Functions of style iv: a device of discernment

For all its hectic character, 1956

was not a merry year, on balance;

but given that there will not be a

Friday quiz, it's harmless to recall

the trials of Suez, to say nothing

of Budapest. One cultivates a style

not to marshall recitals of data,

but to call forth the components of

the style to assay an imbalance in

them in the external world; we were

given to observe for purposes other,

if not higher, than gossip. At the

very least, we'd expect a Conserva-

tive to figure out what causes are

behind his discontents. Maybe not.

These days, the fashion is to wave a

voodoo doll of ad hominem, and pack

it in at the nearest slaughterhouse;

while you and I look closer, not to

deny or flee the imbalance, but to

salvage what is screaming gorgeous.

Toward the end of 1956, a junior

but by no means unknown English ac-

ademic wrote to an American expatri-

ate friend living outside Florence,

on his government's starkly unam-

biguous débâcle in the invasion of

Egypt, along with the French and

the Israelis, a nation older than

its years.

This is a lengthy and well-etched

letter, in a compilation of cor-

respondence between Christ Church

and I Tatti, welcome anywhere. 

How could he have supposed, that

you and I, two generations later,

would sit before our seething lit-

tle monitors and discover friend-

ship of unanswerable prescience?

What is obvious, is that his was

an exercise of style, so ascer-

tained in experience as to cast

it as a device of discernment,

possibly the simplest and most

fallible of analytical tools,

but the one humanity adopts.

What fails the style, fails the

balance; there, not the reverse,

is the wedge of our discontent.

Often, in the past fortnight, I 

have reflected on the social ba-

sis of this irrational support

for a policy which seems to me

rationally indefensible; and I

conclude that there is in Eng-

land, as in other countries a

fascist world: the world of low-

er middle class conservatives

who have no intelligence but a

deep belief in violence as a 

sign of self-importance; who 

hate foreigners, expecially if

they come from 'inferior' races;

and who, gratified with the spec-

tacle of such violence against

such people, even if it fails in

its object, are prepared to shout,

in unison, il Duce ha sempre ra-

gione. In ordinary times, and

given good politics by their

leaders, these people remain be-

low the level of public notice ..

out of frustration this extra-

ordinary and disquieting spirit

breaks forth.

Criticism is an act of authen-

tication which is not aridly

taxonomic. Its impulse is to

identify, but also to retrieve.

Such is the function of style,

as we are often heard to ask,

in the conduct of discernment.

Its most frequent claimant is

ostentation (a posture premed-

itating exploitation), and no-

thing could be more ironic. A

gentleman doesn't dine in res-

taurants.

Hugh Trevor-Roper

  to Bernard Berenson

25 November 1956

Letters from Oxford

Richard Davenport-Hines,

  editor

Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006©

Functions of style iii: the cultivation of unity

Hunting and divinity, how well

they sort together in my mind!

I must own to a weakness for

sporting parsons, for those un-

apostolic characters I read of

in Nimrod and elsewhere; for

parson Jack Russell.. for the

clergyman who [advertised] -

"Wanted, a curacy in a good

sporting country, where the

duties are light and the com-

pany convivial" ..

There can be no doubt, that

a journal affords the vital-

ity of the personality a can-

vas on which to conduct its

pursuit of form. It has some-

thing in common with the in-

tegrity of dreams, yet it is

a field for expository, ex-
ploratory energy we admire.

And of course it is not un-
delightful to observe the
familiar, emerging brighter.
Like our modern-day artisans

of the selfie, perhaps, the

journal-keeping seeker of u-

nity will be reminded of the

divine, ere long, and ponder

his rapport with it. They say

one can never be too ready.

 As to that, Biffy Holland-

 Hibbert told me that he once

 got into trouble for jumping

 into a churchyard, when the

 Bicester were in full cry;

 they said it was outrageous

 to the dead; which I thought

 inconceivable until I was my-

 self shoo'd out of the Oxford

 crematorium by a scandalised

 custodian in course of a gay

 hunt from Woodeaton Spinney

 with the South Oxon. Fantastic

 indignation! I thought to my-

 self as his cri de coeur died

 away behind me; and as I rode

 home from the Wick I tried to

 rationalise his extraordinary

 conduct. 

Why, when I am dead, the very 

thought of a fox-chase in full 

cry streaming over my maggotry 

remainder will be as refreshing

dew to my poor wilting spirit,

as it fiddles away in some in-

conspicuous corner of the celes-

tial orchestra. But it was no

good; the mind of that odd jan-

itor of the dead evidently work-

ed on different principles from

mine.

Hugh Trevor-Roper

Major, HM Secret Intelligence Service

December, 1943

The Wartime Journals

op. cit.

