We have an effective way of transferring epithets, of extending the attributes of one subject to another with which it is connected. "The expression of such a thought," says one writer, "must be considered as a figure, because the attribute is not applicable to the subject in any proper sense." He gives as examples:

1. Casting a dim, religious light. 2. He drew his coward sword. 3. The high-climbing hill. 4. He steers the fearless ship. 5. And the merry bells ring round. 6. And the jocund rebecks sound.

In all our study of figures we shall find that the most simple and natural are the most telling. Unconsciously we shall cull from common experiences figures that will illustrate and give point to our thoughts. A reasonable amount of care should keep us from mixing metaphors and from using figures as mere ornament. If it is not perfectly clear to you that we use figures as naturally as we breathe, notice the language of the people whom you hear talk from day to day.

Exercises

448. In the two following extracts, how is force secured? In the second, note the use of the following words: clumping, twittering, commanding, casting, nick, bleak, closure, burn, torn, tinged, swim, massacre.

1. The schoolboy whips his taxed top; the beardless youth manages his taxed horse with a taxed bridle on a taxed road; and the dying Englishman, pouring his medicine, which has paid seven per cent, into a spoon that has paid fifteen per cent, flings himself back upon his chintz bed which has paid twenty-two per cent, and expires in the arms of an apothecary who has paid a license of a hundred pounds for the privilege of putting him to death. - Sydney Smith.

2. Now I write you from my mosquito curtain, to the song of saws and planes and hammers, and wood clumping on the floor above; in a day of heavenly brightness; a bird twittering near by; my eye, through the open door, commanding green meads, two or three forest trees casting their boughs against the sky, a forest-clad mountain-side beyond, and close in by the door-jamb a nick of the blue Pacific. It is March in England, bleak March, and I lie here with the great sliding doors open, in an undershirt and p'jama trousers, and melt in the closure of mosquito bars, and burn to be out in the breeze. A few torn clouds - not white, the sun has tinged them a warm pink - swim in heaven. In which blessed and fair day, I have to make faces and speak bitter words to a man - who has deceived me, it is true - but who is poor, and older than I, and a kind of a gentleman too. On the whole, I prefer the massacre of weeds.

- Stevenson, "Vailima Letters," Vol. I.

444. Read the following passage carefully and make a list of the words that seem particularly well chosen:

The prospectus of the Dictionary he [Samuel Johnson] addressed to the Earl of Chesterfield. Chesterfield had long been celebrated for the politeness of his manners, the brilliancy of his wit, and the delicacy of his taste. He was acknowledged to be the finest speaker in the House of Lords. He had recently governed Ireland, at a momentous conjuncture, with eminent firmness, wisdom, and humanity; and he had since become Secretary of State. He received Johnson's homage with the most winning affability, and requited it with a few guineas, bestowed doubtless in a very graceful manner, but was by no means desirous to see all his carpets blackened with the London mud, and his soups and wines thrown to right and left over the gowns of fine ladies and the waistcoats of fine gentlemen, by an absent, awkward scholar, who gave strange starts and uttered strange growls, who dressed like a scarecrow and ate like a cormorant. During some time Johnson continued to call on his patron, but, after being repeatedly told by the porter that his lordship was not at home, took the hint, and ceased to present himself at the inhospitable door.

- Macaulay, "Life of Samuel Johnson."

445. With this list before you, see how closely you can reproduce the paragraph orally.

446. In a similar way reproduce the passage from Bunyan (pp. 243-244).

447. In a letter to a friend (see Chap. VIII for help in making your letter correct in form), describe "forcibly" some street scene that you have witnessed recently.

448. Which of the three following selections do you like best ? Which is your second choice ? Point out the excellencies of each, and make a. list of subjects which call for the use of words as specific and vivid as these. Use one of your subjects in writing a theme of considerable length.

1. I could see nothing but a cloud of dust before me, but I knew that it concealed a band of many hundreds of buffalo. In a moment I was in the midst of the cloud, half suffocated by the dust and stunned by the trampling of the flying herd; but I was drunk with the chase and cared for nothing but the buffalo. Very soon a long dark mass became visible, looming through the dust; then I could distinguish each bulky carcass, the hoofs flying out beneath, the short tails held rigidly erect. In a moment I was so close that I could have touched them with my gun. Suddenly, to my amazement, the hoofs were jerked upwards, the tails flourished in the air, and amid a cloud of dust the buffalo seemed to sink into the earth before me. . . . We had run unawares upon a ravine.

- Parkman, "The Oregon Trail," chap. xxiv.

2. Sweet smiling village, loveliest of the lawn,

Thy sports are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn; Amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen,

And desolation saddens all thy green: One only master grasps the whole domain And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain. No more thy glassy brook reflects the day, But, choked with sedges, works its weedy way; Among thy glades, a solitary guest, The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest; Amidst thy desert walks the lapwing flies, And tires their echoes with unvaried cries; Sunk are thy bowers in shapeless ruin all, And the long grass o'ertops the moldering wall; And trembling, shrinking from the spoiler's hand, Far, far away thy children leave the land.

- Goldsmith, "The Deserted Village."

3. Without warning or preparation I looked into a gulf seventeen hundred feet deep, with eagles and fish-hawks circling far below. And the sides of that gulf were one wild welter of color - crimson, emerald, cobalt, ochre, amber, honey splashed with port wine, snow-white, vermilion, lemon, and silver gray, in wide washes. The sides did not fall sheer, but were graven by time and water and air into monstrous heads of kings, dead chiefs, men and women of the old time. So far below that no sound of its strife could reach us, the Yellowstone River ran - a finger-wide strip of jade-green. The sunlight took those wondrous walls and gave fresh hues to those that nature had already laid there. Once I saw the dawn break over a lake in Rajputana and the sun set over the Oodey Sagar amid a circle of Holman Hunt hills. This time I was watching both performances going on below me - upside down you understand - and the colors were real! The canon was burning like Troy town; but it would burn forever, and, thank goodness, neither pen nor brush could ever portray its splendors adequately. - Kipling, "American Notes."