His trembling voice grew faint and hoarse; his grasp was childish weak, His eyes put on a dying look, he sighed and ceased to speak. His comrade bent to lift him, but the spark of life had fled - And the soft moon rose up slowly, and calmly she looked down DIRECTION. Follow the Direction of the preceding Exercise. THANATOPSIS. To him who in the love of Nature holds Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground, Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim To mix for ever with the elements, To be a brother to the insensible rock, And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain nor couldst thou wish Shalt thou retire alone: Thou shalt lie down The powerful of the earth the wise, the good, That make the meadows green; and, poured round all, Are but the solemn decorations all Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun, Save his own dashings — yet the dead are there; The flight of years began, have laid them down. So shalt thou rest; and what if thou withdraw The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes So live that when thy summons comes to join To that mysterious realm, where each shall take Thou go not, like the quarry-slave, at night, -WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. LESSON XXXVI. FIGURES OF SPEECH. In preceding Lessons we have studied some of the different forms in which thought may be expressed. We now come to consider other forms which are of such importance that they deserve to be examined by themselves. These are usually called Figures of Speech. They consist of intentional deviations from the ordinary application of words or from the usual forms of expression. The purpose of these deviations is to increase the effect of language to present thought in a more attractive or more forcible manner. Examples." He is a lion." "He is a lion." Here the word "lion" is turned from its usual signification to denote "a man of strength and courage," and it expresses the idea in a more pleasing and striking way than do the plain words. "The silver moon" is much more beautiful than "The moon which has a pale bright color." Value and Use of Figures.-Figures of Speech perform a very important part in language. They are at once its ornament and its strength. Among their chief uses are these: 1. They give variety by affording an entirely different way of expressing a thought. 2. They enable us to present ideas so that they may be more easily grasped. This is especially true of abstract ideas, as they are made easier of comprehension by being associated with concrete objects. 3. They add to the force of language. 4. They enable us to express our thoughts in a more attractive form. 5. They give elevation, dignity, and grace to language. 6. They increase the capabilities of language by giving the same word the power of presenting different ideas. For example, in the sentence, "He is a fox," the word "fox," which usually denotes an animal, is here employed to designate the "quality of craftiness." 7. In general terms, it may be said that Figures of Speech intensify all the qualities of style. Kinds of Figures. - The Figures of Speech most commonly used may be classified thus: 1. Those based on the idea of resemblance, aphor, Allegory, Personification. - the Simile, Met 2. Those based on contiguity or the law of association,Synecdoche, Metonymy, Hyperbole, Apostrophe, Vision. 3. Those based on the idea of contrast, - Antithesis, Epigram, Euphemism, Irony, Interrogation, Climax. THE SIMILE. A Simile is a figure which expresses the likeness one object bears to another. The objects compared must differ in kind ; likening one man to another or one house to another does not constitute the rhetorical figure. The likeness is generally expressed by some word such as, like, as, compared to. Sometimes the sign of comparison is omitted, as, "When the rising sun fell on Memnon's statue, it awakened music in that breast of stone. Religion does the same with human nature." |