Of these three the prime element is: Clarity.

Herbert Spencer in his profound little essay, on "The Philosophy of Style," written, not to define style, but to indicate the elements of good style, after referring to certain current rules of composition, in order to obtain effective style, says:

On seeking for some clue to the law underlying these current maxims, we may see shadowed forth in many of them, the importance of economizing the reader's or hearer's attention.

To so present ideas that they may be apprehended with the least possible mental effort, is the desideratum towards which most of the rules above quoted point.

When we condemn writing that is wordy, or confused, or intricate when we praise this style as easy, and blame that as fatiguing, we consciously or unconsciously assume this desideratum as our standard of judgment.

Regarding language as an apparatus of symbols for the conveyance of thought, we may say that, as in mechanical apparatus, the more simple and the better arranged its parts, the greater will be the effect produced. In either case, whatever force is absorbed by the machine is deducted from the result.

A reader, or listener has at each moment but a limited amount of mental power available. To recognize and interpret the symbols presented to him, requires part of this power; to arrange and combine the images suggested requires a further part; and only that which remains can be used for realizing the thought conveyed. Hence, the more time and attention it takes to receive and understand each sentence, the less time and attention can be given to the contained idea; and the less vividly will that idea be conceived. (Italics ours.)

We could quote Aristotle, Longinus, and Buffon to sustain Spencer in his dictum: that clarity, lucidity, is the first essential of all good style.

Now, this is true not only of style in literature but in all the arts, since every art is but a language for conveying thought or emotion. The chief aim of an artist—at least one who is not a duffer and in pursuit merely of a temporary notoriety, but an artist who seeks to produce works that will endure-his chief aim will always be: to convey his thought to the public in the clearest, most forceful, and in the least attention-consuming, style and manner.

Rivarol said:

Ce qui n'est pas clair, n'est pas français.

"That which is not clear, is not French."

In short, clarity demands that there must be no mystery, no confusion; nothing cryptic or puzzling in any work of art, if the artist hopes to conquer his audience. And that is true of all of the eight arts.

Now, as to Force in style: through the economy of words, this is finely shown in the following masterly analysis by Herbert Spencer, in his "Facts and Comments," of a phrase of another "stylist," Matthew Arnold:

Another example is furnished by the apostle of culture, Mr. Matthew Arnold. On the page of the Academy, preceding that from which I have just quoted, there is a laudatory essay on him, under the title Reputations Reconsidered. In it is reproduced one of his sentences with this introduction: "His own judgment was perpetually guided by the principles laid down in a famous passage beginning:

"There can be no more useful help for discovering what poetry belongs to the class of the truly excellent, and can therefore do us most good, than to have always in one's mind lines and expressions of the great masters, and to apply them as a touchstone to other poetry." (Essays in Criticism, 2d Ser., p. 16.)

My first remark is that the phrase "useful help" conceals a pleonasm. A help is defined as a thing which aids or assists, and a thing which does that is a useful thing; so that a "useful help" is a useful useful thing. Instead of "no more useful help" he should have writen "no better help.” We come next to the clause"what poetry belongs to the class of truly excellent." Why all these words? What belongs to the class of the truly excellent is necessarily truly excellent. Why then speak of a class? The phrase should be:-"What poetry is truly excellent." Then, again, the clause "to apply them as a touchstone" is, to say the least, awkward. Surely it should be to "apply them as touchstones." Once more, what is the use of the final words "to other poetry"? The first part of the sentence has already implied that "other poetry" is a thing to be tested. Hence, leaving out intermediate clauses, the statement is that, for discovering what poetry is "truly excellent," certain tests should be applied "to other poetry"! To convey the intended meaning the sentence should have run: There can be no better helps for discovering what poetry is truly excellent, and can therefore do us most good, than lines and expressions of the great masters, kept always in mind and applied as touchstones. Or otherwise: There is no better way of dis

covering what poetry is truly excellent, and can therefore do us most good, than to keep always in mind lines and expressions of the great masters and apply them as touchstones. Thirteen words are saved and the meaning definitely expressed.

To illustrate still more the profound significance of Herbert Spencer's dictum that "Economy of attention" is the fundamental requirement of all good style, in any work of art in which an artist wishes to successfully convey an emotion or thought, let us cite a few short poems. A little reflection will convince the Reader that the less words in a poem, or lines and masses in a picture, or in a statue or building, used by the artist to convey his message, the more forceful and vivid will be the effect upon the reader, spectator, or auditor, provided the words, lines, colors, etc., are so arranged as to be easily and quickly understood and grasped by the reader, spectator, or hearer. Some people imagine that a poem, to be great, must be long, and in a mystic, Browning-esque language, such as no one can easily understand. Great Error!

