ocean, and so long as he is wet he is all the filthier. Were they to take the ass of Jesus to Mecca, on his return from that pilgrimage he would still be an ass."

These last sentences may be popular proverbs, which are more commonly allegories than similes.

"The early bird catches the worm."
"It's a long lane that has no turning."
"A stitch in time saves nine."

"An iron hand in a velvet glove."

E.g.:

In applying such proverbs to daily happenings no one says, "You are like the early bird that catches the worm," although now that such proverbs are in everybody's mind one often puts them in the form of metaphor: “You're an early bird this morning."

The figure is not so common in English literature as Simile or Metaphor. The following examples are taken from Emerson:

"This human mind wrote history and this must read it. The Sphinx must solve her own riddle."-History.

"Be it as it may, his books have no melody, no emotion, no humor, no relief to the dead prosaic level. In his profuse and accurate imagery is no pleasure, for there is no beauty. We wander forlorn in a lacklustre landscape. No bird ever sang in all those gardens of the dead."Swedenborg.

[After speaking of the sayings of the "high priesthood of the pure reason "]" The angels are so enamored of the language that is spoken in heaven that they will not distort their lips with the hissing and unmusical dialects of men, but speak in their own, whether there be any who understand it or not."-Intellect.

"To be communicable it [truth] must become picture or sensible object. . . . The ray of light passes invisible

through space, and only when it falls on an object is it seen."-Intellect.

"A drop of water has the properties of the sea, but cannot exhibit a storm. There is beauty of a concert as well as of a flute; strength of a host as well as of a hero; and, in Swedenborg, those who are best acquainted with modern books will most admire the merit of mass."-Swedenborg.

75. Metaphor. A metaphor is sometimes defined as a simile with the term of comparison omitted, but this definition appears to me to neglect a very important characteristic of the metaphor. I should prefer to say that if the Simile is a statement that an idea is like an image a Metaphor is the statement of an idea in terms of an image. That is, we are not told that A is like B, but A is spoken This can readily be understood by a few examples which I choose from Emerson's Essays, First Series:

of as if it were B.

"The walls of rude minds are scrawled all over with facts, with thoughts."

Of course no rude minds have any walls, nor can any walls be scrawled over with facts. But Emerson conceives of the mind as a chamber, perhaps, and then speaks of it as though it were a chamber. Thus he says properly that its walls are scrawled over. But the walls of a room may be scrawled over with words, names, sentences, proverbs, and so on. Following out the analogy, these would represent the impression made on the mind by thoughts, facts. He does not take the trouble to state the resemblance, but puts in the words themselves. He then proceeds: "They shall one day bring a lantern and read the inscription." This latter is on the borderground between Allegory and Metaphor.

"Time dissipates to shining ether the solid angularity of facts." Time and facts are literal, the rest figurative.

"A man . . . is a knot of roots, whose flowers and fruit

age are the world." Man and world are literal, the rest figurative.

"He shall collect to a focus the rays of nature.

EXERCISE.

Point out the literal and figurative elements in the following metaphors; they are all from Emerson's essay on Self-Reliance. It is worth while in studying any such question as this to run through some one thing and note whatever is to the point.

1. “A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages."

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2. What pretty oracles nature yields us on this text in the face and behavior of children, babes, and even brutes."

3. "It [conformity] loses your time and blurs the impression of your character."

4. "Meantime nature is not slow to equip us in the prison-uniform of the party to which we adhere."

5. Let a man then know his worth and keep things under his feet."

6. "What is the aboriginal Self, on which a universal reliance may be grounded? What is the nature and power of that sciencebaffling star, without parallax, without calculable elements, which shoots a ray of beauty even into trivial and impure actions, if the least mark of independence appear."

7. When we have new perception, we shall gladly disburden the memory of its hoarded treasures as old rubbish." (Metaphor or Simile?)

8. "Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string."

76. Mixed Metaphors. One subject usually touched upon in regard to Metaphors is that of Mixed Metaphors. I am tempted to believe that the indiscriminate condemnation of mixed metaphors arises rather more often from pedantry than from common sense. Mixed metaphors are certainly often enough ridiculous, but it can hardly be simply because they are mixed, for all metaphors are mixed. It must be for whatever reasons make other things ridiculous. The stock instance is Shakespeare's: "Take up

Now here the figure

arms against a sea of troubles." changes in the middle, as it were; possibly there were two figures in the poet's mind:

To take up arms against a host of troubles.

To hold one's own against a sea of troubles. And, as is the case not only with figures, but with syntactic constructions, and even with single words, he confused the two, or he may have begun with one idea and finished with another. But the result is certainly not ridiculous. To my mind it is not nearly so ridiculous as the following metaphors, which (in a technical sense) are not mixed at all:

"In filling memory's woodbox throw in a log for me." "In the chimney of your affections count me always a brick."

"A drop of ink falling like dew upon a passing thought produces stately growths which make millions think."

The celebrated metaphor of Sir Boyle Roche is sometimes quoted: "Mr. Speaker, I smell a rat. I see it floating in the air. But I will nip it in the bud." But this is not a mixed metaphor: it is a rapid succession of very incongruous metaphors, and the ridiculousness of it arises largely from the conception of the rat floating in the air and being nipped.

A really mixed metaphor seems to be the following from something of Whittier's:

"I ask not now for gold to gild

With mocking shine an aching frame."

Here the mixture is such that it is difficult to tell whether a figure were intended or a pun.

It is usual to speak of mixed metaphors, but, as we have seen, the term usually applies to a rapid sequence of metaphors. We may just as well have a rapid sequence of similes. If the rapidity of sequence in simile or metaphor defeats the object of the figure it is of course bad.

As a

rule, if it calls up a humorous conception, it will defeat its object. E.g.:

"The first bar [of Schumann's D minor symphony] may be considered, so to speak, the keystone of this movement. Trite and uninteresting as it is, it follows us relentlessly. . . till . . . we hardly know whether to feel aggravated at its pertinacity or astonished at the effect produced by such an unpromising subject."-Thomas Concert Programme.

Here the simile would seem to be meant to help us to understand the music. I am, however, haunted by the idea of being pertinaciously followed by that relentless and uninteresting keystone to such a degree that I fear I should not be wholly in sympathy with the composer.

77. Petrified Metaphors. It must be remarked that it is often rather hard to say whether such and such an expression should be called a metaphor. Metaphor is and always has been one of the commonest means of extending the scope of language. We have a great number of words. in our language which were originally or at one time metaphors (e.g. p. 238). We have a number of expressions which are constantly used with no real thought of their metaphorical sense. Such expressions I shall not call metaphors. For convenience' sake I shall understand by the word metaphor only such expressions as do call up an image, or as are intended to call one up. I would not be understood to speak of such expressions as:

"In unmeasured terms."

"The ties of allegiance."

"When their blood is heated."

"Bring down an anathema on his head." "Which he has bequeathed to posterity." Such expressions are extremely common.

I will quote a few more chosen from a few pages of Macaulay's History, ch. xiii.: