And the maidens earnestly listened,
Till at last we spoke no more:
The ship like a shadow had vanished,
And darkness fell deep on the shore.

-The Fisher's Cottage: Tr. by C. G. Leland.

This is all that there is to the poem; yet, after reading it, we could sit and muse for hours, as we could before a painting, recalling what people talk about under such circumstances, how little things make imagination wander off to the ends of the earth,—and of how little account it all is when the wandering is over.

Here, too, is another lyric, a celebrated one, and of the most effective type; yet it contains nothing but direct representation:

Break, break, break,

On thy cold, gray stones, oh Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.

O well for the fisherman's boy

That he shouts with his sister at play !

O well for the sailor lad,

That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on

To their haven under the hill;

But oh for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break,

At the foot of the crags, oh Sea!

But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.

Notice these also:

-Break, Break, Break: Tennyson.

Each on his own strict line we move,
And some find death ere they find love;
So far apart their lives are thrown
From the twin soul that halves their own.

The following also may be classed as direct representation. It is humorous, too, for the very reason that it is direct, confessing to a kind of pride very common, but very seldom recognized to be irrational and absurd, because not expressed in such a straightforward, unequivocal way.

He is an Englishman,

For he himself has said it,
And it's greatly to his credit

That he is an Englishman.

For he might have been a Roosian,
A French, or Turk, or Proosian,

Or perhaps Ital-i-an;

But in spite of all temptations
To belong to other nations,
He remains an Englishman.

-Pinafore, 2: Gilbert.

Probably

Much of Gilbert's fun is of this same sort. many an old maid has had thoughts like the following; but ordinarily, if not ashamed of them, she is too bashful to acknowledge them. They appear ridiculous only when bawled out at the top of the voice of a stalwart contralto into the ears of hundreds.

Sad is the woman's lot who, year by year,
Sees one by one her beauties disappear.

Silvered is the raven hair,

Spreading is the parting straight,

Mottled the complexion fair,

Halting is the youthful gait,

Hollow is the laughter free,
Spectacled the limpid eye;
Little will be left of me

In the coming by and by.

Fading is the taper waist,

Shapeless grows the shapely limb,
And, although severely laced,
Spreading is the figure trim;
Stouter than I used to be,

Still more corpulent grow I,
There will be too much of me

In the coming by and by.

-Patience, 2: Gilbert.

Those whose attention has never been directed to the fact, will be surprised upon examination to find how many poems contain nothing but this direct representation. Among them can be included almost all those that in the true sense of the term are ballads, like Scott's "Lochinvar," and its models in Percy's Reliques. Not only so, but as this form of representation may reproduce that which may be supposed to have been heard or said, as well as seen or done, in this class may be included a large number of

more reflective poems, like Tennyson's May Queen, and Northern Farmer. It must be borne in mind, however, that when this style is used there is special need that the ideas to be expressed be picturesque in themselves, or else concentrations in concrete form illustrating much poetic truth that is generic and universal in its applicability. For poems fulfilling perfectly the first condition, notice Kingsley's Three Fishers, and O Mary Go and Call the Cattle Home, quoted in Chapter Twenty-seventh of this work. For a poem fulfilling the second, Burns' Address to the Louse on a Lady's Bonnet, is as good as any. He ends that, as will be remembered, passing, however, in order to do it, from pure into alloyed representation, in this way:

O wad some power the giftie gi'e us

To see oursels as ithers see us!

It wad frae monie a blunder free us
And foolish notion :

What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,

And e'en devotion !

When either condition just mentioned is fulfilled, the conception itself is representative, and often all that is V needed, for the highest poetry is a literal and therefore a

direct statement of that which is perceived in consciousness. But this fact, in connection with further examples of direct representation, will be considered hereafter.

CHAPTER XXI.

PURE INDIRECT OR ILLUSTRATIVE REPRESENTATION.

Illustrative in Connection with Direct Representation enables a writer to express almost any Phase of Thought representatively or poetically— Examples-Representation, if Direct, must communicate mainly what can be seen or heard-Inward Mental Processes can be pictured outwardly and materially only by Indirect Representation-Examples of this Fact from Longfellow-From Arnold-From Whittier- From Smith-From Tennyson, Aldrich, and Bryant-Two Motives in using Language, corresponding respectively to those underlying Discoursive and Dramatic Elocution, namely, that tending to the Expression of what is within the Mind, and that tending to the Description of what is without the Mind-Examples from Longfellow of Poetry giving Form to these two different Motives-Careful Analysis might give us here, besides Indirect or Figurative Representation used for the purpose of Expression, the same used for the purpose of Description, but as in Rhetoric and Practice Expressional and Descriptive Illustration follow the same Laws, both will be treated as Illustrative Representation-Similes, ancient and modern-From Homer-From Morris-From Milton-From Shakespear-From Moore-From Kingsley-Metaphors, ancient and modern-Used in Cases of ExcitationExamples.

LET us pass on now to the illustrative forms of pure representation. The plain language used in direct representation is a development, as has been said, of the instinctive modes of expression, primarily exemplified in ejaculatory sounds; and figurative language, now to be considered, springs from the reflective modes primarily exemplified in imitative sounds. Behind imitation (see page 8) there is always an intellectual purpose, a plan, a desire to