But he had come to understand Hester's taste so far as to know certain
qualities she would not like in a song; he could even be sure she would
like this one or that; and although of many he could not be certain,
having never reached the grounds of her judgment, he had not yet
offended her with any he brought her--and so by degrees he had generated
the resolve to venture something himself in the hope of pleasing her: he
flattered himself he knew her _style_! He was very fond of the
word, and had an idea that all writers, to be of any account, must
fashion their style after that of this or the other master. How the
master got it, or whether it might not be well to go back to the seed
and propagate no more by cutting, it never occurred to him to ask. In
the prospect of one day reaching the bloom of humanity in the
conservatory of the upper house, he already at odd moments cultivated
his style by reading aloud the speeches of parliamentary orators; but
the thought never came to him that there was no such thing _per se_
as _speaking well_, that there was no cause of its existence except
_thinking well_, were the grandfather, and _something to say_
the father of if--something so well worth saying that it gave natural
utterance to its own shape.
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