Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

tled A Discourse on the Humility of Jesus Christ, and of St. Charles Borromée.'" 1

666

[The Church] could not be in danger as long as we enjoyed the light of the Gospel and our excellent constitution.' " 2

"Both lived at a time when England was beginning to feel the force of the principles of civil liberty, when the throne was assuming prerogatives which the people were unwilling to bear, and when resistance at home to these encroachments was felt to be a duty to God and to one's self." 8

The famous utterance of President Garfield, "God reigns, and the government at Washington still lives," seems like an anticlimax; but it may be defended on the ground that the specific fact that the nation still lived was at the moment more interesting than the general truth that God reigns, or on the ground that the meaning is, "God reigns, and therefore the nation has not been destroyed."

The anti-climax may be effective in the service of wit or humor:

[ocr errors]

"I have left at house your my heart and my tooth-brush." "We cannot expect to be loved by a relative whom we have knocked into an illuminated pond, and whose coat-tails, pantaloons, nether limbs, and best feelings we have lacerated with illtreatment and broken glass." 5

"When George the Fourth was still reigning over the privacies of Windsor, when the Duke of Wellington was Prime Minister, and Mr. Vincy was mayor of the old corporation in Middlemarch, Mrs. Casaubon, born Dorothea Brooke, had taken her wedding journey to Rome.” 6

"He [Dr. Ezra Ripley] had to encounter great difficulties, but, through a kind providence and the patronage of Dr. Forbes, he entered Harvard University, July, 1772."7

1 Addison: Remarks on Italy; Pavia, Milan, &c.

2 Bishop of Peterborough: Quoted in McCarthy's "History of the Four Georges," vol. i. chap. x.

8 American newspaper.

4 Letter from a young man to his hostess.

5 Thackeray: The Adventures of Philip, chap. xxxvi.

6 George Eliot: Middlemarch, book ii. chap. xix.

7 Emerson: Lectures and Biographical Sketches; Ezra Ripley, D. D.

Position of similes.

The question whether a simile should precede or follow the literal assertion which it explains or enforces has been discussed at length by Mr. Herbert Spencer in his "Philosophy of Style." Mr. Spencer maintains that the simile should, as a rule, come before the literal assertion; but an examination of the practice of authors whose writings abound in similes will show that his conclusion is without warrant. The best order in every case is that which combines clearness with force. Where there is no question of clearness, the order should be the order of force - the order of climax. Hence the propriety of the arrangement in the following lines:

"I see the future stretch

All dark and barren as a rainy sea.” 1

Here it is evident that the general word "stretch" is made specific by the words which follow it.

"Thence up he flew, and on the tree of Life

[blocks in formation]

"But to her heart, her heart was voluble,

Paining with eloquence her balmy side;

As though a tongueless nightingale should swell

Her throat in vain, and die, heart-stifled, in her dell."8

[blocks in formation]

In each of these examples, the forcible order is that which places

the simile after the literal assertion.

"As wreath of snow, on mountain-breast,

Slides from the rock that gave it rest,

Poor Ellen glided from her stay,
And at the Monarch's feet she lay."5

1 Quoted by Mr. Spencer from Alexander Smith's "Life Drama."

2 Milton: Paradise Lost, book iv. line 194.

8 Keats: The Eve of St. Agnes.

4 Shelley: To a Skylark

Scott: The Lady of the Lake, canto vi. stanza xxvii.

If the first two lines of this stanza were placed after the third line, they would obstruct the narrative; for, the moment the reader knows that Ellen has "glided from her stay," his interest is not in the manner of her doing so but in what is to follow.

"Like a star of heaven,

In the broad daylight

Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight." 1

"As vapours breathed from dungeons cold

Strike pleasure dead,

So sadness comes from out the mould

Where Burns is laid." 2

In each of these examples, the forcible order is that which places the literal assertion after the simile.

:

The following sentence is an example of ineffective order :"It was like some vision of a guiding, succouring spirit, as she moved on, slowly gliding in her white draperies." 3

In this sentence, "as she moved on, slowly gliding in her white draperies" should come before the simile, both because it prepares the mind for the simile and because it is less important.

