Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative, Volume II

It should be further remarked, that even when addressing vigorous intellects, the direct mode is unfit for communicating ideas of a complex or abstract character. So long as the mind has not much to do, it may be well able to grasp all the preparatory clauses of a sentence, and to use them effectively; but if some subtlety in the argument absorb the attention it may happen that the mind, doubly strained, will break down, and allow the elements of the thought to lapse into confusion.

Let us pass now to figures of speech. In them we may equally discern the same general law of effect. Implied in rules given for the choice and right use of them, we shall find the same fundamental requirement – economy of attention. It is indeed chiefly because they so well subserve this requirement, that figures of speech are employed.

Let us begin with the figure called Synecdoche. The advantage sometimes gained by putting a part for the whole, is due to the more convenient, or more vivid, presentation of the idea. If, instead of writing “a fleet of ten ships,” we write “a fleet of ten sail ,” the picture of a group of vessels at sea is more readily suggested; and is so because the sails constitute the most conspicuous parts of vessels so circumstanced. To say, “All hands to the pumps,” is better than to say, “All men to the pumps;” as it calls up a picture of the men in the special attitude intended, and so saves effort. Bringing “ grey hairs with sorrow to the grave,” is another expression, the effect of which has the same cause.

The effectiveness of Metonymy may be similarly accounted for. “The low morality of the bar ,” is a phrase both more brief and significant than the literal one it stands for. A belief in the ultimate supremacy of intelligence over brute force, is conveyed in a more concrete form, and therefore more representable form, if we substitute the pen and the sword for the two abstract terms. To say, “Beware of drinking!” is less effective than to say, “Beware of the bottle !” and is so, clearly because it calls up a less specific image.

The Simile is in many cases used chiefly with a view to ornament; but whenever it increases the force of a passage, it does so by being an economy. Here is an instance.

– The illusion that great men and great events came oftener in early times than they come now, is due partly to historical perspective. As in a range of equidistant columns, the furthest off seem the closest; so, the conspicuous objects of the past seem more thickly clustered the more remote they are.

To express literally the thought thus conveyed, would take many sentences; and the first elements of the picture would become faint while the imagination was busy in adding the others. But by the help of a comparison much of the effort otherwise required is saved.

Concerning the position of the Simile, [50 - Properly the term “simile” is applicable only to the entire figure, including the two things compared and the comparison drawn between them. But as there exists no name for the illustrative member of the figure, there seems no alternative but to employ “simile” to express this also. The context will in each case show in which sense the word is used.] it needs only to remark, that what has been said about the order of the adjective and substantive, predicate and subject, principal and subordinate propositions, &c., is applicable here. As whatever qualifies should precede whatever is qualified, force will generally be gained by placing the simile before the object or act to which it is applied. That this arrangement is the best, may be seen in the following passage from the “Lady of the Lake:” —

“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.”

Inverting these couplets will be found to diminish the effect considerably. There are cases, however, even where the simile is a simple one, in which it may with advantage be placed last; as in these lines from Alexander Smith’s “Life Drama:” —

“I see the future stretch
All dark and barren as a rainy sea.”

The reason for this seems to be, that so abstract an idea as that attaching to the word “future,” does not present itself to the mind in any definite form; and hence the subsequent arrival at the simile entails no reconstruction of the thought.

Such however are not the only cases in which this order is the more forcible. As putting the simile first is advantageous only when it is carried forward in the mind to assist in forming an image of the object or act; it must happen that if, from length or complexity, it cannot be so carried forward, the advantage is not gained. The annexed sonnet, by Coleridge, is defective from this cause.

