I Never Metaphor I Didn't Like
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Williams was referring to Capote’s high-pitched voice. On Capote’s writing ability, Katherine Anne Porter was not as generous, calling him “the pimple on the face of American literature.”
With a pig’s eyes that never look up,
with a pig’s snout that loves muck,
with a pig’s brain that knows only the sty,
and a pig’s squeal that cries only when he is hurt,
he sometimes opens his pig’s mouth, tusked and ugly,
and lets out the voice of God,
railing at the whitewash that covers the manure about his habitat.
WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE, on H. L. Mencken
An improbable creature, like a human giraffe,
sniffing down his nostrils at mortals beneath his gaze.
RICHARD WILSON (Lord Moran), on Charles de Gaulle
Mrs. Patrick Campbell is an aged British battleship sinking rapidly
and firing every available gun on her rescuers.
ALEXANDER WOOLLCOTT
A hyena in syrup.
YEVGENY YEVTUSHENKO, on Barbara Walters
This extraordinary insult first surfaced in a 1972 Time magazine article on Walters. The piece cleverly described her this way: “Barbara is alternately breathy and brittle, cool and aggressive. Her technique is a model, to some observers, of what makes an interview great; to others, of what makes an interview grate.” The legendary Russian poet found her grating.
chapter 5
Enclosing Wild Ideas Within a Wall of Words
On May 25, 1843, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in his journal:
The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.
One can almost imagine the scene. It is a bright May New England day. Emerson is rambling through the woods just outside his home town of Concord. With a book in one hand and his ever-present journal tucked safely away in a coat pocket, he leans against a tree, thinking about a passage he has just read or contemplating an idea that has recently occurred to him. Glancing upward, he slowly examines the vastness of the heavens above. Suddenly, an analogy flashes into his mind—as eating food nourishes the body, looking at the sky nourishes the soul.
Emerson the thinker might have been pleased with the analogy, and he might have wondered if the connection had ever occurred to anyone else. More than once he had an insight that seemed original, only to discover later that a legendary thinker had beaten him to the punch (he once said, oxymoronically, “Some of my best thoughts have been stolen by the ancients”).
Emerson the writer, however, may have decided to tinker with the thought, hoping to better express it. Whether the final version came to him immediately, or after several drafts and revisions, the observation that Emerson finally recorded in his journal—the sky is the daily bread of the eyes—is a remarkable metaphor, and arguably the best words ever written on something we see every day but usually take for granted. It may even be regarded as the definitive observation on the subject.
In a usage note on the word definitive in the American Heritage Dictionary, the editors write:
Definitive generally refers specifically to a judgment or description that serves as a standard or reference point for others, as in…the definitive biography of Nelson (i.e., the biography that sets the standard against which all other accounts of Nelson’s life must be measured).
As there are definitive biographies, there are definitive quotations—observations that are so exceptionally well phrased they set the bar for all other observations on the same subjects. Emerson’s sky metaphor deserves such a distinction. And many definitive quotations on a variety of other subjects are also metaphors.
There is even a definitive metaphorical quote on the topic of definitions. Before we look at it, though, here’s the formal meaning, again from the American Heritage Dictionary:
Definition. A statement of the meaning of a word, phrase, or term, as in a dictionary definition.
It’s an adequate description, yes. But like so many dictionary definitions, it’s not particularly exciting. To word and language lovers, though, there is nothing unexciting about dictionary definitions. But it was not until I found an observation in the 1912 Notebooks of the English writer Samuel Butler that I found a metaphorical description that perfectly described the drama of the lexicographer’s task:
A definition is the enclosing
a wilderness of idea within a wall of words.
This is a remarkable observation, conjuring up a delightfully vivid image of lexicographers as cowboys or frontier settlers, corralling wild ideas inside the confines of a series of carefully constructed words. No previous observation on the subject of definitions even comes close, making this the definitive one. That is, Butler’s metaphorical observation may be considered the standard by which all other similar observations on the subject of definitions must be measured.
On many subjects, it’s difficult to select a single definitive quote. For example, I have long believed that the best observation ever made on the subject of architecture was an 1829 observation by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:
I call architecture frozen music.
If one could freeze music, and then shape it into a form, it would seem appropriate to view it as a kind of architecture. Over the years, I’ve come across several additional architecture metaphors, and none could rival Goethe’s spectacular creation. Then I came across this observation from Constantin Brancusi:
Architecture is inhabited sculpture.
Here, the legendary sculptor asserts that architecture is sculpture, and a kind of sculpture inhabited by people. Nobody had ever before described sculpture in this way, but when one examines the many striking office buildings that have been built in recent years, the observation is perfectly apt. Which of the two observations is the definitive one? You be the judge.
