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THE WORKING PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC

EXAMINED IN THEIR LITERARY RELATIONS AND ILLUSTRATED WITH EXAMPLES

BY JOHN FRANKLIN GENUNG

Professor of Rhetoric in Amherst College

A RESTUDIED AND REPROPORTIONED TREATISE EASED ON

THE author's

PRACTICAL ELEMENTS OF RHETORIC

BOSTON, U.S.A. GINN & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS

1901

Copyright, 1900, by JOHN FRANKLIN GENUNG

ALL EIGHTS RESERVED

To THE SUCCESSION, NOW GOODLY IN NUMBER, OF THOSE

WHO RECALL FROM THEIR COLLEGE DAYS THE

ROOM WITH THE INSCRIPTION

QVI • NOVIT ■ NEQVE ■ ID QVOD ■ SENTIT EXPRIMIT ■ PERINDE ■ EST - AC ■ SI • NESCIRET ■

PREFACE.

THE preface to the volume on which the present work is based, written nearly fourteen years ago, forecast and not inaptly characterized the purpose of this new venture, in its remark i propos of the old subject of rhetoric, that " old things, in proportion to their living value, need from time to time to be newly defined and . distributed, their perspective and emphasis need to be freshly determined, to suit changing conditions of thought." The old subject is newer than it was then ; its living value, in life no less than in school, more generally recognized. If along with this the conditions of its study have changed, one element of the change niay particu- larly be noted : the tendency to specialization which a deeper interest always brings. Rhetoric, in its higher reaches, is studied nowadays largely by topics and sections, in which single stages or processes of the art literary are taken up and by a kind of laboratory method carried to any depth or minuteness desired.

A laboratory method, of whatever sort, is not absolutely empirical. Its essence is indeed observation, discovery, experiment ; but in its outfit must also be included a labora- tory manual, to direct and determine its lines of work. Special monographs and records of research have their place, but they do not take the place of this. There is needed, to covet the whole field, some treatise which, presenting the basal principles on a uniform scale and from one point of view, shall thereby exhibit also the mutual relations and proportions

vi PREFACE.

of the various parts. A treatise of this kind is in its nature both a text-book and a book of reference, something to be studied and also consulted. The specific use to which it is put, and the order in which its parts are taken up, are matters to be determined largely by the teacher and the course; As a laboratory manual it does not profess to embody the com- plete outfit ; while it stands, as a basis of reference and direc- tion, at the centre, it presupposes other things, accompanying, which shall supply the praxis and model-study necessary.

Such a manual as this the author had in mind in preparing the present volume. He has aimed to traverse broadly the field of rhetoric, setting forth its working principles by defini- tion, explication, and example. In his aim have also been included the utmost attainable clearness, simplicity, and sound sense in the presentation. It is not for him, of course, to say how far he has been successful. Some principles — nay, all of them — go deep ; they cannot but do so, if their working begins within ; but those inner points of human nature to which they penetrate are not beyond the recognition of the undergraduate, and to every writer who attains to a degree of mastery they are consciously present as points both of outset and of aim. Sooner or later, therefore, these vitalizing principles must be taken into the account ; they are what colors and finishes the whole work of authorship. A liberal course of instruction is recreant to itself if, cramping itself to wooden rules of grammar and logic, it neglects what may be called the practical psychology of the art, or leaves it to that education which began two hundred years before the student's birth. This, then, is what the author has tried to exhibit : /the process of composition traced genetically, through its large y working principles, with those living considerations which con- l^nect these with writer, reader, and occasion. The book does not set up as an authority, except so far as its statements, fairly tested, prove self-justifying. Of any of the assertions

PREFACE. vii

here made the simple desire is, that student and teacher look at them, give them all possible verification of trial and example, and see if they are not so. One thing further also : that as the upshot of all and each it may be seen how great a thing it is, how truly a matter of ordered art, yet withal how simple and business-like, to write.

There is only one name to give to the point of view thus brought to light. It is the literary. Rhetoric .is literature, taken in its details and impulses, literature in the, making. What- ever is implied in this the present work frankly accepts. Its standard is literary ; it is concerned, as real authorship must be, not with a mere grammatical apparatus or with Huxley's logic engine, but with the whole man, his outfit of conviction and emotion, imagination and will, translating himself, as it were, into vital and ordered utterance. It is in this whole man that the technique of the art has its roots.

Begun as a revision of the author's Practical Elements of Rhetoric, the work, as thus conternplated, was seen to be, almost from the outset, so truly a new treatment of the subject that the decision was made to issue it as a new work, of which the other is merely the basis. The exposition is throughout subjected to a restatement for which the author can think of no word so fitting as reproportioned ; it is brought by . its terms and ordering more into the line of scientific literary study as it is pursued to-day and into more rigid consist- ency with itself. To give in any detail the changes from the former work would serve no useful purpose here. A few of the more salient ones may be mentioned. What was before given in chapters and occasional subdividing sections now appears in books and chapters, the latter being numbered continuously through the volume. Chapters viii. and ix. cover substantially the ground formerly entitled Fundamental Processes. Chapter vii., on Rhythm, is nearly all new. The substance of the chapter formerly entitled Reproduction of

viii PREFACE.

the Thought of Others is incorporated with Chapter xvi., as Exposition of the Symbols of Things. The subject of Persua- sion now appears, under the heading Oratory, in connection with its controlling literary type. Argumentation. Whether these changes will all justify themselves is a question that must be left to the judgment of those who have used the older book ; they seem to come in the way of the reproportioning which the subject has undergone.

The additional matter furnished by the numerous corrobo- rative footnotes will, it is hoped, be of service to those teachers and students who desire further rhetorical reading. Of the value of these notes such names as Earle, Pater, Stevenson, Bagehot, De Quincey, are a sufficient guarantee. No voluminous reading of this kind, of course, can be given ; but many wise and weighty remarks from critics of recognized authority are thus gathered from widely scattered sources and made available in connection with the principles to which they apply. The body of these appended readings is especially indicated, at the end of the book, in the Directory of Authors Quoted.

This book, as is intimated above, is contemplated only as part of a rhetorical apparatus, the laboratory manual on which other lines of work are founded. For the praxis work of com-' position, and for more extended study of models than the examples furnish, the present volume has no room. It is the author's intention, in due time, to publish in a companion volume what is here lacking.

In the reading of the proofs the author has had, and hereby thankfully acknowledges, the much-valued assistance of Pro- fessor William B. Cairns, whose suggestions have been care- fully weighed and generally followed, though, as sometimes the casting-vote went adversely, no responsibility for mistakes or imperfections should be laid to his charge.

Amherst, March 4, 1901.

CONTENTS.

•<>• PAGB

Introductory. i-g

Definition of Rhetoric .... . i

Rhetoric as Adaptation . . i

Rhetoric as Art .... 4

Province and Distribution of Rhetoric . ... 8

I. STYLE. BOOK I. — STYLE IN GENERAL.

Chapter I. — Nature and Bearings of Style. 16-26

Definition of Style ..... . . ig

Adjustments of Style, and the Culture that promotes them . 20 The Principle of Economy 23

Chapter II. — Qualities of Style. 27-43

I. Clearness . . ..... 29

II. Force ..... • • • 33

III. Beauty -37

Temperament of Qualities . . . .41

BOOK IL — DICTION.

Chapter III. — Choice of Words for Denotation. 46-74

I. Accurate Use .46

II. Intelligible Use 52

III. Present Use .... . . 61

IV. Scholarly Use 68

CONTENTS.

Chapter IV. — Words and Figures for Connotation.

I. Connotation of Idea

Overt Figures of Association

Implicatory Words and Coloring II. Connotation of Emotion

Overt Figures of Emotion .

Animus of Word and Figure

Chapter V. — Prose Diction — Standard and Occasional.

I. St&ndard Prose Diction . The Prose Vocabulary Prose Arrangement of Words . Prose Connection of Words II. Prose Diction as determined by Occasion The Diction of Spoken Discourse The Diction of Written Discourse Manufactured Diction III. Maintenance of the Tone of Discourse .

Chapter VI. — Poetic Diction, and its Interactions with Prose.

I. Poetic Traits in Poetry and Prose

Tendency to Brevity or Concentration Partiality to Unworn Words and Forms . Language employed for its Picturing Power Language employed for Qualities of Sound II. The Approaches of Prose to Poetry

The Intellectual Type ....

The Impassioned Type .... The Imaginative Type

Chapter Vn. — Rhjrthm in Poetry and in Prose.

I. Elements of Poetic Rhythm

The Metrical Unit : the Foot . The Metrical Clause : the Verse The- Metrical Sentence: the Stanza II. The Life of Verse

Overtones of Musical Rhythm . Pliancy of the Recitative Measures Undertone of Phrasal Rhythm .

75-106

• 76 77

■ 87 94 95

102

107-138

109 109 "3 "5 118 118 126 132

'3S

139-170

141 141

■ 144 146

"53

• 163 164 166

. 168

171-220

172 172 178

183 189 190 197 202

CONTENTS.

XI

III. The Rhythm of Prose .... As maintauied against Poetic Rhythm Its Main Elements ....

PAGE 2IO 210

BOOK III. — COMPOSITION.

Chapter VH	1. — Phraseology.	223-267
I.	Syntactical Adjustments . . . .	• 223
II.	Three Idioms ...	• 232
III.	Collocation ...	240
IV.	Retrospective Reference . . . .	246
V.	Prospective Reference .	■ 254
VI.	Correlation	- 257
vn.	Conjunctional Relation . . . .	• 259
Chapter IX.	— Organic Processes.	268-310
I.	Negation	. 268
II.	Antithesis	271
III.	Inversion	. 276
IV.	Suspension	■ 279
V.	Amplitude	287
VI.	Climax .	292
VII.	Condensation	• 29s
VIII.	Repetition . . • .	■ 302
Chapter X.	— The Sentence.	3"-3SS
I.	Organism of the Sentence	• 312
	Elements of Structure	• 312
	Types of Structure	316
II.	Interrelation of Elements	• 320
	Errors of Interrelation	■ 320
	Logical Relations Consistent with Unity	• 323
	Office of Punctuation	• 325
III.	Massing of Elements for Force	• 33S
	Distribution of Emphasis .	• 335
	Dynamic Stress . ...	■ 340
IV.	The Sentence in Diction	■ 345
	As to Length	■ 345
	As to Mass ...	• 350
	Combinations and Proportions .	■ 354

CONTENTS.

Chapter XI. — The Paragraph.

I. The Paragraph in Sum . II. The Paragraph in Structure . Relation of Parts to Sum . Relation of Parts to Each Other Claims of Proportion III.. Kinds of Paragraphs

356-383

• 358 364

• 365-

• 370

• 37S ■ 379

II. INVENTION.

BOOK IV. — INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

Chapter XII. — Approaches to Invention.

I. The Sense of Literary Form II. The Support from Self-Culture The Spirit of Observation Habits of Meditation . Ways of reading Disposal of Results

389-419

• 390 ■ 396

• 397 402

. 408

• 417

Chapter XIII. — • The Composition as a Whole. 420-474

I. The Theme . .... .421

As related to the Subject . . . 421 As related to Form of Discourse .... 426

As distinguished from the Title . 429

II. The Main Ideas .... . 432

The Making of the Plan .... .432

Principles of Relation and Arrangement . 438

Appendages of the Plan .... 449

III. The Amplifying Ideas .... . 458

The Province of Unamplified Expression . . 460

Objects for which Amplification is employed . 462

Means of Amplification . . . 464

Accessories of Amplification ... 471

CONTENTS.

■txA.j ■ ' j, -' -'"- '"' -' BOOK v. — THE LITERA-kY TYPES.

Chapter XIV. — Description.

I. The Underlying Principles

Problems of Material and Handling . Mechanism of Description . Subdual of Descriptive Details 11. Accessories of Description

Avails of Imaginative Diction The Human Interest . Aid from Narrative Movement III. Description in Literature

General Status and Value .

Forms of which Description is the Basis .

Chapter XV. — Narration.

I. The Art of Narration

The End : to which all is related as forecast The Narrative Movement . II. The Vehicle of the Story The Supporting Medium Discursive Narration . Combination of Narratives III. Narration in Literature . History Biography Fiction

Xlll

PAGE

477-510 478

479 481 486 493 493 499 503 ■ 506 506 508

511-553

Chapter XVI. — Exposition.

Exposition of Things

Exposition Intensive : Definition

Exposition Extensive : Division Exposition. of the Symbols of Things

Exegesis of Terms

Explication of Propositions

Forms of Reproduction Exposition in Literature

Criticism ....

Forms of Expository Work

• 513

• 514 520

• 529 53°

• 535 537

■ 543

• 544

• 548 550

554-596

557 558 568

575 576

578 582

591 591 594

XIV

CONTENTS.

Chapter XVII. — Argumentation.

Section I. — Argumentation in its Type Forms I. Argumentation Constructive Direct Discovery of Facts Inference from Particulars Inference from Generals II. Argumentation Destructive Analyzing by Alternative Exposure of Fallacies

Section II. — Argumentation in Ordered System

I. Debate

Preparation of the Question Measures looking to Attack and Order of Arguments . II. Oratory .... The Essence of Oratory The Basis of Relation with the Audience Forms and Agencies of Appeal

Index of Shbjects

Directory of Authors Quoted .

Defense

PAGE

597-662

• 598

• 599

• S99 606

. 616 622 623 626

633 634 63s 637 639 642 642 645 650

663 673

THE

WORKING PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.

" I hope that your professors of rhetoric will teach you to culti- vate that golden art — the steadfast use of a language in which truth can be told ; a speech that is strong by natural force, and not merely effective by declannation ; an utterance without trick, without affecta- tion, without mannerisms, and without any of that excessive ambition which overleaps itself as much in prose writing as it does in other things." — John Morley.

INTRODUCTORY.

Definition of Rhetoric. — Rhetoric is the art of adapting discourse, in harmony with its subject and occasion, to the requirements of a reader or hearer.

Note. — The word discourse, which is popularly understood of some- thing oral, as a speech or a conversation, will be used throughout this treatise to denote any coherent literary prodaction, whether spoken or written. The term is broad enough to cover all the forms of composition, and deep enough to include all its processes.

I.

Rhetoric as Adaptation. — To treat a subject rightly, to say just what the occasion demands, are indeed fundamental to effective discourse ; but what more than all else makes it rhetorical is the fact that all the elements of its composition are adopted with implicit reference to the mind of readers or hearers. The writer learns to judge what men will best understand, what they can be made to feel or imagine, what are their interests, their tastes, their limitations ; and to these, as subject and occasion dictate, he conforms his work ; that is, he adapts discourse to human nature, as its require- ments are recognized and skilfully interpreted. The various problems involved in such adaptation constitute the field^of^ the art of rhetoric.

This idea of 'adaptation is the best modern representative of the original aim of the art. Having at first to deal only

2 INTRODUCTORY.

with hearers, rhetoric began as the art of oratory, that is, of convincing and persuading by speech. Now, however, as the art of printing has greatly broadened its field of action, rhetoric must address itself to readers as well, must therefore include more forms of composition and more comprehensive objects ; while still the initial character of the art survives, in the general aim of so presenting thought that it shall have power on men, which aim is most satisfactorily defined in the term adaptation.

Note. — The derived and literary uses of the word rhetoric all start from the recognition of the adaptedness of speech, as wielded by skill and art, to produce spiritual effects. When, for instance, Milton says of Satan,

" the persuasive rhetoric That sleeked his tongue, and won so much on Eve,"

or speaks, in Comus, of the

"gay rhetoric That hath so well been taught her dazzling fence,"

he sees, in smoothness of speech and deftness of argument, rhetorical devices that in their place are quite legitimate, and incur reproach only as used unscrupulously. In the line

" Sweet, silent rhetoric of persuading eyes,"

the poet Daniel regards the influencing effect as produced by means other than speech ; a not infrequent use of the word.

Distinguished by this Characteristic from the Sciences on which

it is founded The two sciences that mainly constitute the

basis of rhetoric are grammar and logic, both of which it supplements in the direction of adaptation.

Grammar, which deals with the forms, inflections, and offices of words, and their relation to each other in phrases and sentences, aims to show what is correct and admissible usage, not what is adapted to men's capacities. A sentence quite unexceptionable in grammar may be feebly expressed, or crudely arranged, or hard to understand ; and if so it is to

INTRODUCTORY. 3

just that degree unrhetorical. Rhetoric, while making its sentence grammatical as a matter of course, inquires in addi- tion by what choice and arrangement of words it can best work its intended eiiect. Nor does its inquiry stop with the sentence. In every stage and form of composition, wherever the problem of adaptation may be involved, the art of rhetoric has its principles and procedures.

Logic, which deals with the laws of thinking, aims to deter- mine what sequences of thought are sound and self-consistent. In so doing it works for the sake of its subject alone, not for the convenience of a reader. A passage whose logic is quite unassailable may be severe, abstruse, forbidding, and there- fore unrhetorical. Rhetoric, while its expression must of necessity conform to the laws of sound thinking, aims to bring its thought home to men by making it attractive, vivid, or otherwise easier to apprehend.

Lines of Rhetorical Adaptation The requirements of a

reader or hearer are determined not by his mental capacities alone, but by his whole nature ; which, in one way or another, as subject and occasion dictate, is to be acted upon by the power of language. The common psychological division of man's spiritual powers will indicate broadly three main lines of adaptation.

There is first the power of intellect, by which a man knows, thinks, reasons. Discourse that addresses itself to this power aims merely to impart information or convince of truth ; and its adaptation consists in giving the reader facilities to see and understand. This practical aim is what gives substance and seriousness to all literary endeavor ; but its sole or pre- dominating presence gives rise to the grpat body of everyday writing, — news, criticism, science, history, discussion, all that deals with the common facts and interests of life ; which may be included under the general name of Matter-of-fact Prose.

4 INTRODUCTORY.

Secondly, there is the power of emotion, by which a man feels and imagines. Discourse that addresses itself to this power aims to make men not only understand a truth but realize it vividly and have a glow of interest in it ; and the adaptation is effected by using language that stimulates and thrills. This aim has a large part in the more literary forms of prose ; but it appears most unmixedly in Poetry.

Thirdly, there is the power of will, by which a man ven- tures life and action on what he believes or thinks. Dis- course that addresses itself to this power must make men both understand clearly and realize intensely ; it must there- fore work with both intellect and emotion ; but through these it must effect some definite decision in men's sympathies or conduct. Its adaptation consists in making its thought a power on motive and principle ; and the aim results in the most complex literary type, Oratory.

From the consideration of these human powers and capaci- ties, with the countless limitations that culture, occupation, and original character impose upon them, it will easily be seen how broad is the field of rhetorical adaptation, and how comprehensive must be the art that masters and applies its resources.

II.

Rhetoric as Art In the adapting of discourse to the

requirements of reader or hearer, under the various condi- tions that call for such work, it is evident that there must be all the fine choice of means and fitting of these to ends, all the intimate conversance with material and working-tools, that we associate with any art, fine or useful.

Rhetoric, here called an art, is sometimes defined as a science. Both designations are true ; they merely regard the subject in two different aspects. Science is systematized knowledge : if then the laws and principles of discourse are

INTROD UCTOR Y. 5

exhibited in an ordered and interrelated system, they appear in the character of a science. Art is knowledge made effi- cient by skill ; if then rhetorical laws and principles are applied in the actual construction of discourse, they become the working-rules of an art.

From both points of view rhetoric has great practical value in liberal culture. Studied as a science or theory, in which aspect it may be called critical rhetoric, it promotes understanding and appreciation of literature, and thereby not only aids those who have natural literary aptitude but deepens and enriches the reading of those to whom such gift is denied. Cultivated for practical ends, as an art, in which aspect it may be called constructive rhetoric, the study, while it can set up no pretensions to confer the power to write, can do much to steady and discipline powers already present, and keep them from blundering and feeble ways. And each mode of approach so helps the other that in practice the two, science and art, cannot attain their best disjoined.

Note. — The present manual, because it regards the student always as in the attitude of constructing, of weighing means and procedures not for their mere scientific or curious interest but as adapted to produce practical results, starts from the definition of rhetoric as an art.

Analogies with Other Arts. — What is. true of other arts, such as painting, music, sculpture, handicraft, is so exactly paralleled in the art of rhetoric, that it will be useful to trace some of the analogies.

I. Aptitude for masterful expression, like an ear for music or an eye for color and proportion, is an inborn gift. Exist- ing in infinitely various degrees, this aptitude may sometimes be so great as to discover the secret of good writing almost by intuition ; while sometimes it may lie dormant and unsus- pected, needing the proper impulse of culture to awaken it. In the great majority of cases it exists merely in such moder-

6 INTRODUCTORY.

ate degree as to suffice for useful and common-sense work in the ordinary occasions of writing. So much aptitude may be talcen for granted ; and if the higher degree is present it will according to its insight find the higher ranges of the art congenial.

2. Just as in these other arts one does not think of stop- ping with mere native aptitude, but develops and disciplines all his powers so that they may be employed wisely and steadily ; so in the art of expression one needs by faithful study and practice to get beyond the point where he only happens to write well, or where brilliancy and crudeness are equally uncontrolled, and attain that conscious power over thought and language which makes every part of his work the result of unerring skill and calculation.

3. Like other arts, this art of rhetoric has its besetting faults, which it requires watchfulness, conscientiousness, and natural taste to avoid. — The most prevalent of these, perhaps, is the fault of falling idly into conventional and stereotyped ways of expression, without troubling to think how much or how little they mean. This is at bottom insincerity; it is taking up with something that has embodied another man's thought and passing it off for one's own, thus pretending to think or feel what one does not. — A second fault is trust- ing too much to one's cleverness and fluency, and not having patience and application in the exercises necessary to deepen and steady one's powers ; in other words, neglecting the technic of the art. This is especially the tendency of those to whom writing comes easily ; they think their native apti- tude will make up for discipline, — always a fatal mistake. — A third fault is being so taken with tricks, vogues, manner- isms of expression as to think more of the dress one gives the thought than of the thought itself ; thus making rhetoric the manipulation of devices of language for their own sake. It must be borne in mind that this art of rhetoric does not

INTRO£>UCTORY. 7

exist for itself, but only as the handmaid of the truth which it seeks to make living in the minds and hearts of men.'

4. As in the mastering of other arts, so in this, there is an initial stage during which the submitting of one's work to severe artistic standards seems to spoil it ; the powers that when running wild produced results uneven and uncertain indeed but full of native vigor and audacity become, as dominated by art, labored, wooden, self-conscious. This, however, is merely a temporary period in the necessary proc- ess of changing artistic power from arbitrary rules to second nature. To discard rhetorical discipline on this account, as many do, does not help the matter ; it is merely to abandon what experience has contributed to a difficult art and set one's self to evolve one's own modes of procedure, with all the risks of mannerism and blundering. The wiser way is to work up through that self-conscious stage to the eminence where the art becomes at once artistic, uniform in quality, and full of the spontaneousness of nature.

Fine Art and Mechanical Art The distinction ordinarily

made between mechanical or useful art and fine art has its application to rhetoric ; which may be classed with either, according as its results are merely practical, as in journalism and matters of everyday information, or more distinctively literary, as in poetry,_ oratory, romance. Nor is it either easy or desirable to define the point where one kind of art passes into the other. Both the sense of the practical and the sense of the beautiful may each in its way control the same work ; and thus the composition may be at once masterful contriv- ance and fine art, with each quality reinforced by the other.

1 The above remarks on the faults of the rhetorical art are suggested by a sentence from Ruskin's Introduction to "Roadside Songs of Tuscany": " All fatalfaults in art that might have been otherwise good, arise from one of these three things ; either from the pretence to feel what we do not ; the indolence in exercises necessary to obtain the power of expressing the truth ; or the presumptuous insistence upon, and indulgence in, our own powers and delights, and with no care or wish that they should be useful to other people, so only they may be admired by them."

8 INTRODUCTORY.

To every writer who enlists a well-endowed nature in it, the art of expression is comprehensive enough to include the highest and most exquisite literary achievement ; while at its beginning, accessible to all, are the homely and useful details of plain words and clear thinking. Nor is any stage of the work so insignificant but genius can give it the charm of a fine art.

III.

Province and Distribution of Rhetoric. — The province of the study is suggested in the foregoing definition of rhetoric as art and as adaptation. Its province js_to expound in sys- tematic order the technic of an art. But inasmuch as this is an art governed in all its details by the aim of adaptation, its problems are not primarily problems of absolute right and wrong, but of fitness and unfitness, or, where various expedi- ents are in question, of better and worse.^ What is good for one occasion or one class of readers or one subject may be bad for another ; what will be powerful to effect one object may be quite out of place for another. Thus it traverses from beginning to end that field of activity wherein the inventive constructive mind is supposably at work making effective ' discourse.

The distribution of the study bases itself most simply, per- haps, on the two questions that naturally rise in any under- taking, the questions what and how. Round the first cluster the principles that relate uxmatter or thought_ of discourse ; round the second whatever relates to manner or expression. Of course a question of expression must often involve the question of thought also, and vice versa ; so the two lines of inquiry must continually touch and interact ; but on the whole they are distinct enough to furnish a clear working basis for the distribution of the art.

1 See Wendell, English Composition, p. 2,

INTRODUCTORY. 9

Reversing the order here suggested, for a reason presently to be explained, the present manual groups the elements of rhetoric round two main topics : style, which deals with the \ manner of discourse ; and invention, which deals with thej matter.

Style The question how, which underlies the art of

style, divides itself into the questions what qualities to give it in order to produce the fitting effect ; then, more particu- larly, how to choose words both for what they say (denote) and what they imply or involve (connote), that is, both literal and figurative expression ; how to put words together in phrases and sentences, with fitting stress and order; and how to build these sentences into paragraphs. This division of the study is commonly regarded as the dryest; but it is the most indispensable, and its dryness gives way to intense interest in proportion as the importance of one's work is apprehended. No word or detail can be insignificant which makes more powerful or unerring a desired effect.

Invention. — The question what, which underlies the art of invention, must be held to suggest more than the mere find- ing of siih.J£st::matter, which of course must be left to the writer himself. No text-book or system of study can do his thinking for him. It belongs to invention also to determijie what concentration and coordination must be given to every line of thought to make it effective ; then, niore particularly, what forms of discourse are at the writer's disposal, and what peculiarities of management each demands. This division of the study, while not more practical, has the interest of being more directly concerned with the making of literature, and the demands of self-culture therein involved.

I. STYLE.

" Have something to say, and say it, was tlie Duke of Wellington's theory of style ; Huxley's was to say that which has to be said in such language that you can stand cross-examination on each word. Be clear, though you may be convicted of error. If you are clearly wrong, you will run up against a fact some time and get set right. If you shuffle with your subject, and study chiefly to use language which will give you a loophole of escape either way, there is no hope for you." — Life and Letters of Thomas H. Huxley.

BOOK I.. STYLE IN GENERAL.

It is as important in this art of rhetoric as in any other to distinguish between the order of performance, and the order of_^raining. When a writer, trained presumably to the point of mastery, sets about the actual construction of a work of literature, his first step, of course/ is invention : that is, determining in what form of discourse he will work, and devising a framework of thought. / The case is different with a student setting out to attain/proficiency in the art. He must begin with practice in details of word and phrase and figure ; just as a musician begj^s with scales and finger exer- cises, and an artist with drawing from models. This is the natural order in every art /first, patient acquisition of skill in workmanship; then, mjltured design or performance.^ It is as a recognition of this fact that in the course of rhetorical

1 " In all arts the natural advance is from detail to general effect. How seldom those who begin with a broad treatment, which apes maturity, acquire subsequently the minor graces that alone can finish the perfect work I . . . He [Tennyson] devoted himself, with the eager spirit of youth, to mastering this exquisite art [of poetry], and wreaked his thoughts upon expression, for the expression's sake. And what else should one attempt, with small experiences, little concern for the real world, and less observation of it?" — Stedman, Victorian Poets, p. 156.

" As I walked, my mind was busy fitting what I saw with appropriate words ; when I sat by the roadside, I would either read, or a pencil and a penny version-book would be in my hand, to note down the features of the scene or commemorate some halting stanzas. Thus I lived with words. And what I thus wrote was for no ulte- rior use, it was written consciously for practice. It was not so much that I wished to be an author (though I wished that too) as that I had vowed that I would learn to write. That was a proficiency that tempted me ; and I practiced to acquire it, as men learn to whittle, in a wager with myself." — Stevenson, Memories and Por- traits, Works, Vol. xiii, p. 211.

13

14 STYLE IN GENERAL.

art here traced the part relating to style precedes the part relating to invention.

If this distinction were made merely to justify the plan of a text-book, it would be of little consequence. It is made rather because the claim of style, with all its demands on the writer, is logically first and fundamental. Care for style is the mood that ought to control every stage of the work, pro- jecting and finishing alike. In every literary undertaking, and with the sense of its importance increasing rather than diminishing, the faithful writer's most absorbing labor is devoted to studious management of details and particulars, weighing of words, sifting and shaping of subtle turns of phrase, until with unhasting pains everything is fitted to its place. And the result of such diligence is increasing fineness of taste for expression, and increasing keenness of sense for all that contributes, in however small degree, toward making the utterance of his thought perfect.

Ideal as this sounds, it is merely the rigorous artist mood applied to literary endeavor ; nor is it anything more than becomes actual in the experience of every well-endowed writer. The constant pressure of an ideal standard engen- ders a certain sternness and severity of mood which for the practical guidance of the student may be defined in these two aspects : First, an insatiable passion for accuracy, in statement and conception alike, which forbids him to be content with any word or phrase that comes short of his idea or is in the least aside from it. Secondly, an ardent desire for freedom and range of utterance, for such wealth of word and illustration as shall set forth adequately the ful- ness of a deeply felt subject. The practical questions that rise out of this mood are deeper than the search for qualities of style, though also they include this latter quest ; they are, in a sense, not questions of style at all, but of truth and fact. If the student of composition would be a master of expression

STYLE IN GENERAL. IS

this earnestness of literary mood must become so ingrained as to be a working consciousness, a second nature.^ This is what is involved in giving style the first and fundamental claim.

1 " I hate false words, and seek with care, difficulty, and moroseness those that fit the thing." — Landor.

" Nor is there anything here that should astonish the considerate. Before he can tell what cadences he truly prefers, the student should have tried all that are possible ; before he can choose and preserve a fitting key of words, he should long have prac- tised the literary scales ; and it is only after years of such gymnastic that he can sit. down at last, legions of words swarming to his call, dozens of turns of phrase simul- taneously bidding for his choice, and he himself knowing what he wants to do and (within the narrow limit of a man's ability) able to do it." — Stevenson, Memories and Portraits^ Works, Vol. xiii, p. 214.

CHAPTER I.

NATURE AND BEARINGS OF STYLE.

Definition of Style. — Style is manner of choosing and arranging words so as to produce determinate and intended effects in language.^

It is evident that the thought must be developed enough to contain some question of manner and effect before we can associate style with it. Bare facts could be exhibited in sub- stantives, or formulae, or statistics ; but this would not be style ; it would display no degrees of effectiveness, nor would there be any interest in it beyond the thing that is said. A work characterized by style derives equal importance from ' the particular manner of saying a thing : there is a fitness, a force, a felicity in the use of language which adapts the thought to the occasion, and gives it dignity and distinction. By its style the thought is made to stand out as adapted to act upon men.

Note. — To illustrate how much style may have to do with the effective presentation of a subject, compare the two following descriptions of the same thing ; the one from an encyclopsedia, simply giving information, the other from a romance and told in the person of an ordinary man of the people.

"Avignon. The capital of the department of Vaucluse, France, situ- ated on the east bank of the Rhone, in lat. 43° 57' N., long. 4° 50' E. . the Roman Avenio : called the ' Windy City ' and the ' City of Bells.' It has

1 This is given as -. working definition, suitable to 1 course of study, not as including all the literary refinements of style. The distinction, general though not absolute, between style, which centres in manner, and invention, which deals with matter, has been given above, pp. 8, 9.

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NATURE AND BEARINGS OF STYLE. 17

a large trade in madder and grain, and manufactures of silk, etc., and is the seat of an archbishopric and formerly of a university. It was a flourish- ing Roman town, and is celebrated as the residence of the popes 1309-77, to whom it belonged until its annexation by the French in 1791. At that time it was the scene of revolutionary outbreaks, and of reactionary atroci- ties in 1815. . . . The palace of the popes is an enormous castellated pile, built during the 14th century, with battlemented towers 150 feet high and walls rising to a height of too feet." 1

The second account is laid at the time of the revolutionary outbreaks mentioned above.

"At last I came within sight of the Pope's City. Saints in Heaven I What a beautiful town it was I Going right up two hundred feet above the bank of the river was a bare rock, steep and straight as though cut with a stonemason's chisel, on the very top of which was perched a castle with towers so big and high — twenty, thirty, forty times higher than the towers of our church — that they seemed to go right up out of sight into the clouds I It was the Palace built by the Popes ; and around and below it was a piling up of houses — big, little, long, wide, of every size and shape, and all of cut stone — covering a space as big, I might say, as half way from here to Carpentras. When I saw all this I was thunder- struck. And though I still was far away from the city a strange buzzing came from it and sounded in my ears — but whether it were shouts or songs or the roll of drums or the crash of falling houses or the firing of cannon, I could not tell. Then the words of the lame old man with the hoe came back to me, and all of a sudden I felt a heavy weight on my heart. What was I going to see, what was going to happen to me in the midst of those revolutionary city folks .' What could I do among them — I, so utterly, utterly alone ? " ^

From these examples it would appear that we must enlarge our conception of what is involved in producing effects by means of language. If it meant merely setting forth bare facts of iiiformation, then writing like the first quoted paragraph would be enough ; rhetorical study would be learning to make catalogues and annals, and all excellences of style would be reducible to various kinds of painstaking. But while good writing includes this, while one of its most

1 The Century Cyclopedia of Names, s.v.

2 Felix Gras, The Reds of the Midi, p. 69.

18 STYLE IN GENERAL.

imperative aims is faithful transcription of fact, it includes ■with this also the writer's individual sense of fact ' ; and this latter imparts to it the literary quality, a character and color- ing due both to the intrinsic nature of the fact or thought itself and to the writer's own personality.

Both of these relations of style require a few words of explication.

Style and the Thought. — It is a common notion among practical-minded people that the style of a literary work is an addition from without ^ ; as if the thought existed first by itself and then some one who. could manipulate words dressed it up for effect. To thefn literature seems a trick and a trade, having to do with devices and ornaments of expression, or with cunning artifices of argument. This idea it is that so often weights the word rhetoric with reproach, and casts a slur on anything that is not expressed in the plainest and directest manner. But the truth is, if in good writing a thought is told plainly it is because the thought itself is plain and simple, requiring only a bare statement for its full setting- forth. If another thought is told elaborately, it is because wealth of word, illustration, figure, clever phrasing and arrange- ment are necessary to sound its depths or be just to its subtle shadings. To a trained sense thoughts are essentially beauti- ful or rugged, dignified or colloquial, dry or emotional ; con- taining therefore the potency of their own ideal expression : his aim is simply to interpret this character, whatever it is, and by making his word and phrase correspond thereto, to tell exactly and fully the truth that lies enwrapped in it.'

1 The distinction adopted from Pater, Appreciations., p. 5.

2 See tliis illustrated, Newman, Idea of a University^ p. 277.

8 " In the highest as in the lowliest literature, then, the one indispensable beauty is, after all, truth : — truth \.^ ' 'in the latter, as to some personal sense of fact, diverted somewhat from mt. , sense of it, in the former; truth there

as accuracy, truth here as expression, that hnest and most intimate form of truth, the vraie veriti. And what an eclectic principle this really is 1 employing for its one sole purpose — that absolute accordance of expi . ision to idea — all other literary beauties

NATURE AND BEARINGS OF STYLE. 19

It is only for purposes of study and discipline that we regard style as separable from thought. It is not, it cannot be, something added from without. Anything not required by the thought, brought in as a bit of finery or a mere eccen- tricity, betrays its unfitness at once. For jdeally the^ style is the^ thought, freed from crudeness and incompleteness, and presented in its intrinsicpower and_beauty. And the writer's effort is not directed to achieving a style, but to satisfying the demands of his subject, in order to bring out in its ful- ness what is essentially there.

Note. — In the two descriptions quoted above, while both writers deal with the same basis of fact, the thought embodied in the fact, as fits in each case the object had in portraying the fact, is different. In tlie first the controlling thought is simply plain information ; It gives numbers, measurements, statistics, in a perfectly unadorned style. In- the second the controlling thought is the beauty and impressiveness of the city ; it is important on that account, and on account of its part in the story ; so the style is colored and heightened to correspond.

Style and the Man.^ — True as it is that the style is the- thought, it is equally true that the style is the man. No two persons have the same way of looking at things. Each writer imparts something of his own personality, the coloring of his spirit or his moods, to what he writes ; so that the vigor of his will, the earnestness of his convictions, the grace of his fancies live again in a manner of expression that would be natural to no one else. Thjs manner of expression moves in its individual lines of thought, begets. its individual vocabu- lary and mould of sentence, and isjnfapt the incomrnunicable element of style.

Note. — In the two descriptions quoted above, there is little if any suggestion of individuality in the first, because all the interest is centred

; 1 p-t ■■;

and excellences whatever : how many kinds of styfj,,.t covers, explains, justifies, and at the same time safeguards I " — Pater, Appreciations, p. 31.

l"Le style est I'homme mSme." — Buffo jj, Discours de Riception h I'Aca- demie, 1753. The most famous maxim,g^rhaps, concerning style.

20 STYLE IN GENERAL.

in the bare thought. The second is strongly colored by individuality ; we read in it not only facts about Avignon, but the glowing interest of a man of the people, iniiuenced by astonishment and awe. And if this is a feigned mood, still we see beyond it, in the author, a, man of vigorous and penetrative imagination, whose clear mind realizes the vital contact of the soul vrith the world.

It is evident, then, that a man cannot obtain a good style by imitating another man's style. It is his own peculiar sense of fact that is to be cultivated, and his own natural expression that is to fit it with words. He may indeed get from the writings of others many a valuable suggestion or inspiration for the management of his own work ; he ought to be a diligent student of literature for this very purpose. He may, in common with his whole generation, obey the influence of some type of expression set by a vigorous thinker or man of letters. There are styles that he may admire and emulate, one for one quality, another for another. But any direct imitation is sure to be weak, affected, insincere. His one chance of success in style, as also his one road to origi- nality, is to be frankly himself; having confidence in his own way of realizing truth, and developing that to its best capabilities.'

II.

Adjustments of Style, and the Culture that promotes them. — Three factors are to be noted as necessary in the perfect adjustment of any style, or any quality of style, to its pur- pose. To satisfy these is the work of skill and calculation in any particular case; these accomplish their end, however, not as labored effort but as second nature, that is, the skill is so grounded and confirmed in the writer's whole culture that the adjustment makes itself.

*^ ' "v,^^ ''ho would write with anything worthy to be called style must first erow thoughts which are worth communicating, and then he must deliver them in his owl natural language." — Earle, English Prose, p, 347.

NATURE AND BEARINGS OF STYLE. 21

1. The_adjustment that recognizes the relation between stjle and thought. Just as there are different planes of thinking, so there are different levels of expression, from the stately to the colloquial ; different colorings, too, from that severity of word and phrase which centres in precisely defined ideas, to that unstudied ease or fervor which is the sponta- neous mirror of personal feeling. Of all this the nature of the thought is the first dictator : it is from a vital sense of thought and its prevailing tone that the fitting key of words and cast of sentence rise.

The culture necessary to the perfect adjustment of style to thought is the culture of taste. Taste is to writing what tact and good breeding are to manners. Much of it may be native, the goodly heritage of ancestry and refined surround- ings ; but much of it is imparted, too, by one's companionship with cultivated people and with the best literature. By his daily habits of reading and conversation, if these are wisely cared for, a man may acquire almost insensibly a literary instinct, which enables him to feel at once what is false in expression and what is true : he is aware when words are eloquent and when they are merely declamatory ; when a prosaic word or turn flats the tone of a poetic passage ; when a colloquialism impairs dignity as well as when it adds vigor ; when the unique word for a vital idea glows on the page or flashes into his questing mind. To profit by such culture is the real joy of literature.

2. The adjustment of the style^to the conceptions and capacities of the^ reader. The need of such adjustment is suggested in the oft-made criticism that an orator "speaks over the heads of his audience," that is, is too inflexible in his individual ways of thinking and speech, does not sim- plify for the needs of others than himself. Every subject of thought, especially every scholarly subject, acquires as soon as it is specialized a vocabulary, a point of view, a thought-

22 STYLE TN GENERAL.

mould of its own. With these the writer moves in familiar acquaintance and intercourse ; he thinks in their terms and technicalities. But the reader has to be introduced to them from outside, has to apprehend their truths, if at all, in sim- plified expression. Much is done by the popular publications of the day to bring learned subjects into the life of ordinary readers ; still, much will always remain to be done, the problem that besets the thinker always is, how to translate his thought into the language and conceptions of average minds.

The culture necessary for the perfect adjustment of style to the reader is the culture of broad interests and of the knowledge of human nature. Every well-written book con- tains evidence that not only its subject but the mind of its reader has been closely studied. To the masterful writer an audience is always imaginatively present, even in the solitude of his study ; he writes as if he were conversing with them, meeting their difficulties and adapting himself to their view of things. This is not what is called " writing down " to a reader ; rather it is divesting hard thought of its technical dress and exhibiting it in the light of everyday standards. And it is in this direction that literature lies.

3. The adjustment of the_st^e to the writer's self, so that it shall be a true and spontaneous representation of his mind and character. The ability to make this so is by no means a matter of course. A writer's mind may be glowing with the beauty or greatness of a truth, and yet his attempt to express it may result, with his best efforts, only in frigid and stilted language. He may in conversation be perfectly fluent and natural, may tell a story capitally or conduct an argument with spirit and point, and yet write a pedantic or lifeless style.'- The reason is that he has not mastered his medium of

1 " Tom Birch is as brisk as a bee in conversation ; but no sooner does he take a

pen in his hand, than it becomes a torpedo to him, and benumbs all his faculties."

Remark attributed to Dr, Johnson, BosweWs Life.

NATURE AND BEARINGS OF STYLE. 23

communication ; the mechanical work of putting down his thoughts absorbs so much of his energy that he cannot be free with a pen. His power over expression needs to be so devel- oped by culture, needs to become so truly a second nature, that his written words shall be a reflection of his truest self, mind and mood alike. Until such mastery is attained, his style belies, not represents himself.

Evidently here is where the culture due to training and practice comes in. The most limpid and natural-seeming style is simply the result of the finer art, which has become so ingrained as to have concealed its processes. Such art does not become unerring with the .first attempt, nor with the sec- ond ; it is the reward only of long labor, and patient subdual of the rebellious elements of expression, until they become an obedient working-tool responding to every touch, and repre- sent not only the writer's thought but himself, in all the rich endowments of his nature.^

Cultivation of literary taste, of hearty sympathy with men and affairs, of skilful wo'rkmanship in language ; a pretty well- rounded culture is thus laid out for him who would enter the domain of literary art. Such culture can employ as belonging integrally to its fulness not only a riian's whole scholarship, however deep or various, but the power and effluence of his whole character.

III.

The Principle of Economy The foregoing ideals of style,

with their various lines of adjustment and culture, may be reduced to one practical object, which, adopting the central

1 See above, p. 20. — Flaubert thus gives expression to his sense of the relation between his thought and himself : " I am growing so peevish about my writing. I am like a man whose ear is true but who plays falsely on the violin : his fingers refuse to reproduce precisely those sounds of which he has the inward sense. Then the tears come rolling down from the poor scraper's eyes and the bow falls from his hand." — Quoted by Pater, Affreciations, p. 30.

24 STYLE IN GENERAL.

idea of Herbert Spencer's Philosophy of Style.^ we may define as the economizing of the reader's attention.

Note. — The following is the paragraph of Mr. Spencer's book in which the principle is set forth : —

" On seeking for some clue to the law underlying these current maxims, we may see shadowed forth in many of them, the importance of economiz- ing the reader's or hearer's attention. To so present ideas that they, may be apprehended with the least possible mental effort, is the desideratum towards which most of the rules above quoted point. When we condemn writing that is wordy, or confused, or intricate — when we praise this style as easy, and blame that as fatiguing, we consciously or unconsciously assume this desideratum as our standard of judgment. Regarding language as an apparatus of symbols for the co.nveyance of thought, we may say that, as in a mechanical apparatus, the more simple and the better arranged its parts, the greater will be the effect produced. In either case, whatever force is absorbed by the machine is deducted from the result. A reader or listener has at each moment but a, limited amount of mental power avail- able. To recognize and interpret the symbols presented to him, requires part of this power ; to arrange and combine the images suggested requires a further part ; and only that part which remains can be used for realizing the thought conveyed. Hence, the more time and attention it takes to receive and understand each sentence, the less time and attention can be given to the contained idea ; and the less vividly will that idea be conceived."

If we take economizing the reader's attention to mean employing it to the best advantage, this theory of Spencer's requires a more extended application than he gives it. Some kinds of subject-matter, too, require a more strenuous atten- tion than others ; and there are various kinds as well as various degrees of attention to work for. The following main appli- cations of the principle are important to keep in mind : —

1. The most obvious meaning of economy is, giving the reader less to do ; that is, making the words as plain and the grammatical construction as simple as possible, in order that

1 Spencer's Philosophy of Style, one of the classics of rhetoric, is an essay of his volume, Essays, Moral, Political and ^Esthetic; to be had also separately (New York : D. Appleton & Co.). A well-annotated edition, edited by Professor Scott is published by AUyn & Bacon, Boston.

NATURE AND BEARINGS OF STYLE. 2S

the reader's energy, as it is not needed for interpreting the language, may be employed in realizing the thought itself. Every one has observed the futility of a public address when the listeners have to strain their ears to catch the words, or when the words are indistinctly enunciated. In the same way every ambiguity that has to be resolved, every hard construc- tion that has to be studied out, uses up just so much of the reader's available power for nothing ; the thought, with all its interest and importance, suffers, for it. Economy begins, therefore, with making the expression plain and easy.

2. But some thoughts are in their nature hard or intricate ; besides, what is too cheaply obtained is too little valued, in literature as in everything else ; and frequently a thought is prized the more from some effort made to master it. This consideration creates no plea against simplicity of word and construction ; that need is universal. But it suggests that in many cases it is true economy, instead of giving the reader less to do, to stimulate him to do more ; to use such striking language as sets him thinking or awakens his imagination. This kind of economy is what dictates the use of vivid and suggestive language, picturesque imagery, and skilful phrasing and grouping of ideas ; it is the economy which makes up in vigor for what is sacrificed in facility.

3. It is to be borne in mind also that by the very progress of the thought a reader's attention is continually being used up ; it has to be maintained and reinforced. If an image is roused in his mind, if a train of suggestion is started, every such effect must be cherished and utilized ; and here is room for the writer's wisdom. For a subject may be so exhaustively presented as to deaden interest; the reader is given no share in the thinking. It is true economy to leave something for him to do ; to set him by wise suggestion on the road of the thought, and know what to leave unsaid. It is not easy to give directions for accomplishing this, depending as it does

26 STYLE IN GENERAL.

SO much on the writer's delicate knowledge of men ; but the fact is to be noted that it is an object to be had in mind.^

4. The reader's esthetic sense, his sense of congruity and fitness, is to be recognized and conciliated. It is using up attention for nothing when a word of ill connotation or a harsh construction, a crudeness of sound or a lapse from tasteful expression is left for him to stumble over and make allowance for.^ Economy is not secured to the full until the intrinsic beauty of the thought, as well as its logical content, has undisturbed course in fitting language.

1 " To really strenuous minds there is a pleasurable stimulus in the challenge for a continuous effort on their part, to be rewarded by securer and more intimate grasp of the author's sense. Self-restraint, a skilful economy of means, ascesis, that too has a beauty of its own ; and for the reader supposed there will be an EEsthetic satis- faction in that frugal closeness of style which makes the most of a word, in the exaction from every sentence of a precise relief, in the just spacing out of word to thought, in the logically filled space connected always with the delightful sense of difficulty overcome." — Pater, Appreciations.^ p. 14.

2 " Readjusting mere assonances even, that they may soothe the reader, or at least not interrupt him on his way." — Ib.^ p. 21.

CHAPTER II. QUALITIES OF STYLE.

Determinate qualities of style, being merely the practical traits by which desired effects in expression are produced, manifest their need in all literary work, and therefore under- lie all rhetorical study. Under various names and applica- tions they will be constantly coming to view in the ensuing pages. The most comprehensive of them are here exhibited together, and some general means of securing them pointed out, in order that the present chapter may stand as a basis of reference and summary.

The Deeper Conception. — We call them qualities of style, but this they are only superficially.

For what the writer is consciously working with, in any act of composition, is not qualities of style in themselves, but a rounded idealized thought, which he is concerned to express so truly that nothing of its intrinsic significance shall be lost. This significance, answering to nature and occasion, assumes some ruling aspect : it may centre in the exact con- tent of the thought, or in its interest and moment, or in its fine appeal to the imagination, or in all of these. According as he feels this intrinsic power the writer will seek to give his thought such form and illustration as will bring it out ; and thus, if adequate skill in work and phrase has been disciplined in him to second nature, the qualities of style come of them selves, attracted by his single-minded fidelity to the thought.'

1 " Truth indeed is always trutli, and reason is always reason ; they have an intrinsick and unalterable value, and constitute that intellectual gold which defies destruction : but gold may be so concealed in baser matter, that only a chymist can

27

28 STYLE IN GENERAL.

Nor is it merely in the thought that we discern the potency of these qualities residing. It belongs primarily to the fibre of the writer's mind and the deep bent of his character. Through a clean and clear style is revealed a mind clean and clear, a nature too honest to let slipshod expression pass ; the opposite holds, too, and a bemuddled mind or a shallow char- acter betrays itself inevitably. Earnestness of conviction or the lack of it, grace or coarseness, are in the soul's grain ; the style is their mental photograph. The qualities that the writer would impart to his expression he must cultivate in himself.^

Summary of the Qualities. — Corresponding to the main directions that a writer's endeavors for effect may take, the qualities of style reduce themselves to three : —

Clearness, which answers the endeavor to be understood ;

Force, which answers the endeavor to impress ;

Beauty, which answers the endeavor to please.'^ For all general aims in discourse these qualities cover the whole range of expression ; other qualities being interpreted as aspects of these or as applications of them to purposes more specific.

recover it ; sense may be so hidden in unrefined and plebeian words, that none but philosophers can distinguish it ; and both may be so buried in impurities, as not to pay the cost of their extraction." — Johnson, Lives of the Poets, Vol. i, p. 73. 1 The classic utterance of this truth is Milton's : —

" And long it was not after, when I was confirmed in this opinion, that he, who would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things, ought himself to be a true poem, that is a composition and pattern of the best and honoura- blest things, not presuming to sing high praises of heroic men or famous cities, unless he have in himself the experience and the practice of all that which is praise- worthy."— Milton, Apology for Smectymnuus.

The following remarks on the relation of style-qualities to character were inspired by study of the mind and art of Tennyson : —

" Clearness in thought and words ought to be a part of a writer's religion ; it is certainly a necessary part of his morality. Nay, to follow clearness Uke a star, clear- ness of thought, clearness of phrase, in every kind of life, is the duty of all." — Stopford Brooke, Tennyson, his Art and Relation to Modern Life, p. 5.

" We have critics not a few who regard sweetness and strength as attributes of style, and are ignorant that they are not attributes of style, but attributes of mind and character, expressed in style." — Dixon, A Tennyson Primer, p. ijj,

s Compare Wendell, English Comfosition, p. 193.

QUALITIES OF STYLE. 29

+

I.

Clearness. — To be intelligible, to make one's self understood, is the fundamental aim in all seriously meant writing ; an aim prior to and largely promotive of all others. Not only what is to add to the reader's information and knowledge, but what- ever is to thrill his emotions or stir his fancy, must come to him first through the brain, the thinking power. Hence the primal need of clearness, in conception and expression. So rigorously is this ideal of intelligibility held by conscientious writers that no word or phrase that would puzzle the dullest reader is willingly tolerated i the supreme aim is, not merely style that may be understood, but style that cannot fail to be understood.' No room for the lazy plea, " Not quite right, but near enough," or for the arrogant one, "I cannot write . and provide brains too " ; the ideal is absolute, the occasion universal.

To be clear, the writer must first be sure of a meaning very definite and literal, and then say just what he means, without seeming to say s'omething else, or leaving the reader in doubt what he does say.° This requirement, so much easier to • define than to satisfy, looks two ways, toward the thought and toward the reader ; and accordingly, the quality of clearness takes tw,o quite distinct aspects, each with its dominating usages, and procedures.

Precision : or Clearness in the Thought. — • Obviously the first and paramount duty is to be perfectly true to the thought, to set it forth exactly as it is, whether hard oreasy, simple or involved.' With the plain conceptions and events of everyday

1 " Non ut intellegere possit, sed ne omnino possit non intellegere, cutandum." — QuiNTiLIAN. — Economy applies here; see p. 24, i.

2 The technical name for this literal core of expression is denotation ; see Wen- dell, English Composition, fassim, and especially Chapter vi. " The secret of clear- ness," he says, "lies in denotation." This important subject of denotation and connotation will come up for detailed discussion later ; see below, pp. 34, 46, 75.

s This first duty has already been repeatedly suggested, pp. 14, 18.

30 STYLE IN GENERAL.

life this is no great problem ; ideas do not transcend the com- pass of the commonest words ; but when it comes to strenuous and deep thought, requiring close analysis and discrimination, evidently clearness and simplicity are not synonymous. An easy word for an abstruse idea, while it may produce a sem- blance of clearness, may actually becloud the thought more than it helps it. Some degree of difficulty, as exacted by the sphere of ideas in which one is moving, cannot be avoided. The only sure resource is to work for the exact setting-forth of the idea, nothing else, nothing less ; and the clearness thus obtained, whether ideally easy or not, will be clearness of thought, yielding a shapely idea, or as it is called, c\sa.r-cut expression.

« Such precision depends mainly on the writer's vocabulary, the words he chooses to name his thought, rather than on the way words are put together. The following are the principal aspects that the endeavor for precise denotation assumes : — ^ I. Choice of words for the sake of their unique aptness, their fine shades and degrees of meaning, their delicate impli- cations and associations.

2. The judicious employment of helping and limiting expres- sions, such defining elements as are needed to fix the true • sense and coloring in which the word should be understood.

3. Where the thought may gain by it, the juxtaposition of words whose relation to each other, whether of likeness or contrast, throws mutual light. This may often be done so unobtrusively as to attract no special attention, yet be very effective for its object.

While precision is the first and most incontestable object in style, the literary ideal is not satisfied with being precise and nothing else. Too exclusive endeavor after precision makes the style stiff and pedantic, like, for instance, a law document ; this fault is of course to be guarded against. The words and colorings may be just as true to the idea, and yet the pains of

QUALITIES OF STYLE. 31

choosing them be so concealed that the reader absorbs the thought without realizing the perfection of the art ; this is what a writer of true literary sense will work for.

Perspicuity : or Clearness in the Construction As soon as

the claim of perfect fidelity to the thought is satisfied, the next step is to adapt the style to the comprehension of the reader. This, as has just been said, is practicable in different degrees, according to the intrinsic difficulty of the thought" but in all cases the aim to be sought is the greatest plainness and simplicity of which the thought is capable. The deriva- tion of the word perspicuity, denoting the property of being readily seen through, or as we express it by another word, transparency, is a just indication of this quality of style.

Such simplicity of texture, such freedom from intricacy it is, that we think of first under the general conception of clear- ness. It is not necessarily a bald or rudimental style ; it may indeed be the backbone and support of a full, richly colored, even elaborate scheme of treatment, the unmarked source of its vitality and power.^

That aspect of clearness which we thus name perspicuity depends, as intimated above, for the most part on grammati- cal and logical construction, on the way in which the reader is kept aware of the mutual relations of words and phrases, and of their orderly progress in building up the sentence and paragraph. The following are the general aspects that such regard for structure assumes : —

I. A keen grammatical sense ; instant adjustment of all syn- tactical relations and connections of words ; constant watch-

1 " He [the great author] may, if so be, elaborate his compositions, or he may pour out his improvisations, but in either case he has but one aim, which he keeps steadily before him, and is conscientious and single-minded in fulfilling. That aim is to give forth what he has within him ; and from his very earnestness it comes to pass that, whatever be the splendor of his diction or the harmony of his periods, he has with him the charm of an incommunicable simplicity." — Newman, Idea of a University, p. Z91.

32 STYLE IN GENERAL.

fulness against the two foes that most beset composition: ambiguity, or structure that suggests two possible meanings ; and vagueness, or structure that cannot with certainty be reduced to any definite meaning.

'2. Making sure that elements which are to be thought of

together, whether as principal and subordinate or as paired and

balanced against each other, be so treated by expression and

I arrangement that the reader shall not fail to mark the relation.

3. Looking out for the joints and hinges of the structure, that no gaps be left unbridged, and no new thought be intro- duced too abruptly to produce its due effect. An ideally clear thought is clear-moving, a continuous progress.

While centering chiefly in construction, perspicuity is not unmindful of choice of words and figures, so far at least as to require the simplest words and the homeliest illustrations consistent with accuracy. To go farther than this, employ- ing on the score of their plainness words and illustrations not discriminative enough, is to sin against the thought, and in the long run to deceive with a false semblance of clearness.' Where such a clash between precision and perspicuity occurs, the only safety is in keeping to precision. The difficulty may, however, almost always be remedied, as we note in the usage of careful writers, by repeating hard ideas in simpler or more everyday terms.

Clearness based in the Intellect As related to the writer

himself, clearness, in its double aspect of precision and per- spicuity, may be called the intellectual .quality of style, the quality wherein we see predominantly the thinking brain at

1 See above, p. 30. — Minto {Manual of English Prose Literature, p. 494) men- tions this as a discount to the much-famed clearness of Paley's style. " Perspicuity," he says, " is possessed by Paley in a very high degree, but the precision of his state- ments and definitions is a good deal affected by his paramount desire to be popular. Too clear-headed to run into confusion, he is at the same time anxious to accommo- date himself to the plainest Intelligence, and, like many simple vreiters, purchases simplicity at the expense of exactness."

QUALITIES OF STYLE. 33

work transferring its ideas fully and accurately to the mind of the reader. The training for this clearness, therefore, is just whatever best develops the thinking powers, in keenness, in discrimination, in grasp, in calm poise and judgment ; but besides this there is also needed much patient and systematic culture in language, to subdue it to perfect flexibility and obedience. To him who has a passion for clearness the vocabulary and the grammar are a veritable workshop ; a source also of the sternest practical interest.

II.

Force Clear and intelligible expression, being the staple,

the backbone of composition, is of course to be cultivated first andNnost conscientiously of all ; but the cases in which mere clearness is enough, without the aid of other qualities, belong to thk relatively elementary undertakings of litera- ture, those works in which the bare information or reasoned thought is all-sufficient to supply the interest. But when the idea comes homeXmore closely to reader and writer, — when on the one hand k must gain a lodgment in dull minds or stimulate a laggardXattention, when on the other its impor- tance kindles the wr\ter's enthusiasm or stirs his deep emo- tions, — there is in itXor must be imparted to it greater life than its merely intelligible statement would demand ; the question of making it mteresting and impressive comes to the front. Thejvarious features that go to give life and_y,igor to style we gather_updej the general _name of force.

While by clearness the object is to economize the reader's powers by making the style plain and easy, by force the object is to economize indirectly by stimulating his mind to do more, to realize more vividly or bring more interest and ardor to the subject.^ Hence whatever imparts force to the style is something that gives a kind of shock or challenge to

1 See above, p. 25, ;i.

34 STYLE IN GENERAL.

the mind, urging it to some centre of interest. The ways of doing this may be grouped under two general principles.

Connotation : or Force through Choice of Expression. — By the connotation of a word or phrase we mean what it implies or makes one think of, over and beyond what it literally says. Such connotation may suggest an associated object or idea ; as when in saying, "The words immediately fell oily on the wrath of the brothers," the writer makes us think not only of mollifying words but of oil poured on agitated water. Or it may suggest how the writer feels, and would have us feel, about what he says ; as when in saying a thing he puts it not as an assertion but as an exclamation, thus conveying with it his feeling of wonder. Connotation, as it may take an infinity of shadings and implications, may influence the reader in the subtlest ways ; but just so far as it enriches thought or rouses feeling, to that degree it infuses force into the style.

Only the more obvious ways of connotation can here be noted ; others will be left for more detailed treatment in other parts of the book.

, I. The employment of vernacular words, words that connote the vigor and plain simplicity of homely thought. A specific word is stronger than a general or comprehensive one ; short words ordinarily more forcible than long ; Saxon derivatives than Latin or Greek; idioms than formal and bookish words.

2. The employment of descriptive words ; which, while they have their relation to beauty of style, are yet more truly instruments of force. By descriptive words is meant words that portray some striking or concrete or picturesque aspect of the subject ; connoting thus the vividness of an object of sight. This is very useful in abstract subjects.

3. The employment of words in a tropical or polarized sense ; as when they are used out of their natural place in the vocabulary, or connote some implication that one would not expect. Under this head comes the use of figurative

QUALITIES OF STYLE. 35

expression, in all its aspects. Such use of words gives them force by setting the reader thinking about them.

I 4. The cutting out of the minor and expletive words of a

I passage, so that the strong elements, the vital words, may

i stand forth unshaded.

— Emphasis : or Force through Arrangement In oral discourse

emphasis may be given to any word by giving it greater stress in enunciation. Written discourse is not open to this means ; the reader has to judge what words are emphatic by the posi- tion in which they are placed. Through the structure of the sentence the emphasis is directed at the writer's will on the

, points of special impressiveness ; these accordingly are points at which force is concentrated.

The following are the main aspects of this means of secur- ing force : —

1. Differences of stress, in all degrees of delicacy, are secured by placing a sentence-element before or after sbmej other, at the beginning or end of the sentence or clause, or somewhere out of its natural and expected place. The ability ; to estimate accurately the effect of every smallest change in 1 order, and so to arrange the whole that every element will seem to emphasize itself, is one of the most imperative and valuable accomplishments in composition.

2. Antithesis, which has been implied as an arrangement that promotes clearness by making one idea set off another,' is no less truly an instrument of force, concentrating attention as it does on paired or contrasted elements and thus putting them into stress.

3. A strong impression needs in most cases to be a quick impression. Hence one of the acknowledged promoters of force is an arrangement or parsimony of structure which secures brevity ; shown in some form of what is variously known as condensed, pointed, or epigrammatic expression.

1 See above, p. 30, 3.

36 STYLE IN GENERAL.

In endeavoring to secure force by brevity occasions some- times rise where there is a clash between force and clearness.' For while clearness demands the presence of particles and explanatory elements that though they articulate the thought tend also to cumber its movement, force demands that these be cut down or dispensed with, as far as may be, in order not to enfeeble the important words. In such cases, when one quality can be secured only at some expense to the other, the question must be decided by the determinate object in view, the writer considering whether that object can best be pro- moted by fulness of detail or by vigor of impression.''

Note. — A brief and pointed assertion, like an aphorism or proverb, sets one thinking ; an assertion detailed and amplified does one's thinking, as it were, for him. The former is the more forcible, the latter more clear. Emerson's expression, " Hitch your wagon to a star," is striking by its brevity ; one remembers it and is stimulated by it ; but to think out what it means and how it applies requires some meditation. On the other hand, if it were traced out in some amplified form it would run the risk of becom- ing tame and platitudinous. Skilful writers, and especially public speakers, generally combine the two ways of expression, the detailed for explanation, the briefer for summing up and enforcing. Compare Whateley, Elements of Rhetoric, p. 351.

Force based in Emotion and Will. — • As related to the writer himself, force in style is the result and evidence of some strong emotion at work infusing vigor into his words. He realizes vividly the truth of what he says, and so it becomes intense and fervid ; he has a deep conviction of its importance, and

1 The classic recognition of this clash is Horace's well-known remark : —

"brevis esse laboro, Obscurus fio." — De Arte Poetica, 25.

2 Brevity thus goes deeper than style and relates itself to the organism of subject- matter. " In order to be brief," says De Quincey, " a man must take a short sweep of view : his range of thought cannot be extensive ; and such a rule, applied to a general method of thinking, is fitted rather to aphorisms and maxims as upon a known sub- ject, than to any process of investigation as upon a subject yet to be fathomed." — De Quincey, Essay on Style, Works (Riverside edition), Vol. iv, p. 214.

QUALITIES OF STYLE. 37

SO it becomes cogent and impressive. Along witli this fervor of feeling his will is enlisted ; he is determined, as it were, to make his reader think as he does, and to make his cause pre- vail. Every employment of word and figure is tributary to this.

Genuine force in style cannot be manufactured : if the style has not serious conviction to back it, it becomes contorted ; if it has not a vivifying emotion, it becomes turgid. Force is the quality of style most dependent on character.

The writer's' culture for force, therefore, is in its deepest analysis a culture of character. To think closely and seri- ously ; to insist on seeing fact or truth for one's self and not merely echo it as hearsay ; to cherish true convictions, not mere fashions or expedients of thinking, — these are the traits in the culture of character that make for forcible and virile expression.

III.

Beauty. — ■ This third fundamental quality of style is supple- mentary to the others, that is, not ordinarily to be sought until first clearness and then force are provided for, and not to be cultivated at expense to them. Beauty, however, is just as necessary, and, broadly interpreted, just as universal, as are clearness and force. It^Ae quality ofstyle which answers to the endeavor to please.

It can easily be seen how real is the occasion for beauty. An idea may be stated with perfect clearness, may make also a strong impression on the reader's mind ; and yet many of its details may be an offense to his taste, or crude expression and harsh combinations of sound may impair the desired effect by compelling attention to defective form. Any such disturb- ing element is a blemish none the less though the reader may not be able to explain or even locate it. His vague sense that the form of expression is crude and bungling, that the thought

38 STYLE IN GENERAL.

therefore is not having free course, is sufficient reason, albeit negative, for seeking a quality of beauty in style, whereby it may be a satisfaction to the reader's taste, as well as to his thought and conviction.

A prevalent misapprehension may here be corrected. Beauty in style is not the same as ornament ; it does not necessitate word-painting or imagery or eloquence. The question whether such elaborations shall be introduced belongs to the peculiar susceptibilities of a subject or the individual bent of a writer ; the question of beauty, on the other hand, is so fundamental that a definition must be sought for the quality which will fit all types of subject andtreatment. It is a requisite of all style, simple as well as elaborate.

Beauty is a quality both negative and positive ; to be secured, that is, partly by the pruning away of what is unpleasing and partly by traits peculiar to itself. In this double character it is here analyzed.

Euphony : the Negative Preliminary As a matter of work- manship, the quality of beauty depends largely on sound : the writer is working to make his words read smoothly, according to his standard of smoothness. An indispensable requisite, therefore, is the education of the ear and the constant test of one's work by reading aloud, thus forming the habit of esti- mating and balancing sounds. The following are the main aspects of revision thus engendered : —

I — I- A constant detective sense for harsh-sounding words

I and for combinations or sequences of words hard to pro-

j nounce together.

I 2. Quickness of ear for what are called jingles: recur- rences of the same or similar sounds, like an inadvertent rhyme. Much the same effect is produced by too frequent repetition of the same word in a passage. No one can realize, whose attention has not been called to it, how liable every writer is to these unnoticed lapses in sound ; they constitute.

QUALITIES OF STYLE. 39

after typographical errors, one of the chief kinds of blemish found in reading proof.

3. A matter requiring still finer education both of ear and of critical acumen is a sense for that general tone and move- ment of the style which, while not definably harsh or jingling, is crude, lumbering, heavy. Not always is this reducible to exact causes ; it appears oftenest in some form of monotony, as in a predominanoe of long words, of sentences of like length and construction, or pet habits of expression.

Harmony : the Positive Element. — It is only negatively that euphony, or smoothness of expression, may be regarded as beauty of style. It makes beauty possible by clearing away obstructions, leaving as it were the field open, but the real beauty is something positive, with a character of its own as definite as force or clearness. For this character it is not easy to find an adequate name ; the nearest, perhaps, is Har- mony, a term here chosen to indicate that fine correspondence of word and movement to the sense and spirit of discourse which is doubtless the vital principle to which beauty in style is reducible.^ The following are the salient ways in which this harmony reveals itself : —

1. The spontaneous answer of sound to sense; most pal- pable in prose in the choice of descriptive words, which have a physical reference, but also equally real in the subtler con- sonance of words to spiritual sentiments and moods.

2. The rhythm of phrase and sentence, a music rising from the finely touched emotion of the writer and the fitting key of^ the subject-matter. After the measured rhythm (metre) of poetry, this music is most apprehensible in the impassioned

. sweep of eloquence and the graceful flow of imaginative prose ; but rhythm of some kind is equally real and present, though

1 " All beauty is in the long run on\y fineness of truth, or what we call expression, the finer accommodation of speech to that vision within." — Pater on Style, Appre- ciations, p. 6.

40 STYLE IN GENERAL.

revealing a different movement, in all well-written discourse, even the most matter-of-fact.

3. Underlying all the foregoing is what may be called the architectonic nature of the style, that artistic structure which is analogous to a crystal, with all its molecules unerringly deposited, or rather to a vital organism, with all its functions answering to one another and contributing each its part to a rounded whole. Just so a satisfying passage in discourse so builds together its parts as to conform in sound, word, and phrase to an organic ideal in the writer's mind.

Beauty based in Imagination and Taste As related to the

writer himself, beauty is the aesthetic quality of style ; it is the outcome when the shaping imagination is at work on its keen sense of fact or of organic thought,^ and when the taste has developed a standard of language to which the thought- organism spontaneously adjusts itself. A writer's individual type of beauty in style, as it is the highest reach of his liter- ary faculty, is also the slowest to mature ; coming as it does with the gradual discovery and discipline of tastes and that sureness of touch vfhich makes the writer aware of his mas- tery. Beauty, being the assthetic quality, is preeminently the artistic.

The best discipline for the aesthetic sense in style is famil- iarizing one's self with what is beautiful in literature and thought. By a law of nature he who dwells habitually among beautiful thoughts will become imbued, in mind and feeling, with their beauty. Here is where the study of good literature renders its service ; especially of that literature which has survived fluctuations in fashion and taste and become classic.

1 " For just in proportion as the writer's aim, consciously or unconsciously, comes to be the transcribing, not of the world, not of mere fact, b\it of his sense of it, he Ijecomes an artist, his.work^«« art ; and good art ... in proportion to tlie truth of his presentment of that sense ; as in those humbler or plainer functions of literature also, truth — truth to-bare fact, there — is the essence of such artistic quahty as they may have." — Pater on Style, Apfrcciations, p. 6.

QUALITIES OF STYLE. 41

It ministers to a severe and permanent standard of taste, lift- ing the student free from the superficial and tawdry. Thus the effects of this discipline are all the more potent because in large proportion they are wrought unconsciously ; they are in the atmosphere of the region in which the writer is at home.^

IV.

Temperament of Qualities. — On a musical instrument, the scale of eachl key, instead of being tuned to an absolute standard of pitch, is modified to some extent so that its notes may be equally in tune as parts of other scales. For an analogous ixjodification of the qualities of style, each yielding something of its absolute claim in order to secure the integrity of the others, we may here borrow the same name, temperament.

While each of the qualities is indispensable and seems in turn, as attention is centred upon it, to present the only worthy claim, none of them can do its best work alone. Cul- tivated exclusively, without regard for the others, each in its way leaves the style unbalanced, untempered ; it is in fact only part of a style, the complete ideal requiring all the quali- ties to work together as one. For study we have had to con- sider them apart ; but in the perfected literary organism, while one quality or another, predominating, may give a prevailing tone to the discourse, all the qualities are blended and tem- pered to produce unity of effect.

Without going into the matter minutely, we may here name under each quality of style, the two chief foes that beset it according as that quality is untempered by the others.

I. A clear style, untempered by the emotional element which produces vigor, is dull. Untempered by the imagina-

1 The cultivation of taste, as a training for adjusting style to thought, has already been discussed; see above, p. 21.

42 STYLE IN GENERAL.

tive element which introduces a sense of grace and beauty, it is dry.^

2. A forcible style, or rather its elements, un tempered by that clear and sane thinking whose essence is good sense, — that is, wherein emotion dominates at the expense of intellec- tual sobriety and sturdiness, — becomes rant or bombast.'' Untempered by that flexible imagination whose essence is tact and good taste, — that is, where the will to impress dominates at the expense of urbanity and beauty, — it becomes hard and metallic'

3. A style that seeks only the beauty of sound and imagery, untempered by a passion for clear simplicity, — that is, where thought is at discount before elegant form, — becomes labored and trivial. Untempered by earnest conviction and will, — that is, wherein emotion is indeed present but not robust or deep-reaching enough, — it becomes maudlin and sentimental.

In each case above described, the corrective lies not in any manipulation of word or phrase but in throwing one's self into the spirit of the supplementing quality ; in other words, set- ting the whole inner man in active work, the sturdy brain, the vitalizing earnestness and will, and the tactful meditative taste. It is doubtful if a subject that cannot call on all these for aid is worth writing up at all.

The Element of Repose. — The name temperament suggests the mood that ideally controls the processes of composition : namely, that reserve power, that large repose of mastery, which forbids forcing any quality or device to its extreme, and which broadens the intellectual and emotional horizon to recognize

1 The collision between the two aspects of clearness, precision and perspicuity, has been discussed on p. 32, above.

2 Its unbalanced extreme is described by Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act v, Scene 5 : —

" full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing."

8 The clash between brevity and clearness, and the treatment of it, have been dis- cussed above, p. 36.

QUALITIES OF STYLE. 43

the proper claims of all. The highest reach of good art is repose, that self-justifying quality wherein everything is obvi- ously right, in place, coloring, and degree. If in any point the work is violent or unfit, there is lack of wise temperament somewhere, some element is forced at expense to others. And the only adequate adjuster of the qualities is something deeper than skill ; in the last analysis it is a sound, balanced, mas- terful character.^

1 Hamlet's advice to the players {Hamlet, Act. iii, Scene 2) is as full of good sense for writers as for speakers : " Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus ; but use all gently : for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness.''

BOOK II. DICTION.

Definition of Diction. — The term diction is the name here adopted Jor that aspect or department of stylejvhich has to do -with words, — primarily with the choice of wordSj but^Jso, in a general way, and independently of the specific details of composition, with the connection and arrangement of words. The kind of words habitually used, and peculiarities in the management of them, give a coloring or texture to the style by which we may identify it with some type of diction.^

Every author has individualities of diction, and so has every kind of literature. But below these personal and class char- acteristics there is also a general standard or ideal of diction which every writer owes it to his mother-tongue to regard sacredly. For while' from one point of view language is a working-tool, to be used according to our free sense of mas- tery, from another it is our heritage from an illustrious line of writers and speakers — to be approached, therefore, in the spirit of reverence, and loyally guarded from hurt and loss. Every onfe who has much to do with language feels the weight of this solemn obligation.

The universal standard of diction is best expressed, per- haps, by the word purity : the writer must see to it first of all that he keep his mother-tongue unsullied, inviolate; and this by observing, in all his choice of language, the laws of derivation, formation, good usage, and good taste. Whatever

1 " The culture of diction is the preparatory stage for the formation of style." — Earle, English Prose, p. 213.

44

DICTION. 45

liberties he takes, — and there is all the room he needs for untrammeled expression, — he must first move in obedience to these fundamental laws ; else his literary deportment, what- ever genius may underlie it, will have blemishes exactly analo- gous to coarseness and bad manners in conversation.

The ensuing six chapters (iii-viii) traverse the field of dic- tion, beginning with particular considerations relating to the use of words and figures, and going on to more general aspects and types.

CHAPTER III. CHOICE OF WORDS FOR DENOTATION.

What is meant by the denotation of a word has already been intimated, both directly and by contrast with connota- tion ' ; it is what the word literally says, as distinguished from its secondary associations and implications. To get at this, its fundamental note, so to say,^ to make sure of this whatever else is obtained or sacrificed, is the first endeavor in the choice of words ; an endeavor that takes more time and pains, prob- ably, than any other procedure in composition. For in this earnest quest for the right word, preeminently, is enlisted that insatiable passion for accuracy, in thinking as well as expres- sion,'which is the spring and conscience of literary art, govern- ing alike all moods grave or gay, all styles from the severest to the most colloquial. It is as hard, though hard in another way, to find the unique word in a sketch as in a scientific treatise.

To secure the proper denotation of words for one's purpose a variety of considerations may have to be taken into account, reducible, in general, to the following four groups.

--?> I. ACCURATE USE.

This, which answers the endeavor to adjust the word exactly to the meaning had in mind, has been so insisted upon already

1 See above, pp. 9, 29 and footnote 2, and 34.

2 A vitally chosen word is like a bell : in addition to its fundamental note it has overtones, Vfhich in various ways enrich its meaning ; and these it takes mainly from its setting and associations ; see below, p. 93.

a See above, p. 14 ; also under Precision, p. 29 sf. — " The first valuable power in a reasonable mind, one would say, was the power of plain statement, or the power to

46

CHOICE OF WORDS FOR DENOTATION. 47

that farther definition of it may be dismissed here with a single remark. The meaning to which the writer is trying to fit his word may lie in thought alone, or it may carry with it a mood, impassioned or humorous or imaginative ; and so the search may be not only for a closely discriminative word, but for a word vigorous or facetious or descriptive. In any case, how- ever, the effort is simply for accurate jijjustm^t to th_e^jdga. as cxmcei-ved ^ ; this covers the whole field, and no other use of words, whatever its claim, can interfere with it.

Of the culture of accuracy in the broad sense the following are leading phases : — •

1. Finding the Right Shade of Meaning This is dohe by

the habitual weighing of synonyms, a practice more constant with careful writers, probably, than even the study of the dictionary.

Synonyms are words alike in meaning. As, however, no two words_ cover exactly the same field of meaning, use may be made both of their points of likeness and their points of divergence to secure fine shadings.

Note. — The practical use of synonyms may be illustrated from the ordinary process of choosing a word. Some word comes to mind. It is nearly the word wanted ; but perhaps it sounds ill with other words of the sentence, or the writer may have a vague sense that the vocabulary con- tains a closer fit, if he could but find it. , He takes his Dictionary of Syno- nyms and turns to the word that has already occurred to him. Let it be, for instance, the yio^A judgment, the nearest word he can think of for a par- ticular quality of mind that he wishes to name. Here is the result : — ■

" Judgment, «. I. Discernment, understanding, intelligence, discrimina-

receive things as they befall, and to transfer the picture of them to another mind unaltered." — Emerson on The Superlative, Works, Vol. x, p. 164.

-1 Of Flaubert's passion for accuracy, which has become typical in literary history. Pater remarks : " All the recognized flowers, the removable ornaments of literature (including harmony and ease in reading aloud, very carefully considered by him) counted certainly ; for these too are part of the actual value of what one says. But still, after all, with Flaubert, the search, the unwearied research, was not for the smooth, or winsome, or forcible word, as such, as with false Ciceronians, but quite simply and honestly, for the word's adjustment to its meaning." — Appreciations, p. 28.

48 DICTION.

tion, taste, sagacity, penetration, wisdom, brains, prudence, ballast, depth, sense, mother-wit, quick parts, common-sense, good sense, long head.

" 2. Determination, decision, conclusion, opinion, notion, estimate.

" 3. (Law.) Sentence, award, decree.

"4. (Psychol) Power of judgment, intellect, faculty of comparison or synthesis, unitive faculty, faculty of thought.

" 5. (Log.) Sentence, proposition."

Here, certainly, would seem to be material enough ; but we will suppose a more delicate sense still haunts him, the nearest approach to which is the word sagacity. He turns to this word, and here is the result : —

" Sagacity, n. i. Sagaciousness, quickness of scent.

"2. Shrewdness, acuteness, sharpness, astuteness, penetration, ingenuity, discernment, perspicacity, sense, insight, mother-wit, quickness, readiness, wisdom."

But he is very hard to suit ; and though the word perspicacity (we will suppose) is almost what he wants, he will try again, for the search is becom- ing interesting as well as exacting, and here is the result : —

" Perspicacity, «. 1. Quick-sightedness, acuteness of sight.

" 2. Perspicaciousness, acuteness, sharpness, shrewdness, discernment, penetration, sagacity, astuteness, insight, acumen."

Acumen, — here at last, let us suppose, is the word that vaguely haunted him all along. He tests by the dictionary and finds that it. just suits his purpose. In seeking it, too, he has traversed a whole realm of kindred words, which will hardly be used so loosely hereafter as heretofore.

Soule's Dictionary of Synonyms, from which the foregoing lists are quoted, is a very valuable desk companion for work of this kind.

Used for their likeness, synonyms enable one to repeat an idea in varied terms, thus disguising the fact of repetition, while at the same time the new word brings a new aspect of the thought to view. Used for their unlikeness, synonyms enable one to determine delicate yet important distinctions in the thought, distinctions on which, perhaps, much depends. In both uses synonyms are often employed cumulatively ; the successive words, nearly alike, yet distinct, serving as it were to build up the thought stage by stage before the reader's eyes, so that the whole idea is compassed by no one term, but by several added together.

CHOICE OF WORDS FOR DENOTATION. 49

Examples. — i. Synonyms used for repetition. The need of a repeti- tionary word may be illustrated by the following sentence : " The House of Commons on Saturday was the scene of another of those discreditable scenes which of late years have, unhappily, become only too frequent." Substitute for the word scenes the word occurrences, and the repetition is disguised.

The following passage is quoted to show how unobtrusively and yet effectively the sense is conserved by the employment " not always of abso- lute synonyms, but of words which for the purpose in hand have at once a harmonious sense and a various sound: — moribund, expire, die [extinc- tion] ; — jffout, insult, outrage, defy ; — unhonoured, disgrace, ignominious ; — blind, unmindful, indifferent"

" The X,ondon County Council yesterday practically made an end of the Metropolitan Board of Works. That moribund and discredited body might have been allowed to expire quietly on the ' appointed day,' or, as Lord Rosebery put it, to ' wrap its robe round it and die with dignity,' if it had not resolved to flout its successor, to insult Parliament, to outrage public- opinion, and to defy the Executive Government. . . .

" After what Mr. Ritchie said on Friday there can be no doubt, we pre- sume, that this will be the end of the Metrop9litan Board of Works. The Board will never meet again. The good works that it did in the days of its ingenuous youth will be forgotten amid the misdeeds of its unhonoured age and the disgrace of its sudden and ignominious extinction. There is, indeed, some danger that less than justice may be done to its memory. Universal London will feel that it is well rid of a body which was so blind to its own dignity, so unmindful of the plainest precepts of public duty, so indifferent, indeed, to the ordinary restraints of public decency as the Metro- politan Board of Works has shown itself in the last few weeks." ^

2. Synonyms used for distinction. The foUbwing are instances of fine discrimination between nearly synonymous words.

From Carlyle : " He was a man that brought himself much before the world ; confessed that he eagerly coveted y5z»z^, or if that were not possible, notoriety ; of which latter as he gained far more than seemed his due, the public were incited, not only by their natural love of scandal, but by a special ground of envy, to say whatever ill of him could be said." ^

From James Russell Lowell: "The Latin has given us most of our canorous words, only they must not be confounded with merely sonorous ones, still less with phrases that, instead of supplementing the sense, encumber it." — " In verse, he [Dryden] had a pomp which, excellent in itself, became pompousness in his imitators." ^

1 Both examples, with remark, from Earle, English Prose, pp. 201, Z03.

2 Carlyle, Essay on BosweW s Johnson. s Lowell, Essay on Dryden.

so DICTION.

3. Synonyms used cumulatively. No single one of the following syno- nyms gives the whole idea ; it has to be gathered from all.

From the North American Review : " It is true that all these criticisms were written some years ago, and in the meantime a tendency toward a better state of things has begun to show itself. But at present it is only a tendency, a. symptom, a. foreshadowing."

From James Russell Lowell : " So also Shakespeare no doubt projected himself in his own creations ; but those creations never became so per- fectly disengaged from him, so objective, or, as they used to say, extrinsical, to him, as to react upon him like real and even alien existences."

2. Securing the Right Degree of Meaning. — Words practically synonymous differ from each other as often in degree as in shad- ing; one is stronger, more intense, more dignified, or more sweep- ing and absolute than the other. A recognition of this quality underlies climax ; and the vivid feeling of it, with the skill to put feeling into words, is the source of vigor in expression.

Examples. — i. Of varying intensity of meaning. In the following, from Pitt, the difference in the words used is mainly a difference in degree : "I am astonished, I am shocked, to hear such principles confessed ; to hear them avowed in this house and in this country."

2. Of too absolute or sweeping terms. " There are very good proofs that Chaucer was a Wyckliffite." The difficulty with the word proofs is that it is too strong, too absolute ; history would not bear it out. The word indications is as strong as one has data for saying. — "An attempt to justify the treachery of Benedict Arnold " is the title of a paper that really undertook a task much less hardy ; the softer word extenuate would better name what was intended.

3. The dashing, off-hand words used in the excitement of conversation, such as " I have a horrible cold," " I am dying to hear about your visit," " The whole affair was simply perfect," err principally in degree ; and if somewhat excusable on the score of emotion (see under Spoken Diction, p. 122), are after all too intense to be at all definite, and the habitual use of them may lead to great poverty and lack of sharpness in vocabulary. In this respect they are as bad as slang ; see below, p. 64.

3. Support from Derivation and History Beyond doubt the

most valuable aid to the accurate and vital choice of words

CHOICE OF WORDS FOR DENOTATION. 51

is afforded by a knowledge of their root-meanings, by which latter is meant not the unsympathetic knowledge which comes from looking up derivations in a catalogue, though this is better than nothing, but that more intimate feeling or tact which comes from familiarity with the structure and spirit of the original language. Herein lies the true practical value of classical study : it gives ancestry and family distinction to one's mother-tongue. A word whose derivation is felt defines itself ; the writer is so far forth independent of a dictionary.

Examples. — Ujider the foregoing paragraph the difference between the two words justify and extenuate is felt, and the accurate use of them assured, as soon as one thinks of the Latin originals underlying them, Jus- tus a.n& facia on the one hand, and tenuis on the other. So also between the two words (p. 49, 2) canorous (cano, " to sing ") and sonorous (sono, " to make a noise").

In the following sentence Dr. O. W. Holmes has the support of deriva- tion for deepening the meaning of a common word : " He used to insist on one small point with a certain philological precision, namely, the true mean- ing of the word ' cure.' He would have it that to cure a patient was simply to care for him. I refer to it as shovring what his idea was of the relation of the physician to the patient. It was indeed to care for him, as if his life were bound up in him, to watch his incomings and outgoings, to stand guard at every avenue that disease might enter, to leave nothing to chance ; not merely to throw a few pills and powders into one pan of the scales of Fate, while Death the skeleton was seated in the other, but to lean with his. whole weight on the side of life, and shift the balance in its favor if it lay in human power to do it."i

In the following sentence Matthew Arnold builds his whole conception of urbanity on the support of the root-word urbs: " For not having the lucidity of a large and centrally placed intelligence, the provincial spirit has not its graciousness ; it does not persuade, it makes war ; it has not urbanity, the tone of the city, of the centre, the tone which always aims at < a spiritual and intellectual effect, and not excluding the use of banter, never disjoins banter itself from politeness, from felicity." ^

1 Holmes, Medical Essays, Works (Riverside edition). Vol. ix, p. 307.

2 Arnold, Essays in Criticism, First Series, p. 66. — Derivation is an impor- tant aid in Exposition ; see below, p. 5 76.

52 DICTION.

A knowledge of derivation alone, however, may be mislead- ing, for sometimes in the course of their history words pass through different shadings and applications, until their root- meaning is only very indirectly helpful. The present status of a word also must be recognized — not a difficult or uncer- tain task for one whose habitual observation of etymology has sharpened his sense of words. ^

Examples. — In the verse, "And when he was come into the house Jesus prevented him, saying, What thinkest thou, Simon ? of whom do the kings of the earth take custom and tribute ? " the root-meaning of the word (from pre and venio) is followed ; but since the translation was made the word prevent has so changed in meaning that it is no longer an accurate word.

It is interesting to trace the history of such words as pagan, heathen, barbarian, •villain, knave, knight, and see how, in addition to what they reveal of original meaning, they have preserved the spiritual attitude and sentiment of their original users. To trace the steps by which the word nice connects itself with the Latin nescius would be quite baffling and unpractical ; one must depend wholly on its present status.

II. INTELLIGIBLE USE.

The adaptation of the word to the idea, which calls for accurate use, has its limits. The word must also be adapted to the reader ; and in general literary work the reader must be treated not as a learned man but as a man of average information and intelligence. In the choice of words, there- fore, the sensible rule is tQ, keep S-%. close to everyday Jiabits of speech and thinjking as is consistent with accuracy; and where the subject-matter is necessarily abstruse, endeavor to

1 The science which treats of the development of words through different senses is called Semantology ; see Earle, English Prose, p. 137. Another good result of familiarity with the history of words is thus described by Pater, Appreciations, p. 12 : "And then, as the scholar is nothing without the historic sense, he will be apt to restore not really obsolete or really worn-out words, but the finer edge of words still in use: ascertain, communicate, discover — words like these it has been part of our * business ' to misuse."

CHOICE OF WORDS FOR DENOTATION. S3

^®?J^-!^™M.-^-?°""^°^ ^y^^ ^^^ translate so far as practi-, cable into the current medium.

The following considerations are important in adapting words to the reader.

4. The Tissue of Idiom. — Idioms are turns of expression peculiar to the language ; generally irregular, not to be squared with_ strict grammar, and for that reason having the flavor of sturdy unstudied speech. A test of an idiom is that it cannot be translated literally into any other language. At first effect rugged, perhaps odd and racy of the soil, it is after all quite consistent with all due dignity and refinement, while it adds a strength and homeliness that no other way of speaking could do. As the best basis or ground-tissue of plain lan- guage, therefore, idiom is to be valued and cultivated ; it is preeminently the medium through which cultured and uncul- tured may feel their common interests and kinship.'

In certain stages of culture a young writer is apt to regard everything that presents any ruggedness of diction, or that is not transparently conformed to grammatical rules, as a blem- ish ; and he is tempted to smooth down everything into pro- priety and primness. This tendency is to be watched and repressed, for in yielding to it, even in the interests of elegance, a writer may easily throw away much of the native strength and character of his mother-tongue.

Examples. — i. The following, from the great store of English idioms, will suffice merely to give an idea of idiomatic homeliness and flavor : " It was something that he could not put up with"; " They unexpectedly ^0^

1 " I have been careful to retain as much idiom as I could, often at the peril of being called ordinary and vulgar. . . . Every good writer has much idiom ; it is the life and spirit of language : and none such ever entertained a fear or apprehension that strength and sublimity were to be lowered and weakened by it." — Landor, Imaginary Conversations, Vol. i, p. 150 (Demosthenes and Euhulides).

" In the breath of the native idiom there is as it were a moral fragrance, akin to the love of home and domestic faith ; — it is in discourse what the tenderness of nat- ural piety is in the beauty of human character."— Earle, English Prose, p. 308.

5* DICTION.

, the start of him " ; " In the long run this will prove its utility " ; "A man instinctively tries to get rid of his thought in conversation or print as soon as it is matured " ; "He could never get used to this new manner of living." 2. While the above examples serve to illustrate the flavor of idiom, the extent to which idiom is a tissue, a basis of common speech, needs to be illustrated by enumerating some of the most prevalent idioms of English: —

a. The double genitive ; as " that dark and tempestuous life of Swift's " (where one possessive is expressed phrasally, the other by inflection).

b. The noun phrase, one noun doing duty as adjective for another; as, " the country schoolmaster," " a two-foot rule," " the small coals man."

c. The English use of shall and will, should and would, of which more under Phraseology ; see below, p. 233.

d. It with singular verb and plural or collective predicate ; as, " For who, when they had heard, provoked ? — nay was it not all who came out from Egypt by means of Moses ? "

e. The use, in many cases, of the adjective form for the adverbial, and its obviously greater naturalness; as, "speak louder," "walk faster" ("speak more loudly," "walk more rapidly" are hard to tolerate).

/. The use of a preposition at the end of a clause; as, " Where do you come from ? " " What are you blaming me for ? " " This is a thing I can- not get used to." (The alternative expressions, " Whence " or " From whence do you come ? " " For what are you blaming me ? " " This is a thing to which I cannot get used " or " become accustomed," sound bookish.)

Grammar, as Professor Earle remarks,^ is the natural enemy of idiom, and is continually trying to replace its rugged forms by something more amenable to rule. Of course, wherever grammar succeeds, it, rather than idiom, is the arbiter of usage.

Note. — Grammatical insistence has succeeded, for example, in banish- ing " it is me," which used to be natural and idiomatic, and substituting " it is I." Also, whereas men used to say, " I do not doubt but what this is so," it is at once better grammar and better usage to say, "I do not doubt that this is so." The word but is sometimes retained even when what is changed to that ; but this is unnecessary. The proper particles to use with doubt are : affirmative, " I doubt //, " " I doubt whether " ; nega- tive, " I do not doubt that."

1 Earle, English Prose, p. 255.

CHOICE OF WORDS FOR DENOTATION. 55

5. Provincialisms, Americanisms, Dialect. ^- Provincialisms' are words, idioms, or meanings current in some limited region, but not universal enough in usage to be admissible in general literature. Within their district they are accepted conversa- tional formg ; elsewhere they sound somewhat like slang ; employed in literature they savor of crudeness and lack of culture.

Examples of Provincialisms. — The- word clever, in the sense of good-natured ; as, " He is so clever that he will do anything for you " ; likely, in the sense of promising ; as, " William is a likely lad " ; favor, in the sense of resemble ; as, " He favors his father " ; near, in the sense of close or stingy; as, " He is an honest man and just, but a little near " (a New Eng- land provincialism, savoring of euphemism); smart, in the sense of able; as, " Luke is the smartest scholar in his class "; mad, in the sense of angry ; as, " Such treatment as this makes me mad." For the proper use of these words consult the dictionary.

Americanisms are words or phrases wherein, owing to vary- ing conditions of life and history, American usage has come to differ from British. For the use of these we are much criti- cised by our friends across the water, as if they, being the mother nation, must necessarily set the standard and we count as provincial ; but the truth is, while some of our ways of speaking, in the light of standard literature, are provincial, some of theirs are equally so ; while for the rest, our peculiar usage has- as good right and as good pedigree as theirs. There is no more call on us to ape their manner of speech than on them to ape ours.'

Examples. — The American use of the'word^^jj, for think or conjec- ture, is indeed too provincial for literary usage ; but so, it would seem, is the English use of different to for different from. We have a peculiar use of the word right, as in " Put it right there " ; and of the expression right away for immeiiiately ; these are provincial. So, on the other side, is the use of very pleased for very much pleased and directly or immediately for

1 Brander Matthews, Americanisms and Briticisms, pp. 1-31.

56 DICTION.

as soon as ; for example : " Directly the mistake was discovered the leaf was cancelled " ; " Immediately the maid had departed, little Clare deliberately exchanged night attire for that of day." In many cases like these the standard is with neither side, both being alike provincial.

In other cases the standard is with both ; that is, both usages are equally good and equally worthy of a place in literature, representing as they do perfectly natural variations where nations so widely separate are engaged in naming the same or corresponding things. Accordingly, we say freight train for the English goods train ; street-cax for their tram-cax or tram ; riaXroad for their railwoj/ ; editorial for their leader ; editorial paragraph for their leaderette. Such variations are neither avoidable nor deplorable.

Dialect or patois, apart from its occasional use for flavor or local color,^ calls for a word here as an important source of addition to the vocabulary. The words imported by story- writers and tourists from the mountains or backwoods rank simply as provincialisms, and are subject to the cautions regarding such. Another class of words, however, forms an element of graver omen : those numerous terms and phrases picked from the argot of the mining-camp, the cow-boy ranch, the gambling den, and the slum, and turned loose into a long-suffering vocabulary. Largely unintelligible, their connotation, even when understood, is so apt to be low and immoral that proficiency in them is productive of more harm than good.

Note. — The "Chimmie Fadden " stories will occur to the student as representative of this unsavory exploitation of coarse dialect. While their raciness is undenied, it is, after all, the raciness of abysmal vulgarity. The serious attitude of a writer toward such aberrations of usage is emphati- cally a case for the admonition given on p. 44, above.

6. Technical Terms and Coloring. — Technical terms are words peculiar to some art, science, industry, or other special- ized pursuit; indispensable, therefore, in their own sphere

1 This aspect of dialect, with the cautions and liberties regarding it, will come up for treatment under Manufactured Diction ; see below, p. 134.

CHOICE OF WORDS FOR DENOTATION. 57

and in writings intended for specialists, but for the most part unknown outside.

Example of Technical (Scientific) Terminology. — In the fol- lowing, taken from an article in The Journal of Geology, the prevalence of geological terms, though entirely fitting for those scholars to whom alone the article has interest, removes the language from the standard of literary usage : —

" Here the formation is composed of well-foliated, fine-grained, musco- vite-biotite-schist with abundant mica. The molar contact is found on the eastern end of the hill. It strikes N. 25° W., and is parallel to the schistos- ity of the mica-schist and to the pronounced foliation of the porphyritic granite. All the structure planes dip westward at a high angle. Going across the strike from the contact toward the porphyritic granite a remark- able series of elongated horses of the schist interrupt the continuity of the granite. They are usually much longer than their width. ... In most cases there is a definite orientation of the horses parallel to the contact line, while the foliation of the porphyritic granite wraps around the inclu- sion in a significant way. ^ They are uniformly schistose with that structure as well developed as in the main body. Crumpling of the horses is also characteristic. For about two hundred yards east of the contact, the schist is cut by several intercalated sheets of porphyritic granite, varying from five to ten yards in thickness. Their phenociystic feldspars lie paral- lel to the walls between which the sills were intruded. "^

The part that technical language plays in general literature is notable in two aspects.

I. Owing to the constant movement to popularize all kinds of learning, words from these special sources are continually- finding their way into current knowledge and usage. The problem for the literary writer in employing them is one of judgment : how clear and diffused knowledge of them he may take for granted — a problem to be decided by his literary sense. The safest procedure is exemplified in the work of such writers as Huxley and Tyndall, who work on the basis of everyday language, as untechnical as possible ; and where, as must frequently happen, such unfamiliar terms are neces-

1 The Journal of Geology, October-November, 1S97, pp. 715, 716.

58 DICTION.

sary, they make the context repeat or define them in simpler speech. It is a kind of translation from the erudite into the popular.

Examples. — The following sentences, from Huxley,^ will illustrate his care to make his language intelligible to current thought. The descriptive and simplifying parts are here put in brackets.

" Again, think of the microscopic fungus — [a mere infinitesimal ovoid particle, which finds space and duration enough to multiply into countless millions in the body of a living fly]." — " The protoplasm of Alga and Fungi becomes, under many circumstances, partially, or completely, freed from its [woody case], and exhibits movements of its wholfe mass, or is propelled by the contractility of one, or more, [hair-like prolongations of its body, which are called] vibratile cilia.'' — " Under sundry circumstances the corpuscle dies and becomes distended into a round mass, in the midst of which is seen [a smaller spherical body, which existed, but was more or less hidden, in the living corpuscle, and is called] its nucleus."

Many of the words used above, though technical, have become so natu- ralized in the common vocabulary that they may be used without apology ; e.g. fungus, ovoid, protoplasm (this word, however, is explained earlier in the essay), contractility, corpuscle.

2. Technical language, especially such as is pretty well naturalized, has been much employed by such writers as Emerson and Holmes, to give their thought a scientific color- ing or connotation. Employed to illustrate ideas in other departments of thought, such terms have the force of a figure of speech, and are often very suggestive. The use of them thus is a compliment to the increasing culture of general readers, recognizing as it does that learned and scientific ideas are becoming more widely known ; and in fact this very usage is an important means of diffusing such ideas. Of course the same literary liberties and limits are to be kept in mind as in the foregoing case.

Examples. — In the following extracts the italicised words and turns of expression are colored by their significance as belonging to scientific or philosophical terminology.

1 Huxley, On the Physical Basis of Life (Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews).

CHOICE OF WORDS FOR DENOTATION. 59

" The divine circulations never rest nor linger. Nature is the incarnation of a thought, and turns to a thought again, as ice becomes water and gas. The world is mind precipitated, and the volatile essence is forever escaping again into the state of free thought. Hence the virtue and pungency of the influence on the mind of natural objects, whether inorganic or organ- ized. Man imprisoned, man crystallized, man vegetative, speaks to man impersonated" l

" All uttered thought, my friend, the professor, says, is of the nature of an excretion. Its materials have been taken in, and have acted upon the system, and been reacted on by it; it has circulated and done its office in one mind before it is given out for the benefit of others. It may be milk or venom to other minds ; but, in either case, it is something which the pro- ducer has had the use of and can part with. A man instinctively tries to get rid of his thought in conversation or in print so soon as it is matured ; but it is hard to get at it as it lies imbedded, a. mere potentiality, the germ of a germ, in his intellect." ^

7. Foreign Words and Idioms. — As in the case of technical words, . and due likewise to the general increase of culture, there is a constant importation of words and idioms from for- eign languages, many of which expressions are eventually naturalized, but all for a period have the effect of exotics. When the culture is lacking the employment of such terms may be simple vulgarity and display ; this is the chief cau- tion to be noted in the use of foreign words. For when there is culture enough to use them tastefully the writer can ordi- narily be trusted to look out for the claim of intelligibility, and make sure he is understood.

Note. — The technical term for unnaturalized foreign words is Alien- isms. They are indicated by being printed in italics ; and the adoption of them as accepted English words is indicated by printing them in Roman. Such words, for instance, as connoisseur and renaissance have passed their alien stage, and are good literary English. The exact status of such words is not easy to determine, except by writers thoroughly conversant with the standards of literature.

1 Emerson, Nature, Works, Vol. iii, p. 187.

2 Holmes, Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, p. 227.

60 DICTTON.

How far the use of foreign words and idioms is justifiable is to be gathered from the two ways in which they come into use : as deliberately chosen terms, and as a chance growth.

1. By scholarly thinkers foreign terms are sometimes chosen for the sake of exactness ; they fit an idea better than would any English term, and when properly set and explained have a pointedness and distinction very useful for the occasion. Pro- fessor Earle calls them "beacon-words," and justifies them, though he notes that " the practice of inserting foreign words, Latin, French, or Italian, is much less in use than it formerly was."-' The evident effort to make the idea luminous and precise saves such usage from the reproach of pedantry.

Example. — Consider how closely Matthew Arnold discriminates his idea in the following passage, by employing and defining a German term : —

" But this latter belief has not the same character as the belief which it is thus set to confirm. It is a kind of fairy-tale, which a man tells himself, which no one, we grant, can prove impossible to turn out true, but which no one, also, can prove certain to turn out true. It is exactly what is expressed by the German word ' Aberglaube,' extra-belief, belief beyond what is certain and verifiable. Our word ' superstition ' had "i)y its derivation this same meaning, but it has come to be used in a merely bad sense, and to mean a childish and craven religiosity. With the Ger- man word it is not so ; therefore Goethe can say with propriety and truth : 'Aberglaube is the poetry of life, — der Aberglaube ist die Poesie des Lebens.' It is so. Extra-belief, that which we hope, augur, imagine, is the poetry of life, and has the rights of poetry." ^

It will be noted that as much care is taken to explain a foreign word thus used as in the case of technical terms ; see p. 57, above.

2. It is as a chance growth that these foreign additions to the language most need watching. Words picked up in travel, or floating round in menus, journals of fashion, society gossip, and the like, have simply the status of ephemeral or fad words, and until naturalized in standard literature are to be so estimated. The same may be said of foreign idioms,

1 Earle, English Prose, p. 292. See the whole section, pp. 276-297.

2 Matthew Arnold, Literature and Dogma, p. 70.

CHOICE OF WORDS FOR DENOTATION. 61

which as literal translations of foreign phrases, sound strange and affected.

Examples. — i. The French language, as the language of polite society, is the greatest source of such words and phrases ; e.g. " A keen observer might have seen about him some signs of 2ijeunesse orageuse, but his man- ner was frank and pleasing." Every reader can recall such words as heau monde, savoir /aire, faux pas, entre nous, hatit ton, en grande toilette, blase, debutante, as used in writings of the day.

i. Foreign idioms, too, are constantly creeping into the language, and are to be recognized and treated for what they are, exotics ; e.g. "That goes without saying" (CV/a va sans dire); to assist, in the sense of being present at a ceremony; according to me (selon moi); to give on, in the sense of open toward, as a window ; to be in evidence. Of course many of these may be on the way to accepted usage.

Words used in travel, or in giving information about foreign countries and customs, or citations of foreign literary expres- sions, may sometimes be fittingly used in works obviously intended for readers to whom such terms will be familiar and suggestive or ought to become so. The writer thus pays a compliment to the culture of his reader.

Example. — " You are in Rome, of course ; the sbirro said so, the doganiere bowed it, and the postilion swore it ; but it is a Rome of modern houses, muddy streets, dingy caffis, cigar-smokers, and French soldiers, the manifest junior of Florence. And yet full of anachronisms, for in a little while you pass the column of Antoninus, find the Dogana in an ancient temple whose furrowed pillars show through the recent plaster, and feel as if you saw the statue of Minerva in a Paris bonnet. You are driven to a hotel where all the barbarian languages are spoken in one wild conglom- erate by the Commissionaire, have your dinner wholly in French, and wake the next morning dreaming of the Tenth Legion, to see a regiment of Chausseurs de Vincennes trotting by." ^

III. PRESENT USE.

Under this head come the considerations that should influ- ence the writer on account of the age of words : in general, he should admit only words in good standard present usage.

1 Lowell, Leaves from my Journal in Italy and Elsewhere, Works, Vol. 1, p. 190.

62 DICTION.

Language evinces its life as do all living things : by growth on the one hand, taking in and assimilating new expressions, as advancing thought or discovery or invention demands them ; and on the other hand, by excretion, continually dis- carding old locutions for which there is no further use. It is this phenomenon of growth and excretion that distinguishes a living language from a dead one ; the latter kind, like Latin or Hebrew, can be added to mechanically, but it does not grow, nor on the other hand does it diminish, being fixed and crystal- lized in its existing literature. But because it is thus fixed it does not take hold as does a living language ; the spirit has gone out of it, so that at best its life can be only galvanized life.

In a living language there are always many words on the frontiers of the too-new or the too-old whose use is a matter of uncertainty and debate ; and has to be determined by a general consensus of literary usage and authority, in which not only refined speech but the relative rank of authors has to be taken into account.

8. Words too New to be Standard. — From the standard of the best literature, which is the only safe one for a writer to ado£t,_the many new words and phrases constantly appear- ing, and for a while in everybody's mouth, — neologisms they are technically called — must pass through a period of testing and seasoning, in which it will become gradually apparent whether they are to be a permanent addition to the vocabu- lary or to die. His only reasonable attitude towards them is wariness, suspicion ; not that he is not to use them at all, — to lay down this rule would be to hamper him too much, — but that he is not to use them unadvisedly, or merely because they are the fashion. " Be not the first by whom the new are tried " is Pope's maxim.

These new words come ordinarily without observation, and from a variety of sources, of which, as including the great predominance, may here be mentioned three : —

CHOICE OF WORDS FOR DENOTATION. 63

1. Words adopted to name new advances in science, dis- covery, invention, and the like.' The leading tendency now- adays is to derive these from the Greek, and generally they are regularly enough formed. Such new words become standard almost at once.

Examples. — ■ The development of some new invention or department of science may bring into daily use a whole new section of the vocabulary ; consider, for instance, how many new words electrical motor power alone has originated: dynamo, volt, ampere, ohm, trolley, and hosts of others, words unknown a few years ago. The same may be said of microscopic science, with its microbes, bacteria, antitoxin, antiseptic ; and of photog- raphy, with its kinetoscope, cinematograph, etc. Along with these addi- tions, one has to be on the lookbut for grotesque formations ; as in the sentence, " Do not speak to the molorneer," found on some electric cars. The new words made by quack medicine dealers and advertisers, too, are often ludicrous.

2. Words rising spontaneously in the discussion of public and political questions, as also in the shifting phases of the people's life ; often adopted by newspapers for the sake of point and smartness, and at once becoming current phrase of conversation. Some of these expressions become established in the language, but for the most part they serve a transient occasion. In his attitude toward them the writer has to judge how far they are worthy of perpetuation, and whether they answer to the dignity and permanence of literature.

Note. — So much has been said about newspaper English of late years that the metropolitan press at present uses a fairly pure vocabulary, the

1 " English, for a quarter of a century past, has been assimilating the phraseology of pictorial art ; for half a century, the phraseology of the great German metaphysi- cal movement of eighty years ago ; in part also the language of mystical theology : and none but pedants will regret a great consequent increase of its resources. For many years to come its enterprise may well lie in the naturalization of the vocabu- lary of science, so only it be under the eye of a sensitive scholarship^. in d. liberal naturalization of the ideas of science too, for after all the chief stimulus of good style is to possess a full, rich, complex matter to grapple with. The literary artist, therefore, will be well aware of physical science ; science also attaining, in its turn, its true literary ideal." — Pater, Appreciations, p. 12.

64 DICTION.

" awful examples " of such English surviving mostly in provincial papers. Of course, as suits their ephemeral purpose, all newspapers have a right to a rather more dashing and audacious employment of neologisms than book literature ; it suits the spirit and interests of the day. Such words as to burgle or burglarize; to suicide; to extradite; to run (the government or an enterprise), in the sense of conduct or direct; a. steal, in the sense of a theft; to see, in the sense of arrange with; log-rolling; scalawag, are evi- dently of this sub-literary vocabulary, to be recognized and employed, therefore, for what they are.

3. Words and phrases that take a popular fancy and are bandied about in conversation, and become slang. Every year sees a new crop of such expressions, which for the time are used so much that purists almost despair of the integrity of the language. Racy and spirited they undeniably are dur- ing their vogue, and, used masterfully, that is, with adequate estimate of their significance, they may have the point and beacon ■^ quality of a figure of speech. The disadvantage of them is, that the frequent or thoughtless use of slang impairs the earnestness and seriousness of speech ; further, as it speedily becomes not a vehicle of thought but a substitute for it, standing as a meaningless counter for ideas that ought to be discriminated and fitted with their right words, the use of slang causes a poverty of vocabulary truly deplorable.

Examples. -^ The following sentence suggests how a slang expression may on occasion enrich the thought : " Sooner or later, to use the forcible slang of the day, ' the cover must be taken off,' and the whole matter laid before the public conscience." ^ This is really a figure of speech ; its abuse consists in bandying it about until it is everybody's word. Such expres- sions as " That 's right," for " that is true " ; " That is great," for anything desirable or interesting or surprising ; " I draw the line "; " Is that straight goods ? " "I am twenty-five cents shy " will occur to every one as speci- mens of current slang. There is a risk in recording such expressions as current, their day goes by so soon.

9. Coinage for an Occasion It is to be remembered that

though language is a sacred heritage, to be cherished and

1 See above, p. 61, 1. 2 Quoted from Tlie Outlook, Jan. 2, 1897.

CHOICE OF WORDS FOR DENOTATION. 65

guarded with all solicitude, yet after all it was made for man, not man for language. There is, therefore, both a freedom and a caution to be observed with regard to new coinages and formations. Because language is a living organism, and thought is living, there must be flexibility, adaptation, liberty ; and so, not infrequently, a juncture of thought occurs where the masterful writer has to make his word from materials already existing, and where such a new coinage, though serv- ing only the present occasion, may be precisely the most effective word possible.^

The justification or non-justification of new coinage con- nects itself with the question how real is the occasion.

I. The one real occasion, it would seem, is the demand of precision ; a shading or fine distinction in the thought arises, for which there is no existing word, and some word has to be modified or made from existing materials and terminations to fit it. 2

Examples. — The following, used by Professor Henry Drummond, is a word that the author himself would perhaps never have occasion to use again, nor would it ever be put into a dictionary, yet it fits its idea as no other word could do. " No one point is assailed. It is the whole system which when compared with the other and weighed in its balance is found wanting. An eye which has looked at the first cannot look upon this. To do that, and rest in the contemplation, it has first to uncentury itself." ^

The following, from W. D. Howells, serves to differentiate a fine shade of meaning which the occasion requires : " But for the time being Penelope was as nearly crazed as might be by the complications of her position, and received her visitors with a piteous distraction which could not fail of touching Bromfield Corey's Italianised sympatheticism"^

1 " New material must be found somehow. Even the Latin purist confesses so much as this. After speaking of the riskiness of new and unauthorized expressions, he says that nevertheless it must be risked — audendum tamen .' " — Earle, Eng- lish Prose, p. 2i8. Reference to Quintilian.

2 " The coining industry in the present age of English Prose will be found to draw its materials mainly from the vernacular, and far less than formerly from classi- cal sources." — Earle, English Prose, p. 230. See the whole section, pp. 221-231.

8 Drummond, Natural Law in the Spiritual World, p. 30. * W. D. HoWELLS, Rise of Silas Lapham, p. 490.

66 DICTION.

Bishop Brooks and R. L. Stevenson use the word busy-ness to denote a shade of meaning that business does not. Lowell somewhere coins the ■^oxAproveable, hecSMse probable is inadequate to his purpose. The termi- nations in -ness, -less, and -ism are, perhaps, most drawn upon to make new words ; also the use of words in changed part of speech, as, to umpire, a. climb, 2ifind, is frequent.

2. Other occasions, less real, are to be watched and sub- jected to the exactions of good taste, because the freedom of coinage easily passes into mannerism and license, developing a fondness for vagaries in language for the sake of smartness or humor or pungency. Humorous formations and com- pounds are an acknowledged license analogous to the free- dom of conversational style ; and like any word-play they are a rather cheap and ephemeral type of pleasantry.

Examples. — i . Of hasty or thoughtless coinage. " This, coupled with the fast-spreading gloom, and the wild tum-blefication, and the fierce crack- ing of flapping noises, frightened her."^ The following is quoted from a sermon : " You may seem to be drifting, oarless and helmless and anchor- less and almost everything-else-less." This last example suggests how easy and how risky it is for a writer of imperfect culture to make coinages for an occasion ; they may really impair the dignity of what he intends to convey, if he lacks the fine sense of congruity.

2. Humorous coinage. " Her spirits rose considerably on beholding these goodly preparations, and from the nothingness of good works she passed to the somethingness of ham and toast with great cheerfulness." — " Amidst the general hum of mirth and conversation that ensued, there was a little man with a puffy say-ndthing-to-me-or-I 'll-coniradict-ymt sort of countenance, who remained very quiet." ^

10. Employment of Archaic Vocabulary In the general

effort to secure fresh and unworn terms for literary use, there is a strong tendency at present to work the resources of the older and more native elements of the language, reviving terms and especially formations that were in complete or

1 \V. Clark Russell, /ac/6 'j Courtshif.

2 Dickens, Pickwick Papers, Chap. vii.

CHOICE OF WORDS FOR DENOTATION. 67

partial desuetude, and utilizing thereby both their renewed life and their antique flavor. This tendency has both its wholesome and its untoward sides.

I. The wholesome side shows itself in the decided prefer- ence for the homely Saxon words, which has succeeded to the classical tendency of a century ago ; also in the custom of using the native powers of the language for new forms and terminations. This is the revival of a power that during the period of Latin influence was in abeyance.

Examples. — The most prevalent ways in which the old powers of the language may be used are the following : —

1. The widening of the sphere of the strong verb; as in shone (which has come in since 1700), clomh.

2. The free employment of an archaic pronominal adverb ; as, thereto, thereunder, wherethrough, whereof ; also of such words as albeit, howbeit.

3. The freedom of making the comparative in -er and the superlative in -est in the case of long words ; as exalteder, insufferablest.

4. The use of the Saxon negative un- in widely enlarged application ; as, ttnwisdom, unfaith.

Tennyson has been a great influence in this century in reviving the older elements of the language.

2. The untoward side is simply the excess that is apt to attend all good movements ; ill-furnished writers may take the plea of homely Saxon and push it into a craze, an affectation. In religious language, also, there is a tendency to employ the archaic diction of the Bible so much as to impair genuine fervor and run into the " holy tone " and cant. No fashion in language, however good, can take the place of plain con- viction and power.

Examples. — To Interlard one's writing with such archaisms as hight, yclept, swain, wight, quoth, y^ (for the), j/' (for that), is simply word-play and humorous affectation ; the fact that Charles Lamb could indulge his fancy for such quaintnesses does not create a case for imitators. The sur- vival of the Biblical coloring is noticeable in old connectives and adverbs, such as perchance, peradventure, furthermore, verily, in sooth, haply.

68 DICTION. .

words against which there is no objection except on the score of ungenu- ineness and affectation. It may be laid down as a rule that when a man- ner of speaking becomes a fad, a mannerism, it should be discarded.^

IV. SCHOLARLY USE.

While, as has been noted above,'' the reader must be recog- nized and worked for as a person of average culture, it is more than average culture that must be involved in what the writer brings him. By the very fact of his venturing to write, the writer sets up as a scholar, that is, as a model and authority in his subject, and, no less, as a standard in the way of pre- senting it. This has its application not only to invention but to choice of words as well ; his work should evince a sound and refined estimate of his resources of language, individual skill of choice, and good taste.

II. Native and Added Elements of the Vocabulary. — In the primal duty to " be completely in touch with the English vocabulary," one of the first things is to know not merely the philological history, but more especially the feeling and savor of the different ground-elements of the language. For this general purpose these strata, or elements, may be regarded as two : the Saxon and Romanic, comprising the everyday words used by the Saxon pioneers and added to afterwards by the Norman conquerors ; and the Latin, comprising the more learned words introduced since the Revival of Letters and the Reformation. Each of these elements has its place and its practical uses ; the writer's duty is to employ each for what it is worth, and be not anxious, on the score of a mere vogue or wave of taste, to discard either.'

1 The affected use of any device of speech incurs the reproach of the third fault in art ; see above, p. 6. — Poetic archaisms will come up for discussion later ; see below, p. 144. 2 See above, p. 52.

8 " Especially do not indulge any fantastic preference for either Latin or Anglo- Saxon, the two great wings on which our magnificent English soars and sings ; we can spare neither. The combination gives us an affluence of synonymes and a deli-

CHOICE OF WORDS FOR DENOTATION. 69

Note. — It will be useful here to give a passage illustrating each source ; one made up of words predominantly Saxon, the other freely using words of classical (Latin and Greek) origin.

1. In the first, from Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, the almost pure Saxon character is like the natural, unstudied, conversational language of common intercourse : —

" Now they had not gone far, but a great mist and a darkness fell upon them all, so that they could scarce for a great while see the one the other. Wherefore they were forced for some time to feel for one another by words, for they walked not by sight. But any one must think that here was but sorry going for the best of them all, but how much worse for the women and children, who both of feet and heart were but tender. Yet so It was, that through the encouraging words of him that led in the front, and of him that brought them up behind, they made a. pretty good shift to wag along. The way also was here very wearisome through dirt and slabbiness. Nor was there on all this ground so much as one inn or victualing-honse, therein to refresh the feebler sort. Here therefore was grunting and puff- ing and sighing. While one tumbleth over a bush, another sticks fast in the dirt ; and the children, some of them, lost their shoes in the mire. While one cries out, I am down; and another. Ho, where are you? and a third. The bushes have got such fast hold on me, I think I cannot get away from them." l

2. In the second, from De Quincey, while the body of the passage must still be Saxon, words of Latin and Greek origin are freely chosen for the sake of a more accurate discrimination in thought, and these give to the style, whether designedly or not, a certain formal and erudite flavor : —

" Every process of Nature unfolds itself through a succession of phe- nomena. Now, if it be granted of the artist generally, that of all this mov- ing series he can arrest as it were but so much as fills one instant of time, and with regard to the painter in particular, that even this insulated moment he can exhibit only under one single aspect or phasis, — it then becomes evident that, in the selection of this single instant and of this single aspect,

cacy of discrimination such as no unmixed Idiom can show." — Higgikson, Atiantic Essays, p. Si.

" Racy Saxon monosyllables, close to us as touch and sight, he will intermix readily with those long, savoursome, Latin words, rich in ' second intention.' In this late day certainly, no critical process can be conducted reasonably without eclecticism." — Pater, Appreciations, p. 13.

In Earle's English Prose, Chap, i, from which this classification is adapted, is a very valuable list of equivalent words from these different sources.

1 BuNYAN, Pilgrim 's Progress, Pt. ii.

70 DICTION.

too much care cannot be taken that each shall be in the highest possible degree pregnant in its meaning; that is, shall yield the utmost range to the activities of the imagination." ^

What these two classes of words are good for, respectively, is deducible from the relative places they fill in the history of the language.

1. The Saxon or native element comprises, to begin with, all the words and forms that determine the framework of the language : its particles, its pronouns, its inflections, — in gen- eral, its symbolic element.^ This element, and in almost equal degree the immediately superinduced Romanic, come from a pioneer age when men's thoughts were absorbed with plain matters of the home and the soil, of labor and warfare, of neighborhood and common traffic. It ranges, therefore, over the vocabulary of everyday life, wherein the work of the hand and ordinary activity and suffering are more concerned than the subtilties of the brain.

In the Saxon element, therefore, are to be found the terms that come closest to universal experience : words of the family and the home and the plain relations of life. They are, therefore, the natural terms for common intercourse, for simple and direct emotions, for strong and hearty sentiments. Saxon, with its short words and sturdy sounds, and by its very limitation to the large and rudimentary emotions, is especially the language of strength.^

2. The Latin, and in later years the Greek element, came in as men began to study.and discriminate, came in as scholar- ship and literature claimed men's interests. By advancing and refining thought, therefore, a want was created for new terms ; the vocabulary must be enlarged in the direction of greater discrimination, particularization, precision. Delicacies and

1 De Quincey, Essay on Lessing, Works (Riverside edition), Vol. ix, p. 390.

2 For the symbolic and presentive elements, see below, p. 117. 8 For the relation of such words to force, see above, p. 34.

CHOICE OF WORDS FOR DENOTATION. 71

subtilties of thought must be named as well as sentiments in the gross and lump. To do this, and in a time when Latin was the recognized language of learning, men had recourse more to the Latin than to the native Saxon resources ; hence the strong classical coloring and body given to our composite tongue.

In the Latin element, therefore, are to be found the more erudite and precise terms of the language, terms that deal with abstruse ideas and with the close discriminations of scholarship. This same scholarly quality lends dignity and formalism to the words of Latin origin. Being also, on the average, longer and more euphonious, these derivatives have greater flow and volume, are more readily graduated to a climax ; and thus from their value on the score of sound they frequently serve well the higher requirements of poetry and oratory.^

If the requirements of precision, fineness, and sonority are not especially present, it is best to keep as near as pos- sible to the Saxon basis of the language, because that, as the! speech of common people and common events, is less studied | and artificial. And further, if one's style is predominantly Saxon, the more unusual words occasionally employed are more distinguished and effective, having the power of beacon- words.^

12. The False Garnish of " Fine Writing." — " Fine writing," what journalists call "flub," is the name given to the use of pretentious words for trivial ideas, or the attempt by high- sounding language to dress up something whose real impor- tance is not great enough to bear it. Under the same head comes also the habit of interlarding one's language with scraps of trite quotation and outworn phrases for the sake of smart- ness and display.

1 See below, under coloring of words and figures, p. 94, 3.

2 For beacon-words, see above, pp. 60, 64.

72 DICTION.

Example. — Dickens makes his character of Micawber a representative of this pretentious kind of style ; the following paragraph will exemplify his manner of saying a commonplace thing in a very big way : —

" ' Under the impression,' said Mr. Micawber, ' that your peregrinations in this metropolis have not as yet been extensive, and that you might have some difficulty in penetrating the arcana of the Modern Babylon in the direction of the City Road — in short,' said Mr. Micawber, in another burst of confidence, ' that you might lose yourself — I shall be happy to call this evening, and instal you in the knowledge of the nearest way.' " 1

Since Lowell, in the introduction to The Biglow Papers, Pt. ii, has shown up this kind of style, its real character and lack of taste have been more generally recognized, and as a consequence the newspapers and popular literature have been less infested with it. The copious list of words that he there gives illustrates this vice of " fine writing " very fully.

As words and phrases are continually becoming worn, and as novelty in expression is a perennial claim, there is a con- stant effort on the part of writers to put familiar thoughts and facts in fresh and striking ways. Beyond this, too, there is the unceasing quest after an ever-refining ideal of expres- sion, the desire, as Landor puts it, for " finer bread than can be made of wheat." These objects are natural and legiti- mate ; but they need to be tempered and kept sane by good taste. The requirements, or at least the susceptibilities of the thought must furnish the justification. Governed by good taste, the use of words a little more pretentious than the literal subject warrants is one of the acknowledged instru- ments of humor. Attempted by a coarse or inexperienced hand, it is a case of fools rushifig in where angels fear to tread ; and the result, while it may happen to be felicitous, may be, and often is, such as to make the judicious grieve.

Example of Humorous Exaggeration. — The good taste of the following from Hawthorne, if we grant him the initial privilege of writing about so trivial a matter at all, will not be impeached : —

" The child, staring with round eyes at this instance of liberality, wholly unprecedented in his large experience of cent-shops, took the man of ginger- bread, and quitted the premises. No sooner had he reached the sidewalk

1 Dickens, David Copferfield^ Chap. xi.

CHOICE OF WORDS FOR DENOTATION. 73

(little cannibal that he was !) than Jim Crow's head was in his mouth. As he had not been careful to shut the door, Hepzibah was at the pains of closing it after him, with a pettish ejaculation or two about the troublesome- ness of young people, and particularly of small boys. She had j ust placed another representative of the renowned Jim Crow at the window, when again the shop-bell tinkled clamorously, and again the door being thrust open, with its characteristic jerk and jar, disclosed the same sturdy little urchin who, precisely two minutes ago, had made his exit. The crumbs and discoloration of the cannibal feast, as yet hardly consummated, were exceedingly visible about his mouth." ^

13. Stock Expressions and Cant. — It is not the slang of the day alone that is ephemeral.^ Good expressions also, happy terms and phrases, may lose their power by becoming worn ; as soon, in fact, as they become stock expressions they are liable to creep into one's speech unbidden, and thus to become not representatives of thought but substitutes for it. And just then the use of them seems to strike the note of insin- cerity ; the writer seems to be saying what he does not fully mean.' This may or may not be the case ; the outworn phrase may just express the writer's thought ; but the chances are that it does not, and at least the reader also should recog- nize it as freshly and independently expressed, and should be convinced of it by the individual manner of expression. The name given to speech or manner of thinking which by becoming conventional has become insincere is cant.

The matter resolves itself into a plea for self-reliance and independence. Use no expression thoughtlessly, or merely because it is current, but from yout own recognition of its fitness, plainly because, whether new or old, it represents your own thought.

Illustration. — Boswell once asked Dr. Johnson, of certain poems just published, "Is there not imagination in them. Sir.'" "Why, Sir,''

1 Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables, p. 69. ^ See above, p. 64. 8 Compare the first artistic fault mentioned, p. 6.

74

DICTION.

replied the Doctor, " there is in them what was imagination, but it is no more imagination in him, than sound is sound in the echo. And his dic- tion too is not his own. We have long ago seen ■urhite-robed innocence and flower-bespangled meads"

1. The way in which phrases may become stock expressions may be illustrated by the old religious expressions, now going by, as : " the sacred desk " for pulpit ; " the vale of tears " ; " worms of the dust " ; " to hold out faithful." Also by words and phrases much over-worked to-day; as, "to be in touch " with something; "survival of the fittest"; "the trend" of things or events; "to go without saying" (a foreign idiom translated; see above, p. 6i).

2. The following happily illustrates the breaking up of the trite phrase " without let or hindrance " : " No one will question that the whole nature of the holiest being tends to what is holy without let, struggle, or strife — it would be impiety to doubt it." The good effect of this is easily felt.

CHAPTER IV.

WORDS AND FIGURES FOR CONNOTATION.

Hitherto we have considered the various problems in- volved in the choice of words for what they literally say, — literally (Jitera), that is, according to the letter. But there is a way of employing not only words but sentences and whole compositions, in which more is meant than meets the ear. A writer may talk about something entirely aside from his theme, yet in such a way that the theme is not departed from but vivified and illustrated ; or he may use such terms and colorings of expression as serve tb infuse into the passage some indication of how he feels, and how he would have his reader feel, about the idea he is conveying. This is figura- tive language ; or to use a more comprehensive and scientific term, connotation, "^ — conveying, besides the literal meaning of the word, a secondary force or meaning.

Practical Value of Figures. — Figures of speech are popu- larly regarded as ornaments and artifices of style. This they are not, primarily, as is shown by the fact that any suspicion of artifice or over-elaboration in the management of them destroys their flavor at once. They generally add beauty to the style, it is true ; but this is because the associated idea, brought in for usefulness, is in itself beautiful ; besides this, there is an intrinsic beauty in the art of crowding expression with manifold suggestion and enlisting imagination and emo- tion in it. Under all this, however, is the sturdy basis of

1 Further definition of denotation and connotation need not be dwelt on here ; see above, pp. 9, 29, 34, 46.

75

76 DICTION.

practical use ; figures enable us to say more in a given space, and to say it with more life and vigor.^

The test of a figure's practical value is its naturalness : it should rise so spontaneously out of the idea or situation as to go without question or sense of unfitness. If the figure connotes an illustrative thought, it must be reasonable for the writer to think in that way ; else the figure is far-fetched or fantastic or superfine. If the figure connotes emotion, it must be natural for the writer to have that mood or feeling, else the figure will be violent or maudlin or unreal. There is a fine sympathy of thought with illustrative thought, and of expression with emotion, which it is one object of this chap- ter to indicate ; it will not do for the writer to let these run away with him ; he must hold them well in hand and make them do ,his skilfully calculated work. To say this is merely to say that the greater the apparent naturalness the truer the actual art.

Summary of Connotation. — The natural division of the sub- ject has already been repeatedly recognized. A figure may be employed either for the sake of enriching the thought of the idea, that is, for its illustrative value ; or for the sake of creating in the reader a certain mood or feeling about the idea, that is, for its emotional value. In either case the figu- rative force may be overt, that is, revealing its object openly ; or implicit, that is, imparting its power unobtrusively through the tone and coloring of words and style.

I. CONNOTATION OF IDEA.

The principle underlying all the figures of this class is the principle of association. Along with the thought to be

1 " Simile and figure may be regarded as a natural short-hand, which substitutes well-known things for the unknown qualities of whatever has to be described, and which therefore gives the general effect of the things to be described without neces- sitating the task of minute description." — George Brimlev, Essays, p. 43.

WORDS AND FIGURES FOR CONNOTATION. 11

enforced or the object to be described the reader is made to- think of something else : it may be something more familiar, better known, in which case the object gains in clearness ; or something less abstract, more impressive to the senses, in which case the object gains in concrete reality. Both these qualities, are usually present, the proportion varying some- what between different figures, especially simile and meta- phor, but blending always into a general effect of enhanced life and vigor.^

^ '• ' i

Overt Figures of Association. — In these the fact of conno- tation is presented most typically : the associated object being plainly evident, either as definitely named or_ as so clearly assumed that the reader thinks without effort in its sphere of ideas.

Simile and Analogy. — When the thing to be illustrated and the associated object are named together, with a particle or phrase of comparison (^like, similar to, resembling, comparable to, etc.) expressed or implied, and when these compared objects are of different classes, the figure thus arising is called Simile, — which word is simply the neuter singular adjective «>«?7«>, "like." A simile is an expressed likeness.

When the likeness is not between simple objects but between relations of objects, the more complex figure thus arising is called Analogy, from the Greek words ava. and Xoyos, an asso- ciated or comparing word. If we were to represent the two figures algebraically, simile would be expressed by a ratio (a:b), and analogy by a proportion (a:b::c:d). The principle of the two, however, is the same ; and often they interact so naturally that it serves no practical purpose to discriminate them.

1 For connotation as a general instrument of Force, see above, p. 34,

7S DICTION.

Examples. — i. Of Simile. "He shall \>e.like a tree planted by the rivers of water." ^ — "Of the two kinds of composition into which history has been thus divided, the one may be compared to a map, the other to a painted landscape." 2 — "His (Lord Bacon's) understanding resembled the tent which the fairy Paribanou gave to Prince Ahmed. Fold it ; and it seemed a toy for the hand of a lady. Spread it ; and the armies of powerful Sultans might repose beneath its shade." ^

2. Of Analogy. " She told me her story once ; it was as if a grain of corn that had been ground and bolted had tried to individualize itself by a special narrative."* Here the likeness is between relations : her story was to other stories as the particles of one grain of corn are to the particles of another. — " Many were the wit-combats betwixt him (Shakespeare) and Ben Jonson ; which two I behold like a Spanish great galleon and an Eng- lish man-of-war : master Jonson (like the former) was built far higher in learning ; solid, but slow, in his performances. Shakespeare, with the English man-of-war, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack about, and take advantage of all winds, by the quickness of his wit and invention." ^ Here the analogy might be thus expressed :

Jonson : wit-combats : : Spanish galleon : stately sailing.

Shakespeare : wit-combats : : English man-of-war : manoeuvring. Analogy is generally a more formal and elaborated figure than simile, and its illustrative purpose is more avowed.

Two or three remarks are necessary in further explication of this figure.

I. There are comparisons which are not similes, and are not figurative. They are used as freely and naturally, per- haps, as the figure, the noting of similarities being one of the constant impulses of thought. To be a simile, the com- parison, as intimated above, must be between objects of dif- ferent classes ; so different that there is a shock of surprise and interest that things in general so unlike should have one point or relation so similar.

Example. — " It is in vain that he spurs his discouraged spirit ; in vain that he chooses out points of view, and stands there, looking with all

1 Psalm i. 3. 2 Macaulay, Essay on Hallnm's CotistHutional History.

8 lb., Essay on Lord Bacon. * Holmes, Autocrat of the Breakfast Table p So c Fuller, H^orM^j o/£n^/aK<;, Vol. iii, p. 2S4. '

WORDS AND FIGURES FOR CONNOTATION. 79

his eyes, and waiting for some return of the pleasure that he remembers in other days, as the sick folk may have awaited the coming of the angel at the pool of Bethesda." l Here the comparison, being merely between a man waiting in one place and men waiting in another, is not a simile.

2. The associated object, being generally more familiar or more concrete than the thing illustrated, has the effect of reducing the latter, as it were, to simpler terms. A peculiar imaginative effect, more easily felt than defined, is produced when the associated object is less palpable or concrete than the thing illustrated.

Example. — "This evening I saw the first glowworm of the season in the turf beside the little winding road which descends from Lancy towards the town. It was crawling furtively under the grass, like u. timid thought or a dawning talent." ^ This may be regarded as a kind of inverted simile.

3. The great office of simile and analogy being to picture and illustrate, these figures are more promotive of clearness and definiteness than of passion and strength. Hence they are more naturally used in the less impassioned kinds of discourse : in imaginative prose, and in descriptive rather than dramatic poetry. When men are under strong emotion they are not likely to indulge in comparisons ; they strike at once for the more trenchant metaphor.

Illustration. — Shakespeare, in his King Richard II, portrays a character that is too unmoved and essentially too shallow for the hard circumstances in which he is placed, by making him amuse himself with similes and poetic fancies : —

" I have been studying kow I may compare This prison where I live unto the world : Arid for because the world is populous, And here is not a creature but myself, I cannot do it ; yet I '11 hammer it out." 3

1 Stevenson, Ordered South, Works, Vol. xiii, p. 83.

2 Amiel's Journal, Vol. i, p. 58.

3 Shakespeare, King Richard II, Act v. Scene 5, i.

80 DICTlt)N.

He emphasizes the characterization further by making the king, at a time ■when his emotions should be impassioned, spin out his figures to the point of the ludicrous : —

" For now hath time made me his numbering clock : My thoughts are minutes ; and with sighs they jar Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch, Whereto my linger, like a dial's point, Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears. Now sir, the sound that tells what hour it is Are clamorous groans, which strike upon my heart, Which is the bell." 1

These passages show Shakespeare's keen sense not only of character but of the proper and timely use of figure ; they are a study in rhetoric.

Metaphor. — A closer association of objects than by simile is made when, instead of comparing one thing with another, we identify the two, by taking the name or assuming the attri- butes of the one for the other. This figure is named Meta- phor, a term derived from the Greek words /xtTci and t^kpm, " to carry over," "transfer," indicating, therefore, exactly what the figure is, a transfer of meanings.

Examples. — i. The associated object-directly named. " The man who cannot wonder, who does not habitually wonder (and worship), were he Presi- dent of innumerable Royal Societies, and carried the whole Mecanique Celeste and Hegel's Philosophy, and the epitome of all Laboratories and Observatories with their results, in his single head, — is but a Pair of Specta- cles behind which there is no Eye." ^ " He [Shakespeare] had now reached the very summits of his genius, and if we oblige ourselves to express an opin- ion as to the supreme moment in his career, the year 1605 presently offers us an approximate date. We stand on the colossal peak of King Lear, with Othello on our right hand and Macbeth on our left, the sublime masses of Elizabethan mountain country rolling on every side of us, yet plainly dominated by the extraordinary central cluster of aiguilles on which we have planted ourselves. This triple summit of the later tragedies of Shakespeare forms the Mount Everest of the poetry of the world." ^

1 Shakespeare, King Richard 11^ Act v. Scene 5, 50.

2 Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, Chap. a.

8 GossE, Modern English Literature, p. 103. The word aiguilles is a foreign term treated as if naturalized ; compare above, p. 59, note. For the allusive epithet Mount Everest, see below, p. go, 1.

WORDS AND FIGURES FOR CONNOTATION. 81

2. The associated object taken for granted, its attributes being assumed. — A man assumes characteristics of a cat : " But I beg of you, my dear Fields, don't let my paternal zeal prevent you from giving your views always and freely. If I seem to be stirred up at first, on being stroked the wrong way, you may be sure it is only a temporary electrical snapping, I shall soon be purring again." ^ In the following the simple assumption that dramatic characters are real, not manufactured, persons, has a meta- phorical effect : " He has no style at all : he simply throws his characters at one another's heads, and leaves them to fight it out as they will."^

The following remarks are necessary in further explication of metaphor.

1. Many, probably most, of the words and phrases that take the popular fancy and are adopted into the current vocabulary involve metaphor. But as soon as they become familiar expressions the metaphorical feeling begins to fade, and in course of time they produce only the effect of a literal term. The language is full of such outworn metaphors ; " fossil poetry " it has been called on this account ; and the way in which a writer or speaker uses these furnishes often a delicate test whether his conception of language is keen or dull.

Examples. — Such expressions as " to catch on," " to get a cinch," " to draw the line," " to be on the fence," originally slang, are simply meta- phors, destined either to become idioms and take their place in the standard vocabulary, or to die out; see above, p. 64.

How a metaphor may fade is seen in the word circumstances (things standing around"), whose metaphorical sense is now so little recognized that we say " under these circumstances " oftener, perhaps, than " in these circumstances." The phrase " to drop in " is well established for a casual call ; how it has become faded, as a metaphor, was illustrated in a person's invitation to another " to drop up " and see him.

2. This tendency of metaphor tp fade, or to be too vaguely apprehended, shows itself in the mixture of metaphors, the

1 Life and Letters of Bayard Taylor, Vol. it, p. 508.

2 GossE, Modern English Literature, p. 192.

82 . DICTION.

fault most to be guarded against in the use of the figure. It arises from giving too little attention to the successive images that crowd upon the brain ; they are, in fact, not images at all, that is, not conceived by the imagination, but uncon- sidered stock forms of expression ; and the fault is to be avoided by surrendering one's thoughts to the picture sug- gested until it becomes real and works itself out consistently. This is analogous to the avoidance of cant, and is referable to the same cause.^

Examples. ■ — " The very recognition of these or any of them by the jurisprudence of a nation is a mortal wound to the very keystone upon which the whole arch of morality reposes." ^ Here the words " mortal wound " treat the object spoken of as a person ; but as soon as the word " keystone " is reached this suggestion is forgotten, and the image of an arch is in mind. The incongruity would not have risen, probably, had the figure been thought out originally ; but the fact is, both expressions, " mortal wound " and " keystone," have been so frequently in use that their figurative edge has become dulled.

Sometimes figures become mixed not by carelessness but by a kind of impetuosity of thought, an impulse to crowd the assertion too full for one image to suffice for it ; such is Shakespeare's well-known line, " to take arms against a sea of troubles " ; such also Ruskin's expression, " allows himself to be swept away by the trampling torrent." These are cases where the master asserts his authority over language, and are to be left to the masters, who are aware of their powers and liberties.

3. Akin to mixture of metaphors is the injudicious or thoughtless mixture of metaphor and literal statement, which either produces the effect of bathos ' or else fills the whole passage with confusion.

Examples. — The following produces the effect of a drop into bathos : " When thus, as I may say, before the use of the loadstone, or knowledge of the compass, I was sailing in a vast ocean, without other help than the pole-star (metaphor) of the ancients, and the rules of the French stage (literal) among the moderns." *

1 See above, p. 73. 2 Hodgson, Errors in the Use of English, p. 227.

8 For Bathos, see below, p. 294. * Dryden, Preface to Dramatic Writing-.

WORDS AND FIGURES FOR CONNOTATION. 83

In the following it is impossible without other information to tell where history ends and metaphor begins : " The object of the conspirators was to put between thirty and forty barrels of gunpowder into the mine, and to blow the King and the Prince of Wales, the lords and the bishops to atoms. They shortly found a cellar which answered their purpose better. Here they banked up their barrels under a suspicious quantity of coal and other fuel. [Hitherto historic, from this point the account is metaphorical.] When the train was laid, it led, however, to themselves, and when the explosion came, it was under their own feet. They were scattered to the four winds." i

4. Sometimes simile and metaphor are united in one expression, the thought being introduced by the one and carried on by the other. By this combination of figures the illustrative quality of simile and the vigorous directness of metaphor are both secured with a distinctly pleasing eifect.

Example. — The following is from a conversation between the sisters Irene and Penelope : — '

" ' Oh, how can you treat me so ! ' moaned the sufferer. ' What do you mean, Pen ? '

" ' I guess I 'd better not tell you,' said Penelope, watching her like a cat playing with a mouse. ' If you 're not coming to tea, it would' just excite you for nothing.'

" The mouse moaned and writhed upon the bed.

" ' Oh, I would n't treat you so 1 '

" The cat seated herself across the room, and asked quietly —

" ' Well, what could you do if it was Mr. Corey .' You could n't come to tea, you say. But he '11 excuse you. I 've told him you had a headache. Why, of course you can't come I It would be too barefaced. But you need n't be troubled, Irene ; I '11 do my best to make the time pass pleas- antly for him.' Here the cat gave a low titter, and the mouse girded itself up with a momentary courage and self-respect.

" ' I should think you would be ashamed to come here and tease me so.' " 2

5. Metaphor is both bolder and more condensed than simile, and by virtue of both these qualities it is naturally

1 From an article in The English Illustrated Magazine.

2 HowELLS, The Rise of Silas Laphayn, p. 118.

84 DICTION.

better adapted to produce a forcible and vivid impression. Hence it is more used in impassioned discourse, and in dra- matic poetry, which is the poetry of passion as distinguished from the poetry of fancy.

Note. — This distinction between simile and metaphor is already brought out in the Illustration, p. 79, 3. There not only the form of the figure but the image itself is ill adapted to a moment of supreme passion ; it is too leisurely and descriptive.

Personification. — This figure endows inanimate things, or abstract ideas, with attributes of life and personality. It is closely related to the preceding figure, being indeed, in some of its uses, merely personal metaphor. The English language is well adapted to personification, because it is not cumbered, like Latin, Greek, and German, with the incongruities of grammatical gender ; so when personality is attributed to something inanimate, the fact is significant and striking.

Examples. — "Do we look for Truth.' she is not the inhabitant of cities, nor delights in clamor; she steals upon the calm and meditative as Diana upon Endymion, indulgent in her chastity, encouraging a modest, and requiting a faithful, love."' — "And then came autumn, with his immense burden of apples, dropping them continually from his overladen shoulders as he trudged along." ^

" Yet Hope had never lost her youth ;

She did but look through dimmer eyes ; Or Love but play'd with gracious lies, Because he felt so fix'd in truth." s

I. The use of personification inheres in the fact that we can follow the traits and acts of a person better than the attributes of a thing or an abstraction ; as soon as the per- sonality is suggested we are conscious of a kind of communion with it, a sympathy with its life and character.

1 Landor, Imaginary Conversations^ Vol. i, p. 242 {Epicurus, leontion, and Ternissa).

2 Hawthorne, Mosses from an Old Manse, p. 21. ' Tennyson, In Memoriam, cxxv.

WORDS AND FIGURES FOR CONNOTATION. 8S

Example. — In the following, from Stevenson, consider how the vivid- ness is increased as soon as personality is attributed to the river: "The river was swollen with the long rains. From Vadencourt all the way to Origny it ran with ever-quickening speed, taking fresh heart at each mile, and racing as though it already smelt the sea." i

2. The abuse, or rather the cheapening of personification, consists in annulling its proper effect by employing it where no end of concreteness or vividness really calls for it. Unless something real is gained by it the effect of it is crude or artificial.

