Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

applied to the representations of pain and misery. Are these not agitating? and are they not justly called pathetic?

To answer all conceivable difficulties in the way of understanding the above definition of pathos would be hopeless within our present limits. It may remove some difficulties to remind the reader that we have here to do not with tender feeling as awakened by actual objects, but with tender feeling as awakened by verbal representations. Pathos, as here discussed, is the quality of a style that awakens tender feelings-not another name for tender feeling as it arises in actual life. I do not mean that the feelings arising from these two sources differ otherwise than in degree; I mean only that the reality is usually more agitating than the verbal representation. The report of a railway accident. may be read with a certain luxurious horror by a delicate person, whom the actual sight would throw into fits.

But still the question returns, Are not verbal representations of pain and misery often agitating? The answer to this question is, that not every representation of pain and misery is pathetic.

To speak technically, there are two different uses of painful scenes in composition-the description of misery is adapted to two distinct ends. These may be defined, with sufficient accuracy, as the persuasive end and the poetic end. When a writer or a speaker wishes, by a painful description or a painful story, to persuade to a course of action, he dwells upon the particulars that agitate and excite. A pleader wishing to excite pity for his client, so as to procure acquittal, dwells upon the harrowing side of the case-the destitution of the man's family, and suchlike. He does not cater for the pleasure of the jurors, but does his best to make them uncomfortable. So the preacher of a charity sermon, if he wishes to draw contributions from his audience, must not throw a sentimental halo over the miseries of the poor, but must drag into prominence hunger, dirt, and nakedness, in their most repulsive aspects, horrifying his hearers with pictures that haunt them until they have done their utmost to relieve the sufferers. Very different is the end of the poet. His object is to throw his reader into a pleasing melancholy. He withholds from his picture of distress all disgusting and exciting circumstances, reconciles us to the pain by dwelling upon its alleviations, represents misery as the inevitable lot of man, exhibits the authors of misery as visited with condign punishment, expresses impassioned sympathy with the unfortunate victims. By some artifice or other-I have mentioned only a few for illustration-he contrives to make us acquiesce in the existence of the misery represented. He has failed in his end if he leaves us dissatisfied and uncomfortable, because the misery was not relieved or cannot be relieved now. If we are not reconciled to the ex

istence of the misery, disposed simply to mourn over it and be content, the composition is not pathetic, but painful. For this luxurious treatment of painful things the poet is often heavily censured by the preacher. Sterne's 'Sentimental Journey' was reprobated by Robert Hall; and in our own day we are familiar with Carlyle's denunciation of "whining, puling, sickly sentimentality."

To this distinction between the painful end of persuasion and the pathetic end of poetry, we may add a little by way of anticipating the more obvious objections.

It will be said that a preacher's object is to persuade people to action, and yet that sermons are often called pathetic. This fact need not disturb our definition. For, 1°, While it is one of a preacher's objects to persuade to action, it is not his only object: the pulpit has also a function of consolation-and consolation, the reconciling of people to their miseries, is by our definition essentially pathetic. 2, Supposing a sermon admirably adapted to set beneficence in motion-supposing it to present a picture of most harrowing distress-the hearers cannot take measures for relief at once; and meantime, if not so excited as to be thoroughly uncomfortable, they may indulge in pathetic dreams of the relief that they intend to give. 3°, The effect of a composition depends very much upon the recipient a tale of woe that makes one man uncomfortable for days, may supply another with a luxurious feast of mournful sentiment. It is chiefly this last consideration that makes the application of the term pathos shifting that causes the difficulty of drawing any "objective" line between pathos and horror. Few persons skilled in analysing their feelings would object to the above definition of pathos, but there would be considerable difference of opinion as to what is agitating or horrible and what is truly pathetic.

Again, it may be said that a tragic poem is agitating, and yet that it is pathetic. To which we answer that in a tragedy, while isolated scenes are tempestuously agitating, the effect may yet be pathetic on the whole. Tragedy "purifies the mind by pity and terror;" the atmosphere is shaken with tempests, only to subside at the end into a purer and more perfect calm. Painful incidents, thrilling transports of grief, keep alive our interest in the plot : we do not see the pathetic side of these painful representations till we look back upon them from the repose of the conclusion.

I need not dwell on the terms for varieties of the Ludicrous. The only nicety is the distinction between wit and humour. Much has been written on this distinction. One can see, from the examples quoted, that critics are very much at one, though they generally fail in definition, owing to the vagueness of their

psychological language. Professor Bain's theory is that humour is simply the laughable degradation of an object without malice, in a genial, kindly, good-natured way; and that wit is "an ingenious and unexpected play upon words." The two qualities are not opposed, not incompatible. A good deal of the confusion about them has arisen from viewing them as two contrasted and inconsistent qualities. Wit may be humorous, or it may be derisive, malicious. I have somewhere seen it laid down that humour "involves an element of the subjective." When we call a writer humorous, we have regard to the spirit of his ludicrous. degradation; we imply that he is good-natured-that he bears no malice. When we call a writer witty, we have regard simply to the cleverness of his expression; he may be sarcastic, like Swift -or humorous, like Steele. The proper antithesis to humour is satire: wit is common to both.

