GIFT OF 
 George Lansing: Raymond 
 
POETRY 
 
 AS A 
 
 REPRESENTATIVE ART 
 
 AN ESSAY IN 
 
 COMPARATIVE .ESTHETICS 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE LANSING RAYMOND, L.H.D. 
 
 PROFESSOR OF AESTHETICS IN PRINCETON UNIVERSITY 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE ORATOR'S MANUAL," "ART IN THEORY," "THE REPRESENTATIVE 
 
 SIGNIFICANCE OF FORM," " PAINTING, SCULPTURE, AND ARCHITECTURE AS 
 
 REPRESENTATIVE ARTS," "THE GENESIS OF ART-FORM," "RHYTHM 
 
 AND HARMONY IN POETRY AND MUSIC," " PROPORTION AND 
 
 HARMONY OF LINE AND COLOR IN PAINTING, 
 SCULPTURE, AND ARCHITECTURE," ETC. 
 
 SEVENTH EDITION REVISED 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 NEW YORK AND LONDON 
 
 Ifcnfcfcerbocfcer {press 
 

 COPYRIGHT, 1886 
 
 BY 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 Revised Edition 
 COPYRIGHT, 1899 
 
 BY 
 , r i G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 Made in the United States of America 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 TTHIS work is intended to be complete in itself, devel- 
 oping from beginning to end the whole subject of 
 which it treats. But this subject is a part of a larger 
 one, connected with which are many underlying principles 
 and practical inferences not mentioned here, although 
 some of them, apparently, are not outside even of the 
 limited range of discussion prescribed for this book by its 
 title. To obviate the criticism which the omission of any 
 reference to these may naturally occasion, it seems well 
 to state that Poetry as a Representative Art is only one of 
 a series of volumes unfolding the general subject of Com- 
 parative ^Esthetics in the following order : 
 
 Art in Theory, dealing with the distinctions between 
 nature and art ; between the useful and the beautiful as 
 in aesthetic art ; the different theories held concerning 
 the latter, and their effects upon its products ; the true 
 theory, its philosophic aspects, and the classification of the 
 arts as determined by it. 
 
 The Representative Significance of Form, discussing the 
 kinds of truth derivable from nature and from man ; the 
 distinctions between religious, scientific, and artistic truth ; 
 between different phases of the latter developed in the 
 epic, the realistic, and the dramatic, as expressed in all the 
 arts; and as differently expressed in the different arts, 
 with illustrations showing the importance of making these 
 
X POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 distinctions. The further relations of the same subject to 
 each of the arts considered separately are unfolded in three 
 essays, namely : 
 
 Poetry as a Representative Art ; 
 
 Music as a Representative Art, printed for convenience 
 in the volume treating of Rhythm and Harmony ; and 
 
 Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture as Representative 
 Arts. 
 
 The Genesis of Art-Form traces the derivation of the 
 elements of form from their sources in mind or matter 
 and the development, according to mental and physical 
 requirements, of these elements so as to produce, when 
 combined, the different art-forms. The volume directs 
 attention to the characteristics of form essential to aes- 
 thetic effects in all the arts. The characteristics essential 
 to each of the arts considered in itself, are discussed in 
 two volumes completing the series, namely : 
 
 Rhythm and Harmony in Poetry and Music ; and 
 
 Proportion and Harmony of Line and Color in Painting, 
 Sculpture, and Architecture. 
 
 The author wishes to express his indebtedness to Messrs. 
 D. Appleton & Co., Houghton, Mifflin & Co., and others, 
 for their kind permission to insert in this work certain en- 
 tire poems, of which they hold the copyrights. 
 
 Altered from the Preface to the First Edition, 
 PRINCETON, N. J., November, 1899. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 "POETRY AND PRIMITIVE LANGUAGE . . . i 18 
 
 Introduction, I All Art Representative, 3 Poetry an Artistic 
 Development of Language, 4 Language Representative of Mental 
 Processes through Material Sounds or Symbols, 4 This Book to 
 show how Language, and hence, how Poetic Language, can repre- 
 sent Thought, by pointing out, first, how SOUNDS represent 
 Thought in Primitive and then in Poetic Words and Intonations : 
 and, second, how Sounds accepted as Words are used in Different 
 SENSES, and how these represent Thought in Conventional and 
 then in Poetic Words and Phrases, 5 Primitive Words are de- 
 veloped according to Principles of Association and Comparison, 
 partly Instinctively, as in Ejaculations ; partly Reflectively, as in 
 Imitative Sounds, 5 This Theory need not be carried too far, 9 
 How Language is a Gift from God, 10 Agreement with Refer- 
 ence to Ejaculatory and Imitative Sounds would form a Primitive 
 Language, n Sounds represent Thought both in Single Words 
 and in Consecutive Intonations, 12 Elocution, the Interpreter of 
 Sounds used consecutively, 12 Representing that Blending and 
 Balancing of Instinctive and Reflective Tendencies which ex- 
 press the Emotive Nature, 12. 
 
 II. 
 
 CONVERSATION, DISCOURSE, ELOCUTION, VERSIFICA- 
 TION 
 
 Representative Character of Intonations, 19 Every Man has a 
 Rhythm and a Tune of his own, 19 Physiological Reason for 
 this, 20 Cultivated by Public Speaking, 21 Recitative, and the 
 Origin of Poetic and Musical Melody, 21 Poetry, Song, Dance, 
 
Xll CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 all connected: but not developed from each other, 22 Poetic 
 Pause and Accent are Developed only from Speech, 23 Pause, the 
 Source of Verse, 25 Breathing and the Line, 25 Hebrew 
 Parallelism ; Greek, 25 The Caesura, 26 Accent, the Source of 
 Rhythm and Tune, 27 Feet : how produced in English, 28 In 
 the Classic Languages, 29 Metrical Possibilities of English, 30. 
 
 III. 
 
 ELOCUTION : ITS REPRESENTATIVE ELEMENTS CLASSI- 
 FIED 3 2 -3 6 
 
 Pause and Accent, 32 Analyzed, the Former gives us the Element 
 of Duration, the Latter gives Duration, Force, Pitch, and Quality, 
 33 Must find what each Element represents in DISCOURSIVE 
 ELOCUTION, developed from Ejaculatory or Instinctive Modes of 
 Utterance, and in DRAMATIC ELOCUTION, developed from Imitative 
 or Reflective Utterance ; and then apply to Poetry, 33 General 
 Statement of what is Represented by Duration, Force, Pitch, and 
 Quality, ; Rhythm the Effect of the First Two, and Tune of the 
 Last Two, 34. 
 
 IV. 
 
 ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC DURATION . . 37-49 
 
 The Elements entering into Rhythm : Duration, and Force, 37 
 Duration : Fast Time Instinctive, representing Unimportant Ideas ; 
 Slow Time Reflective, representing Important Ideas ; Movement 
 a Combination of the Two, 37 The Pause as used in Elocution, 
 38 In Poetry, at the Ends of Lines, 39 In the Caesura, 40 Run- 
 on and End-stopped Lines, 40 Quantity, Short and Long, in 
 Elocution and Poetry ; as produced by Vowels and Consonants, 41, 
 Movement or Rhythm as influenced by Pause and Quantity, 44 
 Feet of Three Syllables should represent Rapidity, 45 Predomi- 
 nating Long Quantity injures English Hexameters, 46 Feet of 
 Four Syllables represent Rapidity, 49. 
 
 V. 
 
 ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC FORCE . . . 50-56 
 
 Force, representing Instinctive Tendency of Utterance, or Physi- 
 cal Energy, 50 Different Kinds of Force, 50 The Degree of 
 Force, 51 Loud and Soft Force as Used in Elocution, 51 Their 
 
CONTENTS. xiil 
 
 PACK 
 
 Poetic Analogues, 51 Loudness and Softness, Strength and Weak- 
 ness, Great and Slight Weight as represented by Long or Short, 
 Accented or Unaccented Syllables, 52. 
 
 VI. 
 FORCE AS THE SOURCE AND INTERPRETER OF POETIC 
 
 MEASURES 57~8i 
 
 Gradations of Force or Stress, representing Reflective Influence 
 exerted on Instinctive Tendency, 57 What is represented by the 
 the Different Kinds of Elocutionary Stress, 58 Why Elocutionary 
 Stress corresponds to Poetic Measure, 59 Classification of Eng- 
 lish Poetic Measures, and their Classic Analogues, 60 What is 
 represented by Initial Double Measure, 62 Its Classic Form, 63 
 By Terminal Double Measure, 65 Why used in Our Hymns, 
 67 Its Classic Form, 67 Triple Measures ; Median, 68 Its 
 Classic Form, 70 Initial Triple Measure, 70 Could also be termed 
 Compound Measure, corresponding to Compound Stress, 70 Its 
 Classic Form, 72 Its Use in Greek Paeonics, 72 In Pathos, 
 corresponding to Tremulous Stress, 73 Terminal Triple Measure, 
 74 Can correspond to Thorough Stress, 74 Its Classic Form, 
 75 Blending of Different Triple Measures, 75 Of Triple and 
 Double Measures to prevent Monotony, 76 Quadruple Measures, 
 Di-initial and Di-terminal, 77 Blending of all Kinds of Measures 
 to represent Movements, 79. 
 
 VII. 
 
 ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC REGULARITY OF FORCE, 82-88 
 
 Regularity of Force, combining its Instinctive with Reflective 
 Tendencies, and representing Emotive Influence, 82 Abrupt and 
 Smooth Force, as used in Elocution, and Irregular and Regular 
 Accentuation corresponding to them in Poetry, 82 Abruptness in 
 short and long Lines, 85 Imitative Effects, 87. 
 
 VIII. 
 ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC PITCH TUNES OF VERSE, 89-102 
 
 Elements entering into the Tunes of Verse : Pitch and Quality, 89 
 Pitch representing Reflective Tendency or Intellectual Motive, 
 90 On its Instinctive Side by High and Low Key, 91 What each 
 represents, 91 On its Reflective, by Rising, Falling, and Circum- 
 
XIV CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 flex Movements, 92 What each represents, 92 When Influences 
 from both Sides express Emotive Colorings, by Melody, 94 
 What Different Melodies represent, 94 Pitch as used in Poetry, 
 95 Which was formerly chanted, 95 And has Tunes at Present, 
 96 Shades of Pitch in Speech as Numerous as, and more Delicate 
 than, in Song, 96 Scientific Proof that Short Vowels usually sug- 
 gest a High Key, and Long, a Low Key, 97 Light, Gay, Lively 
 Ideas represented by the Former, 99 Serious, Grave, Dignified by 
 the Latter, 100. 
 
 IX. 
 
 POETIC PITCH RISING AND FALLING TONES . 103-114 
 
 Correspondence between Elocutionary Inflections or Intonations and 
 certain Arrangements of Verse-Harmony produced by Sounds of 
 Vowels and Consonants combined, 103 Effects of Rising Move- 
 ments produced by Lines beginning without Accents and ending 
 with them, 104 Of falling Movements, by Lines beginning with 
 Accents and ending without them, 105 Of Circumflex Movements, 
 by Combinations of both Arrangements, 106 What the Marks of 
 Accent indicated to the Greeks, and how they read them in their 
 Poetry, 107 Illustrations of Ideas represented by Verse arranged 
 to give Effects of Rising, Falling, and Circumflex Movements, 109 
 Movements of Verse in Narration and Pathos, 114. 
 
 X. 
 
 POETIC PITCH MELODY AND RHYME . . 115-125 
 
 Variety and Monotony in Elocution and Poetry represent less or 
 more Control over Self and the Subject, 115 True Significance of 
 Alliteration, Assonance, etc., 116 Rhyme introduces Element of 
 Sameness, 118 Increases effects of Versification, of Unity, of 
 Poetic Form, of Emphasis of all Kinds, of Regularity of Move- 
 ment, of Rapidity of Thought, 118 Results of Changing the 
 Order of the Occurrence of Rhymes in Tennyson's " In Memo- 
 riam," 122 Blank Verse admitting of Great Variety Preferable 
 for Long Productions, 124. 
 
 XI. 
 ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC QUALITY . . 126-135 
 
 Quality represents the Emotive Nature of the Soul as influencing 
 and influenced by both Instinctive and Reflective Tendencies, 
 
CONTENTS. XV 
 
 PAGE 
 
 126 Kinds of Quality, and what each represents in Elocution, 127 
 Letter-Sounds used in Verse to Produce Effects of the Aspirate 
 Quality, 128 Guttural, 130 Pectoral, 130 Pure, 132 Orotund, 
 132 Illustrations of Poetic Effects of all these Kinds when com- 
 bined, 133. 
 
 XII. 
 
 EFFECTS OF POETIC QUALITY CONTINUED . 136-149 
 
 Imitative Effects of Letter-Sounds corresponding to Aspirate 
 Quality, representing Serpents, Sighing, Rapidity, Winds, Slumber, 
 Conspiracy, Fear, Frightening, Checking, 136 Guttural Quality, 
 representing Grating, Forcing, Flowing Water, Rattling, Effort, 
 139 Pectoral Quality, representing Groaning, Depth, Hollowness, 
 142 Pure Quality, representing Thinness, Clearness, Sharpness, 
 Cutting, 143 Orotund Quality, representing Fulness, Roundness, 
 Murmuring, Humming, Denying, etc., 143 These Effects as com- 
 bined in Various Illustrations of Carving ; Dashing, Rippling, and 
 Lapping Water ; Roaring, Clashing, Cursing, Shrieking, Fluttering, 
 Crawling, Confusion, Horror, Spite, Scorn, etc., 145. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 THE SACRIFICE OF SENSE TO SOUND . . 150160 
 
 Verse in which Attention to Sound prevents Representation of 
 Thought, 150 Violating Laws of Natural Expression or Gram- 
 matical Construction, 151 Excellences exaggerated, the Sources of 
 these Faults, 152 Insertion of Words, Pleonasm, Superfluity, 152 
 Transposition of Words, Inversion, Hyperbaton, tending to 
 Obscurity, 154 Style of the Age of Dryden, 156 Alteration of 
 Words in Accent ; or by Aphasresis, Front-Cut ; Syncope, Mid- 
 Cut ; or Apocope, End-Cut, 157 All these often show Slovenly 
 Workmanship, 158. 
 
 XIV. 
 SACRIFICE OF SENSE TO SOUND CONTINUED . 161-172 
 
 Omission of Words, or Ellipsis, indicating C rudeness, 161 Leading 
 to Obscurity because Meanings are conveyed by Phrases as well as 
 by Words, 164 Misuse of Words, Enallage, 165 Poetic Sounds 
 are Artistic in the Degree in which they really represent Thought 
 and Feeling, 171. 
 
xvi CONTENTS. 
 
 XV. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 MEANINGS OF WORDS AS DEVELOPED BY ASSOCIA- 
 TION AND COMPARISON .... i?3- I 79 
 
 Instinctive Ejaculatory Sounds, and Reflective Imitative Sounds, 
 becoming words by Agreement, in Fulfilment of the Principle of 
 Association or Comparison, can represent but a few Ideas, 173 
 Other needed Words may be due to Agreement in using Arbitrary 
 Symbols ; it is Philosophical to suppose them largely developed by 
 Tendencies underlying the Formation of Primitive Words, 174 
 How these Tendencies lead to the Use of the same Word in Dif- 
 ferent Senses, 175 In the case of Words whose Meanings depend 
 on Association, 175 How what refers to the Material comes to 
 refer to the Immaterial, 176 Words whose Meanings depend on 
 Comparison, 176 What refers to the Material is by Comparison 
 used for the Immaterial, 177 Great Varieties of Meanings are 
 developed from the same Word by Continued Processes of Associa- 
 tion and Comparison, 178 A Knowledge of this fact, and its 
 Results are Necessary to an Intelligent Use of Language, 179. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 MEANINGS OF PHRASES AS DETERMINED BY ASSOCIA- 
 TION OR COMPARISON .... 180-185 
 
 Language, a Process in which Words and Ideas represented by 
 them are used consecutively, 180 How Words in Progression can 
 represent Mental Processes, 180 How Acts in Progression do this 
 in Pantomime and how this is done when Words, as Symbols, are 
 substituted for the Acts in Pantomime, 181 How Subject, Predi- 
 cate, and Object are put together, 182, Subject, Predicate, and 
 Object of a Complete Sentence, are the Beginning, Middle, and 
 End of a Complete Process, of which all the Parts of Speech are 
 Logical Parts, 183 Examination of Certain Sentences, 183 
 How the Meanings of them, considered as Wholes, depend on the 
 Principle of Association or of Comparison, 184 
 
 XVII. 
 POETIC AND UNPOETIC WORDS .... 186-194 
 
 Words depending for their Meanings on Association not necessa- 
 rily Prosaic ; nor those depending on Comparison necessarily 
 Poetic, 1 86 The Latter necessitate Imagination to originate, and, 
 
CONTENTS. XV11 
 
 PACK 
 
 at first, to interpret them, but after being used become Conven- 
 tional, 187 This the Natural Tendency of all Words, 188 
 Poets can always cause Words to seem Poetic ; First, by selecting 
 those representing Poetic Associations, 188 This applies to Con- 
 ventional Words, 189 Second, by arranging Words imaginatively 
 so as to suggest New Comparisons or Pictures, 190 Why English 
 of Anglo-Saxon Origin is preferred by our Poets, 190 Have 
 Familiar Associations, 191 Sounds fit Sense, 191 Are used by us 
 in Different Senses, 192 Figures represented in Compound Words 
 Apparent, 192 In general more Significant, 193 Why the Eng- 
 lish Language is fitted to remain Poetic, 194. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 PLAIN AND FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE . . 195-207 
 
 Two Kinds of Language used in Poetry, that depending for its 
 Meaning on Association and that depending on Comparison, 195 
 Distinction between the Term Figurative Language, as applied 
 to Poetry and as used in ordinary Rhetoric, 195 Figures of 
 Rhetoric containing no Representative Pictures : Interjection, In- 
 terrogation, Apostrophe, Vision, Apophasis, Irony, Antithesis, 
 Climax, 196 Figures of Rhetoric necessitating Representative 
 Language : Onomatopoeia, Metonymy, Synecdoche, Trope, Simile, 
 Metaphor, Hyperbole, Allegory, 197 Laws to be observed, and 
 Faults to be avoided, in using Similes and Metaphors, 200 When 
 Plain Language should be used, 203 And when Figurative, 206. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 PROSE AND POETRY ; PRESENTATION AND REPRE- 
 SENTATION IN ITS VARIOUS FORMS ". 208-212 
 
 Tendencies of Plain Language toward Prose, and of Figurative 
 toward Poetry, 208 Plain Language tends to present Thought, 
 209 Figurative to represent it, 209 All Art Representative, 210 
 But Plain Language may represent, and Figurative may present, 
 210 Poetic Representation depends upon the Character of the 
 Thought, 211 If a Poet thinks of Pictures, Plain Language de- 
 scribing them will represent according to the Method of Direct 
 Representation, 211 If not of Pictures, he may illustrate his 
 Theme by thinking in Pictures, and use Figurative Language 
 
xviii CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 according to the Methods of Indirect Expressional or Descriptive 
 Representation, 211 Pure Representation is solely Representa- 
 tive, 212 Alloyed Representation contains some Presentation, 212. 
 
 XX. 
 
 PURE DIRECT REPRESENTATION . . . 213-224 
 
 In what Sense, and how far, Thought and Feeling can be Com- 
 municated Representatively, 213 Pure Representation, as used 
 by Tennyson, 214 Hunt, etc., 215 Pure Direct Representation, 
 as used by Homer, Milton, Shakespear, Morris, Heine, Tennyson, 
 Arnold, Burns, Gilbert, etc., 216 Extensive Use of this Method 
 in all Forms of Poetry, 220. 
 
 XXI. 
 PURE INDIRECT OR ILLUSTRATIVE REPRESENTATION, 225-239 
 
 Illustrative in Connection with Direct Representation enables a 
 writer to express almost any Phase of Thought representatively or 
 poetically, 225 ; Examples, 226 Representation, if Direct, must 
 communicate mainly what can he seen or heard, 228 Inward 
 Mental Processes can be pictured outwardly and materially only by 
 Indirect Representation, 228 Examples of this Fact from Long- 
 fellow, from Arnold, from Whittier, from Smith, from Tennyson, 
 Aldrich, and Bryant, 229 Two Motives in using Language, corre- 
 sponding respectively to those underlying Discoursive and Dramatic 
 Elocution, namely that tending to the Expression of what is within 
 the Mind, and that tending to the Description of what is without 
 the Mind, 230 Examples from Longfellow of Poetry giving form 
 to these two different Motives, 231 Careful Analysis might give us 
 here, besides Indirect or Figurative Representation used for the 
 purpose of Expression, the same used for the purpose of Descrip- 
 tion, but as in Rhetoric and Practice Expressional and Descriptive 
 Illustration follow the same Laws, both will be treated here as Il- 
 lustrative Representation, 231 Similes, ancient and modern, from 
 Homer, from Morris, from Milton, from Shakespear, from Moore, 
 from Kingsley, 232 Metaphors, ancient and modern, 235 Used 
 in Cases of Excitation ; Examples, 237. 
 
CONTENTS. XIX 
 
 XXII. 
 
 FAGS 
 
 PURE REPRESENTATION IN THE POETRY OF HOMER, 240-261 
 
 How the Phenomena of Nature should be used in Representation 
 Homer as a Model, 240 His Descriptions are Mental, Fragmen- 
 tary, Specific, Typical, 241 The Descriptions of Lytton, Goethe, 
 Morris, Southey, etc,, 244. Homer's Descriptions are also Progres- 
 sive ; Examples, 251 Dramatic Poems should show the same 
 Traits, 259 Homer's Illustrative Representation, 260. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 ALLOYED REPRESENTATION : ITS GENESIS . . 262-277 
 
 Alloy introduces Unpoetic Elements into Verse, 262 All Classic 
 v Representation Pure, 263 Tendencies in Poetic Composition lead- 
 ing to Alloyed Representation, 264 In Direct Representation, 264 
 In Illustrative Representation, 265 Lawful to enlarge by Illus- 
 trations an Idea Great and Complex, 265 Or Small and Simple, 
 266 Descriptions of a Meal, 269 Sunset, 270 Peasant, 271 
 Sailor, 272 How these Tendencies may introduce Alloy that does 
 not represent, 273 Exaggerations in Love-Scenes, 274 In De- 
 scriptions of Natural Scenery, etc., 276 In Allegorical Poems 
 and Sensational Plays, 276. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 EXPLANATORY ALLOY IN DIRECT REPRESENTATION, 278-292 
 
 Alloy, if carrying to Extreme the Tendency in Plain Language, 
 becomes Didactic ; if the Tendency in Figurative Language, it 
 becomes Ornate, 278 Didactic Alloy explains and appeals to the 
 Elaborative Faculty, not the Imagination, 279 Rhetoric instead 
 of Poetry, 279 Examples of Didactic Alloy where Representa- 
 tion purports to be Direct in Cases where the Thought is Philosoph- 
 ical, 280 How Thought of the Same Kind can be expressed Poet- 
 ically, 281 In Cases where the Thought is Picturesque, as in 
 Descriptions of Natural Scenery, 284 How Similar Scenes can be 
 described Poetically, 285 Didactic Descriptions of Persons, 288 
 Similar Representative Descriptions, 289 How Illustrative Repre- 
 sentation helps the Appeal to the Imagination, 289 In Descrip- 
 tions of Natural Scenery and of Persons, 290 The Sensuous and 
 the Sensual, 292. 
 
XX CONTENTS. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 PACK 
 
 EXPLANATORY ALLOY IN ILLUSTRATIVE REPRESEN- 
 TATION 293-307 
 
 Illustrations that are not always necessarily Representative, 293 
 Their Development gradually traced in Descriptions of Natural 
 Scenery, 295 Practical Bearing of this on the Composition of 
 Orations, 299 Why Common People hear Some gladly and Others 
 not at all, 299 Obscure Styles not Brilliant, 302 Examples of 
 Obscure Historical and Mythological References in Poetry, 303 
 Alloyed Representation Short-Lived, 304 How without any 
 such a Mixture of Main and Illustrating Thought as to destroy 
 Representation, References to possibly UnknownThings are made 
 in Poetry that lives, 305. 
 
 XXVI. 
 ORNAMENTAL ALLOY IN REPRESENTATION . 308-318 
 
 Poetic Development of the Far-Fetched Simile in the Illustrating 
 of Illustrations, 308 Examples of this from Several Modern 
 Writers, 309 Whose Representation or Illustration fails to repre- 
 sent or illustrate, 312 Poetic Development of the Mixed Meta- 
 phor, 312 Examples from Modern Poets, 313 In what will this 
 result? 314 More Examples, 315 ; How the Tendency leads the 
 Poet from his Main Thought to pursue Suggestions made even by 
 Sounds, Representing thus a Lack of Sanity or of Discipline, 
 neither of which is what Art should represent, 317. 
 
 XXVII. 
 REPRESENTATION IN POEMS CONSIDERED AS WHOLES, 319-341 
 
 Form in Words and Sentences, 319 How Visible Appearances 
 give an Impression of Form, 320 How Movable Appearances do 
 the Same, 320 Consistency and Continuity in a Sentence Neces- 
 sary to give it an Effect of Form, 321 A Poem a Series of Repre- 
 sentations and of Sentences, 321 Must have Manifest Consist- 
 ency and Continuity giving it Manifest Unity and Progress, as also 
 Definiteness and Completeness, 322 Examples of Poems with a 
 Manifest Form modelled on Direct Representation, 323 How 
 Figures can be carried out with Manifest Consistency and Conti- 
 nuity, 327 Complete and Broken Figures, 328 Examples o f 
 
CONTENTS. XXI 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Poems with Forms modelled on the Methods of Illustrative Repre- 
 sentation, 328 How Excellence of Form in all Poems of whatever 
 Length should be determined, 336 Certain Poems not representing 
 Unity and Progress, 337 Great Poets see Pictures when conceiving 
 their Poems ; Inferior Poets think of Arguments, 338 Same Prin- 
 ciples applied to Smaller Poems, 338 The Moral in Poetry should 
 be represented not presented, 339 Poetic Excellence determined 
 not by the Thought but by the Form of the Thought, which must 
 be a Form of Representation, 339. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 THE USEFUL ENDS OF POETIC REPRESENTATION 342-346 
 
 These are all developed from Possibilities and Methods of Expres- 
 sion underlying equally the Formation of Poetic and of all Lan- 
 guage, 342 Poetry forced to recognize that Nature symbolizes ^ 
 Processes of Thought, 343 Influence of this Recognition upon Con- 
 ceptions of Truth, Human and Divine, Scientific and Theologic, 
 344 And its Effects upon Feeling and Action ; Conclusion, 345. 
 
POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 POETRY AND PRIMITIVE LANGUAGE. 
 
 Introduction All Art Representative Poetry an Artistic Development of 
 Language Language Representative of Mental Processes through Ma- 
 terial Sounds or Symbols Primitive Words are developed according to 
 Principles of Association and Comparison, partly Instinctive, through 
 Ejaculations ; partly Reflective, through Imitative Sounds This Theory 
 need not be carried too far How Language is a Gift from God 
 Agreement with Reference to Ejaculatory and Imitative Sounds would 
 form a Primitive Language This Book to show how Language, and 
 hence, how Poetic Language, can represent Thought, by pointing out, 
 first, how SOUNDS represent Thought in Primitive and then in Poetic 
 Words and Intonations; and, second, how Sounds accepted as Words are 
 used in Different SENSES, and how these Represent Thought in Conven- 
 tional and then in Poetic Words and Phrases Sounds represent Thought 
 both in Single Words and in Consecutive Intonations Elocution, the 
 Interpreter of Sounds used Consecutively Representing that Blending 
 and Balancing of Instinctive and Reflective Tendencies, which express 
 the Emotive Nature. 
 
 \1TORDSWORTH, in one of his finest passages, says 
 of the results of his studies in poetry: 
 
 I have learned 
 
 To look on nature, not as in the hour 
 Of thoughtless youth ; but hearing oftentimes 
 The still, sad music of humanity. 
 
 . . . And I have felt 
 
 A presence that disturbs me with the joy 
 
2 ' POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 Of elevated thoughts ; a sense sublime 
 Of something far more deeply interfused, 
 Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
 And the round ocean, and the living air, 
 And the blue sky, and in the mind of man : 
 A motion and a spirit, that impels 
 All thinking things, all objects of all thought, 
 And rolls through all things. 
 
 Lines Composed a few Miles above Tintern Abbey. 
 
 How many are there who have learned for themselves 
 this lesson undoubtedly a valuable one of which 
 Wordsworth speaks ? How many are there who can ap- 
 prehend clearly his meaning in what he says of it ? How 
 many are there who can discover in themselves any im- 
 portant addition to their mental or moral development 
 that has been due to poetry, or who can appreciate fully 
 its best thought, if at all subtle in its nature, even though 
 presented in the best possible form ? That in our day 
 there are very few of these, is only too apparent to any 
 competent judge of the subject who questions the leaders 
 in our literary circles, who reads the verses in our maga- 
 zines, who examines the criticisms in our reviews, or who 
 listens to the accounts of what students of poetry are 
 taught in our schools. Yet in his " Defence of Poesy " 
 Sir Philip Sidney tells us that this art " is of all other 
 learnings the most ancient, that from whence all other 
 learnings have taken their beginnings, and so universal 
 that no learned nation doth despise it ; nor no barbarous 
 nation is without it." Bailey says that : 
 
 Poetry is itself a thing of God. 
 
 He made his prophets poets, and the more 
 
 We feel of poesy do we become 
 
 Like God in love and power. 
 
 Festus. 
 
POETRY AND PRIMITIVE LANGUAGE. 3 
 
 And Holmes assures us that 
 
 There breathes no being, but has some pretence 
 To that fine instinct called poetic sense. 
 
 A Metrical Essay* 
 
 If statements like these, which could be multiplied 
 indefinitely, be true, then it is both important and pos- 
 sible for men of all classes and conditions to have the 
 character and methods of this art the only one accessible 
 to the members of every household so explained to them 
 that they shall be able to appreciate it, and to judge intelli- 
 gently of its products, and hence to enjoy it, and to profit 
 by it. It is with this belief that the present work has 
 been undertaken, in which it will be maintained through- 
 out that there are absolute standards of poetic excellence ; 
 that these can be ascertained ; and that upon them can be 
 founded a system of criticism as simple as it is scientific. 
 
 At the threshold of our undertaking, the first thing for 
 us, of course, is to become thoroughly acquainted with 
 the facts of the case, and the fact of primary importance 
 for us here will be ascertained when, in some form, we 
 have answered the question, What is poetry ? 
 
 Poetry is acknowledged to be an art, ranking, like 
 music, with the fine arts, painting, sculpture, and archi- 
 tecture. It is acknowledged, also, that the peculiar char- 
 acteristic of all these arts is that they have what is termed 
 form (from the Latin forma, an external appearance). 
 This form, moreover, is aesthetic (from the Greek cdfffhjrot, 
 perceived by the senses) ; and it is presented in such a way 
 as to address the senses through the agency of an artist, 
 who, in order to attain his end, re-presents the sounds or 
 sights of nature. 7 All these ajts, therefore, in a broad 
 sense of the term, are( representative. What they repre- 
 
4 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 I sent is partly the phenomena of nature and partly the 
 | thoughts of man ; partly that which is imitated from 
 / things perceived in the world without, and partly that 
 which is conceived in the mind of him who, in order to 
 express his conception, produces the imitation. Both of 
 these factors are present in all artistic forms, and cause 
 them to be what they are. That painting and sculpture 
 represent, is recognized by all ; that music and architect- 
 ure do the same, needs to be proved to most men. As 
 for poetry, with which we are now to deal, all perceive 
 that it contains certain representative elements ; but few 
 are aware to what an extent these determine every thing 
 in it that is distinctive and excellent. 
 
 The medium used in poetry is language, of which it is 
 simply an artistic development. To understand the one, 
 we should begin by trying to understand the other. Let 
 us consider, then, for a little, what language is. Only a 
 moment's thought will show, that, like the arts of which I 
 have spoken, it, too, is representative. Through outward 
 and perceptible sounds or symbols it makes known our 
 inward thoughts, which, without the representation, others 
 could not know. If, in any way, we can ascertain how it 
 does this, we may gain a clew by which to find how 
 poetry can do the same. 
 
 How, then, does language represent thought through 
 the agency of sound ? The best way to find an answer to 
 this is to trace, as far as possible, the course of a few 
 thoughts from their inception in the mind outward to the 
 full expression of them in words. For this purpose we 
 might imagine ourselves to be living in some early, or, at 
 least, uncultivated age ; we might ask what would be done 
 by the members of a race with a limited number of words 
 and desirous of expressing ideas for which they had no* 
 
POETRY AND PRIMITIVE LANGUAGE. 5 
 
 terms in their vocabulary. But, without taxing our imagi- 
 nation thus, we can accomplish our purpose by watching 
 the children of our own time. We can note the different 
 stages in the development of their efforts to tell us what 
 they think; and then we can argue from analogy that 
 there would be a similar order of development in language 
 during the childhood of the race. Let us pursue this 
 course. As we do so, we shall find ourselves, instinc- 
 tively, making two divisions of our subject : the first 
 dealing with the methods of originating sounds so as to 
 represent thought ; the second, with the use of them 
 after they have been originated so as to represent different 
 thoughts. It is best to begin by considering the former 
 of these, and then, immediately in connection with it, its 
 bearings on poetic forms ; not because, in its relations 
 either to language or to poetry, it occupies the more im- 
 portant position, but because it comes the earlier in the 
 order of time. 
 
 The first sounds made by the babe are instinctive, and 
 seem to be accepted as words in fulfilment mainly of the 
 principle of association. By instinctive, as used in this 
 book, is meant an expression allied in its nature to instinct ; 
 due, even in a rational being, to the operation less of 
 conscious rationality than of natural forces vitalizing all 
 sentient existence. The child cries and crows while the 
 mother hums and chuckles, and both understand each 
 other. They communicate through what may be termed 
 ejaculations or interjections. This kind of language is little 
 above the level of that of the brutes ; in fact, it is of the 
 same nature as theirs. The sounds seem to have a purely 
 muscular or nervous origin ; and for this reason may be 
 supposed to have no necessary connection with particular 
 thoughts or psychic states intended to be expressed by 
 
6 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 them. Nevertheless, we all understand the meanings of 
 them when produced by the lower animals, as well as 
 when made by man. Everywhere, certain ejaculations are 
 recognized to be expressive of the general tenor of certain 
 feelings, like those of pleasure and pain, desire and aver- 
 sion, surprise and fright. This fact shows that in a true 
 sense these ejaculations are representative ; and to recog- 
 nize it, is all that is necessary for our present purpose. 
 To show why they are so, to explain how the various 
 qualities and movements of sounds can be made to picture 
 in one sphere the qualities and movements of thoughts 
 which can exist only in another sphere, would require a 
 thorough unfolding of the principles of elocution and 
 music ; and to introduce this just here would take us 
 away from the line of thought immediately before us. 
 
 Waiving all questions with reference to any comparison 
 or likeness that there may be between these ejaculations 
 and the particular sensations that they express, we can all 
 recognize how men, after they have heard the same utter- 
 ance used many times with the same emotion, should 
 come to ally or associate the two. " Expression," says 
 Farrar, in his " Language and Languages," " is the natural 
 and spontaneous result of impression ; and, however merely 
 animal in their nature the earliest exclamations may have 
 been, they were probably the very first to acquire ^he dig- 
 nity and significance of reasonable speech, because in their 
 case, more naturally than in any other, the mere repeti- 
 tion of the sound would, by the association of ideas, 
 involuntarily recall the sensation of which the sound was 
 so energetic and instantaneous an exponent. In the dis- 
 covery of this simple law, which a very few instances 
 would reveal to the mind of man, lay the discovery of the 
 Idea of Speech. The divine secret of language the* 
 
POETRY AND PRIMITIVE LANGUAGE. J 
 
 secret of the possibility of perfectly expressing the unseen 
 and immaterial by an articulation of air which seemed to 
 have no analogy with it the secret of accepting sounds 
 as the exponents and signs of every thing in the ' choir of 
 heaven and furniture of earth ' lay completely revealed 
 in the use of two or three despised interjections. To bor- 
 row a simile from the eloquent pages of Herder, they were 
 the sparks of Promethean fire which kindled language 
 into life." 
 
 The principle of association in connection with the use 
 of natural exclamations, accounts probably for the origin 
 not only of actual interjections, but of other sounds also, 
 like the sibilants, aspirates, and gutturals, giving their 
 peculiar qualities to the meanings of syllables like those 
 in hush, hist, and kick. Some, too, think that it accounts 
 for the origin of words like is, me, and that, cognate with 
 the Sanskrit as, ma, and ta ; the first meaning to breathe, 
 and indicating the act of breathing; the second closing 
 the lips to shut off outside influence, and thus to refer to 
 self ; and the third opening the lips to refer to others. In 
 the same way, too, because the organs of speech are so 
 formed that the earliest articulated sound made by a babe 
 is usually either mama or papa, and the earliest persons to 
 whom each is addressed are the mother and father, people 
 of many different races have come to associate mama, 
 which, as a rule, is uttered first, with an appeal to the 
 mother, and papa with an appeal to the father. 
 
 In order, however, that utterances springing from 
 sounds like these may be used in language, it is evident 
 that men must begin to imitate them. The principle of 
 Imitation, therefore, as well as that of ejaculation, must 
 have been closely connected with the formation of the 
 earliest words. Ejaculations, as has been said, are instinc- 
 
8 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 tive. As such, they come first in the order of time, fur- 
 nishing men both with sounds that can be imitated, and 
 with sounds, originated in the vocal organs, that can be 
 modified so as to form the imitations. But the latter 
 begin to be used as soon as the reflective nature begins to 
 assert itself ; and they soon extend to the reproduction of 
 other sounds besides ejaculations sounds that are indis- 
 putably representative in the most literal sense, and that 
 become accepted as words as a result of actual comparison 
 as well as of association. The sounds are first heard when 
 the child is led to notice external objects. Then, unlike 
 the animal which can only ejaculate, but just like his 
 reputed father Adam, the first who had a reflective nature, 
 he begins to give names to these objects, or to have names 
 given to them for him by others. These names, according 
 to the methods controlling the formation of nursery lan- 
 guage, are always based upon the principle of imitation. 
 Certain noises emanating from the objects designated, 
 the chick-chick of the fowl, the tick-tick of the watch, the 
 cuckoo of the bird over the clock, the bow-wow of the dog, 
 and, later, the clatter of the rattle, or the rustle of the silk 
 or satin, are imitated in the names applied to them ; and 
 this imitative element enables the child to recognize what 
 the object is to which each name refers. The existence of 
 hundreds of terms in all languages, the sounds of which 
 are significant of their sense, like buzz, hiss, crash, slam, 
 bang, whine, howl, roar, bellow, whistle, prattle, twitter, 
 gabble, and gurgle (many of which are of comparatively 
 recent origin), is a proof that the prin^irjkjafJunitation is 
 an important factor in the formation of words. " Through 
 all the stages of growth of language," says Whitney in his 
 "Language and the Science of Language," " absolutely 
 new words are produced by this method more than by 
 any other." 
 
POETRY AND PRIMITIVE LANGUAGE. 9 
 
 Not only so, but it is recognized universally that in 
 our present languages certain words and they are those 
 which skilful writers always prefer to use, if they can 
 sound more like what they mean than others do. Many 
 of these words, it is true, are in no sense traceable to an 
 imitative origin. But they are treated as if they were ; 
 and this fact proves that there is a tendency at present, as 
 there always has been, to derive satisfaction from imita- 
 tive, mimetic, or, as they are technically termed, onomato- 
 poetic, sounds. Of all writers, the poet, who, as an artist, 
 is supposed to use language the most skilfully, manifests 
 the most of this tendency. Notice the following: 
 
 The terrible grumble and rumble and roar, 
 Telling the battle was on once more. 
 
 Sheridan's Ride : T. B. Read. 
 
 Here 's a knife ; clip quick ; it 's a sign of grace. 
 
 Holy Cross Day : Browning. 
 
 So we were left galloping, Joris and I, 
 
 ********* 
 'Neath our feet broke the bright brittle stubble like chaff. 
 
 How They Brought the Good News : Browning. 
 
 Roared as when the rolling breakers boom and blanch on the precipices. 
 
 Boddicea : Tennyson. 
 
 Ancient rosaries, 
 Laborious Orient ivory, sphere in sphere. 
 
 The Princess : Tennyson. 
 
 While I nodded nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, 
 As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber-door. 
 
 The Raven : Poe. 
 
 It is only when the imitative and ejaculatory theories 
 of the origin of words are held to the exclusion of all 
 others, that they deserve the treatment which they have 
 received from Max Miiller, in his " Science of Language," 
 
10 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 under the names of the bow-wow and pooh-pooh theories. 
 Muller himself, however, mentions approvingly what has 
 been called in turn the ding-dong theory, originated by 
 the German Heyse, in his " System der Sprachwissen- 
 schaft." According to this theory, as Muller states it, 
 " a law runs through nearly the whole of nature, that 
 each substance has its peculiar ring. ... It was 
 the same with man." He once possessed an instinctive 
 faculty for giving articulate expression to the rational 
 conceptions of his mind. But this " creative faculty, 
 which gave to each conception, as it thrilled for the first 
 time through his brain, a phonetic expression, became 
 extinct when its object was fulfilled." This theory does 
 not seem to differ materially from the ejaculatory. Of 
 course, the fewer words a man had in his vocabulary in 
 that early period, the more he would exclaim, and the 
 more he used his exclamations as words, the more their 
 character would become changed from that which they 
 had when mere exclamations. It is true that in this sense 
 the creative faculty, enabling him to give representative 
 expressions, would become extinct. He would come to 
 use conventional words instead of them. But before he 
 possessed these words it would be, to quote from Whit- 
 ney, "beyond all question as natural for the untaught 
 and undeveloped man to utter exclamations as to make 
 gestures." 
 
 This theory, that the very earliest words were ejacula- 
 tory and imitative, seems to accord with the commonly 
 accepted view, that language is a gift from God, recogniz- 
 ing it to be so in the sense that, whereas beasts and birds 
 are endowed with the power of representing only a few 
 sensations through a few almost unvarying sounds, man 
 can represent any number of thoughts and emotions 
 
POETRY AND PRIMITIVE LANGUAGE. II 
 
 through articulating organs capable of producing almost 
 infinite combinations and variations. Place two human 
 beings, thus constituted, in a state like that of Eden, and 
 in a month's time, by using ejaculatory and imitative 
 utterances, and mutually agreeing, as they necessarily 
 would do, to associate certain ideas with certain of these, 
 they would form a primitive language, which both could 
 understand ; and a number of their words, too, would 
 probably not be wholly dissimilar in either sound or sense 
 to some that we use to-day. 
 
 This fact of agreement, just mentioned, is undoubtedly 
 the most important of the elements causing sounds to 
 become words with definite meanings. But in the present 
 discussion, it is important to notice that, in the beginning, 
 there were the best of reasons for this agreement ; the 
 signs used actually represented the things signified ; they 
 were like them or allied to them ; they compared with them 
 or were associated with them, and that, too, in a natural 
 and not, as is the case with words originated later, in an 
 arbitrary way. Without any agreement at all, an ejacu- 
 latory or imitative word would have some meaning, and 
 this a meaning similar to the one ultimately assigned to 
 it by common consent. 
 
 Were we dealing with language here for its own sake, 
 it would be in place now to pass on from these earlier 
 sounds, originated in order to represent thought, to the 
 consideration of the same after they have been originated 
 and are used over again in order to represent other and 
 different thoughts. This would introduce us into a 
 sphere where we should find the great majority of words 
 in every vocabulary. But we must defer any reference to 
 these at present. Our object now is to find the connec- 
 tion between representation in natural and in artistic 
 
12 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 language ; and, before we go further, it will be best to 
 apply at once what has been noticed with reference to 
 the representation of thought in sound, to its representa- 
 tion in those features of poetic form which depend upon 
 sound. 
 
 So far, we have been examining how ideas can be repre- 
 sented in single words. But ideas, when conceived in the 
 mind, are in constant movement. To be represented 
 completely, they must be expressed by words, not stand- 
 ing alone, but following one another in the order of time. 
 Possibly, it is because we usually hear them in this order, 
 that most of us are inclined to give credence to the 
 ejaculatory and imitative theories with reference to their 
 origin. For, whatever may be true of words used separ- 
 ately, it is a fact that, even aside from the conventional 
 meanings ordinarily attached to them, intonations, such 
 as can be given only in the movements of consecutive 
 speech, have a significance. When Bridget, according to 
 a familiar story, was sent to the neighbors to inquire how 
 old Mrs. Jones was, she emphasized the old, and paused 
 after it, and so gave irreparable offence. Her tones repre- 
 sented an idea which the mere words of the message 
 confided to her had not been intended to convey. 
 
 These intonations, as will be noticed, are representa- 
 tive of movement on the part of ideas. Movement is a 
 result of the instinctive tendency, which, carried to an 
 extreme, as in great physical passion, ends in explosion. 
 Ideas result from the reflective tendency, which, carried to 
 an extreme, as in the profoundest thought, ends in abso- 
 lute cessation of movement, or quietness. The intona- 
 tions result from the blending and balancing of both of 
 these tendencies. But now, whenever the results of reflec- 
 tion are added to those of instinct, or of instinct to those 
 
POETRY AND PRIMITIVE LANGUAGE. 13 
 
 of reflection ; whenever neither one of these elements 
 alone is present but both together are found in an expres- 
 sion, this, in distinction from either instinctive or reflective, 
 is what we may term emotive. A man, for instance, may 
 eat and sleep like an animal, instinctively, or he may think 
 and talk reflectively, without giving any expression to 
 what we mean by emotion. But as soon as he thinks and 
 talks in connection with eating and sleeping, as is the case 
 with a caterer or an upholsterer, an hotel-keeper or a 
 housewife ; or as soon as his instincts prompt and accentu- 
 ate his thinking and talking, as is the case with an actor 
 or a good story-teller, then, as a result of instinct made 
 thoughtful, or of thought made instinctive, he begins to 
 manifest his emotive nature, and the character of his 
 emotion is represented by the degree in which the one 
 or the other of the two tendencies influencing him is in 
 excess. 
 
 We may arrive at this same conclusion through a differ- 
 ent method. That which blends and balances the in- 
 stinctive or physical and the reflective or mental tendencies, 
 is the soul, holding body and mind together, influencing 
 and influenced by both. But as the intonations result 
 from the blending and balancing of these same tendencies 
 as manifested in language, we may say that the intona- 
 tions represent not only the emotive nature, as has been 
 shown, but also the soul. Is it, then, the same thing to put 
 emotion into an expression and to put soul into it ? Nine- 
 ty-nine persons out of every hundred will acknowledge 
 that, according to their ordinary conceptions, it is. And 
 our line of thought here will show that, in this case, ordi- 
 nary conceptions are right. No one can give expression 
 to his emotive nature without representing a blended 
 result of nerve and thought, of instinct and reflection. 
 
14 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 Nor can he give material embodiment to all the possibili- 
 ties of expression that move his soul, without doing the 
 same. 1 
 
 1 It may be asked here, very naturally, where, in this classification of ten- 
 dencies, is the place for the expression of the will ? The answer is that 
 there is none, and that there needs to be none. What we mean by will is 
 simply a force in the soul, emotive in its general character, which, swayed 
 by the influence of some overbalancing tendency, ends in action. As this 
 force, when operating in any direction, is constant or fitful, the will is said 
 to be strong or weak. If it impel to action mainly in an instinctive direc- 
 tion, to the exclusion of reflective influences, the character is what is ordi- 
 narily termed wilful, and, under differing conditions, will be reckless, 
 sensual, cruel, or, as influenced slightly by reflective tendencies, domineering, 
 like that of a Napoleon. If the force impel to action mainly in a reflective 
 direction to the exclusion of instinctive influences, the character, under dif- 
 fering conditions, will be too coldly speculative, chimerical, or, as influ- 
 enced slightly by instinctive tendencies, calculating or hypocritical, like that 
 of a Machiavelli or a Chesterfield. In case the instinctive and reflective 
 tendencies are very evenly matched, and therefore both act, but act alter- 
 nately, the character is ill-balanced and fickle, like that of many men of 
 genius, whose susceptibility to widely separated influences is the source of 
 their strength, but also of their weakness. In case the instinctive and 
 reflective tendencies both act, and act simultaneously, with the reflective 
 ruling, as is always the case when the two act together normally, the result 
 is both natural and rational ; we say that the character is ' ' well- 
 balanced," and the one possessing it is " level-headed," conditions which, 
 at their best, produce a man like Washington. Were these facts with 
 reference to the action of the will regarded, many faults both of opinion and 
 training would be avoided. It would be recognized, for instance, that 
 while there is such a thing as " converting a soul," by turning the control of 
 its energies from its instinctive to its reflective nature, there is no such 
 a thing as "breaking a will"; that the recklessness tending to sensuality 
 and cruelty, or the opposite trait, tending to speculation and sometimes to 
 hypocrisy, can neither of them be corrected, except by a careful cultivation 
 of the tendencies that naturally balance them. 
 
 The three tendencies from which, in this work, the phenomena of expres- 
 sion are derived, are the same in general character as those upon which were 
 based the principles of the ** Orator's Manual," published several years ago. 
 For the terms now used in order to refer to them, especially instinctive 
 and emotive^ as well as for certain ideas necessarily associated with these, I 
 
POETRY AND PRIMITIVE LANGUAGE. 15 
 
 It may be interesting to notice now how Herbert Spen- 
 cer, in his " Essay on the Origin and Function of 
 Music," confirms the most of what has just been said with 
 
 seem to be about equally indebted to my friends Professor J. W. Churchill, 
 of the Andover Theological Seminary, and Moses True Brown, of the 
 Boston School of Oratory. But this division of expressional tendencies into 
 the instinctive, reflective, and emotive, besides being made to accord with 
 the results of the practical experience of instructors of this rank, can be 
 made to accord also with the classifications of many different systems of phi- 
 losophy. To mention a few of these, and to go back first to the subtlest of the 
 most ancient of them, Plato, according to the careful analyses of his theories 
 made by my esteemed colleague, Professor S. S. Orris, of Princeton Col- 
 lege, in the " Timseus," as also in the fourth and ninth books of the " Re- 
 public," divides the soul into the sensuous, corresponding to what is called 
 in this work the instinctive tendency, under which he classes the desires for 
 sensuous pleasures and indulgences, all the way from carnality to lust for 
 money ; the rational, corresponding to what is here termed the reflective ten- 
 dency ; and the spirited, as translators term it, under which, as appears 
 from the " Phaedrus " and the eighth and ninth books of the " Republic," 
 he classes the emotions of wonder, reverence, ambition, emulation, indigna- 
 tion, love of honor, the beautiful, power, glory, etc. In the " Timaeus,'" 
 again, he locates the rational nature in the head, and the spirited in the 
 thorax near by it, so that " it may obey the reasoning principle (the reflect- 
 ive), and in connection with it restrain the desires " (of the instinctive tend- 
 ency), which duty, as will be seen, is also the most important of the 
 functions assigned in this work to the emotive nature. 
 
 The underlying philosophy of the writers of the New Testament, too, 
 seems to have been very similar to that of Plato. Paul says in I Thes. v., 
 23: "I pray God your whole spirit (rtvevfia) and soul (tyvxr/} and body 
 (o^coyi/^be preserved blameless unto the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ." Of 
 the three tendencies thus mentioned for it can hardly be supposed that they 
 are meant to indicate separate entities the former, the TtvEv^a, is gener- 
 ally taken to refer to the higher rational or reflective nature. It is repre- 
 sented as sometimes good and sometimes evil in character (Mark i., 23), but 
 always as that which allies man to the divine Spirit, also described frequently 
 as the Spirit of Truth (TO itrsvjua T^ dtyQsiaS, John xiv., 17). The lat- 
 ter word, 6<>iJ.a, is acknowledged to refer to the body, sometimes to the 
 fleshly body, as in the expression " body of his flesh " (ev rca doo^an rrjS 
 6apHo^) in Col. i., 22, and sometimes to the body supposed to take the place 
 of the fleshly in the next world, as in the expression, " It is sown a natural 
 
1 6 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 reference to the representative character of the intona- 
 tions. He asserts that these furnish " the commentary of 
 the emotions upon the propositions of the intellect " ; then, 
 
 body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body and there is a 
 spiritual body," (doojua Ttvevjuarixor) in I Cor. xiii., 43, 44. These state- 
 ments would make the promptings of the dcojua correspond to what is 
 meant in this book by the instinctive tendency ; for while this has been rep- 
 resented to be the one most nearly allied to physical vitality, it is still a 
 tendency of mind, otherwise it could not be a factor in linguistic expression ; 
 and though, during the presence of the physical form it manifests itself 
 through it, we can conceive, were this form absent, of its manifesting itself 
 through the form taking the place of it. 
 
 The reflective tendency being traced to the rtrevjua and the instinctive 
 to the dcSvua, or, so far as concerns the present life, to this, as embodied in 
 the flesh (tfa#i), which we are told, in Gal. v., 17, " lusteth against the 
 spirit," we have left the emotive tendency. Can this be traced to what Paul 
 terms the soul (fax 1 ?) ? In other words, can the ipv%?f represent the 
 feeling connected with conscious life, either animal or rational ? As for the 
 soul's being the seat of emotion, it can only be said that usually, but not 
 universally, it is the soul which in the Scriptures is represented as being 
 pleased, Mat. xii., 18 ; or sorrowful, Mark xiv., 34 ; or troubled, John 
 xii., 27 ; and this either spiritually or physically, as in Luke xii., 19, " Soul 
 tyl*Wf)t eat drink, and be merry." As for the same word's representing 
 the principle of life in both the animal and rational natures, this seems more 
 susceptible of proof. It is explicitly stated in I. Cor. xv. , 43, 44, that 
 when one dies his body "is sown " a soul-body (dcoju a tyvxiKov, trans- 
 lated in our version "a natural body") "and is raised a spiritual body. 
 There is a spiritual body and there is a soul-body " ; but it is implied just 
 as plainly in Matt, xvi., 25, 26, that there is a soul connected with the 
 itvBvn.0. or the rational part of man, existing after death. Otherwise what 
 can this mean : " For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole 
 world and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his 
 soul (TTJ<S ipvxrj's) ? " If these passages taken together, and others like 
 them, can be made to mean that there is a soul or an emotive tendency 
 which, at times, can act in connection either with the reflective (rtvEv/Lia) 
 or the instinctive (dcd/ua) tendency, then the philosophical theory implied 
 in these statements corresponds exactly with what is said of the emotive ten- 
 dency of the soul in this work. Possibly, too, theologians might derive a 
 suggestion of value from the fact that the fax?? is the only mental element 
 represented in the Scriptures as in danger of being lost. The rtvevita, and 
 
POETRY AND PRIMITIVE LANGUAGE. \*J 
 
 making a physical explanation, says that " the muscles 
 that move the chest, larynx, and vocal cords, contracting 
 like other muscles in proportion to the intensity of the 
 
 the 6)p,a appear to be always kept, but the question seems to be asked : 
 What would either be without the fyv?i, the seat of those emotions, from 
 which man derives both the pleasures of existence and the power of bal- 
 ancing and harmonizing the tendencies of his nature toward " rationality," 
 " thought," " the ideal," on the one hand ; and toward "body," "embodi- 
 ment," " form," on the other ? 
 
 The classification of modes of expression given here, will be recognized 
 also as resembling, with some differences, those of the system of Delsarte, as 
 represented both by L' Abbe Delaumosne in his printed work, and by pupils 
 of the French elecutionist in this country. Delaumosne traces expression 
 to eccentric, concentric, and normal motion, corresponding respectively to 
 the sensitive, intellectual, and moral states of the mind. For normal mo- 
 tion, or the effects of it, Moses True Brown, in his lectures before the 
 Boston School of Oratory, substitutes the word poise, an admirable term, 
 which I have found full of suggestions, as I have other ideas of this lecturer ; 
 and he describes the states of the mind by using the terms vital, mental, and 
 emotional. In the present work, an attempt has been made for the first 
 time to analyze the tendencies of expression for the purpose of showing the 
 relation between them and the effects of poetry. But, in connection with 
 this, will be found also the first complete classification of these tendencies, 
 as manifested in discoursive and dramatic elocution, through the elements of 
 duration, force, pitch, and quality. As for the theory underlying these 
 classifications, the acceptance of which, however, is not necessary to the ac- 
 ceptance of the classes themselves, it differs from the others mentioned, 
 mainly, in recognizing, as a basis for aesthetic methods of expression, only 
 two primary forms of motion, or of mental tendencies corresponding to 
 them ; and in considering the third as the resultant of these two. In this 
 regard, this theory is sustained by the divisions into the subjective, the objec- 
 tive, and the relations between them, which underlie the entire philosophic 
 systems both of Schelling and Hegel. Herbert Spencer, moreover, in 
 his " Principles of Pyschology," while maintaining that "no definite separa- 
 tion can be effected between the phenomena of mind and those of vitality in 
 general," also tries to " find a true generalization of mental phenomena by 
 comparing them with the lower vital phenomena." Of course, it would follow 
 from this, that there are certain mental tendencies allied to the vital nature, 
 and others allied to what is higher than it ; the former of which, being first 
 manifested in instinct, may very properly be termed, as in this work, in- 
 
1 8 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 feelings ; every different contraction of these muscles in- 
 volving, as it does, a different adjustment of the vocal 
 organs ; every different adjustment of the vocal organs 
 causing a change in the sound emitted ; it follows that 
 variations of voice are the physiological results of 
 variation of feeling ; it follows that each inflection 
 or modulation is the natural outcome of some passing 
 emotion or sensation ; and it follows that the explana- 
 tion of all kinds of vocal expression must be sought 
 in this general relation between mental and muscular 
 excitements." Thus the philosophy of evolution con- 
 firms in a general way the conclusions, with reference to 
 the developments of verbal sounds, that have been drawn 
 here. The emotive element, representing the " relation 
 between mental and muscular excitements," or, to put it 
 in our own language, between the reflective and instinctive 
 tendencies, using and blending the results of the former 
 as manifested in imitative words, and of the latter as 
 manifested in words formed from ejaculations, gives us the 
 intonations of consecutive speech. On the representative 
 character of these, aside from that of verbal significance, 
 are based the principles of elocution, and on these last, as 
 we shall find, are based the principles of poetry, so far as 
 this is dependent on elements of sound. 
 
 stinctive, while the latter is a more full and complex development of that 
 "reflex action," to use the words of Spencer, "in which we see the in- 
 cipient differentiation of the psychical (or reflective) from the physical life." 
 He also says that " the same progress which gives origin to memory and 
 reason simultaneously gives origin to feeling," by which he must mean that 
 the emotive nature has that in it which corresponds to the lowest as well as 
 the highest states of conscious intelligence. He adds, too, that " so long as 
 the actions are perfectly automatic, feeling does not exist," by which he 
 seems to indicate that, in his opinion, will and feeling are related, as has 
 been intimated here. Notice also in the main text the quotations from 
 Spencer with reference to the subject immediately before us. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 CONVERSATION, DISCOURSE, ELOCUTION, AND VERSIFI- 
 CATION. 
 
 Representative Character of Intonations Every Man has a Rhythm and a 
 Tune of his Own Physiological Reason for this Cultivated by Public 
 Speaking Recitative, and the Origin of Poetic and Musical Melody 
 Poetry, Song, Dance, all connected ; but not developed from each Other 
 Poetic Pause and Accent are developed only from Speech Pause 
 the Source of Verse Breathing and the Line Hebrew Parallelism ; 
 Greek The Caesura Accent, the Source of Rhythm and Tune Feet: 
 how produced in English ; in the Classic Languages Metrical Possi- 
 bilities of English. 
 
 "\XT E all must have noticed that a child too young to 
 talk, a foreigner using a language unknown to us, 
 a friend speaking at such a distance from us that his words 
 are indistinguishable, can all reveal to us, with a certain 
 degree of definiteness, the general tenor of their thoughts. 
 Their tones, aside from their words, enable us to under- 
 stand such facts as whether they are hurried or at leisure, 
 elated or depressed, in earnest or indifferent, pleased or 
 angered. This is so because these facts are directly repre- 
 sented by their intonations. Developed with design, these 
 may be made to resemble those of the foremost actors 
 and orators. Hence the art of elocution. Developed 
 without design, they instinctively come to imitate those of 
 the people with whom one most associates. Scotchmen, 
 Irishmen, Englishmen, and Americans can all be distin- 
 guished by the different ways in which they utter the same 
 
 19 
 
20 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 phrases. No two of them will emphasize precisely alike a 
 simple expression such as " I can't go there to-day." 
 
 Not only men of different nations can be distinguished 
 thus, but even different individuals. Any one well known 
 to us can be recognized in the dark by what we term 
 his voice, by which we mean his method of using his 
 voice ; the way, peculiar to himself, of pausing at certain 
 intervals and hurrying at others, of sliding his sounds up 
 and down on certain syllables and phrases, and also, per- 
 haps, of giving in certain places an unusual stress or 
 quality of tone. All these methods impress his individu- 
 ality on every thing that he has to say. If he becomes a 
 public speaker, his peculiarities in these regards become 
 still more marked. Unconsciously, if not consciously, he 
 develops them so that, in his delivery, similar intonations 
 recur with a certain degree of regularity ; in other words, 
 he comes to have what may be termed a rhythm and a tune 
 of his own. The reason why he comes to have these is, 
 undoubtedly, mainly physiological, as is intimated by 
 Herbert Spencer in his " Essay on Style," and Grant 
 Allen in his " Physiological ./Esthetics." It is owing to a 
 natural tendency to economize labor. Just as the swing- 
 ing of the hands enables one to walk more easily, so what 
 may be termed the swinging of the tones enables one to 
 talk more easily. So, also, as we shall find by-and-bye, do 
 verse and measure, to which these intonations naturally 
 lead. The two together separate the words and syllables, 
 and make them accord with the natural actions of the 
 lungs and throat. 
 
 But let us waive this thought, until we reach it in its 
 proper place. Before the age of books those who prepared 
 literature published it by repeating it in public. Every 
 man who did this had, of course, his own peculiarities of 
 
DISCOURSE AND VERSIFICATION. 21 
 
 utterance, which, as he continued to repeat his pro- 
 ductions, he would cultivate and render more and more 
 peculiar; just as is the case to-day with the venders who 
 cry in our streets, the clerks who read in our courts, and 
 the priests who intone the services in our churches. 
 These peculiarities, moreover, would be shown not only in 
 the elocution of the reciter, but in the arrangement of his 
 words and sentences, so as to fit them to his elocution. 
 At the outset, every literary man would have his own 
 style of delivery and composition, and confine himself to 
 it. But after a little, just as men of the same districts, 
 and preachers and exhorters of the same religious sects 
 Quakers, Methodists, or Episcopalians, imitate one an- 
 other ; so these public reciters would drift into imitation. 
 Before long, too, it would be found that one style of ex- 
 pression, or form of words, was better suited for one set of 
 ideas, and another for another set ; so, in time, the same 
 reciter would come to use different styles or forms for 
 different subjects. Only a slight knowledge of history is 
 needed in order to prove that this is what has actually 
 taken place. Pindaric metre, and possibly Homeric, as 
 also the Alcaic and Sapphic stanzas of the Greeks, were 
 used first by the poets whose names they bear ; but to-day 
 they are used by many others who find them the best forms 
 through which to express what they wish to write. 
 
 But to return to our line of thought. A further de- 
 velopment in the direction already indicated, would cause 
 these reciters after a time to use versification, so that 
 their rhythms and the variations in them might be more 
 clearly marked ; and still later, that the precise length of 
 their verses might be apparent, as well as to assist the 
 memory in retaining them, they would use rhymes. Fur- 
 ther developments in the direction of rhythm and tune, 
 
22 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 introducing greater variety in both, and making the tones 
 more and more sustained, would lead to the singing of 
 songs that is, to poetry set to musical melody. 
 
 Such, crudely outlined, seems to be the most rational ex- 
 planation of the rise of poetic forms. It is true that some, 
 like Dr. J. H. Heinrich Schmidt, in his " Introduction to 
 the Rhythmic and Metric of the Classic Languages," hold 
 that " poetry and music had their origin in the dance and 
 song," and that " it must be carefully borne in mind that 
 recited poetry was developed from song." But while he 
 maintains this theory, Dr. Schmidt is obliged to admit 
 that it cannot be substantiated by the known facts of 
 history. He says that the march-melodies, dance-melodies, 
 and purely lyric melodies, which, he believes, to have pre- 
 ceded recitative poetry, were so inferior in quality that 
 none of them have come down to us. Of the products 
 which have come down to us, " recitative poetry, power- 
 fully developed in the great national epics (Homer, 
 Hesiod, Arctinus, Stasinus, etc.), comes first. Then purely 
 lyrical poetry appears with Callinus, Archilochus, etc. The 
 first march-melodies were written by Tyrtaeus for the 
 Spartans. And about the same time we hear of the first 
 choric compositions (i. e. y dance-melodies), those, namely, 
 of Alcman and Stesichorus." 
 
 This order of development, it will be seen, corresponds 
 to that of the theory just presented here. But, while we 
 hold this theory, perhaps we should be going too far, did 
 we carry it to the extreme that Herbert Spencer does in 
 his " Essay on the Origin and Function of Music," in 
 which he seems to argue that every thing that we have in 
 music is merely a development of the forms of speech. It 
 seems more likely that both music and speech, the one 
 instinctive in its nature, and the other reflective, are 
 
DISCOURSE AND VERSIFICATION. 2$ 
 
 equally differentiated from a primitive ejaculatory form of 
 utterance. Speech, as we have it, originated with man ; 
 but long before the existence of man, there must have 
 been lower orders of creation in which the tendencies 
 subsequently developed into speech and music, both 
 existed in distinct and different forms. In fact, all the 
 modes of expression mentioned by Schmidt talking, 
 singing, and dance-gesturing have correspondences, 
 respectively, in the chirping, singing, and fluttering of the 
 bird. Spencer is undoubtedly right in saying that poetry 
 is " a form of speech used for the better expression of 
 emotional ideas." It, and all the higher forms of elo- 
 quence, are developed from talking with a musical or 
 what is the same thing an emotional motive. And 
 Schmidt is undoubtedly right in recognizing that the 
 three forms of expression which he mentions have a ten- 
 dency to run into one another. Whether one start out 
 to talk, or sing, or gesture, he may end by doing all three. 
 This fact has been true, probably, as long as man has 
 existed ; and in this sense, dance and song /. e., music in 
 connection with rhythmical language, undoubtedly pre- 
 ceded the earliest known recitative poems. But it is a 
 different thing to say that poetry, which is distinctively 
 an artistic development of language, is nothing but a 
 development of dance and song. In no true sense can 
 this be affirmed, although of course poetry, music, and 
 dancing have all influenced one another, and in important 
 particulars the principles underlying all are the same. 
 
 It has been shown from analogy that language, as used 
 by the early reciters, had a natural tendency to become 
 rhythmical ; also from history, that the various forms of 
 existing poetry were developed from the recitative. The 
 strongest argument in favor of the view just advanced, 
 
24 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 however, has yet to be presented. It is found in the fact 
 that the elements of all poetic, as well as of elocutionary 
 forms, can be traced to the physical requirements of the 
 organs of speech, and to these not as they are used in 
 singing, but, distinctively, in talking, One can sing with- 
 out suggesting any thing that can be developed into verse 
 or rhythm ; but it is impossible for him to talk, without 
 suggesting what can be developed into both. In order to 
 recognize the truth of this statement, we have merely to 
 listen to a man talking. As we do so, two characteristics 
 of speech will at once attract our attention. One is the 
 pause or cessation of sound, following groups of syllables, 
 which form phrases or sentences, containing anywhere 
 from two to a dozen words ; the other is the accent, given 
 to every second, third, or fourth syllable. This word 
 accent is used here, by the way, not in its restricted classic 
 etymological sense (from ad and cano, to sing to), which will 
 be explained hereafter, but in its modern English sense, 
 meaning merely the emphasis or ictus given to certain 
 syllables. Results that are universal and the pause and 
 accent are so, notwithstanding the alleged lack of the 
 latter in the French language are usually founded on 
 requirements of nature. 
 
 The pause results, primarily, from the construction of 
 the human lungs ; the accent, from that of the human 
 throat. The speaker checks his utterance in order to 
 breathe ; he accents it because the current of sound in 
 talking, but not in singing flows through the vocal 
 passages in a manner similar to that in which the blood 
 pulses through the veins, or fluid is emptied from the 
 neck of a bottle i. e., with what may be termed alternate 
 active and passive movements. The active movements, 
 which cause the accents, open the throat more freely than 
 
THE PAUSE AND VERSIFICATION. 2$ 
 
 the passive ones, and in doing so may change, as will be 
 shown hereafter, either the duration, force, pitch, or 
 quality of the tone, or all of these together. Observe the 
 difference between the accented and unaccented syllables 
 erf tartarize, Singsing, murmuring, barbarous, sassafras, 
 Lulu, papa. 
 
 It is only necessary to observe these facts in order to 
 recognize that the line in verse, at the end of which, when 
 regularly constructed, the reader necessarily pauses, is an 
 artistic development of the phrase, which we find in all 
 natural conversation. In fact, Aristotle, in his Rhetoric, 
 seems to hint at some such a development in prose, for he 
 says the period must be divided into clauses, easily pro- 
 nounced at a breath, ei avaiTtvsvGros. It is generally ac- 
 knowledged that the principal mental process involved in 
 art-construction is comparison. This causes all men, both 
 consciously and unconsciously, both for convenience and 
 pleasure, to take satisfaction in putting like with like. 
 The moment this tendency is applied to groups of sylla- 
 bles separated by pauses, it leads men to place, if possible, 
 a like number of syllables in each group, and thus have 
 between the pauses like intervals of time. But an arrange- 
 ment of this kind is the primary characteristic of verse. 
 Take one of the earliest verse-forms Hebrew parallelism 
 so called because made up of two phrases, each of 
 which contains a parallel or equivalent statement : 
 
 I will bless the Lord at all times ; 
 
 His praise shall continually be in my mouth. 
 
 My soul shall make her boast in the Lord ; 
 The humble shall hear thereof, and be glad. 
 
 O magnify the Lord with me ; 
 And let us exalt his name together. 
 
26 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 I sought the Lord, and he heard me ; 
 And delivered me from all my fears. 
 
 Psalms xxxiv., 1-4. 
 
 Even the English translation shows that this was con- 
 structed according to the principle just mentioned. The 
 Hebrew, feeling that the end of the sentence was the 
 appropriate place in which to pause, and wishing to pause 
 at regular intervals, tried to make his sentences of equal 
 length. This was his way of producing the same effect 
 that we have in our verse. The method of the early 
 Greek, too, seems to have been the same. " In recitative 
 poetry," says Schmidt, to whom I have already referred, 
 " which appropriated to itself the simplest forms, occurs 
 the most primitive sort of rhythmical period, the recitative 
 verse ; this consists of two sentences," similar in arrange- 
 ment to that of the Hebrew, "which either have equal 
 length, or the second of which is catalectic or ' falling,' or 
 is even shortened by an entire measure." 
 
 In the later Greek poetry, however, as in our own, the 
 length of the line does not determine the length of the 
 sentence. But it does, or at least should, determine the 
 length of the phrases ; because, as we have found, the reader 
 naturally pauses at the end of the line. If this be long, 
 he also pauses at some other place, usually in the middle 
 of the line. This latter pause is called the caesura, from a 
 Latin word meaning a division. Here are lines with the 
 caesura indicated by a bar : 
 
 Brought from the woods | the honeysuckle twines 
 Around the porch, | and seems in that trim place 
 A plant no longer wild ; | the cultured rose 
 There blossoms, strong in health, | and will be soon 
 Roof high ; | the wild pink crowns the garden wall, 
 And with the flowers | are intermingled stones 
 Sparry and bright, | rough scatterings of the hills. 
 
 Excursion, 6 : Wordsworth* 
 
ACCENT AND VERSIFICATION. 2J 
 
 The caesura pause need not necessarily come in the 
 middle of the line, e. g. : 
 
 Death his dart 
 Shook, | but delayed to strike, though oft invoked. 
 
 Par. Lost, II : Milton. 
 
 Have found him guilty of high treason. | Much 
 He spoke and learnedly. 
 
 Henry VIII., 2 ; i : Shakespear. 
 
 For reasons to be given hereafter, the pause at the end 
 of the line is much more apparent where rhymes are 
 used, e. g. : 
 
 In arguing, too, the pastor owned his skill, 
 For e'en though vanquished he could argue still, 
 While words of learned length and thundering sound 
 Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around, 
 And still they gazed and still the wonder grew, 
 That one small head could carry all he knew. 
 
 Deserted Village: Goldsmith. 
 
 In the same way as the pause is developed into verse, 
 accent is developed into rhythm and the tunes of verse, 
 two characteristics of poetic form which necessarily go 
 together, just as do their analogues in the arts appealing 
 to the eye, proportion and color. Some may doubt that 
 accent is the basis of rhythm and tune, but it is really 
 about all that the majority of men know of either. With 
 exceptions, the fewness of which confirms the rule, all of 
 our English words of more than one syllable must neces- 
 sarily be accented in one way ; and all of our articles, 
 prepositions, and conjunctions of one syllable are unac- 
 cented, unless the sense very plainly demands a different 
 treatment. These two facts enable us to arrange any num- 
 ber of our words so that the accents shall fall on syllables 
 separated by like intervals. The tendency to compare 
 things, and to put like with like, which is in constant 
 
28 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 operation where there are artistic possibilities, leads men 
 to take satisfaction in this kind of an arrangement ; and 
 when they have made it, they have produced rhythm. 
 
 A larger rhythm makes prominent as in prose, every 
 second or third accent ; but metrical rhythm, i. e., metre, 
 regards every accent. When reading verse, the accents 
 seem to mark it off; if marching, our feet would keep 
 time to them. Hence, as many syllables as can be grouped 
 about one syllable clearly accented, are termed a measure 
 or foot, words synonymous as applied to English verse; 
 though the classic measure sometimes contained two feet. 
 Here are feet separated by bars: 
 
 Tell me | not in | mournful | numbers 
 
 The train | from out | the cas | tie drew 
 
 Over the | roadways and | on through the | villages 
 
 There came to | the beach a | poor exile | of Erin 
 
 O'er the land | of the free | and the home | of the brave 
 
 Roses are in | blossom and the | rills are filled with ] water-cresses 
 
 The king has come | to marshal us | in all his ar | mor dressed. 
 
 The number of measures in a line determines its metre; 
 Hence the use of the Greek terms, monometer, meaning 
 a line of one measure, and dimeter, trimeter, tetrameter, 
 pentameter, hexameter, etc., meaning respectively a line 
 of two, three, four, five, and six measures. 
 
 All this, however, need scarcely be known as a prepara- 
 tion either for writing or reading English verse. The 
 poet has only to arrange his words so that the accents 
 will recur at like intervals, and very few for whom he 
 writes will fail to recognize the character of his rhythm, 
 and to measure it off correctly in their reading. It 
 is true that, if unusual measures are used, it may be neces- 
 sary to put long words, or those in which the accent is 
 unmistakable, at the beginning of the first line or two, 
 
ACCENT AND VERSIFICATION. 2$ 
 
 but, the clew once given, the rhythm will take care of 
 itself. The smallest children, able to talk, catch with 
 ease the movements of Mother Goose's melodies, some of 
 which contain metres as complicated as are ever con- 
 structed. 
 
 In the classic languages metre was determined by the 
 quantities or relative lengths of the vowel-sounds or con- 
 sonant-sounds composing the syllables. Our own lan- 
 guage is not spelled phonetically, and therefore we fail to 
 notice the effect of similar elements in it. Yet they are 
 present to a greater extent than we ordinarily suppose, as 
 will be brought out clearly when we come to consider 
 quantity, especially that which is used in the English 
 hexameter. Any one acquainted with the subject, knows 
 that it is a mistake to hold that quantity has nothing 
 whatever to do with the movements of our metres, and 
 an analogous mistake, probably, would be made in suppos- 
 ing that the emphasis of ordinary pronunciation had 
 nothing to do with the movements of the classic metres. 
 Notice what Schmidt has to say on this subject in the 
 quotation from his " Introduction to the Rhythmic and 
 Metric of the Classic Languages," given in the ninth 
 chapter of this work. It is true that, in constructing 
 verse, the Greeks and Romans subordinated every thing 
 else to quantity ; but they did so in order to produce a 
 rhythmic effect when chanting their lines, analogous to 
 that which we produce when reading ours according to 
 accent. Unlike ourselves, however, if, in composing, they 
 came to a word in which long quantity and the ordinary 
 accent did not go together, they seem always to have 
 been at liberty to disregard the accent, and occasionally, 
 too, to change the quantity. At the same time, that 
 which controlled their action in the matter appears to 
 
30 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 have been largely a consideration of convenience. In 
 serious poety, it was lawful for them to produce results 
 not wholly unlike that in the third rhyme of the follow- 
 ing, the classic quality of which some of us hitherto may 
 not have recognized : 
 
 For he might have been a Roosian, 
 A French, or Turk, or Proosian, 
 
 Or perhaps I-tal-i-an. 
 But in spite of all temptations 
 To belong to other nations, 
 
 He remains an Englishman. 
 
 Pinafore : Gilbert. 
 
 Our poets, on the contrary, base the rhythms of their 
 verse on the accents of the standard pronunciation, and 
 to these subordinate all considerations of quantity. The 
 result, as compared with the language of our prose, is 
 more natural than that reached by the other method ; and 
 in its way is fully as artistic. Nor, in other regards, is 
 English inferior to the classic tongues in its capabilities 
 of artistic treatment. Owing to an extensive use of ter- 
 minations in nouns, articles, pronouns, adjectives, and 
 verbs, in order to indicate different grammatical relation- 
 ships, the Greeks and Romans could change the order 
 of words in a sentence without changing its meaning. 
 In their language, " The dog ate the wolf," with slightly 
 varied terminations, could read, " The wolf ate the dog." 
 For this reason, they could alter their phraseology, in 
 order to accommodate it to the requirements of metre, as 
 is not possible for us ; and so far they had an advantage 
 over us. Nevertheless, for some reason, when they came 
 to put their words into verse, every school-boy who tries 
 to scan, knows that they produced a language which, 
 like the present French poetic diction, sounded unlike 
 
ACCENT AND VERSIFICATION. 31 
 
 that of conversation. Even supposing, with some schol- 
 ars, that in reading they did not scan their verses as we do 
 now, nor even chant them invariably, as some infer was 
 the case, their poetical language was not the same as their 
 spoken language. Aristotle tells us, when mentioning 
 things which it is legitimate for the poet to do, that he 
 can invent new words, that he can expand old ones, either 
 by lengthening vowels or by adding syllables, that he can 
 contract them by shortening vowels or omitting syllables, 
 and that he can alter them in various other ways. Spenser 
 and others since him have applied similar methods to Eng- 
 lish poetic diction ; but, at present, such changes are not 
 considered admissible, except in rare instances, and this be- 
 cause they are recognized to be unnecessary. The fact that 
 they are not admissible in our language, and were admissi- 
 ble in the classic languages, proves that, in one regard at 
 least, our language is superior to them as a medium of metre. 
 The following is a typical English stanza. In it there are 
 no changes from ordinary prose in the arrangement, spell- 
 ing, or pronunciation of any of the words : 
 
 " Tell me not in mournful numbers 
 Life is but an empty dream, 
 For the soul is dead that slumbers, 
 And things are not what they seem." 
 
 Psalm of Life : Longfellow. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 ELOCUTION: ITS REPRESENTATIVE ELEMENTS CLASSI- 
 FIED. 
 
 Pause and Accent Analyzed, the Former gives us the Element of Duration ; 
 the Latter gives Duration, Force, Pitch, and Quality Must find What 
 each Element represents in DISCOURSIVE ELOCUTION, developed from 
 Ejaculatory or Instinctive Modes of Utterance, and in DRAMATIC 
 ELOCUTION, developed from Imitative or Reflective Utterance ; and 
 then apply to Poetry General Statement of What is represented by 
 Duration, Force, Pitch, and Quality ; Rhythm the Effect of the First 
 Two, and Tune of the Last Two. 
 
 TTAVING sufficiently established now the general 
 fact that certain poetic forms are traceable to 
 the pause and accent of ordinary conversation, we are 
 prepared to pass on and ask what these forms represent ? 
 To answer this we must decide first what the pause and 
 accent represent ; and, after that, try to determine whether, 
 in any sense, they represent corresponding ideas when 
 developed into the forms of poetry. Let us pursue our 
 inquiry in the order thus suggested. 
 
