“Madame,—Votre conduite m’étonne autant qu’elle m’afflige. Non contente de me déchirer le cœur par vos dédains, vous avez l’indélicatesse de me retenir une brosse à dents, que mes moyens ne me permettent pas de remplacer, mes propriétés étant grevées d’hypothèques au delà de leur valeur.
“Adieu, trop belle et trop ingrate amie! Puissions-nous nous revoir dans un monde meilleur!
“CHARLES-EDOUARD.”
Thus 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. 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 are really the same, the only assignable cause, is a difference in their actions upon us, dependent on the different states of our faculties. The effect is due to a visual antithesis.
But this extension of the general principle of economy—this further condition to effective composition, that the sensitiveness of the faculties must be husbanded—includes much more than has been yet hinted. Not only does it follow that certain arrangements and certain juxtapositions of connected ideas are best; but also that some modes of dividing and presenting a subject will be more striking {365} than others, irrespective of logical cohesion. We are shown why we must progress from the less interesting to the more interesting; alike in the composition as a whole, and in each successive portion. At the same time, the indicated requirement negatives long continuity of the same kind of thought, or repeated production of like effects. It warns us against the error committed by Pope in his poems and by Bacon in his essays—the error of constantly employing forcible forms of expression. As the easiest posture by and by becomes fatiguing, and is with pleasure exchanged for one less easy; so, the most perfectly-constructed sentences unceasingly used must cause weariness, and relief will be given by using those of inferior kinds. Further, we may infer not only that we ought to 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 ought to avoid anything like uniform adherence to the wider conditions of effect. We should not make every division 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 fulfil all the conditions to strength; so, in the larger sections of a composition we must not often conform entirely to the principles indicated. We must subordinate the component effects to the total effect.
The species of composition which the law we have traced out indicates as the perfect one, is the one which genius tends naturally to produce. As we found that the kinds of sentence which are theoretically best, are those commonly employed by superior minds, and by inferior minds when temporarily exalted; 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 {366} of presenting his thoughts, which Art demands. Constant employment of one species of phraseology implies an undeveloped linguistic faculty. 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 progress has been towards more numerous implements of thought, and towards greater complexity and variety in their combinations; we may infer that, in the use of sentences, we are at present much what the primitive man was in the use of words; and that a continuance of the process which 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 fully-developed powers of language, the mould in which each combination of words is cast will vary with, and be appropriate to, the mental state. 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 involved, another concise? Evidently in each case the habitual mode of utterance depends on the habitual balance of the nature. The dominant feelings have by use trained the intellect to represent them. But while long habit has made it do this efficiently, it remains, from lack of practice, unable to do the like for the less active feelings; and when these are excited, the usual verbal forms undergo but slight modifications. But let the ability of the intellect to represent the mental state be complete, and this fixity of style will disappear. The perfect writer will be now 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 {367} expression naturally responding to his thought and emotion, there will flow from his pen a composition changing as 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 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.
POSTSCRIPT.
In some cases the word furnished by our original tongue, and the corresponding word directly or indirectly derived from Latin, though nominally equivalents, are not actually such; and the word of Latin origin, by certain extra connotations it has acquired, may be the more expressive. For instance, we have no word of native origin which can be advantageously substituted for the word “grand.” No such words as “big” or “great,” which connote little more than superiority in size or quantity, can be used instead: they do not imply that qualitative superiority which is associated with the idea of grandeur. As adopted into our own language, the word “grand” has been differentiated from “great” by habitual use in those cases where the greatness has an æsthetic superiority. In this case, then, a word of Latin origin is better than its nearest equivalent of native origin, because by use it has acquired an additional meaning. And here, too, we may conveniently {368} note the fact that the greater brevity of a word does not invariably conduce to greater force. Where the word, instead of being one conveying a subordinate component of the idea the sentence expresses, is one conveying the central element of the idea, on which the attention may with advantage rest a moment, a longer word is sometimes better than a shorter word. Thus it may be held that the sentence—“It is grand” is not so effective as the sentence—“It is magnificent.” Besides the fact that here greater length of the word favours a longer dwelling on the essential part of the thought, there is the fact that its greater length, aided by its division into syllables, gives opportunity for a cadence appropriate to the feeling produced by the thing characterized. By an ascent of the voice on the syllable “nif,” and an utterance of this syllable, not only in a higher note, but with greater emphasis than the preceding or succeeding syllables, there is implied that emotion which contemplation of the object produces; and the emotion thus implied is, by sympathy, communicated. One may say that in the case of these two words, if the imposingness is alone to be considered, the word “magnificent” may with advantage be employed; but if the sentence expresses a proposition in which, not the imposingness itself, but something about the imposingness, is to be expressed, then the word “grand” is preferable.
The second qualification above referred to, concerns the superiority of words derived from Latin or Greek, in cases where more or less abstract ideas have to be expressed. In such cases it is undesirable to use words having concrete associations; for such words, by the very vividness with which they call up thoughts of particular objects or particular actions, impede the formation of conceptions which refer, not to particular objects and actions, but to general truths concerning objects or actions of kinds that are more or less various. Thus, such an expression as “the colligation of facts” is better for philosophical purposes than such {369} an expression as “the tying together of facts.” This last expression cannot be used without suggesting the thought of a bundle of material things bound up by a string or cord—a thought which, in so far as the materiality of its components is concerned, conflicts with the conception to be suggested. Though it is true that when its derivation is remembered, “colligation” raises the same thought, yet, as the thought is not so promptly or irresistibly raised, it stands less in the way of the abstract conception with which attention should be exclusively occupied.
ENDNOTE TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF STYLE.
[54] Properly the term “simile” is applicable only to the entire figure, including the two things compared and the comparison drawn between them. But as there exists no name for the illustrative member of the figure, there seems no alternative but to employ “simile” to express this also. The context will in each case show in which sense the word is used.