appropriate associations. Our attention is rarely drawn by the buzzing
of a fly in the window, save when everything is still. While the inmates
are moving about the house, mice usually keep silence; and it is only
when extreme quietness reigns that they peep from their retreats. Hence
each of the facts mentioned, presupposing numerous others, calls up
these with more or less distinctness; and revives the feeling of dull
solitude with which they are connected in our experience. Were all these
facts detailed instead of suggested, the attention would be so frittered
away that little impression of dreariness would be produced. Similarly
in other cases. Whatever the nature of the thought to be conveyed, this
skilful selection of a few particulars which imply the rest, is the
key to success. In the choice of component ideas, as in the choice of
expressions, the aim must be to convey the greatest quantity of thoughts
with the smallest quantity of words.
Sec. 49. The same principle may in some cases be advantageously carried
yet further, by indirectly suggesting some entirely distinct thought
in addition to the one expressed. Thus, if we say, "The head of a good
classic is as full of ancient myths, as that of a servant-girl of ghost
stories"; it is manifest that besides the fact asserted, there is an
implied opinion respecting the small value of classical knowledge: and
as this implied opinion is recognized much sooner than it can be put
into words, there is gain in omitting it. In other cases, again, great
effect is produced by an overt omission; provided the nature of the
idea left out is obvious. A good instance of this occurs in 'Heroes and
Heroworship.' After describing the way in which Burns was sacrificed to
the idle curiosity of Lion-hunters--people who came not out of sympathy,
but merely to see him--people who sought a little amusement, and who got
their amusement while "the Hero's life went for it!" Carlyle suggests a
parallel thus: "Richter says, in the Island of Sumatra there is a kind
of 'Light-chafers,' large Fire-flies, which people stick upon spits, and
illuminate the ways with at night. Persons of condition can thus travel
with a pleasant radiance, which they much admire. Great honour to the
Fire-flies! But--!--"
vi. The Effect of Poetry explained.
Sec. 50. Before inquiring whether the law of effect, thus far traced,
explains the superiority of poetry to prose, it will be needful to
notice some supplementary causes of force in expression, that have not
yet been mentioned. These are not, properly speaking, additional causes;
but rather secondary ones, originating from those already specified
reflex results of them. In the first place, then, we may remark that
mental excitement spontaneously prompts the use of those forms of speech
which have been pointed out as the most effective. "Out with him!" "Away
with him!" are the natural utterances of angry citizens at a disturbed
meeting. A voyager, describing a terrible storm he had witnessed, would
rise to some such climax as--"Crack went the ropes and down came the
mast." Astonishment may be heard expressed in the phrase--"Never was
there such a sight!" All of which sentences are, it will be observed,
constructed after the direct type. Again, every one knows that excited
persons are given to figures of speech. The vituperation of the vulgar
abounds with them: often, indeed, consists of little else. "Beast,"
"brute," "gallows rogue," "cut-throat villain," these, and other like
metaphors and metaphorical epithets, at once call to mind a street
quarrel. Further, it may be noticed that extreme brevity is another
characteristic of passionate language. The sentences are generally
incomplete; the particles are omitted; and frequently important words
are left to be gathered from the context. Great admiration does not
vent itself in a precise proposition, as--"It is beautiful"; but in the
simple exclamation--"Beautiful!" He who, when reading a lawyer's letter,
should say, "Vile rascal!" would be thought angry; while, "He is a vile
rascal!" would imply comparative coolness. Thus we see that alike in
the order of the words, in the frequent use of figures, and in extreme
conciseness, the natural utterances of excitement conform to the
theoretical conditions of forcible expression.
Sec. 51. Hence, then, the higher forms of speech acquire a secondary
strength from association. Having, in actual life, habitually heard them
in connection with vivid mental impressions, and having been accustomed
to meet with them in the most powerful writing, they come to have in
themselves a species of force. The emotions that have from time to time
been produced by the strong thoughts wrapped up in these forms, are
partially aroused by the forms themselves. They create a certain degree
of animation; they induce a preparatory sympathy, and when the striking
ideas looked for are reached, they are the more vividly realized.
