ABSTRACT
My main subject so far has been the linguistic cross-play of the individual and of the community to which he belongs, whether this latter be greater or smaller, the whole nation or a mere parish, or, again, the narrow circle with whom he shares some secret language. The more commonplace a person is, the more will his language bear the stamp of the community in which he lives: the more unique his nature, the more peculiarly his own will be the colouring of his language. He will not only be easily recognized by his voice, but his particular individuality will be recognized in his words and phrases, even through the medium of writing. This is what we mean when we say that such and such a person has a style of his own, and it is to such persons that Buffon's wellknown saying, 'The style is the man himselr, most fully applies. After hearing anyone of this kind talk, it happens again and again that when we rea(J something
that he has written, we quite involuntarily imagine that we hear the intonations of his voice in the written words. There are indeed some philologists nowadays who think that they can go further than this. They hold that, by surrendering themselves sympathetically and whole-heartedly to reading some old work, they ·can so catch the ring of the writer's sentences as to be able to recognize what is his genuine work and what is a later addition, and they declare that this 'analysis of the ring' may become an important instrument of investigation in textual criticism and the history of language. Other philologists take up a very sceptical or 'Wait and see' attitude on this question, and I shall say no more about it. Nor, again, shall I enter into the very wide and difficult questions of national character and the way in which it is reflected in the sounds, forms, syntax and vocabulary of the language.
