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438 THEORIES OF STYLE IN LITERATURE
might as well say, Take care to be as strong as Sandow, and
as active as Prince Ranjitsinhji, and whatever you do, take
care not to grow a nose like Cyrano de Bergerac in the new
play!
An ingenious professor of literature has lately ventured
to commit himself to an entire treatise on Style, wherein
he has propounded everything that can usefully be said about
this art, in a style which illustrates things that you should
avoid.
At the end of his book he declares that style cannot
be taught. This is true enough ;
but if this had been the first,
instead of the last,
have been written at all.
sentence of his piece, the book would not
I remember that, when I stood for
the Hertford Scholarship, we had to write a Latin epigram on
the thesis
Omnia liberius nullo poscente
jatemur, (I replied )
Carmina cur poscas, carmine si sit
opus?
And so I say now. Style cannot be taught. 4 And this
perhaps puts out of court the professor's essay, and no doubt
my own also. Nothing practical can be said about Style.
And no good can come to a young student by being anxious
about Style.
None of you by taking thought can add one
cubit to his stature; no ! nor one gem to his English prose,
unless nature has endowed him with that rare gift
a subtle
ear for the melody of words,
a fastidious instinct for the
connotations of a phrase.
You will, of course, understand that I am speaking of
Style in that higher sense as it was used by Horace, Swift,
Voltaire, and great writers, that is, Style
as an element of
permanent literature. It is no doubt very easy by practice
and good advice to gain a moderate facility in writing current
language, and even to get the trick of turning out lively