 What the pause and accent represent can be ascertained 
 only by a reference to the principles of elocution. This 
 art, as we know, has the power of producing an almost 
 endless variety of effects, and all these, as a moment's 
 thought will show us, simply by making more or less em- 
 phatic the very pauses and accents now engaging our 
 attention. In these, therefore, must be enfolded many 
 possibilities of expression capable of development. Let 
 
 32 
 
ELOCUTIONARY ELEMENTS CLASSIFIED. 33 
 
 us try to ascertain what they are. Looking first, then, at 
 the pause, it is easy to see that its only element is that of 
 duration. We can extend it over longer or shorter time. 
 In accent, however, on comparing the accented and unac- 
 cented syllables of words like barbarous, murmuring, tar- 
 tarize, Singsing, and papa, we can clearly detect four ele- 
 ments. The accented syllable differs slightly from the 
 unaccented first, in duration: it is sounded in longer 
 time ; second, in force : it is sounded with more energy ; 
 third, in pitch: it is sounded on a key that, if used in 
 music, would be relatively higher or lower in the musical 
 scale ; and fourth, in quality : it is sounded with more ful- 
 ness or sharpness of tone. Simply by increasing the 
 degree in which any of these elements enter into ordinary 
 accentuation, we can increase the degree of emphasis rep- 
 resented by them. We have noticed, already, how the 
 pause influences the division of consecutive words into 
 verses. As applied to individual words, i. e., when used 
 after or before them, it has evidently the same general 
 effect as the prolongation of a sound ; it gives the ideas 
 expressed in the words more duration. 
 
 Let us examine now what phases of thought different 
 kinds of duration, force, pitch, and quality are fitted to 
 represent, and see how far they can aid us in determining 
 what can be represented by analogous poetic forms. To 
 attain our end, it will be necessary for us to go to elocu- 
 tion. 
 
 All the principles of this art can be classed under two 
 heads, those of discoursive and of dramatic elocution. The 
 first, generally termed the elocution of emphasis, is devel- 
 oped from instinctive methods of expression, and corre- 
 sponds, in this regard, to words formed from ejaculations. 
 It is used mainly in oratory. The second, generally 
 
34 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 termed the elocution of personation, is developed by the 
 reflective powers as a result of impressions received from 
 without. Mimicry, in some form, underlies all its effects ; 
 for which reason, it will be seen at once to correspond to 
 words formed as a result of imitation, and to be the phase 
 of delivery used mainly in dramatic acting. Of course, 
 the best elocution combines all the possibilities of the 
 art ; but, as a rule, the orator's chief aim is to give expres- 
 sion to his own thoughts ; the actor's, to seem properly 
 impressed by thoughts suggested by his surroundings. 
 
 In treating of duration, force, pitch, and quality, it will 
 be best to consider, first, the discoursive, and then the 
 dramatic, uses of each ; and, in immediate connection with 
 them, to direct attention to the corresponding develop- 
 ments in poetic form. More extended explanations and 
 illustrations of the elocutionary part of this subject may 
 be found in the author's " Orator's Manual." For our 
 present purpose, it will be sufficient to state, briefly, as 
 introductory to what will be unfolded more fully as we 
 go on, that, of the four elements of emphasis to be exam- 
 ined, duration is merely an external effect of sound, while 
 force, pitch y and quality are all essential to the very forma- 
 tion of it ; different degrees of force, as we learn from 
 science, being determined by the relative size of the 
 vibrations causing the tone ; of pitch, by their relative 
 rapidity ; and of quality, by the relative size and rapidity 
 of those compounded together, in order to produce any 
 apparently single tone almost every tone, as science has 
 ascertained, being a compound. 
 
 With reference to the significance of these elements, 
 while it is true that all, in a general way, represent, as has 
 been said, emotive effects, all of them represent also cer- 
 tain peculiar phases of such effects. These, as manifested 
 
ELOCUTIONARY ELEMENTS CLASSIFIED. 35 
 
 in dramatic elocution, of course interpret themselves. In 
 discoursive elocution, duration measures the utterance 
 that is, it represents the mind's measurement of its ideas, 
 one indication, by the way, of the appropriateness of the 
 poetic term, meters, or measures, which result from giving 
 different kinds of duration to syllables ; force energizes 
 utterance ; pitch aims it ; and quality tempers it. Of the 
 last three, again, force imparts fl/iyszgue to delivery; pitch, 
 intellectuality, and quality, emotion or soul, by which, as 
 has been explained, is meant that balancing and blending 
 of physical and intellectual tendencies which manifest 
 the degree in which the man is master or slave of body or 
 mind. Or, finally, to make a classification as comprehen- 
 sive as possible of all the factors in our problem, it may 
 be said that duration, in a general way, represents the 
 promptings of the instinctive feelings, and the other three 
 elements those of the reflective feelings. Pure instinct 
 leads to fast time, reflective instinct to slow time, and 
 the general movement or measure is the resultant of 
 both. The degrees of instinctive influence connected 
 with reflective feeling are represented in force ; of purely 
 reflective influence, in pitch ; and of the equilibrium main- 
 tained between the instinctive and reflective influences, in 
 quality. Besides this, it is well to notice that duration 
 and force together are essential to the effects of rhythm, 
 and pitch and quality together to those of tune ; rhythm 
 resulting from the measure of time or movement by regu- 
 larly recurring impulses perceptible in the physical world ; 
 and tune from a similar cause, detected only by scientific 
 analysis, operating through vibrations upon our inner 
 nervous and mental organism. 
 
 These statements are preliminary. They will be ex- 
 plained and illustrated when the proper time comes that 
 
36 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 is, in places where they will fall into line, so as to further 
 the object of our present undertaking, which, as we must 
 remember, is to show not what these forms are, but what, 
 in elocution and poetry, they are fitted to represent. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC DURATION. 
 
 The Elements entering into Rhythm, Duration, and Force Duration : 
 Fast Time Instinctive, representing Unimportant Ideas ; Slow Time 
 Reflective, representing Important Ideas ; Movement a Combination 
 of the Two The Pause as used in Elocution ; in Poetry, at the ends 
 of Lines ; in the Caesura Run-on and End-stopped Lines Quantity, 
 Short and Long, in Elocution and Poetry ; as produced by Vowels and 
 Consonants Movement or Rhythm as influenced by Pause and Quan- 
 tity Feet of Three Syllables should represent Rapidity Predominat- 
 ing Long Quantity injures English Hexameters Feet of Four Syllables 
 represent Rapidity. 
 
 "VITE have now to consider representation in rhythm, 
 resulting, as has been said, from a combination 
 of the effects of duration and force. Taking up the first 
 of these, it is evident that in elocution duration may be 
 short or long, or both ; in the latter case making pos- 
 sible all the artistic developments of metre. Both experi- 
 ence and reflection show us that in the degree in which 
 utterances are instinctive, as they are when under the 
 influence of mere spontaneity, they find expression in 
 short duration, or what is the same thing in fast time. 
 But when one becomes conscious of surrounding influ- 
 ences to which he must conform his phraseology, these 
 put him into a reflective mood, and under the sway of 
 his impressions, he stops to think sometimes to think 
 twice of what he is to say, and so uses slow time ; or, to 
 look at the subject from a different view-point, a speaker, 
 
 37 
 
38 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 when not desirous of conveying to others the impression 
 that what he is saying demands their serious considera- 
 tion, may talk rapidly. But when he wishes to convey 
 the opposite impression that they should weigh his 
 statements with the utmost care, he talks slowly. From 
 noticing facts like these, we learn that duration assigns, 
 as has been said, a mental weight or measure to ideas. If 
 these appeared for us in space, we could mete them out 
 in measurements of space. But as they are heard in 
 words, which occupy successive intervals of time, we must 
 indicate their weight or bulk, by shortening or lengthen- 
 ing their duration. Less or more time given to an utter- 
 ance, gives a hearer less or more time in which to think 
 of the thoughts expressed in it, suggesting, therefore, 
 that, in the opinion of the speaker, they are of less or more 
 relative importance. 
 
 This principle we will apply, first, to the elocutionary 
 pause, which leads us in reading to check our utterance 
 not only at the ends of phrases, as already noticed, but 
 also before or after important words, like those preceding 
 the bars in these quotations. 
 
 The people | will carry us | gloriously | through | this struggle. 
 He is pleasing ; | but |j is he honest ? 
 
 The same principle applied to consecutive words causes 
 us to read the unimportant parenthesis in the following, 
 rapidly : 
 
 He girt his fisher's coat unto him (for he was naked), and did cast himself 
 into the sea. John xxi., 7. 
 
 And the important one in the following, slowly : 
 
 Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering (for he is 
 faithful that promised), and let us consider one another, to provoke unto 
 love and to good works. Heb. x., 23, 24. 
 
ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC DURATION. 39 
 
 According to dramatic elocution, fast time indicates 
 that which moves rapidly, and slow time that which moves 
 slowly ; e. g. : 
 
 ( He stayed n"t for brake, and he stopped not for stone, 
 as ' ( He swam the Eske River where ford there was none ; 
 
 c But ere he alighted at Netherby glite, 
 Slower, -j The br?de had consentedt the gallant came late ; 
 
 For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war, 
 Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar. 
 
 Lochinvar: Scott. 
 
 Turning now to poetic form, we find that the same 
 principles apply to it. Notice in these stanzas how almost 
 all the important words are placed before the pause at 
 the end of the line, or before the caesura-pause in the 
 middle of it. 
 
 Go not, happy day, 
 Till the maiden yields. 
 Rosy is the west, 
 Rosy is the south, 
 Rosy are her cheeks, 
 And a rose her mouth. 
 When the happy Yes 
 Falters from her lips, 
 Pass and blush the news 
 O'er the glowing ships. 
 Over blowing seas, 
 Over seas at rest, 
 Pass the happy news, 
 Blush it through the West, 
 Till the red-man dance, etc. 
 
 Ma ud : Tennyson . 
 
 Earth has not any thing | to show more fair ; 
 Dull would he be of soul | who could pass by 
 A sight so touching | in its majesty. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Never did sun | more beautifully steep 
 
 In his first splendor | valley, rock, or hill ; 
 
4O POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 Ne'er saw I, never felt, | a calm so deep. 
 
 The river glideth | at his own sweet will. 
 Dear God, the very houses | seem asleep ; 
 
 And all that mighty heart | is lying still. 
 
 Westminster Bridge : Wordsworth. 
 
 Of man's first disobedience | and the fruit 
 Of that forbidden tree, | whose mortal taste 
 Brought death into the world | and all our woe, 
 With loss of Eden, | till one greater man 
 Restore us, | and regain the blissful seat, 
 Sing, heavenly Muse. 
 
 Paradise Lost, i : Milton. 
 
 Comrades, leave me here a little, | while as yet 't is early morn ; 
 Leave me here ; and, when you want me, | sound upon the bugle-horn. 
 
 Locksley Hall : Tennyson. 
 
 Notice, too, the inartistic effects produced, when the 
 voice does not naturally pause where the lines are ended ; 
 e.g.: 
 
 Cross down her quiet hands, and smooth 
 
 Down her patient locks of silk, 
 Cold and passive as in truth 
 
 You your fingers in spilt milk 
 Drew along a marble floor. 
 
 Little Mattie : Mrs. Browning. 
 
 The speech in the commons, which hits you 
 
 A sketch off, how dungeons must feel, 
 The official despatch, which commits you 
 
 From stamping out groans with your heel, 
 Suggestions in journal or book for 
 
 Good efforts are praised as is meet. 
 
 Summing up in Italy : Idem. 
 
 With that he fiercely at him flew, and laid 
 
 On hideous strokes, with most importune might. 
 
 Faerie Queen : Spenser. 
 And some in file 
 
 Stand spelling false, while one might walk to Mile- 
 End green. 
 
 Sonnet, On the Detraction, etc. : Milton. 
 
ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC DURATION. 41 
 
 In blank verse, these run-on lines, as they are termed, 
 in contrast to end-stopped, are less objectionable. Yet, 
 considered in themselves, they are inartistic. In another 
 place, I intend to speak of Shakespear's use of them. 
 The following are examples of this. 
 
 and then to breakfast with 
 What appetite you have. 
 
 Henry VIII., 3, 2. 
 
 Yet, if that quarrel, Fortune do divorce 
 It from the bearer, etc. 
 
 Idem, 2, 3. 
 
 The effects of duration, however, are produced not only 
 by the absence or presence of the pause before and after 
 words, but also by shortening or prolonging what is 
 termed the quantity of a syllable. In elocution, quantity 
 may sometimes be prolonged at will ; in poetry, it is 
 usually determined by the letter-sounds forming the 
 syllable. The rule is, that syllables composed of short 
 vowel-sounds, and of consonant-sounds easy to pronounce, 
 are short in an absolute sense, as distinguished from a 
 relative sense, of which I shall speak by-and-bye. A pre- 
 dominance of these short sounds in the style fits it to 
 represent comparatively unimportant ideas ; e. g. : 
 
 At a pleasant evening party, I had taken down to supper 
 
 One whom I will call Elvira, and we talked of love and Tupper. 
 
 ********* 
 Then we let off paper crackers, each of which contained a motto, 
 And she listened while I read them, till her mother told her not to. 
 
 Ferdinando and Elvira : Gilbert. 
 
 And, also, things that move rapidly, as in the quotation 
 from Scott above, as well as in these : 
 
 And he chirped and sang and skipped about, and laughed with laughter 
 
 hearty. 
 He was wonderfully active for so very stout a party. 
 
 Idem. 
 
42 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 Singing through the forests ; 
 
 Rattling over ridges ; 
 Shooting under arches , 
 
 Rumbling over bridges ; 
 Whizzing through the mountains ; 
 
 Buzzing o'er the vale, 
 Bless me, this is pleasant, 
 
 Riding on the rail. 
 
 Railroad Rhyme : Saxe. 
 
 A predominance, on the contrary, of decidedly long 
 vowel-sounds, or of consonant-sounds difficult to pro- 
 nounce, makes the rhythm move slowly, and fits it, there- 
 fore, according to the principles already unfolded, to 
 represent important ideas ; e. g. : 
 
 Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault, 
 If memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise, 
 
 Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault 
 The pealing anthem swells the note of praise. 
 
 Elegy in a Country Church- Yard : Gray. 
 
 And also things that move slowly ; e. g. : 
 
 The curfew tolls the knell of parting day ; 
 
 The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea ; 
 The plowman homeward plods his weary way. 
 
 And leaves the world to darkness and to me. 
 
 Idem. 
 
 First march the heavy mules securely slow ; 
 
 O'er hills, o'er dales, o'er crags, o'er rocks they go. 
 
 Pope's Tr. of the Iliad. 
 
 Notice in the following how the short syllables in con- 
 nection with the irregular accentuation of the rhythm in 
 the earlier lines contrast with the long quantities and 
 strongly marked accents of the last line. Here we have 
 an exact poetic analogue for fast and slow time, as also for 
 weak and strong force, as used in elocution : 
 
ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC DURATION. 43 
 
 The cherubim descended ; on the ground 
 Gliding meteorious, as evening mist 
 Ris'n from a river o'er the marish glides, 
 And gathers round fast at the laborer's heel 
 Homeward returning. High in front advanced 
 The brandished sword of God before them blazed. 
 
 Par. Lost, 12 : Milton. 
 
 Here, again, notice the unimportance and rapidity ex- 
 pressed in the italicized words : 
 
 Each creek and bay 
 
 With fry innumerable swarm, and shoals 
 Of fish that with their fins and shining scales 
 Glide under the green wave. 
 
 Idem, 7. 
 
 Notice in the following, too, how, in the lines beginning 
 with A league of grass, Tennyson, by lengthening the 
 unaccented syllables in washed, broad, Waves, and creeps, 
 retards the movement of his verse to make it represent 
 the slow flowing of the water: 
 
 Not wholly in the busy world, nor quite 
 Beyond it, looms the garden that I love. 
 News from the humming city comes to it 
 In sound of funeral or of marriage bells ; 
 And sitting, muffled in dark leaves, you hear 
 The windy clanging of the minster clock ; 
 Although between it and the garden lies 
 A league of grass, -washed by a slow, broad stream, 
 That, stirred with languid pulses of the oar, 
 Waves all its lazy lilies, and creeps on, 
 Barge-laden, to three arches of a bridge 
 Crowned with the minster-towers. 
 
 The Gardener's Daughter. 
 
 Slowness, in the instances already mentioned, has been 
 produced mainly by long vowel-sounds. In the fourth, 
 fifth, and sixth lines of the following quotation, all of 
 
44 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 which is to the point here, it is produced by consonant 
 sounds combined so as to be difficult to pronounce : 
 
 Soft is the strain when zephyr gently blows, 
 
 And the smooth strain in smoother numbers flows. 
 
 But when loud surges lash the sounding shore, 
 
 The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent roar. 
 
 When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw, 
 
 The line too labors and the words move slow ; 
 
 Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain. 
 
 Flies o'er the bending corn, and skims along the plain. 
 
 Essay on Criticism : Pope. 
 
 It has been intimated that in poetry there is, besides an 
 absolute, a relative quantity of syllables. This latter de- 
 pends upon the places in the verse where the accent falls 
 i. e., upon the measure, which itself, as has been said, re- 
 sults from the combined effects of the tendencies, already 
 considered, to movement and to rest, or to fast and slow 
 time. Just as intelligence measures off phrases and words 
 to represent their relative importance, so psychic emotion, 
 or the artistic feeling within us which regulates our con- 
 structive method, seems to take satisfaction in making 
 their accents conform to what in a subtle way, perhaps, it 
 recognizes to be representative of the regularities of life, 
 regularities, which to say nothing about those which 
 are external to him every living man experiences in the 
 recurring tread of his feet when walking, in the heaving 
 of his chest when breathing, in the beating of his heart, 
 and even in the vibrating of his nerves when receiving or 
 imparting impressions. But whatever may be the cause 
 or character of these regular arrangements, which will 
 be unfolded more fully under the head of force, they 
 exist, and have an important bearing on those measure- 
 ments of ideas which we have been considering. 
 
 When we are reading verse, the accented syllables seem 
 
ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC DURATION. 45 
 
 to be used at regular intervals ; that is to say, about the 
 same amount of time is expected to intervene between 
 these syllables, no matter by how many unaccented ones 
 they may be separated. Hence, as a rule, the more unac- 
 cented syllables there are in a line, or what is the same 
 thing in a measure, the more rapidly is it uttered. Each 
 of the four following lines, for instance, is read in nearly 
 the same time. Yet the first contains only seven syllables, 
 and the last eleven. Of course, these latter, in order to be 
 uttered in the same time as the preceding seven, must be 
 read more rapidly. 
 
 She had dreams all yester night 
 
 Of her own betrothed knight, 
 
 And she in the midnight wood will pray 
 
 For the weal of her lover that 's far away. 
 
 Christabel : Coleridge. 
 
 Rapid movement represents, as has been indicated, 
 what is comparatively unimportant, light, or trivial in its 
 character. Notice, therefore, the inappropriateness of the 
 metre used to express the thought in the following : 
 
 My soul is beset 
 
 With grief and dismay ; 
 I owe a vast debt, 
 
 And nothing can pay. 
 
 I must go to prison, 
 
 Unless the dear Lord, 
 Who died and is risen, 
 
 His mercy afford. 
 
 Guest's History of English Rhythms. 
 
 Especially, as contrasted with the following expression of 
 the same thought : 
 
 My former hopes are fled, 
 My terror now begins ; 
 
46 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 I feel alas ! that I am dead 
 In trespasses and sins. 
 
 Idem. 
 
 For the reasons given, metres in which the accented 
 syllables are fewer than the unaccented ones, are favorites 
 with those who wish to describe events or scenes charac- 
 terized by rapidity of movement, in such poems, for 
 instance, as Scott's Lochinvar : 
 
 Oh, young Lochinvar is come out of the west, 
 Through all the wide border his steed was the best. 
 
 or Read's Sheridan s Ride, e. g. : 
 
 Up from the South at break of day, 
 Bringing to Winchester fresh dismay, 
 
 or Browning's How They Brought the Good News from 
 Ghent, a poem, which, with its galloping measures, is 
 probably the best phonetic representation of a horseback 
 ride in the language, equally true to the requirements of 
 discoursive and of dramatic elocution : 
 
 I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he ; 
 
 I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three ; 
 
 " Good speed ! " cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew ; 
 
 4 ' Speed ! " echoed the wall to us galloping through. 
 
 Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest, 
 
 And into the midnight we galloped abreast. 
 
 A metre similar in effect to those just mentioned is 
 the classic hexameter, used by Homer and Virgil. In 
 most of the English imitations of this metre, however, 
 the easy flow of the movement, which, as readers of Greek 
 and Latin know, is its chief characteristic, fails to be pro- 
 duced. One reason for this is that our language, largely 
 because it lacks the grammatical terminations of the 
 classic tongues, contains fewer short syllables then they ; 
 and, in the place of the only foot of three syllables allowed 
 
ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC DURATION. 47 
 
 in their hexameter I mean the dactyl, containing one 
 long and two short syllables, our poets often use long 
 syllables only, influenced to do this, probably, by the 
 false theory that quantity has nothing to do with English 
 metres. Another reason is, that notwithstanding the 
 poverty of our language in short syllables, many seem to 
 think that the hexameter necessarily requires a large 
 number of them. But Greek and Latin lines are frequent 
 in which measures containing short syllables are few, 
 e.g.: 
 
 rfr rs fvjpfr nai vocrrov kraipoov. Homer. 
 
 _ 
 
 Illi inter sese magna vi brachia tollunt. Virgil. 
 
 Both of these causes serve to make our English hex- 
 ameters slow and heavy. Besides this, most of those 
 who write them, misled by the notion that they must 
 crowd as many syllables as possible into their lines, are 
 tempted to use too many words, and thus to violate an- 
 other principle not of poetry only, but of rhetoric. Take 
 the following, for instance, from Longfellow's Children 
 of the Lord 's Supper : 
 
 Weeping he spake in these words : and now at the beck of the old man, 
 Knee against knee, they knitted a wreath round the altar's enclosure. 
 Kneeling he read then the prayers of the consecration, and softly, 
 With him the children read ; at the close, with tremulous accents, 
 Asked he the peace of heaven, a benediction upon them. 
 
 An English verse representing accurately what is all 
 that is worth representing the movement of the classic 
 hexameter, would read more like this, which, itself, too, 
 would read better, did it contain fewer dactyls ; but to 
 show the possibilities of our verse these have been inten- 
 tionally crowded into it : 
 
48 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 Weeping he told them this, and they, at the villager's bidding, 
 
 Knitting with knee to knee a wreath at the altar's railing, 
 
 Knelt as he softly led in the prayer of the consecration. 
 
 In it the children joined, until in a tremulous accent 
 
 Closing the prayer he had asked for the Lord's benediction upon them. 
 
 This passage from Longfellow is a typical specimen of 
 what is called English hexameter. Here is another (not 
 so good), from Frothingham's translation in many re- 
 spects an admirable one of Goethe's Hermann and Doro- 
 thea : 
 
 Thitherward up the new street as I hasted, a stout-timbered wagon 
 Drawn by two oxen I saw, of that region the largest and strongest, 
 While with vigorous step a maiden was walking beside them ; 
 And, a long staff in her hand, the two powerful creatures was guiding, 
 Urging them now, now holding them back, with skill did she drive them. 
 
 Not until such lines have been reduced to a form more 
 like the following, can we be prepared to debate whether 
 or not the effects of the classic hexameter can be repro- 
 duced in English. Those, too, who choose to compare 
 these lines with the original, will find this translation more 
 literal than the last. 
 
 Now my eyes, as I made my way along the new street there, 
 Happened to light on a cart with a frame of the heaviest timber, 
 Drawn by a pair of steers of the largest breed and stoutest. 
 By their side was a maid, and with vigorous gait was walking, 
 Waving a staff in her hand, and guiding the strong pair onward. 
 Urging or holding them in, right skilfully did she drive them. 
 
 In these last lines, there are more spondaic verses, 
 verses, that is, in which the fifth foot contains two sylla- 
 bles than were often used in the classic hexameters. 
 But this fact does not change the general effect of the 
 movement. Matthew Arnold says of the following, that, 
 " it is the one version of any part of the Iliad which in 
 some degree reproduces for me the original effect of 
 
ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC DURATION. 49 
 
 Homer." It is a translation from the third book made 
 by Dr. Hawtrey of Eton College : 
 
 Clearly the rest I beheld of the dark-eyed sons of Achaia, 
 
 Known to me well are the faces of all ; their names I remember. 
 
 Two, two only remain, whom I see not among the commanders, 
 
 Castor fleet in the car, Polydeukes brave with the cestus, 
 
 Own dear brethren of mine, one parent loved us as infants. 
 
 Are they not here in the host, from the shores of loved Lacedaemon ? 
 
 Or though they came with the rest in ships that bound through the waters, 
 
 Dare they not enter the fight, or stand in the council of heroes, 
 
 All for fear of the shame, %id the taunts my crime has awakened ? 
 
 Instead of two we sometimes find three consecutive 
 unaccented syllables, combined with which there is occa- 
 sionally a slight but secondary accent on the second of 
 these. As the general effect of this kind of rhythm is to 
 cause four syllables to be uttered in the time usually given 
 to two, it increases the rapidity of the movement ; e. g.: 
 
 The king has come to marshal us in all his armor dressed, 
 And he has bound a snow-white plume upon his gallant crest, 
 He looked upon his people, and a tear was in his eye ; 
 He looked upon the traitors, and his glance was stern and high ; 
 Right graciously he smiled on us, as rolled from wing to wing, 
 Down all the line in deafening shout, God save our lord the king ! 
 ******** 
 " And if my standard-bearer fall, as fall full well he may, 
 For never saw I promise yet of such a bloody fray, 
 Press where ye see my white plume shine amid the ranks of war, 
 And be your oriflame to-day, the helmet of Navarre." 
 
 The Battle of Ivry : Macaulay. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC FORCE. 
 
 Force, representing Instinctive Tendency of Utterance, or Physical 
 Energy Different Kinds of Force the^-^Degree of Force Loud 
 and Soft Force as used in Elocution Their Poetic Analogues Loudness 
 and Softness, Strength and Weakness, Great and Slight Weight as rep- 
 resented by Long or Short Accented or Unaccented Syllables. 
 
 / T > HE next rhythmical element of expression to be 
 considered, is force. This is to sounds what 
 different degrees of light and shade are to objects of 
 sight ; and is essential to the effects of rhythm in the 
 same way that shading is to those of proportion. In 
 elocution, no one in feeble physical health can manifest 
 an excess of force, while, at times, without it, his delivery 
 may be characterized by the greatest amount of intelli- 
 gence and soul, of thought and the emotion that is con 
 nected with thought. For these reasons, it seems right 
 to infer that force represents physique rather than intellect 
 or spiritual feeling; in other words, energy that is instinc- 
 tive and connected with the physical nature rather than 
 any thing that is reflective and connected with the psychi- 
 cal. As used for emphasis, force differs mainly in three 
 regards, which, according to the principle of classification 
 pursued hitherto, may be stated thus : first, on its purely 
 instinctive or physical side, it differs in degree it may be 
 loud or soft ; second, on its reflective or intellectual side, 
 it differs in gradation it may be strongest at the beginning, 
 
ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC FORCE. 51 
 
 middle, or end of the utterance of a syllable or word ; and 
 third, in emotive relations, affected more or less by both 
 instinctive and reflective influences, it differs in regularity 
 it may be abrupt or smooth. 
 
 Let us consider, first, the degrees of force. It is proba- 
 bly not necessary to illustrate the statement that, in 
 elocution loud force indicates a great degree of energy, 
 and soft force a slight degree of it. As loud and soft are 
 relative terms, it is evident that in poetry their analogues 
 are found in forms in which the relative force is decidedly 
 greater on certain syllables than on others ; therefore, in 
 metres in which the accents are strongly marked. This 
 condition is realized, as a rule, where the accented syllables 
 are long, in quantity, and the unaccented short. Here 
 are metres of this character : 
 
 Louder, louder chant the lay ; 
 
 Waken lords and ladies gay ! 
 
 Tell them youth and mirth and glee 
 
 Run a course, as well as we ; 
 
 Time, stern huntsman ! who can balk ? 
 
 Stanch as hound and fleet as hawk ? 
 
 Think of this and rise with day, 
 
 Gentle lords and ladies gay ! 
 
 Hunting Song : Scott. 
 
 When, wide in soul and bold of tongue, 
 Among the tents I paused and sung, 
 The distant battle flashed and rung. 
 
 Two Voices : Tennyson. 
 
 Strike, and when the fight is over, 
 
 If ye look in vain for me, 
 Where the dead are lying thickest 
 
 Look for him who was Dundee. 
 
 Burial March of Dundee : Aytoun. 
 
 How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord, 
 Is laid for your faith in his excellent word ! 
 
 Hymn : Kirkham. 
 
52 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 If both the accented and unaccented syllables are short 
 in quantity, the movement is rapid, indicating, as has been 
 said before, thought that is unimportant ; and we have a 
 rattling effect, analogous to loudness that does not convey 
 an impression of strength e. g. : 
 
 Then we let off paper crackers, each of which contained a motto, 
 And she listened while I read them, till her mother told her not to. 
 
 Ferdinando and Elvira : Gilbert. 
 
 Now elderly men of the bachelor crew, 
 
 With wrinkled hose 
 
 And spectacled nose, 
 Don't marry at all ; you may take it as true, 
 
 If ever you do, 
 
 The step you will rue, 
 For your babes will be elderly, elderly too. 
 
 The Precocious Baby : Idem. 
 
 " O maidens," said Pattison, touching his hat, 
 " Don't blubber, my dears, for a fellow like that ; 
 Observe I 'm a very superior man, 
 A much better fellow than Angus McClan." 
 
 Ellen Me Jones Aberdeen : Idem. 
 
 If both the accented and unaccented syllables are long 
 in quantity, the movement is slow , indicating thought that 
 is important, and the accent is less decidedly marked. This 
 gives us the poetical equivalent for force characterized by 
 iveight and strength, though not necessarily by loudness 
 e. g. : 
 
 O good gray head which all men knew ; 
 
 O voice from which their omens all men drew ; 
 
 O iron nerve to true occasion true ; 
 
 O fall'n at length that tower of strength 
 
 Which stood four square to all the winds that blew ! 
 
 Ode on the Duke of Wellington : Tennyson. 
 
 The woods shall wear their robes of praise, 
 The south winds softly sigh, 
 
ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC FORCE. 53 
 
 And sweet, calm days in golden haze 
 Melt down the amber sky. 
 
 My Psalm : Whitticr. 
 
 Though hearts brood o'er the past, our eyes 
 
 With smiling futures glisten ; 
 For, lo, our day bursts up the skies, 
 
 Lean out your souls and listen. 
 
 To-day and To-morrow : Gerald Massey. 
 
 When the accented and unaccented syllables are indis- 
 criminately long and short, the accent is least decidedly 
 marked, and we have the poetic equivalent for soft force. 
 This may convey an impression of strength, if it con- 
 tain several long syllables e. g. : 
 
 Never any more 
 
 While I live, 
 Need I hope to see his face 
 
 As before. 
 Once his love grown chill 
 
 Mine may strive, 
 Bitterly we re-embrace, 
 
 Single still, 
 
 In a Year : R. Browning. 
 
 And so my silent moan begins and ends, 
 
 No world's laugh or world's taunt, no pity of friends 
 
 Or sneer of foes, with this my torment blends. 
 
 Only a Woman : Mulock. 
 
 But it must convey an impression of weakness, if made 
 up mainly of short syllables e. g. : 
 
 Though not disordinate, yet causeless suffering 
 The punishment of dissolute days ; in fine, 
 Just or unjust, alike seem miserable, 
 For oft alike both come to evil end. 
 
 Samson Agonistes : Milton. 
 
 Let him slip down, 
 Not one accompanying his declining feet. 
 
 Timon /., I : Shakespcar. 
 
54 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 Nothing routs us but 
 The villany of our fears. 
 
 Cymbeline V. t 2 : Idem. 
 
 Here are distinctively imitative effects, first, of loud- 
 ness : 
 
 And my pulses closed their gates with a shock on my heart, as I heard 
 The shrill-edged shriek of a mother divide the shuddering night. 
 ******** 
 
 And the vitriol madness flushes up in the ruffian's head, 
 Till the filthy by-lane rings to the yell of the trampled wife. 
 
 ******** 
 
 Is it peace or war ? better war ! loud war by land and by sea ! 
 War with a hundred battles and shaking a hundred thrones. 
 
 Maud : Tennyson, 
 
 And here of loudness with more or less strength : 
 
 On came the whirlwind, steel-gleams broke 
 Like lightning through the rolling smoke ; 
 
 The war was waked anew. 
 Three hundred cannon mouths roared loud, 
 And from their throats, with flash and cloud, 
 
 Their showers of iron threw. 
 Beneath their fire in full career, 
 Rushed on the ponderous cuirassier ; 
 The lancer couched his ruthless spear, 
 And, hurrying as to havoc near, 
 
 The cohorts' eagles flew. 
 In one dark torrent, broad and strong, 
 The advancing onset rolled along, 
 Forth harbingered by fierce acclaim, 
 That from the shroud of smoke and flame 
 Peal'd wildly the imperial name. 
 
 The Charge at Waterloo : Scott. 
 
 Loud sounds the axe, redoubling strokes on strokes 
 On all sides round the forest hurls her oaks 
 Headlong. Deep echoing groan the thickets brown, 
 Then rustling, crackling, crashing thunder down. 
 
 Iliad, 23 : Pope. 
 
ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC FORCE. 55 
 
 Here of weight or strength : 
 
 When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw, 
 The line too labors, and the words move slow. 
 
 Essay on Criticism : Pope. 
 
 Then those eight mighty daughters of the plow 
 Bent their broad faces toward us, and addressed 
 
 Their motion. 
 
 The Princess : Tennyson. 
 
 Here of softness : 
 
 And let some strange mysterious dream 
 
 Wave at his wings in aery stream, 
 
 Of lively portraiture display'd, 
 
 Softly on my eyelids laid. 
 
 And, as I wake, sweet music breathe 
 
 Above, about, or underneath, 
 
 Sent by some spirit to mortal's good, 
 
 Or the unseen genius of the wood. 
 
 II Penseroso : Milton. 
 
 While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping 
 As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. 
 
 The Raven : Poe. 
 
 Within, the waves in softer murmurs glide, 
 And ships secure without their haulsers ride. 
 
 Odyssey, 3 : Pope. 
 There is sweet music here that softer falls 
 
 Than petals from blown roses on the grass, 
 Or night dews on still waters between walls 
 Of shadowy granite in a gleaming pass. 
 
 The Lotus Eaters : Tennyson. 
 
 And here of weakness : 
 
 So he with difficulty and labor hard 
 Moved on with difficulty and labor he. 
 
 Par. Lost, 2 : Milton. 
 So she low-toned, while with shut eyes I lay 
 Listening, then looked. Pale was the perfect face ; 
 The bosom with long sighs labored ; and meek 
 Seemed the full lips, and mild the luminous eyes, 
 And the voice trembled and the hand. 
 
 The Princess : Tennyson. 
 
56 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 Look once more now at the passage from weak force 
 to strong, as well as from fast time to slow, in the fol- 
 lowing : 
 
 The cherubim descended ; on the ground 
 Gliding meteorous, as evening mist 
 Ris'n from a river o'er the marish glides, 
 And gathers round fast at the laborer's heel 
 Homeward returning. High in front advanced, 
 The brandish'd sword of God before them blazed, 
 Fierce as a comet. 
 
 Par. Lost, 12 : Milton. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 FORCE AS THE SOURCE AND INTERPRETER OF POETIC 
 MEASURES. 
 
 Gradations of Force or Stress, representing Reflective Influence exerted on 
 Instinctive Tendency What is represented by the Different Kinds of 
 Elocutionary Stress Why Elocutionary Stress corresponds to Poetic 
 Measure Classification of English Poetic Measures, and their Classic 
 Analogues What is represented by Initial Double Measure Its Classic 
 Form By Terminal Double Measure Why used in Our Hymns 
 Its Classic Form Triple Measures ; Median Its Classic Form Initial 
 Triple Measure Could also be termed Compound Measure, corre- 
 sponding to Compound Stress Its Classic Forms Its Use in Greek 
 Pseonics In Pathos, corresponding to Tremulous Stress Terminal 
 Triple Measure Can correspond to Thorough Stress Its Classic 
 Forms Blending of Different Triple Measures Of Triple and Double 
 Measures to prevent Monotony Quadruple Measures, Initial and Ter- 
 minal Blending of all Kinds of Measures to represent Movements. 
 
 \\7 E pass on now to the next way, in which the force em- 
 ployed in emphasis has been said to differ namely, 
 in gradation, or what is technically termed' stress. In dis- 
 coursive elocution, the force or exertion necessary for the 
 pronunciation of any given syllable or word may be used 
 because of an internal or an external motive, or of a com- 
 bination of the two ; in other words, either because a man 
 desires to express an idea for his own sake ; or because he 
 wishes to impress it upon others ; or because he wishes to do 
 both. In the first case, the sound bursts forth explosively, 
 as if the speaker were conscious of nothing but his own 
 
58 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 vocal organs to prevent the accomplishment of his object ; 
 and the loudest part of the sound is on the first part of 
 the utterance. This is the most instinctive, and, in this 
 sense, physical, form of stress. In the second case, the 
 sound is pushed forth expulsively, as if the man were 
 conscious of an outside possibility of opposition, and of the 
 necessity of pressing his point ; and the loudest sound is 
 at the end of the utterance. This is a deliberative stress, 
 force given with a design ; and, in this sense, is reflective 
 and intellectual. In the third case, the sound is uttered 
 so that it blends the effects of both the other methods, 
 either as in the effusive median stress, or in the 
 ways indicated in the descriptions given below of com- 
 pound, thorough, and tremulous stress. In dramatic 
 elocution, of course, these same methods would represent 
 things having a bursting or pushing sound or tendency, 
 or both of these together. 
 
 These two methods of applying energy to articulation, 
 and different combinations of them, give us the different 
 kinds of stress : termed, if the chief force is used at the 
 beginning of the accented utterance, Initial, indicated 
 thus >, and used in this : 
 
 Up, comrades, up ! in Rokeby's halls 
 Ne'er be it said our courage falls ! 
 
 If at its end, Terminal, <, and used in this : 
 
 Let the consequences be what they may, I am determined to proceed. 
 
 If in its middle, Median, <>, and used in this: 
 
 O joy to the people and joy to the throne. 
 
 If at both its beginning and end, Compound, X, and used 
 in this : 
 
 Ye blocks, ye stones, ye worse than senseless things. 
 
FORCE. 59 
 
 If at its beginning, middle, and end, with strong force, 
 Ttwrough X> and used in this : 
 
 Lend, lend your wings, I mount, I fly. 
 O grave, where is thy victory ? 
 
 If at all three, with weak force, Tremulous v~ y and used 
 in this : 
 
 Pity the sorrows of a poor old man. 
 
 It may be difficult for those not acquainted with elocu- 
 tion to detect at once what is meant by stress ; but it will 
 become clearer as we proceed. The first important thing 
 for us to notice in connection with it, is that, though 
 given mainly on the accented syllable, it is often, es- 
 pecially in flexible voices, communicated to more than 
 one syllable. In the following, for instance, the same kind 
 of compound stress is used on the one syllable in hard and 
 on the two syllables in cruel, and might be used on the 
 three syllables in a word like villanous, were it substituted 
 for cruel. 
 
 X > < 
 
 O ye hard hearts, ye cru-e/men of Rome. 
 
 So it is with other kinds of stress. The three syllables 
 in misery might receive the same gradations in force as 
 the one in woe. It is owing to this fact with reference to 
 force that analogies, important though subtle, may be de- 
 tected between different kinds of stress and different kinds 
 of poetic measure. An accent, as has been noticed, falls on 
 every second, third, or fourth syllable of a verse, and the 
 number of accents in a line determines the number 
 of feet or measures in it, a foot being composed of one 
 accented syllable and, as the case may be, of one, two, 
 or three unaccented syllables. Below, separated by bars, 
 will be found all the principal kinds of feet. A mo- 
 
6<D POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 ment's glance at them will detect that the character of 
 each measure is determined by the place in it, whether its 
 beginning, its middle, or its end, on which the accent falls. 
 In the same way, the character of any given kind of stress 
 is determined by the place in the utterance, whether com- 
 posed of one or of more syllables, on which the chief force 
 falls. In other words, poetic accent influences syllables 
 grouped in feet or measures, precisely as elocutionary 
 stress influences syllables grouped in words. For this 
 reason, the measures in the paragraph below are named 
 according to the analogy between the places in them on 
 which the accents fall, and the places in words made most 
 prominent by the different kinds of stress. The Greek 
 names for corresponding measures are also given. 
 
 Initial measure, or initial double measure, is determined 
 by what may be called initial accent, and corresponds, if 
 composed of one long syllable followed by one short, to 
 the Greek trochee or choree ; if of two long, to the Greek 
 spondee ; e. g. : 
 
 Tell me | n6t in | mournful | numbers, 
 
 Terminal measure, or terminal double measure, is de- 
 termined by what may be called terminal accent, and 
 corresponds to the Greek iambus, composed of one short 
 followed by one long syllable ; e. g. : 
 
 The train | from out | the cas | tie drew. 
 
 Initial triple measure is usually the same as the Greek 
 dactyl. 
 
 Over the | r6adways and | 6n through the | villages. 
 
 Median, or median triple measure, is usually the same as 
 the Greek amphibrach ; e. g. : 
 
 There came to | the beach a | poor exile | of ifcrin. 
 
FORCE. 6 1 
 
 Terminal triple measure is usually the same as the Greek 
 anapaest ; e. g. : 
 
 O'er the land | of the free | and the h6me | of the brave. 
 
 Compound triple measure is the same as the Greek 
 amphimacrus, or as feet used in certain of the paeonic 
 stanzas. 
 
 Nearer my | G6d to thee | 'en though It | be a cr6ss. 
 
 Diinitial quadruple measure is usually the same as the 
 Greek ditrochee, with a primary accent on every first, 
 and a secondary on every third syllable ; e. g. : 
 
 Roses are in | b!6ssom and the | rills are filled with | water-cresses. 
 
 Diterminal quadruple measure is usually the same as the 
 Greek diiambus, with a primary accent on every second ; 
 and a secondary on every fourth syllable ; e. g. : 
 
 The king has come | to marshal us, 
 
 Quadruple measures might have their primary accent on 
 their third or fourth syllable, i. e., on their final double 
 foot, and be termed, therefore, Final diinitial or Final 
 diterminal ; or they might be Compound, having an initial 
 and terminal foot, and be termed, to indicate the foot 
 coming first, Initial-terminal or Terminal-initial. I can 
 recall, however, no English measures of these kinds. 
 
 Now let us see what ideas each of these measures, ac- 
 cording to elocutionary analogy, is fitted to represent. 
 We will begin with Initial stress, called radical also. As 
 has been said, this characterizes utterances that burst forth 
 abruptly with their loudest sound at their beginning, as in 
 the sentence, "Go on, I say; get along; I tell you I '11 
 not wait for you ; move on." In fulfilment of the princi- 
 ples stated above, this stress is used when one seems to be 
 
62 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 conscious of nothing but his own organs to prevent the 
 expression of his ideas, and when therefore his main wish 
 is to express himself so as to be distinctly understood. In 
 its milder form, it serves to render articulation clear and 
 utterance precise ; in its stronger form, it indicates great 
 physical momentum, and therefore bold, and sometimes 
 vehement assurance, positiveness, and dictation. 
 
 Bearing in mind now what has been shown before, that 
 the important places in a line of verse are its beginning, 
 before which, and its end, after which, the voice of the 
 reader naturally pauses, it may be said, that whenever 
 lines containing feet of two syllables begin or end with a 
 foot, the first syllable of which is accented, the emphasis 
 characterizing the verse is the same in general tendency as 
 when single words receive initial stress. It is possible, for 
 instance, to read the following with any kind of elocu- 
 tionary stress ; but the arrangement of accented and un- 
 accented syllables is such, that, when read without design, 
 one naturally gives to each foot the kind of emphasis 
 characterizing initial stress. We may call this, therefore, 
 the measure of initial accent or Initial measure. Here is 
 an example of its milder form, representing, like initial 
 stress, clearness and precision of statement : 
 
 Take the open air, the more you take the better ; 
 
 Follow nature's laws to the very letter. 
 
 Let the doctors go to the Bay of Biscay, 
 
 Let alone the gin, the brandy, and the whiskey. 
 
 Advice : Anon. 
 
 Go where glory waits thee, 
 
 But when fame elates thee, etc. 
 
 Go Where, etc. : Moore. 
 
 Should you ask me, whence these stories, 
 Whence these legends and traditions, 
 
MEANINGS OF THE METRES. 63 
 
 With the odors of the forest, 
 With the dew and damp of meadows, 
 With the curling smoke of wigwams, 
 With the rushing of great rivers. 
 With their frequent repetitions, 
 And their wild reverberations 
 As of thunder in the mountains ? 
 I should answer, I should tell you, 
 " From the forests and the prairies." 
 
 Hiawatha : Longfellow. 
 
 Then with deep sonorous clangor, 
 Calmly answering their sweet anger, 
 When the wrangling bells had ended, 
 Slowly struck the clock eleven, 
 And from out the silent heaven, 
 Silence on the town descended. 
 
 Carillon : Longfellow. 
 
 And this is the stronger form, representing bold assur- 
 ance, positiveness, and dictation : 
 
 Honor, riches, marriage, blessing, 
 Long continuance and increasing, 
 Hourly joys be still upon you ! 
 Juno sings her blessings on you. 
 
 Tempest ', iv. t I : Shakespear. 
 
 Shake the casements, 
 
 Break the painted 
 
 Panes that flame with gold and crimson ; 
 
 Scatter them like leaves of autumn. 
 
 Golden Legend : Longfellow. 
 
 As has been said, this metre existed among the Greeks 
 in two principal forms. The first was composed of one 
 long syllable followed by a short, and called Trochee from 
 >, to run, or rpo^o?, a wheel, and also Choree from 
 , belonging to a chorus or dance. These terms in 
 themselves signify little. They might be applied to many 
 other movements. But Schmidt, emerging for a moment 
 
64 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 from the too frequent lack of endeavor to interpret the 
 meanings of metres, which characterizes the voluminous 
 literature on this subject, tells us, in his " Rhythmic and 
 Metric of the Classic Languages," that it is " a somewhat 
 vivacious measure, serving for the expression of individual 
 feeling," and this is all he says ; but the correspondence 
 between this, and saying, as has just been done here, that 
 the metre has an internal motive and represents assurance, 
 positiveness, and dictation, will be recognized by all. The 
 other Greek form of this metre was the Spondee, so called 
 from anovdai, the drink-offerings, and was used in religious 
 hymns, like this, for instance, to Helios by Dionysius : 
 
 yrj nal rtovro's xal nvoiai. 
 
 This is simply initial measure to which has been add- 
 ed the effect of predominating long quantity on unac- 
 cented syllables. The spondaic hymn would sound some- 
 thing like the following, which is an attempt to reproduce 
 the effect of the Latin original : 
 
 DIES IRJE, DIES ILLA. 
 Day of wrath, that day of burning, 
 All shall melt to ashes turning, 
 All foretold by seers discerning. 
 * * * * 
 
 All aghast then, Death shall shiver, 
 And great Nature's frame shall quiver, 
 When the graves their dead deliver. 
 
 Translated by A. Colts. 
 
 The limited number of final syllables in our language 
 which can end effectively lines of this kind, as well as the 
 positive assurance expressed by them, sometimes passing, 
 as in the Dies Ires above, into almost fatalistic acquiescence, 
 gives initial measure little popularity with our own hymn 
 
MEANINGS OF THE METRES. 65 
 
 writers. A few instances, indeed, can be cited of the use 
 of a similar measure, but almost always in connection 
 with occasional terminal measures, as in this ; e. g. : 
 
 Glorious things of thee are spoken, 
 
 Zion, city of our God. 
 He whose word can not be broken, 
 
 Formed thee for his own abode. 
 
 Newton. 
 
 All of our Long, Common, and Short Metre hymns, 
 however, are written entirely in terminal measures. And 
 this is what we should expect, for these measures them- 
 selves, as well as their tunes, to which I shall refer by-and- 
 bye, express the effort of the soul as it reaches forth with 
 a pushing persistence and determination toward that which 
 is beyond itself, which means in the case of religious 
 thought, aspiration, a feeling especially in harmony with 
 the spirit of the modern church. 
 
 The second kind of stress, called Terminal, and also 
 Final and Vanishing, is applied when an utterance begins 
 softly, and gradually increases in force, till it ends with its 
 loudest sound. It seems to be used, as has been said, 
 when one is conscious of outside opposition, obliging 
 him to press his point, and so when his main wish is to 
 impress his thoughts upon others. Its milder form may 
 indicate merely complaint or peevishness, demanding con- 
 sideration, as when the child whines out, " I sha' n't "; its 
 stronger form indicates energy used with an intelligent 
 design, and so a pushing pertinacity, persistence, or deter- 
 mination, in view of what is either liked or disliked, as 
 in the exclamation, used either in banter or contempt, 
 "Aha ! " or in the sentences, " I am determined to remain 
 true to my cause," " I despise the man." 
 
 The arrangement of accented and unaccented syllables 
 
66 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 analogous to this is found evidently, for reasons similar to 
 those already given, in a line containing feet of two 
 syllables, that begins or ends with a foot, the first syllable 
 of which is unaccented. We may call the following, 
 therefore, Terminal measure. Here is its milder form, 
 representing complaint demanding consideration : 
 
 let the solid ground 
 Not fail beneath my feet, 
 
 Before my life has found 
 
 What some have found so sweet. 
 
 Maud : Tennyson, 
 
 Alas ! I have nor hope nor health, 
 Nor peace within nor calm around, 
 Nor that content surpassing wealth 
 The sage in meditation found, 
 And walked with inward glory crowned. 
 
 The Sun is Warm : Shelley. 
 
 Here is its stronger form, representing earnest persist- 
 ence, determination : 
 
 If that the world and love were young, 
 And truth in every shepherd's tongue, 
 These pretty pleasures might me move 
 To live with thee and be thy love. 
 
 Nymph's Reply : Raleigh. 
 
 1 cannot hide that some have striven, 
 Achieving calm to whom was given 
 The joy that mixes man with heaven ; 
 
 Who rowing hard against the stream, 
 Saw distant gates of Eden gleam, 
 And did not dream it was a dream. 
 
 Two Voices: Tennyson. 
 
 Think not, thou eagle Lord of Rome, 
 
 And master of the world, 
 Though victory's banner o'er thy dome 
 
 In triumph now is furled, 
 
MEANINGS OF THE METRES. 6/ 
 
 I would address thce as thy slave, 
 But as the bold should greet the brave. 
 
 Caractacus : Bernard Barton. 
 
 As applied to spiritual relations, this pushing earnest- 
 ness of terminal measure properly represents, as was said 
 a moment ago, aspiration. Hence the use of the metre in 
 most of our popular hymns ; e. g. : 
 
 Praise God from whom all blessings flow. 
 My soul, be on thy guard. 
 
 The Greek measure corresponding to this, was the 
 Iambic, a term supposed to have been derived from 
 iaatro to drive forth, shoot, assail. Prof. Jebb, in his 
 " Greek Literature," says it " was first used " (as in the case 
 of the aha / cited above), " in raillery, which entered into the 
 worship of Demeter as into a modern carnival." " It was 
 the form in which the more intense and original spirits 
 loved to utter their scorn, or their deeper thought and 
 emotion." It "was fitted to express any pointed 
 thought." This explanation of its uses evidently cor- 
 responds with that which has just been said of it here, 
 viz. : that it represents an external aim, and is indicative 
 oipetulancy, push, persistence, determination, and in certain 
 cases of aspiration. Schmidt endeavors to identify this 
 metre with the Trochaic, because in this, as in that, every 
 other syllable is accented. Of course, the rhythmical 
 movements of both metres are the same, except at the 
 beginnings and ends of lines. But, unfortunately for 
 Schmidt's theory, these two places in the line give it its 
 whole character, and a difference in them necessitates a 
 difference in the ideas which the lines represent, and this 
 not only in their metres, but also, as we shall find, by-and- 
 bye, in their tunes. The two metres, therefore, should not 
 be identified. 
 
68 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 Let us pass on now to triple measures. When con, 
 sidering duration, it was noticed that, as contrasted with 
 double measures, the triple give to the movement the 
 effect of greater rapidity, inasmuch as the time usually 
 allotted to two syllables is in them allotted to three. It 
 is important to notice here, in addition to this, that in the 
 degree in which the accented syllable in triple measures 
 is rendered emphatic, there is a tendency to give it the 
 same time as that given to the two unaccented syllables 
 in the same foot, and thus, by way of contrast, to thrust 
 it into greater prominence. Accordingly, initial and 
 terminal accents in triple measure are stronger forms of 
 the same in double measure. They convey, too, an added 
 effect of rapidity, representing, therefore, more drift and 
 momentum in the general thought expressed in the 
 passage. But in triple measure there is also a middle 
 syllable in the foot, which syllable, as well as the one 
 before it or after it, can be emphasized. This fact 
 gives rise to a measure of a new kind, which, as it influ- 
 ences somewhat both of the other kinds of triple 
 measure, needs to be considered before them. 
 
 The accent given on the middle of the foot corresponds 
 to what elocutionists term Median stress, in which the 
 voice swells out on the middle of an utterance, as in read- 
 ing the line : " O joy to the people and joy to the 
 throne." Median stress begins like terminal, indicating, 
 like it a reflective motive, a desire to impress one's 
 thought on others ; and ends like initial, indicating an 
 instinctive motive, a desire to express one's thought for 
 its own sake. The two forms together seem to indi- 
 cate, therefore, any thing that is felt to be worth the 
 attention both of others and of one's self. It is accordingly 
 the natural expression for emotion or for eloquence of 
 
MEANINGS OF THE METRES. 69 
 
 thought, for any thing deemed to be intrinsically attrac- 
 tive and interesting whether because beautiful or pathetic. 
 Notice how graceful is the general effect of this kind of 
 verse : 
 
 There is a green island in lone Gougaune Barra, 
 
 Where Allua of songs rushes forth as an arrow ; 
 
 In deep valleyed Desmond a thousand wild fountains 
 
 Come down to that lake from their home in the mountains. 
 
 High sons of the lyre, O how proud was the feeling, 
 
 To think while alone through that solitude stealing, 
 
 Though loftier minstrels green Erin could number, 
 
 I only awoke your wild harp from its slumber, 
 
 And mingled once more with the voice of those fountains 
 
 The songs even Echo forgot on her mountains. 
 
 Gougaune Barra : J. J. Callanan. 
 
 " What makes you be shoving and moving your stool on, 
 And singing all wrong the old song of * The Coolun' ? " 
 There 's a form at the casement, the form of her true love, 
 And he whispers with face bent : " I 'm waiting for you, love ; 
 Get up on the stool, through the lattice step lightly, 
 We '11 rove in the grove while the moon 's shining brightly." 
 
 The Spinning- Wheel Song : J. F. Waller. 
 
 Median measures are frequently changed to terminal 
 measures at the ends of the lines ; e. g. : 
 
 How dear to my heart are the scenes of my childhood, 
 When fond recollection presents them to view. 
 
 The orchard, the meadow, the deep-tangled wildwood, 
 And every loved spot which my infancy knew. 
 
 Old Oaken Bucket : S. Woodworth. 
 
 In slumbers of midnight the sailor boy lay, 
 
 His hammock swung loose to the sport of the wind : 
 
 But watch-worn and weary his cares flew away, 
 And visions of happiness danced o'er his mind. 
 
 The Sailor Boy's Dream : Dimond. 
 
 Society, friendship, and love, 
 Divinely bestowed upon man. 
 
70 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 O had I the wings of a dove, 
 
 How soon would I taste you again ! 
 
 Selkirk : Cowper. 
 
 The following are terminal triple measures, but owing to 
 the fact that there is no break in the regularity of the 
 metre after the pause at the end of each line, their effect 
 is about the same as that of median triple measures : 
 
 For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams 
 
 Of the beautiful Annabel Lee, 
 And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes 
 
 Of the beautiful Annabel Lee. 
 And so all the night-tide I lie down by the side 
 Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride, 
 
 In the sepulchre there by the sea, 
 
 In her tomb by the sounding sea. 
 
 Annabel Lee : Poe. 
 
 The Greek metre corresponding to median is the Amphi- 
 brach, from a^cpi, on both sides, and fipaxv^? short. Scholars 
 usually treat it as a form of the anapaest or terminal triple 
 measure, and as significant of the same mental tendency. 
 As the last two quotations have shown, these two measures 
 are often used interchangeably, and, when we come to 
 treat of terminal triple measure, we shall find that there 
 is a reason why this should be so. Any further considera- 
 tion, therefore, of what the measure represents may better 
 be deferred until then. 
 
 In uttering measures termed Initial Triple, of which 
 examples are given below, it will be noticed that there is a 
 natural tendency to use more emphasis with the second 
 than with the first of the unaccented syllables, producing 
 therefore a stronger tone at the end as well as at the 
 beginning of the measure. In this respect a foot thus ac- 
 cented corresponds in effect to what elocutionists term 
 Compound stress : and for this reason might be termed 
 
MEANINGS OF THE METRES. J\ 
 
 Compound measure. Compound stress characterizes an 
 utterance the first and last parts of which receive more 
 force than its middle. It may be used for a strong form of 
 initial stress, especially where there are long slides, the 
 beginnings and ends of which need to be brought out 
 with distinctness, as in the word now in the question : 
 " What will you do now ? " or it may be used, as its form 
 (X) suggests, especially with abrupt irregular rhythm, for 
 a combination of the ideas expressed by initial and termi- 
 nal stress i. e., for assured, positive, and dictating earnest- 
 ness, persistence, and determination, as in these words that 
 are italicised. 
 
 " You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things." 
 
 Here are examples of the poetic equivalent for this 
 kind of stress, indicating persistence or determination. 
 They introduce occasionally an initial double measure ; 
 * & 
 
 Come away, come away, hark to the summons ; 
 Come in your war array, gentles and commons, 
 ****** 
 
 Come as the winds come when forests are rended , 
 Come as the waves come when navies are stranded ; 
 Faster, come faster, come faster and faster, 
 Chief, vassal, page and groom, tenant and master. 
 
 Gathering Song of Donald the Black : Scott. 
 
 Flashed all their sabres bare, 
 Flashed as they turned in air, 
 Sabring the gunners there, 
 Charging an army while 
 
 All the world wondered : 
 Plunged in the battery-smoke 
 Right through the line they broke ; 
 
 Cossack and Russian 
 Reeled from the sabre-stroke. 
 
 Charge of the Light Brigade Tennyson, 
 
72 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 Several Greek measures correspond to this, chiefly per- 
 haps the Dactyl from danTvXo?, a finger, which, like the 
 measure, consists of three members, divided at the joints 
 into one long and two short parts. Schmidt tells us that 
 this " was used (especially in choric poetry) to denote 
 an exalted God-trusting state of mind, or to express warn- 
 ings with solemn earnestness " both of which uses could 
 evidently be made of a metre representing the ideas just 
 attributed to this. The measure corresponds also to 
 Schmidt's representation of the paeonic, which with some 
 quadruple feet derived its main effect from feet contain- 
 ing a long syllable followed by a short and a long. This, 
 as will be noticed, is more nearly analogous to Compound 
 stress than is the dactyl. But in English both measures 
 would be read in nearly the same way, and would always 
 be used interchangeably. The pseonic measure, according 
 to Schmidt, indicated "overwhelming enthusiasm'' as well 
 as another state to be spoken of in a moment. Of course, 
 the " enthusiasm " here mentioned can very properly be 
 classed as a manifestation of the highest degree of assur- 
 ance and positiveness, which have been said to characterize 
 this metre. The other state of feeling which Schmidt 
 says that this metre sometimes represents, is apparently 
 just the opposite of enthusiasm i. e., " uncertainty, waver- 
 ing, and helplessness." We find an exact parallel to this 
 conflicting use of the Greek paeonics in the employment of 
 initial triple measure in such a poem as Hood's Bridge of 
 Sighs; e.g.: 
 
 Touch her not scornfully, 
 Think of her mournfully, 
 
 Gently, and humanly. 
 Not of the stains of her, 
 All that remains of her 
 
 Now is pure womanly. 
 
MEANINGS OF THE METRES. 73 
 
 Make no deep scrutiny 
 Into her mutiny, 
 
 Rash and undutiful ; 
 Past all dishonor, 
 Death has left on her 
 
 Only the beautiful. 
 
 And in Browning's Evelyn Hope ; e. g. : 
 
 Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead. 
 
 Sit and watch by her side an hour. 
 That is her book-shelf, this her bed ; 
 
 She plucked that piece of geranium-flower 
 Beginning to die too in the glass. 
 
 The pathetic effect here may be owing to the blending 
 of the spirit of assurance, as if a man would say : " I know 
 all about it ; I am making no mistake," with the sad 
 nature of the facts represented ; or, possibly, the pathos 
 may be owing to the uncertain effect of the metre, when 
 read, as it would be in such a poem, without strongly 
 marked accents. In this case, the immediate proximity 
 of two syllables like not and scorn and her and mourn y 
 both of them apparently accented, yet not both able to 
 receive a strong accent, would of themselves suggest un- 
 certainty, and make this kind of metre analogous to the 
 trembling tone produced by the elocutionist's Tremulous 
 stress. This is a form of stress, too, which, like the 
 Greek paeonics, may be used both for great grief and for 
 great joy for any thing, in fact, showing that a man has 
 not complete mastery over himself. Hence the appropri- 
 ateness of the metre in the following 
 
 Though like a wanderer, 
 
 Daylight all gone, 
 Darkness be over me, 
 
 My rest a stone, 
 Yet in my dreams I 'd be 
 
74 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 Nearer, my God, to thee, 
 Nearer to thee. 
 
 Hymn : S. F. Adams. 
 
 and also in this verse of the same hymn, where the assured 
 earnestness and persistence or, what is the same thing, 
 the aspiration, is represented in effects that blend those of 
 tremulous and thorough stress : 
 
 Or if on joyful wing 
 
 Cleaving the sky, 
 Sun, moon, and stars forgot, 
 
 Upward I fly, 
 Still all my song shall be, 
 Nearer, my God, to thee, 
 
 Nearer to thee. 
 
 Idem. 
 
 Not a little of the success of a hymn like this, or of any 
 poem, depends on the happy choice usually made, of 
 course, unconsciously of a metre for it. 
 
 As was shown in the examples quoted under median 
 measure, Terminal Triple Measure, is often used inter- 
 changeably with median, which is thus more closely allied 
 to it than to initial measure ; in fact, the terminal accent, 
 in this measure, can be regarded as a strong form of 
 median. In this regard, these terminal effects resemble 
 those of what elocutionists term Thorough stress, which, 
 though sometimes described as a combination of initial, 
 median, and terminal stress, has in it much more of the 
 latter two than of the former /. e., it indicates both the 
 subjective feeling of the median in view of that which is 
 intrinsically eloquent, beautiful, and sublime, and also the 
 objective persistence and push of the terminal, therefore 
 rapture, triumph, vehemence, etc. Here are examples of 
 terminal accent in triple measures : 
 
MEANINGS OF THE METRES. ?$ 
 
 Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam ; 
 In full glory reflected now shines on the stream ; 
 'T is the star-spangled banner. Oh, long may il wave 
 O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave. 
 
 Star- Spangled Banner : Key. 
 
 Now there 's peace on the shore, now there 's calm on the sea, 
 Fill a glass to the heroes whose swords kept us free, 
 Right descendants of Wallace, Montrose, and Dundee. 
 
 The Broad- Swords of Scotland: Lockhart. 
 
 Over hill, over dale, 
 
 Thorough bush, thorough brier, 
 Over park, over pale, 
 
 Thorough flood, thorough fire. 
 
 Midntmmer Night's Dream, ii., i : Shakespcar. 
 
 The Greek measure corresponding to this is the Ana- 
 paest, from avanaia), to strike back. This, as Schmidt 
 says, is " the proper march measure," used " in the march 
 songs (in particular those of the Spartans), of which frag- 
 ments have been preserved. The chorus in tragedy also 
 generally entered the orchestra (in the parodus) and left 
 it (in the exodus) while reciting anapaests, the recitation 
 in both cases being in a chanting tone." This use of the 
 anapaest would correspond exactly with that appropriate 
 for our terminal triple measure, as just interpreted. 
 
 In order to prevent monotony, as well as too great 
 rapidity of movement, all kinds of triple measure are 
 usually combined with double measure, initial triple, for 
 instance, with initial double, as in the following : 
 
 Under my window, under my window, 
 All in the midsummer weather. 
 
 Under my Window: T. West-wood. 
 
 Work and pure slumbers shall wait on thy pillow ; 
 Work thou shalt ride o'er Care's coming billow : 
 Lie not down 'neath Woe's weeping willow. 
 
 To Labor is to Pray : F. S. Osgood. 
 
76 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 This combination is that which is found in the classic 
 hexameter ; e. g. : 
 
 Hearty and hale was he, an oak that is covered with snow-flakes ; 
 White as the snow were his locks, and his cheeks as brown as the oak- 
 leaves. Evangeline : Longfellow. 
 
 Terminal triple measure is usually joined with terminal 
 double ; e. g. : 
 
 With fingers weary and worn, 
 With eyelids heavy and red. 
 
 Song of the Shirt : Hood. 
 
 Let them sing who may of the battle fray, 
 And the deeds that have long since passed. 
 
 The Good Old Plough : Anon. 
 
 And median triple measure is used sometimes with 
 initial double ; e. g. : 
 
 Glen Orchy's proud mountains, Coalchurn and her towers, 
 Glenstrae and Glenlyon no longer are ours : 
 We 're landless, landless, landless, Grigalach. 
 Landless, landless, landless. 
 
 Macgregor's Gathering : Scott. 
 
 But it is used more frequently with terminal double 
 measure ; e. g. : 
 
 I wield the flail of the lashing hail, 
 And whiten the green plains under ; 
 
 And then again I dissolve it in rain j 
 And laugh as I pass in thunder. 
 
 - The Cloud : Shelley. 
 
 In some compositions all forms, both of double and 
 triple measure, are combined, the only essential consid- 
 eration in the mind of the poet being to arrange the 
 accents so that, when read, they can be separated by like 
 intervals ; e. g. : 
 
MEANINGS OF THE METRES. 77 
 
 Day after day, day after day, 
 We stuck, not land nor motion, 
 As idle as a painted ship 
 Upon a painted ocean. 
 
 Water, water everywhere, 
 And all the boards did shrink ; 
 Water, water everywhere, 
 Nor any a drop to drink. 
 
 ****** 
 I closed my lids and kept them close, 
 And the balls like pulses beat ; 
 For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky 
 Lay like a load on my weary eye, 
 And the dead were at my feet. 
 
 The Ancient Mariner : Coleridge. 
 
 Quadruple measure is made up of two feet of double 
 measure, one of the accented syllables of which receives 
 more stress than the other. Here, for instance, is the 
 Ditrochaic measure of the Greeks, or what may be 
 termed Diinitial Quadruple measure. In it there are two 
 trochaic feet. 
 
 Roses are in | b!6ssom, and the | rills are filled with | water-cresses. 
 
 Anon. 
 
 And here is the Greek Diiambic measure, in which there 
 are two iambic feet. It may be called Diterminal Quad- 
 ruple measure. 
 
 The king has come j to marshal us j in all his ar | mor dressed, 
 
 -Battle of Ivry : Macaulay. 
 
 The first of these is evidently an example of initial 
 accent, and the second of terminal accent, and each must 
 indicate the same as in double measure, with the excep- 
 tion .that in quadruple measure the movement is more 
 rapid, and represents, therefore, more buoyancy and mo- 
 mentum in the thought. 
 
78 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 If necessary, a distinction might be drawn between 
 these two forms of Quadruple measure and those forms 
 of it in which the primary accent belongs to the second 
 of its two Double measures. The following, for instance, 
 is usually considered to be an example of Initial Double 
 measure. But it might be divided into feet like these, 
 and termed Final Diinitial Quadruple measure, because the 
 primary accent belongs to the final double foot constituting 
 the Quadruple measure : 
 
 We the fairies | blithe and antic, 
 Of dimensions not gigantic ; 
 Though the moonshine mostly keep us, 
 Oft in orchards frisk and peep us. 
 
 Fairies 1 Song : Thomas Randolph. 
 
 Trans, by Leigh Hunt. 
 
 And this, for similar reasons, might be termed Final 
 Diterminal Quadruple measure : 
 
 Domestic bliss | has proved my bane 
 
 A harder case you never heard, 
 My wife (in other matters sane) 
 
 Pretends that I 'm a Dicky-bird ! 
 
 Bains Carew : Gilbert. 
 
 In such cases, however, it is better to attribute the 
 greater prominence given to certain of the accented sylla- 
 bles, not to the supposed fact that the lines containing 
 them are composed in Quadruple measure, instead of as 
 seems to be the case in Double measure ; but to the 
 effects, considered in Chapter Fourth, of short quantity 
 which increases the rapidity of the movement, and of the 
 pauses in the middle and at the end of each line which 
 increase the emphasis of the accented syllables imme- 
 diately preceding them. If we call the measures that we 
 have just examined Quadruple, what is to prevent our 
 supposing that verses, written in triple measure like the 
 
MEANINGS OF THE METRES. 79 
 
 following, contain feet composed of four, or even six, 
 syllables ? 
 
 Guvener B. | is a sensible man ; 
 
 He stays to his home | an' looks arter his folks. 
 
 The Biglow Papers : Lowell. 
 
 We have seen now that all the different kinds of elocu 
 tionary stress have correspondences in poetic measures. 
 It remains to be said that, just as different kinds of stress 
 may be used in reading different parts of the same sen- 
 tence, so different kinds of measures may be used in the 
 same verse, either for the sake of variety, or to give 
 peculiar emphasis to some word or syllable thus thrust 
 into unusual and unexpected importance. 
 
 Here terminal accent is used for initial, at the begin- 
 ning of a line : 
 
 Hears amid the chime and singing 
 The bells of his own village ringing. 
 
 Carillon : Longfellow* 
 
 And here at the end of a line : 
 
 Silence on the town descended, 
 Silence, silence everywhere. 
 
 Idem. 
 
 Here initial accent is used for terminal, at the begin- 
 ning of a line, and also at its end : 
 
 Blaze with your serried columns, 
 I will not bend the knee. 
 
 The Seminolis Defiance : G. W. Patten. 
 
 And here at its end : 
 
 O sacred head now wounded, 
 With grief and shame weighed down. 
 Hymn : Bernard through Gerhardt tr. by J. W. Alexander. 
 
8O POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 In the following, with the variety that is common in 
 triple measure, we have initial accent in Sunbeam ; ter- 
 minal, in From cape; median, in The mountains; initial 
 triple, in Over a; and terminal tripple, in with a bridge, 
 etc. 
 
 From cape to cape with a bridge-like shape, 
 
 Over a torrent sea, 
 Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof, 
 
 The mountains its columns be. 
 
 The Cloud: Shelley. 
 
 Corresponding to the methods of dramatic elocution, 
 changes in measure are often made in order to represent 
 the movements of certain objects described. Notice, in 
 the following terminal double measures, how the placing 
 of the accent on the first syllable of many of the feet, 
 serves, by changing them into initial triple measures, to 
 convey the impression of rapidity : 
 
 Each creek and bay 
 
 With fry innumerable swarm, and shoals 
 Of fish that with their fins and shining scales 
 Glide under the green wave, in sculls that oft 
 Bank the mid sea ; part single or with mate, 
 Graze the sea-weed \ their pasture, and through groves 
 Of coral stray, or sporting with quick glance 
 Show to the sun their wav'd coats dropt with gold. 
 
 Paradise Lost, 7: Milton. 
 
 Notice here, too, the words italicized : 
 
 Far along 
 
 From peak to peak, the rattling crags among, 
 Leaps the live thunder. Not from one lone cloud, 
 But every mountain now hath found a tongue. 
 
 Childe Harold : Byron. 
 
 And the representation of the movement of the leaf, 
 when the poet comes to speak of it, in the following : 
 
MEANINGS OF THE METRES. 8 1 
 
 Is it the wind that moaneth bleak? 
 
 There is not wind enough in the air 
 
 To move away the ringlet curl 
 
 From the lovely lady's cheek, 
 
 There is not wind enough to twirl 
 
 The one red leaf, the last of its clan, 
 
 That dances as often as dance it can, 
 
 Hanging so light, and hanging so high, 
 
 On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky. 
 
 Christabel : Coleridge. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC REGULARITY OF FORCE. 
 
 Regularity of Force, combining its Instinctive with Reflective Tendencies, 
 and representing Emotive Influence Abrupt and Smooth Force, as 
 used in Elocution Irregular and Regular Accentuation corresponding 
 to them in Poetry Abruptness in Short and Long Lines Imitative 
 Effects, etc. 
 
 HP HIS subject of changes in metre introduces us, natu- 
 rally, to the third way in which force on different 
 words may differ namely, in regularity. It may be abrupt 
 or smooth, each respectively representing the amount of 
 mere instinct or of reflection in the emotion accompanying 
 the momentum. Abrupt force indicates interruption, excite- 
 ment, vehemence, anger; smooth force continuity, satisfac- 
 tion, gentleness, delight. The poetic equivalent for the first 
 seems to be found in lines in which there is a break in the 
 regularity of the rhythm, either because two accented syl- 
 lables are brought together, or a larger number of unac- 
 cented ones than the rhythm warrants. For instance, we 
 must all perceive the abrupt effects produced by the first 
 syllables of Battering, and belching, and by the word Far 
 in the following, coming, respectively, as they do, imme- 
 diately after the accented words, sob, wide, and flame : 
 
 I will not cease to grasp the hope I hold 
 Of samtdom, and to clamor, mourn, and sob, 
 Battering the gates of heaven with storms of prayer. 
 
 St. Simeon Stylites : Tennyson. 
 
REGULARITY OF FORCE. 83 
 
 The gates that now 
 
 Stood open wide, belching outrageous flame 
 Far into chaos. Paradise Lost, 10 : Milton. 
 
 Notice, too, the abrupt effects occasioned by the three 
 unaccented syllables Are the in-, and the two With im-, in 
 the following : 
 
 I '11 cavil on the ninth part of a hair. 
 
 Are the zwdentures drawn ? shall we be gone ? 
 
 I Henry IV., iii., I : Shakespear. 
 
 On a sudden open fly, 
 With wwpetuous recoil and jarring sound 
 Th' infernal doors. 
 
 Paradise Lost, 2 : Milton. 
 
 Abruptness is sometimes characteristic of the entire 
 metre of a poem. In these cases, it is usually produced 
 in connection with the pauses between the lines. At times 
 it results from ending one line with an accented syllable, 
 and beginning the next with another, as in these : 
 
 Every day brings a ship, 
 Every ship brings a word ; 
 Well for those who have no fear, 
 Looking seaward well assured 
 That the word the vessel brings 
 Is the word they wish to hear. 
 
 Letters : Emerson. 
 
 Here let us sport, 
 Boys, as we sit. 
 Laughter and wit 
 Flashing so free. 
 Life is but short ; 
 When we are gone, 
 Let them sing on 
 Round the old tree. 
 
 The Mahogany Tree : Thackeray. 
 
84 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 Forward the light brigade ! 
 Was there a man dismayed ? 
 Not though the soldiers knew 
 
 Some one had blundered ; 
 Theirs not to make reply, 
 Theirs not to reason why. 
 Theirs but to do and die. 
 Into the valley of death 
 
 Rode the six hundred. 
 
 Charge of the Light Brigade : Tennyson. 
 
 Lo, the leader in these glorious wars 
 Now to glorious burial slowly borne, 
 Followed by the brave of other lands. 
 He on whom from both her open hands 
 Lavish honor showered all her stars. 
 
 Ode on the Duke of Wellington : Tennyson. 
 
 Up the street came the rebel tread, 
 Stonewall Jackson riding ahead. 
 
 Under his slouched hat, left and right 
 He glanced : the old flag met his sight. 
 
 " Halt ! " the dust-brown ranks stood fast. 
 " Fire ! " out blazed the rifle blast. 
 
 Barbara Frietchie : Whittier. 
 
 At times, this abrupt effect is produced by ending a 
 line with an unaccented syllable and beginning the next 
 with another one, e. g. : 
 
 As she lay on her death-bed, 
 
 The bones of her thin face, boys, 
 
 As she lay on her death-bed, 
 I don't know how it be, boys, 
 
 When all 's done and said ; 
 
 But I see her looking at me, boys, 
 
 Wherever I turn my head. 
 
 Tommy 'j Dead : Dobell. 
 
 The fountains mingle with the river, 
 And the rivers with the ocean ; 
 
REGULARITY OF FORCE. 8$ 
 
 The winds of heaven mix forever 
 With a sweet emotion. 
 
 Love's Philosophy: Shelley. 
 
 With deep affection 
 And recollection 
 I often think of 
 
 Those Shandon bells ; 
 Whose sound so wild would, 
 In the days of childhood, 
 Fling round my cradle 
 
 Their magic spells. 
 
 The Bells of Shandon : F. Mahony. 
 
 They lock them up and veil and guard them daily ; 
 
 They scarcely can behold their male relations ; 
 So that their moments do not pass so gaily 
 
 As is supposed the case with northern nations. 
 
 Beppo : Byron. 
 
 As characteristic abruptness in verse is produced in 
 connection with the pauses at the ends of the lines, the 
 shorter the lines are, the more frequent are the instances 
 of abrupt force, and the more do the verses seem to mani- 
 fest the sort of nervous energy which this represents. 
 Compare the quotations above in which the lines are long 
 with those in which they are short ; or compare the two 
 following stanzas : 
 
 Where corpse-light 
 
 Dances bright, 
 
 Be it by day or night, 
 
 Be it by light or dark, 
 
 There shall corpse lie stiff and stark. 
 
 Halcro's Verses in The Pirate : Scott. 
 
 Not in vain the distance beacons, Forward, forward let us range, 
 Let the old world spin forever down the ringing grooves of change. 
 
 -Locksley Hall : Tennyson. 
 
 This latter couplet has almost the effect of perfect reg- 
 ularity of rhythm, which, as has been said, characterizes 
 
86 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 metre corresponding to smooth force, representing there- 
 fore continuity, satisfaction, gentleness, delight, such, for 
 instance, as one would naturally have in the tender, lovely, 
 beautiful, grand, or sublime. In all the following quota- 
 tions it will be noticed that the final syllable of each line 
 joins without a break the rhythm of the following line. 
 They all furnish illustrations of the poetic equivalent for 
 smooth force. 
 
 From gold to gray 
 
 Our mild sweet day 
 
 Of Indian summer fades too soon ; 
 
 But tenderly 
 
 Above the sea 
 
 Hangs white and clear the hunter's moon. 
 
 Eve of Election : Whittier. 
 
 When gathering clouds around I view, 
 And days are dark and friends are few, 
 On Him I lean who not in vain 
 Experienced every human pain. 
 
 Hymn : Grant. 
 
 Till their chimes in sweet collision 
 Mingled with each wandering vision, 
 Mingled with the fortune-telling 
 Gypsy bands of dreams and fancies, 
 Which, amid the waste expanses 
 Of the silent land of trances, 
 Have their solitary dwelling. 
 
 Carillon : Longfellow. 
 
 My eyes, how I love you, 
 You sweet little dove you, 
 There 's no one above you, 
 Most beautiful Kitty. 
 
 Kitty : Anon. 
 
 At Paris it was, at the opera there, 
 
 And she looked like a queen in a book that night, 
 
 With a wreath of pearl in her raven hair, 
 And the brooch on her breast so bright. 
 
 Aux Italic ns : Lytton. 
 
REGULARITY OF FORCE. 8/ 
 
 Our bugles sang truce, for the night cloud had lowered, 
 And the sentinal stars set their watch in the sky, 
 
 And thousands had sunk on the ground overpowered, 
 The weary to sleep and the wounded to die. 
 
 The Soldier's Dream : Campbell. 
 
 Here is the same in our regular English blank verse : 
 
 So all day long the noise of battle rolled 
 Among the mountains by the winter sea, 
 Until King Arthur's table, man by man, 
 Had fallen in Lyonesse about their lord. 
 
 The Idyls of the King : Tennyson. 
 
 Abrupt and smooth poetic effects, corresponding to 
 those of imitative elocution, have been noticed often, and 
 scarcely need mention here. The following are abrupt : 
 
 The pilgrim oft 
 
 At dead of night 'mid his oraison hears 
 Aghast the voice of time-disparted towers, 
 Tumbeling all precipitate down dash'd 
 Rattling around, loud thundering to the moon. 
 
 The Ruins of Rome : Dyer. 
 
 Then broke the whole night in one blow, 
 Thundering ; then all hell with one throe 
 Heaved, and brought forth beneath the stroke 
 Death, and all dead things moved and woke. 
 
 Epilogue : Swinburne. 
 
 On a sudden open fly. 
 With impetuous recoil and jarring sound, 
 The infernal doors, and on their hinges grate 
 Harsh thunder. 
 
 Paradise Lost, 2 : Milton. 
 
