The right word! How shall we find it? Sometimes it will come with the thought; more often we must seek it. Landor says: "I hate false words, and seek with care, difficulty, and moroseness those that fit the thing." What could be stronger than the language of Guy de Maupassant? "Whatever the thing we wish to say there is but one word to express it, but one verb to give it movement, but one adjective to qualify it. We must seek till we find this noun, this verb, this adjective, and never allow ourselves to play tricks, even happy ones, or have recourse to sleights of language to avoid a difficulty. The subtlest things may be rendered and suggested by applying the hint conveyed in Boileau's line, 'He taught the power of a word in the right place.'" In similar vein, Professor Raleigh remarks, "Let the truth be said outright: there are no synonyms, and the same statement can never be repeated in a changed form of words."
The number of words used is another consideration. When Phil May has drawn a picture he proceeds to make erasures here and there with a view to retaining wholeness of effect by the least possible number of lines. There is a similar excellence in literature, the literature where "there is not a superfluous word." Oh, the "gasiness" of many a modern novel—pages and pages of so-called "style," "word-painting," and "description."
The conclusion of the matter is this: the right number of words, and each word in its place. Frederic Schlegel used to say that in good prose every word should be underlined; as if he had said that the interpretation of a sentence should not depend on the manner in which it is read.
It is also highly necessary that the would-be stylist should be a student of sentences and paragraphs. Surprising as it may seem, it is nevertheless true that many aspirants after literary success never give these matters a thought; they expect that proficiency will "come." Proficiency is not an angel who visits us unsolicited; it is a power that must be paid for with a price, and the price is laborious study of such practical technique as the following:—"In a series of sentences the stress should be varied continually so as to come in the beginning of some sentences, and at the end of others, regard being had for the two considerations, variation of rhythm, and grouping of similar ideas together." And this, "Every paragraph is subject to the general laws of unity, selection, proportion, sequence, and variety which govern all good composition." The observance of these rules (and they are specimens of hundreds more) and the discovery of apt illustrations in literature are matters of time and labour. But the time and labour are well spent—nay, they are absolutely necessary if the literary man would know his craft thoroughly. For the ordinary man, something equivalent to a text-book course in rhetoric is indispensable. True, many writers have learned insensibly from other writers, but too severe a devotion to the masterpieces of literature may beget the master's weaknesses without imparting his strength.
Incommunicable Elements
The incommunicable element in style is that personal impress which a writer sets upon his work. What is a personal impress? I am asked. Can it be defined? Scarcely. Personality itself is a mysterious thing. We know what it means when it is used to distinguish a remarkable man from those who are not remarkable. "He has a unique personality," we say. Now that personality—if the man be a writer—will show itself in his literary offspring. It will be in evidence over and above rule, regulation, canons of art, and the like. If there be such a thing as a mystic presence, then style is that mystic presence of the writer's personality which permeates the ideas and language in such a way as to give them a distinction and individuality all their own. I will employ comparison as a means of illustration by supposing that the three following passages appeared in the same book in separate paragraphs and without the authors' names:—
"Each material thing has its celestial side, has its translation into the spiritual and necessary sphere, where it plays a part as indestructible as any other, and to these ends all things continually ascend. The gases gather to the solid firmament; the chemic lump arrives at the plant and grows; arrives at the quadruped and walks; arrives at the man and thinks."
"He [Daniel Webster] is a magnificent specimen; you might say to all the world, 'This is your Yankee Englishman; such limbs we make in Yankeeland! The tanned complexion; the amorphous crag-like face; the dull black eyes under their precipice of brows, like dull anthracite furnaces, needing only to be blown; the mastiff mouth, accurately closed:—I have not traced so much silent Bersekir rage that I remember of in any man.'"