Journeys Through Bookland Volume X Part 31

Each year brings him nearer to the critic's position and he sees excellence and is touched by beauty in selections that before have been devoid of any interest. It is to aid this growth in power of comprehension, this refinement of taste, that one reads.

_The Author._ When the study relates to a specific selection it is wise to create an interest by looking for all the contributory aids that can be found. Sometimes a knowledge of the life of the author or of the circ.u.mstances under which the selection was written will stimulate a desire to know what has been said and will moreover a.s.sist to make the meaning clear and to create the same sentiment that inspired the writer.

To know that _Snow-Bound_ is a description of Whittier's own home, that the people about the fireside are his own parents, brothers, sisters, and that he paints them with a loving touch after all but the one brother have pa.s.sed to the other side, is to make the poem appeal to our emotions with an intensity which the beautiful lines alone could not effect. _Ichabod_ we read once, but when we know the meaning of its spiritual name and remember that it is Whittier's indignant rebuke of Webster for his vacillating policy in the slavery agitation, we read it again with a renewed and more vivid interest. Many things, however, are so universal that one cares not whether they were written by a Hindoo or an American, whether they are full of personal experience or drawn with the fervor of the most ardent imagination. Wordsworth's _Daffodils_ (Volume VII, page 1) would charm us and our hearts would dance as joyfully if we knew nothing of the pensive poet of the English lakes.

_Sentences._ Words alone are not a sufficient possession. They must be known in all their relations. A comprehension of the structure of the sentence is always necessary. A sentence is a unit of thought, an idea reduced to its lowest terms. It may not be necessary that each sentence be a.n.a.lyzed strictly by grammatical rules, but it is essential that the reader should recognize by study if necessary the subject and the predicate and the character and rank of all the modifiers of each. Even the practiced reader by unconsciously laying undue prominence upon some minor phrase frequently modifies the meaning an author intends to convey. This is particularly true in verse, where the poet, hemmed in by the rules that govern his meter and his rhyme, varies the natural order of the elements of a sentence to bring the accents where they belong or to throw the rhyming word to the end of a verse. The grouping of related sentences into paragraphs is an aid to the reader and should be noticed by him till the habit of expecting a slight change in thought with the indentation of a line becomes fixed and automatic.

_Allusions._ But one may have the most perfect knowledge of all the words, his comprehension of the meaning of the sentence may be exact and full, and yet the special thought which the expression carries may never reach his mind. Ruskin writes: "Gather a single blade of gra.s.s and examine for a minute, quietly, its narrow swordshaped strip of fluted green. Nothing, as it seems, there, of notable goodness or beauty. A very little strength, and a very little tallness, and a few delicate long lines meeting in a point--not a perfect point either, but blunt and unfinished, by no means a creditable or apparently much cared for example of Nature's workmans.h.i.+p; made, as it seems, only to be trodden on today, and tomorrow to be cast into the oven; and a little pale and hollow stalk, feeble and flaccid, leading down to the dull brown fibres of roots. And yet, think of it well, and judge whether of all the gorgeous flowers that beam in summer air, and of all strong and goodly trees, pleasant to the eyes and good for food--stately palm and pine, strong ash and oak, scented citron burdened vine--there be any by man so deeply loved, by G.o.d so highly graced as that narrow point of feeble green." Words and sentences are all plain and simple and clear. Perhaps we pause a moment at "scented citron," for the citron as we know it is a vine bearing a melonlike fruit and we are not aware that it is especially fragrant. But this is another plant--a tree that bears a sweet-scented fruit not unlike the lemon. "Burdened vine" seems a trifle obscure--why _burdened vine_? A vine carrying a weight? What weight?

The ripened cl.u.s.ters of purple fruit bending the swaying vines to the warm earth while autumn tints the leaves to harmonious colors. "Burdened vine" is a suggestive expression indeed to the person of a little imagination who has walked through the long aisles of a thriving vineyard. Is the pa.s.sage now clear to us and perfectly understood? Does it convey to us what Ruskin really thought?--"Tomorrow to be cast into the oven." What a strange expression! Do we put gra.s.s into an oven? How came Ruskin to mention such a thing? "To be cast into the oven." We have seen "burdened vines" and we understand the "scented citron," but what of this gra.s.s "cast into the oven"? Back in the mind of the artist-critic lie the lessons of his childhood when an ambitious father and a strict mother intended him for the church and trained him carefully to a close and accurate knowledge of the scriptures. So when he writes of the gra.s.s of the field he almost unconsciously uses the language of the bible: "Wherefore if G.o.d so clothe the gra.s.s of the field which today is and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?" We his readers interpret his feelings and his meaning in this only as we have learned the same lessons.

Examples of such allusions abound throughout literature. In _The Vision of Sir Launfal_, Lowell says:

"Daily, with souls that cringe and plot, We Sinais climb and know it not."

