STYLE AND THE MAN

By
MEREDITH NICHOLSON

INDIANAPOLIS
THE BOBBS-MERRILL CO.
PUBLISHERS

FOREWORD

THE following pages contain the notes of an address which I have delivered on various occasions. Some of the allusions and criticisms are obviously frivolous, and others were introduced merely to provoke discussion.

STYLE AND THE MAN

AT the word style the critics at once sit up and take notice. We are all sensitive to style; we either like to drift with an easy, lazy current, or we prefer to fight a turbulent, resisting tide; we enjoy contemplating the moonlight upon tranquil waters, or we find our greatest pleasure in watching the ruffian billows breaking against rough shores. These are largely matters of temperament or of mood. The attitude of many of us changes from day to day, from book to book; but at heart we all have a preference, a prejudice in favor of certain methods of writing, while others awake our antagonism. It has probably[2] been the experience of all of us that books that reach the library table often lie unopened for many days; and then to our own surprise we some day take them up, read them with delight, and wonder why we approached them so reluctantly. In the same whimsical fashion we recur to volumes that we knew in old times, impelled by some instinct that makes us long to experience the same emotion, the same thrill, the same peace that gladdened our souls in happier days. There are books that fit into moods of sorrow, of loneliness, of anxiety; and others are equally identified with moods of happiness, elation and hope. There are in all our libraries, great or small, stern Gibraltars that rise gloomily before us on shelves to which we never turn with pleasure.