2 MORE POT-POURRI 



will immensely sharpen their critical judgment. Then 

 there were those who said and wrote and need I state 

 that they are the flatterers who come most home to the 

 author's heart, as is but natural ? ' We have read your 

 book ; we like it ; we have found it useful and helpful, 

 entertaining or suggestive. Cannot you give us more ? ' 

 To these I answered : ' Give me time and I will try.' 

 The result was that throughout the last year I have been 

 making various notes about my life, things I saw and 

 things I did, exactly as they occurred. These very likely 

 will prove less interesting than former notes, which were 

 more or less connected with the life that was behind me. 

 One newspaper had it that I must have a very good 

 memory. As a matter of fact, I have no memory at all, 

 but from my youth I have kept, more or less continuously, 

 commonplace books a jumble of all sorts of things as I 

 came across them in my very desultory reading. These 

 notes were often so carelessly kept as not even to 

 acknowledge where I stole the thought that gave me 

 pleasure. This accounts for my having quotations at 

 hand. Another reviewer kindly said I had a 'marked 

 grace of style.' My dear old mother used to say she 

 never considered a compliment was worth having that 

 was not totally undeserved ! I never had the slightest 

 idea of possessing any style at all. But what is style ? 

 It is a weary topic when so much is said about ' getting 

 style' (like 'getting religion '). Schopenhauer's remarks 

 on the subject are worth noticing. He writes : ' There 

 is no quality of style that can be got by reading writers 

 who possess it. But if the qualities exist in us exist, 

 that is to say, potentially we can call them forth and 

 bring them into consciousness. We can learn the pur- 

 poses to which they can be put. We can be strengthened 

 in an inclination to use them, or get courage to do so. 

 The only way in which reading can form style is by 