Some poems, and among the immortal ones, are in only one verse, and in the simplest language. Here is one by Burns. It is the second-last stanza of his "Address to the Unco Guid," but it is really a poem in itself:

Then gently scan your brother man,

Still gentler sister woman;

Tho' they may gang a kennin' wrang;

To step aside is human:

One point must still be greatly dark

The moving why they do it;
And just as lamely can ye mark,
How far perhaps they rue it.

Here is another, "The Chambered Nautilus," which sea urchin increases the size of the successive chambers it inhabits in its shell, as it grows older. It is by Oliver Wendell Holmes, the delightful "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table":

Build thee more stately mansions, O my Soul!

As the swift seasons roll

Leave thy low-vaulted past!

Let each new Temple, nobler than the last,

Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,

Till thou at length art free,

Leaving thine out-grown shell by life's unresting sea.

Such gems, of poetry-arousing verse, in which not a superfluous word is used and no lines loaded down with too much "literary baggage," go straight to the soul, like an unencumbered arrow and, so, quickly exalt us to a high emotional state, a poetic state; and, thus, they successfully console us, encourage us, stimulate our life currents, by lifting us to higher planes of thought and feeling, and, so, justify the remark of the Sage who said:

Let me write a people's songs and I care not who makes its laws.

And what is true of poetry is true of all the arts.

As to Melody of style, we will merely say: this requires not only clarity, hence ease of comprehension of the thought of the artist; economy of words and lines, to increase the quickness of the penetrating power of the work; but it needs rhythmic elegance of lines, such as have the power of "cradling" the eye, or ear, or mind, as we pointed out in our chapter on Beauty.

This agreeable, melodious cradling is the least quantity of sensuous pleasure we have a right to expect in any work which is put forth as a work of art, which an artist troubles us to look at, be it in poetry or sculpture; painting or architecture; music or drama. If, in addition to that, the artist can add to this cradling, a soul-lifting, exalting power, so as to make his work not only elegant but also sublime, so much the better.

Bulwer Lytton said:

Refined manners are more important than religion.

The same is true of art.

A work of art, to endure, must have not merely style, but a beautiful style, not just any old style. It must have also, not only an effective manner, but a refined and restrained manner, not a manner that shouts out, like a circus tout: "Gentlemen! I am here! Behold me and nothing but me!" It must have not only originality, but a rational and fine originality. By that we mean: it must have no novelty so strange and weird as not to be understood by the man of average intelligence. We mean a rational originality, one not detached from life. For, an agreeable and acceptable originality must, after all, be the commonplace, plus an agreeable difference.

Works that do not fill these requirements are destined to encumber the earth for a short time only. They may find

their way to the walls of some library or museum and remain there for a time; but the pressure of public common-sense will, as sure as the tides, relegate them to the art-morgue and, ultimately, to the junk-pile!

Mr. Brownell's reputation, as a writer, rests largely on his admirable "French Traits." In that, he was always clear and simple. Lately, he has become so involved, so stylistic, or so mannered, in his writing, that many of his long paragraphs are irritating, because they are so obscure that they force you either to painfully grope your way slowly, from word to word, or to reread the entire paragraphs, to get the true meaning of the matter. Hence, some of his "fine writing makes difficult reading." But, now and then, when he completely forgets his idol, Style, he wings off a delightful paragraph. Here is one of his latest:

For the effect of the spirit of style in a work of art is precisely to add wings to it. The effect of following any objective ideal is elevation. Uplift means first of all getting out of one's self. It appeals in this way to the imagination as adventure does. But it also involves what adventure does not, definite aspiration rather than vague enthusiasm. And this aspiration to achieve rather than to experience, to reach a goal rather than to explore the unknown, to attain the normal rather than invent the novel, springs from perceiving the existence, in the ideal sphere, of a quality for which we have no other word so apt as perfection. (Italics ours.)

There are epochs in which too much attention is paid, not to good style, but to personal style, or the personal element in style. Those epochs we call interregnum-epochs. They always appear between two other, creative, epochs. That is to say: an epoch will arrive in which a national wave of emotion, of exaltation, will hunger for expression, and this in an impersonal style and manner, an epoch in which both public and artists are busy trying to realize, or to express, a national ideal, and during which there will exist a large amount of, if not complete, social harmony.

During such an epoch, a general style will be created and become dominant, and personal manner will not be hectically paraded by the artists, because it will seem gross, petty, and vulgar, for a man, at that time, to obtrude himself and his particular manner, instead of trying to express the national emo