Good expression is as valuable as good thought, because good expression is almost impossible without showing what is expressed from a favourable standpoint.
In most cases where a man’s style has been censured as not simple enough, he must have been conscious at the time of writing of a certain tension, of a certain anxiety not to let anything bad force its way in. All at once he tries to write in a noble and fluent style ; he relaxes a little, —and then in comes the bad.
It is not given to everyone to write so as necessarily to satisfy humanity in the abstract at all times and in every age. In a state of the world like the present it requires a great deal of strength to keep to what is essential, and a great deal of ballast not to sway when others sway. To write in this style naturally demands beyond question the most art nowadays, when we are for the greater part artificial men. If we want to write naturally we must first of all study the costume, so to speak, of the natural man. Philosophy, observation of oneself, and indeed a more accurate theory of the natural heart and soul—this, both singly and in various combinations, must be studied by the man who aspires to write for all time. Whoso writes for one or two years only, for a single publishing season, or simply for the week, will manage with less. All he need do is to read the authors and mingle in the society of the day, and the rest, if only he is a man of the
