CHAPTER XI

RIGHT NUMBER AND SKILFUL CHOICE OF WORDS

Let it be supposed that a person has learned to plan a composition logically and to write with grammatical correctness; that further he has acquired a noble unrest which keeps him searching for new words and fine distinctions; what should be his next care?

After the power of thinking coherently, the ability most important to a writer is that of picking out from the wide world of words the one expression that mates his unworded idea. His choice of words—_i.e._ his _diction_—must meet three requirements. If it is to be _clear_, it must mean the same to the reader’s intellect that it does to the writer’s. If it is to _forcible_, it must move the reader’s feelings as it moved the writer’s. Furthermore, if it is to be _beautiful_, it must please a reader who has good taste.

=Clearness.=—Clearness, the intellectual quality of style, has already been referred to (p. 43), for it is the quality aimed at in making sentences coherent. That the idea should be made unmistakably clear is the first requisite of good writing. The thinking must be clear; the division of the theme into paragraphs, and of paragraphs into sentences must be clear; and the words must be clear. We have presently to ask what effect number and choice of words have upon clearness.

=Force.=—Force is the emotional quality of style. It may occur in a very moderate degree, just enough to _interest_ the reader slightly, or it may be present to such an extent as to move the deepest springs of feeling. It is hard to give suggestions for securing force, because language is better adapted to communicating ideas than emotions. We find that language furnishes very few names for feelings. Furthermore, these names, even such as _love_, _fear_, _anger_, do not in themselves move us. What a marvellous variety of emotion each of us feels in a day! how many delicate tints of pleasure! how many shades of regret or fear, of painful memory or suggestion! The psychologists tell us that we do no act which does not bring with it some touch of pleasure or of pain. And yet most of these shades and tints and touches of feeling neither have names nor can be communicated by words. Nevertheless, though language cannot directly convey feeling, it can sometimes suggest feeling. If your reader has experienced a given emotion, some word of yours may recall that to his mind. One secret of being forcible lies in choosing theme subjects that interest the reader; subjects that set up a train of feeling and memory in his mind. Other secrets are, to choose _suggestive_ words and figures of speech, and to refrain from wearing out interest by too many words. We shall presently inquire, what words and figures are most suggestive.

Something may be done to secure force by so arranging words as to attract the reader’s attention. It will be noted that emphasis (p. 110) and climax (p. 112) are means of force.

=Beauty.=—Beauty is the quality of style which satisfies what is called, for lack of a better word, the æsthetic sense; this is little else but saying, beauty of style satisfies the sense for beauty. One element of beauty is _simplicity_, a quality closely allied to clearness, yet not the same. _Euphony_, or absence of ugly sounds, is another element of beauty. _Variety_ is another element of beauty. It is clear that the last exercise in Chapter X is as much an exercise in beauty as in vocabulary. In the present chapter we shall have space to consider only one element of beauty,—that of simplicity.

=Prolixity.=—If a writer descends into tedious details, or if he repeats the same idea over and over in slightly different words, without developing or adding to the thought, he is said to be prolix. Prolixity offends chiefly against force, for it kills interest. This fault may affect merely a single sentence or paragraph, or it may infest a whole composition. It does not much beset the writer who plans his work ahead. It can be corrected only by rewriting.

=Written Exercise.—=The following prolix passage should be rewritten, only the essential thoughts being kept. Any mistakes and crudities of style should be corrected.

“My friend the doctor was a collector of ancient coins and was always roaming about the ruins of old cities in search of coins. He would wander around and pick up valuable relics like the Venus he wore in his seal ring. He was always finding something worth keeping. He would pick up a precious bit of antiquity and put it in his pocket, and so he always carried with him a regular collection of relics. One afternoon he was out among the mountains picking up relics and not looking up to see whether any one was near. When he looked around he saw five or perhaps six rough fellows who were standing there behind him. He fell to quivering with fright and stood trembling and shaking, but managed to greet them. After he had greeted the five or six men they all walked along down the road until they came to an inn that was there on the mountain-side. It was an inn and not a cave there in the mountains, as was incorrectly said by one member of the class.”