 And these are smooth : 
 
 Heaven open'd wide 
 
 Her ever-during gates, harmonious sound, 
 
 On golden hinges moving. 
 
 Idem, 7. 
 
88 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 Folio w'd with acclamation, and the sound 
 Symphonious of ten thousand harps that tuned 
 Angelic harmonies ; the earth, the air 
 Resounded. 
 
 Idem, 7. 
 
 Collecting, projecting, 
 Receding and speeding, 
 And shocking and rocking, 
 And darting and parting. 
 
 ****** 
 Dividing and gliding and sliding, 
 And falling and brawling and sprawling, 
 And diving and riving and striving, 
 And sprinkling and twinkling and wrinkling. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Retreating and beating and meeting and sheeting, 
 Delaying and straying and playing and spraying. 
 
 ****** 
 And so never ending, but always descending, 
 Sounds and motions for ever and ever are blending, 
 All at once, and all o'er with a mighty uproar, 
 And this way the water comes down at Lodore. 
 
 The Cataract of Lodore : Southey. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC PITCH TUNES OF VERSE. 
 
 Elements entering into the Tunes of Verse : Pitch and Quality Pitch repre- 
 senting Reflective Tendency or Intellectual Motive On its Instinctive 
 Side by High and Low Key What each represents On its Reflective, 
 by Rising, Falling, and Circumflex Movements What each represents 
 When Influences from both Sides express Emotive Tendencies, by 
 Melody What Different Melodies represent Pitch as used in Poetry 
 Which was formerly chanted And has Tunes at Present Shades of 
 Pitch in Speech as Numerous as, and more Delicate than, in Song 
 v Scientific Proof that Short Vowels are sounded on a High Key, and 
 ^ Long on a Low Key Light, Gay, Lively Ideas represented by the 
 Former ; Serious, Grave, Dignified by the Latter. 
 
 \\T E are to take up, now, the elements of elocutionary 
 expression which enter into the effects of what are 
 termed the tunes of verse. The first of these elements is pitch. 
 This word means the same in elocution as in music, and 
 indicates that the consecutive sounds of speech are related 
 to one another in a way analogous to that in which, in 
 singing, they move up and down the musical scale. A 
 whole passage may be delivered on what is termed a high 
 pitch or key, as when one is shouting to a person at a 
 distance ; or it may be delivered on a low one, as when 
 one is groaning. Besides this, in uttering a whole pass- 
 age, or a single syllable with what is termed an inflec- 
 tion, it is possible for the voice to rise, as is said, from 
 a low to a high pitch, or to fall from a high to a low 
 one. 
 
90 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 It is important to notice, also, that, in giving different 
 degrees of pitch, it is not essential to manifest much 
 either of physical energy or of those instinctive modes 
 of psychical emotive expression most allied to it. A 
 hand-organ, in which every note is sounded with the 
 same force and quality, can nevertheless illustrate degrees 
 of pitch so far as concerns this alone. But though 
 neither physical energy nor psychical emotion is repre- 
 sented by pitch, we find that every man, in talking, directs 
 his voice first to one key and then to another ; and that, 
 by so doing, he represents to us the general tenor of his 
 reflections. Intelligence of these, therefore, is communi- 
 cated by pitch ; and, usually, too, very definite intelligence 
 of them. What a man wishes to have his tones commu- 
 municate, we can often infer by overhearing them, even 
 amid circumstances rendering it impossible for us to dis- 
 tinguish clearly his words. Often, indeed, his words may 
 mean one thing, and his intonations another, as when a 
 teacher tells the parents of a boy in his school that their 
 son is " doing very well," at the same time using a very 
 decided rising inflection on the word " well." 
 
 It seems proper to say, therefore, that, in the main, pitch 
 is that part of the generally emotive language of the in- 
 tonations which is most reflective, representing what may 
 be termed, distinctively, the mental movements, or 
 what underlie these the mental motives or aims. Thus 
 the rising pitch on the word "well," as just quoted, indi- 
 cates the speaker's motive in what he says. As affected 
 by instinctive or physical tendencies, in the degree in which 
 the predominance of reflective influences is least, the tones 
 are kept on a high level of pitch,/or on a " high key" ; but 
 as reflective influences become stronger, the tones are kept 
 on a lower level of pitch, or on a " low key." In their 
 
ELOCUTIONARY INFLECTIONS. 91 
 
 strictly reflective or intellectual phases, the motives cause 
 the pitch to " rise " or " fall " in accordance with the ten- 
 dency or direction of the ideas, and this mainly in the 
 inflections. The balance maintained between the in- 
 stinctive and the reflective tendencies that is, between 
 the different kinds of keys and of the " rising " and " fall- 
 ing " movements, determines the melody, and represents, 
 of course, the tendency in one or the other direction of 
 the psychic nature. 
 
 Considering pitch, first, as influenced by the instinctive 
 nature, it has been noticed that when a man is light- 
 hearted, carrying the least amount of thought, either in 
 quantity or quality, in other words, when there is noth- 
 ing to weigh him down, and that which is moving him 
 is light, gay, and lively in its character, he uses high pitch, 
 as in uttering this : 
 
 O, then I see Queen Mab has been with you. 
 
 Romeo and Juliet, i., 4 : Shakespear. 
 
 But if, on the contrary, his reflective nature is in opera- 
 tion to such an extent and with such subjects that he 
 does feel weighed down, as is the case when that which is 
 moving him is serious, grave, and dignified in its character, 
 calling for more or less expression of soul from him, he 
 uses low pitch, and keeps his voice on it, as in this : 
 
 Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll. 
 
 Childe Harold : Byron. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to add that, as related to these 
 two extremes, words conveying intelligence of merely 
 ordinary matters, would be uttered at a medium pitch, 
 somewhere between the two. It is equally evident that 
 in dramatic elocution a high key imitates sounds that are 
 high, as in the cry, " Yell ! yell ! why don't you ! " ; and a 
 
92 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 low key imitates sounds that are low, as in saying, " Who 's 
 there ? he growled." 
 
 In discoursive elocution, again, the rising and falling 
 movements of the voice, whether used in continuous 
 passages or in the inflections given to single words, repre- 
 sent, as has been said, the direction or tendency of the 
 current of ideas in the mind of the speaker. To extend 
 and explain this, they represent \ht flowing or checking of 
 his motives as influenced by the instinctive or reflective 
 operations of his mind. The rising movement opens, 
 and, if an inflection, emphatically opens, the channel of 
 thought, as if to speed its current forward. Those listen- 
 ing to it feel, therefore, that the speaker has not yet 
 arrived at a word, or completed an idea, upon which he 
 wishes them very particularly to reflect. This movement 
 produces, therefore, an anticipative or indecisive effect, 
 and indicates what, as compared with the falling move- 
 ment, is subordinate, negative, or questionable. The down- 
 ward movement closes, and, if an inflection, emphatically 
 checks, the current of thought, points out to the audience 
 that which has been said, leads them to reflect upon it, 
 and so produces a conclusive, decisive effect, and indicates 
 what is comparatively important, positive, or affirmative. 
 Besides this, there is often, on the same passage or syl- 
 lable, a movement both upward and downward, or what, 
 if on a single word, is termed a circumflex inflection. 
 This, of course, imparts something of the effects of both 
 the rising and falling movements, though often, especially 
 in the inflections, in accordance with the principle of con- 
 trast, it is chiefly employed to give increased effect to the 
 rising or falling movement of the voice with which the cir- 
 cumflex ends, the end of this inflection being that which 
 indicates its main significance. 
 
ELOCUTIONARY INFLECTIONS. 93 
 
 To recognize the accuracy of these explanations of the 
 meanings of the inflections, we have only to notice how 
 the significance of the following sentences is changed upon 
 our uttering them with a rising (') or falling Q or with a 
 circumflex inflection, ending with a rising ( u )or a falling 
 (A)movement. 
 
 If so I will go. If so I will g6. 
 
 It must be so. It must be so. 
 
 It depends. It depends. 
 
 John declaims well. John declaims well. 
 
 Of course it is. Of course it Is. 
 
 You are not to do that. You are n6t to do that. 
 
 Is n't she beautiful ? Is n't she beautiful ? 
 
 YSu you meant no harm. You you meant no harm. 
 
 Sidney Lanier, in his " Science of English Verse," has 
 directed attention, as had been done before, to the way 
 in which this truth, with reference to the different mean- 
 ings that may be conveyed by the simple movements of 
 the voice, wholly aside from the words used, is brought 
 out by Shakespear in his All 's Well that Ends Well, 
 where he makes the clown declare : 
 
 I have an answer will serve all men. 
 
 Countess. Marry ; that 's a bountiful answer, that fits all questions. 
 ********* 
 
 Clown. From below your duke to beneath your constable ; it will fit any 
 question. 
 
 Countess. It must be an answer of most monstrous size, that must fit all 
 demands. 
 
 Clown. But a trifle, neither, in good faith, if the learned should speak 
 truth of it. Here it is, and all that belongs to 't . . . Ask me if I am 
 a courtier. . . . 
 
 Count. I pray you, sir, are you a courtier ? 
 
 Clown. O Lord, sir, there 's a simple putting off, more, more, a hun- 
 dred of them. 
 
 Count. Sir, I am a poor friend of yours, that loves you. 
 
 Clown. O Lord, sir, thick, thick, spare not me. 
 
94 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 Count. I think, sir, you can eat none of this homely meat. 
 Clown. O Lord, sir, nay, put me to 't, I warrant you. 
 Count. You were lately whipped, sir, as I think. 
 Clown. O Lord, sir, spare not me. 
 
 ******* 
 
 Count. I play the noble housewife with the time 
 
 To entertain it so merrily with a Fool. 
 Clown. O Lord, sir, why there 't serves well again. 
 
 All's Well that Ends Well, ii., 2. 
 
 In dramatic elocution, rising, falling, or circumflex 
 movements of the voice, simply imitate things with 
 which movements or sounds of these kinds are in some 
 way associated. The following, for instance, require 
 movements of the voice in both directions : 
 
 He saw a crowd assembled round 
 A person dancing on the ground, 
 Who straight began to leap and bound 
 
 With all his might and main. 
 To see that dancing man he stopped, 
 Who twirled and wriggled, skipped and hopped, 
 Then down incontinently dropped. 
 
 And then sprang up again. 
 
 The Bishop of Rum-ti-Foo : Gilbert* 
 
 But the babe with a dig that would startle an ox, 
 
 With his " C'ck ! Oh, my ! 
 
 Go along wiz 'oo, fie ! " 
 Would exclain : " I 'm affaid 'oo a shocking ole fox." 
 
 Now a father it shocks, 
 
 And it whitens his locks, 
 When his little babe calls him a shocking old fox. 
 
 Precocious Baby : Gilbert. 
 
 As has been said, the blending of the effects of high 
 and low key with those of the rising and falling of phrases 
 and syllables, leads to what is termed melody, the general 
 character of which represents the mental motive as influ- 
 
TUNES OF VERSE. 95 
 
 enced by the soul, or the higher emotive nature. If the 
 key be greatly varied, therefore, it represents a 'minimum 
 of self-control or poise ; if slightly varied or monotonous, a 
 maximum of this, statements which will be sufficiently 
 illustrated while we go on to apply, as we shall now do, 
 all these elocutionary principles of pitch to the subject 
 immediately before us. 
 
 Probably few have noticed to what an extent pitch en- 
 ters as a factor into the effects of poetry. They know in a 
 general way, of course, that in early modes of communi- 
 cating thought, intonations, like gestures, were almost as 
 significant as words ; but they do not realize that the 
 same is true in our own day, least of all that changes 
 in pitch are and always must be elements entering into 
 the significance of the effects produced by poetic rhythm. 
 They know, again, if at all acquainted with the history of 
 the art, that there was a time when poetry was associated 
 with both dancing and music. It was so, as we are told, 
 in the time of King David, who, on one occasion, at least, 
 danced as well as sang his psalms before the ark. In 
 Greece, not only lyric but dramatic poetry was chanted, 
 and often accompanied by the lyre. As late as the six- 
 teenth century, declamation accompanied by music, 
 flourished in England and in Italy. In the latter country 
 it then passed into the opera, which did not follow, as 
 some suppose, but preceded all that is noteworthy in the 
 development of the pure music, unaccompanied by words, 
 of modern times. In our own day, however, when poetry is 
 merely read, the movements of the waltz, the polka, the 
 sonata, the symphony, seem to belong to an art so differ- 
 ent, that it is difficult to conceive that it was once ap- 
 propriate to speak of ballad poetry, because the Italian 
 ballare meant to dance, or of a sonnet, because the lute 
 
90 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 was sounded while poetry was being chanted. The truth 
 is, however, that even to-day, also, poetry and music are 
 allied. As has been said already, the chanting of verse 
 was not originally the cause of its tunes, but the result of 
 them, springing from an endeavor to develop artistically 
 the tunes natural to speech. These tunes our poetry, 
 notwithstanding its present separation from music, still 
 retains. They differ from those of music, yet are analo- 
 gous to them. Let us consider the more important of 
 the resemblances and differences between the two. 
 
 As most of us know, science has ascertained that all 
 musical sounds result from regularly recurring vibrations 
 caused by cords, pipes, reeds, or other agencies. About 
 thirty-three of these vibrations per second produce the low- 
 est tone used in music, and about three thousand nine 
 hundred and sixty, the highest. That the number of vibra- 
 tions in any note may be increased and its pitch made 
 higher, it is necessary to lessen the length or size of the 
 cord, or of whatever causes the vibrations. When the 
 vibrating cord is lessened by just one half, the tone pro- 
 duced is separated from its former tone by an interval of 
 sound which in music is termed an octave. Between the 
 two extremes of pitch forming the octave, eleven half 
 tones, as they are called, caused by sounds resulting from 
 different lengths of the cord, between its whole length 
 and its half length, have been selected, for reasons to be 
 given in another place, and arranged in what is termed a 
 musical scale. These half-tones, seven of them constitut- 
 ing the do, re, me, fa, sol, la, and si of the gamut, are all 
 that can be used in music between the two notes forming 
 the octave. There are about seven octaves, or, what is 
 the same thing, seven scales, each containing twelve 
 sounds of different pitch, in all, about eighty-four de- 
 
TUNES OF VERSE. 97 
 
 grees of pitch that are used in music. In the speaking 
 voice only about two octaves are used, so that in this re- 
 gard its range is more narrow than that of music. Be- 
 tween any two octave notes, however, the speaking voice 
 can use whatever sounds it chooses ; it is not confined to 
 the twelve that constitute the musical scale. For instance, 
 the note of the bass voice called by musicians C, is sounded 
 by producing one hundred and thirty-two vibrations a sec- 
 ond, and C of the octave above by producing two hundred 
 and sixty-four vibrations. Between the two, therefore, it 
 is possible to conceive of forming one hundred and thirty- 
 one distinct tones, each vibrating once a second oftener 
 than the sound below it. It is possible, too, to conceive 
 that the speaking voice can use any of these tones. 
 Music, however, between the same octave notes, can use 
 but eleven tones. Therefore, the different degrees of pitch 
 used in speech, though not extending over as many oc- 
 taves, are much more numerous than those used in music. 
 For this reason, the melodies of speech cannot be repre- 
 sented by any system through which we now write music. 
 There are not enough notes used in music to render it 
 possible to make the representation accurate. Nor prob- 
 ably would much practical benefit be derived from an at- 
 tempt to construct a system of speech-notation ; though 
 it, like other things, may be among the possibilities of 
 acoustic development in the future. 
 
 In applying to poetic form the principles determining 
 pitch in elocution, let us take up first those in accordance 
 with which certain syllables are uttered on a high or low 
 key. The former key seems suggested by vowels formed 
 at the mouth's front, as in beet, bate, bet, bit, bat, etc. ; the 
 latter by back vowels, as in fool, full, foal, fall, etc. The 
 best of reasons underlies this suggestion. It is the fact that 
 
98 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 the pronunciation of every front or back vowel-sound 
 naturally tends to the production of a high or low musical 
 note. Bonders first made the discovery that the cavity 
 of the mouth, when whispering each of the different vow- 
 els, is tuned to a different pitch. This fact gives the 
 vowel its peculiar quality. Instruments, moreover, have 
 been constructed, by means of which most sounds can be 
 analyzed, and their component tones distinctly and defi- 
 nitely noted ; and now the theory is accepted that the 
 voice, when pronouncing vowel-sounds, at whatever key in 
 the musical scale it may start them, has a tendency to 
 suggest if not through its main, or what is termed its 
 prime tone, at least through associated, or what are termed 
 its partial tones that pitch which is peculiar to the vowel 
 uttered. 
 
 Exactly what this pitch is, in the case of each vowel, it 
 is not important for us to know here. In fact, it has not 
 yet been definitely determined. Helmholtz, in his " Sen- 
 sations of Tone," says, for instance, that the series, which 
 may be represented in English by a in father, a in man, e 
 in there, and i in machine, forms an ascending minor chord 
 of G" thus: d'"g f "b" r flatd""; and the following 
 represents the results of Merkel's experiments with the 
 German vowels given in his " Physiologic der Menschli- 
 chen Sprache " : 
 
 
 UOOaA OUAE I 
 
 But what concerns us, at present, is merely the fact that 
 there is a pitch peculiar to the sound of each letter, and that 
 the pitch of the sounds approximating long u is actually, 
 
TUNES OF VERSE. 99 
 
 and not ideally, lower in tone than that of the sounds 
 approximating the long English e. 
 
 With this understanding of the actual connection exist- 
 ing between the sounds represented by certain letters and 
 pitch, it follows, as a matter of natural law, that elocution- 
 ary high pitch to begin with this should find its poetic 
 analogue in a predominating use of the latter class of 
 vowel-sounds, especially when connected with consonant- 
 sounds that cannot be prolonged, and therefore cannot in- 
 troduce into the tone other strong elements of pitch. Poetic 
 passages, therefore, composed of vowels and consonants 
 of this character are suited, like elocutionary high pitch, 
 to represent light, gay, and lively effects, a fact which, as 
 will be noticed, sustains and puts upon a scientific basis all 
 that has been said with reference to the unimportant, or 
 what is the same thing the light, gay, and lively charac- 
 ter of the ideas represented by what are usually the same 
 sounds in short quantity. With these explanations, the 
 reader will understand in what sense the following illus- 
 trate high pitch as used in poetry : 
 
 He took a life preserver, and he hit him on the head, 
 And Mrs. Brown dissected him before she went to bed. 
 
 Gentle Alice Brown : Gilbert. 
 
 Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee 
 Jest and youthful Jollity, 
 Quips, and Cranks, and wanton Wiles, 
 Nods, and Becks, and wreathed Smiles, 
 Such as hang on Hebe's cheek, 
 And love to live in dimple sleek ; 
 Sport that wrinkled Care derides 
 And Laughter holding both his sides. 
 
 V Allegro : Milton. 
 
 Vowels of the same kind together with unprolonged 
 
100 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 consonant-sounds are used also to imitate sounds that 
 are high ; e. g. : 
 
 Then rose the cry of females shrill 
 As goss-hawk's whistle on the hill, 
 Denouncing misery and ill, 
 Mingled with childhood's babbling trill 
 Of curses stammered slow. 
 
 A sharp and shrieking echo gave, 
 Coir-Uriskin, thy goblin cave, 
 And the gray pass where birches wave 
 On Beala-nam-bo. 
 
 Lady of the Lake : Scott. 
 
 What news ? what news ? come tell to me 
 What news ? what news ? thou little Foot-page ? 
 I *ve been whacking the foe till it seems an age 
 Since I was in Ingoldsby Hall so free. 
 
 Ingoldsby Penance : Ingoldsby Legends. 
 
 Bird of the wilderness, 
 
 Blithesome and cumberless, 
 Sweet is thy matin o'er moorland and lea ! 
 
 Emblem of happiness 
 
 Blest be thy dwelling-place ! 
 O to abide in the desert with thee ! 
 
 The Skylark : Hogg. 
 
 O hark ! what mean those yells and cries ? 
 
 His chain some furious madman breaks. 
 He comes ! I see his glaring eyes ! 
 
 Now, now, my dungeon grate he shakes. 
 Help ! help ! He 's gone O fearful woe. 
 
 Such screams to hear, such sights to see ! 
 My brain, my brain I know, I know 
 
 I am not mad but soon shall be. 
 
 The Maniac : M. G. Lewis. 
 
 Sounds of the nature of u, o, a, on the contrary, espe- 
 cially when combined with consonant-sounds that can 
 
TUNES OF VERSE. IOI 
 
 easily be prolonged, produce the serious, grave and digni- 
 fied effects of low pitch, as in the following: 
 
 Insulted, chained, and all the world our foe, 
 Our God alone is all we boast below. 
 
 The Captivity : Goldsmith. 
 
 Then dying of a mortal stroke, 
 What time the foeman's line is broke, 
 And all the war is rolled in smoke. 
 
 Two Voices: Tennyson. 
 
 Or as in these imitative effects : 
 
 Thus long ago, 
 
 Ere heaving bellows learned to blow, 
 While organs yet were mute, 
 Timotheous to his breathing flute 
 
 And sounding lyre 
 Could swell the soul to rage or kindle soft desire. 
 
 Alexander* s Feast : Dryden. 
 
 And waft across the waves' tumultuous roar 
 The wolf's long howl from Oonalaska's shore. 
 
 Pleasures of Hope : Campbell. 
 
 Notice how Swinburne, with his exquisite sense of the 
 meanings of sounds, passes from low pitch to high pitch, 
 or the reverse, in order to bring out the changes in senti- 
 ment in the following: 
 
 Old glory of warrior ghosts 
 
 Shed fresh on filial hosts, 
 
 With dewfall redder than the dews of day. 
 
 Birthday Ode. 
 
 Being bird and God in one. 
 
 On the Cli/s. 
 
 Whose heart was ever set to song, or stirred 
 With wind of mounting music blown more high 
 Than wildest wing may fly. 
 
 On the Cliffs. 
 
102 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 With songs and cries 
 
 That sang and shrieked their soul out at the skies, 
 A shapeless earthly storm of shapes began 
 From all ways round to move in on the man, 
 Clamorous against him silent ; and their feet 
 Were as the winds' are fleet, 
 And their shrill songs were as wild birds' are sweet. 
 
 Thalassius. 
 
CHAPTER IX, 
 
 POETIC PITCH RISING AND FALLING TONES. 
 
 Correspondence between Elocutionary Inflections or Intonations and 
 certain Arrangements of Verse-Harmony produced by Sounds of Vow- 
 els and Consonants combined Effects of Rising Movements produced 
 by Lines beginning without Accents and ending with them Of falling 
 Movements, by Lines beginning with Accents and ending without them 
 Of Circumflex Movements, by Combinations of both Arrangements 
 What the Marks of Accent indicated to the Greeks, and how they read 
 them in their Poetry Illustrations of Ideas represented by Verse 
 arranged to give Effects of Rising, Falling, and Circumflex Movements 
 Movements of Verse in Narration and Pathos. 
 
 PHE poetic effects, corresponding to the rising and 
 falling of the voice, especially as used in the inflec- 
 tions, will now be examined. There is a sense in which 
 these movements of the voice enter into the pronunciation 
 \>f every syllable containing more than one letter-sound. 
 In uttering, for example, the word an, the sound of the a 
 is at a different pitch from that of the n. In talking 
 rapidly, however, the two sounds seem usually uttered, not 
 in succession but simultaneously. Their effects, therefore, 
 when combined, are analogous, not to those of musical 
 melody, but of harmony, and of these much more closely 
 than at first might be supposed. In flexible, well-trained 
 voices, belonging to those familiar with the relations of 
 musical tones, there is a tendency to sound the two at 
 such intervals of pitch from each other as to form a true 
 musical chord. One reason why vocal culture increases 
 
104 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 the sweetness and resonance of the speaking voice is 
 because it enables one to sound distinctly all the elements 
 of tone needed, in order to produce this speech-harmony. 
 The rising and falling of the voice with which we have 
 to deal now, however, are not those subtile ones allying 
 speech to harmony, but those more obvious ones which 
 give it a very apparent melody. The effects in poetry 
 corresponding to elocutionary inflections, are produced 
 by the same arrangements of the syllables in the line that 
 we have already noticed when considering metre. In our 
 language, as a rule, a rule which the elocutionist, of 
 course, can violate in order to produce what for him are 
 the more important effects of delivery, an accented sylla- 
 ble is sounded on a key higher than an unaccented one. 
 To illustrate this, in the ordinary pronunciation of cbnjure y 
 meaning to practise magical arts, the con is sounded higher 
 than the jure ; but in conjhre meaning to summon sol- 
 emnly, the con is sounded lower. Therefore, if a line of 
 poetry end with an accented syllable, or have what is 
 termed a masculine ending, the voice in pausing on this, 
 as it generally does at the end of a line, will pause, as a 
 rule, on a key higher than that on which it has uttered the 
 preceding syllable. Notice this snow and below : 
 
 I sift the snow 
 On the mountains below, 
 And their great pines groan aghast. 
 
 The Cloud: Shelley. 
 
 Or again, if a line begin with an unaccented syllable, the 
 voice will pass upward from this to the accented syllable ; 
 and this movement, begun with the line, will continue to 
 its end, especially if there be an accented syllable there. 
 The effect produced, therefore, in both cases, is that of a 
 constant repetition of the rising inflection ; e. g. : 
 
ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC INFLECTIONS. 10$ 
 
 The triumphal arch 
 
 Through which I march 
 With hurricane, fire, and^snow, 
 
 When the powers of the air 
 
 Are chained to my chair, 
 Is the million colored bow. Idem, 
 
 For similar reasons, if a line close with an unaccented syl- 
 lable, having what is termed a feminine ending; or begin 
 with an accented syllable, the effect is that of a constant rep- 
 etition of the falling inflection. In fact, the Greeks, though 
 arriving at their result through a different process, actually 
 termed lines ending thus catalectic or falling ; e. g. : 
 
 Love he comes, and love he tarries, 
 Just as fate or fancy carries, 
 Longest stays when sorest chidden, 
 Laughs and flies when pressed and bidden. 
 
 7 J he First Kiss : Campbell. 
 
 Perhaps the contrast between this movement and the 
 former one can be made more apparent by quoting two ex- 
 ceptional lines of the same poem used for illustration there : 
 
 I am the daughter 
 Of earth and water. 
 
 The Cloud: Shelley. 
 
 Very few, without making a special effort to do so, 
 could read these lines, giving rising inflections on the 
 syllable ter at the ends of them. Nor is it without sig- 
 nificance that there is a natural tendency for musical com- 
 posers, when preparing tunes for words, to arrange their 
 melodies so that there is an emphatic rising of the voice 
 where the final syllables either of the feet or of the lines, 
 but especially of the latter, are accented, and a falling of 
 it, where they are unaccented. Notice the following, and 
 also the musical illustrations, especially the hymn termed 
 Bayley, in the next chapter, all of which were selected in 
 a very few moments from an ordinary hymn-book. 
 
IO6 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 Like Effects of Pitch Shown in the Melody of both Music and Verse. 
 Lines with Falling or Feminine Endings. With Rising or Masculine Endings. 
 
 ZION. 
 
 
 1 1* J 
 
 
 j Zi - on stands with hills surrounded, Zi - on, kept with pow 
 J All her foes shall be con-found-ed, Though the world in arn 
 
 er di - vine ; ) 
 is com - bine ; } 
 
 -Ml ^ 
 
 L| 1 I LJ , U _ 
 
 
 
 thine 
 
 
 
 
 
 Hap - py Zi 
 .*--- -2. 
 
 - on, 
 
 -*;=* 
 
 What a 
 fl =f =fi 
 
 fav - ored lot is thine. 
 
 =r-Cl 9-^r-T^^ 
 
 1 t* ' i 
 
 
 
 -H * ' 
 
 S rr- 
 
 It was said, a little time ago, that the circumflex inflec- 
 tions, in accordance with the principle of contrast, make 
 stronger the rising or falling movements with which they 
 end. In like manner, certain arrangements of syllables 
 augment the rising or falling poetic movements which we 
 are now considering. If, for instance, series of lines both 
 end and begin with accented syllables, the impression con- 
 veyed by the rising movement at the end of a line is 
 increased, because it is immediately repeated at the begin- 
 ing of the next line ; and the voice, before repeating it, 
 must necessarily pause for a little, thus directing addi- 
 tional attention to it ; e. g. : 
 
 On a hill there grows a flower, 
 
 Fair befall the dainty sweet, 
 By that flower there is a bower, 
 
 Where the heavenly muses meet. 
 
 Pkillis the Fair : A r . Breton. 
 
ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC INFLECTIONS. IO/ 
 
 For a similar reason, if lines both end and begin with 
 unaccented syllables, the effect of the falling movement is 
 increased ; e. g. : 
 
 O mistress mine, where are you roaming ? 
 O stay, and hear ; your true love 's coming. 
 
 Twelfth Night, ii., 3 : Shakespear. 
 
 It is interesting to notice that this incidental use of the 
 spoken accent in our language in order to represent pitch, 
 is just that which the best authorities, both ancient and 
 modern, agree in acknowledging to have been the main 
 use of the written accent in the classic languages. The 
 word accent comes from the Latin accentus, from ad and 
 canere meaning to sing to, and the Greek word for the 
 same TtpoGcpdia comes from TtpoG and cpdrf, and means a 
 mark/07- singing, or for tones of voice, and not merely for 
 stress or the ictus. All the Greek terms used for specific 
 accents, too, were borrowed from those used in music. 
 The acute accent was called o'geia, meaning sharp or high, 
 the grave fiapeia, meaning heavy or low, and the circum- 
 flex TtepiGTtGdjj.t'yri, from TtepiffTtdao meaning to draw 
 around. This circumflex, by-the-way, was almost always 
 used upon syllables that had been contracted, and this for 
 the simple purpose, as will become evident upon reflec- 
 tion, of representing in a single syllable movements of the 
 voice that before had been represented in two : Ti-j*a-G0, 
 for instance, when contracted, would become TI- 
 
 It will be seen from this that the accents, as used by 
 the Greeks, indicated not stress of voice, but tones not 
 wholly dissimilar from those indicated by precisely the 
 
108 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 same marks when used to-day in our works on elocution. 
 Dr. Schmidt, in the " Rythmic and Metric of the Classic 
 Languages," says : " It is easy to see that a Greek verse 
 can and must be pronounced throughout with the prose 
 accents, and that this can be done without any conflict 
 arising between the prose accents and the quantity of 
 syllables and their ictus in poetry. The following verse, 
 therefore, may be read : 
 
 Iv - ve - ae, Afov-oa, no - Zv-tyo-Tiov, 6s pd-la rtol-Jiil. 
 
 11 Here, as it happens, the high tone and the ictus coin- 
 cide in the first measures, but not in the fifth and sixth. 
 But in English, as before remarked, the high tone is 
 almost always joined to the ictus. . . . The following 
 verse is accented in reading as follows : 
 
 " Hail to the chief who in tri - umph ad - van - ces. 
 
 In this way there arises a regularity in the succession of 
 the high and low tones which very closely resembles sing- 
 ing." As Schmidt says truly, in modern verse, because it 
 is read, not chanted, the ictus and the high tone are con- 
 nected more invariably than in the ancient verse. For 
 this reason the ictus or stress, when given at the beginning 
 or end of the line, must indicate very nearly the same 
 thing as the high tone when used at these places. 
 What the former indicates was shown when treating of 
 stress and the measures. What the latter indicates is to 
 be shown now. Those who choose to compare the two 
 
ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC INFLECTIONS. 1 09 
 
 results will find that, practically, they agree, and so, while 
 considering accent as related to pitch, will derive a con- 
 firmation of the truth of the principles unfolded when 
 considering it as related to force. 
 
 Let us take up, then, the different kinds of accent al- 
 ready mentioned as necessitating the rising and falling 
 movements of the voice. The accent accompanying 
 terminal measure, in which the high tone ends but does 
 not begin the line, and corresponding to the rising inflec- 
 tion, according to elocutionary principles, must emphat- 
 ically open the channel of thought, as if to speed it 
 forward, producing thus an anticipative effect. Accents 
 accompanying initial measure, in which the high tone be- 
 gins but does not end the line, and corresponding to the 
 downward inflection, must emphatically close the channel 
 of thought, producing thus a conclusive effect. Now con- 
 trast the following. Is it not a fact that the rising move- 
 ments have a constant tendency to sweep the thought 
 along with their current, and the falling to check it? 
 This is rising : 
 
 Though my back I should rub 
 On Diogenes' tub, 
 How my fancy could prance 
 In a dance of romance. 
 
 Life of Napoleon : Scott. 
 
 Over hill, over dale, 
 Thorough bush, thorough brier, 
 Over park, over pale, 
 Thorough flood, thorough fire. 
 Midsummer Night's Dream, ii., I: Shakespear. 
 
 Past cannon they dashed, 
 Past cannon that flashed, 
 Past cannon that crashed 
 Through their columns in vain. 
 
 A Charge: Anon. 
 
IIO POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 And these are falling : 
 
 Down they tear, man and horse, 
 Down in their awful course ; 
 Trampling with bloody heel 
 Over the crashing steel, 
 All their eyes forward bent, 
 Rushed the Black Regiment. 
 
 The Black Regiment : Boker. 
 
 Cannon to right of them, 
 Cannon to left of them, 
 Cannon in front of them 
 Volley'd and thundered. 
 
 Charge of the Light Brigade : Tennyson. 
 
 These, again, are rising : 
 
 Oh, young Lochinvar is come out of the west, 
 Through all the wide border his steed was the best. 
 
 Lochinvar: Scott. 
 
 I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he, 
 
 I galloped, Dirk galloped, we galloped all three. 
 
 How They Brought the Good News : Browning. 
 
 When dark December glooms the day 
 And takes my autumn joys away ; 
 When short and scant the sunbeam throws 
 Upon the weary waste of snows 
 A cold and profitless regard, 
 
 ****** 
 When such the country cheer, I come, 
 Well pleased, to seek my city home ; 
 For converse and for books to change 
 The forest's melancholy range, 
 ' And welcome with renewed delight 
 The busy day and social night. 
 
 Marmion : Scott. 
 And these are falling : 
 
 Buried and cold when my heart stills her motion, 
 Green be thy fields, sweetest isle of the ocean. 
 
 Exile of Erin: Campbell. 
 
ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC INFLECTIONS. lit 
 
 But amid my broken slumbers 
 Still I heard those magic numbers, 
 ***** 
 
 Till their chimes in sweet collision 
 Mingled with each wandering vision, 
 Mingled with the fortune-telling 
 Gypsy bands of dreams and fancies, 
 Which amid the waste expanses 
 Of the silent land of trances 
 Have their solitary dwelling. 
 
 Carillon . Longfellow 
 
 These are rising : 
 
 Among the fancies tell me this, 
 What is the thing we call a kiss ? 
 I shall resolve ye what it is. 
 
 The Kiss: R. Herrick. 
 
 A higher hand must make her mild 
 
 If all be not in vain ; and guide 
 
 Her footsteps moving side by side 
 With wisdom like the younger child. 
 
 In Memonam : Tennyson. 
 
 And these are falling : 
 
 How delicious is the winning 
 Of a kiss at love's beginning, 
 When two mutual hearts are sighing 
 For the knot there 's no untying. 
 
 The First Kiss : Campbell. 
 
 And all fancies yearn to cover 
 
 The hard earth whereon she passes, 
 
 With the thymy-scented grasses. 
 And all hearts do pray, " God love her." 
 
 A Portrait : Mrs. Browning. 
 
 The two effects under consideration may not be appar- 
 ent to the reader in all of these quotations ; but if we 
 turn to the stronger methods of securing the same end 
 those corresponding to the rising and falling circumflex, 
 none probably will fail to recognize them. Notice, in the 
 
112 FOE TRY AS A REPRESENTA TIVE AR T. 
 
 following, how the effect of the rising movement is in- 
 creased when an accented syllable at the end of one line 
 is followed immediately by an accent at the beginning 
 of the next line : 
 
 Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet 't is early morn ; 
 Leave me here ; and when you want me, sound upon the bugle-horn. 
 
 Locksley Hall : Tennyson. 
 
 In the same way, the checking effect of the falling move- 
 ment is stronger when an unaccented syllable at the end 
 of one line is followed by another unaccented syllable at 
 the beginning of the next ; e. g. : 
 
 With deep affection 
 And recollection, 
 I often think of 
 
 Those Shandon bells ; 
 Whose sounds so wild would, 
 In the days of childhood, 
 Fling round my cradle 
 
 Their magic spells. 
 
 The Bells of Shandon . F. Mahony. 
 
 But the rhythm corresponding to the rising inflection, 
 besides emphatically opening the channel of thought, as 
 if to speed its current onward, should also, according to 
 the principles of elocution, have the effect of representing 
 anticipation, fwpe. Look at this : 
 
 When ends life's transient dream, 
 When death's cold sullen stream 
 
 Shall o'er me roll, 
 Blest Saviour, then in love, 
 Fear and distrust remove; 
 O bear me safe above, 
 
 A ransomed soul. 
 
 Hymn : Palmer. 
 
 And that corresponding to the falling inflection should 
 
ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC INFLECTIONS. 113 
 
 represent collusiveness, therefore confidence, assurance ; 
 e. g. : 
 
 There no sigh of memory swelleth ; 
 There no tear of misery welleth ; 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 Past is all the cold world's scorning, 
 Gone the night and broke the morning. 
 
 Hymn : Anon. 
 
 Here again, too, is anticipation, expectancy ', hope : 
 
 Come, rest in this bosom, my own stricken deer, 
 
 Though the herd have fled from thee, thy home is still here ; 
 
 Here still is the smile that no cloud can o'ercast, 
 
 And a heart and a hand all thine own to the last. 
 
 Come, Rest, etc,: Moore. 
 
 And here, collusiveness, confidence, assurance : 
 
 Come in the evening, or come in the morning ; 
 
 Come when you 're looked for, or come without warning ; 
 
 Kisses and welcome you '11 find here before you, 
 
 And the oftener you come here, the more I '11 adore you. 
 
 The Welcome : T. Davis. 
 
 This again, like the rising inflection, represents in 
 decision, doubt : 
 
 That men with knowledge merely played, 
 I told thee hardly nigher made, 
 Though scaling slow from grade to grade ; 
 
 Much less this dreamer, deaf and blind, 
 Named man, may hope some truth to find, 
 That bears relation to the mind. 
 
 Two Voices : Tennyson. 
 
 And this, corresponding to the falling inflection, repre- 
 sents so much decision and disregard of doubtful considera- 
 tions as to seem flippant : 
 
 Ah, but traditions, inventions, 
 
 (Say we and make up a visage,) 
 So many men with such various intentions, 
 
114 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 Down the past ages must know more than this age ! 
 Leave the web all its dimensions ! 
 
 Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha : Browning. 
 
 The old fashioned narrative that dealt with facts, con- 
 cerning which one could be decided and sure, could find a 
 satisfactory expression in the hexameter ; e. g. : 
 
 This is the forest primeval ; but where are the hearts that beneath it 
 Leaped like the roe when he hears in the woodland the voice of the 
 huntsman ? 
 
 Evangeline : Longfellow. 
 
 But the present age is analytic. Its narratives deal with 
 motives, concerning which no one can be sure. Is this 
 one reason why we prefer a more indecisive, hesitating 
 movement ? as in our heroic metre : 
 
 Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit 
 Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste 
 Brought death into the world and all our woe, etc. 
 
 Paradise Lost : Milton. 
 
 Or that we feel, instinctively, that the more decisive 
 metre is fitter for the mock heroic ? 
 
 Tell me whither I may hie me tell me, dear one, that I may know, 
 Is it up the highest Andes ? down a horrible volcano ? 
 
 Ferdinando and Elvira : Gilbert. 
 
 Or for the pathetic, in a case like this, in which the 
 very decisiveness of the mood, the remorseless assurance of 
 being right, that is conveyed by the style, enhances the 
 effect ? Notice it : 
 
 One more unfortunate, 
 Weary of breath, 
 Rashly importunate, 
 Gone to her death. 
 
 Bridge of Sighs : Hood. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 POETIC PITCH MELODY AND RHYME. 
 
 Variety and Monotony in Elocution and Poetry representing less or more 
 Control over Self and the Subject True Significance of Alliteration,XL 
 Assonance, etc. Rhyme introducing Element of Sameness Increases 
 effects of Versification, of Unity of Poetic Form, of Emphasis of all 
 Kinds, of Regularity of Movement, of Rapidity of Thought Results 
 of Changing the Order of the Occurrence of Rhymes in Tennyson's In 
 Memoriam Blank Verse admitting of Great Variety Preferable for Long 
 Productions. 
 
 "PASSING on now, to consider the poetic analogues for 
 variety and monotony in elocutionary melody, it will 
 be recognized at once that the first is found in verse in 
 which the sounds differ greatly, and the second in that in 
 which they are very similar. The following, therefore, 
 corresponding to varied melody, represent, and very 
 appropriately, too, a buoyant, unrestrained mood, in which 
 the soul is exercising very little control over either itself or 
 its modes of expression (see page 95) : 
 
 Her feet beneath her petticoat 
 Like little mice stole in and out, 
 
 As if they feared the light : 
 But oh, she dances such a way 
 No sun upon an Easter-day 
 
 Is half so fine a sight ! 
 
 Ballad upon a Wedding : Suckling* 
 
 Hast thou seen the down in the air, 
 When wanton blasts have tossed it ? 
 
Il6 POETRY ASA REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 Or the ship on the sea. 
 
 When ruder winds have crossed it ? 
 
 Lute Song : Suckling. 
 
 When Israel marched along the desert land, 
 Blazed through the night on lonely wilds afar, 
 And told the path a never setting star : 
 So, heavenly Genius in thy course divine, 
 Hope is thy star, her light is ever thine. 
 
 Pleasures of Hope : Campbell. 
 
 And the following, in which there is much alliteration 
 (i. e., repetition of the same consonant-sounds), and asso- 
 nance (i. e., repetition of the same vowel-sounds), represent 
 a very high degree of restraint on the part of the soul, and 
 control exercised over itself and its modes of expression. 
 
 Lo, the leader in these glorious wars, 
 Now to glorious burial slowly borne, 
 Followed by the brave of other lands, 
 He on whom from both her open hands ; 
 Lavish honor showered all her stars, 
 And affluent fortune emptied all her horn. 
 
 Ode on Duke of Wellington : Tennyson. 
 
 More strong than strong disaster, 
 
 For fate and fear too strong ; 
 Earth's friend, whose eyes look past her, 
 
 Whose hands would purge of wrong j 
 Our lord, our light, our master, 
 
 Whose word sums up all song. 
 
 Garden of Cymodoce : Swinburne. 
 
 These quotations, and the principle they illustrate, show 
 us the true significance of passages in which we find 
 grouped the same sounds, as in assonance and alliteration 
 just mentioned ; or similar sounds, as in poetic gradation 
 (i. e., a series of vowels all different, in which each is at the 
 smallest remove of all from the one following it), and 
 syzygy (i. e., a combination of consonants easy to pro- 
 
MELODY AND RHYME. 
 
 nounce). All these sprang, originally, from that tendency 
 at the basis of all art-construction, to bring together, as a 
 result of comparison, things that are alike or allied. But 
 their significance, which alone concerns us at present, is 
 this : if no attention whatever be paid to the succession 
 of vowels and consonants ; if those combined be arranged 
 so that they cannot be pronounced easily and smoothly, 
 the verses appear devoid of art, the chief effect of which 
 is to reduce that with which it has to deal to order and 
 form. In the following, for instance, the writer manifests 
 no control over his own powers of expression or his ideas. 
 He presumably meant to give them an artistic form, but 
 as arranged they produce no artistic effect. 
 
 Numerous were the friends that gathered, 
 
 When in the good ship " Hibernia " 
 
 They weighed anchor in the harbor 
 
 Of the Metropolitan City. 
 
 It would take too long to narrate 
 
 All the many things that happened 
 
 In their voyage across the ocean. 
 
 Sketches of Palestine : Hammond. 
 
 If, on the contrary, the writer has made too much of 
 qualities like assonance and alliteration, the impression con- 
 veyed is that of too much suppression and control. There 
 seems to be no spontaneity in his work. The following 
 produces, as is its intention, an artificial effect. 
 
 Holof ernes, I will somewhat affect the letter, for it argues facility : 
 The preyful Princess pierced and prick'd a pretty pleasing pricket ; 
 Some say a sore ; but not a sore, till now made sore with shooting. 
 
 Love's Labor 's Lost, iv., 2 : Shakespear. 
 
 Swinburne is sometimes almost equally artificial. 
 
 His eyes gat grace of sleep, to see 
 
 The deep divine dark day-shine of the sea, 
 
 Dense water-walls and clear dusk water-ways, 
 
Il8 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 Broad-based or branching as a sea-flower sprays 
 That side or this dividing. 
 
 Thalassius, 
 
 The following are better, because in the sense there is 
 some reason for the alliteration. 
 
 O wind, O wingless wind that walk'st the sea, 
 Weak wind, wing-broken, wearier wind than we. 
 
 On the Cliffs : Swinburne. 
 
 And dulled to death with deep dense funeral chime 
 Of their reiterate rhyme. 
 
 Idem. 
 
 Between the two extremes that have been mentioned, 
 however, the poet can find every degree of sameness and 
 change, unity and variety, with which to represent every 
 kind of thought truthfully. 
 
 It is evident, from what has been said, that the chief 
 effect of rhyme, or the recurrence of similar sounds at the 
 ends of lines, is to introduce into the verse the element of 
 sameness. This sameness of itself, as has been intimated 
 in another place, increases the effects of versification by 
 directing attention to the ends of the lines and thus sepa- 
 rating them. Besides this, especially if the rhymes be 
 used at like intervals, as is generally the case, they tend 
 to give unity to the form. Their influence in this regard 
 is precisely analogous to that of the cadences and half 
 cadences, which, coming at the ends of musical phrases, 
 give the effect of unity to musical composition. Notice 
 in the following how often the alternate lines, both in the 
 music and words, end at the same pitch. Notice, too, at 
 the close of each line, as in the illustration in the last 
 chapter, how the music of the melody rises with accented 
 or masculine verse-endings, the analogues of rising inflec- 
 tions ; and falls with unaccented or feminine verse-endings, 
 the analogues of falling inflections. Of course there are 
 
MELODY AND RHYME. 
 
 tunes set to words in which correspondences of this kind are 
 less apparent ; but the following represent arrangements 
 sufficiently common to justify what is here said of them. 
 
 Lines Ended with Like Effects of Pitch in the Melody of both Music and Verse. 
 Falling or Feminine Endings. Rising or Masculine Endings. 
 
 WILMOT. 
 
 Still we wait for thine ap -pear -ing; Life and joy thy beams im - part, 
 
 -g * *-r 
 
 Chas-ingall our fears, and cheer-ing Ev - cry poor, be - night-ed heart. 
 
 BAYLEY. 
 
 
 
 
 
 gs^e 
 
 *=f=j=^ 
 
 
 ^ii J A " 
 
 Love 
 
 di - vine, all loves ex - cell - ing, Joy of heaven, to earth come down ! 
 
 
 
 s t -s-a r r r f 
 
 r^J^g .. 
 
 
 
 -VI r r 
 
 r-r r r 11 
 
 II III 
 
 Fix in us thine hum - ble dwell - ing ; All thy faith-nil mer - cies crown ; 
 D. s. Vis - it us with thy sal - va - tion ; En - ter ev - ery trem-bling heart. 
 
 -- ' _-<- -1+ -p- -jf- -m- m *- -J-J m 
 
 -51 - * 
 
 Je - sus ! thou art all corn-pass - ion, Pure un-bound-ed love thou art ; 
 
 3! 
 
I2O POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 Like these similarly ending cadences and half cadences 
 in music, rhymes furnish a framework about which, or 
 rather within which, all the other form-elements of the 
 verse are brought together. This is the reason why it is 
 easier for beginners to write poetry in rhymes than in 
 blank verse. All successful verse must have form, and 
 rhymes of themselves tend to give it this. 
 
 Not only so, but what is of main importance in our 
 present treatment of the subject they serve equally to 
 furnish a framework for the poetic thought. The rhym- 
 ing words, especially the last of two or three that rhyme, 
 always appear to be especially emphatic. In fact, they 
 seem to add to the emphasis in almost every possible way. 
 They augment the effects of duration or quantity, because 
 at the end of the line, where the rhyme usually is, the 
 voice, as a rule, pauses ; of force, because rhyming sylla- 
 bles, at least the last ones in which a sound is repeated, 
 appear to be pronounced more strongly than others ; of 
 pitch, because, as we have found, where the vowel-sounds 
 are the same, the pitch seems the same ; and of quality, as 
 we shall find, because the likeness of the rhyming sylla- 
 bles necessarily attracts attention. For all these reasons, 
 rhymes necessarily tend to thrust into prominence the 
 ideas expressed in them. Notice this fact as exemplified 
 in the following : 
 
 Know, then, thyself ; presume not God to scan ; 
 The proper study of mankind is man. 
 
 Essay on Man : Pope. 
 
 All are but parts of one stupendous whole 
 Whose body nature is, and God the soul. 
 
 Idem. 
 
 All nature is but art unknown to thee ; 
 
 All chance, direction which thou canst not see ; 
 
RHYMES. 121 
 
 All discord, harmony not understood ; 
 All partial evil, universal good ; 
 And spite of pride in erring reason's spite, 
 One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right. 
 
 Idem. 
 
 She dwelt among the untrodden ways 
 
 Beside the springs of Dove, 
 A maid whom there were none to praise, 
 
 And very few to love : 
 
 A violet by a mossy stone 
 
 Half hidden from the eye 
 Fair as a star when only one 
 
 Is shining in the sky. 
 
 She lived unknown, and few could know 
 
 When Lucy ceased to be ; 
 But she is in her grave, and oh, 
 
 The difference to me ! 
 
 The Lost Love : Wordsworth. 
 
 In connection with the effect of unity, and as one 
 factor of it, regularly recurring rhymes also impart an 
 effect of regularity to the movement, as in these : 
 
 Vital spark of heavenly flame, 
 Quit, oh, quit this mortal frame. 
 Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying, 
 Oh, the pain, the bliss of dying ! 
 
 Dying Christian to his Soul: Pope. 
 
 A kind and gentle heart he had, 
 
 To comfort friends and foes ; 
 The naked every day he clad, 
 
 When he put on his clothes. 
 Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog : Goldsmith. 
 
 Singing through the forests ; 
 
 Rattling over ridges ; 
 Shooting under arches ; 
 
 Rumbling over bridges ; 
 
122 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 Whizzing through the mountains ; 
 
 Buzzing o'er the vale, 
 Bless me, this is pleasant, 
 
 Riding on the rail. 
 
 Railroad Rhyme : Saxe. 
 
 In the degree in which the rhymes are near together, 
 they give an effect of rapidity to the movement not so 
 much of the form, as in short quantity, as of the thought. 
 It has been said that the rhyming words emphasize 
 strongly the ideas expressed through them. They con- 
 vey the impression, therefore, that something important 
 has been said ; and if they occur frequently, they suggest 
 that many important things have been said, and said in 
 a short time, or what is equivalent to this that the 
 thought in the poem is moving on rapidly, an effect that 
 could not be produced by the same words arranged differ- 
 ently. Of course, it follows that the nearer together the 
 rhymes are, the more rapid seems to be the movement. 
 Compare these two stanzas, both from Sir Walter Scott's 
 Eve of St. John : 
 
 The baron returned in three days' space, 
 
 And his looks were sad and sour, 
 And weary was his courser's pace, 
 
 As he reached his rocky tower. 
 
 My lady each night sought the lonely light 
 
 That burns on the wild Watchfold, 
 For from height to height the beacons bright 
 
 Of the English foemen told. 
 
 Perhaps no more interesting study of the different 
 effects of rhyme that have just been mentioned is any- 
 where afforded than in Tennyson's In Memoriam. In 
 several of the stanzas of this poem the third and fourth 
 lines may change places without detriment to the sense. 
 But if this change be made, the rhymes at the ends of the 
 
RHYMES. 123 
 
 first and fourth lines are brought nearer together, thus in- 
 creasing the effect of rapidity as well as the emphasis at 
 the end of the latter line. Moreover, all four lines are 
 then heard at regular intervals, thus increasing also the 
 effect of regularity. The consequence is, that the slow 
 and therefore judicial, the unemphatic and therefore 
 doubtful, the irregular and therefore hesitating impres- 
 sion conveyed by the thought of the poem, as arranged in 
 its present form, almost disappears, giving place to the 
 easy and even flow of unwavering assurance. Those who 
 doubt whether poetic sound has much to do with poetic 
 representation, may learn a lesson by examining the fol- 
 lowing stanzas in these two forms. Read these first : 
 
 Thou wilt not leave us in the dust : 
 
 Thou madest man he knows not why ; 
 
 He thinks he was not made to die ; 
 And thou hast made him : thou art just. 
 
 Thou seemest human and divine, 
 
 The highest, holiest manhood, thou : 
 
 Our wills are ours, we know not hovr ; 
 Our wills are ours to make them thine. 
 
 Our little systems have their day ; 
 
 They have their day and cease to be : 
 
 They are but broken lights of thee, 
 And thou, O Lord, art more than they. 
 
 We have but faith : we cannot know : 
 
 For knowledge is of things we see ; 
 
 And yet we trust it comes from thee, 
 A beam in darkness : let it grow. 
 
 And now read these : 
 
 Thou wilt not leave us in the dust : 
 
 Thou madest man he knows not why } 
 And thou hast made him : thou art just : 
 
 He thinks he was not made to die. 
 
124 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 Thou seemest human and divine, 
 
 The highest, holiest manhood, thou : 
 Our wills are ours to make them thine ; 
 
 Our wills are ours, we know not how. 
 
 Our little systems have their day ; 
 
 They have their day and cease to be : 
 And thou, O Lord, art more than they : 
 
 They are but broken lights of thee. 
 
 We have but faith ; we cannot know, 
 
 For knowledge is of things we see ; 
 A beam in darkness : let it grow ; 
 
 And yet we trust it comes from thee. 
 
 Where rhymes are used, these effects of unity, regular- 
 ity, and rapidity are always present to some extent, and 
 all, if continued too long, become monotonous and tire- 
 some, besides being unfitted for the representation of 
 varying moods and scenes. Therefore, for long produc- 
 tions, poets usually prefer blank-verse, either regular, as 
 in Shakespear's plays and the " Paradise Lost "; e.g.: 
 
 My tongue shall hush again this storm of war, 
 And make fair weather in your blust'ring land. 
 
 King John, v., I : Shakespear. 
 
 or irregular or broken, as in Goethe's Faust and Southey's 
 Thalaba; e.g.: 
 
 How beautiful is night ! 
 A dewy freshness fills the silent air ; 
 No mist obscures, nor cloud nor speck nor stain 
 
 Breaks the serene of heaven : 
 In full-orbed glory yonder moon divine 
 Rolls through the dark blue depths. 
 
 Thalaba, I : Southey. 
 
 Blank-verse, in a sense not true of verse that rhymes, 
 admits of irregular accents ; as, for instance, in the follow- 
 ing, in which only the last line is absolutely regular : 
 
RHYMES. 12$ 
 
 Upon our sides it never shall be broken. 
 And noble Dolphin, albeit we swear 
 A voluntary zeal and an unurged faith 
 To your proceedings, yet believe me, prince, 
 I am not glad that such a sore of time 
 Should seek a plaster by contemned revolt. 
 
 King John, v., 2 : Shakespear. 
 
 It is not necessary to argue that verse admitting of 
 changes like these can be continued almost indefinitely 
 without becoming monotonous, and can be used in de- 
 scribing almost all possible varieties of moods and scenes, 
 without ceasing to be representative. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC QUALITY. 
 
 Quality represents the Emotive Nature of the Soul as influencing and in- 
 fluenced by both Instinctive and Reflective Tendencies Kinds of Qual- 
 j^ ity, and what each represents in Elocution Letter-Sounds used in 
 Verse to produce Effects of the Aspirate Quality Guttural Pectoral 
 Pure Orotund Illustrations of Poetic Effects of all these Kinds when 
 combined. 
 
 HTHE last elocutionary element, the influence of which 
 upon poetic form we have to consider, and the second 
 that has to do with the tunes of verse, is quality ; or, as it 
 is sometimes called, on account of that to which it corre- 
 sponds in painting, tone-color. Its different varieties are 
 determined by the relative proportions in which noise and 
 music are combined in them ; or, in other words, by the 
 different actions of the organs of utterance in causing 
 more or less of the breath, while leaving the lungs, to be 
 vocalized and rendered resonant. 
 
 What different kinds of quality are fitted to represent, 
 it needs but little observation to discover. It certainly is 
 not physical energy. When Patti passes from a loud to a 
 soft, or from an abrupt to a smooth tone, she changes 
 greatly the kinds of energy, but her voice still retains the 
 same Patti-quality. Nor does quality represent mere 
 intellectuality. A man, without changing in the least an 
 habitual nasal or wheezing quality, may give every inflec- 
 tion needed in order to represent the merely mental 
 
ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC QUALITY. 1 27 
 
 phases of that which actuates him. But if we frighten 
 him severely, we may make it impossible for him to use 
 any other sound than a whisper ; if in connection with this, 
 we anger him, he will hiss; or, if at length he recovers his 
 voice, he will use the harsh, jarring, interrupted hard-^- 
 quality of tone, termed the guttural ; or, if that which he 
 would repel is too great to make anger appropriate, it 
 may widen and stiffen his throat so as to produce the hol- 
 low, almost inarticulate indication of awe and horror given 
 by what is termed the pectoral quality. Release him now 
 from the influence of affright, anger, or horror, and put 
 him into a gently satisfied mood, and he will use his near- 
 est approach to pure quality. Stir him then toprofound 
 emotion, inspired by what is deeply satisfying, and all his 
 vocal passages will expand again, and he will produce his 
 nearest approach to the full, round, resonant quality 
 termed orotund. 
 
 For these reasons, it seems indisputable that quality 
 represents the feelings, the temper, the spiritual condition 
 of the higher emotive nature, what I have termed the 
 soul, by which is meant, as needs scarcely be said again, 
 the principle of life holding body and mind together, influ- 
 encing and influenced by both. The soul communicates 
 with the external world never wholly through the in- 
 stinctive nature, nor wholly through the reflective, but 
 always through one of the two modified by its connec- 
 tion with the other. The quality of sound, therefore, 
 represents the quality of the feeling that vivifies the soul. 
 This feeling, on its physical side, and with its most 
 physical coloring, gives us, first, the serpent-like hissing 
 aspirate ; next, with an intellectual coloring the guttural 
 quality ; and last, with an emotional coloring, the pectoral. 
 On its intellectual side, it gives us first, with a physical 
 
12% POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 coloring, the soft whispering aspirate ; next, with an intel- 
 lectual coloring, the pure quality ; and last, with an 
 emotional coloring, the orotund. Of these six forms of 
 quality, the first four are classed in a general way as im- 
 pure, because there is in them more breath or noise than 
 vocal tone or music ; and the last two are classed as pure. 
 
 The first three again refer to what one wishes to repel ; 
 the hissing aspirate indicating feelings like affright, amaze- 
 ment, indignation, and contempt ; the guttural, as has been 
 said, hostility ; and the pectoral, awe or horror. The last 
 three refer to what, if not wholly satisfactory, at least, ex- 
 cites in one no movement aimed against it. The soft 
 whisper indicates feelings like surprise, interest, or solici- 
 tude ; the tone termed distinctively the pure represents 
 gentle contemplation of what may be either joyous or sad ; 
 and the orotund, deep delight, admiration, courage, or de- 
 termination, as inspired by contemplation of the noble or 
 grand. 
 
 All these different qualities can be given by good elocu- 
 tionists when vocalizing almost any of the consonants or 
 vowels ; but the poet for his effects must depend upon 
 the sounds necessarily given to words in ordinary pro- 
 nunciation. For instance, certain consonants, called 
 variously aspirates, sibilants, or atonies, viz. : h, s, z, w, sh, 
 wh, th, p, t, f, are aspirate in themselves ; that is, we are 
 obliged to whisper when we articulate them. Therefore 
 in poetic effects, considered aside from those that are 
 elocutionary, the aspirate must be produced by using 
 words containing some of these consonants ; and, if it be 
 the repellant aspirate or the hiss, by using also consonants 
 giving guttural effects, like^,/, ch, and r. Here, for in- 
 stance, is the poetic aspirate of amazement, affright, indig- 
 nation, contempt. 
 
ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC QUALITY. 129 
 
 Out of my sight, thou serpent ; that name best 
 Befits thee with him leagued, thyself as false 
 And hateful ; nothing wants but that thy shape 
 Like his and color serpentine may show 
 Thy inward fraud. 
 
 Paradise Lost, 10 : Milton. 
 
 What 's the business 
 
 That such a hideous trumpet calls to parley 
 The sleepers of the house ? speak ! speak ! 
 
 Macbeth, ii., I : Shakespear. 
 
 You souls of geese 
 
 That bear the shapes of men, how have you run 
 From slaves that apes would beat. 
 
 Coriolanus, i., 4 : Shakespear. 
 
 Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men ; 
 As hounds and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, cursi 
 Shoughs, water-rugs, and demi-wolves are clep'd 
 All by the name of dogs. 
 
 Macbeth, iii., i : Shakespear. 
 
 And here the poetic aspirate of surprise, interest, and 
 solicitude. 
 
 What ? keep a week away ? seven days and nights ? 
 Eightscore eight hours, and lover's absent hours, 
 More tedious than the dial eightscore times ? 
 
 Othello, iii., 4: Shakespear. 
 
 The red rose cries, ' ' She is near, she is near " ; 
 And the white rose weeps, ' ' She is late " ; 
 The larkspur listens, " I hear, I hear " ; 
 And the lily whispers, " I wait." 
 
 Maud: Tennyson. 
 
 Jul. Sweet, so would I ; 
 
 Yet I should kill thee with much cherishing. 
 
 Good-night good-night ; parting is such sweet sorrow, f 
 
 That I shall say good-night till it be morrow. 
 
 Rom. Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast 
 
 Would I were sleep and peace so sweet to rest. 
 
 Romeo and Juliet, ii., 2 : Shakespear. 
 
1 30 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 The aspirated sounds do not depend upon the use of 
 the vowels. But this is not true of the other qualities. 
 In the poetic guttural and pure tones, front * or else short 
 vowel-sounds like those in the words pin, met, hat, fur, and 
 far, among which we must include also the long and front * 
 ones in me and ale usually predominate. In the poetic 
 pectoral and orotund, long and back* vowel-sounds like 
 those in moor, more, cow, boil, all, among which we must 
 include the short but back* sound of u in but, usually 
 predominate. Besides this, for the guttural, certain pala- 
 tic and lingual consonant-sounds, like those of g, j, k, ch, 
 r, and, at times, especially when used in combination with 
 other consonants, dental and labial sounds, like those 
 in b, d, and v, are essential. Here are examples of the 
 guttural indicating, as has been said, hostility. 
 
 Thou cream-faced loon, 
 Where gottest thou that goose look ? 
 
 Macbeth, v., 3 : Shakespear. 
 
 Despised by cowards for greater cowardice, 
 And scorned even by the vicious for such vices 
 As in the monstrous grasp of their conception 
 Defy all codes. 
 
 Marino Faliero, r., 3 : Byron. 
 
 But the churchmen fain would kill their church, 
 As the churches have killed their Christ. 
 
 Maud : Tennyson. 
 
 Till I, with as fierce an anger, spoke, 
 And he struck me, madman, over the face, 
 Struck me before the languid fool, 
 Who was gaping and grinning by. 
 
 Idem. 
 
 The elocutionary pectoral, with its hollow tones, always 
 suggests more or less of a breathing quality. Therefore 
 the poetic pectoral requires, in addition to the use of the 
 
 * See page 97. 
 
ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC QUALITY. 13! 
 
 long and back * vowel-sounds like those of long, o, oo, ou, 
 oi, broad a, and short u, that of the aspirate consonants 
 like h, s, z, w, sh, wh, th, r, p, t, /, and sometimes b, d, 
 and v. Notice the preponderance of these letters in all 
 of the following expressions of awe or horror : 
 
 For a charm of powerful trouble, 
 Like a hell-broth boil and bubble. 
 All. Double, double toil and trouble ; 
 
 Fire burn and cauldron bubble. 
 ********* 
 
 All. Seek to know no more. 
 
 Macb. I will be satisfied : deny me this, 
 
 And an eternal curse fall on you ! Let me know 
 ********* 
 
 \st Witch. Shew ! 
 zd Witch. Shew ! 
 3</ Witch. Shew ! 
 All. Shew his eyes and grieve his heart ! 
 
 Come like shadows, so depart. 
 Macb. Thou art too like the spirit of Banquo ; down ! 
 
 Thy crown does sear mine eyeballs : and thy hair 
 Thou other gold-bound brow, is like the first. 
 
 Macbeth, iv., I : Shakespear. 
 
 And with blood for dew, the bosom boils ; 
 
 And a gust of sulphur is all its smell ; 
 And lo, he is horribly in the toils 
 
 Of a coal-black giant flower of hell. 
 
 The Heretic's Tragedy : R. Browning. 
 
 So wills the fierce avenging sprite, 
 
 Till blood for blood atones. 
 Ay, though he 's buried in a cave, 
 
 And trodden down with stones, 
 And years have rotted off his flesh, 
 
 The world shall see his bones. 
 
 The Dream of Eugene Aram : Hood. 
 
 A dungeon horrible, on all sides round, 
 As one great furnace, flamed ; yet from those flames 
 No light but rather darkness visible, 
 * See page 97. 
 
132 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 Served only to discover sights of woe, 
 
 Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace 
 
 And rest can never dwell, hope never comes. 
 
 Paradise Lost, I : Milton. 
 
 Ghastly dethronement, cursed by those the most 
 On whose repugnant brow the crown next falls. 
 
 Epilogue : ft. Browning. 
 
 Notice the rhymes, too, in the following : 
 
 " Dust and ashes." So you creak it, and I want the heart to scold. 
 Dear dead women, with such hair, too what 's become of all the gold 
 Used to hang and brush their bosoms ? I feel chilly and grown old. 
 
 A Toccata of Galuppi's : R. Browning. 
 
 The poetic pure tone necessitates, as has been said, the 
 use of the short or the front vowel-sounds. In connection 
 with these almost any of the consonants, except the gut- 
 tural, may be used to any extent. Here are examples of 
 the poetic pure quality, representing, as already intimated, 
 gentle contemplation with feelings, not too strong, of what 
 may be either joyous or sad. 
 
 All night merrily, merrily, 
 
 They would pelt me with starry spangles and shells, 
 Laughing and clapping their hands between, 
 
 All night merrily, merrily. 
 
 The Merman : Tennyson. 
 
 She sleeps : her breathings are not heard 
 
 In palace chambers far apart. 
 The fragrant tresses are not stirred 
 
 That lie upon her charmed heart. 
 She sleeps ; on either hand upswells 
 
 The gold-fringed pillow lightly pressed. 
 She sleeps, nor dreams, but ever dwells 
 
 A perfect form in perfect rest. 
 
 The Day Dream : Tennyson. 
 
 The orotund, as contrasted with the pure tone, has a 
 slightly husky as well as hollow effect. Therefore its 
 
ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC QUALITY. 133 
 
 poetic form necessitates, besides the use of the long and 
 back vowels, that of the subvowels or subtonics, like m, n, 
 ng, I, b, d, and v. Here are examples of the poetic orotund, 
 indicating any thing, not provoking, which stirs one to 
 deep feeling, or, as was stated before, to deep delight, admi- 
 ration, courage, or determination, as inspired by contem- 
 plation of the noble or grand. 
 
 " Glory to God," unnumbered voices sung ; 
 " Glory to God," the vales and mountains rung ; 
 Voices that hailed creation's primal morn, 
 And to the shepherds sung a Saviour born. 
 Slowly, bare-headed through the surf we bore 
 The sacred cross, and kneeling kissed the shore. 
 
 Voyage of Columbus : Rogers. 
 
 Now is the winter of our discontent 
 Made glorious summer by this son of York, 
 And all the clouds that lowered upon our house 
 In the deep bosom of the ocean buried. 
 
 Richard III., i., I : Shakespear. 
 
 Daughter of Faith, awake, arise, illume 
 The dread unknown, the chaos of the tomb, 
 Melt and dispel, ye spectre-doubts, that roll 
 Cimmerian darkness o'er the parting soul. 
 Fly, like the moon-eyed herald of Dismay, 
 Chased on his night-steed by the star of day. 
 The strife is o'er the pangs of nature close, 
 And life's last rapture triumphs o'er her woes. 
 
 Pleasures of Hope : Campbell. 
 
 Peace and order and beauty draw 
 Round thy symbol of light and law. 
 
 Barbara Frietchie : Whittier. 
 
 All the more impure qualities the hiss, the guttural, 
 and the pectoral represent allied emotions. Therefore, 
 in elocution, there is a tendency to combine their effects. 
 It is the same in poetry. Notice the following : 
 
1 34 POE TRY AS A REPRESENTA T2VE AR T. 
 
 See with what heat these dogs of hell advance 
 To waste and havoc yonder world. 
 
 ******* 
 
 And know not that I call'd and drew them thither, 
 
 My hell-hounds, to lick up the draff and filth, 
 
 Which man's polluting sin with taint hath shed 
 
 On what was pure ! till, cramm'd and gorg'd, nigh burst 
 
 With suck'd and glutted offal, at one sling 
 
 Of thy victorious arm, well-pleasing Son, 
 
 Both Sin and Death and yawning Grave, at last 
 
 Through Chaos hurled, obstruct the mouth of hell 
 
 Forever, and seal up his ravenous jaws. 
 
 Paradise Lost t 10 : Milton. 
 
 Fret till your proud heart breaks ; 
 Go show your slaves how choleric you are, 
 And make your bondmen tremble. Must I budge ? 
 Must I observe you ? Must I stand and crouch 
 Under your testy humor ? By' the gods, 
 You shall digest the venom of your spleen 
 Tho* it do split you ; for from this day forth 
 I '11 use you for my mirth yea, for my laughter 
 When you are waspish. 
 
 Julius C&sar, iv., 3 : Shakespear. 
 
 So, too, the poetic pure and orotund naturally go to- 
 gether ; for example : 
 
 For though the giant ages heave the hill 
 
 And break the shore, and evermore 
 
 Make and break and work their will ; 
 
 Though worlds on worlds in myriad myriads roll 
 
 Round us, each with different powers 
 
 And other forms of life than ours, 
 
 What know we greater than the soul ? 
 
 On God and godlike men we build our trust. 
 
 Ode on Duke of Wellington : Tennyson. 
 
 Much of the representative beauty of poetry depends 
 on a judicious alternation of these different qualities of 
 sound. Notice this fact as exemplified in the last three 
 
ELOCUTIONARY AND POETIC QUALITY. 135 
 
 quotations, as well as in the fourth and fifth lines of the 
 following, where the poetic orotund is introduced in the 
 midst of an aspirate passage : 
 
 The bright sun rises to his course, and lights 
 A race of slaves. He sets, and his last beams 
 Fall on a slave ; not such as swept along 
 By the full tide of power, the conqueror leads 
 To crimson glory and undying fame ; 
 But base ignoble slaves ; slaves to a horde 
 Of petty tyrants, feudal despots, lords 
 Rich in some dozen paltry villages, 
 Strong in some hundred spearmen, only great 
 In that strange spell a name. 
 
 Rienzi's Address to Romans : Mitford. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 EFFECTS OF POETIC QUALITY CONTINUED. 
 
 Imitative Effects of Letter-Sounds corresponding to Aspirate Quality, rep- 
 resenting Serpents, Sighing, Rapidity, Winds, Slumber, Conspiracy, 
 Fear, Frightening, Checking Guttural Quality, representing Grating, 
 Forcing, Flowing Water, Rattling,, Effort Pectoral Quality, repre- 
 senting Groaning, Depth, Hollowness Pure Quality, representing 
 Thinness, Clearness, Sharpness, Cutting Orotund Quality, repre- 
 senting Fulness, Roundness, Murmuring, Humming, Denying, etc. 
 These Effects as combined in Various Illustrations of Carving ; Dash- 
 ing, Rippling, and Lapping Water ; Roaring ; Clashing ; Cursing ; 
 Shrieking ; Fluttering ; Crawling ; Confusion ; Horror ; Spite ; Scorn ; 
 etc. 
 
 T ET us turn now to poetic effects produced by quality 
 corresponding to those of dramatic, as distinguished 
 from discoursive, elocution ; and first to the aspirate. In 
 poetry, as in elocution, the repellant aspirate imitates any 
 thing that hisses ; for example : 
 
 He would have spoke, 
 
 But hiss for hiss returned with forked tongue 
 To forked tongue ; for now were all transformed 
 Alike, to serpents all as accessories 
 To his bold riot : dreadful was the din 
 Of hissing through the hall, thick swarming now 
 With complicated monsters, head and tail, 
 Scorpion and asp, and amphisbsena dire, 
 Cerastes horn'd, hydrus, and ellops drear, 
 And dipsas ; not so thick swarmed once the soil 
 Bedropped with blood of Gorgon, or the isle 
 
 Ophiusa. 
 
 Paradise Lost, 10 : Milton. 
 
 136 
 
IMITATIVE EFFECTS OF LETTER-SOUNDS. 137 
 
 The acquiescent aspirate imitates any thing that sighs; 
 for example : 
 
 She gave me for my pains a world of sighs ; 
 
 She swore. In faith 't was strange, 't was passing strange, 
 
 'T was pitiful, 't was wondrous pitiful ; 
 
 She wish'd she had not heard it ; yet she wish'd 
 
 That heaven had made her such a man. 
 
 Othello, i., 3 : Shakespear. 
 
 But it is possible to go still more into detail than this. 
 As Guest has pointed out in his " History of English 
 Rhythms," developing for that purpose a suggestion made 
 by Bacon, certain letters and combinations of them seem 
 especially adapted for the imitation of certain specific 
 operations. Things, for instance, that fly rapidly, make 
 sounds resembling those of the sibilants. Hence the ap- 
 propriateness of the following : 
 
 How quick they wheeled, and flying behind them shot 
 Sharp sleet of arrowy showers against the face 
 Of their pursuers. 
 
 Paradise Reg. t 3 : Milton. 
 
 Brushed with the hiss of rustling wings. As bees 
 In spring-time. 
 
 Paradise Lost, I : Idem. 
 
 The winds make similar sounds : 
 
 The breezy call of incense-breathing morn. 
 
 Elegy: Gray. 
 
 By whispering winds soon lulled asleep. 
 
 V Allegro : Milton. 
 
 So do nurses, fountains, and sea-waves, when lulling one 
 to sleep : 
 
 O Sleep, O gentle Sleep, 
 
 Nature's soft nurse, how have I frightened thee 
 That thou no more wilt weigh mine eyelids down, 
 And steep my senses in forgetfulness ? 
 Why rather, Sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs, 
 Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee, 
 
138 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 And hushed with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber ; 
 Than in the perfumed chambers of the great, 
 Under the canopies of costly state, 
 And lulled with sound of sweetest melody. 
 
 2 Henry IV. , iii., I : Shakespear. 
 
 In the following we seem to hear the whisperings of 
 conspirators : 
 
 Who rather had, 
 
 Though they themselves did suffer by it, behold 
 Dissentious numbers pestering streets, than see 
 Our tradesmen singing in their shops and going 
 About their functions friendly. 
 
 Cariolanus, iv., 6 : Shakesptar. 
 
 And here the whisperings of fear : 
 
 A hideous giant, horrible and high. 
 
 Faerie Queene, I, 7, 8 : Spenser. 
 
 Fit vessel, fittest imp of fraud, in whom 
 To enter and his dark suggestions hide. 
 
 Paradise Lost, 9 : Milton. 
 
 When we wish to frighten a bird or animal, we often 
 make a prolonged sound of s, and then stop it suddenly 
 with the sound of /. Now, look at the use of st in the 
 following to indicate motion that is checked by being 
 frightened : 
 
 Stern were their looks like wild amazed steers, 
 Staring with hollow eyes and stiff upstanding hairs. 
 
 Faerie Queene, 2, 9, 13 : Spenser. 
 
 With staring countenance stern, as one astown'd, 
 And staggering steps, to weet what sudden stour 
 Had wrought that horror strange. 
 
 Idem, I, 8, 5. 
 
 But she fast stood. 
 
 Pallas had put a boldness in her breast 
 And in her fair limbs tender fear compressed, 
 
 And still she stood. 
 
 Chapman's Tr., Odyssey. 
 
IMITATIVE EFFECTS OF LETTER-SOUNDS. 139 
 
 Though death-struck, still his feeble frame he rears ; 
 Staggering, but stemming all, his lord unharmed he bears. 
 
 Childe Harold, I : Byron, 
 
 P and /, because their sounds cannot be prolonged, as 
 well as d, when pronounced like t, have also the effect of 
 representing the stopping of movement ; e. g. : 
 
 Sudden he stops ; his eye is fixed : away, 
 Away thou heedless boy ! prepare the spear : 
 
 Now is thy time to perish or display 
 
 The skill that yet may check his mad career. 
 
 Idem. 
 
 If thou more murmur'st, I will rend an oak, 
 And peg thee in his knotty entrails, till 
 Thou hast howled away twelve winters. 
 
 Tempest, i., 2 : Shakespear. 
 
 The poetic guttural imitates any thing \h& grates ; for 
 example : 
 
 How the garden grudged me grass 
 
 Where I stood the iron gate 
 Ground his teeth to let me pass. 
 
 A Serenade at the Villa : R. Browning. 
 
 Besides this, it is well to notice that the chief guttural 
 consonants, g, /, k, and ch, are all made as a result of 
 effort, and, more than this, of effort that is internal in 
 the sense of not being outwardly visible. They are pro- 
 duced by forcing the tongue against the palate, and the 
 breath between the two. For this reason they seem to 
 be recognized as appropriate for the representation of 
 effort, especially of effort that is internal ; for example : 
 
 Caitiff, to pieces shake, 
 That under covert and convenient seeming 
 Hast practised on man's life. Close pent-up guilts, 
 Rive your concealing continents, and cry 
 These dreadful summoners grace. I am a man. 
 
 King Lear, iii. , 2 : Shakespear. 
 
I4O POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 Thou, trumpet, there 's my purse, 
 Now crack thy lungs, and split thy brazen pipe : 
 Blow, villain, till thy sphered bias cheek 
 Out-swell the colic of puff'd Aquilon ; 
 Come stretch thy chest. 
 
 Troilus and Cressida, iv. , 5 : Shakespear, 
 
 This last quotation suggests that not only the chief 
 guttural consonants, but b and p also, though in a less 
 degree, may represent effort. This will not seem strange 
 from our present point of view, when we notice that they 
 are both produced by compressing the lips precisely as we 
 do when we are making a strong muscular exertion : 
 
 And him beside sits ugly Barbarism, 
 And brutish Ignorance, ycrept of late 
 Out of dred darkness of the deep Abysme, 
 Where being bred he light and heaven does hate. 
 
 Tears of the Muses : Spenser. 
 
 Behemoth, biggest born of earth. 
 
 Par. Lost, 7 : Milton. 
 
 His bursting passion into plaints thus poured. 
 
 Idem, 9. 
 
 Their broad bare backs upheave 
 Into the clouds. 
 
 Idem, 7. 
 
 L and r, like the other consonants just mentioned, are 
 formed by interrupting the flow of the breath ; but in 
 these it is not checked even for a moment, but passes 
 outward at either side of the tongue. Both, therefore, 
 are felt to be appropriate for imitating sounds of flowing 
 waters or liquids , or other objects having this motion ; 
 for example : 
 
 For a charm of powerful trouble, 
 Like a hell-broth boil and bubble. 
 Double, double toil and trouble, 
 Fire burn, and cauldron bubble. 
 
 Macbeth, iv., I : Shakespear. 
 
IMITATIVE EFFECTS OF LETTER-SOUNDS. 141 
 
 Some of serpent kind, 
 
 Wondrous in length and corpulence, involved 
 Their snaky folds. 
 
 Par. Lost, ^ : Milton. 
 
 The crisped brooks 
 
 Rolling on orient pearl and sands of gold. 
 ******* 
 Pour'd forth profuse on hill and dale and plain. 
 
 4, Idem. 
 
 O'er which the mantling vine 
 Lays forth her purple grape, and gently creeps 
 Luxuriant, meanwhile murmuring waters fall 
 Down the slope hills dispersed or in a lake. 
 
 Idem. 
 
 R has a sound both harsher and higher than /, and is 
 better adapted, therefore, for imitating grating and rat- 
 tling noises ; e. g. : 
 
 Such bursts of horrid thunder, 
 
 Such groans of roaring wind and rain, I never 
 
 Remember to have heard. 
 
 Lear, iii., 2 : Shakespear. 
 
 for this day will pour down, 
 
 If I conjecture aught, no drizzling shower, 
 But rattling storm of arrows barb'd with fire. 
 
 Par. Lost, 6 : Milton. 
 
 The brazen throat of war had ceased to roar. 
 
 Idem, II. 
 
