XLIII

The use of mean words has also a strong tendency to degrade a lofty
passage. Thus in that description of the storm in Herodotus the matter
is admirable, but some of the words admitted are beneath the dignity of
the subject; such, perhaps, as “the seas having _seethed_” because the
ill-sounding phrase “having seethed” detracts much from its
impressiveness: or when he says “the wind wore away,” and “those who
clung round the wreck met with an unwelcome end.”[1] “Wore away” is
ignoble and vulgar, and “unwelcome” inadequate to the extent of the
disaster.

[Footnote 1: Hdt. vii. 188, 191, 13.]

2
Similarly Theopompus, after giving a fine picture of the Persian king’s
descent against Egypt, has exposed the whole to censure by certain
paltry expressions. “There was no city, no people of Asia, which did not
send an embassy to the king; no product of the earth, no work of art,
whether beautiful or precious, which was not among the gifts brought to
him. Many and costly were the hangings and robes, some purple, some
embroidered, some white; many the tents, of cloth of gold, furnished
with all things useful; many the tapestries and couches of great price.
Moreover, there was gold and silver plate richly wrought, goblets and
bowls, some of which might be seen studded with gems, and others besides
worked in relief with great skill and at vast expense. Besides these
there were suits of armour in number past computation, partly Greek,
partly foreign, endless trains of baggage animals and fat cattle for
slaughter, many bushels of spices, many panniers and sacks and sheets of
writing-paper; and all other necessaries in the same proportion. And