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RHETORIC.

THE EMOTIONAL QUALITIES are typified under the following designations :-Strength, Energy, Sublimity; Feeling or Pathos; Beauty; Ludicrous, Humour, Wit; Melody and Expressiveness in Sound.

These are leading and comprehensive terms; they branch out into numerous varieties or species; and have many synonyms in the wide critical vocabulary. (See RHETORIC, PART FIRST, p. 233.)

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In the language of criticism, there are names for variations and combinations of these effects. Thus, Professor Nichol, speaking of Longfellow's Golden Legend,' says'It contains the highest flights of the author's imagination, his mellowest music, his richest humour, and some of his most impressive passages'. (AMERICAN LITERATURE, p. 202.)

Campbell's estimate of Spenser's poetry exemplifies a considerable range of the critical vocabulary.

"His command of imagery is wide, easy and luxuriant. He threw the soul of harmony into our verse, and made it more warmly, tenderly and magnificently descriptive than it ever was before, or, with a few exceptions, than it has ever been since. It must certainly be owned that in description he exhibits nothing of the brief strokes and robust power which characterise the very greatest poets; but we shall nowhere find more airy and expansive images of visionary things, a sweeter tone of sentiment or a finer flush in the colours of language, than in this Rubens of English poetry. His fancy teems exuberantly in minuteness of circumstance, like a fertile soil sending bloom and verdure through the utmost extremities of the foliage which it nourishes. On a comprehensive view of the whole work, we certainly miss the charm of strength, symmetry and rapid or interesting progress; for, though the plan which the poet designed

is not completed, it is easy to see that no additional cantos could have rendered it less perplexed. But still there is a richness in his materials, even where their coherence is loose, and their disposition confused. The clouds of his allegory may seem to spread into shapeless forms, but they are still the clouds of a glowing atmosphere. Though his story grows desultory, the sweetness and grace of his manner still abide by him. He is like a speaker whose tones continue to be pleasing, though he may speak too long; or like a painter who makes us forget the defect of his design by the magic of his colouring. We always rise from perusing him with music in the mind's ear, and with pictures of romantic beauty impressed on the imagination."

I give another exemplary quotation from Shairp.

“Mr. Tennyson is, as all know, before all things an artist; and as such he has formed for himself a composite and richlywrought style, into the elaborate texture of which many elements, fetched from many lands and from many things, have entered. His selective mind has taken now something from Milton, now something from Shakespeare, besides pathetic cadences from the old ballads, stately wisdom from Greek tragedians, epic tones from Homer. And not only from the remote past, but from the present; the latest science and philosophy both lend themselves to his thought, and add metaphor and variety to his language. It is this elaboration of style, this subtle trail of association, this play of shooting colours, pervading the texture of his poetry, which has made him be called the English Virgil. But if it were asked, which of his immediate predecessors most influenced his nascent powers, it would seem that, while his early lyrics recall the delicate grace of Coleridge, and some of his idyls the plainness of Wordsworth, while the subtle music of Shelley has fascinated his ear, yet, more than any other poet, Keats, with his rich sensuous colouring, is the master whose style he has caught and prolonged. In part from Shelley, and still more from Keats, has proceeded that rich-melodied and highly-coloured style which has been regnant in English poetry for the last half-century."

ART EMOTIONS CLASSIFIED.

1. The Emotions of the human mind possess one or other of the three characteristics-Pleasure, Pain, Neutrality or Indifference.

The great object of human endeavour is to secure pleasure and avoid pain. Every artist lends himself to that object, as the chief end of his art. This does not exclude the union of art with effects whose value is not measured by immediate pleasure.

Although the securing of pleasure and the avoiding of pain is the final end of Literary, as of other Art, there are occasions when pain may be used as an instrument; being, however, duly guarded and limited so as to fulfil the primary end. Not only in Oratory, where pain as such may be an effective weapon, but also in Poetry, a temporary shock of pain may be the means of enhancing the pleasure; one notable instance being the regulated employment of the painful emotion of Fear.

A value is attached likewise to Emotion as Indifference or Neutrality. By this is meant not merely absolute quiescence of mind, as in complete rest, but also modes of excitement, where the pain or the pleasure is either nothing at all, or but small, compared with the mental agitation. The best example is Surprise, which may be either pleasurable or painful; or it may be neither. Such neutral excitement is better than pain, and may be the means of displacing pain. It is a power over the attention, and can thereby control the feelings.

