i ! 11 Pi UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES UNIVERSITY of CAL1KO&WA* AT LOS ANGELES I TUD A DV ELEMENTS OF RHETORIC A COURSE IN PLAIN PROSE COMPOSITION BY ALPHONSO G. NEWCOMER Associate Professor of English in the Leland Stanford Junior University - > - - - - -, . T I ( . - v t> NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 1899 Copyright, 1898, BY HENRY HOLT & CO. ROBERT DRUMMCMD PRINTER. NEW YORK. e- PREFACE. This book differs from most treatises upon rhetoric and composition in two particulars — arrangement, and propor- tion. The common order is reversed, and the study of words, instead of being put first, is put last, while at the outset attention is centred upon methods of gathering and ordering material. The reason for this should be plain. Composition must begin with ideas. Diction is the "very last consideration in the process of constructing an essay — it may even be reserved until revision. If words be thrust first upon the attention, the student naturally supposes that words, instead of the ideas behind them, are his raw material. Composition becomes to him wholly an artificial tiling. Freshness, independence, naturalness, ease, are put far from him, perhaps never to be attained. It is a matter of history that, excepting here and there a Pater and a Stevenson, our masters of letters have not come into their kingdom through wrestling with words. Such I offer as the main defense of this book, and reason for its being. The proportion of parts has been determined both by the foregoing consideration and by experience. The bulk of matter in our rhetorics is traditionary and, except for higher, critical purposes, useless. Good writing depends chiefly on half a dozen things — on managing properly the few words that represent the germ ideas, on keeping sen- tences from being submerged by the weight of their own clauses, on attending to the articulation (the relation-words of all kinds, the pronouns), on logical arrangement and iii IV PREFACE. proportionate emphasis of ideas. These few things are emphasized here. Discussion of barbarisms, provincialisms, tropes, etc., is for the most part avoided. The ground is nearly always unsafe. Judgment is difficult, legislation well-nigh impossible. Besides, it is in these matters that individuality of style chiefly lies, and that is a thing that teacher and text-book alike must touch sacredly. Hence the slight treatment accorded to diction, to words and phrases as such: the sentence, the paragraph, and the whole composition are more easily reduced to law. Hence, too, the subordination of narration and description, on which point see further Section Five. In short, I have kept in view constructive or applied rhetoric, rather than critical, the art rather than the science, enlarging upon whatever bears directly on practice, and reducing to a minimum all else. Discussion of obsolete words, for exam- ple, is, in a rhetoric, only dead matter. No student ever writes obsolete words. By leaving the study of them to those courses in English classics which all our schools now provide, and in which the study becomes a vital thing, rhetoric is relieved of a useless burden. Perhaps an excep- tion should be made in the case of figures of speech, which would be without systematic treatment if our rhetorics did not give it. Besides, some figures are mechanical and may be artificially employed. For the rest, I am disposed to make little claim to originality. Rather, even where there was a temptation to independence of treatment (as in the chapter on shall and will), have I preferred to fall back upon long-tried methods and rules. So, in larger matters, there is general adher- ence to the ordinary method of teaching through examples and exercises. I have no puritanic fear of examples of faulty English. To give correct examples is well, but experience shows that something more is needed. Many PREFACE. V students do not read enough good literature to form a good style by absorption. Many have formed bad habits that no amount of reading or imitation of good models will correct. They must be made to see their errors. Is it argued that a wrong construction should never meet the eye ? But if the construction is distinctly labeled " wrong," that fact abides as a part of tbe impression, and this is something to be desired. Sooner or later, in newspapers or elsewhere, the eye will meet the construction not so labeled, and then only the forewarned will receive no harm. Special pains have been taken to assist the teacher and to lighten his labor. Exercises in considerable variety are appended, together with numerous models. Difficulties of punctuation, hyphenation, spelling, thesis- writing, etc., are dealt with, — all precisely to the degree dictated by experi- ence with students of many grades of proficiency or defi- ciency. In particular, the contents of the book have been tabulated on two pages (376, 377) in such a manner that, with the book open before him, the corrector of themes can see at a glance the reference he desires to write in the margin of a theme. On the other hand, it seemed well to avoid such an excess of exercises and examples as would encour- age listless, routine teaching. Live examples, drawn from tbe pupils' own work, and exercises founded upon it, are always best. The less their eyes are kept upon this book, and the more upon their own work, the better. It should be the hope of every teacher of rhetoric that the text-book his pupils use may rapidly become a mere reference-book in their hands. What may be deemed an inordinate use of Macaulay in these pages, cannot fail to be noticed. I am not ignorant of what Mr. John Morley and other critics have said of the dangers that attend the copying of Macaulay's style. I know that Macaulay himself felt that his manner, while vi PREFACE. good, was "very near to a very bad manner indeed." I own, moreover, tbat I have no personal fondness for the ^e. But it possesses, in an eminent degree, precisely the qualities that composition-writers need — clearness and vivacity. Its mechanical construction too can be easilv understood, can be analyzed and copied; and perhaps no man ever yet formed his style without copying, consciously or unconsciously. Such methods I would put into the background as far as possible: I have already entered a protest against mere "wrestling with words.*' And cer- tainly the writer who has it in him to evolve a great and original stvle, has little to learn from Macaulay. But it were a pity that, lest by some remote chance one genius be led into the wrong path, the ninety and nine for whom no such danger exists be left leaderless on no path at all. course the ninety and nine will not attain to the quali- ties that really made Macaulay great, but that is nothing to the point. If a clear, readable style is achieved, their end is gained, and, if we may believe the testimony of Freeman and Fronde, the study of Macaulay will help to such an end. !£ain, I foresee an objection to this book on the score of its length; and I feel the objection in all its force. But there are two answers. Each specialist, in a day of special- izing, may demand short cuts to a knowledge of the rapidly multiplying sciences outside of his specialty. But compo- sition, as herein contemplated, is not a specialty. It holds a position of general importance by the side of grammar and arithmetic and geography. A mastery of it is the almost indispensable concomitant of any scholarly achieve- ment or professional success. And there is no short cut to the mastery of anything. In the second place, not all of this book is intended to be studied. Some of the matter is chiefly for reference, and is intended to afford a rational PREFACE. vu discussion of such questions as writers are constantly asking themselves or their instructors. Thus some degree of com- pleteness may be claimed. The whole art of composition within a hundred pages may look alluring, — I can only a;; ert that it is impracticable. It may not be amiss to add here that I have taken the art of rhetoric seriously. Juggling with words for amuse- ment, so temptingly easy, has never seemed to me profit- able. I have not tried to be entertaining. Xevertheless, I trust that some parts of what I have written will not prove wholly without stimulus to endeavor of the fruitful kind. A. G. N. .Stanford University, California, October, 1898. CONTENTS. PART I.— THE WHOLE COMPOSITION. PAGE I. Introductory. 1. Composition Defined. ... 1 II. The Subject. 2. Range of Subjects 3 3. Nature of the Subject. . . 6 4. Limitation of tbe Subject 9 5. Kinds of Subjects 10 III. The Material. 6. Finding Material 13 PAGE 7. Accrediting Material. ... 20 8. Use of Material 22 9. Arrangement of Material 27 10. Tbe Outline 30 IV. The Composition. 11. Tbe Title 38 12. Tbe Introduction 41 13. Tbe Body 52 14. Tbe Conclusion 61 PART II.— THE PARAGRAPH. I. Nature op the Paragraph. 15. Tecbnical Definition.. 16. Logical Definition. . . . 17. Kinds of Paragrapbs. . 18. Lengtb of Paragrapbs 19. Principles of Division. 66 66 69 69 72 II. Construction. 20. Tbe Topic 77 21. Modification of tbe Topic 77 22. Elucidation of tbe Topic 79 23. Argument 83 24. Enforcement 86 III. Laws. 25. Unity 99 26. Coberence 103 27. Proportion and Empbasis 112 ix CONTENTS. PART III.— THE SENTENCE AND ITS CLAUSES. PAOK I. Nature of the Sentence. 28. Definition 114 29. Kinds of Sentences 117 30. Unity 118 II. Syntax. 31. Concord 122 32. Regimen 127 33. Tense Relations 129 34. Participles and Particip- ial Clauses 1 36 35. Infinitives 140 36. Mixed Constructions 143 37. Coordination and Subor- dination 147 PAGE III. Clearness. 38. Collocation 156 39. Conjunction 162 40. Restriction 163 41. Negation 167 42. Ellipsis 168 43. Reference , 170 IV. Effectiveness. 44. Conciseness , . 174 45. Sentence-length 184 46. Proportion 189 47. Variety 192 48. Emphasis 192 49. Balance 198 50. Euphony 203 PART IV.— WORDS AND PHRASES. I. Relation to Thought. 51. Unequivocahu'ss 209 52. Precision 210 53. Familiarity 214 II. Relation to Structure. 51. Logical Conformity 215 55. Functionality 218 56. Idiomatic Usage 219 57. Repetition 223 III. R elation to Style. 58. Tone 227 59. Vigor 233 60. Beauty 243 PART V.— MECHANICAL PKOi'FSSES. 61. Chirography 261 (12. The Manuscript 262 »;:;. Punctuation 263 64. Abbreviations 275 65. Capitals 276 66. Compounds 278 67. Spelling 283 68. Letter Writing 287 69. Theses 288 CONTENTS. xi APPENDIX A. PAGE Disputed and Faulty Diction 297 APPENDIX B. Examples of Defective Composition 307 I. A Forced Delay 307 II. A Natural Bridge 308 III. A Dance on the Border 310 IV. What Dormitory Life means to the Average Girl. . . 312 V. Early Education 314 VI. Exploring a Cave 317 VII. My Vacation '. 318 VIII. My First Near View of an Angleworm 319 IX. Placer County 319 X. Life in the "Lab." 322 XI. Isinglass 324 XII. A Wealth of Beauty 325 XIII. The Chinaman as Found in the United States 326 XIV. Placer Mining in British Columbia 329 APPENDIX C. Models of Good Composition 334 XV. A Bee Hunt. — Washington Irving 334 XVI. Which To-day Is.— Sarah Comstock 337 XVII. The W T estinghouse Air-brake 339 XVIII. The Precipices of Mount Cervin. — John Ruskin. . . . 339 XIX. Father Apollinaris. — R. L. Stevenson 345 XX. Party in American Politics. — George William Curtis 348 XXI. The Practical Value of Biological Science. — Thos. H. Huxley 352 XXII. Lord Clive and His First Visit to India. — Lord Macaulay 354 Abbreviations for Use in Correcting Themes 376 Condensed Table of Contents 376 Index 379 ELEMENTS OF RHETORIC. THE WHOLE COMPOSITION. I. INTRODUCTORY. Practical or Applied Rhetoric and the Art of Com- position are convertible terms. While this treatise is called a rhetoric, in conformity with established practice, the word composition will be more frequently used, as serving to con- vey more directly its chief aim, which is constructive rather than critical or scientific. 1. Composition is the act of putting together, of arrang- ing. Specifically, it is the act of putting together ideas. A composition is a number of ideas on one subject, so grouped and connected as to give a clear understanding of the subject. The primary aim is to get something said; to get it said well is secondary. We must begin, therefore, with invention, with the determination of a subject and the selection and organization of material. The Art of Composition should not be conceived of as something existing solely for itself, to be acquired or not as one pleases. It is not for any ornamental character it may possess that it is in- cluded in the curricula of schools and colleges. Indeed, English Composition, as now understood, has risen into prominence just in proportion as our schools have grown more practical in their aims. It is an art, but it is an eminently practical one — the organ- ization and presentation of our ideas as a means to the fulfilment of our common needs and desires. To speak to friends or strangers 2 THE WHOLE COMPOSITION. at a distance, to address absent and widely scattered audiences at the same moment of time, to transmit our knowledge and our opinions to those who shall come after us — these are real every- day needs of modern life. Ami since these needs are most, easily met through the medium of written words, in the mastery of this medium we find our second task. Yet even on this mechanical side composition is not a mystery. It is not the cult of a literary sect. It does not mean flowery rhetoric. It means good, plain English, and its mastery involves only the ability to write with clearness and effect. Never- theless, the attendant difficulties must not be underrated. Few men can communicate their simplest thoughts or desires with no waste of words and with immediate intelligibility. " I know but 1 cannot tell," is a familiar answer in the schoolroom, and we are inclined to smile at the paltriness of the excuse. But it is too often sadly true. Ask a cook how she makes her excellent salad ; ask a friend to instruct you in the rules of a certain game. The chances are that both know r far better than they can tell. ''Printed directions," whether for hanging a door, or dyeing a scarf, or carving a turkey, are likely to be puzzling in the extreme. Business men and school boards could tell of many an applicant for a position who met with no favor because he could not state plainly what he wanted and what his qualifications were. The phrase- ology of state papers, statutes, and legal documents generally, betrays how difficult a matter it is to make language say one thing clearly and one thing only. Words are tricksy Ariels — they do so much more than we dream ; or they grow stubborn on our hands, and will do nothing at all. Study will make us alive to the possi- bilities of misunderstanding which lie in tin; most innocent-look- ing phrase ; practice will open up to us the resources for avoiding such misunderstanding and for securing the richest results with the least labor and waste.* * fiy a curious coincidence, this sentence affords an illustration of its own truth. It was originally written thus: "Stuay will make us alive to the possibilities of misunderstanding that lie in the mosl innocent-looking phrase." When the sentence was transcribed on the typewriter, it chanced that the words " misunderstanding that lie" fell at the end of a line, so that the words were naturally read as a single phrase- "lie"asa noun, " that" as a demon- strative, and " misunderstanding " as a verb governing " lie." The ambiguity was remedied by changing " that" to " which." RANGE OF SUBJECTS. 3 But composition should bear another relation than that to the end served — a relation to the composer. Force of language can come only from force of character. Clean writing can come only out of clean thinking and, in a measure, clean living. Certain it is that no high degree of success can attend any style that is not grounded in character. It will not pay to try to get far from your- self, to be unnatural or untrue to yourself. The vitality of the relationship between the arts we practise and the life we live should never be lost sight of. Mark in the " Travels and Adventures " of Captain John Smith how the decisive word goes with the de- cisive deed. Or read in the famous letter of Dr. Johnson to Lord Chesterfield a perfect example of the truth of Buffon's saying, " Style is the man himself." "When you write, write yourself, with an eye single to the thing yourself desires to say. You can never do better than that. If such a conception of the art of composition can be fixed, stu- dents will no longer present themselves at college for examination in this branch with the idea that they must " compose " in a style suited to the occasion, or that they will be judged by their ability to elaborate figures of speech. II. THE SUBJECT. 2. Range of Subjects. — From the foregoing it follows naturally that one must look for subjects within one's self, that is to say, within the range of one's own experience, or interest, or knowledge, or power. Only upon such subjects can one say anything worth saying, and to have something worth saying is the first essential. It is of no use to culti- vate a worthy manner unless one have worthy matter. That worthy matter is to be sought at home. What do you care about ? What do you know about ? What do you wish to know about — to extend, fix, and systematize your knowl- edge of ? This is your material, and you should have no difficulty in finding it. One who is without themes has no business with the art of composition. 4 TEE WEOLE COMPOSITION. Theoretically, seeing that we have insisted upon treating com- position broadly and upon emphasizing its relation to all depart- ments of life, the range of subjects is world-wide. Actually, for the individual, it is limited by the individual limitations spoken of in the last paragraph. And, in the world of affairs, the choice must further be regulated by considerations of time and place. But if we set out with the "relation" idea, the " means-to-an- end " idea, of composition strong in our minds, these things will follow of course. The purpose of the essay will always stand in our minds before the essay itself, keeping us in the right path. In practice work, the closer we keep to real conditions, the better. One can nearly always write in response to some actual demand, without or within. Some public question will bear comment, some matter of local interest requires discussion, some personal experience is worth recording, some fantasy of the brain seems fair enough to preserve. Only let the personal limitations be always kept in view. A list of subjects of some variety is here appended, but it is given more to show the kinds of themes that have lent them- selves to successful treatment than to furnish actual ready-made subjects for the use of others. SUBJECTS FOR THEMES. NARRATIVE. My First Day's Fishing. A Straw-ride. An Expedition on a Hand-car. Room Hunting. A Yachting Incident. Autobiography of a Monomaniac. The History of Communism. DESCRIPTIVE. The Bowery. Boston Common. The Street System of Salt Lake City. My Native Town. A Model Farm. A Cosy Corner. On the Water-front. How Mail is Caught by a Moving Train. Horace Mann. NARRATIVE-DESCRIPTIVE. A House-party. Down the St. Lawrence. A Day in " The Mission." EXPOSITORY. The Law of the Road. The Care of a Rifle. Football as a College Sport. Freighting in the Early History of the West. SUBJECTS FOR THEMES. The Raisin Industry. Trout-fishing. The Art of Dancing. Cooperative Housekeeping. Cost of an Education. Ancient and Modern Greek Games. The Income Tax. Socialism : What It Means. ARGUMENTATIVE. A Plea for the Honor System in College Examinations. Length of the Presidential Term. Desirability of Spelling Reform. MISCELLANEOUS. Faunal Extinction. A Sleigh- ride. The Development of the Cabinet System in England. Advantages and Disadvantages of Encouraging Thrift in Children. The Nature Element in Lowell's Poems. The Cause and Cure of Hard Times. Speed Indicators and their Use in Steam-engine Testing. Development of the Trotting Horse in the United States. The Trans-Siberian Railway. The Park System of Chicago. A Bear-hunt. How to Sail a Boat. Dishonorable Campaign Methods. Early History of Texas. Simplicity in Housekeeping. The Duties of a City Engineer. Law as a Profession. The Duty of a Physician between Considerations of PublicHealth and Private Gain. Qualifications of a Newspaper Man. Communistic Communities. National Sports. Daily Routine of a Bank. Some Local Aspects of the Labor Question. Belief in the Supernatural. Coccidae. Chinese Civilization. Beethoven and Mendelssohn. Quartz-mining in the United States. Pilots and Piloting. How to See Scenery. American Emblems. The Passing of the Stage-coach. Taxidermy. How to Conduct a Local News- paper. Exemption of Judicial Officers from Liability for their Acts. The Oil Industry. Raising Onion-seed. Borax. Early Religious Training of Goe- the and of John Stuart Mill. Pianos. Longfellow's Tales of a Wayside Inn. Pickling Olives. Dish-washing in a Cooperative Club. Our National Forest Reserva- tions. The True Function of the Nor- mal School. Effect of Inventions upon the Laboring Class. 6 THE WHOLE COMPOSITION. 3. Nature of the Subject. — Perhaps one warning is needed here. The immature and inexperienced are not competent to write upon abstract or moral themes — upon " Self-reliance,'' upon "The Illusions of Hope," upon "True Merit Wins.