Of this kind is the poetry of the Psalms and of the Hebrew prophets. It is seen in the brief, impressive way in which Dante presents the heroes or heroines of his nether world, ast compared with Virgil's more elaborate pictures. In all of Wordsworth that has really impressed the world, this will be found to be the chief characteristic. It is seen especially in his finest lyrics and his most impressive sonnets. Take only three poems that stand together in his works, "Glen Almain," "Stepping Westward," "The Solitary Reaper." In each you have a scene and its sentiment brought home with the minimum of words, the maximum of power. It is distinctive of the pure style that it relies not on side effects, but on the total impression-that it produces a unity in which all the parts are subordinated to one paramount aim. The imagery is appropriate, never excessive. You are not distracted by glaring single lines or too splendid images. There is one tone, and that all-pervading-reducing all the materials, however diverse, into harmony with the one total result designed. This style in its perfection is not to be attained by any rules of art. The secret of it lies farther in than rules of art can reach, even in this: that the writer sees his object, and this only; feels the sentiment of it, and this only; is so absorbed in it, lost in it, that he altogether forgets himself and his style, and cares only in fewest, most vital words. to convey to others the vision his own soul sees. This power of intense sincerity, of total absorption in an object which is not self, is not given to many men, not even to men otherwise highly gifted. But without this, the pure style in full perfection is not possible. It comes to this: that in order to attain the truest and best style, a man must, for the time at least, forget style and think only of things. One instance more of that great law of ethics whereby the abandonment of some lower end, in obedience to a higher aim, is made the very condition of securing the lower one. To employ the pure style in its full power requires the presence of a seer, a prophet-soul; and prophet-souls are few even among poets. The ornate style in poetry is altogether different from this. When a scene, a sentiment, a character, has to be described, it does not penetrate at once, as the pure style penetrates, to the idea which informs the scene, the sentiment, the character, and leave it before you, impressed by a few words on the mind forever. But it gathers round the scene or character which it seeks to convey many of the most striking accessories and associations which it suggests, and so sets it before you clad in the richest and most splendid drapery it will bear. It sees the informing idea, and expresses it, but by its adjuncts rather than by its bare essence. The vision of the inner essence is not intense enough to make it impatient of accessories and ornamentation. It so delights in imagery, distant allusion, classical retrospect, that the attention is apt to be led off by these, and to neglect the central subject. This ornate style, redundant with splendid imagery, loaded with cloying music, is much in vogue with our modern poets. Mr. Tennyson, who has employed various styles, and sometimes the pure and severe style, has done more of his work in the ornate. As one instance, take his poem on "Love and Duty." It is intense with passion, the thought is noble and nobly rendered. But after the agony of parting, it occurs to the lover that perhaps the thought of him might still come back, and the poem closes thus: "If unforgotten! should it cross thy dreams, Between the fair green field and eastern sea." This description of mourning is no doubt very pretty, but I have always felt that it might well have been spared us, after the passionate parting scene immediately before it. "A dressy literature, an exaggerated literature, seem to be fated to us. These are our curses, as other times had theirs." With these words Mr. Bagehot closes his essay to which I have alluded. No doubt the multitude of uneducated and halfeducated readers, which every day increases, loves a highly ornamented, not to say a meretricious, style both in literature and in the arts; and if these demand it, writers and artists will be found to furnish it. There remains, therefore, to the most educated the task of counterworking this evil. With them it lies to elevate the thought and to purify the taste of less cultivated readers, and so to remedy one of the evils incident to democracy. To high thinking and noble living the pure style is natural. But these things are severe, require moral bracing, minds not luxurious but which can endure hardness. Softness, self-pleasing, and moral limpness find their congenial element in excess of highly colored ornamentation. On the whole, when once a man is master of himself and of his materials, the best rule that can be given him is to forget style altogether, and to think only of the reality to be expressed. The more the mind is intent on the reality, the simpler, truer, more telling the style will be. The advice which the great preacher gives for conduct holds not less for all kinds of writing: "Aim at things, and your words will be right without aiming. Guard against