Such power of passion as was his is not often seen mated to such self-control; for while he spoke with utter abandon, he rarely if ever did so until he had carefully deliberated the cause he was espousing.  He thought himself deficient in memory, and in fact rarely borrowed illustrations from his reading either of history or of literature; but his keenness of observation photographed living scenes upon an unfading memory which years after he could and did produce at will.  All these contrary elements of his strangely composite though not incongruous character entered into his style,—­or, to speak more accurately, his styles,—­and make any analysis of them within reasonable limits difficult, if not impossible.

For the writer is known by his style as the wearer by his clothes.  Even if it be no native product of the author’s mind, but a conscious imitation of carefully studied models,—­what I may call a tailor-made style, fashioned in a vain endeavor to impart sublimity to commonplace thinking,—­the poverty of the author is thereby revealed, much as the boor is most clearly disclosed when wearing ill-at-ease, unaccustomed broadcloth.  Mr. Beecher’s style was not artificial; its faults as well as its excellences were those of extreme naturalness.  He always wrote with fury; rarely did he correct with phlegm.  His sermons were published as they fell from his lips,—­correct and revise he would not.  The too few editorials which he wrote, on the eve of the Civil War, were written while the press was impatiently waiting for them, were often taken page by page from his hand, and were habitually left unread by him to be corrected in proof by others.

[Illustration:  HENRY WARD BEECHER.]

His lighter contributions to the New York Ledger were thrown off in the same way, generally while the messenger waited to take them to the editorial sanctum.  It was his habit, whether unconscious or deliberate I do not know, to speak to a great congregation with the freedom of personal conversation, and to write for the press with as little reserve as to an intimate friend.  This habit of taking the public into his confidence was one secret of his power, but it was also the cause of those violations of conventionality in public address which were a great charm to some and a grave defect to others.  There are few writers or orators who have addressed such audiences with such effect, whose style has been so true and unmodified a reflection of their inner life.  The title of one of his most popular volumes might be appropriately made the title of them all—­’Life Thoughts.’

But while his style was wholly unartificial, it was no product of mere careless genius; carelessness never gives a product worth possessing.  The excellences of Mr. Beecher’s style were due to a careful study of the great English writers; its defects to a temperament too eager to endure the dull work of correction.  In his early manhood he studied the old English divines, not for their thoughts, which