But how inartistic it is! how thoroughly bad in conception, composition, and style! In the first place it occupies some seven printed pages of uuusual extent and closeness, each of which is at least equal to two of the ordinary octavo pages of an English classic author. Let any one, if he can, imagine one of the great masters who could both draw and compose, Hume or Middleton, Clarendon or Swift, giving us a character of fourteen pages. A portrait on the scale of Brobdingnag, with all features and all defects unnaturally emphasized and enlarged, could hardly be more disgusting.[1]
It is not necessary to multiply examples, which if all the defects of contemporary style were to be noticed and illustrated, would occupy a space longer than the present article. In all but a very few writers we shall observe with certain variations the same defects — inordinate copiousness of treatment combined with an utter inability, or at best an extreme unwillingness, to frame a sentence of due proportion and careful structure. It should certainly be possible to trace the origin and examine the nature of a phenomenon so striking and so universal.
The secret of the manner will not long escape us if we notice or can disengage the intention with which, willingly or unwillingly, this manner has been adopted. Nor is this intention very hard to discover. It is, as it appears to me, a desire to present the subject, whatever it may be, to the reader in the most striking and arresting fashion. The attention of the reading public generally has, from causes to be presently noticed, become gradually concentrated almost wholly upon subject-matter. Among what may be called, intellectually speaking, the lower classes, this concentration shows itself not in the preference but in the exclusive study of novels, newspapers, and sometimes of so-called books of information. A book must be as they say "about something," or it fails altogether to arrest their attention. To such persons a page with (as it has been quaintly put) no "resting-places," no proper names and capital letters to fix the eye, is an intolerable weariness, and to them it is evident that style can be only a name. Somewhat above them come the (intellectually) middle classes. They are not absolutely confined to personal adventure, real or fictitious, or to interesting facts. They can probably enjoy the better class of magazine articles, superior biographies, travels, and the other books that everybody reads and nobody buys. This class will even read poetry if the poet's name be known, and would consider it a grave affront if it were hinted to them that their appreciation of style is but dull and faulty. A certain amount of labour is therefore required on work which is to please these readers: labour, however, which is generally bestowed in a wrong direction, on ornament and trick rather than on really artistic construction and finish. Lastly there is the highest class of all, consisting of those who really possess, or might possess, taste, culture, and intellect. Of these the great majority are now somewhat alienated from pure literature, and devoted rather to social matters, to science, or to the more fashionable and profitable arts of design. Their demand for style in literature is confined chiefly to poetry. They also are interested more by their favourite subjects treated anyhow, than by subjects for which they care little treated well, so that even by them little encouragement is given to the cultivation and little hindrance to the decay of prose style.
Intimately connected with the influences that arise from this attitude and temper of the general reader, are certain influences which spring from such prevalent forms and subjects of literature as present themselves to the general writer. The first of these forms, and unquestionably the most constant and pervading in its influence, is now, as it was in De Quincey's days, journalism. No one with the slightest knowledge of the subject will pretend that the influence of journalism upon writing is wholly bad. Whatever may have been the case formerly, a standard of excellence which is in some respects really high is usually aimed at, and not seldom reached, in the better class of newspapers. Some appropriateness in the use of words, rigid avoidance of the more glaring grammatical errors, and a respectable degree of clearness in statement, are expected by the reader and usually observed by the writer. In these respects, therefore, there is no falling off to be complained of, but rather a marked
- ↑ I cannot refrain from noticing an instance from this writer of the absurdity into which the passion for picturesque epithet betrays many contemporary authors. At Newbury, we are told, "the London trainbands flung Rupert's horsemen roughly off their front of pikes." Here roughly is in the Polonian sense "good." Visions of the sturdy and pious citizen discomfiting the debauched cavalier are aroused. But let us consider it with the sobriety proper to history and to art, and perhaps we shall ask Mr. Green to show us how so fling an enemy softly off a pike. Roaring like a sucking-dove would be nothing to this gymnastic effort.
