in the old books: or the cause is put .for the effect, the sign for the thing signified, an adjunct for the principal, an instrument for the agent, or vice versa; the figure in these cases being called metonymy.1 As, however, there is no important distinction between synecdoche and metonymy, these terms serve no practical purpose and are passing out of use. The force of Tropes belonging to any of the varieties (including both synecdoche and metonymy) of this large class lies in the fact that they single out a quality of the object or a circumstance connected with it, and fix the attention upon that. The quality or the circumstance thus emphasized should, of course, be the real centre of interest. Familiar examples are: the bench, the bar, the pulpit, for "the judges on the bench," "the lawyers within the bar," "the clergymen in the pulpit; ' "horse and foot for "soldiers on horseback and on foot; " red tape for "that which uses red tape or in which it is used;" "twenty sail in the offing" for "twenty vessels with sails; "the pen is mightier than the sword" for "the agencies of peaceable civilization are stronger than those of war;' commerce whitens every sea; " keeps a good table;" "to be fortress was weakness itself; 66 "'her "he was all impatience;" "he young was very Heaven; "the a second Daniel come to judgment; 99.66 some village Hampden;" "a carpet-bag senator; 66 'go up, thou bald-head; "bringing gray hairs with sorrow to the grave." Personification. Among the most forcible Tropes are those which attribute life to the lifeless, as in the figure called Personification; or a life different from their own to the living, as when we apply to intellectual or moral qualities terms that properly belong to objects of the senses, or when we speak of objects of the senses 1 From μerá, implying change, and voμa, name. in language appropriate to the higher life of the soul. For example: 66 "Up goes my grave Impudence;"1 "the raging torrent;" 66 "the fiery steed; leaps the live thunder; "2 "a bleak north-easterly expression." 3 “The pretension is not to drive Recson from the helm, but rather to bind her by articles to steer in a particular way."8 "Armour rusting in his halls On the blood of Clifford calls; 'Quell the Scot!' exclaims the Lance- Is the longing of the Shield Tell thy name, thou trembling Field; Field of death, where'er thou be, Groan thou with our victory!"9 Forcible as it is, when properly used, Personification is dangerously easy in languages, like the English, in which there are no arbitrary mas Its dangers. culine or feminine forms; for a writer may attribute personality to an inanimate object, merely by giving it a masculine or a feminine gender. 66 To speak of a ship as she," or of the sun as "he," has long ceased to be a figure of speech. To speak of a college class, as was recently done, as "she" is ridiculous. "Gray's personifications were mere printers' devils' personifications, — persons with a capital letter, abstract qualities with a small one.' The remark is 1 Steele: The Tatler, No. 32. 3 George Eliot: Felix Holt. 5 Shakspere: The Tempest, act i. scene ii. 6 Browning: Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau. 7 Milton: Paradise Lost, book iv. line 989. 10 2 Byron: Childe Harold. 4 Burns: Works, vol. i. p. 227. 8 Mill: Nature. 9 Wordsworth: Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle. 10 Coleridge: Table Talk. equally true of other poets than Gray, as well as of prose-writers like Bulwer. For example: Metaphors "So may no ruffian feeling in thy breast Discordant jar thy bosom-chords among; As modest Want the tale of woe reveals; And heaven-born Piety her sanction seals." 1 The most common and, generally speaking, the most serviceable of Tropes is the simile or metaand Similes. phor. The two may be considered as one, since they differ only in form, the Simile stating what is implied in the Metaphor. Every simile can, accordingly, be condensed into a metaphor, and every metaphor can be expanded into a simile. becomes a simile. The simile affirms a resemblance between the heart and marble; the metaphor does nothing more, for the assertion that the heart is marble is a rhetorical exaggeration which deceives nobody. Tennyson's metaphor, "Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades is easily changed to a simile that says the same thing in tamer language; namely, "Experience, in its relation to the unknown future, is like an arch in its relation to the yet unvisited world beyond it." All writers agree that, other things being equal, the Metaphor is more forcible than the Simile; but opinions differ as to the true explanation of the fact. 1 Burns: Poems, vol. iii. p. 122. 2 Shakspere: King Lear, act i. scene iv. Tennyson: Ulysses. metaphors to According to Dr. Whately, who adopts the idea from Aristotle, the superiority of the Metaphor is Reason for the ascribable to the fact that "all men are more superiority of gratified at catching the resemblance for them- similes. selves, than at having it pointed out to them;"1 according to Herbert Spencer, "the great economy it achieves would seem to be the more probable cause: "2 but neither explanation is altogether satisfactory. On the one hand, the Metaphor, though shorter than the Simile, usually makes the mind do more work; on the other hand, the mind is rendered more able to work, — not, however, because it is "gratified," but because it is stimulated to exertion. The Simile is, however, to be preferred to the Metaphor whenever the resemblance between the When similes things compared would be obscure in the met- are preferable. aphorical form. In such cases, Force must be sacrificed to Perspicuity, or both will be lost. For example: "He look'd upon them all, And in each face he saw a gleam of light, When the prow sweeps into a midnight cave." 8 "I fear thee, ancient mariner! I fear thy skinny hand! And thou art long, and lank, and brown, As is the ribbed sea-sand." 4 "A fine lady is a squirrel-headed thing, with small airs and small notions about as applicable to the business of life as a pair of tweezers to the clearing of a forest.”5 In these instances, there is little room for difference of opinion. 1 Whately: Rhetoric, part iii. chap. ii. sect. iii. 3 Keats Hyperion, book ii. 4 Coleridge: The Ancient Mariner, part iv. 5 George Eliot: Felix Holt, vol. i. chap. v. Not so with an example given by Herbert Spencer, first, in the form of a simile; secondly, in that of a metaphor: 66 "As, in passing through the crystal, beams of white light are decomposed into the colors of the rainbow, so, in traversing the soul of the poet, the colorless rays of truth are transformed into brightly-tinted poetry. "The white light of truth, in traversing the many-sided transparent soul of the poet, is refracted into iris-hued poetry." 1 In this case, Spencer prefers the Metaphor to the Simile; but most persons not conversant with the phenomena of refraction would fail to grasp the idea, unless the comparison were drawn out at length. Burke's treatment of a similar figure, in its application to a different subject, is better: "These metaphysic rights entering into common life, like rays of light which pierce into a dense medium, are, by the laws of Nature, refracted from their straight line. Indeed, in the gross and complicated mass of human passions and concerns, the primitive rights of man undergo such a variety of refractions and reflections that it becomes absurd to talk of them as if they continued in the simplicity of their original direction." 2 The two forms It is often found advantageous to use the Simile until the meaning is plain, and then to adopt the combined. metaphorical form: thus the advantages of both forms are secured. This is done by Burke in the sentence last cited. Other instances are: "Some minds are wonderful for keeping their bloom in this way, as a patriarchal gold-fish apparently retains to the last its youthful illusion that it can swim in a straight line beyond the encircling glass. Mrs. Tulliver was an amiable fish of this kind; and, after running her head against the same resisting medium for thirteen years, would go at it again to-day with undulled alacrity." 3 1 Essay on the Philosophy of Style. 2 French Revolution: Works, chap. iii. p. 82. 3 George Eliot: Mill on the Floss, book i. chap. viii. |