Again I knew how far beside the mark I had shot. Style was but the effort of a language to throw off its diseases, an acknowledgment of the gross imperfections that burdened it and made it a clog on the progress of thought. If a language were what it ought to be, a precise means of intercourse between soul and soul, a true medium of intellectual energy, then ought the race that uses it to be completely unconscious of anything like style. We never know we breathe, or how we breathe, till some stoppage makes breathing difficult; we never realise we have a heart whose pulsations are essential to life, till it beats irregularly, and alarms us with the prospect of disease in it. So it is with speech, the instrument of communication among men, the ether of thought; did it perform all its functions in a healthy and perfect way, we should pay little or no attention to it; were words unambiguous and precise, every man would speak and write in the best of all styles, that natural and transpicuous method of expression which fixes the whole mind of the listener or reader, not on the means of conveyance, but on the energy that passes through it. Speech should be no more than one of the unpremeditated, unguided functions of our system; as soon as it calls for attention, it is deranged; as long as we are unconscious of it, it is healthful and strong, acting in every way as it should, without shadow or broken light, without indefiniteness of meaning or mistaken suggestion. Nor should a language even in its commonest thoroughfares be devoid of music. How false must be the rendering of a thought, if for the sake of melody he who is called a poet should have to reject all but musical expressions in a language which has little music in it! How artificial must be the labours of this professional word-monger, when he must sit amongst the débris of his vocabulary, and pick and choose with weary exertion the words that will fit into his poem! With most of his language unsuited to his purpose, as being invented or moulded by unmusical people, he is like a mosaic-worker who has to make his work out of common stone, or out of fragments of pottery thrown into the rubbish-heap of the ages. Most languages sound like the rasping of a file over iron, or the shooting of débris over a precipice, or at best the crackle and hiss of fireworks. And it is not surprising; for their individual words are made out of anything that is ready to hand by men who care nothing for the sound of them, whether it is harsh or melodious. Now and again if a word or phrase becomes current out of the range of literary products, it will get its harsh grating syllables ground off, or rounded and polished in the torrent of common speech. Thus are prepared the only elements of the language that are fit for the fine mosaic-work of Western poets. They rescue these time-smoothed pebbles from their gross or vulgar surroundings and place them in a setting that will make them seem beautiful for a time.