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spicuous, because they are at once simple or easily understood, and free from obvious confusion. Their ideas are expressed in popular language, and sufficiently discriminated for popular apprehension. Popularly, therefore, as well as in some rhetorical treatises, perspicuity stands for a clear, unambiguous, unconfused structure of simple language. But why should the term be confined to a clear structure of simple language? We can easily see how it came to be so confined. A general reader does not receive clear impres sions from a work couched in abstruse language, however perspicuous may be the arrangement. The effort of realising the words is too much, and he lets them slip through his mind vaguely. For him an abstruse style cannot be perspicuous-simplicity is indispensable to perspicuity. But while we see how the word came to be so confined, we cannot see why it should be kept so confined. Johnson's arrangement is clearer and more free from ambiguity than Addison's or Tillotson's. Why should he not be called a perspicuous writer?

But some of our readers will say that Johnson is called a perspicuous writer. This is true, but he is not so by Campbell's definition, for he uses technical terms and long sentences; nor is he so by the verdict of those that are loosely called general readers. He is called perspicuous because his words are apt to his meaning, and because the general structure of his discourses is clear. language is not simple; he is not perspicuous if simplicity be considered a part of perspicuity.

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Here, therefore, seems to arise a clash between the general reader and the reader more familiar with abstract and learned phraseology. But the disagreement is more apparent than real. The general reader applies the term perspicuous to a clear choice and construction of simple language, of language familiar to him; the more learned reader applies the term to a clear choice and structure of language, abstruse perhaps to the generality, but still familiar to him. In point of fact, the two classes of readers use the word perspicuous with the same meaning. Both have in view, not the familiarity of the language or the structure, but the clearness of it, its freedom from ambiguity and confusion. The intellectual qualities of such writers as Tillotson, Locke, Addison, Macaulay, are not fully distinguished by the single word perspicuous the style of such writers is perspicuous and simple. Johnson and De Quincey are also perspicuous in their choice of words, and in their general structure; but their diction, as a whole, is abstruse.

We said a little ago that clearness might be subdivided into general clearness and minute clearness. At that time we mentioned no single word for general clearness. In our consideration of the word perspicuity, we have seen that, when hunted down to

its real signification, it proves to be the very word required. Perspicuity, or lucidity, will thus stand for general clearness, unambiguous, unconfused structure-what may loosely be called general accuracy of outline. For minute accuracy, careful discrimination of terms-demanding from the reader an effort to make sure that his ideas are not vague, but rigidly defined-we have the terms precision, exactness, and distinctness.

A distinct, exact writer may be perspicuous; but, as we have said, he runs a risk of not being so. When a writer is scrupulously anxious that his readers understand every detail exactly as he conceives it, there is a danger that he put too severe a strain upon them, and confuse their comprehension of the general aspect of his theme. De Quincey is an example of a writer at once exact and perspicuous; and the secret is, that he is aware of his danger, and frequently presses upon his reader a general view of what he is doing.

Precision and simplicity are in a measure antagonistic. When Socrates began to cross-examine the people of Athens, he found that they could not define the meaning of words that they were using every day. They used language in a loose way for purposes of social intercourse, and did not trouble themselves to be rigidly exact. The case is not much altered among us. writer cannot but be abstruse to the generality.

A very exact

EMOTIONAL QUALITIES OF STYLE-STRENGTH,

PATHOS, THE LUDICROUS.

The emotional qualities of style are not so difficult to distinguish as the intellectual qualities. Had Campbell not been needlessly anxious to isolate the style from the subject-matter, he would never have thought of huddling together all the emotional quali ties under the name of vivacity. There are three broadly dis tinguished emotional qualities-strength, pathos, and the ludi crous; and each of these is a general name for distinct varieties.

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Under the general name of Strength are embraced such varieties as animation, vivacity, liveliness, rapidity, brilliancy; nerve, vigour, force, energy, fervour; dignity, stateliness, splendour, grandeur, magnificence, loftiness, sublimity.

Between the extremes in the list-animation and sublimity-there is a wide difference; yet sublimity is more appropriately classed with animation than with any mode of pathos. So with rapidity and dignity. The contrast between strength and pathos

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1 Longinus's celebrated treatise repì vчovs, mistranslated "On the Sublime' through the Latin De Sublimitate, falls into the same excess of abstraction. Hypsos, according to De Quincey, means everything tending to elevate composition above commonplace.

is as the contrast between motion and rest. The effect of a calm, sustained motion is nearer to the effect of absolute repose than it is to the effect of a restless, rapid, abrupt motion; yet the calm, sustained motion is considered as a state of motion, and not as a state of rest. In like manner, an overpowering sense of sublimity approaches nearer to a sense of depression and melancholy than it does to animation or vivacity; yet it is essentially a mode of strength, and not a mode of pathos.

In the above list I have attempted some kind of subordinate division, throwing together the terms that seem more nearly synonymous. It would not be possible to define them exactly without incurring the charge of making one's own feelings the standard for all men. The terms are used with considerable latitude, partly because few people take the trouble to weigh their words, but partly also because different men have different ideals of animation, different ideals of energy, different ideals of sublimity. All can understand, upon due reflection, the common bond between these qualities their common difference from the qualities comprehended under pathos; but no amount of explanation can give two men of different character the same ideas of animation, energy, dignity, or sublimity. The utmost that explanation can do is to disabuse their minds of the idea that the one is wrong and the other right, and to persuade them that they are simply at variance. At the same time, the application of the terms is not absolutely chaotic. Take the universal suffrage, and you find a considerable body of substantial agreement between the loose borders.

One great cause of the licentious abuse of these terms is the desire of admirers to credit their favourites with every excellence of style. Could we subtract all the abuses committed under this impulse, we should find the popular applications of terms very much at one. All agree in describing Macaulay as animated, rapid, and brilliant. There is not so much unanimity in accrediting him with dignity- at least with dignity of the highest degree; and he is seldom credited with sublimity. Readers would probably be no less unanimous in calling Jeremy Taylor fervid, Dryden energetic, Temple dignified, Defoe nervous, Johnson vigorous, Burke splendid, and De Quincey's "prose fantasies" sublime. Perhaps none of the above words are so shifting in their application as the word sublimity. In an account of De Quincey's character I have tried to distinguish two opposite modes of sublimity. No critical term is more in need of definition. De Quincey denies it of Homer, and ascribes it in the highest degree to Milton, seeming to understand by it the exhibiting of vast power to adoring contemplation.

Pathos is contrasted with the sentiment of power, and is said to

be "allied to inaction, repose, and the passive side of our nature." According to this definition, whatever excites or agitates is not pathetic.

This distinction, like every attempt at analysis of mental states, is open to endless dispute. It will be almost unanimously allowed as regards tender feelings awakened by the representation of "objects of special affection, displays of active goodness, humane sentiments, and gentle pleasures." applied to the representations of pain and misery. Are these not But it may stagger many as 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 existence 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, 1o, 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:

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