The Principles of English Versification | Page 9

of the irregularity is possible, | | the language is
unrhythmical; and such, of course, is often | | the case in bad prose and
bad verse. | +--------------------------------------------------------------+

For practical convenience three main sorts of rhythmic prose may be
distinguished: (1) characteristic prose, or that in which no regularity
(coincidence) is easily appreciable; (2) cadenced prose, or that in which
the regularity is perceptible, but unobtrusive, and (3) metrical prose, or
that in which the regularity is so noticeable as to be unpleasing. No
very clear lines can be drawn; nor should one try to classify more than
brief passages in one group or another. And, obviously, longer
selections will combine two or more sorts in succession. A few
examples will serve to show what is meant.
* * * * *
Characteristic Prose. No prose, as has been said above, is without
rhythmic curves; but the best prose, that which always keeps in view
the best ideals of prose, carefully avoids consecutive repetitions of the
same rhythmic patterns. It is the distinction of verse to follow a chosen
pattern, with due regard to the artistic principles of variety and
uniformity; it is the distinction of prose to accomplish its object,
whether artistic or utilitarian, without encroaching on the boundaries of
its neighbor. Prose may be as 'poetic,' as charged with powerful
emotion, as possible, but it remains true prose only when it refuses to
borrow aids from the characteristic excellences of verse.
To be sure, it is not always easy to avoid regular patterns in writing the
most ordinary prose. They come uncalled; they seem to be inherent in
the language. Here is, chosen casually, the first sentence of a current
news item, written surely without artistic elaboration, and subjected,
moreover, to the uncertainties of cable transmission. It was no doubt
farthest from the correspondent's intention to write 'numerous' prose;
but notice how the sentence may be divided into a series of rhythmic
groups of two stresses each, with a fairly regular number of
accompanying unstressed syllables:
A general mobilization | in Syria has been ordered | as a reply to the
French | ultimatum to King Feisal | that he acquiesce in the French |
mandate for Syria, | according to a dispatch | to the London Times |
from Jerusalem.

No one would read the sentence with a very clear feeling of this
definite movement; in fact, to do so rather obscures the meaning. But
the potential rhythm is there, and the reader with a keen rhythmic sense
will be to some extent aware of it.
Again, there is in the following sentence from Disraeli's Endymion a
latent rhythm which actually affects the purely logical manner of
reading it:
She persisted in her dreams of riding upon elephants.
Here one almost inevitably pauses after dreams (or prolongs the word
beyond its natural length), though there is no logical reason for doing
so. Why? Partly, at least, because persisted in her dreams and of riding
upon el-have the same 'swing,' and the parallelism of mere sound seems
to require the pause.
For these reasons, then, among others, the most 'natural' spontaneous
and straightforward prose is not always the best. Study and careful
revision are necessary in order to avoid an awkward and unpleasant
monotony of rhythmic repetition, and at the same time obtain a flow of
sound which will form a just musical accompaniment to the ideas
expressed. Only the great prose masters have done this with complete
success. Of the three following examples the first is from Bacon; the
second is from Milton, who as a poet might have been expected to fall
into metre while writing emotional prose; the third is from Walter
Pater--the famous translation into words of the Mona Lisa painted by
Leonardo da Vinci. The first is elaborate but unaffected, the second is
probably spontaneous, the third highly studied.
This kind of degenerate learning did chiefly reign amongst the
schoolmen: who having sharp and strong wits, and abundance of
leisure, and small variety of reading, but their wits being shut up in the
cells of a few authors (chiefly Aristotle their dictator) as their persons
were shut up in the cells of monasteries and colleges, and knowing
little history, either of nature or time, did out of no great quantity of
matter and infinite agitation of wit spin out unto us those laborious
webs of learning which are extant in their books. For the wit and mind

of man, if it work upon matter, which is the contemplation of the
creatures of God, worketh according to the stuff and is limited thereby;
but if it work upon itself, as the spider worketh his web, then it is
endless, and brings forth indeed cobwebs of learning, admirable for the
fineness of thread and work, but of