Page:On the Sublime 1890.djvu/111

XXXIX embraces, gains a complete mastery over our minds? It would be mere infatuation to join issue on truths so universally acknowledged, and established by experience beyond dispute.

Now to give an instance: that is doubtless a sublime thought, indeed wonderfully fine, which Demosthenes applies to his decree: "This decree caused the danger which then hung round our city to pass away like a cloud." But the modulation is as perfect as the sentiment itself is weighty. It is uttered wholly in the dactylic measure, the noblest and most magnificent of all measures, and hence forming the chief constituent in the finest metre we know, the heroic. [And it is with great judgment that the words are reserved till the end. ] Supposing we transpose them from their proper place and read, say —nay, let us merely cut off one syllable, reading —and you will understand how close is the unison between harmony and sublimity. In the passage before us the words move first in a heavy measure, which is metrically equivalent to four short syllables  but on removing