*' Such subjects are affected by those who have the false idea of composition which we are trying to remove. They lead invariably to vague thinking, and to the cultivation of manner before matter — two things fatal to any genuine success in this art. Head one such essay : Luck. Is there such a thing as luck or chance is a question which every one has at some time pondered upon. It is extremely diffi- cult to believe that luck does not exist when we see men about us favored with fortune upon fortune, merited, seemingly, by no exertion whatever. It is an acknowledged fact that luck arising from trivial every-day occurrences, such as finding horseshoes, etc., is believed in only by the weak, ignorant, and superstitious. But often that happens which we can account for in no way but by its being genuine good luck. Emerson says that if we look back we shall find that luck has arisen from some previous action, perhaps unconsciously performed: everything is compensated for. Tt is certainly much more pleasing to think thai we can, to a certain degree, restrain ill fortune and insure that which is good, than to believe ourselves ruled entirely by the caprice of fitful luck. Let us not therefore give ourselves up to waiting for this uncertain visitor, but rather strive after the good fortune which faithful labor is sure to bring. It is simple enough, and sensible enough on the whole. Bui the reader is not interested, and he is not put in pos- session of any valuable facta or any helpful ideas. The writer should have left the subject to such men as Emer- son. Take a paragraph from another essay of this kind : NATURE OF THE SUBJECT. 7 Time. " Do not tell me of to-morrow ; There is much to do to-day That can never be accomplished If we throw the hours away ! " Some take no thought of the value of money until it is gone, and many do the same with their time. The hours are allowed to pass by unemployed ; and then when life is fast waning they bethink themselves of making a wiser use of it. But the habit of listlessness and idleness may already have become confirmed and they are unable to break the bonds with which they have permit- ted themselves to become bound. Lost wealth may be replaced by industry, lost knowledge by study, lost health by temperance and medicine ; but lost time is gone forever. This is worse than uninteresting. It is characteristically prefaced by a cheap jingle. Then the writer becomingly shies a little, not introducing the subject suddenly, but leading up to it by a forced and lifeless comparison. There follows a sweeping statement, presumably applicable to each one of the imaginary " many " to whom we have been introduced. And then — with so little vividness has the picture of " life fast waning" been conceived — we are told in weak, uncertain terms that the habit of idleness may already have become confirmed. And the paragraph con- cludes with a rhetorical climax, artificial to the last word of it. The difficulty lies in the fact that the writer was not conceiving vividly nor feeling deeply when he wrote. He had no purpose beyond that of making a composition. And he conceived of a composition as something very special in its nature, having a subject drawn from a particular field of speculation, following an approved method of development, and consecrated by an appropriate style. Why did he use the words waning, bethink, bonds ? Partly because he could say nothing new on his subject, and in saying what had often been said before he naturally 8 THE WHOLE COMPOSITION. used the words that had been used before ; partly because the poetic tinge of these words had impressed his imagina- tion ; partly because he thought that, unless he used a diction sanctified by generations of composition-writers, his work would not be a composition at all. Let us not be too severe. The writer was indulging his love of the beautiful, and in this all writers may, within reasonable bounds, be encouraged. But we do insist that a writer shall first say something definite, something worth saying, and say it clearly, and only after that turn his attention to style. The writer of the last essay was advised to write upon some subject connected with his school work. His next essay began thus : Am. Our earth has many robes. First come close-fitting garments of brown soil, gray rock, or green grass, with wide liquid under- skirts of deep blue filling up the spaces between their edges. Out- side of these are more wonderful coverings, fragile yet strong, transparent, almost invisible, and folded round the earth, layer upon layer ; or, as one might say, veil upon veil, each more gossa- mer-like than the last. The last-mentioned layers or veils form Earth's atmosphere — a substance found everywhere upon it and pervading everything about it. One may travel from the equator to the poles, one may journey by land or by sea, one may soar high in a balloon or descend deep in a mine, but one can never go in this world to a place where atmosphere is not. This time the writer chose a good subject. But his old faults followed him. There is the same shying round the subject instead of coming directly to it. There is the same fondness for figures. There is the same ransacking of earth and heaven for parallels, and t lie same striving after climax where no climax is called for. Evidently he still felt that the composition-writer's chief duty is to decorate. LIMITATION OF THE SUBJECT. 9 Now farther along in the essay were to be found such straightforward sentences as these : Air has a faint bluish tint which on a sunshiny day becomes in the sky a very pure and deep blue. This tint is not believed to be the natural color of the atmosphere. Wei*e it such, the air would act the part of a blue pane of glass, rendering the white light of the sun blue as it reached our eyes. The blue of the air is thought to be a reflected blue. If reflected, there must be something in the air to reflect it ; and such indeed is the case. Perfectly pure air would doubtless be without color, but perfectly pure air we do not find. Etc. Here at last was stuff of the right sort — good matter and a good manner. What the writer had failed to realize, as his introduction showed, was that such simple statements of fact concerning the atmosphere as would satisfy a teacher of chemistry or of physics would satisfy a teacher of composition — just that and nothing more or less. He had not yet learned that composition must not be detached from the other activities of hand or brain, in school or out. 4. Limitation of the Subject. Another point is sug- gested by this last subject. The subject is of the right nature, but it is too broad to be treated in an ordinary school essay. Nothing short of a volume would warrant the selection of such an unqualified theme as " Air." The briefer the title the broader the theme, and consequently the fuller the treatment demanded. The theme before us might have been narrowed in many ways. The writer might have confined himself to the chemical composition of air, to its physical properties, or to its relation to organic life. "The Blue Color of the Atmosphere " would con- stitute a good subject in itself. Narrowing the theme is not only a proper measure to take when the essay is to be brief : it will be found actually helpful. Para- doxical it is, but the average writer will find more to say upon a narrow theme than upon a broad one. So soon as he confines his 10 THE WHOLE COMPOSITION. attention to one phase of a subject details come into view. And writing, as he must, one word at a time, one sentence at a time, lie finds it easier to deal with details. The broad theme discour- ages him by its very breadth, puzzles him with its features that cannot be represented by a single word or a single sentence. And often his knowledge is inadequate and his time is insufficient for obtaining adequate knowledge. Or he may have adequate and mi- nute knowledge and yet lack a well-developed faculty of organi- zation, so that when he sits down to write, his mass of knowledge proves a real hindrance instead of a help. EXERCISE. Narrow the following subjects : Novel-reading. India-rubber. Exercise. Whittier. Photography. Pessimism. 5 Kinds of Subjects. —A formal classification of subjects may be made. They fall naturally into four kinds: Narra- tive, Descriptive, Expository, and Argumentative. The kinds necessarily overlap, and they are continually mingled in actual composition, though in any composition that pretends to unity one kind must be dominant. Tales are chiefly narrative, so-called Travels chiefly descriptive. Novels usually mingle these two kinds. What are techni- cally styled Essays, and Treatises of all kinds — scientific, sociological, critical — are expository in their nature. Phil- osophical, religious, and political writings tend strongly to the argumentative. History includes the first three kinds of composition, and, if the historian advances personal opin- iona and attempts to support them, it may include the fourth. These are examples only. Let us define the terms briefly. (1) Narrative composition is that which deals with action performed or suffered, thai is. with deeds or experiences, with events that occupy time, it may ileal with a single incident, or it may be carried to great length, as in biogra- phy and history. KINDS OF SUBJECTS. 11 (2) Description is concerned with objects as they exist in space, or with individual qualities and attributes. The word has a broader use than this technical one, as when we speak of describing an occurrence or an experience, but for the purposes of rhetoric it is desirable to limit it to this technical definition. Description, in this meaning, is prac- tically confined to short articles, scientific or literary, or to brief interpolations in longer works where it is merely accessory to narration or exposition. R. L. Stevenson says: " No human being ever spoke of scenery for above two minutes at a time, which makes one suspect we hear too much of it in literature." The caution will hold for other things — a picture, a poem, a human being, as well as scenery. (3) Exposition differs from description in that it deals with groups of individuals that are similar in certain re- spects, or with general qualities or abstract ideas. We describe " A Landscape/' for it is particular; it has charac- teristics peculiar to itself, and these it is the office of descrip- tion to dwell on. We expound " Landscape in Literature," " Landscape Painting," or possibly even " Landscape Paint- ings," for here the emphasis is upon the general character- istics that determine a class. If special characteristics are mentioned, it is only incidentally or perhaps for the sake of distinguishing a sub-class. Exposition is never very far from classification, express or implied. Its range is wide, from the single-paragraph editorial on some question of the day to the voluminous scientific treatise. (4) Argumentation strives to establish the truth or falsity of a proposition. Its range is also wide, determined chiefly by the complexity of the proposition. For further definition and explanation, see the author's "Prac- tical Course in Composition," pages 29, 31, 47, 119, 137. Of the different kinds of composition narration and description 12 THE WHOLE COMPOSITION. are the simplest, as they involve no general ideas or abstract terms. They naturally engage the writer's earliest attention. But it is to be noted also that in their perfection they constitute the very highest and most difficult grades of composition, com- prising the major portion of fiction and poetry, of what is some- times termed pure literature. As our present purpose lies between these extremes, we shall give less attention to narration and description than we otherwise should, using them only so far as they serve to illustrate general principles of clear and effective discourse. The law of unity, for example, is almost equally ap- plicable to all varieties of discourse. On the other hand, argu- mentation, involving as it does logic, and looking so often toward oral presentation, as in court pleadings, demands a special treat- ment. Exposition affords the best field to the writer who seeks control of language as a means to an intellectual and not an emo- tional end, and who is desirous of settling down into a firm and lucid style. Besides, the bulk of useful writing to-day is exposi- tory in nature. This kind of composition, therefore, we shall keep chiefly in view. Indeed, it may well be questioned whether narration and de- scription are sufficiently amenable to law to be made profitable subjects of text-book study. They depend for their success upon the genius of the writer, upon observation, insight, imagination, passion, and that distillation of personality which we call style. Now style itself, apparently the most external of these qualities, cannot, except in the modest form described above as "firm and lucid," be taught, but only self-taught or perhaps communicated. Variety, for example, constitutes one of its great charms. But variety means license rather than law. In short, poetry and fic- tion stand at an infinite remove from mechanics. It will always be futile to lay down laws for them : the next original genius will violate the laws and triumph in his violation. Hut exposition does not require so much in the way of native gifts. And exposition, standing outside of aesthetics, does not seek style primarily — it is most intimately concerned with facts and ideas. Hence a treatise may begin, or be constructed throughout, after a set form, while a story may not. Stock methods and even stock phrases are a good equipment for the scientific or practical writer, though they must be avoided by the FINDING MATERIAL. 13 literary man, whose " Once upon a time" and " They lived hap- pily ever afterward" we never weary of ridiculing. Stories and descriptions we may of course practise writing, as we carry along our work in composition. Interest will be better maintained, the individual talent to be found here and there will be given an op- portunity for development, and we shall at least be perfecting ourselves all the time in expression. But when it comes to dis- cipline in the larger matters of invention and organization, we find ourselves forced by the nature of the case into the field of exposition. EXERCISES. 1. Examine the selections at the end of the book, determining the kinds until the nature of these kinds becomes clear. 2. Select from the list of miscellaneous subjects given under 2 those suitable for each kind of composition. 3. Which of the following titles would be suitable for an expo- sition ? A brief description ? A novel ? A Homestead. The Homesteader. The Homestead. Homesteaders. The Old Homestead. The Homestead Act. Homesteads. Homestead Exemption. . III. THE MATEEIAL. 6. Finding Material. — There are two sources of mate- rial — our own observation and experience, and the observa- tion and experience of others. From the first source come personal narratives and memoirs and original scientific de- scriptions; if we call into play the faculty of imagination, which transfers real objects and happenings to ideal cir- cumstances, from this source comes also the bulk of poetry and fiction, of "pure literature." From the second source come most compendiums of facts and opinions — history, expository essays, philosophical and argumentative dis- course. It is impossible, of course, to make an exact clas- sification upon this basis— both sources are drawn upon 14 THE WHOLE COMPOSITION. more or less for nearly all kinds of composition. A romance maybe "historical," and an exposition may grow almost entirely out of personal observation. But the distinction is a convenient one to make. 1. As to the method of obtaining the first kind of mate- rial, out of which grows " first-hand " composition, we might simply say, Keep your eyes open. But this injunc- tion needs emphasis. We must keep our eyes open a very long while sometimes in order to find just the material we need. Not all tilings are available. And not all available things will yield their inmost character at a glance. "Talent,'* said Guy de Maupassant, "consists in looking at what you are going to write of long enough and atten- tively enough to discover in it something that has not been seen and reported by any one else." Sit down before your subject, literally if possible, figuratively at all events, and draw and color as faithfully as any artist of the brush. The testimony of authors to the value of getting knowledge first- hand whenever possible is practically unanimous.* " After I had got the people of my novel grouped together in my mind." Mr. Harold Frederic is reported as saying, "I set myself the task of knowing everything they knew. As four of them happened to be specialists in different professions, the task has been tremendous. For instance, one of them is a biologist, who, among other things, experiments on Lubbock's and Darwin's lines. Although these pursuits are merely mentioned, 1 got up masses of stuff on bees and the cross-fertilization of plants. I had to teach myself all the details of a Methodist minister's work, obligations, and daily routine, and all the machinery of his church. In the ease of Father Forbes, who is agood deal more of a pagan than a simple- minded Christian, and loves luxury and learning, I bad to study the arts he loves as well as his theology. 1 have waded in Assyri- ology and Schopenhauer, pored over palimpsests a ml pottery, and in order to write understanding^ about a musician who figures in * For a somewhat different view, see article ou " Local Color " iu Literature, Apr. ^3, 1S98. FINDING MATERIAL. 15 the story, I bored a professional friend to death to get technical, musical stuff." Henry Kingsley gives negative testimony of the same nature when he writes in "Ravenshoe": "In the natural course of events I ought now to follow Charles in his military career step by step. But the fact is that I know no more about the details of horse-soldiering than a marine, and therefore I cannot." Open Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Note Books " at almost any page and see how continually he was making and jotting down minute observations for future use: " October 25. — A walk yesterday through Dark Lane, and home through the village of Danvers. Landscape now wholly autumnal. Saw an elderly man laden with two dry, yellow, rustling bundles of Indian cornstalks, a good personification of Autumn. Another man hoeing up potatoes. Rows of white cabbages lay ripening. Fields of dry Indian corn. The grass has still considerable greenness. Wild rose-bushes de- void of leaves, with their deep, bright red seed-vessels. Meeting- house in Danvers seen at a distance, with the sun shining through the windows of its belfry. Barberry-bushes, — the leaves now of a brown-red, still juicy and healthy; very few berries remaining, mostly frost-bitten and wilted. All among the yet green grass, dry stalks of weeds. The down of thistles occasionally seen fly- ing through the sunny air." Again: "There was a stumpy clearing beyond the bridge, where some men were building a house. I went to them and inquired if I were in Massachusetts or Vermont, and asked for some water. Whereupon they showed great hospitality, and the master workman went to the spring, and brought delicious water in a tin basin, and produced another jug containing ' new rum, and very good ; and rum does nobody any harm if they make a good use of it,' quoth he." In the sixteenth chapter of Macaulay's History we read : ' ' Be- neath lay a valley now so rich and so cheerful that an English- man who gazes on it may imagine himself to be in one of the most highly favored parts of his own highly favored country. Fields of wheat, woodlands, meadows bright with daisies and clover, slope gently down to the edge of the Boyne." How did Macaulay know ? His biographer has set by the side of the preceding the fol- lowing passage from his (Macaulay's) journal, written after a drive up the Boyne from Drogheda : " The country looked like a 16 THE WHOLE COMPOSITION. flourishing part of England. Cornfields, gardens, woods, suc- ceeded each other just as in Kent and "Warwickshire. . . . Hand- some seats, fields of wheat and clover, noble trees : it would be called a fine country even in Somersetshire." It is not to be denied that a wide experience is of great value for higher literary work. The writings of such men as Kudyard Kipling and Bret Harte are proof of this. But after all it is not breadth of experience so much as it is depth that counts. Thoreau could extract from the neighborhood of Concord a richer experi- ence than most men can extract from the world. The value of material gained thus is measured wholly by one's powers of obser- vation, by one's faculty for what Mr. Ruskin calls " the earnest and intense seizing of natural facts." George Henry Lewes has put it thus : " All good literature rests primarily on insight. All bad literature rests upon imperfect insight, or upon imitation, which may be defined as seeing at second-hand. ... So little do writers appreciate the importance of direct vision and experience that they are in general silent about what they themselves have seen and felt, copious in reporting the experiences of others. They are as if dismayed at their own individuality, and suppress all traces of it in order to catch the general tone." 2. The second source of material, the observation and experience of others, concerns exposition more nearly. The product is in a sense second-hand composition. But we may distinguish two classes. The first comprises mere compendium.