"I will not hereafter vex myself with anxious thoughts about my style when composing. It is formed. And if there be any ground for the imputation that it is too formal, it will only be made worse in this respect by extra solicitude. It is not the defect to which I am predisposed. The best security against it is to write with less elaboration--a pleasant recipe which conforms to my previous views. This determination will save me trouble and time. Hereafter what I print shall undergo no ordeal for the style's sake except only the grammar." Some other remarks of his may be here recorded, though they really amount to nothing more than the discovery of the old truth, _le style c'est l'homme_. "A man's style to be worth anything should be the natural expression of his mental character.... The best undoubtedly for every writer is the form of expression best suited to his peculiar turn of thinking, even at some hazard of violating the conventional tone of the most chaste and careful writers. It is this alone which can give full force to his thoughts. Franklin's style would have borne more ornament--Washington Irving could have done with less--Johnson and Gibbon might have had much less formality, and Hume and Goldsmith have occasionally pointed their sentences with more effect. But, if they had abandoned the natural suggestions of their genius and aimed at the contrary, would they not in mending a hole, as Scott says, have very likely made two?... Originality--the originality of nature--compensates for a thousand minor blemishes.... The best rule is to dispense with all rules except those of grammar, and to consult the natural bent of one's genius." Thereafter Prescott held to his resolution so far as concerned the first draft of what he wrote. He always, however, before publication, asked his friends to read and criticise what he had written, and he used also to employ readers to go over his pages with great minuteness, making notes which he afterwards passed upon, rejecting most of the suggestions, but nevertheless adopting a good many.