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English Composition and Rhetoric: Emotional qualities of style
English Composition and Rhetoric Emotional qualities of style Author:Alexander Bain Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: EGOTISM.—EANGE OP SYMPATHY. 7 stincts and high faculties are praised in the same way, and by the same comparison. Longfellow flatters our human capabilitie... more »s, in the well- known stanza beginning— Lives of great men all remind us— The Ehetorical arts of eulogy will appear in connexion with the poetry of the moral sublime. For the present, it is enough to refer to such leading devices as Contrast and Innuendo, for rendering flattery effective, while depriving it of the vice of fulsomeness. There are good and also refined modes of flattery, as Literature abundantly testifies. There is delicate flattery in Dekker's line— Honest labour bears a lovely face. Another form of the sentiment is— An honest man's the noblest work of God. Burns has exemplified the highest flight of this form of flattery, intending to soothe the wounded spirit of the poor and down-trodden of mankind— A man's a man for a' that. There is an effective mode of indirect flattery, in the apparent moral depreciation of mankind. This is carried so far as to iinply great capabilities in the first instance. Only a superior nature could be so sinful, as is said. Wo should very much resent being made out at once feeble and bad. The opposite of Flattery is Vituperation, an art cultivated in all ages, and a principal outlet to our malign sentiments. In connexion with the group of Qualities, named the Ludicrous, Humour, Wit, the arts of Vituperation will be fully illustrated. 9. Of great importance in Literary creations is a right understanding of the power named Sympathy. As a spur to humane and virtuous conduct, Sympathy is the counteractive of our Egotism or Selfishness. It is in close relation to the tender and amicable emotions, and is called into play by the delineation of p...« less