Page:On translating Homer. Last words. A lecture given at Oxford.djvu/68

Rh beautiful and valuable) from the real quality. The real quality it calls simplicité, the semblance simplesse. The one is natural simplicity, the other is artificial simplicity. What is called simplicity in the productions of a genius essentially not simple, is in truth simplesse. The two are distinguishable from one another the moment they appear in company. For instance, let us take the opening of the narrative in Wordsworth’s Michael:

Now let us take the opening of the narrative in Mr. Tennyson’s Dora:

The simplicity of the first of these passages is simplicité; that of the second, simplesse. Let us take the end of the same two poems; first, of Michael:–