Page:On the Sublime 1890.djvu/93

 

eur, their beauty, their mellowness, their dignity, their energy, their power, and all their other graces, and that it is this which endows the facts with a vocal soul; to say all this would, I fear, be, to the initiated, an impertinence. Indeed, we may say with strict truth that beautiful words are the very light of thought.2 I do not mean to say that imposing language is appropriate to every occasion. A trifling subject tricked out in grand and stately words would have the same effect as a huge tragic mask placed on the head of a little child. Only in poetry and …

 

XXXI

… There is a genuine ring in that line of Anacreon's—

 

"The Thracian filly I no longer heed."

 

The same merit belongs to that original phrase in Theophrastus; to me, at least, from the closeness of its analogy, it seems to have a peculiar expressiveness, though Caecilius censures it, without telling us why. "Philip," says the historian, "showed a marvellous alacrity in taking doses of trouble."^[1] We see from this that the most homely language is sometimes far more vivid than the most ornamental, being recognised at once as the language of common life, and gaining immediate currency by its famili-

1. See Note.