broad way as inclusive of all forms of psychic participation is
certainly a vital factor in enjoyment.

In literature, individual variations in the relation of self to
the story or drama are exceedingly diverse. They range from
curious self-visualizations or other forms of explicit self-
projection to emotional identifications or detached and almost
selfless objectifications. It is, relatively, a simple matter
identifying the self-responses in reading literature. We have
here, therefore, a profitable method of studying differences in
the forms which literary empathy may take and a chance to
compare such experiences with empathy in the visual arts
where this phenomenon was first noted.

Sterzinger in his valuable experimental study of the
moments of æsthetic enjoyment concludes that empathy
(Einfühlung) is of relatively less significance than substitution
of meaning (Unterschiebung) as it occurs in the metaphorical
consciousness. ¹ Those among his subjects who were unable
to achieve substitution even under instruction were, Sterzinger
asserts, noticeably matter-of-fact and prosaic in temperament.
By means of his conception of substitution, Sterzinger is able
to explain the effect of literary synæsthesia, and the quality
of dreamlikeness that is so pronounced a feature in the
enjoyment of poetry by certain subjects.

Difficult, indeed, do readers find it to determine and
phrase the precise feature in the æsthetic situation that gives
certain of them a wonderful sense of infinite life, what they
describe as the cosmic emotion. Dreamlikeness, atmosphere,
richness and fluidity of suggestion, vagabondage of fancy,
they exhaust their vocabulary striving to find the phrase of
precision that can convey the mystery and stir of suggestion
latent in Poe's lines: --

"Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven
That rustle through the unquiet heaven --
Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees
That palpitate like the chill seas
Around the misty Hebrides!"

There are those for whom poetic enjoyment and the mystic
experience are one.

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