Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-06-29

/ pose Of the sentence. Sentences are
bridges, joining the shores of thought
Each does not exist SO much for itself
as for every other sentence, and all fol
the thought. 1t Is beautiful case OF
''all for one and one for ALL" If beauty
and exaltation result, they are the gifts
Of God to writer and reader.
To stop with a period, and then sud-
denly clamor that something Is wrong
Is the pernicious error Of jumping tc
conclusions. Of inferring something OF
other which may or not be true, but
which undoubtedly would resolve itself
at once If the reader would do the
writer the justice Of reading on.
Read on, then, never forgetting, In
whatever you read, that prose Is the
instrument of most human beings be-
cause 1t Is the more flexible, more
easily mastered vehicle Of thought, the
one in which The average person can
come the nearest to expressing Just
what he actually thinks.
One must be master, indeed, to do
the same thing in verse. Yet to the
man to whom meter Is Sublimely natu-
raj, as it was to Shakespeare, to Pope
to mention but two-the poetical me-
dunn Is a happy form Of expression.
There can be little question that
Alexander Pope could not have eX-
pressed himself SO succinctly and tell
ingly in prose as he did in his couplets;
not that his prose Is not good, but that
it is not as compelling as his poetry.
No man ever said what he wanted to
say any more clearly than Pope did.
There is not an idea In his poems which
leaves any reader In any doubt. Even
the lapse of years has not MADE MIN
obscure. despite the many changes
which years invariably bring.
This is all the more remarkable, since
those changes have been startling IN
regard to many of the common prac-
tees of everyday living.
# r
When Alexander Pope began to write,
as q young man, few persons IN Eng
land used soap.
A Scotsman who came to London and
established a soap works IN 17l2 had q
hard time making a living.
Soap was looked upon with doubt
and suspicion. 1t is said that even in
court circles 1t was not considered a
necessity.
The antiseptic quality of Pope's
thought, however, the clarity OF its eX-
preston, was then just as it is now, a
triumph Of the human mind.
If you, dear reader, can handle the
verse form as well, by all means stick
to 1t, but if you have any doubts in the
matter, swear to be faithful to plain,
honest prose.
It is we'll to look for grace, for beauty,
for novelty, for that pleasing felicity
which is at once the glory of writers
and the delight of readers, but it is
necessary before all that you write so
other people can understand you, and
that you read with the same under
standing.
He who cannot manage all this in
verse may very we'll run the chance of
doing 1t with simple prose, that is why
a respect for it is so necessary. Be-
cause prose has been hornswoggled by
some writer's, and made to do evil in a
fair world, is no reason why any one
should regard it with suspicion.
Perhaps the people who turn so
easily to attempting to write poetry"
as they call it, need even more better
appreciation of the high aims and ideals
of verse, and Of its sheer grandeur,
when turned out by its masters 1t is
means of expression for the genius,
not for the grounding.