Meaning And Style

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MEANING AND STYLE

Books by A. F. Scott, M.A.
*

POKIKY AND Al'PKhCIA'IION
MODERN KS<4A\S, FIRST SERIES, 1939-19^1
MODERN KSSAYS, SFCOND SERIES, 1941-1943
COUNTRY U*K

MEANING AND STYLE

A SELECTION OF EXTRACTS FROM WRITERS

OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY TO THE

PRESENT DAY, FOR THE STUDY OF

ENGLISH PROSE IN UPPER FORMS

BY

A. F. SCOTT, M.A.

HEADMASTER OF KF PTERING GRAMMAR SCHOOL
FOKMERLY SENIOR ENGLISH MASTER, TAUNTON SCHOOL

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
1949

COPYRIGHT

First Edition 1038
Reroml Kditmn 1<>12
Rf printed 1U4C, 1U17, i

'Among all other lessons this should fast be learned, that we never
affect any strange inkfwrn terms, but to speak as is commonly
received, neither seeking to be over fine, nor yet living over careless,
ustfig our speech as most men do, and ordering our wits as the fewest

have done.' ...

IIIOMAS WIISON

* Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for
granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider.'

FRANCIS BACON

And you must understand a printed page just as you understand
people talking to you. That is a stupendous Jeat of sheer learning :
much the most difficult I have ever achieved.''

BERNARD SHAW

PREFACE

THIS book has a three-fold purpose : to encourage
exact and careful reading ; to develop critical appre-
ciation and discrimination by detailed analysis of
style ; to show the gradual development of English
prose from the fourteenth century to the present day.
Latin and Greek are no longer all-important in the
curriculum to-day. We have lost much by the change,
most important being that mental discipline which
produced accuracy of thought and expression. Latin
or Greek demanded careful and exact scrutiny. It has
been realised that English might take the place of the
Classics in training the mind. But there are certain dis-
advantages, which must be remembered. The training
of the mind through the medium of English is sub-
jected to numerous counter-influences newspapers,
advertising, magazines, films these, exerting an ever-
increasing influence outside the class-room, make the
conditions of literary education look desperate. The
popular Press encourages rapid, uncritical reading, and
gives information, which is neither reliable nor profit-
able, upon a host of subjects. Such reading even when
assimilated gives no real knowledge of anything. More-
over, it creates the attitude that English (the Mother
Tongue) is an easy subject, and can be read equally
carelessly. This slackness of attention may be over-
come by demanding a close and intelligent scrutiny of
selected prose passages of varying difficulty. This is

Vlll PREFACE

the first purpose. The questions on Meaning take the
student consecutively through the passage. The theme
and the general import of the passage are dealt with
first. Then the student is asked to explain the more
difficult sentences and to give the meaning and impli-
cations of certain words. There are other questions
dealing with the arguments put forward, or the arrange-
ment of the material, the sequence of thought, refer-
ences with anything which may claim attention lead-
ing to a full understanding of the passage.

Now let us consider the question of Style. P. J.
Hartog in his book The Writing of English praises highly
the methods of teaching composition used in French
schools. He lays stress upon the systematic study and
analysis of the French classics which are regarded by
the French as essential in the teaching of style. This
may account for the continued excellence and precision
of French prose. The exercises on Style involve a
different kind of intellectual activity. Here the de-
mand is one for critical appreciation and discrimina-
tion. The essential is for the students to train them-
selves in their reading to perceive and to describe
differences of quality and kind. For this purpose the
Glossary has been specially prepared. It attempts to
give adequate definitions, and tries to distinguish
shades of meaning such as exist between ' clearness ',
' lucidity ', and c perspicuity ' ; or between c emotion ',
c feeling ', and ' sentiment '. By constant reference to
the glossary a critical vocabulary will be formed,
resulting in greater accuracy of expression. The
questions are arranged to decide first what is the kind
of prose under consideration and its fitness for the
purpose, then are considered the language, sentence

PREFACE ix

construction, figures of speech, rhetorical devices,
rhythm, and lastly, the main features of the style. Thus
the material is collected gradually for the final criticism
in regard to style. It is hoped that during the study
of these passages of English prose certain conclusions
concerning a good style will be formed, and that by
analysing examples of fine prose the student will learn
how to write well himself. Throughout the book stress
is laid upon the two outstanding qualities of good
prose : Simplicity and Concreteness. These are the
essential qualities of straightforward expression. To
build up a sound style, as Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
has said, one should prefer the direct word to the
circumlocution, the concrete word to the abstract, the
transitive verb in the active voice to the intransitive
passive, and one should economise in the use of adjec-
tives. To write melodious English depends upon .ear,
which, though very largely a gift of nature, can in some
measure be cultivated. The secret of such English lies
in the inter-play of vowel-sounds. This, however, is
poetic prose, and strictly speaking is not prose at all ;
for prose is the straightforward language of men, not
language cast in poetical measure and rhythm ; its pur-
pose is to convey meaning ; to use Mr. Herbert Read's
definition it is * constructive expression '. Further-
more, by drawing attention in these questions to the
way in which excellence in style is achieved, and to the
subtleties possible in the simplest prose, it is hoped that
critical awareness will be stimulated, and that this will
help the student to discriminate in every-day reading.
The selections are arranged in chronological order,
and represent English prose from the fourteenth cen-
tury to the present day. Such an arrangement traces

X PREFACE

the progress of English prose, which is a growth from
narrative simplicity to the many varied complexities
of prose to-day. It reveals the efforts made to over-
come its own difficulties ; when writers attempted to
express thoughts as well as to relate simple events ;
when they attempted to handle emotion, or a * high
moment of philosophising ' ; when they began to ques-
tion about the universe, and destiny, and life, and
death ; when writers became personal and introspec-
tive, or scientific, or plunged into psycho-analytical
depths. As Newman says, * In its earlier times, while
language is yet unformed, to write in it at all is almost
a work of genius. It is like crossing a country before
roads are made communicating between place and
place. The authors of that age deserve to be Classics
both because of what they do and because they can
do it.' Each author should be judged by how far he
succeeds in the particular thing he is trying to do.
Every great writer introduces something new, and gives
some further significance to prose ; by comparison of
styles, and references to passages already studied, the
development (within the limits of short extracts) can
be seen.

The study of these extracts, it is hoped, will encourage
the student to read more of the authors here repre-
sented. The field of literature is very wide, and by
passing through these selections one will inevitably
find some authors more to the taste than others. A
real curiosity may be aroused, and its gratification will
be the truest kind of education.

One of the real burdens in teaching English is that
of correcting written work adequately. These exer-
cises can be prepared beforehand, and worked through

PREFACE Xi

orally in class. The passages selected from the seven-
teenth-century authors should certainly be read aloud to
appreciate the harmonies of the rolling Latin sentences.
The selections in Section 3 are to be commented upon
in regard to style and quality of prose ; the passages
to be assigned to their periods and occasionally to
authors, giving reasons from internal evidence, using
a similar procedure as with the passages in Section 2,
so far as is possible.

A. F. S.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

BY dividing the questions in this book into two sections,
one dealing with meaning, and the other with style, I
may, unintentionally, have encouraged the belief that
style is separable from matter. I should, perhaps, have
made it clear that one cannot draw a true dividing line
between what is said and the way it is said. Style is
the writing itself, closely moulded by the thought, and
inseparable from it. However, provided this is borne
in mind, the present method has still, I think, certain
advantages. When the first section of the questions
has been worked through, the substance of the passage
under consideration should be thoroughly understood,
which is of primary importance ; this understanding
of the passage will help in the more difficult task of
critical appreciation.

About this I should like to make a few remarks. In
the criticism paper, examiners often say, c Comment
on the style of the following passage,' and candidates
are left rather uncertain of the exact requirements.

Xll PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION

It is hard to know just where to begin commenting,
and how best to continue the analysis of the literary
worth of a piece of prose. I have taken the oppor-
tunity offered by a second edition to revise much of
the contents of this book, particularly the questions
on style. In the revised questions I have tried to
avoid using words like ' comment on ', c criticize ',
c appreciate ' throughout the earlier part of Section 2,
and have instead asked for certain definite things to
be pointed out from the passage all dealing with the
way in which the writer has performed the task he has
set himself. By pointing out these things the student
will, indeed, be commenting on the style of the passage,
and the questions should, I hope, show him how to get
to grips with the problems of literary criticism and
how to comment on such passages as those in Section 3.

Lest this particular method should curb the better
student and lead others to treat everything in a
mechanical way (attempting to fit all passages of prose
to the same Procrustean bed), I have tried to make
the questions varied in kind and in difficulty. It may
be as well to say here that some of them are more
suitable for scholarship candidates and advanced
students ; naturally, these need not be attempted
by the average Sixth form, but a selection made of the
more suitable questions.

Finally, I hope that the revisions made in favour of
a more concrete approach to the study of prose style
will give the right starting-point, and lead continuously
on to advanced literary criticism.

A. F. S.

TAUNTON, 1942

CONTENTS

PACK

PREFACE : PURPOSE AND METHOD vii

1. INTRODUCTION : THE DEVELOPMENT OF ENG-

LISH PROSE - I

2. A SELECTION OF EXTRACTS FROM WRITERS

OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY TO THE
PRESENT DAY, WITH QUESTIONS ON MEAN-
ING AND STYLE ----- 25

3. A FURTHER SELECTION OF EXTRACTS - 145

To be commented upon in regard to the
style and quality of prose ; the passages to
be assigned to their periods and to authors,
giving reasons from internal evidence.

4. GLOSSARY :

(1) KINDS OF PROSE - - - 182

(2) QUALITIES OF LANGUAGE - - 183

(3) QUALITIES OF STYLE - - - 186

(a) INTELLECTUAL - - - 186

(b) EMOTIONAL 188

(c) AESTHETIC 189

BOOK LIST - - - - - -11

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

GRATEFUL acknowledgments are due to the following for their
permission to use extracts from the books or articles named below :

The Executors of the late Arnold Bennett and Messrs. Hodder &

Stoughton, Ltd. : The Old Wives' Tale.

Mr. Ivor Brown and the Editor of the Observer : 'Joy Week.'
The Executors of the late Thomas Hardy : The Woodlanders and

The Return of the Native.
Messrs. William Heinemann, Ltd. : The Nigger of the Narcissus, by

Joseph Conrad.

The Executors of the late Henry James : A Small Boy and Others.
Mrs. Frieda Lawrence and Messrs. William Heinemann, Ltd. :

Sea and Sardinia, by D. H. Lawrence.
Messrs. Longmans, Green & Co., Ltd. : Rural Bird Life, by Charles

Dixon.
Mr. Wilfrid Meynell and Messrs. Burns, Gates & Washbourne,

Ltd. : The Colour of Life, by Alice Meynell.
The Editor of the New Statesman : ' The Taming of the Shrew.'
Mr. Beverley Nichols and Messrs. Jonathan Cape, Ltd. : Down the

Garden Path.
Mr. Lloyd Osbourne : Travels with a Donkey and Virginibus

Puerisque 9 by R. L. Stevenson.
Mr. J. B. Priestley and Messrs. Bowes & Bowes : Papers from

Lilliput.
Professor G. Santayana and Messrs. Constable & Co., Ltd. :

Little Essays.
The Editor of The Times.

I am greatly indebted to the * History of English Literature '
by Emile Legouis and Louis Cazamian in the work of preparing
not only the Introduction but much else in this book. I would
also acknowledge my debt to Mr. Herbert Read's ' English Prose
Style *, * Contemporary British Literature ' by J. M. Manly and
E. Rickert, and * The Oxford Companion to English Literature '
by Sir Paul Harvey.

A. F. S.

i. INTRODUCTION
THE DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH PROSE

ENGLISH prose took form very slowly. In the four-
teenth century, such a wide variety of dialects was
spoken that a man from York could not understand a
Londoner. Higden in his Polychronicon (1363) attri-
butes this to the fact that French alone was taught in
the schools and used in translating Latin. By 1385
English had replaced French ; this was necessary for
the development of the language, but English for many
years was used merely for translations. John of Tre-
visa translated Higden's work from the Latin. The
Voiage and Travaile of Sir John Maundeville, translated
from the French of Jean de Bourgogne, was immensely
popular, and the simple flowing style had a marked
effect upon subsequent prose development. Chaucer's
prose was again translation, and lacked the vivacity
of his poetry. Prose was still wavering and indefinite
when in 1474 Caxton wrote explanatory prefaces to the
books which he was printing. Here is part of his pre-
face to Malory's Morte d* Arthur which he printed iu
1485 :

Thenne al these thynges forsayd aledged I coude not wel
denye, but that there was suche a noble kyng named
Arthur, and reputed one of the nine Worthy, and first and
chyef of the cristen men. And many noble volumes be
made of hvm and of his noble knyghtes in frensshe, which

A S.M.S.

2 MEANING AND STYLE

I have seen and redde beyonde the see, which been not
had in our maternal tongue. But in walsshe ben many,
and also in frensshe, and somme in englysshe, but no wher
nygh alle. Wherfore suche as have late been drawen oute
bryefly in to englysshe, I have after the symple connynge
that God hath sente to me, under the favour and correctyon
of al noble lordes and gentylmen, enprysed to enprynte a
book of the noble hystoryes of the sayd kynge Arthur, and
of certeyn of his knyghtes, after a copye unto me delyverd,
whyche copye Syr Thomas Malorye dyd take oute of
certeyn bookes of frensshe and reduced it in to Englysshe.

In the Morte d* Arthur itself we have the best example
of early narrative prose. It told the story of our first
national hero, and captured the imagination of the
age, becoming the store-house of legend until the time of
Tennyson. The style has simplicity and vigour, as can
be seen in the description of the encounter between
Balin and Balan. Lord Berners 5 translation of Frois-
sart's Chronicles (1523-5) shows how much of the tech-
nique of prose has been learnt from the French. A
further translation was to be c the greatest single in-
fluence on the development of English prose ' (Herbert
Read) the translation of the Bible. Wycliffe had
translated the Scriptures from the Latin into English
in the fourteenth century. Tyndale was the first to
translate the New Testament into English from the
Greek text, the work being printed at Cologne in
1525. (The Authorised Version is essentially the text
of Tyndale.) Coverdale's Bible was printed in 1535.
Equally important was the publication of the Book of
Common Prayer in 1549. It is impossible to estimate
the effect of the cadenced, melodious phrases repeated
every Sunday in every church in England. Here is

MEANING AND STYLE 3

the perfect mingling of the Saxon and the French ele-
ments of the language.

Almightye and euerlastyng God, which haste geuen unto
us thy seruauntes grace by the confession of a true fayth to
acknowlege the glory e of the eternall trim tie, and in the
power of the diuyne maiestie to wurshippe the unitie : we
beseche thee, that through the stedfastnes of thys fayth, we
may euermore be defended from all aduersitie, whiche
liueste and reignest, one God, worlde without end.

In 1611 the Authorised Version, most important of
all, was published ; (the work of a committee of Eliza-
bethan bishops presided over by Lancelot Andrewes).
It was accepted for nearly three centuries, and became
the daily reading of the nation. The Gospels were
already widely known. The Old Testament came as a
revelation, and did much to form the Puritan mind.
The belief in themselves as the chosen people fostered
what has been called { the blind exclusiveness of the
English mentality '. The language, with its simplicity,
concreteness, loftiness and rhythm, lifted the ignorant
above the vulgarity of dialect, and saved the literate
from the pedantry of a narrow scholasticism. It gave
a pious emotion to successive generations ; and by its
influence alone it produced in Bunyan a master of
English prose. But two other influences had spread
rapidly in the sixteenth century, the Renaissance and
the Revival of Learning, and these turned the activities
of English prose writers in another direction. During
the early years of the Renaissance, the English Human-
ists strengthened the position of Latin as the scholarly
language. Sir Thomas More wrote his Utopia in Latin
( I 5 I 6). Just over a century later we find Bacon
using Latin for his Instauratio Magna. Other Humanists,

4 MEANING AND STYLE

Linacre, Grocyn, Colet, inspired by Erasmus, who
introduced a Latin Grammar into English schools,
turned their attention to literary style. Cheke and
Sir Thomas Wilson derided verbal affectations, c ink-
horn terms ', and outlandish English, made up of
Anglo-Norman words. Ascham said everything had
been written in English e in a maner so meanly, bothe
for the matter and handelynge, that no man can do
worse '. The aim of the teachers of the time was to
imitate the masterpieces of antiquity. A passage of
Latin was translated into English. A few weeks later
the English had to be put back again into Latin. This
devotion to Latin models had a direct influence upon
the structure of prose. It worked against the native
simplicity of the English idiom as used by Malory and
Berners ; but though it was detrimental to the direct
style, it was producing a consciousness for style itself.
In 1579 Lyly's Euphues appeared, and set a literary
fashion. The style is ingenious, decorative, artistic ;
as can be seen in the following extract :

There is nothing more swifter then time, nothing more
sweeter : wee haue not, as Seneca saith, little time to liue,
but we leese muche ; neither haue we a short life by
Nature, but we make it shorter by naughtynesse ; our life
is long if we know how to use it. Follow Appelles that
cunning and wise Painter, which would lette no day passe
ouer his head without a lyne, without some labour. It was
pretely sayde of Hesiodus, lettc us endeauour by reason to
excell beastes, seeinge beastes by nature excell man. Doth
not the Lion for strength, the Turtle for loue, the Ante for
labour, excell man? Doth not the Eagle see clearer, the
Vultur smel better, the Mowle heare lyghtlyer? Let us
therefore endeauour to excell in vertue, seeing in qualities
of the body we are inferiour to beastes.

MEANING AND STYLE , 5

From such a style, prose easily slipped into c pretty writ-
ing, larded with conceits '. When it is handled more
sensitively, as by Sir Philip Sidney, we have poetic prose.
At this time, prose is used to flatter the imagination
and not to satisfy the reason. Poetry dominates the
Elizabethan period, though Shakespeare writes true,
not poetic, prose in such speeches as that of Henry the
Fifth before Agincourt. Of the translators, Florio's
production of Montaigne's Essays in 1603 had an
important influence upon English style and thought.

The Church at this time was unsettled, each sect
declaring its faith, and striving to prove all others false.
Prose was the medium of such polemics. The contro-
versy between the Puritans and Anglicans ended with
the serene work of Richard Hooker. In his Laws of
Ecclesiastical Polity (1594) he uses English, not Latin,
for high generalisation, and though modelled on Latin,
the style is neither pedantic nor vulgar. It is lyrical and
convincing. It aimed at the Reason, and is persuasive
in manner. English prose is now accepted as an imple-
ment for the mind, and Bacon, the first English philo-
sopher, writes The Advancement of Learning in English
(1605). The Renaissance, a movement of ideas,
expressed itself not only in the Revival of Learning,
with its classical models, but also in the spirit of egotism
and individuality, shown in the eccentric prose of a
Burton or a Lyly. So, at the beginning of the seven-
teenth century three main influences may be distin-
guished : the original English idiom gradually forming
throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and
' consolidated and established by the various transla-
tions of the Bible ', the classical influence re-established
by the Revival of Learning, and the individualistic

6 MEANING AND STYLE

spirit which derived from the Renaissance. Since 1578
there had been an amazing advance. Prose writers
now covered a wide field theology, philosophy, liter-
ary criticism, the moral essay, the Elizabethan novel.
The victory of the Puritans (1649) interrupted the use of
prose for narrative and as a light and frivolous medium,
and gave it both loftiness and emotion the poetic
qualities. For the next forty years there is no good
narrative prose (Hunyan is the exception). Donne
(1573-1631) in his Sermons uses much imagery, and so
intricate a rhythm as to be nearer to poetry than prose :

He brought light out of darknesse, not out of a lesser
light ; he can bring thy Summer out of* Winter, though
thou have no Spring ; though in the waves of fortune, or
understanding, or conscience, thou have been benighted
till now, wintred and frozen, clouded and rrh psed, damped
and benumbed, smothered and stupified till now, now God
comes to thre, not as in the dawning of the day, not as in
the bud of the spring, but as the Sun at noon to illustrate
all shadows, as the sheaves in harvest, to fill all penuries,
all occasions invite his merries, and all times are his
seasons.

Sir Thomas Browne uses prose in such a way as to pro-
duce harmony. As he say& in the Rcligto Alrditt y * It is
my temper, and I like it the bettor, to affect all har-
mony. 5 Milton disparages prose, saying, ' I should not
choose this manner of writing, wherein, knowing myself
inferior to myself, led by the genial power of nature to
another task, 1 have the use, as I may account, but of
my left hand.' His genius was ill-suited to prose,
though some of it has the nobility of his blank verse.

With the Restoration there came a nnv mental out-
look one of reflection and disillusionment. From

MEANING AND STYLE 7

the fourteenth century to the time of Elizabeth, litera-
ture had depended upon the powers of Imagination.
Now, it is as though the imaginative, creative urge is
wearied. Inspiration and enthusiasm arc lacking.
Instead of the desire for self-expression, and the spirit
of freedom and adventure, there is a desire for direc-
tion and a feeling for culture and rule. Direction and
order suggest the intellectual qualities, for it is the
intellect which arranges and clarifies. This intellectua-
lity had been shown in Jeremy Taylor, Bacon, Donne
and the Metaphysicals, and now continues. The zeal
and piety of the Puritans are scorned. Reason and
good sense take the place of enthusiasm and emotion.
The King and his court set the fashions for the new
order. The exiles had brought back with them as
models the manners and the literary fashions of France.
The Restoration favoured an aristocratic literature,
which was made possible by a leisured class and a
period of peace. In this atmosphere of cxclusivcncss
and refinement there was time for analysis and critical
thought. If there was a revolt against the austerity of
the Puritans, there was also a revolt against their
hypocrisy. False standards were denounced ; satire
became the weapon, enlightened opinion was the court
of appeal. Locke and Newton in this atmosphere
produce a philosophy of reason. South, Tillotson,
Stillingflcet, though they may lack enthusiasm, show
clear reasoning and sensible argument in the pulpit.
Evelyn and Pepys write detailed, precise prose.
Clarendon, a transitional writer, is clear, elegant,
ordered, in his History of the Rebellion ; while Dryden's
prose is almost modern in idiom and in its logical
progression. In the schools, the classics were still held

8 MEANING AND STYLE

up as iflodels as in the sixteenth century. This caused
Locke to speak out for the teaching of English :

To write and speak correctly gives a Grace, and gains a
favourable attention to what one has to say ; and, since
it is English that an English Gentleman will have constant
use of, that is the Language he should chiefly cultivate, and
wherein most care should be taken to polish and perfect his
Style. To speak or write better Litin than English may
make a man be talked of ; but he would find it more to his
purpose to express himself well in his own tongue, that he
uses every moment, than to have the vain commendation
ot others for a very insignificant quality.

From On Education (1693)

This interest in English Prose style was preparing
the way for the eighteenth century, which is pre-
eminently an ago of prose. It is an age of reason,
proportion, elegance. The vv liters are conscious of
their literary and artistic motives ; and this justifies
the use of the word ' Classical '. There is order,
balance, restraint ; an insistence upon i*ood manners,
decorum, the social virtues. This is the logical de-
velopment from the preceding age. Prose is now free
from the individualistic spirit of the Renaissance, and
the Latinising influence of the Humanists. It returns
to the simple, direct expression of the Bible in the hands
of its greatest master, Swift. He took the language
of the Bible and made it an instrument suitable not
only for narrative, but for the immense play of his
probing intellect. His mode of expression remained
always f simple, and single, and clearly comprehen-
sible*. It may be accepted as the standard, for, as
Mr. Herbert Read says, * never again has the English
idiom been expressed in such purity and strength.*

MEANING AND STYLE

Classicism spread rapidly, because it combined an
artistic impulse controlled by the reason, and correct-
ness in behaviour based on sentiment. Collier had
led a crusade against the immorality of the Restoration
drama. The proprieties were again observed. Steele
and Addison set themselves up as social reformers.
Behind their reform of manners were religious and
emotional motives. They hoped to improve the moral
standards, and establish a code of behaviour associated
with classical taste. This produced a re-birth of
Sentiment, which in time became a moral movement.
Carried to its extreme it contradicts the rule of life
and art based on Reason. Though Reason dominates
the eighteenth century, the germ of Sentiment is there,
and its gradual development helps to explain the
Romantic Revival. Addison and Steele appeal to the
middle class, which is rising to power. Their prose
is cultured and harmonious. The professed object
of The Spectator was to bring ' philosophy out of closets
and libraries, schools and colleges, to dwell in clubs
and assemblies, at tea-tables and in coffee-houses '.
They combat ignorance and affectation and folly and
impurity. They uphold the good-natured man ; in
Sir Roger de Coverley they portray benevolence and
the cordial virtues :

I am the more at ease in Sir Roger's family, because it
consists of sober and staid persons ; for as the knight is the
best master in the world, he seldom changes his servants ;
and as he is beloved by all about him, his servants never
care for leaving him ; by this means his domestics are all
in years, and grown old with their master . . . You sec the
goodness of the master in his old house-dog, and in the gray
pad that is kept in the stable with great care and tenderness,

A*

IO MEANING AND STYLE

out of regard to his past services, though he has been useless
for several years. From The Spectator (1711-1712)

They were not the only reformers. Defoe became the
mouthpiece of the commercial class of his day. His
aim was to edify. He was a Puritan at heart and
moralises in his novels. Robinson Crusoe demonstrates
the part played by Providence in life. Captain Singleton
is the account of a conversion. He also reveals
deep feeling, but his realism and matter-of-fact style
prevent him from becoming merely sentimental. Al-
ready the middle class has modified the authority
of the aristocracy since the Restoration ; has appro-
priated Classicism and given it a moralising turn.
But literary forms oppose all change. Rules have been
established, and reason and restraint are still pre-
dominating. Johnson is the central figure of what
has been called ' Bourgeois Classicism '. He main-
tains the balance and biblical eloquence of prose, and
adds his own gifts of vigour and clear judgment. His
Dictionary of the English Language helped, as he himself
says, to 6 preserve the purity, and determine the sense,
of our English idiom '. He did much to produce the
modern man of letters by the dignity of his inde-
pendence. The age of literary patrons is coming to a
close hastened by his Letter to Lord Chesterfield,

Is not a patron, my Lord, one who looks with unconcern
on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has
reached ground, encumbers him with help? The notice
which you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it
been early, had been kind ; but it has been delayed till I
am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it ; till I am solitary, and
cannot impart it ; till I am known, and do not want it.

MEANING AND STYLE II

I hope it is no very cynical asperity not to confess obliga-
tions where no benefit has been received, or to be unwilling
that the publick should consider me as owing that to a
Patron, which Providence has enabled me to do for myself.
Having carried on my work thus far with so little obliga-
tion to any favourer of learning, I shall not be disappointed
though I should conclude it, if less be possible, with less ;
for I have been long wakened from that dream of hope, in
which I once boasted myself with so much exultation.

Classicism is now a set of rules and devices. It no
longer expresses creative genius. The prose writers of
the time handle satire, realism, the study of manners,
and literary criticism. Works full of sentiment gradu-
ally take their place beside these. It was not long
before many people became dissatisfied with the
restrictions of this Classical Age. The Spirit, they said,
was impoverished by Rationalism. Now the Past is
always an escape for those who are not satisfied with
the Present. So attention was diverted to the Past,
to the distant in time and place. A new interest arose
in the Middle Ages, Chivalry, Romance, Nature, Ruins.
Gothic became a term of pious affection. Here is
Horace Walpole writing in 1 769 from Strawberry Hill,
his ' little Gothic castle ' :

With regard to a history of Gothic architecture, in which
he desires my advice, the plan, I think, should lie in a very
simple compass. Was I to execute it, it should be thus :
I would give a series of plates, even from the conclusion of
Saxon architecture, beginning with the round Roman
arch, and going on to show how they plaistered and zig-
zagged it, and then how better ornaments crept in, till the
beautiful Gothic arrived at its perfection : then how it
deceased in Henry the eighth's reign!

12 MEANING AND STYLE

And Cowpcr, writing to his friend Unwin in 1779,
shows the prevailing interest in newly-built ruins :

There was not, at that time, much to be seen in the Isle
of Thanet, besides the beauty of the country, and the fine
prospects of the sea, which are nowhere surpassed except
in the Isle of Wight, or upon some parts of the coast of
Hampshire. One sight, however, I remember, engaged
my curiosity, and I went to see it : a fine piece of ruins,
built by the late Lord Holland, at a great expense, which,
the day after I saw it, tumbled down for nothing. Perhaps,
therefore, it is still a ruin ; and if it is, I would advise you
by all means to visit it, as it must have been much improved
by this fortunate incident. It is haidly possible to put
stones together with that air of \vild and magnificent
disorder which they are sure to acquire by falling of their
own accord.

Imagination was stimulated by Prc-Renaissance build-
ings ; there was a new interest in Shakespeare, Milton,
Spenser, in old Ballads, legends, traditions, in pictur-
esque landscape, in foreign lands in many things
which Classicism was accustomed to disparage. About
1740 the Novel of Sentiment came into being in the
hands of Richardson. He was a member of the average
middle class, and sought his inspiration from Puritan
scntimcntalism. His purpose was to edify, his appeal
was to the emotions. So we find the allegory of Bunyan,
the essay of Stcelc and Addison, the novel of Defoe, and
now the novels of Richardson, representing successive
attempts to break through the rule of Reason. The
language of Goldsmith's Vicar of \Vakefieldis still classi-
cal, but the story is simple and domestic, free not only
from all Puritan strain but also from rJl traces of
artificiality. Sterne reaches the extreme limit of the

MEANING AND STYLE 13

Sentimental Novel. Tristram Shandy is all personality.
Here the individualistic spirit of the Renaissance shows
itself, and points to the Romantic Revival. With
Richardson and Sterne prose style has lost its speed,
clarity and concreteness ; it is overloaded with com-
ment and opinion, and * philosophical reflections, the
like not to be found in any light French romance'.
Fielding brings a healthy realism into the novel to
combat the close atmosphere of Richardson, but the
latter, regarded as a moral writer, was more popular
from pulpit to beneath stairs. The growth of Senti-
ment was materially aided by the re-awakening of the
Imagination throughout the latter part of the eigh-
teenth century. The desire to feel stimulates the
imagination : and the imagination has the power to
arouse emotion.

The desire for spiritual relief links up with the
progress of Sentiment. The great religious revival of
the eighteenth century that of Methodism affected
the national conscience and modified the general
attitude towards life by stirring the lethargic emotion
of the people. This prepared the way for writing
which should appeal to the heart more than the mind.
There had to be a regeneration of the spirit if literature
was to escape from artificiality and servile imitation.
Hogarth, writing in 1753, had already seen the dangers
of Reason as the only guide when he says of pictorial
art, * The Artist should be free to imagine and create
in absolute independence.'

