A long metaphor is analogous, in its general effect, to a periodic sentence (p. 323). In both, the mind of the reader is, as it were, held in suspense till the end of the passage is reached. Sometimes a simile and a metaphor are inextricably combined, as in the following passage from "Othello":Like to the Pontic sea, Whose icy current and compulsive course Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace, Till that a capable and wide revenge Swallow them up. The following examples of metaphor and simile illustrate the use of these figures in prose: 1. Do not suffer life to stagnate; it will grow muddy for want of motion. - JOHNSON. 2. One generation blows bubbles, and the next breaks them. COWPER. 3. Bashfulness and apathy are a tough husk, in which a delicate organization is protected from premature ripening. - EMERSON. 4. His life was formal. His actions seemed ruled with a ruler. - LAMB. 5. In the first enjoyment of the state of life we discard the fear of debts and duns, and never think of the final payment of our great debt to Nature. - HAZLITT. 6. His [Milton's] poetry reminds us of the miracles of Alpine scenery. Nooks and dells, beautiful as fairyland, are embosomed in its most rugged and gigantic elevations. - MACAULAY. 7. We must read our classic with open eyes, and not with eyes blinded with superstition. — MATTHEW ARNOLD. 8. A man's nature runs either to herbs or weeds; therefore let him seasonably water the one, and destroy the other. — BACON. 9. Such a talent in verse as mine is like a child's rattle, very entertaining to the trifler that uses it, and very disagreeable to all beside. - COWPER. 10. "The state of a mind oppressed with a sudden calamity," said Imlac, "is like that of the fabulous inhabitants of the newcreated earth, who, when the first night came upon them, supposed that day never would return." -JOHNSON. 11. Prosperity often irritates our chronical distempers, and leaves no hope of finding any specific but in adversity. In such cases banishment is like change of air, and the evils we suffer are like rough medicines applied to inveterate diseases. BOLINGBROKE. 12. A student unacquainted with the attempts of former adventurers is always apt to overrate his own abilities; to mistake the most trifling excursions for discoveries of moment, and every coast new to him for a new-found country. If by chance he passes beyond his usual limits, he congratulates his own arrival at those regions which those who have steered a better course have long left behind them. - SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. Metonymy is a figure by which the name of one object is given to another, not by way of comparison (as in metaphors), but because one suggests the other by some association of facts or ideas. Examples: the knife, for surgery; the press, for the newspapers; crown, for royal government; the plough, for agriculture; a good head, for a good mind; a troop of horse, for a troop of horsemen ; to address the chair, for the chairman; the bench, for the judges; to read Shakspere, for Shakspere's works. PERSONIFICATION Personification is a figure of speech which represents (1) a lifeless object, (2) one of the lower animals, or (3) an idea, quality, or other abstraction, as a person, — that is, as capable of thought, feeling, and speech. Thus, 1. Thou sure and firm-set earth, Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear 2. They left me then, when the gray-hooded Ev'n, Like a sad votarist in palmer's weed, Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus' wain. -MILTON. 3. Who loves not Knowledge? Who shall rail Against her beauty? May she mix BACON. With men and prosper! Who shall fix Her pillars? Let her work prevail. TENNYSON. 4. Boldness is a child of Ignorance and Baseness. – 5. Truth speaks too low, Hypocrisy too loud. 6. Red Battle stamps his foot, and nations feel the shock. BYRON. 7. For Winter came the wind was his whip; One choppy finger was on his lip; He had torn the cataracts from the hills, DRYDEN. SHELLEY. And they clanked at his girdle like manacles. 8. There is another sort of imaginary beings that we sometimes meet with among the poets, when the author represents any passion, appetite, virtue, or vice under a visible shape, and makes it a person or an actor in his poem. Of this nature are the descriptions of Hunger and Envy in Ovid, of Fame in Virgil, and of Sin and Death in Milton. We find a whole creation of the like shadowy persons in Spenser, who had an admirable talent in representations of this kind. ADDISON. In the following passage from one of Gray's letters, whimsical personification gives a delicately humorous effect: Low spirits are my true and faithful companions; they get up with me, go to bed with me, make journeys and returns as I do ; nay, and pay visits, and will even affect to be jocose and force a feeble laugh with me; but most commonly we sit alone together, and are the prettiest insipid company in the world. The personification of lifeless objects is a natural tendency of the human mind, as may be seen from the talk of young children. The personification of abstract ideas is common in poetry and is the basis of all allegory. The personification of animals is perhaps a survival of a very early stage of culture when animals were regarded as capable of thought and speech. It is commonest in fables. APOSTROPHE Apostrophe (that is, "turning away") is a figure by which the writer or speaker suddenly turns aside from the course which he is pursuing and addresses some person or personified object. Thus, What trash is Rome, What rubbish and what offal, when it serves So vile a thing as Cæsar! But, O grief, - 66 Famous examples of apostrophe are Byron's address to the sea in "Childe Harold," Canto IV, stanzas 179-184; Cowper's "O winter, ruler of the inverted year" in "The Task," Book iv; Macbeth to the dagger in "Macbeth," Act II, Scene 1; "Julius Cæsar," Act 1, Scene 1, lines 77-85, and Act 1, Scene 2, lines 109110. For the same device in prose see the paragraph beginning "Alas, poor Clifford !" at the end of Chapter x of Hawthorne's "House of the Seven Gables"; Emerson's essay on "The Poet" (at the end); "Silence and desolation are upon thy walls, proud house," etc., in Lamb's "South-Sea House." ALLEGORY If a metaphor is developed at considerable length, the result may be an allegorical tale or allegory. In such a tale, the incidents are figurative and the characters are usually, though not always, personifications. An example of a brief allegory may be found on page 316. Other well-known instances are Addison's "Vision of Mirza" ("Spectator," No. 159) and his "Burdens of Mankind" ("Spectator," Nos. 558 and 559). The most famous long allegories in English are Spenser's "Faerie Queene" and Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress." But these are valued rather in spite of their allegorical intention than because of it, "The Faerie Queene" for its poetical beauty and "The Pilgrim's Progress" for its narrative skill and its simple and vigorous English. Allegory as such is deservedly out of fashion. Either the moral purpose makes the plot and characters artificial, or else, if the characters are natural and the tale is well told, we disregard the allegorical purpose altogether, as most of us do in reading Bunyan. The device is too mechanical to give pleasure, except in very short stories. Now and then, however, a subtle touch of allegory lends a peculiar charm to a tale. There is a good instance of this kind of suggestion in "The Chimæra," in Hawthorne's "Wonder Book." Here the veiled metaphorical significance of the different accounts of Pegasus which Bellerophon receives from different persons, is hinted at in a single exquisite paragraph: And Bellerophon put his faith in the child, who had seen the image of Pegasus in the water, and in the maiden, who had heard him neigh so melodiously, rather than in the middle-aged clown, who believed only in cart-horses, or in the old man, who had forgotten the beautiful things of his youth. The best comment on this veiled allegory of Hawthorne's is afforded by two noble passages in Bacon's essay "Of Youth and Age": The invention of young men is more lively than that of old, and imaginations stream into their minds better, and, as it were, more divinely. |