Page:Under Dispute (1924).pdf/52

 and of their opponents. Just when the ways of the world seemed darkest, and its nations most distraught, the literati effected a welcome diversion by quarreling over rules of prosody. The lovers of rhyme were not content to read rhyme and to write it; the lovers of polyphonic prose were not content to read polyphonic prose and to write it; but both factions found their true joy in vivaciously criticizing and counselling their antagonists. Miss Amy Lowell was right when she said, with her customary insight and decision, that the beliefs and protests and hates of poets all go to prove the deathless vigour of the art. Unenlightened outsiders took up the quarrel with pleasure, finding relief in a dispute that threatened death and disaster to no one.

Few contentions are so innocent of ill-doing. The neighbours whom we counsel most assiduously are the nations of the world and their govern-