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138 THEORIES OF STYLE IN LITERATURE
tioncd help to render a style
more energetic and impassioned;
and passion contributes as largely to sublimity as the delineation
of character to amusement.
XXX
But since the thoughts conveyed by words and the expression
of those thoughts are for the most part interwoven
with one another, we will now add some considerations
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which have hitherto been overlooked on the subject of expression.
To say that the choice of appropriate and striking
words has a marvellous power and an enthralling charm for
the reader, that this is the main object of pursuit with all
orators and writers, that it is this, and this alone, which
causes the works of literature to exhibit the glowing perfections
of the finest statues, their grandeur, 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 the initiated, an impertinence.
to say all this would, I fear, be,
Indeed, we may say with
strict truth that beautiful words are the very light of thought.
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 Theopompus;
to me, at least, from the closeness of its analogy,
it seems to have a peculiar expressiveness, though