mr. herbert spencer’s famous essay, entitled, “the philosophy of style”—by which is meant the psychology of style—propounds what we may term the economic theory of literary effect. the secret, he tells us, of the pleasing effect of diction, rhythm, figurative language, sentence structure, lies in this, that these are labour-saving devices to economize mental effort, that by their use we get with the least attention the greatest apprehension; and hence we receive pleasure as reflex of the facile and full cognition functioning. literary pleasure is thus brought under the law of pleasure in general. take the quotation from shelley cited by mr. spencer:—

“methought among the lawns together

we wandered, underneath the young grey dawn,

and multitudes of dense white fleecy clouds

were wandering in thick flocks along the mountains,

shepherded by the slow unwilling wind.”

you have read this with pleasure, and is not the source of this pleasure the ease and celerity with which the mind reaches the “desired conception”? vividly and forcibly the mind is led by cunning use of phrase and rhythm and figure to realize the picture, and there is a glow of pleasure in the reaction from the facility. language is a medium for the transfer of ideas, and when it accomplishes this office most effectively, as in the present case, and acts upon the mind so clearly and forcibly that nolens volens 311the reader at once apprehends and comprehends, he feels a thrill of pleasure therewith, just as there is pleasure connected with the rapid and easy assimilation of well cooked food. before developing and criticising this theory i may remark in passing that blair, the rhetorician, in treating of the structure of sentences foreshadows in a way the economic theory when he writes that “to have the relation of every word and member of a sentence marked in the most proper and distinct manner, gives, not clearness only, but grace and beauty to a sentence, making the mind pass smoothly and agreeably along the parts of it.” this surely implies that ?sthetical pleasure of style may be based in a psychological economy and facility. it is indeed a commonplace remark, “the book is so well written that you cannot mistake or miss its meaning”; wherein the identification of style with intelligibility becomes a truism. certainly mr. spencer has not in the economic theory propounded anything radically new.

we note at the outset that while this pleasure of style may result from economy it is not the pleasure of the conscious economizer. the reader who is enjoying a very readable book has a distinct pleasure from him who views with satisfaction his finishing a book at a great and unexpected saving of mental energy. we have here the direct pleasure from economical exercise of the faculties contrasted with the indirect introspective-retrospective pleasure at economy effected. many persons take as much pleasure in making mental energy go as far as possible, but this pleasure in economy is obviously not the pleasure of style, which is not reflective, but na?ve and direct impression.

language, either spoken or written, by its more or less effective modes of accomplishing its office does then awaken a simple and direct pleasure, according to the general law that pleasure accompanies efficient acts as a sanction and stimulus. it is obvious that style for spoken 312language, oratorical style, is precedent in its formation to style for written language or literary style, and that it has greatly affected literary style throughout its whole history. yet the distinctness of the two modes is affirmed by the common observation that a speech, impressively pleasing to listen to, often does not read well. while it may be true that in its origin literary style borrowed certain devices from oratorical, yet in its latest evolution the written page is far from being the speaking page. the book is not a substitute speaker addressing us, and modes of expression which are most fitting for conversation and oration, though sometimes used by writers, are alien to pure literary art. however, i cannot pursue this interesting subject, nor yet can i here treat of the origin of style more than to merely observe that it is considerably later than the origin of language itself. neither the original uncouth speech, whether interjectional or onomatopoetic, nor the earliest rude inscriptions can be said to have style, oratorical or literary. style is the offspring of specialization; it first appeared when men recognised some one as particularly gifted for fitting expression, and chose him as spokesman because of this ability to communicate what was desired to be said with special force and clearness. thus arises the orator who achieves and invents oratorical style. likewise the writer is one who is selected for his special abilities in expression by word of pen, and the scribe, clerk, and public letter writer arise and evolve literary style as a skilful way of effectively conveying ideas and impressions by written language. the reader is also evolved, and in the reciprocal relation of demand and supply and the competitive struggle to secure readers, the writer seeks ever more and more to please and interest by introducing and perfecting various inventions to make the reading of his work very easy and enjoyable. thus it comes that readableness is the natural test for reading matter.

