THE QUESTION OF STYLE
a Raphael or a Rubens, instead of remaining under the open sky, learning to express his own thoughts in his own way. Some teachers, indeed, question whether any real benefit accrues from conscious imitation of another man's style. Professor A. S. Hill has put himself on record in the following emphatic manner:
In a great writer the style is the man,—the man as made by his ancestors, his education, his career, his circumstances, and his genius.
It is idle, then, to attempt to secure a good style by imitating this or that writer; for the best part of a good style is incommunicable. An imitator may, if he applies himself closely to the task, catch mannerisms and reproduce defects, and perhaps superficial merits; but most valuable qualities, those that have their root in character, he will miss altogether, except in so far as his own personality resembles that of his model.
Of course, between these two extremes; the belief, on the one hand, that conscious
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