the best Carlyle." If
Carlyle had always been at his best he would have counted among the
supreme geniuses of the world. But he was a mixture. His style is the
expression of the mixture. The faults are only in the style because
they are in the matter.

You will find that, in classical literature, the style always follows
the mood of the matter. Thus, Charles Lamb's essay on _Dream Children_
begins quite simply, in a calm, narrative manner, enlivened by a
certain quippishness concerning the children. The style is grave when
great-grandmother Field is the subject, and when the author passes
to a rather elaborate impression of the picturesque old mansion it
becomes as it were consciously beautiful. This beauty is intensified
in the description of the still more beautiful garden. But the real
dividing point of the essay occurs when Lamb approaches his elder
brother. He unmistakably marks the point with the phrase: "_Then, in
somewhat a more heightened tone_, I told how," etc. Henceforward the
style increases in fervour and in solemnity until the culmination of
the essay is reached: "And while I stood gazing, both the children
gradually grew fainter to my view, receding and still receding till
nothing at last but two mournful features were seen in the uttermost
distance, which, without speech, strangely impressed upon me the
effects of speech...." Throughout, the style is governed by the
matter. "Well," you say, "of course it is. It couldn't be otherwise.
If it were otherwise it would be ridiculous. A man who made love as
though he were preaching a sermon, or a man who preached a sermon as
though he were teasing schoolboys, or a man who described a death as
though he were describing a practical joke, must necessarily be either
an ass or a lunatic." Just so. You have put it in a nutshell. You have
disposed of the problem of style so far as it can be disposed of.

But what do those people mean who say: "I read such and such an author
for the beauty of his style alone"? Personally, I do not clearly know
what they mean (and I have never been able to get them to explain),
unless they mean that they read for the beauty of sound alone. When
you read a book there are only three things of which you may be
conscious: (1) The significance of the words, which is inseparably
bound up with the thought. (2) The look of the printed words on the
page--I do not suppose that anybody reads any author for the visual
beauty of the words on the