You can also cast your vote for one of three observations on faith. They’re all wonderfully phrased, and they come from three of my favorite writers. For me, selecting only one involved the pain of rejecting two, and I just didn’t have the heart to do it.
Faith is an oasis in the heart
which will never be reached by the caravan of thinking.
KAHLIL GIBRAN
Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings while the dawn is still dark.
RABINDRANATH TAGORE
You can also weigh in on two metaphors on fame. They come from two of history’s most graceful and stylish writers, and so far are in a dead heat:
Fame is a pearl many dive for and only a few bring up.
LOUISA MAY ALCOTT
Fame is a fickle food upon a shifting plate.
EMILY DICKINSON
Many definitive metaphors are brief and pithy, as when an anonymous wag once described a cubicle as “a padded cell without a door.” Or when Clifton Fadiman referred to cheese as “milk’s leap toward immortality.” Others are slightly longer, like this spectacular observation from Canadian writer Mark Abley’s delightful 2003 book, Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages:
Modern English is the Wal-Mart of languages:
convenient, huge, hard to avoid, superficially friendly,
and devouring all rivals in its eagerness to expand.
A variety of metaphorical observations on the English language have made it into my personal quotation collection, including William Safire’s terrific remark that “English is a stretch language; one size fits all.” As good as the others are, though, they can’t match Abley’s inspired observation. What it lacks in brevity it makes up in wit and originality. And, because it attempts to illuminate one thing—English—by relating it to something that, at first glance, couldn’t seem more dissimilar—Wal-Mart—it is a perfect metaphor.
In the remainder of the chapter, I will present more metaphorical observations that, in my opinion, set the standard for all other observations on the subjects examined.
Unlike other chapters in the book, the quotations here will not be arranged alphabetically by author, but by the central subject of the quote. We’ll begin with action and end with zeal. Think of this chapter as a brief A-to-Z dictionary of definitive metaphorical quotations.
A man’s action is only a picture book of his creed.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
The adjective is the banana peel of the parts of speech.
CLIFTON FADIMAN
This comes from a 1956 Reader’s Digest article titled “Beware the Awful Adjective.” Used wisely, Fadiman argued, adjectives enliven and enhance language. But when used badly, they cause a multitude of slip-ups. Quotation anthologist James Simpson hailed this as one of the “best quotes of 1956.”
Adventure is the champagne of life.
G. K. CHESTERTON
All affectation is the vain and ridiculous attempt of poverty to appear rich.
JOHANN KASPAR LAVATAR
Unsolicited advice is the junk mail of life.
BERN WILLIAMS
Anger is a wind which blows out the lamp of the mind.
ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.
SØREN KIERKEGAARD
The aphorism is a personal observation inflated into a universal truth,
a private posing as a general.
STEFAN KANFER
An apology is the superglue of life. It can repair just about anything.
LYNN JOHNSTON
Autumn is a second spring, when every leaf is a flower.
ALBERT CAMUS
A bagel is a doughnut with the sin removed.
GEORGE ROSENBAUM
Our birthdays are feathers in the broad wing of time.
JEAN PAUL RICHTER
Business is a combination of war and sport.
ANDRÉ MAUROIS
The cat is a dilettante in fur.
THÉOPHILE GAUTHIER
Chance is the pseudonym of God when he did not want to sign.
THÉOPHILE GAUTHIER
Chaos is the score upon which reality is written.
HENRY MILLER
Charm is a glow within a woman that casts a most becoming light on others.
JOHN MASON BROWN
Coincidences are spiritual puns.
G. K. CHESTERTON
The dew of compassion is a tear.
LORD BYRON
Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Conscience reigns but it does not govern.
PAUL VALÉRY
Courage is the ladder on which all the other virtues mount.
CLARE BOOTH LUCE
I also like this one from Mignon McLaughlin: “Courage can’t see around corners, but goes around them anyway.”
The dance is a poem of which each movement is a word.
MATA HARI
Mata Hari was the stage name of a Dutch exotic dancer whose scantily clad dance routines and openly promiscuous life style captivated Parisian society in the early 1900s. She was found guilty—on flimsy evidence—of espionage and executed by a French firing squad in 1917. After Greta Garbo brought her story to the big screen in the 1931 film Mata Hari, she became known as a classic femme fatale, and her name became an eponym for a beautiful female double agent. Another memorable metaphorical observation on dancing came from George Bernard Shaw, who called it “a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire.”
Despair is vinegar from the wine of hope.
AUSTIN O’MALLEY
The point is that people wouldn’t feel despair unless they first felt hope. And just as bad wine turns into vinegar, dashed hopes often turn into despair.
