The
birds that nest in his syringas seem to be not his pensioners only, but
his parishioners, so charmingly local, so intent upon his chronicle does
he become when he is minded to play White of Selborne with a smile. And
all the while it is the word that he is intent upon. You may trace his
reading by some fine word that has not escaped him, but has been garnered
for use when his fan has been quick to purge away the chaff of
commonplace. He is thus fastidious and alert in many languages. You
wonder at the delicacy of the sense whereby he perceives a choice rhyme
in the Anglo-Norman of Marie de France or a clang of arms in the brief
verse of Peire de Bergerac, or touches sensitively a word whereby Dante
has transcended something sweet in Bernard de Ventadour, or Virgil
somewhat noble in Homer. In his own use, and within his own English, he
has the abstinence and the freshness of intention that keep every word
new for the day's work. He gave to the language, and did not take from
it; it gained by him, and lost not. There are writers of English now at
work who almost convince us of their greatness until we convict them on
that charge: they have succeeded at an unpardonable cost; they are
glorified, but they have beggared the phrases they leave behind them.
Pages:
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68