OUR FACILE MASTERY OF ENGLISH II 



II 



But whatever we believe about the rights, services and possibilities 

 of words, we may readily agree with the delightful Frenchman as to 

 the ease of composition: "After you have your words, all you have 

 to do, in order to write effective prose, is to arrange them one beside 

 another." What could be simpler, for instance, than the following 

 description of the life and lot of the citizens of Burgdale from the pen 

 of William Morris ? 



Thus then lived this folk, in much plenty and ease of life, though not deli- 

 cately nor desiring things out of measure. They wrought with their hands and 

 wearied themselves; and they rested from their toil and feasted and were merry: 

 tomorrow was not a burden to them, nor yesterday a thing which they would fain 

 forget: life shamed them not, nor did death make them afraid. 



Or what could be easier to write than this assertion about America ? 



For a century past she has drawn to herself, by an irresistible attraction, the 

 boldest, the most masterful, the most practically intelligent of Europe; just as, 

 by the same law, she has repelled the sensitive, the contemplative and the devout. 

 Unconsciously, by the mere fact of her existence, she has sifted the nations; the 

 children of the Spirit have slipped through the iron net of her destinies, but the 

 children of the World she has gathered into her granaries. She has thus become, 

 in a sense peculiar and unique, the type and exemplar of the Western world. 

 Over her unencumbered plains the Genius of Industry ranges unchallenged, 

 naked, unashamed. 



Now if William Morris, or Mr. Dickinson or any other of the 

 greater prose stylists can make the heart beat by such an easy and 

 unstudied passage, and if their long years of practice generally result 

 in some such facile simplicity, why should the rest of us not adopt, 

 or rather indulge, a natural spontaneous style from the beginning? 

 The conclusion is inescapable. 



On the other hand, many literary men, as well as eminent scientists 

 and other scrupulous thinkers, have really felt that there was difficulty 

 in writing English, but that the effort was worth while. Huxley, for 

 instance, made the following admission some twenty years ago, 

 when he was the busiest man in England: "The fact is that I have a 

 great love and respect for my native tongue, and take great pains 

 to use it properly. Sometimes I write essays half-a-dozen times before 