“As when a child, on some long winter’s night,
Affrighted, clinging to its grandam’s knees,
With eager wond’ring and perturb’d delight
Listens strange tales of fearful dark decrees,
Mutter’d to wretch by necromantic spell;
Or of those hags who at the witching time
Of murky midnight, ride the air sublime,
And mingle foul embrace with fiends of hell;
Cold horror drinks its blood! Anon the tear
More gentle starts, to hear the beldame tell
Of pretty babes, that lov’d each other dear,
Murder’d by cruel uncle’s mandate fell:
Ev’n such the shiv’ring joys thy tones impart,
Ev’n so, thou, Siddons, meltest my sad heart.”

Here, from the lapse of time and accumulation of circumstances, the first member of the comparison is forgotten before the second is reached; and requires re-reading. Had the main idea been first mentioned, less effort would have been required to retain it, and to modify the conception of it into harmony with the illustrative ideas, than to remember the illustrative ideas, and refer back to them for help in forming the final image.

The superiority of the Metaphor to the Simile is ascribed by Dr. Whately to the fact that “all men are more gratified at catching the resemblance for themselves, than in having it pointed out to them.” But after what has been said, the great economy it achieves will seem the more probable cause. Lear’s exclamation —

“Ingratitude! thou marble-hearted fiend,”

would lose part of its effect were it changed into —

“Ingratitude! thou fiend with heart like marble;”

and the loss would result partly from the position of the simile and partly from the extra number of words required. When the comparison is an involved one, the greater force of the metaphor, due to its relative brevity, becomes much more conspicuous. If, drawing an analogy between mental and physical phenomena, we say,

– As, in passing through a crystal, beams of white light are decomposed into the colours of the rainbow; so, in traversing the soul of the poet, the colourless rays of truth are transformed into brightly-tinted poetry; – it is clear that in receiving the two sets of words expressing the two halves of the comparison, and in carrying the meaning of the one to help in interpreting the other, considerable attention is absorbed. Most of this is saved by putting the comparison in a metaphorical form, thus: —

– The white light of truth, in traversing the many-sided transparent soul of the poet, is refracted into iris-hued poetry. How much is conveyed in a few words by using Metaphor, and how vivid the effect consequently produced, is everywhere shown. From “A Life Drama” may be quoted the phrase,

“I spear’d him with a jest,”

as a fine instance among the many which that poem contains. A passage in the “Prometheus Unbound,” of Shelley, displays the power of the metaphor to great advantage.

“Methought among the lawns together
We wandered, underneath the young gray dawn,
And multitudes of dense white fleecy clouds
Were wandering in thick flocks along the mountains
Shepherded by the slow unwilling wind.”

This last expression is remarkable for the distinctness with which it calls up the features of the scene; bringing the mind by a bound to the desired conception.

But a limit is put to the advantageous use of Metaphor, by the condition that it must be simple enough to be understood from a hint. Evidently, if there be any obscurity in the meaning or application of it, no economy of attention will be achieved; but rather the reverse. Hence, when the comparison is complex, it is better to put it in the form of a Simile. There is, however, a species of figure, sometimes classed under Allegory, but which might well be called Compound Metaphor, that enables us to retain the brevity of the metaphorical form even where the analogy is intricate. This is done by indicating the application of the figure at the outset, and then leaving the reader or hearer to continue the parallel. Emerson has employed it with great effect in the first of his Lectures on the Times.

“The main interest which any aspects of the Times can have for us, is the great spirit which gazes through them, the light which they can shed on the wonderful questions, What are we? and Whither do we tend? We do not wish to be deceived. Here we drift, like white sail across the wild ocean, now bright on the wave, now darkling in the trough of the sea; but from what port did we sail? Who knows? Or to what port are we bound? Who knows? There is no one to tell us but such poor weather-tossed mariners as ourselves, whom we speak as we pass, or who have hoisted some signal, or floated to us some letter in a bottle from afar. But what know they more than we? They also found themselves on this wondrous sea. No; from the older sailors nothing. Over all their speaking-trumpets the gray sea and the loud winds answer – Not in us; not in Time.”

