Nor is it merely in the thought that we discern the potency of these qualities residing. It belongs primarily to the fibre of the writer's mind and the deep bent of his character. Through a clean and clear style is revealed a mind clean and clear, a nature too honest to let slipshod expression pass; the opposite holds, too, and a bemuddled mind or a shallow character betrays itself inevitably. Earnestness of conviction or the lack of it, grace or coarseness, are in the soul's grain; the style is their mental photograph. The qualities that the writer would impart to his expression he must cultivate in himself.1 Summary of the Qualities. Corresponding to the main directions that a writer's endeavors for effect may take, the qualities of style reduce themselves to three: Clearness, which answers the endeavor to be understood; For all general aims in discourse these qualities cover the whole range of expression; other qualities being interpreted as aspects of these or as applications of them to purposes more specific. recover it; sense may be so hidden in unrefined and plebeian words, that none but philosophers can distinguish it; and both may be so buried in impurities, as not to pay the cost of their extraction."- JOHNSON, Lives of the Poets, Vol. i, p. 73. 1 The classic utterance of this truth is Milton's: "And long it was not after, when I was confirmed in this opinion, that he, who would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things, ought himself to be a true poem, that is a composition and pattern of the best and honourablest things, not presuming to sing high praises of heroic men or famous cities, unless he have in himself the experience and the practice of all that which is praiseworthy." MILTON, Apology for Smectymnuus. The following remarks on the relation of style-qualities to character were inspired by study of the mind and art of Tennyson: "Clearness in thought and words ought to be a part of a writer's religion; it is certainly a necessary part of his morality. Nay, to follow clearness like a star, clearness of thought, clearness of phrase, in every kind of life, is the duty of all.”STOPFORD BROOKE, Tennyson, his Art and Relation to Modern Life, p. 5. "We have critics not a few who regard sweetness and strength as attributes of style, and are ignorant that they are not attributes of style, but attributes of mind and character, expressed in style." — DIXON, A Tennyson Primer, p. 133. 2 Compare WENDELL, English Composition, p. 193. I. Clearness. To be intelligible, to make one's self understood, is the fundamental aim in all seriously meant writing; an aim prior to and largely promotive of all others. Not only what is to add to the reader's information and knowledge, but whatever is to thrill his emotions or stir his fancy, must come to him first through the brain, the thinking power. Hence the primal need of clearness, in conception and expression. So rigorously is this ideal of intelligibility held by conscientious writers that no word or phrase that would puzzle the dullest reader is willingly tolerated; the supreme aim is, not merely style that may be understood, but style that cannot fail to be understood. No room for the lazy plea, "Not quite right, but near enough," or for the arrogant one, "I cannot write and provide brains too"; the ideal is absolute, the occasion universal. To be clear, the writer must first be sure of a meaning very definite and literal, and then say just what he means, without seeming to say something else, or leaving the reader in doubt what he does say. This requirement, so much easier to define than to satisfy, looks two ways, toward the thought and toward the reader; and accordingly, the quality of clearness takes two quite distinct aspects, each with its dominating usages and procedures. Precision or Clearness in the Thought. - Obviously the first and paramount duty is to be perfectly true to the thought, to set it forth exactly as it is, whether hard or easy, simple or involved. With the plain conceptions and events of everyday 1 "Non ut intellegere possit, sed ne omnino possit non intellegere, curandum.” QUINTILIAN.- Economy applies here; see p. 24, I. 2 The technical name for this literal core of expression is denotation; see WENDELL, English Composition, passim, and especially Chapter vi. "The secret of clearness," he says, "lies in denotation." This important subject of denotation and connotation will come up for detailed discussion later; see below, pp. 34, 46, 75. 3 This first duty has already been repeatedly suggested, pp. 14, 18. An life this is no great problem; ideas do not transcend the compass of the commonest words; but when it comes to strenuous and deep thought, requiring close analysis and discrimination, evidently clearness and simplicity are not synonymous. easy word for an abstruse idea, while it may produce a semblance of clearness, may actually becloud the thought more than it helps it. Some degree of difficulty, as exacted by the sphere of ideas in which one is moving, cannot be avoided. The only sure resource is to work for the exact setting-forth of the idea, nothing else, nothing less; and the clearness thus obtained, whether ideally easy or not, will be clearness of thought, yielding a shapely idea, or as it is called, clear-cut expression. Such precision depends mainly on the writer's vocabulary, the words he chooses to name his thought, rather than on the way words are put together. The following are the principal aspects that the endeavor for precise denotation assumes: 1. Choice of words for the sake of their unique aptness, their fine shades and degrees of meaning, their delicate implications and associations. 