Sec. 52. The continuous use of these modes of expression that are alike
forcible in themselves and forcible from their associations, produces
the peculiarly impressive species of composition which we call poetry.
Poetry, we shall find, habitually adopts those symbols of thought,
and those methods of using them, which instinct and analysis agree in
choosing as most effective, and becomes poetry by virtue of doing this.
On turning back to the various specimens that have been quoted, it will
be seen that the direct or inverted form of sentence predominates in
them; and that to a degree quite inadmissible in prose. And not only
in the frequency, but in what is termed the violence of the inversions,
will this distinction be remarked. In the abundant use of figures,
again, we may recognize the same truth. Metaphors, similes, hyperboles,
and personifications, are the poet's colours, which he has liberty to
employ almost without limit. We characterize as "poetical" the prose
which uses these appliances of language with any frequency, and condemn
it as "over florid" or "affected" long before they occur with the
profusion allowed in verse. Further, let it be remarked that in
brevity--the other requisite of forcible expression which theory points
out, and emotion spontaneously fulfils--poetical phraseology similarly
differs from ordinary phraseology. Imperfect periods are frequent;
elisions are perpetual; and many of the minor words, which would be
deemed essential in prose, are dispensed with.
Sec. 53. Thus poetry, regarded as a vehicle of thought, is especially
impressive partly because it obeys all the laws of effective speech,
and partly because in so doing it imitates the natural utterances of
excitement. While the matter embodied is idealized emotion, the vehicle
is the idealized language of emotion. As the musical composer catches
the cadences in which our feelings of joy and sympathy, grief and
despair, vent themselves, and out of these germs evolves melodies
suggesting higher phases of these feelings; I so, the poet develops from
the typical expressions in which men utter passion and sentiment, those
choice forms of verbal combination in which concentrated passion and
sentiment may be fitly presented.
Sec. 54. There is one peculiarity of poetry conducing much to its
effect--the peculiarity which is indeed usually thought its
characteristic one--still remaining to be considered: we mean its
rhythmical structure. This, improbable though it seems, will be found to
come under the same generalization with the others. Like each of them,
it is an idealization of the natural language of strong emotion, which
is known to be more or less metrical if the emotion be not too violent;
and like each of them it is an economy of the reader's or hearer's
attention. In the peculiar tone and manner we adopt in uttering
versified language, may be discerned its relationship to the feelings;
and the pleasure which its measured movement gives us, is ascribable
to the comparative ease with which words metrically arranged can be
recognized.
Sec. 55. This last position will scarcely be at once admitted; but a little
explanation will show its reasonableness. For if, as we have seen,
there is an expenditure of mental energy in the mere act of listening to
verbal articulations, or in that silent repetition of them which goes
on in reading--if the perceptive faculties must be in active exercise
to identify every syllable--then, any mode of so combining words as
to present a regular recurrence of certain traits which the mind can
anticipate, will diminish that strain upon the attention required by the
total irregularity of prose. Just as the body, in receiving a series
of varying concussions, must keep the muscles ready to meet the most
violent of them, as not knowing when such may come; so, the mind in
receiving unarranged articulations, must keep its perceptives active
enough to recognize the least easily caught sounds. And as, if the
concussions recur in a definite order, the body may husband its forces
by adjusting the resistance needful for each concussion; so, if the
syllables be rhythmically arranged, the mind may economize its energies
by anticipating the attention required for each syllable.
Sec. 56. Far-fetched though this idea will perhaps be thought, a little
introspection will countenance it. That we do take advantage of metrical
language to adjust our perceptive faculties to the force of the expected
articulations, is clear from the fact that we are balked by halting
versification. Much as at the bottom of a flight of stairs, a step more
or less than we counted upon gives us a shock; so, too, does a misplaced
accent or a supernumerary syllable. In the one case, we _know_ that
there is an erroneous preadjustment; and we can scarcely doubt
that there is one in the other. But if we habitually preadjust our
perceptions to the measured movement of verse, the physical analogy
above given renders it probable that by so doing we economize attention;
and hence that metrical language is more effective than prose, because
it enables us to do this.
