216 NOTES ON STYLE 



Less attention has hitherto been paid to prose in England 

 than to poetry. Spontaneity and freedom I had almost 

 written insubordination are distinctive notes of the English 

 literary spirit. We do not readily submit to the discipline 

 of academies or the dictates of arch-critics. We are intolerant 

 of rules, and jealous lest so-called ' Correction ' should impair 

 the native force of the idiom. What genius and instinct 

 enable us to do, is done vigorously and well. Therefore 

 poetry, being, as Mr. M. Arnold observed, mainly a matter 

 of genius, has thriven in our island ; and without self- 

 laudation we can challenge all literatures, except perhaps 

 the Greek, to match the English in this field. But the 

 rhythms, the cadences, the necessary limitations, the specific 

 graces of prose style, considered as a branch of literary art, 

 have been neglected. Few people who read English prose 

 reflect upon the manner of a writer. They are satisfied if 

 they can grasp his meaning, and require from him no more, 

 being apparently unconscious of the psychological relation 

 between thought and its expression. Much has still to be 

 done by us before the just medium between bald, breathless 

 prepositions and cumbrous, long-winded periods shall be 

 reached. The elasticity, the vivid clarity of phrase, the 

 distinction of each several proposition, which characterise 

 the more felicitously developed organ of written speech in 

 France, have yet to be attained by us. It might almost be 

 asserted that we are at present as far behind the French 

 as the Germans are behind ourselves in the art of average 

 prose. 