 And the villainous saltpetre 
 Rung a fierce discordant metre 
 Round their ears. 
 
 The Old Continentals : Me Master. 
 
 And frighted waves rush wildly back 
 Before the broadside's reeling rack. 
 
 The American Flag : Drake. 
 
142 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 L and r, too, in combination with g t k, /, b, st, and 
 some other consonants, increase the effect of the noise 
 made by stoppage in the flow of the articulating breath ; 
 and so they also represent difficulty or effort ; for example : 
 
 Staring full ghastly like a strangled man ; 
 
 His hair upreared, his nostrils stretched with struggling ; 
 
 His hands abroad displayed, as one that grasp'd 
 
 And tugg'd for life, and was by strength subdued. 
 
 Look ! on the sheets his hair, you see, is sticking ; 
 
 His well-proportioned beard made rough and rugged. 
 
 2 Henry VI., iii., 2 : Shakespear. 
 
 The poetic pectoral imitates any thing that groans ; for 
 example : 
 
 Oh, horror, horror, horror. Tongue nor heart 
 Cannot conceive nor name thee. 
 
 Macbeth, ii., I : Shakespear. 
 
 So all deep, hollow sounds are supposed to be imitated, 
 and, as we found when considering pitch, really are imi- 
 tated by this class of vowels : 
 
 All these and thousand thousands many more, 
 And more deformed monsters thousand-fold, 
 With dreadful noise and hollow rombling roar, 
 Came rushing. 
 
 F. Q., 2, 12, 25 : Spenser. 
 
 A dreadful sound 
 Which through the woods loud bellowing did rebound. 
 
 Idem, i, 7, 7. 
 
 So high as heav'd the tumid hills, so low 
 Down sunk a hollow bottom, broad and deep. 
 
 Par. Lost, 7 : Milton. 
 
 Hell at last 
 Yawning received them whole and on them closed. 
 
 Idem, 6. 
 
 The poetic pure tones imitate any thing that sounds 
 thin and clear ; for example : 
 
IMITATIVE EFFECTS OF LETTER-SOUNDS. 143 
 
 Hear the sledges with the bells, silver bells 
 
 What a world of merriment their melody fortells ? 
 
 How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle in the icy air of night, 
 
 While the stars that oversprinkle all the heavens seem to twinkle 
 
 With a crystalline delight. 
 
 The Bells : Foe. 
 
 The vowels used in pure quality, especially e both 
 short and long, and these especially when combined 
 with the sibilants and the whispering consonants, /, t, and 
 f t produce an effect which some recognized to be imita- 
 tive of any thing sharp and cutting ; for example : 
 
 What 's this ? a sleeve ? 'T is like a demi-cannon ; 
 What ! up and down, carved like an apple-tart ? 
 Here 's snip and nip, and cut and slish and slash. 
 Like to a censor in a barber's shop. 
 
 Taming the Shrew, iv., 3 : Shakespear. 
 
 And thou hast talked 
 Of sallies and retires ; of trenches, tents, 
 Of palisadoes, frontiers, parapets ; 
 Of basilisks, of cannon, culverin ; 
 Of prisoners' ransom, and of soldiers slain, 
 And all the current of a heady fight. 
 
 i Henry IV. , ii., 3 : Shakespear^ 
 
 The clouds were fled 
 
 Driven by a keen north wind that blowing dry 
 Wrinkled the face of deluge. 
 
 Par. Lost, n : Milton* 
 
 The whistler shrill that whoso hears doth die. 
 
 F. Q., z, 12, 36 : Spenser. 
 
 And at the point two stings infixed are, 
 Both deadly sharp, that sharpest steel exceeden far. 
 But stings and sharpest steel did far exceed 
 The sharpness of his cruel rending claws. 
 
 F. Q. t i, ii, ii : Spenser. 
 
 The poetic orotund imitates any thing that sounds full 
 and round. It is admirably alternated with pure quality 
 in the following : 
 
144 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 The old song sounds hollower in mine ear 
 
 Than thin keen sounds of dead men's speech 
 
 A noise one hears and would not hear ; 
 Too strong to die, too weak to reach 
 From wave to beach. 
 
 Felise : Swinburne. 
 
 In connection mainly with the more orotund vowels, 
 m, n, and ng always, and b, d, v y and /, when their pre- 
 liminary sounds are prolonged, produce tones resembling 
 the low notes of musical instruments, or the murmur or 
 hum of insects, men, or other objects moving at a dis- 
 tance ; for example : 
 
 Married to immortal verse ; 
 Such as the meeting soul may pierce, 
 In notes with many a winding bout 
 Of linked sweetness long drawn out, 
 With wanton heed and giddy cunning ; 
 The melting voice through mazes running, 
 Untwisting all the chains that tie 
 The hidden soul of harmony. 
 
 I: Allegro: Milton. 
 
 Every sound is sweet ; 
 
 Myriads of rivulets hurrying through the lawn, 
 The moan of doves in immemorial elms, 
 And murmuring of innumerable bees. 
 
 The Princess : Tennyson. 
 
 Sweet bird, that shun'st the noise of folly, 
 Most musical, most melancholy. 
 
 // Pensero : Milton. 
 
 The bum-cock humm'd wi' lazy drone, 
 The kye stood rowtin* i' the loan. 
 
 The Two. Dogs : Burns. 
 
 Where each old poetic mountain 
 Inspiration breathed around, 
 Every shade and hallowed fountain 
 Murmured deep a solemn sound. 
 
 The Progress of Poesy : Gray. 
 
 In his " Expression of the Emotions," Darwin taking 
 
IMITATIVE EFFECTS OF LETTER-SOUNDS. 145 
 
 a suggestion from Wedgeworth's "Origin of Language," 
 surmises that sounds of m and n found in negations like 
 nay and no may be traced to the noises made by children 
 when refusing food. In our own language, as in most 
 others, the n especially seems to have this negative effect. 
 
 To whom our Saviour sagely thus replied : 
 
 " Think not but that I know these things, or think 
 
 I know them not : nor therefore am I short 
 
 Of knowing what I ought ; he who receives 
 
 Light from above, from the fountain of light, 
 
 No other doctrine needs, though granted true ; 
 
 But these are false, or little else but dreams, 
 
 Conjectures, fancies built on nothing firm, 
 
 The first and wisest of them all professed 
 
 To know this only, that he nothing knew." 
 
 Paradise Reg., 4 : Milton. 
 
 Fear naught nay that I need not say 
 But doubt not aught from mine array. 
 
 ***** 
 Nor would I call a clansman's brand 
 For aid against one valiant hand. 
 
 Lady of Lake, 5 : Scott. 
 
 The hand of Douglas is his own, 
 And never shall in friendly grasp 
 The hand of such as Marmion clasp. 
 
 Marmion, 6 : Idem. 
 
 By combining the sounds of consonants and vowels in 
 fulfilment of the principles just mentioned, or of others 
 like them, all of our best poets are constantly producing 
 effects that are distinctively imitative. For instance, hear 
 the knife carving the ivory in this : 
 
 Ancient rosaries, 
 Laborious orient ivory, sphere in sphere. 
 
 The Princess : Tennyson. 
 
 And the loud dashing and soft rippling of the waves in 
 these : 
 
146 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 Roared as when the rolling breakers boom and blanch on the precipices. 
 
 Boadicea : Idem. 
 
 The murm'ring surge 
 That on the unnumber'd idle pebbles chafes. 
 
 Lear, iv., 6 : Shakespear. 
 
 And the ice and rocks, resounding with the clanging of 
 armor and footsteps in this : 
 
 Dry clashed his harness in the icy caves 
 And barren chasms, and all to left and right 
 The bare black cliff clanged round him as he based 
 His feet on juts of slipp'ry crag that rang 
 Sharp smitten with the dint of armed heels. 
 
 MortU Arthur: Tennyson. 
 
 And the roar and clash and speed of warriors and their 
 chariots and weapons in this : 
 
 nor stood at gaze 
 
 The adverse legions, nor less hideous joined 
 The horrid shock. Now storming fury rose 
 And clamor, such as heard in heaven till now 
 Was never j arms on armor clashing bray'd 
 Horrible discord, and the madding wheels 
 Of brazen chariots raged ; dire was the noise 
 Of conflict ; overhead the dismal hiss 
 Of fiery darts in flaming vollies flew, 
 And flying vaulted either host with fire. 
 
 Paradise Lost, 6 : Milton. 
 
 And the smooth water, lapping the body of the swim- 
 mer in this : 
 
 And softlier swimming with raised head 
 Feels the full flower of morning shed, 
 And fluent sunrise round him rolled, 
 That laps and laves his body bold 
 With fluctuant heaven in water's stead, 
 And urgent through the growing gold 
 Strikes, and sees all the spray flash red. 
 
 Epilogue: Swinburne. 
 
IMITATIVE EFFECTS OF LETTER-SOUNDS. 147 
 
 And the cursing and shrieking, fluttering, crawling, and 
 generally appalling character of this : 
 
 and then again 
 
 With curses cast them down upon the dust, 
 And gnashed their teeth and howled ; the wild birds shriek'd 
 And terrified did flutter on the ground, 
 And flap their useless wings ; the wildest brutes 
 Came tame and tremulous ; and vipers crawled 
 And twined themselves among the multitude, 
 Hissing but stingless they were slain for food ; 
 And War which for a moment was no more, 
 Did glut himself again ; a meal was bought 
 With blood, and each sate sullenly apart 
 Gorging himself in gloom ; no love was left. 
 
 Darkness : Byron. 
 
 And the climax of confusion, overthrow, and horror in 
 almost every form, in this : 
 
 The overthrown he raised, and as a herd 
 
 Of goats or timorous flock together thronged 
 
 Drove them before him thunderstruck, pursued 
 
 With terror and with furies to the bounds 
 
 And crystal wall of heaven, which opening wide 
 
 Rolled inward, and a spacious gap disclosed 
 
 Into the wasteful deep ; the monstrous sight 
 
 Struck them with horrow backward ; but far worse 
 
 Urged them behind ; headlong themselves they threw 
 
 Down from the verge of heaven, eternal wrath 
 
 Burned after them to the bottomless pit. 
 
 Hell heard th' insufferable noise, hell saw 
 
 Heaven ruining from heaven, and would have fled 
 
 Affrighted, but strict fate had cast too deep 
 
 Her dark foundations, and too fast had bound. 
 
 Nine days they fell ; confounded Chaos roared, 
 
 And felt tenfold confusion in their fall 
 
 Through his wild anarchy ; so huge a rout 
 
 Incumber'd him with ruin ; hell at last 
 
 Yawning received them whole, and on them closed, 
 
 Hell their fit habitation, fraught with fire 
 
 Unquenchable, the house of woe and pain. 
 
 P. L., 6 : Milton. 
 
148 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 In certain poems, as in fact in certain of the quotations 
 already given, it is difficult to determine how far the 
 effects correspond to those of dramatic or of discoursive 
 elocution. We cannot clearly distinguish in them between 
 that which is and is not strictly imitative. One of the 
 finest examples of this kind which we have, is furnished 
 by Robert Browning's Holy-Cross-Day ', purporting to 
 represent the feelings of the Jews in Rome, when forced, 
 as was formerly the custom on that day, to attend 
 church, and listen to an annual Christian sermon. Notice 
 the concentrated spite and scorn represented in the quali- 
 ties mainly guttural and aspirate of most of the sounds 
 used. Only a part of the poem can be quoted ; but the 
 rest of it is almost equally effective : 
 
 Higgledy piggledy, packed we lie, 
 Rats in a hamper, swine in a stye, 
 Wasps in a bottle, frogs in a sieve, 
 Worms in a carcass, fleas in a sleeve. 
 Hist ! square shoulders, settle your thumbs 
 And buzz for the bishop here he comes. 
 
 ****** 
 Aaron 's asleep shove hip to haunch, 
 Or somebody deal him a dig in the paunch. 
 Look at the purse, with the tassel and knob, 
 And the gown with the angel and thingumbob. 
 What 's he at, quotha ? reading his text. 
 Now you 've his courtesy and what comes next ? 
 
 ****** 
 Give your first groan compunction 's at work ; 
 And soft, from a Jew you mount to a Turk ! 
 Lo, Micah, the self-same beard on chin 
 He was four times already converted in. 
 Here 's a knife, clip quick it 's a sign of grace 
 Or he ruins us all with his hanging-face. 
 
 ****** 
 Groan all together, now, whee-hee-hee ! 
 It 's a work, it 's a work, ah, woe is me I 
 
IMITATIVE EFFECTS OF LETTER-SOUNDS. 149 
 
 It began when a herd of us, picked and placed, 
 Were spurred through the Corso, stripped to the waist ; 
 Jew-brutes, with sweat and blood well spent 
 To usher in worthily Christian Lent. 
 
 It grew, when the hangman entered our bounds, 
 
 Yelled, pricked us out to this church, like hounds. 
 
 It got to a pitch when the hand indeed 
 
 Which gutted my purse would throttle my creed. 
 
 And it overflows, when, to even the odd, 
 
 Men I helped to their sins, help me to their God. 
 
 Holy-Cross-Day : R. Browning. 
 
 In the following, too, we have similar effects, partly 
 imitative and partly not. In the last two lines of each 
 stanza, calling for the echo, we hear the resonant poetic 
 orotund. Aside from these, the poem begins in the first 
 stanza with the hush of the aspirate : 
 
 The splendor falls on castle walls 
 
 And snowy summits old in story ; 
 The long light shakes across the lakes, 
 
 And the wild cataract leaps in glory. 
 Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying. 
 Blow, bugle ; answer echoes, dying, dying, dying. 
 
 Then we have mainly the thin, clear quality of the pure 
 tone : 
 
 O hark, O hear ! how th : n and clear, 
 
 And thinner, clearer, farther going ; 
 O sweet and far, from cliff and scar, 
 
 The horns of Elfland faintly blowing ! 
 Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying ; 
 Blow, bugle ; answer echoes, dying, dying, dying. 
 
 And, lastly, the deeper feeling indicated by the orotund : 
 
 O love, they die in yon rich sky, 
 
 They faint on hill or field or river ; 
 Our echoes roll from soul to soul, 
 
 And grow forever and forever. 
 Bio* , bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, 
 And answer echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying. 
 
 The Bugle, from the Princess : Tennyson. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE SACRIFICE OF SENSE TO SOUND. 
 
 Verse in which Attention to Sound prevents Representation of Thought 
 Violating Laws of Natural Expression or Grammatical Construction 
 Excellences exaggerated, the Source of these Faults Insertion of 
 Words, Pleonasm, Superfluity ; Transposition of Words, Inversion, 
 Hyperbaton, tending to Obscurity Style of the Age of Dryden 
 Alteration of Words in Accent ; or by Aphseresis, Front-Cut ; Syncope, 
 Mid-Cut ; or Apocope, End-Cut All these often show Slovenly Work- 
 manship. 
 
 'T^HE theory underlying all that has been said thus far 
 is, that poetry is an artistic development of lan- 
 guage ; its versification, of the pauses of natural breathing ; 
 its rhythm and tune, of the accents and inflections of ordi- 
 nary conversation ; and the significance in its sounds, of 
 ejaculatory and imitative methods actuating the very earli- 
 est efforts of our race at verbal expression. The inference 
 suggested has been that these effects produced by sound 
 are legitimate in poetry, because, like language, and as a 
 part of it, and far more significantly than some forms of 
 it, they represent thought. This inference necessarily 
 carries with it another, which it seems important to em- 
 phasize before we leave this part of our subject. It is 
 this, that no effects produced by sound are legitimate in 
 poetry, which fail in any degree to represent thought. If 
 a man's first impression on entering a picture-gallery 
 comes from a suggestion of paint, he may know that he 
 
 150 
 
SACRIFICE OF SENSE TO SOUND. 151 
 
 is not in the presence of the masters. So if his first im- 
 pression on beginning to read verse comes from a sugges- 
 tion of jingle, of sound or of form of any kind not con- 
 nected in some most intimate way with an appeal to his 
 higher aesthetic nature, he may be sure that the lines 
 before him do not entitle their author to a high poetic 
 rank. As I intend to show further on, all artistic poetry 
 must produce the effects of form, but these include im- 
 pressions recognized not only by the outer ear, but also 
 by the inner mind. It is because of the exceeding diffi- 
 culty of perfectly adjusting sound to thought and thought 
 to sound, till, like perfectly attuned strings of a perfect in- 
 strument, both strike together in all cases so as to form a 
 single chord of a perfect harmony, that there are so few 
 great poets. Before we pass on, therefore, let us notice 
 a few of the more prominent ways in which writers, be- 
 cause of their endeavor to conform their expressions to 
 the requirements of mere versification, fail to make them 
 conform to the requirements of language, fail to make 
 them represent thought. 
 
 In making this examination, we shall be compelled to 
 take for our standard the language of ordinary intercourse. 
 Poetic form necessitates a peculiar selection and arrange- 
 ment of words and phrases. But if these violate the laws 
 of natural expression or of grammatical construction, as 
 exemplified in the language of prose, thejr meanings may 
 be obscured entirely, or, if not so, will, at least, be con- 
 veyed through forms that seem artificial. It was for 
 these reasons that Wordsworth argued that there should 
 be no difference between the language of poetry and of 
 prose. In his own practice he sometimes carried out his 
 theory only too faithfully ; but a truth underlay it, which 
 always needs to be borne in mind. The problem in con- 
 
152 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 nection with all versification is, how to arrange words at 
 once metrically and naturally. We all recognize that cer- 
 tain poets are able to do this, and that this fact tends to 
 increase their popularity. It is one of the chief charms 
 of the poetry of Longfellow. Notice this for instance : 
 
 Lives of great men all remind us 
 
 We can make our lives sublime, 
 And, departing, leave behind us 
 
 Footprints on the sands of time. 
 
 Psalm of Life. 
 
 Lines like these seem very easy to write ; yet a book 
 filled with lines like these is very difficult to write. Few 
 poets could arrange vowels and consonants so as to pro- 
 duce such rhythmical and musical effects, without impair- 
 ing, somewhat, the naturalness of their phraseology. Their 
 departures from the latter, in order to satisfy the demands 
 of the former, usually manifest themselves in one of five 
 different ways, viz. : in the insertion, the transposition, the 
 alteration, the omission, or the misuse of words. 
 
 All these, as we shall find, are exaggerations of ten- 
 dencies, which, kept in due subordination, or used to 
 increase the effect of the thought and not of the sound 
 alone, are excellences. The first fault mentioned, for 
 instance, the insertion of words not needed for the sense, 
 termed also pleonasm, or superfluity, grows out of a legiti- 
 mate endeavor to enhance the impressiveness of what is 
 presented. In the following, the very fact that the prayer 
 is made the chief object of observation, makes it proper, 
 not only, but desirable, to bring in an otherwise useless 
 he, in order to represent rightly the order of the thought : 
 
 His prayer he saith, this patient holy man. 
 
 Eve of St. Agnes ; Keats. 
 
 So, in these lines, the author's putting the words wind 
 
SACRIFICE OF SENSE TO SOUND. 153 
 
 and ship before the apparently superfluous pronouns, 
 really adds as much to the thought as if he had written a 
 separate sentence, calling our attention to these objects. 
 In reading his words, we think first of the objects as exist- 
 ing, and then of what they did : 
 
 The wind it blew, and the ship it flew 
 And it was " Hey for hame." 
 
 ***** 
 And then the good ship, she lay to 
 
 ***** 
 The skipper, he louted to the king. 
 
 The Earl o' Quarterdeck : George MacDonald. 
 
 Even actual repetition, in certain cases the worst form 
 of pleonasm, is not always a defect. Who does not per- 
 ceive how much of the impressiveness of these lines de- 
 pends on the repetition of the word red ? 
 
 The light that seemed a twinkling star 
 Now blazed portentous, fierce and far, 
 Dark-red the heaven above it glowed, 
 Dark-red the sea beneath it flowed,. 
 Red rose the rocks on ocean's brim, 
 In blood-red light her islets swim. 
 
 Lord of the Isles 5 : Scott. 
 
 Or who could wish to have the second of these lines 
 omitted ? 
 
 They glide like phantoms into the wide hall ; 
 Like phantoms, to the iron porch they glide, 
 
 Eve of St. Agnes : Keats. 
 
 But when the words producing the pleonasms merely 
 fill out the form of the phraseology, and help the metre 
 without amplifying or aiding the thought, then, like 
 verbosity in prose, they weaken the passage in which 
 they occur. Notice how the same thought is repeated in 
 different lines of the following : 
 
154 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 The spacious firmanent on high 
 With all the blue ethereal sky, 
 And spangled heavens, a shining frame, 
 Their great Original proclaim. 
 
 Hymn : Addison. 
 
 Notice too the italicized words, evidently placed in this 
 merely to make out the line and rhyme : 
 
 Here he lives in state and bounty, 
 
 Lord of Burleigh, fair and free ; 
 Not a lord in all the country 
 
 Is so great a lord as he. 
 
 Lord of Burleigh : Tennyson. 
 
 To condemn fair and free for the reason given, may 
 seem hypercritical ; but probably all will recognize that 
 at least in the two following stanzas, there are many 
 words used for no higher purpose than the one just 
 mentioned. If so, what is it that they represent ? the 
 poet's thought ? Why not rather his lack of thought ? 
 
 Across a deep swift river, and the door 
 
 Shut fast against him, did he see therein, 
 
 Where through with trembling steps he passed before, 
 
 That happy life above all lives to win, 
 
 And round about him the sharp grass and thin 
 
 Covered low mounds that here and there arose, 
 
 For to his head his forerunners were close. 
 
 Then with changed voice he moaned, and to his feet 
 
 Slowly he gat, and 'twixt the tree-boles gray 
 
 He 'gan to go, and tender words and sweet 
 
 Were in his ears, the promise of a day 
 
 When he should cast all troublous thoughts away. 
 
 He stopped and turned his face unto the trees 
 
 To hearken to the moaning of the breeze. 
 
 The Man Who Never Laughed Again : W. Morris. 
 
 The transposition of words, called too inversion and 
 hyperbaton, is also, like the insertion of them, a develop- 
 ment of a tendency not only legitimate but essential to 
 
SACRIFICE OF SENSE TO SOUND. 155 
 
 the highest excellence, wherever the thought can be 
 thus more strikingly represented ; as, for instance, in the 
 following, where the phraseology pictures the influence 
 described in the order of its course from its beginning to 
 its end : 
 
 From harmony, from heavenly harmony 
 
 This universal frame began : 
 
 From harmony to harmony 
 Through all the compass of the notes it ran, 
 The diapason closing full in man. 
 
 Song for St. Cecilia's Day : Dryden. 
 
 Or in the opening lines of the Paradise Lost, in which 
 Milton, following the examples of Homer and Virgil and 
 Dante in their great epics, transposes the clauses of the 
 introductory sentence so that the thought which is to 
 form the theme of the poem, and to which he wishes to 
 attract the reader's first attention, shall be read first : 
 
 Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit 
 
 Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste 
 
 Brought death into the world, and all our woe, . . . 
 
 Sing heavenly Muse. 
 
 Parodist Lost, /. 
 
 Keats opens his Hyperion in a similar way : 
 
 Deep in the shady sadness of a vale, 
 Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn, 
 Far from the fiery noon and eve's one star, 
 Sat gray-eyed Saturn, quiet as a stone. 
 
 And we all can recall the arrangement for analogous 
 reasons of Shakespeare's description of the death of 
 Caesar. 
 
 Then burst his mighty heart. 
 
 yulius Casar, iii., 2. 
 
 But transposition of the words for the sake of the 
 thoughts in them is one thing, and for the sake of the 
 sounds in them, is another. In the latter case, it may 
 
156 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 become a very serious fault, rendering the phraseology 
 not only obscure but artificial. The following, for in 
 stance, is obscure : 
 
 " But reason thus : ' If we sank low, 
 If the lost garden we forego, 
 Each in his day, nor ever know 
 
 But in our poet-souls its face ; 
 Yet we may rise until we reach 
 A height untold of in its speech 
 A lesson that it could not teach 
 
 Learn in this darker dwelling-place.' 
 
 " And reason on ; ' We take the spoil ; 
 Loss made us poets and the soil 
 Taught us great patience in our toil, 
 
 And life is kin to God through death. 
 Christ was not one with us but so, 
 And if bereft of Him we go ; 
 Dearer the heavenly mansions grow, 
 His home, to man that wandereth.' " 
 
 Scholar and Carpenter : Jean Ingelow* 
 
 The following, illustrating the same fault, is a good ex- 
 ample of the artificial, stilted, heroic couplet, which was 
 the fashion in the times when it was written. It was 
 against this style that Wordsworth was arguing when he 
 asserted that poetic language from Pope's Translation of 
 Homer to Darwin's Temple of Nature could " claim to be 
 poetic for no better reason than that it would be intolera- 
 ble in conversation or in prose." 
 
 For while he mischief means to all mankind, 
 Himself alone the ill effects does find ; 
 And so like witches justly suffers shame. 
 Whose harmless malice is so much the same. 
 False are his words, affected is his wit ; 
 So often he does aim, so seldom hit ; 
 To every face he cringes while he speaks, 
 But when the back is turned the head he breaks. 
 
 Essay upon Satire : Dryden. 
 
SACRIFICE OF SENSE TO SOUND. 157 
 
 The chief characteristic of this style is evidently a de- 
 termination to produce rhyme and a sort of metrical 
 balance in the lines, no matter how unnatural the effects 
 may seem, as compared with the language of prose, 
 What is remarkable, too, is that, with all this preponder- 
 ating devotion to the supposed requirements of form, 
 there appears to be, both in Pope and Dryden, a marked 
 absence of any desire to produce the finer qualities of 
 sound, like those of assonance, phonetic syzygy and gra- 
 dation, which make poetry really musical. With all 
 their transpositions, they never succeeded in producing the; 
 purely melodious effects of Tennyson and Longfellow. 
 
 By the alteration of words is meant either the changing 
 of their conventional accents, or the adding to them of 
 taking from them of letters or syllables. In some cases c 
 these changes may augment the effect of the thought. 
 On account of their real or supposed resemblance to 
 archaic, dialectic, or colloquial uses of language, and for 
 the very reason that the words are not in the highest 
 sense elegant, they emphasize the fact that the style is 
 natural for the circumstances ; and the very quaintness of 
 it, like the rustic air and dress of an otherwise pretty 
 maiden, adds to its attractiveness. Thus Thomas Chat- 
 terton, in Bristowe Tragedy, in connection with many 
 changes in spelling which need not be noted here, alters 
 parts, crows, spectacle, and noble ; e. g. : 
 
 The bloody axe his body fair 
 
 Into four parties cut ; 
 And every part and eke his head. 
 
 Upon a pole was put. 
 
 One part did rot on Kynwulft hill, 
 
 One on the minster tower, 
 And one from off the castle gate. 
 
 The crowen did devour ; 
 
158 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 The other an St. Powle's good gate, 
 
 A dreary spectacel ; 
 Its head was placed on the high cross, 
 
 In high street most nobel. 
 
 As we should expect from a dialect writer, the poems 
 of Burns are full of examples of this. 
 
 For a' that and a' that, 
 
 Their tinsel show and a' that, 
 The honest man, though e'er sae poor, 
 
 Is king o' men for a' that. 
 
 Is there for honest Poverty. 
 
 Heard ye o' the tree o' France, 
 I watna what 's the name o' 't. 
 
 Tree of 'Liberty \ 
 
 And Shakespear, in this single sentence, shortens one 
 word and lengthens another. 
 
 I 'gin to be a-weary of the sun. 
 
 Macbeth , v., 5. 
 
 Notwithstanding cases in which these alterations are 
 appropriate, it is easy to see that the tendency causing 
 them may be carried too far. For every legitimate effect 
 produced by them, there are scores of instances in which 
 nothing better can be said of them than that they repre- 
 sent slovenly workmanship. This is true sometimes of 
 forms so familiar to us that the altered words seem 
 scarcely to be altered at all ; as, for instance, in cases of 
 aphceresis or front-cut, like 77/, he 's, 't is, 'neath, 'tween; 
 of syncope or mid-cut, like oer, e'en, e'er ; and of apocope 
 or end-cut ', like o\ wi\ and i\ Whatever may be thought 
 of these cases, however, there is no doubt about the 
 effects of less familiar changes. Notice the following : 
 
 But peaceful was the night 
 Wherein \he Prince of Light 
 
SACRIFICE OF SENSE TO SOUND. 159 
 
 His reign of peace upon the earth began ; 
 
 The winds with wonder whist 
 
 Smoothly the waters kist, 
 Whispering new joys to the mild ocean. 
 
 Hymn on the Nativity .* Milton. 
 
 I joyless view thy rays adorn 
 The faintly marked distant hill. 
 
 Lament; Burns. 
 
 And at his side by that same tide 
 Came bar and beam als6. 
 
 Winstanlcy : Jean Ingelow. 
 
 And so sepulchred in such pomp dost lie, 
 That kings for such a tomb would wish to die. 
 
 On Shakespear: Milton. 
 
 Shall my foolish heart be pined 
 'Cause I see a woman kind ; 
 Or a well disposed nature 
 Joined with a lovely feature ? 
 
 The Manly Heart : G. Wither. 
 
 A shield that gives delight 
 Even to the enemies' sight, 
 Then when they're sure to lose the combat by 't. 
 
 To Mr. Hobbes : Cowley. 
 
 Slowly he gat and 'twixt the tree-boles gray 
 He } gan to go. 
 
 The Man Who Never Laughed Again : Wm. Mortis.. 
 I stand 'mazed in the moonlight. 
 
 The Unbeloved: Massey* 
 Yet are 'ware of a sight, yet are 'ware of a sound. 
 
 A Rhapsody of Life s Progress : Mrs. Browning. 
 
 O perfect love that 'dureth long. 
 
 Afternoon at a Parsonage : Jean Ingelow. 
 
 And 'plaineth of love's disloyalties. 
 
 Divided: Jean Ingelow. 
 
 The fact that some of these latter words were once 
 used in English without prefixes, does not excuse these 
 
l6o POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 elisions. Most readers feel that this had nothing to do 
 with their appearance in the particular places where we 
 find them, and that they were used here solely because 
 their writers did not exercise the skill needed in order to 
 construct their lines so as to contain words like amazed, 
 aware, endureth, and complaineth. 
 
 If nothing else can show us the inappropriateness of 
 these changes in serious poetry, the way in which they are 
 used for comic effects should do it ; for example : 
 
 Stick close to your desks, and never go to sea, 
 And you all may be rulers of the queen's navee. 
 
 Pinafore: Gilbert. 
 
 I du believe in prayer an' praise 
 
 To him that hez the grantin' 
 O' jobs ; in every thin' thet pays ; 
 
 But most of all in cantin' ; 
 This doth my cup with marcies fill, 
 
 That lays all thought o' sin to rest ; 
 I don't believe in princerple, 
 
 But, O ! I du in interest. 
 
 Bigelow Papers : Lowell 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 SACRIFICE OF SENSE TO SOUND CONTINUED. 
 
 Omission of Words or Ellipsis indicating Crudeness Leading to Obscurity 
 because Meanings are conveyed by Phrases as well as by Words- 
 Misuse of Words, Enallage Poetic Sounds are Artistic in the Degree 
 in which they really represent Thought and Feeling. 
 
 HP HE alteration of words leads to results far less seri- 
 ous than the omission of them, which is the fault 
 that we have next to consider; for while the former 
 makes the style less natural, and, so far as art is to be 
 judged by the standards of nature, less artistic, the latter 
 makes it less useful, at times, indeed, well-nigh unintel- 
 ligible. Omission or ellipsis is an exaggeration of terse- 
 ness in style, which is often a great excellence. In all 
 kinds of writing, but especially in that appealing to the 
 imagination, it is a fault to express too much. Those to 
 whom poetry is naturally addressed derive their main 
 satisfaction and therefore interest, from that which in- 
 fluences them in the way of suggestion, leaving their 
 fancies free to range where and as they will. Notice in 
 the following how much the ellipses and there are many 
 of them add to the vivaciousness of the effect, and at 
 the same time how little they detract from its clearness. 
 
 Coriolanus. Hear'st thou, Mars ? 
 
 Aufidius. Name not the god, thou boy of tears 
 
 Coriolanus. Ha ! 
 
 Aufidius. No more. 
 
1 62 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 Coriolanus. Measureless liar, thou hast made my heart 
 
 Too great for what contains it. Boy ! O slave ! 
 
 Pardon me lords, 't is the first time that ever 
 
 I was forced to scold. Your judgments, my grave lords, 
 
 Must give this cur the lie ... 
 
 Cut me to pieces, Volsces ; men and lads, 
 
 Stain all your edges on me ! Boy ! False houna, 
 
 If you have writ your annals true, 't is there 
 
 That like an eagle in a dove-cote, I 
 
 Fluttered your Volscians in Corioli : 
 
 Alone I did it Boy ! 
 
 Coriolanus T., 6 : Shakespear* 
 \t 
 
 Beside its embers, red and clear, 
 
 Basked, in his plaid, a mountaineer ; 
 
 And up he sprung with sword in hand, 
 
 " Thy name and purpose ! Saxon, stand ! " 
 
 '* A stranger." " What dost thou require ?" 
 
 " Rest and a guide, and food and fire. 
 
 My life 's beset, my path is lost, 
 
 The gale has chilled my limbs with frost.** 
 
 " Art thou a friend to Roderic ? " " No." - 
 
 14 Thou darest not call thyself a foe ? " 
 
 " I dare ! to him and all the band 
 
 He brings to aid his murderous hand." 
 
 " Bold words ! but, though the beast of game 
 
 The privilege of chase may claim, 
 
 Though space and law the stag we lend, 
 
 Ere hound we slip, or bow we bend, 
 
 Who ever recked, where, how, or when, 
 
 The prowling fox was trapped or slain ? 
 
 Thus, treacherous scouts yet sure they lie, 
 
 Who say thou comest a secret spy ! " 
 
 Lady of tht Lake, 4 : Scoff. 
 
 In using ellipses, however, there is always danger, as is 
 suggested here in the last line but one, that the poet, in 
 trying not to express his thoughts too fully, will fail to 
 express them adequately, especially when he is beset by 
 the additional temptation of omitting certain of his words 
 
SACRIFICE OF SENSE TO SOUND. 163 
 
 in order to make his phraseology fit his metres. If he 
 yield to this temptation, his style will manifest, if nothing 
 worse, a crudeness and lack of skill inconsistent with the 
 best artistic effects. Here are instances of this, in which 
 the article is omitted : 
 
 As frozen drop of wintry dew. 
 
 Lady of the Lake, 5 : Scott. 
 
 The near approach of dreaded foe. 
 
 Idem. 
 
 While Porphyro upon her face doth look, 
 Like puzzled urchin on an aged crone 
 Who keepeth clos'd a wondrous riddle-book, 
 As spectacled she sits in chimney nook. 
 
 Eve of St. Agnes : JCeats. 
 
 Here a pronoun is omitted : 
 
 No foot Fitz-James in stirrup stayed. 
 
 Lady of Lake, 5 : Scott. 
 Jumped from the wreck upon the reef to catch 
 The hands that strained to reach (them) but tumbled back. 
 
 Wreck of Grace of Sunderland : Jean Ingelow. 
 
 Though mixed with most unhallowed leven, 
 That proved to those who foolishly partook (of it) 
 Eternal bitterness. 
 
 Course of Time, 2 : Pollock. 
 
 Here a preposition and article : 
 
 Right hand, they leave thy cliffs. 
 
 Lady of Lake, 5 : Scott. 
 
 Here a preposition : 
 
 Made to look me and light me to heaven. 
 
 A Poor Mans Wife : Massey. 
 
 Here verbs are omitted : the whole stanza is quoted : 
 No grasping at love, gaining a share 
 
 O' the sole spark from God's life at strife 
 With death, so, sure of range above 
 
 The limits here ? For us and love, 
 Failure ; but, when God fails, despair. 
 
 Le Byron de nos Jours : A'. Browning. 
 
164 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 This stanza shows the worst feature in these omissions, 
 their tendency to obscurity. In conventional language 
 we derive ideas not only from words but from phrases ; 
 and we must hear the phrase as a whole, or its words may 
 not only fail to convey clearly their intended meaning 
 but may misrepresent it. The phrase a girl of age, for 
 instance, used in the next quotation, means a girl who 
 has arrived at her majority, and not at all the same as a 
 girl of an age, which, presumably, is what the poet in- 
 tended to say. So the phrases in part, under way, by way, 
 and a like truth might be affirmed of hundreds of 
 others, do not mean the same as in the part, under the 
 way, or by the way. Hence we see that the omission of 
 even an occasional article, apparently the least important 
 of our words, may make a most important difference in the 
 ideas communicated. Let us examine, now, another pas- 
 sage from that great master of the ellipsis, Robert Brown- 
 ing, and notice, again, how he drifts into obscurity, and this, 
 too, where there is no occasion for it in the sense, nor 
 gain from it in the effect. In order to express fully the 
 meaning of the following lines, according to the methods 
 of ordinary prose, one would be obliged to supply, of 
 words that are omitted, seven pronouns, three articles, 
 two prepositions, one adverb, two conjunctions, one factor 
 of a comparison, three auxiliary and four principal verbs, 
 as well as to change the mood and tense of another verb, 
 and to transpose many of the words and phrases : 
 
 So I said and did 
 
 Simply. As simply followed, not at first 
 But with the outbreak of misfortune, still 
 One comment on the saying and doing what ? 
 No blush at the avowal you dared buy 
 A girl of age beseems your granddaughter, 
 Like ox or ass ? 
 The Ring and the Book ; Count Guido : R. Browning. 
 
SACRIFICE OF SENSE TO SOUND. 165 
 
 Here is what this means, expressed in ordinary lan- 
 guage i 
 
 So I said, and did 
 
 Simply. As simply as I did it, there followed, 
 Not at first but with the outbreak of the misfortune, still 
 One comment on the saying and doing of it, which was 
 
 What does this mean ? 
 
 Do you show no blush at the avowal that you dared to buy 
 Like an ox or ass, 
 A girl of an age that might beseem your granddaughter ? 
 
 Of course it would not be necessary actually to insert 
 all these words into this passage, to make plain prose 
 of it. But they would all have to be understood, as gram- 
 marians express it. That is to say, in order to get at the 
 meaning of Browning's forty-six words, it would be nec- 
 essary for the reader to supply twenty-two words more. 
 We all believe that poetry should appeal to the imagina- 
 tion. But is not this rather over-doing the appeal ? Does 
 it not involve too much of a stretch of the imagination 
 for ordinary mortals ? Is it a wonder, therefore, that 
 some fail to catch all of this poet's meanings ? Is it their 
 fault or his that he feels impelled to write : 
 
 Well, British public, ye who like me not, 
 (God love you) and will have your proper laugh 
 At the dark question, laugh it ! I laugh first. 
 
 The Ring and the Book, Introduction. 
 
 The misuse of words is the last of the faults that we 
 have to consider in this connection ; and it is the most 
 objectionable, because while the others misrepresent the 
 thought indirectly, this does so directly. Nevertheless, 
 it, too, springs from the exaggeration of a tendency which, 
 kept within bounds, may enhance the effect of the 
 thought. It appears in its mildest form when by enal- 
 lage t as it is called, one part of speech or one modifica- 
 
1 66 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 tion of a part of speech, like its number, mood, or tense, is 
 used for another. Probably all of us can recall cases in 
 which the thought to be expressed is made much more 
 graphic and therefore distinct in its appeal to the mind 
 through the use of this figure. Here, for example, a noun 
 is used for a verb : 
 
 I '11 queen it no inch further, 
 But milk my ewes and weep. 
 
 Winter's Tale, iv., 3 : Shakespear. 
 
 Here an adjective for a verb : 
 
 Be he ne'er so vile, 
 This day shall gentle his condition. 
 
 Henry V., ir., 3 : Idem. 
 
 Here adverbs for nouns : 
 
 Full of all the tender pathos 
 Of the Here and the Hereafter. 
 
 Song of Hiawatha : Longfellow. 
 
 Here a preposition for an adjective : 
 
 I will fight 
 
 Against my canker'd country with the spleea 
 Of all the under fiends. 
 
 Corielanus, ir., 5 : Shakespear. 
 
 Here a preposition for a noun : 
 
 Yet long'st, 
 
 But in a fainter kind : O not like me, 
 For mine 's beyond beyond. 
 
 Cymbeline, iii., 2: Idem. 
 
 Here one number for another : 
 
 And see the lovely ladies gay, 
 Step on in velvet gown. 
 
 Winstanley : Jean Ingelow* 
 
 Here an intransitive for a transitive verb : 
 
SACRIFICE OF SENSE TO SOUND. 1 6? 
 
 It yearns me not if men my garments wear. 
 
 Henry V., iv., 3: Shakespear. 
 
 And here one tense for another, by what is termed 
 metastasis, and in this particular use of it, the historical 
 present. 
 
 Sudden a thought came like a full-blown rose, 
 Flushing his brow, and in his pained heart 
 Made purple riot ; then doth he propose 
 A stratagem, that makes the beldame start. 
 
 Eve of St. Agnes : Keats. 
 
 The occasional use of these methods, however, in order 
 to make the representation of the ideas more graphic, 
 scarcely justifies that kind of poetic license which violates 
 the laws of grammar and of lexicography, merely for the 
 sake of form. Notice a few examples of this : 
 
 Sudden his steed his leader rein'd. 
 
 Lady of the Lake, 5 : Scott. 
 
 Who instant to his stirrup sprung. 
 
 Idem. 
 
 You are one of many, the old Mayor said, 
 That on the rock complain [for of~\. 
 
 Winstanley : Jean Ingelow. 
 
 More rttddier too than is the rose 
 Within her lovely face. 
 
 The Portrait : Heywood. 
 
 And there was naught of strange beside. 
 
 High Tide : Jean Ingeloiv. 
 
 I fell flooded with a Dark 
 In the silence of a swoon. 
 
 Bertha in the Lane : Mrs. Browning. 
 
 Do you know our voices 
 Chanting down the Golden ? 
 
 Drama of Exile : Idem. 
 
 The worst thing that can be said of some of these, per- 
 
l68 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 haps, is that they sound a little like slang. Here there is 
 an ungrammatical arrangement of tenses : 
 
 At last surrounds their sight 
 A globe of circular light 
 
 That with long beams the shamefaced night arrayed j 
 The helmed Cherubim, 
 And s worded Seraphim, 
 
 Are seen in glittering ranks with wings displayed. 
 
 Hymn on the Nativity : Milton. 
 
 Graver instances of this fault occur, however, where, 
 in order to produce sounds supposed to be desirable, 
 words are used with little reference to their meanings, cal- 
 culated, therefore, if interpreted literally, to convey ideas 
 absurd or false. In this stanza, for instance, few can fail 
 to suspect that the poet uses the word countenance be- 
 cause it alliterates with decorum, and contains a vowel- 
 sound that goes well with decorum and wore ; that he 
 uses ancient because it forms an assonance with raven, and 
 also shorn and shaven, because the latter word rhymes 
 with raven. That is to say, these words seem to be used, 
 and the number of them might be multiplied even in this 
 stanza, not because they are the best through which to 
 express the sense, but on account of their sounds. 
 
 Then this ebony bird, beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, 
 By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore, 
 "Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no 
 
 craven ; 
 
 Ghastly, grim, and ancient raven, wandering from the nightly shore, 
 Tell me what thy lordly name is on the night's Plutonian shore." 
 Quoth the raven, " Nevermore." 
 
 The Raven : Poe. 
 
 Poe is given to such faults as these. Notice the in- 
 correctness of words like fully and distinctly, as used in 
 the following. 
 
SACRIFICE OF SENSE TO SOUND. 169 
 
 Yet the ear it fully knows, 
 
 By the twanging 
 
 And the clanging 
 How the danger ebbs and flows ; 
 Yet the ear distinctly tells, 
 
 In the jangling 
 
 And the wrangling 
 How the danger sinks and swells, 
 By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells, 
 
 Of the bells, 
 Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, 
 
 Bells, bells, bells, 
 In the clamor and the clangor of the bells. 
 
 The Bells. 
 
 The same fault is apparent in Swinburne, another 
 great master of the music of verse, who occasionally 
 allows the music to master him. Opening his Studies in 
 Song, I turn to these stanzas. Am I to blame that, while 
 reading them, I find myself instinctively asking : " Desire 
 and require what ? What are the daysprings of fire, and 
 how are they beneath him? How can harps approve? 
 What sort of an appearance could descend through dark 
 ness to grace any thing? How does breath set free? 
 And what possible connection can there be between most 
 of the deeds detailed and the effects attributed to them ? 
 Of course a little reflection may enable me to make out 
 the poet's meanings here. But they do not lie on the 
 surface. His words do not clearly picture his thoughts. 
 They are not distinctly representative. They are not in 
 the highest sense, therefore, poetic. 
 
 There are those too of mortals that love him, 
 
 There are souls that desire and require, 
 Be the glories of midnight above him 
 
 Or beneath him the daysprings of fire : 
 And their hearts are as harps that approve him, 
 
 And praise him as chords of a lyre, 
 
POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 That were fain with their music to move him 
 To meet their desire. 
 
 To descend through the darkness to grace them 
 
 Till darkness were lovelier than light : 
 To encompass and grasp and embrace them 
 
 Till their weakness were one with his might. 
 With the strength of his wings to caress them. 
 
 With the blast of his breath to set free, 
 With the mouths of his thunders to bless them 
 
 For sons of the sea. 
 
 By the North Sea. 
 
 The same lack of an exact and, therefore, of a distinctly 
 representative and graphic use of terms is apparent in 
 words like frank, bounteous, and others too in this stanza, 
 further on in the same poem ; and why did the poet ob- 
 scure his meaning by using of and. for in the third line ? 
 
 Rose triumphal, crowning all a city, 
 
 Roofs exalted once with prayer and psalm, 
 Built of holy hands for holy pity, 
 
 Frank and fruitful as a sheltering palm. 
 Church and hospice wrought in faultless fashion, 
 
 Hall and chancel bounteous and sublime, 
 Wide and sweet and glorious as compassion, 
 
 Filled and thrilled with force of choral chime. 
 
 Idem. 
 
 It is not strange that one who has thoroughly at 
 command the resources of the music of verse like Swin- 
 burne, or of suggestive ellipses like Browning, or of pic- 
 turesque details like Morris, should occasionally, in the 
 heat and exuberance of his creative moods, push his 
 peculiar excellence altogether beyond the limits of legiti- 
 mate art ; but it is strange that the critics who make it 
 their business to form cool and exact estimates of literary 
 work, should so seldom have sufficient insight to detect, 
 or courage to reveal, wherein lie the faults that injure the 
 
SACRIFICE OF SENSE TO SOUND. 171 
 
 style of each, and how they may be remedied. How can 
 criticism be of any use except so far as in a kindly way it 
 can aid in the perfecting of that on which it turns its 
 scrutiny ? And yet it is doubtful whether, amid all the 
 eulogy and abuse which have greeted all the works of 
 Robert Browning, any one, in private or in print, has ever 
 told him plainly what those faults are all so easy to cor- 
 rect, but for which the man with the greatest poetic mind 
 of the age would be what now he is not its greatest 
 poet. And if criticism of this kind is needed by authors 
 who have attained his rank, how much more by those who, 
 with the imitative methods of inexperience, are always 
 prone to copy unconsciously, and usually to exaggerate, 
 the weak rather than the strong points of the masters! 
 Many a young writer, doing this at that critical period of 
 his life when a lack of stimulus and appreciation may 
 wholly check one's career, has failed, notwithstanding 
 great merits. All his ability in other directions has not 
 compensated for his ignorance of the requirements of 
 poetic technique. It was largely with a hope of aiding 
 such, that this work was first conceived. 
 
 The conclusions that have been reached thus far con- 
 cur in serving to prove that poetry as an art must have 
 form, the very sounds of the single and consecutive words 
 of which must represent the phases and movements, 
 physical, intellectual, or emotional, of which they are sup- 
 posed to be significant ; and it has been shown that great 
 poets like Shakespear, Spenser, and Milton are great 
 masters of representative expression in this sense. It 
 follows from these facts that no poet is artistically justified 
 in producing effects of sound through any insertion, trans- 
 position, alteration, omission, or other use of words, that 
 by violating the laws of grammar or lexicography obscures 
 
1 72 POE TRY AS A REPRESENTA TIVE AR T. 
 
 the meaning. " Like the organs of seeing and hearing," 
 says Veron, in his " ^Esthetics," " our intellectual powers 
 are only able to expend a very limited amount of energy at 
 one time. . . . If we be called upon to expend three 
 quarters of our mental energy in disentangling and inter- 
 preting the symbols, it is obvious that we shall have but one 
 quarter left for the appreciation of the ideas of the poet." 
 This statement agrees not only with the most recent 
 deductions of physiological aesthetics, but also with those 
 of common-sense. The test of form in every case is its 
 fitness to represent, at least clearly, if not, as it sometimes 
 should, brilliantly, every line and color, every phase and 
 movement, every fact and suggestion of the ideas to be 
 expressed. If this test be borne in mind, there can still be 
 plenty of poetic failures from lack of poetic ideas, but no 
 failures from a mere lack of the very easily obtained 
 knowledge of the rudimentary principles of poetic tech- 
 nique. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 MEANINGS OF WORDS AS DEVELOPED BY ASSOCIATION 
 AND COMPARISON. 
 
 Instinctive Ejaculatory Sounds, and Reflective Imitative Sounds, becoming 
 words by Agreement, in Fulfilment of the Principle of Association or 
 Comparison, can represent but a few Ideas Other needed Words may 
 be due to Agreement in using Arbitrary Symbols ; it is Philosophical 
 to suppose them largely developed by Tendencies underlying the For- 
 mation of Primitive Words How these Tendencies lead to the Use of 
 the same Word in Different Senses In the case of Words whose 
 Meanings depend on Association How what refers to the Material 
 conies to refer to the Immaterial Words whose Meanings depend on 
 Comparison What refers to the Material is by Comparison used for the 
 Immaterial Great Varieties of Meanings are developed from the same 
 Word by Continued Processes of Association and Comparison A 
 Knowledge of this fact, and its Results are Necessary to an Intelligent 
 Use of Language. 
 
 T N the former part of this work we have considered ejac- 
 ulatory and imitative sounds and the influence of 
 the methods of their formation and arrangement upon 
 poetic form, so far as sounds determine this. We have 
 found that it is reasonable to suppose that by associating 
 certain utterances with certain circumstances in which 
 they are used, or by comparing them with the sounds of 
 objects to which they refer, men in primitive ages learn 
 what the utterances mean, and, consciously or uncon- 
 sciously, agree to accept them as representative of similar 
 meanings whenever or wherever heard. How to pro- 
 duce at will these representative sounds solves the first 
 
POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 problem of all language. But it requires no proof to 
 show that no large number of the objects that engage our 
 thoughts can be represented either by their own peculiar 
 ejaculations or by imitative sounds. For this reason it is 
 held by some that perhaps the majority of our words are 
 merely arbitrary symbols, by which they mean that agree- 
 ment which is undoubtedly a chief factor in giving definite 
 meanings to sounds is also a chief factor in giving us the 
 sounds themselves. While there are reasons for this 
 theory, it may be pushed too far, and hardly seems to 
 accord with what we know of the action of the mind with 
 reference to other analogous matters. It seems more 
 philosophical to attribute the enlargement of the primi- 
 tive vocabulary mainly to further developments of mental 
 processes in some way analogous to those to which the 
 formation of the very earliest words is attributable. 
 Facts, too, so far as they are known, sustain this view. 
 
 To show that this is so, let us recall for a moment the 
 methods of forming a word from an ejaculatory or 
 imitative sound. This will start us in the right place from 
 which to observe how continuous operations of the same 
 method necessarily lead to the formation from the same 
 sound, or the same slightly modified, of a multiplicity 
 of words. Attention was directed in the former part of 
 this work to the fact that the organs of speech are so 
 constructed that usually the earliest articulated sounds 
 made by the babe are mama and papa ; and that the 
 earliest persons to whom they are addressed are the 
 mother and father ; and that, for this reason, people 
 speaking in scores of different languages have come to 
 associate mama, which, as a rule, is uttered first, with an 
 appeal to the mother ; and papa with an appeal to the 
 father. In a similar way, but attributed to comparison 
 
SECONDARY MEANINGS OF WORDS. 175 
 
 rather than association, it was said that imitative sounds 
 become words. A man says whiz because the sound that 
 he makes compares, at least sufficiently for his purpose, 
 with one that he has heard ; and when he and others have 
 uttered it many times, it comes, by common consent, to 
 mean what it does, and nothing else. 
 
 Now, with these facts in view, can we not perceive that, 
 after a few words have been formed, the formation of 
 others from them is inevitable? It is so, in the first place, 
 because of the tendency of the mind to carry further in 
 the same direction the same processes of association and 
 comparison that have led to the formation of these 
 earliest words ; and, in the second place, because of the 
 mind's tendency to economize labor. After men have 
 accumulated a stock of primitive words, and have begun 
 to reflect upon them, and to perceive the relations which 
 they sustain to other things, they seem to recognize, in 
 some subtle way, that they can save themselves the 
 trouble of originating new sounds by using the terms 
 already in vogue in more than one sense. A word apply- 
 ing to one thing can be made to apply to an altogether 
 different thing, if only the two are similar in certain of 
 their features or relations. If the principle connecting 
 the two is merely one of association, if they are merely 
 allied, then the new term is produced by a continuation of 
 the process underlying the formation of words from ejacu- 
 lations. If the principle connecting the two is one of 
 comparison, if they are really alike, then the process 
 continues that of forming words from imitative sounds. 
 
 Very often the two are only associated. Thus, a man 
 is named after his employment, a Baker, a Smith, George 
 a husbandman, Edward a protector of property ; or after 
 his country, York or Lancaster. Thus, a town or city is 
 
J/6 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 named after a man, like Columbus or America. Thus, 
 things very subtle in their nature are named after others 
 easily apprehended. Take, for instance, one of the 
 earliest terms used to indicate that in man, which, as 
 immaterial, cannot be adequately represented by any 
 thing ejaculatory or imitative. " When," says Max 
 Miiller, " man wished for the first time to grasp and ex- 
 press a distinction " (and it will be noticed that he could 
 never have wished to do this until he had entirely 
 passed the period of the formation of the very earliest 
 words) " between the body and something else within him 
 distinct from the body, an easy name that suggested itself 
 was breath. The breath seemed something immaterial 
 and almost invisible ; and it was clearly connected with 
 the life that pervaded the body, for as soon as the breath 
 ceased the life of the body became extinct. Hence the 
 Greek name tyvxij, which originally meant breath, was 
 chosen to express at first the principle of life as dis- 
 tinguished from the decaying body, and afterwards the 
 incorporeal, the immaterial, the undying, the undecaying, 
 the immortal part of man, his soul, his mind, his self." 
 
 There are other cases, however, in which the two things 
 for which the same term is used may be compared ; and 
 in these cases, as has been said, there is a process analo- 
 gous to that of forming words by imitation. As in imi- 
 tation, a sound produced by the mouth is made to refer to 
 an object producing a similar sound, because the two sounds 
 are alike ; so here a term used for one conception is made 
 to refer to another, because the two conceptions are alike. 
 Trench's " Study of Words," contains a large number of 
 exemplifications of this. Notice, for instance, the way in 
 which the word kind is derived from the word kin. In 
 olden times, all were supposed to be enemies, except 
 
SECONDARY MEANINGS OF WORDS. 1 77 
 
 those belonging to the same tribe or of the same kin; 
 only these therefore were kind to one another. But after 
 a while all whose actions could be compared to those of 
 kinned-men were called kind. Again, for centuries subse- 
 quent to the time when Christianity had been accepted 
 by the cities of the Roman Empire, the inhabitants of the 
 villages, or the pagani as they were termed, remained 
 heathen ; after a while all those who could be compared 
 to the pagani, on account of their religious beliefs, were 
 termed pagans. Later, in Europe the disciples of the 
 great theologian Duns Scotus, were called Dunses. After 
 a while all who might be compared with these, in that 
 their views differed from those held ordinarily, were called 
 dunces. 
 
 In forming words by comparison, as by association, 
 terms applicable literally only to material conceptions 
 come to refer after a time to those that are immaterial. 
 Take words, for instance, describing the operations of the 
 mind. We say that a man's thoughts are pure, clear, 
 mixed, muddled, or clouded, and that he expresses and im- 
 presses them upon others ; but only to material things like 
 water, wine, or the atmosphere, can the former class of 
 terms be applied literally ; and only into or out of a mate- 
 rial thing can another, and this only a material thing, be 
 \\ter3\\y pressed. Evidently terms of this kind are used as 
 a result of comparing the mental to the material pro- 
 cess, to which in some regards it is analogous. Were it 
 not possible to symbolize the one process in the other, it 
 is obvious that many things which we desire to communi- 
 cate, would remain forever unexpressed. We see, there- 
 fore, how essential to the very existence of language is 
 this power which enables us to figure or picture an object 
 or operation through referring to something which, though 
 
178 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 like it in some respects, is wholly different from it in 
 others ; as different from it as the paint and canvas of a 
 portrait are from the flesh and blood of the person por- 
 trayed. We see, too, how the element of representation, 
 which is essential to all art, is a factor in the very consti- 
 tution of language from which poetic art is developed. 
 We see also how the means of representation are furnished 
 mainly by the objects and operations of nature ; and this 
 not only by those appealing to the ear, the sounds 
 of which can be imitated, but also by those appealing to 
 the eye, the appearance of which suggests words like 
 express and impress. In fact, the uses to which the sights 
 and sounds of nature are thus constantly put, make liter- 
 ally true a statement like this of Wordsworth : 
 
 I have learned 
 
 To look on nature, not as in the hour 
 Of senseless youth, but hearing oftentimes 
 The still, sad music of humanity. 
 
 Lines Composed above Tintcrn Abbey. 
 
 Were it not for nature, where would be the music, the 
 voice, the language, the symbolism, through which only 
 thought can be represented ? 
 
 It is superfluous to point out to those at all acquainted 
 with this subject, how through continuing the kinds of 
 comparisons that have been mentioned, one word may 
 often come to have a large number of very different 
 meanings. The noun stock, for instance, as Trench 
 reminds us in his " Study of Words," is the old past par- 
 ticiple of the verb to stick, and indicates any thing that is 
 fixed in its character. Hence we speak of railway stock, 
 family stock, gunstocks, stock in trade, live stock, stocks 
 that ships are built on, etc. So from the word post, 
 meaning placed, we get the terms, military post, official 
 
SECONDARY MEANINGS OF WORDS, 179 
 
 post, posting a ledger and a letter, a post-office, post- 
 haste, etc. 
 
 Though all languages are largely composed of words, 
 the meanings of which can be traced with comparative 
 ease to causes similar to the ones just mentioned, these 
 words are so familiar to us, we have become so accus- 
 tomed to their conventional significance, that we seldom 
 pause to inquire how they came to mean what they do. 
 I can remember distinctly the moment when, as a boy, it 
 flashed upon my mind that a term, having so obvious an 
 origin as the Fourth of July, was not a grandiloquent 
 word of many syllables, originated for the purpose of 
 necessarily suggesting gunpowder and fireworks ; but 
 merely a phrase indicative of the fourth day of the seventh 
 month. A similar revelation is constantly awaiting the 
 mind that makes a study of other words. Similar revela- 
 tions, multiplied by almost the whole number of words 
 employed, must flash light through all the hidden depths 
 that underlie the surface forms of one's vernacular, before 
 he can understand them, and use them with absolute ap- 
 propriateness. Especially is this so in the case of the 
 words with which we are now dealing, -the words formed 
 as a result of comparison ; because these contain, far more 
 decidedly than those derived from association, a represent- 
 ative or picturesque what grammarians term a figura^ 
 tive element. But before we go on to exemplify this 
 statement, and in doing so, to trace out further than has 
 yet been done how naturally the representative language of 
 poetry is developed from ordinary language, let us con- 
 sider the subject in another aspect. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 MEANINGS OF PHRASES AS DETERMINED BY ASSOCIATION 
 OR COMPARISON. 
 
 Language, a Process in which Words and Ideas represented by them are 
 used consecutively How Words in Progression can represent Mental 
 Processes How Acts in Progression do this in Pantomime How this 
 is done when Words, as Symbols, are substituted for the Acts in Panto- 
 mime How Subject, Predicate, and Object are put together Subject, 
 Predicate, and Object of a Complete Sentence, are the Beginning, 
 Middle, and End of a Complete Process, of which all the Parts of Speech 
 are Logical Parts Examination of Certain Sentences How the Mean- 
 ings of them, considered as Wholes, depend on the Principle of Associa- 
 tion or of Comparison. 
 
 A S was said, when treating of the representative nature 
 of sounds, language is a form for thought, and 
 thought. implies mental activity, a process, a series of sen- 
 sations and experiences, all of them exerting more or less 
 influence upon one another. A single idea might be rep- 
 resented in a single word, but a series of ideas necessitates 
 a series of words. How, now, can these series of words 
 represent, with any thing like accuracy, internal processes 
 of the mind, together with the necessary relationships and 
 interactions that must exist between their constituting 
 elements ? Or, to begin at the right place, how can any 
 series of external and material elements, even though they 
 do represent a process, represent a process that takes place 
 in thought ? If we can come to understand this, it will be 
 
MEANINGS OF PHRASES. l8l 
 
 easy for us to understand how, according to a similar 
 analogy, series of words can do the same. 
 
 Those of us who have been in countries with the lan- 
 guages of which we were not familiar, have, perhaps, 
 improved our powers of origination, as well as started 
 original conceptions in the minds of those about us, 
 through presenting our internal processes of thought to 
 men who had not ears to heed our English, in the form of 
 pantomime. What other resource could we have, when 
 thirsty or sleepy or wishing to hire a hack or take a sail ? 
 But suppose that we had been shut out from pantomime, 
 and shut in to sound, how, according to the same analogy, 
 could we have expressed our processes of thought through 
 the latter medium ? Had we possessed the power of ren- 
 dering intelligible to others our references to our internal 
 sensations, as well as to external objects and operations, 
 by the use of exclamations, imitative sounds, and words 
 derived from them by association and comparison, how 
 could we have combined all these elements in such a way 
 as to represent in sound a process of thought ? Is not 
 the answer simple ? Instead of taking two objects and 
 joining or separating them, could we not have taken two 
 names for these objects, and joined or separated these ? 
 or, if we wished to make our meaning still more intelligi- 
 ble, joined the names by putting between them an inter- 
 vening exclamation expressive of assimilation, or separated 
 them by putting there an expression of aversion ? Could 
 we not thus have represented in words what circumstances 
 had prevented us from representing in pantomime ? In- 
 stead of emphatically flinging ourselves on the floor, or pa- 
 thetically resting our heads upon our hands, when, tired out 
 in the evening, we desired to show our wish to go to bed 
 why might we not have exclaimed " I bed," or " I oh 
 
1 82 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 bed " ? Is not this precisely what, though put in different 
 forms, we have heard the foreigner do, a hundred times, 
 perhaps, when trying to express in sound the thought 
 which his ignorance of our language prevented him from 
 expressing fully ? Is not this precisely the method through 
 which every child begins the difficult process of conversa- 
 tion i. e., by placing two words. together, which thus con- 
 stitute a compound word ; or by uniting the two, one of 
 which is used for the subject of a sentence and the other 
 for its object, by a third, which serves the purpose of a 
 predicate ? And it is well to notice, too, in this connec- 
 tion, that, whether used by a foreigner or a child, the 
 predicate is always the last essential factor of a perfect 
 sentence to be used with accuracy. " I seen him," cried 
 a street-boy under my window the other day ; " and I 
 throw'd a stone at him." 
 
 While on this subject, in order to show that the use of 
 the exclamation for the verb in the illustration of a sen- 
 tence just given, though fanciful, is not entirely out of 
 analogy with what is really done in language, it may be 
 interesting to recall what Max Miiller says of one of our 
 most common grammatical forms it is. He tells us that 
 this sound can be traced back almost as far in language as 
 we can go. The German says ist, the Roman est, the Slave 
 yeste> the Greek esti, and the Hindoo asti. But asti is a 
 compound of the pronoun ti and the verb as, the root of 
 which signifies to breathe. Whatever breathes exists or 
 is; so that in the oldest language in which we find the 
 verb, it seems to be only an expression representative of 
 the fact, and, very probably, of the act of aspiration or 
 breathing. 
 
 But, to return from theory to fact, we have found how 
 it is possible to put words together in such a way as to 
 
MEANINGS OF PHRASES. 183 
 
 indicate a process. Indeed, whenever we put them to- 
 gether in the right way, they necessarily do indicate this ; 
 for in such cases we put together sentences, and sentences 
 invariably represent, if not physical, at least mental, pro- 
 cesses, the subject, as a rule, indicating the beginning of 
 them, the predicate the continuation of them, and the 
 object, if there be one, the end of them. In fact, all the 
 different grammatical parts of speech and modifications of 
 them, viewed in one light, are merely methods of repre- 
 senting dependencies and relationships of different parts 
 of whole processes, which, with more or less completeness, 
 are represented by the sentences. 
 
 That we may perceive this and, at the same time, the 
 degree in which all the different factors of the phraseology 
 may be made to augment the force of the figures used in 
 single words, let us examine a few sentences. As we do 
 so, we shall find it possible to class all combinations of 
 words under two heads, corresponding to those under 
 which we have already grouped single words. The first 
 class includes those depending for their meaning upon the 
 principle of association, and the second, those depending 
 upon the principle of comparison. 
 
 To get our bearings here, let us recall briefly that it 
 has been said, with reference to the first class of words, 
 that the emergencies or circumstances in which a certain 
 exclamatory sound like mama or papa is used, cause men, 
 on account mainly of its associations, to accept it as a 
 word, meaning what it does ; and that later, after a 
 vocabulary has been partly formed, the same principle of 
 association causes them to ally something for which they 
 have a name with some other thing, and to use the same 
 name for both, as when they call towns or implements 
 after their founders or inventors. It has been said, again, 
 
1 84 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 with reference to the second class of words, that a certain 
 sound proceeding from an object perceived by men is 
 imitated by their vocal organs, and, on account of the 
 comparison between the two sounds, the one that they 
 have produced is accepted as a name for that which 
 originally produced it, as when cuckoo is adopted as a term 
 of designation for a certain bird ; and that later, after a 
 vocabulary has been partly formed, the same principle of 
 comparison causes them to perceive that some conception 
 for which they have a term, is like some other conception, 
 and to apply the same term to it also, as when they use 
 the word clear to refer both to the atmosphere and to the 
 mind. 
 
 In accordance with the analogy of these two methods 
 of determining the meanings of words, when used singly, 
 we shall find that we determine also their meanings when 
 used conjointly, i. e., either by the associations which, 
 when combined in phrases and sentences, the words sug- 
 gest, or by the comparisons which they embody. To 
 illustrate this, suppose that one says : " Their cultivated 
 conversation and attire interfered with the effects of their 
 depravity." The sentence, so far as concerns its meaning, 
 is perfectly intelligible, and this because we have learned 
 to associate with each of the words used, cultivated, con- 
 versation, attire, etc., a certain definite conception ; and 
 this conception comes up before the mind the moment 
 that we hear them. But now, suppose the same thought 
 is expressed, as in this sentence of Goldsmith : " Their 
 finery threw a veil over their grossness." In this latter 
 case, neither the word finery, nor threw, nor veil, nor 
 grossness, has precisely the meaning that we are accus- 
 tomed to associate with it. We do not understand the 
 sentence precisely, until we consider it as a whole, and 
 
MEANINGS OF PHRASES. 1 8$ 
 
 then not until we consider that the whole expresses a 
 comparison. In other words, the sentence means what it 
 does, not mainly on account of the ordinary associations 
 of its words, but on account of the comparison which it 
 embodies. Take another pair of sentences which perhaps 
 will illustrate this difference more clearly. Let one wish 
 to express an unfortunate change in the character of a 
 man hitherto honest. He may say that " His integrity is 
 impaired by severe temptation " ; and in this case his 
 meaning will be obvious, because men associate definite 
 meanings with the words integrity, impaired, severe, and 
 temptation. Instead of using this language, however, the 
 man may select words indicating a comparison, and a 
 series of comparisons. He may make a picture of his 
 idea, representing the process of the change in character, 
 by describing the process of an analogous change in 
 nature. He may say : " His uprightness bends before 
 some pressing blast." Notice how much more definitely 
 we perceive the comparison, the picture, in uprightness 
 than in integrity, in bends than in impaired, in pressing 
 than in severe, in blast than in temptation. In this last 
 sentence, we perceive at once, as in a picture, the charac- 
 ter that stood straight up, the clouds that gathered, the 
 storm that burst, and the ruin that ensued. The imma- 
 terial process is represented literally in the material one, 
 and only in connection with this latter have words like 
 bends, pressing, and blast any relevancy. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 POETIC AND UNPOETIC WORDS. 
 
 Words depending for their Meanings on Association not necessarily Prosaic; 
 nor those depending on Comparison necessarily Poetic The Latter 
 necessitate Imagination to originate, and, at first, to interpret them, but 
 after being used become Conventional This the Natural Tendency 
 of all Words Poets can always cause Words to seem Poetic. First, by 
 selecting those representing Poetic Associations This applies to Con- 
 ventional Words Second, by arranging Words imaginatively so as to 
 suggest New Comparisons or Pictures Why English of Anglo-Saxon 
 Origin is preferred by our Poets Have Familiar Associations 
 Sounds fit Sense Are used by us in Different Senses Figures repre- 
 sented in Compound Words Apparent In General more Significant 
 Why the English Language is fitted to remain Poetic. 
 
 TT is natural that some may suppose that the princi- 
 pies unfolded in the last chapter would carry with 
 them the inference that series of words and sentences 
 like " Their cultivated conversation and attire interfered 
 with the effects of their depravity," or " His integrity is 
 impaired by severe temptation," the meanings of which, 
 as has been said, are determined by the associations which 
 we have with the terms used, would be classed as prose ; 
 and that series of words and sentences like " Their finery 
 threw a veil over their grossness," and " His uprightness 
 bends before some pressing blast," the meanings of which 
 are determined by the comparisons embodied in the ex- 
 pressions, would be classed as poetry. In fact, when men 
 speak of poetic language, do they not almost invariably 
 
POETIC AND UNPOETIC WORDS. 1 87 
 
 refer to language of the latter kind, i. e., to words and 
 phrases full of comparisons and figures ? Let us weigh this 
 question carefully and detect, if we can, just how much 
 truth and how much error is in the idea underlying it. 
 
 In contrasting the sentences quoted above, two things 
 claim our notice ; first, that expressions of the compara- 
 tive kind, like " His uprightness bends before some 
 pressing blast," call forth a greater effort of the imagina- 
 tion both to compose and to interpret them ; and second, 
 that these expressions call forth a greater effort of the 
 imagination when first produced or heard than afterwards. 
 In fact, if often used to represent the same idea, there 
 comes to be a time when any number of terms like up- 
 rightness, pressing, bends, and blast suggest no pictures 
 whatsoever, except to one in search of them. They be- 
 come at last no more significant than words depending for 
 their meanings on association; and often less so. In 
 reading them, we are conscious of no more than could be 
 gained from unsuggestive arbitrary symbols. Even, 
 therefore, though in the main poetic language were con- 
 fined to these words embodying comparisons, this of itself 
 would not suffice to keep the words in such a condition 
 that men would recognize the pictures in them. 
 
 When words pass thus from the language of imagination 
 where they start, into that of mere conventionality, they 
 move according to a natural tendency exemplified in 
 every phase of intellectual development. The unfamiliar 
 never can be understood by us till classified on the ground 
 of likeness to some other thing that we have known 
 before. The earliest name assigned to the unfamiliar 
 object represents this fact. The Indian's " horse that 
 breathes forth fire," the "iron horse," the "locomotive," 
 all, at first, present the mind with pictures. But after a 
 
1 88 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 little, men select and agree to use some single term for the 
 object, and, when the term is uttered, it calls to mind this 
 object and no other. In this way, words in every language 
 are constantly becoming more exact in meaning, and not 
 only so, but they are constantly accumulating. Different 
 shades of meaning are perpetually assuming definite shape 
 in forms of thought ; as, indeed, is needed where the 
 thought of each succeeding age is constantly becoming 
 more complex as well as comprehensive. Of course, as 
 words become exact in meaning, they have less in them 
 suggestive of a different meaning. So, as a language 
 grows conventional and scientific, it loses much of its 
 imaginative and poetic force. When men have arbitrary 
 symbols to express precisely what they wish to say, their 
 fancies do not search for others to suggest what, at best, 
 can but vaguely picture it. We hear them speak of engines 
 and of locomotives, not of " horses breathing fire." 
 
 The question now arises : Amid circumstances like these 
 must poetry succumb ? If not, in what way can the poet 
 overcome them ? Certainly in one way only by recog- 
 nizing his conditions, and making the most of the material 
 at his disposal. He must use a special poetic diction. In 
 doing this two things are incumbent on him. The first is 
 to choose from the mass of language words that have 
 poetic associations. All our words convey definite mean- 
 ings not only, but accompanying suggestions ; and some 
 of these are very unpoetic. Particular sights or sounds in 
 the material world, or concepts in the mind, are instantly 
 represented to the imagination, as well as presented to 
 the understanding, when these words are heard. For this 
 reason, therefore, though they do not in themselves em- 
 body comparisons, they are sufficiently representative, 
 for a part, at least, of the purposes of poetry. 
 
POETIC AND UNPOETIC WORDS. 189 
 
 It is words like these, though not suggested in a like 
 connection, that Grant Allen mentions in his " Physio- 
 logical ^Esthetics," when, carrying out his theory that 
 " the purpose of poetry " is " the production of massive 
 pleasurable emotion," because it " depends for its effect 
 upon the unbroken succession of beautiful ideas and 
 images," he says that terms like violet, palfrey, and ruby, 
 because suggesting what is more pleasing, are more poetic 
 than terms like cabbage, donkey, and chalk ; and terms, in 
 the sphere of light, like scarlet, crimson, pink, orange, 
 golden, green, blue, azure, purple, and violet, are more poetic 
 than gray, brown, dun, black, bay, and drab. So brilliant, 
 sparkling, sheeny, polished, lustrous, luminous, twinkling, 
 glancing, silvery, pearly, are more poetic, he says, than 
 dull, dingy, rough, turbid ; and rounded, curling, graceful, 
 lithe, flowing, are more poetic than straight, stiff, awk- 
 ward, and upright ; and, in the sphere of sound, terms like 
 clear, ringing, silvery, musical, sweet, melodious, mellow, 
 rich, low, are more poetic than shrill, hoarse, grating, 
 harsh, loud, and croaking ; and, in the sphere of touch, 
 terms like soft, waxen, fleecy, smooth, delicate, slender, are 
 more poetic than hard, rough, harsh, tough, and coarse ; 
 and, in the sphere of smell, terms like fragrant, sweet, per- 
 fumed, scented, odorous, are more poetic than stench and 
 stinking; and, in the sphere of taste, terms like luscious, 
 melting, honeyed, sugared, are more poetic than bitter, sour, 
 biting, acid, acrid ; and, in the sphere of organic sensations, 
 terms like cool, fresh, buoyant, warm, easy, pure, are more 
 poetic than hot, close, weary, cold, and chilly. 
 
 Most of the words thus instanced, only a small propor- 
 tion of those in Mr. Allen's lists, depend but little for 
 their poetic or unpoetic effects, on any comparison sug- 
 gested by their origin or expressed in the passage in 
 
1 90 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 which they are placed. They depend for these mainly 
 upon the ideas that they conventionally represent ideas 
 invariably associated with them, whenever they are heard. 
 This fact is enough to show us that the distinction 
 between poetry and prose lies deeper than can be de- 
 termined solely by the etymological character of the 
 phraseology. 
 
 But there is a second thing incumbent on the poet in 
 view of the present unpoetic tendencies of language. He 
 must choose from the mass of language words that em- 
 body poetic comparisons, choose them not only nega- 
 tively, by excluding terms too scientific or colloquial, 
 which, with material and mean associations, break the 
 spell of the ideal and spiritual ; but positively, by going 
 back in imagination to the view-point of the child, and 
 (either because arranging old words so as to reveal the 
 pictures in them, or because originating new expressions 
 of his own) by substituting for the commonplace that 
 which is worthy of an art which should be aesthetic. 
 Wordsworth did not exclude the unpoetic, disenchanting 
 comparison, when in his otherwise beautiful, She was a 
 Phantom of Delight, he wrote of his love : 
 
 And now I see with eye serene 
 The very pulse of the machine. 
 
 And Shelley did go back to the view-point of the child, 
 when he wrote : 
 
 And multitudes of dense, white, fleecy clouds 
 Were wandering in thick flocks along the mountains, 
 Shepherded by the slow, unwilling wind. 
 
 Prometheus Unbound, ii., I. 
 
 Only a moment's thought will reveal to us that the 
 principles just unfolded are closely related in connection, 
 
A NGL 0- SA XON DERI VA TIVES. 1 9 1 
 
 however, with one or two other considerations to that 
 preference which almost all English poets exhibit for 
 words of native or Anglo-Saxon origin, as distinguished 
 from those derived from foreign sources, especially from 
 the Latin through the French. " Remuneration ? " says 
 Shakespear's clown Costard l ; " O that 's the Latin word 
 for three farthings." " Are you aware," says the author 2 of 
 the "Strange Adventures of a Phaeton" to his heroine, 
 " that, at a lecture Coleridge gave in the Royal Institu- 
 tion in 1808, he solemnly thanked his Maker that he did 
 not know a word of that frightful jargon, the French lan- 
 guage ? " From the few contrasted expressions consid- 
 ered a little while ago, we can understand what Coleridge 
 with his fine poetic conceptions probably felt. Concealed, 
 threw a veil over, depravity, grossness, integrity, upright- 
 ness, impaired, bends, severe, pressing, and others might 
 be added to the list, intelligence, understanding, defer, 
 put off, divest, strip off, retire, go to bed. No one can 
 fail to see how much more capacity for producing repre- 
 sentative effects there is in the latter words of these pairs 
 than in the former. This is so for several reasons. To 
 begin with, as Herbert Spencer suggests in his " Essay 
 on Style," the words of Anglo-Saxon origin include most 
 of those used in our youth, in connection with which, 
 therefore, through long familiarity with them, we have 
 the most definite possible associations ; whenever we hear 
 them, therefore, they seem preeminently representative. 
 
 Then, too, we hear in the Anglo-Saxon derivatives, to 
 a greater extent than in the foreign, the sounds which, 
 when originally uttered, were meant to be significant of 
 their sense. In fact, almost all the words instanced in 
 another place as having sounds of this kind were Anglo- 
 
 1 Love 's Labor Lost, iii., I. a William Black. 
 
I Q2 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 Saxon. On the contrary, almost all our words derived 
 from the Latin through the French have suffered a radi- 
 cal change in sound, both in the French language and in 
 our own. Therefore their sounds, if ever significant of 
 their meanings, can scarcely be expected to be so now. 
 
 Again, we know, as a rule, the history of our Anglo- 
 Saxon terms, inasmuch as we still use them in their dif- 
 ferent meanings and applications, as developed by associ- 
 ation and comparison. But foreign words are usually 
 imported into our language in order to designate some 
 single definite conception, and often one very different 
 from that which they designated originally. All of us, 
 for instance, can see the different meanings of a word like 
 way or fair and the connections between them ; but to 
 most of us words like dunce and pagans, from the Latin 
 Duns and pagani, have only the effects of arbitrary symbols. 
 
 One other reason applies to compound words. If the 
 different terms put together in these exist and are in pres- 
 ent use in our own language, as is the case with most of 
 our native compounds, then each part of the compound 
 conveys a distinct idea of its separate meaning; so 
 that we clearly perceive in the word its different fac- 
 tors. For instance, the terms uprightness, overlook, under- 
 writer, understanding, pastime, all summon before the 
 mind both of the ideas which together make up the word. 
 We recognize, at once, whatever comparison or picture it 
 represents. In compound words of entirely foreign ori- 
 gin, on the contrary, it is almost invariably the case that, 
 at least, one of the factors does not exist at present in our 
 own tongue. Integrity meant a picture to the Roman. 
 But none of us use the word from which its chief factor is 
 derived. So we fail to see the picture. Nor do we use 
 either factor of the words depravity, defer, retire. 
 
