STYLE AND THE MAN 1 



THE 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 — the crystallization. In substance 

 charcoal 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 better 

 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 common 

 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 



1 An excerpt from a chapter in Literary Values, 