With a knowledge of geography we might locate the mountain and understand the sentence, but the tremendous power of the lines can never be felt unless we know the story of Moses and so realize that we stand every day like the patriarch of old in the very presence of G.o.d himself.

The mythology of Greece and Rome furnishes to English literature allusions so pointed, so vivid, and so full of beautiful suggestion that a knowledge of the myths is necessary to any real culture. Modern writers do not make such ready use of them as did the older schools, but Lowell and Tennyson, Browning and Arnold, and a host of minor writers a.s.sume that their readers know as their alphabet the stories of mythology. In his hymn _On the Morning of Christ's Nativity_, Milton has this stanza following one which tells that the shepherds heard the sweet music:

"Nature that heard such sound Beneath the hollow round Of Cynthia's seat the airy region thrilling, Now was almost won To think her part was done, And that her reign had here its last fulfilling; She knew such harmony alone Could hold all Heaven and Earth in happier Union."

How little of intelligent interest attaches to the first three lines if one has no knowledge beyond the literal meaning of the phrases! "The hollow round of Cynthia's seat" has beauty for that person only who knows something of the Ptolemaic system of astronomy and of the huntress-queen of Greek mythology.

Allusions lead one to every department of knowledge and are the result of the early training and experience of the author. No one needs to be told that Milton studied the cla.s.sics, that Ruskin and Tennyson read the bible devotedly, that Shakespeare pa.s.sed his early life in the country.

The unconscious trend of their thought as shown by their allusions gives that information most distinctly. If a man loves history in his youth his writings will be filled with historical allusions; if he is a devotee of science one will find the phenomena of nature the source of his ill.u.s.trations. The reader must be ready to understand and interpret feelingly these allusions no matter what the particular bent of the author. To the student the allusion is often very difficult of comprehension, for if it comes in the way of an ingenious paraphrase he may pa.s.s over it without the slightest recognition. When it is direct, a dictionary or other reference book will frequently make it sufficiently clear.

_Basis of Figures._ The allusion is but one of many ways in which an author varies the literal meaning of his sentences and gives more force and beauty to his statements. There are a large number of different figures of speech, but such fine distinctions as the rhetoricians make are unnecessary for the ordinary student of literature. It is the meaning the figures convey that concerns us, for an adept in reading always notices the skilful use of figures, and his pleasure is heightened by their delicacy and beauty.

In the study of figures one must first carefully determine the basis in reality or the literal meaning and then the figurative or applied meaning. Browning speaks of

"--selfish worthless human slugs whose slime Has failed to lubricate their path in life."

Here the reader must see disgusting slugs or snails crawling lazily across the ripening apples in the orchard and leaving behind them the filthy streak of slime with which they made the way easy for their ugly bodies, but in so doing defiled the fruit for human use. So much is the basis in fact. Knowing this one can feel the poet's stinging denunciation of the one who cast the beautiful girl in the way of the heartless Guido instead of "putting a prompt foot on him the worthless human slug."

"To unhusk truth a-hiding in its hulls."

Here Browning has gone to the fields for his figure and we shall see the ripened grain, the corn or the wheat, the merry huskers at work upon it, turning out the glowing ear from its covering of dim paper wraps; or perchance a group of disciples walking with their Master and rubbing the hulls from the wheat gathered on the Sabbath day. Whatever the scene that comes in mind, one fact there is--underneath the dried and worthless hulls lies the living and life-giving grain. So we find truth bright and genuine when we have torn from it the coverings with which it has been concealed.

Such practice as this in working out elaborately the figure often given in barest hint strengthens the imagination and gives to thought the versatility that makes reading a delight and an inspiration. Till the imagination is furnished material and given freedom, literature is as worthless as the husks.

_Simile._ As we learn to know one thing from its likeness to another, it is natural that the writer should seek to make impressions vivid by comparison with better known things. Sometimes these comparisons are expressed in words, and one thing is said to be _like_ another, while at other times the comparison is left to be inferred and one thing is said _to be_ another. The _simile_ states the likeness. Browning seeks to make us see vividly the hideous character of one of his villains and says that on his very face you could read his crimes--

"Large-lettered like h.e.l.l's masterpiece of print."

The comparison "like h.e.l.l's masterpiece" is a simile.

Study each simile you find, and state the exact meaning of each literally. Compare your statement with the figurative one and see if the latter is clearer, more forcible, or more beautiful. If any one of the similes seems less vivid than your own literal statement, ask yourself if the fault is your own in that you are not thoroughly familiar with the basis of the figure. It is not necessary that your judgment should be una.s.sailable. The value of the proceeding lies in the exercise of your attention and reason. Your judgments will improve, your appreciation grow keener and more delicate.

