Part 2

Whereupon the steadfast parson proceeds to assure the company that whatever he may have in his male [wallet] there is none of your light-minded and fictitious verse in it; nothing but grave and reverend prose.

This Persoun him answerede al at oones: Thou getest fable noon i-told for me.

(And you will presently observe that "fable" in the parson's mind means very much the same with verse or poetry, and that the whole business of fiction--that same fiction which has now come to occupy such a commanding place with us moderns, and which we are to study with such reverence under its form of the novel--implies downright lying and wickedness.)

Thou getist fable noon i-told for me; For Paul, that writeth unto Timothe, Repreveth hem that weyveth soothfastnesse. And tellen fables and such wrecchednesse, etc.,

For which I say, if that yow list to heere Moralite and virtuous mateere,

(That is--as we shall presently see--_prose_).

And thanne that ye will geve me audience, I wol ful fayne at Cristes reverence, Do you pleasaunce leful, as I can; But trusteth wel, I am a Suthern man, I can nat geste, rum, ram, ruf, by letter, Ne, God wot, rym hold I but litel better; And therfor, if yow list, I wol not glose, I wol yow telle a mery tale in prose.

Here our honest parson, (and he was honest;) I am frightfully tempted to go clean away from my path and read that heart-filling description of him which Chaucer gives in the general Prologue to the _Canterbury Tales_ sweeps away the whole literature of verse and of fiction with the one contemptuous word "glose"--by which he seems to mean a sort of shame-faced lying all the more pitiful because done in verse--and sets up prose as the proper vehicle for "moralite and virtuous mateere."

With this idea of the function of prose, you will not be surprised to find, as I read these opening sentences of the pastor's so-called tale, that the style is rigidly sententious, and that the movement of the whole is like that of a long string of proverbs, which, of course, presently becomes intolerably droning and wearisome. The parson begins:

"Many ben the weyes espirituels that leden folk to our Lord Ihesu Crist, and to the regne of glorie; of whiche weyes ther is a ful noble wey, which may not faile to no man ne to womman, that thurgh synne hath mysgon fro the right wey of Jerusalem celestial; and this wey is cleped penitence. Of which men schulden gladly herken and enquere with al here herte, to wyte, what is penitence, and whens is cleped penitence? And in what maner and in how many maneres been the acciones or workynge of penitence, and how many speces ben of penitence, and which thinges apperteynen and byhoven to penitence and whiche thinges destourben penitence."

In reading page after page of this bagpipe-bass, one has to remember strenuously all the moral beauty of the Parson's character in order to forgive the droning ugliness of his prose. Nothing could better realize the description which Tennyson's _Northern Farmer_ gives of _his_ parson's manner of preaching and the effect thereof:

An' I hallus comed to t' choorch afoor my Sally wur dead, An' 'eerd un a bummin' awaay loike a buzzard-clock ower my yead; An' I niver knaw'd what a meaned, but I thowt a 'ad summut to saay, An' I thowt a said what a owt to 'a said, an' I comed awaay.

It must be said, however, in justice to Chaucer, that he writes better prose than this when he really sets about telling a tale. What the Parson calls his "tale" turns out, to the huge disgust, I suspect, of several other pilgrims besides the host, to be nothing more than a homily or sermon, in which the propositions about penitence, with many minor heads and sub-divisions, are unsparingly developed to the bitter end. But in the _Tale of Meliboeus_ his inimitable faculty of story-telling comes to his aid, and determines his sentences to a little more variety and picturesqueness, though the sententious still predominates. Here, for example, is a bit of dialogue between Meliboeus and his wife, which I selected because, over and above its application here as early prose, we will find it particularly suggestive presently when we come to compare it with some dialogue in George Eliot's _Adam Bede_, where the conversation is very much upon the same topic.

