And there are still some who
think that, after all, the style is the man; justified, in very great
varieties, by the simple consideration of what he himself has to say,
quite independently of any real or supposed connection with this or
that literary age or school. Let us close with the words of a most
[16] versatile master of English--happily not yet included in Mr.
Saintsbury's book--a writer who has dealt with all the perturbing
influences of our century in a manner as classical, as idiomatic, as
easy and elegant, as Steele's:
"I wish you to observe," says Cardinal Newman, "that the mere dealer
in words cares little or nothing for the subject which he is
embellishing, but can paint and gild anything whatever to order;
whereas the artist, whom I am acknowledging, has his great or rich
visions before him, and his only aim is to bring out what he thinks
or what he feels in a way adequate to the thing spoken of, and
appropriate to the speaker."
17th February 1886
II. AMIEL'S "JOURNAL INTIME"
Amiel's Journal. The Journal Intime of Henri-Frederic Amiel.
Translated, with an Introduction and Notes, by Mrs. Humphry Ward.
Two vols. Macmillans.
[19] CERTAIN influential expressions of opinion have attracted much
curiosity to Amiel's Journal Intime, both in France, where the book
has already made its mark, and in England, where Mrs.
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