OVER-EMPR A SLS T HE August number of the Idler contains
an ingenious little article on over-emphasis. The writer, Mr. Nisbet, makes the text of his discourse the five-line whip which is issued to
Members of Parliament by both sides. If, he points out, a Member of Parliament wants to entreat a friend to take part
in some business transaction, he would have no difficulty in doing so adequately by means of the ordinary forms of speech. "Urgent," or "very urgent," would cover the most imperative cases. "Summoned in such terms to a division in the House, however, this same Member of Parliament would treat the communication as naught—it would fail to excite the smallest sensation in his official epidermis—the fact being that the language of the official whip has been over-emphasised until it has lost nine-tenths of its natural meaning. At some period in the early history of representative institutions the word 'urgent' was no doubt used by the party fugleman in its popular sense. But just as the boy in the fable cried 'Wolf' too often, so the whipper must have used language from time to time in advance of his necessities. The most urgent' occasion would prove not to be so urgent after all, and this the whipped would speedily discover. Some further means would then have to be invented of arousing the interest of the Member addressed. What more natural than that the vital words of the whip should be underlined ? This device in turn would be abused; whence by easy stages would be reached the two, three, four, and five line whip." But, as Mr. Nisbet points out, even the five-line whip is not emphatic enough. "We have begun to hear of the six-line whip, and once or twice in the last Parliament I understand the underscoring was done in red ink with a view to produce a still deeper note. The six-line whip in red ink is therefore, I take it, the neat definite step to be taken in this downward path of over-emphasis. Bat the next, and the next ? Evi- dently bottom must be touched somewhere." That is a perfectly sound reflection. As there is a limit to the emphasis to be got out of human language, there comes a point when emphatic language ceases to be emphatic, and only the bald statement is capable of attracting attention. The situation is analogous to what happened to the .Assignats during the French Revolution. The first result of the issue of a paper currency was to drive the gold out of circulation, and to depreciate the face-value of the notes. But the process did not stop there. The more money the printing-presses produced the less its value, till at last the Assignats were not worth the paper they were printed on, and came to have no value whatever. At that point the use of gold and silver as money was spontaneously revived. So with emphatic lan- guage. People pile up epithets or underscore their words till a plain "I thank you" becomes the highest expression of gratitude which it is possible to devise.
Bat over-emphasis is not confined to Parliamentary notices. In an age curious in sensation—one in which people are universally anxious to appear ready in sympathy—it invades every corner of life. In truth, this is the age of over-emphasis. We are thought half-hearted and insincere if we do not shout, and stamp, and scream, and tear our passion to tatters, whether it concerns pictures or novels, men or cities. " I hate these reptile-hearted fellows," says Brown; "clammy devils who can't bear to let themselves out, but must be always mini- mising everything, and making conditions and limitations. If they denounce a mean or wicked act, they do it so coldly that one is half inclined to think they sympathise with the criminal, while if there is a noble or generous thing to be commended, they use language without a spark of go or vigour." Yet it happens as often as not that what Brown calls making limitations and conditions is nothing of the sort, but merely a refusal to put unlimited pepper, ginger, and all other sorts of spices and flavours into the dish. The person who is denounced as reptile-hearted probably stated simply that some act was a mean one, or a noble one, and there left it. Brown would have liked him to have run over the whole gamut of invective in the one case, and of praise in the other. For example, when Mr. Taper deserts his party on a critical division, men are so demoralised with the dram.
