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§ 482. IN MODERN LITERATURE.

In modern literature the pathetic has always held, and continues to hold, a position of supreme influence. Chaucer, the father of English literature, unites it with his playful mirth, his fine delineations of character, his vigorous description. The Knightes Tale and the Man of Lawes Tale are full of passages of tender pathos; while the Clerkes Tale belongs altogether to this class. Shakespeare gives us the great characters of the despairing Ophelia; the injured Catharine; the wronged Desdemona; the fallen Wolsey; with a host of others, among whom stands prominent the figure of King Lear. In the midst of the sublimity and beauty of Paradise Lost, the tender sadness of Eve's farewell to Paradise is not the least memorable. The poetry of Collins and Gray is deeply tinged with this. Addison intermingles it with his easy grace; and by this Goldsmith has made the Vicar of Wakefield immortal. Cowper, whose life was so full of melancholy, has communicated this feeling to his poetry; and Burns gives vocal expression to the sadness of Scottish music. Byron's poetry is full of gloom; Keats shows the melancholy that consumed him; but Thomas Hood used this power with greater effect, and the poet of wit and humor showed himself the poet of pathos, when his Bridge of Sighs drew tears from all England. Tennyson's In Memoriam affords an example of a great collection of poems devoted to this one theme; in Dickens and Thackeray, as in Thomas Hood, laughter is found near akin to tears; but, of all writers, no one except Dante has so uniformly and persistently made use of the pathetic as Mrs. Browning.

The pathetic is also a pervading element in that great body of writing known as religious literature. For the religion to which it is devoted is directed to all who "labor and are heavy laden;" and while the prosperous, the joyous, and the selfsatisfied may turn away from it, the poor, the weak, the afflicted, and the mourner find in it a never-ending source of consolation.

§ 483. THE PATHETIC AN ANIMATING ELEMENT IN LITERATURE. Looking back over the great animating elements of literature, we can see how the pathetic differs from them all.

The beautiful forms the broad and general basis of literature, as it does also of the fine arts. The sublime produces the highest manifestation of human genius. The ridiculous is a tremendous weapon of attack.

From all these the pathetic differs, as they all differ from one another. It rivals the beautiful in the breadth and comprehensiveness of its scope. It rivals the sublime in its lofty reach. From the ridiculous it stands apart, having nothing in common with it, yet in its power of assailing the feelings of man it is far superior. The ridiculous may excite fear, and terrify into submission; but the pathetic softens the heart, and draws it into willing obedience. As the love of Christ surpasses satire, as St. John transcends Voltaire, so does the pathetic surpass and transcend the ridiculous. The one may show its power by undermining the strength of dynasties and overthrowing governments; but the other is the central and animating principle of that kingdom of heaven which shall one day reign supreme, when all the kingdoms of this world shall be brought into subjection to him who is called the "Man of Sorrows."

It is an old saying, "Better is the house of mourning than the house of mirth." Of all the qualities of literature, none equals the pathetic for purity and elevation. "A thing of beauty is a joy forever;" but the pathetic is even more enduring. The joy that arises from the beautiful is after all a selfish joy; the pathetic leads a man away from himself to his fellow-man and to his God. And, therefore, it may be said that for mingled loftiness and sweetness-for its power to excite the holiest emotions-for its purifying effect on the heart and its elevating effect on the soul-for the living warmth and matchless human interest which it throws around that literature in which it may be present for all these things, and for the reason that it is the strongest ally of Christianity itself, the highest place in literature must be given to the pathetic.

CHAPTER IX.

FORMS OF EXPRESSION ASSOCIATED WITH THE EMÒ. TIONS AND PASSIONS.

§ 484. FORMS OF EXPRESSION ASSOCIATED WITH THE EMOTIONS. • IT has already been shown that the figures of speech are closely associated with the emotions. Of some in particular this association is very evident; for instance, climax, personification, apostrophe, vision, hyperbole, etc. The application of these, however, to purposes of ornament or illustration is so marked that their true nature may be seen without reference to any display of feeling. But one figure-exclamation-has a different character, and is so closely associated with emotion that it might be regarded as possessing this for its characteristic rather than any other.

