THE QUESTION OF STYLE
ing; while in another, two or three extra tongues carried slight distinction. One of our professional humourists once said that he knew a man who spoke seventeen languages, and never said anything of importance in any of them. There is a point at which the brain becomes merely acquisitive. But the possession of two or three languages besides one's own is the best of all aids to a distinctive style. It was James Russell Lowell who said: "The practice of translation, by making us deliberate in the choice of the best equivalent of the foreign word in our own language, has likewise the advantage of continually schooling us in one of the main elements of a good styles—precision; and precision of thought is not only exemplified by precision of language, but is largely dependent on the habit of it."
There are, besides, certain advantages to be gained from seeing the purely tech-
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