Like
each of them, it is an idealization of the natural language of
strong emotion, which is known to be more or less metrical if the
emotion be not too violent; and like each of them it is an economy
of the reader's or hearer's attention. In the peculiar tone and
manner we adopt in uttering versified language, may be discerned its
relationship to the feelings; and the pleasure which its measured
movement gives us, is ascribable to the comparative ease with which
words metrically arranged can be recognized.
55. This last position will scarcely be at once admitted; but
a little explanation will show its reasonableness. For if, as we
have seen, there is an expenditure of mental energy in the mere act
of listening to verbal articulations, or in that silent repetition
of them which goes on in reading--if the perceptive faculties must
be in active exercise to identify every syllable -then, any mode
of so combining words as to present a regular recurrence of certain
traits which the mind can anticipate, will diminish that strain
upon the attention required by the total irregularity of prose.
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