e
extremely brief, contains a knot, or hitch. Up to a certain point, the
thought is progressively complicated; after that, it is resolved. Now,
the art of style demands that this natural implication and explication
of the thought should be attended by a cognate implication and
explication of the movement of the sentence. Unless the hitch in the
rhythm coincides with the hitch in the thought, the two appeals of the
sentence (to the intellect and to the ear) will contest against each
other instead of combining to accomplish a common effect. Therefore
the first necessity in weaving a web of words is to conquer an
accordance between the intellectual progression of the thought and the
sensuous progression of the sound. The appeal of rhythm to the human
ear is basic and elemental; and style depends for its effect more upon
a mastery of rhythmic phrase than upon any other individual detail. In
verse, the technical problem is twofold: first, to suggest to the ear
of the reader a rhythmic pattern of standard regularity; and then, to
vary from the regularity suggested, as deftly and as frequently as may
be possible without ever allowing the reader for a moment to forget
the fundamental pattern. In prose, the writer works with greater
freedom; and his problem is therefore at once more easy and more
difficult. Instead of starting with a standard pattern, he has to
invent a web of rhythm which is suited to the sense he wishes to
convey; and then, without ever disappointing the ear of the reader by
unnecessarily withholding an expected fall of rhythm, he must shatter
every inkling of monotony by continual and tasteful variation.

=The Pattern of Literation.=--But language, by its very nature, offers
to the ear not only a pattern of rhythm but also a pattern of letters. A
mastery of literation is therefore a necessary element of style.
Effects indisputably potent in suggestion may be gained by running a
recurrence of certain letters, deftly for a time withheld,--since
blatancy must always be avoided,--yet triumphant in harmonious return.
The great sentences of literature which echo in our ears because their
sound is married to their meaning will be found upon examination to
incorporate an intricate pattern of tastefully selected letters. Thus it
is with the following sentence of Sir Thomas Browne's, wherein it is
difficult to decide whether the rhythm or the literation contributes
the larger share to its symmetry of sound:--"But the i