Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

2. The soul is the only bird which sustains its cage.

3. Talent is a cistern, genius is a fountain.

4. Locomotives are the shuttles that fly back and forth across the web of the continent.

5. Thy mind is the garden of the sluggard, where weeds have choked the fair and tender blossoms.

6. Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent.

7. Inflections are words that have lost their specific gravity.

8.

9.

10.

Life is a sea; how fair its face!

How smooth its dimpling water's pace!

O gentle sleep,

Nature's soft nurse!

Tell me not in mournful numbers,

Life is but an empty dream.

11. My life is a wreck. I drift before the chilling blasts of adversity.

12. Love is the ladder on which we climb to a likeness with God.

13. Flowers are stars wherein wondrous truths are made manifest.

14. The Lord is my rock and my fortress.

15. The world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel.

16. He is the very pineapple of politeness.

17. With hearts of stone they drove their victims from the country.

18. The sweetest blossoms fringed the little stream.

19. With a sweet disposition and with soft manners she won to her cause all whom she approached.

20. To-day he puts forth his leaves of hope; to-morrow blossoms, and bears his honors thick upon him; the third day comes a frost, a killing frost, and when he thinks, good easy man, full surely his greatness is a-ripening, nips his root, and then he falls, as I do.

EXERCISE.

Criticise the following and reconstruct :

1. A torrent of superstition consumed the land. 2. Eradicate the scourge of intemperance.

3. Let us plaster up this disease of ignorance.

4. Our voice will ever be heard in clarion tones, putting its shoulder to the wheel of progress and trampling on oppression with both feet.

5. Many a youth launches forth on the journey of life with no fixed end in view.

6. They are brittle wits, the edge whereof is soon turned. 7. The strong pillar of the Church has fled.

8.

The Alps,

The palaces of Nature, whose vast walls

Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps.

9. The king of day has patrolled the ecliptic in his diurnal excursion, and is now fast sinking behind the uninterrupted fringed woodland through a radiating arch of molten gold striped with broad bars dazzling in brightness, which disperse into gregarious hills of gilded cotton, eventually melting away into feathery foam.

10. The last spark of life is ebbing, and the soul is preparing to take its flight.

11. The argument aroused the slumbering fire of passion in his bosom.

12. The colonies were not yet ripe to bid adieu to the mothercountry.

13. That wonderful old furnace where the hand of God works the bellows.-Cheever, on a Volcano.

14. Yet exactly upon this level is the ordinary state of musical feeling throughout Great Britian; and the howling wilderness of the psalmody in most parish churches of the land countersigns the statement.

15. Let us keep this ball rolling until it shall prove a sting in their consciences.

16. The price of provisions immediately soared to the unat tainable.

17. Eaton, Davenport, and five others were the seven pillars for the new House of Wisdom in the wilderness. In August, 1639, the seven pillars assembled, possessing for the time full power.

18. But, although clouds of dusky warriors were seen from time to time hovering on the highlands as if watching their progress, they experienced no interruption.

EXERCISE.

Compose metaphors by using the first of each pair of the following words to represent the second metaphorically:

Thus, Dance-move gracefully: The shadow danced across the green.

1. Paint-describe; 2. Blow-affliction; 3. Veil-conceal; 4. Fly-move swiftly; 5. Blush-become red; 6. Yoke-power; 7. Spring-source; 8. Drink-absorb; 9. Path-career; 10. Morning-youth; 11. Seal-close; 12. Curb-restrain; 13. Evening-old age.

Note 1.-Let the student select a number of metaphors from newspapers, magazines, and other literature, and present them

in class.

Note 2.-Let the student select a number of similes, and convert each into a metaphor; also change metaphors to similes.

3. PERSONIFICATION.

This

Personification is that figure in which the attributes of living beings are ascribed to things inanimate. may be (1) Where animals are raised to the rank of man; (2) where inanimate things are raised to the rank of animals; and (3) where inanimate things are raised to the rank of man.

Two Forms.-Personification may exist in two forms, caused either by the use of an adjective or by the use of a .verb.

u. By the Use of an Adjective.-When an adjective is used to personify, it is always one that expresses a quality which literally belongs to living beings alone; and when the names of animals are personified by the use of an adjective, it is always one which expresses some quality belonging to man. Thus, we speak of " a dying flame," "a raging fever," "smiling plenty," "a cruel disaster;" also of "a patient ox," an intelligent horse," and the like.

99.66

b. By the Use of a Verb.-This is a slightly higher form of personification than that produced by the use of the adjective. Both forms have by some been called a species of metaphor, but they are in reality the only two classes of pure personification that exist. The following sentences, "Pestilence stalked o'er the land," "The monkey then arose and addressed the assemblage," are good examples of personification by the use of the verb.

The Use of the Pronoun.-The English language having a natural gender, the figure of personification is frequently introduced by the use of the masculine or the feminine pronoun. Thus, when we say, "The moon receives its light from the sun," we indicate that the moon is regarded as not having sex. But when we say, "The moon casts her bright rays over the landscape," we assign to her sex, and thus personify the word. In a similar manner we personify the words ship, nature, and sun in the following:

"The ship ploughs her way through the waves;" "Nature, through all her variety, is ever pleasing;" "The sun rose in his regal splendor over the eastern hills."

Note.-There is a still higher form of personification, which is used always in connection with apostrophe, and it owes much of its force to the fact that it is connected with this latter figure,

In such cases an inanimate object is personified, and is at the same time addressed as in apostrophe; as,—

"Ye crags and peaks, I am with you once again."

EXERCISE.

Point out the figures of Personification in the following; also name the form of personification:

1.

Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again.

The eternal years of God are hers;
But Error, wounded, writhes with pain,

And dies among his worshipers.—Bryant.

2. Imagination rules the world.—Napoleon.

3. Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise!—Pope.
4. Cease, rude Boreas, blustering railer !—Stevens.
5. Where wealth and freedom reign, contentment fails,
And honor sinks where commerce long prevails.

6. But winter lingering chills the lap of May.

-Goldsmith.

7. The watchdog's voice that bayed the whispering wind, And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind.

8.

I murmur under moon and stars

In brambly wildernesses;

I linger by my shingly bars;

-Goldsmith.

I loiter round my cresses.-Tennyson.

9. Beware of desperate steps.-Cowper.

10. Early and provident fear is the mother of safety.-Burke.

11.

12.

Ah! who can tell how hard it is to climb

The steeps where Fame's proud temple shines afar?

-Beattie.

May reach the dignity of crimes.-Hannah More.

Small habits well pursued betimes

13.

Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives elate

Full on thy bloom.-Burns.

14. The intellect of the world must be awakening when it thus cries aloud to be satisfied.-Haggard.

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »