Memorable line from
Evelyn Waugh's 1938 classic novel
Scoop.
The main character, William Boot, is a minor journalist for the newspaper The Beast who writes a small column on gardening called 'Lush Places'. To serve an insipid upper-class readership Boot adopts this flowery style of writing, to describe a rodent stalking in a marsh. While it is cited as an example of turgid prose, evidently his boss is happy with it:
"He's supposed to have a particularly high-class style: 'Feather-footed through the plashy fen passes the questing vole' ... would that be it?"
"Yes," said the Managing Editor. "That must be good style."
As a writer of such eloquence, William Boot is then naturally suited to become a war correspondent.