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But at this point it is important to stress that if an expression, an imaginative comparison, is not unfair, hurtful, or coarse, it may be a most effective device for giving our talk the "edge of liveliness" St. Paul wants. It may be the best way to put things in a new light. Poetry, for example, consists of clothing an idea or ideal in an apt and warm comparison which our sense can realize more quickly than the ideal literally expressed. Our Lord in this manner compares a sinner to a lost sheep; Tennyson compares dying to crossing the bar; Holmes compares an old man to the last leaf upon the tree. You can easily see that the linguistic device in this and calling an unpopular girl a wallflower or an unrelenting scholar a bookworm is identical. The difference lies in the spirit behind the expression, the gra-ciousness which motivates it, and the good taste and beauty which envelop it. |
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