"
"Yes," said I, "I remember his merriment well. I really thought he
would have fallen into convulsions."
"The material world," continued Dupin, "abounds with very strict
analogies to the immaterial; and thus some color of truth has been
given to the rhetorical dogma, that metaphor, or simile, may be made
to strengthen an argument, as well as to embellish a description.
The principle of the vis inertiae, for example, seems to be
identical in physics and metaphysics. It is not more true in the
former, that a large body is with more difficulty set in motion than a
smaller one, and that its subsequent momentum is commensurate with
this difficulty, than it is, in the latter, that intellects of the
vaster capacity, while more forcible, more constant, and more eventful
in their movements than those of inferior grade, are yet the less
readily moved, and more embarrassed and full of hesitation in the
first few steps of their progress. Again: have you ever noticed
which of the street signs, over the shop doors, are the most
attractive of attention?"
"I have never given the matter a thought," I said.
"There is a game of puzzles," he resumed, "which is played upon
a map. One party playing requires another to find a given word --the
name of town, river, state or empire --any word, in short, upon the
motley and perplexed surface of the chart.
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