4. CONTENTS OF THE PHRASE. - Here is a great deal of talk
about rhythm - and naturally; for in our canorous language
rhythm is always at the door. But it must not be forgotten
that in some languages this element is almost, if not quite,
extinct, and that 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.
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