Читать книгу Composition-Rhetoric - Stratton D. Brooks - Страница 19

Are the images which you form made more vivid by the use of the figures in the following selections?

1. She began to screech as wild as ocean birds.

2. And when its force expended,

The harmless storm was ended;

And as the sunrise splendid

Came blushing o'er the sea—

3. As a demon is hurled by an angel's spear,

Heels over head, to his proper sphere—

Heels over head and head over heels—

Dizzily down the abyss he wheels—

So fell Darius.

—J.T. Trowbridge.

4. In this republican country, amid the fluctuating waves of our social life, somebody is always at the drowning point.

—Hawthorne.

5. Poverty, treading close at her heels for a lifetime, has come up with her at last.

—Hawthorne.

6. Friendships begin with liking or gratitude—roots that can be pulled up.

—George Eliot.

7. Nearing the end of the narrative, Ben paced up and down the narrow limits of the tent in great excitement, running his fingers through his hair, and barking out a question now and then.

8. A sky above, Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth move.

—Lowell.

9. In days of public commotion every faction, like an Oriental army, is attended by a crowd of camp followers, a useless and heartless rabble, who prowl round its line of march in the hope of picking up something under its protection, but desert it in the day of battle, and often join to exterminate it after a defeat.

—Macaulay.

10. It is to be regretted that the prose writings of Milton should, in our time, be so little read. As compositions, they deserve the attention of every man who wishes to become acquainted with the full power of the English language. They abound with passages compared with which the finest declamations of Burke sink into insignificance. They are a perfect field of cloth of gold. The style is stiff with gorgeous embroidery.

—Macaulay.

11. And close behind her stood

Eight daughters of the plow, stronger than men,

Huge women blowzed with health, and wind, and rain,

And labor. Each was like a Druid rock,

Or like a spire of land that stands apart

Cleft from the main and wall'd about with mews.

—Tennyson.

12. But bland the smile that, like a wrinkling wind On glassy water, drove his cheek in lines.

—Tennyson.

13. The rush of affairs drifts words from their original meanings, as ships drag their anchors in a gale, but terms sheltered from common use hold to their moorings forever.

—Mill.

+Theme XIV.+—Write a story suggested by the picture on page 59 or by one of the following subjects:—

1. A modern fable.

2. The willow whistle.

3. How I baked a cake.

4. The delayed picnic.

5. The missing slipper.

6. A misdirected letter.

7. A ride on a raft.

8. The rescue of Ezekiel.

9. A railway experience.

10. A soldier's soldier.

(Do you think the reader will form the images you wish him to form? Consider what you have written with reference to climax. (See Section 7.) Have you needed to use figures? If so, have you used them in accordance with the suggestions on page 55? If you have used the word only, is it placed so as to give the correct meaning?)

+31. Determination of Meaning Requires More than Image Making.+—The emphasis laid upon image making should not lead to the belief that this is all that is necessary in order to determine what is meant by the language we hear or read. Image making is important, but much of our language is concerned with presenting ideas of which no mental pictures can be formed.

[Illustration]

This very paragraph will serve as an illustration of such language. Our understanding of language of this kind depends upon our knowledge of the meanings of words, upon our understanding of the relations between word groups, or parts of sentences, and especially upon our appreciation of the relations in thought that sentences bear to one another. Each of these will be discussed in the following pages. Later it will be necessary to consider the relations in thought existing among paragraphs.

+32. Word Relations.+—In order to get the thought of a sentence, we must understand the relations that exist between the words and word groups (phrases and clauses) that compose it. If the thought is simple, and expressed in straightforward terms, we grasp it readily and without any conscious effort to determine these relations. If the thought is complex, the relations become more complicated, and before we are sure that we know what the writer intends to say it may be necessary to note with care which is the main clause and which are the subordinate clauses. In either case our acquiring the thought depends upon our understanding the relations between words and word groups. We may understand them without any knowledge of the names that have been applied to them in grammar, but a knowledge of the names will assist somewhat. These relations are treated in the grammar review in the Appendix and need not be repeated here.

+33. Incomplete Thoughts.+—We have learned (Section 27) that the introduction of unfamiliar words may cause us to form incomplete images. When the language is not designed to present images, we may, in a similar way, fail to get its real meaning if we are unfamiliar with the words used. If you do not know the meaning of fluent and viscous, you will fail to understand correctly the statement, "Fluids range from the peculiarly fluent to the peculiarly viscous." If we wish to think precisely what the writer intended us to think, we must know the meanings of the words he uses. Many of us are inclined to substitute other ideas than those properly conveyed by the words of the writer, and so get confused or incomplete or inaccurate ideas. The ability to determine exactly what images the writer suggests, and what ideas his language expresses, is the first requisite of scholarship and an important element of success in life.