Cascading Style Sheets

“ Now, there is but one grand style, in the treatment of all subjects whatsoever, and that style is based on the perfect knowledge, and consists in the simple, unencumbered rendering, of the specific characters of the given object, be it man, beast, or flower. Every change, caricature, or abandonment of such specific character, is as destructive of grandeur as it is of truth, of beauty as of propriety. ”

“ I want something warmer—more full-blooded. Most of the stylists write as if they began by acquiring a style and then had to sit and wait for a subject. I believe style is the enemy of matter. You compress all the blood out of your subject when [Pg 375] you make it conform to a studied style, instead of letting your style form itself out of the necessity for expression. This is rank heresy, I know, and I should not have ventured on it a few years ago; but now, I say, give me a style that is the natural outcome of your subject, your mind, your character, not an artificial but a natural product ”

“ My first intention was simply to consider Style, good or bad, as it influences our embroidery of to-day, and to find some rules by which to guide that of the future in its next phase. But when we search into the fluctuations of style, and their causes, we find they have an historical succession, and that we must begin at the beginning and trace them through the life of mankind. ”

“ However feelingly and with whatever academic finality this axiom may be delivered—style is obviously more than that, and more than the man. More, too, than words and a certain way of putting them together, and much more than a mere choice of words or dexterity in manipulating them. We have come to think that many of these things do constitute style. ”

“ But style is such a vague expression, that it is a vicious system, which presumes from a consideration of that which itself is undefined to deduce the age of any structure. Few, if any, of those who use the expression have any clear idea of its meaning. ”

“ There is here no collection of all sorts of lettering, some sensible and many eccentric, for us to choose from, but we are shown the essentials of form and spacing, and the way is opened out to all who will devote practice to it to form an individual style by imperceptible variations from a fine standard. ”

“ And the more superficial the aesthetic attention given by the beholders, the quicker will style succeed style, and shapes and shape-schemes be done to death by exaggeration or left in the lurch before their maturity ”

“ Here we touch upon an important principle which underlies this whole matter. The secret of charm in style lies in character. You have all heard innumerable times the saying that “Style is the man.” In other words, style as a matter of structure in composition is the indication of what a man can do; style as a matter of quality is an indication of what he is.
The ways in which individuality shows itself are numerous. Each writer, for instance, may be said to make his own vocabulary. ”

“ I have written to you so often, of late, upon good-breeding, address, ‘les manieres liantes’, the Graces, etc., that I shall confine this letter to another subject, pretty near akin to them, and which, I am sure, you are full as deficient in; I mean Style.
Style is the dress of thoughts; and let them be ever so just, if your style is homely, coarse, and vulgar, they will appear to as much disadvantage, and be as ill received as your person, though ever so well proportioned, would, if dressed in rags, dirt, and tatters. It is not every understanding that can judge of matter ”

“ We may no more choose our styles than our characters. Style, like character, can, it is true, be trained--strengthened, chastened, refined, rendered shapely; but in essentials it must for ever remain as it originally was. It is the expression, not only of the thoughts immediately to be set down, but of the very man himself, and with the man it will develop. It cannot be invented ”

“ Nevertheless, I repeat, you should cultivate your own style, not by changing it into some other person’s style, but by striving to preserve its individuality, while decorating it with all the graces of art. Nature gives the style, for your style is yourself; but the decorations are slowly and laboriously acquired by diligent study, and, above all, by long and patient practice. There are but two methods of attaining to this accomplishment—contemplation of the best productions of art, and continuous toil in the exercise of it.
Make Your Composition Attractive. ”

“ As we have just seen, style is affected in a measure by the species of discourse. It is determined, further, by the mental constitution of the writer, and varies according to the dominance of particular faculties. We may distinguish four generic types of mind, which are reflected in four fundamental differences of style. ”

“ As in living creatures, the blood, nourishing the body, determines its very contour and external aspect, just so, to his mind, the matter, the basis, in a work of art, imposed, necessarily, the unique, the just expression, the measure, the rhythm—the form in all its characteristics.
If the style be the man, in all the colour and intensity of a veritable apprehension, it will be in a real sense "impersonal." ”

“ Many styles, and many beautiful yet diverse objects, may be made to harmonize by tasteful arrangement; and this freer latitude is well adapted to our varied moods and our many-sided lives. Few people of moderate means can carry out one style in its entirety. ”

“ A little experience will show us that an imperfect outline, and one which varies in thickness with various objects, will greatly assist in the attractiveness of our sketches. A too rigid outline, as also a too close adherence to what has been said about the precision of the shading strokes, tends to a stiff formal appearance which is not to be desired, and destroys anything like originality and individuality of style. ”

“ Changing constantly as they do, Fashions must be followed wisely. To adopt each new style as it is presented, stopping to question neither its authenticity nor permanency, is to become very soon a literal "slave of fashion." ”

“ It is as easy to write a gaudy style without ideas as it is to spread a pallet of showy colours or to smear in a flaunting transparency. “What do you read?”—“Words, words, words.”—“What is the matter?” “Nothing,” it might be answered. The florid style is the reverse of the familiar. The last is employed as an unvarnished medium to convey ideas; the first is resorted to as a spangled veil to conceal the want of them. When there is nothing to be set down but words, it costs little to have them fine. ”

“ I could go on naming hosts who have styles distinct by power or affectation, for it is in the style that we show our affectation, as we do it in our walking and our talking; but I would only say that if you wish to be natural and great, think very little upon the style you would take, and more upon the thought you wish to express; be earnest in your work, and by earnestness you will forget your delivery, and so be both natural and original. ”