-;, annals, and documentary briefs, the results of the collection and collation of already existing material. Slight originality goes into such work. Some art in selec- tion and some power of organization suffice. The utmost honesty in giving credit should be observed, likewise the utmost precision in referring to sources, whether in a gen- eral bibliography or in special marginal or foot notes or in parentheses. In the second class the material gathered by other men is no less industriously sought and sifted, but the writer brings to bear upon this material such powers of analysis and synthesis, and adds to it from his own FINDING MATERIAL. 17 experience so much that is illustrative and interpretative, that his work becomes a genuine contribution to literature, in which the personality of the man counts for almost as much as do the facts and opinions in which he deals. A sufficiently gifted writer will live himself into a dead fact until that fact is made to live again through him. He will so link on the experiences of other men to his own and to our own that human life and science become trans- figured in our eyes and we are stirred as if by the touch of a creative genius. Thus are born the historical essays of a Macaulay, the critical essays of a Sainte-Beuve or a Matthew Arnold, the moral essays of a Montaigne or an Emerson. Somewhere between these two classes lie the major portion of the articles that fill our magazines to-day, and the mass of books that are put out in the various departments of philosophy and science. Sometimes these descend to mere statistics, sometimes statistics themselves are transmuted into a " criticism of life." The genius that alone will enable us to accomplish this latter feat we may not provide, but we can at least pry into the methods followed and turn the knowledge gained to our humbler ends. " I can only gather wood and lay it on the altar," said Goethe ; "the fire must descend from heaveu." Note a few of the documents which, among others, George Ban- croft gathered and used in the preparation of Volume IV of his " History of the United States" : " Particularly the original, un- published Journal of the Committee of Correspondence of Massa- chusetts ; letters from public committees from places as far south as Savannah, most of them unpublished and never read by any writer of American history ; . . . unpublished letters from Samuel Adams, Benjamin Franklin, as agent for Massachusetts, John Adams, Bichard Henry Lee," etc., etc. Again, a critic writes : " Mr. Bancroft, who was Ambassador to London in 1846- 49, had the Government Archives of England and France freely thrown open to him and also was allowed free access to the pri- vate papers of the noble and political families in both countries whose ancestors had been mixed up in our contest. Well and 18 THE WHOLE COMPOSITION. wisely has he used them. We had occasion, when his sixth volume appeared, to go over it as critically as we could, and it is to the credit of his accuracy that we were able to discover only a single inaccuracy. Thai was where he committed tautology by speaking of the county of Yorks7wV< ." Macaulay's method may be learned from the following entries in his journal, as preserved by Sir George 0. Tre- velyan : " February 8th, 1849. — I have now made up my mind to change my plan about my History. I will first set myself to know the whole subject ; to get, by reading and travelling, a full acquaint- ance with William's reign. I reckon it will take me eighteen months to do this. I must visit Holland. Belgium, Scotland, Ire- land, France. The Dutch archives and French archives must bo ransacked. I will see whether anything is to be got from other diplomatic collections. I must see Londonderry, the Boyne, Aghrim, Limerick, Kinsale, Namur again, Landen, Steinkirk. I must turn over hundreds, thousands, of pamphlets. Lambeth, the Bodleian, and the other Oxford libraries, the Devonshire Papers, the British Museum, must be explored, and notes made ; and then I shall go to work. ... I began to-day with Avaux's dispatches from Ireland, abstracted almost a whole thick volume, and compared his narrative with James's." "October '-2d, 1 sr>4. — I called on the warden of All Souls', who was the only soul in residence. He was most kind ; got me the manuscript of Narcissus Luttrell's Diary — seven thick volumes in cramped writing; put me into a comfortable room ; and then left me to myself." "October 3d. — I went to All Soul,--" at ten, and worked till five. Narcissus is dreadfully illegible in 1696 ; but that matters the less, as by that time the newspapers had come in." Carlyle, apropos of his " French Revolution," writes in a letter to bis brother : " For the present I am busy reading all manner of Memoirs of Mirabeau ; especially a late large work by a i flls mlnptij" of his. If they have it in Rome (four volumes are already out), you, too, might find it interesting. Mill got it, I may almost say bought it, for me, the other day: he is, as al- ways, the most helpful of book-providers (I have some hundred FINDING MATERIAL. 19 and fifty volumes of his even now ! ), and really seems to take a pleasure in assisting me." Carlyle, however, was not a man to place entire dependence on books. In another letter to his brother we find him writing: "My grand task, as you already know, is the ' French Revolution ' ; which, alas, perplexes me much. More Books on it, I find, are but a repetition of those be- fore read ; I learn nothing or almost nothing further by Books : yet am I as far as possible from understanding it." Emerson was also an industrious gatherer of material, although, as was natural in view of his temperament and his purpose, he depended even less than Carlyle on books. Whatever of foreign matter he chose to use was so transformed in the alembic of his own mind that its source can scarcely be recognized. Mr. J. J. Chapman describes his method : " From boyhood onward he kept journals and commonplace-books, and in the course of his read- ing and meditation he collected innumerable notes and quota- tions which he indexed for ready use. In these mines he ' quar- ried,' as Mr. Cabot says, for his lectures and essays. "When he needed a lecture he went to the repository, threw together what seemed to have a bearing on some subject, and gave it a title." The indexes that are indispensable for putting one on the track of whatever has already been written on a given subject are Poole's Index to Periodical Literature, the A. L. A. (American Library Association) Index to General Literature, and the Annual Literary Index. The reports from the various governmental de- partments will afford a great amount of material for this kind of work. For example, from the Report of the Secretary of Agri- culture for 1888 an interesting article on " Ostrich-farming in America " can be written. From special consular reports can be worked up many such subjects as " The Manufacture of Carpets in Foreign Countries," "Fig-culture in Sicily." EXERCISES. 1. Take a short walk with the object of noting carefully what- ever may appeal most strongly to your interest. Write out your observations in some such manner as Hawthorne was accustomed to do (see quotation above), so that they could be turned to account at any time in the future when you might desire to 20 THE WHOLE COMPOSITION. describe a similar walk with accurate accompaniments of scene and incident. 2. Take a short walk over a familiar road with the object of discovering some feature of the surroundings that you had never noticed before. Make written notes, as above. 3. Describe your room, briefly and yet with the endeavor to seize its most salient and characteristic features, so that the description could not possibly fit any other room. 4. Find a combination of three adjectives (two, if possible) that will describe one of your friends and no other. 5. Keep a diary for a week, and at the end of the time organize the matter thus gathered into a sketch under some such title as " A Week of My Life," or " One Week's Record." 6. Make notes from the Diary of Samuel Pepys intended to illustrate some phase of social life in England in the seventeenth century. The same thing may be done for colonial life in America from the diary of Samuel Sewall. 7. Gather from a late number of the Statesman's Year-book, or Whitaker's Almanack, or the World Almanac material for an essay on some such subject as Tasmania, Victoria, Productions and Commerce of Greece, Pauperism in Italy. Or gather material for a comparison of, let us say, the Systems of Public Education in Europe or the Fleets of the South American Republics. Or follow the same subject through a number of successive issues of these volumes and make notes upon changes that have taken place — the decrease, for example, of crime and pauperism in a certain country, the growth of the Japanese navy, the decline of Spanish power. 7. Accrediting Material. — The student of composition should not, in his practice-work, entertain the idea that he may freely appropriate without change of form whatever matter he finds in encyclopaedias or elsewhere. When matter is thus used it should invariably be enclosed in quotation-marks and accredited to its author, unless it be a phrase so familiar that every one will recognize it. When it is desirable to add an exact book, chapter, and page or line reference, as in historical theses, the author's ACCREDITING MATERIAL. 21 name and the" reference are usually given in a marginal or foot note. Literary ethics to-day require absolute pre- cision in quoting. If the quoter supplies even a necessary word of his own within a quotation, that word must be euclosed in brackets. Similarly, if any intermediate words or sentences are omitted, the omission must be indicated by a series of dots or asterisks. Thus : Lowell says : " As to the nature of his [Dante's] studies, there can be no doubt that he went through the trivium (grammai 1 , dialectic, rhetoric) and the quadrivium (arithmetic, music, geom- etry, and astronomy) of the then ordinary university course. To these he afterward added painting. ... He is said to have been the pupil of Cimabue, and was certainly the friend of Giotto." For another illustration see Appendix C xvin, 1. On the other hand, the idea should not be entertained that a mere change of form releases one from the obliga- tion of accrediting borrowed matter. Of course an estab- lished fact of history or of science is common property, and the writer using it needs only to concern himself with stating it in a form that suits his purpose. But wherever there is a shadow of personal claim to property in an idea, that claim should be recognized. In using foreign matter on a large scale, as in historical work, the essential point is that the writer should first of all have a distinct subject and design of his own and then make the material con- form to his design. Such a course will preclude the charge of imitation or plagiarism. It would be wise in every case, in practice composition, not only to work out a design beforehand, but to write as much wholly original matter as possible and then amplify or modify this with the material gathered from other sources. EXERCISE. Compare Appendix B, selections v, xi, and xiv, with C xvm, xx, and xxii, noting whether the sources of material are indicated with as much care and clearness in the former as in the latter, 22 THE WHOLE COMPOSITION. 8. Use of Material. — Selection must follow collection. What to say is the first question. What not to say is the second. The subject, with the chosen limitations, should be kept in mind always, and whatever does not bear clearly or directly upon it should be steadfastly rejected, unless, indeed, the composition is of the most informal kind and the writer is deliberately giving the reins to his fancy. If "A Summer in the Country" be the subject, clearly prom- ising a narrative sketch, one half of the article should not be given over to general remarks upon what country life in summer means. If Grasmere Lake be the subject, it would be a mistake to speak more than incidentally of Wordsworth and his work, because the fugitive life of a man can play but a small part in the history of more per- manent objects in nature. Grasmere Lake would remain what it is even if Wordsworth had never been, although undoubtedly he contributed much to our interest in it. But if Wordsworth be the centre of interest, then Words- worth should be our theme. And with that theme given it is quite conceivable that Grasmere Lake should figure largely in our composition, for the objects and aspects of nature do have a direct and deep influence on the lives of men. Much, however, that is admissible on grounds of logic is not admissible on grounds of expediency. The purpose of the composition should be allowed due influence in this matter. When the purpose is instruction, as in a scientific treatise, everything may be included that is necessary to make the treatise exhaustive. But when the purpose is entertainment, as in most literature, much must be merely suggested and much must be rejected altogether, for "the ait of boring people is to tell everything." In a general essay on the prune industry it would be unnecessary and Out of place to say that two iivepenny nails are driven USE OF MATERIAL. 23 through each end of each shake in the manufacture of drying-trays. But in an article for an orchardists' journal on the home-drying of prunes, especially if the article is to be accompanied with illustrative diagrams, these details would be wholly appropriate. The readers must be consid- ered, too, and the manner in which they are meant to be affected. A fact drawn from sacred history bears to most men a different import from a fact drawn from profane history. Cotton Mather could carry conviction to his Puritan readers by invoking the names of Polyander and Festus Hommius, " those famous divines " ; we can scarcely find out to-day who Polyander and Festus Hommius were. With most modern readers a quotation from Plato would not carry so much weight as a quotation from Gladstone, while with some readers a quotation from a demagogue of local renown would have more weight than either. No writer can afford to ignore his audience. Again, the length of the composition, which should be approximately determined beforehand, must settle many questions as to admission or exclusion of details. Some- times a particular matter will bear expansion and there is space for it. We allow details to swarm in. Fact supports fact, and opinion supports opinion. Illustrations of all kinds are welcome. A general truth is supported by our own experience; a surprising incident finds explanation in the working of some hidden law. More often, however, we must compress the material we have gathered into smaller compass. It is well, too, that it is so, for con- densation is a safer process than expansion. But this whole matter is one that ultimately concerns proportion, and the discussion of it will come up again when we reach that point. Unquestionably one of the secrets of good writing is to become first of all so full of your subject that you need to give to the 24. THE WHOLE COMPOSITION. reader only a tithe of what, you possess. Writer and reader alike have more confidence when they know there is plenty of ammuni- tion in reserve. The historian in particular must go through vast quantities of material which he will not use at all or which he will use only in the most abridged form. It will be profitable in this connection to examine again Mac- aulay's practice. ' ' Take at hazard any three pages of the ' Es- says ' or 'History,'" says Thackeray, "and, glimmering below the stream of the narrative, you, an average reader, see one, two, three, a half-score of allusions to other historic facts, characters, literature, poetry, with which you are acquainted. Your neigh- bor, who has his reading and his little stock of literature stowed away in his mind, shall detect more points, allusions, happy touches, indicating not only the prodigious memory and vast learning 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." Let us try this more closely. In the third chapter of the "History" are these sentences : "The rising importance of Leeds had attracted the notice of successive governments. Charles the First had granted municipal privileges to the town. Oliver had invited it to send one member to the House of Commons. But from the returns of the hearth-money it seems certain that the whole population of the borough, an extensive district which con- tains many hamlets, did not, in the reign of Charles the Second, exceed seven thousand souls. In 1841 there were more than a hundred and fifty thousand." Trevelyan, in order to give us an insight into the way in which Macaulay arrived at one of these facts, prints two of his letters : July 17, 1848. Dear Ellis, — Many thanks for your kindness. Pray let Dr. Hook know, whenever you have an opportunity, how much I am obliged to him. The information which he has procured for me, I am sorry to say, is not such as I can use. But you need not tell hi in so. I feel convinced that he has made some mistake : for he sends me only a part of the Leeds burials in 1685; and yet the number is double that of the Manchester burials in the same year. If the ordinary rules of calculation are applied to these data, it will lie found iiiai Leeds. mus< in 1685 have contained 16,000 soula USE OF MATERIAL. 25 or thereabouts. Now, at the beginning of the American war Leeds contained only 16,000 souls, as appears from Dr. Hook's own letter. Nobody can suppose that there had been no increase between 1685 and 1775. Besides, neither York nor Exeter con- tained 16,000 inhabitants in 1685, and nobody who knows the state of things at that time can believe that Leeds was then a greater town than York or Exeter. Either some error has been committed or else there was an extraordinary mortality at Leeds in 1685. In either case the numbers are useless for my purpose. Ever yours, T. B. M. July 27, 1848. Dear Ellis,— Many thanks. Warded is the man. He gives a much better thing than a list of burials— a list of the houses re- turned by the hearth-money collectors. It appears that Leeds con- tained, in 1663, just 1400 houses. And observe, all the townships are included. The average number of people to a house in a country town was, according to the best statistical writers of the seventeenth century, 4.3. If that estimate be just, Leeds must, in 1663, have contained about 6000 souls. As it increased in trade and wealth during the reign of Charles II., we may well suppose that in 1685 the population was near 8000 — that is to say, about as much as the population of Manchester. I had expected this result from observing that by the writers of that time Manchester and Leeds are always mentioned as of about the same size. But this evidence proves to demonstration either that there was some mistake about the number of burials or that the year 1685 was a singularly unhealthy year, from which no inference can be drawn. One person must have died in every third house within twelve months — a rate of mortality quite frightful. Ever yours, T. B. Macaulay. Trevelyan's comment is to the point : "It must be remembered that these letters represent only a part of the trouble which Macaulay underwent in order to insure the correctness of five and a half lines of print. . . . Any one who will turn to the description of the town of Leeds, and will read the six para- graphs that precede it and the three that follow it [descriptive of other towns], may form a conception of the pains which those clear and flowing periods must have cost an author who expended 26 THE WHOLE COMPOSITION. on the pointing of a phrase as much conscientious research as would have provided some writers who speak of Macaulay as showy and shallow with at least half a dozen pages of ostenta- tious statistics." The good effect of dispensing with all superfluous explanations in composition that is intended to be enter- taining may be marked in the following extract from a story : The street-lamps winked and twinkled in the warm spring rain. In the shadows the pavements shone like great blocks of polished black marble. The roar of the city was hushed and subdued. The very air breathed of green grasses and flowers. The crowd, their black umbrellas powdered with sparkling brilliants, surged back and forth, gazing into shop windows, gaping at passing car- riages, and jostling each other from side to side with rare good nature. All were happy ; all were smiling ; spring had come — spring with its fragrance and flowers, spring with its bright sunshine and warm rains. "Violets ?" pleaded the black-eyed vender. "All of them! No; I can't carry so many." But Carrington filled his arms from the boy's basket and then hailed a passing cab. "She likes violets," he murmured; "so do I"— burying his face in the fragrant blossoms. '• No. 2938," said the driver, throwing open the cab door. Carrington ran up the stairs and was admitted without delay. "Tuberoses !" he exclaimed disdainfully ; " time for tuberoses when one is dead. I have brought you some violets. Throw the others away." "Willi" He had opened the window. Some street gamins were slipping and scrambling over the pavement — scrambling for the pure white blossoms. "There is life in violets," he apologized. Or for swiftness of narration secured by similar ellipsis take the following two lines, also from a short story: "O girls, I kuow an ideal spot !" It was ideal. ARRANGEMENT OF MATERIAL. 