born world-geniuses; so would practice in dancing, if
every lady had the figure of a Venus and the garden of Eden for a
playground. But even the ancient Greeks amid every advantage of
climate, dress, and physical beauty, considered a thorough
instruction in all athletic and graceful exercises as indispensably
necessary, not only to a boy's but also to a girl's education, and in
like manner, I think the exquisite models of prose with which English
literature abounds will not supersede the necessity of a careful
training in versification, nay, will rather make such a training all
the more requisite for those who wish to imitate such excellence.
Pray understand me: by using the word "imitate," I do not mean that
I wish you to ape the style of any favourite author. Your aim will
not be to write like this man or that woman, but to write like
yourselves, being of course responsible for what yourselves are like.
Do not be afraid to let the peculiarities of your different
characters show yourselves in your styles. Your prose may be the
rougher for it, but it will be at least honest; and all mannerism is
dishonesty, an attempt to gain beauty at the expense of truthful
expression which invariably defeats its own ends, and produces an
unpleasing effect, so necessarily one are truth and beauty. So far
then from wishing to foster in you any artificial mannerism,
mannerism is that foul enchanter from whom, above all others, I am
sworn "en preux chevalier" to deliver you. As Professor Maurice
warned me when I undertook this lectureship, my object in teaching
you about "styles" should be that you may have no style at all. But
mannerism can be only avoided by the most thorough practice and
knowledge. Half-educated writers are always mannerists; while, as
the ancient canon says, "the perfection of art is to conceal art"--to
depart from uncultivated and therefore defective nature, to rise
again through art to a more organised and therefore more simple
naturalness. Just as, to carry on the analogy which I employed just
now, it is only the perfect dancer who arrives at that height of art
at which her movements seem dictated not by conscious science, but
unconscious nature.

I do hope then that the study, and still more the practice of
versification, may produce in you the same good effects which they do
in young men; that they may give you a habit of portioning out your
thoughts distinctly and authentically in a more simple, conde