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CHAPTER III.

METHODS OF EXPRESSION - FIGURES.

A language without figures and metaphors would of necessity be a language without poetry.-F. W. FArrar.

You have no likes in your sermons. Christ taught that the kingdom of Heaven was like to leaven hid in meal 1-like to a grain of mustard, etc. You tell us what things are, but never what they are like.-ROBERT HALL.

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EFORE entering, however, upon an examination of the classified excellences of expression, it is thought best to give distinct and ample consideration to a subject on which each of them is largely dependent a subject of vast importance, whether we regard the growth of language; the lustre and the power of composition, or the just appreciation of literary art. We refer to those deviations from the plain and ordinary mode of speaking which conduce to the greater effectiveness of poetry and of prose: as, when a commentator says of an approving

conscience, 'How delightful it is to have the bird in the bosom sing sweetly'; or when St. Paul enumerates different topics with an unusual omission of conjunctions:

Be ye kindly affectionate one to another, with brotherly love, in honor preferring one another, not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing instant in prayer, distributing to the necessities of the saints, given to hospitality.

Such departures from the customary, each having a cast or turn peculiar to itself, much as the shape of one body distinguishes it from another, are called Figures of Speech. They affect the form, meaning, and arrangement of words, rising in value and complexity from a designedly false

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spelling or an intentional obsoletism to the most elaborate variation. In their successful study, so much depends upon a proper attitude or habit of mind, that no apology is needed for here offering a few suggestions:

1. Each definition, when it is once understood, should be carefully committed to memory.

2. The examples should be studied critically, that the pupil may obtain a distinct view of their connection with the definition or principle to be illustrated.

3. At least one example under each definition should be memorized, both as a ready criterion by which others. may be judged, and as something to be admired for its beauty of sentiment or imagery.

4. Other examples of each figure, original or selected, should be exhibited to the teacher by the student. Great importance is attached to this exercise-in particular to the selection of examples.

FIGURES OF DICTION.

What they are.-When the dying Jacob called his sons to his bed-side to tell them what should befall them in the last days, and said: 'Judah is a lion's whelp'; 'Dan shall be an adder in the path'; 'Joseph is a fruitful bough'; 'Benjamin shall raven as a wolf,' it is not to be supposed that they could understand him to mean literally what he said, but that in these words, as in a glass, they could see the fortunes which awaited them and their descendants. When the Psalmist says: "The Lord is my rock and my fortress, my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower,' he means, not that God is really all or any one of these objects, but that he gives to his people a similar security and protection. When Virgil calls the two Scipios 'two thunderbolts of war,' he seeks to show the military prowess of his heroes by a com

parison with the sudden, irresistible effect of a shaft of lightning. When Shelley says:

My soul is an enchanted boat,

Which like a sleeping swan doth float

Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing,

And thine doth like an angel sit

Beside the helm conducting it,

we are not to imagine that the words in these lines are
used in their ordinary sense, which would make the whole
a piece of arrant nonsense. Yet the enchanted boat, the
sleeping swan, the silver waves, and the angel sitting at
the helm form, by their suggestions to our fancy, a vivid
picture of the soul's quiet and dream-like rapture. The
face of the words imports one thing—a material object;
their intent, another-a spiritual condition. When, as
in these examples, words are employed to signify some-
thing different from their original and common meaning,
they are said to be used figuratively. The literal mean-
ing being the one first given to a word, a figurative
meaning is a meaning different from the first, yet sug-
gested by it on account of a similarity. Thus the literal
meaning of head is that part of the body containing the
brain: its figurative meaning is any secondary use to
denote a similar relation of parts; as, the head of this
chapter, the head of a column, the head of a stream.
The word dull is literally applied to a sensible object—
an edged tool. Imagining that there is some likeness.
between the mental effect of a stupid essay and the ma-
terial effect of a blunt instrument, we may speak of the
essay as being dull- using the word in an extended or
changed sense. 'A deep stream' is literal. A deep
thinker' is figurative. Sometimes the deviation is, as has
been intimated, formal rather than significant. Thus:
I saw a vision in my sleep

That gave my spirit strength to sweep
Adown the gulf of time.-Campbell.

We ne'er are angels till our passions die.-Decker.
Whilom in Albion's isle there dwelt a youth
Who ne in virtue's ways did take delight;
Ah me! in sooth he was a godless wight,
Childe Harold was he hight.-Byron.

Figurative Association.-When words

are thus used in a sense different from that first or commonly assigned to them, three things require our attention: the literal, or, as it is sometimes called, the proper meaning of the word; the idea meant to be conveyed by it; and the connecting link between them. This connecting link, as has been indicated, is no other than the association of ideas. When a word has in the first instance been appropriated to any particular thing, and is afterward turned or converted to the representation of some other thing, its new meaning must arise from some association with the old.

Sources of Figurative Association.-1. As all human ideas are derived either from outward objects or from the reflections of our own minds upon such objects, it follows that the most abundant source of figurative. association is the real or fancied resemblance between matter and spirit. This is a point so important that it deserves particular illustration, though already illustrated by each of the preceding examples. In the Scriptures, God is said to have made man in his own image, after his own likeness; and in all his providences, with which sacred history abounds, he is ever represented as operating by physical organs—as seeing, hearing, speaking, working, and resting, like the mere clod of humanity. Nothing could be more absurd than to insist that such statements were meant to be construed literally. To make the idea of immaterial energies intelligible to the mind of man-especially to that of the young and the uneducated—they must be presented in sensible im

agery imagery borrowed from objects perceptible to the five senses. Nothing that relates to spiritual nature can be so clearly and forcibly expressed as by material images that is, by the likeness which we can all see between our thoughts and things outward. So, to signify the inward cleansing of the soul, the Psalmist says: 'Thou shalt wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.' To those who ask, God is said to give the living water, meaning the Divine truth and grace, which nourish the soul, as the water of the spring strengthens the thirsty. Selecting the beauties of early summer to describe the prevalence of the Gospel, Isaiah says: "The desert shall blossom as the rose.' Borrowing the imagery of war, the Scriptures speak of the helmet of salvation, the shield of faith, the sword of the spirit. In the parable of the sower, the several natures of men are denoted by the different kinds of soil, and Divine truth is the seed. Using the material images of plants to explain the growth of mind with its different qualities and productions, John the Baptist exhorts men to repent or to look for the speedy execution of judgment: 'The axe is laid unto the root of the tree; therefore, every tree which beareth not good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.' The brevity of life and the transitory nature of human things are illustrated, with peculiar beauty and power, by the herbs of the field: 'He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down.' 'All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field.'

2. A second important source of figurative association. is the analogy between one material substance and another, whether animate or inanimate. The names for various parts of the body are applied to things without life. Thus we speak of the leg of a stool; of the foot, crest, spur, or shoulder of a mountain; of the teeth of a comb; of the neck of a bottle; of the tongue of a shoe; of the eye of a

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