ANGLO-SAXON DERIVATIVES. 193 
 
 For reasons like these our words of Anglo-Saxon origin 
 are more representative of their sense, and hence more 
 forcible and expressive, than our words of foreign extrac- 
 tion, even if, at times, less elegant and more homely. 
 Homeliness, however, is not a wholly unpleasant charac- 
 teristic. " Who can enjoy a chat with a man," says a 
 writer in one of the old numbers of the London Saturday 
 Review, " who always talks of women as females, and of a 
 man as an individual ; with whom things are never like, 
 but similar ; who never begins a thing, but commences it ; 
 who does not choose, but elects ; who does not help, but 
 facilitates ; nor buy, but always purchases ; who calls a 
 beggar a mendicant ; with whom a servant is always a 
 domestic when he is not a menial ; who calls a house a resi- 
 dence, in which he does not live but resides ; with whom a 
 place is always a locality, and things do not happen but 
 transpire. The little girl working in the brick-fields, who 
 told the commissioners, ' We swills the spottles off us 
 faces before we has us dinners,' made them understand 
 exactly the degree of cleansing she went through. If the 
 time ever comes when she will say instead, ' We perform 
 our ablutions before we dine,' more will be left to guess- 
 work. The cook-maid of the future may count up the 
 dishes she has to wash, and expatiate on the toil of her 
 task in pedantic English ; but when the char-woman of 
 the present day says : ' He fouled a matter o' six plates,' 
 there is a protest against luxury in the use of a verb that 
 conveys more than the simple numbers would do if twice 
 told." 
 
 The lack of representative power in the majority of 
 words introduced from foreign languages, is probably 
 one reason why, from Homer to Shakespear, poets have 
 ranked highest who have written at an early stage in the 
 
194 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 history of a nation's language, before it has become cor- 
 rupted by the introduction of foreign words and phrases. 
 It may furnish one reason, too, why Dante, near the end 
 of his life, thought fit to deliver lectures to the people 
 of Ravenna upon the use of their vernacular. It may ex- 
 plain why Goethe, at the beginning of his career, turned 
 his back upon the fashionable French language, and gave 
 himself to the cultivation of the neglected tongue of his 
 fatherland. At any rate, it does explain, as has been said 
 before, why most of the great poets of England, from 
 Chaucer to Tennyson, have been distinguished among 
 other things for their predominating use of words derived 
 from the Anglo-Saxon. These words still exist in our 
 tongue ; and fortunately, notwithstanding the natural ten- 
 dency of all words to grow less poetic, they have lost little 
 of their original significance and force ; because side by 
 side with them there exist other words, almost synony- 
 mous, derived mainly from Latin sources. The fact that 
 these latter by common consent are used almost exclu- 
 sively for the technical purposes of science, philosophy, 
 and trade, thus leaving the Anglo-Saxon terms to the 
 slighter changes and deteriorations that take place in 
 literature, may furnish the best reason that we have for 
 hoping that this composite language of ours will continue 
 to be for centuries in the future, as it has been in the 
 past, perfectly fitted to give form to the grandest poetry. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 PLAIN AND FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. 
 
 Two Kinds of Language used in Poetry, that depending for its Meaning on 
 Association and that depending on Comparison Distinction between 
 the Term Figurative Language, as applied to Poetry and as used in 
 ordinary Rhetoric Figures of Rhetoric containing no Representative 
 Pictures : Interjection, Interrogation, Apostrophe, Vision, Apophasis, 
 Irony, Antithesis, Climax Figures of Rhetoric necessitating Represen- 
 tative Language: Onomatopoeia, Metonymy, Synecdoche, Trope, 
 Simile, Metaphor, Hyperbole, Allegory Laws to be observed, and 
 Faults to be avoided, in using Similes and Metaphors When Plain 
 Language should be used And when Figurative. 
 
 the facts noticed in the last chapter, we may infer 
 that two kinds of language whether we apply this 
 term to single words or to consecutive ones can be 
 used in poetry : that which depends for its meaning upon 
 the associations which the words suggest, and that which 
 depends upon the comparisons which they embody. The 
 former corresponds in most of its features, but not in all 
 of them, to what is ordinarily called plain language, and 
 its words have a tendency to appeal to us like arbitrary 
 symbols. The latter corresponds in a similar way to what 
 is called figurative language, and its words have a tendency 
 to appeal to us like pictures. 
 
 A distinction needs to be drawn, however, between the 
 term figurative language as it is generally applied to poetic 
 phraseology, and the same term as used in rhetoric. Many 
 of the so-called " figures of rhetoric " scarcely necessitate 
 
196 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 using any actual figure at all, in the sense of represent- 
 ing one phase or process through mentioning another to 
 which it is compared. They are little more than modifica- 
 tions of plain language. The moment we recall some of 
 them, this fact will be apparent. Take, for instance, what is 
 termed Interjection, the using of an interjection for a verb, 
 as in, " Oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness " ; or take 
 Interrogation, the using of a question for a direct state- 
 ment, as in, " Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but 
 ministers by whom ye believed ? " or take Apostrophe, the 
 turning of a statement into an invocation, as in, " O death, 
 where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? " or 
 take Vision or Imagery, the representation of what is in 
 the past through the use of the historical present, as in 
 " Caesar leaves Gaul, crosses the Rubicon, and enters 
 Italy," instead of " left Gaul," etc. ; or take Apophasis, 
 Paralipsis, or Omission, the pretended suppression of what 
 one is all the time mentioning, as in, " I say nothing of 
 the notorious profligacy of his character, nothing of 
 the reckless extravagance with which he has wasted an 
 ample fortune " ; or take Irony, the statement of a fact or 
 idea through using words which literally interpreted mean 
 the opposite of what is intended, as in, " Oh yes, you are 
 honest, you are, your actions show it ! " or take Antithesis, 
 the placing of opposite thoughts in juxtaposition so as to 
 heighten the effect of each by contrast, as in, " Though 
 grave yet trifling, zealous yet untrue " ; or take Climax, 
 the arrangement of a series of words, clauses or sentences 
 in such a way that each, to the end of the passage, is of 
 greater importance than the one preceding it, as in, " He 
 not only spared his enemies, but continued them in em- 
 ployment ; not only continued them in employment, but 
 advanced them " ; all these " figures of rhetoric " can be 
 
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE. 197 
 
 used, as will be recognized, without any very apparent 
 exercise of the principle of representation. 
 
 There are others, however, of which this is not true. 
 One of these, Onomatopoeia, under the head of imitative 
 sounds, as also several " figures of syntax " rather than " of 
 rhetoric," have been considered in the former part of this 
 work, and do not immediately concern us here, where we 
 are dealing with the representation of one phase or pro- 
 cess through employing words that refer to another. Of 
 the figures that do concern us, it may be said, in general, 
 that they all have a tendency to present the thought in 
 some picturesque way. In all of them some special phase 
 or process, which can be perceived, is used in order to 
 bring vividly before the mind some other like it, which can- 
 not be perceived, at least, as easily. Ordinarily they are 
 used in order to illustrate some general principle more or 
 less abstract in its nature, and of wide applicability, as 
 where Jacob in the Scriptures is made to say : " Judah is 
 a lion's whelp," or Paul to say : " For me to live is 
 Christ," each statement putting into the concrete form 
 of a picture what it would take pages to express in full. 
 
 These figures, in which the pictures are perceptible, can 
 be classified under two heads, corresponding to those al- 
 ready used in classifying words ; they may be said to de- 
 pend for their meaning largely upon the principle of asso- 
 ciation, or entirely upon that of comparison. The chief of 
 the former class of figures that, in fact, of which all of 
 the class are varieties is Metonymy. By this is meant a 
 change of names between things related : as, e.g., between 
 cause and effect, as in : " When every rood of ground 
 maintained its man," instead of "all the products of the 
 ground," and " Gray hairs should be respected," instead 
 of "old age"; between place and its inhabitants } as in: 
 
198 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 " America is disgraced by speculators/' instead of " the 
 people of America " ; between the sign and the thing sig- 
 nified, as in : "The sceptre shall not depart from Judah," 
 instead of " the royal succession " ; between subject and its 
 attribute, as in : "A sleighful of youth and health," in- 
 stead of " the young and healthy " ; between progenitor and 
 posterity, as in : " Hear, O Israel," instead of " descend- 
 ants of Israel " ; between container and thing contained, as 
 in : " Our ships opened fire," instead of " the sailors " in 
 them ; between the possessor and the thing possessed, as 
 in : " Drove the bristled lips before him," instead of " the 
 man with the lips " ; or between the material and the thing 
 made from it, as in : " His steel gleamed on high," instead 
 of his " sword." 
 
 A special form of metonymy is termed Synecdoche, which 
 means the using of the name of a part for that of the 
 whole, or the name of the whole for that of a part, or of a 
 definite number for an indefinite, as in these : " The sea is 
 covered with sails," instead of " ships " ; " Our hero was 
 gray," instead of " his hair " ; " and " Ten thousand were 
 on his right hand," instead of " a large number." 
 
 Trope is usually considered to be a general term apply- 
 ing to all turns of expression made through the use of 
 single words, whether in the way of metonymy, synec- 
 doche, or metaphor. But some hold that the trope em- 
 bodies the principle of metonymy applied not, as that 
 figure is, to nouns but to adjectives. Thus by a trope, 
 according to Macbeth's " Might and Mirth of Literature," 
 an adjective describing one operated on is assigned to the 
 cause, as in, "the weary way " or " the merry bells " ; an 
 adjective belonging to a subject is bestowed on one part or 
 member of it, as in, " religious footsteps " ; an adjective 
 true of an agent is applied to his instrument, as in, " coward 
 
SIMILE AND METAPHOR. 199 
 
 sword " ; an adjective belonging to the possessor is applied 
 to the thing possessed, as in, " The gentleman with foolish 
 teeth " ; an adjective descriptive of a season, place, or 
 person is assigned to an object connected with it, as in, 
 " Winding its sultry horn " ; an adjective proper to the 
 cause is joined to its effect, as in, " the sweet load " ; and 
 an adjective qualifying the thing worn is made to qualify 
 the wearer of it, as in, " The dogs far kinder than their 
 purple masters." 
 
 We now come to the figures based directly and entirely 
 on the principle of comparison ; and, as they are the most 
 clearly figurative, and as it is in using them that mistakes 
 in imagery are most likely to occur, and as, if correctly 
 used, they involve the correct use of all imagery of this 
 kind, in short, as they are typical of every form of rep- 
 resentative expression, it is to these mainly that attention 
 will be confined in our further discussions of this subject. 
 The first of these is the Simile. In this, the comparison 
 between one entity and another is made explicitly, and 
 the two are usually joined by the words like, as, or so, as 
 in, " He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers," " Christ 
 is like a life-boat." The second is the Metaphor. In this, 
 the comparison is made implicitly ; it is taken for 
 granted that the reader will supply the missing links, and 
 no connecting like, as, or so is used. "He shall be a tree 
 planted by the rivers," and " Christ is a life-boat," are 
 metaphors. Here are others : 
 
 And when the lark, the laureate of the sun, 
 Doth climb the east, eager to celebrate 
 His monarch's crowning. 
 
 A Life Drama, ^ : Alex. Smith. 
 
 I 've learned to prize the quiet lightning deed ; 
 Not the applauding thunder at its heels, 
 Which men call fame. 
 
 Idem, 13. 
 
200 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 The third figure is Hyperbole, which need not, but, as a 
 fact, usually does, involve comparison. In the latter case, 
 it is merely a simile with one of its factors exaggerated, 
 as in, " They were swifter than eagles, they were stronger 
 than lions." The fourth figure is Allegory. This is an 
 extended simile, in which, however, only one of the two 
 things compared is described at length, as in " Thou hast 
 brought a vine out of Egypt, thou has cast out the 
 heathen and planted it. Thou preparedst room before it, 
 and didst cause it to take deep root, and it filled the land. 
 The hills were covered with the shadow of it, and the 
 boughs thereof were like the goodly cedars." It will be 
 noticed that the last two figures involve no principles 
 that do not apply equally to the first two. For this 
 reason, our discussion of figurative language, as used in 
 poetry, can practically be narrowed down to little more 
 than a treatment of the uses and abuses of the simile and 
 the metaphor. 
 
 Certain laws, with reference to the employment of 
 these figures, have been determined by the criticism of 
 the past, and are recorded as accepted principles in every 
 ordinary Rhetoric. It may be well to refresh our memories 
 by recalling these laws, as preliminary to what is to be said 
 hereafter. The truth underlying them all is the fact, well 
 understood with reference to both the simile and the 
 metaphor, that nothing is gained by any use of these 
 which does not add to the effect of the thought to which 
 they give expression. For this reason, they are ac- 
 knowledged to be faulty when the resemblance between 
 the things compared is too slight to render the picture 
 apparent, as in this : 
 
 Give me thy crown. Here, Cousin, seize the crown ; 
 On this side, my hand ; and on that side, thine. 
 
SIMILE AND METAPHOR. 2OI 
 
 Now is the golden crown like a deep well, 
 That owns two buckets, filling one another ; 
 The emptier ever dancing in the air, 
 The other down unseen and full of water ; 
 That bucket down and full of tears am I, 
 Drinking my griefs whilst you mount up on high. 
 
 Richard II. , ir., i: Shake spear. 
 
 Or too trite to render the picture striking, as in repeti- 
 tions of old, familiar, often-noticed resemblances, like 
 these : 
 
 Hearts firm as steel, as marble hard, 
 'Gainst faith and love and pity barred, 
 Have quaked like aspen leaves in May 
 Beneath its universal sway. 
 
 t 2 : Scott. 
 
 Or too apparent to need mention, as in this, because all 
 women are so much alike that the picture is not helped 
 by directing attention to more than one : 
 
 To Pales, or Pomona, thus adorn'd 
 Likest she seem'd Pomona when she fled 
 Vertumnus or to Ceres in her prime, 
 Yet virgin of Proserpina from Jove. 
 
 Paradise Lost, g : Milton. 
 
 Or too unintelligible -, as in this, because one of the things 
 compared is not well known : 
 
 What, dullard ? we and you in smothery chafe, 
 Babes, baldheads, stumbled thus far into Zin 
 The Horrid , . . 
 . . . Potsherd him, Gibeonites ! 
 
 Sordello, 3 : Browning. 
 
 Or too unequal, either because the subject illustrated is 
 too great and dignified for that which is compared to it, 
 as in this : 
 
 And now I see with eye serene 
 The very pulse of the machine ; 
 
2O2 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 A Being breathing thoughtful breath, 
 A Traveller between life and death. 
 
 She Was a Phantom of Delight : Wordsworth. 
 
 Or because the subject illustrated is too small and insig- 
 nificant for that which is compared to it, as in this : 
 
 Loud as a bull makes hill and valley ring, 
 
 So roared the lock when it released the spring. 
 
 Odyssey, 21 : Pope's Trans. 
 
 The above principles need only to be mentioned to have 
 their reasonableness recognized. To some of them ref- 
 erence will be made hereafter ; but attention will be con- 
 fined chiefly to the two following, because in poetic repre- 
 sentation it is these that chiefly interfere with excellence. 
 The first is the " far-fetched " simile or metaphor, as it is 
 called. In this, minor points of resemblance are sought 
 out and detailed to such an extent that the main thought 
 is liable to be forgotten, while attention is concentrated 
 on subjects that really are of no importance except so far 
 as they illustrate it. This fault and its effects will be am- 
 ply treated in Chapter Twenty-sixth. 
 
 The second fault, to which special attention will be 
 directed, is the " blending " and " mixing " of similes or 
 metaphors. Both are manifestations of one tendency. 
 The " blending " occurs when plain and figurative ex- 
 pressions are used with reference to the same object in the 
 same clause or sentence. It is this 'fault, introduced into 
 the text without warrant by the words used in the transla- 
 tion, that causes Homer in the following to speak of hav- 
 ing a column torn from one's embrace without a kind adieu. 
 Of course the picture here is not true to life, and in this 
 sense is not representative : 
 
 Now from my fond embrace by tempests torn, 
 Our other column of the state is borne, 
 Nor took a kind adieu nor sought consent. 
 
 ' Odyssey, 4 : Pope's Trans. 
 
SIMILE AND METAPHOR. 2O3 
 
 The " mixing " occurs when two different figures apply- 
 ing to the same object are used in immediate connection ; 
 as where Tennyson says, as if one had to dip in order 
 to see y or could see with a dipper ; 
 
 For I dipt into the future far as human eye could see. 
 
 Locksley Hall. 
 
 Or Addison, as if he could bridle a skip, or launch a horse : 
 
 I bridle in my struggling muse with pain, 
 That longs to launch into a bolder strain. 
 
 Letter from Italy. 
 
 A still more important consideration with reference to 
 these figures, and one that underlies the entire use of the 
 language embodying them, is to determine in what cir- 
 cumstances thought and feeling should be expressed in 
 them rather than in plain language. Fortunately, as an 
 aid to our answer, both forms of language are natural to 
 conversation ; and by finding out their uses here, we may 
 come to understand the principles that should control their 
 use in poetry. To begin with, we must bear in mind that 
 the object of language is to cause others to share our men- 
 tal processes, to communicate to them the substance of 
 our ideas and their associated feelings. In doing this, it 
 represents both what a man has observed in the external 
 world and what he has experienced in his own mind not 
 either one or the other, but invariably both of them. If a 
 man, for instance, show us a photograph of something that 
 he has seen, he holds before our eyes precisely what has been 
 before his own eyes ; but if he describe the scene in words, 
 he holds before our mind only those parts of it that have 
 attracted his attention ; and not only so, but added to 
 these parts many ideas and emotions of his own that were 
 not in the scene but occurred to him when viewing it. 
 
204 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 A similar added element from the man's mind accompanies 
 every endeavor of his to tell what he has heard, or even, 
 at some other time, thought or felt. From these facts, it 
 follows that the aim of language, so far as this can be de- 
 termined by what it actually and necessarily does, is to 
 cause the same effects to be produced in the hearer's 
 mind that are experienced in the speaker's mind. Now if 
 one, when talking, conceive that this is an easy aim to 
 attain ; that what he has heard or seen or thought or felt, 
 needs only to be told in clear, intelligible phraseology, in 
 order to produce in another the same effects as in himself, 
 then he will be content with conventional modes of ex- 
 pression ; he will use in the main plain language, whether 
 referring to what he has heard, as in this : 
 
 And there was mounting in hot haste : the steed, 
 The mustering squadron, and the clattering car, 
 Went pouring forward with impetuous speed, 
 ******* 
 
 And near, the beat of the alarming drum 
 Roused up the soldier ere the morning star ; 
 While thronged the citizens with terror dumb, 
 
 Or whispering, with white lips, " The foe ! they come ! they come ! 
 
 Childe Harold, 3 : Byron. 
 
 Or to what he has seen, as in this : 
 
 Then from the shining car 
 Leaped Hector with a mighty cry, and seized 
 A ponderous stone, and, bent to crush him, ran 
 At Teucer, who had from his quiver drawn 
 One of his sharpest arrows, placing it 
 Upon the bowstring. As he drew the bow, 
 The strong-armed Hector hurled the jagged stone, 
 And smote him near the shoulder, where the neck 
 And breast are sundered by the collar-bone, 
 A fatal spot. The bowstring brake ; the arm 
 Fell nerveless ; on his knees the archer sank, 
 And dropped the bow. Then did not Ajax leave 
 
SIMILE AND METAPHOR. 
 
 His fallen brother to the foe, but walked 
 Around him, sheltering him beneath his shield, 
 Till two dear friends of his Menestheus, son 
 Of Echius, and Alastor nobly born 
 Approached, and took him up and carried him, 
 Heavily groaning, to the hollow ships. 
 
 Iliad, 8 : Bryants Tr. 
 
 Or to what he has thought, as in this : 
 
 By the world, 
 
 I think my wife be honest, and think she is not ; 
 I think that thou art just, and think thou art not. 
 I '11 have some proof. 
 
 Othello, iii., 3 : Shake spear. 
 
 Ay, you did wish that I would make her turn ; 
 Sir, she can turn, and turn, and yet go on ; 
 And turn again ; and she can weep, sir, weep ; 
 And she *s obedient, as you say, obedient, 
 Very obedient. 
 
 Idem, iv., I. 
 
 Or to what he has felt, as in this : 
 
 Six feet in earth my Emma lay ; 
 
 And yet I loved her more, 
 For so it seemed, than till that day 
 
 I e'er had loved before. 
 
 And turning from her grave, I met, 
 
 Beside the churchyard yew, 
 A blooming girl whose hair was wet 
 
 With points of morning dew. 
 
 A basket on her head she bare ; 
 
 Her brow was smooth and white ; 
 To see a child so very fair, 
 
 It was a pure delight ! 
 ***** 
 
 There came from me a sigh of pain 
 
 Which I could ill confine ; 
 I looked at her, and looked again, 
 
 And did not wish her mine ! 
 
 Two April Mornings : Wordsworth. 
 
206 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 On the other hand, however, if a man conceive that 
 the end at which he is aiming is difficult to attain ; that 
 what he has heard, or seen, or thought, or felt, either on 
 account of its own nature, or of the nature of those whom 
 he is addressing, is hard for them to realize in its full 
 force, and with all its attendant circumstances, then, as 
 his object is to convey not merely an apprehension 
 but a comprehension, both complete and profound, of 
 that of which he has to speak, he will dwell upon it ; he 
 will repeat his descriptions of it ; he will tell not only 
 what it is, but what it is like ; in other words, he will try 
 to produce the desired effect, by putting extra force into 
 his language, and, in order to do this, inasmuch as the 
 force of language consists in its representative element, 
 he will augment the representation by multiplying his 
 comparisons ; his language will become figurative. It will 
 be so for the same reason that the language of a savage 
 or a child, even when giving utterance to less occult ideas, 
 is figurative, because he feels that the words at his com- 
 mand are inadequate to express or impress his meaning 
 completely. Notice the exemplifications of these state- 
 ments in the following, referring to what has been heard : 
 
 A cry that shivered to the tingling stars, 
 And as it were one voice, an agony 
 Of lamentation, like a wind that shrills 
 All night in a waste land where no one comes. 
 
 Mort d' Arthur : Tennyson. 
 
 And the wide hum of that wild host 
 Rustled like leaves from coast to coast, 
 As rose the Muezzin's voice in air 
 In midnight call to wonted prayer ; 
 It rose, that chanted mournful strain, 
 Like some lone spirit's o'er the plain ; 
 'T was musical, but sadly sweet, 
 Such as when winds and harp-strings meet, 
 
SIMILE AND METAPHOR. 2O/ 
 
 And take a long, unmeasured tone, 
 To mortal minstrelsy unknown. 
 
 The Siege of Corinth : Byron. 
 
 To what has been seen : 
 
 As when the ocean billows, surge on surge, 
 Are pushed along to the resounding shore 
 Before the western wind, and first a wave 
 Uplifts itself, and then against the land 
 Dashes and roars, and round the headland peaks 
 Tosses on high and spouts its spray afar, 
 So moved the serried phalanxes of Greece 
 To battle, rank succeeding rank, each chief 
 Giving command to his own troops. 
 
 Iliad, 4 : Bryant's Tr. 
 
 To what has been thought : 
 
 I had rather be a kitten, and cry mew, 
 
 Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers ; 
 
 I had rather hear a brazen can'stick turn'd, 
 
 Or a dry wheel grate on the axle-tree ; 
 
 And that would set my teeth nothing on edge, 
 
 Nothing so much as mincing poetry. 
 
 'Tis like the forc'd gait of a shuffling nag. 
 
 i Henry IV., iii., I : Shakespear* 
 
 She moves as light across the grass 
 
 As moves my shadow large and tall ; 
 And like my shadow, close yet free, 
 The thought of her aye follows me, 
 
 My little maid of Moreton Hall, 
 
 A Mercenary Marriage : D. M. Mulock* 
 
 And to what has been felt : 
 
 Oh, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown ! 
 
 The courtier's, scholar's, soldier's eye, tongue, sword ; 
 
 Th' expectancy and rose of the fair State, 
 
 The glass of fashion, and the mould of form, 
 
 Th' observed of all observers, quite, quite down ! 
 
 And I, of ladies most deject and wretched, 
 
 That suck'd the honey of his music vows, 
 
 Now see that noble and most sovereign reason, 
 
 Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh. 
 
 Hamlet, iii., I : Shakespear. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 PROSE AND POETRY ; PRESENTATION AND REPRESENTA- 
 TION IN ITS VARIOUS FORMS. 
 
 Tendencies of Plain Language toward Prose, and of Figurative toward 
 p oe t r y Plain Language tends to Present Thought, and Figurative to 
 Represent it All Art Representative But Plain Language may rep- 
 resent, and Figurative may present Poetic Representation depends 
 upon the Character of the Thought If a Poet thinks of Pictures, 
 Plain Language describing them will represent according to the Method 
 of Direct Representation If not of Pictures, he may illustrate his 
 Theme by thinking in Pictures, and use Figurative Language accord- 
 ing to the Methods of Indirect Expressional or Descriptive Representa- 
 tion Pure Representation is solely Representative Alloyed Repre- 
 sentation contains some Presentation. 
 
 *T^HERE is a subtle feeling in the minds of many, but 
 especially of those who, with strong imaginations 
 and delicate aesthetic sensibilities, have not improved their 
 critical faculties by a wide acquaintance with the best 
 poetry, that figurative language only is in the highest 
 sense poetic. Whenever a feeling like this exists, it 
 should be treated with respect ; we may be sure that 
 there is a reason for it. The feeling in the particular 
 case before us, leads to an erroneous inference, as we must 
 conclude from considerations already noticed, and this con- 
 clusion will be confirmed as we go on. But how about the 
 origin of the feeling ? It springs, as seems most likely, 
 from the fact that plain and figurative language are judged 
 less from the effects that they produce when actually used 
 
PRESENTA TION AND REPRESENTA TION. 2OQ 
 
 in poetry, than from the principles that appear to be ex- 
 emplified in their formation. If carried to an extreme, 
 the tendencies that lead to plain language move unmis- 
 takably toward prose, as those that lead to figurative lan- 
 guage move toward poetry. The error just mentioned lies 
 in mistaking tendencies for a consummation of them. 
 
 These tendencies, however, are important in their bear- 
 ings upon the real distinction that separates prose from 
 poetry. Let us for a little consider them. 
 
 Plain language, as we have traced it, is a development of 
 the instinctive methods of expression used in natural ejac- 
 ulations. These, by being associated with the circum- 
 stances in which they are uttered, come to be used 
 as words ; and, in a broad way of generalizing, there is a 
 sense in which all words, no matter how originated, when- 
 ever they come to mean what they do on account of this 
 principle, can be put in this class. But now, if we think a 
 little, we shall recognize that, from the moment of the 
 utterance of the first ejaculation to the use of the latest 
 sound which means what it does merely because conven- 
 tionally associated with an idea to which it stands in the 
 relation of an arbitrary symbol, the tendency exemplified 
 is a desire to present rather than to represent the thought 
 or feeling. 
 
 Just the contrary, however, is true of figurative lan- 
 guage. We have traced it to a development of the reflec- 
 tive methods of expression which arise when one hears and 
 imitates for a purpose the sounds about him. The same 
 tendency is carried out when he puts these sounds to- 
 gether, after they have become conventional words, so as 
 to represent the relations between the sights about him, as 
 in the terms express, understand ; in fact, it is carried out in 
 every case in which there is a use of imaginative or figura- 
 
2IO POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 tive language. This latter language, then, from its earliest 
 source to its utmost development, exemplifies a tendency 
 to represent rather than merely to present the thought or 
 feeling. 
 
 This work has constantly maintained that art is repre- 
 sentative ; and, bearing this in mind, we shall begin to get 
 a glimmer of the reason why poetry, which is the artistic 
 form of language, is associated in many minds with only 
 these representative words or figurative modes of expres- 
 sion. But we have not yet reached the whole truth with 
 reference to the matter. 
 
 It must be remembered that thus far we have been 
 dealing mainly with single words or with a few of them 
 arranged in single sentences. Each of these words or sen- 
 tences may be supposed to express some single phase or 
 process of the mind's experiences. But to express a 
 series of these processes, as words usually do when used 
 at all, we need a series of words and sentences. Now it is 
 conceivable that, though each factor of the series when 
 taken by itself, should merely present some single phase, 
 all the factors when taken together should represent 
 a series of these phases ; and it is equally conceivable that 
 though each factor of the series when taken by itself 
 should represent a mental phase, all the factors when 
 taken together should merely present a series of these 
 phases. In other words, it is conceivable that owing to 
 the artistic use, not of single words but of series of them, 
 plain language should represent the thought and feeling, 
 and therefore be poetic ; and it is equally conceivable that 
 figurative language should merely present these, and there- 
 fore be prosaic ; prose, so far as it is determined by the 
 mode of communicating thought, being the presentative 
 form of that of which poetry is the representative. 
 
PRESENTA TION AND REPRESENTA TION. 2 1 1 
 
 These conditions which we have considered conceiv- 
 able, we shall find to be true in fact ; and for this reason 
 poetic methods of communicating thought, considered as 
 a whole, must be judged, precisely as was said in another 
 place of poetic sounds, by the degree in which they repre- 
 sent the thought or feeling to which they give expression. 
 Now what, in the last analysis must determine the method 
 of the communication ? what but the method in which 
 the thought itself is conceived in the mind of the writer? 
 If he think in pictures, his words, whether or not pictur- 
 esque or figurative in themselves, will describe pictures 
 Otherwise they will not. Moreover, if we reflect a mo- 
 ment, we shall recognize that there are many times when 
 he can think in pictures, even when he is not thinking of 
 pictures ; as, for instance, when he is impressing a truth 
 upon the mind through using a story, a parable, or an 
 illustration, as we call it. In this case, his method, if it 
 accurately convey to us that which is passing before his 
 own mind, must be representative, and not merely pre- 
 sentative. 
 
 Accordingly we find, when we get to the bottom of our 
 subject, that the figurative or the representative element 
 in poetry may exist in the conception as well as in 
 the phraseology. If it exist in only the conception, we 
 have representation in plain language, or direct representa- 
 tion ; if in the phraseology, by which is meant now the 
 words or expressions illustrating the main thought, we 
 have representation in figurative language, or illustrative 
 representation, which, in turn, as will be shown presently ? 
 it is possible, but not practicable, to divide again into the 
 expressional and the descriptive. If, in any of these 
 ways, all the significance expressed in a passage be repre- 
 sented, the form of the representation will in this work 
 
212 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 be termed pure ; if a part of the significance be merely 
 presented, the representation will be termed alloyed ; and 
 in the degree in which this is the case, it will be shown 
 by and by that the whole is prosaic. 
 
 Pure representation is pictorial in character, as we 
 should expect from the pictorial tendency of which we 
 have found it to be an outgrowth, and its methods are 
 not wholly unlike those of painting. When composing in 
 accordance with them, the poet indicates his thought by 
 using words referring to things that can be perceived; 
 and in this way he causes the imaginations of those whom 
 he addresses to perceive pictures. Alloyed representa- 
 tion, while following in the main the methods of that 
 which is pure, always contains more or less of something 
 which cannot be supposed to have been perceived, at 
 least not in connection with circumstances like those that 
 are being detailed. For this reason, that which is added 
 to the representation is like alloy, interfering with the 
 pureness and clearness of the pictures presented to the 
 imaginations of those addressed. It appeals to them not 
 according to the methods of poetry, but of science or 
 philosophy, or of any kind of thought addressed merely 
 to the logical understanding. 
 
 The distinction between pure and alloyed representa- 
 tion lies at the basis of all right appreciation of poetic 
 effects. Yet a man is more fortunate than most of his 
 fellows, if among all his literary friends he finds one who 
 really understands the difference between the two. Be- 
 cause, therefore, of the general ignorance with reference to 
 this distinction, as also of its intrinsic subtlety, both forms 
 of representation will now be explained and illustrated in 
 full. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 PURE DIRECT REPRESENTATION. 
 
 In what sense, and how far, Thought and Feeling can be Communicated 
 Representitively Pure Representation, as used by Tennyson Hunt, 
 etc. Pure Direct Representation, as used by Homer, Milton, Shake- 
 spear, Morris, Heine, Tennyson, Arnold, Burns, Gilbert, etc. Exten- 
 sive Use of this Method in all Forms of Poetry. 
 
 T T has been maintained all along in this work that the 
 forms of art represent partly that which is passing in 
 the mind of the artist at the time of composition, and partly 
 that which he has perceived in nature. The art products 
 to state in a single expression all that they can do 
 symbolize the thoughts and feelings of the artist through 
 an arrangement of the phenomena of nature which repre- 
 sents them. If we are to approach the subject before us 
 in a logical way, therefore, it seems appropriate that we 
 should first determine in what sense and to what extent 
 thoughts and feelings can be expressed at all in any 
 definite way according to the methods of representation. 
 Afterwards we can go on and ask how a man desirous of 
 representing his own thoughts and feelings would use the 
 phenomena of nature in order to do this. 
 
 In considering the first of these questions, attention 
 will be directed only to examples of pure representation. 
 This will enable the reader to notice not only in what 
 sense and how far thoughts and feelings can be repre- 
 sented as a possibility ; but also, in connection with this, 
 
214 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 how they actually are represented when poetry is at its 
 best. Under these circumstances, as has been said, the 
 poetry contains nothing except representation ; and for 
 this reason, if for no other, it is very properly termed 
 pure. Its composer, when producing it, confines himself 
 to his legitimate work. Poetry, as we have found, is an 
 art ; and art does not consist of thoughts, explanations, 
 or arguments concerning things, but of images or pictures 
 representing them ; and there can be no legitimate image 
 or picture, except of what may be supposed to be per- 
 ceived. If, for instance, certain persons are doing certain 
 things, one will probably draw some inferences from their 
 actions with reference to their motives, and he will have a 
 right to tell his inferences in prose ; but not, as a rule, in 
 poetry. In this, he must picture what he has observed, 
 and leave others, as free as he himself has been, to infer 
 what they choose. At the same time, in the degree in 
 which he is an artist, his picture will be of such a charac- 
 ter as to impel others to draw from it the same inference 
 that he himself has drawn. To illustrate how a genuine 
 artist can make his product influence others thus, let me 
 quote Tennyson's description of what followed the read- 
 ing, by the poet Hall, of his epic on the " Death of Ar- 
 thur." The reader will remember, perhaps, that when 
 Hall began to read, he described the poem as being 
 " nothing worth." The mention of this fact will explain 
 the use of the phrase " There, now, that 's nothing," in 
 the quotation. 
 
 Here ended Hall, and our last light, that long 
 Had winked and threatened darkness, flared and fell ; 
 At which the Parson, sent to sleep with sound, 
 And waked with silence, grunted " Good ! " but we 
 Sat rapt ; it was the tone with which he read 
 Perhaps some modern touches here and there 
 
P URE DIRECT REPRESENTA TION. 2 1 5 
 
 Redeemed it from the charge of nothingness, 
 
 Or else we loved the man, and prized his work ; 
 
 I know not ; but we sitting, as I said, 
 
 The cock crew loud : as at that time of year 
 
 The lusty bird takes every hour for dawn : 
 
 Then Francis, muttering, like a man ill-used, 
 
 " There, now, that 's nothing ! " drew a little back, 
 
 And drove his heel into the smouldered log, 
 
 That sent a blast of sparkles up the flue ; 
 
 And so to bed. 
 
 Mort d l Arthur : Tennyson. 
 
 Is not this simple tale of what was done, much more 
 expressive than would have been a long prosy description 
 of what was felt? This example shows, therefore, that 
 poetry may be strictly representative of external sights 
 and sounds, may confine itself to that which reproduces 
 for the imagination a picture ; and yet may be equally 
 and in the highest sense representative also of those ideas 
 and feelings which exist only in the mind. 
 
 Nor must it be supposed that this kind of representa- 
 tion is unfitted for clear and forcible communication of 
 thought. Notice in the following how effectively Leigh 
 Hunt represents his moral : 
 
 Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase !) 
 
 Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace, 
 
 And saw within the moonlight in his room, 
 
 Making it rich and like a lily in bloom, 
 
 An angel writing in a book of gold : 
 
 Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold, 
 
 And to the presence in the room he said : 
 
 " What writest thou ? " the vision raised its head, 
 
 And, with a look made of all sweet accord, 
 
 Answered : " The names of those who love the Lord.** 
 
 "And is mine one?" said Abou. " Nay, not so," 
 
 Replied the angel. Abou spake more low, 
 
 But cheerly still, and said : " I pray thee, then, 
 
 Write me as one that loves his fellow-men." 
 
2l6 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 The angel wrote and vanished. The next night 
 
 It came again with a great wakening light, 
 
 And showed the names whom love of God hai blessed, 
 
 And lo ! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest ! 
 
 Abou Ben Adhem. 
 
 Equally successful in indicating their thoughts were the 
 authors of the following : 
 
 Jack brags he never dines at home, 
 
 With reason, too, no doubt 
 In truth, Jack never dines at all 
 
 Unless invited out. 
 
 Elegant Extracts. 
 
 The golden hair that Galla wears 
 
 Is hers who would have thought it ? 
 
 She swears 't is hers, and true she swears, 
 For I know where she bought it. 
 
 Harrington : Idem. 
 
 It has been said that pure representation may be either 
 direct or illustrative. Let us look now at some examples 
 of it in both forms. After doing so, we shall be better 
 prepared to pass on and compare with them the various 
 departures from it exemplified in alloyed representation. 
 Direct pure representative poetry, as has been intimated, 
 pictures to the mind, without the use of figurative lan- 
 guage, a single transaction or series of transactions in such 
 a way as to influence the thoughts of him who hears the 
 poetry, precisely as they would have been influenced had he 
 himself perceived the transaction or series of transactions 
 of which the poetry treats. The works of Homer, as in 
 fact of all the classic writers, are filled with examples 
 of this kind of representation. Here are some of them, 
 with an occasional exceptional expression in illustrative 
 representation, indicated by italics : 
 
 Then, from the fleet, illustrious Hector led 
 The Trojans, and beside the eddying stream, 
 
PURE DIRECT REPRESENTATION. 
 
 In a clear space uncumbered by the slain, 
 Held council. There, alighting from their cars, 
 They listened to the words that Hector spake, 
 Hector beloved of Jove. H e held a spear, 
 In length eleven cubits, with a blade 
 Of glittering brass, bound with a ring of gold. 
 On this he leaned, and spake these winged words : 
 " Hear me, ye Trojans, Dardans, and allies. 
 But now I thought that, having first destroyed 
 The Achaian host and fleet, we should return 
 This night to wind-swept Ilium. To their aid 
 The darkness comes, and saves the Greeks, and saves 
 Their galleys ranged along the ocean side. 
 Obey ive then the dark-broived night ; prepare 
 Our meal, unyoke the steeds with flowing manes, 
 And set their food before them . . ." 
 
 ******* 
 
 So Hector spake, and all the Trojan host 
 Applauded ; from the yoke forthwith they loosed 
 The sweaty steeds, and bound them to the cars 
 With halters ; to the town they sent in haste 
 For oxen and the fatlings of the flock, 
 And to their homes for bread and pleasant wine, 
 And gathered fuel in large store. The winds 
 Bore up the fragrant fumes from earth to heaven. 
 
 The Iliad, 8 : Bryant's Tr. 
 
 Notice in these descriptions of contests in battle, how 
 the directness and exactness of the language used aug- 
 ment its representative power. 
 
 Beneath the collar bone 
 
 It pierced him and passed through ; the brazen point 
 Came out upon the shoulder ; to the ground 
 He fell, his armor clashing with his fall. 
 Then Ajax smote the valiant Phorcys, son 
 Of Phoenops, in the navel. Through the mail 
 The brazen weapon broke, and roughly tore 
 The entrails. In the dust he fell, and clenched 
 The earth with dying hands. 
 
 "Idem, 17. 
 
2 1 8 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 The sharp stone smote his forehead as he held 
 The reins, and crushed both eyebrows in ; the bone 
 Resisted not the blow ; the warrior's eyes 
 Fell in the dust before his very feet. 
 ******* 
 
 He spake and set his heel 
 
 Upon the slain, and from the wound drew forth 
 His brazen spear and pushed the corpse aside, 
 And with the weapon hurried on. 
 
 Idem, 16. 
 
 In the last paragraph of " Paradise Lost," too, we have 
 a fine example of direct representation : 
 
 In either hand the hastening angel caught 
 
 Our lingering parents, and to the eastern gate 
 
 Led them direct, and down the cliff as fast 
 
 To the subjected plain ; then disappeared. 
 
 They looking back, all the eastern side beheld 
 
 Of paradise, so late their happy seat, 
 
 Waved over by that flaming brand, the gate 
 
 With dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms. 
 
 Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon. 
 
 The world was all before them, where to choose 
 
 Their place of rest, and Providence their guide. 
 
 They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow, 
 
 Through Eden took their solitary way. 
 
 P. L. t 12. 
 
 There are many instances of the same in Shakespear 
 also. Here are some : 
 
 You all do know this mantle ; I remember 
 
 The first time ever Caesar put it on ; 
 
 'T was on a summer's evening in his tent 
 
 That day he overcame the Nervii. 
 
 Look ! in this place ran Cassius' dagger through ; 
 
 See what a rent the envious Casca made ; 
 
 Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabb'd ; 
 
 And, as he plucked his cursed steel away, 
 
 Mark how the blood of Caesar followed it. 
 
 Julius C<zsar, iii., 2. 
 
PURE DIRECT REPRESENTATION. 
 
 A figure like your father, 
 Arm'd at all points, exactly, cap-a-pie, 
 Appears before them, and with solemn march 
 Goes slow and stately by them. 
 
 Hamlet, i., 2. 
 
 Among the writers of the present day, William Morris, 
 perhaps, has been the most successful in this kind of repre- 
 sentation. Notice the following from his story of " Cupid 
 and Psyche": 
 
 They ceased, and Psyche, pondering o'er their song, 
 ******* 
 
 About the chambers wandered at her will, 
 
 And on the many marvels gazed her fill, 
 
 Where'er she passed still noting everything ; 
 
 Then in the gardens heard the new birds sing, 
 
 And watched the red fish in the fountains play, 
 
 And at the very faintest time of day 
 
 Upon the grass lay sleeping for a while 
 
 'Midst heaven-sent dreams of bliss that made her smile ; 
 
 And, when she woke, the shades were lengthening, 
 
 So to the place where she had heard them sing 
 
 She came again, and through a little door 
 
 Entered a chamber with a marble floor, 
 
 Open atop unto the outer air, 
 
 Beneath which lay a bath of water fair, 
 
 Paved with strange stones and figures of bright gold, 
 
 And from the steps thereof could she behold 
 
 The slim-leaved trees against the evening sky 
 
 Golden and calm, still moving languidly. 
 
 So for a time upon the brink she sat, 
 
 ******* 
 
 And then arose and slowly from her cast 
 
 Her raiment, and adown the steps she passed 
 
 Into the water, and therein she played, 
 
 Till of herself at last she grew afraid, 
 
 And of the broken image of her face, 
 
 And the loud splashing in that lonely place. 
 
 The JEarthly Paradise. 
 
220 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 And, lest any should think that this kind of representa- 
 tion is confined to epic and dramatic art, here is one of 
 Heine's lyrics. Could any thing illustrate better than this 
 does, the fact that, under certain circumstances, poetry and 
 painting can be made to have the same effects ? Although 
 a changing series of scenes is pictured in this beautiful 
 little poem, as is proper where the medium of representation 
 is a series of words, the feelings suggested by it are almost 
 identical with those which would be awakened by the 
 single scene of a painting. 
 
 We sat by the fisher's cottage, 
 
 And looked at the stormy tide ; 
 The evening mist came rising, 
 
 And floating far and wide. 
 
 One by one in the lighthouse 
 
 The lamps shone out on high ; 
 And far on the dim horizon 
 
 A ship went sailing by. 
 
 We spoke of storm and shipwreck, 
 
 Of sailors, and how they live ; 
 Of journeys 'twixt sky and water, 
 
 And the sorrows and joys they gire. 
 
 We spoke of distant countries, 
 
 In regions strange and fair, 
 And of the wondrous beings 
 
 And curious customs there ; 
 
 Of perfumed lamps on the Ganges, 
 
 Which were launched in the twilight hour j 
 
 And the dark and silent Brahmins, 
 Who worship the lotus flower. 
 
 Of the wretched dwarfs of Lapland, 
 
 Broad-headed, wide-mouthed, and small, 
 
 Who crouch round their oil-fires cooking, 
 And chatter, and scream, and bawl. 
 
PURE DIRECT REPRESENTATION. 221 
 
 And the maidens earnestly listened, 
 
 Till at last we spoke no more : 
 The ship like a shadow had vanished, 
 
 And darkness fell deep on the shore. 
 
 The Fisher's Cottage : Tr. by C. G. Leland. 
 
 This is all that there is to the poem ; yet, after reading 
 it, we could sit and muse for hours, as we could before a 
 painting, recalling what people talk about under such cir- 
 cumstances, how little things make imagination wander 
 off to the ends of the earth, and of how little account it 
 all is when the wandering is over. 
 
 Here, too, is another lyric, a celebrated one, and of the 
 most effective type ; yet it contains nothing but direct 
 representation : 
 
 Break, break, break, 
 
 On thy cold, gray stones, oh Sea ! 
 And I would that my tongue could utter 
 
 The thoughts that arise in me. 
 
 O well for the fisherman's boy 
 
 That he shouts with his sister at play ! 
 O well for the sailor lad, 
 
 That he sings in his boat on the bay ! 
 
 And the stately ships go on 
 
 To their haven under the hill ; 
 But oh for the touch of a vanished hand, 
 
 And the sound of a voice that is still ! 
 
 Break, break, break, 
 
 At the foot of the crags, oh Sea ! 
 But the tender grace of a day that is dead 
 
 Will never come back to me. 
 
 Break, Break, Break : Tennyson, 
 
 Notice these also : 
 
 Each on his own strict line we move, 
 And some find death ere they find love; 
 So far apart their lives are thrown 
 From the twin soul that halves their own. 
 
222 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 And sometimes, by still harder fate, 
 The lovers meet, but meet too late. 
 Thy heart is mine ! True, trite ! ah, true / 
 Then, love, thy hand ! Ah, no ! adieu ! 
 
 Too Late : Matthew Arnold. 
 
 Of a' the airts the wind can blaw 
 
 I dearly like the west, 
 For there the bonnie lassie lives, 
 
 The lassie I lo'e best ; 
 There wild woods grow, an' rivers flow, 
 
 An' mony a hill between ; 
 But day an' night my fancy's flight 
 
 Is ever wi' my Jean. 
 
 I see her in the dewy flowers, 
 
 I see her sweet an' fair ; 
 I hear her in the tunefu* birds, 
 
 I hear her charm the air : 
 There 's not a bonnie flow'r that springs 
 
 By fountain, shaw, or green, 
 There 's not a bonnie bird that sings, 
 
 But minds me o' my Jean. 
 
 / Love my Jean : Burns. 
 
 The following also may be classed as direct representa- 
 tion. It is humorous, too, for the very reason that it is 
 direct, confessing to a kind of pride very common, but 
 very seldom recognized to be irrational and absurd, be- 
 cause not expressed in such a straightforward, unequivocal 
 way. 
 
 He is an Englishman, 
 
 For he himself has said it, 
 
 And it 's greatly to his credit 
 That he is an Englishman. 
 
 For he might have been a Roosian, 
 
 A French, or Turk, or Proosian, 
 Or perhaps Ital-i-an ; 
 
 But in spite of all temptations 
 
 To belong to other nations, 
 He remains an Englishman. 
 
 Pinafore, 2 : Gilbert. 
 
PURE DIRECT REPRESENTATION. 223 
 
 Much of Gilbert's fun is of this same sort. Probably 
 many an old maid has had thoughts like the following; 
 but ordinarily, if not ashamed of them, she is too bashful 
 to acknowledge them. They appear ridiculous only when 
 bawled out at the top of the voice of a stalwart contralto 
 into the ears of hundreds. 
 
 Sad is the woman's lot who, year by year, 
 Sees one by one her beauties disappear. 
 ****** 
 
 Silvered is the raven hair, 
 
 Spreading is the parting straight, 
 Mottled the complexion fair, 
 
 Halting is the youthful gait, 
 Hollow is the laughter free, 
 
 Spectacled the hmpid eye ; 
 Little will be left of me 
 
 In the coming by and by. 
 
 Fading is the taper waist, 
 
 Shapeless grows the shapely limb, 
 And, although severely laced, 
 
 Spreading is the figure trim j 
 Stouter than I used to be, 
 
 Still more corpulent grow I, 
 There will be too much of me 
 
 In the coming by and by. 
 
 Patience, 2 : Gilbert. 
 
 Those whose attention has never been directed to the 
 fact, will be surprised upon examination to find how many 
 poems contain nothing but this direct representation. 
 Among them can be included almost all those that in the 
 true sense of the term are ballads, like Scott's " Lochinvar," 
 and its models in Percy's Reliques. Not only so, but as 
 this form of representation may reproduce that which may 
 be supposed to have been heard or said, as well as seen or 
 done, in this class may be included a large number of 
 
224 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 more reflective poems, like Tennyson's May Queen, and 
 Northern Farmer. It must be borne in mind, however, 
 that when this style is used there is special need that the 
 ideas to be expressed be picturesque in themselves, or 
 else concentrations in concrete form illustrating much 
 poetic truth that is generic and universal in its applica- 
 bility. For poems fulfilling perfectly the first condition, 
 notice Kingsley's Three Fishers, and O Mary Go and Call 
 the Cattle Home, quoted in Chapter Twenty-seventh of 
 this work. For a poem fulfilling the second, Burns' 
 Address to the Louse on a Lady's Bonnet, is as good as any. 
 He ends that, as will be remembered, passing, however^ 
 in order to do it, from pure into alloyed representation, 
 in this way : 
 
 O wad some power the giftie gi'e us 
 
 To see oursels as ithers see us ! 
 
 It wad frae monie a blunder free us 
 
 And foolish notion : 
 What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us, 
 
 And e'en devotion ! 
 
 When either condition just mentioned is fulfilled, the 
 conception itself is representative, and often all that is 
 needed, for the highest poetry is a literal and therefore a 
 direct statement of that which is perceived in conscious- 
 ness. But this fact, in connection with further examples 
 of direct representation, will be considered hereafter. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 PURE INDIRECT OR ILLUSTRATIVE REPRESENTATION. 
 
 Illustrative in Connection with Direct Representation enables a writer to ex- 
 press almost any Phase of Thought representatively or poetically 
 Examples Representation, if Direct, must communicate mainly what 
 can be seen or heard Inward Mental Processes can be pictured out- 
 wardly and materially only by Indirect Representation Examples 
 of this Fact from Longfellow From Arnold From Whittier From 
 Smith From Tennyson, Aldrich, and Bryant Two Motives in using 
 Language, corresponding respectively to those underlying Discoursive 
 and Dramatic Elocution, namely, that tending to the Expression of 
 what is within the Mind, and that tending to the Description of 
 what is without the Mind Examples from Longfellow of Poetry 
 giving Form to these two different Motives Careful Analysis might 
 give us here, besides Indirect or Figurative Representation used for the 
 purpose of Expression, the same used for the purpose of Description, 
 but as in Rhetoric and Practice Expressional and Descriptive Illus- 
 tration follow the same Laws, both, will be treated as Illustrative 
 Representation Similes, ancient and modern From Homer From 
 Morris From Milton From Shakespear From Moore From Kings- 
 ley Metaphors, ancient and modern Used in Cases of Excitation 
 Examples. 
 
 ET us pass on now to the illustrative forms of pure 
 representation. The plain language used in direct 
 representation is a development, as has been said, of the 
 instinctive modes of expression, primarily exemplified in 
 ejaculatory sounds ; and figurative language, now to be con- 
 sidered, springs from the reflective modes primarily exem- 
 plified in imitative sounds. Behind imitation (see page 8) 
 there is always an intellectual purpose, a plan, a desire to 
 
226 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 impress, if not to convince. This motive would make a 
 prose writer didactic and argumentative. The poet it 
 drives to illustrations, each of which in genuine poetry 
 must be representative or picturesque, although his main 
 thought differing in this particular from that which 
 must be behind direct representation need not be so. 
 
 A moment's reflection will show us that this fact with 
 reference to figurative or illustrative representation, ren- 
 ders it possible for a writer to express almost any thought 
 or feeling whatever in a representative and poetic way. 
 A noise, for instance, whether slight or great, is not in it- 
 self poetic; if great, one would suppose that it would 
 be the opposite, yet see how it may become poetic on ac- 
 count of the way in which it is represented : 
 
 And now and then an echo started up, 
 
 And, shuddering, fled from room to room, and died 
 
 Of fright in far apartments. 
 
 The Princess : Tennyson. 
 
 Immediate in a flame, 
 
 But soon obscured with smoke, all heaven appear'd, 
 From those deep-throated engines belched, whose roar 
 Embowel'd with outrageous noise the air, 
 And all her entrails tore, disgorging foul 
 Their devilish glut, chained thunderbolts, and hail 
 Of iron globes, which on the victor host 
 Level'd with such impetuous fury smote, 
 That whom they hit none on their feet might stand. 
 
 Paradise Lost, 6 : Milton. 
 
 That human beings often misunderstand one another is a 
 commonplace fact of ordinary observation. But see what 
 representation may do with the expression of the fact : 
 
 We are spirits clad in veils ; 
 
 Man by man was never seen ; 
 All our deep communing fails 
 
 To remove the shadowy screen. 
 
PURE ILLUSTRATIVE REPRESENTATION. 22/ 
 
 Heart to heart was never known ; 
 
 Mind with mind did never meet ; 
 We are columns left alone 
 
 Of a temple once complete. 
 
 Like the stars that gem the sky, 
 
 Far apart, though seeming near, 
 In our light we scattered lie ; 
 
 All is thus but starlight here. 
 
 Thought . Cranch. 
 
 To say that the murder of a good man will cause many 
 to mourn, does not involve the utterance of a profound or 
 beautiful thought, but the thought may be represented so 
 as to seem both, as in this : 
 
 Besides this, Duncan 
 
 Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been 
 So clear in his great office, that his virtues 
 Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against 
 The deep damnation of his taking off ; 
 And pity, like a naked new-born babe, 
 Striding the blast, or Heaven's cherubim, horsed 
 Upon the sightless couriers of the air, 
 Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye, 
 That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur 
 To prick the sides of my intent ; but only 
 Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself 
 
 And falls on the other. 
 
 Macbeth, i., 7 : Shakespcar. 
 
 So one might go through the whole catalogue of pos- 
 sible thoughts and feelings, and it is a question whether 
 a man, if enough of an artist, could not express every one 
 of them in such words, or arrange it in such connections 
 or balance it by such antitheses, or trail after it such sug- 
 gestions, or put it into the mouths of such characters, 
 placed in such positions, induced by such communica- 
 tions, stirred by such surroundings, as to make it, 
 although in itself most trivial, common, disagreeable, and 
 
228 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 mean, a part of a representation which, considered as a 
 whole, would produce an aesthetic effect. 
 
 It must be borne in mind, however, that this statement 
 is true only because it is possible for the poet to use a 
 kind of representation in addition to that which is direct. 
 The latter, as we have found, must always give expression 
 to thoughts or feelings which can be legitimately inferred 
 from simple, straightforward accounts of certain real or 
 imaginary events. It is all that is needed, therefore, when 
 communicating conclusions derived from what has been 
 seen or heard ; but not so always, when communicating 
 that which, aside from any immediate outward influence, 
 has been inwardly thought or felt. In the latter case, the 
 mind, if it would represent rather than present what it has 
 to say, must resort to figures. In using these as has been 
 shown, it simply carries out a tendency exemplified in all 
 language, from the time of the first imitative sounds to 
 that of words like express, impress, and understand. In 
 accordance with this tendency, unseen mental relations or 
 processes are represented by referring to others resembling 
 them, which are perceptible in the visible or material 
 world. Instead of saying, " His integrity is impaired by 
 severe temptation," one may say, " His uprightness bends 
 before some pressing blast." In other words, instead of 
 using conventional language, which simply presents an 
 idea, one may assume the attitude of the first framers of 
 language, and represent his idea, making it, in a sense, 
 tangible, visible, graphic. An endeavor to do this, as 
 applied to thoughts and feelings that cannot be directly 
 represented, is the motive underlying the primitive use of 
 figurative language, or indirect representation, which 
 might be termed also metaphorical, in the sense of being 
 constructed according to the methods of the metaphor, 
 
PURE ILLUSTRATIVE REPRESENTATION. 22$ 
 
 though all actual metaphors do not exemplify it, and 
 some similes and allegories do. Longfellow, for instance, 
 starts out to say that the examples of great men often en- 
 courage and stimulate others ; but he ends by represent- 
 ing his thought thus : 
 
 Lives of great men all remind us 
 
 We can make our lives sublime, 
 And, departing, leave behind us 
 
 Footprints on the sands of time ; 
 
 Footprints, that perhaps another, 
 
 Sailing o'er life's solemn main, 
 A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, 
 
 Seeing, shall take heart again. 
 
 A Psalm of Lift. 
 
 Here a plain statement would be that the poet is not 
 one of those constantly encouraged and guided by cheer- 
 ing thoughts, but his words are these : 
 
 The thoughts that rain their steady glow 
 Like stars on life's cold sea, 
 Which others know or say they know 
 They never shine for me. 
 
 Thoughts light, like gleams, my spirit's sky, 
 But they will not remain ; 
 They light me once, they hurry by, 
 And never come again. 
 
 Despondency : Matthew Arnold. 
 
 Here the declaration is made that care and trial, when 
 passed, do not seem painful to the soul ; that they are 
 means of developing its powers harmoniously, and increas- 
 ing its inward satisfaction ; and that this fact causes the 
 writer to submit cheerfully to the divine influence ; but 
 what he really says is that he has learned : 
 
 That care and trial seem at last, 
 Through memory's sunset air, 
 
230 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 Like mountain ranges overpast, 
 In purple distance fair ; 
 
 That all the jarring notes of life 
 
 Seem blending in a psalm, 
 And all the angles of its strife 
 
 Slow rounding into calm. 
 
 And so the shadows fall apart, 
 
 And so the west winds play ; 
 And all the windows of my heart 
 
 I open to the day. 
 
 My Psalm: Whittier. 
 
 And here, once more, the writer wishes to describe in 
 their order the effects upon the soul of sin, faith, aspira- 
 tion, and love. 
 
 Soon a trembling, naked figure, to the earth my face was bowed, 
 For the curse of God gloomed o'er me like a bursting thunder-cloud. 
 Rolled away that fearful darkness, past my weakness, past my grief, 
 Washed with bitter tears I sat full in the sunshine of belief. 
 Weary eyes are looking eastward, whence the golded sun upsprings, 
 Cry the young and fervid spirits, clad with ardor as with wings : 
 Life and soul make wretched jangling, they should mingle to one Sire, 
 As the lovely voices mingle in a holy temple choir. 
 
 A Life Drama, 2 : Alex. Smith. 
 
 In Chapter Twenty-seventh will be found several poems 
 illustrating this kind of representation, constructed from 
 beginning to end according to the method of a single 
 simile or allegory. Notice, especially, The Deserted House, 
 by Tennyson, the Nocturne, by Aldrich, and The Wind 
 and Stream, and The Tides, by Bryant. 
 
 We have noticed elsewhere in this work, that there are 
 two motives in using language, corresponding respectively 
 to those underlying discoursive and dramatic elocution 
 (see page 33). One motive is to express what is within 
 
PURE ILLUSTRATIVE REPRESENTATION. 
 
 the mind ; the other is to describe what is outside it. In 
 poetic direct representation, these two motives are always 
 combined. A man cannot express himself poetically in 
 plain language without 'also describing some scene. But 
 the indirect representation of figurative language may be 
 poetic or descriptive in itself ; and, therefore, in using it, 
 the poet need think only of expressing thought so that 
 the hearer may appreciate it, e. g\ 
 
 And all my thoughts sail thither, 
 Freighted with prayers and hopes, and forward urged 
 Against all stress of accident, as, in 
 The Eastern Tale, against the wind and tide, 
 Great ships were drawn to the Magnetic Mountains. 
 
 Spanish Student: Longfellow. 
 
 But here the same form of representation is used in order 
 to describe a scene so that the hearer may imagine it : 
 
 And the moon rose over the city, 
 Behind the dark church-tower. 
 
 I saw her bright reflection 
 
 In the waters under me, 
 Like a golden goblet falling 
 
 And sinking into the sea. 
 
 Along the long black rafters 
 
 The wavering shadows lay, 
 And the current that came from the ocean 
 
 Seemed to lift and bear them away. 
 
 The Bridge: Idem. 
 
 Evidently, therefore, a complete analysis would give us, 
 besides indirect or figurative representation used for the 
 purpose of expression, the same used for the purpose of 
 description. But in rhetoric no discrimination is made 
 between expressional and descriptive purposes; and, as the 
 same principles apply to both, no practical advantage can 
 be derived from separating them in our present discussion. 
 
232 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 All that is to be said in the following chapters, therefore, 
 of either way of using figurative language will be treated 
 under the general head of illustrative representation. 
 
 For reasons already explained, the two principal figures 
 used for the purposes of illustration and this is true 
 whether representation be expressional or descriptive 
 are the simile and the metaphor. The former is of most 
 frequent occurrence in the earliest poems. Notice the 
 number of similes in this single passage from Homer : 
 
 As when a forest on the mountain top 
 
 Is in a blaze with the devouring flame, 
 
 And shines afar, so, while the warriors marched, 
 
 The brightness of their burnished weapons flashed 
 
 On every side, and upward to the sky. 
 
 And as when water-fowl of many tribes 
 
 Geese, cranes, and long-necked swans disport themselves 
 
 In Asia's fields beside Cayster's streams, 
 
 And to and fro they fly with screams, and light, 
 
 Flock after flock, and all the fields resound ; 
 
 So poured, from ships and tents, the swarming tribes 
 
 Into Scamander's plain, where fearfully 
 
 Earth echoed to the tramp of steeds and men ; 
 
 And there they mustered on the river's side, 
 
 Numberless as the flowers and leaves of spring. 
 
 And as when flies in swarming myriads haunt 
 
 The herdsman's stalls in spring-time, when new milk 
 
 Has filled the pails, in such vast multitudes 
 
 Mustered the long-haired Greeks upon the plain, 
 
 Impatient to destroy the Trojan race. 
 
 Then, as the goatherds, when their mingled flocks 
 
 Are in the pastures, know, and set apart 
 
 Each his own scattered charge, so did the chiefs, 
 
 Moving among them, marshal each his men. 
 
 Iliad, 2 : Bryant's Trans. 
 
 In modern poetry the extended simile is much less of a 
 favorite than the metaphor. Yet we find many instances 
 of the former. Here is a fine simile from The Lovers of 
 Gudrun, by Morris : 
 
EXAMPLES OF SIMILES. 233 
 
 As a gray dove, within the meshes caught, 
 Flutters a little, then lies still again, 
 Ere wildly beat its wings with its last pain, 
 So once or twice her passion, as she spake, 
 Rose to her throat, and yet might not outbreak 
 Till that last word was spoken ; then, as stung 
 By pain on pain, her arms abroad she flung, 
 And wailed aloud. 
 
 The Earthly Paradise. 
 
 Here is one of Milton's similes, highly commended by 
 Herbert Spencer in his essay on "The Philosophy of 
 Style," as affording " a fine instance of a sentence, well 
 arranged alike in the priority of the subordinate members, 
 in the avoidance of long and numerous suspensions, and 
 in the correspondence between the order of the clauses 
 and the sequence of the phenomena described, which, by 
 the way, is a further prerequisite to easy comprehension, 
 and therefore to effect." 
 
 As when a prowling wolf, 
 
 Whom hunger drives to seek new haunt for prey, 
 Watching where shepherds pen their flocks at eve, 
 In hurdled cotes amid the fields secure, 
 Leaps o'er the fence with ease into the fold : 
 Or as a thief bent to unhoard the cash 
 Of some rich burgher, whose substantial doors, 
 Cross-barred and bolted fast, fear no assault, 
 In at the window climbs, or o'er the tiles : 
 So clomb the first grand thief into God's fold ; 
 So since into his church lewd hirelings climb. 
 
 Paradise Lost, 4. 
 
 And here is one from Shakespear in which metaphors 
 also are included. Notice the graphic example of pure 
 representation in the third and fourth lines : 
 
 This battle fares like to the morning's war, 
 When dying clouds contend with growing light ; 
 What time the shepherd, blowing of his nails, 
 Can neither call it perfect day nor night. 
 
234 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 Now sways it this way like a mighty sea, 
 Forced by the tide to combat with the wind ; 
 Now sways it that way like the self-same sea, 
 Forced to retire by fury of the wind : 
 Sometimes the flood prevails : and then the wind : 
 Now one the better, then another best ; 
 Both tugging to be victors, breast to breast, 
 Yet neither conqueror nor conquered : 
 So is the equal poise of this fell war. 
 
 3 Henry VI., ii., 5. 
 
 Illustrative representation forms the substance of much 
 of our lyric poetry, both serious and comic, as in the 
 following containing only a single simile : 
 
 The bird let loose in eastern skies, 
 
 When hastening fondly home, 
 Ne'er stoops to earth her wing, nor flies 
 
 Where idle warblers roam ; 
 But high she shoots through air and light, 
 
 Above all low delay, 
 Where nothing earthly bounds her flight, 
 
 Nor shadow dims her way. 
 
 So grant me, God, from every care 
 
 And stain of passion free, 
 Aloft through Virtue's purer air, 
 
 To hold my course to thee ! 
 No sin to cloud, no lure to stay 
 
 My soul, as home she springs ; 
 Thy sunshine on her joyful way, 
 
 Thy freedom in her wings ! 
 
 The Bird Let Loose : Thomas Moore. 
 
 Here again is a very felicitous use of figures, which it 
 may prove interesting to compare with the same author's 
 method in direct representation, as employed in his O 
 Mary Go and Call the Cattle Home, and The Fishermen* 
 quoted in Chapter Twenty-seventh. 
 
 There sits a bird on every tree ; 
 Sing heigh-ho. 
 
EXAMPLES OF SIMILES. 235 
 
 There sits a bird on every tree ; 
 And courts his love as I do thee ; 
 Sing heigh-ho and heigh-ho. 
 Young maids must marry. 
 
 There grows a flower on every bough ; 
 
 Sing heigh-ho. 
 
 There grows a flower on every bough ; 
 Its petals kiss I '11 show you how : 
 
 Sing heigh-ho and heigh-ho. 
 Young maids must marry. 
 
 From sea to stream the salmon roam ; 
 
 Sing heigh-ho. 
 
 From sea to stream the salmon roam ; 
 Each finds a mate and leads her home ; 
 
 Sing heigh-ho and heigh-ho. 
 Young maids must marry. 
 
 The sun 's a bridegroom, earth a bride ; 
 
 Sing heigh-ho. 
 
 They court from morn to eventide ; 
 The earth shall pass, but love abide ; 
 
 Sing heigh-ho and heigh-ho. 
 Young maids must marry. 
 
 Sing Heigh- Ho : Kingsley. 
 
 Metaphors, to most readers, do not appear to be as fre- 
 quent or as fine in the most ancient as in modern verse. 
 This seems to be so, first, because what is once a meta- 
 phorical use of a word comes, after a time, to be accepted 
 as an ordinary use of it, if not as a secondary meaning for 
 it. Homer may have originated the meanings given to 
 the words pillar and shoulder in the following passages, 
 and to his contemporaries each may have appeared to be 
 a very significant metaphor. But the same words, or their 
 equivalents in our language, used in the same senses, are 
 so familiar to us to-day, that many, without having their 
 attention drawn to the fact, do not recognize them to 
 be metaphors at all. 
 
236 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 The slain, though stranger born, 
 Had been a pillar of the realm of Troy. 
 
 Iliad 1 6 : Bryant's Translation^ 
 
 Thrice Patroclus climbed 
 A shoulder of the lofty wall. 
 
 Idem. 
 
 A second reason is that the metaphor, inasmuch as it 
 depends for its force upon its suggestiveness, necessarily 
 requires some sympathy on the part of the reader with 
 the conditions of knowledge, thought, and feeling in the 
 age to which it is addressed. We can imagine a time, for 
 instance, in which the following passages, even if they 
 could be conceived, would not be received with much 
 favor. Yet they represent the forms of expression which, 
 at the present time, are the most stirring and popular. 
 
 Ignorance is the curse of God. 
 
 2 Henry VI., iv., 7 : Shakespear. 
 
 I tell thee, Jack Cade, the clothier, means to dress the commonwealth^ 
 and turn it, and set a new nap upon it. 
 
 2 Henry VI., iv., 2 : Idem. 
 
 One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. 
 
 Troilus and Cressida* iii., 3 : Idem. 
 
 Here once the embattled farmers stood, 
 And fired the shot heard round the world. 
 Hymn Sung at Completion of the Concord Monument : Emerson. 
 
 They take the rustic murmur of their bourg 
 For the great wave that echoes round the world. 
 
 Idyls of the King, Geraint and Enid : Tennyson. 
 
 Autels que la raison en montant submergea 
 
 La Temple, in La Legend des Siecles : Hugo. 
 
 A third reason is that, while the ancient figures of 
 speech were prompted often by a desire to express 
 thought adequately, the modern are prompted mainly by 
 a desire to express it aesthetically. For this reason, inas- 
 
EXAMPLES OF METAPHORS. 237 
 
 much as an end aimed at is usually the end attained, 
 modern metaphors like modern paintings are, more often 
 than ancient ones, results of the highest degree of artistic 
 care and skill. Notice the following : 
 
 Still as a slave before his lord, 
 
 The ocean hath no blast ; 
 His great bright eye most silently 
 
 Up to the moon is cast. 
 
 The A ncient Mariner . Coleridge. 
 
 I should make very forges of my cheeks, 
 That would to cinders burn up modesty, 
 Did I but speak thy deeds. 
 
 Othello, iv., 2 : Shakespear. 
 
 I sate upon the deck and watched all night, 
 And listened through the stars for Italy. 
 
 Thus my Italy 
 
 Was stealing on us. Genoa broke with day ; 
 The Doria's long pale palace striking out, 
 From green hills in advance of the white town, 
 A marble Jinger dominant to ships, 
 Seen glimmering through the uncertain gray of dawn. 
 
 Aurora Leigh, 7 : Mrs. Browning. 
 
 The simile is used mainly when there is only a moderate 
 degree of excitation. When this is great, the mind flies 
 naturally to the metaphor, as a more concentrated form of 
 expression, representing many thoughts in a few words. 
 So Macduff, in the second act of Macbeth, on seeing 
 the dead Duncan, cries out : 
 
 Confusion now hath made his masterpiece. 
 Most sacrilegious murther hath broke ope 
 The Lord's anointed temple and stole thence 
 The life o' the building ! 
 
 ****** 
 Approach the chamber, and destroy your sight 
 With a new Gorgon. . . . 
 Shake off this downy sleep, death's counterfeit, 
 
238 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 And look on death itself ! up, up, and see 
 The great doom's image ! Malcolm ! Banquo ! 
 As from your graves rise up, and walk like sprites 
 To countenance this horror ! Ring the bell. 
 
 Macb.: Had I but died an hour before this chance 
 I had lived a blessed time ; for from this instant 
 There 's nothing serious in mortality ; 
 All is but toys ; renown and grace is dead j 
 The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees 
 Is left this vault to brag of. 
 
 Macbeth, ii., i : Shakespear. 
 
 The same abundant use of metaphorical language will 
 be found in most of Shakespear's scenes representing 
 quarrelling and love, like those, for instance, in Romeo 
 and Juliet. This form, too, as we know, is that adopted 
 in impassioned love lyrics. 
 
 From the meadow your walks have left so sweet 
 
 That whenever a March-wind sighs 
 He sets the jewel-print of your feet 
 
 In violets blue as your eyes, 
 To the woody hollows in which we meet 
 
 And the valleys of Paradise. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Queen rose of the rosebud, garden of girls, 
 
 Come hither, the dances are done, 
 In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls, 
 
 Queen lily and rose in one ; 
 Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls, 
 
 To the flowers, and be their sun. 
 
 ****** 
 She is coming, my own, my sweet ; 
 
 Were it ever so airy a tread, 
 My heart would hear her and beat, 
 
 Were it earth in an earthy bed ; 
 My dust would hear her and beat, 
 
 Had I lain for a century dead ; 
 
EXAMPLES OF METAPHORS. 239 
 
 Would start and tremble under her feet, 
 And blossom in purple and red. 
 
 Maud : Tennyson. 
 
 Illustrative, like direct, representation may be used, of 
 course, for wit and humor. 
 
 When Loveless married Lady Jenny, 
 Whose beauty was the ready penny ; 
 " I chose her," says he, " like old plate, 
 Not for the fashion but the weight." 
 
 Elegant Extracts. 
 
 You beat your pate, and fancy wit will come j 
 Knock as you please, there 's nobody at home. 
 
 Epigram : Pope. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 PURE REPRESENTATION IN THE POETRY OF HOMER. 
 
 How the Phenomena of Nature should be used in Representation Hornet 
 as a Model His Descriptions are Mental, Fragmentary, Specific, Typ- 
 ical The Descriptions of Lytton, Goethe, Morris, Southey, etc 
 Homer's Descriptions also Progressive Examples Dramatic Poems 
 should show the same Traits Homer's Illustrative Representation. 
 
 TJAVING found now how poetry through pure rep- 
 resentation, whether direct or illustrative, is able 
 to give definite expression to thoughts and feelings, let 
 us take up the second question proposed in Chapter 
 Twentieth, and try to find how an artist desirous of rep- 
 resenting his own thoughts and feelings must use the 
 phenomena of nature in order to do this in the most effec- 
 tive way. In answering this question, it is essential that 
 we start with a proper standard. Fortunately, we can get 
 one universally acknowledged to be sufficient for our pur- 
 pose, in the works of Homer, and this too to say much 
 less than is deserved in a sufficiently accurate English 
 translation. So far at least as concerns the passages 
 to be quoted in this discussion, all have been verified 
 by comparing them with the original text. These poems 
 of Homer have stood the tests of centuries, and there are 
 reasons why they have survived them. The consideration 
 which should interest us most in the present connection, 
 is the fact that the poems were produced by a man who 
 spoke directly from the first promptings of nature ; a man 
 
HOMER 'S REPRESENTA TIVE METHODS. 241 
 
 upon whom the methods of representation in other arts, 
 and of presentation as used in science and philosophy, had 
 had the least possible influence. In his works, therefore, 
 better than in any others with which, in our day, we can 
 become acquainted, we can study the tendencies of poetry 
 in its most spontaneous and unadulterated form. Let us 
 begin here, therefore, by examining some of the poetry of 
 Homer, and trying to find out how he dealt with the 
 phenomena of nature. 
 
 As we pursue our inquiry, one feature with reference to 
 his methods should impress us immediately, and it may as 
 well be mentioned before we take up any particular pas- 
 sages, because it is apparent in all of them. It may be in- 
 dicated by saying that the Homeric representations are all 
 mental. They fulfil in this respect the requirement al- 
 ready mentioned many times in this work that the prod- 
 ucts of art should represent both man and nature. By 
 saying that the Homeric descriptions are mental, it is 
 meant that they show that there is a mind between the 
 phenomena of nature and the account of them that we 
 get in the poetry a mind addressing our minds. Not 
 that this mind distorts the objects which it has perceived 
 and describes; the fact is just the opposite. Homer's 
 representations are pure in the highest sense ; yet they 
 are not like those of a guide-book or map. He suggests 
 his picture by telling us about those features of it that 
 have had an effect upon him as a thinking being, or, what 
 is the same thing that he expects will have an effect upon 
 us. What he tells us is true to nature, but not, by any 
 means, all the truth concerning it. Certain parts of the 
 scenes presumably witnessed have arrested his attention, 
 and suggested certain inferences to him. These parts, 
 consciously or unconsciously, he selects and arranges in 
 
242 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 ways that arrest our attention as they have arrested his. 
 In this sense it is that his descriptions are mental. Let 
 us look now at some of them. Here is one of his accounts 
 of a man, and another of a homestead, both very simple, 
 but for this very reason admirably adapted to our present 
 purpose. 
 
 And first, ^Eneas, with defiant mien 
 
 And nodding casque, stood forth. He held his shield 
 
 Before him, which he wielded right and left. 
 
 And shook his brazen spear. 
 
 Iliad, Book 20 : Bryant's Trans. 
 
 He wedded there 
 
 A daughter of Adrastus, and he dwelt 
 Within a mansion filled with wealth ; broad fields 
 Fertile in corn were his, and many rows 
 Of trees and vines around him ; large his flocks, 
 And great his fame as one expert to wield, 
 Beyond all other Greeks, the spear in war. 
 
 Iliad, 14 : Bryanfs Trans. 
 
 Notice now, in the second place, that these descriptions 
 are fragmentary > the items mentioned in them being few. 
 They present us with just such incomplete glimpses as 
 one would obtain or remember amid circumstances in 
 which the persons or objects observed would form parts 
 of larger objects of consideration, while at the same time 
 all of them, or, perhaps, he himself might be in motion. 
 
 Notice, in the third place, that the descriptions are spe- 
 cific. Of the few items that are mentioned, we have a 
 very definite account in the " defiant mien," the " nodding 
 casque," the shaking " shield " and " spear," the "mansion 
 filled with wealth," the " broad fields fertile in corn," the 
 "rows of trees," the "vines," the "large flocks," and the 
 " expert " in wielding " the spear." There is no uncer- 
 tainty of outline here, and therefore there is no doubt in 
 
HOMER'S REPRESENTATIVE METHODS. 243 
 
 the mind of the reader as to whether or not the author 
 has taken his descriptions from nature. The whole im- 
 pression conveyed is that he is describing the appearance 
 of some particular man and homestead, and of no other. 
 
 Notice also, in the fourth place, that the descriptions, 
 while specific, are also typical. The features spoken of 
 are such as to indicate the genus or kind of person or 
 thing that is represented. So fully is this the case, that 
 the few specific items mentioned, like the few bold out- 
 lines of a painter's sketch, suggest every thing that the 
 imagination really needs in order to make out a complete 
 picture. This fact makes it possible for them to be few 
 and definite, and yet distinctly representative. They do 
 not include all the objects that might be seen, all that 
 might be photographed, but only a few of them. At the 
 same time, they are those which in the circumstances 
 would be likely to attract any one's eye, those from 
 which, and from which only, even if one saw the scene, he 
 would be likely to draw his impressions with reference to 
 the whole of it. Some of my readers may remember that 
 Timothy Titcomb, 1 in giving advice to young men intend- 
 ing to go into ladies' society, does not bid them attend 
 mainly to that which shall make them appear intelligent 
 or moral. Not at all. He writes from the view-point of 
 a man of common-sense, understanding human nature. 
 He advises them to attend to their neckties. The truth 
 is, that our first view of a person always lights upon some 
 one or two prominent features, the eyes, lips, smile, hand, 
 gait, coat, or necktie, as the case may be, which, by ab- 
 sorbing our attention, causes us to overlook every thing 
 else. In fact, we always remember people, and houses, 
 and localities, by these single and simple, often very ab- 
 
 1 Timothy Titcomb's Letters : J. G. HOLLAND. 
 
244 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 surd, things, which are instantly suggested whenever our 
 minds recur to that for which, so far as concerns our recol- 
 lection of it, they stand. It is mainly this fact with refer- 
 ence to memory that Robert Bulwer Lytton illustrates in 
 his touching little poem, Aux Italiens. 
 
 ******* 
 
 Meanwhile I was thinking of my first love 
 
 As I had not been thinking of aught for years ; 
 
 Till over my eyes there began to move 
 Something that felt like tears. 
 
 I thought of the dress that she wore last time 
 When we stood 'neath the cypress trees together, 
 
 In that lost land, in that soft clime, 
 In the crimson evening weather ; 
 
 Of that muslin dress (for the eve was hot), 
 
 And her warm white neck, in its golden chain, 
 
 And her full soft hair, just tied in a knot, 
 And falling loose again. 
 
 And the jasmine flower in her fair young breast, 
 (O, the faint, sweet smell of that jasmine flower !) 
 
 And the one bird singing alone to his nest ; 
 And the one star over the tower. 
 
 I thought of our little quarrels and strife, 
 
 And the letter that brought me back my ring ; 
 
 And it all seemed then, in the waste of life, 
 Such a very little thing ! 
 
 For I thought of her grave below the hill, 
 Which the sentinel cypress-tree stands over ; 
 
 And I thought "Were she only living still, 
 How I could forgive her and love her ! " 
 
 And I swear as I thought of her thus in that hour, 
 
 And of how, after all, old things are best, 
 That I smelt the smell of that jasmine flower 
 
 Which she used to wear in her breast. 
 
 It smelt so faint, and it smelt so sweet, 
 It made me creep, and it made me cold > 
 
HOMER'S REPRESENTATIVE METHODS. 24$ 
 
 Like the scent that steals from the crumbling sheet 
 Where a mummy is half unrolled. 
 
 And I turned and looked : she was sitting there, 
 
 In a dim box over the stage ; and drest 
 In that muslin dress, with that full soft hair, 
 
 And that jasmine in her breast. 
 
 My thinking of her, or the music's strain, 
 Or something which never will be exprest, 
 
 Had brought her back from the grave again, 
 With the jasmine in her breast. 
 
 But O, the smell of that jasmine flower, 
 
 And O, that music ! and O, the way 
 That voice rang out from the dunjon tower : 
 
 Non ti scordar di me, 
 Non ti scordar di me ! 
 