By the elder rhetoricians a large number of forms of expression were laid down as figures of speech, and were called figures of emotion. According to the definition of figures here adopted, these can scarcely be considered as properly assignable to any such class. To accept them as such would lead to an indefinite multiplication of figures of speech, which might finally include every expression of human thought. Yet some of these are interesting and valuable, as serving to show the mode in which an utterance may be given to strong feeling, and therefore, in concluding this subject, it will not be deemed irrelevant if some space is devoted to such forms of expression.

Nearly all of these, if not all of them, may in fact be considered as different forms of exclamation, and may be classified as follows:

1. Where superiority is implied on the part of the speaker. 2. Where inferiority is implied on the part of the speaker. 3. Where equality is implied between speaker and hearer.

4. Where a personal reference is made by the speaker to himself.

§ 485. WHERE SUPERIORITY IS IMPLIED ON THE PART OF THE

SPEAKER.

1. Where superiority is implied on the part of the speaker. Here the speaker assumes to some extent the tone of authority, and addresses the audience from a superior level. This class includes: 1st, command; 2d, prohibition; 3d, admonition; 4th, reproach; 5th, reproof; 6th, invitation.

Ist. Command. Intense emotion may be expressed in this way, as in Satan's call to his followers:

"Awake, arise, or be forever fallen!"

And in that cry which bursts in upon Byron's description of the festivities at Brussels previous to Waterloo :

"Arm, arm—it is-it is the cannon's opening roar !"

But commands may be milder, and may serve to indicate merely an expression of the speaker's feeling, as in Lalla Rookh :

"Go, wing thy flight from star to star,

Take all the pleasures of all the spheres,
And multiply each through endless years,
One moment in heaven is worth them all."

Or Tennyson:

"O hark! O hear! how thin and clear!"

2d. Prohibition is negative command, and shows the same variation from calmness up to intense feeling. "Tell me not of rights," cries Lord Brougham, "talk not of the property of the planter in his slaves." "Go home, if you dare," exclaims Clay; "go home, if you can, to your constituents, and tell them that you voted it down." "Is it that insidious smile," says Patrick Henry, "with which our petition has been lately received? Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss."

3d. Admonition-warning. This implies stronger emotion than usual, with something of anxiety. It prevails in sermons,

but is also not unfrequent in oratory generally. "You are standing on the brink of a precipice," says Lord Brougham to the House of Lords in his defence of Queen Caroline; "beware! It will go forth your judgment, if sentence shall go against the queen. But it will be the only judgment you ever pronounced which, instead of reaching its object, will return, and bound back upon those who gave it." Again in his speech on negro slavery he utters this warning, "Now, then, let the planters beware-let their assemblies beware-let the government at home beware— let the Parliament beware."

4th. Reproach. This involves a still higher degree of emotion, and it implies an accusation against the hearers:

"O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome !

Knew ye not Pompey?"

5th. Reproof-reprehension.

This ascends still higher in feeling, and the speaker no longer implies an accusation, but makes it: "Arrogant mortal!" cried Kossuth. "Thou dust before God!"

6th. Invitation. This involves kindly feeling; as, "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters!" It is most common in religious poetry and oratory.

§ 486. WHERE INFERIORITY IS IMPLIED ON THE PART OF THE

SPEAKER.

2. Where inferiority is implied on the part of the speaker. Here the speaker regards the audience as in some sort placed above him. This class includes: 1st, appeal; 2d, invocation; 3d, entreaty; 4th, adoration; 5th, desire; 6th, adjuration.

Ist. Appeal. An appeal may be either general or particular. The general appeal is made to the whole community of readers, or to the whole audience of an orator, as in Curran's speech in behalf of Rowan.

"I put it to your oaths-do you think that a blessing of that kind—that a victory obtained by justice over bigotry and oppression-should have a stigma cast upon it by an ignominious sentence?"

The particular appeal may be made to a class of men, as in Chatham's speech on the Address to the Throne:

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