the economic theory of style in fine art plainly implies 313at bottom physiological economy, for all psychological economy can only be effected on this basis. the psychology of style must rest on a physiology of style. we know that the pleasures of form and colour in sculpture and painting are the reflex of physiological functions as easily and completely performed. the curve of beauty is such because the eye follows it more easily than other lines; the pleasing colour is such because the physiological stimulus is accomplished in a normal and facile way. and as visibility is the test for the arts which appeal to the eye, so audibility is for the fine art which appeals to the ear. pleasure from music is the reflex of aural functioning accomplishing the most with least strain. now the pleasure which comes from literary style must similarly be sought in some physiological mode. while plain print and good paper are incidental pleasures in reading, they are not primarily due to the stylist, who does, however, appeal to the eye by the due proportioning of long and short words, sentences and paragraphs. though there is no conscious intent by the stylist, yet it may be believed that the use of certain letters and certain successions of letters as more or less easy for the eye is a matter of some importance. some letters and some combinations are ocularly more pleasing than others, and this is clearly founded on economic physiological conditions. it is greatly to be desired that physiologists would invent new alphabetical forms which should be most adapted to the eye. it is scarcely to be supposed that our present a b c's are the simplest and easiest line-combinations for the eye. when the visual side of reading is made as easy as possible, the general reflex sense of facility and pleasure therewith is certainly increased. the artificial languages now being exploited, as volapuk, ought and would effect a great physiological saving, as would also be accomplished by a phonetic spelling.

but the direct visible function of style is certainly far 314inferior to the indirect. the power of style is very largely in stimulating pleasing visual images. the main element in literature we are told is vision and imagination, which is but a restimulation and recombination of ocular experiences. sensation is the source and strong basis for all those faint revivals which are so aptly and pleasantly called up by the literary artist, and hence when the poet speaks of “the light which never was on sea or land,” this is really meaningless, since all our light impressions are terrestrial in their nature. to the blind man the whole visual effect, direct and indirect, of style is lost; his imaging power must be in some other sense.

literature is then, like sculpture and painting, largely a visual art, and its pleasure-giving quality is the reflex of visibility. mere form and colour may in a sense constitute a picture; though in general we demand that it mean something, suggest something. a picture is such as depicting something, and so being more than a study in form or colour. the mere direct pleasure of ocular sensation plays a large part in graphic and glyptic art, yet it is commonly conceived that some measure of imagination, that is, some indirect visible function, is necessary even here. sculpture and painting depend like literature on both direct and indirect vision as physiological and psychological basis of ?sthetic pleasure.

but in a secondary way literary style depends for its effect upon auditory sensations both direct and revival. we mentally, and often orally, pronounce as we read, and so appreciate sonorous quality and onomatopoetic force. alliteration, rhyme, euphony, and rhythm play certainly a considerable part in the charm of style, and literature on this side approaches and passes gradually into music. euphony answers to melody, and rhyme and rhythm to harmony. literature may become for us merely a succession of pleasing sounds, as when we hum over some favourite lines of poetry, or when, ignorant of the italian 315language, we listen to an opera. some of milton’s lists of names in such lines as these,—

“of cambalu, seat of cathayan can,

and samarchand by oxus, temer’s throne”—

charm merely by the flow and fulness of sound. but the stylist aims, not merely at formal sensuous beauty in tone and cadence of language, he aims to suggest pleasing sounds, and to awaken the auditory imagination, and to harmonize sense with sound as is done so successfully by poets like tennyson and prosaists like sir thomas browne. all this auditory side of literary style is lost on the deaf, as the visual is lost on the blind. literature as an art is neither blind like music nor deaf like painting, but it is a compound art, visual-auditory, and thus, by virtue of its range, is the greatest of the arts. it is true that indirectly and in a very limited way painting can suggest sounds, and music sights, but literature, both directly and indirectly, can freely and fully give both. word-music and word-painting are both methods of literary style. in short, the explanation of the pleasure of style is pleasing sight or sound directly or indirectly given, and the explanation of the pleasing character of the sight or sound is as the reflex of easy economical physiological functioning as basis of easy economical psychic function.