It seems that Meliboeus, being still a young man, goes away into the fields, leaving his wife Prudence and his daughter--whose name some of the texts give in its Greek form as Sophia, while others, quaintly enough, call her Sapience, translating the Greek into Latin--in the house. Thereupon "three of his olde foos" (says Chaucer) "have it espyed, and setten laddres to the walles of his hous, and by the wyndowes ben entred, and beetyn his wyf, and wounded his daughter with fyve mortal woundes, in fyve sondry places, that is to sayn, in here feet, in her handes, in here eres, in her nose, and in here mouth; and lafte her for deed, and went away." Meliboeus assembles a great counsel of his friends, and these advise him to make war, with an interminable dull succession of sententious maxims and quotations which would merely have maddened a modern person to such a degree that he would have incontinently levied war upon his friends as well as his enemies. But after awhile Dame Prudence modestly advises against the war. "This Meliboeus answerde unto his wyf Prudence: 'I purpose not,' quod he, 'to werke by this counseil, for many causes and resouns; for certes every wight wolde holde me thanne a fool, this is to sayn, if I for thy counseil wolde chaunge things that affirmed ben by somany wise.

Secondly, I say that alle wommen be wikked, and noon good of hem alle. For of a thousand men, saith Solomon, I find oon good man; but certes of alle wommen good womman find I never noon. And also certes, if I governede am by thy counseil, it schulde seme that I hadde given to the over me the maistry; and God forbid er it so were. For Ihesus Syrac saith,'" etc., etc. You observe here, although this is dialogue between man and wife, the prose nevertheless tends to the sententious, and every remark must be supported with some dry old maxim or epigrammatic saw. Observe too, by the way,--and we shall find this point most suggestive in studying the modern dialogue in George Eliot's novels, etc.,--that there is absolutely no individuality or personality in the talk; Meliboeus drones along exactly as his friends do, and his wife quotes old authoritative saws, just as he does. But Dame Prudence replies,--and all those who are acquainted with the pungent Mrs. Poyser in George Eliot's _Adam Bede_ will congratulate Meliboeus that his foregoing sentiments concerning woman were uttered five hundred years before that lady's tongue began to wag,--"When Dame Prudence, ful debonerly and with gret pacience, hadde herd al that her housbande liked for to saye, thanne axede sche of him license for to speke, and sayde in this wise: 'My Lord,' quod sche, 'as to your firste resoun, certes it may lightly be answered; for I say it is no foly to chaunge counsel when the thing is chaungid, or elles when the thing semeth otherwise than it was bifoore.'" This very wise position she supports with argument and authority, and then goes on boldly to attack not exactly Solomon's wisdom, but the number of data from which he drew it. "'And though that Solomon say _he_ fond never good womman, it folwith nought therfore that alle wommen ben wicked; for though that he fonde noone goode wommen, certes many another man hath founden many a womman ful goode and trewe.'" (Insinuating, what is doubtless true, that the finding of a good woman depends largely on the kind of man who is looking for her.)

After many other quite logical replies to all of Meliboeus' positions, Dame Prudence closes with the following argument: "And moreover, whan oure Lord hadde creat Adam oure forme fader, he sayde in this wise, Hit is not goode to be a man alone; makes we to him an help semblable to himself. Here may ye se that, if that a womman were not good, and hir counseil good and profytable, oure Lord God of heven would neither have wrought hem, ne called hem help of man, but rather confusion of man. And ther sayde oones a clerk in two versus, What is better than gold? Jasper. And what is better than jasper? Wisdom. And what is better than wisdom? Womman. And what is better than a good womman? No thing."

When we presently come to contrast this little scene between man and wife in what may fairly be called the nearest approach to the modern novel that can be found before the fifteenth century, we shall find a surprising number of particulars, besides the unmusical tendency to run into the sententious or proverbial form, in which the modern mode of thought differs from that of the old writers from whom Chaucer got his Meliboeus.

This sententious monotune (if I may coin a word) of the prose, when falling upon a modern ear, gives almost a comical tang, even to the gravest utterances of the period. For example, here are the opening lines of a fragment of prose from a MS. in the Cambridge University Library, reprinted by the early English Text Society in the issue for 1870. It is good, pithy reading, too. It is called "The Six Wise Masters' Speech of Tribulation."

