Are there no beggars at your gate, So in the familiar form: Where are your manners?' The fitness of the interrogatory form to express deep feeling may be seen in the tendency of persons under strong excitement to fall into a series of questions addressed to no person in particular, and hardly expected to be answered. • The force of the figure is attested by its effect in Comic writing. Peter Pindar, in giving Boswell's imitation of animals at the theatre, and noting his failure, when, from the cow, he passed to the jack-ass and the calf, asksBut who, alas, in all things can be great! From the examples it will be seen how largely the figure is employed in the Old and New Testaments for elevation. It was also fully developed in the Greek classics, especially in Oratory. Thus in Demosthenes: 'But what is the condition of Thessaly? Has he (Philip) not taken away her constitution and her cities, and established tetrarchies, to parcel her out, not only by cities, but by provinces, for subjection? Does he not expressly write in his epistles-I am at peace with those that are willing to obey me?' EXCLAMATION. 1. Under sudden or intense emotion, our language becomes abrupt, inverted or elliptical. Exclamation. This is called As the full compliance with the usual forms of speech needs a certain degree of coolness or composure, the failing to do so becomes a token of passion or excitement. The principal varieties of the Exclamation may be grouped thus: beginning with those that involve the greatest deviations from ordinary language. (1.) The interjection is a word havingfor its end to give utterance to some strong feeling-Oh, bah, hurrah, alas, zounds. The cheers, hisses and groans called forth by a public speaker are of a like nature. This is the extreme expression of the tendency to depart from the ordinary forms of the language, under the influence of strong feeling. (2.) Words with meaning may be employed in the manner of the interjection; that is, a word or phrase expressing the idea that APPLICATIONS OF THE FIGURE. 221 causes the feeling may be uttered without any sentence structure. Such words are often accompanied by interjections. 'Dead, long dead, long dead!' Me miserable!' 'O insupportable! O heavy hour!' 'How do you, Cassio? O, a chair! a chair!' "That it should come to this!' "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!' O, my cousin, shallow-hearted! O my Amy, mine no more! O the dreary, dreary moorland! O the barren, barren shore! Ungenerous, dishonourable, base, Presumptuous! Trusted as he was with her, The sole succeeder to their wealth, their lands! (3.) A feeling may be better defined by naming the object, together with an interjection characterizing the feeling. For example, strong desire Oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness ! O that this too, too solid flesh would melt! That the man I am may cease to be ! Hurrah! hurrah! for Ivry, and Henry of Navarre ! (4.) An ellipsis in a sentence otherwise grammatically complete may have the effect of exclamation. This applies especially to the ellipsis of a verb O not for thee the glow, the bloom, Who changest not in any gale! I to cry out on pride Who have won her favour! When the ellipsis is carried further, it approaches the second class above specified. A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!' 'Peace, ho! no outrage: peace!' Late, late, so late! and dark the night and chill. Off weight-nor press on weight!-away Dark thoughts !-they came, but not to stay. (5.) Expressions of wonder and admiration have a special inverted form of sentence, with how, what, &c. 'How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings !' 'Oh what a fall was there !' How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable, Seem to me all the uses of this world! 'How are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished!' How pure at heart and sound in head, With what divine affections bold, Should be the man whose thought would hold An hour's communion with the dead! In the most of these instances, the omission of the verb would add to the expressiveness of the figure: The mighty, how fallen!' An extreme or incredible statement may be disposed of by an Exclaination as well as by an Interrogation. A writer, refuting a peculiar doctrine as to the judgment of distance in birds, exclaimsThink of the eagle learning distance by touch!' As the figure thus varies according to the intensity of the feeling, the law of its employment must be to suit the degree to the occasion. In general, it should be used sparingly, as being a figure of intensity. APOSTROPHE-VISION. 