On Quantitative Metre 333another factor, the weight-length; it may even be said that all
quantity in English is determined by weight, all syllables that
bear the weight of the voice are long, all over which the voice
passes lightly are short. But the voice-weight on a vowel is
determined in three different ways. There is a dwelling of the
voice, a horizontal weight-bar laid across the syllable, or there
is its rapid passing, an absence of the weight-bar: that difference
decides its natural length, it creates the inherent or intrinsic
long or short,la
_
zı ̆ly ̆,swee_
tne ̆ss. There is, again, a vertical ictus
weight of the voice, the hammer-stroke of stress on the syllable;
that of itself makes even a short-vowel syllable metrically long,
as inhea
⊥
vı ̆ly ̆,a ̆rı⊥
dı ̆ty ̆,cha⊥
nne ̆l,^5 ca ̆na⊥
l; the short-vowel syllables
that have not the lengthening ictus or vertical weight and have
not, either, the horizontal weight of the voice upon them remain
light and therefore short. It is evident that these words are
respectively a natural dactyl, second paeon, trochee, iamb, yet
all their syllables are short, apart from the stress; but what
true rhythm or metre could treat as other than long these
stressed short-vowel syllables? In the words,na
⊥
rra_
tı ̆ve,ma⊥
n-
ea
_
te ̆r, bru_
ta⊥
lı ̆ty ̆, co ̆nte⊥
mpla_
tı ̆ve, ı ̆nca⊥
rna_
te, we see this triple
power of length at work within one word, — weight-bar long
syllables stressed or unstressed, hammer-stroke-weighted short-
vowel longs, natural unweighted short syllables. It is clear that
there can be no true reduction of stressed or unstressed or
of intrinsic long or short to a sole one-kind principle; both
stress and vowel length work together to make a complex but
harmonious system of quantity. But, yet again, there is a third
factor of length-determination; there is consonantal weight, a
lingering or retardation of the voice compelled by a load of
consonants, or there is a free unencumbered light movement.
This distinction creates the positionally long syllable, short by
its vowel but lengthened by its consonants,stre
_
ngth,swı_
ft,
a
_
bstra_
ct; where there is no such weight or no sufficient weight(^5) The double consonant here, as in other words likehappy,tell, can make no difference
even in the classicist theory, because it is a mere matter of spelling and represents a single,
not a double sound, — the sound is the same as inpa⊥ne ̆l.