as yet perfected, but in fact only by virtue of its poetry receives its real development. At such a time the utterance of the poet, as generally expressive of soul-life, is from the first a real novelty, which stirs admiration on its own account by revealing in its speech what remained previously unveiled. This new creation appears as the marvel of a gift and personal power. The weight of custom has not as yet fallen upon it. It enables that which is buried in the depths of the human heart for the first time to freely unfold itself before the amazement of men. Under such conditions it is the native force of the expression, the creation of the fact of speech, not so much the varied and craftful elaboration of the same, which is the main point.
Diction here remains exceedingly simple. In such early times it is indeed impossible that we should have either much fluency of idea or any varied versatility of expression. The subject-matter of such poetry is depicted with an artless directness, which has not yet attained the delicate nuances, transitions, mediatory matter and other advantages of a later artistic culture. In such an age the poet is in fact the first person to give an utterance to the national voice, to express ideas in speech, and thereby to encourage the imagination itself. Speech is, if we may so express it, not yet inseparable from ordinary life, and poetry can still freely, with an effect of freshness, avail itself of all that in later times, as the speech of common life, gradually is severed from art. In this respect, for example, Homer's type of expression is to the modern man barely distinguishable from ordinary speech. For every idea we have the direct word[8]; metaphorical expressions are comparatively rare; and although the poem is composed with a close attention to detail, the speech itself remains very simple indeed. In a similar way Dante was able to create for his own nation a vital form of poetic expression, and asserted in this, as in other respects, the dauntless energy of his creative genius.
(_β_) When, however--this is a _further_ point--the circle of ideas enlarges with the appearance of methodical modes of thought the ways in which idea is associated with idea increase, and in this very process the ability to use it increases also, and the expression of speech is elaborated in all the fluency of which it is capable. When this is so the position of poetry on the side of verbal expression is wholly changed. In other words, we have now a nation possessing the fully developed prose speech of everyday life, and poetic expression must now, in order to retain its interest, swerve aside from ordinary parlance, and receive a resurrection under the re-moulding energy of genius.[9] In our daily life the contingency of the moment is the motive of speech. In the creation of a work of art, however, we must have deliberate circumspection[10] in the place of instantaneous feeling; even the spirit of enthusiasm must be judiciously restrained.
The creation of genius should be permitted to unfold itself from the artistic repose,[11] and become informed under the prevailing temper of an intelligence[12] that surveys the whole with clarity. In former times this spirit of concentration and tranquillity is to be inferred from the fact and utterance of poetry itself. In a more recent age, on the contrary, the nature of the composition and execution has itself to enforce the distinction which obtains between the expression of poetry and prose. In this respect poems which belong to epochs in which we find already an elaborated prose diction differ essentially from those of times and peoples in which the art originates.
The executive talent of a poet can be carried so far in this direction that the elaboration of formal expression becomes the main thing, and the aim is less directed to ideal truth than to formal construction, a polished elegance and mere effect of the composition under its literary aspect. We have then a situation, in which, as already observed, rhetoric and declamation are elaborated in a manner destructive to the ideal vitality of the poetic spirit. The formative intelligence asserts itself under the principle of _purposiveness_, and a selfconsciously regulated art disturbs that more genuine effect, which ought to present the appearance of ingenuous openness and simplicity. Entire nations have, with the rarest exceptions, failed to produce any type of poetic creation other than this rhetorical one. The Latin language, even in Cicero, still preserves a genuine ring of naïveté and naturalness.
With the Latin poets, however, such as Virgil, Horace and the rest, we already feel that Art is to a real extent nothing but artifice, elaboration of effect on its own account. We recognize a prosaic content, which is merely set off with an external embellishment. We find a poet who, in the absence of original genius, endeavours to discover, in the sphere of literary versatility and rhetoric effects, some compensation for that which in genuine power and effect of creation and composition he fails to possess. France too, in the so-called classical period of its literature, has produced poetry very similar, a poetical style to which didactic poems and satires are singularly appropriate. Rhetorical figures of speech in all their variety are here in their rightful place. The exposition remains for all that, as a whole, prosaic; and the literary expression is at its best rich in image and embellishment, much in the style of Herder's or Schiller's diction. These last-mentioned writers, however, availed themselves of this style of literary expression mainly in the interests of prose composition; and by the weightiness of their reflections and the happy use of such a style knew how to win both a critical assent and a hearty approval. The Spanish poets also are not wholly free from the ostentation inseparable from the too self-conscious diction of art. And, as a general rule, Southern nations, such as the Spaniards and the Italians, and previously to them the Mohammedan Arabs and Persians, are conspicuous for a wealth and tedious prolixity of image and simile. With the ancients, more especially in the case of Homer, the flow of expression is characterized by smoothness and tranquillity.
