Every sentence should, like a piece of music, establish its own
relation between the words that compose it; and in the best sentences,
whether of prose or verse, the words seem new-born; like notes in
music, they seem to be, not mere labels, but facts, because of the
manner in which the writer's thought or emotion has related them to
each other. But habitual metaphor prevents this process of relation;
it is the intrusion of ready-made matter, with its own stale
associations, into matter that should be new-made for its own
particular purpose of expression. Phrases like--The lap of luxury,
Part and parcel, A sea of troubles, Passing through the furnace,
Beyond the pale, The battle of life, The death-warrant of, Parrot
cries, The sex-war, Tottering thrones, A trail of glory, Bull-dog
tenacity, Hats off to, The narrow way, A load of sorrow, A
charnel-house, The proud prerogative, Smiling through your tears, A
straight fight, A profit and loss account, The fires of martyrdom, The
school of life--are all ready-made matter; and, if a writer yields to
the temptation of using them, he impedes his own process of
expression, saying something which is not exactly what he has to say.
He may, of course, attain to a familiar metaphor in his own process of
expression; but if he does, if it is exactly what he has to say, then
it will not seem stale to the reader. Context may give life to a
metaphor that has long seemed dead, as it gives life to the commonest
words.
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