are singularly bad. Anyone could be obscure in so simple a fashion. It behoves the student rather to read carefully such lines as the following, in which I have again tackled the Pimpernel, this time in the Obscure manner.
I begin with “What Pimpernels,” which might mean “What! Pimpernels?” or, “What Pimpernels?” or again, “What Pimpernels!”; expressing surprise, or a question, or astonished admiration: but do you think I am going to give the show away by telling the reader what I mean? Not a bit of it. There is something in our island temper which loves mystery: something of the North. I flatter myself I can do it thoroughly:—
“What Pimpernels; a rare indulgence blesses
The winter wasting in imperfect suns
And Pimpernels are in the waning, runs
A hand unknown the careless winter dresses,
Not for your largess to the ruined fells,
Her floors in waste, I call you, Pimpernels.”
There! I think that will do very fairly well. One can make sense out of it, and it is broad and full, like a modern religion; it has many aspects, and it makes men think. There is not one unusual word, and the second line is a clear and perfect bit of English. Yet how deep and solemn and thorough is the whole!
And yet, for all my ability in these matters, I may not offer an example for the reader to follow. I am conscious of something more powerful (within this strict channel), and I am haunted reproachfully by a great soul. May I quote what none but She could have written? It is the most perfect thing that modern England knows. Every lesson I might painfully convey there stands manifest, of itself, part of the Created Thing.