Paste

Well, one thing is for sure, when reading Paste I cannot for a second forget about James. The style is as heavily controlled as the emotional displays and disclosures of the characters. The opening uses alliteration profusely, with a preponderance of s-sounds creating a hushed atmosphere surrounding the recent deaths.
"The pair of mourners, sufficiently stricken, were in the garden of the vicarage together, before luncheon, waiting to be summoned to that meal, and Arthur Prime had still in his face the intention, she was moved to call it rather than the expression, of feeling something or other. Some such appearance was in itself of course natural within a week of his stepmother's death, within three of his father's; but what was most present to the girl, herself sensitive and shrewd, was that he seemed somehow to brood without sorrow, to suffer without what in her own case she would have called pain." (James, 84).
Within and without are both repeated twice in the second sentence, emphasizing the sudden loss of Arthur's parents in such a short time. Both of these suspensive sentences leave the emotion to the end, where it evidently rests in the minds of the characters behind all of their outward appearances. James' sentences, with all of their interruptions, really do seem to make everything more complicated than it really is.

The dialogue in this story is so mannered that it seems hardly to vary from James' narration. It is rather sparse, and so embedded in the narration that it doesn't stand out.

"This career could not have been eminent and must much more probably have been comfortless.
'You see what it is--old stuff of the time she never liked to mention.'
Our young woman gave a start; her companion had, after all, rejoined her and had apparently watched a moment her slightly scared recognition. 'So I said to myself,' she replied. Then, to show intelligence, yet keep clear of twaddle: 'How peculiar they look!'
'They look awful,' said Arthur Prime. 'Cheap gilt, diamonds as big as potatoes. These are the trappings of a ruder age than ours. Actors do themselves better now.'" (James, 85).

James' introductory sentence, followed by interjection, dominates Charlotte's two sentence response to Arthur. When the dialogue begins with Arthur's "you see," after a dense paragraph of family history, the you is the only thing jarring. The rest of the material in the sentence "old stuff of the time she never liked to mention" seems to conclude the previous paragraph, which begins with Charlotte looking at the jewelery. The narration continues in the second person with "our young woman," this time including the reader in the narrator's world. Arthur's final comment could easily be rewritten as part of the narrative, rather than dialogue. It sounds like James' voice speaking through Arthur. This dialogue reminds me of the Lydia Davis piece, "They Take Turns Using a Word They Like," in that it is more about the social conventions being expressed than the actual conversation.

Still, not all of James' language is formal. Oddly, he sometimes includes colloquialisms in the narration, while the characters speak very properly, and then inverts, allowing a bit of slang to creep into the dialogue, while the narration becomes exaggeratedly proper.

"'Not a nobody to whom somebody--well, not a nobody with diamonds. It isn't all worth, this trash, five pounds.'
There was something in the old gewgaws that spoke to her, and she continued to turn them over. 'They're relics. I think they have their melancholy and even their dignity.'" (James, 85).

Arthur's comment sounds conversational in his use of "trash" but the phrasing of the second sentence with "this trash" as interruption sounds mannered. James then uses "gewgaws" to describe the jewelery, which seems more like a word that Charlotte would use than James. Finally, Charlotte responds to Arthur in a very proper tone, with words like "melancholy" and "dignity" restoring the former "trash." This technique in the dialogue and narration makes it seem as if James is going in and out of his characters' heads. Perhaps that makes him a more credible narrator.