of the sestet should be entirely distinct in intonation from those of the octave. Thus (1) no octave should be based on a monotonous system of nominally distinct rhymes, such as seafuturity-eternity-be-flee-adversity—inevit ably-free. V. It must have no slovenliness of diction, no weak or indeterminate terminations, no vagueness of conception, and no obscurity. VI. It must be absolutely complete in itself-i.e., It must be the evolution of one thought, or one emotion, or one poetically-apprehended fact. VII. It should have the characteristic of apparent inevitableness, and in expression be ample, yet reticent. It must not be forgotten that dignity and repose are essential qualities of a true sonnet. VIII. The continuity of the thought, idea, or emotion must be unbroken throughout. IX. Continuous sonority must be maintained from the first phrase to the last. X. The end must be more impressive than the commencement-the close must not be inferior to, but must rather transcend what has gone before. If these rules are adequately fulfilled or avoided, as the case may be, there will be every chance of the sonnet being a super-excellent one. But there must be no mere music, no mere sonority, no fourteen-line descriptions of aspects of nature in the manner of Wordsworth in his Duddon-sonnets, for example. Beneath the intermingling lights of apt simile and imaginative metaphor, beneath the melody of vowels and words melting into the melody of the line, and the harmony of the due proportion of the lines themselves from first to last, there must lie, clear and undisturbed by its environment, the dominating motive-the idea, the thought, the emotion: even as the most delicate sea-shell rests enshrined in its serene depths while above it is the complex movement of ever-shifting light and the continual flux and resurge of swaying water. I write these last words not far from the sombre shadow of Ben Ledi-the Hill of God, as the name signifies sombre notwithstanding the white garment of snow in which it is enveloped. The stream flowing far beneath it is apparently one sheet of dark ice not a familiar object is in view, and nothing is audible save the occasional snapping of a frost-bitten branch, or that strangest of all sounds, the north-wind unruffling the snow-drifts on the upper hill-slopes; not a living thing is visible, though far up, on a vast expanse of unbroken white, a tiny blue-black shadow moves like a sweeping scimitar, and I know that an eagle is passing from peak to lonely peak. Away for a brief space-from the turmoil and many conflicting interests of the great city, 'mother of joys and woes,' I realise the more clearly how much more beautiful and reposeful and stimulative Nature is than any imitation of her, how much greater Life than its noblest artistic manifestation. I realise, also, how true it is that the sincerest poetic function-for sonneteer as for lyrist or epicist-is not the creation of what is strange or fanciful, but the imaginative interpretation of what is familiar, so that a thing is made new to us in the words of an eininent critic, Mr. Leslie Stephen, 'the highest triumph of style is to say what everybody has been thinking in such a way as to make it new.' Here, also, in this soothing solitude, this dignified, this majestic silence, it seems as if all that is morbid and unreal and merely fanciful were indeed petty enough, and that perfect sanity of mind is as essential to the creation of any great and lasting mental product as perfect robustness to the due performance of any prolonged and fatiguing physical endurance. In the words of the writer just quoted, the highest poetry, like the noblest morality, is the product of a thoroughly healthy mind. January 1886. WILLIAM SHARP. f |