But he was disappointed. Her criticism was just. He acknowledged that, but he had a feeling that he was not sharing his work with her for the purpose of schoolroom correction. The details did not matter. They could take care of themselves. He could mend them, he could learn to mend them. Out of life he had captured something big and attempted to imprison it in the story. It was the big thing out of life that he had read to her, not sentence structure and semicolons. He wanted her to feel with him this big thing that was his, that he had seen with his own eyes, grappled with his own brain, and placed there on the pages with his own hands in printed words. Well, he had failed, was his secret decision. Perhaps the editors were right. He had felt the big thing, but he had failed to transmute it. He concealed his disappointment, and joined so easily with her in her criticism that she did not realize that deep down in him was running a strong undercurrent of disagreement.
Later he enlarges upon this, and also relates how he gained his mastery:
On the looking-glass were lists of definitions and pronunciations; when shaving, or dressing, or combing his hair, he conned these lists over. Similar lists were on the wall over the oil-stove, and they were similarly conned while he was engaged in cooking or washing dishes. New lists continually displaced the old ones. Every strange or partly familiar word encountered in his reading was immediately jotted down, and later, when a sufficient number had been accumulated, were typed and pinned to the wall or looking-glass. He even carried them in his pockets, and reviewed them at odd moments on the street, or while waiting in butcher-shop or grocery to be served.
He went farther in the matter. Reading the works of men who had arrived, he noted every result achieved by them, and worked out the tricks by which they had been achieved—the tricks of narrative, of exposition, of style, the points of view, the contrasts, the epigrams; and of all these he made lists for study. He did not ape. He sought principles. He drew up lists of effective and fetching mannerisms, till out of many such, culled from many writers, he was able to induce the general principle of mannerism, and, thus equipped, to cast about for new and original ones of his own, and to weigh and measure and appraise them properly. In similar manner he collected lists of strong phrases, the phrases of living languages, phrases that bit like acid and scorched like flame, or that glowed and were mellow and luscious in the midst of the arid desert of common speech. He sought always for the principle that lay behind and beneath. He wanted to know how the thing was done; after that he could do it for himself. He was not content with the fair face of the beauty. He dissected beauty in his crowded little bedroom laboratory, where cooking smells alternated with the outer bedlam of the Silva tribe; and, having dissected and learned the anatomy of beauty, he was nearer being able to create beauty itself.
This latter quotation shows us how Jack London mastered a knowledge of that subtle thing called “style.” Every student of English literature knows there are vast differences between the writings of Johnson and Carlyle, DeQuincey and Coleridge, Ruskin and Newman, Browning and Tennyson. Yet each uses the English language and possibly it might be found that the vocabulary of each was not very different from that of the other. Then wherein lies the difference? It is in that marvelous personal quality, that individuality expressed in its use of words, that we call style, that the difference lies.
To aid your memory, study and observe styles. Ever be on the alert to discover why an author appeals to you. In reading Bret Harte ask yourself why his appeal is so different from that of Sir Walter Scott, Browning from Longfellow, Whitman from Swinburne, Pope from Sterling.
Observation also applies to hearing as well as seeing. How do you hear? Carefully, definitely, specifically, or indifferently, generally? Have you ever sought to disentangle the roar of noises you can hear in the city’s streets? At first it is a dull confusion of sound that comes as one great, indistinguishable roar. Listen! Observe, and you will soon be able to distinguish the clatter of hoofs from the creak of the car-wheels; the whistle of the traffic-officer from the cry of the newsboy, or the honking of automobile-horns from the clang of street-car gongs.
Most people think that only a highly trained musician should be able to distinguish the various instruments as they are played in a band or an orchestra, but any well-trained observer should be able to differentiate between the instruments if he so desires. And this brings us to a very striking discovery that we should not overlook; namely, that the powers of observation should be under the personal control of the individual. For instance, if he desires to observe the effect of the music of an orchestra of a hundred pieces as a whole, he should be able to do so. He should likewise be able to hear the different instruments, either alone, or in their relation one to another. The power to do this is one of the qualifications of a great conductor. His faculties of observation are highly developed, or are naturally acute in this regard; hence, when combined with other leadership qualities, he becomes a great director.
As applied to hearing a speech, lecture, or sermon, how shall one observe? Exactly the same as one observes in reading—by concentration of attention, seeing details, visualizing or mentally picturing every scene; listening to the speaker’s choice of words; his power to make euphonic grouping not only for the sweetness of sound, but for their potency as well.
Hard work, this observing, is it not? It is intensive and perpetual. The athlete must keep in training so long as he desires physically to excel; so with the student or scholar. He must not lag, must not cease in his efforts, or he will lose his place or power. The will must be evoked to aid in such concentration of effort. The desire must be more fully excited, aroused, enthused, or the will will not respond. How many people go to church, to hear a lecture, an address, with the determination strong within them to allow nothing to interfere with their observing to the full what is said by the speaker? Note the turning around as late-comers take their places. Watch how easily the major part of an audience’s attention can be diverted. It is pitiable and even ludicrous were it not so lamentable, because it reveals that in the training of our youth strict attention has not been demanded.