There are many influences producing the Romantic
Revival which now dominates literature. First the
natural reaction to the discipline of the Age of Reason,
to the insistence upon rule and a fixed code. Then

14 MEANING AND STYLE

influences already touched on ; the growth of Senti-
ment, and the evangelism of the Methodist Revival ;
the awakening of the Imagination, and a new interest
in the Romantic literature of the Elizabethans. Other
vital influences came from abroad. Rousseau had
fired the minds of 'thinkers and turnpd attention to
political and social problems. The French Revolution
gave an enormous moral and imaginative impulse to
the writers of the time. The spirit of freedom was in
the air. Everywhere was enthusiasm, and Words-
worth exclaimed, ' Bliss was it in that dawn to be
alive.' The Age of Reason had given a common
culture, for Classicism itself was impersonal. Now
the individual became important, Romanticism is
intensely personal. There is a predominance of the
personal, emotional Ivfe, and with it an active awaken-
ing of the creative impulse. Turning away from
Reason and Convention the Romantic writers tried to
liberate themselves from tyrannical repressions. They
depended upon inspiration, furor poeticus, divine
drunkenness. Wordsworth proclaimed that poetry
was * the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings '.
There is much of the dream-state about their work, in
contrast to Classicism, which is essentially sober and
restrained. We find joy, and wonder, and vision ; but
also melancholy, regret and disillusionment. Lamb,
writing with tender effusion, deals with the sad mystery
of time and change. He plays with the past, peopling
it with dreams :

While I stood gazing, both the children gradually grew
fainter to my view, receding, and still receding till nothing
at last but two mournful features were seen in the uttermost
distance, which, without speech, strangely impressed upon

MEANING AND STYLE 15

me the effects of speech : ' We are not of Alice, nor of thee,
nor are we children at all. The children of Alice called
Bartrum father. We are nothing ; less than nothing, and
dreams. We are only what might have been, and must
wait upon the tedious shore of Lethe millions of ages before
we have existence, and a name ' and immediately awak-
ing, I found myself quietly seated in my bachelor arm-chair,
where I had fallen asleep. From Dream Children (1822)

Scott returns to the Past, and writes with a soundness
that gave Romanticism ' an average and normal
value '. Hazlitt is a critic of life. He is independent
in outlook ; his style is vigorous, with a fine sanity of
diction. It has been said, ' he simply uses right
English.' De Quincey shows the critical spirit super-
seding the creative. The poetical prose of his Con-
fessions is the expression of an incomplete lyricism. He
failed creatively to be a poet, measuring his weakness
against the great poets of the time. The ' gorgeous '
quality of his prose is a substitute. He exhibits also
the morbidity which is so much a part of Romanticism.
Some writers by an effort of will threw it off : others
Coleridge, Byron, and Bcddoes failed. This morbidity,
and an excessive egotism, brought Romanticism into
disrepute. It had never been accepted as was Classi-
cism. The nation was never comfortable surveying a
literature where emotion and imagination were un-
restrained. The stress had been severe, not only on
artistic creation but on the moral life. Now the great
creative force, shown chiefly in poetry, was exhausted.
A reaction followed in a call for Rationality. The
desire was again for truth, realism, and a more careful
style. The Reform Bill of 1832 settled immediate
political disputes, and gave a period of stability.

l6 MEANING AND STYLE

Romanticism had championed the rights of the indi-
vidual ; this freedom, mis-applied, appeared in the
laxity of morals during the Regency, which recalled the
Restoration. The middle class, now fully conscious
of its power, and strong in Puritan feeling, leads the
movement for order and discipline. Queen Victoria
brings to English society self-control and a stricter
morality. Carlyle becomes the high-priest of the new
order and voices the principles underlying a sterner
notion of duty, and the gospel of work :

For there is a perennial nobleness and even sacredness,
in Work. Were he never so benighted, forgetful of his
high calling, there is always hope in a man that actually
and earnestly works : in Idleness alone is there perpetual
despair. Work, never so Mammonish, mean, is in com-
munication with Nature ; the real desire to get Work done
will itself lead one more and more to truth, to Nature's
appointments and regulations, which are truth.

From Past and Present (1843)

The changes are rapid in the nineteenth century.
It is the age of industrialism, scientific discovery, and
expansion. In the sixteenth century Science was
opposed to Art and Religion. In the seventeenth
century every cultured person was interested in
Science ; the Royal Society was founded in 1662 to
encourage this interest. (Actually it took the whole
field of knowledge for its province, and even included
the improvement of English prose among its aims,
exacting from all its members * a close, naked, natural
way of speaking ; positive expressions ; cle^r senses ;
a native easiness'.) To the Victorians, Science was
extremely important. It helped in the search for
truth ; gave a feeling of certainty and power ; and

MEANING AND STYLE 17

was in many ways Anti-Romantic. Darwin and
Herbert Spencer advanced the scientific movement.
They both upheld the authority of Reason. The Vic-
torians were reluctant at first to accept new theories,
but once they began to build upon the rock-bottom
of Science they became sure of themselves. This bred
complacency and self-satisfaction. Applied science
standardized, cheapened, and made ugly its creations,
distributing them widely among society. Theoretical
science steadily undermined the traditional ways of
thought. Challenging ideas were expressed in the
work of Ruskin, Kingsley, Arnold, William Morris,
in the satire of Thackeray, and the propaganda of
Dickens. But, in the main, literature in the works
of Trollope, Meredith, Tennyson, and Browning re-
flected, if with some satire, ' the life of a people lethargic
with physical comfort and mental and spiritual satis-
faction. 5 They were aware that science was giving
them control over the physical resources of the earth ;
not until near the end of the century did they fully
realize that their traditional conceptions had been
destroyed.

Like Europe, however, England was not yet free
from the influence of Romanticism. It is present in
Thackeray, in Dickens it is all-pervasive, Carlyle de-
nounces it in a style that is personal, emotional, intense.
Emily Bronte writes with rare emotional fervour ; as
Mr. F. L. Lucas has pointed out, her HeathclifF
is in direct line with Mrs. Radcliffe's Montoni and
Schedoni, Byron's Cain, Shelley's elder Cenci the
sinister daemonic male, a recurrent type in Romantic
literature. (Just as La Belle Dame and Lamia
of Keats recurs in Pater's La Giaconda, Rossetti's

l8 MEANING AND STYLE

Siren, the Salome of Wilde and Beardsley.) An
industrial age with vulgarity in commercial art
naturally produced a revolt against ugliness. Ruskin,
inspired by the painting of Turner, led an aesthetic re-
vival in 1843. Industry on a large scale was destroying
nature and degrading humanity. The Pre-Raphaelite
Brotherhood united, about 1850, to resist the conven-
tional in art and literature by a return to the past.
The quest of the Beautiful led their preferences to
the archaic and the unsophisticated. Ruskin had a
slightly different inspiration. He had been nurtured
on the Bible, and drew his main impulse from deeper
currents of British thought. He acknowledged Provi-
dence (the Puritan strain emerging once again) and
expressed the more immediate needs of idealism.
This aesthetic movement was continued by Pater (his
History of the Renaissance was published in 1873) and
reached its limits in the productions of Wilde, Beards-
ley, and the Yellow Rook (an illustrated quarterly
which appeared from 1894-1897). These turned
away from the Victorian ideals, which seemed smug
and hypocritical and to lack artistic expression. ' Art
for Art's sake ' became the motto. And so we find
the writers of the 1890*5 with a passionate interest in
workmansliip. Pater showed the way in such a passage
as this, describing the Giaconda :

She is older than the rocks among which she sits ; like
the vampire, she has been dead many times, and learned
the secrets of the grave ; and has been a diver in deep seas,
and keeps their fallen day about her ; and trafficked for
strange webs with Eastern merchants : and, as Leda, was
the mother of Helen of Troy, and, as Saint Anne, the
mother of Marv : and all this has been to her but the sound

MEANING AND STYLE IQ

of lyres and flutes, and lives only in the delicacy with which
it has moulded the changing lineaments, and tinged the
eye-lids and the hands.

This meticulous elegance, * patient chipping out of
word effects ', and struggle with technique is echoed
in Wilde :

The world is made by the singer for the dreamer. . . .
On the mouldering citadel of Troy lies the lizard like a
thing of green bronze. The owl has built her nest in the
palace of Priam. Over the empty plain wander shepherd
and goatherd with their flocks, and where, on the wine-
surfaced oily sea, copper-prowed and streaked with ver-
milion, the great galleys of the Danaoi came in their gleam-
ing crescent, the lonely tunny-fisher sits in his little boat
and watches the bobbing corks of his net. Yet, every
morning the doors of the city are thrown open, and on foot,
or in horse-drawn chariot, the warriors go forth to battle,
and mock their enemies from behind their iron masks. All
day long the fight rages, and when night comes the torches
gleam by the tents, and the cresset burns in the hall. Those
who live in marble or on painted panel, know of life but a
single exquisite instant, eternal indeed in its beauty, but
limited to one note of passion or one mood of calm.

Here, there is no authentic note nothing but
echoes. Art takes the place of Life. The subjects
are superficial ; the style becomes strained, exotic,
decadent. But the counter currents were strong.
Thackeray in Vanity Fair (1847) had distrusted senti-
mental illusions ; he stood for open and fair good sense,
and was in harmony with the ideals of lucidity and
reason. He satirised human weaknesses, particularly
social pretentiousness. Towards the end of the cen-
tury, Samuel Butler waged war against the excesses

20 - MEANING AND STYLE

of scientific dogmatism, the suppression of originality,
the hypocrisies and conventions, that he saw around
him. On one hand were earnest doctrines ; on the
other, aestheticism recognizing no law but itself. The
illusion of a simple, safe happiness had been scrutinised
and disappeared. Traditional beliefs had been under-
mined. Science was now the source of despair. Hardy
brooded against the dull background of a joyless earth.
James Thomson and Gissing, similarly, expressed their
pessimism and despair. Stevenson found romantic
escape in the novel of adventure. Burton and King-
lake write vividly of experiences and travels in the
Near East, though without the picaresque quality of
that earlier novelist, George Borrow, whose Bible in
Spain (1843) illustrates the virtues of a good narrative
style. The novel of mystery and horror is purged of
the excesses of the Monk Lewis school and humanized
by Wilkie Collins. Richard Jefleries and W. H.
Hudson write of the countryside. Kipling and Henley
reflect the Imperialism of the nation. It can be seen
that there are many interests : and with them many
different styles. New minds bring new sensibility,
and there is a continual rejuvenation. Personality
becomes of greater importance, and there are many
writers who stand outside any rigid classification.
Chesterton shows a longing for a more authoritative,
humane, picturesque society. Wells uses fiction as a
portmanteau for his innumerable philosophical ideas
and scientific speculations. Shaw is characterized by
a fearless intellectual criticism, and uses a prose style
which is an instrument of clear, animating thought.
Arnold Bennett, showing something of Hardy's realistic
Handling of local colour, creates a precise and matter-

MEANING AND STYLE 21

of-fact style suited to the drab industrial towns of which
he writes. The foundations of literature have steadily
been broadened. By the end. of the nineteenth cen-
tury, the lower class, for the most part, had ready
access to culture. Democratic ideas spread. Education
is becoming universal. Cheap editions, book reviews,
the serial novel, the modern newspaper all spread
information among the masses. The reading public
changes, and this is reflected in the widening literary
appeal. Soon there is no common style, method, or
programme. The era of literary doctrines and schools
seems over. We are losing a common standard of
culture. The disintegration of taste has begun, and
though the discerning appreciation of art and literature
has always depended upon a small minority, the rapid
standardization of civilization from the beginning of
the twentieth century makes it increasingly difficult to
return to any previous cultural level.

There were many forces shaping the literature of the
twentieth century. Among the foremost of these was
the work of four men : Tolstoy, whose passionate
humanitarianism widened the field of the novel ;
Wagner, who rebelled against traditional art forms ;
Ibsen, who criticised society with a new and unsparing
realism ; and Nietzsche, who vigorously refuted many
of the traditional ideals of humanity and replaced them
by his own ideas. If these great innovators upset
thinking, style and literary method also changed.
Here the most potent influences were the French
writers Flaubert, Balzac, Zola ; and the Russians
Turgenev, Dostoevski, and Chekhov. But undoubtedly
the greatest force of all was that of Science. The
enormous development in the study of biology,

22 MEANING AND STYLE

psychology, and sociology is reflected in the wealth of
new material, and the various adaptations in method.
There is the actual borrowing of scientific matter (as
in the early novels of H. G. Wells), the application of
scientific methods of analysis to character study, the
use of literature less as an art and more as a medium of
social propaganda, the widening of the whole field of
literature to admit many ideas never before regarded
as suitable. This vast enlargement of literary materials
destroyed the old technique ; the age of speed has
driven the old leisurely atmosphere from literature,
much of the old thoroughness has gone, we have Im-
pressionism, a certain formlessness, much that is experi-
mental. Mention must also be made of the doctrine
of psycho-analysis first applied by Dr. Sigmund Freud
of Vienna, and of general interest in England about
1910. This led to new methods of presentation and
the exploitation of the sub-conscious, ' the persistence
of the past in the present.' This is shown in the novels
of Dorothy Richardson, D. H. Lawrence, and most
of all in those of James Joyce. After the War, the
novel, which was mainly in the hands of women, be-
came more analytical and more realistic. Idealism
and sentiment were distrusted ; there was much
cynicism, but also candour and sincerity. Once again
Reason triumphed. Writers became objective and
impersonal. Biography became the vogue. Lytton
Strachey, using many of the devices of the dramatist,
wrote with an * unflattering detachment '. Others
followed his example, writing with understanding but
without sentiment. The short story, the essay, literary
criticism, all werfe cultivated. It was essentially an age
of prose, like other analysing and criticising periods.

MEANING AND STYLE 23

Unlike the eighteenth century, it lacked the finer
qualities of style. Language was debased to include
colloquialisms, vulgarisms, and slang (particularly
Americanisms). There was a constant striving after
vigorous, hit-or-miss effects. Here is D. H. Lawrence
describing Cagliari :

It is market day. We turn up the Largo Carlo-Felice,
the second wide gap of a street, a vast but very short
boulevard, like the end of something. Cagliari is like that :
all bits and bobs. And by the side of the pavement are
many stalls, stalls selling combs and collar-studs, cheap
mirrors, handkerchiefs, shoddy Manchester goods, bed-
ticking, boot-paste, poor crockery and so on. But we see
also Madame of Cagliari going marketing, with a servant
accompanying her, carrying a huge ginss-woven basket :
or returning from marketing, followed by a small boy
supporting one of these huge grass-woven baskets like
huge dishes on his head, piled with bread, eggs, vege-
tables, a chicken, and so forth. Therefore we follow
Madame going marketing, and find ourselves in a vast
market-house, and it fairly glows with eggs : eggs in these
great round dish-baskets of golden grass : but eggs in piles,
in mounds, in heaps, a Sierra Nevada of eggs, glowing
warm white. How they glow! I never noticed it before.
But they give off a pearly effulgence into the air, almost a
warmth. A pearly-gold heat seems to come out of them.
Myriads of eggs, glowing avenues of eggs.

Katherine Mansfield describes a Bank Holiday :

A stout man with a pink face wears dingy white flannel
trousers, a blue coat with a pink handkerchief showing, and
a straw hat much too small for him perched at the back of
his head. He plays the guitar. A little chap in white
canvas shoes, his face hidden under a felt hat like a broken
wing, breathes into a flute : and a tall thin fellow, with

24 MEANING AND STYLE

bursting over-ripe button boots, draws ribbons long,
twisted, streaming ribbons of tune out of a fiddle. They
stand, unsmiling, but not serious, in the broad sunlight
opposite the fruit-shop ; the pink spider of a hand beats
the guitar, the little squat hand, with a brass-and-turquoise
ring, forces the reluctant flute, and the fiddler's arm tries
to saw the fiddle in two.

And James Joyce :

The grainy sand had gone from under his feet. His boots
trod again a damp crackling mast, razorshells, squeaking
pebbles, that on the unnumbered pebbles beats, wood
sieved by the shipworm, lost Armada. Unwholesome
sandflats waited to suck his treading soles, breathing up-
ward sewage breath. He coasted them, walking warily.
A porterbottle stood up, stogged to its waist, in the cakey
sand dough. A sentinel : isle of dreadful thirst. Broken
hoops on the shore ; at the land a maze of dark cunning
nets ; farther away chalkscrawled backdoors and on the
higher beach a dryingline with two crucified shirts. Rings-
end : wigwams of brown steersmen and master mariners.
Human shells.

Though there is much experimentation with style
(marked by many changes in vocabulary) there is
much that is traditional. The ' purple patch ' may
be out of favour, but there is still rhythmic handling
of prose tending towards even greater flexibility. Prose
style may have lost some of the charm we find in other
periods, but there is variety enough to suit all tastes.
What the many prose forms lose in distinction is
supplied by vitality, and the promise of constant
adaptation to changing needs.

2. A SELECTION OF EXTRACTS FROM WRIT-
ERS OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY TO
THE PRESENT DAY WITH QUESTIONS
ON MEANING AND STYLE

I

BESIDE the isle of Pentcxoire, that is the land of
Prestcr John, is a great isle long and broad, that men
clepe Milsterak ; and it is in the lordship of Prester
John. In that isle is great plenty of goods. There
was dwelling, sometime, a rich man ; and it is not long
sithen, and men clept him Gatholonabes ; and he was
full of cautels and of subtle deceits. And he had a
full fair castle and a strong in a mountain, so strong
and so noble, that no man could devise a fairer ne
stronger. And he had let mure all the mountain about
with a strong wall and a fair. And within those walls
he had the fairest garden, that any man might behold ;
and therein were trees bearing all manner of fruits,
that any man could devise : and therein were also all
manner virtuous herbs of good smell, and all other
herbs also, that bear fair flowers. And he had also in
that garden many fair wells ; and beside those wells
he had let make fair halls and fair chambers, depainted
all with gold and azure ; and there were in that place
many diverse things, and many diverse stories : and
of beasts, and of birds that sung full delectably and
moved by craft, that it seemed that they were quick.

26 MEANING AND STYLE

And he had also in his garden all manner of fowls and
of beasts, that any man might think on, for to have
play or dcsport to behold them.

And he had also, in that place, the fairest damosels,
that might be found, under the age of fifteen years, and
the fairest young striplings that men might get, of that
same age : and all they were clothed in cloths of gold,
fully richly : and he said that those were angels. And
he had also let make three wells, fair and noble, and all
environed with stone of jasper, of crystal, diapered with
gold, and set with precious stones and great orient pearls.
And he had made a conduit under earth, so that the
three wells, at his list, one should run milk, another wine,
and another honey. And that place he clept Paradise.

SIR JOHN MANDRVITXE (i4th century), from The
Voyages and Travels of Sir John Mandeville

MEANING

r. Name the principal objects described in the isle
of Milsterak.

2. Do you find any arranged order in the description?

3. How much of the description is (a) indicated,
(b) left to the imagination?

4. What is the meaning of * subtle deceits ', * vir-
tuous herbs '?

5. What repetition do you find? What is the effect?

STYLE

6. Is the language simple, ornate, picturesque,
diffuse? Give examples.

7. Make a list of the archaic words. What do you
notice about the epithets used here?

MEANING AND STYLE 27

8. Do you get a clear picture of the scene described,
or is it confused?

9. Are the sentences simple or complex? What do
you notice in the sentence construction?

10. What merit has this prose style?

II

THEN afore him he saw come riding out of a castle a
knight, and his horse trapped all red, and himself in
the same colour. When this knight in the red beheld
Balin, him thought it should be his brother Balin be-
cause of his two swords, but because he knew not his
shield, he deemed that it was not he. And so they
aventryd their spears, and came marvellously fast
together, and they smote each other in the shields, but
their spears and their course were so big that it bare
down horse and man, that they both lay in a swoon.
But Balin was bruised sore with the fall of his horse, for
he was weary of travel. And Balan was the first that
rose on foot and drew his sword, and went toward
Balin, and he arose and went against him, but Balan
smote Balin first, and he put up his shield, and smote
him through the shield and tamyd his helm. Then
Balin smote him again with that unhappy sword, and
well nigh had felled his brother Balan, and so they
fought there till their breaths failed. Then Balin
looked up to the castle, and saw the towers stand full
of ladies. So they went to battle again, and wounded
each other dolefully, and then they breathed oft-times,
and so went unto the battle, that all the place there as
they fought was blood red. And at that time there was
none of them both but they had either smitten other

28 MEANING AND STYLE

seven great wounds, so that the least of them might
have been the death of the mightiest giant in this world.
Then they went to battle again so marvellously
chat doubt it was to hear of that battle for the great
bloodshedding, and their hauberks unnailed, that
naked they were on every side. At the last Balan, the
younger brother, withdrew him a little and laid him
down. Then said Balin le Savage, What knight art
thou? for or now I found never no knight that matched
me. My name is, said he, Balan, brother to the good
knight Balin. Alas! said Balin, that ever I should see
this day. And therewith he fell backwards in a swoon.
Then Balan yede on all four feet and hands, and put
off the helm of his brother, and might not know him
by the visage it was so full hewn and bled ; but when
he awoke he said, O Balan, my brother, thou hast slain
me and I thce, wherefore all the wide world shall speak
of us both. Alas! said Balan, that ever I saw this day,
that through mishap I might not know you, for I
espied well your two swords, but because ye had
another shield I deemed you had been another knight.
Alas! said Balin, all that made an unhappy knight in
the castle, for he caused me to leave mine own shield
to our both's destruction, and if I might live I would
destroy that castle for ill customs.

SIR THOMAS MALORY (about 1470), from
Le Motte d' Arthur

MEANING

1. Write a brief report of the fight between Balin
and Balan.

2, Why did Balan fail to recognize his brother?

MEANING AND STYLE 2Q

3. What do you learn about fighting in the fifteenth
century from this extract?

4. What is the meaning of the first sentence in the
second paragraph?

5. Rewrite the last sentence in your own words.

STYLE

6. What kind of prose is this? Are the majority of
the verbs active or passive?

7. Is the language concrete, abstract, simple,
ornate, verbose, concise?

8. What is the effect of the limited use of epithets?

9. By what means is the speed and vigour of the
passage maintained?

10. W r ould this way of writing suit any purpose other
than its present one? Give reasons.

Ill

UPON which considerations the day and year before
expressed, he departed from Blackwall to Harwich,
where making an accomplishment of things necessary,
the last of May we hoisted up sails, and with a merry
wind the jth of June we arrived at the islands called
Orchades, or vulgarly Orkney, being in number thirty,
subject and adjacent to Scotland, where we made
provision of fresh water, in the doing whereof our
general licensed the gentleman and soldiers, for their
recreation, to go on shore. At our landing the people
fled from their poor cottages with shrieks and alarms,
to warn their neighbours of enemies, but by gentle

30 MEANING AND STYLE

persuasions we reclaimed them to their houses. It
seemeth they are often frighted with pirates, or some
other enemies, that move them to such sudden fear.
Their houses are very simply builded with pebble stone,
without any chimneys, the fire being made in the midst
thereof. The good man, wife, children, and other of
their family, eat and sleep on the one side of the house,
and their cattle on the other, very beastly and rudely
in respect of civilisation. They are destitute of wood,
their fire is turf and cow shardes. They have corn,
bigge, and oats with which they pay their king's rent
to the maintenance of his house. They take great
quantity of fish, which they dry in the wind and sun ;
they dress their meat very filthily, and eat it without
salt. Their apparel is after the nudest sort in Scotland.
Their money is all base. Their Church and religion is
reformed according to the Scots. The fishermen of
England can better declare the dispositions of those
people than I, wherefore I remit other their usages to
their reports, as yearly repairers thither in their courses
to and from Iceland for fish.

All along these seas, after we were six days sailing
from Orkney, we met, floating in the sea, great fir
trees, which, as we judged, were, with the fury of great
floods, rooted up, and so driven into the sea. Iceland
hath almost no other wood nor fuel but such as they
take up upon their coasts. It seemeth that these trees
are driven from some part of the Newfoundland, with
the current that setteth from the west to the east.
RICHARD HAKLUYT (1553-1616), from Tho Second
Voyage of Master Martin Frobis/w

MEANING AND STYLE $1

MEANING

1. Outline briefly the condition of the inhabitants
of the Orkneys.

2. Explain and enlarge upon the phrase ' in respect
of civilisation '.

3. Explain c accomplishment of things necessary ',
4 subject and adjacent to Scotland *, ' to the mainten-
ance of his house '.

4. What is the meaning of the sentence ' wherefore
I remit other their usages to their reports '?

5. What is the author's opinion of the people of the
Orkneys?

STYLE

6. What kind of prose is this? Are the majority of
the verbs active or passive?

7. Is the language archaic, familiar, plain, exu-
berant, restrained?

8. Indicate the variety of the sentence construc-
tion.

9. Compare with Malory. Which prose is the
more harmonious?

10. What are the principal qualities of this prose
style?

IV

So it is, Lucilla, that coming to Naples but to fetch
fire, as the by- word is, not to make my place of abode,
I have found such flames that I can neither quench
them with the water of free will, neither cool them with
wisdom. For as the hop, the pole being never so high,
groweth to the end, or as the dry beech kindled at the

32 MEANING AND STYLE

root, never Icavcth until it come to the top, or as one
drop of poison disperseth itself into every vein, so
affection having caught hold of my heart, and the
sparkles of love kindled my liver, will suddenly, though
secretly, flame up into my head, and spread itself into
every sinew. It is your beauty (pardon my abrupt
boldness, lady) that hath taken every part of me
prisoner, and brought me into this deep distress, but
seeing women, when one praiseth them for their deserts,
deem that he flattercth them to obtain his desire, I
am here present to yield myself to such ti ial as your
courtesy in this behalf shall require. Yet will you
commonly object this to such as serve you and starve
to win your good will : that hot love is soon cold, that
the bavin though it burn bright is but a blaze, that
scalding water if it stand a while turncth almost to ice,
that pepper though it be hot in the mouth is cold in
the maw, that the faith of men though it fry in their
words it freezcth in their works. Which things,
Lucilla, albeit they be sufficient to reprove the lightness
of some one, yet can they not convince every one of
lewdness, neither ought the constancy of all to be
brought in question through the subtlety of a few. For
although the worm entercth almost into every wood,
yet he cateth not the cedar tree ; though the stone
cylindrus at every thunder clap roll from the hill, yet
the pure sleek stone mountcth at the noise ; though
the rust fret the hardest steel, yet doth it not eat into
the emerald ; though polypus change his hue, yet the
salamander kcepcth his colour ; though Proteus
transform himself into every shape, yet Pygmalion
retaineth his old form ; though Aeneas were too fickle
to Dido, yet Troilus was too faithful to Gressida

MEANING AND STYLE 33

though others seem counterfeit in their deeds, yet,
Lucilla, persuade yourself that Euphues will be always
current in his dealings.

JOHN LYLY ( 155}.- 1606), from Euphues

MEANING

i . Give a title to the extract.

->. Give the gist of the passage in your own words.

3. What is the meaning of * I can neither quench
them with the water of free will, neither cool them
with wisdom ', ' that the faith of men though it fry in
their words it freezeth in their works ', * persuade
yourself that Euphues will be always current in his
dealings '?

4. Make a list of illustrations from (a) Natural
History, (b) the Classics. What statements appear to
you to be inaccurate?

5. What is the meaning of bavin, maw, cylindrus,
polypus?

STYLE

6. Give examples of Lyly's use of (a) simile, (b)
alliteration, (c) imagery, (d) conceit, (*) bombast.

7. Illustrate the use of antithesis by a careful
analysis of the last sentence.

8. Do you think the illustrations used to support
his statements and to decorate the prose arc justified
or not?

9. Illustrate the author's method of making the
abstract concrete.

10. * His prose is almost as regulated and measured
as verse.* Discuss.

34 MEANING AND STYLE

V

To our pin pose it is sulhcient that whosoever doth
serve, honour, and obey God, whosoever believeth in
him, that man would no more do this than innocents
and infants do, but for the light of natural reason that
sliineth in him, arid maketh him apt to apprehend
thoM: things of God, which being by grace discovered,
are effectual to persuade reasonable minds, and none
other, that honour, obedience, and credit belong
aright unto God. No man cometh unto God to offer
him sacrifice, to pour out supplications and prayers
before him, or to do him any service, which doth not
first believe him both to be, and to be a rewarder of
them who in such sort seek unto him. Let men be
taught this cither by revelation from heaven, or by
instruction upon earth ; by labour, study, and medita-
tion, or by the only secret inspiration of the Holy
Ghost ; whatsoc\er the mean be they know it by, if
the knowledge thereof were possible without discourse
of natural reason, why should none be found capable
thereof, but only men : nor men till such time as they
come unto ripe and full ability to work by reasonable
undci standing? The whole drift of the Scripture of
God, what is it but only to teach Theology? Theology,
what is it but the science of things divine? What
science can be attained unto without the help of
natural discourses and reason? * Judge ye of that
whii h 1 speak/ saith the Apostle. In vain it were to
speak anything of God, but that by reason men arc able
somewhat to judge of that they hear, and by discourse
to discern how consonant it is to truth. Scripture,
indeed, teachcth things above nature, things which our

MEANING AND STYLE 35

reason by itself would not reach unto. Yet those also
we believe, knowing by reason that the Scripture is the
word of God.

RICHARD HOOKER (1554-1600), from
Ecclesiastical Polity

MEANING

1. Give a title to the passage.

2. Trace the strps by which the argument is built up.

3. Do you think the argument is convincing? Give
reasons.

4. What three sentences drive home his meaning
most forcefully?

5. What is meant by * discourse of natural reason '?

STYLE

6. What kind of prose is this?

7. Is the language abstract, concrete, archaic, con-
cise, elevated, ornate, pretentious? Compare it with
that of Malory and note any differences.

8. Ib the first sentence balanced, periodic, or loose?

9. Show the harmony of the author's style by a
detailed examination of the sentence beginning ' No
man comcth unto God '.

10. In what way is the dignity of this style achieved?

VI

Now therein of all sciences (I speak still of human, and
according to the humane conceits) is our poet the
monarch. For he doth not only show the way, but
giveth so sweet a prospect into the way, as will entice
any man to enter into it. Nay, he doth, as if your

36 MEANING AND STYLE

journey should lie through a fair vineyard, at the first
give you a cluster of grapes, that, full of that taste, you
may long to pass further. He beginneth not with ob-
scure definitions, which must blur the margent with
interpretations, and load the memory with doubtful-
ness; but he comcth to you with words set in delightful
propoi tion, either accompanied with, or prepared for,
the well enchanting skill of music ; and with a tale
forsooth h<* comcth unto you, with a tale which holdeth
children from play, and old men from the chimney
corner. And, pretending no more, doth intend the
winning of the rnind from wickedness to virtue : even
as the child is often brought to take most wholesome
things by hiding them in such other as have a pleasant
taste : which, if one should begin to tell them the
nature of aloes or rhubarb they should receive, would
sooner take their physic at their ears than at their
mouth. So is it in men (most of which are childish
in the best things, till they be cradled in their graves) :
glad they will be to hear the tales of Hercules, Achilles,
Cyrus, and Aeneas ; and, hearing them, must needs
hear the right description of wisdom, valour, and
justice ; which, if they had been barely, that is to say
philosophically, set out, they would swear they be
bi ought to school again.

SIR PHILIP SIDXLY (1554-1586), from An
Apology for Poetry

MEANING

I \Vhy is the poet monarch of all sciences?
2. Is poetry sufficiently defined as % words set in
delightful proportion ' and ' a tale '?

MEANING AND STYLE 37

3. Express in your own words the argument con-
tained in the last two sentences.

4. Indicate the varied knowledge and interests of
the author.

5. To what docs the author refer by the words ' the
best things ' in the last sentence?

STYLE

6. Is the language poetic, restrained, stilted,
pedantic, figurative, vivid?

7. Quote several sentences containing striking
imagery, and say why the imagery is effective.

8. Show the appropriateness of the phrases ' blur
the margcnt with interpretations ', ' load the memory
with doubtfulness '.

9. Does the author try to convince or persuade?
Is he successful?

10. What are the main qualities of this prose? Is
there any indication that the author was also a poet?

VII

AMBITION is like cholcr, which is an humour that
maketh men active, earnest, full of alacrity, and
stirring, if it be not stopped : but if it be stopped and
cannot have his way, it becometh adust, and thereby
malign and venomous. So ambitious men, if they
find the way open for their rising and still get forward,
they are rather busy than dangerous ; but if they be
checked in their desires, they become secretly dis-
content, and look upon men and matters with an evil
eye, and are best pleased when things go backward ;
which is the worst property in a servant of a prince or

38 MEANING AND STYLE

state. Therefore it is good for princes, if they use
ambitious men, to handle it so as they be still progres-
sive and not retrograde ; which because it cannot be
without inconvenience, it is good not to use such
natures at all ; for if they rise not with their service,
they will take order to make their service fall with
them. But since we have said it were good not to use
men of ambitious natures, except it be upon necessity,
it is til we speak in what cases they are of necessity.
Good commanders in the wars must be taken, be they
never so ambitious, for the use of their service dispcnseth
with the rest ; and to take a soldier without ambition
is to pull off his spurs. There is also great use of
ambitious men in being screens to princes in matters
of danger and envy ; for no man will take that part
except he be like a seeled dove, that mounts and
mounts because he cannot see about him. There is
also use of ambitious men in pulling down the greatness
of any subject that overtops ; as Tiberius used Macro
in the pulling down of Sejanus. Since therefore they
must be used in such cases, there resteth to speak how
they are to be bridled that they may be less dangerous.
There is less d.ingei of them if they be of mean birth
than if they be noble ; and if they be rather harsh of
nature than gracious and popular ; and if they be
rather IKW raised than grown cunning and fortified in
their greatness.

FRANCIS BACON (1561-16^6), from Essays

MEANING

1. \Vhen is ambition dangerous?

2. In \\hat men is ambition a necessity?

MEANING AND STYLE 39

3. Is this about ambition in general terms or as it
affects the state?

4. Explain ' it beeometh adust ' ; * except he be like
a seeled dove '.

5. What is the meaning of choler, humour, alacrity,
malign, retrograde?

STYLE

6. What kind of prose is this? Do you find the
passage difficult to understand? Why?

7. From what are these general maxims deduced?
(From the Classics, direct observation, or both?)

8. For what particular audience is the author
writing? What effect does this have on his style?

9. How does the author achieve forcible and exact
expression?

10. ' The style is closely reasoned and sententious.'
Support this by a careful analysis of the second and
third sentences.