Note. — In the following sentence there is really no occasion for the personal pronoun, nor is anything gained by regarding the world as a person : " It is to scholarly men that the world owes her progress in civili- zation and refinement." There is a strong tendency with young writers to make a feminine of every familiar abstraction: the world, our country, our college or fraternity, science, and the like ; a tendency to be watched and subjected to the claims of practical use. Another cheap and rather empty device is to treat mental and moral traits as persons ; Lowell calls it " that alphabetic personification which enlivens all such words as Hunger, Solitude, Freedom, by the easy magic of an initial capital."

Allegory. — In this figure an abstract truth or lesson is conceived under the form of a fundamental metaphor, and followed out into detail, generally as* a narrative, sometimes as an extended description. Thus, in the most celebrated of allegories, Bunyan's Pilgrim 's Progress, the trials and experi- ences of the Christian life are set forth in the story of a pilgrimage from the " City of Destruction " to the " Celestial City."

I. Allegory, as a means of conveying abstract truth, has a twofold utility. First, it has the concreteness of its under- lying metaphor; we apprehend the truth as an object of sense or a thing of life, and follow its fortunes accordingly. Secondly, instead of having to follow the logical plan of an

1 Stevenson, An Inland Voyage, p. 59 (Thistle edition).

86 DICTION.

essay, we trace the unfolding of a plot, a story, which is the easiest and most engaging of literary forms.

Example. — The following, beiog the opening paragraph of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, will illustrate something of the fundamental machinery of that story : —

" As I walk'd through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place where was a Den, and I laid me down in that place to sleep ; and as I slept, I dreamed a Dream. I dreamed, and behold I saw a Man doathed with Rags, standing in a certain place, with his face from his own house, a Book in his hand, and a great Burden upon his back. I looked, and saw him open the Book, and read therein ; and as he read, he wept and trembled ; and not being able longer to contain, he brake out with a lamentable cry, saying What shall I do ? "

2. Allegory is so predominantly associated, in ordinary minds, with its great monuments, like the Pilgrim's Progress and Spenser's Faerie Queene, and with moral virtues and les- sons, that it is quite generally thought to be obsolete, or something to be shunned, like a sermon. The fact is, how- ever, it is a very vital and by no means infrequent figure, though more in the way of allegoric touches, and used with the reticence and delicacy that obtains in the more modern art of literature. It is often a valuable means of exposition, being closely allied to analogy.^

Example. — The following paragraph illustrates Dean Swift's peculiar ways, often bullying and insolent, of obtaining his ends in politics and his disappointment at not obtaining a bishopric for himself : " Could there be a greater candor .' It is an outlaw who says, ' These are my brains ; with these I '11 win titles and compete with fortune. These are my bullets ; these I '11 turn into gold ; ' and he hears the sound of coaches and six, takes the road like Macheath, and makes society stand and deliver. They are all on their knees before him. Down go my lord bishop's apron, and his Grace's blue ribbon, and my lady's brocade petticoat in the mud. He eases the one of a living, the other of a patent place, the third of a little snug post about the Court, and gives them over to followers of his own. The great prize has not come yet. The coach with the mitre and crosier in it, which he intends to have for his share has been delayed on the way

1 For Analogy, see above, p. 77 ; in Exposition, see below, p. 567.

WORDS AND FIGURES FOR CONNOTATION. 87

from St. James's ; and he waits and waits until nightfall, when his runners come and tell him that the coach has taken a different road, and escaped him. So he fires his pistols into the air with a curse, and rides away into his own country." ^

Various modifications of the figure Allegory, such as Para- ble, Fable, Apologue, belong rather to invention than to style, and being well enough defined in any dictionary, need not be further discriminated here.

11.

Implicatory Words and Coloring. — The connotation of a sup- porting or illustrative idea, which is the enriching source of all the figures of this class, is generally made more gracefully and with less suggestion of labor and artifice, by some means of implication, putting the reader as it were in the atmosphere and attitude of the connoted idea without making it obvious how he got there. The effect of this is not only illustrative ; it gives also a picturesque tone and coloring to the whole passage, making it a verbal cloth of gold.

Trope. — This word, from the Greek Tpi^u>, " to turn," which is popularly used as nearly synonymous with figures of speech, is here adopted to denote a word so turned from its literal setting and suggestiveness as to flash a figurative implication in one swift term. As to principle, it is not new ; it involves metaphor, simile, or personification, but it does not work them out, it merely suggests and leaves them. Trope is the commonest of figurative expedients; every style that has vigor or imagination is full of it. From the beginning it has so truly been the spontaneous means of imparting lightness and lucidity to abstract ideas that nearly the whole vocabu- lary of moral and intellectual terms is in its origin tropical.^

1 Thackeray, English Humorists, Lecture on Swift.

2 « We should often be at a loss how to describe a notion, were we not at liberty to employ in a metaphorical sense the name of anything sufficiently resembling it.

88 DICTION.

Examples. — i. An involved Simile. "The tanned complexion, that amorphous crag4ike face,'' etc.' — " Those graceful fan-like jets of silver upon the rocks." ^ — "The light sparkled golden in the dancing poplar leaves." ' Many of the adjectives in -like, -ly, -en, involve an original simile.

2. Involved Metaphor. " It [a university] is the place where the cate- chist makes good his ground as he goes, treading in the truth day by day into the ready memory, and wedging and tightening it into the expanding reason. It is a place which wins the admiration of the young by its celebrity, kindles the affections of the middle-aged by its beauty, and rivets the fidelity of the old by its associations." ■* — In the following a single word suffices to associate the object named with the sun, whose spots are invis- ible from the excess of light : " There are poems which we should be inclined to designate as faultless, or as disfigured only by blemishes which pass unnoticed in the general blaze of excellence." ^

3. Involved Personification.^ " But in the apparent height of their power and prosperity the progress of decay had already begun, and once begun it was rapid. Floods, sieges, and sacks all contributed to it, but it was chiefly due to the course of physical change, conspiring with the increase in the burthen of vessels."

Synecdoche and Metonymy. — These, from their unobtrusive- ness and spontaneity, may be classed with the implicatory figures. Their connotation is very close, lying, in fact, within the radius of the thing illustrated, with its natural relations and attributes. The two figures, being essentially alike in principle, are here described together.

I. Synecdoche lets some striking part of an object stand for the whole, or, less frequently, the whole for a part. It is

There would be no expression for the sweetness of a melody, or the brilliance of an harangue, unless it were furnished by the taste of honey and the brightness of a torch." — JEVONS, Principles of Science. See also Earle, English Prose, p. 241.

1 Corresfondence of Carlyle and Emerson, Vol. i, p. 247.

2 Newman, Historical Sketches, Vol. iii, p. 22.

s Stevenson, An Inland Voyage (Thistle edition), p. 60.

^ Newman, ut supra, p. 16.

6 Macaulay, Essay on Hallam's Constitutional History.

0 " One of the richer sources of Figure is tlie attribution of human qualities to objects which are naturally devoid of them. Sometimes it hardly amounts to what we should call Personification, it is merely a tinge of anthropomorphism." — Earle, English Prose, p. 246. The example is quoted by him.

WORDS AND FIGURES FOR CONNOTATION. 89

essentially synecdoche, too, and gives a peculiar coloring to an assertion, when a verb that denotes a more partial or limited action is used for the larger or more comprehensive action natural to the object.

Examples. — i. Of Name-Synecdoche. It will be noted that the part named in the following is just the part most useful for setting forth the idea or picture : —

" There moved the multitude, a thousand heads" 1

" The gilded parapets were crown'd VJithfaceSj and the great tower fiU'd with eyes Up to the summit, and the trumpets blew." 2

2. Of Verb-Synecdoche. " Coleridge sat on the brow of Highgate Hill, in those years, looking down on London and its smoke-tumult, like a sage escaped from the inanity of life's battle." ^ The literal fact is that he resided at Highgate. — " Many a more fruitful coast or isle is washed by the blue jEgean, many a spot is there more beautiful or sublime to see, many a territory more ample ; but there was one charm in Attica, which in the same perfection was nowhere else." * Washing is an insignificant act for a sea.

2. Metonymy (ji,erd. and ovvfui, " change of name ") names not the object but some aspect or accompaniment of it so closely related in idea as to be naturally interchangeable with it.

Examples. — " He was a capable man, with a good chance in life ; but he had drunk up iwo thriving businesses like a bottle of sherry, and involved his sons along with him in ruin." ' — " There are places that still smell of the plough in memory's nostrils."^

" The bright death quiver'd at the victim's throat ; Touch'd; and I knew no more." 'i

It will be noted in the above examples that while in synecdoche the con- noted part is more restricted than the original, in metonymy it is more

1 Tennyson, The Princess, Prologue, 1. 57.

2 lb., Pelleas and Ettarre, 1. 158.

s Carlyle, Life of John Sterling, p. 52.

4 Newman, Historical Sketches, Vol. ili, p. 20.

6 Stevenson, The Amateur Emigrant (Thistle edition), p. 33. » n.. Picturesque Notes on Edinburgh (Thistle edition), p. 326.

7 Tennyson, A Dream of Fair Women, st. 29.

90 DICTION.

abstract, it enlarges the scope of the idea by identifying it with some gen- eral significance or result of it. The above-quoted examples are purposely chosen for their comparative boldness ; how common and natural the figure may be, however, may be seen from this metonymy from Gibbon: "The frontiers of that extensive monarchy were guarded by ancient renown and disciplined valor." ^

Concerning both these figures it is to be remarked that their principle is to choose merely the serviceable part of the idea, whether it is the actual part that is most intimately concerned in the picture or the relation that deepens its sig- nificance, and, employing merely this, to let the rest go. Thus they reduce an idea to its focus and centre, and make that do the work.

Allusion. — An allusion {ad and ludo, literally a " play upon ") is an indirect reference to or suggestion of something that the reader may be trusted to understand, some personage, incident, expression, or custom. The employment of allusion connotes all that the reader knows of the thing alluded to, making it throw light on the idea in hand. Often a whole region of implication is thus opened.

The following are some of the most striking uses of allusion.

I. The name of some noted personage of history or litera- ture is sometimes used to connote the traits with which the personage is identified ; as when a person is called a Solomon, a Judas, a Napoleon, a Tartuffe, a Pecksniff.

Examples. — The familiar line "A Daniel come to judgment," from The Merchant of Venice, will at once suggest itself to the student.

" He [Donne] was the blind Samson in the Elizabethan gate, strong enough to pull the beautiful temple of Spenserian fancy about the ears of the worshippers, but powerless to offer them a substitute." 2 The word Samson, by its allusive suggestion, connotes strength of a blind brute kind, yet not without sublimity and greatness.

1 Gibbon, Decline and Fall, Introductory paragraph.

2 GOSSE, Modern English Literature, p. 123.

WORDS AND FIGURES FOR CONNOTATION: 91

2. Some characteristic deed or achievement of a man is often put for his name, connoting and applying to the situa- tion the achievement's peculiar significance.

Examples. — " The conqueror of Austerlitz might be expected to hold different language from the prisoner of St. Helena." Here the two epithets for one person connote the antithesis of victory and defeat.

" The book, to be plain, is a long gibe at theology, and it is not surpris- ing that no bishopric could ever be given to the inventor of the Brown Loaf and the Universal Pickle." i Here the names of Swift's inventions give by implication the reason why he failed of church preferment.

3. Some incident of history, mythology, or fiction may be so mentioned as to furnish a kind of metaphorical or allegori- cal mould for the thought in hand. The prosperity of such an allusion depends, of course, on the reader's knowledge of the event referred to ; it is a compliment to his reading, tak- ing him as it were into the writer's confidence, and giving him a connotation denied to his less-read neighbor.

Examples. — " It is due neither to the historical interest of the subject, nor even to the genius of the writer, that this purely scientific work, which does not recoil upon occasion from the driest exegetical discussions, should have fascinated and impressed even the critics of the boulevard, and given them a. momentary glimpse of the grave and vital problems involved : it is due to the touch of the magic wand with which the histo- rian has struck the old stony text and caused the entire modern soul to gush forth." 2 Here the allusion is to Moses striking the rock in the wilderness. Numbers xx. 10, 11.

" The fifth decade of the century was a period of singular revival in every branch of moral and intellectual life. Although the dew fell all over the rest of the threshing-floor, the fleece of literature was not unmoistened by it." 3 Here the allusion is to the story of Gideon, Judges vi. 36-40.

The following allusion combines the kinds described in paragraphs 2 and 3 : " ' .Sign-post criticism ' is scoffed at by many who do not need it ; but compasses are constantly required, in spite of the world's Giottos."*

1 GossE, Modern English Literature^ p. 222.

2 Essays of lames Darmesteter^ p. 23.

3 GossE, Modern English Literature^ p. 352.

4 McLaughlin, Literary Criticism^ p. xvi.

92 DICTION.

Here the allusion is to the story of Giotto's marvelous skill in drawing a perfect circle with free hand.

4. Frequently the allusion is more delicate still, being merely a play on a quoted expression from literature, amount- ing in spirit sometimes to parody, and serving as a sly vehicle of humor. A caution is needed against the temptation to make such use of Scrip'ture ; it may secure audacity and pointedness at the expense of reverence and good taste.

Examples. ■ — " Give him the wages of going on and being an English- man, that is all he asks ; and in the meantime, while you continue to associate, he would rather not be reminded of your baser origin." 1 Here use is made of Tennyson's line in the poem Wages : " Give her the wages of going on, and still to be." — "But on other occasions, taking no thought what he should put on, he [Newman] clothed his speech in what he supposed would best please or most directly edify his immediate audience."^ Here use is made of the Scripture expression "Take no thought for the morrow, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, or what ye shall put on."

The following examples, though literal quotations, may fairly be called parody, on account of the entire change of application. " One especial gift Mr. Gladstone very soon showed the House — his wonderful skill in the arrangement of figures. He came of a great commercial family, and he might be said to have been cradled in finance. To paraphrase (sic) Pope's famous line, he lisped in numbers, for the numbers came."' — " These gentlemen seemed to have imagined that they were about visiting some backwoods wilderness, some savage tract of country, 'remote, un- friended, melancholy, slow. ' " *

Of course parody involving change of words as well as spirit may also be used as an instrument of allusion ; e.g. " Ponder thereon, ye small antiquaries who make barn-door-fowl flights of learning in ' Notes and Queries'!"^ Parody of Tennyson's "Short swallow-flights of song."

1 Stevenson, Memories and Portraits^ p. 13.

2 GossE, Modern English Literature, p. 351. Here, as the use is a turn of expression only, and does not involve a change in the spirit, there is no transgression of proper reverence.

8 Justin McCarthy, Article in The Outlook, Jan. 1, 1897.

4 Stories by American Authors, Vol. v, p. 144.

6 Holmes, Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, p. 75.

WORDS AND FIGURES FOR CONNOTATION. 93

Coloring due to Association. — The inner life and power of words cannot all be obtained from their dictionary meanings and shadings, nor from their accommodated use as tropes ; there still remains a coloring, a flavor due to the company they are in, or perhaps to the association in which they natu- rally belong, a latent figurative suggestiveness which yields its vitality to the passage without apparent design or effort.

The following are main aspects of this subtle coloring.

1. The use of what are called pregnant words, words not reducible as tropes to any definite image, yet acquiring from their association a more than literal color, a tinge of senti- ment or vigor which imbues the life of the passage with a new interest.

Examples. — "His [Hobbes's] views are embodied in his Leviathan, a work of formidable extent, not now often referred to except by students, but attractive still from the resolute simplicity of the writer's style." ^

" But when he spake, and cheer'd his Table Round With large, divine, and comfortable words, Beyond my tongue to tell thee — I beheld From eye to eye thro' all their Order flash A momentary likeness of the King." 2

Here the words " resolute " and " large " are the most striking and potent words of their sentences, yet the reason of this defies analysis ; there is in them a kind of overtone, a reverberation, due to their association by a skilled hand.

2. Closely akin to this is the transplanting of a word to another part of the vocabulary than that in which it is ordi- narily used, as from the scientific or technical to the common, and vice versa. Thus it imparts the coloring of its origin to the thought in hand ; it is like a man of learning — or the opposite — giving his conception of an object out of his line.

Examples. — This use of words to ' impart a scientific coloring has already been discussed under Technical Terms and Coloring ; see above,

1 GossE, Modern English Literature, p. 154.

2 Tennyson, The Coming of Arthur, 11. 266-270.

94 DICTION.

p. 56. — Also in the example given on p. 88: "that amorphous crag-like face," where the word is adopted from the vocabulary of geology. — In the following a peculiar effect is produced by the use of a colloquial word : " The bother with Mr. Emerson is that, though he writes in prose, he is essentially a poet." ^ Here the tropical suggestiveness is strong, but some- thing is due also to the sudden irruption of the more homely vocabulary.

3. A Strong coloring may also be imparted by associating the sound of a word or turn of expression with the descriptive feeling of the thought ; as when volume of sound is employed to portray volume of sense, or a limpid phraseology conforms itself to a suggestion of eloquence or beauty. The Latin element of the vocabulary, from the greater average length and sonorousness of its words, is well adapted to such effects.

Examples. — • In the following, from Macaulay, the sonorous Latin words are chosen for their descriptive volume : " The whole book, and every component part of it, is on a gigantic scale. . . . We cannot sum up the merits of the stupendous mass of paper which lies before us better than by saying that it consists of about two thousand closely printed quarto pages, that it occupies fifteen hundred inches cubic measure, and that it weighs sixty pounds avoirdupois." ^ — In the following the whimsically coined Latin word, corresponds to the big scale on which the writer would have us judge his subject : " The ventripotent mulatto, the great eater, worker, earner and waster, the man of much and witty laughter, the man of the great heart and alas ! of the doubtful honesty, is a figure not yet clearly set before the world ; he still awaits a sober and yet genial portrait ; but with whatever art that may be touched, and whatever indulgence, it will not be the portrait of a precisian."^ For the relative merits of Saxon and Latin words, see above, p. 70. The subject, in one aspect, will come up again later, under the head of The Key of Words ; see below, p. 104.

II. CONNOTATION OF EMOTION.

Some uses of word and figure are not natural to cold blood but rise spontaneously out of some excited mood or emotion

1 Lowell, Prose Works, Vol. i, p. 351. Quoted by Earle, English Prose, p. 298.

2 Macaulay, Essay on Burleigh and his Times.

8 Stevenson, Memories and Portraits, p. 322 (Thistle edition).

WORDS AND FIGURES FOR CONNOTATION. 95

and by connotation tend to set the reader into the same ■emotional sphere. What we connote with them, therefore, is not an associated idea but a feeling, a state of mind. This is brought out by some peculiar turn or manceuvre in the expression.

It is needless to say that an expression charged with emo- tion is much less obedient to mere manipulation than one that is not, nor will it submit to be manufactured. The emotion must compel and produce the expression, not the expression the emotion. Hence a question always hear in this kind of connotation is, how genuine, how well-motived, is the informing mood.

Overt Figures of Emotion. — In these there is a direct line of suggestion from the figure to the particular emotion it connotes ; the figure is the sign and label of the writer's mood.

Exclamation This is the figure perhaps most typical of

the whole class, its emotion is so evident on the surface.

This is to be distinguished from interjectional words (as ah, alas, fie, hush), which latter are not in themselves iigures of speech, though they may go with the figure as its sign. Exclamation as a figure of speech is the abrupt or elliptical expression that a strongly felt thought takes before it has calmed itself down to a logical affirmation. It connotes wonder, or intense realization.

Example. — Note the difference in effect between the tame assertion, "A man is a most wonderful creature ; he is noble in reason, in faculties he is infinite," etc., and the same truth held up to view, as it were, by exclama- tion : " What a piece of work is a man I how noble in reason ! how infinite in faculty ! in form and moving how express and admirable ! in action how like an angel ! in apprehension how like a god I " ^

1 Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act ii, Scene 2.

96 DICTION.

If exclamation • does not proceed from a valid and reason- able cause for wonder, it is maudlin, giving the impression that the writer is too easily excited, a "small pot soon hot." This is especially applicable to the beginning of a discourse, before the subject has acquired an emotional momentum ; if then the writer or speaker is exclamatory, he is liable to encounter not an answering wonder but amusement at his impassioned performance.^

Note. — The exclamation-point is the natural mark of this figure ; but there is a tendency in modern writing to use it less than formerly, and often the figure is intended to connote so moderate an emotion -that the point is omitted. Sometimes exclamation competes with interrogation in the same expression, and when wonder predominates, the exclamation-point may take the place of the question mark, as, "Alas ! what are we doing all through life, both as a necessity and as a duty, but unlearning the world's poetry, and attaining to its prose ! " ^

Interrogation Here, as in the preceding case, distinction

is to be made between figurative and unfigurative uses. The figure interrogation asks a question, not for the purpose of obtaining information, nor even as an indication of doubt, but in order to assert strongly the opposite of what is asked. It presupposes the idea as so certain that the reader or hearer may be challenged to gainsay the affirmation; and in this, its character as a virtual challenge, consists the energy of the figure.

Thus interrogation connotes strong conviction, and is naturally adapted especially to argumentative and oratorical subject-matter.

Examples. — " What ! Gentlemen, was I not to foresee, or foreseeing was I not to endeavor to save you from all these multiplied mischiefs and disgraces ? . . . Was I an Irishman on that day that I boldly withstood

1 " The note of Exclamation is less in use than formerly : a social symptom ;

as the progress of manners more and more demands the subduing of moral commo- tion."— Earle, English Prose, p. io8.

2 Newman, Idea of a University, p. 331.

WORDS AND FIGURES FOR CONNOTATION. 97

our pride ? or on the day that I hung down my head, and wept in shame and silence over the humiliation of Great Britain ? I became unpopular in England for the one, and in Ireland for the other. What then ? What obligation lay on me to be popular ? " ^

The unfigurative asking of questions for the purpose of rousing interest, and then answering them, is just as legiti- mate and natural as oratorical interrogation ; it is a means of taking the reader into partnership with the writer, as it were, in conducting an investigation.

Example. — " What is it to be a gentleman ? Is it to have lofty aims, to lead a pure life, to keep your honor virgin ; to have the esteem of your fellow-citizens, and the love of your fireside ; to bear good fortune meekly ; to suffer evil vrith constancy ; and through evil or good to maintain truth always .' Show me the happy man w^hose life exhibits these qualities, and him we will salute as gentleman, whatever his rank may be ; show me the prince who possesses them, and he may be sure of our love and loyalty."^

Here if the emotion were a little more intense we should expect, not the investigation spirit, but the argumentative, and the question would natu- rally be so framed as to challenge the reverse, " Is it not to have lofty aims," etc.

Apostrophe and Kindred Figures. — The derivation of the word apostrophe, from a-ao and Tpicfxo, " to turn from," does not seem, at first thought, to suggest the principle of the figure. The term refers to tuining/rom the unemotional way of expression, which speaks of objects in the third person, to address some object directly, as if it were present. When the object addressed is inanimate, the figure Apostrophe involves also personification.

Apostrophe, carrying as it does the imagination of an absent thing as if present and conscious of the address, con- notes intense realization and fervor.

Example. — In our. present logical and undemonstrative age the figure apostrophe has become somewhat obsolescent, and if attempted now would

1 BuRKp, Speech to the Electors of Bristol.

2 Thackeray, The Four Georges (Riverside edition), p. io8.

98 DICTION.

run some risk of seeming manufactured or forced. The following, from the Bible, is a very vivid example : —

" O thou sword of the Lord, How long will it be ere thou be quiet ? Put up thyself into thy scabbard,

Rest and be still. How can it be quiet, — seeing the Lord hath given it a charge Against Ashkelon, and against the sea-shore?

There hath he appointed it." 1

The transition to the third person, in the fifth line, intensifies the figure ; so also does the use of interrogation.

Two figures, or devices of expression, connoting a rather more subdued feeling of realization, call for remark here.

r. Vision, still retaining the ordinary speech of the third person, regards something distant in space as present and under observation. This fact of course calls on the imagi- nation to ignore absence and recall the traits of the object definitely.

Example. —

" I see the wealthy miller yet.

His double chin, his portly size.

In yonder chair I see him sit,

Three fingers round the old silver cup — I see his gray eyes twinkle yet

At his own jest — gray eyes lit up With summer Ughtnings of a soul

So full of summer warmth, so glad. So healthy, sound, and clear and whole.

His memory scarce can make me sad." 2

This figure is a means of calling attention to minute details which other- wise would escape their due.

2. The Historical Present regards some event that is past in time as present and going on before the reader's eyes, that is, narrates it in the present tense.

The historical present is serviceable when the event re-

1 Jeremiah xlvii. 6, 7.

2 Tennyson, The Miller'' s Daughter.

WORDS AND FIGURES FOR CONNOTATION. 99

counted is of such cardinal importance that all its stages, and details have intensity of interest. It is often misused by ■writers, of crude taste who imagine that the tense makes the vividness, whereas it is only thp impressiveness of the event that makes the use of the present natural. When adopted, the historic present should be maintained consistently through- put the passage, or at least not departed from except with wisely calculated reason.

Example. — In the following, note not only the increased life imparted by the Historic Present, but the consistency with which it is maintained, and the careful skill shown in entering upon and departing from it : —

" Let me remember how it used to be, and bring one morning back again.

" I come into the second-best parlor after breakfast, with my books, and an exercise-book, and a slate. My mother is ready for me at her writing- desk, but not half so ready as Mr. Murdstone in his easy-chair by the window (though he pretends to be reading a book), or as Miss Murdstone, sitting near my mother stringing steel beads." [After a page or so of this reminiscence in the present tense, the story is brought back to the ordinary past tense of narration by the remark, beginning a new paragraph] : —

" It seems to me, at this distance of time, as if my unfortunate studies generally took this course."' [From here onward the tense is past.]

Hyperbole. — This figure magnifies objects beyond their natural bounds, in order to make them more impressive or more vivid. It connotes lively realization of some striking trait, and results simply frt)m the effort so to describe an object that no element of its effect on the writer shall be lost in transmission to the reader.

Hyperbole is a recognition of the fact that, while the observer may conceive an object vividly there is a shrinkage in the reader's apprehension of it. Its exaggeration does not mislead ; it simply allows for the shrinkage, so that the net result on the reader's part is a just realization of the object, plus a touch of the emotion, exalted or whimsical, in which ' the object is to be viewed.

1 Dickens, David Copperfield, Chap. iv..

MX) DICTION.

The predominant use of hyperbole nowadays seems to btf for humorous description. Its misuse consists in not answer- ing intimately to the spirit of the passage. Overdoing the passion, it becomes bombast; employed on too trivial an occasion, it is ludicrous.

Examples. — " The groom swore he would do anything I wished ; and, when the time arrived, went up stairs to bring the trunk down. This I feared was beyond the strength of any one man : however, the groom was

a man

Of Atlantean shoulders fit to bear The weight of mightiest monarchies ;

and had a back as spacious as Salisbury Plains." i — "In the way of furni- ture, there were two tables : one, constructed with perplexing intricacy and exhibiting as many feet as a centipede ; the other, most delicately wrought, with four long and slender legs, so apparently frail that it was almost incredible what a length of time the ancient tea-table had stood upon them." 2

Irony. — This figure expresses, or presupposes, the contrary of what is meant, there being something in the context or in the writer's tone to show the true state of the case. It is a kind of reductio ad absurdum, assuming as it does that false is true, and following the idea to its inverted conclusion.

Irony connotes contempt for an opposing view or opinion, a contempt that under the various forms of satire, innuendo, and sarcasm, ranges all the way from playful banter to invective.

Examples. — " How devotedly Miss Strickland has stood by Mary's innocence ! Are there not scores of ladies in this audience who persist in it too ? Innocent ! I remember as a boy how a great party persisted in declaring Caroline of Brunswick was a martyred angel. So was Helen of Greece innocent. She never ran away with Paris, the dangerous young Trojan. Menelaus, her husband, ill-used her ; and there was never any siege of Troy at all. So was Bluebeard's wife innocent. She never peeped

1 De Quincey, Confessions of an Of turn Eater, p. 24.

2 Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables, p. 49.

WORDS AND FIGURES FOR CONNOTATION)

into the closet where the other wives were with their heads off. SheT dropped the key, or stained it with blood ; and her brothers were quite right in finishing Bluebeard, the cowardly brute ! Yes, Caroline of Bruns- wick was innocent ; and Madame Laffarge never poisoned her husband ; and Mary of Scotland never blew up hers ; and poor Sophia Dorothea was never unfaithful; and Eve never took the apple — it was a cowardly fabri- cation of the serpent's." ^

In the following the irony consists in describing evil in terms belonging to the good : —

" It may well be conceived that, at such a time, such a nature as that of Marlborough would riot in the very luxury of baseness. His former treason, thoroughly furnished with all that makes infamy exquisite, placed him under the disadvantage which attends every artist from the time that he produces a masterpiece. Yet his second great stroke may excite won- der, even in those who appreciate all the merit of the first. Lest his admirers should be able to say that at the time of the Revolution he had betrayed his King from any other than selfish motives, he proceeded to betray his country." ^

One or two further remarks on the figure Irony may here be made.

I. A passage not predominantly ironical in tone may be made more spirited by an occasional ironical touch, which, being less obtrusive, is correspondingly more graceful. Young writers who employ this device often betray their anxiety that their irony may not be missed by marking such touches with an interrogation-point enclosed in parenthesis ; but this is generally quite needless, and in poor taste.

Examples. — " He leaned forward suddenly, and clutched Pete by the throat, and the old man and Solomon were fain to interfere actively to prevent that doughty member of the family from being throttled on the spot. Pending the interchange of these amenities, Rick Tyler lay motionless on the ground." ' — " He [Browning] partially failed; and the British pub- lic, with its accustomed generosity, and in order, I suppose, to encourage the others, has never ceased girding at him, because forty-two years ago he

1 Thackeray, The Four Georges, p. i6.

2 Macaulay, Essay on Hallam's Constitutional History.

8 Miss Murfree (Charles Egbert Craddock), Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains, p. i6o.

102 DICTION.

published, at his own charges, a little book of two hundred and fifty pages, which even such of them as were then able to read could not understand." ^

2. Irony, more especially in its modified form of satire or innuendo, is an edge-tool of which the writer needs to be very careful. Used habitually, or with zest, it begets a cap- tious, cynical spirit which puts one out of touch with large and noble ideals. Further it almost inevitably gives to writ- ing an element of offense to simple and straightforward minds ; they are afraid of a statement that scores them and gives them no chance to reply. A man may make himself dreaded in that way, may gain a reputation for keenness and penetration, but he sacrifices something far more valuable. Even Thackeray, kind-hearted as his friends know him to have been, contracted such an inveterate habit of satire, on certain subjects, that he is apologized for fully as much as he is praised.

II.

Animus of Word and Figure The emotional figures hitherto

recounted seem to our modern taste rather forced and declama- tory ; as overt and constructed figures they take themselves too seriously and insistently ; and there is a very prevalent tendency to soften them down to humorous uses or to subtle touches, rather than bear weight upon them. Nowadays, partly because literature is less emotional, partly because the art of putting things is both more delicately managed and more quickly responded to, more is left to suggestion, the reader's emotion is played upon or awakened indirectly, not so much by obvious means as by a tone and animus that resides in the whole passage.

This is a very pervasive and Protean feature of literary art, of which the following are the more prominent and outlying aspects.

1 Augustine Birrell, Obiter Dicta, p. 91.

WORDS AND FIGURES FOR CONNOTATION. 103

The Spirit of a Comparison. — In addition to the illustra- tive value of simile or metaphor, a delicate revelation of the writer's mood or feeling is often made through the choice of the object to which the matter in hand is compared. Thus the figure may disparage or elevate, may convey contempt or connote admiration or poke fun, and thus induce in the reader a touch of the same mood.

Examples. — i. Of Simile. With the following passage it is natural to associate sublimity ; this feeling, in fact, is stronger than the illustrative value : —

" On the other side, Satan, alarmed, Collecting all his might, dilated stood. Like Teneriff or Atlas, unremoved : His stature reached the sky, and on his crest Sat Horror plumed." 1

The following connotes Ruskin's feeling of contempt for the object described : " We have got into the way, among our other modern wretched- ness, of trying to malce windows of leaf diapers, and of strips of twisted red and yellow bands, looking like the patterns of currant jelly on the top of Christmas cakes ; but every casement of old glass contained a saint's history." 2 — The following evidently indulges in a sly laugh at its object : " The unwonted lines which momentary passion had ruled in Mr. Pick- wick's clear and open brow, gradually melted away, as his young friend spoke, like the marks of a Hack-lead pencil beneath the softening influence of India rubber." ^

i. Of Metaphor. The following both illustrates the manner of an action and conveys a disparaging estimate of its character : " Pierre Bayle wrote enormous folios, one sees not on what motive principle ; he flowed on for- ever, a mighty tide of ditch-water ; and even died flowing, with the pen in his hand."* — The following, by a double entendre in the trope-word, conveys a sly innuendo : " Sentences of the same calibre, some even of far larger bore, we have observed in this and other works of the same author." *

1 Milton, Paradise Lost, Book iv, U. 985-989.

2 RUSKIN, Two Paths, p. loi.

S Dickens, Pickwick Papers, Chap. xv.

* Carlyle, Sartor Resartus.

5 De Quincey, Literary Criticism, p. 206.

104 DICTION.

In the employment of figure a sound sense of humor and congruity — in other words, a sane literary sense — must always be present, or in some lapse of taste the comparison may flat the note, or introduce unintentionally some uncon- genial or ludicrous suggestion. It is eminently here that the fineness of a writer's literary endowment shows.

Examples. — When, for instance, a young writer says of John Quincey Adams's statesmanship that it was as pure as a lily, the figure may in part illustrate, but it does not really belong with the idea statesmanship, it is more congruous with more delicate ideas. — I once heard a clergyman, endeavoring to describe pictorially some great heaps of white summer cloud, say that they looked like immense great balls of popcorn. The picture was successful ; but — .

The Key of Words This expression, adopted from Robert

Louis Stevenson,^ suggests that in a masterfully written pas- sage there is a certain relation of words to each other, by which they aid each other in maintaining a congruous emo- tional level ; they comport with a mood of homeliness or severe dignity, of contempt or whimsey, of enthusiasm or meditative pensiveness. This key of words is kept fine and unerring only by skill in the various strata or levels of the vocabulary ; a writer must be at home in the dialect of beauty or bluntness, of grace or coarseness, and know not only the denotation but the feel, the congenial mood, of his word.

Examples. — There is a scale of expression by which the same idea or act may be coarsened to various depths ; as is exemplified in the expres- sions "to become intoxicated," " to get drunk," coarsest of all, " to get fully — A whole vocabulary of disparaging words is thus available, as poetaster, criticaster, pulpiteer, fellow, manikin, and the like ; e.g. " It is time for even the fiery pulpiteers to pause and reflect," where we know well the writer's feeling toward the clergymen mentioned.

One of the most serviceable forms of this connotation is in a kind of reduction of the idea to its lowest or boldest terms ; e.£^. " A fool he was, if you will ; but so is a sovereign a fool, that will give half a principality for a little crystal as big as a pigeon's egg, and called a diamond : so is a

1 See above, p. 15, footnote.

WORDS AND FIGURES FOR fONNOTATION, 105

wealthy nobleman a fool, that will face danger or death, and spend half his life, and all his tranquility, caballing for a blue riband ; so is a Dutch mer- chant n fool, that hath been known to pay ten thousand crowns for a tulip." 1 How such words may color a passage, forming a key or scheme of expression, may be seen in the following : " What spectacle is more august than that of a great king in exile ? Who is more worthy of respect than a brave man in misfortune ? Mr. Addison has painted such a figure in his noble piece of Cato. But suppose fugitive CzXo fuddling himself at a tavern with a wench on each knee, a dozen faithful and tipsy companions of defeat, and a landlord calling out for his bill ; and the dignity of mis- fortune is straightway lost. The Historical Muse turns away shamefaced from the vulgar scene, and closes the door — on which the exile's unpaid drink is scored up — upon him and his pots and his pipes, and the tavern- chorus which he and his friends are singing." ^

On the side of the connotation of idqa, which in fact often blends -tfith the connotation of emotion, this subject has already been treated under the head of Coloring due to Association ; see above, p. 93, which section ought to be studied along with this.

Reserve, or Understatement. — One result of the more deli- cate literary art of our day is the frequent custom of describ- ing intense or exciting facts in studiously mild terms, but with such connotation as to lay the hint of it on the reader's imagination, trusting to that to supply the commensurate realizing mood. This reserve of statement is thus in a sense the opposite of the overt figures of emotion. Instead of exhibiting a great passion of excitement and by violent lan- guage pulling the reader up to it, it works as it were to keep the reader's emotion in • advance of the expressed idea, by sending his thoughts out toward a generously suggested effect or situation.

A principle so broad as this is hard to cover by typical examples. One of the most striking ways of understatement is by LITOTES,^ which suggests its intended idea by negating its opposite ; connoting at the same time an animus of inten-

l Thackeray, Henry Esmond, Book ill, Chap. 11. 2 n,,^ Book 1, Chap. i.

' The connection of litotes with the double negative will come up for further men- tion ; see below, p. 271.

106 DICTION.

sity, or challenge, or it may be satirical playfulness, the mood being evident from the kind of terms employed.

Examples. — " He [the Puritan] had been wrested by no common deliverer from the grasp of no common foe. He had been ransomed by the sweat of no vulgar agony, by the blood of 910 earthly sacrifice." ^ Here the negation of ordinary qualities sends out suggestion toward extraordi- nary as far as the reader's imagination will go, and setting no limits, sug- gests endless intensity.

The animus of innuendo is illustrated in the following : " The editor is clearly no witch at ^ riddle," ^ where it is playfully intimated that he is surprisingly stupid. — "I made up my mind that ambulances, viewed as vehicles for driving distinguished ladies to military reviews, were not a stupendous success, and that thereafter they had better be confined to their legitimate uses of transporting the wounded and attending funerals." ^ In this last example the innuendo is a little overdone ; it lacks fineness.

1 Macaulay, Essay on Milton.

2 Carlyle, Essay on BosweWs Johnson.

3 Porter, Campaigning with Grant.

CHAPTER V.

PROSE DICTION — STANDARD AND OCCASIONAL.

Entering now upon a new stage of our subject, we are to consider the general effect and resultant of the words and figures employed, the_prevailing character and color that these impart to the whole passage or composition. This is what' is meant distinctively bydiction, ;the mere study and choice of expression being virtually the primitive stage of getting out the raw material. The problem of diction, then, is a problem of artistry : of giving such marshaling and man- agement to a scheme of words as to produce a homogeneous tissue and movement of a certain determinate kind.

The most fundamental distribution of the subject is into Prose Diction and Poetic Diction, to each of which a chapter will be devoted, though each division, being subject at every point to invasions from the other, must be considered con- stantly with reference to the other. Under prose diction we are first to inquire after the principle or standard to which all prose, as prose, must conform, and secondly, to recount some of the claims or liberties of prose, as determined by some particular object or occasion.

Definition of Prose. — It is important to have as starting- point ajuiFiHea~of what is most central and character-giving in prose, and this is well furnished by the various terms that in time past have been used to designate it.

The designating word, to begin with, merely sets prose over against verse. It comes from the 'Latin prosa, a contracted form of prorsa, which itself is a contraction of the compound

107

108 DICTION.

pro-versa, an adjective, feminine in form because the noun to be supplied is the feminine oratio, " discourse " ; the whole mean- ing, therefore, "straightforward discourse." The name was first given, no doubt, because, instead of turning back and begin- ning anew when it has reached a certain measured length (its antithesis, versus, means a " turning "), the line keeps straight on, as far as there is room for it. This seems a mere mechani- cal distinction ; it reaches, however, deeper than chirography, to the fundamental reason why a writer should turn back or keep on. And for our modern distinctions this characteristic straightforward lends itself just as legitimately to another application. Prose discourse, we may say, is straightforward in two large senses : it does not change the natural order of words ; it does not depart from the common usage of words.

This is indicated in a figurative way by a second Latin term for prose : sermo pedestris, discourse that goes cycy foot, as distinguished from discourse that soars. Prose moves on the earth, where common people and everyday practical affairs belong ; it is the language of ordinary moods, ideas, senti- ments, the form that unstudied speech and intercourse assume. Like M. Jourdain,^ to whom the discovery was such a delight, we have been talking prose all our life.

A third designation, oratio soluta, " loosened " or "unbound discourse." may seem at first thought to sanction a negligence or carelessness in the construction of prose, engendered perhaps by its common uses. The name, however, is simply another contrast to metrical composition, bound as the latter is by rigid rules. Nor, indeed, does the humbler office of prose absolve it from the strictest and finest artistry. It is a mis- take to suppose that good prose is easier to write than good poetry ; it is just as hard and just as great a triumph, its difficulties and problems being merely of another kind.

1 In Moli^re's Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme.

FROSE DICTION— STANDARD AND OCCASIONAL. 109

I. STANDARD PROSE DICTION.

Prose diction covers too vast and complicated a field, and depends on too great a number of relative considerations, to reduce itself easily, as does poetic diction, to formulated rules/ All that can be undertaken here is to summarize the main principles that condition prose diction, as traced in the choice, arrangement, and connection of words.

I.

The Prose Vocabulary. — When it is said above that prose discourse is straightforward in the sense of not departing from the common usage of words, it is not meant that any part of the vocabulary is closed to it ; though, of course, some words have a more poetic tinge than others, and some have withdrawn almost entirely to the poetic realm, leaving more homely equivalents to represent them in prose. It is doubtful, however, if some legitimate prose situation may not exist for even the rarest poetic coinages ; the principle of inclusion and exclusign being not so much in the actual word chosen as in the mood or standard of choice. The mood that governs prose composition may on occasion turn almost every resource to its service, so that the mood itself be not invaded.

Words chosen for Utility. — The ruling standard of choice, made imperative by the dominating prose mood, is utility. This, because it is the characteristic of prose, as distinguished from verse, to use expression not for expression 's sake, not for the beauty or music or charm of the words in themselves, but always with some ulterior end in view, — ■ to instruct, or con- vince, or impress, or persuade. As an objective point, exists

1 " To summarize the Art of Writing Prose in a code of rules would be something like trying to do the same for the Art of behaving in the intercourse of the world. This is a matter in which it is easier to indicate principles, than to lay down rules." — Eaele, English Prose, p. 151.

no DICTION.

always a practical truth or fact ; it is the object of prose to get the reader effectively to that point, without distracting his mind with the scenery that he traverses on the way.

As long as this standard of utility dominates, any expres- sion that promotes the end is open to prose ; it is free on occasion to employ plainness of language or elaborateness, simplicity or elegance, terseness or fulness, according as any of these qualities may commend themselves as most practi- cally useful for its purpose. Under this standard, in fact, the rarest and most exotic words become simple working-tools, — means to an end ; we do not think of the words themselves, but of the fine shading or accurate definition that they give to the thought.

The staple of a diction governed by such practical mood will, of course, be the words of ordinary life and the recognized usage of the day. Any departure from this into a more abstruse or dignified region carries with it its sober justification.^ The hardest words to reconcile with this utilitarian vocabulary are the archaic and abbreviated forms of poetry ; if in any prose they are found, it is such prose as seeks confessedly to pro- duce poetic effects. This exception aside, inasmuch as the pedestrian movement of prose has no occasion for quaintness,, and the rhythm of prose does not require abbreviation, when such terms are employed they have merely the effect of affec- tation and finery.^

Note. — The illustration of this point may best be quoted from Pro- fessor Earle : " As a general rule sober words should be chosen in prefer- ence to those which are elevated or romantic. The young writer should not write brethren for brothers, should not call a horse a charger, or a palfrey, or a steed; should not write ■welkin for sky, or mhilome for once, or ere for before, or vale for valley, or thrall for slave, or thraldom for slavery." ^

1 As is seen, for instance, under paragraph ii, p. 68, above.

2 See Fine Writing, p. 71, above. 8 Earle, English Prose, p. 153.

PROSE DICTION— STANDARD AND OCCASIONAL. Ill

In the same way, if picturesque language, word-painting or epithet is employed in prose, it must have its justification in utility. Picturesqueness may be part of the information con- veyed, or it may be needful in order to give an assertion due distinction. Epithet ' is, of all these poetic devices, most easily overdone in prose ; it is apt, unless watched, to clog and cloy the expression ; the only way to keep it within the bounds of good taste is to keep the practical claims of utility always in sight.

Note. — To illustrate how picturesqueness may be an integral part of the information conveyed, one or two examples, taken from Abbott and Seeley's English Lessons for English People, may here be given.

It would hardly be fitting to use the expression " Emerald Isle " in ordi- nary prose, as for instance, " Parliament, during this session, was mainly occupied with the Emerald Isle " ; but the expression serves a useful pur- pose, by reason of its descriptive character, in such a sentence as, " Accus- tomed to the arid and barren deserts of Arabia, the eye of the returning soldier rested with pleasure upon the rich, bright vegetation of the Emerald Isle." Again, the essential epithet in "IHe drew his bright sword " is evi- dently only a bit of useless finery ; but in the sentence, " Laughing at the peasant's extemporized weapon, the soldier drew his own bright sword," the epithet is a help in sharpening the antithesis and making the information more vivid.

Figures for Clearness and Condensation. — Figures are as natu- ral to prose as to poetry ; but when they are used the reader is aware merely of their illustrative or illuminative value ; he is not thinking of the figure but of the thought which it sup- ports and interprets.^ So it is utility still, as in the choice of words, which is the governing standard in prose diction.

The standard of utility has to be varied according to the kind of information or instruction conveyed. If the thought in hand is something that the reader must be made to under- stand, it gives occasion only for the plain and literal class of words ; if it is something that he must be made to imagine,

1 The subject of Epithet will come up again under Poetic Diction ; see below, p. 147, 2 See difference between prose and poetic imagery, p. 146, below.

112 " DICTION.

occasion immediately arises for the picturing power of words, and for the elucidative value of analogy and simile.^ Hence descriptive language is always heightened ; its work requires imagery and vividness. As soon as any idea becomes com- plex, it seeks to make itself realizable by the same means ; its figures are a kind of description.

Example of Figure used to illustrate. — The following analogy is used not for ornament at all, but to illustrate the tendency respectively of conservatism, radicalism, and Christianity : " The bird is in prison in the egg ; conservatism would leave the egg unbroken, leave everything as it is and has been : it will get an addled egg. Radicalism would impatiently break the shell to let the imprisoned captive free ; it will get a dead bird. Christianity broods the egg and the bird breaks its own shell." ^

The more incisive figures, and the figures that connote emo- tion, are for prose a kind of shorthand ' ; by their vivid and thought-awaking quality they enable the writer to convey his thought as it were by flashes, to say much more and more effectively in a given space. The picturing quality remains, it is true, but so as to give the reader just so much more than he bargained for ; he set out to gain a thought and he gains with it an inspiration and delight.

As prose becomes impassioned or imaginative, thus rising in aim and tissue toward poetry, all these effects are corre- spondingly heightened, until, in fact, prose diction and poetic diction are subtly blended together ; but still the logic * of the two remains distinguishable, and mainly on this standard of utUity. As long as all the subtle colorings and implications of the diction focus in this, prose has almost unlimited realm

1 " There are two kinds of things — those which you need only to understand, and those which you need also to imagine. That a man bought nine hundredweight of hops is an intelligible idea — you do not want the hops delineated or the man described ; that he went into society suggests an inquiry — you want to kno* what the society was like, and how far he was fitted to be there." — Bagehot, Literary Studies, Vol. 11, p. 241. 2 Abbott, Christianity and Social Problems, p. 136.

3 See above, p. 76, footnote.

< Coleridge's word, used by Matthew Arnold.

PROSE DICTION— STANDARD AND OCCASIONAL. 113

in vocabulary, and can on occasion carry a good weight of poetry without burden.'

Note. — How prose may take elements of poetic diction, and on what occasion, will come up for more detailed discussion in the next chapter; see under Poetic Diction and its Interactions with Prose, pp. 163-170, below.

II.

Prose Arrangement of Words. — This same principle of utility, or practical effect, pushed forward into the arrangement of words, identifies itself with the truth, already stated, that prose as straightforward discourse does not depart from the natural order of words. Liberties of arrangement, of course, are open to it, as great perhaps as to poetry ; but they are taken only for a reason which makes the new order, however unusual, for the time being the natural order.

The Rationale : Directness and Emphasis. — The practical object that dominates the order of a sentence is to steer its thought directly and without dislocation to its goal, and at the^saine time to put each word and clause in the position where they will emphasize themselves in the degree commen- surate with their intrinsic importance. If in any sentence this reason for a particular arrangement is not fairly traceable, the effect is either crude or artificial ; either the writer does not know better, or he is indulging some fantastic whim.

Note. — ^In the following sentence the inverted order of the verbs (the auxiliary before the subject) is not called for by any specially impassioned character of the thought ; and the effect is simply crudeness : " Indeed, in nearly all of George Eliot's novels can we trace in some character a like- ness to their creator ; in Gwendolen even has the writer infused, perhaps unconsciously, something of her own personality." — The slang exclamation " Right you are I " current a few years ago, owed its vogue to its fantastic change of order ; there is no other reason for it.

1 " Prose on certain occasions can bear a great deal of poetry ; on the other hand, poetry sinks and swoons under a moderate weight of prose." — I.andor.

114 , DICTION.

In poetry the exigencies of metre often necessitate arbitrary changes in the order of words. Objects are put before verbs and even before prepositions, verbs march freely before their subjects, and many other inversions equally violent pass unchal- lenged, the reader mentally translating the order of expression to the order of thought. . But in the finest poetic artistry even this amount of license is a suspect ; and the problem is either to keep it down to its lowest limits or to justify it by emphasis as well as by metre. The poems whose phrasing seems most monumental and inevitable move most nearly in the natural order. In prose such license does not weigh at all ; it is sim- ply turning the thought without reason out of its direct line. Inversions are, indeed, frequent in prose ; it is perfectly natu- ral to transpose words and clauses into almost any desired position ; but the change is made for one or both of two ends : to throw an element into a desired stress or emphasis ; or to group related ideas together, thus securing greater continuity in the movement of the thought to its goal.

Note. — In the well-known hymn of Cowper's,

" God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform,"

the second line has to be inverted for no other reason than the demands of accent and metre ; such Inversion would not be admissible in prose. To show, however, that such inversion is a necessity, by no means a requisite, of poetry, we might quote Wordsworth's

" She dwelt among the untrodden ways Beside the springs of Dove, A maid whom there was none to praise And very few to love " ;

in the three stanzas of which there is not a single violation of what would be quite admissible prose order.

For the Rationale of Inversion, see below, p. 276.

How Euphony ranks in Prose. — Euphony or smoothness of word and structure, dependent as it is on sound, is more

PROSE DICTION— STANDARD AND OCCASIONAL. 115

generally associated with poetry than with prose ; the latter, on its standard of utility, relying for all its processes on the requirements of the idea. The question of agreeable sound, then, cannot well come to the front until the claims of direct- ness and force, with all their practical problems of unambiguous- ness and stress, are satisfied. Just here a caution is needed, especially on the part of young writers. Passages that in the ardor of creation they compose with great though perhaps uneven vigor are apt to seem intolerably rough when they look them over in a more critical mood ; and so in revising they are liable to smooth all the life out of them. Here is a case where smoothness gets the whip hand ; and the probleiri^ of rhetorical art is to retain the life and vigor, which are essen- tial to the proper interpretative mood, and at the same time remove so much of the roughness as imports crude lack of skill.

There is a phase of euphony, however, which plays a large part in prose. It is that conformity of sound to some descrip- tive picture, or more inwardly to some sphere of ideas, which is shown in the key of words.' More striking still in poetry, this plays a part in prose all the more artistic because it has to be hidden and to a degree unsuspected. As soon as such subtle manipulation of phrase sets up for itself, the immediate effect is disenchantment ; the passage seems to have become effeminate. Let the idea dominate : its intrinsic vigor, its trenchancy, its rudeness, even its imaginative beauty ; and the resulting smoothness or ruggedness of the passage justifies itself. This is giving euphony its proper ancillary place.

III.

Prose Connection of Words. — As the quality of impressive- ness or force, whether of passion or imagination, dominates in

1 See above, p. 104 sq.

116 DICTION.

poetry, so tii£__dgminant and indispensable quality of_prosei_ whatever, else is secured or sacrificed, is clearness ; and to this end its texture must be a continuity, wherein all the relations of part to part are plainly recognized and marked. It is in the maintenance of this clear continuity of texture that the connection of words assumes an importance in prose, and a fine delicacy, beyond what it has in poetry.

Joints and Bridges in the Structure. — What poetry would often be free to omit, or leave the reader to supply, prose must be more scrupulous to express, namely the subordinate parts, the particles and phrases of relation which define the turning- points of the thought and which make the transitions from one stage or phase of the thought to another. There are thus at every step both a distinction and a continuity to be looked out for : the successive assertions both to be set apart from each other in parallel or subordinate or contrasted relation, and at the same time joined with each other as parts of one tissue and movement. If at any point these relations are not obvious, or not natural, the effect is that of a jolt or disloca- tion, and not infrequently some part may appear in false light or prominence.

Note. — To illustrate how much and what kind of material that may be absent from poetry must be present in prose, let us endeavor to express the thought of the following stanza from Browning, a stanza characterized by great condensation, in such prose as by the ordinary standard will be adequate to give the idea its requisite fulness : —

" ' Why from the world,' Ferishtah smiled, ' should thanks Go to this work of mine ? If worthy praise,

Praised let it be and welcome : as verse ranks, So rate my verse : if good therein outweighs Aught faulty judged, judge justly I Justice says :

Be just to fact, or blaming or approving :

But — generous f No, nor loving I '" 1

In changing this to prose, we must occasionally substitute a prose word or idiom, or a prose order, for the poetic. The added matter is put in

1 Browning, Ferishtah 's Fancies, xii.

PROSE DICTION— STANDARD AND OCCASIONAL. 117

brackets. " Why," [said] Ferishtah [with a] smile, " should thanks be rendered by the world for this work of mine ? If [it is] worthy [of] praise, let it be praised, and [the praise will be] welcome. [Let men simply] rate my verse as verse ranks. If [what is] good in it outweighs [what is ad-] judged [to be] faulty, [let them at all costs] judge justly. Justice demands [merely] that they honestly acknowledge [whatever is] fact, whether [in] blame or [in] approval ; but [that they should be] gener- ous? No; [it does not demand that], — nor [that they should be] lov- ing [either]."

Here it will be seen that the words to be supplied are almost exclusively particles, — that is, words and phrases of subordinate rank whose business it is to supply the joints and shadings and bridgings of the thought.

The Symbolic Element. — Apart from this distinction between prose diction and poetic diction, it is important here to take note of the two classes of words that make up the vocabulary of every language, — called by Professor Earle presentive and SYMBOLIC words.^ The presenjtive are ' those which by themselves present a definite concejftion to the mind ; such are nounSj_verbs, and in lower degree adjectives and adverbs. On these we depend for the body and substance of the thought. The symbolic words are those whichi by themselves contribute nothing to the thought, except as symbols of some presentive idea or of some relation between ideas ; such are pronouns, articles, prepositions, conjunctions. On these we ^d^end for well-nigh all that makes the thought over from a loose accretion of words to an organism.

It is evident, then, that the masterly management of the symbolic element is of unspeakable importance in the literary art. In the skilful use of this element lies the secret of fine- ness and flexibility of language. Symbolic words, in their endlessly varied offices of modifying, repeating, connecting, coloring the thought, are what make provision " for the lighter touches of expression, the vague tints, the vanishing points." Hence it is mostly by these that we estimate the efficiency of

1 Earle, Philology of the English Tongue, pp. 218 sqq. ; English Prose, p. 60.

1 18 DICTION.

a language as an instrument of thought. The ancient Greek language, for instance, universally accounted the most flexible of tongues in its adaptability to all intricacies of the idea, holds that position chiefly by virtue of its fine and copious symbolic element, its particles of relation and color.

The English language, from its lack of inflections, must be correspondingly more scrupulous in its words of relation. The syntax becomes more complex in proportion as the etymology is more simple ; and thus the art of building words together, so that order, relation, and modification shall be adequately provided for and managed, is that which, in Eng- lish, makes perhaps the most strenuous demands on the writer's skill. This is especially true of prose writing, wherein clearness is the paramount consideration : not only the words chosen, but whatever belongs to the consecution^ and mutual dependencies of the thought, goes to give complexity and interest to the problem.^

II. PROSE DICTION AS DETERMINED BY OCCASION.

Different occasions of composition engender different moods and forms of expression ; this is especially notable between spoken discourse and written. While a general body of stand- ard diction underlies both, the consciousness of the object in view and the particular occasion of utterance give natural rise to certain ways peculiar to each.

I.

The Diction of Spoken Discourse. — The occasion of speaking, exemplified most typically in oratory, as also the occasion of

1 " It is in the relation of sentences, in what Horace terms their 'junctura,' that the true life of composition resides. The mode of their nexus, — the way in which one sentence is made to arise out of another, and to prepare the opening for a third, — this is the great loom in which the textile process of the moving intellect reveals itself and prospers." — De Quincey, Essay on Language.

FROSE DICTION— STANDARD AND OCCASIONAL. 119

writing discourse for public delivery, gives traits of its own to the choice of words and to the general character and coloring of sentences, which need here to be noted.

The Nucleus of Literary Prose The standard with which

all_£rose writing begins is naturally and propetlyjcoiive^_; tioiij the spoken word^ Fundamentally literature is but the means devised for putting speech into permanent form, so that persons beyond the range of the voice and the limits of the moment may profit by it. Whatever refinement literature reaches, therefore, there still inheres in it as it were the vibra- tion of a voice, dictating, as a sound universal rule, to write as if speaking. That is, aim at the directness, the simplicity of structure, the buoyant life, that belong ideally to conversa- tion. If too great departure is made from this standard, the style becomes either over stiff or over dainty. There is a limpidness and at the same time a homely sturdiness in word and phrase, which cannot so well be imparted as by ^yriting with the presence of an audience in mind, and with constant thought of its capacities, its interests, its needs. This it is that keeps expression near enough the earth for practical comradeship.^

In the evolution of literary prose from conversation, the first step, common to spoken and written diction, is taken by becoming literary ; it has reached a stage of dignity and refinement beyond the merely colloquial. In so doing it has discarded what is merely of the day : the slang, the cant phrase, the vulgar smartness of the street ; and whatever rises from lack of disciplined thought : the halting inaccuracy and poverty of vocabulary, the bald crudity of phrase, and the disjointed chaotic sentences of heedless speech. Its words are weighed, sifted, selected; its assertions conscientiously

1 " Prose is the literary evolution of conversation, as Poetry is the literary evolu- tion of singing." — Earle, English Prose, p. 171.

2 See adjustment of style to the reader, p. 21, above.

120 DICTION.

faithful in emphasis and coloring to a truth; its progress moulded to an organic plan and current. This is true, or ought to be true, of the "most extemporaneous as well as of the most premeditated discourse ; it inheres with the primal literary quality.

The truth to be noted here is, that this is a virtue of writ- ing imported into speech. The diction of sppken discourse, in its evolution to the literary, profits thus by written diction. Here is a point where many public speakers have failed, or reached only a mediocre success : they have neglected the preliminary discipline. To gain control over public speech, to learn to express himself well on his feet, the speaker must both be constantly watchful over his everyday conversation and exercise himself much in writing. Only so can he make his tongue obey his will.

What the Occasion accentuates. — The occasion — direct appeal to an audience, with its variety of minds and of apprehending capacity — makes some characteristics of spoken diction imper- ative whose claim written diction does not feel, and at the same time grants some liberties denied to written discourse. TJie following, indicated in a general way, are the most salient of these.

r. The speaker must make his meaning intelligible at once, must arrest the attention and arouse the interest of his audience from the outset of his discourse, and not let that attention slip. He has only the single opportunity to make his impression, and everything must contribute to utilizing that.

To this end, the thought must be massed in short and direct sentences or sentence members, with plain grammatical struc- ture ; the points of emphasis must be strongly marked ; and often some pointed manner of expression, such as antithesis, epigram, strongly balanced clauses and phrases, or trope, may be employed to bring the thought out in bold relief.

PROSE DICTION— STANDARD AND OCCASIONAL. 121

In general, spoken diction calls for the more overt and clearly marked ways of expression.

Note. — This applies in a notable degree to the particles and phrases of relation, which, indeed, supply the place of an audible punctuation mark. Where, for instance, a w'ritten passage would employ the colon, spoken dis- course must often use " namely " ; and such expressions as " moreover," "in the next place," and the careful enumeration of points made or to be made are much more numerous and much more necessary in spoken than in written discourse.

2. The matter of spoken discourse is generally such thought as needs not only to be made clear to the mind but enforced in motive and conduct ; and in any case the speaker has to contend to a greater or less degree with inert or wandering attention.

In consideration of these facts the element of repetition plays a much more prominent part in spoken than in written dic- tion. All the important thoughts have to reappear not once but many times, according to their importance ; they must be reiterated, held up in different lights, subjected to various illustrations and elucidations, until they have impressed them- selves on the mind of every hearer.

Note. — Of coarse the problem is to repeat without seeming to repeat, to keep hammering at the same thought in such a way as to pound it in, yet not make it a monotonous iteration like the ding-dong of a bell. This important matter of Repetition is touched upon in various places; see especially under Shade of Meaning, p. 47 above, under Organic Processes, p. 302 below, and under Amplification, p. 465 below.

3. In conversation, from which public spoken discourse springs, there is a spontaneity, an extempore current, which public speech cannot safely forego. It will not do to let the sense of literary exertion iron it down into flat propriety and regularity, like a book; for then it is no longer speaking, but a recitation.

Accordingly, spoken discourse is naturally more irregular,

122 DICTION.

in structure and flow, than written. Declarative sentences are interspersed more freely with exclamation and interroga- tion ; trains of thought are sometimes suggested and left to the hearer to finish ; ellipsis of words or constructions is indulged in when the hearer can be trusted to supply the lack. All this, it need not be said, does not happen ; it belongs to speaking as an art.

Note. — The overt figures of emotion, which, as mentioned on p. 102, there is a tendency nowadays to tone down, belong more naturally to spoken than to written diction ; they answer to the more emotional and vivid nature of conversation, and they serve to bring out into relief effects which the allusive figures are too delicate to make impressive before an audience. It is a phase of the greater overtness and pointedness mentioned under paragraph i, above.

4. The vigor and vividness of conversation show themselves especially in the degree oi meaning in words ; there is a natural tendency to use expression stronger or more sweeping than literal sobriety will bear.'

Public spoken discourse, too, obeys the same tendency ; not in choosing words aside from the meaning, — which is inexcus- able anywhere, — but in pitching its expression in a more intense key, using words charged with a more absolute or extreme significance than can be brought strictly to book. This excess of vividness easily corrects itself in the occasion and object ; so that when the natural shrinkage is allowed for, the overstatement is not an over effect.

Note. — A notable example of this oratorical absoluteness or exaggera- tion occurs in the Gospels, where Christ says : " He that cometh after me and hateth not his father and his mother," etc., " he cannot be my disciple." Every one understands that this does hot enjoin hatred : it simply sets in strong light the supreme claim of discipleship and allegiance to Christ, as compared with any other.

Discourse written for Public Delivery Although the ideal of

spoken discourse is that its expression be extemporaneous, a

1 See above, p. 50.

PJiOSE DICTION— STANDARD AND OCCASIONAL. 123

large proportion of such discourse is, and will continue to be, written and then read or recited in public. With some literary tasks, as for instance public lectures, this is indeed almost a necessity ; and doubtless the temperament and habits of thought of a great many public speakers are such that they can represent themselves better by discourse read from manu- script than by purely extemporaneous utterance.

1. The difference between unpremeditated utterance and manuscript discourse is a difference not of arbitrary election merely but largely demanded by subject-matter. Where the endeavor is merely to set forth a plain proposition, with amplification of particulars, figures, anecdote, all the resources of expression needed can ordinarily be trusted to the inspira- tion of the moment. Where, on the other hand, the logical structure is close, the discriminations and colorings fine, the issues weighty, it is an advantage to commit the expression carefully to writing. Something therefore depends, for the settlement of this question, on the kind of thinking that the orator elects to do. The extempore kind is of course entirely worthy ; but many, committing themselves to it out of reluc- tance to undergo the labor of pen work, simply commit them- selves thereby to thin and sloppy habits of thought.

2. The motive for writing a public address beforehand is simply conscientious fidelity to a deeply felt truth, and the overmastering desire to put it in such words as the speaker can stand by. Many are the indignant denials on the part of public speakers who, carried away by the ardor of debate or interest, overstate their case or say what they do not mean. The manuscript speech furnishes a means of keeping within bounds.^

3. The thing most necessary to be remembered, and yet

1 " Do not think that I am speaking under excited feeling, or in any exaggerated terms. I have written the words I use, that I may know what I say, and that you, if you choose, may see what I have said." — Ruskin, Tvio Paths, p. 50.

124 DICTION.

oftenest disregarded, in such writing, is that its texture is pre- cisely that of spoken discourse. The quiet mood of the writer in his study must give way to the impassioned mood of the orator in the presence of his audience. Sentences must be simple and pointed ; the distance between pauses should be sh6rt ; the articulations of the thought should be vigorously marked ; and the hearer should not be made to carry a burden of thought in mind, waiting for its result or application. The same need exists for repetition and amplitude as in purely spoken discourse. The irregularities of style, and the exagger- ation due to intensity, while still perceptible and spontaneous, are naturally somewhat toned down, both on account of the subject-matter which this discourse- generally works in, and by the transmission through the process of writing.

Illustrations of Spoken Diction. — Two passages are here adduced to show the general texture of spoken diction and how it answers its occasion.

I. The first, from one of Cardinal Newman's sermons, in its simplicity of structure, brevity of sentence members, and skilful repetition and ampli- fication of thought, well illustrates the tissue of style suitable alike to extempore discourse and to discourse written for public delivery : —

" There are two worlds, ' the visible and the invisible,' as the Creed speaks, — the world we see, and the world we do not see ; and the world which we do not see as really exists as the world we do see. It really exists, though we see it not. The world that we see we know to exist, because we see it. We have but to lift up our eyes and look around us, and we have proof of it : our eyes tell us. We see the sun, moon and stars, earth and sky, hills and valleys, woods and plains, seas and rivers. And again, we see men, and the works of men. We see cities, and stately buildings, and their inhabitants ; men running to and fro, and busying themselves to provide for themselves and their families, or to accomplish great designs, or for the very business' sake. All that meets our eyes forms one world. It is an immense world ; it reaches to the stars. Thousands on thousands of years might we speed up the sky, and though we were swifter than the light itself, we should not reach them all. They are at distances from us greater than any that is assignable. So high, so wide, so deep is the world ; and yet it also comes near and close to us. It is everywhere ; and it seems to leave no room for any other world.

PROSE DICTION— STANDARD AND OCCASIONAL. 125

" And yet in spite of tliis universal world which we see, there is another world, quite as far-spreading, quite as close to us, and more wonderful ; another world all around us, though we see it not, and more wonderful than the world we see, for this reason if for no other, that we do not see it. All around us are numberless objects, coming and going, watching, working or waiting, which we see not : this is that other world, which the eyes reach not unto, but faith only." ^

■z. The second, from Charles James Fox, illustrates the impetuous, irreg- ular, intensified structure of extemporaneous speech : —

" We must keep Bonaparte for some time longer at war, as a state of probation. Gracious God, sir ! is war a state of probation ? Is peace a rash system .' Is it dangerous for nations to live in amity with each other? Are your vigilance, your policy, your common powers of observation, to be extinguished by putting an end to the horrors of war ? Cannot this state of probation be as well undergone without adding to the catalogue of human sufferings.' 'But we must pause!' What! must the bowels of Great Britain be torn out — her best blood be spilled — her treasure wasted — that you may make an experiment ? Put yourselves, oh ! that you would put yourselves in the field of battle, and learn to judge of the sort of horrors that you excite I In former wars a man might, at least, have some feeling, some interest, that served to balance in his mind the impressions which a scene of carnage and of death must inflict. If a man had been present at the battle of Blenheim, for instance, and had inquired the motive of the battle, there was not a soldier engaged who could not have satisfied his curiosity, and even, perhaps, allayed his feelings. They were fighting, they knew, to repress the uncontrolled ambition of the Grand Monarch. But if a man were present now at a field of slaughter, and were to inquire for what they were fighting — ' Fighting ! ' would be the answer ; ' they are not fighting; they are /a«««^.' ' Why is that man expiring ? Why is that other writhing with agony ? What means this implacable fury ? ' The answer must be, 'You are quite wrong, sir, you deceive yourself — they are not fighting — do not disturb them — -they are merely pausing ! This man is not expiring with agony — that man is not dead — he is only pausing! Lord help you, sir! they are not angry with one another; they have now no cause of quarrel; but their country thinks that there should be a. pause. All that you see, sir, is nothing like fighting — there is no harm, nor cruelty, nor bloodshed in it whatever : it is nothing more than a. political pause ! It is merely to try an experiment — to see whether Bonaparte will not behave himself better than heretofore; and in the meantime we have agreed to a pause, in pure friendship I ' And is this the way, sir, that you

1 Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. iv, p. 200.

126 DICTION.

are to show yourselves the advocates of order ? You take up a. system calculated to uncivilize the world — to destroy order — to trample on religion — to stifle in the heart, not merely the generosity of noble senti- ment, but the affections of social nature ; and in the prosecution of this system, you spread terror and devastation all around you." ^

It will be noted that the logical structure of this second example, which is very simple, consists mostly in ringing changes on the idea of pausing, and in supplying such descriptive amplification as suggests itself to an excited mind : a structure, therefore, well adapted to the purely extempore.

II.

The Diction of Written Discourse.- — As has been intimated above, writing is merely the permanent form given to what is fundamentally the spoken word. Its^ determining motive therefore is permanence. What is spoken is for the occasion ; what is written is for /all occasions. Further, modern times add another standard : what is "written, that is, as seriously meant literature, is for print. The marks and methods of printt apply also to the manuscript ; there is no more reason for the writer to neglect the conventional signs of print, or to devise methods of his own, than there is for him to translate oral discourse from speaking into singing. The motive of per- manence, with observance of the standards that represent permanent rather than temporary expression, is to govern him.

This engenders for writing a dominating mood of accuracy, — the desire to get the expression just right, beyond the need of revision or correction. Along with this mood goes undeniably a certain sense of formalism and dignity, different in degree according to the undertaking, from a descriptive sketch to a state document ; a mood to be watched and corrected by constant recollection of the primal standard, speech, and over- come in favor of a greater approach to the colloquial accord- ing as the sense of formalism tends to pass into the stiff and

1 Charles James Fox, Speech on Rejection of Bonaparte's Overtures, Select British Eloquence, p. 549. It is this edition that must be responsible for the punctuation.

PROSE DICTION— STANDARD AND OCCASIONAL. 127

pedantic. In the management of this quality is scope for the writer's skill and naturalness.

Distinctions from Spoken Discourse. — Three general charac- teristics may here be given, in which the differences between written and spoken discourse are marked enough to- affect the tissue of the diction : —

1. The prevailing mood of accuracy and form shows itself in the somewhat scrupulous tone of statements. The words chosen must express neither more nor less than the thought ; and often statements are guarded and qualified in order to be kept safe within the bounds of truth ; for the writer needs to say only what he can stand by, having no opportunity of oral explanation or correction.

Note. — This disposition to supply saving clauses and guarding modi- fiers may of course become excessive. ' It is softened and di^uised in the lighter forms of prose, as narrative and description ; but even in its disguised form an actual conscientiousness for the exact word and color exists and is traceable.

2. Writing, except when it imitates conversation, discards the contractions of unguarded speech, such as, don V, can 't, it V for it is, he 's for he is, he '// for he will, and the like ; not that these lack in correctness or even in dignity, but they connote a mood too informal for written literature. It also supplies particles where conversation is freer to omit them, and dis- cards many of the elliptical, inexact phrases used in speech.

Note. — In discourse written for public delivery, as, for instance, one of Professor Huxley's lectures, the conversational contractions are often retained in the printed edition, serving to limber up the somewhat abstruse subject-matter of science, and keep the style within hailing distance of conversation.

3. Writing is less varied in construction, and at the same - time more complex, than speech. Less varied, because it must keep, for the most part, to one tone of discourse ; it has not the impassioned occasion of speech ; hence interrogation,

128 DICTION.

exclamation, and other means of variety and vividness, instead of belonging to the genius of the style, are reserved for an occasional touch. More complex, because suspensive structure, long sentences and sentence-members, and involved modifica- tions of the thought can be more safely employed, since the written or printed page is there, to be studied at leisure.

Note. — The following sentence, in its complex structure and the length between joints, is an extreme of what is admissible in writing, and far beyond what is natural to a spoken utterance : —

" On her first arrival in Leicester, in a milieu, that is to say, where at the time ' Gavroche,' as M. Renan calls him — the street philosopher who is no less certain and no more rational than the street preacher — reigned supreme, where her Secularist father and his associates, hot-headed and early representatives of a, phase of thought which has since then found much abler, though hardly less virulent, expression in such a paper, say, as the ' National Reformer,' were for ever rending and trampling on all the current religious images and ideas, Dora shrank into herself more and more." i

Mechanical Aids to Written Diction. — One reason why spoken diction may be left less finished is that the speaker conveys his meaning not only by words but by gesture, expression of countenance, modulation of voice. All these written dis- course must forego ; but all these, so far as they are neces- sary to the thought, must be in some way represented. This demand gives rise to certain signs and marks of relation which, as they do not affect the articulation of the sentence,^ but merely modify the • stress and current of the style, need here to be mentioned. — ±. For increasing the stress of a word or clause the accepted

1 Mrs. WaiId, David Grieve, p. 165.

2 Printers' marks are of various orders. Some, as capitals, apostrophe, and elision mark, diaeresis, hyphen, and quotation-marks, belong to grammar ; they are no more a part of rhetoric than is spelling. Others, used for modifying the stress or coloring of a passage, belong to written diction, and are discussed here. Still others, the distinctive marks of punctuation, belong to the composition or articulation of the sentence, and will be found discussed in the chapter on The Sentence, pp. 325-334, below.

PROSE DICTION— STANDARD AND OCCASIONAL. 129

means is the use of italics, represented in manuscript by underlining. The custom of italicizing for emphasis is on the decrease, partly for the same reason that applies to excla- mation,^ namely, the prevalent tendency to subdue the signs of emotion, and partly because the skilful placing of words is more relied on to make important elements stress themselves. The effectiveness of an italicized passage depends largely on its infrequency ; the device is to be employed only for the exceptional occasions when the utmost advantage of position fails to give the word stress enough.^ A means of increasing distinction, more used by English writers than by American, is the occasional employment of a capital to begin a word not a proper name nor personified, solely to mark it as a car- dinal word in the passage. In this usage personal idiosyn- crasy plays some part ; Carlyle, for instance, employed this device incessantly.

Examples. — i. Of Italic. In the following sentence the first use of italics is for stress, the second to mark non-English words, as noted above, p. 59 : " His various and exotic knowledge, complete although unready sympathies, and fine, full, discriminative flow of language, fit him out to be the best of talkers ; so perhaps he is with some, not quite with me — proxime accessit, I should say." ^

, 2. For diminishing or otherwise shading the stress of a word or clause, several marks are used. — The marks of parenthesis () are used to inclose a subordinate phrase used for elucidation. This phrase occupies a plane of its own, and

1 See above, pp. 96, 102.

2 It will be recalled how Thackeray uses italicizing as a sign of vulgarity or lack of culture, in the letters that he makes some of his characters write ; see, for instance, Henry Esmond, p. 317. Hawthorne, it is said, detested the employment of italics for stress ; a feeling that we can well understand from the perfect poise and sanity of his sentences, — they do not need it.

3 Stevenson, Memories and Portraits, p. 277. In this whole volume, though Stevenson employs itaUcs more freely than is usually done for foreign words, titles of books, and quoted conversation, I can find no more than three or four clear cases of italicizing for stress.

130 DICTION.

is read aloud with an attenuated tone of voice. As paren- thesis is an interruption, the rule is to make it as short and light as possible ; it is poor form to make a parenthesis out- weigh the main assertion, or draw away attention from it. — Parenthesis is less used than formerly, its place being largely taken by the double dash, that is, a dash at each end of a clause or phrase, inclosing it much as do marks of paren- thesis. The inclosed matter is in fact a minor parenthesis, that is, used for a lighter touch and less of an interruption to the course of the sentence than the old-fashioned paren- thesis, — a sign, perhaps, of the more buoyant and delicately balanced diction that marks present artistry in prose. — As the double dash, like the parenthesis, marks the lowering of the plane and then the return to the former level, the single dash marks a similar sinking without return. It is used to set off sometimes a restatement with variation of form, some- times a sly comment by way of surprise. The use of the dash may easily become a disagreeable mannerism, producing a kind of jaunty, skittish effect.

Examples. — i. Parenthesis. "It is remarkable that this Evangelist (said to be anti-Jewish) has alone recorded our Lord's attendance at these feasts, and has used them as landmarks to divide the history." ^

2. Double Dash. " I have seen some Olivias — and those very sensible actresses too — who in these interlocutions have seemed to set their wits at the jester, and to vie conceits with him in downright emulation." ^

3. The Single Dash. For varied restatement : " Philosophy may throTi doubt upon such yearning, science may call it a dream ; but there is ir humanity what is above and beyond science — r the language of the heart, whose voice speaks in tones which echo through eternity." ' — For surprise " All this is excellent — upon paper. Unfortunately, we have always had a very efficient army upon paper," etc.*

1 Salmon, Introduction, New Testament, p. 318.

2 Lamb, Essays of Elia, On some of the old Actors. 8 Davidson, The Doctrine of Last Things, p. 130.

* The London Times, March 12, 1889. In writing this paragraph, and in adopt ing the quotations, use has been made of Earle, English Prose, pp. 103-109.

PROSE DICTION— STANDARD AND OCCASIONAL. 131

- 3. For securing differences in distinction and movement, the ordinary marks of punctuation are intensified or attenu- ated, commas raised to semicolons and vice versa, thus retard- ing or accelerating the current according to the sense to be conveyed. In a sentence of subordinate or parenthetical significance, punctuation is dispensed with or reduced to its lightest possible, in order that the thought may be rapidly traversed ; in a sentence of much importance every phrase may be set off by commas, or what would naturally require a comma may take a semicolon, in order that each detail may secure its due attention. It is thus that a strong individuality may be given to punctuation, so that it ceases to be merely mechanical and becomes an instrument of interpretation and shading.

Examples. — Compare the follovring two sentences from Huxjey. In the first he wishes to make every detail prominent : " Anything which pro- fesses to call itself education must be tried by this standard, and if it fails to stand the test, I will not call it education, whatever may be the force of authority, or of numbers, upon the other side." In the second he attenu- ates the punctuation of the parenthesis, striking out the comma that would naturally come in the middle: "The object of what we commonly call education- — that education in which man intervenes and which I shall dis- tinguish as artificial education — is to make good these defects in Nature's methods ; to prepare the child to receive Nature's education, neither inca- pably nor ignorantly, nor with wilful disobedience ; and to understand the preliminary symptoms of her displeasure, without waiting for the box on the ear." ^ In the part after the double dash the punctuation is very full : commas supplied at each small pause, and semicolons setting off phrases that some would mark with commas. This intensifying of the comma into the semicolon is very noteworthy in the following: " Some earlier and fainter recollections the child had of a different country; and a town with tall white houses ; and a ship." 2 It is evidently the writer's intentioh to make his reader stop and consider every detail.

1 Huxley, Lay Sermons, Addresses and Rerviews, pp. 32, 34.

2 Thackeray, Henry Esmond, p. 19.

132 DICTION.

III.

Manufactured Diction. — There remain to be noted some such special types as antique diction, foreigner's English, and dialect. All these are grouped under the head of manufac- tured diction because the composing of them has necessarily to be a tour deforce, a made product, like speaking in a for- eign language. The thinking is done in the writer's own tongue, and then translated into a medium more or less alien according to the less or greater thoroughness of his ante- cedent training.

The Preliminary Discipline It is important, therefore, to

insist at the outset upon thorough preparation for this kind of writing ; it must be the work of an expert, eliminating entirely the flavor of the manufactured article, and sounding like the spontaneous utterance of one to the manner born. A foreign language is mastered in its delicacy only in the country where it is native ; otherwhere it cannot get beyond the "scole of Stratford-atte-Bowe."^ Just so it is with these exotic kinds of diction. To an extent their words and turns of expression may be picked up, as it were, from the flotsam lying around loose ; but the real flavor comes only from long conversance, until thinking in that medium is the primary process. Used mostly for lighter purposes, for playfulness or humor, such diction exacts a discipline and special scholar- ship eminently serious and strenuous.

Note. — One of the most celebrated instances of success in an alien diction is found in Thackeray's Henry Esmond, which not only recounts a story, but reproduces the manner of speech of Queen Anne's time; and the enormous pains taken in preparation for the writing of it, in reading the literature of that period for years, until the writer's mind was saturated with its colorings and ways of thinking, is a matter of record.

The Usage portrayed. — What makes all this preliminary train- ing imperative is of course the demand of utter faithfulness

1 Chaucer's expression ; see Canterbury Tales, Prologue, 1. 125.

PROSE DICTION— STANDARD AND OCCASIONAL. 133

to the usages of the diction adopted. No amount of literary deftness can dispense with this, any more than a story or essay can dispense with correct grammar ; it is fundamental.

A word of remark may here be given about each kind of diction named above.

1. The antique comes from the study of some past usage or period of literary expression, like that of Malory's Morte Darthur, for instance, or the Bible. To be kept free from lapses of consistency requires not only the literary spirit which can move at home in past habits of thought and phrase but the sound philological knowledge- which can sepa- rate the strata of usage peculiar to the different ages and follow the analogies of form, derivation, and the like, charac- teristic of each period. Working in the antique is cheapened and vulgarized by the throwing about of catchwords like whilom, quoth, in sooth, yclept.; such relics of the "by my hali- dome " period of writing are nowadays beneath the dignity even of humor ; and this because the real proficiency is felt to be more a matter of flavor and texture than of single hard- used words. Imitation of biblical diction, inasmuch as the Bible is always with us a sacred possession, is hazardous, not to say a foregone failure, because if applied to thought less serious than that of Scripture it is necessarily a parody of what is most venerated, while if applied to solemn thought it runs the risk of being either artificial — which defeats its end — ;9r goody-goody.

Note. — The peril of an assumed diction of a past period arises from the fact that a very small slip will betray the manufacture and destroy the illusion, it will be remembered how Lowell pointed out to Thackeray the modem provincialism " different to " in Henry Esmond ; and how Ignatius Donnelly's Baconian cipher was discredited by the occurrence therein of the modern split infinitive.

2. The composition of foreigner's English — that is, of the lame articulation and uncouth idiom adopted by persons.

134 DICTION.

especially uneducated persons, to whom a foreign language is native — may, in the language of fire insurance, be marked "extra-hazardous." The conversance required is that of one •who is able to think at first hand in the foreign tongue, and who from this ability as a centre can look out through the peculiarities and limitations of articulation, the idioms, the general spirit of the language portrayed. There is not only a changed set of words in question, but a different approach to thought ; an American joke translated into German or German English would not be at all like German humor. The hardest yet the most indispensable thing in the representation of for- eigner's English is suffusing the whole tissue of the diction with the foreigner's natural mood. If this cannot be done, the foreign English is merely an empty shell of expression.

3. The same remarks apply to the writing of dialect, and a like conversance is required ; for this reason it is that novelists laying their scenes in a certain district take the pains of a long sojourn and acquaintance to work up what is called "local color," and still better it is when, as in the case of George W. Cable .and Ian Maclaren, a lifetime has been spent in contact with the people and the dialect portrayed. The mastery of a dialect comes from a systematic and sym- pathetic study of provincialisms, colloquial peculiarities, and traits of articulation ; in this way a language is worked up which can be traced in its entirety to no one person, perhaps, but which in general represents the usage of a whole region.

The Literary Shaping. — To say that the writer, in compos- ing the foregoing kinds of diction, must be faithful to the usage portrayed is to give only half his task. All these have to undergo a process of tohing-down and modification ; on the crude usage adopted there is superinduced a literary shap- ing, by which they are freed from what is unintelligible or estranging and adapted to present readers. This in .two ways. In the first place the diction in question is carefully

PROSE DICTION— STANDARD AND OCCASIONAL. 135

moulded to self-consistency ; it obeys its analogies and con- gruities, its laws of formation and taste, like a vernacular. Secondly, it is not carried to extreme. If a manufactured usage were absolutely true to the actual, reproducing all the pecul- iarities accessible, it would be neither pleasing nor artistic nor intelligible : the writer would simply be wallowing in dia- lect, as if that were his end. The value of these usages is merely as a flavor, "^ a means of coloring thought and giving some characteristic human quality. Accordingly, the literary shaping or workmanship leaves the usage just enough accen- tuated to suggest the desired flavor, while it leaves the senti- ment of the thought unimpeded. There is a delicacy about it, a refinement, which counteracts the native vulgarity or uncouthness : it is like displaying jewels in the rough, or like nature's noblemen expressing the sentiments of the court in the tongue of the multitude. Any such manufactured dic- tion, after all, is merely a means, not an end ; the moment it is employed /or its own sake, or in greater degree than is necessary for its end, it becomes unreal and tawdry.

III. MAINTENANCE OF THE TONE OF DISCOURSE.

This is an important matter, a general summing-up of artistic prose diction, which calls for the alert and cultivated literary sense.

I. To merit the name of diction, to presume on the suf- frage of a reader, the style must not content itself to be abso- lutely raw and pedestrian, however correct ; it must possess a dignity and distinction which will evince at least the writer's desire to please. The literary endeavor in itself produces a certain elevation of tone, a table-land of expression below which the conscientious writer will be careful not to fall.^

1 See Bates, Talks on Writing English, pp. 245-250.

2 " But, whatever becomes of details, the general requisite is that there must be something of elevation. There is a certain distinction of manner which cannot be

136 DICTION.

This noblesse oblige operates to prune away negligences, to make each phrase full and rounded, to induce a play of imagination and apt choice and urbanity which will make the reader aware at every moment that the writer values his good will. Thus in every well-meant discourse the key of words, as compared with colloquialism or dead reportage, will be high, will be mindfully self-consistent, will be watchful not to flat the note.^

Examples of Untuned Prose. — As an illustration of lack of tone and distinction, with a criticism upon it, the following is quoted by Pro- fessor Earle from the Saturday Review: —

"Notwithstanding the praise heaped upon them by Mr. Laing, these Sagas cannot be called a model of historical writing. Although occasion- ally picturesque and incisive, the style is, on the whole, bald in the extreme. Here is a specimen, taken absolutely at random, which sets out the history of a certain Halfdan : ' Halfdan was the name of King Eystein's son who succeeded him. He was called Halfdan the Mild, but the Bad Entertainer — that is to say, he was reported to be generous, and to give his men as much gold as other men gave of silver, but he starved them in their diet. He was a good warrior, who had been long in Viking cruises, and had collected great property. He was married to Hlif, a daughte^- of King Vestmara. Holtar, in Vestfold, was his chief house, and he die4 there on a bed of sickness, and was buried at Borro under a mound.' This kind of writing, although it has the merit of simplicity, when followed over an expanse of fourteen hundred pages, ends by confusing the mind."

2. In addition to this elevation incumbent upon all, every literary work strikes a certain keynote, elevated or colloquial or humorous or graceful ; and while it is often an elegance

defined, and yet is felt. It is a blending of modesty and dignity. It is the difference between presentable and unpresentable. Literary diction must not wear an appear- ance of slackness or negligence, it must not be in undress ; — it must not ignore the presence of the public before whom it appears. Without incorrectness or the break- ing of any rule, a sentence may betray a want of something, we can hardly say what, which makes it unsatisfactory, we can hardly say why. This is the defect which is vaguely characterized as 'bald.'" — Earle, English Prose, p. 173.

1 The key of words, as related to connotation and emotional congruity, has already been discussed; see above, p. 104.

FHOSE DICTION— STANDARD AND OCCASIONAL. 137

and advantage to rise on occasion into a higher strain, it is unfortunate to fall unadvisedly below the level adopted.

This is most noticeable when prosaic words and turns of expression creep into poetry. While prose, especially on im- passioned or exalted occasions, may easily rise into the poetic,^ as soon as poetry sinks, by as much as a single phrase, to the level of prose, the disenchanting effect is felt at once.

Example. — In the following stanza of poetry, none of which indeed is keyed very high, the prosaic tone and movement of the bracketed lines, as compared with the rest, are plainly felt : —

" So, from the sunshine and the green of love,

We enter on our story's darker part ; [And, though the horror of it well may move

An impulse of repugnance in the heart, Yet let us think,] that, as there 's naught above

The all-embracing atmosphere of Art, So also there is naught that falls below Her generous reach, though grimed with guilt and woe." ^

The fact that the vocabulary is in strata, lower and higher, and. that the congruous level must be maintained, is apparent when a slang or colloquial expression creeps inadvertently into a severe discourse, or when a very commonplace thing is said in a solemn way or vice versa ; it makes the literary sense at once aware of the claims of tone, of taste, of keeping.

Example. — In the following passage the objection to the italicized words is not that they are incorrect, but that they flat the note : " The task was indeed mighty, but Luther was a giant among men. Nor was his fatherland entirely out of sorts. The Ufe-lessons of Wycklifte and Huss had not been lost." '

A few years ago a very amusing little biography, written in English by a native Hindostanee, was published in Calcutta ; and the most ludicrous faults in its style were owing to the fact that the writer, having obtained all his words from a dictionary, had no sense of the difference of tone and spirit in different expressions. Words, idioms, proverbial expressions

^ See above, p. 113, footnote, and the chapter on Poetic Diction »low. 2 Lowell, A Legend of Brittany. 8 From a student essay.

4i<

138 DICTION.

belonging to the most curiously discordant strata of thought were junibled together. The following sentences will illustrate this : " His first business, on making an income, was to extricate his family from the difficulties in which it had been lately enwrapped, and to restore happiness and sunshine to those sweet and well-beloved faces on which he had not seen the soft and fascinating beams of a simper for many a grim-visaged year.'' "It was all along the case, Eind it is so up to this time with the Lieutenant Governors, to give seats to non-professional men (who are or were as if cocks of the roost, or in other words, Natives of high social status) in the Council." " He then came in his chamber to take his wonted tiffin, and felt a slight headache, which gradually aggravated and became so uncon- trollable that he felt like a toad under a harrow." ^

It is dne of the privileges of humor or of satire to lower the key intentionally, in some word or passage, thus by the connotation furnished by a different association infusing a passing shade of emotion — ridicule or contempt — into the idea conveyed. This is one of the refinements of litera- ture, pleasing y^ according to the good taste with which it is employed.

Example. — In the following sentence the writer's contempt is conveyed simply by choosing words out of a more rudimentary and sordid sphere of ideas than that in which the account would naturally move : " George III., who took a deep personal interest in the war, which, consciously or uncon- sciously, he felt to be the test of his schemes and the trial of his power, set his agents running over Europe to buy soldiers from anybody who had men to sell."^

This matter has already been discussed to some extent under the Key of Words; see above, p. 104.

1 Life of Onookool Chunder Mookerjee.

2 Henry Cabot Lodge, in Scribner's Magazine, April, 1898, p. 387.

V

♦

. \

v^

CHAPTER VI.

POETIC DICTION AND ITS INTERACTIONS WITH PROSE.

In our discussion of prose diction we have had in mind merely a form of expression. Its antithesis, then, as confined correspondingly to form of expression, is not poetry, but verse. Poetry is more than an antithesis to prose ; it includes not only form but material, mood, and thought. To this compre- hensive term poetry it is hard to get an exact antithesis ; the nearest, perhaps, is matter-of-fact, that is, practical knowledge or instruction, as distinguished from thought idealized by fancy and subjective feeling.

Between prose and poetry, then, there is a tract of common ground, left over after vetse has taken up as much of the anti- thesis as it can. On this tract there is tendency to incursion from both sides : prose occupying it in greater or less degree as its occasion becomes more like that of poetry ; poetry occu- pying it in the peculiarities of word and phrase by which both it and prose are vitalized. The result is, that while in the two kinds of discourse the bulk of usage remains identical, any access of poetic feeling in either shows itself in those ways of expression which we name distinctively poetic diction.^

1 " Prose is distinct from Poetry as the offspring is distinct from the mother. Their nature is one, but their functions apart. Both Poetry and Prose are children of ' Music' Both retain the virtue of their origin, and share in the family patri- mony. By the detachment of Prose, Poetry has gained increased elevation through limitation to her highest and truest province. Poetry has retained, not a// the Music, but only its mightiest department, the Music of the heart. The mind also has its Music, and that branch has fallen to the lot of Prose. So the nuisic of Prose is that which chimes with Reason, the music of Poetry that which haAionizes with hope and fear, with love and aversion, with aspiration and awe. Y^ Poetry and

139

140 DICTION.

Poetic diction is in part dictated by, or rather blends artis- tically with, the exactions of poetic metre, which latter subject will be discussed in the next chapter. Its principle, however, is more fundamental than this : it goes down to the mood, the feeling, that underlies expression, and that makes diction and metre alike its medium of utterance.

What Poetic Diction is. ^ — ^The motive of poetic diction is reducible to a single principle : spiritual exaltation. As poetry is the language of emotion and imagination, its verbal pecul- iarities answer to the spontaneous endeavor to make utterance more effective, in impressiveness or picturesqueness. In a word, poetic diction is heightened language, — the result in words of the inspiration that controls the poet's mind. Or to express it according to the more scientific conception required by a text-book of rhetoric, it is language so em- ployed and ordered as to connote fervid feeling and imagina- tive beauty.^

This elevated diction interacts with the diction of prose ; that is to say, when prose has an emotional or imaginative occasion it takes on very much the same peculiarities of expression, but with a difference, due to its different pre- dominance of motive. In prose the motive is practicaLand didactic, with spiritual exaltation as the helper.'' In poetrjL- the motive is fervid and ideal, with matter-of-fact as _the hglpetu. Naturally, then, in poetry itself the poetic diction is freer and bolder, has more the abandon of existing for its own sake ; while in any kind of prose, however poetic, the diction

Prose are not estranged, they are still akin, and neither is quite shut out from the heritage of the other. Poetry abhors unreason, and Prose clierishes right feeling." — Earle, English Prose, p. 330.

1 A poet's sense of the office of poetic diction is indicated in this couplet from Tennyson's poem, The Wreck : —

" The word of the Poet by whom the deeps of the world are stiir'd, he music that robes it in language beneath and beyond the word."

2 See thirillustrated above, p. iii.

POETIC DICTION— INTERACTIONS WITH PROSE. 141

must always be subdued enough to allow the practical motive to show through.

I. POETIC TRAITS IN POETRY AND IN PROSE.

In recounting these traits, we follow the stages of divergence from the language of common life, beginning with the charac- teristics least removed from didactic prose.

I.

Tendency to Brevity or Concentration In poetry and prose

alike, poetry only slightly predominating, the first impulse of heightened feeling is to hasten to the point of the idea, with as little impediment as possible. In order to this, the central attack is made upon the symbolic words,^ with the object of making these as light, as rapid, as little lengthy,^ as they will bear, so that more distinction may be left for the words of capital significance. Thus in the end this first impulse has to do with movement ; the vigor of its feeling infuses vigor into the sequence of words.

1. Omission of Symbolics When articles, relatives, and

conjunctions can be spared they are freely omitted. Such words, from their subordinate office, are necessarily unem- phatic, and if used with scrupulous fulness tend to drag the movement.

1 For the symbolic element of the language, see above, p. 117. — This means of condensation is defined and illustrated below, p. 295.

2 Here a distinction must be made. Lengthine;s in expression is not synonymous with length ; nor does poetry shun long words or long constructions in themselves. Take, for instance, this line from Shakespeare,

"The multitudinous seas incanjadine,"

and you feel no lack of poetic thrust in the long rolling words ; they help both metre and picture. Take, on the other hand, the word " indubitably," and you feel that its very movement is prosaic ; it would be hard to fit into a really poetic passage. The relation it denotes is not important enough to require so many syllables for expres- sion ; it uses up vocal force for nothing.

142 DICTION.

Examples.! — i. Omission of article : " When/^daywas gone " ; "Some :njury done to/^sickle,Aflail, or/\SCythe " ; " Not fearing toil nor/^length of weary days.'' — 2. Omission of relative : " Even if I could speak of. thingsy\ ;hou canst not know of"; "Exceeding was the love/^he bare to him." — 3. Omission of conjunction: " But/\Soon as Luke could stand."

The omission of the relative is less frequent in Wordsworth than in some others ; nor does he make any omitted or condensed construction /iolent. Compare with him some passages from Browning, with whom :he omission of the relative is so constant as to be a mannerism : —

" You have the sunrise now,AJoins truth to truth, Shoots life and substance into death and void,"

vhere the subject-relative is omitted ;

" Whence need to bravely disbelieve^report Through increased faith iny^thing/^reports belie,"

vhere the omission of articles and object-relative gives a decided impression )f forced concentration.

2. Abbreviation and Condensation. — This shows itself most itrikingly, perhaps, in the termination -/y of the adverb, which s so frequent in poetry as to be almost the rule. But in nany other words also, poetry chooses shorter forms both jy discarding terminations and by squeezing out interior syl- ables. Such abbreviation, being so generally necessitated by netrical exigencies, sounds affected and trifling in prose.

Examples. — i. From Michael: "The hills which he so oft had ilimbed " ; " When Michael, telling o 'er his years " ; " Ere yet the boy had )ut on boy's attire "; " Though naught was left undone "; " ''Twere better o be dumb than to talk thus."

2. From the general poetic vocabulary : scarce for scarcely ; list for isten; marge for margin; vale for valley; mount iox mountain; e'er and le'er for ever and never ; aye for ever in the sense of always ; save for ixcept.

The relation of such words to prose is defined above, p. 1 10.

1 In order more clearly to ascertain the natural stages of poetic diction I have tudied Wordsworth's poem Michael, a poem standing in style and subject at only moderate remove from prose ; and it is by citations from this work that the first wo main traits above given are exemplified.

POETIC DICTION— INTERACTIONS WITH PROSE. 143

3. The Possessive. — This form, which in prose is mostly confined to actual possession and to some few idiomatic expressions {e.g. the law's delay ; for brevity's sake ; a year's leave of absence), is more freely employed in poetry for the condensation it effects. It should be noted here, however, that there is at present a newspaper tendency to enlarge the use of the possessive (as e.g. "London's hospitality"; free- dom's opportunity) ; — a tendency to be watched, as it is not yet good literary usage, except for an obvious emergency.

Examples. — From Michael : " by the streamlet's edge " ; " with mor- row's dawn " ; " his Heart and his Heart's joy." All these would sound somewhat affected in ordinary prose.

4. Compounding of "Words. — Both in poetry and in prose, poetry taking the lead, there is a tendency to use the resources of the language in the interests of concentration by making compounds for an occasion. Carlyle was one of the greatest innovators of the century in this liberty of prose usage ; a freedom of his which brought against him the charge of Ger- manizing, though as matter of fact he was merely reviving an old usage of the language.'

Such coinage of compounds answers in audacity to the intensity of the thought, being more marked as the passion or picturesqueness is greater.

Examples. — • i. From Michael, which, it will be remembered, is pitched in a rather low key :" Surviving comrade of uncounted hours"; " Did overdraw large space beneath " ; " Brings hope with it, axiA forward- looking thoughts " ; " Turned to their cleanly supper-board " ; " With Luke that evening thitherward he walked." All these sound nearly as natural to prose as to poetry ; especially compounds in un-, as unwisdom, unfaith, unbosom, unman. See above, p. 67.

2. From poems of intenser sentiment. Shakespeare : " the always- wind-obeying deep.'' Tennyson : " love-loyal to the least wish of the king" ; "the peak haze-hidden." Swinburne: "Ye starry-headed heights"; "In

1 See Earle, English Prose, p. 205.

144 DICTION.

\he far-floated standard of the spring." Browning : " the cloud-cup's brim "; " yet human at the red-ripe of the heart."

From Carlyle's prose, passim : " Quivering agitation of death-terror " ; "grim fire-eyed Defiance"; "London and its smoke-tumult" ; "a heavy- laden, high-aspiring, and surely much-suffering man " ; " vacant air-castles and dim-melting ghosts and shadovirs " ; " the fever-fire of ambition is too painfully extinguished (but not cured) in the frost-bath of Poverty " ; "if not Religion, and a devout Christian heart, yet Orthodoxy, and a cleanly Shovel-hatted look."

II.

Partiality to Unworn Words and Forms. — A second tendency, decidedly more potent in poetry than in prose, is to seek words that are unencumbered with everyday and common- place associations, so that they may be more free to take the pure and undivided connotations required by the present work. Poetry is thus always searching for unworn material of expression ; it shuns conventional and stock phrases. This manifests itself in three main ways.

I . Archaisms An archaism (from the Greek a.pym,o<i, " old, "

" ancient ") is a word, or more commonly a form, older than current use, an expression that, though intelligible, is no longer employed in ordinary unemotional discourse.

The charm of a poetic archaism resides in the fact that it is, as it were, so old as to have become new again ; that is, it has passed on from its former everyday and vulgar associa- tions into a cleaner air, while in its survival it retains the savor and dignity of history ; well adapted, therefore, to serious poetry, which is quite generally set in a key somewhat more archaic than the usage of the present day.

Examples of Archaisms. — i. Archaic words and forms from Mi- chael. " Exceeding was the love he bare to him " ; '■'■Albeit of a stem unbending mind "; " We have, thou knowest, another kinsman." This last example, representing the pronoun of the second person singular and the old verbal forms in -est and -eth, gives an archaism very common, more the rule than the exception, in serious poetry.

POETIC DICTION— INTERACTIONS WITH PROSE. 145

2. The archaic savor of a whole poem, as dealing with an ancient sub- ject and sentiment : —

" There was a dwelling of kings ere the world was waxen old ; Dukes were the door-wards there, and the roofs were thatched with gold ; Earls were the Wrights that wrought it, and silver nailed its doors ; Earls' wives were the weaving-women, queens' daughters strewed its floors. And the masters of its song-craft were the mightiest men that cast The sails of the storm of battle adown the bickering blast." i

The relation of archaic language to ordinary prose work, both on its wholesome and its untoward sides, has been discussed above ; see p. 67.

2. Non-Colloquialisms. — The same search for the unworn leads poetry, and prose as its occasion becomes more elevated, to shun colloquial expressions.

A colloquialism belongs to ordinary states of mind ; it is unsought and unvalued expression, language as it were in undress. Poetry belongs to the region of the ideal, of the spirit ; it seeks, therefore, an unsullied, unmaterialized medium of expression.

Note. — This averseness to colloquial language shows itself in two ways : —

1. In an effort to find unhackneyed words for prosaic things; as in the following instances from Michael : " At the church-door they made a gathering for him " (instead of took up a collection) ; " where he grew won- drous ■iv^" (prose: made his fortune); "wrought at the sheep-fold" (the common preterite is worked ; this example is at once an archaism and a. non-colloquialism).

2. In the avoidance, or very sparing use, of conversational abbrevia- tions; as don't, can't, I'll, he'll, and the like. Poetry has grown more particular in this respect in the last century. It is noteworthy that the abbreviation 't is for it is, which is less used in ordinary prose and conver- sation than it 's, is correspondingly more natural as a poetic abbreviation.

For the relation of these colloquial abbreviations to written diction in general, see above, p. 127.

3. Influence of Poetic Setting It is not to be inferred from

what is here said that the language of ordinary conversation

1 William Morris, Sigurd the Volsung, opening.

146 DICTION.

is barred out from poetic uses ; the verse of Kipling and Eugene Field, of Will Carleton and James Whitcomb Riley would at once disprove this and dictate a broader standard. In humorous and folk-verse free use is made of colloquialisms, dialect, even slang; but in this case the poetic setting — metre, rhyme, and general spirit of the poem — supplies the imaginative atmosphere and removes the language in fitting degree from its ordinary associations.

Illustration. — In the following stanza from Kipling there is the cockney dialect, the colloquial swing, and the bad grammar; but it is poetry — of a sort — it is poetic feeling kept up by the lilt of the verse : — .

" We 're most of us liars, we 're 'arf of us thieves, an' the rest are as rank as can be, But once in a while we can finish in style (which I 'ope it won't 'appen to me). But it makes you think better o' you an' your friends, an' the work you may 'ave

to do, When you think o' the sinkin' Victorier '5 Jollies — soldier an' sailor too I Now there isn't no room for to say you don't know — they 'ave proved it plain

and true — That whether it 's Widow, or whether it 's ship, Victorier's work is to do, An' they done it, the Jollies — 'Er Majesty's Jollies — soldier an' sailor too ! " 1

III.

Language employed for its Picturing Power. — The language of poetry is the language of imagery ; that is, there is a con- stant effort to employ words and phrasing that shall have as much as possible of the vividness and concreteness of an object of sense. Prose obeys the same tendency, though in the two the motives differ. In poetry the significance of the imagery itself — its beauty, its connotation of ideal truths — is a motive ; and accordingly the imagery becomes the sub- stance of the thought, and is worked out seemingly for its own sake." In prose the motive is lucidity and concentration:

1 Kipling, The Seven Seas, p. 155.

2 " Imagery is sometimes not the mere alien apparelling of a thought, and of a nature to be detached from the thought, but is the coefficient that, being superadded to something else, absolutely makes the thought." — De Quincey, Essay on Language.

POETIC DICTION— INTERACTIONS WITH PROSE. 147

the picture is a shorthand illuminator of a thought that in literal language is felt to lack life. Picturing language is to prose like an illustrative figure ; to poetry a natural attire. In prose composition, therefore, such language, valuable as it is, must be kept soberly and judiciously in hand ; it may easily clog and overload the expression and produce the effect of display.

The following are the chief aspects of this use of language :

I. Epithet. — By far the most common way is to crowd the picture into single words, called epithets. An epithet may be defined as a descriptive adjective ^ ; that is to say, giving an attribute not essential to the understanding of its principal, but (as the derivation of the word, from ivi andTi^Tj/^t, "to add to," implies) added extra, in order to supply some descriptive or coloring feature. An epithet, from its brevity, is an instru- ment alike of imagery and vigor ; it involves in most cases the implicatory figure called Trope. ^

The following kinds of epithets may here be defined and exemplified : — •

I. By far the most numerous and natural are the epithets that answer most closely to the type defined above ; we may name them decorative epithets, epithets that add a coloring, a descriptive trait, to their principal. Distinctively a poetic feature, such epithets, from their lack of metrical suggestion, are also the most available picturing agency in poetic prose.^

Illustrations. — ■ i. The following stanza, from Keats's Lamia, will show by the words here italicized how rich- poetic literature often is in epithet, and how much of the coloring is added thereby : — ■

" Upon a time, before "Cat faery broods Drove Nymph and Satyr from Va&prosferous woods,

1 An epithet may also take the form of name or sobriquet, added for connotation of character; see p. 91, above.

2 See above, p. 87.

s Or prose of the imaginative type, concerning v/hich see below, p. 16S.

148 DICTION.

Before King Oberon's tright diadem,

Sceptre, and mantle, clasp'd with dewy gem,

Frighted away the Dryads and the Fauns

From rushes green, and brakes, and arwslifd lawns,

The ever-smitten Hermes empty left

His golden throne, bent warm on amorous theft :

From high Olympus had he stolen light.

On this side of Jove's clouds, to escape the sight

Of his great summoner, and made retreat

Into a forest on the shores of Crete."

vi. The following examples, from prose works, make us aware that we are reading prose of an exceptional kind, prose akin, in sentiment and feeling, to poetry. " With bossy beaten work of mountain chains " ; " mighty masses of leaden rock and heathy moor ; " are from Ruskin.l " They roamed the daisied fields together," is from George Eliot.

3. Such epithets may sometimes, by a license very rare in prose, be used without their substantives ; thus, Milton has " the dank" " the dry" for water and land. Sometimes also an epithet may be used substantively and be modified by a second epithet ; as, " the breezy blue," " the sheeted dead," " the dead vast of the night." Some stock expressions similar to these last examples have crept into prose, as, " Our honored dead," " the great departed."

2. A rather more artificial kind of epithets, and therefore more restricted to poetry, may be named essential epithets, epithets that merely express some quality already involved in the noun. ' Being so obvious, this quality might go unthought of if it were not thus brought out and made the character- giving quality of the passage. In the same class with these, as obeying a similar principle, may be mentioned conventional epithets, epithets employed as a constant accompaniment, a kind of trade-mark, of their nouns, without special reference to their fitness on any given occasion. This use is found in old and ballad poetry.

Examples. — i. Of Essential Epithet: ^^ Wet waves," "white milk," ^^ green pastures," " the sharp sword." " And he commanded them to make all sit down by companies upon the green grass," Mark vi. 39, is instanced

1 The longer passage in which these epithets occur is quoted as an illustration of the Imaginative Type of Prose, on p. 168, below.

POETIC DICTION— INTERACTIONS WITH PROSE. 149

as the language of an eye-witness, to whom the essential feature of green- ness was a vividly remembered characteristic of the scene. The essential epithet in " bright sword " is given on p. 1 1 1, above, as a means of making picturesqueness a part of prose expression.

2. Of Conventional Epithet. In Homer Achilles is always "swift- footed," when he is sitting in council or sleeping, as well as when he is running. So, too, we have " bright-eyed Athene," " white-armed Juno " ; as also in the early ballads and in poetry modeled on their style, " the doughty Douglas," " the bold Sir Bedivere " ; adjective and noun making one term indivisible for the purpose and tone of the poem in which they occur.

3. The kind of epithet most used in prose, and used rather for striking brevity than for picturesqueness, may be called the phrasal ox packed epithet ; an epithet that suggests what would require a phrase or sentence to express in full. It is a much valued means of packing language as full of implied thought as it will bear.

Examples. — In the following couplet,

" Even copious Dryden wanted, or forgot The last and greatest art, the art to blot,"

the epithet copious is equivalent to " though he was copious," implying that in his great wealth of expression Dryden could have afforded to strike out the poorer. passages, being able to supply their place with better. — In the couplet,

" Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain, Flies o'er the unbending corn, and skims along the main," —

the full sense implied in the epithet unbending is that the corn had not time, as she passed over it so swiftly, to bend beneath her. The deco- rative epithet swift, in the first line, has no such concentration of mean- ing. — The following, from Keats,

" So the two brothers and their murdered man Rode past fair Florence,"

derives its bold concentration from the fact that, as the context shows, the epithet means " whom they were about to murder," or, " murdered in anticipation."

2. The Adjective and Adverb in Prose Closely parallel to

the poetic use of epithets for their picturing power is the use of

ISO DICTION.

modifiers, the adjective and the adverb, in prose, for fulness of meaning and for roundedness of phrase. This is a feature of diction that needs the careful guardianship of sound taste, because while it has great capabilities it may be pushed into disagreeable effects equally great. It is for this reason that the useful but too sweeping advice has been given, "Never use two adjectives where one will do ; never use an adjective at all where a noun will do." Instead of taking up with this undiscriminatingly, it will be better to ascertain the good and the bad of the case.

On the one hand, it is the adjective and the adverb, most largely, that supply warmth, color, depth to the assertion ; to the austere outline of noun and verb they add as it were a wealth and amplitude of meaning which makes the sentence a thing of animation and emotion. Without these the style may easily become bald.^

On the other hand, these intensifying elements are the easiest to lavish ; and when used in profusion they may become a source of weakness, not aiding the assertion but swamping it with qualifications ^ ; besides, too, they may make

1 An example of a bald style is given above, p. 136. — See Earle, English Prose^ pp. 177-182, from which the following sentences may be quoted : " To write without adjectives may be a counsel of safety, but it never can lead to higli excellence. The utmost that can be attained without adjectives is correctness of outline ; there is no warmth, no colour, no emotion. . . . To allot adjectives rightly requires a good knowl- edge of the subject united with sound taste and literary judgment. Used under these conditions, they are among the smartest and most effective of the elements of lan- guage, and together with a richness of meaning they convey a warmth of feeling and a colour to the imagination which exceeds the power of either verb, substantive, or adverb."

2 For the obverse of this, see under Condensation for Vigor, p. 295, below. The foUovring is suggestive here : " Lord North . . . took occasion on the next day to express his assurance that Sir George had spoken in warmth. ' No,' said Savile, ' I spoke what I thought last night, and I think the same this morning. Honorable members have betrayed their trust. I will add no epithets, because epithets only weaken. X will not say they have betrayed their country corruptly, flagitiously, and scandalously ; but I do say they have betrayed their country, and I stand here to receive the punishment for having said so." — Tre vely.4n, Early History of Charles James Pox, p. 199.

POETIC DICTION— INTERACTIONS WITH PROSE. 151

the diction cheap and turgid by betraying on the part of the ■writer a crude bent for rounding out every phrase by balanc- ing words. This latter fault is especially noticeable when there is a manneristic tendency to use adjectives in pairs or groups.

Examples op Congested Adjectives. — The following is quoted by Professor Earle from Swinburne, " ratiier as a sample than as a modfel " : " The wildest, the roughest, the crudest offspring of literary impulse work- ing blindly on the passionate elements of excitable ignorance was never more formless, more incoherent, more defective in the structure, than this voluminous abortion of deliberate intelligence and conscientious culture." ^ — The following, from an article by the present writer, illustrates the disa- greeable effect of obeying a tendency to run adjectives into groups : " It will be the permanent distinction of this tranquil island home [Farringford] that from it radiated uplifting and upbuilding influences, to keep the mind of a restless and doubting age true to the purest and sweetest ideals.'' This ought to have been more carefully revised before it was sent to the editor.

3. Word-Painting. ^ — This mearis of poetic picturesqueness is much the same as the one already defined, employing epithet indeed as its chief resource; but to this it adds on occasion the picturing power of the verb and the noun, the descriptive beauty of imagery skilfully elaborated, and the harmonious flow of phrase. Thus language is employed as a painter employs colors and shading and lights, in the interests of vivid realization ; striving thus for what Milton names as a necessary quality of poetry, that it should be " sensuous." ^

EXAMPi-E. — The following, from Tennyson's Lotos Eaters, is a good representative of that early period of his poetic career when he was under- going his apprenticeship in the picturing power of words : —

" ' Courage I ' he said, and pointed toward the land, ' This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon.' In the afternoon they came unto a land In which it seemed always afternoon. All round the coast the languid air did swoon, Breathing like one that hath a weary dream. Full-faced above the valley stood the moon ;

1 Earle, English Prose, p. 1 79.

2 " Simple, sensuous, impassioned," is Milton's specifitation of qualities.

152 DICTION.

And like a downward smoke, the slender stream Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem.

A land of streams ! some, like a downward smoke,

Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go ;

And some thro' wavering lights and shadows broke.

Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below.

They saw the gleaming river seaward flow

From the inner land : far off, three mountain-tops,

Three silent pinnacles of aged snow,

Stood sunset-fiush'd : and, dew'd with showery drops,

Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse."

In these stanzas we notice : (i) Epithet, — " languid air," " weary dream," " slumbrous sheet," " sunset-fiush'd," " shadowy pine " ; (2) Picturing verbs, — "will roll us," "did swoon," "to fall and pause and fall," " up- clomb " ; (3) The flow and sound of words, — " In which it seemed always afternoon," " slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn," " rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam " ; (4) All the pictures, of the heavy air, of the slender waterfalls, of the moonlit scenery, are elaborately wrought.

4. Polarized Words. ■ — • This name may be applied to words used in senses strikingly different from their current accepta- tion. Two ways of polarizing words may be mentioned : one, not uncommon even in poetic prose, by using words out of their speech-part-ship — nouns as verbs, epithets coined from nouns, and the like ; — another, too daring to sound natural anywhere but in poetry, by forcing the sense back toward the original derivation,^ securing thus a kind of esoteric meaning appreciable only to those whose sense of words is educated and fine.

Examples. — i. Of Polarized Speech-part-ship: "the daisied fields" (see p. 143, above) ; " the zoned iris of the earth." From Lowell's Legend of Brittany :

" on it rushed and streamed And •wantoned in its might "...

" Meet atmosphere to bosom that rich chant "...

" which sank ahyssed In the warm music cloud."

1 " It is doubtless the privilege of a poet to force a word back along the Une of its own development, in the direction of its etymology or of primitive usage." — S. H. Butcher.

POETIC DICTION— INTERACTIONS WITH PROSE. 153

2. Of Polarized Usage. From Tennyson's Love and Duty : —

" Live — yet live — Shall sharpest pathos blight us, knowing all Life needs for life is possible to will — Live happy."

Here " pathos " is used in the old Greek sense of suffering. From Tenny- son's Gareth and Lynette: —

" not that tall felon there Whom thou by sorcery or unhapfiness Or some device, hast foully overtljrown," —

where " unhappiness " is used in the sense of unlucky hap or accident. From Bryant's The Past : —

" They have not perished — no ! Kind words, remembered voices once so sweet,

Smiles, radiant long ago, And features, the great soul's apparent seat."

Here the word " apparent " has not its usual sense of seeming ; it means rather making appear or be evident.

An example from Charles Lamb will show how estranging this forcing of usage is in prose. " While childhood, and while dreams, reducing \i.e. bringing back] childhood, shall be left, imagination shall not have spread her holy wings totally to fly the earth." This cannot be quoted as a model even from Lamb ; its justification in him, if it has any, is due to that " self- pleasing quaintness " which was his avowed idiosyncrasy.

IV.

Language employed for Qualities of Sound. — Just as, with ref- erence to the sense of sight, the language of poetry is distinc- tively the language of imagery, so, with reference to the sense of hearing, poetry is more canorous, more susceptible to the musical capabilities of language, than is prose. This is funda- mental. The determining forms of poetry, metre and rhyme, are themselves based on articulate sounds ordered and recur- ring ; but also, far beyond these exactions of form, poetry evolves a diction wherein to great degree the subtle relations of sound are employed as in a musical instrument, making a fit setting for the beauty and harmony of the idea. Prose also, with its utilitarian motive, has its ways of obeying the

154 DICTION.

same dictates of sound, though the results are more hidden. In fact, the difference between prose and poetic diction as regards sound is so truly a mere difference of degree rather than principle that their interactions come into plain view at every point.

Each of the aspects here given, then, will be examined in its application first to poetry and then to prose ; that is to say, first in the aesthetic sense which inspires it, then in the prac- tical claim which makes it universal.

I. Euphonious "Words and Combinations The craving for

euphonious sounds manifests itself positively in poetry, in the treatment of proper namesj and in the choice, where alterna- tive forms of a word are available, of the smoother form. A striking instance of this is seen in the fact that countries have their poetic as well as their prosaic names, — names adopted largely for their romantic and unworn associations, but also indicating by their form that considerations of euphony were prominent.

Examples. — •• Albion " for England, " Erin " or " the Emerald Isle " for Ireland, " Helvetia " for Switzerland, " Caledonia " for Scotland, " Co- lumbia " for America.

The poets Milton and Tennyson, both consummate artists in sound, are especially worthy of study for their euphonious management of word and phrase. Tennyson, in the epilogue to the Idylls of the King, changes the name Malory to Malleor, probably the better to satisfy his ear. Probably the same motive led him to discard the old name Nimue, which at first he adopted from the legends, and to substitute the name Vivien. Milton's ear was very sensitive to delicacies of sound ; he has " ammiral " for admiral, " Chersoness " for Chersonese, " Oreb " for Horeb, " Chemos " for Chemosh, and many more. His lists of geographical names read like a study in musical articulation ; note, for instance, the following : —

" From Arachosia, from Candaor east. And Margiana, to the Hyrcanian cliffs Of Caucasus, and dark Iberian dales ; From Atropatia, and the neighboring plains Of Adiabene, Media, and the south Of Susiana, to Balsara's haven." 1

1 Milton, Paradise Regained^ Book iii, 11. 316-321.

POETIC DICTION— INTERACTIONS WITH PROSE. 155

In prose, euphony is a more negative quality,' being con- cerned with keeping the diction clear from the jolts and harshnesses which when present draw away the reader's atten- tion from the thought to infelicities of form. Such infelicities are inadvertent ; they have to be remedied, therefore, by con- stantly subjecting the work to the test of reading aloud, or better, by cultivating the habit of mentally hearing whatever is written. It is thus that the ear justly becomes, in a very important sense, the arbiter of style.^

Accordingly, a careful writer will be on his guard against sounds hard to pronounce together or making a harsh combi- nation. When for the sense a harsh-sounding word must be adopted, special care should be devoted (unless for descriptive effect it is advisable to continue the harshness) to relieving the difficulty of articulation by the choice of accompanying words.

Examples. — i. As an illustration of the contrast between harsh and euphonious language, compare the line,

" 'T was thou that smooth'd'st the rough rugg'd bed of pain,"

with these well-known and well-beloved lines of Wordsworth's : —

" Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean, and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man."

It would be useful to take note of the constant variation in consonant and vowel sounds, and the ease of utterance.

2. A common clash is where the end of one word and the beginning of the next have the same sound. In such common expression as " He

J For the relation of this negative quality of Euphony to Beauty in Style, see above, p. 38.

2 See under Spoken Diction, p. 119, above. — "Although.it is true of the great bulk of all prose writing that it is produced by a writer who writes in silence to be perused by readers who read in silence, yet it is also true at the same time that it contains a voice, and that the sound of it is essential to its quality and a chief ele- ment in its success. The reader not only sees, but consciously or unconsciously he also hears ; and it is upon the latter sense that his perception of harmony and much of his pleasure are based." — Earle, English Prose, p. 314.

156 DICTION.

wished to go," " I should have liked to do it " there is a harshness of sequence that a good ear is reluctant to tolerate. Of the line in In Memo-

riam, XL. 5,

" In such great irffices as suit The full-grown energies of heaven,"

Tennyson in later life remarked: " I hate that — I should not write so now — I 'd almost rather sacrifice a meaning than let two s's come together." If this is a somewhat exaggerated judgment, it at least shows Tennyson's keenness of ear.

3. Some words, in themselves harsh, cannot well be avoided ; as, inex- tricable, pledged, adjudged, fifthly ; but when combinations of such words occur the harshness is intolerable. Try, for instance, such combinations as stretched through ; high-arched church ; an inexplicable expression ; an inner indication. — A similar harshness is incurred in a series of unac- cented short syllables ; as in primarily, peremptorily, ctlrsorily, l&wlily, stdtelily. — The .adverbial termmation in -ly needs watching, especially where two adverbs come together ; as, " On the contrary, it is only com- paratively recently that it was distinctly seen or apprehended." ^

2. Sounds in Sequence and Repetition. — Here we reach the ways of ordering sounds which, as they almost necessarily connote the imaginative sense peculiar to poetry, are in prose suitable only to certain impressive and exceptional effects. The chief of these are alliteration, assonance, and rhyme.

Alliteration is the name given to a near recurrence of the same initial sound. It is a very spontaneous device in English ; the early poetry of the language was all alliterative, and no doubt the tendency lives in the genius of the literature. In later verse, however, it is kept unobtrusive, as a half-hidden music in the structure of the verse.

Example. — It may be interesting to compare a passage of the old alliterative verse with the refined alliterative expression of our day. The follovnng is from The Vision of Piers the Plowman : —

" In a jomer jeson* whan Joft was the jonne, I jAope me in jAroudes' as I a jAepe were. In ^abite as an //eremite* vnAoly of workes, PKent wyde in this world- wondres to here."

1 Example cited from Earle, English Prose, p. 318.

POETIC DICTION— INTERACTIONS WITH PROSE. 157

It will be seen here that a new alliterative scheme is adopted for each line, and that the alliteration in each line is centered on the important words on each side of the caesura. With this compare the following stanza, very elaborate but not so obviously artificial, from Swinburne : —

" When the hounds of spring are on winter's traces, The mother of »zonths in meadow or plain Fills the shadows and windy places With /isp of /eaves and ripple of rain ; • And the ^rown bright nightingale amorous Is half assuaged for Itylus For the Thracian ships and the/oreignykces, The tongueless vigil, and all the pain."

Here the second line quite recalls the old alliterative principle, and the fourth line gracefully combines two schemes ; but otherwise the alliterative tune is irregular.

Assonance is the name giyen to a recurrence of the same vowel sound, irrespective of the consonantal setting in which it is found. It is not used as a prescribed principle in modern verse-building ; though the delicate echoing, as well as varia- tion, of vowel sounds has much to do with the felt but unde- fined music of the diction.

Illustration. — An overt assonance is not wholly agreeable to the ear because it sounds so like a crude attempt at rhyme ; as,

" The groves of Blarney They are so charming."

And yet the fact that the predominating vowel scheme gives a distinct col- oring to the passage makes the observance of vowel sounds an important artistic element. We can easily detect this in the following, which the assumptive author is represented to have

" Read, mouthing out his hollow oes and aes, Deep-chested music, and to this result."

What he read was Tennyson's early poem Morte D'Arthur, the first two lines of which already set the pace in strong vowel sounds : —

" So all day long the noise of battle roll'd Among the mountains by the winter sea."

158 DICTION.

Rhyme is the recurrence of similar sounds at the ends of lines or at corresponding parts of lines. It is the prevailing principle, in modern poetry, of couplet and stanza structure. It is sometimes used, as a kind of word-play, in the body of the verse, as well as at the end ; in which case it becomes an adjunct rather of sense than of form.

Illustration. — Rhyme in poetry is so universal that, it needs no exemplification here. The way rhyme may be introduced into the body of a verse may be illustrated by the following, from Browning : —

" How sad and bad and mad it was — But then, how it was sweet I "

or the following, from Swinburne : —

" All the reefs and islands, all the lawns and highlands, clothed with light, , Laugh for love's sake in their sleep outside ; but here the night speaks, blasting Day with silent speech and scorn of all things known from depth to height."

In Tennyson's

" Airy, fairy Lilian, Flitting, fairy Lihan,"

the alliteration and word-play become so prominent as to suggest artifici- ality ; perhaps the poet's idea is to describe by the character of the lan- guage a butterfly lightness of character.

In Prose Diction. — In prose these recurrent sounds may produce quite opposite effects, according to the skill or lack of skill evinced.

When a rhyming word slips in unnoticed, or when the same word or sound keeps recurring, it is a blemish from its obvious heedlessness, and by as much as it makes the reader aware of defective form it detracts from the full operation of the thought. Accordingly, as a matter of practical euphony, the writer needs to be on his guard against repetition

of the same word,

of the same sound,

of the same sort or size of word :

POETIC DICTION— INTERACTIONS WITH PROSE. 159

this last referring to excessive use of words of like length or of similar terminations. Words in -ation are liable thus to make jingles with each other ; and when a number of them are necessary to the sense it is useful to see to it that they do not fall at related pauses or in parallel grammatical construction.

Examples of Inadvertent Rhyme. — "As I gazed upon the mighty work, I said to myself, ' Now Athens is indeed secure ; come Greek or come Persian, nothing will subdue her.' " 1 The effect of this is enhanced by the fact that the rhymed words both fall in pause. " To lose oneself in its swift and splendid action is to keep company with brave human souls, to deal with life at first hand, to act without the paralysis of too much analysis, to suffer without weak and cowardly complainings, to die as men ought to die — in resolute endeavor to do the best with conditions as they are." — " There is an ordinance of nature at which men of genius are perpetually fretting, but which does more good than many laws of the uni- verse that they praise ; it is, that ordinary w^omen ordinarily prefer ordinary men."

But while on the one hand prose has to steer itself clear of such heedless lapses, and to be too serious for mere word-play and trifling, on the other hand it may, on occasion, employ these devices of sound, alliteration and rhyme, in a strictly utilitarian way. In the impression of a thought descriptively, or in an aphoristic summary of truth, these adjuncts of sound become a natural aid to attention and memory. It is for this reason that we find them freely used in maxims, proverbs, and folk-phrases ; they are like an application of poetic diction to common life.

Examples. — In the following, from Thackeray, the alliteration greatly intensifies the description, as well as its connotation of contempt : " What muscle would not grow flaccid in such a life — a life that was never strung up to any action — an endless Capua without any campaign — all/iddling, and /lowers, and /easting, and /lattery, and /oily ?"" In the following

1 For the relation of these recurrent sounds to Beauty, see Euphony, on p. 38, ■ above. ^ TnkcmntLfC^, Four Georges: George IV.

160 DICTION.

the touches of rhyme serve much the same purpose : " But the faultless frame remains frigid and rigid: form without soul, a body still lacking the breath of life. " i — " Whether it is a tale he is telling, or a drama with its jwift, jharp dialogue, or an essay rambling and ambling skilfully to its unseen end, the style is always the style of a man who has learnt how to make words bend to his bidding." ^ — "With bell 2caA belloio he could be heard last winter vociferating from a conspicuous street comer."' The following illustrates the use of rhyme in a folk-phrase : "A very large fall of timber, consisting of about one thousand oaks, has been cut this spring in the Holt forest : one-fifth of which, it is said, belongs to the grantee, Lord Stawell. He lays claim also to the lop and top ; but the poor of the parishes of Binsted and Frinsham, Bentley, and Kingsley assert that it belongs to them, and assembling in a. riotous manner, have actually taken it all away." *

3. Onomatopoetic "Words and Phrasing In poetry and prose

alike, as the vivid realization of things quickens the descriptive impulse, much of the language is employed as a vocal echo to the sense ; though poetry is more sensitive and flexible in this respect than prose. This characteristic, attained partly through the rhythm and partly through the articulate sounds, is the secret of much of its power in word-painting, already described. The subject of the harmony of sound and sense is too broad and detailed to allow more than an outline here.

Very natural in poetry, first, is the impulse to make vocal sounds reproduce the movements and sounds of nature.

Examples. — The classic example from Virgil, " Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum," imitative of a horse's gallop, will occur to every one ; as also Pope's Alexandrine, " Which like the wounded snake, drags its slow length along." In the following, from Tennyson, the conso- nant combinations sir and si, which must be pronounced somewhat slowly, are employed to denote slowness and reluctance of movement : —

" So strode he back slow to the wounded king." 6

1 Lord Lytton in Forinigktty Review, Vol. xli, p. 718.

2 Matthews, Aspects of Fiction, p. 136, 8 The Youth^s Companion.

4 White's Natural History of Selbornc, p. 27. 6 Tennvsou, Morte VArtAur.

POETIC DICTION— INTERACTIONS WITH PROSE. 161

Quickness and life are expressed in the following by a change of rhythm from an iambus to a tribrach : —

" Then would he whistle rapid as any lark." 1

The following is a striking imitation of a heavy sound echoing among rocks : —

" He spoke ; and, high above, I heard them blast The steep slate-quarry, and the great echoyfrt/ And buffet round the hills, from bluff to bluff P 2

Poetry may be equally felicitous, secondly, in making com- binations of vocal sounds portray states of mind, states of nature, or general characters of combined events. This has its large application in the whole key or color-scheme of a poem, to an extent which makes the poet's art the most deli- cate in the world ; here we can only indicate the beginning of it as seen in single lines.

Examples. — In the following, a general desolation, both of mind and Weather, is indicated by " the harsh sibilants in the third line, and the inten- tionally hard alliteration and utter want of rhythm in the last line " : —

" He is not here ; but far away The noise of life begins again. And ghastly thro' the drizzling rain On the bald street breaks the blank day." s

A line without rhythm is similarly employed by Milton to portray the swift and utter rout of the rebellious angels : —

" headlong themselves they threw Down from the verge of heaven :. eternal wrath Burnt after them to the bottomless pitP 4

In prose this answer of sound to sense shows itself in the choice of descriptive words,' and in the spontaneously rapid

1 Tennyson, Gareth and Lynette.

2 lb., The Golden Year.

3 lb., In Memoriam, VII. 3. See Genung, Tennyson's In Memoriam : a Study, p. 109.

* Milton, Paradise Lost, Book vi, 11. 864-866.

5 For the relation of this to Harmony, see above, p. 39.

162 DICTION.

or slow movement of descriptive passages. In passages not predominantly descriptive, too, the occasional use of such a word as a " beacon-word " ' does much to enliven the style and keep imagination active. A large proportion of the vocabu- lary is at disposal for such effects, in the hands of one who realizes vividly; and these onomatopoetic words are at once the most striking and the most precise.^

Illustrations. — Such words as buzz, whizz, whack, plump, pell-mell, hurly-burly, hullabaloo, will occur to the reader as representative of multi- tudes of such words. The difference between these descriptive words and others may be seen in alternative expressions of the same idea. Compare, for instance, " The water was boiling, and threw up a great fountain from Its midst," with " The spray was hissing hot, and a huge jet of water burst up from its midst." Notice how much more vividness there is in " He plunged into the river," than in " He threw himself into the river " ; in " The horse rushed galloping down the road," and " The horse came quickly."

Observe what descriptive power the italicized words have in the follow- ing : " The hurricane had come by night, and with one fell swash made an irretrievable sop oi everything." ' In the following sentences can be felt the movement as well as the descriptive words : " Long before the sound of the report can roll up the river, the whole pent-up life and energy which has been held in leash, as it were, for the last six minutes, is loose, and breaks away with a bound and a dash which he who has felt it will re- member for his life, but the like of which, will he ever feel again .■" The starting-ropes drop from the coxswain's hands, the oars flash into the water, and gleam on the feather, the spray flies from them, and the boats leap forward." *

1 For beacon-words, and the use of Alienisms as such, see above, p. 60.

2 " Such is the nature of language that, if the best possible word be chosen, it will often prove to be one of this description. This choice of the best word means pre- cision, and hence the effort to be precise will often lead to excellence of another and very different kind." — De Mille, Elements of Rhetoric, p. 273. — "Words are available for something which is more than knowledge. Words afford a more deli- cious music than the chords of any instrument ; they are susceptible of richer colors than any painter's palette ; and that they should be used merely for the transpor- tation of intelligence, as a wheelbarrow carries brick, is not enough. The highest aspect of literature assimilates it to painting and music. Beyond and above all the domain of use lies beauty, and to aim at this makes literature an art." — Higginson, Atlantic Essays, p. 28.

8 Caby.^, Old Creole Days: PossonJone\

* Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxford, Chap. xiii.

POETIC DICTION— INTERACTIONS WITH PROSE. 163

II. THE APPROACHES OF PROSE TO POETRY.

It has been pointed out that in the endeavor to maintain a properly elevated tone of discourse prose will better bear poetic touches than poetry will bear prosaism.^ We may carry this a step farther and say that prose itself, as it becomes more artistic, is continually trying to escape from prosaism, to take on elements of lightness, buoyancy, life, interest, to be more than mere sermo pedestris, discourse plodding along on fogt. There is evident in it, in all but the most commonplace duties, a longing for something of the winged grace which is the native movement of poetry.

This is not a mere instinct of workmanship, or idle desire to make diction. No genuine distinction of style rises in this way. Its roots are deeper, in the intense identification of the soul with the subject. As soon as men are concerned with a subject beyond mere reportage or scientific information they become excited, a new glow and warmth enters their speech ; and as this excitement rises from the same causes that give vitality and technic to poetry — namely, fervid emotion and realizing imagination — the effects are analogous in the dic- tion ; that is, according to its exciting occasion, the diction of prose approaches to the diction of poetry. ^

Three general types of prose diction may thus be distin- guished, according to their progressive relation to poetry ; to some one of which types any literary work in prose is to be more or less predominantly .referred. These three types, it will be seen, approach poetry by the way of the three funda- mental qualities of style, clearness, force, and beauty ; arising

1 See above, p. 137. Distinguish between prose and prosaism.

2 " Poetry is the greatest of all sources for inspiring prose with new vitality. Prose is born of conversation, but it is enlivened and invigorated by poetry. Only then the nutritive elements, which prose draws from poetry, must for the most part be digested and assimilated, they must not remain in their elemental state of mani- fest poetry, they must be transformed into prose." — Earle, English Prose^ p. 161.

164 DICTION.

indeed from much the same impulse that makes each of these in turn the controlling quality of the diction.

The Intellectual Type. — So we may name the first type, as addressing itself supremely to the understanding, with its dominant requirements of clear thinking and ordered presen- tation, and holding the language of emotion or imagination secondary. It is the fundamental type of prose ; given here not so much to illustrate in itself the approach of prose to poetry as to define the neutral matter-of-fact plane of expres- sion from which such approach is made, and to complet.e the classification of types.

In the following passage, from Southey's Life of Nelson, the task of the writer is simply to give information, in the plainest language, of an event. No effort is made to excite interest, or to vivify by poetic devices; the interest is taken for granted, and the author need not display his feelings in order to prove the importance or beauty of the scene.

" It had been part of Nelson's prayer that the British fleet might be distinguished by humanity in the victory he expected. Setting an example himself, he twice gave orders to cease firing upon the Redoubtable, suppos- ing that she had struck, because her great guns were silent ; for, as she carried no ilag, there was no means of instantly ascertaining the fact. From this ship, which he had thus twice spared, he received his death. A ball fired from her mizzen-top, which in the then situation of the two vessels was not more than fifteen yards from that part of the deck where he was standing, struck the epaulette on his left shoulder, about a quarter after one, just in the heat of action. He fell upon his face, on the spot which was covered with his poor secretary's blood. Hardy, who was a few steps from him, turning round, saw three men raising him up. ' They have done for me at last. Hardy I ' said he. ' I hope not I ' cried Hardy. ' Yes,' he replied, ' my back-bone is shot through.'

"Yet even now, not for a moment losing his presence of mind, he observed as they were carrying hiih down the ladder that the tiller-ropes, which had been shot away, were not yet replaced, and ordered that new ones should be rove immediately. Then, that he might not be seen by the

POETIC DICTION— INTERACTIONS WITH PROSE. 165

crew, he took out his handkerchief and covered his face and his stars. Had he but concealed these badges of honor from the enemy, England perhaps would not have had cause to receive with sorrow the news of the battle of Trafalgar. The cockpit was crowded with wounded and dying men, over whose bodies he was with some difficulty conveyed, and laid upon a pallet in the midshipmen's berth. It was soon perceived, upon ex- amination, that the wound was mortal. This, however, was concealed from all except Captain Hardy, the chaplain, and the medical attendants. He himself being certain, from the sensation in his back and the gush of blood he felt momently within his breast, that no human care could avail him, insisted that the surgeon should leave him, and attend to those to whom he might be useful ; 'for,' said he, ' you can do nothing for me.'

" All that could be done was to fan him with paper, and frequently give him lemonade to alleviate his intense thirst. He was in great pain, and expressed much anxiety for the event of the action, which now began to declare itself. As often as a ship struck, the crew of the Victory hur- raed, and at every hurra a visible expression of joy gleamed in the eyes and marked the countenance of the dying hero. . . .

" Nelson now desired to be turned upon his right side, and said : ' I wish I had not left the deck, for I shall soon be gone.' Death was indeed rapidly approaching. . . . His articulation now became difficult, but he was distinctly heard to say : ' Thank God, I have done my duty ! ' These words he repeatedly pronounced, and they were the last words which he uttered. He expired at thirty minutes after four, three hours and a quarter after he had received his wound." ^

In all this passage there is no touch either of poetic mood or poetic dic- tion. The only figure is one mild metonymy in " From this ship, which he had thus twice spared, he received his death" a figure as appropriate to prose as to poetry. The prose vocabulary, and the fulness of the symbolic and connective element may be felt from the sentence, " Yet even now, not for a moment losing his presence of mind, he observed as they were carrying him down the ladder, that the tiller-ropes, which had been shot away, were not yet replaced, and ordered that new ones should be rove immediately.'' The only sentence which approaches a sentiment adapted to poetry still keeps the prose movement : " Had he but concealed these badges of honor from the enemy, England perhaps would not have had cause to receive with sorrow the news of the battle of Trafalgar."

I SouTHEY, Life of Nelson, Chap. ix.

166 DICTION.

II.

The Impassioned Type. — This type of prose, which, as the name indicates, is the outcpme of strong and exalted emotion, is most purely represented in oratory ; we might call it orator- ical prose. The kind of verse that approaches most nearly to it is dramatic blank verse.

The subject-matter that most naturally evolves this type of diction is that which deals with experience, character, con- duct ; the unchanging yet always vital truths with which are connected the joys and sorrows, the hopes and fears, the affec- tions and interests, the ideals and duties, of universal human life.

The approach which this type of prose makes to poetic dic- tion is shown first of all in the concentrative elements : in the tendency to shun labored connections and relations, and in the use of weighty words which say much in little space. Sec- ondly, there is a general heightening of language : in the use of words which, while not exclusively poetical, are equally at home in poetry and prose ; in the tendency to impressive imagery ; and in the spontaneous use of the emotional figures of speech. Thirdly, the setting is distinctly rhythmical : manifest in the use of sonorous words, in the balancing of phrases and clauses, and in the stately roll of the sentence.

The following, from Daniel Webster's Oration on the Bunker Hill Monu- ment, will exemplify the general elevated tone of impassioned discourse: —

"Venerable men I you have come down to us from a former genera- tion. Heaven has bounteously lengthened out your lives, that you might behold this joyous day. You are now where you stood fifty years ago, this very hour, with your brothers and your neighbors, shoulder to shoulder, in the strife for your country. Behold, how altered I The same heavens are indeed over your heads ; the same ocean rolls at your feet ; but all else how changed I You hear now no roar of hostile cannon, you see no mixed volumes of smoke and flame rising from burning Charlestown. The ground strewed with the dead and the dying ; the impetuous charge ; the steady

POETIC DICTION— INTERACTIONS WITH PROSE. 167

and successful repulse ; the loud call to repeated assault ; the summoning of all that is manly to repeated resistance ; a. thousand bosoms freely and fearlessly bared in an instant to whatever of terror there may be in war and death ; — all these you have witnessed, but you witness them no more. All is peace. The heights of yonder metropolis, its towers and roofs, which you then saw filled with wives and children and countrymen in distress and terror, and looking with unutterable emotions for the issue of the combat, have presented you to-day with the sight of its whole happy population, come out to welcome and greet you with a universal jubilee. Yonder proud ships, by a felicity of position appropriately lying at the foot of this mount, and seeming fondly to cling around it, are not means of annoyance to you, but your country's own means of distinction and defence. All is peace ; and God has granted you this sight of your country's happiness, ere you slumber in the grave. He has allowed you to behold and to partake the reward of your patriotic toils ; and he has allowed us, your sons and coun- trymen, to meet you here, and in the name of the present generation, in the name of your country, in the name of liberty, to thank you ! . . .

" But ah ! Him ! the first great martyr in this great cause I Him I the premature victim of his own self-devoting heart ! Him ! the head of our civil councils, and the destined leader of our military bands, whom nothing brought hither but the unquenchable fire of his own spirit 1 Him ! cut ofE by Providence in the hour of overwhelming anxiety and thick gloom ; fall- ing ere he saw the star of his country rise ; pouring out his generous blood like water, before he knew whether it would fertilize a land of freedom or of bondage ! — how shall I struggle with the emotions that stifle the utter- ance of thy name ! Our poor work may perish ; but thine shall endure I This monument may moulder away; the solid ground it rests upon may sink down to a level with the sea ; but thy memory shall not fail I Where- soever among men a heart shall be found that beats to the transports of patriotism and liberty, its aspirations shall be to claim kindred with thy spirit! " — Webster's Great Speeches, p. 127.

Of the means of general heightening above mentioned we may here point out a few: —

1. Words not exclusively poetical, but from the more exalted vocabu- lary : venerable, bounteously, behold, witness, yonder metropolis, unutterable, issue, combat, ere, slumber, martyr, gloom, stifle, utterance, endure, kindred. The list might be greatly increased.

2. Emotional figures. — Exclamation : Behold, how altered! and often ; the whole tissue of the second paragraph is exclamatory. Interrogation : how shall I struggle with the emotions, etc. Apostrophe : the latter half of the second paragraph.

168 DICTION.

3. Rhythmical words and constructions : verurabU men ; former gen- eration; roar of hostile cannon ; heights of yonder metropolis ; your coun- try's own means of distinction and defence ; ere you slumber in the grave ; this monument may moulder away ; and many others, as also constant bal- ancing of elements, as, the head of our civil councils, and the destined leader of our military bands.

III.

The Imaginative Type. — This type of prose diction has been called " the special and opportune art of the modern world." ^ It is the kind of style that shapes itself, with more or less artistic fitness, when the writer deals with an imaginative theme, and shapes his conceptions in the fancy rather than in the strictness of logic. Success in it requires a special apti- tude, not unlike the poet's; if this is lacking, or only studied and second-hand, the style either tends to flatted notes and lapses from sound taste or degenerates into fine writing.^

In this kind of diction language is used somewhat as a musical instrument, to stimulate and gratify the reader's imagi- nation by means of euphonic sound and picturing imagery. Its field is naturally descriptive : we might not unfitly call it descriptive prose. Poetic resources, both of structure and vocabulary, are freely drawn upon. Especially noticeable are epithet and word-painting ; also alliteration and other means of pointing and balancing language are prominent. The ten- dency to rhythm is still more marked than in the impassioned type ; that is, its movement approaches more to the measured rhythm of poetry, while never going far enough in this direc- tion to impair the integrity of the prose tissue.

