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cident, expression, or custom in history or literature or life. If the reader profits by the allusion, the idea thus becomes a double one; and the indirectness of the association is a graceful compliment to the reader's culture. Fertility of allusion is one of the most charming embellishments of literature.

EXAMPLES. -The following, from John Morley, is an allusion to the incident recorded in 1 Kings xviii. 44: ·

"A statesman may well be pardoned for not discerning the germs of new things about his feet: he too often fails to see them even when they have grown breast high. It is but little reproach to him not to have descried the small cloud on the remote horizon no bigger than a man's hand, when he so often moves in serene unconsciousness of the tempest ready to burst over his head."

The following, from Bulwer, is an allusion to the old myth of Cadmus and the dragon's teeth:

"So he dismissed them, if with churlish words,
With royal presents, and to festal pomps.

But one, by Median law

Nearest his throne, the chief priest of the Magi,

"Having heard all with not unprescient fears,
Followed the Prince and urged recall of words

Which, sent from king to king,

Are fraught with dragon seeds, whose growth is armies."

Of course the prosperity of an allusion depends entirely on the reader's ability to resolve it. Macaulay, whose writings are especially rich in allusion, had the useful custom of incidentally explaining each allusion far enough so that the reader could profit by it whether he was familiar with the original alluded to or not. An instructive indication this, of Macaulay's prevailing passion for clearness.

EXAMPLE.

-The following not only alludes, but tells enough of the story to make the allusion plain :

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"The spell loses its power; and he who should then hope to conjure with it would find himself as much mistaken as Cassim in the Arabian tale, when he stood crying, 'Open Wheat,' 'Open Barley,' to the door which obeyed no sound but 'Open Sesame."

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Suggestion. — Many a thought is much more effectually treated when it is merely hinted; when the reader is, as it were, put on the track of it and stimulated to carry it on for himself. "You must be careful," says Henry Ward Beecher,1 "not to surfeit people; leave room for their imagination and spirit to work. Don't treat them as sacks to be filled from a funnel. Aim to make them spiritually active, self-helpful.”

The relation of suggestiveness in style to economy of the reader's interpreting power has already been mentioned, page 27.

EXAMPLE. — Consider how the end of the following, from Walter Savage Landor, is fitted by its suggestiveness to leave the reader in the attitude of imagining for himself. It occurs in his "Dream of Petrarca" :

"And Love!' said I, 'whither is he departed? If not too late, I would propitiate and appease him.'

"He who cannot follow me, he who cannot overtake and pass me,' said the Genius, 'is unworthy of the name, the most glorious in earth or heaven. Look up! Love is yonder, and ready to receive thee.'

"I looked: the earth was under me: I saw only the clear blue sky, and something brighter above it."

1 Beecher, "Yale Lectures on Preaching," First Series, p. 224.

CHAPTER III.

REPRODUCTION OF THE THOUGHT OF OTHERS.

BEFORE entering upon the study of the specific literary forms, we need to devote a chapter to the discussion of a kind of work which, though not strictly inventive, calls for the ability to trace accurately and intelligently the various processes included in invention. Reproduction of the thought of others, by some working-over process, such as abstract, paraphrase, or translation, is often inculcated as a valuable means of discipline to the writer. It is this, and more. It is a distinct form of literary work, for which every author has frequent occasion; and the need of thorough and conscientious training in the principles of it, is evident from the fact that there is no more prolific source of recrimination between authors than blundering or unfair interpretations of each other's statements. Ability to reproduce thought accurately is needed also as the indispensable requisite for criticism. Not often is a critic actually dishonest in his representations of an author's work; but it is just as bad as being dishonest if he makes up his judgment from a hasty impression, or if he lacks the acumen to give a true and searching account of the production he is reviewing. Every critic owes it therefore both to his author and his own reputation to qualify himself by a determinate discipline looking to this particular end, before he presumes upon the responsible office of passing judgment on the creations of other men's minds.

Considered in its relation to invention, reproduction of the thought of others may be regarded as an exercise in which the material is supplied; in which, therefore, the writer's skill is concentrated on the form. What form it shall take, whether condensed or expanded, whether a full reproduction or merely select

ive, is determined by its object and occasion. Four main aspects of such reproduction are discussed in the present chapter: interpretation, abstract, paraphrase, and translation.

I. INTERPRETATION.

Scope of Interpretation. This form of reproduction is discussed first, because it is the necessary basis of all others: any process by which thought already existent is worked over and presented in another guise is fundamentally interpretation of that thought. The preliminary procedure in all cases is to get clearly in mind the exact idea of the original. This once accomplished, the distinctive form of the reproduction is a comparatively easy matter to settle, depending on the particular purpose that the writer has in view.

The scope that is open to the work of interpretation is far more comprehensive than any mechanical rules can cover. For the truest interpretation is not mechanical; it is creative, following with insight and sympathy the same constructive lines that were laid down in the author's mind and heart, and vivifying the work

anew.

Interpretation begins indeed with the humblest procedures, with verbal criticism and patient analysis of the grammatical features of expression; nor can the interpreter afford on occasion to neglect any minutest detail of these. It is the possible potency of a word or a letter to determine the whole bearing of a passage which imparts all honorableness to the exact scholarship of the verbal critic. At the same time, that interpretation which stops with such minute work is as inadequate as that which ignores it. Stopping with it, interpretation becomes mere dryasdust comment, missing all that gives life and spirit to the original; ignoring it, it becomes wild, fantastic, hopelessly alloyed with the critic's own vagaries. There is both a minute interpretation and a liberal; an interpretation that centres in the smallest things, and an interpretation that reaches indefinitely up along the loftier lines of thought and fancy involved in the original. Between these two

kinds the critic will choose according to his insight. What inspires but dull "gerund-grinding" to one will to another be full of "the light that never was, on sea or land." Every individual must find his own most congenial manner of interpreting; and often he must reach results through processes too subtle to be described. Whatever the processes, however, it is to be remembered that the more sternly and conscientiously the exact verbal investigation is held to as a basis, the surer is the critic of being honest with his original.

Purposes of Interpretation. As regards the purpose for which it is made, two aspects of interpretation are to be distinguished.

1. Interpretation for its own sake, which is the staple of that considerable body of writing found in commentaries, critical editions, explications, and the like. In such work the original determines the whole thought, and the object of the interpretation is simply to give, on some determinate scale or principle, a fair and full account of what is involved in the original. It is the highest merit of such interpretation that the interpreter efface himself, and let the thought of the original be perfectly transmitted, through the new medium, to the reader.

NOTE. - A conscientious interpreter, being concerned merely that the truth become clear, will not infrequently give more than one view, and leave the decision to the judgment of his reader. The following note, for example, is Prof. Henry N. Hudson's comment on the expression, Hamlet, Act I., scene 2, "A little more than kin, and less than kind":

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"The King is 'a little more than kin' to Hamlet, because, in being at once his uncle and his father, he is twice kin. And he is 'less than kind,' because his incestuous marriage, as Hamlet views it, is unnatural or out of nature. The poet repeatedly uses kind in its primitive sense of nature. Professor Himes, however, of Gettysburg, Penn., questions this explanation, and writes me as follows: 'It seems to me that, since Hamlet has just been addressed as cousin and as son, he is still the object of thought, and the words quoted must be referred by the Prince to himself, and not to the King. In other words, it is Hamlet who is "a little more than kin, and less than kind." If we take kin as a substitute for cousin, and kind as a substitute for son, Hamlet is a little more than the first, for he is nephew, and a little less than the second, for he is only a step-son. Hamlet's aside is thus a retort upon the

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