With the nations above mentioned, on the contrary, we have a vision of life gushing forth[13] in a flood which, even where the emotions are in other respects at rest, is ever intent upon expatiation, and owing to this expressly volitional effort of the will is dominated by an intelligence which at one time is visible in abrupt parentheses, at another in subtle generalization, at another in the playful conjunction of its sallies of wit and humour.
(_γ_) Genuine poetic expression in short is as far removed from all rhetorical declamation as above described as it is from all ostentation and witty conceits of diction, in so far at least as such defects do injury to the ideal truth of Nature, and the claims of the content are forgotten in the verbal form and expression of the composition. It is, however, possible, despite of this, that the author's free enjoyment in his work declare itself with real beauty. In a word that aspect of the composition we define as formal diction ought not to be treated on its own and independent account alone, or as an aspect of first and even exclusive importance. And, generally speaking, in this analysis of the composition of poetry under its formative aspect, we repeat that what is the product of careful thought must not lose the appearance of genuine spontaneity: everything should impress us as though it had of itself blossomed from the ideal germ or heart of the subject-matter.
3. VERSIFICATION Our _third_ and final aspect of poetic expression is necessitated by the fact that the imagination of the poet does not merely invest ideas in words, but does so in the form of the uttered speech; and by doing so he consequently enters the domain wherein our senses are made aware of the actual sounds and music of speech. We are thus introduced to versification. Versified prose may give us verses, but that is not necessarily poetry. We have a parallel case in the merely poetic expression of a composition in other respects prosaic with its result of poetic prose simply. Yet for all that metre or rhyme is an essential demand of poetry, bringing, as it were, a perfume of its own to the senses; nay, it is even more essential than a richly imaginative and so-called beautiful diction.
And in truth the artistic elaboration of this sensuous medium[14] unfolds to us--it is the very demand of the art itself--another realm, another field, which we only really enter after having left behind us the prose of ordinary life, whether viewed as action or as literary composition. The poet is thereby compelled to move in a literary atmosphere outside the boundary of everyday speech, and to shape his compositions with an exclusive regard to the rules and requirements of Art. It is therefore only a superficial theory which would banish all versification on the ground that it contradicts natural expression.
It is true that Lessing, in his hostility to the false pathos of the French Alexandrine metre, attempted, more particularly in tragedy, to introduce a form of prose speech as most appropriate. Both Schiller and Goethe have, in the more stormy works of their youth, and under the natural impulse of compositions carrying a greater surfeit of content, adopted the same principle. But Lessing himself, in his Nathan, finally returns once more to the iambic. And in the same way with his Don Carlos Schiller deserted the old path. Goethe too was so little satisfied with the earlier prosaic treatment of his Iphigeneia and Tasso, that he transferred them to art's more proper domain, remoulding them both from the point of view of expression and prosody in that purer form, wherein these compositions continue and will continue to excite our admiration.
No doubt the artificiality of the verse measure or the recurrent echoes of rhyme has the appearance of an unyielding[15] bond between spiritual ideas and the sensuous medium, more rigorous indeed than colour in painting. External objects and the human form are coloured in Nature, and the colourless is an arbitrary abstraction. The idea, on the contrary, in association with the sounds of human speech, which are employed in the wholly capricious symbols of their utterance, possess only a distant or no ideal thread of connection at all. This being so, the exacting demand of the prosodical rules will very readily appear as a fetter to the imagination, in virtue of which it is no longer possible for the poet to communicate his ideas in the precise form in which they float upon his phantasy. The inference is natural that although the stream of rhythm and the music of rhyme exercises upon us as an unquestionable fascination, it is nevertheless not unfrequently and too much so the demand of this very charm to our senses that the finest poetic feeling and idea should be sacrificed. But the objection for all that will not hold water. In other words it is not true that versification is simply an obstruction to spontaneous movement. A genuine artistic talent throughout moves in its sensuous material as in its native element, which so far from being oppressive or a hindrance acts as a stimulus and a support. And in fact we find that all really great poets move with freedom and confidence in the measure, rhythm or rhyme they have created; and it is only when they are translated that our artistic sense is frequently pained or shocked at the attempt to retrace their rhythm and melody. Moreover it is part of the liberality of the art that the very circumstances of the restraint, involving much change, concentration or expansion of the ideas expressed, should suggest to our poet new thoughts, incidents and creations, which, apart from such difficulties, had never crossed his mind. But in truth quite apart from this relative advantage this sensuous and determinate form of being--in the case of poetry the melodious chain of words--is once for all essential to art. It is absolutely necessary that the result should not remain in the formless and undefined stream that we have in the immediate contingency of ordinary conversation. It must appear in the vital design and elaboration of art. And although this form no doubt in the music of poetry may sound too as a purely external instrument, it has nevertheless to be treated as an end on its own account, and as such as an essentially harmonious self-defined whole.
