ry high standard of excellence. In
England we have always been prone to underrate the value of tradition in
literature. In our eagerness to find a new voice and a fresh mode of
music, we have forgotten how beautiful Echo may be. We look first for
individuality and personality, and these are, indeed, the chief
characteristics of the masterpieces of our literature, either in prose or
verse; but deliberate culture and a study of the best models, if united
to an artistic temperament and a nature susceptible of exquisite
impressions, may produce much that is admirable, much that is worthy of
praise. It would be quite impossible to give a complete catalogue of all
the women who since Mrs. Browning's day have tried lute and lyre. Mrs.
Pfeiffer, Mrs. Hamilton King, Mrs. Augusta Webster, Graham Tomson, Miss
Mary Robinson, Jean Ingelow, Miss May Kendall, Miss Nesbit, Miss May
Probyn, Mrs. Craik, Mrs. Meynell, Miss Chapman, and many others have done
really good work in poetry, either in the grave Dorian mode of thoughtful
and intellectual verse, or in the light and graceful forms of old French
song, or in the romantic manner of antique ballad, or in that 'moment's
monument,' as Rossetti called it, the intense and concentrated sonnet.
Occasionally one is tempted to wish that the quick, artistic faculty that
women undoubtedly possess developed itself somewhat more in prose and
somewhat less in verse. Poetry is for our highest moods, when we wish to
be with the gods, and in our poetry nothing but the very best should
satisfy us; but prose is for our daily bread, and the lack of good prose
is one of the chief blots on our culture. French prose, even in the
hands of the most ordinary writers, is always readable, but English prose
is detestable. We have a few, a very few, masters, such as they are. We
have Carlyle, who should not be imitated; and Mr. Pater, who, through the
subtle perfection of his form, is inimitable absolutely; and Mr. Froude,
who is useful; and Matthew Arnold, who is a model; and Mr. George
Meredith, who is a warning; and Mr. Lang, who is the divine amateur; and
Mr. Stevenson, who is the humane artist; and Mr. Ruskin, whose rhythm and
colour and fine rhetoric and marvellous music of words are entirely
unattainable. But the general prose that one reads in magazines and in
newspapers is terribly dull and cumbrous, heavy in movement and uncouth
or exaggerated in expression. Possibly some day our women of letters