(2) The second paradox, though it is equally true, you may find a little subtler.  Yet it but applies to Art the simple truth of the Gospel, that he who would save his soul must first lose it.  Though personality pervades Style and cannot be escaped, the first sin against Style as against good Manners is to obtrude or exploit personality.  The very greatest work in Literature—­the “Iliad,” the “Odyssey,” the “Purgatorio,” “The Tempest,” “Paradise Lost,” the “Republic,” “Don Quixote”—­is all

           Seraphically free
     From taint of personality.

And Flaubert, that gladiator among artists, held that, at its highest, literary art could be carried into pure science.  ‘I believe,’ said he, ’that great art is scientific and impersonal.  You should by an intellectual effort transport yourself into characters, not draw them into yourself.  That at least is the method.’  On the other hand, says Goethe, ’We should endeavour to use words that correspond as closely as possible with what we feel, see, think, imagine, experience, and reason.  It is an endeavour we cannot evade and must daily renew.’  I call Flaubert’s the better counsel, even though I have spent a part of this lecture in attempting to prove it impossible.  It at least is noble, encouraging us to what is difficult.  The shrewder Goethe encourages us to exploit ourselves to the top of our bent.  I think Flaubert would have hit the mark if for ‘impersonal’ he had substituted ‘disinterested.’

For—­believe me, Gentlemen—­so far as Handel stands above Chopin, as Velasquez above Greuze, even so far stand the great masculine objective writers above all who appeal to you by parade of personality or private sentiment.

Mention of these great masculine ‘objective’ writers brings me to my last word:  which is, ’Steep yourselves in them:  habitually bring all to the test of them:  for while you cannot escape the fate of all style, which is to be personal, the more of catholic manhood you inherit from those great loins the more you will assuredly beget.’

This then is Style.  As technically manifested in Literature it is the power to touch with ease, grace, precision, any note in the gamut of human thought or emotion.

But essentially it resembles good manners.  It comes of endeavouring to understand others, of thinking for them rather than for yourself—­of thinking, that is, with the heart as well as the head.  It gives rather than receives; it is nobly careless of thanks or applause, not being fed by these but rather sustained and continually refreshed by an inward loyalty to the best.  Yet, like ‘character’ it has its altar within; to that retires for counsel, from that fetches its illumination, to ray outwards.  Cultivate, Gentlemen, that habit of withdrawing to be advised by the best.  So, says Fenelon, ’you will find yourself infinitely quieter, your words will be fewer and more effectual; and while you make less ado, what you do will be more profitable.’