Now, here it is evident that Purple is commonplace. What else can we find about the Pimpernel that is quite true and yet really startling? Let us (for instance) call it “tasteless.” There you have it, “Little tasteless Pimpernel”—no one could read that too quickly, and it shows at the same time great knowledge of nature.
I will not weary you with every detail of the process, but I will write down my result after all the rules have been properly attended to. Read this, and see whether the lines do not fit with my canons of art, especially in what is called the “choice of words:”—
“Little tasteless Pimpernel,
Shepherd’s Holt and warning spell
Crouching in the cushat shade
Like a mond of mowry made....”
and so forth. There you have a perfect little gem. Nearly all the words are curious and well chosen, and yet the metre trips along like a railway carriage. The simplicity lies in the method; the quaint diction is quarried from Mr. Skeats’ excellent book on etymology; but I need not point out any particular work, as your “Thesaurus” in this matter is for your own choosing.
So much for the Prattling style.
As for the Obscure style, it is so easy that it is getting overdone, and I would not depend too much upon it.
In its origins, it was due to the vagaries of some gentlemen and ladies who suffered from an imperfect education, and wrote as they felt, without stopping to think.