Style is not something applied. It is something inherent, something that permeates.
It is of the nature of that in which it is found, whether the poem, the manner of a god,
the bearing of a man. It is not a dress.
– Wallace Stevens, Two or Three Ideas. 1951
This ultra-civilized tableau stopped me in my tracks. The hat, the coffee, the satchel, the book…the comfortably crossed legs and arms, the slightly open button-down. I am immediately ready to put my faith in this man’s aesthetic sensibilities. He was so absorbed that he didn’t notice me at first. When he did he asked good-naturedly (and with the faintest of what I’m guessing was a Scandinavian accent, which would explain everything) if the picture had turned out. “Not half bad!” I told him, smiling to give away that I liked it very well indeed.
Readers, here is a lesson in how to spot a gentleman.
In other news, autumn is shaping up here in Boston.
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