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conception; if they may properly be called ideas which present
no distinct image to the mind:-but still it will be difficult to
conceive how words can move the passions which belong to real
objects, without representing these objects clearly. This is
difficult to us, because we do not sufficiently distinguish, in our
observations upon language, between a clear expression and a
strong expression. These are frequently confounded with each
other, though they are in reality extremely different. The former
regards the understanding, the latter belongs to the passions. The
one describes a thing as it is; the latter describes it as it is felt.
Now, as there is a moving tone of voice, an impassioned
countenance, an agitated gesture, which affect independently of
the things about which they are exerted, so there are words, and
certain dispositions of words, which being peculiarly devoted to
passionate subjects; and always used by those who are under the
influence of any passion, touch and move us more than those
which far more clearly and distinctly express the subject matter.
We yield to sympathy what we refuse to description. The truth is,
all verbal description, merely as naked description, though never
so exact, conveys so poor and insufficient an idea of the thing
described, that it could scarcely have the smallest effect, if the
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speaker did not call in to his aid those modes of speech that mark
a strong and lively feeling in himself. Then, by the contagion of
our passions, we catch a fire already kindled in another, which
probably might never have been struck out by the object
described. Words, by strongly conveying the passions, by those
means which we have already mentioned, fully compensate for
their weakness in other respects. It may be observed, that very
polished languages, and such as are praised for their superior
clearness and perspicuity, are generally deficient in strength. The
French language has that perfection and that defect, whereas the
Oriental tongues, and in general the languages of most
unpolished people, have a great force and energy of expression;
and this is but natural. Uncultivated people are but ordinary
observers of things, and not critical in distinguishing them; but,
for that reason, they admire more, and are more affected with
what they see, and therefore express themselves in a warmer and
more passionate manner. If the affection be well conveyed, it will
work its effect without any clear idea, often without any idea at
all of the thing which has originally given rise to it.
It might be expected from the fertility of the subject, that I should
consider poetry, as it regards the sublime and beautiful, more at
large; but it must be observed that in this light it has been often
and well handled already. It was not my design to enter into the
criticism of the sublime and beautiful in any art, but to attempt to
lay down such principles as may tend to ascertain, to distinguish,
and to form a sort of standard for them; which purposes I thought
might be best effected by an inquiry into the properties of such
things in nature, as raise love and astonishment in us; and by
showing in what manner they operated to produce these
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passions. Words were only so far to be considered, as to show
upon what principle they were capable of being the
representatives of these natural things, and by what powers they
were able to affect us often as strongly as the things they
represent, and sometimes much more strongly.
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