no longer write he began to sing. Who could match the measures of Comus with the measures of Samson Agonistes or of Paradise Lost or Regained? When he became blind he composed as everybody should compose, with the voice purely. . . ."
This is all very well; perhaps the voice was once the medium of composition; perhaps the Greek musicians could compose in words as well as tone. We know very little about them. Nowadays, in Wilde's own phrase, "we have made writing a definite mode of composition and have located it as a form of design." There are certainly writers of today who make an especial effort to write prose which will read aloud well. I believe that Henry James dictated certain of his novels with this idea in mind. George Moore, too, has taken to dictating. But the rhythmical quality we note in writing is perhaps nearer to the rhythmical quality we note in painting than to that we note in music. Balance and a sense of proportion, light and shade, all these qualities are as instinctive to a writer as they are to a painter. He places a word, as the painter places an object or a point on his canvas, where it may catch the light and offer contrast to another word or phrase. Balance, light and shade, sense of proportion, are all part of the musician's jargon, too. Nevertheless, even if the rhythmi-
