I Never Metaphor I Didn't Like (11 page)

O
n 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, oxymo
ronically, “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:

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
:

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 build
ings 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
.