"Do you?" Ideala rejoined, somewhat dryly as it seemed to Beth. "But what is style?"
"I am so bad at definitions," said Mrs. Carne, "but I feel it, you know."
"As if it were a thing in itself to be adopted or acquired?" Ideala asked.
"Yes, quite so," said Mrs. Carne in a tone of relief—as of one who has acquitted herself better than she expected and is satisfied.
"I am sure it is not," Beth burst out, forgetting herself and her slights all at once in the interest of the subject. "I have been reading the lives of authors lately, together with their works, and it seems to me, in the case of all who had genius, that their style was the outcome of their characters—their principles—the view they took of the subject—that is, if they were natural and powerful writers. Only the second-rate people have a manufactured style, and force their subject to adapt itself to it—the kind of people whose style is mentioned quite apart from their matter. In the great ones the style is the outcome of the subject. Each emotion has its own form of expression. The language of passion is intense; of pleasure jocund, easy, abundant; of content calm, of happiness strong but restrained; of love warm, tender. The language of artificial feeling is artificial; there is no mistaking insincerity when a writer is not sincere, and the language of true feeling is equally unmistakable. It is simple, easy, unaffected; and it is the same in all ages. The artificial styles of yesterday go out of fashion with the dresses their authors wear, and become an offence to our taste; but Shakespeare's periods appeal to every generation. He wrote from the heart as well as the head, and triumphed in the grace of nature."
Beth stopped short and coloured crimson, finding that every one in the room was listening to her.
Mrs. Carne stood while she was speaking with a cup of tea in her hand, and tried to catch Ideala's eye in order to signal with raised eyebrows her contempt for Beth's opinion; but Ideala was listening with approval.
"That is exactly what I think," she exclaimed, "only I could not have expressed it so. You write yourself doubtless?"
But Beth had become confused, and only gazed at her by way of reply. She felt she had done the wrong thing to speak out like that in such surroundings, and she regretted every word, and burned with vexation. Then suddenly in herself, as before, something seemed to say, or rather to flash forth the exclamation for her comfort: "I shall succeed! I shall succeed!"
She drew herself up and looked round on them all with a look that transformed her. Such an assurance in herself was not to be doubted. The day would come when they would be glad enough to see her, when she too would be heard with respect and quoted. She, the least considered, she in her shabby gloves, neglected, slighted, despised, alone, she would arrive, would have done something—more than them all!