The following, from Raskin's Stones of Venice, carries this type of prose to the very verge of poetry : —

" We know that gentians grow on the Alps, and olives on the Apen- nines ; but we do not enough conceive for ourselves that variegated mosaic of the world's surface which a bird sees in its migration, that difference

1 Pater, ApprecicUions, p. 7. 2 See above, p. 71.

POETIC DICTION— INTERACTIONS WITH PROSE. 169

between the district of the gentian and of the olive which the stork and the swallow see far off, as they lean upon the sirocco wind. Let us, for a moment, try to raise ourselves even above the level of their flight, and imagine the Mediterranean lying beneath us like an irregular lake, and all its ancient promontories sleeping in the sun : here and there an angry spot of thunder, a grey stain of storm, moving upon the burning field ; and here and there a fixed wreath of white volcano smoke, surrounded by its circle of ashes ; but for the most part a great peacefulness of light, Syria and Greece, Italy and Spain, laid like pieces of a golden pavement into the sea- blue, chased, as we stoop nearer to them, with bossy beaten work of moun- tain chains, and glowing softly with terraced gardens, and flowers heavy with frankincense, mixed among masses of laurel, and orange and plumy palm, that abate with their grey green shadows the burning of the marble rocks, and of the ledges of porphyry sloping under lucent sand. Then let us pass farther towards the north, until we see the orient colors change gradually into a vast belt of rainy green, where the pastures of Switzerland, and poplar valleys of France, and dark forests of the Danube and Car- pathians stretch from the mouths of the Loire to those of the Volga, seen through clefts in grey swirls of rain-cloud and flaky veils of the mist of the brooks, spreading low along the pasture lands : and then, farther north still, to see the earth hejve into mighty masses of leaden rock and heathy moor, bordering with a broad waste of gloomy purple that belt of field and wood, and splintering into irregular and grisly islands amidst the northern seas, beaten by storm and chilled by ice-drift, and tormented by furious pulses of contending tide, until the roots of the last forests fail from among the hill ravines, and the hunger of the north wind bites their peaks into barrenness ; and at last, the wall of ice, durable like iron, sets, deathlike, its white teeth against us out of the polar twilight." — Ruskin, Stones of Venice, Vol. ii, p. 172.

In this masterly piece of imaginative description, we see how, as soon as the author gets his point of view and plan determined, the descriptive part (beginning with " and all its ancient promontories " ) takes on the pic- turing language and not a little of the movement of poetry. Let us notice a few of these poetic elements : —

1 . Epithets. — Decorative : sirocco wind ; ancient promontories ; golden pavement ; terraced gardens ; plumy palm j lucent sand ; orient colors ; rainy green ; heathy moor ; grisly islands ; into the sea-blue.

i,. Word-painting : sleeping in the sun ; a great peacefulness of light ; glowing softly with terraced gardens ; the hunger of the north wind; grey swirls of rain-cloud ; flaky veils of the mist of the brooks; tormented by furious pulses.

170 DICTION.

3. Alliteration : a grey Ji^in of j^orm ; iossy ieaten work ; /nixed awong masses of laurel, and orange and /lumy /aim ; mighty masses of leaden rock ; ^tes their peaks into barrenness. No less masterly than these repe- titions of sounds are the delicately varied combinations of sounds, both vowel and consonantal.

4. Rhythm encroaching on metre : —

And all its ancient promontories sleeping in the sun. Here and there an angry spot of thunder. With bossy beaten work of mountain chains. Spreading low along the pasture lands. By furious pulses of contending tide.l

Summary. — The intense identification of the writer's soul with the subject-matter and its occasion, which produces these effects, fervid or imaginative, wherein prose diction approaches to the diction of poetry, requires, in greater degree according to the loftiness of the occasion, to be supplemented by a taste made sound and chaste through conversance with the best literary ways, and by a skill great enough to put knowledge into self-justifying forms of art. If these are lacking the composition, while it may be luxuriant, is like the run-wild luxuriance of the tropics : it evinces merely power or emo- tion undirected. On the other hand, poetic effects cannot be manufactured, in cold blood, by any manipulation of word and phrase and figure. The two, emotion and art, must be thoroughly fused together.

1 The subject of prose rhythm, as related to the rhythm of poetry, is discussed in the next chapter, pp. 210-220.

CHAPTER VII. RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE.

Both poetry and prose, the latter no less imperatively than the former, must have rhythm ; that is, a more or less even and regular flow of syllables long and short, accented and unaccented. In both the same principles of rhythm obtain, and to an extent run parallel ; only, in poetry one more ele- ment is operative than in prose, the element of measure or systematic recurrence ; wherefore the rhythm of poetry is called metre, from the Greek word /neTpov, "a measure."

Metre, this measured rhythm, is the basal and determining principle of English verse. As such it is merely a conventional law, evolved from the genius of the language, according to which the elevated sweep of poetic diction is made orderly and musical.' It is, however, not the only active rhythmical motive, nor does the introduction of it in any sense supplant another element still more fundamental. Moving over the same field there is also an unmeasured, constantly varfed, exceedingly flexible grouping of syllables, which may be called the rhythm of the phrase. This latter, interwoven with the metrical, works in poetry to impart a graceful variety to its uniformity ; while, moving unconventionally by itself, it constitutes that sonority and largeness of phrase which we call prose rhythm.

1 " Verse may be rhythmical ; it may be merely alliterative ; it may, like the French, depend wholly on the (quasi) regular recurrence of the rhyme ; or, like the Hebrew, It may consist in the strangely fanciful device of repeating the same idea. It does not matter on what principle the law is based, so it be a law." — Stevenson, On Some Technical Elements of Style in Literature, Works (Thistle edition), VoL xxii, p. 250.

171

172 DICTION.

It is the design of the present chapter to define these two kinds of rhythm, as they appear by themselves, and as they work together.

I. ELEMENTS OF POETIC RHYTHM.

In its progressive organization of articulate sounds metre observes according to its own system the grammatical analogy of the phrase, the clause, and the sentence : it groups syllables into feet, feet into verses or lines, and lines into stanzas. Farther than this we need not follow it here; as indeed farther than this, and in some types from the verse onward, poetry coincides in organism with prose.

The Metrical Unit : the Foot Every kind of measure must

have a unit of measurement. The unitary procedure from which poetic metre starts is the grouping of syllables into twos or threes, each group being called a foot. Thus the standard types of metre take their rise, the kinds of feet being distin- guished from one another by their various arrangements of accented and unaccented syllables.

Note. — The names and definitions of the feet are derived from classi- cal prosody, which estimates syllables not by accent but by quantity, as short, long, and neutral. Quantity also plays an appreciable part in Eng- lish syllabication, enough perhaps to justify defining in terms of quantity, as we shall do here ; though the prosody of our language is more accentual than quantitative, more like speech, less like a kind of sing-song or chant.

The very different genius of our prosody from that of Latin and Greek can best be illustrated from musical rhythm. Take for instance the open- ing verse of Longfellow's Evangeline, which poem is written to imitate the dactylic hexameter ; and the natural musical measure into which it falls is

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE.

173

not at all the dactylic long and two shorts (_ ^ w), but a galloping rhythm in triple time : —

i ^	/	^	J^	^ J"	/ J^^J^
This	is	the	for	est pri -	mse val, the
^ i	.^	.'^	J^.	} /	J. J^
mur	mur	ing	pines	and the	hem locks.

The real quantitative dactyl, such measure as is represented in

" Arma virumque cano, Trojse qui primus ab oris,"

is expressed rather in the rhythm of the Andante to Schuberf s posthumous quartette : —

i^

3^^=

=«*=

-6-17-1 — , — n	1 t 1	-^ — |— i-	1
^vb--!— 4— j-	-4 — j— J-	-J— .UJ-	^^t3^	-J---
vJJ (& • •			t^_4^_

Here the beat is stately and chant-like; flowing, not rattling. Another celebrated example of this solemn dactylic measure in music is the Alle- gretto of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony.!

In all kinds of English verse a definite scheme and type of metre exists ; that is, a unit of measure is traceable, according to which the verse flows in an ordered tune. The generally- accepted system of feet, however, suffers to a degree from the fact that it is derived not from the native English but from the classic languages : it does not fit all English cases without sonie awkwardness, or at least accommodation. This is more apparent as the verse grows in intensity from recitative to lyrical, and thus takes on more sweep and freedom of move- ment. The modulations thus occasioned will come up for discussion later ; meanwhile we need to determine the standard unmodified rhythms.

1 See the remarks on this movement, and on the dactylic measure in general in Lanier, Science of English Verse, p. 226.

174 DICTION.

The Classical or Recitative Measures. — For verse of the more subdued tone, designed to be read or recited, the classical system of prosody is convenient and sufficiently lucid. This system builds feet by grouping syllables in double or triple combinations of longs and shorts ; the quantity, which in the classical languages is intrinsic, being estimated in English partly by the accent and partly by the natural stress in reading.

Note. — The conventional way of marking the quantity of syllables is by the signs ordinarily used to mark the pronunciation of vowels : a macron over the vowel (-) indicating the long, <t breve (w), the short. A syl- lable of indifferent or neutral value may be represented by the two signs combined (^).

Dissyllabic Feet. — The feet formed from groups of two are more stable and distinct, more capable of maintaining their indi- viduality without blending with one another, than the trisyl- labic ; an indication, perhaps, that they answer more deeply to the rhythmical genius of the language.

I. The Iambic foot, or Iambus, is a short and a long ( w _). Being by far the most common, it may be regarded as the standard English measure. All the serious and sustained types of poetry — the epic, the drama, the ode, the elegy — are written in iambic metre ; no other foot indeed is so well adapted to be the measure of all work.

Illustration. — Our language, being so largely monosyllabic, and with a wealth of unaccented symbolic words, falls into dissyllabic rhythm by the very frequency of accentual change ; while the tendency to drive the stress to the end of a phrase makes the standard dissyllabic rhythm iambic instead of trochaic. This may be seen in the following from Shakespeare : —

" tS die — I t3 sleep — | No more ; — | Snd by | %. sleep | tS say | we end | Th5 helrtlache."

Nor is it less suited to the dignity and sweep of the polysyllable ; as in " The mul;titud|in5tis seas | Incar|nildme." |

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE. 175

2. The Trochaic foot, or Trochee, is a long. and a short (— w). Its effect is lighter and more tripping than that of the iambic ; it is used accordingly for verse of a more rapid movement and less strenuous sentiment ; occasional trochaic feet are used also as relief to the austerity and monotony of the iambic.

Examples. — i. For the general movement and effect of the trochaic the well-known poem of Hiawatha may be quoted : —

" Should yCu | ask me, | whence these | stories ? | Whence these | legends | and trS|ditiBns ; " |

or, for a longer line and somewhat weightier effect, Browning's poem One Word More : —

" There they | are, mj | fiftj? | men Sind | women, | Naming | me the | fifty | poems | finished." |

2. In any passage of blank verse not many lines will pass without occa- sional trochaic feet slipping in among the iambics ; as,

" Athens, I the eye | Sf Greece, | mother | of arts." |

Here the first and fourth feet are trochaic ; and they relieve, while they do not impair, the general iambic flow of the verse.

3. The Spondaic foot, or Spondee, is two long ( ). It

cannot well be used in English as a prevailing or determining measure, as this would require that every syllable have a stress. Its use is for occasional offset to iambic or trochaic feet.

Examples. — In the following stanza from Tennyson we detect the spondaic feet from the natural stress of the word in reading and its weight in the sense. It will be noted that the spondees give an added weight, just as the trochee gives an effect of lightness : —

" i held I it truth, | with him | whS sings | To one | clear harp | in di|vers tones, That men | mSy rise | on steplping-stones | Of thiir I dead selves | to high|er things." |

Here the words " clear harp " and " dead selves " must be read as spondees ; While the words " Of their " are so nearly trochaic, at least, that the second

176 DICTION.

syllable must be shortened, though in this case the syllable O/also is short or neutral.

No distinction is commonly made for an example like this last cited one, where both syllables of a dissyllabic foot are short. It is only a transitional foot blending with the succeeding spondee to make a double foot (w w --)■

Trisyllabic Feet The feet formed from groups of three are

more rapid and impetuous than the dissyllabic ; more ready also to interchange with one another and leave the reader uncertain of the prevailing tune. This will come up for further discussion later.

4. The Dactylic foot, or Dactyl, is one long and two shorts (_ w w). It is, among the trisyllabic measures, much what the trochee is among the dissyllabic : tripping and nimble, hard to adapt to a sustained flight of dignified senti- ment without liberal admixture of spondaic. It is in the use of this measure that the essential discordance between the accentual and the quantitative is most apparent ; its triple- time beat in English being very different in effect from its stately march in Latin and Greek, in which languages it is the standard epic measure.

Examples. — Browning's The Lost Leader, which is prevailingly dactylic, will illustrate both the dactylic swing and the effect of an occa- sional spondee for variety : —

" We that hSd | loved Mm sS, | follBwed him, | hSnSred Mm, ] Lived in his | mild and mSg]nificent | eye. Learned his great | language, | caiight his clear | Accents, [ Made him oiir | pattern t8 | live 5nd t8 | die ! "

Here the two spondees of the third line, as also the cut-off endings, do much to steady a measure which otherwise might become too galloping. Dactyl is in fact best adapted for transient effects.

The difference between the accentual and the quantitative swing has been illustrated musically in the note on p. 172.

5. The Anapestic foot, or Anapest, is two shorts and a long (w w _), the reverse of the dactyl. Its general effect

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE. 177

also is the reverse ; it being adapted to a pensive or medita- tive sentiment where the movement is quiet and subdued. It is seldom used pure for any great length ; it is varied and to some extent relieved by frequent admixture of iambic, espe- cially at the beginnings and ends of lines ; it often blends its tune also with the dactylic.

Examples. — The following is a pure Anapestic line : —

" At thS close I of the day, | whSn the hamjlet is still," |

Browning's poem, Through the Metidja to Abd-el-Kadr, adopts the ana- pestic tune, doubtless for its rocking imitative movement, but intersperses frequent lines of varied measure : —

" As 1 ride, | Ss I ride, | With a full heart | f6r my guide, | SS Its tide I rScks my side, | As I ride, | as I ride, | That, as I were | dSuble-eyed, | He, in whom our Tribes confide, is dSscrled, | wSys untried, | As i ride, | 3s I ride." |

The anapestic, mixed freely with iambic, is the measure of Coleridge's Christabel, which he regarded as an innovation in metre : —

" Tis the mid|dle 8f night | by the casltlS clock." |

6. The Amphibrach (Greek a/t<^t and ^pa.yy<s, short on both sides), is a short, a long, and a short ( w _ w), as in the word remember. This is an unstable measure ; an ellipsis of a sylla- ble, or the placing of the pause, may easily change its tune to dactylic or anapestic.

Examples. — The following line is quoted as a somewhat rare example of amphibrach without ellipsis at the end : —

" There came tS | the beach a ] p68r exile | Sf Erin."

The alternate lines of the stanza are elliptical : —

" Th6 dew Sn | Ms thin robe | ISy heavy | and chill." w |

178 DICTION.

The second line of the following couplet, from Browning's How they Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix, exemplifies how an extra initial syllable may change the movement from amphibrach to anapestic : —

"And all I | remember | is — friends fl8ck|ing round w | As i sat I with his head | 'twixt mj knees | 8n the grSund."

7. The Amphimacer (Greek a.ft.^1 and ixaKp6%, long on both sides), is a long, a short, and a long (_w _), as in the word undismayed. It is seldom used in English verse except as an occasional intermediate foot.

Note. — The convenience of being familiar with these last two kinds of foot will be especially apparent when we come to note the rhythm of the phrase, and the rhythm of prose, wherein a much greater variety of measure prevails. See below, p. 213.

II.

The Metrical Clause : the Verse. — Corresponding in rhythm to the clause or sentence-member in grammar is the grouping of metrical feet which makes up the verse or line ; which latter accordingly receives a technical name from the number of feet it contains. Thus a verse one foot long is monometer ; two feet, dimeter ; three feet, trimeter ; four feet, tetrameter ; five feet, pentameter ; six feet, hexameter ; seven feet, heptameter.

These clusters of feet, it will be remembered, are metrical clauses, not grammatical ; they may or may not correspond to pauses in the sense ; indeed, it is essential that the two be kept independent in movement. This is made especially imperative by the fact that where lines are rhymed the rhyme itself consti- tutes a metrical punctuation, emphasizing the bounds of the clause ; if now for any length the attempt is made to end every line with a sense-pause, the result is monotony and dulness. The ideal of the two kinds of clausal structure is that while the foot and line exist as a constant pattern, the grammatical flow of the sentence shall course in and out, limpid, spontaneous, free.

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE. 179

Note. — A verse and a line are the same thing, and the two names are practically interchangeable. If we used them strictly, we should regard the terms as naming the object from different points of view. As a group of feet making up a metrical clause, it is a verse ; from its derivation it means the turning, that is, of the written or chanted current ; and as such is anti- thetic to pro\r'\sa, straightforward ; see above, p. io8. As a constituent part of a stanza, or as a row of words not considered rhythmically, it is called a line. Of the two, the term verse is the more technical.

The use of the term verse as equivalent to stanza (as verse of a hymn), as also the use of it to designate a prose paragraph (except in the Bible), should be avoided as provincial.

Some Standard Types of Verse As the above-given names

of the metres explain themselves, and as the kinds, can be recognized by the easy process of counting feet, there is no need of more detailed description here, further than to men- tion the few that are so much more prevalent or celebrated than the rest as to require ready acquaintance.

The most prevalent — it may be regarded- as the standard English line for serious poetry — is the Iambic Pentameter, of which the formula is| w_|vy_| w_| w_| w_|. This is the measure of Heroic Verse,^ like Pope's translation of the Iliad ; of Elegiac Verse, like Gray's Elegy ; and of Epic and Dramatic Blank Verse. In all these except the dramatic the pentameter scheme is observed with much strictness ; in verse of dramatic type, however, where the freedom of oral speech is an appreciable influence, the verse is frequently limbered by an extra short syllable at the end.

Example. — i. Modern epic blank verse may be exemplified from one of the noblest works in that measure, Tennyson's Holy Grail : —

" And all at once, as there we sat, we heard A cracking and a riving of the roofs. And rending, and a blast, and overhead Thunder, and in the thunder was a cry.

1 Some use the term heroic to cover all iambic pentameter, blank verse with the rest ; here, in order to make a more clearly articulated classification, it is confined to the rhymed heroics of the Pope and Dryden type.

180 DICTION.

And in the blast there smote along the hall

A beam of light seven times more clear than day :

And down the long beam stole the Holy Grail

All over cover'd with a luminous cloud,

And none might see who bare it, and it past." 1

2. The extra syllable of dramatic verse may be exemplified from Shakes- peare's Henry VIII.

" He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one ; Exceeding wise, fair-spoken and persuading : Lofty and sour to them that loved him not. But to those men that sought him, sweet as summer. And though he were unsatisfied in getting, Which was a sin, yet in bestowing, madam. He was most princely." 2

In this passage every line but one has the extra syllable ; it should be said, however, that in this particular play the liberty is used beyond the common.

Next to this in prevalence, for long poems, is the Iambic Tetrameter (|v./_|w_|v./_|w_|); a favorite vehicle with the older poets, from Herrick to Swift, for moral- izing and meditative verse ; adopted also for satire, by Butler in his Hudibras. It is a comparatively easy measure where the poetic feeling is only moderately intense ; hence much used for the occasional verse of prose writers.

It has more lightness, though a less dignified sweep, than the pentameter ; and it was for these qualities that, relieved by an occasional verse in trimeter, it was adopted by Scott for his narrative romantic poems, The Lay of the Last Min- strel, Marmion, and the Lady of the Lake.

The iambic tetrameter, alternated with trimeter, is the so- called Ballad Measure. Sometimes the two alternating lines are printed in one, making a line fourteen syllables long, tech- nically called a fourteener. This is the measure of Chapman's translation of Homer.

1 Tennyson, The Holy Grail, 11. 182-190.

2 Shakespeare, Henry VIII, Act iv, Scene 2.

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE. 181

Examples. — The following, from Butler's Hudibr^s, will illustrate the old writers' use of iambic tetrameter : —

" He that is valiant and dares fight, Though drubbed, can lose no honour by 't . Honour 's a lease for lives to come. And cannot be extended from The legal tenant : 'T is a chattel Not to be forfeited in battle. If he that in the field is slain Be in the bed of honour lain. He that is beaten may be said To lie in honour's truckle-bed."

The following, from Scott's Lady of the Lake, will illustrate its use for narrative : —

" With that he shook the gather'd heath,

And spread his plaid upon the wreath ;

And the brave foemen, side by side.

Lay peaceful down like brothers tried,

And slept until the dawning beam

Purpled the mountain and the stream."

The following, from Chevy-Chace, will illustrate the ballad measure, as put in stanza : —

" God prosper long our noble king. Our lives and safetyes all ; A woeful hunting once there did In Chevy-Chace befall.

To drive the deere with hound and home,

Erie Percy took his way ; The child may rue that is unborne.

The hunting of that day."

The following, from Chapman's Iliad, will illustrate the movement of fourteeners : —

" He said ; and such a murmur rose, as on a lofty shore The waves make, when the south wind comes, and tumbles them before Against a rock, grown near the strand which diversely beset Is never free, but, here and there, with varied uproars beat."

In trochaic metre the tetrameter has gained celebrity as the measure of Longfellow's Hiawatha. It is not well adapted, however, for serious work ; the fatal ease with which it may

182 DICTION.

be reeled oflf, also, precludes its artistic repute. Its use in the case of Hiawatha was probably intended as a suggestion of crude aboriginal rhythm. — A much more frequent use of it is the stanza form technically called 8s and 7s, in which the alternate lines are one syllable short. Tennyson, in his Locksley Hall, has reduced this stanza to a couplet, each line fifteen syllables long ; the pause generally after the fourth foot, but with liberty to vary.

Examples. — i. Longfellow's Hiawatha is the most prominent, almost the only example, of pure trochaic tetrameter in serious verse : —

" Out of childhood into manhood Now had grown my Hiawatha, Skilled in all the craft of hunters, Learned in all the lore of old men. In all youthful sports and pastimes, In all manly arts and lahors."

The following will illustrate its capacity for parody : —

" But he left them in a hurry. Left them in a mighty hurry, Stating that he would not stand it, Stating in emphatic language What he 'd be before he 'd stand it." 1

2. The following couplet from Locksley Hall will illustrate, in the first line, the liberty of variation of pause obtained by printing this measure as 1 5s : —

" Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest, Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the west."

To print the first four feet as a line, separating noun and adjective, would here be intolerable.

Of hexameter measure two kinds may be mentioned, not so much from their frequency as from their celebrity.

The Alexandrine verse is an iambic line six feet long, with the caesural pause ^ after the third foot ( | w_ | w _ | w _ II

1 Lewis Carroll, Hiawatha 's Photo^aphing,

2 For the cajsural pause, see below, p. 202.

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE. 183

vy _ I w _ I v^ _ 1 )• It is employed with the heroic line as an occasional pause-verse or conclusion of a period ; but it is too heavy, in English, to be the staple metre of a, sustained poem.

Examples. — It has been employed, however, by Drayton in his Poly- olbion, but not with the effect of demonstrating its fitness.

Pope's line in criticism of the Alexandrine may be quoted as an example of it, though the heaviness of the verse is intentionally exaggerated by onomatopoeia : —

" A needless Alexandrine ends the song, Which, like the wounded snake, drags its slow length along."

The Dactylic Hexameter, widely familiar as the measure of Longfellow's Evangeline, is an imitation of the Latin and Greek

epic verse {|_ww| — ww|_ww|_ww|_ww| |).

It has never become thoroughly acclimated in English, pro- ducing as it does an entirely different effect from that of its model, on account of the essential discordance between quan- titative and accentual rhythm.

Note. — This difference has already been described and exemplified in the note on p. 172, and on p. 176. The measure may be exemplified by a quotation from Clough's Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich : —

" Sometimes I find myself dreaming at nights about arches and bridges, — Sometimes I dream of a great invisible hand coming down, and Dropping the great key-stone in the middle : there in my dreaming. There I felt the great key-stone coming in, and through it Feel the other part — all the other stones of the archway; Joined into mine with a strange happy sense of completeness."

III.

The Metrical Sentence : the Stanza. — Just as the verse is the metrical clause or sentence-member, so the stanza may be regarded as the full metrical sentence or period ; being a series of lines so grouped and related as to form a closed circuit, and thus constitute a complete metrical idea. The

184 DICTION.

means by which the lines of a stanza are interrelated are the rhyme, the fixed scheme of verse-lengths, and sometimes the refrain, which last is a strain recurring at set intervals or at the end of each stanza.

Typically, and in a majority of cases, the stanza limits bound also the logical ; sometimes, however, the grammatical sentence is run on to a series of stanzas, and sometimes the full stop occurs within the stanza. This is but another way of saying that the metrical sentence and the grammatical are two distinct things.

Note. — Nearly all stanza types call for rhyme ; and the scheme of rhyme is the most palpable means of bringing the metrical period round full circuit. A good example, however, where the refrain takes the place of rhyme may be found in the graceful five-lined stanza of Tennyson's " Tears, idle Tears " : —

" Tears, idle tears, 1 know not what they mean, Tears from the depth of some divine despair Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happy Autumn-fields, And thinking of the days that are no more."

These words, " the days that are no more,'' the last three feet of the pen- tameter, are the refrain that brings each stanza to its close ; thus : —

" And thinking of the days that are no more." " So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more." " So sad, so strange, the days that are no more." " O Death in Life, the days that are no more." 1

When a refrain is introduced parenthetically inside a stanza it is called a burden.

Concessions to the Logical Period There are several forms

of poetry which to greater or less extent obey the influence of the logical sentence or paragraph, which is massed accord- ing to the sense ; and the metre is discarded or modified accordingly.

1 Tennyson, The Princess, canto iv.

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE. 185

1. Most blank verse obeys metrical exactions only as far as the line, and thereafter adopts the grammatical sentence and paragraph in place of the metrical period or stanza. This is natural in a kind of verse that deals mainly with continuous thought and is nearest in feeling and office to prose ; the reci- tative as distinguished from the lyric.

2. In heroic verse the couplet — the so-called heroic coup- let— may be regarded as a rudimental stanza, which instead of bringing the sense to a final close, or marking a stage in a larger stanza, goes on to observe the massing and limits of the grammatical paragraph. Its scheme of rhyme and its insistence on line and couplet pauses unfit heroic verse for continuous narrative ; while by the same means they make it a fit vehicle for pointed and epigrammatic thought.

Examples. — Pope has carried this type of verse to its highest capability in epigram ; the following is a specimen from his Essay on Man : —

" Go ! if your ancient, but ignoble blood Has crept thro' scoundrels ever since the flood, Go ! and pretend your family is young ; Nor own, your fathers have been fools so long. What can ennoble sots, or slaves, or cowards ? Alas ! not all the blood of all the Howards."

Since Pope's time the -heroic couplet has introduced a greater propdr-' tion of run-on lines, and has not so carefully sought balance and epigram- matic point ; hence it has become much more limpid and sustained.

3. In the ode the stanza, following the current of the sense, is irregular and continually varied in all three respects : length of line, relation of rhymes, and length of the stanza itself. The ode stanza is sometimes called a strophe. This char- acteristic of the ode is evidently due to the desire for greater freedom of movement than a set stanza form would permit ; so the stanza becomes a lyrical paragraph.

Some of the Best-Known Stanza Forms. — Stanza forms are so numerous and so self-interpretative that there is no practical

186 DICTION.

good in classifying them here. It will be sufficient to mention a few, such as have become historic or ought to be recognized by name.

Note. ^ The arrangement of rhymes in a stanza is generally indicated, and will be indicated here, by letters of the alphabet ; a repetition of a letter designating the rhyming syllables. Thus a a means two lines rhyming to form a couplet ; a b u. b means alternating rhymes ; abba, the first and fourth rhyming, the second and third rhyming; and so on. Each new rhyming syllable takes ii new letter.

The Elegiac Stanza, well known as the stanza of Gray's Elegy, is four lines of iambic pentameter rhymed alternately (aba b). Its quiet and sedate movement fits it well for pensive or meditative thought ; while the comparative brevity of the metrical period suits well with a moderate pointed- ness, or at least a clean-cut neatness rising from parsimony of amplification.

The same line, with a modification of the rhyming scheme, has become familiar through Fitzgerald's translation of the Rubaiyat (quatrains) of Omar-Khayyam, in the stanza of which the first, second, and fourth lines rhyme together, and the third is left blank ; thus, a a — a. This peculiar arrange- ment, wherein the fourth line returns to its rest after an excur- sion, fits the quatrain well to be the embodiment of a single, gracefully worded, finished thought.

Examples. — i. The neatness and finish both of single lines and of whole stanzas may be exemplified by any stanza of Gray's Elegy; it is these qualities that have made the lines so quotable: —

" Here rests his head upon the lap of earth A youth, to fortune and to fame unknown : Fair science frown'd not on his humble birth, And melancholy mark'd him for her own."

2. The point and grace of the Fitzgerald quatrain may be seen in the following, perhaps the most quoted stanza of the Rubaiyat : —

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE. 187

" I sent my Soul through the Invisible, Some letter of that After-life to spell: And by and by my Soul return'd to me, And answer'd ' I Myself am Heav'n and Hell.' "

The prevailing Hymn Stanzas, which here call for brief mention, though they are too numerous for extended specifica- tion, are, for convenience in fitting melodies to them, marked conventionally according to the number of syllables in the lines; thus, 7s, los, 8s and 7s, 6s and 4s ; these explain them- selves. Older designations still current are : Long Metre (L. M.), iambic tetrameter, rhymed either in couplets or alter- nately ; Common Metre (C. M.), identical with the ballad measure, iambic tetrameter alternating with trimeter, and usually having only the second and fourth lines rhymed; Short Metre (S. M.), iambic, the first, second and fourth lines trimeter, the third tetrameter, the rhymes alternate ; and Hallelujah Metre (H. M.), a six-lined stanza, iambic, consisting of four lines trimeter alternately rhymed, and a couplet tetram- eter rhymed in half lines, these rhymes sometimes inverted.

All these stanza forms are suitable only for short, indepen- dent poems. Tennyson, in his In Memoriam, has conceived the idea of making a lyric sequence of such poems ; that is, of making them, while still semi-detached, deal with, a con- tinuous sentiment. To this end he has taken the long metre stanza (iambic tetrameter) and inverted the rhymes (from a b a b to a b b d)\ with the effect that, as the suggestion of a balanced musical tune is broken up, the sustained or recita- tive character is more free to emerge.

Note. — It can be felt how much more suggestive of a musical setting, and this, not merely from the sentiment, but from the grouping of rhymes, is such a stanza as this from Keble : —

" Abide with me from morn till eve, For without thee I cannot live ; Abide with me when night is nigh, For without thee I dare not die," —

188 DICTION.

than is this from In Memoriam : -

" Our little systems have their day ;

They have their day and cease to be : They are but broken Ughts of thee, And thou, 0 Lord, art more than they."

The Spenserian Stanza, historically celebrated as the measure of Spenser's Faerie Queene, is an elaborately con- structed stanza of nine lines, eight of them iambic pentam- eter, the ninth an Alexandrine; the rhymes disposed after the unvarying model ababbcbcc. There is a peculiar effect of artistry about the stanza, well corresponding to the elaborate grace of the "poet's poet." The stanza has been employed by Worsley, with more elegance than Homeric spirit, in his translation of the Odyssey.

Example. — The following, from The Faerie Queene, will illustrate the Spenserian model : —

" The Lyon would not leave her desolate, But with her went along, as a strong gard Of her chast person, and a faythfull mate Of her sad troubles and misfortunes hard : Still, when she slept, he kept both watch and ward ; And, when she wakt, he wayted diligent. With humble service to her will prepard : From her fayre eyes he tooke command^ment. And ever by her lookes conceived her intent."

The most elaborate stanza form of all, perhaps, and one of the most esteemed, is the Sonnet. This is a fourteen-lined stanza constituting in itself a complete poem. Its measure is iambic pentameter, and its rhymes follow a fixed succes- sion, though there are several slightly differing models. One standard scheme of rhymes is: abbaabbacdecde. The turn of the sentiment occurs at or near the end of the eighth line ; wherefore the first eight lines are called the octette, and the last six the sestette. Sometimes these two parts are sepa- rated by a space, as if they were two stanzas.

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE. 189

Though derived from the Italian, the sonnet has in English become a thoroughly congenial vehicle for a brief range of meditative or concentrated sentiment. Within its limits it is adapted to wellnigh all varieties of expression, being equally natural for sweep and point, grace and strength.

A sonnet, as has been said, is a complete poem ; but son- nets may be written in sequence, forming a series of poems more or less closely connected and continuous. Some of the most celebrated sonnet-sequences in our language are Shakes- peare's Sonnets, Mrs. Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese, and Rossetti's House of Life.

Example. — The following, Wordsworth's Sonnet on the Sonnet, will both exemplify the form and define the value of this stanza form : —

" Scorn not the Sonnet ; Critic, you have frowned, Mindless of its just honors ; with this key Shakespeare unlocked his heart ; the melody Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound ; A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound ; With it Camdens soothed an exile's grief ; The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned His visionary brow : a glow-worm lamp, It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery-land To struggle through dark ways ; and, when a damp Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand The Thing became a trumpet ; whence he blew Soul-animating strains — alas, too few ! "

II. THE LIFE OF VERSE.i

In the writing of poetry there is always, according to its dominant character, a surge, an impulse, in one of two direc- tions : either toward the more soaring and melodious sweep of music, or toward the freer more informal movement of prose. Obedience to this impulse is not to be regarded as a

1 " That opposition which is the life of verse." — Stevenson, nt supra, p. 254.

190 DICTION.

license, as if it were the transgression of some rule ; rather it is a natural modulation of key, called for by the descriptive or emotional demand of the sentiment, which exerts an attrac- tion on the metrical scheme, and without invading its integrity makes it limpid and flexible to a very appreciable degree. Some account of these modulations, therefore, is necessary to a fundamental understanding of poetic rhythm ; while also it will prepare the way to a clearer apprehension of the rhythm of prose.

I.

Overtones of Musical Rhythm. — As soon as we go from blank verse or plain recitative to poetry of a more lyric kind, we become aware, with the greater intensity in the sentiment, of a greater sweep and freedom in the verse. The tune, the rhythmic scheme, is decidedly more marked and obvious ; the verse more suggestive of song. When, however, we apply the classic standards to the scanning of it, with their un- varying sequences of short and long syllables, we run against characteristics of metre that fit very awkwardly if at all. Exceptions, variations, accommodations, become so numerous as wellnigh to invalidate the rule. Yet this we know is not the fault of the poetry, which speaks for itself ; it is rather the inadequacy of a too rigid nomenclature, which like a Pro- crustean bed can make its phenomena fit its conventional schemes only by much crowding and stretching, and even then only by leaving its interpretations lifeless.

There is, as we sljall see,^ much pliancy, much freedom of interchange and blending,- in the more recitative or dissyl- labic measures ; even here we shall find some pauses, pro- longations, and condensations of quantities, hard to explain. In the trisyllabic feet, which having a more marked lilt are more distinctively the lyric metres, these anomalies become

1 See next section, Pliancy of the Recitative Measures.

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE.

191

nothing short of baffling. To account for them rightly, while we need not abandon the current system of prosody so far as it will go, we must have recourse to the terms and distinctions of music ; and this is just, because the lyric movement, accord- ing to its intensity, is really an advance toward song ; on the conventional metre adopted for the basis it superinduces an overtone of musical rhythm. Committing ourselves frankly to the principles of musical rhythm, we find the baffling phe- nomena of lyric metre, which in truth are not anomalous or erratic, falling into ordered and self-justifying system.

Illustration. — How much more satisfactory is a musical than a pro- sodical interpretation of some measures may be seen from Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade. Measured by the only metrical unit open to us, the dactylic, it jerks along in a strange sort of hippity-hop movement : " Half a league, | half a league, | Half a league | onward ; " | which after all does not catch the tune, — the metre coming to our ears not as longs balanced by coupled shorts but as a palpable triple time. Put it now in the musical rhythm it naturally suggests, and all its syllabic values and quantities become clear : —

4 i Half

4'

All

1 4

I 4

league;

^

4 the

I

4

half

J

I I

4 4

a. league,

1 1 4 4

J Half

J league

J

I

I 4

■ ward,

Rode the six

J J

hun dred.

val - ley of Death

Phenomena to be explained. — In order to realize how far short of its full duty our current prosody comes, it may be well to recount here the most salient of the characteristics that stand yet in need of explanation. These are taken not from exceptional but from everyday poetic usage.

I. At the outset, the existing metrical system, with its meagre choice of longs and shorts, is not a true because not

1 This ought perhaps to be | rather than | ; but the quarter note measure is here used as more generally familiar.

192 DICTION.

a delicate standard of measure ; as a matter of fact, syllables are of all lengths, not absolutely long and short but relatively longer and shorter. This fact should have some means of notation and record.

2. The last foot of a line is often, and other feet are some- times, left incomplete ; a single syllable may represent them. Is there, or is there not, something — a pause or a prolonga- tion — to fill the gap ?

3. The first syllable not infrequently reads like a kind of tag or remainder from the last foot of the previous line, or as if it were a short preliminary to the serious business of its own line.

4. The interior feet are much changed about ; anapests and iambics, dactyls and trochees, freely interchanging. Indeed, so constantly do the trisyllabic feet interchange and blend with one another that some have doubted whether they were distinct measures ; and others, yielding the whole ques- tion of classic metres, have introduced instead the scanning of verse by accents.

Illustrative Note. — Coleridge's Christabel has already been men- tioned on p. 177 as an alleged innovation in metre ; the innovation con- sisted in keeping four accented positions, in lines varying from seven to twelve syllables in length ; thus : —

" I w6n|der'd whit | might iil | the Mrd ; | For ndlthing neir | it could | I se^, | Save the griss | and green herbs | underneath | the old trfe"

This explains the number of feet ; but the controlling lilt, the anapestic tune, is not accounted for.

To show how much elision and interchange may be admitted without impairing the underlying measure, take the following old nursery rhyme, the tune of which is set by the first word " Remember," making an amphi- brach scheme (w w):^

" Rgmembgr, | rSmembSr, | thg fifth 8f | NSvembgr, | \j GunpSwIdSr trea- \j \ sBn plot -w | I see w I nS reasSn | why gunpSwIdgr ti^sBn | Should ev- w | gr be w | f6rgot." w |

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE. 193

The following stanzas, from Kipling, the tune of which is set by the words " The cities," are throughout in the same amphibrach movement, though only two measures in the two stanzas are complete : —

" ThS Cities | Sre full w | 8f pride, w |

\j Challgngling each w | t8 each — \j \ \j This frQm | hSr moun- \j \ tain-side, w 1

\j That fr6m | hSr bur- \j \ thSned beach. \j \

They count \j \ their ships \j \ fiill tale — ■ \j \ Their corn \j \ Snd oil \j \ Snd wine, \j \

w Derrick | Snd loom \j \ Snd bale, w |

And ram- w | parts gun- \j \ flecked line; \j \

\j City I by city | they hail : \j \

HSst aught \j I t6 match w 1 with mine ? " *^ |

The Musical Interpretation These last cited examples sug- gest, however clumsily, a law underlying the lyric measures and existing as the clearest basal principle in musical rhythm : the law, namely, of compensation and equivalence. If one foot is substituted for another, as an iambus for an anapest, the substitute has the same rhythmic value ; nay, if only a single syllable represents a foot, we are mentally aware of a pause, or a prolongation of the syllable given, sufficient to make up the same net effect. Now all this, which we can feel so much better than we can express in prosodic terms, is per- fectly expressed in the musical measure. All the measures in any chosen time — double, triple, quadruple — are exactly equivalent to each other, and in whatever way they are made up the parts of one compensate for the parts of the other. The notation of the details of this law leads us to note the following elements : —

1. Notes may be prolonged or shortened with absolute freedom ; they simply take up thereby so much more or so much less of the measure, leaving so much less or more time to fill the remainder of the measure.

2. A pause in the rhythmical sense is counted in the same values as an utterance ; either by a rest or a prolongation.

194

DICTION.

3. As a musical measure begins with the accented beat, we often begin the musical utterance not at the beginning of a measure but on some unaccented note of the previous meas- ure. This accounts for the tag in the opening foot; it is really an up-beat preparatory for the accent which begins the next measure.

4. When a line begins with the up-beat, musical rhythm observes the compensation by ending with a measure lacking just that remainder of being full ; so the end answers to the beginning, and the beginning, however insignificant, has its integral part in the whole.

Examples. — All that can be done here to illustrate this large subject is to set a few examples to their natural musical rhythm, leaving the stu- dent to select the illustrations of the various details of the principle.

I. The compensation and equivalence in different measures of the same scheme may be seen illustrated in the setting of Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade on p. 191, where the basal measure | is represented in no fewer than five different ways : — •

J I I- J 1. I „ ^ ^ I I J I. ( IS 1. y J J' £< «' 4'^ 4 4' 4 4 4 S' 4' 4 4'

all, however, coming to exactly the same thing, and simply representing delicate differences in syllabic value.

2. The up-beat, or last note of a foot, with the corresponding shortening at the close, is illustrated in Hullah's melody to Kingsley's Three Fishers, which brings out thereby the value of the words as it actually exists : — •

is

fr-

t=^=^.

3=?

Three fish - ers went sail - ing out

to the west. Out

i

^

s

to the west as

the

went down.

3. To illustrate the significance of the rest, or what comes to the same thing, the prolongation, in lyrical rhythm, we may take Tennyson's " Break, break, break,'' which, unless we regard these opening words as monosyllabic

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE.

195

representatives of whole feet, is a puzzling problem in metre. Take them, however, as notes in a triple (or f ) time, and everything is clear : —

n I I

Break, break,

J 1 1 ^^ break. On

4 thy

cold gray stones, O

Sea I

The form of the prolonged note is used in Boott's setting of the poem : —

^

t

=ff^

kzzH:

w — b>- Break, break, break, On thy cold gray stones,0

Seal

m

eSe

?^:p:

-V-

Break, break, break. On thy cold gi-ay stones,0 Sea 1 4. As a further general illustration of this subject, let us try to set the first stanza of Tennyson's Bugle Song to musical rhythm : —

1	^	^		.^ J.	4		^ 4	^ 4	J	.
The	splen - dor falls	on	cas tie walls,
^	^ ^ .^ ^	/ ^	,^ ^ S	1
And	snow - y sum - mits	old in	sto - ry :
4	/ ^ J.	^	^ N 1 4 4 4-	1
The	long light shakes	fcL	cross the lakes.
3	* Id ca	a ^	J .^ 3 leaps in	glo - ry.	1
And the wi	Lt a - ract
^2 1 ^ ^ ^4 4 4	J /	^ 4	J .^ /	J	1 4
Blow, bu - gle,	blow, set	the	wild ech - oes	fly	ing,
J .^ /	^ ^ IN ^ 4 4 4 0	J /^	J .N	J	J
Blow,	bu-	gle.	an-s	wer ech - oes.	dy	ing	>■	d;	1 - ing,	dy-	ing.

1 This measure of triplets might be set in I time.

2 This, it will be observed, is the true quantitative dactylic measure.

196

DICTION.

5. The following is offered as an attempt to represent the various feel in their appropriate musical equivalents : —

i J J J J J J J

J J u

Iambic : I The voice I of ' days I of old I and days I "to ' be. I

Trochaic :

Hopes and

J

4 fears, be -

J J hef and

J J dis - be :

J J liev - ing.

Spondaic :

i .^ j^ Anapestic : 1 It will	1 ^ N ei 4 » come, I sus-	pect, at the	1 end 1 of	J life. 1
a Dactylic 1;	J J, J Af ter it,	7 J J fol ^ low it.	Fol -low the	■J Gleam.
Amphibrach :
^ 4 Re -	J J J mem ^ ber, 1 re	J J J mem ber 1

These notes represent, as nearly as possible, the typical measure ; but of course in every poem the notes are subject to prolongation or abbreviation, according to the pauses and the sense.

It will be seen from these last examples that the predominating lyric movement in English is some form of triple time. This is true, and owing, as the early poetry would seem to show, to a native genius of the language.

1 Compare the footnote on the previous page.

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE. 197

II.

Pliancy of the Recitative Measures. — In the dissyllabic measures, and more especially in blank verse, there is an ever-present danger of monotony to be guarded against. The very faithfulness to the metrical type engenders it : if the scheme is not broken and varied continually the result is hard and wooden. It is this fact which makes blank verse, apparently so easy to compose, in reality the hardest and highest achievement in poetry.

Five iambic feet succeeding each other line after line indefinitely form a rigid type of poetic construction, dictat- ing apparently an eternal sameness of tune ; and yet if we examine the master-work of our language in this kind of verse — the work of Milton, Wordsworth, and Tgnnyson — we find that no two lines are alike, that in pause and accent the verse, while still faithful to the pattern, is infinitely pliant and varied, a thing of free life and movement. The causes of this we are to consider. One, which we seek in the phrase, will come up for discussion in the next section ; what we are to specify here has already been in part suggested, the skilful variation of the foot.

Rationale and Limits The artistic ideal of any variation

or modulation is, that it should not seem to be necessitated by poverty of resource, as if it were a means of getting out of a difficulty; rather it should justify itself, passing from a license to a positive grace, by its evident flexibility to the sense ; should add a condensive point or a descriptive sugges- tion, a distinction as it were born of and compelled by the inner sentiment. Herein lies that poetic masterliness which even in apparent disregard of law conceals the highest artistry.

Note. — The examples already quoted on pp. i6o and i6i have intro- duced us to the onomatopoetic wording and coloring imparted to poetic diction ; and these effects, as is there seen, are in part produced by the variation or temporary suspension of rhythni.

198 DICTION.

In all liberty of variation the chosen metrical scheme is a kind of tether, which, though it may be stretched, should never fail to keep the underlying type within hailing distance. Another measure than the one in hand may be transiently sug- gested ; but if this is carried so far as to obscure the original key, or make the controlling scheme uncertain, there must be a palpable artistic reason for it or it becomes a crudity and a blemish.^

Note. — In the line from Milton quoted on p. i6i above, —

" Burnt after them to the bottomless pit," —

there is a palpable artistic reason for the entire suspension of rhythm ; but one thing remains intact, the ten syllables, the material so to speak for a pentameter iambic line ; and the iambic setting all around keeps us within the metrical tether. This, while perhaps an extreme instance, is very instructive.

Interchange and Blending of Measures. — This pliancy of the recitative measures reduces itself to a free interchange of metrical units, suggesting momentarily a change of tune, but not carried on far enough to make or even seriously to pro- pose a change of key. That is, the interchange is to be so managed and so recovered from that the metrical scheme shall remain intact.

I. As applied to the single foot, the most frequent exercise of this pliancy, so frequent indeed as hardly to be felt as an irregularity, is the introduction of an occasional trochee into iambic measure, lightening the touch ; or, when the measure is trochaic, the similar introduction of an occasional iambus for weight. To both measures, too, a very convenient relief, with its offsetting effect of largeness, slowness, or dignity, is the occasional introduction of the spondee, which thus serves the purpose of a general helping measure.

Examples. — i. Instances of the introduction of trochaic feet into blank verse are 50 numerous that examples may be taken absolutely at 1 See below, p. 208, 3.

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE. 199

random. The opening line of Milton's Paradise Lost, Book ii, begins ■with a trochee, which has the effect, by the two short syllables thus thrown together, of hurrying the voice on to the important word throne : —

" High Sn I a thrSne | Sf roylSl state, | which far Outshone the wealth of Ormus or of Ind."

The second line, here quoted, is regular ; so is the third f but in the fourth and fifth lines we come upon trochees again, the first foot of the fourth making up a long syllable by blending two short ones : —

" Showers Sn | her kings | bSrbar|ic pearl | and gold, | SatSn I gxalt|ed sat."

■^. The following, from Browning's One Word More, illustrates the introduction of an iambus into trochaic verse : —

" DantS, I wh6 loved | well be|cause he | hated, | Hatgd I wicked|ness that | hinders | loving."

3. The peculiarly large and epic effect of the opening of Tennyson's Morte d' Arthur, due partly, as has been said, to its open vowels (see above, p. 157), is also due in part to the spondees of the beginning: —

" So all I day long | the ntiise | Sf battle roll'd | AmSng I the moiintlSins by | the wln|ter sea." |

2. But this interchange of measures seldom confines its effect to a single foot. It immediately produces, with the next foot, a secondary rhythm which blends with the primary or type rhythm, suggesting the flash of a new scheme. Thus a trochee followed by an iambus (— ^ I v.^ — ), by its grouping of two short syllables together, produces an interweave which we read either dactylic (—ww) or anapestic (ww_), according to the pause. An iambus followed by a trochee

( w _ I w), by its grouping of two long syllables together,

produces an interweave of spondaic ( ).

Examples. — In the following examples the secondary measure, or interweave, is marked from above, the primary measure from below, thus : —

I High ' on I a thrSneT

I Fast by I the ' SriaciJi Sf- God 1

200 DICTION.

Here the important word throne attracts the two shorts, forming with them an anapest ; and the long syllable Fast, attracting the next two syllables, forms with them a dactyl. In this second example the word oracle forms a second dactylic interweave — a rare example.^

Sometimes the trochaic substitute confines its effect to a single foot, as in the line quoted under i, above : —

SatSn I exalt iSd sat

but it will be noted that an amphibrach interweave succeeds, —

I Satan|exalt|Sd sat, i

This will be further explained by the phrasal undertone ; see below, p. 204. In the example from Browning the iambus offsetting the trochee goes on to the next foot to form a spondaic interweave : —

r Dante, | wh5 loved | well.

3. Another way of producing a blending of rhythms, not sufficiently noticed in prosody, is by shortening the long syl- lable of a foot, leaving the iambus, for instance, represented only by two short syllables. To explain this, which is by no means infrequent, we must count the influence of a contiguous pause, which takes "into itself some of the value of a succeed- ing foot or syllable.

Examples. — It will be observed that in the quotation from Tennyson's Morte d' Arthur, p. 199, one syllable of the second line is left unmarked. The reason is that while the scheme calls for a long the syllable is really short, leaving the measure only two shorts and a pause (rhetorical) in length. The effect is to produce with the next measure an anapestic blend : —

by|thg win'ttgr sea, t

This word by is shortened by the appreciable pause after mountains.

In the following well-known lines from Wordsworth, notice the marking we are compelled to adopt : —

" Whfise dwellling "1 Is | thS light | Sf setlting suns, | *lAnd thS I round SIce'an "1 Snd | thS liv|ing air, | »|And thS I blue sky, | ind in | thS mind | 8f man." |

1 The seemingly defective iambic foot, " SclS," is perhaps explainable by the natural pause after it ; see paragraph 3.

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE. 201

Here there is much shortening of syllables which by the scheme should be long; but in each case of shortening there is a pause (here marked by »i) to compensate. This deliberate slighting of syllabic values, by hurrying over to succeeding feet, produces the following mterweaves : —

15 1 thg light I (Anapest.)

I And thSitound 0|Cean, (Anapest and trochee, here exceptional on account of the spondee of the second foot.)

Snd thS I liVjing air r (Anapest.)

I And the 1 blue sky I (Anapest and spondee ; a double blend.)

4. Not SO frequent, and correspondingly more striking, is the introduction of two short syllables as equivalent for one long syllable. This, by its effect of crowding short sounds together and blending with the next foot, gives a rapid, rug- ged movement to the verse.

Examples. — The line from Tennyson's Gareth and Lynette, —

" Then would he whistle rapid as any lark " —

has been cited on p. i6r as illustrating the quick effect of pronouncing two syllables in the time of one (w rapid | as a|ny lark).

The following, in which the crowded shorts are offset by a spondee, is from the same poem : —

" ' H5w he ] went down,' I said Ga|r6th, ' 5s a | false knight | Or e|vil king | bgfore | my lance.' "

In the following, from the song of Arthur's knights (The Coming of Arthur) the variations of metre are carried so far as almost to obscure the underlying scheme : —

" The king | will folllBw Christ, | and we | the king | In whom | high God | hath breathed | S selcret thing. | Fall bStiSlaRe, and | flash brand I | "I Let the | king reign." |

In this third line there is not a single iambus ; the comparative regularity of the previous lines is depended on to preserve the metrical scheme intact.

202 DICTION.

III.

Undertone of Phrasal Rhythm. — At the beginning of the chapter it was said that metre is not the only rhythmical motive in poetry. It is in fact merely one of two, — a conven- tional pattern whereby the diction is set to tune ; but this pattern is constantly opposed by and blended with an uncon- ventional rhythm which by its undertone of new syllabic combinations enlivens and endlessly varies the metrical color- ing. This latter rhythm we call phrasal, or the rhythm of the phrase.

Let it be noted here, then, as a preparation for the next section, that in poetry we have to deal with a double rhythm, in which the metrical, the distinctively poetic element, is superimposed upon a rhythmical undertone already existing in the comely structure of the phrase. In prose, as the metri- cal element is dropped, we have to deal merely with a single rhythm, the phrasal undertone surviving as the determining element.

The rhythm of the phrase cannot be reduced by any writer or teacher to laws which another must follow. It must be left to the finely attuned and cultivated ear, to the writer's own sense of pleasing melody.^ All we can do here is to trace its interactions with metre ; postponing the question of its principles and components to the section on prose rhythm.

The Caesura. — Phrasal rhythm makes its first and most palpable assertion, especially in blank verse, through the caesura, which is a pause, real though not always marked by

1 " Each phrase of each sentence, like an air or a recitative in music, should be so artfully compounded out of long and short, out of accented and unaccented, as to gratify the sensual ear. And of this the ear is the sole judge. It is impossible to lay down laws. Even in our accentual and rhythmic language no analysis can find the secret of the beauty- of a verse; how much less, then, of those phrases, such as prose is built of, which obey no law but to be lawless and yet to please." — Steven- son, On Some Technical Elemctiti of Style in Literature, Works, Vol. xxii, p. 252.

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE. 203

punctuation, somewhere in the interior of a verse. This pause, though nearly all verses have it, is not designed to divide the verse into sections, nor indeed with reference to the verse at all ; it merely marks the bounds of the larger grammatical phrase or clause, as independent of the metrical. The section that it bounds, then, may either have begun with the verse or may have run over from the previous verse, just as the sense may happen to dictate ; and so the verse itself may or may not be paused at the end. In other words, the caesu- ral pause is the constant assertion that while the metrical clause (that is, the verse) is bound, the grammatical phrase or clause is free to move boldly in and out of the metrical, making its own ways and limits.

Illustration. — In the following passage, from Tennyson's Lucretius, the place of the csesura is marked by the sign (||), and opposite the lines are placed figures indicating the number of feet from the beginning at which it comes. Along with these things, in order better to reckon the bounds of the grammatical phrase, the reader should note whether the end of the verse has a pause or runs on.

" Storm, and what dreams, || ye holy Gods, what dreams I (2)

For thrice I waken'd after dreams. || Perchance (4)

We do but recollect || the dreams-that come (3) ■

Just ere the waking : || terrible! for it seem'd (254)

A void was made in Nature ; || all her bonds (3 J4)

Crack'd; || and I saw the flaring atom-streams (14)

And torrents 1| of her myriad universe, {\%)

Ruining along the illimitable inane, ( — )

Fly on to clash together again, || and make (4)

Another and another frame of things ( — )

For ever : || that was mine, my dream, I knew it." (i J4)

In the two lines marked (— ), we may regard the caesural pause as coming at the end, that is, as coinciding with the metrical. In the case of the run-on lines, it may be seen how the phrases move independently; e.g.

Perchance we do but recollect

For it seem'd a void was made in Nature.

All her bonds crack'd.

These are virtually lines within lines, not to be scanned apart from the existing metrical scheme, but read by the sense.'

204 DICTION.

The utility of the caesura is obvious. It is first of all the great means of averting the ever-menacing monotony of verse and from a dead level of formal metre making it into an ever- shifting, ever-varied thing. This it does by the fact that its place is seldom twice the same. Nor is it merely the length of the phrase, of the line within the line, that is affected. Often the metre too, from being a tyranny of iambics, melts into the evasive suggestion of a new tune, particularly when the pause occurs in the middle of a foot ; and thus a shade of new coloring is added to the verse.

Examples of This Latter. — When the caesura occurs after the first syllable of a foot (iambic) it leaves the long syllable to begin the next phrase, and thus naturally suggests a trochaic sequence. An instance of this is seen in

I " F6r ev gr : ' that i wSs ' mine, i my ' dream, 1 1 knew , It,"

where the effect is increased by completing the trochee at the end. Some- times, however, this trochaic sequence is averted by shortening the long syllable (cf. p. 200, 3), and suggesting an anapest; e.g.

" 3nd I saw | the flaring atom-streams," "Bf fier myrliad universe."

Only a shade of effect, but appreciable, in the complex modulation of the rhythm.

The Phrasal Segmentation The csesural system may be

regarded as the phrasal undertone relating itself to the verse, making it varied and flexible. Beyond this, however, and relat- ing itself similarly to the foot, there is a further segmentation of phrase, detected in the pauses made by a good reader, whereby the verse already made up of five feet by the con- ventional metre, is really read in three or four syllabic groups, each pronounced virtually as a single word and making up a new rhythmical pattern. Thus arises the singular fact that while a verse is scanned according to a rigid system of feet, oftener than not it is read and ought to be read with regard not to these feet at all but to the underlying natural grouping

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE. 205

of phrasal rhythm. This is the marvel of the double pattern according to which poetry is composed.^

This phrasal segmentation, by far the most potent and constant means of modulating poetic rhythm, is as it were the mediator between the formalism of poetic utterance and the unstudied naturalness of speech. At every point, by its undertone of homelier melody, it suggests the presence of the real controlling the imagined, of the practical domesticating the ideal ; so that poetry, which by its very metrical exactions must be an achievement of artistry, approves itself as an utterance of life.

In reading the phrasal rhythm under the metrical our con- ception of the involvements of prosody is enlarged by several discoveries.

First, we find that we must recognize a much larger range of grouping, longs and shorts, than are laid down, or can be laid down, in a classification of poetic feet. To the phrasal foot, if such it can be called, are open all possible combina-

1 " We have been accustomed to describe the heroic line as five iambic feet, and to be filled with pain and confusion whenever, as by the conscientious schoolboy, we have heard our own description put in practice.

' All night I the drfeadlless ^njgel tinjpursiied,'

goes the schoolboy; but though we close our ears, we cling to our definition, in spite of its proved and naked insufficiency. Mr. Jenkin was not so easily pleased, and readily discovered that the heroic line consists of four groups, or, if you prefer the phrase, contains four pauses :

' All night I the dreadless | angel ] unpursued.'

four groups, each practically uttered as one word : the first, in this case, an iamb ; the second, an amphibrachys; the third, a trochee ; and the fourth, an amphimacer ; and yet our schoolboy, with no other liberty but that of inflicting pain, had trium- phantly scanned it as five iambs. Perceive, now, this fresh richness of intricacy in the web ; this fourth orange, hitherto unremarked, but still kept flying with the others. What had seemed to be one thing it now appears is two ; and, like some puzzle in arithmetic, the verse is made at the same time to read in fives and to read in fours." — Stevenson, On Some Technical Elements of Style in Literaturej'W ork^, Vol. xxii, p. 253.

206 DICTION.

tions, from one to five syllables, that contain not (ordinarily) more than two longs.

Secondly,' we discover that a good proportion of the articu- late sounds which for metrical purposes must be read long or short, are really common or neutral in quantity, and may at the same time be long in prosody and short in the phrasal undertone. This fact greatly enlarges the capacity of the language for rhythmical shadings and variation.

Thirdly, we get a new light upon the pliancy of the recita- tive measures. When feet are interchanged, or take redun- dant or slurred syllables, it is for the sake of a comelier or more descriptive phrase, a measure nearer the rhythm of the sense. Thus the seeming irregularity is not such at all, but the obedience of a finely tuned' ear to the demands of a more fundamental melody.

Illustrations of Phrasal Rhythm. — The phrasal segmentation may be regarded theoretically as the subdivision of the csesural (cf. p. 203, above) ; hence the typical grouping of phrases is into fours. A group of three makes <>. more rapid line ; the exceptional grouping into two, more rapid and descriptive still ; the occasional single syllable having the oppo- site effect of abruptness and weighty pause.

We can now understand the line already quoted from Milton : —

" Burnt after them to the bottomless pit."

The phrasal segmentation into two, coincident mth the caesural, and with the caesura itself the lightest possible, gives an exceedingly rapid move- ment, which is further enhanced by the congestion of short syllables: — -

Burnt after them \j \j

To the bottomless pit \j \j "wTT^

The treatment of monosyllabic lines, which are apt to become monoto- nous, is instructive. Sometimes only the phrasal segmentation, and not variation of quantity, operates to temper the monotony ; e.g.

" The voice of days of old and days to be."

The voice \j

of days of old \j \j

and days to be \j \j

RHYTHM IM POETRY AND IN PROSE. 207

Oftener, however, some prolongation or shortening of syllables modifies the line by infusing its lighter or weightier influence into the phrase ; e.g.

" And sang all day old songs of love and death."

And sang \j .

all day

old songs

of love and death w w

or as in this line from Browning : —

" This low-pulsed, forthright, craftsman's hand of mine."

This low-pulsed

forthright,

craftsman's hand \j

of mine \j

In the following the number of shorts, especially toward the end, produces a palpable effect : —

" But all the play, the insight, and the stretch — Out of me, out of me ! "

But all the play, \j \j

the insight, \j \j

and the stretch — \j \j

Out of me, \j \j

out of me ! \j \j

It is the phrasal rhythm that brings out the value of the polysyllable in poetry, both by its new grouping of the regular sequences and by its free introduction of the triplet and like variations ; e.g.

" the new campanula's Illuminate seclusion swung in air."

the new w

campanula's * \j w w

Illuminate w w w

seclusion w w

swung in air \j

Examples of the triplet : —

" The multitudinous seas incarnadine."

The multitudinous w w ^^ ^^

seas

incarnadine \j w

" Ruining along the illimitable inane." Ruining \j ^ \j

along \j

the illimitable ;y^ \y ^ w "^ inane \^

208 DICTION.

Relations of Phrase and Metre. — As the phrasal rhythm is the instrument of that opposition and variety which is the life of verse, it must be mindful of the relations to metre which it is free to adopt or bound to shun. The following are of importance.

1. Except for the special descriptive effect of monotony, the phrase should not to any considerable extent coincide with the metrical foot ; as soon as it does its undertone becomes inaudible.

Note. — The following monosyllabic line from Milton, descriptive of the arduous journey of Satan through chaos, produces the effect of diffi- culty and monotonous toil by making metrical and phrasal rhythm coin- cident through the whole verse : —

" And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies." In the nature of the case, however, such a line is rare; while it justifies itself, it suggests that general procedure should be different.

2. Ordinarily the phrase should be ampler than the foot ; on this increase of breadth depends its music. A phrase smaller than the foot (namely, a single syllable) suggests abruptness, or concentration of intensity, obviously only an occasional requisite. Coincidence with the foot, as intimated above, suggests some aspect of monotony.

3. The phrase, while it limbers up the metrical tune by suggesting new syllabic groupings, should not suggest any other metrical scheme than the one in hand. It follows from this that ordinarily no two phrases of a line, especially no two contiguous phrases, should scan the same ; if they did there would be danger of substituting one scheme for another. It must be remembered that, while the phrasal rhythm is a con- stant undertone, the metre exists as the determining principle of the verse ; a principle whose integrity must be preserved through all modulations.*

1 From the article of Stevenson's above referred to, which has been freely used in this study of phrasal rhythm, a few more sentences may be quoted : —

" The groups which, like the bar in music, break up the verse for utterance, fall

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE. 209

A word of summary may here be of service, before we enter upon the next section.

As all literature is evolved ultimately from speech, so in all literary diction, prose and verse alike, there survives a fundamental speech-rhythm, or rhythm of the phrase, corre- sponding to the pauses, the breathing points, and the vocal modulations observed by a good speaker or reader. As poetry submits itself to the new law of metre it does not discard this original rhythm, but rather blends it as an undertone with its own melody, deriving life and flexibility of movement from its opposing yet harmonizing presence. This undertone sounds more clearly and is more vital as the poetry, being of the recitative order, is less removed from the movement of prose. As, however, the poetry becomes more intense and lyrical, the phrase rhythm, though not obliter- ated, coincides more closely with the metrical, both being in fact swept on by an overtone of musical rhythm, which raises the speech into the movement of song. Of all these

uniambically ; and in declaiming a so-called iambic verse, it may so happen that we never utter one iambic foot. And yet to this neglect of the original beat there is a limit.

* Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts,*

is, with all its eccentricities, a good heroic line ; for though it scarcely can be said to indicate the beat of the iamb, it certainly suggests no other measure to the ear. But begin

' Mother Athens, eye of Greece,'

or merely ' Mother Athens,' and the game is up, for the trochaic beat has been sug- gested. The eccentric scansion of the groups is an adornment ; but as soon as the original beat has been forgotten, they cease implicitly to be eccentric. Variety is what is sought ; but if we destroy the original mould, one of the terms of this variety is lost, and we fall back on sameness."

With the succeeding sentences we may sum up this subject : — " Thus, both as to the arithmetical measure of the verse, and the degree of regu- larity in scansion, we see the laws of prosody to have one common purpose : to keep alive the opposition of two schemes simultaneously followed; to keep them notably apart, though still coincident ; and to balance them with such judicial nicety before the reader, that neither shall be unperceived and neither signally pre- vail.". — Stevenson, On Some Technical Elements of Style in Literature, Works, Vol. xxii, p. 254.

210 DICTION.

modulations, phrasal, metrical, and musical, we must take account in analyzing the complicated texture of poetic diction.

III. THE RHYTHM OF PROSE.i

We are now in position to understand that there is a rhythm in prose no less truly than in poetry ; for we have already recognized the presence of its elements. The rhythm of. prose is the phrasal rhythm, no longer an undertone but a determining" principle, moving unconventionally by itself ; the single pattern of .fhythm existing before the metrical or musical movement has "i^een adopted to make the pattern double." In other words, .itjs the natural melodious flow of elogufint .or well-ordered speech.

Obviously, if rhythm is to be found in all prose it must exist in great variety. In colloquial speech and ordinary reportage we think of it little if at all ; it is only where there is care for the best-chosen words and the most skilfully and closely knit texture that the question of rhythm is raised, it being essentially an affair of artistry. Nor has rhythm a fair opportunity in the short sentence, such as concentrates its power in a single word ; it calls rather for some roll and rich- ness of movement, and for the balance of clause and clause. Further, it becomes more marked and elaborate as prose approaches in elevation and imaginative sentiment toward poetry.*

I.

As maintained against Poetic Rhythm. — To work with the thought of securing rhythm so naturally suggests some meas- ure and regulator of rhythm, some metrical scheme, that the writer has to be on his guard against the poetic elements

1 " The other harmony of prose." — Dryden. 2 See above, p. 171.

3 See The Approaches of Prose to Poetry, pp. 163 sqq., above.

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE. 211

that constantly seek to obtrude themselves ; has to keep his ear alert in order that, while the phrase is kept large and comely, it shall never fall into a set tune, or at least that the tune shall be constantly varied, unconventional, elusive. The only sure preparation for this is a musical ear, and a taste that is trained instinctively to associate any sentiment with its appropriate vocal movement and coloring. In prose all rhythmic rules are ignored, while all the rhythmic potencies are in full sway, responding to the vital moulding power of the thought. Hence prose rhythm, while it is ideally free, cannot be left to happen ; its very freedom requires that it be main- tained against anything, metre or diction, that suggests the invasion of poetry.'

Tendency to Sing-Song This positive shunning of poetic

rhythm needs to be insisted on, because in certain stages or moods of literary art there is a great tendency to run into a too regular rhythm, — into the beat of bad blank verse, or as it is here called, sing-song. Stevenson attributes such tendency to the bad writer, to the inexperienced writer try- ing to be impressive, and to the jaded writer.^ It may become, like word-play or antithesis, a mannerism, a disease of style. It is, in the literary diction, analogous to what is called the " holy tone " in the usage of the pulpit,' and is equally fatal to sturdy impressiveness.

Examples. — Dr. Johnson, it is said, in the course of a discussion on . this very tendency to fall into metre, remarked : —

" Such verse we make when we are writing prose ; We make such verse in common conversation."

1 " The rule of scansion in verse is to suggest no measure but the one in hand ; in prose, to suggest no measure at all. Prose must be rhythmical, and it may be as much so as you will ; but it must not be metrical. It may be anything, but it must not be verse. A single heroic line may very well pass and not disturb the somewhat larger stride of the prose style ; but one following another will produce an instant impression of poverty, flatness, and disenchantment." — Stevenson, On Some Technical Elements of Style in Literature, p. 256.

2 Stevenson, ib. ^ See above, p. 67, z.

212 DICTION.

Dickens, in his earlier works, is often cited as the awful example of this tendency ; it is said that he sometimes had to call on his friend Forster to break up the metrical tune in which, in spite of himself, he would find himself writing in some moods. The following, from the account of the funeral of Little Nell, in Old Curiosity Shop, is not changed at all in expres- sion but only printed in lines : —

Oh ! it is hard to take to heart the lesson that such deaths will teach,

but let no man reject it, for it is one that all must learn, and is a mighty, universal Truth. When Death strikes down the innocent and young, for every fragile form from which he lets the panting spirit free, a hundred virtues rise, in shapes of mercy, charity, and love, to walk -the world, and bless it. Of every tear that sorrowing mortals shed on such green graves, some good is born, some gentler nature comes.

In the Destroyer's steps there spring up bright creations that defy his power, and his dark path becomes a way of light to Heaven." 1

This is virtually in the ode measure, and, printed as an ode, has much beauty ; as prose, however, it is an instance of sing-song.

What the Prose Standard dictates. — The dominating stand- ard of utility,^ in the choice, arrangement, and connection of words may here be recalled, to determine the negative ele- ments in the maintenance of a true prose rhythm against encroachments of the poetic movement.

— I. A prose rhythm will bear no displacement or inversion of words or sentence-elements for the mere sake of a smoother or more regular flow. Such displacements and inversions there are in abundance, but their object is utilitarian ; if no such object is traceable the immediate effect is artificial and insincere.

1 Dickens, Old Curiosity Shop, Part ii, Chap. xvii.

2 See above, pp. 109 sqq.

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE. 213

■^ 2. Prose rhythm does not bear the abbreviation of words, as o'er, oft, ne'er, 'neath; and only to a limited extent the briefer poetic forms, like scarce for scarcely, save for except, ere for before, words chosen obviously to reduce the number of syllables. Nor does it accept aid from slurred or elided syllables. One element of its varied movement is to make a pleasing combination of the articulate sounds at disposal, working the full value of every syllable into the rhythmic tissue, without seeming to go out of its way for a melodious vocabulary.

~ 3. A greater temptation it is, when the swing of rhythm is developed into a craving, to introduce meaningless or watered phrases for the sake of helping out the balance of sound. Thus a tendency to group the phrasal architecture in uniform patterns of twos or threes may become a real bond- age, to be watched, and remedied by varying the tune, or by making sure always that the balancing phrase ad_,ds propor- tionately to the sense.

II.

Its Main Elements. — While it is impossible in so im-di- vidual an art to lay down directions whereby any writer may secure a good prose rhythm, we may by description and caution indicate its main features, from the phrasal segmen- tation onwards, as suggested by the analogy of poetry, and as differentiated therefrom.

The Phrase Xlifi-jhythmicaL-phrase,.iji prase_ is the

groundwork of the whole web, corresponding to the phrasal segmentation in poetry. The two are in fact the same in principle, and reduced to notation by quantity marks show no striking divergence. The prose phrase, being more sum- marily enunciated, has a somewhat longer stride and perhaps a greater variety in the feet. The main distinction, however.

214 DICTION.

is that the prose phrase holds watchfully to its single rhyth- mical pattern, eschewing any beat regular enough for the ear to anticipate, whether a conventional metre or a musical over- tone. As soon as any such double scheme is suggested, the tune must be modulated to something else.

Illustrations. — For some of the most exquisite specimens of rhyth- mical prose we have but to go to the Authorized Version of the English Bible. Professor Saintsbury instances ^ especially The Song of Solomon viii. 6, 7. and i Corinthians xiii. The following, from Revelation (xxi. 3, 4), is divided into feet and lines, in order to show its relation to poetic rhythm : —

" And I heard | a great voice | out .of heaven | sayiing, || Behold, | the

tabernacle | of God | is with men, || and he | will dwell | with them, |1 and

they I shall be | his people, || and G5d | himself | shall be with them, || and

be I their God. || And God | shall wipe | away | all tears | from thSr eyes,; ||

3

and there shall be | no m5re death, || neither sorrow, | nor crying, || neither |

shall there be | any more pain : || "1 for the | former things | are passed |

away." ||

This is quite close to poetic rhythm, though never clearly suggesting a metrical scheme. For a more varied phrase take the following from Cardinal Newman, which is here left unmarked : —

" The season is chill and dark, and the breath of the morning is damp, and worshippers are few ; but all this befits those who are by their profession penitents and mourners, watchers and pilgrims. More dear to them that loneliness, more cheerful that severity, and more bright that gloom, than all those aids and appliances of luxury by which men nowadays attempt to make prayer less disagreeable to them. True faith does not covet com- forts ; they who realize that awful day, when they shall see Him face to face whose eyes are as a flame of fire, will as little bargain to pray pleas- antly now as they will think of doing so then." ''■

In one or two places of this paragraph the ear is enticed very near to the tune of a poetical rhythm, though the measure is broken up just in time ; e.g.

" More dear | to them | that lone|liness, | More cheer|ful that | severlity." |

1 In his essay on English Prose Style, Miscellaneous Essays, p. 32.

2 Quoted by Matthew Arnold, Discourses in America, p. 141.

RHYTHM M POETRV AND IN PkOSE.

215

But the next clause " and more bright that gloom " restores the prose move- ment. The first three clauses are similar, though here there is a decided overtone of musical rhythm, which partly dispels the corrective and restor- ing effect of the third clause ; thus : — •

3 I

4 J

The

J

I

J J

sea - son

chill

and the

J. -^ J

breath of the

and

I I

d 4

mom - ing

I dark.

I damp,

s s J

and

J J

J I J

ship - I pers are

few.

The clause of the passage from Revelation beginning " and there shall be no more death " has a musical reverberation, subdued and yet sublime, which may perhaps be thus represented : —

li J-

And

I

^ 4 there

^

4 • shall

be

^ I ^.

ther

cry

/ / / ^ ^

nei ther shall there be an - y more | pain,

I

J for

J

J

mer things are passed

death.
^ ^
ing,
for the
J. way.

This vigilance against metre aside, the writer's care, as Stevenson puts it, is to keep " his phrases large, rhythmical, and pleasing to the ear," giving each a finish in itself, and a cadence that makes it flow smoothly into the next.

To this end, special care has to be given to the treatment of monosyllables, in order to avoid the unwieldy congested effect of tumbling accented or weighty words in heaps together. It is useful here to study the offsetting effect of the symbolics, which, being ordinarily unaccented, are a

216 DICTION.

great help in the joints and transitions of structure, to give lightness and easy flow.

Examples. — In the sentence, " Good Lord, give us bread now," all the words but " us " are emphatic, and the enunciation is heavy. So also the sentence, " Think not that strength lies in the big round word," which is a line of a poem designed to show the value of the monosyllable, is unrhyth- mical because there is so little distribution of accent. On the other hand, the monosyllabic line, " Bless the Lord of Hosts, for he is good to us," is lightened up to an easy flow by the symbolics, the, of, for, is, to, which alternate with the presentive words of the sentence.

Polysyllables, with their alternation of accented and obscure sounds, are "phrases of Nature's own making," and for this reason are very useful in the varied web of rhythm. Herein lieS, in part, the value of the more dignified Latin element of the vocabulary, words from this source averag- ing longer, and thus helping volume of sense by volume of sound.-' They lead also to the use, more frequent in prose than in poetry, of the triplet, which grace of rhythm, adopted from musical movement, may also in skilful hands be extended to monosyllabic combinations.

Examples. — For variety yet evenness of flow," and for the skilful employment of the triplet, let us take the following from Stevenson, the more readily as he has so illumined the theory of rhythm : —

" A strange | picture | we make || on oilr way | "1 to our | chimaeras, || ceaselessly | marching, II grudging | ourselves | the time | for rest ; || inde-

fatigable, J adventiirdus | pioneers. || It is true | that we shall never | reach the goal ; || it is even | more than probable | that there is | no siich place ; || and if | we lived | for centiiries || and were endowed | with the powers | of a god, II we should find | oiirselves | not much | nearer | «1 what we wanted || at the end. || O 1 | tSilTng hands | of mortals ! II O 1 | unwearied feet, | travelling | ye kn5w not | whither 1 1| Soon, 1 | soon, ~1 | it seems to you, ||

1 See above, pp. 71, 94. " Racy Saxon monosyllables, close to us as touch and sight, he will intermix readily with those long, savoursome, Latin words, rich in ' second intention.' " — Pater on Style, Appreciatiotis, p. 13.

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE. 217

3

you. miist come forth | on some | consplcudus | hilltop, || "1 and biit | a little way I further, || agSnst | the setting | sun, *1 || descry | the spires | of El | Dorado. || Little | do ye know | your own | blessedness ; || for to travel | hopefully | "I is a | better thing | than to arrive, 1| and the true | success | is to labour." || l

The Clause This, which corresponds to the verse or line '

in poetry, must in prose, in order to avoid monotony, be con- tinually varied in length, being in this respect comparable .to the verse structure of the ode.'' In phrasing, too, there is aT special call for variety in successive lines, for it is in the craving to make clauses echo each other that the tendency to sing-song and to diluted phrase especially rises.

The balancing of clauses against each other, rhythmical though not metrical, constitutes the Hebrew parallelism, the basal principle of Hebrew poetry. A quasi-imitation of this principle has been adopted by Walt Whitman, and could have been carried to greater success than appears in his work, if he had had a better ear for the rhythm of the constituent phrase.

Example. — The following, from Walt Whitman's Song of the Open Road, will show both his principle of clausal verse and the curious jumble rhythm of phrase into which he is continually falling : — •

" All parts away for the progress of souls,

All religion, all solid things, arts, governments — all that was or is apparent upon this globe or any globe, falls into niches and corners Ipefore the procession of souls along the grand roads of the universe.

Of the progress of the souls of men and women along the grand roads of the uni- verse, all other progress is the needed emblem and sustenance.

Forever alive, forever forward.

Stately, solemn, sad, withdrawn, baffled, mad, turbulent, feeble, dissatisfied.

Desperate, proud, fond, sick, accepted by men, rejected by men.

They go ! they go ! I know that they go, but I know not where they go,

But I know that they go toward the best — toward something great." 3

1 Stevenson, Bl Dorado, Virgittibus Puerisque, p. 109.

2 See above, p. r85.

8 Whitman, Leaves of Grass, p. 127.

218 DICTION.

The Sentence Concerning the rhythmical structure of the

sentence, which corresponds to the stanza in poetry, little of a practical nature can be said ; not because the subject is bar- ren, but because every writer must so truly work out the jpattern according to his own artistic insight. In one thing, however, theorists are agreed : that the sentence has three rhythmic divisions or stages, - — a gradual rise to a pause or culminating point, then a period of reposeful or level prog- ress, then a cadence or graduated solution.' Such graceful management of sentences, in prose of the more pedestrian type, may impart much of the sense of rhythm, even when the balanced rhythm of clause and phrase is less marked.

Example. — The following sentence from Sir William Temple, with the comment thereon is quoted from Professor Saintsbury : —

" ' When all is done, human life is at the greatest and the best but like a froward child, that must be played with and humored a little to keep it quiet till it falls asleep, and then the care is over.'

" Here the division is that which has been noted as the usual one in eighteenth century prose, an arsis (to alter the use of the word a little) as far as * child,' a level space of progress till ' asleep,' and then a thesis, here unusually brief, but quite sufficient for the purpose. But here also the movement is quite diiferent from that of poetry. Part of the centre clause, ' but like a froward child that must be played with,' may indeed be twisted into something like a heroic, but there is nothing corresponding to it earlier or later, and the twisting itself is violent and unnatural." ^

Pause and Hiattis One of the important principles com- ing into prosody from the rhythm of music is, that the pause must be reckoned with. It has a distinctive value, expressed in silence ; in other words, while the voice is waiting, the music of the movement is going on. This applies equally to

1 In addition to the remark quoted from Professor Saintsbury in the text may be quoted the following from Stevenson's essay (p. 247) already so extensively used : " The true business of the literary artist is to plait or weave his meaning, involving it around itself ; so that each sentence, by successive phrases, shall first come into a kind of knot, and then, after a moment of suspended meaning, solve and clear itself."

2 Saintsbury, on English Prose Style^ Miscellaneous Essays, p. 34,

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE. 219

verse and to prose, though in the measured- rhythm and musical lilt of the former its period is more calculable. To manage it in prose, with its delicacies and compensations, requires that same fineness of ear on which we must depend for all faultless prose rhythm. —^

When there is no compensation, when the pause is un- motived or inadvertent, it is called hiatus. Of this blemish every ordinary ear is aware, though it may not perceive the cause or even locate the fault ; there is a sense of jolting and lack, as if some pin or fastening had fallen out. The ill man- agement of the pause is the secret of much unmusical prose which, tested merely by phrase and clause, seems to satisfy all rhythmical requirements.

Examples of Pause. — In the passage from Revelation treated musically on p. 215, two pauses of different lengths are very naturally measured by the musical rhythm ; the pause before neither (marked by an eighth rest 1 ), which amounts to the shortening of the succeeding syl- lable ; and the pause after pain, which is a whole beat and an eighth rest over.

In the example from Stevenson, p. 216, the pause with the word " Soon, *1 soon, *1 " gives the word the value of a whole poetic foot.

Cadence. — It is at the end of a sentence or paragraph that rhythm, orNthe lack of it, is especially noticeable. In such places the eaKrequires that the sense be brought to a gradual fall, not a sudden halt ; and the well-trained ear will graduate the length of this xall to the amount of preparation that has been made for it.^ It acts as jijrhythniifial jgji£oJding„oL.the - movement that thejjody of the sejiteace_has involved in a "more or less complex_progression,._and_.thua.is not merely an idle embellishment but a means of giving impressiveness to the whole current of the sentence.

Examples. — In the sentence from Sir William Temple, the words " and then the care is over " form a beautiful brief cadence.

1 See this practically shown under Suspension, p. 286 below.

220 DICTION.

The following sentences illustrate the disagreeable sound of an abrupt ending : " Famine, epidemics, raged " ; " The soldier, transfixed by the spear, writhed " ; " Achilles, being apprised of the death of his friend, goes to the battle-field without armor, and, standing by the wall, shouts." All these endings are felt to be bad, not because they are inaccurate, but because they are too short ; we naturally require more volume, and more graduation of accent and sound, in words that in themselves are so important.

BOOK III. COMPOSITION.

Leaving now the subject of diction, which, it will be remembered, centres mainly in words -/- their usages, their shadings and connotations, their euphonic and rhythmic potencies ^^ we enter here upon a study of the processes ! involved in putting words together, the constructive forms we have in view being phraseSjSentences, paragraphs. Our problems now are problems not of material but of combina- tion ; and the qualities we seek are, mainly, clearness in its ( aspect of perspicuity, as promoted by the mutua/F relations of words, and force in its aspect of emphasis,^:s promoted by - their relative positions. , i

The word composition, in the coming four chapters, is employed in a somewhat restricted sense, carrying the mean- ing, that is, only so far as we may regard the subject-matter as already m hand, ready to be moulded into style. Beyond that, in the consideration of theme, plan, and specific literary forms, we are dealing with that larger stage of organism, that work with the discovery and ordering of material, which we call invention.

It is in composition that rhetoric shows its close relation- ship to grammar, and at the same time its fundamental advance beyond that science. Grammar deals with the laws of correct expression ; which laws rhetoric must observe, because correctness lies necessarily a't the foundation of all expression, rhetorical or other. But even in employing gram- matical processes as working-tools, rhetoric imparts to them

222 COMPOSITION.

a new quality distinctively rhetorical, the quality by which they become methods in an art, means to an end. They are viewed not for themselves, but for their adaptedness to the requirements and capacities of a reader or hearer, — for their power to act on men. In discussing them, therefore, we are to approach each principle, so to say, on its operative side : to take it up not at all because it is grammar, but because there is discerned in it a touch or strain of rhetoric.

CHAPTER VIII.

PHRASEOLOGY.

Rhetorically, we may regard as a phrase any combina- tion of words moving together as a unit, as one element of expression. We are not concerned with the question whether it is prepositional, participial,* or infinitive. It may for our purpose be no more than a noun with its adjective ; it may be as much as a sentence-member with its relative or con- junction. In other words, the present chapter deals with ele- ments of construction considered in their internal relations, without reference to the completed product they make up as joined together ; or rather, with those internal relations them- selves, the organic laws according to which the unity of words grows into the larger unity of the group.

t) ' ' ' , , ■ ' I. SYNTACTICAL ADJUSTMENTS.

Not all, nor any considerable portion, of the field o^ syn- tax need be traversed here ; it will be sufficient to bring up merely some points wherein the grammatical principle receives a special significance or modification from the rhe- torical point of view.

Concord of Subject and Verb. — That a verb should agree in number with its subject, and a pronoun with its antece- dent, is a strict grammatical law ; rhetorically, however, the question sometimes rises what is the number of the subject or antecedent, a question to be answered by the logical sense.

I. The most prevalent error in concord, probably, is owing

223

224 COMPOSITION.

to haste ; the verb is made to agree with the nearest noun, which, it may be, has stolen in between the subject and the verb and attracted the latter to its own number.

Examples. — i . Of verb attracted to nearest noun. " The enormous ex- pense of governments have provoked men to think, by making them feel " ; " This large homestead, including a large barn and beautiful garden, are to be sold next month."

z. Of subject obscured by intervening matter. " But these Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, written as simply and straightforwardly as his battles were fought, couched in the most unpretentious phrase, with never a touch of grandiosity or attitudinizing, familiar, homely, even common in style, is a great piece of literature, because great literature is nothing more nor less than the clear expression of minds that have something great in them, whether religion, or beauty, or deep experience."

If this be defended on the ground that the title of a book, though plural in form, takes a singular verb, it may be answered that the author (Howells) has made the subject plural by the word these.

2. As the word and adds two or more singular subjects together, a plural verb is by rule required. Logically, how- ever, these subjects may sometimes be merely synonyms for the same thing ; sometimes they may be a closely connected couple making up together a single idea ; in which cases the singular verb is right. It should be noted that if a writer ventures on this assertion of the singular he must be sure of his case, for superficial appearances are against him.

Examples. — i. Ofsynonyms. "AH the furniture, the stock of shops, the machinery which could be found in the realm, was of less value than the property which some single parishes now contain." Here the writer (Macaulay) evidently views his three subjects as practically synonyms describing the aspects of one single subject of remark.

■1. Of combined couples. " The composition and resolution of forces was largely applied by Newton " ; " The ebb and flow of the tides is now well understood."

In the following, the author, Mrs. Phelps-Ward, having subjects in both numbers, repeats the verb, and so gains emphasis, though grammatically the repetition is not necessary : " The kindest of audiences, and my full quota of encouragement, have not, and has not, been able to supply me

PHRASEOLOGY. 225

with the pluck required to add visibly to this number of public appear- ances. Before an audience I am an abject coward, and I have at last concluded to admit the humiliating fact." ^

3. Another occasion for the writer to work by the logical rather than by the grammatical interpretation of number is the use of the collective noun. This may sometimes convey the idea of the group as a unit, and accordingly be singular ; and sometimes, bringing to mind its individual constituents, be plural. The point is to be settled not arbitrarily but by the most natural implication of the sense.

Examples. — " The Jewish people were all free." Here plurality pre- dominates, the subject being the Jews regarded a.s individuals. — "An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign.*' Here the action is so collective as to make a singular verb suitable.

In the following, the subject is so individualized in thought that the singular verb sounds inappropriate : " The study of the moon's surface has been continued now from the time of Galileo, and of late years a whole class of competent observers has been devoted to it, so that astronomers engaged in other branches have oftener looked on this as a field for occa- sional hours of recreation with the telescope than made it a constant study."

4. A clash of concord occurs when disjoined subjects (con- nected, that is, by or or nor) are in different numbers, or so numerous as to suggest not disjunction but plurality. In such cases use, where possible, a form of the verb which is the same for either number (the auxiliary forms are especially useful here) ; failing this, it is better to change the construc- tion of 'the sentence than to fight for either the singular or the plural.

Examples. — " Neither money nor brilliant endowments was. (or were ?) of use in this crisis ; he could only be still and endure." Instead of this verb say " could avail," and the clash is evaded. — " Only a few, perhaps only one, were (or was .?) benefited." Say rather, " received any benefit."

In the following, where, " though the verb should formally be singular,

1 Quoted from McClure 's Magazine, Vol. vii, p. 78.

226 COMPOSITION.

still the number of alternate subjects is strongly suggestive of plurality,'' the difficulty is evaded, as above, by a neutral verb: —

" truths that wake,

To petlsh never ; Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavor.

Nor Man nor Boy, Nor all that is at enmity with joy. Can utterly aholish or destroy ! " 1

The Scheme of Tense. — The tenses of the verbs in any pas- sage form together a scheme of tense, past, present, or future, which controls the time in which, relatively, all the action is thought of as taking place.

5. Dependent clauses and infinitives, therefore, are not in an absolute but a relative tense ; they count the time of their action from that of the principal assertion.

Examples. — " Last week I intended to have written." This is wrong, because at the time referred to " to write " was the purpose ; " to write " is therefore the proper infinitive relative to " intended." — " In the same way, I cannot excuse the remissness of those whose business it should have been to have interposed their good offices " ; " There were two circumstances which made it necessary for them to have lost no time," — ought to be " to interpose," " to lose."

" And so, you see, the thing never would have been looked into at all if I had n't happened to have been (say rather " to be ") down there."

In the use of the verb "should like" the mistake is very commonly made of interchanging the tense of the principal verb and the infinitive, — " I should like to have seen him," instead of " I should have liked to see him." This is owing, no doubt, to the difficulty of pronouncing " lik^rf to" when they are placed together; a difficulty, however, which should not be allowed to make the difference between accuracy and error. The fol- lowing sentence, from Howells, illustrates the correct use : " There were some questions that she would have liked to ask him ; but she had to content herself with trying to answer them when her husband put them to her."

6. An exception obtains in the case of general and univer- sal truths, which, as being essentially timeless, require the present tense, whatever the tense of the accompanying verbs.

1 Wordsworth, Ode on Intimations of Immortality, st. ix.

PHRASEOLOGY. 227

Examples. — " In the past century some learned gentlemen discovered that there was (say rather is) no God"; "He always maintained with unshaken faith that honesty is the best policy."

7. When the historic present (see above, p. 98) is used, it should be kept in a scheme of its own, and not unadvisedly mixed with the past of ordinary narrative.

Example. — In the following passage, if the tenses are used of pur- pose, there is at least a bewildering mixture of the present and past schemes : —

" The Romans now turn aside in quest of provisions. The Helvetians mistook the movement for retreat. They pursue, and give Caesar his chance. They fight at disadvantage, and after a desperate struggle are defeated."

The idle mixture of historic present and past is very common with inexperienced writers and writers without imagination.

The Participial Phrase. — The participial phrase, equivalent to a clause, is a very convenient means of subordinating one assertion to another, thus avoiding the too frequent use of principal verbs. By its agency conditions, modifications, bits of portrayal may be introduced unobtrusively, without obscuring the current of principal assertion. But some cau- tions are needed in the use of it ; it is peculiarly liable to slipshodness.

8. The participle presupposes a subject to which it relates. This subject, which is generally the subject of the sentence, should be expressed, and the relation of the participle to it should be unambiguous and, if possible, uninterrupted. Ordi- narily, too, the subject should have a prominent place in its clause, being the point of reference for the phrase ; sometimes, however, when there is no reasonable danger of ambiguity, it may have a less prominent position, though not remain unexpressed.

Examples. — i. Of the misrelated participle. "Being exceedingly fond of birds, an aviary is always to be found in the grounds." Here

228 COMPOSITION.

there is no clue to the person or persons fond of birds ; grammatically the only word to which the participle may be attached is aviary. — " While visiting St. Louis with him while he was President, he made a character- istic remark showing how little his thoughts dwelt upon those events of his life which made such a deep impression upon others.'' Here the one who was visiting St. Louis does not appear; the sentence should be either " While T was visiting, ... he made," or, " While visiting, . . . I heard him make a remark."

2. As soon as the participle is made to refer to the object of the sen- tence or, still more, to a possessive, the ambiguity and slipshodness appear ; e.g. " At three o'clock the Queen received an address from the tenants on the Sandringham estate, having (i.e. they) been introduced to her Majesty's presence by General Sir Dighton Probyn " ; " Having so lately quitted the tumults of a party and the intrigues of a court, they (viz. tumults and intrigues) still kept his thoughts in agitation, as the sea fluc- tuates a while when the storm has ceased." ^

3. In the following the placing of the subject in a less prominent posi- tion, being unsuggestive of ambiguity, is a grace : " Writing for a livelihood, a livelihood is all that I have gained ; for, having also something better in view, and never, therefore, having courted popularity, nor written for the mere sake of gain, it has not been possible for me to lay by anything."

9. Akin to the misrelated participle, though not ambigu- ous, is the unreldited participle, the subject being omitted as obvious, or not important to the expression ; a construction that is encroaching in the language, and has usefulness, though it needs caution as a concession to looser construction.

Example. — " Any one of all these is a fit character to be assumed as the speaking subject of a psalm, understanding \yj such a composition the outpouring of the soul's fulness to God." ^ Here the one who does the " understanding " is wholly vague, probably whoever is concerned with the fact asserted. Obviously this construction, so loose and sprawling, needs watching ; as it is, it just escapes being connected with " any one " or "speaking subject," which in fact it is grammatically. De Quincey is said to have introduced this usage.

10. As the participial phrase is really a condensed clause, it must, with the substance of the clause, retain also its con-

1 Examples under 2 quoted from Earle, English Prose, p. 1S7.

2 Robertson, The Poetry and the Religion of the Psalms, p. 321.

PHRASEOLOGY. 229

nections : the conjunction if the clause is conjunctional, the subject or its representative if the clause is pronominal. Sometimes these naturally suggest themselves and may be left to implication ; but at all events the participial construction should be tested for clearness.

Examples. — i. The most natural implication of the participle when left to itself is cause or reason, as, " Being of a musical turn of mind, he has collected a large number of musical classics,'' where something like because is understood with " being." If, however, some other connection is intended, it must ordinarily be expressed ; the line, " France at our doors, he sees no danger nigh,'' where the connection is " though France is at our doors," is somewhat obscure, and admissible only by poetic license. — " Republics in the first instance, are never desired for their own sakes. I do not think they will finally be desired at all, unaccompanied by courtly graces and good breeding." Here there is enough uncertainty between because and if as connectives of " unaccompanied " to make expression of the real connection desirable; either "if unaccompanied," or "unaccompanied as they are, by," etc.

i. The first example under 2, If 8, is an instance where the subject, not being the same as the subject of the sentence, needs to accompany its participle : " they having been introduced," equivalent to " who were intro- duced." This retention of the subject with a participle brings us to a new construction here to be considered.

II. The pendent participle, or participle absolute, a con- struction derived from the Latin ablative absolute, is perhaps the loosest of the participial constructions, and needs especial caution on this ground. As it is essentially parenthetical, it ought, like all parentheses, to be made as brief and rapid as may be, and not to disturb the natural solution of the* sentence.

Example. — The following participle absolute is faulty in both these particulars, — it is long and heavy, and it makes an unprepared-for turn at " the ministers " after having seemed to promise a sentence with " The Duke of Wellington " as subject : " The Duke of Wellington having failed to form a government of declared anti-reformers, ready to devise a measure of reform at once satisfactory to the people and to the House of Lords, the ministers were recalled.'' ^

1 Quoted from Earle, English Prose, p. i88.

230 COMPOSITION.

The Infinitive Two points about the rhetorical usage of

the infinitive, both by way of caution, call here for notice.

12. The use of the so-called "split infinitive," that is, the insertion of an adverb between the sign of the infinitive (to) and its verb, the tendency to which is on the increase, is much objected to by purists, and is in fact a shibboleth of second-rate style. With this estimate of its present status, we leave the writer to take his own risks.

Examples. — " It has been left for the ' Challenger ' expedition to fully establish the truth of this conjecture " ; " It will be interesting to see whether, when his own private squabbles are all fought out, he will have sufficient energy left to any longer play the part of censor for the public good " ; "I have far too high an appreciation of the work they have done to in any way interfere with their independence " ; " The Judge refused delay, and ordered a writ of attachment to immediately be issued." — In the third of these examples the splitting adverb is a whole phrase.^

A word, however, about its effects, good and bad. It has the ill effect of dividing a very close relation, almost like dividing a compound word ; further, it surrenders the effort to place the adverb according to its rightful stress, that is, before or after the verb, seeming in fact to dump the adverb down merely to get rid of it. This is probably the cause of its peculiarly crude effect. On the other hand, the split infinitive is in the line of the prevailing instinct for lucidity ; there is one situation, too, namely, when the adverb is sug- gestive of another modification if placed before the verb, and separates the verb from a complex object if placed after, where there is real color for the construction. At present, however, it should at best be reserved for the exceptional case where the use distinctly outweighs the disadvantage.

Example. — From Professor Earle : " The next example is one of a class which affords evidence that this innovation has been induced by the

1 For a discussion of this encroaching usage, from which the above-given exam- ples are quoted, see Earle, EjigUsh Prose, pp. 182-186.

PHRASEOLOGY. 231

lengthening of the evolute processes ; — for I presume no one would say, ' I want you to carefully examine this ' instead of ' to examine this carefully.' When, therefore, Mr. Ebblewhite writes, 'I have to advise Mr. Donnelly to carefully examine the documents to which I refer,' — we see that the verbal object with its evolute clause (viz. ' the documents to which I refer ') claiming proximity to its governing verb (viz. ' examine ') has been the cause of the novel placement of the Adverb."

13. Where several infinitives occur in sequence, the word on which each one depends is to be made, obvious. Care in this respect is demanded by the fact that an infinitive follow- ing another may with equal correctness be either subordinate to or coordinate with the other ; its office and rank should therefore be made evident.

Note. — One or two aids to clearness may be mentioned. Two infini- tives coordinate with each other may be closely connected by omitting the preposition to with the second. The dependence of infinitives may often be made clear by distinguishing between the infinitive of sequence (to) and the infinitive of purpose (»'« order to).

The following, with its comment, is taken from Abbot's How to Write Clearly : " 'He said that he wished to take his friend with him to visit the capital and to study medicine.' Here it is doubtful whether the meaning is —

" ' He said that he wished to take his friend with him, " (i) and also to visit the capital and study medicine ' or " (2) ' that his friend might visit the capital and might also study medi- cine,' or " (3) ' on a visit to the capital, and that he also wished to study medi- cine.' "

If in these examples we adopt the two aids above mentioned, the sen- tence becomes, " He said that he wished to take his friend with him in order to visit the capital and /\ study medicine," which gives clear sense in one aspect. Eor other senses it may be necessary to use that he might for to, or to insert conjunctions.

A neglect of the true relation of infinitives is shown in the common expression to " try and do " something. Here the two verbs are treated as if they were coordinate ; whereas the second depends on the first, and the expression should be " try to do.''

232 COMPOSITION.

II. THREE IDIOMS.

Of the great store of idioms that give life and flavor to the English language,^ three are here selected for special treat- ment ; and this for two reasons : first, because, accurately observed, they impart a delicacy of coloring and implication which the language can ill afford to spare; and secondly, because the wholesale disregard of all three, already widely prevalent in popular writing, has been advocated by facile writers too careless or too lazy to master their subtleties. Like all resources of the literary art, however, these idioms are to be reckoned with. If they are puzzling, so much the greater call for thorough study of them ; and not to know them, or to despise their superfineness of shading, discredits not them but the too willing neglecter.

' The Subjunctive. — As the name indicates, this is the mood of a verb subjoined to another, as a condition or some kind of limitation. In form, it is distinguished from the indicative merely by taking the form of the plural for both nupibers ; except in the verb to be, where in the present it adopts the form be. In the past tense, except in the verb to be (were'), the subjunctive has no distinctive form.

14. In the present tense, the chief use of the subjunctive, as distinguished from the indicative, is this : that while the indicative throws stress on ivhat the supposition is, the sub- junctive makes prominent the fact that it is a supposition.

Examples. — " No man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him " ; "If he be the rightful owner, the property shall be delivered to him " ; "I am at a loss to know whether this be so or not." — In all these examples, we are simply aware that the condition or suppo- sition is made, and is a supposition, implying, however, nothing decisive as to whether it is or is not accordant with fact.

1 For the Tissue of Idiom in English, see above, p. 53.

PHRASEOLOGY. 233

15. In the past tense, the subjunctive adds to the sense of supposition the further implication that the supposition is contrary to fact. When this implication is not rightly made, the indicative is better in modern prose ; some survivals of old usage, where the past subjunctive is uSed for a neutral supposition, sound estranging.

Examples. — i. "If he were here [but he is not], he would give no light on these perplexing facts " ; " If he was here [and supposedly he was], he must have left some traces of his presence "; " Were it written in a thousand volumes [though in fact it is not], I would not believe it " ; " Thou couldst have no power at all against me except it were [= if it were not, though in fact it is] given thee from above." In this fast exam- ple we reach this contrary implication by a kind of double negative.

^. The following illustrate the obsolete effect of using the past sub- junctive-as a. neutral supposition when the supposition is according to actual fact : "Though he xvere a king, yet learned he obedience " ; " Well, but what harm had come of it all ? Louie was a strong lass now, if she were a bit thin and overgrown. David was as fine a boy as anyone need wish to see." ^ — On the other hand, if the supposition is contrary to fact, the indicative sounds raw and crude ; e.g. " It is time some contempt was shown to ladies : they have shown it to servants long enough.'' It is in cases like this last that the indicative is most actively supplanting the subjunctive.

^ Shall and Will.- — The forms shall ■i.n^ will, with their pret- erites should and would, which are used as auxiliaries of the future tense, retain in addition to their future meaning a coloring derived from the original meaning of the words. This coloring is always present, though in some cases it so blends with the future sense as to be practically one with it. For fine rhetorical tact, however, recognition of the original implication, with its exact shading of effect, is important to the writer's outfit.

" The radical signification of will (Anglo-Saxon, willan) is purpose, intention, determination ; that of shall (Anglo-Saxon

1 Mrs. Humphry Ward, David Grieve, p. t,%.

234 COMPOSITION.

sceal, ought) is obligation."' To these root-meanings we trace the rationale of usage in the different persons.

1 6. The auxiliary of the simple future, —

I shall, We shall,

You will,

He wUl, She will, It will. They will,—

becomes such because when unemphatic the primary meaning blends with the sense of futurity and is disregarded : in the first person {shall), because obligation predicated of one's self may be taken as implying that what ought to be will be ; in the second and third persons (will), because it is a natural courtesy to assume that a person who purposes will carry out his plans. The primary meaning, however, is very near the surface ; as soon, in fact, as the auxiliary becomes emphatic, as it were asserting itself, or the future force is pressed into the background by a condition, or a dependent clause, or an interrogation, the original force of the auxiliary emerges and makes itself felt.

Examples. — The simple future, as, "I shall be in New York next Wednesday," or, " It will be a fair day to-morrow,'' with the latent sense of obligation or purpose disregarded, needs no comment. When, however, we say, " He will go, in spite of all I can say," where the auxiliary has the stress ; or " If ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come," where the auxiliary is in a conditional clause ; or " Shall I undertake this responsibility ? " " Will he assent to your proposal ? " where the auxiliary is in a question, we have the sense of more than future implied ; the original meaning has come to color it.

17. The auxiliary of the colored or connotative future, —

I wUl, We will.

You shall.

He shall. She shall, It shall. They shall, —

imparts its primary' sense to the verb: purely in the first person {ivill, purpose) ; with implication of the speaker's

1 Quoted from White, Words and their Uses, p. 266.

PHRASEOLOGY. 235

authority imposed as obligation in the second and third persons (shall), having, according to circumstances, various degrees of effect, from absolute command to threat, decree, fate, or certain prophecy.

Examples. — The commandments are put thus in the absolute form: " Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." " The man shall suffer for this insult " implies a threat ; " all manner of sin and iniquity shall be forgiven " conveys assurance and certainty ; " the ele- ments shall melt with fervent heat " is a prophecy. In the sentence, " The style shall be simple and familiar : but style is the image of character ; and the habits of correct writing may produce, without labor or design, the appearance of art and study," which is written by Gibbon concerning the style of his projected autobiography, the shall implies that the speaker imposes something on himself as an obligation or imperative duty. All these grow directly out of the primary sense of ought-ness or obligation involved in shall.

i8. In the literary use of these auxiliaries there are some interesting reversals ; of which two may be noted.

When the authority to command is absolute and unques- tioned, as for instance in military orders, the absolute shall is by courtesy softened to will, with fine implication thus secured both as to the commander's non-assertion of author- ity and the other's readiness to obey.

When, as in a citation or example, the future sense is sec- ondary, the will of the second or third person is changed to shall, with implication thus secured of certainty or univer- sality,— perhaps the most finely drawn and delicate application of the idiom.

Examples. — i. When an order is given, " At nine o'clock Colonel M. will occupy the R. cross-roads," the assertion of command is waived, while it is assumed that obedience is sure and willing.

z. " You shall see a man readily ascertain every herb of the field, yet hardly know wheat from barley, or at least one sort of wheat or barley from another." ^ — " But this is not unsuitable to the illustration of the

' White, Natural History of Selborne, p. 222.

236 COMPOSITION.

fervent Bunyan, breathing hurry and momentary inspiration. He, with his hot purpose, hunting sinners with a lasso, shall himself forget the things that he has written yesterday. He shall first slay Heedless in the Valley of the Shadow, and then take leave of him talking in his sleep, as if noth- ing had happened, in an arbor on the Enchanted Ground." ^

■-^ Connotation of the Relative. — The difficulty of this idiom is, that while the connotation involved is real and constant, there is so much exception to the standard manner of expressing it that the rule itself, unless it be observed as a felt principle, is apt to be obscure.

19. The relatives who, which, and that, besides representing their antecedent in a further assertion, connote also the fact that the new assertion either adds to the- information given by the antecedent clause, or by some sort of restriction completes it. This distinction is present to the sense, whether brought out in expression or not.

Typically, the relatives who and which assume that the antecedent is fully defined in sense, their office being to introduce additional information about it. They may accord- ingly be called the additive relative, and are equivalent to a demonstrative with a conjunction: "and he," "and this," « and these."

The relative that assumes that its antecedent is not yet fully defined, its office being to complete or restrict its mean- ing. It may accordingly be called the restrictive relative, and may generally be represented, by way of equivalent, by an adjectival or participial phrase.

Examples. — i. Of the Additive Relative. "But flesh with the life thereof, which [= and this] is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat."'-* Here the relative clause makes a new assertion ; it might be left out and the rest of the sentence would be complete in sense.

2. Of the Restrictive Relative. " I was in the open air all day, and did no thought that I could avoid, and I think I have got my head between

1 Stevenson, Bagster 's Pilgrim 's Progress, Works, Vol. xxii, p. 223.

2 Genesis ix. 4.

PHRASEOLOGY. til

my shoulders again ; however, I am not going to do much." ^ Here the antecedent is not complete in sense without the definition that the relative clause gives ; not thought (or thinking) in general, but merely such thought as he could avoid, is the subject of remark. The adjectival phrase "avoid- able by me " would be nearly an equivalent for the relative clause.

3. Of the two in one sentence. " The peace that was now made, which is known as the Peace of Westphalia, made some important changes in Europe." Here the ^//aAclause completes the sense of the antecedent, while the ■which-A'i.MSS relates a new fact about it. — Notice the difference of implication between the relatives of the following ; " Fetch me the books that lie on the table, and the pamphlets, which you will find on the floor."

Note. — A coordinative or additive clause is generally set off by a comma ; a restrictive clause is not.

20. There are certain cases where the word that, though the proper relative for restriction, is not available, and the relative who or which has to take its place and assume the restrictive sense. In these cases the reader is left to make for himself the adjustment in the function of the relative, while the form is waived to suit requirements of euphony or clearness that are more imperative.

The Principal Case£ of this Kind. — The following are the chief exceptions to the use of that as restrictive relative, under the two heads of Euphony and Clearness.

I. Euphony.

I. As the word that is not only a relative but also a demonstrative, a pronominal adjective, and a conjunction, it is apt to get in the way, and the word which is used to avoid the accumulation of thats. For example, when the antecedent is that: "It is that which I detest" (that that will not do) ; when the antecedent is modified by that : " That remark which I made yesterday " ; when a conjunctive Ma/ occurs near: "And there can be found other passages which show that it was a common and popular custom" {that show Ma? is both uneuphonious and grammatically awkward).

A. Which or who is often used when the words this, these, those, they come near as antecedents, because the th sounds so close to each other are

I Stevenson, Letters, Vol. i, p. 68.

238 COMPOSITION.

disagreeable : " Those who go must be well provided with wraps." This, however, is a somewhat modern refinement and not very pressing. Such expressions as " These iia-t have turned the world upside down are come hither also," " iiose t/tat look out of the windows be darkened," do not disturb a wholesome sense of euphony.

3. Tiaf sounds ill when separated from its verb or its antecedents and made a pause-word : " There are many persons iAat, though unscrupulous, are commonly good-tempered, and t&ai, if not strongly incited by self- interest, are ready for the most part to think of the interest of their neigh- bors." Here wAo would make a better pause-word.

4. As the word i/iat cannot be preceded by a preposition, w/iom or wAicA is sometimes used, though restrictive, in order to avoid sending the preposition to the end of the clause : " That was a dignity to which he could not aspire," instead of " that he could not aspire to." — A few words about this construction are needed here, because of the indiscriminate advice that is sometimes given, on the ground that, as some one has incon- sistently expressed it, " a preposition is a poor word to end a sentence vrith." The fact is, much depends on the effect. A long preposition, or a preposition that may also be an adverb, sounds cumbrous at the end ; e.g. " Such were the prejudices that he rose above" " this is the mark that I jumped beyond." On the other hand, the construction with which is more formal, less conversational ; e.g. " This is the rule to which I adhere," — in talk we say, " this is the rule I adhere to" " these are the principles to live by." The prepositions to, for, of, on, with, and hy are sent freely to the end of their clause, and with good conversational effect. The following is per- haps an extreme example : " It seemed to be one of those facts of existence that she could not get used to, nor find anywhere in her brisk, fiery little body a grain of cool resignation for." — Here is the way Browning uses it in poetry : —

" That was the bench they sat on, — there 's the board They took the meal at, — yonder garden-ground They leaned across the gate of." 1

II. Clearness.

5. The word who is used restrictively instead of that in order to make clear the gender of the antecedent, with such words as many, others, sev- eral, those. For example : " There are many millions in India who would be utterly unable to pay a fine of fifty rupees." If in this case the ante- cedent were clear, the restrictive form would be more appropriate, as,

1 Browning, The Ring and the Book, Book v, 11. 1256-1258.

PHRASEOLOGY. 239

"There are many millions of persons in India that," etc. So when with these pronominal adjectives things are meant, we say not "all which,'' " much which," but " all that," " much that."

21. While the relative connotes addition or restriction, it does not always give these implications with the proper em- phasis or tenuity of stress ; it is in this respect a somewhat unwieldy construction. For this reason it is important to have at command the various equivalents for the relative.

Equivalents foe. the Relative. — The following are the common- est equivalents for the relative, classified according to the object sought in the employment of them.

I. For Augmentation of Stress.

1. Sometimes, instead of the additive relative, its equivalent, a demon- strative with a conjunction, will better bring out the importance of the statement ; e.g. " Only a few presidents oppose fraternities to-day ; who [better and these'] are in most cases heads of universities, where the need of Greek letter societies is not so evident as in colleges generally.''

2. The restrictive relative introducing a negative statement is weak; the statement may be much strengthened by using the word 6ut as a rela- tive, which changes the statement to affirmative : " It has no defects 6ut such as can be remedied in succeeding volumes," is stronger than " It has no defects that cannot be remedied in succeeding volumes." " There is no moral rule but bends [= that does not bend] to circumstances."

II. For Attenuation of Stress.

3. The relative may be condensed by being combined, in the same word, with a preposition, or with its antecedent. Thus wherein, whereby, may be used for in which, by which : " Great virtues often save, and always illustrate the age and nation wherein they appear."

" Yet all experience is an arch wherethro ' Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades For ever and for ever when I move."

— fVhat, the so-called double relative, being really relative and antecedent in one, is a useful equivalent for that which, those which : " Let me repeat to you what 1 have often said, that what is worth doing at all is worth doing well."

240 COMPOSITION.

4. The relative is often omitted to advantage, when it is the object of a verb (less often of a preposition), and when the omission brings the ante- cedent and the relative clause in juxtaposition : " Dickens's acting was a part of himself. He threw himself thoroughly into the character /\ he was impersonating, and thus made it real." — When, however, the antecedent and the relative clause are not brought into juxtaposition thereby, the relative will not so well bear omission. Example : " As for actresses, it surely would be the height of ungenerosity to blame a woman for follow- ing the only profession commanding fame and fortune /^ the kind consid- eration of man has left open to her,'' Here the phrase "commanding fame and fortune," between the antecedent and the relative clause, dis- turbs the reference, and the relative should be retained.^

5. In the case of the restrictive relative, the restriction may be made more attenuated and unobtrusive by reducing the relative clause to a phrase, or to a, clause of more subordinated type. The following are some aspects of this : —

a. A participle may thus be employed instead of the relative with princi- pal verb; as: "We shall briefly run over the events attending (= that attended) the conquest made (= that was made) by that empire."

b. In some cases the infinitive makes a convenient equivalent; as: " He was the first to enter" (= that entered).

c. A conditional or «/-clause may put the substance of a relative clause into less prominent relation ; as : " If & man does not care for music, he is to be pitied" (= The man that does not care, etc.). It is in long sen- tences that this equivalent will be found most useful.^

III. COLLOCATION.

The English syntax, being devoid of the aid that inflection would give in showing the mutual relations of words, is cor- respondingly more dependent on order and collocation. It depends on these first of all for clearness, for unless a modi- fying element is carefully placed some word is liable, coming between it and its principal, to steal its real connection. Secondly, the quality of Jorce has its claims ; for as the same element may be emphatic in one position and comparatively

1 For other cases of omission of relative, see above, p. 142, and below, p. 301.

2 For the relative and its equivalents, see Abbott, Hmi to Write Clearly, pp. 17-19; Bain, Composition Grammar, jtp. 6;^-St^.

PHRASEOLOGY. 241

insignificant in another, much of the writer's study is natu- rally devoted to placing elements where they will have just the stress intended, whether weighty or slight.

To preclude Ambiguity. — Ambiguity, as has been defined earlier,^ is the suggestion of two possible meanings, between which the reader's mind is left uncertain. It may come about through the choice of a word faulty in meaning ; of tener, however, it is incurred by faulty collocation of elements. The cases most requiring watchfulness against ambiguity are here given.

2 2. Of single words, the one that requires most care in placing, and that is oftenest misplaced, is only. The diffi- culty arises from the fact that only may be equally well attached to substantives, adjectives, verbs, or adverbs; to words, phrases, and clauses ; and so if it is separated from its principal, something that can usurp its relation is almost sure to intervene. It is true that the word is so often misplaced that readers adjust it mentally to the modification intended ; but this is no reason for placing it carelessly ; as a rule it should be placed, if possible, immediately before the word or construction to which it belongs.

Examples. — "Daddy was only good when he was happy; and at other times he dipped recklessly into vices which would have been the ruin of them all had they been persistent." ^ Strictly, this means Daddy was no more than good; that is, the word "good " has usurped its attach- ment ; the order should be " only when he was happy,'' the only being immediately before the phrase it modifies.

Sometimes the word only is used with an intended backward reference ; and this it can have when nothing comes after to steal it ; as " standing room only." Notice the ambiguity of the following : " New Huguenot churches are springing up on all sides, often in places where Protestant wor- ship has been abolished for over two hundred years. In two departments of central France only forty-five villages have since January besought the

1 See above, under Qualities of Style, pp. 3T, 32.

2 Mrs. Humphry Ward, David Grieve, p. 163.

242 COMPOSITION.

Huguenot societies for regular Protestant services." ^ The word alone is used for such cases.

23. Peculiarly liable to ambiguity are what may be termed the swivel particles, such adverbs as at least, at all events, per- haps, indeed, in fact ; because, as their office is to set off sen- tence-members, they are apt to come between two emphatic elements, where their influence may be reckoned either back- ward or forward. Accordingly, they should always be tested for ambiguity before their place is finally decided upon.

Examples. — "I think you will find my Latin exercise, at all events, as good as my cousin's." Does this mean, " My Latin exercise, at all events, I think,'' etc., or, " as good as my cousin's, at all events " ? Either of these orders would be unambiguous. — " Disturbance was not indeed infrequently caused by the summary arrest of fugitive slaves in various parts of the North." Better : " Not infrequently, indeed, disturbance was caused," etc.

24. A modifying phrase, like a modifying word, is either an adjective or an adverb ; and in placing it a test should be made that no substantive comes in to steal the adjectival rela- tion, no verb (or adverb, or participle, or adjective) to steal the adverbial. This is especially important where several phrases have to be grouped round one central attachment. No rule can be laid down for the relative order of phrases except to be watchful of the interior of phrases for wdrds that may form' a new nucleus of modification ; it is careless- ness in this regard that produces the most ludicrous effects in collocation.

Examples. — I. Of an intervening noun. " And worst of all, the heavy pall hangs over all the land of Birmingham smoke, which, with a northerly wind, blots all the color out of the country, turns the blue sky to a dull brown, makes dusky shadows under the elm tops, and hides the distance in a thin veil of London fog." Here the part between the noun and its genitival phrase contains a word ("land") that produces confusion; it might be read "land of Birmingham smoke." — A question of stress comes up here which will be adverted to later ; see page 246, 29.

1 From a newspaper.

PHRASEOLOGY. 243

2. Of intervening piirases containing verbs. " Base-ball managers must look at this pleasant weather and think of the opportunity they have let slip to fill their coffers to overflowing a/zM anything but pleasure'' Here the attachment of the last phrase is meant for " think," but it seems to belong to " fill," a verb that has slipped into an intervening phrase. The same faults are seen in the following : " Sir Morton Peto spoke of the notion that the national debt might be repudiated with absolute contempt." " People have been crying out that Germany never could be an aggressive power a great deal too soon." " It is curious to see how very little is said on the subject treated in the present essay, by the great writers on jurisprudence ''

25. In making up sentences of principal and dependent clauses, the writer should note how far the influence of such particles as if, unless, though, that, while, whereas, and the like extends ; they may by the conjunction and have the range of more than one clause, and need to be arrested if such range is not intended. The rule is to keep the principal assertions and the dependent clauses clearly separate from one another.

Examples. — " The lesson intended to be taught by these manoeuvres will be lost, if the plan of operations is laid down too definitely before- hand, and the affair degenerates into a mere review." Is the coordinate here " the lesson . . . will be lost . . . and the affair degenerates," that is, two principal assertions paired together, or, " if the plan . . . and [if ] the affair,'' etc. ? Put the j^clause first, and one sense of the sentence is made clear, the principal assertions being by themselves ; put the word so or {hus in place of the bracketed if above, and the influence of the if is arrested. — "Our critics appear to be fascinated by the quaintness of our public, as the world is when our beast-garden has a new importation of magnitude, and the creature's appetite is reverently consulted." ' Here the influence of as is not properly arrested at the beginning of the next clause. — A Ma^clause within a rto^clause is apt to give trouble ; e.g. " Some faint elements of reason being discernible in the brute, it is not enough to prove that a process is not a process of reason, that something approaching to it is seen in the brute." Here a recast is needed, beginning, "The fact that something approaching reason ... is not enough," etc.

To concentrate Stress For every element in the sentence

there is an ordinary or typical position, where it performs its

1 Meredith, Essay on Comedy, p. 99.

244 COMPOSITION.

function principal or subordinate without attracting special attention to itself. The problem how to concentrate stress on any such element is therefore merely some form of the problem how and where to remove it from its regular posi- tion ; to the solution of which problem it is necessary not only to know what is normal, what unusual in an element's position, but also to have a cultivated sense of the effect of every smallest change in placement. This cannot come by any formal theory ; it must be a tact.

26. The natural position of the simple adjective is before its noun. This order of collocation is so well established that " marked divergencies arrest the attention, and have, by reason of their exceptional character, a force that may be con- verted into a useful rhetorical effect." The occasional putting of the adjective after the noun, " one of the traces which early French culture has left on our literature," is a grace of style in cases where the noun has been sufficiently emphasized and can afford to throw the stress on the modification. When there is a group of adjectives, or when the adjective is modified by a phrase, the place after the noun is quite natural.

Examples. — It will be seen in the following examples how the interest centres in the quality rather than in the thing qualified. " But at last, and even here, it seemed as if the years of this loyal and eager poet had felici- ties too many." — " Having been successively subject to all these influ- ences, our language has become as it were a sort of centre to which beauties the most opposite converge." In this latter example the adjunct of the adjective makes its position after the noun more nearly a matter of course. — In the next example the noun is already so taken for granted that all the interest centres rather in its adjectives, which accordingly take the stress place : " The crowd round a couple of dogs fighting is a crowd masculine mainly, with an occasional active, compassionate woman, flutter- ing wildly round the outside, and using her tongue and hands freely upon the men, as so many ' brutes ' ; it is a crowd annular, compact, and mobile ; a crowd centripetal, having its eyes and its heads all bent downwards and inwards, to one common focus." ^

1 Dr. John Brown, Rab and his Friends.

PHRASEOLOGY. 245

27. When, besides the adjective, the noun has belonging to it an article; demonstrative, or possessive, the position of this latter is next the adjective, with at most an adverb between. There is a tendency, due to recent German influence, to en- cumber the adjective with adjuncts of its own, — a construc- tion which packs away material into an unobtrusive position, but produces a lumbering effect unfriendly to free movement and ease.

Examples. — "I have now travelled through nearly every Department in France, and I do not remember ever meeting with a dirty bed ; this, I fear, cannot be said of our happily in all other respects cleaner island." — " A young man, with some tints of academical training, and some of the livid lights of a then only incipient Rationalism on his mind." In these sentences the endeavor to introduce qualifying matter in a non-emphatic place is praiseworthy, but the place makes it seem like dead weight.

28. The single-word adverb is unemphatic before its verb and emphatic after it ; according to the stress needed, there- fore, the adverb can be placed at will. An adverbial phrase, coming as it does naturally after its verb, is stressed by being placed at the beginning of the sentence or clause.

Examples. — i . In the following sentence the adverb, while important, is not emphatic : " Each man gains a. power of realizing and firmly con- ceiving those things he habitually deals with, and not other things." Here the stress-word is the verb.

2. Compare now the effect of placing the adverb after the verb : " He writes passionately, because he feels keenly ; forcibly, because he feels vividly ; he sees too clearly to be vague ; he is too serious to be otiose," etc. Here the adverb is the strong element ; strong enough in one instance (" forcibly ") to stand alone in its clause.

3. In the following the two positions are taken alternately, with the stress thereby shifted : " There is a plot to humiliate us in the most abomi- nable way. The whole family have sworn to make us blush publicly. Publicly blush ! They have written to Mama to come and speak out. Now will you attend to me, Caroline ? You do not credit such atrocity ? I know it to be true." 1

1 Meredith, Evan Harrington, Chap, xxx.

246 COMPOSITION.

4. The adverbial phrase emphasized by being placed at the beginning: •' In no modern country has ideality been more retarded than in our own ; and I think that certain restrictions have peculiarly limited production in the field of Poetry, — the chief of imaginative arts." Here the inverted sentence-order directs the stress.

29. A genitival or ^phrase, being the adjunct of a noun, naturally craves the place just after its noun, and in a series of phrases takes precedence of phrases adverbial in office. But in the stress-position, at the end, it is more liable than other phrases to seem misplaced, more liable also to incur ambiguity (cf. IT 24) ; it should be tested, therefore, for both of these faults.

Examples. — In the following sentence we can see the justification of delaying the genitival phrase ; it is seeking the stress-position : " It is largely the magnificent gift to the present of dead and unremembered men." 1 — In the following, though there is the same reason, the position begins to seem awkward and suggestive of ambiguity : " I was frightened not less by the darkness than by the silence — which every now and then was made keener by the hooting in some elm or willow by the roadside of a screech-owl : a dismal bird." ^ — The following is too awkwardly collocated to justify itself, — it needs a. recast: "Again, the preservation in a race or nation by tradition of historical characters bears the same relation to literary embodiment that folk-lore or folk-ballads bear to literature."

IV. RETROSPECTIVE REFERENCE.

This term is here adopted \o designate the office of any ■word that requires for its interpretation some word or con- struction preceding. Under the term are included pronouns personal, demonstrative, and relative, adverbs demonstrative and relative, and phrases of reference, — in general, whatever for its meaning necessitates thinking back to an earlier word called an antecedent.

1 Gordon, The Christ of To-day, p. 266.

2 Gras, The Reds of the Midi, p, 66.

PHRASEOLOGY.

247

In the whole range of composition there is no process oftener mismanaged than this process of retrospective refer- ence. The mismanagement results not from ignorance, but from haste and carelessness ; the writer, iri his ardor to con- tinue his thought, does not stay to look back, but trusts to chance for accuracy, or puts the burden of interpretation on his reader. It is of especial importance in this process to form the habit, in the case of any backward referring word, of looking back at once and making sure of its adjustments before proceeding. Such a grammatical habit once thoroughly established does not check or retard the current of the think- ing, and will save much trouble of recasting afterwards.^

Resources at Command. — -The range and character of retrospec- tive reference are indicated in the subjoined tabular view.

TABLE	OF RETROSPECTIVE REFERENCE.
D EMON STRATIVES.	Relatives.
I.	Person- and Thing-Reference.
he she this these the former	it they that those the latter	who which that
II. Place-Reference.
here hence hither	there thence thither	where whence whither
III. Time-Reference.
now	then	when while

1 In speaking of " the liability of pronominal words to be the seat of obscurity," Professor Earle says : " The chief security against this danger lies in the cultivation

248 COMPOSITION.

From this table it will be seen that reference may be made to a person or thing, to a place, or to a time ; and that any of these antecedents may be either definitely pointed out (by a demonstrative), or taken for granted (by a relative). Further, it will be noticed that when the antecedent is pointed out it may be recognized as either near or remote, and hence for each of the demonstratives (with the excep- tion of the personal pronoun) there are two forms, to indi- cate these two varieties of relation. When the antecedent is taken for granted, such discrimination is not so necessary.

Owing to the lack of inflection in English, the means for discriminating between two or more possible antecedents are somewhat meagre. The unaided pronoun of the singular number, he, she, it, has the power of discriminating only between the sexes, and between persons and things ; while the plural, they, can discriminate only between one object and several. As a consequence of this poverty, in the general problem how to remove vagueness or ambiguity of reference, questions of order, prominence, proximity, repe- tition, and the like, assume cardinal importance.

Note. — Before proceeding to the discussion of means, it may be desir- able to give some examples of vague reference, also some examples of well- managed reference.

1 . The following, from Smollett, will show how careless the matter of retrospective reference was a century ago : " The pedant assured his patron that although he could not divest the boy of the knowledge he had already imbibed, unless he would empower him to disable his fingers, he should

of the grammatical habit of mind. Let every pronoun or pronominal word have its definite antecedent, and that not merely in some vague idea but in a definite gram- matical word. ... It is not enough that pronouns have their antecedents in the writer's mind, or in the sense of the previous clause ; they should always be referrible to grammatical words. There may be no doubt as to the meaning of a sentence, and yet it may be far from lucid. For by Lucidity we mean something more than the absence of darkness ; we mean a bright and outshining clearness which comes forward to meet the reader in a luminous and spontaneous manner. A grammatical habit of mind is tlie first rudiment of such a Lucidity as this." — English Prose, p. 196.

PHRASEOLOGY. 249

endeavor, with God's help, to prevent his future improvement." Here the reader is le'ft to pick his way as best he can between three possible ante- cedents, all represented merely by the pronoun he. — " This is one of the most lifelike and telling portraits of Hawthorne that has ever appeared." Here the writer seems to mean "one — that has appeared," while his real meaning must be "portraits — that have appeared." The antecedent is not accurately discriminated.- — "An old friend of Mr. Watts, R. A. (him- self an artist), whose pictures are now on exhibition in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, has favored us with the following interesting sketch of that remarkable painter." Here the antecedent of whose has to be guessed at. — "A large capitalist or syndicate will sometimes buy all the wheat or cotton in the market, and hold it until its scarcity and the growing need for it enables him to charge what he will for it." Here the masculine pro- noun is made to do the double duty of a masculine and a neuter.

z. Note how clear are the various means of reference in the following : " Monsieur was splendid to behold. All the precious stones and jewels of Cardinal Mazarin, which of course that minister could not do otherwise than leave; all the queen-mother's jewels, as well as a, few others belong- ing to his wife, — Monsieur wore them all, and he was as dazzling as the sun." 1 Here every word of reference clearly selects its proper antecedent. — "It was perhaps the fiftieth time since the day on which we opened this history, that this man, with a heart of bronze and muscles of steel, had left house and friends — everything, in short — to go in search of fortune and death. The one — that is to say. Death — had constantly retreated before

him, as if afraid of him ; the othei that is to say. Fortune — only for a

month past had really made an alliance with him."^ Here the writer's sense of clearness cannot be satisfied with merely pointing out his ante- cedent ; he takes pains also to repeat it, so that his reader shall not fail to follow him without effort.

Preparing Antecedent for Reference. — As in a game the ball is not only played but left in position for the next play, so in the phrasing of the thought a word that is to be referred to should be so placed or treated that the reader may naturally think back to it from the referring word. The spontaneous effort to leave the antecedent in favorable position is one of the results of the grammatical habit mentioned above.

1 Dumas, Vicomte de Bragelonne, Vol. iii, p. 416. '' lb., Vol. ii, p. 156.

250 COMPOSITION.

29. The most natural aid is from the law of Proximity. Other things being equal, the pronoun will be referred to the nearest word that can function as an antecedent ; the endeavor should be made, therefore, so to arrange the sentence that the real antecedent shall occupy that place. This applies with especial force to the antecedent of the restrictive relative.

Examples. — " Some prisons have a bad reputation with the criminal fraternity, and I fancy they rather shun the States where these exist." Here the word they is used as naturally referrible to the nearest antecedent " crimi- nal fraternity," and the reference is so spontaneous that the later word these is clear enough, without closer discrimination as belonging to the other. — In the following sentence proximity is wholly depended upon for reference : " In this war both Marius and Sulla served ; Sulla increased his reputa- tion, Marius tarnished his. Some plead for him age and illness." Here the word him can be referred to the nearest antecedent because the gram- matical prominence of the two words Marius and Sulla is equal, and only the law of Proximity is operative.

30. But other things are not always equal. The nearest word may be insignificant in office, and so may not easily attract the pronoun ; or it may not be practicable to put the real antecedent next its pronoun. Aid should be sought in such cases from the law of Prominence ; that is, the true ante- cedent should be put in a principal grammatical function, usually as subject ; it may, however, be the object of a verb or a preposition, but not in the possessive case, nor may it be left to implication.

Examples. — " At this moment the colonel came up and took the place of the wounded general. He gave orders to halt." Here the remoter noun (the colonel) is so much more prominent, both in sense and construc- tion, that no real ambiguity exists.

In the sentence quoted under the previous paragraph, if we put one of the clauses in subordinate construction the law of Prominence may be made to aid the law of Proximity with a distinct gain to clearness ; thus : " While Sulla increased his reputation, Marius tarnished his. Some plead for him age and illness." Here Marius as subject of a principal clause takes the pronoun by prominence as well as by proximity.

PHRASEOLOGY. 251

The following sentences are blind because the antecedent is left implied. " The parsonage of Bishop's Borne in Kent, three miles from Canterbury, is in that archbishop's gift." Here the archbishop of Canterbury has to be understood from the mere mention of the place. — " No vice or wicked- ness which people fall into from indulgence of desires which are natural to all, ought to place them below the compassion of the virtuous part of the world : which indeed often makes me a little apt to suspect the sincerity of their virtue, who are too warmly provoked at other people's personal ' sins." Here the word which must be referred to a wholly indefinite ante- cedent. The word who represents a possessive ; admissible here, but con- sider the greater directness of reference in " of the virtue of those who." l

Clearness and Fulness in the Referring Word. — Two objects may be had in view in the use of a word or phrase of ref- erence : first and most imperatively, to discriminate clearly between two or more possible antecedents, a matter requir- ing sometimes much ingenuity ; and secondly, by the manner of reference not only to represent but to describe, or other- wise enrich the meaning of, the antecedent.

31. The following are the principal means of securing ade- quate clearness in pronominal reference. First, as unaided referring word, the relative may be trusted to stand alone only when the antecedent has been sufficiently prepared- by proximity or prominence ; the personal pronoun only for ante- cedents of different genders and numbers. Secondly, when the antecedents are of the same gender or number, recourse is sometimes had, with profit to the vividness as well as the clearness of the style, to the use of direct discourse, which changes the pronouns from third person to first and second. Thirdly, the demonstratives this and that, the former and the latter, may often be useful, more so in written than in spoken style, in bringing to mind antecedents in their order, near and remote. Fourthly, with the demonstrative or relative the real antece- dent is sometimes chosen out from the mass and repeated.

1 These sentences are quoted from Izaak Walton and Richard Steele, respectively, by Earle, in English Prose, p. ig6.

252 COMPOSITION.

Examples. — i. The spontaneity of the pronouns when they represent different numbers or genders is too common to need enlargement. An example : " Outsiders will spur him on. They will say, ' Why do you not write a great book ? paint a great picture ? ' If his guardian angel fail him, they may even persuade him to the attempt, and, ten to one, his hand is coarsened and his style falsified for life." 1

2. The following will illustrate the difficulty in pronouns of the same gender, and the remedy of direct discourse : " He told his friend that if he did not feel better in half an hour he thought he had better return." Here the ambiguity is quite insurmountable. Say, however, " He said to his friend, ' If I (or you) do not feel better I think I had better return, " and all is clear enough. — Take the sentence from Smollett quoted on p. 248 and put it into direct discourse : " The pedant said to his patron, ' Al- though I cannot divest the boy of the knowledge he has already imbibed, unless you will empower me to disable his fingers, I will endeavor, with God's help, to prevent his future improvement.' " Here the three per- sons, first, second, and third, are used to distribute the pronouns that before were all in the third person.

3. The follpwing sentences illustrate the serviceableness of demonstra- tives : " The soldier and the explorer have moments of a worthier excite- ment, but they [better, these] are purchased by cruel hardships and periods of tedium that beggar language." ^ Here the word these would enable the reader to think of the nearer of two possible antecedents. " And don't fancy that you will lower yourselves by sympathy with the lower creatures; you cannot sympathize rightly with the higher, unless you do with those: but you have to sympathize with the higher, too — with queens, and kings, and martyrs, and angels." ' • — "The mind and soul of Transcendentalism seemed to find their predestined service in the land of the Puritans. The poetry which sprang from it had a more subtle aroma than that whose didacticism infected the English Lake school. The latter made prosaic the verse of famous poets ; out of the former the quickest inspiration of our down-East thinkers seemed to grow." * This last example is none too clear.

4. The antecedent repeated with the relative or demonstrative : " It had also a bright-varnished mahogany tea-table, over which was a looking-glass in a gilt frame, with a row of little architectural balls on it ; which looking-

1 Stevenson, Foniainebieau, Works, Vol. xv, p. 173.

2 Stevenson, Letter to a Young Gentleman, Works, Vol. xv, p. 282. 8 RUSKIN, Two Paths, p. 172.

4 Stedman, Poets of America, p. 51.

PHRASEOLOGY. 253

glass was always kept shrouded in white muslin at all seasons of the year, on account of a tradition that flies might be expected to attack it for one or two weeks in summer." l — " I am convinced that it is likeness, and not contrast, which produces this liking — likeness, mark you, in some essential particular, in some sub-stratum, as I said before, in the mind, which liking is not overcome by considerable dissimilarity upon the upper surface." ^

32. The referring word, in addition to representing its antecedent, may be made the occasion for enriching or more closely determining its meaning. The following main aspects of this may be mentioned. First, instead of repeating the antecedent identically, it may repeat it by a defining or descriptive word. Secondly, in thus naming its antecedent it may discriminate between a thing and a fact, and thus its antecedent may be a whole assertion and yet be perfectly rep- resented in the reference. Thirdly, the referring word may on occasion make the reference more vague or general than by representing a concrete thing, by the use of words like such, thereby, in this manner, and the like. By such liberty and flexibility of reference the thought may be kept from baldness and made to grow at each step.'

Examples. — i . Reference by a defining word is illustrated in the sen- tence quoted from Dumas on p. 249 : " All the precious stones and jewels of Cardinal Mazarin, which of course that minister could not 'do otherwise than leave." — Professor Bain's proposed correction of the sentence from Smollett (pp. 248, 252) employs descriptive terms thus: "The pedant assured his patron that although he could not divest the boy of the knowledge already imbibed, unless he were empowered to disable the little trickster's fingers, he should endeavor, with God's help, to prevent his pupil's future improvement."

2. Discrimination between a thing and a fact, between word and clause- reference : " When an American book is republished in England, it [better thefacti is heralded as a noteworthy event in literature." — The sentence from Steele quoted on p. 251 might be helped, though perhaps not wholly

1 Stowe, Oldtown Folks^ p. 63.

2 Helps, Brevia, p. 132.

254 COMPOSITION.

corrected, if with which' vie. should read a defining word: which unkind- liness indeed, etc. — " God, foreseeing the disorders of human nature, has given us certain passions and affections which arise from, or whose objects are, these disorders. Of this sort are fear, resentment, compas- sion." Here the antecedent is wrongly treated not as a collection but it class ; better, " among these are," etc.

3. The referring word purposely left large in its reference. " When a recognized organization places itself in opposition to wha't the people regard as their rights, it endangers its own existence; and a continuation of this attitude [better such attitude] is almost sure to cause its over- throw.'' The word such draws attention not to the particular deed but to the kind of deed. — " It may be well to make brief mention of Lawrence Sheriff, the founder of this Rugby school, that some of its early history may through that [better, may thereby\ be portrayed " ; the reference being not to mention but to the fact of making mention.

~'v. PROSPECTIVE REFERENCE.

This term designates the office of any word of reference, pronominal or other, when the word or idea for which it stands is yet to be expressed.

'Anticipative It and There. — The idioms it is and there is (or there are, there was, there were), beginning a sentence or clause, are the commonest forms of prospective reference, and are especially valuable as a means of inverting the grammatical order of subject and predicate. Introduced first, these words stand provisionally for the actual subject ; while the latter, thus free to choose its position, may be placed where it will have the greatest distinction.

Examples. — i. "It is a necessity of every manufacturing and- com- mercial people that their customers should be very wealthy and intelligent." Here the clause " that their customers," etc., which is the real subject of remark, acquires a distinction proper to its importance by being placed after its predicate, " is a necessity " ; and this is effected by making it stand provisionally for the subject.

2. Observe what emphasis is given to the words " a single day " in the following, by the facility of delay afforded by the use of There at the

PHRASEOLOGY. 25S

beginning : " There has not for the whole of that time been a single day of my life when it would have been safe for me to go south of Mason and Dixon's line in my own country."

33. As the word it may refer backward as well as forward, care is needed not to employ it where the reference is uncer- tain, and not to mix its retrospective and anticipative func- tions unadvisedly in the same passage.

Examples. — The following examples will show that even where no real ambiguity exists the double use of it in the same passage always sug- gests the possibility of being led astray : " It would be absurd to make another attempt; it would be a mere throwing away of money." Here the second it, retrospective, sounds at best awkward after its anticipative use. So too in the following sentence from Ruskin : " It is pretty and appropriate ; and, if it boasted of any other perfection, it would be at the expense of its propriety.''

The following, copied from a newspaper, is an extreme instance of care- lessness in the mixture of functions. It is a description of a temperance speech made by a rope-walker while hanging in the air : " It was a speech not easily forgotten, delivered as it was from a peculiar platform, and on a subject not often touched under the circumstances. It made me think of some other things, oh the line of the same thought. The mind, the soul, has a grip. It may hold on. Sometimes it is imperative. It is death not to do so. It is responsible in the matter. It is chargeable with its own destruction if it does not hold on." ^

Demonstratives and Numerals As in blazing a path

through an unexplored tract for the benefit of those who are to come after, so means of prospective reference are often used, as pointers, to prepare the reader for something espe- cially noteworthy or helpful in the passage on which he is entering.

1 " The word it\i the greatest troubler that I know of In language. It is so small, and so convenient, that few are careful enough in using it. Writers seldom spare this word. Whenever they are at a loss for either a nominative or an objective to their sentence, they, without any kind of ceremony, clap in an it. . . . Never put an it upon paper without thinking well of what you are about. When I see many its in a page, I always tremble for the writer."— Cobbett, English Grammar, § § 194, jg6.

2S6 COMPOSITION.

34. The strong demonstratives, such as thisz.r\A. these, when used prospectively, serve to fasten attention on some descrip- tive or important element of what is to be told, before the thing itself is named. The personal pronouns, thus employed, sound more artificial, and when used should not keep their subject waiting long.

Examples. — " This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." Here the saying itself, which is delayed by the prospective this, is not only emphasized by position, but defined beforehand as to its importance, by the intermediate phrase.

The somewhat strange sound of a prospective personal pronoun is illustrated by the following : " But such a use of language, although necessary to a good style, has no more direct relation to it than her daily dinner has to the blush of a blooming beauty."

35. Numerals and other particles of reference are especially useful in spoken discourse for mapping out the plan of what is coming, and thus enabling the hearer to grasp its bounds and stages. The copiousness of such words of reference is naturally greater as the thought taxes the jnind more. The common tendency, to give the hearer too little help of this kind, should be noted and corrected.

Examples of Explicit Reference. — The following will illustrate Burke's carefulness in articulating the thought of his speeches before amplifying it : " The capital leading questions on which you must this day decide are these two : First, whether you ought to concede ; and, secondly, what your concession ought to be. On the first of these questions we have gained some ground." 1 ■ — The following paragraph from Ruskin is nearly all a prospective laying out of plan ; though he is somewhat less formal' and does not employ numerals : " We have contemplated the rural dwell- ing of the peasant ; let us next consider the ruralized domicile of the gen- tleman ; and here, as before, we shall first determine what is theoretically beautiful, and then observe how far our expectations are fulfilled in indi- vidual buildings. But a few preliminary observations are necessary."* Consider how these prospective words keep the plan before the reader.

1 Burke, Conciliation with America. 2 Ruskin, Poetry of Architecture.

PHRASEOLOGY. 257

VI. CORRELATION.

Many words or forms of expression occur in pairs, the one member of the pair suggesting and requiring the other. Some cautions and characteristics of this mutual relation need here to be noted.

Cautions in Comparison In comparing by means of such

words as than and as, there is a tendency to ambiguity or inexactness between the things or acts compared.

36. Verbs or prepositions should be repeated after than or as, when necessary to make the grammatical relation of the later member clear.

Examples. — "Cardinal Richelieu hated Buckingham as sincerely as the Spaniard Olivares." This sentence leaves it uncertain whether the last name is a subject or an object ; we may read it either, " as did the Span- iard Olivares," or, " as he hated the Spaniard Olivares." Supply the verb according to the sense intended.

" Pleasure and excitement had more attraction for him than his friend." Here, according to the intended meaning, a verb or a preposition should be supplied : "ihzxvfor his friend," or, "than had\As, friend."

37. In comparing complex objects, care is needed that the points are really comparable with each other. Sometimes, through heedlessness, the comparison is given as between ideas that really have no correlation.

Examples. — "■ No author could more faithfully represent a character than this portrayal of Count Cenci by Shelley; and though the subject is unworthy, we cannot but admire the power with which it is treated." Here the comparison is apparently made between representing and por- trayal, an act and a thing. If we should say " than Shelley has portrayed the character of Count Cenci," the comparison would be between like objects, to which "faithfully" equally applies.

The following question was actually propounded once in a college prize debate ; the decision reached, however, is not recorded : " Resolved, that a college graduate is better fitted for American citizenship than any other."

258 COMPOSITION.

Particles of Correlation. — Such particles as either . . . or, neither . . . nor, on the one hand . . . on the other hand, not only . . . but also, serve to prepare for coming alternatives of thought, enabling the reader thus to anticipate the whole circuit and prepare for its relations at the outset.

Note. — Consider how necessary it is, for example, in the following sentence, to prepare the reader from the first for an alternative : " You must take this extremely perilous course, in which success is uncertain, and failure disgraceful, as well as ruinous, or else the liberty of your country is endangered." The correlatives, " Either you must take . . . or else," etc., save much liability to misinterpretation and obviate the necessity of cor- recting an impression formed and held for half a sentence. — It may sometimes be desirable to neglect the correlation on purpose to give the sentence a sudden epigrammatic turn ; see below, under Epigram, p. 273.

38. The words not only and but, or but also, when correla- tive, should be followed by the same part of speech.

Examples. — " He not only gave me advice but also help " is wrong. Write, " He gave me not only advice but also help." What part of speech follows these particles is immaterial ; simply make them the same, — nouns, verbs, or prepositional phrases, — and they will articulate their respective thoughts clearly. " He spoke not only forcibly but also taste- fully [adverbs], and this too, not only before a small audience but also in a large public meeting [prepositions], and his speeches were not only suc- cessful, but also worthy of success [adjectives]."

Sometimes the also may be separated from the but by considerations of grace or strength, for example : " But by seeking the other things first, as we naturally do, we miss not only the Kingdom of God, but those other things also which are truly attained only by aiming beyond them." ^

39. The particles indeed, in fact, in truth, to be sure, and the like, are much used, by way of concession, to prepare for a coming adversative, but, still, or yet. They may thus control the relation of a clause, a sentence, or even a whole para- graph, before the adversative correlate is reached.