Such is the true definition of humour, but in the actual application there may be as much inconstancy as in the application of the term pathos, and from the same reason. What appears kindly and good-natured to one man, may not appear so to another. Addison is generally classed among the humorists; yet only the other day his kindliness was described as an affectation put on to sharpen the sting of his ridicule. Johnson spoke of his "malevolent wit and humorous sarcasm ;" and the present writer believes that it would be difficult to find, among all Addison's papers, half-a-dozen in which the wit may not fairly be characterised as malicious. He is a humorist to us, but he could hardly have appeared a humorist to his victims.

There is another cause of difference among critics as respects particular compositions. A reader may refuse to acknowledge a degradation, however comical. He may view an object too seriously to allow that it should be trifled with. A recent critic professes himself blind to the humour of De Quincey, and sees in his playful liberties with distinguished names nothing but frivolous impertinence. In all such cases, as De Quincey himself says, "not to sympathise is not to understand."

ELEGANCIES OF STYLE-MELODY, HARMONY, TASTE.

"In the harmony of periods," says Blair, "two things may be considered. First, agreeable sound, or modulation in general without any particular expression. Next, the sound so ordered as to become expressive of the sense."

Instead of expressing qualities so different by a single term, it is better to provide a term for each. In accordance with the acceptation of melody and harmony in the vocabulary of music, we may describe "agreeable sound or modulation in general" as

Melody, and "the sound so ordered as to become expressive of the sense as Harmony. If a single designation is wanted for the two qualities together, we may, agreeably to Campbell's list of quali ties, call them the music of composition.

Under Melody there are two things that we may consider. First, whether an author conforms to the general laws of melody, -the avoiding of harsh effects; the alternation of long and short, emphatic and unemphatic syllables; the alternation of consonants among themselves, and vowels among themselves; the avoiding of unpleasant alliterations; the cadence at the close. Second, what is his prevailing rhythm, tune or strain, and how far this is varied.

To examine how far an author observes the general rules of melody would be a good school exercise. It is not easy to give an idea of an author's favourite strain. The only means open to us is to produce characteristic specimens. We have as yet no scheme of nomenclature or notation for describing it technically.

Some writers, perhaps the majority, can impart no characteristic swing to their language either having no natural preference for a particular rhythm, or giving their whole attention to the expression of the meaning, or being overruled by habitual combinations. Only such as have, first, a decided ear for effects of cadence, and, secondly, a copious choice of words, can attain to a melody that shall be either characteristic or effective.

The

As regards Harmony. There is such a thing as harmony, or adaptation of sound to sense, even in prose. At the same time, change of strain or movement to suit change of theme is not so marked in prose as in poetry, and for a very obvious reason. writer of verse can suit himself to variations of feeling by choice of metre, but the writer of prose has no such fixed steps to help him to vary his pace. Besides, the prose writer's habits of construction are accommodated to his prevailing rhythm; the phrases that most readily occur to him are in pace with this rhythm,—so that, along with a greater difficulty than the verse writer in changing his pace, owing to the want of a standard metre, he has a farther difficulty that besets none but verse writers accustomed only to one metre.

Accordingly, we find that prose writers having a characteristic rhythm, can vary it but slightly to harmonise with the subject

matter.

The word taste is used in two different senses; and when we meet with the word, and are disposed to challenge its application, we do well to make sure in which signification our author employs it. In its widest sense it is equivalent to artistic sensibility-as Blair defines it, "the power of receiving pleasure from the beauties of nature and of art.' In its narrower sense it may be expressed

as artistic judgment, being identical with what Blair and others define as "delicacy" and "correctness " of taste. By writers of the present day the word seems to be generally used in the narrower sense; and in this sense it is used in the following work.

As regards what artistic judgment is there may be wide differences of opinion. Many men, many tastes; one man's liking may be another man's loathing. Still, when all has been said that can be said concerning differences of taste, it cannot be denied that there is a considerable body of agreement. To take the elements of style separately. There is a tolerably unanimous public opinion against interlarding English composition with foreign words or idioms, Latin, French, or German; against needless coining of new words; and against setting up of unidiomatic combinations. No writer could make an excessive use of any artifice of construction -balanced sentences, short sentences, condensed sentences, abrupt and startling transitions-without incurring general censure. as regards figures of speech: a style too ornate, too hyperbolical, too declamatory, is condemned as such by the critics with very considerable unanimity. Marked abuses of the elements of style are very generally recognised as abuses. To be sure, if a writer is otherwise fresh and vigorous, all read him; and even fastidious critics wink at his eccentricities as an agreeable break in the general monotony of composition; but few venture to hold up his eccentricities for general imitation.

So

Concerning the emotional qualities of style we find much less agreement. There are always a few of wider literary knowledge and superior discernment who groan inwardly, some of them outwardly, at the judgment of the multitude in the matter of sublimity, pathos, and humour. And these apart, writers and their admirers separate naturally into different schools. Taste "varies with the emotional constitution, the intellectual tendencies, and the education of each individual. A person of strong tender feelings is not easily offended by the iteration of pathetic images; the sense of the ludicrous and of humour is in many cases entirely wanting; and the strength of humane and moral sentiment may be such as to recoil from inflicting ludicrous degradation. A mind bent on the pursuit of truth views with distaste the exaggerations of the poetic art. Each person is by education attached more to one school or class of writers than to another."

KINDS OF COMPOSITION.

Five "kinds of composition" are set down in Bain's Rhetoricdescription, narration, exposition, persuasion, poetry.1 Each of 1 The design of the present work excludes Poetry both with and without the accompaniment of metre.

« ForrigeFortsæt »