Chapter 41: Agitated Rhythms

And nothing makes so much for pettiness in sublime things as a perverted and agitated rhythm in speeches and writings, such as that which pyrrhics and trochees and dichorees produces, falling out finally in a dance rhythm. You see, all that is over-rhythmical appears cute and of a petty grace and most lacking in emotion, superficially popular because of its consistency; 2. and the worst of it is that just as little odes drag the audience away from the content and force their audience’s attention on themselves, so those things spoken over-rhythmically present to the hearers not the emotion of the speech and writing, but the rhythm, so that since they know beforehand what cadences are coming, they keep time with those speaking—and, anticipating the beat, produce it ahead of time—as if in a kind of chorus. 3. And similarly, what lies too close together and is syncopated into petty brief syllables also lacking in greatness and, as it were, bound together by dowels along their staccato harshness.