Ill 



STYLE AND THE MAN 



fTlHE difference between a precious stone and a 

 -*- common stone is not an essential difference — 

 not a difference of substance, but of arrangement of 

 the particles — tbe crystallization. In substance char- 

 coal and the diamond are one, but in form and effect 

 how widely they differ. The pearl contains nothing 

 that is not found in the coarsest oyster shell. 



Two men have the same thoughts ; they use about 

 the same words in expressing them ; yet with one 

 the product is real literature, with the other it is a 

 platitude. 



The difference is all in the presentation ; a finer 

 and more compendious process has gone on in the 

 one case than in the other. The elements are bet- 

 ter fused and welded together ; they are in some 

 way heightened and intensified. Is not here a clue 

 to what we mean by style ? Style transforms com- 

 mon quartz into an Egyptian pebble. We are apt 

 to think of style as something external, that can be 

 put on, something in and of itself. But it is not ; 

 it is in the inmost texture of the substance. Choice 

 words, faultless rhetoric, polished periods, are only 



