nginus; and so shall I, and have done with it,
careless that other MSS than that used by Robertello speak of
Dionysius or Longinus. Dionysius Longinus, then, in the 3rd
century A.D.--some say in the 1st: it is no great matter--wrote a
little book [Greek: PERI UPSOUS] commonly cited as "Longinus on
the Sublime." The title is handy, but quite misleading, unless
you remember that by 'Sublimity' Longinus meant, as he expressly
defines it, 'a certain distinction and excellence in speech.' The
book, thus recovered, had great authority with critics of the
17th and 18th centuries. For the last hundred years it has quite
undeservedly gone out of vogue.

It is (I admit) a puzzling book, though quite clear in argument
and language: pellucidly clear, but here and there strangely
modern, even hauntingly modern, if the phrase may be allowed. You
find yourself rubbing your eyes over a passage more like Matthew
Arnold than something of the 3rd century: or you come without
warning on a few lines of 'comparative criticism,' as we call it
--an illustration from Genesis--'God said, Let there be Light,
and there was Light' used for a specimen of the exalted way of
saying things. Generally, you have a sense that this author's
lineage is mysterious after the fashion of Melchisedek's.

Well, to our point--Longinus finds that the conditions of lofty
utterance are five: of which the first is by far the most
important. And this foremost condition is innate: you either have
it or you have not. Here it is:

'Elsewhere,' says Longinus, 'I have written as follows:
_"Sublimity is the echo of a great soul."_ Hence even a bare
idea sometimes, by itself and without a spoken word will
excite admiration, just because of the greatness of soul
implied. Thus the silence of Ajax in the underworld is great
and more sublime than words.'

You remember the passage, how Odysseus meets that great spirit
among the shades and would placate it, would 'make up' their
quarrel on earth now, with carneying words:

'Ajax, son of noble Telamon, wilt thou not then, even in
death forget thine anger against me over that cursed
armour.... Nay, there is none other to blame but Zeus: he
laid thy doom on thee. Nay, come hither, O my lord, and
hear me and master thine indignation:

So I spake, but he answered me not a word, but strode from
me into the Darkness, following the others of the dead that
be departed.

Longinus goes on:

It is by