27 9. Arrangement of Material. — Let us understand the term organization. An organism is made up of parts, but it is something more than a mere aggregation of parts. The parts have a vital relation to one another beyond the accidental relation of nearness. They are mutually dependent, so that one has no meaning apart from the others, or perhaps cannot even exist in the same form apart from the others. From this vital and necessary relation between the parts it comes that the organism has a unity of its own. We speak of it as one thing. A mere conglomeration remains always many things. The human body is an organism. It is a perfect unit only when every part is present and performing its function. And the parts have no meaning when severed from the whole. Cut off the hand and it is no longer a hand. Its func- tions and attributes, even to its external appearance, perish. A machine may be called an organism. A piece of machinery picked up by the roadside is only a cause of perplexity to the mind that is ignorant of its place and purpose. As it is, it is useless. And the machine to which it belongs may be useless until it is restored. A state is an organism, political and social. A poem is an organism. Every word, every rime, that is essential to the meaning and effect of the whole is organic. Every part that could be lopped off, that does not play into the other parts, that is no true organ, is inorganic. A composition should be an organism. Its parts should be adapted to one another, should grow into or out of one another, and should severally and collectively serve the whole. The ordering and adapta- tion of these parts so as to constitute this composite unity is the process of organization. 1. The prime governing principle in putting together a composition is no doubt unity. Much will have been already done toward securing this by following the counsel 1>S THE WHOLE COMPOSITION'. given in the sections on Limitation of the Subject, The Title, and Use of Material. The term unity, however, must not be construed too narrowly. As pointed out in the last paragraph, this unity has parts, whole systems and sub-systems of parts, just as the body has its nervous and respiratory systems, its blood and tissue, and in the last analysis its cells. It is a unity that comes as a result of unification. The theme may be treated in its various aspects and divisions. It will often fall naturally into two opposing parts : a coin has two faces. And the parts, whether two or more, may divide and subdivide almost without limit. The restraint is found in tbe necessity of preserving a relation that will be always felt. The whole matter may be easily illustrated. Let us assume the sub- ject " Cost of an Electrical Plant." It is naturally divided thus : SCost of producing energy, and Cost of transmitting energy. The second division may be subdivided thus : />••■•.. ( First cost of conductor, and Cost of transmitting energy j Cogt of installation< Now under the first of these subdivisions come two con- siderations : f Increase of size means increase of first cost, but Increase of size means decrease in amount of energy wasted. \\ hether the divisions be in the nature of simple partitions or of contrasted aspects, the essential unity of an essay built np after such a plan is at once evident. 2. Logical sequence is the second requisite. A natural order in the arrangement of parts can nearly always be found — that is to say, an order that is in the nature of tilings. The choice of order is virtually reduced to a choice First cost of conductor ARRANGEMENT OF MATERIAL. '29 between two : the order of time, and the order of cause and effect. The first prevails in narrative writing, the second in argumentative. Exj^osition employs both. In description the process may seem to be different : we describe together the elements that are found together in the object described, we begin with the general view and proceed to details, or we begin with the most salient features and continue with those that demand closer scrutiny. But this, it is evident, is following for the most part the order in which things are seen by the eye, and that is after all a temporal order. A geologist who should describe Yellowstone Park would begin by going back 150,000 years. His object, however, would be to show the conditions that existed then in order to account for the conditions found now. His order would be more strictly logical than chronological. A tourist would describe the same thing by taking us in imagination over the ordinary route of travel. His order would really be a chronological one; or it would be a logical order only in the sense in which that word was used at the beginning of this paragraph — that is, it would be a natural order. Again, if one were writing about marketing prunes, one would not speak of commissions first, and the cost of pick- ing second, and freight rates third, and the cost of boxes and packiug fourth. One would find a more natural order. In an outline of a theme entitled " Cooperative House- keeping" is found this inexplicable arrangement : 'Diminution of labor, t, » ,, ,, . ,, Spread of commun- Keasons for the growth of the system-^ r . , . •_, Reduction of ex- pense. "Why is the visionary consideration thrust between the two practical ones ? One can see how the first point may lead to the second, but what will bridge over the gap to the 30 THE WHOLE COMPOSITION. third ? If we put the third first, the difficulty will be obviated. The "saving" idea will then connect the first and the second, while the " labor" idea in the second may be employed, albeit somewhat arbitrarily, to suggest the third. Always let an essay follow some line of natural development, let it grow. 3. The third consideration is relative emphasis. How to secure the desired emphasis for important parts is much a matter of proportion, and that must be dealt with in the actual writing of the composition. But one point is to be observed in the arrangement of material. The emphatic positions are the beginning and the end. In the whole composition one would say that by all means the most em- phatic position is the end. It is possible that this law is reversed in description, but exposition and argument should attend to climax no less surely than a story should. In general the climax, the rising to important matters, should become apparent toward the end — it need not be sought for throughout. Minor matters may be placed at the begin- ning, particularly if such a procedure constitutes a sort of preliminary clearing of the ground, or they may be sunk in the middle of the composition where they will be touched hurriedly and lightly. 10. The Outline. — A preliminary draft or sketch is not indispensable for the writing of a composition. Whole books get themselves written when the writer does not know from one page to another what is to follow. But these are the exceptions. The chances of securing unity and symmetry by this method are slight. The penny-a- liner, whose sole care is to keep things moving, may adopt it ; but the writer with a serious purpose will not. Ex- position and argument in particular demand forethought and planning. An outline is not always written, not usually, perhaps, except in the form of rude jottings and TEE OUTLINE. 31 memoranda, for most writers find it necessary to modify their preconceptions as their work develops. But the result is the same. The work is huilt up more or less in accord- ance with a first plan. It is the making of this first plan that we desire to consider. The process consists simply in jotting down all the ideas that are suggested by the selected theme, and then arranging these ideas in accordance with the principles of sequence, etc., stated above. The relation between some of the ideas will be close, between others more remote. This will lead to grouping. Some one principle, then, which shall govern this grouping should be sought early; otherwise the groups will overlap and there will be confusion. The principle being established and the groups defined and arranged, the designation of each group can be treated as a new theme and the process repeated. Thus the subject can be pursued to its farthest ramifications, or as far as desirable. Let us take the subject of " Longfellow's Poems." The Wreck of the Hesjierus and The Village Blacksmith were published together with a few other poems in 1841, and so suggest a group- ing of early poems. Footsteps of Angels and My Lost Youth will go into a group of autobiographical poems. Paul Revered Ride and The Courtship of Miles Staudish may be considered together as poems of New England life. The Cumberland and The Luck of Edenhall are ballads. The Divina Commedia and T/ie Song of the Silent Land are translations. Suppose now we attempt to construct an outline on the basis of these groups : LONGFELLOW'S POEMS. A. Early poems. 1. The Wreck of the Hesperus. 2. The Village Blacksmith, etc. B. Autobiographical poems. 1. Footsteps of Angels. But here we discover that the last-named poem was written in the same year as the first-named, and might therefore have been 32 THE WHOLE COMPOSITION. placed in the same group. Further, the next autobiographical poem, My Lost Youth, contains pictures of New England life, while on the other hand The Courtship of Miles Standish con- tributes to Longfellow's biography. The Wreck of the Hesperus might be put with the ballads. The Luck of Edenhall should go with the translations. ^Ye are in a tangle, and the only way out is to give up our groups entirely and establish new ones on a definite basis. Clearly, if A is to consist of the early poems, B must include the poems of some other definite period of the author's life. Or if group A represent the poems touching upon New England life, the other groups must deal with life in other parts of the world. In this latter case we should soon discover that many poems have no local inspiration. Thus we shall get at once two hirge groups, under one of which we should range as sub-groups the poems dealing with specific localities. Again, a good division could be made into narrative, descriptive, lyric, and dramatic poems. A little overlapping must be expected, for classifications are after all more or less arbitrary. The expository or argumentative essay is usually con- ceived in three portions, to which we give the rhetorical names of Introduction, Development (or Discussion, or Body), and Conclusion. General considerations usually make up the Introduction, while summaries, and matters that bear somewhat indirectly upon the theme, — com- ments, inferences, recommendations, — constitute the Con- clusion. Subjoined are the outlines of three themes which may serve as examples. The first and second are expository, the third is somewhat argumentative. THE OUTLINE. 83 THE VALUE OF READING. (Adapted from a chapter in Koopman's Mastery of Books.) Introduction. The mark of an educated man — power to see things as they are. This power obtained by Observation. Thought. Reading. Discussion. Importance of reading. A means to clearness of mental vision. In one sense a secondary source of experience. Needs constant verification and correction. Otherwise superior to thought and observation. Extends both. Makes knowledge cumulative. Faults to be avoided. Inattentive scanning. Overcredulity. Unjust discrimination between old and new books. Further reasons for reading. General culture. Information. Conversation. Production. Character-building. Conclusion. Exhortation to read in faith and with sincerity of purpose. LUMBERING IN BRITISH COLUMBIA. Introduction. Timber limits. Extent. Their protection. Fitness for trade. Variety of trees. Purposes for which adapted, 34 THE WHOLE COMPOSITION. Body. Logging-camp. The officers. Their work. The oxen and steam-donkey. Transportation. By rail. By water. Manufacturing. Rough lumber. Dressed lumber. Doors, sash, etc. Market. Local. Home. Foreign. Conclusion. Economy. Better machines. Careful oversight. Regulation of market. Need of government inspection. CAUSE AND CURE OF HARD TIMES. Introduction. Prevalence of hard times. Tendency to blame party in power. Is it a matter for legislation? Alleged causes and their soundness. 1. Overproduction. 2. Cheaper production. 3. Lack of a protective tariff. Results of McKinley and Wilson bills contrasted. Other facts. 4. The single gold standard. An "honest dollar" impossible. Functions of money. 1. Medium of exchange. 2. Standard of value, (iold as a medium <>t exchange. THE OUTLINE. 35 Gold as a standard of value. Appreciation. 1. Effect on debts. 2. Effect on business. The monetary outlook. 1. The supply of gold. 2. The demand for it. 3. Silver discredited. 4. Paper money unsafe. 5. Credit system strained. Free and unlimited coinage of silver as a cure. Objections. 1. "Cannot create value by act of law." 2. International agreement as a substitute. 3. United States not commercially strong enough to act alone. Our commercial importance. Assistance by government security-holders. 4. "Gold will all leave." Why it would leave. Why it would remain. 5. Gold contracts. 6. Fifty -cent dollars. 7. A " flood of silver." 8. What we need is '* sound money and confidence." Conclusion. Bimetallists abused. The most needed reform. EXERCISES. 1. Expand the following outline by division and subdivision of the topics : Football as a College Sport. Introduction. Discussion. A. Advantages. B. Disadvantages. Conclusion. 2. Arrange the following topics into a systematic outline, find- ing first those that are suitable for designating the larger sections of the essay, arranging them in a logical order, and then prop- 36 TEE WHOLE COMPOSITION. erly ranging under them the sub-topics. This may be facilitated by writing out the topics on separate slips of paper. Entitle the whole "Farming in California."' Absence of rain in haying and harvesting season. Type of early agriculturist. Atmosphere of California ranch. Laziness and idleness prevalent. Buildings inexpensive. Much to learn and unlearn of soil and climate. Characteristics of early agriculture in California. Preference for farming on a large scale. Difference in seasons — absence of rain in summer. More abreast of the times. Poor class of early farmers. Burning of straw. Prevents improvements. Mining and trading chief occupations. Agricultural advantages. Unlike Eastern farm. Little care of machinery. Slow development of agriculture — causes. Absence of garden and neglect of farmer to grow his own vegetables. Too great haste to make a fortune. Large land-holdings. Indifference to barrenness and monotony of buildings and landscape. Haste to acquire wealth. Inexpensiveness of work. Less rusticity. Carelessness and thriftlessness of California farming. Agriculture a necessity of the time. Element of speculation. Work conducted differently. Excludes desirable settlers. Unsuitableness of Eastern implements. Taking of unwarrantable risks. Farming different from that of Eastern States. Careless work— shallow ploughing, etc. Detrimental to agriculture. Spanish grants and uncertainty of tenure. Products more limited. Loss through poor accommodations for hired help. THE OUTLINE. 37 3. Read and make an outline of one or more of the following articles. In doing so it is not sufficient simply to enumerate the different topics that are successively taken up, but wherever two or more topics form a group this fact should be indicated by proper divisions and subdivisions. The articles have been se- lected as lending themselves easily to this sort of treatment, but a careful examination will discover many of them to be most im- raethodically constructed, giving strong testimony to the general carelessness of writers in this respect. When the magazines here named are not obtainable, articles from any current periodicals may be substituted. Yale University. Hadley. Harper, Apr. 1894. The Jews of New York. Riis. Rev. of Rev., Jan. 1896. The Future of War. Lee. Century, July 1895. Equality as the Basis of Good Society. Howells. Century, Nov. 1895. Should Golf be Encouraged at Public Schools ? Blackwood, Mar. 1895. Child-life and the Kindergarten. Vrooman. Arena, July 1895. Manual Training for Women. Vrooman. Arena, Oct. 1895. Architecture — A Profession or an Art ? Jackson. Nineteenth Cent., Mar. 1893. The Political Situation. Godkin. Forum, May 1896. What a Daily Newspaper might be Made. Payne. Forum, Nov. 1893. The Transformation of New England. Hyde. Forum, Mar. 1893. The Right and Expediency of Woman's Suffrage. Hoar. Cen- tury, Aug. 1894. The Peasant Life of South Russia. Blackwood, Dec. 1895. Salmon-flies. Maxwell. Blackwood, Feb. 1894. The Irish in American Life. Merwin. Atl. Mo., Mar. 1896. The Summer Problem. Grant. Scribner, July 1895. The Expenditure of Rich Men. Godkin. Scribner, Oct. 1896. The Study of American Liquor Laws. Eliot. Atl. Mo., Feb. 1897. Our National Capital. Ralph. Harper, Apr. 1895. The Living Greek. Manatt. Rev. of Rev., Apr. 1895. Self-help among American College Girls. Banks. Nineteenth Cent., Mar. 1896. The Canals of Mars. Lowell. Atl. Mo., July 1895. 1/ir % Qin 38 THE WHOLE COMPOSITION. The Native Races of the Pacific States. Parkman. No. Amer. Rev., Jan. 1875. How the Banana is Grown. Lyman. Cosmopolitan, Feb. 1898. 4. Make outlines of some of the subjects given under 2. Note.— Before beginning to write the student should familiarize himself with the mechanical details involved in the correct preparation of a manuscript, whether for the press or for the class-room. Full directions will be found in Part V. Especially at this stage let §§ 61-67 be studied. IV. THE COMPOSITION. 11. The Title. — The title should be determined at the outset. The unity of a composition depends on the direct- ness with which every jDortion bears upon a central theme. With the title determined there is far less danger of ram- bling from the central theme. And the theme itself will become more sharply defined in the mind by the very act of embodying it in a compact phrase. Besides, it is, in gen- eral, much easier to make an essay fit a title than to make a title fit an essay. If the essay be written first it may well be that no title can be found which will not be either too broad or too narrow, whereas if the title be selected first matter can be included or excluded at will, to correspond with the limits thus defined beforehand. When one reads a composition entitled " Feline Chinning," and discovers it to be an account of the tricks of the writer's pet cat, he realizes that the title must have been devised as an after- thought, for any one who was deliberately writing on the theme of feline cunning would hardly confine himself to a description of a single cat. 1. The title should be clear. Ellipticalness, indefinite- ness, ambiguity, in a mere phrase — and a title is not often more than a phrase — are peculiarly difficult to avoid. Strangeness may be pardoned if it inhere in the subject. But strangeness should never go to the extreme of un- couthness. And affected strangeness for novelty's sake or TEE TITLE. 39 for advertisement's sake, appealing to an idle curiosity, has no excuse. 2. In form the title must effect a compromise be- tween the claims of brevity on the one hand and exact- ness on the other. "The briefer the title the broader the theme," we had occasion to remark several pages back. Conversely and contrarily, the narrower the theme the longer must be the title. But there is a limit. The title cannot undertake to give all the limitations of a subject; it is sufficient that the most important only be indi- cated. Brevity of form is secured by the reduction of clauses to phrases and phrases to words. Verbs are freely omitted. 3. The title may indicate the character and even the tone of a composition. An interrogative title, for example, promises argument. There is humor in " The Deacon's Masterpiece," pathos in "Ships that Pass in the Night," tragedy in " On the Face of the Waters." It is perhaps in this subtle suggestiveness more than in any exactness of significance that the felicity of a title lies. An ingenious method of suggesting much in a few words is to use a frag- ment of an apt and familiar quotation. Examples are : "Slings and Arrows," "Who Laughs Last," "Through a Glass Darkly," "Which To-day Is." The last is daring, but it conveys a world of meaning to one who is familiar with the passage in Matthew, "AVherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-mor- row is cast into the oven, shall He not much more clothe you, ye of little faith ? " The rules governing the selection of a title can hardly be held to apply to works of fiction, nor do we expect to find them ob- served in the preparation of newspaper headlines. In the case of the latter some inaccuracies may be pardoned, since they are due to unavoidable haste; often, however, it is to be feared that 40 THE WHOLE COMPOSITION. they are due more to a desire for attractiveness, for suspiciously often do we get ideas from headlines that are not warranted by the despatches. In the case of fiction the desire for attractive- ness may be honestly pleaded. The aim of such work is chiefly to please, and the reader does not expect to gather accurate in- formation from the title. Thus one never thinks of objecting to such titles as " The Seats of the Mighty," "Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush," " The Puppet-booth," " Called Back," " Two on a Tower," "Beyond the Palaeocrystic Sea." Besides, the author, who naturally hopes that his work will live, desires something new and distinctive in the way of a name and is often compelled to seek far to find it. But while no high degree of accuracy or sobriety may here be insisted upon, the principle remains that the title should at least be fairly appropriate. It should not abuse the reader's faith by raising expectations that the work will not justify. And this is not solely a matter of conscience, it is a matter of policy. A work that does not fulfil the promise of its title can only redound to the author's harm in the end. As to present-day usage in descriptive, expository, and argu- mentative composition an examination of titles in such maga- zines as The Forum and The North American Review shows them to consist most frequently of two phrases, not often of more than three. Here is a long book-title of three phrases: "The Natural History of the Marketable Marine Fishes of the British Islands." Five and six phrases are occasionally found. Examine the titles given under 10, exercise 3. EXERCISES. 