2. The judicious employment of helping and limiting expressions, such defining elements as are needed to fix the true sense and coloring in which the word should be understood. 3. Where the thought may gain by it, the juxtaposition of words whose relation to each other, whether of likeness or contrast, throws mutual light. This may often be done so unobtrusively as to attract no special attention, yet be very effective for its object. While precision is the first and most incontestable object in style, the literary ideal is not satisfied with being precise and nothing else. Too exclusive endeavor after precision makes the style stiff and pedantic, like, for instance, a law document; this fault is of course to be guarded against. The words and colorings may be just as true to the idea, and yet the pains of choosing them be so concealed that the reader absorbs the thought without realizing the perfection of the art; this is what a writer of true literary sense will work for. Perspicuity: or Clearness in the Construction. As soon as the claim of perfect fidelity to the thought is satisfied, the next step is to adapt the style to the comprehension of the reader. This, as has just been said, is practicable in different degrees, according to the intrinsic difficulty of the thought; but in all cases the aim to be sought is the greatest plainness and simplicity of which the thought is capable. The derivation of the word perspicuity, denoting the property of being readily seen through, or as we express it by another word, transparency, is a just indication of this quality of style. Such simplicity of texture, such freedom from intricacy it is, that we think of first under the general conception of clearness. It is not necessarily a bald or rudimental style; it may indeed be the backbone and support of a full, richly colored, even elaborate scheme of treatment, the unmarked source of its vitality and power.1 That aspect of clearness which we thus name perspicuity depends, as intimated above, for the most part on grammatical and logical construction, on the way in which the reader is kept aware of the mutual relations of words and phrases, and of their orderly progress in building up the sentence and paragraph. The following are the general aspects that such regard for structure assumes: — i. A keen grammatical sense; instant adjustment of all syntactical relations and connections of words; constant watch 1 "He [the great author] may, if so be, elaborate his compositions, or he may pour out his improvisations, but in either case he has but one aim, which he keeps steadily before him, and is conscientious and single-minded in fulfilling. That aim is to give forth what he has within him; and from his very earnestness it comes to pass that, whatever be the splendor of his diction or the harmony of his periods, he has with him the charm of an incommunicable simplicity."- NEWMAN, Idea of a University, p. 291. fulness against the two foes that most beset composition: ambiguity, or structure that suggests two possible meanings; and vagueness, or structure that cannot with certainty be reduced to any definite meaning. 2. Making sure that elements which are to be thought of together, whether as principal and subordinate or as paired and balanced against each other, be so treated by expression and arrangement that the reader shall not fail to mark the relation. 3. Looking out for the joints and hinges of the structure, that no gaps be left unbridged, and no new thought be introduced too abruptly to produce its due effect. An ideally clear thought is clear-moving, a continuous progress. While centering chiefly in construction, perspicuity is not unmindful of choice of words and figures, so far at least as to require the simplest words and the homeliest illustrations consistent with accuracy. To go farther than this, employing on the score of their plainness words and illustrations not discriminative enough, is to sin against the thought, and in the long run to deceive with a false semblance of clearness.1 Where such a clash between precision and perspicuity occurs, the only safety is in keeping to precision. The difficulty may, however, almost always be remedied, as we note in the usage of careful writers, by repeating hard ideas in simpler or more everyday terms. Clearness based in the Intellect. As related to the writer himself, clearness, in its double aspect of precision and perspicuity, may be called the intellectual quality of style, the quality wherein we see predominantly the thinking brain at 66 1 See above, p. 30.- Minto (Manual of English Prose Literature, p. 494) mentions this as a discount to the much-famed clearness of Paley's style. Perspicuity," he says, "is possessed by Paley in a very high degree, but the precision of his statements and definitions is a good deal affected by his paramount desire to be popular. Too clear-headed to run into confusion, he is at the same time anxious to accommodate himself to the plainest intelligence, and, like many simple writers, purchases simplicity at the expense of exactness." |