The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: at all. Prose must be rhythmical, and it may be as much so
as you will; but it must not be metrical. It may be
anything, but it must not be verse. A single heroic line may
very well pass and not disturb the somewhat larger stride of
the prose style; but one following another will produce an
instant impression of poverty, flatness, and disenchantment.
The same lines delivered with the measured utterance of verse
would perhaps seem rich in variety. By the more summary
enunciation proper to prose, as to a more distant vision,
these niceties of difference are lost. A whole verse is
uttered as one phrase; and the ear is soon wearied by a
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