1 Rule and examples taken mostly from Abbott's How to Write Clearly.

PHRASEOLOGY. 259

Examples. — The following examples are all taken from Macaulay, who used this construction almost to the extent of mannerism.* "No writer, indeed, has delineated character more skilfully than Tacitus ; but this is not his peculiar glory." — "It is true that his veneration for antiquity produced on him some of the effects which it produced on those who arrived at it by a very different road. [Here intervenes a sentence of amplification.] Yet even here we perceive a,difference." — " The fashionable logic of the Greeks was, indeed, far from strict." [This sentence introduces a paragraph, and the indeed controls the thought of it all. The next paragraph then begins : ] " Still, where thousands of keen and ready intellects were con- stantly employed in speculating on the qualities of actions and on the principles of government, it was impossible that history should retain its old character."

Often this correlation is effected in the first member, with- out the aid of a particle, by introducing a thought so obvi- ously concessive that the but is naturally suggested.

Examples. — " He has written something better, perhaps, than the best history ; but he has not written a good history ; he is, from the first to the last chapter, an inventor." — " Of the concise and elegant accounts of the campaigns of Caesar little can be said. They are incomparable models for military dispatches ; but histories they are not, and do not pretend to be.''

Vn. CONJUNCTIONAL RELATION.

More perhaps than on anV other one thing, the progress, the flexibility, and the delicacy of a writer's expression, are dependent on the fine and' accurate use of conjunctions. They mark every change of direction and relation. Their office is_to take ideas that otherwise jspuldie loosely strung together, and make them interlinked j.nd continuous, " true composition and not mere loose accretion."^ The mastery

1 Examples all from Macaulay's essay on History.

2 Pater, Apfredations, p. 20. — "A close reasoner and a good writer in general may be known by his pertinent use of connectives. Read that page of Johnson ; you cannot alter one conjunction without spoiling the sense. It is in a linkM strain throughout. In your modern books, for the most part, the sentences in a page have the same connection with each other that marbles have in a bag; they touch without

260 COMPOSITION.

of conjunctions, therefore, is more than mere proficiency in verbal distinctions; just as accurate reference called for an ingrained grammatical habit, so here is needed what may be called the logical habit, the habit of noting the relations of ideas, and of estimating closely the kind, the degree, the shadings of such relations.

Out of the two great classes into which conjunctions fall, the coordinating and the subordinating, rise two leading types of sentence structure, the composita and the evoluta, of which more will be said in the chapter on The Sentence.^

I. - '

The Coordinating Class. — By the coordinating sense is meant that the conjunctions of this class introduce a thought hav- ing the same rank, the same grammatical importance, as the thought preceding ; the whole utterance, therefore, with its conjunctive link, being a composite utterance, one part added to or growing out of the other.

Additive and Cumulative It is the function of these con- junctions to add a new assertion having the same bearing, and moving in the same direction, as what preceded.

Type Conjunction and List. — The great representative of these conjunctions is AND. Others are : also, yea, likewise, in like manner, again, besides, too, further, moreover, furthermore, add to this. Most of these head their clauses ; the word too, however, is put after another word in close sequence, and the words also and likewise may be placed after the first pause.

adhering." — Coleridge, Table Talk, May 15, 1833. — " This is a feature in which our Prose stands in contrast with French prose. French writers are much more explicit in Conjunctions than we are ; and perhaps this is one of the traits which produce the wonderful luminousness of French diction. Perhaps it would be as well for English writers to cultivate our Conjunctions with a little more attention, keep- ing an eye not only upon the French page, but also on that of Hooker and other Elizabethan authors." — Earle, English Prose, p. 196. 1 See below, pp. 317, 318.

PHRASEOLOGY. 261

40. The shadings of relation in these conjunctions come from their adverbial sense ; for it is to be noted that con- junctions are mostly derived from adverbs, and may present all stages of use, from almost purely adverbial to almost purely connective. The degree of relation may be softened, that is, rendered less obtrusive, by using a conjunction that may be removed from the beginning and buried in its clause.

Note. — In the sentence, " He taught me also, and said unto me, Let thine heart retain my words," the assertion is slipped in, as it were, before its relation to the previous is revealed ; this throws the stress upon the assertion rather than upon the connection, leaving the latter to perform its function unmarked.

41. A thought moving in the same direction needs often to be intensified in succeeding members, in order that better progress and climax may be secured. Connectives that also intensify are sometimes called cumulative, from the Latin cumulo, "to heap up."

Note. — We see this cumulative force in such connectives as : more than this, especially, in greater degree, all the more, much more, after all.

Nay is an old-fashioned cumulative, quite serviceable on occasion but suggestive of archaism; as, " To the end of his days he enjoyed his bottle after dinner, nay, could scarce get along without it ; and mixed a punch or a posset as well as any in our colony." '

The following sentence, from its lack of cumulation, is tame : " But anything is better than pedantry displaying itself in verse, and in connec- tion with the name of Honier." We expect "and especially," or some word which will make the second member worth saying.

Adversative. — These introduce a new statement contrary in some respect to the preceding, — either as limiting, or as arresting a seeming inference from it.

Type Conjunction and List. — The representative of adversative particles is but. Others are : still, yet, however, only, nevertheless, not- withstanding, at the same time, for all that, after all.

I Churchill, Richard Carvel, p. 4,

262 COMPOSITION.

Of these the word however does not stand at the head of its member, but after the first-pause; and only can be used conjunctively only as it stands at the head of its clause and is set off by a comma.

The word though, which is generally a subordinating conjunction, may be used as an adversative when its clause succeeds another, and when a large pause is made between.

42. When the word but is used to arrest an implied infer- ence from the preceding and turn the thought in opposite direction, be sure that such inference is natural, and that the added idea is antithetic ; in other words, that the adversative relation is real.

Examples. — In the sentence " He is poor, but proud," the antithesis of proud to poor is real, because it is natural to infer that a poor man would be humble. Compare, however, the following : " Luther's character was emotional and dogmatic, but exceedingly courageous.'' Here cour- ageous does not arrest any natural inference from the preceding ; on the contrary it seems to supply a thought in the same direction, and the but has no real adversative function. And would be more accurate. Or if we were to take as the inference that Luther, being emotional and dogmatic, was nothing else, we could say, " Luther's character was emotional and dogmatic, but also exceedingly courageous."

43. The adversative relation is susceptible of various degrees and shadings. The strongest adversative, but, when used exclusively, as it often is by unskilled writers, gives a certain hardness and glare to the style. It is better suited to spoken diction ; while the softer adversative however, though more bookish and studied, makes the relation less obtrusive, and sets the opposed ideas less definitely over against each other.

Examples — The effect of the exclusive use of but adversative can be shown only by an extended passage ; here an example may be adduced showing how it may be desirable to soften the relation. " This society was founded in 1817, since which time it has done a truly noble work in aiding needy applicants for help. But at present the churches seem little disposed to support it." Here the word but is rather abrupt, and seems to

PHRASEOLOGY. 263

recognize a sharper antithesis than we can evolve from its connected ideas ; better would be, " At present, however, the churches seem little disposed to support it." — Care should be taken that the adversative implied by the softened however be not too attenuated. Professor Earle quotes the follow- ing : " Cureton imagined that he could gain evidence for the Hebrew original of St. Matthew from the Syriac version which he published, an4 which he contended had not been made from Greek, but from the original Aramaic. However, on that point he has failed to convince scholars." Of this he remarks : " The connective however implies some antecedent discussion of the point which does not appear on the page, and this is a defect in writing." ^

44. An adversative within an adversative may be used in two ways. Used as a further turning of the thought, it ordi- narily requires to be indicated by a different adversative par- ticle from the main one, else it makes the thought restless and gyrating. There is, however, a highly rhetorical use of the repeated adversative particle, the thought being not suc- cessively turned but continued in the same direction, thus securing the emphasis of iterated relation.

Examples. — i. In the following example the effect of the repeated but is simply crude ; as if the thought were turned round and then wheeled back again. " He knew that Tyrfdal was an expert detective and sel- dom blundered. But he was not quite ready to admit the dangerous doc- trine that all men are to be suspected until proved innocent. But he was too wise a clerk to risk informing Captain Adam of what had occurred, lest his own arrest as a confederate should follow." ^ Here if we should say, " He was too wise a clerk, however, to risk," etc., the second adversa- tive is disguised. — The following, from De Quincey, manages the repetition of the adversative with easy grace : " But it is no more than a skirmish which is going on ; in the course of which, however, an occasion suddenly arises for a desperate service." '

2. The following illustrates the rhetorical iteration of the adversative : " Not a. hut he builds but is the visible embodiment of a thought ; but bears visible record of invisible things ; but is, in the transcendental sense,

1 Earle, English Prose, p. 197.

2 E. P. Roe, The Gray and the Blue, p. 96.

s De Quincey, Autobiographic Sketches, p. 151.

264 COMPOSITION.

symbolical as well as real." i — Likewise this from De Quincey : "All is finite in the present ; and even that finite is infinite in its velocity of flight towards death. But in God there is nothing finite ; but in God there is nothing transitory; but in God there can be nothing that tends to death." 2

Illative and Causal. — Illative conjunctions (name derived from the Latin illaium, in-ferre) indicate inference, eflfect, or consequence. Causal conjunctions introduce a reason or explanation. Both are coordinating, in the sense of pushing the thought to some appended thought of the same gram- matical importance.

Type Conjunctions and List. — The representative of illative con- junctional relation is therefore. Others are : wherefore, hence, whence, consequently, accordingly, thus, so, then, so then. Now is an old-fashioned connective used to introduce a consequence not closely connected with the preceding.

The representative of causal conjunctional relation is FOR. Others are :- because, and phrasal connectives such as : arising from, owing to, due to, and the like. Most of these may be used either coordinately or subordinately.

45. The kind of inference, as indicated by the adverbial force of the conjunction, is a matter requiring accurate thought, and too often left loose. The word thus is fre- quently misused, from the variety and vagueness of relation it is made to bear.

Example. — " Two emotions were paramount in his mind : hope that he might perform the task more efficiently than had any of his rivals, and fear lest in any part of it he should fall below his ideal. Thus, being so power- fully impelled, he soon distanced all competitors." Here thus, which properly means in this manner, does not express the exact nature of the sequence, and is all the more confusing for being very near the meaning. The word accordingly would be more accurate.

1 Carlvle, Sartor Resartus, Book iii, Chap. iii.

2 De Quincey, Suspiria dc Profundi!, p. 255.

PHRASEOLOGY. 26S

46. The causal relation, being the one perhaps most readily suggested, can best be trusted to go unmarked by a particle. The constant employment of for, for instance, is a mark of crude writing.

Example. — " You must have handed me that money when I was not thinking of it. For I found it when I made up my account at night.'' The wordybr is superfluous.

(, '.

The Subordinating Class The conjunctions of this class

introduce a thought having an ancillary or secondary gram- matical relation to a principal assertion ; the whole utterance, therefore, consisting of a main assertion with such condition- ing and modifying parts as serve to give its true scope and limits.

Conditional and Defining. — These serve to give conditions, limitations, accompaniments of time, place, and manner, and the like.

Type Conjunction and List. — The representative of conditional con- junctions is IF. The condition may have either a positive implication, as : provided, as, whereas, inasmuch as ; or adversative, as : though, although, while, unless, save, except. The particles when, while, where, expressing time and place limitations, are in government just like a conditional particle. For brevity and simpHcity we speak of ^clauses and 70^^«-clauses as indi- cating the conditional relation.

47. The art of subordination — what to make subordinate and what principal — is something requiring much study of the relative importance of ideas. To put every idea in prin- cipal assertion is not composition but mere- accretion ; but in subordinating one idea to another, study to subordinate the right thing.

Illustrations. — Imperfect subordination of ideas is shown in the following : " Henry V. was one of those few young men who give up their youth to carousal and folly, with the resolve that when they are older they

266 COMPOSITION.

will settle down to a steadier life, and who succeed in carrying out their better purpose." Here the two statements cannot equally be made of few young men ; it is only the second that can rightly be predicated of them, the first being preparatory to this. The first clause ought therefore to be subordinated in structure to the second ; thus : " Henry V. was one of those few young men who, having given up their youth . . . with the resolve that . . . , actually succeed in carrying out their better purpose.''

The following sentence appears in the Authorized Version of the New Testament : " But God be thanked that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you." Here it is evident that the thanks are due not for what is said in the first clause but only for the fact mentioned in the second. The makers of the Revised Version, recognizing this, subordinate thus : " But thanks be to God, that, whereas ye were servants of sin, ye became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching whereunto ye were delivered." 'K poorer verse on the whole, but better subordinated.

48. Subordination by means of a conjunction may be aug- mented, that is, the subordinate clause made less emphatic and obtrusive, by condensed and rapid structure where occa- sion permits, and by putting the subordinate clause in an inconspicuous position. The opposite means are relied on when the condition is the important part of the sentence.

Examples. — Note the difference in emphasis between the conditional clauses in the following examples. " Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone." Here the ^clause attracts comparatively little atten- tion, being buried in the sentence. Compare the following : —

" But now farewell. I am going a long way With these thou seest — if indeed I go (For all my mind is clouded with a doubt) — To the island-valley of Avilion."

Here the j/^clause-has an emphatic place, being after the principal asser- tion ; and the condition is made distinctive by the word indeed, and the parenthesis following.

49. Subordination inside a clause already subordinate should be made by the use of a different conjunction ; else there is danger that the second clause may be read as coordinate with the other instead of subordinate to it.

PHRASEOLOGY. 267

Examples. — "If the man will make full restitution of the stolen goods, if he is honest in his expressed purpose to lead a better life, he may be pardoned." Here the second subordination would be better effected by another conjunction : "provided indeed he is honest," etc. The particle provided would be, perhaps, too prosaic for poetry ; but notice the following : —

" But thou — (/"thou wilt seek earnestly unto God, And to the Almighty make supplication, — So be that thou art pure and upright, — Verily then He will awake for thee. And will restore the habitation of thy righteousness." 1

Here the second subordination, which evidently must be made tributary to the first, is made consistently with the poetic nature of the passage.

Sequential. — ■ By this term we may designate those subordi- nating conjunctions which, instead of indicating an antece- dent condition or accompaniment, carry on the assertion to a result or object.

Type Conjunction and List. — The representative of this kind of conjunctional relation is that. Others are : in order that, so that, as well as, as much as, whereby.

50. Conjunctions of this class are valuable for prolonging an assertion beyond its natural close until something essen- tial to its full significance is added. A danger to be guarded against, however, is the involved construction which these conjunctions are liable to occasion.

Note. — These conjunctions are derived from the relative and are much like the relative construction in the facility with which they add new elements. An example of their usefulness : " He is so anxious to carry his point that he cares not what point he carries." — An example to show the danger of involved construction : " Eusebius tells that Dionysius of Corinth relates that Dionysius the Areopagite, who was converted to the faith by Paul the Apostle, according to the account given in the Acts, was the first bishop of Athens." ^ Here it is evident that the style may easily become strung-out and loose.

1 Revised translation oijob viii. 6, by the author of this book.

2 Earle, English Prose, p. S4.

CHAPTER IX.

ORGANIC PROCESSES.

Every composition, from the phrase onward, with all its component parts and stages, is an organism, wherein every part derives vitality from every other, and all are subservient to one unity of impression. The processes that are employed in evolving an organism of this kind have, therefore, applica- tions beyond the limits of the phrase; they may on occasion extend to the ordering of a whole section or even discourse ; they belong, in fact, to all organization of thought. Here, however, it is proposed to examine the most directly practical of them merely in their principle and first application, which, being understood, will naturally enough suggest their functions in a broader field.

I. NEGATION.

To create greater distinction for an idea, or to set one idea over against another, much recourse is had to the negative in some form or degree.

Degrees of Negation. — The typical means of expressing the negative, with no special connotation of stress or lightness, is the adverb not. For some purposes it may be desirable to intensify this negation, for others to soften it.

I. For intensifying the negative the most absolute means is the adjective no, taking the place of the adverb and negat- ing the whole subject instead of the act. The adverb itself, too, is often strengthened either by a supporting adverb or

268

ORGANIC PROCESSES. l(fy

by an equivalent containing no, as in the expressions not at all, in no wise, by no means.

Examples. — One can easily feel the difference in intensity between these two forms of negation : " Since the fall, mere men are not able in this life perfectly to keep the commandments of God " ; with which compare : " No mere man, since the fall, is able," etc. This second sentence throws the negation into a stronger part of the assertion.

Carlyle, whose tendency to negation was something of a mannerism, shall furnish examples of intensified negative.

" Shall we say, then, Dante's effect on the world was small in compari- son ? Not so : his arena is far more restricted ; but also it is far nobler, clearer ; — perhaps «<)/less but more important." — " This Mahomet, then, we will in no wise consider as an Inanity and Theatricality, a poor conscious ambitious schemer ; we canKo/ consider him so." — " He is by no means the truest of Prophets ; but I do esteem him a true one." — " No most gifted eye can exhaust the significance of any object." This example makes its negative still more rhetorical by assuming that there can be more than one superlative. — " No Dilettantism in this Mahomet ; it is a business of Reprobation and Salvation with him ; of Time and Eternity ; he is in deadly earnest about it I " Here the absolute no is so strong that it can dispense with the verb and make its assertion alone.i

2. For softening the negative, various means are available. In negating a quality the negative prefix un- or in- (sometimes non-) is milder than the adverb not. In negating an act, the word nor, uncorrelative, at the beginning of the clause, softens the negation ; it sounds literary, however, not conversational. The negative adverb may also be made unobtrusive by being buried in its clause.

Examples. — i . Of the prefix negative. The increased use of forms in un-, already noticed (see above, p. 67, example 4), has greatly enlarged the vocabulary of the negative ; e.g. " As in flame and lightning, it stands written there ; awful, «Kspeakable, ever present to him." — The following sentences give all degrees, strong and mild : " The one must in nowise be done, the other in nowise left ««done. You shall not measure them ; they are /Kcommensurable ; the one is death eternal to a man, the other is life eternal." ^

1 Examples taken from Carlyle's Hero Worship.

270 COMPOSITION.

2. Of the uncorrelative nor. " But those were simple, fortunate times for the young minstrel, who took his success modestly and gladly, nor for- got his work withal; and he now enjoyed n. season as poetic as ever afterward came to him." ^

" Yet in my secret mind one way I know, Nor do I judge if it shall win or fail ; But much must still be tried, which shall but fail." ^

3. Of the unobtrusively placed negative. " In fiction, no more than elsewhere, may a writer pretend to be what he is not, or to know what he knows not." Note how much milder this is than to say, "No more in fiction than elsewhere," etc.

Double Negative. — In English the use of two negatives to strengthen the negation, though native to the language, has through Latin influence been abandoned, and now survives only as a vulgarism.* For modified affirmation, however, the double negative, one of the negations being expressed by a prefix, is extensively employed.

3. The value of the double negative as an affirmative lies in the fact that it expresses a milder and more guarded degree of meaning than does direct affirmation ; it is employed, ac- cordingly, in the interests of precision.

Examples. — " It is not mprobable that from this acknowledged power of public censure grew in time the practice of auricular confession." Here the writer, unwilling to commit himself to the unqualified assertion that the thing is probable, chooses rather to negative the opposite. — In the following, too, the hedging of the assertion by double negative states the fact with obviously greater precision : " After a while, the little lad grew accustomed to the loneliness of the place j and in after days remembered this part of his life as a period not ««happy." *

This construction, as it reveals effort, may easily be overworked ; note for example the following : " Yet it is not a«remarkable that an experi-

1 Stedman, Poets of America^ p. 403,

2 Matthew Arnold, Balder Dead.

s LouNSBURV, History of the English Language, p. 135. * Thackeray, Henry Esmond, Chap. iv.

ORGANIC PROCESSES. 271

enced and erudite Frenchman, not aHalive to artistic effect, has just now selected this very species of character for the main figure in a large portion of an elaborate work." '

4.' The figure litotes, already mentioned as a means of suggestion or innuendo,'' is virtually a double negative; that is, instead of asserting the affirmative that one would expect, it negates the opposite. Its effect, which it owes to innuendo, is rather strength than precision.

Examples. — In the following the litotes, by its innuendo, is made to enhance the humor of the situation : —

"The sight of the curricle acting satellite to the donkey-cart quite staggered the two footmen.

" ' Are you lords ? ' sang out Old Tom.

" A burst of laughter from the friends of Mr. John Kaikes, in the curri- cle, helped to make the powdered gentlemen aware of a. sarcasm, and one with no little dignity replied that they were not lords.

" ' Are ye judges .' '

" ' We are not.'

" ' Oh ! Then come and hold my donkey.' " '

In the following the litotes derives further point by its antithesis to the affirmative: "Where Peter got the time it is difficult to understand, con- sidering that his law practice was said to be large, and his political occupa- tions just at present not small." ^

In both double negative and litotes the two qualities are appreciably present ; with the guarded affirmation predominant, however, in the former, and the force due to innuendo predominant in the latter.

II. ANTITHESIS.

The principle of contrast, by which opposite terms or ideas are so placed or employed as to set off ■ each other, is one of the most spontaneous in literature. Shown on its narrowest scale as a pointed balance of word and structure, it may from

1 Bagehot, Literary Studies, Vol. i, p. 16.

2 See above, p. 108.

8 Meredith, Evan Harrington, Chap, xxviii. 4 Ford, Peter Stirling, p. 392,

272 COMPOSITION.

this extend to whole masses of thought, to contrasted scenes, situations, characters, events ; entering therefore as deeply into invention as into style. These various applications of the principle will come up for further mention in their place.

Phases of Verbal and Phrasal Antithesis It is impossible to

construct a conventional mould for antithesis, because as a figure of speech it is more truly a thought-figure than a figure of word or construction. The various phases in which it appears rise largely from the varying proportions in which the more inner contrast of thought or emotion works to support or supplant the outward expression.

5. Antithesis shows itself most simply and typically in a balanced opposition of phrase, or in some contrasted pair of words standing as the core of the figure. As the antithesis of the thought itself is more fundamental, the manner of expression may be more disguised, and thus the figure may derive grace from being unobtrusive and hidden.

Examples. — i . Balanced phrases, with a core-word antithetic. " If you would seek to make one rich, study not to increase his stores, but to diminish his desires." — " The Puritans hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators." ^

2. In the following the author, recognizing the suggestiveness of the balanced terms, enhances the effect of the antithesis by breaking it off; " It is because Shakespere dares, and dares very frequently, simply desipere, simply to be foolish, that he is so pre-eminently wise. The others try to be always wise, and, alas ! it is not necessary to complete the antithesis." ^

3. Hidden or unobtrusive antithesis. " They were engaged in the noble work of calling men out of their heathenism, with its manifold cor- ruptions and superstitions, into the gospel of purity and love." — "A strange and contradictory spectacle ! An army of criminals doing deeds which could only be expiated at the stake ; an entrenched rebellion, bearding government with pike, matchlock, javelin and barricade, and all for no more deadly pur- pose than to listen to the precepts of the pacific Jesus."' In these latter examples it is the idea, not the expression, that points the antithesis.

1 Macaulay, History of England, Chap. ii.

2 Saintsbury, Elizabethan Ltteratiire, p. 168.

8 Motley, Rise of the Dutch Republic, Vol. i, p. 535.

ORGANIC PROCESSES. 273

6. Paradox is a form of antithesis wherein the contrast is not between terms or ideas, though these may be employed to support it, but between the statement made and one's sense of congruity, reason, or fact. It is a kind of shock to one's credulity, which it requires thought to allay.^

Examples. — In the following the author turns a generally accepted idea topsy-turvy : " It may sound like a nonsensical paradox, and yet we may seriously maintain that laziness is the motive power of all human progress." ^ This assertion he goes on to define and prove. — The follow- ing defines in bold, antithetic terms the paradox that was involved in Lancelot's guilty love for Queen Guinevere. From his sick-bed the Knight is regarding Elaine, as she ministers to him : — •

" And peradventure had he seen her first ,

She might have made this and that other world Another world for the sick man ; but now The shackles of an old love straiten'd him, His honor rooted in dishonor stood, And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true." 8

7. In Epigram the antithesis is still more subtly concealed in the idea, sometimes indeed quite elusive, though still the determining principle of the figure.

The term Epigram has been so indiscriminately used that it has come to be popularly taken as meaning any unusually pungent way of putting things. This idea takes account of the most striking quality of epigram, namely, its pithy brevity ; it is, however, too vague. To be truly epigrammatic, a saying must give some unexpected turn to the idea ; it is in some

1 Compare De Quincey, Autobiographic Sketches, p. 229.

2 Stanley, Essays on Literary Art, p. 127. — There is some color for the assertion, made half in whimsey, " Take any accepted proposition, invert It, and you get a New Truth." This is said in the interests of novelty. " Everything rusts by use. Our moral ideals grow mouldy if preached too much ; our stories stale if told too often. Conventionality is but a living death. The other side of everything must be shown, the reverse of the medal, the silver side of the shield as well as the golden." — Zangwill, Without Prejttdice, pp. 141, 143. Of course this paradox- ical, posturing style runs the risk of being too smart.

s Tennyson, Lancelot and Elaine, II. 867-872.

274 COMPOSITION.

form the antithesis between what the reader looks for and what he gets. Its essential feature, thus, is the element of surprise.

Examples.- — The following illustrate some of the means by which epigrammatic point is secured.

1. The sentence may contain an apparent paradox or contradiction. This is perhaps the commonest form of epigram. " The statues of Brutus and Cassius were conspicuous by their absence.'" — " Verbosity is cured by a wide vocabulary." — " Language is the art of concealing thought." — " So good that he is good for nothing." — " The child of rich but honest parents."

2.. The sentence may be a truism the mere assertion of which serves to emphasize its truth. "Fact is fact." — "His coming was an event." — " What I have written, I have written."

3. The sentence may associate ideas that have so many intermediate and 'unexpressed links as to seem irrelevant. " Where snow falls, there is a freedom." — " Lapland is too cold a country for sonnets."

4. The sentence may suddenly turn the thought in a different spirit, thus giving it an unexpected implication. " He is full of information — like yesterday's Times." — " His memory (for trifles) is remarkable, and (where his own performances are not involved) his taste is excellent." — " What that man does not know is not worth knowing," was once said admiringly of a book-worm. " True," was the reply, " and what he does know is not worth knowing."

5. The sentence may by a mere play on words bring out some pointed and lively truth. " The time will come when America, too, will understand that her ease is her disease." — " My habit of writing only to people who, rather than have nothing from me, will tolerate nothings." — "Those laborious orators who xtii^tstke perspiration for inspiration."

Errors of Antithesis. — According to the principle that the bolder a manner of expression the more it is apt to be abused, antithesis, with its pointed balancing of phrase and idea, has large potencies of error, which we may trace both from the side of the expression and from the side of the thought.

8. On the side of the expression, an antithesis may be faulty by being too unreal ; a promising opposition of terms, like a play on words, without enough contrast in the idea to support it. Its effect is artificial.

ORGANIC PROCESSES. 27S

Examples. — The following by its opposition of terms seems to promise an antitliesis, but the antithesis, at least in the sense suggested, does not exist. " The argument is, that because pleasure is a becoming — that is, a state not of being, but of going to be — it is unbecoming. He [Plato] starts with the Cyrenaic definition that the gods are unchangeable, there- fore not capable of pleasure. Pleasure which is a becoming is unbecoming to their nature ; and man seeking pleasure seeks that which is unseemly and ungodlike." ^ — In the sentence, " This is a duty that we are too often tempted to (nier\oo\i or wKi/ervalue," the antithesis is so light as to sound somewhat artificial, more a word-play than a contrast. — The same, though the antithesis is more real, comes near being the case with the following: —

" But she Did more, and underwent, and overcame." 2

Here under and over, went and came, promise more antithesis than really exists in the idea, though some contrast there is.

9. On the side of the thought, the abuse of antithesis con- sists in overstraining fact on one side or the other, in order to fit the statement to some striking opposition of terms. When fact yields in the smallest degree to antithesis, the figure becomes a snare.

Note. — -The antithesis quoted above from Macaulay (p. 272) doubtless makes a too absolute and sweeping statement about the Puritans, when it accuses them of hating to see pleasure in spectators ; but the opportunity for antithesis, so clear and tempting, seems to have caused the historian, perhaps unthinkingly, to stretch the truth. It is largely Macaulay's invet- erate tendency to striking antithetic statement that causes distrust in read- ing his historical writings ; diligent investigator thougli he was, readers often hesitate to take his interpretations of facts, for fear he may have sacrificed some measure of truth to form.

The same over-violence of statement is seen in the following : " All pub- lic praise is private friendship ; all public detraction is private hate " ; as also in Pope's well-known line on Bacon : — '■

" The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind." '

1 Dallas, TAe Gay Science, Vol, i, p. 99. 2 Tennyson, Godiva.

s These last two examples are quoted from NiCHOL, English Comfosition, p. 88. Pascal ( Thoughts, p. 237) describes this error of antithesis finely : " Those who make antitheses by forcing the sense are like those who make false windows for the sake of symmetry. Their rule is not to speak accurately, but to make accurate'figures.":

276 COMPOSITION.

lo. A danger to be guarded against in the employment of epigram is the danger of the half-truth. An epigram, it is to be remembered, is not a principle of life but a way of saying things ; and it derives its point, ordinarily, from the fact that it detaches one side or aspect of a truth from the others and gives it the transient zest of making its way alone. It re- mains, however, only a half-truth ; it is true only as we make adjustments and allowances ; and to shape one's whole thought to it, or make it control the argument beyond its limited sense, is to be one-sided, superficial, false.^

Note. — The epigram quoted above, " Language is the art of concealing thought," is true only for such a man as wrote it, a diplomatic, scheming man, skilfully disguising his real purpose while he seems to reveal it ; but the other half (or in this case ninety-nine hundredths) of the truth remains eternally true, that language is made for the revelation of thought. To make the epigram all true, the maker must be all false ; as truth, it appeals only to that small side of him which is sharp and secretive.

III. INVERSION.

In prose, as well as in verse,^ the writer has frequent occa- sion to invert the grammatical order of parts in a sentence, — to put verbs before their subjects, objects and predicate adjec- tives before their verbs, adverbial words and phrases at the beginning of the sentence. The purposes of such inversion are here defined.

Inversion for Emphasis. — For each word or phrase of the sentence there is a natural grammatical position, recognized

1 The following may contain an element of personal prejudice, but it is worth weighing in this connection : " We do not believe in epigrams as a livelihood. They are not good for the author. They are not good for the reader. They are in general a choppy, sandy, dangerous kind of literature, bad in style, very uncertain as a vehicle for conveying truth, and blessed only to the one reader among ten thousand who happens to make his allowances right and to get the oracular response in the right focus." — From The Independent, Nov. lo, 1887.

2 For the rationale of Inversion in prose, as distinguished from that in verse, see above, pp. 113, 114 ; as related to rhythm, p. 212, 1.

ORGANIC PROCESSES. 277

instinctively, where it fulfils its function without attracting special attention. As soon, however, as the word or phrase, whatever it is, becomes the focus or stress-point of the idea, the impulse is natural to move it out of its ordinary position ; and. the mere fact that it is found in an unwonted place gives it distinction.

II. As inversion is the result of the effort for emphasis, it consists with and connotes a more trenchant and impassioned mood ; and just as the mood may have varying degrees of intensity, so the inversion may have various degrees, from the bold revolution of the whole sentence structure to the mere transference of an adverbial phrase. It is the part of a rhetorical sense to know, in the case of any inversion, how large is its area of influence, and how large it ought to be, in other, words, to estimate and secure the accurate expression of the emphasizing mood.

Examples of Various Degrees of Inversion. — The emotional intensity of the following examples can be felt and its varieties connected with the manner of inversion.

I . Impassioned inversion. " Great is the mystery of space, greater is the mystery of time." ^ — " Fallen, fallen, is Babylon the great, and is •become a habitation of devils, and a hold of every unclean spirit, and a hold of every unclean and hateful bird." ^ — " Little did I dream when she added titles of veneration to those of enthusiastic, distant, respectful love, that she should ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace concealed in that' bosom ; little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honour and of cavaliers." '

i. Inversion for the stress of some sentence-member. " From the days of infancy still lingers in my ears this opening of a. prose hymn by a lady then very celebrated." Here the adverbial phrase is emphasized by com- ing first, and the subject, " this opening " by coming after its verb. — " In the Channel, during fine summer weather, the wind, as the fishermen say, goes round with the sun." Here emphasis is given to the place and time

1 De Quincey.

'^ Revelation xviii. 2, Revised Version.

3 Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France.

278 COMPOSITION.

elements by placing the adverbs first. — The anticipative it and there e&esX. a. kind of inversion by opening a greater freedom of movement for the principal elements; see above, p. 254.

3. An element, as an adverb for instance, placed first by inversion, exerts an attraction on the verb, and especially on the auxiliary part of it, to draw it before the subject; an attraction greater as the emotional intensity of the sentiment is greater. In the German language this mere attraction is sufiicient to cause the inversipn ; in English, however, it requires a certain heightening of emphasis to justify it, otherwise it sounds artificial. For example : " Little by little were their apartments stripped of articles of ornament, piece by piece was their stock of furniture diminished ; and the future offered them no hope." Here to say "were their apart- ments stripped," etc., instead of " their apartments were stripped " has no reason but the attraction of the adverb, and is crude. A similar unmotived example of inversion is cited above, p. 113, note. Observe, however, that in an impassioned sentence the attractions, being stronger, make the com- plete inversion more natural, as in the sentence from Burke above, " Little did I dream," instead of " Little I dreamed."

Inversion for Adjustment. — By far the most common and practical use of inversion is that by which the ideas of one clause or sentence are adjusted to those of another. This is in obedience to a natural attraction : the predominant idea of one sentence being a kind of stress-centre toward which the like or correspondent idea of the next sentence is drawn, with such power that not infrequently the attraction inverts, in some way, the grammatical order.

12. Inversion for adjustment, while it effects emphasis of the words displaced, subordinates this to continuity, its effort being to group related ideas together, by making the suc- ceeding sentence take up the thought, if it can, just where the previous laid it down. The inversion, when resorted to, makes this effort palpable.'

Examples. — " His friends took the necessary steps for placing him as an apprentice at some shopkeeper's in Penrith. This he looked upon as

1 This subject prepares the way for the consideration of Dynamic Stress, which in fact is a larger aspect of its principle ; see below, p. 340.

ORGANIC PROCESSES. 279

an indignity, to wfiich he was determined in no case to submit." Here the second sentence inverts the order of object and verb, simply from the effort to get the word this at the beginning, nearest to its correspondent idea in the preceding. — " It was not that I feared for ourselves. Us, our bulk and impetus charmed against peril in any collision." Here the inver- sion, while its purpose is clear, reaches the verge of violence. De Quin- cey,^ from whom it is quoted, was very sensitive to these stress attractions and accordingly inverted very freely. — In the following passage from Car- lyle it will be seen how the inverted last sentence obeys the attraction of correspondent ideas before : " Whereupon Mirabeau protesting aloud, this same Noblesse, amid huge tumult within doors and without, flatly determines to expel him from their Assembly. No other method, not even that of successive duels, would answer with him, the obstreperous fierce- glaring man. Expelled he accordingly is." ^ — In the following notice how (in the part here bracketed) the inversion at once groups correspondent adverbial elements together in the middle and relates correspondent prin- cipal elements at the ends : " He has opened his far-sounding voice, the depths of his far-sounding soul ; he can quell (such virtue is in a spoken word) the pride-tumults of the rich, the hunger-tumults of the poor j [and wild multitudes move under him, as under the moon do billows of the sea : ] he has become a world-compeller, and ruler over men." ^ This last construction, technically called Chiasm, will come up again under Repeti- tion ; see below, p. 310.

IV. SUSPENSION.

The name given to this process implies the organic prin- ciple on which it is founded — the principle of expectation. Any means by which, whether on a small or a large scale, the reader is put into the attitude of waiting * for some out- come or solution, with his attention at the same time so sharpened and guided that he shall recognize the solution when it comes, is a suspensive element, carrying with it, as

1 De Quincey, The English Mail Coach, Section 2.

2 Carlyle, The French Revolution, Vol. i, Bk. Iv, Chap. ii.

4 " Make 'em laugh ; make 'em cry ; make 'em wait," — ■ these three precepts are said to have been the rules on which Charles Reade depended to maintain the interest of his novels.

280 COMPOSITION.

it does, the sense of ihcompleteness until some key-word or thought closes the circuit.

At the same time, while the reader is waiting he is not idle. It is the purpose of suspension not only to create distinction for the object expected, but meanwhile to supply with com- parative unobtrusiveness the details desirable to make the object significant when it arrives. Thus, when the reader reaches the outcome, he is in possession not only of it but of all the grounds for it.^

Illustration. — That suspension is really a fostering of expectation for the purpose of meeting it in some striking way is shown by the follow- ing stanza from Thomas Moore, which rhetorically is nothing but a play on the principle of suspension : —

" Good reader, if you e'er have seen,

When Phoebus hastens to his pillow, The mermaids, with their tresses green,

Dancing upon the western billow ; If you have seen at twilight dim, When the lone spirit's vesper hymn

Floats wild along the winding shore, If you have seen through mist of eve The fairy train their ringlets weave, Glancing along the spangled green ; —

If you have seen all this, and more, God bless me 1 what a deal you 've seen ! "

Here the last line, by its sudden turn, flashes back a light on all the non- sense with which the reader has solemnly allowed the poet to load his mind ; this by meeting expectation in an unexpected way.

Workmanship of Suspension The principal means by

which suspense is secured may here be noted, beginning with mere phrasal suspension and going on to its broader appli- cations.

13. Many of the simpler applications of suspension have already been defined. Any means of sending the solution of

1 The order of investigation (see below, p. 446) and the inductive argumentation (pp. 606 sqq^ are broader applications of suspension.

ORGANIC PROCESSES. 281

a clause or sentence beyond its natural close, or of making provision for an added statement, is suspension ; such means may be seen in the devices for prospective reference, in cor- relative particles like either . . .or, not only ... but also, and in the sequential conjunctions so . . . that?-

Examples. — In the following the closed statement and the statement suspended beyond its natural close are placed side by side.

" The world is neither eternal nor the work of chance."

" Though his actions were fre-

" The world is not eternal, nor is it the work of chance."

" His actions were frequently blamed ; but his character was above reproach."

" And there are certain elements in the transaction that need careful handling; I shall therefore let my action be shaped by circumstances."

quently blamed, his character was above reproach."

"And there are certain elements in the transaction that need so care- ful handling that I shall let my action be shaped by circumstances."

It will readily be seen from these examples that the suspended structure is useful for some effects, while for others it is better to leave the sentence unsuspended.

14. As in suspension it is the main statement, or solution, that is prepared for, so the structure calls for putting prelim- inaries, of whatever kind, first ; such are adverbial modifiers expressing time, place, or manner ; infinitives ; participial phrases ; and conditional clauses introduced by if, when, and the like. These various means may either be used singly, with_ only a moderate suspensive effect, or combined or repeated so as to make up quite a copious accumulation of preliminary details.^

Examples. — The following sentences all carry on suspensive details to considerable length and volume.

I. Adverbial phrases. " From the pompous and theatrical scaffolds of Egmont and Horn, to the nineteen halters prepared by Master Karl to

1 See above, pp. 256, 258, 267. Two of the illustrative examples here given are borrowed from Hill's Principles of Rhetoric, p. 224.

2 One type of sentence structure, the Periodic, is foimded on the principle of Suspension ; see below, p. 350.

282 COMPOSITION.

hang up the chief bakers and brewers of Brussels on their own thresholds — from the beheading of the twenty nobles on the Horse-market, in the opening of the Governor's career, to the roasting alive of Uitenhoove at its close — from the block on which fell the honored head of Antony Straalen, to the obscure chair in which the ancient gentlewoman of Am- sterdam suffered death for an act of vicarious mercy — from one year's end to another's — from the most signal to the most squalid scenes of sac- rifice, the eye and hand of the great master directed, without weariness, the task imposed by the sovereign." ^

z. Infinitives used suspensively. " To aim at making a commonplace villa, and to make it insufferably ugly in each particular ; to attempt the homeliest achievement and to attain the bottom of derided failure; not to have any theory but profit and yet, at an equal expense, to outstrip all competitors in the art of conceiving and rendering permanent deformity ; and to do all this in what is, by nature, one of the most agreeable neigh- borhoods in Britain : — what are we to say, but that this also is a distinc- tion, hard to earn although not greatly worshipful ? " ^

3. Participial phrases. " Sitting last winter among my books, and walled round with all the comfort and protection which they and my fire- side could afford me, to wit, a table of high-piled books at my back, my writing-desk on one side of me, some shelves on the other, and the feeling of the warm fire at my feet, I began to consider how I loved the authors of these books." ^

4. Conditional clauses. " If you could see as people are to see in heaven, if you had eyes such as you can fancy for a superior race, if you could take clear note of the objects of vision, not only a few yards, but a few miles from where you stand : — think how agreeably your sight would be entertained, how pleasantly your thoughts would be diversified, as you walked the Edinburgh streets ! " *

15. But suspense is not wholly dependent on phrasal and clausal arrangement, nor is it confined to the scale of the sentence. In larger relations, too, sometimes in a passage extending to a whole paragraph, some name or idea is kept skilfully 'back, while descriptive characteristics enhancing its significance are supplied. This is on the principle of putting

1 Motley, Rise of the Dutch RefuHic, Vol. ii, p. 502.

2 Stevenson, Picturesque Notes on Edinburgh, Chap, vil ' Leigh Hunt.

4 Stevenson, Picturesque Notes on Edinburgh, Chap, vl

ORGANIC PROCESSES. 283

the predicate before the subject, — predicative matter, that is, before the person or thing of which it is descriptive.

Examples. — i. Sentence with the subject put last. "On whatever side we contemplate Homer, what principally strikes us is his wonderful invention." Here the order is, first, the adverbial element, second, the predicate, finally the subject, " his wonderful invention."

2. Sentence suspended in idea rather than in structure. " Spenser's manner is no more Homeric than is the manner of the one modern imitator of Spenser's beautiful gift, — the poet, who evidently caught from Spenser his sweet and easy-slipping movement, and who has exquisitely employed it ; a Spenserian genius, nay, a genius by natural endowment richer probably than even Spenser ; that light which shines so unexpected and without fellow in our century ; an Elizabethan born too late, the early lost and admirably gifted Keats." ^

3. A suspensive paragraph. " Was there then any man, by land or sea, who might serve as the poet's type of the ideal hero .' To an Eng- lishman, at least, this question carries its own reply. For by a singular destiny England, with a thousand years of noble history behind her, has chosen for her best beloved, for her national hero, not an Arminius from the age of legend, not a Henri Quatre from the age of chivalry, but a man whom men still living have seen and known. For, indeed, England and all the world as to this man were of one accord ; and when in victory, on his ship Victory, Nelson passed away, the thrill which shook mankind was of a nature such as perhaps was never felt at any other death — so unani- mous was the feeling of friends and foes that earth had lost her crowning example of impassioned self-devotedness and of heroic honor." 2

Cautions and Regulatives. — While the suspensive structure is useful for concentrating attention on focal points of signifi- cance, and for imparting finish and unity to the diction, it imposes upon the reader a greater burden of interpretation than do other structures. It is against this difficulty that regulatives are for the most part directed.

16. The principal caution is against accumulating an excessive number of suspensive details. As these have to be held in mind, a kind of dead weight, until the apodosis

1 Arnold, On Translating Ho-mer, p. 203.

2 Myers, Wordsworth, p. 79.

284 COMPOSITION.

or key-Statement is reached, it is easy to make the load too great to be carried.^

When, as will sometimes occur, it seems best to introduce a long suspended structure, careful writers have much recourse to two ways of relieving the burden of details : first, they use the structure only with material that the previous discussion has made familiar, as, for instance, by way of recapitulation ; and secondly, they take care that the last detail of the series shall in a sense summarize the rest, so that if only that is retained yet the significance of the series shall not be lost.

Examples. — i . Of recapitulation. In the following suspended sen- tence, from Cardinal Newman, the z/^clauses are virtually a recapitulation of the whole lecture which this sentence concludes : " If then the power of speech is a gift as great .as any that can be named, — if the origin of language is by many philosophers even considered to be nothing short of divine, — if by means of words the secrets of the heart are brought to

1 " Those who are not accustomed to watch the effects of composition upon the feelings, or have had little experience in voluminous reading pursued for weeks, would scarcely imagine how much of downright physical exhaustion is produced by what is technically called the periodic style of writing : it is not the length, the d7repai'roXo7fa, the paralytic flux of words : it is not even the cumbrous involution of parts within parts, separately considered, that bears so heavily upon the attention. It is the suspense, the holding-on, of the mind until what is called the diriSoffis or coming round of the sentence commences ; this it is which wears out the faculty of attention. ^A sentence, for example, begins with a series of ifs; perhaps a dozen lines are occupied with expanding the conditions under which something is aiSrmed or denied : here you cannot dismiss and have done with the ideas as you go along ; all is hypothetic ; all is suspended in air. The conditions are not fully to be under- stood until you are acquainted with the dependency ; you must give a separate attention to each clause of this complex hypothesis, and yet having done that by a painful effort, you have done nothing at all ; for you must exercise a reacting atten- tion through the corresponding latter section, in order to follow out its relations to all parts of the hypothesis which sustained it. In fact, under the rude yet also artifi- cial character of newspaper style, each separate monster period is a vast arch, which, not receiving its key-stone, not being locked into self-supporting cohesion, until you nearly reach its close, imposes of necessity upon the unhappy reader all the onus of its ponderous weight through the main process of its construction. The continued repetition of so Atlantean an effort soon overwhelms the patience of any reader, and establishes at length that habitual feeling which causes him to shrink from the speculations of journalists, or (which is more likely) to adopt a worse habit than absolute neglect, which we shall notice immediately." — De Quincev, Essay on Style, Works, Vol. iv, p. 204.

ORGANIC PROCESSES. 285

light, pain of soul is relieved, hidden grief is carried off, sympathy con- veyed, counsel imparted, experience recorded, and wisdom perpetuated, — if by great authors the many are drawn up into unity, national character is fixed, a people speaks, the past and the future, the East and the West are brought into communication with each other, — if such men are, in a word, the spokesmen and prophets of the human family, — it will not answer to make light of Literature or to neglect its study ; rather we may be sure that, in proportion as we master it in whatever language, and imbibe its spirit, we shall ourselves become in our own measure the ministers of like benefits to others, be they many or few, be they in the obscurer qr the more distinguished walks of life, — who are united to us by social ties, and are within the sphere of our personal influence." ^

2. Of a summarizing «/-clause. " If I have had my share in any measure giving quiet to private property, and private conscience ; if, by my vote, I have aided in securing to families the best possession, peace; if I have joined in reconciling kings to their subjects, and subjects to their prince ; if I have assisted to loosen the foreign holdings of the citizen, and taught him to look for his protection to the laws of his country, and for his comfort to the good-will of his countrymen ; if I have thus laken my part ivith the best of uien in the best of their actions, I can shut the book : I might wish to read a page or two more ; but this is enough for my measure. I have not lived in vain." ^ Here the kind of summary given by the italicized ?/K;lause is a summary of the significance needed to give impressiveness to what comes after.

This second example, it will be noted, is recapitulatory ; and the first example contains like this a summarizing j/^clause, the summary pointed out by the phrase " in a word."

17. It is often an advantage, when the suspensive details will bear separation, to introduce the apodosis not all at once, but piecemeal, each portion serving as a pointer toward the solution.

Examples. — The following sentence is a stock example in rhetorical treatises : " At last, with no small difiiculty, after much fatigue, through deep roads, and bad weather, We came to our journey's end." Here the large accumulation of adverbial elements at the beginning makes a some- what ponderous period. The following modification of its order has been

1 Newman, Idea of a University, p. 293.

2 Burke, Speech to the Electors of Bristol (Select British Eloquence, p. 310).

286 COMPOSITION.

suggested : " At last, with no small difficulty, and after much fatigue, we came, through deep roads and bad weather, to our journey's end." This certainly makes a more easily moving sentence.' — In the following sen- tence Carlyle employs this device, not so much to improve the period as to be Carlylean: "They offer him stipends and emoluments to a hand- some extent ; all which stipends and emoluments he, covetous of far other blessedness than mere money, does, in his chivalrous way, without scruple, refuse." ^

i8. A balance should be observed between the protasis and the apodosis of a suspended structure ; that is, when the solution has been delayed it should have bulk and importance enough to pay for the wait. It is thus a kind of cadence, alike in thought and in movement.' Particular caution should be taken of clauses beginning with which or not ; when added to a period they are liable to introduce some thought not reconcilable with the unity of the sentence.* The "loose addition " such an appendage to the period is technically called.

Examples. — In the following, the accumulation of details seems an increasing promise of a great ending, and then the brevity of the latter gives the effect of much labor for insignificant result : " Shocked by the suicide and treachery of a professed friend, embarrassed by the broken condition of the bank, maddened by the wild clamor of an excited commu- nity, stung by the harsh reports of the New York papers, dreading lest by reason of some technicality his honor would be impeached, having borne the terrible strain for four weary days, in a moment, without the slightest premeditation, frenzied and insane, he committed the deed."

The examples from Cardinal Newman and Burke, under 1 i6, both give good instances of the loose addition ; the sentences are not left with the abrupt ending of the mere apodosis, but carried on to a balancing fulness and explanation.

The evil of the negative or relative loose addition is exemplified in the following sentences : " This reform has already been highly beneficial to

1 See discussion of this sentence, and principle involved, Spencer, Philosophy of Style, pp. 26, 27. Also Bain, Rhetoric (old edition), p. 77.

2 Carlyle, French Revolution, Vol. i, Book vii, Chap. 1.

8 For the claim of cadence, as related to rhythm, see above, p. 219. ■t For the requirements of sentence-unity, see below, p. 320 sqi).

ORGANIC PROCESSES. 287

all classes of our countrymen, and will, I am persuaded, encourage among us industry, self-dependence, and frugality, and not, as some say, wasteful- ness" 1 This addition ought to have been put, by way of suspense, after the words "among us." — " After a long and tedious journey, the last part oiE which was a little dangerous owing to the state of the roads, we arrived safely at York, which is a fine old town." Here the subject-matter of the which-t\ws.&f: really belongs to a new sentence.

V. AMPLITUDE.

On the principle that everything should have bulk and prominence according to its importance, it is a sound and natural impulse, sometimes, to put thought in such fulness and copiousness of statement as to make the reader delay upon it and pay detailed attention to its successive stages. The forms and applications of this impulse are here gathered under the name Amplitude.

Note. — One of the specious pleas of superficial advisers in composi- tion is that every statement should be put in the briefest and most pointed shape. This plea is good for its fitting object and effect ; but the other side, too, has a claim. For some purposes not parsimony but studied abundance of words is more requisite ; this not from the effort to dilute the thought and fill space but to set forth fairly its deeply felt wealth of meaning. Such free range of utterance is one of the primal aims of literary expression ; see above, p. 14. The antithesis to it, Condensation, will be duly presented ; see below, p. 295.

Self- Justifying Forms of Amplitude Not all forms of

amplitude are reducible to grammatical laws ; beyond such laws, indeed beyond the reach of rules, the impulse to ampli- tude reveals a kind of labored deliberateness, reveals also a certain exuberance of personal enthusiasm, which makes the wealth of expression not a superfluity but an overflow, and without which all mere devices are barren.^

1 Taken from Abbott, How to Write Clearly.

2 " And since the thoughts and reasonings of an author have, as I have said, a personal character, no wonder that his style is not only the image of his subject, but of his mind. That pomp of language, that full and tuneful diction, that felicitous-

288 COMPOSITION.

19. It is a frequent and spontaneous impulse, in the case of important statements, to make some kind of preface or approach to them, by words or clauses not indispensable to the sense. By this means a distinction or momentum is gained for cardinal parts of the thought.

Examples. — i . The words it and there, as also the demonstratives, have been mentioned under prospective reference ; here it is to be noted again that they are in their nature merely prefacing expressions, useful for the approach they make to important words ; serving as they do to bring up the subject for contemplation before the statement is made about it. For example, instead of saying, " A lad here hath five barley loaves," etc., the account gains a prefacing distinction by saying, " There is a lad here, which hath five barley loaves, and two fishes ; but what are they among so many? " It is by this prefacing word that we can gain emphasis for the subject, e.g. "I would not believe [it was] he [that] listened to my voice.''

■z. In a formal style, and notably in deliberative oratory, there is much employment of such ■ prefatory wording, in the shape of conditions or of personal explanation. For example, instead of saying, " We sympathize with the fortunes of an illustrious line," Gibbon says, " If we read of some illustrious line so ancient that it has no beginning, so worthy that it ought to have no end, we sympathize in its various fortunes ; nor can we blame the generous enthusiasm, or even the harmless vanity, of those who are allied to the honors of its name."i — The following rather elaborate preface introduces a weighty aphorism that is to play an important part in the ensuing speech : " Was it Mirabeau, Mr. President, or some other master of the human passions, who has told us that words are things ?

ness in the choice and exquisiteness in the collocation of words, which to prosaic writers seem artificial, is nothing else but the mere habit and way of a lofty intellect. Aristotle, in his sketch of the magnanimous man, tells us that his voice is deep, his motions slow, and his stature commanding. In like manner the elocution of a great intellect is great. " His language expresses, not only his great thoughts, but his great self. Certainly he might use fewer words than he uses ; but he fertilizes his simplest ideas, and germinates into a multitude of details, and prolongs the march of his sentences, and sweeps round to the full diapason of his harmony, as if KiJSei' 7o£u>', rejoicing in his own vigor and richness of resource. I say, a narrow critic will call it verbiage, when really it is a sort of fulness of heart, parallel to that which makes the merry boy whistle as he walks, or the strong man, like the smith in the novel, flourish his club when there is no one to fight with." — Newman, Idea of a University, p. 279.

1 Gibbon, Autobiography, Author's introduction.

ORGANIC PROCESSES. 289

They are indeed things, and things of mighty influence," etc.^ Here the remark on the authorship of the aphorism is merely of prefatory use, merely to gain greater distinction for its truth.'

3. The approach to important junctures of plot or incident, by some preparatory means, is a main principle of movement in narration ; see below, p. 525.

20. For amplitude in the body of a sentence or passage, various expedients, more than need be enumerated here, are available. The following, as most outstanding, will serve to illustrate their use : studied expression of all coloring, shad- ing, modifying elements ; fulness in conjunctions and other particles of relation ; careful supplial, often exaggeration, of punctuation marks, in order to make the pauses slow. Some- times also, using a more distinctively rhetorical device, a writer will gain amplitude by deliberately making an erroneous or incomplete statement an.d then correcting himself, as if taking his reader into the laboring process of his own thinking.

Examples. — i. Of amplitude in modifying elements. In the sen- tence quoted from Cardinal Newman, p. 284, above, note how much of the following clause is of a modifying nature : " If the origin of language is [by many philosophers] [even] considered [to be nothing short of] divine." The use of this, copious as it seems, is for his purpose obvious.

2. Of amplitude in connectives. The expression of the conjunction after each word in the following compels due attention to every detail : " ' Beef,' said the sage magistrate, ' is the king of meat ; beef comprehends in it the quintessence of partridge, and quail, and venison, and pheasant, and plum-pudding, and custard.' "^

3. Of amplitude in punctuation. This has already been illustrated on p. 131, above. The following additional example may show how the same expression may be retarded in one clause and made rapid in another : —

" Ah I you, too, start I I am not then the fool I call myself to be so burdened down — You too it touches." 8

1 Webster, Speech on The Constitution not u Compact ( Webster 's Great Speeches, p. 276). 2 Swift, Tnle of a Tub, Section 4.

8 Stephen Phillips, Paolo and Francesco, p. 36.

290 COMPOSITION.

4. Of amplitude by self-correction. In the following the writer, by choosing u wrong word and then correcting it, makes both words play their respective parts in the thought : " This intense, or rather (for intense is not the right word) this extraordinarily diffused character, is often sup- posed to be a mere fancy of Shakespere-worshippers. It is not so." 1 — In the following, the parallelism of the antithesis is used to suggest a harsh assertion, which then is denied, but even in the denial expressed : " Then look at your people who love you and yet suffer ; whom you love, and who are yet in want of food ; who ask nothing better than to bless you, and who yet — No, I am wrong, your people will never curse you, Madame." "

Forms needing Special Artistic Control. — Amplitude of expres- sion, in any form, is ideally as artistic, as much governed by taste and fitness, as any rhetorical process whatsoever ; but because some abuse of it is a fault into which careless, ill- balanced, or tired writers are liable to fall, the whole process, and especially certain forms of it, require watching and vig- orous handling, to keep the thought from dilution.

21. Redundancy, or additions beyond the logical require- ments of the sense, and pleonasm, additions beyond the requirements of grammatical construction, are for the most part uncalled for, being generally a crude repetition of what is already sufficiently implied ; they are justified only as they force into distinction something that otherwise would be buried in an ordinary mould of phrase. It is thus the passion or poetic vigor of the sentiment which keeps the additions from being superfluous.'

Examples. ■ — i. Of needless redundancy or pleonasm. In the sen- tence " They returned back again to the same cAy from whence they came forth" the words here italicized are redundant. In the sentence, " The different departments of science and of art mutually reflect light on each other" either of the italicized expressions is sufficient without the other.

2. Of redundancy whose use is evident. In the quaint Scripture expres-

1 Saintsbury, History of Elizabethan Literature, p. 165.

2 Dumas, Twenty Years After, Vol. ii, p. 499.

8 " Redundancy is permissible for the surer conveyance of important meaning, for emphasis, and in the language of passion and poetic embellishment." — Bain, English Composition and Rhetoric, p. 71. Examples under i are quoted from him.

ORGANIC PROCESSES. 291

slons, " We have seen with our eyes ; we have heard with our ears" " He that hath, ears to hear, let him hear," the words here italicized enhance the distinction. So also the common prefatory phrase, " As for me, I am only indirectly concerned in the matter." — A close approach to redundancy, logically, is seen in the essential epithets and sometimes in the decorative epithets of poetry; see above, pp. 147, 148.

22. Circumlocution (literally "talking around "), a dif- fuse way of speaking, not remediable by cutting out parts but only by recasting, is capable alike of greater abuse and of greater felicity than is redundancy. Fallen into negligently, it betokens a languid-moving or indirect-acting mind ; adopted overtly and of intent, it has good capacities of humorous effect, though taste and sound literary sense are requisite to keep it clear of fine writing.^

Examples. — 1. Of a sentence swollen with circumlocution. "He [Pope] professed to have learned his poetry from Dryden, whom, when- ever an opportunity was presented, he praised through the whole period of his existence with unvaried liberality ; and perhaps his character may receive some illustration, if a comparison be instituted between him and the man whose pupil he was." Professor Bain, who , in quoting this from Johnson ^ doctors the sentence to exaggerate the circumlocution, proposes this substitute : " Pope professed himself the pupil of Dryden, whom he lost no opportunity of praising; and his character may be illustrated by a comparison with his master." ^

2. Of humorous circumlocution. The foUovring is spoken in the assumed character of a professor of science : " There is one delicate point I wish to speak of with reference to old age. I refer to the use of dioptric media which correct the diminished refracting powers of the humors of the eye, — in other words, spectacles." * — The following is not quite up to key in taste: "Tim Kelly was again able to attend to his business — which, strictly speaking, consisted in the porterage of other people's goods out of their houses, without previous arrangement with the owners, and in a man- ner as unobtrusive as possible."^

1 For Fine Writing, see above, p. 71. •

2 Cf. Johnson, Lives of the Poets (Pope), Waugh's edition. Vol. v, p. 198.

3 Bain, English Composition and Rhetoric, p. 72.

* Holmes, Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, p. 173. 6 S. R. Crockett, Cleg Kelly, Arab of the City.

292 COMPOSITION.

23. Euphemism (cS and <^i;/xt, "to speak well" or "smoothly") is a form of circumlocution whose justification is that it states an unpleasant or delicate matter in softened terms. The impulse is very natural to use it of what, stated boldly, would shock the sensibilities or taste ; as death and its accompaniments, crime, or vulgarity. Not infrequently, in such matters, people get over-refined, losing vigor of realiza- tion or, what is worse, obscuring their moral sense by a haze of palliating words. This, of course, is to be guarded against.

Examples. — The last example quoted above is, it will be observed, an elaborate euphemism for stealing. — " To pass away," " to breathe his last," " to cease from his sufferings," are a few out of the many euphemisms for death. — The following euphemizes intemperance : " The only thing we ever heard breathed against his personal character is the suggestion that his love of joyous intercourse with friends sometimes led him into a slight excess of conviviality." ^ — The following euphemizes flogging : " Nicholas Udall, sometime headmaster of Eton, and renowned for the thorough man- ner in which he had laid to heart Solomon's maxim about sparing the rod and spoiling the child, was its author." ^

VI. CLIMAX.

This (named from the Greek KXlfia^, "a ladder ") is the order- mg of thought and expression so that there shall be uniform and evident increase in significance, or importance, or in- tensity. It is more a principle than a process, being merely the rhetorical embodiment of the law that a thought must grow, must have progress ; which indeed it must, not only to reach a natural culmination by increase of interest, but also for the reader's sake, to make up for the mental energy that the advance of the discourse is all the while using up.' Like antithesis, then, climax, while it may work on the narrow

1 From a newspaper article.

2 NicoLL, Landmarks of English Literature, p. 70. 8 This is shown above, under Economy ; see p. 25, 3.

ORGANIC PROCESSES. 293

scale of word and phrase, is really a universal requisite of literary utterance, whatever its scope or stage.

24. For the construction of a verbal or phrasal climax two directions may be given : first and most vitally, make words of less intense degree in meaning ■'^ (less trenchant, con- crete, or picturesque) precede those of more ; and secondly, if the degrees are not clearly marked, make words and phrases of less length and sonority precede those of more. That is the best climax where intensity and volume corre- spond, aiding each other.

Examples. — i. Climax of intensity. The commonly cited example, from Cicero's oration against Verres, being also very clear and striking, cannot well be omitted here : " It is an outrage to bind a Roman citizen ; to scourge him is an atrocious crime ; to put him to death is almost parri- cide ; but to crucify him — what shall I call it ? " Here the speaker in- creases the culmination by intimating lack of adequate words, and leaving the matter to suggestion. — The foUowirtg is a simple climax gradation: " I know it, I replied, — I concede it, I confess it, I proclaim it." ^

2. Climax wherein length and structure of phrase reinforce intensity : " This was unnatural. The rest is in order. They have found their pun- ishment in their success. Laws overturned ; tribunals subverted ; industry without vigor ; commerce expiring ; the revenue unpaid, yet the people impoverished ; a church pillaged, and a state not relieved; civil and military anarchy made the constitution of the kingdom ; everything human and divine sacrificed to the idol of public credit, and national bankruptcy the consequence ; and to crown all, the paper securities of new, precarious, tottering power, the discredited paper securities of impoverished fraud, and beggared rapine, held out as a currency for the support of an empire, in lieu of the two great recognized species that represent the lasting conven- tional credit of mankind, which disappeared and hid themselves in the earth from whence they came, when the principle of property, whose creatures and representatives they are, was systematically subverted." '

25. Inverted climax, wherein the order is from strong to weak, may be either intentional or inadvertent. The inten-

1 For degree of meaning in words, see above, p. 50.

2 Holmes, Autocrat of the Breakfast Table^ p. 72.

3 Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France.

294 COMPOSITION.

tional, or anticlimax, is employed to connote a special quality, usually humor or satire. This is virtually a climax built on a new principle ; that is, while it decreases in intensity, it as uniformly increases in the spirit that animates it. The inadvertent, called bathos, is a sudden drop below the key '^ or expected progress of the passage, and has a flat or ludicrous effect.

Examples. — i. Of intentional anticlimax. The following, by its prog- ress from more distinguished personages to less, accumulates toward the end a quite formidable suggestion of contempt : " Yet these stories are now altogether exploded. They have been abandoned by statesmen to aldermen, by aldermen to clergymen, by clergymen to old women, and by old women to Sir Harcourt Lees." ^ — The following is an elaborate and artificial anticlimax evolved from the topsy-turvy treatment of murder as an art : " Never tell me of any special work of art you are meditating — I set my face against it in toto. For, if once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing ; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking ; and from that to inci- vility and procrastination. Once begin upon this downward path, you never know where you are to stop. Many a man has dated his ruin from some murder or other that perhaps he thought little of at the time." ^

2. Of bathos. In the following, note the regular rise for three details, and then the sudden drop : " What pen can describe the tears, the lamen- tations, the agonies, the animated remonstrances of the unfortunate pris- oners ? " — In the following, the order of clauses is flat : " Such a derangement as, if immediately enforced, must have reduced society to its first elements, and led to a direct collision of conflicting interests."

26. The negation of a climax is made in inverse order, the strongest statement being denied first. Not only the negative adverb directly used, but equally some privative particle, such as without, against, unless, may act as a virtual negative, and reverse the order of statement.

1 See an aspect of this discussed above, p. 136, 2.

2 Macaulay, Essay on History.

8 De Quincey, Supplementary Paper on Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts, Works, Vol. xi, p. 573.

ORGANIC PROCESSES. 295

Examples. — i. Of negated climax. The action of Alabama in seceding from the Union was denounced by the Republicans as the conse- quence of " sudden, spasmodic, and violent passion." In answering this charge, the order would naturally be, " The action of Alabama was not due to violent passion, nor to spasmodic, nor even to sudden passion."

2. Of a virtual negation of climax. " The chances were millions to one against its success, against .its continued existence." — "And thus he enters public life before he has any convictions, or perceptions, or right impressions even, of true citizenship."

VII. CONDENSATION.

The tendency of poetic diction, on account of its elevated tone and sentiment to brevity or concentration, has already been noted ^ ; a tendency in which, as likewise already said, prose shares to an almost equal degree, though from more complex motives. It is a tendency not less of mind than of style. Condensation, in fact, is the result of the effort on the part of a vigorous and direct mind to get its utterance clean-cut, pithy, lightly and promptly moving.

So far as amenable to word and phrase, condensation may be discussed under the heading of two main motives, which, however, may both be effective at once.

Condensation for Vigor A strong impression is generally

4 quick impression ; but not always is the quick impression strong, nor is it the brevity that makes it strong. It must in the condensation make up in vigor for what it loses in volume ; and this it does, ordinarily, by making implication, suggestion, connotation, do a work beyond what is explicitly said.

27. For expressing vigorously and in little space depend more on the noun and verb than on qualifiers. These main elements of the assertion are what contain its core and sig- nificance ; qualifiers limit or restrict, and by so much are apt to weaken the impression.^

1 See above, p. 141.

2 " The poet with a real eye in his head does not give us everything, but only the best of everything. He selects, he combines, or else gives what is characteristic

296 COMPOSITION.

Illustrations. — It is somewhat difScult to make this palpable in a telling example ; it must be done in part by contrast. Take for instance this familiar passage from Shakespeare : —

" His life was gentle ; and the elements So mix'd in him, that Nature might stand up And say to all the world, This was a man ! " i

Consider how much more is really conveyed than if Shakespeare had named his qualities — " This was a patriotic, conscientious, single-hearted man." As it is here, we think all this and more.

The fault of the congestion of modifiers has already been described above, p. 150. How easily and to what advantage they may sometimes be spared. Sir Walter Scott has pointed out, in a letter justifying his favorite octosyllabic measure in verse. He says : " If you will take the trouble to read a page of Pope's Iliad, you will probably find a good many lines out of which two syllables may be struck without injury to the sense. The first lines of this translation have been repeatedly noticed as capable of being cut down from ships of the line into frigates, by striking out the said two-syllabled words, as —

* Achilles' wrath, to Greece the direful spring Of woes unnumbered, heavenly goddess sing. That wrath which sent to Pluto's gloomy reign The souls of mighty chiefs in battle slain. Whose bones unburied on the desert shore. Devouring dogs and hungry vultures tore.' " '^

The question of verse aside, as " scarcely one of the epithets [is] more than merely expletive," it is worth while to note the good effect of reading the passage without the modifying material and see how much more weight is laid on the main elements.

28. Another aid to vigor, producing the effect of conden- sation indirectly, not so much by reducing the number of words as by increasing their weight, is the employment of

only ; while the false style of which I have been speaking seems to be as glad to get a pack of impertinences on its shoulders as Christian in the Pilgrim's Progress was to be rid of his. One strong verse that can hold itself upright (as the French critic Rivarol said of Dante) with the bare help of the substantive and verb, is worth acres of this dead cord-wood piled stick on stick, a boundless continuity of dryness." — Lowell, Essay on Spenser, Prose Works, Vol. iv, p. 272.

1 Shakespeare, /a/rMj Ctesar, Act v, Scene 5.

2 LocKHART, Life of Scott, Vol. iii, p. 263.

ORGANIC PROCESSES. 297

terms that contain some power of connotation ; among which may be mentioned : concrete terms or cases representing the whole class ; descriptive or onomatopoetic words ; tropes ; allusive names or epithets. All these, if we consider how much wealth of implication they convey, may be regarded as highly condensed, concentrated means of expression.

Examples. — i. Of the concrete case for the class. " She taught Latin herself, it is true, but as cautiously as she crossed a plank bridge, and she was never comfortable in the dominie's company, because even at a tea- table he would refer familiarly to the ablative absolute instead of letting sleeping dogs lie." ^ Here " the ablative absolute " means typically any and all difficulties of Latin; it connotes the class.

2. Of descriptive words. These have been mentioned and exemplified on p. i6i, above ; one example here will illustrate their concrete vigor: " I cannot pull well in long traces, when the draught is too far behind me. I love to have the press thumping, clattering, and banging in my rear ; it creates the necessity which almost always makes me work best." " This is said by Sir Walter Scott of his habit of authorship under pressure.

3. Of trope. This has been defined and exemplified above, p. 87. Tropes are much used to embody sententious truths and aphorisms. The following famous passage illustrates trope, concrete case (in third sen- tence), and as a whole the concentrated significance of the aphorism : " Man is but a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking re^d. It is not necessary that the entire universe arm itself to crush him. A breath of air, a drop of water, suffices to kill him. But were the universe to crush him, man would still be more noble than that which kills him, because he knows that he dies ; and the universe knows nothing of the advantage it has over him."'

4. Of allusive epithet. This has been described and exemplified on p. 91, above. An example or two further, to show its concentrative suggestiveness : " It is true that Christ says it is better to enter life maimed than, having two hands or two feet, to enter into hell fire ; that is, asceticism is better than death. But he who came eating and drinking did not set to his followers an example of asceticism." * — " The author^ of the ' Lay ' would rather have seen his heir carry the Banner of Bellenden gal-

1 Barrie, Sentimental Tommy, p. 233.

2 LocKHART, Life of Scott, Vol. viii, p. 258. s Pascal, Thoughts, p. 170.

4 Abbott, Christianity and Social Problems, p. 69.

298 COMPOSITION.

lantly at a foot-ball match on Carterhaugh, than he would have heard that the boy had attained the highest honors of the first university in Europe." i

29. A third form of condensation for vigor illustrates the adage, "A good writer is known by what he omits." It is the ellipsis of such elements and relations as the reader may be trusted mentally to supply, and yet of things so important that some vigor of thought is connoted in supplying them. Such are : main sentence elements ; indirect conjunctional relations ; and colorings so essential to the truth that the omission leaves the assertion over-absolute or sweeping.

Examples. — i. Ellipsis of a main sentence element. In the following the verb of the second clause is omitted, being easily supplied from the first : " With Raphael's character Byron's sins of vulgarity and false criti- cism would have been impossible, just as with Raphael's art Byron's sins of common and bad workmanship /^." 2 — The following illustrates the strength of the negative no (cf. above, p. 268) to stand alone and dispense with a substantive verb: "Voltaire entered too eagerly into the. interests of the world, was by temperament too exclusively sympathetic and receptive and social, to place himself even in imagination thus outside of the common circle. Without capacity for this, /^ no comedy of the first order. With- out serious consciousness of contrasts, /^ no humor that endures." '

-i. Omitted or condensed conjunctional relation. In the following and is used condensively for and yet: " They know that the world is transitory, and they act as if it were eternal ; they know eternal life is a truth, and they act as if it were a dream."* — In the following the omission of and makes a more compact construction : " Let him have never so righteous a

cause, /\ it is but the turn of a hand for God to prove him perverse."^

The adversative, being a very pronounced relation, may sometimes be better omitted. The sentence " You say this ; I deny it" is stronger thus condensed than if it were said "but I," or "I, on the other hand." — In the following the structure is made more compact, and an awkward repe- tition of but avoided, by omitting the correlate to not only (cf. p. 258, above ) : " But this is an understatement of the case ; not only is the

1 LoCKHART, Life of Scott, Vol. x, p. 227.

2 Matthew Arnold, Essays in Criticism, Second Series, p. 179. s MoRLEY, Voltaire, p. 141.

4 MozLEY, Parochial Sermons, viii. Quoted Earle, English Prose, p. 80. 6 Genung, Epic of the Inner Life, p. 45.

ORGANIC PROCESSES. 299

literary study of the Bible permissible, /\ it is a necessary adjunct to the proper spiritual interpretation."*

3. Omission of saving clauses and shadings. This is a characteristic of the aphoristic sentence ; cf. p. 276, 10, above, on the Epigram. The sentence " Respect is, incommode yourself," is so condensed as to require much interpretative thought ; its editor thus explains it by putting in con- ditions : " In order to testify our deference towards a person, it is necessary to incommode ourselves, to put ourselves to trouble for him."^ — The imperative is a useful means of condensing a condition or accompaniment ;• as, " Strip Virtue ( = if you strip) of the avfful authority she derives from the general reverence of mankind, and you rob her of half her majesty."' — The following illustrates several forms of rapidity : —

" * A dozen miles to make, ' Another long breath, and we emerge.' I stood

I' the court-yard, roused the sleepy grooms. ' Have out Carriage and horse, give haste, take gold ! ' said I." 4

Condensation for Rapidity. — By this name rapidity may be designated that quality of style by virtue of which the thought is passed over lightly, with a smooth easy movement, and without attempt at emphasizing salient points. Many of the subordinate portions in any literary work call for merely such light and rapid handling, and the leading means of effecting this is by some form of condensation.

30. Rapidity is gained and vigor of impression lost by using the comprehensive term as equivalent to a number of particulars, the general instead of the specific. This is the opposite of the treatment prescribed in \ 28, and employed for an opposite effect.

Examples. — " He devours literature, no matter of what kind." If a rapid and casual statement is desired, this comprehensive word is enough ; if, however, the fact is important it may be particularized : " Novels or sermons, poems or histories, no matter what, he devours them all."

It is the importance or insignificance of an element for the present pur- pose that determines whether it shall be particularized or lumped together

1 The Bible as Literature, p. g.

2 Pascal, Thoughts, p. 208.

3 Abbott, How to Write Clearly, p. 39.

4 Browning, The Ring and the Book, Bk. vi, 11. r402-5.

300 COMPOSITION.

in a class term. To raise a minor element into factitious prominence by particularization savors of bombast or pedantry ; as if, for instance, instead of writing " in every British colony," one should write : " under Indian palm-groves, amid Australian gum trees, in the shadow of African mimosas, and beneath Canadian pines.'' Something noteworthy ought to depend on each detail to justify such amplitude.

31. For the sake of the lighter touch and more rapid movement, the impulse is to reduce expression to more atten- uated form: as from the clause to the phrase or single word; from assertion to implication ; from the additive clause to the restrictive or its equivalent, the participial phrase ; from positive statement to apposition or parenthesis.

Examples. — i. Of the word-equivalent for a clause. There are many adjectives in the language which have been coined as express equivalents for clauses ; if they do not reproduce the whole thought of the clause they reproduce all that is necessary for a rapid touch. The following, in parallel columns, will illustrate this :

" The extent and fertility of the Russian territory are such as to fur- nish facilities of increase and ele- ments of strength which no nation in the world enjoys.'"

" The style of this book is of such a nature that it cannot be understood."

" This is a feature of the enter- prise on which much depends.^'

" The extent and fertility of the Russian territory are such as to fur- nish unparalleled facilities for the increase of her population and power."

" The style of this book is unin- telligible:-

" This is a cardinal feature of the enterprise."

z. Of implication. In the sentence, " Gladiatorial shows were first dis- couraged, and finally put down, by the humanizing spirit of Christianity" the italicized part gives both the agent and by implication the means ; it is equivalent to " The spirit of Christianity was humanizing, and therefore," etc., or " Christianity, being of a humanizing spirit, discouraged," etc. The abUity to put much of the thought in implication, and the skill to know just what, are among the most valuable elements of a writer's outfit. See this further illustrated in the packed epithet, p. 149, above.

3. Of the relative clause. Of the two relative constructions 1 the restrictive is the more rapid ; and a slow-moving construction may often be considerably lightened by recasting so as to employ a restrictive instead of 1 For the connotation of the relative, see above, p. 236.

ORGANIC PROCESSES. 301

an additive clause. This is especially desirable when a relative occurs within a relative. For example : " This curious design I bought of a nun in France, who passed years of toil upon the conceit, which is of more value than the material." Notice the greater lightness of, " who passed years of toil upon a conceit that is of more value than the material." — The participial construction,^ for either a relative" or conjunctional clause is very convenient for rapid touch ; for example : " Well, all this done, ( = when all this was done) away we went to tKe Hague : arriving there ( = at which place we arrived) just as the Museum closed for that day." ^

4. ' Of apposition and parenthesis. " We called at the house Of a per- son to whom we had letters of introduction, a musician, and, what is more, a good friend \.o all young students of music." This appositive construc- tion condenses the material of two sentences into one, equivalent to, " He was a musician," etc. — If the material of the following parenthesis were appended in a separate sentence, it would be too prominent for its significance, too lengthy for its movement : " We are all (and who would not be?) offended at the treatment we have received." — Sometimes the parenthesis may be used for lightly slipping in a euphemism, e.g. " Frank (the enemy may say, and there may be some difficulty in gainsaying him) is mawkish ; Rose a. doll ; Don Guzman a famous ' portrait of a Spaniard ' craped and sworded duly ; Ayacanora any savage princess." '

32. Ellipsis for rapidity differs from ellipsis for vigor (IT 29) in the fact that here the words omitted, instead of exciting notice by their absence, are words of such subor- dinate importance that they are not missed, while yet the greater lightness produced by their omission is realized ; such are relatives, common subjects, and common objects of verbs and prepositions, — this last, technically called "splitting of particles," being open to caution as a suspect.

Examples. — i. Of ellipsis of the relative. This is most natural in parts of the sentence remote from the central structure, as for instance inside of prepositional phrases or subordinated clauses ; for example, "We know the instructors were masters of the art /i^ they taught." — Note at the end of the following sentence the good effect of omitting the relative : " For, whether in one or other form, . . . there is rest and peacefulness, . . .

1 For the participial phrase, see above, pp. 227-229. ,

2 Fitzgerald, Letters and Literary Remains, Vol. i, p. 292.

8 Saintsbury, Essays in English Literature, Second Series, p. 380. For parenthesis, its uses and cautions, see above, p. 129, 2.

302 COMPOSITION.

more beautiful yet when the rest is one of humility instead of pride, and the trust no more in the resolution /\ we have taken, but in the Hand /^ we hold." 1

2. Of common subjects of verbs. Where the subject would be re- peated it may be expressed once for all ; as, " And now, in his turn, Lind- say is gone also ; /^ inhabits only the memories of other men, till these shall follow him ; and /^ figures in my reminiscences as my grandfather figured in his." ^

3. Of the splitting of particles. " He came to, and was induced to reside in, this city." — " Add to these a concert-master who can conduct such scores from memory, a director who knows them by, and reveres them at, heart, and the crown is complete." ' — This construction is to be used only with caution, and with no long delay after the particle ; it is in fact lacking in cleanness and elegance, and by some purists is altogether condemned, on the ground, as one writer expresses it, that " Elegance pro- hibits an arrangement that throws the emphasis on, and thus causes a sus- pension of the sense at, a particle or other unimportant word."

VIII. REPETITION.

A great deal of the matter in any literary work is, and has to be, repetitious. The same ideas, the same forms of ex- pression, must recur again and again, in order rightly to be impressed or made clear ; and the constant problem is how to effect this repetition with skill and grace.*

Repetition of Grammatical Elements • As a matter of phrase- ology, it is important first to notice certain grammatical elements the repetition of which is essential to clearness.

33. A word essential to the construction of successive members of the sentence should be repeated whenever its omission would cause ambiguity or obscurity. This rule applies to subjects, prepositions, and conjunctions.

Examples. — i. Of repeated subject. In the following example the w^/V/i-clause intervening makes it necessary to repeat the subject intended:

1 RusKiN, Modern Painters (revised edition). Vol. i, p. 172.

2 Stevenson, Memories and Portraits, Works, Vol. xiii, p. 194. s Henderson, The Orchestra and Orchestral Music, p. 143.

* For synonyms as instruments of repetition, see above, pp. 48, 49.

ORGANIC PROCESSES. 303

" He professes to be helping the nation, which in reality is suffering from his flattery, and [he ? or which ?] will not permit any one else to give it advice."

2. Repeat a preposition after a new conjunction, e.g. " He forgets the gratitude that he owes to those who in less prosperous days helped him, and [to] his uncle in particular." The repetition of prepositions in suc- cessive phrases is too often neglected.'

3. Of repeated conjunction. " When we look back upon the havoc that two hundred years have made in the ranks of our national authors — and, above all, [when] we refer their rapid disappearance to the quick suc- cession of new competitors '— we cannot help being dismayed at the pros- pect that lies before the writers of the present day." 1 The omission of ■when here would make the second clause parenthetical, whereas it should be paired with the first 7«Aif«-clause.

34. When the subject of a sentence is made tip of several members, or is burdened with ampUfying details, a repeating word like this or these, though strictly pleonastic, is, necessary as final preparation for the verb.

Examples. — " Gold and cotton, banks and railways, crowded ports and populous cities — these are not the elements that constitute a great nation." — "To write history respectably — that is, to abbreviate des- patches, and make extracts from speeches, to intersperse in due propor- tion epithets of praise and abhorrence, to draw up antithetical characters of great men, setting forth how many contradictory virtues and vices they united, and abounding in ' withs ' and ' withouts ' — all this is very easy." 2

Iteration. — In some circumstances repetition gains its power by taking the bald form of iteration — that is, the set recurrence of the identical word or phrase that it is desired to make impressive.

35. The iteration of a word for emphasis — which from its adaptedness to public discourse may be called oratorical iteration — has a double effect. On the word repeated it has an eifect like the blows of a ha,mmer, driving it in to the

1 Examples from Abbott, How to Write Clearly, pp. 31, 32.

2 Macaulav, Essay on History, beginning. For the summarizing and virtual repetition of a series of conditional clauses, see above, p. 285.

304 COMPOSITION.

hearer's attention. But secondly, as soon as this iteration becomes constant enough to be anticipated, the hearer con- sciously reserves an increased share of his attention for the successive elements that are new, marking with greater interest the points of variation.

Examples. — " But what then ? Can you remove that distrust ? That it exists cannot be denied. That it is an evil cannot be denied. That it is an increasing evil cannot be denied." ^ — " But the very first impression made upon you in the slums is one of horrible leisure. What are the people doing ? Nothing. What do they want to do ? Nothing. What are they capable of doing .' Nothing. What do they want you to do for them ? Nothing. What can you do for them ? Nothing." ^ — The fol- lowing pushes this iteration to the verge of artifice : " Undoubtedly the influence of Mr. Arnold did not make for good entirely. He discouraged — without in the least meaning to do so, and indeed meaning quite the contrary — seriousness, thoroughness, scholarship in criticism. He dis- couraged-^- without in the least meaning to do so, and indeed meaning quite the contrary — simplicity and unaff ectedness in style." ^

36. In work where precision of thought and definition is a main consideration, as for instance in exposition, leading ideas, ideas whose expression has been reached with study as the exactest possible, may sometimes best be repeated in iden- tical terms, whenever they recur. This is iteration in the interests of precision.

Example. — Matthew Arnold, who carried it in style to the extent of mannerism, is the great practitioner of this mode of iteration. Professor Earle « calls his use of it a " refrain," as if it were a poetical device. The following passage illustrates it : —

" The practical genius of our people could not but urge irresistibly to the production of a real prose style, because for the purposes of modern life the old English prose, the prose of Milton and Taylor, is cumbersome, unavailable, impossible. A style of regularity, uniformity, precision, bal-

1 Macaulay, First Speech on Parliamentary Reform.

2 From a magazine article by Alice Rollins.

8 Saintsbury, History of Nineteenth Century Literature, p. 388. ** Earle, English Prose, pp. 161, 162.

ORGANIC PROCESSES. 305

ance, was wanted. These are the qualities of a serviceable prose style. Poetry has a different logic, as Coleridge said, from prose ; poetical style follows another law of evolution than the style of prose. But there is no doubt that a style of regularity, uniformity, precision, balance, will acquire a yet stronger hold upon the mind of a nation, if it is adopted in poetry as well as in prose, and so comes to govern both. This is what happened in France. To the practical, modem, and social genius of the French a true prose was -indispensable. They produced one of cdnspicuous excellence, supremely powerful and influential in the last century, the first to come and standing at first alone, a modern prose. French prose is marked in the highest degree by the qualities of regularity, uniformityj precision, balance. With little opposition from any deep-seated and imperious poetic instincts, the French made their poetry also conform to the law which was moulding their prose. French poetry became marked with the qualities of regularity, uniformity, precision, balance. . . . Our literature required a prose which conformed to the true law of prose ; and that it might acquire this the more surely, it compelled poetry, as in France, to conform itself to the law of prose likewise. . . . Poetry, or rather the use of verse, entered in a remarkable degree, during [the eighteenth] century, into the whole of the daily life of the civilized classes; and the poetry of the century was a perpetual school of the qualities requisite for a good prose, the qualities of regularity, uniformity, precision, balance." i

Repetition in Disguise- — Of the two objects proper to repe- tition, iteration secures one, the reappearance of the thought, but it is lacking in the other and more important, the forward movement. As the thought goes on it should grow ; and if its meatis of progress be repetition, the repetition should if possible be made the occasion of successive enrichment of the idea, or of putting it in varied aspects and emphasis. This object, while it does not impair the essential repetition, operates in many ways to disguise it.

37. Where the repetition centres in some term, the class- name may in the repeat take the place of the particular, or a defining term may be put for the thing defined ; where it centres in incident or details, some equivalent phraseology, as for instance negative for positive, may be substituted.

1 Matthew Arnold, Preface to Johnson's Lives of the Poets, p. xxii.

306 COMPOSITION.

Examples. — Of class-name for individual. " There came a viper out of the heat and fastened on his hand. And when the barbarians saw the venomous beast hang on his hand, they said among themselves, No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he hath escaped the sea, yet ven- geance suffereth not to live. And he shook off the beast into the fire, and felt no harm."i — " In civilized society law is the chimney through which all that smoke discharges itself that used to circulate through the whole house and put everybody's eyes out. No wonder, therefore, that the vent itself should sometimes get a little sooty." ^

z. Of defining and descriptive terms for original. " But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, ceconomists, and calculators, has suc- ceeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever. Never, never more, shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud sub- mission, that dignified obedience,'t\ia.t subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom. The unbought grace of life, the cheap defense of nations, ia& nurse of manly senti- ment and heroic enterprise, is gone ! It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honor, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage whilst it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil, by losing all its grossness.''^ Here the original term chivalry is represented, definitively and descrip- tively, in no fewer than nine different ways.

3. Of varied phrase. In the following the repeat is made by a double negative : " ' Chariot,' said Athos to him, ' I particularly desire yon to take care of Planchet, M. d'Artagnan's servant, as long as he stays. He hkes good vrine ; you have the cellar key. He also does not dislike a good bed. Look after that also, I beg of you.'"* — It is of course impracticable to name all the ways in which the phrase may be varied in repetition. The following will illustrate several : " A day passed away and his mother was not there ; another flew by, and she came not near him ; a third evening arrived, and yet he had not seen her ; and in four-and-twenty hours he was to be separated from her — perhaps for ever." ^

38. In the recapitulation of a series of details, in which the going back over the terms has to be a kind of iteration,

1 Acts xxviii. 3-5.

2 Sir Walter Scott. Quoted by E. Paxton Hood, Scottish Characteristics, p. 125.

8 Burke, Reflections on the Rci^olution in Prance, p. 89. * Dumas, fwentyYears After, Vol. i, p. 173. ' Dickens.

ORGANIC PROCESSES. 307

the ill effect of such iteration is often obviated by taking the inverse order.

Examples. — " Make the Juart of this people fat, and make their ears lieavy, and shut their eyes ; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed." ^ — "His religion, his education, his life in this unsatisfying world, are not the life, the education, the religion, of the great majority of human kind."^- — • " As the soldier is tempted to dissipation, and the merchant to acquisitive- ness, and the lawyer to the sophistical, and the statesman to the expedient, and the country clergyman to ease and comfort, yet there are good clergy- men, statesmen, lawyers, merchants, arid soldiers,, notwithstanding; so there are religious experimentalists, though physics, taken by themselves, tend to infidelity; but to have recourse to physics to make men religious is like recommending a canonry as a cure for the gout, or giving a youngster a commission as a penance for irregularities." '

39. When a thought is expected to grow by repetition and yet remains as lean as ever, merely adding synonymous ex- pressions and marking time, as it were, without advancing, the fault is called Tautology. It generally betokens either heedlessness or poverty of thought, and is to be obviated, if a tautology in terms, by making sure that each successive term that repeats adds enough meaning to pay for repeating ; if a tautology in phraseology, by putting the repeat in a different stress, thus taking occasion to emphasize new aspects of the thought.*

Examples. — i. Of unredeemed tautology. The following, from an old writer, merely pairs off synonyms without making the second contribute at all to enrich the first: " Particularly as to the affairs of this world, integrity hath many advantages over all the fine and artificial ways of dis- simulation and deceit ; it is much the plainer and easier, much the safer and more secure way of dealing with the world ; it has less of trouble and difficulty, of entanglement and perplexity, of danger and hazard in it. The

1 Isaiah vi. 10.

2 Lang, Essays in Little, p. 116.

8 Newman, Discussions and Arguments, p. 299.

* For this variation of stress as applied to sentences, see below, p. 342.

308 COMPOSITION.

arts of deceit and cunning do continually grow weaker, and less effectual and serviceable to them that use them." l — Many pairs of terms have come into the language which, though tautological, are used without analysis as single terms, as " ways and means," " head and front," " end and design " ; but as soon as they are discriminated, as is done by the word neither in the following example, the essential tautology becomes evident : " It might be accounted a tribute to the enterprise of Old Sledge that moun- tain barriers proved neither let nor hindrance, and here in the fastnesses was held that vivacious sway, potent alike to fascinate and to scandalize." ^

2. Of - tautology obviated by variation. In the following (already quoted on p. 50, above) the nearly synonymous words are justified by their evident climax : " I am astonished, I am shocked to hear such principles coti- fessed ; to hear them avowed in this house and in this country." — In the following the verb had failed has the stress at first, and then in the repeat is thrown into subordinate relation : " I had, indeed, begun the task, and had failed ; I had begun it a second time, 3.nA, failing again, had aban- doned my attempt with a sensation of utter distaste." ' — In the following stress is laid first on the adverb, and then on the verb : " In the literary movement of the beginning of the nineteenth century the signal attempt to apply freely the modern spirit was made in England by two members of the aristocratic class, Byron and Shelley. . . . But Byron and Shelley did not succeed in their attempt/r^^/y to apply the modern spirit in English litera- ture ; they could not succeed in it ; the resistance to bafile them, the want of intelligent sympathy to guide and uphold them, were too great." *

Repetition of Construction The forward movement of the

thought is effected, not by the successive enumeration of details merely, but by the perpetual pairing and balance of elements ; which latter, as they must be thought of together, have to be so expressed that their mutual relation is apparent.

40. Elements of the thought that are paired together, or that answer to each other, should evince that relation by being of like speech-part-ship and like form of phrase. This is called Parallel Construction.

1 TiLLOTSON. Cited by Bain, English Composition and Rhetoric, p. 68.

2 MuRFREE (Charles Egbert Craddock), In the Tennessee Mountains, p. 81.

8 Kinglake, Eothen, Preface.

" Matthew Arnold, Essays in Criticism, First Series, p. 176.

ORGANIC PROCESSES. 309

Examples. — In the following note how the proposed amendments, in brackets, aid in the mutual relations of the sentence-elements : " He had good reason to believe [or, for believing] that the delay was not an accident [accidental] but premeditated, and for supposing [to suppose, or else, for believing, above] that the fort, though strong both by art and naturally [nature], would be forced by the treachery of the governor and the indolent [indolence of the] general, to capitulate within a week." i

Not infrequently words are iterated to give a better parallelism of con- struction ; as, " If I have had my share in any measure giving quiet to private property and private conscience." ^ — The following is a rather striking example : " He looked unlike other men, with his tall thin figure, his long thin face, his nervous thin hands." ^

In the foUovring the lack of the words here supplied in brackets leaves the phrases unbalanced : " The Aryan genius ranges far and wide, observes, compares, classifies, generalizes, both in the world of matter and [in the world] of spirit." *

41. A broader application of parallel construction is made in what is called Balanced Structure, wherein clauses or sen- tences are related to each other by likeness of construction, and by similarity or antithesis of thought. The sharp relief thus effected between statements is an aid to clear definition and to memory.

Examples. — Balance of clauses. " It contains the history of a miracle, of Creation and Redemption ; it displays the power and the mercy of the Supreme Being ; the probable therefore is marvellous, and the marvellous is probable." 5 — " They habitually ascribed every event to the will of the Great Being, for whose power nothing was too vast, for whose inspection nothing was too minute." ^

Balance of sentences. " If they were unacquainted with the works of philosophers and poets, they were deeply read in the oracles of God. If their names were not found in the registers of heralds, they were recorded in the Book of Life. If their steps wete not accompanied by a splendid train of menials, legions of ministering angels had charge over them." ^

1 Abbott, How to Write Clearly, p. 34.

2 Burke, as quoted above, p. 439.

8 Matthews, Aspects of Fiction, p.129.

4 McCuRDY, History, Prophecy, and the Monuments, Vol. i, p. 5.

5 Johnson, Lives of the Poets, Vol. i, p. 184.

6 Macaulay, Essay on Milton.

310 COMPOSITION.

Sometimes in the balancing members an inversion of order may alter- nate the stress ; e.g. " To leave the world, or any part of the world, is to follow John the Baptist ; to follow Christ is to enter the world and every phase of the world." ^

Sometimes, where there is a large number of balancing members, they may with elegance be broken into varying groups. In the following fine passage from Cardinal Newman the groups of uniform clauses are set off by lines : " He writes passionately, because he feels keenly ; forcibly, because he conceives vividly ; | he sees too clearly to be vague ; he is too serious to be otiose; | he can analyze his subject, and therefore he is rich; he embraces it as a whole and in its parts, and therefore he is consistent ; he has a firm hold of it, and therefore he is luminous. | When his imagina- tion wells up, it overflows in ornament ; when his heart is touched, it thrills along his verse." ^

1 Abbott, Christianity and Social Problems, p. 6g. This very practical though rather rhetorical inversion in the balancing members of a sentence is called Chiasmus, from the Greek letter Chi (X), which character was used by the ancient rhetoricians to mark the cross relation ; thus : —

" To leave the world ^..^^^ is to follow John the Baptist ; to follow Christ ^'^^ is to enter the world " ...

2 Newman, Idea of a University, p. 292.

CHAPTER X.

THE SENTENCE.

Thus far our study has dealt with materials and detached processes, waiving for the time the consideration of finished results. It is time now to take up this latter subject; and in the coming three forms of utterance, the Sentence, the Para- graph, and the Composition as a Whole, it will be treated through successive applications of what are essentially the same underlying principles, varying only in scale and scope. In the sentence, then, we reach the first complete organic product of thinking. As such, and as embodying on its scale the qualities necessary to effect the purpose of the whole work, the sentence may be regarded as the unit of style. ^

Definition of the_ Sentence. — A sentence is a combination of \Kord§,expressing a single, complete thought.

However complex it may be — and it may attain a consid- erable degree of complexity — the thought of the sentence must be single, must with all its colorings and details leave on the ireader's mind one focal impression ; however restricted its range or inclusion, it must appear as a complete and finished utterance.

1 " For the sentence is the unit of style ; and by the cadence and music, as well as by the purport and bearing, of his sentences, the master of style must stand or fall." — Saintsbury, Miscellaneous Essays^ p. no. — '* From the arrangement of accord- ing letters, which is altogether arabesque and sensual, up to the architecture of the elegant and pregnant sentence, which is a vigorous act of the pure intellect, there is scarce a faculty in man but has been exercised. We need not wonder, then, if per- fect sentences are rare, and perfect pages rarer." — Stevenson, On Some Technical Elements of Style in Literature, Works, Vol. xxii, p. 265.

3"

312 COMPOSITION.

Note. — The typical sign of completeness is the period, the mark of a full-rounded declarative sentence. Other marks of end-punctuation, the exclamation mark, the interrogation mark, the dash, are really marks of incompleteness : the exclamation signifying rather an emotional outburst than a composed thought; the interrogation implying and requiring an answer to complete it ; and the dash confessedly an abrupt dropping of the subject. Thus, while grammatically there may be exclamatory and interrogative as well as declarative sentences, from the point of view of rhetorical construction these are somewhat out of- the literal order, being in fact expressions of emotional connotation ; see above, pp. 95, 96.

I. ORGANISM OF THE SENTENCE.

Sentences have both a grammatical and a rhetorical organ- ism : the grammatical having to do with the parts of speech, their offices and relations ; the rhetorical dealing rather with the logical bearings and dependencies of the thought. With the grammatical organism our business at present is only indirect and casual ; the assured mastery of it must, at this stage of study, be presumed. With the rhetorical organism of the sentence a writer must get the same intimate familiarity as with the grammatical ; the sense of it, and of its require- ments, must become ingrained in his mind ; and, as accessory to this, he needs to form the habit of "parsing his sentence rhetorically, settling its unitary and distributive relations, its main and tributary lines, as he goes along. No other habit or procedure in rhetoric can outweigh this in importance.

I.

Elements of Structure. — The same essential structure under- lies all forms of composition, from the sentence, the first complete utterance of a thought, onward. It is a dual struc- ture, a structure framed on two elements. There is first the basic idea or term, what the assertion is abouirand seconHly the assertion or declaration,, itself, what is said about this.

THE SENTENCE. 313

These two elements are always present to guide and centralize the thinking ; and whether we call them subject and predicate, as in the sentence, or topic and enlargement, as in the para- graph, or proposition and proof, as in a debate, or theme and treatment, as in an essay, is merely an incident of the scale and kind of production on which we are working.

The Framework. ■ — Our analysis of sentence structure, then, taking the grammatical core of substantive {i.e. noun or pro- noun) and verb, views it in the more logical light of subject and predicate : the subject, in the large sense that about which something is said ; the predicate, also liberally construed as that which is said about the subject. These, while in most cases modeled on the grammatical nucleus, are not the slaves of grammar ; for instance, a subject,ithough typically a nomi- native, may for rhetorical distinctio i be put as the object of a verb, yet remain just as truly th ; thing about which an assertion is made ; the predicate, crowded into some sequential claui implication, retains its essential cha

statement about the subject. By th^ir function if is, rather

likewise, though it be e, or be in part left to acter of information or

than by their form, that these elements are to be rhetorically interpreted ; and, as preliminary to the skilful massiri^ of his sentences, the writer should acquire thei'instinctive sense\of what in his work is really the subject of aiSCTisskrrr,- whatever its syntax, and what is essentially predication or predicative matter.

Examples. — The following sentences, purposely chosen for their simplicity, will bring to light the essential subject-matter and predication, as distinct from the grammatical. The grammatical nucleus is put in small capitals.

I . The rhetorical framework modeled on the grammatical core. " Our earthly life, then, gives promise of what it does not accomplish."! — " Homer, for the glory of whose birthplace none but the greatest cities

1 Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. iv, p. 216.

314 COMPOSITION.

dare contend, IS alike the highest and the easiest in poetry. He- rodotus, who brought into Greece more knowledge of distant countries than any or indeed than all before him, IS THE plainest and gracefulest in prose."! !„ all these, if we ask what is talked about and what is as'serted of it, the substantive and verb give the main clue.

z. The subject of remark grammatically disguised. " On seeking for some clue to the law underlying these current maxims, WE may see shadowed forth in many of them, the importance of economizing the reader's or hearer's attention." 2 Here the grammatical substantive, verb, and object give very little clue to what the sentence is about; its real sub- ject of remark, economizing attention, is sent to the end as the object of a preposition. — The same is noticeable in the following : " There IS not, and there never was on this earth, a work of human policy so well deserving of examination as the Roman Catholic Church."' Here the subject of remark is the Roman Catholic Church, sent to the end again and put in a clause for distinction.

3. The predicative matter grammatically disguised. " This is a thought which will come upon us not always, but under circumstances." * Here the grammatical framework is as indicated above ; the rhetorical is rather This thought will cpme. The predication is put into a ■which-A2.v&&. — " The second point to be observed is that brightness of color is altogether inadmissible without purity and harmony." ^ Here the main predicative matter of the sentence is put in a sequential clause, being prepared for by a prospective clause : brightness is inadmissible is the real assertion.

In the sentence quoted from Landor above we might say the clauses that define Homer and Herodotus respectively (" for the glory of whose birthplace," etc., and "who brought into Greece," etc.) are part of the predicative matter tacked to the subject by relative clauses ; they really supply one side of the distinction asserted of these authors.

What is true of the whole sentence is true in its turn of any constituent clause. By its subject or its connective its relation with the rest of the sentence is revealed, whether one of subordination or of coordination ; but as soon as we get beyond this, in all its internal framework the clause is a

1 Landor, Imaginary Conversations, Vol. i, p. 94 (Diogenes and Plato).

2 'sfE.iiC-EK, Philosophy of Style, p. 11.

8 MacaulaV, Essay on Von Sanie's History of the Popes. ^ Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. iv, p. 217. 6 RusKiN, Modern Painters, Vol. ii, p. 195.

THE SENTENCE. 315

complete sentence by itself, with the same problems of mass, order, and stress that obtain in the larger structure.

Examples. — In the sentences quoted above, we come upon the follow- ing clausal frameworks : " it does not accomplish,'' " nbne . . . dare con- tend"; "who brought . . . knowledge"; "which will come"; "brightness ... is inadmissible."

The Tributary Portions. — In three main ways this sentence 1 \ framework may take on tributary matter. j(J

I. There is first the matter requisite to define and give proper setting to the subject. This, as the subject itself is a substantive, is adjectival in nature, that is, it fixes such limits and qualities of the subject as are needed for use in the sentence, and this it does in the form of word, or phrase, or clause.

-., 2. Secondly, and with the same range of forms open to it, there is the matter requisite to expand and round out the predicate. This, so far as it centres about the verb, is adver- bial in nature, giving accompaniments of time, place, conditions, manner, and the like. But as the verb may take an object, or be conjoined with a predicate noun, adjectival modifiers may be affixed to these as to the subject of the sentence.

3. Finally; the sentence itself, within the boundary of the same period, may take on another sentence, or more than one, so closely connected with it in idea that the pair or cluster add together to form a composite thought. In this case it is idle to speculate which is principal and which tributary ; they have a coordinate relation.

It is to be remembered, moreover, that wherever there is a noun, whether in main sentence, clause, or phrase, and wherever there is a verb, whether in the form of principal verb, or infinitive, or participle, the question of modification is always open ; and so the tributary tracts of the sentence may in turn have their tributaries, until the grammatical rami-

316

COMPOSITION.

fications become exceedingly complex, and the problem of steering a straight and clear course through is no small one.

Example. — The following sentence will sliow in a comparatively simple example some of the workings of these three tributary lines. For clearer distinction it is put in tabular form : — ■

Main Sentence.

Subject : " Their dim purpose, —

very dim often, yet struggling always to become clearer, and utter itself in act and word, —

Predicate : was, and ever is, no other than this : To conform themselves to the Eter- nal Laws, — Laws of Necessity, re- vealed Laws of God, or whatever good or worse, or better or best name they give it :

Here the tributary portions are devoted mostly to defining the two ideas dim and Laws, the first modification being thus adverbial, the second adjectival or appositive. The coordinate sentence repeats the idea more sententiously, and with order of subject and predicate reversed.

Coordinate Sentence. THIS

EVER IS, AND MUST BE, THE PURPOSE of the sons of men."l

II.

Types of Structure — In this intricate meshwork of verbal, phrasal, and clausal forms, functions main and tributary, rela- tions coordinate and subordinate, it is important to recognize if we may, in the case of any sentence, some underlying type or norm from which we may estimate as from a chart the various lines of construction. For this purpose we may here adopt Professor Earle's classification.^

Starting from the familiar grammatical distinction of sen- tences as simple, compound, and complex, we may distinguish three main types, which, though not always rigidly or exclu-

1 Carlyle, Historical Sketches, p. 2.

2 Earle, English Prose, pp. 76-91.

THE SENTENCE. 317

sively adhered to,^ are comprehensive enough to include singly or by intermixture the great body of procedure.

1. The Simplex Type Assiuning, as in all these defini- tions, that the verb is the key to the sentence's idea, and that the conjunction is the key to'its articulation, we may define the simplex as a sentence with only one principal verb, or, what comes to the same thing, without an interlinking conjunction.

Sentences of this type, plain as it is, may assume a consid- erable appearance of intricacy by cumulated subjects, and by phrasal or participial adjuncts to subject or predicate or both. The conjunctions that appear between subject members or adjuncts are, it is to be observed, not elements of sentence articulation, but merely verbal connectives.

Examples. ^ — i. Of the plain simplex. "Self-preservation is the first rule of every community." " In the window of his mother's apartment lay Spenser's ' Fairy Queen.' " ^ Here, although some phrasal modifiers are introduced, the framework of subject and single verb is clear.

2. Of the simplex disguised by other matter. " For somewhat more than four hundred years, the Roman Empire and the Christian Church, born into the world almost at the same moment, had been developing themselves side by side as two great rival powers, in deadly struggle for the possession of the human race." ' Here there is a double subject, its two members modified by a participial phrase ; there is an adverbial time phrase ; and the dbject of the verb has a long appositional addition ; but the single verb, had been developing, holds the sentence to its underlying simplex type.

2. The Composita Type. — The essential character of this type is coordination. It is the kind of sentence wherein the predication is made by two or more principal verbs, expressed

1 " The reader must not expect to find pure examples of the above types ready to hand in every page, nor will he be justified In concluding that therefore the types themselves are imaginary and unreal. It is essential to freedom and elasticity and

beauty of discourse, that there should be no obtrusive persistence of rigid types ;

but at the same time it is useful for us to observe or by analytic process to disengage such types, because they are the elementary factors of an endless variety." — lb., p. 87.

2 Johnson, Lives of the Poets, Cowley. 3 Kingsley, Hyfatiaf'Vteiace.

318 COMPOSITION.

or understood, and wherein the conjunctions are of the coordi- nating class.^ These several verbs may either be predicates of the same subject, or may have their separate subjects ; in which latter case the whole sentence is a cluster of sentences bound into one by a logical connection.

In two ways the composite character of this type of sen- tence, while still intact, may be somewhat disguised. In a series of more than two predications the connecting conjunc- tions may be expressed only with the last, or may be wholly omitted.^ And secondly, when the several verbs would natu- rally be the same if expressed, the verb may be expressed only once for the series.

Examples. — i. Of plain composita. With a single subject: "The righteous shall inherit the land, and dwell therein forever." — With a subject for each verb : " Art makes knovf ledge a means, but science makes it an end " ; " Then this world will fade away, and the other world will shine forth " ; " The advice is the same, though the reason of it is differ- ent." Here the several coordinating conjunctions are but, and, and though. Clusters of more than two members : " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God " ; " He provides, and she dispenses ; he gives commandments, and she rules by them ; he rules her by authority, and she rules him by love ; she ought by all means to please him, and he must by no means displease her." Here each of the semicoloned members is itself a composita of two members.

;:. Of composita disguised. The example last quoted shows asyndeton between the larger members. The classical example of asyndeton is, " I came, I saw, I conquered." — Ellipsis of repeated verb: "They never see any good in suffering virtue, nor /\ any crime in prosperous usurpation.'' Here the full sense would be " nor do they see any crime," etc. " It is not the business of the Arts to worry the reason, but rather /^ to stimulate the imagination, and /^ soothe the feelings of mankind." '

3. The Evoluta Type. — The essential character of this type is subordination. It is the kind of sentence wherein one main

1 For coordinating conjunctions, see above, p. 260.

2 This latter ellipsis, which gives the condensing effect of abruptness (cf. p. 29S, above) is technically called Asyndeton.

3 These quotations are nearly all taken from Professor Earle, op. cit., pp. 78, 79.

THE SENTENCE. 319

assertion has appended to it ancillary clauses giving some kind of explanatory or limiting matter. These helping clauses may be appended either to the noun parts of the sentence (subject,' object of a verb, object of a preposition), in which case its connective is a relative pronoun or relative adverb ; or to the verb parts (predicate, infinitive, participle), in which case its connective is a conjunction of the subordinating class.'' Often the Evoluta has an inverted arrangement, the appended clauses, of condition, time, explanation, and the like, being placed first, and thus accumulating for the main predicate the distinction of suspensive, structure.^ W (^ }, ,\ , /,

Examples. — i. Of various ways of introducing subordinate clauses. The introducing words, conjunctions or relatives, are here italicized. " People usually consider that an opinion by which no fee is earned is worth just what it cost." — " Englishmen are prepared to believe that if their country is to continue to be the greatest nation of the world, it^must be as the centre of a naval confederacy which has its harbors in every sea." — ■ " The Catholic gentry, who had been painted as longing for the coming of the stranger, led their tenantry, when the stranger came, to the muster at Tilbury." — " Milton, who, in his letter to Hartlib, had declared, that to read Latin with an English mouth is as ill a hearing as Low French, required that Elwood should learn and practice the Italian pronunciation, which, he said, was necessary, if he would talk with foreigners.''

2. Of inverted order of evolute clauses. " That I have ta'en away this old man's daughter, It is most true." — " Why it is, and what it is to issue in, and how it is what it is, and how we came to be introduced into it, and what is our destiny, are all mysteries." Here the subordinate clauses are coordinated with each other by and, all being alike subject to the main assertion. — "If\ cannot go with the authority and protection of my gov- ernment, I prefer not to go at all." ^

It hardly needs to be remarked here that these types may be mixed in many ways ; the fact that any modifying element

1 For the list of relatives, pronominal and adverbial, see Table of Retrospective Reference, p. 247 ; for subordinating conjunctions, p. 265.

2 For suspension by conjunctional clauses, see pi 281.

3 Quotations taken, as before, mostly from Earle, op. cit., pp. 81, 83.

320 COMPOSITION.

may assume the clausal form makes this mixture natural to any underlying structure. It is not difficult, however, in most cases, to detect the relations of one type to another, and so explain the combination.

II. INTERRELATION OF ELEMENTS.

The ample, though limited, range of logical relations that may exist between the constituent elements of a sentence all grows out of the necessary quality of unity. However broad and diversified the impression made by the sentence, it must be one impression ; all the lines of assertion, implication, shading, must focalize into one comprehensive thought. To this end account must be taken of these internal relations, and of the means of making them clear to the reader.

Errors of Interrelation. — An organism which is a unity must just as truly, if it is an organism, be a diversity. Two errors of interrelation, arising respectively from the disregard of these necessary qualities, may here be noted.

I. The disregard of unity shows itself in what is called the heterogeneous sentence. This is a sentence run on carelessly, admitting all collateral ideas that can be crowded in, until there are several distinct subjects of thought, and no one of paramount importance to which all may be counted as sub- servient. It is much like talking without a pause till one is out of breath. It is not the same as a long sentence ; it is rather a long sentence that fails to produce unity of effect.

Examples. — The tendency to let a sentence become heterogeneous may work in two ways : trying to crowd the interior of the sentence too full of extraneous matters ; and tacking on an afterthought at the end.

I. Heterogeneous by insignificant details. " The usual acceptation takes profit and pleasure for two diiferent things ; and not only calls the fpl-

THE SENTENCE. 321

lowers or votaries of them by the several names of busy and idle men ; but distinguishes the faculties of mind that are conversant about them, calling the operations of the first wisdom, and of the other wit : which is a Saxon word, used to express what the Spaniards and Italians call ingenio, and the French esprit, both from the Latin; though I thinlc wit more particularly signifies that of poetry, as may occur in remarlcs on the Runic language." Here there is material for not less than three sentences, their subjects of remark being :

Profit and pleasure, how named in men and in the mind.

Derivation and synonymy of the word wit.

Wit ought to be used exclusively as a poetic term. As soon as we separate these subjects, we see how impossible it is to make them all parts of the expression of a single thought.

2. Heterogeneous by a tacked-on addition. " He falls so grossly into the censure of the old poetry, and preference of the new, that I could not read his strains without indignation ; which no quality among men is so apt to raise in me as self-sufiiciency." Here the relative clause starts off on a new idea, suggested by the word indignation. The same thing may occur in narrative details ; eg. " Tillotsoji died in this year. He was exceedingly beloved both by King William and Queen Mary, who nomi- nated Dr. Tenison, Bishop of Lincoln, to succeed him."^ Here the nomination of Dr. Tenison is entirely apart from the idea of the pre- vious clause.

2. The disregard of the diversity that may legitimately characterize the sentence is shown in what may be called the insignificant sentence. The evil of the heterogeneous sentence is not cured by making each assertion into a sentence by itself. Apart from the disagreeable effect of a series of curt remarks, not all assertions will bear to be made so prominent. A statement merely explanatory or qualifying ought to be subordinated to others, and the only way to make this subor- dination appear is to weave the explanatory clause in with other things in the same sentence structure ; for as soon as it is set off by periods it sounds as if coordinate in value. A small explanatory clause set off by itself is not only insig-

1 The above-quoted sentences are taken (without his italics) from Bain, Compo- sition and Rhetoric, pp. 135, 136. All are from the older "writers, who had not reached the sense of unity and organism .that now prevails in sentences.

322 COMPOSITION.

nificant, it breaks the continuity of the larger thoughts. Its matter may be worth saying, but not worth challenging inde- pendent attention ; this is a point that the writer's literary sense must settle.

Examples. — i. Here i^ recalled the attempt once made by a clergy- man to give more point and snap to a Scripture verse by periods ; with the following result : "The pastures are clothed with flocks. The valleys also are covered over with corn. They shout for joy. They also sing." ^ This last assertion, They also sing, may acquire a snap, but it is really made insignificant by its separation.

2. How intermediate clauses of comparatively less importance may be necessary to subserve the continuity from the chief idea of one sentence to that of another may be seen in the following, in which the intermediate portion is put in brackets : " Of two old men, the one who is not your father speaks to you with the more sensible authority ; [for in the paternal relation the oldest have lively interests and remain still young. Thus I have known two young men great friends ; each swore by the other's father ; the father of each swore by the other lad ;] and yet each pair of parent and child were perpetually by the ears."^ Here the part within brackets is mostly employed in conducting the thought from general statement to concrete example. In the following this intermediate char- acter is neglected, and of the sentences in brackets some are insignificant, while all break the continuity : " An individual is an encloser. [Time and space, liberty and necessity, truth and thought, are left at large no longer. Now, the universe is a close or pound. All things exist in the man tinged with the manners of his soul. With what quality is in him he infuses all nature that he can reach ; nor does he tend to lose himself in vastness, but, at how long a curve soever, all his regards return into his own good at last. He animates all he can, and he sees only what he animates.] He encloses the world, as the patriot does his country, as a material basis for his character, and a theatre for action." ' Here, as we compare the first and last sentences, there seems to be a needless detour in thought between, because the middle sentences are not properly subordinated to the main current of the idea.

1 Psalm Ixv. 13.

2 Stevenson, Talk and Talkers, Works, Vol. xiii, p. 2S4. 8 Emerson, Character, Works, Vol. ill, p. 95.

THE SENTENCE. 323

II.

Logical Relations Consistent with Unity. — In sentences, more especially of the composita type, where clause stands side by side .with coordinate clause, the question how sentence unity will bear such manner of accretion assumes chief importance. The answer depends on the nature of the material.

I. In material of argumentative or expository nature, wherein thought is linked to thought by likeness or contrast, or by cause and effect, some phase of such relation must be present to give the added clause a right within the same sen- tence. Accordingly, when an added clause gives the conse- quence or the obverse of the principal ; when it explains, or justifies, or exemplifies, or repeats the idea of the principal ; it may be set off by a semicolon, but does not necessarily mar the unity of the sentence.'

Examples. — A number of sentences are given here, with the logical relation of the semicoloned clauses indicated in the margin : —

" Hence, in speculating on this question I shall take this as a reasonable assumption first of all, that the catastrophe of a state is according to its antecedents, and its destiny according to its nature ; and there- Consequence, fore, that we cannot venture on any anticipation of the instruments or the conditions of its death, until we know something about the principle and the char- acter of its life.'' — "To learn from others you must entertain a respect for them ; no one listens to those Obverse,

whom he contemns." — "He [Herodotus] has written something better, perhaps, than the best history ; but Obverse,

he has not written a good history ; he is, from the Explanation. first to the last chapter, an inventor." ^ — "The very greatness of our powers makes this life look pitiful ; Consequence, the very pitif ulness of this life forces on our thoughts

1 " It is this tacit ratiocination which qualifies the Composita to fill so large a space as it does in argumentative discourse. It is the vehicle of implied, inexplicit, and condensed reasoning." — Earle, English Prose\ p. So.

2 Macaulay, Essay on History.

324 COMPOSITION.

to another ; and the prospect of another gives a dig- Consequence, nity and value to this life which promises it; and thus Consequence, this life is at once great and little, and we rightly con- temn it while we exalt its importance." ^ — " His gen- tleness is made beautiful by a granite will behind; Repetition. ' out of the strong comes forth sweetness.' " — " Agri- culture is the foundation of manufactures ; the produc- Repetition or ex- tions of nature are the materials of art."^ — "Now planation.

surely this ought not to be asserted, unless it can be proved ; we should speak with cautious reverence upon Reason or jus- such a subject." ^ tification.

In all these sentences we can feel the close logical relation which makes the coordinated clauses a unity with the principal.

2. In material of descriptive or narrative nature, wherein details merely touch each other in space or time, the laws of sentence unity have to be more liberally construed. Much the same holds in clauses of common bearing grouped under one implied logical control. In all these cases the unity is determined not so much by adjusting one clause to another as by implicitly referring all alike to one comprehensive idea, — some limitation of time or space or thought. It is the writer's sense of this dominating idea which regulates the inclusion of his sentence.

In material of this kind the main problem is to strike a just mean between the insignificant and the heterogeneous sen- tence. Single narrative details, unless emphatic, may well be too unimportant to stand alone ; they require the support of company. So it may come to pass that a sentence may be made up of several distinct facts, and be a kind of smaller paragraph. Yet beyond a certain point it easily becomes too loosely strung together ; free as it looks, a pervading unity of inclusion must keep it from becoming heterogeneous. Of this delicate balance between too much and not enough a disci- plined logical sense must be the judge.

1 Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. iv, p. 218.

2 Quoted from Bain's Rhetoric, p. 136.

THE SENTENCE. 325

Examples. — In the following sentences the distinct nodes of detail are indicated by upright lines.

1. A descriptive sentence. "By night sweet odors, Var^ng with every hour of the watch, were wafted from the shore to the vessel lying near ; | and the forest trees, brought together by the serpent tracery of myriads of strange parasitical plants, might well seem to the fancy like some great design of building, | over which the lofty palms, a forest upon a forest, appeared to present a new order of architecture. In the background rose the mist, like incense." i Here the fourth detail, not closely enough con- nected with the others, or perhaps more important to the main current of thought, is put in a sentence by itself.

2. A narrative sentence. " And now up runs Baptiste, covered with slime, and prep?ires to cast his projectiles. The first one fell wide of the mark j | the schooner swung round into a long reach of water, | where the breeze was in her favor ; | another shout of laughter drowned the maledic- tions of the muddy man ; | the sails filled ; | Colossus of Rhodes, smiling and bowing as hero of the moment, ducked as the main boom swept round, | and the schooner, leaning slightly to the pleasant influence, rustled a moment oVer the bulrushes, and then sped far away down the rippling bayou." ^

3. Clauses of common bearing. " Before, they took things as they came, and thought no more of one thing than another. But now every event has a meaning ; | they have their own estimate of whatever happens to them; | they are mindful of times and seasons, and compare the present with the past: | and the world, no longer dull, monotonous, unprofitable, and hopeless, is a various and complicated drama, with parts and an object and an awful moral." ' Here the relation of the last clause to the rest is obviously consequence ; the other clauses are closely related as similar steps in an idea, with one common bearing to give them unity, and all alike working together to make up the obverse to the short sentence preceding.

III.

Office of Punctuation.* — Of the logical sequences necessary to the unity and proper articulation of the sentence, the marks of

1 Helps, Spanish Conquest in America^ quoted in Bain's Rhetoric, p. 137.

2 Cable, Posson Jone', Old Creole Days\ p. 174.

3 Newman, Idea of a University^ p. 133.

4 For the classitication of printer's signs, and for the significance of other marks, see above, p. 128, footnote.

326 , COMPOSITION.

punctuation, — semicolon, colon, comma, and dash, — are the mechanical signs. As such they have just as definite a mean- ing, and are just as truly a part of composition, as is the choice or arrangement of words. To leave them to others, printers or critics, to supply, is to leave to others part of one's thinking; to confess ignorance of them is to confess that at some important points the rhetorical art is unmastered.

Of a subject to which in its minute ramifications whole vol- umes have been not unprofitably devoted, it is possible here to give only the nucleus principles from which all the applica- tions proceed. And to this end, braving the risk of small exceptions and accommodations, we will reduce the significance of each mark to a single comprehensive principle, from which its diversities of application may be naturally deduced.

The Semicolon. — This may be called the mark of addition, more specifically, of the added clause ; the type of sentence, therefore, of which it is most characteristic is the composita. In general its range of significance coincides with the logical relations named in the foregoing section : being used to set off some phase of explanation, repetition, consequence, or contrast; and, in the more loosely related subject-matter, clauses of detail or common bearing. Let the writer keep in mind and in all sentence construction observe these logical dependencies, and the semicolon supplies itself.

Examples. — The examples here" adduced, it will be observed, are examples of the same things exemplified on pages 323 and 325 ; only here we are looking at the mark, there at the relation. The meaning of the semicolon is here given in the same terms as the relation there.

" No such voices as those which we heard in ouryouth at Oxford are sounding there now. Oxford has more criticism now, more knowledge, more light ; but such Obverse,

voices as those of our youth it has no longer. The name of Cardinal Newman is a great name to the imagination still ; his genius and his style are still Repetition,

things of power. But he is over eighty years old ; Detail.

THE SENTENCE. 327

he is in the Oratory at Birmingham ; he has adopted, Detail,

for the doubts and difficulties which beset men's minds to-day, a. solution which, to speak frankly, is impos- sible. Forty years ago he was in the very prime of life ; he was close at hand to us at Oxford ; he was Detail. Detail, preaching in St. Mary's pulpit every Sunday; he Detail,

seemed about to transform and to renew what was for us the most national and natural institution in the world, the Church of England." ^ — "To know is one thing, to do is another ; the two things are altogether Repetition, distinct. A man knows that he should get up in the morning, — he lies abed; he knows that he should not Common bearing, lose his temper, yet he cannot keep it."

Take semicolons as they run, in the work of standard writers, and these simple relations will be traceable in all.

With these modes of relation the semicolon marks, as to dis- tance, a degree of separateness or remoteness just about such as exists typically between an added assertion and its prin- cipal. Two modifications of this notation, however, ought here to be mentioned. First, sometimes the added assertion, though in full clausal form, carries with it such a sense of closeness that only the comma, not so large a pause as the semicolon, is needed to set it off. Secondly, in order to give separateness to important details, and thus secure individual attention to them, the semicolon is sometimes used to set off portions merely phrasal in form.

Examples. — i . Of composita clauses with comma. Several instances occur in the sentences lately cited, e.g. " Colossus of Rhodes . . . ducked as the main boom went round (, = ;) and the schooner . . . sped far away down the rippling bayou.'' So also : " A man knows that he should get up in the morning (, ■ — = ;) he lies abed ; he knows that he should not lose his temper (, = ;) yet he cannot keep it." In this latter case the commas are used partly because of the closeness of relation, partly as n. smaller pause within z. semicoloned clause.

::. Of semicolon used to set off phrases. " It is in vain for the Ameri- can to revile Congress ; Congress is a mirror which reflects the national

1 Matthew Arnold, Discourses in America^ p. 138.

328 COMPOSITION.

features. On the one hand, its refusal to repudiate national indebtedness or to pay it in depreciated currency ; its legislation for the protection of the emancipated negro, and for the deliverance of the Indian from the bar- barism to which previous legislation had consigned him; its attempt to exercise, in the interest of the public, some control over the interstate rail- ways ; its legislation against the Louisiana Lottery ; its submission of the Alabama Claims and the Northwest Boundary question to arbitration ; its provision, albeit tardy and imperfect, for international copyright, — are all reflections of the better thought and life of the American people. On the other hand, its bargaining and log-rolling in tariff legislation ; its cheap and noisy war-talk ; its reluctant surrender of the spoils system ; its often absurd appropriations for public intprovements designed and pressed through for personal ends ; its passionate haste when deliberation is demanded, and its sometimes long delays when prompt action is indispensable to public wel- fare,— are all symptoms of dangerous elements in national life."^

The Comma. — Just as the semicolon is the mark of the added clause, with its clear though appreciably remote logical relation, the comma is the mark of the closer dependent clause (in sentences of the evoluta type), and of the phrase or the word that does duty as a phrase. It is still a mark of sepa- ration, but not enough, ordinarily, to break into the gram- matical continuity of the passage.

To enumerate all its varieties of usage would result in more confusion than clearness. In the interests of simplicity it will be better here to define a few cardinal applications and depend on the well-mastered knowledge of these to impart a sense for the minutiae.

Its main lines of usage may be reduced to three ; of each of which, by way of making its rationale more recognizable, a few specifications are here given. The comma is employed to mark : —

I. Some form of disjunction, — as when words or phrases, singly or in pairs, are set over against each other ; when a long or involved subject is finished, ready for its verb ; when

1 Abbott, Christianity and Social Problems, p. 53.

THE SENTENCE. 329

a relative clause adds a new. fact to its antecedent clause^; when a constituent clause is of subordinate, not coordinate, significance.

Examples. — i. Of disjoined words and phrases. " Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my heart to this vote." "^ — " People are perpetually squabbling about what will be best to do, or easiest to do, or adviseablest to do, or profitablest to do ; but they never, so far as I hear them talk, ever (sic) ask what it is just to do.".'

2. Of the comma as mark of finished subject. " Life in modern London even, in the heavy glow of summer, is stuff sufficient for the fresh imagina- tion of a youth to build its ' palace of art ' of ; and the very sense and enjoyment of an experience in which all is new, are but enhanced, like that glow of summer itself, by the thought of its brevity."* Here the comma after summer has a double office, one vrith reference to the succeeding verb, the other with reference to the prepositional phrase preceding ; the comma after new is merely the mark of the finished subject.

3. Of an additive relative clause. " Now this doctrine will become clearer by considering another use of words, which does relate to objective truth, or to things." ^

'4. Of a subordinate clause. At the beginning : " And, while the many use language as they find it, the man of genius uses it indeed, but subjects it withal to his own purposes, and moulds it according to his own peculiari- ties." 1 — In the middle: "Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone." ^ — At the end : " Let us then put aside the scientific use of words, when we are to speak of language and literature." °

2. Some form of intercalation, — as when a parenthetical phrase or clause is inserted within the grammatical structure of a clause or sentence ; when a word or phrase is used in apposition to something ; when a particle modifying the whole assertion, such as however, indeed, too, then, is slipped into the construction.

1 See above, p. 237, note.

2 Webster, Adams and Jefferson, Great Speeches, p. 168. s RusKiN, Crown of Wild-Olive, p. 52.

4 Pater, Marius the Epicurean, p. 197.

5 Newman, Idea of a University, pp. 274-276. ^ James ii. 17.

330 COMPOSITION.

Examples. — i. Of an intercalary phrase. " We have, peculiar to the prose writer, the task of keeping his phrases large, rhythmical, and pleasing to the ear, without ever allowing them to fall into the strictly metrical." i

2. Of apposition. " Pope Gregory, that great religious poet, requested by certain eminent persons to send them some of those relics he sought for so devoutly in all the lurking-places of old Rome, took up, it is said, a portion of common earth, and delivered it fo the messengers." ^ This sen- tence exemplifies also the other distinctions here made.

3. Of an intercalary particle. " Here, then, is your chief duty, you workmen and tradesmen, — to be true to yourselves and to us who would help you." *

3. Some form of ellipsis, — as for instance : to supply the place of a conjunction that in a list of details has been omitted ; to supply the place of a verb that in repeated or parallel ideas is omitted.

Examples. — i. Of ellipsis of conjunction. "The colleges, the clergy, /\ the lawyers, were against me." — " The spirit of the Almighty is within, around, /^ above us."

2. Of ellipsis of verb. " A wise man seeks to shine in himself ; a fool, ^ in others." — " Price of admission, ^ 50 cents."

The Colon The colon has two distinct offices, one typical,

the other occasional, and as it were a makeshift.

1. Typically, the colon may be called the mark of expect- ancy. It is the mark that is used to introduce, whether in clausal or phrasal form, some detail or item that the language preceding has made ready for. This applies to specifications or enumerations; to citations formally introduced; and, in slightly modified application, to some kind of afterthought.

2. As employed occasionally, the colon functions as a pause intermediate between the semicolon and the period. If we may judge from the derivation of the word, this seems to have been its original usage; colon meaning member or

1 Stevenson, On Style in Literature, Works, Vol. xxii, p. 264.

2 Pater, Appreciations, p. 162.

8 RusKiN, Crown of Wild Olive, p. 61.

THE SENTENCE. 331

clause ; semicolon, half a clause. Its use thus is to separate sentence divisions already articulated by semicolons.

Examples. — i. As the mark of expectancy. To specify: "It leaves to the people individual enterprise ; it contemplates and intends variations of wealth and condition ; but it maintains this fundamental principle : That every man is a trustee, and every man must account for the administration of his trust."^ — "The capital leading questions on which you must this day decide are these two : First, whether you ought to concede ; and sec- ondly, what your concession ought to be." ^ — To introduce a quotation or citation : " There is a characteristic saying of Dr. Johnson : ' Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.' " — To mark an afterthought : " You sup- posed, probably, that your office was to defend the works of peace, but certainly not to found them : nay, the common course of war, you may have thought, was only to destroy them." '

z. As offset to the semicolon. ■ " But Gray holds his high rank as a, poet, not merely by the beauty and grace of passages in his poems ; not merely by a diction generally pure in an age of impure diction : he holds it, above all, by the power and skill with which the evolution of his poems is conducted." *

The Dash. — This, a very useful mark in its place, is so much abused by unskilful writers that the general sense of its true function is a good deal obscured. All the more need, therefore, to get, if possible, at its central meaning.

I. As related to sentence organism, the dash may be called the mark of abruptness ; that is, the matter it introduces is unexpected and unprepared for. It is in this abruptness, principally, that it differs from the colon. Otherwise it deals with much the same subject-matter, being used mainly to slip in something explanatory or parenthetical,* as it were, between the lines. Also, by its note of unexpectedness it may mark a sudden change or suspension of the construction, or an epigrammatic turn in the spirit of the assertion.

1 Abbott, Christianity and Social Problems^ p. 92.

2 Burke, Speech on Conciliation with Avierica.

3 RusKiN, Crown of Wild Olive^ P- ir?- *

4 Matthew Arnold, Discourses in America^ p. 156.

5 For the parenthetical use of the dash and the double dash, and their effect in diction, see above, p. 130.

332 COMPOSITION.

2. A secondary use of the dash may here be mentioned, namely, its employment with other marks of punctuation. As thus added to other marks — and it may be found with commas, semicolons, colons, and even periods — it augments their effect, while at the same time it retains more or less of its own suggestion of abruptness.

Examples. — i. Of the dash as a mark of abruptness, a. Slipped-in explanation. " That the end of life is not action but contemplation — being as distinct from doing — a certain disposition of the mind: is, in some shape'or other, the principle of all the higher morality."^ — "But taking the Frenchman who is commonly in view — the usual type of speaking, doing, vocal, visible Frenchman — we may say, and he will probably be not at all displeased at our saying, that the German in him has nearly died out, and the Gallo-Latin has quite got the upper hand."^

b. Change or suspension of construction. " Was there ever a bolder captain of a more valiant band ? Was there ever — But I scorn to boast."

Cassius. " Yet I fear him :

For in the ingrafted love he bears to Caesar — Brutus. Alas ! good Cassius, do not think of him." 3

" Richter says, in the Island of Sumatra there is a kind of ' Light-chafers,' large Fire-fiies, which people stick upon spits, and illuminate the ways with at night. Persons of condition can thus travel with a pleasant radiance, which they much admire. Great honor to the Fire-flies! But — I — "*

c. Epigrammatic turn. " You have given the command to a person of illustrious birth, of ancient family, of innumerable statues, but — of no experience."

2. Of the dash with other marks, a. With comma. " We experience, as we go on learning and knowing, — the vast majority of us experience,— the need of relating what we have learnt and known to the sense which we have in us for conduct, to the sense which we have in us for beauty."' b. With semicolon. " This description implies the assemblage of strangers from all parts in one spot ; —from all parts ; else, how will you find profes- sors and students for every department of knowledge ? and in one spot;

1 Pater, Appreciations^ p. 6i.

2 Arnold, Discourses in America, p. 49.

8 Shakespeare, Jtdius Casar, Act ii, Scene i, 184. * Carlyle, Hero Worship, Lecture V, end. S Arnold, Discourses in America, p. 105.

THE SENTENCE. 333

else, how can there be any school at all?"' <.. With colon. "This will be the end of your refusing the loving compulsion of Almighty God : — slavery to this world, and to the god of this world." ^ What makes this last addition unexpected, is that it resumes in brief form What has been fully given before, — the this at the beginning of the sentence being pri- marily retrospective.

Present General Status of Punctuation By way of premise

it should be borne in mind that, well-furnished as it is, the existing scale of punctuation is by no means a complete rep- resentation of the pauses actually made in speaking or read- ing aloud. In every sentence there are rhetorical pauses that go unmarked and need no marking ; they make themselves. And the more lucid and well organized the sentence, the more safely these pauses may be left to the reader. In a well- written passage the syntax dictates the place of the stops, and is not dependent on them. When a pause has to be lugged in to bolster up the construction, and above all when without the pause it would be left ambiguous or uncertain, the sentence itself is wrong, — it needs amendment. Do not let the interpretation of an assertion depend upon a punctua- tion mark.

The modern tendency is to reduce punctuation : cutting down semicoloned relations, where possible, to the comma, and leaving many of the comma pauses to the unmarked rhetorical pause. This is a good sign ; because if to some extent it betokens carelessness of notation, to a broader extent it coexists with a better, more accurately articulated sentence structure. On the whole, it is because the modern sentence is so much improved that it is, and may be, left more safely to punctuate itself.

Illustrative Note. — Professor Earle {English Prose, p. 107), in speaking of this modern reduction of the comma, illustrates the fuller

1 Newman, Historical Sketches, Vol. iii, p. 6.

2 lb., Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. iv, p. 65.

334 COMPOSITION.

punctuation of the older prose by the following passage from Hume's His- ' tory of England in an edition of the year 1773 : —

" The conspirators, hearing of Waltheof's departure, immediately con- cluded their tJesign to be betrayed ; and they flew to arms, before their schemes were ripe for execution, and before the arrival of the Danes, in whose aid they placed their chief confidence. The earl of Hereford was checked by Walter de Lacy, a great baron in those parts, who, supported by the bishop of Worcester and the abbot of Evesham, raised some forces, and prevented the earl from passing the Severne, or advancing into the heart of the kingdom. The earl of Norfolk was defeated at Fagadun, near Cambridge, by Odo, the regent, assisted by Richard de Bienfaite, and William de Warrenne, the two justiciaries."

With this general reduction of punctuation the field is left clearer for- special effects. Accordingly we find that in modern writing punctuation is a much more flexible thing, and more open to individualities of style, than was formerly the case. It may for greater stress be augmented, — that is, pushed up from rhetorical pause to comma, from comma to semicolon ; it may also be attenuated for greater rapidity. It is this skilful employment of punctuation as a flexible, living, artistic thing which makes it so truly a cardinal factor in the organism of the sentence.

Note. — This matter has already been presented in connection with Diction, p. 131, and in connection with Amplitude, p. 289. The exag- gerated punctuation of the following sentences, for example, is not the old lumbering articulation of a century ago; it evinces the sense of greater importance and stress. " There would be real wild and domestic creatures, all of rare species; and a real slaughter."! — "Chance: or Providence I Chance : or Wisdom, one with nature and man, reaching from end to end, through all time and all existence, orderly disposing all things, according to fixed periods, as he describes it, in terms very like certain well-known words of the book of Wisdom: — -^0?,^ are the 'fenced opposites' of the speculative dilemma." 2

1 Pater, Mariiis the Eficiircan, p. 178.

2 /^., p. 220.

THE SENTENCE. 33S

III. MASSING OF ELEMENTS FOR FORCE.

To determine the proper interrelation of sentence-elements we have had to approach the sentence analytically. Here, on the contrary, we enter upon a synthetic process, — the process of making the assertion act together as a whole, pre- cipitating its force, as it were, upon the point desired and with the exact stress desired. Thought moves thus in organ- ized masses, both in attaining its own rounded fulness and in adjusting itself to other utterances.

I.

Distribution of Emphasis. — In speech the points of empha- sis are indicate^ by stress or intonation of the voice. The lack of this resource in writing is partially made up by the occasional use of Vtalics, which, however, goes only a little way.^ Underlying \all this, too, it is to be remembered that emphasis is a natural, not a manufactured thing ; these exter- nal helps from voice\ and type do not create but only recog- nize and record it. The same thing is done more efficiently because more organically through the masterful arrangement of sentence-elements, an artistic procedure that justifies itself by being most effective\ when least realized. This, then, is the ideal: seek so to place words that they will emphasize themselves ; and 3o"n6f"make the interpretation oF a sentence depend on the.manner in which itjs read.

In order to get at the distribution of emphasis inside of the sentence or clause, we have to recognize by a disciplined tact the places where emphasis is most naturally concentrated, and as well also the intermediate or outlying tracts that have no special distinction.^

1 For the use of italics for stress, see above, pp. 128, 129.

2 For collocation in phraseology, and its relation to emphasis, see above, pp. 243, 244 ; for inversion and its objects, p. 277. — "As, in an army on the march, the fight-

336 COMPOSITION.

Outset and Culmination. — The two great foci of emphasis, the beginning and the end, are here defined by the names outset and culmination, to indicate not only the fact but the kind of stress that belongs to these points respectively ; a dis- tinction determined by the sense of the fact that a sentence exists for the purpose of adding a new thought to the stock already presumably in the reader's possession.

To the beginning belongs the stress due to the outset of attention, the natural initiation of the thought : namely, what is nearest in thought to the reader's inquiry, or to the core-idea of the previous sentence ; and what is the best pre- liminary to the forward step which it is the business of the present sentence to take. Typically, this is the subject, as being the basis of all that is said, and necessary to it. But also such may be the status of the assertion that some accom- paniment of time, place, circumstance, or condition may be its necessary preliminary ; in which case the initial stress is claimed by the adverbial element. The exceptional placing of the predicate first gives a somewhat violent emphasis, the emphasis of abruptness, to that element.

To the end belongs the stress due to the culmination and goal of the assertion, what the sentence most truly exists to express. Being therefore the most important stress-point of all, it suffers correspondingly if its distinction is not a matter of foresight, or if it is given over to something insignificant. This culmination point is the natural place for the predicate, in the large sense, because ordinarily it is to predicate or assert something that the sentence exists. If, however, as is sometimes the case, the subject is put at this point, it is because the subject is the new element, the predicate being perhaps a repeat or already well in mind. In the same way,

ing columns are placed front and rear, and the baggage in the centre, so the emphatic parts of a sentence should be found either in the beginning or in the end, subordinate and matter-of-course expressions in tlie middle." — Bain, English Composition and Rhetoric, p. 135.

THE SENTENCE.

337

if a modifying element — of time, place, circumstance, or con- dition — is sent to the end, it is because this is the real goal of interest, and claims therefore the chief stress.

The question how to give special distinction to some par- ticular word resolves itself, for the most part, into the question how to make it occupy one of these positions, the beginning or the end. And the question which of these it shall occupy is answered by determining whether it is more truly an initial idea, from which some consequence or predication flows, or a goal idea, toward which the course of the sentence is to be steered. Grammatical constructions shape themselves to these considerations, which the writer must decide for himself.

Examples. — The various grammatical means of manipulating sentence order have been so fully set forth under Collocation (p. 240), Prospective Reference (p. 254), Inversion (p. 276), and Suspension (p. 279), that further examples of these processes are superfluous here. A few examples of faulty and improved arrangement placed side by side will serve to bring out the significance of these points of outset and culmination.

I. The point of outset.

" The State was made, under the pretense of serving it, in reality, the prize of their contention, to each of those opposite parties, who professed in specious terms, the one a prefer- ence for modern Aristocracy, the other a desire of admitting people at large to an equality of civil privileges."

" Each of those opposite parties, professing in specious terms, the one a preference for modern Aristoc- racy, the other a desire of admitting people at large to an equality of civil privileges, made the State, under the pretense of serving it, in reality the prize of their contention."

This amendment gives the point of outset to the parties, which term before was buried in the sentence ; it gives at the same time the point of culmination to " contention," which is the evident goal of the sentence.

" No great painters trouble them- selves about perspective, and very few of them know its loss ; they try everything by the eye, and naturally

enough disdain in the easy parts of their work rules which cannot help them in difficult cases."

" About perspective no great paint- ers trouble themselves, and very few of them know its loss; they try everything by the eye, and naturally enough disdain in the easy parts of their work rules which cannot help them in difficult cases."

338

composition:

As is brought out by the amendment, the subject of remark is not

it is therefore put in the forefront,

"great painters" but "perspective"; and all the rest flows from it.

"The Arabian peninsula may be conceived as a triangle of spacious but irregular dimensions in the vacant space between Persia, Syria, Egypt, and Ethiopia."

" In the vacant space between Persia, Syria, Egypt, and Ethiopia, the Arabian peninsula may be con- ceived as a triangle of spacious but irregular dimensions."

Here the question is of the preliminary needed for the writer's assertion. In the first case " the Arabian peninsula," being first, is the preliminary to the rest ; in the second case the place-element, being first, gives the boundary before the main assertion is made.

2. The point of culmination.

" I can hinder sorrow from be- " I can hinder sorrow from be- coming despair and madness ; and coming despair and madness ; and laughter is one of the very privileges one of the very privileges of reason, of reason, being confined to the hu- confined as it is to the human spe- man species." cies, is laughter."

Here the amendment makes "laughter," as the word best explaining the assertion of the first clause, the goal of the sentence. If, however, the word were already familiar from the context preceding, its place at the outset of its clause would be justified.

" Of all the amusements which can possibly be imagined for a hard- working man, after his daily toil, — supposing him to have the taste and the means of gratifying it, — there is nothing like reading an entertain- ing book."

Here, in order to get the words " an entertaining book " at its proper place, the end, a recast of the coifditional clauses is needed so as not to anticipate the wording; at the same time, as indicated by the dashes, these clauses inside the sentence have to be treated as parenthetical matter.

" Of all the amusements which can possibly be imagined for a hard-work- ing man, after his daily toil, there is nothing like reading ah entertaining book, supposing him to have a taste for it, and supposing him to have the book to read."

" In all ages, and in all countries, man, through the disposition he in- herits from our first parents, is more desirous of ii quiet and approving, than of a vigilant and tender con- science."

" In all ages, and in all countries, man, through the disposition he in- herits from our first parents, is less desirous of a vigilant and tender con- science than of a conscience quiet and approving."

THE SENTENCE.

339

Here the writer has clumsily tried to stress what he regarded important by italics ; by reversing the phrases, giving the culmination point to the more important, and by the reversed order of noun and adjectives in the last, all needed stress is secured.

" If a doctrine be not commu- nicated, of what consequence are all the qualities of it ? and if it be not understood it is not communicated."

" Of what consequence are all the qualities of a doctrine if it be not communicated ? and communicated it is not, if it be not understood."

This illustrates the utility of placing a conditional clause at the culmi- nation point when the condition, as is evidently the case here, is the real significance of the whole assertion.

Interior and Outlying Tracts Just as the writer must take

care of the parts toward which, so he must bear instinctively in mind the parts away from which, the emphasis flows. These are the ancillary elements ; clauses and phrases that round out the sense by explanation, detail, or apposition. In their nature they are more or less parenthetical ; and each one, starting from its connective, relative, or prepositional beginning, is to be viewed and treated as stretching out from its capital and becoming progressively an outlying tract.

These parts, then, require relatively a lower key of empha- sis ; they should reach their own points directly and unmodi- fiedly; they should take a greater lightness and rapidity of style, with its resources of condensation and elision.^ The punctuation, as compared with that of the emphatic portions, is as much as may be attenuated ; semicolon relations reduced to commas, commas to the unmarked rhetorical pause.^ The controlling effort is to dispatch all such side elements with as little waiting or dragging as possible.

