5. Read the following excerpt from Essays in the Art of Writing, by Robert Louis Stevenson, and then answer the question that fo
llows:
The art of literature stands apart from among its sisters, because the material in which the literary artist works is the dialect of life; hence, on the one hand, a strange freshness and immediacy of
address to the public mind, which is ready prepared to understand it; but hence, on the other, a singular limitation. The sister arts enjoy the use of a plastic and ductile material, like the modeller's
clay, literature alone is condemned to work in mosaic with finite and quite rigid words. You have seen these blocks, dear to the nursery: this one a pillar, that a pediment, a third a window or a
vase. It is with blocks of just such arbitrary size and figure that the literary architect is condemned to design the palace of his art. Nor Is this all; for since these blocks, or words,
are the acknowledged currency of our daily affairs, there are here possible none of those suppressions by which other arts obtain relle, continuity, and vigour: no hieroglyphic
touch, no smoothed Impasto, no Inscrutable shadow, as in painting, no blank wall, as in architecture; but every word, phrase, sentence, and paragraph must move in a logical
progression, and convey a definite conventional in port,
Now the first merit which attracts in the pages of a good writer, or the talk of a brillant conversationalist, is the apt choice and contrast of the words employed. It is indeed, a strange art to take
these blocks, rudely conceived for the purpose of the market or the bar, and by tact of application touch them to the finest meanings and distinctions, restore to them their primal energy, wittily
shift them to another issue, or make of them a drum to rouse the passions. But though this form of meritis without doubt the most sensible and seizing, it is far from being equally present in all
writers. The effect of words in Shakespeare, their singular justice, significance, and poetic charm, is different, Indeed, from the effect of words in Addison or Fielding,
In a paragraph of five to eight sentences, identify the author's use of implied (indirectly stated) and explicit (directly stated) comparisons using the example in bold. Provide at least one example
of each from the text and explain their meanings. Use proper spelling and grammar. (20 points)
