Pater's style in what follows:
"In this way, according to the well-known saying, 'The style is the man,'
complex or simple, in his individuality, his plenary sense of what he
really has to say, his sense of the world: all cautions regarding style
arising out of so many natural scruples as to the medium through which
alone he can expose that inward sense of things, the purity of this
medium, its laws or tricks of refraction: nothing is to be left there
which might give conveyance to any matter save that." Clearly the author
who has to write so that the man may read who runs will fail if he wrests
this manner from its proper place, and uses it for casual articles: he
will fail to hold the vagrom attention!
Thus a great deal may be done by studying inappropriateness of style, by
adopting a style alien to our matter and to our audience. If we "haver"
discursively about serious, and difficult, and intricate topics, we fail;
and we fail if we write on happy, pleasant, and popular topics in an
abstruse and intent, and analytic style. We fail, too, if in style we go
outside our natural selves. "The style is the man," and the man will be
nothing, and nobody, if he tries for an incongruous manner, not naturally
his own, for example if Miss Yonge were suddenly to emulate the manner of
Lever, or if Mr.
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