232 NOTES ON STYLE 



reason in a newspaper, it is good to reiterate your meaning.' 

 The orator has to repeat his arguments, and to place the 

 same points in new lights, lest their force should escape 

 the fugitive attention of an audience. It would be imperti- 

 nent in the writer of a book to claim the privileges of 

 a public speaker. His readers a*re able to perpend his 

 sentences, to pause and ponder, to resume the chain of 

 reasoning by casting their eyes backward over the pages they 

 have traversed. Yet, even in books, some subjects demand 

 a more oratorical method of treatment than others. When 

 it is the writer's aim to persuade his readers, to carry them 

 gently along with him, to infiltrate their minds with unfamiliar 

 or difficult ideas, he may indulge in repetition. This made the 

 style of J. S. Mill effective. But it also rendered that style 

 deceptive by its very lucidity, hiding the thinness of some 

 thoughts which were presented under aspects so agreeably 

 varied. 



That is good rhetoric for the pulpit which is bad for the 

 bar ; and conversely a forensic style is intolerable within the 

 precincts of a church. Lord Brougham was right to study 

 Demosthenes ; but Bossuet, and South, and Newman are 

 proper models for a canon of S. Paul's. The reason is 

 apparent. On the hustings, in the senate, before juries, in 

 the pulpit, men appeal to different passions and emotions : 

 they are not only dealing with different orders of ideas, but 

 are attempting to impress different sensibilities, and to 

 influence the reason by different kinds of argument. The 

 mood of the speaker differs in each case ; he feels a different 

 stimulus and draws his inspiration from different sources. 

 The same man is frequently a first-rate preacher and a 

 powerful platform orator ; he may also be an excellent 

 parliamentary speaker. But the change of attitude implied 

 in each of these positions necessitates an alteration in his 

 style. The personality of Mr. Gladstone, the character of 

 the individual moulding his manner of expression, appears 

 alike in that great rhetorician's books, letters, lay-sermons, 

 speeches to the House, and addresses to Midlothian monster 

 meetings. They display common qualities of eloquence and 