1. Under great intensity of emotion, we may address the absent as if present. The effect depends on a law of the mind, that emotion gives greater vividness to our conceptions. This is the figure named Apostrophe. Here is Ben Jonson's apostrophe to Shakespeare deadSoul of the age! The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage! Lady Macbeth, on the eve of Duncan's murder, bursts out Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here. Gray (Progress of Poesy'), in the transition from Dryden to himself, thus apostrophizes Oh Lyre divine, what daring Spirit Byron says (of Greece)— Shrine of the mighty! can it be That this is all remains of thee? What is addressed may be either a person, an inanimate object or an abstraction. To justify the use of the Figure, there must be not only emotion, but also elevation of thought and language. the following instance from Pope, neither the strength of feeling nor the elevation of language is adequate. In VISION. How instinet varies in the grovelling swine, 223 In another instance, from the same poet, the feeling is strong enough, but a jar is introduced by the familiar address with you,' instead of the more elevated thou'. O Death, all-eloquent! you only prove What dust we dote on, when 'tis man we love. The use of the Figure is mostly confined to poetry and poetical prose, including the highest flights of oratory. Appropriate examples, expressing deep feeling and sustained by elevated and harmonious language, occur in 'In Memoriam'. In Campbell's 'Pleasures of Hope,' there is a series of very effective Apostrophes on the subject of Poland, addressed to Truth, the Polish warriors, Heaven, Vengeance, the Spirits of dead heroes, Poland herself, her oppressors, and tyrants in general. In the poetry of the Bible, the figure is abundant. For example-'Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city'. The address to the King of Babylon in Isaiah 14th is a sustained apostrophe. In oratory, the figure is more rarely used, since only very strong feeling can justify it. Robert Hall thus closes a passage on the miseries of the wounded in war: Unhappy man! and must you be swept into the grave, unnoticed and unnumbered, and no friendly tear be shed for your sufferings, or mingled with your dust?' The frequent employment of the Apostrophe for comic effects is connected with the production of the ludicrous by degrading what is lofty. See THE EMOTIONAL QUALITIES OF STYLE-Humour. 2. VISION is allied to Apostrophe, and consists in the vivid representation of the absent as if present to the senses. The degrees of this Figure vary. The historical present is an example of it in its lowest gradation. Such an instance as Byron's 'Gladiator' exemplifies the highest forms, for which a strong emotion is required. Hamlet's Look on this picture, and on this,' is a case of Vision. Campbell'sLast Man' furnishes an example, begin ning I saw a vision in my sleep, That gave my spirit strength to sweep I saw the last of human mould As Adam saw her prime. In Tennyson's Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington, the mode of introducing Nelson is of the nature of Vision. So with the dramatic dialogue in Isaiah 63rd. A magnificent use of Vision, combined with an Apostrophe to departed heroes, is contained in the peroration of Robert Hall's Sermon on 'The Sentiments proper to the present Crisis,' 1803. HYPERBOLE. 1. Hyperbole is an effect gained by magnifying things beyond their natural bounds. When an object pleases greatly, in consequence of certain qualities, we are willing to purchase an addition to the pleasure, by raising or intensifying the verbal description of those qualities. This is Hyperbole, or exaggeration used for effect in style. The essential conditions are—(1) that the pleasure be marked and decided; (2) that the departure from truth does not shock our sense of the truthful; (3) that the language used be able to sustain the emotional interest. (1.) Under any strong passion-as Love, Hatred, Fear-we magnify the object of the passion. Love and admiration extol their objects beyond the bounds of reality. Hence, to exaggerate is necessary to the dramatic portraiture of high passions. Without strong feeling of some kind, it is not true hyperbole, but meaningless exaggeration. But the strength of the feeling that justifies the hyperbole will differ with different individuals. The feelings of Wordsworth might bear him out in the following language with reference to a spring day— Or this One moment now may give us more One impulse from a vernal wood Of moral evil and of good, average mind is unable to cope with such extravagance. (2.) In regard to the second condition, the circumstances vary. The exaggeration may be dictated solely by the feelings, and may palpably and purposely outstrip the facts. Such are the fancies of love, the intense expression of hatred, and the wilder outbursts of the ludicrous. On the other hand, there are instances where the semblance of truth enters into the effect. Both cases will receive illustration in what follows. (3.) One of the most notable circumstances connected with hyperbole is the scope given for lofty and original diction. In order that a poet |