This attention, which is due to the medium of sense, contributes, as in Art universally, and in the interest of seriousness,[16] yet another point of view where we find this very austerity vanishes; both poet and listener feel it no more. They are lifted into a region of exhilarating charm and grace.
In painting and sculpture the artist is given the form in its material and spatial limitations for the portrayal and colouring of human limbs, rocks, trees, clouds and flowers. In architecture also the requirements and objects of the buildings proposed dictate more or less the defined shape given to walls, towers and roofs. In the same-way music already possesses stable definition in the fundamental laws of harmony. In the art of poetry, however, the sound of language to our aural sense is, in the first instance, unbridled;[17] the poet has consequently to regulate such absence of rule within objective limits, and to outline a more stable conture, a more definite framework of sound for his conceptions, their structure and their objective beauty.
Just as in musical declamation the rhythm and melody should accept and adapt itself to the nature of the content, versification is also a kind of music, which, at its own distance, is capable of essentially re-echoing the mysterious, but none the less definite, course and character of the ideas. Agreeably with this the verse-measure ought to reflect the general tone and, as it were, the spiritual perfume of an entire poem, and it is by no means a question of no consequence whether the external form is one of iambics, trochaics, stanzas, alcaics or any other metre.
In the heads of discussion we propose to follow of most importance are _two_ systems, whose distinction from each other we shall endeavour to explain. The _first_ is _rhythmical_ versification, which depends upon the actual length or shortness of the verbal syllables, whether we regard such in the association of varied figures of speech, or under the relation of their time-movement.
The _second_ is that which is responsible for _tonal quality_ as such, not merely in the case of isolated letters, consonants or vowels, but also in that of entire syllables and words, the configuration of which is in part regulated by the laws of the uniform repetition of identical or similar sounds, and in part by those of symmetrical change. It is to this system that we refer the alliteration, assonance and rhyme.
Both systems stand in intimate connection with the prosody of speech.
This is so whether such systems are rather based throughout on the actual length or shortness of syllables, or on the accent which the mind requires,[18] as attached to the obvious importance of such syllables.
And, _finally_, we have also to _unite_ together this general rhythmical movement with the music of the independent formal structure as rhyme.[19] And in this effort, inasmuch as the repeated echo of the rhyme strikes the ear with a marked emphasis, which asserts itself predominantly over the purely temporal condition of duration and advance, the rhythmical aspect will, in such a conjunction, tend to fall back, and arrest our attention with less force.
In discussing the rhythmical system which is without rhyme the following points are of the most importance: _First_, we have the firm and fast time-measure of syllables in their plain distinction of _long_ and _shorty_ as well as their manifold association with definite conditions and metres of poetry.
_Secondly_, we have the animation of rhythm in accent, caesura and opposition between the verse accent and that of separate words.
_Thirdly_, there is the aspect of _euphonious sounds_ which, within this movement, is forthcoming from the sound of the words, without any further concentration in rhyme.
(_a_) For that rhythmical movement which the _time duration_ and the movement itself makes of first importance rather than the melodic sound as such and singled in its isolated effect, (_αα_) we find our starting point in the _natural_ length and shortness of syllables to the obvious distinctions of which the sound of the actual words, the expression of their letters, in consonants and vowels, contribute the essential basis.
Pre-eminently long by nature are the diphthongs ai, oi, ae, and the rest, for the reason that essentially--whatever our modern schoolmaster may say to the contrary--they are themselves a twofold, concrete tone, which combines, much as green does among the colours. The long-sounding vowels are equally so. As a third principle, which obtains already in Sanscrit, no less than the Greek and Latin languages, we have associated with them peculiar conditions of position. In other words, if two or more consonants are placed between two vowels the relation constitutes what is unquestionably a difficult transition in speech.