 It is in accordance with the workings of observation 
 and memory illustrated here, that the poet, if he desire to 
 describe persons or things precisely as they would be re- 
 called by a narrator who had perceived them, must be 
 careful to mention but a few items in his representation, 
 and these very specifically, so that they will seem to have 
 been seen by him, and not merely imagined. He must 
 choose these items too, so that they will be characteristic 
 or typical of the whole nature of the objects or transac- 
 tions of which they form parts. He must dwell upon 
 those features which would naturally attract the attention 
 of a spectator and impress him. These principles are so 
 important, and so frequently illustrated in the poetry of 
 Homer, that, before dismissing the subject, it will not be 
 out of place to give several examples of them. Notice 
 every thing in the following, but especially the italicized 
 phrases : 
 
246 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 The helm 
 
 Of massive brass was vain to stay the blow : 
 The weapon pierced it and the bone, and stained 
 The brain with blood ; it felled him rushing on. 
 The monarch stripped the slain, and, leaving them 
 With their -white bosoms bare, went on to slay 
 Isus and Antiphus, King Priam's sons. 
 
 Iliad, ii : Bryant's Trans. 
 
 Meanwhile 
 
 Antilochus against his charioteer, 
 Mydon, the brave son of Atymnias, hurled 
 A stone that smote his elbow as he wheeled 
 His firm-paced steeds in flight. He dropped the reins, 
 Gleaming with ivory as they trailed in dust. 
 Antilochus leaped forward, smiting him 
 Upon the temples with his sword. He fell 
 Gasping amidst the sand, his head immersed 
 Up to his shoulders for the sand was deep, 
 And there remained till he was beaten down 
 
 Before the horses' hoofs. 
 
 Iliad, 5 : Idem. 
 
 And now the mighty spearman, Phyleus' son, 
 Drew near and smote him with his trenchant lance 
 Where meet the head and spine, and pierced the neck 
 Beneath the tongue ; and forth the weapon came 
 Between the teeth. He fell, and in the fall 
 Gnashed with his teeth upon the cold, bright blade. 
 
 Iliad, 5 : Idem. 
 
 Their beloved wives meanwhile, 
 
 And their young children, stood and watched the walls, 
 With aged men among them, while the youths 
 Marched on, with Mars and Pallas at their head, 
 Both wrought in gold, with golden garments on, 
 Stately and large in form, and over all 
 Conspicuous in bright armor, as became 
 The gods ; the rest were of an humbler size. 
 
 Iliad, 1 8 : Idem. 
 
 Meantime the assembled Greeks 
 Sat looking where the horses scoured the plain 
 And filled the air with dust. Idomeneus, 
 
HOMER'S REPRESENTATIVE METHODS. 
 
 The lord of Crete, descried the coursers first, 
 
 For on the height he sat above the crowd. 
 
 He heard the chief encouraging his steeds, 
 
 And knew him, and he marked before the rest 
 
 A courser, chestnut-colored, save a spot 
 
 Upon the middle of the forehead, white, 
 
 And round as the full moon. And then he stood 
 
 Upright, and from his place harangued the Greeks. 
 
 Iliad, 23 : Idem. 
 
 The following is a very different kind of description, but 
 notice in it the same characteristics what an air of reality 
 is given to the whole by the specificness with which a few 
 features only, and these the typical features likely to im- 
 press the spectator, are mentioned. Speaking of Heca- 
 mede it is said : 
 
 First she drew forth a table fairly wrought, 
 
 Of polished surface, and -with steel-blue feet, 
 
 And on it placed a brazen tray which bore 
 
 A thirst-provoking onion, honeycomb, 
 
 And sacred meal of wheat. Near these she set 
 
 A noble beaker which the ancient chief 
 
 Had brought from home, embossed with studs of gold. 
 
 Four were its handles, and each handle showed 
 
 Two golden turtles feeding, while below 
 
 Two others formed the base. Another hand 
 
 Could scarce have raised that beaker from its place, 
 
 But Nestor lifted it with ease. The maid, 
 
 Fair as a goddess, mingled Pramnian wine, 
 
 And grated o'er it, with a rasp of brass, 
 
 A goat's-milk cheese, and, sprinkling the white flour 
 
 Upon it, bade them drink. With this they quenched 
 
 Their parching thirst, and then amused the time 
 
 With pleasant talk. Patroclus to the door 
 
 Meantime, a god-like presence, came, and stood. 
 
 The old man, as he saw him, instantly 
 
 Rose from his princely seat and seized his hand, 
 
 And led him in and bade him sit ; but he 
 
 Refused the proffered courtesy, and said : 
 
 Iliad, 1 1 : Idem. 
 
248 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 William von Humboldt, in his criticism of Goethe's 
 Hermann and Dorothea, directs attention to a similar 
 characteristic in the passage in which Goethe makes his 
 hero describe his first meeting with the heroine. Here are 
 Hermann's words : 
 
 Now my eyes, as I made my way along the new street there, 
 
 Happen'd to light on a wagon, built of the heaviest timber, 
 
 Drawn by a pair of steers of the largest breed and stoutest. 
 
 By their side a maid with vigorous step was walking, 
 
 Holding a long staff up to guide the strong pair onward, 
 
 Starting them now, then stopping them, deftly did she guide them. 
 
 One who was less of an artist, instead of revealing in a 
 single glance the sturdy swinging gait and deftly wielded 
 staff, which were enough to account for the young peas- 
 ant's falling in love with Dorothea, would have given us 
 a lengthy description of the color of her hair and eyes, 
 the crook of her nose, the pout of her lips, the whiteness 
 of her teeth, the number of the dimples on her cheeks, 
 with a minute enumeration probably of all the articles of 
 her wearing apparel, as in the following from The Lovers 
 of Gudrun, by William Morris : 
 
 That spring was she just come to her full height, 
 Low-bosomed yet she was, and slim and light, 
 Yet scarce might she grow fairer from that day ; 
 Gold were the locks wherewith the wind did play, 
 Finer than silk, waved softly like the sea 
 After a three days' calm, and to her knee 
 Wellnigh they reached ; fair were the white hands laid 
 Upon the door-posts where the dragons played ; 
 Her brow was smooth now, and a smile began 
 To cross her delicate mouth, the snare of man ; 
 For some thought rose within the heart of her 
 That made her eyes bright, her cheeks ruddier 
 Than was their wont, yet were they delicate 
 As are the changing steps of high heaven's gate ; 
 Bluer than gray her eyes were, somewhat thin 
 
HOMER'S REPRESENTATIVE METHODS. 249 
 
 Her marvellous red lips ; round was her chin, 
 
 Cloven and clear wrought ; like an ivory tower 
 
 Rose up her neck from love's white-veiled bower. 
 
 But in such lordly raiment was she clad 
 
 As midst its threads the scent of southlands had, 
 
 And on its hem the work of such-like hands 
 
 As deal with silk and gold in sunny lands. 
 
 Too dainty seemed her feet to come anear 
 
 The guest-worn threshold-stone. So stood she there 
 
 And rough the world about her seemed to be, 
 
 A rude heap cast up from the weary sea. 
 
 The Earthly Paradise. 
 
 In a similar strain he describes Olaf : 
 
 Great-limbed was Olaf Hauskuldson, well knit, 
 And like a chief upon his horse did sit ; 
 Clear-browed and wide-eyed was he, smooth of skin 
 Through fifty rough years ; of his mother's kin, 
 The Erse king's daughter, did his short lip tell, 
 And dark-lashed, gray-blue eyes ; like a clear bell 
 His voice was yet, despite of waves and wind, etc., etc. 
 
 Idem. 
 
 Imagine a man telling a story in natural conversation, 
 and going into these minute particulars. Imagine him 
 noticing them in the presence of the characters described. 
 To conceive of his doing it is almost impossible. There- 
 fore the detailing of them imparts an air of unreality to 
 the narrative ; and for this reason makes it also uninter- 
 esting. There is much excellence, however, in these lines 
 of Morris, aside from that which is here criticised. To 
 recognize just how uninteresting this kind of description 
 can be, as well as how much less it really tells us about 
 the persons described than the kind of representation ex- 
 emplified in Homer and in Hermann's glimpse of Doro- 
 thea, let us take a passage less excellent in other regards 
 than that of Morris. It is from Southey's Thalaba, by 
 many considered his best poem : 
 
25O POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 The stranger was an ancient man, 
 Yet one whose green old age 
 Bore the fair characters of temperate youth ; 
 So much of manhood's strength his limbs retained, 
 It seemed he needed not the staff he bore. 
 His beard was long and gray and crisp ; 
 Lively his eyes and quick, 
 And reaching over them 
 The large broad eyebrow curled. 
 His speech was copious, and his winning words 
 Enriched with knowledge that the attentive youth 
 Sat listening with a thirsty joy. 
 
 Notice this also : 
 
 Black were his eyes and bright ; 
 
 The sunny hue of health 
 Glowed on his tawny cheek ; 
 His lip was darkened by maturing life ; 
 Strong were his shapely limbs, his stature tall, 
 Peerless among Arabian youths was he. 
 
 Idem. 
 
 All that is given us in these descriptions might be 
 said of a thousand men that everybody meets in a life- 
 time. Notice, too, in the same poem, this microscopic 
 description of a locust : 
 
 The admiring girl surveyed 
 
 His outspread sails of green ; 
 
 His gauzy underwings, 
 One closely to the grass-green body furled, 
 One ruffled in the fall, and half unclosed. 
 
 She viewed his jet-orbed eyes, 
 
 His gossy gorget bright, 
 
 Green glittering in the sun ; 
 
 His plumy pliant horns, 
 
 That nearer as she gazed 
 Bent tremblingly before her breath. 
 She marked his yellow-circled front 
 
 With lines mysterious veined. 
 
HOMER'S REPRESENTATIVE METHODS. 2$l 
 
 This passage suggests a fifth characteristic of the Ho- 
 meric descriptions, which probably is the underlying and 
 determining cause of the last three. It is that they are 
 progressive, the fact that they always represent what is 
 in motion. They are constructed in fulfilment of that 
 principle of nature first noticed by Lessing in his cele- 
 brated criticism on " The Laocoon," in accordance with 
 which words represent ideas, feelings, events, whatever 
 it may be to which they give expression that follow one 
 another in the order of time. In the last passage quoted 
 from Homer we are not told what Hecamede found on 
 the table ; the poet pictures the maid in the act of spread- 
 ing the table and putting the different articles of food on 
 it. So in the following we are not told how Patroclus or 
 Juno looked when dressed ; but we are told how they 
 dressed themselves. The successive words in the descrip- 
 tions are all made to represent successive acts. 
 
 He spake : Patroclus, then in glittering brass, 
 Arrayed himself ; and first around his thighs 
 He put the beautiful greaves, and fastened them 
 With silver clasps ; around his chest he bound 
 The breastplate of the swift ^Eacides, 
 With star-like points, and richly chased ; he hung 
 The sword, with silver studs and blade of brass, 
 Upon his shoulders, and with it the shield, 
 Solid and vast ; upon his gallant head 
 He placed the glorious helm with horsehair plume, 
 That grandly waved on high. Two massive spears 
 He took, that fitted well his grasp, but left 
 The spear which great Achilles only bore, 
 Heavy and huge and strong, and which no arm 
 Among the Greeks save his could poise. 
 
 Iliad, 16: Bryant, 
 
 She entered in 
 
 And closed the shining doors ; and first she took 
 Ambrosial water, washing every stain 
 
252 POETRY AS A REPRESENTA TIVE AR T. 
 
 From her fair limbs, and smoothed them with rich oil, 
 
 Ambrosial, soft, and fragrant, which, when touched 
 
 Within Jove's brazen halls, perfumed the air 
 
 Of earth and heaven. When thus her shapely form 
 
 Had been anointed, and her hands had combed 
 
 Her tresses, she arranged the lustrous curls, 
 
 Ambrosial, beautiful, that clustering hung 
 
 Round her immortal brow. And next she threw 
 
 Around her an ambrosial robe, the work 
 
 Of Pallas, all its web embroidered o'er 
 
 With forms of rare device. She fastened it 
 
 Over the breast with clasps of gold, and then 
 
 She passed about her waist a zone which bore 
 
 Fringes an hundred-fold, and in her ears 
 
 She hung her three-gemmed ear-rings, from whose gleam 
 
 She won an added grace. Around her head 
 
 The glorious goddess drew a flowing veil, 
 
 Just from the loom, and shining like the sun ; 
 
 And, last, beneath her bright white feet she bound 
 
 The shapely sandals. Gloriously arrayed 
 
 In all her ornaments, she left her bower. 
 
 Iliad, 14 : Idem. 
 
 So when Homer describes a camp, he connects it with 
 action ; we are told of a process of building or of demoli- 
 tion. 
 
 And ere the morning came, while earth was gray 
 With twilight, by the funeral pile arose 
 A chosen band of Greeks, who, going forth, 
 Heaped round it from the earth a common tomb 
 For all, and built a wall and lofty towers 
 Near it, a bulwark for the fleet and host. 
 And in the wall they fitted massive gates, 
 Through which there passed an ample chariot-way j 
 And on its outer edge they sank a trench, 
 Broad, deep, and planted it with pointed stakes. 
 So labored through the night the long-haired Greeks. 
 
 Iliad, 7 : Idem. 
 
 For those 
 
 Trusting in portents sent from Jupiter, 
 And their own valor, labored to break through 
 
HOMER'S REPRESENTATIVE METHODS. 2$$ 
 
 The massive rampart of the Greeks ; they tore 
 
 The galleries from the towers, and levelled down 
 
 The breastworks, heaved with levers from their place 
 
 The jutting buttresses which Argive hands 
 
 Had firmly planted to support the towers, 
 
 And brought them to the ground ; and thus they hoped 
 
 To force a passage to the Grecian camp. 
 
 Iliad, 12 : Idem. 
 
 Even in Homer's references to natural scenery, we find 
 every thing in constant motion. Notice these traits in his 
 description of the fire kindled by Vulcan in order to save 
 the Greeks from the flood. 
 
 The ground was dried ; the glimmering flood was staid. 
 
 As when the autumnal north- wind, breathing o'er 
 
 A newly watered garden, quickly dries 
 
 The clammy mould, and makes the tiller glad, 
 
 So did the spacious plain grow dry on which 
 
 The dead were turned to ashes. Then the god 
 
 Seized on the river with his glittering fires. 
 
 The elms, the willows, and the tamarisks 
 
 Fell, scorched to cinders, and the lotus-herbs, 
 
 Rushes, and reeds, that richly fringed the banks 
 
 Of that fair-flowing current, were consumed. 
 
 The eels and fishes, that were wont to glide 
 
 Hither and thither through the pleasant depths 
 
 And eddies, languished in the fiery breath 
 
 Of Vulcan, mighty artisan. The strength 
 
 Of the greatest river withered. 
 
 Iliad, 21 : Idem. 
 
 So a snow-storm seems interesting to him mainly be- 
 cause it is doing something, and can be used as an illus- 
 tration of something else that is doing something ; e. g., 
 
 As when the flakes 
 Of snow fall thick upon a winter-day, 
 When Jove the Sovereign pours them down on men, 
 Like arrows, from above ; he bids the wind 
 Breathe not : continually he pours them down, 
 
254 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 And covers every mountain-top and peak, 
 And flowery mead, and field of fertile tilth, 
 And sheds them on the havens and the shores 
 Of the gray deep ; but there the waters bound 
 The covering of snows, all else is white 
 Beneath that fast-descending shower of Jove j 
 So thick the shower of stones from either side 
 Flew toward the other. 
 
 Iliad, 12 : Idem. 
 
 Notice also the account of the action of the water in 
 this, how he portrays the struggle of Achilles with it, in 
 such a way as to make the whole living and graphic. 
 Here, too, the mental quality appears again. The water 
 itself seems interesting to the narrator, mainly because of 
 its connection with the actions of a man with whom 
 he sympathizes. 
 
 And then Achilles, mighty with the spear, 
 
 From the steep bank leaped into the mid-stream, 
 
 While, foul with ooze, the angry River raised 
 
 His waves, and pushed along the heaps of dead, 
 
 Slain by Achilles. These, with mighty roar 
 
 As of a bellowing ox, Scamander cast 
 
 Aground ; the living with his whirling gulfs 
 
 He hid, and saved them in his friendly streams. 
 
 In tumult terribly the surges rose 
 
 Around Achilles, beating on his shield, 
 
 And made his feet to stagger, till he grasped 
 
 A tall, fair-growing elm upon the bank. 
 
 Down came the tree, and in its loosened roots 
 
 Brought the earth with it ; the fair stream was checked 
 
 By the thick branches, and the prostrate trunk 
 
 Bridged it from side to side. Achilles sprang 
 
 From the deep pool, and fled with rapid feet 
 
 Across the plain in terror. Nor did then 
 
 The mighty river-god refrain, but rose 
 
 Against him with a darker crest. . . . 
 
 . . . . Askance 
 
 He fled ; the waters with a mighty roar 
 
 Followed him close. As when a husbandman 
 
HOMER'S REPRESENTATIVE METHODS. 2$$ 
 
 Leads forth, from some dark spring of earth, a rill 
 
 Among his planted garden-beds, and clears 
 
 Its channel, spade in hand, the pebbles there 
 
 Move with the current, which runs murmuring down 
 
 The sloping surface and outstrips its guide, 
 
 So rushed the waves where'er Achilles ran, 
 
 Swift as he was ; for mightier are the gods 
 
 Than men. As often as the noble son 
 
 Of Peleus made a stand, in hope to know 
 
 Whether the deathless gods of the great heaven 
 
 Conspired to make him flee, so often came 
 
 A mighty billow of the Jove-born stream 
 
 And drenched his shoulders. Then again he sprang 
 
 Away ; the rapid torrent made his knees 
 
 To tremble, while it swept, where'er he trod, 
 
 The earth from underneath his feet. He looked 
 
 To the broad heaven above him and complained. 
 
 Iliad, 21 : Bryanfs Trs. 
 
 Look now at the way in which Homer describes the 
 scenes by which some of his heroes pass in flight. How 
 few comparatively are the objects that are noticed, yet 
 how specifically do they indicate the typical features, 
 which in such circumstances one would see and re- 
 member, and from which, in the rapid glance that he 
 would have of every thing, he would derive all his im- 
 pressions. 
 
 They passed the Mount of View, 
 And the wind-beaten fig-tree, and they ran 
 Along the public way by which the wall 
 Was skirted, till they came where from the ground 
 The two fair springs of eddying Xanthus rise, 
 One pouring a warm stream from which ascends 
 And spreads a vapor like a smoke from fire ; 
 The other even in summer, sending forth 
 A current cold as hail, or snow, or ice. 
 And there were broad stone basins, fairly wrought, 
 At which in time of peace before the Greeks 
 Had landed on the plain, the Trojan dames 
 
POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 And their fair daughters washed their sumptuous robes. 
 Past these they swept ; one fled and one pursued, 
 A brave man fled, a braver followed close, 
 And swiftly both. 
 
 Iliad, 22 : Idem. 
 
 Meantime the Trojans fled across the plain 
 
 Toward the wild fig-tree growing near the tomb 
 
 Of ancient Ilus, son of Dardanus, 
 
 Eager to reach the town ; and still the son 
 
 Of Atreus followed, shouting, and with hands 
 
 Blood-stained and dust-begrimmed. And when they reached 
 
 The Scsean portals and the beechen tree, 
 
 They halted, waiting for the rear, like beeves 
 
 Chased panting by a lion who has come 
 
 At midnight on them, and has put the herd 
 
 To flight, and one of them to certain death. 
 
 ******* 
 Thus did Atrides Agamemnon chase 
 The Trojans ; still he slew the hindmost ; still 
 They fled before him. Many by his hand 
 Fell from their chariots prone, for terrible 
 Beyond all others with the spear was he. 
 But when he now was near the city wall, 
 The Father of immortals and of men 
 Came down from the high heaven, and took his seat 
 On many-fountained Ida. 
 
 Iliad, II : Idem. 
 
 Now contrast with these the following description. It 
 is not a poor one of its kind ; but all must perceive that a 
 poem characterized by many passages like it, could not be 
 in the highest degree interesting. Such descriptions, on 
 account of their lack of the qualities noticed in those of 
 Homer, tend to interrupt the plot and the interest felt in 
 its characters. Besides this, of the many items mentioned 
 here, few are described with sufficient specificness to make 
 us feel that they were really perceived, and not merely 
 fancied. 
 
HOMER'S REPRESENTATIVE METHODS. 
 
 It was broad moonlight, and obscure or lost 
 
 The garden beauties lay ; 
 
 But the great boundary rose distinctly marked. 
 
 These were no little hills, 
 
 No sloping uplands lifting to the sun 
 
 Their vineyards with fresh verdure, and the shade 
 
 Of ancient woods, courting the loiterer 
 
 To win the easy ascent ; stone mountains these, 
 
 Desolate rock on rock, 
 
 The burdens of the earth, 
 
 Whose snowy summits met the morning beam 
 
 When night was in the vale, whose feet were fixed 
 
 In the world's foundations. Thalaba beheld 
 
 The heights precipitous, 
 
 Impending crags, rocks unascendible, 
 
 And summits that had tired the eagle's wing : 
 
 " There is no way ! " he said. 
 
 Paler Oneiza grew, 
 
 And hung upon his arm a feebler weight. 
 
 But soon again to hope 
 
 Revives the Arabian maid, 
 
 As Thalaba imparts the sudden thought. 
 
 44 1 passed a river," cried the youth, 
 
 44 A full and copious stream. 
 
 The flowing waters cannot be restrained ; 
 
 And where they find or force their way, 
 
 There we perchance may follow ; thitherward 
 
 The current rolled along." 
 
 So saying, yet again in hope 
 
 Quickening their eager steps, 
 
 They turned them thitherward. 
 
 Silent and calm the river rolled along, 
 
 And at the verge arrived 
 
 Of that fair garden o'er a rocky bed, 
 
 Toward the mountain base 
 
 Still full and silent, held its even way. 
 
 But farther as they went, its deepening sound 
 
 Louder and louder in the distance rose, 
 
 As if it forced its stream 
 
 Straggling through crags along a narrow pass. 
 
2$8 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 And lo ! where, raving o'er a hollow course, 
 
 The ever-flowing flood 
 
 Foams in a thousand whirlpools. There adown 
 
 The perforated rock 
 
 Plunge the whole waters ; so precipitous, 
 
 So fathomless a fall, 
 
 That their earth-shaking roar came deadened up 
 
 Like subterranean thunders. 
 
 Thalaba, 7 : Southey. 
 
 The following description, similar in general character, 
 is more interesting, because it is more specific and shorter: 
 
 Onward amid the copse 'gan peep, 
 A narrow inlet, still and deep, 
 Affording scarce such breadth of brim, 
 As served the wild-duck's brood to swim. 
 Lost for a space, through thickets veering, 
 But broader when again appearing, 
 Tall rocks and tufted knolls their face 
 Could on the dark-blue mirror trace ; 
 And farther as the hunter strayed, 
 Still broader sweep its channels made. 
 The shaggy mounds no longer stood, 
 Emerging from entangled wood, 
 But, wave-encircled, seemed to float, 
 Like castle girdled with its moat ; 
 Yet broader fields extending still 
 Divide them from their parent hill, 
 Till each, retiring, claims to be 
 An islet in an inland sea. 
 
 Lady of the Lake, I : Scott. 
 
 But this is still more interesting, because it represents 
 action that is closely connected with the plot. 
 
 Then did Apollo and the god of sea 
 
 Consult together to destroy the wall 
 
 By turning on it the resistless might 
 
 Of rivers. . . . 
 
 . . . nine days against the wall 
 
 He bade their currents rush, while Jupiter 
 
 Poured constant rain, that floods might overwhelm 
 
HOMER'S REPRESENTATIVE METHODS. 259 
 
 The rampart ; and the god who shakes the earth, 
 
 Wielding his trident, led the rivers on. 
 
 He flung among the billows the huge beams 
 
 And stones which, with hard toil, the Greeks had laid 
 
 For the foundations. Thus he levelled all 
 
 Beside the hurrying Hellespont, destroyed 
 
 The bulwarks utterly, and overspread 
 
 The long, broad shore with sand. 
 
 Iliad, 12 : Bryants Trs. 
 
 The principles that apply to these representations of 
 persons and scenes in nature, apply also to conversa- 
 tions in dramatic poems. All lengthy descriptions or 
 declamatory passages that have nothing to do directly 
 with giving definiteness, character, and progress to the 
 plot, detract from the interest of the poem, considered as 
 a whole. The effect of these things upon the form is the 
 same as that of rubbish thrown into the current of a 
 stream it impedes the movement, and renders the water 
 less transparent. This is the chief reason why the works 
 of the dramatists of the age of the history of our literature 
 commonly called classical, like Dryden, Addison, Rowe, 
 Home, and Brooke, notwithstanding much that is ex- 
 cellent in their writings, have not been able to maintain 
 their popularity. Ordinary audiences do not go to the 
 theatre to be preached at in this style : 
 
 These are all virtues of a meaner rank 
 Perfections that are placed in bones and nerves. 
 A Roman soul is bent on higher views : 
 To civilize the rude, unpolished world, 
 And lay it under the restraint of laws ; 
 To make man mild and sociable to man ; 
 To cultivate the wild, licentious savage 
 With wisdom, discipline, and liberal arts, 
 The embellishments of life ; virtues like these 
 Make human nature shine, reform the soul, 
 And break our fierce barbarians into men. 
 
 Cato t i, 4 : Addison. 
 
260 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 Some may suppose that the chief reason why such pas- 
 sages as these, and those quoted from Southey, are not 
 popular, is because they manifest so few evidences of the 
 work of constructive imagination, by which is meant 
 mainly that they contain so little figurative language. 
 
 Yet, we have seen that some of Homer's descriptions 
 are equally lacking in figures. It is not merely this that 
 renders a description inartistic. It is its failure to be truly 
 representative. For this reason the mere addition to it of 
 figurative language would not remedy its defects. 
 
 This fact, however, will be considered at full in other 
 chapters. The present chapter will be closed with a few 
 quotations exemplifying, beyond what has been done in 
 the preceding passages, how Homer carries the principles 
 now under consideration into his illustrative representa- 
 tion. In the descriptions used in order to exemplify the 
 main thought in the following, will be found the same 
 characteristics as in those making up the main thought 
 in most of the preceding quotations. It will be noticed 
 that the items forming the features of every separate 
 figure, mentioned for the sake of comparison, are pre- 
 sented in the same mental, fragmentary, specific, typical 
 and progressive way with which we may now be supposed 
 to have become familiar. 
 
 The hero was aroused 
 
 To fury fierce as Mars when brandishing 
 
 His spear, or as a desolating flame 
 
 That rages on a mountain-side among 
 
 The thickets of a close-grown wood. His lips 
 
 Were white with foam ; his eyes from underneath 
 
 His frowning brows streamed fire ; and as he fought, 
 
 Upon the hero's temples fearfully 
 
 The helmet nodded. . . . 
 
 Through the serried lines 
 He could not break ; the Greeks in solid squares 
 
HOMER'S REPRESENTATIVE METHODS. 261 
 
 Resisted, like a rock that huge and high 
 
 By the gray deep abides the bufferings 
 
 Of the shrill winds and swollen waves that beat 
 
 Against it. Firmly thus the Greeks withstood 
 
 The Trojan host, and fled not. In a blaze 
 
 Of armor, Hector, rushing toward their ranks, 
 
 Fell on them like a mighty billow raised 
 
 By the strong cloud-born winds, that flings itself 
 
 On a swift ship, and whelms it in its spray. 
 
 Iliad, 15 : Bryants Try. 
 
 Then Pallas to Tydides Diomed 
 Gave strength and courage, that he might appear 
 Among the Achaians greatly eminent, 
 And win a glorious name. Upon his head 
 And shield she caused a constant flame to play, 
 Like to the autumnal star that shines in heaven 
 Most brightly when new-bathed in ocean tides. 
 Such light she caused to beam upon his crest 
 And shoulders, as she sent the warrior forth 
 Into the thick and tumult of the fight. 
 
 Iliad. 5 : Idem 
 
 All the Greeks 
 
 Meanwhile came thronging to the appointed place. 
 As swarming forth from cells within the rock, 
 Coming and coming still the tribe of bees 
 Fly in a cluster o'er the flowers of spring, 
 And some are darting out from right to left. 
 So from the ships and tents a multitude 
 Along the spacious beach in mighty throngs 
 Moved toward the assembly. 
 
 Iliad, 2 : Idem, 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 ALLOYED REPRESENTATION: ITS GENESIS. 
 
 Alloy introduces Unpoetic Elements into Verse All Classic Representation 
 Pure Tendencies in Poetic Composition leading to Alloyed Represen- 
 tation In Direct Representation In Illustrative Representation 
 Lawful to enlarge by Illustrations an Idea Great and Complex or Small 
 and Simple Descriptions of a Meal Sunset Peasant Sailor How 
 these Tendencies may introduce Alloy that does not represent Exag- 
 gerations in Love-Scenes In Descriptions of Natural Scenery, etc. 
 In Allegorical Poems and Sensational Plays. 
 
 "\7U r E will examine now the form of representation 
 which, in contrast to pure, has been termed al- 
 loyed. This latter, as has been said, while following in 
 the main the methods of picturing the thoughts that are 
 used in pure representation, always introduces something 
 into the picture in addition to what would naturally be 
 perceived in connection with circumstances like those that 
 are being detailed. At first thought, it might be sup- 
 posed that these additions would not greatly impair the 
 poetry in which we find them. But the fallacy of this 
 supposition will appear, when we recall that poetry is 
 an art, and that all art is representative. It follows from 
 this that the purer the representation, the purer will be 
 the art, and in the degree in which any thing is added to 
 the representation, any thing, that is, of such a nature 
 *hat in like circumstances it could not presumably 
 
 262 
 
GENESIS OF ALLO YED REPRESENTA TION. 263 
 
 have been perceived, in that degree will the product be 
 likely to lose its artistic qualities. 
 
 Some who may not recognize the truth of this state- 
 ment, when viewed from a theoretical standpoint, may, 
 when viewed from a practical. Let us look at it in this 
 way then : whatever is added to the representation must 
 come, in the last analysis, from the artist ; and from him, 
 when not exercising his legitimate artistic functions ; 
 when, instead of giving us a picture of nature and man, as 
 he finds them, he has begun to give us his own explana- 
 tions and theories concerning them. Now all explana- 
 tion and theories, as we know, are necessarily the out- 
 growth if not of ignorance or superstition at least of 
 the intellectual or spiritual condition of the age in which 
 one lives. For this reason, to a succeeding age they are 
 not satisfactory, even if they do not prove to be wholly 
 fallacious ; and a work of science or philosophy that is 
 made up of them usually dies, because men outgrow their 
 need of it, and do not care to keep it alive. A work of 
 artistic poetry, on the contrary, lives because its pages 
 image the phenomena of nature, and of human life, which 
 can really be perceived, and most of these remain from 
 age to age unchanged. A writer who confines himself to 
 these, which alone can be used legitimately in representa- 
 tion, is, as Jonson 1 said of Shakespear, " not of an age but 
 for all time " ; and this fact can be affirmed of men like 
 him alone. Out of the thousands of poems written in the 
 past, only those have come down to us, and are termed 
 classic, which are characterized by an absence of explana- 
 tions and theories, and a presence of that kind of repre- 
 sentation which has here been termed pure. How 
 important, then, it is for the poet of the present to under- 
 
 1 To the memory of my beloved master William Shakespear. 
 
264 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 stand just what the nature and requirements of this 
 pure representation are, and what are the methods of 
 rendering it alloyed that should be avoided. 
 
 We shall start at the beginning of our subject, if we 
 notice, first, certain influences tending to divert the poet 
 from his legitimate work, and causing him to depart from 
 the methods of pure representation. These will be con- 
 sidered in the present chapter. 
 
 Taking up first in order direct representation, it follows, 
 from what has been said already, that composition in the 
 plain language of this form can be nothing except prose, 
 the moment the writer ceases to think in pictures ; the 
 moment, therefore, that, without using figurative lan- 
 guage, he begins to be didactic or argumentative. Notice 
 how easy it would be to glide into prose from a passage 
 like the following. All that saves it, as it is, are the pic- 
 tures of William, of the two women, and of the old man, 
 which, as we read it, rise up irresistibly before the im- 
 agination. 
 
 " O Sir, when William died, he died at peace 
 
 With all men ; for I asked him, and he said, 
 
 He could not ever rue his marrying me. 
 
 I had been a patient wife : but, Sir, he said 
 
 That he was wrong to cross his father thus : 
 
 ' God bless him ! ' he said, ' and may he never know 
 
 The troubles I have gone through ! ' Then he turned 
 
 His face and passed unhappy that I am ! 
 
 But now, Sir, let me have my boy, for you 
 
 Will make him hard, and he will learn to slight 
 
 His father's memory ; and take Dora back, 
 
 And let all this be as it was before." 
 
 So Mary said, and Dora hid her face 
 
 By Mary. There was silence in the room } 
 
 And all at once the old man burst in sobs : 
 
 " I have been to blame to blame ! I have killed my son ! " 
 
 Dora : Tennyson. 
 
GENESIS OF ALLOYED REPRESENTATION. 26$ 
 
 Following chapters will contain so many contrasted 
 passages of pure and alloyed representation in the direct 
 form, that it would be superfluous to introduce any more 
 of them here. Besides this, whatever poetic principles 
 their introduction would illustrate, can be brought out as 
 well while we go on to consider what is a far more im- 
 portant part of our present discussion, namely, the influ- 
 ences tending to divert the poet from his legitimate work 
 when composing in figurative language. 
 
 As all illegitimate tendencies are usually developed in 
 some way from legitimate ones, perhaps the best method 
 of approaching our present subject is to start by recalling 
 what has been said before with reference to the necessity, in 
 order to express certain phases of thought, of a poet's 
 writing in figurative language. From this necessity it 
 follows that he will be impelled to use figures whenever, for 
 any reason, he feels that plain language will not serve his 
 purpose. Two circumstances, inclusive, in a broad way, 
 of many others, will justify him, as we can see, in having 
 this feeling : first, where the impression to be conveyed is 
 very great or complex in its nature. Very frequently, in 
 these circumstances, plain direct representation might not 
 only fail to do justice to the subject, but might positively 
 misrepresent it. Milton wished to convey an impression 
 of the size and power of Satan. It would scarcely have 
 been possible for him to do this adequately without mak- 
 ing his representation illustrative ; and by taking this 
 course he has furnished us with an example of a pure and 
 legitimate use of this form. 
 
 Thus Satan talking to his nearest mate, 
 With head uplift above the wave, and eyes 
 That sparkling blazed ; his other parts besides 
 Prone on the flood, extended long and large, 
 
266 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 Lay floating many a rood, in bulk as huge 
 As whom the fables name of monstrous size, 
 Titanian, or Earth-born, that warr'd on Jove, 
 Briaretis, or Typhon, whom the den 
 By ancient Tarsus held, or that sea-beast 
 Leviathan, which God of all his works 
 Created hugest that swim th' ocean stream : 
 Him haply slumb'ring on the Norway foam, 
 The pilot of some small night-founder'd skiff 
 Deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell, 
 With fixed anchor in his scaly rind 
 Moors by his side under the lea, while night 
 Invests the sea, and wished for morn delays : 
 So stretched out huge in length the arch-fiend lay, 
 Chained on the burning lake, nor ever thence 
 Had risen or heav'd his head. 
 
 Paradise Lost, I. 
 
 The second circumstance that justifies a writer in feeling 
 that he must not use direct representation is this : not 
 the fact that the impression to be conveyed is too great 
 or complex to be represented truthfully in this manner, 
 but just the opposite : the fact that it is too small and 
 simple to be represented adequately in this manner. 
 When the scene to be described is one that in itself is 
 fitted to awaken the deepest and grandest feelings and 
 thoughts, then, as in the concluding paragraph of " Paradise 
 Lost," given a few pages back, direct representation is all 
 that is needed. Wherever, in fact, the ideas to be pre- 
 sented are sublime or pathetic in themselves, the one 
 thing necessary is that the reader should realize them as 
 they are ; and any indirectness in the style rather hinders 
 than furthers this. A celebrated preacher once said tiiat 
 passages in his sermons that were full of thought he de- 
 livered calmly, but when he came to passages that were 
 destitute of it, he instinctively felt that it w^is time for 
 him to " holler." A similar principle is apt to control style 
 
GENESIS OF ALLOYED REPRESENTATION. 267 
 
 in poetry. Indeed, the main reason for the large pre- 
 ponderance of direct over illustrative representation in the 
 works of Homer and of the Greek tragedians, is un- 
 doubtedly this, that most of the persons and actions of 
 which they treated were heroic in their nature. They 
 needed only to be represented as they were, in order to 
 awaken admiration. It is the boast of our modern times, 
 however, that we have learned to take an interest in com- 
 mon men and actions. The poet feels that he misses that 
 which perhaps is noblest in his mission if he fail to help 
 the humblest of his fellows, physically, mentally, socially, 
 morally, and spiritually, by doing his best to lead them 
 out of the condition of poor Peter Bell. He, as you 
 may remember, 
 
 Had danced his round with Highland lasses ; 
 And he had lain beside his asses 
 On lofty Cheviot Hills : 
 
 ****** 
 And all along the indented coast, 
 Bespattered with the salt-sea foam ; 
 Where'er a knot of houses lay, 
 On headland, or in hollow bay ; 
 Sure never man like him did roam ! 
 
 ****** 
 He travelled here, he travelled there: 
 But not the value of a hair 
 Was heart or head the better. 
 
 ****** 
 In vain through every changeful year, 
 Did Nature lead him as before ; 
 A primrose by a river's brim, 
 A yellow primrose was to him, 
 And it was nothing more. 
 
 Peter Bell: Wordsworth. 
 
 Out of this condition it is the duty of the poet to bring 
 
268 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 mankind by revealing to them, by " the light ' that never 
 was on sea or land," the poetry that lies concealed in the 
 surroundings and experiences of ordinary life. 
 
 Inasmuch, however, as this poetry lies concealed in or- 
 dinary life, the poet is compelled to do more than simply 
 to represent ordinary life. He must make this appear to 
 be more than it seems to be ; and he must do so by 
 making more of his poetic form than can be done in 
 direct representation. We all know how ladies taking up 
 a temporay residence for the summer in small seaside cot- 
 tages, erected without paint or plaster, make up for the 
 lack of other beautifying elements, by tacking all over the 
 walls Japanese fans and screens of innumerable hues, in- 
 termingled with wreaths of evergreen and myrtle ; or 
 how, when they rent furnished houses in which the colors 
 of the carpets, chairs, and wall papers do not harmonize, 
 they spread tidies, afghans, and ornaments of all possi- 
 ble shades over sofas and mantles, so as to produce effects 
 pleasing by way of combination and variety, where it is 
 impossible to have simplicity aud unity. All this is an 
 illustration of cheap ornamentation. Yet it is justifiable 
 in such circumstances. The tendency producing it is 
 exercised unjustifiably only when an architect or uphol- 
 sterer, with an opportunity to rely upon more worthy 
 methods, tries to produce similar results not as means but 
 as ends. Illustrative representation in poetry is often pro- 
 duced by bringing together all sorts of elements, very 
 much as the Japanese fans are brought together in sea- 
 side cottages ; and it is justifiable when it is necessary to 
 make thought attractive which otherwise would not be so. 
 To illustrate how poetry can make this sort of thought 
 attractive, take this description of a luncheon in Tenny- 
 
 1 Elegiac stanzas suggested by a picture of Peele Castle : \V oodsworth. 
 
GENESIS OF ALLOYED REPRESENTATION. 269 
 
 son's Audley Court. In most of the passage we have 
 direct representation ; but all the better for this reason, it 
 serves to illustrate what I mean by saying that form can 
 make the unpoetic seem poetic. What could be more un- 
 poetic or commonplace than a meal ? Yet notice how 
 by the introduction of picturesque elements like " wrought 
 with horse and hound," " dusky," " costly made," " Like 
 fossils of the rock," " golden " " Imbedded," and the v 
 graphic accounts-tire conversation, all such as could be 
 observed by one looking on, the poet has rendered the 
 whole poetic. It is an admirable illustration of a legiti- 
 mate way in which by richness of form a poet can make 
 up for poverty of ideas. 
 
 There, on a slope of orchard, Francis laid 
 A damask napkin wrought with horse and hound, 
 Brought out a dusky loaf that smelt of home, 
 And, half-cut down, a pasty costly-made, 
 Where quail and pigeon, lark and leveret lay, 
 Like fossils of the rock, with golden yolks 
 Imbedded and injellied ; last, with these, 
 A flask of cider from his father's vats, 
 Prime, which I knew ; and so we sat and ate, 
 And talked old matters over ; who was dead, 
 Who married, who was like to be, and how 
 The races went, and who would rent the hall ; 
 Then touched upon the game, how scarce it was 
 This season ; glancing thence, discussed the farm, 
 The fourfold system and the price of grain ; 
 And struck upon the corn-laws, where we split, 
 And came again together on the king 
 With heated faces, till he laughed aloud ; 
 And, while the blackbird on the pippin hung 
 To hear him, clapt his hand in mine and sang. 
 
 Audley Court: Tennyson. 
 
 There is much more poetry in a sunset than in a lunch- 
 eon. Yet both are ordinary occurrences ; and few can 
 
2/0 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 fail to recognize that it is the use of illustrative represen- 
 tation in the following that has enabled Wordsworth to 
 lift this particular sunset entirely above any thing at all 
 ordinary. 
 
 A single step, that freed me from the skirts, 
 Of the blind vapor, opened to my view 
 Glory beyond all glory ever seen 
 By waking sense or by the dreaming soul ! 
 The appearance, instantaneously disclosed, 
 Was of a mighty city, boldly say 
 A wilderness of building, sinking far 
 And self-withdrawn into a boundless depth, 
 Far sinking into splendor, without end ! 
 Fabric it seemed of diamond and of gold, 
 With alabaster domes, and silver spires, 
 And blazing terrace upon terrace, high 
 Uplifted ; here, serene pavilions bright, 
 In avenues disposed ; there, towers begirt 
 With battlements that on their restless fronts 
 Bore stars, illumination of all gems ! 
 
 ******* 
 
 't was an unimaginable sight ! 
 
 Clouds, mists, streams, watery rocks, and emerald turf. 
 Clouds of all tincture, rocks and sapphire sky, 
 Confused, commingled, mutually inflamed, 
 Molten together and composing thus, 
 Each lost in each, that marvellous array 
 Of temple, palace, citadel, and huge 
 Fantastic pomp of structure without name, 
 In fleecy fold voluminous enwrapped. 
 
 ******* 
 
 This little Vale a dwelling-place of Man 
 Lay low beneath my feet ; 't was visible, 
 
 1 saw not, but I felt that it was there. 
 That which I saw was the revealed abode 
 Of Spirits in beatitude. 
 
 Excursion, 2 : Wordsworth. 
 
 These quotations, though themselves containing noth- 
 ing objectionable, will render it easy for us to understand 
 
GENESIS OF ALLOYED REPRESENTATION. 2? I 
 
 how naturally this tendency to crowd outside elements 
 into the form passes into alloyed representation. In 
 Longfellow's Evangeline, and Tennyson's Enoch Arden 
 we have told us stories respectively of a peasant and 
 a sailor. There is much in the surroundings, appearances, 
 actions, thoughts, and feelings of people of these classes 
 which is unpoetic, uninteresting, sometimes even repelling 
 to persons sufficiently cultivated and refined to enjoy poe- 
 try of the highest order. At the same time there are genu- 
 inely poetic elements in almost every thing that has to do 
 with human life. By making a great deal of these ele- 
 ments, and very little or nothing at all of others, the poet, 
 in a legitimate way, can cause that to seem attractive 
 which otherwise might not seem so. Longfellow does 
 this in the following passage from Evangeline. 
 
 Cheerily neighed the steeds, with dew on their manes and their fetlocks, 
 
 While aloft on their shoulders the wooden and ponderous saddles 
 
 Painted with brilliant dyes, and adorned with tassels of crimson, 
 
 Nodded in bright array, like holyhocks heavy with blossoms. 
 
 Patiently stood the cows meanwhile, and yielded their udders 
 
 Unto the milkmaid's hand ; whilst loud and in regular cadence 
 
 Into the sounding pails the foaming streamlets descended. 
 
 Lowing of cattle and peals of laughter were heard in the farm-yard. 
 
 Echoed back by the barns. Anon, they sank into stillness ; 
 
 Heavily closed, with a jarring sound, the valves of the barn-doors, 
 
 Rattled the wooden bars, and all for a season was silent. 
 
 But closely connected with this rendering attractive of 
 certain forms of life, through bringing some of its ele- 
 ments to the front and keeping others in the background, 
 is an endeavor to do the same, through introducing into 
 the description elements that could not possibly be sup- 
 posed to be there. For instance, immediately following 
 the passage from Evangeline just given, is one describing 
 her father, and his thoughts as he sits by his fireside. 
 
2/2 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 Indoors, warm by the wide-mouthed fireplace, idly the farmer 
 
 Sat in his elbow-chair, and watched how the flames and the smoke-wreathes 
 
 Struggled together like foes in a burning city. Behind him 
 
 Nodding and mocking along the wall, with gestures fantastic, 
 
 Darted his own huge shadow, aud vanished away into darkness. 
 
 Faces, clumsily carved in oak, on the back of his arm-chair, 
 
 Laughed in the flickering light, and the pewter plates on the dresser 
 
 Caught and reflected the flame, as shields of armies the sunshine. 
 
 Evangeline : Longfellow. 
 
 The question connected with our line of thought, sug- 
 gested by this passage, is this : Would this peasant, brought 
 up as he had been, and with his surroundings, be likely to 
 think of " foes in a burning city," " gestures fantastic," 
 " shields of armies," etc. ? If not, then the representa- 
 tion is not pure. The passage indicates only an exceed- 
 ingly slight tendency in the direction of alloyed repre- 
 sentation ; but the very slightness of the tendency will 
 enable us to trace it in its further development. Here is 
 a passage from Tennyson's Enoch Arden : 
 
 The mountain wooded to the peak, the lawns 
 And winding glades high up like ways to heaven, 
 The slender coco's drooping crown of plumes, 
 The lightning flash of insect and of bird, 
 The lustre of the long convolvuluses 
 That coil'd around the stately stems, and ran 
 E'en to the limit of the land, the glows 
 And glories of the broad belt of the world, 
 All these he saw ; but what he fain had seen 
 He could not see, the kindly human face, 
 Nor ever hear a kindly voice, but heard 
 The myriad shriek of wheeling ocean-fowl, 
 The league-long roller thundering on the reef, 
 The moving whisper of huge trees that branched 
 And blossomed in the zenith, or the sweep 
 Of some precipitous rivulet to the wave, 
 As down the shore he ranged, or all day long 
 Sat often in the seaward gazing gorge 
 
GENESIS OF ALLOYED REPRESENTATION. 2?$ 
 
 A shipwrecked sailor, waiting for a sail : 
 No sail from day to day, but every day 
 The sunrise broken into scarlet shafts 
 Among the palms and ferns and precipices. 
 
 Walter Bagehot, who quotes this passage in his " Lit- 
 erary Studies," as an illustration of what he terms ornate 
 poetry, says of this sailor : " The beauties of nature would 
 not have so much occupied him. He would have known 
 little of the scarlet shafts of sunrise and nothing of the 
 long convolvuluses. As in ' Robinson Crusoe/ his own 
 petty contrivances and his small ailments would have been 
 the principal subjects to him." Such criticism may appear 
 to some a little hypercritical. An extremely poetical 
 sailor is certainly conceivable. Even if one could not 
 possibly have had the thoughts here indicated, or at least 
 not such thoughts exclusively, or to the extent represented 
 by Tennyson, we feel that if any thing could justify a 
 poet in misrepresenting the facts, it would be a desire to 
 show a common ground of sympathy between readers of 
 poetry and such a character, even at the expense of attrib- 
 uting to the latter thoughts and feelings of a more refined 
 nature than he really would have experienced. But to 
 see what the tendency here exemplified can do, when, 
 without any motive to justify it, it is carried slightly fur- 
 ther, notice, in the following, how the extravagance of the 
 language, carried to the extreme of sentimentality, ruins 
 the representation, because it is impossible to conceive of 
 its being true to life. The fundamental fault of the pas- 
 sage lies in the fact that the subject requires no such 
 excess of illustration. A direct account of what two 
 young people falling in love at first sight would actually 
 do and say in the circumstances, would have been far 
 more effective. Not recognizing this, the poet, an inex- 
 
274 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 perienced writer, who most likely would have developed 
 great excellence had he lived, has put into the mouths 
 of the two language possible only to a blas6 society beau 
 and belle making love in play. According to the poem, 
 a lady approaching discovers a slumbering poet and ex- 
 claims : 
 
 Ha ! what is this ? A bright and wandered youth, 
 Thick in the light of his own beauty, sleeps 
 Like young Apollo, in his golden curls ! 
 At the oak-roots I 've seen full many a flower, 
 But never one so fair. A lovely youth 
 With dainty cheeks and ringlets like a girl, 
 And slumber-parted lips 't were sweet to kiss ! 
 Ye envious lids ! . . . 
 
 So, here 's a well-worn book 
 From which he drinks such joy as doth a pale 
 And dim-eyed worker, who escapes, in Spring, 
 The thousand-streeted and smoke-smothered town, 
 And treads awhile the breezy hills of health. 
 
 [Lady opens the book, a slip of paper falls out, she reads.] 
 
 ****** 
 
 Oh, 't is a sleeping poet ! and his verse 
 Sings like the Siren-isles . . . 
 Hist ! he awakes . . . 
 
 WALTER (awakening). 
 
 Fair lady, in my dream 
 Methought I was a weak and lonely bird, 
 In search of summer, wandered on the sea, 
 Toiling through mists, drenched by the arrowy rain, 
 Struck by the heartless winds ; at last, methought 
 I came upon an isle in whose sweet air 
 I dried my feathers, smoothed my ruffled breast, 
 And skimmed delight from off the waving woods. 
 Thy coming, lady, reads this dream of mine : 
 I am the swallow, thou the summer land. 
 
 LADY. 
 
 Sweet, sweet is flattery to mortal ears, 
 And, if I drink thy praise too greedily, 
 
GENESIS OF ALLOYED REPRESENTATION. 275 
 
 My fault I '11 match with grosser instances. 
 Do not the royal souls that van the world 
 Hunger for praises ? Does not the hero burn 
 To blow his triumphs in the trumpet's mouth ? 
 And do not poets' brows throb feverous 
 Till they are cooled with laurels ? Therefore, sir, 
 If such dote more on praise than all the wealth 
 Of precious-wombed earth and pearled-mains, 
 Blame not the cheeks of simple maidenhood. 
 
 Life Drama, 2 : AUx. Smith. 
 
 No wonder that this tough specimen of "simple 
 maidenhood " should have prayed so fervently not to be 
 blamed putting her word into the plural also for her 
 cheek in using such language to the poet before an intro- 
 duction to him, and in prefacing it too with a peep at his 
 manuscript. 
 
 There is an intimate connection between representation 
 rendered inappropriate by the general character of the 
 thought, and that rendered so by the smallness of the 
 thought. In the following the same poet tells us of a 
 youth who heard a woman singing. He had never seen 
 her ; but 
 
 When she ceased 
 
 The charmed woods and breezes silent stood, 
 As if all ear to catch her voice again. 
 Uprose the dreamer from his couch of flowers, 
 With awful expectation in his look, 
 And happy tears upon his pallid face, 
 With eager steps, as if toward a heaven, 
 He onward went, and, lo ! he saw her stand, 
 Fairer than Dian, in the forest glade. 
 His footsteps startled her, and quick she turned 
 Her face, looks met like swords. He clasped his hands, 
 And fell upon his knees ; the while there broke 
 A sudden splendor o'er his yearning face ; 
 'T was a pale prayer in its very self. 
 
276 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 Thus like a worshipper before a shrine, 
 
 He earnest syllabled, and, rising up, 
 
 He led that lovely stranger tenderly 
 
 Through the green forest toward the burning west. 
 
 Idem, 3. 
 
 In our next quotation the same tendency has passed 
 beyond the stage of sentimentality into that of obscurity. 
 The thought in it is so small for the kind of representa- 
 tion given it, as to be at times altogether invisible. It is 
 intended to describe hot weather and a shower ; and is a 
 singular exemplification of the way in which extremes meet ; 
 for while the poet evidently supposes himself to be illustra- 
 ting his subject, he is really trying to explain it. His en- 
 deavor to exercise his imaginative tendency has led him 
 to argue ; and while he thinks himself influenced by a 
 poetic motive, it is really prosaic. Thus his style is a fail- 
 ure in two regards : it is both too figurative and too philo- 
 sophical. 
 
 Should Solstice, stalking through the sickening bowers, 
 Suck the warm dew-drops, lap the falling showers ; 
 Kneel with parched lip, and bending from its brink, 
 From dripping palm the scanty river drink ; 
 Nymphs ! o'er the soil ten thousand points erect, 
 And high in air the electric flame collect. 
 Soon shall dark mists with self-attraction shroud 
 The blazing day, and sail in wilds of cloud ; 
 Each silvery flower the streams aerial quaff, 
 Bow her sweet head, and infant harvests laugh. 
 
 The Botanic Garden, Part First : E. Darwin. 
 
 By comparing any of the clean-cut, clear descriptions of 
 Homer with this passage, in which, on account of the far- 
 fetched illustrative nature of the form, it needs often a 
 second thought to detect what the poet is talking about, 
 one will have a sufficiently forcible exemplification of the 
 difference between poetic form that is representative, and 
 
GENESIS OF ALLOYED REPRESENTATION. 2JJ 
 
 that which, on account of the addition to it of elements 
 having to do merely with the illustrative methods of pre- 
 senting the thought, is not representative. 
 
 The fault now under consideration characterizes, as will 
 be noticed, all poems in which the subject does not 
 justify the treatment, from those like Spenser's Faerie 
 Queene, (in which the allegory meant to illustrate the 
 thought, and therefore an element merely of the form, is 
 made to appear the principal thing, because developed to 
 such an extent that one forgets all about what the subject 
 of the poem is,) down to sensational plays, and romances 
 of the lowest order, in which the characters, for serious, 
 not comic purposes, are placed in situations and made to 
 utter sentiments inconceivable in their circumstances. 
 There is no necessity for quoting from such works here. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 EXPLANATORY ALLOY IN DIRECT REPRESENTATION. 
 
 Alloy, if carrying to Extreme the Tendency in Plain Language, becomes 
 Didactic ; if the Tendency in Figurative Language, it becomes Ornate 
 Didactic Alloy explains, and appeals to the Elaborative Faculty, not 
 the Imagination Rhetoric instead of Poetry Examples of Didactic 
 Alloy where Representation purports to be Direct In Cases where the 
 Thought is Philosophical How Thought of the same Kind can be Ex- 
 pressed Poetically In Cases where the Thought is Picturesque, as in 
 Descriptions of Natural Scenery How similar Scenes can be described 
 Poetically Didactic Descriptions of Persons Similar Representative 
 Descriptions How Illustrative Representation helps the Appeal to the 
 Imagination In Descriptions of Natural Scenery Of Persons The 
 Sensuous and the Sensual. 
 
 HPHE reader who has followed our line of thought to 
 this point, probably understands by this time the 
 general nature of the difference between pure and alloyed 
 representation. But he cannot understand the extent of 
 the inartistic influence which the latter introduces into 
 poetry as a representative art, until he has traced its de- 
 velopments a little further. That will be done for him in 
 this and following chapters. 
 
 It has been said that whatever is added to representa- 
 tion of such a nature as to change it from pure to alloyed, 
 must come from the poet. This is true, and yet he may 
 not always be himself the primary source of these addi- 
 tions. He may get them either from his own mind or 
 from nature, a term used here to apply to every thing ex- 
 
THE DIDACTIC. 2?$ 
 
 ternal to himself. If he get them from his own mind, he 
 will carry into excessive development the tendency which 
 has been termed the instinctive, underlying ejaculatory 
 sounds and all plain language ; and his product will man- 
 ifest a preponderance of the features making up the 
 thought that he desires to express. If he get his additions 
 from nature, he will carry into excessive development the 
 tendency, which has been termed the reflective, underlying 
 imitative sounds and all figurative language ; and his 
 product will manifest a preponderance of the features em- 
 ployed in the form for the purpose of amplifying and 
 illustrating his thought. The first tendency, carried to an 
 extreme, will deprive the form of representation, and 
 make it explanatory or didactic ; the second will overload 
 it with representation, and make it florid or ornate. 
 
 Taking up these tendencies in their order, we will ex- 
 amine now the former of them, and first, as exemplified 
 in poetry modelled upon direct representation. In this 
 form, as we have seen, the poet uses no similies nor 
 metaphors. He states precisely what he wishes to say 
 only what he says, if put in the form of poetry, must 
 represent his thought. If it merely present this, he gives 
 us a product not of the ideal art of poetry, but of the 
 practical art of rhetoric. This latter appeals to the mind 
 through what Sir William Hamilton termed the elabora- 
 tive faculty, and is characterized by a particularizing of 
 details in explanatory words and clauses, termed amplifi- 
 cation, all of which details together enable the hearer to 
 weigh the evidence that is offered, and to draw from it 
 trustworthy conclusions. Poetry, on the contrary, appeals 
 to the representative faculty, and is characterized by an 
 absence of any more details or explanatory elements than 
 are needed in order to form a picture, and this for the 
 
28O POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 reason that nothing appeals so strongly to the imagination 
 as a hint. At the same time, as poetry and rhetoric both 
 communicate ideas, there is a constant tendency for the 
 one to pass into the other, for the poet to forget that 
 the poetical depends not upon ideas alone, but also upon 
 the forms given to the ideas, in fact, to forget that, 
 while great poetry must necessarily embody great thoughts, 
 very genuine poetry, at times, may do no more than give 
 to the merest " airy nothings a local habitation and a 
 name." 
 
 To exemplify what has been said, let us begin with 
 some quotations from Wordsworth. They are specimens 
 of rhetoric, pure and simple, presenting, but not in any 
 sense representing, the thought. By consequence, they are 
 almost wholly lacking in the suggestive and inspiring 
 effects with which true poetry appeals to the imagination : 
 
 O for the coining of that glorious time 
 
 When, prizing knowledge as her noblest wealth 
 
 And best protection, this imperial Realm, 
 
 While she exacts allegiance, shall admit 
 
 An obligation, on her part, to teach 
 
 Them who are born to serve her and obey ; 
 
 Binding herself by statute to secure 
 
 For all the children whom her soil maintains 
 
 The rudiments of letters, and inform 
 
 The mind with moral and religious truth, 
 
 Both understood and practised, so that none, 
 
 However destitute, be left to droop, 
 
 By timely culture unsustained. 
 
 ******* 
 The discipline of slavery is unknown 
 Among us, hence the more do we require 
 The discipline of virtue ; order else 
 Cannot subsist, nor confidence, nor peace. 
 Thus, duties rising out of good possessed, 
 And prudent caution needful to avert 
 Impending evil, equally require 
 
THE DIDACTIC. 28 1 
 
 That the whole people should be taught and trained. 
 So shall licentiousness and black resolve 
 Be rooted out, and virtuous habits take 
 Their place ; and genuine piety descend 
 Like an inheritance from age to age. 
 
 ****** 
 Vast the circumference of hope, and ye 
 Are at its centre, British Lawgivers ; 
 . . . Your country must complete 
 Her glorious destiny. Begin even now, 
 
 ****** 
 Now when destruction is a prime pursuit 
 Show to the wretched nations for what end 
 The powers of civil polity were given. 
 
 Excursion, 9. 
 
 Some may suppose that the thought presented in these 
 passages is not fitted for representation, and be inclined 
 to justify the poet's treatment of it on this ground. The 
 truth is, however, that there is very little thought that 
 cannot be expressed in a representative way. As a proof 
 of this, look at the following passages from Tennyson's 
 Princess. They contain thoughts of essentially the same 
 character as those from the Excursion ; yet their forms, 
 if not always those of direct representation, are, at least, 
 those of representation of some sort, which is the im- 
 portant matter, just now, for us to consider. 
 
 O lift your natures up, 
 
 Embrace our aims ; work out your freedom ! . . 
 Knowledge is now no more a fountain sealed : 
 Drink deep, until the habits of the slave, 
 The sins of emptiness, gossip, and spite, 
 And slander die. Better not be at all 
 Than not be noble. 
 
 ****** 
 Let there be light, and there was light : 't is so : 
 For was, and is, and will be, are but is ; 
 And all creation is one act at once, 
 The birth of light ; but we that are not all, 
 
282 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 As parts, can see but parts, now this, now that, 
 
 And live, perforce, from thought to thought, and make 
 
 One act a phantom of succession : thus 
 
 Our weakness somewhat shapes the shadow, Time ; 
 
 But in the shadow will we work. 
 
 ******* 
 But trim our sails and let old by-gones be, 
 While down the stream that floats us each and all 
 To the issue, goes, like glittering bergs of ice, 
 Throne after throne, and molten on the waste 
 Becomes a cloud ; for all things serve their time 
 Toward that great year of equal mights and rights. 
 
 ******* 
 And knowledge in our own land make her free, 
 And ever following those two crowned twins, 
 Commerce and conquest, shower the fiery grain 
 Of Freedom broadcast over all that orbs 
 Between the Northern and the Southern morn. 
 
 Princess : Tennyson. 
 
 In the following, also, a very similar line of thought is 
 not merely presented or stated, but represented or pic- 
 tured : 
 
 For I dipped into the future, far as human eye could see, 
 
 Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be ; 
 
 Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, 
 Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales ; 
 
 Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rained a ghastly dew 
 From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue ; 
 
 Far along the world-wide whisper of the South wind rushing warm 
 With the standards of the peoples plunging through the thunder-storm ; 
 
 Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battle-flags were furled 
 In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world ; 
 
 There the common-sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, 
 And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law. 
 
 Locksley Hall : Tennyson. 
 
THE DIDACTIC IN DIRECT REPRESENTATION. 283 
 
 The following, too, though it contains representation 
 that is both illustrative and alloyed, will serve to show how 
 the kind of thought expressed in the passage from the 
 Excursion may be treated representatively. 
 
 We sleep and wake and sleep, but all things move J 
 The Sun flies forward to his brother Sun ; 
 The dark Earth follows, wheeled in her ellipse ; 
 And human things returning on themselves, 
 Move onward, leading up the golden year. 
 
 Ah ! though the times when some new thought can bud 
 Are but as poets' seasons when they flower, 
 Yet seas that daily gain upon the shore 
 Have ebb and flow, conditioning their march, 
 And slow and sure comes up the golden year. 
 
 When wealth no more shall rest in moulded heaps, 
 
 But smit with freer light shall slowly melt 
 
 In many streams to fatten lower lands, 
 
 And light shall spread, and man be liker man 
 
 Through all the seasons of the golden year. 
 
 ****** * 
 
 Fly happy, happy sails, and bear the Press ; 
 Fly happy with the mission of the Cross ; 
 Knit land to land, and blowing havenward, 
 With silks, and fruits, and spices, clear of toll, 
 Enrich the markets of the golden year. 
 
 But we grow old. Ah ! when shall all men's good 
 Be each man's rule, and universal Peace 
 Lie like a shaft of light across the land, 
 And like a lane of beams athwart the sea, 
 Through all the circle of the golden year ? 
 
 The Golden Year : Tennyson. 
 
 As the principle under consideration is important, the 
 reader will excuse one further quotation exemplifying 
 better perhaps than any of those already considered the 
 way in which ideas of this kind may be expressed very 
 clearly and forcibly, and yet representatively. In the fol- 
 
284 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 lowing, the poet has to say that he is tired of the buzz and 
 bustle of the world, and wishes to live in retirement. 
 This is the prose of his statement. Notice now how he 
 represents this thought, and in doing so turns it into poe- 
 try. Most of the representation here, too, is direct and 
 pure. 
 
 Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind, 
 In the hollow Lotus-land to live, and lie reclined 
 On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind. 
 For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurled 
 Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curled 
 Round their golden houses, girdled with a gleaming world ; 
 Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands, 
 Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands, 
 Clanging fights, and naming towns, and sinking ships, and praying hands. 
 
 The Lotus Eaters : Tennyson. 
 
 Could there be a more significant picture of the 
 trouble of this life, or a more fitting climax for it than the 
 helplessness of these " praying hands " ? Poetry does not 
 reveal truth to us in logic, but in light. 
 
 It is not only, however, in the expression of thought 
 in itself unpicturesque, that the poet is in danger of 
 giving us rhetoric instead of poetry. Even in descrip- 
 tions of objects and persons in which, at first, it might be 
 supposed that it would be impossible to do any thing 
 except represent, the same tendency is manifest. In the 
 following from Southey's Madoc in Wales, the descrip- 
 tions scarcely include one feature that might not be true 
 of any one of a score of rivers or mountains. Therefore 
 the lines are almost wholly lacking in the specificness 
 noticed in Chapter XXII. as characterizing the descriptions 
 of Homer. This fact alone might be enough to condemn 
 them. But their lack of this trait is not the chief 
 reason why they are mentioned here ; but because, owing 
 
THE DIDACTIC IN DIRECT REPRESENTATION. 285 
 
 to the lack of it, they read like something written in a 
 man's study, not out of doors where he had a view of the 
 objects delineated. In other words, they read like some- 
 thing taken out of his own brain. For this reason they 
 furnish good examples of direct representation in which 
 too much attention relatively is given to the thoughts 
 that come from the author as contrasted with that which 
 comes from nature. 
 
 The land bent westward soon, 
 And, thus confirmed, we voyaged on to seek 
 The river inlet, following at the will 
 Of our new friend ; and we learnt after him, 
 Well pleased and proud to teach what this was called, 
 What that, with no unprofitable pains. 
 
 ******* 
 
 At length we came 
 
 Where the great river, amid shoals, and banks, 
 And islands, growth of its own gathering spoils, 
 Through many a branching channel, wide and full, 
 Rushed to the main. 
 
 Madoc in Wales t 5 : Southey. 
 
 We travelled in the mountains ; then a plain 
 
 Opened below, and rose upon the sight, 
 
 Like boundless ocean from a hill-top seen. 
 
 A beautiful and populous plain it was ; 
 
 Fair woods were there, and fertilizing streams, 
 
 And pastures spreading wide, and villages 
 
 In fruitful groves embowered, and stately towns, 
 
 And many a single dwelling specking it. 
 
 As though for many years the land had been 
 
 The land of peace. 
 
 Idem, 6. 
 
 As contrasted with this, notice the following. In read- 
 ing it, we feel that it definitely represents some real scene 
 which we ourselves at once imagine that we see. There- 
 fore it is better poetry than that in the quotation from 
 
 Southey. 
 
286 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART, 
 
 On either side 
 
 Is level fen, a prospect wild and wide, 
 With dikes on either hand, by ocean's self supplied. 
 Far on the right, the distant sea is seen, 
 And salt the springs that feed the marsh between ; 
 Beneath an ancient bridge the straightened flood 
 Rolls through its sloping banks of slimy mud ; 
 Near it a sunken boat resists the tide, 
 That frets and hurries to the opposing side ; 
 The rushes sharp that on the borders grow, 
 Bend their brown flowerets to the stream below, 
 Impure in all its course, in all its progress slow. 
 
 Lover's Journey : Crabbe. 
 
 There is poetry, however, higher in its quality than this, 
 poetry in which we not only feel that the things de- 
 scribed actually exist or existed, but that the man 
 describing them saw at the supposed time of the descrip- 
 tion just what he says that he saw. Crabbe's description 
 reads a little as if the narrator had gone out some morn- 
 ing and taken notes, as one would for a county map, and 
 then had come back and copied off what he gives us. 
 But in reading the following, from Tennyson's Garden- 
 er s Daughter, we derive no such impression. In fact, a 
 man taking notes would not confine himself to the things 
 here mentioned. It is only natural to suppose, there- 
 fore, that they were seen by the narrator just as they are 
 represented in the picture. In another place may be 
 explained what is meant by saying that this description 
 for this reason gives expression to a poetic motive. At 
 present, it is sufficient to direct attention to the fact that we 
 have arrived now, through a different course, at the same 
 conclusion as that reached while examining the poetry of 
 Homer in Chapter XXII. The representation below seems 
 real and life-like, because only a few things are mentioned, 
 and these just the ones that would impress the mind of 
 
THE DIDACTIC IN DIRECT REPRESENTATION. 28? 
 
 an observer amid such surroundings. The description is 
 not indefinite and characterless, like that of Southey, but 
 specific and typical ; it is not complete and circumstan- 
 tial, like the photographic picture of Crabbe, but fragmen- 
 tary and suggestive a rapid sketch of salient outlines, 
 which the imagination is left to fill in for itself. There is 
 some illustrative representation in it, but this need not 
 injure it for our present purpose. 
 
 Not wholly in the busy world, nor quite 
 Beyond it, blooms the garden that I love. 
 News from the humming city comes to it 
 In sound of funeral or of marriage bells ; 
 And, sitting muffled in dark leaves, you hear 
 The windy clanging of the minster clock ; 
 Although between it and the garden lies 
 A league of grass, washed by a slow, broad stream, 
 That, stirred with languid pulses of the oar, 
 Waves all its lazy lilies, and creeps on, 
 Barge-laden, to three arches of a bridge 
 Crowned with the minster-towers. 
 
 Gardener s Daughter ' Tennyson, 
 
 It will be well to close this phase of our subject with an 
 example of representation that is not only pure, but, from 
 beginning to end, direct. 
 
 So saying, by the hand he took me, raised, 
 And over fields and waters, as in air 
 Smooth sliding without step, last led me up 
 A woody mountain ; whose high top was plain, 
 A circuit wide, enclosed, with goodliest trees 
 Planted, with walks and bowers, that what I saw 
 Of earth before scarce pleasant seem'd. Each tree 
 Loaden with fairest fruit, that hung to the eye 
 Tempting, stirr'd in me sudden appetite 
 To pluck and eat ; whereat I wak'd, and found 
 Before mine eyes all real, as the dream 
 Had lively shadow'd ; here had new begun 
 My wandering, had not he, who was my guide 
 
288 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 Up hither, from among the trees appear'd, 
 
 Presence Divine. Rejoicing, but with awe, 
 
 In adoration at his feet I fell, 
 
 Submiss : He rear'd me, and, Whom thou sought'st I am, 
 
 Said mildly, Author of all this thou seest 
 
 Above, or round about thee, or beneath. 
 
 Paradise Lost, 8 : Milton. 
 
 Now let us go back and take up examples in which, in 
 descriptions of persons, too much attention, relatively, is 
 paid to the thought as contrasted with the form. The 
 following is a passage of this kind. Through a series of 
 explanations, it appeals directly to the understanding, 
 scarcely at all to the imagination. 
 
 I admire 
 
 Him and his fortunes, who hath wrought thy safety ; 
 Yea as my mind predicts, with thine his own. 
 Obscure and friendless he the army sought ; 
 Bent upon peril in the range of death. 
 Resolved to hunt for fame and with his sword 
 To gain distinction which his birth denied. 
 In this attempt unknown he might have perished, 
 And gained with all his valor but oblivion. 
 Now graced by thee his virtue serves no more 
 Beneath despair. The soldier now of hope, 
 He stands conspicuous : fame and great renown 
 Are brought within the compass of his sword. 
 
 Douglas, 2 : Home. 
 
 Here is another passage of the same sort : 
 
 Turn up thine eyes to Cato ! 
 There mayest thou see to what a godlike height 
 The Roman virtues lift up mortal man. 
 While good and just and anxious for his friends 
 He 's still severely bent against himself ; 
 Renouncing sleep, and rest, and food, and ease, 
 He strives with thirst and hunger, toil and heat } 
 And, when his fortune sets before him all 
 The pomp and pleasures that his soul can wish, 
 His rigid virtues will accept of none. 
 
 Cato, 1,4: Addison. 
 
POETIC DESCRIPTIONS. 289 
 
 Contrast with this the following description of Ogier 
 the Dane in William Morris' Earthly Paradise. The 
 representation here is just as direct as in the foregoing, 
 but, in a sense not true of it, each sentence presents a 
 picture. 
 
 Great things he suffered, great delights he had, 
 Unto great kings he gave good deeds for bad ; 
 He ruled o'er kingdoms, where his name no more 
 Is had in memory, and on many a shore 
 He left his sweat and blood, to win a name 
 Passing the bounds of earthly creature's fame. 
 A love he won and lost, a well-loved son 
 Whose little day of promise soon was done. 
 A tender wife he had, that he must leave 
 Before his heart her love could well receive. 
 
 Ogier the Dane. 
 
 Of course some will think that these lines are not far 
 removed from the level of prose. But they could not 
 well be made more poetic without using illustrative repre- 
 sentation, the introduction of which into passages of this 
 kind is much the best way of making them appeal to the 
 imagination. To recognize this fact one has only to com- 
 pare the following descriptions of natural scenery with 
 those given a few moments ago. The first deviates only 
 slightly from the methods of direct representation. 
 
 In front 
 
 The sea lay laughing at a distance ; near, 
 The solid mountains shone, bright as the clouds, 
 Grain-tinctured, drenched in empyrean light ; 
 And in the meadows and the lower grounds 
 Was all the sweetness of a common dawn, 
 Dews, vapors, and the melody of birds, 
 And laborers going forth to till the fields. 
 
 The Prelude, 4 : Wordsworth. 
 
 In the second the figures stand out more clearly : 
 
290 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 At my feet 
 
 Rested a silent sea of hoary mist. 
 A hundred hills their dusky backs upheaved 
 All over this still ocean ; and beyond, 
 Far, far beyond, the solid vapors stretched, 
 In headlands, tongues, and promontory shapes, 
 Into the main Atlantic, that appeared 
 To dwindle, and give up his majesty, 
 Usurped upon far as the sight could reach. 
 
 Prelude, 14 : Wordsworth. 
 
 Now look at the effects of illustrative representation 
 upon descriptions of persons, as in this : 
 
 O what a noble mind is here o'erthrown ! 
 
 The courtier's, scholar's, soldier's eye, tongue, sword : 
 
 The expectancy and rose of the fair State, 
 
 The glass of fashion, and the mould of form, 
 
 The observed of all observers. 
 
 Hamlet \ iii., I : Shakespear. 
 
 And in this : 
 
 He was not born to shame : 
 Upon his brow shame is ashamed to sit ; 
 For 't is a throne where honor may be crowned 
 Sole monarch of the universal earth. 
 
 Romeo and Juliet, iii., 2 : Idem. 
 
 And in these series of pictures presented to the imagi. 
 nation in Sir Richard Vernon's description of Prince 
 Harry and his troops : 
 
 All furnished, all in arms ; 
 All plumed like estridges that wing the wind J 
 Bated like eagles having lately bathed ; 
 Glittering in golden coats, like images ; 
 As full of spirit as the month of May, 
 And gorgeous as the sun at midsummer ; 
 Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls. 
 I saw young Harry, with his beaver on, 
 His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly armed, 
 Rise from the ground like feathered Mercury, 
 And vaulted with such ease into his seat, 
 
POETIC DESCRIPTIONS. 
 
 As if an angel dropped down from the clouds, 
 
 To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus, 
 
 And witch the world with noble horsemanship. 
 
 i Henry IV. t iv., I : Shakespear. 
 
 Notice, too, to what an extent the element of beauty is 
 introduced into the following, through the use of illus- 
 trative representation : 
 
 For up the porch there grew an Eastern rose 
 
 That, flowering high, the last night's gale had caught, 
 
 And blown across the walk. One arm aloft 
 
 Gowned in pure white, that fitted to the shape 
 
 Holding the bush, to fix it back, she stood. 
 
 A single stream of all her soft brown hair 
 
 Poured on one side : the shadow of the flowers 
 
 Stole all the golden gloss, and, wavering 
 
 Lovingly lower, trembled on her waist 
 
 Ah, happy shade ! and still went wavering down, 
 
 But ere it touched a foot that might have danced 
 
 The green sward into greener circles, dipt 
 
 And mixed with shadows of the common ground ! 
 
 But the full day dwelt on her brows, and sunned 
 
 Her violet eyes, and all her Hebe-bloom, 
 
 And doubled his own warmth against her lips, 
 
 And on the bounteous wave of such a breast 
 
 As never pencil drew. Half light, half shade, 
 
 She stood, a sight to make an old man young. 
 
 The Gardener's Daughter : Tennyson. 
 
 Milton says that poetry must be simple, sensuous, and 
 passionate. The above certainly meets all these require- 
 ments. Read this too from Shakespear's Antony and 
 Cleopatra : 
 
 I will tell you. 
 
 The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne, 
 Burned on the water : the poop was beaten gold ; 
 Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that 
 The winds were love-sick with them ; the oars were silver ; 
 Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made 
 The water, which they beat, to follow faster, 
 
POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 As amorous of their strokes. For her own person, 
 
 It beggared all description : she did lie 
 
 In her pavilion (cloth of gold, of tissue) 
 
 O'er-picturing that Venus where we see 
 
 The fancy out-work nature : on each side her 
 
 Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids, 
 
 With divers colored fans, whose wind did seem 
 
 To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool, 
 
 And what they did, undid. . . . 
 
 Her gentlewomen, like the Nereids, 
 
 So many mermaids, tended her i' th' eyes, 
 
 And made their bends adoring : at the helm 
 
 A seeming mermaid steers ; the silken tackle 
 
 Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands 
 
 That yarely frame the office. From the barge 
 
 A strange invisible perfume hits the sense 
 
 Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast 
 
 Her people out upon her ; and Antony, 
 
 Enthron'd i* th' market-place, did sit alone, 
 
 Whistling to th' air ; which, but for vacancy, 
 
 Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too, 
 
 And made a gap in nature. 
 
 Antony and Cleopatra, ii., 2 : Shakespear. 
 
 Perhaps no poetical passage could exemplify better 
 than this that which distinguishes the sensuous from the 
 sensual. Describing conditions which some of our modern 
 poets would think would justify them in throwing every 
 shred of drapery overboard, it reveals nothing that the 
 most delicate taste cannot enjoy. The picture appeals 
 solely to the imagination, and to nothing lower, which 
 proves that Shakespear, although a poet, had enough 
 practical sense to know that verse which does not appeal 
 to the highest aesthetic nature cannot be in the highest 
 sense artistic. 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 EXPLANATORY ALLOY IN ILLUSTRATIVE REPRESENTATION. 
 
 Illustrations that are not always necessarily representative Their Develop- 
 ment gradually traced in Descriptions of Natural Scenery Practical 
 Bearing of this on the Composition of Orations Why Common People 
 hear some gladly and others not at all Obscure Styles not Brilliant 
 Examples of Obscure Historical and Mythological References in Poetry 
 Alloyed Representation Short-lived How References to possibly 
 unknown Things are made in Poetry that lives Mixture of Main and 
 Illustrating Thought so as to destroy Representation Examples of how 
 this Result may be prevented. 
 
 T T must not be supposed that a poet, even though he 
 uses illustrative representation, can overcome merely 
 by doing this the tendency in his verse to pay too much 
 attention relatively to thought as contrasted with form, 
 and thus to make his representation not pure but alloyed. 
 Alloyed illustrative representation is a fault on a larger 
 scale, similar to that of the " blending " of metaphors in 
 which plain and figurative language are both used with 
 reference to the same object in the same clause or sen- 
 tence (see Chapter XVIII.). To understand the nature of 
 this fault we must go back to pure representation for a 
 moment. The sixth line of the following is a departure 
 from pure representation. It expresses what could not 
 have been perceived : it explains. 
 
 So saying, from the pavement he half rose, 
 Slowly, with pain, reclining on his arm, 
 And looking wistfully with wide blue eyes 
 2Q? 
 
2Q4 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 As in a picture. Him Sir Bedivere 
 
 Remorsefully regarded through his tears, 
 
 And would have spoken, but he found not words. 
 
 Mori D* Arthur : Tennyson. 
 
 Even in Homer, notwithstanding assertions made to 
 the contrary, we find exceptional passages identical in 
 character with this : 
 
 Back he sprang, 
 
 Hiding amid the crowd, that so the Greeks 
 Might not behold the wounded limb, and scoff. 
 
 Iliad, 12 : Bryant's Trs. 
 
 This last line is not characteristic of Homer. But there 
 are numberless ones like it in the works of modern writers, 
 for the reason that all of us modern people are more ac- 
 customed than the ancient to look beneath the surface of 
 things ; and therefore we are more prone in our descrip- 
 tions to assign real or imaginary motives to the actions of 
 those whom we are watching. The moment, however, 
 that this analyzing of motives becomes characteristic of 
 description, the style is evidently in danger of becoming 
 less representative. To show the effect produced upon it, 
 notice this quotation from Crabbe's Parish Register. It 
 is certainly poetry ; series of pictures are called up as we 
 read it ; the general is embodied in the concrete ; the ver- 
 sification adds to the interest that we take in the ideas 
 expressed in it ; and yet nothing could be more unlike the 
 poetry of Homer; and this because it is not pure repre- 
 sentation, but representation alloyed with much that is 
 merely a direct presentation of the writer's own thoughts. 
 