Frequently a figure of speech serves partly to explain and partly to enforce the meaning. In such cases, a skilful writer places it at that point in the sentence where it serves both purposes. For example:

"This has caused such powerful invasions of bank paper, like sudden and succeeding flights of birds of prey and passage, and the rapid disappearance of specie at its approach." 4

"An author's pen, like children's legs, improves by exercise.” 5

""Tis thine, O Glenullin! whose bride shall await,

Like a love-lighted watch-fire, all night at the gate."

1 Shelley: To a Skylark.

2 Wordsworth: At the Grave of Burns.

3 Charlotte M. Yonge: The Heir of Redclyffe, vol. ii. chap. xiv Tauchnitz edition.

4 Daniel Webster: Speech at Madison, Indiana, June 1, 1837.

Coleridge: The Friend, vol. i. essay iii.

• Thomas Campbell: Lochiel's Warning.

In each of these passages, the simile is so placed as to bring out the meaning more forcibly, as well as more clearly, than if placed either at the beginning or at the end.

SECTION III.

EASE.

In the arrangement, as well as in the choice and the number, of words in a sentence, attention should be paid not only to clearness and force, but also to Ease. With a view to ease, a skilful writer so places words, phrases, and clauses that there is no jar or interruption, and no false emphasis. In this matter it is impossible to prescribe rules that will be of much service to the student of composition; but he may get a little help from a few general suggestions accompanied by examples that point out some of the obstacles to the attainment of ease and some of the ways in which they may be overcome.

False emphasis.

Ease prohibits an arrangement that throws the emphasis on, and thus causes a suspension of the sense at, a particle or other unimportant word (as in this. sentence). Such an arrangement is hostile to clearness, for it obliges the mind to halt at the very points which it would naturally hurry over; it is also hostile to force, for it emphasizes words that do not "deserve distinction" at the expense of those that do. Examples

of this fault are:

“I have often spoken to you upon matters kindred to, or, at any rate, not distantly connected with, my subject for this Easter." 2

1 This happy phrase is Professor Barrett Wendell's. See "English Composition," pages 102, 103.

2 Helps: Social Pressure, chap. iii.

"the two youths had been long engaged to drive with, and keep the birthday of, Mr. Cornelius O'Shane, the king of the Black Islands." 1

“He was quizzed and bespattered and made a fool of, just as though, or rather worse than if, he had been a constant enemy instead of a constant friend." 2

"When the memoirs and correspondence of Sir Robert Peel are published, a disclosure, it is believed, will take place which will furnish a fresh illustration of, if it does not throw new light on the characters, of the two eminent men concerned." 8

66

'Eighty-five years ago to-day the sun shone on and the wintry winds sang to a gray old house beside a bleak hillside in Haverhill town." 4

"The loss of so important an aid to the intelligent and living apprehension of a truth, as is afforded by the necessity of explaining it to, or defending it against, opponents, though not sufficient to outweigh, is no trifling drawback from, the benefit of its universal recognition." 5

The question whether the last word in a sentence should be a particle or a longer and more important How to end a word is usually a question of ease.

sentence.

We may write: (1) "These were the authorities which he referred to or commented upon," or (2) "These were the authorities to which he referred or upon which he commented;" (1) "Mr. Mill was, I believe, the first who distinctly characterized the ambiguity, and pointed out how many errors in the received systems of philosophy it has had to answer for,"6 or (2) "for how many errors. it has had to answer;" (1) "It is a fun

[ocr errors]

1 Miss Edgeworth: Ormond, chap. i.

2 Anthony Trollope: Barchester Towers, vol. ii. chap. v. edition.

Tauchnitz

8 The Political Adventures of Lord Beaconsfield. The Fortnightly Review, June, 1878, p. 880.

4 American newspaper.

J. S. Mill: On Liberty.

• Ibid.: A System of Logic, book i. chap. iv. sect. i.

« AnteriorContinuar »