SOME CONSIDERATIONS ON STYLE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14853, 2 December 1911, Page 1 (Supplement)

SOME CONSIDERATIONS ON STYLE.

v; ;.' by W.D.A'. -. :,'>:":\f. Lord Haldane is a statesman of greatversatility. Nob content with his herculean labors at the War Office, relieved by spacious musings on modern : philosophy, he has lately found time to deliver an address on style before the Academic Committee of the Royal Literary Society. The Greeks, he pointed out, in their best, periods showed for all time that for perfection of art there must be no divorce between matter and form. "The perfection of form must engage the skill of the artist as bindingly as the perfection of matter." And in this respect the mantle of the Greek has fallen upon the- Frenchman. No other modern people have been so successful as the French "in elevating consideration for style into the natural outcome of a national capacity." The English, on the other hand, in common with other Teutonic races, show a marked tendency to distinguish form from matter, and lay the emphasis on the thing said rather than on the manner of its presentment. And this, in spite of the fact that we possess "a language that is perfectly organised and has a potency inherent in it of expressing fine and delicate shades of meaning," a language, in short, which lends itself more readily to the uses of a master of style than perhaps any other modern tongue. -• ■• '.'',"".

There is nothing in all this particularly new, but it is a condensed statement of scholarly and critical judgement on a matter of vital importance to us all. As a race we pride ourselves •so much on being practical that we occasionally run the risk of letting our practicalness blind us to the finer issues of life., For there are still large sections of the British/ public who are inclined to regard the literary artist with suspicion, if not with a thinly veiled contempt. Is it really worth while, they ask, to spend so much time and so much pains on that which after all only ministers to intellectual or emotional pleasure? Where there is so much to be j done, isn't it a mistake to insist tod much j on the manner of the doing? Know your' subject, the words wilt take the care of themselves, or, to quote , Mrs. Browning, a«; writer who surely had small occasion for self-blame in this particular*■'. ;... ~.;

1 . Let me think r '* ' ■ '. '.' . :, '■ , Or form less and ..the eternal. Trust the Spirit '"■...:....-'•':,'-- ;■''■ •;':...; -. :. }t ■■■ v ;■■;.■ .;■■", As sovran nature does, to make the . form } For otherwise we only imprison spirit And not embody. ' Inward evermore : ~,. . . . To outward, so in life, and so in art. v >

There is plainly no , slight* confusion, 'of thought underlying such counsels as these. They seem to imply, an antagonism be-, tween life and art, thought and expression, and to miss the obvious .truth' that while art ,is the harmoniser, and -reconciler •■ of life expression is the only possible means for r the revelation of thought.'"'The more adequate the expression the more absolutely the thought is liberated to "work its perfect work. . The man' of stumbling lips and halting tongue stands always in -need of an interpreter. He may be intelligible in his difficult speech and broken utterance to ; the select few .who penetrate: by sympathy, to .the heart of his meaning, but to the' . many his,; wisdom remains ' hidden.; And it is a fallacious conclusion that economy of effort in one • direction will necessarily tend to an; increase of, energy in another. The man who affects to disregard form, who will not be at pains *to win mastery, ci : * expression, is apt to impose upon himself, and mistake mere intellectual bungling, and ihcoherency for profundity of thought. ; Arid wo may even < suspect with good grounds •• for our suspicion, that since thought-processes must of necessity be carried, on,: in "words, clarity of expression j. is merely a condition precedent to clarity of thought. For, as Francis 1 , Bacon so profoundly over wrote, ' ''though men ' believe that their : intellect dominates the"; words they use, :. it often happens. that words re-act and impose « a bondage upon, the intellect." i Illustrations will readily occur to all .who are" familiar \ with the rhetoric that 100 often'.passes current for thought; upon political arid other platforms. ' But this is '- a. considera- ' tion that verges upon metaphysic, and; in that branch of inquiry men .find no end.

Lord Haldane closed '"his": indictment of the English for their insensitiveness ;to style with the pregnant suggestion that possibly it was due to the fact, that they had not given the same thought and study to the matter as their .French neighbours have done. -And" in that suggestion he touches the heart of the subject. ' The French' have a saying ''.co qui n'est 'pas ■ clair, n'esb pas francais"—what is not lucid is not ' French. But. they realise that lucidity is not gained without effort,, and concentrate their energies on securing an intelligent training in the art. of writing French. As Mr. Hartog tells us in his interesting little book- on '."The•>,Waiting of English,'.' they are most careful to "adopt the exercises set to the age and intelligence ,of • their .', pupils, and, ' while • they do not. discourage , fluency, they insist from the beginning i on the necessity for careful accuracy in the use, not .merely of words, -but of the exact words requisite to express the thought intended to be conveyed. And this same habit of accurate expression they insist on not merely in the composition class-room but in every department of school A work. In history, in geography, in mathematics, in physics,' in whatever subject is under consideration, answers must be couched in well-turnel phrases, • and : the slipshod ' inaccuracy which is still too frequently tolerated in our own schools is in France instantly penalised. So, from their earliest years, French children are trained to be 'masters of expression. , ..'.,-■. f. r,-.;;,;;:'';] '

But. stylo is more titan depression, though it. is one of • those ' thingsi of which it -is perhaps impossible, to formulate art ''exact definition. Buffon's famous maxim, emphasising as it does <the claims of individuality, "the stylo is the man/', is suggestive as 'far as it goes, but . evades the point' at issue. For in the. proper acceptation of the term, "Style" implies, in > addition to exactness and felicity of phrase, to freshness and originality of point of' view, a certain lift, and elevation of thought the ; power of arresting and holding the attention of good readers, and at the same time a rigid abstinence from tawdry o'rnamont, servile imitation, or that affected mannerism into which, through a perverse excess, of individuality, , or in the periods of decadence, ,it too easily degenerates. And' who is sufficient for ' the - task of condensing these varied/qualities into the strait limits of a definition . . ",' • >