HISTORY AND USAGE OF THE WORD 167 



this term naturally. But as no one now used a stilus in 

 writing, the metaphor implied in it was not so obvious. The 

 ancients, mindful of its etymology, had confined the word 

 style to modes of writing, with rare and post- Augustan exten- 

 sion to modes of speaking. We have come to apply it to all 

 the arts as well as to much besides. We speak of style in 

 architecture, sculpture, painting, music; style in manners, 

 style in law procedure ; the style of royal or noble persons, 

 the old and new style of chronology, the style in which a 

 thing is done or carried out. We have even an adjective 

 from the slang dictionary stylish to indicate a smart 

 individual, carriage, horse, costume, and so forth. 



This wide extension of the metaphor has induced a 

 further usage, which bears us far away from the original 

 instrument of writing. We talk of style in general, as a 

 quality which some compositions display, while others lack it. 

 We say of an author, not only that he is distinguished by an 

 Attic style or by a practised style, but also that ' he has 

 style.' What we mean is that his work exhibits certain 

 qualities of artistic distinction. And so we say of a picture : 

 * Whatever its defects may be, everybody will confess that it 

 possesses style/ 



Style, therefore, in its broadest signification, is now 

 synonymous with mode of expression or presentation. When 

 we praise a piece of prose for its style, we mean that thoughts 

 have been clearly, precisely, powerfully, beautifully expressed 

 in language. When we condemn a building for its style, we 

 mean that the architect has employed a faulty system of con- 

 struction, a vicious scheme of decoration, or an inharmonious 

 distribution of parts. 



The standard of what is good or bad in style varies with 

 fashion and the age in which men live, with their conception 

 of the purposes and functions of the arts, and also with the 

 bias of successive schools of criticism. In the middle of the 

 last century, the Divine Comedy was reckoned barbarous, 

 and Gothic was a term of obloquy. At the beginning of this 

 century, Pope met with scanty justice : and refined sensibility 

 shrank with a shudder from the work of Wren. 



