From a similar mistake hundreds have deceived themselves in trying to
catch the trick of phrase peculiar tn some distinguished contemporary.
In vain do they imitate the Latinisms and antitheses of Johnson, the
epigrammatic sentences of Macaulay, the colloquial ease of Thackeray,
the cumulative pomp of Milton, the diffusive play of De Quincey: a few
friendly or ignorant reviewers may applaud it as "brilliant writing,"
but the public remains unmoved. It is imitation, and as such it is
lifeless.
We see at once the mistake directly we understand that a genuine style
is the living body of thought, not a costume that can be put on and
off; it is the expression of the writer's mind; it is not less the
incarnation of his thoughts in verbal symbols than a picture is the
painter's incarnation of his thoughts in symbols of form and colour. A
man may, if it please him, dress his thoughts in the tawdry splendour
of a masquerade. But this is no more Literature than the masquerade is
Life.
No Style can be good that is not slncere. It must be the expression of
its author's mind.
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