A low,tremulous,intermitting sound,though it seems in some respects opposite to that just mentioned,is productive of the sublime.It is worth while to examine this a little.The fact itself must be determined by every man's own experience and reflection.I have already observed,1that night increases our terror,more perhaps than anything else;it is our nature,when we do not know what may happen to us,to fear the worst that can happen;and hence it is,that uncertainty is so terrible,that we often seek to be rid of it,at the hazard of certain mischief.Now,some low,confused,uncertain sounds,leave us in the same fearful anxiety concerning their causes,that no light,or an uncertain light,does concerning the objects that surround us.
Quale per incertam lunam sub luce maligna Est iter in sylvis.
A faint shadow of uncertain light,Like as a lamp,whose life doth fade away;
Or as the moon clothed with cloudy night Doth show to him who walks in fear and great affright.
Spenser.
But light now appearing and now leaving us,and so off and on,is even more terrible than total darkness:and a sort of uncertain sounds are,when the necessary dispositions concur,more alarming than a total silence.
XX
The Cries Of Animals Such sounds as imitate the natural inarticulate voices of men,or any animals in pain or danger,are capable of conveying great ideas;unless it be the well-known voice of some creature,on which we are used to look with contempt.The angry tones of wild beasts are equally capable of causing a great and awful sensation.
Hinc exaudiri gemitus iraeque leonum Vincla recusantum,et sera sub nocte rudentum;Setigerique sues,atque in praesepibus ursi Saevire;et formae magnorum ululare luporum.
It might seem that these modulations of sound carry some connexion with the nature of the things they represent,and are not merely arbitrary;because the natural cries of all animals,even of those animals with whom we have not been acquainted,never fail to make themselves sufficiently understood;
this cannot be said of language.The modifications of sound,which may be productive of the sublime,are almost infinite.Those I have mentioned are only a few instances to show on what principles they are all built.
XXI
Smell And Taste.Bitters And Stenches Smells and Tastes have some share too in ideas of greatness;but it is a small one,weak in its nature,and confined in its operations.I shall only observe,that no smells or tastes can produce a grand sensation,except excessive bitters,and intolerable stenches.It is true,that these affections of the smell and taste,when they are in their full force,and lean directly upon the sensory,are simply painful,and accompanied with no sort of delight;but when they are moderated,as in a deion or narrative,they become sources of the sublime,as genuine as any other,and upon the very same principle of a moderated pain."A cup of bitterness;""to drain the bitter cup of fortune;""the bitter apples of Sodom;"these are all ideas suitable to a sublime deion.
Nor is this passage of Virgil without sublimity,where the stench of the vapour in Albunea conspires so happily with the sacred horror and gloominess of that prophetic forest:
At rex sollicitus monstris oracula Fauni Fatidici genitoris adit,lucosque sub alta Consulit Albunea,nemorum quae maxima sacro Fonte sonat;saevamque exhalat opaca Mephitim.
In the sixth book,and in a very sublime deion,the poisonous exhalation of Acheron is not forgotten,nor does it all disagree with the other images amongst which it is introduced:
Spelunca alta fuit,vastoque immanis hiatu,Scrupea,tuta lacu nigro,nemorumque tenebris;Quam super haud ullae poterant impune volantes Tendere iter pennis:talis sese halitus atris Faucibus effundens supera ad convexa ferebat.
I have added these examples,because some friends,for whose judgment I have great deference,were of opinion that if the sentiment stood nakedly by itself,it would be subject,at first view,to burlesque and ridicule;
but this I imagine would principally arise from considering the bitterness and stench in company with mean and contemptible ideas,with which it must be owned they are often united;such an union degrades the sublime in all other instances as well as in those.But it is one of the tests by which the sublimity of an image is to be tried,not whether it becomes mean when associated with mean ideas;
but whether,when united with images of an allowed grandeur,the whole composition is supported with dignity.Things which are terrible are always great;but when things possess disagreeable qualities,or such as have indeed some degree of danger,but of a danger easily overcome,they are merely odious;as toads and spiders.
XXII
Feeling.Pain Of feeling,little more can be said than that the idea of bodily pain,in all the modes and degrees of labour,pain,anguish,torment,is productive of the sublime,;and nothing else in this sense can produce it.I need not give here any fresh instances,as those given in the former sections abundantly illustrate a remark that,in reality,wants only an attention to nature,to be made by everybody.
Having thus run through the causes of the sublime with reference to all the senses,my first observation (sect.7)will be found very nearly true;that the sublime is an idea belonging to self-preservation;that it is therefore one of the most affecting we have;that its strongest emotion is an emotion distress;and that no pleasure1from a positive cause belongs to it.Numberless examples,besides those mentioned,might be brought in support of these truths,and many perhaps useful consequences drawn from them [Footnote 1:Vide Part I.sect.6.]
Sed fugit interea,fugit irrevocabile tempus,Singula dum capti circumvectamur amore.
