Another Example. - To say, "It is impossible to explore the Divine nature fully by any search we can make," is to utter a simple proposition. But when we say, "Canst thou, by searching, find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection? It is high as heaven, what canst thou do? deeper than hell, what canst thou know?" we introduce a figure. Not only the proposition is expressed, but admiration and astonishment are expressed with it, and the meaning is made in every way more effective.

Another Example.-If we say, "That is strange," we use the plain, ordinary mode of stating a fact. But if we say, "How strange that is!" the expression is changed from a mere assertion to an exclamation of surprise. It is therefore a figure, a form of speech different from the ordinary mode of expression.

An Example of a Different Kind. In the sentence, "Now is the winter of our discontent," there is a figure, but it is of another kind. The form of the expression is not changed, but one of the words, "winter," is turned from its literal meaning, a season of the year, and is made to signify a condition of the human feelings. This changing or turning away of a word from its literal meaning is called a Trope, from the Greek word tropos (7рóños), which means a turning.

Figures and Tropes.-The ancients observed carefully the distinction between Figures and Tropes. But at present the one term, Figure, is used to cover the whole subject, and to mean any deviation from the plain and ordinary mode of expression, whether in the form of the sentence, or in the meaning of a particular word.

Figures not Unnatural. Though Figures are thus some deviation from the ordinary mode of expression, it does not follow that they are forced or unnatural. Figures are not the inventions of rhetoricians, any more than the laws of language are the inventions of grammarians. As writers on grammar have observed how men speak, and from this have drawn the rules of speech, so writers on rhetoric have noticed how men depart from the plain and ordinary mode of expression when they wish to give special force or vividness to their meaning, and from this fact the character and rules for such figurative expressions have been derived. The most illiterate men, as well as the most learned, speak in figures. No races, in fact, are so much addicted to the use of figurative language as the semi-barbarous and the savage. Whenever the imaginations of the multitude are awakened, or their passions inflamed, they pour forth their feelings in a torrent of figures. It is rare, indeed, that any one, learned or unlearned, civilized or savage, in a composed or in an excited state of mind, discourses for any length of time without the use of figures. Figurative expressions are as important to the

agreeableness of discourse as are color and form to that of the land

scape.

Origin of Figures.-The first source of figures is the barrenness of language.

Explanation. — In the first attempts to use language, men would begin with giving names to the different objects with which they became acquainted. As the ideas of men multiplied, their stock of names and words would be enlarged. But for this infinite variety of ideas and objects in the world, no language would be adequate. Any language would become unmanageable which should undertake to supply a separate word for every separate idea. Men therefore would seek to abridge the labor of inventing and remembering such an infinite number of words. One word, which had been invented to express some particular idea or object, would be used to express some other idea or object to which it was imagined to bear a like

ness.

Example.-The word dull in its primary meaning applies to an instrument having an edge. But when we speak of an essay as being "dull," we imagine the mental effect of such a composition to be similar to the material effect of an edged tool that is dull. So, instead of making a new word, we use the old word in a new and changed sense. This change is called a figure. A dull knife is literal. A dull essay is figurative. In this manner a large number of figurative uses of words have arisen. Mental operations especially are most commonly expressed by words derived from sensible objects. Thus we speak of a piercing judgment, a clear head, a soft heart; of one inflamed by anger, warmed by love, swelled with pride, melted with pity, and so on.

Second Source.-The other and indeed the principal source of figures is the pleasure which they give.

Explanation. In this case we use figures, not because of the barrenness of language, but because the figurative expression is more agreeable than the literal one. We have words already at our command for expressing the plain, simple meaning; but we are more pleased with some other expression which, besides the primary and literal meaning, conveys some additional idea of an agreeable character.

Examples.-Thus the sun becomes "the powerful king of day," youth is called "the morning of life," "gray hairs" means old age, the "sceptre' means the royal authority, and so on.

Names of the Figures.-The most common figures are

Simile, Metaphor, Allegory, Antithesis, Epigram, Metonymy, Synecdoche, Interrogation, Exclamation, Apostrophe, Personification, Hyperbole, Irony, Climax.

I. SIMILE.

Simile, or Comparison, consists in formally likening one thing to another.

Examples.-The condemnation of Socrates took him away in his full grandeur and glory, like the setting of a tropical sun.

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,

As those move easiest who have learnt to dance.

I have ventured,

Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders,

This many summers in a sea of glory.

Why Similes Please.

on several accounts:

Similes are a source of pleasure to the mind

1. First, we are so constituted that we naturally are pleased in comparing objects with one another, and tracing the points of likeness or of unlikeness between them. This habit of comparison is common to all persons. Even children take delight in it, as soon as they are capable of taking distinct notice of objects. The mere fact of there being a likeness gives, when observed, a pleasure to the mind.