but we have now to ask whether economy of attention is the sole psychological secret of style, and whether, indeed, it is always necessary to style. is style, like grammar or orthography, merely a more or less conventionalized device to make intelligibility certain and easy? is our reading always the more pleasurable as it is the more effortless? the pleasure of facility certainly bears a large part in much of our literary enjoyment, but there is another and opposite law of pleasure which, i think, often determines pleasure in style. to accomplish much with no exertion, to slide down a long hill, gives pleasure, but there is also a pleasure in exertion, in climbing hills 316as well as sliding down. the pleasures of strenuous activity of attention form a certain element in literary effect. the writer may do too much for the reader, may make everything so simple and easy that the reader has nothing to do, but is carried along without volition and curiosity, losing all joy of attainment and grasp. for my own part, i often find authors too fluent and facile, especially among the french, and sometimes among the english, as, for instance, in some of john stuart mill’s writings. these do not leave enough for me to do, and led skilfully along so smooth a road that i am not conscious of moving, i lose the pleasure of achievement, of the sense of enlargement of conscious powers. easy got, easy goes, is the law here as elsewhere. the pleasure of acquirement is directly as the amount of attention exercised.

mr. spencer in discussing this matter remarks that, as “language is the vehicle of thought, we may say that in all cases the friction and inertia of the vehicle deduct from its efficiency, and that in composition the chief thing to be done is, to reduce the friction and inertia to the smallest amounts.” but it must be remembered that motion is not only against friction but by friction. the rail may be too smooth as well as too rough. every locomotive, for a given piece of track with a given gradient, has a certain co-efficient of friction for its most effective working, above and below which there is alike decrease of efficiency; and in engineering it is equally a problem to keep friction up as to reduce it. so i say of style, that it may be too smooth and facile, and may reduce mental friction to so low a point that there is no grasp and no real progress. a sentence of hooker or milton, magnificent stylists though they are, can, as an affair of economy of attention, be greatly improved by breaking it up into a number of simple plain sentences after the primer fashion, the cat mews, the dog barks, etc.; but this process certainly is not an improvement of their style. but if 317economy of attention were the sole secret of style, certainly the more economy we introduce the greater and better should be the style. professor sherman, of the university of nebraska, in a recent article shows that heaviness—that which requires “constant effort in reading”—is due to the number of words per sentence, which has been reduced in the course of the history of english prose from an average of fifty words a sentence in chaucer and spenser to five in the columns of a modern, low-grade, popular story-paper; but it obviously cannot be maintained that the style of the story-paper is ten times better than that of spenser’s state of ireland.

we might then set up with plausibility an exactly opposite theory to the economic, and maintain that the secret of style is in exciting us to the greatest attentive effort, and that the best style is that which rouses us to the severest mental exertion. however, i believe that these two opposite methods of style are complementary. the great stylist is he who strikes the exact mean between over facility and over difficulty, and touches the exact co-efficient of mental friction in the reader, at which his whole power of mind comes into highest and most harmonious and effective exercise. the accomplished stylist most cleverly throws in questions, suggests doubts, and defers answers. to read his book is not a toboggan slide, but an obstacle race. what is plot interest but a skilful putting of obstacles in the reader’s way, deferring and thwarting his expectations, putting him on the qui vive of attention? by the development of plot the novelist and dramatist plays hide and seek with the reader. no cunning artist reveals at once his whole thought in a blaze of light, but he mystifies and draws in half-tones, thus to stir you to reach out and grasp his meaning.

but we are as yet far from exhausting the psychological significance of pleasure in style when we trace it to a reflex from either decrease or increase of attentive effort. 318the pleasure we have so far considered is na?ve and direct; it is from literary art rather than in or at literary art as such. the child and the most ordinary reader derive from books a simple and natural pleasure which they do not reflect upon, and do not in any wise conceive the ways and means by which the effect is produced. indeed, in the presence of the most lucid and perfect art these readers, like partridge at the play, take everything as a matter of course, as just the way they would themselves express it. the dilettante alone tastes the pleasure in style as such; as an art, an adaptation of means to ends, he alone appreciates the delicate adjustment of expression to thought, the choice diction, the deft management of word and phrase. the quality of this technical pleasure in style is exemplified in its highest form in this note of a great artist-critic, shelley, appended to his fine translation of the opening chorus in “faust”:—

