Women are the best mistresses of the nervous style; they supply its instances at first hand, from flirting to hysterics; while men, like Borrow and Trelawney, are masters of the muscular style.
I could give a valuable hint to writers who would be effective, exact, and pleasing; let them master the methods followed in the scientific style, as in an article on “Light,” by Herschel in the “Encyclopædia Metropolitana.”
XXIX.
Before I went to Italy I could not write; after I had crossed the Simplon I could: the wonders I saw wholly revolutionized my soul. There was height above height of snow that disregarded the sun; or, if it yielded to its insinuations, it was only to drip into bayonets of ice. There were cataracts that had so far to fall, that the eyes reached the bottom of the gulph first, and seemed only overtaken by the waters with which they started.
I had nothing more to do with Bolingbroke or with Goldsmith, in style; I had seen Nature play the great idea and express herself. I learned that she was the true stylist, and that she was not inimitable.
I lingered at Florence and made acquaintance with many there—native, English, and foreign. Among these were Trelawny and Landor, whose names still continue remarkable. Of the last I saw little; he was preparing to drive himself to England in his gig. He had greatly offended the Government of Tuscany by the freedom of his speech, and he became intolerable. This resulted in his being served with an order to quit the country. When matters came to so serious a pass, he was taken by surprise. He called on the Grand Duke to remonstrate; he told that amiable prince that it was an honour to the country to have such a man as himself residing in it; on which subject the Grand Duke agreed with him, and the edict of expulsion was withdrawn.
He, too, was one of the artificial stylists.
People went little abroad in those days for want of travelling accommodation, and the English generally in Florence, were not of a kind to make a favourable impression; many of them were ill-disciplined in principle, and had become dregs who reached the bottom, though there were many who were quite as respectable at home as a thousand miles off, and were absent on business only, economy, or pleasure. Colonel Burdett, a friendly and agreeable man, heir to the prince of Radicals, Sir Francis, was a traveller on his way to Rome, and invited me to accompany him; but I desired to be stationary for a time, that I might acquire the lingua Toscana, which I was learning under the Abbé Caselli.