Doctrine is nothing but the skin of truth set up and stuffed.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
The dog…is the god of frolic.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Doodling is the brooding of the mind.
SAUL STEINBERG
A discovery is said to be an accident meeting a prepared mind.
ALBERT SZENT-GYORGYI
The allusion here is to a famous remark from Louis Pasteur, who said in 1854: “Where observation is concerned, chance favors only the prepared mind.”
The dress is a vase which the body follows.
PIERRE CARDIN
Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity.
FRANK LEAHY
Euphemisms are unpleasant truths wearing diplomatic cologne.
QUENTIN CRISP
This is a remarkable observation in its own right, but the full passage in which it appeared is even more impressive: “Euphemisms are not…useless verbiage for that which can and should be said bluntly; they are like secret agents on a delicate mission, they must airily pass by a stinking mess with barely so much as a nod of the head, make their point of constructive criticism and continue on in calm forbearance. Euphemisms are unpleasant truths wearing diplomatic cologne.”
An exaggeration is a truth that has lost its temper.
KAHLIL GIBRAN
Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.
TRUMAN CAPOTE
Feedback is the breakfast of champions.
KEN BLANCHARD & SPENCER JOHNSON
The flower is the poetry of reproduction.
JEAN GIRAUDOUX
Fame is the perfume of heroic deeds.
SOCRATES
A close contender here was Luther Burbank’s “A flower is an educated weed.” On uneducated weeds, Ralph Waldo Emerson observed, “What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.” And on weeds in general, Ella Wheeler Wilcox wrote simply, “A weed is but an unloved flower.”
Freedom is the oxygen of the soul.
MOSHE DAYAN
Genius is a promontory jutting out into the infinite.
VICTOR HUGO
Global warming might be a fever the earth is running
in an attempt to ward off a deadly infection known as homo sapiens.
RICK BAYAN
God is a metaphor for that which transcends
all levels of intellectual thought. It’s as simple as that.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL
Goodness is the only investment that never fails.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Gratitude is the heart’s memory.
FRENCH PROVERB
Habit is a cable; we weave a thread of it each day,
and at last we cannot break it.
HORACE MANN
Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.
ROBERT FROST
This was the title of a 1942 poem that figuratively captured the allure of happiness. Ralph Waldo Emerson is often credited with another classic on the subject, but so far I have been unable to find the original observation in any of his published works: “Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself.”
Honesty is the first chapter of the book of wisdom.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
A house is a machine for living in.
LE CORBUSIER
A hunch is creativity trying to tell you something.
FRANK CAPRA
Ignorance is the night of the mind.
CONFUCIUS
Imagination is intelligence with an erection.
VICTOR HUGO
This is the only R-rated observation to be found in this chapter, and some may find it inappropriate. But even if you do, you must admit that it stimulates quite an image. A more socially acceptable—and also exceptional—observation comes from Joseph Joubert: “Imagination is the eye of the soul.”
Inspiration could be called inhaling the memory of an act never experienced.
NED ROREM
Jazz is the music of the body.
ANAÏS NIN
Journalism is literature in a hurry.
MATTHEW ARNOLD
Justice is truth in action.
BENJAMIN DISRAELI
Is not a kiss the very a
utograph of love?
HENRY THEOPHILUS FINCK
This observation comes from Finck’s 1887 book Romantic Love and Personal Beauty. Finck, a nineteenth-century music critic who was also interested in philosophy and the classics, may have inspired a famous Mae West line: “A man’s kiss is his signature.” There have been many other wonderful kiss observations, but another potentially definitive one is this classic from Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac: “’Tis a secret told to the mouth instead of to the ear.”
Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face.
VICTOR HUGO
Letters are expectation packed in an envelope.
SHANA ALEXANDER
A line is a dot that went for a walk.
PAUL KLEE
Memory is a crazed woman that hoards colored rags and throws away food.
AUSTIN O’MALLEY
The point is that we forget the essential and remember—often with great clarity—the tantalizing trivia. Other deserving candidates on this subject include:
“Our memories are card indexes consulted and then put back in disorder, by authorities whom we do not control.” Cyril Connolly
Memory is the personal journalism of the soul.” Richard Schickel
The mind, of course, is just what the brain does for a living.
SHARON BEGLEY
Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.
H. G. WELLS
Music is the wine that fills the cup of silence.
ROBERT FRIPP
Nostalgia is a seductive liar.
GEORGE BALL
Opportunity is missed by most people
because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
THOMAS ALVA EDISON
Henry J. Kaiser said similarly: “Trouble is only opportunity in work clothes.”
Passion makes the best observations
and the most wretched conclusions.
JEAN PAUL RICHTER
Another favorite, from Ralph Waldo Emerson, is this: “Passion, though a bad regulator, is a powerful spring.”