"such is a literal translation of this astonishing chorus; it is impossible to represent in another language the melody of the versification; even the volatile strength and delicacy of the ideas escape in the crucible of translation, and its reader is surprised to find a caput mortuum."

the psychological nature of this pleasure in style is obviously quite distinct from the direct pleasures from reading which have been previously discussed. here is pleasure in literary art, not for what it brings, but for its own sake. the distinction between the pleasure the average tourist takes in travelling swiftly and smoothly in a de luxe train, and that taken by the professional engineer inspecting the high-speed locomotive, is analogous in quantity and quality to the distinctive pleasures of critical and uncritical appreciation of fine art. but we have as yet only cleared the ground toward ascertaining the psychological rationale of literary style. we have marked only general causes of literary pleasure, we have noticed in this pleasure only those elements which flow 319from the psychological and physiological basis of all pleasure as reflex of functioning. that we admire and take pleasure in nice adjustment of means to ends is also a general law of pleasure with all who act teleologically, and are capable of appreciating actions of this kind. but is there not a specific quality in the ?sthetic pleasure from or in literary art which has not yet been accounted for? certainly the common expression, “more forcible than elegant,” as applied to spoken or written language, denotes that for the popular consciousness style is somewhat more than and different from mere force and consequent ease and largeness of apprehension. we hear a very loud sound with greater ease than smaller sounds, there is economy of attention, yet this does not bestow ?sthetic quality on the great sound. at the renderings of the finest music we are often called on to strain the ear, and the mental receptiveness as a whole to the utmost, in order to hear, note, and appreciate the delicate effects. so in literary art it is not that which speaks most loudly and strongly to the mind that thereby becomes the best style. in fact, the most forcible method of expression is often, as is generally acknowledged, slang, which is debarred from style. literary style seems, then, more than a mental labour-saving machine. as a utilitarian device it certainly does save mental exertion, and gives rapidity, accuracy, and facility to psychic function. like grammar, a mechanic rhetoric is useful, and we receive a pleasure from its use as from any other mechanism of man’s industry; and further, we may take a certain pride and pleasure in its consciously recognised effectiveness. however, we have not yet reached style in the higher sense, which may be clear and forcible, but must be dignified, graceful, and beautiful. for purposes of business, for conventional communication, for science, for philosophy, language fulfils its end in stating accurately, clearly, and forcibly; but style as literary art is more than instrument 320to intelligibility, it has an independent office of its own. language in the lower service as a medium of communication is a lens which cannot be too transparent; but in the higher service to fine art, language is rather a mosaic window of stained glass which both absorbs and transmits light, which both conceals and reveals, which we look at as well as through. in literary art or style, language has a value of beauty for itself alone, as well as a value of use as a means of communication.

but the root of style is in emotion; it is as expression of emotion, and in the main of one kind of emotion, that language rises to style. all emotions influence language expression, and any one may, under certain conditions, lead towards literary art; there is an eloquence of wrath and of fear, of hate and of love, and these emotions may induce artistic creativeness in written language; but the main impulse to art is in the feeling for beauty per se. this is a certain mode of emotional delight which every one who has felt it knows at once in its quality as quite distinct as a psychic mode. how literary style rises and falls with ?sthetic emotion might be exemplified by a wide range of quotations, but an example or two must suffice. this, from one of shelley’s letters, will, i trust, illustrate the point:—

“my dear p——, i wrote to you the day before our departure from naples. we came by slow journeys, with our own horses, to rome, resting one day at mola di gaeta, at the inn called villa di cicerone—from being built on the ruins of his villa, whose immense substructions overhang the sea, and are scattered among the orange groves. nothing can be lovelier than the scene from the terraces of the inn. on one side precipitous mountains whose bases slope into an inclined plane of olive and orange copses, the latter forming, as it were, an emerald sky of leaves, starred with innumerable globes of 321their ripening fruit, whose rich splendour contrasted with the deep green foliage; on the other the sea, bounded on one side by the antique town of gaeta, and the other by what appears to be an island, the promontory of circe. from gaeta to terracina the whole scenery is of the most sublime character. at terracina precipitous conical crags of immense height shoot into the sky and overhang the sea. at albano we arrived again in sight of rome. arches after arches in unending lines stretching across the uninhabited wilderness, the blue defined line of the mountains seen between them, masses of nameless ruin standing like rocks out of the plain, and the plain itself, with its billowy and unequal surface, announced the neighbourhood of rome. and what shall i say to you of rome? if i speak of the inanimate ruins, the rude stones piled upon stones which are the sepulchres of the fame of those who once arrayed them with the beauty which has faded, will you believe me insensible to the vital, the almost breathing creations of genius yet subsisting in their perfection?”

