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in our own it is probably decaying. The even speech of many
educated Americans sounds the note of danger. I should see it go
with something as bitter as despair, but I should not be desperate.
As in verse no element, not even rhythm, is necessary, so, in prose
also, other sorts of beauty will arise and take the place and play
the part of those that we outlive. The beauty of the expected beat
in verse, the beauty in prose of its larger and more lawless
melody, patent as they are to English hearing, are already silent
in the ears of our next neighbours; for in France the oratorical
accent and the pattern of the web have almost or altogether
succeeded to their places; and the French prose writer would be
astounded at the labours of his brother across the Channel, and how
a good quarter of his toil, above all invita Minerva, is to avoid
writing verse. So wonderfully far apart have races wandered in
spirit, and so hard it is to understand the literature next door!
Yet French prose is distinctly better than English; and French
verse, above all while Hugo lives, it will not do to place upon one
side. What is more to our purpose, a phrase or a verse in French
is easily distinguishable as comely or uncomely. There is then
another element of comeliness hitherto overlooked in this analysis:
the contents of the phrase. Each phrase in literature is built of
sounds, as each phrase in music consists of notes. One sound
suggests, echoes, demands, and harmonises with another; and the art
of rightly using these concordances is the final art in literature.
It used to be a piece of good advice to all young writers to avoid
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