ordinary time of an iambus, serve to suggest celerity. By the elision
of _e_ in _the_, as is customary, the whole of the intended effect is
lost; for _th'unbend_ is nothing more than the usual iambus. In a
word, wherever an Alexandrine expresses celerity, we shall find it to
contain one or more anapoests--the more anapoests, the more decided
the impression. But the tendency of the Alexandrine consisting merely
of the usual iambuses, is to convey slowness--although it conveys this
idea feebly, on account of conveying it indirectly. It follows, from
what I have said, that the common pentameter, interspersed with
anapoests, would better convey celerity than the Alexandrine
interspersed with them in a similar degree;--and it unquestionably
does.

[Footnote 1: I use the prosodial word "anapoest," merely because here
I have no space to show what the reviewer will admit I have distinctly
shown in the essay referred to--viz: that the additional syllable
introduced, does _not_ make the foot an anapoest, or the equivalent of
an anapoest, and that, if it did, it would spoil the line. On this
topic, and on all topics connected with verse, there is not a prosody
in existence which is not a mere jumble of the grossest error.]

* * * * *

To converse well, we need the cool tact of talent--to talk well, the
glowing _abandon_ of genius. Men of _very_ high genius, however, talk
at one time _very_ well, at another _very_ ill:--well, when they have
full time, full scope, and a sympathetic listener:--ill, when they fear
interruption and are annoyed by the impossibility of exhausting the topic
during that particular talk. The partial genius is flashy--scrappy. The
true genius shudders at incompleteness--imperfection--and usually
prefers silence to saying the something which is not every thing that
should be said. He is so filled with his theme that he is dumb, first
from not knowing how to begin, where there seems eternally beginning
behind beginning, and secondly from perceiving his true end at so
infinite a distance. Sometimes, dashing into a subject, he blunders,
hesitates, stops short, sticks fast, and, because he has been
overwhelmed by the rush and multiplicity of his thoughts, his hearers
sneer at his inability to think. Such a man finds his proper element
in those "great occasions" which confound and prostrate the general
intellect.

Nevertheless, by his conversation, the influence of the
conversationist upon m