I should write home. (Obligation.)

I should write home to-day, if I had the time. (Condition.) Should I write at once, the letter would get there in time. (Supposition.)

He should write home. (Obligation.)

He would write home to-day, if he had the time. (Condition.) Should he write at once, the letter would get there in time. (Supposition.)

Would is also used idiomatically in all three persons, to express habit, in such phrases as, "I would often say," "He would often say."

May, can. These words are frequently confounded, although the distinction is clear.

Can denotes physical or mental ability, as, “I can walk," meaning I am able to walk; "I can sing," meaning I know how to sing.

May expresses contingency, wish, permission, as, “The young may die, but the old must," "May you live long and happily!"

Consequently, in asking permission to do something, the proper word is may. E. g. :

Father, please, may I take the horse this afternoon?

May I have the pleasure of your company?

EUPHONY.

As here employed, the term denotes the avoidance not only of harsh combinations of sound but also of awkward constructions.

107. Words correct in themselves do not perhaps combine smoothly. E. g.:

I can candidly say, etc.

I confess with humility the debility of my judgment.

In order to protect himself against such blunders the writer should acquire the habit of reading his manuscript aloud. The above are easily remedied; e. g., Let me candidly say; ... the weakness of my judgment.

P*

The letter 8, especially in such combinations as sp, st, sk, produces harshness when it occurs too frequently. E. g.: After the most straitest sect of our religion.

They sometimes so swathe the peaks with light as to abolish their definition. TYNDALL, 8 57.

This might be changed to:

At times they swathe the peaks with light so (effectually) as to abolish their definition.

In general, the number of consonants should not be disproportionate to the number of vowels. E. g.:

What strange vamped comedies.-GOLDSMITH.

In strange vamped there are only two vowel to nine consonant sounds.

Another blunder to be avoided is the repetition of a sound in words of different meaning, with the effect of an unintentional pun. E. g.:

In the twinkling of an eye I came to an adamantine resolution.DE QUINCEY, 82.

An ambition of being foremost at a horse course.-GOLDSMITH.

Was course for race common in Goldsmith's day?

The great poets are strict observers of the principles of euphony. Occasionally, it is true, there is a harsh line in Shakespeare, Milton, Tennyson. But nearly always this harshness is intended to correspond to the underlying thought or sentiment. E. g.:

The nimble, wild, red, wiry, savage king.-TENNYSON: Harold, iv. 1. Here the halt necessary between every two adjectives makes the sneer more pointed.

Prose-writers, as a class, are less observant of euphony, partly because their sense of beauty is less acute, partly because they write for the eye rather than for the ear. Even an author who is both poet and prose-writer, Goldsmith for instance, may forget his poetical instincts when writing prose, and put together such a phrase as "horse

course," a phrase which the same Goldsmith would not have used in The Deserted Village. But the prose-writer is not excused from obeying the simpler rules of euphony. Although his writings are chiefly for the eye, they may be read aloud; and if they contain harsh or absurd combinations of sound, they will offend the ear.

108. Certain chronic blunders may be noted. One consists in heaping up adverbs in -ly and participles, or participial nouns, in -ing. E. g.:

They worked equally assiduously.

It is becoming more puzzling than ever.

These are easily changed to: "with equal assiduity;" "it becomes," etc.*

Another chronic blunder is the overuse of but (see § 91). When a traveller in Egypt writes to a London newspaper: But these coins are but a part of the treasures discovered at, etc.

we can afford to be lenient with him, on the ground that letters of travel are usually written in haste and without careful revision. When George Eliot, however, writes, in Silas Marner, ch. xii. (paragraph-ending):

But her arms had not yet relaxed their instinctive clutch; and the little one slumbered on as gently as if it had been rocked in a lacetrimmed cradle.

But the complete torpor came at last... [a long paragraph ending with the sentence]... But presently the warmth had a lulling effect and the little golden head sank down on the old sack, and the blue eyes were veiled by their delicate half-transparent lids.

But where was Silas Marner while this strange visitor had come to his hearth?...

we must protest energetically against such abuse.

On the other hand, the desire to avoid awkward repetition should not lead us into the error of merely varying words without changing the sense. E. g.:

*A. S. Hill, Foundations of Rhetoric, p. 256.

What is true of New York is likewise to be found in Boston.

John tried to milk one cross cow while the men were at work on the other animals.

Why not write directly and boldly:

What is true of New York is true also of Boston.

John tried to milk one cross cow while the men were milking the other cows.

Great writers repeat nouns, adjectives, and verbs with a view to clearness, directness, and force. It is only the timid and ignorant who believe it necessary to vary the expression without changing the thought. Note the following repetitions:

Coleridge, § 3-theory.

Macaulay, § 3-best parts of his mind, worst parts of his mind.

De Quincey, § 10-sometimes.

Burke 13 (first extract)-when; mode; all their; ground of.

De Quincey, § 31—from, as from.

Macaulay, § 53-faults.

Matthew Arnold, § 53—catchword; absolute, absolutely ; demonstration; certain.

Matthew Arnold, § 56—instinct; preponderant action.
Webster, § 56-confessed, confession.

Burke, § 126-grown, growth; increased, increase.

[The change from reconcileable to to reconcileable with is in Burke a blemish.]

CHAPTER XII.

FIGURATIVE EXPRESSION.

109. FIGURATIVE expression may be loosely defined (see 50) to be a deviation from the literal, straightforward way of statement. It is not correct to assert that the deviation is always intentional, for the sake of a definite effect, since many of the commoner figures are employed by speakers and writers unconsciously. E. g., when we say that the kettle boils, for the water in the kettle, or when we say that a man smokes his pipe, for the tobacco in the pipe, we are using the figure technically called metonymy. When we describe a fleet as consisting of thirty sail, or a factory as employing one hundred hands, putting the part (sail, hand) for the whole (ship, man), we are using synecdoche. But we are quite unconscious of speaking figuratively.

Rhetoricians have expended much ingenuity in classifying the numerous figures. But their efforts have scarcely brought much practical gain to the practical writer.

In the first place, the rhetorical classifications are not logical, but admit of cross-division (see § 52). E. g.: Streaming grief his faded cheek bedewed.

Here streaming grief stands for tears, i. e., cause for effect (metonymy). And to speak of grief (or tears) as streaming is metaphor, or at least simile. Additional instances of figures that can be classified under more than one head are noted in the following sections.

In the next place, although a poet or a prose-writer may employ figures more or less consciously, he does not em