ontemporary Review_ for April,
1885; and now included in Volume XXII of the "Thistle Edition":
Charles Scribner's Sons.]

Every normal sentence, unless it be 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 two-fold: 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.

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,--and 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, wher