is own style better than the style of
Stevenson--rather the reverse--but he had his own theory, his own
method of expression, deliberately adopted and diligently pursued. He
therefore carefully refrained from reading an author whom he felt
unconsciously compelled to imitate. The question of style, then, is one
which a writer who desires originality should leave altogether alone.
It must emerge of itself, or it is sure to lack distinctiveness. I saw
once a curious instance of this. I knew a diligent writer, whose hasty
and unconsidered writings were forcible, lively, and lucid, penetrated
by his own poetical and incisive personality; but he set no store by
these writings, and if they were ever praised in his presence, he said
that he was ashamed of them for being so rough. This man devoted many
years to the composition of a great literary work. He took infinite
pains with it; he concentrated whole sentences into epithets; he
hammered and chiselled his phrases; he was for ever retouching and
rewriting. But when the book at last appeared it was a complete
disappointment. The thing was really unintelligible; it had no motion,
no space about it; the reader had to devote heart-breaking thought to
the exploration of a paragraph, and was as a rule only rewarded by
finding that it was a simple thought, expressed with profound
obscurity; whereas the object of the writer ought to be to express a
profound and difficult thought clearly and lucidly. The only piece of
literary advice that I have ever found to be of real and abiding use,
is the advice I once heard given by Professor Seeley to a youthful
essayist, who had involved a simple subject in mazes of irrelevant
intricacy. "Don't be afraid," said the Professor, "of letting the bones
show." That is the secret: a piece of literary art must not be merely
dry bones; the skeleton must be overlaid with delicate flesh and
appropriate muscle; but the structure must be there, and it must be
visible.

The perfection of lucid writing, which one sees in books such as
Newman's Apologia or Ruskin's Praeterita, seems to resemble a crystal
stream, which flows limpidly and deliciously over its pebbly bed; the
very shape of the channel is revealed; there are transparent glassy
water-breaks over the pale gravel; but though the very stream has a
beauty of its own, a beauty of liquid curve and delicate murmur, its
chief beauty is in the exquisite transfiguring effect which it has over
the shingle,