Style is not an end in itself, it is only a means to an end—the means of
telling a story. The writer who develops a beautiful style, but has nothing to
say, represents a kind of arrested esthetic development; he is like a pianist
who acquires a brilliant technique by playing finger-exercises, but never gives
a concert.
The typical literary product of such writers—and of their imitators, who
possess no style—are so-called “mood-studies,” popular among today’s literati,
which are little pieces conveying nothing but a certain mood. Such pieces are
not an art-form, they are merely finger-exercises that never develop into art.