Grammar
Grammar is the most dangerous of all pitfalls. Suppose you read your novel through, and check each sentence. After weary toil you are ready to offer a prize of one guinea to the man who can show you a mistake. When the full list of errors is drawn up by an expert grammarian, you are glad that offer was not made, for your guineas would have been going too quickly. In everyday conversation you speak as other people do—having a special hatred of painful accuracy, otherwise called pedantry; and as you frequently hear the phrase: "Those sort of people are never nice," it does not strike you as being incorrect when you read it in your proof-sheets. Or somebody refers to a theatrical performance, and regretting his inability to be present, says, "I should like to have gone, but could not." So often is the phrase used in daily speech, that its sound (when you read your book aloud) does not suggest anything erroneous. And yet if you wish your reader to know that you are a good grammarian, you will not be ashamed to revise your grammar and say, "I should have liked to go, but could not." These are simple instances: there are hundreds more.
Reviewing all that has been said in this chapter, the one conclusion is that the novelist must be a man of knowledge; he must know the English language from base to summit; and whatever references he makes to science, art, history, theology, or any other subject, he should have what is expected of writers in these specific departments—accuracy.
CHAPTER VIII
THE SECRET OF STYLE
Communicable Elements
One can readily sympathise with the melancholy of a man who, after reading De Quincey, Macaulay, Addison, Lamb, Pater, and Stevenson, found that literary style was still a mystery to him. He was obliged to confess that the secret of style is with them that have it. His main difficulty, however, was to reconcile this conviction with the advice of a learned friend who urged him to study the best models if he would attain a good style. Was style communicable? or was it not? Now of all questions relating to this subject, this is the most pertinent, and, if I may say so, the only real question. It is the easiest thing in the world to tell a student about Flaubert and Guy de Maupassant, about Tolstoi and Turgenieff, but no quantity of advice as to reading is of much avail unless the preliminary question just referred to is intelligently answered. The so-called stylists of all ages may be carefully read from beginning to end, and yet style will not disclose its secret. Such a course of reading could not but be beneficial; to live among the lovely things of literature would develop the taste and educate appreciation; the reader would be quick to discern beauty when he saw it, but the art of producing it other than by deliberate imitation of known models would be still a mystery.
Is style communicable? The answer is Yes and No; in some senses it is, in others it is not. Let us deal with the affirmative side first. This concerns all points of grammar and composition without which the story would not be clear and forcible. No writer can make a "corner" in the facts of grammar and composition; it is impossible to appropriate them individually to the exclusion of everybody else; and since style depends to some extent on a knowledge of those rules which govern the use of language, it follows that there are certain elements which are open to all who are willing to learn them. For instance, there is the study of words. How often do we hear it said of a certain novelist that he uses the right word with unerring accuracy. And this is regarded as an important feature in his style; therefore words and their uses should have a prominent place in your programme. In "The Silverado Squatters," Stevenson represents himself as carrying a pail of water up a hill: "the water lipping over the side, and a quivering sunbeam in the midst." The words in italics are the exact words wanted; no others could possibly set forth the facts with greater accuracy. Stevenson was a diligent word-student, and had a certain knowledge of their dynamic and suggestive qualities.