Sec. 57. Were there space, it might be worthwhile to inquire whether the
pleasure we take in rhyme, and also that which we take in euphony, axe
not partly ascribable to the same general cause.
PART II. CAUSES OF FORCE IN LANGUAGE WHICH DEPEND UPON ECONOMY OF THE
MENTAL SENSIBILITIES.
i. The Law of Mental Exhaustion and Repair.
Sec. 58. A few paragraphs only, can be devoted to a second division of
our subject that here presents itself. To pursue in detail the laws of
effect, as applying to the larger features of composition, would carry
us beyond our limits. But we may briefly indicate a further aspect of
the general principle hitherto traced out, and hint a few of its wider
applications.
Sec. 59. Thus far, then, we have considered only those causes of force in
language which depend upon economy of the mental _energies:_ we have
now to glance at those which depend upon economy of the mental
_sensibilities._ Questionable though this division may be as a
psychological one, it will yet serve roughly to indicate the remaining
field of investigation. It will suggest that besides considering the
extent to which any faculty or group of faculties is tasked in receiving
a form of words and realizing its contained idea, we have to consider
the state in which this faculty or group of faculties is left; and how
the reception of subsequent sentences and images will be influenced by
that state. Without going at length into so wide a topic as the exercise
of faculties and its reactive effects, it will be sufficient here to
call to mind that every faculty (when in a state of normal activity) is
most capable at the outset; and that the change in its condition,
which ends in what we term exhaustion, begins simultaneously with its
exercise. This generalization, with which we are all familiar in our
bodily experiences, and which our daily language recognizes as true
of the mind as a whole, is equally true of each mental power, from the
simplest of the senses to the most complex of the sentiments. If we hold
a flower to the nose for long, we become insensible to its scent. We say
of a very brilliant flash of lightning that it blinds us; which means
that our eyes have for a time lost their ability to appreciate light.
After eating a quantity of honey, we are apt to think our tea is without
sugar. The phrase "a deafening roar," implies that men find a very loud
sound temporarily incapacitates them for hearing faint ones. To a hand
which has for some time carried a heavy body, small bodies afterwards
lifted seem to have lost their weight. Now, the truth at once recognized
in these, its extreme manifestations, may be traced throughout. It may
be shown that alike in the reflective faculties, in the imagination,
in the perceptions of the beautiful, the ludicrous, the sublime, in
the sentiments, the instincts, in all the mental powers, however we may
classify them-action exhausts; and that in proportion as the action is
violent, the subsequent prostration is great.
Sec. 60. Equally, throughout the whole nature, may be traced the law that
exercised faculties are ever tending to resume their original state. Not
only after continued rest, do they regain their full power not only do
brief cessations partially reinvigorate them; but even while they are
in action, the resulting exhaustion is ever being neutralized. The
two processes of waste and repair go on together. Hence with faculties
habitually exercised--as the senses of all persons, or the muscles of
any one who is strong--it happens that, during moderate activity, the
repair is so nearly equal to the waste, that the diminution of power
is scarcely appreciable; and it is only when the activity has been long
continued, or has been very violent, that the repair becomes so far
in arrear of the waste as to produce a perceptible prostration. In
all cases, however, when, by the action of a faculty, waste has been
incurred, _some_ lapse of time must take place before full efficiency
can be reacquired; and this time must be long in proportion as the waste
has been great.
ii Explanation of Climax, Antithesis, and Anticlimax.
Sec. 61. Keeping in mind these general truths, we shall be in a condition
to understand certain causes of effect in composition now to be
considered. Every perception received, and every conception realized,
entailing some amount of waste--or, as Liebig would say, some change of
matter in the brain; and the efficiency of the faculties subject to
this waste being thereby temporarily, though often but momentarily,
diminished; the resulting partial inability must affect the acts of
perception and conception that immediately succeed. And hence we may
expect that the vividness with which images are realized will, in many
cases, depend on the order of their presentation: even when one order is
as convenient to the understanding as the other.
