There is sometimes antithesis of form without true antithesis of thought. This is called false antithesis, and should be avoided.

Climax. A speaker is said to employ climax when a series of words, phrases, or clauses is so arranged that each in turn surpasses the preceding one in intensity of expression, or importance of meaning. The term may also be used of a series of sentences or of a series of paragraphs similarly arranged.

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em.

An unimportant, wandering, sorrow-stricken man. What a chimera, then, is man! What a novelty, what a monster, what a chaos, what a subject of contradiction, what a prodigy! - PASCAL.

When a weaker idea follows a stronger, the result is bathos, or anticlimax (in the bad sense).

Mr. Judson was an able lawyer, a shrewd diplomat, and a first-rate after-dinner speaker.

For another use of the term anticlimax, see § 178.

A. Look for instances of antithesis and climax in the following selection. Point out the corresponding words, phrases, and clauses. Does the thought in every case correspond to the form?

There is indeed a remarkable coincidence between the progress of the art of war, and that of the art of oratory, among the Greeks. They both advanced to perfection by

contemporaneous steps, and from similar causes. The early speakers, like the early warriors of Greece, were merely a militia. It was found that in both employments practice and discipline gave superiority. Each pursuit, therefore, became first an art, and then a trade. In proportion as the professors of each became more expert in their particular craft, they became less respectable in their general character. Their skill had been obtained at too great expense to be employed only from disinterested views. Thus, the soldiers forgot that they were citizens, and the orators that they were statesmen. I know not to what Demosthenes and his famous contemporaries can be so justly compared as to those mercenary troops who, in their time, overran Greece; or those who, from similar causes, were some centuries ago the scourge of the Italian republics, perfectly acquainted with every part of their profession, irresistible in the field, powerful to defend or to destroy, but defending without love, and destroying without hatred. We may despise the characters of these political Condottieri; but it is impossible to examine the system of their tactics. without being amazed at its perfection.

B. Find five good examples of antithesis and as many of climax in some of the selections in the preceding or following pages.

Figures of Contradiction.

178. Anticlimax. This is a form of climax in which the last term of the series, although surpassing the preceding terms in intensity, is yet absurdly incongruous with them, the effect aimed at being a shock of humorous surprise.

The Chief-Justice was rich, quiet, and infamous.

Irony. An ironical expression is one in which the words of the speaker seem to mean one thing, but in reality mean just the contrary, the real meaning being conveyed to us by the tone of the voice or the rhythm and suggestiveness of the words. Thus Addison, in the following passage, under guise of praising bribery as an efficient means of persuasion, in reality holds it up to condemnation:

There is another way of reasoning which seldom fails, though it be of a quite different nature from that I have last mentioned. I mean convincing a man by ready money, or, as it is ordinarily called, bribing a man to an opinion. This method has often proved successful when all the others have been made use of to no purpose. A man who is furnished with arguments from the mint will convince the antagonist much sooner than one who draws them from reason and philosophy. Gold is a wonderful clearer of the understanding; it dissipates every doubt and scruple in an instant; accommodates itself to the meanest capacities; silences the loud and clamorous, and brings over the most obstinate and inflexible. ADDISON: Spectator, No. 239.

Epigram. According to Professor Bain, an epigram is "an apparent contradiction in language, which, by causing a temporary shock, rouses our attention to some important meaning underneath." This definition may be supplemented by the statement that the epigram usually takes the form of a brief, pointed, antithetical

sentence.

Let us be of good cheer, however, remembering that the misfortunes hardest to bear are those which never come. LOWELL: Democracy.

There is nothing new, except what is forgotten.

Hyperbole. This is a kind of a metaphor in which the object spoken of is greatly exaggerated in size or importance for purpose of emphasis or humor.

Falstaff sweats to death,

And lards the lean earth as he walks along.

SHAKESPEARE: Henry IV.

And panting Time toiled after him in vain. -JOHNSON: Prologue on the Opening of Drury Lane Theatre. Interrogation. Attention is sometimes called to an important assertion or denial by throwing it into the form of a question or challenge to which no answer is expected. This figure is known as interrogation, or the rhetorical question. It resembles irony in that the form of the question is the opposite of the meaning it is intended to convey.

Much depends on when and where you read a book. In the five or six impatient minutes, before the dinner is quite ready, who would think of taking up the Faerie Queene for a stop-gap, or a volume of Bishop Andrewes' sermons?

-LAMB: Thoughts on Books and Reading.

As I crossed the bridge over the Avon on my return, I paused to contemplate the distant church in which the poet lies buried, and could not but exult in the malediction which has kept his ashes undisturbed in its quiet and hallowed vaults. What honor could his name have derived from being mingled in dusty companionship with the epitaphs and escutcheons and venal eulogiums of a titled multitude? IRVING: Sketch-Book, Stratford-on-Avon.

179.

General Assignments.

A. Examine one of your old essays. How many figures did you use? What kinds of figures were they?

B. Read Webster's First Bunker Hill Oration and take note of each figure used. What do you conclude is Webster's favorite figure of speech?

C. Read a page of one of Shakespeare's plays and select three of the most striking figures. To what class or classes do they belong?

D. What figures do you find in the following passages? Are they good figures? What pictures do they bring up in your mind? Michel de Bourges seriously objected. My instinct was to begin at once, his advice was to wait and see. ... We should not carry the people with us in the first moment. Let us leave the indignation to increase little by little in their hearts. If it were begun prematurely, our manifestation would miscarry. These were the sentiments of all. For myself, while listening to them, I felt shaken. Perhaps they were right. It would be a mistake to give the signal for the combat in vain. Of what use is the lightning that is not followed by the thunderbolt?

Louis Bonaparte is a rebel, he has steeped himself to-day in every crime. We, representatives of the people, declare him an outlaw; but there is no need for our declaration, since he is an outlaw by the mere fact of his treason. Citizens, you have two hands; take in one your Right, and in the other your gun, and fall upon Napoleon.