with the appeal to the
emotions and to the imagination. Speaking of the nature of the
intellect in his essay on _Intellect_, Emerson has said: "We do not
determine what we will think. We only open our senses, clear away as
we can all obstruction from the fact, and suffer the intellect to
see." Attention to the intellectual element in literature gives a
power of thought. The consideration of the truth of the fairy tale
aids the child to clear, definite thinking because the experience of
the tale is ordered from a beginning, through a development, to a
climax, and to a conclusion. It assists him to form conclusions
because it presents results of circumstances and consequences of
conduct. Continued attention to the facts, knowledge, and truth
presented in the tales, helps the child to grow a sincerity of spirit.
This leads to that love of actual truth, which is one of the armors of
middle life, against which false opinion falls harmless.
(4) A form, more or less perfect. Form is the union of all the means
which the writer employs to convey his thought and emotion to the
reader. Flaubert has said, "Among all the expressions of the world
there is but _one_, one form, one mode, to express what I want to
say."--"Say what you have to say, what you have a will to say, in the
simplest, the most direct and exact manner possible, with no
surplusage," Walter Pater has spoken. Then the form and the matter
will fit each other so perfectly there will be no unnecessary
adornment.
In regard to form it is to be remembered that feeling is best awakened
incidentally by suggestion. Words are the instruments, the medium of
the writer. Words have two powers: the power to name what they mean,
or denotation; and the power to suggest what they imply, or
connotation. Words have the power of connotation in two ways: They may
mean more than they say or they may produce emotional effect not only
from meaning but also from sound. To make these two suggestive powers
of words work together is the perfect art of Milton. Pope describes
for us the relation of sound to sense in a few lines which themselves
illustrate the point:--
Soft is the strain when zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows.
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse, rough verse, should like the torrent roar.
When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw.
The line too labors, and the words move slow:
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