Example. — A principle so comprehensive cannot well be exemplified in limited space. A single sentence, from Ruskin, who introduces much ancillary material, will show something of his treatment. " For, whether in one or other form, — whether the faithfulness of men whose path is

1 For Condensation for Rapidity, see above, pp. 299-302.

2 For attenuated punctuation, with example, see above, p. 131, 3.

340 COMPOSITION.

chosen and portion fixed, in tiie following and receiving of that path and portion, as in the Thermopylae camp ; or the happier faithfulness of children in the good giving of their Father, and of subjects in the conduct of their King, as in the ' Stand still and see the salvation of God' of the Red Sea shore, — ■ there is rest and peacefulness, the ' standing still,' in both ; the quietness of action determined, of spirit unalarmed, of expectation unim- patient : beautiful, even when based only, as of old, on the self-command and self-possession, the persistent dignity or the uncalculating love, of the creature ; but more beautiful yet when the rest is one of humility instead of pride, and the trust no more in the resolution we have taken, but in the Hand we hold." i

Here we may thus map out the main course of the sentence : (i) a long outset giving circumstances : " whether in one or other form " (specified) ; (2) the assertion : " there is rest and peacefulness ... in both ; the quiet- ness,'' etc. ; (3) a long culminating description : "beautiful, even when, etc. . . . but more beautiful yet when," etc. In the clauses beginning " whether " there are such evidences of condensation as " whose path is chosen and portion fixed," " in the Thermopylae camp," " in the good giving of th^ir Father," — all pointed and light moving. In the later clauses beginning with "when," the same pointedness; also in the outlying prepositional phrase, "on the self-command," etc., a, condensation by split particle; and in the final phrases, "in the resolution," etc., an omission of relatives.

II.

Dynamic Stress. — Every sentence and every clause has its dynamic point, its centre of action, from which its power and significance are to be reckoned ; and this must be kept in mind by the writer, in order to determine the proper relation of parts to each other, and of the whole sentence to other sentences in a paragraph. Some claims of this dynamic stress may here be noted.

The Stress-Point as a Cue An idea from which a succeed- ing clause or sentence is to take its cue should be made prominent by position or wording, that is, should have the dynamic stress. Equally important it is, on the other side, to mass the succeeding sentence according to the cue recog-

1 This sentence has already been in part quoted, under Rapidity, p. 301, above.

THE SENTENCE.

341

nized in its predecessor ; on the principle of closing with already suggested thought as an outset, and pushing on from this to a new assertion.

Examples. — Here may be placed side by side faulty and amended sentences showing the value of recognizing the dynamic stress.

I. Making the cue point prominent.

" It was remarkable that although his sense of the past was so dim, he sought out Hugh's dog, and took him under his care; and that he never could be tempted into Lon- don.''

" It was remarkable that although he [Barnaby Rudge] had that dim sense of the past, he sought out Hugh's dog, and took him under his care; and that he never could be tempted into London." ^

Here the assertion of the main sentence depends not on the fact that Barnaby had the sense, but that the sense was so dim ; hence the word dim should have the stress, — and placing it at the end secures this.

" I occupied a tug from which I could see the effect of the battle on both sides, within range of the

enemy's guns ; but a small tug, with- out armament, was not calculated to attract the fire of batteries while they were being assailed themselves." ^

" A tug, which I occupied, and from which I could see the effect of the battle on both sides, was within range of the enemy's guns ; but a small tug, without armament, was not calculated to attract the fire of batteries while they were being assailed themselves."

Here the cue-point of the first part is, not that he occupied a tug but that it was within range ; this, therefore, ought to have the main assertion.

2. Taking advantage of the cue.

" At first sight one would fancy that there never was a book more popular, or that formed more exclusively the mental centre of modern scholars. Orientalists, theologians, or jurists. What is the real truth ?

Paradoxical as it may seem, there never was a book at once more uni- versally neglected and more univer- sally talked of."^

Paradoxical as it may seem, there never was a book at once more uni- versally talked of and more univer- sally neglected."

1 Dickens, Barnaby Rudge^ Chapter the Last.

^ Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Vol. i, p. 476.

8 Deutsch, TAe Talmud, Literary Remains of Emanuel Deutsch, p. 3.

342 COMPOSITION.

Here, by the proposed change, the word " talked of " uses the cue fur- nished by the preceding sentence, the word " neglected," culminating the sentence, points the new assertion that the sentence exists to make.

" Then, too, in spite of all that is said about the absorbing and brutal- izing influence of our passionate material progress, it seems to me indis- putable that this progress is likely, though not certain, to lead in the end to an apparition of intellectual life; and that man, after he has made him- self perfectly comfortable and has now to determine what to do with him- self next, may begin to remember that he has a mind, and that the mind may be made the source of great pleasure.

I grant it is mainly the privilege of faith, at present, to discern this end to our railways, our business, and our fortune-making;

I grant that, at present, to discern this end to our railways, our busi- ness, and our fortune-making, is mainly the privilege of faith;

but we shall see if, here as elsewhere, faith is not in the end the true prophet." '

Here the proposed change of order both makes the word " faith " use the cue of the preceding, and distinguishes it as itself the cue, in turn, for the assertion that follows.

Claims of Variety It is principally through the good

management of the dynamic stress that the variety of phrase and movement so essential to the interest of the reader is maintained.^

1. When, in clauses or sentences of like construction, an element has once had a certain stress, there is no need of giving it the same stress again, except in the special case where it is desirable to emphasize by iteration.' It is better to put the repeated idea in a subordinate relation, or change its relative order, so as to reserve the stress for a new aspect of the thought.

Example. — This is especially notable in a succession of clauses begin- ning with that. The following will illustrate this : —

1 Matthew Arnold, Essays in Criticism, First Series, p. 17.

2 For the claim of variety in vocabulary, see above, p. 48.

8 For the use of iteration as a form of repetition, see above, p. 303.

THE SENTENCE.

343

"That Dryden was a great poet is undeniable ; that he desecrated his powers and burned them, like the incense of Israel, in unhallowed shrines, is no less certain." ^

" That some facts were stated in- accurately, I do not doubt ; that many opinions were crude, I am quite sure; that I had failed to understand much which I attempted to explain, is possible." ^

"That Dryden was a great poet is undeniable ; but it is no less certain that he desecrated his powers and burned them, like the incense of Israel, in unhallowed shrines."

"That some facts were stated in- accurately, I do not doubt; that many opinions were crude, I am quite sure; and it is quite possible that I had failed to understand much which I attempted to explain."

Here the proposed amendments not only secure variety of stress and movement, but produce an effect of climax.

2. A natural result of the observance of the cue and the adjustment of succeeding stress to it, is that in a series of sentences the stress is continually varied, coming in the be- ginning of some sentences and at the end of others. This is of course a thing for watchfulness and artistic management ; regard being had always for the two considerations : variation of rhythm, and grouping of related ideas together.

Examples. — To note how this variation of stress works in a passage of several sentences, compare the following extract with its respectfully suggested emendation : —

" The great ideas that lie in the philosophic systems of the world have more vitality and utility for the preacher than for the thinker who is aiming at the production of a scheme that shall render obsolete the whole mass of preceding specula- tion. These systems of thought are mines which only the man in sympa- thetic ethical contact with mankind can operate to advantage. The learn- ing of the historian of philosophy he

" The great ideas that lie in the philosophic systems of the world have less vitality and utility for the thinker, who is aiming at the produc- tion of a scheme that shall render obsolete the whole mass of preceding speculation, than for the preacher [, who is putting thought into the production of character]. It is only the man in sympathetic ethical con- tact with mankind who can operate these mines of systematic thought to

1 Fa REAR, With the Poets.

2 Trollope, Autobiography.

344

COMPOSITION.

cannot possess, but the great thoughts of the past he may master and make his own as few can. The same may be said of literature. The niceties of the study and the erudition of the literary commentator he may not have, but the spiritual possession of the vision and the passion of the world's great artists he may assuredly have. No form of human service is better fitted than the Christian min- istry to reveal the vitality that is the source of all great literature."

advantage. The learning of the his- torian of philosophy he cannot pos- sess, but he may master and make his own, as few can, the great thoughts of the past. The same may be said of literature. The niceties of the study and the erudition of the liter- ary commentator he may not have, but he may assuredly have the spirit- ual possession of the vision and the passion of the world's great artists. No form of human service is better fitted than the Christian ministry to reveal the vitality that is the source of all great literature."

3. The deadly snare of the jaded or perfunctory writer, — and, it may be added, of that much-vaunted being the spon- taneous writer — is, monotony of sentence structure, a wooden movement, with the same rise and fall, the same type of sen- tence, the same relative placement of stress, dominating the whole work. This rises simply from the relaxation of vigi- lance in calculating the relation of part to part ; in other words, from neglecting to follow and adjust to each other the mass and movement of sentences.

Example. — In the following, which is a perfunctory editorial notice, it will be seen that the sentences, with the sole exception of the second, and this more apparent than real, are all constructed in precisely the same way, — each consisting merely of two assertions connected by and: —

" The death of Senator Anthony has been long expected, and it releases him from a suffering which was beyond remedy. He was a public man of long and honorable service, who filled every station to which he was called with dignity and grace. As the editor of The Providence Journal, and Gov- ernor and Senator, he was the most important political figure in the State, and in his death Rhode Island loses the most successful politician in her history.

"In other years Senator Anthony's crisp and pungent paragraphs in the Journal were very notable and influential, and his paper was one of the half- dozen leading journals in New England. It was by paragraphs rather than

THE SENTENCE. 345

by elaborate editorial articles that he preferred to affect opinion, and in the Senate it was by his occasional brief speeches, which were often singularly felicitous, and not by participation in debate or by prolonged orations, that he took part in the proceedings.

" He was a devoted party man, and his political experience and judgment made him a wise counsellor. At home he had the reputation of a shrewd manager, and his party will not easily find so well-trained a. leader. Yet for a long time there have been complaints that his rule was too absolute, and that good politics required more freedom and independence than his sway permitted. Senator Anthony's social sympathies and his literary tastes made him a very pleasant companion, and his conversation was full of interesting political reminiscence. He had become the Father of the Senate, and no Senator would be more sincerely mourned by his associates than this courteous gentleman and devoted and faithful legislator."

IV.. THE SENTENCE IN DICTION.

What we have here to consider will be apparent from the description of diction given on p. 107, above. Going back a little from the question of sentence organism, we are to note what effect sentences of various lengths or types have upon the general coloring and movement of the style ; what the texture of a whole passage derives from the prevailing char acter of the sentences that make it up.

As to Length. — The question whether the sentences of a passage shall be long or short is by no means an idle one ; it implies something regarding their kind of subject-matter, something also regarding their adaptedness to the taste or capacity of the reader. Accordingly we have to note of each class, what it is good for, and what ill effects result from using it injudiciously or in too great predominance.

The Short Sentence The short sentence, with its single

assertion, nucleates in the meaning or weight of some single word. This suggests what it is especially good for : subject-

346 COMPOSITION.

matter whose business it is to make some important point or discrimination, or to lay down some statement on which weighty consequences depend. The fundamental propositions of a course of thought, and passages that sum up or impress, are generally expressed in short, vigorous sentences.

On the other hand, while good for occasional emphasis and point, the short sentence is lacking in rhythm and sustained power ; it has no roll, no momentum. It makes its way as by a sharp stroke, not by a graduated progress. Further, an extended succession of short sentences, even with an impor- tant issue to support it, becomes a kind of clatter, curt and abrupt ; while if the subject-matter is not weighty it misses its end of smartness and becomes merely flippant. It is in the use of short sentences especially that the evil of the insig- nificant sentence is to be guarded against.^

Example. — The following passage will at once illustrate the use and suggest the limitation of the short sentence : " Sir, this alarming discontent is not the growth of a day or of a year. If there be any symptoms by which it is possible to distinguish the chronic diseases of the body politic from its passing inflammations, all those symptoms exist in the present case. The taint has been gradually becoming more extensive and more malignant, through the whole life-time of two generations. We have tried anodynes. We have tried cruel operations. What are we to try now ? Who flatters himself that he can turn this feeling back ? . . We have had laws. We have had blood. New treasons have been created. The Press has been shackled. The Habeas Corpus Act has been suspended. Public meetings have been prohibited. The event has proved that these expedients were mere palliatives. You are at the end of your palliatives. The evil remains. It is more formidable than ever. What is to be done ? " ^

1 For the insignificant sentence, see earlier in this chapter, p. 321. — Professor Earle, commenting on a quoted passage, thus remarks on short sentences; " For a certain space this may do well enough, but as It goes on in the same continued stac- cato^ the reader is overtaken with a feeling of sameness. The sense may be good, each sentence may be neat and smart, and yet the whole may be wearisome. To give pleasure there must be symmetry, and to this end there must be the relation of parts and members, and these must be ^t once diverse in size and harmonious in propor- tion. The short-sentence fallacy is the repetition in another guise of the short-word fallacy." — Earle, English Prose, p. 207.

2 Macaulay, On Parliamentary Reform, First Speech.

THE SENTENCE, 347

The Long Sentence The advantage of the long sentence is

the room it affords, wherein to amplify the sense, by con- siderations ancillary to the main idea. This suggests the kind of subject-matter to which the long sentence is espe- cially adapted: details, expansions, colorings, shadings of a thought already in the reader's mind, either as expressed briefly at the outset — making the sentence a kind of para- graph, — or as carrying out the suggestion of a previous short sentence. On account of its freer range, also, it is the kind of sentence in which can be incorporated qualities of rhythm, climax, cadence, massiveness, impressiveness.

On the other hand, the long sentence imposes on the reader a burden of interpretation ; he must, to follow it properly, keep aware of its main and its subsidiary lines, and be at work adjusting the thought to simpler conceptions. Of this the writer who ventures on long sentences must take account, and make the structure plain and strongly marked to coun- teract the difficulty of its length. An extended succession of long sentences, especially of the evoluta type, is almost sure to be lumbering, heavy, forbidding. The composita, thus care- lessly extended, is apt to be rambling and heterogeneous.'

Example. — -The following illustrates the typical use to which the long sentence may be put. The second sentence gives simply the details neces- sary to fill out and color the idea expressed in the first : " And, while the many use language as they find it, the man of genius uses it indeed, but subjects it withal to his own purposes, and moulds it according to his own peculiarities. The throng and succession of ideas, thoughts, feelings, imaginations, aspirations, which pass within him, the abstractions, the juxtapositions, the comparisons, the discriminations, the conceptions, which are so original in him, his views of external things, his judgments upon life, manners, and history, the exercises of his wit, of his humor, of his depth, of his sagacity, all these innumerable and incessant creations, the very pulsation and throbbing of his intellect, does he image forth, to all does he give utterance, in a corresponding language, which is as multiform as this inward mental action itself and analogous to it, the faithful expres- 1 For the heterogeneous sentence, see above, p. 320,

348 COMPOSITION.

sion of his intense personality, attending on his own inward world of thought as its very shadow : so that we might as well say that one man's shadow is another's as that the style of a really gifted mind can belong to any but himseU."!

Alternation of Kinds. — Not only do proper effects in diction demand that long and short sentences alternate with and relieve each other ; the wise observance of their typical kinds of subject-matter, too, of compendious statement offset by detail, leads naturally to the same end. It is a requisite both of style and of thought.

1. A combination rather than alternation of kinds calls first for mention, useful as it is to obviate certain evils both of the short and of the long sentence ; namely, a judicious employment of the composita, the several members concise, but so closely united logically as to work together into one compactly ordered thought. Thus is secured to an agreeable extent the crispness of the short and the sustained course of the long.

Example. — The whole impression of the following is one of brevity, yet the one thought flows progressively through the several members : " Thought and speech are inseparable from each other. Matter and ex- pression are parts of one ; style is a thinking out into language. This is what I have been laying down, and this is literature ; not things, not the verbal symbols of things ; not on the other hand mere words ; but thoughts expressed in language." ^

2. Between long sentences of detailed thought it is useful, not to say necessary, to insert short transitional sentences, suggesting in sententious form the thought that is to succeed, as a basis to which the illustrative details may be referred. This is like first erecting a framework and then surrounding it with the finished and colored form ; it serves also, under

1 Newman, Idea of a University^ p. 276. ■^Ib.

THE SENTENCE. 349

however elaborate an utterance, to keep the reader aware of the core of the thought.'

Example. ■ — In the following passage note how much the clearness and easy progress of the thought are promoted by the alternating short sen- tences, each a compend of its succeeding elaboration.

"It was this opinion which mitigated kings into companions, and raised private men to be fellows with kings. Without force, or opposition, it sub- dued the fierceness of pride and power ; it obliged sovereigns to submit to the soft collar of social esteem, compelled stern authority to submit to ele- gance, and gave a domination vanquisher of laws, to be subdued by manners. But now all is to be changed. All the pleasing illusions, which made power gentle, and obedience liberal, which harmonized the different shades of life, and which, by a bland assimilation, incorporated into politics the sentiments which beautify and soften private society, are to be dissolved by this new conquering empire of light and reason. All the decent drapery of life is to be rudely torn off. All the superadded ideas, furnished from the wardrobe of a moral imagination, which the heart owns, and the under- standing ratifies, as necessary to cover the defects of our naked shivering nature, and to raise it to dignity in our own estimation, are to be exploded as a ridiculous, absurd, and antiquated fashion." ^

3. Not only may the short sentence serve as a transition and compend ; it is equally useful as a summarizer, gathering into application and conclusion the gist of the preceding long sentence.

Example. — The long and elaborate sentence of amplification quoted on p. 347, which was preceded by a short compend sentence, is succeeded by the following brief sentences of summary : " It follows him about as a shadow. His thought and feeling are personal, and so his language is personal."

1 " At times you reason inductively or deductively in linked and rather long-drawn sentences of the type of Evoluta. Among these you will now and then intersperse a Simplex, perhaps a very brief one, as round as a bullet, which puts the whole t'heme in a nutshell — the kernel of the contention. This is the apophthegmatic use of the Simplex, an admirable and effective device, effectual because eminently natural, and for the same reason thoroughly artistic." — Earle, English Prose^ p. 209.

2 Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France^ p. 90,

350 COMPOSITION.

II.

As to Mass. — The manner in which the emphasis- of differ- ent sentences is distributed gives rise to various types of sen- tence massing, each of which lias its uses in the evolution of the thought and its effects in the texture and movement of the diction.

The Periodic Sentence. — This is the name technically given to the sentence massed according to the principle of suspen- sion ; which latter has been defined and exemplified above, pp. 279-287. A period, then, is a sentence wherein the ele- ment of main significance is delayed till the close, and mean- while prepared for by preliminaries of circumstance, condition, or predication.'

The great advantage of the periodic form lies in the fact that it keeps up and concentrates the reader's attention. This makes it easier to place qualifying elements rightly, and is thus favorable to unity of structure, as all is grouped with reference to the suspended idea. Its general effect, when employed in large proportion to other types, is to impart stateliness and dignity to weighty subjects, and to light sub- jects neatness and finish. In impassioned subjects it is often useful for regulating the reader's emotion by keeping the tension of mind uniform until the culminating idea is reached.

Examples. — The stately, formal effect of the periodic sentence may be illustrated from De Quincey, who is regarded as the most periodic writer of the century. " Upon me, as upon others scattered thinly by tens and

1 " At the risk of being slightly inaccurate, it might be well to go a little deeper into the substance of the periodic structure. What exactly do we imply by saying that the meaning is suspended till the close ? We imply that the reader's interest is kept in suspense till the close. And how is this done ? Generally, it may be said, by bringing on predicates before what they are predicated of, and, which is virtually a similar process, qualifications before what they qualify ; letting us know descriptive adjuncts, results, conditions, alternatives, oratorical contrasts, of subjects, states, or actions, before we formally know the particular subjects, states, or actions, contem- plated by the writer." — Minto, Manual of English Prose Literature, p. 4.

THE SENTENCE. 351

twenties over every thousand years, fell too powerfully and too early the vision of life."i — "And if, in the vellum palimpsest, lying amongst the other diplomata of human archives or libraries, there is anything fantastic or which moves to laughter, as oftentimes there is in the grotesque collisions of those successive themes, having no natural connection, which by pure accident have consecutively occupied the roll, yet, in our own heaven-created palimpsest, the deep memorial palimpsest of the brain, there are not and cannot be such incoherencies." i

On the other hand, the number and intricacy of the suspen- sive details are a draft on the reader's interpreting power ; the writer needs to watch them with this limitation in mind.'' The periodic type is the one least favorable to ease in read- ing. Further, being in its nature a somewhat ponderous, formal structure, it ought in general to be confined to subject- matter that requires such dignity of expression, and applied to lighter subjects only as a touch of artificial finish will heighten their effect. This has to be determined by literary tact.

Note. — To apply the periodic style to everyday and domestic subjects is apt to have an effect of over-pompousness and bombast, as if one's com- mon affairs were subjects of state. In the sentence beginning " Upon me," above, for instance, one feels that the " me " must be a rather important personage to merit so pompous a statement.

The Loose Sentence In the loose sentence the principle

of suspension is not observed. Qualifying, explanatory, and alternative elements are added as they occur to the mind, after the ideas to which they belong, with no apparent attempt at studied grouping. The test of a loose sentence is, that it may be stopped before the end, and yet leave the part thus far given grammatically complete. The term loose conveys no disparaging connotation ; it is merely a technical term for a structure just as legitimate and just as susceptible to artistic finish as the periodic.

1 De Quincey, Suspiria de Profundis, Works, Vol, i, pp. 257, 233.

2 See the Cautions and Regulations given above, pp. 283 sqq.

352 COMPOSITION.

Examples. — Take the periodic sentence quoted on p. 285, above, and put the main assertion first, and the type becomes loose : " We came to our journey's end at last, with no small difficulty, after much fatigue, through deep roads and bad weather." — In the following the places are marked where the sentence might be stopped and yet remain grammatically complete : " He does not write from hearsay, | but from sight and expe- rience ; I it is the scenes that he has lived and labored amidst, that he describes : | those scenes, rude and humble as they are, have kindled beau- tiful emotions in his soul, | noble thoughts, and definite resolves ; | and he speaks forth what is in him, not from any outward call of vanity or interest, but because his heart is too full to be silent." 1

The advantage of the loose sentence is that it is more like conversation than the periodic, and hence more easy, less formal. It is especially adapted, therefore, to the more familiar and everyday kinds of discourse, such as narrative, letter writing, and popular addresses ; and to the ordinary topics of common life and fact.

On the other hand, while a perfect loose sentence is as hard to make as a perfect period, the loose type is the one most naturally happened upon without effort, or when the sentence is left to make itself. The faults that beset this type are therefore the faults arising from slipshod thinking and careless workmanship ; namely, rambling incoherence and dilution of the thought.

Note. — Just as the periodic makes more natural use of the evoluta type, with its internal subordination to a main assertion ; so in the loose sentence the composita, with its coordinate clauses, figures most largely.

The Balanced Sentence The principle of the balanced sen- tence has been treated under Repetition of Construction, p. 308, above. When the repeated construction dominates the whole sentence, that is, when the sentence consists of two members similar in construction and setting off each other, it is said to be balanced. The answering construction is often

1 Carlyle on Burns, Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, Vol. i, p. 267.

THE SENTENCE. 353

reenforced by antithesis ; and sometimes it varies the distri- bution of emphasis by the employment of chiasmus.

Example. — "He defended him when living, amidst the clamors of his enemies; and praised him when dead, amidst the silence of his friends." The antithetic words living, dead ; clamors, silence; enemies, friends, — make this balance very elaborate.

The balanced structure is easy to interpret, and easy to remember, because the similarly ordered clauses lend dis- tinction to each other, and make it easy to fix the points that are of most importance. This fact suggests what the balanced sentence is especially good for : to put into rememberable form, into a kind of aphorism, the occasional thought that comes out of surrounding material like a gist, or lesson, or summary.

On the other hand, as it is the most artificial type of sen- tence, it is the most easily overdone ; its' rhetorical power, in fact, depends on the comparative rarity of its use. Being so artificial, too, it is apt to become enslaving and manneristic. From the craving for the familiar measure, there is a tempta- tion to fill out the balance by tautological or forced assertions.^

Example. — The evil of attempting to make balance, with its aids of antithesis and alliteration, the staple of writing, is illustrated in the style called euphuism, which, though utterly unreadable now, had a prodigious vogue among the courtiers of Queen Elizabeth. The following few sen- tences will give a little taste of euphuistic style : " Therfore my good Euphues, for these doubts and dumpes of mine, either remoue the cause, or reueale it. Thou hast hetherto founde me a cheerefuU companion in thy myrth, and nowe shalt thou finde me as carefull with thee in thy moane. If altogether thou maist not be cured, yet maist thou bee com- forted. If ther be any thing yat either by my friends may be procured, or by my life atteined, that may either heale thee in part, or helpe thee in all, I protest to thee by the name of a friend, that it shall rather be gotten with

1 The same danger has been noticed, page 275, abo"e, of antithesis, which, in fact, figures largely in balance. These two, to which may be added alliteration, are the rhetorical devices most liable to become a snare to the writer.

354 COMPOSITION.

the losse of my body, than lost by getting a kingdome. Thou hast tried me, therefore trust me : thou hast trusted me in many things, therfore try me in this one thing. I never yet failed, and now I wil not fainte. Be bolde to speake and blush not : thy sore is not so angry but I can salue it, the wound not so deepe but I can search it, thy griefe not so great but I can ease it. If it be ripe it shalbe lawnced, if it be broken it shalbe tainted, be it never so desperat it shalbe cured." ^

III.

Combinations and Proportions. — ^The short and the long sen- tences of a passage, as we have seen, are related to each other, roughly speaking, somewhat as statement and detail, proposition and enlargement. The relations of periodic and loose sentences rise more out of the dynamic stress ; the loose sentence, its stress-point attracted to the beginning, taking up the cue at the end of the period preceding. Thus the two types answer to and reenforce each other.

As a matter of fact, however, the actual number of periodic sentences is much smaller than the number of loose sentences ; and when we recognize the so-called periodic style we get its _ peculiar effect not from a predominance but from a moderate percentage of periodic sentences.

I. By the best writers periodic sentences are constantly relieved by loose ones ; it would indeed be hard to find two rigid periods in succession, except in cases where the periodic order is accumulated for the iteration of structure. The requirements of the dynamic stress necessitate variation.

Note. — The following, with its three sentences all of varying types and lengths, derives a charm from this very diversity : " And then, in the deep stillness of the desert air — unbroken by falling stream, or note of bird, or tramp of beast, or cry of man — came the whisper, of a voice as of a gentle breath — of a voice so small that it was almost like silence. Then he knew that the moment was come. He drew, as was his wont, his rough mantle over his head ; he wrapped his face in its ample folds ; he came out from

1 Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit, Arber's reprint, p. 65.

THE SENTENCE. 355

the sheltering rock, and stood beneath the cave to receive the Divine communications." ^

2. Nor is it often that sentences are found conforming rigidly throughout to the pefiodifc structure. The same sen- tence, especially if long, may follow the suspensive structure up to a certain point, and then be finished loose ; this is a natural course, too, the loose addition building its detail on what the periodic has put into stress.

Example. — The following sentence, strictly periodic as far as the word " opinion," goes on loose to enlarge on what the first part has yielded. " I think that in England, partly from the want of an Academy, partly from a national habit of intellect to which that want of an Academy is itself due, there exists too little of what I may call a, public force of correct literary opinion, possessing within certain limits a clear sense of what is right and wrong, sound and unsound, and sharply recalling men of ability and learn- ing from any flagrant misdirection of these their advantages." ^

1 Stanley, History of the Jewish Churchy Vol. it, p. 341.

2 Matthew Arnold.

CHAPTER XI.

THE PARAGRAPH.

As in the sentence we reach the first complete organic product of thinking,' so in the paragraph we first attain the range and finish of a whole composition ; in one case, indeed, that of the editorial paragraph, it ranks definitely as an inde- pendent literary form. As such, and as obeying the essential procedure of every full discourse, it is the unit of invention, as the sentence is the,, unit of style. Because, however^ the internal articulations and proportions, though clearly trace- able, are still on a small scale, still somewhat embryonic, the paragraph is better studied as a stage of style than as a beginning of invention.

Definition. — A paragraph is a connected series of sentences constituting the development of a single topic.

Note. — ■ Mechanically, a paragraph is distinguished, both in print and manuscript, by beginning on a new Una, and by indenting, that is, with- drawing the opening word an em's width toward the middle.

In recording conversation between different persons, the form of a new paragraph is given to what each interlocutor says, irrespective of the amount or nature of the matter included. This, unless constructed to a topic, is hardly to be called a paragraph; it is a thing in paragraph's clothing.

In this definition are implied the qualities that should gov- ern a paragraph : unity, because it is concerned with a single topic ; continuity, because it is a connected series of sen- tences ; and proportion, because it is an orderly, systematic

1 See above, p. 311. 356

THE PARAGRAPH. 357

development. All the stages and details of construction must keep the integrity of these qualities in view.

How Long a Paragraph should be. — A subordinate question this, but by no means idle or unimportant. For it is not mechanical alone ; it is a question how to use rightly both the instinctive impressions and the iilterpreting powers of the reader. And as is true in so many other cases, it is answered by a judicious compromise between the too-long and the too-short.

On the one hand, in keeping the paragraph from running on too long, due regard should be had for the appearance of the page. Every reader can recall how often he has been repelled from a book by the mere fact that whole solid pages occur without paragraph breaks ; and how often he has yielded to the attraction of an open, easy looking page. To write with this instinctive feeling of the reader in mind is not to humor a whim ; rather it is a practical though indi- rect way of trying to get the cumbrous and lumbering tend- ency out of one's thought and bring it vigorously to its point. It is therefore a dictate both of good looks and good workmanship to avoid paragraphs of more than a page in length ; and frequent relief of long paragraphs by shorter ones is a great help to readableness.

On the other hand, it must be recognized that too short a paragraph lacks weight and articulation. Ordinarily as many as three or more sentences are requisite to give mass enough to develop a topic satisfactorily.^ Less than that number is apt, while it gives a Frenchy, snippy effect to the style, to leave the topic too superficially treated.

Note. — Professor Earle's idea of the smallest scale on which a built paragraph is practicable, with his example, may here be quoted. " The

1 This refers, of course, to the paragraph that not only proposes but develops a topic. The short transitional or preliminary paragraph, to be noticed later (p. 381), is an exception more apparent than real.

358 COMPOSITION.

term paragraph can hardly be apphed to anything short of three sentences. We sometimes see a satisfying result from three sentences, something which is felt to be a kind of whole; — whole at least as a distinct . member of larger discourse. The following is a fair example.

"'The first impulse of man is to seek for enjoyment. He lives with more or less impetuosity, more or less irregularity, to conquer for himself a home and blessedness of a mere earthly kind. Not till later (in how many cases never) does he ascertain that on earth there is no such home : that his true home lies beyond the world of sense, is a celestial home.' " l

This quoted paragraph not only illustrates the point made, but will serve as a good brief model to get into the student's mind the typical movement of a paragraph structure. < I

ish- ,-/>''\-.

I. THE PARAGRAPH IN SUM. ' ,,,'' ;^ (

Dealing as it does with a topic, the paragraph sums up to a unity ; the total effect and impression left upon the reader's mind is of a distinct, bounded, and, within its limits, complete subject. In this respect it has the roundedness, the begin- ning, body, and end, of an independent discourse. But as it is merely a stage in the unfolding of a larger subject, and as it represents that stage not in outline but in finished treatment, we do not reduce its topic to the sharp precision of a formal proposition. The topic sentence may, like the other sen- tences, be elaborated in structure and style, or be expressed in figurative language, or be a merely hinted statement. Too many are deceived by this fact into thinking that a paragraph may be trusted to make'ltself, with no special thought of a controlling topic. This is a fatal mistake. However disguised or diffused, the topic, the unitary result, is there, and must therefore be first proposed in the writer's mind ; so that as a total effect the paragraph may be reducible to a single sentence.^

1 Earle, English Prose, p. 212. The quotation from Carlyle.

2 " A paragraph has unity when you can state its substance in a single sentence ; otherwise it is very apt to lack it." — Wendell, English Composition, p. 124. — A student of biology thus puts it : " It is necessary to determine the axillary idea of the paragraph, about which the ancillary ideas may be grouped."

THE PARAGRAPH. 359

Note. — It is in the flexible yet scientifically ordered paragraph, the thinking of a mass of thought at once to nucleus and lucid organism, that the writing of modern prose achieves perhaps its greatest triumph as an art.i

This easy informal texture of the paragraph makes it neces- sary here to dwell with some discrimination on the topic.

The Topic : its Prominence. — In all cases the topic should so control every part of the structure as to be a clearly appre- hended resultant or sum of the whole. Different kinds of subject-matter, however, may cause this to be apprehended in different' ways : it may be definitely pointed out, in so many words ; or it may be left for the reader to gather and mentally realize as the total effect.

I. In matter of the argumentative or expository kind, wherein much depends on a defined centre and dependency of thought, the topic of a paragraph is expressed, either as a proposed subject of treatment, or as an informal proposition, so that the reader can cooperate with the writer in discover- ing the steps of explication or reasoning.

Example. — In the following the opening sentence, culminating in the two beacon words at the end, will be at once accepted by any reader as the controlling topic : —

" Great and various as the powers of Bacon were, he owes his wide and durable fame chiefly to this, that all those powers received their direction from common sense. His love of the vulgar useful, his strong sympathy with the popular notions of good and evil, and the openness with which he avowed that sympathy, are the secret of his influence. There was in his system no cant, no illusion. He had no anointing for broken bones, no fine theories de finibus, no arguments to persuade men out of their senses.

1 " The triumph of modern Art in Writing is manifested in the structure of the Paragraph. The glory of Latin composition must he looked for in the great sen- tence which occasionally recurs ; the glory of French or English composition lies in the subtle combination of sentences which makes the Paragraph. The secret of Macaulay's charm lies, not, as has been imagined, in his pointed antithesis, or in his balanced periods (tor these, if they have their attraction, have also undoubtedly their elements of repulsion), but in his masterly command of the Paragraph." — Earle, English Prose, p. 91.

360 COMPOSITION.

He knew that men, and philosophers as well as other men, do actually love life, health, comfort, honor, security, the society of friends, and do actually dislike death, sickness, pain, poverty, disgrace, danger, separation from those to whom they are attached. He knew that religion, though it often regulates and moderates these feelings, seldom eradicates them ; nor did he think it desirable for mankind that they should be eradicated. The plan of eradicating them by conceits like those of Seneca, or syllogisms like those of Chrysippus, was too preposterous to be for a moment enter- tained by a mind like his. He did not understand what wisdom there could be in changing names where it was impossible to change things ; in denying that blindness, hunger, the gout, the rack, were evils, and calling them diroTpor^iiera ; in refusing to acknowledge that health, safety, plenty, were good things, and dubbing them by the name of dSid^opa. In his opinions on all these subjects, he was not a Stoic, nor an Epicurean, nor an Academic, but what would have been called by Stoics, Epicureans, and Academics a mere IStiirris, a mere common man. And it was precisely because he was so that his pame makes so great an era in the history of the world. It was because he dug deep that he was able to pile high. It was because, in order to lay his foundations, he went down into those parts of human nature which lie low, but which are not liable to change, that the fabric which he reared has risen to so stately an elevation, and stands with such immovable strength."^

2. In matter of the descriptive or narrative kind, or in any accumulation of concrete details grouped merely in space or time, the topic may be left unexpressed in words, diffused as it were through the whole, and to be felt by the reader as he thinks himself into the limits of the scene.^

Example. — In the following the topic, which after we have read the paragraph we perceive to be " Hester Prynne on her way to the pillory," is nowhere expressed ; we simply sum it up from the circumstances of time, place, and event : —

"A lane was forthwith opened through the crowd of spectators. Pre- ceded by the beadle, and attended by an irregular procession of stern- browed men and unkindly Visaged women, Hester Prynne set forth towards

1 Macaulay, Essay on Lord Bacon, Essays, Vol. iii, p. 463.

2 This discrimination of subject-matter as bearing on the topic is, it will be noted, merely an extension to the scale of the paragraph of the same discrimination already applied to clauses within the sentences, and their claim to unity ; see above, pp. 323, 324-

THE PARAGRAPH. 361

the place appointed for her punishment. A crowd of eager and curious school-boys, understanding little of the matter in hand, except that it gave them a half-holiday, ran before her progress, turning their heads contin- ually to stare into her face, and at the winking baby in her arms, and at the ignominious letter on her breast. It was no great distance, in those days, from the prison-door to the market-place. Measured by the prison- er's experience, however, it might be reckoned a journey of some length ; for, haughty as her demeanor was, she perchance underwent an agony from every footstep of those that thronged to see her, as if her heart had been flung into the street for them all to spurn and trample upon. In our nature, however, there is => provision, alike marvellous and merciful, that the sufferer should never know the intensity of what he endures by its present torture, but chiefly by the pang that rankles after it. With almost a serene deportment, therefore, Hester Prynne passed through this portion of her ordeal, and came to a sort of scaffold, at the western extremity of the market-place. It stood nearly beneath the eaves of Boston's earliest church, and appeared to be a fixture there." i

The Topic : its Place. — Typically, and therefore in the great predominance of cases, the topic, when expressed or indicated, stands at the beginning of the paragraph. Occa- sional modifications or accessories of this arrangement, how- ever, need here to be mentioned, on account of the special advantages that they secure.

I. It is only exceptionally that a paragraph stands alone ; and being part and stage of a larger work, it has to be mind- ful of what precedes and what follows. It is a link in the chain of continuous thought which makes up the whole com- position. Hence at the immediate outset there is generally more or less of connective or preliminary material, varying in amount from a single word of relation or a few words of summary to several sentences.

Examples. — How paragraphs link on to paragraphs may be seen by the following, which are the opening sentences of paragraphs, quoted far enough to introduce the topic : —

" Gray's quality of mind, then, we see ; his quality of soul will no less bear inspection. His reserve, his delicacy," etc.

1 Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, p. 75.

362 COMPOSITION.

" Testimonies such as these are not called forth by a fastidious effemi- nate weakling; they are not called forth, even, by mere qualities of mind; they are called forth by qualities of soul. And of Gray's high qualities of soul, . . . his excellent seriousness," etc.

" And with all this strenuous seriousness, a pathetic sentiment," etc.

" What wonder, then, that with this troublous cloud . . . Gray . . . pro- duced so little," 1 etc.

2. The suspended paragraph, that is, the paragraph wherein the revelation of the topic is delayed till the end, is somewhat rare. Like the suspended sentence and in cor- respondingly greater degree, its effect is studied and rhetor- ical ; it may have practical uses, too, in enabling the writer to get in considerations to support a startling or unwelcome assertion before the assertion itself is made.

Examples. — The suspended paragraph quoted from Myers on p. 283, above, is a good example of a word kept back for effect. — -In the following paragraph, the topic, " the air of Attica," does not appear till the last sen- tence, and when it appears its significance is well anticipated : —

" Many a more fruitful coast or isle is washed by the blue .^gean, many a spot is there more beautiful or sublime to see, many a territory more ample ; but there was one charm in Attica, which in the same perfection was nowhere else. The deep pastures of Arcadia, the plain of Argos, the Thessalian vale, these had not the gift ; Bceotia, which lay to its immediate north, was notorious for its very want of it. The heavy atmosphere of that Bceotia might be good for vegetation, but it was associated in popular belief with the dulness of the Boeotian intellect: on the contrary, the spe- cial purity, elasticity, clearness, and salubrity of the air of Attica, fit con- comitant and emblem of its genius, did that for it which earth did not ; — it brought out every bright hue and tender shade of the landscape over which it was spread, and would have illuminated the face even of a more bare and rugged country." ^

3. When the writer feels that the topic is especially impor- tant, or that much depends upon it, a natural impulse is to repeat it at the end of the paragraph, either in elaborated

i Matthew Arnold, Thomas Gray, Essays in Criticism, Second Series. 2 Newman, Historical Sketches, Vol. iii, p. 20.

THE PARAGRAPH. 363

Statement or, as oftener occurs, in apothegm. In such case not repetition alone is sought, but summary and enforcement.

Example. — In the following paragraph the topic is propounded in a plain statement at the beginning, and then, after the amplification, is repeated in a somewhat more elaborate form at the end : —

" A man of a Polite Imagination is let into a great many Pleasures, that the Vulgar are not capable of receiving. He can converse with a Picture, and find an agreeable Companion in a Statue. He meets with a secret Refreshment in a Description, and often feels a greater Satisfaction in the Prospect of Fields and Meadows, than another does in the Possession. It gives him, indeed, a Kind of Property in every thing he sees, and makes the most rude uncultivated Parts of Nature administer to his Pleasures : So that he looks upon the World, as it were, in another Light, and discovers in it a Multitude of Charms, that conceal themselves from the generality of Mankind." l

The Double Topic. — A mould of paragraph analogous to the composita type of sentence calls here for mention : the para- graph that sums up in a double topic. It is not very com- mon ; but being highly artistic, is correspondingly notable when successfully achieved.

While a composita sentence may accumulate a considerable number of coordinate members, the more complicated scale of the paragraph can hardly venture with safety on more than two ; hence the term, double topic. These members gener- ally answer each other as a contrasting pair ; and may either occupy each its half of the structure, or be set against each other in a series of distinctions.

Examples. — i. In the following the first topic, strength, passes by a natural gradation into the second topic, sweetness ; the two making up thus an answering and contrasting pair: —

" Critics of Michelangelo have sometimes spoken as if the only charac- teristic of his genius were a wonderful strength, verging, as in the things of the imagination great strength always does,, on what is singular or

1 Addison, in The Spectator, No. 411.

364 COMPOSITION.

strange. A certain strangeness, something of the blossoming of the aloe, is indeed an element in all true works of art ; that they shall excite or sur- prise us is indispensable. But that they shall give pleasure and exert a charm over us is indispensable too ; and this strangeness must be sweet also — a lovely strangeness. And to the true admirers of Michelangelo this is the true type of the Michelangelesque — sweetness and strength, pleasure with surprise, an energy of conception which seems at every moment about to break through all the conditions of comely form, recov- ering, touch by touch, a loveliness found usually only in the simplest natu- ral things — ex forti dulcedo." ^

2. In the following a series of contrasts bring out the double topic of the Platonic and the Baconian philosophy : —

" To sum up the whole, we should say that the aim of the Platonic phil- osophy was to exalt man into a god. The aim of the Baconian philosophy was to provide man with what he requires while he continues to be man. The aim of the Platonic philosophy was to raise us far above vulgar wants. The aim of the Baconian philosophy was to supply our vulgar wants. The former aim was noble; but the latter was attainable. Plato drew a good bow; but, like Acestes in Virgil, he aimed at the stars; and therefore, though there was no want of strength or skill, the shot was thrown away. His arrow was indeed followed by a track of dazzling radiance, but it struck nothing. Bacon fixed his eye on a mark which was placed on the earth, and within bow-shot, and hit it in the white. The philosophy of Plato began in words and ended in words, noble words indeed, words such as were to be expected from the finest of human intellects exercising bound- less dominion over the finest of human languages. The philosophy of. Bacon began in observations and ended in arts." ^

II. THE PARAGRAPH IN STRUCTURE.

That a paragraph should have a structure, palpable, planned, articulated, is a necessity arising from the second and third qualities already mentioned, — continuity and proportion. A continuous current of thought, unbroken, undislocated, ■ — this is its ideal. The end that' the working out of a structure is to attain is, keeping this current unbroken, and keeping it at

1 Pater, The Renaissance, p. 75.

2 Macaulay, Essay on Lord Bacon, Essays, Vol. iii, p. 458.

THE PARAGRAPH. 365

every point in place and symmetry. This requires system- atic arrangement, plan.^

By a plan, however, is not meant a formal and obtrusive skeleton-structure, as if the paragraph were merely an essay within an essay. Such advertising of the plan belongs rather to the next stage of procedure, the composition as a whole. It is to be remembered that the individual sentences of the paragraph, being the final expression of their thought, are at once outlipe and amplification ; the outline is covered and disguised, as such, by the detail and coloring of which it is the nucleus. None the less truly, however, it is there, and has to be determinately put there ; under the finished surface it works, unperceived, a constant effect of orderly progress. It has its introductory outset ; it keeps the reader aware throughout of the mutual bearings of the thoughts ; it swings round to a cadence and conclusion.

I.

Relation of Parts to Sum. — In the evolution of such a plan the whole current of the paragraph has to be made up with traceable reference to the sum. It matters not whether this latter is expressed as a topic or implied as a total resultant ; iri any case the relation, the scale, the distance, the movement of each sentence must be realized and shaped with this con- nection in mind.

Typical Scheme of Paragraph Structure This requisite may

best be made clear, perhaps, by presenting here a scheme of structure, to which the body of the paragraph may be referred as a type. This scheme, it may be premised, is not an arbi- trary framework ; it represents, in fact, on the scale of the para- graph, the logical progress that obtains in all ordered thinking.

1 " Words and sentences are subjects of revision ; paragraphs and whole composi- tions are subjects of prevision." — Wendell, English Composition^ p. 117.

366 COMPOSITION.

If, as stated above,^ the total effect of a paragraph should be reducible to a single sentence, conversely the expansion of a single sentence, with due observance of the legitimate depend- encies of clause and clause, may be taken as the pattern of paragraph structure.^ The.same relations exist, between sen- tences in the paragraph as between clauses in the sentence'; only in the_ paragraph, as befits its ampler scale, the relations are more strongly marked, and grouped with greater sense of sequence and climax. In this respect the plan of the para- graph is intermediate between that of the sentence and that of the whole composition. Generally speaking, then, any sen- tence, to be worthy of a place in the plan, should contribute directly to explain, or particularize, or prove, or apply the thought of the topic.

Nor should these functions be mixed at hap-hazard. The sense of sequence and climax just mentioned dictates that they rise out of each other in a logical growth, and be gradu- ated from a natural outset to a natural finish. The following table, in which the interior organism of the paragraph is set forth in three main stages, may be taken as a comprehensive scheme of structure.

The topic, expressed or hinted.

I. Whatever is needed to define the topic.

Taking the form of

Repetition, Obverse, or Explication.

1 See above, p. 35S.

2 " The principles which so plainly bring paragraphs and order out of chaos are the very same which, applied habitually and under different conditions, make the difference between good sentences and bad." — Wendell, English Composition, p. 118.

8 What range these may cover has been specified above, pp. 323, 324.

THE PARAGRAPH. 367

II. Whatever is needed to establish the topic. Taking the form of Example, Illustration,

Detail (particularization), or Proof.

III. Whatever is needed to apply the topic. Taking the form of < • Summary,

Consequence, or Enforcement.

Of course no single paragraph could follow all these sub- divisions without being unwieldy ; they are presented in this relative order merely to show the place they occupy with reference to a rounded scheme. When expressed, this is their typical order and relation. A like thing may be said of the main stages themselves. These may be proportioned in a great variety of ways ; some one of them generally tak- ing the predominance, in bulk and specialization, the others condensed or even wholly elided. It is on this freedom of variation and proportion that the flexibility, the individual character, of a paragraph depends. All the while, however, the type exists, a kind of steadying-point in the writer's mind, to keep the lines of treatment from becoming lawless and unbalanced.

The claims of length, too, have an important application here. Rightly to define, or establish, or apply, or even state a topic may require so much space that only the section of the scheme that deals with this can be given within reasonable paragraph limits ; the other sections being left in turn to their place, and disposed of according to their importance. It is this fact, largely, which gives rise to the various kinds

368

COMPOSITION.

Topic proposed.

I. Defined by con- crete repetition.

II. ESTABLISHEDby examples, drawn from his policy

of paragraphs, to be noticed later ' ; it has also a bearing on the plan of composition as a whole.^

Examples. — Two examples, given here, may illustrate respectively how a paragraph may fairly round out the type, or may confine itself to some section of it. Of so varied a subject not more than these illustrations can well be undertaken. i

I. A paragraph in which the three stages are all more or less fully represented. It is about Oliver Cromwell: —

" No sovereign ever carried to the throne so large a portion of the best qualities of the middling orders, so strong a sympathy with the feelings and interests of his people. He was sometimes driven to arbitrary measures ; but he had a high, stout, honest, English heart. Hence it was that he loved to surround his throne with such men as Hale and Blake. Hence it was that he allowed so large a share of political lib- erty to his subjects, and that, even when an opposi- tion dangerous to his power and to his person almost compelled him to govern by the sword, he was still anxious to leave a germ from which, at a more favor- able season, free institutions might spring. We firmly believe that, if his first Parliament had not commenced its debates by disputing his title, his government would have been as mild at home as it was energetic and able abroad. He was a soldier ; he had risen by war. Had his ambition been of an impure or selfish kind, it would have been easy for him to plunge his country into continental hostilities on a large scale, and to dazzle the restless factions which he ruled, by the splendor of his victories. Some of his enemies have sneeringly remarked, that in the successes obtained under his administration he had no personal share ; as if a man who had raised himself from obscurity to empire solely by his military talents could have any unworthy reason for shrinking from military enterprise. This reproach is his highest glory. In the success of the English navy he could have no

1 See below, p. 379.

2 See below, p. 441.

at home

and abroad ;

and from his magnanimity

in military

THE PARAGRAPH. 369

selfish interest. Its triumphs added nothing to his

fame ; its increase added nothing to his means of

overawing his enemies j its great leader was not his

friend. Yet he took a peculiar pleasure in encourag- and in naval

ing that noble service which, of all the instruments triumphs.

employed by an English government, is the most

impotent for mischief, and the most powerful for

good. His administration was glorious, but with no III. Applied by

vulgar glory. It was not one of those periods of consequences in

overstrained and convulsive exertion which neces- the prosperity of

sarily produce debility and languor. Its energy was

natural, healthful, temperate. He placed England at the people

the head of the Protestant interest, and in the first ,

rank of Christian powers. He taught every nation

to value her friendship and to dread her enmity. But and of the govern-

he did not squander her resources in a vain attempt ment.

to invest her with that supremacy which no power, in

the modern system of Europe, can safely affect, or

can long retain."^

a. A paragraph devoted entirely to the middle or establishing stage, by giving examples. The topic, which the previous paragraph has defined at considerable length, is the power which great writers have to shape the language and literature of succeeding ages : —

" If there is any one who illustrates this remark, it is Gibbon ; I seem to trace his vigorous condensation and peculiar rhythm at every turn in the literature of the present day. Pope, again, is said to have tuned our ver- sification. Since his time, any one, who has an ear and turn for poetry, caii with little pains throw off a copy of verses equal or superior to the poet's own, and with far less of study and patient correction than would have been demanded of the poet himself for their production. Compare the choruses of the Samson Agonistes with any stanza taken at random in Thalaba : how much had the language gained in the interval between them ! Without denying the high merits of Southey's beautiful romance, we surely shall not be wrong in saying, that in its unembarrassed eloquent flow, it is the language of the nineteenth century that speaks, as much as the author himself." ^

In detailing this important topic, indeed, the author goes on to give further instances and citations for two paragraphs more, before, in a short concluding paragraph, he sums up.

t Macaulay, Essay on Hallam^s Constitutional History^ Essays, Vol. 1, p. 509. 2 Newman, Idea of a Unimrsiiy, p. 323.

370 COMPOSITION.

II.

Relation of Parts to Each Other. — In order to preserve con- tinuity in a paragraph, something more than plan is needed. There is still to be considered that linking of sentence with sentence by which the plan itself, real and systematic as it is, affects the reader not as plan but as uninterrupted flow and cur- rent of thought. To this end there must be a traceable rela- tion, a felt reference, of each sentence to its preceding, while in turn it leaves its assertion in position for the next sentence to take it up. This reference, equally palpable in either case, may be explicit or implicit.

Explicit Reference This kind of reference between sen- tences is called explicit because there is some word or phrase whose definite function it is to make it, something which on account of this office we call a connective. Two kinds of con- nectives call here for notice.

I. Conjunctional, words or phrases. These, as has been demonstrated under the head of Conjunctional Relation,^ have to do with the direction of the thought, whether as turning it some new way, — adversative, illative, causal, — or as confirm- ing it in the direction in which it is already going.

Examples. — The following, in its copiousness of connective words, illustrates how much more scrupulous the older writers were than the moderns to mark the relations of sentences : —

" He kept a strait hand on his nobility, and chose rather to advance clergymen and lawyers, which were more obsequious to him, but had less interest in the people j which made for his absoluteness, but not for his safety. Insomuch as I am persuaded it was one of the causes of his troublesome reign. For that his nobles, though they were loyal and obe- dient, yet did not co-operate with him, but let every man go his own way. He was not afraid of an able man as Lewis the Eleventh was. But contrari- wise he was served by the ablest men that then were to be found ; without which his affairs could not have prospered as they did. . . Neither did

^ See above, pp. 259-267.

THE PARAGRAPH. 371

he care how cunning they were that he did employ : for he thought himself to have the master-reach. And as he chose well, so he held them up well. For it is a strange thing, that though he were a dark prince, and infinitely suspicious, and his times full of secret conspiracies and troubles ; yet in twenty-four years reign he never put down or discomposed coun- sellor or near servant, save only Stanley the Lord Chamberlain." i

The modern tendency is to make connection unobtrusive by using conjunctions that may be put inside the sentence, leaving the outset for more important words, and by omitting such con- nection as the reader may be trusted to think for himself. The effect of this is to make the diction not only more equable but more closely knit ; it is one of the important results of more masterful art in prose.

Note. — Of connectives that may be removed from the beginning may he mentioned however, therefore, then, likewise, too ; and such phrases as on the contrary, as it were, that is, nevertheless. Of connectives that modern prose very generally suppresses the most notable, perhaps, is for ; the word und, too, is almost entirely banished from the beginning of the sentence.

2. Demonstrative, words and phrases; and, where these fail in clearness or strength, repetition of the word or phrase needed to make the connection. These, not affecting the direction, are used rather to express some resumption or immediate sequence, — to make a close joinery of some new thought with. the preceding.^

Note ' and Example. — Of demonstrative words the personal and demonstrative pronouns are most relied on. The relative was formerly so used ; for example : " But he who was of the bond woman was born after the flesh ; but he of the free woman was by promise. Which things are an allegory : for these are the two covenants ; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar." ^ Nowadays, however, this use is exceptional and somewhat archaic.

1 Bacon, History of Henry VII (quoted from Craik's English Prose, Vol. ii, p. 29).

2 Under Retrospective Reference, pp. 246-254 above, are given some of the prin- ciples and cautions connected with demonstrative reference.

8 Galaiians iv. 23, 24.

372 COMPOSITION.

Demonstrative phrases are for the most part the combination of n. demonstrative pronoun with other words, so as to denote some adverbial relation ; as, in this case, in this manner, under these circumstances, this done, and the like.

The following paragraph will illustrate various means of demonstrative connection, including also repetition ; —

" Friedrich does not neglect these points of good manners ; along with which something of substantial may be privately conjoined. For example, if he had in secret his eye on Jiilich and Berg, could anything be fitter than to ascertain what the French will think of such an enterprise ? What the French ; and next to them what the English, that is to say, Hanoverians, who meddle much in affairs of the Reich. For these reasons and others he likewise, probably with more study than in the Bielfeld case, despatches Colonel Camas to make his compliment at the French Court, and in an expert way take soundings there. Camas, a fat sedate military gentle- man, of advanced years, full of observation, experience and sound sense, — ' with one arm, which he makes do the work of two, and nobody can notice that the other arm resting in his coat-breast is of cork, so expert is he,' — will do in this matter what is feasible ; probably not much for the present. He is to call on Voltaire, as he passes, who is in Holland again, at the Hague for some months back; and deliver him 'a little cask of Hungary Wine,' which probably his Majesty had thought exquisite. Of which, and the other insignificant passages between them, we hear more than enough in the writings and correspondences of Voltaire about this time."i

Implicit Reference Quite in line with the tendency, just

spoken of, to put connectives where they will be unobtrusive, is the art of making the whole reference implicit, that is, a connection not advertised by words at all, but involved in the structufe of the sentence and in the natural closeness of the thought.

I. In the structure of the sentence, this reference is effected by means of inversion for adjustment,'' the change of order which a succeeding sentence undergoes in obedience to the attraction exerted by some like or contrasted idea in the

1 Carlyle, History of Frederick the Great, Book xi, Chap, i (Vol. iii, p. 2S2).

2 For which, see above, p. 27S.

THE PARAGRAPH. 373

preceding. With this inversion is often conjoined some form of demonstrative reference.

Skilfully managed, this manner of reference is very graceful and powerful. A note of caution, however, should be given. This makes the sentence rise not out of a topic, but out of the sentence immediately before. Unless' the topic, too, and the general sum of the paragraph is kept in mind, there is danger of deflecting the thought a little with each new reference, until the excursion from the direct path is too great for unity. The larger as well as the immediate relation, therefore, should be observed.

Examples. — i. Of inversion for adjustment. In the following inter- esting example the second sentence has an inverted order in adjustment to the first; and the third has an inversion in preparation for the fourth; and in each case what causes the inversion is an antithetic idea. " All is finite in the present; and even that finite is infinite in its velocity of flight towards death. But in God there is nothing finite ; but in God there is nothing transitory ; but in God there can be nothing that tends to death. Therefore, it follows, that for God there can be no present. The future is the present of God, and to the future it is that he sacrifices the human present." ^

2. Of sentence growing out of sentence. The following, though itself skilfully managed, will suggest how easy it would be by this method of reference to lead the thought astray unless it were made up with the end in view. " The first effort of the artist is to represent something that he has seen or imagined. Out of this effort and the work which it produces, grow certain methods and habits of representing landscape and architec- ture and the human figure. Out of these habits grow rules and formulas, not only for the hand but also for the eye. On these formulas schools are founded. In these schools the example of masters comes to have an authority which overshadows and limits the vision of facts as well as the representation of them."^

2. The most effectual connection made, however, paradox- ical as it may seem, is where no connection is needed at all ;

1 De Quincey, Savannah-la-Mar, Works, Vol. i, p. 255.

2 Van Dyke, The Gospel for an Age of Doubt, p. 128.

374 COMPOSITION.

where the idea of one sentence is so closely welded to that of its neighbor that the two make their way as an unbroken and undeflected current. The omission of explicit connectives is a prevailing tendency of modern writing, and on the whole is an indication of closer thinking to correspond ' ; still, it is not a thing that can be left to a vogue to regulate. The fact is, not all thought will bear this treatment : it is adapted specifically to ideas having a common bearing, and to series of details or particulars amplifying a common understood topic. Occasion- ally, too, when a conjunctional relation is so obvious as to be unescapable, it may gain in point and strength by omitting the connective.^

If, then, modern writing omits connectives, it does it not on account of a newly discovered trick, but because modern think- ing is more in concretes and details, and employs directer trains of reasoning ; in other words, the thought has evolved the style.

Example. — In the following paragraph the sentences all repeat or in some degree df concreteness particularize the fundamental assertion of the beginning, and hence need no connectives : —

" You cannot hide any secret. If the artist succor his flagging spirits by opium or wine, his work will characterize itself as the effect of opium or wine. If you make a picture or a statue, it sets the beholder in that state of mind you had when you made it. If you spend for show, on build- ing, or gardening, or on pictures, or on equipages, it will so appear. We are all physiognomists and penetrators of character, and things themselves are detective. If you follow the suburban fashion in building a sumptuous- looking house for a little money, it will appear to all eyes as a cheap dear house. There is no privacy that cannot be penetrated. No secret can be

1 " And it is this tacit ratiocination which qualifies the Composita to fill so large a space as it does in argumentative discourse. It is the vehicle of implied, inexplicit, and condensed reasoning. . . . The prevailing habit is the ellipse of connectives. A paragraph strongly knit together by argumfentative thought is often seen to have but one or two very mild conjunctions in it. This is no loss to the force or clear- ness of the argument, but it certainly may be a loss to its transparency." Earle,

English Prose, pp. So, 197.

2 See above, p. 298.

THE PARAGRAPH. 375

kept in the civilized world. Society is a masked ball, where every one hides his real character, and reveals it by hiding. If a man wish to con- ceal anything he carries, those whom he meets know that he conceals somewhat, and usually know what he conceals. Is it otherwise if there be some belief or some purpose he would bury in his breast ? 'T is as hard to hide as fire. He is a strong man who can hold down his opinion. A man cannot utter two or three sentences without disclosing to intelligent ears precisely where he stands in life and thought, namely, whether in the kingdom of the senses and the understanding, or in that of ideas and imagination, in the realm of intuitions and duty. People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character. We can only see what we are, and if we misbehave we suspect others. The fame of Shakespeare or of Voltaire, of Thomas a Kempis or of Bonaparte, char- acterizes those who give it. As gas-light is found to be the best nocturnal police, so the universe protects itself by pitiless publicity."^

III.

Claims of Proportion As the paragraph is the orderly

development of a topic, it must be mindful of the relative importance • of things, and its parts should have bulk and stress to accord therewith ; that is, the paragraph, in its inte- rior structure, needs to be proportioned.

The proportion between different stages of the plan, as, for instance, between the defining and establishing parts, is, as we have seen,^ something to be determined, not by rule, but by the writer's sense of what his paragraph exists for, and what treatment his subject-matter requires. It must be left with him, but it cannot safely be left undetermined. The same may be said of that perpetual variety in length and type of sentence which is so essential to the life of the paragraph. It rises from a delicate sense of relation and proportion, which, however, is too individual to be prescribed from without.

Digressions. — When a subordinate or merely illustrative idea is expanded, whether in volume or emphasis, beyond its

1 Emerson, Essay on Worship, Works, Vol. vi, p. 213.

2 See above, p. 367.

376 COMPOSITION.

natural proportion, it becomes a digression, and distracts from the effect of the main topic.

A digression is to a paragraph what a parenthesis^ ]s to a sentence, and what an episode, to be mentioned later,^ is to a narrative. For all three the justification is only exceptional, and more so, it would seem, as the scale of treatment enlarges. As an occasional means of relieving the tension of strong emo- tion or severe argumentation, the digression may have its use ; it needs, however, the masterful direction of a sound literary sense. And when employed it should be subjected to treat- ment analogous to that of the parenthesis : softened tone, lightness and rapidity of diction, a subdued scale of stress. Its boundaries, too, should be clearly marked ; and especially the return to the main current should be made with particular care to make the words of connection and resumption pointed.

Note. — A very short digression, sufficient, however, to show the skill involved in making a digression well, is shown in the example under the next heading. It is from De Quincey, the most digressive of modern writers, whose tendency to expatiate far from his subject is worth study, because, with his scrupulous care for explicit reference, he always kept his reader aware both of his ramblings and of his return.^

Parallel Construction. — The repetition of construction, already applied to elements within the sentence,' has a somewhat less marked though not less real application to the structure of the paragraph. Its most striking and rhetorical use is where sev- eral sentences dealing with the same stage of amplification are made on the same model. This, however, needs constant test- ing lest it become artificial. A more practical rule it is, when successive sentences deal with the same subject of thought, to keep that subject in the forefront of attention and stress ; and

1 See below, p. 537.

2 De Quincey's whimsical defense of his rambling tendency may be found in Page, Thomas De Quincey, his Life and Writings, Vol. ii, p. 64.

« See above, p. 308.

THE PARAGRAPH. 377

conversely, when subordinate or digressive ideas are intro- duced, to put them in a different distribution of emphasis, that they may not be confounded with main ideas. As a grammat- ical matter of some importance, it is not well to change the voice of the verb, as from active to passive, unadvisedly ; small matter as it seems, it changes the subject of the sen- tence, and hence the current of the assertion.

Examples. — i. The somewhat rhetorical balancing of sentences, with its artificial tendency, may be seen in the paragraph from Macaulay's Essay on Milton already quoted from on p. 309. Here are some of the begin- nings of grouped sentences : " If they were unacquainted .... If their names .... If their steps " ; " For his sake empires . . . For his sake the Almighty " ; "He had been wrested .... He had been ransomed." The whole paragraph is highly rhetorical.

2. In the following paragraph the italics show how the principal sub- ject is kept in like prominence throughout, except in the digressive portion, here put in brackets, where the subordinate subject, though represented by the same personal pronoun, is so differently placed that it is never in dan- ger of being mistaken for the main one. " Her eyes are sweet and subtile, wild and sleepy, by turns ; oftentimes rising to the clouds, oftentimes chal- lenging the heavens. She wears a diadem round her head. And I knew by childish memories that she could go abroad upon the winds, when she heard that sobbing of litanies, or the thundering of organs, and when she beheld the mustering of summer clouds. Tliis sister, the elder, it is that carries keys more than papal at her girdle, which open every cottage and every palace. She, to my knowledge, sate all last summer by the bedside of the blind beggar, him that so often and so gladly I talked with, whose pious daughter, eight years old, with the sunny countenance, resisted the temptations of play and village mirth to travel all day long on dusty roads with her afflicted father. [For this did God send her a great reward. In the spring-time of the year, and whilst yet her own spring was budding, he recalled her to himself. But her blind father mourns forever over her; still he dreams at midnight that the little guiding hand is locked within his own ; and still he wakens to a darkness that is now within a second and a deeper darkness.] This Mater Lachrymaruin also has been sitting all this ■winter of 1844-5 within the bedchamber of the Czar, bringing before his eyes a daughter (not less pious) that vanished to God not less suddenly, and left behind her a darkness not less profound. By the power of her keys it is that Our Lady of Tears glides a ghostly intruder into the cham-

378 COMPOSITION.

bers of sleepless men, sleepless women, sleepless children, from Ganges to the Nile, from Nile to Mississippi. And her, because she is the firstborn of her house, and has the widest empire, let us honor with the title of ' Madonna.'"^

Beginnings and Endings. — How these are to proportion in the paragraph cannot, of course, be laid down by rule ; but some suggestions, founded on their function, may here be given.

The opening sentence of a paragraph, being either the topic- sentence or a connecting link with the preceding, is ordinarily a rather short and condensed sentence. When the topic is defined by some phase of repetition several short pithy sen- tences, succeeding each other at the beginning, form a very effective means of getting the paragraph under w^y. The style of such opening sentences calls more naturally for con- ciseness and simplicity than for ornament.

The closing sentence of the paragraph, following the prin- ciple of climax, is quite apt to derive a certain roll and momen- tum from previous sentences ; in which case it is somewhat long, often periodic, and forms, indeed, the cadence of the paragraph. This is especially noticeable in impassioned and oratoric language. An exception to this elaborated structure, sometimes adopted to excellent effect, is the apothegmatic ending : a terse and pithy short sentence gathering into one statement the gist of the idea which has been expanded in the sentences preceding.

Examples. — i. Both the short opening and the longer closing sen- tence are so common as hardly to need a quotation here ; see, for example, the paragraph from Macaulay on p. 359, above.

:;. The apothegmatic close may be illustrated from Burke, with whom it was a favorite : —

" But power, of some kind or other, will survive the shock in which manners and opinions perish ; and it will find other and worse means for

1 De Quincey, Levana and our Ladies of Sorrow, Works, Vol. 1, p. 241.

THE PARAGRAPH. 379

its support. The usurpation which, in order to subvert ancient institutions, has destroyed ancient principles, will hold power by arts similar to those by which it has acquired it. When the old feudal and chivalrous spirit of Fealty, which, by freeing kings from fear, freed both kings and subjects from the precautions of tyranny, shall be extinct in the minds of men, plots and assassinations will be anticipated by preventive murder and preventive confiscation, and that long roll of grim and bloody maxims, which form the political code of all power, not standing on its own honor, and the honor of those who are to obey it. Kings will be tyrants from policy when sub- jects are rebels from principle." '

III. KINDS OF PARAGRAPHS.

The different kinds of paragraphs that evolve themselves in the course of a composition may be explained, for the most part, as modifications of the typical scheme already given ,^ — these modifications rising naturally from the claims of brevity, or from the amount of detail to be disposed of. In other words, instead of crowding the whole treatment of a given topic into one paragraph, we may choose to make it more manageable by giving only a section at a time, or by condens- ing part or all to an outline. This sectional treatment, in the paragraph, is analogous to the punctuation of a coraposita sen- tence by periods instead of semicolons,^ and has the similar justification of lightness and point to commend it.

The following kinds of paragraph may here be noted.

The Propositional Paragraph. — This kind comes nearest to filling out the type, being controlled in all its course by a topic, or quasi proposition, at the beginning, and giving enough of explication to make a fairly rounded sum. Considered as a section of the type, it may be regarded as the topic followed out at least through the first stage, and left ready for further amplification.

1 Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, p. 91.

2 Compare above, pp. 366, 367.

8 Compare preceding chapter, pp. 318 and 326.

380 COMPOSITION.

Example. —The following propositional paragraph has the somewhat exceptional interest of propounding its topic in stages, as may be seen by comparing the first and the third sentences. This is not the same as the double topic, defined on p. 363, above.

" History, at least in its state of ideal perfection, is a compound of poetry and philosophy. It impresses general truths on the mind by a vivid representation of particular characters and incidents. But, in fact, the two hostile elements of which it consists have never been known to form a per- fect amalgamation ; and at length, in our oivn time, they have been com- pletely and professedly separated. Good histories, in the proper sense of the word, we have not. But we have good historical romances, and good historical essays. The imagination and the reason, if we may use a legal metaphor, have made partition of a province of literature of which they were formerly seised per my et per tout ; and now they hold their respective portions in severalty, instead of holding the whole in common." ^

It will be noted that all the amplification given here is of the nature of definition, and belongs thus to the first stage of the type.

The Amplifying ^ Paragraph. — This kind of paragraph rep- resents the middle section of the type, its office being to par- ticularize or amplify some statement made previously, or to enumerate the details of a description or narrative. It is the peculiarity of this kind of paragraph that the subject is not definitely expressed, at least within its limits, but is gathered from the general bearing of the whole ; and the structure has merely to devise such plan as will make the most lucid and logical arrangement of coordinate facts.

Example. — The following paragraph immediately succeeds the one last quoted, and will be recognized as merely an amplification of the same topic. The two antithetic sides of the topic determine its plan : —

" To make the past present, to bring the distant near, to place us in the society of a great man, or on the eminence which overlooks the field of a mighty battle, to invest with the reality of human flesh and blood beings whom we are too much inclined to consider as personified qualities in an allegory, to call up our ancestors before us with all their peculiarities of language, manners, and garb, to show us over their houses, to seat us at

1 Macaulay, Essay on Hallam^s Constitutional History^ beginning.

2 The word ampUficatory, if it were not so unwieldy, would be perhaps the terih to use here.

THE PARAGRAPH. 381

their tables, to rummage their old-fashioned wardrobes, to explain the uses of their ponderous furniture, these parts of the duty which properly belongs to the historian have been appropriated by the historical novelist. On the other hand, to extract the philosophy of history, to direct our judgment of events and men, to trace the connection of causes and effects, and to draw from the occurrences of former times general lessons of moral and political wisdom, has become the business of a distinct class of writers."

The paragraph succeeding this in the essay carries on the amplification still another step by proposing and detailing the simile of map and picture which has been quoted on p. 78, above.

The Preliminary Paragraph, and the Transitional Paragraph. —

Strictly speaking these are hardly to be regarded as paragraphs, consisting as they generally do of one or two sentences merely ; but their office in the whole composition is too important to be omitted from the list of kinds at the writer's disposal. Pointing out the landmarks, the connecting links, they are naturally of greater use as the subject-matter taxes the mind more ; they serve, in fact, like the short sentence in the paragraph, as points of definition and departure.

By a preliminary paragraph is meant a paragraph that in a condensed way lays out what is to be treated in the one or several paragraphs succeeding ; this it does either by stating merely the theme, or by giving some main heads of plan. Considered in relation to the type, it may be regarded as singling out for statement merely the bare topic or merely the outline, and leaving all the amplification to be made later.

By a transitional paragraph is meant a paragraph introduced between principal divisions of a discourse to mark the close of one and leave the reader ready to take up another. It relates to what has gone before, as the preliminary paragraph relates to what is to come. Not infrequently the two kinds are united in one ; sometimes also a transitional paragraph is immediately followed by a preliminary.

Examples. — i. Of preliminary paragraph. The following sentence, printed as a paragraph, lays out a considerable section of discourse : —

382 COMPOSITION.

" In explaining to you the proceedings of Parliament which have been complained of, I will state to you, first, the thing that was done ; next, the persons who did it ; and, lastly, the grounds and reasons upon which the Legislature proceeded in this deliberate act of public justice and public prudence." ^

z. Of transitional paragraph. The following sentence closes one divi- sion, while the next paragraph, of which the beginning is here quoted, goes on to the next ; —

" So far as to the first cementing principle.

" The second material of cement for their new republic is the superiority of the city of Paris ; and this I admit is strongly connected with the other cementing principle of paper circulation and confiscation. It is in this part of the project we must look,"^ etc.

3.' The two in one. The following, standing in the middle of a long essay, both marks the end of a preceding treatment and announces the ' manner of a new one : —

" We begin, like the priest in Don Quixote's library, to be tired with taking down books one after another for separate judgment, and feel inclined to pass sentence on them in masses. We shall therefore, instead of pointing out the defects and merits of the different modem historians, state generally in what particulars they have surpassed their predecessors, and in what we conceive them to have failed." ^

4. Transitional followed by preliminary : —

" These illustrations of Aristotle's doctrine may suffice.

" Now let us proceed to a fresh position ; which, as before, shall first be broadly stated, then modified and explained. How does originality differ from the poetical talent ? Without affecting the accuracy of a definition, we may call the latter the originality of right moral feeling.

" Originality may perhaps be defined,"* etc.

Alternation of Kinds By the best writers the same care is

taken to secure variety in paragraphs as in sentences ; and this variety is obtained by analogous means. Most natural and frequent is the alternation of length ; short or medium-sized paragraphs setting off and relieving the longer ones. ' Closely connected with this is the alternation of thought, by which a

1 Burke, Sfeechio the Electors of Bristol, Select British Eloquence, p. 300.

2 Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, p. 232. 8 Macaulay, Essay on History, Essays, Vol. i, p. 409.

* Newman, Essays Critical and Historical, Vol. i, p. 20.

THE PARAGRAPH. 383

lighter or more concrete paragraph is made to relieve one of more severe or closely reasoned nature. Making occasional division between propositional paragraphs and paragraphs of detail or amplification is a great help to this ; it serves to keep the thought from being too uniformly strenuous. Finally, — in proportion to the difficulty of the thought, frequent interme- diate paragraphs of summary or transition should be intro- duced ; they furnish the necessary connecting-link between the single paragraphs as a developed topic and the plan of the whole composition.

II. INVENTION.

" The otiose, the facile, surplusage : why are these abhorrent to the true literary artist, except because, in literary as in all other art, structure is all-important, felt, or painfully missed, everj-where ? — that architectural conception of work, which foresees the end in the beginning and never loses sight of it, and in every part is conscious of all the rest, till the last sentence does but, with undiminished vigor, unfold and justify the first — a condition of literary art, which ... I shall call the necessity of mind in stjle." — Walter Pater.

BOOK IV. INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

As soon as the foregoing study of style had reached beyond the consideration of mere processes to the stage of completed products, a new aspect of the work came into view ; rudi- mentarily in the sentence, in much more palpable guise, though still subordinate, in the paragraph. To the problem of manner, the inquiry how to word, or color, or emphasize the thought already in hand, we began to add the inquiry what new thought we must supply in order rightly to set off, or round out, or push on to its conclusion, the thought we had ; we were thinking of such things as added clauses, and explana- tory details, and contrasts. This was the problem of matter asserting itself ; the question of gathering thoughts as related thoughts, and not merely as the verbal clothing of thoughts. Thus with the first finished expression of thought there began in its essential principle the endeavor to find and systematize thought, that-TS, invention.

This inventive effort, subordinate thus far and as it were under the surface, is henceforth to take the lead. We are to work from the starting-point of matter rather than of man- ner. This it is, mainly, that distinguishes the coming from the preceding study ; we are approaching not so much a dif- ferent thing as the same thing from a different point of view. Our inquiry will lead on to a broader scale of working ; but its germinal principles are already in hand, waiting merely for further application. Questions of style, therefore, are not

38,7

388 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

yet and never can be out of the account ; they come up con- tinually, though in ancillary rank, because a work of invention can never make itself complete without the support of style.

Definition of Invention. — In its rhetorical or literary appli- cation, invention is theorganizatijm of thought, accordingto its nature and-jobiect, into a coherent and inter-related form of discourse.

Note. — The initial act of invention, the original discovery of the thought, is too individual to be within the scope of a text-book or a course of instruction ; besides, we can hardly regard real invention as beginning until to the original conception there is applied a process of organization, that is, of verifying, sifting, and selecting for ulterior disposal. It is in the various stages of organization, of working up thought to a completed form and effect, that invention centres.

This definition may be practically elucidated from the ana- logue that most readily comes to mind, mechanical invention ; speaking in whose terms we may say, invention, in rhetoric, is the devising of a literary apparatus to do certain determi-

- nate work ; employing thereto whatever enginery of form — descriptive, narrative, expository, argumentative — will most

, fitly effect its purpose, and making it ready for whatever motive power of style will give it vigor and result. It calls for all the founding and framing, all the accurate adjustment and interworking of parts, all the skilled calculation of instrumen- talities and effects, which characterize a well-designed work- ing tool or machine. This is its ideal, as workmanship.

On this, as a kind of vertebrate structure, is moulded all the higher artistry of literature. Whether it appear as plot or as plan, as order inductive or deductive, in the baldness of logic or in the splendor of poetic portrayal, the invention of a work determines its solid substance, its permanent value, its basis of consistency and power.'

1 " Whether in poem or novel, invention, broadly speaking, makes the plot. It makes the outline of tlie story : it thinks out the course of the events : it sets the scenes. It re- solves, in short, on what shall happen." — Macmillati's Magazine, Vol. Ivi. p. 275.

CHAPTER XII.

APPROACHES TO INVENTION.

Invention has just been described as if it were a kind of handicraft, an affair of practical design and workmanship. This it eminently is, to one who is actually engaged in it. It has become so. The writer has subdued his vague and fugitive meditations to the dictates of order and proportion. While still the literary artist, and all the more such for this, he has as it were put on workday clothes and become an artisan. In so doing he has but done what all artists, how- ever inspired their genius, must do. It is necessary that the art of letters be pursued in this workmanlike way ; its integ- rity as an art, and the fulness and steadiness of the artist's powers, depend upon it.

What is true of other arts is true of invention in this respect also : it has its apprenticeship, a perpetual appren- ticeship we may indeed call it, in which the workman is learn- ing the secrets and mastering the processes of his craft. Nor is this all. Further back it looks, to that initial point when the artist, prompted by native bent, chose this calling rather than some other, and found that the primal aptitude, the most vital element of all, was already in his blood and brain. Of these things we must take account in rhetorical study, because important deductions flow from them ; especially for those, as for instance journalists and clergymen, who are called on statedly for some form of literary activity. /

These approaches to invention, as seen in natural abilities, and as provided for in the helps and habits that go to call forth and promote it, the present chapter will discuss.

389

390 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

I. THE SENSE OF LITERARY FORM.

There is a certain way of looking at one's work in the large, of realizing it, even before it is ciphered out, as a rounded and articulate whole, which the writer ought to note and take advantage of. The perfected result, in fact, follows lines already in the writer's mind, the inventive process being mainly to disentangle these from irrelevancies and give them free individual course. A trait this, hard to describe, but its presence or absence is the deepest thing we feel in contem- plating a piece of literary art ; as an endowment of the author we call it, somewhat vaguely, a sense of literary form, and illustrate it from the analogy of the sculptor who sees the statue in the stone.

The Starting-Point in Natural Bent. — The native sense of literary form is as common, and as quickly recognized, per- haps, as is mechanical inventiveness ; though not so generally do men realize what it means. In^^very community may be found men who can relate an adventure with such choice of telling points, or make a public speech with such force and clearness of plea, that hearers are tempted to think a mere stenographic report would suffice to make it literature. Such ability is the initial point of authorship ; whatever achieve- ment it attains is built on this. Individual it is, and therefore of various kinds and degrees. The only way to legislate for it is to tell a man to be himself, — a duty, indeed, which in its demands on self-discipline, gives a man enough to do in a lifetime of training.

But below what is individual there are traits of natural inventiveness that we need to recognize as common to all who in any way are endowed with it. Two such traits may here be mentioned.

I. First of all, it is a natural ability to grasp facts and ideas not as isolated or vagabond but in combination, as

APPROACHES TO INVENTION. 391

helpers or as goals to other facts or ideas. To such a mind no thought is inert or unrelated ; small or great it is a vitalizing element in a system, is on its way to a sum of effect. So the story is told or the speech made, crudely it may be and lacking in the artificial touches of craftsmanship, but with the master- lines already plotted out, and with a movement under com- mand. This is not the same as deep thinking or industrious research, though it may use these ; rather it is the active genius which shapes their results from a dead aggregation into a living organic work.

2. But a spontaneous constructive faculty is only one half of natural invention. The other half is equally significant, — its implicit recognition of the mind of others, and conformity to their mental ways. The ingeniously arranged body of thought may after all suit itself to no one but the maker ; for others it may be eccentric or abstruse. The man whose utter- ance rouses attention and interest has a tact to find and evoke their thinking ; , he looks from their point of view, uses their capacity, becomes as it were their mouthpiece in saying what they feel but lack abilitv to put in words. The inven- tive mind recognizes(^stinctively3hatJt_tjikes two to effect an interchange~of thoughT^nd feeling ; and his care, while clear lii his own tKmkTng, is to' make sure of the other.^

1 In the following passage this trait of natural invention is described. " I spoke to him [Peter Stirling] once of a rather curious line of argument, as it seemed to me, which he was taking in a case, and he said : ' Ogden, I take that course because it is the "way Judge Potter's mind acts. If you want to convince yourself, take the arguments which do that best, but when you have to deal with judges or juries, take the lines which fit their capacities. People talk about my unusual success in winning cases. It 's simply because I am not certain that my way and my argument are the only way and the only argument. I 've studied the judges closely, so that I know what lines to take, and I always notice what seems to interest the jury most, in each case. But, more important than this study, is the fact that I can comprehend about how the average man will look at a certain thing. You see I am the son of plain people. Then I am meeting all grades of mankind, and hearing what they say, and getting their points of view. I have never sat in a closet out of touch with the world and decided what is right for others, and then spent time trying to prove it to them.' " — Ford, Peter Stirling^ p. 406,

392 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

The Superinduced Discipline. — As thus described, this natural inventive bent, with its outcome in luminous form and tactful adaptation, would seem to be a very fair outfit for authorship. By many it is so taken. It is a very prevalent idea that a person so endowed has only to let himself be borne on, as cleverness and fluency dictate ; and discipline is very com- monly disparaged, as if its tendency were to congeal native genius into the conventional and academic. What is the truth of the matter? The inventive impulse is indeed the cardinal element, and it must be a law to itself. But at this initial point it is only an instinct, not yet in the steady lead- ing of judgment, critical insight, wisdom. It is uneven and unbalanced ; with no governing power to guarantee against crudeness or extravagance or dulness. Its strong flights are an accident ; so also are its failures. It is not yet established by habit in the equable movements of the mind, but has to wait upon moods and moments of inspiration. And if it goes on untrained, it runs into froth or antics of treatment, and soon its vein runs out altogether.

This is no more of an indictment than may be brought against every native aptitude or talent. It holds in painting, in music, in popular games, in handicraft. From a run-wild affluence of nature the talent has to be developed by attention to itself into a mastered self-respecting art,^ the more of an art as it more unerringly realizes the obscure aim of the original inventive impulse.

Here, then, is suggested the office of discipline. It is not to supersede, or artificialize, or sophisticate the native powers. Its effect is to obviate such tendencies rather; and, while the powers remain a law to themselves, to make them acquit them-

1 " Art, indeed, in the sense in which we are now using it, that is, to denote the pains bestowed by the artist on his work, is merely nature giving attention to itself. It is nature in a mood of self-consciousness. Thus, to speak like a mathematician, it is limited to yield a higher power of nature." — Wilkinson, A Free Lance in the Field of Life and Letters^ p. 200.

APPROACHES TO INVENTION. 393

selves as a real law, not as whim or anomaly or accident. Dis- cipline, if the paradox may be allowed, works the natural talent into nature; it supplies the staying and steadying power, the equable consent of will, judgment, and habit by which alone nature can do and maintain its best. More than this, it brings to light many powers previously latent, or only dimly conscious of themselves ; so that many who had not thought of author- ship have by its evoking influence found some rewarding field of literary work open to them.

The Response to Occasion. — Under the general term occasion may be included all the circumstances that attend the devis- ing of a literary work, — circumstances inhering in the sub- ject, the public, and the question of timeliness.

1. Different minds are set astir, inventively, by different causes ; this is an individual matter for which* we cannot legislate. To some a subject, with its resources of thought and illustration, is a sufficient inspirer; others, not so given to analytic study, are called out into fluent utterance by an audience or the touch of the public; still others are moved to have their say by the ideas that are in the air. In most cases one of these influences will predominate, and the product will take substance and, flavor accordingly. It is one of the results of discipline, however, to make the writer mindful of all three ; and that literary work will be most vital and solid which derives inspiration from all, which will wait, if need be, till all these influences have contributed. It J.s_ an important thing thus, before a work is begun, to have zxv Jns^ir^iian poinniom which its lif^ starts, and^_from_which_ the . mind worEs with energy.

2. On this inspired impulse, acting with the individual bent and aptitude, is based the specific sense of literary form, — the sense, in the first place, whether the idea conceived is adapted to vital utterance — has the real movement of litera- ture — or is only dead truism and commonplace. This is an

394 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

important point to discover, as important as is the finding of a telling subject for pictorial art.' Then further, this quick- ened sense must be instinctively aware what form suits its conception, — whether poem, sketch, essay, story, or oration ; and conversely, what treatment of the conception will fit the form. Ideas shape themselves subtly to these forms, and are more or less misshapen out of their type of discourse. To take the natural instinct for these things and make it self- justifying and self-rectifying is the deepest work of systematic discipline.

r Lines of Inventive Talent Apart from the specific forms

of discourse, to be discussed later, two main lines in which inventive skill works may here be defined, as a kind of chart to those, especially untried writers, who are looking over into the realm of letters and questioning whether their endowments will entitle them to enter.

fiT' The invention which, answering most nearly to the type, centres in the creation of some new product of thought or imagination, opening as it were a new region in life, may be

1 " There should be a word in the language of literary art to express what the word * picturesque ' expresses for the fine arts. Picturesque means fit to be put into a picture ; we want a word literatesque, ' fit to be put into a book.' An artist goes through a hundred different country scenes, rich with beauties, charms and merits, but he does not paint any of them. He leaves them alone ; he idles on till he finds the hundred-and-first — a scene which many observers would not think much of, but which he knows by virtue of his art will look well on canvas, and this he paints and preserves. Susceptible observers, though not artists, feel this quality too ; they say of a scene, * How picturesque ! ' meaning by this a quality distinct from that of beauty, or sub- limity, or grandeur — meaning to speak not only of the scene as it is in itself, but also of its fitness for imitation by art ; meaning not only that it is good, but that its good- ness is such as ought to be transferred to paper ; meaning not simply that it fasci- nates, but also that its fascination is such as Ought to be copied by man. . . . Literature — the painting of words — has the same quality, but wants the analogous word. The word * literatesque ' would mean, if we possessed it, that perfect combination in the sutject-matter of literature, which suits the art of literature. ... As a painter must not only have a hand to execute, but an eye to distinguish — as he must go here and there through the real world to catch the picturesque man, the picturesque scene, which is to live on his canvas — so the poet must find in that reality, the literatesque man, the literatesque scene which nature intends for him, and which will live in his page." — Bagehot, Literary Studies, Vol. ii, pp. 341, 343, 345.

APPROACHES TO INVENTION. 395

called the originative invention. It is what the Greeks had in mind in namfing a supreme author Trot^rijs, a maker, from which name cornes our word poet, but which in their sense of it covered all wprks of the distinctively creative imagination, — poetry, romance, the drama. It is in these forms of dis- course that we pftenest see this kind of invention embodied ; and though it may reveal all degrees, or almost no degree, of originality therein, still, independent discovery and setting- forth, the making of a new work in kind as in order,, is its motive and aim. In our day the prevailing output of this line of invention is fiction.

Note. — The great works of literature which have survived their age and become classic have been works of the creative invention ; and their writers, whether the works are much read at first hand or not, rank as leaders of thought, — as "the born seers, men who see for themselves and who originate." That the roll of such names should be headed by Homer, jEschylus, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, ranking by the side of great creative thinkers, Plato, Aristotle, Bacon, Newton, Darwin, does not shut out the lowlier names, of those who can by some creative stroke open a new tract of thought or imagination; Anthony TroUope, who added a, new shire to England, is in his way a worker in this line.

Q2jThe invention which, taking the great thoughts that in tKeir original form may have been too massive or too concen- trated for the general mind, works these out interpretatively into plainness and lucid order, may be called the organizing invention. The products of this kind of work may or may not seem to the inventor original ; but as it centres in making things clear and plain, it is mainly in the organism, the elucidation, that the originality consists. And if this is not the greatest or most permanent work, it is the most widely useful ; it serves its own generation, if not the next, in responding to great movements of thought and giving them wider currency and diffusion. In its grades of usefulness, too, it may show all degrees, from a masterly body of proportioned and illus-

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trated thought to a masterly handling of tabulated views and statistics.

Note. — The thinking that at beginning found few who were able to compass it, as for instance the great theories of Newton and Darwin, becomes common schoolboy property in the age succeeding ; the great movements of research and philosophy get eventual access to the common mind; and this by the work of lecturers, orators, writers of text-books, treatises, and monographs, — men whose faculty is clearness of sight and lucid balance of thinking. These are abilities to which in some degree every one may aspire. And the exercise of some such faculty of common- sense invention is what is called for in the great bulk of casual papers that ordinary men have occasion to write.

II. THE SUPPORT FROM SELF-CULTURE. J

Apprenticeship to any art goes deeper than learning the use of tools and methods of work. The worker's whole mental attitude must become habituated to the spirit of his pursuit. The carpenter evolves a carpenter mind ; the musical composer moves in an atmosphere of musical thought ; the painter sees schemes of color and pictorial combination everywhere. In the great field of literature, too, this is so. There must be evolved the literary mind, conscious of its high calling, and with all its faculties united and concentrated on the large art of expression. This is more than being expert in knacks and methods ; it is a dominating current of life ; it has to be fed and supported by systematic self-culture.

At this point a disadvantage of our work has to be noted and allowed for. In the period while the text-book is studied, this self-culture can only be pointed out, or at most begun. What is to be said about it, therefore, must look mostly to the future. The college course is too brief and crowded, and too early placed in life, for the student to establish that controlling inventive and literary current which is essential. Experience of life, the grip of problems and events at first hand, is want-

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ing. Besides, the whole temper and attitude of undergraduate study is in the direction of taking in truth, rather than of giving it out in individual mintage and conviction. Yet this latter is the very essence of invention. The writer, in his chosen line, must lead, must teach, must guide, must take the initiative ; and to this the prevailing bent of his being must be trained.' To accomplish this in school days is uphill work, not to say impossible. The most that can be done here is to point out the way, and suggest a line of self-culture which may some day be vital.

The following aspects of self-culture are here treated not for their importance in themselves, though this is reail and great, but for their relation to literary invention.

The Spirit of Observation This, as aipplied to the world

in general, outer and inner, is practically identical with what is called the scientific spirit. It is the spirit that appreciates and appropriates facts, just as they are ; first of all by the keen and accurate use of the senses, the fundamental means of gathering truth. But the same spirit is also quick to see the relations of facts, the vitalizing of facts into truths ; it is as keen to gather material from life as from nature, from books as from life. So what we here define is the scientific spirit in the large sense, with all the enthusiasm, the sense of values, the accuracy, the verifying caution, that characterize the born observer. Everything thus gathered has its uses in the fabric of literary presentation ; but, what is of more import- ance, the habit of keeping mind and senses open to facts keeps the mind open to activity, to self-reliant energy, to origination.

1 " The first duty of any man who is to write is intellectual. Designedly or not, he has so far set himself up for a leader of the minds of men ; and he must see that his own mind is kept supple, charitable, and bright." — Stevenson, The Morality of the ProfessioK. of Letters, Works, Vol. xxii, p. 283.

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The following aspects of this spirit of observation lie near- est to, and are the greatest supports of, invention.

Alertness of Mind. — The beginning of the observing spirit is nothing difficult or profound ; it is simply being awake, being interested ; and that means letting the mind, the active, curious, discriminative thought, be at work behind the eye in what is seen. By its attitude of interrogation and ready welcome of facts the mind sets up a vitalizing energy which is the first impulse to luminous and ordered use of knowledge.^

Every one has his own sphere in which his mind is alert' Whatever pertains to his own pursuit or calling, for instance, has immediate appeal to him, so that he becomes an expert observer therein ; the mechanic in evidences of manual skill, the farmer in soils and crops, the general in topography and strategic points. Every new interest, too, creates its province of specialized observation and keenness ; witness, for instance, how soon a bicyclist acquires an expert knowledge of roads, and an amateur photographer of effective points of view. What these limited examples suggest applies, in a degree bounded only by the writer's breadth of mind, to the un- limited field of literature. It is the motive of his calling to make use of a universal special sense, by which the world is laid under contribution for enriching materials, and through

1 " A faculty of wise interrogating is lialf a Icnowledge. For as Plato saith, 'Whosoever seekoth, knoweth that which he seeketh for in a general notion; else how shall he know it when he hath found it ? ' And therefore the larger your Antici- pation is, the more direct and compendious is your search." — Bacon, Advance- ment of Learnings Book ii, p. 271. — " When I speak of a waiting mind, I do not mean a non-affirmative, non-energized, Mr. Micawber sort of mind, waiting for some- thing to turn up, but a mind intent, a mind that goes to its windows and looks out and longs, and thrusts forth its telescope to find something. A mind thus intense, investigatory, and practically beseeching, amounts to a tremendous loadstone in the midst of the full-stocked creation — full-stocked with the materials of thought — and when this or that comes into the windows of such a mind it is stamped by that mind, and specialized to its uses, with a threefold vigor, and all the incomes thus explicitly stamped are the more explicitly germane to each other, and visibly of one species." — Burton, Yak Lectures, p. 50.

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which the rudimentary work of invention, the finding of the germs of new ideas, gets itself done without effort.

Diversity of Interest Not only to be mentally alert, but

to be alert to a great variety of things, to have the percep- tions trained in many lines of observation, to be not narrow and partial but having a wide horizon of outlook and taste, — this is where the literary observation is called upon to go beyond the scientific. It thus becomes a perception at once specialized, in its keen penetrativeness, and universal, in its readiness to weigh new elements of the problem and make fair allowance for new points of view.^

Following are some of the good results of this diversity of interest, in forming the literary temperament.

1. To have an eye for many and various kinds of fact is equivalent to having a mastery of so many points and angles of view ; and this mastery greatly deepens and enriches any single aspect of things. For no fact is isolated, no truth is known as it is until its relation with its whole realm of truth is understood. The interests of specialization itself, of getting a true comprehension of any one fact, demand that the power to observe and sympathize be varied and liberal.^

2. To cultivate diversity of view is to cultivate the ability to see through many men's eyes ; and this, whatever it may

1 Of an eminent master in eloquence and letters this is said : " He habitually fed himself with any kind of knowledge which was at hand. If books were at his elbow, he read them ; if pictures, engravings, gems were within reach, he studied them ; if nature was within walking distance, he watched nature ; if men were about him, he learned the secrets of their temperaments, tastes, and skills ; if he were on shipboard, he knew the dialect of the vessel in the briefest possible time; if he travelled by stage, he sat with the driver and learned all about the route, the country, the people, and the art of his companion ; if he had a spare hour in a village in which there was a manufactory, he went through it with keen eyes and learned the mechanical processes used in it." ■ — Mabie, Essays on Books and Culture^ p. 27.

2 " Everything but prejudice should find a voice through him ; he should see the good in all things ; where he has even a fear that he does not wholly understand, there he should be wholly silent ; and he should recognize from the first that he has only one tool in his workshop, and that tool is sympathy." — Stevenson, The Morality of the Profession of Letters^ Works, Vol. xxii, p. 283.

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do for science, is essential to literature, which by its funda- mental genius exists for no one class but for all. It is only on one side that invention looks toward its subject ; the other side, looking toward readers, must take such measures of cul- ture as will meet and satisfy their varieties of taste and tem- perament. This is a matter not only of education but of literary conscience.

3. To have a varied and flexible view is to have such con- trol over one's judgments of things that the ground of esti- mate is not likes and dislikes, not any form of prejudice, but a recognition of what is intrinsic in each. It is thus that the literary observer learns trustworthy discrimination ; he likes what is likable, in men and things, and makes just allow- ance whether he likes or not. A tolerant spirit this ; some- times mistaken for a spirit too weakly swayed by some new idea or fashion ; but in truth it does not imperil, rather it greatly promotes while it deeply grounds, a tempered posi- tiveness of judgment.^

The Verifying Spirit. — In literature as truly as in science, the observation of fact, by which we mean in the large sense getting at the real truth of things, has to be made not more in the glow of discovery than in the spirit of caution. At every step results need to be tested and questioned, held back for verification or change, until the forward step can be taken in full certitude. This applies equally to the fact observed and to the way of relating or expressing it. It is merely giv-

■ 1 " Cultivate universality of taste. There is no surer mark of a half-educated mind than the incapacity of admiring various forms of excellence. Men who cannot praise Dryden without dispraising Coleridge ; nor feel the stern, earthly truthfulness of Crabbe without disparaging the wild, ethereal, impalpable music of Shelley ; nor exalt Spenser except by sneering at Tennyson, are precisely the persons to whom it should in consistency seem strange that in God's world there is a place for the eagle and the wren, a separate grace to the swan and the humming-bird, their own fragrance to the cedar and the violet. Enlarge your tastes, that you may enlarge your hearts as well as your pleasures ; feel all that is beautiful — love all that is good." — Robertson, Lectures and Addresses^ p, 797.

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ing the control to the sturdy principle, Be sure you are right. This engenders a habit of self-rectification, of keeping one's head in the rush and onset of utterance, of falling back on sound sense and the plain appearance of things, which in the , long run is the one guarantee of solid and surviving literary work.

In somewhat greater detail we may note here the following good effects of this verifying spirit.

1. It tempers and regulates the constructive faculty. In the glow of discussion or creativeness a writer is often tempted to say a thing not because it is true but because it is striking. The observation has been made, and the result looks plausible, but it has not been subjected to the necessary verification. The writer thus, whether his thought is correct or not, is primarily seeking not to make a truth prevail but to gain attention to a performance, or perhaps to fill out an ingenious plan ; and this motive of work, sooner or later, is sure to work harm. With the verifying impulse in control, however, the solid basis of appeal is the established fact ; and what- ever freedom of plan or utterance there is — and the impulse, rightly employed, is no check to this — obeys the fact as a structural and emotional law.

2. It keeps the work clQse to the first-hand and common- sense view of things, the natural color. Learning has a way, unless regulated by the touch of earth, of piling itself up in pedantic, bookish, top-heavy systems remote from human in- terests. It is a tendency to be guarded against in all special- ized study. The corrective to this the verifying spirit has a large hand in supplying ; for its appeal is not more to the highly sublimated than to the every-day and universal observ- ing powers.'

1 " We heard Webster once, in a sentence and a look, crush an hour's argument of the curious workman ; it was most intellectually wire-drawn and hair-splitting, with Grecian sophistry, and a subtlety the Leontine Gorgias might have envied. It

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3. It creates the valuable ability to hold judgments in abeyance, to tolerate uncertainty on subjects wherein verifi- cation is not possible. The merit of youthful thinkers is vigor and directness ; their fault, to be overcome by ripening and deepening judgment, is rash and one-sided conclusion, made on insufficient ground. To such minds it is a pain, and seems a sin, to be in want of decision or of definite opinions ; it seems to indicate weakness and vacillation. But there are occasions where just this incertitude is strength ; because there are questions that cannot be settled by the first look of things, or perhaps cannot be settled at all. The verifying, patient, testing spirit is tolerant of such questions and waits for the grounded answer, or failing this, is not afraid to say, I do not know.'

II.

Habits of Meditation The ability to think out the design

of an individual work of literature is based upon a previous training, deep and long continued, wherein the writer's mind has become disposed and steadied to that kind of work. The name we give to this deeper and habitual mental activity is meditation; meaning thereby not only concentrated thought

was about two car-wheels, which to common eyes looked as like as two eggs ; but Mr. Choate, by a fine line of argument between tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee, and a discourse on the ' fixation of points ' so deep and fine as to lose itself in obscurity, showed the jury there was a heaven-wide difference between them. ' But,' said Mr. Webster, and his great eyes opened wide and black, as he stared at the big twin wheels before him, 'Gentlemen of the jury, there they are, — look at 'em'; and as he pronounced this answer, in tones of vast volume, the distorted wheels seemed to shrink back again into their original similarity, and the long argument on the 'fixation of points' died a natural death." — Parker, Golden Age of American Oratory^ p. 221.

1 " During this training in accurate observation, the youth should learn how hard it is to determine with certainty even an apparently simple fact. He should learn to distrust the evidence of his own senses, to repeat, corroborate, and verify his observa- tions, and to mark the profound distinction between the fact and any inference, how- ever obvious, from the fact."— Eliot, American Contributions to Civilization, p. 215.

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but along with it a deliberate continuance of application until the subject has assumed a seasoned form and order in the mind. It may be called, in a word, the trained power of letting a thought grow. Meditation is just the opposite of revery, with which superficial thinking sometimes confounds it. In revery the mind, being passive, does not direct its course of thinking but is borne on vaguely by it. In medi- tation, while the course of thinking seems to be, and is, fol- lowing its own evolution, the mind, intensely active, is all the while working it out in ordered process. The power to do this has to be developed by self-culture, until the mind which to begin with was wayward and unsure, or more or less the prey of revery, has acquired by degrees a firm grasp,, a penetrative and concentrative insight, a general sense of mastery over its workings.

Meditation, when itself a habit, has at its basis certain elemental habits which become a kind of exaction or necessity of the thinking mind. The following are the most practically operative of these.

The Habit of seeking Clearness. — It is often remarked that the first presentation of a subject to the writer's thought is apt to be cloudy ; a vague idea which must gradually be worked from haziness to clearness. This plight of the sub- ject, at whatever stage of meditation, is by no means a neces- sity. The gist of the whole matter may flash upon the mind at once ; and if the mind has formed a habit of seeking clear- ness it will. By this is meant a habit, applied to every acquisition of thought as it comes, of patiently thinking away its indistinctness and intricacy until its central significance stands out plain. The neglect to do this in any case does just so much to fasten a vague tendency on the mind. The stern holding one's self to it in every case does so much to make the effort superfluous ; it establishes the exaction of clear thinking as a second nature. And when this is so it is

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increasingly the fact that subjects of thought come to mind not cloudily but in clear-cut nucleus and outline.

One good effect of this habit is to keep the writer from being content with hasty or ill-considered work. The de- mand for clearness becomes to him a kind of conscience, for- bidding him either to let his own mind be imposed upon by a show of profundity in the subject, or to let any half-ripened work leave his hands. It forbids lazy or sloppy or hurried thinking.

A second good effect of this habit is to keep the writer from attacking subjects that are beyond him. This is a fre- quently noted tendency of young writers. Easily carried away by the surface-ideas of a great subject, they soon find themselves committed beyond their depth, and all they can do is merely to retail truisms. The grounded resolve to be clear, to subject every thought rigorously to the test of plain- ness, does much to keep thinkers in their own sphere.^

The Habit of seeking Order. — ■ This is correlative to the habit just mentioned ; being a distributive act while the other is concentrative. That is, it seeks to view subjects analytic- ally ; determining their parts and dependencies, noting what is principal and what subordinate, seeing them in a kind of perspective, wherein effect stretches out from cause and con- crete details from central principles. This ability, like the other, has to be developed from individual effort to habit, by being applied to all subjects of thought, and not merely to the themes on which one is to write. And when by habit the mind is thoroughly set to tolerate no disorder, every subject that comes falls into spontaneous order, and all collateral thought, and memorized experience, and reading even the most casual, ranges in relation with it.

1 A suggestive indication of a clear-seeking mind is tlie note appended to Mil- ton's unfinished poem on The Passion ; " This subject the Author finding to be above the years he had when he wrote it, and nothing satisfied with what was begun, left it unfinished."

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Of good effects of this habit, one is, that the planning of material becomes less and less a drudgery or a seeming arbi- trary process, and more and more a natural growth, wherein both the subject and the organizing mind are following the lines of their own self-movement. Not that planning becomes less work ; it is likelier to be more ; but the work is deeper and more central, less like shallow ingenuity, more like a necessary evolution.'

A second good result of this habit, is that the writer is thus guarded against the superficial tendencies of rapid writing. Rapid composition is not necessarily shallow, any more than careful and labored authorship is ipso facto thorough. Both qualities are really qualities not of the composition but of the mind. It is the trained intellect, intolerant of distorted or dislocated thought, that contributes most to permanent and satisfying work. With this antecedent culture once established the ability to write rapidly, which is easily enough acquired, has a sound basis to build upon, while its bad tendencies are forestalled and avoided.

The Habit of seeking Independent Conclusions. — This habit it is which is the foundation of originality in writing. It may not lead to better views of truth than are already extant ; it may not lead to new conclusions, in the absolute sense ; its virtue is that by it the writer does his own thinking and reaches his own conclusion. Whatever he gives to the world has become, for him, a discovery ; it is vitalized by his mind, and takes form according to his vision and personality. This, and not the absolute new, is what is meant by origi-

1 Of the essay whose plan is studied below, p. 438, the author writes : " My lit- erary and critical essays are by-products of my desk, written for the most part to ease the strain of my regular and, so to say, professional writing. They are, there- fore, not thought out by plan before being composed, but form themselves under my hand as I turn and return to them from time to time; I am the more pleased that

this one should turn out to possess something so nearly like a systematic plan."

Private letter frow. Professor IVoodrow Wilson.

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nality ; this, as an energizing attitude of mind, is the writer's justification for approaching the subject at all.

An accompaniment of this habit, and a result, may here be noted.

Along with this habit the writer needs to develop confi- dence in his own well-considered conclusions. This is very hard for young writers. They are too timid to strike out for themselves, and are influenced out of or into any view by the last article they have read. A modesty not unbecoming in those who are just beginning to think ; it is, however, so far to be overcome that the writer shall have a well-grounded view of his own which he cannot lay aside for any man's assertion. To have such confidence is not necessarily to be opinionated or to fail of deference to others ; it is simply to trust, as the thing he knows best, in the integrity of his own mind's working.

The result of this habit and of its attendant confidence is that one's work carries the note of conviction and authority, and this not a seeming but real. It may contain a view identical with another author's, yet not be an echo or a copy ; it. may use the results of reading, yet be so digested and vitalized .that all is transformed into a new product. The new personality, the new individual range and color, give it value ; and this is the birthright of every one who thinks and writes.'^

Avails of Sub-Conscious Mental Action Given a mind trained

as above described, with 'habits steadied to trusty and per-

1 " I insist upon original effort ; tliat, rather than reading to begin with, for another reason. In every mental act there are two factors involved : the thinking mind, and the external materials which it manipulates ; and men may l>e classified as original and productive thinkers, or as copyists, plagiarists, and forms of echo, according as they dominate this their material or are dominated by it. But tlie most ignominious person in all the world, if so that he have one remaining spark, or last flicker, of manliness in him, desires to be a man of supreme generative force and not an echo ever j and this he can secure only as in the handling of subjects he thinks with all his might before he reads." —Burton, Yale Lectures, p. 50.

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manent pace, and much may be left, much had better be left, to that strange power which the mind has of working sub- consciously. In many cases when the train of thought is started, instead of punishing the brain to worry out the whole problem, the best way is to leave it to itself, and when next the subject is recalled a remarkable advance and clearing-up will be found to have taken place. This is a phenomenon so normal and constant that writers of experience become aware at what point to lay aside effort and leave their cerebration to itself. To do so is not the same as idling over thought ; it. cannot consist, in fact, with laziness; it is rather a wise division of labor between the conscious and the sub-conscious processes.

This is mentioned here not as a curiosity of literary inven- tion, but for its practical value. Writing that has been hur- ried and dashed together, with only the intense and active brain concerned in it, is raw, unripe, unquiet ; writing wherein the avails of the sub-conscious working have been utilized both shows and has a peculiar quality of finish, deep-founded- ness, repose, — this because the whole mind has been engaged on it, and produced a growth rather than a manufacture. It does not pay, then, to hurry the preliminary work of litera- ture; the only result is to leave the deepest half of it undone.^

1 " Nothing should be done in a hurry- that can be done slowly. It is no use to write a book and put it by for nine or even ninety years ; for in the writing you will have partly convinced yourself ; the delay must precede any beginning ; and if you meditate a work of art, you should first long roll the subject under the tongue to make sure you like the flavor, before you brew a volume that shall taste of it from end to end." — Stevenson, The Morality of the Profession of Letters, Works, Vol. xxii, p. 285. — " Moreover, I had thought I might mention this curious little fact : — that a topic selected on Monday, say, snugged away in the mind, and let alone there, absolutely, for three or four days and nights ; not being brooded and worked over at all, I mean ; on examination at the end of that time, will be found to have sprouted into a very considerable affair — your mind has seen to that unconsciously — you have had nothing to do with it — and (what is stranger still) experience proves (my experience does) that if you had been sound asleep all those four days, some sprouting would have come to pass. Scores of times after I have gone to bed Friday night I have made a little stir in me, and got my next Sunday's sermon

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Yet on the other hand, this is the very opposite of deserting the subject; rather, the mind, moving all the while in the region and atmosphere of it, has learned the art of what is called mulling, — the deliberate yet deeply active waiting for its own processes to mature.

Avails of Casual Topics in Meditation. — Of immense value in all literary invention, but of special advantage to those who have to write statedly and frequently, is the habit of keeping several topics of meditation rounding and ripening at once. The mind, having thus definite centres and rendezvous of thought, disposes of any casual topics that come in its way, and is continually attracting more. Such a habit, which with a little care may be easily formed, endows the writer's whole sphere of observation with greatly increased significance. Whatever he reads, even casually, is almost sure to contain something that either clusters round some nucleus of thought already in his mind, or, no less frequently, establishes a new thought-centre therein. And when the time comes to write, even though it be a pressing emergency, he will not be at loss for subject and seasoned material ; the occasion has been forestalled by his every-day habit of stowing away topics in mind and applying to them his odd moments of thought, observation, and reading. It is merely a question, so to say, of picking the subject that is ripest.

III.

Ways of Reading The ways of reading here recounted

have in view one definite end, invention ; and this not so much any specific method of invention — "reading up," as the phrase is, for some theme — as the general power of invention.

decided on, and then on waking Saturday morning have noticed a marked advance in me of that topic — it has swollen — it has put out feelers and drawn in correlative thoughts — very Ukely it is all ready for me to begin writing on." — Burton, Yalt Lectures^ p. 60.

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Reading as a feeder of the originative mind, we may call our subject. As such the reading presupposes and logically follows the mental activities already exerted in the spirit of observation and in habits of meditation ; that is, reading, to be a feeder of invention, must have these as its basis and vitalizer. This is the prime requisite.

Creative Reading. — By this phrase, borrowed from Emerson, we may name the way of reading that the writer should cultivate as securing and including all. By it is meant simply that alertness of mind already described,'' applied to books, and set in the direction of invention.^ It is an attitude in reading wherein the mind is at once receiving the matter of the book and active toward giving it out again recoined, reselected, applied to a new product and purpose. It submits to the inventive lines of the author, yet is vigorously engaged on the same subject-matter, following inventive lines of its own, or if adopting his, making them in turn its own property and way of thinking.'

This inventive attitude in reading is what distinguishes the scholar from the book-worm, the thinker from the idle absorber of. print. It is the increasing multitude of this latter class of readers that makes the present enormous out- put of literature a doubtful blessing. Reading may easily become a mental dissipation. It is such to the book-worm mind, charged to the brim with printed matter, crammed with undigested loads of book-lore, an insatiable absorber, with

1 See above, p. 398.

2 Here is recalled a remark once made to the present writer by one of his Leipzig teachers, Professor Friedrich Delitzsch. " A German professor," said he in a tone of playful •exaggeration, " never reads a book except with the design of writing another."

8 " One must be an inventor to read well. As the proverb says ' He that would bring home the wealth of the Indies must carry out the wealth of the Indies.' There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion. Every sentence is doubly significant, and the sense of our author is as broad as the world." — Emerson, The American Scholar ^ Works, Vol. i, p. 94.

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neither impulse nor ability to make its stores useful, a mind inert, benumbed, deadened by unassimilated knowledge. It is such just as deplorably to him whose mental food is books not worth remembering, — vapid fiction and froth of the day, which he reads not to retain but to make a means of killing time. The evil of such books, when one is enslaved to them, is that they kill more than time : they kill the memory, they kill interest in solid matters, they kill all grasp and sharpness of thought. It is this kind of reading to which we are here concerned to enforce a contrast.

This inventive attitude — the mind active superseding the mind passive, — while it is indispensable to the writer, is of untold value to all who read. If it does not produce new books, it gives the reading itself infinitely more worth, by weaving it in with living thought. And it is the scholar's special privilege to make this attitude so thoroughly a second nature that the creative bent may invigorate all his reading, however rapidly or even cursorily it is carried on, or for whatever purpose. That is what his scholarly mind is given to him for ; that is the true object of culture.^

Three ways of creative reading may here be specified. They are suggested by the following familiar passage from Bacon : " Some Bookes are to be Tasted, Others to^ be Swal- lowed, and Some Few to be Chewed and Digested: That is, some Bookes are to be read onely in Parts ; Others to be read but not Curiously ; And some Few to be read wholly, and

1 " Books are the best of things, well used ; abused, among the worst. What is the right use ? What is the one end which all means go to effect .' They are for nothing but to inspire. I had better never see a book than to be wafped by its attraction clean out of my own orbit, and made a satellite instead of a system. The one thing in the world, of value, is the active soul. This every man is entitled to ; this every man contains within him, although in almost all men obstructed, and as yet unborn. The soul active sees absolute truth and utters truth, or creates. In this action it is genius ; not the privilege of here and there a favorite, but the sound estate of every man." — Emerson, The American Scholar, Works, Vol. i, p. 91.

• APPROACHES TO INVENTION. 411

with Diligence and Attention." ' Let us take up these sug- gestions in inverse order.

I. Reading for Discipline. — This is mentioned first, because it is the practical means, so far as external culture can do it, of inducing that creative current in the mind which is neces- sary to make any way of reading effective. As the object implies, it is reading carried on as a habit and self-culture ; reading pursued with the express purpose of feeding and stimulating inventive power.

If the question rises, Why read for discipline ? the answer is suggested, not dimly, by a consideration of the two objects that in our day govern wellnigh the whole field of general reading. Men read either for information, as represented by the newspaper, or for pastime, as represented by current fic- tion ; and in both cases not only is the manner of reading rapid and cursory but the matter ordinarily provided is such as bids for such perusal, — light in ' weight, catchy, and of transient interest. A third way of reading is needed, then, for this if for no other reason : in order to put on the brakes, to stay with a book long enough to get some flavor of culture, to get below those surface points which merely catch a casual attention, to the undercurrents of thought and ideal and inven- tion that have swept in the deep personality, of the author.

The question what to read for discipline thus very nearly answers itself. Not the superficial but the searching books, the works of creative invention and of great men ; more especially the books that are recognized as the great master- pieces and vital springs of literature. Not many such books, but few, and one at a time ; not necessarily or preferably bulky books, but those wherein much is said, and especially much large personality revealed, in little space.^ The specific

1 Bacon, Essay Of Studies.

2 It was literature of this fibre tliat Milton had in mind, literature such as he himself would create, when in his Areopagitica he wrote : " For Books are not abso- lutely dead things, but doe contain a potencie of life in them to be as active as that

412 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

books of this sort must be left for the reader's peculiar bent to find ; in the broad field of our seasoned and classical litera- ture the choice is large. That it is real — that large disci- plinary and quickening value exists in works of this sort — is shown by the way the English Bible, and Shakespeare, and Dante, and Milton, to say nothing of more modern writers, have reverberated through our literature, moulding and steady- ing generations of thought and style.

The answer to the question how to read for discipline falls into line with the rest. When you have chosen a work that rises out of the centre of a deep life, read until you are in possession of its inner secret. That is what disciplinary reading amounts to ; the method is but devising detailed means to this. Read both rapidly, to get the grand sweep of it, and with slow studiousness, to resolve phrase and allusion, and to fathom the involvements of thought and imagination. Read analytically, until all is resolved into its elements ; read synthetically, until all the elements are vitally joined again ; read so many times that the spirit and substance of the work become a part of your own mind's tissue. And the result will be that the writer's power of invention will to some de- gree be infused into you ; having submitted thoroughly to his mind's working, you will find your own mind braced and stimu- lated to work inventively. This is the true meaning of read- ing for culture, so much talked of. Few pursue it far enough, or patiently enough, to know what is in it ; but for those who do, it is worth all the time and meditation devoted to it.

The question when to read for discipline must not be dis- missed as unimportant. For the thinker and writer such read- ing should be the custom and habit of every day. It has thus something of the nutritive power of daily food. By authors

soule was whose progeny they are ; nay they do preserve as in a violl the purest efficacie and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. ... A good Booke is the pretious life-blood of a master spirit, imbalm'd and treasur'd up on purpose to a life beyond life."

APPROACHES TO INVENTION. 413

ancient and modern it has been pursued especially as a means of giving the mind tone and glow preparatory to composition. A short season of meditation over the pages of some con- genial author serves to transport the reader, as it were, into the literary atmosphere, wherein his mind begins, by the discipline it has imbibed, to strike out inventive lines for itself.i

2. Compendious Reading This way of reading, for which

in our studious age there is great occasion, has in view the rapid gaining of large and general masses of information, the mastery of whole books and whole tracts of theory or story, as a kind of background or setting for the writer's own more restricted department of work. It supplies the kind of all- round culture that Bacon had in mind when he said, " Read- ing maketh a full man." The books that are thus read rapidly and in the large are the practical treatises : history, science, philosophy, criticism, as also travels and descriptive works, and for a less strenuous object, works of fiction. Such books leave in the reader's mind a large survey of their subject-matter ; they represent the basis of liberal information to which his specialty of study is more or less intimately related and by which it is oriented.

Rapid reading can be done well only by an alert and quickened mind ; and this is most practically secured by a previous thorough habituation to disciplinary reading. Let

1 " Let it be added . . . that the method in question is supported by the practice of many eminent authors. Voltaire used to read Massillon as a stimulus to pro- duction. Bossuet read Homer for the same ■ purpose. Gray read Spenser's Fairie Queene as the preliminary to the use of his pen. The favorites of Milton were Homer and Euripides. Fenelon resorted to the ancient classics promiscuously. Pope read Dryden as his habitual aid to composing. Corneille read Tacitus and Livy. Clarendon did the same. Sir William Jones, on his passage to India, planned five different volumes, and assigned to each the author he resolved to read as a guide and an awakener to his own mind for its work. Buff on made the same use of the works of Sir Isaac Newton. With great variety of tastes, successful authors have generally agreed in availing themselves of this natural and facile method of educating their minds to the work of original creation." — Phelps, Men and Books, P- 303-

414 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

the mind become fully accustomed to noting the finer and deeper elements, and compendious reading, instead of being the surface skimming that such reading too generally is, will yield much of its depth at a glance. This is an accomplish- ment well worth working for.

As thus trained for, compendious reading, more specifically defined, is the application of the acquired ability to steer the mind, in reading, straight from or through details and color- ing to the central current of thought. It requires, as it also progressively develops, first, grasp of the vital thread of dis- course ; secondly, an instinctive discrimination between what is principal and what subordinate, so that in the idea retained each may assume its fitting rank and emphasis; and thirdly, ability to think in the large, to range by a kind of interpre- tative imagination over the whole field at once and realize its relations and perspectives. All this, needless to say, does not come of itself ; it is the result of a self-discipline as specific as language or mathematics.'

The grand practical object for the writer, in thus reading compendiously, is the large effect it has upon his own inven- tive work. Whatever his immediate task, he should read

1 The previous discipline, the studious basis, is here insisted on because without it rapid and compendious reading is a source of harm rather than good. It may he- come only another form of that mental dissipation already described on page 409. De Quincey thus analyzes its effect : " An evil of modern growth is met by a modern remedy. Every man gradually learns an art of catching at the leading words, and the cardinal or hinge-joints of transition, which proclaim the general course of a writer's speculation. Now it is very true, and is sure to be objected — that, where so much is certain to prove mere iteration and teasing tautology, little can be lost by this or any other process of abridgment. Certainly, as regards the particular sub- ject concerned, there may be no room to apprehend a serious injury. Not there, not in any direct interest, but in a far larger interest — indirect for the moment, but the most direct and absolute of all interests for an intellectual being, the reader suffers a permanent debilitation. He acquires a factitious propensity, he forms an incorrigible habit of desultory reading. Now, to say of a man's knowledge that it will be shal- low or (which is worse than shallow) will be erroneous and insecure in its founda- tions, is to say little of such a habit : it is by reaction upon a man's faculties, it is by the effects reflected upon his judging and reasoning powers, that loose habits of reading tell eventually. And these are durable effects. Even as respects the minor

APPROACHES TO INVENTION. 41S

more broadly and deeply than the subject in hand calls for. Too many when thus it is their duty to read up for a subject, read-, so to say, merely from hand to mouth, — that is, only so far as is to be utilized for immediate reproduction. Such reading is sure to betray itself ; it is undigested and crude. Besides, the custom is narrowing, fatal to originality, and pre- cludes improvement. By reading always broadly and deeply, the writer masters not only his immediate subject, but such an ample sphere of thought and fact as contains the material and suggestion of many allied subjects.

The value of such broad reading, as compared with the more restricted way, is twofold. First, the immediate subject is better understood and more satisfactorily presented, when in the work of research its whole department of thought, with its limits and relations, has been studied. Although only one small aspect may be given, what is presented takes a depth and color due to the writer's knowledge of its connections with more comprehensive thought ; there is a pervading sense of reserve power and fulness. Secondly, by reading beyond and below each subject the writer stores and stimulates his mind for future work. He is taking measures to maintain a reserve of resources. There is thus no danger of his writing himself out, because the fountain, though drawn from continu- ally, is kept full by the very preparation for drawing ; while the depth and quality of his knowledge improve steadily with use. His literary work is thus made a liberal education.

3. Reading by Topics. — This is reading with your own theme in mind to control ; the theme serving as a loadstone

purpose of information, better it is, by a thousandfold, to have read threescore of books (chosen judiciously) with severe attention, than to have raced through the library of the Vatican at a newspaper pace. But, as respects the final habits acquired, habits of thinking coherently, and of judging soundly — better that a man should not have read one line throughout his life, than have travelled through the journals of Europe by this random process of ' reading short.' " ^ De Quincey, Essay on Style, Works, Vol. iv, p. 209.

416 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

to attract congenial material, and as a sieve to select or leave. The material thus gathered seasons and strengthens your own thinking, and fills up the gaps. Of its utility in the general outfit of a writer, there can be of course no question.

The books that require such consultation by topics are the works of exhaustive research, yet whose subject-matter is more in the form of materials for literature than the finished literature itself ; such are specialized treatises, reports, docu- ments, and in general the original sources of minute and thorough information. To read such works through would be a positive disadvantage, to say nothing of the labor. Their subject-matter is in too diffuse and chaotic form for that. They are therefore merely to be interrogated on those par- ticular points which in other reading, or in the process of thought, have revealed themselves as in need of greater ful- ness or corroboration.

The art of reading by topics is the art of finding what one wants, and disentangling it, and letting the rest go. A simple seeming process this, yet requiring a mind very sharply trained and intensely directed. It calls for the possession, first, of a defined idea of what is wanted ; secondly, a swift instinct to select out what will serve your purpose ; and thirdly, quickness to expand suggestions, turns of phrase, hints, implications. It is but one more application of the sharpness of mind engendered by disciplinary reading and meditation, the habit of ready and accurate analysis.^

1 " I have been surprised many times, after I have diligently gestated a subject myself and then have started out into my library for the say-so of other men on that subject, to notice not merely in what a lightsome and expert way I handled them, but also in what a swift facility I utilized their many volumes; — sometimes one glance will answer — and if I encounter a book wherein the entfre subject is opened out profoundly and in a complete treatment, considerable portions of tlie book I catch up with a touch and go, and the denser parts cannot very long delay me. This sounds boastful, but it is not. Almost any man may make the experiment for himself. And I advise you all to make it — and to keep making it so long as you live." — Burton, Yale Lectures, p. 51.

APPROACHES TO INVENTION. 417

The man who reads by topics has an eye for the make-up of books. From an index, or table of contents, or preface, he can guide himself unerringly to the main or minor point that gives the consultation present significance. He comes natur- ally, by this ability, to have touch with bibliographical matters, to know what is reputable in book-making, to have acquaint- ance with publishers and their specialties, to discriminate between the authoritative and the second-hand in authorship. In addition to the knowledge he already possesses he comes insensibly to be aware where knowledge is to be looked for and found.'^ He is at home in a library, and can accumulate rapid information from a large number of books as easily as from one. Books, in short, become his companions and familiar friends.

IV.

Disposal of Results. — As one's meditation and reading become more quickened by the inventive spirit, some method of preserving results is naturally sought. This leads to the taking of notes, the devising of indexes for reference, the pre- serving of cuttings, the keeping of commonplace books, and the like. The tendency to such things, and the ability to carry on a system once adopted or to profit by what is thus

1 " No sooner had we made our bow to Mr. Cambridge, in his library, than John- son ran eagerly to one side of the room, intent on poring over the backs of the books. Sir Joshua observed, (aside), ' He runs to the books, as I do to the pictures : but I have the advantage. I can see much more of the pictures than he can of the books.' Mr. Cambridge, upon this, politely said, ' Dr. Johnson, I am going, with your pardon, to accuse myself, for I have the same custom which I perceive you have. But it seems odd that one should have such a desire to look at the backs of books.' John- son, ever ready for contest, instantly started from his reverie, wheeled about, and answered, ' Sir, the reason is very plain. Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can iind information upon it. When we enquire into any subject, the first thing we have to do is to know what books have treated of it. This leads us to look at catalogues, and the backs of books in libra- ries.' " — BosWELL, Life of Johnson (G. B. Hill's edition), Vol. ii, p. 417.

418 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

preserved, is so largely a matter of temperament that nothing whatever can be prescribed for all. Some read and meditate for immediate use, and carry their stores of information in more or less digested form in memory. Others trust much to accumulated materials and to systematic storing. As in style and planning, so here, every one must evolve his own best way, from his powers and habits of mind.

Some practical remarks may, however, here be given, espe- cially to indicate the relation of these customs to invention.

Taking Notes. — Two objects, in the main, are had in view in the taking of notes : the recording of suggestions that come to one's own mind at times when finished composition is not practicable ; and the securing, in abstract or in par- ticular data, of material read or heard. This latter material may best be cared for in the same system as are references and citations, to be mentioned presently ; it belongs like them to the unworked data of the writer's mind. The former, the record of one's own thoughts, is of special value as a stimulus and practical support to one's processes of thought ; a tangible means of developing the habit of seeking clearness and order. A note-book may thus be a workshop, where lines of thought have their germination and first shaping, and where currents of obscure meditation run themselves clear. Of course one is continually outgrowing such a record ; but this is one great element of its value, — the inventive mind is thus kept in a state of growth, and has something to outgrow.

An important feature of utility in the taking of notes is this : notes should not be heedlessly taken, or consist merely of catchwords. They should have all the finish that the time permits. Then if they are referred to afterward, they will be formed enough to yield their original flavor without painful and doubtful supplementing from memory; and further, the very putting of them down will have marked a step forward in composition. It is doubtful if an original note which does

APPROACHES TO INVENTION. 419

not represent the author's best is worth preserving ; doubtful, too, if the inventive ardor will gontinue to attend it if the note-taking evinces less than the high water mark of his "think- ing at the time.

References and Citations. — • The keeping of some kind of index rerum, for fugitive notes, references, and citations, is sure to commend itself at some time in a writer's career; and not unlikely many starts and failures may be made before the writer finds his most practicable method. This perhaps can- not well be avoided, nor is it necessarily a reproach. It will probably be found, however, that the method that works best at last is the simplest. To plan for as little machinery as possible has the best promise of success ; even though the plan adopted may be very imperfect, as compared with others advocated.

Whatever the system, the success of it depends mainly on the writer's closeness of touch with it. For this reason the kind of material preserved is most fitly such as belongs to the writer's most specialized sphere of study, the kind of fact and truth with which his mind is most constantly occupied.

Commonplace books, on account of the labor of transcrib- ing passages, are much more liable than any other undertaking to be discontinued. The same value attaches to them as to indices rerum ; there is the necessity also of keeping in touch with them, — in fact, more good comes, probably from the making of them than from their contents when they are made. For this reason no one can make a commonplace book for another ; it must have something of the personal quality of a journal intime. Like a note-book, a commonplace book is speedily outgrown ; but likewise it may when wisely used be made a practical instrument. Its value consists in keeping one's readings vital ; and this is undeniably great.

CHAPTER XIII.

/' THE COMPOSITION AS A ^WHOLE.

Before entering upon the discussion of the specific forms that invention may adopt in literary discourse, we need to. note the typical framework, or inventive system, that, with whatever modifications, exists under all forms. The principle of this has already been anticipated on the smaller scale of the single paragraph '^; it remains here to consider the prob- lems and procedures that come into view when the field of operations is broader.

In two opposite directions invention, as a devising act, works to bring its design to pass. It is first concentrative ; it thinks its material inward to one controlling, comprehensive proposition, which we call the theme. Then, secondly, it is distributive : from this theme as a centre it thinks outward along the various lines and radiations of the thought, — in other words, it makes the outline or plan. So much for the inventive process in its severe narrow sense. But, having proceeded thus far, this same devising activity, still at the work of rounding its design, takes to its aid imagination, emotional glow, and the sense of style, in the finishing process called amplification. Here at last the artistic enterprise is complete ; invention and style, no longer separate, have united in one vital yet ordered product.

These three stages of work determine the articulation of" the present chapter.

1 See The Paragraph in Structure, pp. 364 sqq., above. 420

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 421

1. THE THEME.

Definition.^ The theme, or thesis, which in some form under- lies the structure of every literary work, may be briefly defined asTKe'worlcin^-iHea of the discourse.

As a working-idea, that is, as something to serve for point of departure and nucleus of organism, the theme is not a thing caught up arbitrarily ; it gets its status as the result of a vigor- ous mental process of concentration and packing, reducing what at first was vague and diffused from nebulous to orbic form. When, therefore, it is thus determined, it has derived suggestion from a large tract of thought ; it is, in fact, the whole discourse reduced to one comprehensive proposition. When the body of thought has been called in from its diffused state to this organic centre, and not before, it is in condition for working.^

As related to the Subject. — What is thus concentrated must begin somewhere, must have something to condense. This something from which the theme is derived presents itself to the mind first in that large and unshaped mass of material which we call the subject.

The subject, then, may be defined as the materiaLaLjiiS:^ course before meditation : the theme as the phrase or propo- sition that represents the material after the first stage of meditation, when the range and bounds of treatment are determined. Subject and theme stand to each other much in the relation of class and individual. The theme is not

1 " To give the phrase, the sentence, the structural member, the entire composition, song, or essay, a similar unity with its subject and with itself: — style is in the right way when it tends toward that. All depends upon the original unity, the vital wholeness and identity, of the initiatory apprehension or view." — Pater, Appreciations, p. 19.

22 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

. part of the subject, because as an individual it retains all he traits of its class ; rather it is the whole subject turned n a certain determinate direction.

Note. — In Cardinal Newman's lecture on Elementary Studies {Idea of University, pp. 355-361 ), there is a very lucid distinction made between what re here called subject and theme. It occurs in a discussion of a student, ssay on Fortes Fortuna Adjuvat (Fortune favors the brave). " Now look lere, the subject [theme] is 'Fortes fortuna adjuvat'; now this is z,propo- itiojz ; it states a certain general principle. . . . ' Fortuna ' was not his sub- ect [theme] ; the thesis was intended to guide him, for his own good. . . . t would have been very cruel to have told a boy to write on ' fortune ' ; it vould have been like asking him his opinion of ' things in general.' For- une is ' good,' ' bad,' ' capricious,' ' unexpected,' ten thousand things all at mce, . . . and one of them as much as the other. Ten thousand things may )e said of it ; give me one of them, and I will write upon it ; I cannot write )n more than one."

What this direction, this working thrust of the subject shall 36, may depend on a variety of considerations : its timeliness, tor instance ; its adaptedness to the public for which it is designed and to the occasion and limitations of treatment ; the literary form in which the writer chooses to work, — essay, oration, story, or treatise. Most of all, however, it depends on the special discovery which the writer has made concern- ing the subject. He has come to view it in a certain light, or from a certain point of view ; and the theme is just the accurate formulation, for his own guidance in treatment, of the way the subject looks thus viewed. He recognizes, in other words, that not everything, not every important thing, can be said about any subject. What is said must be rigor- ously selected, both for the occasion and in view of the par- ticulars that belong together. The theme is the principle of selection, put into such form that the writer can use it as a point of departure and mental reference.

Thus the theme becomes a point of outlook toward all the divisions of the discourse, and has the life of it all in crystalliza-

• THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 423

tion, while also it determines the scale and the selection that shall control every part. This implies, and ideally requires, so fine a relation, that in a well-invented paper an analysis can condense its various stages back into a theme again, and thus test the unity and mutual consistency of the whole in a single utterance.

Examples. — This relation of theme to subject maybe illustrated by taking some standard essays which are well enough planned to bear it, and reducing them to their nucleus thought.

1. Of Macaulay's Essay on History'^ the large subject is obvious: history. So far forth, however, we have no limitation of it, not even enough to fit its form ; it might be a voluminous treatise on universal history ; it might define history in a few paragraphs. A little examination sufiices to show that Macaulay has in mind a treatment suited to the project that he was then beginning to cherish of writing a history ; it is his thought on The Art of Writing History. This restricts the original subject materially, though as thus stated it is rather more properly a subsidiary subject than a developed theme ; it still lacks specific direction. On further study of the essay we find that its whole course conforms to and is controlled by some such proposition as this : The art of writing history, which,

BEGINNING ANCIENTLY IN PURE NARRATION, HAS WITH ADVANCING POWER OF GENERALIZATION COME IN MODERN TIMES TO THE OPPOSITE EXTREME OF PURE PHILOSOPHIZING, HAS NEVER YET PRODUCED A PER- FECT MASTERPIECE, NOR CAN IT DO SO, EXCEPT BY BLENDING AND BALANCING THESE TWO ELEMENTS.

2. Professor Woodrow Wilson, writing nearly a lifetime after Macaulay, has written an essay on the same subject. The Art of Writing History, though his title is different,^ — an essay which virtually calls a halt to the extreme reaction against Macaulay's method that prevails in historical presentation. Its controlling proposition is this : History is not a

RECORD OF ALL THE FACTS : THAT WERE IMPOSSIBLE. It IS A RECORD

1 Macaulay, Essays, Vol. i, p. 376.

''^ Wilson, The Truth of the Matter^ in Mere Literature and Other Essays^ p. 161. By kind permission of the author I am enabled to illustrate various stages and processes in essay-writing by this essay. The references made to it are : how the plan grew, p. 405, footnote; its theme, p. 423 ; its title, p. 431 ; its plan, p. 439 ; its stages of progress, p. 441 ; its use of an associational law, p. 445 ; its inductive structure, p. 447; its introduction, p. 453; its conclusion, p. 455 ; its transition, p. 457.

424 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

OF SOME OF THE FACTS, SELECTED FOR THEIR SIGNIFICANCE, AND SET FORTH IN SUCH ORDER AND COMBINATION, WITH SUCH A TOUCH OF REALIZING IMAGINATION, WITH SUCH COLOR AND LIFE, AS SHALL CAUSE THEM, IF POSSIBLE, TO MAKE THE SAME IMPRESSION UPON US THAT THEY MUST HAVE MADE ON THOSE WHO WERE ACTORS IN THE MIDST OF THEM.l

3. John Morley's Essay on Macaulay ^ is a good example of a theme that seizes an occasion ; it was written in 1876, just before the appearance of Trevelyan's biography of Macaulay, for which everybody was looking with keen interest. It was not intended, however, to be at all biographical, but critical; its object was to deal with that very interest which was so in the air. The article states its own object in theme form, thus: "To ask OURSELVES shortly WHAT KIND OF SIGNIFICANCE OR VALUE BELONGS

TO Lord Macaulay's achievements, and to what place he has a

CLAIM AMONG THE FORCES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE." This restricts the subject to a line of treatment suited to the limits of a review article, and gives it a specific direction.

Significance of Theme as deduced. — As thus deduced from the subject, the theme is the result of two opposite mental powers : a large grasp, wherein the writer carries a sense of the whole range of the subject-matter ; and a vigorous concen- trative effort, wherein every line and limitation of thought is represented by some word or shading of expression. The whole formulation, then, presents perhaps the purest occa- sion in the whole discourse for that aspect of clearness called precision ^ ; — an occasion all the purer because the theme is not made up at all with reference to readers but for the guid- ance and steadying of the writer himself. The more minutely accurate this formulation on the part of the writer, the greater the chance of unity, consistency, and non-distraction of effect as the reader receives it. The study to bring all the material under one miniature view has banished whatever is extraneous

1 This statement of the proposition was kindly made, at my request, by the author of the essay.

2 MORLEY, Critical Miscellanies, Vol. i, p. 253.

3 See above, pp. 29 sqq.

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 425

to present treatment, and laid out the straight road for the thought to travel.'

This matter is insisted on here, because so much depends upon it. Thinking to a theme at the outset, and then stick- ing with absolute surrender to it when it is once determined, is the only way to make one's writing accomplish a definite end. Neglect or carelessness in this one matter is the most fruitful cause of slipshod and sloppy writing. The flood of writing that is born and dies, leaving no definite impression on men, is more than all else the result of that haste or indo- lence which will not take the trouble to grasp and follow a theme.

Example of the Process of Deduction. — In the following, which is the opening paragraph of a sermon, we see the relation of the text to the theme, and also the whole process of deduction from the narrative of which the text is a part. The whole is provided also with a title. Title : Duty not measured by our own ability.^ Text: Luke ix. 13 — " But he said unto them, Give ye them to eat." " When Christ lays it thus upon his disciples, in that solitary and desert' place, to feed five thousand men, he cannot be ignorant of the utter impossi- bility that they should do it. And when they reply that they have only five loaves and two fishes, though the answer is plainly sufificient, he is nowise diverted from his course by it, but presses directly on in the new order, that they make the people sit down by fifties in a company, and be ready for the proposed repast. Debating in themselves, probably, what can be the use of such a proceeding, when really there is no supply of food to be distributed, they still execute his order. And then when all is made ready, he calls for the five loaves and two fishes, and, having blessed them, begins to break, and says to them — ■ Distribute. Marvellous loaves ! broken, they are not diminished ! distributed, they still remain ! And so returning, again and again, to replenish their baskets, they continue the distribution, till the

hungry multitude are all satisfied as in a full supply. In this manner the «

1 As a means of self-discipline in this respect the writer will get no harm from incurring in some degrefe the tendency which Joubert confesses of himself : " If there be a man tormented by the cursed ambition to put a whole book into a page, a whole page into a phrase, and that phrase into a word, I am that man." — Joubert, Thoughts, p. 275.

2 BuSHNELL, Sermons for the New Life, p. 364.

426 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

original command — Give ye them to eat — is executed to the letter. They have made the people sit down, they have brought the loaves, they have distributed, and he at every step has justified his order, by making their scanty stock as good as a full supply.

" This narrative suggests and illustrates the following important prin- ciple —

" That men are often, and properly, put under obligation to do that for vifhich they have, in themselves, no present

ABILITY."

Here the text expresses merely the kernel or lesson of the passage in which it occurs, and its teaching is made clear by a summary of the whole narrative, which summary is concentrated upon the lesson. The example is a more formal deduction of theme than is usual in sermons nowadays ; but the definiteness with which it directs the discourse to one idea is no greater than ought to obtain in every discourse, however the statement of the theme may be concealed.

II.

As related to Form of Discourse. — No form of discourse can dispense with the theme ; it exists and must be carefully determined in all ; Isut in some forms it exists as it were in solution, pervading and coloring the whole, while the purpose of other forms makes necessary a more formal expression of it.^ In general the theme stands out more in proportion as the discourse is more of the brain, the thinking power ; it is more hidden and pervasive as the discourse is more addressed to the imagination or the emotions. This fact leads to three distinctions in themes, as related to form of discourse.

I. The diffused or pervading theme belongs predominantly to description and narration. ' Least marked in description, it is perceived through a general congruity of details and style which gradually builds up in the reader's mind one unitary and homogeneous character ; this character, so centrally con- ceived, is the theme. Narration, evolving its idea by means

1 Analogous in this respect to the paragraph, with its different ways of embodying the topic ; see above, p. 359.

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 427

of concrete events, is working all the while to a large concep- tion of things, — a truth, a moral virtue, a sentiment, which is to survive as a total effect of the whole ; this large con- ception, this total effect, is its theme. In both forms there must be this focus of consistent effect ; else the story or description, cheerfully and briskly as it may move, does not advance but merely marks time.

Examples. — i. Of descriptive theme. In giving account of these descriptive themes we may best adopt, perhaps, Stevenson's favorite figure of a key in music. Ruskin's description of St. Mark's, Venice, bewildering as it is in its richness, is thus keyed consistently to the associated thought of variegated, discordant human life.' Stevenson's description of the Oise in flood is keyed to life and turbulence, and all the details harmonize.^ Shakespeare's description of Dover Cliff is keyed to one characteristic, its dizzy height.' Carlyle's description of Silesia is more matter-of-fact, being keyed to such topographicsd characteristics as are needed to explain a military Campaign carried on there.^

2. Of narrative themes. Balzac's Pire Goriot follows the very palpable theme of paternal love as an overmastering and invincible passion. His Cesar Birotteau follows the idea of simple business integrity which will take no subterfuges of law. Howells, in his Rise of Silas Laffyajn, deals in his way with a very similar theme. Coppee's short story. The Substi- tute, deals with the theme of self-sacrifice.*

'2. The expressed theme belongs to exposition and argu- ment, forms of discourse in which the reader is conducted along logical lines, from thought to thought, and so on to a conclusion of all. In exposition, whose business it is to explain things, this theme may be expressed in the form of a phrase or elaborated title, sometimes more fully as the subject- matter is more abstruse. In argumentation the theme is a proposition, something like a resolution for debate, and having

1 RusKiN, Stones of Venice, Vol. ii, p. 70.

2 Stevenson, An Inland Voyage, Works, Vol. xii, p. 59.

3 Shakespeare, King Lear, Act iv, Scene 6. * Carlyle, Frederick the Great, Vol. Iv, p. i. 5 Ten Tales by Francois Coppee, p. 91.

428 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

a similar object, — to fix an assertion of truth to a definite conclusion. In both cases a careful formulation of the work- ing-idea is necessary, both for writer and for reader.

Examples. — i. Of expository themes. In Herbert Spencer's Essay on The Social Organism, the theme is thus given : " That under all its aspects and through all its ramifications, society is a growth and not a manu- facture." 1 Button's Essay on The Spiritual Fatigue of the World begins by a quoted remark on the modern malady of imagination and then says, " Such a malady of imagination there no doubt is, and it shows itself in morbid activity ; but this morbid activity is more often, I believe, the inability to rest which is due to over-fatigue, than the inability to rest which is due to abundance of life, — the restlessness of fever, not the restlessness of overflowing vitality." ^

2. Of argumentative themes. It is only necessary to call attention to the avowal of principles made in every argument ; as, for instance, in Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America, which sets out, " The propo- sition is Peace. Not Peace through the medium of War ; not Peace, etc. It is Peace sought in the Spirit of Peace ; and laid in principles purely pacific." 2 Or Schurz's speech on General Amnesty, which makes this avowal : " I beg leave to say that I am in favor of general, or, as this word is considered more expressive, universal amnesty, believing, as I do, that the reasons which make it desirable that there should be amnesty granted at all, make it also desirable that the amnesty should be universal."*

/3. . A peculiar modification of the theme belongs to oratory, as befitting perhaps the relation of this form of discourse equally to the intellect and to the emotion. As a working- idea for an argument or plea, the theme may either be expressed or more or less diffused ; but in fact this discus- sion of a subject is not the chief unifying principle. What makes it an oration instead of an essay is the fact that rather than a subject it chooses an object, a point to which the conduct and will maybe adjusted; and this object — which

1 Spencer, Essays, p. 147.

2 HuTTOiN, Aspects of Religious and Scientific Thought, p. 17. 8 Burke, Select Works, Vol. i, p. 165.

^ RiNGWALT, American Oratory, p. 94.

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 429

is generally left unavowed — so absolutely controls the treat- ment that its whole effect may be summed up in an imperative precept or dictate.

Example. — Thus, the early preachers said not merely, " The kingdom of heaven is at hand," but " Repent " ; and this imperative was the real upshot of their message> The modern statesman, while he labors to con- vince his audience that this or that view of a public measure is the right one, throws the whole power of his address into the imperative, " Give your allegiance, your influence, your vote to this truth."

III.