The division of Simile from Metaphor is by no means definite. Between the one extreme in which the two elements of the comparison are detailed at full length and the analogy pointed out, and the other extreme in which the comparison is implied instead of stated, come intermediate forms, in which the comparison is partly stated and partly implied. For instance: —

– Astonished at the performances of the English plough, the Hindoos paint it, set it up, and worship it; thus turning a tool into an idol. Linguists do the same with language. – Here there is an evident advantage in leaving the reader or hearer to complete the figure. And generally these intermediate forms are good in proportion as they do this; provided the mode of completion be obvious.

Passing over much that may be said of like purport on Hyperbole, Personification, Apostrophe, &c., let us close our remarks on construction by a typical example of effective expression. The general principle which has been enunciated is that, other things equal, the force of a verbal form or arrangement is great, in proportion as the mental effort demanded from the recipient is small. The corollaries from this general principle have been severally illustrated. But though conformity now to this and now to that requirement has been exemplified, no case of entire conformity has yet been quoted. It is indeed difficult to find one; for the English idiom does not commonly permit the order which theory dictates. A few, however, occur in Ossian. Here is one: —

“Like autumn’s dark storms pouring from two echoing hills, towards each other approached the heroes. Like two deep streams from high rocks meeting, mixing, roaring on the plain: loud, rough, and dark in battle meet Lochlin and Inisfail. * * * As the noise of the troubled ocean when roll the waves on high; as the last peal of the thunder of heaven; such is the din of war.”

Except in the position of the verb in the first two similes, the theoretically best arrangement is fully carried out in each of these sentences. The simile comes before the qualified image, the adjectives before the substantives, the predicate and copula before the subject, and their respective complements before them. That the passage is bombastic proves nothing; or rather, proves our case. For what is bombast but a force of expression too great for the magnitude of the ideas embodied? All that may rightly be inferred is, that only in rare cases should all the conditions to effective expression be fulfilled.

A more complex application of the theory may now be made. Not only in the structures of sentences, and the uses of figures of speech, may we trace economy of the recipient’s mental energy as the cause of force; but we may trace this same cause in the successful choice and arrangement of the minor images out of which some large thought is to be built. To select from a scene or event described, those elements which carry many others with them; and so, by saying a few things but suggesting many, to abridge the description; is the secret of producing a vivid impression. An extract from Tennyson’s “Mariana” will well illustrate this.

“All day within the dreamy house,
The doors upon their hinges creaked,
The blue fly sung in the pane; the mouse
Behind the mouldering wainscot shriek’d,
Or from the crevice peer’d about.”

The several circumstances here specified bring with them many appropriate associations. When alone the creaking of a distant door is much more obtrusive than when talking to friends. Our attention is rarely drawn by the buzzing of a fly in the window, save when everything is still. While the inmates are moving about the house, mice usually keep silence; and it is only when extreme quietness reigns that they peep from their retreats. Hence each of the facts mentioned, presupposing various others, calls up these with more or less distinctness; and revives the feeling of dull solitude with which they are connected in our experience. Were all of them detailed instead of suggested, the mental energies would be so frittered away in attending that little impression of dreariness would be produced. Similarly in other cases. In the choice of component ideas, as in the choice of expressions, the aim must be to convey the greatest quantity of thoughts with the smallest quantity of words.

The same principle may sometimes be advantageously carried yet further, by indirectly suggesting some entirely distinct thought in addition to the one expressed. Thus if we say,

– The head of a good classic is as full of ancient myths, as that of a servant-girl of ghost stories; it is manifest that besides the fact asserted, there is an implied opinion respecting the small value of much that passes as classical learning; and as this implied opinion is recognized much sooner than it can be put into words, there is gain in omitting it. In other cases, again, great effect is produced by an overt omission; provided the nature of the idea left out is obvious. A good instance occurs in Heroes and Hero-worship. After describing the way in which Burns was sacrificed to the idle curiosity of lion-hunters – people who sought to amuse themselves, and who got their amusement while “the Hero’s life went for it!” Carlyle suggests a parallel thus: —