Style
Chamberlain's style is sober and objective, illuminated by an eye for the precise detail. The elements of this style are a sometimes artful, sometimes natural, blending of public and private information, of the serious and trivial, reported with care and exactitude and spiced with brisk remarks of his own. He explains and comments on his information, which he lays out as clearly as possible in a logical sequence, adding his own estimations of the value of the information and opinions he reports. His sentences are obviously crafted with care. Chamberlain's letters are those of an educated and cultivated man, who could quote French, Italian and Spanish, and who was familiar with old English and classical literature. Sometimes his humour is formulaic, however, and he was not above sending the same letter to two different correspondents. His figures of speech are not his own invention but taken from general use, often drawing on images of hunting, falconry, horseriding, farming, and seafaring. Chamberlain's style remains constant through the decades of his correspondence.
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Famous quotes containing the word style:
“Everything ponderous, viscous, and solemnly clumsy, all long- winded and boring types of style are developed in profuse variety among Germans—forgive me the fact that even Goethe’s prose, in its mixture of stiffness and elegance, is no exception, being a reflection of the “good old time” to which it belongs, and a reflection of German taste at a time when there still was a “German taste”Ma rococo taste in moribus et artibus.”
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“The most durable thing in writing is style, and style is the most valuable investment a writer can make with his time. It pays off slowly, your agent will sneer at it, your publisher will misunderstand it, and it will take people you have never heard of to convince them by slow degrees that the writer who puts his individual mark on the way he writes will always pay off.”
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