_Metaphor:_

"Everywhere I see in the world the intellect of man, That sword, the energy, his subtle spear, The knowledge, which defends him like a s.h.i.+eld."

This is another quotation from Browning in which he says intellect is a sword and energy a spear, thereby a.s.suming a comparison and using the figure _metaphor_, while in the last line he uses the simile "like a s.h.i.+eld." Ingersoll calls the grave "the windowless palace of rest," and Whittier refers to it in a beautiful metaphor as "the low green tent whose curtain never outward swings."

_Synecdoche and Metonymy._ Another group of figures consists in naming one thing for something else closely a.s.sociated with it in thought. When this relation is that of a part to the whole or of the whole to a part, the figure is synecdoche. Thus, when Browning says "pert tongue and idle ear consort 'neath the archway" he conveys the idea that idle gossips gather beneath the archway and with sharp tongues talk over the failings of their neighbors, and he uses synecdoche in making the ear and the tongue, parts of the body, signify the person. Our everyday language is full of these figures in which a part of an object is named to represent the whole. We speak of owning "twenty head of cattle," of hiring "ten hands," of seeing "fifteen sails," when we mean that we own twenty cattle, that we hire ten men, that we see fifteen boats.

When the relation expressed is that of a sign or symbol and that which is signified or symbolized, a cause and its effect, a material and that which is made from it, or is some other similar a.s.sociation of ideas, the figure is metonymy.

We speak of "the pulpit" when we mean the ministry, the "stage" when we mean the theatrical world, and thus use concrete symbols to represent abstract ideas. Again, we frequently make use of such an expression as "Have you read Pope or Dryden?" when we refer to the works rather than to the writer, and thus subst.i.tute cause for effect. "Columns of glittering steel advanced" contains another form of metonymy, that in which a material (steel) is named for that made from it (spears).

Search for examples of these two figures in the selections in _Journeys Through Bookland_. Both are elusive, and at first you are apt to pa.s.s over many without noticing them. As you continue your search and grow keen in it you will be surprised to see how common they are, both in what you read and in your own speech.

_Apostrophe and Personification._ An address to a person or thing, absent or dead, is an _apostrophe_, and when an inanimate object is a.s.sumed to be alive or an animate object is a.s.sumed to be raised to a higher plane of existence it is said to be by _personification_.

Examples of the latter figure are "death's menace," "laugh of morn." In the line "Lucidity of soul unlocks the lips" are both metonymy and personification. The following is the beginning of a beautiful apostrophe:

"O lyric Love, half angel and half bird, And all a wonder and a wild desire,-- Boldest of hearts that ever braved the sun, Took sanctuary within the holier blue, And sang a kindred soul out to his face, Yet human at the red-ripe of the heart When the first summons from the darking earth Reached thee amid thy chambers, blanched their blue And bared them of the glory--to drop down, To toil for man, to suffer or to die,-- This is the same voice; can thy soul know change?"

Another fine example is found in Whittier's _Snow-Bound_:

"O Time and Change!--with hair as gray As was my sire's that winter day, How strange it seems, with so much gone Of life and love, to still live on!

Ah, brother! only I and thou Are left all that circle now,-- The dear home faces whereupon That fitful firelight paled and shone.

Henceforward, listen as we will, The voices of that hearth are still; Look where we may, the wide earth o'er, Those lighted faces smile no more.

We tread the path their feet have worn, We sit beneath their orchard trees, We hear, like them, the hum of bees And rustle of the bladed corn; We turn the pages that they read, Their written words we linger o'er, But in the sun they cast no shade, No voice is heard, no sign is made, No step is on the conscious floor."

The following lines are from Lord Byron's _Apostrophe to the Ocean_:

"Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean--roll!

Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain; Man marks the earth with ruin--his control Stops with the sh.o.r.e;--upon the watery plain The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, When, for a moment, like a drop of rain, He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown."

Children enjoy searching for the different varieties of figures in the selections which they read. Not much instruction is needed, and it is not necessary that they should know the names of the different figures or acquire a great deal of technical knowledge. Yet in helping them to recognize figures it is best to proceed in a logical manner, showing, one at a time, what the princ.i.p.al figures are, upon what they are based, and what they add in vividness and beauty to the language. When one figure is understood, help the children to find many good examples in other selections, before taking up the second figure.

As a help to parents and children, we give an outline here for a study of the figures of speech in Sh.e.l.ley's beautiful _Ode to a Skylark_ (Volume VII, page 275).

1. SIMILE:

"From the earth thou springest _Like a cloud of fire_."

"_Like an unbodied joy_ whose race is just begun."

"With music _sweet as love_."

"_Like a star of heaven_ In the broad daylight."

2. METAPHOR:

"From rainbow clouds there flow not Drops so bright to see, As from thy presence _showers a rain of melody_."

"Or how could thy notes _flow in such a crystal stream_!"