this letter opens with language as method of conventional commonplace communication. the second and third sentences are barely tinged by ?sthetic emotion, as in “immense substructions” and “lovelier”; but it is not till the fourth sentence that style fairly begins. then it rapidly falls away in the fifth, sixth, and seventh sentences, to arise again with a new wave of ?sthetic emotion, which progresses through the remainder of the quotation. the culminating points of the ?sthetic emotion are precisely the culminating points of style, namely, in the phrases, “an emerald sky of leaves, starred with innumerable globes of their ripening fruit,” and in “sepulchres of the fame of those who once arrayed them with the beauty which has faded.” what constitutes the peculiar attractiveness of these expressions is this, that they are rich in ?sthetic feeling, and communicate it to us. we are by 322the power of style sharers in high delights. in the first case we are awakened to a visualizing, to a sensuous beauty, though compounded with other elements, through metaphor; and in the second case the emotion is a complex of sensuous and spiritual elements.

take also the verses from shelley already quoted. mr. spencer, in commenting on these lines, has correctly pitched upon the word “shepherded” as the culminating point; but when he intimates that the beauty and pleasing effect is due to the “distinctness with which it calls up the feature of the scene, bringing the mind by a bound to the desired conception,” we must dissent. this purely utilitarian explanation fails to recognise that poetic metaphor is confusing—here two classes of objects, clouds and sheep—and misleading, except to the poetic mind. a writer who was aiming purely at clearness and correctness of imaging, as a popular scientific writer, might mention the clouds as like patches of white wool; but he would not bring in the extraneous ideas of sheep and shepherd. if mr. spencer were trying to give us a vivid idea of clouds, he would surely not speak in this purely poetic fashion. it is a mode of fancy and emotion which the poet is indulging when he writes these lines, and not an intellectual impulse to clarify and illustrate. if mr. spencer receives them in this latter spirit, he misses their psychic content and explanation. poetry is only intelligible to the poetic, and the german pedant who emended “celia, drink to me only with thine eyes,” to “celia, wink to me only with thine eyes,” was certainly economizing attention and rendering conception easy, but at the expense of poetic beauty. the source of the pleasure we take in poetic style—the highest and purest form of literary art—is evidently not for its intelligibility, at least primarily, but its ?sthetic quality, an expression of a peculiar emotional attitude toward objects.

to illustrate this psychological distinction between the 323sense of beauty as inherent in style, and style as mere force and clearness, i instance further only this sentence from mr. w. d. howell’s italian sketches, describing a side wheel steamer in motion: “the wheel of the steamer was as usual chewing the sea, and finding it unpalatable, and making vain efforts at expectoration.” this is the ne plus ultra of a pseudo literary style, of affected and strained literary art. an ugly metaphor, forcible and clear enough, is relentlessly pursued to its ugliest conclusion. here is style in pin feathers, and we are glad to remember that it was writ in callow youth. it brings “the mind by a bound to the desired conception,” but this does not sanction it as fine art, for it is utterly without taste and beauty.

i believe then from considering the previous examples—and they might be indefinitely extended—that the main function of literary art is not intelligibility, and that pleasure in style in its specific quality does not arise out of economy of attention, but it is a direct communication of pleasant ?sthetic emotion artistically conveyed. intelligibility is a regulative by-law of art, but it is neither standard nor goal. literary art is then a compromise between intellectual and emotional motives, between sense and sensibility. the natural choice and order of words for easiest apprehension is rarely the artistic order, as every littérateur knows full well. it is, for example, simplest and clearest to repeat the best and exact word, yet the literary artist avoids, and rightly, the repetition of words in the same sentence or paragraph. thus also, while, as mr. spencer suggests, rhythm and euphony may often help sense, yet i believe they as often distract from it. we often tend to turn over in a very senseless way words and verses which please the ear. as language is both an organ for meaning and for beauty, literary art, like architectural, is always a compromise between utility and beauty, that is, neither literature nor architecture are pure and perfectly independent arts. however, it is possible 324that poetic license may, as has already been done to some extent in english, ultimately develop a pure poetic language, entirely distinct from the utilitarian product, and bound by none of its practical rules; then and then only will literature become a pure art.

