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effect little, if it all, short of the reality. He may make up for the inferiority of imagined scenes by a skilful employment of the devices of language. When, by such methods, he can excite the feeling of manifested power, he attains the quality of Strength, or the Sublime, in composition.

The words that name powerful, vast, and exciting objects, effects, and qualities, make up the vocabulary of Strength. Such are break, crush, wreck, destruction, ruin, storm, tornado, torrent, ocean, mountain, continent, desert, world, planet, sphere, star, galaxy, nature, chaos. Years, ages, centuries, immortal, eternal, primeval. Height, loftiness, sublimity, vastness, immensity, glory, expanse, infinite, ineffable, uncreated. Armies, fleets, war, battles, conquerors, cities, nations, empires, states, thrones, dominions, majesty, splendor, illustrious, divine, godlike, hero, demigod, Deity, multitude, thousands, millions. Magnanimity, resolution, determination, energy, force, might, elation, will, freedom, genius, virtue, hope, faith. Words of this class skilfully combined are sublime.

Simply to name one or more objects of superior might, is not enough. A child could get by heart and repeat the designations of everything suggestive of power on the vastest scale— the infinitude of space, the galaxies, the stars, the mountains, the cataracts, the tempests, the heroes of the past. Even after much pains, compositions aiming at the sublime are frequently stigmatized as mock-sublime, bombast, grandiloquence, fustian, falsetto, pinchbeck.

The following are illustrations of sublimity :—

"The stars shall fade away, the sun himself
Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years;
But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth,
Unhurt, amid the war of elements,

The wreck of matter, and the crash of worlds."

Here we have images of vast power and grandeur, rendered effective by contrast and by climax.

Nothing was ever so well adapted to suggest utter and universal ruin as the following from Shakespeare:—

"Though the treasure

Of nature's germins tumble all together

Een till destruction sicken, answer me to what I ask you."

See also the Poetical extracts in the Appendix.

87. The description of great and imposing objects, operations, or events, will not constitute the Sublime in composition, without certain conditions, already partly indicated.

I. Originality. Novel comparisons, metaphors, and other figurative effects, applied to what is intrinsically great, are a principal means of strength.

In the real world, few things have the same effect after repetition. So in language; it is usually when first met that a striking image or thought possesses the greatest charm. Novelty is essential to many of our chief pleasures.

The literary works that have fascinated mankind, and earned the lofty title of genius, abound in strokes of invention; witness Homer, Æschylus, Plato, Virgil, Horace, Dante, Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, De Foe, Pope, Addison, Gray, Goethe, Scott, Byron, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, Bryant, Longfellow. No combination of other merits could place any one in the first rank of poetic fame.

Some explanation is required of the fact that many objects and compositions have the power to please after frequent repetition.

In the first place, when there is a high degree of complexity and elaboration, the whole effect of a scene or work of art is not experienced on one occasion. It is often said of the Swiss mountains, that they give new pleasure every time they are beheld.

Secondly, our own state of mind may alter, and may render us susceptible to beauties previously unfelt. This is especially the case with regard to the greatest classical productions of poetry and the other fine arts.

Thirdly, works that are far removed from what is habitual and familiar to us may be said to have a perennial novelty. This constitutes part of the charm of the ancient classics, of foreign literature, and of the antique in our own country.

Fourthly, a great pleasure once felt can be revived in the

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memory in connection with that which excited it. It is by this memory or association of pleasure, that we counterwork the dulling effects of repetition, and the inferior susceptibility of advanced life. Affection is the memory of pleasure.

Fifthly, in artistic effects, it must not be forgotten how much depends on the temperament of the individual. When the mind is in a high degree disposed to some one emotion, the repetition of the same objects and the same forms of language neither palls nor loses effect. As regards the love of nature, for example, Wordsworth's feelings were so copious that he could exclaim,

"To me the meanest flower that blows can give

Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."

The same effect could not be wrought in men generally, except by some of the rarest and greatest of scenic combinations. Johnson's patriotism could burn on the plains of Marathon, and his piety wax warmer amid the ruins of Iona; and such would be the experience of the average man. Wordsworth's heart could fill on much smaller occasions.

