Drummond of Hawthornden exclaims:
This Life, which seems so fair,.
Is like a bubble blown up in the air.
By sporting children's breath....
Bacon speaks more boldly and concisely. He forsakes simile for metaphor, leaving the word like to be understood.
The World's a bubble, and the Life of Man.
Less than a span....
Were Tony to try and express himself by the same means, he would say: "The world's a bubble, like, and the life of man less than a span, like."
Like, in fact, with the poor man as with the poet, connotes simile and metaphor. The poor man's vocabulary, like the poet's, is quite inadequate to express his thoughts. Both, in their several ways, are driven to the use of unhackneyed words and simile and metaphor; both use a language of great flexibility;[11] for which reason we find that after the poet himself, the poor man speaks most poetically. Witness the beautiful description: "All to once the nor'easter springed out from the land, an' afore us could down-haul the mainsail, the sea wer feather-white an' skatting in over the bows." New words are eagerly seized; hence the malapropisms and solecisms so frequently made fun of, without appreciation of their cause. Obsolete has come hereto from the Navy, through sons who are bluejackets. Now, when Tony wishes to sum up in one word the two facts that he is older and also less vigorous than formerly, he says: "Tony's getting obsolete, like." A soulless word, borrowed from official papers, has acquired for us a poetic wealth of meaning in which the pathos of the old ship, of declining years, and of Tony's own ageing, are all present with one knows not what other suggestions besides. And when obsolete is fully domesticated here, the like will be struck off.
THOUGHTS AND MIND PICTURES