Our civility, England determines the style of, inasmuch as England is the strongest of the family of existing nations, and as we are the expansion of that people. It is that of a trading nation; it is a shopkeeping civility. The English lord is a retired shopkeeper, and has the prejudices and timidities of that profession.
From the early days of the telegraph, to be a telegrapher was a job, and there weren't many of those folks. They could recognize each other's style by their dots and dashes. They called that the "fist." St. George, they have a fist. You taste something from St. George, even across categories - the gin, the whisky - it tastes like something from St. George. It's the same as going to a great bar: You get the soul of the person making it.
From the early days of the telegraph, to be a telegrapher was a job, and there weren't many of those folks. They could recognize each other's style by their dots and dashes.
What woeful stuff this madrigal would be, In some starved hackney sonneteer, or me! But let a lord once own the happy lines, How the wit brightens! how the style refines!
Style is the physiognomy of the mind. It is more infallible than that of the body. To imitate the style of another is said to be wearing a mask. However beautiful it may be, it is through its lifelessness insipid and intolerable, so that even the most ugly living face is more engaging.
From the early days of the telegraph, to be a telegrapher was a job, and there weren't many of those folks. They could recognize each other's style by their dots and dashes.