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THE HESPERIAN
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Ruvino Valley, valo
Agreoable Pleasant, acquiesant
Smell Scant, aroma, odor
Nice Pleasant
IIouso Domicile, abode
Darkness Night
Mr. Peterson illustrates his idea in the
following lino:
"Dawn in thy garden with the faintest
sound" and sots out as poetic words, dawn,
thy, garden, faintest, sound; but is unfor
tunate enough to substitute as prose equiva
lents yard for garden and inaudible noise
for faintest sound, none of which are in any
sense synonyms. The student is now asked
"how much of the feeling is left?" Woll
not much. Let us now try a few stanzas
in which are found Mr. Peterson's "prose
words."
"Now rings the wood and loud and long,
The distanco takes a holier hue,
And drowned in yonder living blue,
The lark becomes a sightless song."
What would you substitute for blue and
how would it sound ? Try another:
':Wo have but faith; we cannot know;
For knowledge is of things wo see;
And yet wo trust it comes from thee,
A beam in darkness lot it grow."
u
Tis darkness beautiful with thee."
"Dark house by which once more I stand,
Hero in the long lovely street,
Doors, where my heart was usod to beat
So quickly waiting for a hand."
"Cold in that atmosphere of death."
"Or like to noiseless phantoms Hit."
A spectral doubt which makes mo cold."
"Is cold to all that might have been."
." The Btudent will probably wonder why
Lqrci Tennyson failed to think of the more
"poetic words," mansion, portal, chilly,
eto:r,
To insure consistency all of the above ex
amples are taken from "In Momoriam."
They partially show how untenable is the
thoory that any, word is proso or pootic ox
oopt by tho caprico of the composer. In the
above poem all tho designated proso words
are usod ropeatodly.
In tho construction of a chart by which
this Kepler law of poetry is mado clear the
student is gravely cautioned to get tho
smaller subdivisions exactly squaro. The
reasons for this aro not made plain but it is
to bo presumed that upon tho accomplish
ment of this font success largely depends.
However, the system needs perfecting
and when by numerous experiments a sym
metrical line of "poetic emotion" has been
laid upon this chart its value as a gunge for
tho accurate production of poetry will be
doubly enhanced to tho tyro rhymstor.
New fields will bo opened to the Btudent
of literature as he wanders through hitherto
obscure passages absorbing the thought by
means of curves and per cont marks instead
of by tho laborious method of trying to
understand.
Its universality of application will no
doubt insure its speedy introduction to other
arts, for instance, music.
Who knows but that by a simple plan of
numbering the tones of tho scalo with an in
geniously devised chart to bo used in connec
tion therewith, wo may retain in cold per
cent the quantity of emotion to bo found in
Tanhausor or Shuberts' Serenade.
Awaiting tho publication of a list of pootic
words, however, it is more than likely that
many readers of Mr. Peterson's article will
be slow to adopt the plan of studying poetry
sot forth, seeing that with present facilities
for selecting pootic words tho rosults lack
that certainty which is so satisfactory in
mathematical calculation and atford no aid
whatever in the study of English literature.
0. Yont.
Street Car Conductor How old are you, my
little girl ?
Little Boston Girl If the corporation does not
object, I prefer to pay full fare and keep my own
statistics. Ex.