Sec. 62. There are sundry facts which alike illustrate this, and are
explained by it. Climax is one of them. The marked effect obtained
by placing last the most striking of any series of images, and the
weakness--often the ludicrous weakness--produced by reversing this
arrangement, depends on the general law indicated. As immediately after
looking at the sun we cannot perceive the light of a fire, while by
looking at the fire first and the sun afterwards we can perceive both;
so, after receiving a brilliant, or weighty, or terrible thought, we
cannot appreciate a less brilliant, less weighty, or less terrible one,
while, by reversing the order, we can appreciate each. In Antithesis,
again, we may recognize the same general truth. The opposition of two
thoughts that are the reverse of each other in some prominent trait,
insures an impressive effect; and does this by giving a momentary
relaxation to the faculties addressed. If, after a series of images of
an ordinary character, appealing in a moderate degree to the sentiment
of reverence, or approbation, or beauty, the mind has presented to it a
very insignificant, a very unworthy, or a very ugly image; the faculty
of reverence, or approbation, or beauty, as the case may be, having
for the time nothing to do, tends to resume its full power; and will
immediately afterwards appreciate a vast, admirable, or beautiful
image better than it would otherwise do. Conversely, where the idea
of absurdity due to extreme insignificance is to be produced, it maybe
greatly intensified by placing it after something highly impressive:
especially if the form of phrase implies that something still more
impressive is coming. A good illustration of the effect gained by thus
presenting a petty idea to a consciousness that has not yet recovered
from the shock of an exciting one, occurs in a sketch by Balzac. His
hero writes to a mistress who has cooled towards him the following
letter:
"Madame, Votre conduite m'etonne autant qu'elle m'afflige Non contente
de me dechirer le coeur par vos dedains vous avez l'indelicatesse de
me retenir une brosse a dents, que mes moyens ne me permettent pas de
remplacer, mes proprietes etant grevees d'hypotheques
"Adieu, trop, belle et trop ingrate ainie! Puissions nous nous revoir
dans un monde meilleur!
"Charles Edouard"
Sec. 63. Thus we see that the phenomena of Climax, Antithesis, and
Anticlimax, alike result from this general principle. Improbable as
these momentary variations in susceptibility may seem, we cannot doubt
their occurrence when we contemplate the analogous variations in the
susceptibility of the senses. Referring once more to phenomena of
vision, every one knows that a patch of black on a white ground looks
blacker, and a patch of white on a black ground looks whiter, than
elsewhere. As the blackness and the whiteness must really be the same,
the only assignable cause for this is a difference in their actions upon
us, dependent upon the different states of our faculties. It is simply a
visual antithesis.
iii. Need of Variety.
Sec. 64. But this extension of the general principle of economy--this
further condition to effective composition, that the sensitiveness of
the faculties must be continuously husbanded--includes much more than
has been yet hinted. It implies not only that certain arrangements and
certain juxtapositions of connected ideas are best; but that some modes
of dividing and presenting a subject will be more striking than others;
and that, too, irrespective of its logical cohesion. It shows why we
must progress from the less interesting to the more interesting; and
why not only the composition as a whole, but each of its successive
portions, should tend towards a climax. At the same time, it forbids
long continuity of the same kind of thought, or repeated production of
like effects. It warns us against the error committed both by Pope in
his poems and by Bacon in his essays--the error, namely, of constantly
employing forcible forms of expression: and it points out that as
the easiest posture by and by becomes fatiguing, and is with pleasure
exchanged for one less easy, so, the most perfectly-constructed
sentences will soon weary, and relief will be given by using those of an
inferior kind.
Sec. 65. Further, we may infer from it not only that we should avoid
generally combining our words in one manner, however good, or working
out our figures and illustrations in one way, however telling; but
that we should avoid anything like uniform adherence, even to the wider
conditions of effect. We should not make every section of our subject
progress in interest; we should not always rise to a climax. As we saw
that, in single sentences, it is but rarely allowable to fulfill all the
conditions to strength; so, in the larger sections of a composition
we must not often conform entirely to the law indicated. We must
subordinate the component effect to the total effect.