further, that literary art does not always imply clearness and consequent economy of attention is evident when we reflect that the nature of emotion is to disturb the mind, and hence also the language expression. incoherence, dimness, darkness, as qualities of ?sthetic emotion, render literary art correspondingly broken and obscure. the weird, fantastic, and mysterious issues in style which is far from being easily intelligible. in the dreamy poetry of the orient all is hazy and evanescent, and the mind strives in vain for clear impressions, yet here is the peculiar charm of style. among occidentals william blake, with his childish incoherence, and robert browning, with his harsh abruptness, have a certain obscurity, but both are great stylists and great poets.

style then is at bottom something quite distinct from either ease or difficulty of apprehension. it is founded, not on apprehension at all, but on emotional receptiveness. hence very active and intellectual natures seem ever debarred from really entering the realms of art, because they ever fail to appreciate that the function of art is not practical, or ethical, or scientific, or philosophic, but emotional. the man of business, of politics, of science, of thought, cannot give himself up without questioning to be thrilled and suffused by the unanalyzable charm of mere beauty. such natures seem incapable of receiving, they must get and acquire, and so they miss all that art to which the only open sesame is a quiet inattention and a wise passiveness. the kingdom of art is not taken by violence, and the violent do not take it by mere intellectual force.

as to the origin and nature of the feeling for beauty 325in style as for beauty in general, the reason may be sought in survivals of primitive pleasures. thus the expression, before quoted, “starred with innumerable globes of their ripening fruit,” aside from the pleasure in sonorous quality and artistic construction, pleases mainly as awakening the feeling for natural beauty. but what is the psychological explanation for this ?sthetic emotion in presence of tree, fruit, flower, sky, and all landscape features. it may largely be a revival of feelings felt long since by our arboreal and forest-haunting ancestors, “combinations of states which were organized in the race, during barbarous times, when its pleasurable activities were chiefly among the woods and waters” (spencer, psychology, sect. 214). in the woods and by the streams there tends to revive the long outgrown physical emotion; the old savage feelings of delight and excitement in the chase come back to the civilized man, and in stealthy approach of game and skilful slaying the modern man re-experiences far distant ancestral joys. now literary art by skilfully setting forth scenes of savage life may renew, the old survival feelings to a certain degree of illusive life. this is done to a large extent by pastoral poetry, mythic story, legend and fairy tale, whereby we drop back into a very old and simple mode of enjoyable mental life. the basis of primitive psychosis is in the particular concrete and animate, and literary art, especially in its highest manifestation, poetry, as becoming simple, sensuous, and impassioned, has a foundation in survival tendencies. through literature mankind renews its youth. similarly we may suppose that if in the future psychic evolution of the race the present mode of thinking in general and abstract terms should be succeeded by some new and higher phase, then the artificial stimulating the revival of this outgrown abstract phase would constitute a source of pleasure and might be achieved through a style. as a means toward revivals literary style is a backward moving spirit in sharp 326contrast to science, which, as generalizing and depersonifying, is the forward moving process.

