their very greatness, the father and the son meet in
battle, and only recognize each other when Sohrab is
lying mortally wounded. It is one of those terrible
situations which only the very highest power of poetry
can dwell upon successfully. If the right chord be not
touched to the exactest nicety, if the shock of the
incident in itself be not melted into pathos, and the
nobleness of soul in the two sufferers be not made to
rise above the cruel accident which crushes them, we
cannot listen to the poet. The story overwhelms and
absorbs us; we desire to be left alone with it and with
our own feelings, and his words about it become officious
and intrusive. Homer has furnished Mr. Arnold with
his model, and has taught him the great lesson that the
language on such occasions cannot be too simple and the
style too little ornamented. Perhaps it may be thought
that he has followed Homer's manner even too closely.
No one who has read "Mycerinus" and the "Forsaken
Metman" can doubt that Mr. Arnold can write richly
if he pleases. It is a little startling, therefore, to find
the opening of this poem simpler than one would make
it, even if telling it in prose to a child. As in the
"Iliad," the same words are repeated over and over
again for the same idea, without variation or attempt
at it; and although it may easily be that our taste is
spoiled by the high seasoning of the modern style, the
result is that it strikes the attention to an extent which
would have been better avoided. A perfect style does
not strike at all, and it is a matter in which the reader
ought to be considered even more than the abstract