The organ of articulate utterance requires a longer period to pass over the consonants; this necessitates a pause which, despite of the presence of the short vowel, makes the syllable sound in its rhythm long, though it is not actually lengthened. If I speak the words for example_--mentem nec secus_--the movement from the one vowel to the other in _mentem_ and _nec_ is neither as simple or easy as in _secus_. More modern languages do not retain this last distinction with such stringency, but rather give effect, in the matter of long and short accent, to other criteria. But for all that syllables which are treated as short, despite of the position referred to, at least will not unfrequently create a harsh impression, because they obstruct the quicker movement our ear demands.
In contradistinction to the long quantity we have in diphthongs, long vowels and length created by position, we have the vowels which are by nature _short_, that is, those which are short, or which are not placed in words, where one of them and another immediately following are separated by two or more consonants.
(_ββ_) For the reason, then, that words, partly on their own account, as of several syllables, include a number of long and short beats, and in part, although of one syllable, are nevertheless associated with other words, we have thereby to start with a definite, but accidental interchange of various syllables and words without any stable measure. To regulate this accidental relation is just the function of poetry, precisely as it was that of music to define with accuracy the unregulated duration of particular tones by means of the unity of time-measure. Poetry therefore establishes specific combinations of long and short syllables as the law, by virtue of which, under the aspect of _time-duration,_ it has to arrange the series of syllables.
What we therefore get in the first instance are the different successions of time. The simplest is the mutual relation of pure equality, as, for example, we find it in the dactyl and anapaest, in which the two short syllables may coalesce according to definite rule in two long syllables (the spondee). Secondly, a long syllable may be placed next one short; in that case we have a profounder distinction of derivation, though under its simplest form. Such are the iambus and the trochee. We find a more complicated combination, when a short syllable is interposed between two long ones, or one short precedes two long, as in the cretic and bacchius.
(_γγ_) Such _isolated_ time-relations would, however, open the door to unregulated contingency if they were permitted to follow one another anyhow in their motley differences. In fact the entire aim of such regulation would vanish under such conditions, in other words the regulated series of long and short syllables. From another point of view we should wholly fail to secure a definite beginning, conclusion, and central position, so that the caprice which here once again asserted itself would entirely contradict that which we previously established, when considering musical time-measure and beat, as to the relation in which the percipient ego stood to the duration of tones. In other words, the ego requires a combination on its own account,[20] a return out of the continuous forward movement in time; and only seizes on the same in virtue of definite unities of time and their, as such, emphasized commencement,[21] regulated in their entire series and terminations. This is the reason why, in the _third_ place, poetry also sets out the particular time-relations in a series of _verse-lines,_[22] which in respect to the type and number of their feet, no less than in that of their commencement, progress, and conclusion, are subject to rule. The iambic trimeter, for instance, consists of six iambic feet, of which any two constitute an iambic dipody. The hexameter consists of six dactyls, which again, in certain positions, may coalesce in spondees.
Moreover, as it is no objection to such lines of verse-writing that they are repeated over and over again in the same or practically under the same mode, we find in respect to the entire series, on the one hand, a lack of definition so far as the one final conclusion is concerned, and on the other a monotony, which creates perceptibly a sense of deficiency in the ideal aspect of their manifold composition.
In order to mitigate such defects poetry makes a final advance in its creation of the strophe and its varied organization, more particularly with a view to lyric expression. As an illustration we have the elegiac measure of the Greeks; there is also the alcaic and sapphic strophe, not to mention the modes of lyric art elaborated by Pindar and the famous Greek dramatists in their choric effusions or interludes.
However much, in their relation to time-measure, music and poetry partake of similar conditions, we ought not, therefore, to fail to draw attention to their dissimilarity. The most important feature of this is that of the _beat._ The question whether there is any real repetition measurable in time-beats of identical length in the metre of the ancients has been the subject of strenuous controversy.
Generally speaking I think it may be affirmed that poetry, which uses language in its words as a mere means of communication, is unable, in respect to the time-length of its utterances, to subordinate the same to an absolutely fixed measure of its movement in the abstract form that is present in the time-beat of music. In music tone is simply sound, without pause as such, and it essentially requires a stability such as we find in the time-beat. Human speech does not require such security, for one reason because it already possesses something fixed and substantive in the idea, and for another because it is not thus wholly committed to the objective medium of sound or resonance; rather this very ideality of conscious life is the medium in which it consists as art. For this reason poetry in fact discovers the more substantive means of defining its arrest, continuance, pause or delay immediately in the ideas and emotions which it clearly enunciates in language.