Sec. 66. In deciding how practically to carry out the principles of
artistic composition, we may derive help by bearing in mind a fact
already pointed out--the fitness of certain verbal arrangements
for certain kinds of thought. That constant variety in the mode of
presenting ideas which the theory demands, will in a great degree result
from a skilful adaptation of the form to the matter. We saw how the
direct or inverted sentence is spontaneously used by excited people;
and how their language is also characterized by figures of speech and by
extreme brevity. Hence these may with advantage predominate in emotional
passages; and may increase as the emotion rises. On the other hand,
for complex ideas, the indirect sentence seems the best vehicle. In
conversation, the excitement produced by the near approach to a
desired conclusion, will often show itself in a series of short, sharp
sentences; while, in impressing a view already enunciated, we generally
make our periods voluminous by piling thought upon thought. These
natural modes of procedure may serve as guides in writing. Keen
observation and skilful analysis would, in like manner, detect further
peculiarities of expression produced by other attitudes of mind; and
by paying due attention to all such traits, a writer possessed
of sufficient versatility might make some approach to a
completely-organized work.
iv. The Ideal Writer.
Sec. 67. This species of composition which the law of effect points out
as the perfect one, is the one which high genius tends naturally to
produce. As we found that the kinds of sentences which are theoretically
best, are those generally employed by superior minds, and by inferior
minds when excitement has raised them; so, we shall find that the ideal
form for a poem, essay, or fiction, is that which the ideal writer
would evolve spontaneously. One in whom the powers of expression fully
responded to the state of feeling, would unconsciously use that variety
in the mode of presenting his thoughts, which Art demands. This constant
employment of one species of phraseology, which all have now to strive
against, implies an undeveloped faculty of language. To have a specific
style is to be poor in speech. If we remember that, in the far past, men
had only nouns and verbs to convey their ideas with, and that from then
to now the growth has been towards a greater number of implements of
thought, and consequently towards a greater complexity and variety
in their combinations; we may infer that we are now, in our use of
sentences, much what the primitive man was in his use of words; and that
a continuance of the process that has hitherto gone on, must produce
increasing heterogeneity in our modes of expression. As now, in a
fine nature, the play of the features, the tones of the voice and
its cadences, vary in harmony with every thought uttered; so, in one
possessed of a fully developed power of speech, the mould in which
each combination of words is cast will similarly vary with, and be
appropriate to the sentiment.
Sec. 68. That a perfectly endowed man must unconsciously write in all
styles, we may infer from considering how styles originate. Why is
Johnson pompous, Goldsmith simple? Why is one author abrupt, another
rhythmical, another concise? Evidently in each case the habitual mode
of utterance must depend upon the habitual balance of the nature. The
predominant feelings have by use trained the intellect to represent
them. But while long, though unconscious, discipline has made it do this
efficiently, it remains from lack of practice, incapable of doing the
same for the less active feelings; and when these are excited, the usual
verbal forms undergo but slight modifications. Let the powers of speech
be fully developed, however--let the ability of the intellect to utter
the emotions be complete; and this fixity of style will disappear. The
perfect writer will express himself as Junius, when in the Junius frame
of mind; when he feels as Lamb felt, will use a like familiar speech;
and will fall into the ruggedness of Carlyle when in a Carlylean mood.
Now he will be rhythmical and now irregular; here his language will be
plain and there ornate; sometimes his sentences will be balanced and
at other times unsymmetrical; for a while there will be considerable
sameness, and then again great variety. His mode of expression naturally
responding to his state of feeling, there will flow from his pen a
composition changing to the same degree that the aspects of his subject
change. He will thus without effort conform to what we have seen to
be the laws of effect. And while his work presents to the reader that
variety needful to prevent continuous exertion of the same faculties,
it will also answer to the description of all highly organized products,
both of man and of nature: it will be not a series of like parts simply
placed in juxtaposition, but one whole made up of unlike parts that are
mutually dependent.