der given out, they would have destroyed more than sixteen of the Armada which they did destroy. 16. There were two parties rose up. 17. It makes us blush to add that even grammar is so little of a perfect attainment amongst us that, with one or two exceptions, (one being Shakespeare, whom we affect to consider as belonging to a semi-barbarous age,) we have never seen the writer, through a circuit of prodigious reading, who has not sometimes violated the accidence or the syntax of English grammar. 18. They travel to find work, if they can, during the period of hard times. 19. The Rehearsal" has not vitality sufficient to preserve it from putrefaction. 20. She doesn't mean nothing by that. 21. No country has grown so rapidly as this. 22. The fifth and the sixth pupils may change places. 23. A new species of a fish has appeared. 24. He saw two men fight a prize; one was a fair man, a sergeant of the guards; the other black, a butcher; the sergeant had red breeches, the butcher blue; they fought upon a stage, about four o'clock, and the sergeant wounded the butcher in the leg. 25. What have you got in your basket? 26. He drove two horses-a bay and sorrel. 27. And thus the son the fervent sire addressed. 28. All goes wrong, and nothing as it ought. 29. The strawberry, of all other fruits, is the most delicious. 30. Confession is the most preferable course. 31. She looks like to her mother. 32. We are thankful that we have few good friends. 33. Will he treat me as these others? 34. The Bible has and will be read by millions. 35. Preserve the right of thy place, but stir not questions of jurisdiction; and rather assume thy right in silence, and de facto, than voice it with claims and challenges. 36. She carried two flags-an American and English. 37. The walls were very defaced. 38. The number of French words adopted into English naturally became more and more as time went on. 39. The elder of the two sisters was not yet twenty, and they had been educated since they were about twelve years old and had lost their parents on plans at once narrow and promiscuous, first in an English family, and afterwards in a Swiss family. 40. With desire have I desired to eat this Passover. 41. Our times do not suffer by comparison with the times of Elizabeth, though these are called the good old times. PERSPICUITY DEPENDS, A SCHEME FOR REVIEW. 1. The Topic. Style. Elements determining it (Lesson 31). 2. The Author's Individuality. 3. Authority. Perspicuity defined (Lesson 31). I. Upon the Author's Mastery of his Subject (Lesson 31). II. Upon the Use of Words 3. Use Personal Pro nouns with care. (Ambiguity.) 4. Avoid Words and Constructions that have no good footing in the language. (Obsolete, foreign, and newly coined words. Purity. Campbell's Canons. Barbarisms. Solecisms.) 5. Avoid Tautology, Verbosity, and Redundancy. (Words used needlessly.) 6. Use a Sufficient Number of Words. (Words that should not be omitted.) III. Upon the Arrangement of Words, Phrases, and Clauses (Lessons 41-43). IV. Upon the Unity of the Sentence (long sentences and long parentheses, Lesson 43). LESSON 44. IMAGERY. THE COMPARISON. THINGS FIRST KNOWN AND NAMED.-Our first knowledge is of concrete things--objects in the outer, the material, world. Some of these things we only see or hear, some we see and touch, and some we see, touch, taste, and smell. By this use of our senses we learn the diverse qualities of things, and we learn to distinguish things by their qualities. This knowledge we begin early to acquire, we acquire it all through life; and, having to deal often with the same objects, we learn again and again the lessons they teach. With no other things are we so familiar as with those of the outer world, of no other knowledge are we so sure as of this, and no other words do we use with the clearness and certainty with which we handle those denoting the objects of our senses. And what is true of us individually is true of the race taken as an individual. It was long engrossed with what appealed so powerfully to the senses-the objects of the material world. Some of these objects were seen less frequently than others, and so were less thoroughly known. In process of time men came to think, too, of things which they could not see or hear, touch, taste, or smell--abstract things, such as honesty, truth, health, strength; and things of the inner world, such as spirit, recollection, deliberation. Thinking of these things, they would soon wish to speak of them. But the day for forming new words from new roots was then past. And even if it had not been, it was obvious that the old words denoting concrete things would be better understood if they could be used. It was soon seen that the old words could be put to these new uses; they were, and for this reason-things, wherever they exist, stand in many striking relations to each other. In certain remarkable qualities or offices, real or imagined, things are (1) like each other, or (2) unlike each other, or, speaking generally, (3) they are connected by some other natural law, or relation. Things which men know to be connected in any of these ways are so associated in their minds that one readily suggests the other. BASIS OF IMAGERY.-Upon the basis of these real or fancied relations between things rests the possibility of setting one of them over against the other, or of speaking of one of them in the terms which denote the other. FIGURES OF SPEECH-IMAGES- are those expressions in which, departing from our ordinary style, we assert or assume any of these notable relations. As images are used in all kinds of discourse, imagery may well be regarded as a quality of style. Figures of speech of all kinds are invaluable, because, as we have seen, they convey the thought more clearly than plain language could, and so make it easier of apprehension. They multiply the resources of language, too, enabling us to use the same word in many senses; they beautify style--a diamond pin may adorn while it does toilet duty. A comparison, or simile, is a figure of speech in which a likeness is pointed out or asserted between things in other respects unlike. Its rhetorical value lies mainly in the fact that it makes the thought easy of apprehension. Direction. Substitute plain language for the figurative, and note the loss of distinctness and of beauty: 1. Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel. 2. Their ranks are breaking like thin clouds before a Biscay gale. 3. How often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings! 4. His words were shed softer than leaves from the pine, and they fell on Sir Launfal, as snows on the brine. 5. The Kingdom of God is like a grain of mustard seed, is like leaven hid in three measures of meal. 6. A wordy writer has that command of language which a rider has of a horse that is running away with him. 7. The blood dropped out of her cheeks, as the mercury drops from a broken barometer tube. 8. The little bird sits at his door in the sun, atilt like a blossom among the leaves. 9. With wings folded, I rest on mine airy nest, as still as a brooding dove. IO. Their lives glide on like rivers that water the woodland. They are cowards with hearts as false as stairs of sand, with livers white as milk. 12. Poets commonly have no larger stock of tunes than a hand organ has. 13. It [mercy] droppeth as the gentle rain from Heaven upon the place beneath. 14. She sat like Patience on a monument, smiling at grief. 15. She let concealment, like a worm in the bud, feed on her damask cheek. 16. A fatal habit settles upon one like a vampyre, and sucks his blood. 17. Over thy wounds now do I prophesy, which, like dumb mouths, do ope their ruby lips. 18. The vulgar intellectual palate thinks nothing good that does not go off with a pop like a champagne cork. 19. She saw my statue, which, like a fountain with a hundred spouts, did run pure blood. fire drives out fire, so pity pity. II. 20. As Direction. Find apt resemblances, and complete the comparisons here begun: 1. The vessel swept toward the reef. 2. Darkness falls from the wing of night. 3. She melted from her seat. 4. It was besmeared as black. 5. The Old Guard rushed upon the broken |