Yankee, in a similar condition of life, deviates from the true Gahribahldi, he will make the vowel shorter and thinner, pronouncing it as in "palace"- Gărrybaldi. The thick, throaty pronunciation of the broad a is a British peculiarity; but while it is heard in the mouths of so many persons that it divides with the "exhasperated" h the honor of the chief distinction of English spoken with a British accent, it is as little prevalent as the extinction or superfluous utterance of the latter letter is among the best speakers in England, or as a nasal twang, aout for "out," and tew for "too" are among cultivated people in New England. Among British Englishmen few but those who to a good education unite the very highest sócial culture are perfectly free from both these traits of English as spoken with a British accent.

It may here be pertinently remarked that the pronunciation of a in such words as glass, last, father, and pastor is a test of high culture. The tendency among uncultivated persons is to give a either the thick, throaty sound of aw which I have endeavored to describe, or, oftenest, to give it the thin, flat sound which it has in "an," "at," and anatomy." Next to that tone of voice which, it would seem, is not to be acquired by any striving in adult years, and which indicates breeding rather than education, the full, free, unconscious utterance of the broad ah sound of a is the surest indication in speech of social culture which began at the cradle.

CHAPTER IV.

STYLE.

CCURACY is first to be desired in writing,

and is worthy of careful cultivation; for generally inaccurate writing is an outward sign of inaccurate thinking. But when men have shown that their thought is important, it is ungracious and superfluous to hunt down their ifs and ands, and arraign their pronouns and prepositions. This remark would apply to some of the criticisms in the previous chapter, if their special purpose were left out of consideration.

Style, according to my observation, cannot be taught, and can hardly be acquired. Any person of moderate ability may, by study and practice, learn to use a language according to its grammar. But such a use of language, although necessary to a good style, has no more direct relation to it than her daily dinner has to the blush of a blooming beauty. Without dinner, no bloom; without grammar, no style. The same viand which one young woman, digesting it healthily and sleeping upon it soundly, is able to present to us again in but a very unattractive form, Gloriana, assimilating it not more perfectly in slumbers no sounder, transmutes into charms that make her a delight to the eyes of every

beholder. That proceeding is Gloriana's physiological style. It is a gift to her. Such a gift is style in the use of language. It is mere clearness of outline, beauty of form and expression, and has no relation whatever to the soundness or the value of the thought which it embodies, or to the importance or the interest of the fact which it records. Learned men, strong and subtle thinkers, and scholars of wide and critical acquaintance with literature, are often unable to acquire even an acceptably good, not to say an admirable, style; and, on the other hand, men who can read only their own language, and who have received very little instruction even in that, write and speak in a style that wins or commands attention, and in itself gives pleasure. Of these men John Bunyan is, perhaps, the most marked example. Better English there could hardly be, or a style more admirable for every excellence, than appears throughout the writings of that tinker. No person who has read "The Pilgrim's Progress can have forgotten the fight of Christian with Apollyon, which, for vividness of description and dramatic interest, puts to shame all the combats between knights and giants, and men and dragons, that can be found elsewhere in romance or poetry; but there are probably many who do not remember, and not a few perhaps who, in the very enjoyment of it, did not notice, the clearness, the spirit, the strength, and the simple beauty of the style in which that passage is written. For example, take the sentence which tells of the beginning of the fight:

"Then Apollyon straddled quite over the whole breadth of the way, and said, I am void of fear in this matter: prepare thyself to die; for I swear by my infernal Den that thou shalt go no further: here will I spill thy soul."

A man cannot be taught to write like that; nor can he by any study learn the mystery of such a style.

Style, however, although it cannot be taught, is, to a certain extent, the result of mental training. A man who would write well without training, would write, not more clearly or with more strength, but with more elegance, if he were educated. But he will profit little in this respect by the study of rhetoric. It is general culture — above all, it is the constant submission of a teachable, apprehensive mind to the influence of minds of the highest class, in daily life and in books, that brings out upon language its daintiest bloom and its richest fruitage. So in the making of a fine singer: after the voice has been developed, and the rudiments of vocalization have been learned, further instruction is of little avail. But the frequent hearing of the best music, given by the best performers, the living in an atmosphere of art and literature, will develop and perfect a vocal style in one who has the gift of song; and for any other, all the instruction of all the musical professors that ever came out of Italy could do no more than teach an avoidance of positive errors in musical elocution. But, after all, the student's style may profit little by his acquirements. Unconsciousness is one of the most important conditions of a good style in speaking or in writing. There are persons who write well and speak ill;

others who write ill and speak well; and a few who are equally excellent as writers and speakers. As both writing and speaking are the expression of thought through language, this capacity for the one, joined to an incapacity for the other, is naturally the occasion of remark, and has, I believe, never been accounted for. I think that it will be found that consciousness, which generally causes more or less embarrassment of one kind or another, is at the bottom of this apparent incongruity. The man who writes in a clear and fluent style, but who, when he undertakes to speak, more than to say yes or no, or what he would like for dinner, hesitates, and utters confusion, does so because he is made selfconscious by the presence of others when he speaks, but gives himself unconsciously to the expression of his thought when he looks only upon the paper on which he is writing. He who speaks with ease. and grace, but who writes in a crabbed, involved style, forgets himself when he looks at others, and is occupied by himself when he is alone. His consciousness, and his effort that he makes, on the one hand to throw it off, and on the other to meet its demands upon him, confuse his thoughts, which throng, and jostle, and clash, instead of moving steadily onward with one consent together.

Mere unconsciousness has much to do with the charming style of many women's letters. Women's style, when they write books, is generally bad with all the varieties of badness; but their epistolary style is as generally excellent in all the ways of excellence. A letter written by a bright, cultivated woman, and she need not be a highly educated,