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 p

l 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 mi

hat upon

d into th

I met an

was in h

we more and more obscure its verse form and bring out its prose form. Suppose, for example, we here writ

put my hat

forth into

encountered

as hanging

e, but how? Remembering that origi

e 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-rūshed fōrth-varies the rhythm by this spondaic intervention, but still leaves us the original rhythmic cluster, "into the Strand." So, of the other introduced

y 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 th

e 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 vers

n 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

possibility of poetry, of the novel, in short of all works of the imagination; the idea seeming to be that the imagination always requires the hall of life to be dar

of science with its incidents is going to give a great new revolutionized democratic literature, which will w

rd and infernal, in a professedly philosophical work called Le Roman Expérimentale, recently published by M. Emile Zola, gravely defending

as to this matter of form, of science, in art, before briefly considering these three concrete errors I have enumerated-to wit, the belief (1) that science will destroy all poetry, all novel-writing and all imaginative work generally; (2) that science will simply destroy the old imaginative products and build up a new formless sort of imagina

hodoxy. The latter, on the one hand, tells us that in the beginning the earth was without form and void; and it is only after the earth is formulated-after the various forms of the lights, of land and water, bird, fish and man appear-it is only then that l

erty which I call hardness or resistance, this "hardness" being simply our name for one form of atom-motion when impressing itself on the human sense. So color, shape, &c.; these are our names representing a correlation between certain other forms of motion and our senses. Regarding the whole universe thus as a great congeries of forms of motion, we may now go farther and make for ourselves a scientific and useful generalization, reducing a great num

e winning freedom by substituting formlessness for form; we know that the ages are rolling the other way,-who shall stop those wheels? We know that what they really do who profess to substitute formlessness for form is to substitute a bad form for a good one, or an ugly form for a beautiful one. Do not dream of getting rid of form; your most cutting stroke at it but

and always we have, in a true sense, the art of an art and the science of that art. For example, correlative to the art of music, we have the general science of music, which indeed consists of several quite sep

s a law of formation: it consists of two main subjects, or melodies, and a modulation-part. The sequence of these subjects, the method of varying them by causing now one and now another of the instruments to come forward an

wn. Again, he must painfully learn the range and capacities of each orchestral instrument, lest he write passages for the violin which no violin can play, &c., and further, the particular ideas which seem to associate themselves with the tone-color of each instrument, as the idea of women's voices with the clarionet, the idea of tenderness

cience-the art of verse its science of verse, the art of prose its science of prose. Lastly, we all know that no amount of genius will supply the lack of science in art. Phidias may be all afire with the conception of Jove, but unless he is a scientific man to the ex

orge Eliot's genius unless she knew the science of English prose or the science of novel-writing, a sort of doubtful stir arises, and it would seem as if a suspicion of some vague

g him down, and I find such mournful evidences of the complete misconception of form, of literary science in our literature, that, with

had formed as to the general relation between literary art and science would be confirmed, I read these notices with great interest. Not only were my suspicions confirmed: but it is perfectly fair to say that nine out of ten, even of those which most generously treated the book in hand, treated it upon the general theory that a work on the science of verse must necessarily be a collection of rules for making verses. Now, not one of these wr

really a cookery-book, intended to spread intelligent ideas upon the best methods of preparing shell-fish for the ta

ng too much of the forms of art. A valued friend who has won a considerable place in contemporary authorship in writing me not long ago said, after much abstract and impersonal admission

y instinctive child is obliged at least to learn the science of language-the practical relation of noun and verb and connective-before the crudest line of verse can be written; and since no child talks by instinct, since every child has to learn from others every word it uses,-with an amount of diligence and of study which is really stupendous when we think of it-what wild absurdity to

Art as the creator of beautiful forms, of Religion as the aspiration towards unknown forms and the unknown Form-giver, let us abandon

much form, of having too much technic; he dr

will enlarge his artistic science, if you will give him a fresh form. For indeed genius, the great artist, never works in the frantic vein vulgarly supposed; a large part of the work of the poet, for example, is reflective; a dozen ideas in a dozen forms thro

she never acted well: she must have her inspiration, she must be in a true raptus, but the raptus mus

e must have been-an old Armorican named Hervé, of whom all manner of beautiful stories have survived. This aphorism is, "He who will not answer to the rudder, must answer to the rocks." If any of you have read that wonderful description of shipwreck on these same Armorican roc

se or novels. I wish it were everywhere written, even in the souls of all our young American writers, that he who will not ans

in that hearty testimonial, "To the Memory of My Beloved, the Author, Mr. William Shakspeare, and What He Hath Left

