I. 2. 3. 4. NOTES Each of the three titles, the Sword, the Tongue, the Pen, might fairly retain the capital initial letter throughout the Essay. See Essay on "Discipline," Note 1. Why so much about the eighteenth century? Because the eighteenth century was fertile in great orators, and they are our English Classics. What Demosthenes was to Greece, what Cicero was to Rome, that are Chatham and Fox and Burke and Sheridan and the younger Pitt to England. A few poor fragments of their eloquence remain: sufficient only, did we not know them to be inadequate and inaccurate, to excite our wonder at the contemporary effect which they produced. It is substantially correct to say that their oratory has vanished altogether; whereas you will find Mr Gladstone's speeches fully reported in the back numbers of the Times. Notice the cumulative effect of the string of short sentences separated by semi-colons. It gives the impression, which precisely it is your aim to convey, of a single organism with a vast and orderly variety of operations. The allusion is to Plato's "Republic" and Aristotle's "Politics." See Seeley's "Political Science": also Essay IX., Note 14. WORDS AND PHRASES facile, a useful word borrowed from the French. "Habile" is a similar word, not yet established in our language, which would be a convenient addition to our vocabulary. official bureau. The word " 'bureau," French, of course, suggests the excessive interference of the State and its officials with the details of civil conduct, characteristic of continental govern ments. COMMENT This subject requires more power of thought, more knowledge of history, and wider observation of contemporary phenomena, than any that has preceded it. There are generalisations, too, in the second, third and fourth paragraphs, for instance, which are beyond the scope of the beginner. Still, the beginner may make good use of this Essay. Let him read it; and then try to reproduce it. He will probably succeed in assimilating some of the ideas in it, at any rate. PART III § 1. METAPHOR THE object of the writer is to carry conviction to the mind of the reader, to arrest his attention, to place vividly before him what it is desired to express. Of all means for this purpose, Metaphor is the most potent. It can be employed in every degree of intensity or subtlety; it may be bold and striking or it may be present without conscious detection; it may be popular or recondite, obvious or abstruse. To attempt to give rules for the employment of this exuberant agent would be to attempt to bind Proteus. The highest flights of Metaphor belong to the province of Genius, and one does not aspire to teach the eagle how to use his wings. But the range of Metaphor is so wide that much of it comes within the scope of a few cautions, at any rate, for the prevention of accidents. Metaphor is the representation of one thing by means of another. It is used, for instance, to express something unfamiliar by means of something familiar; or to give a favourable or unfavourable impression with regard to what is described; or to convey a concise description in the fewest possible words. Take, for instance, the metaphors derived from metals, which are extremely numerous and popular. A grey sky with heavy clouds and an oppressive atmosphere is described as a leaden sky. It is not made of lead; but lead is a metal with whose properties we are all familiar, and its properties are heaviness and a dull grey colour, while it is an uninteresting substance not adapted for pleasant and gracious uses. Again, you speak of a woman's yellow hair as golden. It is not made of gold; but it is of the same colour, and it is bright and beautiful, and you further imply that it is a precious ornament and a thing to be admired and taken care of. Metaphors taken from the precious metals are used enor 130 mously, especially by poets, who would find it very difficult to get along without their assistance. "The streamlet came from the mountain, As sang the poets of old, And there is usually a handsome amount of silver in the description of a moon-lit or star-lit night. Flowers are not used for metaphors so much as for similes; and they are used chiefly in poetry, where things delicate and beautiful are in their proper place. The difference between a metaphor and a simile is, of course, that a simile is introduced by the words "like" or "as," and the writer goes out of his way to invite the reader's attention to an elaborate comparison of one thing with another. The veluti quum which periodically meets us in Vergil will occur at once to the Classical student. 66 -sensit medios delapsus in hostes. From the elaborate character and ostentatious prominence of these similes, it is evident that Vergil considered them to be brilliant exhibitions of poetic genius; but however leniently it may be regarded in Classical poetry, such obvious striving after effect is out of place in modern prose. In fact, Simile is a literary artifice of which only a very sparing and cautious use can be safely made; and which an inexperienced writer will do well to eschew altogether. An apt simile is difficult to find and still more difficult to work out. The analogy has an awkward trick of giving way at a critical point, and precipitating its unfortunate author into a disastrous loss of time, trouble and temper. An apt simile, on the other hand, if it is not too long or elaborate, is, like the one in the opening paragraph of the first of the Essays in this book, an effective literary device. The difference between a metaphor and a simile is perfectly exhibited by the two following quotations from Tennyson, in the first of which the word "flower" is employed as a metaphor, while in the second it is used as a simile. In the Dedication of the "Idylls of the King" to the memory of the Prince Consort, the poet speaks of the Prince as "Wearing the white flower of a blameless life." In the conclusion of "In Memoriam occurs the verse “And thou art worthy, full of power; It is impossible, of course, to prescribe the sources from which you should draw your metaphors. It depends upon individual knowledge. You have a far wider range than the Classical writers or even than Milton and Shakspeare. Science, astronomy, physical geography, chemistry, electricity, music, are open to you. Here a caution may be usefully interpolated. Your metaphors must not be drawn from a subject so abstruse as to be wholly unintelligible to the general reader. On the other hand, of course, they must not be utterly trite and threadbare. If, for instance, you take a metaphor from the Differential Calculus, the audience to whom you address your allusion will be distinctly limited. It is a striking proof of the popularity during recent years of the study of chemistry that metaphors from that science are freely used by modern writers. Perhaps there is no book so well worth studying in the present connection, as well as for its own sake, as Doctor Oliver Wendell Holmes' Autocrat of the Breakfast Table." The variety and precision of its metaphors and similes constitute a remarkable manifestation of the play of fancy over solid knowledge and the illumination of erudition by graceful wit. But from whatever source you draw your metaphors, remember, with all your mind, that they must not be mixed. A mixed metaphor would ruin the best Essay that ever was penned. Mixture of metaphor has always a peculiarly irritating |