As distinguished from the Title. — The theme is distin- guished from the title as inner from outer. The theme is intended to concentrate the writer's invention ; the title to attract the reader. The theme creates a unity and organism ; the title creates an anticipation. Choosing the title, then, is choosing a name which, whatever else it does, shall make the most truthful and favorable impression possible.

Characteristics of the Title. — Three considerations may govern the cEoice of Tiflfe ; all present in each case, but working in various p;;<Jportions.

( i7\ It must be truthful, that is, as far as it goes it must give a c~orrect clue to the main idea of the work. This main idea, however, may present itself in two aspects, and be named according to the aspect that dominates. As controlling a course of thought the main idea is didactic; as controlling an appeal to motive or taste the emotional idea, that is, the spirit or animus of the work, may be in dominance. • The prob- lem of the title is to name the aspect in which the supreme significance of the work centres.

Examples. — i . Of titles naming the didactic idea. The Principles of Sociology ; The History of European Morals, from Augustus to Charle- i magna ; The Working Principles of Rhetoric ; The Conception of Immor- tality. Such titles as these aim not to allure listless readers but to guide

430 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

interested ones ; they are concerned not with how the reader feels about the subject but with what he thinks about it.

2. Of titles naming the spirit of a book. A Century of Dishonor is the title of a book which gives the history of the United States govern- ment's, dealings with the Indians ; the book is evidently an indictment as well as a history. Put Yourself in his Place is the title of a story intended to inculcate a moral lesson. The Seven Lamps of Architec- ture is not a technical treatise; the title directs readers to certain moral principles that should illuminate and dignify this art. Such titles are concerned with how the reader shall feel and act as the result of the book's idea.

2. According to the significance of its theme it must be attractive ; creating by whatever wording a pleasurable antici- pation of its contents. This object is sought by bringing into use all the felicity that may lie in graceful phrase, figure, epi- gram, subtle allusion or suggestion, and the like. All this, while still an endeavor to name the work truthfully, is an endeavor to get at its idea by a way whose indirectness shall enhance its zest.

Examples. — i . The graceful turning of phrase, which is perhaps the main object in these attractive titles, is secured in various ways. The Spec- tator, Mosses from an Old Manse, A Paradise of Dainty Devices, are figurative suggestions, helped by alliteration. Sartor Resartus, Fors Clavigera, Suspiria de Profundis, take their phrase from a foreign lan- guage. Sights and Insights, Buds and Bird-Voices, High-Ways and By- Ways of Yorkshire, avail themselves of graceful word-play. All 's Well that Ends Well, A Counterfeit Presentment, Far from the Madding Crowd, The Choir Invisible, use scraps of quotation or proverb.

2. Often the phrase may convey a graceful or epigrammatic hint. How to be Happy though Married derives point from the word though. Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes is made piquant by the word •with, which slyly conveys information of the actual way of travelling. The Innocents Abroad is a delicate double entendre. The Crown of Wild Olive, the title appended to lectures on Work, Traffic, and War, hints at a whole lesson of the book, — the real reward of life's endeavors.

{ 3/) A quality of a title so desirable that it may be regarded as essential is a degree of understatement, or at least of

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 431

tempered suggestion. It should not promise more than the work will perform ; it is unwisely chosen if it reveals too much of the coming thought, or as the phrase is "gives the plot away." On account of this, multitudes of titles consist merely of proper names, or of some locution whose implication is remote ; yet even these are chosen with much study of the sounds and natural associations of words.

Examples. — i. An interesting example of the study given to the name that should have just the accurate shade of association is described by Sir Walter Scott in the introductory chapter to Waverley. He contrasts it with chivalrous names, such as Howard, Mordaunt, Mortimer, Stanley; vrith sentimental names, such as Belmour, Belville, Belfield, and Belgrave ; then goes on to say, " I have, therefore, like a maiden knight ■yvith his white shield, assumed for my hero, Waverley, an uncontaminated name, bearing with its sound little of good or evil, excepting what the reader shall hereafter be pleased to affix to it."

2. Sometimes, as in the case just given, the first title says or intimates so little that a supplementary title, somewhat more explanatory, is necessary. In this introduction to Waverley the writer continues his discussion of his title by saying why, instead of " Waverley, a Tale of Other Days," or " Waverley, a Romance from the German," or " Waverley, a Tale of the Times," he chose Waverley, or 'T is Sixty Years Since. Sometimes the supplementary title is necessary to fix and elucidate the suggestion of the first title; Jevons's Principles of Science might be misleading or blind without the addition, A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method; so also The Unseen Universe needs the supplement given to it, Or Physical Speculations on a Future State.

3. This modest kind of title may nevertheless get at a form of the main idea. The essay whose theme is quoted on p. 423, for instance, though on the subject The Writing of History, presents only the non-committal title The Truth of the Matter ; but how vitally close to the central thought this is, after all, may be seen from the following sentence at the outset : " To tell the truth simply, openly, without reservation, is the unimpeachable first principle of all right dealing ; and historians have no license to be quit of it," and the following summary at the end : " It is thus and only thus we shall have the truth of the matter : by art, — by the most difficult of all arts." .

432 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

II. THE MAIN IDEAS.

By the process of determining the theme the subject-matter has been reduced to a working-idea ; it is concentrated, and turned in a certain specific direction. Not yet is it ana- lyzed ; not yet are its parts coordinated and distributed. This belongs to the next stage of procedure, the making of the plan ; which, as the heading here intimates, is the finding and placing of the main ideas.

It is well to bear in mind here that what we are now contemplating is only a framework, and that there are minor ideas, ideas that give the rounding, the life, the color, yet to come. For any determination of main ideas that we make is subject to revision in the light of amplification ; changes in wording, in order, in manner of approach, are likely to suggest themselves in the greater glow of final composition. None the less the plan, the cold-blooded order laid down before- hand, is an invaluable guide as giving the logical mind the general control ; and this is its purpose : to guide and keep within bounds, but not to enslave.

I.

The Making of the Plan To begin with, the plan of a

work must be made, and with slow unsatisfactory painstaking ; it cannot be trusted to make itself. Many young writers, many fluent writers, mistake here, and think the glow of inter- est in their subject will make its own plan ; an idea which for a while their awkward attempts at planning will only seem to confirm. But in truth this learning to plan is the practical way of training the mind into the habit of seeking order ^; and when the habit is fully formed, the act of planning, which at the begin- ning seemed arbitrary and mechanical, will resolve itself into

^ See above, p. 404.

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 433

the discovery of the natural movement of a thought. Plan- ning must begin awkwardly. It is well for the writer if he sticks to the work until he is at home in it. He may have to work through a period more or less wooden ; he may be tempted to odd or fanciful structures of thought ; he may at some stage be bitten with the craving for mere ingenuity, — strange if he is not. But gradually he will reach a point where with every subject the vision of a plan will rise before him ; he will come to see it not vaguely but as an articuIateJ whole ; and by and by he can surrender himself to the natural working of his mind, because the artistic, the finely logical, has become nature. When this point is reached, the process of planning, which to begin with was a separate thing carried on painfully beforehand, may be united with the final work of composition, the thought growing in a proportioned and self-justifying way as guided by an orderly moving mind.

The Skeleton Outline. — This, a list of the main thoughts drawn up in tabular form, and with the divisions so expressed and numbered that their relation to the theme and to each other is clearly determined, is made first of all for the writer's sake ; but also as a framework, however covered up and dis- guised, it is no less necessary to the reader, as giving dis- tinction, balance, and progress to the several stages of the argument.

Writers should, especially at the beginning of their art, devote much care to drawing up their plans in skeleton out- line. All the time devoted to it is in the long run both time and power gained. When the divisions and subdivisions are thus displayed in condensed form, they can be revised and rearranged ; gaps in the thought can be detected and filled ; obscure and elusive lines of thought can be brought to light and to book ; the whole chain of thought can be made continuous and symmetrical. This is the .practical object in making the skeleton.

434 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

As to the manner of tabulating thoughts, no rules but merely a few practical suggestions may be given.

1. Work for simplicity, — that is, make the main divisions and their subdivisions as few, and at the same time as weighty, as the subject will bear. To attain this object is worth many recasts of the plan.

Note. — The old-fashioned sermon custom of making a large number of propositions, with their portentous numberings of twelfthly and thir- teenthly, is now discarded ; not because it is uncouth but because it makes too great demands on the reader's or hearer's thinking powers, and because it spreads out the thought too minutely. Two or three main stages of the thought, well supported and articulated, are enough for an ordinary essay or sermon.

2. A distinct form of notation for each rank of the thought, — division or subdivision, — also a like margin, should be adopted in the tabulation. In this way the relative dis- tances from the central thought, and the parallelisms with each other, may be kept clear.

Note. — A large variety of letters, numerals, and ways of expression may become necessary in articulating a complex or extended plan, as, for instance, the plan of this book. These need not be recounted.

In an ordinary essay the most common and lucid notation, perhaps, is to put the main divisions in Roman numerals (I, II, III) ; the subdivisions in Arabic numerals (i, 2, 3) ; and the sub-subdivisions in letters of the alphabet (a, b, c). Further than these three ranks of thought it is not ordinarily necessary to push the outline in a work of the limited range of the essay.

3. The introduction and the conclusion, as they relate not to the individual stages of the thought but to the whole work, should not be numbered in the series of divisions. To do so gives them a false coordination.

Note. — The numbering begins with the body of the work, to which presumably the introduction supplies the briefest and directest possible approach. . When the introduction is in more than one stage its sub- divisions may, of course, be marked ; preferably by some notation of its

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 435

own, or by the notation used for subdivision, as small letters of the alphabet.

4. A single subordinated thought need not be marked by a numeral or letter ; it is only when there is more than one division that the mark of distinction has significance, or indeed that there is division at all.

Note. — When we number a heading i we imply that there is a 2 and perhaps more numbers to set over against it ; else there is no series, no advance from thought to related thought.

Landmarks of Structure in the Completed Work. — How far the skeleton plan should be visible in the completed work is a point to be determined partly by the nature of the thought, and partly by the manner of presentation.

Thus the more abstruse the thought is, and the more it taxes the mind, the greater should be the care that all its linkings and sequences should be made obvious by the use of numerals and other such means. It is in recognition of this that thought moving in a logical order, as an argument or exposition, has to show more of its bony structure than thought moving in a chronological order, like a narrative. As to manner of presentation, spoken discourse has to be more scrupulous than written to keep its plan in evidence, because it has to be gathered from a single hearing. The much-parodied "fourthly" and " finally my brethren" of old- fashioned sermons, clumsy though it may be, is a sound recognition of the requirements of oral presentation.^

1 Of the sermon plan, which may be regarded as fairly typical of the plan of dis- course in general, Dr. Burton says : " The question is sometimes raised, how plainly a preacher had better show to his congregation the skeleton in his sermons. I should say, as a rule, just about as plainly as he shows his own skeleton. If there should ever come up a serious doubt among a people whether their minister has any skeleton, he had better show one. A purely unformulated and gelatinous physique in a public man were disagreeable," and fitted to give his congregation a painful sense of insecurity. . . . Perhaps preachers do well to show their skeletons often enough to create a general feehng that they always have them. In some instances it may be desirable, for some reason, that the people carry away the sermon in a form to report

436 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

The ideal plan of any course of thought is best patterned on the analogy of narrative, wherein event rises out of event as a natural sequence, and there is no sense of a manufac- tured structure. If the writer so conducts his subject that his reader may receive it complete and be clearly aware of its progress without thinking of its framework, he has reached this ideal. But to this end he must spare his reader all dis- locations and abruptness ; the turnings and transitions of the thought must be easily perceivable ; and much care must be given to preparatory and introductory thoughts. These quali- ties secured, external marks may then be superinduced merely so far as they are indispensable.^

The various means used to advertise the stages of the plan are not arbitrary. They should correspond not only to the order but to the logical nature and relation of the thoughts they distinguish. Thus, when numerical recounting is made, it denotes a series wherein one fact or truth coordinates with another to make up a sum-total in steps or stages. Where connective phrases are used, they denote the relative rank of the added thought, or the kind of sequence. When successive headings are put in parallel construction they betoken a kind of likeness, or at least parity of significance, between the members thus marked. The naturalness of a displayed plan depends very largely on the choice of connectives with nice reference to their interdependence, rather than to their func- tion in a framework.^

upon ; in those, let your plan come forward into unmistakable visibility — the heads and all the members, italicized and full-spoken. But more often than any way I think it is just as well to keep your framework a little retired." — Burton, Yale Lectures, p. 58.

1 " It is doubtless unpleasant to have the hard framework of logical divisions showing too distinctly in an argument, or to have a too elaborate statement of dates and places and external relations in a romance. But such aids to the memory may be removed too freely. The building may be injured in taking away the scaffold- ing."— Stephen, Hours in a Library, Vol. ii, p. 319.

2 The notation of the parts of a plan is in fact merely an extension of the principles of reference, explicit and implicit, as laid down in the chapter on The Paragraph, PP- 37°-375i above.

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. +37

It is of importance that headings expressing the same rank of thought — whether main divisions or subdivisions — should have a similar form of expression, as related to each other, and different from the form adopted for other ranks. This is a valuable means of keeping the reader aware in what part and connection of the subject he is moving.

Examples. ^ — -The following examples were both gathered from an oral hearing of the sermons here represented, and may be regarded therefore as good examples of a lucidly indicated plan.

1. A sermon by Dr. Herrick Johnson, on Proverbs xxiii. 23, — " Buy the truth, and sell it not," — is built on a series of brief affirmations, or proposi- tions, almost epigrammatic in character.

I. Truth costs; it must be bought. II. Truth is worth all it costs. III. Though truth is worth so much, it is sometimes sold.

2. The following plan, gathered from Rev. Newman Hall's sermon on The Penitent Thief, Luke xxiii. 42-43, illustrates how divisions and sub- divisions may employ different forms of notation. The sermon is in two main divisions, each of which has a heading in the form of a title. Then under each of these titles is gathered a series of assertions, or propositions, giving the various lessons of the subject. The second series of subdivisions are expressed in a parallel construction. The sermon thus abruptly begins : — •

" These words bring before us a remarkable illustration both of a sin- ner's repentance and of the Saviour's grace. Let us consider — I. The repentance of the dying thief. How indicated : —

1. He manifested reverence toward God.

2. He manifested contrition for sin, and confessed it.

3. He appreciated the goodness of Christ.

4. He bore public witness to Christ.

5. He manifested strong faith.

6. He prayed.

7. He exhibited zealous concern for others.

II. The Saviour's grace. How shown in his promise : —

1. The promise referred to place — 'in Paradise.'

2. The promise related to companionship — ' with me.'

3. The promise related to time — ' to-day.' " i

1 This sermon, ^yhose plan was originally taken down from hearing, may be found i|i full, Fish, Pulpit Eloquence of the Nineteenth Century, p. S30.

438 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

The advantage of such a strongly marked plan for thought of this kind is obvious. An expository discourse, following the various suggestions involved in a. passage, it does something to create system in a sequence which otherwise would not be very plain.

II.

Principles of Relation and Arrangement It would be

neither possible nor desirable to lay down any universal or even predominating scheme to govern the ordering of thoughts in the plan of discourse. Free play must be accorded, in structure as in style, to that infinite variety which temperament and occasion dictate, and which is the life of literature. In dealing with the same subject-matter, while one man or one set of circumstances may make a certain order best, another man or occasion may give equal power to the opposite order.^ All this must be left to the writer.

To say this, however, is not equivalent to saying that the design of a work is an arbitrary matter, or that it may at pleasure be lawless. It must in fact obey very imperative laws, first, in securing a natural and lucid movement of thought, and, secondly, in maintaining such a rapport with the reader that he may follow and retain it as if it were his own mind's working. It must have method and progress devised with a view to cooperation on his part.

Illustrative Plan. — As a basis of exemplification, here is appended the plan of Professor Woodrow Wilson's Essay on The Truth of the Matter, carried out to divisions and subdivisions ; which plan may be referred to point by point as we go along.^

1 " Of all homogeneous truths at least, of all truths respecting the same general end, in whatever series they may be produced, a concatenation by intermediate ideas may be formed, such as, when it is once shown, shall appear natural; but if this order be reversed, another mode of connection equally specious may be found or made. ... As the end of method is perspicuity, that series is sufficiently regular that avoids obscurity ; and where there is no obscurity it will not be difficult to dis- cover method." — Johnson, Lives of the Poets (Pope), Vol. v, p. 85.

2 This plan, though drawn out by me, has been revised and approved by the author of the essay.

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 439

The Truth of the Matter.

Introduction : — The ideal of writing history is to make a narrative that out of the profusion of actual facts so selects the few it can handle as to convey an impression of the whole truth and of every order of truth. I. The defect of the present-day " dispassionate " ideal.

1 . While it gives facts, it does not adequately impress truth.

2. And this because it lacks the art necessary to this latter object. II. The historian's art and its end analyzed.

1. From Macaulay's art, masterly but lacking, we learn that, while our very narrative must contain in solution a judgment of things, that judgment must not be imposed from without as an advocate's plea but evolved from within as a discovered impression.

2. From Carlyle's and Gibbon's lack, respectively, we learn that, while the impression must be unitary, it must be neither too lurid and passionate nor too pale and remote.

3. From Green's lack we learn that, while scholarship and artistry may be in masterly combination, the result will fail unless the plan and variety of the telling answer to the plan and variety of fact.

III. The supreme requirements that this analysis suggests.

I. That impressions be conveyed in the fresh and living spirit of

impression, not in the severe spirit of scholarly accumulation. ■z,. That the color and proportion of such impressions be conceived as they must have come to the actors in the midst of the events. Conclusion : — This art of telling the truth requires imagination as well as scholarship, literary art as well as candor and honesty.

1. For Universal Observance While therefore entire free- dom is left for individuality to assert itself in the ordering of a work, there are certain requisites, deeper than individuality, that must be had in mind in every organized plan of thought, and cannot safely be dispensed with. These relate to the manner in which the thought should make its way, and to the natural stages of progress.

--\ Manner of Progress In every body of thought certain

traits of relation and progress should be sought first of all, as fundamental.

440 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

1. The several stages of the thought, divisions and subdi- visions alike, must have distinction; that is, they must in their range be exclusive of each other, not running and mix- ing together. This does not preclude following a thought by its corollary or immediate consequence, for these are natu- rally distinguished as such.

Note. — It is this quality of distinction, especially, that is had in view ^nd promoted by working out a skeleton plan. Of course the existence of the quality is quite apart from the displaying of it ; the thoughts may be distinct and mutually exclusive while the reader, getting all the benefit of the fact, may be unaware how they come to be so.

2. The several stages of the thought must have coherent SEQUENCE ; they must, while working as members of a whole and rnemEerF of each other, grow by steady progress one out of the other. The ideal is to make such a thread of continuity extend through the whole as will give it a kind of narra- tive movement, with a like obviousness of cause and effect or othej associative affinities between the members.'

Note. — As laid down in tabular form the headings have the disadvan- tage of seeming like a catalogue ; this, however, is not really the case if they have been thought with constant reference to a theme. They are more truly links in a chain ; and this is the ideal to have in view. In the finished form such marks of transition and continuity are supplied as will disguise, as far as the necessary distinction in the thought will permit, the disagreeable catalogue effect.

3. The several stages of the thought must move in climax ; that is, they must, in some determinate sense, gather momen- tum as they advance, and reach a culmination of interest. A thought is planned not only from, or rather in obedience to, a theme, but toward an end ; and it is the increasing attrac- tion of approach to this end which produces climax.

1 See above, p. 436. In the Illustrative Plan, note how I, 2 supplies a thought which by direct sequence suggests II.

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 441

Note. -^ This climax, which is abroad principle,' maybe apparent in many forms, some of which will come up for future mention. It may express itself in greater rapidity or intensity of style ; it may show merely in the significance of the thought, — always as estimated by the writer's supreme purpose. In any case the object is, while determining what the supreme point of importance shall be, to make the interest grow toward that as an end.

Natural Stages of Progress. — Whatever intricacies of plot or plan may be necessary to set forth the subject-matter, one plain current of/ progress must be kept in mind and provided for, • — the samp current already indicated in small in the scheme of paragraph structure,^ a scheme representing, as there stated, the logical progress that obtains in all ordered thinking. On this we need not dwell here, further than to explain in a few words how the same essential stages of prog- ress reappear in the larger composition, that give informal structure to the paragraph.

(ij In every composition there is needed first of all a' defin- ing stage, in which the meaning, range, limits, and occasion of the thought in hand are determined so far as is needed for the due setting-forth of what succeeds. The example of this in narrative is the setting of the scenfe and period, and the introduction of main characters and situation, — in a word, getting the story started. In argumentation it shows itself in fixing the nature, limits, and general significance of the question. As preliminary to the others, this stage requires such brevity and vigor of treatment as will enable the reader as pleasurably as possible to tide over what it essentially is, — a waiting stage.

'£ Every composition has a stage, and that the most cen- tral and momentous, wherein the subject-matter is established by such lines of detail or explication or reasoning as are

1 For climax as an organic principle of style, see above, p. 292.

2 See above, p. 365.

442 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

necessary to make the view of it round and complete. In this stage, so to say, the problem is worked out in its various involvements ; a typical example of it is what is called the tying of the knot in the plot of a story. It is the part of the work on which the writer naturally lays out his originality and strength.

/Jp'Then finally there is the solution stage, wherein the lines of thought are disengaged from their involvements and directed to their application, — the knot is untied. This, according to the nature of the thought and of the object had in view, may be by summary, appeal, or practical result. As compared with the preceding, this section is ordinarily short, yet contains the clearest and most pointed kind of work. It is the part wherein the object and upshot of it all comes into view.

Illustration. — The plan given on p. 439 well illustrates these three stages, its main divisions fairly corresponding to them respectively. The Introduction and first division are definitive, serving to give the state of the question and contrast the prevailing ideal vrith the ideal to be established. Thus the exact status and occasion of the subject are determined as a pre- liminary. The second main division, with its review of standard historians, brings before the reader the several aspects of the question, the particulars that need solution, with a general indication of what solution is needed. The third main division, with conclusion, then takes up the suggestions of these aspects and applies them to the supreme outcome of the inquiry, — the one means by which historical truth can be adequately told.

It is not to be gathered from the foregoing remarks that every plan should appear under three headings. As a matter of fact these stages, and especially the middle one, may require several divisions for their working-out, while yet all these are coordinated under the general duty of defining, establishing, or enforcing. Or again, the opening stage may shrink to the dimensions of a mere introduction, and the solu- tion stage to a brief conclusion. All this depends on the amount and kind of work each part has to do. What is

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 443

contended here is, that the nature and need of these kinds of work must be interrogated, and each according to the call for it have place in the plan.

2. For Choice according to Character of Thought. — With these fundamental requisites thus defined, we may now go on to consider various laws and principles of structure. These, as truly as the preceding, must enter into every plan, but the ch&.racter of the thought determines what aspect of them shall be chosen.

Laws of Thought-Asspciatipn. — The principles most deeply underlying the int^relations of a well-ordered scheme are just the principles by -^hich things are remembered, the so-called laws of association. Making a plan is thus merely designing a practical aid tp the reader's memory, and this by making the thought move in the lines that his mind will naturally follow in the endeavor to recall. The prosperity of a plan depends very largely on rigid obedience to these laws.

The general laws of association, as enumerated by psy- chologists, are jhree. In literary planning they seldom work in absolute singleness ; their interplay is very constant and varied ; yet the predominance of some one of them is pretty sure to give a prevailing strain to the thought in hand.

I. The law of contiguity. A great many facts are remem- bered together" simply because they lie side by side and touch each other. Such are facts existing in space, as the details of a house or landscape ; and facts existing in time, as the successive events in a transaction. To make a plan for such details is for the most part to follow a framework already in the mind ' ; we all know in what order to look for the

1 In the following quotation is recognized how contiguity helps toward making its own plan : " Considered as an Author, Herr Teufelsdrdckh has one scarcely pardon- able fault, doubtless his worst : an almost total want of arrangement. ' In this remark- able VolumCj it is true, his adherence to the mere course of Time produces, through the Narrative portions, a certain show of outward method ; but of true logical method and sequence there is too little," — Carlyle, Sartor Resartus^ Chap. iv.

444 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

particulars of a building or a human face or a day's events or a man's life. So although contiguity is the loosest law of asso- ciation, things are recalled by it with most pleasure and with least expenditure of brain. This is what makes narrative and description, in which this law predominates, the most popular forms of literature.

Example. — A biographical or historical essay naturally groups its facts on the principle of contiguity, events following each other in the order of time. Macaulay in his Essay on History ^ builds for the most part on this order, both in the main divisions, which are

I. Characteristics of ancient historical composition, II. Characteristics of modern historical composition, and in the stages of the first part, which, following the development of history from novel to essay, mentions authors in the main chronologically, — Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Polybius, Plutarch, Livy, Tacitus, etc. In the second division a different principle is adopted.

2. The law of similarity, with its correlate the law of ^n- TRAST. The characteristics of things, both objects of sense and logical concepts, are in great part remembered from their likeness or their striking oppositeness to something else ; hence, in grouping thoughts much recourse is had to this law, — it underlies the whole work of illustration and explanation. Exposition, as a literary type, is founded pre- dominantly on this kind of association.

Example. — i. An instance of a plea developed on the principle of similarity occurs in Burke's Bristol speech.^ The charge that he sets him- self to answer is thus worded : " It has been said, and it is the second charge, that in the question of the Irish trade I did not consult the interests of my constituents, — or, to speak out strongly, that I rather acted as a native of Ireland than as an English member of Parliament." The answer to this charge is a plea that his action has been like his action in the Ameri- can war ; and to make this more lucid he makes the plan of the Irish part and of the American studiously alike in divisions and subdivisions. The following plan will show this : —

1 See the theme of this given, p. 423, above.

2 Burke, Speech to the Electors of Bristol (Select British Eloquence, p. 295).

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 44S

I. My conduct in the Irish matter itself.

1. True to my invariable principle, I advocated conciliation.

2. This conciliatory policy was rejected by the English.

3. The sequel — Irish demands and English disgraceful concessions.

4. Conduct that such a state of affairs demanded.

II. My similar conduct in connection with the American war.

1. Toward America likewise I advocated conciliation.

2. This conciliation was likewise rejected by the English.

3. The sequel — American scorn and English ignominious proposals

of concession.

4. My conduct in such a state of affairs vindicated.

The aim of this section was avowedly " to read what was approaching in Ireland in the black and bloody characters of the American war " ; that is, to read principles and events by their analogues.

2. In Professor Wilson's plan, p. 439, the first and second main divisions are conceived in a simple contrast, the present " dispassionate " school rep- resenting what historical art is not, the succeeding discussion opposing to it what historical art is. Carlyle and Gibbon, too, in II, 2, are grouped as representing contrasted kinds of impression. The two main divisions of Macaulay's essay, as given on p. 444, are not only chronological, but in a way antithetic in suggestion, — ancient opposed to modern.

3. The law of cause and effect. The most spontaneous logical inquiry is afteFTFTe"cause of things ; the most natural impulse, if we are dealing with an active principle, to trace it onward to its effects. Accordingly, in matters requiring close and logical thinking, as for instance argumentation, this, the most intimate of associative laws, is depended on to make the chain strong and coherent. In narrative, too, there is a con- stant effort to reinforce the mere chronological order, which as such is the loose order of contiguity, by the revealing of cause and effect, — to show events as occurring not only posi hoc but propter hoc.

Examples. — In the Illustrative Plan, p. 439, the two subdivisions under X are given, the second as the cause of the first. The third main division is virtually the effect following on the second, — the result of the analysis, as expressed in the requirements it reveals. This law of cause and effect may of course be applied very broadly.

446 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

To work with these laws of association in mind, and to make the sequence as clearly in obedience to them as pos- sible, is the most effectual way to make the thought a nat- urally moving current ; while neglect of them inevitably makes- it seem crude and arbitrary. These laws are merely names for the most fundamental and universal affinities of thought, which must be consulted first as a kind of current standard.

Orders of Thought-Building. — The same principle already traced in the sentence applies on its larger scale to the whole composition ; namely, that the plan should begin with what is nearest to the reader and the occasion, as being best known or most in the air, and end with what is newest, whether as a discovery or an application. The following out of this prin- ciple leads us to note two opposite ways in which it may work, according to \the object had in view ; or, as we may call them, two orders of thought-building.

I. The INDUCTIVE order, — what may be called the order of investigation ; wherein the final goal is a new and hitherto undiscovered truth, and wherein the steps that lead to it are details or particulars that go to build up the proof of it. Thus this order works from particulars to generals, from facts to principles, from what is known and accepted to what is unknown and sought.

In a single sentence we may define this order of thought- building as that in which the central truth of all is the point of approach.

The advantage of this order is that it takes the reader, as it were, into partnership, and goes over with him the same course that one takes in finding out a truth. This fact suggests the kind of truths to which the inductive order is best adapted; namely, truths that would seem strange, or rouse opposition unless their proof preceded them, compelling the conclusion. Such, especially, are new results of science, investigation, or

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 447

verified thought ; it is for this reason that the order is called the order of investigation.^

Examples. — i. The Illustrative Plan, which concerns itself with a matter of investigation — how to tell the truth of the matter — is essentially inductive ; it sets out with an obvious truth, and by successive considera- tions, positive and negative, gradually builds up its culminating proposi- tion, that the impression made should be the same as that which was made on the actors in history themselves. It is for this conclusion, this new statement of principle, that the essay exists.

2. A section in the middle of Macaulay's Essay on History^ is built very

strikingly on the inductive plan. It concerns itself with investigating the

chief cause why modem historians far surpass the ancients in the philosophy

of history, — a cause which at first is only hinted at, thus : " There was, we

suspect, another cause, less obvious, but still more powerful." The writer

then, beginning at a remote point, accumulates facts from which he draws

successive partial conclusions, until the whole cause is made apparent. The

following plan will show this : —

I. The spirit of ancient nations was exclusive.

„ (a. The Greeks cared only for themselves.

I Facts • -<

\b. The Romans cared only for themselves and the Greeks.

( a. This produced narrowness and monotony of thought. 2. Effects : X b. Aggravated to intellectual torpor by despotism of

( Caesars. II. The torpor of intellect was broken by two revolutions.

/ a. The moral revolution — Christianity. I . Facts : ■} b. Relapse into worse intellectual barrenness.

{ c. The political revolution — invasion of northern nations.

1 " If my object is to convince you of a general truth, or to impress you with a feeling, which you are not already prepared to accept, it is obvious that the most effective method is the inductive, which leads your mind upon a culminating wave of evidence or emotion to the very point I aim at." — Lewes, Principles of Success in Literature^ p. r45. — " But knowledge that is delivered as a thread to be spun on, ought to be delivered and intimated, if it were possible, in the same method "wherein it ■was invented: and so is it possible of knowledge induced, ... A man may revisit and descend unto the foundations of. his knowledge and consent ; and so transplant it into another, as it grew in his own mind. For it is in knowledges as it is in plants : if you mean to use the plant, it is no matter for the roots ; but if you mean to remove it to grow, then it is more assured to rest upon roots than slips. So the delivery of knowledges (as it is now used) is as of fair bodies of trees without the roots ; good for the carpenter, but not for the planter. But if you will have sciences grow, it is less matter for the shaft or body of the tree, so you look well to the taking up of the roots." — Bacon, Advancement of Learning, Book il, p. 171.

2 Extending from p. 411 to 419 in Riverside edition Essays, Vol. i.

448 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

(. a. Invasion threw the countries open to each other. 2. Effects : | ^ xhus opening a field and motive for philosophy. " Hence it is that, in generalization, the writers of modem times have far surpassed those of antiquity."

2. The_jpEDUCTivE order, — what may be called the order of enforcement ; wherein the goal is not so much new principles as new applications or illustrations of principles already known and conceded. Beginning with the large truth or principle which informs the whole, it moves on to the minor principles, examples, facts, which give it vital effect in the present dis- cussion. Thus this order is from generals to particulars, from principles to facts, from a known truth to novel and unexpected applications in familiar experience.

In a single sentence we may define this order of thought- building as that wherein the central truth is a point of departure.

The advantage of this order is, that while it deals with concrete facts and illustrations the reader is all the while aware of their bearings and consenting to them. It is espe- cially adapted, therefore, to the treatment of important prac- tical truths of life and conduct, truths that men are not so much inclined to deny as to neglect, and that are brought home by personal application. The order is most purely illustrated in oratory.''

Examples. — i. The plan from Newman Hall, given on p. 437, above, is essentially deductive ; it begins with a statement of the truth it proposes to illustrate and then specifies its concrete applications one by one. Thus the interest centres in the particulars of illustration, as they successively identify themselves with the initial truth.

1 " The deductive method is best when I wish to direct the light of familiar truths and roused emotions upon new particulars, or upon details in unsuspected relation to those truths; and when I wish the attention to be absorbed by these particulars which are of interest in themselves, not upon the general truths which are of no present interest except in as far as they light up these details. A growing thought requires the inductive exposition, an applied thought the deductive." — Lewes, Principles of Success in Literature^ p. 145.

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 449.

2. The following section from Burke's Speech on the East India Bill ^ illustrates the deductive order, by beginning with the most general and inclusive consideration, which it divides into headings less general, and these again into still less general, untjl it reaches the concrete facts : —

I. The East India Company was guilty of an atrocious abuse of trust.

A. Their conduct viewed in its political light.

1. As to abuse of external federal trust.

u. They have sold the native princes, states, and officials.

b. They have broken every treaty.

c. They have ruined all who confided in them.

2. As to abuse of internal administration.

I*. They have been purely a curse, not an advantage, to the country.

b. Their rule has reacted to the hurt of society at home.

c. Their rule has been an abuse to tributary governments.

B. Their conduct viewed in its commercial light. — The tests of

mercantile dealing by which they have failed : —

I . Buying cheap and selling dear.

^. Strictness in driving bargains.

3. Watchfulness over honesty of clerks.

4. Exactness in accounts.

5. Care in estimating and providing for profits.

6. Care in readiness to meet bills.

Here all the subdivisions lead out toward individual applications or exemplifications of the inclusive assertion at the beginning.

III.

Appendages of the Plan. — The articulation of the plan, and its movement from inception to culmination, are pro- vided for in the central body of discourse. The other parts — introduction, conclusion, transitions — though in their occasion necessary,' are to be regarded and designed as appendages, as devices for making the body of procedure effective, rather than as having independent significance. To treat them as mere conventional flourishes is to ignore their practical value and introduce an air of trifling into the work.

1 Select British Eloquence, pp. 316-320.

450 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

Note. — Accordingly, as pointed out on p. 434, 3, the introduction and conclusion are not numbered in the body of the discourse. Of course, however, when they coordinate with the others, as introductory and conclud- ing stages of the thought, they may be so numbered ; it is a case where the formal introduction and conclusion are omitted.

The Introduction. — The introduction comprises whatever is necessary to make proper approach to theTKeme, or to the point where the theme begins its work and power.

Note. — This last remark is made for those cases where the theme is not expressed in a proposition, but diffused through the body of the work.i The natural place to state the theme, therefore, when it is stated, is at the end of the introduction. This is exemplified, typically, though somewhat formally, in the introduction quoted from Dr. Bushnell, p. 425, where the introduction leads up to and culminates in an elaborate status of the theme. Sometimes to such a statement there is added a brief indication of the plan by its leading heads.

I. ' The rationale of the introduction, while essentially the same for all cases, differs somewhat in procedure according as the reader is to be introduced to a way of thinking or to a way of feeling, — in other words, according as the work is predominantly didactic or emotional.

When the work is intellectual or didactic, that is, when the writer's object is to inform, instruct, or convince, it is gen- erally sufficient for the introduction to determine the setting of the theme : in time, if the work is historical ; in space, if descriptive ; in some system of ideas, if expository. It enters the general region of fact or thought to which the work belongs, disengages the subject from the various associations extraneous to present treatment, and furnishes such prelimi- nary information as is needed to put the reader in possession of subject, point of view, and manner of treatment.

Example. — This typical object of the introduction is well illustrated in the opening paragraph of Gibbon's History ^ : —

1 See above, p. 426.

2 Gibbon, History of tlu Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol i, p. i.

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 451

" In the second century o£ the Christian Era, the empire of Rome com- prehended the fairest part of the earth, and the most civilized portion of mankind. The frontiers of that extensive monarchy were guarded by ancient renown and disciplined valor. The gentle but powerful influence of laws and manners had gradually cemented the union of the provinces. Their peaceful inhabitants enjoyed and abused the advantages of wealth and luxury. The image of a free constitution was preserved with decent reverence : the Roman senate appeared to possess the sovereign authority, and devolved on the emperors all the executive powers of government. During a happy period of more than fourscore years, the public administra- tion was conducted by the virtue and abilities of Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two Antonines. It is the design of this, and of the two succeeding chapters, to describe the prosperous condition of their empire ; and after- wards, from the death of Marcus Antoninus, to deduce the most important circumstances of its decline and fall ; a revolution which will ever be remem- bered, and is still felt by the nations of the earth.''

This gives in brief sketch the era from which the history takes its rise, the characteristics of that supreme point of the Roman history from which the only progress was decline. In so voluminous a work three chapters are needed to fill in the description thus sketched in the opening paragraph.

When the work is set in a more emotional key, as for instance in the case of oratory, the setting is sometimes more complex: to make the hearer yi'.?/ rightly toward. the subject it may have to arouse interest, overcome prejudice, make personal explanations, and the like.^ The prevailing senti- ment nowadays is to say as little as possible about one's self and trust to the intrinsic importance of the subject for inter- est and emotional power. Whatever is said about circum- stances is by way of securing some connection with the particular occasion of speaking.

Example. — The following, which is the introduction to Ruskin's lecture on War,2 exemplifies about what an orator of present-day taste ventures to say in a preliminary way about himself and his subject : —

1 Cicero's definition of the introduction (and he refers to the oratorical introduc- tion) is, that its object is " reddere auditores benevolos, aitentos^ dociles^^ — to make the auditors well-disposed, /.e. to the speaker, attentive, i.e. interested in the subject- matter, and teachable, i.e. freed from prejudice and opposition to the cause.

2 RuSKiN, Crown of Wild Olive, p. 115.

452 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

" Young Soldiers, I do not doubt but that many of you came unwill- ingly to-night, and many in merely contemptuous curiosity, to hear what a writer on painting could possibly say, or would venture to say, respecting your great art of war. You may well think within yourselves that a painter might, perhaps without immodesty, lecture younger painters upon painting, but not young lawyers upon law, nor young physicians upon medicine — least of all, it may seem to you, young warriors, upon war. And, indeed, when I was asked to address you, I declined at first, and decUned long ; for I felt that you would not be interested in my special business, and would certainly think there was small need for me to come to teach you yours. Nay, I knew that there ought to be «o such need, for the great veteran soldiers of England are now men every way so thoughtful, so noble, and so good, that no other teaching than their knightly example, and their few words of grave and tried counsel, should be either necessary for you, or even, without assurance of due modesty in the offerer, endured by you.

" But being asked, not once nor twice, I have not ventured persistently to refuse ; and I will try, in very few words, to lay before you some reason why you should accept my excuse, and hear me patiently. You may imagine that your work is wholly foreign to, and separate from, mine. So far from that, all the pure and noble arts of peace are founded on war ; no great art ever yet rose on earth, but among a nation of soldiers."

By the time he has reached this point the speaker, in the most natural way possible, has his subject fairly well suggested.

2.^ In Style, the introduction should aim at two main qualities : vigor, in order to stimulate and secure attention at once ; and plain directness, in order at once to get a nucleus round which the thought may cluster. The introduction is not the place for elaborate or pretentious expression ; nor on the other hand can it bear languid or labored expression. Not a little depends on the lucid vigor of the opening sentence, which ought to be so constructed as, while not amplifying at all, to give a distinct push to the whole subject, like pushing a boat out from shore. For this reason a favor- ite way is to set out with a quotation, or a figure, or an anec- dote, so chosen as to embody the preliminary consideration in concrete form. Whatever the device, its aim from the first word is to foster anticipation and secure a hearing.

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 4'S3

Examples. — The introduction to The Trttth of the Matter, which essay takes its occasion from the prevailing sentiment in historical compo- sition, sets out abruptly with a quotation which embodies the whole case, and comments on this : —

" ' Give us the facts, and nothing but the facts,' is the sharp injunction of our age to its historians. Upon the face of it, an eminently reasonable requirement. To tell the truth simply, openly, without reservation, is the unimpeachable first principle of all right dealing; and historians have no license to be quit of it. Unquestionably they must tell us the truth, or else get themselves enrolled among a very undesirable class of persons, not often frankly named in polite society. But the thing is by no means so easy as it looks. The truth of history is a very complex and very occult matter. It consists of things which are invisible as well as of things which are visible. It is full of secret motives, and of a chance interplay of trivial and yet determining circumstances ; it is shot through with transient passions, and broken athwart here and there by what seem cruel accidents ; it can- not all be reduced to statistics or newspaper items or official recorded statements. And so it turns out, when the actual test of experiment is made, that the historian must have something more than a good conscience, must be something more than a good man. He must have an eye to see the truth ; and nothing but a very catholic imagination will serve to illumi- nate his matter for him : nothing less than keen and steady insight will make even illumination yield him the truth of what he looks upon. Even when he has seen the truth, only half his work is done, and that not the more difficult half. He must then make others see it j ust as he does : only when he has done that has he told the truth." Etc.

^ By the time the introduction has proceeded thus far it has its subject fairly launched, with the occasion and call for it suggested. Of the figura- tive outset, the well-known introduction of Webster's Reply to Hayne is an example.

'3.'! Though written in its order, the introduction to a work is not the first thing designed ; or at least if so it is apt to be too rambling and remote from the subject. The design of it should be delayed until the course of thought is so fully in mind that only this one connecting link with reader and occasion remains to be supplied ; then its plain and direct office will be obvious.^

1 " The last thing that we find in making a book is to know what we must put first." — Pascal, Thoughts, p. 240.

454 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

The Conclusion. — The object of a formal conclusion at the end of a literary work is to gather together the various threads of. argument, thought, or appeal, and so to apply them as to leave on the reader's mind a unity of impression correspond- ing to the aim of the discourse. It is essentialfhaT: there be one comprehensive effect, one focal truth, by which the work shall be remembered.

1. The relation of the conclusion to the rest of the work needs a word of notice. While the body of the argument has tended to diversity, following as it did the radiations of the thought into its various divisions and aspects, the conclusion, like the introduction, works to a unity. Thus, in a sense, the discourse ends where it began. But it does not end as it began. The introduction, as we have seen, called in the thought from extraneous associations and concentrated it on the theme ; the conclusion now gathers up the theme anew from its various components, and concentrates it on an appli- cation, or dynamic point, corresponding to the spirit and design of the whole work.

2. What form this application shall assume depends some- what, as in the case of the introduction, on whether the su- preme effect desired is intellectual or emotional.

When the work is purely of the intellect, the conclusion is naturally either a recapitulation, more or less formal, of the main stages of the argument, or a summary embodying the essential theme. In this latter case it may be merely the last stage of a series ; but when such, the other stages should show as successive steps in an inductive order, so that when this appears it may be the key and culmination of the whole.

When the work is one to be felt and acted upon, the con- clusion becomes a sort of appeal to motive and duty, gathering into itself the spirit of the discourse, and giv- ing it a thrust toward conduct. In tone it may be either soberly practical or strenuous and impassioned ; in

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 4SS

this respect obeying the momentum of the discourse that has preceded it.

Examples. — i. Of the summarizing conclusion. The essay on The Truth of the Matter summarizes its argument in the idea of art : —

" It is thus and only thus we shall have the truth of the matter : by art, — by the most diihcult of all arts ; by fresh study and first-hand vision ; at the mouths of men who stand in the midst of old letters and musty docu- ments and neglected records, not like antiquarians, but like those who see a distant country and a far-away people before their very eyes, as real, as full of life and hope and incident, as the day in which they themselves live. Let us have done with humbug and come to plain speech. The historian needs an imagination quite as much as he needs scholarship, and consum- mate hterary art as much as candor and common honesty. Histories are written in order that the bulk of men may read and realize ; and it is as bad to bungle the telling of the story as to lie, as fatal to lack a vocabulary as to lack knowledge. In no case can you do more than convey an impression, so various and complex is the matter. If you convey a false impression, what difference does it make how you convey it? In the wjiole process there is a nice adjustment of means to ends which only the artist can manage. There is an art of lying ; — there is equally an art, — an infinitely more difficult art, — of telling the truth."

2. Of the impassioned conclusion. Ruskin, concluding his lecture on The Deteriorative Power of Conventional Art over Nations 1 with an appeal to motive and character, a,t once summarizes the two main sides of his thought and gives their moral significance : — •

" Make, then, your choice, boldly and consciously, for one way or other it must be made. On the dark and dangerous side are set the pride which delights in self-contemplation — the indolence which rests in unquestioned forms — the ignorance that despises what is fairest among God's creatures, and the dulness that denies what is marvellous in his working : there is a life of monotony for your own souls, and of misguiding for those of others. And, on the other side, is open to your choice the life of the crowned spirit, moving as a light in creation — discovering always — illuminating always, gaining every hour in strength, yet bowed down every hour into deeper humility; sure of being right in its aim, sure of being irresistible in its progress; happy in what it has securely done — happier in what, day by day, it may as securely hope ; happiest at the close of life, when the right hand begins to forget its cunning, to remember, that there was never a

1 RuSKiN, The Two Paths, p. 53.

456 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

touch of the chisel or the pencil it wielded, but has added to the knowledge and quickened the happiness of mankind."

3. The actual culmination of an impassioned discourse is not always, perhaps not ideally, at the very end. There is needed a kind of cadence, a letting down to earth from a sus- tained and lofty flight, a gentle provision for the revulsion that may follow in the hearer's mind. This need is the occa- sion of the cadence conclusion, — a final passage in more quiet and subdued style, giving some thought related to the argument though not directly aimed at.

Apart from this graduated ending, the conclusion as a whole has not the motive for restraint in style that has been noted of the introduction. It takes influence from the char- acter of the discourse preceding it ; and thus, if there is emo- tion or depth of thought to warrant, it may fittingly adopt imagery, rhythm, a somewhat more spacious and rolling sen- tence structure. This is not inconsistent with its general character as a cadenced effect ; it merely specifies a particu- lar kind of cadence.

Examples. — Of the heightened and eloquent conclusion, the quotation just given from Ruskin is an example. A long suspensive structure used as a conclusion may be seen in the quotation from Cardinal Newman, p. 284, above. A familiar classical example is the peroration of Webster's Reply to Hayne.

The closing paragraph of Ruskin's Seven Lamps of Architecture is a good example of a cadence conclusion, with its subdued tone : —

" I have paused, not once nor twice, as I wrote, and often have checked the course of what might otherwise have been importunate persuasion, as the thought has crossed me, how soon all Architecture may be vain, except that which is not made with hands. There is something ominous in the light which has enabled us to look back with disdain upon the ages among whose lovely vestiges we have been wandering. I could smile when I hear the hopeful exultation of many, at the new reach of worldly science, and vigor of worldly effort ; as if we were again at the beginning of days. There is thunder on the horizon as well as dawn. The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered into Zoar." '

1 Ruskin, Sn'cti Lamps of Archil ecture, p. 3S8.

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 4S7

Transitions. — A transition, as the name indicates, is a passage over from one division of the. thought to another. It is an intermediate statement, in which is found something retained from what precedes, and something anticipatory of what follows. But in addition to this, it is essential that the transition be a distinct thought in itself, a statement worth making. To make the turn on a mere catch-word is merely to force thoughts together by arbitrary association.

Example of a Catch- Word Transition. — In the following, from a student essay, the new stage of the thought is tacked on by the chance suggestion of a word : —

" The people have now a much warmer interest in college base-ball games than even in the best professional league games.

■• And that is what we must keep out of our college athletics, profession- alism, which has crept into some of our sports, but which we must earnestly strive to abolish."

A transition is merely a form of explicit reference,^ made more marked and extended because the thoughts it connects have more important rank in the composition. The problem of transition — how to make one stage of thought pass nat- urally into the next — is always present in literary compo- sition, and is especially to be satisfied between the main divisions. The most important transition of all occurs natu- rally between the introduction and the body of discussion ; the next in importance, which however is much easier to effect, occurs between the discussion and the conclusion. In any case the aim is, while not impairing the perfect distinc- tion of the connected thoughts, to give them a genuine, not forced or arbitrary, sequence.^

Example of Transition Thought.— Referring to the Illustrative Plan, p. 439, it will be seen that there is a gap between the introductory thought, as there expressed, and the subject of the first main heading. The intro- duction (see p. 453), portraying the ideal, has led up to this statement :

1 For which, see above, p. 370.

2 For these qualities, as necessary requisites, see above, p. 440.

458 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

"The thing is infinitely difficult. The skill and strategy of it cannot be taught." Then follows this transition thought : " And so historians take another way, which is easier : they tell part of the truth, — the part most to their taste, or most suitable to their talents, — and obtain readers to their liking among those of similar tastes and talents to their own." Going on through an intermediate paragraph of amplification, in which are described some of the partial histories that deal with the kinds of truth they like and let the rest go, this transition thought leads finally to the inquiry : " Is there no way in which all the truth may be made to hold together in a narrative so strongly knit and so harmoniously colored that no reader will have either the wish or the skill to tear its patterns asunder, and men wUl take it all, unmarred an^ as it stands, rather than miss the zest of it ? " The answer to this is the first stage of the discussion, which (a negative stage) is opened by the sentence : " It is evident the thing cannot be done by the ' dispassionate ' annalist."

III. THE AMPLIFYING IDEAS.

In the making of the plan, the course and movement of the thought have been charted out ; the relations of the main ideas to the theme and to each other have been determined ; but as yet these ideas have been expressed only as headings, and together they have formed only a skeleton, 'a bony struc- ture. As the next and final stage of composition now, this bony structure must be clothed with the rounded fulness of life ; the core ideas must take to themselves a fitting body of explanatory, illustrative, and vivifying thought. To supply this, with all the finishing touches necessary to make the composition complete, is the work of amplification ; a process in which invention and style are equally concerned, being their final meeting-ground.

Amplification is often regarded with suspicion, as if it were merely spreading the thought out thin, or putting in what is called "padding"; and no advice about writing is more pop- ular than the advice to "boil it down." This suspicion is directed, however, only to the abuse of amplification, which

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 459

may be easy and great ; but rightly managed amplification is simply the most vital and necessary process in all composi- tion, ijtjs in facFTHesummit of composition itself, approached from the^inyehtive"side.'

The Glow of Composition. — As we enter upon the study of this final stage of the work, we need to take practical note of the fact that amplification is a more fervid process than plan- ning. The writer is in a more exalted mood. From a mood of severe discriminating thought, whose task it was to gather, weigh, and distribute ideas so as to satisfy the logical sense, he has passed, so to say, into an ardor of thinking, wherein the spirit of the work is acting ; he is living through some- thing of the vigor, the clear vision, the emotion, that he is trying to awaken in his reader. Thought and thinking — both these enter into the work ; and it is important to use the energy of the latter for what it is worth.

For this glow of composition sharpens his faculties and gives him clearer insight into all his work. It reacts also on the plan that he has made. New wordings are suggested, new distinctions and points of effect, and not infrequently changes of order. This does not mean that the plan has become useless ; too many think it does and throw away the plan here ; it simply means that the course of thought has become a more vital thing, more self-justifying and natural. It suggests also that plan-making is not something to be done once for all and closed ; rather, the plan should be kept open and flexible, to gain all it may from the quickened mood of composition. A useful maxim to bear in mind is, Do not be the slave of your own prearranged plan of discourse.^

1 " Ampliiication, I say, which in strict definition is not making a few thoughts go a long way, by powerful inflation, but clothing your outlined [discourse] in a full- rounded corporeity of actual, ponderable thoughts, all of them relational, of course, to that outline with its first, second, third and fourth, of main thoughts." — Burton, Yale Lectures^ p. 59.

2 This conclusion has been anticipated above, p. 432.

460 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

Of amplification, it is the business of the present section, after first glancing at its opposite, to discuss its objects, its means, and its accessories.

The Province of Unamplifled Expression. — It is to be con- ceded that not all enunciations of thought need amplification. There are cases where the most condensed and pointed expression is to be devised as final and best, — where any enlargement or elucidation is apt to result in weakening and dilution.'^ Such cases a sound literary instinct will recognize.

For this reason, along with the ability to amplify, the writer should no less diligently cultivate the exact opposite — the ability to compress thought into the telling and preg- nant form of aphorism. An aphorism is not merely a short sentence. It is a" short sentence crowded so full of thought that it overflows.^ For its end of sententiousness it may be somewhat sweeping, one-sided, paradoxical ; still, when the reader has thought beyond its bounds, as its art of putting things makes him do, it corrects itself.' To write aphoris- tically is a native gift, largely, but it may also be worked for anil developed. And its value is that it not only promotes the habit of thinking much in little compass ; it enables one better to fix his landmarks of thought, its cardinal and its

1 From the side of style this liability has been touched upon under Condensation for Vigor, p. 295, above.

2 " Aphorisms, except they should be ridiculous, cannot be made but of the pith and heart of sciences ; for discourse of illustration is cut off ; recitals of examples are cut off ; discourse of connexion and order is cut off \ descriptions of practice are cut off. So there remaineth nothing to fill the Aphorisms but some good quantity of observation ; and therefore no man can suffice, nor in reason will attempt, to write Aphorisms, but he that is sound and grounded." — Bacon, Advancement of Learn- ing, Book ii, p. 172.

3 " The very essence of an aphorism is that slight exaggeration which makes it more biting while less rigidly accurate." — Stephen, Hours in a Library, Vol. ii, p. 3. — Tlie danger to be guarded against in such writing is spoken of, p. 276, above.

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 461

subordinate points, by putting a fit share of his expression into unamplified form.'

It is well in any discourse to steer the thought now and then to some sententious conclusion, which shall summarize what has gone before, or nucleize what is to come, or enunci- ate some memorable lesson of life. It is in such utterances that the weighty and important points should be found ; this is the special value of unamplified thought in the body of a work.

Aphoristic Literature. — An indication of the estimate people set on unamplified thought is seen in the fact that every nation has its distinct body of gnomic or aphoristic literature, in the shape of popular maxims, bons mots, felicitous phrases, and the like. The existence, of these everywhere is a standing testi- mony to the value men put upon "the art of putting things." Relatively small in quantity, these weighty utterances have access and influence far beyond what their bulk betokens ; they represent the packed thought of all classes, and circulate like current coin.

One of the oldest philosophies of the world, the Hebrew, which was a philosophy of practical life, adopted this sen- tentious form, which is called the mashal, for its vehicle of instruction ; thus showing a fine sense of what the form is especially good for, — a lesspn of life, which none can mis- understand and which therefore needs no elucidation. In pointed, balanced, often antithetic enunciation it gathers into one utterance the result of seasoned observation, experience, wisdom. And so, both for its yield of truth and for its good

1 " Every expedient which reduces circumlocutory expression promotes the power and the habit of condensed thinking. A taste for short words, for Saxon words, for unqualified substantives, for crisp sentences, helps the thinking power to work in close quarters. A writer who acquires a fondness for speaking brevities learns to think in brevities. Happy is the man whose habit it is to think laconically. There are few things in which the reaction of style on thought and on the thinking force is so obvi- ous as in the growth of this condensing power." ■ — Phelps, Theory of Preaching, p. 447.

462 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

effect on one's own way of thinking, conversance witli this kind of literature has great charm and value.

Note. — The classic and model of aphoristic literature is the Book of Proverbs. Other collections are: Pascal's Thoughts, The Maxims of La Rochefoucauld, Joiibert's Thoughts, Poor Richard's Sayings, Hare's Guesses at Truth, and Helps's Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd. Besides these some standard authors — Shakespeare, Bacon, Pope, Landor, and Emerson — are noted for their sententious style, rich in wise and pithy sayings.

II.

Objects for which Amplification is employed. — The question here naturally rising, Why amplify at all.' is answered by recurrence to the shape in which the outline plan has left the thought. It is all there, essentially, but its condensed form, as mere headings, does not avail, except perhaps in some individual sayings, to make it effect its end. In some places it is too sweeping and absolute, in others too crowded or brief, in others still too flat and spiritless. To read it in that form is like taking food that is condensed into tablets.

Three principal objects of amplification may thus be de- duced and exemplified.

1. To give proper range, limits, and present application to an idea. In unamplified form an assertion may be too sweep- ing ; or while true it may be only a half truth needing to be guarded and supplemented ; or its present application may be unusual, needing therefore to be fixed. The first impulse of amplification, therefore, is toward a kind of definition of terms, a making sure how much or how little our assertion shall mean.

2. To give body to an idea, by dwelling on it long enough for the reader's mind to feel round it and grasp it and realize it. It takes time to get the bearings of an idea, and to get it settled and as it were at home in the mind ; so the very object

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 463

of devoting time to it, giving it bulk, is one justifying reason for amplification.'

3. To give an idea its proper coloring or atmosphere ; that is, to express it in a style adapting it to act, according to its intrinsic power, upon the sensibilities, or the understanding, or the will. Some thoughts that reasoned out would have com- paratively little effect might appeal strongly to the imagination. Some need merely the white light of clear presentation. Others still are full of latent eloquence and power on motive. It is on the appropriate amplification that we must depend, to make each thought do its predestined work in the reader's mind.^

Illustration. — All the above-mentioned objects of amplification are clearly illustrated in the following paragraphs,^ as may be seen by help of the appended notes : —

"The healthy know not of their health, but only the Sententia, or sick : this is the Physician's Aphorism ; and applicable ground assertion. in a far wider sense than he gives it. We may say, it 1 . To fix its holds no less in moral, intellectual, political, poetical, application, by than in merely corporeal therapeutics ; that wherever, taking it in wider or in what shape soever, powers of the sort which can sense, be named vital are at work, herein lies the test of their working right or working wrong.

1 " Time must be given for the Intellect to eddy about a truth, and to appropriate its bearings. There is a sort of previous lubrication, such as the boa constrictor applies to any subject of digestion, which is requisite to familiarize the mind with a startling or a complex novelty." — De Quincey, Essay on Style, Works, Vol. iv, p. 180. — " It is remarked by Anatomists, that the nutritive quality is not the only requisite in food, — that a certain degree of distension of the stomach is required, to enable it to act with its full powers ; — and that it is for this reason hay or straw must be given to horses, as well as corn, in order to supply the necessary bulk. Something analogous to this takes place with respect to the generality of minds ; which are incapable of thoroughly digesting and assimilating what is presented to them, however clearly, in a very small compass. ... It is necessary that the attention should be detained for a certain time on the subject." — Whately, Ele-ments of Rhetoric, p. 302.

2 " Matter as allied to, in ' electric affinity ' with, peculiar form, and working in air cases by an immediate sympathetic contact, on which account it is that it may be called soul, as opposed to mind, in style. And this too is a faculty of choosing and rejecting what is congruous or otherwise, with a drift towards unity — unity of atmosphere here, as there of design — soul securing color (or perfume, might we say ?) as mind secures form." — Pater, Appreciations, p. 23,

8 Caelyle, Essay on Characteristics, Essays, Vol. iii,.p. i.

464

INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

" In the Body, for example, as all doctors are agreed, the first condition of complete health is, that each organ perform its function unconsciously, unheeded; let but any organ, announce its separate existence, were it even boastfully, and for pleasure, not for pain, then already has one of those unfortunate 'false centres of sensi- bility ' established itself, already is derangement there. The perfection of bodily well-being is, that the collective bodily activities seem one; and be manifested, more- over, not in themselves, but in the action they accom- plish. If a Dr. Kitchiner boast that his system is in high order, Dietetic Philosophy may indeed take credit ; but the true Peptician was that Countryman who an- swered that, ' for his part, he had no system.' In fact, unity, agreement, is always silent, or soft-voiced ; it is only discord that loudly proclaims itself. So long as the several elements of Life, all fitly adjusted, can pour forth their movement like harmonious tuned strings, it is a melody and unison; Life, from its mysterious fountains, flows out as in celestial music and diapason, — which also, like that other music of the spheres, even because it is perennial and complete, without interrup- tion and without imperfection, might be fabled to escape the ear. Thus too, in some languages, is the state of health well denoted by a term expressing unity ; when we feel ourselves as we wish to be, we say that we are whole."

2. To dwell upon it until the reader realizes its extent of mean- ing.

3. To g^ve the spiritual and po- etic significance of it, — the im- aginative color- ing.

III.

Means of Amplification To amplify a thought so that it

shall indeed be more ample, — shall be enriched, not diffused or diluted, — is at bottom an affair not of means and methods but of the man. He must be a man of full mind, in whom the subject in hand is so mastered and matured that his thought upon it is active and germinant.^ This must be

1 " Where then do amplifications come from, and how can -a. poor, dry-minded, constipated mortal get them ? I answer : there is oirly one way, and that is to amplify the man." — Burton, Yale Lectures, p. 60. — See also the fine passage from Cardinal Newman quoted as a footnote, p. 2S7, above.

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 465

presupposed. Without such grounding no methods can do more than produce a semblance of amplification. With it, the means here to be described are the natural ways of work- ing, according to the intrinsic suggestiveness of ideas and the needs of the reader.

The leading means of amplification reduce themselves to three ; each of which, however, has various lines of working.

I. By employing Some Form of Repetition. — This is the means naturally employed in fixing the meaning of a term, or in treading in, so to say, some enunciation of truth. Essen- tially it is definition ; and its virtue consists in so varying the repeat that it will not seem iterative and yet in changed aspects will bring the same idea again and again to light. The old technical name for this broad use of repetition was interpretation^

I. The obvious forms of this repetition have already been recounted^: representing a term in the repeat by a defining term or phrase ; putting a literal term or assertion in place of a figurative, and vice versa ; putting a concrete for a gen- eral term ; and the like. All this may be done without seem- ing to go out of the way to do it.

Examples. — The example quoted from Burke, p. 306, above, is very plain and striking. Note also iiow, in the following sentence, the figurative assertion, "we must ascend," is defined by more literal repetition : " I say then, if we would improve the intellect, first of all, we must ascend ; we cannot gain real knowledge on a level ; we must generalize, we must reduce to method, we must have a grasp of principles, and group and shape our acquisitions by means of them. It matters not whether our field of operation be wide or limited ; in every case, to command it is to mount above it." ^

1 Payne, Burke's Select Works, Vol. i, p. xl. He defines it from Whately, Elements gf Rhetoric, p. 302 : " to repeat the same sentiment and argument in many different forms of expression ; each, in itself brief, but all, together, affording such an expansion of the sense to be conveyed, and so detaining the mind upon it, as the case may require."

2 See above, pp. 305 sqq. ^ Newman, Idea of a University, p. 139.

466 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

How such repetition, unskilfully managed, may seem to mark time with- out advancing, may be felt from the following: "No individual can be happy unless the circumstances of those around him be so adjusted as to conspire with his interest. For, in human society, no happiness or misery stands unconnected and independent. Our fortunes are interwoven by threads innumerable. We touch one another on all sides. One man's misfortune or success, his wisdom or his folly, often by its consequences reaches through multitudes." ^

2. Another device, essentially though not so obviously repe- titionary, is the employment of the obverse, that is, some consideration negative to the proposition in hand. This may take a variety of forms. In the exposition of ideas the nega- tive is generally direct — what the conception is not, set over against what it is. In the setting forth of events it may take more complex forms, as for instance, contrasting what oc- curred with what might have been expected, or with what would have occurred had circumstances been different. In any case the principle is that of antithesis, employed to repeat the idea in another aspect.^

Examples. — A simple obverse occurs in the sentence quoted above from Cardinal Newman : " we cannot gain real knowledge on a level." This is the first restatement of the proposition.

In the following the writer is speaking of unpardonable mannerism in writing, and he begins with describing its contrast, pardonable mannerism : " Mannerism is pardonable, and is sometimes even agreeable, when the manner, though vicious, is natural. Few readers, for example, would be willing to part with the mannerism of Milton or of Burke. But a manner- ism which does not sit easy on the mannerist, which has been adopted on principle, and which can be sustained only by constant effort, is always offensive. And such is the mannerism of Johnson." ^

1 Quoted from Blair's Sermons, by Payne, Burke's Select Works, Vol. i, p. xli. On the passage he remarks : " Here the same proposition is repeated five times, without any material addition or illustration, the impression left being that of great poverty of thought."

2 For Antithesis as a law of style, see above, p. 271 ; as a law of thought-assoda- tion, p. 444.

8 Macaulav, Essay on Boswell's Life of Johiison, Essays, Vol. ii, p. 423. See remarlcs on Macaulay's treatment of the obverse, Minto, Manual of English Prose Literature, p. 99.

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 467

An example of the contrast between the actual and what one would expect may be seen in the quotation from Deutsch, on p. 341, above.

3. A very serviceable management of this kind of repetition consists in expanding the sense until the thought is exhibited on its various sides, and then contracting it into its most pointed and striking form. An application of this has already been noted, in the apbthegmatic ending of the para- graph.' Its utility is, after elucidating the thought for the reader to understand, to sum up with a statement for him to remember.^

2. By reducing Generals to Particulars. — This is perhaps the most direct and spontaneous form of amplification, obeying as it does the natural impulse to prove an assertion once made. It is from the particulars that the writer's generaliza- tion is derived in the first place ; and now, to make it good, he separates it into its components before the reader's eyes, that the reader may have in possession the same ground of judgment.

This means of amplification may take somewhat different forms, according as it deals with facts or with principles.

I. A general fact is most naturally amplified by enumera- tion. It is a case where something depends on accumulating a goodly store of particulars ; they must be numerous enough to substantiate the assertion as an actual fact.

Illustrations. — In writing of the times of Edmund Burke, John Morley makes this comprehensive statement of its signs of progress : " In every order of activity a fresh and gigantic impulse was given, the tide of national life widened and swelled under the influence of new and flushed tributaries, the springs and sources were unsealed of modern ideas, modern systems, and of ideas and systems that are still to be developed." * To the

i See above, p. 378.

2 " The hearers will be struck by the forcibleness of the sentence which they will have been prepared to comprehend ; they will understand the longer expression, and remember the shorter." — Whatelv, Elements of Rhetoric, p. 351. For Balance Structure as an aid to this aphoristic summary, see pp. 309, 352, above.

s MORLEY, Edmund Burke, a Historical Study, p. 63.

468 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

amplification of this statement he devoted four paragraphs, whose topics are In the Spiritual order, In the Industrial order, In the Speculative and Scientific order. Fourthly, and finally, in the Political order. This is a simple enumeration. Another plain example may be seen in Ecclesiastes iii. 1-8, where the verses after i simply reduce to particulars the opening assertion.

2. A general principle is most naturally amplified by exem- plification, in which the object is not so much to substantiate by the number of details as to illustrate by their character. The example shows the truth in question in the concrete.

Example. — In the following the principle enunciated at the beginning is, after it has been enlarged by some definitive sentences, exemplified by several names chosen casually : " The fermentative influence of geniuses must be admitted as, at any rate, one factor in the changes that constitute social evolution. The community may evolve in many ways. The acci- dental presence of this or that ferment decides in which way it shall evolve. Why, the very birds of the forest, the parrot, the mino, have the power of human speech, but never develop it of themselves ; some one must be there to teach them. So with us individuals. Rembrandt must teach us to enjoy the struggle of light with darkness, Wagner to enjoy peculiar musical effects ; Dickens gives a twist to our sentimentality, Artemus Ward to our humor ; Emerson kindles a new moral light within us." i

3. It is to be noted here that the order of amplification in this form may sometimes be reversed, the general coming in as a summary to interpret a body of particulars. This is analogous, on a small scale, to the order of investigation, mentioned above.^

3. By adding Descriptive Details Not all amplification is

in the nature of proof or example ; nor is it always employed merely in the interests of the understanding. The imagination,

1 James, The Will to Believe, and Other Essays, p. 229.

2 See above, p. 446. " The examples which we take to prove other things, if we wish to prove the examples, we should take the other things to be their examples; for, as we always believe that the difficulty is in wlmt we wish to prove, we find the examples more clear, and they aid us in proving it. Thus wlien we wish to illustrate a general principle, we must exhibit the particular rule of a case ; but if we wish to illustrate a particular case, we must begin with the general rule." — Pascal, Thoughts, p. 232.

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 469

too, has its claim. On the scaffolding of formal plan or logical movement there must, in a large proportion of material, be erected a structure such as may be seen and felt, — realized as it were by the senses ; and the amplification used for this end must be of a heightening and vivifying character.^

I. Narrative and descriptive writing is the special field for such imaginative amplification ; there the motive of the work, largely, is to give life and concrete reality, and details are observed or invented to this end.

Example of its Recognized Importance. — As a mere historical event the discovery of the Wisconsin River might have been dispatched in a few words ; Parkman chooses rather to make its importance more vividly perceived by describing the scenery of the river as it must have looked to the explorers, Joliet and Marquette : —

" The perplexed and narrow channel . . . brought them at last to the portage ; where, after carrying their canoes a. mile and a half over the prairie and through the marsh, they launched them on the Wisconsin, bade farewell to the waters that flowed to the St. Lawrence, and committed them- .selves to the current that was to bear them they knew not whither, — perhaps to the Gulf of Mexico, perhaps to the South Sea or the Gulf of California. They glided calmly down the tranquil stream, by islands choked with trees and matted with entangling grapevines ; by forests, groves, and prairies, — the parks and pleasure-grounds of a. prodigal nature ; by thickets and marshes and broad bare sand-bars ; under the shadowing trees, between whose tops looked down from afar the bold brow of some woody bluff. At night, the bivouac, — the canoes inverted on the bank, the flickering fire, the meal of bison-flesh or venison, the evening pipes, and slumber beneath the stars : and when in the morning they embarked again, the mist hung on the river like a bridal veil ; then melted before the sun, till the glassy water and the languid woods basked breathless in the sultry glare." ^

1 " Invention determines that such events shall happen ; but in the case of the finest work it attempts to go no further. It has proposed the scene : the power which sets the scene like life before the inward eye, the graphic touch which makes it unforr gettable, belong, of right, to the imagination alone." — Article on Invention and Imagination, Macmillan' s Magazine, Vol. Ivi, p. 275.

2 Parkman, Discovery of the Great West, p. 54. Not only the historian's sense of its importance, but the pains he was at to get this imagined scene authentic, may be indicated in the footnote appended to this paragraph of description ; " The above traits of the scenery of the Wisconsin are taken from personal observation of the river during midsummer."

470 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

2. In many cases where the idea is abstruse, or where it needs to be keenly realized as a truth of life, some figure of analogy or metaphor is employed to make it more apprehen- sible to the imagination.

Example. — In the following the attempt is made, by figurative descrip- tion, to make more apprehensible to imagination the mystery of our world as a dwelling-place : —

" Although the world and life have in a sense become commonplace to our experience, it is but in an external torpor; the true sentiment slumbers within us ; and we have but to reflect on ourselves or our surroundings to rekindle our astonishment. No length of habit can blunt our first surprise. Of the world I have but little to say in this connection ; a few strokes shall suifice. We inhabit a dead ember swimming wide in the blank of space, dizzily spinning as it swims, and lighted up from several million miles away by a more horrible hell-fire than was ever conceived by the theological imagination. Yet the dead ember is a green, commodious dwelling-place ; and the reverberation of this hell-fire ripens flower and fruit and mildly warms us on summer eves upon the lawn. Far off on all hands other dead embers, other flaming suns, wheel and race in the apparent void ; the near- est is out of call, the farthest so far that the heart sickens in the effort , to conceive the distance. Shipwrecked seamen on the deep, though they bestride but the truncheon of a boom, are safe and near at home compared with mankind on its bullet. Even to us who have known no other, it seems a strange, if not an appalling, place of residence." i

3. Incidents, anecdotes, apologues, are a frequent means of illustrative amplification, especially in popular discourse. They may be regarded as a free form of exemplification. As to the management of them, they are to be regarded as a story told not for its details but for its point ; which latter must be so identified with the idea illustrated- that the illus- tration will not be remembered by itself. To make a dis- course of stories that illustrate nothing or only insignificant things is to degrade literature from a worthy use to a mere entertainment.

1 Stevenson, Lay Morals, Works, Vol. xxii, p. 552.

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 471

Example. — In the article on Invention and Imagination, already quoted from, the argument is thus concluded and summed up by apologue : —

" Are we, then, to conclude, from these considerations, that invention is to be despised ? Far from it. In its own domain it is a power. We owe the Arabian Nights almost to it alone. Gulliver, Robinson Crusoe, The Pilgrim's Progress, could not have been produced without its active aid ; nor, indeed, could some far mightier works. Paradise Lost or The Inferno. But when it comes to making men and women, Centaurs and archangels, breathe and live, invention either stands aside in modesty, or toils and fails.

" Solomon (so runs the apologue) was one day musing in his garden, at the fifth hour of the day, when there appeared to him two Spirits, who bowed down before him, and besought him to judge, by his wisdom, which of them was the most powerful. Solomon consented, and commanded the first Spirit to display his might. The Spirit took a piece of rock, and smote with it upon a larger block ; again, and yet again, the blows fell ; and slowly, as the Spirit toiled, the block assumed the figure of a, man. And the man sat motionless and moved not ; because he was of rock. Then Solomon signed with his finger to the other Spirit. And he stepped towards the man of rock, and breathed upon his eyes, and upon his feet, and upon his heart. And the man rose up as if from sleep, and moved, and bowed down at the feet of Solomon ; for he had become a living thing. Then the first Spirit drooped and trembled ; but the eyes of the other shone like light, and he laughed so gloriously with triumph, that at the sound of his laughter Solomon awoke ; and behold, it was a dream." ^

IV.

Accessories of Amplification Besides the direct means of

amplification, there are to be noted certain accessories that,, rightly employed, do much to give fulness and interest to the thought.

Quotation For corroborating one's own statements, or for

giving them the pointedness of felicitous phrase, quotation may be made a valuable accessory to amplification.^ The right use of it, however, is an art, which modern habits of

1 Macmillan's Magazine, Vol. Ivi, p. 278.

2 " He that borrows the aid of an equal understanding doubles his own ; he that uses that of his superior elevates his own to the stature of that he contemplates." — Remark quoted from Burke, by Emerson, Works, Vol. viii, p. 170.

472 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

thought in literature have made somewhat exacting. One or two features of the art we may here note.

1. To be rightly employed a quoted thought must be thor- oughly assimilated in one's own thinking, and lie in the direct line of it. If it is a little aside, or looks toward a different conclusion — and all the more if 07ily a little out of the way — it confuses the unity and impairs the tissue of the work.

Example of the Fault. — The following quotations, especially the one in verse, which occur in the midst of a passage inculcating painstaking in composition, turn the thought aside and confuse it : —

" Our best poets have been equally painstaking. Ben Jonson declared, contrary to the popular opinion, ' that a good poet 's made, as well as born.' So, also, Wordsworth : —

* O many are the poets that are sown By nature, men endowed with highest gifts. The vision and the faculty divine ; Yet wanting the accomplishment of verse. Which in the docile season of their youth. It was denied them to acquire through lack Of culture, and the inspiring aid of books.' "

From this point onward the subject of painstaking, which has waited for these irrelevant quotations, is resumed.

2. The modern sense of honesty in composition demands that a quotation be given in the exact words, grammatical construction, and punctuation of the author quoted ; the quo- tation marks guarantee that. To this end, if any construc- tion must be modified to suit the quotation, it must be the writer's own.

Examples of the Fault. — The following, from a student essay, involves the writer in an impossible grammatical construction : " Not very far from my home the Charles, the

■ River I that in silence wendest,'

flows onward, pursuing its course to the sea."

The following, from a similar source, compels the quoted expression to use the wrong grammatical case : " Yet he did know that ' Christ and Him

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 473

crucified ' was now his all in all ; and this knowledge thrilled every fibre of his body." If he had written, " Yet he did know that his all in all was summed up in ' Christ and Him crucified,' " etc., the clash in grammar would have been avoided without invading the accuracy of the quotation.

3. As to manner of quoting. If a quoted passage is a para- graph by itself it should occupy a paragraph in the citation ; if only a sentence or a phrase, it may be run into the text. — Poetry should be quoted in lines, if more than one line is quoted ; if only one line, or part of a line, the writer should judge whether from its closer or looser connection, it will better appear in the body of his own thought or in a line by itself. — It is a pretty general and commendable custom now- adays not to put quotation marks to well-known passages and phrases, as from the Bible and Shakespeare ; they may be treated as common stock of language.

Note. — In one case of quoting Matthew Arnold runs verse into prose, in part, it would seem, to express his silent contempt for it as poetry: " He may disobey such indications of the real law of our being, in other spheres besides the sphere of conduct. He does disobey them, when he sings a. hymn like : My Jesus to know, and feel his blood flow, or, indeed, like nine-tenths of our hymns, — or when he frames and maintains a, blun- dering and miserable constitution of society, — as well as when he commits some plain breach of the moral law." ' To quote the italicized passage as poetry would be to dignify it unduly.

Allusion and Suggestion. — The amount of thought actually conveyed through literature is not to be measured by what is said, but by what the reader is made to think and feel. And so beyond the definite impartations of language there is a whole realm of vaguer elements : allusions, turns of phrase, colorings of figure, subtleties of rhythm and assonance, which have their effect in enriching both the thought and the emo- tional power of the discourse. Sometimes an abrupt leaving- off, or a silence about something that the reader may be left

1 Arnold, Literature and Dogma, p. 39.

474 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

to think for himself, may amplify better than expression. All these vague elements are beyond the sphere of rules or even discipline ; they must be left to the native literary sense using the powers of a full-stocked mind. Under various topics of style they have already been sufficiently exemplified.

Note. — For Implicatory Words and Coloring, see above, pp. 87-94; for Animus of Word and Figure, pp. 102-106 ; for the suggestion of sound in language, pp. 153-162; for picturing power of language, pp. 146-153. A suggestive article on this subject is. The' Vague Elements in Language, Burton, Yale Lectures, p. 222.

BOOK V. THE LITERARY TYPES.

In. our study of inventive processes hitherto, we have con- templated the laws of invention as they avail for any and every kind of material. But material, as it is of widely varied kinds, must apply these laws variously. Each kind has its own handling of theine, its own ordering or movement of main ideas, its own natural current of amplification. Each kind of material, therefore, according to its prevailing inven- tive attitude, conforms to a specific literary type, by which the whole composition is known and classified.

Four leading types thus take their rise ; named from the processes concerned respectively in the production of them. These, with the kinds of material with which they deal, are as follows : —

r;

Description ; invention dealing with observed objects.

Narration ; invention dealing with events. ' Exposition ; invention dealing with generalized ideas. I Argumentation ; invention dealing with truths, and with ' — issues of conviction.

To the study of these the coming four chapters will be devoted.

Though, as above said, a finished literary work is known and classified under some one type, yet it is to be noted that these types are combined in a great many ways, one helping and reinforcing another. Some of the most important of

475

476 THE LITERARY TYPES.

these combinations will be pointed out. Beyond this, how- ever, and in general beyond the study of the unmixed types, it is not in the scope of a rhetorical text-book to go. The completed literary forms call for a more advanced course of investigation.

;.

n '

' CHAPTER XIV.

DESCRIPTION.

Beyond doubt the most primitive and natural impulse to literary utterance manifests itself in men's effort |:o report what they observe in the world around them. This impulse is equally spontaneous whether the objects observed be at rest or in action, whether persons and things or events ; and thus this simplest inventive effort results in two types of dis- course, description and narration ; types generally found in some proportion together, but distinct in principle, and there- fore needing to be studied separately.

Definition of Description. — Description is the portrayal of concrete objects, material or spiritual, Fy means of language.

Some points "onKisTefinition need special explication. Observe : —

1. Definition centres in portrayal. This is a painter's term, and represents an analogous thing, — picturing. Merely to enumerate the parts and qualities of an object would be giv- ing information, and for some purposes this would be enough ; but this would be a prosy thing, a catalogue, a report, not a description. To describe is to enlist the imagination in the work, making the reader see or otherwise realize the object with something of the writer's vigor of conception. This means making a kind of word-picture, wherein is something answering to the draughtsmanship, the coloring, the light and shade, the perspective, that give artistry to an actual picture.

■2. The objects with which description deals are concrete, that is, not perceived as members of a class, and by class

477

478 THE LITERARY TYPES.

characteristics, but as unique objects, and by individual char- acteristics. In this respect description is the contrast to exposition, as will be more fully explained later. The signifi- cance of this distinction here is, that description, as soon as the object's class is named, leaves thought of this, and seeks to give the traits, not wherein the object is like others, but wherein it is different, wherein it is individually impressive.

3. The range of objects amenable to description is so great as to include not only objects of sense, as persons and things, which are adapted to portrayal, but spiritual objects, as for instance character, states of mind, and the like, which con- tain little or no pictorial suggestiveness. This fact makes it important, especially in the case of the latter class of objects, to know what style or treatment is most realizable, most like portrayal.

In following out the requirements of this definition we encounter difficulties of a peculiar kind, which make it neces- sary in description to rely not only on its intrinsic principles, but equally on various accessories of description. To these two subjects the chapter is mainly devoted.

I. THE UNDERLYING PRINCIPLES.

The distinguishing principles of description rise from its analogy to the picturing idea. A picture produces its effect as a whole, and produces it at once. Toward a like end description aims, so far as its somewhat intractable material will allow. Accordingly its theme, or working-idea, is not formulated but diffused through the course and details of the whole ^ ; its logical framework, or plan, appears as little like a framework, as much like a vital unity, as possible ; its texture of amplification works to a homogeneous scale and color- scheme, in the effort after a self-consistent sum of impression.

1 For the descriptive theme, see above, p. 426.

DESCRIPTION. 479

Thus from beginning to end the construction lines of the composition, though present, are hidden and unobtrusive, being fused, as it were, in the glow and spirit of the por- trayal.

I.

Problems of Material and Handling. — The difficulties of description are such as rise from making some beautiful thing out of unplastic material and with an unwieldy work- ing-tool. The working-tool is language, employed to do what more naturally belongs to the brush or the chisel. The mate- rial is just the multitude of parts and details that we are aware of in contemplating any object. In the object as . observed all these, great and small, are in perfect union and relation ; but when it comes to making a word-picture, they have to be taken up one by one and so named or insinuated as to create a realizable image in the reader's imagination.' It is evident that to do this efficiently requires no small skill ; it is in fact one of the acknowledged triumphs of literature.

Two of the hardest problems that confront us in this kind of work may here be mentioned.

I. The Problem of Selection. — This problem presents diffi- culty on two sides. On the one hand, the number of details belonging to any object, all seeming to clamor for recogni- tion, is very great. On the other hand, to enumerate more than a very limited number crowds and confuses, not vivifies, the portrayal. It is as imperative, then, that the writer omit or suppress details as that he express them ■ he must know uihat aids the life of his picture, what clogs and stifles it.

As regards copiousness of selection, then, a safe' rule is,

1 " Marble, paint, and language, the pen, the needle, and the brush, all have their grossnesses, their ineffable impotences, their hours, if I may so express myself, of insubordination. It is the work and it is a great part of the delight of any artist to contend with these unruly tools, and now by brute energy, now by witty expedient, to drive and coax them to effect his will." — Stevenson, A Note on Realism, Works, Vol. xxii, p. 270.

480 THE LITERARY TYPES.

choose the smallest number of details that will adequately present your design ; but see that they make up in impor- tance and character-giving quality for what they sacrifice in number. To this end they should be chosen with reference to their power on the imagination ; if you cannot tell the whole, tell that most outstanding and distinctive thing which is likeliest to make the reader think the whole.

2. The Problem of Total Effect. — This problem rises from the fact that the describing must take time, must give details of the object in succession, while the object itself, being at rest, must produce its impression all at once. This is the disad- vantage of language as a picturing medium ; it has to go on continually to new things, and yet the things it has left must, for the integrity of the picture, remain as vivid as ever.'

To meet this difficulty, it is essential that the description be modelled on a well-marked basis of structure ; there must be, so worded as to concentrate attention, a core or framework of description, to which, as he goes along, the reader's memory and imagination may continually refer, thus building a body of details around it. In this way the character or scheme of the portrayal may give interrelation to the details, so that they may be realized together.

1 " How do we obtain a clear idea of a thing in space ? First we observe its sepa- rate parts, then the union of these parts, and finally the whole. Our senses perform these various operations with such amazing rapidity as to make them seem but one. This rapidity is absolutely essential to our obtaining an idea of the whole, which is nothing more than the result of the conception of the parts and of their connection with each other. Suppose now that the poet should lead us in proper order from one part of the object to the other ; suppose he should succeed in making the connection of these parts perfectly clear to us ; how much time will he have consumed ?

" The details, which the eye takes in at a glance, he enumerates slowly one by one, and it often happens that, by the time he has brought us to the last, we have forgot- ten the first. Yet from these details we are to form a picture. When we look at an object the various parts are always present to the eye. It can run over them again and again. The ear, however, loses the details it has heard, unless memory retain them. And if they be so retained, what pains and effort it costs to recall their impressions in the proper order and with even the moderate degree of rapidity necessary to the obtaining of a tolerable idea of the whole." — Lessing, Laocoon, p. 102.

DESCRIPTION. 481

II.

Mechanism of Description. — However disguised, and how- ever variously proportioned, there must be a mechanical ele- ment, a matter-of-fact structure, underlying any portrayal ; it must be there, to work its purpose and be felt, whether the reader consciously analyzes it or not. The following are its cardinal stages.

I. Determining the Point of View. — Before the description is begun, the writer n\ust have determined in his mind from what point the object is to be contemplated ; and to this imagined point he mu^t hold throughout, or at least not shift it without due warning. On this point of view depends the scale of the description. A river fifteen rods away would not have been described as " like a silver thread running through the landscape," if the' writer had been mindful where he was standing. The distajice, near or remote, regulates the num- ber and minuteness of details, the masses of color, shading, and the like ; the relative position to the object regulates its shape and perspective, and in general the impression it makes. Thewhol^_£oinjgositw articulated and balanced

bjr^the point of view.

Examples. — i. The description of the continent of Europe, quoted from Ruskin on pp. i68, 169, above, is very careful in its choice of point of view. The viriter wishes first to describe very general features of scenery, mountain ranges, and vegetation, such features as a bird would see ; so, having mentioned the stork and swallow, he says : " Let us, for a moment, try to raise ourselves even above the level of their flight, and imagine the Mediterranean lying beneath us like an irregular lake,'' etc. Turn to the description, and see what kind and scale of details this point of view makes visible. Having thus traversed the continent from south to north, he then proposes a nearer point of view : "And having once traversed in thought this gradation of the zoned iris of the earth in all its material vastness, let us go down nearer to it, and watch the parallel change in the belt of animal life,'' etc. This enables him to describe the animals, the men, and the works of men, as he is in imagination near enough to see the more particular details.

482 THE LITERARY TYPES.

A. In the following, Stevenson 1 chooses not only a point of literal view, but a time in his life and a time in the season of the year, to describe a cer- tain river. Observe how each point influences the description : — ■

" I have named, among many rivers that make music in my memory, that dirty Water of Leith.. Often and often I desire to look upon it again ; and the choice of a point of view is easy to me. It should be at a certain water-door, embowered in shrubbery. The river is there dammed back for the service of the flour-mill just below, so that it lies deep and darkling, and the sand slopes into brown obscurity with a glint of gold ; and it has but newly been recruited by the borrowings of the snuff-mill just above, and these, tumbling merrily in, shake the pool to its black heart, fill it with drowsy eddies, and set the curded froth of many other mills solemnly steering to and fro upon the surface. Or so it was when I was young ; for change, and the masons, and the pruning-knife, have been busy ; and if I could hope to repeat a cherished experience, it must be on many and impossible conditions. I must choose, as well as the point of view, a cer- tain moment in my growth, so that the scale may be exaggerated, and the trees on the steep opposite side may seem to climb to heaven, and the sand by the water-door, where I am standing, seem as low as Styx. And I must choose the season also, so that the valley may be brimmed like a cup with sunshine and the songs of birds ; — and the year of grace, so that when I turn to leave the riverside I may find the old manse and its inhabitants unchanged."

It is not always necessary that the point of view be expHc- itly mentioned. What is of more importance than the men- tion, is that the details should be so graduated to one point of view that the reader may instinctively 7^^/ his position with reference to the object. It is, after all, in this medium of portrayal, not a point of view but a point of thought, from which, according to the data supplied, the reader has to imagine a self-consistent picture.

Note. — In the following; notice how the whole impression, with its scale and appearance of details, is determined by the observer's position, assumed casually as a point of view : —

" The little square that surrounds it [the cathedral of Chartres] is deplor- ably narrow, and you flatten your back against the opposite houses in the

1 Memories and Portraits, Works, Vol. xiii, p. 241.

DESCRIPTION. 483

vain attempt to stand off and survey the towers. The proper way to look at them would be to go up in a balloon and hang poised, face to face with them, in the blue air. There is, however, perhaps an advantage in being forced to stand so directly under them,"for this position gives you an over- whelming impression of their height. I have seen, I suppose, churches as beautiful as this one, but I do not remember ever to have been so fasci- nated by superpositions and vertical effects. The endless upward reach of the great west front, the clear, silvery tone of its surface, the way three or four magnificent features are made to occupy its serene expanse, its sim- plicity, majesty, and dignity — these things crowd upon one's sense with a force that makes the act of vision seem for the moment almost all of life." *

This point of thought is as real in the delineation of spirit- ual objects as of material. It is another name for the attitude that we assume, whether deliberately or through limitation, toward an object ; as when we view a character through crit- ical or sympathetic eyes, or as when we judge a mental endowment from the standing-point of skill or its opposite.

Note. — A significant example of the mental point of view is seen in Browning's poem How it strikes a Contemporary, which is a description of a poet as seen and judged in Spain by an ordinary man of the people ignorant of poetry. To him a poet, with his clear-seeing, inquiring eyes, was a man who took note of everything and reported to the king : —

" He took such cognizance of men and things. If any beat a horse, you felt he saw ; If any cursed a woman, he took note ; Yet stared at nobody, — you stared at him. And found, less to your pleasure than surprise. He seemed to know you and expect as much." 2

Here the point of view brings out an unusual element, though not an unreal one, of the poet-character.

2. Making the Nucleus of Descrjption. — Having determined his point of view, and with it the'^neral scale of the por- trayal, the writer's next step is to give^in a brief outline the most comprehensive or characterizing trait of the object

1 James, Portraits of Places^ p. 123,

2 Robert Browning, Poems (Cambridge edition), p. 336.

484 THE LITERARY TYPES.

described, as a kind of core or framework for the whole pic- ture. Round this the reader may in imagination group the various details as they come up-

The kind of features that constitute such nucleus are : in a material object, the name of its class, its shape, size, position, or some indication of what it is like ; in a spiritual object, the predominating motive, summary of qualities, character- izing trait. These, according to the tone of the description, may be recounted in a matter-of-fact way, or by figure and epithet.

Examples. — i. Victor Htigo's description of the battle of Waterloo is modelled on the following elaborate nucleus of description : —

" Those who wish to form a clear idea of the battle of Waterloo, need only imagine a capital A laid on the ground. The left stroke of the A is the Nivelles road, the right one the Genappe road, while the cross of the A is the sunken road from Ohain to Braine I'AUeud. The top of the A is Mont Saint Jean; Wellington is there ; the left-hand lower point is Hougo- mont ; Reille is there with Jerome Bonaparte ; the right-hand lower point is la Belle Alliance ; Napoleon is there. A little below the point where the cross of the A meets the right stroke, is La Haye Sainte ; in the centre of this cross is the precise point where the final battle-word was spoken. It is here that the lion is placed, the involuntary symbol of the supreme heroism of the Imperial Guard.

" The triangle contained at the top of the A between the two strokes and the cross, is the plateau of Mont Saint Jean. The dispute for this plateau was the whole battle." i

2. Green's famous description of the character of Queen Elizabeth is modelled on the following antithetic nucleus, which, from one point or another, gives color to all the details of character and policy : —

" She was at once the daughter of Henry and of Anne Boleyn. From her father she inherited her frank and hearty address, her love of popularity and of free intercourse with the people, her dauntless courage and her amazing self-confidence. Her harsh, man-like voice, her impetuous will, her pride, her furious outbursts of anger came to her with her Tudor blood. . . . But strangely in contrast with the violent outlines of her Tudor temper stood the sensuous, self-indulgent nature she derived from Anne "Boleyn. Splendor and pleasure were with Elizabeth the very air she

1 Hugo, Les Mlscrables, Cosette, Book i, Chap. iv.

DESCRIPTION. 485

breathed. Her delight was to move in perpetual progresses from castle to castle through a series of gorgeous pageants, fanciful and extravagant as a caliph's dream." ^

In cases where the description is not the main element of the composition, as for instance in those bits of portrayal found imbedded in works of history or fiction, the description is generally carried no farther than this nucleus ; to which, however, is sometimes added a more detailed account of the part or quality that is of special significance for the main work.

Examples. — i. Carlyle thus summarizes the environs of Zomdorf, where Frederick is to fight one of his battles : " Such is the poor moorland tract of Country ; Zomdorf the centre of it, — where the Battle is likely to be : — Zomdorf and environs a bare quasi-island among these woods ; extensive bald crown of the landscape, girt with a frizzle of firwoods all round." ^ To this outline, as important for his military operations, he adds a more detailed account of the swamps and small streams around.

2. The following condensed description of a person, " the brown old seaman, with the sabre-cut," is a fair specimen of the kind of description introduced into works of fiction : " I' remember him as if it were yesterday, as he came plodding to the inn door, his sea-chest following behind him in a hand-barrow ; a tall, .strong, heavy, nut-brown man ; his tarry pigtail fall- ing over the shoulders of his soiled blue coat ; his hands ragged and scarred, with black, broken nails ; and the sabre-cut across one cheek, a dirty, livid white." ^ So much of description is sufficient to arouse imagination arid interest, and this in fact is its object.

3. Adding the Amplifying Matter. — The nature of descrip- tive amplification and the nlanner of its arrangement depend largely on the object of the portrayal, and whether it is made for information or for the imagination. Its various aspects will be taken up in the nextWction. One remark, however, may be made here. The ruling aim is to make the details homogeneous. They should nav^arkeeping'"wiOr^ach"other

1 Green, A Short History of the English People, Chap, vii. Section 3.

2 Carlyle, Frederick the Great, Vol. vi, p. 381. 8 Stevenson, Treasure island, Chap, i.

4S6 THE LITERARY TYPES.

and with the tone and key of discourse, so that all may work together to produce one harmonious effect. An incongruous feature is to the imagination what a false progression is in music; it destroys the artistic illusion.

It is in this respect that description is invention. Follow- ing ttuth and nature, as it does, yeT it is selecieS'\x\x\!&, truth moulded into organic and speaking character by the point of view, the core of suggestion, and the imaginative coloring that controls the whole.

Note. — Here the key of words becomes significant (see above, p. 104), and the level of language must be conformed to the elevation of the object. To describe a dignified object or action in vulgar terms, or with occasional lapse into vulgarism, on the one hand ; to bedizen a simple or delicate sub- ject with fine writing, on the other; is equally an offense against that descriptive art which so depends on an unerringly guided imagination.^

III.

Subdual of Descriptive Details. — By this term, subdual, as con- noting the seriousness of the problem, we may designate the management of the numerous and loosely connected details that go to make up a body of description. To the writer these details come up in succession, as a catalogue ; they are to reach the reader as an organic unity. The problem, as already intimated,^ is mainly one of parsimony : how to effect the result with the fewest particulars possible, and how to make each particular count, in its place, for the most possible.

1 The following passage suggests the contrast in effect that could easily be made by employing more prosaic or vulgarized terms. It supposes Homer's heroes fight- ing naked rather than in armor. " Instead of the clash of helmets, and the rushing of chariots, and the whizzing of spears, and the glancing of swords, and the cleaving of shields, and the piercing of breast-plates, why not represent the Greeks and Tro- jans like two savage tribes, tugging and tearing, and kicking and biting, and gnash- ing, foaming, grinning, and gouging, in all the poetry of martial nature, unencumbered with gross, prosaic, artificial arms ; an equal superfluity to the natural warrior, and his natural poet?" — Byron, on Bowles's Strictures on the Life and Writings of Pope, Literary Pamphlets, Vol. ii, p. 1S9,

2 See above, p. 479, 1.

DESCRIPTION. 487

According to the result in view, and the exactions of the object, three types of description may be distinguished, cov- ering the various ways of subduing details.

1. Description by Charted Order. — ]By__this,is meant descrip- tion that follows the visible lines of the object, as if it were ma£gedout_from jart to part; thus going over the ground in the order suggested by nature.

Such description seeks the matter-of-fact result of giving information ; it is only subordinately concerned with making the reader imagine, because the object is one of which he wishes to know parts, dimensions, materials, relations in space. It applies to common objects of nature and art : landscapes, tracts of country, buildings, pictures, machinery, and the like. It will not bear, great reduction of details, for these are a part of the information ; it is at best a catalogue, arranged according to the scheme of nature ; and its unitary effect depends largely on accentuating this scheme.

Examples. — i. The description of Chartres cathedral, of which the point of view is indicated on p. 482, follows this order and type as far as can be done from its point of view ; naturally, too, it begins at the ground and goes upward -as one would do standing directly at the base of the edifice.

" The doors are rather low, as those of the English cathedrals are apt to be, but (standing three together) are set in a deep framework of sculpture — rows of arching grooves, filled with admirable little images, standing with their heels on each other's heads. The church, as it now exists, except the northern tower, dates from the middle of the thirteenth cen- tury, and these closely-packed figures are full of the grotesqueness of ' the period. Above the triple portals is a vast round-topped window, in three divisions, of the grandest dimensions and the stateliest effect. Above this window is a circular aperture, of huge circumference, with a double row of sculptured spokes radiating from its center and looking on its lofty field of stone as expansive and symbolic as if it were the wheel of Time itself. Higher still is a little gallery with a delicate balustrade, supported on a beautiful cornice and stretching across the front from tower to tower ; and above this is a range of niched statues of kings — fifteen, I believe, in number. Above the statues is a gable, with an image of the Virgin and

488 THE LITERARY TYPES.

Child on its front, and another of Christ on its apex. In the relation of all these parts there is such a high felicity that while on the one side the eye rests on a great many large blanks there is no approach on the other to poverty." '

So far as to the fa9ade ; when the towers are described accessories of metaphor and personification are resorted to.

2. The following description of a face, though its nucleus sentence indi- cates a description by impression, is mainly on this charted order : —

"He thought, as she knelt there, that he had never seen how lovely and how charged with mystery her features were; the dark large eyes full on the brows ; the proud line of a straight nose in right measure to the bow of the lips ; reposeful red lips, shut, and their curve of the slumber-smile at the comers. Her forehead was broad ; the chin of a sufficient firmness to sustain that noble square ; the brows marked by a soft thick brush to the temples ; her black hair plainly drawn along her head to the knot, revealed by the mantilla fallen on her neck."^

2. Description by Impression. — In this kind of description the details are chosen and massed according to the impression they are adapted to make on the reader's imagination. As the details are selected with reference to some characterizing quality common to them all, they are thus congruous with one another, and work together to heighten the vividness of the picture.^

Note. — Professor Pryde's illustration, taken from a familiar scene of nature, wUl make this method of choosing details clear : —

" As an instance, let us suppose that a writer is out in the country on a morning toward the end of May, and wishes to describe the multitudinous objects which delight his senses. First of all, he ascertains that the gen- eral impressions produced on his mind by the summer landscape are the ideas of luxuriance, brightness, and joy. He then proceeds to describe in

' James, Portraits of Places, p. 123.

2 Meredith, Diana of the Cross-ways, p. 84.

s " In studying any interesting scene, let your mind look carefully at all the details. You will then become conscious of one or more effects or impressions that have been made upon you. Discover what these impressions are. Then group and descrilie in order the details which tend to produce each of tl\e Impressions. You will then find that you have comprised in your description all the important details of the scene." — Pryde, Highways of Literature, p. 15S.

DESCRIPTION. 489

these groups the details which produce these impressions. He first takes up the luxuriant features : the springing young crops of grain completely hiding the red soil ; the rich, living carpet of grass and flowers covering the meadow; the hedge-rows on each side of the way, in their bright summer green ; the trees bending gracefully under the full weight of their foliage ; and the wild plants, those waifs of nature, flourishing everywhere, smother- ing the woodland brook, filling up each scar and crevice in the rock, and making a rich fringe along the side of every highway and footpath. He then descants upon the brightness of the landscape: the golden sun- shine ; the pearly dew-drops hanging on the tips of every blade of grasS, and sparkling in the morning rays ; the clusters of daisies dappling the pasture-land ; the dandelion glowing under the very foot of the traveller; the chestnut trees, like great candelabra, stuck all over with white lights, lighting up the woodlands; and lilacs, laburnums, and hawthorns in full flower, making the farmer's garden one mass of variegated blossom. And last of all, he can dwell upon theyoy that is abroad on the face of the earth : the little birds so full of one feeling that they can only thrill it forth in the same delicious monotone; the lark bounding into the air, as if eager and quivering to proclaim his joy to the whole world; the humble-bee humming his satisfaction as he revels among the flowers ; and the myriads of insects floating in the air, and poising, and darting with drowsy buzz through the floods of golden sunshine. Thus we see that, by this habit of generalizing, the mind can grasp the details of almost any scene."

As in this treatment of details the writer becomes aware of his impression by interrogating his own imagination, so the details that thus become vivid to him are such as are adapted to awaken the reader's imagination. Strictly speaking, this describes not the object but qualities of the object ; a legiti- mate portrayal, however, because it is qualities, vitalized traits, that are concerned.^

1 It is much the fashion nowadays to inveigh against multiplying detail in descrip- tion ; and indeed this is a great peril in the hands of unimaginative writers. But sup- pose the masses of detail are strongly controlled by their key of impression? And suppose the impression one wishes to convey be, for instance, bewilderment and con- fusion, may not a tumbled wealth of detail be accurately in place ? One is tempted to think this impression was largely in Ruskin's mind when he described the interior of St. Mark's (Ruskin, Stones of Venice, Vol. ii, p. 78). The following passage from Henry James recognizes a similar object as legitimate : " Indeed nothing could well be more difficult than to add up the items — the column would be altogether too long. One may have dreamed of turning the glow — if glow it be — of one's lantern

490 THE LITERARY TYPES.

The subjects treated may be the same as have been speci- fied under the former ; but the purpose in view makes the description more intense and pictorial, hence more congenial to the higher reaches of literature. It is in fact this kind of description that prevails in poetry and fiction.

Examples. — In the foUovring description of a house, all the details go to bring out two impressions : (i) bulging out ; (2) cleanliness: —

"At length we stopped before a very old house bulging out over the road ; a house with long low lattice windows bulging out still farther, and beams with carved heads on the ends bulging out too, so that I fancied the whole house was leaning forward, trying to see who was passing on the narrow pavement below. It was quite spotless in its cleanliness. The old- fashioned brass-knocker on the low arched door, ornamented with carved garlands of fruit and flowers, twinkled like a star ; the two stone steps descending to the door were as white as if they had been covered with fair linen ; and all the angles and corners, and carvings and mouldings, and quaint little panes of glass, and quainter little windows, though as old as the hills, were as pure as any snow that ever fell upon the hUls." ^

Here, though quite a list of details is given, all are bound together into homogeneous effect by their relation to the double impression.

2. In the following, the key to the whole description is given in the one word ruinous, which imparts character to every detail : —

" Then rode Geraint into the castle court. His charger trampling many a prickly star Of sprouted thistle on the broken stones. He look'd and saw that all was ruinous. Here stood a shatter'd archway plumed with fern ; And here had fall'n a great part of a tower. Whole, like a crag that tumbles from the cliff, And like a crag was gay with wilding flowers : And high above a piece of turret stair, Worn by the feet that now were silent, wound Bare to the sun, and monstrous ivy-stems Claspt the gray walls with hairy-fibred arms, And suck'd the joining of the stones, and look'd A knot, beneath, of snakes, aloft, a grove." 2

on each successive facet of the jewel ; but, after all, it may be success enough if a con- fusion of brightness be the result." — James, Essays in London mid Elsewhere, P- 26- 1 Dickens, David Copperfield, Chap. xv.

2 Tennyson, The Marriage of Geraint, 11. 312-325.

DESCRIPTION. 491

The descriptions that have become renowned in literature are mostly of this impression type. Two such may here be mentioned : Shakespeare's description of Dover cliff, King Lear, Act iv, Scene 6, which impresses merely its dizzy height ; and Shelley's description of the ravine near Petrella, The Cenci, Act iii, Scene i, which impresses its terrific gloom.

3. Portrayal without Detail Of any common object the

great mass of characteristics is already so familiar that the object has only to be named to call to the reader's mind an image of something that he recollects from his own observa- tion. If then the part or quality especially concerned can be named by some live word or phrase or figure, the whole matter of detail becomes superfli^ous.

Strictly speaking, this is not description at all ; it is sugges- tionw But the thing described must be in the writer's mind and heart, so intense and inspiring that he can see it in solu- tion in one vivid trait. T^^find this, and to fit to it the one apt word, is perhaps the rarest power in literature.'

Examples. — i. A good illustration of this kind of portrayal applied to objects of sight is found in a series of stanzas in Tennyson's Palace of Art, descriptive of the arras paintings of its rooms : —

" One seem'd all dark and red — a tract of sand, And some one pacing there alone, Who paced for ever in a glimmering land, Lit with a low large moon.

" One show'd an iron coast and angry waves. You seem'd to hear them climb and fall And roar rock-thwarted under bellowing caves, Beneath the windy wall.

" And one, a full-fed river winding slow By herds upon an endless plain, The ragged rims of thunder brooding low, With shadow-streaks of rain.

1 Of Coleridge's Ancient Mariner Lowell says : " And how picturesque it is in the proper sense of the word. I know nothing like it. There is not a description in it. It is all picture. Descriptive poets generally confuse us with multiplicity of detail ; we cannot see their forest for the trees ; but Coleridge never errs in this way. With instinctive tact he touches the right chord of association, and is satisfied, as we also are." — Lowell, Prose Works, Vol. vi, p. 74.

492 THE LITERARY TYPES.

" And one, the reapers at their sultry toil. In front they bound the sheaves. Behind Were realms of upland, prodigal in oil, And hoary to the wind.

" And one a foreground black with stones and slags, Beyond, a line of heights, and higher All barr'd with long white cloud the scornful crags, And highest, snow and fire.

" And one, an English home — gray twilight pour'd On dewy pastures, dewy trees. Softer than sleep — all things in order stored, A haunt of ancient Peace." 1

2. This kind of portrayal is equally good for objects of sound ; as in the following : " The rush of the water, and the booming of the mill, bring a dreamy deafness, which seems to heighten the peacefulness of the scene. They are like a great curtain of sound, shutting one out from the world beyond." ^

And the following, wherein both sight and sound are vividly indicated: "The stars were clear, colored, and jewel-like, but not frosty. A faint sil- very vapour stood for the Milky Way. All around me the black fir-points stood upright and stock still. By the whiteness of the pack-saddle, I could see Modestine walking round and round at the length of her tether ;' I could hear her steadily munching at the sward ; but there was not another sound, save the indescribable quiet talk of the runnel over the stones." ' This is descriptive of a still night in the open air.

The objects to which portrayal of this type is adapted are, first of all, such as make direct and literal appeal to the senses, — common objects of sight and sound. But in a figurative way, too, it is adapted to objects which, because the literal description of them is apt to be both tedious and futile, need as it were to be translated into sensible image. Such are states and moods of mind, experiences, traits of character, emotions, and the like. In the deepest sense these are indescribable ; they can be made real only to those to whom they are native, and then only by the touch which

1 Tennyson, Works (Globe edition), p. 45.

2 George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss, Chap. i.

8 Stevenson, Travels -with a Donkey, Works, Vol. xii, p. 221.

DESCRIPTION. 493

recalls, not by a labored history. The only resource for them is to work for brevity, and to work in the concrete and visible, — which is virtually another way of saying portrayal without detail.'

II. ACCESSORIES OF DESCRIPTION.

In spite of all care in selection and grouping, descriptiori remains the kind of discourse most liable to be tedious, on account of the difficulty of managing a multitude of loosely connected details. Some ways of subduing this intractable material we have just noticed. The same need of subdual it is that gives importance to the accessories of description, which, though auxiliary, belong to the essential working-tools of the art.

Continuing the analogy of the painting art, we may say that while the mechanism of description supplies the drawing, the perspective, the composition, the accessories of description are resorted to for that coloring in which reside the life and finish of the work. We may classify these accessories under three somewhat comprehensive heads.

1

Avails of Imaginative Diction That descriptive language

is heightened language, because imagination is in it grasping spontaneously after all the picturing power of which language is capable, has been abundantly intimated in the part of our book relating to diction.^ The presence of this imaginative

i " A few words will often paint the precise state of emotion as faithfully as the most voluminous essay ; and in this department condensation and brevity are to be carefully studied. Conduct us to the cavern, light the torch, and startle and awe us by what you reveal, — but if you keep us all day in the cavern, the effect is lost, and our only feeling is that of impatience and desire to get away." — Bulwer-Lytton, On Art in Fiction^ Pa-mphlets and Sketches^ p. 343.

2 For elevated diction and its motive, see p. 140, above ; for approach of prose to poetry, p. 163 ; for the imaginative type of prose diction, p. 168 ; for descriptive terms as aid to vigorous condensation, p. 296.

494 THE LITERARY TYPES.

element, in fact, produces a type of prose distinctly approach- ing, in word and imagery, to poetry. Of this, however, noth- ing further need be said here ; except to mention and exemplify some of the practical ways in which peculiarities of diction may aid the mechanism of description.

Graphic Uses of Figures. — Figurative language has of course its beautifying uses as it works in with the general heightened tissue of description ; but more deeply than this, as the word graphic is here used to express, it renders practical support to the drawing and body of the portrayal. Let us trace this in a few prominent cases.

r. Simile is especially a practical figure; it is much employed in making the nucleus of description, to give an outline for succeeding amplification ; also where the descrip- tion stops with the nucleus.

Examples. — i . The following similes (here italicized) illustrate Car- lyle's care in constructing a realizable basis for an extended description of a country : —

" Schlesien, what we call Silesia, lies in elliptic shape, spread on the top of Europe, partly girt with mountains, like the crown or crest to that part of the Earth; — highest table-land of Germany or of the Cisalpine Coun- tries f and sending rivers into all the seas. It leans sloping, as we hinted, to the East and to the North ; a long curved buttress of mountains ( ' Riesengebirge, Giant Mountains,' is their best-known name in foreign countries) holding it up on the South and West sides. This Giant-Moun- tain Range . . . shapes itself like a bill-hook (or elliptically, as was said ) : handle and hook together may be some 200 miles in length. ... A very pretty Ellipsis, or irregular Oval, on the summit of the European Con- tinent ; — ' like the palm of a left-hand well stretched-out, with the Riesen- gebirge for thumb 1 ' said a certain Herr to me, stretching out his arm in that fashion towards the northwest. Palm, well stretched-out, measuring 250 miles; and the cross-way loo."^

2. The following, from the description of Rab, condenses the successive qualities into a series of comparisons : " He was brindled and grey, like Rubislaw granite ; his hair short, hard, and close, like a lion's ; his body

1 Carlyle, Frederick the Great, Vol. iv, pp. 1-3.

DESCRIPTION. 495

thick-set like a little bull — a sort of compressed Hercules of a dog."i The comparisons are partly literal, partly figurative.

,2. 1 Metaphor and personification are valuable for the sug- gested action and human interest that they impart to an object or scene otherwise inert. The need of such enlivening is inherent in descriptive objects, — a part of their native untowardness.''

Example. — In the following, which describes the taking away of a long venerated bell, the ascribing of life to the bell intensifies the description to a poignant pathos : —

" And there before our eyes, obeying the order of the Commissioners, the workmen were taking that bell away forever — because the Comtat was a part of France again, and the power of the Popes over Avignon was gonel

"In the dead silence we could hear the clicking of pincers and the tapping" of hammers and the grating of files ; and then a single sharp sweet clang — which must have come when the bell, cut loose from its fastenings, was lifted away. Having it thus free from the setting where it had rested for so long a while, the workmen brought it to the battlements ; and in plain sight of all of us, down the whole great depth of the Palace walls, lowered it by a cord to the ground. And the poor Httle bell, glittering like a jewel in the sunshine, tinkled faintly and mournfully at every jar and jerk of the cord as though it knew that its end had come : now giving out, as it swayed and the clapper struck within, a sweet clear sound ; and again, as it jarred against the wall, a sound so harsh and so sad that to hear it cut one's heart. All the way down those great walls it uttered .thus its sad little plaint ; until we seemed to feel as though it were a child some one was hurting ; as though it were a living soul. And I know that the pain that was in my heart was in the hearts of all that crowd. The silence, save for the mourning of the bell, was so deep that one could have heard the flight of a butterfly — and through it, now and then, would come from some one a growling whisper : ' Liberty and the Rights of Man are all very well, but they might have left our little bell alone I ' " 3

^ Brown, Rab and his Friendsj in Spare Hours, Vol. i, p. 30. There is a very interesting analysis of this description. Burton, Yale Lectures, pp. 110-112.

2 See above, p. 479. The use of narrative action is closely akin to this in object ; see below, p. 503.

8 Gras, The Reds of the Midi, p. 76.

496 THE LITERARY TYPES.

3. Antithesis, in its broader sense of contrast between situations or between appearance and reality, is valuable for accentuating what is distinctive or centrally significant in a complex object of description.' It is an effective instrument in portraying such objects as character and scenes of mental or moral significance, being a means of both pointedness and interpretation.

Examples. — The antithetic nucleus or basis for Green's description of Queen Elizabeth's character has already been given on p. 484.

The following owes its depth of pathos and moral sentiment entirely to its contrasted scenes : " There was a certain elderly gentleman who lived in a court of the Temple, and was a great judge and lover of port wine. Every day, he dined at his club and drank his bottle or two of port wine, and every night came home to the Temple and went to bed in his lonely chambers. This had gone on many years without variation, when one night he had a fit on coming home, and fell and cut his head deep, but partly recovered and groped about in the dark to find the door. When he was afterwards discovered, dead, it was clearly established by the marks of his hands about the room that he must have done so. Now, this chanced on the night of Christmas Eve, and over him lived a young fellow who had .sisters and young country-friends, and who gave them a little party that night, in the course of which they played at Blindman's Buff. They played that game, for their greater sport, by the light of the fire only ; and once when they were all quietly rustling and stealing about, and the blindman was trying to pick out the prettiest sister (for which I am far from blaming him), somebody cried, ' Hark ! The man below must be playing Blind- man's Buff by himself to-night ! ' They listened, and they heard sounds of some one falling about and stumbling against furniture, and they all laughed at the conceit, and went on with their play, more light-hearted and merry than ever. Thus, those two so different games of life and death were played out together, blindfold, in the two sets of chambers." ^

i4._ Hyperbole is used, often in a humorous vein, to make some one quality strike the reader's realizing power before all others. It rouses in a vivid manner the spirit in which the object is to be most truly viewed.'

1 For antithesis in general, see above, p. 271 ; in exposition, p. 566, below.

2 Dickens, Uncommercial Traveller^ p. 203. 8 For hyperbole in general, see above, p. 99.

DESCRIPTION. 497

Examples. — The following sets off the object partly by hyperbole, partly by simile: "'Just so,' said the notary, pulling out his old watch, which was two inches thick and looked like a Dutch man-of-war." i

Macaulay's description of Nares's work on Burleigh is conceived in the spirit of hyperbole. Here is a passage from it : " Compared with the labor of reading through these volumes, all other labor, the labor of thieves on the treadmill, of children in factories, of negroes in sugar plantations, is an agreeable recreation. ... It is not merely in bulk, but in specific gravity also, that these memoirs exceed all other human compositions. On every subject which the professor discusses, he produces three times as many pages as another man ; and one of his pages is as tedious as another man's three." ^

Various Utilizations of Poetic Traits. — The fact that the information conveyed by description is information to be imagined, gives to its language something at once of the elevated tone of poetry and of the utilitarian tone of prose. Hence the poetic traits that appear in a portrayal are as practical as they are ornate ; their elegance is their utility.'

I. Epithet, with its point and its pervading vigor of trope, is perhaps the most common and serviceable means of con- densing a whole picture, or scene, or spiritual trait, into a word. It is better than pages of inventory description in cases where vividness of conception is needed.*

Examples. — Epithet is Ruskin's prevailing means of describing natu- ral scenery ; see the quotation from him on p. i68, with the remark suc- ceeding. It is also Carlyle's principal resource in the personal portrayals of which he is an acknowledged master. In 1839 he wrote to Emerson the following description of Daniel Webster : —

" Not many days ago I saw at breakfast the notablest of all your Nota- bilities, Daniel Webster. He is a magnificent specimen ; you might say to all the world. This is your Yankee Englishman, such limbs we make in Yankeeland ! As a Logic-fencer, Advocate, or Parliamentary Hercules, one would incline to back him at first sight against all the extant world.

1 Balzac.

2 Macaulay, Burleigh and his Times, Essays, Vol. iii, p. is.

3 See this fact exemplified above, p. iii.

^ For classes and uses of epithet, see above, pp. 147-151.

498 THE LITERARY TYPES.

The tanned complexion, that amorphous crag-like face ; the dull black eyes under their precipice of brows, like dull anthracite furnaces, needing only to be blown ; the mastiff-mouth, accurately closed : — I have not traced as much of silent Berserkir-rage, that I remember of, in any other man." l

2. As befits picturing, all the qualities that give language suggestiveness for the eye and the ear are common to descrip- tion and poetry : word-painting, onomatopoeia, imitative words, alliteration, subtle effects of consonant and vowel sounds, and the like. Most of these have been fully defined and exemplified.^

Note. — The delicacies of technique in the subtle colorings of conso- nantal and vowel sounds belong to a region of study for the most part beyond the scope of this book ; for some interesting remarks on the sub- ject, with citations, see Stevenson's article on Technical Elements of Style in Literature, Works, Vol. xxii, pp. 257-264. That truth and fineness of description are enhanced by such sound-relations may be felt, even without analysis, from some of his quoted passages. For instance, note the pre- vailing key of the sounds KANDLSR in the following, —

" In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure dome decree, Where Alph the sacred river ran. Through caverns measureless to man, Down to a sunless sea, " — s

and the very different effect of BRNPUR in the following, —

" The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne Burn'd on the water : the poop was beaten gold ; Purple the sails, and so perfumed that The winds were love-sick with them." *

3. In an equally spontaneous way the rhythmic flow of the descriptive sentence and paragraph answers to the object

1 Correspondence of Carlyle and Emerson, Vol. i, p. 247.

2 For word-painting, see p. 151, above; for onomatopoetic words and phrasing, p. 160 ; for sounds in sequence and repetition, p. 156.

8 Coleridge, Kiibla Khan.

< Shakespeare, Anthony and Cleopatra, Act ii. Scene 2.

DESCRIPTION. 499

described ; thus the movement may be stirring and intense, or light and graceful, or rolling and ample. All this belongs to the artistry of a living imagination.

Examples. — The impetuous movement of a passage full of vigorous description has been exemplified in the quotation from Thomas Hughes on p. 162, above.

In the following, which is written mostly in a light conversational tone, notice the greater roll, as well as the more copious use of poetic words, when the passage becomes descriptive : —

" The attractions of this spot are not numerous. There is surf-bathing all along the outer side of the beach, and good swimming on the inner. The fishing is fair ; and in still weather yachting is rather a favorite amuse- ment. Further than this there is little to be said, save that the hotel is conducted upon liberal principles, and the society generally select.

" But to the lover of nature — and who has the courage to avow himself aught else .' — the seashore can never be monotonous. The swirl and sweep of ever-shifting waters, the flying mist of foam breaking away into a gray and ghostly distance down the beach, the eternal drone of ocean, mingling itself with one's talk by day and with the light dance-music in the parlors by night — all these are active sources of a passive pleasure. And to lie at length upon the tawny sand, watching, through half-closed eyes, the heaving waves, that mount against a dark blue sky wherein great sil- very masses of cloud float idly on, whiter than the sunlit sails that fade and grow and fade along the horizon, while some fair damsel sits close by, read- ing ancient ballads of a simple metre, or older legends of love and romance — tell me, my eater of the fashionable lotus, is not this a diversion well worth your having .' " ^

II.

The Human Interest. — As is partly shown in the employ- ment of personification,'' there is a natural and wholesome tendency to introduce a human element of life or feeling into description ; the object is seen not in dead objective form, but through the medium or atmosphere of sympathy or experience. In this way the share of the observer in the

1 George Arnold, in Stories by American AntJwrs, Vol. v, p. 142.

2 See above, p. 495.

500 THE LITERARY TYPES.

thing described is made intimate and real; he is provided, so to say, with a human standard to estimate it by.^

Thus the mind of a supposed spectator mingles subtly with the point of view ; the reader thinks himself into a position not only of space but of feeling, — to look through eyes young or old, sympathetic or hostile, of wonder or of fear, according to the human element that is infused into the scene. And all this of course makes a much more living thing of the object itself.

Note. — Scenic artists and photographers understand the value of the human element ; they introduce men into the view of a building or of a landscape, both as a convenient standard of measurement and as a sugges- tion of life.

The description quoted on p. 17, above, with the note thereon, p. 19, shows how much a description may owe to the human interest.

This resort to the human interest has two opposite extremes of application, both of which on occasion are relied on for certain strong impressions.

Suggestion by Effects. — In this extreme the human subject is everything, the object of description nothing. In other words, by describing merely the demeanor of the spectator — his kindled eye, his suffused cheek, his blanched face, his clenched hand — we convey to the reader, as by a kind of mirror reflection, a powerful notion of the quality in the object that we wish to impress, — its sublimity, or grewsome- ness, or hurtfulness, or marvelousness. This is obviously a

1 Of Tennyson's descriptive method Stopford Brooke writes : " Tennyson rarely painted a landscape without humanity, and he places his figures with all the skill of a painter. He knew that Nature alone was not half as delightful as Nature and man together. Lover of Nature as he was, he avoided the crowning fault of modern poetry — the unmitigated merciless description of Nature, trickling on for fifty and a hundred lines together, without one touch of human interest. ... It is from this impassioned mingling of the soul and sight of man with the soul and sight of Nature that the specialized loveliness arises which charms us, and dignifies itself, in the descriptions of Tennyson." — Brooke, Tennyson, his Art and Relation to Modern Life, p. 288.

DESCRIPTION. 501

very potent means of suggesting the great elemental traits of things, such as need no analysis or minute detailing.'

Examples. — A celebrated Bible description, Eliphaz's vision, does not portray the object at all, but merely its effect on the beholder: —

" In wandering thoughts from visions of the night, When deep sleep falleth upon men, t

Fear came upon me, and trembling. Which made all my bones to shake. Then a spirit glided before my face, — The hair of my flesh rose up, — It stood still, but its form I could not discern, A figure before mine eyes ; — Silence — and I heard a voice ; ' Shall mortal man be just before God ? Shall the strong man, before his Maker, be pure ? ' "2

Shakespeare employs this kind of suggestion in his supernatural scenes, as for instance in Macbeth, where the ghost of Banquo appears.^ It is Macbeth's strange words and acts which produce the effect, nothing that is seen. A touch of such suggestion comes at the end of the Dover cliff description, to indicate the terror-producing height : —

" I'll look no more; Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight Topple down headlong." *

But we may stop a step short of this, too, and in a man's face and bodily acts read his mind, especially in its more profoundly stirred moods. Thus, though nothing but what is visible may be mentioned, the reader is guided to what is deep within, and the most difficult descriptive object, man's mind, stands out revealed, like an object of sense.

1 " One of the strongest and most successful modes of describing any powerful object, of any kind, is to describe it in its effects. When the spectator's eye is daz- zled, and he shades it, we form the idea of a splendid object ; when his face turns pale, of a horrible one ; from his quick wonder and admiration we form the idea of great beauty ; from his silent awe, of great majesty." — Mozley, Essays. Historical and Theological, Vol. ii, p. igo.

^Joi iv. 13-17. Translation by the author of this book.

8 Macbeth, Act iii. Scene 4.

* King Lear, Act iv, Scene 6. See p. 491, above.

502 THE LITERARY TYPES.

Examples. — The descriptive effect of the following is not in what the subject does ; all serves rather to portray a mind unhinged by reverse and despair: —

" A sad reverse it was for him who long Had filled with plenty, and possessed in peace, This lonely Cottage. At the door he stood, And whistled many a snatch of merry tunes That had no mirth in them ; or with his knife Carved uncouth figures on the heads of sticks — Then, not less idly, sought, through every nook In house or garden, any casual work Of use or ornament ; and with a strange. Amusing, yet uneasy, novelty, He mingled, where he might, the various tasks Of summer, autumn, winter, and of spring." I

Subjective Description. — In this opposite extreme the object contemplated is so nearly everything that the observer's personality is blended with it. That is, his mood or emotion of joy or sadness, his general state of health or morbidness, operates to robe the world in the qualities of his own soul ; so that the scene is dismal or genial, not necessarily as so in itself, but because he is. Of the same principle it is to make nature partake in some described action, as if things inani- mate were endowed with sympathy. This kind of description, though in a literal sense it takes liberties with nature, is obviously full of power and intensity, and, read with proper emotional allowance, does not mislead.^

1 Wordsworth, Excursion, Book i. Works (Globe edition), p. 423.

2 Ruskin inveighs against such attribution of sympathy to nature, which he thus illustrates and defines : " I want to examine the nature of the other error, that which the mind admits, when affected strongly by emotion. Thus, for instance, in Alton Locke : —

* They rowed her in across the rolUng foam — The cruel, crawling foam.'

The foam is not cruel, neither does it crawl. The state of mind which attributes to it these characters of a living creature is one in which the reason is unhinged by grief. All violent feelings have the same effect. They produce in us a falseness in all our impressions of external things, which I would generally characterize as the ' Pathetic Fallacy.' " — Ruskin, Modern Painters, Vol. iii, p. 159.

DESCRIPTION. 503

Examples. — i. Of nature colored by the describer's mind. Tenny- son's Maud, which is meant to be a portrayal of a morbid mind, may be read throughout as a masterly work of subjective description. This is the way, in the first stanza, that a certain ravine is described : —

" I hate the dreadful hollow behind the little wood,. Its lips in the field above are dabbled with blood-red heath, The red-ribb'd ledges drip with a silent horror of blood, And Echo there, whatever is ask'd her, answers ' Death.' "

In Hamlet occurs an interesting example of resistance to the tendency to make description subjective. Hamlet is determined to see things as they are, not as colored by his disordered mind : " I have of late — but where- fore I know not — lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises j and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory ; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors."^

z. Of nature in sympathy with human action. Of the great sin which caused the loss of Paradise, Milton thus describes the accompaniments in nature : —

" Earth trembled from her entrails, as again

In pangs, and Nature gave a second groan ;

Sky loured, and, muttering thunder, some sad drops

Wept at completing of the mortal Sin

Original." 2

III.

Aid from Narrative Movement. — Description is so closely- allied to narration that the two are very spontaneously used as accessories of each other. Some forms of discourse there are, indeed, wherein narrative and descriptive elements are so blended and balanced that it is difficult to determine which has the predominance.

It is a natural tendency, when an object is vividly con=- ceived, to endow it with life and motion. We see this in personification and in allegory. We see it also in numerous

1 Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act ii, Scene 2.

2 Milton, Paradise Lost, Book ix, U. 1000-1C04,

504 THE LITERARY TYPES.

narrative touches, such as trope-words involving action, verbs of motion used to portray objects at rest, and the like ; which things, of which every lively description is full, serve to invigorate the scene more than the reader is aware.

Illustration. — Observe how the words here italicized, which are at once personification (or at least animization) and verbs of action, enUven the description in the following : —

" So till the dusk that foUow'd evensong Rode on the two, reviler and reviled ; Then after one long slope, was mounted, saw. Bowl-shaped, thro' tops of many thousand pines A gloomy-gladed hollow slowly sink To westward — in the deeps whereof a mere, Round as the red eye of an Eagle-owl, Under the half-dead sunset ^/artfi/." 1

Apart from these minor narrative suggestions there are two classes of descriptive objects wherein narrative movement becomes necessary.

1. Time-Conditioned Portrayal Something of narrative

character in description is compelled by the element of time entering in. The description of a storm, for instance, or of a sunrise,, must recognize the changes of aspect during the continuance of the scene ; and thus the portrayal, released from the awkward limitation of an inert object," assumes at once the movement of story. A battle may be treated either descriptively or narratively ; that is, the principle of treat- ment may lie predominantly in the picturing of scenes or in the development of action ; but in either case there must necessarily be large recourse to the other literary type.

Example. — The following description is introduced into an oration to give point to some truths in astronomy: —

" I had occasion, a few weeks since, to take the early train from Provi- dence to Boston ; and for this purpose rose at two o'clock in the morning. Everything around was wrapt in darkness and hushed in silence, broken

1 Tennyson, Gareth and Lynette, W. 773-7S0.

2 See the second problem of material and handling, p. 4S0, above.

DESCRIPTION. SOS

only by what seemed at that hour the unearthly clank and rush of the train. It was a mild, serene, midsummer's night, — the sky was without a cloud, — the winds were whist. The moon, then in the last quarter, had just risen, and the stars shone with a spectral lustre but little affected by her presence. Jupiter, two hours high, was the herald of the day; the Pleiades, just above the horizon, shed their sweet influence in the east ; Lyra sparkled near the zenith ; Andromeda veiled her newly-discovered glories from the naked eye in the south; the steady pointers, far beneath the pole, looked meekly up from the depths of the north to their sovereign.

" Such was the glorious spectacle as I entered the train. As we pro- ceeded, the timid approach of twilight became more perceptible ; the intense blue of the sky began to soften ; the smaller stars, like little chil- dren, went first to rest; the sister-beams of the Pleiades soon melted together; but the bright constellations of the west and north remained unchanged. Steadily the wondrous transfiguration went on. Hands of angels, hidden from mortal eyes, shifted the scenery of the heavens ; the glories of night dissolved into the glories of the dawn. The blue sky now turned more softly gray ; the great watch-stars shut up their holy eyes ; the east began to kindle. Faint streaks of purple soon blushed along the sky; the whole celestial concave was filled with the inflowing tides of the morn- ing light, which came pouring down from above in one great ocean of radi- ance ; till at length, as we reached the Blue Hills, a flash of purple fire blazed out from above the horizon, and turned the dewy tear-drops of flower and leaf into rubies and diamonds. In a few seconds, the everlast- ing gates of the morning were thrown wide open, and the lord of day, arrayed in glories too severe for the gaze of man, began his state." i

As to battle-scenes, Stephen Crane, in The Red Badge of Courage, is prevailingly descriptive, lending interest more to the scene than to the result. Captain Charles King, whose description of Pickett's charge at Gettys- burg^ Lord Wolesley, Lord William Beresford, and General Fitzwygram agreed to call " the most perfect picture of a battle-scene in the English language," treats his subject more as a plotted narrative.

2. Panoramic Portrayal. — The element of comprehensiveness in a scene may also compel the use of narrative movement ; as in an extended landscape, or tract of country, whose features of interest cannot all be seen from one point of view. In such a case the description, which becomes virtually the

1 Everett, Orations and Speeches, Vol. iii, p. 457.

2 King, Between the Lines, pp. 268-282.

506 THE LITERARY TYPES.

account of a journey, is regulated by what is called "the traveller's point of view " ; that is, the describer is repre- sented as going from one point to another and portraying successive aspects.

Examples. — i. In his description of the river Oxus, at the end of Sohrab and Rustum, Matthew Arnold, instead of postulating a traveller to follow its course, personifies the river itself.

2. The following shows how naturally the reader adj usts his point of view, and thus follows the fortunes of the portrayal like those of a story: —

" Just on the brow of the hill, where I paused to look before me, the series of stone pillars came abruptly to ah end ; and only a little below, a sort of track appeared and began to go down a. breakneck slope, turning like a corkscrew as it went. It led into a valley between falling hills, stubbly with rocks like a reaped field of corn, and floored further down with green meadows. I followed the track with precipitation ; the steep- ness of the slope, the continual agile turning of the line of descent, and the old unwearied hope of finding something new in a new country, all con- spired to lend me wings. Yet a little lower and a stream began, collecting itself together out of many fountains, and soon making a glad noise among the hills. Sometimes it would cross the track in a bit of waterfall, with a pool, in which Modestine refreshed her feet.

" The whole descent is like a dream to me, so rapidly was it accom- plished. I had scarcely left the summit ere the valley had closed round my path, and the sun beat upon me, walking in a stagnant lowland atmos- phere. The track became a road, and went up and down in easy undula- tions. I passed cabin after cabin, but all seemed deserted ; and I saw not a human creature, nor heard any sound except that of the stream." ^ Etc.

III. DESCRIPTION IN LITERATURE.

In the body of literature description occupies a place of its own, which needs to be accounted for by a few words of explanation.

I.

General Status and Value While to a greater or less extent

description pervades all the great forms of literature, and

1 Stevenson, Travels with a Donkey, Works, Vol. xii, p. 230.

DESCRIPTION. iiin

does much in aid of the other literary types, comparatively little is made of it as a form by itself. In its more elaborate and picturesque work, it is to be found mostly in passages or sections of productions mainly narrative or oratorical. Yet this fact is no indication of slight esteem for it ; rather the contrary. It is often regarded and estimated as if it were a jewel in a setting ; pointed out and quoted by readers and critics, and by writers worked up with most painstaking care. On the whole, no more delicate indication of a writer's skill and taste is afforded than by his management of description ; and so the general judgment regards the matter.'

One reason for this peculiar status of description in litera- ture has already been repeatedly suggested ^ : the wealth of detail in the object, the unhandiness of language in picturing it. Whatever is done with it, then, must be done quickly and strikingly, — it cannot run into volumes, or even into chapters. Yet the very difficulty of the problem has such fascination for the born artist, and so calls out his powers, that his work, if it survives, is shrined among the treasures of literature.

1 The care and study of novelists in working up what is called " local color " for the scenes and atmosphere of their works have become almost a proverb. Of Scott's visit to the place where he was to lay the scene of Rokeby we have the following account ; " The morning after he arrived he said, ' You have often given me materials for romance — now I want a good robber's cave and an old church of -the right sort.' We rode out, and he found what he wanted in the ancient slate quarries of Brignal and the ruined Abbey of Eggleston. I observed him noting down even the peculiar little wild flowers and herbs that accidentally grew round and on the side of a bold crag near his intended cave of Guy Denzil ; and could not help saying, that as he was not to be upon oath in his work, daisies, violets, and primroses would be as poetical as any of the humble plants he was examining. I laughed, in short, at his scrupu- lousness; but I understood him when he replied, 'that in nature herself no two scenes were exactly alike, and that whoever copied truly what was before his eyes, would possess the same variety in his descriptions, and exhibit apparently an im- agination as boundless as the range of nature in the scenes he recorded ; whereas — whoever trusted to imagination, would soon find his own mind circumscribed, and contracted to a few favorite images, and the repetition of these would sooner or later produce that very monotony and barrenness which had always haunted descriptive poetry in the hands of any but the patient worshippers of truth.' " — Lockhart, Life of Scott ^ Vol. iv, p. 20.

2 See above, pp. 479, 493.

SOS THE LITERARY TYPES.

Another reason that may guide the describer is men's ten- dency to make practical demands. They are impatient of por- trayals, however vivid or artistic, that stop with themselves ; their unspoken demand is that a description shall contribute to explain or enforce or prove something. As long as it is an amplification, making some goal of thought more sightly, it is interesting ; but let it exist for itself alone, and plain people will regard it as an unpractical trifling. This general demand, which is not unwholesome, is to be reckoned with by any one who seeks a status for his work in literature.

IL

Forms of which Description is the Basis The few forms that

employ description as their prevailing type are, so to speak, frankly outspoken as to their limitations : they are for the most part either unrestrainedly aesthetic, appealing to the few who are their fit audience, or downright practical, appealing to the many who want plain unimaginative facts.

Descriptive Poetry. — Poetry, as it rises so largely out of the imagination, is a more descriptive art than prose. Its imagery, its concreteness, its liberty to revel in beautiful forms undis- turbed by utilitarian exactions, all contribute to make its picturing power a main feature. And it is largely for its world of imagery that readers go to poetry and value it.

In spite of this fact, however, works distinctly descriptive form a comparatively small class, even in poetry ; though it should be noted that no class is choicer. The same prejudice against the non-utilizable seems to be encountered here as in prose ; accordingly the imagery and description are valued mostly as they are concentrated into some sentiment, or lesson, or emotion, in which the poem's true significance resides. Hence the special field of description is in short lyric poems, where some image or suggestion of nature is

DESCRIPTION. 509

taken up and applied to some truth of life. A small and much-valued body of longer descriptive poems, also, are counted high among the stores of English literature.

Examples of Longer Descriptive Poems. — Thompson's Seasons and Castle of Indolence ; Milton's L' Allegro and II Penseroso ; Keats's Endymion ; Beattie's Minstrel ; Burns's Cotter's Saturday Night ; Gold- smith's Traveller and Deserted Village; Tennyson's Palace of Art, and Dream of Fair Women ; Browning's Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came, and How they brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix.

Informative Treatises and Articles Description is employed

■with the purpose of imparting plain information, and with no attempt to shun what is statistical and inventory-like, in_bpoks and periodical articles whose object is to give an account of some building, work of art or mechanism, natural phenome- non, or country's resources. In such descriptitos the pictorial element is little regarded : interest centres \in dimensions, accurate details, statistics, and the like. Thdrou^iness and clearness^a£ejthe predominating aims; the subject is supposed to contain its own interest, and not to need the vivifying power of language to create or heighten it. Such work may indeed profit by vigor and lightness of style, so far as these qualities do not interfere with its practical aim ; but the prac- tical aim must first be satisfied.

Examples. — Standard books of this kind are Wallace's Russia and Williams's The Middle Kingdom. In periodical literature may- be men- tioned the numerous articles continually appearing on some projected or completed public work, as the Congressional Library, the Sub-way in Boston, the Columbia University Buildings ; as also papers on the resources of some state or district, art exhibitions, and the like. It is distinctively the class of useful literature.

Sketches of Travel and Observation. — Intermediate in tone between the forms just named, and inclining sometimes to the purely literary, sometimes to the informative, is a valued bod_y of books and sketches of travel and observation. In these

510 THE LITERARY TYPES.

works description, while remaining the element for which the book or article exists, employs also narrative elements, in the shape of incidents and details of travel, popular traditions, and the like. The style aimed at is light, lively, conversa- tional. The aim is to impart information in the guise of charm and amusement. It does not ordinarily seek minute- ness of information ; being occupied rather with the endeavor to sketch scenery, towns, customs, and national types, in an enjoyable and realistic manner.

Examples. — Stevenson's Inland Voyage, Travels with a Donkey, and The Amateur Emigrant are good examples of the rather more literary treatment of this kind of material. Kinglake's Eothen is a brilliant book of Eastern travel. Sorrow's The Bible in Spain is a. noted book of this class ; not purely descriptive. A rather thoughtful and philosophic example is Emerson's English Traits. Hawthorne's Our Old Home is lighter and more graceful. Of works less ambitiously literary may be mentioned Du Chaillu's The Land of the Midnight Sun, and the works of Mrs. Isabella Bird Bishop on Oriental travel.

CHAPTER XV.

NARRATION.

Of men's natural impulse, mentioned at the beginning of the last chapter, to report what they observe in the world around them, narration, the report of action, is by far the most prolific outcome. Its congenial subject makes it the most spontaneous of literary types. When we inquire what ordi- nary men, men of the street and of common life, are interested in and talk about, we find it invariably something involving action and its result, — a race, a contest, a feat of bodily prowess, a casualty. When we ask what men are readiest to relate about themselves, we find it to be something that they have lived through, and that has become an event in their experience. Thus wellnigh everything in life comes to expres- sion in story; and the story, narrative, is the form of literature that comes nearest to making itself.^

It will not do to conclude from this, however, that narrative is the easiest to make or the least artistic when made. Very nearly the opposite is the truth. Of all the literary types narration demands perhaps the most finely adjusted art; but because the chief capability for it is supplied by natural inven- tion,^ the art, while not less exacting, gets itself into form by

1 " Our very speech is curiously historical. Most men, you may observe, speak only to narrate ; not in imparting what they have thought, which indeed were often a very small matter, but in exhibiting what they have undergone or seen, which is a quite unlimited one, do talkers dilate. Cut us off from Narrative, how would the stream of conversation, even among the wisest, languish into detached handfuls, and among the foolish utterly evaporate ! Thus, as we do nothing but enact History, we say little but recite it." — Carlyle, On History, Essays, Vol. ii, p. 84.

2 See above, p. 390.

511

512 THE LITERARY TYPES.

a kind of native instinct discovering its own laws of working. More must be allowed to nature in proportion as more is involved in art. The principles here traced, therefore, must, to an extent beyond the ordinary, wait upon those who are fit to apply them.

Definition of Narration. — Narration is the recounting, in succession, of the particulars that TogefHeT' make^u^a transaction.

A brief analysis of this definition will reveal some of the special aims in making a narrative.

1. The word transaction, which designates the subject-mat- ter of narration, implies not a mere agglomeration of particu- lars but a series, rounded and self-contained, with a character as a whole in which all the particulars share; nor does this series merely go on and stop but rather is shaped to a culmi- nation in which the whole trend of significance comes to light and solution.

2. By the particulars that make up the transaction are meant not any and all the things that take place, but merely such as have affinities with each other in working toward the end in view. This implies rigid selection, and careful weigh- ing of what are retained ; it implies also that no particular exists for itself alone, but merely as part of a larger event.

3. These particulars are related in succession; that is to say, they have a movement, one growing out of another and preparing for a third, and all together making a chain which in its large result is remembered in the order of time. This gives the effect of the simplest associative law of thought, — contiguity^; but the masterliness of its art consists largely in giving the particulars a closer interrelation — of similarity, of cause and effect — without seeming to do so; so that a suc- cession apparently casual and artless becomes really a finely adjusted order of events.

1 See above, p. 443.

NARRATION. 513

I. THE ART OF NARRATION.

The procedure in narrative is essentially the same whether the transaction to be. narrated is real or fictitious. If real, it is still to be related with skilful progression and proportion of parts; if fictitious, it is still to have verisimilitude, as if it were real. And in either case the story, as a story, is an invention, an art-product ; it is to follow the lines of construc- tion that obtain in fiction, with such selection and proportion- ing, even of fact, as will give the result all the freedom and fulness of an absolute creation.^

As a built composition, the quality to which narration mani- fests special allegiance is continuity. Its events so obviously rise out of each other that no emphasis of a skeleton plan is needed; its particulars are so homogeneous that the theme which they support is revealed not as an affirmation but as an unfolded progress.^ Narration is thus ideally the type of finished order 'in thinking toward which every good thought

1 " The art of narrative, in fact, is the same, whether it is applied to the selection and illustration of a real series of events or of an imaginary series. Boswell's Life of Johnson (a work of cunning and inimitable art) owes its success to the same technical manoeuvres as (let us say) Tom Jones : the clear conception of certain characters of man, the choice and presentation of certain incidents out of a great number that offered, and the invention (yes invention) and preservation of a certain key in dialogue." — Stevenson, A Humble Remonstrance^ Works, Vol. xiii, p. 346.

Of Macaulay's narrative method it is said ; " No historian before him ever regarded his task from the same point of view, or aimed with such calm patience and labor at the same result ; no one, in short, had ever so resolved to treat real events on the lines of the novel or romance. Many writers before Macaulay had done their best to be graphic and picturesque, but none ever saw that the scattered fragments of truth could, by incessant toil directed by an artistic eye, be worked into a mosaic, which for color, freedom, and finish, might rival the creations of fancy." ~ MORISON, Macaulay {English Men of Letters), p. 143.

2 See above, pp. 426, 436. " The art of narration is the art of writing in hooks and eyes. The principle consists in making the appropriate thought follow the appro- priate thought, the proper fact the proper fact ; in first preparing the mind for what is to come, and then letting It come. This can only be achieved by keeping con- tinually and insensibly before the mind of the reader some one object, character, or image, whose variations are the events of the story, whose unity is the unity of it." — Bagehot, Literary Studies, Vol. ii, p. 253.

514 THE LITERARY TYPES.

sequence tends ; its art being so perfect as to conceal its processes, and to seem artless.'

The End: to which all is Related as Forecast. — The prime requisite in narration is that the end be kept in view from the beginning, and that every part be shaped and proportioned with more or less direct reference to it. A culmination of some kind always impends, exerting its attraction on every stage of progress. Thus, in its larger field of invention, narration suggests the analogy of the suspended sentence^; it is suspen- sion, expectancy, on a large scale, and expressed in events.'

I. As Influence to subdue Details. — The most practical result of keeping an end in view is, that thereby a criterion of choice and rejection is always present, and the details fall into bal- ance and proportion according as they obey the attraction of the end. From the plan as thus controlled some things natu- rally fall out as extraneous, some receive rapid or subdued treat- ment as unimportant, some are put in emphasis as cardinal elements of the composition. Of all these the foreseen end is the silent controller.*

1 Thus best realizing the Manner of Progress laid down for universal observance, p. 439, above, 2 gee above, pp. 279, 350.

