An orator speaking of the uselessness of a dean said that “he wastes his sweetness on the desert air, and stands like an engine upon a siding.” This is a strange combination of metaphors.
The following example is curious as showing how an awkward metaphor has been carried out: “In the face of such assertions what is the puzzled spectator to do.” The contrary proceeding is much more common, namely to drop a metaphor prematurely or to change it. For instance: “Physics and metaphysics, physiology and psychology, thus become united, and the study of man passes from the uncertain light of mere opinion to the region of science.” Here region corresponds very badly with uncertain light.
Metaphors and similes require to be employed with great care, at least by those who value taste and accuracy. I hope I may be allowed to give one example of a more serious kind than those hitherto supplied. The words like lost sheep which occur at the commencement of our Liturgy always seem to me singularly objectionable, and for two reasons. In the first place, illustrations being intended to unfold our meaning are appropriate in explanation and instruction, but not in religious confession. And in the second place the illustration as used by ourselves is not accurate; for the condition of a lost sheep does not necessarily suggest that conscious lapse from rectitude which is the essence of human transgression.
A passage has been quoted with approbation by more than one critic from the late Professor Conington’s translation of Horace, in which the following line occurs:—
“After life’s endless babble they sleep well.”
Now the word endless here is extremely awkward; for if the babble never ends, how can anything come after it?
To digress for a moment, I may observe that this line gives a good illustration of the process by which what is called Latin verse is often constructed. Every person sees that the line is formed out of Shakespeare’s “after life’s fitful fever he sleeps well.” The ingenuity of the transference may be admired, but it seems to me that it is easy to give more than a due amount of admiration; and, as the instance shows, the adaptation may issue in something bordering on the absurd. As an example in Latin versification, take the following. Every one who has not quite forgotten his schoolboy days remembers the line in Virgil ending with non imitabile fulmen. A good scholar, prematurely lost to his college and university, having for an exercise to translate into Latin the passage in Milton relating to the moon’s peerless light finished a line with non imitabile lumen. One can hardly wonder at the tendency to overvalue such felicitous appropriation.
The language of the shop and the market must not be expected to be very exact: we may be content to be amused by some of its peculiarities. I cannot say that I have seen the statement which is said to have appeared in the following form: “Dead pigs are looking up.” We find very frequently advertised, “Digestive biscuits”—perhaps digestible biscuits are meant. In a catalogue of books an Encyclopædia of Mental Science is advertised; and after the names of the authors we read, “invaluable, 5s. 6d.”: this is a curious explanation of invaluable.
The title of a book recently advertised is, Thoughts for those who are Thoughtful. It might seem superfluous, not to say impossible, to supply thoughts to those who are already full of thought.
The word limited is at present very popular in the domain of commerce. Thus we read, “Although the space given to us was limited.” This we can readily suppose; for in a finite building there cannot be unlimited space. Booksellers can perhaps say, without impropriety, that a “limited number will be printed,” as this may only imply that the type will be broken up; but they sometimes tell us that “a limited number was printed,” and this is an obvious truism.