1. Criticise the following titles: The Light that Failed. Early Education. Nicholas Nickleby. The G<>. The months go round and anniversaries return ; on the ninth of June George Sand will have been dead just one year. 52 THE WHOLE COMPOSITION. 7. The average man has no idea of the real meaning of the common adjective phrase "deaf and dumb." 8. "Men scarcely know how beautiful fire is," says Shelley; and I am apt to think there are a good many other things con- cerning which their knowledge might be largely increased without becoming burdensome. 9. Bibbs's was a gloomy little heaven up one flight, and Bibbs a bald and cranky little god of fiddles, with whiskers half as long as himself and white as snow. 10. I dare say that I had already read my uncle's letter a hundred times, and I am sure that I knew it by heart ; none the less I took it out of my pocket and, sitting on the side of the lugger, I went over it again with as much attention as if it were for the first time. 3. Write extempore introductions for any subject selected from the list of subjects for themes under 2. If the work is done in the class-room the introductions may be read, compared, and criticised. 13. The Body. — Little remains to be said about the body of the composition as a whole. The important matters have been provided for in the gathering and arranging of material. The writer has simply to develop in order the topics of his outline, adding illustrations wherever they seem to be demanded. Methods of development will be discussed in detail in the chapter on paragraphs. We need pause here only to supplement what has been said about the arrangement of the topics, with a consideration of such matters as must be attended to in the actual writing. 1. Unity has been insisted upon. This unity must be preserved by a constant centralization of ideas. No matter how far one may be led in the development of certain aspects of his subject, the subject itself should never be for- gotten. It is the central point, and it should be returned to again and again in one form or other, often in the very words of the title. THE BODY. 53 Carlyle, in his lecture on '• The Hero as Man of Letters. " treats of Johnson, Rousseau, and Burns. But this lecture is only one of a series, the general subject of which is " Heroes and Hero-worship." Accordingly, wink' Johnson, Rousseau, and Burns are oftenest spoken of as Men of Letters, Great Men, Great Souls, Gifted Souls, Lions, and the like, they are also spoken of with almost regular recur- rence as Literary Heroes. And their quality of Sincerity, Truth, Splendor, Worth, Greatness, Manhood, appears also with a certain regularity as Heroism. Note, in the following descriptive sketch, how skilfully the subject is kept in view from first to last: Brother Naylor. He rode a mule, gaunt, heavy-eyed, leaden-footed — a veritable caricature of a mule, whose sharp protruding joints gave him the appearance of a grotesque hat-rack. So long-legged was the rider that he was forced to turn his toes up to prevent their touching the ground. His feet dangled with every motion of the mule, for the saddle was without stirrups. Those feet hung down many inches below the wide, baggy trousers, and the reddish woollen hose that encased his thin ankles made them look absurdly like bologna sausages. A ministerial coat floated out behind, and the irreverent wind played many a mad prank with that rusty, black drapery. Long, bony, claw-like hands clutched the bridle, giving it an occasional flap to encourage the mule into a less deliberate gait. His face, thin, sallow, and triangular, looked as if it were a total stranger to wholesome food. '"Shade of the departed Ichabod Crane ! Has he been reincarnated ? " I exclaimed. " What did ye ask, honey ? " inquired Mrs. Silsbee. The angel of discretion, who withheld her blessing at my birth, hovered near just long enough to inspire me to change my question to the more intelligible one, " Who is that man ? " She hurried to the window and replied, " That there is Brother Naylor. He!s our preacher down to Big Spring Church, and I tell ye what, he is done forgot more than most preachers ever knowed." As she watched the departing figure a smile of loving reverence illumined her worn, 54 THE WHOLE COMPOSITION. aged face, restoring for a moment the beauty of her lost youth, and, transfigured in the light of that smile, "Brother Naylor" disappeared from view. This method of calling up at the end, explicitly or other- wise, the subject as introduced in the beginning is one of the most common and most effective means of securing unity. 2. The unity of theme should be reenforced by harmony of tone. Every composition has its "pitch,'' which should be preserved throughout. It may be oratorical and impas- sioned, it may be argumentative and calm, it may be scien- tific and technical, it may be literary and colloquial; but whatever it is it should be consistent. A few illustrations of the want of harmony within the limits of a single sentence will suffice to make this clear. One young essayist writes: " I am awakened every bright morning by the loud whistle of a Sturnella magna that perches on a rail of the pasture-fence opposite my window," and the reader scarcely represses a smile. Again : Imagine such a play as " Julius Caesar " or "Henry the Fourth" heing acted in a round wooden building open to the sky in the audience part of the house, although the stage was covered by a hanging roof. The appeal at the outset here is to the emotions, an appeal which is supported by the descriptive elements "wooden" and " open to the sky." Rut the word " round" and the precise details toward t lie close convey information purely. They do not heighten our sense of the meagreness of theat- rical facilities in Shakespere's day. It is a mixture of poetic and prosaic matter, and the effect is somewhat like the effect experienced on reading the well-known apostrophe to the Thames in Denham's " Cooper's Hill" : O could I flow like thee, and make thy stream My great example, aa it is my theme I THE BODY. 55 Though deep yet clear, though gentle yet not dull, Strong without rage, without o'erflowiug full. Macaulaywas sometimes so insensible to harmony of tone as to allow the intrusion of a hard fact or a petty and pre- cise detail to mar an eloquent passage. In describing the trial of Warren Hastings he writes thus : Every step in the proceedings carried the mind either back- ward, through many troubled centuries, to the days when the foundations of our constitution were laid ; or far away, over boundless seas and deserts, to dusky nations living under strange stars, worshipping strange gods, and writing strange characters from right to left. Many examples of a similar incongruity can be found in the news columns of daily papers. The practice of sur- rounding the simple facts of news with ceremony and os- tentation, of seeking out the dramatic features and putting them foremost, and of serving up the whole in a mock-lit- erary style has grown so much of late that it is the custom in newspaper offices to speak of these accounts as " stories." The effect is often little short of ridiculous. Take a speci- men : " I'll go in ! " said Captain John McAndrews of Chemical No. 4. It was his way to go in where danger was, if life or property was to be saved. The four-story brick building of the Union Paper Company, at 738 Wentworth Street, was all abaze. Its thin walls were tottering. There was danger at every point." This begins well, according to the standard of sensational novels. But even the standard of sensational novels would hardly admit the intrusion here of such prosaic details as "four-story brick building," "738 Wentworth Street." The clash is due to the writer's desire to write eulogy and the necessity of writing news. The proper method would have been to tell the simple facts first, and then, if circum- stances warranted, pay a tribute to the fireman's heroism in a separate account. 56 TIIE WHOLE COMPOSITION. 3. Occasionally an essay has unity without sequence. The relation of the parts to the central theme may he close, like the relation of the spokes of a wheel to the huh, hut there is no further connection between the parts. Many of Emerson's essays are framed in this manner. But the construction is not common. Usually the parts are not only centralized, hut they also sustain a relation one to another somewhat like the links of a chain. This relation was discussed under the name of logical sequence. When this relation exists there are commonly outward marks, in the form of relation-words and -phrases, to indicate it. The use of these outward marks affords clearness and ease of transition, and gives the essay its general coherence. A glance at almost any printed page will discover illus- trations. Successive paragraphs in the latter part of Macaulay's " Lord Clive " show the following transitional sentences : But a great and sudden turn in affairs was at hand . . . It was impossible, however, that even the military establish- ment . . . At length the state of tilings in Bengal began to excite . . . This feeling manifested itself in the strongest manner . . . Clive rose . . . From Ruskin's '• Unto this Last": And these are not, observe, merely moral or pathetic attributes of riches . . . And therefore, the idea that directions can be given for the gaining of wealth . . . None of these things you can know . . . It has been shown thai the chief value and virtue of money . . . Trite enough, the reader t binks . . . Bui farther . . . So, also, the power of our wealth . . . Finally. Since the i E wealth . . . Nevertheless, il is open, I mpwit, i<> serious question . . . THE BODY. 5 i The methods of transition will vary with the character and pur- pose of the composition. Where the relations are those of time or space adverbs of time or place will be used. Logical relations will be indicated by the appropriate adverbs. Where there is simple overlapping of thought there will be repetitions of certain words, or demonstrative and personal pronouns will resume and carry on the thought. Additions, admissions, objections, con- trasts, find their appropriate conjunctions. The simplest of all methods of binding together the parts of a discussion is the cnumerative method, which consists in the use of first, second, third (sometimes first, secondly, thirdly), etc. But it is also the least attractive method. The employment of it in dry sermons is proverbial. Its place is in the text-book (where it may be re- duced to bare numerals at the beginnings of paragraphs), in scien- tific descriptions and classifications, and in the severer types of exposition and argument. The writer who aims to please will seek such a vital relation of parts as will give in itself a more natural coherence. Even where his method is essentially enumer- ative he will make shift to find some livelier articulation. Per- haps one of the most skilful and useful of transitions is that in which the theme of the preceding paragraph is referred to or par- tially resumed. For examples see Appendix C xxii, 14, 15, 1G. See also the selection from Knight's " History of England " just below ; and the second paragraph of section 8. 4. In developing the theme the purpose and length of it must be kept in mind in order to gauge properly the rel- ative proportion of parts. We have seen that one way of securing emphasis for any given point is to reserve it fo v the end. Another way, very clearly, is to dwell upon it and expound it with minute and elaborate detail. Because two topics occupy similar positions in the outline it does not follow that they should receive the same attention in the development. Each must be treated according to its relative importance. Let us compare the following passages: 58 THE WHOLE COMPOSITION. (From Macaulay's " History of England," chapter iii.) Leeds was already the chief scat of the woollen manufactures of Yorkshire: but the elderly inhabitants could still remember the time when the first brick house, then and long after called the Red House, was built. They boasted loudly of their increas- ing wealth, and of the immense sales of cloth which took place in the open air on the bridge. Hundreds, nay thousands of pounds, had been paid down in the course of one busy market day. The rising importance of Leeds had attracted the notice of successive governments. Charles the First had granted municipal privileges to the town. Oliver had invited it to send one member to the House of Commons. But from the returns of the hearth-money it seems certain that the whole population of the borough, an ex- tensive district which contains many hamlets, did not, in the reign of Charles the Second, exceed seven thousand souls. In 1»41 there were more than a hundred and fifty thousand.* (From Knight's " History of England, 1 ' vol. iv, chapter xx.) If the inhabitants of the clothing villages are now essentially different in their mode of life, how much more striking is the dif- ference between the Leeds of Queen Anne and the Leeds that assembled a quarter of a million of people togreet Queen Victoria in ls,-)8! The great cloth-market of Leeds was, in the seventeenth century, kept upon the bridge over the Aire. As the market in- creased it was removed to the High-street. From the bridge to the market-house tressels were placed in the street, and a tempo- rary counter was formed. The clothiers came in from the country, few bringing more than one piece of cloth ; and, after the refresh- ment of a pot of ale, a bowl of porridge, and a trencher of beef, regularly provided for twopence by the public-housekeepers, they were at their tressels by six o'clock in summer and by seven in winter. Each clothier placed his cloth lengthwise upon the coun- ter — "a mercantile regiment drawn up in line." The factors come ; examine the cloth ; and conclude a bargain in a whisper. In a short time the clothiers begin to move, each hearing his piece of cloth to the buyer's house. In an hour the business is over, and the market is left to the shoemakers, hardware-men, and other retailers. Such was the cloth-market also at Halifax and ♦Thoresby's Ducatua Leodensis ; WhitaUer's Loidia and Elmete ; Warden's Municipal History of the Borough of Leeds. THE BODY. 59 Bradford, before the days of the Cloth Hall of Leeds, which was built in 1711.* Now the index to Green's ''History of the English People " shows no mention of Leeds. But Green writes on a smaller scale than either Knight or Macaulay, and this will account for the omission. Knight, however, does not write on so great a scale as Macaulay (who in four large volumes covers only about fifteen years of English history) and yet his paragraph on Leeds is longer than Macaulay's. Can this apparent disproportion be accounted for ? Yes. A close examination will show that Macaulay is reviewing the change that had taken place in the cities of England, and Leeds is only one among the cities selected for descrip- tion. He must speak of the entire city briefly. Knight has a slightly different purpose. He is exhibiting the growth of English trades, manufactures, and industries generally, and as a typical example of one industry he selects the cloth-market of Leeds. Hence his expansion of the subject. After all, it is not Leeds itself that is the centre of interest here, but the manner of selling cloth. Thus the relative proportions are seen to be justified. An interesting comparison of this kind can be made between the two essays on " Boswell's Life of Johnson " by Macaulay and Carlyle. The essays are in part reviews of Croker's edition of Boswell, and both are constructed on precisely the same plan ; indeed Carlyle's essay was no doubt partly intended as a reply to Macaulay's. Both essays take up in order Croker and his edition, Boswell and his book, and Samuel Johnson's life, work, and char- acter. Reduced to pages of the same size and type, they show the following proportions : Macaulay's Essay. Carlyle's Essay. Croker and his edition 25 9 Boswell and his book 7 21 Johnson 32 64 Total of pages 64 94 * Thoresby's " Leeds " and Defoe's " Tour." 60 THE WHOLE COMPOSITION. The most striking difference is in the first division : Macaulay, with the shorter essay, gives three times as much space to Croker as Carlyle gives. The difference might be due to different con- ceptions of the duties of a reviewer, bul we know that Macaulay was not in the habit of devoting very much attention to the books he reviewed. It was really a personal matter in this case. Macaulay disliked Croker and scores his editing severely. It is clear that the reader will carry away from Macaulay's essay a much more vivid recollection of Croker and his work than he will from Carlyle's essay ; and that is just what Macaulay desired. On the other hand, Boswell gets less than one ninth of Macau- lay's space, but more than one fifth of Carlyle's. Macaulay could see little merit in Boswell; Carlyle saw great merit in him. With Carlyle the hero-worshipper is second only to the hei'o him- self. And of course the her-o, Johnson, is by far the largest figure on Carlyle's canvas. Macaulay devoted so much space to Croker that toward the end of his essay he found it necessary to cut short his remarks about Johnson, and half apologizes for so doing. He seems to have realized that personal animosity had got the better of sound judgment. The two essays will yield other interesting studies in proportion. Macaulay's will probably be found to contain the greater number of exact details. Car- lyle's will dwell with much emphasis of force and repetition on significant features. The story, for example, of Johnson's rela- tions to Lord Chesterfield, Macaulay alludes to in four words. Carlyle sees in it one of the truest exhibitions of Johnson's char- acter and accordingly gives it two pages, transcribing the entire letter written by Johnson to Chesterfield. EXERCISES. 1. Examine any of the magazine articles listed under 10, exercise :'>. with reference to their unity, coherence, and proportion. Make a report upon the same. 2. Criticise the unity, coherence, and proportion of the following essays in the Appendix: B vn, i\. XIII. 3. If the books are accessible, compare any two of the Following essays with reference to the relative proportion of pa lis: THE CONCLUSION. 61 Lowell's essay on Dante. Church's essay on Dante. Carlyle on Shakespere {Heroes and Hero-worship, lecture iii). Emerson on Shakespere {Representative Men). Carlyle on Napoleon {Heroes and Hero-icorship, lecture vi). Emerson on Napoleon {Representative Men). Republican Party Prospects. J. S. Morrill. Forum, July 1889. The Republican Program. J. G. Carlisle. Forum, August 1889. Are Football Games Educative or Brutalizing? Four articles in Forum, January 1S34. The Abolition of War. Two articles in Arena, December 1894. 14. The Conclusion. — A formal conclusion, as well as a formal introduction, may be dispensed with, and the writer may simply stop when he has said his say. But he who writes with the most practical ohject may desire to make what he has said still more clear or more emphatic, while he who writes with an artistic purpose will naturally desire to round out gracefully his composition and leave a pleasant impression with the reader. Hence arises a variety of endings. 1. The simplest conclusion is the summary, the final gathering up and presenting in one view of the several points that have been made. A variation of this is the selection of a certain point or points for restatement with a view to special emphasis. The theme itself may be restated here, either nakedly or along with such explana- tions and inferences as find no appropriate place elsewhere. In the case of sermons, and didactic and persuasive compo- sition generally, the conclusion often contains the applica- tion of the truths educed in the course of the exposition, the "lesson," as it is sometimes called. Similarly, indeed, in the case of stories and sketches of all kinds the conclu- sion is the place for pointing a moral, if one lias the courage to be so old-fashioned. But formal and elaborately rhe- torical endings — " perorations " they are called in oratory- are much less sought after to-day than they have been in the past. 6'2 THE WHOLE COMPOSITION. 2. The conclusion is like the introduction in that it ad- mits of a more personal tone than does the body of the composition, establishing more or less intimate relations between writer and reader. It should usually be written with .some reference to the introduction too, answering questions or following out hints that were left in an in- conclusive form there. The correspondence may be made very exact. If the introduction, for example, is historical, the conclusion may very appropriately be prophetic. But the conclusion must also keep close to the matter of the discussion, even closer than the introduction. No new matter of importance should be introduced here, unless the conclusion is only a temporary one, intended to pave the way for a sequel. One is surprised, for example, in read- ing a description of the Hawaiian Islands in which no mention lias been made of music to find the following stand as the final paragraph: One might spend weeks on these islands in sight-seeing and studying the people ; but of all the scenes and customs with which the visitor becomes acquainted, probably the Hawaiians' rendering of their native music is the most pleasantly remem- bered. It is clear why the writer selected this for the conclud- ing statement: tie desired to make it emphatic. But it arouses curiosity that is left unsatisfied. Had he written somewhat at length of native Hawaiian music he might well have returned to it thus in his conclusion; but it was wrong to mention the matter here for the first time. 3. The restriction just made must not be applied too rigorously. Actual abruptness is often good. Perhaps the weakest of all conclusions is that which rounds out too completely, which closes the discussion with the air of hav- ing said absolutely the last word. Not to say too much is the art of closing a story effectively. Kipling knows this THE CONCLUSION. 