3 " Our art is occupied, and bound to be occupied, not so much in making stories true as in making them typical ; not so much in capturing the lineaments of each fact, as in marshalling all of them towards a common end. For the welter of Impressions, all forcible but all discreet, which life presents, it substitutes a certain artificial series of impressions, all indeed most feebly represented, but all aiming at the same effect, all eloquent of the same idea, all chiming together like consonant notes in music or like the graduated tints in a good picture. From all its chapters, from all its pages, from all its sentences, the well-written novel echoes and re-echoes its one creative and controlling thought ; to this must every incident and character contribute ; the style must have been pitched in unison with this ; and if there is anywhere a word that looks another way, the book would be stronger, clearer, and (I had almost said) fuller without it." — Stevenson, A Humble Remonstrance, Works, Vol, xiii, p, 349,

* " Keeping the beginning and the end in view, we set out from the right starting- place and go straight towards the right destination ; we introduce no event that

NARRATION. 515

This influence of the end may be illustrated both directly and by contrast.

I. The contrast — failure to keep an end in view — is seen in the narratives of the untutored; to whom it has never occurred that one fact is more important than another; who waste time in fixing some date or circumstance that is of no consequence ; who take as much pains with utterly irrele- vant details as with essential; who cannot skip anything that occurred without losing their reckoning. All this is mainly because they have not set before them some end, some goal, to which the course of their st-ory is to be steered.^

Example. — In the following a person of this cast of mind sets out to tell how she had just received a note containing a bit of news : — " ' But where could joM hear it?' cried Miss Bates. ' Where could you possibly hear it, Mr. Knightley ? For it is not five minutes since I received Mrs. Cole's note — no, it cannot be more than five — or at least ten — for I had got my bonnet and spencer on, just ready to come out — I was only gone

does not spring from the first cause, and tend to the great effect ; we make each detail a link joined to the one going before and the one coming after ; we make, in fact, all the details into one entire chain, which we can take up as a whole, carry about with us, and retain as long as we please." — Pryde, Studies in Composition^ p. 26.

1 " In the narrations of uneducated people . . . there is a want of prospectiveness and a superfluous amount of regressiveness. People of this sort are unable to look a long way in front of them, and they wander from the right path. They get on too fast with one half, and then the other hopelessly lags. They can tell a story exactly as it is told to them, . . . but they can't calculate its bearings beforehand, or see how it is to be adapted to those to whom they are speaking, nor do they know how much they have thoroughly told and how much they have not. ' I went up the street, and then I went down the street ; no, first went down and then — but you do not follow me ; I go before you, sir.' Thence arises the complex style usually adopted by persons not used to narration. They tumble into a story and get on as they can." — Bage- HOT, Literary Studies^ Vol. i, p. 145.

" Those insufferably garrulous old women, those dry and f anciless beings who spare you no detail, however petty, of the facts they are recounting, and upon the thread of whose narrative all the irrelevant items cluster as pertinaciously as the essential ones, the slaves of literal fact, the stumblers over the smallest abrupt step in thought, are figures known to all of us. Comic literature has made her profit out of them. Juliet's nurse is a classical example. George Eliot's village characters and some of Dickens's minor personages supply excellent instances." — James, Psychology, Vol. i, p. 570.

516 THE LITERARY TYPES.

down to speak to Patty again about the pork — Jane was standing in the passage — were not you, Jane ? — for my mother was so afraid that we had not any salting-pan large enough. So I said, I would go down and see, and Jane said, " Shall I go down instead ? for I think you have a little cold, and Patty has been washing the kitchen." — " Oh, my dear," — said I — well, and just then came the note.' " 1

2. The most palpable illustration of masterly skill in mak- ing the end absolutely control the course and proportion of the story is seen in the anecdotes of the professional raconteur, who may be regarded as representing the art of story-telling in its prime essentials. His stories are frankly told, not for the story's sake, but for the sake of some point or sentiment in which their whole significance is focalized; and to this point he subordinates everything, passing over preliminaries with a rapid touch, cutting out everything that is not indis- pensable to the main interest, using description with utmost parsimony ; so that the end for which the story exists strikes the hearers with all possible clearness and directness.^

Example. — The following anecdote is told to illustrate the truth that " through the physical horrors of warfare, Poetry discerns the redeeming nobleness." Notice by the parsimony of introduction and description, by the steady forward movement, and by the way descriptive explanations are introduced piecemeal and just where needed, how subservient every- thing is to the foreseen end.

" A detachment of troops was marching along a valley, the cliffs over- hanging which were crested by the enemy. A Serjeant, with eleven men, chanced to become separated from the rest by taking the wrong side of a ravine, which they expected soon to terminate, but which suddenly deep- ened into an impassable chasm. The officer in command signalled to the party an order to return. They mistook the signal for a command to charge ; the brave fellows answered with a cheer, and charged. At the summit of a steep mountain was a triangular platform, defended by a breastwork, behind which were seventy of the foe. On they went, charg- ing up one of those fearful paths, eleven against seventy. The contest

1 Jane Austen, Emma, Chap. xxi.

2 For anecdotes told compendiously as a means of amplification, see above, p. 470.

NARRATION. 517

could not long be doubtful with such odds. One after another they fell ; six upon the spot, the remainder hurled backward; but not until they had slain nearly twice their own number.

"There is a custom, we are told, among the hillsmen, that when a. great chieftain of their own falls in battle, his wrist is bound with a thread either of red or green, the red denoting the highest rank. According to custom, they stripped the dead, and threw their bodies over the precipice. When their comrades came, they found their corpses stark and gashed ; but round both wrists of every British hero was twined the red thread I " l

When, however, we speak of the end of a story, we may have two different things in mind; or, as may be otherwise expressed, a twofold interest : the interest of workmanship or plot, and the .interest of purpose or motive. In every seriously meant story these two distinct ends exist, both equally essen- tial to its integrity.

2. The Constructive End, or Denouement The forecast of

this end, with the steps necessary to bring it about, is the artistic interest of the story, the interest derived from a skilful piece of invention. Quite apart from the characters revealed, or the scenery and atmosphere described, or the moral senti- ment enforced, the reader is aware first of all of a chain of incident and event which supports and conducts all the other elements of the story, and in which its artistry is concentred. This is called the plot. It is to the story what plan is to an essay. It requires steady movement to an end, or denouement., yet through enough intricacy of incident and motive to main- tain interest in the novelty of its situations and to give an unexpected turn to its final solution.

Note. — As a piece of invention a plot must strike a just balance between novelty and verisimilitude : on the one hand, it must be new and strange enough to enliven interest, not offending by dulness or common- place ; on the other, it must assume itself to be real,2 and produce the effect

1 An incident of Sir Charles Napier's campaign against the robber tribes of Upper Scinde, cited in Robertson, Lectures and Addresses^ p. 804.

2 " It is impossible to imagine what a novelist takes himself to be unless he regard himself as an historian and his narrative as a history. It is only as an

518 THE LITERARY TYPES.

of what might reasonably take place, not offending by an assumption of fiction or by an ingenuity so great as to seem arbitrary. As soon as the strings and levers by which the mechanism is worked become visible, the illusion is lost and the real art goes with it ; as soon as the interest of plot becomes the sole interest, we are reading a puzzle, not a living story.

3. The Didactic End, or Purpose. — What raises the plot above the character of a mere puzzle or ingenious contriv- ance is the fact that a seriously meant story exists in order to embody a truth ; it has an end important enough to justify all the preparation made to reach it, and to survive the read- ing as a lesson of life. Despite the popular clamor against stories with a moral purpose, this is the unspoken demand of every reader ; we are impatient of a story that merely uses up time and leaves no impression of wisdom or moral vigor.* The failure to conduct the action to a worthy culmination is what Horace satirizes .in his well-known lines : — •

" Quid dignum tanto feret hie proraissor hiatu ? Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus." ^

It is not, in fact, against the existence of a purpose that the popular criticism is directed; rather against its obtrusiveness and insistency, — as if the story were conceived as a sermon or a moral apologue. The didactic end must be so inwrought with the story — ■•never absent, never asserting itself — that it will be received as a matter of course. It is by some called the "soul of the story"; by others the conception. It is to

historian that he has the smallest locus standi. As a narrator of fictitious events he is nowhere ; to insert into his attempt a hack-bone of logic, he must relate events that are assumed to be real. This assumption permeates, animates all the work of the most solid story-tellers." — James, Partial Portraits, p. 1 16. This is said in the course of a criticism on Anthony TroUope, who, as the critic says, " took a suicidal satisfac- tion in reminding the reader that the story he was telling was only, after all, a make-believe." ,

1 " Some central truth should be embodied in every work of fiction, which cannot indeed be compressed into a, definite formula, but which acts as the animating and informing principle, determining the main lines of the structure and affecting even its most trivial details." — Stephen, Hours in a Library, Vol. i, p. 204 (first edition),

2 Horace, Epistola ad Pisones de Arte Poeiica, 1. 138.

NARRATION. 519

the story what the theme is to an essay i; an influence to give character, worth, dignity to every part. By its working pres- ence the story is motived, that is, kept to a justifying level of conception, and closed to elements that have no sufficient basis ■ in human nature or that offend refined instincts. It is in this pervading sense that the story is shaped to a didactic end.^

Examples. — Hawthorne's avowed purpose in The House of the Seven Gables is to teach the truth " that the wrong-doing of one generation lives into the successive ones, and divesting itself of every temporary advantage, becomes a pure and uncontrollable mischief." The footnote below, how- ever, will indicate how he makes the purpose pervasive rather than out- standing. See also the examples of narrative themes on p. 427, above.

Instances of stories with purpose strongly emphasized though not quite impairing the artistic structure, are found in Mrs. Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, and Mrs. Helen Hunt Jackson's Ramona. In some of the novels of Dickens and Charles Reade the moral purpose is so prominent as to incur the reproach of being lugged in ; as instanced in Bleak House, which attacks the defects of the English Chancery courts, and Little Dorrit, which in a similar way attacks the English red-tape system in matters of government and justice.

4. Preliminary Ends, or Situations. — The final end, or denoue- ment, is not the only solution point toward which the course of a story tends. Generally some more immediate goal is in view, some dramatic point or, as it is called, situation, which for the time being serves as a landmark of progress. Thus the story advances not equably but by stages, and never on a dead level; there is always to be fostered in the reader's mind

1 See above, p. 426.

2 '* When romances do really teach anything, or produce any effective operation, it is usually through a far more subtile process than the ostensible one. The author has considered it hardly worth his while, therefore, relentlessly to impale the story with its moral as with an iron rod, — or, rather, as by sticking a pin through a butter- fly, — thus at once depriving it of life, and causing it to stiffen in an ungainly and unnatural attitude. A high truth, indeed, fairly, finely, and skilfully wrought out, brightening at every step, and crowning the final development of a work of fiction, may add an artistic glory, but is never any truer, and seldom any more evident, at the last page than at the first." — Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables, Preface, p. 14.

520 THE LITERARY TYPES.

a sense either of a crest of event reached or of approach to something important. This shows itself, as will be pointed out in the next section, in the character of the movement, which, with greater or less intensity, is always aware of some end, principal or preliminary.

Note. — How much both of the artistic skill and of the moral signifi- cance of a story may reside in a cardinal situation may be judged from the following remark on a situation in George Eliot's Middlemarch : " The great act of Dorothea in paying her visit to Rosamond to counsel and comfort her, and to save Lydgate, at the very moment when her own life seemed to have been left to her desolate — I confess that it affects me as a stroke of pathos hardly less than sublime. This is the true climax of the interest of the novel. And it is worth noting that the climax is a moral climax." i

II.

The Narrative Movement. — -If the aim of the story, always present and operative, is to bring about some end, supreme or subordinate, the course of the story must always be vital with action, or anticipation, or preparation, shaping itself to the solution that is impending. All is a concatenation, an interlinking, with this outcome in view. This character of the narrative is called its movement ; and some of its main features may here be noted.

1. Continuity of Movement The narrative movement is

especially exacting with regard to the succession of details: its parts must be a palpable and regularly advancing series from beginning to end. In general, therefore, that order is to be observed in which each earlier particular will best prepare for and lead to what succeeds.

I. The most natural way to secure this, the intrinsic order, so to say, of narration, is the chronological — the order of time. Whatever liberty is taken with this order in minor points, this must be the general progress recalled by the reader, as he endeavors to recollect the whole.

1 Wilkinson, A Free Lance in the Field of Life and Letters, p. 33.

NARRATION. 521

Note. — The type of narration, then, before any refinement of art and selection is applied to it, is simply annals ; setting down events as they occur, as in a diary or chronicle.

2. As, however, the narrative becomes more complex, requir- ing more art, there is more recognition of the inner connection of events, and accordingly an increasing effort to blend the order of time with the order of dependence.^ Sometimes, too, the order of dependence becomes so significant as temporarily to transgress chronology; so that events separated by a con- siderable period, being really cause and effect, may be grouped together as belonging to the same series. This is the result of a more vital interpretation of the elements of the story.

Note. — This is one of the liberties accorded to the philosophic way of writing history. In Motley's Dutch Republic occurs the remark : " To avoid interrupting the continuity of the narrative, the Spanish campaign has been briefly sketched until the autumn of 1557, at which period the treaty between the Pope and Philip was concluded. It is now necessary to go back to the close of the preceding year." ^ — Sometimes, too, the story may be discarded, and events be traced backward step by step toward their source ; this, however, is not so much narration as interpretation.

3. The beginning of a narrative has its claims of vigor and interest, which must not be ignored. To make this inception more effective, it is a not uncommon practice to begin the story at some dramatic point along in the plot, and then bring up what preceded in the form of an explanation, or as related by some personage of the story.

Note. — In Carlyle's French Revolution, which is strictly chronological, several books of the history precede that incident where the courtier answers Louis XVI : " No, Sire, it is a revolution " ; while M. Taine, on the other hand, taking this incident as the dramatic beginning to his his- tory of the same epoch, afterwards brings up the causes of the Revolution to that point. It is a question of artistic beginning. — In Homer's Odyssey, Books ix-xii are taken up vrith Ulysses's story of his earlier wanderings,

1 See above, p. 445, 3.

2 Motley, Rise of the Dutch Republic, Vol. i, p. t66.

522 THE LITERARY TYPES.

as related by him to the Phaeacians. In Virgil's .tSneid, in like manner, ^neas relates, in Books ii and iii, his previous adventures, to Q ueen Dido. — George Eliot, at the beginning of Daniel Deronda, introduces her heroine at a gaming-table, and afterwards, when the incidents immediately connected with that scene are disposed of, goes back and relates how the heroine came to such a position ; this latter history forming an essential though not very stirring part of the narrative.

2. Rate of Movement. — The life of the narrative as a whole and the relative significance of its parts depend largely upon the rate, rapid or slow, at which the current of events is made to move. In one part the occurrences of a considerable period will bear to be dispatched in a few summarizing words ; in another, deliberate labor of recounting is devoted to the action of moments. By this means a kind of descriptive rapport is maintained with events, corresponding to their importance, or the lack of it, in the scheme of the story.

I. Movement is retarded by giving with scrupulous fulness all the parts and stages of the action ; also by giving descrip- tive and interpretative details, with the aim of making its significance stand out, filling the whole field of vision. Such slowness of movement is needed to impress the dramatic points of the story, the cardinal features on which most depends.

Example. — In Scott's Talisman ^ is related how, when Richard Coeur de Leon was making a friendly visit to Sultan Saladin, on being requested to show his far-famed strength, he clove in two an iron bar by a single blow of his sword ; whereupon the Sultan, in turn, severed with his scimitar first a cushion of down, standing unsupported on its end, and then a gauze veil laid across the weapon in mid-air.

Of this scene evidently the cardinal incidents are the blows with sword and scimitar. Observe in what slow movement, that is, with what accu- mulation of circumstance and description, these are related : " The glit- tering broadsword, wielded by both his hands, rose aloft to the King's left shoulder, circled round his head, descended with the sway of some terrific engine, and the bar of iron rolled on the ground in two pieces, as a woodsman would sever a sapling with a hedging-bill." Similarly the act

1 Scott, The Talisman^ Chap, xxvii.

NARRATION. 523

of Saladin : " ' Mark, then,' said Saladin ; and tucking up the sleeve of his gown, showed his arm, thin indeed and spare, but which constant exercise had hardened into a mass consisting of nought but bone, brawn, and sinew. He unsheathed his scimitar, a curved and narrow blade, which glittered not like the swords of the Franks, but was, on the contrary, of a dull blue color, marked with ten millions of meandering lines, which showed how anxiously the metal had been welded by the armorer. Wielding this weapon, apparently so inefficient when compared to that of Richard, the Soldan stood resting his weight upon his left foot, which was slightly advanced ; he balanced himself a little as if to steady his aim, then stepping at once forward, drew the scimitar across the cushion, applying the edge so dexterously, and with so little apparent effort, that the cushion seemed rather to fall asunder than to be divided by violence."

2. Movement is accelerated by the opposite process — giv- ing only the main outlines or specially significant aspects of the action, and omitting descriptive and amplifying details. Such rapidity of movement is used to pass lightly and com- pendiously over parts of the story that, while they may not be left out altogether, have only a subordinate part to fill.'

Examples. — i. The following few words summarize the story of sev- eral months : " The bedroom which she shared with some of the children formed her retreat more continually than ever. Here, under her few square yards of thatch, she watched winds, and snows, and rains, gorgeous sunsets, and successive moons at their full. So close kept she that at length almost everybody thought she had gone away."^

2. The following illustrates how an action of which the successive stages are less important than the general effect may be crowded together into rapidly succeeding pictures : " A redoubt, which has fallen into the enemy's hands, must be recaptured at any price, and under circumstances of all but hopeless difficulty. A strong party has volunteered for the service ; there is a cry for somebody to head them ; you see a soldier step out from the ranks to assume this dangerous leadership ; the party moves rapidly forward ; in a few minutes it is swallowed up from your eyes in clouds of smoke; for one half hour, from behind these clouds, you receive hiero- glyphic reports of bloody strife — fierce repeating signals, flashes from the guns, rolling musketry, and exulting hurrahs advancing or receding,

1 For the manner of securing rapidity, see above, pp. 299-302.

2 Hardy, Tess of the D' Uriervilles, p. 93.

524 THE LITERARY TYPES.

slackening or redoubling. At length all is over ; the redoubt has been recovered ; that which was lost is found again ; the jewel which had been made captive is ransomed with blood." ^

Some further remarks on the rate of movement and the part it plays in narration may be made here.

In non-fictitious narrative, detailed or amplified story, amounting to retarded movement on a large scale, set off by corresponding rapidity and brevity of dispatch in less impor- tant portions, is called historical perspective. It is, as the name implies, the means adopted in historical writing for making events appear in their true relative rank, as viewed in relation to the end or standpoint assumed in the work.

Note. — How the claims of historical perspective are recognized by historians may be seen from the following remark quoted from a preface : " The materials for the volumes now offered to the public were so abun- dant that it was almost impossible to condense them into smaller compass without doing injustice to the subject. It was desirable to throw full light on these prominent points of the history, while the law of historical per- spective will allow long stretches of shadow in the succeeding portions, in which less important objects may be more slightly indicated." ^

In scenes wherein the activity is intense, the rate, which is at once rapid and detailed, may be regarded rather as vigor than as acceleration of the movement; the sense of rapidity being produced by the strongly descriptive character of the language. This vigor of portrayal, in fact, which is something quite dis- tinct from the forward movement of the story, may make the whole scene more truly a description than a narrative.'

Example. — The passage quoted from Tom Brown at Oxford, on p. 163, above, is an instance of this vigor of descriptive writing. The follow- ing, a later passage from the same scene, is of the same character : " Then Miller, motionless as a statue till now, lifts his right hand and whirls the tassel round his head. ' Give it her now, boys ; six strokes and we 're into

1 De Quincey, Autobiographic Sketches, p. 151.

2 Motley, History of the United Netherlands, Preface. 8 See below, p. 535, on Discursive Narration.

NARRA TION. 525

them.' Old Jervis lays down that great broad back, and lashes his oar through the water with the might of a giant, the crew catch him up in another stroke, the tight new boat answers to the spurt, and Tom feels a little shock behind him, and then a grating sound, as Miller shouts, ' Unship oars, bow and three ! ' and the nose of the St. Ambrose boat glides quietly up the side of the Exeter, till it touches their stroke oar." ^ Here it is not the omission of details but their vigor which gives the sense of accelerated movement.

Toward the end of a narrative, as it nears its culmination, as also in corresponding degree toward any important and clearly approaching crisis, there is a tendency to quicker movement, which the writer should heed. When the reader's anticipation is aroused, the action should hasten by the directest route to the promised end. At the same time it will not bear to be summarized too baldly and compendiously; it must be vigorous as well as rapid.

Accordingly, such a point is not the place to look at scenery, or to carry on a discursive conversation. The introduption of a new character in order to untie the knot is regarded as bad art. Nothing that turns the attention aside from the main current of action should be admitted; the elements necessary to the exposition of the narrative being supposably all in and ready for their solution in event.

Note. — By this it is not necessarily meant that a new vehicle of story should be adopted ; it may still be descriptive or conversational as before ; but there is a noticeable motive to make description condensed or impli- catory, if it must be used at all, and to make dialogue crisp and pointed, as the goal is evidently neared.

3. Preparative Elements in Movement.^ — The principle inher- ent in narrative art, of making up the story with implicit reference to an end, operates to produce a constant sense of

1 Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxford^ Chap. xili.

2 " The great source of pleasure is variety. Uniformity must tire at last, though it be uniformity of excellence. We love to expect ; and, when expectation is dis- appointed or gratified, we want to be again expecting. For this impatience of the present, whoever would please, must make provision. The skilful writer irritat,

S26 THE LITERARY TYPES.

expectancy ; and this naturally sets the writer to studying vari- ous means of preparing for approaching events or situations. Countless shadings and combinations of these are available; the following are some of the most palpable.

I. The element of contrast. It is a natural impulse to make calm scenes alternate with stormy or exciting ones, to set people of contrasted character or appearance over against each other, to give opposite moods of the same person in dramatic succession. Life as well as literature is full of such antitheses, occurring in every variety of shading and impressiveness.

Example. — The most intense situation in Kenilworth, Queen Eliza- beth's discovery of her favorite Leicester's treachery to Amy Robsart, is prepared for by a contrasted scene wherein her favor to him reaches its most flattering expression. The following paragraph points the contrast : —

" If, in the midst of the most serene day of summer, when all is light and laughing around, a. thunderbolt were to fall from the clear blue vault of heaven, and rend the earth at the very feet of some careless traveller, he could not gaze upon the smouldering chasm, which so unexpectedly yawned before him, with half the astonishment and fear which Leicester felt at the sight that so suddenly presented itself. He had that instant been receiving, with a political affectation of disavowing and misunder- standing their meaning, the half uttered, half intimated congratulations of the courtiers upon the favor of the Queen, carried apparently to its highest pitch during the interview of that morning; from which most of them seemed to augur, that he might soon arise from their equal in rank to become their master. And now, while the subdued yet proud smile with which he disclaimed those inferences was yet curling his cheek, the Queen shot into the circle, her passions excited to the uttermost ; and, supporting with one hand, and apparently without an effort, the pale and sinking form of his almost expiring wife, and pointing with the finger of the other to her half dead features, demanded in a voice that sounded to the ears of the astonished statesman like the last great trumpet-call, that is to summon body and spirit to the judgment-seat, ' Knowest thou this woman ? '" i

mulcetj makes a due distribution of the still and animated parts. It is for want of this artful intertexture, and those necessary changes, that the whole of a book may be tedious, though all the parts are praised." — Johnson, Lives of the Poets, Vol. i, p. 219. 1 ScOTT, Kenilworth, Chap, xxxiv.

NARRA TION. 527

2. The element of climax. This shows itself in narration by increasing intensity of movement, or some accessory of dia- logue, description, or comment, so graduated as to fasten attention on the importance or the distinctive point of the approaching event. Thus climax is a kind of concentration of interest on what is to come, by means of preliminary details.

Example. — In the scene between Richard and Saladin, already cited, the following bit of dialogue, introduced after Richard has placed the iron bar ready for the blow of his sword, seems intended to lead up to a more vivid realization of the King's tremendous feat : —

" The anxiety of De Vaux for his master's honor led him to whisper in English — ' For the blessed Virgin's sake, beware what you attempt, my liege I Your full strength is not as yet returned — give no triumph to the infidel.'

" ' Peace, fool ! ' said Richard, standing firm on his ground, and casting a fierce glance around — ' thinkest thou that I can fail in his presence ? ' "

The similar preparation for Saladin's contrasted feat blends with the climax effect a suggestion of contrast : —

" The Soldan, indeed, presently said — ' Something I would fain attempt — though, wherefore should the weak show their inferiority in presence of the strong ? Yet, each land hath its own exercises, and this may be new to the Melech Ric' — So saying, he took from the floor a cushion of silk and down, and .placed it upright on one end. — ' Can thy weapon, my brother, sever that cushion ? ' he said to King Richard.

" ' No surely,' replied the King ; ' no sword on earth, were it the Excalibar of King Arthur, can cut that which opposes no steady resistance to the blow.'

" ' Mark, then,' said Saladin," i etc. (see p. 523, above).

3. The element of surprise. Such preparation for an event as is implied in climax, while it is real and directive, is so to be managed as not to " give away the case " prematurely. There is an art of leading on the reader without letting him guess what is coming; while he is kept alert and in suspense, the real solution, when it comes, comes as a surprise. This is an aspect of contrast or antithesis.

1 Scott, The Talisman, Chap, xxvii.

528 THE LITERARY TYPES.

Example. — Sir Gareth's combat with the four bandit knights of the fords, each fiercer and stronger than the one before, ends with a surprise which every circumstance has elaborately prepared to heighten. The last knight of the four is the most grewsome and dreaded of all ; here is the description of him as he advances to battle : —

" But when the prince Three times had blown — after long hush — at last — The huge pavilion slowly yielded up, Thro' those black foldings, that which housed therein. High on a night-black horse, in night-black arms, With white breast-bone, and barren ribs of Death, And crown'd with fleshless laughter — some ten steps — In the half-light — thro' the dim dawn — advanced The monster, and then paused, and spake no word."

Here is the issue of the combat : —

" At once Sir Lancelot's charger fiercely neigh'd. And Death's dark war-horse bounded forward with him. Then those that did not blink the terror saw That Death was cast to ground, and slowly rose. But with one stroke Sir Gareth split the skull. Half fell to right and half to left and lay. Then with a stronger buffet he clove the helm As thoroughly as the skull ; and out from this Issued the bright face of a blooming boy Fresh as a flower new-born, and crying, ' Knight, Slay me not : my three brethren bade me do it, To make a horror all about the house. And stay the world from Lady Lyonors. They never dream'd the passes could be past.' " 1

4. The element of aposiopesis. Sometimes, when an impor- tant event has been so fully anticipated that it suggests itself, it is left to the reader's imagination to complete. This is espe- cially the case when it is an event whose detiails would be dis- agreeable or distasteful or harrowing. But apart also from what it spares the reader, this silence throws the event from its repulsive realistic detail back upon its inner significance, on which the imagination can exercise itself unlimited.

Examples. — The following suggests the carrying out of the execution of a criminal, as observed by friends of the victim.

1 Tennyson, Gareth and Lyneiie, 11. 1342-1350 ; 1365-1378.

NARRA TION. 529

" Upon the cornice of a tower a tall staff was fixed. Their eyes were riveted on it. A few minutes after the hour had struck, something moved slowly up the staff, and extended itself upon the breeze. It was a black flag.

" 'Justice ' was done, and Time, the Archsatirist, had had his joke out with Tess. The two speechless gazers bent themselves down to the earth, as if in prayer, and remained thus a long time, absolutely motionless ; the flag continued to wave silently. As soon as they had strength they arose, joined hands again, and went on." i

The death of Sydney Carton, a self-sacrificed victim of the Terror in France, is suggested in a similar way, by aposiopesis. He is one of a company whose successive executions are numbered off one by one by the knitting women. Number Twenty-Two, a woman, precedes him : —

" She kisses his lips ; he kisses hers ; they solemnly bless each other. The spare hand does not tremble as he releases it ; nothing worse than a sweet, bright constancy is in the patient face. She goes next before him — is gone ; the knitting women count Twenty-Two.

" ' I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord : he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live : and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.'

" The murmuring of many voices, the upturning of many faces, the pressing on of many footsteps in the outskirts of the crowd, so that it swells forward in a mass, like one great heave of water, all flashes away. Twenty-Three.

" They said of him about the city that night, that it was the peacefuUest man's face ever beheld there. Many added that he looked sublime and prophetic." ^

II. THE VEHICLE OF THE STORY.

Of any ordinary course of events there is, and must be, more in the story than the telling of the story. A plain recount of particulars one after another, in the manner and spirit of annals, leaves the narration bald, uncolored, unsig- nalized; and it is only events of commanding or sublime import that will bear such simple treatment. Most subjects of narration require some vehicle, which shall convey not the

1 Hardy, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, p. 45;.

2 Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, Bk. iii, Chap. xv.

530 THE LITERARY TYPES.

events alone but the shadings, the settings, the traits of human and moral interest which serve to make events stand out as worth the telling. This vehicle of the story, in its various aspects, is to narration what accessories are to description.

Note. — Of narrative plot, as of other plans of discourse, the truth indeed holds that " the greater the occasion the more apt men are to be simple." 1 And in a supremely great series of events, as for instance the story of Creation in the first chapter of Genesis, the use of any but the simplest vehicle of language would be an impertinence ; the events are so large as to scorn any outside help. But most stories must deal with the small occurrences of life, things which in themselves, without some deeper connotation, would have hardly more interest than entries in a diary. It is not in these alone, but in what the vehicle of the story brings along with them, that readers are interested ; while as soon as the events them- selves rise into greatness and importance, the accessory vehicle is naturally toned down, or kept plain and severe.

The vehicle of the story may be some medium of treatment, or may be devised from a subsidiary use of narration itself. Each of these calls here for notice.

"\

I.

The Supporting Medium. — With the annalistic recount of particulars, which of course always exists as the inner thread of the movement, there are inwoven various processes of treat- ment, which singly or in combination serve to give depth or zest or buoyancy or color. These constitute a medium through which the story, with its various involvements, gets itself told and interpreted. The chief of these are the working of char- acter, the dialogue, and description.

I. The Characters of a Story Mere skill in the construction

of plot, with its residual impression of ingenuity or mystery, stirs at best only a crude and transient interest. The reader's

1 HiGGiNSON, Contemporaries^ p. 315.

NARRATION. S31

inner demand is for something deeper. The story must rise out of real life; must be moulded on lines of human motive, human character ; must be a transcript from the natural experi- ence of a soul.'' What gives it a plea upon men's attention is the fact that its events are compelled by laws of human nature, and estimated by the moral standards that obtain in ordered human society. All this is best embodied in the characters of the story, which, by living their life before our eyes, and interacting with each other, produce, though in fiction, a true and living history.^

The importance of this element of narration is seen in the fact that it is the characters of a story that are most vital, that are remembered longest, and that become household names and companions. And writers are held high among the world's benefactors who succeed in adding permanently , to the company some new name, some vital strain of character portrayal.

In the management of character the main difficulty is to make it individual and natural. Conceived, as it must to some degree be, on standards of motive and endowment, it is apt to become a mere personified abstraction, or a mere vehicle for didacticism; this is to be guarded against. The problem is, while the character embodies an abstract type, to express this in words and acts of an individual; to make a unique experience portray some trait of universal recognizable human nature. The ability to do this cannot come merely from the library or from inner consciousness; it requires inti- mate sympathy with men and the affairs of men, and imagina- tion to put one's self in men's place.

1 " The historical decoration was purposely of no more importance than a back- ground requires ; and my stress lay on the incidents in the development of a soul : little else is worth study." — Browning, Dedication of Sordcllo.

2 " The ti-ue plot comes out of the character ; that is, the man does not result from the things he does, but the things he does result from the man, and so plot coines out of character ; plot aforethought does not characterize." — W. D. Howells.

S32 THE LITERARY TYPES.

Note. — The great characters of fiction have the strange quality of becoming more real and companionable than the personages of history; we have their words, their cast of mind, their impulses of heart, and these live with us longer than the things they are represented to have done. Think, for instance, of Hamlet and Othello and Lear, and what they stand for ; of Sir Roger de Coverley and Parson Adams and My Uncle Toby ; of Sam Weller and Micawber and Becky Sharp and Colonel Newcome. It is with such characters, and their world of ideal and idiosyncrasy, that the deep and vital elements of literature are inwoven.

2. The Dialogue. — If in the characters is involved the profounder fibre of the story, from the management of the dialogue comes largely its more buoyant and popular effect. Uncritical readers — whose preferences, in fact, ought to be consulted — like a story "with lots of conversation in it." The dialogue serves, as it were, to aerate the movement, which else might grow ponderous and slow. In the give and take of conversation, too, character itself appears, to speak for itself ; and many accessory and descriptive ele- ments slip in lightly and unobtrusively in the words that are said. And through it all is traceable the forward move- ment and the approaching end or crisis.

The prime feature to note in dialogue is that it must not exist for itself. Its office is solely to be, in some direct appli- cation, the vehicle of a story. Though it may seem, and ought to seem, as casual and spontaneous as everyday speech, it is, as matter of fact, managed from point to point, and steered to an end. Any word of conversation that does not contribute to one or more of these three things — ■ to advance the story, to throw light on character, or to supply some necessary descrip- tive element, is superfluous. Brilliant and sprightly as it may be in itself, it is irrelevant, and so a blemish, an excrescence.

As to the style of dialogue, the fact that it has to be steered to an end is apt, in the case of young writers, to make it stiff and didactic, or goody-goody. It is in fact a most delicate working-tool to manage. Two elements must be reconciled in

NARRATION. 533

it : its literary shaping, and its truth to nature.' In the first is secured its office in the development of the story, and with this a certain elevation and acceptability as composed diction. In the second is secured its limpid spontaneity, and with this an impression of natural abandon. Each element must be tempered by the other, until the effect of studied art disap- pears and only the flavor of nature remElins."

Note. — In the drama the whole literary vehicle is suppUed by dialogue ; and what the novelist gives by recounting and description is supplied by action, costume, and stage setting. Character bears much the same rela- tion to both drama and novel ; the inner fibre which it takes action and dialogue alike to reveal.

3. What Narration owes to Description. — On account of the intimate connection of narration and description, there are, on the frontiers of the two, some forms of discourse wherein it is neither easy nor practical to determine which predominates. In generalj however, it May be said that where the narrative or story-telling consciou^ess controls it leads to a more or less carefully constructed! plot ; while the descriptive feeling in predominance is contenf with the vivid portrayal of a series of scenes, without special ciare for the interaction of events.

Throughout the story nai'ration is convoyed by description ;

1 These same two elements have been discussed as applicable to the various kinds of manufactured diction ; see p. 134, above.

2 " The ordinary talk of ordinary people is carried on in short, sharp, expressive sentences, which, very frequently, are never completed, the language of which even among educated people is often incorrect. The novel-writer, in constructing his dialogue, must so steer between absolute accuracy of language — which would give to his conversation an air of pedantry — and the slovenly inaccuracy of ordinary talkers — which, if closely followed, would offend by an appearance of grimace — as to produce upon the ear of his readers a sense of reality. If he be quite real, he will seem to attempt to be funny. If he be quite correct, he will seem to be unreal. And, above all, let the speeches be short. No character should utter much above a dozen words at a breath, unless the writer can justify to himself a longer flood of speech, by the specialty of the occasion. — In all this human nature must be the novel-writer's guide. . . . But in following human nature he must remember that he does so with a pen in his hand, and that the reader who will appreciate human nature will also demand artistic ability and literary aptitude." — Trollope, Auto- biagraphy, p. 216.

534 THE LITERARY TYPES.

that is, it relies on descriptive comments or passages for some essential features of its structure. The main contribution that description thus makes to the story may be noted under two heads.

I. Description prepares the scene. The introductory part of any narrative, whether real or fictitious, must be largely an account of the setting of dates, places, customs, characters. Economy requires that just so much description of this kind be given as is needed to explain the succeeding narrative, and no more than can be fully utilized by it. Any descriptive item beyond this is irrelevant.

A descriptive beginning labors under the disadvantage of delaying the action, and thus not seizing promptly on the reader's interest; this is evinced in the remark often made that one "cannot get started" in reading a story. This disadvantage cannot always be avoided without greater ones ; but sometimes a striking beginning is made, by dialogue or some narrative element, and the story is carried on in this way until interest is well aroused; whereupon the descrip- tive introduction is given in a kind of pause, or, less often, by some of the interlocutors. Another way is to give the descriptive introduction piecemeal, in connection with the successive steps of the action or dialogue. •

Note. — The tendency of modern narrative is to leave more than was formerly done for the reader to divine at the beginning, and in fact often to utilize the reader's interest in making him conjecture the personages and descriptive surroundings, and supply the scenery largely for himself. Brovpning's inveterate use of this device — plunging into the midst of some action or monologue vrithout warning — is a well-known source of his alleged difficulty. The following will exemplify his manner of opening a story : —

"My first thought was, he lied in every word. That hoary cripple, with malicious eye Askance to watch the working of his lie On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford Suppression of the glee, that pursed and scored . Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby." 1 1 Browning, Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, st. i.

NARRA TION. S3S

Here all 'the description we gather is that " he " is a gray-headed cripple, who has all the appearance of trying to victimize the speaker. Other elements come out furtively in succeeding stanzas, until the situation is gradually made tolerably clear.

^2^y Description is the expositor of the narrative. That is, the bearing of events on one another, the significance of char- acters, the junctures and turning-points of the action, the importance of minute features that otherwise would escape notice are brought out mainly by means of description. It is thus an element of great importance for keeping the per- spective and proportion of the whole, and for maintaining the power of the didactic end.''

Authors differ greatly in the prominence they give to this descriptive element in narration. With some it is the strong point, and a lack of completeness in the plot is made up by its means ; with others it assumes a very subordinate office, while the plot absorbs the interest. In general we may say that while pure plot is more immediately absorbing, and likelier to satisfy the technical rules of narrative, a more descriptive story, with its deeper study of character and moral involvements, is of more permanent significance, and likelier to become a valued literary possession.

Note. — This difference maybe illustrated in a measure by Wilkie Col- lins, who was a master of intricate and exciting plot, but whose stories taught very little of life ; and his contemporary, William Makepeace Thackeray, who constructed poor plots, but was always commenting on his characters and situations, and who is loved as a kindly counsellor in life, while the names of many of his characters are household words.

II.

Discursive Narration An important part in the vehicle of

the story may on occasion be taken by discursive narration, that is, in general, narrative in which the descriptive feeling

1 For the didactic end, see above, p, 518.

536 THE LITERARY TYPES.

predominates. Introduced into plotted narrative, it may have partially the effect of an episode, while at the same time it may contribute by some secondary incident or feature to the progress of the main story.

1. The characteristic of discursive narration, as its name implies, is that the story is not plotted, does not conduct its action to a dinouement, but goes merely where the descriptive element leads it, or is bounded by the natural lapse of time. The account of an excursion, or a race, or a contest, or a day's adventures would come under this head. Such accounts are popularly called descriptions as often as they are called narratives. -

2. The fact that in such narration interest centres not in a plot but in a scene, occasions an important modification of the style. When, as in a plot, the action itself is exciting and absorbing, the manner of recounting is naturally simple ; the interest does not require the aid of highly wrought expression.^ When, however, it is the scene that absorbs the attention, the language has to be more the language of description ; it needs to be rapid, spirited, picturesque, to answer to the life and intensity of the scene, or to give the sense of energy in action ; or again it has to be graceful, flowing, charged with sentiment, to answer to the more tranquil emotions. Thus what the account loses in plot it makes up in vividness or in imagina- tive power.

Note. — How discursive or descriptive narration may enter into a larger plot may be seen in the account of the battle of Waterloo in Victor Hugo's Cosette (Les Misirables), whose nineteen chapters contribute to the main story only a single incident, and that a minor one. The spirited style of discursive narration may be illustrated from the account of the boat race already quoted from,^ in Tom Brown at Oxford, Chap. xiii.

1 Compare Note, p. 530, above.

2 Pages 162, 524, above.

NARRATION. 537

III.

Combination of Narratives. — Not only description and dia- logue, but also distinct lines of narrative, with their varieties of movement and coloring, may be utilized as the vehicle of the story in the large sense. In various ways these subsidiary stories may work in with the main current of events; con- cerning which ways of combining narratives some cautions and regulatives need here to be noted.

Episodes. — An episode (from the Greek tireio-oSos, " a coming in beside " ) is a story virtually independent of the main story though it may contribute some descriptive or character ele- ment of subordinate import. It is oftenest managed, perhaps, by being represented as told by one of the personages of the main action. Its artistic object is to offset the monotony or strain of the principal action by an action of different character. This purpose demands that the episode be so dif- ferent in tone and movement as to afford a decided relief; that it be not so long or so elaborate as to usurp the interest of the main story; and yet that it be so carefully finished as to compensate by some element of beauty or moral signifi- cance for the reader's impatience at being interrupted.

Note. — An episode, like a digression in a paragraph (see p. 376, above), is one of the parenthetical elements of discourse, and on its larger scale is to be treated as a parenthesis, — its range of. action smaller and simpler, its coloring subdued, its style in general less massive and elaborate, than those of the main story. All this does not hinder it from having a beauty of its own which may cause it to be remembered with special pleasure, even after the larger plot has faded from the mind.

Episodes are an old-fashioned device, found mostly in epic poetry, and in stories from the times when looser construc- tion and leisurely discursive movement were regarded as a charm. Modern invented narrative, with its more exacting

538 THE LITERARY TYPES.

technique, is very intolerant of them.' It demands that the vehicle of the story, whatever it is, shall be the vehicle of one story, and be concerned with one denouement. And whatever good effect is produced by the employment of them is better promoted, it is deemed, by means more consistent with unity of interest.

Note. — Instances of episode in epic poetry are the parting of Hector and Andromache, in the Jliad, Book vi, a beautiful domestic scene coming in and relieving scenes of warlike contest ; and the Archangel Michael's prophecy to Adam of what shall befall his posterity, in Paradise Lost, Books xi and xii, affording consolation for the bitter agony of man's fall. In fiction may be mentioned, besides the two examples given in the footnote, which are from Cervantes's Don Quixote and Fielding's Tom Jones, respectively, The Confessions of a Fair Saint, in Goethe's Wilhelm Meister.

The stories interspersed in Dickens's Pickwick Papers are episodes, but the whole plan of the story, at least as originally conceived, contem- plated a work of loose construction, which should be a repository of all kinds of description and incident.

Interwoven Plots What the old writers endeavored to effect

by episodes is in modern art more skilfully accomplished by interweaving with the principal plot subsidiary threads of story, which by their different character shall furnish all the relief and variety needed. The advantage of this over episode is that all the lines of story converge to a common end, which when it comes has the effect of having been enriched from various sources of character, scene, and sentiment.

The subsidiary plots that are interwoven with the main one may be of various degrees of relative significance. In general

1 " There should be no episodes in a novel. Every sentence, every word, through all those pages, should tend to the telling of the story. Such episodes distract the attention of the reader, and always do so disagreeably. Who has not felt this to be the case, even with ' The Curious Impartinent,' and with the ' History of the Man of the Hill'? And if it be so with Cervantes and Fielding, who can hope to succeed? Though the novel which you have to write must b? long, let it be all one. And this exclusion of episodes should be carried down into the smallest details." — Trclloi'E, Autobiography, p. 214.

NARRA TION. 539

they are, and perhaps ought to be, of quite subordinate import, being hardly more than an occasional glance, so to say, at the extraneous history of some person in the larger story. Some- times, however, the secondary plot may be so important as to rank almost as a twin plot to the main one ; though this, in modern narration, is exceptional.*

Examples. — Kipling's well-known trick of starting a new suggestion of events and breaking off with the remark " But that is another story " is a hint that the course of any narrative is continually glancing at other narratives, and that in many ways stories are crossing and intersecting one another in life. — Of twin plots a typical example is furnished by Shake- speare's Merchant of Venice, where the story of Portia and the caskets, and the story of Antonio and Shylock have entirely different scenes and are derived from widely separate sources, their sole connecting link, at first, being the character of Bassanio. The money that he must borrow, in order to prosecute his suit with Portia, is made the motif for interweav- ing the plots ; and as the action progresses, various characters — Lorenzo and Jessica, Gratiano and Salarino, and Launcelot Gobbo — are transferred from one scene to the other, until at the end the two stories are blended into one culmination, with characters from both active in the solution.

In order to secure the good effect of interwoven plots, two especial lines of constructive skill are necessary. First, care is to be taken that each constituent narrative have features that give it some character of contrast, or strong offset, to the others, a different tone and key. Secondly, the transition from one scene to another should be made at points where each is in its most characteristic mood or significance, its object being to afford relief from the strain of too long continuance in one plane of emotion and interest. ^

1 " There may be subsidiary plots, which shall all tend to the elucidation of the main story, and which will take their places as part of one and the same work, as there may be many figures on a canvas, which shall not to the spectator seem to form themselves into separate pictures." — Trollope, Autobiography, p. 215.

" Avoid a sub-plot, unless, as sometimes in Shakespeare, the sub-plot be a rever- sion or complement of the main intrigue." — Stevenson, A Humble Remon- strance, Works, Vol. xiii, p. 356.

2 Macaulay applied this skill, with consummate effect, to the interweaving of different threads of historical narrative. His biographer thus describes it: "In

540 THE LITERARY TYPES.

Illustrations. — i. Of markedly contrasted stories, a good example is furnished in Shakespeare's two parts of King Henry IV, where on one side Falstaff and his swaggering companions are set over against the king and his nobles on the other, in a series of alternating scenes.

2. Transition from one kind of scene to another is frequently exempli- fied in Dickens's Barnaby Rudge. The main story of this novel is an historic episode of stormy and tragic import — the Gordon Riots of 1780. With this, however, is interwoven a story of contrasted character, illustrating no less strikingly all that is good and simple and peaceful, — the story, namely, of Barnaby and his mother. The following transition will show how the points of alternation between the stories were chosen : " While the worst passions of the worst men were thus working in the dark, and the mantle of religion, assumed to cover the ugliest deformities, threatened to become the shroud of all that was good and peaceful in society, a circumstance occurred which once more altered the positions of two persons [Barnaby Rudge and his mother] from whom this history has long been separated, and to whom it must now return." 1

Synchronism of Events In almost every narrative work

that is built on a large scale, history for example, the writer has to meet the problem how to manage concurring streams of narrative; a problem arising from the fact that many inci- dents taking place in widely separated scenes, and many char- acters wholly unknown to each other may yet be contributing at one and the same time to bring about a common culmination of events. In the recounting of the different stories one must precede; but when the second story traverses events of the same period, the reader must in some way be made to realize this fact, and think the two not in successioh but side by side. This calls for the synchronizing of events. '

the ' ordering of parts,' which cost him so much labor, his equal will not easily be found. Each side of the story is brought forward in its proper time and place, and leaves the stage when it has served its purpose, that of advancing by one step the main action. Each of these subordinate stories, marked by exquisite finish, leads up to a minor crisis or turn in events, where it joins the chief narrative with a certain eclat and surprise. The interweaving of these wellnigh endless threads, the clearness with which each is kept visible and distinct, and yet is made to con- tribute its peculiar effect and color to the whole texture, constitute one of the great feats in Uterature." — Morison, Macaulay (English Men of Letters), p. 145. 1 Dickens, Barnaby Rudge, Chap. xlv.

NARRA TION. 541

There are several ways in which the events of different streams of narrative may concur. In fiction the concurrence is a work of pure invention, being due to the relations of inter- woven plots to each other. Of this something has already been said. In history a transaction may have antagonistic sides, each of which, for completeness, must be represented in turn ; this is seen when opposed forces engage in battle, or when political parties are arrayed against each other in state policy. A broader concurrence is seen in the different departments of a nation's history, as, for instance, its political or constitu- tional history, its social development, its religious progress, its literature, — each of which has a distinct story by itself, yet also many points of relation to other departments.

In the endeavor to impart the sense of synchronism in events or lines of history, attention should be given both to the mechanical and to the more literary process, somewhat as to plan and amplification.

I. Mechanical means of synchronizing are often used to supplement the literary; but whether so or not they should be in the writer's underlying plan as a nucleus of treatment. The chief of these, as occasioned by the needs of historical writing, are : —

The careful division of the narrative into periods, with boundaries that may serve as landmarks at once for the several departments or lines of events.

The frequent construction of summaries and reviews of progress, with reference to the whole field of view.

The display of events in charts, tabular views, statistics, and the like, which serve to exhibit many parallel lines of history in one survey.

Illustration of Choice of Landmark. — For the beginning of the Elizabethan period in English literature Green chooses the noint of time corresponding with the defeat of the Spanish Armada. In a paragraph too long to be quoted in full here he summarizes the various lines of

542 THE LITERARY TYPES.

national development — in exploration, in science, in the revival of learn- ing, in national triumph — and then goes on to mention the great names of authors which graced the period just opening. How truly the date is well chosen may be seen from the close of his summary : " With its new sense of security, of national energy and national power, the whole aspect of Enigland suddenly changed. As yet the interest of Elizabeth's reign had been political and material ; the stage had been crowded with states- men and, warriors, with Cecils and Walsinghams and Drakes. Literature had hardly found a place in the glories of the time. But from the moment when the Armada drifted back broken to Ferrol, the figures of warriors and statesmen were dwarfed by the grander figures of poets and philoso- phers. Amidst the throng in Elizabeth's antechamber the noblest form is that of the singer who lays the ' Faerie Queen ' at her feet, or of the young lawyer who muses amid the splendors of the presence over the problems of the ' Novum Organum.' The triumph at Cadiz, the conquest of Ire- land, pass unheeded as we watch Hooker building up his 'Ecclesiastical Polity ' among the sheepfolds, or the genius of Shakspere rising year by year into supremer grandeur in a rude theatre beside the Thames." ^

A masterly work of history, conducted throughout on synchronistic lines, and clearly articulated by summaries and landmarks, yet all fused into one homogeneous narrative, is Professor Barrett Wendell's Literary History of America.

2. The literary means of synchronizing events has to do mainly with the proportioning of the various parallel depart- ments and, in the amplification, with the management of changes of scene.

As a history must stand predominantly for some one aspect of life, the writer chooses as basis of the whole the narrative that most fully represents this. To this narrative he gives the fullest movement; noting in its course, however, events that stand out as important landmarks for more than one course of events, and personages that in the part they play serve to connect one story with another. In this way the groundwork is laid for constructing history from more than one point of view. When now another narrative, contem- poraneous with the first, is taken up, it is constructed as a

1 Green, Short History of the English People, Chap, vii, Section 7.

NARRA TION. 543

kind of reverse, — giving in summary or rapid reference what the other has given in full, and enlarging on those points which the other has designated as landmarks. In this way the reader is kept aware how the different lines of events touch one another.

The scene should not be transferred from one narrative to another except at the significant turning-points of the his- tory, where one narrative is so finished that it can be trusted to wait, and so rounded as to be retained in mind as a story of defined character. The change should be not merely assumed, but distinctly announced.

Example of Transfer of Scene. — In Carlyle's account of the battle of Prag, which may illustrate what may be called synchronism at close quarters, noticeable care is evinced in the changes from one side of the account to the -other. It is from Friedrich's point of view that he tells the story, and his account of Friedrich's preparations, and of the ground on which the battle is to be fought, is given as seen from the Prussian position. Then, in order to describe the Austrian's preparation, he changes scene, in the following words : " Where the Austrian Camp or various Tent-groups were, at the time Friedrich first cast eye on them, is no great concern of his or ours ; inasmuch as, in two or three hours hence, the Austrians were obliged, rather suddenly, to take Order of Battle; and that, and not their camping, is the thing we are curious upon. Let us step across, and take some survey of that Austrian ground, which Friedrich is now surveying from the distance, fully intending that it shall be a battle- ground in few hours ; and try to explain how the Austrians drew-up on it, when they noticed the Prussian symptoms to become serious more and more." At the end of this description he returns to his original standing- point, in the following words : " Friedrich surveys diligently what he can of all this, from the northern verge. We will now return to Friedrich ; and will stay on his side through the terrible Action that is coming." i

III. NARRATION IN LITERATURE.

Of all the most widespread and popular forms of literature narration is the basis, furnishing the groundwork and main

t C'ARLYLE, Frederick the Great, Vol. vi, pp. 126, 129.

544 THE LITERARY TYPES.

movement by which they are estimated. The narrative type, however, rarely appears unmixed, being reinforced, as occasion rises, by other types, especially description and exposition.

The following, with brief indication of their working prin- ciples, are the leading forms of literature thus founded on narration. i

History. — This is to be regarded as first in importance, because, being the recounting of actual events, it represents the primal and ideal use of narration. Dealing with the authentic facts of the world, the larger facts with which are connected the destiny of nations and communities, its art is first to find by wise investigation what is authentic, and then so to interpret this that its truth and significance shall be clearly manifest. Whatever historical writing fails in these, one or both, fails in art; it remains either raw material or raw judgment.

The Finding of Historic Fact. — In the investigation of his- toric fact two endowments of mind are at work, very different from each other, yet each requiring ideally to be at its best: minute accuracy and vigorous imagination.^

I. Most deeply of all, and long before he begins the actual composition, the historian must have the most unwearied patience in detail and investigation, shrinking not from the dryest and minutest researches, in his determination to ascer- tain and verify every smallest fact that may throw light on his story. To him there can be nothing forbidding, nothing unimportant. If a small and obscure incident may alter the

1 " ' stem Accuracy in inquiring, bold Imagination in expounding and filling-up ; these,' says friend Sauerteig, 'are the two pinions on which History soars,' — or flutters and wabbles." — Carlyle, Essays^ Vol. iii, p. 259. The imagination was what Carlyle especially valued in his own work, and whenever he had to give statistics or prosaic information he was fond of introducing them apologetically, as the work of a certain Dryasdust.

NARRA TION. 545

color of a whole epoch, or an unobtrusive date be the key to a whole series of facts, it will not do to call any detail superfluous.'

Note. — The extreme of accuracy and care in ascertaining facts is the prevailing characteristic of modern historical scholarship, a characteristic, indeed, which it has in common with the whole scientific method and spirit of our day. First eminently exemplified, perhaps, in Gibbon, it has become the indispensable endowment of the standard historian, and is well illus- trated by such names as Hallam, Carlyle, Macaulay, Motley, Bancroft, and Farkman.

2. The facts of history have not only to be accumulated by- documentary evidence ; they have also to be restored by an imagination powerful enough to fill the gaps of evidence and reproduce the past in a living portrayal. Through all the patient drudgery of research the writer must have -the vision of a rounded and consistent narrative, as the sculptor sees the statue in the stone. It is only so that he can reproduce the very form and body of past events as they really are. Thus the penetrative imagination, in its creative vigor, becomes a means by which hidden facts are divined and brought to light.^

1 Of Macaulay^s masterly faculty of packing information both into his state- ments and into the implications, allusions, and figures of his historical works Thackeray says that these indicate " not only the prodigious memory and vast learn- ing of this master, but the wonderful industry, the honest, humble previous toil of this great scholar. He reads twenty books to write a sentence ; he travels a hundred miles to make a line of description." — Thackeray, Roundabout Papers^ p. 198.

2 One of Macaulay's friends thus reports his method of retaining and coordinat- ing historic facts : ',* I said that I was surprised at the great accuracy of his informa- tion, considering how desultory his reading had been. * My accuracy as to facts,' he said, ' I owe to a cause which many men would not confess. It is due to my love of castle-building. The past is in my mind soon constructed into a romance.' He then went on to describe the way in which from his childhood his imagination had been filled with the study of history. * With a person of my turn,' he said, * the minute touches are of as great interest, and perhaps greater, than the most impor- tant events. Spending so much time as I do in solitude, my mind would have rusted by gazing vacantly at the shop windows. As it is, I am no sooner in the streets than I am in Greece, in Rome, in the midst of the French Revolution. Precision in dates, the day or hour in which a man was born or died, becomes absolutely

546 THE LITERARY TYPES.

Note. — It is through the imagination that the real life and relation of facts are seen ; and of course the personality of the writer must to greater or less extent color the view that his imagination takes. Some historians, as Froude and Carlyle, have been charged with letting their imagination distort or discard facts ; this tendency is, of course, to be guarded against. And there is perhaps no better safeguard of the reconstructing imagina- tion than what has already been mentioned as its complemental quality, — patient, industrious search for facts, and committal to them.

The Interpreting of Historic Fact. — The very manner of recounting facts once found is an interpretation of them, a putting of them into such order and relation that their large significance is seen. But besides this mere recounting of them, also, two other of the literary types may be employed as interpreting agencies ; and from the broad lines of treat- ment thus adopted rise three main kinds of historic writing.'

I.. The purely narrative form of history, which is based on annals and chronicles, aims to give merely the narrative action of the story, but with a regard to proportion, light and shade, and the interaction of events, which will impart to the work something of invented plot. It is this constructive skill that raises it from the mere raw material to real history; makes a readable story of what would otherwise be the disjecta membra of a story.

Examples. — Of the crude journal of events the typical example is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Some of the older histories, like Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, and Burnet's history of my Own Time, are con- ceived in this type of unadorned narrative. More modern examples are

necessary. A slight fact, a sentence, a word, are of importance in my romance.' " Trevelyan, Life of Macaulay, Vol. i, p.i 72. — The extracts from Professor Wilson's • essay, pp. 453 and 453, above, also enforce this same truth of the service of imagina- tion to history.

1 This classification of historic writing is adopted from De Quincey. " History, as a composition," he says, " falls into three separate arrangements, obeying three distinct laws, and addressing itself to three distinct objects. Its first and humblest office is to deliver a naked, unadorned exposition of public events and their circum- stances. This form of history may be styled the purely Narrative ; tlie second form is that which may be styled the Scenical ; and the third the Philosophic." — De Quincey, Charlemagne, Works, Vol. vi, p. 138.

NARRA TION. 547

Hume's History of England and Help's Spanish Conquest. The part that invention or plot may play in history is described from Macaulay's historical skill, pp. 513, 539, above; though Macaulay's ovfn work was rather more comprehensive than mere narrative history.

2. Scenic history is history written with a view to impress- ing the story on the imagination, making readers realize, if possible, the event as a kind of picture or pageant. To effect this purpose, the telling scenes of history are selected for treat- ment, and narration is combined liberally with description.'

Examples. ■ — De Quincey himself instances, as illustrative of this class, Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, a stately procession of picturesque events. Other examples are Carlyle's French Revolution, Kinglake's Invasion of the Crimea, Macaulay's History of England, and the several histories of Prescott and Parkman. How vital the descriptive element was in Macaulay's conception of history may be seen from the paragraph quoted from him, p. 380, above.

3. Philosophic history, -which combines with the fundamen- tal narrative exposition and induction, is confessedly something beyond a story of events; it is a commentary on events. It views the course of its narrative in the relations of principles, motives, cause and effect, laws of human and physical nature. This manner of treating history is distinctively the modern manner; and the prevalence of scientific method in all depart- ments of study has greatly enhanced the esteem in which it is held. A favorite characterization of history is, "philosophy teaching by example."^

Examples. — Of historic works predominantly philosophic may be men- tioned Buckle's History of Civilization, Lecky's History of European

1 " Histories of this class proceed upon principles of selection, presupposing in the reader a general knowledge of the great cardinal incidents, and bringing forward into especial notice those only which are susceptible of being treated with distin- guished effect." — De Quincey.

2 " Under whatever name, it is evident that philosophy, or an investigation of the true moving forces in every great train and sequence of national events, and an exhibition of the motives and the moral consequences in their largest extent which have concurred with these events, cannot be omitted in any history above the level of a childish understanding." — De Quincey.

548 THE LITERARY TYPES.

Morals, and Hallam's Constitutional History of England. Works com- bining the narrative and scenic with the philosophic are Green's History of the English People, Bancroft's History of the United States, and Motley's History of the Rise of the Dutch Republic.

II.

Biography. — What the living characters are to a work of fiction, biography is to history ; and just as history itself is of grander import than fiction, the story of the personages who make up history assumes corresponding nobility of rank in literature. Biography is one of the most valued, as well as one of the most instructive literary forms.

The art of composing biography is essentially identical with all narrative art'; but two different ways of treating bio- graphic material, with their good points and their cautions, need here to be considered.

I. Corresponding best, perhaps, with its original idea, biography may be written as an account of the subject's life in the biographer's own words throughout, embodying his selection and proportioning of events, and his judgments of the subject's character and achievements. The advantage of this manner of tireatment is that it is most favorable to making a homogeneous work of art, and gives most freedom in what may be called the action of the narrative. On the other hand, it is liable to become either over-eulogistic or over- critical, being subject to the author's infirmities of judgment or his inability rightly to estimate his subject's character and motives; and thus it may fail of that sane balance of judg- ment which is rightly demanded in portrayals of human life.

1 See quotation from Stevenson in the footnote, p. 513, above. He goes on to say : " Boswell's is, indeed, a very special case, and almost a generic ; but it is not only in Boswell, it is in every biography with any salt of life, it is in every history where events and men, rather than ideas, are presented — in Tacitus, in Carlyle, in Michelet, in Macaulay — that the novelist will find many of his own methods most conspicuously and adroitly handled."

NARRA TION. 549

To execute the task well is an achievement as valuable as it is difficult.

Examples. — This treatment of biography is exemplified, with greater or less success, in Plutarch's Lives, Johnson's Lives of the Poets, Carlyle's Life of Sterling, Lewes's Life of Goethe.

Our literature contains also some notable autobiographies that ought not to go unmentioned ; among them are Gibbon's Autobiography, Frank- lin's Autobiography, and the Personal Memoirs of General Grant.

2. In the modern ideal of biography, however, the writer or editor's impulse is to efface himself as far as possible, and employ all available means for making the subject tell his own story. To this end much use is made of letters, jour- nals, reports of conversation, estimates of friends, and the like. Such biography has the advantage of letting the subject's own words represent him, so that under his own contemporary views of things can be read his' mind.-' It is apt to suffer correspondingly in being less homogeneous, and generally in including much that is of very subordinate interest. The selection of material imposes a very delicate task on the writ- er's judgment, in excluding what would give offense, or what would present the subject in an unjust or unfortunate light.

Examples. — That this type of biography is susceptible of the most masterly art is shown in the fact that Boswell's Life of fohnson, the acknowledged prince of biographies, is of this class. Other noteworthy ones are : Lockhart's Life of Sir Walter Scott, Trevelyan's Life of Macaulay, Stanley's Life of Dr. Arnold, and Lord [Hallam] Tennyson's Alfred Lord Tennyson ; a Memoir.

An increasing custom is, instead of a formal biography, to publish, with connecting sketch of life and circumstances, a. collection of the subject's letters ; as instanced in the letters of Matthew Arnold, James Russell Lowell, and Robert Louis Stevenson. These, however, are not to be estimated as narrative.

1 " I have the feeling that every man's biography is at his own expense. He furnishes not only the facts but the report. I mean that all biography is autobiography. It is only what he tells of himself that comes to be known and believed." — Emerson, Works, Vol. xi, p. 267.

550 THi: LITERARY TYPES.

III.

Fiction. — Under this head are included all the varieties of purely invented narrative, narrative free to construct and modify its design according to the requirements of an effec- tive plot. As fiction is the especial literary art of modern times, so it is the most discussed and defined. Only its most salient features, however, can come up for mention here.

Liberties and Limits of Fiction. — In one sense no writer is so free as the inventor of fiction ; in another, as the progress of the art has increasingly revealed, no one is more rigidly subject to literary law.

1. The liberties of fiction inhere with the fact that its whole design is a pure invention directed to an end. According to its object, — which may be merely to entertain, as in the ordi- nary novel, to enforce some lesson or advocate some cause, as in the so-called purpose novel, to portray the depths and springs of character, as in the psychological novel, — it is abso- lutely free to construct such a story as will embody its con- ception, and to group the parts by historical perspective so as to lay stress on what is important to its end. There are no facts of actual history to stand in its way, by compelling insertion or omission ; fiction is the inventor's world, which he is at liberty to create and people according to his own will.^

2. The limitations of fiction, however, are even more obvious. It must preserve verisimilitude ; and to this end it must deal not with the exceptional but with the probable. It may choose its own world of action and scenery, and the range of its choice

1 " The novel, which is a worlc of art, exists, not by its resemblances to life, which are forced and material, as a shoe must still consist of leather, but by its immeasurable difference from life, which is designed and significant, and is both the method and the meaning of the work." — Stevenson, Works, Vol. xiii, p. 350. — " A good story and real life are such that, being produced in either direction and to any extent, they never meet. The distance between the parallels does not count : or rather, it is just a matter for the author to choose." — Couch, Adventures in Criticism^ p. 378.

NARRATION. SSI

is limitless, from an Oriental fairy scene or an impossible Gulli- ver land to the commonplace life of the next street; but, the scene once determined, all must be congruous and probable, effect proceeding clearly from cause. Freaks and monstrosi- ties, of being or action, occur only in actual life ; if they occur in the course of invented narrative, they destroy the truth of the portrayal. The aphorism that " truth is stranger than fiction " is no mere epigram but a literal and necessary fact.'

Romance and Novel Both of these forms of fiction repre- sent natural and healthy tendencies of. human nature. Now one, now the other may have the greater vogue ; each finds its own order of mind or its own region of popularity ; but to pronounce a preference for one or the other, as some think were desirable, would be simply to pronounce on the tendency of one's own mind.

I. Romance obeys the tendency to emphasize the liberties of fiction. It deals with scenes and events more striking and wonderful than everyday life, — with adventure, mystery, emphatic contrasts, surprising incidents, — or if with common scenes, it seeks to invest them with a hue and picturesqueness beyond the ordinary. The traits with which it deals are not so much minute shades of motive and sentiment as the more elemental passions, — love, revenge, jealousy, hatred, self- sacrificing courage.

Thus with romance is especially associated another much- discussed matter — idealism. Romance is more idealistic than the novel; it conceives of life as a kind of poetic creation,

1 " The common saying, that truth is stranger than fiction, should properly be expressed as an axiom that fiction ought not to be so strange as truth. A marvellous event is interesting in real life, simply because we know that it happened. In a fiction we know that it did not happen ; and therefore it is interesting only as far as it is explained. Anybody can invent a giant or a genius by the simple process of altering figures or piling up superlatives. The artist has to make the existence of the giant or the genius conceivable." — Stephen, Hours in a Library, Vol. i, p. 217. See also quotation from James, footnote, p. 517, above.

552 THE LITERARY TYPES.

wherein character is made up as it were on a plan and prin- ciple, and wherein real events receive a new light from their source in motive and their goal in conduct. In idealism char- acter is suffused to greater or less degree by the portrayer's fancy.

Examples. — Typical examples of the romantic in fiction may be found in Dumas's D'Artagnan cycle, The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After, and The Vicomte de Bragelonne. In English Sir Walter Scott is the great master of romance.. Other examples are Cervantes's Don Quixote, Victor Hugo's Notre-Dame and Les Miserables. Examples of stories made romantic by poetic treatment of common themes are found in Haw- thorne's The Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Cables, and The Marble Faun. See the preface to The House of the Seven Gables for some interest- ing remarks on romance.

2. The novel holds itself more strictly within the limitations of fiction. It aims to produce not so much the interest of something new as of something recognizable as true to ordi- nary experience. Dealing with common life and events, it yet penetrates more into the finer motives and sentiments of char- acter, and with the manners of the society in which we all move.

As romance is naturally connected with idealism, so the novel tends to the realistic ; that is, in recounting the elements of common life, it tends to give them as they appear, uncolored by fancy. Realism is to idealism somewhat as photography is to painting: it aims at a faithful transcript of facts, the small and homely along with the more imposing. Its abuse is to think too much, relatively, of dull detail, or of unsavory facts, under plea of faithfulness to nature, — an abuse to be remedied by a higher estimate of values in life.

Examples of Novel. — Typical examples of the novel, as distin- guished from the romance, may be found in the works of Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, etc. Other examples are : George Eliot's Adam Bede and The Mill on the Floss ; Thackeray's Vanity Fair and The Newcomes ; Howells's The Rise of Silas Lapham and A Hazard of New Fortunes.

NARRA TION. 553

Drama This is to be regarded as narrative wherein the

characters speak and act for themselves, making the story before the spectators' eyes ; while all the descriptive back- ground is supplied by scenery and costume, or incidentally through the action and dialogue.

1. The plot of the drama must be more rigorous and inter- related, less tolerant of episode, than that of any other form of story. Every part must contribute clearly and obviously to the completed whole, and the action must be such as can be displayed on a stage. Hence drama must deal with the large and external elements of character, rather than with subtleties of sentiment and thought.

2 . The characters reveal themselves more quickly, and results come about by directer means than in real life. This comes of course from the limited time available for representation ; the result is that they reveal themselves in more pointed and significant terms than in the novel.

3. In movement, the drama must keep its audience aware of the working of cause and effect. It is not sufficient that an event occur; we must be able to see what previous conditions or circumstances brought it about. This excludes the element of accident, as a means of solving a plot ; any event, to be dra- matic, must have its cause and agencies in some way indicated before the spectator's eyes.

CHAPTER XVI. EXPOSITION.

With the_ coming two chapters weenter upon an important new phase of invention. We make transition from particu- larized objects to generalized, — from things seen, heard, depicted, as matters of observation, to things conceived, identifiedj classified, as matters of j)enetrative_and systema- tized thinking. We have been considering traits and acts that distinguish objects as individuals ; we are now to look for the traits and acts that unite individuals into classes.^ And as we did in description and narration, so here we consider our subject first, so to say, in its statical, then in its dynamical aspect, first as something at rest, to be set forth as it is, and then as something in movement to an end ; which distinc- tion gives rise to the two literary types, exposition and argumentation.

Definition of Exposition Exposition is the fixing of mean- ings by generalization, that is, the exhibiting of objects, material or spiritual, as conceived and organized in thought.

Let us briefly analyze this definition.

I. Nit is solely with the exhibiting of objects — that is, setting forth their meaning, without taking sides — that exposition is concerned. It does not raise the question of the truth or falsity of a thing ; that belongs to another proc- ess ; it seeks rather what the thing is, what is its real nature, its purport, its range and bounds. It is time enough, when this is ascertained, to consider whether the thing, as

1 Compare what is said about description, p. 477, z, above. 554

EXPOSITION. 555

thus fully revealed, proves itself, or whether further proof of argument is needed.

Note. — As related to argumentation, exposition is like preparing o. term or question for debate ; or, to use another comparison, like coming to an understanding on a question of litigation, without bringing it into court. How important this preliminary may be, can be seen from the fol- lowing description of Abraham Lincoln's method as a jury lawyer: "His more usual and more successful manner was to rely upon a clear, strong, lucid statement, keeping details in proper subordination and bringing for- ward, in a way which fastened the attention of court and jury alike, the essential point on which he claimed a decision. ' Indeed,' says one of his colleagues, ' his statement often rendered argument unnecessary, and often the court would stop him and say, "if that is the case, we will hear the other side."'"i

(2) The objects of exposition, like those of description, are material or spiritual ; but while in description we look for unique traits, here we look for general. Exposition is merely a different approach to its object, an approach by way of the class rather than by way of the individual. Not the thing itself, in fact, but the notion of the thing, with all the essen- tial* parts and qualities covered by the name, is what expo- sition deals with.

Examples of Contrasted Treatment. — The difference of principle in description and exposition may be illustrated by the following extracts, which both deal with the same object, — the one treating it as an individ- ual, the other as a generalized notion.

1 . Tennyson thus describes an oak : —

" A storm was coming, but the winds were still, And In the wild woods of Broceliande, Before an oak, so hollow, huge, and old. It look'd a tower of ivied mason-work, At Merlin's feet the wily Vivien lay." 2

Here the qualities selected for mention are only such as can be attributed to some one oak — true of some oaks, but not necessarily true; an oak is just as truly an oak if it is neither hollow, huge, old, nor like an ivied tower.

1 NicOLAY AND Hay, Life of Lincoln, Vol. i, p. 307.

2 Tennyson, Merlin and Vivien, 11. 1-5.

SS6 THE LITERARY TYPES.

2. A scientific article on the oak thus begins : —

"Oak (Quercus), a genus of trees and shrubs of ^the natural order Cupuliferae, having monoecious flowers, the male In slender catkins or spikes, the female solitary or clustered ; the fruit a nut or acorn, oblong, ovoid, or globular, protruding from a woody cup formed by the enlarged scales of the involucre; the leaves are deciduous or evergreen, alternate, entire, lobed, or sinuate. The species, of which there are about 300, are spread over nearly the whole of the northern hemisphere, except the extreme north. They are more numerous in America than in Europe; a few are found in Asia, none in tropical Africa, in Australia, or in South America except about the Andes." '

Here the information given pertains to any and every oak tree ; It must be like this to be an oak. Further, the information pertains not to how the tree looks, but to its essential nature, the notion we are to form as corresponding to the name.

3. i Because the object of exposition is exhibited as con- ceived and organized in the mind, that is, as a notion, not as an individual, the effectiveness of its presentation depends on mind-qualities, — on acumen, clear thinking, breadth. A logical notion is a human creation, not an object of nature. By this it is not meant to imply that generalization is a con- ventional or arbitrary process. The qualities and resem- blances from which it is made up really exist, and it is an authentic interpretation of what is in the nature of things. But the detecting of these, and the grouping or separating by vital traits, is the work of a scientifically trained mind, requiring ideally the patience and judicial temper of science.

Note.— Not less truly in exposition than in description, "the eye sees only what it brings with it the power of seeing"; but while in the described object there is something outstanding to strike on the sight, in the expounded object the power behind the sight must go forth to discover, and virtually to create, its concept. It is mind smiting itself into nature, and on its own plans reconstructing nature.

As exposition, though dealing with real objects, is so largely a matter of terms and logical distinctions, it takes

1 Chambers's Cydopadia, s.v.

EXPOSITION. 557

two very different aspects, according as the things themselves or the terms which represent them are in mind. This primal distinction between notions and names furnishes the basis on which the present chapter is divided.

I. EXPOSITION OF THINGS.

A logical notion, though created and ordered by the mind, has its basis in the nature of things ; it is a reality to be interpreted independently of the symbols or terms which name it. The interpretation of symbols, to be considered later, is an affair of language and literary criticism ; the exposition of things, thoughit has jtouse language ^s^a^ter- mmftlegy, is. an affair of intrinsic analysis and classification.

Two directions there are in which the exposition of things may be carried. They may be exhibited intensively, that is, in the direction of their depth ; or extensively, that is, in the direction of their breadth. In the first case they are treated as species in a class ; the business of the exposition being to exhibit the specific traits common to all the indi- viduals. In the second case they are treated as a whole class ; the business of the exposition being to assemble and name the various species that together make up the class. These processes, it will be observed, are opposite, or rather complementary, to each other. The general term to denote the first is definition ; to denote the second, division.

Note. — The relation of the terms genus, species, and individual should here be noted. They make a logical series, the species being intermediate between the genus and the individual. With the genus, or class, exposi- tion by division deals ; and the traits it assembles, because they apply to the whole class, are called general. With the species exposition by defini- tion deals ; and the traits it names, because they are confined to the species, are called specific; in like manner an individual used to exemplify specific traits is called a specimen. As for the individual, and its traits or acts, not exposition but description deals with those ; see above, pp. 477, 2, and 555, 2.

SS8 THE LITERARY TYPES.

\> ^ T

Exposition Intensive; Definition^-— Adopting the broad meaning suggested in the derivation of the word, we may s"ayTEat to" define a thing is to deterffllne~ts limits~or bounds {fines), to exhibit the characteristics that set it off from other things. Whatever goes to determine in language the limits of an idea, whether it be strict logical definition or the literary amplifications and similitudes that serve to make those limits clear to unscientific minds, belongs in the large sense to the definition of the idea.

An object so defined is viewed as one of a class, not as a class in itself; the qualities sought by the definition, there- fore, are such as distinguish it from all others in the class assumed for it.

Example. — If, for instance, our endeavor is to define an animal, we think of the broad class of, say, material things ; in which case we have vegetables and minerals in the same class to compare it with and to dis- tinguish it from. Whatever we take as a defining quality must not belong to these. At the same time our defining quality must belong to all ani- mals, must be deep enough to characterize alike an elephant, a human being, an eagle, a crawfish, — it takes no account of classes inside its term. If we find the qualities to be life, organism, sensation, voluntary motion, these traits have presumably been tested with reference to the other species of the class, and found not to belong to minerals and vegetables. Two of the qualities, indeed, life and organism, an animal shares with a vegetable, but the mineral does not have them ; and when it comes to sensation and voluntary motion, the vegetable in turn is excluded, leaving these as the specific qualities of the animal. Thus, as related to each other species of the class, the animal maintains its separateness. Some such process of comparison and exclusion as this, more or less comprehensive, obt^ns in the making of every definition.

In the effort to make this kind of exposition complete, and especially to give it literary acceptability, several stages or processes of defining have here to be noted.

EXPOSITION.

559

1. The Core of Definition. — With the broad range of defi- nition in mind, this is the term by which we may designate its inner mould, what. is otherwise called logical definition. By this is meant a concise statement of the trait or traits most essential to an objedt. In its strict construction it is reducible to two processes. First, the object to be defined is identified with a class of objects. Secondly, its particular place in the class is determined by some distinguishing trjiit or traits. Another name for logical definition is, definition by genus and differentia, these Latin terms denoting what is determined, respectively, in these two stages of the state-

Examples. — The common definition of mathematics as *' the science of quantity " represents each of these stages by a single word. Its class . or genus, " science," ranks it alongside of biology, physics, and the numer- ous other sciences ; its species, " quantity," differentiates it from all other sciences by giving it a field all its own.

Some other accepted definitions may here be tabulated by genus and differentia.

Elasticity is . Literature is . .

A CIRCLE is . .

Faith is

Genus, the power of bodies .

the written record . . a plane figure . . . .

certitude

Differentia.

to recover their form after compression.

of valuable thought having other than merely prac- tical purposes.

contained by one line every- where equally distant from a point within called the centre.

with respect to matters

in which verification is

f unattainable.

Such are strict logical definitions; but also under the more extended and literary definitions may generally be found a recognition of genus and species, each of which is carefully determined. Take for example the following: —

and

560 THE LITERARY TYPES.

' By Conservatism

is meant that preference for and

indulgence to .... what is already established, that faith in . . . what has been tried,

that distrust of . ... what exists only in specu- lation, which never wholly forsakes every sound politician, of whatever party."

Here the genus is determined not by a single term, but by a cumulative employment of related terms ^; while the successive terms of the difier- entia are chosen according to their fitness to the genus.

> Of a logical definition there are four necessary requisites: —

1. It should cover all cases or individuals of the idea defined.

2. It should exclude all objects not bearing the same name.'

3. It should not introduce for defining purposes the name ■ of the thing to be defined, or any direct derivation of it.

Note. — This crude use of names in definition has sometimes been shown up humorously; as when an archdeacon was defined by Punch as " a man who performs archdiaconal functions.'' Shakespeare* thus makes Bardolph define accommodated: " Accommodated : that is, when a man is, as they say, accommodated; or when a man is, being, whereby a' may be thought to be accommodated; which is an excellent thing."

4. It should be expressed in terms simpler and more familiar than the term that designates the defined object. This applies also to a definition for scientific distinction, which, though employing technical terms, is essentially a simplification in the vocabulary of that science.

Note. — The definition of Oak, on p. 556, above, exemplifies the scien- tific manner of defining in technical terms.

1 Payne, Burke, Select Works, Vol. i, Introd., p. xi.

2 See under Finding the Right Shade of Meaning, p. 47, above.

3 " A complete definition distinguishes the thing defined from everything else ; it denotes, as you know, 'the species, the whole species, and nothing but the species.' " — Stedman, The Nature and Elements of Poetry, p. 20.

* King Henry IV, Act iii, Scene 2.

EXPOSITION. 561

Of definitions not sufficiently mindful of simplifying terms, Dr. Johnson's famous definition of Network has caused much amusement : " Network (net and work). Anything reticulated or decussated, at equ^l distances, with interstices between the intersections." \

To these should ordinarily be added, as a secondary' re,qui- site, brevity. That is, the expositor should name the smallest- number of attributes that will be adequate to distinguish the thing, and these should be the most essential, the most char- acteristic possible.

Nothing in literature is more difficult to originate, or when originated a more valued achievement, than an accurate defi- nition. A good definition takes its place at once in the stand- ard currency of thinking minds ; and the keenest intellects are at work all the while in the endeavor to get the great objects of thought in every department into closer and clearer bounds of definition.

Note. — Many of the largest and commonest concepts, — as, for instance, poetry, inspiration, revelation, eloquence, nature, imagination, humor, — are the despair of logical definers, not because they are vague, but because they are so complex and inclusive. Of a certain large concept of this kind the answer once made by a thinker who was asked to define it was : " I know when you do not ask me.''

A felicitous definition may become famous and make its author famous. Such is Buffon's epigrammatic definition of style, " The style is the man himself," and Dean Swift's definition of it as "proper words in proper places." Nothing is said here, by the way, of the adequacy of these defini- tions, — only of their celebrity. Matthew Arnold in his day had an emi- nently defining mind ; and some of his definitions were the centres of much discussion among thinkers, for and against. As instances, take his defi- nition of criticism, " a disinterested endeavor to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in the world"; and his definition of God as "the enduring power not ourselves, which makes for righteousness." His prose is valuable reading to stimulate clear-cut and discriminated thinking.

2. Analysis of Definition. — For literary and popular pur- poses logical definition constitutes only a core or nucleus of

562 THE LITERARY TYPES.

the exposition ; and, important though it is, it is too severe and compact to be impressive. Some means of detaining the reader's mind upon it, and of making him suitably aware of what in it is distinctive and vital, have to be adopted.^ The core-is still there, but around it has to be built a body of "Titerary and amplifying tissue, which in a liberal sense we may call the analysis of the definition.

The following are~TKe~most~ salient" ways in which such analysis is conducted.

! !.■) By explaining the terms in which the definition is expressed ; which, though presumably more simple than the name of the notion, may still need exegesis in order that their exact shading, or inclusion, or distinction from other terms, may be exhibited. The means employed thus to deter- mine the significance of words are given on p. 576, below.

2. By explication of the definition as a proposition ; that is, by enlarging on its statements, pointing out what it implies or involves, and concentrating attention on what is of special importance. This kind of explication is treated of, pp. 578-582, below.

f-%. By what is called genetic definition (from yei/eo-is, gener- ation, genesis) ; that is, instead of treating the object by genus and differentia, giving rather its causes or agencies and then describing how it is produced ; as when, for instance, in defining a circle, the expositor does not say what it is but shows how to draw one. This way of defining, while for ordi- nary uses equally accurate, is much more lucid and suggestive than the severe logical definition.

Examples. — i. For examples of the exegesis of terms, see p. 577, below. Not all terms have to be thus fixed ; and it is poor economy to explain terms that do not contribute something vital to the exposition, or that are not utilized. This is a matter for the expositor's good sense.

ii. Examples of explication occur at the beginning of all these chapters

1 For these as objects of amplification in general, see above, pp. 462-464.

EXPOSITION. 563

on The Literary Types, where first the definition is given, then a series of paragraphs singling out its vital points ; see, for instance, the definition of Description, on pp. 477 sq., above.

3. The following account of the Grand Style is a genetic definition; that is, it goes to the causes and describes how the grand style is pro- duced; further, when this is done, it goes on to explicate the definition step by step, fixing chief attention finally on one particular stage of it : — " Let us try, however, what can be said, controlling what we say by exam- ples. I think it will be found that the grand style arises in poetry, when a nolle nature, poetically gifted, treats with simplicity or with severity a serious subject. I think this definition will be found to cover all instances of the grand style in poetry which present themselves. I think it will be found to exclude all poetry which is not in the grand style. And I think it con- tains no terms which are obscure, which themselves need defining.! Even those who do not understand what is meant by calling poetry noble, will understand, I imagine, what is meant by speaking of a noble nature in a man. But the noble or powerful nature — the bedeutendes Individuum of Goethe — is not enough. For instance, Mr. Newman has zeal for learning, zeal for thinking, zeal for liberty, and all these things are noble, they ennoble a man ; but he has not the poetical gift : there must be the poet- ical gift, the ' divine faculty,' also. And besides all this, the subject must be a serious one (for it is only by a kind of license that we can speak of the grand style in comedy) ; and it must be treated with simplicity or sever- ity. Here is the great difficulty : the poets of the world have been many ; there has been wanting neither abundance of poetical gift nor abundance of noble natures ; but a poetical gift so happy, in a noble nature so cir- cumstanced and trained, that the result is a continuous style, perfect in simplicity or perfect in severity, has been extremely rare. One poet has had the gifts of nature and faculty in unequalled fulness, without the cir- cumstances and training which make this sustained perfection of style pos- sible. Of other poets, some have caught this perfect strain now and then, in short pieces or single lines, but have not been able to maintain it through considerable works ; others have composed all their productions in a style which, by comparison with the best, one must call secondary." ^

3. Supplementation of Definition Exposition intensive, in

its search for the whole depth or inclusion of an idea, is far

1 Observe that the definition, as soon as made, is tested for three of the requi- sites of definition given on p. 560, above.

2 Arnold, On Translating Homer, p. 265.

564 THE LITERARY TYPES.

from satisfied with logical definition, however enlarged or analyzed. Various supplemental processes there are, which on occasion are resorted to, either as an aid to unskilled minds or as a means of bringing the object explained into the sphere of everyday ideas. The following are the most prominent of these.

I. Logical descriptioNj^ taking an objectjwhich severe definition would leave too compendious orabstruse, labors to make it plain and familiar. In its mechanism and accessories it is not unlike other description ; only, being an instrument of exposition, it deals with a generalized object and gives not individual but class details.^ These details, however, in accordance with the descriptive spirit, are selected for their picturing or simplifying quality; and thus they supplement the definition by giving derived and Secondary character- istics, in addition to the primitive and generative ones.

Examples. — Logical description can best be exemplified by comparing it with a definition. Take for instance the scientific definition of a steam- engine, and put by the side of it a description of the same : —

Definition : " A Description : " The name steam-engine to most persons brings the idea of a machine of the most complex nature, and hence to be understood only by those who will devote much time to the study of it; but he that can understand a common pump may understand a steam-engine. It is, in fact, only a pump in which the fluid passing through it is made to impel the piston instead of being impelled by it, that is to say, in which the fluid acts as the power, instead of being the resistance."'

Here is selected the characteristic that may be most universally under- stood, "a pump," and this serves both to picture and to explain the steam-engine, while it helps rather than interferes with the definition.

Logical description is of special service in the exposition of processes.

1 Compare p. 477, 2, above.

2 Gage, Text-Book of the Elements of Physics, p. 175. s Arnott, Elements nf Physics, A'ol. i, p. 373.

steam-engine is a ma- chine in which the elastic force of steam is the motive power." 2

EXPOSITION. 565

A good example is Dr. Andrew Wilson's description of the process of inflammation, and the function of the white blood corpuscles (leucocytes) therein, under the analogy of a battle. Here are a few sentences : —

" The leucocytes are the defending army, their roads and lines of com- munications the blood-vessels. Every composite organism maintains a certain proportion of leucocytes as representing its standing army. When the body is invaded by bacilli, bacteria, micrococci, chemical or other irritants, information of the aggression is telegraphed by means of the vaso-motor nerves (those governing the movements of blood-vessels), and leucocytes rush to the attack ; re-enforcements and recruits are quickly formed to increase the standing army, sometimes two, three, or four times the normal standard. In the conflict cells die, and often are eaten by their companions ; frequently the slaughter is so great that the tissue becomes burdened by the dead bodies of the soldiers in the form of pus, the activity of the cell being testified by the fact that its protoplasm often contains bacilli, etc., in various stages of destruction." ^

2. Exemplification, as an expository process, stands next in importance to definition itself. It is the selection of an rridividual object to represent the species ; for which reason a scientific example is called a specimen. The obvious utility of exemplification, to translate from abstract to concrete, is seen in the extensive use of pictures and models, in the quoted sentences appended to definitions of words in dictionaries, and the like.

Note. — It seems almost superfluous to give examples of exemplifica- tion here, because all the principles, usages, and processes treated of in the present text-book are illustrated by exemplification. This, as follow- ing immediately on definition, makes the whole book a work of exposition, employing these two processes as its paramount instruments.

Two qualities should be had in mind, in choosing an example. First, its embodiment of the idea or property in question should be salient and striking, as it is selected for this particular thing. Secondly, it should be as pure and typical as possible, and as free from extraneous or

1 The Battle of the Cells, Harper's Magazine, Vol. xciii, p. 143. These particular sentences, however, are quoted by Dr. Wilson from Mr. J. Bland Sutton.

566 THE LITERARY TYPES.

exceptional elements. A perfect exemplification is wellnigh as valuable, in the realm of interpretation, as a perfect definition. ^

Note. — If, for instance, we were seeking to exemplify crystallization by exhibiting a real crystal, we should look for one as free as possible from imperfections, and we should leave out of account the breaks and disloca- tions that are found in the majority of specimens. These are individual and accidental; they do not belong to the class. In like manner, especially in exemplifying intricate subjects, it is advisable to illustrate, as far as may be, one thing at a time ; an example may easily be confusing by being too complex.

3. Antithesis, in exposition, is a very lucid means of exhibiting important distinctions between ideas that super- ficially are much alike. Its use, therefore, is not so much in displaying contrary ideas, — which contrast, in fact, is obvious without explanation, — as in finding the point where two like ideas are in sharp distinction ; which point will be found to contain the most distinctive feature of each.

Examples. — The following, drawing a distinction between poetry and eloquence, ideas in large proportion alike, reduces this distinction to a ser- viceable antithesis : —

" Poetry and eloquence are both alike the expression or utterance of feeling : but, if we may be excused the antithesis, we should say that elo- quence is heard; poetry is overheard. Eloquence supposes an audience. The peculiarity of poetry appears to us to lie in the poet's utter uncon- sciousness of a listener. Poetry is feeling confessing itself to itself in moments of solitude, and embodying itself in symbols which are the near- est possible representations of the feeling in the exact shape in which -it exists in the poet's mind. Eloquence is feeling pouring itself out to other minds, courting their sympathy, or endeavoring to influence their belief, or move them to passion or to action." 1

The following, by a skilful exegesis of terms, shows that happiness and joy, though ideas almost wholly coincident, have a point of exact antithesis : —

" Now there is even a distinction of kind between the two, a distinction beautifully represented in the words themselves. Thus happiness, according

t Mill, Dissertations and Discussions. Vol. i, p. 97.

EXPOSITION. 567

to the original use of the term, is that which happens, or comes to one by a hap, that is, by an outward befalling, or favorable condition. Some good is conceived, out of the soul, which comes to it as a happy visitation, stirring in the receiver a pleasant excitement. It is what money yields, or will buy; dress, equipage, fashion, luxuries of the table; or it is settlement in life, independence, love, applause, admiration, honor, glory, or the more conventional and public benefits of rank, political standing, victory, power. All these stir a delight in the soul, which is not of the soul, or its quality, but from without. Hence they are looked upon as happening to the soul and, in that sense, create happiness. . . . But JOY differs from this, as being of the soul itself, originating in its quality. And this appears in the original form of the word ; which, instead of suggesting a hap, literally denotes a leap, ox spring. . . . The radical idea then of joy is this; that the soul is in such order and beautiful harmony, has such springs of life opened in its own blessed virtues, that it pours forth a sovereign joy from within. The motion is outward and not toward, as we conceive it to be in happiness. It is not the bliss of condition, but of character. There is, in this, a well-spring of triumphant, sovereign good, and the soul is able thus to pour out rivers of joy into the deserts of outward experience. It has a light in its own luminous centre, where God is, that gilds the darkest nights of external adversity, a music charming all the stormy discords of outward injury and pain into beats of rhythm, and melodies of peace." i

Here the antithesis is : happiness comes from without ; joy springs up from within.

Another application of antithesis in exposition is the employment of the obverse, as means of exhibiting what the idea is by setting over against it what it is not. This has been sufficiejitly explained and exemplified above, p. 466, 2.

4. Analogy, by which is meant similarity of relation in diverse .subjects, is a much-valued means of making clear the relations ^between ideas. Taking obscure and remote principles of things, it makes them familiar by identifying them with principles, that we see all around us ; and thus the abstruse becomes simple.

Examples. — The following is an illustration, and so an exposition, of the sudden outbreak of the French Revolution: "But thus may any chemical liquid, though cooled to the freezing-point, or far lower, still 1 BusHNELL, Sermons for the New Life, p. 226.

568 THE LITERARY TYPES.

continue liquid; and then, on the slightest stroke or shake, it at once rushes wholly into ice. Thus has France, for long months and even years, been chemically dealt with ; brought below zero ; and now, shaken by the Fall of a Bastille, it instantaneously congeals : into one crystallised mass, of sharp-cutting steel ! " >

The following analogy is used to illustrate how one's own egoism is the centre of its peculiar world of events : '•' An eminent philosopher among my friends, who can dignify even your ugly furniture by lifting it into the serene light of science, has shown me this pregnant little fact ; Your pier glass or extensive surface of polished steel, made to be rubbed by a house- maid, will be minutely and multitudinously scratched in all directions; but place now against it a lighted candle as a centre of illumination, and lo I the scratches will seem to arrange themselves in a fine series of concentric circles round that little sun. It is demonstrable that the scratches are going everywhere impartially, and it is only your candle which produces the flattering illusion of a concentric arrangement, its light falling with an exclusive optical selection. These things are a parable. The scratches are events, and the candle is the egoism of any person now absent — of Miss Vincy, for example. Rosamond had a Providence of her own, who had kindly made her more charming than other girls, and who seemed to have arranged Fred's illness and Mr. Wrench's mistake in order to bring her and Lydgate within effective proximity." ^

It is often remarked that analogy, as a form of argument, is precarious. This is true ; in the next chapter we shall see why.' As an instrument of exposition, however, analogy is of great value. Its distinctive function is to illustrate; in argument, too, this is so. While we must be cautious about depending on it as establishing the truth of a .position, yet not infrequently it may so clearly elucidate the relations of the question that the truth of it becomes self-evident.

II.

Exposition Extensive : Division Treating an object not as

a specific thing or member of a class but as a whole class in itself — determining, that is, the breadth or range over which

1 Carlvle, French Revolution, Vol. i, p. 205.

2 George Eliot, Middlemarch, Chap, xxvii.

8 See below, p. 615. For analogy in general, see above, p. 77.

EXPOSITION. 569

its application extends — results in a process complementary to definition, tlie process, namely, ,ef division. .• •

Note. — In defining an animal, on p. 558, above, the qualities sought were what belonged to the object before any thought of its different kinds was considered. The animal was simply viewed as a species in the larger class of material things, and the features that distinguished it from other material things were singled out. But now, in turn, we may take' this same object as a class, and institute inquiry how many kinds of animals there are, and on what principles they are distinguished from each other ; this leads to determining the various classes, orders, genera, and species that make up the vast animal kingdom.

Division, as a literary process, and classification, as a scientific process, are in principle exactly the same, requiring the same mental acumen and accuracy. The literary view is here adopted because the capacities of average readers must be kept in mind, and therefore not thoroughness alone but simplicity must be worked for. In literary presentation the processes of division and subdivision are not ordinarily car- ried to so minute stages as scientific severity requires ; though as far as they go they are subject to the same laws.

For the requirements of a rhetorical outfit there are to be distinguished two aspects of division.

^~; Logical Division. — This is the core of exposition exten- sive, as logical definition is of exposition intensive. On its scale, large or minute, it works for thoroughness; seeking, that is, to cover a whole range of concepts in such way that no distinction of that scale be left unaccounted for. Its highest problem is to make its work self-verifying ; that is, to secure such mutual relation between the members,- and such covering of the field traversed, as shall be a guarantee to the mind of writer and reader of a complete and closed circuit. For this, rules go only a little way ; it must come mostly by logical tact."

The following details of logical division, with the laws governing them, must be kept in mind.

570 THE LITERARY TYPES.

I. The PRINCIPLE of division. By this is meant a certain definite character attributed to the whole field of view, to which all the dividing members are equally related. It is analogous to the point of view as determining the details of a field of description.^

Note. — It is obvious, then, that the same field of concepts may be divided in many different ways, according to the principle adopted. Thus, on the principle of race, mankind would be divided into Caucasians, Mon- golians, Malays, etc.; on the principle of religion, into Christians, Jews, Mohammedans, etc.; on the principle of language, into Aryans, Semites, Turanians, etc. So, too, the people of any nation are popularly divided on the principle of social orders, into the aristocracy (or upper classes), the middle class, the lower classes.

In the beginning of his Introduction to the Classification of Animals Professor Huxley, after mentioning several principles of classification adopted by others — as the principle of physiological function, the principle of geographical distribution, the principle of succession in time (as control- ling in Paleontology) — avows as his principle of classification, anatomical structure.

Two things are requisite in the character taken as the principle of division : first, it must be the same for all the members — in other words, one principle — otherwise cross- division and therefore confusion results ; secondly, it must be a literal character, that is, not based on figure or fancy, and essential, that is, not put on arbitrarily without regard to the object's nature.

Examples. — i. Of mixed principles of division. If we should divide literature into prose, verse, history, fiction, and religious literature, the first two divisions would be on the principle of expression, the third and fourth on the principle of kind of material, and the fifth on the principle of aim or sentiment. But fiction may also be verse, and must be either verse or prose, and any of these kinds may be religious ; — in fact, the cross-divisions are so numerous that the whole list is really no division of the subject at all.

1 See above, p. 481.

EXPOSITION. 571

2. Of fanciful or arbitrary principles. The following divisions are per- haps true enough on other grounds, but they suffer from the fact that they seem to be based on a mere analogy or fancy : —

" For civil history, it is of three kinds ; not unfitly to be compared with the three kinds of pictures or images. For of pictures or images, we see some are unfinished, some are perfect, and some are defaced. So of histo- ries we may find three kinds, memorials, perfect histories, and antiquities; for memorials are history unfinished, or the first or rough drafts of history; and antiquities are history defaced, or some remnants of history which have casually escaped the shipwreck of time." l

If, instead of this analogy, he had avowed the principle of state of material, his division would have had the authenticity of logical classification.

" The knowledge of man is as the waters, some descending from above, and some springing from beneath ; the one informed by the light of nature, the other inspired by divine revelation. The light of nature consisteth in the notions of the mind and the reports of the senses : for as for knowledge which man receiveth by teaching, it is cumulative and not original ; as in a water that besides his own springhead is fed with other springs and streams. So then, according to these two differing illuminations or origi- nals, knowledge is first of all divided into divinity and philosophy." ^

In this last sentence the logical principle, the principle of origin, is brought out; but the analogy of waters, while giving imaginative zest to the division, obscures its logical soundness.

2. The MEMBERS of the division. By these are meant the several parts or distinctions which add together to make up the whole. Of these it is requisite : first, that no one member cover the whole field of division, — there must be more than one member, otherwise there is no division at all ; secondly, that all the members together cover the whole field, no more and no less ; thirdly, that each member exclude from its par- ticular field each and every other.

Note. — If, for example, a classification of geometrical figures should contain plane figures, parallelograms, rectangles, and polygons, the mem- bers would not be mutually exclusive, for plane figures would include all the others, and parallelograms would include also rectangles. Nor would

1 Bacon, Advancement of Learning, Book ii, p. 90.

2 lb., p. 105.

572 THE LITERARY TYPES.

the members taken together equal the whole, because solid figures are not included under the dividing members at all. In fact, the first division of all, which should be into plane and solid, is neglected, and the members given are really j«idivisions of plane figures.

A sense of the need of exclusion between dividing members is recog- nized in the commonest thinking. For example, the old colloquial description of something nondescript or anomalous as " neither fish nor flesh nor good red herring " derives its point from the fact that the first member includes also the third.

3. The COMPLETENESS of the division. The requisite that the dividing members taken together shall equal the divided whole gives rise to the chief difficulty in logical division, the difficulty, namely, of making sure that all the coordinate dis- tinctions of the case are mentioned. Any distinction left out might, if supplied, invalidate the whole process; hence the necessity of covering the whole field.

The simplest guarantee of completeness in division is what is called bifurcate classification, wherein each superior class is divided into two inferior classes distinguished by the possession or non-possession of the quality taken as basis. While in some cases this manner of division is barren, even absurd, it is especially useful in preparing a question for indirect argument^; useful also in determining the relative rank of a quality, whether immediate or mediate, — whether a main division or a subdivision.^

Examples. — Thus, by this method angles would be classified as follows : —

1. Right Angles.

2. (Not right) Oblique Angles \ ^^"*^ <"^"^ *^^ "g'^')-

( Obtuse (more than right).

1 See below, p. 623.

2 " It would be a great mistake to regard this arrangement as in any way a pecu- liar or special method ; it is not only a natural and important one, but it is the inevi- table and only system which is logically perfect, according to the fundamental laws of thought." — JEVONS, Principles of Science, Vol. ii, p. 371. Another name for this manner of division is dichotomy. In ancient Greek logic the illustration of it, as it was carried out to successive subdivisions, was called the Tree of Porphyry. See Hyslop, Elements of Logic, p. 97.

EXPOSITION. 573

Here evidently the whole field is covered. So also Lord Bacon's classi- fication of natural history, though given by him in three divisions, reduces itself to the bifurcate division with subdivision : —

1 . Nature in course — creatures.

C Perverted — marvels.

2. Nature not in course < ^

( Improved — arts.

For literary purposes, however, the taking of a larger number of divisions has the advantage of obviating the necessity of so minute subdivision ; while in many cases such a range or circuit of thinking may be devised as to contain a guarantee of completeness. The divisions worked for, in any case, in order to cover the field, must be few and fundamental, not numerous or minute.

Examples. — Lord Bacon's triplicate division of philosophy contains by its very expression a sense of completeness : " In philosophy the con- templations of man do either penetrate unto God, or are circumferred to nature, or are reflected or reverted upon himself. Out of which several inquiries there do arise three knowledges : divine philosophy, natural phi- losophy, and human philosophy or humanity. For all things are marked and stamped with this triple character, of the power of God, the difference of nature, and the use of man."i

Similarly, the division reduced to bifurcate above, by its simple passing over one stage of subdivision leaves the triple division as complete in sense as the other : " History of nature is of three sorts : of nature in course; of nature erring or varying; and of nature altered or wrought; that is, history of creatures, history of marvels, and history of arts." ^

2. Literary Division, or Partition. — The partition of a sub- ject for literary treatment, while the same in essential method as expository division, differs in its object, which is not so much exhaustive classification as convenience and pointed- ness. It seeks, that is, so to display the articulation of an idea as to help the reader's memory and realizing power in retaining it.

On this aspect of division, two remarks are important.

1 Bacon, Advancement of Learnings Book ii, p. 105.

2 n., p. 86.

574 THE LITERARY TYPES.

1. While the partition may or may not, on its chosen scale, exhaust the aspects of the subject, it is made as an enumera- tion of topics for present treatment, and lays no claim to completeness. Its divisions, too, do not necessarily relate to the subject as species to genus ; they are conceived merely as a way of sweeping broadly over the field of discussion. Fulness of treatment requires that no obvious department of the subject, and especially none whose presence would modify or invalidate the rest, be left out. At the same time, its distinctness from the stricter exposition should be apparent ; it should show for what it is, a partition. This fact is gen- erally made clear by an expressed or implied disavowal of complete classification, amounting to a limitation of the writer's claim.

2. The divisions thus made have not the necessity of severity which strict exposition has ; they may be expressed in epigram, or figure, or be determined by analogy, as the pointedness of the thought may gain thereby. At the same time, this kind of division will no more bear to be fanciful or arbitrary than will logical division ; it still aims to be logically sound, though the severity of the process is covered up; and these literary forms of expression are intended as aids in displaying and enforcing a natural current of thought.

Examples. — i. Of the subject, the plan of which is given on p. 449, above, Burke thus announces the partition, also justifying the pains he has taken in thus dividing it : —

"My second condition, necessary to justify me in touching the char- ter, is, whether the Company's abuse of their trust, with regard to this great object, be an abuse of great atrocity. I shall beg your permission to consider their conduct in two lights: first, the political, and then the commercial. Their political conduct (for distinctness) I divide again into two heads: the external, in which I mean to comprehend their conduct in their federal capacity, as it relates to powers and states independent, or that not long since were such ; the other internal, namely, their conduct to the countries either immediately subject to the Company, or to those who.

EXPOSITION. 5 75

under the apparent government of native sovereigns, are in a state much lower, and much more miserable, than common subjection.

"The attention, sir, which I wish to preserve to method will not be considered as unnecessary or affected. Nothing else can help me to selec- tion, out of the infinite mass of materials which have passed under my eye, or can keep my mind steady to the great leading points I have in view."'

2. We can rightly estimate now the divisions from Bacon which are criticised on p. 571, above. As determining a principle of [division, the analogies there given are fallacious; we cannot lean weight upon them; but as mere illustration and mnemonic to aid in the literary expression of the division they have their value.

II. EXPOSITION OF THE SYMBOLS OF THINGS.

Distinction must be made between actual objects on the one side and the terms that name them on the other. These latter are not things, but only the symbols of things, serving as the means of bringing the things themselves into con- sciousness and comprehension. As such they are subject to the infirmities of every vehicle of expression. Language is a potent working-tool, but not perfect ; and its imperfection is most felt, naturally, where it has the finest and exactest work to do. On the expositor's side it may not name all that he has in mind ; on the reader's side it may fail to convey a just or full conception. Accordingly, an essential branch of expo- sition — half of ^t^ we may^say 7^7; has to Jk!^ taken, up with these more or less inadequate symbols of things ;_theix mean- ing has to be fixed, source^, of error Jiave,te..Jae,„eJijaioated, simplifying and elucidative terms have to be-^dduced.

To some extent this kind of exposition points back over the road that we have come : it takes up again the use of words, syntax, emphasis, connotation, — the various ways of conveying and implying thought. But this it does in inverse approach ; not now in the attitude of creativeness, but rather of criticism and interpretation. The work that other minds

1 Burke, Speech on The East India Bill, Select British Eloquence, p. 316.

576 THE LITERARY TYPES.

have done, or that our mind is in act to do, has by such exposition to be revised and tested.

Exegesis of Terms. — For exposition applied to words, as they are in themselves and as they are deepened or colored by association with other words, we adopt here the name exegesis, from the Greek kty)-yko\>a.i, "to lead out" — a word quite appropriate to our purpose, though heretofore its use has been confined mostly to interpretation of Scripture.

Observe, such exegesis is applied not to the bare and sim- ple word, but to the word as a term, that is, as representing a notion already in mind and struggling, as it were, for recog- nition. How.ithe word recognizes and portrays the notion, what traits of the notion it brings out, and wherein, if at all, it falls short of its idea, — such inquiry as this, an inquiry always comparing symbol and thingpiTthe .T5[prk of exegesis.

Lines of Inquiry. — A great many lines of inquiry are open to exegesis ; for the purpose of literary exposition we may name merely the three mpst natural and important.

1. Interrogating the source and derivation of the word in question. Almost all English words that express generalized ideas come ultimately from some language not English ; and further, in their source they are more concrete, often express- ing visible objects or acts. To trace their derivation and history is the most direct way to build up the notion itself from its foundation.

2. Examining the synonymy of the word, that is, bring- ing into comparison words which, while they present various degrees of likeness, must of necessity express various shades of difference. This is a valuable way to disengage the notion from obscuring or extraneous ideas and fix its exact limits and range.

EXPOSITION. 577

3. Reducing th,e ambiguities that inhere in the word. Few abstract words afe"^ absolutely single in meaning; and the words that express the most used notions are hardest to fix to one application or to a sharp application. The sense in which a word is used has often to be singled out with much care and pains. Only so can a closely discriminated notion be transferred in it's integrity from one mind to another.

Examples. — • The examples here adduced are purposely taken from works wherein such exegesis is employed not for itself but in a literary way, as a casual enrichment of the thought.

I. Of the use of derivation. On p. 51, above, there are examples of this kind of exegesis in literature. The following is an additional example, from a lecture on Literature : " Here, then, in the first place, I observe. Gentlemen, that Literature, from the derivation of the word, implies writing, not speaking; this, however, arises from the circumstance of the copiousness, variety, and public circulation of the matters of which it con- sists. What is spoken cannot outrun the range of the speaker's voice, and perishes in the uttering. When words are in demand to express a long course of thought, when they have to be conveyed to the ends of the earth, or perpetuated for the benefit of posterity, they must be written down, that is, reduced to the shape of literature." ^

z. Of the use of parallel and synonymous terms. In the following, the corresponding terms from other languages are made use of ; " But what do we mean by this fine word Culture, so much in vogue at present ? What the Greeks naturally expressed by their iraiMa., the Romans by their humanitas, we less happily try to express by the more artificial word Culture. The use of it in its present sense is, as far as I know, recent in our language, forced upon us, I suppose, by the German talk about ' Bildung.' _ And the shifts we have been put to, to render that German word, seem to show that the thing is with us something of an exotic, rather than native to the soil. When applied to the human being, it means, I suppose, the ' educing or drawing forth all that is potentially in a man,' the training all the energies and capacities of his being to the highest pitch, and directing them to their true ends." ^

3. Of reducing ambiguity in words. John Stuart Mill, one of the

1 Newman, Idea of a University, p. 273.

2 Shairp, Culture and Religion, p. 18.

578 THE LITERARY TYPES.

clearest thinkers of bur century, was fond of examining terms for their ambiguities of meaning, and selecting out a meaning for his purpose. The following is an example : " The word ' civilization,' like many other terms of the philosophy of human nature, is a word of double meaning. It sometimes stands for hzeman irnprovement in general, and sometimes for certain kinds of improvement in particular. [After two paragraphs of explication, he says:] We shall on the present occasion use the word 'civi- lization ' only in the restricted sense ; hot that in which it is synonymous with improvement, but that in which it is the direct converse or contrary of rudeness or barbarism." ^

II.

Explication of Propositions An object of exposition appears

either as a notion or as the relation between notions ; hence its form is either a term which names the notion, or a propo- sition which makes an assertion regarding it. For the inter- pretation of this latter form, and in general for exposition applied to any finished expression, we may here adopt the term explication.

This kind of exposition may of course be applied, by way of simplification, to one's own statements, but oftenest it deals with the thought of others. In this latter case it takes upon itself all the obligations implied in dealing fairly. Not only sound criticism but common justice depends on this. The interpretation of another's thought is too momentous a thing to be trusted, as it too prevailingly is, to vague and general impressions. The thought must be treated with all the respect due to a man's personal possessions. According tQ the need therefor, it must be — as the derivation of the word explica- tion suggests — unfolded, unwoven ; and in this idea is con- noted not only the general process but the patience, the candor, the honesty requisite to disengage the author's real thought from the close-plaited, idiosyncratic, not seldom complex web of his expression. The obvious need of this

1 Mill, Dissertations and Discussions, Vol. i, pp. i86, 187.

EXPOSITION. 579

judicial fairness makes the work of criticism, which is only explication writ large, second in importance only to the highest creative achievement.

We need therefore to recount the most important phases J^ of this work of explication. '^'^ '''

The Beginnings in Literary Analysis. — Such explication^,' . begins with the most elementary processes of composition ; it does not disdain or neglect any smallest turn, phrase, or s^^.'. intimation that throws light on the working of the author's mind. The object is thus to follow from their source the steps by which his thought gets itself into form, and thus be in position to give it a fair verdict. This requires that such aspects of his assertion as the following be passed in analytic review : —

1. What is actually and literally said. Every sentence has a certain net amount of definite predication, determinable by laws of grammar ; also its attendant elements, which strengthen, or limit, or shade the assertion. To ascertain these is obviously the critic's first duty.

2. What is conveyed indirectly. Many things are packed in by implication, that is, by pregnant wording and turns of expression ; many things, too, are conveyed by connotation, that is, by some illustrative idea or emotional turn added to the literal. No thorough critic can ignore these.

3. What relative weight and rank are to be attributed to various parts of the thought. Some words or clauses are emphasized, others passed over lightly ; some are of princi- pal import, others subordinate ; some merely repetitionary and illustrative, others striking out the new advances of thought. No critical outfit is complete which does not accurately judge such distinctions as these.

All this is to the criticism of uttered thought precisely analogous to a historian's ascertainment of facts'; it is, in

1 See above, p. 544.

580 THE LITERARY TYPES.

truth, a systematic evolvement of the facts of expression, made in the same spirit that dictates honesty to facts every- where, and calling for the same patience, the same stern accuracy, the same refusal to pass any fact by as irksome or immaterial.

Note. — This stage of criticism is regarded as the dryest and most repulsive, and a grammarian, with his care for minutiae, as the dullest of all created beings. As a consequence, most of the criticism of the day is content to be off-hand, flippant, impressionistic; it amounts to little, and lasts hardly at all. But the fact is, the close grammatical research is dry only in one who is a grammarian and nothing else; the ideal is to make the explicatory stage merely the basis, on which, as on a hidden substructure, the fairer edifice of interpretation may be solidly erected.

The Higher Criticism By this term, which, it may be

noted, applies equally to all literary interpretation,^ we may designate, in general, the answer to the question how the work under investigation came to be what it is. In this research are included questions relating to the author him- self,— his powers, his limitations, his prevailing bent, his bias ; and questions relating to the environment and circum- stances of his utterance.

Grammatical explication, indispensable though it is, can carry the critic only a little way. It still leaves out the sympathetic human element by which under a man's words is discerned a man's soul. Nothing short of this latter insight can satisfy the vital requisite of interpretation.

By the rapport thus established with the writer's mind the understanding of his words is carried inward from the letter to the spirit ; we make allowance for their motive and senti- ment, their basis of impulse, mood, character ; we submit ourselves for the time to the current of his convictions, or his poetic imagination, or to the influence of his point of

1 The term Higher Criticism is nowadays understood so predominantly of Biblical scholarship that the clause above has to be added ; the term cannot be monopolized thus by one department of study.

EXPOSITION. 581

view. By the study of environment and circumstances the understanding of his words is carried onward from the spirit of the man to the spirit of his age or his neighborhood or his party or his occupation ; we are enabled thus to realize what is called their atmosphere, and what gives them hold on universal truth.

Examples. — How environment and personality are used in criticism may be hinted at in the following quotations, which, however, are too brief to give any idea of the range and masterliness of the book from which they are taken.

Of the time of the romantic movement this is said : ■' The age was an age of expansion. The human spirit was reaching out delicately or stren- uously in many ways for new forms of experience. It was emancipating itself once and for all from the hard and fast restrictions of prosaic eight- eenth-century life. ... In short, the whole nature of man was once more vitalized into free, confident play after the long period of paralyzing over- intellectualism which had so curiously prevailed since the days of Descartes and Hobbes. And as the result of this mysticism and passion and auda- cious dreaming, the human spirit won many new aptitudes and new powers and acquired a new range of sensitiveness to a myriad hitherto unperceived shades of beauty and feeling.'' — Of the environment of Charlotte Bronte's work it is said : " It was not for nothing that she lived for so many years a lonely, introspective life between an overcrowded graveyard and the deso- late expanses of the Yorkshire moors. The world, as she conceived of it, was not the world of conventional intrigue in drawing-rooms or pump- rooms or gossiping country-side towns; and the news of the world that she sent out through her novels was news that had come to her not by hearsay or tittle-tattle, or authenticated by painstaking watchfulness in the midst of tea-drinkers and scandal-mongers, but news that could bear the comment of the sweep of the moors by day and' of the host of stars by night." 1

The Personal Equation. — This term, imported from astro- nomical science, is here adopted to designate the allowance that must be made, in interpretation, for tendency to error on the part of the interpreter, — a tendency due to bias or one- sidedness, or lack of thorough induction of facts. It is largely

1 Gates, Studies and Affreciations, pp. 24, 131.

S82 THE LITERARY TYPES.

by the control or elimination of this tendency that we estimate the trustworthiness of a critic.

Note. — In astronomical observations made by diiferent persons, allow- ance has to be made for the fact that some have a quicker eye than others, and consequently can note the instant of a star's transit more exactly; and this allowance for discrepancies between different observers is called the personal equation. For a fuller account, see the Century Dictionary, s.v. equation, in the list of phrases at the end.

The matter is brought up here for the sake of what the critic owes to himself. In his study of another's thought he must keep watch of a tendency, which perhaps no one can wholly gainsay in himself, to read into the original one's own ideas, or to give the original a coloring not accurately its own, by prejudices and preconceptions. Some imaginative critics are wholly untrustworthy on this account. And no interpre- ter can be unerring without some determinate culture designed to efface his own conceptions in the presence of his author's. The conscientious critic will carefully interrogate himself, and labor to reduce the personal error to a minimum. The ideal for him is to be a perfectly transparent, unrefracting medium for the transmission of the original author's ideas ; and in making an interpretation not infrequently he may have to work over his transcript many times, with utmost solicitude, in order to make sure of retaining no distorting elements due to his own personality.

Note. — The true critic, like the poet, is born, not made ; but the ideal of balance and sanity of judgment, of cautious temperance in statement without falling below the greatness of the thing interpreted, is an ideal that it is most valuable for every one to seek ; the whole potenpy of sound and permanent literature resides in it.

III.

Forms of Reproduction The interpretation applied to

words, propositions, and larger ranges of expressed thought is not always given to readers Hn the form of explication or

EXPOSITION. 583

comment. There is a severity and hardness in commentary writing which detracts from its interest as literature ; besides, not -always does the occasion of interpretation call for the minuteness implied in verbal or grammatical exegesis. In the majority of cases, perhaps, the interpretation is conveyed in some parallel form of expression, which serves to reproduce the original in a manner more clear or better adapted to the present purpose. These forms, as belonging to some of the most commonly employed processes of literature, call here for notice.

Abstract. — Abstract, or precis-writing, is_±lie name given to that process of discourse wherein the/fhought'of a literary work is reproduced in narrower compass.' Employed mainly to report public discourse, or to put others' thought in shape for answer or comment, it is the kind of exposition which is concerned not with elaborated graces of style but with the core and gist of the thought. Its value depends upon its maker^s ability to get below minor considerations to the essential point of the argument represented.

Two working processes, in the main, are resorted to in making abstract : selection and condensation. By selection are eliminated those thoughts whose office is merely to amplify, — that is, which merely repeat, or particularize, or illustrate ; and thus the nucleus thoughts are left to stand out by themselves. This process is most naturally employed in cases where the original is developed by propositions and proofs, or by comprehensive statements and details,^ as in argumentation or exposition. By condensation the effort is not so much to eliminate matter as to reduce the scale; which is done by packing elucidative thought into epithets, pregnant words equivalent to clauses, and implicatory terms.^ This process is especially useful in cases wherein the thought

1 For methods of amplification, see above, pp. 465 sqq.

2 For aspects and means of condensation, see above, pp. 295 sqq.

584

THE LITERARY TYPES.

must be gathered not from nucleus propositions but from the general bearing of the whole ; as in narration.

Both these processes are ordinarily employed together ; though according to the nature of the thought one will nat- urally take predominance of the other. The general aim in abstract is an exposition distinct, clear-cut, concise, without repetition and without ornament.

Examples. — The following quotations will illustrate how abstract is employed in literature.

I. Selective abstract. It was a custom of Carlyle's to give at the end of his books a brief abstract of his chapters by way of summary. The method, which was mainly selective, gave only the nucleus of each para- graph. The following will exhibit the general proportion of original and abstract : —

Rousseau a morbid, excitable, spasmodic man ; intense rather than strong. Had not the invaluable 'tal- ent of Silence.'

" Of Rousseau and his Heroism I cannot say so much. He is not wliat I call a strong man. A mor- bid, excitable, spasmodic man ; at best, intense rather than strong. He had not ' the talent of Silence,' an invaluable talent ; which few Frenchmen, or indeed men of any sort in these times, excel in ! The suffer- ing man ought really 'to consume his own smoke'; there is no good in emitting smoke till you have made it 'm.\.o fire, — which, in the metaphorical sense too, all smoke is capable of becoming ! Rousseau has not depth or width, not calm force for difficulty; the first characteristic of true greatness. A fundamental mis- take to call vehemence and rigidity strength ! A man is not strong who takes convulsion-fits; though six men cannot hold him then. He that can walk under the heaviest weight without staggering, he is the strong man. We need for ever, especially in these loud- shrieking days, to remind ourselves of that. A man who cannot hold his peace, till the time come for speak- ing and acting, is no right man." ^

Here, by way of condensation, the single word invaluable stands for the amplifying part of the paragraph.

1 Carlyle, Heroes and Hero-Worship, pp. 1S4, 250.

EXPOSITION. 585

z. Condensive abstract. In the following a whole narrative, the gist of which is to be used in a speech, is condensed into a Very brief space: —

" You remember Gulliver's adventures. First he is shipwrecked in a country of little men; and he is a Colossus among them. He strides over the walls of their capital : he stands higher than the cupola of their great temple : he tugs after him a royal fleet : he stretches his legs ; and a royal army, with drums beating and colors flying, marches through the gigantic arch : he devours a whole granary for breakfast, eats a herd of cattle for dinner, and washes down his meal with all the hogsheads of a cellar. In his next voyage he is among men sixty feet high. He who, in Lilliput, used to take people up in his hand in order that he might be able to hear them, is himself taken up in the hands and held to the ears of his masters. It is all that he can do to defend himself with his hanger against the rats and mice. The court ladies amuse themselves with seeing him fight wasps and frogs : the monkey runs off with him to the chimney-top : the dwarf drops him into the cream jug and leaves him to swim for his life. Now, was Gulliver a tall or a short man ? Why, in his own house at Rotherhithe he was thought a man of the ordinary stature. Take him to Lilliput ; and he is Quinbus Flestrin, the Man Mountain. Take him to Brobdingnag, and he is Grildrig, the little Manikin." ^

Paraphrase. — Paraphrase is the reproduction of an author's thought, both main and subordinate, in other language. When it is also a change from the poetic form to prose, it is called Metaphrase.

Paraphrase is often disparaged, as if its necessary effect must be to dilute the thought and flatten the style. But it must be remembered that paraphrase is not employed in the interest of style. If style is wanted, it already exists in the original. Paraphrase has one clear object^ -^ namely, to explajn. It is essentially a means of interpretation. And for this the occasion, even in works of high rank as style, is often very real. The material may be too condensed for easy comprehension ; its abstruseness may call for simplifying treat- ment ; its poetic form may cover up its kernel of thought in imagery ; it may be an old work and expressed in a diction too archaic for present usage.- To such characteristics as

1 Macaulay, The Literature of Britain, Speeches, Vol. ii, p. 35.

586

THE LITERARY TYPES.

these paraphrase naturally addresses itself. Its prime object, then, is to bring out the latent sense or significance of a passage, by stating in new terms points that otherwise would be missed or misunderstood.

To the proper making of__pa,raphrase two requisites are essential. First, alT changes should be made for the sake of greater clearness. For this purpose phrasal epithets may have to be slightly expanded, tropes and implications literal- ized, allusions resolved ; though none of these should be touched unless the substituted form may be made thereby to focus more .definitely on the idea for which the change is made. Secondly, the writer should guard against weaken- ing the thought or lowering the tone and spirit of the original. To this end no paraphrase should be made in cold blood or as a perfunctory task. It should be undertaken with the same interest that inspired the original ; thinking the same thought and lending the aid of a new contemplation.

Examples of Paraphrase and Metaphrase. — i. The utility of paraphrase as a means of drawing out iii more available ternas the mean- ing of a passage may be seen in a single sentence : " ' I was alive without the law once,' says Paul ; the natural play of all the forces and desires in me went on smoothly enough so long as I did not attempt to introduce order and regulation among them." ^ Here the paraphrase is devoted to literalizing the metaphor " I was alive," and to putting into apprehensible modem terms the Hebrew concept law.

2. The following metaphrase is made in order to clarify the thought which the original contains about memory in another world.

" We ranging down this lower track.

The path we came by, thorn and flower. Is shadow'd by the growing hour, Lest life should fail in looking back.

" So be it : there no shade can last

In that deep dawn behind the tomb, But clear from marge to marge shall bloom The eternal landscape of the past ;

The gradual dimming of memory here is a necessity in the formation of charac- ter;

but there, where character is perfected, memory takes in the whole life perfectly and at once.

1 Arnold, St. Paul and Protestantism^ p. 41.

EXPOSITION.

587

" A lifelong tract of time reveal'd ; The fruitful hours of still increase ; Days order'd in a wealthy peace, And those five years its richest field.

" O Love, thy province were not large, A bounded field, nor stretching far ; Look also. Love, a brooding star, A rosy warmth from marge to marge."

The lifetime which Arthur now remembers may perhaps show those five years of friend- ship as its richest period,

lending a starlike radiance to all the rest.l

Here no attempt is made to paraphrase what falls outside the objective purpose, as, for instance, " The fruitful hours of still increase "; our con- cern is only vrith the subject proposed.

Translation. — In Jianslatipn the writer^ teisk is to repro- duce the thought in exactly equivalent expression, neither expanct^Tnor a,bridged, in another language.

The reproduction of style, in translation, is something which at its best can be only approximately, not perfectly, accom- plished. The substance can be transferred from language to language ; the flavor, the haunting quality, of the original, all that comes from the delicate rhythms and correspondences of sound, remains untranslatable.^

Note. — The great monument of the ages in translation, the Author- ized Version of the English Bible, is indeed a masterpiece of English style, not inferior perhaps to the original ; this, partly because in this case the English language was able to enrich itself from Hebrew idiom and make the result prevail, partly because the original lent itself unusually well to English idiom. In another instance wherein the translation has the charm of an original work, Fitzgerald's Omar Khayyam, this feat has been accomplished less by literal translation than by masterly paraphrase ; besides, it is suspected that of the two the translator was an incomparably finer poet, who could contribute a charm that the original lacked.

Our concern here, however, is not with the flavors of translated style, but with translation as a form of exposi- tion. The translator must of necessity be an interpreter ;

1 Metaphrase of Tennyson's In Memoriam (xlvi) by Genung ( Tennyson 's In Memoriam: a Study, p. 133).

2 See footnote, p. 589, below.

< f

588 THE LITERARY TYPES.

he cannot be a colorless medium of expression, — at least, in so far as he is, he leaves the result colorless. Every problem of the force and tone of words, of the bearing of particles, of the comparative effects of order between the two languages is a pure problem of choosing an exactly interpretative equiva- lent of the original. An interpreter the translator must be at every turn ; his literary ideal is to produce a work which, through his perfect assimilation of two languages, shall have the same effect on its newer readers that the original had on its day and public. TKi«e requisites, in the niain, are necessary^ to Jransla£i2n. V \ First,7of course, to choose exact and literal equivalents for ail- that can be literally transferred. This applies to all the denotative elements of language: concrete and everyday words, matter-of-fact description, recounting of plain events. ■ Secondly, to reproduce in some equivalent form the spirit and feeling of the original ; a task increasingly difficult according to the original writer's individuality and the prevalence of the emotional or imaginative element in the production. This requisite applies to all that is conveyed by connotation, whether in implied idea or in animus of word and figure; also to the irregularities of speech, roughness, ellipses, and the like, so far as an intended impression is niade by them. It is lack of skill in these fine powers of language that pro- duces the prevailing flat effeqt of which we are conscious in ordinary translation.^ ; Thirdly, and growing out of this last requisite, to translate tne-idioms of one language not literally

1 " The two constituent elements of every thought thus expressed are the idea and the emotion. Both must be transferred, -the one neither enlarged nor dimin- ished, the other neither strengthened nor weakened. They are addressed to two departments of the soul, the one to the intellect as something to be known, the other to the. affections as something to hsfelt. They are logically separable, though indivisible in fact. The idea can never be clearly given without the emotion; the emotion can never be felt in its spiritual heartiness without accuracy in the accompanying idea." — Tayler Lewis, On the Emotional Element in Hebrew Translation, Methodist Quarterly Review, 1S62, p. 85.

EXPOSITION. 589

but into what is correspondingly idiomatic of the other. Not always can this be done, for different languages do not often have parallel idioms ; but when a just impression of the racy native flavor of the original can be conveyed the translator achieves his highest triumph in the mastery of his art.^

1 The following passage, though long, will abundantly justify insertion for the light it throws on an important aspect of this subject, — the untranslatable: —

" Several times in these pages I have felt called upon to protest against the adequacy of all translation of poetry. In its happiest efforts, translation is but approximation i and its efforts are not often happy. A translation may be good as translation, but it cannot be an adequate reproduction of the original. It may be a good poem ; it may be a good imitation of another poem ; it may be better than the original ; but it cannot be an adequate reproduction ; it cannot be the same thing in another language, producing the same effect on the mind. And the cause lies deep in the nature of poetry. * Melody,' as Beethoven said to Bettina, * gives a sensuous existence to poetry; for does not the meaning of a poem become embodied in melody ? ' The meanings of a poem and the meanings of the individual words may be reproduced ; but in a poem meaning and form are as indissoluble as soul and body ; and the form cannot be reproduced. The effect of poetry is a compound of music and suggestion ; this' music and this suggestion are intermingled in words, to alter which is to alter the effect. For words in poetry are not, as in prose, simple representatives of objects and ideas: they are parts of an organic whole — they are tones in the harmony ; substitute other parts, and the result is a monstrosity, as if an arm were substituted for a wing ; substitute other tones or semitones, and you produce a discord. Words have their music and their shades of meaning too delicate for accurate reproduction in any other form ; the suggestiveness of one word cannot be conveyed by another. Now all translation is of necessity a substitution of one word for another : the substitute may express the meaning, but it cannot accurately reproduce the music, nor those precise shades of suggestiveness on which the delicacy and beauty of the original depend.

"Words are not only symbols of objects, but centres of associations; and their suggestiveness depends partly on their sound. Thus there is not the slightest differ- ence in the meaning expressed when I say

The dews of night began to fall, or

The nightly dews commenced to fall.

Meaning and metre are the same j but one is poetry, the other prose. Wordsworth paints a landscape in this line :

The river wanders at its own sweet will. Let us translate it into other words :

The river runneth free from all restraint. We preserve the meaning, but where is the landscape ? Or we may turn it thus :

The river flows, now here, now there, at will, —

590 THE LITERARY TYPES.

Note. — The difficulties of translation are still greater, not to say insu- perable, in the translation of poetry, which cannot well produce an effect like the original without a corresponding metrical form, and yet which cannot be at once metrical and literal.

which is a very close translation, much closer than any usually found in a foreign language, where indeed it would in all probability assume some such form as this :

The river self-impelled pursues its course.

In these examples we have what is seldom found in translations, accuracy of meaning expressed in similar metre ; yet the music and the poetry are gone ; because the music and the poetry are organically dependent on certain peculiar arrangements of sound and suggestion. Walter Scott speaks of the verse of a ballad by Mickle which haunted his boyhood ; it is this :

The dews of summer night did fall ;

The moon, sweet regent of the sky. Silvered the walls of Cumnor Hall,

And many an oak tliat grew thereby.

This verse we will rearrange as a translator would rearrange it :

The nightly dews commenced to fall ;

The moon, whose empire is the slty. Shone on the sides of Cumnor Hall,

And all the oaks that stood thereby.

Here is a verse which certainly would never have haunted any one ; and yet upon what apparently slight variations the difference of effect depends I The meaning, metre, rhymes, and most of the words, are the same ; yet the difference in the result is infinite. Let us translate it a little more freely :

Sweetly did fall the dews of night ;

The moon, of heaven the lovely queen, On Cumnor Hall shone silver bright.

And glanced the oaks' broad boughs between.

I appeal to the reader's experience whether this is not a translation which in another language would pass for excellent ; and nevertheless it is not more Uke the origmal than a wax rose is like a garden rose.

" To conclude these illustrations, I will give one which may serve to bring into relief the havoc made by translators who adopt a different metre from that of the original. Wordsworth begins his famous Ode :

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream. The earth, and every common sight.

To me did seem

Apparelled in celestial light, The glory and the freshness of a dream. It is not now as it hath been of yore ;

Turn wheresoe'er I may,

By night or day. The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

EXPOSITION. 591

A good example of recent translation that for racy flavor and grace reads "like an original," is Catherine A. Janvier's translation of Felix Gras's The Reds of the Midi, passages from which are quoted above, pp. 17 and 495.

III. EXPOSITION IN LITERATURE.

As description and narration cover broadly the work of arousmg and satisfying the imagination, so exposition, which in some"T6rm is their chief rival in literary prevalence^Viovers broadly the work of informing the intellect. The great DoSy" oi Tilefature that imparts knowledge, opinion, and counsel may be included under the comprehensive term exposition.

It would serve no practical purpose to catalogue the various forms and aspects that exposition may take in lit- erature. Some of its more prominent phases only will here be mentioned.

Criticism. — This represents the broad popular use of expo- sition, as it is adapted to the interests and capacities of readers in general. Its aim is to find the principles that

The translator, fully possessed with the sense of the passage, makes no mistakes, hut adopting another metre, we will suppose, paraphrases it thus:

A time there was when wood, and stream, and ileld.

The earth, and every common sight, did yield

To me a pure and heavenly delight,

Such as is seen in dream and vision bright.

That time is past ; no longer can I see

The things which charmed my youthful reverie.

" These are specimens of translating from English into English, and show what effects are produced by a change of music and a change of suggestion. It is clear that in a foreign language the music must incessantly be changed, and as no complex words are precisely equivalent in two languages, the suggestions must also be dif- ferent. Idioms are of course untranslatable. Felicities of expression are the idioms of the poet j but as on the one hand these felicities are essential to the poem, and on the other hand untranslatable, the vanity of translation becomes apparent. I do not say that -a translator cannot produce a fine poem in imitation of an original poem ; but I utterly disbelieve in the possibility of his giving us a work which can be to us what the original is to those who read it." — Lewes, Life of Goethe, pp. 466-468.

S92 THE LITERARY TYPES.

should determine a work of literature or art of polity, and pass judgment on such work, or on tendencies that influence it, according as it fulfils or transgresses those principles.

Criticism, at bottom, is neither eulogy nor fault-finding; it is intelligent analysis of a work according to some standard which critic and reader alike recognize as just. According as it is of this character criticism is one of the great educational agencies of an age.

Its Prevailing Ways of Publication. — In two ways, which may be called the ephemeral and the permanent, criticism meets the ordinary reader.

1. /The first comprises the accounts of literary, artistic, musical, and dramatic works which are prepared every day for newspapers and magazines. Such criticisms are a kind of news announcement, their object being primarily to describe, and then by some rapid strokes of judgment to help the reader decide whether the work under review is worthy of his further attention. While this work is ordinarily only a rough and broad analysis, it should be deep and vital, and made without fear or favor ; beyond this, that is, as puffery or invective, it is not criticism ; it is merely business or_prejudice.

; 2.J The second and higher kind is one of the younger departments of literature, having come in and been developed alongside the increased general culture of men. It appears often in reviews, and then, according to its permanent interest is republished in book form. It is the product of good scholarship, imagination, sound and clear thinking, broad comparative and penetrative study. The body of literature thus produced belongs to the most valuable reading of an age.i

1 " At its best, this is one of the most exquisite of intellectual products, and only a Uttle below the creative work of the novelist or poet. It has come into existence much later than the other forms of belles-lettres ; it is hardly two hundred years

EXPOSITION. 593

Note. — Macaulay and Carlyle did much of their earlier work in the form of critical articles for reviews ; which work was afterward reissued in their collected writings. Some of the earlier critics of note are Francis . Jeffrey, William Hazlitt, Sydney Smith, Lord Brougham, and Thomas De Quiiicey. Some of the men whose work has contributed to make criti- cism a highly valued department of literature are Saint-Beuve, Matthew Arnold, Walter Bagehot, Edward Dowden, Leslie Stephen, Richard Holt Hutton ; in art criticism, Johh Ruskin, who has almost created the sphere in which his artistic knowledge expresses itself, and Walter Pater.

Its Requisites. — The requisites of good criticism, which are really qualifications of the^fitic, may be summarized in three leading traits.

1. Intelligence. The critic must have a large and propor- tioned knowledge not only of what he criticises, but -of its whole sphere of ideas and technicalities ; this because the critique itself must judge the work under review by both intrinsic and comparative standards.

2. Sympathy. The critic must have the ability to enter, without disturbing prepossessions, into the thought and feel- ing of others, so as to see through their eyes, and judge from their point of view ; this because the critique, even though it deals with an erroneous or detested work, must show some insight as to how it reached its position.

3. Individuality. The critic must with all his sympathy have a fixed standard of his own, which, while it does not preclude fair judgment, gives all his utterances conviction and consistency ; this because the critique itself should be as vital

■ and personal as the work it criticises.'

old. Yet it takes every day a greater prominence, and it becomes more and more desirable to insist on its importance and to ensure its welfare." — Edmund Gosse in The New Review, Vol. iv, p. 409.

1 For the processes involved in criticism, see above, pp. 578-582. See also Wilkinson, A Free Lance in the Field of Life and Letters, pp. 108-111.

594 THE LITERARY TYPES.

II.

Forms of Expository Work. — The work of exposition in literature takes two principal forms, the treatise and the essay.

The Treatise. — This, which generally takes the compass of a volume or more, aims to present its subject in all parts, and with a thorough and finished treatment. This leads gen- erally to an exhaustive setting-forth not only of the results of thought, but of all the processes by which those results are obtained. The treatise, then, is the great means of getting the deepest investigation of the age, in all questions scientific, philosophical, political, so before the minds of men that it may be preserved and further promoted.

In such work the thought or theory is first, and literary embellishment, if added, is incidental and secondary. To literature in the narrower sense, therefore, the treatise belongs only indirectly, and according as the writer has or has not a trained literary method ; and at its best the literary virtues it displays are clearness of statement and lucidity of ordering, — the fundamental qualities that subserve practical use.

Note. — The various text-books in science and all departments of learning are familiar representatives of the treatise. The part that treat- ises play in the progress of investigation may be judged from such massive and standard works as Darwin's Origin of Species, Herbert Spencer's philo- sophical works, Bacon's Advancement of Learning and Novum Organum, Newton's Principia, Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, Hobbes's Leviathan, Butler's Analogy, Locke's Essay concerning Human Understanding, and many others.

The Essay. — Of all literary forms the most opportune and practical, on the whole, is the essay ; and this for two reasons: it is the most convenient for the prevailing custom of periodi- cal publication ; and it is the form best adapted to the use of those who write only occasionally and not as a profession. In general esteem it stands next to the novel ; while often it may attain a literary grace and elegance denied to the novel.

EXPOSITION. 595

The modest name originally given to this form of composi- tion— essay, trial or attempt — still retains something of its significance in both types of essay presently to be distin- guished. The significance relates especially to what is promised in the paper : not an exhaustive treatment, but suggestive, giving rather results than processes, and expressed in a style adapted to popular apprehension. The office pf the essay, as John Morley defines it, is "merely to open ques- tions, to indicate points, to suggest cases, to sketch outlines." If in any case an essay does more than this, it does what any one has the right to do, namely, more than it promises.

The modern facility of publication in periodical form and the tendency to exploit all kinds of knowledge and research in this popular way have developed the essay in a new direc- tion, so that now it existg.inJwo distinct types.

I. The prevailing modern type, found in reviews, maga- zines, and volumes of miscellaneous writings, may be called the didactic. It is virtually a short treatise. It aims at careful and ordered working-up of a subject, centres about a definite proposition to be maintained by exposition and reasoning, and addresses itself prevailingly to the intellect. In such a work the interest is directed to the subject-matter, and the writer's own personality is kept in the background.

Note. — Various names, more or less non-committal, are given to essays of this type ; of which perhaps the most popular nowadays is the simple name paper. Articles, reviews, monographs, appreciations, studies are other designations for the same general thing. The names of men who have achieved distinction in this kind of writing have been given in the note_pn p. 590, above.

/ 2yfrhe original type of essay, which still survives in some ofthe most exquisite literary work, may be called the personal. In it the writer is as it were conversing with his reader ; he freely reveals, and ordinarily in familiar language, his own fancies and feelings, whims, and idiosyncrasies. Studied plan

596 THE LITERARY TYPES.

and formal processes of exposition and argument are avoided ; the essay imitates rather the freedom and seeming wayward- ness of private conversation. At the same time, by its sug- gestiveness and packed connotation of style, this kind of essay often contributes more to solid thinking than it promises ; this is its privilege.

Examples. — The most noted representative of this personal type of essay is Montaigne, who is regarded as the father of the essay. In modem literature the type, introduced by the genial essays of Addison and Steele in the Spectator, is carried on by Charles Lamb in. his Essays of Elia, Thackeray in his Roundabout Papers, Christopher North (Professor Wilson) in his Noctes Ambrosiana, and Robert Louis Stevenson in his Virginibus Puerisque and Across the Plains.

A modification of the original type, in the direction of more condensed and severe utterance, while still without the formalism of a treatise, is seen in the essays of Bacon and Emerson, and in the Imaginary Conversations of Landor.

CHAPTER XVII. ARGUMENTATION.

In our study of literary types hitherto, what we have contemplated has been various ways of exhibiting material : concrete portrayal in description ; time-succession in nar- ration ; generalized interpretation in exposition. But there are some objects sought to which all these processes, while important or even essential, are only preliminary. The real truth of the case, as distinguished from its meaning, may be still to seek ; or there may be weighty consequences for the reader to believe or act upon. To the mere exhibiting of thought, therefore, must be added some process of establishing or enforcing it as truth, as something on which conviction and conduct may be based. Hence the need of argumentation.

Definition of Argumentation. — .4£Sli™s'\!^tion^s the ordering ^_the facts^ and principles relating, to a subject in, question, with the view to inducing, belief as- to its. truth or error.

The analysis of this definition will bring to light some fundamental traits of argumentation as a literary type.

-O The subject, observe, is in question ; that is, by the very fact that reasoning is employed to establish it, the subject is conceded to have two sides, each of which has validity enough at least to exist, and to one of which committal is sought. The outcome of this fact is that the truth of the matter is con- ceived as a proposition, a rigorously formulated statement, which the course of argument aims to make clear and convincing.

2. In the ordering of facts and principles is implied a scheme of reasoning, of greater or less extent; and because

597

598 THE LITERARY TYPES.

this is concerned with a truth, it must at every step be critical as well as constructive, — must guard its processes from fallacy and error. This makes argumentation an affair at once of attack and defense ; and negative forms of argument have importance side by side with positive.

37; The belief, which it is the reasoner's aim to induce, may be of various depths, according to the issue involved. With the mere conviction of the intellect argumentation proper is concerned ; when, however, it comes to stirring the feelings and moving the will, on some vital question of conduct, character, or policy, a more impassioned and per- sonal style of argumentation is employed, called persuasion or appeal ; its finished outcome is seen in oratory.

In so capital a matter as inducing belief in truth, a belief which on occasion may pass into conviction and action, it is not individual arguments alone that can be relied on for the result. These have their part ; but so, equally, has the body of argumentation, the whole current of the plea as a system. On these two subjects, then, rests the first division of the present chapter. , \

■SECTION FIRST. ^ '' My': Argumentation in its Type Forms.

It has been said in connection with the definition that a thoughtfully adduced argument is at once constructive and critical ; while it maintains one side it must, to be valid, be aware of the other side, and make itself good in defense as well as in attack. This gives importance to two_tj,pes_of_argu- mentation, the constructive and the destructive; the direct proof of truth, and the disproof of error. ' -

ARGUMENTATION. 599

I. ARGUMENTATION CONSTRUCTIVE.

By this is meant the proof of truth directly ; that is, setting a conclusion plainly before the mind, to be verified or enforced, and then adducing the facts and principles that go to sub- stantiate it.

In devising an order in which to consider the various types of argumentation constructive, we may best follow, perhaps, the logical order in which knowledge is obtained. There are three principal ways, or stages. £i£al„pf all there is the direct observation and discovery of facts'; secpiiflly. from the accumulation of these facts there is the inference of other facts or of general truths; and finally, therXis inference from gen- eral truths or principles to other truths, general or particular. These three ways of obtaining knowledge are the basis of three types of argument, which, sometimes singly, but gen- erally in mixture and combination, make up a course of argumentation.

I.

Direct Discovery of Facts. — In strictness the discovery of facts by direct inquiry is rather a preliminary to argument than argument itself ; but it is so necessary to inference, and the spirit in which it is conducted is so truly at one with the spirit of sound reasoning, that it cannot be left out of the account.

Of the primal, means of discovering facts, our own personal observation, something has already been said.^ It is, however, only a small proportion of the facts we must use, that we can obtain in this way. We must depend, for the most part, on what others report to us ; under which is included, of course, what is obtained through books and written reports, as well as what is obtained orally. The same means of testing and appraising it, in principle, is applicable to all. 1 See above, pp. 397-402.

600 THE LITERARY TYPES.

Of the evidence thus obtained we discern two kinds. There is first the affirmation of what the witness has observed, which we name Testimony ; and secondly, there is the report of what the observer, a specialist in some field of research or skill, can bring as the result of trained judgment or opinion ; and this we name Authority.

Testimony. — At first thought it would seem a very simple matter to obtain the report of a witness as to what he has seen and heard. There are involved in it, however, questions of no little intricacy, which suggest themselves on one point or another, and must be solved, before the real truth can be evolved from a body of testimony.

Such questions range themselves into three lines or stages of inquiry.

I. The first line of inquiry concerns itself with the witness. His personal character, to begin with : is he by common repute a man of honesty and veracity, whose word can be trusted ? Then, his ability to testify : how accurately can he observe, how truly can he remember, how clear and straight a report can he make of what he has observed ? The answer to these questions, it will be seen, reveals many degrees of value in the results obtained. Finally, his relation to the thing testified : what is there in his own predilections or prejudices, what is there in the circumstances, to make his testimony more, or less, trustworthy ? A reluctant testimony, or a testimony that makes against the interests of the witness himself, is regarded as especially likely to be true. Many centuries ago, the ideal citizen was characterized as one "that sweareth to his own hurt, and change th not."

