ng the reader, not merely by what is said, but also by the
manner of saying it. "Lyly" (and, we may add, his associates), writes
his latest editor, "grasped the fact that in prose no less than in
poetry, the reader demanded to be led onward by a succession of half
imperceptible shocks of pleasure in the beauty and vigour of diction, or
in the ingenuity of phrasing, in sentence after sentence--pleasure
inseparable from that caused by a perception of the nice adaptation of
words to thought, pleasure quite other than that derivable from the
acquisition of fresh knowledge[84]." The direct influence of the man who
first taught us this lesson, who showed us that a writer, to be
successful, should seek not merely to express himself, but also to study
the mind of his reader, must have been something quite beyond
computation. And that his direct influence was not more lasting was due,
in the first place, to the fact that he had not grasped the full
significance of this psychological aspect of style, if we may so call
it, which he and his friends had been the first to discover. As with
most first attempts, euphuism, while bestowing immense benefits upon
those who came after, was itself a failure. The euphuists perceived the
problem of style, but successfully attacked only one half of it. More
acute than their contemporaries, they realised the principle of economy,
but, as with one who makes an entirely new mechanical invention, they
were themselves unable to appreciate what their discovery would lead to.
They were right in addressing themselves to the task of attracting, and
stimulating, the reader by means of precision, pointed antithesis, and
such like attempts to induce pleasurable mental sensations, but they
forgot that anyone must eventually grow weary under the influence of
continuous excitation without variation. The soft drops of rain pierce
the hard marble, many strokes overthrow the tallest oak, and much
monotony will tire the readiest reader. Or, to use the phraseology of a
somewhat more recent scientist, they "considered only those causes of
force in language which depend upon economy of the mental _energies_,"
they paid no attention to "those which depend upon the economy of the
mental _sensibilities_[85]." This is one explanation of the weariness
with which _Euphues_ fills the modern reader, and of the speed with
which, in spite of its priceless pioneer work, that book was superseded
and forgotten in its own days. It