however, we have sharply to distinguish between what is given in a survival state and that which accompanies it. primitive realization is always single and na?ve, but when it comes up in a survival it is generally consciously contrasted with accustomed modes by consciousness, and there arises a reflective pleasure of contrast which is not contained in the survival itself, but of which the survival is merely a condition. further, our realization of the outgrown psychic elements is very generally dramatic. we take self-conscious pleasure in investigating, assuming, and re-enacting past psychic phases. even when a survival state arises spontaneously and naturally, it holds consciousness at best in its original status for a moment only, for self-consciousness quickly occurs and brings in a variety of secondary emotions. however attained, the obsolescent type of consciousness does not stand in its simple original force, but most often there is more or less make-believe, some sense of its artificial and unreal nature: we do not become children by playing at being children. children and savages are in the animistic psychic stage, but the poetic interpretation of nature by adult man is plainly far more than mere revival of this stage, it is dramatic self-conscious realization. original animism is often painful; the savage fears his gods and the child dreads ghosts; but myths and ghost stories are sources of amusement to us, and the twinge of fear which comes up as survival loses its real force and is dramatically realized and enjoyed. literary art is a dramatic induction into the past rather than incentive to mere revival; and it makes us to pleasurably renew alike the outgrown pains and pleasures. we certainly should go far astray if we should consider style as effectual mainly by its exciting to revival of ancestral experiences. what is recurrent is but a small element compared to what is concurrent.

327we must note the particular case of landscape beauty. shelley’s description of the orange tree laden with fruit excites in us the feeling of pleasure in the beauty of nature, a feeling which is declared by some to be merely the reminiscent revived feelings which our distant progenitors felt in the presence of natural forms and forces. but what was the emotion our remote progenitor felt at sight of a well-fruited orange tree? did he feel moved as shelley was and as we through shelley are? and is our emotion but a faint survival of that which welled up in him at viewing the mass of green and gold, or has it any relation thereto? the civilized traveller in wild regions is often charmed by the beauty of the scenery which the savage natives do not in the least appreciate. but the revival feelings which come over him must be identical with the feelings of his un?sthetic companions who are totally insensible to natural beauty. the reversal tendency can give to the traveller only an animal pleasure in viewing an orange tree as satisfying to the taste and stomach; a fine, bright day can only suggest the pleasure of a sluggish basking. goethe rejoiced that, though the incidental pains of ?sthetic sensitivity were great, yet he could see in a tree shedding its leaves more than the approach of winter. bare revival then cannot in itself constitute ?sthetic pleasure or explain it. a savage race transferred to a civilized land for a few generations and then returned to their native haunts have acute pleasures of revival, but these are not of the ?sthetic quality. an outcropping survival tendency may serve as itself an object for emotion and ?sthetic emotion to the mind experiencing it, but thereby the survival is like any other object, physical or psychical, which excites ?sthetic sensibility, and it no more explains the emotion for beauty than any other object.

it is evident thus far that the psychological basis of stylistic effect is very complex, and in this essay we 328certainly lay no claim to making an exhaustive enumeration of its factors. however, we have still to consider one more element, and perhaps, at least for cultivated minds, the most important psychic element of literary art. read now the following extract, and analyze the impression it makes:—

“the natural thirst that ne’er is satisfied

excepting with the water for whose grace

the woman of samaria besought,

put me in travail, and haste goaded me

along the encumbered path behind my leader,

and i was pitying that righteous vengeance;

and lo! in the same manner as luke writeth

that christ appeared to two upon the way

from the sepulchral cave already risen,

a shade appeared to us, and came behind us,

down gazing on the prostrate multitude,

nor were we 'ware of it, until it spake,

saying, 'my brothers, may god give you peace.'”

here, surely, is neither facility, nor beauty of expression, nor deft and subtle art to please the mind, yet it attracts and interests. the main secret of the effect of dante’s style is as revelation of personality. art with dante is the child of life, the product of long and deep-felt experience; and because he is an original reality he achieves in his writings that distinctiveness and distinction which is the truest and highest mark of style. again, it is not the lucidity of sam weller’s remarks that pleases us, but rather their characteristic flavour. we delight to come in contact with originals, and we relish the characteristic for its own sake, even when ugly or when most unlike ourselves in tendency, and so the modernest of the moderns enjoys dante, the typical medi?valist. style is the man. this is the best definition of style and the best explanation of its peculiar effect. style is expression of subjective quality. while scientist and philosopher aim to be objective, to justly reflect and interpret outward reality the literary artist aims merely to give a perfect exposition 329of himself. style is the literary expression of self-realization. hence the greatest stylists write to please themselves, and are their own severest critics. style is timbre, and the best style is that in which this peculiar tone of the individual mind is most perfectly revealed. a great style is, then, the expression of a great man, and the consummation of style occurs when the genius has grown to the highest point of his individuality—and individuality is genius—with corresponding power of expression. among tennyson’s poems the most tennysonian has the greatest style. when we quote from wordsworth such lines as,—

