SOURCE: "William Hazlitt and His 'Familiar Style'," in Essays on the Essay: Redefining the Genre, edited by Alexander J. Butrym, University of Georgia Press, 1989, pp. 116-25.

In the essay that follows, Enright discusses the careful balance between stiff overformality and amateurish lack of style that characterizes the ideal of Hazlitt's "Familiar Style."

Coming forward and seating himself on the ground in his white dress and tightened turban, the chief of the Indian Jugglers begins with tossing up two brass balls, which is what any of us could do, and concludes with keeping up four at the same time, which is what none of us could do to save our lives, not if we were to take our whole lives to do it in. Is it then a trifling power we see at work, or is it not something next to miraculous?

—"The Indian Jugglers" (Works, VIII)

The wonder...