Collected works > Edinburgh edition, 1894-98 - Works of Robert Louis Stevenson > Volume 11, 1895 - Miscellanies, Volume III

TECHNICAL ELEMENTS OF STYLE
sidiaiy m, which again was announced in Hne two.
I stop from weariness, for more might yet be said.
My next example was recently quoted from
Shakespeare as an example of the poet's colour sense.
Now, I do not think literature has anything to do
with colour, or poets anyway the better of such a
sense ; and I instantly attacked this passage, since
' purple ' was the word that had so pleased the writer
of the article, to see if there might not be some
Hterary reason for its use. It will be seen that I
succeeded amply ; and I am bound to say I think
the passage exceptional in Shakespeare — exceptional,
indeed, in literature ; but it was not I who chose it.
' The BaRge she sat iN, like a BURNished throNe
BuRNt ON the water : the poop was BeateN gold,
PuRple the sails and so PUR*Fumed that *per
The wiNds were lovesick with them.^
It may be asked why I have put the f of perfumed
in capitals ; and I reply, because this change from p
to F is the completion of that from b to p, already so
adroitly carried out. Indeed, the whole passage is a
monument of curious ingenuity ; and it seems scarce
worth while to indicate the subsidiary s, l and w.
In the same article, a second passage from Shake-
speare was quoted, once again as an example of his
colour sense :
' A mole cinque-spotted like the crimson drops
I' the bottom of a cowslip.' ^
It is very curious, very artificial, and not worth
^ Antony and Cleopatra, 2 Cymbeline.
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