The Portland daily press., 1876-03-21
An Indictment of Modern Prose.

al 1uuACtlhCuJ VI IuUuCIH IIUSe.
There appears in the Fortnightly Review
an article on Modern English Prose which is
as remarkable for the beauty and perfection
OF its style as for the severe and lofty stand
ard which it sets up for the guidance of the
prosist. The author, George Saintsbury,
insists that as strict rules and requirements
should control the construction of our prose
as of our poetry, and that the same censure
which is now incurred by haltiDg verse, a
diseordant rhyme, or clumsy stanza, should
be accorded to faultily- arranged clause, to a
sentence of inharmonious cadence, to para
graph ofirregular and ungraceful architect
ure. He contends that there is to day appar-
ent an extraordinary deterioration in the
construction of English prose, deteriora-
tion which he attributes not to an actual de-
cay but to temporary neglect of style; for,
as he eloquently says, "the resources which
in the very beginning of the practice oforiginal
composition in fully organized English could
produce the splendid and thoughtful, if quaint
and cumbrous embroideries of sEuphues' and
the linked sweetness of the 'Arcada,' which
could give utterance to the symphonies of
Browne and Milton, which could furnish and
suffice for the matchless simplicity of Bunyan,
the splendid strength of Swift, the transpar-
ent clearness of Middleton and Berkeley, the
stately architecture of Glbbon, are assuredIy
equal to the demands of any genius that NAV
arise to employ them"
The complaints that he brings against
modern prose are of diffuseness, sacrifice of
the graces of literary proportion 10 real or
apparent clearness of statement, indulgence
in cut-anddried phrases, undue aiming at
pictorial effect, gaudiness of unnatural orna-
ment, preference of gross and glaring effects
en- bloc to careful composition. These defects
he attributes to various causes, among them
the great influence of journalism. While he
cordially acknowledges that journalism aims
at and not seldom reaches high standard of
excellence, he contends with great reason
that its influence upon the higher excellence
of style cannot possibly be good, for it must
at any cost be rapid; and rapidity is abso-
lutely incompatible with style. The journal
isl has as rule one of two things to do; he
has either to give rapid account of certain
facts, or to present rapid discussion of cer-
tain arguments. In either case it becomes
matter of necessity for him to adopt stereo-
typed phrases and forms of speech which,
being ready cut and dried, may abbreviate
his labor and leave him as little as possible to
invent in his limited time. Then too, he is
under constant temptation to sacrifice every
thing to mere picturesqueness of style. This
tendency of journalism is assisted by another
current form of literature, novel-writing. Of
the four constituent elements of the novel,
plot, character. description, and dialogue,
none lend themselves in any great degree to
the cultivation of the higher forms of style,
and some are distinctly opposed to it, tending
to develop the faults of ungraceful periods, of
picturesqueness at any ccst, of neglect of
purely literary effect. The growth of scien-
tific study has called away attention from
many of the departments of literature which
were most favorable TO the cultivation of
style. Even the forum and the pulpit are
forsaking stylstic traditions, and history,
"almost the last refuge of decent and come
ly prose, is more busy about records and
manuscripts than about periods and para
graphs" Whatever labor is bestowed is on
ornament and trick rather than on really
artistic construction and finish.
To remedy this condition of affairs the
author insists that the same recognition
which poetry has so long enjoyed must be
granted to prose, that prose must be recog-
nized as an art with strict rules and require
ments. Tie writer must not "succumb to
the easy diffu seness which may obliterate the
just proportion and equilibrium of his periods.
He will not avail himself of the ready assis-
tance of stereotyped phraseology to spare
himself the trouble Of casting new moulds
and devising new patterns. He will not inn
aglne that he is scene-painter instead of a
prose-writer, decorator instead of an archi-
tect, caterer for the desires of the many
instead of priest to the worship OF the few.
He will not indulge in a style which requires
the maximum of ornament in order to disguise
and render palatabe the minimum of art and
of thought. He will not consider it his duty
to provide at the least possible cost Of INTEL
lectual effort on the part of the reader, some-
thing which may delude him into the idea
that he is exercising his judgment and his
taste. And, above all, he will be careful that
his sentences have an independent complete
ness aud harmony, no matter what purpose
they may be designed to fulfil. For the SEN
tence is the unit of style; and by the cadence
and music, as well as by the purport and
bearing of his sentences, the master of style
must stand or fall"