between the words that compose it; and in the best sentences, whether of prose or verse, the words seem new-born; like notes in music, they seem to be, not mere labels, but facts, because of the manner in which the writer’s thought or emotion has related them to each other.  But habitual metaphor prevents this process of relation; it is the intrusion of ready-made matter, with its own stale associations, into matter that should be new-made for its own particular purpose of expression.  Phrases like—­The lap of luxury, Part and parcel, A sea of troubles, Passing through the furnace, Beyond the pale, The battle of life, The death-warrant of, Parrot cries, The sex-war, Tottering thrones, A trail of glory, Bull-dog tenacity, Hats off to, The narrow way, A load of sorrow, A charnel-house, The proud prerogative, Smiling through your tears, A straight fight, A profit and loss account, The fires of martyrdom, The school of life—­are all ready-made matter; and, if a writer yields to the temptation of using them, he impedes his own process of expression, saying something which is not exactly what he has to say.  He may, of course, attain to a familiar metaphor in his own process of expression; but if he does, if it is exactly what he has to say, then it will not seem stale to the reader.  Context may give life to a metaphor that has long seemed dead, as it gives life to the commonest words.  If an image forces itself upon a writer because it and it alone will express his meaning, then it is his image, no matter how often it has been used before; and in that case it will arrest the attention of the reader.  But the effect of habitual and dead metaphor is to dull attention.  When a phrase like ‘the lap of luxury’ catches the eye, the mind relaxes but is not rested; for we are wearied, without exercise, by commonplace.

Further, the use of dead metaphor weakens a writer’s sense of the connexion between mood and manner.  All the metaphors which I have quoted are fit for the expression of some kind of emotion rather than for plain statement of fact or for lucid argument; yet they are used commonly in statements of fact and in what passes for argument.  Indeed one of their evils is that they make a writer and his readers believe that he is exercising his reason when he is only moving from trite image to image.  If eloquence is reason fused with emotion, writing, or speaking, full of dead metaphors is unreason fused with sham emotion.  I add in illustration a further list of dead metaphors lately noticed:  ’Branches of the same deadly Upas Tree.  Turning a deaf ear to.  The flower of our manhood.  Taking off the gloves.  Written in letters of fire.  Stemming the tide.  Big with possibilities.  The end is in sight.  A place in the sun.  A spark of manhood.  To dry up the founts of pity.  Hunger stalking through the land.  A death grip.  Round pegs (or men) in square holes.  The lamp of sacrifice.  The silver lining.  Troubling the waters, and poisoning the wells.  The promised land.  Flowing with milk and honey.  Winning all along the line.  Casting in her lot with.  The fruits of victory.  Backs to the wall.  Bubbling over with confidence.  Bled white.  The writing on the wall.  The sickle of death.  A ring fence round.  The crucible of.  Answering the call.  Grinding the faces of the poor.  The scroll of fame.’—­A.  CLUTTON-BROCK.