63 well; witness the last sentence of his "Cupid's Arrows": "But Cubbon took her away instead, and — the rest isn't worth printing." In Olive Schreiner's "Story of an Afri- can Farm " the reader is left face to face with the tragedy of the tale in the simple statement, "But the chickens were wiser." Now there is no reason why this principle of suggestiveness may not be applied to essays also. There is nothing to forbid a writer from opening up to the reader new vistas of thought and imagination. It was a mistake, in the conclusion quoted above, to introduce the subject of native Hawaiian music, because the reader cannot follow it out for himself; but it is not wrong in the following — the conclusion of Edward Dowden's essay on "The Tran- scendental Movement " — to introduce the subject of George Eliot's novels, because the intelligent reader may be as- sumed to be familiar with them: Meanwhile for the present one great imaginative writer repre- sents at their highest the tendencies of our time, and, concentrat- ing her vision upon this earth and the life of men, has seen in these good and evil, joy and anguish, terrors and splendors, as wonderful as ever appeared to any poet of transcendentalism. That the inductions of science and the ethics of positivism trans- form but do not destroy what is spiritual in man is demonstrated by the creations of " Roraola" and " Daniel Deronda." Suggestiveness and humor together are found in the fol- lowing from an essay on " Railroad Competition and Com- bination " : It is all very well to talk of free competition and survival of the fittest. But permanent competition is virtually out of the question. And survival of the fittest is only possible when the unfittest can be physically removed — a thing which is impossible in the case of an unfit trunk line. The lion and the lamb must lie down together. The only questions are, first, how long before this state of things is to come about ; and, second, whether the lion is to lie down outside of the lamb. 64 THE WHOLE COMPOSITION. 4. Let us look at several varieties of more formal con- clusions. The frankly summarizing conclusion: To recapitulate, then : I would define, in brief, the Poetry of words as The Rhythmical Creation of Beauty. Its sole arbiter is Taste. With the Intellect or with the Conscience it has only col- lateral relations. Unless incidentally, it has no concern whatever either with Duty or with Truth.— E. A. Poe : Tlie Poetic Principle. Less distinctly summarizing:, hut clearly resuming: Thus this singularly eccentric and independent mind, wedded to a character of so much strength, singleness, and purity, pur- sued its own path of self-improvement for more than half a cen- tury, part gymnosophist, part backwoodsman ; and thus did it come twice, though in a subaltern attitude, into the field of polit- ical history. — E. L. Stevenson : Henry David Thoreau. Restatement of important points for impressiveness : In conclusion, my dear young friend, let me once more impress upon your mind that a political career is full of temptations and disappointments. I fear that for many years to come an honest man must be at a great disadvantage in our legislatures. He must resist the lobby which corrupts and the party organization which deceives. He must place his professional honor securely upon principle, not upon expediency. He must be prepared to be called all manner of names, and in the end, perhaps, to be rated a worldly failure.— W. D. McCrackan: Politics as a Career. The Arena, J anuary 1895. Suggestions for the treatment of another phase of the subject, together with exhortation: The limits of this article do not allow a statement of the details of the remedy. Bui it is clear that nothing will do short of a complete abolition of the system, and a legal requirement that manufacturers shall provide large, airy, well-lighted rooms in which the work shall be done. The thing for you and me to do is to make public opinion. Agitate, agitate, agitate! Show people the prevalence of this iniquity, and I have confidence that if it is exhibited once, twice, thrice, to a humane public the THE CONCLUSION. 65 sovereign decree will come forth, "Abolish it." And it would be done. God speed the day ! — F. M. Goodchild: The Sweating System in Philadelphia. The Arena, January 1895. EXERCISE. Examine, for both merits and defects, the conclusions of the selections in the Appendix, especially B in, v, ix, XI, XIII, XIV, C XVI, XIX. THE PARAGRAPH. 1. MATURE OF THE PARAGRAPH. 15. Technical Definition. — We have seen that the anal- ysis of an organized composition shows it to consist of parts, "whole systems and sub-systems of parts," down to the simplest unit of formal discourse, the sentence. Now the sentence, in writing and printing, has its own dis- tinguishing marks — the capital letter and the period. And it is evident that some device for indicating the larger units or parts will be of like utility. This device is found in what is technically called "paragraphing," in which the first line of the matter that -is to constitute a separate paragraph is "indented" and the last line ''spaced out." Further details will be found in Part V, on Mechanical Processes, section 62. 16. Logical Definition. — Paragraphing is a device that catches the eye, but, as just intimated, it has a significance back of that. The mistake should never be made of assuming that it is intended merely to break up a page and make it beautiful, as it were, by giving it a more open appearance. The open page may have more attraction for the desultory reader, and writers may allow themselves at times ami within certain limits to be influenced by this consideration, but in no serious work should such a con- sideration make paragraphing wholly arbitrary and mean- ingless. The logical and legitimate paragraph is a unit, a • up of sentences expressing ideas that are closely related 66 LOGICAL DEFINITION. 67 among themselves, and that, as a group, are more or less sharply distinguished from other groups. These groups, taken together, constitute the fully developed theme. All of this has been pretty clearly indicated in the directions for preparation of the outline (10). The various aspects of the general theme as there set forth will afford the topics of the various paragraphs. And so natural and funda- mental are these divisions that they will be indicated in speaking as well as in writing — by longer pauses, by changed intonation or emphasis, just as marks of punctuation have their vocal counterparts. 1. It is important that the double relation of the para- graph be kept in mind. On the one hand, it is a depend- ent member of the whole composition, having a close ar- ticulation with adjoining members. On the other hand, it is an organism in itself, somewhat like a composition in miniature, having a special function of its own apportioned among the separate sentences, which are its own members. It frequently happens that all that is said upon a given subject is said in a single group of sentences, as, for exam- ple, in newspaper editorials. Such isolated groups may be, and are, in newspaper parlance, called " paragraphs," but it is clear that they are not paragraphs at all in our sense of the word. They arc simply brief but whole compositions, and are to be treated as such unless they dwindle to mere notes or items of one or two sentences. On the other hand, when a writer cbooses to chop up his composition into bits, giving to each sentence the form of a separate paragraph, it is clear that he also is not writing paragraphs properly so called, since his divisions arc not groups, they have no in- ternal logical organism, and they can express no relation that is not already expressed by sentence division. These two variations from the paragraph proper may be illustrated by the following: 68 THE PARAGRAPH. Domokos is the latest, and, as we go to press, appears to be the last, Greek defeat that the Powers will tolerate. Turkey's hand has been forced, against the will of the German emperor, but by the commanding weight of Russia and her allies in this miserable business. The Porte's demands are pronounced extravagant as regards indemnity in money and in territory; Thessaly is not to be restored to Turkey, nor is abolition of the capitulations to be thought of. In short, while Turkey has been allowed to operate up to a certain point as if in vacuo, she is now reminded of the artificiality of her " integrity,*' and that her offensive-defensive is not subject to the laws or chance of war alone. She exists by the grace of Christian fleets for the benefit of non-Moslem bond- holders until the convenient hour of partition arrives and the Sick Man is bowed down and out of Europe. For the moment she stays her victorious arms on the border of what used to be known as Greece proper.— Editorial in The Nation, May 20, 1897. In accordance with our agreement, 1 write to beg you to call the immediate attention of the President to the letter which I send him by the same post. Mr. Evarts has declared that he can do nothing until he knows the intentions of the French government. I have seen again the French Minister, M. Outrey. He is still awaiting instructions. A despatch to him, to be transmitted to the American government, is indispensable. Under the circumstances I count on your patriotism. The nomination of commissioners is the next end to be achieved by t he instigators of the French-American movement. To attempt to go farther at this time would be to run the risk of compromising everything, The mere nomination of commissioners does not amount to a pledge. I await it. If I do not obtain it, public opinion shall say which of us, you or I, is really devoted to the interests of France. — Leon Chot- teau : Letter l<> .1/ , Pans. 2. Jn the King James version of the Bible the numbered verses have the form of paragraphs, bul the real paragraphs are indicated by the mark a . Jn poetry the stanza form makes impossible any paragraph division that does not coin- LENGTH OF PARAGRAPHS. 69 cide with the stanza division. In a dialogue or conversa- tion the alternate speeches are naturally given the form of separate paragraphs, even though a speech consists of but a single word, as "Yes" or "No." See Appendix C xvi and xix. Mere scraps of conversation are often run in with the paragraphs to which they properly beloug. For example, in xix. 8, there would be a gain in immediate clearness if the quoted words were incorporated with the sentences preceding, since they constitute a logical part of them, the pronoun he in the quotation referring to Dr. Pusey. See also xv, 9. 17. Kinds of Paragraphs. — In the different kinds of composition different principles control the grouping of ideas, resulting in different kinds of paragraphs. The descriptive paragraph naturally deals with objects that are contiguous in space, or that form one picture upon the retina of the eye. The narrative jDaragraph deals with a single point of time, or with a definitely marked stage in the progress of events. The expository paragraph is made up of ideas that have a close logical relation. This may be made clear by reference to the selections in the Appendix. For example, A Bee Hunt (0 xv) is nar- rative, and its several paragraphs begin after this fashion: We had not been long in the camp when a party set out in quest of a bee-tree. After proceeding some distance we came to an open place. Two of the bee-hunters now plied their axes vigorously. One of the hunters immediately ran up with a wisp of lighted hay. 18. Length of Paragraphs. — It might seem that since the paragraph is a logical unit its length need not be con- sidered — it will be determined by the grouping of ideas. As a matter of fact, however, the paragraph is extremely elastic, and paragraph division, as we shall see later, is 70 THE PARAGRAPH. necessarily somewhat arbitrary, so that the consideration of mere length may be allowed some weight. In general, a topic cannot bo satisfactorily developed in fewer than three sentences ; consequently a paragraph of only one or two sentences is not common, at least not in expository writing. On the other hand, how many sentences might go into a single and logically indivisible group no one can say. But there is great reluctance on the part of writers to allow the paragraph to exceed very much the limits of a printed page. The solid page has a forbidding aspect, portending close reasoning and either slow-moving or tediously minute thought. Thus, by logic and practice, the limits within which the paragraph length may vary are fairly well defined. 1. The single-sentence paragraph has been much affected of late, particularly by French writers. In the short story it may be defended on the ground that it represents a definite and independent portion of the time or action. In any case it may have an epigrammatic force that is not to be overlooked nor undervalued, in a chapter of "Les Miserables " Victor Hugo, after telling how the country people had given the dependent and wretched Cosette the sobriquet of "the lark" because she was so little and timid and always up and at work so early in the morning, concludes with a paragraph of singular power: Only this poor lark never sang. The whole phot of a story may be unwound, or the whole point of an argument may lie, in a single sentence, and certainly i t i such a case the single sentence is entitled to the distinct inn and emphasis of a separate paragraph form. Macaulay in the middle of his essay on Samuel Johnson presents a somewhat detached fact with great emphasis in a single-sentence paragraph, thus : LENGTH OF PABAGBAPH8. 71 For the copyright of the " Vanity of Human Wishes" Johnson received only fifteen guineas. The abuse of this paragraph in the sensational novel or in light newspaper gossip may be illustrated by the fol- lowing : I unwittingly introduce the practice of arriving at the Hotel Rafael by the six-thirty from town. One is expected by the five-ten. Fashion travels at that hour, or something earlier, perhaps. But later, never. After the five-ten — the curfew. The omnibus is closed against the summer drizzle. I ride in it in lonely state and I come out of it to the surprise of hall-boys and of clerks. A girl frisking up and down the sloppy piazza with a damp little man at her heels comes and peers in at the hall door, the mist sparkling on her lashes. "Whoever," she says audibly, •'whoever is arriving at this hour ? " 2. Apart from such considerations the meagre and "scrappy" paragraph is to be avoided. There is some- thing radically wrong about the thought, the substance, of an essay when scarcely two or three sentences can be made to go together. The topics need further amplification to be of weight or value and to be clearly understood in all their relations. Some paragraphs may be brief, but the most of them should have an appreciable body. The writer who allowed the two following sentences to stand for a paragraph of his essay had made only a fair beginning. The topic is large, and much additional matter was needed to make an adequate and well-proportioned paragraph. The Quaker denomination originated during the most exciting times in English history. There was a continual conflict between the Churches, and religious discussions became the talk of the day. 72 THE PARAGRAPH. On the other hand, when the paragraphs grow to an unwieldy length the thought is probably growing un- wieldy too, and amputation is in order. Or, if the thought cannot be simplified without detriment, perhajDS the ob- jection of overlengthy paragraphs can be met by resorting to a new principle of division. Thus, as will be illustrated below, the paragraph, which in some parts of the essay is used to distinguish certain groups of ideas, will in other parts be used to distinguish sub-groups. The meagreness of his paragraphs is one of the prevail- ing defects of a young writer's compositions. It will be noted that few of the compositions in Appendix B have paragraphs that will equal in size those of the composi- tions in Appendix C. While this may be accounted for in part by the smaller compass of the former compositions, it is doubtless chiefly due to the inability of the writers to say very much on any given topic. The defect may be rem- edied by a study of the method of developing a paragraph, though of course there must always be material to supj)ort such development. 19. Principles of Division. — The partial arbitrariness of paragraph division, or rather the latitude allowed and practised, makes the whole subject somewhat difficult to deal with. A careful study of writings of every descrip- tion will reveal the fact that very few even of our best writers make really good paragraphs. Either the writers are careless about consistency or else they do not know the significance of the paragraph and fail to appreciate its value as a device for securing greater intelligibility. De Quincey, the stylist, is sometimes deplorably lax in this respect, and Huxley, the scientist, in the paragraphing of his looser essays and addresses betrays a most unscientific method. The difficulty, of course, lies partly in the fact that there cannot be entire consistency of practice. Ex- PRINCIPLES OF DIVISION. 73 cept the paragraph, we have in general use no formal unit between the whole composition and the sentence. And yet we have seen that between these two there are many logical units. The expository essay may have a well-defined introduction, a body, and a conclusion. The body has its divisions, these divisions have their subdivisions, and so on. Here are many relations. One device cannot indicate them all. Which shall it indicate? There can be no definite answer : each writer must determine his own practice. In general the paragraph represents the minutest subdivisions of the thought, and the reader's intelligence is trusted to make the proper grouping of the paragraphs themselves. By this system it is evident that in the more intricate and detailed sections of a composition the paragraph will stand for narrower divisions than in the other sections. 1. Under section 10 is given an outline of a chapter on " The Value of Reading." Now the first point in that outline, "The mark of an educated man," occupies a paragraph in the original chapter. What remains of the introduction, however, goes into a single sentence, and that sentence and all of the discussion down to " makes knowledge cumulative " constitute a second paragraph — a transitional paragraph, evidently, and yet one containing much valuable matter that could not be ignored in con- structing a rational outline. Farther along a separate paragraph is given to each of the subdivisions, "General culture," " Information," etc. It is evident that here there is no close correspondence between the paragraph division and the topics as outlined. Yet both the division and the outline seem sufficiently logical. 2. There are devices by which the larger divisions of a composition can be indicated. The use of them, however, is chiefly confined to compositions that have grown to the size of a volume or more. The most familiar is the num- 74 TEE PARAGE APE. bered chapter. And chapters may be grouped into parts or volumes. On the other hand, groups of paragraphs within a chapter may be numbered as separate sections and marked with the section-mark §. Ruskin's ''Modern Painters " is thus arranged. Or a simple space left ou the printed or written page may be used to separate sections. Carlyle's works are frequently printed thus. To all of these devices are added in rigorously systematized works, such as text-books, different styles and sizes of type and varieties of indention. 3. The question of just how much were best included in a single paragraph will continually arise. If a topic is presented under two contrasting aspects, shall each pres- entation constitute a separate paragraph ? Probably so if the two presentations are of equal length and importance. But if one is meant simply as a foil to the other, if the contrary of a statement, for example, is introduced merely to confirm the truth or add to the emphasis of the state- ment, there should be but one paragraph. Shall an illus- tration be incorporated in the same paragraph as the thing illustrated ? In general, yes ; but if the illustration is long it may be separated, and if it takes the form of a bit of history or an anecdote it may even be subdivided into para- graphs of its own. The narrative paragraph is extremely elastic. A dozen events may, if they take place within a brief space of time, or if they are closely connected as cause and effect, and if they are enumerated rapidly, be gathered into one paragraph. J. E. Green in his "Short History of the English People " has carried this process to an ex- treme, writing paragraphs that in some cases extend over three closely printed octavo pages. It is conceivable that another writer might be tempted to give to each event a separate paragraph. If, at the outset of a story, the time is given in one sentence, the place in another, and so en, PRINCIPLES OF DIVISION. 