chief good qualities of verse; but this our accidental versifier,
still following after the swift gait and large gestures of prose,
does not so much as aspire to imitate. Lastly, since he remains
unconscious that he is making verse at all, it can never occur to
him to extract those effects of counterpoint and opposition which I
have referred to as the final grace and justification of verse,
and, I may add, of blank verse in particular.

4. Contents of the Phrase.--Here is a great deal of talk about
rhythm--and naturally; for in our canorous language rhythm is
always at the door. But it must not be forgotten that in some
languages this element is almost, if not quite, extinct, and that
in our own it is probably decaying. The even speech of many
educated Americans sounds the note of danger. I should see it go
with something as bitter as despair, but I should not be desperate.
As in verse no element, not even rhythm, is necessary, so, in prose
also, other sorts of beauty will arise and take the place and play
the part of those that we outlive. The beauty of the expected beat
in verse, the beauty in prose of its larger and more lawless
melody, patent as they are to English hearing, are already silent
in the ears of our next neighbours; for in France the oratorical
accent and the pattern of the web have almost or altogether
succeeded to their places; and the French prose writer would be
astounded at the labours of his brother across the Channel, and how
a good quarter of his toil, above all invita Minerva, is to avoid
writing verse. So wonderfully far apart have races wandered in
spirit, and so hard it is to understand the literature next door!

Yet French prose is distinctly better than English; and French
verse, above all while Hugo lives, it will not do to place upon one