Observe that the first sentence, though purely in the way of narrative, is just as sententious in form as the graver proverbs of each master that follow.

It begins:

Here begynyth A shorte extracte, and tellyth how par ware sex masterys assemblede, ande eche one askede oper quhat thing pai sholde spek of gode, and all pei war acordet to spek of tribulacoun.

The fyrste master seyde, pat if ony thing hade bene mor better to ony man lewynge in this werlde pan tribulacoun, god wald haue gewyne it to his sone. But he sey wyell that thar was no better, and tharfor he gawe it hum, and mayde hume to soffer moste in this wrechede worlde than euer dyde ony man, or euermore shall.

The secunde master seyde, pat if par wer ony man pat mycht be wyth-out spote of sine, as god was, and mycht levyn bodely pirty yheris wyth-out mete, ande also were dewote in preyinge pat he mycht speke wyth angele in pe erth, as dyde mary magdalene, yit mycht he not deserve in pat lyffe so gret meyde as A man deservith in suffring of A lytyll tribulacoun.

The threde master seyde, pat if the moder of gode and all the halowys of hewyn preyd for a man, pei should not get so gret meyde as he should hymselfe be meknes and suffryng of tribulacoun.

Now asking you, as I pass, to remember that I have selected this extract, like the others, with the further purpose of presently contrasting the _substance_ of it with modern utterances, as well as the _form_ which we are now mainly concerned--if we cut short this search after artistic prose in our earlier literature, and come down at once to the very earliest sign of a true feeling for the musical movement of prose sentences, we are met by the fact, which I hope to show is full of fruitful suggestions upon our present studies, that the art of English prose is at least eight hundred years younger than the art of English verse. For, in coming down our literature from Caedmon--whom, in some conflict of dates, we can safely place at 670--the very first writer I find who shows a sense of the rhythmical flow and gracious music of which our prose is so richly capable, is Sir Thomas Malory; and his one work, _The History of King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table_, dates 1469-70, exactly eight hundred years after Caedmon's poetic outburst.

Recalling our extracts just read, and remembering how ungainly and awkward was the sport of their sentences, listen for a moment to a few lines from Sir Thomas Malory. I think the most unmusical ear, the most cursory attention, cannot fail to discern immediately how much more flowing and smooth is the movement of this. I read from the fifth chapter of King Arthur.

"And King Arthur was passing wrath for the hurt of Sir Griflet. And by and by he commanded a man of his chamber that his best horse and armor be without the city on to-morrow-day. Right so in the morning he met with his man and his horse, and so mounted up and dressed his shield, and took his spear, and bade his chamberlain tarry there till he came again." Presently he meets Merlin and they go on together.

"So as they went thus talking, they came to the fountain and the rich pavilion by it. Then King Arthur was ware where a knight sat all armed in a chair. 'Sir Knight,' said King Arthur, 'for what cause abidest thou here? that there may no knight ride this way but if he do joust with thee?' said the King. 'I rede thee leave that custom,' said King Arthur.

'This custom,' said the knight, 'have I used and will use, maugre who saith nay; and who is grieved with my custom, let him amend it that will.'

'I will amend it,' said King Arthur, 'And I shall defend it,' said the knight." (Observe _will_ and _shall_ here).

Here, you observe not only is there musical flow of single sentences, but one sentence remembers another and proportions itself thereto--if the last was long, this, is shorter or longer, and if one calls for a certain tune, the most calls for a different tune--and we have not only grace but variety. In this variety may be found an easy test of artistic prose. If you try to read two hundred lines of Chaucer's _Meliboeus_ or his _Parson's Tale_ aloud, you are presently oppressed with a sense of bagpipishness in your own voice which becomes intolerable; but you can read Malory's _King Arthur_ aloud from beginning to end with a never-cloying sense of proportion and rhythmic flow.