75 there is evidently a gain in liveliness and dramatic effect by writing thus : It was late in the fall of the year of drouth 1860. Two cabins stood facing each other across a white road on the Western plains. The more conservative method, however, would be to run these brief explanations into a single introductory para- graph. Again, if the conclusion of an argument that has run through several paragraphs be given in a single sen- tence, that sentence were best allowed to stand alone, for otherwise it might seem to be a conclusion only of the paragraph to which it should be attached. Or a sentence that in itself constitutes an introduction to a number of paragraphs or to a whole composition may stand by itself. Thus : What shall we do with our paupers ? This is a question that is becoming daily more urgent. Etc. But here again the usual practice is to run the sentence in with the first of the paragraphs to which it is introduc- tory. See, for example, the first sentence of section 8 of this book. " Selection must follow collection " is the theme of the entire section, consisting of many paragraphs. See also Appendix B xin, 7 and 8. So a transitional sentence is usually run in with either the paragraph that precedes it or the one that follows it — more commonly the one that follows it ; although if it seem desirable to indicate with special clearness that a transition is made, not to a single paragraph, but to a group of paragraphs, the transitional sentence may stand by itself. If the transition can be effected only with a number of sentences those sentences will very properly stand by themselves as a transitional paragraph. 76 THE PARAGRAPH. EXERCISES. 1. Reparagraph Appendix B xn and xiy. 2. Criticise closely the paragraphing of the selection from Huxley, Appendix C xxi. 3. The following is the introduction of an article entitled " Engineering Ethics." Reparagraph it, combining, wher- ever possible, two or three paragraphs into one. Professions develop slowly according to the needs of society. If we except the ancient civilization of the Greeks, contempt of learning was formerly so universal that it was considered un- manly and degrading to devote one's life to the study of physical or natural laws. The warrior only was thought a proper type of man. But his property lights required the occasional skill of persons to devise means for conveyancing, transferring, and bequeathing lands and personal effects. Wounds in battle, fevers acquired from hardships, must be cured to preserve life. Law and medicine came to a slow but gradual recognition. It is comparatively only in recent times that either or both have ar- rived at a full acknowledgment as learned professions, honored by man as noble and fitting courses in which to devote all the time and energy of a life. Medical practitioners were leeches and apothecaries ; lawyers were scriveners and notaries. Both were regarded with disdain and ridicule. They sat at the lower end of the banquet-board, not much above the hostler, and with the keepers of the hounds and the foresters. Luanda, the gay actress described in "Gil Bias/'' makes many apologies for her marriage to an attorney. She said, " This in- congruous marriage ruined me in the esteem of the gentry about Valencia. The women of quality looked upon me as a woman who had lowered herself, and refused any longer to visit me. 1 ' Likewise barbers divided with doctors the duties of surgeons, and the red-and-white barber's pole is an historical monument of the fact. Engineering cannot expect to attain full recognition from the general public without going through some such experience as MODIFICATION OF THE TOPIC. 77 have the law and medical professions. The old idea of the land- surveyor is still thought by many persons to represent all that the engineering profession embraces. Engineering must be re- garded as a modern profession, for its development in a system- atic and learned manner is of very recent years, although its be- ginning was in most ancient times. II. CONSTRUCTION. 20. The Topic. — First of all we must have, in construct- ing a logical paragraph, a topic upon \yhich to build, just as a whole composition is necessarily built upon a funda- mental theme. This topic may be stated at any point in the paragraph, beginning, middle, or end ; or it may not be definitely formulated at all, but simply left as a natural in- ference from what is expressed. Around this central idea the paragraph is constructed by the use of one or more of the methods now to be examined in detail. 21. Modification of the Topic. — The topic, as stated at the outset, may undergo modification in one of three ways: by limitation, by extension, or by augmentation. 1. Limitation. — This process consists simply in narrow- ing the truth or application of a statement that, for the sake of simplicity and clearness, has been put more broadly or generally than facts will warrant. Exceptions, for ex- ample, to a general law, or conditions under which the op- eration of the law remains in abeyance, will constitute lim- itations of the paragraph topic. Example : But what is "equality " ? When the founders of our republic declared, as the voice of the modern world, that " all men are created equal,*' it was not with the meaning that every man and woman can lift just five hundred pounds, the interpretation once put upon us by the dyspeptic stomach of Thomas Carlyle. Wash- ington and Jefferson, Franklin and Paine, were too busy to split hairs with sophists and pettifoggers. All men stand " equal" in the "natural rights" of "life and liberty," but no two men are 78 THE PARAGRAPH. precisely equal in the capacity to improve and enjoy those endow- ments. That is the American tenet, as every intelligent Ameri- can understands it. — Gordon Clark. 2. Extension. — This process is the reverse of limitation and is probably much rarer. It consists in taking a wider view as the paragraph proceeds, or in adding special facts that would not necessarily fall under the general law. In the following paragraph Emerson makes a statement con- cerning the value of books. But he is soon led to include colleges as having a precisely similar value with similar qualifications. Of course there is a portion of reading quite indispensable to a wise man. History and exact science he must learn by laborious reading. Colleges, in like manner, have their indispensable office — to teach elements. But they can only highly serve us when they aim not to drill but to create ; when they gather from far every ray of various genius to their hospitable halls, and by the concentrated fires set the hearts of their youth on flame. Thought and knowledge are natures in which apparatus and pre- tension avail nothing. Gowns and pecuniary foundations, though of towns of gold, can never countervail the least sentence or syl- lable of wit. Forget this, and our American colleges will recede in their 'public importance, whilst they grow richer every year. 3. Augmentation. — Many matters that appertain more or less closely to the topic and yet are not actually included in it are often added. Such are causes, effects, corollaries, inferences, notes, and all sorts of remarks by the way. They are, for the most part, matters that do not rise to sutlicient importance to call for separate paragraphs and are easily disposed of in this manner. They may even con- stitute the chief bulk of the paragraph when the topic itself is so simple as to need no dwelling apon ; although if the enumeration of causes or the drawing of inferences becomes long or elaborate the paragraph may take on the argumen- tative character described below. The topic of the follow- ELUCIDATION OF THE TOPIC. 79 ing, from Matthew Arnold, is to be found in the first sen- tence, namely, that Milton's character was unsurpassahly grand. The remainder of the paragraph, however, is wholly taken up with a discussion of how Milton came by that grandeur. We call the first sentence the topic lie- cause its relation to the whole essay and to what has gone before shows it to be the important point. As a man, too, not less than as a poet, Milton has a side of un- surpassable grandeur. A master's touch is the gift of nature. Moral qualities, it is commonly thought, are in our own power. Perhaps the germs of such qualities are in their greater or less strength as much a part of our natural constitution as the sense for style. The range open to our own will and power, however, in developing and establishing them is evidently much larger. Certain high moral dispositions Milton had from nature, and he sedulously trained and developed them until they became habits of great power. It is to be remarked that in the first two of the cases given above the process is really that of modifying the apparent topic in order to fix the true one. The true topic can- not be set forth in a few words, and accordingly an approx- imately true one is temporarily adopted as a working basis. hi the third case the topic is not modified internally or es- sentially — it is merely overlaid by external additions. 22. Elucidation of the Topic. — A second method by which the germ-idea is amplified into a paragraph is eluci- dation. The topic reduced to the terms of a single com- pact sentence, even when most precisely stated and needing no modification, may be far from clear. It must be eluci- dated. There are three prominent methods : definition, division, and illustration. 1. In definition the meaning of a term (or terms, if the topic is in the form of a proposition) is set forth after any of the ordinary methods by which we endeavor to make sure that the words we use will be rightly understood. 80 THE PARAGRAPH. The writer interprets the abstract by the concrete, the less familiar by the more familiar, and explains in just what sense he desires to have his statements taken. From Edward A. Freeman's "Historical Essays": National prosperity, it must be remembered, is of two kinds, which may go together or may not. A state may be great in the sense of being powerful, great in extent and population ; its counsels may be listened to in peace, and its armies may be dreaded in war. It may be placed beyond all fear of being con- quered itself, and it may have the means of conquering other states if it chooses to use them. On the other hand, there may be a state whose physical extent and power could not successfully resist some of its neighbors, whose voice is never heard in diplomacy except with regard to its own affairs, and yet which may be thoroughly free, well governed, and materially prosperous within its own borders. It may well be better off in all these things than many of the powers which in physical strength far surpass it. Of course either kind of prosperity is more likely to be permanent when it is backed up by the other. The external power of a state cannot last if it is thoroughly ill governed and discontented at home. On the other hand, there is always a fear that the internal prosperity and good government of the small state may be put an end to by its conquest by some greater state. 2. Just as it is easier to master a subject by studying one branch of it at a time, so it is easier to grasp the meaning of a general proposition by examining its bearings in detail. .This leads to the process of amplifying a topic by stating it both as a whole and in parts. The process may be termed division. Addison {Spectator, No. 47G) affords a good illustration : Method is of advantage to a work, both in respect to the writer and the reader. In regard to the first, it is a great help to his invention. When a man has planned his discourse he finds a great many thoughts rising out of every head that do not offer themselves upon the general survey of a subject. His thoughts are at the same time more intelligible and better discover their ELUCIDATION OF THE TOPIC. 81 drift and meaning when they are placed in their proper lights and follow one another in a regular series than when they are thrown together without order and connection. There is always an obscurity in confusion, and the same sentence that would have enlightened the reader in one part of a discourse perplexes him in another. For the same reason, likewise, every thought in a methodical discourse shows itself in its greatest beauty, as the several figures in a piece of painting receive new grace from their disposition in the picture. The advantages of a reader from a methodical discourse are correspondent with those of the writer. He comprehends everything easily, takes it in with pleasure, and retains it long. 3. Illustration is one of the readiest means of making a topic clear. In the following paragraphs we have illustra- tion through examples of the truth of the doctrine to be upheld, particular instances of the general law: Boys are always more or less inaccurate, and too many, or rather the majority, remain boys all their lives. When, for instance, I hear speakers at public meetings declaiming about "large and enlightened views," or about "freedom of con- science," or about "the Gospel," or any other popular subject of the day, I am far from denying that some among them know what they are talking about ; but it would be satisfactory, in a particular case, to be sure of the fact ; for it seems to me that those household words may stand in a man's mind for a some- thing or other, very glorious indeed, but very misty, pretty much like the idea of "civilization" which floats before the mental vision of a Turk — that is, if, when he interrupts his smoking to utter the word, he condescends to reflect whether it has any meaning at all. Again, a critic in a periodical dashes off, per- haps, his praises of a new work as "talented, original, replete with intense interest, irresistible in argument, and, in the best sense of the word, a very readable book" — can we really believe that he cares to attach any definite sense to the words of which he is so lavish ? nay, that, if he had a habit of attaching sense to them, he could ever bring himself to so prodigal and whole- sale an expenditure of them ? — Newman : Lectures on University Subjects. 82 THE PARAGRAPH. It is now thirty-eight years since Charles Robert Darwin pub- lished his "Origin of Species." That work produced a great agitation in the upper circles of human thought. It became the source of a vast controversial literature. A mere catalogue of the books to which the Darwinian hypothesis gave rise is enough to astonish the inquirer. Thirty-six octavo pages in Spengel's "Darwinische Theorie" are occupied with the simple titles of the works elicited by the "Origin of Species." Nearly four hundred guns, great and small, have been opened from the philosophical redoubts of the world to demolish the modest book which offered the first strictly rational explanation of the diversities of life on our globe. — J. C. Ridpath. In the following the illustration takes the form of a parallel or analogous case: The effect of historical reading is analogous, in many respects, to that produced by foreign travel. The student, like the tourist, is transported into a new state of society. He sees new fashions. He hears new modes of expression. His mind is enlarged by contemplating the wide diversities of laws, of morals, and of manners. But men may travel far and return with minds as contracted as if they had never stirred from their own market- town. In the same manner men may know the dates of many battles and the genealogies of many royal houses and yet be no wiser. Most people look at past times as princes look at foreign countries. More than one illustrious stranger has landed on our island amidst the shouts of a mob, has dined with the king, has hunted with the master of the stag-hounds, has seen the Guards reviewed and a knight of the garter installed, has cantered along Regent Street, has visited St. Paul's and noted down its dimen- sions ; and has then departed, thinking that he has seen England. He has, in fact, seen a few public buildings, public men, and public ceremonies. Hut of the vast and complex system of soci- ety, of the fine shades of national character, of the practical operation of government and laws, he knows nothing. He who would understand these things rightly must not confine his obser- vations to palaces and solemn days. He must see ordinary men as they appear in their ordinary business and in their ordinary pleasures, lie must mingle in the crowds of the exchange and ARGUMENT. 83 the coffee-house. He must obtain admittance to the convivial table and the domestic hearth. He must bear with vulgar expres- sions. He must not shrink from exploring even the retreats of misery. He who wishes to understand the condition of mankind in former ages must proceed on the same principle. If he attends only to public transactions, to wars, congresses, and debates, his studies will be as unprofitable as the travels of those imperial, royal, and serene sovereigns who form their judgment of our island from having gone in state to a few fine 'sights, and from having held formal conferences with a few great officers. — Macaulay : On History. 23. Argument. — -We come to the argumentative para- graph. In this there is an endeavor to support the truth of the topic hy resort to the methods of reasoning. These methods are two, deductive and inductive. A third may he added, which consists in a simple statement of reasons without any attempt to claim for them a rigorous scientific cogency. 1. Deduction consists in making particular applications of a general law. The general law must be assumed, and is naturally stated at the outset. The paragraph topic may or may not be single, according as the stress is. laid on one or more deductions. Example : Let us consider this matter a little. Note first the fact that a hypocrite is always anxious to prove how good he is. A hypo- critical society is just as anxious — and for the same reason. The individual and the social order in which he revolves are alike eager to get the credit of being good by doing a little to alleviate the evil results of their own work. A burglar may very well contribute something to repair the safe. Monte Carlo may very well make a fund to bury the suicides. A gentleman of the pro- fession may well give his victim enough to get home with. The cashier in Canada drops a liberal and holy shilling into tin; box and sheds a tear. The chief trustee waters his sugar stock a hundred per cent in order to build an asylum. Even the police- man sometimes divides with the poor fellow whom he has pro- tected— though this is rare ! — J. C. Kidpath, 84 THE PARAGRAPH. .Most arguments ending with therefore, accordingly, and similar Avords arc of the syllogistic kind and so come under deduction. The syllogism is often disguised or incomplete, one of the premises being only implied. This may be illustrated by the following fragment of a paragraph from Macaulay's *' Samuel Johnson": Johnson bad failed, not because his mind was less vigorous than when he wrote " Rasselas " in the evenings of a week, but because he had foolishly chosen, or suffered others to choose for him, a subject such as he would at no time have been competent to treat. He was in no sense a statesman. He never willingly read or thought or talked about affairs of state. He loved biography, literary history, the history of manners ; but political history was positively distasteful to him. The question at issue between the colonies and the mother country Was a question about which he had really nothing to say. He failed, therefore, as the greatest men must fail when they attempt to do that for which they are unfit. The complete argument, expressed in syllogistic form, would be: Only statesmen can write political tracts ; John- son was no statesman ; therefore his " Taxation ISo Tyranny " was a failure. For further discussion of this matter see "A Practical Course in Composition," pp. 149-156. 2. Indue! ion is the opposite process. Particulars are cited first aud the general law follows as an inference from the particulars. This is the strictly logical order. In the following paragraph it will be noted that the word "de- duced" is used. But the process of reasoning employed, if it be anything more than inference from analogy, is, both here and in the other essay to which Emerson refers, really induction. We use the word '"deduce" loosely of infer- ences of all kinds. The eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the second: and throughout nature this primary figure is repeated ARGUMENT. 85 without end. It is the highest emblem in the cipher of the world. St. Augustine describes the nature of God as a circle whose centre was everywhere and its circumference nowhere. We are all our lifetime l'eading the copious sense of this first of forms. One moral we have already deduced in considering the circular or compensatory character of every human action. Another analogy we shall now trace, that every action admits of being outdone. Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth that around every circle another can be drawn ; that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning ; that there is always another dawn risen on mid-noon, and under every deep a lower deep opens. — Emerson : Circles. 