drinking of over-emphasis, that they do not feel satisfied unless the newspapers declare that the whole history of selfishness, meanness, and duplicity must be ransacked to afford a parallel to the conduct of Mr. Taper. Again, when a Colonel or Major does something gallant when on active service, people feel that he has not been properly treated until he has been compared to Sir Henry Havelock and Horatius Codes, Moltke and the Duke of Marlborough. It is the same thing in literature. A man cannot produce a good historical study or a readable novel without those who admire him talking about Gibbon and Thackeray. To do less is to incur the reproach of jealousy and grudging,ness in the matter of praise. When we attack over-emphasis, it must be understood, however, that we are not making a plea for hedging criticism. We have no sym- pathy with the critics either of deeds or words who always play for safety, and seem to think that the only wise rule is to assume that all that is worth saying or doing has been done already, and can never be done again. We are by no means of Sir Thomas Browne's opinion when he said, "It is too late to be ambitions." Instead of objecting to criticism which is unconventional in the matter of praise or blame, and when it praises, praises fully, we approve of it most heartily. What we object to is the praise or blame, as the case may be, being over-italicised, scored under with five lines of red ink, and a large hand put to point in the margin. In other words, we like to see praise adequately bestowed, but we like it spoken, not screamed. If the critic thinks a modern sonnet as fine as anything in Milton or Wordsworth, let him say so straight out, but do not let him take the idea and emphasise it by worrying it as a dog worries a bone. There is no occasion for saying in twenty different tones of voice that a poet is a great poet, and making each tone higher and shriller than the other. To do that is only to take away from the effect intended to be produced. Here, in truth, is the great objection to over-emphasis. It defeats its own ends. "Methinks the lady doth protest too much." That is a thought that is certain to rise in men's minds when they are brought face to face with over-emphasis. Over.emphasis always suggests that there is either something insincere in the mind of the man who uses it, or else that he has a very weak case. "He wouldn't want to use such big words if he were quite sure that he was in the right."
That over-emphasis is a mistake, a perpetual calling of "Wolf," will no doubt be readily admitted. It may how- ever, with some show of reason, be asked,—What is the remedy ? The ordinary man may be excused if he says, "It is all very well to tell me not to be over-emphatic, but I can only use forms of expression as I find them. My object is to convey certain shades of meaning and not to main- tain an abstract standard of language. I am informed that Mr. Smith behaved with great kindness and generosity in a certain business transaction which affected a relation of mine, and I want, in writing to thank him, to let him see clearly how much I am touched by his conduct. If I merely write,' I am much obliged to you for your kindness to Jack,' he will probably think that I am rather annoyed than pleased by his action, and am saying the least I could out of a sense of pride,—that, in fact, I am furious at being put under an obligation. Does any one suppose that in order to keep the language pure I am going to submit to a misrepre- sentation of that kind ? Not a bit of it. I shall, of course, write to Mr. Smith,—' I do not know how to express to you the sense of your extraordinary goodness of heart and generosity to Jack. Nothing could possibly have been done more graciously or in a more friendly spirit, and I must take this opportunity of thanking you again and again.' That sort of language may sound absurd, but I should use, and even under- line, a good deal of it, because I should know that nothing less would make Mr. Smith feel what I want him to feel,—namely, Well, they really do seem to appreciate what I did for the young man.' The truth is, words are counters, and when I pay my debts in them I must pay them, not at their face- value, but at the rates at which the world in general accepts them. If some of them are so depreciated as to make it necessary to double the nominal amount, the fault is not mine, but that of my predecessors in their use." There is, of course, a good deal to be said for this line of argument, but it does not represent the whole truth. One may run a certain risk of being misanderstood owing to one's use of plain words ; but is there not almost as great a risk in the case of over-emphasis ? Mr. Smith, in the supposed instance, may be a man who hates gush. In that case the elaborate phrases will produce an impression not of sincere gratitude, but just the reverse. In reality a very little trouble will enable a man to use plain language, and yet show the warmth of feeling which he desires to show. One need not be bald because one will not yield to the tempta- tions of over-emphasis. A man may let his feelings show through the simplest language. Indeed, in the true sense, the simpler the language the more emphatic. South has put this great fact with admirable force in his sermon on plain- ness of speech. After giving certain examples of over- emphasis from the pulpit eloquence of his contemporaries, he -proceeds to point out that "these were sublimities above the rise of the Apostolic spirit." The Apostles, poor mortals, were content to take lower steps. "This was the dialect which pierced the conscience, and made the hearers cry out, Men and brethren, what shall we do ? ' " In truth, there is nothing so emphatic as simplicity, nothing so unem- phatic as over-emphasis.
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