It is quality of mind which makes the writings of Burke rank above those of Gladstone, Ruskin’s criticism above that of Hamerton, Froude’s histories above Freeman’s, Renan’s “Life of Jesus” above that of Strauss; which makes the pages of Goethe, Coleridge, Lamb, literature in a sense that the works of many able minds are not. These men impart something personal and distinctive to the language they use. They make the words their own. The literary quality is not something put on. It is not of the hand, it is of the mind; it is not of the mind, but of the soul; it is of whatever is most vital and characteristic in the writer. It is confined to no particular manner and to no particular matter. It may be the gift of writers of widely different manners--of Carlyle as well as of Arnold; and in men of similar manners, one may have it and the other may not. It is as subtle as the tone of the voice or the glance of the eye. Quality is the one thing in life that cannot be analyzed, and it is the one thing in art that cannot be imitated. A man’s manner may be copied, but his style, his charm, his real value, can only be parodied. In the conscious or unconscious imitations of the major poets by the minor, we get only a suggestion of the manner of the former; their essential quality cannot be reproduced. English literature is full of imitations of the Greek poets, but that which the Greek poets did not and could not borrow they cannot lend; their quality stays with them. The charm of spoken discourse is largely in the personal quality of the speaker--something intangible to print. When we see the thing in print, we wonder how it could so have charmed or moved us. To convey this charm, this aroma of the man, to the written discourse is the triumph of style. A recent French critic says of Madame de Staël that she had no style; she wrote just as she thought, but without being able to impart to her writing the living quality of her speech. It is not importance of subject matter that makes a work great, but importance of the subjectivity of the writer,--a great mind, a great soul, a great personality. A work that bears the imprint of these, that is charged with the life and power of these, which it gives forth again under pressure, is alone entitled to high rank.