2i6 Thomas Henry Huxley 



other words, — in fact, in all the conscious tricks and 

 graces that distinguish the lover of words from their 

 mere user. 



A close examination discovers a similar absence 

 from Huxlej'-'s work of the second contributory to the 

 total effect produced by written words. Anything 

 that may be said about absence of artistry in the use 

 of words, may be said as to absence of artistry in build- 

 ing of the words into sentences, of the sentences into 

 paragraphs and pages. In the first place, actual in- 

 felicities of sentence-building are frequent. Clause is 

 piled on clause, qualifying phrases are interpolated, 

 the eas}^ devices of dashes and repetitions are employed 

 wherever convenience suggests them. It is striking 

 to find how infrequent is the occurrence of passages 

 marked in any wa}^ by sonorous rhythm or b)'- the 

 charm of a measured proportion. The purple passages 

 themselves, those which linger in the memory and to 

 which the reader turns back, linger by their sense and 

 uot by their sound. For indeed the truth of the 

 matter is that Huxley's style was a style of ideas and \j 

 not of words and sentences. The more closely you 

 analyse his pages the more certainly you find that the 

 secret of the effect produced on you lies in the gradual 

 development of the precise and logical ideas he wished 

 to convey, in the brilliant accumulation of argument 

 upon argument, in the logical subordination of details 

 to the whole, in fact, in the arts of the convinced, 

 positive, and logical thinker, who knew exactly what 

 he meant you to know and who set about telling you 

 it with the least possible concern for the words he 

 used or for the sentences into which he formed his 

 w^ords. The ideas and their ordering are the root and 

 the branches, the beginning and the end of his style. 



