Excerpt from The Problem of Style Whether it is with the vain hope of giving to the language of criticism, like the symbols of mathematics, a constant and invariable significance, or with the more reasonable aim of gaining a more exact control over the instruments of his craft, the critic is preoccupied by an ideal of definition. If he cannot legislate for the republic of letters, and determine the sense in which terms of criticism must be used, he can try to discover and distinguish the senses in which they are used. He invariably finds that the confusion is great. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.