Music, too, in its recitatives, marks the beginning of a similar process of separation from the immutable equality of the time-beat.
It follows from this that, if poetical metre were wholly subjugate to the regularity of the time-beat, the distinction between music and poetry, in this sphere at least, would vanish altogether, and the element of time would receive a more predominant significance than is compatible with the essential characteristics of poetry. Supported by such a conclusion we may therefore insist that, though a _time-measure_ is of imperative value in poetry, there is no such necessity for the abstract _time-beat_; meaning and signification[23] of the actual words must here remain the relatively speaking more controlling force. If we examine in this respect more closely the particular verse-measures of the ancients the hexameter will no doubt appear most nearly attached to a forward movement compatible with the stringency of the time-beat. The elder Voss in fact assumed this, though, as a matter of fact, such an assumption is already excluded by the catalexis of the last foot. When in addition to this Voss proceeded to place the time-measure of the alcaic and sapphic strophes on a similar basis of abstract equality, we can only regard such a theory as a wilful caprice which does violence to the poetry. The contention throughout is apparently due to the habit of treating our German iambic in identical lengths of syllable measure and time-measure. As a matter of fact the beauty of the iambic trimeter of the ancients consisted above all in this, that it was not composed of six iambic feet of identical lengths of time; but quite the contrary in order that, in the first position of every dipody, spondees, or, in their resolution, also dactyls and anapaests were permissible; and, by reason of this, the monotonous repetition of the same time-measure, and thereby all that is consistent with the time-beat, vanishes. We may add that the possibility of change is yet more obvious in lyric strophes, so that if we wish to establish such a thesis at all it must be on the _à priori_ principle, that the time-beat is essentially necessary. As a deduction from the plain facts we see nothing of the kind.
(_β_) With the introduction of the _accent_ and the _caesura_ we have for the first time the animation of the time-measure; we may parallel with this that rhythm in music, which we have discussed as the time-beat.
(_αα_) In short in poetry also every definite time relation has, in the first instance, its particular accent; in other words, regularly defined intervals are asserted, which attract others and only in this way are rounded off in a whole. Owing to this fact much play is given to the _manifold possibilities_ of the value of syllables. On the one hand generally long syllables appear emphasized in their contrast to short, so that now, if the ictus falls upon them, their significance is doubled as against the shorter, and in fact stand out themselves as distinct from long syllables not thus accented. On the other hand, however, it may also happen that shorter syllables receive the ictus or accent, so that a similar emphasis is created to the one described in the converse case.
Above all, as already observed, the beginning and termination of the particular feet ought not with abstract precision to be identical with the beginning and conclusion of single words. For, in the _first_ place, the reach forward[24] of the essentially exclusive word over the termination of the foot of the line affects the connection of the otherwise disparate rhythms. _Secondly_, when the verse accent falls on the final sound of a word carried forward as above described, we get on account of this in addition a distinct interval of time, the conclusion of a word having already come to a pause in something else, so that it is in fact this pause, which, in virtue of the accent united with it, is expressly made perceptible as a segment of time in the otherwise unbroken current. Caesuras of this sort are inevitable with every kind of verse. For although the distinct accent already confers on particular feet a more intimate and essential distinction, and thereby a certain variety, this sort of animation, especially in the case of verses, in which the same feet repeat each other without a break, as, for example, in our iambic, remain for all that in a measure entirely abstract and monotonous, and furthermore allow the particular feet to fall apart without a common bond. It is this gray monotony which the caesura checks, introducing a connection and more genuine animation within what was otherwise, with its undifferentiated regularity, the halting flow of verse, a life which, by virtue of the various positions in which the caesura may assert itself, is itself as manifold as is possible agreeably with the condition that its regulated definition is held free from any approach to lawless caprice.
A _third_ accent is furthermore attached to the verse accent and caesura, which the words in other respects and independently possess, apart from their metrical employment. By this means the mode and degree in which the particular syllables are emphasized or the reverse increases in its variety. This verbal accent may, on the one hand, no doubt appear in conjunction with the accent of the verse and the caesura; and, if this is the case, the strength of the accents respectively is increased. But from another point of view it may stand independently of them on syllables which do not receive any further emphasis, and which we may say, in so far as they moreover require an accentuation to bring out their particular significance as verbal syllables, assert an effect counter to the verse rhythm, an effect which confers on the whole a novel and unique vitality.
