on this high plane." When you have thought clearly you have never had
any difficulty in saying what you thought, though you may occasionally
have had some difficulty in keeping it to yourself. And when you cannot
express yourself, depend upon it that you have nothing precise to express,
and that what incommodes you is not the vain desire to express,
but the vain desire to *think* more clearly. All this
just to illustrate how style and matter are co-existent, and inseparable,
and alike.


You cannot have good matter with bad style. Examine the point
more closely. A man wishes to convey a fine idea to you.
He employs a form of words. That form of words is his style.
Having read, you say: "Yes, this idea is fine." The writer has
therefore achieved his end. But in what imaginable circumstances
can you say: "Yes, this idea is fine, but the style is not fine"?
The sole medium of communication between you and the author has been
the form of words. The fine idea has reached you. How?
In the words, by the words. Hence the fineness must be in the words.
You may say, superiorly: "He has expressed himself clumsily,
but I can *see* what he means." By what light? By something
in the words, in the style. That something is fine. Moreover, if the style
is clumsy, are you sure that you can see what he means?
You cannot be quite sure. And at any rate, you cannot see distinctly.
The "matter" is what actually reaches you, and it must necessarily
be affected by the style.


Still further to comprehend what style is, let me ask you
to think of a writer's style exactly as you would think