 Phoebe Dawson gayly crossed the green ; 
 
 In haste to see and happy to be seen ; 
 
 Her air, her manners, all who saw, admired, 
 
 Courteous though coy, and gentle though retired ; 
 
THE EXPLANATORY IN ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 The joy of youth and health her eyes displayed, 
 And ease of heart her every look conveyed ; 
 A native skill her simple robes expressed, 
 As with untutored elegance she dressed ; 
 The lads around admired so fair a sight, 
 And Phoebe felt, and felt she gave, delight. 
 ****** 
 Lo ! now with red rent cloak and bonnet black, 
 And torn green gown loose hanging at her back, 
 One who an infant in her arms sustains, 
 And seems in patience striving with her pains, 
 Pinched are her looks, as one who pines for bread, 
 Whose cares are growing, and whose hopes are fled ; 
 Pale her parched lips, her heavy eyes sunk low, 
 And tears unnoticed from their channels flow ; 
 Serene her manner, till some sudden pain 
 Frets the meek soul, and then she 's calm again. 
 
 To understand how this explanatory poetry, in which 
 thought that is not at all representative is constantly 
 being thrust into the form, can be produced even when 
 figurative language is used, let us trace the gradual de- 
 velopment of the tendency from its beginning. In the 
 following description of evening, analogies are drawn 
 between certain effects usually seen in connection with 
 evening, and certain others usually seen in connection 
 with human beings. In each case, however, only such 
 effects are mentioned as are externally perceptible, like 
 those represented in the words twilight, silence, Hesperus, 
 and moon on the one hand, and in the words still, gray, 
 livery, clad, accompanied, pleased, led, rode, rising, majesty, 
 and apparent queen, on the other. For this reason, as we 
 read the description, the picture of what is done by a hu- 
 man being, as well as of the evening effect to which this 
 is likened, comes at once before the imagination. 
 
 Now came still evening on, and twilight gray 
 Had in her sober livery all things clad ; 
 
296 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 Silence accompanied ; for beast and bird, 
 They to their grassy couch , these to their nests, 
 Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale ; 
 She all night long her amorous discant sung ; 
 Silence was pleased ; now glowed the firmament 
 With living sapphires ; Hesperus that led 
 The starry host, rode brightest, till the moon, 
 Rising in clouded majesty, at length 
 Apparent queen, unveiled her peerless light, 
 And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw. 
 
 Paradise Lost, 4 : Milton. 
 
 A similar analogy is given us in the following ; but in 
 certain places, somewhat subtle to detect, as in the words 
 needing, suffices, and ostentatious, the appearances of the 
 natural objects mentioned are likened not to what is 
 perceptible in human beings, but to imperceptible motives 
 which can only be surmised by an observer. The harm done 
 to the representation by such words happens, in this pas- 
 sage, to be very evident. For, in the end, the last of them, 
 ostentatious, runs the poet, as it seems, entirely off his track. 
 That it is less ostentatious to wear a moon or jewel in a 
 zone than on high, is inferred, not perceived by him, and, 
 in order to give us his view of the Evening's modesty, he 
 apparently forgets all about his picture of her in the west ; 
 for he says that the low moon, which decorates her, is 
 of an ampler round. But the evening moon never is 
 this except when in the east. He may mean, indeed, the 
 dim old moon encircling as it does at times the crescent; 
 but few would derive this impression from his words. Or 
 he may mean to have the round refer to the zone of the 
 Evening herself, and so make her corpulent enough to fit 
 the girdle of the whole horizon ! But whatever he may 
 mean, the moment we try to frame a picture from this or any 
 of his later phrases, we find that the alloy at first introduced 
 very slightly has finally injured his picture very greatly. 
 
THE EXPLANATORY IN ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Come, Evening, once again, season of peace ; 
 
 Return, sweet Evening, and continue long ! 
 
 Methinks I see thee in the streaky west, 
 
 With matron step slow-moving, while the Night 
 
 Treads on thy sweeping train ; one hand employed 
 
 In letting fall the curtain of repose 
 
 On bird and beast, the other charged for man 
 
 With sweet oblivion of the cares of day : 
 
 Not sumptuously adorned, nor needing aid, 
 
 Like homely feathered Night, of clustering gems ; 
 
 A star or two, just twinkling on thy brow, 
 
 Suffices thee ; save that the moon is thine 
 
 No less than hers, not worn indeed on high 
 
 With ostentatious pageantry, but set 
 
 With modest grandeur in thy purple zone, 
 
 Resplendent less, but of an ampler round. 
 
 - The Task ; Winter Evening : Cowper t 
 
 A little further development of the tendency under 
 consideration leads to a style in which there appears to 
 be in the figures still less distinctness of representation. 
 As we read the following, the imagination does not per- 
 ceive clearly whether the orb, ocean, Vesper, night, clouds, 
 breezes, moon, etc., are meant to be likened to human or to 
 some other beings ; nor is there any thing to tell us why 
 these beings act as is indicated. That is to say, we fail to 
 see pictures here, because the representation is alloyed by 
 the introduction of too many of the thoughts of the 
 writer. Instead of referring us to what can be seen in a 
 sentient being, to which a material object is compared, he 
 refers us to what may or may not be an explanation of 
 what might be seen in such a being. Men sometimes for- 
 get not often, however, because they are hushed. So, 
 he says, it is with the ocean ; and the same principle is 
 exemplified in many other of his words. 
 
 The sun's bright orb, declining all serene, 
 
 Now glanced obliquely o'er the woodland scene ; 
 
298 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 Creation smiles around ; on every spray 
 The warbling birds exalt their evening lay ; 
 
 ****** 
 The crystal streams that velvet meadows lave, 
 To the green ocean roll with chiding wave. 
 The glassy ocean hushed forgets to roar, 
 But trembling murmurs on the sandy shore. 
 
 ****** 
 While glowing Vesper leads the starry train, 
 And night slow draws her veil o'er land and main, 
 Emerging clouds the azure east invade, 
 And wrap the lucid spheres in gradual shade ; 
 
 ****** 
 Deep midnight now involves the livid skies, 
 When eastern breezes, yet enervate, rise ; 
 The waning moon behind a watery shroud, 
 Pale glimmer'd o'er the long-protracted cloud ; 
 A mighty halo round her silver throne 
 With parting meteors crossed, portentous shone ; 
 This in the troubled sky full oft prevails, 
 Oft deemed a signal of tempestuous gales. 
 
 Shipwreck, I : Falconer, 
 
 The same indistinctness of representation, though with 
 less in it of the explanatory element, characterizes the 
 poetry of Thomson. Here is what he has to say of an 
 evening : 
 
 The western sun withdraws the shorten'd day ; 
 
 And humid Evening, gliding o'er the sky, 
 
 In her chill progress, to the ground condensed 
 
 The vapors throws. Where creeping waters ooze, 
 
 Where marshes stagnate, and where rivers wind, 
 
 Cluster the rolling fogs, and swim along 
 
 The dusky mantled lawn. Meanwhile the Moon, 
 
 Full-orbed, and breaking through the scattered clouds, 
 
 Shows her broad Visage in the crimson'd east. 
 
 Turn'd to the sun direct, her spotted Disk, 
 
 Where mountains rise, umbrageous dales descend, 
 
THE EXPLANATORY IN ILLUSTRATIONS. 299 
 
 And caverns deep, as optic tube descries, 
 
 A smaller earth, gives us his blaze again, 
 
 Void of its flame, and sheds a softer day. 
 
 Now through the passing Cloud she seems to stoop, 
 
 Now up the pale Cerulean rides sublime. 
 
 Wide the pale Deluge floats, and, streaming mild 
 
 O'er the sky'd mountain to the shadowy vale, 
 
 While rocks and floods reflect the quivering gleam, 
 
 The whole air whitens with a boundless tide 
 
 Of silver radiance, trembling round the world. 
 
 Seasons ; Autumn. 
 
 There is a practical bearing of the tendency under con- 
 sideration upon rhetoric and oratory. Certain public 
 speakers like F. W. Robertson, Beecher, and Spurgeon 
 are able to hold the attention of both the cultivated and 
 the uncultivated ; others equally great in their way, like 
 Everett, Storrs, and James Martineau, appeal only to the 
 cultivated. Why is this ? Of course their thought, aside 
 from their style, has something to do with it, but is there 
 not something in their style also that accounts for it ? If 
 we examine the rhetoric of orators of the former class, we 
 find that the presentation of the thought in one clause or 
 sentence is seldom mixed with its representation in an- 
 other ; in short, that whatever representation is attempted 
 is pure. Robertson, for instance, says in one of his ser- 
 mons : 
 
 " As the free air is to one out of health the cause of 
 cold and diseased lungs, so to the healthy man it is a 
 source of great vigor. The rotten fruit is sweet to the 
 worm, but nauseous to the palate of man. It is the same 
 air and the same fruit, acting differently upon different 
 beings. To different men a different world : to one all 
 pollution ; to another all purity." 
 
 And Beecher says, as reported in the " Life Thoughts " : 
 
 " But when once faith has taught the soul that it has 
 
3OO POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 wings, then it begins to fly, and, flying, finds that all God's 
 domain is its liberty. And as the swallow that comes 
 back to roost in its hard hole at night is quite content, so 
 that the morning gives it again all the bright heavens for 
 its soaring ground, so may men close quartered and 
 cramped in bodily accommodations be quite patient of 
 their narrow bounds, for their thoughts may fly out every 
 day gloriously. And as in autumn these children of the 
 chimney gather in flocks and fly away to heavens without 
 a winter, so men shall find a day when they too shall mi- 
 grate ; and rising into a higher sphere without storm or 
 winter, shall remember the troubles of this mortal life, as 
 birds in Florida maybe supposed to remember the North- 
 ern chills which drove them forth to a fairer clime." 
 
 This last is representation as pure as any thing in Ho- 
 mer. Beecher's pictures are equally pure, too, in his 
 metaphors. " A lowly home has reared many high na- 
 tures." " The heart of friends is the mirror of good 
 men," etc. 
 
 In the rhetoric of the other class of orators, however, 
 the representation is alloyed with presentation to such an 
 extent that minds unacquainted with the methods of lit- 
 erary workmanship do not always recognize either the 
 illustrating picture and enjoy it, or the illustrated thought, 
 which seems to them to be merely lumbered by material 
 in which others see pictures. Nothing could be finer of 
 its kind than the following from Dr. Storr's address on 
 " The Early American Spirit " ; yet notice how both pic- 
 tures and thoughts are affected by the way in which they 
 are welded together : 
 
 " All of them came out of communities which had had 
 to face portentous problems, and which were at the time 
 profoundly stirred by vast moral and political forces. 
 
REPRESENTATION AND PRESENTATION. 301 
 
 They bore them imbedded in their consciousness, entering 
 whether articulated or not, with a dominant force into 
 their thought, into their life. They transported to these 
 coasts, by the simple act of transferring their life hither, 
 a power and a promise from the greatest age of European 
 advancement. They could not have helped it if they 
 would. They could more easily have left behind the 
 speech which they had learned in childhood than they 
 could have dropped on their stormy way across the ocean 
 the self-reliance, the indomitable courage, the constructive 
 energy, and the great aspiration, of which the lands they 
 left were full. 
 
 # * * * * * * 
 
 " It is easy to exaggerate their religious enthusiasm till 
 all the other traits of their characters are dimmed by its 
 excessive brightness. Our filial pride inclines us to this ; 
 for, if we could, we should love to feel, all of us, that we 
 are sprung from untitled nobles, from saints who need no 
 canonization, from men of such heroic mould, and women 
 of such tender devoutness that the world elsewhere was 
 not worthy of them ; that they brought to these coasts a 
 wholly unique celestial life, through the scanty cabins 
 which were to it as a manger and the quaint apparel which 
 furnished its swaddling clothes ; that airs Elysian played 
 around them, while they took the wilderness as was said 
 of the Lady Arabella Johnson, ' on their way to heaven/ " 
 
 There is nothing obscure in this style to a cultivated 
 man, but there is to an uncultivated one, because, while 
 composed in a representative style, it is not in the highest 
 sense representative. It degenerates very easily, too, into 
 a style in which, even among the cultivated, the figures 
 hinder rather than help the presentation of the thought. 
 In the following we have an example of this effect, a pas- 
 
3O2 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 sage in many respects admirably composed, but ordinary 
 people will be obliged to think twice before understanding 
 what it means. " Vice has this additional condemnation, 
 that the present is dogged and hunted down by the evil 
 companionship of the past, that its words have the taint 
 and its suggestions the stain of a worn-out debauch ; that 
 it cannot shake itself loose from the foul memories which 
 hang about it, nor rebuke the malignant and sneering 
 devils now evoked even by the purest objects." 
 
 This is a method of writing not uncommon in our 
 day, and it is called brilliant. But no style is really bril- 
 liant the figures and ideas of which do not stand out in 
 bright light and clear relief ; and no writer of the first class, 
 notwithstanding the example of Carlyle, and, to some 
 extent, of Emerson, obscures his thought by an endeavor 
 to render it poetically representative. We have found 
 how true this is as applied to the poetry of the best 
 writers ; it is equally true as applied to their prose. The 
 fact is that a man who knows best what poetry is, knows 
 best what poetry is not ; and when he tries to write prose 
 he gives men the benefit of his knowledge. Nothing, 
 indeed, can be more simple and direct than the prose of 
 Shakespear, Coleridge, Goethe, Wordsworth, and Byron. 
 A man judging from it might suppose that these writers, 
 as compared with men like Professor Wilson, Hartley 
 Coleridge, and Carlyle, had but little representative 
 ability. 
 
 At present, however, we are dealing with poetry. The 
 bearing upon it of what has been said is this, that mod- 
 ern poetry, like modern prose, tends to alloyed represen- 
 tation. The similarity of the following poetry and the 
 last of our prose quotations will be recognized at once ; 
 also that the same tendency underlies both, viz., the 
 
REPRESENTA TION AND PRESENT A TION. 303 
 
 crowding together of thought and illustration in the form, 
 in such a way that neither of the two stands forth in clear 
 relief. Here the tendency is only slightly suggested : 
 
 O Mother State, how quenched thy Sinai fires ! 
 
 Is there none left of thy staunch Mayflower breed ? 
 No spark among the ashes of thy sires, 
 
 Of Virtue's altar-flame the kindling seed ? 
 Are these thy great men, these that cringe and creep, 
 
 And writhe through slimy ways to place and power ? 
 How long, O Lord, before thy wrath shall reap 
 
 Our frail-stemmed summer prosperings in their flower ? 
 O for one hour of that undaunted stock 
 That went with Vane and Sidney to the block ! 
 
 O for a whiff of Naseby, that would sweep, 
 
 With its stern Puritan besom, all this chaff 
 
 From the Lord's threshing-floor ! Yet more than half 
 The victory is attained, when one or two, 
 
 Through the fool's laughter and the traitor's scorn, 
 
 Beside thy sepulchre can abide the morn, 
 Crucified Truth, when thou shalt rise anew. 
 
 To John G. Palfrey : Lowell. 
 
 Here there is a much further development of the ten- 
 dency : 
 
 Meantime, just meditate my madrigal 
 O' the mugwort that conceals a dewdrop safe ! 
 What, dullard ? we and you in smothery chafe, 
 Babes, baldheads, stumbled thus far into Zin 
 The Horrid, getting neither out nor in, 
 A hungry sun above us, sands that bung 
 Our throats, each dromedary lolls a tongue, 
 Each camel churns a sick and frothy chap, 
 And you 'twixt tales of Potiphar's mishap, 
 And sonnets on the earliest ass that spoke, 
 Remark, you wonder any one needs choke 
 With founts about ! Potsherd him, Gibeonites 1 
 While awkwardly enough your Moses smites 
 The rock, though he forego his Promised Land, 
 
3O4 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART, 
 
 Thereby, have Satan claim his carcass, and 
 Figure as Metaphysic Poet ... ah ! 
 Mark ye the dim first oozings ? Meribah ! 
 Then, quaffing at the fount, my courage gained, 
 Recall not that I prompt ye who explained . . . 
 44 Presumptuous ! " interrupts one. 
 
 Sordello, 3 : R. Browning. 
 
 In addition to what has been said already, it will be 
 noticed that in the first of these quotations, phrases like 
 Sinai fires, Mayflower breed, whiff of Naseby, Puritan besom, 
 etc., and in the second, words like Zin the Horrid, Potiphars, 
 ass, Gibeonites, Moses, Meribah, etc., call up no definite pic- 
 tures, though at first they seem to do so. They merely 
 call up ideas, which, in turn, call up pictures to the poet's 
 mind, on account of the facts which he has come to asso- 
 ciate with these words. They call up the same ideas in the 
 minds of others, only so far as these happen to have the 
 same associations with the terms that the poet has. But 
 suppose the people of India or China, or of any clime or 
 age having no such associations, were to read the poetry ; 
 for them there would be no pictures represented scarcely 
 any ideas presented by this kind of language. In saying 
 this, it is not meant that all allusions to such things as 
 are mentioned here for the sake of illustration should 
 be banished from poetry ; it is meant merely that this 
 sort of material should not be crowded into the form in 
 such a way as to interfere with clearness of representa- 
 tion. Some of the allusions, with very slight alterations, 
 might be made intelligible and forcible to readers the 
 most ignorant of the facts mentioned, and the most 
 devoid of sympathy with the principles exemplified by 
 them. All of the allusions would injure the poetry less, 
 if they stood in passages by themselves, instead of being 
 crowded, as they are, into every part of it. In that case 
 
REPRESENTA TION AND PRESENTA TION. 305 
 
 there might be, aside from them, enough of pure repre- 
 sentation in the poetry to render it of permanent and 
 universal interest. Some of us, perhaps, have seen old 
 paintings, the costumes in which, representing the fash- 
 ions of the day, made the figures seem almost ridiculous ; 
 but, notwithstanding this, the faces of the forms thus 
 clothed, because pure representations of nature, were 
 beautiful or attractive. We have seen, also, pictures of 
 North American Indians, in which not only the forms 
 were so robed, but the faces so painted, that what may be 
 termed the alloyed representation of their day, left in its 
 portraiture no pure representation of nature whatsoever 
 for us really to admire. The kind of poetry of which we 
 have just been treating, is in danger at some time of pro- 
 ducing similar effects. Often not even in small, scattered 
 parts of it, is there any pure representation. When, 
 therefore, the fashion of the time to which it is addressed 
 goes by, nothing will be left to render it of permanent in- 
 terest. We come back here, therefore, to the place where 
 we started. Art is representative, and that which is not 
 representative in the highest sense does not meet the re- 
 quirements of art, and therefore cannot live as true art 
 does. Allusions in poetry that lives are separated from 
 the main thought, as in the following, which, though not 
 wholly to be commended, can be read with intelligence 
 even by one who does not recall the particulars of the 
 myths to which reference is made. 
 
 Thus saying, from her husband's hand, her hand 
 Soft she withdrew ; and like a wood-nymph light. 
 Oread or Dryad, or of Delia's train, 
 Betook her to the groves, but Delia's self 
 In gait surpassed, and goddess-like deport, 
 Though not as she with bow and quiver armed. 
 
306 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 But with such gard'ning tools as art, yet rude, 
 Guiltless of fire had form'd, or angels brought. 
 
 Paradise Lost, 9 : Milton. 
 
 Not less but more heroic than the wrath 
 Of stern Achilles on his foe pursued 
 Thrice fugitive about Troy walls : or rage 
 Of Turnus for Lavinia disespous'd, 
 Or Neptune's ire or Juno's, that so long 
 Perplex'd the Greek and Cytherea's son. 
 
 Idem, 9. 
 
 Sometimes, too, such allusions in the best poetry, are 
 explained or rendered picturesque, as in the following: 
 
 Do you believe me yet, or shall I call 
 
 Antiquity from the old schools of Greece 
 
 To testify the arms of chastity ? 
 
 Hence had the huntress Dian her dread bow, 
 
 Fair silver-shafted queen, for ever chaste, 
 
 Wherewith she tamed the brinded lioness 
 
 And spotted mountain pard, but set at nought 
 
 The frivolous bolt of Cupid ; gods and men 
 
 Fear'd her stern frown, and she was queen o' th' woods. 
 
 What was that snaky-headed Gorgon shield, 
 
 That wise Minerva wove, unconquer'd virgin, 
 
 Wherewith she freezed her foes to congeal'd stone, 
 
 But rigid looks of chaste austerity, 
 
 And noble grace that dash'd brute violence 
 
 With sudden adoration and blank awe ? 
 
 Comus ' Milton. 
 
 It is not merely in historical or mythological allusions, 
 however, that the main thought of a passage can be so 
 mixed with the illustrating figures as to destroy their 
 representative character. The same tendency will be 
 recognized in the following: 
 
 Yes, the pine is the mother of legends ; what food 
 
 For their grim roots is left when the thousand-yeared wood 
 
 The dim-aisled cathedral, whose tall arches spring 
 
 Light, sinewy, graceful, firm-set as the wing 
 
REPRESENTA TION AND PRESENT A TION. 307 
 
 From Michael's white shoulder is hewn and defaced 
 
 By iconoclast axes in desperate waste, 
 
 And its wrecks seek the ocean it prophesied long, 
 
 Cassandra-like, crooning its mystical song ? 
 
 Then the legends go with them even yet on the sea 
 
 A wild virtue is left in the touch of the tree, 
 
 And the sailor's night watches are thrilled to the core 
 
 With the lineal offspring of Odin and Thor. 
 
 The Growth of the Legend : Lowell. 
 
 In contrast with this, notice how clearly both thoughts 
 and figures, and the thoughts by means of the figures, 
 stand out in poetry that is truly representative : 
 
 Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne, 
 Yet that scaffold sways the Future, and, behind the dim unknown, 
 Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own. 
 
 The Present Crisis : Lowell. 
 
 Virtue ? a fig ! 't is in ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are 
 gardens to the which our wills are gardeners ; so that if we will plant net- 
 tles, or sew lettuce ; set hyssop, and weed up thyme ; supply it with one 
 gender of herbs, or distract it with many ; either to have it sterile with idle- 
 ness, or manured with industry ; why the power and corrigible authority of 
 
 this lies in our wills. 
 
 Othello, i., 3 : Shakespcar. 
 
 You have seen 
 
 Sunshine and rain at once ; her smiles and tears 
 Were like a better May ; those happy smilets, 
 That played on her ripe lips seemed not to know 
 What guests were in her eyes. 
 
 Lear, iv. , 3 : Idem. 
 
 Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear ; 
 Robes and furr'd gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold, 
 And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks ; 
 Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw does pierce it , . . 
 
 . . . Get thee glass eyes ; 
 And like a scurvy politician seem 
 To see the things thou dost not. 
 
 Idem, iv., 6. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 ORNAMENTAL ALLOY IN REPRESENTATION. 
 
 Poetic Development of the far-fetched Simile in the Illustrating of Illustra- 
 tions Examples of this from several Modern Writers Whose Repre- 
 sentation or Illustration fails to represent or illustrate Poetic Devel- 
 opment of the Mixed Metaphor Examples from Modern Poets In 
 what will this result More Examples How the Tendency leads the 
 Poet from his Main Thought to pursue Suggestions made even by 
 Sounds Representing thus a Lack of Sanity or of Discipline, neither of 
 which is what Art should represent. 
 
 examination of the effects upon poetry of the 
 didactic tendency, in which considerations of thought 
 overbalance those of form, have led us to trace certain 
 phases of failure to a lack of representation. We have 
 now to examine the effects of the ornate tendency, in 
 which considerations of form overbalance those of thought, 
 and in which therefore there is failure because of an ex- 
 cess of representation. 
 
 It is simply natural for one who has obtained facility in 
 illustrating his ideas to overdo the matter, at times, and 
 to carry his art so far as to re-illustrate that which has 
 been sufficiently illustrated or is itself illustrative. The 
 first form that we need to notice, in which this tendency 
 shows itself, is a poetic development and extension of 
 what rhetoricians term the " far-fetched " simile, a simile 
 in which minor points of resemblance are sought out and 
 dwelt upon in minute detail and at unnecessary length. 
 Attention has been directed in another place to the way 
 
 308 
 
ORNAMENT IN POETRY. 309 
 
 in which the exclusively allegorical treatment in Spenser's 
 Faerie Queene causes us to lose sight of the main sub- 
 ject of the poem. An allegory, as has been said, is mainly 
 an extended simile. The poetic fault of which I am to 
 speak is sometimes found in similes, sometimes in alle- 
 gories, and sometimes in episodes filled with metaphorical 
 language, partaking partly of the distinctive nature of 
 both. These passages seem to be suggested as illustra- 
 tions of the main subject, but they are so extended and 
 elaborated that they really obscure it. As the reader 
 goes on to peruse them, he either forgets altogether what 
 the subject to be illustrated is, or he finds himself unable 
 to separate that which belongs only to it, from that which 
 belongs only to the illustration. 
 
 It is largely owing to passages manifesting this charac- 
 teristic that Robert Browning's writings seem obscure to 
 so many. Most persons would be obliged to read the fol- 
 lowing, for example, two or three times before understand- 
 ing it, and this because of the difficulty they experience 
 in separating the particulars of the passage that go with 
 the main thought from those that go with the illustrating 
 thought ; in other words, the excess of representation in 
 the form interferes with its clearness. 
 
 The man is witless of the size, the sum, 
 The value, in proportion of all things, 
 
 ****** 
 Should his child sicken unto death, why, look 
 For scarce abatement of his cheerfulness, 
 Or pretermission of his daily craft 
 While a word, gesture, glance, from that same child 
 At play, or in school, or laid asleep, 
 Will start him to an agony of fear, 
 Exasperation, just as like ! demand 
 The reason why " 't is but a word," object 
 " A gesture " he regards thee as our lord 
 
$10 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 Who lived there in the pyramid alone, 
 
 Looked at us, dost thou mind, when being young 
 
 We both would unadvisedly recite 
 
 Some charm's beginning, from that book of his, 
 
 Able to bid the sun throb wide and burst 
 
 All into stars, as suns grown old are wont. 
 
 Thou and the child have each a veil alike 
 
 Thrown o'er your heads from under which ye both 
 
 Stretch your blind hands and trifle with a match 
 
 Over a mine of Greek fire, did ye know ! 
 
 He holds on firmly to some thread of life 
 
 (It is the life to lead perforcedly) 
 
 Which runs across some vast distracting orb 
 
 Of glory on either side that meagre thread, 
 
 Which, conscious of, he must not enter yet 
 
 The spiritual life around the earthly life ! 
 
 The law of that is known to him as this 
 
 His heart and brain move there, his feet stay here. 
 
 So is the man perplexed with impulses 
 
 Sudden to start off crosswise, not straight on, 
 
 Proclaiming what is Right and Wrong across 
 
 And not along, this black thread through the blaze 
 
 " It should be " balked by " here it cannot be." 
 
 An Epistle. 
 
 It must be confessed, however, that these episodes of 
 Browning are often very charming to those who have 
 come to understand them, e* g. : 
 
 And hereupon they bade me daub away. 
 
 Thank you ! my head being crammed, their walls a blank, 
 
 Never was such prompt disemburdening. 
 
 First, every sort of monk, the black and white, 
 
 I drew them, fat and lean : then, folks at church, 
 
 From good old gossips waiting to confess 
 
 Their cribs of barrel-droppings, candle-ends, 
 
 To the breathless fellow at the altar-foot 
 
 Fresh from his murder, safe and sitting there 
 
 With the little children round him in a row 
 
 Of admiration, half for his beard and half 
 
 For that white anger of his victim's son 
 
ORNAMENT IN POETRY. 31 1 
 
 Shaking a fist at him with one fierce arm, 
 
 Signing himself with the other because of Christ 
 
 (Whose sad face on the cross sees only this 
 
 After the passion of a thousand years) 
 
 Till some poor girl, her apron o'er her head, 
 
 Which the intense eyes looked through, came at eve 
 
 On tiptoe, said a word, dropped in a loaf, 
 
 Her pair of ear-rings and a bunch of flowers 
 
 The brute took growling, prayed, and then was gone. 
 
 I painted all, then cried, " 't is ask and have, 
 
 Choose, for more 's ready ! " laid the ladder flat, 
 
 And showed my covered bit of cloister wall. 
 
 Fra Lippo Lippi. 
 
 This way of turning from the main thought of a pas- 
 sage, in order to amplify and illustrate the illustration, 
 characterizes still more the poetry of a later school. 
 Notice how, in the following from Gerald Massey, the 
 "Oak" is used to illustrate the condition of England, 
 and then the picture of Victory further on is used to 
 illustrate the condition of the oak. 
 
 And England slumbered in the lap of Peace, 
 Beneath her grand old Oak which, hale and strong, 
 Rode down the storm, and wrestled with the winds, 
 To rise in pomp of bloom, and paean of song, 
 Green with the sap of many hundred springs ; 
 And tossed its giant arms in wanton life, 
 Like Victory smiling in the sun of Glory. 
 
 Glimpses of the War: Massey. 
 
 But it is Swinburne who has developed most fully, and 
 apparently with design, this method of catching at the 
 illustrating thought as if it were the main thought, 
 and going on to illustrate it, and then catching at this 
 second illustration once more, and treating it in the same 
 way, and so on ad infinitum. Notice this from his Evening 
 on the Broads : 
 
312 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 All over the gray soft shallow 
 
 Hover the colors and clouds of twilight, void of a star. 
 As a bird unfledged in the broad winged night, whose winglets are callow 
 Yet, but soon with their plumes will she cover her brood from afar, 
 Cover the brood of her worlds that cumber the skies with their blossom 
 Thick as the darkness of leaf-shadowed spring is encumbered with flowers. 
 World upon world is enwound in the bountiful girth of her bosom, 
 Warm and lustrous with life lovely to look on as ours. 
 Still is the sunset adrift as a spirit in doubt that dissembles 
 Still with itself, being sick of division and dimmed by dismay 
 Nay, not so ; but with love and delight beyond passion it trembles, 
 Fearful and fain of the night, lovely with love of the day : 
 Fain and fearful of rest that is like unto death, and begotten 
 Out of the womb of the tomb, born of the seed of the grave : 
 Lovely with shadows of loves that are only not wholly forgotten, 
 Only not wholly suppressed by the dark as a wreck by the wave. 
 
 The fault in this mode of illustrating, or representing, 
 lies in the fact that it does not illustrate nor represent. 
 The poet, in writing it, has made the form an end and not 
 a means. His thoughts, and methods of developing them, 
 are suggested by the representation, and not by that 
 which it is supposed to represent, and which his readers 
 naturally expect it to represent. Accordingly, his readers 
 cannot distinguish the main thought from the illustrating 
 thought, nor this again from the re-illustrating thought, 
 and the whole passage is necessarily more or less obscure. 
 The poet has not made his subject stand forth in clear, 
 concrete outlines, as art should do ; but has so veneered 
 and besmeared it with excess of ornamentation that no 
 one can tell very decidedly just what his subject is. Be- 
 sides this, there is another fundamental error in this style ; 
 but as it underlies also the next fault that is to be men- 
 tioned, reference will be made to it after we have con- 
 sidered that. 
 
 The second form that we need to notice, of the ten- 
 dency now under consideration, is allied to the " mixed 
 
ORNAMENT IN POETRY. 313 
 
 metaphor " in the same way as we found that the 
 first was to the "far-fetched simile." Using "mixed 
 metaphors " is a fault from which, as most of us know, our 
 very best poets are not altogether exempt. Shakespear 
 makes Hamlet ask 
 
 Whether 't is nobler in the mind to suffer 
 The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune ; 
 Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, 
 And by opposing end them ? 
 
 Hamlet, iii., I. 
 
 And Milton says : 
 
 How sweetly did they float upon the wings 
 Of silence, through the empty-vaulted night, 
 At every fall smoothing the raven down 
 Of darkness till it smiled! 
 
 Comus. 
 
 Poets, like other people, are careless at times. 
 Very likely this fact will account for these passages. 
 Possibly, however, the mixed metaphors were used with 
 a design, in the first case, to represent confusion of 
 thought, and in the second antithesis. But what are we 
 to say of the following from Tennyson ? 
 
 For I dipt into the future far as human eye could see. 
 
 Locksley Hall. 
 With that she kissed 
 
 His forehead, then, a moment after, clung 
 About him and betwixt them blossomed up 
 From out a common vein of memory 
 Sweet household talk, and phrases of the hearth. 
 
 Princess. 
 
 A classic lecture, rich in sentiment 
 With scraps of thunderous Epic lilted out 
 By violet-hooded doctors, elegies 
 And quoted odes, and jewels five words long, 
 That on the stretched forefinger of all time 
 
 Sparkle forever. 
 
 Princess. 
 
314 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 " Be it so," the other, " that we still may lead 
 The new light up and culminate in peace" 
 
 Idem. 
 
 There are several questions which passages like these 
 suggest, passages so numerous as to be almost charac- 
 teristic of the style of Tennyson. Are they consciously 
 designed to crowd the form with that which shall orna- 
 ment it ? Do they add to the attractiveness of the form ? 
 Do they do this without interfering with the pureness of 
 its representation ? Have they any thing to do with 
 the fact that those who have never read poetry of the 
 school of Tennyson need to learn how to understand it ? 
 If people of our own day need to learn this, will not 
 people of future days need to do the same ? If so, after 
 this kind of poetry ceases to be the fashion, will anybody 
 ever take the trouble to learn to understand it ? in 
 other words, is there not danger that this poetry, simply 
 because its representation is not pure, will not become 
 classic? Possibly it may. Even the quotations just 
 given are no more mixed in their way than some of the 
 music of Wagner ; and that is supposed to be the music 
 of the future. Music, certainly, develops a taste for it- 
 self, and changes its methods in every age. At least 
 such has always been its history in the past. Is it the 
 same with poetry? There are sufficient excellencies in 
 that of Tennyson to cause it to deserve to live. He has 
 been the favorite poet of most of us, and has exerted in- 
 comparably more poetic influence upon his age than any 
 of his contemporaries. But if he is to live, will it be in 
 spite of, or on account of, faults such as we are now con- 
 sidering? If on account of them, and if future poets are 
 to imitate and develop his peculiarities, what is to become 
 of poetry ? Notice what some of his followers are doing 
 
ORNAMENT IN POETRY. 315 
 
 already. This is from Gerald Massey's New Years Eve 
 in Exile. There is much in this poet's writings that is 
 fine, and his spirit is earnest, but these are the very rea- 
 sons why he should avoid a mixture such as this : 
 
 But God 's in heaven, and yet the Day shall dawn 
 Break from the dark upon her golden wings, 
 Her quick, ripe splendors rend and burn the gloom. 
 Her living tides of glory burst, and foam, 
 And hurry along the darken'd streets of night. 
 Cloud after cloud shall light a rainbow-roof, 
 And build a Triumph-Arch for conquering Day 
 To flash her beauty trail her grandeurs through, 
 And take the World in her white arms of light. 
 And Earth shall fling aside her mask of gloom, 
 And lift her tearful face. O there will be 
 Blood on it thick as dews ! The children's blood 
 Splasht in the Mother's face ! And there must be 
 A red sunrise of retribution yet ! 
 
 New Year's Eve in Exile : Massey. 
 
 Here we have a thing that comes on golden wings and 
 bursts her living tides, that is at once quick and ripe, and 
 that rends and burns, and this thing is a day which usually 
 dawns slowly ; we have also clouds that light a rainbow, and 
 also build what appears to be a similar rainbow Arch, 
 which they, and not the sun, would have to do, if it were to 
 be seen in the east, where alone the day could trail her 
 grandeurs through it at sunrise. Finally, what connection 
 there is between the sentence beginning, " The children's 
 blood," and the context one fails to recognize, unless in 
 the poet's mind the subject, which is the Day, has become 
 mixed with something else. It has. The word world, 
 used in illustration, has made him think of earth; but 
 only for a little. Soon the word blood makes him think 
 of red sunrise ; not one of glory now, but of retribution. 
 
 In this matter of mixing metaphors, however, of all 
 
316 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 poets able to do better work, Swinburne caps the climax. 
 In the following single sentence, at least so we must judge 
 where we have nothing but the punctuation marks to in- 
 dicate the sense, we are told of fire kissing and killing, 
 which is like light riotous and red flaming round bent a 
 word suggested by the round, perhaps brows ; and at 
 the same time the fire, or the brows, or Semiramis, or 
 the dead body nobody can tell which is kindling like 
 dawn steely snows where treading feet feel snaky lines of 
 blood hiss, in which, as is evident (?), they resemble creep- 
 ing things that writhe but do not have, as one might sup- 
 pose, stings to scare adulterers from an imperial bed, bowed 
 possibly boughed misspelt with a load of lust. After 
 this, the same blood, or something else, goes on to chill, 
 as if that could put it out, a gust that made her body a 
 fire, which now seems to have passed over the whole 
 body from the brow to the heel, and is about to change a 
 high bright spirit from taint of fraud. One supposing that 
 no practical end is to be attained by trying to have poets 
 avoid alloyed illustrative representation, will be in a fair 
 way to have his doubts removed after he has made one 
 honest attempt to put into plain prose these remarkable 
 adventures of the amorous fire as related in this choice 
 specimen of florid poetic art : 
 
 As fire that kisses, killing with a kiss, 
 
 He saw the light of death, riotous and red, 
 Flame round the bent brows of Semiramis 
 
 Re-risen and mightier, from the Assyrian dead, 
 Kindling, as dawn a frost-bound precipice, 
 
 The steely snows of Russia, for the tread 
 Of feet that felt before them crawl and hiss 
 
 The snaky lines of blood violently shed 
 Like living creeping things 
 That writhe but have no stings 
 
ORNAMENT IN POETRY. 317 
 
 To scare adulterers from the imperial bed 
 Bowed with its load of lust, 
 Or chill the ravenous gust 
 That made her body a fire from heel to head ; 
 Or change her high bright spirit and clear, 
 For all its mortal stains, from taint of fraud or fear. 
 
 Song for the Centenary of W. S. Landor. 
 
 The artistic mistake here, just as in the case of that 
 allied to the " far-fetched simile," is that the figure, the 
 design of which, when rightly used, is to represent, does 
 not represent. It does the opposite. Instead of making 
 the thought more concrete, and thus giving it more defi- 
 niteness of form, it gives it indefiniteness. 
 
 But there is another mistake made in these methods, 
 which is psychological as well as artistic. As has been 
 seen, in all of these cases in which the clearness of repre- 
 sentation is obscured by the excess of it, the course of the 
 thought turns from the main subject, as if the writer had 
 forgotten it, while going on to develop that which is sug- 
 gested by the illustration. In the quotation above from 
 Massey, for example, it is easy enough to see that, in the 
 fifth line from the last, the phrase mask of gloom suggested 
 tearful face, and this again dews, and this blood, and this 
 the splashing of it, and all these things together, the red 
 sunrise of retribution. In the quotation from Swinburne, 
 beginning 
 
 All over the gray soft shallow, 
 
 quoted on page 312, we hear first of a bird ; this sug- 
 gests a brood ; this suggests world's coursing skies, this 
 suggests blossoms, this flowers, this putting flowers in a 
 bosom, etc., while, in the last passage quoted from him, 
 fire suggests light, kindling light suggests dawn, dawn 
 suggests its effects on snow, snow the effects of feet tread- 
 ing it, treading suggests crawling, and crawling suggests 
 
3 1 8 POE TRY AS A REPRESENTA TIVE AR T. 
 
 creeping. Worse than this, certain words seem suggested 
 merely by their sounds which alliterate with words near 
 them. Now, suppose a man in .conversation were to let 
 his thoughts run on in this way, deviating from the line 
 of his argument or description, whenever he happened to 
 strike a word the sense or sound of which suggested 
 something different from that of which he started out to 
 speak. What should we think of him ? One of two 
 things, either that he was insane, or had a very poorly 
 disciplined mind. Precisely this is what is represented, so 
 far as any thing is represented, by this kind of poetry. 
 Yet, as we all know, the finest and highest art must 
 represent the finest and highest efforts of the finest and 
 highest powers of the mind. If this be so, then poetry 
 modelled upon a form which is the legitimate and natural 
 expression of an insane or a poorly disciplined mind, is not 
 poetry of the finest and highest order. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 REPRESENTATION IN POEMS CONSIDERED AS WHOLES. 
 
 Form in Words and Sentences How Visible Appearances give an Impres- 
 sion of Form How Movable Appearances do the Same Consistency 
 and Continuity in a Sentence Necessary to give it an Effect of Form 
 A Poem a Series of Representations and of Sentences Must have 
 Manifest Consistency and Continuity giving it Manifest Unity and Prog- 
 ress, also Definiteness and Completeness Form modelled on Direct 
 Representation How Figures can be carried out with Manifest Con- 
 sistency and Continuity Complete and Broken Figures Examples of 
 Poems with Forms modelled on the Methods of Illustrative Representa- 
 tion How Excellence of Form in all Poems of whatever Length should 
 "be determined Certain Poems not representing Unity and Progress 
 Great Poets see Pictures when conceiving their Poems ; Inferior Poets 
 think of Arguments Same Principles applied to Smaller Poems The 
 Moral in Poetry should be represented not presented Poetic Excel- 
 lence determined not by the Thought but by the Form of the Thought, 
 which must be a Form of Representation. 
 
 "XTtTEhave been considering the representative nature 
 of poetry. It remains for us to consider the rep- 
 resentative nature of a poem. All the products of art, 
 it was said at the opening of this work, are acknowledged 
 to have what is termed a form. In what sense can a 
 poem be said to have form, and what is necessary to cause 
 the form to be what it should be ? In order to determine 
 this, let us go back for moment to the method in which 
 thought attains form in ordinary language of which poetry 
 is a development. When we have noticed the principles 
 
 319 
 
320 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 that operate there, we shall have something to aid us in 
 solving our question here. 
 
 These principles are very simple. Sounds, or letters 
 symbolizing them in a material sphere, represent a thought 
 in the immaterial mind, and thus give it a form embodied 
 in a word. Two or more words put together give form 
 to compound words, phrases, or sentences. Let us exam- 
 ine the last of these for a moment. It is the most 
 complex of the three, yet very simple as compared with 
 the collection of words' in a whole poem. At the same 
 time, too, it is the most complete form of expression of 
 the three in fact, in its way an absolutely complete form 
 of expression. A whole poem is more complete only in 
 the sense that it is composed of a large number of these 
 sentences. As mere vehicles of expression, therefore, 
 every principle that applies to them applies to the poem 
 as a whole, and if we can find out in what sense they can 
 be said to have form, we can have something to guide us 
 in determining in what sense a poem can be said to have 
 form. 
 
 What do we mean, then, by saying that a sentence has 
 form ? If it were a visible object we should say it had 
 form in the degree in which it appeared to be one object, 
 by which we should mean in the degree in which, owing 
 to the effects of outlines, colors, or some other features, 
 every part of the object seemed to be connected with 
 every other part of it throughout the entire extent of 
 space which it occupied. A sentence is not visible in 
 space, but is apprehended in time, in words that follow 
 one another. Its substance is movement, and if we apply 
 to it the same criterions as those usually applied to 
 visible objects, changing only the terms that are necessary 
 to refer to it as an object whose substance is movement, 
 
QUALITIES GIVING FORM TO POEMS. 321 
 
 we must say that it appears to have form in the degree in 
 which it appears to be one movement by which we mean 
 in the degree in which every part of its movement seems 
 to be connected with every other part of it, and this 
 throughout the whole extent of time which it occupies. 
 The first of these conditions, when every part of the 
 movement seems to be connected with every other part 
 of it, gives to the whole the effect of consistency. The sec- 
 ond of the conditions, when this connected movement 
 seems to extend throughout the whole time occupied by it, 
 gives to the whole the effect of continuity. In a perfect 
 sentence, consistency is manifest, because every word or 
 clause is related in some way to every other ; and con- 
 tinuity, because every word or clause is related in some 
 way to a subject which represents the beginning of a 
 movement ; to a predicate, which represents the continua- 
 tion and sometimes the end of the movement ; and also, 
 when needed, to an object, which represents the end of 
 the movement. It is for these reasons that a perfect sen- 
 tence seems to us to have form : it has consistency and 
 continuity. 
 
 If this be true of a sentence, which is a series of words 
 representing thought, why should it not be true of a poem, 
 which is also a series of words representing thought ? 
 A poem is made up of series of sentences, or, as we have 
 found, of series of representations, some of them continu- 
 ing through many sentences. If the poem, as a whole, 
 is to have form, and one that can be readily recognized, 
 it follows, from what has been said, that its different sen- 
 tences or representations of movements or actions must 
 all manifest their relationships to one another, thus pro- 
 ducing the effect of consistency ; and also their relation- 
 ships to the general forward movement, thus producing 
 the effect of continuity. 
 
322 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 From its very nature a whole poem is always more or 
 less complex ; and the human mind is so constituted that 
 one can never understand that which is complex until it 
 has been analyzed sufficiently to make possible some kind 
 of a classification of its parts. For this classification there 
 is needed a basis, and this is always found primarily in 
 some one feature which all the parts possess in common, 
 as when the whole family of birds are classed together be- 
 cause they all have feathers. The mind cannot understand, 
 therefore, that consistency exists in any complex series of 
 sentences or thoughts represented by them, unless per- 
 ceiving one kind of movement or action which all manifest ; 
 nor continuity unless perceiving one direction which all 
 the movements or actions take. Hence it is that the 
 action represented in art, if the art-product is to appear t<? 
 have an artistic form, must be characterized by what are 
 termed unity and progress, unity being the result of effects 
 produced by apparent consistency, and progress, of the 
 effects of apparent continuity. 
 
 Once more, unity as influenced by progress in an art- 
 product renders its aesthetic effects clearly distinguishable 
 from all other effects produced side by side with it. In 
 other words, progress in unity gives definiteness to form. 
 On the other hand, progress as influenced by unity in an 
 art-product renders its aesthetic effects clearly distinguish- 
 able from all other effects produced before or after it, 
 because these are separated from it, both at its beginning 
 and at its end. In other words, unity in progress gives 
 completeness to form. 
 
 A poem is a development of language, and language is 
 a representation of thought, and thought is always in 
 motion. Every poem, therefore, must represent thought 
 in motion. But more than this, it must manifest unity. 
 
QUALITIES GIVING FORM TO POEMS. 323 
 
 Therefore it must represent one thought to which all other 
 thoughts that it contains must be related and subordi- 
 nated. More than this, too, it must manifest progress. 
 Therefore it must represent this one thought as moving 
 in one direction, as having one end toward the attainment 
 of which all the movements of all the related and subor- 
 dinated thoughts of the entire poem tend. 
 
 A production in which these requirements are fulfilled, 
 and, for reasons given on the last page, such a production 
 only, will have a form that will appear to be definite and 
 complete. 
 
 Now let us examine some poems, and find out, if we can, 
 how far they fulfil these requirements. Notice, first, the 
 following representation of a very common thought that 
 comes to all of us when gazing on something that we are 
 not to see again. The unity of the poem is embodied in 
 the idea expressed in the word forever, and its progress in 
 the amplification of this idea, by extending it successively 
 to the river as it flows near the speaker (first stanza), 
 away from him (second stanza), and with other surround- 
 ings in space (third stanza), and in time (fourth stanza). 
 
 Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea, 
 
 Thy tribute wave deliver : 
 No more by thee my steps shall be, 
 
 Forever and forever. 
 
 Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea, 
 
 A rivulet then a river : 
 Nowhere by thee my steps shall be. 
 
 Forever and forever. 
 
 But here will sigh thine alder tree, 
 
 And here thine aspen shiver ; 
 And here by thee will hum the bee 
 
 Forever and forever. 
 
324 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 A thousand suns will stream on thee, 
 
 A thousand moons will quiver ; 
 But not by thee my steps shall be, 
 
 Forever and forever. 
 
 A Fare-well : Tennyson. 
 
 Better examples of the direct representation of com- 
 plete phases of action are the following, because in all of 
 them the unity and progress are more apparent. All bring 
 out distinctly a single idea, and this is unfolded progres- 
 sively without a word at the beginning or end or in the 
 middle not necessary to complete the picture. 
 
 Home they brought her warrior dead ; 
 
 She nor swoon'd, nor utter'd cry : 
 All her maidens, watching, said, 
 
 " She must weep or she will die." 
 
 Then they praised him, soft and low, 
 
 Call'd him worthy to be loved, 
 Truest friend and noblest foe ; 
 
 Yet she neither spoke nor moved. 
 
 Stole a maiden from her place, 
 
 Lightly to the warrior stept, 
 Took the face-cloth from the face : 
 
 Yet she neither moved nor wept. 
 
 Rose a nurse of ninety years, 
 
 Set his child upon her knee 
 Like summer tempest came her tears 
 
 " Sweet my child, I live for thee." 
 
 The Princess : Tennyson. 
 
 As through the land at eve we went, 
 
 And plucked the ripened ears, 
 We fell out, my wife and I, 
 O, we fell out, I know not why, 
 
 And kiss'd again with tears. 
 
 For when we came where lies the child 
 We lost in other years, 
 
QUALITIES GIVING FORM TO POEMS. 325 
 
 There above the little grave, 
 O, there above the little grave, 
 We kiss'd again with tears. 
 
 The Princess : Tennyson. 
 
 As beautiful Kitty one morning was tripping, 
 With a pitcher of milk from the fair of Coleraine, 
 
 When she saw me, she stumbled, the pitcher it tumbled, 
 And all the sweet buttermilk watered the plain. 
 
 4 ' O what shall I do now ? 't was looking at you now ! 
 
 Sure, sure, such a pitcher I '11 n'er meet again ! 
 'T was the pride of my dairy ; O' Barney M'Cleary ! 
 
 You 're sent as a plague to the girls of Coleraine ! " 
 
 I sat down beside her, and gently did chide her, 
 That such a misfortune should give her such pain, 
 
 A kiss then I gave her, before I did leave her, 
 She vowed for such pleasure she 'd break it again. 
 
 'T was hay-making season I can't tell the reason 
 Misfortunes will never come singly 't is plain ; 
 
 For, very soon after poor Kitty's disaster, 
 The devil a pitcher was whole in Coleraine. 
 
 Kitty of Coleraine : C. D. Shanly. 
 
 The two following lyrics are still more effective, for the 
 reason that they reveal still more clearly the characteristics 
 which we are now considering. Think what either of them 
 would be aside from the form in which the facts in them 
 are represented. And what in the form makes it so effec- 
 tive ? What but its concreteness, revealed through the con- 
 sistency and continuity, the unity and progress that char- 
 acterize the representation ? 
 
 *' O Mary, go and call the cattle home, 
 And call the cattle home, 
 And call the cattle home, 
 Across the sands o' Dee ! " 
 The western wind was wild and dank wi' foam, 
 And all alone went she. 
 
326 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 The creeping tide came up along the sand, 
 And o'er and o'er the sand, 
 And round and round the sand, 
 As far as eye could see ; 
 
 The blinding mist came down and hid the land : 
 And never home came she. 
 
 " O is it weed, or fish, or floating hair 
 A tress o' golden hair, 
 A drowned maiden's hair 
 Above the nets at sea ? 
 Was never salmon yet that shone so fair, 
 Among the stakes on Dee." 
 
 They rowed her in across the rolling foam 
 The cruel, crawling foam, 
 The cruel, hungry foam 
 To her grave beside the sea ; 
 
 But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home 
 Across the sands o' Dee. 
 
 Mary, Go and Call the Cattle Home : Kingsley. 
 
 Three fishers went sailing out into the West, 
 
 Out into the West as the sun went down ; 
 Each thought of the woman who loved him the best, 
 
 And the children stood watching them out of the town ; 
 For men must work and women must weep ; 
 And there 's little to earn, and many to keep, 
 
 Though the harbor bar be moaning. 
 
 Three wives sat up in the lighthouse tower, 
 
 And trimmed their lamps as the sun went down ; 
 
 And they looked at the squall and they looked at the shower, 
 
 And the night rack came rolling up, rugged and brown ; 
 
 But men must work, and women must weep, 
 
 Though storms be sudden, and waters deep, 
 And the harbor bar be moaning. 
 
 Three corpses lay out on the shining sands 
 
 In the morning gleam as the tide went down, 
 And the women are watching and wringing their hands 
 
 For those who will never come back to the town ; 
 
QUALITIES GIVING FORM TO POEMS. 327 
 
 For men must work and women must weep 
 
 And the sooner it 's over the sooner to sleep 
 
 And good-by to the bar and its moaning. 
 
 The Fishermen : Idem. 
 
 These poems, in which, as must have been noticed, the 
 representation in each case is also definite and complete, 
 have unity, because they unfold only one prominent idea ; 
 and progress, because the particulars leading up to the 
 clearest expression of this idea are unfolded successively 
 and logically unfolded in most of them, in fact, accord- 
 ing to the method of the climax. 
 
 Now notice how the same principles apply to poems in 
 which illustrative representation is used. This, as we 
 have found, either pictures the movements of the mind 
 through the operations of external nature, or pictures 
 the latter through other operations of external nature 
 analogous to them. Direct representation is developed 
 from the methods according to which plain language is 
 formed ; illustrative representation from those according 
 to which distinctively figurative language is formed. In the 
 latter some one process or order of events is represented 
 in words that image another. This image is thoroughly 
 intelligible and enjoyable in the degree in which its out- 
 lines are definite and complete, causing the form to appear 
 single and unbroken, in which, therefore, the analogy be- 
 tween the two things, compared, of course, in the brief, 
 suggestive way that appeals best to the imagination is 
 carried out with consistency and continuity from begin- 
 ning to end. In fact, the fundamental reason why similes 
 and metaphors, when far-fetched or mixed, are not artistic, 
 is because, on account of too much or too little of the 
 illustrative element in them, their analogies are not carried 
 out successfully. For a good illustration of how they can 
 
328 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 be carried out successfully, observe the following from 
 Mrs. Spafford's (Harriet E. Prescott) Sir Rohan s Ghost : 
 
 Sir Rohan had a ghost ; not by any means a common ghost that appeared 
 at midnight on the striking of a bell, and trailed its winding sheet through 
 the upper halls nearest the roof, but a ghost that, sleeping or waking, never 
 left him 
 
 Now notice how the same description of the ghost, as 
 an outward apparition, is continued in order to represent 
 its influence over the inward states and whole experience 
 of Sir Rohan : 
 
 a ghost whose long hair coiled round and stifled the fair creations of his 
 dreams, and whose white garments swept leprously into his sunlight. 
 
 A sentence or series of sentences in which there is 
 throughout this consistency and continuity of meaning is 
 artistic. That effort of Sir Boyle Roche in the House of 
 Parliament, in which he exclaimed : " I smell a rat. I see 
 him floating in the air. I will nip him in the bud," was 
 not artistic. His image had been broken even before he 
 had nipped it. 
 
 It follows from what has been said, that an artistic 
 poem, constructed according to the methods of illus- 
 trative representation, must be characterized throughout 
 by consistency and continuity. So far as possible, the 
 two things compared must be alike in their beginnings, 
 middles, and ends ; they must start, move, and stop when 
 sustaining analogous relations. 
 
 To see how this is feasible, notice the following poem 
 translated from the German. The one feature of ex- 
 cellence in it is the fact that it brings out distinctly 
 and completely the likeness between the two things com- 
 pared i. e., between the fate of a woman at different 
 
QUALITIES GIVING FORM TO POEMS. 329 
 
 periods of her life and that of a rose-bush at different 
 seasons of the year ; in the one case by words like child, 
 maiden, mother, and mound, and in the other by words 
 like buds, blossoms, leaves, and withered, as well as May and 
 autumn. Because these different stages in human life and 
 natural life are so distinctly and completely imaged, the 
 one in the other, none of us can fail to feel the representa- 
 tive and, in connection with this, the artistic and aesthetic 
 effects of the poem. 
 
 A child sleeps under a rose-bush fair. 
 The buds swell out in the soft May air. 
 Sweetly it rests and on dream-wings flies 
 To play with the angels in paradise : 
 And the years glide by. 
 
 A maiden stands by the rose-bush fair. 
 The dewy blossoms perfume the air. 
 She presses her hand to her throbbing breast, 
 With love's first wonderful rapture blest : 
 And the years glide by. 
 
 A mother kneels by the rose-bush fair, 
 Soft sigh the leaves in the evening air. 
 Sorrowing thoughts of the past arise, 
 And tears of anguish bedim her eyes : 
 And the years glide by. 
 
 Naked and lone stands the rose-bush fair, 
 Whirled are the leaves in the autumn air, 
 Withered and dead they fall to the ground, 
 And silently cover a new-made mound : 
 And the years glide by. 
 
 The Rose-bush : Trs. by W. Caldwell. 
 
 Some may be inclined to criticise this poem on the 
 ground that the words quoted a moment ago indicating 
 the analogies between nature and life by which its form 
 is suggested are too numerous, leaving too little to the 
 
330 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 imagination, and giving something of a mechanical effect 
 to the whole. This criticism, however, need not be 
 directed against the method in general, only against this 
 particular application of it. Here is another poem con- 
 structed upon similar principles. Probably the same 
 criticism would not be made upon it. The comparison in 
 it, is between the spring-time of nature and of human life, 
 in which, as is intimated, love is at its strongest. The 
 unity of thought in the poem and its progress, not so 
 much in time as in space, i. e. y from the generic to the 
 specific, from universal material nature to the maiden, 
 and then to her particular feelings toward her lover, with 
 just enough of a suggestion of the disappointment of the 
 writer to let us surmise it, is all very effective. 
 
 The sun had scattered each opal cloud, 
 
 And the flowers had waked from their winter's rest, 
 
 The song of the skylark rang free and loud, 
 
 And ah ! there were eggs in the swallow's nest ! 
 
 And for joy of the spring that so sweet appears, 
 
 I sang with the singing of twenty years. 
 
 Out from the meadows there passed a maid, 
 
 How can I tell you why she was fair ? 
 To see was to love as she bent her head 
 
 Over the brooklet that murmured there. 
 As I gazed, in an April of hopes and fears, 
 I dreamed with the dreaming of twenty years. 
 
 Next, for I saw her just once again, 
 
 Just once in that rare spring-tide, 
 I felt a heart-throb of vague sweet pain, 
 
 For I noticed that some one was by her side ! 
 And I turned, with a passion of sudden tears, 
 For they loved with the loving of twenty years. 
 
 Twenty Years : Trs. from the French of E. Baraieau. 
 
 In the following, in which also the progress is in space, 
 and from the generic to the specific, the art, or the effort 
 
QUALITIES GIVING FORM TO POEMS. 331 
 
 to give form to the thought, is less apparent than in the 
 foregoing. For this reason it is more artistic. In fact it 
 would scarcely be possible to conceive of any thing more 
 easy and graceful. 
 
 Nature, thy fair and smiling face 
 
 Has now a double power to bless, 
 For 't is the glass in which I trace 
 
 My absent Fanny's loveliness. 
 
 Her heavenly eyes above me shine, 
 
 The rose reflects her modest blush, 
 She breathes in every eglantine, 
 
 She sings in every warbling thrush. 
 
 That her dear form alone I see 
 
 Need not excite surprise in any. 
 For Fanny 's all the world to me, 
 
 And all the world to me is Fanny. 
 
 To Fanny : Horace Smith. 
 
 It will be noticed that whatever merit the following 
 poem has is owing entirely to the consistency with which 
 the comparison of the human body to a house is carried 
 out from beginning to end. 
 
 I. 
 
 Life and Thought have gone away 
 
 Side by side, 
 
 Leaving door and windows wide ; 
 Careless tenants they ! 
 
 II. 
 
 All within is dark as night : 
 In the windows is no light ; 
 And no murmur at the door, 
 So frequent on its hinge before. 
 
 III. 
 
 Close the door, the shutters close, 
 Or through the windows we shall see 
 
332 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 The nakedness and vacancy 
 Of the dark deserted house. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Come away ; no more of mirth 
 
 Is here or merry-making sound. 
 The house was builded of the earth, 
 
 And shall fall again to ground. 
 
 V. 
 
 Come away ; for Life and Thought 
 Here no longer dwell ; 
 
 But in a city glorious 
 A great and distant city have bought 
 A mansion incorruptible. 
 
 Would they could have stayed with us ! 
 
 7 'he Deserted House : Tennyson. 
 
 The charm of each of the following, too, is owing to the 
 completeness of the parallelism indicated between the 
 main thought and the illustrating thought, both of which 
 are unfolded with unity and progress. The poems would 
 be still more successful artistically, were it not for 
 the alloyed representation attendant upon the use of a 
 word like lover, in the third stanza of the first poem, and 
 of some of the adjectives in the selection from Bryant ; 
 but both, as they are, illustrate well the principal feature 
 which we are now considering. 
 
 Up to her chamber window 
 A slight wire trellis goes, 
 And up this Romeo's ladder 
 Clambers a bold white rose. 
 
 I lounge in the ilex shadows, 
 I see the lady lean, 
 Unclasping her silken girdle, 
 The curtain's folds between. 
 
QUALITIES GIVING FORM TO POEMS. 333 
 
 She smiles on her rose-white lover, 
 She reaches out her hand 
 And helps him in at the window 
 I see it where I stand ! 
 
 To her scarlet lip she holds him, 
 And kisses him many a time 
 Ah me ! it was he that won her 
 Because he dared to climb ! 
 
 Nocturne : T. B. Aldrich. 
 
 A brook came stealing from the ground ; 
 
 You scarcely saw its silvery gleam 
 Among the herbs that hung around 
 
 The borders of that winding stream, 
 The pretty stream, the placid stream, 
 The softly gliding, bashful stream. 
 
 A breeze came wandering from the sky, 
 
 Light as the whispers of a dream ; 
 He put the o'erhanging grasses by, 
 
 And softly stooped to kiss the stream, 
 The pretty stream, the flattered stream, 
 The shy yet unreluctant stream. 
 
 The water, as the wind passed o'er, 
 
 Shot upward many a glancing beam, 
 Dimpled and quivered more and more, 
 
 And tripped along a livelier stream ; 
 The flattered stream, the simpering stream, 
 The fond, delighted, silly stream. 
 
 Away the airy wanderer flew 
 
 To where the fields with blossoms teem. 
 
 To sparkling springs and rivers blue, 
 And left alone that little stream, 
 
 The flattered stream, the cheated stream, 
 
 The sad, forsaken, lonely stream. 
 
 The careless wind came never back ; 
 
 He wanders yet the fields, I deem ; 
 But, on its melancholy track, 
 
 Complaining went that little stream, 
 
334 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 The cheated stream, the hopeless stream, 
 The ever-murmuring, mourning stream, 
 
 The Wind and the Stream: W. C. Bryant. 
 
 Still finer, because it represents a grander thought, ap- 
 pealing to us literally with the voice of nature and of the 
 God behind nature, as well as because the comparison in 
 it to human life is indicated in the subtlest, as, also, for the 
 imagination, the most powerful way, is the following : 
 
 The moon is at her full, and, riding high, 
 
 Floods the calm fields with light. 
 The airs that hover in the summer sky 
 
 Are all asleep to-night. 
 
 There comes no voice from the great woodlands round 
 
 That murmured all the day ; 
 Beneath the shadow of their boughs, the ground 
 
 Is not more still than they. 
 
 But ever heaves and moans the restless Deep ; 
 
 His rising tide I hear, 
 Afar I see the glimmering billows leap ; 
 
 I see them breaking near. 
 
 Each wave springs upward, climbing toward the fair 
 
 Pure light that sits on high 
 Springs eagerly, and faintly sinks, to where 
 
 The mother waters lie. 
 
 Upward again it swells ; the moonbeams show 
 
 Again its glimmering crest ; 
 Again it feels the fatal weight below, 
 And sinks, but not to rest. 
 
 Again, and yet again, until the Deep 
 
 Recalls his brood of waves ; 
 And with a sullen moan, abashed, they creep 
 
 Back to his inner caves. 
 
 Brief respite ! they shall rush from that recess 
 
 With noise and tumult soon, 
 And fling themselves, with unavailing stress, 
 
 Up toward the placid moon. 
 
QUALITIES GIVING FORM TO POEMS. 335 
 
 O restless Sea, that, in thy prison here, 
 
 Dost struggle and complain ; 
 Through the slow centuries yearning to be near 
 
 To that fair orb in vain : 
 
 The glorious source of light and heat mr.zt warm 
 
 Thy billows from on high, 
 And change them to the cloudy trains that form 
 
 The curtain of the sky. 
 
 Then only may they leave the waste of brine 
 
 In which they welter here, 
 And rise above the hills of earth, and shine 
 
 In a serene r sphere. 
 
 The Tides : W. C. Bryant. 
 
 The chief criticisms that can be made on Bryant's 
 poetry, of which these two quotations furnish fair speci- 
 mens, are the tendencies in it to alloyed representation 
 already mentioned, and to slowness of movement. The 
 following, however, manifests neither of these character, 
 istics; and, although it does not present either a very 
 great or an original thought, being evidently suggested 
 by Goethe's ErLKing, it presents what thought it has 
 artistically, and in strict accordance with the methods 
 which we have been considering. 
 
 " O father, let us hence for hark, 
 
 A fearful murmur shakes the air ; 
 The clouds are coming swift and darlc ; 
 
 What horrid shapes they wear } 
 A winged giant sails the sky ; 
 O father, father, let us fly ! " 
 
 " Hush, child ; it is a grateful sound, 
 
 That beating of the summer shower ; 
 Here, where the boughs hang close around, 
 
 We '11 pass a pleasant hour, 
 Till the fresh wind, that brings the rain, 
 Has swept the broad heaven clear again." 
 
336 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 " Nay, father, let us haste, for see 
 That horrid thing with horned brow, 
 
 His wings o'erhang this very tree, 
 He scowls upon us now ; 
 
 His huge black arm is lifted high ; 
 O father, father, let us fly ! " 
 
 " Hush, child" ; but, as the father spoke, 
 
 Downward the livid firebolt came, 
 Close to his ear the thunder broke, 
 
 And, blasted by the flame, 
 The child lay dead ; while dark and still, 
 Swept the grim cloud along the hill. 
 
 A Presentiment .* Bryant. 
 
 The principles thus illustrated measure artistic excel 
 lence in all poems of whatever length. Just as in a short 
 poem, so in a long one, the development of the main idea, 
 whether by representing what is said, as in the dramatic 
 form, or what is done, as in the narrative or epic, must be 
 consistent and continuous throughout. Every poem, as 
 a whole, even if as long as Othello, Faust, Paradise 
 Lost, or The sEneid, must furnish, with unity and 
 progress, what may be termed a complete moving 
 image of the action which it is designed to represent. 
 Othello, for instance, gives us a complete view of the suc- 
 cessive stages of jealousy, as developed both in a frank, 
 magnanimous character like Othello, and in a deceitful, 
 malicious character like lago. So Paradise Lost gives 
 us a complete view of the author's theory of the causes, 
 character, and results of the loss of paradise. It wor.ld be 
 a misappropriation of time in this place to present a 
 thorough analysis of any of these poems in order to prove 
 this statement. Besides, there is no necessity for doing 
 it. Such analyses have often been made, and the truth of 
 the statement will be acknowledged by all acquainted 
 
QUALITIES GIVING FORM TO POEMS. 337 
 
 with them. The difference, therefore, between the ability 
 to produce a long poem and a short one is the same that 
 exists between a greater and smaller degree of capacity in 
 other departments, a difference in the ability to hold the 
 thought persistently to a single subject, both complicated 
 and comprehensive, until every thing in it has been classi- 
 fied and arranged and aimed, in accordance with one 
 formative conception. 
 
 The moment that we try to do so, we shall be able to 
 recall numbers of poems, great and small, that fail to 
 manifest this unity and progress. All such works as 
 Thomson's Seasons, Cowper's Task, Campbell's Pleas- 
 ures of Hope, and Wordsworth's Excursion must be 
 classed with these. What unity and progress they 
 reveal, and some might claim these qualities for them, 
 is of the logical, not representative, kind. There is 
 in them no consistency nor continuity of action. As 
 wholes they are not made up of related parts of single on- 
 ward movements. In fact, they scarcely represent move- 
 ments at all. The Excursion, even according to its au- 
 thor, was planned to have the effect of a cathedral with 
 one central nave and many side chapels. The plan was 
 only too faithfully carried out. For, although composed 
 in words that ought to move, it is an embodiment of 
 slowness, having all the solidity and stolidity of a struc- 
 ture of stone, and for this reason few read it through. 
 
 None of these poems deserve to be placed in the highest 
 rank, because they lack the qualities which, as we have 
 found, must characterize the products of an art, whose 
 form is apprehensible in time. They lack the qualities 
 because they lack the form that necessarily would show 
 these ; and they lack the form i. e., the representative 
 form, because their authors did not start to compose 
 
338 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 them with representative conceptions. When Dante, 
 Shakespear, and Milton first conceived their greatest 
 works, it must have been a picture that appeared to loom 
 before their imaginations. It is doubtful whether Words- 
 worth, Cowper, and Campbell thought of anything except 
 an argument. 
 
 In smaller poems similar defects are not so noticeable ; 
 but it would be well for poetic culture if they were. Long- 
 fellow outgrew the period of his Excelsior ; but the world 
 that welcomed it admiringly when it first appeared might 
 welcome it with equal rapture now ; yet the lack of repre- 
 sentative truth in its conception makes it so unreal and 
 absurd that nothing but repeated experiences at school 
 exhibitions should convince one that it can be read or 
 heard with a sober countenance. Look at its beginning : 
 
 The shades of night were falling fast 
 As through an Alpine village passed 
 A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice, 
 A banner with the strange device 
 Excelsior ! 
 
 At its middle : 
 
 " O stay," the maiden said, "and rest 
 Thy weary head upon this breast ! " 
 A tear stood in his bright blue eye, 
 But still he answered with a sigh, 
 Excelsior ! 
 
 And at its end : 
 
 There in the twilight cold and gray, 
 Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay, 
 And from the sky, serene and far, 
 A voice fell like a falling star, 
 Excelsior ! 
 
 It is impossible to believe that the series of events 
 described here could ever have been perceived, except, 
 perhaps, in a dream ; which this tale does not purport to 
 
QUALITIES GIVING FORM TO POEMS. 339 
 
 represent. Of course there is in the poem an underlying 
 moral ; but this could have been brought out just as well, 
 and better, in connection with a form representative of 
 what really takes place on the earth. The following is a 
 specimen of Longfellow's more artistic method : 
 
 The day is cold, and dark, and dreary ; 
 It rains, and the wind is never weary ; 
 The vine still clings to the mouldering wall, 
 But at every gust the dead leaves fall, 
 And the day is dark and dreary. 
 
 My life is cold, and dark, and dreary ; 
 
 It rains, and the wind is never weary ; 
 
 My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past, 
 
 But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast, 
 
 And the days are dark and dreary. 
 
 Be still, sad heart ! and cease repining ; 
 Behind the clouds is the sun still shining ; 
 Thy fate is the common fate of all, 
 Into each life some rain must fall, 
 Some days must be dark and dreary. 
 
 The Rainy Day : Longfellow. 
 
 Even in the last stanza of this, however, some would 
 say that there is too much of a tendency to moralize. 
 This tendency which Longfellow manifests, in common 
 with Whittier and most of our American poets, is some- 
 thing that of course, in its way, is inartistic ; not that a 
 poem should have no moral, but, as has been said before, 
 that this should be represented rather than stated. But 
 the power to represent, as all art should represent, as 
 well as the artistic sense to appreciate such a representa- 
 tion when it has been produced, seems, as yet, not to 
 have been fully developed among us. Most of us appear 
 to think that thought alone constitutes poetry, or, if not 
 this, at least thought in connection with a strong and 
 metrical expression of it, without regard to other features 
 
34O POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 necessary to render its character in all respects representa- 
 tive. 
 
 The truth is, however, and this is the truth which the 
 whole line of our argument has been intended to empha- 
 size, that poetry is more than thought ; it is more even 
 than a strong and metrical expression of thought. The 
 mere fact that a girl was drowned on the sands of Dee, or 
 that three fishermen were lost at sea, is not enough to ac- 
 count for the interest that we take in Charles Kingsley's 
 O Mary, Go and Call the Cattle Home, and The Fishermen. 
 It is his poetry that interests us ; and by his poetry we 
 mean the representative way in which he has told these 
 tales. So with reference to any statements of facts or 
 opinions. If Wordsworth had said that Milton had a 
 bright intellect and lived a comparatively solitary life, 
 few would have found his words particularly interesting, 
 or noteworthy ; but when, in his sonnet on that poet, he 
 said : 
 
 Thy soul was like a star and dwelt apart, 
 
 the representative nature of his statement, giving it form 
 and beauty which latter exists, if at all, as a character- 
 istic of form, made his expression at once attractive 
 and fitted it to be remembered. So, again, it is not 
 Pope's authority, nor the thought in the following lines, 
 which gives them such a value that they are inserted in 
 every book of quotations ; it is the representative form in 
 which the thoughts are expressed, without which form, 
 mere statements to the effect that order must characterize 
 heaven, or that wise and good men are cautious, would 
 not be deemed deserving of remembrance. 
 
 Order is heaven's first law. 
 
 Essay on Man, 4. 
 
QUALITIES GIVING FORM TO POEMS. 341 
 
 For fools rush in where angels fear to tread. 
 
 Essay on Criticism , 3. 
 Damn with faint praise. 
 
 Epis. to Dr. Arbuthnot. 
 
 Praise undeserved is scandal in disguise. 
 
 Epis. of Horace > ii., I ; Trs. 
 
 Honor and shame from no condition rise ; 
 Act well your part, there all the honor lies. 
 
 Essay on Man, 4. 
 
 In one word, then, the important thing that needs to be 
 borne in mind in judging of poetry, is that it is an art, 
 and partakes of the nature of the fine arts ; and that, as 
 such, its one essential is a representative form appealing 
 to a man through that which causes him to admire the 
 beautiful. Tennyson has expressed this truth well in what 
 he calls The Moral of his Day-Dream. 
 
 So, Lady Flora, take my lay, 
 
 And if you find no moral there, 
 Go, look in any glass and say, 
 
 What moral is in being fair. 
 O to what uses shall we put 
 
 The wildweed-flower that simply blows ? 
 And is there any moral shut 
 
 Within the bosom of the rose ? 
 
 But he has suggested in his next stanza another truth 
 that needs to be considered in connection with the last, 
 before all the facts concerning the functions of poetry in 
 the world can be understood. 
 
 But any man that walks the mead 
 
 In bud, or blade, or bloom, may find, 
 According as his humors lead, 
 
 A meaning suited to his mind. 
 And liberal applications lie 
 
 In Art like Nature, dearest friend, 
 So 't were to cramp its use, if I 
 
 Should hook it to some useful end. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 THE USEFUL ENDS OF POETIC REPRESENTATION. 
 
 These are all developed from Possibilities and Methods of Expression un- 
 derlying equally the Formation of Poetic and of all Language Poetry 
 forced to recognize that Nature symbolizes Processes of Thought In- 
 fluence of this Recognition upon Conceptions of Truth, Human and 
 Divine, Scientific and Theologic And its Effects upon Feeling and 
 Action Conclusion. 
 
 PERHAPS this discussion of poetry as a representa- 
 tive art can be brought to a close in no better way 
 than by dwelling for a moment upon the thought sug- 
 gested by the stanza at the end of the last chapter. 
 Poetry is not, in a technical sense, a useful art, yet its 
 forms have their uses, and many uses as many, in fact, 
 as have the forms of nature itself, which poetry, when it 
 fulfils its mission,^employs in its representations. To give 
 a complete list of these uses here would be irrelevant. It 
 is sufficient to suggest, that in the last analysis all of them 
 are developed from possibilities and methods of expres- 
 sion, underlying the formation of all language but es- 
 pecially of poetic language. 
 
 Language involves, as we have found, a representa- 
 tion of mental facts and processes through the use of 
 analogous external facts and processes, which alone are 
 apprehensible to others, and which alone, therefore, can 
 make others apprehend our thoughts. But facts and 
 processes fitted to furnish such representations may be 
 
 342 
 
UTILITY OF POETIC REPRESENTATION. 343 
 
 perceived on every side of us in the objects and operations 
 of what we term nature. It is the poet, however, who is 
 most conscious of these analogies, for he, instead of ac- 
 cepting those noticed by others and embodied in conven- 
 tional words, is constantly seeking for new ones and using 
 these. To_the poet, and the reader of poetry, therefore, 
 all nature appears to be, in a peculiar sense, a representa- 
 tion, a repetition, a projection into the realm of matter, of 
 the ^immaterial processes of thought within the mind. 
 This7 as I interpret it, is what Wordsworth meant when 
 he said : 
 
 I have learned 
 
 To look on nature not as in the hour 
 Of thoughtless youth, but 
 
 because finding in nature the representations of human 
 thought 
 
 hearing oftentimes 
 The still, sad music of humanity. 
 Lines Composed a few Miles above Tintern Abbey. 
 
 There is, accordingly, a literal as well as a figurative 
 sense, in which the poet 
 
 Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
 Sermons in stones, and good in every thing. 
 
 As You Like It, ii., i : Shakespear. 
 
 Whatever others may say or think, 
 
 To him who in the love of Nature holds 
 Communion with her visible forms, she speaks 
 A various language. 
 , , Thanatopsis : Bryant. 
 
 In a true sense of the term she has a voice ; and she 
 has more than this : she has a voice which says something, 
 which imparts definite intelligence. We have found how 
 m every process in one department of nature, the mind of 
 
344 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 poetry finds the image of a process in another department 
 of nature. " Flower," says Tennyson, 
 
 Flower in the crannied wall, 
 I pluck you out of the crannies ; 
 Hold you here, root and all, in my hand, 
 Little flower but if I could understand 
 What you are, root and all, and all in all, 
 I should know what God and man is. 
 
 Flower in the Crannied Wall. 
 
 To extend this thought, here is a rose-bush. When it 
 begins to grow, it is small and weak and simple. As 
 it develops, it becomes large and strong and complex. 
 So does every other plant in nature ; so does a man ; so 
 does a nation ; so does all humanity ; so, as far as we can 
 know, does the entire substance that develops for the 
 formation of our globe. One mode of operation, one 
 process, we find everywhere. If this be so, then to the 
 ear skilled to listen to the voice in nature, what is all the 
 universe but a mighty auditorium in which every tale is 
 re-echoed endlessly beneath, about, and above, through 
 every nook of its grand crypts and aisles and arches? But, 
 again, if all created things bear harmonious reports with 
 reference to the laws controlling them, what inference 
 must follow from this ? In view of it, what else can a 
 man do but attribute all these processes, one in mode, to 
 a single source ? and, more than this, what can he do but 
 accept the import of these processes, the methods indi* 
 cated in them, the principles exemplified by them, as 
 applicable to all things, in other words, as revelations of 
 the universal truth ? So the poet finds not only ttipdfhf ' 
 in nature, but also truth. ; ' 
 
 Once more, subtly connected with these facts, are 
 others. If nature can represent the thought, frame the 
 language of the human mind, why, according to the 
 
UTILITY OF POETIC REPRESENTATION. 345 
 
 same analogy, can it not represent the thought, frame the 
 language of a greater Creative Mind ? And if all nature 
 represent the same kind of thought, /. e., analogous 
 thought, or truth that is harmonious, why is not this 
 Creative Mind one mind ? We all know how it is with 
 man when he represents in language any thing true with 
 reference to his inner self. Tal^e that experience, in some 
 of the manifestations of which religious people believe 
 that he most resembles the Unseen One. Think how 
 love, which is begotten often in a single glance, and is 
 matured in a single thrill, gives vent to its invisible in- 
 tensity. How infinite in range and in variety are those 
 material forms of earth and air and fire and water which 
 are used by man as figures through which to represent 
 the emotion within him ! What extended though sweet 
 tales, what endless repetitions of comparisons from hills 
 and valleys, streams and oceans, flowers and clouds, are 
 made to revolve about that soul which, through their 
 visible agency, endeavors to picture in poetry spiritual 
 conditions and relations which would remain unrevealed 
 but for the possibility of thus indirectly symbolizing them. 
 Now if this be so with human love, why should not the 
 Great Heart whose calm beating works the pulses of the 
 universe, express divine love through similar processes 
 evolving infinitely and eternally into forms not ideal and 
 poetic, but real and tangible, in fact, into forms which 
 we term those of nature. This is the question with which, 
 wittingly or unwittingly, poetry and poetic faith always 
 have confronted and always must confront merely natural 
 science and scientific skepticism. Therefore, Bailey wrote 
 the truth, when he said 
 
 Poetry is itself a thing of God 
 
 He made his prophets poets, and the more 
 
346 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 We feel of poesy, do we become 
 
 Like God in love and power. 
 
 Festus. 
 
