Note 275 — Chapter XV

Whitney, Encyclo. Brit., p. 770. See also Nodier, Notions de Linguistique, p. 39; Garnett, Essays, p. 89; Grimm, Gesch. d. d. Sprache, s. 56 et seq.; Pott, Metaphern vom Leben, &c., Zeitschr. fur Vergl. Sprachf. Jahrg., ii., heft 2; Heyse, System, &c., s. 97; and Farrar, Origin of Language, 130; Chapters on Language, pp. 67, 133, 204-246. He refers to the above, and quotes the following passages from Emerson and Carlyle:—“As the limestone of the Continent consists of infinite masses of shells of animalcules, so language is made up of images and tropes, which now, in their secondary use, have long ceased to remind us of their poetic origin” (Essays on the Poets). “Language is the flesh-garment of Thought. I said that Imagination wore this flesh-garment; and does she not? Metaphors are her stuff. Examine Language. What, if you except a few primitive elements of natural sound, what is it all but metaphors recognized as such, or no longer recognized; still fluid and florid, or now solid-grown and colourless? If those same primitive elements are the osseous fixtures in the flesh-garment of Language—then are metaphors its muscles, its tissues, and living integuments. An unmetaphorical style you shall in vain seek for: is not your very attention a stretching-to?” (Sartor Resartus, ch. x.).