=Surplusage.-=-Surplusage consists of words that can be excised without hurting the sense of the passage. In tyros it is perhaps less of a fault than the opposite one of _deficiency_,—the absence of needed words; for fulness of expression is essential to clearness, and surplusage often results from the desire to be clear. Verbosity, however, dulls the edge of the keenest thought. Like prolixity, it weakens. Just as many a prolix speaker could make a brilliant oration if he knew when to stop, so many a wordy writer could make an effective sentence if he knew what to prune away. As Mr. Lowell would say:[45] Thoughts are never draped in long skirts like babies, if they are strong enough to go alone.

The redundant use of the following common words should be avoided:—

1. _From_, in the phrases _from thence_, _from whence_.

2. _Of_, especially in the expressions _off of_, _remember of_, _treat of_. “Keep off [not _off of_] the grass.” “This book treats [better than _treats of_] chemistry.”

3. _On_, with the words _the next morning_. “He was rebellious on the seventh of July, but the next morning [not _on the next morning_] he reappeared in a more submissive frame of mind.”

=Oral Exercise.=—Prune away every word that can be spared; note the increase in force. Slight changes may be made in the wording.

1. All of the ships were lost; no kind of a one was saved.

2. I know from my own personal knowledge that a man who stands upright in his own manhood, honest and conscious of the rectitude of his purposes, is safe against calumny and slander.

3. I don’t think it a good precedent to set in this house for any man to vote for a bill in which he has a personal interest, and I don’t remember of ever having done so of myself. I shall, therefore, for this reason, refrain from voting, but I want to say a word on this bill, and I want to talk to the democrats.

4. Real-estate dealer is knocked down by an accident and is run over by a cab.

5. Commencing on Monday, March 29, supported by the New York Garrick Theatre Stock Company, Mr. Mansfield will commence an engagement of two weeks at the Grand Opera House.

=Written or Oral Exercise.=—In the following sentences some of the underscored expressions should be expressed more briefly by changing clauses to phrases or phrases to single words. Thus: _men who deserved and won renown_ may shorten to _men of deserved renown_.

1. _Men who deserved and won renown_, and _women who were peerless_, have lived upon what we should now call the coarsest fare, and paced the rushes _which were strewn_ in their rooms with as high, or as contented thoughts, as their _descendants, persons who are fed better and clothed better than they_, can boast of.

2. If children _are able_ to make us wiser, _it is sure that they can also_ make us better. There is no one _who is more to be envied_ than a good-natured man _when he is watching how children’s minds perform their workings, or when he is overlooking the play they engage in_.

=Deficiency of Words.=—It was said in a former paragraph that in young writers surplusage is perhaps less of a fault than is the lack of needed words. Verbosity robs a theme of force; deficiency robs it of force and clearness. It is human nature to try to say a thing more briefly than is possible. Forgetting that pitch, stress, and gesture do much to make spoken words intelligible, the easy-going writer does not tax himself to attain full and lucid expression. He forgets that a piece of writing may be so condensed as to be dense.

Ambiguity often springs from the omission of merely a word or two. Reading such a phrase as “the secretary and treasurer,” we are vexed with doubt whether one person is meant, or two; the omission of the article seems to imply that the two offices are vested in a single officer. The lack of a few words may turn force into weakness. A German newspaper thus burlesques the compression to which editors sometimes feel impelled: “Ottokar took a small brandy, then his hat, his departure, besides no notice of his pursuers, meantime a revolver out of his pocket, and lastly his own life.”

The following common words should not be omitted:—

1. The main part of an infinitive at the end of a sentence. _Wrong_: “He did what he wished to.” _Right_: “He did what he wished to do.”

2. The adverb _much_ before certain adjectives. _Wrong_: “He was very pleased to comply.” _Right_: “He was very much pleased to comply.”

3. (_a_) The preposition _at_ with home. _Wrong_: “I stayed home and slept home.” _Right_: “I stayed at home and slept at home.” (_b_) The preposition _on_ with days of the month. _Wrong_: “The seventh of July he rebelled.” _Right_: “On the seventh of July he rebelled.” Compare page 231. 3.

4. A demonstrative used for clearness. _Wrong_: “He chose between the lot of the rich and of the poor.” _Right_: “He chose between the lot of the rich and that of the poor.”

