e are a large number of different
figures of speech, but such fine distinctions as the rhetoricians make
are unnecessary for the ordinary student of literature. It is the
meaning the figures convey that concerns us, for an adept in reading
always notices the skilful use of figures, and his pleasure is
heightened by their delicacy and beauty.

In the study of figures one must first carefully determine the basis in
reality or the literal meaning and then the figurative or applied
meaning. Browning speaks of

"--selfish worthless human slugs whose slime
Has failed to lubricate their path in life."

Here the reader must see disgusting slugs or snails crawling lazily
across the ripening apples in the orchard and leaving behind them the
filthy streak of slime with which they made the way easy for their ugly
bodies, but in so doing defiled the fruit for human use. So much is the
basis in fact. Knowing this one can feel the poet's stinging
denunciation of the one who cast the beautiful girl in the way of the
heartless Guido instead of "putting a prompt foot on him the worthless
human slug."

"To unhusk truth a-hiding in its hulls."

Here Browning has gone to the fields for his figure and we shall see the
ripened grain, the corn or the wheat, the merry huskers at work upon it,
turning out the glowing ear from its covering of dim paper wraps; or
perchance a group of disciples walking with their Master and rubbing the
hulls from the wheat gathered on the Sabbath day. Whatever the scene
that comes in mind, one fact there is--underneath the dried and
worthless hulls lies the living and life-giving grain. So we find truth
bright and genuine when we have torn from it the coverings with which it
has been concealed.

Such practice as this in working out elaborately the figure often given
in barest hint strengthens the imagination and gives to thought the
versatility that makes reading a delight and an inspiration. Till the
imagination is furnished material and given freedom, literature is as
worthless as the husks.

_Simile._ As we learn to know one thing from its likeness to another, it
is natural that the writer should seek to make impressions vivid by
comparison with better known things. Sometimes these comparisons are
expressed in words, and one thing is said to be _like_ another, while at
other times the comparison is left to be inferred and one thing is said
_to be_ another. The _simile_ states the likeness.