Whenever I read a book or a passage that particularly pleased me, in which a thing was said or an effect rendered with propriety, in which there was either some conspicuous force or some happy distinction in the style, I must sit down at once and set myself to ape that quality.  I was unsuccessful, and I knew it; and tried again, and was again unsuccessful, and always unsuccessful; but at least in these vain bouts I got some practice in rhythm, in harmony, in construction and cooerdination of parts.

    I have thus played the sedulous ape to Hazlitt, to Lamb, to
    Wordsworth, to Sir Thomas Browne, to Defoe, to Hawthorne, to
    Montaigne.

That, like it or not, is the way to learn to write; whether I have profited or not, that is the way.  It was the way Keats learned, and there never was a finer temperament for literature than Keats’.

It is the great point of these imitations that there still shines beyond the student’s reach, his inimitable model.  Let him try as he please, he is still sure of failure; and it is an old and very true saying that failure is the only highroad to success.

Form the Reference-Book Habit

Do not be content with your general knowledge of a word—­press your study until you have mastered its individual shades of meaning and usage.  Mere fluency is sure to become despicable, but accuracy never.  The dictionary contains the crystallized usage of intellectual giants.  No one who would write effectively dare despise its definitions and discriminations.  Think, for example, of the different meanings of mantle, or model, or quantity.  Any late edition of an unabridged dictionary is good, and is worth making sacrifices to own.

Books of synonyms and antonyms—­used cautiously, for there are few perfect synonyms in any language—­will be found of great help.  Consider the shades of meanings among such word-groups as thief, peculator, defaulter, embezzler, burglar, yeggman, robber, bandit, marauder, pirate, and many more; or the distinctions among Hebrew, Jew, Israelite, and Semite.  Remember that no book of synonyms is trustworthy unless used with a dictionary.  “A Thesaurus of the English Language,” by Dr. Francis A. March, is expensive, but full and authoritative.  Of smaller books of synonyms and antonyms there are plenty.[33]

Study the connectives of English speech.  Fernald’s book on this title is a mine of gems.  Unsuspected pitfalls lie in the loose use of and, or, for, while, and a score of tricky little connectives.

Word derivations are rich in suggestiveness.  Our English owes so much to foreign tongues and has changed so much with the centuries that whole addresses may grow out of a single root-idea hidden away in an ancient word-origin.  Translation, also, is excellent exercise in word-mastery and consorts well with the study of derivations.