You cannot divide literature into two elements and say: This is matter
and that style. Further, the significance and the worth of
literature are to be comprehended and assessed in the same way as the
significance and the worth of any other phenomenon: by the exercise
of common-sense. Common-sense will tell you that nobody, not even a
genius, can be simultaneously vulgar and distinguished, or beautiful
and ugly, or precise and vague, or tender and harsh. And common-sense
will therefore tell you that to try to set up vital contradictions
between matter and style is absurd. When there is a superficial
contradiction, one of the two mutually-contradicting qualities is of
far less importance than the other. If you refer literature to the
standards of life, common-sense will at once decide which quality
should count heaviest in your esteem. You will be in no danger of
weighing a mere maladroitness of manner against a fine trait of
character, or of letting a graceful deportment blind you to a
fundamental vacuity. When in doubt, ignore style, and think of the
matter as you would think of an individual.
CHAPTER VII
WRESTLING WITH AN AUTHOR
Having disposed, so far as is possible and necessary, of that
formidable question of style, let us now return to Charles Lamb, whose
essay on _Dream Children_ was the originating cause of our inquiry
into style.
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