2. Our Pleasures and Pains are divided according to their mental origin, into two classes-the Sensations and the Emotions.

The artistic senses are Sight and Hearing. The others have to be idealized, that is, represented in idea.

In speaking of the Pleasures of Poetry and Fine Art, we employ the comprehensive designation "Emotional

Qualities"; nevertheless, our two higher senses-Sight and Hearing enter into many forms of Art.

While several of the Fine Arts, as Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, address the eye; the Literary Art, like Music, addresses directly the ear alone.

The musical art has a superstructure altogether its own; as seen in its instrumental variety. It was coupled, from the earliest times, with poetry, and is permanently connected with poetic composition. Verse, as well as prose, is made to be spoken or recited, in which form it affects the ear, like music; and, when read, without being spoken aloud, the melody is still apparent.

The pleasure of a sweet sound is an ultimate fact of the senses: the harmonizing of several sounds is a yet further pleasure, equally fundamental and inexplicable. Each musical piece contains some melodious sequence of notes, which is characteristic of the piece, and which is not less difficult to account for. There may, however, be involved in these melodies an emotional expressiveness, a derived effect, of the nature of personification, like the charms of those objects of sight that suggest features of humanity.

3. The objects of Sight are not represented in Poetry, as they are in Painting; but by means of verbal suggestion they may be readily conceived.

The visible world contains many things agreeable to our sense of sight. These can be pictured by the force of language, and such pictures are admissible into poetry.

The splendours of coloured decoration in dwellings; the artificial glare of fire-works; the colours of field, water and sky; the gorgeous array of sunset and sunrise-are among the actual sense enjoyments of mankind. They are imitated in painting, and suggested in poetry. They are among the primary sources of human delight. The influence of personification lends itself to enlarge their scope in art.

The devices of language are governed by this restriction of sense pleasures to ideal presentation. First, as to choice of Subject. A painter can give a crowded scene, with the utmost detail, every particular being operative: while the very best description in poetry can overtake only a very small amount of scenic complication. Second, as to Handling. All the aids of pictorial conception must be carefully studied, to succeed even to the limited extent that success is possible. This consideration goes beyond mere sense pleasures; the awakening of emotion being largely dependent on the recall of sensible images.

4. Of the Emotions, strictly so called, the artistic bearings are more numerous still.

The sensations of the senses are the simplest of all our mental states; the feeling of warmth, the taste of sugar, the odour of musk, the sight of the blue sky—cannot readily

FOUNDATIONS OF ART EMOTION.

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be decomposed into any simpler feelings. The Emotions, on the other hand, are, in many instances, coalitions or aggregates of sensations; as, for example, the emotion of Property and the effect named Harmony.

Again, while the sensations arise by the stimulation of some external organ, called an organ of sense-the skin, the ear, the eye-an emotion is generated more in the depths of the mind, and, when connected with physical organs, works upon these from within rather than from without. Thus, the emotion of Love needs ideas to stimulate and support it; and, although it may begin in the senses, it undergoes transformation in the depths of intellect.

5. The Emotions specially belonging to works of Fine Art in general, and to Poetry in particular, have been already indicated (p. 1); but the foundations of some of them have to be sought in more general sources of emotion.

If the emotions named Sublimity, Beauty, Pathos, Humour, were clearly definable in themselves, we should be content to stop with them. If, however, they mask other strong emotions, not always apparent on the surface, it becomes requisite to go back upon these.

6. Of our susceptibilities to emotion, the pre-eminence must be given to the contrasting couple, designated LOVE and MALEVOLENCE.

To understand the workings of Pathos, we refer to the feeling of Love. In Sublimity and in Humour alike, there is an unpronounced, yet unmistakable, admixture of the delight arising from Malevolence. The Social Feelings, which make up our interest in persons, have their chief sources in these two great fountains of emotion; and in Art, as in actual life, our highest enjoyment is connected with persons. The influence is still further extended by personifying the inanimate world.*

7. The Emotion of FEAR has a place in the creations of literature, although on grounds peculiar to itself.

*Although written with comic intention, the following lines from Hudibras give nearly the literal truth.

And swore the world, as he could prove,
Was made of fighting and of love.
Just so romances are, for what else
Is in them all, but love and battles?

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