Coloring due to Association. The inner life and power of words cannot all be obtained from their dictionary meanings and shadings, nor from their accommodated use as tropes; there still remains a coloring, a flavor due to the company they are in, or perhaps to the association in which they naturally belong, a latent figurative suggestiveness which yields its vitality to the passage without apparent design or effort. The following are main aspects of this subtle coloring. 1. The use of what are called pregnant words, words not reducible as tropes to any definite image, yet acquiring from their association a more than literal color, a tinge of sentiment or vigor which imbues the life of the passage with a new interest. EXAMPLES. .—“ His [Hobbes's] views are embodied in his Leviathan, a work of formidable extent, not now often referred to except by students, but attractive still from the resolute simplicity of the writer's style."1 "But when he spake, and cheer'd his Table Round With large, divine, and comfortable words, Beyond my tongue to tell thee - I beheld From eye to eye thro' all their Order flash Here the words “resolute” and “large” are the most striking and potent words of their sentences, yet the reason of this defies analysis; there is in them a kind of overtone, a reverberation, due to their association by a skilled hand. 2. Closely akin to this is the transplanting of a word to another part of the vocabulary than that in which it is ordinarily used, as from the scientific or technical to the common, and vice versa. Thus it imparts the coloring of its origin to the thought in hand; it is like a man of learning or the opposite — giving his conception of an object out of his line. EXAMPLES. - This use of words to impart a scientific coloring has already been discussed under Technical Terms and Coloring; see above, 1 GOSSE, Modern English Literature, p. 154. p. 56.. - Also in the example given on p. 88: "that amorphous crag-like face," where the word is adopted from the vocabulary of geology. — In the following a peculiar effect is produced by the use of a colloquial word: "The bother with Mr. Emerson is that, though he writes in prose, he is essentially a poet."1 Here the tropical suggestiveness is strong, but something is due also to the sudden irruption of the more homely vocabulary. 3. A strong coloring may also be imparted by associating the sound of a word or turn of expression with the descriptive feeling of the thought; as when volume of sound is employed to portray volume of sense, or a limpid phraseology conforms itself to a suggestion of eloquence or beauty. The Latin element of the vocabulary, from the greater average length and sonorousness of its words, is well adapted to such effects. EXAMPLES. - In the following, from Macaulay, the sonorous Latin words are chosen for their descriptive volume: "The whole book, and every component part of it, is on a gigantic scale. . . . We cannot sum up the merits of the stupendous mass of paper which lies before us better than by saying that it consists of about two thousand closely printed quarto pages, that it occupies fifteen hundred inches cubic measure, and that it weighs sixty pounds avoirdupois."2 In the following the whimsically coined Latin word corresponds to the big scale on which the writer would have us judge his subject: "The ventripotent mulatto, the great eater, worker, earner and waster, the man of much and witty laughter, the man of the great heart and alas! of the doubtful honesty, is a figure not yet clearly set before the world; he still awaits a sober and yet genial portrait; but with whatever art that may be touched, and whatever indulgence, it will not be the portrait of a precisian." For the relative merits of Saxon and Latin words, see above, p. 70. The subject, in one aspect, will come up again later, under the head of The Key of Words; see below, p. 104. "3 II. CONNOTATION OF EMOTION. Some uses of word and figure are not natural to cold blood but rise spontaneously out of some excited mood or emotion 1 LOWELL, Prose Works, Vol. i, p. 351. Quoted by Earle, English Prose, p. 298. 2 MACAULAY, Essay on Burleigh and his Times. 3 STEVENSON, Memories and Portraits, p. 322 (Thistle edition). and by connotation tend to set the reader into the same emotional sphere. What we connote with them, therefore, is not an associated idea but a feeling, a state of mind. This is brought out by some peculiar turn or manœuvre in the expression. It is needless to say that an expression charged with emotion is much less obedient to mere manipulation than one that is not, nor will it submit to be manufactured. The emotion must compel and produce the expression, not the expression the emotion. Hence a question always near in this kind of connotation is, how genuine, how well-motived, is the informing mood. I. Overt Figures of Emotion. In these there is a direct line of suggestion from the figure to the particular emotion it connotes; the figure is the sign and label of the writer's