ORATORICAL ANTITHESIS. 49 disputed rights, and to wage the horrors of his barbarous war against our brethren ?” So in the speech of Brutus over the body of Lucretia : "Now look ye where she lies, That beauteous flower, that innocent sweet rose, Torn up by ruthless violence." "Is dust and ashes proud?" Want of intellect "makes a village an Eden, a college a sty." The most common example of this kind of contrast is Life and Death. (3.) Contradictory or conflicting statements are sometimes made for the purpose of exciting wonder. See the commencement of Extract IV. "What can be more extraordinary than that a person of mean birth," &c. The contrast of great results flowing from small agencies excites wonder in its highest form-the sentiment of power, or the sublime. 39. The chief thing to be considered in the employment of the true Antithesis is the need there is for it. Assuming that the contrast is genuine, and not fanciful, it is still possible to multiply antitheses unnecessarily. In most cases, a single statement sufficiently suggests the implied opposite. When from obscurity or feebleness this is not the case, the explicit mention of the contrast is a valuable aid. The term Antithesis is also applied to modes of construction afterwards described under the Balanced Sentence. EXERCISE. Point out and name the figures in the following passages:— Wisdom is grey hair to men. Let us pass from the Stagirite to the philosopher of Malmesbury. We bury love; Forgetfulness grows over it, like grass. All Switzerland is in the field. Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy\ are deceitful. Before his honesty of purpose, calumny was dumb. Worn out with anguish, toil, and cold, and hunger, God had released her. Panoplied in brass, they came from the ships and tents. There be some who, with everything to make them happy, plod their discontented and melancholy way through life, less grateful than the dog which licks the hand that feeds it. A hundred head of cattle sometimes passed in a drove. In Demosthenes we find a fiery energy, but not that polish and elegance that characterize Cicero. His roof was at the service of the outcast; the unfortunate ever found a welcome at his threshold. Still in harmonious intercourse they lived It is the decree of Providence that man shall earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. Petitions having proved unsuccessful, it was next determined to approach the throne more boldly. Gold cannot make a man happy any more than rags can render him miserable. OTHER IMPORTANT FIGURES. In addition to the three classes of Figures that have been enumerated, corresponding to the three great powers of the Intellect, we may single out, as involving principles of importance, the Epigram, Hyperbole, Climax, Interrogation, Exclamation, Apostrophe, Innuendo, and Irony. 40. In the Epigram* the mind is roused by a conflict or contradiction between the form of the language and the meaning really conveyed. "The child is father to the man" is an epigram. The language contradicts itself, but the meaning is apparent. Beauty, when unadorned, 's adorned the most," is an epigrammatic form of saying that natural beauty is better without artificial decoration. 66 This is a figure of frequent occurrence. It is naturally confounded with Antithesis, from the presence of an element of contrariety. The intention, however, is not to elucidate a truth otherwise than by awakening the attention through the form given to it. Any contradiction gives a shock of surprise, which is a state favorable to receiving an impression. The following are examples of the epigram in its most usual form, as now defined: "When you have nothing to say, say it." "Conspicuous for its absence." Grote says of the legendary age, that "it was a past that never was present." The seeming contradiction conveys a real and important meaning. "We cannot see the wood for trees," is an impressive illustration of the difficulty of attaining a general view, when engrossed with the details. "Verbosity is cured by a wide vocabulary." This intimates a truth under the guise of a self-contradiction. By the *"Epigram" signified originally an inscription on a monument. It came next to mean a short poem, containing some single thought pointedly expressed, the subjects being very various-amatory, convivial, moral, eulogistic, satirical, humorous, &c. Of the various devices for brevity and point employed in such compositions, especially in modern times, the most frequent is a play upon words. Under whatever name described, this is a well-marked and distinct effect; and, as all the other modes of giving point have separate designations (metaphor, balance, &c.), I have regarded it as the principal form of epigram, and named it accordingly. command of a wide vocabulary, we can make so happy a selection as to give our meaning in few words. Hesiod, illustrating the desirableness of simplicity of life, exclaims, "How much is the half greater than the whole!" "By indignities men come to dignities," is a characteristic saying of Bacon. "The favorite has no friend." "Some people are too foolish to commit follies." "A soul of goodness in things evil.” "The better is the enemy of good," is a German proverb, intended to reprove aspirations after impracticable improvements. It is analogous to the homely saying, "More haste, worse speed." "By merit raised to that bad eminence." "One secret in education is to know how wisely to lose time." (Herbert Spencer.) "Nothing so fallacious as facts, except figures." (Canning.) Every man desires to live long; but no man would be old." "Language is the art of concealing thought." ""Tis all thy business, business how to shun." "Out-heroding Herod." "He is so good that he is good for nothing," is a play upon the word good; in the one clause it means mere amiability of disposition, in the other the power of being useful. Pope is especially fertile in epigrams :— "And most contemptible to shun contempt." "And now the chapel's silver bell you hear, "Nature, like liberty, is best restrained, By the same laws which first herself ordained.' 41. The effect of the Epigram in giving a shock of surprise may be produced by the Identical Assertion: as, "Fact is fact;""What I have written, I have written;' "Bread is bread." To say that a thing is what it is, conveys no additional in formation, and we are surprised that any one should make so unmeaning an assertion. We then cast about, and find that there are two senses in the words, and that the subject takes one, and the predicate another. "What I have written," means simply the inscription as set up by Pilate; the second clause "I have written" is intended to insinuate the further meaning, not necessarily conveyed, that the inscription is written finally, and is not to be amended or reconsidered. When Johnson said "Sensation is sensation," it was his way of expressing that his uneasy feeling on the occasion was too great to be done away with by reasoning, or mastered by mere resolution. Bentham made an emphatic statement of the principle of the equal rights of men, in the apparently identical proposition, 'Everybody to count for one, and nobody to count for more than one.” "His coming was an event;" that is, something unusual. 42. Seeming Irrelevance, also, has the effect of an epigrammatic surprise. When Emerson says, "Where snow falls, there is a freedom," he puts together two things that have no obvious connection; the proposition appears not so much contradictory as irrelevant and nonsensical. When we reflect a little, we see that he means to describe the influences of tropical heat in debilitating the energies of men, and so preparing them for political slavery. 43. When a familiar saying is unexpectedly turned into a new form which completely changes the meaning, we may class it as an epigram. As in the saying of Horace Walpole: "Summer has set in with its usual severity." We might invert Spenser's designation of the old English, and say, "the well of English unpurified." "Do unto others, as ye would not that they should do unto you." In such a case as this last, it is known that the speaker |