t give Nature

echnic, thy care of

kspeare, must

e poet's matt

ive the fashio

rite a living

are) and strike

es' anvil; t

th it) that he

aurel he may

et's made as

hou. Look how t

issue, even

mind and manner

urned and tru

ch he seems to

at the eyes

his spontaneity; he shakes a lance a

h equilibrium in the midst of the discordant cries, already mentioned, (1) of those who believe that Science will destroy all literary art; (2) of those who believe that art is to advance by becomi

ms to me this question is determined. As matter of fact, science (to confine our view to English science) has been already advancing with prodigious strides for two hundred and fifty years, and side by side with it English poetry has been advancing for the same period. Surely, whatever effect science has upon poetry can be traced during this long companionship. While Hooke and Wilkins and Newton and Horrox and the Herschels and Franklin and Davy and Faraday and the Darwins and Dalton and Huxley and many more

technic, cutting away much unproductive wood and efflorescence and creating finer reserves and richer yields. Since it would be simply impossible, in the space of these lectures, to illustrate this by any detailed view of all the poets mentioned, let us confine ourselves to one, Alfred Tennyson, and let us inquire how it fares with him. Certainly no more favorable selection could be made for those who believe in the destructiveness of science. Here is a man born in the midst of scientific activity, brought up and inti

second sta

d reason ch

he circle

flower of

cast thine

haracter'd

growth of co

with darkness

e to the dou

rst form was

Spirit, and

Shakspeare l

Memoriam to his friend; the same loving tenacity, unchanged by three hundred years of science. It is interesting to compare this N

ive my well-

eath my bones wit

fortune once

e lines of thy

ith the better

y be outstripp

r my love, not

the height o

fe me but this

muse grown with

than this his l

ranks of bet

ied, and poets

style I'll read,

uman friendship? We are answered in No. 90 of In Memoriam. W

lumelets tu

ipes the mou

eath the

sea-blue bi

the form by

in time amo

f unaccomp

d lucid rou

s hourly mel

, with many

ousand wave

round the lo

n watches o

e sunbeam br

ous in thine

finer lig

writes from the depths of a sick despondency, f

when my l

creeps, and t

and the he

wheels of

when the se

h pains that

maniac sca

fury, slin

when my f

flies of l

r eggs, and s

eir petty ce

e when I

e term of h

low dark ve

ght of et

for the weakness of others? We a

t after to

have reach'd

has centre

to fix its

hy sister wh

eaven, her

th shadow'd

leads melo

ro' form is

are quicke

be the fles

e links a t

hat countes

g by the

not in a w

r want of s

y? Here in No. 84 we have a poem which, for what

showers, a

from the go

over brak

slowly bre

f space, an

he dewy-tas

ng down the

fan my bro

rom my chee

life that fee

frame, till

en, let th

o belt of c

of odor s

n yonder o

pirits whis

, but that he knows science, reveres it and understands its precise place and function. What he terms in the fo

Knowledge? W

r beauty?

d prosper!

? Let her w

know h

second, not

nd must mak

not in vai

ps, moving

like the yo

earthly o

heavenly

who camest

leaving

great world

t not alon

ge, but by

nce and i

; if we find his poetry just so much stronger and richer and riper by as much as he has been trained and beaten and disciplined with the stern questions which scientific speculation has put-questions which you will find presented in their most sombre terribleness in Tennyson's

imply the reduction of unfamiliar mysteries to terms of familiar mysteries. For simplest example: here is a mass of conglomerate: science explains that it is composed of a great number of pebbles which have become fastened together by a natural cement. But after all, is not one pebble as great a mystery as a mountain of conglomerate? though w

seekin

, and to f

hundred o

ssary-it forever purveys for poetry, and just so much more as it shall bring man into contact with nature,

ass, who believe that the poetry of the

ocratic page," and is "never free, na?ve poetry, but involved, labored, quite sophisticated;" when we find him bragging of "the measureless viciousness of the great radical republic" (the United States of course) "with its ruffianly nominations and elections; its loud, ill-pitched voice, utterly regardless whether the verb agrees with the nominative; its fights, errors, eructations, repulsions, dishonesties, audacities; those fearful and vari

le's flesh, are precisely the two who have most signally failed of all popular acceptance and who have most exclusively found audience at the other extreme of culture. These are Wordsworth and Whitman. We all know how strenuously and faithfully Wordsworth believed that in using the simplest words and treating the lowliest themes, he was bringing poetry back near to

l rights, declaring that he is nothing if not one of the people; nevertheless the people, the democracy, will yet have nothing to do with him,

rrigible of aristocrats masquing in a peasant's costume; and his poetry, instead of being the natural outc