“Pretty little Pimpernel,
May I learn to love you well?”
You continue on the style of “Twinkle, twinkle.”
“Hiding in the mossy shade,
Like a lamp of ¯˘ made,
Or a gem by fairies dropt
In their ...”
and there you stick, just as you had got into the style of the
“L’Allegro.” I have no space or leisure to give the student the
full treatment of so great a subject, how he would drag in the
closing and opening of the flower, and how (skilfully avoiding the
word “dell”) he would end his ten or fifteen lines by a repetition
of the first (an essential feature of the Prattling style). I will
confine myself to showing him what may be made of these ridiculous
six lines.
The first has an obvious fault. It runs too quickly, and one falls
all over it. We will keep “Little” and put it first, so one might
write “Little Purple Pimpernel.” But even that won’t do, though the
alliteration is well enough. What change can we make?
It is at this point that I must introduce you to a most perfect
principle. It is called the Mutation of Adjectives--it is almost
the whole art of Occ. verse. This principle consists in pulling
out one’s first obvious adjective, and replacing it by another of
similar length, _chosen because it is peculiar_. You must not put
in an adjective that could not possibly apply; for instance, you
must not speak of the “Ponderous Rabbit” or the “Murky Beasts;”
your adjective must be applicable, but it must be startling, as
“The Tolerant Cow,” “The Stammering Minister,” or “The Greasy
Hill”--all quite true and most unexpected.
Now, here it is evident that Purple is commonplace. What else can
we find about the Pimpernel that is quite true and yet really
startling? Let us (for instance) call it “tasteless.” There you
have it, “Little tasteless Pimpernel”--no one could read that too
quickly, and it shows at the same time great knowledge of nature.
I will not weary you with every detail of the process, but I will
write down _my_ result after all the rules have been properly
attended to. Read this, and see whether the lines do not fit with
my canons of art, especially in what is called the “choice of
words:”--
“Little tasteless Pimpernel,
Shepherd’s Holt and warning spell
Crouching in the cushat shade
Like a mond of mowry made....”
and so forth. There you have a perfect little gem. Nearly all the
words are curious and well chosen, and yet the metre trips along
like a railway carriage. The simplicity lies in the method; the
quaint diction is quarried from Mr. Skeats’ excellent book on
etymology; but I need not point out any particular work, as your
“Thesaurus” in this matter is for your own choosing.
So much for the Prattling style.
As for the Obscure style, it is so easy that it is getting
overdone, and I would not depend too much upon it.
In its origins, it was due to the vagaries of some gentlemen and
ladies who suffered from an imperfect education, and wrote as they
felt, without stopping to think.
But that first holy rapture cannot be recovered. We must work by
rule. The rules attaching to this kind of work are six:--
(1) Put the verb in the wrong place (some leave it out altogether);
(2) Use words that may be either verbs or nouns--plurals are very
useful;
(3) Punctuate insufficiently;
(4) Make a special use of phrases that have two or three meanings;
(5) Leave out relatives;
(6) Have whole sentences in apposition.
Some of our young poets have imagined that the mere use of strange
words made up the Obscure style. I need not say that they were
wrong. Thus, the lines--
“And shall I never tread them more,
My murrant balks of wealden lathes?”
are singularly bad. Anyone could be obscure in so simple a fashion.
It behoves the student rather to read carefully such lines as the
following, in which I have again tackled the Pimpernel, this time
in the Obscure manner.
I begin with “What Pimpernels,” which might mean “What!
Pimpernels?” or, “_What_ Pimpernels?” or again, “What
_Pimpernels_!”; expressing surprise, or a question, or astonished
admiration: but do you think I am going to give the show away by
telling the reader what I mean? Not a bit of it. There is something
in our island temper which loves mystery: something of the North. I
flatter myself I can do it thoroughly:--
“What Pimpernels; a rare indulgence blesses
The winter wasting in imperfect suns
And Pimpernels are in the waning, runs
A hand unknown the careless winter dresses,
Not for your largess to the ruined fells,
Her floors in waste, I call you, Pimpernels.”
There! I think that will do very fairly well. One can make sense
out of it, and it is broad and full, like a modern religion; it
has many aspects, and it makes men think. There is not one unusual
word, and the second line is a clear and perfect bit of English.
Yet how deep and solemn and thorough is the whole!
And yet, for all my ability in these matters, I may not offer an
example for the reader to follow. I am conscious of something
more powerful (within this strict channel), and I am haunted
reproachfully by a great soul. May I quote what none but She could
have written? It is the most perfect thing that modern England
knows. Every lesson I might painfully convey there stands manifest,
of itself, part of the Created Thing.