And will not the words and the character of the style depend on the temper of the soul? 87
Yes.
And everything else on the style?
Yes.
Simplicity the great first principle; Then beauty of style and harmony and grace and good [E]rhythm depend on simplicity,—I mean the true simplicity of a rightly and nobly ordered mind and character, not that other simplicity which is only an euphemism for folly?
Very true, he replied.
And if our youth are to do their work in life, must they not make these graces and harmonies their perpetual aim?
They must.
[401] and a principle which is widely spread in nature and art. And surely the art of the painter and every other creative and constructive art are full of them,—weaving, embroidery, architecture, and every kind of manufacture; also nature, animal and vegetable,—in all of them there is grace or the absence of grace. And ugliness and discord and inharmonious motion are nearly allied to ill words and ill nature, as grace and harmony are the twin sisters of goodness and virtue and bear their likeness.
That is quite true, he said.