VIII

So, if a son that is by his father sent about merchan-
dise do sinfully miscarry upon the sea, the imputation
of his wickedness, by your rule, should be imposed upon
his father that sent him : or if a servant, under his
master's command transporting a sum of money, be
assailed by robbers and die in many irreconciled
iniquities, you may call the business of the master the
author of the servant's damnation : but this is not so :
the king is not bound to answer the particular endings
of his soldiers, the father of his son, nor the master of
his servant ; for they purpose not their death, when
they purpose their services. Besides, there is no king,

40 MEANING AND STYLE

be his cause never so spotless, if it come to the af bitre-
ment of swords, can try it out with all unspotted
soldiers : some peradventure have on them the guilt
of premeditated and contrived murder ; some, of
beguiling virgins with the broken seals of perjury ;
some, making the wars their bulwark, that have before
gored the gentle bosom of peace with pillage and
robbery. Now, if these men have defeated the law
and outrun native punishment, though they can
outstrip men, they have no wings to fly from God :
war is His beadle, war is His vengeance ; so that here
men are punished for before-breach of the king's laws
in now the king's quarrel : where they feared the death,
they have borne life away ; and where they would
be safe, they perish : then if they die unprovided, no
more is the king guilty of their damnation than he was
before guilty of those impieties for the which they are
now visited. Every subject's duty is the king's ; but
every subject's soul is his own. Therefore should every
soldier in the wars do as every sick man in his bed,
wash every mote out of his conscience : and dying so,
death is to him advantage ; or not dying, the time was
blessedly lost wherein such preparation was gained :
and in him that escapes, it were not sin to think that,
making God so free an offer, He lot him outlive that
day to see His greatness and to teach others how they
should prepare.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564-1616),
from Henry V

MEANING

1 . What is the theme of the passage?

2. Summarize the argument.

MEANING AND STYLE 41

3. What sentence sums up the argument?

4. Explain, and comment upon the statement,
c War is His beadle, war is His vengeance.'

5. Explain : the arbitrement of swords, broken seals
of perjury, punished for before-breach of the king's laws.

STYLE

6. What kind of prose is this? Consider the diction.
How would you describe the vocabulary used here?

7. Compare this passage with that of Sidney. How
do they differ?

8. Show how the style suits the subject.

9. Enumerate the various figures of speech used
here.

10 What would this passage lose if it were written
in blank verse?

IX

IN the great Ant-hill of the whole world, I am an Ant ;
I have my part in the Creation, I am a creature ; But
there are ignoble Creatures. God comes nearer; In the
great field of clay, of red earth, that man was made of,
and mankind, I am a clod ; I am a man, I have my part
in the Humanity ; But Man was worse than annihilated
again. When satan in that serpent was come, as
Hercules with his club into a potters shop, and had
broke all the vessels, destroyed all mankind, And the
gracious promise of a Messias to redeeme all mankind,
was shed and spreade upon all, I had my drop of that
dew of Heaven, my sparke of that fire of heaven, in the
universall promise, in which I was involved ; But
this promise was appropriated after, in a particular
Covenant, to one people, to the Jewes, to the seed ol
B*

42 MEANING AND STYLE

Abraham. But for all that I have my portion there ;
for all that professe Christ Jesus are by a spirituall en-
grafting, and transmigration, and transplantation, in
and of that stock, and that seed of Abraham ; and I
am one of those. But then, of those who doe professe
Christ Jesus, some grovell still in the superstitions they
were fallen into, and some are raised, by Gods good
grace, out of them ; and I am one of those ; God hath
afforded me my station, in that Church, which is
departed from Babylon.

Now, all this while, my soulc is in a cheerefull pro-
gressc ; when 1 consider what God did for Goshen in
Egypte, for a little parke in the midst of a forest ; whate
he did for Jury, in the midst of enemies, as a shire that
should stand out against a Kingdome round about it :
How many Samerras he hath delivered from famins,
how niciny Genevas from plots, and machinations
against her ; all this while my soule is in a progresse :
But I am at home when I consider Buls of excommuni-
cations, and solicitations of Rebellions, and pistols and
poysons, and the discoveries of those ; There is our
JV&r, We y testimonies that we are in the favour, and care
of God ; We, our Nation, we, our Church ; There I
am at home ; but I am in my Cabinet at home, when
I consider, what God hath done for me, and my soule ;
There is the Ego, the particular, the indiv'duall, I.
JOHN DONNE (1573-1631), from Sermons

MEANING

1. What is the theme of the extract?

2. Give in your own words the meaning of the
second paragraph.

MEANING AND STYLE 43

3. What is the connection between the first and
second paragraph?

4. Can you see any system in the punctuation? Is
it subordinate to the general sense of rhythm? What
do you infer from it?

5. Can you trace any development of thought,
centred in the speaker, beginning * I am an Ant ' to
' There I am at home '?

STYLE

6. Point out the figures of speech used here. Are
the metaphors illuminative or decorative?

7. Illustrate the allusiveness of this passage.

8. What strikes you as (a) fantastic rhetoric,
(i) erudition, (c) obscurity?

9. What qualities in the choice and arrangement of
words contribute to the intricate rhythm of the passage?

10. Is there emotion behind the expression? Is it
genuine and sincere? Support your opinion.

X

AMBITION, a proud covetousness, or a dry thirst of
honour, a great torture of the mind, composed of envy,
pride, and covetousness, a gallant madness, one defines
it a pleasant poison, Ambrose, * a canker of the soul,
an hidden plague'; Bernard, c a secret poison, the
father of livor, and mother of hypocrisy, the moth of
holiness, and cause of madness, crucifying and dis-
quieting all that it takes hold of. Seneca calls it, rem
solicitaniy timidam, vanam, ventosam, a windy thing, a vain,
solicitous, and fearful thing. For commonly they that,
like Sysiphus, roll this restless stone of ambition, are

44 MEANING AND STYLE

in a perpetual agony, still perplexed, semper tacitly
tristesque recedunt (Lucretius), doubtful, timorous, sus-
picious, loath to ofFcnd in word or deed, still cogging
and collogueing, embracing, capping, cringing, ap-
plauding, flattering, (leering, visiting, waiting at men's
doors, with all affability, counterfeit honesty and
humility. If that will not serve, if once this humour
(as Cyprian describes it) possess his thirsty soul,
ambitionis salst<go ubi bibulam animam possidet, by hook and
by crook he will obtain it, ' and from his hole he will
climb to all honours and offices, if it be possible for
him to get up, flattering one, bribing another, he will
leave no means imessay'd to win all.' It is a wonder
to see how slavishly these kind of men subject them-
selves, when they are about a suit, to every inferior
person ; what pains they will take, run, ride, cast, plot,
countermine, protest and swear, vow, promise, what
labours undergo, early up, late down ; how obsequious
and affable they are, how popular and courteous, how
they grin and fleer upon every man they meet ; with
what feasting and inviting, how they spend themselves
and their fortunes, in seeking that many times, which
they had much better be without ; as Cyneas the
orator told Pyrrhus : with what waking nights, painful
hours, anxious thoughts, and bitterness of mind, inter
spcmquc metumque, distracted and tired, they consume
the interim of their time. There can be no greater
plague for the present. If they do obtain their suit,
which with such cost and solicitude they have sought,
they are not so freed, their anxiety is anew to begin, for
they arc never satisfied, nihil aliud nisi imperivm spirant,
their thoughts, actions, endeavours are all for
sovereignty and honour, like Lues Sforsia that huffing

MEANING AND STYLE 45

Duke of Milan, ' a man of singular wisdom, but
profound ambition, born to his own, and to the de-
struction of Italy ', though it be to their own ruin, and
friends' undoing, they will contend, they may not
cease, but as a dog in a wheel, a bird in a cage, or a
squirrel in a chain, so Budacus compares them ; they
climb and climb still, with much labour, but never
make an end, never at the top.

ROBERT BURTON (1577-1640), from
Anatomy of Melancholy

MEANING

1. Why does the author condemn ambition?

2. Write a definition of ambition from this passage.

3. Does the author say anything in favour of
ambition?

4. Explain * the moth of holiness ', ' when they are
about a suit ', ' consume the interim of their time '.

5. What is the meaning of unessay'd, obsequious,
fleer, solicitude?

STYLE

6. Compare this passage with that of Bacon.
What are the main differences in regard to style?

7. Indicate examples of the following : (a) archa-
isms, (b) eccentricity, (c) prolixity, (d) pedantry,
(e) allusiveness.

8. What do you learn about the author from this
extract?

9. What is the effect achieved by the copious
vocabulary?

10. Is there any trace of humour here?

46 MEANING AND STYLE

XI

I CONFESS, no direction can be given to make a man of
dull capacity able to make a fly well : and yet I know
this, with a little practice, will help an ingenious
angler in a good degree. But to see a fly made by an
artist in that kind, is the best teaching to make it.
And, then, an ingenious angler may walk by the river,
and mark what flies fall on the water that day ; and
catch one of them, if he sees the Trouts leap at a fly of
that kind : and then having always hooks ready hung
with him, and having a bag always with him, with
bear's hair, or the hair of a brown or sad-coloured
heifer, hackles of a cock or capon, several coloured silk
and crewel to make the body of the fly, the feathers
of a drake's head, black or brown sheep's wool, or
hog's wool, or hair, thread of gold, and of silver ; silk
of several colours, especially sad-coloured, to make the
fly's head : and there be also other coloured feathers,
both of little birds and of speckled fowl : I say, having
those with him in a bag, and trying to make a fly,
though he miss at first, yet shall he at last hit it better,
even to such a perfection as none can well teach him.
And if he hit to make his fly right, and have the luck
to hit, also, where there is store of Trouts, a dark day,
and a right wind, he will catch such store of them, as
will encourage him to grow more and more in lo\e
with the art of fly making.

IZAAK WALTON (1593-1683), from
The Compleat Angler

MEANING AND STYLE 47

MEANING

1 . Give a title to the extract.

2. What are the necessary materials for making a fly?

3. Why does the author give such a variety of
materials?

4. What do you gather to be the qualities for a
successful angler?

5. What is the meaning of sad-coloured, hackles,
capon, crewel?

STYLE

6. What kind of prose is this? What are its two
main qualities?

7. What kind of sentence is the third, beginning
4 And, then, an ingenious angler . . . J ?

8. Can you find any sentences or phrases which are
poetic?

9. How is the unusual flavour of the passage
achieved?

10. This is from perhaps the only handbook of an
art which ranks as literature. Can you suggest any
reasons for this distinction?

XII

Ho, every one that thirstcth, come ye to the waters,
and he that hath no money ; come ye, buy, and eat ;
yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and
without price. Wherefore do ye spend money for that
which is not bread? and your labour for that which
satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat
ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself
in fatness. Incline your ear, and come unto me ; hear,

48 MEANING AND STYLE

and your soul shall live : and I will make an ever-
lasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of
David. Behold, I have given him for a witness to the
people, a leader and commander to the people.
Behold, thou shalt call a nation that thou knowest not,
and a nation that knew not thee shall run unto thce,
because of the Lord thy God, and for the Holy One of
Israel ; for he hath glorified thce.

Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon
him while he is near : let the wicked forsake his way,
and the unrighteous man his thoughts : and let him
return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon
him ; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are
your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens
are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than
your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. For
as the rain comet h down, and the snow from heaven,
and returneth not thither, but watercth the earth, and
maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to
the sower and bread to the eater : so shall my \\ord be
that goeth forth out of my mouth : it shall not return
unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please,
and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. For
ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace :
the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you
into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap
their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the
fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the
myrtle tree : and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for
an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.

AUTHORISED VERSION OF THE BIBLE (1611),
from Isaiah

MEANING AND STYLE 49

MEANING

t. What is the theme of the passage?

2. Give a title to the first paragraph.

3. What is the key-sentence in the second para-
graph?

4. Explain carefully the meaning of * I will make
an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies
of David'.

5. Enlarge upon the fitness of the comparison in the
second paragraph beginning * For as the rain cometh
down, and the snow from heaven . . . *.

STYLE

6. Is the language mainly concrete or abstract?
Give examples.

7. Indicate several examples of parallelism. What
purpose does it serve?

8. This passage is essentially poetry. Why?

9. Give examples of (a) imagery, (b] personifica-
tion. How do they add to the general effect?

10. What are the outstanding qualities of this prose
style? Can you account for the universality of its
appeal?

XIII

WHAT song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles
assumed when he hid himself among women, though
puzzling questions, are not beyond all conjecture.
What time the persons of these ossuaries entered the
famous nations of the dead, and slept with princes and
counsellors, might admit a wide solution. But who

5O MEANING AND STYLE

were the proprietaries of these bones, or what bodies
these ashes made up, were a question above anti-
quarianism ; not to be resolved by man, nor easily
perhaps by spirits, except we consult the provincial
guardians, or tutelary observators. Had they made as
good provision for their names as they had done for
their relics, they had not so grossly erred in the art of
perpetuation. But to subsist in bones, and be but
pyramidally extant, is a fallacy in duration. Vain
ashes, which in the oblivion of names, persons, times,
and sexes, have found unto themselves a fruitless con-
tinuation, and only arise unto late posterity, as emblems
of mortal vanities, antidotes against pride, vainglory,
and madding vices. Pagan vainglories, which thought
the world might last for ever, had encouragement for
ambition, and finding no Atropos unto the immortality
of their names, were never damped with the necessity
of oblivion. Even old ambitions had the advantage
of ours, in the attempts of their vainglories, who acting
early, and before the probable meridian of time, have
by this time found great accomplishment of their
designs, whereby the ancient heroes have already out-
lasted their monuments, and mechanical preservations.
But in this latter scene of time we cannot expect such
mummies unto our memories, when ambition may fear
the prophecy of Elias, and Charles the Fifth can never
hope to live within two Mcthuselahs of Hector.

And therefore, restless inquietude for the diuturnity
of our memories unto present considerations, seems a
vanity almost out of date, and superannuated piece of
folly. We rannot hope to live so long in our names as
some have done in their persons. One face of Janus
holds no proportion unto the other. It is too late to

MEANING AND STYLE 5!

be ambitious. The great mutations of the world are
acted, or time may be too short for our designs. To
extend our memories by monuments, whose death we
daily pray for, and whose duration we cannot hope,
without injury to our expectations, in the advent of
the last day, were a contradiction of our beliefs. We,
whose generations are ordained in this setting part
of our time, are providentially taken off from such
imaginations ; and, being necessitated to eye the
remaining particle of futurity, are naturally constituted
unto thoughts of the next world, and cannot excusably
decline the consideration of that duration, which
maketh pyramids pillars of snow, and all that is past a
moment.

SIR THOMAS BROWNE (1605-1682), from
Urn-Bui ial

MEANING

1. What is the theme of the passage?

2. Express the content of the first paragraph in your
own words.

3. Why should the ambition of Pagans have the
advantage of ours? How is the thought continued in
the next paragraph?

4. What is meant by ' but to subsist in bones, and
be but pyramidally extant, is a fallacy in duration ' ;
* and finding no Atropos unto the immortality of their
names ' ; ' Charles the Fifth can never hope to live
within two Methuselahs of Hector ' ; ' One face of
Janus holds no proportion unto the other '?

5. Give the meaning of antiquarianism, tutelary,
oblivion, diuturnity, superannuated, mutations.

52 MEANING AND STYLE

STYLE

6. What is the difference between the vocabulary
used by Browne and that used by Malory?

7. Point out six striking epithets.

8. What would be lost if the sentence beginning
* To extend our memories * were written ' To continue
our memories by tombs, whose decay we pray for each
day, and whose lasting we cannot expect, without
harm to our hopes in the arrival of the last day, were a
denial of our beliefs '?

9. Show the author's command of harmony by a
careful analysis of the first three sentences. Then
read to the end of the paragraph, and try to show that
that is the unit of the prose rhythm.

10. Is this style a fitting one for the subject? Give
reasons to support your opinion.

XIV

ANGER is one of the sinews of the boul ; he that wants
it hath a maimed mind, and with Jacob sinew-shrunk
in the hollow of his thigh must needs halt. Nor is it
good to converse with such as cannot be angry, and
with the Caspian sea never ebbe nor flow. This
Anger is either Heavenly, when one is offended for
God : or Hellish, when offended with God and Good-
nes : or Earthly, in temporall matters. Which
Earthly Anger (whereof we treat) may also be Hellish,
if for no cause, no great cause, too hot, or too long.

Be not angry with any without a cause. If thou beest,
thou must not onely, as the Proverb saith, be appeas'd
without amends (having neither cost nor damage given

MEANING AND STYLE 53

thee) but, as our Saviour saith, be in danger of the
judgement.

Be not mortally angry with any for a veniall fault. He
will make a strange combustion in the state of his soul,
who at the landing of every cockboat sets the beacons
on fire. To be angry for every toy debases the worth
of thy anger ; for he who will be angry for anything,
will be angry for nothing.

Let not thy anger be so hot, but that the most torrid zone
thereof may be habitable. Fright not people from thy
presence with the terrour of thy intolerable impatience.
Some men like a tiled house are long before they take
fire, but once on flame there is no coming near to
quench them.

Take heed of doing irrevocable acts in thy passion. As the
revealing of secrets, which makes thee a bankrupt for
society ever after : neither do such things which done
once are done for ever, so that no bemoaning can
amend them. Sampsons hair grew again, but not his
eyes : Time may restore some losses, others are never
to be repaird. Wherefore in thy rage make no Persian
decree which cannot be revers'd or rcpcald ; but
rather Polonian laws which (they say) last but three
dayes : Do not in an instant what an age cannot
recompence.

THOMAS FULLER (1608-1661), from
The Holy and Profane State

MEANING

1. What different kinds of anger are there? Which
kind is praiseworthy? Which is to be controlled?

2. Express in your own words the author's advice
concerning anger.

54 MEANING AND STYLE

3. What is the meaning of ' wants ' in the first
sentence? Comment on the appropriateness of the
allusion to * Jacob sinew-shrunk in the hollow of his

thigh'.

4. Explain and enlarge upon the fitness of the image
4 He will make a strange combustion in the state of his
soul, who at the landing of every cockboat sets the
beacons on (ire '.

5. What is meant by * As the revealing of secrets,
which makes thee a bankrupt for society ever after '?

STYLE

6. What kind of prose is this? Does the style suit
the subject?

7. Find an example of (a) aphorism, (b) epigram,
(c) conceit, (d) imagery.

8. Can you find any indications of wit? Quote.

9. Discuss the fitness of the illustrations.

10. What arc the main characteristics of this style?

XV

I DENY not but that it is of greatest concernment in the
Church and Commonwealth to have a vigilant eye
hov\ books demean themselves as well as men ; and
thereafter to confine, imprison, and do sharpest justice
on them as malefactors : for books are not absolutely
dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them
to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are ;
nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy
and extraction of that living intellect that bred them.
I know they are as lively, and as vigorously productive,

MEANING AND STYLE 55

as those fabulous dragon's teeth ; and being sown up
and down, may chance to spring up armed men. And
yet on the other hand, unless wariness be used, as good
almost kill a man as kill a good book ; who kills a man
kills a reasonable creature, God's image ; but he who
destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image
of God as it were in the eye. Many a man lives a
burden to the earth ; but a good book is the precious
life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured
up on purpose to a life beyond life. 5 Tis true, no age
can restore a life, whereof perhaps there is no great
loss ; and revolutions of ages do not oft recover the
loss of a rejected truth, for the want of which whole
nations fare the worse. We should be wary therefore
what persecution we raise against the living labours
of public men, how we spill that seasoned life of man
preserved and stored up in books ; since we see a kind
of homicide may be thus committed, sometimes a
martyrdom, and if it extend to the whole impression,
a kind of massacre, whereof the execution ends not in
the slaying of an elemental life, but strikes at that
ethereal and fifth essence, the breath of reason itself,
slays an immortality rather than a life.

JOHN MILTON (1608-1674), from Areopagitica

MEANING

1 . Write down the reasons why a good book should
not be destroyed.

2. In what way does a book contain in it a potency
of life?

3. Explain the full significance of the sentence ' I
know they are as lively, and as vigorously productive,

56 MEANING AND STYLE

as those fabulous dragon's teeth ; and being sown up
and down, may chance to spring up armed men '.

4. Consider the sentence * revolutions of ages do
not oft recover the loss of a rejected truth, for the want
of which whole nations fare the worse '. What is the
meaning in your own words? Do you agree?

5. What is the meaning of malefactors, progeny,
homicide, martyrdom, ethereal and fifth essence?

STYLE

6. What kind of prose is this?

7. Is the language mainly abstract or concrete?

8. ' The style is the man.' What do you learn
about the author from this extract?

9. Personal sincerity is essential for clear reasoning.
Do you find this prose sincere and convincing?

10. What qualities of style give this passage its
nobility?

XVI

ANGER is a perfect alienation of the mind from prayer,
and therefore is contrary to that attention which pre-
sents our prayers in a right line to God. For so have
I seen a lark rising from his bed of grass, and soaring
upwards, singing as he rises, and hopes to get to heaven,
and climb above the clouds ; but the poor bird was
beaten back with the loud sighings of an eastern wind,
and his motion made irregular and inconstant, descend-
ing more at every breath of the tempest than it could
recover by the libration and frequent weighing of his
wings ; till the little creature was forced to sit down
and pant, and stay till the storm was over ; and then
it made a prosperous flight, and did rise and sing as

MEANING AND STYLE 57

if it had learned music and motion from an angel as
he passed sometimes through the air about his ministries
here below ; so is the prayer of a good man ; when
his affairs have required business, and his business
was matter of discipline, and his discipline was to pass
upon a sinning person, or had a design of charity, his
duty met with the infirmities of a man, and anger was its
instrument, and the instrument became stronger than
the prime agent, and raised a tempest, and overruled the
man ; and then his prayer was broken, and his thoughts
were troubled, and his words went up towards a cloud,
and his thoughts pulled them back again, and made
them without intention, and the good man sighs for
his infirmity, but must be content to lose the prayer,
and he must recover it when his anger is removed ;
and his spirit is becalmed, made even as the brow of
Jesus, and smooth like the heart of God ; and then it
ascends to heaven upon the wings of the holy dove, and
dwells with God, till it returns, like the useful bee,
loaden with a blessing and the dew of heaven.

JEREMY TAYLOR (1613-1667), from Sermons

MEANING

1. Why is the first statement not a definition?

2. What is the theme of the extract?

3. Explain the passage beginning ' when his affairs
have required business . . . overruled the man. 1 What
is meant by * business' and * discipline '? Upon whom
is he to pass judgment? * met with the infirmities of
a man ' what man ? * anger was its instrument ' to
what does ' its ' refer? what is ' the prime agent'? what
raised the ' tempest'? what now dominates the man?

58 MEANING AND STYLE

4. Write down the main points in the description
of the lark's flight and in the prayer of a good man,
and compare the two. Is the balance perfect or not?

5. What is the necessary state of mind for successful
prayer? Can you find the reason expressed here?

STYLE

6. Is this style distinguished by logic or imagina-
tion? Compare it with that of Fuller.

7. What kind of simile is it where Taylor says that
prayer rises like a lark? Illuminative or decorative?
Does he describe the lark for its own sake or merely as
an illustration?

8. How does the description of the lark affect (a) the
eloquence, (b) the force and urgency of the passage?

9. What personal interest has the author intro-
duced? Quote to show his careful observation and
ready sympathy.

10. How does the language differ from that of his
contemporaries, Browne and Milton?

XVII

THEN Apollyon straddled quite over the whole breadth
of the way, and said, I am void of fear in this matter,
prepare thyself to die for I swear by my infernal den,
that thou shalt go no further, here will I spill thy
soul ; and with that, he threw a flaming dart at his
breast, but Christian had a shield in his hand, with
which he caught it, and so prevented the danger of
that. Then did Christian draw, for he saw 'twas time
to bestir him ; and Apollyon as fast made at him,
throwing darts as thick as hail ; by the which, not-

MEANING AND STYLE 59

withstanding all that Christian could do to avoid it,
Apollyon wounded him in his head, his hand, and foot ;
this made Christian give a little back : Apollyon
therefore followed his work amain, and Christian again
took courage, and resisted as manfully as he could.
This sore combat lasted for above half a day, even till
Christian was almost quite spent. For you must know
that Christian by reason of his wounds, must needs
grow weaker and weaker.

Then Apollyon espying his opportunity, began to
gather up close to Christian, and wrestling with him,
gave him a dreadful fall ; and with that, Christian's
sword flew out of his hand. Then said Apollyon I am
sure of thee now ; and with that, he had almost pressed
him to death, so that Christian began to despair of life.
But as God would have it, while Apollyon was fetching
of his last blow, thereby to make a full end of this good
man, Christian nimbly reached out his hand for his
sword, and caught it, saying, Rejoice not against me,
O mine enemy! when I fall, I shall arise ; and with
that, gave him a deadly thrust, which made him give
back, as one that had received his mortal wound :
Christian perceiving that, made at him again, saying,
Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors,
through him that loved us. And with that, Apollyon
spread forth his dragon's wings, and sped him away,
that Christian saw him no more.
JOHN BUNYAN (1628-1688), from Pilgrim's Progress

MEANING

i . Write an account in your own words of the fight
between Apollyon and Christian.

60 MEANING AND STYLE

2. Compare your account with the original, and
notice the differences. (Consider carefully Bunyan's
choice of verbs.)

3. Describe what kind of creature you imagine
Apollyon to be.

4. Explain the meaning of ' here will I spill thy
soul * ; * almost quite spent ' ; * followed his work
amain '.

5. Comment upon the effectiveness of the follow-
ing, * Then Apollyon straddled quite over the whole
breadth of the way ' ; * I am void of fear * ; * while
Apollyon was fetching of his last blow '.

STYLE

6. What kind of prose is this? In what way is it
unusual?

7. Is the language mainly concrete or abstract?
Give examples.

8. Is this an example of subjective or objective
writing? Give reasons in support of your answer.

9. Compare this with the passage from Malory.
What resemblances are there in (a) language, () style?
How do the two passages differ?

10, Indicate the many ways in which the style shows
the influence of the Bible.

XVIII

FOR these reasons of time and resemblance of genius in
Chaucer and Boccace, I resolved to join them in my
present work ; to which I have added some original
papers of my own, which whether they are equal or

MEANING AND STYLE 6l

inferior to my other poems, an author is the most
improper judge ; and therefore I leave them wholly
to the mercy of the reader : I will hope the best, that
they will not be condemned ; but if they should, I have
the excuse of an old gentleman, who mounting on
horseback before some ladies, when I was present, got
up somewhat heavily, but desired of the fair spectators
that they would count fourscore and eight before they
judged him. By the mercy of God, I am already come
within twenty years of his number, a cripple in my
limbs, but what decays are in my mind, the reader
must determine. I think myself as vigorous as ever
in the faculties of my soul, excepting only my memory,
which is not impaired to any great degree ; and if I
lose not more of it, I have no great reason to complain.
What judgement I had increases rather than diminishes;
and thoughts, such as they are, come crowding in so
fast upon me, that my only difficulty is to choose or to
reject ; to run them into verse or to give them the
other harmony of prose, I have so long studied and
practised both, that they arc grown into a habit, and
become familiar to me. In short, though I may law-
fully plead some part of the old gentleman's excuse, yet
I will reserve it till I think I have greater need, and ask
no grains of allowance for the faults of this my present
work, but those which are given of course to human
frailty. I will not trouble my reader with the shortness
of time in which I wrote it, or the several intervals of
sickness : they who think too well of their own per-
formances are apt to boast in their prefaces how little
time their works have cost them, and what other busi-
ness of more importance interfered : but the reader
will be as apt to ask the question, why they allowed not

62 MEANING AND STYLE

a longer time to make their works more perfect, and
why they had so despicable an opinion of their judges
as to thrust their indigested stuff upon them, as if they
deserved no better.

JOHN DRYDEN (1631-1700), from Preface to Fables

MEANING

1. Give a title to the passage.

2. Summarize the passage, using the Thiid Person
and the Past Tense.

3. Why should an author be the most improper
judge of his own work?

4. Why should ' the old gentleman * desire the
hidies to count four-score and eight before passing
judgment upon his mounting on horseback? Why
could Drydcn lawfully plead some part of the old
gentleman's excuse?

5. Comment on the fitness of the phrase c the other
harmony of prose'.

STYLE

(>. What kind of prose is this? What is its purpose?

7. Is the last sentence loose, balanced, or periodic?

8 Compare tlu's with the passage from Jeremy
Taylor. What differences are there in (a) language,
(b) intelligibility, (c) sentence construction?

9. What are the outstanding qualities of this
style?

10. What sentence suggests that Dryden was a
* professional writer '? What effect would this have
upon his prose style? Why?

MEANING AND STYLE 63

XIX

WE rested ourselves here five days ; during which time
we had abundance of pleasant adventures with the
wild creatures, too many to relate. One of them was
very particular, which was a chase between a she-lion,
or lioness, and a large deer ; and, though the deer is
naturally a very nimble creature, and she flew by us
like the wind, having, perhaps, about three hundred
yards the start of the lion, yet we found the lion, by her
strength, and the goodness of her lungs, got ground of
her. They passed by us within about a quarter of a
mile, and we had a view of them a great way, when,
having given them over, we were surprised about an
hour after to sec them come thundering back again on
the other side of us, and then the lion was within thirty
or forty yards of her ; and both straining to the
extremity of their speed, when the deer, coming to the
lake, plunged into the water, and swam for her life,
as she had before run for it.

The lioness plunged in after her, and swam a little
way, but came back again ; and, when she was got
upon the land, she set up the most hideous roar that
ever I heard in my life, as if done in the rage of having
lost her prey.

We walked out morning and evening constantly ;
the middle of the day we refreshed ourselves under our
tent ; but one morning early we saw another chase,
which more nearly concerned us than the other ; for
our black prince, walking by the side of the lake, was
set upon by a vast great crocodile, which came out of
the lake upon him ; and though he was very light of
foot, yet it was as much as he could do to get away ;

64 MEANING AND STYLE

he fled amain to us, and the truth is we did not know
what to do, for we were told no bullet would enter
her ; and we found it so at first, for though three of
our men fired at her, yet she did not mind them ; but
my friend the gunner, a venturous fellow, of a bold
heart, and great presence of mind, went up so near as
to thrust the muzzle of his piece into her mouth, and
fired, but let his piece fall, and ran for it the very
moment he had fired it ; the creature raged a great
while, and spent its fury upon the gun, making marks
on the very iron with her teeth, but after some time
fainted and died.

DANIEL DEFOE (1661-1731), from Captain Singleton

MEANING

1. Relate the two incidents here described.

2. Which incident seems the more convincing?
Why?

3. Does this strike you as description at first hand?
Give reasons.

4. Make a list of words and phrases which seem to
you to be obsolete or old-fashioned.

5. Select some phrases which are in the modern
idiom.

STYLE

6. Consider the construction of the sentences.
Are they simple or complex? Why arc they easy to
understand in spite of their length?

7. Point out the simplicity of the language, paying
special attention to the verbs. (Cf. Basic English.)

8. How docs the author make the scene vivid to the
reader?

MEANING AND STYLE 65

9. This is an example of the documentary method.
What are its main characteristics?

10. What changes do you notice in this narrative
style from that of Hakluyt?

XX

AND so the question is only this whether things that
have place in the imagination may not as properly
be said to exist as those that are seated in the memory,
which may be justly held in the aflirmative, and very
much to the advantage of the former, since this
is acknowledged to be the womb of things, and the
other allowed to be no more than the grave. Again,
if we take this definition of happiness, and examine it
with reference to the senses, it will be acknowledged
wonderfully adapt. How fading and insipid do all
objects accost us that are not conveyed in the vehicle
of delusion. How shrunk is everything as it appears
in the glass of Nature! so that if it were not for the
assistance of artificial mediums, false lights, refracted
angles, varnish and tinsel, there would be a mighty
level in the felicity and enjoyments of mortal men. If
this were seriously considered by the world, as I have
a certain reason to suspect it hardly will, men would
no longer reckon among their high points of wisdom
the art of exposing weak sides, and publishing infir-
mities ; an employment in my opinion, neither better
nor worse than that of unmasking, which, I think, has
never been allowed fair usage, either in the world or
the play-house.

