The Marietta journal. [volume] (Marietta, Ga.) 1866-1909, 1896-01-09
LITERARY STYLE.
1t Is Born In n Man and Can Neither BE
Taught Nor Initiated.

Taught Nor Initiated.
The author of How to Write Fic.
ton" appears to be one of those in.
nocents who believe in a new dis
covered "science of human nature
and in tho theories of M. lola. You
go about with notebooks, you be.
muse yourself with Incredibly" and
then if you succeed it is partly by
dint of your native qualities, partly
by aid of griminess not fit to be
named among Christians. 1t is the
same affair in poetry. Wordsworth
was poet by virtue of his genius.
He was born so. His theories ham,
pered him, when he was true to his
theories. Even our author perceives
that Shakespeare and Homer did
not need theories and popular science
falsely so called, and this is just as
true of Miss Austen at 20 and of Mr..
Du Maurier at an age which we shall
not conjecture.
Mr.. Du Maurier was born a writer
and story teller. Thirty five years
ago he proved this in a little sketch
in Once a Week and rather later in
his poem of "Braunigrindas" in
Punch. Only very skilled writer
could have rendered, as Mr.. Du
Maurier has done, the immortal lit.
tic Belgian poem translated in
''Trilby." Yet Mr.. Du Maurier has
been drawing all his life, not sedu-
lously praoticing another art, under
private tutors and with an eye on
Professor Huxley's lectures. I'M
provement is not of course impossi-
bio or q matter of chance. Some
men, like Balzac, have to crush their
gold out of mountain Of quartz.
All or nearly all who possess "style"
! gain it in part by cultivating a nat
ural ear for tho harmonies of prose
as observed by them in the great
writer's. A few perhaps, but very
few, have toiled like Mr.. Stevenson
by the way of "the sedulous ape.'
Thackeray, from his Chartarhouse
days, was always Thackeray and
could not answer an invitation to
dinner without writing in the
Thaokeray manner. Mr.. Steven
son, on the other hand, kept his
dress suit of style for great literary
occasions and did not wear sword.
diamonds or perruque in his familiar
correspondence. Yet Thackeray, to
tho very last, took trouble and cor
rected, as his manuscripts prove,
while his manner was moro or less
conspicuously based on that of Field
ing. He was literary writer, like
Tennyson, in verse, whereas we con-
ceivo that Mr.. Barries admirable
style owes nothing to literary remi-
niscenco or the labor of the file, but
is happy, spontaneous appropriate
ness of utterance.
AS q rule, we take it, setting aside
such rare cases as those of Thack-
cray, Virgil, Keats and Tennyson,
the people who write best do so
without taking thought. Mr.. Froude,
whose taking manner has some
strange occasional blemishes, an
swered very impatiently when some
busybody asked him questions about
his style" He only said what he
meant to say in expressions which
came to him naturally and without
research. On the other hand, we
have now many writer's of no emf
nence whose dull, labored manner
is praised for its preciosity. In Mr..
Pator we had u writer of singular
natural gifts who decidedly ended
by broiling and tormenting his style.
And this is still more likely to be
the end of men who, if they have a
plain tale to tell, should tell it
plainly. London News.