But a name is porous. Old
meanings slip out and new ones slip in, and the attempt to retain the
full meaning of the name is almost as fatiguing as trying to recall
the original impressions. Yet names are a poor currency for thought.
They are too empty, too abstract, too inhuman. And so we begin to see
the name through some personal stereotype, to read into it, finally to
see in it the incarnation of some human quality.
Yet human qualities are themselves vague and fluctuating. They are
best remembered by a physical sign. And therefore, the human qualities
we tend to ascribe to the names of our impressions, themselves tend to
be visualized in physical metaphors. The people of England, the
history of England, condense into England, and England becomes John
Bull, who is jovial and fat, not too clever, but well able to take
care of himself. The migration of a people may appear to some as the
meandering of a river, and to others like a devastating flood. The
courage people display may be objectified as a rock; their purpose as
a road, their doubts as forks of the road, their difficulties as ruts
and rocks, their progress as a fertile valley. If they mobilize their
dread-naughts they unsheath a sword. If their army surrenders they are
thrown to earth. If they are oppressed they are on the rack or under
the harrow.
When public affairs are popularized in speeches, headlines, plays,
moving pictures, cartoons, novels, statues or paintings, their
transformation into a human interest requires first abstraction from
the original, and then animation of what has been abstracted.
Pages:
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173