In the proportion that credulity is a more peaceful
possession of the mind than curiosity, so far preferable

66 MEANING AND STYLE

is that wisdom which converses about the surface, to
that pretended philosophy which enters into the depth
of things, and then comes gravely back with informa-
tions and discoveries, that in the inside they are good
for nothing. The two senses to which all objects first
address themselves, are the sight and the touch ; these
never examine farther than the colour, the shape, the
size, and whatever other qualities dwell or are drawn
by art upon the outward of bodies, and then comes
Reason officiously, with tools for cutting, and opening,
and mangling, and piercing, offering to demonstrate
that they are not of the same consistence quite through.
Now I take all this to be the last degree of perverting
Nature ; one of whose eternal laws it is, to put her best
furniture forward. And therefore, to save the charges
of all such expensive anatomy for the time to come, I
do here think fit to inform the reader that in such
conclusions as these, Reason is certainly in the right,
and that in most corporeal beings which have fallen
under my cognizance the outside hath been infinitely
preferable to the in ; whereof I have been farther
convinced from some late experiments. Last week I
saw a woman flayed, and you will hardly believe how
much it altered her person for the worse.

JONATHAN SWIFT (1667-1745), from
The Tale of a Tub

MEANING

1. Express the argument briefly in your own words.

2. Explain * How fading and insipid do all objects
accost us that are not conveyed in the vehicle of
delusion *.

MEANING AND STYLE 67

3. In the first paragraph is the author mocking the
reader, the world, or himself? Do you think he is
being deliberately uncertain?

4. Explain, in some detail, the sentence beginning,
' In the proportion that credulity . . .'

5. What is the effect produced by the last sentence?
What are Swift's feelings towards the c flaying *?

STYLE

6. Is the language mainly concrete or abstract?
How many difficult words do you find in the passage?

7. What do you mean by satire, irony, sarcasm?
Which do you find here?

8. Do you feel a personal intensity behind this style
or not? If so, how is it achieved?

9. This prose style is a model of its kind. Enume-
rate its main qualities.

10. Does the attitude of the author strike you as
enthusiastic and positive, or critical and negative?
Give your reasons.

XXI

I AM always very well pleased with a country Sun lay,
and think, if keeping holy the seventh day were only
a human institution, it would be the best method that
could have been thought of for polishing and civilizing
of mankind. It is certain, the country people would
soon degenerate into a kind of savages and barbarians,
were there not such frequent returns of a stated time, in
which the whole village meet together with their best
faces, and in their cleanliest habits, to converse with
one another upon different subjects, hear their duties

68 MEANING AND STYLE

explained to them, arid join together in adoration of
the Supreme Being. Sunday clears away the rust of
the whole week, not only as it refreshes in their minds
the notions of religion, but as it puts both the sexes
upon appearing in their most agreeable forms, and
exerting all such qualities as are apt to give them a
figure in the eye of the village. A country fellow
distinguishes himself as much in the churchyard, as a
citizen does upon the 'Change, the whole parish-
politics being generally discussed in that place either
after sermon or before the bell rings.

My friend Sir Roger, being a good churchman, has
beautified the inside of his church with several texts of
his own choosing. He has likewise given a handsome
pulpit-cloth, and railed in the communion-table at
his own expense. He has often told me, that at his
coming to his estate he found his parishioners very
irregular : and that in order to make them kneel and
join in the responses, he gave every one of them a
hassock and a common-prayer book : and at the same
time employed an itinerant singing-master, who goes
about the country for that purpose, to instruct them
rightly in the tunes of the Psalms ; upon which they
now very much value themselves, and indeed outdo
most of the country churches that I have ever heard.

As Sir Roger is landlord to the whole congregation,
he keeps them in very good order, and will suffer
nobody to sleep in it besides himself; for if by chance
he has been surprised into a short nap at sermon, upon
recovering out of it he stands up and looks about him,
and if he sees any body else nodding, either wakes
them himself or sends his servants to them. Several
other of the old knight's particularities break out upon

MEANING AND STYLE 69

these occasions. Sometimes he will be lengthening
out a verse in the singing Psalms half a minute after the
rest of the congregation have done with it ; sometimes,
when he is pleased with the matter of his devotion, he
pronounces amen three or four times to the same
prayer ; and sometimes stands up when every body
else is upon their knees, to count the congregation, or
see if any of his tenants are missing.

JOSEPH ADDISON (1672-1719), from The Spectator

MEANING

1. What are the various reasons for which the
author praises a country Sunday?

2. What has Sir Roger done to help his parishioners?
Why?

3. Describe in your own words Sir Rogers idio-
syncracics.

4. What is your conception of Sir Roger's character
from this passage? Is it an idealized portrait?

5. In what way is Addison a social reformer?
Consider carefully the first paragraph. What is his
wiin concern?

STYLE

6. Give two good examples of a loose sentence in
this extract.

7. How does this style strike the balance between
modern journalism (suiting rapid attention) and
artistic prose (satisfying the aesthetic sense) ?

8. This is c a discreet form of sermonizing '. How
is the oratorical style avoided?

9. Point out the humour shown in this extract.

7O MEANING AND STYLE

10. ' Whoever wishes to attain an English style,
familiar, but not coarse, and elegant, but not ostenta-
tious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of
Addison.' Discuss this comment on Addison's style.

XXII

As soon as I thought my retinue suitable to the character
of my fortune and youth, I set out from hence to make
my addresses. The particular skill of this lady has
ever been to inflame your wishes, and yet Command
respect. To make her mistress of this art, she has a
greater share of knowledge, wit, and good sense than
is usual even among men of merit. Then she is
beautiful beyond the race of women. If you will not
let her go on with a certain artifice with her eyes, and
the skill of beauty, she will arm herself with her real
charms, and strike you with admiration instead of
desire. It is certain that if you were to behold the
whole woman, there is that dignity in her aspect, that
composure in her motion, that complacency in her
manner, that if her form makes you hope, her merit
makes you fear. But then again, she is such a desperate
scholar, that no country gentleman can approach her
without being a jest. As I was going to tell you, when
I came to her house I was admitted to her presence
with great civility ; at the same time she placed herself
to be first seen by me in such an attitude, as I think
you call the posture of a picture, that she discovered
new charms, and I at last came towards her with such
an awe as made me speechless. This she no sooner
observed but she made her advantage of ir, and began
a discourse to me concerning love and honour, as they

MEANING AND STYLE 7!

both are followed by pretenders, and the real votaries
to them. When she discussed these points in a dis-
course which, I verily believe, was as learned as the
best philosopher in Europe could possibly make, she
asked me whether she was so happy as to fall in with
my sentiments on these important particulars. Her
confidante sat by her, and on my being in the last
confusion and silence, this malicious aid of her's turning
to her, says, * I am very glad to observe Sir Roger
pauses upon this subject, and seems resolved to deliver
all his sentiments upon the matter when he pleases to
speak.' They both kept their countenances, and
after I had sat half an hour meditating how to behave
before such profound casuists, I rose up and took my
leave. Chance has since that time thrown me very
often in her way, and she as often has directed a dis-
course to me which I do not understand. This bar-
barity has kept me ever at a distance from the most
beautiful object my eyes ever beheld. It is thus also
she deals with all mankind, and you must make love
to her as you would conquer the sphinx, by posing her.
SIR RICHARD STEELE (1672-1729),
from The Spectator

MEANING

1. Describe in your own words the character of the
lady.

2. Describe Sir Roger's visit.

3. What three nouns at the beginning of this
passage reveal the unusual attainments of this lady?
What is the effect of these attainments? Consider
carefully the last two sentences.

72 MEANING AND STYLE

4. What is the subject of the lady's discourse?
Why should this throw Sir Roger into ' the last con-
fusion and silence '?

5. Explain the meaning of artifice, complacency,
desperate scholar, votaries, sentiments, casuists.

STYLE

6. What kind of prose is this? flas it anything
in common with letter-writing?

7. Is this prose ' classical ' or ' romantic '?

8. Illustrate the author's use of the balanced sen-
tence in this extract.

9. Point out the delicate irony in this passage.

10. What words or phrases indicate that this passage
was written in the eighteenth century?

XXIII

I MAY as wrll try to write ; since, ^ ere I to go to bed,
I shall not sleep. I never had such a weight of grief
upon my mind in my life, as upon the demise of this
admirable woman ; whose soul is now rejoicing in the
regions of light.

You may be glad to know the particulars of her
happy exit. I will try to proceed ; for all is hush and
still ; the family retired ; but not one of them, and
least of all her poor cousin, I dare say, to rest.

At four o'clock, as I mentioned in my last, I was sent
for down ; and, as thou usedst to like my descriptions,
I will give thee the woeful scene that presented itself
to me, as I approached the bed.

MEANING AND STYLE 73

The Colonel was the first that took my attention,
kneeling on the side of the bed, the lady's right hand
in both his, which his face covered, bathing it with his
tears ; although she had been comforting him, as the
women since told me, in elevated strains, but broken
accents.

On the other side of the bed sat the good widow ;
her face overwhelmed with tears, leaning her head
against the bed's head in a most disconsolate manner ;
and turning her face to me, as soon as she saw me,
* O Mr. Belford,' cried she, with folded hands,' The
dear lady ' A heavy sob permitted her not to say
more.

Mrs. Smith, with clasped fingers and uplifted eyes,
as if imploring help from the Only Power which could
give it, was kneeling down at the bed's feet, tears in
large drops trickling down her cheeks.

Her nurse was kneeling between the widow and
Mrs. Smith, her arms extended. In one hand she
held an ineffectual cordial, which she had just been
offering to her dying mistress ; her face was swoln with
weeping (though used to such scenes as this) ; and she
turned her eyes towards me, as if she called upon me
by them to join in the helpless sorrow ; a fresh stream
bursting from them as I approached the bed.

The maid of the house with her face upon her folded
arms, as she stood leaning against the wainscot, more
audibly expressed her grief than any of the others.

The lady had been silent a few minutes, and speech-
less as they thought, moving her lips without uttering
a word ; one hand, as I said, in her cousin's. But
when Mrs. Lovick on my approach pronounced my
name, * Oh! Mr. Belford,' said she, with a faint
c*

74 MEANING AND STYLE

inward voice, but very distinct nevertheless * Now!
Now! (in broken periods she spoke) I bless God
for his mercies to his poor creature will all soon be
over A few a very few moments will end this
strife And I shall be happy! *

SAMUEL RICHARDSON (1689-1761),
from Clarissa Harlowe

MEANING

1 . Write a list of the people present in the room.
What is the name of the person relating the incident?
Who is the lady's cousin?

2. Describe the scene in your own words, using the
third person and the past tense.

3. Which of the women is the most composed?
What reasons can you find for her composure?

4. Explain * as I mentioned in my last ' ; 'in
elevated strains ' ; * with a faint inward voice ' ; * in
broken periods she spoke '.

5. Indicate the details which help to give pictorial
accuracy to the scene.

STYLE

6. What particular form of narrative is this? What
are the advantages? Can you suggest any drawbacks?

7. Comment on the language. Is it consistent? Is
there any striving after effect? Support your opinion.

8. Is this an example of objective or subjective
writing?

9. Is this an expression of real emotion or senti-
mentality? Support your opinion.

10. Compare this style with that of Dfcfoe. What
new quality has been introduced into narrative prose?

MEANING AND STYLE 75

XXIV

HE had not gone above two miles, charmed with the
hope of shortly seeing his beloved Fanny, when he was
met by two fellows in a narrow lane, and ordered to
stand and deliver. He readily gave them all the money
he had, which was somewhat less than two pounds ;
and told them he hoped they would be so generous as
to return him a few shillings, to defray his charges on
his way home.

One of the ruffians answered with an oath, c Yes,
we'll give you something presently : but first strip and
be d n'd to you/ * Strip/ cried the other, * or I'll
blow your brains to the devil.' Joseph, remembering
that he had borrowed his coat and breeches of a friend,
and that he should be ashamed of making any excuse
for not returning them, replied, he hoped they would
not insist on his clothes, which were not worth much,
but consider the coldness of the night. ' You are cold,
are you, you rascal?' said one of the robbers : ' I'll
warm you with a vengeance ' ; and, damning his eyes,
snapped a pistol at his head ; which he had no sooner
done than the other levelled a blow at him with his
stick, which Joseph, who was expert at cudgel-playing,
caught with his, and returned the favour so successfully
on his adversary, that he laid him sprawling at his feet,
and at the same instant received a blow from behind,
with the butt end of a pistol, from the other villain,
which felled him to the ground, and totally deprived
him of his senses.

The thief who had been knocked down had now
recovered himself ; and both together fell to belabour-
ing poor Joseph with their sticks, till they were

76 MEANING AND STYLE

convinced they had put an end to his miserable being :
they then stripped him entirely naked, threw him into
a ditch, and departed with their booty.
HENRY FIELDING (1707-1754), from Joseph Andrews

MEANING

1. Relate the incident as though you were Joseph.

2. What is the difference between ' he was met by
two fellows in a narrow lane ' and * he met two fellows
in a narrow lane J ? What is implied by the first?

3. Make a list of the more vivid narrative details.

4. What do you learn about the character of Joseph
from this extract?

5. Consider the following : c returned the favour
so successfully on his adversary.' What is the meaning
of ' favour '? How is it used here? ' totally deprived
him of his senses '. Would c senseless ' have been
equally good? (Read the whole sentence through
carefully.)

STYLE

6. Comment on the variety of (a) sentence con-
struction, (b) language. (Consider the various terms
used in referring to the robbers.)

7. Consider the use of dialogue. How does it differ
from that of Malory?

8. How does the author achieve speed of narrative
style? Consider carefully the sentence beginning * You
are cold, are you, you rascal? . . .'

9. Compare this with the passage from Bunyan.
What are the main differences in language and style?

10. In what ways is this a good narrative style?

MEANING AND STYLE 77

XXV

THE life of a modern soldier is ill represented by
heroick fiction. War has means of destruction more
formidable than the cannon and the sword. Of the
thousands and ten thousands that perished in our
late contests with France and Spain, a very small part
ever felt the stroke of an enemy ; the rest languished
in tents and ships amidst damps and putrefaction ;
pale, torpid, spiritless, and helpless ; gasping and
groaning, unpitied among men, made obdurate by
long continuance of hopeless misery ; and were at last
whelmed in pits, or heaved into the ocean, without
notice and without remembrance. By incommodious
encampments and unwholesome stations, where cour-
age is useless, and enterprise impracticable, fleets are
silently dispeopled, and armies sluggishly melted away.

Thus is a people gradually exhausted, for the most
part with little effect. The wars of civilized nations
make very slow changes in the system of empire. The
publick perceives scarcely any alteration but an
increase of debt ; and the few individuals who are
benefited, are not supposed to have the clearest right
to their advantages. If he that shared the danger
enjoyed the profit ; if he that bled in the battle grew
rich by the victory, he might shew his gains without
envy. But at the conclusion of a ten years war, how
are we recompensed for the death of multitudes and
the expence of millions, but by contemplating the
sudden glories of paymasters and agents, contractors
and commissaries, whose equipages shine like meteors
and whose palaces rise like exhalations.

These are the men who, without virtue, labour,

78 MEANING AND STYLE

or hazard, are growing rich as their country is im-
poverished ; they rejoice when obstinacy or ambition
adds another year to slaughter and devastation ; and
laugh from their desks at bravery and science, while
they are adding figure to figure, and cipher to cipher,
hoping for a new contract from a new armament, and
computing the profits of a siege or tempest.

Those who suffer their minds to dwell on these
considerations will think it no great crime in the
ministry that they have not snatched with eagerness
the first opportunity of rushing into the field, when
they were able to obtain by quiet negotiation all the
real good that victory could have brought us.

SAMUEL JOHNSON (1709-1784), from Thoughts on
the late Transactions respecting Falkland* s Islands

MEANING

1. Give a title to the extract, and to each para-
graph.

2. What is the key-sentence in the first paragraph?

3. Summarize the arguments against war.

4. Explain the following : ' heroick fiction ' ;
* whose equipages shine like meteors and whose
palaces rise like exhalations ' ; * computing the profits
of a siege or tempest '.

Express positively : ' and the few individuals who
are benefited, are not supposed to have the clearest
right to their advantages.' What is suggested by this
understatement?

5. Give the meaning of: torpid, obdurate,
whelmed, incommodious, commissaries, negotiation.

MEANING AND STYLE 79

STYLE

6. What kind of prose is this? Comment on the
language. Is it mainly abstract or concrete?

7. Consider the construction of the sentences : * By
incommodious encampments . . .' and c But at the con-
clusion of a ten years war . . .' Are they loose, balanced,
or periodic? What devices are used to give dignity and
rhythm? Compare with the Authorised Version of the
Bible.

8. Select sentences which are aphoristic. What
makes them effective?

9. How is the weightiness of this style achieved?
10. Illustrate the qualities which make this prose

style an example of * classicism '.

XXVI

Now, 'tis an animal (be in what hurry I may) I cannot
bear to strike, there is a patient endurance of sufferings,
wrote so unaffectedly in his looks and carriage, which
pleads so mightily for him, that it always disarms me ;
and to that degree, that I do not like to speak unkindly
to him : on the contrary, meet him where I will
whether in town or country in cart or under panniers
whether in liberty or bondage I have ever some-
thing civil to say to him on my part ; and as one word
begets another (if he has as little to do as I) I generally
fall into conversation with him ; and surely never is
my imagination so busy as in framing his responses
from the etchings of his countenance and where
those carry me not deep enough in flying from my

80 MEANING AND STYLE

own heart into his, and seeing what is natural for an
ass to think as well as a man, upon the occasion. In
truth, it is the only creature of all the classes of beings
below me, with whom I can do this : for parrots, jack-
daws, etc. I never exchange a word with them nor
with the apes, etc., for pretty near the same reason;
they act by rote, as the others speak by it, and equally
make me silent : nay, my dog and my cat, though I
value them both (and for my dog he would speak if
he could) yet somehow or other, they neither of them
possess the talents for conversation I can make
nothing of a discourse with them, beyond the pro-
position, the reply, and rejoinder, which terminated
my father's and my mother's conversations, in his beds
of justice and those uttered there's an end of the
dialogue

But with an ass, I can commune for ever.

Come, Honesty! said I, seeing it was impracticable
to pass betwixt him and the gate art thou for coming
in, or going out?

The ass twisted his head round to look up the
street

Well replied I we'll wait a minute for thy driver :

He turned his head thoughtful about, and looked
wistfully the opposite way

I understand thee perfectly, answered I If thou
takest a wrong step in this affair, he will cudgel thee to
death Well! a minute is but a minute, and if it saves
a fellow-creature a drubbing, it shall not be set down
as ill spent.

LAURENCE STERNE (1713-1768), from
Tristram Shandy

MEANING AND STYLE 8l

MEANING

T. Give a tifle to the extract.

2. Why is the author more interested in the ass
than in other creatures?

3. Rewrite the sentence c and where those carry
me not deep enough . . . upon the occasion ', making
the meaning clearer.

4. Explain ' under panniers ' ; * framing the re-
sponses from the etchings of his countenance ' ; they
act by rote as the others speak by it ' ; 'in his beds of
justice'.

5. Indicate the more self-revealing passages in this
extract.

STYLE

6. What kind of prose is this? Comment on the
construction of the sentences. What is the effect of
the constant use of dashes, transpositions, enigmatical
paragraphs?

7. Is this prose subjective or objective? What is
the real subject of the passage? Compare it with the
extract from Gilbert White. What are the differences?

8. Indicate the humour of the passage. How does
the writer achieve his effects?

9. Consider the sensibility revealed here. Is the
author's interest genuine? Has he pleasure in dis-
playing his sentiments? Is his emotion under intel-
lectual control? Compare with the extract from
Richardson.

10. Show how the style reveals 'a subtle use of
rhythm, a variety of effects, and an ingenious pursuit
of originality '.

82 MEANING AND STYLE

XXVII

THE old Sussex tortoise, that I have mentioned to you so
often, is become my property. I dug it out of its winter
dormitory in March last, when it was enough awakened
to express its resentment by hissing ; and, packing it in
a box with earth, carried it eighty miles in post chaises.
The rattle and hurry of the journey so perfectly roused
it, that, when I turned it out on a border, it walked
twice down to the bottom of my garden : however,
in the evening, the weather being cold, it buried itself
in the loose mould, and continues still concealed.

As it will be under my eye, I shall now have an
opportunity of enlarging my observations on its mode
of life and propensities ; and perceive already that,
towards the time of coming forth, it opens a breathing
place in the ground near its head, requiring, I conclude,
a freer respiration as it becomes more alive. This
creature not only goes under the earth from the middle
of November to the middle of April, but sleeps great
part of the summer ; for it goes to bed in the longest
days at four in the afternoon, and often docs not stir
in the morning till late. Besides, it retires to rest for
every shower ; and dors not move at all in wet days.

When one reflects on the state of this strange being,
it is a matter of wonder to find that Providence should
bestow such a profusion of days, such a seeming waste
of longevity, on a reptile that appears to relish it so
little as to squander more than two-thirds of its exist-
ence in a joyless stupor, and be lost to all sensation for
months together in the profoundcst of slumbers.

GILBERT WHITE (1720-1793), from Natural
History of Selborne

MEANING AND STYLE 83

MEANING

1 . Give a tide to the extract.

2. What do you learn about the tortoise?

3. Express in your own words the author's comment
upon ' the state of this strange being '.

4. Does the author reveal anything of himself in
this passage?

5. Explain ' its mode of life and propensities * ;
' requiring a freer respiration as it becomes more
alive ' ; c such a seeming waste of longevity '.

STYLE

6. What kind of prose is this? How does such
writing differ from an essay?

7. Select descriptive details that contribute to the
realism of the passage.

8. Compare this passage with the one from Sterne.
What arc the differences in treatment?

9. Analyse the cadence of the last sentence.

10. ' Nothing could induce Gilbert White to ex-
aggerate ; even his style is free from the faintest tinge
of pretentiousness.' Discuss.

XXVIII

WHEN epidemic terror is thus once excited, every
morning comes loaded with some new disaster : as,
in stories of ghosts, each loves to hear the account,
though it only serves to make him uneasy, so here each
listens with eagerness, and adds to the tidings new
circumstances of peculiar horror. A lady, for instance,
in the country, of very weak nerves, has been frightened

84 MEANING AND STYLE

by the barking of a dog ; and this, alas! too frequently
happens. The story soon is improved and spreads,
that a mad dog had frightened a lady of distinction.
These circumstances begin to grow terrible before they
have reached the neighbouring village, and there the
report is, that a lady of quality was bit by a mad
mastiff. This account every moment gathers new
strength ; and grows more dismal as it approaches the
capital ; and by the time it has arrived in town, the
lady is described, with wild eyes, foaming mouth,
running mad upon all-fours, barking like a dog, biting
her servants, and at last smothered between two beds
by the advice of her doctors ; while the mad mastiff
is in the meantime ranging the whole country over,
slavering at the mouth, and seeking whom he may
devour.

My landlady, a good-natured woman, but a little
credulous, waked me some mornings ago before her
usual hour, with horror and astonishment in her looks ;
she desired me, if I had any regard for my safety to keep
within ; for a few days ago so dismal an accident had
happened, as to put all the world upon their guard.
A mad dog down in the country, she assured me, had
bit a fanner, who soon becoming mad, ran into his own
yard, and bit a fine brindled cow ; the cow quickly
became as mad as the man, began to fonm at the
mouth, and raising herself up, walked about on her
hind legs, sometimes barking like a dog, and sometimes
attempting to talk like the farmer. Upon examining
the grounds of this story, I found my landlady had it
from one neighbour, who had it from another neigh-
bour, who heard it from very good authority.

Were most stories of this nature thoroughly examined,

MEANING AND STYLE 85

it would be found that numbers of such as have been
said to suffer were no way injured ; and that of those
who have been actually bitten, not one in a hundred
was bit by a mad dog. Such accounts in general,
therefore, only serve to make the people miserable by
false terrors, and sometimes fright the patient into
actual phrenzy by creating those very symptoms they
pretended to deplore.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH (1728-1774), from Essays

MEANING

1. Give a title to the extract, and to each para-
graph.

2. In the first paragraph, trace the steps by which
the story grows.

3. What phrase in the second paragraph prepares
you for the story which follows?

4. Explain the following : * smothered between
two beds J ; ' ranging the whole country over ' ;
* sometimes fright the patient into actual phrenzy by
creating those very symptoms they pretended to
deplore '.

5. What do you learn about ' epidemic terror '
from this passage?

STYLE

6. Comment on the language. Is it pedantic,
familiar, latinised, simple, refined?

7. What kind of sentence is the last one in the first
paragraph?

8. Indicate the humour of the passage.

9. How would you define * charm of style '? Do
you find it here? Support your opinion.

86 MEANING AND STYLE

10. What do you learn of the general features of the
essay from this extract? Compare it with that of
Bacon. What similarities and differences do you
find?

XXIX

SOCIETY is indeed a contract. Subordinate contracts
for objects of mere occasional interest may be dissolved
at pleasure but the state ought not to be considered
nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade
of pepper and coffee, calico or tobacco, or some other
such low concern, to be taken up for a little temporary
interest, and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties.
It is to be looked on with other reverence ; because it
is not a partnership in things subservient only to the
gross animal existence of a temporary and perishable
nature. It is a partnership in all science ; a partner-
ship in all art ; a partnership in every virtue, and in all
perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot
be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partner-
ship not only between those who are living, but between
those who are living, those who are dead, and those
who are to be born. Each contract of each particular
state is but a clause in the great primaeval contract
of eternal society, linking the lower with the higher
natures, connecting the visible and invisible world,
according to a fixed compact sanctioned by the
inviolable oath which holds all physical and all moral
natures, each in their appointed place. This law is
not subject to the will of those who by an obligation
above them, and infinitely superior, are bound to
submit their will to that law. The municipal corpora-
tions of that universal kingdom are not morally at

MEANING AND STYLE 87

liberty at their pleasure, and on their speculations of
a contingent improvement, wholly to separate and tear
asunder the bands of their subordinate community,
and to dissolve it into an unsocial, uncivil, unconnected
chaos of elementary principles. It is the first and
supreme necessity only, a necessity that is not chosen,
but chooses, a necessity paramount to deliberation,
that admits no discussion, and demands no evidence,
which alone can justify a resort to anarchy. This
necessity is no exception to the rule ; because this
necessity itself is a part too of that moral and physical
disposition of things to which man must be obedient
by consent of force : but if that which is only submission
to necessity should be made the object of choice, the
law is broken, nature is disobeyed, and the rebellious
are outlawed, cast forth, and exiled from this world of
reason, and order, and peace, and virtue, and fruitful
penitence, into the antagonist world of madness, dis-
cord, vice, confusion, and unavailing sorrow.

EDMUND BURKE (1729-1797), from Reflections
on the Revolution in France

MEANING

1 . Give a title to the extract.

2. Summarize the passage.

3. In what ways is society a contract? Are the
arguments stated here convincing?

4. What alone can justify a resort to anarchy?

5. Explain the following : c each contract is but
a clause in the great primaeval contract of eternal
society ' ; * This law is not subject to the will of those
who by an obligation above them, and infinitely
superior, are bound to submit their will to that law '.

88 MEANING AND STYLE

STYLE

6. What kind of prose is this? Does the style suit
the subject?

7. Comment on the language. Is it simple,
ornate, pedantic, vigorous, pompous? Comment also
on the phrasing.

8. Is the last sentence loose, balanced, or periodic?
What is the effect of the great variety of the sentences?
Indicate any rhetorical devices.

9. How is the eloquence of style achieved? (Con-
sider the rhythm of the last sentence carefully.)

io. What are the outstanding qualities of this prose
style? What do you learn from it of the art of
oratory?

XXX

ELATED with these praises, which gradually extin-
guished the innate sense of shame, Commodus resolved
to exhibit, before the eyes of the Roman people, those
exercises which till then he had decently confined
within the walls of his palace and to the presence of a
few favourites. On the appointed day the various
motives of flattery, fear, and curiosity, attracted to the
amphitheatre an innumerable multitude of spectators ;
and some degree of applause was deservedly bestowed
on the uncommon skill of the Imperial performer.
Whether he aimed at the head or heart of the animal,
the wound was alike certain and mortal. With
arrows, whose point was shaped into the form of a
crescent, Commodus often intercepted the rapid career
and cut asunder the long bony neck of the ostrich.

MEANING AND STYLE 89

A panther was let loose ; and the archer waited till he
had leaped upon a trembling malefactor. In the same
instant the shaft flew, the beast dropped dead, and the
man remained unhurt. The dens of the amphitheatre
disgorged at once a hundred lions ; a hundred darts
from the unerring hand of Commodus laid them dead
as they ran raging round the Arena. Neither the huge
bulk of the elephant nor the scaly hide of the rhinoceros
could defend them from his stroke. Aethiopia and
India yielded their most extraordinary productions ;
and several animals were slain in the amphitheatre
which had been seen only in the representations of art,
or perhaps of fancy. In all these exhibitions the surest
precautions were used to protect the person of the
Roman Hercules from the desperate spring of any
savage who might possibly disregard the dignity of the
emperor and the sanctity of the god.

But the meanest of the populace were affected with
shame and indignation, when they beheld their
sovereign enter the lists as a gladiator, and glory in a
profession which the laws and manners of the Romans
had branded with the justest note of infamy.

EDWARD GIBBON (1737-1794), from Decline
and Fall of the Roman Empire

MEANING

1 . What is the author's attitude towards the sports
of the Emperor Commodus?

2. What do your learn about Roman sports from
the extract?

3. Indicate briefly the stages by which the narrative
is unfolded.

gO MEANING AND STYLE

4. What is meant by ' the dignity of the emperor
and the sanctity of the god '?

5. Explain : innate, malefactor, amphitheatre,
crescent.

STYLE

6. Find an example of one periodic and one
balanced sentence in this extract.

7. Is the style assured and elegant, or exuberant
and romantic? Quote to support your opinion.

8. Would such a style prove tedious to read at some
length? Give reasons for or against. Would it have
been tedious to contemporaries?

9. How does the author create a c decorously
insistent pattern ' in his prose? (Consider the structure
of the sentences, and the ordered rhythm.)

10. What kind of understanding does the author
establish with his reader? Consider such state-
ments as ' which till then he had decently confined
within the walls of his palace ' ; c any savage
who might possibly disregard the dignity of the
emperor '.

XXXI

MANNERING now grew impatient. He was occasionally
betrayed into a deceitful hope that the end of his
journey was near, by the apparition of a twinkling light
or two ; but, as he came up, he was disappointed to
find that the gleams proceeded from sonic of those
farm-houses which occasionally ornamented the surface
of the extensive bog. At length, to complete his

MEANING AND STYLE Ql

perplexity, he arrived at a place where the road divided
into two. If there had been light to consult the relics
of a finger-post which stood there, it would have been
of little avail as, according to the good custom of North
Britain, the inscription had been defaced shortly after
its erection. Our adventurer was therefore compelled,
like a knight-errant of old, to trust to the sagacity of
his horse, which, without any demur, chose the left-
hand path, and seemed to proceed at a somewhat
livelier pace than before, affording thereby a hope that
he knew he was drawing near to his quarters for the
evening. This hope, however, was not speedily
accomplished, and Mannering, whose impatience made
every furlong seem three, began to think that Kipple-
tringan was actually retreating before him in propor-
tion to his advance.

It was now very cloudy, although the stars, from
time to time, shed a twinkling and uncertain light.
Hitherto nothing had broken the silence around him,
but the deep cry of the bog-blitter, or bull-of-the-bog,
a large species of bittern ; and the sighs of the wind
as it passed along the dreary morass. To these was
now joined the distant roar of the ocean, towards which
the traveller seemed to be fast approaching. This
was no circumstance to make his mind easy. Many
of the roads in that country lay along the sea-beach,
and were liable to be flooded by the tides, which rise
with great height, and advance with extreme rapidity.
Others were intersected with creeks and small inlets,
which it was only safe to pass at particular times of the
tide. Neither circumstance would have suited a dark
night, a fatigued horse, and a traveller ignorant of his
road. Mannering resolved, therefore, definitely to

92 MEANING AND STYLE

halt for the night at the first inhabited place, however
poor, he might chance to reach, unless he could
procure a guide to this unlucky village of Kipple-
tringan.

SIR WALTER SCOTT (1771-1832), from
Guy Mannering

MEANING

1 . Give a title to the passage.

2. What were the reasons for Mannering's im-
putience?

3. Give in your own words the reasons why
Mannering feared the coast roads.

4. What one sentence sums up the situation
described?

5. Why is the village of Kippletringan called
' unlucky '?

STYLE

6. What words and phrases give atmosphere to
the passage?

7. Is Scott detached or not in his attitude to
Mannering?

8. Comment on the rhythm and variety of the
sentences in the second paragraph.

9. ' The motion is slow but the reader never be-
comes impatient.' Can the statement be applied to
this prose?

