Collected works > Edinburgh edition, 1894-98 - Works of Robert Louis Stevenson > Volume 11, 1895 - Miscellanies, Volume III

TECHNICAL ELEMENTS OF STYLE
right to ask of any prosody is, that it shall lay down
a pattern for the writer, and that what it lays
down shall be neither too easy nor too hard. Hence
it comes that it is much easier for men of equal
facility to write fairly pleasing verse than reasonably
interesting prose ; for in prose the pattern itself has
to be invented, and the difficulties first created
before they can be solved. Hence, again, there
follows the pecuUar greatness of the true versifier ;
such as Shakespeare, Milton, and Victor Hugo,
whom I place beside them as versifier merely, not as
poet. These not only knit and knot the logical
texture of the style with all the dexterity and
strength of prose ; they not only fill up the pattern
of the verse with infinite variety and sober wit ; but
they give us, besides, a rare and special pleasure,
by the art, comparable to that of counterpoint, with
which they follow at the same time, and now con-
trast, and now combine, the double pattern of the
texture and the verse. Here the sounding line
concludes ; a little further on, the well-knit sentence ;
and yet a little further, and both will reach their
solution on the same ringing syllable. The best that
can be offered by the best writer of prose is to show
us the development of the idea and the stylistic
pattern proceed hand in hand, sometimes by an
obvious and triumphant effort, sometimes with a
great air of ease and nature. The writer of verse,
by virtue of conquering another difficulty, delights
us Avith a new series of triumphs. He follows three
purposes where his rival followed only two ; and the
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