5. The conjunction _that_ when needed for clearness. _Wrong_: “I wish such a beefsteak as that one over there may never be served on this table.” What is the ambiguity here, at the beginning?

=Oral Exercise.=—Indicate how by the addition of words each sentence may be corrected:—

1. Altogether it was a day like unto which the memory of the oldest inhabitant could not recall.

2. He received his early education at Brownsville and Whitesville academy, remaining about a year at each place.

3. There was a minister who, being informed by the church officials that they had raised his salary $100, declined to accept it.

4. The following great reductions indicate the heavy losses we are taking closing out the balance of our stock.

5. This mutual esteem was shown by their cordial welcome of the guests as well as the uniform courtesy shown by the latter.

6. Poor Evelina was obliged to choose between a blue and green dress.

7. Streaks of lightning and claps of thunder rattled through the narrow streets of Paris.

8. I am an historical painter by profession, and living for some time at a villa near Rome.

=Specific Words.=—Suppose it were desired to make clear to a friend how the sunset looked—a difficult task. One would hardly succeed if one had no better words to offer than the general terms _clouds_, _beautiful_, _lovely_, _bright_. The friend, if he cared to know, would insist on specific words: What kind of beauty? was it quiet beauty, or awful beauty, or picturesque beauty? What kind of brightness? was it redness? If so, was the sky blood-red, or merely pink? What kind of clouds?—great masses of storm cloud, or high frozen clouds, or mottled “mackerel” clouds? To be clear, then, words must be specific enough to give the idea intended. Just how specific they should be depends on the audience. They must be familiar to the hearer or reader, if they are to be understood without explanation. All audiences would understand the general term _tool_; all would understand the genus name _saw_, which specifies a kind of tool. But many would not understand the species name _rip-saw_; for to most people _rip-saw_ is unfortunately a technical term. In choosing specific words the line should therefore be drawn between common terms and technical terms, the latter not to be employed without explanation, except in addressing special audiences.

Specific words are usually as forcible as they are clear. Most people’s feelings are roused by the thought of a particular object, not of a class name. _Flower_ is a class name; it does not move one. _Clover_ is a specific name; it calls back the old farm, the old friends, the old joys and sorrows. No word will really interest the reader unless he has previously used it or heard it in association with his feelings. Take the word _contusion_; it means something forcible to a doctor, but not to a boy, for the latter never used it. But say _bruise_—which means exactly the same thing. That’s forcible. It feelingly reminds us of the hour in which that dead branch broke and delivered us over to the law of gravitation.

Pick out from these words those that are in themselves forcible to most people: paternal solicitude, fatherly care; home, domicile; altruism, unselfishness. You see at once that certain of these words get their force from the long associations of childhood. In childhood we use the simpler words of the language, those that are derived from the Anglo-Saxon mother-tongue. Anglo-Saxon words, therefore, are usually forcible. Compare page 183.

=Oral Exercise.=—Reduce the following names step by step to a particular genus and a particular species. Thus: animal, mammal, quadruped, graminivorous animal, cow, Alderney.

1. Reduce _machine_ step by step till you reach _stop-watch_.

2. Reduce _machine_ to _revolver_.

3. Reduce _living organism_ to _moss-rose_.

4. Reduce _living organism_ to _oyster_.

Similarly, extend the following species names step by step to family names.

1. Extend _pen-knife_ to _instrument_.

2. Extend _Longfellow_ to _man of letters_.

=General Words.=—We found that most specific words are of Anglo-Saxon origin. Most general words are of Latin origin. Both these statements are only roughly true, of course; but the distinction is worth making. The language of science is mostly of Latin origin, because it consists so largely of class names. Our Anglo-Saxon forefathers had fewer class names, for they had not progressed far enough to care to classify everything. When, later, the English came to study history, and philosophy, and science, they had either to invent new Anglo-Saxon words for class names, or else use Latin words. They chose the latter course. Consequently we have such Latin class names as _animal_, and such individual names as _cat_, _dog_, _horse_, _pig_. We speak of _white_, _blue_, _green_, _red_; but when we want a class name for these, we say _color_, a Latin word. From all this it may be seen that any great number of general words gives a scientific, abstract tone to writing. General words are absolutely necessary for the exact purposes of science and philosophy. They are adapted, as Professor Carpenter puts it, to “precise and elaborate distinctions of thought.” They do not give a clear mental image; that is, you cannot _see_ beauty, or smallness, or animal, or color—you can see only a beautiful object, a small object, a particular animal, a particular color. But, still, general words mean exactly what they say. _Animal_ means exactly this: a summing up of all the qualities that are common to all individual animals. All the things called animal have in common powers of sensation and voluntary movement. When such a distinction is wanted, it is wanted badly, as we say. There is no better mark of literary mastery than knowing just when to use a general word, just when a specific one. Examine a few pages from Robert Louis Stevenson, to see with what exquisite fitness words of Latin origin may be used in the midst of Anglo-Saxon words when the appeal turns from the feelings to the intellect.

