EXAMPLES OF VISION. 169 professes to have, power to foresee what is yet unknown to all but himself. Unless he has succeeded in obtaining the confidence of his hearers, his efforts will awaken only contempt; but if he has their respect, and has control of their feelings, he may, by the use of this figure, produce a strong impression. Thus Fisher Ames, depicting the dangers of a threatened war with the Indians, exclaimed: “I can fancy that I listen to the yells of savage vengeance and the shrieks of torture; already they seem to sigh in the western wind; already they mingle with every echo from the mountains." 84. Further Examples of Vision.-Description of absent objects or of fancy scenes as present, is not uncommon, and often enlivens oratory. As a specimen, take the following from a discourse by Rev. Dr. Hopkins:* "See the eagle as he leaves his perch. He flaps his broad wing, and moves heavily. Slowly he lifts himself above the horizon till the inspiration of a freeer air quickens him. Now there is new lightning in his eye, and new strength in his pinions. See-how he mounts! Now he is midway in the heavens. Higher he rises-still higher. Now his broad circles are narrowing to a point-he is fading away in the deep blue. Now he is but a speck. Now he is gone." Often thus an object is fancied to be present, and described for illustration. Thus: "What manner of plant shall this be? Sec-here is a point of green just visible. Look again. It has become a violet, with its eye on the sun," etc. 85. Conclusion. When this figure is employed it * A Baccalaureate Sermon, delivered at Williamstown, Mass., August 1, 1858, by Mark Hopkins, D.D., President of Williams College. H should be well done. The descriptions must be spirited and accurate. Unimportant particulars or features must not be mentioned. The description must not be long, or it will become wearisome, and the figure must not be employed often, or it will displease and disgust the hearers. EXERCISES IN FIGURES. Point out and name the various figures in the following extracts: "Her voice is but the shadow of a sound." "Destruction and Death say, We have heard the fame thereof with our ears." "The astronomer turns his glass to the heavens, and fixes three little points of the comet's course, and so finds a small arc of its curve. From that are he can predict the whole. And so from what we have done yesterday, the day before yesterday, and to-day, perhaps our life-path may be settled." "We are riparian proprietors, dwelling on a little bit of the shore, and looking out on a small portion of the sea which bathes all continents." "The gift of speech is to all men common, to man peculiar, proving that man is of one blood, between whom and the very highest of the manco-cerebral mammalia a great gulf is fixed” (Allusion, Metaphor). "The historical critic who can postpone the Bible to Manetho surely puts himself out of court on purely literary ground.” "Our conscience is the Lydian stone by which we must try the gold of truth." "For thy sake, Tobacco, I Would do any thing but die!" "Each cloud-capped mountain is a holy altar, And the full heart's a Psalter, Rich in deep hymns of gratitude and love.” "Steam has married the continents." EXERCISES IN FIGURES. 171 "Even the instrument of murder is altered-the stiletto has sunk into a pen! Blood is vulgar! Stab not the body, but ruin the character!" miny "I would not dissuade a student from metaphysical inquiry; on the contrary, I would endeavor to promote the desire of entering upon such subjects; but I would forewarn him, when he endeavors to look down his own throat with a candle in his hand, to take care that he does not set his head on fire." "I can seem to see, as that hard and dark season was passing away, a diminished procession of these Pilgrims following another, dearly loved and newly dead, to that bank of graves. In full view the Mayflower is riding at anchor. The tones of the venerated elder's voice is full of trust. 'This spot,' he says, 'is now dear to us, and grows dearer daily, from the precious dust, committed to its borition som. "Far along, From peak to peak, the frattling crags among, in melat pethely atternig thinsider "Though the blood of a Wallace had failed to purchase freedom for his country though the short-lived flame which burst from the enthusiasm of Cromwell had only darkened the succeeding night; though the vices of a Stuart had produced, like the pestilential soil of Egypt, swarms of devouring locusts, gilded with titles of nobility, the battles of Saratoga, Monmouth, and Yorktown proclaimed, ‘All men are born equal.'" "You fly to arms; Indignation flashes from each eye; Revenge gnashes her iron teeth; hovering Furies darken all the air.". "The leopard can not change his spots, but we are to transform ourselves, body and soul, to save our property and lives!" (Allusion, Comparison, Irony). "The Church of God advances unhurt amid rocks and dungeons; she has entered Italy, and appears before the walls of the Eternal City; idolatry falls prostrate at her approach; her ensign floats in triumph over the capital; she has placed upon her brow the diadem of the Cæsars." "We charge him with having broken his coronation-oath, and we are told that he kept his marriage-vow! We accuse him of hav ing given up his people to the merciless inflictions of the most hotheaded and hard-hearted of prelates, and the defense is, that he took his little son on his knee and kissed him!" sa ro "Born into the world in ignorance, man is impelled by an imperious instinct to know. Scek,' whispers a voice in his soul, and thou shalt find.' He seeks, he observes, he inquires. He ascends the mountain of knowledge-rugged, precipitous; he climbs with difficulty from crag to crag; on the topmost peak, in the clear evening of an intellectual life, he beholds not the sterile boundaries of a universe explored, but an ocean of knowledge yet to be traversed, a Pay cifice of truth stretching on and on into the deeps of eternity." h "Mind, the angel of the universe, ready to soar out of the mists of earth, prunes her wings for everlasting flight. The instinct which forbids her to close her pinions and to die has been voracious for time, and is justly trusted for eternity." "The flower that is out of reach is dedicated to God!" "Who does not despise a silver-slippered religion?" 4 "In spurring the ardor of youth to studious exertion, it is common to repeat the Homeric maxim, 'To supplant every one else, and stand out first.' The stimulating effect is undoubted; it is strong rhetorical brandy." "Parting day 2 Dies like a dolphin, when each pang imbues BYRON. "No other language [than the Greek] has lived so long and died so hard, pang by pang, each with a dolphin color."-MRS. BROWNING. Comm "The attempt of infidelity to do away with the great doctrines of religion, is the prowess of a dwarf mounting on a giant's shoul ders to put out his eye." !" "If the spirits of the illustrious dead participate in the cares of those dear to them in this transitory life, oh, ever dear and venerated shade of my father, look down with scrutiny upon your son "A man of capacity undeveloped is an organized day-dream with a skin on it." metap! 86. Definition. -WIT brings together thoughts in unexpected associations, which awaken a peculiar feeling of pleasure, called the emotion of the ludicrous. 87. The Philosophy of Wit.-There is a proper order of the parts composing any material structure, and there are certain reasonable and correct associations of thoughts and feelings. The gratification awakened by perceiving any such symmetry is philosophical and perfect. A well-formed human body, an exact sphere or square, or other material form, an accurately-adjusted system of machinery, all gratify the eye; and so a well-conducted argumentation, a methodically-arranged treatise, or poem, or oration, or even a nicelyrounded period, or a thought in any way properly. expressed, pleases the mind. The reason is pleased with order. It might be supposed, from this fact, that all incongruous associations, or associations impossible in fact, would pain the mind. So they do all minds (if any such there are) incapable of appreciating Wit. There is sometimes in disorder a strange, fantastic regularity which pleases; sometimes the unexpected association of ideas flatters our own self-esteem; some |