polls, which would restore the House of Commons to life, and give it
power to express English will. But a regard for, a cultivation of, above
all a sinking of wealth upon, English Letters is past praying for. We
must wait until the tide changes; we can do nothing, and the waiting
will be long.




Jose Maria de Heredia


The French have a phrase "la beaute du verbe" by which they would
express a something in the sound and in the arrangement of words which
supplements whatever mere thought those words were intended to express.
It is evident that no definition of this beauty can be given, but it is
also evident that without it letters would not exist. How it arises we
cannot explain, yet the process is familiar to us in everything we do
when we are attempting to fulfil an impulse towards whatever is good. An
integration not of many small things but of an infinite series of
infinitely small things build up the perfect gesture, the perfect line,
the perfect intonation, and the perfect phrase. So indeed are all things
significant built up: every tone of the voice, every arrangement of
landscape or of notes in music which awake us and reveal the things
beyond. But when one says that this is especially true of perfect
expression one means that sometimes, rarely, the integration achieves a
steadfast and sufficient formula. The mind is satisfied rather than
replete. It asks no more; and if it desires to enjoy further the
pleasure such completion has given it, it does not attempt to prolong or
to develop the pleasure under which it has leapt; it is content to wait