VERBAL SYMBOLS 49 impulse to speak and write of that thought as a "table." Why it should be called a "table" instead of a "Helicon" or a "Helicon" or a "Mesopotamia" is a question that would take us too far. The origin of language is obscure, more obscure perhaps than it seems; but for our present purpose it is enough to note that there are two points of view from which every word may be regarded. We may note that "table" rhymes with "able," that its accent falls on the first syllable, that it is scanned as a trochee, that it alliterates with words in "t" and "bl," and that it means, properly, a flat surface. That is the business of style. In the realm of thought, however, all that we have to note is that "table" is a convenient symbol, wherever English is understood, for the wooden board on four legs. § 18. Matter and Manner.-One conclusion is obvious. The thing symbolised is more important than the symbol itself; behind the style in poetry we must look for the poetic thought. A man may be a perfect master of all the arts and tricks of style. He may know his words like intimate friends, and the secrets of rhythm and metre, alliteration, rhyme, and so forth, may be as easy to him as walking, but he will not be a poet unless he thinks a poet's thoughts. Accordingly, we have D to ascend from the symbols that poets use to the things that they symbolise. We have to neglect for this purpose the rich resources of language, by which they delight the ear, in order to form a judgment on the merits of their thought, by which they enlarge and enrich the mind: "The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling Doth glance from heav'n to earth, from earth to heav'n, And, as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen Turns them to shape, and gives to airy nothing We have, then, to examine the material on which the poet's pen sets to work as well as the manner of its working, and we shall find in the course of our inquiry that some poets have more thought than style, and others more style than thought. Some ignore the feelings of their symbols, like men who use their servants as machines, and others cultivate and indulge the symbols without regard to the function they should perform. In the one case the manner is uncouth, in the other the matter is uninspired. § 19. Matter and Manner Uneven.-Let us look at a few examples. As an instance of uncouth style we may select the following stanza from Browning's poem Popularity: AN EXAMPLE FROM BROWNING "Hobbs hints blue-straight he turtle eats : Nobbs prints blue-claret crowns his cup: Both gorge. Who fished the murex up? 51 Here the poet's eye is finely frenzied. He sees the ludicrous disproportion between the reward of the toiling fisherman who risks his life in the sea to net the precious shells that hold the purple dye, and the rewards of the tradesmen and manufacturers who apply the results of his labour, and hence he concludes that popularity is a very poor test of merit. It is a poetical thought, and the comparison of Keats, the poet without honour, to the nameless adventurer in the deep, through whom Hobbs and Nobbs and Nokes and Stokes grow rich, is worthy of poetic treatment. But the poet's pen is inadequate to his vision. He has simply rushed at his meaning without regard to the symbols he employs. The jerky rhythm, the obtrusive rhymes, and the tasteless selection of words, are all unfair to the thought which Browning had to express. He used his symbols contemptuously, and they avenged themselves by degrading his design. If this is clear, we may take next an example of uninspired matter. Browning, we see, despised his symbols, and his thought suffered in consequence. Mr Coventry Patmore, on the contrary, had a tendency to symbol-worship. He cultivated his style in excess, till it obscured and eclipsed his thought. "I, singularly moved, To love the lovely that are not beloved, Of all the seasons, most Love Winter, and to trace The sense of the Trophonian pallor on her face. And the dim cloud that doth the world enfold And correspondent breathing seems to keep The The sound of these lines is delicious. many subtle devices by which they appeal to the ear, and which our previous investigations should now enable us to recognise, combine to produce a music at once melodious and captivating. We yield to the atmosphere of the poem as we might yield to an hour of idleness under the shadow of an oak tree in a poppy field. But if we resist this temptation to listen, as it were, without our minds, if we turn from the beauty of the symbols to a contemplation of the thought, and retrace the journey of imagination backwards from the pen to the eye, our delight is considerably curtailed. For the failure here is in the matter. The manner is, literally, superfine-fine, that is to say, above and FROM COVENTRY PATMORE 53 beyond the requirements of the thought to be expressed. Mr Patmore has cared for his symbols too much. In order to utter his liking for Winter, which is, after all, not so rare, he has refined and polished his language to an unnecessary degree. This "love . . . lovely beloved . . . love," this "Trophonian pallor" (whatever "Trophonian" may mean), this elaboration of the image of summer sleeping under the snow-by no means a "thing unknown"-these are all the faults of a style in excess of the claims of the thought, where the poet's pen has transgressed the horizon of the poet's eye. We might add that there is a suggestion of pose (a fatal absence, therefore, of naturalness) in the credit that the poet takes to himself for his liking of Winter. Not even Mr Patmore should patronise a season of nature. Shelley, at least, expressed the same thought in exquisitely proportioned language when he wrote, "I love snow, and all the forms Of the radiant frost. I love winds, and rains, and storms, Which is Nature's." For the two great questions to be considered are: (1) What does the poet say? and (2) How does he say it? Now let us ask these questions in two instances |