Illustrations. — The way in which witnesses' characters and circum- stances are sifted in courts of law may be seen from the following : —

" These two witnesses, Mr. Coleman and N. P. Knapp, differ entirely. There is no possibility of reconciling them. No charity can cover both. One or the other has sworn falsely. If N. P. Knapp be believed.

ARGUMENTATION. 601

Mr. Coleman's testimony must be wholly disregarded. It is, then, a ques^ tion of credit, a question of belief between the two witnesses. As you decide between these, so you will decide on all this part of the case.

" Who is Mr. Coleman ? He is an intelligent, accurate, and cautious witness ; a gentleman of high and well-known character, and of unques- tionable veracity; as a clergyman, highly respectable; as a. man, of fair name and fame. ... It is a. misconstruction of Mr. Coleman's motives, at once the most strange and the most uncharitable, a perversion of all just views of his conduct and intentions the most unaccountable, to repre- sent him as acting, on this occasion, in hostility to any one, or as desirous of injuring or endangering any one. He has stated his own motives, and his own conduct, in a manner to commend universal belief and universal respect.

" The relation in which the other witness stands deserves your careful consideration. He is a member of the family. He has the lives of two brothers depending, as he may think, on the effect of his evidence ; depend- ing on every word he speaks. I hope he has not another responsibility resting upon him. . . . Compare the situation of these two witnesses. Do you not see mighty motive enough on the one side, and want of all motive on the other ? I would gladly find an apology for that witness, in his agonized feelings, in his distressed situation ; in the agitation of that hour, or of this. I would gladly impute it to error, or to want of recollection, to confusion of mind, or disturbance of feeling. I would gladly impute to any pardonable source that which cannot be reconciled to facts and- to truth ; but, even in a case calling for so much sympathy, justice must yet prevail, and we must come to the conclusion, however reluctantly, which that demands from us." 1

2. The second line of inquiry is concerned with the testi- mony. Is it, to begin with, probable on the face of it, that is, consistent with ordinary experience and observation ? Then, how does it square with the body of facts already known in the case ? Finally — a matter of much moment — is the testi- mony consistent with itself ? that is, does the witness tell a straightforward and homogeneous story, or does he contradict himself ? and when he repeats statements, how does the repeat compare with the original assertion ? It is for the purpose of

1 Webster, The Murder of Captain Joseph White, Webster^s Great Speeches,

p. 221.

602 THE LITERARY TYPES.

testing the witness's evidence for self-consistency that cross- examination is instituted in the courts.

Some kinds of testimony are regarded as of special value. Such are : undesigned testimony ; what the witness inadver- tently lets out, without realizing its possible bearing on the case ; negative testimony, or failure to mention a circumstance so striking that he must have noticed it had it occurred ; and hostile testimony, the honest concession of some fact that makes against the witness's interests or sympathies.

Illustration. — The following shows the kind of scrutiny a testimony is subjected to in cross-examination : —

"Attend to his cross-examination. He was sure he had seen Lord George Gordon at Greenwood's room in January ; but when Mr. Kenyon, who knew Lord George had never been there, advised him to recollect him- self, he desired to consult his notes. First, he is positively sure, from his memory, that he had seen him there : then he says, he cannot trust his memory without referring to his papers. On looking at them, they contra- dict him ; and he then confesses that he never saw Lord George Gordon at Greenwood's room in January, when his note was taken, nor at any other time. But why did he take notes.' He said it was because he foresaw what would happen. How fortunate the Crown is, gentlemen, to have such friends to collect evidence by anticipation ! When did he begin to take notes ? He said, on the 2ist of February, which was the^rrf time he had been alarmed at what he had seen and heard, although, not a minute before, he had been reading a note taken at Greenwood's room in January, and had sworn that he had attended their meetings, from apprehensions of consequences, as early as December." 1

In a similar way statements of fact, as published in books, are subjected to minute comparison, examination of dates and circumstances, and the like, in order to settle the value and authenticity of their details by internal evidence.

3. The third line of inquiry is concerned with the truth as something to be evolved from a gnnv of TFSTTMnMv. When there is more than one witness to the same facts, and their

1 Erskine, speech in Behalf of Lord George Gordon, Select British Eloquence, p. 644.

ARGUMENTA TION. 603

Statements cannot be reconciled with each other, resort must be had to the characters and motives of witnesses, as already illustrated. If the testimonies agree in all essential particu- lars, the presumption of their substantial truth is strong. As soon, however, as we get beyond essentials to minute and secondary details, we must look for disagreement enough to correspond with differences in observing power and point of view. Too minute agreement weakens the testimony ; because it raises the suspicion, or even certainty, of collusion between witnesses.

Illustration. — Some years ago Professor Greenleaf, of the Harvard Law School, treated the accounts of the Four Evangelists as if they were evidence of facts to be examined according to the procedures in courts of justice. The following are some of his remarks by way of summary : —

"The character of their narratives is like that of all other true witnesses, containing, as Dr. Paley observes, substantial truth, under circumstantial variety. There is enough of discrepancy to show that there could have been no previous concert among them ; and at the same time such substantial agreement as to show that they all were independent narrators of the same great transaction, as the events actually occurred. . . . The discrep- ancies between the narratives of the several evangelists, when carefully examined, will not be found sufficient to invalidate their testimony. Many seeming contradictions will prove, upon closer scrutiny, to be in substantial agreement ; and it may be confidently asserted that there are none that will not yield, under fair and just criticism. If these different accounts of the same transactions were in strict verbal conformity with each other, the argument against their credibility would be much stronger. All that is asked for these witnesses is, that their testimony may be regarded as we regard the testimony of men in the ordinary affairs of life.'' ^

Authority. — It is not only for the facts that we cannot per- sonally observe that we must, in our obtaining of knowledge, depend on the word of others. For the interpretation of facts, also, for the estimate to be made or the judgment passed on facts, we must, in many a sphere of special knowledge, inter- rogate those who have gained special insight therein. The

1 Gkeenleaf, Testimony of the Pour Evangelists, p. 2S.

604 THE LITERARY TYPES.

aid thus furnished us we call authority. The man who embodies this authority is not strictly a witness ; rather he takes the place, in this particular inquiry, of the judge or the jury, drawing a generalized conclusion concerning something beyond their competency to judge.

Of this subject of .authority, what we need here to note is, the qualifications of the person, and the forms that authority in statement may take\

I.' Of the person, the inquiry centres not in his veracity, as in a question of observed fact, but in the depth and range of his judgment ; nor is his power to observe so much in question as his wisdom to generalize from what he has observed. He represents, in fact, the work of exposition ; he is a generalizer, whose conclusion is a statement of educated opinion ; and we, depending on him as an expositor, require of him the expositor's qualifications of acumen, accuracy, soundness and balance of judgment.^

1 For the traits evinced in a piece of exposition, see above, p. 556, 3. Tlie dis- tinction iDetween the sphere of Testimony and that of Authority is thus given by Archbishop Whately : " Vl^hen tlie question is as to a Fact, it is plain we have to look chiefly to the honesty of a witness, his accuracy, and his means of gaining infor- mation. When the question is about a matter of Opinion, it is equally plain that his ability to form a judgment is no less to be taken into account. But though this is admitted by all, it is very common with inconsiderate persons to overlook, in prac- tice, the distinction, and to mistake as to, ivhat it is^ that, in each case, is attested. Facts, properly so called, are, we should remember, individuals ; though the term is often extended to general statements ; especially when these are well established. And again, the causes or other circumstances connected with some event or phenom- enon, are often stated as a part of the very fact attested. If for instance, a person relates his having found coal in a certain stratum ; or if he states, that in tlie East Indies he saw a number of persons who had been sleeping exposed to the moon's rays, afflicted with certain symptoms, and that after taking a certain medicine they recov- ered,— he is bearing testimony as to simple matters of fact: but if he declares that the stratum in question constantly contains coal ; — or, that the patients in question were so affected in consequence of the moon's rays, — that such is the general effect of them in that climate, and that that medicine is a cure for such symptoms, it is evident that his testimony — however worthy of credit — is borne to a different kind of conclusion ; namely, not an individual, but a general, conclusion, and one which must rest, not solely on the veracity, but also on the judgment, of the witness." — Whately, Elements of Rhetoric, p. 81.

ARGUMENTATION. 60S

Example. — It is on the ground of such inquiries that Macaulay as an historian is discredited, — not for his inability to gather and state facts, but for a bias which mvalidates his interpretation of facts, and thus makes him uncertain as an authority. The ground of distrust is thus given : " Then it is that we become aware that there were two Macaulays : Macaulay the artist, with an exquisite gift for telling a story, filling his pages with little vignettes it is impossible to forget, fixing these with an inimitable art upon the surface of a narrative that did not need the ornament they gave it, so strong and large and adequate was it; and Macaulay the Whig, subtly turning narrative into argument, and making history the vindication of a party. The mighty narrative is a great engine of proof. It is not told for its own sake. It is evidence summed up in order to justify a judgment. We detect the tone of the advocate, and though if we are just we must deem him honest, we cannot deem him safe. The great story-teller is dis- credited ; and, willingly or unwillingly, we reject the guide who takes it upon himself to determine for us what we shall see. That, we feel sure, cannot be true which makes of so complex a history so simple a thesis for the judg- ment. There is art here ; but it is the art of special pleading, misleading even to the pleader." i

:2\ The forms in which authority meets us and is appealed to concern every pursuit in life.

In the endeavor to determine questions of fact and right, as in the courts, much dependence is placed on what is called expert testimony ; that is, testimony not as to the actual facts in the case but as to such interpretation of facts as could be made only by a specialist in the sphere of knowledge to which the facts belong. Thus physicians are interrogated as to symptoms, the working of drugs, the infliction of wounds ; chemists are employed to examine adulterations or compo- sition of compounds ; builders are asked about strength of materials and value of workmanship ; specialists are set to examining handwriting; and many other such things.

Every profession and pursuit, too, has its body of pro- cedures, doctrines, or traditions, which constitute its author- ity. Thus, in law, recourse is had -to recorded cases and

1 Wilson, Mere Literature and other Essays, p. i68.

606 THE LITERARY TYPES.

opinions of judges, a body of authority increasing enormously every year ; in theology, to the Bible and to denominational standards ; in politics to the constitution of the nation and to the acknowledged wisdom of statesmen ; in science, to the researches and experiments of men who have devoted themselves to specialized study.

Illustration. — The following exemplifies appeal to authority on a national and political subject : —

" This being admitted, can it be denied that the education of the common people is a most effectual means of securing our persons and our property ? Let Adam Smith answer that question for me. His authority, always high, is, on this subject, entitled to peculiar respect, because he extremely dis- liked busy, prying, interfering governments. He was for leaving literature, arts, sciences, to take care of themselves. He was not friendly to ecclesi- astical establishments. He was of opinion that the State ought -not to meddle with the education of the rich. But he has expressly told us that a distinction is to be made, particularly in a commercial and highly civilized society, between the education of the rich and the education of the poor. The education of the poor, he says, is a matter which deeply concerns the commonwealth. Just as the magistrate ought to interfere for the purpose of preventing the leprosy from spreading among the people, he ought to interfere for the purpose of stopping the progress of the moral distempers which are inseparable from ignorance. Nor can this duty be neglected without danger to the public peace. If you leave the multitude uninstructed, there is serious risk that religious animosities may produce the most dread- ful disorders. The most dreadful disorders I Those are Adam Smith's own words; and prophetic words they were."'

II.

Inference from Particulars. — To discover facts, by obser- vation, testimony, or authority, indispensable though it be to knowledge, is only a beginning, and seldom is left as the sole process. The facts thus discovered are to be put together, and from them some inference is to be drawn, either of some

1 Macaulay, Speech on Education, Speeches, and Poems, Vol. ii, p. 45.

ARGUMENTATION. 607

Other facts yet unknown, or of some larger truth to which all the facts have relation, as particulars in evidence.

Such inference from particulars -is called Induction. It is the process of arguing from what is known to what is at the beginning unknown or problematical ; or of establishing some conclusion by accumulating and weighing all the particulars that work together to make it probable.^

The Hypothesis The basis of every inductive argument is

an hypothesis j^ by which we mean a provisional conclusion, theory, or conjectijje.. It is adopted to~e3cplain the likeliest oz prima facie indication of the particulars, and thereafter held subject to confirmation, modification, or abandonment in favor of another hypothesis, as further particulars come in. An hypothesis, then, is an inductive conclusion not fully verified.

Note. — Thus, in accounting for a death by violence, the most satis- factory hypothesis, to begin with, may be that the deceased committed suicide. Adopting this provisionally, then, and carefully scrutinizing all the facts and indications known, the observer is finally either fully confirmed in his theory, or compelled to adopt a new one to account for facts that the suicide theory could not explain.

An hypothesis is something adopted not so much that it may be believed as that it may be doubted until it is subjected to every available test. The proper attitude of the inductive reasoner, in other words, is caution and thoroughness ; his gravest error, jumping at the conclusion before the evidence is all in. The particulars, therefore, from which his induction is made, are not to be regarded as proofs of the conclusion .; they are merely indications, good as far as they go, and some going farther than others, to show that such a conclusion is on the whole probable. They are to be weighed, then, as well as numbered ; ' for they may have all degrees of conclusiveness.

1 For the order of investigation in the plan, which is merely an inductive process carried on informally, see above, pp. 446, 447.

608 THE LITERARY TYPES.

Some may be so slight and indirect as to have no real value alone, but only in connection with stronger ones ; others may have so determinative a connection with the conclusion as almost to amount to proof. In any case it is safer to esti- mate indications low and crave more, than to overrate and leave gaps in the evidence.

Note. — Thus, the redness of the evening sky is a commonly accepted indication, but by no means a proof, that the weather will be fair to-morrow ; the weight of the atmosphere, as shown by the barometer, is another indi- cation, but not a proof ; the two indications taken together make fair weather probable, and more probable than one indication alone would do ; still they do not prove fair weather. A large number of indications would put the conjectured fact beyond reasonable doubt, and still more certain it would be if in a long series of observations these phenomena were followed, without exception, by fair weather. Thus in time this conjunction of facts might come to be regarded as invariable, and even trusted as a general law ; still, strictly speaking, it is only a probable conclusion, not absolute, and its certainty depends on the completeness of the induction. The same may be said of every inductive argument, and especially of every inquiry dealing with the future.

/ Grades and Species of Inductive Argument The degree of

conclusiveness that an indication may have is measured mainly by the closeness of its relation to the conclusion sought ; and there are kinds of such relation which are depended on not only for the truth in view, but for the gen- eral use to which the argument is put. The following three classes, or grades, beginning with the most intimate and con- clusive, will serve to classify the various kinds of inductive argument.

(ti. Particulars viewed as Cause or Effect Some indications

belong, as far as they go, to the class of causes, that is, they tend to produce, as an effect, the conclusion we have in mind. Others, viewed as effects, are pushed back in thought or com- putation to the cause that must be postulated as their producer, which latter may be taken as the conclusion sought. The

ARGUMENTATION. 609

two directions of investigation, from cause to effect and from effect to cause, are precisely the same in principle, and subject to the same tests. In any inquiry involving a conclusion of fact, this kind of relation is the first thing sought, and when established constitutes, according to its weight, what is called antecedent probability.

The kind of argument that takes a known cause and from it infers a determinate effect is called a priori.

The kind of argument that takes a known effect and from it infers the producing cause is called a posteriori.

Examples. — • i . Of o priori argument. In seeking to locate the respon- sibility for an act, e.g. a crime, one of the first things sought is a motive, which, as far as it goes, is clearly to be regarded as a cause. The follow- ing use of motive as an a priori argument will exemplify this : "Joseph Knapp had a motive to desire the death of Mr. White, and that motive has been shown. He was connected by marriage with the family of Mr. White. His wife was the daughter of Mrs. Beckford, who was the only child of a sister of the deceased. The deceased was more than eighty years old, and had no children. His only heirs were nephews and nieces. He was sup- posed to be possessed of a very large fortune, which would have descended, by law, to his several nephews and nieces in equal shares ; or, if there was a will, then according to the will. But as he had but two branches of heirs, the children of his brother, Henry White, and of Mrs. Beckford, each of these branches, according to the- common idea, would have shared one- half of his property. This popular idea is not legally correct. But it is common, and very probably was entertained by the parties. According to this idea, Mrs. Beckford, on Mr. White's death without a will, would have been entitled to one half of his ample fortune; and Joseph Knapp had married one of her three children." i

2. Of a posteriori argument. The induction by which the planet Nep- tune was discovered is a good example of tracing effects back to their cause. The following outlines the story of it: "The motions of Uranus, the outermost then-known planet, had been carefully watched since its dis- covery by Sir W. Herschel, and an orbit was speedily assigned it. For about fourteen years the planet kept to this path, and then began to gain on its predicted place, continuing to do so for about twenty-seven years,

1 Webster, The Murder of Captain Joseph White, Webster's Great Speeches,

p. 201.

610 THE LITERARY TYPES.

when it ceased to advance and soon began to fall behind, continuing steadily to do so. It was seen by Leverrier, a young French astronomer, and Adams, then a student at Cambridge, that these movements could be explained by the action of a planet exterior to Uranus, and they both inde- pendently tried to solve the problem thus presented, and indicate the dis- turbing planet's place. This problem . . . was treated differently by the two investigators. Both assigned certain probable values to the distance and periodic time of the unknown body, which made their work possible. Each wrought out his solution, and found the elements of the unknown body's orbit. Adams sent word to Professor Challis of Cambridge, and Leverrier later advised Dr. Galle of Berlin where to look for it. Dr. Galle first saw it, on September 23, 1846, within a degree of Leverrier's calculated place, and three degrees of Adams's." '

Concerning any argument involving cause and effect, three facts must be established, by way of test, before it can be regarded as conclusive. It must be shown : —

That an actual cause exists ;

That it is sufficient to produce the effect contemplated ;

That opposing circumstances or probabilities are not sufficient to hinder its working.

Note. — The motive ascribed in the quotation from Webster above, while a proved cause, ought not to be regarded as sufficient in itself to prove the prisoner's guilt ; other causes, or traits of character, or positive circumstances, must be adduced to corroborate what at this stage is only a starting-point of probability.

The discovery of Neptune, described above, turned out to be, after all, an accident; the cause of the perturbations was inferred, and so accurately that actual observation did the rest, but the effect might have been pro- duced by some other cause. "This problem," says the author of the article, " could be solved so as to indicate any one of an infinite number of planets, each of which would produce the observed disturbance of Uranus. ... It is true the planet was found to have a different orbit from that assigned by the calculators. Their planets were in fact not identical, nor were they the planet Neptune. But they must ever have credit for the sagacity and ability with which, aiming at so indefinite a target, they so nearly struck the centre."

1 Chambers'' s Cyclopxdia, s.v. Astronomy.

ARGUMENTATION. 611

c;;^^ Particulars viewed as Concomitants. — Indications not con- nected with the conclusion as cause or effect belong evidently to a secondary rank ; they accompany the fact or event in question, but do not produce it. Such indications taken singly may be small and of little weight ; but taken together they may so help and color each other as to create a high degree of probability. For secondary and preliminary conclusions — for which they are oftenest used — they are of high value : they may so define the thing to be proved that the inquirer may know just what priniary evidence to look for.

Note. — The redness of the evening sky is no cause of fair weather j it is merely a secondary indication, as is also the height of the barometer. For a conclusive indication we must find that determining state of the atmosphere which is the cause at once of fair weather and of the evening redness.

Inference from such secondary data is technically called the ARGUMENT FROM SIGN ; the facts discovered being taken as signs, so far as they go, of the fact or event in question. The practical employment of such inference in the courts, which is very extensive, is called circumstantial evidence ; and is more relied upon, ordinarily, to prove the circumstances of a case than to establish its main issue. In any use of it this kind of inference is naturally concerned that the data make up in number and cumulative power, as combined, for what they lack separately in conclusiveness.

Examples. — i. Of argument from sign. In an argument constructed to show what signs there are that Shakespeare was the author of a certain sonnet prefatory of one of John Florio's books, entitled " Phaeton to his Friend Florio," the use of words, the circle of expressions, the circle of ideas, are minutely compared with those of Shakespeare's known works, and a very plausible case made out ; which, however, the author of the argument thus estimates : " Such an identification, of course, does not admit of demonstrative proof: all that we can possibly provide in the absence of authentic contemporary testimony that Shakespeare and Phaeton

612 THE LITERARY TYPES.

were the same, is a concurrence of presumptions, separately feeble, sever- ally open to banter, but together affording as firm a ground for belief as can be had in such matters." i

2. Of circumstantial evidence. In the case of the murder of Captain Joseph White, already cited, circumstances are accumulated to prove an accessory question, namely, that the murder was the result of a conspiracy, a question which circumstantial evidence could be relied on to decide : " Let me ask your attention, in the first place, to those appearances, on the morning after the murder, which have a tendency to show that it was done in pursuance of a preconcerted plan of operation. What are they ? A man was found murdered in his bed. No stranger had done the deed, no one unacquainted with the house had done it. It was apparent that some- body within had opened, and that somebody without had entered. There had obviously and certainly been concert and cooperation. The inmates of the house were not alarmed when the murder was perpetrated. The assassin had entered without any riot or any violence. He had found the way prepared before him. The house had' been previously opened. The window was unbarred from within, and its fastening unscrewed. There was a lock on the door of the chamber in which Mr. White slept, but the key was gone. It had been taken away and secreted. The footsteps of the murderer were visible, out-doors, tending toward the window. The plank by which he entered the window still remained. The road he pursued had been thus prepared for him. The victim was slain, and the murderer had escaped. Everything indicated that somebody within had cooperated with somebody without. Everything proclaimed that some of the inmates, or somebody having access to the house, had had a hand in the murder. On the face of the circumstances, it was apparent, therefore, that this was a premeditated, concerted murder ; that there had been a conspiracy to commit it."^

(^ Particulars used as Parallels A third class of inductive

data have no direct connection vpith the case at all, whether of cause or of accompaniment ; they are merely circumstances of some parallel state of things. Such indications cannot be used, of course, to decide a question of fact. But for ques- tions of principle, policy, conduct, — questions on which hang some future procedure, — considerations of this kind are very

1 MiNTO, Characteristics of English PoetSj Appendix B.

2 Webster, The Murder of Captain Joseph White, Webster's Great Speeches,

p. 200.

ARGUMENTATION. 613

extensively used, by way of example or analogy, and are the ground of the most popular and pleasing styles of argument.

The ARGUMENT FROM__EXAMPLE, taking instances of what has occurred at other times or in other places, infers from them what is likely to occur again under similar conditions, or inculcates some action modelled on them as a lesson. The validity of this argument depends not only on the parallel state of things but more truly on the parallel conditions, which must be so evident as to remove the conclusion from the reproach of being an accidental parallel, or coincidence. The laws governing the events, in fact, should be no less clear than the like events themselves.

The most cogent form of the argument from example, called the ARGU.MENi_A.-KORSiQKj, reasons that if a certain thing is true in a given case, much more will it be true in a supposed case where the conditions are more favorable.

Examples. — i. Of the argument from example. The following familiar passage from Patrick Henry illustrates not only the argument from example but, in its outcome, the masterly transfer of its implication from a seeming question of fact to a question of policy and conduct : " It was sometime in the course of this tremendous fight, extending through the 29th and 30th of May, that the incident occurred which has long been familiar among the anecdotes of the Revolution, and which may be here recalled as a reminis- cence not only of his own consummate mastery of the situation, but of a most dramatic scene in an epoch-making debate. Reaching the climax of a passage of fearful invective, on the injustice and the impolicy of the Stamp Act, he said in tones of thrilling solemnity, ' Caesar had his Brutus ; Charles the First, his Cromwell ; and George the Third [' Treason,' shouted the speaker. 'Treason,' 'treason,' rose from all sides of the room. The orator paused in stately defiance till these rude exclamations were ended, and then, rearing himself with a look and bearing of still prouder and fiercer determination, he so closed the sentence as to bafHe his accusers, without in the least flinching from his own position,] — and George the Third may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it.'"l

1 Tyler, Patrick Henry (American Statesmen), p. 64. The "fight" referred to is a debate that took place in the Virginia House of Burgesses, in 1765.

614 THE LITERARY TYPES.

2. Of the argument a fortiori. Many of the assertions of Scripture are put in this form of argument ; for example, " Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith ? " ' — The following is the plea by which Burke advocates sympathy, on the part of England, with the Irish Roman Catholics: "I confess to you freely, that the suffer- ings and distresses of the people of America in this cruel war have at times affected me more deeply than I can express. I felt every gazette of triumph as a, blow upon my heart, which has a hundred times sunk and fainted within me at all the mischiefs brought upon those who bear the whole brunt of war in the heart of their country. Yet the Americans are utter strangers to me ; a nation among whom I am not sure that I have a single acquaintance. Was I to suffer my mind to be so unaccountably warped ; was I to keep such iniquitous weights and measures of temper and of rea- son, as to sympathize with those who are in open rebellion against an authority which I respect, at war with a country which by every title ought to be, and is most dear to me ; and yet to have no feeling at all for the hardships and indignities suffered by men, who, by their very vicinity, are bound up in a nearer relation to us ; who contribute their share, and more than their share, to the common prosperity; who perform the common offices of social life, and who obey the law, to the full as well as I do .'" ^ Here the argument is : If I could sympathize with the Americans, unknown, distant, and in rebellion, much more should I sympathize wth the Irish, well-known, near, and loyal.

The ARGUMENT FROM ANALOGY, taking relations that exist in one sphere of life, action, or nature, infers from them what will be true of events in another sphere wherein relations are similar. Its validity as an argument depends on the true similarity of relations, which must be deep and real, not merely striking or fanciful.

Example. — In the following the analogy between mind and body is urged as an argument for cultivation of the intellect as mere discipline, apart from the practical results : " You will see what I mean by the parallel of bodily health. Health is a good in itself, though nothing came of it, and is especially worth seeking and cherishing ; yet, after all, the bless- ings which attend its presence are so great, while they are so close to it and

1 Matthew vi. 30.

2 Burke, Bristol Speech, Select British Eloquence, p. 304.

ARGUMENTA TION. 61S

so redound back upon it and encircle it, that we never think of it except as useful as well as good, and praise and prize it for what it does, as well as for what it is, though at the same time we cannot point out any definite and distinct work or production which it can be said to effect. And so as regards intellectual culture, I am far from denying utility in this large sense as the end of Education, when I lay it down, that the culture of the intellect is a good in itself and its own end ; I do not exclude from the idea of intel- lectual culture what it cannot biit be, from the very nature of things ; I only deny that we must be able to point out, before we have any right to call it useful, some art, or business, or profession, or trade, or work, as resulting from it, and as its real and complete end. The parallel is exact : — As the body may be sacrificed to some manual or other toil, whether moderate or oppressive, so may the intellect be devoted to some specific profession ; and I do not call this the culture of the intellect. Again, as some member or organ of the body may be inordinately used and developed, so may memory, or imagination, or the reasoning faculty ; and this again is not intellectual culture. On the other hand, as the body may be tended, cherished, and exercised with a simple view to its general health, so may the intellect also be generally exercised in order to its perfect state ; and this is its cultivation." i

The value both of example and analogy is after all rather illus- trative than argumentative ; they are in reality instruments of exposition, employed to make the subject so clear, in all its relations, that men can see the truth or error of it for them- selves. The truths to which they apply, therefore, are not doubtful truths but self-evidencing principles of life, which need rather to be clarified than established by proof.

Of the two kinds of reasoning, example is likelier to have real argumentative validity, because the parallel relations on which it depends are more easily traced and sounded. Analogy, resting as it does on similarities in different spheres, can hardly be more than an illustration, because, even if seeming identity of relation can be urged, the causes and laws of things are so different that the likeness may be merely superficial or accidental. As illustration, however, analogy has all the

1 Newman, Idea of a University^ p. 164.

616 THE LITERARY TYPES.

elucidative value of a connoted idea, while also by its beauty it gives rhetorical pleasure ; hence its great value in popular demonstration.^

III.

Inference from Generals. — The starting-point of an inference is not always an individb^l fact. Going deeper than the con- crete thing or event, we can' take some general principle, or uni- versal truth — for our minds are so endowed and developed that a world of such abstract truth is evident to us, — and ' from it infer something further,' either abstract or concrete.

Such inference from_genej[al_trii.ths is called Deduction. It is the process, by reasoning, not so mucfi. of finding new truths as of applying old truths to new cases, or of bringing facts into line with established principles. This is done by means of intermediate principles or judgments called premises (from praemitto, "to send before"), which are simply preliminary grounds or reasons for concluding that something else is true. As to its principle, then, the deductive form of argu- mentation may be defined as the proof of truth by premise and conclusion.

Note. — ^Thus — to use again the example already cited — if we predict that there will be fair weather to-morrow because the sky this evening is red, we take the present fact of redness as our premise for predicting what to-morrow's weather will be. A process of reasoning is involved, of wiiich this fact is one element.^

1 For Analogy in Exposition, see above, p. 567.

2 The use of this same fact on p. 608 as a particular from which to build 'an induction shows that premises, that is, reasons, enter as truly into inductive argu- ments as into deductive. In logical usage, however,' we do not call such a fact a premise so long as it is regarded as a mere indication^ among others, to determine an hypothesis. To be a premise a fact must be significant enough to be in itself a sufficient /roo/" of the conclusion. And this depends upon the validity of some other premise. In the present case the prediction is made because the truth of a major premise — to wit: whenever the evening sky is red fair weather ensues — is taken for granted ; let this be true, and the conclusion must follow. But in induction it is just this hidden premise, or at least the universality of it, that is doubted ; hence, as a matter of scientific caution, more reasons for expecting fair weather ate sought.

ARGUMENTATION. 617

The Syllogism T^£_basis jofdeductive .reasoning, which

indeed is more or less implicatecL/as a norm in all processes of argumentation, is the syllogjmi. This is merely a frame- work made by putting together two premises, called major and minor, and drawing a conclusion from them. The major premise is a truth affirmed as universal, that is, as covering all cases. The minor premise affirms something as a case under the major. The conclusion draws the inference appar- ent from the identification of the two premises.

Example. — The well-worn example will serve as well as any to display the framework of the syllogism so that its parts may be examined : — •

Major Premise : All men are mortal.

Minor Premise : Augustus is a man.

Conclusion : Therefore Augustus is mortal. There are in logic many orders and forms of statement for the syllogism, and many tests to be applied to keep it from various tendencies to fallacy ; but for rhetorical argumentation this outline will suffice.

Such is the syllogism in its bald logical form, the inner framework of every argument that is founded on a general truth. To keep this framework in mind, therefore, in every process of reasoning, to be clearly aware of the function and validity of every element, whatever its position or manner of statement, is the surest guarantee of a sound argument. This kind of logical parsing is the more important, because in lit- erature the syllogism seldom appears fully stated or undis- guised ; its elements are obscured, even while they are made rhetorically more effective, by the various amplifications and embellishments of which literary expression is full.

Examples. — The mere position of the parts of a statement, though it be a complete and valid syllogism, may operate for the moment to disguise the character of it. Take, for instance, this : " Comets consist of matter, for they obey the law of gravitation, and whatever obeys the law of gravi- tation is matter." Here a moment's logical parsing reveals the fact that the syllogism is completely inverted, the conclusion being first and the major premise last.

618 THE LITERARY TYPES.

The following is a somewhat rare example of the syllogism fully stated in literature, and even this disguises the conclusion by the figure interro- gation, and by amplifying terms : " It is the fashion just now, as you very well know, to erect so-called Universities, without making any provision in them at all for Theological chairs. Institutions of this kind exist both here [Ireland] and in England. Such a. procedure, though defended by writers of the generation just passed with much plausible argument and not a little wit, seems to me an intellectual absurdity ; and my reason for saying so runs, with whatever abruptness, into the form of a syllogism : — A University, I should lay down, by its very name professes to teach uni- versal knowledge : Theology is surely a branch of knowledge : how then is it possible for it to profess all branches of knowledge, and yet to exclude from the subjects of its teaching one which, to say the least, is as important and as large as any of them .' I do not see that either premise of this argument is open to exception."!

The ways in which the syllogism may be involved in lit- erature, to secure both its argumentative power on the one hand and its literary acceptability on the other, may be examined under two heads : —

I. The Syllogism in Enthymeme This is the name given

to the syllogism when it is condensed, as it very generally is, by the omission of one of its premises.

In almost any statement sufficiently certain to be put into syllogistic form, one of the premises will be obvious enough to be safely taken for granted. If such is the case, it would be a literary disadvantage to express it, for it would have the flat and commonplace effect of a truism. Either of the premises, the major or the minor, may according to its obviousness be omitted ; though in the majority of cases, perhaps,.it is the major that is dispensed with, — this because universal truths are most unquestioned.

Example. — Thus, to illustrate from the syllogism given above : it is so

obviously true that all men are mortal that we may let it go without saying,

and assert that Augustus will die because he is a man, — thus omitting the

major premise. Or again, the fact that Augustus is a man is so evident

1 Newman, Idea of a University, p. 19.

ARG UMENTA TION. 619

a truism that we may say Augustus will die because all men are mortal, — thus omitting the minor premise. In the historic attempt to deify Augustus, the minor premise, that Augustus was a man, was virtually denied ; that is, the attempt was made to treat him as if he were not a case under the general rule, and therefore not mortal.

Literature is so full of arguments with one premise omitted that the fully expressed syllogism, as we have seen, is the rare exception. And yet all reasoning should be conducted with such caution that the reasoner may be able to trace all his involved premises, whether expressed or not ; otherwise an honest reasoner is liable to take some fallacy for granted, while a dishonest man may use the artful suppression to mislead. This is where the importance of logical analysis, or parsing, comes in.

How then may an enthymeme be recognized, in the ordi- nary current of literature ? In general, we may answer when- ever an assertion is made with the reason for it (because so-and-so), or whenever an assertion is made with an inference from it {therefore so-and-so), there is pretty sure to be involved a syllogism in which one premise is assumed, as unquestionable.

Examples. — i. The following exhibits how a syllogistic argument inay be involved in a statement with its reason : " I have always deprecated universal suffrage, not so much on account of the confusion to which it would lead, as because I think that we should in reality lose the very object which we desire to obtain ; because I think it would, in its nature, embarrass and prevent the deliberative voice of the country from being heard. I do not think that you augment the deliberative body of the people by counting all the heads ; but that, in truth, you confer on indi- viduals, by this means, the power of drawing forth numbers, who, without deliberation, would implicitly act upon their will."i

The syllogism involved in this argument may be expressed thus : —

Major Premise : Whatever enables demagogues to wield an undeliber- ative mass of men as a power in the state to be regarded as a danger.

Minor Premise : Universal suffrage makes possible such ability.

Conclusion : Hence, universal suffrage is to be regarded as a danger.

I Fox, Speech on Parliamentary Reform, Select British Eloquence, p. 525.

620 THE LITERARY TYPES.

i. The following exhibits how a syllogism may be involved in a state- ment with its inference : " Generosity is more tried by an equal than it is by an inferior, for the same reason that it is so with humility — viz., that you are in competition with your equals, and are not in competition with your inferiors. We know that the great obstruction to generosity in our nature is jealousy — at least with regard to such advantages as touch our pride. It would be easy to be generous to the intellectual claims of other people, to their merits, to their character, were there no element of jealousy in ourselves. But compassion is relieved from this trial ; compassion can- not be jealous ; its work is with one who lies at its feet, who deprecates the slightest comparison. How generous then will a man be to the fallen ; but let the man get on his legs again, and it will sometimes be hard to him who has been so superabundantly generous even to be barely just. It is thus that generosity to an equal is more difficult than generosity to an inferior." ^

The enthymeme here given (or one of them, for several are involved) is something like this : Equals are liable to be jealous, and therefore it is hard for them to be generous. Expressed in syllogism this would be : —

Major Premise : Where jealousy is prevalent generosity is difficult.

Minor Premise : Jealousy is prevalent between equals.

Conclusion : Hence generosity to equals is difficult.

2. The Syllogism in Enlargement. — -By this we refer not to the natural amplifications and graces that are employed to make any discourse interesting, whether argumentative or other, but to the ways in which syllogistic reasoning may be followed up as argumentation. Two lines of enlargement may be noted.

The most important reinforcement of the syllogism is the careful testing and establishment of the premises. While on the one hand a premise that is a truism ought to be omitted, on the other no premise can be safely passed over whose meaning or truth is open to question. No syllogism is more conclusive than its weakest premise. Hence much of the strength in lines of argument is laid out in subsidiary reason- ing and exposition designed to prove or elucidate the various premises on which all depends. The most practical rule that

1 MozLEY, U?iiversiiy Sermons^ p. 194.

ARGUMENTATION. 621

can be laid down is : Be careful of your premises ; be cautious as to what you assume.

Examples. — The syllogism propounded by Cardinal Newman on p. 6i8, above, has probably struck the reader as questionable on account of its premises ; we are not certain that his definition of a University is the true one ; and not all are certain that Theology is to be regarded as a real branch of knowledge. Cardinal Newman is himself aware of this, and his object in laying down the syllogism is really not to use its conclusion but to examine and maintain its premises.

The first premise, "A University, ... by its very name, professes to teach universal knowledge,'' which provokes the question, Is this the true defini- tion ? is enlarged by exposition. If we take the term in its popular sense, as denoting a place where the whole circle of knowledge is taught, we have abundant authority (from which he quotes Dr. Johnson and the historian Mosheim) for taking this as the real definition of a university ; and if we take it in a less prevalent but still occasional sense, as denoting merely a place where invitation is given to students of every kind, it still comes to the same thing, for " if certain branches of knowledge were excluded, those students of course would be excluded also who desired to pursue them."

The second premise, "Theology is a branch of knowledge," is held to require a more elaborate proof by further deductive reasoning. He thus lays out the argument : " But this, of course, is to assume that Theology is a science, and an important one : so I will throw my argument into a more exact form. I say, then, that if a University be, from the nature of the case, a place of instruction, where universal knowledge is professed, and if in a certain University, so called, the subject of Religion is excluded, one of two conclusions is inevitable, — either, on the one hand, that the province of Religion is very barren of real knowledge, or, on the other hand, that in such University one special and important branch of knowl- edge is omitted. I say, the advocate of such an institution must say this, or he must say that ; he must own, either that little or nothing is known about the Supreme Being, or that his seat of learning calls itself what it is not. This is the thesis which I lay down, and on which I shall insist as the subject of this discourse." The discourse accordingly is taken up with proving that theology is a science.

Another means of enlarging the syllogism, dealing with successive conclusions, is called a chain of reasoning. It consists in making one argument, either fully or in enthymeme,

622 THE LITERARY TYPES.

and taking its conclusion as the premise of a second, and the conclusion of this for a third, and so on through a succession of steps to a final supreme conclusion. Such a chain of reasoning, involving as it does the thorough confir- mation of every step, produces a peculiar effect of cogency and soundness.

Example. • — Macaulay thus constructs a chain of reasoning, which indeed he does not hold to be valid, but it is as valid as the argument that he is engaged by parity of reasoning in refuting : —

" The doctrine of reprobation, in the judgment of many very able men, follows by syllogistic necessity from the doctrine of election.

Others conceive that the Antinomian heresy directly follows from the doctrine of reprobation ;

and it is very generally thought that licentiousness and cruelty of the worst description are likely to be the fruits, as they often have been the fruits, of Antinomian opinions. This chain of reasoning, we think, is as perfect in all its parts as that which makes out a Papist to be necessarily a traitor." ^

II. ARGUMENTATION. DESTRUCTIVE.

/ By this is meant argumentation intended to dislodge the

reader or hearer from some false position ; argumentation that tears down, whether for the purpose of building up the truth anew, by some more valid reasoning, or with the effect, by clearing the ground, of leaving the truth free to assert itself. It has naturally further steps in view, being in the nature of the case unfinished ; but this is an after consideration.

For constructive and affirmative ends, no less than the con- trary, it is important to keep the possibilities of this negative argumentation in view. For an essential half of every argu- mentative process is to guard itself from fallacy, to forestall attack, to see that no step is taken inconsiderately ; this is

1 Macaulay, On Nallam 's Constitutional History, Essays, Vol. i, p. 443.

ARG UMENTA TION. 623

involved in the very caution which weighs premises and tests every hypothesis. Every endeavor to establish a truth is as truly critical as constructive.^

Argumentation destructive, and its forms, may be presented under two general processes.

Analyzing by Alternative. — The various forms- of argument employed for negative ends have as a common preparation the reduction of the issue to an alternative^ that is, to a Statement of the question in a limited number of aspects, usually two, of which only one, if one, can be true. It is essential, then, that these possible aspects be accurately determined, and be all the aspects in which the question may be presented. The finding of them is really exposition by division, in which the bifurcate classification is oftenest employed, as being the most obviously complete, but in which also more than two dividing members may be taken, if they are so related as clearly to cover the ground.^

Reductio ad Absurdum ■ This argument, first stating an

alternative one member of which must be false, assumes that the false one is true, and proceeds to exhibit the untenable conclusion that will result. It establishes no direct truth, therefore ; it merely clears away the error, leaving the truth, on whatever other grounds, to stand for itself.

As compared with the constructive form of reasoning, the reductio ad absurdum is likely to be fully as strong, sometimes stronger, because it shows where, if anywhere, the truth must be. On the other hand, the constructive argument is richer in content because with the conclusion it exhibits all the premises and consideration that go to establish it.

1 See above, p. 597, 2.

2 For completeness of division, see above, p. 572.

624 THE LITERARY TYPES.

Example. — The following, applied to the testimony of the Evangelists, shows how this kind of argument appears in informal literary expression. The alternative on which it is based is this : Either they wrote what they knew to be true or what they knew to be false. Assuming that they were consciously false witnesses, the following results would follow: —

" It [namely the supposition of falsehood] would also have been irrecon- cilable with the fact that they were good men. But it is impossible to read their writings, and not feel that we are conversing with men eminently holy, and of tender consciences, with men acting under an abiding sense of the presence and omniscience of God, and of their accountability to him, living in his fear, and walking in his ways. Now, though, in a single instance, a good man may fall, when under strong temptations, yet he is not found persisting, for years, in deliberate falsehood, asserted with the most solemn appeals to God; without the slightest temptation or motive, and against all the opposing interests which reign in the human breast. If, on the contrary, they are supposed to have been bad men, it is incredible that such men should have chosen this form of imposture ; ' enjoining, as it does, unfeigned repentance, the utter forsaking and abhorrence of all false- hood and of every other sin, the practice of daily self-denial, self-abase- ment and self-sacrifice, the crucifixion of the flesh with all its earthly appetites and desires, indifference to the honors, and hearty contempt of the vanities of the world ; and inculcating perfect purity of heart and life, and intercourse of the soul with heaven. It is incredible, that bad men should invent falsehoods, to promote the religion of the God of truth. The supposition is suicidal. If they did believe in a future state of retribution, a heaven and a heU hereafter, they took the most certain course, if false vritnesses, to secure the latter for their portion. And if, stiU being bad men, they did not believe in future punishment, how came they to invent falsehoods, the direct and certain tendency of which was to destroy all their prospects of worldly honor and happiness, and to ensure their misery in this life ? From these absurdities there is no escape, but in the perfect conviction and admission that they were good men, testifying to that which they had carefully observed and considered, and well knew to be true."^

Dilemma. — When the issue is reduced to an alternative both members of which are untenable, the argument is called a dilemma, and the two untenable conclusions are called the horns of the dilemma.

The dilemma is thus wholly negative ; so far as it goes it

IGreenleaf, Testimony of the Four Evangelists, p. 27.

ARGUMENTATION. 625

merely refutes, and leaves no room for positive argument. The only recourse, in the face of it, is either to abandon the position, or to show that the alternative was not correctly taken.

Examples. — In the argument from Greenleaf just cited the part begin- ning, " If they did believe in a future state of retribution,'' is a dilemma, showing the incredible results that would follow if they were supposed to have given such testimony as they did, whether as believers or as dis- believers in the doctrine.

Burke's attack on the Acts of Grace prevalent in his time, which were merely an arbitrary release of debtors from prison when the prison became overcrowded, is a dilemma ; its basis of alternative being, either the creditor had a right to the body of his debtor or he had not : " If the creditor had a right to those carcasses as a natural security for his property, I am sure we have no right to deprive him of that security. But if the few pounds of flesh were not necessary to his security, we had not a right to detain the unfortunate debtor, without any benefit at all to the person who confined him. Take it as you will, we commit injustice."!

The Method of Residues. — This name is given to that form of argument which, first enumerating all the possible aspects of the question, then proceeds to eliminate, one by one, until only the one tenable aspect is left. Its principle is the same as in the other forms of analysis by alternative, the only difference being that its basal division is not bifurcate but ternary or more.

For the successful employment of this method the aspects should be limited in number and exhaustive of the idea. To clear away too many false positions complicates the argu- ment, and gives rise to a feeling of insecurity lest the true state of the case should, after all, have been overlooked.

Example. — Burke employs a method of residues in proposing what to do with the American colonies ; and one point of interest in it is, that a fourth possibility, which he is unwilling to include in the enumeration, became the event, when the English rejected the one he proposed: — ■

" Sir, if I were capable of engaging you to an equal attention, I would 1 Burke, Bristol Speech, Select British Eloquence, p. 299.

626 THE LITERARY TYPES.

state, that, as far as I am capable of discerning, there are but three ways of proceeding relative to this stubborn Spirit, which prevails in your Colonies, and disturbs your Government. These are — To change that Spirit, as inconvenient, by removing the Causes. To prosecute it as criminal. Or, to comply with it as necessary. I would not be guilty of an imperfect enumeration ; I can think of but these three. Another has indeed been started, that of giving up the Colonies ; but it met so slight a reception, that I do not think myself obliged to dwell a great while upon it. It is nothing but a little sally of anger; like the frowardness of peevish chil- dren ; who, when they cannot get all they would have, are resolved to take nothing." [The first two named of these are then examined in an argu- ment of several pages and dismissed as impracticable ; whereupon he thus summarizes :] " If then the removal of the causes of this Spirit of American Liberty be, for the greater part, or rather entirely, impracticable ; if the ideas of Criminal Process be inapplicable, or if applicable, are in the highest degree inexpedient ; what way yet remains ? No way is open, but the third and last — to comply with the American Spirit as necessary; or, if you please, to submit to it as a necessary Evil." ^

II.

Exposure of Fallacies This, the name of a process, is

employed here for what is otherwise called refutation ; all refutation being concerned, in one way or another, with the detection and exposure of fallacies. It is making the actual criticism that in proof constructive ought to have been forestalled and guarded against.

A fallacy is any error by which reasoning is made incon- clusive or invalid. It may lurk anywhere: in the fact alleged, or in the use of terms, or in the course of reasoning ; and the means employed to expose it may be expository or argumenta- tive, — more prevailingly the former, because what is generally needed is simply to interpret.

Two comprehensive processes are in use in exhibiting the fallacies of an opponent's position or arguments ; the first more ostensibly logical, the second more literary, more adapted to popular apprehension.

1 Burke, Conciliation -with America, Select Works, Vol. i, pp. 187, 195.

ARGUMENTA TION. 627

I. By Detailed Analysis This is going back, as it were,

over the ground of the reasoning, examining every step until the source of error is discovered. It is often a matter of much intricacy, because in the literary form that the argument takes, in a speech or paper, the underlying course of the thought is generally so overlaid with repetition, illustration, and digression, that the central movement cannot well be dis- cerned. Out of all this the argument is to be extricated, its line of reasoning simplified, its emphasis, proportion, presuppositions made evident and plain.^

I. Of this analysis the first thing we may note is the means employed to locate the fallacy, whatever it is.

First of all, the natural course is to examine the purport and tendency of the opponent's plea. Often this is translatable into plainer terms, which bring to light the tendency that is its natural outcome, or the view of things that really under- lies it ; and as soon as this is made clear no counter argument is needed ; the very plea refutes itself.

A favorite way of following out a fallacious plea to its logical results is by a chain of reasoning,^ whereby the exact purport of each step may be made manifest.

Examples. — i . The following condenses into one epigrammatic sen- tence the real significance of the opponent's plea : —

" He asserts, that retrospect is not wise ; and the proper, the only proper, subject of inquiry, is 'not how we got into this difficulty, but how we are to get out of it.' In other words, we are, according to him, to consult our invention, and to reject our experience. The mode of delibera- tion he recommends is diametrically opposite to every rule of reason and every principle of good sense established amongst mankind. For that sense and that reason I have always understood absolutely to prescribe, whenever we are involved in difficulties from the measures we have pur- sued, that we should take a strict review of those measures, in order to correct our errors, if they should be corrigible ; or at least to avoid a dull

1 For the process of exposition necessary to this, see above, pp. 578-582.

2 See above, p. 621.

628 THE LITERARY TYPES.

uniformity in mischief, and the unpitied calamity of being repeatedly caught in the same snare." ^

2. The following is the chain of reasoning by which Webster attacks the position of his opponents on the interpretation of the Constitution : —

" Such, Sir, are the inevitable results of this doctrine. Beginning with the original error, that the Constitution of the United States is nothing but a compact between sovereign States ; asserting, in the next step, that each State has a right to be its own sole judge of the extent of its own obliga- tions, and consequently of the constitutionality of laws of Congress ; and, in the next, that it may oppose whatever it sees fit to declare unconstitu- tional, and that it decides for itself on the mode and measure of redress, — the argument arrives at once at the conclusion, that what a State dis- sents from, it may nullify ; what it opposes, it may oppose by force ; what it decides for itself, it may execute by its own power ; and that, in short, it is itself supreme over the legislation of Congress, and supreme over the decisions of the national judicature ; supreme over the constitution of the country, supreme over the supreme law of the land." ^

The second step, if analysis is carried further, is to examine the opponent's course of reasoning, with intent to see if, his premises being admitted, the conclusion naturally or neces- sarily follows. A fallacy in the construction of argument is called a non sequitur.

Example. — In his refutation of the Nullification doctrine Webster thus shows that the right of individual states to nullify does not follow from the doctrine, even if held, that the constitution is only a compact between states : —

" I have admitted, that, if the Constitution were to be considered as the creature of the State governments, it might be modified, interpreted, or construed according to their pleasure. But, even in that case, it would be necessary that they should agree. One alone could not interpret it con- clusively ; one alone could not construe it ; one alone could not modify it. Yet the gentleman's doctrine is, that Carolina alone may construe and interpret that compact which equally binds all, and gives equal rights to all.

" So, then, Sir, even supposing the Constitution to be a compact between the States, the gentleman's doctrine, nevertheless, is not maintain- able ; because, first, the general government is not a party to that compact,

1 Burke, American Taxation, Select Works, Vol. i, p. 96.

2 Webster 's Great Speeches, p. 2S2.

ARGUMENTATION. 629

but a. government established by it, and vested by it with the powers of trying and deciding doubtful questions ; and secondly, because, if the Con- stitution be regarded as a compact, not one State only, but all the States, are parties to that compact, and one can have no right to fix upon it her own peculiar construction."^

Thus far the premises have been assumed sound ; but a third step, if the erroneous argument requires and invites it, is to attack the premises themselves. If these can be proved invalid, of course the argument must fall.

Example. — Thus, Webster follows up the refutation just cited by retracting the admission that he had made for the purpose of argument, and showing that even that premise is untenable : —

" So much, Sir, for the argument, even if the premises of the gentleman were granted, or could be proved. But, Sir, the gentleman has failed to maintain his leading proposition. He has not shown, it cannot be shown, that the Constitution is a compact between State governments. The Con- stitution itself, in its very front, refutes that idea; it declares that it is ordained and established by the feofle of the United States. So far from saying that it is established by the governments of the several States, it does not even say that it is established by the people of the several States ; but it pronounces that it is established by the people of the United States, in the aggregate. The gentleman says, it must mean no more than the people of the several States. Doubtless, the people of the several States, taken collectively, constitute the people of the United States ; but it is in this, their collective capacity, it is as all the people of the United States, that they establish the Constitution. So they declare ; and words cannot be plainer than the words used."^

2. The kind or extent of fallacy to be looked for, in analyz- ing the premises or elements of the various forms of argument, may here to some extent be noted.

In deductive argument, the major premise, which is oftenest omitted as self-evident, is perhaps, through the ign'oring of it, the most prevalent seat of fallacy. Purporting to be a uni- versal truth, it may be invalid by failing to cover all cases, or

1 Webster, Reply to Hayne, Webster's Great Speeches, p. 271.

2 See reference of last citation.

630 THE LITERARY TYPES.

the case in question ; or it may be so sweeping as to prove too much. — The minor premise, purporting to be a case under the general truth assumed as major, may be refuted by show- ing that it is not truly such a case.

Illustrations. — i. Of the universality of a major. Dr. Johnson's famous retort to a man of dishonorable calling who, on being remonstrated with, urged as if it were an incontrovertible truth, " But a man must live ! " — " Sir, I do not see the necessity of it," — is really a denial of the universality of the major premise, as may be seen by filling out the syllo- gism : ' Whatever a man's calling, the world owes him a living ; I am a man with a calling ; therefore the world owes me a living.' Here the hurt- fulness of the calling destroys the universality of the major.

2. Of a major that proves too much. In a refutation of Gladstone's essay on Church and State Macaulay thus points out a major premise that proves too much : " Mr. Gladstone's whole theory rests on this great fundamental proposition, that the propagation of religious truth is one of the principal ends of government, as government. If Mr. Gladstone has not proved this proposition, his system vanishes at once.'' This is refuted by showing that if true it is as true of every body of men organized for a particular purpose — of a scientific society, for instance, or a mercantile concern — as it is of a, government. The succeeding comment points an error common among reasoners : " The truth is, that Mr. Gladstone has fallen into an error very common among men of less talents than his own. It is not unusual for a person who is eager to prove a particular proposition to assume a major of huge extent, which includes that particular proposi- tion, without ever reflecting that it includes a great deal more. . . . He first resolves on his conclusion. He then makes a major of most comprehen- sive dimensions, and having satisfied himself that it contains his conclu- sion, never troubles himself about what else it may contain : and as soon as we examine it we find that it contains an infinite number of conclusions, every one of which is a monstrous absurdity." l

3. Of a minor premise. Webster's refutation cited on p. 629 is really a refutation of the minor premise, as we may see by reconstructing the syllogism : A compact between equal parties is subject to the pleasure of all or each, to interpret, construe, or modify ; the Constitution is such a compact between equal and sovereign States ; hence, the Constitution is subject to the pleasure of the individual States, to interpret, construe, or modify. On this minor premise, having conceded the major, he lays out

1 Macaulay, Essays, Vol. iv, pp. 122, 132.

ARGUMENTA TION. 631

his strength of refutation, by showing that it is established by the people, not by the States as such ; and in another speech he maintains that' it is not, strictly speaking, a contract.

In an inductive argument, the inquiry of the refuter relates in some form to the completeness of the induction : whether the particulars adduced are weighty enough, or numerous enough, to establish the hypothesis. — ■ Is an alleged example rfeal, — that is, does it apply to the present case, and if so, is it a type example or merely a coincidence .'' An example adduced to prove one side in a controversy may often be offset by an equally cogent example on the other. It is for this reason that facts are so often said to be fallacious ; you can- not always use them as examples to establish general cases. — An argument from analogy provokes this inquiry : is there a cause or a relation so similar to the present case as to be decisive, or is it merely an illustration, which might be offset by counter analogies ? The answer to this question is gen- erally easy, because analogy is not really argument.

Testimony and authority are refuted either by adducing counter evidence, or by showing dishonesty, incompetency, or inconsistency on the part of the witness. Cross-examination in courts of justice is essentially an instrument of refutation.

Illustrations. — i. Many popular superstitions are merely circum- stances too vague and inconclusive to form a real induction, yet they are so used. For instance, seeing the new moon over the left shoulder was doubt- less first noticed in connection with ill luck ; then several coincident occur- rences of this kind gave rise to a general belief that ill luck was necessarily portended.

z. Macaulay thus demolishes an argument from example : " What facts does my honorable friend produce in support of his opinion ? One fact only ; and that a fact which has absolutely nothing to do with the question. The effect of this Reform, he tells us, would be to make the House of Commons all powerful. It was all powerful once before, in the beginning of 1649. Then it cut off the head of the King, and abolished the House of Peers. Therefore, if it again has the supreme power, it will act in the same

632 THE LITERARY TYPES.

manner. Now, Sir, it was not the House of Commons that cut o£E the head of Charles the First ; nor was the House of Commons then all powerful. It had been greatly reduced in numbers by successive expulsions. It was under the absolute dominion of the army. A majority of the House was willing to take the terms offered by the King. The soldiers turned out the majority ; and the minority, not a sixth part of the whole House, passed those votes of which my honorable friend speaks, votes of which the middle classes disapproved then, and of which they disapprove still. " l

3. George Henry Lewes thus refutes an analogical argument of Dr. John- son : " Dr. Johnson was guilty of a surprising fallacy in saying that a great mathematician might also be a great poet : ' Sir, a man can walk east as far as he can walk west.' True, but mathematics and poetry do not differ as east and west ; and he would hardly assert that a man who could walk twenty miles could therefore swim that distance." ^

2. By Parity of Reasoning Detailed analysis, dealing as

it does with premises, subtle distinctions, abstruse lines of argumentation, while it may be good for thinkers conversant with such things, is ill adapted to popular apprehension. Hence many cases rise, especially in public debate, wherein if a refutation is to effect its purpose, and reach the persons who are to profit by it, it must be so pointed as to show its drift at once ; its distinctions must be so broad that no one can fail to see them ; and technicalities must as far as possible be avoided.

The great means of popular refutation, therefore, is parity of reasoning ; that is, constructing a parallel argument wherein like premises are involved, and the same line of reasoning, but applied to more familiar subjects and leading to mani- festly untenable conclusions. In this way the reader or hearer is not bewildered with unravelling fallacies ; he simply sees the lameness of the argument refuted. Parity of reason- ing takes especially the scheme of reductio ad absurdum, dilemma, and chain of reasoning. Analogy, also, from its

1 Macaulay, speeches. Vol. 1, p. 32.

2 Lewes, PrincifUs of Success in Literature, p. 59. The remark of Dr. John- son's may be found in Boswell's Life of Johnson, \'oI. v, p. 38, Hill's edition.

ARGUMENTATION. 633

lucidity, is a favorite instrument of popular refutation ; the power of analogy as an argument is much greater in negative than in positive application.

Examples. — It will be noted that the examples of chain of reasoning quoted from Macaulay and Webster on pp. 622 and 628, above, are both employed as instruments of refutation.

In the following the plea for foreign idiom in English is refuted by an analogy : " It has been maintained that the censure of foreign idiom as un-English has something unreasonable about it, for if such idioms had not been freely imported, our language could never have become the com- prehensive instrument which it now is. The fact is unquestionable, but the inference is weak. As reasonably might it be argued that because a grow- ing boy could eat apples and nuts and raw turnips, and thrive upon such fare, the same individual could digest crude victuals at every subsequent stage of his life ! There are times and seasons in the economy of language quite as truly as in the physiology of animal life. The English Language has had its omnivorous period, or rather periods, in which it has taken in foreign nutriment to the verge of satiety. We have already more variety of phrase than we can well find employment for, and the demand of the present time is rather that we should work up what we have than import more raw material."!

SECTION SECOND. Argumentation in Ordered System.

Corresponding to what in the other types has appeared as description, narration, and exposition in literature, we here consider argumentation as it is made into a body of argu- ments, with the system,- the balance, the literary distinction necessary to make it duly effective of its purpose. Argumen- ' tation in literature this may indeed be called ; it__belongs, however, for thfijnuasJ: .part to the literature„of puhlic speaking, andJs,egpjfiss£d-mAe.order and diction olspokenjiisaQurse.^ ^ When it appears in printed form, it is merely as a palpable

1 Earle, English Prose, p. 304.

2 For Spoken Diction and its Characteristics, see above, pp. 1 18-126.

63+ THE tITERARY TYPES.

imitation of speech or, more often, as a report or publication of what was originally delivered orally.

As a finished whole, this ordered body of arguments is, so to say, greater than the sum of its parts ; this because the parts in juxtaposition so color, reinforce, and augment each other that each gathers power from the rest. The full effect- ing of this is an achievement of literary skill beyond the reach of rules ; only a few suggestions, principally of the ends to be attained, can be given.

I. DEBATE.

In this kind of public discourse the interest, centering entirely in the subject-matter, — its terms, propositions, under- lying grounds, — takes little account of hearers except as thinking beings needing to see an intellectual object clearly and fully. The trenchancy of oratory is present ; not, how- ever, to marked degree, its graces or its emotional element. The ordering is intellectual ; that is, all its parts are planned not to entertain, or even to inspire, but to secure the assent of the mind to a proposition.

By debate, then, we mean a body of arguments and expla- nations designed to produce intellectual conviction regarding some truth in question. It may take place between opponents, with the various sides of the question maintained by cham- pions, or it may be merely an individual discussion. In any case, the debater's duty is rather to the truth he is handling than to the hearer or the occasion ; and though there is a zest in achieving a victory, yet this is ill gained if gained by doubt- ful means or at any expense to honest conviction. In other words, as truth is worth more than victory, the procedures and tactics of debate are to be determined by the demands of truth first, and only secondarily by the temporary claims of contest.

ARG UMENTA TION. 635

Preparation of the Question. — All that may be said about the determination of the theme^ in general literary work is raised to its highest degree of importance in debate. The preparation of the question is the determination of the theme or working-idea ; only here the theme is to be cleared of all vagueness and discursiveness, to be not an idea merely, but a definitely worded, clear-cut proposition, in which the truth evolved from the question at issue, as the debater sees it, is reduced to an assertion. In formal discussions this statement of the theme is put as a resolution ; which then, either posi- tively or negatively, each speaker construes, explains, and submits to argument.

After the statement of the question as resolved, much depends on the construing of it, which is a work of expo- sition. Two aspects or stages of this are to be noted.

1. By exposition the question is to be subjected to every serviceable means of exegesis and explication. Whatever is obscure is to be put into accurate and lucid language ; what- ever is hard is to be simplified and defined ; whatever is of subordinate importance is to be distinguished from the main issue ; and thus, in a word, the case at issue is to be concen- trated to a statement whereon, if possible, all the parties to the discussion may agree.^

Note. — How important and serviceable the mere exhiUting of the case may be, even to the extent sometimes of making argument superfluous, is illustrated from Lincoln's manner of preparing a question described in the note on p. 555, above.

2. By exposition the nature and extent of the question are to be determined, as the case demands. Whether the issue is

1 For the theme in general and its character, see above, pp. 421 sqq.

2 For the applications of Exposition involved in this, see pp. 576 sqq., above.

636 THE LITERARY TYPES.

one of fact or of principle ; whether of right or of expediency ; whether admitting of certain decision or only probable ; whether of universal or of limited application ; — such ques- tions as these, questions to be answered by a kind of larger exposition, do much to determine on what lines the propo- sition is to be argued, and what range of result is to be sought.

Illustration. — The following, on the legislative question of Copy- right, shows how such considerations as these affect the discussion.

" The first thing to be done. Sir, is to settle on what principles the question is to be argued. Are we free to legislate for the public good, or are we not.' Is this a question of expediency, or is it a question of right? Many of those who have written and petitioned against the existing state of things treat the question as one of right. The law of nature, according to them, gives to every man a sacred and indefeasible property in his own ideas, in the fruits of his own reason and imagination. The legislature has indeed the power to take away this property, just as it has the power to pass an act of attainder for cutting off an innocent man's head without a trial. But, as such an act of attainder would be legal murder, so would an act invading the right of an author to his copy be, according to these gentlemen, legal robbery.

" Now, Sir, if this be so, let justice be done, cost what it may. I am not prepared, like my honorable and learned friend, to agree to a compromise between right and expediency, and to commit an injustice for the public con- venience. But I must say, that his theory soars far beyond the reach of my faculties. It is not necessary to go, on the present occasion, into a metaphysical inquiry about the origin of the right of property ; and cer- tainly nothing but the strongest necessity would lead me to discuss a subject so likely to be distasteful to the House." Etc.

By a paragraph of such exposition he fixes the exact issue, and then says : " We may now, therefore, I think, descend from these high regions, where we are in danger of being lost in the clouds, to firm ground and clear light. Let us look at this question like legislators." i In other words, this question is of such nature as to demand practical, not theoretical, procedure.

1 Macaulay, Speeches^ p. 279.

ARGUMENTA TION. 637

II.

Measures looking to Attack and Defense For the question's

sake and for the progress of thought, no less than for the sake of contest, it is of practical value to treat the issue on the military plan, as something calling for attack and defense. For not only may an alert opponent draw away one's energies to side issues ; the question itself, also, has many digressions and subordinate involvements to solicit an unwary debater away from the main line of procedure. He must keep the main truth in mind, a cause that must emerge clear from every confusion of discussion ; must be watchful also of everything that would make against or obscure it.

The following are some of the things to be provided for, as occasion calls, in the tactics of debate.

The Burden of Proof The question which side in a debate

has the burden of proof, that is, must lead the attack and make its contention good by positive argument, is answered by ascertaining which side has the presumption of things with it. The prevailing order of custom or opinion holds the field, and has merely the defensive. Whoever proposes an innovation, or maintains some proposition not generally held, must take upon himself the labor, or burden, of proving it. A man is presumed innocent until he is proved guilty. A cus- tom, statute, or prevailing opinion is presumed good until it is demonstrated to be bad. An important step it is, therefore, bringing out as it does the intrinsic strength of the cause, and dictating the method of procedure, to locate rightly the burden of proof.

In some merely speculative discussions the question of the burden of proof is not of enough significance to pay for rais- ing. Such cases of course are to be discovered and allowed for by the debater ; they belong to the question of essentials and non-essentials for his purpose.

638 THE LITERARY TYPES.

Points to be conceded. — A great promotive both of fairness in discussion and of clearness in fixing the issue is the conced- ing of points on which there is no contest. A debater who will yield nothing is liable to incur the odium not only of being obsti- nate and wrong-headed but of having a lame cause. A debater who concedes broadly and generously, on points of common agreement, secures a fairer hearing, while also the spirit of concession betokens a broader and wiser mastery of the question. As a matter of clever procedure it is not infre- quently wise to yield to one's opponent in every point except the one wherein he would make his opponent yield to him.

Points to be waived. — To waive is not the same as to con- cede. It is simply to set aside or postpone some consider- ation which, though not yielded, is not relevant, not in place here. This belongs to the watchful business of keeping the course of argument simple and clear. The consideration thus waived may come up afterward, when the way is opened for it by argument. Or it may, if admitted, merely complicate or befog the case. An unscrupulous opponent may seek no better escape from a lame cause than to involve the debater in some irrelevant discussion. It is important, therefore, to have an alert sense for what should, or may, be waived as not to the present purpose.

Fairness of Encounter Fairness, largeness, honesty of

encounter applies both to the statement of an opponent's views and to the estimate of an opponent's argument.

1. Fair and full statement of the opponent's position, with- out attempt to modify his words in order to favor your own side, is the only procedure that pays in the long run. It pays for your own argument; for if the opponent's position is strong, to whittle -at it is only to attempt evasion, and thus indirectly to confess yourself baffled. It pays also in fortify- ing your own position ; for if in representing your antagonist

ARGUMENTA TION. 639

you leave some unappreciated point, some underrated principle, it will work to your discomfiture.

2. While of course an opponent's weak argument is to be shown as weak, on the other hand, when an opponent's argu- ment is found impregnable, honesty requires that the fact be fairly acknowledged. Subterfuge and evasion in the face of an evident truth may be the natural impulse of a wounded pride, but they are ruinous tactics for a broad and noble cause. As to the treatment of an opponent's argument recog- nized as strong, — if its strength is evident and yet you sur- pass, you have the greater honor ; the stronger foe gives the nobler victory.

III.

Order of Arguments. — Although the order in which a body of arguments is arranged is a matter of cardinal importance, little can be laid down by way of rule. It must, be left for the most part to the tact of the reasoner, the character of the audience, the state of feeling and knowledge regarding the question, the presuppositions to be encountered, and many other considerations that can be determined only in the individual case.

All that can be done here, therefore, is to note a few ways in which arguments of various types and characters derive advantage from the relative order in which they are placed.

As regards Kind of Argument. — Some types of argument contain intrinsically a suggestion of the relative position they should occupy in the discussion.

In an inductive investigation, concerned with a question, the leading place is naturally due to considerations that estab- lish an antecedent probability, — the a priori type of argu- ment.i This becomes the basis of procediire, the hypothesis ; and whatever is added by testimony comes in then either to

1 See above, p. 6p8 sj.

640 THE LITERARY TYPES.

Strengthen the probability or to compel modification. Thus the order is from the more general to the more particular and circumstantial. If the argument from probability came in after the other, it would seem to betray the reasoner's sense that positive testimony is inadequate and must be buttressed up by something else.

The deductive type of argument, based as it is on acknowl- edged truths and principles, has something of a clinching and enforcing nature, and hence, in a series of arguments, would naturally occupy a place well along in the discussion, after the preliminaries are disposed of, and the course of thought draws toward its summary and conclusion. So much of sug- gestion, not absolute but to be taken for what the individual case makes it worth, may be drawn from the intrinsic character of the type.

Arguments from example and analogy, being of more exposi- tory and illustrative nature,^ come naturally near the begin- ning or near the end, according as they define the issue and lay it out, or summarize and clinch it.

As to Relative Strength of Arguments A body of argu- ments, of all literary works, is especially susceptible to climax, — an order growing to greater strength and cogency. Yet also, so much depends on the vigor of the first impression, that it will not do to begin with an argument obviously weak, however its effect may be retrieved. The resource seems to be, to begin with arguments that are strong in the sense of being clear, explanatory, self-evident, — in other words, argu- ments that contain most of the expository virtue. On the same principle, the final argument, which gathers up the con- clusiveness of the whole, should be strong in the sense of being comprehensive, summarizing, containing most of consequence and enforcement.

Arguments relatively weak, while they are to occupy the

1 See above, p. 615.

ARGUMENTATION. 641

intermediate position, with bulk and prominence graduated to their intrinsic value, may derive, as to placing, much advantage from their companion arguments. Not infre- quently an argument that does no more than open a prob- ability for another to utilize, or add a coloring to its predecessor, may by its juxtaposition both receive and lend, till each has the strength of two. This fact dictates that a minor consideration should ally itself with pleas of more importance, so as to gain the advantage of fellowship and position.

Order of Refutation. — The order that refutation should occupy in debate depends on the strength of the position refuted, and on the prominence it already has in the mind of the public addressed. When the opposed idea holds full possession of the field, the first business must be to dislodge it ; there is no room for a new argument until the old view is cleared away. On the other hand, when the refuted posi- tion is insignificant, the order of refutation may recognize its insignificance ; the refutation may come in incidentally as a corollary of the argument most potent to overthrow the error.

All this is merely one aspect of the wisdom that is needed in refutation, manifest in the estimate placed upon the opponent's strength. In strength also, as well as in posi- tion, the refutation should be wisely adapted to the exact significance of the opposed argument, neither belittling nor exaggerating it. It is manifestly unwise to underrate the opponent's position ; the refutation must be stronger if it is to act as a real refutation. On the other hand, it is manifestly unwise to spend superfluous energy in refuting a weak position ; the very exertion put forth advertises it for strong. To put forth just the power requisite to dispossess the hearer of an erroneous view is the work of nice calcu- lation and tact.

642 THE LITERARY TYPES.

Note. — In Webster's speech on "The Constitution not a Compact between Sovereign States," already quoted from to illustrate negative argu- ment, the first half is devoted to an elaborate refutation of the widely prevalent Nullification doctrine. In Burke's Bristol Speech, where the refutation is merely an incidental answer to objections, it comes in as a. supplementary part added in the interests of completeness.

II.- ORATORY.

From debate, that comparatively simple body of arguments wherein ordering, tone, and style are determined by the sub- ject-matter, we pass now to a far more complex kind of discourse, wherein not the subject-matter alone but the per- son apprehending it, not the brain alone but the emotions and the whole man, have their proportioned share in the appeal. In oratory, on account of the issues involved, we may fitly conceive all the elements of discourse raised, as it were, to a higher power, suffused with the glow of immediate personal interest, and vitalized from the inner world of motive. Thus we have reached the summit and crown of the rhetorical art, the utterance wherein style and invention, wherein sub- ject, author, and audience, all come to typical relation and expression.

I.

The Essence of Oratory. — Every hearer for whom oratory is designed has a vague ideal of what it should be ; and if what he hears turns out to be merely a thing in oratory's cloth- ing, — a lecture, an essay read aloud, or a severely reasoned speech, — he is aware that something is wrong, though he cannot define it; the spoken delivery has not made it ora- tory. It is important, then, to inquire what are the distin- guishing qualities, the attributes essential to oratory.

By oratory we mean public discourse of the argumenta- tive type, in which truth of personal import and issue is presented and enforced.

A KG UMENTA TION. 643

Let us analyze this definition.

1. The truth with which oratory deals is of personal import; that is, it so touches the hearer's life-interests that his active impulses may be enlisted in it ; and it is of per- sonal issue ; that is, it has a trend of imperative, it contem- plates more or less nearly an outcome in will and conduct. In its sphere, therefore, is comprised all the truth by which men live and devise action ; the truth underlying conduct, character, faith, enterprise, righteousness.

Note. — A reasoner who is endeavoring to demonstrate that the planet Mars is inhabited is indeed handling an intricate argumentative problem ; he is seeking to find a truth, or at least a balance of probability ; but if he solves the problem ever so clearly the answer cannot in the smallest degree appeal to the hearer's will. An interesting thing it is to know, but there is no point that can be a claim on him to do. On the other hand, when Demosthenes ceases presenting to his audience a truth which is also an appeal, and has given it the requisite power of diction and delivery, his hearers cry, " Up ! let us march against Philip ! " The truth has taken possession of their will, and wrought its purpose in an impulse to action. And such an impulse, more or less immediate, is what vitalizes the truth presented in oratory.

2. The literary type to which oratory predominantly belongs is the argumentative ; but the imperative cast of its theme causes the argumentation to assume a modified, more impassioned character, which we term persuasion ; instead of moving in the formal lines of logical reasoning it may on occasion have the tone and order of emotion and appeal. All this, however, far from impairing its argumentative force, rather gives it greater elevation and freedom.

Note. — The other literary types also, as will be specified later, are freely drawn upon for the purposes of oratory ; each giving its distinctive power where it will best aid.

3. The diction of oratory, like that of debate, is spoken diction, with its fulness and freedom ^ ; but as it is addressed

1 See Spoken Diction, pp. 1 18-126, above.

644 THE LITERARY TYPES.

not merely to the brain but to the emotions, and through these to the will, its general tone is more impassioned and fervid. By this is not meant that oratorical diction must assume these strenuous qualities, for it may be as plain and familiar as conversation ; but also it rises freely with its theme, and answers to the glow of emotion or sublimity or imagination that enters into it. The ideal of oratorical style, in its general compass and effect, is called elo- quence.

Working Essentials of Eloquence. — No definition of elo- quence is needed here, nor directions for acquiring it. It is not something to be inculcated ; one might as well be com- manded to write poetry. Nor is it to be acquired by work- ing directly for it ; on6 can by effort become declamatory and turgid, not truly eloquent. For eloquence subsists as well with the homely as with the sublime ; and into it enter not words alone but the character of the orator, his skill over subject and audience, his response to the occasion, — many things too elusive to bind into rules. '^

1 Daniel Webster's famous description of eloquence, description and example in one, may here stand in lieu of definition : " When public bodies are to be addressed on momentous occasions, -when great interests are at stake, and strong passions excited, nothing is valuable in speech farther than as it is connected with high intel- lectual and moral endowments. Clearness, force, and earnestness are the qualities which produce conviction. True eloquence, indeed, does not consist in speech. It cannot be brought from far. Labor and learning may toil for it, but they will toil in vain. Words and phrases may be marshalled in every way, but they cannot compass it. It must exist in the man, in the subject, and in the occasion. Affected passion, intense expression, the pomp of declamation, all may aspire to it ; they cannot reach it. It comes, if it come at all, like the outbreaking of a fountain from the earth, or the bursting forth of volcanic fires, with spontaneous, original, native force. The graces taught in the schools, the costly ornaments and studied contrivances of speech, shock and disgust men, when their own lives, and the fate of their wives, their chil- dren, and their country, hang on the decision of the hour. Then words have lost their power, rhetoric is vain, and all elaborate oratory contemptible. Even genius itself then feels rebuked and subdued, as in the presence of higher qualities. Then patriotism is eloquent ; then self-devotion is eloquent. The clear conception, outrun- ning the deductions of logic, the high purpose, the firm resolve, the dauntless spirit, speaking on the tongue, beaming from the eye, informing every feature, and urging the whole man onward, right onward to his object, — this, this is eloquence ; or rather,

ARGUMENTATION. 645

On account of prevalent misconceptions, however, we may here make a few discriminations, principally by way of saying what eloquence is not.

1. Eloquence is not grandiloquence ; not synonymous with* ambitious or pretentious style. It is simply wise to respond to occasion. When the occasion itself is eloquent, then its best expression may be silence ; and it knows when plainness and even bareness of statement works with the occasion to have power on men.

2. Eloquence does, however, exclude considerations that are subtle and far-fetched, hair-splitting discriminations of thought, fine-spun threads of reasoning, ultra-literary phrase' and imagery ; because these are ill-adapted to spoken dis- course, and dissipate earnestness in subtlety of thought.

3. Eloquence, dealing with common men, moves among the interests and motives that are common to all. Its realm of truth is common sense, we may almost say commonplace ; its close touch with life, however, clothes common ideas with newness of interest.

4. When on occasion eloquence rises into splendor of style, rhythm, imagery, as it has full liberty to do, still its basis of structure and phrase remains as plain as ever. Its great efforts are not complexity but largeness, and greater for being more simple and close to common men.^

II.

The Basis of Relation with the Audience. — The orator's relation with his audience is best conceived as an alliance, wherein, although the audience yield to his views and argu- ments, they yield because they are glad to yield, and see it

it is something greater and higher than all eloquence, — it is action, noble, subUme, godlike action." — Webster, Oration on Adams and Jefferson, Webster 's Great Speeclies, p. 167.

1 For approach of impassioned prose to poetry, see above, pp. 166-168.

646 THE LITERARY TYPES.

for their interest to do so. He makes, in other words, com- mon cause with them ; comes to them as a friend and comrade who, if he is to benefit by convincing them, is to 'do so only as he partakes with them in a benefit common to all. He may indeed gain a great victory over their preju- dices and opinions ; but it is the victory not of siege and conquest but of friendliness and favor. It is on this basis that all oratorical achievements of value are made.

The Initiative. — Of this friendly relation the initiative, which must be taken by the speaker, must be such as to inspire confidence both in him as an able and honest man, and in his subject as he presents it. This, in modern ora- tory, is not done by speaking about one's self, or by a display of personal sentiments and motives ^ ; rather by that sincerity ■ of word and bearing which evinces the same trust that it would awaken.

1. This initiative sums up best in manly, self-respecting frankness. Audiences resent being talked down to, as from a loftier station of learning or society ; equally they resent flattery or effusiveness. He is as good as they ; but also they have rights, abilities, opinions, that are to be respected. A man who takes such attitude to his audience has their ear not only for agreeable things but for sharp and searching, even reproving truths, so long as they are aware of his honesty and friendliness.

Note. — This friendly relation with the audience may be strikingly illus- trated from the career of Abraham Lincoln as a public speaker. Of his method he himself once said : " I always assume that my audience are in many things wiser than I am, and I say the most sensible thing I can to them. I never found that they did not understand me." His biographers, Nicolay and Hay, say of him : " He assumed at the start a frank and friendly relation with the jury which was extremely effective. He usually began, as the phrase ran, by ' giving away his case ' ; by allowing to the opposite side every possible advantage that they could honestly and justly

1 See above, p. 451.

ARGUMENTA TION. 647

claim. Then he would present his own side of the case, with a clearness, a candor, an adroitness of statement which at once flattered and convinced the jury, and made even the bystanders his partisans." i

2. The effectual bar to such alliance with the audience is any kind of artifice. The average men composing an audi- ence, naturally responsive to plain good sense, are apt to become suspicious of tricks of reasoning, extreme plausibility of statement, labored ingenuity of thought, an ironical or cynical manner, or any way of speaking that does not repre- sent the orator's station and advantages in life. What they resent is, being worked upon, or made the target of artful skill ; what best secures, if not their admiration, at least their practical assent, is a sensible, straightforward approach which seems to have in it no art at all.^

Note. — The following anecdote, related by Professor Phelps, will illus- trate the futility of an evident artifice : —

" Patrick Henry thought to win the favor of the backwoodsmen of Virginia by imitating their colloquial dialect, of which his biographer gives the following specimen from one of his speeches : ' All the larnin upon the yairth are not to be compaired with naiteral pairts.' But his hearers, back- woodsmen though they were, knew better than that ; and they knew that a statesman of the Old Dominion ought to speak good English. They were his severest critics." ^

The Handling of Human Nature An accomplished orator

has by native endowment, and heightens by determinate culture, a power to read his audience, and to adapt himself instinctively to them. In its higher exercise this power becomes a rapport, a magnetism, which cannot be acquired by rule and whose source is not fully understood. But apart

1 NicoLAY AND Hay, Life of Lincoln, Vol. i, p. 307.

2 " If the orator can make his hearers believe that he is not only a stranger to all unfair artifice, but even destitute of all persuasive skill whatever, he will persuade them the more effectually ; and if there ever could be an absolutely perfect orator, no one would {at the time, at least) discover that he was jo." — Mathews, Oratory and Orators, p. 208.

3 Phelps, English Style in Public Discourse, p. 18.

648 THE LITERARY TYPES.

from this, there is a sagacity, a tact, an insight, to be employed in approaching men, which is no mystery, but a part of the good sense requisite in every man who is engaged in the work of persuasion.

This power to deal with human nature may be noted under two aspects.

I. It is manifest in an intuitive knowledge, gathered from the physiognomy and general appearance of the audience, what is their intellectual capacity, their grade of culture, their cast of mind, their sphere of prepossession and preju- dice. The skilful orator, as he goes on, is quick to see the assent, or the bewilderment, or the disagreement, or the stolidity, that meets his words, and shapes or modifies his procedure accordingly. Thus, by the signs that he has by long conversance learned to read in men, he adapts his ideas and influence to them.''

Note. — The following is related of Rufus Choate and his skill with an audience : " No advocate ever scanned more watchfully the faces of his hearers while speaking. By long practice he had learned to read their senti- ments as readily as if their hearts had been throbbing in glass cases. In one jury address of five hours, he hurled his oratorical artillery for three of them at the hard-headed foreman, upon whom all his bolts seemed to be spent in vain. At last, the iron countenance relaxed, the strong eyes moistened, and Choate was once more master of the situation."'^

2. It is shown secondly in the sagacity to approach men according to the motives and sentiments most operative with them ; to enter their sphere of ideas, to appreciate their

1 " Him we call an artist who shall play on an assembly of men as a master on the keys of a piano, — ■ who, seeing the people furious, shall soften and compose them, shall draw them, when he will, to laughter and to tears. Bring him to his audience, and, be they who they may, — coarse or refined, pleased or displeased, sulky or sav- age, with their opinions in the keeping of a confessor, or with their opinions in their bank-safes, — he will have them pleased and humored as he chooses ; and they shall carry and execute that which he bids them." — Emerson, Eloquence^ Works, Vol. vii, p. 67.

2 Mathews, Oratory and Orators, p. 372.

ARGUMENTA TION. 649

standards of life, to strike the chord of their sympathies and interests in accordance with their station, intelligence, or pur- suit. Thus the orator finds them, and makes the connection between their interests and his cause.^

Note. — Shakespeare illustrates this knowledge of human nature, and the lack of it, in the way the speeches of Brutus and Antony, respectively, are received by the hearers.

Brutus has eloquence but neither knowledge of men nor sympathy with his mob audience. He presents to them high considerations of patriotism Emd honor, and alt the response he gets is a vague admiration for his person : —

•• All. Live, Brutus ! live, live ! '

First at. Bring him with triumph home unto his house.

Sec. at. Give him a statue with his ancestors.

Third Cit. Let him be Csesar.

Fourth Cit. Caesar's better parts

Shall be crown'd in Brutus.

First at. We '11 bring him to his house with shouts and clamors."

Antony, who knows what chords to strike in a mob, dwells on Caesar's kindness and regard for them, rouses pity for his wounds, which he points out and describes, and appeals to their cupidity by mentioning his will, in which they are remembered. For response, he raises in them a. fury that only desperate deeds can quell : —

"All. Revenge! About! Seek! Burn! Fire! Kill! Slay! Let not a traitor live ! . . .

First at. Come, away, away !

We '11 bum his body in the holy place,

1" Persuasion implies that some course of conduct shall be so described, or expressed, as to coincide, or be identified, with the active impulses of the individuals addressed, and thereby command their adoption of it by the force of their own nat- ural dispositions. A leader of banditti has to deal with a class of persons whose ruling impulse is plunder ; and it becomes his business to show that any scheme of his proposing will lead to this end. A people with an intense, overpowering patriot- ism, as the old Romans, can be acted on by proving that the interests of country are at stake. The fertile oratorical mind is one that can identify a case in hand with a great number of the strongest beliefs of an audience ; and more especially with those that seem, at first sight, to have no connection with the point to be carried. The discovery of identity in diversity is never more called for, than in the attempts to move men to adopt some unwonted course of proceeding." — Bain, The Senses and the Intellect^ p. 542.

650 THE LITERARY TYPES.

And with the brands fire the traitors' houses.

Take up the body.

Sec. at. Go fetch fire.

Third Cit. Pluck down benches.

Fourth Cit. Pluck down forms, windows, anything. \_Exeunt Citizens with the body.

Ant. Now let it work. — Mischief, thou art afoot.

Take thou what course thou wilt." ^

Here the greater and better man lost his cause through lack of sagacity : the unscrupulous man gained his end by skill. But there is no reason for divorcing skill and tact from a noble cause.

III.

Forms and Agencies of Appeal. — The conciliatory relation with the audience, and the ruling tone of persuasion, give to oratory the character of appeal ; its surge of influence sums up in a plea addressed to the active impulses of men, and with a more or less immediate solution in action. This plea is none the less real for being implicit. A modern literary tendency to subdue the expression of emotion has been mentioned ^ ; to be less didactic and hortatory is a phase of the same tendency. This, however, is rather a matter of form than of intrinsic character. The plea, the appeal, still exists, albeit in disguise ; it does its work all the more surely for being not overt and advertised but an unsuspected power infused through the whole. It is the literary recog- nition of Pope's wise precept,

" Men must be taught as if you taught them not, And things unknown proposed as things forgot." 3

This pervasive power of appeal is secured most fundamen- tally of all by the imperative character of the theme, as con- ceived and worked to throughout the discourse. As already

1 Quotations from Shakespeare, Julius Casar, Act iii, Scene 2.

2 See above, p. 96, footnote, and p. 102.

8 Pope, Essay on Criticism, Ft. iii, 1. 15,

ARGUMENTATION. 651

said/ the orator chooses an object rather than a subject ; he is concerned in creating or augmenting some wave of active impulse ; the information he imparts and the entertainment he affords is all subservient to this. So, having conceived his theme in this form of precept or dictate, his whole discourse works to make the object clear and cogent.

In order to achieve such an object, the speaker must enlist the whole man in his cause, must make him at once see, feel, and will the truth. In discussing, therefore, the procedures necessary to this end, we will take up each side of human nature in turn, and consider what phase of the appeal is naturally adapted to it.

I. The Appeal to the Intellect This, of course, in the ora- tory of an educated, self-governed people, is the controlling element. Action must be intelligent action, proposed and grounded, its means and ends determined, through the think- ing powers, the brain. To be sure, thought in itself does not furnish impulse ; but when by other means impulse is stirred and enthusiasm roused, the thought is there to guide and temper, making the outcome sane and wise. The intellectual control it is that rescues emotion from the maudlin or frivo- lous, and united action from the wild frenzy of a mob.

Illustrations of Action without Intellectual Regulative. — Mark Antony, in the scene already cited, was but too willing to rouse passions without thought. The mob rushed blindly forth to destroy, fell upon Cinna the poet and tore him in pieces merely because 'he bote the same name with Cinna the conspirator, — were, in short wholly uncontrollable in their mad fury; while Antony, well pleased, satisfied himself with saying, —

" Now let it work. — Mischief, thou art afoot, Take thou what course thou wilt."

Another remarkable instance of passions aroused without a basis of rea- son is recorded in Acts xix. 23-41, where certain designing people lash a mob to frenzy by an appeal to their cupidity. " Some therefore cried one thing, and some another : for the assembly was confused ; and the more 1 See above, p. 428, 3.

652 THE LITERARY TYPES.

part knew not wherefore they were come together." And when Alexander attempted to explain matters to them, " all with one voice about the space of two hours cried out, ' Great is Diana of the Ephesians.' "

1. This appeal to the intellect, however, has different degrees of explicitness, according to the nature of the issue ; and this fact it is which causes the great variety in the seem- ing fervidness of public speech. To put it in other words : in every persuasive discourse there are two elements, the didactic and the hortatory. In old-fashioned oratory these two elements, as argument and application, occupied different sections of the discourse ; nowadays, however, it is generally deemed better to blend the two, giving fact or argument the attitude of appeal, and appeal the solidity of information or truth. At the same time, these elements may have varying emphasis and proportion, according as the address is con- cerned more with the end of action or with the means. When men are slow to commit themselves to the end proposed, exhortation is needed to awaken a sense of its importance ; when, though earnest in allegiance to the end, men are not sufficiently informed as to the means, the didactic element must predominate, in order to make their allegiance rational and wise.

Note. — In the late Civil War, for instance, when throughout the land orators were urging men to enlist and serve their country's need, the ques- tion of means was but subordinate, and the principal element of discourse was exhortation. On the other hand, in a large proportion of pulpit dis- course, that which is addressed to those who have already complied with the general end of obeying Christ as Lord, the predominating element must be educative, — setting forth the means and involvements of a Christian life.

2. Of the literary types concerned in the appeal to the intellect, the argumentative, predominating, determines the classification of oratory ; it is in the liberal sense argumenta- tion. Exposition, with its passion for clearness and fulness of conception, has a function scarcely second in importance.

ARGUMENTATION. 653

If the other types, narration and description, are employed in this kind of appeal, it is in the interests of these, — to fur- nish help in explaining and establishing a theory, not for their picturesque or stirring power.

Note. — In courts of justice, for instance, the elaborate machinery of taking testimony, cross-examination, and so forth, may in one light be regarded as accumulating material for a story of the event in question; and the lawyer's plea often consists largely in reconstructing the story according to his interpretation of the evidence. An example of such a narrative maybe found in the beginning of Webster's speech on the murder of Captain Joseph White.l

3. As to style-qualities, two things in the appeal to the intellectual powers of the hearer are imperative, constituting in fact the practical summary of oratorical style.

First, it should aim, with especial rigor, to economize the hearer's interpreting power.^ Words from the every-day vocabulary, simplicity and directness of phrase, a Strong and pointed sentence structure, an ordering of parts made lucid by marked indications of plan and consecutiveness, reasoning where there is only one step from premise to conclusion and no solution is left obscure or in long suspense, • — these are the economizing agencies which adapt oratorical style to popular apprehension. The ideal is to use up as little of the hearer's energy as possible in merely understanding, because it is a case wherein the stress comes on realizing and on committal to the issue.

Secondly, for purposes of persuasion thought should be presented copiously. It is a case wherein repetition of thought in many aspects and phases, and body of ampli- fication secured by detail and illustration, are of especial service.^ For the hearer's mind has not merely to catch

1 How narrative may be turned into argument is illustrated above, p. 605, note.

2 See above, p. 24.

8 For this method of amplification and its uses, see above, pp. 462, 2, 465.

654 THE LITERARY TYPES.

and apprehend the thought; he needs to be, so to say, satu- rated with it, so that he may carry it with him as an impulse and working consciousness.

Note. — The first of these requisites will help us to understand why a fine-drawn style, as mentioned on p. 645, 2, above, is unfavorable to eloquence. And on account of the second requisite a condensed and epi- grammatic style, though charming for other reasons, is not favorable to persuasion, at least as the staple of the discourse ; its office is to give point and rememberable quality to what is elsewhere amplified (compare p. 353, above). The comparative futility of this condensed style is illustrated in the speech of Brutus, in Shakespeare's y«/»«j Ccesar.

2. The Appeal to the Emotions By this element of ora- tory, which like the others is not to be thought of as set off by itself but as pervasive and implicit, the hearer is roused from apathy or indifference, or from the passiveness of contemplative thought, and his sympathies are made to respond to the pathos or humor, the sublimity or beauty, the inspiring or exasperating influence of the occasion, so as not merely to contemplate but to enter into and realize the nature of the issue at stake. This appeal is not yet per- suasion ; nor does the power to make men weep or laugh mean oratorical power. It bears the same relation to actual persuasion that overcoming inertia does to the working of a machine : once get the wheels in motion, and it is com- paratively ^asy to keep them going until the motion is directed to a useful function. Once rouse the man to feel the issue, and the way is clear to translate enthusiasm into duty.

1. For this kind of appeal the portraying and vivifying forms of discourse are called into play : the picturing agency of description, imagery, illustration ; the telling scenes, situa- tions, dramatic points of narration; the trenchant vigor of antithesis, epigram, trope, interrogation. These are here recounted as if they could be used as directed and produce

ARGUMENTATION. 655

the emotion ; but behind them, of course, and without which they are vain, is the speaker's personality, possessed of the same emotion, and reinforcing all these with voice and action.

Illustration. — Antony's speech over Czesar's dead body, as given by Shakespeare, illustrates the concrete, vivid, amplified portrayal adapted to awaken the hearer's realizing power ; it reaches the crowd through their imagination and sympathy. Here is part of it : —

" If you have tears, prepare to shed them now. You all do know this mantle : I remember The first time ever Caesar put it on ; 'T was on a summer's evening, in his tent. That day he overcame the Nervii : Look, in this place ran Cassius' dagger through : See what a rent the envious Casca made : Through this the well-belovfed Brutus stabbid ; And as he pluck'd his cursfed steel away, Mark how the blood of Caesar follow'd it. As rushing out of doors, to be resolved If Brutus so unkindly knock'd, or no : For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar's angel : Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him ! This was the most unkindest cut of all ; For, when the noble Caesar saw him stab, Ingratitude, more strong than traitors' arms. Quite vanquish'd him : then burst his mighty heart ; And, in his mantle mufiling up his face. Even at the base of Pompey's statua, Which all the while ran blood, great Caesar fell." i

2. In employing the means that rouse emotion, the speaker has to consult wisely the taste, the culture, the familiar ideas, of the persons addressed. What to him is funny may leave them stolid ; what to him is cheap pathos may rouse their liveliest feelings of sympathy or grief. Uneducated people are more easily swayed by pathos, humor, or impassioned phrase ; but at the same time more palpable and striking, more coarse-grained means must be used. The jokes must be of the knock-down kind, with a point like a bludgeon, and 1 Shakespeare, /kA'kj Cxsar, Act iii, Scene 2.

656 THE LITERARY TYPES.

must turn not so much on words as on acts and situations. The emotional figures must be overt and emphatic, verging to declamation and rant. Educated people, on the other hand, acting more from judgment than from sympathy, are less sus- ceptible to direct emotional appeal ; but when they are moved it is by more delicate means, — by a pathetic touch, by some stroke on the subtler chords of human nature, rather than by horse-play or melodrama. It is part of the orator's handling of human nature to enter the sphere where his audience's tastes and sympathies are, and by his wisely chosen words give moving voice to them.

Note. — The greater delicacy and subdual of modem literary methods, already mentioned, is an aspect of this ; a transfer to the more educated and tasteful sphere into which the culture of the age is moving. It betokens not less emotion, but emotion concerned with other objects, — which latter may be deeper and, more vital though less demonstrative.

3. Emotion cannot be manufactured ; it must exist in genuine depth and fulness in the orator himself, and flow to his hearers by the natural channel of truth. At the same time our modern standard, at least among the more culti- vated classes, is not favorable to a great show of emotion. The signs of emotion, in voice and manner, and to a great extent in style, are better suppressed, or rather subdued to understatement, in order that the grounds and provocatives of emotion may be kept in advance of them. Then if in spite of repressive effort they break bounds, they are exhibited to real purpose.^

1 " It was a maxim of Webster's, that violence of language was indicative of feebleness of thought and want of reasoning power, and it was his practice rather to understate than overstate the strength of his confidence in the soundness of his own arguments, and the logical necessity of his conclusions. He kept his auditor constantly in advance of him, by suggestion rather than by strong asseveration, by a calm exposition of considerations which ought to excite feeUng in the heart of both speaker and hearer, not by an undignified and theatrical exhibition of passion in himself." — Marsh, Lectures on the English Language, p. 235.

ARGUMENTA TION. 657

Note. — After the appended account of Webster's habitual moderation and self-repression, it will be interesting to note one instance in his career when his emotion mastered him in spite of repression. The scene at the close of his speech in defense of his Alma Mater, Dartmouth College, is thus described by Dr. Chauncey A. Goodrich : —

" ' It is. Sir, as I have said, a. small college. And yet there are those who love it.' —

" Here, the feelings, which he had thus far succeeded in keeping down, broke forth. His lips quivered; his firm cheeks trembled with emotion; his eyes were filled with tears, his voice choked, and he seemed struggling to the utmost simply to gain that mastery over himself which might save him from an unmanly burst of feeling. I will not attempt to give you the few broken words of tenderness in which he went on to speak of his attach- ment to the college. The whole seemed to be mingled throughout with the recollections of father, mother ,brother, and all the privations and trials through which he had made his way into life. Every one saw that it was wholly unpre- meditated, a pressure on his heart, which sought relief in words and tears.

" The court-room during these two or three minutes presented an extraor- dinary spectacle. Chief- Justice Marshall, with his tall and gaunt figure bent over, as if to catch the slightest whisper, the deep furrows of his cheek expanded with emotion, and his eyes suffused with tears ; Mr. Justice Washington at his side, — with his small and emaciated frame, and counte- nance more like marble than I ever saw on any other human being, — leaning forward with an eager, troubled look ; and the remainder of the court, at the two extremities, pressing, as it were, towards a single point, while the audience below were wrapping themselves round in closer folds beneath the bench, to catch each look and every movement of the speaker. If a painter could give us the scene on canvas, — those forms and counte- nances, and Daniel Webster as he there stood in the midst, — it would be one of the most touching pictures in the history of eloquence. One thing it taught me, that the pathetic depends not merely on the words uttered, but still more on the estimate we put upon him who utters them. There was not one among the strong-minded men of that assembly who could think it unmanly to weep, when he saw standing before him the man who had made such an argument melted into the tenderness of a child." ^

3. The Appeal to the Will As has already been inti- mated, the definitive end of oratory, which the work with

1 The account of the scene was procured from Dr. Goodrich by Rufus Choate for his memorial address on Webster at Dartmouth College, 1853. It is quoted in full, Tefft, Webster and his Masterpieces, pp. 1S7 sqq.

658 THE LITERARY TYPES.

the intellect and the emotions exists to promote, is the appeal to the hearer's will. The speaker's aim, in other words, is to create in his hearer an active impulse, a forward current, which shall either find its solution in a concrete deed, — a vote, a verdict, or, as in religious oratory, a decision looking to character, — or be diffused through the life, as a toning up and steadying of the whole man in relation to some sphere of conduct. The thought informed, the emotion awakened, are not merely to be indulged in, as one indulges in the luxury of tears or laughter at a theatre, but practically directed, that it may tend to produce some inner or outward result.

Note. — The following, speaking of the reputed hardness of medical students, thus draws the distinction between emotions directed and emo- tions undirected : " Don't think them heartless ; they are neither better nor worse than you or I ; they get over their professional horrors, and into their proper work ; and in them pity, as an emotion, ending in itself or at best in tears and a long-drawn breath, lessens, — while pity, as a motive, is quickened, and gains power and purpose. It is well for poor human nature that it is so." ^

1. This appeal to the will must be made indirectly. A direct attack would be arbitrary compulsion, not persuasion. The hearer must maintain his action free ; and in doing what the speaker wills please himself with doing what he himself wills. Hence the prqposed action must be so placed before him as to coincide with his own desires, interests, standards of life.

This is done through the active principles of human nature called MOTIVES.

Motives are the premises of persuasive argumentation. They are universally to be counted on in the sane mind; hence they are always at hand as a sufficient reason for a proposed course of belief or action. They cannot be escaped nor forsworn. Men profess good motives if they do not have

1 Brown, Rab and his Friends, in Spare Hours, Vol. i, p. 32.

ARG UMENTA TIOJV. 6S9

them. To say then that it is desirable to appeal to motives is, not enough ; it is futile and suicidal not to base a plea in some way on motive.

Note. — Hence it is that in investigating the actions of men, motives are necessarily taken for granted. In criminal cases, for instance, argu- ments from sign and circumstance seek to substantiate themselves by find- ing some tendency in the man, good or bad, sufficient to cause the deed ; and if a sufficient motive to a strange act cannot be found, or is obviously wanting, the fact throws doubt on the sanity of the perpetrator. Thus in the universal practical mind of men, motiveless ideas either belong to the irresponsible vagaries of madness, or are the mere riot of invention, —

" Fantastic beauty ; such as lurks In some wild Poet, when he works Without a conscience or an aim."

2. Motives are not appealed to as good and bad ; for few if any will own to being actuated by bad motives, and it would be the ruin of any cause to appeal to such grounds of action. There is, however, an intuitive recognition of motives as lower and higher; the lower, beginning with some phase of self-interest, being more universal and practical, the higher, while it may be more speculative, being more complimentary to human nature, and more in the line of highest character. Not always can the highest motives, though acknowledged, be counted on to bring things to pass ; but the appeal should be to the highest that can be counted on for effect.

Note. — No classification of motives can here be attempted ; but three planes of motive, from lower to higher, may here be noted : —

1. Self-Interest : passing upward from profit, prudence, ambition to rise, and the like, to the finer sentiments of integrity, self-expression, self-respect.

2. Duty: to self, which is identified virith many motives of the lower plane ; then to immediate dependents, to laws and customs, to society, to country, to God.

3. Benevolence: which is unselfish, working in philanthropy, self- abnegation and sacrifice, love to neighbor, love to humanity, love of the highest ideals.

660 THE LITERARY TYPES.

Any higher motive may enter into and refine a lower ; any lower motive, when interrogated, is prone to estimate itself on a higher plane. And edu- cation in motive, always making higher planes and standards more operative and practical, is the supreme education of humanity.

3. Three ways of appealing to motive — which we may regard as urging and enforcing the premises of persuasive argument — may here be noted.

First, and most clearly, the motive is named, and the pro- posed action identified with it. This is the most palpably argumentative phase of oratory.

Example. — In the following the motive appealed to is solicitude for the nation's stability and welfare : —

" I am far indeed from wishing that the Members of this House should be influenced by fear in the bad and unworthy sense of that word. But there is an honest and honorable fear, which well becomes those who are intrusted with the dearest interests of a great community ; and to that fear I am not ashamed to make an earnest appeal. It is very well to talk of confronting sedition boldly, and of enforcing the law against those who would disturb the public peace. No doubt a tumult caused by local and temporary irritation ought to be suppressed with promptitude and vigor. Such disturbances, for example, as those which Lord George Gordon raised in 1780, should be instantly put down with the strong hand. But woe to the Government which cannot distinguish between a nation and a mob! Woe to the Government which thinks that a great, a steady, a long con- tinued movement of the public mind is to be stopped like a street riot ! This error has been twice fatal to the great House of Bourbon. God be praised, our rulers have been wiser. The golden opportunity which, if once suffered to escape, might never have been retrieved, has been seized. Nothing, I firmly believe, can now prevent the passing of this noble law, this second Bill of Rights." 1

Secondly, as a more implicit and literary mode of appeal, the presence of the motive may be so taken for granted that, as when a premise is left unmentioned, the motive is treated as not needing identification ; its power is pervasive, coloring thought and style, keeping the whole key of words harmonious

1 Macaulav, speeches. Vol. i, p. 56.

ARGUMENTATION. 661

with it, and thus acting as a kind of inspiration. This is the effective way with educated audiences, who are more respon- sive to the finer shadings of thought and sentiment ; it is the prevailing one also in demonstrative and memorial oratory.

Example. — The following, for those to whom the oration is addressed, has all the power of appeal, though there is no explicit naming of motives : —

" Despite Napoleon even battles are not sums in arithmetic. Strange that a general, half of whose success was due to a sentiment, the glory of France, which welded his army into a thunderbolt, and still burns for us in the fervid song of Beranger, should have supposed that it is numbers and not conviction and enthusiasm which win the final victory. The career of no man in our time illustrates this truth more signally than Garibaldi's. He was the symbol of the sentiment which the wise Cavour molded into a nation, and he wUI be always canonized more universally than any other Italian patriot, because no other represents so purely and simply to the national imagination the Italian ideal of patriotic devotion. His enthusiasm of conviction made no calculation of defeat, because while he could be bafiled he could not be beaten. It was a stream flowing from a mountain heiglit, which might be delayed or diverted, but knew instinctively that it must reach the sea. ' Italia farb. da se.' Garibaldi was that faith incar- nate, and the prophecy is fulfilled. Italy, more proud than stricken, bears his bust to the Capitol, and there the eloquent marble will say, while Rome endures, that one man with God, with country, with duty and conscience, is at last the majority." i

Thirdly, such appeal may in strong cases take the form of invective. This is simply appeal in negative ; that is, it endeavors to shame the hearers out of unworthy motives, in favor of motives more consonant with the cause and more worthy of the men. Just as one may appeal to justice, patri- otism, honesty, benevolence, so, as a reverse, he may inveigh against wrong, cowardice, meanness, selfishness. The urgency of the occasion, together with the vehemence or tact of the speaker, determines the method. It should be observed, that from the beginning the drift of sentiment in oratory has

1 George William Curtis, Orations and Addresses, Vol. i, p. 333.

662 THE LITERARY TYPES.

been increasingly against using personalities ; it is principles, rather than men, that should be attacked.

Example. — The following, as an instrument of refutation, accuses Mr. Pitt of public dishonesty and lack of faith : —

" Sir, I will not say that in all this he was not honest to his own purpose, and that he has not been honest in his declarations and confessions this night ; but I cannot agree that he was honest to this House or honest to the people of this country. To this House it was not honest to make them counteract the sense of the people, as he knew it to be expressed in the petitions upon the table, nor was it honest to the country to act in a dis- guise, and to pursue a secret purpose unknown to them, while affecting to take the road which they pointed out. I know not whether this may not be honesty in the political ethics of the right honorable gentlemen ; but I know that it would be called by a very different name in the common transactions of society, and in the rules of morality established in private life. I know of nothing in the history of this country that it resembles, except, perhaps, one of the most profligate periods — the reign of Charles II., when the sale of Dunkirk might probably have been justified by the same pretense. That monarch also declared war against France, and did it to cover a negotiation by which, in his difficulties, he was to gain a ' solid system of finance.^ "

1 Fox, Rejection of Bonaparte 'j Overtures^ Select British Eloquence, p. 542.

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

[The titles of main divisions, books, cliapters, and sections are in small capitals.]

•Abbreviation and condensation of words

in poetic diction, 142. Abstract, 583.

Accelerated movement in narration, 523. Accurate use of words, 46. Adaptation in rhetoric, i ; Lines of, 3. Additive conjunctions, 260. Adjective and adverb in prose, The, 149. Adjustments of style, 20. Adverb, Placing of the, 245. Adversative conjunctions, 261. A fortiori argument, 613. Alertness of mind, 398. Alexandrine verse, 1S2. Alienisms, 59. Allegory, 85.

Alliance vrith audience in oratory, 645. Alliteration, 156 ; in prose, 159. Allusion, go ; in amplification, 473. Alternation of kinds of sentence, 348;

of kinds of paragraph, 382. Alternative, Analyzing by, 623. Ambiguity, Measures against, 241 ; in

exposition, 577. Americanisms, 55. Amphibrach measure, 177. Amphimacer measure, 178. Amplification, Objects of, 462; Means

of, 464 ; Accessories of, 471. Amplifying ideas, The, 458. Amplifying matter of description, 485. Amplifying paragraph. The, 380. Amplitude, 287.

Analogy, 77 ; in exposition, 567 ; in argumentation, 614.

Analysis, in exposition, 579; by alterna- tive, 623 ; for refutation, 627.

Anapestic measure, 176.

Anecdotes in amplification, 470 ; as type of narrative, 5 16.

Animus of word and figure, io5.

Antecedent probability, 609.

Antecedent, 246; Preparing the, for reference, 249.

Anticipative it and there, 2^^.

Anticlimax, 294,

Antique diction, 133.

Antithesis, 271 ; Errors of, 274 ; as ob- verse, 466 ; in description, 496 ; in nar- ration, 526, 527 ; Exposition by, 566.

Aphorism, 460.

Aphoristic literature, 461.

Aposiopesis, in narrative, 528,

A posteriori argument, 6og.

Apostrophe, 97.

Apothegmatic ending of paragraph, 378 ; summary of thought, 467.

Appeal, Forms and agencies of, 650; to the intellect, 651; to the emotions, 654; to the will, 657; to motives, 660 ; by invective, 661.

Appendages of the plan, 449.

Approaches of prose to poetry. The, 163.

Approaches to invention (Chap, xii), 389.

663

664

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

A priori argument, 609.

Archaic vocabulary, Employment of, 66.

Archaisms, poetic, 144.

Argument, inductive. Grades and species of, 608; a priori J 609; a posteriori, 609 ; from sign, 611 ; from example, 613 ; a fortiori, 613 ; from analogy, 614.

Argumentation (Chap, xvii), 597; definition of, 597; in its type FORMS (Section First), 598; Con- structive, 599 ; Destructive, 622 ; IN ORDERED SYSTEM (Section Second), 633.

Arguments, Order of, 639.

Arrangement of words, prose, 113; in plan, principles of relation and,

438- Art and science discriminated, 4; fine and mechanical, in discoursej 7 ; of

NARRATION, 513.

Association, Figures of, 77 ; of thoughts,

Laws of, 443. Assonance, 157. Asyndeton, ■t^\% footnote. Attack and defense in debate, 637. Attenuation of stress, 339. Audience, Orator's relation with, 645. Authority, 603.

Balanced structure, 309 ; sentence. The,

352. Ballad measure, 180. Bathos, 294.

Beauty, as quality of style, 37, Beginnings and endings in paragraph

construction, 378. Bifurcate classification, 572, 623. Biography, 548. Blending and interchange of measures,

198. Body, by amplification, 462. Brevity, Tendency to, in poetic diction,

141. Burden of proof, The, 637.

Cadence, 219 ; as conclusion, 456.

Caesura, The, 202.

Cant, 73.

Casual topics of meditation, 408.

Causal conjunctions, 264.

Cause and effect, Law of, in thought- association, 445 ; Particulars viewed as, 608.

Chain of reasoning, 621, 627.

Characters in a story. The, 530,

Charted order. Description by, 487.

Choice of words for denotation (Chap, iii), 46,

Circumlocution, 291.

Circumstantial evidence, 611.

Citations, References and, 419.

Classical or recitative measures. The, 1 74.

Classification, 569; Bifurcate, 572.

Clause in prose rhythm, The,-2i7.

Clearness, 29 ; in the thought, 29 ; in the construction, 3 1 ; The habit of seeking, 403.

Climax, 292; in stages of plan, 440; in narration, 527.

Coinage for occasion, 64.

Collocation, 240.

Colloquialisms, Non-, in poetic diction,

145-

Colon, The, 330.

Coloring by amplification, 463 ; due to association, 93.

Combinations and proportions in sen- tences, 354.

Comma, The, 328.

Commonplace books, 419.

Comparison not simile, 78 ; Spirit of a, 103 ; Cautions in, 257.

Compendious reading, 413.

Completeness of division, 572.

Composita type of sentence, 317.

Composition (Book iii), 221.

Composition as a whole, The (Chap, xiii), 420.

Compounding of words in poetic diction, M3-

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

665

Concentration, Tendency to, in poetic

diction, 141. Concession in debate, 638.- Conclusion of a literary work, The, 454 ;

relation to body of work, 454 ; forms

of, 454 ; style of, 456. Concomitants, Particulars viewed as,

611. Concord of subject and verb, 223. Condensation, 295 ; for vigor, 295 ;

for rapidity, 299; as abstracting

process, 583. Condensation of words in poetic diction,

142. Conditional conjunctions, 265. Conjunctional relation, 259. Connotation, as related to force, 34 ;

Words and figures for (Chap.

iv)i 75 ■> OF IDEA, 76 ; of emotion,

94 ; of the relative, 236. Constructive, Argumentation, 599. Constructive end, in narration, The, 517. Contiguity, Law of, in thought-associa- tion, 443. Continuity of movement, in narration,

520. Contrast, Law of, in thought-association,

444 ; element of, in narrative move- ment, 526. Coordinating class of conjunctions, 260. Copious presentation, in oratory, 653. Core of definition. The, 559. Correlation, 257. Couplet, The heroic, 185. Creative reading, 409. Criticism, 591 ; ways of publication, 592 ;

requisites of, 593 ; The higher, 580. Cross-examination, 601, 631. Cue, The stress-point as a, 340. Culture promoting adjustments of style.

The, 21, 22, 23. Cumulative conjunctions, 260.

DactyUc measure, 176; hexameter, 183. Dash, The, 331 ; double, 130 ; single, 130.

Debate, 634.

Decorative epithets, 147.

Deduction, 616,

Deductive order of thought-building. The, 448.

Definition, 558 ; The core of, 559 ; Analy- sis of, 561; genetic, 562; Supple- mentation of, 563.

Degree of meaning, 50.

Demonstratives and numerals in pro- spective reference, 255.

Denotation, Choice of vitords for (Chap, iii), 46.

Denouement in narrative. The, 517.

Derivation and history of words, 50 ; in exposition, 576.

Description (Chap, xiv), 477 ; Defini- tion of, 477; UNDERLYING PRIN- CIPLES of. The, 478 ; Mechanism of, 481 ; by charted order, 487 ; by im- pression, 488 ; Accessories of, 493 ; Subjective, 502 ; in litera- ture, 506; what narration owes to, 533 ; Logical, 564.

Descriptive details. Subdual of, 486 ; in amplification, 468.

Descriptive words, 162, 296; poetry, 508.

Details, in amplification, 468; Subdual of descriptive, 486.

Dialect, 55, 56, 134.

Dialogue, The, in narrative, 532.

Diction (Book ii), 44; Definition of, 44; Prose, standard and oc- casional (Chap, v), 107; spoken, 118; of written discourse, 126; Manufactured, 132 ; Poetic, and ITS interactions with prose (Chap, vi), 139; The sentence IN, 345-

Didactic end, in narration, 518.

Digressions, 375.

Dilemma, 624.

Discipline, as aid to invention, 392; Reading for, 411.

666

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

Discourse, deiinition of, i ; written for public delivery, 122; tone of, The,

135-

Discursive narration, 535.

Disposal of results of reading, 417.

Distinction, in plan headings, 440.

Diversity of interest, in invention, 399.

Division, 568; Logical, 569; principle of, 570; members of, 571 ; complete- ness of, 572; Literary, 573.

Double negative, 270 j paragraph topic,

363. Drama, The, 553. Dynamic stress, 340.

Economy, Principle of, 23 ; in oratory,

653-

Effects, Suggestion by, 500.

Elegiac stanza, The, 186.

Elements of poetic rhythm, 172.

Ellipsis, 298, 301.

Eloquence, Working essentials of, 644.

Emotion, in rhetorical adaptation, 4 : and will, as basis of force, 36; Con- notation OF, 94; Overt figures of, 95.

Emotions, The appeal to the, 654.

Emphasis, as element of force, 35 ; Dis- tribution of, 335.

Enforcement, Order of, in thought-build- ing, 448.

Enlargement of syllogism, 620.

Enthymeme, The syllogism in, 61S.

Enumeration, as instrument of amplifi- cation, 467.

Epigram, 273.

Episodes, 537.

Epithet, in poetic diction, 147; The phrasal, or packed, 149; in descrip- tion, 497.

Epithets, decorative, 147; essential, 148.

Equation, The personal, 581.

Essay, The, 594.

Essential epithets, 148.

Euphemism, 292.

Euphonious words and combinations in poetic diction, 154.

Euphony, as component of beauty, 38; Rank of, in prose diction, 114.

Euphuism, 353 note,

Evoluta type of sentence, 318.

Example, Argument from, 613.

Exclamation, 95.

Exegesis of terms, 562, 576.

Exemplification, as instrument of am- plification, 46S; as instrument of exposition, 565.

Expert testimony, 605.

Explication of propositions, 562, 578.

Explicit reference, 370.

Exposition (Chap, xvi), 554; Defini- tion of, 554; intensive, 558; exten- sive, 568; OF things, 557; OF the SYMBOLS OF THINGS, 575; IN LIT- ERATURE, 591.

Expository work. Forms of, 594. Extensive, Exposition, 568.

Fact, historic. The finding of, 544 ; The

interpreting of, 546. Facts, Discovery of, in argumentation,

599-

Fairness, of encounter, in debate, 63S.

Fallacies, Exposure of, 626.

Fiction, 550 ; Liberties and Umits of, 550.

Figures, Words axdJ for connota- tion (Chap, iv), 75 ; Practical value of) 75 ; of association, Overt, 77 ; of emotion. Overt, 95 ; in prose diction, in; Graphic uses of, in description, 494.

Finding of historic fact, The, 544.

" Fine writing," 71.

Foot, The, in poetic rhythm, 172.

Force, as quality of style, 33 ; Massing OF elements for, 335.

Forecast of end, in narration, 514.

Foreign words and idioms, 59.

Foreigner's English, 133.

Form, the sense of literary, 390.

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

667

Generals, Inference from, 6i6; to par- ticulars, in order, 448 ; in amplifi- cation, 467.

Genetic definition, 562.

Genus and differentia, Definition by,

559- Grammar, as foundation of rhetoric, 2. Graphic uses of figures, in description,

494.

Habits of meditation, 402 ; of seeking clearness, 403 ; of seeking order, 404 ; of seeking independent con- clusions, 405.

Harmony, as component of beauty, 39.

Heroic couplet. The, 185.

Heterogeneous sentence, The, 320.

Hexameter, iambic, 182 ; dactylic, 183.

Hiatus, in rhythm, 21S.

Higher criticism. The, 580.

Historic present, 98, 227 ; fact, The find- ing of, 544; The interpreting of, 546.

Historical perspective, 524.

History, 544 ; narrative, 546 j scenic, 547 ; philosophic, 547.

History of words, 50,

Human nature. The handling of, by the orator, 647.

Hymn stanzas,j87.

Hyperbole, 99 ; in description, 496.

Hypothesis, The, 607.

Iambic measure, 174; pentameter, 179; tetrameter, 180.

Idea, Connotation of, 76.

Idealism, in fiction, 551.

Idiom, Tissue of, 53.

Idioms, Foreign, 59, 61 ; Three, 232.

Illative conjunctions, 264.

Imagination and taste, as basis of beauty, 40.

Imaginative diction. Avails of, in descrip- tion, 493 ; type of prose diction, 168.

Impassioned type of prose diction, 166.

ImpUcatory words and coloring, 87.

Implicit reference, in paragraphs, 372.

Impression, Description by, 488.

Independent conclusions, Habit of seek- ing, 405.

Induction, 607.

Inductive Argument, Grades and spe- cies of, 608; order in thought- building, 446.

Inference from particulars, 606; from generals, 616.

Infinitive, The, 230.

Informative description, 509.

Initiative taken by orator, 64$.

Insignificant sentence. The, 321.

Intellect, in rhetorical adaptation, 3 ; as basis of clearness, 32 ; The appeal to the, in oratory, 651.

Intellectual type of prose diction, 164.

Intelligible use of words, 52.

Intensive, Exposition, 558.

Interchange and blending of measures, in poetic rhythm, 198.

Interest, Diversity of, in invention, 399.

Interior and outlying tracts of sentence,

339-

Interpretation 465.

Interpreting of historic fact, The, 546.

Interrelation of sentence ele- ments, 320; Errors of, 320.

Interrogation, 96.

Interwoven plots, 538.

Invective, 661.

Invention (Part ii), 385 ; as division of rhetoric, 9 ; in its elements (Book iv), 387; Definition of, 388; Approaches to (Chap, xii), 389.

Inventive talent. Lines of, 394.

Inversion, 276 ; for emphasis, 276 ; for adjustment, 278.

Investigation, Order of, in thought- building, 446.

Irony, 100,

Italics for emphasis, 128.

Iteration, 303.

668

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

Joints of structure, ii6.

Key of words, The, 104. Kinds of paragraphs, 379.

Landmarks of structure in completed

work, 435. Latin derivatives, 70. Length of sentence, Effect of, in diction,

345- Lengthiness distinguished from length,

141 footnote. Liberties of fiction, 550. Life of verse. The, 189. Limitations of fiction, 550. Line, The, in poetry, 1 79 note. Literary analysis, in exposition, 579;

division, 573. Literary form. The sense of, 390 ;

division, 573 ; types. The (Bookv),

475- Litotes, 105, 271.

Logic, as foundation of rhetoric, 3. Logical deiinition, 559 ; description, 564 ;

division, 569. Long sentence. The, in diction, 347. Loose sentence. The, 351.

Main ideas of discourse, The, 432.

Manufactured diction, 132.

Mass of sentence, in diction, 350.

Massing of sentence elements for FORCE, 335.

Material and handling, Problems of, in description, 479.

Meditation, Habits of, 402.

Medium, The supporting, in story, 530.

Members of division, 57;.

Metaphor, 80 ; in description, 495.

Metaphrase, 585.

Method of residues, The, 625.

Metonymy, 88, 89.

Metre, 171; Relations of phrase and, 208.

Metrical unit, 172; clause, 178; sen- tence, 183.

Motives, 658 ; Grades of, 659 note.

Movement, The narrative, 520 ; Prepara- tive elements in, 525 ; Continuity of, 520; Rate of, 522.

Musical rhythm. Overtones of, 190.

Narration (Chap, xv), 511; Defini- tion of, 512; The art of, 513; The end of, 514; convoyed by de- scription, 533 ; Discursive, 535 ; in literature, 543.

Narrative history, 546.

Narrative movement. Aid from, in de- scription, 503; Continuity of, 520; Rate of, 522 ; Preparative elements in, 525.

Narrative touches, 504.

Narratives, Combination of, 537.

Native elements of vocabulary, 68.

Natural bent, as starting point of inven- tion, 390.

Negation, 268 ; degrees of, 268.

Negative, Double, 270.

Neologisms, 62.

Newspaper words, 63 ; criticism, 592.

Non-colloquialisms in poetic diction, 145.

Non sequitur, 628.

Notes, Taking, 418.

Notions, 555.

Novel, The, 552.

Nucleus of description. The, 483.

Olservation, The spirit of, 397 ; sketches of travel and, 509.

Obverse, The, as repetition, 466; in ex- position, 567.

Occasion, The response to, 393.

Occasional diction, 118.

Ode stanza. The, 185.

0«/y, Placing of, 241 .

Onomatopoetic words and coloring, 160.

Oratory, 642 ; The essence of, 642.

Order, The habit of seeking, 404,

Order of arguments in debate, 639; of refutation, 641.

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

669

Orders of thought-building, 446. Organic processes (Chap, ix),

268. Organism of the sentencEj 312. Outline, The skeleton, 433. Outset and culmination, in sentence

mass, 336. Overtones of musical rhythm, igo.

Packed or phrasal epithet, 149.

Panoramic portra3^1, ,505.

Paradox, 273.

Paragraph, The (Chap, xi), 356; Definition of, 356; proper length of, 357 ; in sum, 358 ; in structure, 364 J scheme of structure, 365.

Paragraphs, Kinds of, 379.

Parallel construction, 308 ; in paragraph, 376.

Parallels, Particulars used as, 612,

Paraphrase, 585.

Parenthesis, Marks of, 129.

Parity of reasoning, 632.

Participial phrase, The, 227.

Participle, The misrelated, 228 ; unre- lated, 228 ; pendent, 229,

Particulars, Inference from, 606 ; viewed as cause and effect, 608 ; viewed as concomitants, 611 ; used as parallels, 612.

Partition, 573.

Pause, The, in rhythm, 218.

Pentameter, 179.

Periodic sentence, The, 350.

Personal equation. The, 581.

Personification, 84; in description, 495.

Perspective, Historical, 524.

Perspicuity, as aspect of clearness, 3 1 .

Persuasion, 643.

Philosophic history, 547.

Phrasal or packed epithet, 149 ; rhythm. Undertone of, 202 ; segmentation, The, 204.

Phrase and metre, relations of, 208 ; in prose rhythm, 212.

Phraseology (Chap, viii), 223.

Picturing power of language, in poetic diction, 146.

Plan, the making of the, 432 ; append- ages of, 449 ; in paragraph, 364.

Pleonasm, 290.

Pliancy of the recitative measures, 197.

Plot, in narration, 517.

Plots, Interwoven, 538.

Poetic diction and its inter- actions WITH prose (Chap, vi), 139; what it is, 140.

Poetic rhythm, Elements of, 172.

Poetic setting in diction, 145 ; traits in poetry and in prose, 141 ; in description, 497.

Poetry, Descriptive, 508.

Polarized words, 152.

Point of view, 481 ; The traveller's, 506.

Portrayal without detail, 491 ; Time- conditioned, 504; Panoramic, 505.

Possessive, The, in poetic diction, 143.

Practical value of figures, 75.

Precision, as aspect of clearness, 29.

Predicate of sentence, 313,

Prefacing statement, 288.

Pregnant words, 93.

Preliminary paragraph, The, 381 ; ends in narration, 519.

Premises, 616.

Preparation of question, in debate, 635.

Preparative elements in movement, 525,

Present use of words, 61.

Presentive words, 117.

Principle of division. The, 570.

Progress in plan, Manner of, 439 ; Nat- ural stages of, 441.

Prominence, Law of, in retrospective reference, 250.

Proportion in paragraph. Claims of, 375.

Prepositional paragraph, The, 379.

Propositions, Explication of, 578.

Prose, Definition of, 107 ; The ap- proaches of, to poetry, 163; The rhythm of, 210.

670

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

Prose arrangementj 113; connection of words, 115; vocabulary, 109;

RHYTHM, 210.

Prose diction (Chap, v), 107 ; stand- ard, 109; AS determined BY OCCASION, 118; Intellectual type of, 164; Impassioned type of, 166; Imaginative type of, 168.

Prospective reference, 254.

Provincialisms, 55.

Proximity, The law of, in retrospective reference, 250.

Punctuation, Office of, in sentence, 325 ; present status of, 333.

Purity, as standard of diction, 44.

Purpose, in narrative, 518.

Qualities of styi-e (Chap, ii), 27. Qualities, temperament of, 41 ; of sound,

Language employed for, 153. Question, preparation of the, in debate,

635- Quotatiorij in amplification, 471.

Raconteur, The professional, and his stories, 516.

Rapidity, condensation for, 299.

Rate of narrative movement, 522.

Reading, Ways of, in invention, 408; Creative, 409; for discipline, 411; Compendious, 413 ; broadly and deeply, 415 ; by topics, 415 ; Dis- posal of results of, 417.

Realism, in fiction, 552.

Recitative measures in rhythm, 174; Pliancy of the, 197.

Reductio ad absurduni^ 623.

Redundancy, 290.

Reference, Retrospective, 246 ; Prospective, 254; Explicit, in paragraph, 370; Implicit, 372.

References and citations, 419.

Refrain, in poetry, 184.

Refutation, 626 ; Order of, in debate, 641.

' Relation and arrangement. Principles of, 43S ; with audience, in oratory, 645.

Relative, Connotation of the, 236 ; equiv- alents for, 239.

Repetition, 302 ; in disguise, 305 ; of construction, 308 ; in amplification, 465.

Repose, The element of, 42.

Reproduction of thought. Forms of, 582.

Reserve, or understatement, 105.

Residues, The method of, 625.

Results of reading. Disposal of, 417.

Retarded movement, in narration, 522.

Retrospective reference, 246.

Revery contrasted with meditation, 403.

Rhetoric, Definition of, i ; distinguished from grammar, 2; distinguished from logic, 3 ; as adaptation, i ; as art, 4 ; two kinds of, 5 ; Province and distribution of, 8.

Rhyme, 158 ; in prose diction, 158.

Rhythm, in poetry and in prose (Chap, vii), 171 ; Poetic, elements of, 172; Musical overtones of, igo; Phrasal undertone of, 202; of prose, The, 210 ; as accessory of description, 498.

Romance and novel, 551.

Saxon derivatives, 70.

Scenic history, 547,

Scholarly use of words, 68.

Science and art discriminated, 4.

Segmentation, The phrasal, 204.

Selection, The problem of, in description, 479; in abstract, 5S3.

Self-culture, The support from, in invention, 396.

Semicolon, The, 326.

Semicoloned clauses, 323.

Sense of literary form, The, 390.

Sentence, The (Chap, x), 311; Defini- tion of, 311; Organism of, 312; in prose rhythm, 218; Types of,3i6; in diction, 345.

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

671

Sequence, in plan headings, 440.

Sequential conjunctions, 267.

Setting, Influence of poetic, in diction,

145. Shades of meaning, 47. Shall and will, 233. Short sentence, The, in diction, 345. Sign, Argument from, 611. Similarity and contrast. Law of, in

thought-association, 444. Simile, 77 ; in description, 494. Simplex type of sentence, 317. Sing-song, Tendency to, 211. Situations, in narration, 519. Skeleton outline, The, 433. Sonnet, The, 18S. Sound, I-anguage employed for qualities

of, 153-

Sounds in sequence and repetition, 156.

Spenserian stanza. The, 188.

Split infinitive. The, 230.

Splitting of particles, 301.

Spoken diction, 118.

Stages of progress in plan. Natural, 441.

Standard prose diction, 109.

Stanza, The, in poetic rhythm, 183 ; un- rhymed, 184 ; ode, 185 ; elegiac, 186 ; hymn, 1S7 ; Spenserian, 188.

Stock expressions, 73.

Stress, Concentration of, in collocation, 243 ; Dynamic, 340.

Stress-point as a cue, 340.

Strophe, 185.

Structure, Landmarks of, in completed work, 435.

Style, as division of rhetoric, 9; in GENERAL (Book i), 13 ; Nature AND BEARINGS OF (Chap, i), i6 ; Definition of, 16 ; and the thought, 18; and the man, 19; Adjust- ments of, 20 ; Qualities of (Chap, ii), 27.

Subconscious mental action. Avails of, 406.

Subdual of descriptive details, 486 ; of

narrative details, 514. Subject, of sentence, 313; of compo- sition, 421 ; and theme, relations of,

421. Subjective description, 502. Subjunctive, The, 232. Subordinating class of conjunctions, 265. Suggestion, as accessory of amplification,

473 j by effects, 500. Support from self-culture. The,

in invention, 396. Supporting medium. The, in story, 530. Surprise,, The element of, in narration,

527. Suspension, 279,; Workmanship of, 280. Syllogism, The, 617; in enthymeme,

618 ; in enlargemtent, 620. Symbolic element. The, 117; words, 117. Symbolics, Omission of, in poetic diction,

141. Symbols of things, Exposition of

THE, 575. Synchronism of events, 540. Synecdoche, 88. Synonyms, 47.

Synonymy in exposition, 576. Syntactical adjustments, 223.

Taste, relation to writing, 21; as basis of beauty, 40.

Tautology, 307.

Technicalisms, 56.

Temperament of qualities, 41.

Tense, The scheme of, 226.

Terms, Exegesis of, 576.

Testimony, 600.

Tetrameter, 180.

Theme, The, 421; Definition of, 421; as related to subject, 421 ; Signifi- cance of, as deduced, 424 ; as related to form of discourse, 426 ; as dis- tinguished from title, 429.

Things, Exposition of, 557.

Thought-association, Laws of, 443.

672

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

Thought-building, Orders of, 446. Three idioms, 232. Time-conditioned portrayal, 504, Title, The, as compared with theme,

429 ; Characteristics of, 429. Tone of discourse, Maintenanhe

OF THE, 135.

Topic of paragraph. Prominence of, 359 ;

Place of, 361 ; Double, 363. Topics, Casual, in meditation, 408 ;

Reading by, 415. Total effect, Problem of, in description,

480. Transitional paragraph. The, 381. Transitions, 457. Translation, 587.

Travel and observation. Sketches of, 509. Treatise, The, 594. Tributary portions, of sentence, The,

315- Trisyllabic feet, 176. Trochaic measure, 175. Trope, 87. Types, The literary (Book v), 475.

Unamplified expression. The province of, 460.

Understatement, 105 ; of emotion, 656.

Undertone of phrasal rhythm, 202.

Unity of sentence, 320 ; Relations con- stituting it, 323.

Untranslatable, The, c,i<) footnote. Unworn words and phrases, Partiality

to, in poetic diction, 144. Utility, as standard of prose choice, 109,

Value, Practical, of figures, 75. Variety, Claims of, in sentence stress,

342-

Vehicle of the story. The, 529.

Verifying spirit. The, in invention, 400.

Verse, The, in rhythm, 1 78; Stand- ard types of, 179; The life of, 189.

Vigor, Condensation for, 295 ; of narra- tive movement, 524.

Vision, 98.

Vocabulary of prose, 109.

Waiving, in debate, 638.

Will, Appeal to the, in oratory, 657; as basis of force, 36 ; in rhetorical adaptation, 4.

Word-painting, 151; in description, 498.

Words, Choice of, for denota- tion (Chap, iii), 46; and fig- ures for connotation (Chap, iv), 75-

Written discourse for public delivery, 122.

Written diction, 126; Mechanical aids to, 128.

DIRECTORY OF AUTHORS QUOTED.

[This index is confined to actual quoted matter ; it does not include mere referencest For volume and page reference, see the pages where the quotations occur. The page-numbers in full-faced type refer to rhetorical readings.]

Abbott, Edwin A., 231, 258, 287, 303, 309. Abbott, Lyman, 112, 297, 310, 327, 331. Abbott and Seeley, iii. Addison, Joseph, 363. Amiel, Henri Frederic, 79. Arnold, George, 499. Arnold, Matthew, 51, 60, 270, 2S3, 298, 304, 308, 326, 331, 332, 342, 355,

361. 4737 561, 563- 586- Amott, Neil, 564. Austen, Jane, 515.

Bacon, Francis, 370, 398, 410, 447,

460, 571, 573. Bagehot, Walter, 112, 394, 513, 515. Bain, Alexander, 290, 291, 321, 324,

335, 649. Barrie, J. M., 297. Bible, 52, 78, 98, 122, 148, 214, 233, 235,

236) 238, 266, 267, 277, 291, 306, 307,

322, 329. 37i> 5°'- 614, 651. Birrell, Augustine, loi. Blair, Hugh; 466. Boott, F., 195. Boswell, James, 417. Brimley, George, 76. Brooke, Stopford A., 28, 500. Brown, John, 244, 494, 658. Browning, Robert, 116, 142, 144, 158,

175, 176, 177, 199, 200, 238, 299, 483,

531, 534- Bryant, William CuUen, 153.

Bunyan, John, 69, 86.

Burke, Edmund, 96, 256, 277, 285, 293, 306, 3°9> 331. 349, 378,382,428,444, 449, 471, 574, 614, 625, 627.

Burton, Nathanael, 398, 406, 407, 416, 435, 459, 464.

Bushnell, Horace, 425, 566.

Butcher, S. H., 152.

Butler, Samuel, 181.

Byron, George Gordon, Lord, 486.

Cable, George W., 162, 325.

Carlyle, Thomas, 49, 80, 88, 89, 103, 106, 144, 263, 269, 279, 286, 316, 332, 352, 358, 372, 443, 463, 485, 494, 497, 511, 543, 544, 567, 584.

Carroll, Lewis, 182.

Century Cyclopedia of Names, 16.

Chambers's Cyclopaedia, 556; 609, 610.

Chapman, George, 181.

Chevy-Chace, 181.

Cicero, Marcus Tullius, 293, 451.

Clough, Arthur Hugh, 183.

Cobbett, William, 255. ■ Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 177, 192, 259, 498.

Couch, A. T. Quiller, 550.

Cowper, William, 114.

Craddock, Charles Egbert, see Murfree, Mary Noailles.

Crockett, S. R., 291.

Curtis, George William, 661,

673

674

DIRECTORY OF AUTHORS QUOTED.

Dallas, E. S., 275.

Darmesteter, James, 91.

Davidson, Samuel, 130.

Delitzsch, Friedrich, 409.

De Mille, James, 162.

De Quincey, Thomas, 36, 69, 100, 103, 118, 146, 263, 264, 277, 278, 279, 284, 294, 350, 351, 373. 377, 414. 463, 523, 546, 547.

Deutsch, Emanuel, 341.

Dickens, Charles, 66, 72, 99, 103, 212,

3o6> 34i> 490, 4961 529> 54°- Dixon, William Macneile, 28. Drummond, Henry, 65. Dryden, John, 82, 210. Dumas, Alexander, 249, 253, 290, 306.

Earle, John, 44, 49, 53, 65, 88, 96, 109, 110, 119, 135, 139, 150, 155, 163, 230, 247, 263, 317, 318, 319, 323, 346, 349, 357, 359, 374,

633- Eliot, Charles William, 402. Eliot, George, see George Eliot. Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 46, 59, 322, 374,

409, 410, 549, 648. English Illustrated Magazine, 83. Erskine, Thomas, Lord, 602. Euphues, see Lyly, John. Everett, Edward, 504.

Farrar, Frederick William, 343. Fitzgerald, Edward, 187, 301. Flaubert, Gustave, 23. Ford, Paul Leicester, 271, 391. Fox, Charles James, 125, 619, 662. Fuller, Thomas, 78.

Gage, Alfred P., 564.

Gates, Lewis E., 581.

Genung, John Franklin, 151, 298, 586.

George Eliot, 148, 492, 568.

Gibbon, Edward, 90, 235, 288, 450.

Goodrich, Chauncey A., 657.

Gordon, George A., 246, 343.

Gosse, Edmund, 80, Si, 90, 91, 92, 93,

592. Grant, Ulysses S., 341. Gras, F^lix, 17, 246, 495. Gray, Thomas, 186. Green, John Richard, 484, 542. Greenleaf, Simon, 603, 624.

Hall, Newman, 437.

Hardy, Thomas, 523, 529.

Harfer 's Weekly, 344.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 72, 84, 100, 360,

519. Hay, John, see Nicolay, J. G., and John

Hay. Helps, Sir Arthur, 253, 325. Henderson, W. J., 302. Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, 68,

162, 530. Hodgson, William B., 82. Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 51, 59, 78, 92,

291, 293. Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus), 36,

518. Howells, William Dean, 65, 83, 224,

531. Hughes, Thomas, 162, 524. Hugo, Victor, 484. Hume, David, 334. Hunt, Leigh, 282. Hutton, Richard Holt, 428. Huxley, Thomas Henry, 12, 58, 131.

Independent, The, 276.

James, Henry, 482, 4S7, 489, 517.

James, WilUam, 46S, 515.

Jevons, William Stanley, 87, 572.

Johnson, Herrick, 437.

Johnson, Samuel, 22, 27, 73, 211, 291,

309, 317, 438, 525, 561, 630. Joubert, Joseph, 425. Journal of Geology, The, 57.

Keats, John, 147, 149.

DIRECTORY OF AUTHORS QUOTED.

67S

Keble, John, 187.

Kinglake, Alexander William, 308. Kingsley, Charles, 194, 317. Kipling, Rudyard, 146, 193.

Lamb, Charles, 130, 153.

Landor, Walter Savage, 15, 53, 84,

113, 314. Lang, Andrew, 307. Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, 480. Lewes, George Henry, 447, 448, S89,

632. Lewes, Marian Evans, see George Eliot. Lewis, Tayler, 588. Lockhart, John Gibson, 297, 507. Lodge, Henry Cabot, 138. London Times, 130. Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 173, 175,

182. Lowell, James Russell, 49, 50, 61, 94,

137, 152, 295, 491. Lyly, j"ohn (Euphues), 353. Lytton, Edward George Earle Lytton

Bolwer, Lord, 160, 493.

Mabie, Hamilton Wright, 399. Macaulay, Thomas Babington, Lord, 78,

88, 94, 101, 106, 224, 259, 272, 294, ■ 303. 3°4, 3°9. 314. Z'^Z, 346, 359> 3^4,

368, 377, 380, 382, 4237 444, 447, 466,

585, 606, 622, 630, 631, 636, 660. McCarthy, Justin, 92. McCurdy, James Frederick, 309. McLaughlin, Edward T., 91. Macmillan^s Magazine, 388, 471-. Marsh, George Perkins, 656. Mathews, William S. B., 647, 648. Matthews, Biander, 160, 309. Meredith, George, 245, 271, 488. Mill, John Stuart, 566, 578. Milton, John, 28, Z03, 148, 151, 154,

161, 175, 198, 199, 200, 208, 404,

411, 503. Minto, William, 32, 350, 611. Moore, Thomas, 280.

Morison, J. Cotter, 513, 539.

Morley, John, 298, 467.

Morris, William, 145.

Mother Goose, 192.

Motley, John Lothrop, 272, 281, 521,

524. Mozley, James, 298, 501, 620. Murfree, Mary Noailles, loi, 308. Myers, Frederick W., 283.

Newman, John Henry, Cardinal, 31, 88, 89, 96, 124, 214, 284, 287, 307, 310, 313, 314, 324, 325, 329, 333, 347, 348, 349, 362, 369, 382, 422, 465, 577, 614, 618, 621.

Nichdl, John, 275.

Nicolay, J. G., and John Hay, 555, 646.

NicoU, Henry J., 292.

North American Review, 50.

Onookool Chunder Mookerjee, 138.

Parker, E. G., 401.

Parkman, Francis, 469.

Pascal, Blaise, 275, 297, 299, 453, 468.

Pater, Walter, 23, 26, 39, 40, 47, 62,

63, 69, 269, 329, 330, 332, 334,

363, 386, 421, 463. Payne, E. J., 466, 560. Phelps, Austin, 413, 461, 647. Phelps, Elizabeth Stuart, see Ward,

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. Phillips, Stephen, 289. Piers the Plowman, 156. Pitt, William, 50. Pope, Alexander, 149, 160, 183, 185, 296,

650. Porter, Horace, 106. Pryde, David, 488, 514.

Quintilian (Marcus Fabius Quintilia- nus), 29.

Reade, Charles, 279.

Robertson, Frederick W., 400, 516.

676

DIRECTORY OF AUTHORS QUOTED.

Robertson, James, 228.

Roe, E. P., 263.

Rollins, Alice, 304.

Ruskin, John, 7, 103, 123, 148, 168, 252,

256, 3°'. 314, 329. 33°. 331. 339, 451.

455, 4567481, 502. Russell, W. Clark, 66.

Saintsbury, George, 218, 272, 290, 301,

304, 311. Salmon, G., 130. Saturday Review^ 136. Schubert, Franz, 173. Schurz, Carl, 428. Scott, Sir Walter, iSi, 296, 297, 306,

431, 522, 526, 527-

Shairp, J. C, 577.

Shakespeare, William, 42, 43, 79, 80, 95, 143, 174, 180, 296, 332, 498, 501, 503, 560, 649, 651, 655.

Smollett, Tobias George, 248.

Soule, Richard, 47.

Southey, Robert, 164.

Spencer, Herbert, 24, 314, 428.

Spenser, Edmund, 188.

Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn, 354.

Stanley, H. M., 273.

Stedman, Edmund Clarence, 13, 252, 270, 660.

Steele, Richard, 251.

Stephen, Leslie, 436, 460, 518, 551.

Stevenson, Robert Louis, 13, 15, 78, 85, 88, 89, 92, 94, 129, 171, 189, 202, 205, 208, 211, 216, 218, 235, 236, 252, 282, 302, 311, 322, 330, 397, 399, 407, 470, 479, 482, 485, 492, 506, 513, 514, 539, 548, 550.

Stowe, Harriet B&cher, 252.

Sutton, J. Bland, 565.

Swift, Jonathan, 289. Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 143, 151, 157, 158.

Taylor, Bayard, 81.

Temple, Sir William, 218.

Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, 84, 89, 93, 98, 140, 143, 151, 153, 156, 157, 158, 160, 161, 175, 179, 182, 184, 188, 191, 195, 199, 201, 203, 239, 266, 273, 275, 490, 491, 503, 504, 528. 555, 586, 659.

Thackeray, William Makepeace, 86, 97, 100, 104, 131, 159, 270, 645.

Tillotson, John, 307.

Trevelyan, George Otto, 150, 545.

Trollope, Anthony, 343, 533, 638, 539.

Tyler, Moses Coit, 613.

Van Dyke, Henry, 373.

Virgil (Publius VergiUus Maro), 160, 173.

Walton, Izaak, 251. Ward, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, 224. Ward, Mrs. Humphry, 128, 233, 241. Webster, Daniel, 166, 288, 329, 600, 609,

612, 628, 629, 644. Wendell, Barrett, 29, 358, 365, 366. Whately, Richard, 463, 466, 467, 604. White, Gilbert, 160, 235. White, Richard Giant, 233. Whitman, Walt, 217. Wilkinson, William Cleaver, 392, 620. Wilson, Woodrow, 406, 423, 431, 438,

453, 455, 457, 605. Wordsworth, William, 114, 142, 143, 144,

145, 155, 189, 200, 226, 472, 502.

Youth's Companion, 160. Zangwill, Israel, 273.

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