Imperfect tense

“ As long as languages contain a future perfect tense, determinists, following the bent of laziness or passion, the lines of least resistance, can reply in that tense, saying, "It will have been fated," to the still small voice which urges an opposite course ”

“ On the other hand, that imperfect ‘reality’ has for us a character in which poetry is deficient,—the character in virtue of which we call it ‘reality.’ It is, we feel, thrust upon us, not made by us or by any other man. And in this respect it seems more akin than poetry to that ‘beyond,’ or absolute, or perfection, which we want, which partially expresses itself in both, and which could not be perfection and could not satisfy us if it were not real (though it cannot be real in the same sense as that imperfect ‘reality’) . ”

“ Blank verse, therefore, is permitted to poets who would describe wide landscapes, or indulge unfettered imagination, or express conceptions of superhuman majesty in unusual and gorgeous language. Such poets are warned, in the essay on Akenside, of the risk they run: ‘The exemption which blank verse affords from the necessity of closing the sense with the couplet, betrays luxuriant and active minds into such self-indulgence that they pile image upon image, ornament upon ornament, and are not easily persuaded to close the sense at all. ”

“ And what is more, neither trio suffers from the imperfections, which are imperfections only in the light of imperfect critical knowledge and consequent prejudice, but not real imperfections and poetical contradictions in themselves. ”

“ Why should he reproduce her imperfections in an imperfect form, when he has the ability to change that imperfection into perfection? If you think of this assertion as changed into an elemental feeling you will understand why I feel a sense of distress towards much that you call art. ”

“ If Nonsense, when accompanied with such an Emotion of Voice and Body, has such an Influence on Men's Minds, what might we not expect from many of those Admirable Discourses which are printed in our Tongue, were they delivered with a becoming Fervour, and with the most agreeable Graces of Voice and Gesture? ”

“ At the same time this very imperfection of speech, and the struggle of primitive thought to express itself in language sometimes creates, as it were by accident, the very flower of strength and vividness in picturesque description, and the interpretation of emotion as the most skillful art has been unable to do. ”

“ Ah, how would it be possible for me to make known the weakness of a sense which ought to be more perfect in me than in others, a sense which I once possessed in the greatest perfection, in a perfection certainly beyond most of my profession. ”

“ The Perfect Tense declares a thing to have been done at some time, though an indefinite one, antecedent to the present time. That, however, which the Perfect Tense represents as done, is completely, or, as we say of John Bull, when he is humbugged by the thimble-rig people, regularly done ”

“ There never was a greater mistake. If it is characterized by any peculiarity more than another, it is the brevity and condensation of the language, the energy of the expressions, and the force with which the most vehement passions, and strongest emotions of the heart are conveyed in the simplest words. So brief is the expression, so frequent the breaks and interjections, that the rhythm and verse are frequently, and for a long period, forgotten. ”

“ At certain moments, words are nothing; it is the tone in which they are uttered. ”

“ She sat down tense, and read the sentence through. There is a dangerous looseness in the fabric of our minds. She imagined the words spoken, looseness was ugly, making the mouth ugly in speech. There is a looseness in the fabric of our minds. ”

“ Let us be characteristic in tone even to the point of foolishness! If by means of tones we allow plenty of scope for guessing, this will be put to the credit of our intellects. Let us irritate nerves, let us strike them dead: let us handle thunder and lightning,—that is what overthrows.... ”

“ In the justifying of the paradox, in the extricating of the real truth from the apparent falsehood of the statement, in the answer to the appeal made here to the imagination,—an appeal and challenge which, unless it be responded to, the proverb must remain unintelligible to us,—in all this there is a process of mental activity, oftentimes so rapidly exercised as scarcely to be perceptible, yet not the less carried on with a pleasurable excitement. ”

“ The effusions of inward feeling, frequently most pathetic in expression, and the descriptions of external nature, of mirrorlike fidelity, are alike admirable, and often transcendently beautiful. The weak parts are the expressions of political and ecclesiastical antipathies, mere splenetic outbursts alike devoid of veracity and of dignity ; and a few mystical pieces in which, endeavouring to express things incapable of expression, the poet has only accumulated glittering but frigid conceits. ”

“ A look or tone often sheds more light upon character or intent than a flood of words could do. Humour, banter, irony, are illustrations of what tone, or style, or perceived incongruity can accomplish in the way of impressing upon words a different meaning from that which they of themselves would wear. That language is impotent to express our feelings, though often, perhaps, pleaded as a form merely, is also a frequent genuine experience ”

“ But when we find him permitting his verse to interfere with the natural idiom and arrangement of his speech, we behold this exhibition reversed; the language has then gotten the upper hand of the artist, and we are made sensible of nothing but his weakness—an unpleasing object of contemplation at all times. In prose, again, this helplessness never becomes so palpably conspicuous even though the writer should be unable to direct his language perfectly straight in the paths of correct conversational idiom. ”

“ The argument against which we contend gets weaker and weaker as it proceeds—the gross misconception of the nature of poetry on which it is founded becomes more and more glaring—the paradoxes, dealt out as confidently as if they were self-evident truths, more and more repulsive alike to our feelings and our understandings. ”

“ The very same thing which, pronounced or performed without the appropriate tone, without emotion, is only an object of indifferent perception, becomes, when uttered or performed with emotion, an object of feeling. ”

“ Instead of assuming a high tone, and dealing sturdy blows to the right and left,—instead of grappling firmly with a question, and exhibiting it at once in all its bearing—he adopts a sly, insinuating, apologizing, round about manner, which deprives his style of vitality, and conveys the impression of a timid thinker. ”

