Philosophy of Style: An Essay |
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abstract adjective advantage Anglo-Saxon arrangement of predicate articulations attention beautiful brevity brown horse called cating CAUSES OF FORCE clauses climax comparison complement complex composition condition conform conveyed copula crete deep roads DEPEND UPON ECONOMY duced emotion entails Ephesians Ethics of Social excitement fact faculties fatigue feeling FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE figures of speech FORCE IN LANGUAGE forcible further greater habitually Hence history of literature I.
I. The Data ical idea illus implied indirect infer journey's end LANGUAGE WHICH DEPEND law of effect less ment mental effort mental energy Metaphor mind nature partly peculiar period philosophy phrase poet poetry predicate and subject present principal and subordinate PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY PRINCIPLES OF SOCIOLOGY prose qualifying Queen Anne quoted reader realized recipient's remarked result rhythmical Saxon English sentence similarly simile small difficulty SOCIAL STATICS species style subordinate propositions substantive suggested superiority syllables tences things equal thought tion utterance VIVID IMPRESSIONS writer
Popular passages
Page 24 - In hurdled cotes amid the field secure, Leaps o'er the fence with ease into the fold: Or as a thief bent to unhoard the cash Of some rich burgher, whose substantial doors...
Page 20 - The border slogan rent the sky ! A Home ! a Gordon ! was the cry : Loud were the clanging blows ; Advanced, — forced back, — now low, now high, The pennon sunk and rose ; As bends the bark's mast in the gale, When rent are rigging, shrouds, and sail, It wavered 'mid the foes.
Page 19 - The many men, so beautiful! And they all dead did lie: And a thousand thousand slimy things Lived on; and so did I.
Page 21 - Saturn, quiet as a stone, Still as the silence round about his lair ; Forest on forest hung about his head Like cloud on cloud. No stir of air was there, Not so much life as on a summer's day Robs not one light seed from the feather'd grass, But where the dead leaf fell, there did it rest.
Page 27 - At last, with no small difficulty, and after much fatigue, we came, through deep roads and bad weather, to our journey's end.
Page 2 - IV. The Ethics of Social Life : Justice. V. The Ethics of Social Life : Negative Beneficence. VI. The Ethics of Social Life : Positive Beneficence.
Page 11 - Leave the room," is less expressive than to point to the door. Placing a finger on the lips is more forcible than whispering, " Do not speak." A beck of the hand is better than, " Come here." No phrase can convey the idea of surprise so vividly as opening the eyes and raising the eyebrows. A shrug of the shoulders would lose much by translation into words.
Page 17 - a horse black' be the arrangement, immediately on the utterance of the word 'horse' there arises, or tends to arise, in the mind, a picture answering to that word; and as there has been nothing to indicate what KIND of horse, any image of a horse suggests itself. Very likely, however, the image will be that of a brown horse; brown horses being the most familiar. The result is that when the word 'black' is added, a check is given to the process of thought. Either the picture of a brown horse already...
Page 36 - Richter says, in the Island of Sumatra there is a kind of ' Light-chafers,' large Fire-flies, which people stick upon spits, and illuminate the ways with at night. Persons of condition can thus travel with a pleasant radiance, which they much admire. Great honour to the Fireflies! But—!
Page 15 - The more general the terms are, the picture is the fainter ; the more special they are, the brighter.