The object of having a style (as opposed to merely being stylish) is not to be different from other people, but to be more like yourself than nature has made you. A really good portrait is more like you than your own face. Ignore other people. Mr. Sartre says, "Hell is other people." But not if you ignore them.
You must decide who you are and be it like mad. Do not decide on a lot of bizarre mannerisms with which to encrust our self — just as a writer does not decorate boring material with bejeweled phrases (as Mr. Wilde was wont to do). Take away all the words that are irrelevant to your meaning. In other words, style is a process not of accumulation but of denudation.
Mr. Sargent said, "A portrait is a likeness with something wrong about the mouth." But really a portrait is more than that. If you are not spectacular in any way, the unspectacular is your style. You must be able to imagine someone saying to one of your acquaintances, "Come to my party and bring that hum-drum friend of yours." And everyone knows that it means you.
I was asked on one occasion if one could be dowdy and have style, and I thought immediately of Eleanor Roosevelt.
The reason why style is so important is because if you are sure of yourself you do not seize upon a group style — your class, your nationality, your sex. You can avoid this pitfall if you never use the word "we" except to mean yourself and the person to whom you are speaking. It is a mistake to say (or even to think) "we lost a football match" — I didn't loose it, you didn't loose it. Eleven other people that we don't know and have never even heard of us lost it. So, do not go raging through the streets of the Netherlands breaking everything in sight and killing many of the inhabitants.
Stay with it! Never give up!
