ON STYLE

Evening Post, Volume LXXXV, Issue 27, 1 February 1913, Page 10

ON STYLE

Idiosyncrasies of character toll p.veiv more than variety of subjects in their influence on style (writes I. Gu-gory Smith, in the Oxford and Cambridge Review), No two persons are cast in the same mould. Clearly, therefore, tho dtees which is very becoming to <iiio writer or speaker may be very tmlinccming to another. Yet. to the end of time, in defiance of this truism, packs of imitators dog the st-epR of genius, as tho courtiers of Alexander' copied th^ conqueror's wry neck, or the courtiers of George IV. his bulging cravats, of ua the under carter apes thp slouch and shamble of the wagoner. The peculiar style in which Carlyle clothed his oracular utterances suited him and them, the jeikiness and joltiness of his Benleiic* startling tho world into attention, and tho difficulty of unwrapping tho mummy from the cerp-cloths ueceMsitating tho effort of Will, without which the thought cunnot be grn»ped. In fact, tho stylo of Carlyle w part of the man and ot^ his temperament. But it wae good advice of the dying critic to lm friend, "Avoid Carlylepe.* And what is true of Carlylo and hrn copyieta is true widely. Can any great writer be named who has not had a herd of servile imitatoiv at Ilia heels? Is not tho old saying doubly, trebly, true in this application, "Tiie best, if corrupted, becomes tho wolet" ?