THE QUESTION OF STYLE
haps rank as the martyr of literary style"; and in support of this opinion he proceeds to quote the following summary of Flaubert's literary creed:
Possessed of an absolute belief that there exists but one way of expressing one thing, one word to call it by, one adjective to qualify, one verb to animate it, he gave himself to superhuman labour for the discovery, in every phrase, of that word, that verb, that epithet. In this way, he believed in some mysterious harmony of expression, and when a true word seemed to him to lack euphony, still went on seeking another, with invincible pains, certain that he had not yet got hold of the word.… A thousand preoccupations would beset him at the same moment, always with this desperate certitude fixed in his spirit: Amongst all the expressions in the world, all forms and turns of expression, there is but one—one form, one mode,—to express what I want to say.
Now, theoretically Flaubert is right;
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