2. Secondly, a simile usually makes the principal object plainer, or gives it a stronger impression on the mind, and on this account is a source of additional pleasure. An author, wishing to say that the memory of a certain person is both quick and retentive, makes the idea clearer and more forcible, and at the same time more agreeable to the reader, by expressing the thought thus: "His memory is like wax to receive impressions, and like marble to retain them."

3. Thirdly, by a skilful use of simile, the principal object may be embellished and made more agreeable by being associated with something of a superior character - something splendid, graceful, refined, dignified, or grand, according to the occasion. says of a certain strain of music:

... It came o'er my ear like the sweet sound

That breathes upon a bank of violets,

Stealing and giving odour.

Shakspeare

Every one feels, on reading such a comparison, that the image

with which soft music is thus associated has given it an additional embellishment and charm.

Burlesque.- Similes are not always used to dignify and elevate an object. The aim of the writer may be, as in burlesque, to make a thing seem mean by comparing it to something low and degrading. Thus Butler says of Hudibras:

'Tis known he could speak Greek
As naturally as pigs squeak;
[And] Latin was no more difficile
Than to a blackbird 't is to whistle.

Thus also he burlesques morning:

The sun had long since, in the lap
Of Thetis, taken out his nap;
And, like a lobster boiled, the morn
From black to red began to turn.

The Object of Simile is to increase the effect intended in the main assertion, whether that intention be to exalt or to degrade, to dignify or to burlesque.

Likeness of Effect. Though the essence of a simile consists in likeness, yet the likeness is not necessarily of a material kind. One thing may be like another, not because they look alike, or sound alike, or have any material qualities in common, but because they produce similar effects upon the mind. They raise similar trains of thought or feeling, or the remembrance of one strengthens in some way the impression produced by the other. This kind of subtle likeness often has a more pleasing effect than one which is more obvious to the senses.

Example from Ossian.-A certain simile of Ossian's has been much admired on this account. Of a particular strain of music, he says, it was "like the memory of joys that are past, pleasant and mournful to the soul." The effect here is much finer than if he had compared the music to the song of the nightingale, or the murmur of a stream, although in the latter cases there would have been more of actual likeness.

Mere Likeness does not of itself constitute a simile. There is no simile, in the rhetorical sense of that word, when one city is compared to another city, one house to another house, one man to another man, Napoleon to Cæsar, Rothschild to Croesus. In order that there may be a legitimate simile, the objects compared must be of a different kind.

Examples. —A city in the rapidity of its growth, may be likened to Jonah's gourd. Milton, describing the sudden erection of the huge fabric in Pandemonium,

says, it "rose like an exhalation." A great warrior may be compared to a thunderbolt, or to a desolating tornado; a sage, to a pillar of state. In each of these cases, there is a legitimate simile, because there is a likeness of some sort between the objects compared, and at the same time the objects themselves are different in kind. The principal Rules to be observed in regard to the use of Similes are the following:

RULE 1. Similes should not be drawn from things which have too near and obvious a resemblance to the object compared.

Effect of Surprise. One great pleasure of the act of comparing lies in discovering likenesses where at the first glance we should not expect to find them. The simile in such cases gives us the pleasure of an agreeable surprise.

Examples.-Lover says, of a small, swarthy woman, "She's as short and as dark as a mid-winter day." Milton's comparisons nearly always have this quality of giving a surprise, besides that of filling the mind with ideas of majesty and grandeur. To give us some idea of the countless number of the fallen host, he says, they "Lay entranced

Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks

In Vallombrosa."

Satan's imperial ensign, "full high advanced, shone like a meteor, streaming to the wind." Satan's own appearance, after his fall, is compared to that of the sun suffering an eclipse, and shedding disastrous twilight on the nations.

In all these examples, the reader, on recognizing the likeness, feels as though he had made an unexpected and delightful discovery. Milton's comparisons of Eve's bower in Paradise to the arbor of Pomona, and of Eve herself to a wood-nymph, are considered less happy, as no great ingenuity is required to imagine one arbor like another arbor, or one beautiful woman like another beautiful woman.

Trite Similes. - Many similes, which were good enough when first used, are no longer available now, because they have become trite and commonplace by frequent use. Such similes are those comparing a hero to a lion, a mourner to a flower drooping its head, chastity to snow, passion to a tempest, and so on.

RULE 2. Similes should not be drawn from objects in which the likeness is too faint and remote.

Such similes are said to be far-fetched.

Examples. Some of the older poets erred frequently in this line. Thus Cowley, speaking of a friend, says that at night before retiring to sleep he washed away from his soul by tears all the stains it had received during the day, as the sun sets in water [the ocean] and is thereby kept unsullied.

Still with his soul severe account he kept,
Weeping all debts out ere he slept;

Then down in peace and innocence he lay,