"Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased—
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow?"
"At length Erasmus
Stemmed the wild torrent of a barbarous age,
And drove those holy Vandals off the stage."
"Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent."
Metonymy. The rhetorical figure that puts the effect for the cause, the cause for the effect, the container for the thing contained, the sign, or symbol, for the thing signified, or the instrument for the agent, is called metonymy.
"One very common species of metonymy is, when the badge is put for the office. Thus we say the miter for the priesthood; the crown for royalty; for military occupation we say the sword; and for the literary professions, those especially of theology, law, and physic, the common expression is the gown."—Campbell.
Dr. Quackenbos, in his "Course of Composition and Rhetoric," says: "Metonymy is the exchange of names between things related. It is founded, not on resemblance, but on the relation of, 1. Cause and effect; as,'They have Moses and the prophets,' i. e., their writings; 'Gray hairs should be respected,' i. e., old age. 2. Progenitor and posterity; as, 'Hear, O Israel!' i. e., descendants of Israel. 3. Subject and attribute; as, 'Youth and beauty shall be laid in dust,' i. e., the young and beautiful. 4. Place and inhabitant; as, 'What land is so barbarous as to allow this injustice?' i. e., what people. 5. Container and thing contained; as, 'Our ships next opened fire,' i. e., our sailors. 6. Sign and thing signified; as, 'The scepter shall not depart from Judah,' i. e., kingly power. 7. Material and thing made of it; as, 'His steel gleamed on high,' i. e., his sword."
"Petitions having proved unsuccessful, it was determined to approach the throne more boldly."
Midst, The. See [In our midst].
Mind—Capricious. "Lord Salisbury's mind is capricious."—"Tribune," April 3, 1881. See [Equanimity of Mind].
Misplaced Clauses. In writing and speaking, it is as important to give each clause its proper place as it is to place the words properly. The following are a few instances of misplaced clauses and adjuncts: "All these circumstances brought close to us a state of things which we never thought to have witnessed [to witness] in peaceful England. In the sister island, indeed, we had read of such horrors, but now they were brought home to our very household hearth."—Swift. Better: "We had read, indeed, of such horrors occurring in the sister island," etc.