To appreciate the beauty of rhythm in all the above aspects is for our modern ears a very difficult matter, because in modern languages the elements which combine to produce. this kind of metrical effect are no longer in some measure present in the sharp and secure insistence they possessed for the ancient world; rather we have other means substituted for them, in order to satisfy other demands of artistic taste.
(_ββ_) But over and above all this, paramount over all valid claims of syllables and words within their metrical position, there is, secondly, the worth of that significance we gather from the line or verse as _poetical idea._ It is in relation to this, which the language implies, that its other metrical effects are either emphasized or, comparatively speaking, are restrained as void of significance; and it is by this means alone that the finest perfume of spiritual vitality is instilled through the poetry. But notwithstanding this fact, such poetical effect is not to be carried so far that it directly contradicts in this respect the rules of metrical rhythm.
(_γγ_) Moreover, a _definite_ type of _content_ corresponds with the entire character of a particular verse measure, particularly from the point of view of rhythmical movement, and above all that particular kind implied in the movement of our feelings. Thus, for example, the hexameter, in the tranquil wave of its forward stream, is particularly adapted to the even flow of epic narration. Where, however, it is more in the nature of the strophe in its association with the pentameter and its symmetrically consistent caesura, it is, in its none the less generally simple regularity, fitted to express elegiac emotion. The iambic again moves forward with rapidity, and as such is peculiarly suitable to dramatic dialogue. The anapaest indicates the clear-slipping march of joyful exultation. Other characteristics may readily be associated with other modes of verse-measure.
(_γ_) _Thirdly_, this province of rhythmical versification is not confined to the mere configuration and vivication of time-intervals; it embraces the actual musical sound of syllables and words. In respect to such sound, however, the classic languages, in which rhythm is retained, as above described, as an essential feature, offer a real contrast to other more recent ones more conspicuously adapted to rhyme.
(_αα_) In the Greek and Latin languages, for example, the stem syllable is modified, by virtue of its modes of inflexion, through an abundance of variously toned syllables, which of course possess an independent meaning, but only as a modification of such syllable; this consequently, it is true, asserts its force as the substantive significance of that variously expanded sound, but it does not, so far as its sound is concerned, stand forth as such in pre-eminent and unique ascendancy. When we hear, for example, the word _amaverunt_, three syllables are attached to the word, and the accent is already substantially differentiated throughout the number and extension of these syllables in direct relation to the stem syllable, even assuming no naturally long ones had been included, by which means the _fundamental significance_ and the emphasis of _accent_ are _separated_ from each other. In such a case consequently, and in so far as the accentuation is not identical with the _main_ syllable, but falls on another, which merely expresses an _incidental_ significance, the ear can from this basis at once listen to the sound of the different syllables and follow their movement, retaining, as it does, perfect liberty to attend to that prosody peculiar to the word or phrase, and finding itself then invited to incorporate within its rhythm these naturally long and short syllables.
(_ββ_) The case of our modern German language is wholly different.
That which in the Greek and Latin languages is expressed, as above described, by means of the prefix and suffix, and other modifications, is in more modern languages for the most part resolved in verbs of the stem syllable; the result of this is that the inflexion syllables that have been in the former case unfolded in one and the same word, with collateral meanings of a varied character, are now split up and isolated in separate words. As illustrations of this we have the constant employment of many subsidiary words denoting time, the independent indication of the optative by means of distinct verbs, the separation of pronouns, and other examples. By such means, on the one hand, the word --which in the previous case adduced was expanded in all the variety of tone which attached to its many syllables, under which every accent of the root, that is the root idea, was cancelled--persists as a simple totality concentrated in itself, without appearing as a series of tones, which being, as they are, mere modifications, do not, by virtue of their specific _sense,_ assert an influence with such a strength that the ear is unable to attend to their independent tonal quality and its temporal movement. And, on the other hand, on account of this concentration the main significance is moreover of such a force that it attracts the fall of the accent upon itself exclusively; and just because the emphasis is thus fastened upon the fundamental sense this very coalescence does not suffer the quantity of the other syllables, whether long or short ones, to appear; they are simply overwhelmed. The roots of the majority of words are unquestionably as a general rule short, compact,[25] of one or two