One little indication is the love of mystifications, or what were entitled 'bites.
"English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century"
Leslie Stephen
Then I had abruptly dropped it and through all my deliberate mystifications one fact had been clear-that I spoke in the accents of an ordinary more or less educated Englishman.
"The Man From the Clouds"
J. Storer Clouston
One hopes to avoid suffering by aloofness; but there falls upon the spirit a worse sickness than the weariness of toil-the ache of pent-up activities and self-tortured mystifications.
"The Silent Isle"
Arthur Christopher Benson