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

TECHNICAL ELEMENTS OF STYLE
change is of precisely the same nature as that from
melody to harmony. Or if you prefer to return to
the juggler, behold him now, to the vastly increased
enthusiasm of the spectators, juggling with three
oranges instead of two. Thus it is : added difficulty,
added beauty ; and the pattern, with every fresh
element, becoming more interesting in itself.
Yet it must not be thought that verse is simply
an addition ; something is lost as well as something
gained ; and there remains plainly traceable, in com-
paring the best prose with the best verse, a certain
broad distinction of method in the web. Tight as
the versifier may draw the knot of logic, yet for the
ear he still leaves the tissue of the sentence floating
somewhat loose. In prose, the sentence turns upon
a pivot, nicely balanced, and fits into itself with an
obtrusive neatness like a puzzle. The ear remarks
and is singly gratified by this return and balance ;
while in verse it is all diverted to the measure. To
find comparable passages is hard ; for either the
versifier is hugely the superior of the rival, or, if he
be not, and still persist in his more delicate enter-
prise, he falls to be as widely his inferior. But let
us select them from the pages of the same writer,
one who was ambidexter ; let us take, for instance.
Rumour's Prologue to the Second Part of Henry IV.,
a fine flourish of eloquence in Shakespeare's second
manner, and set it side by side with Falstafl"s praise
of sherris, act iv. scene 1 ; or let us compare the
beautiful prose spoken throughout by Rosalind and
Orlando, compare, for example, the first speech of
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