There are many reasons why a writer may not wish to be too specific. In the sentence, “I picked up my traps and left,” the colloquialism _traps_ answers every essential purpose. The reader does not care to have tooth-brush and books and papers all specified. People are not to be blamed for referring vaguely to _death_ as a _passing away_, for the specific word is harsh at best. Such expressions as _pass away_ are called _euphemisms_. Many euphemisms are legitimate; but whether a given one should be employed is a question of taste, a question of beauty. It seems a beautiful expression when Keats says, “to cease upon the midnight with no pain,” instead of, “to die painlessly at twelve o’clock;” but it is a mark of false modesty and bad taste to insist on saying _rose_ for _got up_, _retire_ for _go to bed_, _lower limbs_ for _legs_.

Again, one should not always hesitate to set down an idea because one has not the sharpest, clearest possible notion of it. Vague ideas are sometimes valuable ones. They should receive earnest thought that they may take definite shape. But if they seem to defy definite form, they certainly should not be thrown away merely for that. Catching one’s exact idea is often as difficult as catching a trout. But a glimpse of the fine fish that gets away is worth something,—there are few of us who can resist the temptation to tell about it when we get home. Speaking of the mind, Emerson says, “It is wholesome to angle in those profound pools, though one be rewarded with nothing more than the leap of a fish that flashes his freckled side in the sun and as suddenly absconds in the dark and dreamy waters again.”[46] In Wordsworth’s poem, The Solitary Reaper, we hear of a song about _old, unhappy, far-off things_. That was exactly Wordsworth’s own vague notion, and down he set it—in words that make it clear (so to speak) that his idea was sweet and vague. Ruskin, describing the façade of St. Mark’s in Venice, tries to give a sense of the bewildering multiplicity of beautiful things on that wonderful front by saying, _a confusion of delight_. If he had used more definite words we should have missed the effect.

=Oral Exercise.=—Examine the passages from Johnson and Blackmore (pp. 192-3). Which passage contains more of general words than of specific? Which is more forcible in subject-matter? Which in _diction_.

=Oral Exercise.=—In the following passage, choose the better expression from each pair of brackets. Each pair contains one general and one specific term; choose the term which gives greater force or greater clearness than the other.

1. And therefore, first of all, I tell you earnestly and authoritatively (I _know_ I am right in this) you must get into the [way, habit] of looking [rightly, intensely] at words, and [telling, assuring] yourself of their meaning, syllable by syllable—nay, letter by letter. For ... you might read all the books in [a great library, the British Museum] (if you could live long enough) and remain an utterly “illiterate,” uneducated person; but if you read [some part, ten pages] of [a good, an instructive] book, letter by letter—that is to say, with real [care, accuracy]—you are forevermore in some [way, measure] an educated [man, person]. The entire difference between education and non-education (as regards the merely [mental, intellectual] part of it) consists in this [exactitude, accuracy]. A well-educated gentleman may not [read, know] many languages, may not be able to speak any but his own, may have read very few books. But whatever language he knows, he knows [well, precisely]; whatever word he [says, pronounces] he [says, pronounces] rightly. Above all, he is learned in the _peerage_ of words, knows the words of [true, veritable] descent, and [old, ancient] blood, at a glance, from the words of [new, modern] _canaille_, remembers all their ancestry, their intermarriages, distant relationships, and the extent to which they were admitted, and offices they held, among the national _noblesse_ of words at any time and in any [place, country]. But an uneducated person may know, by [heart, memory], many languages, and [use, talk] them all, and yet truly [know, apprehend] not a word of any—not a word even of his own. An ordinarily [clever, good] and sensible seaman will be able to make his way ashore at most [ports, places], yet he has only to speak [a little, a sentence] of [Spanish or French, any language] to be [known, recognized] for an illiterate person; so also the accent, or turn of expression of a single sentence, will at once mark a scholar. And this is so [well, strongly] felt, so [conclusively, well] admitted, by educated persons, that a false accent or a [bad, mistaken] syllable is enough in the parliament of any civilized nation, to [assign, send] man to a certain degree of [lower, inferior] standing forever.

