Product of a myriad various minds and contending tongues, compact of obscure and minute association, a language has its own abundant and often recondite laws, in the habitual and summary recognition of which scholarship consists.
ATTRIBUTION:
Walter Pater (1839–1894), British writer, educator. originally published in Fortnightly Review (Dec. 1888). “Style,” p. 9, repr. In Appreciations, with an Essay on Style, Macmillan (1889).