“ In other cases, also, it seems that fashion is pursuing a fleeting and impossible ideal of perfect beauty, style, grace, dexterity, etc., which shall give distinction and superiority or impose subjection. ”

“ If you want to select a style for yourself, it’s a good plan to mark the designs that suit your purpose and that also will be becoming to your type. When you compare them, eliminating those that are not suitable for your purpose or your appearance, it will be an easy matter to make a choice. ”

“ But the process of his learning rests ultimately on his own structure and function and not on others’ example. “Style must be founded upon models”; it is the rule set up by the pedant who knows nothing of what style means. For the style that is founded on a model is the negation of style.
The ardour and heroism of great achievement in style never grow less as the ages pass, but rather tend to grow more. ”

“ For when we keep monotonously to one style, we fail to retain the hearer’s attention; but when we pass from one style to another, the discourse goes off more gracefully, even though it extend to greater length. Each separate style, again, has varieties of its own which prevent the hearer’s attention from cooling or becoming languid. We can bear the subdued style, however, longer without variety than the majestic style. ”

“ When our desired style is invented, will not the best we can all do be simply—to build in it?— and cannot you now do that in styles that are known? Observe, I grant, for the sake of your argument, what perhaps many of you know that I would not grant otherwise—that a new style can be invented. ”

“ Variety is closely connected with Elegance. The adaptation of the sentence structure to the thought, and yet more the subtler adaptation to the mood, are refinements of composition which it takes long to acquire; but with every advance toward a mastery of them the learner has come nearer to the secret of that consummate skill in fitting means to effects which is the soul of the highest style. Each must do it for himself ”

“ In The Examiner appears the following note on this passage: ‘We find persons who write what may be called an impracticable style; and their ideas are just as impracticable. They have as little tact of what is going on in the world as of the habitual meaning of words. Other writers betray their natural disposition by affectation, dryness, or levity of style. Style is the adaptation of words to things. Dr. Johnson had no style, that is, no scale of words answering to the differences of his subject. ”

“ The transformation of style which was visible at the very outset is one of the miracles of literary art. Simplicity, swiftness, precision, all the qualities which were conspicuously absent, we will not say wanting, in the Portraits,—these are the characteristics, and that in a surpassing degree, of the Causeries. ”

“ The reason for this is that so many women, and men too, accept the dictates of Fashion without stopping to determine whether or not these new creations are suitable to their own particular type. They do not realize that to be fashionable does not mean to follow conscientiously every new fad, but to adjust the prevailing style to conform with the lines of their individual faces and forms. ”

“ And through the inevitable reaction of environment upon the man, the central point in his valuation of men and women tended to shift from the fundamentals, mind and character, to the surface qualities—dress and style and manners and refinement, and even dress. ”

“ In the chapter on style it is said that a pattern is as ineffaceable as a word. But one will occasionally disappear for a time, till the ruin that covers it is cleared away, and the lost design recovered and employed simply as a decoration, if it is beautiful ”

“ A considerable diversity of style, may be found in compositions all equally excellent in their kind. And, indeed, different subjects, as well as the different endowments by which genius is distinguished, require this diversity. But, in forming his style, the learner should remember, that a negligent, feeble, affected, stiff, uncouth, barbarous, or obscure style is always faulty; and that perspicuity, ease, simplicity, strength, neatness, and purity, are qualities always to be aimed at. ”

“ For granted that one style can be formulated and projected which is absolutely superior to all others in construction, angle, &c., then unless that style be universally inculcated, an unfortunate section of the community is being taught to write a style which, according as it deviates from the acknowledged standard, is to that extent objectionable and inferior. ”

“ The subdued style, again, in its own naked simplicity, when it unravels questions of very great difficulty, and throws an unexpected light upon them; when it worms out and brings to light some very acute observations from a quarter whence nothing was expected ”

“ Then beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity—I mean the true simplicity of a rightly and nobly ordered mind and character, not that other simplicity which is only an euphemism for folly? ”

“ The economy of the recipient's mental energy, into which are thus resolvable the several causes of the strength of Saxon English, may equally be traced in the superiority of specific over generic words. That concrete terms produce more vivid impressions than abstract ones, and should, when possible, be used instead, is a thorough maxim of composition. As Dr. Campbell says, "The more general the terms are, the picture is the fainter; the more special they are, 'tis the brighter." ”

“ Individual style will come to you naturally as you become more conscious of what it is you wish to express. There are two kinds of insincerity in style, the employment of a ready-made conventional manner that is not understood and that does not fit the matter ”

“ The monotony of style produces an apparent monotony of ideas. What is really striking and valuable, is lost in the vain ostentation and circumlocution of the expression; for when we find the same pains and pomp of diction bestowed upon the most trifling as upon the most important parts of a sentence or discourse, we grow tired of distinguishing between pretension and reality, and are disposed to confound the tinsel and bombast of the phraseology with want of weight in the thoughts. ”

“ No doubt my poetry errs on the side of oddness. I hope in time to have a more balanced and Miltonic style. But as air, melody, is what strikes me most of all in music and design in painting, so design, pattern, or what I am in the habit of calling inscape is what I above all aim at in poetry. Now it is the virtue of design, pattern, or inscape to be distinctive and it is the vice of distinctiveness to become queer. This vice I cannot have escaped.' And again two months later: 'Moreover the oddness may make them repulsive at first and yet Lang might have liked them on a second reading. ”

“ Reading day by day compositions teeming with bad taste, and especially where the style floods you with its conceits and affectations, you unconsciously fall into the same vile habit, and incessant vigilance is required to restore you to sound, vigorous, manly, and wholesome English. ”