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Ah, brethren! neither the sensuous metaphors which, in accommodation to our weakness, Scripture has used to paint that future so that we may, in some measure, comprehend it, nor the translation of these, in so far as they refer to circumstances and externals, are enough for us.
My good friend here, gentlemen, deals in conjectural certificates and broken metaphors.
One of the chief ornaments, or more properly speaking, the constituents of poetical language, is the use of metaphors; and metaphors never find their way to the mind more readily, or affect it more powerfully, than when they are clothed in familiar words. Even a naked sentiment will lose none of its force from being conveyed in the most homely terms which our mother tongue can afford.
Since, then, similes and metaphors are such a powerful engine of knowledge, it is a sign of great intelligence in a writer if his similes are unusual and, at the same time, to the point. Aristotle also observes that by far the most important thing to a writer is to have this power of metaphor; for it is a gift which cannot be acquired, and it is a mark of genius.
What a fool do fabulous systems make of man! It has been shewn, in a former part of this work, that the original meaning of the words prophet and prophesying has been changed, and that a prophet, in the sense of the word as now used, is a creature of modern invention; and it is owing to this change in the meaning of the words, that the flights and metaphors of the Jewish poets, and phrases and expressions now rendered obscure by our not being acquainted with the local circumstances to which they applied at the time they were used, have been erected into prophecies, and made to bend to explanations at the will and whimsical conceits of sectaries, expounders, and commentators.
"In twenty years, thanks to that Code, which pillages fortunes under what they call 'Successions, an heiress worth a million will be as rare as generosity in a money-lender. Suppose Modeste does want to spend all the interest of her own money, well, she is so pretty, so sweet and pretty; why she's you poets are always after metaphors she's a weasel as tricky as a monkey."
His writings contain not a few musical metaphors and allusions to music, which seem to indicate a competent acquaintance with its technicalities; but the specimen of his powers as an artist, which Mr. Fitzgerald has reproduced from his illustrations of a volume of poems by Mr. Woodhull, does not dispose one to rate highly his proficiency in this accomplishment.
At the present day, an illustration still more vague would be used, such as that of a transformation of energy: chemical energy disengaged by the nerve centres would be thus looked upon as transformed into psychical energy. However, it matters little what metaphors are applied to for help in explaining the passage from the physical to the mental.
Varney replied, "A poet, madam, might call it a thread from the golden web wrought by Minerva; but to my thinking it was paler than even the purest gold more like the last parting sunbeam of the softest day of spring." "Why, you are a poet yourself, Master Varney," said the Queen, smiling. "But I have not genius quick enough to follow your rare metaphors.
"Ah, don't you suppose if we knew all about things we'd feel as relieved at not having resented an injury as if we had held our hands from striking a blind man who had inadvertently run against us?" There was no response. It was the second time that one of his metaphors, far-fetched as he loved them, but usually intelligible to Lydia, had missed fire. He turned on her sharply.
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