love of display, love of singularity, love of seeming original. Aim at meaning what you say, and saying what you mean." When a man who is full of his subject and has matured his powers of expression sets himself to speak thus simply and sincerely, whatever there is in him of strength or sweetness, of dignity or grace, of humor or pathos, will find its way out naturally into his language. That language will be true to his thought, true to the man himself. Free from self-consciousness, free from mannerism, it will bear the impress of whatever is best in his individuality. And yet there is something better even than the best individuality—a region of selfless humanity, of pure, transparent ether, into which the best spirits sometimes ascend. In that region there is no trace, no color of any individuality. The greatest poets, uttering their highest inspirations, attain there a style which is colorless, and speak a common language. It is but in rare moments that the highest attain these hights, but sometimes they do attain them. Πόλλαι μὲν θνῆτοις γλῶσσαι μία δ' ἀθανάτοισι. ("Mortals speak many tongues, the immortals one.") J. C. SHAIRP. I' THE ORGANIZATION OF LABOR. II. THE INTEREST OF THE LABORER IN PRODUCTION. Na former article attention was called to the important part played by executive ability and organizing power in the production of wealth, and to the comparatively small number of the men through whose powers this increase was brought about. To whomsoever the credit may be given, the effect is indisputable that the production of the articles designed to supply nearly every human want has, during the past century, increased manyfold. It would therefore be naturally supposed that the average comfort of the masses has also increased to a great extent, if not in proportion to the increase of wealth. But the opinion is widely prevalent that this conclusion is falsified by the fact, and that the increase of wealth has really been productive of no benefit to the wages class, whose condition, it is asserted, has remained stationary, or even grown worse. Those who adopt this view probably form a small minority of the thinking public; yet their voice is loudly heard in the land. A rather large party adopting the conclusion that the laborer is in some way deprived of his rightful share of the common product, encourage him in attempts to better his condition through legislation and organization. Two classes of questions thus present themselves, the one referring to the actual condition of the laboring classes as affected by the increase of wealth, the other to the bettering of this condition through legislation and organized effort. The influence of increasing wealth upon the interests of various classes may be studied in two ways; the one deductive, the other inductive. Adopting the first method, we analyze the causes which affect the well-being of the masses and show their mode of operation. In using the second method, we should compare the condition of the laborer as shown in history with his actual condition among us. Our first subject will therefore be the econoinic effects of cheapened production, especially its effect upon the wages class. At the outset we call to mind a principle already laid down; or, that the general economic effect of cheapened production upon society is the same in whatever way the cheapening is brought about, whether by labor-saving machines, cheap foreign labor, the organization of industry, or improved methods of production. The effect of all cheapening processes can therefore be studied as a single subject, and will be the first subject of consideration. Whenever a given commodity is produced at a cheaper rate a certain amount of money is saved to the community. The money thus saved measures what, for the time being, appears to be lost to the laborer. If one hundred shoemakers supply the whole community with boots when two hundred were before required, then the wages of the one hundred shoemakers now left without employment stay in the pockets of the community who formerly purchased their boots. At first sight, therefore, the effect seems to be to the disadvantage of the laborer, and the ordinary vision goes no farther. But the community must dispose of the money thus saved in some way, and can only do so by purchasing labor or its products. If the total amount thus kept back is $200, then that sum will remain to be spent in some other product than boots. Thus will arise a demand for $200 worth of labor which would not have existed but for the improvement in shoemaking. What the shoemaker has lost must be spent in purchasing some other product than shoes. If the one hundred idle shoemakers could produce the articles which their customers wanted in place of the shoes, they might go to the men who had their wages in their pockets and offer to do something for them with the certainty of being employed at their former compensation. But the chances are that the community which has saved the money will spend it in something else than shoes, and thus for the time. being the shoemakers are losers and other producers are gainers. Since the total demand for labor and its products is the same as before, the diminished demand for shoes being compensated |