The deepest truth connected with the permanency of art is that there must be style, which does not stand for the same thing as diction, nor for the same thing as characteristic stroke, manner, or tone. Mere deftness with the brush, mere cleverness with the fiddle-bow, mere facility in the doing of word-jugglery, cannot pass into permanent art, and this is the lesson we need to-day. We take verbal style too seriously when we reckon with it as of more importance than fresh thought and enlarged ideals. It is not the art of saying nothing well that wins in the long run; it is the art of saying a great thing with a simple charm of style which does most to enrich literature. Indeed, great things are themselves simple, the greatest the simplest. Nothing is well said when nothing is said.
THE END
PRINTED AT THE LAKESIDE PRESS
FOR HERBERT S. STONE & CO.
PUBLISHERS, CHICAGO
October, 1896. Established May, 1896. Number 1.
Catalogue
of
The Publications
of
Herbert S. Stone & Company
The Caxton Building,
Chicago.
