The Pageant of English Prose: Being Five Hundred Passages by Three Hundred and Twenty-Five Authors (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Pageant of English Prose: Being Five Hundred Passages by Three Hundred and Twenty-Five Authors

Voltaire himself, when complimented on his belles phrases, replied, Mes belles phrases! Apprenez que je n'en ai pas fait une de ma vie.' It is not given to all to achieve the victory of the prose style, clear, plain and short if some writers fail, their work may chance to escape being classed by readers of differing taste as faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null.' Excellence of style has not been the sole consideration, although this volume contains a noble quantity of imperish able prose. Some writers, as Sterne, have no literary style at all, or at best it is bad others, as Scott, are slovenly none the less the creator of Tristram Shandy and the author of Waverley must have honoured places in any pageant. The aim has been to print passages which are not only typical, but also possess some intrinsic interest for example, the prose style of the poets while testimony to the variety of topics is borne in the subject index.

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