222 NOTES ON STYLE 



the desired effect by suggestions of infinite subtlety, and to 

 present impressions made upon bis sensibility. 



Autobiographies, epistolary correspondence, notes of table- 

 talk, are of tbe highest value in determining the correlation 

 between a writer's self and his style. We not only derive a 

 mass of information about Goethe's life from Eckermann, but 

 we also discover from those conversations in how true a sense 

 the style of Goethe's works grew out of his temperament and 

 experience. Gibbon and Rousseau, Alfieri and Goldoni, 

 Samuel Johnson in his ' Life ' by Bos well, John Stuart Mill 

 in his autobiographical essay, Petrarch in his ' Secretum ' and 

 fragment of personal confessions, have placed similar keys 

 within our reach for unlocking the secret of their several 

 manners. 



The rare cases in which men of genius have excelled in 

 more than one branch of art are no less instructive. Michel 

 Angelo the sonnet-writer helps us to understand Michel 

 Angelo the sculptor. Rossetti the painter throws light on 

 Rossetti the poet ; William Blake the lyrist upon William 

 Blake the draughtsman. We find, on comparing the double 

 series of work offered by such eminent and exceptionally 

 gifted individuals, that their styles in literature and plastic 

 art possess common qualities, which mark the men and issue 

 from their personalities. Michel Angelo in the sonnets is as 

 abstract, as ideal, as form-loving, as indifferent to the charm 

 of brilliant colour, as neglectful of external nature as Michel 

 Angelo in his statues and the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel. 

 Rossetti's pictures, with their wealth of colour, their elaborate 

 execution, their sharp incisive vision, their deep imaginative 

 mysticism and powerful perfume of intellectual sensuousness, 

 present a close analogue to his ballads, sonnets, and descrip- 

 tive poems. With these and similar instances in our mind, 

 we are prepared to hear that Victor Hugo designed pictures 

 in the style of Gustave Dore"; nor would it surprise us to 

 discover that Gustave Dor6 had left odes or fiction in the 

 manner of Victor Hugo. 



The problems suggested by style as a sign and index of 

 personality may be approached from many points of view. I 