10. Is this a satisfactory style for narrative? How
does it differ from that of Defoe?

MEANING AND STYLE 93

XXXII

IN the act of stepping out of the boat, Nelson received
a shot through the right elbow, and fell ; but, as he
fell, he caught the sword, which he had just drawn,
in his left hand, determined never to part with it while
he lived, for it had belonged to his uncle. Captain
Suckling, and he valued it like a relic. Nisbet, who
was close to him, placed him at the bottom of the boat,
and laid his hat over the shattered arm, lest the sight
of the blood, which gushed out in great abundance,
should increase his faintness. He then examined the
wound, and taking some silk handkerchiefs from his
neck, bound them round tight above the lacerated
vessels. Had it not been for this presence of mind
in his step-son, Nelson must have perished. One of
his barge-men, by name Lovel, tore his shirt into
shreds,* and made a sling with them for the broken
limb. They then collected five other seamen, by whose
assistance they succeeded at length in getting the boat
afloat ; for it had grounded with the falling tide.
Nisbet took one of the oars, and ordered the steersman
to go close under the guns of the battery, that they
might be safe from its tremendous fire. Hearing his
voice Nelson roused himself, and desired to be lifted
up in the boat, that he might look about him. Nisbet
raised him up ; but nothing could be seen except the
firing of the guns on shore, and what could be discerned
by their flashes upon the stormy sea. In a few minutes
a general shriek was heard from the crew of the Fox,
which had received a shot under water, and went
down. Ninety-seven men were lost in her ; eighty-
three were saved, many by Nelson himself, whose

94 MEANING AND STYLE

exertions on this occasion greatly increased the pain
and danger of his wound. The first ship which the
boat could reach happened to be the Seahorse ; but
nothing could induce him to go on board, though he
was assured that if they attempted to row to another
ship it might be at the risk of his life. * I had rather
suffer death ', he replied, ' than alarm Mrs. Free-
mantle, by letting her see me in this state, when I can
give her no tidings whatever of her husband.' They
pushed on for the Theseus. When they came alongside,
he peremptorily refused all assistance in getting on
board, so impatient was he that the boat should return,
in hopes that it might save a few more from the Fox.
He desired to have only a single rope thrown over the
side, which he twisted round his left hand, saying,
* Let me alone : I have yet my legs left, and one arm.
Tell the surgeon to make haste, and get his instruments.
I know I must lose my right arm ; so the sooner it is
off the better.'

ROBERT SOUTHEY (1774-1843), from
Life of Nelson

MEANING

1 . Give a title to the extract.

2. Summarize the passage.

3. What do you learn about the character of Nelson
from this passage?

4. What indications are there of the scene of the
battle?

5. Select details which give actuality to the
description.

MEANING AND STYLE 95

STYLE

6. Comment on the language. Is it figurative,
plain, prolix, ornate, copious?

7. What is the effect of the direct speech in this
passage?

8. What is the attitude of the author to his subject?

9. Compare this with the passage from Bunyan.
10. Illustrate the * workmanlike ' qualities of this

prose. Why is it so especially suitable to biography?

XXXIII

IT was hot ; and after walking some time over the
garden in a scattered, dispersed way, scarcely any three
together, they insensibly followed one another to the
delicious shade of a broad short avenue of limes,
which, stretching beyond the garden at an equal
distance from the river, seemed the finish of the pleasure
grounds. It led to nothing ; nothing but a view at
the end over a low stone wall with high pillars, which
seemed intended, in their erection, to give the appear-
ance of an approach to the house, which had never
been there. Disputable, however, as might be the
taste of such a termination, it was in itself a charming
walk, and the view which closed it extremely pretty.
The considerable slope, at nearly the foot of which the
Abbey stood, gradually acquired a steeper form beyond
its grounds ; and at half a mile distant was a bank of
considerable abruptness and grandeur, well clothed
with wood ; and at the bottom of this bank, favour-
ably placed and sheltered, rose the Abbey- Mill Farm,

96 MEANING AND STYLE

with meadows in front, and the river making a close
and handsome curve around it.

It was a sweet view sweet to the eye and the mind.
English verdure, English culture, English comfort, seen
under a sun bright, without being oppressive.

JANE AUSTEN (1775-1817), from Emma

MEANING

1. Describe the scene in your own words, or draw
a diagram.

2. What do you learn about the author from the
sentence, * It led to nothing ; nothing but a view '?

3. Why should ' the taste of such a termination '
be disputable?

4. Explain * sweet to the eye and the mind ' ;
* English verdure, English culture \

5. Does the author reveal a sincere appreciation of
scenery or not? Support your opinion.

STYLE

6. Comment fully on the significance of the last
three words in * seen under a sun bright, without being
oppressive '.

7. ' Descriptive prose of this kind is not written in
any mood of compulsion/ Herbert Read. Explain
and discuss.

8. ' The characteristics of her style are rather those
of the essayist.' Discuss.

9. Would this style be adequate for .dramatic
action? (Read ' Persuasion ' and see.)

10. This passage has been indicated by Mr. F. L.
Lucas as an example of the * Classical * style. Why?

MEANING AND STYLE ^j

XXXIV

Now albeit Mr. Read boasteth, not without reason,
that his is the only Salopian house ; yet be it known to
thee, reader if thou art one who keepest what are
called good hours, thou art haply ignorant of the fact
he hath a race of industrious imitators, who from
stalls, and under open sky, dispense the same savoury
mess to humbler customers, at that dead time of the
dawn, when (as extremes meet) the rake, reeling home
from his midnight cups, and the hard-handed artisan
leaving his bed to resume the premature labours of the
day, jostle, not unfrequently to the manifest discon-
certing of the former, for the honours of the pavement.
It is the time when, in summer, between the expired
and the not yet relumined kitchen-fires, the kennels
of our fair metropolis give forth their least satisfactory
odours. The rake, who wisheth to dissipate his o'er-
*Hght vapours in more grateful coffee, curses the
ungenial fume, as he passeth ; but the artisan stops
to taste, and blesses the fragrant breakfast.

This is saloop the precocious herb-woman's darling
the delight of the early gardener, who transports his
smoking cabbages by break of day from Hammersmith
to Covent Garden's famed piazzas the delight, and,
oh! I fear, too often the envy, of the unpennied sweep.
Him shouldst thou haply encounter, with his dim
visage pendent over the grateful steam, regale him with
a sumptuous basin (it will cost thee but three-half-
pennies) and a slice of delicate bread and butter (an
added halfpenny) so may thy culinary fires, eased
of the o'ercharged secretions from thy worse-placed
hospitalities, curl up a lighter volume to the welkin

98 MEANING AND STYLE

so may the descending soot never taint thy costly
well-ingredienced soups nor the odious cry, quick-
reaching from street to street, of the fired chimney, invite
the rattling engines from ten adjacent parishes, to
disturb for a casual scintillation thy peace and pocket!
CHARLES LAMB (1775-1834), from The Praise
of Chimney-sweepers

MEANING

1. What is the theme of the passage?

2. Rewrite the passage briefly in your own words.

3. Select words and phrases which strike you as
humorous.

4. What is meant by : 'jostle for the honours of
the pavement ' ; ' the kennels of our fair metropolis * ;
1 dissipate his o'cr-night vapours * ; * eased of the o'er-
chargcd secretions from thy worse-placed hospitalities '?

5. Explain : Salopian, ungenial, precocious, piazzas,
unpcnnied, culinary, welkin, scintillation.

STYLE

6. What conception of the author's character do
you form from this passage?

7. What tricks of style are used to achieve literary
effect?

8. Make a careful analysis of the diction, pointing
out any peculiarities which you may observe.

9. What would be th^ effect of such a style as this
used as a model?

10. Is such a style, which is an end in itself, justified
or not? Give your reasons.

MEANING AND STYLE 99

XXXV

GIVE me the clear blue sky over my head, and the
green turf beneath my feet, a winding road before me,
and a three hours' march to dinner and then to
thinking! It is hard if I cannot start some game on
these lone heaths. I laugh, I run, I leap, I sing for
joy. From the point of yonder rolling cloud, I plunge
into my past being, and revel there, as the sun-burnt
Indian plunges headlong into the wave that wafts
him to his native shore. Then long-forgotten things,
like c sunken wrack and sumless treasuries ', burst upon
my eager sight, and I begin to feel, think, and be my-
self again. Instead of an awkward silence, broken by
attempts at wit or dull common-places, mine is that
undisturbed silence of the heart which alone is perfect
eloquence. No one likes puns, alliterations, anti-
theses, argument, and analysis better than I do ; but
I sometimes had rather be without them. * Leave,
oh, leave me to my repose! * I have just now other
business in hand, which would seem idle to you, but
is with me * very stuff of the conscience '. Is not this
wild rose sweet without a comment? Does not this
daisy leap to my heart set in its coat of emerald? Yet
if I were to explain to you the circumstance that has
so endeared it to me, you would only smile. Had I
not better then keep it to myself, and let it serve me to
brood over, from here to yonder craggy point and
from thence onward to the far-distant horizon? I
should be but bad company all that way, and therefore
prefer being alone. I have heard it said that you may,
when the moody fit comes on, walk or ride on by
yourself, and indulge your reveries. But this looks

100 MEANING AND STYLE

like a breach of manners, a neglect of others, and you
are thinking all the time that you ought to rejoin your
party. ' Out upon such half-faced fellowship/ say I.
I like to be either entirely to myself, or entirely at the
disposal of others ; to talk or be silent, to walk or sit
still, to be sociable or solitary.

WILLIAM HAZLITT (1778-1830), from
On Going a Journey

MEANING

1. Give a title to the passage.

2. Why does the author like to walk alone?

3. What sentence here do you consider the most
self-revealing?

4. Explain : ' start some game ' ; c I plunge into
my past being ' ; c indulge your reveries '.

5. ' Mine is that undisturbed silence of the heart
which alone is perfect eloquence/ Do you agree?

STYLE

6. Discuss the author's use of quotations.

7. Wh;it evidence is there here of Hazlitt's en-
thusiasm?

8. Give examples of Hazlitt's preference for the
concrete term, and of his use of contrast, simile, and
metaphor.

9. Compare this prose style with that of Lamb,
stating resemblances and differences.

10. * Hazlitt simply uses right English.' Discuss.

XXXVI

OBLIQUELY to the left lay the many Jan gu aged town
of Liverpool ; obliquely to the right, the multitudinous

MEANING AND STYLE IO1

sea. The scene itself was somewhat typical of what
took place in such a reverie. The town of Liverpool
represented the earth, with its sorrows and its graves
left behind, yet not out of sight, nor wholly forgotten.
The ocean, in everlasting but gentle agitation, yet
brooded over by dove-like calm, might not unfitly typify
the mind, and the mood which then swayed it. For
it seemed to me as if then first I stood at a distance
aloof from the uproar of life ; as if the tumult, the fever,
and the strife, were suspended ; a respite were granted
from the secret burdens of the heart ; some sabbath
of repose ; some resting from human labours. Here
were the hopes which blossom in the paths of life,
reconciled with the peace which is in the grave ;
motions of the intellect as unwearied as the heavens,
yet for all anxieties a halcyon calm ; tranquillity that
seemed no product of inertia, but as if resulting from
mighty and equal antagonisms ; infinite activities,
infinite repose.

O just, subtle, and all-conquering opium! that, to
the hearts of rich and poor alike, for the wounds that
will never heal, and for the pangs of grief that ' tempt
the spirit to rebel ', bringest an assuaging balm ;
eloquent opium! that with thy potent rhetoric stealest
away the purposes of wrath, pleadest effectually for
relenting pity, and through one night's heavenly
sleep callest back to the guilty man the visions of his
infancy, and hands washed pure from blood ; O
just and righteous opium! that to the chancery of
dreams summonest, for the triumphs of despairing
innocence, false witnesses ; and confoundest perjury ;
and dost reverse the sentences of unrighteous judges ;
thou buildest upon the bosom of darkness, out of the

IOU MEANING AND STYLE

fantastic imagery of the brain, cities and temples,
beyond the art of Phidias and Praxiteles beyond the
splendours of Babylon and Hekatompylos ; and, c from
the anarchy of dreaming sleep ', callest into sunny light
the faces of long-buried beauties, and the blessed
household countenances, cleansed from the * dis-
honours of the grave '. Thou only givest these gifts to
man ; and thou hast the keys of Paradise, O just,
subtle and mighty opium!

THOMAS DE QUINGEY (1785-1859), from
Confessions of an English Opium-Eater

MEANING

1. Give a title to the passage.

2. Give in your own words the meaning of the first
paragraph.

3. For what reasons does De Quincey praise
opium?

4. Express in simpler language : * tranquillity that
seemed no product of inertia, but as if resulting from
mighty and equal opposites ' ; * with thy potent
rhetoric stealest away the purposes of wrath * ; * that
to the chancery of dreams summonest for the triumphs
of despairing innocence, false witnesses'.

5. Give the meaning of : halcyon calm, assuaging
balm, confoundcst perjury.

STYLE

6. What is the effect of the polysyllables?

7. What devices of the poet are used here to make
the style suit the subject? Is the writing over-wrought?

MEANING AND STYLE 103

8. Write a detailed analysis of die rhythm of the
sentence beginning * O just and righteous opium! that
to the chancery . . . '.

9. Comment on, and illustrate, the various methods
used for heightening the emotion. (Such as inversion,
apostrophe, complication of the dependent clause,
etc.)

10. What qualities of * Romanticism ' do you find
in this prose style?

XXXVII

Two men I honour, and no third. First, the toil-worn
Craftsman that with earth-made Implement labori-
ously conquers the Earth, and makes her man's.
Venerable to me is the hard Hand ; crooked, coarse ;
wherein notwithstanding lies a cunning virtue, inde-
foasibly royal, as of the Sceptre of this Planet. Vener-
able too is the rugged face, all weather- tanned, be-
soiled, with its rude intelligence ; for it is the face of
a Man living manlike. O, but the more venerable
for thy rudeness, and even because we must pity as
well as love thee! Hardly-entreated Brother! For
us was thy back so bent, for us were thy straight limbs
and fingers so deformed : thou wert our Conscript, on
whom the lot fell, and fighting our battles wert so
marred. For in thee too lay a god-created Form but
it was not to be unfolded ; encrusted must it stand
with the thick adhesions and defacements of Labour :
and thy body, like thy soul, was not to know freedom.
Yet toil on, toil on : thou art in thy duty, be out of it
who may ; thou toilest for the altogether indispensable,
for daily bread.

104 MEANING AND STYLE

A second man I honour, and still more highly : Him
who is seen toiling for the spiritually indispensable :
ndt daily bread, but the bread of Life. Is not he too
in his duty ; endeavouring towards inward Harmony ;
revealing this, by act or by word, through all his out-
ward endeavours, be they high or low? Highest of
all, when his outward and his inward endeavour are
one ; when we can name him Artist ; not earthly
Craftsman only, but inspired Thinker, who with
heaven-made Implement conquers Heaven for us! If
the poor and humble toil that we have Food, must not
the high and glorious toil for him in return, that he have
Light, have Guidance, Freedom, Immortality? These
two, in all their degrees, I honour : all else is chaff and
dust, which let the wind blow whither it listeth.

THOMAS CARLYLE (1795-1881), from
Sartor Resartus

MEANING

1. Give the reasons why Carlyle honours the
Craftsman.

2. Why does he honour the Artist still more
highly?

3. What is the point of the sentence, c thou wert
our Conscript, on whom the lot fell, and fighting our
battles wert so marred * ?

4. Explain : * encrusted must it stand with the
thick adhesions and defacements of Labour ' ; * when
his outward and inward endeavour are one '.

5. Enlarge upon the idea expressed in * but inspired
Thinker, who with heaven-made Implement conquers
Heaven for us! * With what is it contrasted?

MEANING AND STYLE 1 05

STYLE

6. What immediate impression does this passage
make on you?

7. What do you learn about the author? What is
his aim? Is he sincere?

8. Comment on the vocabulary. What is the
purpose of the capital letters?

9. How is the abrupt vigour of style achieved?

10. Carlyle said of his own sentences, ' Perhaps not
nine-tenths stand straight on their legs.* Discuss, and
say what he gains and what he loses by this method.

XXXVIII

THE Puritans were men whose minds had derived a
peculiar character from the daily contemplation of
superior beings and eternal interests. Not content
with acknowledging, in general terms, an overruling
Providence, they habitually ascribed every event to
the will of the Great Being, for whose power nothing
was too vast, for whose inspection nothing was too
minute. To know him, to serve him, to enjoy him, was
with them the great end of existence. They rejected
with contempt the ceremonious homage which other
sects substituted for the pure worship of the soul.
Instead of catching occasional glimpses of the Deity
through an obscuring veil, they aspired to gaze full
on his intolerable brightness, and to commune with
him face to face. Hence originated their contempt
for terrestrial distinctions. The difference between the
greatest and the meanest of mankind seemed to vanish,
when compared with the boundless interval which
separated the whole race from him on whom their

IO6 MEANING AND STYLE

own eyes were constantly fixed. They recognized no
title to superiority but his favour ; and, confident of
that favour, they despised all the accomplishments and
all the dignities of the world. If they were un-
acquainted with the works of philosophers and poets,
they were deeply read in the oracles of God. If their
names were not found in the registers of heralds, they
were recorded in the Book of Life. If their steps were
not accompanied by a splendid train of menials, legions
of ministering angels had charge over them. Their
palaces were houses not made with hands ; their
diadems crowns of glory which should never fade away.
On the rich and the eloquent, on nobles and priests,
they looked down with contempt : for they esteemed
themselves rich in a more precious treasure, and
eloquent in a more sublime language, nobles by the
right of an earlier creation, and priests by the imposi-
tion of a mightier hand. The very meanest of them
was a being to whose fate a mysterious and terrible
importance belonged, on whose slightest action the
spirits of light and darkness looked with anxious
interest, who had been destined, before heaven and
earth were created, to enjoy a felicity which should
continue when heaven and earth should have passed
away. Events which short-sighted politicians ascribed
to earthly causes, had been ordained on his account.
For his sake empires had risen, and flourished, and
decayed. For his sake the Almighty had proclaimed
his will by the pen of the Evangelist, and the harp of
the prophet. He had been wrested by no common
deliverer from the grasp of no common foe.

LORD MACAULAY (1800-1859), from
Essay on Milton

MEANING AND STYLE IO7

MEANING

1 . Describe the peculiar character of the Puritans.

2. What particular qualities here described would
make the Puritans unpopular?

3. Select sentences where you think the author is
over-emphatic.

4. What is the meaning of : ceremonious hom-
age ' ; ' terrestrial distinctions ' ; * oracles of God ' ;
' registers of heralds '?

5. Explain carefully the meaning of the sentence :
' For his sake the Almighty . . . the harp of the
prophet '.

STYLE

6. Can you find here any expressions which have
originated from the Bible?

7. Consider the use here of antithesis. What is its
purpose?

8. What devices of the orator are found here?

9. It has been Said that Macaulay * brings down
his fist to clinch every sentence*. Comment, and
illustrate from the passage.

10. Lord Brougham characterized this style as
* Tom's " snip-snap " '. Is there any truth in such a
criticism?

XXXIX

IF I looked into a mirror, and did not see my face, I
should have the sort of feeling which actually comes
upon me, when I look into this living busy world, and
see no reflexion of its Creator. This is, to me, one of

108 MEANING AND STYLE

those great difficulties of this absolute primary truth,
to which I referred just now. Were it not for this
voice, speaking so clearly in my conscience and my
heart, I should be an atheist, or a pantheist, or a
polytheist when I looked into the world. I am speak-
ing for myself only ; and I am far from denying the
real force of the arguments in proof of a God, drawn
from the general facts of human society and the course
of history, but these do not warm me or enlighten me ;
they do not take away the winter of my desolation, or
make the buds unfold and the leaves grow within me,
and my moral being rejoice. The sight of the world
is nothing else than the prophet's scroll, full of ' lamen-
tations, and mourning, and woe *.

To consider the world in its length and breadth, its
various history, the many races of man, their starts,
their fortunes, their mutual alienation, their conflicts ;
and then their ways, habits, governments, forms of
worship ; their enterprises, their aimless courses, their
random achievements and acquirements, the impotent
conclusion of long-standing facts, the tokens so faint
and broken of a superintending design, the blind
evolution of what turn out to be great powers or truths,
the progress of things, as if from unreasoning elements,
not towards final causes, the greatness and littleness
of man, his far-reaching aims, his short duration, the
curtain hung over his futurity, the disappointments of
life, the defeat of good, the success of evil, physical pain,
mental anguish, the prevalence and intensity of sin,
the pervading idolatries, the corruptions, the dreary
hopeless irreligion, that condition of the whole race, so
fearfully yet exactly described in the Apostle's words,
4 having no hope and without God in the world,' all

MEANING AND STYLE NX)

this is a vision to dizzy and appal ; and inflicts upon
the mind the sense of a profound mystery, which is
absolutely beyond human solution.

JOHN HENRY NEWMAN (1801-1890), from
Apologia pro Vita Sua

MEANING

1. Give a title to the passage.

2. What causes the author's pessimism?

3. Explain carefully the meaning of: atheist,
pantheist, polythcist.

4. Express in your own words : the winter of
my desolation ' ; c the leaves grow within me ' ; ' im-
potent conclusion of long-standing facts ' ; * the curtain
hung over his futurity '.

5. Comment upon the fitness of the illustration used
in the first sentence.

STYLE

6. What kind of sentence is the second paragraph?
Justify its length.

7. How does this style differ from that of Carlyle?

8. Consider the earnestness and sincerity of the
author. Do you find his arguments impressive?

9. Indicate from the second paragraph the quick
movement of Newman's thought.

10. What arc the outstanding qualities of this prose
style?

XL

As long as you are journeying in the interior of the
Desert you have no particular point to make for as your
resting place. The endless sands yield nothing but

IIO MEANING AND STYLE

small stunted shrubs ; even these fail after the first
two or three days, and from that time you pass over
broad plains you pass over newly reared hills you
pass through valleys dug out by the last week's storm,
and the hills and the valleys are sand, sand, sand, still
sand, and only sand, and sand, and sand again. The
earth is so samely, that your eyes turn towards heaven
towards heaven, I mean, in the sense of sky. You
look to the Sun, for he is your task-master, and by him
you know the measure of the work that you have done,
and the measure of the work that remains for you to
do. He comes when you strike your tent in the early
morning, and then, for the first hour of the day, as
you move forward on your camel, he stands at your
near side, and makes you know that the whole clay's
toil is before you ; then for a while and a long while,
you see him no more, for you are veiled and shrouded,
and dare not look upon the greatness of his glory,
but you know where he strides overhead, by the
touch of his flaming sword. No words are spoken,
but your Arabs moan, your camrls sigh, your skin
glows, your shoulders ache, and for sights you see the
pattern and the web of the silk that veils your eyes, and
the glare of the outer light. Time labours on your
skin glows, your shoulders ache, your Arabs moan,
your camels sigh, and you see the same pattern in the
silk, and the same glare of light beyond ; but corquer-
ing Time marches on, and by and by the descending
sun has compassed the heaven, and now softly touches
your right arm, and throws your lank shadow over
the sand right along on the way for Persia. Then
again you look upon his face, for Ins power is all veiled
in his beauty, and the redness of flames has become

MEANING AND STYLE III

the redness of roses ; the fair, wavy cloud that fled in
the morning now comes to his sight once more
comes blushing, yet still comes on comes burning
with blushes, yet comes and clings to his side.

ALEXANDER WILLIAM KINGLAKE (1809-1891),
from Eotlien

MEANING

1 . Give a title to the passage.

2. With what word is * flaming sword ' connected
to complete the personification?

3. Explain carefully, * and for sights you see the
pattern and the web of the silk that veils your eyes,
and the glare of the outer light'.

4. Consider the sentences beginning, * No words
are spoken . . , J and ' Time labours on . . .'. Can you
suggest any reasons for the changes in phrase-order
made in the second sentence?

5. Explain the sentence, < the fair wavy cloud that
fled in the morning . . . clings to his side '. Docs it
rise to a climax, or is it a gradual fading away?

STYLE

6. What figures of speech are used here?

7. What is the purpose of the frequent repetition?
Is it effective?

8. Analyse the rhythm of the sentence beginning
' Time labours on . . . '.

9. Would you call this piece a prose poem?

10. Consider this description of the desert. How
does it compare with any similar description you may
know?

112 MEANING AND STYLE

XLI

WE must pass over a part of Mrs. Rebecca Crawley's
biography with that lightness and delicacy which the
world demands the moral world, that has, perhaps,
no particular objection to vice, but an insuperable repug-
nance to hearing vice called by its proper name. There
are things we do and know perfectly well in Vanity
Fair, though we never speak of them : as the Ahri-
manians worship the devil, but don't mention him :
and a polite public will no more bear to read an
authentic description of vice than a truly refined
English or American female will permit the word
breeches to be pronounced in her chaste hearing.
And, yet, Madam, both are walking the world before
our faces every day, without much shocking us. If
you were to blush every time they went by, what
complexions you would have! It is only when their
naughty names are called out that your modesty has
any occasion to show alarm or sense of outrage, and
it has been the wish of the present writer, all through
this story, deferentially to submit to the fashion at
present prevailing, and only hint at the existence of
wickedness in a light, easy, and agreeable manner,
so that nobody's fine feelings may be offended. I defy
any one to say that our Becky, who has certainly some
vices, has not been presented to the public in a per-
fectly genteel and inoffensive manner. In describing
this siren, singing, and smiling, coaxing and cajoling,
the author, with modest pride, asks his readers all
round, has he once forgotten the laws of politeness,
and showed the monster's hideous tail above water?
No! Those who like may peep down under waves

MEANING AND STYLE 113

that are pretty transparent, and see it writhing and
twirling, diabolically hideous and slimy, flapping
amongst bones, or curling round corpses ; but above
the water-line, I ask, has not everything been proper,
agreeable, and decorous, and has any the most squea-
mish immoralist in Vanity Fair a right to cry fie?
When, however, the siren disappears and dives below,
down among the dead men, the water of course grows
turbid over her, and it is labour lost to look into it ever
so curiously. They look pretty enough when they sit
upon a rock, twangling their harps 'and combing their
hair, and sing, and beckon to you to come and hold
the looking-glass ; but when they sink into their native
clement, depend on it those mermaids are about no
good, and we had best not examine the fiendish marine
cannibals, revelling and feasting on their wretched
pickled victims.

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY (1811-1863),
from Vanity Fair

MEANING

1. Give a title to the passage.

2. Summarize the passage.

3. Why need the author defend his heroine's
biography?

4. What is the author's opinion of the public?

5. What is the key sentence of the passage?

STYLE

6. What is the author's purpose in this passage?

7. How does the author establish pleasant relations
with his reader?

114 MEANING AND STYLE

8. Do you find any irony in this passage?

9. * The curious music of a light sentence of
Thackeray's.' Quiller-Couch. Examine the last sen-
tence in the light of this statement.

10. * Nobody in our day wrote, I should say, with
such perfection of style. 5 Carlyle, speaking of Thack-
eray. What qualities would you expect to find in an
author so praised?

XLII

' SHE is still asleep,' he whispered. * You were right.
She did not call unless she did so in her slumber.
She has called to me in her sleep before now, sir ; as
I have sat by, watching, I have seen her lips move, and
have known, though no sound came from them, that
she spoke of me. I feared the light might dazzle her
eyes and wake her, so I brought it here/

He spoke rather to himself than to the visitor, but
when he had put the lamp upon the table, he took it
up, as if impelled by some momentary recollection or
curiosity, and held it near his face. Then, as if for-
getting his motive in the very action, he turned away
and put it down again.

* She is sleeping soundly,' he said ; < but no wonder.
Angel hands have strewn the ground deep with snow,
that the lightest footstep may be lighter yet ; and the
very birds are dead, that they may not wake her. She
used to feed them, sir. Though never so cold and
hungry, the timid things would fly from us. They
never flew from her! '

Again he stopped to listen, and scarcely drawing

MEANING AND STYLE 115

breath, listened for a long, long time. That fancy
past, he opened an old chest, took out some clothes as
fondly as if they had been living things, and began
to smooth and brush them with his hand.

' Why dost thou lie so idle there, dear Nell,' he
murmured, * when there are bright red berries out of
doors waiting for thee to pluck them! Why dost thou
lie so idle there, when thy little friends come creeping
to the door, crying " where is Nell sweet Nell? "
and sob, and weep because they do not see thee ? She
was always gentle with children. The wildest would
do her bidding she had a tender way with them,
indeed she had! '

Kit had no power to speak. His eyes were filled
with tears.

* Her little homely dress, her favourite! ' cried the
old man, pressing it to his breast, and patting it with
his shrivelled hand. * She will miss it when she wakes.
They have hid it here in sport, but she shall have it
she shall have it. I would not vex my darling for
the wide world's riches. See here these shoes how
worn they are she kept them to remind her of our last
long journey. You see where the little feet went bare
upon the ground. They told me, afterwards, that the
stones had cut and bruised them. She never told me
that. No, no, God bless her! and, I have remembered
since, she walked behind me, sir, that I might not see
how lame she was but yet she had my hand in hers,
and seemed to lead me still.'

CHARLES DICKENS (1812-1870), from Tht Old
Curiosity Shop

Il6 MEANING AND STYLE

MEANING

1. What impression do you form of the character
of the old man?

2. What is your impression of Nell?

3. How is the atmosphere of suspense and uneasi-
ness maintained?

4. Explain the full significance of : * See here
these shoes how worn they are she kept them to
remind her of our last journey. 5

5. Explain ' she walked behind me, bir, . . . and
seemed to lead me still '.

STYLE

6. Indicate the use of * poetic ' words.

7. Do you find here any signs of careful art?

8. Compare this passage with the one taken from
Richaidson.

9. Examine carefully the emotional qualities in
this style.

10. * Here is the spirit of Romanticism carried to
excess.' Explain and discuss.

XLIII

THE following evening was very wet : indeed it poured
down till day-dawn ; and, as I took my morning walk
round the house, I observed the master's window
swinging open, and the rain driving straight in. He
cannot be in bed, I thought : those showers would
drench him through. He must either be up or
out. But I'll make no more ado, I'll go boldly and
look.

MEANING AND STYLE

Having succeeded in obtaining entrance with
another key, I ran to unclose the panels, for the
chamber was vacant ; quickly pushing them aside, I
peeped in. Mr. Heathcliff was there laid on his
back. His eyes met mine so keen and fierce, I started ;
and then he seemed to smile. I could not think him
dead : but his face and throat were washed with rain ;
the bedclothes dripped, and he was perfectly still.
The lattice, flapping to and fro, had grazed one hand
that rested on the sill ; no blood trickled from the
broken skin, and when I put my fingers to it, I could
doubt no more : he was dead and stark!

I hasped the window ; I combed his black long hair
from his forehead ; I tried to close his eyes : to extin-
guishj if possible, that frightful, life-like gaze of exulta-
tion before any one else beheld it. They would not
shut : they seemed to sneer at my attempts : and his
parted lips and sharp white teeth sneered too! Taken
with another fit of cowardice, I cried out for Joseph.
Joseph shuffled up and made a noise ; but resolutely
refused to meddle with him.

' Th' divil's harried off his soul,' he cried, * and he
may hev his carcass into t' bargain, for aught I care!
Ech! what a wicked un he looks girning at death! *
and the old sinner grinned in mockery. I thought he
intended to cut a caper round the bed ; but,
suddenly composing himself, he fell on his knees, and
raised his hands, and returned thanks that the lawful
master and the ancient stock were restored to their
rights.

EMILY BRONTE (1818-1848), from
Wutkering Heights

Il8 MEANING AND STYLE

MEANING

1. Why did Nelly think that Heathcliff was not dead?

2. Explain the significance of c no blood trickled
from the broken skin ',

3. * Taken with another fit of cowardice.' Which
was the first?