Functions of style ii: "ex animo"

As you know, I have complete
confidence in you and am sure
that you will produce an im-
portant work; but I am also
anxious that it should be a
striking work, something out
of the ordinary, something that
even the professional Scotch
historians will have to notice
because it will be read outside
their little magic circle, and
so they will be forced to dis-
cuss it and not bury it with a
few condescending private for-
mulae. In order that it shall
have this effect, you must el-
evate it, as you can, above the
common run of theses.

You  must give it form and vi-
tality. Form, of course, only
comes from care and discipline;
vitality comes from you. The es-
sence of form is unity.. a sense 
of proportion.. write with con-
fidence and brio (which must be
fed, if necessary, on champagne
purchased on the credit of fu-
ture royalties). Above all, en-
joy writing. It is not always
easy to do so. One has to get 
over the flat somehow. 

 'Recklessly selfish advice, a
 Mephistophelian manipulation,'
 one can almost hear the men-
 tors of the forgotten, murmur.

 Still, his Festschrift was em-
 bellished and his final post-
 humous work guided to press 
 by the man who got that letter.
 He didn't call for damages.
































Hugh Trevor-Roper
Lord Dacre of Glanton
16 April 1973
One Hundred Letters ..
op. cit.

The Invention of Scotland
  Myth and History
Jeremy Cater, editor
Yale University Press, 2008©

Functions of style

Possibly it falls to all publishers

in this medium to encounter 'style'

finally in the perspective of their

own interests. Mine are in the chan-

neling functions of style, and only

moderately in the others; it is in-

teresting to me as a boulevard of a

personality, albeit laced with some

intersections.

  I have lately introduced one

  of the most notably problem-

  atical personalities ever to

  be heard from, in selections

  chosen for a humaneness that

  I find uncanny and inspiring.

  These discoveries stir genu-

  ine surprise in me, although

  this has been suggested only

  once. But he was a figure of

  renown for rhetoric of other

  qualities, that drove one of

  his early editors to wonder:

  I find it difficult to decide

  whether he is a fundamentally

  nice person in the grip of a

  prose style in which it is im-

  possible to be polite, or a

  fundamentally unpleasant per-

  son using rudeness as a dis-

  guise for nastiness.

The question could not conceivably

have been framed in these terms if

the stylist were any less exorbit-

antly attractive than he was, when

at his best. Such persons are ava-

tars of hope to anyone who senses

the power of rhetoric, not merely

to lead but to illuminate. Custom-

arily, we discard them, throw them

away; but truly, I think, this is

a surrendering of them which is a

great mistake. In the case of this

personality, entire cadres in the

ostensibly learned world stood by

in prayer that he would hurl him-

self upon a great mistake. Yet it

was his nature to hurl himself; he

rode with the hunt, religiously.

I am tending to entertain the proposition,

that if there are tragic figures, the pre-

sumptive 'failure of their light' is one

in which the bystander participates. If I

am correct to be pursuing this line of

thought, what can it mean that such a fig-

ure is the one who opened that boulevard?

If I confer prestige of tragedy upon an-

other person, have I struggled sincerely

enough to preserve its dignity as rare?

Sipping from Goti

 for Paul Gervais

   From whatever place

   they may have come from,

   from under rocks,

   that moistness, or the sea,

   or else in those

   slanting places of darkness,

   in the woods, they

   are here and ourselves

   with them. All

   the forms we know,

   the designs, the

   closed-eye visions of

   order - these too they are,

   in the skin we

   share with them.

   

  

   if you twist one

   even insignificant part

   of your body

   to another, imagined

   situation of where it

   might be, you'll

   feel the pain of all

   such distortion and

   the voices will

   flood your head with

   terror. No thing 

   you can do can

   be otherwise than

   these people, large

   or small, however

   you choose to think

   them - a drop of

   water, glistening

   on a grassblade, or

   the whole continent,

   the whole world of size ..

Robert Creeley

Selected Poems

  People

  [fragment]

University of California Press, 1991©

But you can't say, Martin, forum shopping's shopping as we know it

  You always knew, they'd come

  after us, Martin, on that very

  ground, seeking redress in the

  courts instead of another gen-

  eration of sporting battery,

  you know, that sort of thing.

  They seem to be saying that

  we've taken the fun out of the

  open secret of their play, and

  there are those who say one ought

  to see their point. Why, only over

  the weekend, we were cautioned

  against ebullience, but then I do

  think this advice is rather fam-

  iliar. It reminds me of these en-

  dearing warnings, that they'll

  get tired of us. Have you ever

  quaked more wretchedly in fear?