THE QUESTION OF STYLE
imitation is the only way to learn to write; and on the other, that it is no way at all to learn, the truth, as usual lies somewhere midway. Yet it is worth noting that even Stevenson has not escaped reproach. Mr. H. D. Traill, for instance, complains that his style "suffers somewhat from its evidences of too conscious art"; Henry James says, in friendly criticism that his style "has nothing accidental or diffident; it is eminently conscious of its responsibilities and meets them with a kind of gallantry,—as if language were a pretty woman, and a person who proposed to handle it had, of necessity, to be something of a Don Juan." And Professor Saintsbury is even more emphatic:
Adopting to the full, and something more than the full, the modern doctrine of the all-importance of art, of manner, of style in literature, Mr. Stevenson early made the most elaborate studies in imitative composition. There is no
[220]
