Development of Form in Literature. 



29 



of the * Oliver Optic ' novels, or unprivileged older intellects 

 that never will feel quite at home with ordinary newspaper 

 English. Hence we shall not be surprised to find five as the 

 sentence length of maximum occurrence, through 500 periods, 

 in a story in Saturday Night, — as this diagram will show. 



^^i: 



so 



is 



io 

 35 



30 

 2S 



zo 

 /s 



s 



% 



\7- 



\WvM 



S /O /S ^ ^3 30 JS iO fS so JJ 60 (,5 TO 



The analysis, therefore, which was begun so idly and in- 

 consequentially, had little by little suggested conclusions of 

 some moment. It had indicated the course of sentential 

 simplification, as also the inorganic conditions which had 

 made simplification necessary. The influence of classical 

 learning had the effect of fastening a heavy unoral diction 

 upon the English literary world. From that the race has 

 been slowly but effectually liberating itself ; so that we are 

 to-day almost emancipated from mediasvalism in literature as 

 in all things else. We have nearly unlearned how to write 

 in ponderous bookish wise, and nearly learned how to be 

 as natural with the pen as with the voice. Moreover, while 

 we have been lowering our sentence proportions to some- 

 thing like normal spoken forms, there are writers who are 



365 