=Oral Exercise.=—Which words in the following are general, which specific? Does each seem appropriate in its place, or ought some words to have been more specific, others more general?

1. Her dress was dark and rich; she had pearls round her neck, and an old rococo fan in her hand.—HENRY JAMES.

2. When gratitude has become a matter of reasoning, there are many ways of escaping from its bonds.—GEORGE ELIOT.

3. Friendships begin with liking or gratitude—roots that can be pulled up.—GEORGE ELIOT.

4. What scene was ever commonplace in the descending sunlight, when color has awakened from its noonday sleep, and the long shadows awe us like a disclosed presence? Above all, what scene is commonplace to the eye that is filled with serene gladness, and brightens all things with its own joy?—GEORGE ELIOT.

=Oral Exercise.=—Is there danger of misconception from the use of the following words? If so, how can the danger be avoided? Discuss in class. _Fair_, _fine_, _certain_, _charity_, _democratic_, _republican_, _nature_.

=Simple Words.=—Several years ago a gentleman[47] secured from a large number of successful authors brief pieces of advice to young writers. In one particular there was an extraordinary unanimity among these authors. Nearly all agreed that a young writer should try to express himself simply. They agreed on other matters too,—for example, on the need of clear thinking and an inclination to take much pains in expression. But it was noticeable that even writers whose own work is not characterized by simplicity seemed to admire this quality.

The greatest men are simple. Affectation, straining for effect, is a mark of a little mind. The greatest art is simple,—governed by a noble restraint. Over-decoration, whether in a picture, a piece of music, in dress, in the furnishing of a room, or in a theme, is always a mark of bad taste.

What is called fine writing—the use of over-ambitious words to express simple thoughts—grows up in various ways. Sometimes it springs from a desire to be funny. Exaggeration has always been a favorite device of the humorist—especially of the American humorist. There are students who learn to use this kind of humor so well that an unconscious habit of bombast pursues them into their more serious work. Most of us can force a smile at such writing as the passage given below, or even laugh at it when there are enough people present to help us:—

“It was in the sixth that Captain Anson, aided and abetted by sundry young men generally called ‘Colts,’ waded in to snatch laurel, trailing arbutus, and other vegetables from the coy hand of fame. He did it, too, and he now has laurels to throw to the birds. Ryan went first to the bat, and pasted a warm one through short that turned the grass black along its path.”

But when a young fellow has read so much of this sort that he drags similar diction into his themes, the fun becomes vulgarity.

In general, use always the simplest word that will express your meaning exactly. Compare pages 216, 217.

=Written Exercise.=—Write in simple English the equivalents of the following passages. Some are from students’ themes; others from newspapers.

1. The _svelte_[48] young debutante received a perfect ovation.

2. In my estimation it is far more to be desired that a tyro in the art of composition should select those subjects with which his acquaintance is the most extensive.

3. In all my experience I have never enjoyed the acquaintance of two youths of more superior ability.

4. It is impossible for me to disassociate from my mind the conception that such a course would be disastrous to the ambitions of the team.

5. Public sentiment would not permit an individual or an infinitesimally small minority to clog the wheels of progress in order to prevent the escape of a few dollars from the individuals composing the obstructive element.

6. Let us indeed refrain from any course of action which will militate against the onward march of the civilizing power of the public schools of this great and growing nation.

7. While the birds were carolling their sweetest strains and the grass hung heavy with water-pearls, Peter Brant was taking his life. A more seductive place to die in than the little garden back of 7000 Congress street is inconceivable.

