The Frenchman has certainly a style to develop
within definite limits; but he does not subject himself to suggestions
tending mainly hitherwards or thitherwards, to currents of various race
within one literature. Such a choice of subjection is the singular
opportunity of the Englishman. I do not mean to ignore the necessary
mingling. Happily that mingling has been done once for all for us all.
Nay, one of the most charming things that a master of English can achieve
is the repayment of the united teaching by linking their results so
exquisitely in his own practice, that words of the two schools are made
to meet each other with a surprise and delight that shall prove them at
once gayer strangers, and sweeter companions, than the world knew they
were. Nevertheless there remains the liberty of choice as to which
school of words shall have the place of honour in the great and sensitive
moments of an author's style: which school shall be used for
conspicuousness, and which for multitudinous service. And the choice
being open, the perturbation of the pulses and impulses of so many hearts
quickened in thought and feeling in this day suggests to me a deliberate
return to the recollectedness of the more tranquil language. 'Doubtless
there is a place of peace.
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