"The Edinburgh Review never would have thought of asking, Who reads a Russian book?""

"Rousseau-tinted spectacles."

People who "see nothing more than the burning of a chimney in that clash of Michael and Satan."

"As keenly as Johnson felt it at Charing Cross."

b. "I know not whether it is because I am pigeonlivered and lack gall."

"Art thou there, old Truepenny?"

"Hath rot an American organs," etc.

Of some of these examples (from Lowell's essay On a Certain Condescension Observable in Foreigners) I should say that the allusions might be just a step beyond the ordinary reader. But whether they be or not they show how a mind penetrated with good reading finds for everything comparisons and analogies.

Toward the end of his essay on Milton Macaulay says: "His thoughts resemble those celestial fruits and flowers which the Virgin Martyr of Massinger sent down from the gardens of Paradise to the earth, and which were distinguished from the productions of other soils, not only by superior bloom and sweetness, but by miraculous efficacy to invigorate and heal.”

One might say in regard to this illustration that it does not carry us very far, since comparatively few readers. nowadays are sufficiently familiar with the plays of Massinger to apprehend the allusion. This I take to be the case, but whether one have read Massinger or not the illustration is obvious. If the last half of the sentence had been omitted, it would have been obscure for the greater number, but as it is no one can miss the point. Much the same remark may be made of another illustration in the same essay, where Macaulay evidently had no expectation that his reader would recall the passage of Ariosto he

had in mind. But he wanted to use the comparison, and he put it so that all would understand it:

"Ariosto tells a pretty story of a fairy, who, by some mysterious law of her nature, was condemned to appear at certain seasons in the form of a foul and poisonous snake. Those who injured her during the period of her disguise were forever excluded from participation in the blessings which she bestowed. But to those who, in spite of her loathsome aspect, pitied and protected her she afterwards revealed herself in the beautiful and celestial form which was natural to her, accompanied their steps, granted all their wishes, filled their houses with wealth, made them happy in love and victorious in war. Such a spirit is Liberty. At times," etc.

Under the present rubric we might add figures based upon Fables and well-known Tales. I need only instance allusions to King Log and King Stork, The Fox and the Grapes, Jack's Beanstalk, Jack Horner and his Pie, and we might add Bluebeard and his Wives, Sinbad and the Old Man of the Sea, Alnaschar, and so on.

And nearly connected with these are matters of Common Tradition, such as The Chinese Wall, The Colossus of Rhodes, The Blue Laws, The Laws of the Medes and Persians, Horoscopes, Oracles, Temples, Giants, Dwarfs, Mermaids, and other matters which everybody has heard of, but never seen.

In such directions may numbers of illustrations be found, the chief danger being that somebody else has found them already, so that the world has become so well accustomed to them that it will regard your efforts as being rather dull.

91. The Bible. ure is the Bible.

Another source of illustration and figHere you are rather apt to burn your fingers, but if you really know your Bible it is a great help. It is practically effective and theoretically as well.

For the characteristic of figure and illustration is that they should be intermediaries between your idea, which is unfamiliar to your reader, let us say, and the ideas and thoughts which are not unfamiliar to him. Now the Bible is so universally read that its language, its mode of thought, its ideas, its figures, are very commonly familiar. Allusions to the Bible are more sure of an understanding than allusions to any other piece of literature. Hence the not very uncommon use of Biblical language by various authors.

"The stars in their courses fought against Mr. Quincy's party."-Lowell: My Study Windows, p. 105.

“... burning some memoranda, lest they should rise up in judgment."-Ibid., p. 110.

"Emerson awakened us, saved u from the body of this death."-Ibid., p. 381.

Ruskin is noteworthy for the effectiveness with which he uses Bible imagery. He has the right to use it, as any one will acknowledge who will look at the account of his early readings with his mother in Præterita, ch. ii. Good examples may be found in almost any of his writings. The following is the end of the second lecture in Sesame and Lilies:

"Who is it, think you, who stands at the gate of this sweeter garden, alone, waiting for you? Did you ever hear, not of a Maud, but a Madeleine, who went down to her garden in the dawn, and found One waiting at the gate, whom she supposed to be the gardener? Have you not sought Him often; sought Him in vain, all through the night; sought Him in vain at the gate of that old garden where the fiery sword is set? He is never there; but at the gate of this garden He is waiting always-waiting to take your hand-ready to go down to see the fruits of the valley, to see whether the vine has flourished, and the pomegranate budded. There you shall see with Him the

little tendrils of the vines that His hand is guiding-there you shall see the pomegranate springing where His hand cast the sanguine seed:-more: you shall see the troops of the angel keepers that, with their wings, wave away the hungry birds from the pathsides where He has sown, and call to each other between the vineyard rows, Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines, for our vines have tender grapes.' Oh-you queens-you queens! among the hills and happy greenwood of this land of yours, shall the foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests; and in your cities shall the stones cry out against you that they are the only pillows where the Son of Man can lay His head?"

It's rather good exercise to look out the origin of the allusions in a passage like this: Ruskin will be found to have laid a good many books of the Bible under requisition.

92. Application of the Foregoing. These are only a few of the most obvious sources from which similitudes may be drawn, for it must be observed that here we are only speaking of such figures and illustrations as are based upon comparison. But when we begin to think of Comparison we see that the possibilities are only limited by the bounds of our own knowledge and that of our reader. The latter is, as I have already pointed out, the person of greatest importance. We must consider him especially in analogies, parallels, and contrasts, as well as in metaphors and allegories. In our Similes we have such a chance to explain ourselves that it is not of so much consequence that the reader should be already acquainted with that of which we mean to speak, but even here the additional effort on the part of the reader in learning something new will often serve to make your work ineffective in the direction you desire.

When you think over what is implied in saying that the

whole field of your knowledge is open to you to draw upon. for assistance in figure and illustration, you will see what an opportunity you have here. Emerson says that the scholar should be ambitious of action if only for a vocabulary, and in like manner might one say here: If it were only for means to bring his idea more clearly and strongly before the reader, the scholar should be desirous of all knowledge. It would almost seem as though there were nothing which might not somehow be turned to account. But, as we have seen, particularly in speaking of similitudes from everyday affairs and from nature, the man with a quick power of observation has here the immense advantage. If we have not this gift, or have not to some degree cultivated the power of really seeing and knowing, our illustrations will be too often commonplace and hackneyed. Thus, as I have already pointed out, figure and illustration are not mere forms of expression; they are characteristic of thought as well (p. 249). It does not necessarily follow that the faculty of figurative language and illustration is native, and that if we have it not we are to dismiss any idea of availing ourselves of its assistance. Certainly it is often an inborn gift, and certainly no one would think that by study and practice he could ever reach the wealth of imagery of Lowell. But perhaps one does not care for such a figured expression. And however that be, to a minor degree one may cultivate his power of seeing likeness and dissimilarity, and with a sound knowledge of the particular end that may be attained by figure and illustration may give his writing a quality which, if he neglected the opportunity, would be really missed.