4. How does Joseph's utterance relieve the tension?

5. What do you consider to be the most dramatic
writing here? Why?

STYLE

6. What is gained by telling the story in the first person?

7. Which verbs strike you as particularly well chosen?

8. Is this description more or less effective than the
one from Richardson?

9. Compare this with the passage from Dickens.
What are the chief differences?

10. What makes this style so convincing?

XLIV

* How should they? f said the old clerk, with some
contempt. * Why, my grandfather made the grooms'
livery for that Mr. Cliff as came and built the big stables
at the Warrens. Why, they're stables four times as
big as Squire Cass's, for he thought o* nothing but
hosses and hunting, Cliff didn't a Lunnon tailor,
some folks said, as had gone mad wi' cheating. For
he couldn't ride ; lor' bless you! they said he'd got
no more grip o* the hoss than if his legs had been cross-
sticks : my grandfather heard old Squire Cass say so
many and many a time. But ride he would as if Old
Harry had been a-driving him ; and he'd a son, a lad

MEANING AND STYLE IIQ

o* sixteen ; and nothing would his father have him
do, but he must ride and ride though the lad was
frighted, they said. And it was a common saying as
the father wanted to ride the tailor out o' the lad, and
make a gentleman on him not but what Pm a tailor
myself, but in respect as God made me such, I'm proud
on it, for " Macey, tailor," 's been wrote up over our
door since afore the Queen's heads went out on the
shillings. But Cliff, he was ashamed o' being called
a tailor, and he was sore vexed as his riding was
laughed at, and nobody o' the gentlefolks hereabout
could abide him. Howsomever, the poor lad got
sickly and died, and the father didn't live long after
him, for he got queerer nor ever, and they said he used
to go out i' the dead o' the night, wi* a lantern in his
hand, to the stables, and set a lot o' lights burning, for
he got as he couldn't sleep ; and there he'd stand,
cracking his whip and looking at his hosses ; and they
said it was a mercy as the stables didn't get bui*nt down
wi' the poor dumb creaturs in 'em. But at last he
died raving, and they found as he'd left all his property,
Warrens and all, to a Lunnon Charity, and that's how
the Warrens come to be Charity Land ; though as for
the stables, Mr. Lammeter never uses 'em they're out
o' all charicter lor' bless you! if you was to set the
doors a-banging in 'em, it 'ud sound like thunder half
o'er the parish.'

GEORGE ELIOT (1819-1880), from Silas Marner

MEANING

1 . Summarize the passage.

2. What do you learn about the speaker from thia
passage?

Il8 MEANING AND STYLE

MEANING

1 . Why did Nelly think that Heathcliff was not dead?

2. Explain the significance of c no blood trickled
from the broken skin '.

3. ' Taken with another fit of cowardice.' Which
was the first?

4. How does Joseph's utterance relieve the tension?

5. What do you consider to be the most dramatic
writing here? Why?

STYLE

6. What is gained by telling the story in the first person?

7. Which verbs strike you as particularly well chosen?

8. Is this description more or less effective than the
one from Richardson?

9. Compare this with the passage from Dickens.
What are the chief differences?

10. What makes this style so convincing?

XLIV

' How should they? * said the old clerk, with some
contempt. * Why, my grandfather made the grooms'
livery for that Mr. Cliff as came and built the big stables
at the Warrens. Why, they're stables four times as
big as Squire Cass's, for he thought o* nothing but
hosses and hunting, Cliff didn't a Lunnon tailor,
some folks said, as had gone mad wi' cheating. For
he couldn't ride ; lor' bless you! they said he'd got
no more grip o' the hoss than if his legs had been cross-
sticks : my grandfather heard old Squire Cass say so
many and many a time. But ride he would as if Old
Harry had been a-driving him ; and he'd a son, a lad

MEANING AND STYLE

o* sixteen ; and nothing would his father have him
do, but he must ride and ride though the lad was
frighted, they said. And it was a common saying as
the father wanted to ride the tailor out o' the lad, arid
make a gentleman on him not but what I'm a tailor
myself, but in respect as God made me such, I'm proud
on it, for " Macey, tailor," 's been wrote up over our
door since afore the Queen's heads went out on the
shillings. But Cliff, he was ashamed o' being called
a tailor, and he was sore vexed as his riding was
laughed at, and nobody o' the gentlefolks hereabout
could abide him. Howsomever, the poor lad got
sickly and died, and the father didn't live long after
him, for he got queerer nor ever, and they said he used
to go out i' the dead o' the night, wi' a lantern in his
hand, to the stables, and set a lot o' lights burning, for
he got as he couldn't sleep ; and there he'd stand,
cracking his whip and looking at his hosses ; and they
said it was a mercy as the stables didn't get burnt down
wi' the poor dumb creaturs in 'em. But at last he
died raving, and they found as he'd left all his property,
Warrens and all, to a Lunnon Charity, and that's how
the Warrens come to be Charity Land ; though as for
the stables, Mr. Lammeter never uses 'em they're out
o' all charicter lor' bless you! if you was to set the
doors a-banging in 'em, it *ud sound like thunder half
o'er the parish.'

GEORGE ELIOT (1819-1880), from Silas Marner

MEANING

1 . Summarize the passage.

2. What do you learn about the speaker from this
passage?

I2O MEANING AND STYLE

3. Write a brief character sketch of Mr. Cliff.

4. Explain as fully as you can * they're out o* all
charicter '.

5. Do you learn anything of the social order from
this piece?

STYLE

6. Discuss the value of dialect in narrative prose.

7. How does this compare with the dialect in Scott
or Dickens?

8. Give instances of the homeliness of this particular
passage.

9. Indicate the humour in this passage.

IO. * There is an invigorating freshness in her prose
when writing of rural life.' Discuss.

XLV

THE scene is often profoundly oppressive, even at this
day, when every plot of higher ground bears some
fragment of fair building : but, in order to know what
it was once, let the traveller follow in his boat at
evening the windings of some unfrequented channel
far into the midst of the melancholy plain ; let him
remove, in his imagination, the brightness of the great
city that still extends itself in the distance, and the
walls and towers from the islands that are near ; and
so wait, until the bright investiture and sweet warmth
of the sunset are withdrawn from the waters, and the
black desert of their shore lies in its nakedness beneath
the night, pathless, comfortless, infirm, lost in dark
languor and fearful silence, except where the salt
runlets plash into the tideless pools, or the sea-birds

MEANING AND STYLE 121

flit from their margins with a questioning cry ; and
he will be enabled to enter in some sort into the horror
of heart with which this solitude was anciently chosen
by man for his habitation. They little thought, who
first drove the stakes into the sand, and strewed the
ocean reeds for their rest, that their children were to
be the princes of that ocean, and their palaces its pride ;
and yet, in the great natural laws that rule that
sorrowful wilderness, let it be remembered what strange
preparation had been made for the things which no
human imagination could have foretold, and how the
whole existence and fortune of the Venetian nation
were anticipated or compelled, by the setting of those
bars and doors to the rivers and the sea. Had deeper
currents divided their islands, hostile navies would
again and again have reduced the rising city into
servitude ; had stronger surges beaten their shores,
all the richness and refinement of the Venetian archi-
tecture must have been exchanged for the walls and
bulwarks of an ordinary seaport.

JOHN RUSKIN (1819-1900), from Stones of Venice

MEANING

1. Give a title to the passage.

2. Under what circumstances is the scene described
oppressive?

3. What were the main advantages which Venice
derived from her position?

4. What is the salient feature of the picture de-
scribed in the first sentence?

5. Give the gist of the second half of the piece
beginning ' They little thought . . .'.

122 MEANING AND STYLE

STYLE

6. What kind of sentence is the first? Can you
justify its length?

7. Exemplify Ruskin's use of vivid epithets.

8. Indicate the poetical devices employed to give
richness of sound to the prose,

9. What are the merits of such poetic prose? What
are its weaknesses?

10. Examine in detail the words in italics :

(a) lost in dark languor and fearful silence.

(b) the bright investiture of the sunset.

(c) where the salt runlets plash into tideless pools.

(d) sea birds jlit from their margins.

(e) by the setting of those bars and doors to the

rivers and the sea.

XLVI

THEY went noiselessly over mats of starry moss, rustled
through interspersed tracts of leaves, skirted trunks
with spreading roots whose mossed rinds made them
like hands wearing green gloves ; elbowed old elms
and ashes with great forks, in which stood pools of
water that overflowed on rainy days, and ran down
their stems in green cascades. On older trees still
than these huge lobes of fungi grew like lungs. Here,
as everywhere, the Unfulfilled Intention, which makes
life what it is, was as obvious as it could be among the
depraved crowds of a city slum. The leaf was de-
formed, the curve was crippled, the taper was inter-
rupted ; the lichen ate the vigour of the stalk, and the
ivy slowly strangled to death the promising sapling.

MEANING AND STYLE 123

They dived amid beeches under which nothing
grew, the younger boughs still retaining their hectic
leaves, that rustled in the breeze with a sound almost
metallic, like the sheet-iron foliage of the fabled
Jarnvid wood. Some flecks of white in Grace's drapery
had enabled Giles to keep her and her father in view
till this time ; but now he lost sight of them, and was
obliged to follow by ear no difficult matter, for on
the line of their course every wood-pigeon rose from
its perch with a continued clash, dashing its wings
against the branches with well-nigh force enough to
break every quill. By taking the track of this noise
he soon came to a stile.

Was it worth while to go further? He examined
the doughy soil at the foot of the stile, and saw amongst
the large solc-and-hcel tracks an impression of a
slighter kind, from a boot that was obviously not local.
The mud-picture was enough to make him swing
himself over and proceed.

The character of the woodland now changed. The
bases of the smaller trees were nibbled bare by rabbits,
and at divers points heaps of fresh-made chips, and the
newly-cut stool of a tree, stared white through the
undergrowth. There had been a large fall of timber
this year, which explained the meaning of some sounds
hat soon reached him.

THOMAS HARDY (1840-1928), from The Wocdlanders

MEANING

1. Give a title to the first paragraph.

2. What do you understand by the words ' the
Unfulfilled Intention '?

124 MEANING AND STYLE

3. How was the Unfulfilled Intention made ob-
vious? Do you accept the comparison with c the
depraved crowds of a city slum '?

4. Explain the full implication of * an impression
from a boot that was obviously not local '.

5. What is the author's feeling towards Nature?

STYLE

6. Exemplify the author's powers of observation.

7. Comment on the similes used here.

8. What is the atmosphere of this passage? How
is it achieved?

9. * His style is deliberate and unadorned. 5 Discuss,
and show how his style suits the subject.

10. ' His tastes are secretly guiding the preferences
of his sight. 8 Examine this statement.

XLVII

BI T T who shall count the sources at which an intense
young fancy (when a young fancy is intense) capri-
ciously, absurdly drinks? so that the effect is, in twenty
connections, that of a love-philtre or fear-philtre which
fixes for the senses their supreme symbol of the fair or
the strange. The Galerie d'Apollon became for years
what I can only term a splendid scene of things, even of
the quite irrelevant or, as might be, almost unworthy ;
and I recall to this hour, with the last vividness, what
a precious part it played for me, and exactly by that
continuity of honour, on my awaking, in a summer
dawn many years later, to the fortunate, the instan-
taneous recovery and capture of the most appalling
yet most admirable nightmare of my life. The climax

MEANING AND STYLE 125

of this extraordinary experience which stands alone
for me as a dream-adventure founded in the deepest,
quickest, clearest act of cogitation and comparison, act
indeed of life-saving energy, as well as in unutterable
fear was the sudden pursuit, through an open door,
along a huge high saloon, of a just dimly-descried
figure that retreated in terror before my rush and dash
(a glare of inspired reaction from irresistible but
shameful dread), out of the room I had a moment
before been desperately, and all the more abjectly
defending by the push of my shoulder against hard
pressure on lock and bar from the other side. The
lucidity, not to say the sublimity, of the crisis had
consisted of the great thought that I, in my appalled
state, was probably still more appalling than the awful
agent, creature or presence, whatever it was, whom I
had guessed, in the suddencst wild start from my sleep,
to be making for my place of rest. The triumph of my
impulse, perceived in a flash as I acted on it by myself
at a bound, forcing the door outward, was the grand
thing, but the great point of the whole was the wonder
of my final recognition. Routed, dismayed, the tables
turned upon him by my so surpassing him for straight
aggression and dire intention, my visitant was already
but a diminished spot in the long perspective, the
tremendous, glorious hall, as I say, over the far-
gleaming floor of which, cleared for the occasion of its
great line of priceless vitrines down the middle he sped
for his life, while a great storm of thunder and lightning
played through the deep embrasures of high windows
at the right. The lightning that revealed the retreat
revealed also the wondrous place, and, by the same
amazing play, my young imaginative life in it of long

126 MEANING AND STYLE

before, the sense of which, deep within me, had kept it
whole, preserved it to this thrilling use ; for what in
the world were the deep embrasures and the so polished
floor but those of the Galerie d'Apollon of my child-
hood?

HENRY JAMES (1843-1916), from A Small
Boy and Others (1913)

MEANING

1. Describe the nightmare in your own words.

2. How is the nightmare connected with the other
thoughts expressed here?

3. Explain in your own words the meaning of the
second sentence beginning ' The Galerie d'Apollon . . .'

4. What is meant by * so that the effect is, in twenty
connections, that of a love-philtre or fear-philtre which
fixes for the senses their supreme symbol of the fair or
the strange '?

5. Comment upon the choice of words in c a glare
of inspired reaction from irresistible but shameful
dread ', * my visitant was already but a diminished
spot in the long perspective ', ' a great storm of thun-
der and lightning played through the deep embrasures
of high windows at the right '.

STYLE

6. Comment on the sentence structure, analysing
the third sentence in some detail.

7. Consider carefully the rhythm of the last two
sentences.

8. Comment on the eloquence of this passage.
Compare it with that of Sir Thomas Browne.

MEANING AND STYLE I2y

9. Here James is dealing with a complicated sub-
ject. Show how he controls the surmises and guesses
of his readers by the complexities of his style.

10. This has been called a 'sophisticated style*.
What are its outstanding qualities? What new world
of artistic possibilities would it originate?

XLVIII

WITH that, I shook myself, got once more into my boots
and gaiters, and, breaking up the rest of the bread for
Modestine, 1 strolled about to see in what part of the
world I had awakened. Ulysses, left on Ithaca, and
with a mind unsettled by the goddess, was not more
pleasantly astray. I have been after an adventure
all my life, a pure dispassionate adventure, such as
bcfcl early and heroic voyagers ; and thus to be found
by morning in a random woodside nook in G^vaudan
not knowing north from south, as strange to my
surroundings as the first man upon the earth, an inland
castaway was to find a fraction of my day-dreams
realised. I was on the skirts of a little wood of birch,
sprinkled with a few beeches ; behind, it adjoined
another wood of fir ; and in front, it broke up and
went down in open order into a shallow and meadowy
dale. All around there were bare hill-tops, some near,
some far away, as the perspective closed or opened,
but none apparently much higher than the rest. The
wind huddled the trees. The golden specks of autumn
in the birches tossed shiveringly. Overhead the sky
was full of strings and shreds of vapour, flying, vanish-
ing, reappearing, and turning about an axis like

1 The donkey.

128 MEANING AND STYLE

tumblers, as the wind hounded them through heaven.
It was wild weather and famishing cold. I ate some
chocolate, swallowed a mouthful of brandy, and
smoked a cigarette before the cold should have time
to disable my fingers. And by the time I had got all
this done, and had made my pack and bound it on the
pack-saddle, the day was tiptoe on the threshold of
the east. We had not gone many steps along the lane,
before the sun, still invisible to me, sent a glow of gold
over some cloud mountains that lay ranged along the
eastern sky.

The wind had us on the stern, and hurried us bitingly
forward. I buttoned myself into my coat, and walked
on in a pleasant frame of mind with all men, when
suddenly, at a corner, there was Fouzilhic once more
in front of me. Nor only that, but there was the old
gentleman who had escorted me so far the night
before, running out of his house at sight of me, with
hands upraised in horror.

ROBERT Louis STEVENSON (1850-1894), from
Travels with a Donkey

MEANING

1 . Summarize the passage.

2. Why should the author enjoy being lost?

3. Explain k some near, some far away, as the
perspective closed or opened '; * the wind huddled the
trees * ; ' turning about an axis like tumblers, as the
wind hounded them through heaven *.

4. Show how the cold is emphasized throughout.

5. ' I walked on in a pleasant frame of mind with
all men.' Why should such a journey produce this
frame of mind?

MEANING AND STYLE 129

STYLE

6. Is the periodic sentence used here?

7. Illustrate his * varied and supple vocabulary '.

8. Are there any examples here of ' poetic prose '?

9. Find examples of Stevenson's keen sensibility to
scenery.

10. Stevenson said that in writing * the one rule is to
be infinitely various \ Discuss the variety achieved
here.

XLIX

THEN the sheets were hauled home, the yards hoisted,
and the ship became a high and lonely pyramid,
gliding, all shining and white, through the sunlit mist.
The tug turned short round and went away towards
the land. Twenty-six pairs of eyes watched her low
broad stern crawling languidly over the smooth swell
between the two paddle-wheels that turned fast,
beating the water with fierce hurry. She resembled an
enormous and aquatic blackbeetle, surprised by the
light, overwhelmed by the sunshine, trying to escape
with ineffectual effort into the distant gloom of the
land. She left a lingering smudge of smoke on the
sky, and two vanishing trails of foam on the water.
On the place where she had stopped a round black
patch of soot remained, undulating on the swell an
unclean mark of the creature's rest.

The Narcissus left alone, heading south, seemed to
stand resplendent and still upon the restless sea, under
the moving sun. Flakes of foam swept past her sides ;
the water struck her with flashing blows ; the land
glided away, slowly fading ; a few birds screamed on

130 MEANING AND STYLE

motionless wings over the swaying mastheads. But
soon the land disappeared, the birds went away ; and
to the west the pointed sail of an Arab dhow running
for Bombay, rose triangular and upright above the
sharp edge of the horizon, lingered, and vanished like
an illusion. Then the ship's wake, long and straight,
stretched itself out through a day of immense solitude.
The setting sun, burning on the level of the water,
flamed crimson below the blackness of heavy rain
clouds. The sunset squall, coming up from behind,
dissolved itself into the short deluge of a hissing
shower. It left the ship glistening from trucks to
waterlinc, and with darkened sails. She rah easily
before a fair monsoon, with her decks cleared for the
night ; and, moving along with her, was heard the
sustained and monotonous swishing of the waves,
mingled with the low whispers of men mustered aft
for the setting of watches ; the short plaint of some block
aloft ; or, now and then, a loud sigh of wind.

JOSEPH CONRAD (1857-1924), from The Nigger of
the * Narcissus *

MEANING

1. What two images arc contrasted in the first
paragraph?

2. What words in the second paragraph emphasize
the smooth motion of the ship?

3. Why with * darkened sails '?

4. Explain the full effectiveness of the simile ' and
vanished like an illusion*.

5. How does Conrad make the reader feel himself
on board the ship?

MEANING AND STYLE 13!

STYLE

6. Which verbs strike you as very well chosen?

7. Examine the author's use of technical terms.
Do you find them difficult to understand?

8. What poetical devices do you find here? Are
they effective?

9. Analyse carefully the rhythm of the sentence
beginning * But soon the land disappeared . . .*.

10. Comment on Conrad's use of words in :

(a) a high and lonely pyramid.

(b) under the moving sun.

(c) stretched itself through a day of immense

solitude.

(d) the short deluge of a hissing shower.

(e) the sustained and monotonous swishing of

the waves.

ON the previous night one of the three Wombwell
elephants had suddenly knelt on a man in the tent ;
and he had then walked out of the tent and picked up
another man at haphazard from the crowd which was
staring at the great pictures in front, and tried to put
this second man into his mouth. Being stopped by his
Indian attendant with a pitchfork, he placed the man
on the ground and stuck his tusk through an artery of
the victim's arm. He then, amid unexampled excite-
ment, suffered himself to be led away. He was con-
ducted to the rear of the tent, just in front of Baincs's
shuttered windows, and by means of stakes, pulleys
and ropes, forced to his knees. His head was

132 MEANING AND STYLE

whitewashed, and six men of the Rifle Corps were en-
gaged to shoot at him at a distance of five yards, while
constables kept the crowd off with truncheons. He
died instantly, rolling over with a soft thud. The
crowd cheered, and intoxicated by their own import-
ance, the Volunteers fired three more volleys into the
carcass, and were then borne off as heroes to different
inns. The elephant, by the help of his two companions,
was got on to a railway lorry and disappeared into the
night. Such was the greatest sensation that has ever
occurred, or perhaps will ever occur, in Bursley. The
excitement about the repeal of the Corn Laws, or about
Inkerman, was feeble compared to that excitement.
Mr. Critchlow, who had been called on to put a hasty
tourniquet round the arm of the second victim, had
popped in afterwards to tell John Baines all about it.
Mr. Barnes's interest, however, had been slight. Mr.
Critchlow succeeded better with the ladies, who,
though they had witnessed the shooting from the
drawing-room, were thirsty for the most trifling details.
The next day it was known that the elephant lay
near the playground, pending the decision of the chief
bailiff and the medical officer as to his burial. And
everybody had to visit the corpse. No social exclusive-
ness could withstand the seduction of that dead ele-
phant. Pilgrims travelled from all the Five Towns to
see him.

ARNOLD BENNETT (1867-1931), from Tlie Old
Wives' Tale

MEANING

1. Givear^sum^ in about 100 words.

2. Why were the Baines's windows shuttered?

MEANING AND STYLE 133

3. Enlarge upon the significance of the following :
* suffered himself to be led away ' ; c his head was
whitewashed ' ; * borne off as heroes to different inns '.

4. What do you learn about the ladies mentioned
here?

5. Do you learn anything of the provincialism of
Bursley from this passage?

STYLE

6. Compare this with the passage from Scott.
Which is the easier to read? Why?

7. Point out the humour. (Is it humour or wit?)

8. Do you find any irony here?

9. Discuss the effectiveness of this matter-of-fact
style.

10. * This picture of reality seems to be guided by
the same ideal as that of photography.' What are the
merits and dements of such an ideal?

LI

THOSE inscssorial birds whose hardy temperament
allows them to remain on our shores at all seasons of
the year, naturally require some place of safety whither
to retire from the strife of the warring elements in the
winter months. Can we conceive of anything more
suitable for this purpose and meeting all conditions
than the ever verdant evergreen, which at all times of
the year is found clothed in beautiful foliage. When
November's blasts have robbed other trees of their
arboreal covering, and all is cold and cheerless, the
holly, yew, ivy, or stately fir spread out their foliage,

134 MEANING AND STYLE

enticing by their warmth and shelter the feathered
tribes in countless numbers. If, therefore, these useful
trees were absent from our land, the number of resident
birds and winter visitants would greatly decrease. In
summer the presence of evergreens is not so much
needed, for the sun, being higher in the heavens, has
greater power, and vegetable life is at its acme of
vigour, and affords in part the shelter required. But
in winter what a change occurs! How bare the
leafless trees and hedgerows! The evergreens now
stand out prominent as friendly beacons, offering
harbours of refuge for every weary songster that seeks
their shelter. Birds imiy, however, be seen in small
numbers enlivening the woods and hedgerows with
their presence in the daytime ; but whither go these
feathered creatures when the sun sinks below the
western horizon? To the nearest belt of shrubbery
or cluster of evergreens, where, amid the luxuriant
foliage they remain safe from enemies and cold until
morning dawns, when their several requirements lead
them forth anew amongst the mote exposed and leafless
tracts of country.

From Charles Dixon's Rural Bird Life (1880)

MEANING

1. Give a title to the passnigc.

2. Give the gist in about 50 words.

3. What one sentence sums up the information
given here?

4. * Meeting all conditions.* What conditions?

5. Give the meaning of: insessorial, arboreal,
acme.

MEANING AND STYLE 135

STYLE

6. Comment on the epithets ihsccl here.

7. Give examples of the following : (a) tautology,
(b] cliche\ (c) verbosity.

8. Consider the sentence * Birds may, however,
be seen in small numbers . . . below the western
horizon? ' Why is this a bad sentence?

9. Compare this piece carefully with the extract
from Gilbert White in point of style.

10. Enumerate the weaknesses of this prose style.

LI I

To tell the truth there is something in the long, slow
lift of the ship, and her long, slow slide forwards which
makes my heart beat with joy. It is the motion of
freedom. To feel her come up then slide slowly
forward, with the sound of the smashing of waters, is
like the magic gallop of the sky, the magic gallop of
elemental space. That long, slow, waveringly rhyth-
mic rise and fall of the ship, with waters snorting its it
were from her nostrils, oh, God, what a joy it is to the
wild innermost soul. One is free at his I and lilting
in a slow flight of the elements, winging outwards.
Oh, God, to be free of all the hemmcd-in-lifc the
horror of human tension, the absolute insanity of
machine persistence* The agony which a train is to
me, really. And the long-drawn-out agony of a life
among tense, resistant people on land. And then to
feel the long, slow lift and drop of this almost empty
ship, as she took the waters. Ah, God, liberty, liberty,
elemental liberty. I wished in my soui the voyage

136 MEANING AND STYLE

might last forever, that the sea had no end, that one
might float in this wavering, tremulous, yet long and
surging- pulsation while ever time lasted : space never
exhausted, and no turning back, no looking back even.

The ship was almost empty save of course for the
street-corner louts who hung about just below, on the
deck itself. We stood alone on the weather-faded
little promenade deck, which had old oak seats with
old, carved little lions at the ends, for arm-rests and
a little cabin mysteriously shut, which much peeping
determined as the wireless office and the operator's
little curtained bed-niche.

Cold, fresh wind, a black-blue, translucent, rolling
sea on which the wake rose in snapping foam, and
Sicily on the left : Monte Pellegrino, a huge, inordinate
mass of pinkish rock, hardly crisped with the faintest
vegetation, looming up to heaven from the sea.
Strangely large in mass and bulk Monte Pellegrino
looks : and bare, like a Sahara in heaven : and old-
looking. These coasts of Sicily are very imposing,
terrific, fortifying the interior. And again one gets
the feeling that age has worn them bare : as if old, old
civilizations had worn away and exhausted the soil,
leaving a terrifying blankness of rock, as at Syracuse
in plateaus, and here in great mass.

D. H. LAWRENCE (1885-1930), from Sea and
Sardinia (1923)

MEANING

x. Summarize the first paragraph.
2. Explain in your own words ' the horror of human
tension, the absolute insanity of machine persistence 5 .

MEANING AND STYLE 137

3. What is the meaning of : ' hardly crisped
with the faintest vegetation ' ; ' like a Sahara in
heaven'? Why should the * blankness of rock ' be
terrifying?

4. What are your impressions on reading * the
magic gallop of the sky, the magic gallop of elemental
space '?

5. Explain as fully as you can the meaning of * the
long-drawn-out agony of a life among tense, resistant
people on land '.

STYLE

6. Indicate the variety of the sentences, and the
rhythmic effects achieved.

7. Exemplify the use of repetition. What is its
effect?

8. Are there any evidences of poetic sensitiveness?

9. Examine the spontaneity of expression. Com-
pare it with that of Hazlitt.

10. In what ways is this an original, modern style?

LIII

ONE of the greatest dangers of living in large towns
is that we have too many neighbours and human
fellowship is too cheap. We are apt to become wearied
of humanity ; a solitary green tree sometimes seems
dearer to us than an odd thousand of our fellow-
citizens. Unless we are hardened, the millions of eyes
begin to madden us ; and for ever pushed and jostled
by crowds we begin to take more kindly to Malthus,
and are even willing to think better of Herod and other
wholesale depopulators. We begin to hate the sight
E*

138 MEANING AND STYLE

of men who would appear as gods to us if we met them
in Turkestan or Patagonia. When we have become
thoroughly crowd-sick, we feel that the continued
presence of these thousands of other men and women
will soon crush, stamp, or press our unique, miraculous
individuality into some vile pattern of the streets ; we
feel that the spirit will perish for want of room to
expand in : and we gasp for an air untainted by
crowded humanity.

Some such thoughts as these come to me, at first,
in my curious little glimpse of solitude. I am possessed
by an ampler mood than men commonly know, and
feel that I can fashion the world about me to my
changing whims ; my spirit overflows, and seems to
fill the quiet drooping countiy-side with sudden light
and laughter ; the empty road and vacant fields, the
golden atmosphere and blue spaces are my kingdoms,
and I can people them at will with my fancies. Beauti-
ful snatches of poetry come into my head, and I repeat
a few words, or even only one word, aloud and with
passionate emphasis, as if to impress their significance
and beauty upon a listening host. Sometimes I break
into violent little gusts of laughter, for my own good
pleasure. At other times I sing, loudly and with
abandon : to a petrified audience of one cow and
three trees I protest melodiously that Phyllis has such
charming graces that I could love her till I die, and I
believe it, too, at the time. I brag to myself, and
applaud and flatter myself. I even indulge in one or
two of those swaggering day-dreams of boyhood in
' which one finds oneself suddenly raised to some
extraordinary eminence, the idol of millions, a
demi-god among men* from which height one looks

MEANING AND STYLE 139

down with kindly scorn on those myopic persons
who did not know true greatness when they saw it,
sarcastic schoolmasters and jeering relatives for the
most part.

J. B. PRIESTLEY (1894- ), from c A Road to
Oneself, from Papers from Lilliput (1922)

MEANING

1. Give a title to the passage.

2. Express in your own words the argument in the
first paragraph. Do you agree?

3. What is implied by * take more kindly to
Malthus ' and * think better of Herod '?

4. Express in your own words the mood suggested
in the second paragraph.

5. Why should the * swelling mood ' come to the
author with this * little glimpse of solitude *?

STYLE

6. Does this extract appeal to you? If so, why?

7. Comment on the structure and variety of the
sentences in the first paragraph.

8. * Common sense, poetic fancies, and rose-
spectacled reminiscence.' How far does this sum up
the author's attitude?

9. Compare and contrast, in some detail, with the
extract from Hazlitt.

10. * A plain-fronted, stone-built style devoid of
obtrusive ornament/ Discuss.

I4O MEANING AND STYLE

LIV

THE philosophers have often maintained that happi-
ness, like beauty, is a by-product, a lovely but acci-
dental acquisition. The bloom appears on fruit or on
the face of youth, uncovenanted benefit ; so bliss slips
into our lives, coming the more surely the less it is
pursued. You set out to do something ; you pin your
mind to the purpose ; you do the job and, lo, happiness
descends upon you. But you must not think about the
pleasure ; to dissociate the hedonic tone, as the
psychologists gravely call it, from the activity is fatal.
Stick to the deed, the action, and there comes the joy,
a secret visitation. The nature of the deed does not
matter greatly, sobeit your heart and brain and muscles
are in the work. To hit a ball correctly or to compose
a masterpiece, the process is the same. Concentrate,
achieve, and the mysterious felicity will follow. The
way to ensure happiness is not to seek it.

So they say, but mankind has never believed it.
Mankind, in the mass, is more concerned with pleasure
than with happiness ; it believes in ( a good time *
which is made good, in the hedonistic sense, by very
reason of our simple intention to enjoy. This fervour
of the holiday spirit, this instinctive passion for carnival,
is the perhaps inarticulate but quite unquestionable
response to the grave philosopher who resolves happi-
ness into an accident of successful action. The plain
man, * out to enjoy himself, has some reason on his
side, the reason of demonstrated fact. It is easy to be
cynical about the gala and the fete and to discover the
gloom upon the face of youth where bloom was
intended, by alleging that those who seek the fugitive

MEANING AND STYLE 14!

felicity can never catch her up. The cynic is answered
by the democratic spectacle. Last week-end, in the
sun-drenched Easter weather, people set out to be
merry, and is it really denied that the object was
attained? To be ' all out for fun ' is not nearly as
foolish as the philosopher deems ; holiday-makers often
put up with crowding and fatigue and perhaps get over-
tired. But they know what they want and they achieve
it. They, and not philosophy, are the best judges of
their own satisfaction.

IVOR BROWN, * Joy Week ', from The Observer,
April 3rd, 1932

MEANING

1. What is hedonism? Explain ' to dissociate the
hedonic tone from the activity is fatal '.

2. What sentence in the first paragraph sums up
the whole argument?

3. Summarize the second paragraph.

4. What is the difference between ' happiness ' and
* pleasure '?

5. Explain carefully ' the cynic is answered by the
democratic spectacle ',

STYLE

6. What is the author's intention? How will this
influence his style?

7. Indicate the use of colloquialisms.

8. What literary devices are used here? Are they
successful?

142 MEANING AND STYLE

9. Is there any striving after effect? (Consider
carefully the first paragraph.)

10. Does this style bear close analysis? What is
your final judgment?

LV

MR. CLAUD GURNEY'S production of Thf Taming of the
Shrew shows a violent ingenuity. He has learnt much
from Mr. Cochran ; there is also a touch of Hammer-
smith in its ebullient days. The speed, the light, the
noise, the deployment of expensively coloured figures,
the whisking about the stage of a bed with caryatids
and some pretty dining-room furniture amuse the
senses and sometimes divert the mind from the unfunny
brutality of the play, which evokes not one natural
smile. There are live greyhounds, a stuffed hawk, a
pantomime horse and a sort of ballet. Miss Zinkei-
scn's quattrocento sets and dresses, by c Vogue ' out
of the Uffizi, ought to disappoint nobody. Nothing
goes better in England than a play about baiting :
given all this chicncss and colour the evening is quite
a riot. In the person of Christopher Sly, Mr. Arthur
Sinclair brings to the New Theatre the cosmic nobility
of the Abbey drunk. Mr. Banks how much bored
and how much at sea inwardly one will never know
sustains his Petruchio with a virtuosity for which he
deserves praise : the unvariation of the character is
desolating. Miss Evans is, above all, unhappily
cast : her physical dignity, her irony, her maturity do
not do well in knockabout. Her technique roves over
the part ; she cannot make it tragic, as it is, or funny,
as it was meant to be. She can only go all out in the

MEANING AND STYLE 143

speech in the last act : some earlier scenes are so
unbearably inappropriate as to make one shut one's
eyes. Katherina should be played by a slight, tense,
fiery-furious and almost incorporeal girl or boy.
The Christopher Sly frame sets was meant to set
the play back one plane farther into unreality : to
please, it must have the abstract flatness of a masque,
the wish-fulfilment monotony of a dream. Even so,
the breaking of anyone's spirit by a tough and a set
of muffs is not a pretty theme. It could, of course, be
given quite another rendering : it would be interesting
to see this play performed in Moscow, with Katherina
as the historic martyr of an extinct society. Mean-
while, the wrongheaded wild girl and her subjection
are still big money to Hollywood and the home-page
editor ; rough-house courtships boom, and still have
only one end. Katherina's final speech, the fruit of
those empty platters, is reparaphrased, with no sting
in the tail.

From The New Statesman (1937)

MEANING

1. Recapitulate the substance of this passage.

2. Would you be eager to see the play after reading
this review?

3. ' Nothing goes better in England than a play
about baiting.' Discuss.

4. Explain: * cosmic nobility of the Abbey drunk* ;
* wish-fulfilment monotony of a dream ' ; * historic
martyr of an extinct society*.

5. What is the meaning of: caryatids, quattro-
cento, virtuosity ?

144 MEANING AND STYLE

STYLE

6. Indicate where the author tries to startle and
impress the reader with a show of cleverness.

7. What kind of prose is this? Comment on the
vocabulary.

8. Indicate examples of : (a) cacophony, (b] cliche,
(c) jargon, (d) ' violent ingenuity '.

9. Take the last two sentences. Consider in detail
the manner and tone.

10. What are the modernist elements of this style?

3. FURTHER SELECTIONS OF PROSE

ASSIGN the following passages of prose to their periods,
and where possible to authors, giving your reasons from
internal evidence. Compare passages representing
different periods, authors and kinds. Refer back to
the selections in the main section of the book for
method of approach. Try to describe accurately the
differences of quality and kind, and the main charac-
teristics of style of the passage under consideration.

AN evil-doer giveth heed to wicked lips ; and a liar
giveth ear to a mischievous tongue. Whoso mocketh
the poor reproachcth his Maker : and he that is glad
at calamity shall not be unpunished. Children's
children are the crown of old men ; and the glory of
children are their fathers. Excellent speech be-
cometh not a fool : much less do lying lips a prince.
A gift is as a precious stone in the eyes of him that hath
it : whithersoever it turneth, it prospereth. He that
covereth a transgression seeketh love : but he that
harpeth on a matter separateth chief friends. A
rebuke entereth deeper into one that hath under-
standing than a hundred stripes into a fool. An evil
man seeketh only rebellion ; therefore a cruel messen-
ger shall be sent against him. Let a bear robbed of

145

146 MEANING AND STYLE

her whelps meet a man, rather than a fool in his folly.
Whoso rewardeth evil for good, evil shall not depart
from his house. The beginning of strife is as when
one letteth out water : therefore leave off contention,
before there be quarrelling.

II

I READ the other day that a man had been fined for
keeping a bull in a field across which a footpath ran.
The bull was not stated to have injured anybody, and
it was merely his presence that constituted an offence
against the public. I did not know that this was the
law, for I thought that, as a dog is allowed a bite or
two, perhaps a bull might be allowed a toss or two
before he or his owner could be proceeded against. It
is a relief that this is not so.

For bulls arc one of the great drawbacks to the
proper enjoyment of a rural life, especially in a grass
country. It quite spoils your appreciation of the
beauties of some meadow, bright \\ith buttercups and
cowslips, when you notice between you and the nearest
hedge a bull, which is looking at you fixedly. There is
something peculiarly grim and hostile about the
expression of a bull, with its thick neck and small
roving eye, and one can never feel at case in the
presence of that mixture of fierceness and stupidity.
If it has a ring in its nose, as many bulls have, it makes
the matter worse, for the ring, while it affords no
protection to you, may be a badge of ill-temper. The
question is what is the best thing to do should the bull
behave in an uncomfortable way.

Never having been chased by a bull, I find no

MEANING AND STYLE 147

answer in my experience. I say ' never ' without
feeling any necessity to touch wood, because now I am
sure I shall never be chased, for the simple reason that,
whatever the attitude of the bull, I certainly could not
run away for any distance or with the prospect of
escape. Anyhow, I have been told that it is a bad
thing to run. A dignified walk, becoming gradually
more rapid, is, I understand less likely to excite the
bull to pursue. Possibly a man of ordinary agility
might do something effective with his coat.

Ill

RIGHT so entered he into the chamber, and came to-
ward the table of silver ; and when he came nigh he felt
a breath, that him thought it was intermeddled with
fire, which smote him so sore in the visage that him
thought it brent his visage ; and therewith he fell to
the earth, and had no power to arise, as he that was
so araged, that had lost the power of his body, and his
hearing, and his seeing. Then felt he many hands
about him, which took him up and bare him out of
the chamber door, without any amending of his swoon,
and left him there, seeming dead to all people.

So upon the morrow when it was fair day they
within were arisen, and found him lying afore the
chamber door. All they marvelled how that he came
in, and so they looked upon him, and felt his pulse to
wit whether there were any life in him ; and so they
found life in him, but he might not stand nor stir no
member that he had. And so they took him by every
part of the body, and bare him into a chamber, and
laid him in a rich bed, far from all folk ; and so he lay

148 MEANING AND STYLE

four days. Then the one said he was on live, and the
other said nay.

In the name of God, said the old man, for I do you
verily to wit he is not dead, but he is so full of life as
the mightiest of you all ; and therefore I counsel you
that he be well kept till God send him life again.

IV

THERE is no wall so impregnable or so vulgar, but a
summer's grass will attempt it. It will try to persuade
the yellow brick, to win the purple slate, to reconcile
stucco. The thatch of cottages has given it an oppor-
tunity. It has perched and alighted in showers and
flocks. It has crept and crawled, and stolen its hour.
It has made haste between the ruts of cart wheels, so
they were not too frequent. It has been stealthy in a
good cause, and bold out of reach. It has been the
most defiant runaway, and the meekest lingerer. It
has been universal, ready and potential in every place,
so that the happy country village and field alike
has been all grass, with mere exceptions.

And all this the grass does in spite of the ill-treatment
it suffers at the hands, and mowing-machines, and
vestries of man. His ideal of grass is growth that shall
never be allowed to come to its flower and completion.
He proves this in his lawns. Not only does he cut the
coming grass-flower off by the stalk, but he does not
allow the mere leaf the blade to perfect itself. He
will not have it a ' blade ' at all ; he cuts its top away
as never sword or sabre was shaped. All the beauty
of a blade of grass is that the organic shape has the
intention of ending in a point. Surely no one at all

MEANING AND STYLE 149

aware of the beauty of lines ought to be ignorant of
the significance and grace of manifest intention, which
rules a living line from its beginning, even though the
intention be towards a point while the first spring of
the line is towards an opening curve. But man does
not care for intention ; he mows it. Nor does he care
for attitude ; he rolls it. In a word, he proves to the
grass, as plainly as deeds can do so, that it is not to his
mind. The rolling, especially, seems to be a violent
way of showing that the universal grass interrupted by
the life of the Englishman, is not as he would have it.
Besides, when he wishes to deride a city, he calls it
grass-grown.

V

Now they had not gone far, but a great mist and
darkness fell upon them all, so that they could scarce,
for a great while, see the one the other ; wherefore
they were forced, for some time, to feel for one another
by words ; for they walked not by sight.

But any one must think that here was but sorry
going for the best of them all ; but how much worse
for the women and children, who both of feet and heart
were but tender. Yet so it was, that through the
encouraging words of he that led in the front, and of
him that brought them up behind, they made a pictty
good shift to wag along.

The way also was here very wearisome, through dirt
and slabbiness. Nor was there on all this ground so
much as one inn or victualling-house, therein to
refresh the feebler sort. Here, therefore, was grunting,
and puffing, and sighing. While one tumbleth over

150 MEANING AND STYLE

a bush, another sticks fast in the dirt ; and the children,
some of them, lost their shoes in the mire. While one
cries out, I am down ; and another, Ho! where are
you? and a third, The bushes have got such fast hold
on me, I think I cannot get away from them.

Then they come at an arbour, warm, and promising
much refreshing to the pilgrims ; for it was finely
wrought above head, beautified with greens, furnished
with benches and settles. It also had in it a soft couch
whereon the weary might lean. This, you must think,
all things considered, was tempting ; for the pilgrims
already began to be foiled with the badness of the way;
but there was not one of them that made so much as a
motion to stop there.

VI

A GOOD woman in my neighbourhood, who was bred
a habit-maker, though she handled her needle tolerably
well, could scarcely get employment. But being
obliged, by an accident, to have both her hands cut
off' from the elbows, what would in another country
have been her ruin, made her fortune here : she was now
thought more fit for her trade than before ; business
(lowed in apace, and all people paid for seeing the
mantua-maker who wrought without hands.

A gentleman showing me his collection of pictures,
stopped at one with peculiar admiration : there, cries
he, is an estimable piece. I gazed at the picture for
some time, but could see none of those graces with
which he seemed enraptured : it appeared to me the
most paltry piece of the whole collection : I therefore
demanded where those beauties lay, of which I was yet

MEANING AND STYLE 15!

nsensible. Sir, cries he, the merit does not consist in
,he piece, but in the manner in which it was done.
Hie painter drew the whole with his foot, and held the
pencil between his toes : I bought it at a very great
Drice ; for peculiar merit should ever be rewarded.

But these people are not more fond of wonders, than
iberal in rewarding those who show them. From the
wonderful dog of knowledge, at present under the
Datronage of the nobility, down to the man with the
sox, who professes to show the best imitation of Nature
iiat was ever seen, they all live in luxury. A singing-
woman shall collect subscriptions in her own coach
ind six : a fellow shall make a fortune by tossing a
jtraw from his toe to his nose ; one in particular has
found that eating fire was the most ready way to live ;
ind another who jingles several bells fixed to his cap,
is the only man that I know of, who has received
emolument from the labours of his head.

VII

MY body is my prison ; and I would be so obedient
to the Law, as not to break prison ; I would not hasten
my death with starving, or macerating this body :
But if this prison be burnt down by continuall feavers,
^r blowen down with continuall vapours, would any
man be so in love with that ground upon which that
prison stood, as to desire rather to stay there, than to
go home? Our prisons are fallen, our bodies are dead
to many former uses ; Our palate dead in a tasteles-
nesse ; Our stomach dead in an indigestiblenesse ; our
feete dead in a lamenesse, and our invention in a
dulnesse, and our memory in a forgetfulnesse ; and

152 MEANING AND STYLE

yet, as a man that should love the ground, where his
prison stood, we love this clay, that was a body in the
days of our youth, and but our prison then, when it
was at best ; wee abhorre the graves of our bodies ;
and the body, which, in the best vigour thereof, was
but the grave of the soule, we over-love. Pharaohs
Butler, and his Baker went both out of prison in a day ;
and in both cases, Joseph, in the interpretation of their
dreames, calls that, (their very discharge out of
prison) a lifting up of their heads, a kinde of prefer-
ment : Death raises every man alike, so far, as that it
delivers every man from his prison, from the incum-
brances of this body : both Baker and Butler were
delivered of their prison ; but they passed into divers
states after, one to the restitution of his place, the other
to an ignominious execution. Of thy prison thou shalt
be delivered whether thou wilt or no ; thou must die ;
Foole, this night thy soule may be taken from thee ;
and then, what thou shalt be to morrow, prophecy
upon thy selfc, by that which thou hast done to day ;
If thou didst depart from that Table in peace, thou
canst depart from this world in peace.

VIII

THE talent of turning men into ridicule, and exposing
to laughter those one converses with, is the qualification
of little ungenerous tempers. A young man with this
cast of mind cuts himself off from all manner of im-
provement. Every one has his flaws and weaknesses ;
nay, the greatest blemishes are often found in the most
shining characters ; but what an absurd thing is it to
pass over all the valuable parts of a man, and fix our

MEANING AND STYLE 153

attention on his infirmities? to observe his imperfections
more than his virtues? and to make use of him for the
sport of others, rather than for our own improvement?

We therefore very often find, that persons the most
accomplished in ridicule are those that are very shrewd
at hitting a blot, without exerting any thing masterly
in themselves. As there are many eminent critics
who never writ a good line, there are many admirable
buffoons that animadvert upon every single defect in
another, without ever discovering the least beauty of
their own. By this means, these unlucky little wits
often gain reputation in the esteem of vulgar minds,
and raise themselves above persons of much more
laudable characters.

If the talent of ridicule were employed to laugh men
out of vice and folly, it might be of some use in the
world ; but instead of this, we find that it is generally
made use of to laugh men out of virtue and good sense,
by attacking every thing that is solemn and serious,
decent and praiseworthy in human life.

IX

I HAVE an almost feminine partiality for old china.
When I go to any great house, I enquire for the china-
closet, and next for the picture gallery. I cannot
defend the order of preference, but by saying, that we
have all some taste or other, of too ancient a date to
admit of our remembering distinctly that it was an
acquired one. I can call to mind the first play, and
the first exhibition, that I was taken to ; but I am not
conscious of a time when china jars and saucers were
introduced into my imagination.

154 MEANING AND STYLE

I had no repugnance then why should I now have?
to those little, lawless, azure-tinctured grotesques,
that under the notion of men and women, float about,
uncircumscribed by any element, in that world before
perspective a china tea-cup.

I like to see my old friends whom distance cannot
diminish figuring up in the air (so they appear to our
optics), yet on terra firma for so we must in courtesy
interpret that speck of deeper blue which the de-
corous artist, to prevent absurdity, has made to spring
up beneath their sandals.

I love the men with women's faces, and the women,
if possible, with still more womanish expressions.

Here is a young and courtly Mandarin, handing tea
to a lady from a salver two miles off. See how
distance seems to set off respect! And here the same
lady, or another for likeness is identity on tea-cups
is stepping into a little fairy-boat, moored on the hither
side of this calm garden river, with a dainty mincing
foot, which in a right angle of incidence (as angles go
in our world) must infallibly land her in the midst of
a flowery mead a furlong off on the other side of the
same strange stream!

Farther on if far or near can be predicated of their
world see horses, trees, pagodas, dancing the hays.

Here a cow and rabbit couchant, and co-extensive
so objects show, seen through the lucid atmosphere
of fine Cathay.

X

THINKING as we do that the cause of the King was the
cause of bigotry and tyranny, we yet cannot refrain

MEANING AND STYLE 155

from looking with complacency on the character of
the honest old Cavaliers. We feel a national pride in
comparing them with the instruments which the
despots of other countries are compelled to employ,
with the mutes who throng their antechambers, and
the Janissaries who mount guard at their gates. Our
royalist countrymen were not heartless, dangling
courtiers, bowing at every step, and simpering at every
word. They were not mere machines for destruction
dressed up in uniforms, caned into skill, intoxicated
into valour, defending without love, destroying without
hatred. There was a freedom in their subserviency,
a nobleness in their very degradation. The sentiment
of individual independence was strong within them.
They were indeed misled, but by no base or selfish
motive. Compassion and romantic honour, the pre-
judices of childhood, and the venerable names of
history, threw over them a spell as potent as that of
Duessa ; and, like the Red-Cross Knight, they thought
that they were doing battle for an injured beauty, while
they defended a false and loathsome sorceress. In
truth they scarcely entered at all into the merits of the
political question. It was not for a treacherous king
or an intolerant church that they fought, but for the
old banner which had waved in so many battles over
the heads of their fathers, and for the altars at which
they had received the hands of their brides. Though
nothing could be more erroneous than their political
opinions, they possessed, in a far greater degree than
their adversaries, those qualities which are the grace of
private life.

156 MEANING AND STYLE

XI

IT is generally better to deal by speech than by letter ;
and by the mediation of a third than by a man's self.
Letters are good when a man would draw an answer
by letter back again ; or when it may serve for a man's
justification, afterwards to produce his own letter ; or
where it may be danger to be interrupted or heard by
pieces. To deal in person is good when a man's face
breedeth regard, as commonly with inferiors ; or in
tender cases, where a man's eye upon the countenance
of him with whom he speaketh may give him a direction
how far to go : and generally, where a man will reserve
to himself liberty cither to disavow or to expound.
In choice of instruments, it is better to choose men of
a plainer sort, that are like to do that, that is committed
to them, and to report back again faithfully the success,
than those that are cunning to contrive out of other
men's business somewhat to grace themselves, and will
help the matter in report, for satisfaction sake. Use
also such persons as affect the business wherein they
are employed, for that quickeneth much ; and such
as are fit for the matter, as bold men for expostulation,
fair-spoken men for persuasion, crafty men for inquiry
and observation, fro ward and absurd men for business
that doth not well bear out itself. Use also such as
have been lucky and prevailed before in things wherein
you have employed them ; for that breeds confidence,
and they will strive to maintain their prescription.
It is better to sound a person with whom one deals afar
off than to fall upon the point at first ; except you
mean to surprise him by some short question. It is

MEANING AND STYLE 157

better dealing with men in appetite than with those
that are where they would be.

XII

PERCEIVING the bird flown, at least despairing to find
him, and rightly apprehending that the report of the
firelock would alarm the whole house, our hero now
blew out his candle, and gently stole back again to his
chamber, and to his bed ; whither he would not have
been able to have gotten undiscovered, had any other
person been on the same staircase, save only one
gentleman who was confined to his bed by the gout ;
for before he could reach the door of his chamber, the
hall where the sentinel had been posted was half full
of people, some in their shirts, others not half dressed,
all very earnestly inquiring of each other what was the
matter.

The soldier was now found lying in the same place
and posture in which we just now left him. Several
immediately applied themselves to raise him, and some
concluded him dead ; but they presently saw their
mistake, for he not only struggled with those who laid
their hands on him, but fell a roaring like a bull. In
reality, he imagined so many spirits or devils were
handling him ; for his imagination being possessed
with the horror of an apparition, converted every
object he saw or felt into nothing but ghosts and
spectres.

At length he was overpowered by numbers, and got
upon his legs ; when candles being brought and seeing
two or three of his comrades present, he came a little
to himself; but when they asked him what was the

158 MEANING AND STYLE

matter? he answered, ' I am a dead man, that's all,
I am a dead man, I can't recover it, I have seen him/
* What hast thou seen, Jack? * says one of the soldiers.
4 Why I have seen the young volunteer that was killed
yesterday.' He then imprecated the most heavy
curses on himself, if he had not seen the volunteer, all
over blood, vomiting fire out of his mouth and nostrils,
pass by him into the chamber where ensign Northerton
was, and then seizing the ensign by the throat, fly away
with him in a clap of thunder.

XIII

THE landscape really begins to change. The hillsides
tilt sharper and sharper. A man is ploughing with
two small red cattle on a craggy, tree-hanging slope as
sharp as a roof-side. He stoops at the small wooden
plough, and jerks the ploughlines. The oxen lift their
noses to heaven, with a strange and beseeching snake-
like movement, and taking tiny little steps with their
frail feet move slantingly across the slope-face, between
rocks and tree roots. Little, frail, jerky steps the
bullocks take, and again they put their horns back and
lift their muzzles snakily to heaven, as the man pulls
the line. And he skids his wooden plough round
another scoop of earth. It is marvellous how they hang
upon that steep, craggy slope. An English labourer's
eyes would bolt out of his head at the sight.

There is a stream : actually a long tress of a waterfall
pouring into a little gorge, and a stream bed that opens
a little, and shows a marvellous cluster of naked poplars
away below. They are like ghosts. They have a
ghostly, almost phosphorescent luminousness in the

MEANING AND STYLE 159

shadow of the valley, by the stream of water. If not
phosphorescent, then incandescent : a grey, goldish-
pale incandescence of naked limbs and myriad cold-
glowing twigs, gleaming strangely. If I were a painter
I would paint them : for they seem to have living
sentient flesh. And the shadow envelops them.

Another naked tree I would paint is the gleaming
mauve-silver fig, which burns its cold incandescence,
tangled, like some sensitive creature emerged from the
rock. A fig tree come forth in its nudity gleaming
over the dark winter-earth is a sight to behold. Like
some white, tangled sea anemone. Ah, if it could but
answer! or if we had tree-speech!

XIV

SoMhTiMES the quarrel between two princes is to decide
which of them shall dispossess a third of his dominions,
where neither of them pretend to any right. Some-
times one prince quarreleth with another, for fear the
other should quarrel with him. Sometimes a war is
entered upon, because the enemy is too strong, and
sometimes because he is too weak. Sometimes our
neighbours want the things which we have, or have the
things which we* want ; and we both fight, till they take
ours or give us theirs. It is a very justifiable cause of
war to invade a country after the people have been
wasted by famine, destroyed by pestilence, or em-
broiled by factions among themselves. It is justifiable
to enter into war against our nearest ally, when one of
his towns lies convenient for us, or a territory of land,
that would render our dominions round and complete.
If a prince sends forces into a nation, where the people

MEANING AND STYLE

arc poor and ignorant, he may lawfully put half of
them to death, and make slaves of the rest, in order
to civilise and reduce them from their barbarous way
of living. It is a very kingly, honourable, and frequent
practice, when one prince desires the assistance of
another to secure him against an invasion, that the
assistant, when he hath driven out the invader,
should sci/e on the dominions himself, and kill, im-
prison or banish the prince he came to relieve. Alliance
by blood or marriage, is a frequent cause of war between
princes, and the nearer the kindred is, the greater is
their disposition to quarrel : poor nations are hungry,
and rich nations are proud, and pride and hunger will
ever be at variance. For those reasons, the trade of a
soldier is held the most honourable of all others :
because a soldier is hired to kill in cold blood as many
of his own species, who have never offended him, as
possibly he can.

XV

An! the vine! One is exalted even by the sound of
that word. It is so beautiful ... so cool and pure.
It is like a soft high note blown on a far-oil (lute.

The leaves are beautiful too . . . flamboyantly de-
signed with a fine romantic flourish, flushed when the
hour comes with a hectic red, as though something of the
virtue of the grapes had stained them with their own
sweet shame. You may take a thousand vine leaves in
your hands and never will you discover a pair which
is patterned in the same shade of red, nor decked in
the same design. A vine leaf is a fine thing ... an
aristocrat . . . it curls disdainfully on the slender stem

MEANING AND STYLE l6l

. . flaunts its flushed cheeks to the dying suns of
September.

And here, in the grape-clusters, is the whole sting
and sweetness of beauty . . its bloom and its opulence
... its poison and its dark fire . . . its gentle, self-
sufficient grace. There are some flowers and fruits
that have beauty of form, or of colour, or of association,
but a cluster of grapes has all these beauties, and more.
There is a radiance of much remembered poetry about
it ... and a misty promise of happiness to come. Yet
even if these things were not so even if one saw, for
the first time, the heavy purple fruit hanging sudden
against the white sky one would be ama/ed by the
discovery of a new glory.

I cannot honestly say that I ever saw any * heavy
purple fruit hanging 1 , etc., etc. But I certainly saw
something. And I saw it very suddenly, on a thundery
morning in August, when the skies were grey-white,
as though they were scared of the wild spirits which
leapt behind their sober curtain.

XVI

SOMEWHERE, but I knew not where somehow, but
I knew not how by some beings, but I knew not by
whom a battle, a strife, an agony, was travelling
through all its stages was evolving itself, like the
catastrophe of some mighty drama, with which my
sympathy was the more insupportable from deepening
confusion as to its local scene, its cause, its nature, and
its undecipherable issue. I (as is usual in dreams
where, of necessity, we make ourselves central to every
movement) had the power, if I could raise myself to

l6 2 MEANING AND STYLE

will it ; and yet had not the power, for the weight
of twenty Atlantics was upon me, or the oppression
of inexpiable guilt. 'Deeper than ever plummet
sounded', I lay inactive. Then, like a chorus, the
passion deepened. Some greater interest was at stake,
some mightier cause, than ever yet the sword had
pleaded, or trumpet had proclaimed. Then came
sudden alarms ; hurryings to and fro ; trepidations
of innumerable fugitives, I knew not whether from
the good cause or the bad ; darkness and lights ;
tempest and human faces ; and at last, with the sense
(hat all was lost, female forms, and the features that
were worth all the world to me ; and but a moment
allowed t ind clasped hands, and heart-breaking part-
ings, and then -everlasting farewells! and, with a
sigh such as the caves of hell sighed when the incestuous
mother uttered the abhorred name of Death, the sound
was reverberated everlasting farewells! and again,
and yet again reverberated everlasting farewells!

XVII

MEKK creatures! the first mercy of the earth, veiling
with hushed softness its dintless rocks ; creatures full
of pity, covering with strange and tender honour the
scarred disgrace of ruin, laying quiet finger on the
trembling stones, t, teach them rest. No words, that
I know of, will say what these mosses are. None are
delicate enough, none perfect enough, none rich
enough. How is one to tell of the rounded bosses of
fui icd and beaming green, the starred divisions of
rubied bloom, fine-filmed, as if the Rock Spirits could
spin porphyry as we do glass,- -the traceries of intricate

MEANING AND STYLE 163

silver, and fringes of amber, lustrous, arborescent,
burnished through every fibre into fitful brightness
and glossy traverses of silken change, yet all subdued
and pensive, and framed for simplest, sweetest offices
of grace? They will not be gathered, like the flowers,
for chaplet or love-token ; but of these the wild bird
will make its nest, and the wearied child his pillow.

And, as the earth's first mercy, so they are its last
gift to. us. When all other service is vain, from plant
and tree, the soft mosses and gray lichen take up their
watch by the headstone. The woods, the blossoms,
the gift-bearing grasses, have done their parts for a
time, but these do service for ever. Trees for the
builder's yard, flowers for the bride's chamber, corn
for the granary, moss for the grave.

Yet as in one sense the humblest, in another they
are the most honoured of the earth-children. Un-
fading, as motionless, the worm frets them not, and the
autumn wastes not. Strong in lowliness, they neither
blanch in heat nor pine in frost. To them, slow-
fingered, constant-hearted, is entrusted the weaving
of the dark, eternal tapestries of the hills ; to them,
slow-pencilled, iris-dyed, the tender framing of their
endless imagery.

XVIII

HE who lives wisely to himself and to his own heart,
looks at the busy world through the loop-holes of
retreat, and does not want to mingle in the fray. * He
hears the tumult, and is still.' He is not able to mend
it, nor willing to mar it. He sees enough in the uni-
verse to interest him without putting himself forward

164 MEANING AND STYLE

to try what he can do to fix the eyes of the universe
upon him. Vain the attempt! He reads the clouds,
he looks at the stars, he watches the return of the
seasons, the falling leaves of autumn, the perfumed
breath of spring, starts with delight at the note of a
thrush in a copse near him, sits by the fire, listens to
the moaning of the wind, pores upon a book, or dis-
courses the free/ing hours away, or melts down hours
to minutes in pleasing thought. All this while, he is
taken up with other things, forgetting himself. He
relishes an author's style, without thinkiiu; of turning
author. lie is fond of looking at a print from an old
picture in the room, without teasing himself to copy it.
1 Ie does not fret himself to death with U)ing to be what
he is not, or to do what he cannot. He hardly knows
what he is capable of, and is not in the U^t < mcerned
whether he shall ever make a figure in the woild. He
looks out of himself at the wide extended prospect of
nature, and takes an interest beyond his narrow
pretensions in general humanity. He is iiee as air,
and independent as the wind. Woe to him when he
first begins to think what others say of him. While
a man is contented with himself and his own resources,
all is well. When he undertakes to play a part on the
stnge, and to persuade the world to think more about
him than they do about diemselves, he ,:> got into a
track where he will find nothing but briars and thorns,
vexation and disappointment.

XIX

A HEAVY reckoning for you, sir. But ihe comfort is,
you shall be called to no more payments, fear no more

MEANING AND STYLE 165

tavern-bills ; which are often the sadness of parting,
as the procuring of mirth : you come in faint for want
of meat, depart reeling with too much drink ; sorry
that you have paid too much, and sorry that you are
paid too much ; purse and brain the heavier for being
too light, the purse too light, being drawn of heaviness :
of this contradiction you shall now be quit, O, the
charity of a penny cord! it sums up thousands in a
trice : you have no true debitor and creditor but it ;
of what's past, is, and to come, the discharge : your
neck, sir, is pen, book, and counters ; so the acquittance
follows.

Indeed, sir, he that sleeps feels not the toothache :
but a man that were to sleep your sleep, and a hangman
to help him to bed, I think he would change places
with his officer ; for, look you, sir, you know not which
way you shall go.

Your death has eyes in's head then ; I have not seen
him so pictured : you must either be directed by sonic
that take upon them to know, or to take upon yourself
that which I am sure you do not know, or jump the
after-inquiry on your own peril : and how you shall
speed in your journey's end, I think you'll never return
to tell one.

XX

Now for my life, it is a miracle of thirty years, which
to relate were not a history but a piece of poetry, and
would sound to common ears like a fable ; for the
world, I count it not an inn but an hospital ; and a
place not to live, but to die in. The world that I
regard is myself ; it is the microcosm of my own frame

l66 MEANING AND STYLE

that I cast mine eye on, for the other, I use it but like
my globe, and turn it round sometimes for my recrea-
tion. Men that look upon my outside, perusing only
rny condition and fortunes, do err in my altitude, for
I am above Atlas's shoulders. The earth is a point,
not only in respect of the heavens above us, but of that
heavenly and celestial part within us ; that mass of
flesh that circumscribes me limits not my mind ; that
.surface that tells the heaven it hath an end cannot
persuade me I have any. I take my circle to be above
three hundred and sixty. Though the number of the
arc do measure my body it comprehendeth not my
mind. Whilst I study to find how I am a microcosm,
or little* world, I find myself something more than the
great. There is surely a piece of divinity in us, some-
thing that was before the elements, and owes no
homage unto the sun. Nature tells me I am the
image of God, as well as Scripture. He that under-
stands not thus much hath not his introduction, or first
lesson, and is yet to begin the alphabet of man.

XXI

PASS by the other parts, and look at the manner in
which the people of New England have of late carried
on the Whale Fishery. Whilst we follow them among
the tumbling mountains of ice, and behold them
penetrating into the deepest frozen recesses of Hudson's
Bay and Davis's Straits, whilst we are looking for them
bciuMth the Arctic Circle, we hear that they have
pierced into the opposite region of polar cold, that they
arc at the antipodes, and engaged under the frozen
Serpent of the south. Falkland Island, which seemed

MEANING AND STYLE 167

too remote and romantic an object for the grasp of
national ambition, is but a stage and resting-place in
the progress of their victorious industry. Nor is the
equinoctial heat more discouraging to them, than the
accumulated winter of both the poles. We know that
whilst some of them draw the line and strike the har-
poon on the coast of Africa, others run the longitude,
and pursue their gigantic game along the coast of
Brazil. No sea but what is vexed by their fisheries.
No climate that is not witness to their toils. Neithei
the perseverance of Holland, nor the activity of France,
nor the dexterous and firm sagacity of English cntcr-
pri/e, ever carried this most perilous mode of hardy
industry to the extent to which it has been pushed by
this recent people ; a people who are still, as it were,
but in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone
of manhood. When I contemplate these things ;
\\hen I know that the colonies in general owe little or
nothing to any care of ours, and that they arc not
squee/cd into this happy form by the constraints ol
watchful and suspicious government, but that, through
a wise and salutary neglect, a generous nature has been
suffered to take her own way to perfection ; when I
reflect upon these effects, when I see how profitable
they have been to us, I feel all the pride of power sink,
and all presumption in the wisdom of human contriv-
ances melt and die away within me.