I wish I had time to demonstrate minutely how much of the relish of all fine prose is due to the arrangement of the sentences in such a way that consecutive sentences do not call for the same tune; for example, if one sentence is sharp antithesis--you know the well-marked speech tune of an antithesis, "do you mean _this_ book, or do you mean _that_ book?" you must be careful in the next sentence to vary the tune from that of the antithesis.

In the prose I read you from Chaucer and from the old manuscript, a large part of the intolerableness is due to the fact that nearly every sentence involves the tune of an aphorism or proverb, and the iteration of the same pitch-successions in the voice presently becomes wearisome. This fault--of the succession of antithetic ideas so that the voice becomes weary of repeating the same contrariety of accents--I can illustrate very strikingly in a letter which I happen to remember of Queen Elizabeth, whom I have found to be a great sinner against good prose in this particular.

Here is part of a letter from her to King Edward VI. concerning a portrait of herself which it seems the king had desired. (Italicised words represent antithetic accents.)

"Like as the rich man that daily gathereth _riches_ to _riches_, and to _one_ bag of money layeth a great sort till it come to _infinite_; so methinks your majesty, not being sufficed with so many benefits and gentleness shewed to me afore this time, doth now increase them in _asking_ and _desiring_ where you may _bid_ and _command_, requiring a thing not worthy the desiring for _itself_, but _made_ worthy for your highness' _request_. My picture I mean; in which, if the _inward_ good mind toward your grace might as well be _declared_, as the _outward_ face and countenance shall be _seen_, I would not have _tarried_ the commandment but _prevented_ it, nor have been the _last_ to _grant_, but the _first_ to _offer_ it."

And so on. You observe here into what a sing-song the voice must fall; if you abstract the words, and say over the tune, it is continually; tum-ty-ty tum-ty-ty, tum-ty-ty tum-ty-ty.

I wish also that it lay within my province to pass on and show the gradual development of English prose, through Sir Thomas More, Lord Berners, and Roger Ascham, whom we may assign to the earlier half of the 16th Century, until it reaches a great and beautiful artistic stage in the prose of Fuller, of Hooker, and of Jeremy Taylor.

But the fact which I propose to use as throwing light on the novel, is simply the lateness of English prose as compared with English verse; and we have already sufficiently seen that the rise of our prose must be dated at least eight centuries after that of our formal poetry.

But having established the fact that English prose is so much later in development than English verse, the point that I wish to make in this connection now requires me to go and ask the question why is this so.

Without the time to adduce supporting facts from other literature, and indeed wholly unable to go into elaborate proof, let me say at once that upon examining the matter it seems probable that the whole earlier speech of man must have been rhythmical, and that in point of fact we began with verse which is much simpler in rhythm than any prose; and that we departed from this regular rhythmic utterance into more and more complex utterance just according as the advance of complexity in language and feeling required the freer forms of prose.

To adduce a single consideration leading toward this view: reflect for a moment that the very breath of every man necessarily divides off his words into rhythmic periods; the average rate of a man's breath being 17 to 20 respirations in a minute. Taking the faster rate as the more probable one in speaking, the man would, from the periodic necessity of refilling the lungs, divide his words into twenty groups, equal in time, every minute, and if these syllables were equally pronounced at, say, about the rate of 200 a minute, we should have ten syllables in each group, each ten syllables occupying (in the aggregate at least) the same time with any other ten syllables, that is, the time of our breath.

But this is just the rhythm of our English blank verse, in essential type; ten syllables to the line or group; and our primitive talker is speaking in the true English heroic rhythm. Thus it may be that our dear friend M. Jourdain was not so far wrong after all in his astonishment at finding that he had been speaking prose all his life.

II.

