composition is given in a vivid account by Mr. F. E. Leupp. "Most of his original composing is done on feet, pacing up and down the room and dictating to a stenographer. He does not even see how his periods hang together till they have been reduced to typewritten form and the sheets laid upon his desk. Then, when an interval of reduced tension comes, his eye falls upon the manuscript and lingers there. His left hand lifts the top sheet while the right gropes for a pen, and in a moment the author is quite buried in his work, annotating between the lines as he reads. "The friend who is with him probably respects his mood and subsides into a sofa-corner, or warms his hands before the fire, or amuses himself at the window till the first force of absorption has spent itself and Mr. Roosevelt lifts his head to remark, 'Now, here is where I believe I have made a point never before brought out,' and proceeds to read aloud a passage and descant upon it. If this impromptu enlargement transcends certain bounds, the speaker is on his feet again in an instant and pacing the floor as he talks. Sentence follows sentence from his lips like shots from the muzzle of a magazine-gun-all well-timed and well-aimed in spite of their swiftness of utterance. The chances are that one of them will recoil to impress its author afresh with its aptness, and back he will slide into the vacant chair to put that idea into visible form with his pen and wedge it in between two others." Roosevelt's methods of composing help us to understand certain features of his style. In general it is clear rather than elegant, and like the man himself, characterized by force and emphatic power rather than by 1 The Man Roosevelt, Chapter XVII. The oral method of polish and rhetorical refinement. composition that has been mentioned is perhaps responsible for two of its noticeable defects,-looseness of structure and frequent repetition. A third defect, extravagance of statement, is probably temperamental. To quote again from Mr. Leupp, "Mr. Roosevelt fairly lives in an atmosphere of superlatives. He will speak of a 'perfectly good man with a perfectly honest motive,' where all he intends to say is that the man is well-meaning. He is 'delighted' where most of us are pleased. The latest visitor is 'just the very man I wanted to see,' and 'nothing I have heard in a long time has interested me so much,' is the passing bit of information. A fourth defect, encountered occasionally, is some slight grammatical lapsea too great use, perhaps, of the split infinitive, an ambiguous use of pronouns or participles, or some other carelessness in syntactical matters. These, however, are simply evidences that Roosevelt rated the expressiveness of language above its correctness, and he would have been ready to take refuge behind the words of Thomas Jefferson, 'Whenever by small grammatical negligence the energy of an idea can be condensed or a word be made to stand for a sentence, I hold grammatical rigor in contempt,' or the remark of Henry Ward Beecher to the person who was speaking of grammatical faults in one of Beecher's sermons, 'Young man, when the English language gets in my way it doesn't stand a chance.' But what stamps any writer as great is not freedom from faults but abundance of powers. Roosevelt's style has its positive excellencies. Foremost of all, it possesses the quality of energy and vividness. He always shows the artist's eye for the concrete and picturesque, and avails himself of this gift not only in his narrative writings but as well in his essays and speeches. At times the reader becomes conscious of a great pent-up force of feeling and enthusiasm expressing itself in some striking and eloquent passage such as those which may be found in several of the selections in this book. He had also the gift of terse, epigrammatic expression which gave currency to many of his expressions in a widespread degree that was most remarkable. Sometimes he would dredge up from the past a word or phrase and give it modern use. An instance is the expression "muck-raking." This was as old as Pilgrim's Progress, but it was Roosevelt's use of the word that put it into everybody's vocabulary. More frequently the words or phrases were of his own coinage. "Malefactors of great wealth," "the big stick," and "weasel words" are a few samples of the dozens of such expressions that might be given. A fitting close to these remarks on Roosevelt's style is the comment made by Professor Trent of the English department of Columbia University in a review of The Winning of the West: "When he is at his best, Mr. Roosevelt writes as well as any man need desire to write, who is not aiming at that elusive glory of being considered a master of style. The truth of this statement will be plain to any one who will take the trouble to analyze the impression made by a rapid reading of the chapter describing the fight at King's Mountain. The effect can be summed up in a brief sentence-You are at the battle. Surely this is a better test of the quality of a man's style than can ever be furnished by minute rhetorical analysis, which would, I suspect, convict Mr. Roosevelt of offences at which a pedant would shake his head." BIBLIOGRAPHY ROOSEVELT'S BOOKS The Naval War of 1812 (1882). The Winning of the West, 4 vols. (1889-1896). American Big Game Hunting (with George Bird Grinnell) (1893). Claws and Antlers of the Rocky Mountains (1894). Hero Tales from American History (with Henry Cabot Lodge) (1895). Hunting in Many Lands (with George Bird Grinnell) (1895). American Ideals (1897, enlarged 1907). The Rough Riders (1898). The Strenuous Life (1900). Oliver Cromwell (1901). Addresses and Presidential Messages (1904). The Deer Family (1902). Outdoor Pastimes of an American Hunter (1906). Good Hunting (1907). African Game Trails (1910). Realizable Ideals (1912). Conservation of Womanhood and Childhood (1912). Theodore Roosevelt, An Autobiography (1913). A Booklover's Holidays in the Open (1916). Theodore Roosevelt's Letters to his Children (edited by J. B. BIOGRAPHIES OF ROOSEVELT, Douglas, G. W., The Many-Sided Roosevelt. Iglehart, F. C., Theodore Roosevelt: The Man as I Knew Him. Leupp, F. E., The Man Roosevelt. Morgan, J., Theodore Roosevelt, the Boy and the Man. Riis, J. A., Theodore Roosevelt the Citizen. Street, J. L., The Most Interesting American. Thayer, W. R., Theodore Roosevelt. Thwing, E., Theodore Roosevelt. Washburn, C. G., Theodore Roosevelt, the Logic of his Career. MAGAZINE ARTICLES RELATING TO ROOSEVELT The following selections from the magazine writing about Roosevelt give interesting details about various aspects of his career: |