STYLE AND THE MAN 87 



so different. The reader's relation with them is 

 much more intimate and personal. 



It is quality of mind which makes the writings 

 of Burke rank above those of Gladstone, Ruskin's 

 criticism above that of Hamerton, Froude's histories 

 above Freeman's, Renan's "Life of Jesus" above 

 that of Strauss; which makes the pages of Goethe, 

 Coleridge, Lamb, literature in a sense that the works 

 of many able minds are not. These men impart 

 something personal and distinctive to the language 

 they use. They make the words their own. The 

 literary quality is not something put on. It is not 

 of the hand, it is of the mind; it is not of the mind, 

 but of the soul; it is of whatever is most vital and 

 characteristic in the writer. It is confined to no 

 particular manner and to no particular matter. It 

 may be the gift of writers of widely different man- 

 ners — of Carlyle as well as of Arnold ; and in men 

 of similar manners, one may have it and the other 

 may not. It is as subtle as the tone of the voice or 

 the glance of the eye. Quality is the one thing in 

 life that cannot be analyzed, and it is the one thing 

 in art that cannot be imitated. A man's manner 

 may be copied, but his style, his charm, his real 

 value, can only be parodied. In the conscious or 

 unconscious imitations of the major poets by the 

 minor, we get only a suggestion of the manner of 

 the former; their essential quality cannot be repro- 

 duced. 



