(Vol. iii., p. 66.)
I must beg a very small portion of your space to reply to your
correspondent H. K. S. C., who criticises so pleasantly my remarks on the
meaning of "eisell." The question is: Does the meaning MR. SINGER attaches
to this word require in the passage cited the expression of quantity to
make it definite? I am disposed to think that a definite quantity may be
sometimes understood, in a well-defined act, although it be _not_
expressed. On the other hand, your correspondent should know that English
idiom requires that the name of a river should be preceded by the definite
article, unless it be personified; and that whenever it is used without the
article, it is represented by the personal pronoun _he_. Though a man were
able "to drink _the Thames_ dry," he could no more "drink up _Thames_" than
he could drink up _Neptune_, or the sea-serpent, or do any other impossible
feat.
I observed before, that "the notion of drinking up a river would be both
unmeaning and out of place." I said this, with the conviction that there
was a purpose in everything that Shakspeare wrote; and being still of this
persuasion, allow me to protest against the terms "mere verbiage" and
"extravagant rant," which your correspondent applies to the passage in
question. The poet does not present common things as they appear to all
men. Shakspeare's art was equally great, {120} whether he spoke with the
tongues of madmen or philosophers. H. K. S. C. cannot conceive why each
feat of daring should be a tame possibility, save only the last; but I say
that they are _all_ possible; that it was a daring to do not impossible but
extravagant feats. As far as quantity is concerned, to eat a crocodile
would be more than to eat an ox. Crocodile may be a very delicate meat, for
anything I know to the contrary; but I must confess it appears to me to be
introduced as something loathsome or repulsive, and (on the poet's part) to
cap the absurdity of the preceding feat. The use made by other writers of a
passage is one of the most valuable kinds of comment. In a burlesque some
years ago, I recollect a passage was brought to a climax with the very
words, "Wilt eat a crocodile?" The immediate and natural response
was--_not_ "the thing's impossible!" but--"you nasty beast!" What a descent
then from the drinking up of a river to a merely disagreeable repast. In
the one case the object is clear and intelligible, and the last feat is
suggested by the not so difficult but little less extravagant preceding
one; in the other, each is unmeaning (in reference to the speaker),
unsuggested, and, unconnected with the other; and, regarding the order an
artist would observe, out of place.