XXII

EVEN the relator of feigned adventures, when once thr
principal characters are established, and the great
events regularly connected, finds incidents and episodes

l68 MEANING AND STYLE

crowding upon his mind ; every change opens new
views, and the latter part of the story grows without
labour out of the former. But he that attempts to
entertain his reader with unconnected pieces, finds the
irksomeness of his task rather increased than lessened
by every production. The day calls afresh upon him
for a new topic, and he is again obliged to choose,
without any principle to regulate his choice.

It is indeed true, that there is seldom any necessity
of looking far, or inquiring long, for a proper subject.
Every diversity of art or nature, every public blessing
or calamity, every domestic pain or gratification, every
sally of caprice, blunder of absurdity, or stratagem of
affectation, may supply matter to him whose only rule
is to avoid uniformity. But it often happens, that the
judgment is distracted with boundless multiplicity,
the imagination ranges from one design to another,
and the hours pass imperceptibly away, till the com-
position can be no longer delayed, and necessity
enforces the use of those thoughts which happen to
be at hand. The mind, rejoicing at deliverance on
any terms from perplexity and suspense, applies herself
vigorously to the work before her, collects embellish-
ments and illustrations, and sometimes finishes, with
great elegance and happiness, what in a state of ease
and leisure she never had begun.

XXIII

WE grown people can tell ourselves a story, give and
take strokes until the bucklers ring, ride far and fast,
marry, fall, and die ; all the while sitting quietly by
the fire or lying prone in bed. This is exactly what a

MEANING AND STYLE 169

child cannot do, or does not do, at least, when he can
find anything else. He works all with lay figures and
stage properties. When his story comes to the fighting
he must rise, get something by way of a sword and
have a set-to with a piece of furniture, until he is out
of breath. When he comes to ride with the king's
pardon, he must bestride a chair, which he will so
hurry and belabour and on which he will so furiously
demean himself, that the messenger will arrive, if not
bloody with spurring, at least fiery red with haste.
If his romance involves an accident upon a cliff, he
must clamber in person about the chest of drawers
and fall bodily upon the carpet, before his imagination
is satisfied. Lead soldiers, dolls, all toys, in short, are
in the same category and answer the same end. No-
thing can stagger a child's faith ; he accepts * the
clumsiest substitutes and can swallow the most staring
incongruities. The chair he has just been besieging
as a castle, or valiantly cutting to the ground as a
dragon, is taken away for the accommodation of a
morning visitor, and he is nothing abashed ; he can
skirmish by the hour with a stationary coal-scuttle ;
in the midst of the enchanted pleasaunce, he can see,
without sensible shock, the gardener soberly digging
potatoes for the day's dinner. He can make abstrac-
tion of whatever does not fit into his fable ; and he
puts his eyes into his pocket, just as we hold our noses
in an unsavoury lane. And so it is, that although the
ways of children cross with those of their elders in a
hundred places daily, they never go in the same
direction nor so much as lie in the same element.

F*

MEANING AND STYLE

XXIV

IMPUNITY and remissness for certain are the bane of a
commonwealth ; but here the great art lies, to discern
in what the law is to bid restraint and punishment, and
in what things persuasion only is to work. If every
action which is good or evil in man at ripe years were
to be under pittance, prescription, and compulsion,
what were virtue but a name, what praise could be
then due to well doing, what gramercy to be sober,
just, or continent? Many there be that complain of
divine providence for suffering Adam to transgress.
Foolish tongues! when God gave him reason, he gave
him freedom to choose, for reason is but choosing ; he
had been else a mere artificial Adam, such an Adam
as he is in the motions. We ourselves esteem not of
that obedience, or love, or gift, which is of force ; God
therefore left him free, set before him a provoking
object, ever almost in his eyes ; herein consisted his
merit, herein the right of his reward, the praise of
his abstinence. Wherefore did he create passions
within us, pleasures round about us, but that these
rightly tempered are the very ingredients of virtue?
They are not skilful considerers of human beings, who
imagine to remove sin, by removing the matter of
sin ; for, besides that it is a huge heap increasing
under the very act of diminishing, though some part of
it may for a time be withdrawn from some persons,
it cannot from all, in such a universal thing as books
are ; and when this is done, yet the sin remains
entire. Though ye take from a covetous man all his
treasure, he has yet one jewel left, ye cannot bereave
him of his covetousness. Suppose we could expel sin

MEANING AND STYLE 171

by this means ; look how much we thus expel of sin,
so much we expel of virtue : for the matter of them
both is the same : remove that, and ye remove them
both alike. This justifies the high providence of
God, who though he commands us temperance,
justice, continence, yet pours out before us even to
a profuseness all desirable things, and gives us minds
that can wander beyond all limit and satiety.

XXV

THE universe, so far as we can observe it, is a wonderful
and immense engine ; its extent, its order, its beauty,
its cruelty, makes it alike impressive. If we dramatize
its life and conceive its spirit, we are filled with wonder,
terror, and amusement, so magnificent is that spirit,
so prolific, inexorable, grammatical, and dull. Like
all animals and plants, the cosmos has its own way of
doing things, not wholly rational nor ideally best, but
patient, fatal, and fruitful. Great is this organism of
mud and fire, terrible this vast, painful, glorious
experiment. Why should we not look on the universe
with piety? Is it not of our substance? Are we made
of other clay? All our possibilities lie from eternity
hidden in its bosom. It is the dispenser of all our joys.
We may address it without superstitious terrors ; it is
not wicked. It follows its own habits abstractedly ;
it can be trusted to be true to its word. Society is not
impossible between it and us, and since it is the source
of all our energies, the home of all our happiness, shall
we not cling to it and praise it, seeing that it vegetates
so grandly and so sadly, and that it is not for us to
blame it for what, doubtless, it never knew that it did?

172 MEANING AND STYLE

Where there is such infinite and laborious potency
there is room for every hope.

XXVI

FOR Contemplation and love of Wisdom, no Cloister
now opens its religious shades ; the Thinker must, in
all senses, wander homeless, too often aimless, looking
up to a Heaven which is dead for him, round to an
Earth which is deaf. Action, in those old days, was
easy, was voluntary, for the divine worth of human
things lay acknowledged ; Speculation was wholesome,
for it ranged itself as the handmaid of Action ; what
could not so range itself died out by its natural death,
by neglect. Loyalty still hallowed obedience, and
made rule noble ; there was still something to be loyal
to : the Godlike stood embodied under many a symbol
in men's interests and business ; the Finite shadowed
forth the Infinite ; Eternity looked through Time.
The Life of man was encompassed and overcanopied
by a glory of Heaven, even as his dwelling-place by the
azure vault.

How changed in these new days! Truly may it
be said, the Divinity has withdrawn from the Earth ;
or veils himself in that wide-wasting Whirlwind of a
departing Era ; wherein the fewest can discern his
goings. Not Godhead, but an iron, ignoble circle of
Necessity embraces all things ; binds the youth of
these times into a sluggish thrall, or else exasperates
him into a rebel. Heroic Action is paralysed ; for
what worth now remains unquestionable with him ?
At the fervid period when his whole nature cries aloud
for Action, there is nothing sacred under whose banner

MEANING AND STYLE 173

he can act ; the course and kind and conditions of free
Action are all but undiscoverable. Doubt storms-in
on him through every avenue ; inquiries of the deepest,
painfulest sort must be engaged with ; and the invin-
cible energy of young years waste itself in sceptical,
suicidal cavillings ; in passionate c questionings of
Destiny *, whereto no answer will be returned.

XXVII

WE can afford to be hard upon the young, for youth
itself is hard. The young are not dependent in any
way upon what we think of them, for they are still
convinced that the powers of the universe plotted
amicably to fill them with greatness, so that whether
the lesser mortals that encompass them think well or
ill of them matters little. They are still living in
Eternity, and, unlike the old, do not understand the
need of claiming some measure of applause while there
is yet time for it. Their hours are spacious, golden,
crammed with promise. If we should put a young
man into high office, it is unlikely that he would think
any better of us : he owes us nothing ; he has received
only his deserts ; he has got one office, but he might
have had any one of a hundred others that were
shining before his path. The world appears to him so
fruitful of glorious opportunities that even to thrust
him into a post of honour is to do him an injury by
limiting his choice. And as for the young who scribble
and write music (and they are legion), what can be
done for them? They are all geniuses whose work is
above the understanding and taste of the age, and as
such are beyond our ministrations, for your misunder-

174 MEANING AND STYLE

stood young genius is perhaps the only completely
independent, self-satisfied thing in the universe. What
are little paragraphs in the papers, invitations to
dinner, and the like to him when he is the man for
whom the century has been waiting to give it voice.
He can exist, as a young friend of mine did, on stale
cake and cocoa, and yet march about the world like
an emperor, attended by the glittering cohorts of his
vain and heated fancy.

XXVIII

A STUDENT, then, that is, a man who condemns himself
to toil for a length of time and through a number of
volumes in order to arrive at a conclusion, naturally
loses that smartness and ease which distinguishes the
gay and thoughtless rattler. There is a certain
elasticity of movement and hey-day of the animal
spirits seldom to be met with but in those who have
never cared for any thing beyond the moment, or
looked lower than the surface. The scholar having
to encounter doubts and difficulties on all hands, and
indeed to apply by way of preference to those subjects
which are most beset with mystery, becomes hesitating,
sceptical, irresolute, absent, dull. All the processes
of his mind are slow, cautious, circuitous, instead of
being prompt, heedless, straightforward. Finding the
intricacies of the path increase upon him in every
direction, this can hardly be supposed to add to the
lightness of his step, the confidence of his brow as he
advances. He does not skim the surface, but dives
under it like the mole to make his way darkling, by
imperceptible degrees, and throwing up heaps of dirt

MEANING AND STYLE 175

and rubbish over his head to track his progress. He
is therefore startled at any sudden light, puzzled by
any casual question, taken unawares and at a dis-
advantage in every critical emergency. He must have
time given him to collect his thoughts, to consider
objections, to make further inquiries, and come to no
conclusion at last. This is very different from the
dashing off-hand manner of the mere man of business or
fashion ; and he who is repeatedly found in situations
to which he is unequal (particularly if he is of a reflect-
ing and candid temper) will be apt to look foolish, and
to lose both his countenance and his confidence in
himself at least as to the opinion others entertain of
him, and the figure he is likely on any occasion to make
in the eyes of the world. The course of his studies has
not made him wise, but has taught him the uncertainty
of wisdom ; and has supplied him with excellent
reasons for suspending his judgment, when another
would throw the casting-weight of his own presumption
or interest into the scale.

XXIX

I HAD now the whole south of France, from the banks
of the Rhdne to those of the Garonne, to traverse upon
my mule at my own leisure at my own leisure for I
had left Death, the Lord knows and He only how
far behind me * I have followed many a man thro 5
France, quoth he but never at this mettlesome rate.'
Still he followed, and still I fled him but I fled him
cheerfully still he pursued but, like one who pursued
his prey without hope as he lagg'd, every step he lost,
soften'd his looks why should I fly him at this rate?

I7t) MEANING AND STYLE

So notwithstanding all the commissary of the post-
office had said, I changed the mode of my travelling
once more ; and, after so precipitate and rattling a
course as I had run, I flattered my fancy with thinking
of my mule, and that I should traverse the rich plains
of Languedoc upon his back, as slowly as foot could fall.

There is nothing more pleasing to a traveller or
more terrible to travel- writers, than a large rich plain ;
especially if it is without great rivers or bridges ; and
presents nothing to the eye, but one unvaried picture
of plenty : for after they have once told you, that 'tis
delicious! or delightful! (as the case happens) that
the soil was grateful, and that nature pours out all her
abundance, &c. . . . they have then a large plain upon
their hands, which they know not what to do with and
which is of little or no use to them but to carry them to
some town ; arid that town, perhaps of little more, but
a new place to start from to the next plain and so on.

This is most terrible work ; judge if I don't manage
my plains better.

XXX

THE sun had now got far to the west of south and stood
directly in her face, like some merciless incendiary,
brand in hand, waiting to consume her. With the de-
parture of the boy all visible animation disappeared
from the landscape, though the intermittent husky
notes of the male grasshoppers from every tuft of furze
were enough to show that amid the prostration of the
larger animal species an unseen insect world was busy
in all the fulness of life.

In two hours she reached a slope about three-fourths
the whole distance from Alderworth to her own home,

MEANING AND STYLE 177

where a little patch of shepherd's thyme intruded upon
the path ; and she sat down upon the perfumed mat
it formed there. In front of her a colony of ants had
established a thorough-fare across the way, where
they toiled a never-ending and heavy-laden throng.
To look down upon them was like observing a city
street from the top of a tower. She remembered that
this bustle of ants had been in progress for years at the
same spot doubtless those of the old times were the
ancestors of these which walked there now. She leant
back to obtain more thorough rest, and the soft eastern
portion of the sky was as great a relief to her eyes as
the thyme was to her head. While she looked a heron
arose on that side of the sky and flew on with his face
towards the sun. He had come dripping wet from
some pool in the valleys, and as he flew the edges and
lining of his wings, his thighs, and his breast were so
caught by the bright sunbeams that he appeared as
if formed of burnished silver. Up in the zenith where
he was seemed a free and happy place, away from all
contact with the earthly ball to which she was pinioned ;
and she wished that she could arise uncrushed from its
surface and fly as he flew then.

XXXI

I HAD a great many adventures after this, but I was
young in the business, and did not know how to
manage, otherwise than as the devil put things into my
head ; and, indeed, he was seldom backward to me.
One adventure I had which was very lucky to me. I
was just going through Lombard Street in the dusk of
the evening, just by the end of Three King Court, when

178 MEANING AND STYLE

on a sudden comes a fellow running by me as swift as
lightning, and throws a bundle that was in his hand
just behind me, as I stood up against the corner of the
house at the turning into the alley. Just as he threw it
in, he said, * God bless you, mistress, let it lie there a
little, 5 and away he runs. After him comes two more,
and immediately a young fellow without his hat,
crying, * Stop thief! ' They pursued the last two
fellows so close, that they were forced to drop what
they had got, and one of them was taken into the
bargain ; the other got off free.

I stood stock-still all this while, till they came back,
dragging the poor fellow they had taken, and lugging
the things they had found, extremely well satisfied that
they had recovered the booty and taken the thief ; and
thus they passed by me, for I looked only like one who
stood up while the crowd was gone.

Once or twice I asked what was the matter, but the
people neglected answering me, and I was not very
importunate ; but after the crowd was wholly passed,
I took my opportunity to turn about and take up what
was behind me and walk away. This, indeed, I did
with less disturbance than I had done formerly, for
these things I did not steal, but they were stolen to my
hand. I got safe to my lodgings with this cargo, which
was a piece of fine black lustring silk, and a piece of
velvet ; the latter was but part of a piece of about
eleven yards ; the former was a whole piece of near
fifty yards. It seems it was a mercer's shop they had
rifled. I say rifled, because the goods were so con-
siderable that they had lost ; for the goods that they
recovered were pretty many, and I believe came to
about six or seven several pieces of silk. How they

MEANING AND STYLE 179

came to get so many I could not tell ; but as I had only
robbed the thief, I made no scruple at taking these
goods, and being very glad of them too.

XXXII

THE aunt and nephew in this City church are much
disturbed by the sniggering boys. The nephew is
himself a boy, and the sniggerers tempt him to secular
thoughts of marbles and string, by secretly offering such
commodities to his distant contemplation. This
young St. Anthony for awhile resists, but presently
becomes a backslider, and in dumb-show defies the
sniggerers to " heave " a marble or two in his direction.
Herein he is detected by his aunt (a rigorous reduced
gentlewoman who has the charge of offices), and I
perceive the worthy relative to poke him in the side
with the corrugated hooked handle of an ancient
umbrella. The nephew revenges himself for this by
holding his breath, and terrifying his kinswoman with
the dread belief that he has made up his mind to burst.
Regardless of whispers and shakes, he swells and be-
comes discoloured, and yet again swells and becomes
discoloured, until the aunt can bear it no longer, but
leads him out, with no visible neck, and his eyes going
before him like a prawn's. This causes the sniggerers
to regard flight as an eligible move, and I know which
of them will go out first, because of the over-devout
attention that he suddenly concentrates on the clergy-
man. In a little while, this hypocrite, with an elaborate
demonstration of hushing his footsteps, and with a face
generally expressive of having until now forgotten a
religious appointment elsewhere, is gone. Number Two

ISO MEANING AND STYLE

gets out in the same way, but rather quicker. Number
Three, getting safely to the door, there turns reckless,
and, banging it open, flies forth with a Whoop! that
vibrates to the top of the tower above us.

The clergyman, who is of a prandial presence and a
muffled voice, may be scant of hearing as well as of
breath, but he only glances up as having an idea that
somebody has said Amen in a wrong place, and con-
tinues his steady jog-trot, like a farmer's wife going to
market. He does all he has to do in the same easy way,
and gives us a concise sermon, still like the jog-trot of
the farmer's wife on a level road. Its drowsy cadence
soon lulls the three old women asleep, and the un-
married tradesman sits looking out at window, and the
married tradesman sits looking at his wife's bonnet,
and the lovers sit looking at one another, so super-
latively happy, that I mind when I, turned of eighteen,
went with my Angelica to a City church on account of
a shower (by this special coincidence that it was in
Huggin Lane), and when I said to my Angelica, * Let
the blessed event, Angelica, occur at no altar but this! *
and when my Angelica consented that it should occur
at no other which it certainly never did, for it never
occurred anywhere. And oh, Angelica! what has
become of you this present Sunday morning when I
can't attend to the sermon? and, more difficult ques-
tion than that, what has become of Me as I was when
I sat by your side?

XXXIII

CONTENTEDNESS in all accidents brings great peace of
spirit, and is the great and only instrument of temporal

MEANING AND STYLE l8l

felicity. It removes the sting from the accident, and
makes a man not to depend upon chance and the un-
certain dispositions of men for his well-being, but only
on God and his own spirit. We ourselves make our
own fortunes good or bad ; and when God lets loose a
tyrant upon us, or a sickness, or scorn, or a lessened
fortune, if we fear to die, or know not to be patient, or
are proud, or covetous, then the calamity sits heavy on
us. But if we know how to manage a noble principle,
and fear not death so much as a dishonest action, and
think impatience a worse evil than a fever, and pride
to be the biggest disgrace, and poverty to be infinitely
desirable before the torments of covetousness ; then
we who now think vice to be so easy, and make it so
familiar, and think the cure so impossible, shall
quickly be of another mind, and reckon these accidents
among things eligible.

But no man can be happy that hath greafr hopes and
great fears of things without, and events depending
upon other men, or upon the chances of fortune. The
rewards of virtue are certain, and our provisions for our
natural support are certain, or if we want meat till we
die, then we die of that disease, and there are many
worse than to die with an atrophy or consumption, or
unapt and coarser nourishment. But he that suffers a
transporting passion concerning things within the power
of others is free from sorrow and amazement no longer
than his enemy shall give him leave ; and it is ten to
one but he shall be smitten then and there where it
shall most trouble him ; for so the adder teaches us
where to strike, by her curious and fearful defending of
her head.

4. GLOSSARY

I am indebted to the following works in compiling this
glossary The Concise Oxford English Dictionary ; Webster's
New International Dictionary ; H. W. Fowler's Dictionary of
Modern English Usage ; An A. B.C. of English Usage, by H. A.
Treble and G. H. Vallins ; and W. W. Skeat's Concise
Etymological Dictionary.

(i) KINDS OF PROSE

ARGUMENTATIVE : containing a process of reasoning.

CRITICAL : exercising careful judgment.

DESCRIPTIVE : portraying an object, sensation, or incident
in worols ; giving an account of anything in words.

DRAMATIC : intended to portray life or character, or tell
a story, by actions and dialogue.

EXHORT ATORY : language intended to incite and encourage.

EXPOSITORY : setting forth for purposes of explanation or
display. Showing the meaning of a written work ;
elucidation ; interpretation ; commentary.

NARRATIVE : recital of connected facts ; telling particulars
of events ; story-telling.

ORATORICAL : characterized by oratory (the art of speaking
in public eloquently or effectively). The exercise of
rhetorical skill ; using eloquent language. Treat-
ing an important subject in a formal and dignified
manner.

PHILOSOPHICAL : attempting to give a reasonable account
of our personal attitude towards the more serious
business of life. " Applying pure thought to the
182

MEANING AND STYLE 183

explanation of phenomena. Rational ; wise ; tem-
perate."

SATIRICAL : holding up abuses, vice, or folly to censure or
ridicule.

(2) QUALITIES OF LANGUAGE

ABSTRACT : considered apart from any particular object.
Ideal, abstruse, theoretical. " Symbolically represent-
ing to the mind something that is not immediately per-
ceived. Expressing a quality, activity, or state."

ALLUSIVE : use of allusions, references.

APHORISTIC : a brief but comprehensive sentence stating a
general doctrine or truth.

APOSTROPHE : a rhetorical device ; " a sudden breaking off
from the previous method of discourse and the
addressing in the second person, some person or thing,
absent or present."

ARCHAIC : obsolete ; antiquated ; old-fashioned diction,
idiom or style.

BOMBASTIC : words and figures inflated, ludicrously un-
suited to the ideas.

CACOPHONOUS : harsh or discordant in sound.

COLLOQUIAL : using words peculiar to the vocabulary of
everyday talk.

CONCISE : implies brevity that omits as much as possible
consistent with expressing the meaning forcibly.

CONCRETE : suggesting the immediate experience of
realities, dealing with actual things or events ; real,
specific, particular.

CONVERSATIONAL : appropriate to every-day talk.

COPIOUS : ample vocabulary ; profuse, exuberant in
expression.

DIFFUSE : unfolding ideas fully, adding illustration after
illustration ; not restrained.

184 MEANING AND STYLE

ELEVATED : exalted ; ennobled ; refined.

EPIGRAMMATIC : a witty or ingenious turn of thought,
often satirical in character, tersely and sharply ex-
pressed.

EUPHEMISTIC : substituting a mild or pleasant expression
for one that is disagreeable but more accurate.

EUPHONIOUS : pleasing in sound ; smooth-sounding.

EUPHUISTIC : means the peculiar style of the author of
Euphues. Marked by (i) balanced constructions,
(2) alliteration, (3) similes from natural history.

EXUBERANT : plenteous ; luxuriant ; lavish.

FAMILIAR : not formal ; easy ; affable ; unconstrained.

FIGURATIVE : using many figures of speech (metaphor,
simile, personification, etc.) ; flowery.

FLORID : overloaded with ornament and figures of
rhetoric.

GRANDILOQUENT : marked by a lofty style ; pompous.

LATINISED : the use of unfamiliar w.ords of Latin origin, or
the use of Latin constructions.

JARGON : confused unintelligible language. Any form of
language that uses many terms that are meaningless
to people in general.

JOURNALESE : style considered characteristic of newspaper
writing ; striving after effect ; marked by cliches or
hackneyed phrases, " the use of circumlocution and
other clumsiness."

MANNERED : use of some turn of expression not because it
is the most appropriate but from force of habit.

MODULATED : that which is tempered, softened, toned down.

NEOLOGICAL : employing new words or meanings ; word-
coining.

ORNATE : marked by elaborate rhetoric ; adorned with
figures of speech.

OSTENTATIOUS : implies undue or vainglorious display.

PARADOX : an assertion contrary to opinion ; a seemingly
absurd though perhaps really well-founded statement.

MEANING AND STYLE 185

PARALLELISM : similarity of construction, or meaning, of

clauses placed side by side, as is common in Hebrew

poetry.
PEDANTIC : too many allusions, Latinisms, etc., making an

unreasonable show of learning.
PICTURESQUE : assuming pictorial form ; possessing homely

charm ; vivid or graphic.
PLAIN : where figures of speech are avoided as much as

possible.
PLEONASTIC : characterized by the use of words whose

omission would leave the meaning exact.
POINTED : containing many epigrams, antithesis (a contrast

of words or ideas, especially emphasized by the

positions of the contrasting words, at the beginning or

end of a sentence or clause), condensed sentences.
POMPOUS : loftiness of expression out of keeping with the

subject ; a solemn and exaggerated self-importance.
PRETENTIOUS : which lays claim to greater importance than

is warranted ; given to outward show.
PROLIX : wearisome attention to trivial details ; when

diffuseness becomes tedious.
REDUNDANT : using more words than are necessary to

express one's meaning.
P.HETORICAL : the art of expressive speech ; the power of

persuasion or attraction ; given to inflated or ex-
aggerated language.
SENTENTIOUS : full of meaning ; terse and energetic in

expression.
STILTED : raised above the usual level ; hence, pompous ;

bombastic ; pedantic.
TAUTOLOGICAL : unnecessary repetition of the same idea

in different words.
TERSE : neat, polished conciseness.
VERBOSE : employing unnecessary words, irrelevant details,

circumlocutions (or periphrasis, a roundabout way of

saying a thing). Excessive wordiness.

l86 MEANING AND STYLE

VIVID : producing distinct and life-like mental images.
SENTENCES : i. BALANCED : " a sentence in which one part

corresponds to another in the form of its phrases and

the position of its words."

2. LOOSE : a sentence in which the main thought is
announced immediately. " A sentence which is gram-
matically complete at one or more points before its
end."

3. PERIODIC : a sentence in which the main thought
is reserved until late in the sentence.

(3) QUALITIES OF STYLE
(a) Intellectual

CLEARNESS : " may apply both to ideas and to their expres-
sion. 5 * Free from obscurity ; which cannot be mis-
understood.

LUCIDITY : " has special reference to clearness of order or
arrangement."

PERSPICUITY : " lays more stress than clearness upon the
medium of expression regarded for itself. It frequently
connotes a certain elegance of style."

SIMPLICITY : free from complexity or intricacy ; unin-
volved ; easy to understand.

ABSTRUSENESS : suggests especially remoteness from ordinary
ways of thought.

CONCEIT : far-fetched, fantastic turn of expression or
figure of speech.

OBSCURITY : not easily understood ; not clear.

RECONDITE : stresses the idea of depth or profundity,
especially with reference to knowledge which is beyond
ordinary understanding.

ESOTERIC : meant for an inner circle of adepts ; understood
by the initiated alone.

OCCULT : implies the action of supernatural agencies.

MEANING AND STYLE 187

OBJECTIVITY : dealing with outward things ; reality as it
is apart from thoughts or feelings. " Treating events
or phenomena as external rather than as affected by
the reflections or feelings of the observer."

SUBJECTIVITY : accustomed to lay stress upon one's feelings,
thoughts, or opinions. " Derived from the mind or
consciousness as contrasted with external qualities or
forces."

" Subjective denotes what is to be referred to the
thinking subject, the ego ; Objective what belongs to
the object of thought, the non-ego." Sir W. Hamilton.

ANIMATION : state of being lively, brisk, or full of spirit and
vigour.

COGENCY : the quality of being convincing ; cogent
reasoning is more liable to be conclusive or to compel
assent.

ENERGY : strength of expression ; force of utterance ;
power to impress the mind and arouse the feelings.

VIGOUR : implies fullness of active strength or force.

VIVACITY : quality of sprightliness, liveliness, gaiety.

IMPRESSIONISM : the general portrayal of scene, feelings or
character with broad simplicity and small attention
to detail ; the rendering of the immediate, subjective
impressions.

SOPHISTICATION : " i. the use of, or deception by, sophistry
(specious but fallacious reasoning) ;

2. state of being involved or subtle ; without
directness, simplicity, or naturalness.

3. experienced in the more artificial phases of life ;
worldly-wise."

TRADITIONAL : observant of tradition (knowledge or belief
or customs transmitted to posterity). Attached to old
customs ; conventional ; conservative.

CLASSICAL : characterized by a sense of form, balance,
proportion, urbanity ; implies self-knowledge, self-
control, an unfaltering sense of reality.

l88 MEANING AND STYLE

ROMANTIC : characterized by the qualities of remoteness,
desolation, disillusion, decay, passion, divine unrest,
melancholy, an all-embracing power of imagination.
Suggestive of strangeness and adventure.

(b) Emotional

EMOTION : any of the feelings aroused by pleasure or pain ;

excited mental state in its various forms.
FEELING : " suggests less of agitation or excitement than

emotion, often sharply contrasted with judgment, and

frequently implies little more than susceptibility to, or

capacity for, sympathetic emotion."
PASSION : " suggests powerful or controlling emotion."
SENTIMENT : " connotes a larger intellectual element than
feeling or sensation ; it suggests refined, sometimes

romantic, occasionally affected or artificial feeling."
SENTIMENTALITY : " implies excess of sensibility, or an

affectation of sentiment ; indulging the emotions for

their own sake ; superficially emotional."
PATHOS : that which awakens tender emotions ; feelings

of sympathy.
SINCERITY : freedom from simulation, hypocrisy, disguise

or false pretence.
INSINCERITY : not being in truth what one appears to be ;

hypocrisy ; deceitfulness ; falsity.
ARTIFICIALITY : that which is assumed ; affected ; not

genuine. Of imitative purpose, not natural or

real.
BATHOS : a sudden descent from the dignified or lofty to the

ridiculous.

WHIMSICALITY : full of whims, capricious notions, fantasies.
HUMOUR : " implies broader human sympathies than wit,

so that its sense of the incongruous is more kindly and

is often blended with pathos."
WIT : " is more purely intellectual than humour, and implies

MEANING AND STYLE 189

swift perception of the incongruous ; depends upon
ingenuity or surprise."

IRONY : " the distinguishing quality is that the meaning
intended is contrary to that seemingly expressed ; one
says one thing and means the opposite ; often implies
an attitude of unemotional detachment."

INVECTIVE : " implies a vehement and bitter attack or
denunciation, which is often public, and may be in a
good cause and expressed in refined language."

SARCASM : " bitterness or taunting reproachfulness, it may
or may not be ironical but it is always cutting or
ill-natured (as irony need not be)." The motive of
sarcasm is " to inflict pain." (M.E.U.)

SATIRE : is " a formal or elaborate holding-up of vice or
folly, especially that of the public, always as pervaded
by the satirist's feeling, to ridicule or reprobation.
It often makes use of irony but is not necessarily
ironical." Its motive is " amendment." (M.E.U.)

ABUSE : generally prompted by anger and expressed in
harsh words.

OBLOQUY : reproachful, calumnious language.

OBJURGATION : means a sharp scolding.

VITUPERATION : suggests the use of stronger censure and
abuse.

(c) Aesthetic

ELEGANCE : smooth easy rhythm ; propriety of diction ;
felicitous arrangement.

GRACE : the charm of congruity ; harmony as distin-
guished from sublimity and force.

SUBLIMITY : producing a sense of elevated beauty ; nobi-
lity, grandeur, solemnity.

CADENCE : rhythmical flow of language.

HARMONY : pleasing concord of sounds or strains differing
in quality.

MEANING AND STYLE

MELODY : the agreeable arrangement of successive sounds.
LYRICISM : of the nature of lyrical poetry, expressive of the

poet's emotions.
POETIC : showing the imaginative or rhythmical quality of

poetry.

Note. The words under the heading " Qualities of
Style " are not arranged alphabetically but according to
meaning. To show the relation between words expressing
(i) correlative and (2) opposite qualities, such groups have
been placed side by side.

BOOK LIST

The following books are suggested for further study r

HERBERT READ, English Prose Style (Bell).

BONAMY DOBREE, Modern Prose Style (Oxford University
Press).

J. MIDDLETON MURRY, The Problem of Style (Oxford
University Press).

G. E. MONTAGUE, A Writer's Notes on his Trade (Ghatto &
Windus).

E. M. FORSTER, Aspects of the Novel (E. Arnold).

ANDR& MAUROIS, Aspects of Biography (Cambridge Univer-
sity Press).

T. S. ELIOT, The Sacred Wood (Methuen).

A. G. WARD, The Nineteen- Twenties (Methuen).

A. G. WARD, Twentieth Century Literature (Methuen).

LOGAN PEARSALL SMITH, Words and Idioms (Constable).

I. A. RICHARDS, The Philosophy of Rhetoric (Oxford Univer-

sity Press).

SHERARD VINES, Movements in Modern English Poetry and
Prose (Oxford University Press).

II. W. and F. G. FOWLER, The King's English (Oxford

University Press).
H. A. TREBLE and G. H. VALLINS, An A.B.C. of English

Usage (Oxford University Press).
H. W. FOWLER, A Dictionary of Modern English Usage

(Oxford University Press).

WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS LTD, LONDON AND BECCLBS