lley Forge than at
Yorktown? and Nelson beating against a head wind than at Trafalgar?
Johnson has anticipated Darwin's method in advice given in his
Gargantuan manner: "Do not exact from yourself, at one effort of
excogitation, propriety of thought and elegance of expression. Invent
first, and then embellish. The production of something, where nothing
was before, is an act of greater energy than the expansion or
decoration of the thing produced. Set down diligently your thoughts as
they arise in the first words that occur, and, when you have matter,
you will easily give it form." To Trollope I owed a somewhat different
practical maxim. His theory Was that a man could turn out manuscript
as steadily as a shoemaker shoes--his precise simile, if I remember;
and he prided himself on penning his full tale each day. I could not
subscribe to this, and think that Trollope's work, of which I am fond,
shows the bad effect; but I did imbibe contempt for yielding to the
feeling of incapacity, and put myself steadily to my desk for my
allotted time, writing what I could. Whether the result were ten words
or ten hundred I tried to regard With equanimity.

I have never purpose attempted to imitate the style of any writer,
though I unscrupulously plagiarize an apt expression. But gradually,
and almost unconsciously, I formed a habit of closely scrutinizing the
construction of sentences by others; generally a fault-finding habit.
As I progressed, I worked out a theory for myself, just as I had the
theory of the influence of sea power. Style, I said, has two sides. It
is first and above all the expression of a man's personality, as
characteristic as any other trait; or, as some one has said--was it
Buffon?--style is the man himself. From this point of view it is
susceptible of training, of development, or of pruning; but to attempt
to pattern it on that of another person is a mistake. For one chance
of success there are a dozen of failure; for you are trying to raise a
special product from a soil probably uncongenial, or a fruit from an
alien stem--figs from vines. But beyond this there is to style an
artificial element, which I conceive to be indicated by the word
_technique_ as applied to the arts; though it is possible that I
misapprehend the term, being ignorant of art. In authorship I
understand by _technique_ mainly the correct construction of periods,
by the proper collocation of their parts. I subscribe heartily to the
opinion