“I now turn to a *subjective* consideration that belongs here yet I can give even less distinctness to it than to the objective consideration just discussed, for I shall be able to express it only by image and simile. The World as Will and Representation, Vol. But that it further contains a meaning, expresses a thought, presents itself now as an unexpected addition, like words to music - as an unexpected present which agreeably surprises us - and therefore, since we made no demands of this kind, very easily satisfies us and if indeed this thought is such that, in itself, thus said in prose, it would be significant, then we are enchanted.” To please the ear with its sound seems to be its whole end, and therefore with this everything seems to be attained and all claims satisfied. I explain it to myself in the following manner: That which is given directly to the sense of hearing, thus the mere sound of the words, receives from rhythm and rhyme a certain completeness and significance in itself for it thereby becomes a kind of music therefore it seems now to exist for its own sake, and no longer as a mere means, mere signs of something signified, the sense of the words.
“Now it is very striking, and well worth investigating, that such trifling, nay, apparently childish, means as metre and rhyme produce so powerful an effect.
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