 This interpretation of the meaning of nature, natural 
 and human, by those who have learned to interpret it, 
 while striving to have it convey their own meanings, lies 
 at the basis of all the practical uses of poetry. Therefore 
 it is that its products bring 'with them an atmosphere 
 consoling and inspiring, both enlightening and expanding 
 the conceptions and experiences of the reader. Just as 
 each specific application of Christianity, all its warnings, 
 consolations, and encouragements, which develop purity 
 within and righteousness without, in the individual, in 
 society, or in the state, spring from the one general con- 
 ception of universal and divine love manifested in the 
 form of Christ, so do all the specific applications of 
 poetry spring from the one general conception of universal 
 and divine truth manifested through the forms of ma- 
 terial and human nature. When each of us can say with 
 Wordsworth 
 
 I have learned 
 
 To look on nature, not as in the hour 
 Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes 
 The still, sad music of humanity, 
 
 Then too we may be able to add with him 
 
 And I have felt 
 
 A presence that disturbs me with the joy 
 Of elevated thoughts ; a sense sublime 
 Of something far more deeply interfused, 
 Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
 And the round ocean, and the living air, 
 And the blue sky, and in the mind of man : 
 A motion and a spirit, that impels 
 All thinking things, all objects of all thought, 
 And rolls through all things. 
 
 Lines Composed a few Miles above Tintern Abbey* 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Abou Ben Adhem, 216. 
 
 Abruptness, eloc. and poetic, 82-88. 
 
 Accent, how marks for, read in 
 Greek poetry, 107 ; relation of, to 
 regularity of effect, 82-88 ; to 
 loudness and softness, 50-56 ; 
 what different kinds represent in 
 elocution, 32 ; in poetic measures 
 which they determine, 57-81 ; 
 source of English rhythm and 
 tunes of verse, 27, 104-114. 
 
 Adams, S. F., 74. 
 
 Addison, 154, 203, 259, 288. 
 
 Admiration. See Delight. 
 
 Affirmation, how represented, 92. 
 See Assurance, Dictation, Posi- 
 tiveness, etc. 
 
 Afternoon at a Parsonage, 159. 
 
 Agreement as a factor in forming 
 language, u, 174. 
 
 Alcaic verse, 21. 
 
 Aldrich, T. B., 230, 333. 
 
 Alexander's feast, 101. 
 
 Alexander, J. W., 79. 
 
 Allegorical poetry, 277, 309. 
 
 Allegory, figure, 200. 
 
 Allen, Grant, 20, 189. 
 
 Alliteration, what it represents, 116. 
 
 Alloy, 212. 
 
 Alloyed representation, 212, 262- 
 318 ; direct, 264 ; genesis of, 262- 
 277 ; illustrative, 265 ; is short- 
 lived, 305. 
 
 All 's well that ends well, 94. 
 
 Alteration of words, 157. 
 
 Amazement, 128-149. 
 
 American flag, the 141. 
 
 Amphibrach metre, 60, 70. 
 
 Ancient Mariner, 77, 237. 
 
 Annabel Lee, 70. 
 
 Anticipation, how represented, 92, 
 109-114. 
 
 Antithesis, 196. 
 
 Antony and Cleopatra, 292. 
 
 Aphaeresis, 158. 
 
 Apocope, 158. ' 
 
 Apophasis, 196. 
 
 Apostrophe, 196. 
 
 Arbitrary symbols and words, 174. 
 
 Aristotle, 25, 31. 
 
 Arnold, Matthew, 48, 222, 229. 
 
 Arts, all representative, 3, 4 ; de- 
 veloped according to principle of 
 comparison, 27. 
 
 Aspiration, metre representing, 65, 
 67. 
 
 Association, its influence in deter- 
 mining meanings of phrases, 164, 
 180-185 > i n forming words from 
 sounds, 5-7 ; in forming new 
 words from old words, 174, 175 ; 
 in making words unpoetic and po- 
 etic, 187-193 ; and language plain, 
 195. 
 
 Assonance, what it represents, 116. 
 
 Assurance, how represented, 62-64, 
 71, 112-114. 
 
 Audley Court, 269. 
 
 Aurora Leigh, 237. 
 
 Autumn, 299. 
 
 Aux Italiens, 86, 244. 
 
 Awe, how represented, 128, 131, 
 
 136-149- 
 Aytoun, 51. 
 
 Bacon, 137. 
 Bagehot, 273. 
 Bailey, 2, 345. 
 Bains Carew, 78. 
 Barateau, 330. 
 
 347 
 
343 
 
 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 Barbara Frietchie, 84, 133. 
 
 Barton, 67. 
 
 Battle of Ivry, 49, 77. 
 
 Bayley, 119. 
 
 Beecher, H. W. f 299, 300. 
 
 Bells, The , 143, 169. 
 
 Bells of Shandon, 85, 112. 
 
 Beppo, 85. 
 
 Bernard, 79. 
 
 Bertha in the Lane, 167. 
 
 Bigelow Papers, 79, 160. 
 
 Bird Let Loose, The, 234. 
 
 Birthday Ode, 101. 
 
 Bishop of Rum-ti-Foo, 94. 
 
 Black, W., 191. 
 
 Black Regiment, no. , 
 
 Boadicea, 9. 
 
 Boker, no. 
 
 Botanic Garden, 276. 
 
 Break, break, break, 221. 
 
 Breathing, and length of line, 25. 
 
 Breton, N., 106. 
 
 Bridge of Sighs, 72, 114. 
 
 Broadswords of Scotland, 75. 
 
 Bristowe tragedy, 157. 
 
 Brooke, 259. 
 
 Brown, M. T., 15, 17. 
 
 Browning, Mrs. E. B., 40, in, 159, 
 
 167, 237. 
 Browning, R., 9, 46, 53, 73, no, 
 
 114, 131, 132, 139, 148, 163, 164, 
 
 165, 170, 201, 304, 309-311. 
 Bryant, W. C., see Iliad, 230, 334, 
 
 335, 336, 343- 
 Burns, 144, 158, 159, 224. 
 Byron, 80, 85, 91, 130, 139, 147, 
 
 204, 207, 302. 
 By the North Sea, 170. 
 
 Caesura, 26, 39. 
 
 Caldwell, W., 329. 
 
 Callanan, J. J., 69. 
 
 Campbell, 87, 101, 105, 110, in, 
 
 "6, 133, 337, 338. 
 Captivity, The, 101. 
 Caractacus, 67. 
 Carillon, 63, 79, 86, in. 
 Carlyle, 302. 
 Cataract of Lodore, 88. 
 Cato, 259, 288. 
 Chapman, 138. 
 Charge, Light Brigade, 71, 84, no. 
 
 Chatterton, 157. 
 
 Chaucer, 194. 
 
 Chesterfield, 14. 
 
 Childe Harold, 80, 139, 204. 
 
 Children of Lord's Supper, 47. 
 
 Christabel, 45, 81. 
 
 Choree, 63. 
 
 Churchill,J. W., 15. 
 
 Classic, metres, 29, 30 ; historical 
 development of Greek poetry, 22 ; 
 representation pure, 240-261, 
 263. 
 
 Climax, 196, 284. 
 
 Cloud, The, 76, 80, 104, 105. 
 
 Coleridge, H., 302. 
 
 Coleridge, S. T., 45, 77, 81, 191, 
 237, 302. 
 
 Coles, A., 64. 
 
 Columbus, Voyage of, 133. 
 
 Come Rest in this Bosom, 113. 
 
 Complaint, metre representing, 65, 
 66. 
 
 Comus, 306, 313. 
 
 Comparison, principle of, at the 
 basis of all art, 27 ; in forming 
 words, 8, 174, 175, 187 ; in de- 
 termining meaning of phrases, 
 180-185 ; words formed from, 
 not necessarily poetic, 186, 208 ; 
 but are figurative, 195 ; how com- 
 parisons are used appropriately in 
 poetry, 190, 206, 225-239, 260, 
 265-270, 281-284, 287-295, 299- 
 307 ; how inappropriately, 190, 
 200-203, 271, 272, 296-318. 
 
 Completeness in form, 322327. 
 
 Comus, 306, 313. 
 
 Conclusive effects. See Assurance, 
 Positiveness, etc. 
 
 Concord Monument, Hymn at com- 
 pletion of, 236. 
 
 Confidence. See Assurance, Posi- 
 tiveness, etc. 
 
 Consistency in form, 321-327. 
 
 Contempt, how represented, 128, 
 148, 149. 
 
 Continuity in form, 321-327. 
 
 Coriolanus, 129, 138, 162, 166. 
 
 Courage. See Determination. 
 
 Course of Time, 163. 
 
 Cowley, 159. 
 
 Cowper, 70, 297, 337, 338. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 349 
 
 Crabbe, 286, 287, 294. 
 Cranch, 227. 
 Cupid and Psyche, 219. 
 Cymbeline, 54, 166. 
 
 Dactyl, 60, 72. 
 
 Dance and poetry, 22, 95. 
 
 Dante, 155, 194. 
 
 Darkness, 147. 
 
 Darwin, C., 144. 
 
 Darwin, E., 156, 276. 
 
 Davis, T., 113. 
 
 Day Dream, The, 132, 341. 
 
 Definiteness in form, 322-327. 
 
 Delaumosne, 17. 
 
 Delight, how represented, 72, 82, 
 
 86, 127, 128, 132-149. 
 Delsarte, 17. 
 Decisiveness, how represented, 62- 
 
 67, 92, 113. 
 Deserted Village, 27. 
 Deserted House, 332. 
 Descriptive poetry, 203-207, 209- 
 
 277, 284-307 ; referring to nat. 
 
 scenery, 284-289, 293-299 to 
 
 persons, 288, 291. 
 Despondency, 229. 
 Determination, metre representing, 
 
 65-67, 71, 72, 109-113, 128, 133- 
 
 149. 
 Dictation, metre representing, 62 
 
 64, 70-72, 113. 
 Didactic poetry, 278-292. 
 Dies Irse, 64. 
 Diiambic metre, 61, 77. 
 Diinitial metre, 61, 77. 
 Dimond, 69. 
 Dionysius, 64. 
 Discoursive elocution, 33. 
 Diterminal measure, 61, 77. 
 Ditrochaic measure, 61, 77. 
 Divided, 159. 
 Dobell, 84. 
 Donders, 98. 
 Dora, 264. 
 Douglas, 288. 
 Drake, 141. 
 Drama of Exile, 167. 
 Dramatic elocution, 33. 
 Dream of Eugene Aram, 131. 
 Dryden, 101, 155, 156, 157, 259. 
 Duration, elocutionary, and what it 
 
 represents, 33-38 ; poetic, and 
 what it represents, 38-49. 
 
 Dyer, 87. 
 
 Dying Christian to his Soul, 121 
 
 Earl o'Quarter-Deck, 153. 
 
 Earthly Paradise, 219, 233, 249, 
 
 289. 
 
 Eden, Language of, u. 
 Ejaculations, influence in formation 
 
 of language, 5, n, 174. 
 Ejaculatory tendency in elocution, 
 
 33- 
 
 Elegant extracts, 216, 239. 
 
 Elegy, Gray's, 42, 137. 
 
 Ellen Mcjones Aberdeen, 52. 
 
 Ellipsis, 161. 
 
 Elocution, influence in language, 
 1 8 in poetry, 21 ; its elements 
 classified, 32-36 ; discoursive 33 ; 
 dramatic, 33. 
 
 Eloquence of thought, metre repre- 
 senting, 68, 74, 86 ; quality, 127. 
 
 Emerson, 83, 236, 302. 
 
 Emotive tendency in forming lan- 
 guage, 13 ; in character, 14 ; in 
 elocution, 35 ; in duration, 44 ; 
 in force, 50, 58, 82-87 ; in pitch, 
 90-95, 115 ; in quality, 126-149, 
 203-207, 265-267. 
 
 Emphasis, as influenced by rhymes, 
 120. See Accent, Force, Stress. 
 
 Enallage, 165. 
 
 End-cut words, 158. 
 
 End-stopped lines, 41. 
 
 English, Metrical possibilities of, 30. 
 
 Enthusiasm, how represented, 72, 
 128. 
 
 Enoch Arden, 272. 
 
 Epigram, Pope, 239. 
 
 Epilogue, Browning, 132 ; Swin- 
 burne, 87, 146. 
 
 Epistle, An, 310 ; to Arbuthnot, 
 
 34i. 
 
 Epistles of Horace, 341. 
 Essay on Criticism, 44, 55, 341 ; on 
 
 Man, 1 20, 340, 341 ; on Satire, 
 
 156. 
 
 Evangeline, 76, 114, 271, 272. 
 Evelyn Hope, 73. 
 Evening on the Broads, 311, 317. 
 Everett, E., 299 
 
350 
 
 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 Eve of St. Agnes, 152, 153, 163, 
 
 167. 
 
 Eve of St. John, 122. 
 Excelsior, 338. 
 Excursion, 26, 270, 281, 337. 
 Exile of Erin, no. 
 Explanatory alloy, 279-307. 
 
 Faerie Queen, 40, 138, 142, 143. 
 
 Fairies' song, 78. 
 
 Falconer, 298. 
 
 Fanny, To, 331. 
 
 Farewell, A., 324. 
 
 Farrer, 6. 
 
 Feeling, how represented, 12-18, 
 35 ; how different kinds repre- 
 resented, 127-149. See Emotive. 
 
 Feet, Eng. and classic, how pro- 
 duced, 28 ; classification of Eng- 
 lish, 60. See Measures. 
 
 Felise, 144. 
 
 Ferdinando and Elvira, 41, 52, 114. 
 
 Festus, 2, 346. 
 
 Figurative language, 195-207, 228 ; 
 when to be used, 206, 265 ; when 
 poetic and representative, and 
 when not so, 208-212, 293-318. 
 See Indirect and Illustrative Rep- 
 resentation. 
 
 Figures of rhetoric, not always rep- 
 resentative, 195-197, 265 ; when 
 representative, 197-200. 
 
 First Kiss, 105. 
 
 Fishermen, The, 327. 
 
 Fisher's Cottage, 221. 
 
 Flower in Crannied Wall, 344. 
 
 Force, elocutionary, 33, 50 ; what 
 it represents, 34, 35 ; its kinds, 
 50 ; degrees of, in elocution and 
 poetry, 51-56 ; gradations of, 57- 
 81 ; regularity of, 82-88 ; signifi- 
 cance of metres determined by 
 it, 57-81. 
 
 Form in words and sentences, 320 ; 
 in poems, 322-341 ; when mod- 
 elled on direct representation, 323 ; 
 on illustrative representation, 327. 
 
 Fra Lippo Lippi, 311. 
 
 French language, 24, 191, 192. 
 
 Fright, how represented, 127-149. 
 
 Front-cut in words, 158. 
 
 Frothingham, 48. 
 
 Gardener's Daughter, 43, 287, 291^ 
 
 Garden of Cymodoce, 116. 
 
 Gathering Song, 71. 
 
 Gentle Alice Brown, 99. 
 
 Gerhardt, 79. 
 
 Gilbert, 30, 41, 52, 78, 94, 114, 160,, 
 
 223. 
 
 Glimpses of the War, 311. 
 Glorious things of thee are spoken, 
 
 65- 
 Goethe, 48, 124, 194, 248, 302, 
 
 335- 
 
 Golden Legend, 63. 
 
 Golden Year, 283. 
 
 Goldsmith, 27, 101, 121, 184. 
 
 Good Old Plow, 76. 
 
 Goose, Mother, 29. 
 
 Gougaune Barra, 69. 
 
 Go where glory waits thee, 62. 
 
 Greek, development of its poetic 
 forms, 22 ; direct representation 
 in tragedies, 267 ; how accents 
 pronounced in reading verse, 107 ; 
 metres, 29, 30, 60-8 1. See Clas- 
 sic and Homer. 
 
 Grief, metre representing, 73. See 
 Pathos. 
 
 Growth of the legend, 307. 
 
 Guest, 45, 137. 
 
 Guttural, meaning of, elocutionary 
 and poetic, 127-149. 
 
 Gradation, 116. See Force and 
 Stress. 
 
 Gray, 42, 137, 144. 
 
 Grant, 86. 
 
 Halcro's verses, 85. 
 
 Hamilton, Sir W., 279. 
 
 Hamlet, 207, 219, 290, 313. 
 
 Hammond, 117. 
 
 Harrington, 216. 
 
 Hawtrey, 49. 
 
 Heine, 220. 
 
 Hegel, 17. 
 
 Helmholtz, 98. 
 
 Henry VIII., 27, 41 ; I Henry IV., 
 83, 143, 207, 291 ; 2 Henry IV., 
 138 ; Henry V., 166, 167 ; 2 
 Henry VI., 142, 236 ; 3 Henry 
 VI., 234- 
 
 Heretic's Tragedy, 131. 
 
 Herder, 7. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 351 
 
 Hermann and Dorothea, 48, 248. 
 
 Herrick, in. 
 
 Hesitation, in sense of doubt, 92, 
 
 113, 123. 
 Heyse, 10. 
 Heywood, 167. 
 Hexameter, Classic and English, 47, 
 
 76. 
 
 Hiawatha, 63, 166. 
 High tide, 167. 
 
 History English Rhythms, 45, 137. 
 Hogg, 100. 
 Holmes, O. W., 3. 
 Holy Cross Day, 9, 148. 
 Home, 259, 288. 
 Homer, 46, 47, 155, 193, 205, 207, 
 
 216, 217, 232, 235, 236, 240-261, 
 284, 294 ; his representative 
 methods, 240-261. 
 
 Homeric verse, 21. 
 
 Horror. See Awe. 
 
 Hood, 72, 76, 114, 131. 
 
 Hope. See Anticipation. 
 
 How they brought the good news, 
 
 9, 46, no. 
 Hugo, 236. 
 
 Humboldt, W. von, 248. 
 Hunt, L., 78, 215. 
 Hunting song, 51. 
 Hymn on the Nativity, 159, 168. 
 Hyperbaton, 154. 
 Hyperbole, 200. 
 Hyperion 155. 
 
 Iambic, or Iambus, 60, 67. 
 
 Idyls of King, 87, 236. 
 
 Iliad, Bryant's translation, 205,207, 
 
 217, 232, 236, 242, 246, 247, 251- 
 256, 259, 260, 294 ; Hawtrey's 
 49 ; Pope's 42, 54. 
 
 Illustrations, why used, 206, 226, 
 265, 290 ; when not representa- 
 tive, 293-318. See Figurative Lan- 
 guage, and Representation, Illus- 
 trative and Indirect. 
 
 I love my Jean, 222. 
 
 II Penseroso, 55, 144. 
 Imagery, 196. 
 
 Imitative principle, in forming lan- 
 guage, 7-11 ; in elocution, 34 ; 
 in elocutionary duration, 37-49 ; 
 force, 51-56 ; accent and metre, 
 
 80-88 ; tunes of verse, 94-102, 
 115-120 ; in letter sounds, 128- 
 149. 
 
 Important ideas, how represented in 
 elocution and poetry, 38, 39, 41- 
 49, 52-56, 79-81, 90-92, 115-121, 
 133, 139-142. 
 
 In a Year, 53. 
 
 Indignation. See Contempt. 
 
 Inflections, elocutionary, 90-94 ; 
 poetic, 103-125. 
 
 Ingelow, J., 156, 159, 163, 166, 167. 
 
 Ingoldsby Legends, 100. 
 
 In Memoriam, in, 123. 
 
 Insertion of useless words, 152. 
 
 Instinctive tendency, in character, 
 14 ; in elocution, 35 ; in ejacula- 
 tory expression, 14-17 ; informing 
 through association words from 
 sounds, 5 ; new words from old 
 words, 175 ; in making represen- 
 tation direct, 230 ; representing 
 what in duration, 37, in force, 50, 
 58-68, 82 ; in pitch, 90-93 ; in 
 quality, 127. 
 
 Interjection, 196. 
 
 Interrogation, 196. 
 
 Intonations, representative charac- 
 ter of, 19, 88-125 ; physical rea- 
 son for, 20. 
 
 Inversion of words, 154. 
 
 Irony, 196. 
 
 Is there for honest poverty, 158. 
 
 Jebb, 67. 
 
 John, King, 124, 125. 
 
 Jonson, 263. 
 
 Julius Caesar, 134, 155, 218. 
 
 Keats, 152, 153, 155, 163, 167. 
 Key, musical, high or low elocution- 
 ary and poetic, 89-102. 
 Key, F. S., 75. 
 
 Kingsley, 224, 235, 326, 327, 340. 
 Kirkham, 51. 
 
 Kiss, The, in ; The First, in. 
 Kitty, 86 ; of Colraine, 325. 
 
 Lady of the Lake, 100, 145, 162, 
 
 163, 167, 258. 
 L'Allegro, 99, 137, 144. 
 Lament, 159. 
 
352 
 
 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 Landor, Song for Centenary of, 317. 
 
 Lanier, 93. 
 
 Language, plain and figurative, 195 
 207 ; poetry an artistic develop- 
 ment of, 4 ; how it represents 
 thought in single words, 411 ; 
 and processes of thought in succes- 
 sive words, 12, 180-185, 320-333. 
 
 Latin. See Classic. 
 
 Lear, King, 139, 141, 146, 307. 
 
 Le Byron de nos Jours, 163. 
 
 Leland, 221. 
 
 Lessing, 251. 
 
 Letter from Italy, 203 ; Letters, 83. 
 
 Lewis, 100. 
 
 Life Drama, 199, 230, 274, 275. 
 
 Line, length of exhalation, 25-27 ; 
 end of, representing what when 
 accented and unaccented, 104-125; 
 when masculine or feminine, 104- 
 114, 118-125 ; end-stopped and 
 run-on lines, 41 ; inartistic end- 
 ings, 40 ; rhyme and blank verse, 
 118-125. 
 
 Little Mattie, 40. 
 
 Lochinvar, 39, 46, HO. 
 
 Lockhart, 75. 
 
 Locksley Hall, 40, 85, 112, 203, 
 282, 313. 
 
 Longfellow, 31, 47, 63, 76, 79, 86, 
 in, 114, 152, 157, 166, 229, 231, 
 271, 338, 339- 
 
 Lord of Burleigh, 154. 
 
 Lord of the Isles, 153. 
 
 Lost Love, The, 121. 
 
 Lotus Eaters, 55, 284. 
 
 Loudness, how represented in 
 poetry, 51-55. 
 
 Louse on Lady's Bonnet, 224. 
 
 Love divine all loves excelling, 119. 
 
 Lover's Journey, 286. 
 
 Lovers of Gudrun, 232, 248. 
 
 Love's Labor Lost, 117, 191. 
 
 Love's Philosophy, 85. 
 
 Lowell, 79, 160, 303, 307. 
 
 Lute Song, 116. 
 
 Lytton 86, 244. 
 
 Macaulay, 49, 77. 
 
 Macbeth, J. W. V., 198 ; The play, 
 
 129, 130, 131, 140 ; 142, 158, 227, 
 
 238- 
 
 MacDonald, 153. 
 
 Macgregor's Gathering, 76. 
 
 Machiavelli, 14. 
 
 Mad Dog, Elegy on, 121. 
 
 Madoc in Wales, 285. 
 
 Mahogany tree, 83. 
 
 Mahony, F., 85, 112. 
 
 Maniac, 100. 
 
 Manly Heart, 159. 
 
 Man who never laughed again, The 
 
 154, 159- 
 
 Marino Faliero, 130. 
 
 Marmion, no, 145. 
 
 Martineau, J. , 299. 
 
 Massey, G., 53, i59> l6 3, 3", 3*5, 
 317. 
 
 Master Hugues, 114. 
 
 Maud, 39, 54, 66, 129, 130, 238. 
 
 McMaster, 141. 
 
 Meanings of elocutionary and poetic 
 forms, 32-149 ; duration, 37-50 ; 
 force, 50-88 ; inflections, melody, 
 pitch, tunes of verse, 89-125 ; 
 the different poetic metres, 41-49, 
 6068 | of words as developed by 
 association and comparison, in 
 sounds, 4-9, 126-149, 150-172 ; 
 in phrases, 164, 180-185 ; in 
 spiritual as contrasted with ma- 
 terial applications, 176, 228. 
 
 Measures, blending of different, to 
 prevent monotony, 75 ; to repre- 
 sent movements, 3849, 79~88 ; 
 classification of English, and their 
 classic analogues, what each rep- 
 resents, 58-81 ; compound, 6l, 
 71 ; di-initial, 61, 77 ; di-terminal, 
 61, 77 ; double, 60, 62-67 ; initial, 
 60, 62, 70 ; median, 60, 68 ; pa- 
 thetic, 72, 73 ; quadruple, 49, 61, 
 77 ; terminal, 60, 65, 74 ; triple, 
 46-49, 60, 68-8 1. 
 
 Melody, elocutionary, musical, and 
 poetic, 90-125. 
 
 Mercenary Marriage, A, 207. 
 
 Merkel, 98. 
 
 Merman, The, 132. 
 
 Metaphor, 199, 235-239; ancient 
 and modern, 235 ; faults in, 200, 
 293-318 ; metaphorical representa- 
 tion, 228. 
 
 Metonomy, 197. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 353 
 
 Metres. See Measures, Feet. 
 
 Metrical essay, 3. 
 
 Mid-cut in words, 158. 
 
 Mid-Summer Night's Dream, 75, 
 109. 
 
 Milton, 27, 40, 43, 53, 55, 56, 80, 
 83, 87, 99. IJ 4, 129, 132, 134, 136, 
 137, 138, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 
 145, 146, 147, 155, 159, 168, 171, 
 201, 218, 226, 233, 205, 288, 291, 
 296, 306, 313, 338. 
 
 Milton, Sonnet on, 340. 
 
 Misuse of words, 165. 
 
 Mitford, 135. 
 
 Monotony in melody, 75, 115-120. 
 
 Moore, 62, 113, 234. 
 
 Moral, in poetry, how can be repre- 
 sented, 339-346. 
 
 Morris, W., 154, 159, 170, 219, 234, 
 248, 249, 289. 
 
 Mort d' Arthur, 146, 206, 215, 294. 
 
 Movement, how represented in elo- 
 cutionary and poetic duration, 
 37-49 ; force, 50-88 ; pitch, 89- 
 125 ; quality, 126-149 ; in gram- 
 matical arrangements of word", 
 180-184 ; in intonations, 12 ; ^\ 
 progress of form, 322 ; in poetry 
 of Homer, 251-261. 
 
 Muller, M., 9, 10, 176, 182. 
 
 Mulock, 53, 207. 
 
 Music, 22-24, 95-125. See Melody. 
 
 My faith looks up to thee, 112. 
 
 My Psalm, 53, 230. 
 
 Nearer my God to Thee, 74. 
 
 Napoleon, 14, 109. 
 
 Negative effects, how represented, 
 
 9-2, US- 
 
 New Testament, 15. 
 Newton, 65. 
 
 New Year's Eve in Exile, 315. 
 Nocturne, 333. 
 Nymph's Reply, 66. 
 
 Obscurity, 156, 164, 276, 296, 309- 
 318 ; not brilliancy, 302, 303 ; in 
 allusions, 304. 
 
 Odyssey, 55, 138, 202. 
 
 Ogier the Dane, 289. 
 
 Old Continentals, 141. 
 
 Old Oaken Bucket, 69. 
 
 O Mary go and call, etc., 326. 
 Omission of words, 161 ; figure of 
 
 rhetoric, 196. 
 Only a Woman, 53. 
 Onomatopoeia, 9, 197. 
 On the Detraction, 40. 
 On the Cliffs, 101, 118. 
 Orations, style of, 299-302. 
 Ornamental alloy, 279, 307-318. 
 Ornate, 279, 307-318. 
 Orotund qtiality, elocutionary and 
 
 poetic, 127-149. 
 Orris, S. S., 15. 
 O Sacred Head, etc., 79. 
 Osgood, F. S., 75- 
 Othello, 129, 137, 237 307 
 
 Palestine, Sketches of, 117 
 
 Palfrey, To J. G., 303. 
 
 Palmer, 112. 
 
 Paradise Lost, 27, 40, 43, 55, 56, 
 80, 83, 87, 114, 129, 132, 134, 136, 
 137, 138, 140, 141, 142, 143, 146, 
 147. 155, 201, 218, 226, 233, 266, 
 288, 296, 306, 
 
 Paradise Regained, 137, 145. 
 
 Paralipsis, 196. 
 
 Parallelism, 25. 
 
 Parish Register, 294. 
 
 Pathos, how represented, 69, 72, 73, 
 114. 
 
 Patten, G. W., 79. 
 
 Patti, A., 126. 
 
 Pause, source of verse, 25, 39, 40 ; 
 inartistic, 40 ; what represents in 
 elocution, 32, 38 ; in poetry, 39, 
 40. 
 
 Pectoral quality in elocution and 
 poetry, 127-149. 
 
 Percy, 223. 
 
 Persistency, metre representing, 65- 
 67, 71. 
 
 Peter Bell, 267. 
 
 Phillis the Fair, 106. 
 
 Philosophical, The, how made po- 
 etic, 204-207, 209-212, 225-230, 
 281-284, 
 
 Phrases, source of verse, 25 ; ideas 
 derived from them, as well as 
 from words, 164 ; how meanings 
 of, determined by association and 
 comparison, 180-185. 
 
354 
 
 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 Pictures, in plain language, 210. 
 
 Pinafore, 30, 160, 222. 
 
 Pitch, elocutionary, 33 ; what repre- 
 sents, 34, 35, 85-125 ; rising and 
 falling, 103-114. 
 
 Plain Language distingushed from 
 figurative, 195-207; when should 
 be used, 203 ; when plain is po- 
 etic and representative, 208-224. 
 
 Plato, 15. 
 
 Pleasures of Hope, 101, 116, 133. 
 
 Pleonasm, 152. 
 
 Poe, 9, 55, 70, 143, 168, 169, 
 
 Pollock, 163. 
 
 Poor Man's Wife, A, 163. 
 
 Pope, 42, 44, 54, 55, 120, 121, 156, 
 
 157, 202, 239, 340, 341. 
 
 Portrait, A, III. 
 
 Portrait, The, 167. 
 
 Positiveness, metre representing, 
 62-64, 7 1 . 92. 
 
 Precision, metre representing, 62. 
 
 Precocious Baby, The, 52, 94. 
 
 Prelude, 289, 290. 
 
 Presentation, distinguished from 
 Representation, 208-212, 339, 
 340. See Alloyed Representa- 
 tion. 
 
 Present Crisis, 307. 
 
 Presentiment, A, 336. 
 
 Princess, 9, 55, 144, 145, 149, 226, 
 282, 313, 324. 
 
 Progress in poetic form, 322. See 
 Movement. 
 
 Progress of Poesy, 144. 
 
 Prometheus Unbound, 190. 
 
 Prose, how differing from poetry, 
 1 86, 208-212, 279-290, 339, 340. 
 
 Psalms, The, 26. 
 
 Psalm of Life, 31, 152, 229. 
 
 Pure quality, elocutionary and po- 
 etic, 128-149. 
 
 Pure representation, 208-261 ; all 
 classic representation, pure, 263 ; 
 in Homer, 241-261. 
 
 Push, metre representing, 58, 65-67. 
 
 Quality, el. 33-35 ; and poetic, what 
 each kind represents, 126-149. 
 
 Quantity of syllables, as basis of 
 metre, English and classic, 29, 
 38-49 ; elocutionary and poetic 
 
 representation by means of, 38^. 
 49, 98-102, 126-149. 
 
 Railroad Rhyme, 42, 122. 
 
 Rainy Day, The, 339. 
 
 Raleigh, 66. 
 
 Rapidity, how represented in elocu- 
 tion and poetry, 39, 41-49, 52, 68 ; 
 in rhyme, 118-125. 
 
 Rapture, metre representing, 74. 
 See Delight. 
 
 Raven, 9, 55, 168. 
 
 Read, T. B., 9, 46. 
 
 Recitative, 21. 
 
 Reflective tendency, in character, 
 14 ; in elocution, 34 ; in imitative 
 expression, 14-17 ; in forming 
 words from sounds, 8 ; new 
 words from old words by com- 
 parison, 173 ; in making repre- 
 sentation indirect or illustrative, 
 231 ; representing what in dura- 
 tion, 37 ; in force, 50, 58, 68, 82 ; 
 in pitch, 90-93 ; in quality, 127. 
 
 Regularity of movement, produced 
 by force, 82-88 ; by rhyme, 118- 
 125- 
 
 Representation in conception of 
 great poems, 337 ; in distinction 
 from presentation, 208-212 ; in 
 expressing thought and feeling, 
 limits of, 213 (see Philosophy) ; 
 in expressing the moral, 339 ; in 
 mixture of main and illustrative 
 thought, 296-307 ; in poems as 
 wholes, 319-341 ; in sense, 173- 
 346 ; in sound, 1-172 ; in thought 
 as well as style, 2ii ; useful ends 
 of, 342-346. See Alloyed, Com- 
 posite, Direct, Illustrative, Indi- 
 rect, Pure. 
 
 Rhapsody of Life's Progress, 159. 
 
 Rhetoric, figures of, not all repre- 
 sentative, 196, 197 ; how different 
 from poetry, 279. 
 
 Rhyme, Effects of, 118-125. 
 
 Rhythm, 19, 27, 28, 35-87. 
 
 Richard II., 201 ; III., 133. 
 
 Rienzi's Address, 135. 
 
 Ring and the Book, 164, 165. 
 
 Robertson, Rev. T. W., 299. 
 
 Roche, 328. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 355 
 
 Rogers, 133. 
 
 Rokeby, 58, 201. 
 
 Roman. See Classic. 
 
 Romeo and Juliet, 129, 290. 
 
 Rosebush, The, 329. 
 
 Rowe, 259. 
 
 Ruins of Rome, 87. 
 
 Sailor Boy's Dream, 69. 
 
 Samson Agonistes, 53. 
 
 Sapphic verse, 21. 
 
 Satisfaction, how represented, 82, 
 127. 
 
 Saturday Review, 193. 
 
 Saxe, 42, 122. 
 
 Schmidt, J. H. H., 22, 23, 29, 63, 
 67, 72, 108. 
 
 Scholar and Carpenter, 156. 
 
 Scott, 39, 46, 51, 54, 71, 76, 85, 100, 
 109, no, 122, 145, 153, 162, 163, 
 167, 201, 223, 258. 
 
 Seasons, The, 299. 
 
 Seige of Corinth, 207. 
 
 Selkirk, 70. 
 
 Seminole's Defiance, 79. 
 
 Sensuous and sensual, 292. 
 
 Serenade at the Villa, 139. 
 
 Shakespeare, 27, 41, 53, 54, 63, 75, 
 83, 91, 93, 107, 109, 117, 124, 
 125, 129, 130, 131, 133, 134, 137, 
 !3S, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 146, 
 155, 158, 162, 166, 167, 171, 191, 
 193, 201, 205, 207, 218, 227, 233, 
 236, 237 ,238, 290, 291, 292, 307, 
 313, 33o, 343 ; prose of, 302 ; 
 sonnet on, 159. 
 
 Shanly, C. D., 325. 
 
 Shelley, 66, 76, 80, 85, 104, 105, 190. 
 
 Shelling, 17. 
 
 Sheridan's Ride, 9, 46. 
 
 She was a Phantom of Delight, 190, 
 202. 
 
 Shipwreck, 298. 
 
 Sidney, Sir P., 2. 
 
 Simile, 199, 232 ; faults in, 200-203, 
 308-312. 
 
 Sing Heigh-Ho, 235. 
 
 Sky Lark, The, TOO. 
 
 Slowness in elocution, 39 ; in poetry, 
 41-49 ; 52. 
 
 Smith, Alex., 199, 230, 274, 275 ; 
 H., 33i. 
 
 Smooth force, elocutionary and po* 
 
 etic, 82-88. 
 Softness, how represented in poetry, 
 
 53-55, 86. 
 
 Soldier's Dream, 87. 
 Song and Poetry, 22. 
 Song of the Shirt, 76. 
 Sordello, 201, 304. 
 Soul in expression, same as emotion, 
 
 13, 15-17. 
 
 Sounds, how representing thought in 
 duration, 37-49 ; force, 50-88 ; in- 
 tonations, 18-36 ; pitch, 89-125 ; 
 quality of word-forms, 4-18, 126- 
 149; how not representing thought, 
 150-172 ; when poetic sounds are 
 inartistic, 171. 
 
 Southey, 88, 124, 249, 250, 257, 
 258, 260, 284, 285. 
 
 Spafford, H. E. P., 328. 
 
 Spencer, H., 15, 17, 20, 22, 23, 191, 
 
 233- 
 Spenser, E., 31, 40, 138, 140, 143, 
 
 171, 277, 309. 
 Spenserian verse, 21. 
 Spinning- Wheel Song, 69. 
 Spurgeon, 299. 
 Star-Spangled Banner, 75. 
 St. Cecilia's Day, 155. 
 Still we wait for thine appearing, 
 
 119. 
 
 Storrs, R. H., 299, 300. 
 Strength, how represented in poetry, 
 
 52-55- 
 Stress, elocutionary and poetic, 57, 
 
 58 ; analogy between it and poetic 
 
 measures, 58-60. 
 St. Simeon Stylites, 82. 
 Suckling, 115, 116. 
 Summing up in Italy, 40. 
 Superfluity, 152. 
 
 Surprise, how represented, 128-149. 
 Swinburne, 87, 101, 102, 116, 118, 
 
 144, 146, 169, 170, 311, 312, 316, 
 
 317. ' 
 Symbols, words not arbitrary, 174. 
 
 See Meanings, Sounds, Words. 
 Syncope, 158. 
 Synecdoche, 198. 
 
 Taming of the Shrew, 143. 
 Task, The, 297. 
 
356 
 
 POETRY AS A REPRESENTATIVE ART. 
 
 Tears of the Muses, 140. 
 
 Tempest, The, 63, 139. 
 
 Tennyson, 9, 39, 40, 43, 51, 52, 54, 
 55, 66, 71, 82, 84, 85, 87, 101, 
 no, in, 112, 113, 116, 122, 129, 
 130, 132, 134, 144, 145, 146, 149, 
 *54f 157. I94> 203, 206, 215, 221, 
 224, 226, 230, 236, 238, 264, 269, 
 271, 272, 281, 282, 283, 284, 287, 
 291, 294, 313, 324, 332, 341, 344. 
 
 Thackeray, 83. 
 
 Thalaba 124, 250, 257. 
 
 Thalassius, 102, 118, 
 
 Thanatopsis, 343. 
 
 The Spacious Firmament on High, 
 
 154- 
 
 The Sun is Warm, 66. 
 Thompson, 298, 337. 
 Thought, 227. 
 Tides, The, 335. 
 Time. See Duration. 
 Timon of Athens, 53. 
 Tintern Abbey, 2, 178, 343, 346. 
 Toccata of Galuppi's, 132. 
 To-day and To-morrow, 53. 
 To Labor is to Pray, 75. 
 To Mr. Hobbes, 159. 
 Tommy's dead, 84. 
 Too Late, 222. 
 Transposition of words, 154. 
 Tree of Liberty, 158. 
 Trench, 176, 178. 
 Triumph, metre representing, 74. 
 Trochee, 60, 63, 67. 
 Troilus and Cressida, 140, 236. 
 Trope, 198. 
 
 Tunes of Verse, 21, 27, 89-125. 
 Twa Dogs, 144. 
 Twelfth Night, 107. 
 Twenty Years, 330. 
 Two April Mornings, 205. 
 Two Voices, 51, 66, 101, 113. 
 
 Unbeloved, The, 159. 
 
 Under my Window, 75. 
 
 Unimportant ideas. See Important. 
 
 Unity, effects of, as produced by 
 rhyme, 118-125 > by form in ar- 
 rangement of thought, 322. 
 
 Variety in poetic melody, 115-125. 
 Vehemence, metre representing, 74, 
 
 82. 
 
 Veron, 172. 
 Virgil, 46, 47, 155. 
 Vision, 196. 
 
 Wagner, 314. 
 Waller, J. F., 69. 
 Washington, 14. 
 Waterloo, Charge at, 54. 
 Weakness, how represented in 
 
 poetry, 53-56. 
 
 Wedding, Ballad upon, 115. 
 Wedgeworth, 145. 
 Weight, how represented in poetry, 
 
 52, 53, 55- 
 Welcome, The, 113. 
 Wellington, Ode on, 52, 84, 116, 
 
 134. 
 
 Westminster Bridge, 40. 
 
 Westwood, T., 75. 
 
 When gathering Clouds, 86. 
 
 Whitney, 8, 10. 
 
 Whittier, 53, 84, 86, 133, 230, 339. 
 
 Will, 14. 
 
 Wilfulness, 14. 
 
 Wilmot, 119. 
 
 Wilson, 302. 
 
 Wind and Stream, The, 334. 
 
 Winstanley, 159, 166, 167. 
 
 Winter Evening, 297. 
 
 Winter's Tale, 166. 
 
 Wither, 159. 
 
 Woodworth, S., 69. 
 
 Words, why Anglo-Saxon preferred 
 by poets, 191-194 ; conventional 
 and imaginative, 187 ; poetic and 
 unpoetic, 186-194 ; primary, 
 formed from association and com- 
 parison, 5-8 ; secondary, ditto, 
 174-179 ; sounds of, representing 
 sense, 9, 127-149, 178. 
 
 Wordsworth, i, 26, 40, 121, 151, 
 156, 178, 190, 202, 205, 267, 270, 
 280, 289, 290, 338, 340, 343, 346, 
 prose of, 302 ; plan of Excursion, 
 
 337- 
 Wreck of Grace of Sunderland, 163. 
 
PROFESSOR RAYMOND'S POETICAL BOOKS 
 
 A Life in Song. 16mo, cloth extra, gilt top $1-25 
 
 "An age-worn poet, dying amid strangers in a humble village home, leaves the 
 record of his life in a pile of manuscript poems. These are claimed by a friend and 
 comrade of the poet, but, at the request of the cottagers, he reads them over before 
 taking them away .... This simple but unique plan, . . . forms the outline of 
 a remarkably fine study of the hopes, aspirations, and disappointments of ... an 
 American modern life. . . . The volume will appeal to a large class of readers by 
 reason of its clear, musical flexible verse, its fine thought, and its intense human 
 interest." Boston Transcript. 
 
 " Mr. Raymond is a poet, with all that the name implies. He has the true fire 
 there is no disputing that. There is thought of an elevated character, the diction is 
 pure, the versification is true, the meter correct, and . . . affords innumerable quota- 
 tions to fortify and instruct one for the struggles of life." Hartford Post. 
 
 " Marked by a fertility and strength of imagination worthy of our first poets. ._ . 
 The versification throughout is graceful and thoroughly artistic, the imagery varied 
 and spontaneous, . . . the multitude of contemporary bardlings may find in it3 
 sincerity of purpose and loftiness of aim a salutary inspiration. " The Literary World 
 (Boston). 
 
 "Here, for instance, are lines which, if printed in letters of gold on the front of 
 every pulpit, and practised by every one behind one, would transform the face of the 
 theological world. . . . In short, if you are in search of ideas that are unconven- 
 tional and up-to-date, get a 'Life in Song,' and read it." Unity. 
 
 Ballads, and Other Poems. 16mo, cloth extra, gilt top $1.25 
 
 "The author has achieved a very unusual success, a success to which genuine poetic 
 power has not more contributed than wide reading and extensive preparation. The 
 ballads overflow, not only with the general, but the very particular, .truths of 
 history." Cincinnati Times. 
 
 " A work of true genius, brimful of imagination and sweet humanity." The Fireside 
 (London). 
 
 "Fine and strong, its thought original and suggestive, while its expression is the 
 very perfection of narrative style." The N. Y. Critic. 
 
 "Proves beyond doubt that Mr. Raymond is the possessor of a poetic faculty which 
 >B worthy of the most careful and conscientious cultivation." N. Y. Evening Post. 
 
 "A very thoughtful study of character. . . great knowledge of aims and motives 
 .... Such as read this poem will derive from it a benefit more lasting than the 
 mere pleasure of the moment." The Spectator (London). 
 
 The Aztec God, and Other Dramas. 16mo, cloth extra, gilt top $1.25 
 
 "The three dramas included in this volume represent a felicitous, intense', and 
 melodious expression of art both from the artistic and poetic point of view. . . . 
 Mr. Raymond's power is above all that of psychologist, and added thereto are the 
 richest products of the imagination both in form and spirit. The book clearly 
 discloses the work of a man possessed of an extremely fine critical poise, of a culture 
 pure and classical, and a sensitive conception of what is sweetest and most ravishing 
 iin tone-quality. The most delicately perceptive ear could not detect a flaw in the 
 mellow and rich music of the blank verse." Public Opinion. 
 
 "As fine lines as are to be found anywhere in English. . . . Sublime thought 
 fairly leaps in sublime expression. ... As remarkable for its force of epigram 
 as for its loftiness of conception." Cleveland World. 
 
 "... Columbus one finds a piece of work which it is difficult to avoid injuring 
 with fulsome praise. The character of the great discoverer is portrayed grandly and 
 greatly. .... It is difficult to conceive how anyone who cares for that which is 
 best in literature . . . could fail to be strengthened and uplifted by this heroic 
 treatment of one of the great stories of the world." N. Y. Press. 
 
 Dante and Collected Verse. 16mo, cloth extra, gilt top $1.25 
 
 "Epigram, philosophy, history these are the predominant elements . . . which 
 masterly construction, pure diction, and lofty sentiment unite in making a glowing 
 piece of blank verse." Chicago Herald. 
 
 "The poems will be read with keenest enjoyment by all who appreciate literary 
 genius, refined sentiment, and genuine culture. The publication is a gem through- 
 out. " New Haven Leader. 
 
 "The poet and the reformer contend in Professor Raymond. When the latter 
 has the mastery, we respond to the justice, the high ideals, the truth of all he says- 
 and says with point and vigor but when the poet conquers, the imagination soars . 
 . . . The mountain poems are the work of one with equally high ideals of life 
 nd of song." Glasgow (Scotland) Herald. 
 
 "Brother Jonathan can not claim many great poets, but we think he has 'struck 
 oil,' in Professor Raymond." Western (England) Morning News. 
 
 "This brilliant composition . . . gathers up and concentrates for the reader 
 more of the reality of the great Italian than is readily gleaned from the author of the 
 Inferno himself."- Oakland Enquirer. 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS. New York and London. Publishers 
 
PROFESSOR RAYMOND'S WORKS 
 
 Pictures in Verse. With 20 illustrations by Maud Stumm. 
 Square 8vo, in ornamental cloth covers . $ .75 
 
 "Little love poems of a light and airy character, describing pretty rustic scenes, 
 or domestic interiors. ... As charming for its illustrations as for its reading 
 matter." Detroit Free Press. 
 
 "Simple songs of human every-day experience . . . with a twinkle of homely 
 humor and a wholesome reflection of domestic cheer. We like his optimistic senti- 
 ments, and unspoiled spirit of boyishness when he strikes the chord of love. It ia 
 all very true and good." The Independent. 
 
 The Mountains about Williamstown. With an introduction 
 by M. M. Miller, and 35 full-page illustrations from 
 original photographs; oblong cloth, gilt edges $2.00 
 
 "The beauty of these photographs from so many points of vantage would of itself 
 suffice to show the fidelity and affection with which Professor Raymond pursued the 
 theme of his admirably constructed poems. The introduction by his p^upil, friend, 
 and associate is an exhaustive study. No better or more thorough review could be 
 written of the book, or more clearly point out the directness and power of Professor 
 Raymond's work. . . . Among his many books none justifies more brilliantly 
 the correctness and charm of his rhetorical instruction, or his facility in exemplifying 
 what he commends. " Hartford (Conn.) Courant. 
 
 "The poems all show Dr. Raymond's perfect art of expression, his deep and relig- 
 ious love of nature, and his profound reverence for the landscape he celebrates. 
 Every New Englander will appreciate the volume, and Williams College men can 
 ill afford not to possess it." Portland. (Me.) Evening Express. 
 
 " They show a keen ear for rhythm, felicity of phrase, exquisite taste, a polished 
 style, and often exalted feeling. Mr. Raymond's students . . . and those who 
 have read his book upon the_ principles that underlie art, ppetry, and music will be 
 interested in this clothing, in concrete form, of his poetic theories. . . . Dr. 
 Miller makes in his Introduction a long and lucid discussion of these. " New York 
 Times. 
 
 "The men of Williams College especially owe him a debt of gratitude that can 
 never be paid." Troy (N. Y.) Record. 
 
 "The many full-page illustrations give lovely vistas of the Berkshires and of 
 the stream-silvered valleys they guard. Sometimes philosophic, sometimes purely 
 imaginative, through all the verse runs a high patriotism and a love of beauty and 
 humanity which uplifts and strengthens." Boston Transcript. 
 
 "Verse that often suggests Bryant in its simplicity and dignity. That is surely a 
 sound model for nature poetry. Large and finely produced photographs bring the 
 mountains vividly before the reader. This is not a book to read in the subway; but 
 lying on the sunny side of a stony wall when the leaves are bursting in spring, it 
 will surely appeal." Brooklyn Eagle. 
 
 Modern Fishers of Men. I2mo, cloth, gilt top . $1.00 
 
 "This delightful novel is written with charming insight. The rare gift of 'character 
 delineation the author can claim in full. . . . Shrewd comments upon life and 
 character add spice to the pages. " Nashville Tennessean. 
 
 "Deals with love and religion in a small country town, and under the facile pen 
 and keen humor of the author, the various situations . . . are made the most of 
 . . . true to the life. " Boston Globe. 
 
 "Such a spicy, racy, more-truth-than-fiction work has not been placed in our 
 hands for a long time." Chicago Evening Journal. 
 
 "A captivating story, far too short . . . just as fresh and absorbing as when the 
 lauthor laid down his pen . . . that was before typewriters. " Denver Republican. 
 
 "Essentially humorous, with an undercurrent of satire .... also subtle char- 
 acter delineation, which will appeal strongly to those who have the perceptive facul- 
 ties highly developed." San Francisco Bulletin. 
 
 "The book is delightful .... in several ways very remarkable." Boston 
 Times. 
 
 "A distinct surprise lies in this little story . . . . of 1879 . . . . so strongly 
 does it partake of the outlook and aim of the new church of to-day." Washington 
 Star 
 
 "In 'Modern Fishers of Men,' one sees that the Men and Religion Forward 
 Movement existed before it began." The Watchman, Boston. 
 
 "Pleasant reading for those whom sad experience has led to doubt the possibility 
 of a real community uplift with lasting qualities. The story is brightened with a , 
 quiet but none the less hearty humor. " Cincinnati Times. 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS. New York and London, Publishers 
 
The Poet's Cabinet and An Art-Philosopher's Cabinet, 
 
 two books containing quotations, the one from the poems, 
 the other from the aesthetic works of George Lansing 
 Raymond, selected and arranged alphabetically accord- 
 ing to subject by Marion Mills Miller, Litt.D., editor 
 of The Classics, Greek and Latin, with illustrations. 
 Each book 8vo., cloth bound, gilt top . . . $2.00 
 
 "Dr. Raymond is one of the most just and pregnant critics, as well as one of the 
 most genuine poets, that America has produced. . . . His verse generally, and his 
 prose frequently, is a solid pack of epigrams; and hundreds of the epigrams are 
 vigorous, fresh, telling, worth collecting and cataloguing. . . . Probably from 
 no other American but Emerson could a collection at all comparable be made. 
 Many of the phrases are profound paradox. . . . Others are as hard-headed as 
 La Rochefoucauld. . . . Some are plain common sense, set in an audacious figure, 
 or a vigorous turn of phrase. . . . But few or none of them are trivial. . . . 
 As an aesthetic critic, Professor Raymond is, by training and temperament, remark- 
 ably versatile and catholic. He is almost or quite equally interested in architecture, 
 painting, sculpture, music, poetry. . . . Each is as definitely placed in his system 
 as the several instruments in a great orchestra. ... If Dr. Raymond had been 
 born in France, England, or Germany, he would, no doubt, have enjoyed a wider 
 vogue. But it is just as well that he was none of these; for the, as yet, aesthetically 
 immature New World has sore need of him. Revue Internationale, Paris. 
 
 "We risk little in foretelling a day when all considerable libraries, private as well 
 &s public, will be deemed quite incomplete if lacking these twin volumes. Years 
 after the thinker has paid the debt to nature due, his thoughts will rouse action and 
 emotion in the hearts and minds of generations now unborn." Worcester (Mass.) 
 Gazette. 
 
 "This Poet's Cabinet is the best thing of its class that confined to the works of 
 one author upon which our eyes have fallen, either by chance or purpose. We 
 can't help wishing that we had a whole book-shelf of such volumes in our own 
 private library." Columbus (O.) Journal. 
 
 "The number and variety of the subjects are almost overwhelming, and the 
 searcher for advanced or new thought as expressed by this particular philosopher 
 has no difficulty in coming almost immediately upon something that may strike 
 his fancy or aid him in his perplexities. To the student of poetry and the higher 
 forms of literature, it may be understood that the volume will be of distinct aid." 
 Utica (N. Y.) Observer. 
 
 "A wide range of topics, under appropriate heads, and their classificati9n in 
 alphabetic order, thus making the work convenient for reference. . . . Editors, 
 authors, teachers, public speakers, and many others will find it a useful volume, 
 filled with quotable passages in astonishing numbers when it is remembered that 
 they are the work of a single author." Hartford (Conn.) Times. 
 
 " Dr. Miller's task in selecting representative extracts from Professor Raymond's 
 works has not been a light one, for there has been no chaff among the wheat, and 
 there was an ever present temptation to add bulk to the book through freedom in 
 compilation. He thought best, however, to eliminate all but the features which 
 revealed the rare rich soul and personality of the poet, and each quotation is a gem." 
 Albany (N. Y.) Times-Union. 
 
 "The book contains a careful and authoritative selection of the best things which 
 this brilliant man of letters has given to the literary world. . . . The compiler 
 has done fine work. . . . One cannot turn to a page without coming across some 
 quotation which fits in for the day with the happiest result. Dr. Raymond's satire 
 ia keen but kindly, his sentiment sweet and tender, and his philosophy convincing 
 and useful." Buffalo (N. Y.) Courier. 
 
 "Everybody who knows anything about literature knows, of course, that Dr. 
 Raymond is a philosopher as well as poet ... no mere rhymester, no simple 
 weaver of ear-tickling phrases and of well-measured verse and stanza. There is 
 pith as well as music in his song ... all breathing power as well as grace." 
 Brooklyn (N. Y.) Citizen. 
 
 " To study the works of any one man so that we are completely familiar with his 
 ideas upon all important subjects if the man have within him any element of great- 
 ness is a task which is likely to repay the student's work. . . . This fact makes 
 the unique quality of the present volume . . . quotations which deal with practi- 
 cally every subject to be found in more general anthologies." Boston (Mass.) 
 Advertiser. 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS. New York and London. Publishers 
 
ProfessorRaymond'sSystemofCOMPARATIVE/ESTHETICS 
 
 I. Art in Theory. 8vo, cloth extra $1-75 
 
 "Scores an advance upon the many art criticisms extant. . . . Twenty brilliant 
 chapters, pregnant with suggestion." Popular Science Monthly. 
 
 "A well grounded, thoroughly supported, and entirely artistic conception of art 
 that will lead observers to distrust the charlatanism that imposes an idle and super- 
 ficial mannerism upon the public in place of true beauty and honest workmanship. " 
 The New York Times. 
 
 "His style is good, and his logic sound and ... of the greatest possible service 
 to the student of artistic theories." Art Journal (London). 
 
 II. The Representative Significance of Form. 8vo, cloth extra $2.00 
 
 "A valuable essay. . . . Professor Raymond goes so deep into causes as to 
 explore the subconscious and the unconscious mind for a solution of his problems, 
 and eloquently to range through the conceptions of religion, science and metaphysics 
 in order to find fixed principles of taste. ... A highly interesting discussion. " 
 The Scotsman (Edinburgh). 
 
 "Evidently the ripe fruit of years of patient and exhaustive study on the part of a 
 man singularly fitted for his task. It is profound in insight, searching in analysis, 
 broad in spirit, and thoroughly modern in method and sympathy. " The Universalist 
 Leader. 
 
 "Its title gives no intimation to the general reader of its attractiveness for him, or 
 to curious readers of its widely discursive range of interest. . . . Its broad range 
 may remind one of those scythe-bearing chariots with which the ancient Persians 
 used to mow down hostile files." The Outlook. 
 
 III. Poetry as a Representative Art. 8yo, cloth extra Si-75 
 
 "I have read it with pleasure, and a sense of instruction on many points." 
 Francis Turner Palgrave, Professor of Poetry, Oxford University. 
 
 "Dieses ganz vortreffliche Werk. " Englischen Studien, Universitdt Breslau. 
 
 "An acute, interesting, and brilliant piece of work. ... As a whole the essay 
 deserves unqualified praise." ,iV. Y. Independent. 
 
 IV. Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture as Representative Arts. 
 With 225 illustrations. 8vo $2.50 
 
 "The artist will find in it a wealth of profound and varied learning; of original, 
 suggestive, helpful thought . . . of absolutely inestimable value. " The Looker-on. 
 
 "Expression by means of extension or size, . . . shape, . . . regularity in 
 outlines . . . the human body . . . posture, gesture, and movement, . . . are 
 all considered. ... A specially interesting chapter is the one on color." 
 Current Literature. 
 
 "The whole book is the work of a man of exceptional thoughtfulness, who says 
 what he has to say in a remarkably lucid and direct manner." Philadelphia JPr 'ess. 
 
 V. The Genesis of Art Form. Fully illustrated. 8vo . . $2.25 
 
 "In a spirit at once scientific and that of the true artist, he pierces through the 
 manifestations of art to their sources, and shows the relations intimate and essential, 
 between painting, sculpture, poetry, music, and architecture. A book that possesses 
 not only singular value, but singular charm." N. Y. Times. 
 
 "A help and a delight. Every aspirant for culture in any of the liberal arts, includ- 
 ing music and poetry, will find something in this book to aid him. " Boston Times. 
 
 "It is impossible to withhold one's admiration from a treatise which exhibits in 
 such a large degree the qualities of philosophic criticism." Philadelphia Press. 
 
 VI. Rhythm and Harmony in Poetry and Music. Together with 
 Music as a Representative Art. 8vo, cioth extra . $1.75 
 
 "Professor Raymond has chosen a delightful subject, and he treats it with all the 
 charm of narrative and high thought and profound study." New Orleans States. 
 
 "The reader must be, indeed, a person either of supernatural stupidity or of 
 marvelous erudition, who does not discover much information in Prof. Raymond's 
 exhaustive and instructive treatise. From page to page it is full of suggestion." 
 The Academy (London). 
 
 VII. Proportion and Harmony of Line and Color in Painting, 
 Sculpture, and Architecture. Fully illustrated. 8vo. $2.50 
 
 " Marked by profound thought along lines unfamiliar to most readers and thinkers. 
 . . . When grasped, however, it becomes a source of great enjoyment and exhil- 
 aration. ... No critical person can afford to ignore so yaluable a contribution to 
 the art-thought of the day." The Art Interchange (N. Y.). 
 
 "One does not need to be a scholar to follow this scholar as he teaches while 
 seeming to entertain, for he does both." Burlington Hawkey e. 
 
 " The artist who wishes to penetrate the mysteries of color, the sculptor who desires 
 to cultivate his sense of proportion, or the architect whose ambition is to reach to a 
 high standard will find the work helpful and inspiring." Boston Transcript. 
 
 G, P. PUTNAM'S SONS, New York and London, Publisher* 
 
TEXT-BOOKS BY PROFESSOR RAYMOND 
 
 The Essentials of Esthetics. 8vo. Illustrated. $2.50 
 
 This work, which is mainly a compendium of the author's system of Comparative 
 Esthetics, previously published in seven volumes, was prepared by request, for a 
 text-book and for readers whose time is too limited to study the minutiae of the 
 subject. 
 
 "It can hardly fail to make talent more rational, genius more conscious of the 
 principles of art, and the critic and connoisseur better equipped for impression, 
 judgment, or appraisement. " N. Y. Times. 
 
 "In spite of all that has been written on the subject from widely contrasted 
 standpoints, this manual has distinct claims on students. " The Standard (London). 
 
 "His evidence is clear and straightforward, and his conclusions eminently scholarly 
 and sound." Vanity Fair (London.) 
 
 "In his scientific excursion, he makes hard things easy to the lay mind. The 
 serious student of art cannot fail to find the book interesting, and in certain import- 
 ant matters convincing." Manchester (England) Guardian. 
 
 "This book is a valuable contribution to an important subject which may help 
 us to understand more fully not only that a picture, or a poem, or a musical com- 
 position is good, but also why it is good, and what constitutes its excellence." The 
 Christian Register (Boston). 
 
 "So lucid in expression and rich in illustration that every page contains matter of 
 deep interest even to the general reader. " Boston Herald. 
 
 " Dr. Raymond's book will be invaluable. He shows a knowledge both extensive 
 and exact of the various fine arts, and accompanies his ingenious and suggestive 
 theories by copious illustrations." The Scotsman (Edinburgh). 
 
 "The whole philosophy underlying this intelligent art-criticism should be given 
 the widest possible publicity." Boston Globe. 
 
 The Orator's Manual. I2mo .... $1.50 
 
 A Practical and Philosophic Treatise on Vocal Culture, Emphasis, and Gesture, 
 together with Hints for the Composition of Orations and Selections for Declamation 
 and Reading, designed as a Text-book for Schools and Colleges, and for Public 
 Speakers and Readers who are obliged to Study without an Instructor, fully revised 
 with important Additions after the Fifteen Edition. 
 
 "It is undoubtedly the most complete and thorough treatise on oratory for the 
 practical student ever published. " The Educational Weekly, Chicago. 
 
 "I consider it the best American book upon technical elocution. It has also 
 leanings toward a philosophy of expression that no other book written by an Ameri- 
 can has presented." Moses True Brown. Head of the Boston School of Oratory. 
 
 " The work is evidently that of a skilful teacher bringing before students of oratory 
 the results of philosophical thinking and successful experience in an admirable form 
 and a narrow compass." /, W. Churchill. Professor of Homiletics, Andover Theo- 
 logical Seminary. 
 
 " I have long wished for just such a book. It is thoroughly practical, and descends 
 into details, really helping the speaker." /. M. Hoppin, D.D., Professor of Hom- 
 iletics, Yale. 
 
 "The completeness, exactness, and simplicity of this manual excite my admira- 
 tion. It is so just and full of nature." A. T. McGill, D.D., LL.D., Professor of 
 Homiletics, Princeton. 
 
 The Writer (with POST WHEELER, Litt.D.) i2mo. $1.00 
 
 A Concise, Complete, and Practical Text-book of Rhetoric, designed to aid in the 
 Appreciation, as well as Production of All Forms of Literature, Explaining, for the 
 first time, the Principles of Written Discourses by correlating them to those of Oral 
 Discourse. Former editions fully revised. 
 
 "A book of unusual merit. A careful examination creates the impression that the 
 exercises have been prepared by practical teachers, and the end in view is evidently 
 to teach rather than to give information." The Pacific Educational Journal. 
 
 " The pupil will forget he is studying rhetoric, and will come to express himself for 
 the pure pleasure he has in this most beautiful art." Indiana School Journal. 
 
 "It reaches its purpose. While especially valuable as a text-book in schools, it is 
 a volume that should be ir. the hands of every literary worker." State Gazette, 
 Trenton, N. J. 
 
 " The treatment is broader and more philosophical than in the ordinary text-book. 
 Every species of construction and figure is considered. The student has his critical 
 and literary sense further developed by ... the best writings in the language used 
 to illustrate certain qualities of style." The School Journal. 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, New York and London, Publishers 
 
TEXT-BOOKS BY PROFESSOR RAYMOND 
 
 Ethics and Natural Law. 8vo. . . . Net, $2.25 
 
 A Reconstructive Review of Moral Philosophy, Applied to the Rational Art of 
 Living, a Book that is in effect a Continuati9n and Completipn of the Author's 
 well-known ^Esthetic Works, showing the Relationship of the Principles underlying 
 Art to the Culture of Character. 
 
 The lines of thought presented in this volume differ, in important regards, from 
 those unfolded in former theories of Ethics. It is here maintained that morality is 
 conditioned upon desires; that desires may arise in the mind or in the body; and, 
 in both cases, are expressed through a man's thinking as well as acting; that desires 
 of the mind, according to the testimony of both metaphysics and science, seek 
 objects seen or heard, the mental effects of which can be unselfishly shared with 
 others; whereas desires of the body, as of touch and taste, seek selfish and exclusive 
 possession of that which ministers to individual indulgence that conscience is a 
 consciousness of conflict between these two classes of desires; and that this con- 
 
 subordinating rather than suppressing desires of the body whose life they serve. 
 A little thinking will discover moreover, that this conception of conscience accords 
 with the nature of a mind that is influenced by suggestion and reason more power- 
 fully than by dictation and compulsion; as well, too, as with the requirements of 
 all phases of spiritual religion, because this theory shows how body and mind may 
 be separated after death, and the latter alone survive, and yet how, even in these 
 conditions, a mind that has not learned, in this life, to subordinate the physical and 
 material may still carry with it the bias of their influence. The volume endeavors 
 to make clear, too, that the history of ethical theories records no denial of the exist- 
 ence of this conflict in consciousness; and that a recognition of the full import of 
 this fact would remove the differences between them, and furnish a single philo- 
 sophic principle fundamental to them all; also that few, if any, immoral acts in 
 private or public life could fail to be detected, prevented, or corrected by an appli- 
 cation to practice of the tests that accord with this theory. 
 
 " The student of ethics will considerably fortify his knowledge of the history of 
 ethical thought by reading the book, especially the first twelve chapters. In these 
 Mr. Raymond embodies, with copious references, his extensive knowledge of what 
 has been written and thought by moral philosophers. On pp. 63-67, for instance, 
 will be found in footnotes a kind of classified anthology of all the definitions given 
 of conscience by modern writers. The various ethical theories holding the field dp 
 not, he thinks, recognize as indispensable the cooperation, in every slightest detail 
 of thought and feeling, of the two necessary factors of every desire; and he claims 
 that his own doctrine keeps to the purpose he avows in his opening chapter, to 
 draw no inference, and to advance no theory, not warranted by known facts as 
 ascertainable in connection with the operations of natural law. . . . Chapters 
 XIII to XXIII deal acutely and comprehensively with the various sides of American 
 life." London (England) Times. 
 
 In an article entitled A Desirable Acquaintance, Prof. A. S. Hobart, D.D., of Crozer 
 Theological Seminary, after mentioning his twenty years' experience in teaching 
 Ethics, says, "I find this book the only one that has come within the range of my 
 reading which has, for the basis of its system, what I have found to be satisfactory. 
 The writer assumes that there is, in the nature of things, a law of ethical conduct 
 as continuous and self-evincing as is the law of physical health. . . . The study 
 of psychology has opened the mind to inspection as we open the back of a watch- 
 case and see the wheels go round; and this study lays its crowns of victorious ex- 
 plorations at the feet of ethics. . . . His view is that conscience is the sense of 
 conflict between bodily and mental desires, . . . therefore, not a guide; it is 
 only a sense of lostness in the woods, that wants a guide. Good sense and good 
 religion are the guides to be consulted. By many illustrations and very clear 
 reasoning, he verifies his view. Then, ... he takes up the task unusual in 
 such books of showing how the leading moral qualities can and ought to be cul- 
 tivated. In view of my own careful reading of the book, I venture to call attention 
 to it as a most fertile source of instruction and suggestion for ethical teaching." 
 The Baptist. 
 
 " Professor Raymond attacks materialism and militarism. . . . He shows that 
 the materialist makes mprality depend on what is external to man, and that the 
 militarist relies on physical force for the promotion of morality. . . . There is 
 much in this book to commend, especially its sincerity. . . . The author is some- 
 times too advanced ... he is, in fact, a moral revolutionist. But he always tries 
 to determine not what is pleasant but what is just." Rochester (N.Y.) Post-Express. 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, New York and London, Publishers 
 
TEXT-BOOKS BY PROFESSOR RAYMOND 
 
 " The book Ethics and Natural Law is an interesting statement of the author's 
 theory that the ethical life is a harmonious life in which the antagonisms between 
 mind and body are reconciled by the dominance of mind. The consciousness of 
 conflict between body and mind accounts for what we call conscience which tells 
 that the conflict should be ended. It is ended when the desires of the body in the 
 whole realm of human relationships are subordinated to the desires of the mind. 
 The analogy between the aesthetic and moral harmonies is excellently developed, 
 and one is reminded of the Platonic principle of the harmonious subordination of 
 the lower to the higher. In the statement of the various ethical theories which the 
 author reviews he is clear and satisfactory. The classification of his material is 
 consistent throughout. His emphasis on the necessity of the subordination, and 
 not the destruction of the desires of the body, is of notable importance. His doc- 
 trine calls for the spiritual utiliz ation of the natural powers and makes mind supreme 
 in the individual, the social, and the governmental life of mankind." John A. 
 Mclntosh, D.D., Professor of the Philosophy of Religion and Ethics, McCormick 
 (Presbyterian) Theological Seminary. 
 
 "A working theory of ethics that has much to recommend it. Experts in this 
 field of inquiry have long taken for granted the conflict between the larger ends of 
 society and the narrower ends pursued by the individual. The author emphasizes 
 the deeper clash within the individual between the desires of the body and those of 
 the mind, noting that while both are natural, the lower impulses should always be 
 held in subordination to the higher. He would have the mind's desires kept upper- 
 most in all the phases of individual and collective life, in courtship, marriage, 
 family training, the general relations between employers and employees, forms of 
 government, and the framing and administering of laws. . . . Permanently 
 beneficial results in labor disputes can be reached not through resort to force but 
 only through appeals to the mind . . . and he is a severe critic of executives who 
 further the interests of their party at the expense of the country's interests. The 
 work contains an excellent summary of ancient and modern ethical theories." 
 Boston Herald. 
 
 "When once you make desire dynamic, you have a spiritual actuating principle. 
 This is the basis upon which you have reared a stately ethical edifice. Its founda- 
 tion rests on man, on human rationality; and story rises above story of ever higher 
 personal, social, and political relations, with the light of the universe of God stream- 
 ing through the windows. The absence of the terminology of theology is more than 
 compensated by the high quality of the religious ferver and spiritual insight. I 
 commend this book very strongly, its scholarly ripeness, its intellectual honesty, 
 and its ethical purpose." Dr. Abram Simon, Rabbi of "The Hebrew Congrega- 
 tion," and President of the Board of Education of Washington, D. C. 
 
 "A valuable contribution to Ethical theory. While his system has something in 
 common with intuitionism, utilitarianism, and ethical evolutionism, he is not a 
 disciple of any of them. . . . The main thesis of the book is that there are two 
 classes of desires, those of the body and those of the mind; and that there is con- 
 tinual struggle for the mastery between them. . . . This thesis is supported by 
 numerous chains from writers on ethics which show the author's wide and thorough 
 acquaintance with the literature of the subject. The style of the treatise is a model 
 of clearness; it is dignified but never dull or dry, and it is occasionally illumined by 
 flashes of humor. The work is a practical guide to right living, as the author applies 
 his theory to every department of human life, individual social, national, and sheds 
 the light of his wisdom on every question of human conduct. Students of ethics 
 cannot afford to neglect this book. It ought to be in the libraries of parents of sons 
 and daughters approaching manhood and womanhood." The Chronicle (Prot. 
 Epi?.) Monthly. 
 
 "Professor Raymond extracts a fundamental principle that largely reconciles 
 existing ethical theories . . . makes distinctions that have vitality, and will repay 
 the necessary study and application." Scientific American. 
 
 "In the course of his argument the author discusses at considerable length the 
 various factors and agencies that contribute to the making and unmaking of the 
 lives of men and women in so far as their usefulness to their fellow creatures is 
 concerned. In his treatment of these subjects he is at all times candid and fair- 
 minded, in most cases reviewing both sides of the question at issue." Chronicle 
 Telegraph (Pittsburg, Pa.). 
 
 "The author writes with a purpose that seeks to be exhaustive, and to cover 
 much of the field of practical living. He is analytic and comprehensive, and, above 
 all, scholarly. He has made a contribution in this field of research that will be 
 received with enthusiasm, and readily turned into the realm of productive thought." 
 Western (Methodist) Christian Advocate, Cincinnati, Ohio. 
 
 O. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, New York and London. Publishers 
 
OTHER BOOKS BY PROFESSOR RAYMOND 
 
 Fundamentals in Education, Art, and Civics : Essays and 
 Addresses. 8vo, cloth. Net, $1.40; by mail, $1.53. 
 
 "Of fascinating interest to cultured readers, to the student, the teacher, the poet, 
 the artist, the musician, in a word to all lovers of sweetness and light. The author has 
 a lucid and vigorous style, and is often strikingly original. \V hat impresses one is 
 the personality of a profound thinker and a consummate teacher behind every 
 paragraph." Dundee Courier, Scotland. 
 
 " The articles cover a wide field and manifest a uniformly high culture in every 
 field covered. It is striking how this great educator seems to have anticipated the 
 educational tendencies of our times some decades before they imprest the rest of us. 
 He has been a pathfinder for many younger men, and still points the way to higher 
 heights. The book is thoroughly up-to-date." Service, Philadelphia. 
 
 "Clear, informing, and delightfully readable. Whether the subject is art and 
 morals, technique in expression, or character in a republic, each page will be found 
 interesting and the treatment scholarly, but simple, sane, and satisfactory . . . th< 
 story of the Chicago fire is impressingly vivid. " Chicago Standard. 
 
 "He is a philosopher, whose encouraging idealism is well grounded in scientific 
 study, and who illuminates points of psychology and ethics as well as of art when 
 they come up in the course of the discussion." The Scotsman, Edinburgh, Scotland. 
 
 "A scholar of wide learning, a teacher of experience, and a writer of entertaining 
 and convincing style." Chicago Examiner. 
 
 "'The Mayflower Pilgrims' and 'Individual Character in Our Republic' call for 
 unstinted praise. They are interpenetrated by a splendid patriotism." Rochester 
 Post-Express. 
 
 "Agreeably popularizes much that is fundamental in theories of life and thought. 
 The American people owe much of their progress, their optimism, and we may say 
 their happiness to the absorption of just such ideals as Professor Raymond stands 
 for." Minneapolis Book Review Digest. 
 
 "They deal with subjects of peremiial interest, and with principles of abiding 
 importance, and they are presented with the force and lucidity which his readers 
 have come to look for in Dr. Raymond. " Living Age, Boston. 
 
 Suggestions for the Spiritual Life College Chapel Talks. 
 
 8vo., cloth. Net, $1.40; by mail, $1.53. 
 
 "Sermons of more than usual worth, full of thought of the right kind, fresh, 
 strong, direct, manly. . . . Not one seems to strain to get a young man's atten- 
 tion by mere popular allusions to a student environment. They are spiritual, 
 scriptural, of straight ethical import, meeting difficulties, confirming cravings, 
 amplifying tangled processes of reasoning, and riot forgetting the emotions. " Hart- 
 ford Theological Seminary Record (CongregationalistJ. 
 
 "The clergyman who desires to reach young men especially, and the teacher of 
 men's Bible Classes may use this collection of addresses to great advantage. . . . 
 The subjects are those of every man's experience in character building . . . such a 
 widespread handling of God's word would have splendid results in the production 
 of men." The Living Church (Episcopalian). 
 
 "Great themes, adequately considered. . . . Surely the young men who 
 listened to these sermons must have been stirred and helped by them as we have 
 been stirred and helped as we read them." Northfield (Mass.) Record of Christian 
 Work (Evangelical). 
 
 "They cover a wide range. They are thoughtful, original, literary, concise, 
 condensed, pithy. They deal with subjects in which the young mind will be inter- 
 ested. " Western Christian Advocate (Methodist). 
 
 "Vigorous thought, vigorously expressed. One is impressed by the moderation 
 and sanity of the teachings here set forth and scholarly self-restraint in statement. 
 Back of them is not only a believing mind, but genuine learning and much hard 
 thinking." Lutheran Observer. 
 
 " Though most of the addresses were prepared over forty years ago ... no 
 chapter in the book seems to be either 'old-fogyish' or 'unorthodox.' " The Watch- 
 man (Boston, Baptist). 
 
 "The preacher will find excellent models for his work and stimulating thought . . . 
 attractively presented and illustrated. . . . The addresses are scholarly and 
 especially adapted to cultivated minds. They show evidence of intimate acquaint- 
 ance with modern science and sympathy with modern ideas." Springfield (Mass.) 
 Republican. 
 
 "Beautiful and inspiring discourses . . . embody the ripe conviction of a mind 
 of exceptional refinement, scholarship, and power ... a psychologist, a phil- 
 osopher, and a poet. " N. Y. Literary Digest. 
 
 "Never was such a book more needed by young men than just now." Philadel- 
 phia Public Ledger. 
 
 FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Pubs. New York and London, 
 
Other Books by Professor Raymond 
 
 The Psychology of Inspiration. 8vo., cloth. (New Revised 
 Edition). Net, $2.00; by mail, $2.14. 
 
 The book founds its conclusions on a study of the action of the human mind when 
 obtaining and expressing truth, as this action has been revealed through the most 
 recent investigations of physiplogical, psychological, and psychic research; and the 
 freshne.-j :.nd originality of the presentation is acknowledged and commended by 
 such authorities as Dr. J. Mark Baldwin, Professor of Psychology in Johns Hopkins 
 University, who says that its psychological position is "new and valuable"; Dr. 
 W. T. Harris, late United States Commissioner of Education and the foremost 
 metaphysician in the country, who says it is sure "to prove helpful to many who 
 find themselves on the border line between the Christian and the non-Christian 
 beliefs"; and Dr. Edward Everett Hale, who says that "no one has approached the 
 subject from this point of view." He characterizes it, too, as an "endeavor to 
 formulate conceptions that almost every Christian to-day believes, but without know- 
 ing why he d^es so." As thus intimated by Dr. Hale, the book is not a mere con- 
 tribution to apologetics not a mere defense of Christianity. It contains a formula- 
 tion of principles that underlie all rational interpretation of all forms of revealed 
 religion. These principles are applied in the book to Christian doctrine, faith, and 
 conduct; to the services, discipline, and unity of the church: and to the methods of 
 insuring success in missionary enterprise. It strives to reveal b9th the truth and the 
 error that are in such systems of thought as are developed in AGNOSTICISM, 
 PRAGMATISM, MODERNISM, THEOSOPHY, SPIRITUALISM, AND CHRIS- 
 TIAN SCIENCE. 
 
 The first and, perhaps, the most important achievement of the book is to show 
 that the fact of inspiration can be demonstrated scientifically; in other words, that 
 the inner subconscious mind can be influenced irrespective of influences exerted 
 through the eyes and the ears, *'. e., by what one sees or hears. In connection with 
 this fact it is also shown that, when the mind is thus inwardly or inspirationally 
 influenced, as, for example, in hypnotism, the influence is suggestive and not dicta- 
 torial. As a result, the inspired person presents the truth given him not according 
 to the letter, but according to the spirit. His object is not to deal with facts and impart 
 knowledge, as science does. This would lead men to walk by sight. His object is 
 to deal with principles, and these may frequently be illustrated just as accurately by 
 apparent, or, as in the case of the parable, by imagined circumstances, as by actual 
 ones. For this reason, many of the scientific and historical so-called "objections" 
 to the Bible need not be answered categorically. Not only so, but such faith as it is 
 natural and right that a rational being should exercise can be stimulated and devel- 
 oped in only the degree in which the text of a sacred book is characterized by the 
 very vagueness and variety of meaning and statement which the higher criticism 
 of the Bible has brought to light. The book traces these to the operation and re- 
 quirements of the human mind through which inspiration is received and to which 
 it is imparted. Whatever inspires must appear to be, in some way, beyond the grasp 
 of him who communicates it, and can make him who hears it think and train him to 
 think, in the degree only in which it is not comprehensive or complete; but merely, 
 like everything else in nature, illustrative of that portion of truth which the mind 
 needs to be made to find out for itself. 
 
 "A book that everybody should read . . . medicinal for prof est Christians, and 
 full of guidance and encouragement for those finding themselves somewhere between 
 the desert and the town. The sane, fair, kindly attitude taken gives of itself a 
 profitable lesson. The author proves conclusively that his mind and if his, why 
 not another's? can be at one and the same time sound, sanitary, scientific, and 
 essentially religious." The Examiner, Chicago. 
 
 "The author writes with logic and a 'sweet reasonableness' that will doubtless 
 convince many halting minds. It is an inspiring book." Philadelphia Inquirer. 
 
 "It is, we think, difficult to overestimate the value of this volume at the present 
 critical pass in the history of Christianity." The Arena, Boston. 
 
 "The author has taken up a task calling for heroic effort, and has given us a volume 
 worthy of careful study. . . . The conclusion is certainly very reasonable."- 
 Christian Intelligencer, New York. 
 
 "Interesting, suggestive, helpful," Boston Congregationalism 
 
 "Thoughtful, reverent, suggestive." Lutheran Observer, Philadelphia. 
 
 "Professor Raymond is a clear thinker, an able writer, and an earnest Christian, 
 and his book is calculated to be greatly helpful to those in particular who, brought up 
 in the Christian faith, find it impossible longer to reconcile the teachings of the 
 Church with the results of modern scientific thought. " Newark ( N. J.) Evening 
 News. 
 
 FUNK W AGN ALLS COMPANY, Pubs.. New York and London