lly low, such as pity, grief,
fear; and conversely, sublimity is often not in the least affecting, as
we may see (among innumerable other instances) in those bold expressions
of our great poet on the sons of Aloeus--

"Highly they raged
To pile huge Ossa on the Olympian peak,
And Pelion with all his waving trees
On Ossa's crest to raise, and climb the sky;"

and the yet more tremendous climax--

"And now had they accomplished it."

3
And in orators, in all passages dealing with panegyric, and in all the
more imposing and declamatory places, dignity and sublimity play an
indispensable part; but pathos is mostly absent. Hence the most pathetic
orators have usually but little skill in panegyric, and conversely those
who are powerful in panegyric generally fail in pathos.

4
If, on the other hand, Caecilius supposed that pathos never contributes
to sublimity, and this is why he thought it alien to the subject, he is
entirely deceived. For I would confidently pronounce that nothing is so
conducive to sublimity as an appropriate display of genuine passion,
which bursts out with a kind of "fine madness" and divine inspiration,
and falls on our ears like the voice of a god.

IX

I have already said that of all these five conditions of the Sublime the
most important is the first, that is, a certain lofty cast of mind.
Therefore, although this is a faculty rather natural than acquired,
nevertheless it will be well for us in this instance also to train up
our souls to sublimity, and make them as it were ever big with noble
thoughts.

2
How, it may be asked, is this to be done? I have hinted elsewhere in my
writings that sublimity is, so to say, the image of greatness of soul.
Hence a thought in its naked simplicity, even though unuttered, is
sometimes admirable by the sheer force of its sublimity; for instance,
the silence of Ajax in the eleventh _Odyssey_[1] is great, and grander
than anything he could have said.

[Footnote 1: _Od._ xi. 543.]

3
It is absolutely essential, then, first of all to settle the question
whence this grandeur of conception arises; and the answer is that true
eloquence can be found only in those whose spirit is generous and
aspiring. For those whose whole lives are wasted in paltry and illiberal
thoughts and habits cannot possibly produce any work worthy of the
lasting reverence of mankind. It is only natural that their words should
be full of sublimity