“I shouldn’t say they were worth _that_,” he answered, as a shade
of disappointment appeared upon his delicate, mobile features,
“but there is a place where you get it to perfection, and that is
Macaulay’s _Lays of Ancient Rome_. They are my favourite reading.
But that is another story.”
“To turn to quite a different point, the Vernacular. It isn’t
everything that will go down in ordinary English. Of course I _do_
use ordinary English--at least, Bible English, in my best work. For
instance, there is a little thing called ‘In the Confessional,’
which I propose to read to you later, and which has no slang nor
swear-words from beginning to end.”
“But, of course, that is quite an exception. Most things won’t
stand anything but dialect, and I just give you this tip gratis.
You can make anything individual and strong by odd spelling. It
arrests the attention, and you haven’t got to pick your words.
Did you ever read a beautiful work called _Colorado Bill; or,
From Cowboy to President_? Well, I can assure you that when it
was in English, before being turned into dialect, it was quite
ordinary-like.”
“But that ain’t all. One has now and then to strike a deeper note,
and striking a deeper note is so simple, that I wonder it has not
occurred to others of our poets. You have got to imagine yourself
in a church, and you must read over your manuscript to yourself in
that kind of hollow voice--you know what I mean.”