It is at this point that I must introduce you to a most perfect principle. It is called the Mutation of Adjectives--it is almost the whole art of Occ. verse. This principle consists in pulling out one’s first obvious adjective, and replacing it by another of similar length, _chosen because it is peculiar_. You must not put in an adjective that could not possibly apply; for instance, you must not speak of the “Ponderous Rabbit” or the “Murky Beasts;” your adjective must be applicable, but it must be startling, as “The Tolerant Cow,” “The Stammering Minister,” or “The Greasy Hill”--all quite true and most unexpected. Now, here it is evident that Purple is commonplace. What else can we find about the Pimpernel that is quite true and yet really startling? Let us (for instance) call it “tasteless.” There you have it, “Little tasteless Pimpernel”--no one could read that too quickly, and it shows at the same time great knowledge of nature. I will not weary you with every detail of the process, but I will write down _my_ result after all the rules have been properly attended to. Read this, and see whether the lines do not fit with my canons of art, especially in what is called the “choice of words:”-- “Little tasteless Pimpernel, Shepherd’s Holt and warning spell Crouching in the cushat shade Like a mond of mowry made....” and so forth. There you have a perfect little gem. Nearly all the words are curious and well chosen, and yet the metre trips along like a railway carriage. The simplicity lies in the method; the quaint diction is quarried from Mr. Skeats’ excellent book on etymology; but I need not point out any particular work, as your “Thesaurus” in this matter is for your own choosing. So much for the Prattling style. As for the Obscure style, it is so easy that it is getting overdone, and I would not depend too much upon it. In its origins, it was due to the vagaries of some gentlemen and ladies who suffered from an imperfect education, and wrote as they felt, without stopping to think. But that first holy rapture cannot be recovered. We must work by rule. The rules attaching to this kind of work are six:-- (1) Put the verb in the wrong place (some leave it out altogether); (2) Use words that may be either verbs or nouns--plurals are very useful; (3) Punctuate insufficiently; (4) Make a special use of phrases that have two or three meanings; (5) Leave out relatives; (6) Have whole sentences in apposition. Some of our young poets have imagined that the mere use of strange words made up the Obscure style. I need not say that they were wrong. Thus, the lines-- “And shall I never tread them more, My murrant balks of wealden lathes?” 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.