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coûte que coûte, not soubriquet, à l'outrance, coute qui coute. The plural of scandalum magnatum is not scandala magnata, as some writers have supposed. If you wish to mention more than one animalculum, write animalcules in English, or animalcula in Latin, but not animalculæ, which is neither Latin nor English.

27. Quotations. It is only from stale Quotations that you are recommended to abstain. Quotations which are fairly fresh and apposite are always welcome. In reading a contemporary author, it is sometimes a pleasure if a quotation carries one's thoughts away to Pope, or Shakespeare, or Horace. It is an unusual pleasure moreover to find that a young writer knows any good literature from which to quote, and in the present utilitarian age it is a further pleasure to find that he can quote Latin. Quote therefore without fear, taking care only that your quotations are to the point and that they are correct. Write with Pope,

not

'A little learning is a dangerous thing,'

'A little knowledge is a dangerous thing,'

which indeed is not true and which Pope never wrote. Note that Hamlet speaks of

'The undiscovered country from whose bourn

No traveller returns.'

In popular misquotation this becomes 'the bourn from which no traveller returns.'

Prior's words are,

'Fine by degrees and beautifully less,'

not 'small by degrees,' as people commonly represent. Write,

'Sunt bona, sunt quædam mediocria, sunt mala plura,'

following Martial, not sunt plura mala, an arrangement

which is open to the twofold objection that the line fails to scan and that, if it scanned, plura mala would mean 'many apples,' a meaning which was not in the author's mind.

Quotations should bubble up spontaneously from a wellstored memory. If on the one hand they must not be too hackneyed, on the other hand they must not be too recondite. With Horace and Virgil we are supposed to have a nodding acquaintance, but if you quote Lucretius or Persius, we fancy that you have been digging up passages and storing them for the purpose of quotation, and we smell Pedantry.

28. Pedantry. A pedant is a man who lays great stress on the knowledge of small points and likes to parade his learning. By his pedantry an author sometimes robs his style of grace and charm. Pedantry drives men in one direction to choose big words of classical origin in place of simple words of native origin, and the result is Journalese. Pedantry drives men in the opposite direction to use a vocabulary exclusively English, and accordingly they revive words which have long been obsolete in ordinary speech. They begin their books with a Foreword, which other people call a Preface, and they sprinkle their pages with whilom, eftsoons, fordo, methinks, nathless, sheen, ween, yclept, and the like. Pedantry drives men in yet another direction to adopt Gallicisms, imposing on English words French idioms or French meanings. Thus they write, 'The window gives upon the street'; 'The Mayor assisted at the dinner'; 'This goes without saying'; 'His motives are very much in evidence'; 'He exploited their patriotic feelings for his own advertisement.'

All these forms of pedantry are affectation. affectation.

Avoid

29. Imitation of other writers. Some authorities on Composition tell you that you must on no account try

to imitate the style of other writers, for to do so would be insincere : : you must be yourself.' The soundness of this advice seems open to question. The handwriting of nine people out of ten possesses more character than their style, but we do not therefore tell boys and girls to 'be themselves' and to scribble as they please. On the contrary, when they are at school we give them copy-books. In spite of their early instruction, when they are grown up, there is something distinctive about the handwriting of each. All may write good hands and yet all the hands are different.

Now you compose essays in the hope of improving your mode of expression, and if you can improve your mode of expression by copying the style of somebody else, the only point of importance is to make sure that you choose a good model. If you copy the mannerisms of a style which has marked mannerisms, you will make yourself ridiculous.

Fifty years ago there were literary giants in the land. Carlyle, Dickens, Macaulay, Thackeray, were prose writers of genius, but the mannerisms of Carlyle and Dickens made their style quite unfit for imitation. Yet literary pygmies, long since forgotten, tried hard to imitate these two giants, writing epileptic sentences which were conceived to be in the manner of Carlyle, and reproducing in an exaggerated form the faults of Dickens. Those who followed Macaulay as their model fared better. Much good writing at the present day is due to the influence of Macaulay. Yet in the hands of many of his imitators his style degenerated into what Matthew Arnold called 'middle-class Macaulayese,' the defects of which are painfully obvious.

Imitate therefore no writer whose style, though it may strike you as clever or brilliant, is eccentric or deficient in good taste. Carlyle, Dickens, American Humourists, their English disciples, authors of the Precious or of the Parenthetic school, Impressionists, noisy writers, writers of Bombast,-admire them, enjoy them, if you like, but never

try to copy them. If on the other hand your fancy is taken by a writer whose style is clear and pleasant and free from tricks, you will do well if you not only admire and enjoy but also imitate. For you are more likely to acquire the art of writing clearly and pleasantly by copying from a good model than by continuing to 'be yourself.'

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