=Literal and Figurative Words.=—Before it can be decided how far the young writer should use figures of speech, it is necessary to find out the real difference between a literal word or statement and a figurative word or statement. If figures are always mere embellishments of language, the journeyman had better shun them anxiously; for his true object is to express his thought, not to decorate it. If, however, some figures are not embellishments but ordinary building-material, the case is different.

When, on seeing biscuits for the first time, a child refers to them as _moons_, he is not making an effort to adorn his language. He is unconsciously using a figure of speech because he does not know the literal, proper, conventional name, _biscuit_. If the child had formerly lived in a country where apples grew but potatoes did not, the first time he saw a potato he would probably call it a _ground-apple_. As a matter of fact there are people that have gone through some such experience with potatoes. The French word _pomme de terre_ indicates this.

Most words were once figures of speech, that is, _tropes_. A trope, from the Greek word τρέπω, to turn, is merely the turning away of a word from its ordinary meaning to give a name to some new idea. The root of many a word shows the figure that was used to express a given new idea. The root _spir-_ means to breathe. Since the inability to breathe is one part of the process of death, the expression _to breathe out_ became a figurative expression for the whole idea of “to die.” In _expire_, applied to death, the idea of _breathe_ is usually not felt. The figure is forgotten, and we therefore call it a root-figure, or _radical figure_. As may be seen from the roots of the Curious Words on page 191, language is figurative through and through.

This is true not only of language already made, but of that which is daily making. In every mind shades of thought are constantly occurring for which there are either no names, or none which the mind can learn in the interval before expression is necessary. If the exact word is not at hand, a comparison must be made. The shade of thought must be named by telling what thing in the reader’s experience it is like.

Does the attempt at comparison result in a vague, inexact phrase, or in an exact one? The youth who declares that his lesson is as “hard as thunder,” has expressed himself but vaguely. The same is true of the young lady who declares that it rained “like anything.” Let us examine briefly the chief kinds of tropes, and note whether they are necessarily less clear and exact than literal statements.

A person sees an accident, and reports that “a score of hands” picked up the injured boy. Here is _synecdoche_. The “hands” stand for the persons—a part for the whole; a “score” probably stands for a dozen,—the whole number of hands in the group of people, for the smaller number that actually touched the boy. Or, the “score” may be called _hyperbole_, that is, exaggeration. A critic might say that either figure is inexact here. True, in a way. But if the writer had reported that he _seemed_ to see a score of hands, the phrase would be faithful to his thought. We may take the _seemed_ for granted, and reply to the critic that for exact purposes in a law court, “seemed to see a score of hands” might be nearer the truth than an attempt at greater precision.

Suppose, now, that the writer who reported the accident said that the boy was in great pain, so that his face was “as white as ivory.” Here is a _simile_,—an explicit statement of likeness in two things which are different in most respects. This particular simile is certainly more exact than the literal word _white_ would be.

If now the writer had said, “I caught a glimpse of compressed lips and ivory face,” the comparison would have been not explicit, but implied. An implied comparison is called _metaphor_. Metaphor is from the Greek for _carrying over_, because it carries over bodily the name of one thing to another. To speak of a man as “bold as a lion,” is simile; to call him a “lion” outright, is metaphor. It is less clear to call a man a lion than to say in what respect he is like a lion; it is less clear to say, “ivory face” than to say “face white as ivory.”

The case of the boy who was injured may have got into the newspapers. To speak more figuratively, the _press_ may have taken up the matter. _Press_ stands here for the editors of the various journals. This last figure is _metonymy_. In metonymy one thing is put for another that is often associated with it. In the sentence given, metonymy does not seem to detract from clearness; at all events it saves a roundabout expression.

Metaphor and metonymy, by ascribing life to inanimate things, often become _personification_. So above, where the press _takes up_ a matter. It is evident that personification need not make a sentence less intelligible.

Once more, let us suppose that the reporter who first learned of the boy’s accident remarked, on handing in his account of it, “The early bird catches the worm.” The remark is pure _allegory_—describing some act or thing indirectly by describing something else. If the hearer knows enough of the situation to understand the allegory, he undoubtedly receives a forcible impression, and may be helped to a clearer view. Allegory is a kind of expanded metaphor. It is more liable to misinterpretation than most figures; but the allegorical proverbs of our language, and the popularity of such books as the _Pilgrim’s Progress_, show that it is a favorite form of expression. Like general words, allegory can be used to say things which policy may forbid being said more directly.

