The Art of Writing | Page 7

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 alliteration; and the advice was
sound, in so far as it prevented daubing. None the less for that, was it
abominable nonsense, and the mere raving of those blindest of the blind
who will not see. The beauty of the contents of a phrase, or of a
sentence, depends implicitly upon alliteration and upon assonance. The
vowel demands to be repeated; the consonant demands to be repeated;
and both cry aloud to be perpetually varied. You may follow the
adventures of a letter through any passage that has particularly pleased
you; find it, perhaps, denied a while, to tantalise the ear; find it fired
again at you in a whole broadside; or find it pass into congenerous
sounds, one liquid or labial melting away into another. And you will

find another and much stranger circumstance. Literature is written by
and for two senses: a sort of internal ear, quick to perceive 'unheard
melodies'; and the eye, which directs the pen and deciphers the printed
phrase. Well, even as there are rhymes for the eye, so you will find that
there are assonances and alliterations; that where an author is running
the open A, deceived by the eye and our strange English spelling, he
will often show a tenderness for the flat A; and that where he is running
a particular consonant, he will not improbably rejoice to write it down
even when it is mute or bears a different value.
Here, then, we have a fresh pattern--a pattern, to speak grossly, of
letters--which makes the fourth preoccupation of the prose writer, and
the fifth of the versifier. At times it is very delicate and hard to perceive,
and then perhaps most excellent and winning (I say perhaps); but at
times again the elements of this literal melody stand more boldly
forward and usurp the ear. It becomes, therefore, somewhat a matter of
conscience to select examples; and as I cannot very well ask the reader
to help me, I shall do the next best by giving him the reason or the
history of each selection. The two first, one in prose, one in verse, I
chose without previous analysis, simply as engaging passages that had
long re-echoed in my ear.
'I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and
unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out
of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without
dust and heat.' {4} Down to 'virtue,' the current S and R are both
announced and repeated unobtrusively, and by way of a grace-note that
almost inseparable group PVF is given entire. {5} The next phrase is a
period of repose, almost ugly in itself, both S and R still audible, and B
given as the last fulfilment of PVF. In the next four phrases, from 'that
never' down to 'run for,' the mask is thrown off, and, but for a slight
repetition of the F and V, the whole matter turns, almost too obtrusively,
on S and R; first S coming to the front, and then R. In the concluding
phrase all these favourite letters, and even the flat A, a timid preference
for which is just perceptible, are discarded at a blow and in a bundle;
and to make the break more obvious, every word ends with a dental,
and all but one with T, for which we have been cautiously prepared

since the beginning. The singular dignity of the first clause, and this
hammer-stroke of the last, go far to make the charm of this exquisite
sentence. But it is fair to own that S and R are used a little coarsely.
'In Xanady did Kubla Khan (KANDL) A stately pleasure dome decree,
(KDLSR) Where Alph the sacred river ran, (KANDLSR) Through
caverns measureless to man, (KANLSR) Down to a sunless sea.' {6}
(NDLS)
Here I have put the analysis of the main group alongside the lines; and
the more it is looked at, the more interesting it will seem. But there are
further niceties. In lines two and four, the current S is most delicately
varied with Z. In line three, the current flat A is twice varied with the
open A, already suggested in line two, and both times ('where' and
'sacred') in conjunction with the current R. In the same line F and V (a
harmony in themselves,