Perhaps I ought here carefully to state that in propounding the idea that the whole common speech of early man may have been rhythmical through the operation of uniformity of syllables and periodicity of breath, and that for this reason prose, which is practically verse of a very complex rhythm, was naturally a later development; in propounding this idea, I say, I do not mean to declare that the prehistoric man, after a hard day's work on a flint arrow-head at his stone-quarry would dance back to his dwelling in the most beautiful rhythmic figures, would lay down his palaeolithic axe to a slow song, and, striking an operatic attitude, would call out to his wife to leave off fishing in the stream and bring him a stone mug of water, all in a most sublime and impassioned flight of poetry. What I do mean to say is that if the prehistoric man's syllables were uniform, and his breath periodic, then the rhythmical results described would follow. Here let me at once illustrate this, and advance a step towards my final point in this connection, by reminding you how easily the most commonplace utterances in modern English, particularly when couched mainly in words of one syllable, fall into quite respectable verse rhythms. I might illustrate this, but Dr. Samuel Johnson has already done it for me:--"I put my hat upon my head and walked into the Strand, and there I met another man whose hat was in his hand." We have only to arrange this in proper form in order to see that it is a stanza of verse quite perfect as to all technical requirement:--

"I put my hat upon my head, And walked into the Strand, And there I met another man, Whose hat was in his hand."

Now let me ask you to observe precisely what happens, when by adding words here and there in this verse we more and more obscure its verse form and bring out its prose form. Suppose, for example, we here write "hastily," and here "rushed forth," and here "encountered," and here "hanging," so as to make it read:

"I hastily put my hat upon my head, And rushed forth into the Strand, And there I encountered another man, Whose hat was hanging in his hand."

Here we have made unmitigated prose, but how? Remembering that original verse was in iambic 4's and 3's, ___ ___ __ ____ I put | my hat | up-on | my head |[**Diacritical marks]

--by putting in the word "hastily" in the first line, we have not _destroyed_ the rhythm; we still have the rhythmic sequence, "my hat upon my head," unchanged; but we have merely _added_ brief rhythms, namely that of the word "hastily," which we may call a modern or logaoedic dactyl (hastily)[**Symbols above hastily]; that is to say, instead now of leaving our first line _all_ iambic, we have varied that rhythmus with another; and in so doing have converted our verse into prose. Similarly, in the second line, "rushed forth," which an English tongue would here deliver as a spondee--rushed forth--_varies_ the rhythm by this spondaic intervention, but still leaves us the original rhythmic cluster, "into the Strand." So, of the other introduced words, "encountered" and "hanging," each has its own rhythm--for an English tongue always gives these words with definite time-relations between the syllables, that is, in rhythm. Therefore, in order to make prose out of this verse, we have not destroyed the rhythms, we have added to them. We have not made it _formless_, we have made it contain _more forms_.

Now, in this analysis, which I have tried to bring to its very simplest terms, I have presented what seems to me the true genesis of prose; and have set up a distinction, which, though it may appear abstract and insignificant at present, we shall presently see lies at the bottom of some most remarkable and pernicious fallacies concerning literature. That distinction is, that the relation of prose to verse is _not_ the relation of the _formless_ to the _formal_: it is the relation of _more forms_ to _fewer forms_. It is this relation which makes prose a _freer_ form than verse.

When we are writing in verse, if we have the line with an iambus (say) then our next words or syllables must make an iambus, and we are confined to that form; but if in prose, our next word need not be an iambus because the first was, but may be any one of several possible rhythmic forms; thus, while in verse we _must_ use _one_ form, in prose we _may_ use _many_ forms; and just to the extent of these possible forms is prose freer than verse. We shall find occasion presently to remember that prose is freer than verse, _not_ because prose is formless while verse is formal, but because any given sequence of prose has _more forms_ in it than a sequence of verse.

Here, reserving to a later place the special application of all this to the novel, I have brought my first general point to a stage where it constitutes the basis of the second one. You have already heard much of "forms"--of the verse-form, the prose-form, of form in art, and the like. Now, in the course of a considerable experience in what Shakspeare sadly calls "public means," I have found no matter upon which wider or more harmful misconceptions exist among people of culture, and particularly among us Americans, than this matter of the true functions of forms in art, of the true relation of science--which we may call the knowledge of forms--to art, and most especially of these functions and relations in literary art. These misconceptions have flowered out into widely different shapes.