88. II. Harmony and Keeping, or the mutual support of the language and the subject.

We have already remarked on the power of an apposite comparison (figures Op Similarity, § 13). The mutual support of two effects diminishes the intellectual labor of conceiving, and thus heightens the pleasure. It is part of every fine art, as will be afterwards seen, to accumulate harmonies. In aiming at composition of a lofty kind, the difficulty is not so much to find strong language as to adapt and harmonize it.

An examination of Milton's description of Sin and Death would disclose an harmonious adjustment of the similes, the circumstances, and the flow of the language, to the subject and to one another. We have in this passage all the elements of the sublime. The vast power of the objects described, the expression borrowed from other powerful objects, the originality, the keeping of the particulars, and the rich cadence of the language,—all contribute to the impression.

Strong epithets are forcible, only when bestowed on suitable objects. The vague comparisons and ill-assorted circumstances so frequent in Ossian, are a source of feebleness.

The mixture of Saxon and Classical elements in English has often a discordant effect, and is adverse to poetry.

89. III. Variety, or the due alternation of effects.

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What has been for some time out of mind has a certain freshness on being renewed. We may derive considerable pleasure from varying or alternating effects already experienced. After an interval, we can revisit impressive scenes, and re-peruse great compositions, with delight.

On this ground, writing may be powerful by the variety of its effects, although none are absolutely new. Commonplace is not at its lowest, till it is narrow-ranging, poor, monotonous. A full command of the ideas, images, and combinations of original minds, will make a second-rate poet, a good play-wright, a successful novelist, or an eloquent orator.

90. Variety is sought after in all parts of composition.

The frequent occurrence of the same sound is unpleasant. Hence it is a law of melody to alternate the letters of the alphabet. (See Melody.)

91. We avoid repeating words by the use of pronouns. The same end is sought by employing general words and synonymes. The following is an example:—

"The voyage is recommenced. They sail by the sandy shore of Araya, see the lofty cocoa-nut trees that stand over Oumana, pursue their way along that beautiful coast, noticing the Piritu palm at Maracapana, then traverse the difficult waters of the gloomy Golfo Triste, pass the province of Venezuela, catch a glimpse of the white summits of the mountains above Santa Martha, continue on their course to Darien, now memorable for the failure of so many great enterprises—and still no temple, no great idol, no visible creed, no cultus."

A studied variation of terms is often carried too far; and there is seen in some eminent writers a readiness to incur repetition to a degree that would once have been reckoned inele

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gant. In this sentence from Macaulay, we find both variety and repetition :—“As there is no stronger sign of a mind destitute of the poetical faculty than the tendency to turn images into abstractions—Minerva, for example, into Wisdom—so there is no stronger sign of a mind truly poetical than a disposition to reverse the process, and to make individuals out of generalities."

In introducing synonymes to vary the language, there should, if possible, be some other reason apparent in the selection. "If any one take or touch a particle of the hoard, the others join against him and hang him for the theft." Here, take or touch describes the mere physical action; theft is used in connection with its punishment as criminal. "Views with respect to human improvement are so comforting to entertain, that even, although founded in delusion, a wise man would be disposed to cherish them;" entertain and cherish are synonymes, but each has a certain propriety in its own connection.

92. Variety is also sought in the length and in the structure of sentences.

Some writers affect a succession of curt sentences, as Channing and Macaulay. In Johnson, we have the excessive iteration of the balanced period, which is a beauty when sparingly used. In Gibbon, the Johnsonian form is adopted, without being carried to the same excess. A good style introduces by turns every type of effective sentence that fits the subject.

93. In a long composition, as a Romance, a Play, or an Oration, many different kinds of interest or effect are purposely aimed at.

94. The extreme case of variety is Contrast; as in light and shade, cold and hot.

In style, variety amounting to contrast is seen in passing from the Scientific or abstract, to the Poetic or concrete; from the Tragic to the Comic; from Sublimity to Pathos. In such transitions, not merely is one state of feeling remitted, but an opposite is induced.

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