An Anzac Muster. E-book. Formato PDF - 9780259659563

'My good friend,' I said, frankly, 'so much honour would prove too great a burden for shoulders that have hitherto borne none. You suggest that I insert this preface of yours, this prefatory trumpet, before my bald matter. With kindness, then, you would kill me indeed.

'Why, take your first paragraph, without more. Though but the fanfare, is it not loud enough, look you, to wake a multitude of sharp mouths that were else quiet? Alas, it is! With it alone you would wreck me.'

Picking up my friend's manuscript, I went on, steadily:

'After quoting the well-worn aphorism that style is the man's self, you say, squinting at me, that, if an author be simple, strong, and direct, you will not
quarrel with him if his work want the thin niceties that look well enough in the productions of less robust writers - that, if it be vigorous, if it be unsapped and not overlaid with sophistication, and if, above all, it convey the sense of a spirit communicated, that work of his is not to be despised. You affirm that you ?nd in this book of mine a vitality not staled by convention.