FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   281   282   283   284   285   286   287   288   289   290   291   292   293   294   295   296   297   298   299   300   301   302   303   304   305  
306   307   308   309   310   311   312   313   314   315   316   317   318   319   320   321   322   323   324   325   326   327   328   329   330   >>   >|  
hose of whom it has been said, that to them an obligation is a reason for not doing anything, and there are others who are invariably led to do the reverse of what they should. The last are perverse, the first impracticable people. Opposed to the effeminate in disposition and manners are the coarse and brutal. As those were all softness and smoothness, these affect or are naturally attracted to whatever is vulgar and violent, harsh and repulsive in tone, in modes of speech, in forms of address, in gesture and behaviour. Thus there are some who ape the lisping of the fine lady, the drawling of the fine gentleman, and others who all their life delight in and catch the uncouth dialect, the manners and expressions of clowns and hoydens. The last are governed by an instinct of the disagreeable, by an appetite and headlong rage for violating decorum and hurting other people's feelings, their own being excited and enlivened by the shock. They deal in home truths, unpleasant reflections, and unwelcome matters of fact; as the others are all compliment and complaisance, insincerity and insipidity. We may observe an effeminacy of style, in some degree corresponding to effeminacy of character. Writers of this stamp are great interliners of what they indite, alterers of indifferent phrases, and the plague of printers' devils. By an effeminate style I would be understood to mean one that is all florid, all fine; that cloys by its sweetness, and tires by its sameness. Such are what Dryden calls 'calm, peaceable writers.' They only aim to please, and never offend by truth or disturb by singularity. Every thought must be beautiful _per se_, every expression equally fine. They do not delight in vulgarisms, but in common-places, and dress out unmeaning forms in all the colours of the rainbow. They do not go out of their way to think--that would startle the indolence of the reader: they cannot express a trite thought in common words--that would be a sacrifice of their own vanity. They are not sparing of tinsel, for it costs nothing. Their works should be printed, as they generally are, on hot-pressed paper, with vignette margins. The Della Cruscan school comes under this description, which is now nearly exploded. Lord Byron is a pampered and aristocratic writer, but he is not effeminate, or we should not have his works with only the printer's name to them! I cannot help thinking that the fault of Mr. Keats's poems was a deficiency in mascu
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   281   282   283   284   285   286   287   288   289   290   291   292   293   294   295   296   297   298   299   300   301   302   303   304   305  
306   307   308   309   310   311   312   313   314   315   316   317   318   319   320   321   322   323   324   325   326   327   328   329   330   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

effeminate

 

delight

 

common

 

effeminacy

 

thought

 

manners

 

people

 

thinking

 

singularity

 

beautiful


disturb

 

printer

 

places

 

vulgarisms

 

equally

 

offend

 

expression

 

sweetness

 

sameness

 

florid


deficiency

 
Dryden
 

writers

 

peaceable

 

unmeaning

 

pampered

 
vignette
 
margins
 
pressed
 
aristocratic

printed

 

generally

 

Cruscan

 

description

 

school

 
understood
 
indolence
 

reader

 

startle

 

colours


rainbow

 

express

 

tinsel

 

writer

 
sparing
 

vanity

 

sacrifice

 
exploded
 

violent

 

repulsive