LITERARY STYLE 23 



profit to countless thousands. Yet the eminently lucid 

 easy style so many have admired was the result of 

 laborious work and much re-writing, a concrete instance 

 of that " ars celare artem" which has distinguished many 

 masters of English prose. And his standard became 

 ever higher as time went on. To quote the words of 

 a well-known orator and man of letters, " in these days 

 even a man of science is expected to be a good speaker 

 and writer," an expectation largely due to Huxley's 

 example, the outcome of his dictum that '' science and 

 literature are not two things, but two sides of the same 

 thing." This salutary attitude has done no little for 

 science, and something for literature. 



When, in 1891, de Varigny was engaged in translating 

 some of Huxley's works he received a letter containing 

 this passage : — 



" The fact is that I have a great love and respect for my 

 native tongue, and take great pains to use it properly. Some- 

 times I write essays half-a-dozen times before I can get tiiem 

 into the proper shape ; and I believe I become more fastidious 

 as I grow older" (Life, ii, p. 291). 



It is a matter of common knowledge that these striv- 

 ings after a proper use of the mother tongue were 

 successful in no mean degree. 



