ANALOGY — TRUE AND FALSE 31 



We speak of currents of thought, of opinion, of 

 influence, and of tides in the afiairs of men. We 

 can conceive of these things under no better figure. 

 Fire and all that pertains to it give us symbols, as 

 heat, light, flame, sparks, smoke. 



The words juicy, unctuous, fluid, have obvious 

 appropriateness when applied to the mind and its 

 products. Running water gives us the delightful 

 epithets limpid and lucid. Youth is plastic, ductile, 

 impressible — neither the mind nor the body has 

 yet hardened. The analogy is vital. A habit gets 

 deeper and deeper hold of us ; we fall into a rut — 

 these figures convey the exact truth. 



When used as a symbol how expressive is the 

 dawn, the twilight, the sunset ! The likeness is not 

 accidental but fundamental. 



The calm that comes after the storm in human 

 life as in nature — how true the analogy. To 

 give vent to things, how significant. To give vent 

 to angry feelings in words, how like giving vent to 

 smothered fire ; or to any suppressed and confined 

 force : the words come faster and hotter, the passion 

 of anger mounts and there is a " blow out " indeed. 

 Deny yourself the first word, and the conflagration 

 is avoided. A passion can be smothered as liter- 

 ally as a fire. 



The use of metaphor, comparison, analogy is two- 

 fold — to enliven and to convince ; to illustrate 

 and enforce an accepted truth, and to press home 

 and clinch one in dispute. An apt figure will put 

 a new face upon an old and much worn truism, 