mood. Exclamation. This is the figure perhaps most typical of the whole class, its emotion is so evident on the surface. This is to be distinguished from interjectional words (as ah, alas, fie, hush), which latter are not in themselves figures of speech, though they may go with the figure as its sign. Exclamation as a figure of speech is the abrupt or elliptical expression that a strongly felt thought takes before it has calmed itself down to a logical affirmation. It connotes wonder, or intense realization. EXAMPLE. - Note the difference in effect between the tame assertion, "A man is a most wonderful creature; he is noble in reason, in faculties he is infinite," etc., and the same truth held up to view, as it were, by exclamation: "What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god!" 1 1 SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet, Act ii, Scene 2. If exclamation does not proceed from a valid and reasonable cause for wonder, it is maudlin, giving the impression that the writer is too easily excited, a "small pot soon hot." This is especially applicable to the beginning of a discourse, before the subject has acquired an emotional momentum; if then the writer or speaker is exclamatory, he is liable to encounter not an answering wonder but amusement at his impassioned performance.1 NOTE. The exclamation-point is the natural mark of this figure; but there is a tendency in modern writing to use it less than formerly, and often the figure is intended to connote so moderate an emotion that the point is omitted. Sometimes exclamation competes with interrogation in the same expression, and when wonder predominates, the exclamation-point may take the place of the question mark, as, “Alas! what are we doing all through life, both as a necessity and as a duty, but unlearning the world's poetry, and attaining to its prose!" 2 Interrogation. — Here, as in the preceding case, distinction is to be made between figurative and unfigurative uses. The figure interrogation asks a question, not for the purpose of obtaining information, nor even as an indication of doubt, but in order to assert strongly the opposite of what is asked. It presupposes the idea as so certain that the reader or hearer may be challenged to gainsay the affirmation; and in this, its character as a virtual challenge, consists the energy of the figure. Thus interrogation connotes strong conviction, and is naturally adapted especially to argumentative and oratorical subject-matter. EXAMPLES. What! Gentlemen, was I not to foresee, or foreseeing was I not to endeavor to save you from all these multiplied mischiefs and disgraces? ... Was I an Irishman on that day that I boldly withstood 1 "The note of Exclamation is less in use than formerly: a social symptom; as the progress of manners more and more demands the subduing of moral commotion." EARLE, English Prose, p. 108. 2 NEWMAN, Idea of a University, p. 331. our pride? or on the day that I hung down my head, and wept in shame and silence over the humiliation of Great Britain? I became unpopular in England for the one, and in Ireland for the other. What then? What obligation lay on me to be popular?"1 The unfigurative asking of questions for the purpose of rousing interest, and then answering them, is just as legitimate and natural as oratorical interrogation; it is a means of taking the reader into partnership with the writer, as it were, in conducting an investigation. EXAMPLE. - What is it to be a gentleman? Is it to have lofty aims, to lead a pure life, to keep your honor virgin; to have the esteem of your fellow-citizens, and the love of your fireside; to bear good fortune meekly; to suffer evil with constancy; and through evil or good to maintain truth always? Show me the happy man whose life exhibits these qualities, and him we will salute as gentleman, whatever his rank may be; show me the prince who possesses them, and he may be sure of our love and loyalty."2 Here if the emotion were a little more intense we should expect, not the investigation spirit, but the argumentative, and the question would naturally be so framed as to challenge the reverse, "Is it not to have lofty aims," etc. Apostrophe and Kindred Figures. The derivation of the word apostrophe, from áró and rpépo, "to turn from," does not seem, at first thought, to suggest the principle of the figure. The term refers to turning from the unemotional way of expression, which speaks of objects in the third person, to address some object directly, as if it were present. When the object addressed is inanimate, the figure Apostrophe involves also personification. Apostrophe, carrying as it does the imagination of an absent thing as if present and conscious of the address, connotes intense realization and fervor. EXAMPLE. In our present logical and undemonstrative age the figure apostrophe has become somewhat obsolescent, and if attempted now would 1 BURKE, Speech to the Electors of Bristol. 2 THACKERAY, The Four Georges (Riverside edition), p. 108. |