method may not be the right one. But most of us may heartily subscribe to Huxley's theory. The best way to be happy, as moralists tell us, is not to make the acquisition of happiness a conscious aim. To acquire a good style, you should never think of style at all. It will be the spontaneous outcome of adequate expression of clear thought. Some writers, Huxley admits, might have learnt dignity from a study of Hobbes, and concision from Swift and simplicity from Defoe and Goldsmith. The masters are significant of his taste; but he learnt by adopting their methods, not by imitating them as models. The labour which he bestowed upon his work is the more remarkable, considering his quickness in seizing the right word in his hastiest letters. He speaks of writing essays half-a-dozen times before getting them into the right shape. He had the passion, unfortunately rare in Englishmen, for thorough logical symmetry. His 'flashes' must be finished and concentrated. The happy phrase has to be fixed in the general framework. Arguments are terribly slippery things; one is always finding oneself shunted into some slightly diverging track of thought; and brilliant remarks are most dangerous seducers. They illustrate something,