“the world is too much with us: late and soon,

getting and spending, we lay waste our powers”—

and say of them that they are eminently wordsworthian, that no one else could have written them, we have said the highest word for the style.

in the very largest sense style is the evolution of the characteristic; development physical and psychical is but a movement toward style. the progress from homogeneity to heterogeneity in matter; the morphological development of animate things from indefinite formless beings to definite, complex types; biological integration and specialization—all this is progress of style. thus the most lion-like lion and the most elephantine elephant respectively achieve the highest style of animal in their kind. the development in the human race is mainly psychic, and includes psychic classes, orders, genera and species, not as yet so clearly tabulated as in general natural history. a genius is the inauguration of a new genus, style, or type of man; he is a psychic “sport,” to borrow a botanical term. a new mode of personality is achieved and may manifest itself in various ways of action, thought and emotion. if the expression is through literature a great style is generated, and this style grows with the growing individuality—the productions of youth have little style—and culminates with its culmination.

330to discover style is almost as rare a gift as to achieve it. the critical sense is about as uncommon as the creative power; hence the greatest masters of style have had often to wait long for recognition, which would hardly be the case if the main value of style was in economising attention. according to this theory, we should expect the stylist to be welcomed with instant and universal appreciation, a phenomenon which rarely or never occurs. with very many writers, as with wordsworth, recognition is very tardy, and with some only posthumous. many readers fail even with the utmost attention to appreciate the greatest artists, and can make nothing out of them; a few rise at length to some understanding; but only rare and select spirits find themselves at once en rapport. the true connoisseur and critic must introduce and interpret to us the characteristic quality or style of the littérateur, else we may never know and feel it. recognition and appreciation of style as the characteristic is, then, for the vast majority an acquired taste; it is slowly and painfully learned, and so the emotion for style as specific mode of expression must be pronounced a very late psychic development.

the taste and emotion for the characteristic as such, whenever and however acquired, is certainly a peculiar and definite mode of emotion. it is far from being the feeling of discipleship, and is often excited by that which is most remote and opposite to ourselves. we say of a certain person, “he is a character,” and he interests and pleases us as such, though entirely foreign to us in either sympathy or antipathy. as an entirely disinterested emotion, the ?sthetic is beyond the range of common na?ve consciousness. the enjoyment of the characteristic per se is specially for the analytically super-conscious cosmopolite and for the cultured critic. the pleasure comes partly from the novelty and the contrast reflectively understood, partly from admiration for the forcefulness of creative personality, 331its plastic power in forming its material of expression, and largely a teleologic pleasure in perceiving fulness and purity of type. the emotion for style as characteristic expression is plainly one of those which is not due to the utility in the struggle for existence, but has arisen when experience comes to be cultivated for its own sake.

when, as in eras like our own, personality weakens, and the inner plastic and creative force of conviction and emotion decreases, the writer is driven to technical treatment. the littérateur, as he has little or nothing to say, contents himself with playing tricks on language, and elaborating rhythms and cadences. style becomes finicky; a race of prinking poetasters and priggish prosaists arise, punctiliously formal, and superlatively dainty, who attain the art of saying nothing very elegantly, elaborately, and brilliantly. an over-conscious, over-subtle technique destroys the grand style as transmitter of characteristic quality.

i trust i have, in this brief study, made it clear that the psychology of literary style is far from simple, and that a number of factors are involved, which are slighted by herbert spencer and others of that school. i believe that any one at all conversant with literature who will reflect upon the pleasures he receives from reading, will perceive that the pleasure of smoothness and facility, of moving along rapidly and easily, is but one, and that generally a minor factor in literary enjoyment. beside this, he often has the pleasure of difficulties overcome, of ideas grasped, and delicate emotional touches appreciated by triumphant attentive effort. again, he receives pleasure in perceiving literary skill, the adaptation of artistic means to the artistic end. but, as i have maintained, the chief mode of pleasure is through style as transmitter of ?sthetic emotion and as expression of the characteristic, achieving its acme when both these functions are simultaneously performed most fully and perfectly.