“ Where nature's end of language is declin'd,
And men talk only to conceal the mind; ”

“ All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling. To be natural is to be obvious, and to be obvious is to be inartistic. ”

“ The mood of abstract, or impersonal, thought, is the best soil out of which flattery can spring. For abstract impersonal thought is wholly engaged upon a question—something entirely aside from the mere person of the party under consideration. ”

“ The one criterion, whether of good or of truth, is the feeling of the moment for the man who feels it; all question of causes of feelings is delusive. We can say with truth and certainty, I have the sensation of white or the sensation of sweet. ”

“ But what dim feeling is it, really, which so excites their wrath, and which certainly must have some weighty ground? It is scarcely to be expected that we shall ever learn it from them; hence we must try to put speech into their mouths. ”

“ This sorry plea, which reduces the distinction between sense and intellect to a mere difference of degree, and relinquishes it as an absolute difference of nature, has done no good, but much harm, by adding confusion to what before was only error. It is indeed the very plea on which the whole strength of sensualism is founded—only sensualism has the advantage in this respect, that by carrying the doctrine forth to its legitimate issue—in other words, by obliterating the distinction completely—it eliminates the confusion, retaining only the error. ”

“ Never endeavor to supply the tone which you think proper for certain sentences. It is as if a man whose mind was at ease should supply the tones and gestures for a man in distress who found only the words. ”

“ The awful thing about nonsense verse is the very fine line that divides a masterpiece from utter drivel. Nonsense verse is very good or very bad. When it plays along the edges it is very pleasing but when it oversteps it becomes rot. ”

“ And if what remains seems to be resolved into empty words, with sound and without sense, let no one find fault, seeing that in most of what he says, so far as any sane meaning is concerned, he is feeble and untutored. ”

“ It is the tone of voice in which a thought is uttered that gives the thought its power for good or evil, for pleasure or for pain, for success or failure. Words spoken in one manner will be devoid of meaning; spoken in another, they will be illumined with the light of reason. Words that are spoken as words will remain nothing but words, but those that are spoken as thoughts will disappear as words, and the ideas will step forward and be seen in the expressive countenance and heard in the tones of the voice. ”

“ It is surprising (talking of E——) how instantaneously, and by what subtle, indescribable means, certain qualities of individual natures make themselves felt—refinement, imagination, poetical sensibility. People's voices, looks, and gestures betray these so unconsciously; and I think more by the manner, a great deal, than the matter of their speech. Refinement, particularly, is a wonderfully subtle, penetrating element; nothing is so positive in its effect, and nothing so completely escapes analysis and defies description. ”

“ It was only that they had found words too blundering a vehicle to express emotions so strong and complex. But where the tongue fails, the glance of the eye and the pressure of a hand says in a moment what many words only darken and confuse. ”

“ We honour the silent, the cold, the noble, the far, the past, everything, in fact, at the sight of which the soul is not bound to brace itself up and defend itself—something with which one can speak without speaking aloud. Just listen now to the tone a spirit has when it speaks; every spirit has its own tone and loves its own tone. That thing yonder, for instance, is bound to be an agitator, that is, a hollow head, a hollow mug: whatever may go into him, everything comes back from him dull and thick, heavy with the echo of the great void. ”

“ Violations of simplicity, whatever the type, show either that the mind of the writer is tainted with affectation, or else that an effort is making to conceal conscious poverty of sentiment under loftiness of expression. ”

“ You cannot express in words, even the most purely instinctive, half-conscious feeling, without placing that dumb and blind emotion in the lucid, balanced relations which thought has given to words; indeed, words rarely, if ever, reproduce emotion as it is, but instead, emotion as it is instinctively conceived, in its setting of cause and effect. ”

“ Composition, particularly poetry, is devilish hard for me—I admit it—and when I think of how I toiled over my substitutes for your ruined stuff, and see how very ungrateful you are, I grudge the effort. ”

“ But the very same extravagances and showy paradoxes, when caught up by inferior spirits, presently lose their garb, not only of beauty, but of decency, and show themselves in the unpleasing bareness of error. ”

“ His comments on the use of obscene words are interesting in view of the general practice of his time and, indeed, upon occasion, of his own practice. Certain words are obscene because they represent obscene things; others because they are twisted from their harmless meanings. ”

“ Like the feline fire, it is destructive, always consuming and reducing to the ecstasy of sensation, which is the end in itself.
There is the I, always the I. And the mind is submerged, overcome. But the senses are superbly arrogant. The senses are the absolute, the god-like. For I can never have another man's senses. ”

“ The mistakes, therefore, are many, but even by mistakes the soul learns to distinguish the true from the false. But how is it to be taught to appreciate that one voice only in all that confusion of strange sounds should be heeded, and all the rest disregarded? ”

“ The passion of such times, the all-fusing imagination, will at once suggest and justify audacities in speech, upon which in calmer moods he would not have ventured, or, venturing, would have failed to carry others with him: for it is only the fluent metal that runs easily into novel shapes and moulds. ”

“ The platitudes of mere sentimentalism, when put into cold print, are not stimulating to the imagination; moods and states of feeling often approaching the morbid, their oral expression needs the reenforcement of voice, tone, countenance, the whole attitude. They are for this reason most difficult of translation and when rendered literally into a foreign speech often become meaningless. ”

“ Recognising thus that to carry through the individual pretension is at the best a battle, he adored a hard surface and detested a soft one—much more a muddled; regarded a style without rhythm and harmony as in a work of pretended beauty no style at all. He considered that the failure of complete expression so registered made of the work of pretended beauty a work of achieved barbarity. ”