He at least
would run the risk. And so he set himself to work cultivating the graces
of style no less assiduously than the exactness of science. There is a
distinct filiation in his diction, by which, from Stevenson to Lamb and
from Lamb to Sir Thomas Browne, one can trace it back to the quaint old
prose writers of the seventeenth century. I remember his calling my
attention, in 1890, or thereabouts, to the delightful stylistic
qualities of those worthies. Many of his colors are from their
ink-horns, in which the pigments were of deep and varied hues. When he
is sententious and didactic he seems to have caught something of
Emerson's manner. And indeed there is in all his writings a flavor of
optimism and a slightly dogmatic, even when thoroughly gentle and
persuasive, tone which he has in common with the New England sage.
But in spite of all these resemblances to older authors, Mr. Wilson
gives proof in his style of a masterful independence. He is constantly
determined to think for himself, to get to the bottom of his subject,
and finally to express the matter in terms of his own personality.
Especially is this evident in his early works, where he struggles
manfully to be himself, even in the choice of words and phrases,
weighing and analyzing the most current idioms and often making in them
some thoughtful alteration the better to express his exact meaning.
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