An Anzac Muster #267044

'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.<br><br>'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.'<br><br>Picking up my friend's manuscript, I went on, steadily:<br><br>'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<br>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 find in this book of mine a vitality not staled by convention.