From the discussion it appears that tropes can often be made to yield a clear and sufficiently exact phrase. Often however a trope lends force or beauty rather than clearness. It is forcible rather than clear to call a man a lion. It is beautiful rather than clear to speak of the Pleiades as “a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid.” Such a phrase as this is legitimate enough in poetry; it would be legitimate in highly imaginative prose. But the fact cannot be dodged that it would be out of place in the midst of plain prose description.

The practical conclusion is obvious. Use tropes without hesitation when they are really needed to give clearness and force. Never use a trope for decorative purposes only. The ability to write plain, bare English is absolutely indispensable. The ability to write figuratively is an enviable, but not a necessary, possession.

When the need of a figure is actually felt, the choice should be made with scrupulous care. If tropes occur to you in numbers, “like flocks of pigeons,” choose only the pigeon that can carry a message. To secure lucidity, employ a figure which makes use of something already clear to the reader. Every-day life and common things are the best sources for both similes and metaphors. To secure force, select such figures as appeal to the emotional experiences of everybody. If you wish to hold attention and move your reader, appeal to such primal feelings as love, hate, fear, courage, joy, sorrow, aspiration, hope. Note how Shakespeare appeals to the human animal’s dread of deep water: he makes Cardinal Wolsey say, “I have ventured, like wanton boys that swim on bladders, this many summers in a sea of glory.” In _Macbeth_ he appeals to the joy of release from pain: he calls sleep _the balm_ of each day’s hurt.

A good figure of speech must be consistent. Although a lively imagination changes its metaphors from minute to minute, it must not change them so fast as to suggest ridiculous things. If the metaphor gets mixed, clearness and force go to the winds. The other day the writer heard a young man earnestly exclaim: “Now I shall have to toe the bee-line!” The thought of that youth, lifted to a perilous position where his toes sought vainly in the trackless air for a “bee-line,” was quite too much for the gravity of his hearers. This trope that failed to be a trope was about as effective as the famous lightning-change series of metaphors uttered by Sir Boyle Roche: “Mr. Speaker, I smell a rat. I see him floating in the air. But I will nip him in the bud.” Mixed metaphors may arise from mere liveliness of imagination,—a good fault sometimes. More frequently it arises from vague thinking or from grandiloquence. The examples on page 246 show how liable fine writing is to this fault. A figure that is not in good taste is incomparably worse than no figure at all.

=Oral Exercise.=—Name each trope, and explain how each gets its force; what emotion each touches.

(_a_) “Thy soul was like a star and dwelt apart.”—WORDSWORTH.

(_b_) “What is hope?—a smiling rainbow children follow through the wet.”—CARLYLE.

(_c_) “She speaks poniards, and every word stabs.”—SHAKESPEARE.

(_d_) “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive; but to be young was very heaven.”—WORDSWORTH.

(_e_) “Prayer is the key of the morning and the bolt of the night.”—BEECHER.

=Oral Exercise.=—Examine the phrases that you made by finding adjectives to fit abstract qualities (p. 202), and decide in each case whether clearness or force is the chief resulting characteristic.

=Oral Exercise.=—Restore force to the following figures by changing whatever is incongruous in them. Reject any that are irretrievably bad in taste, or hackneyed.

1. The singing was led by the organ assisted by four violins.

2. In graceful and figurative language he pointed the finger of scorn at the defendant.

3. It was 8 o’clock when the guests attacked the following menu.

4. The trailer struck the car amidships.

5. The colonies were not yet ripe to bid adieu to British connection.

6. Let us cast off the shackles of doubt and bind ourselves with the bonds of faith.

7. No human happiness is so serene as not to contain some alloy.

8. Boyle was the father of chemistry, and brother of the Earl of Cork.

9. The marble-hearted marauder might seize the throne of civil authority, and hurl into thraldom the votaries of rational liberty.

10. It is to be hoped, now that lovely woman discountenances the flowing bowl, that the rising generation will abjure it, and follow the weaker sex in taking nothing stronger than the cup which cheers but not inebriates.