'a record of human thought, dispensing with metre and using rhythm
laxly.' When you give genius leave to use something laxly, at its will,
genius will pretty surely get the better of you.

Observe, now, following the story of English prose, what has happened.
Its difficulty--the inherent, the native disability of prose--is to
handle the high emotional moments which more properly belong to verse.
Well, we strike into the line of our prose-writers, say as early as
Malory. We come on this; of the Passing of Arthur:--

'My time hieth fast,' said the king. Therefore said Arthur unto Sir
Bedivere, 'Take thou Excalibur my good sword, and go with it to yonder
water side; and when thou comest there I charge thee throw my sword in
that water and come again and tell me what there thou seest.' 'My
lord,' said Bedivere, 'Your commandment shall be done; and lightly
bring you word again.' So Sir Bedivere departed, and by the way he
beheld that noble sword, that the pommel and the haft was all of
precious stones, and then he said to himself, 'If I throw this rich
sword in the water, thereof shall never come good, but harm and loss.'
And then Sir Bedivere hid Excaliber under a tree. And so, as soon as he
might, he came again unto the king, and said he had been at the water
and had thrown the sword into the water, 'What saw thou there?' said
the king, 'Sir,' he said, 'I saw nothing but waves and winds.'

Now I might say a dozen things of this and of the whole passage that
follows, down to Arthur's last words. Specially might I speak to you of
the music of its monosyllables--'"What sawest you there?" said the king...
"Do as well as thou mayest; for in me is no trust for to trust in. For I
will into the Vale of Avilion, to heal me of my grievous wound. And if
thou hear never more of me, pray for my soul."' But, before making