■..>*il- «i*rfi^''*#i|" 1 \ 4 I** 



STYLE AKD THE MAN 69 



conscious of the style as something apart and that 

 claims our admiration on its own account, as we are 

 in the case of Walter Pater, for example. Such men 

 as Pater are enamored of style itself, and cultivate 

 it for its own sake. They conceive of it as an inde- 

 pendent grace and charm that may be imparted to 

 any subject by dint of an effort directed to verbal 

 arrangement and sequence alone. 



IV 



There is a good deal of wisdom in Voltaire's say- 

 ing that " all styles are good that are not tiresome." 

 Voltaire's own style certainly had the merit of not 

 tiring. Even in the English translation I never 

 cease to marvel at its grace and buoyancy. In keep- 

 ing with this dictum is the remark I heard concern- 

 ing a certain living writer, namely, that he had the 

 best style in literature to-day because one could read 

 fifty pages of his and not know that one was reading 

 at all ; it was pure expression — offered no resistance. 



This offering no resistance, this ease and limpidity 

 — a getting rid of all friction in the written page — 

 herein certainly lies the secret of much that is 

 winsome in literature. How little friction the 

 mind encounters in Addison, in Lamb, or in the 

 best of our own prose writers ; and how much in 

 Meredith, and the later writings of Henry James ! 

 Is not friction to be got rid of as far as possible 

 in all departments of life ? One does not want 

 his shoes to pinch, nor his coat to bind, neither does 

 he want to waste any strength on involved sentences, 



