or snow has, and 

 be as regardless of observation. What I experience 

 or portray shall go from my composition without a 

 shred of my composition. You shall stand by my 

 side and look in the mirror with me." 



This is the same as saying that the great success 

 in writing is to get language out of the way and to 

 put your mind directly to the reader's, so that there 

 be no veil of words between you. If the reader is 

 preoccupied with your words, if they court his at 

 tention or cloud his vision, to that extent is the 

 communication imperfect. In some of Swinburne's 

 poems there is often such a din and echo of rhyme 

 and alliteration that it is almost impossible to hear 

 what the man is really saying. 



To darken counsel with words is a common oc 

 currence. Words are like lenses, they must be 

 arranged in just such a way, or they hinder rather 

 than help the vision. When the adjustment is as it 

 should be, the lens itself is invisible; and language in 



