It is evident thus far that the psychological basis of stylistic effect is very complex, and in this essay we certainly lay no claim to making an exhaustive enumeration of its factors. However, we have still to consider one more element, and perhaps, at least for cultivated minds, the most important psychic element of literary art. Read now the following extract, and analyze the impression it makes:—
“The natural thirst that ne’er is satisfied Excepting with the water for whose grace The woman of Samaria besought, Put me in travail, and haste goaded me Along the encumbered path behind my Leader, And I was pitying that righteous vengeance; And lo! in the same manner as Luke writeth That Christ appeared to two upon the way From the sepulchral cave already risen, A shade appeared to us, and came behind us, Down gazing on the prostrate multitude, Nor were we 'ware of it, until it spake, Saying, 'My brothers, may God give you peace.'”
Here, surely, is neither facility, nor beauty of expression, nor deft and subtle art to please the mind, yet it attracts and interests. The main secret of the effect of Dante’s style is as revelation of personality. Art with Dante is the child of life, the product of long and deep-felt experience; and because he is an original reality he achieves in his writings that distinctiveness and distinction which is the truest and highest mark of style. Again, it is not the lucidity of Sam Weller’s remarks that pleases us, but rather their characteristic flavour. We delight to come in contact with originals, and we relish the characteristic for its own sake, even when ugly or when most unlike ourselves in tendency, and so the modernest of the moderns enjoys Dante, the typical mediævalist. Style is the man. This is the best definition of style and the best explanation of its peculiar effect. Style is expression of subjective quality. While scientist and philosopher aim to be objective, to justly reflect and interpret outward reality the literary artist aims merely to give a perfect exposition of himself. Style is the literary expression of self-realization. Hence the greatest stylists write to please themselves, and are their own severest critics. Style is _timbre_, and the best style is that in which this peculiar tone of the individual mind is most perfectly revealed. A great style is, then, the expression of a great man, and the consummation of style occurs when the genius has grown to the highest point of his individuality—and individuality is genius—with corresponding power of expression. Among Tennyson’s poems the most Tennysonian has the greatest style. When we quote from Wordsworth such lines as,—