3. It is difficult to distinguish the simple statement of reasons from the processes just exemplified. The process is often practically equivalent to induction, differing chiefly in that the general truth is put forth first and the reasons adduced afterward. Or the reasons may hear, not directly upon the truth of the statement, which may be particular as well as general, but upon the writer's belief in its truth or u]5on his motive for making it. They may consist of mere evidence that does not amount to conclusive proof. They may, indeed, be concerned wholly with motives of action, in which case the paragraph loses much of its argumentative character. Example : "I am very sorry," said Seithenyn, " that you see things in a wrong light ; but we will not quarrel for three reasons : first, because you are the son of the king, and may do and say what you please without any one having the right to be displeased ; second, because I never quarrel with a guest, even if he grows riotous in his cups ; third, because there is nothing to quarrel about ; and perhaps that is the best reason of the three ; or, rather, the first is the best, because you are the son of the king ; and the third is the second — that is, the second best, because there is nothing to quarrel about ; and the second is nothing to the purpose, because though guests will grow riotous in their cups, in spite of my good orderly example, God forbid I should 86 THE PARAGRAPH. say that is the case with you. And I completely agree in the truth of your remark, that reason speaks in the silence of wine." — Thomas Love Peacock : The Misfortunes of Elphin. 24. Enforcement. — The topic may need no modification, it may be clear, it may be trusted to stand without support, and yet the writer may desire to impress it deeply uj)on his readers. He then resorts to the various means of em- phasis: repetition, contrast, quotation. 1. It is evident that the repetition of the topic in other words may make for clearness, but its primary object in most cases is no doubt enforcement. It is a memorizing device, compelling the reader to dwell for some time on the same idea. 2. Contrast also appeals to the pure understanding. But it appeals to the attentive faculties more. It arouses and impresses. It is the rhetorician's device. Give us the concession, the opposing fact, the limiting fact, first, and we shall feel more deeply the main contention. Macaulay delighted in thus presenting the contrary, in telling what things were not true before telling what things were true. 3. Quotation enables the writer to corroborate his own statement or belief by the testimony of another. When this testimony comes from a high source it has great enforcing value. The following paragraph from Matthew Arnold's "Falk- land" illustrates all three of the above methods of enforce- ment. The topic is The English are not benevolent. This is enforced by repetition, contrast, and quotation. It chances in this case that the quotation does not accom- pany any affirmation of the author's own, but we feel easily that it has his endorsement. "The English arc just, bul not amiable." A well-bred French- man, who has recently travelled in India, and who publishes in ENFORCEMENT. 87 the Revue des Deux Mondes an interesting account of what he saw and heard there, ends with this criticism. The criticism conveys, he says, as to the English and their rule, the real mind of the best informed and most intelligent of the natives of India with whom he conversed. They admitted the great superiority of the English rule in India to every other which had preceded it. They admitted the good intentions of the English rule ; they admitted its activity, energy, incorruptibility, justice. Still, the final im- pression was this: something wanting in the English, something which they were not. Les Anglais sont justes, mats pas bons. " The English are just, but not kind and good." One thing to be carefully guarded against in developing a topic by repetition is the sort of repetition that avails nothing for either clearness or force, giving only a sense of iteration and redundance. Thus: "The modern bicycle is fast, easy-running, and safe. On it one can easily cover many miles a day." If a specific number of miles were men- tioned the second sentence would have some justification. Or again: " The system of discipline in this high school is simple enough for anybody to understand. There is noth- ing complicated about the discipline." Or: "A thing of beauty is a joy forever. An object of loveliness is a source of perpetual delight." Bare iteration of thought, however, will often be tolerated if by simpler or more concrete language the thought can be made at once clearer and stronger. We are not guilty of verbosity when we say. " Aristocracies are inaccessible to ideas — their eyes are turned from the light." There must be a forward move- ment somewhere — in intelligibility, in vividness, in vigor— with every repetition. Usually the repetition of the allow- able kind will be found to be only partial — there is some forward movement in the thought itself. Take several examples further: A thing of beauty is a joy forever : Its loveliness increases ; it will never 88 THE PARAGRAPH. Pass into nothingness ; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. — Keats : Endymion. By the end of 1837 Cooper had pretty sedulously improved every opportunity of making himself unpopular. His criticisms had been distributed with admirable impartiality. Few persons or places could complain that they had been overlooked. The natural satisfaction that any one would have felt in contemplating the punishment inflicted upon his friend or neighbor was utterly marred by the consideration of the outrage done to himself. — Lounsbury : J. F. Cooper. Paragraphs of the types described above are to be found, as a rule, only in the more severe forms of discourse. In narration, description, and simple exposition much looser types prevail. In them, as has been pointed out, we have not usually the development of a topic, but a mere group of facts that sustain some obvious temporal, spatial, or other relation among themselves. The paragraph is thus often more like a composition in miniature, having a subject rather than a topic, and enumerating various facts or con- taining various statements that bear upon this subject, but that are so simple in themselves as to need no special elab- oration. If such a paragraph will fit anywhere into the above scheme it will fall under one of the divisions num- bered '■'>: augmentation in particular may be stretched to cover a great many cases that are hard io classify. The following may lie taken as a paragraph of this type. Its subject is found in the first five words. We might look upon the method of development as partly division and partly repetition, but it seems better to consider the para- graph a mere group of facts, constructed after a plan char- acteristic of the less abstruse styles of exposition. The cultivation of the soil follows immediately after the irriga- tion. The soil must be cultivated when it has dried sufficiently CRITICISM. 89 beyond the pasty, sticky condition of mud, and while it is still free from a hardened crust. The rancher strives to work the soil when it is in a condition intermediate between these ex- tremes. Sandy soil, which lacks the hardening qualities of adobe, can be cultivated much sooner or left longer than other soils. The farmer may to some extent cultivate it when he desires. The adobe, in marked contrast, is a soil containing much clay and dries rapidly in sunlight. It requires cultivation when it has reached the critical condition, and then only can be worked with ease. Left a day too long it will bake hard as brick. The whole irrigation area must therefore be covered by the workman in one day. Let us now take at random, by way of criticism, some paragraphs from a book or a magazine article and see how they are constructed. We must be prepared beforehand to find two or three methods employed in the same paragraph, and we must be prepared to find the methods often obscure and hard to classify. Faulty construction, too, we shall find in abundance; for, though the principles of construc- tion that have been given are not theoretical, but are drawn from observed practice, the practice is that of the most careful writers, and very few writers indeed can be held up as models in this particular. The following is a part (be- ginning immediately after the introductory paragraph) of an article in The Arena for June, 1897, entitled " The Ultimate Trust-cure " : Taxation has always been sporadic and arbitrary, a different thing in different states and nations, and dependent on the wisdom, or on the follies, whims, and momentary interests, of rulers and legislators. But, if there is any right of taxation, any reason for it, some general principle must centre the whole sub- ject and render it capable of reduction, first to perfect ethics, and next to perfect method. What is this principle ? When the great Greek, Aristotle, founded and named the science of "economics" he saw, at the first glance of analysis, that all property rests on " natural wealth " — that natural wealth 90 THE PARAGRAPH. is the source and raw material of all human productions and possessions. In designating such wealth he summed it up as " the bounty of nature." What Aristotle, the first political econo- mist, called the bounty of nature Henry George, in recent years, has inadequately termed "land." Now the bounty of nature— the earth, the water, the air— was not made by any man or stock company. God made it — and made it as the only means of sustaining his creatures made with it. So, necessarily and self-evidently, those creatures have a natural right in that gift. Or, as Thomas Jefferson said, "the earth belongs in usufruct to the living." Henry George, especially iu his remarkable book "Progress and Poverty," has illustrated and elaborated this natural relation of man to matter — this bottom fact of political economy — from almost every conceivable aspect. I agree with Aristotle, with Mr. George, with Mill, Spencer, and the rest of the world's pro- found thinkers, in their finding. But here let me deny a bit. I deny it is merely a "theory." It is a discovery. It is a law — as much so as the law of gravitation. In one sense, and a very practical one, there is no dissent from it. There is no form of government not basing its reason for existence on the claim of standing for the best common interests of the people governed. There is no system of political economy not basing the tenures to property— the laws, the practical ethics of the matter — on the same foundation. England distinctly asserts, at the present moment, through her most commonplace and conservative authorities, that her whole wealth belongs to her whole people ; hence her right to call on every subject to defend it. She merely adds that the methods she sanctions and enforces for the distribution of wealth are the best she knows for the general welfare. We find all that nowadays filtered down into so general a receptacle as the " Encyclopaedia Britannica." The first paragraph is slightly argumentative (deductive), leading up t<» its topic in the conclusion that " some gen- eral principle must underlie taxation." And the theme of the entire essay, or of some large section of it, is found in tin- inquiry, "Wha1 is this principle?" The topic of CRITICISM. 91 the second paragraph is, " All property rests on natural wealth." This statement is supported, in the same sen- tence in which it occurs, by an appeal to authority (quota- tion). But beyond that the topic as a whole is not dealt with. The two remaining sentences are occupied with defining, in -the words of others, one term of the topic, "natural wealth." It will be noticed that in the last sen- tence the word "inadequately" raises a point which seems to require explanation. But the paragraph closes without offering any explanation. The explanation, so far as we get one, comes in the third paragraph— almost incidentally, it would appear — in the parenthesis "the earth, the air, the water." This paragraph begins with enforcing a state- ment by presenting the contrary. It proceeds as argu- ment, and its topic is found in the deduction that " men have a natural right iii the bounty of nature." This ap- pears to be nothing else than a repetition, in different words, of the topic of the second paragraph. Very clearly the second and third paragraphs should have been made into one. Then we should have had an orderly and com- plete development of the topic through definition and argument, closing with an enforcement of the same by quotation from Thomas Jefferson. But now we note in the first sentence of the fourth paragraph further enforce- ment by repetition of the same topic : ' ' this natural rela- tion of man to matter — this bottom fact of political econ- omy." The repetition, however, is only incidental to a statement telling us where we can get illustrations of the truth of the topic. But illustrations, or brief references to them, should go with the topic. Therefore this sentence also should have been incorporated with what precedes. Some change in position or some change in the wording might be needed to make it fit, but it logically belongs there. "I agree with Aristotle" properly begins a new 92 THE PARAGRAPH. topic. We have contrast first and finally the topic, " This natural relation of man to matter is a law." The topic of the next paragraph is stated at the outset, and is followed by particulars and an example. Let us look now at several specimens of paragraphs as they are presented by students of composition. In an essay on " Superstitions Concerning the Moon " the fol- lowing paragraph is found : Once there used to be a nursery story told about the man in the moon and his wife, which said that the man lived on that side of the moon which can be seen, and his wife, who was never seen, lived on the other. The writer is told that this is not a satisfactory para- graph. There is only one sentence. There is no apparent growth, no development of a thought, no sign of orderly construction. The writer takes the ill-written sentence apart, presents the ideas singly, and adds at the end a bit of gratuitous speculation which enables him to come round to the beginning. Thus, with a slight change and a slight addition, he makes, through elucidation by particulars and through augmentation, an acceptable paragraph : There is an old nursery tale about the man in the moon and his wife. The man lives on the side of the moon that is turned towards ns. His wife lives on the other. Presumably they live in harmony, but the nursery tale fails to tell. Another student presents the following essay: The Camera and Its Use. In the last few years the camera has undergone a great change. From the bulky, clumsy machine which existed twenty years ago we notice a gradual improvement in its construction down to the present time. Numerous inventions have been made, so that the camera of to-day presents an instrument both durable and convenient for the amateur's use. The camera has also been made less expensive by substituting CRITICISM. 93 cheaper metal, thus introducing the art of photography to that class of people who were unable to indulge in such luxury in former times. The camera is both an instructive and entertaining instrument. In the hands of an experienced person, who has studied pho- tography as an art, it affords no end of instruction. It brings him in contact with nature. He begins to appreciate landscape, and, furthermore, it trains his perception for beautiful scenery and artistic groupings. Another instructive field which is open for him is the science of chemistry, with which he has to deal in the process of finishing pictures. The practical uses of a camera are manifold. The tourist who spends a few of his precious years in travelling will find a camera of indispensable value. Also, a student who is studying abroad will, no doubt, appreciate the necessity of a camera ; so that in later years he can travel over the same route in imagination, and whatever has been effaced from his memory will again be vivified by merely glancing over his collection of camera-pictures. One would say, from a glance at the beginnings of para- graphs, that the essay promises well. But examination will discover it to be faulty, and will discover that its faults are of precisely the kind that can be remedied by attention to the principles of paragraph development. The essay opens with a general statement. Tbe second sentence pro- ceeds to make this more particular, but instead of follow- ing up "bulky, clumsy," with "light, portable," or some such words, the writer is content with "gradual improve- ment," which is little more definite than anything in the first sentence. And then, instead of proceeding to still more specific details and telling us just how bulky the camera formerly was and just how light it has come to be, he speaks once more in vague terms of "numerous inven- tions" and the resulting "convenience." As to "dura- bility," that is a new attribute and a somewhat unexpected one; the only relation of durability to lightness is that of contrast, and the contrast is not brought out. The second 94 THE PARAGRAPH. paragraph clearly belongs with the first. " Inexpensive- ness" is bat another item. It might have been expanded into proportions that would warrant a separate paragraph, but it is discussed here in a single sentence. And, once more, the sentence does not succeed in giving any very specific or concrete details. " Cheaper metal" is only a makeshift of ignorance. Paragraph third begins with a good topic. But the topic is adhered to very loosely. " Instruction" reappears, after its presentation in the first sentence, as a sort of training in esthetic appreciation, which can scarcely be called instruction. And "enter- tainment," unless it be involved in that same appreciation, does not reappear at all. The last paragraph is open to the same objections. The writer is constantly promising something definite, something specific, but, except at the very end, he continues to revert to such generalities as " indispensable value" and "necessity." Contrast with the above the method of a writer like Macaulay : At Oxford Johnson resided during about three years. lie was poor, even to raggedness ; and his appearance excited a mirth and a pity which were equally intolerable to his haughty spirit. He was driven from the quadrangle of Christ Church by the sneering looks which the members of that aristocratical society cast at the holes in his shoes. Some charitable person placed a new pair at his door, but he spurned them away in a fury. Poverty at once takes on the concrete form of "ragged- aess," and this becomes specific in "holes in his shoes." Even Oxford is narrowed to ••the quadrangle of Christ Church." "Mirth" and "pity" and " haughty spirit " all reappear in concrete forms. There are no thoughtless or reckless utterances here, no promises unfulfilled. Macaulay always writes with his eye on his pen. lie is fully conscious of what he is going to say, wholly mindful CRITICISM. 95 of what he has said already. Thus every word becomes organic, charged with meaning, tingling with sympathy. Take, for further study, another example. It is only an excerpt, but it is fairly representative of the best popular exposition to be found in our magazines to-day. Originally the demand for high buildings presented a purely financial problem. Owners of property in the business parts of cities found they could rent more space than their buildings of two, three, and four stories contained, and they wauted new buildings of five or six stories, or additional floors above the old roof. To finance this operation was easy, and any intelligent car- penter or mason could do the job. After awhile, however, the need in the larger cities for space in the centres where business was most progressive and profitable passed beyond the capacity of the six-story buildings, and a better man than the master mason was needed. " Down-town," as the great city market-places are called, be- came overcrowded. It could grow and expand as a whole, but certain parts of it could not move. Some lines of business had taken possession of ground space enough to accommodate them when they settled, and others grouped themselves close around till they hemmed one another in. Then traditions and the habits of customers fixed the limits more and more definitely, making changes almost impossible. To cross a street might mean failure, and the turning of a corner would not be thought of. The whole- sale dry-goods firms of New York succeeded in getting out of Cedar, William, and Pine streets, but it was done with fear and trembling after years of hesitation, and nobody was certain for many months after the moving that a fatal mistake had not been made. Every effort of the jewellers of Maiden Lane to leave their street has been unsuccessful. Their rent is high, the location is not convenient, and other businesses would pay well to be so near the financial centre, but the jewellers are afraid their customers would not find them elsewhere than in Maiden Lane, and that street as an address is invaluable to the firm that writes to the country with it on its letter-head. Then, for a last example, there is "Wall Street" — how far can the stock-brokers go from Wall Street ? 96 THE PARAGRAPH. Confined on all sides round, the only way out was up. Limited as to the ground, business sought the air. It had to be done; but how ? That was the question. To pile more stories on the sixth was useless, since no one would climb up to them; the young brokers and lawyers might be willing to do it, but their customers would not follow. The problem became mechanical, and the financier and the architect were as helpless as the mason. The passenger-elevator was the solution. It was a clumsy hoist moved by a hand-windlass when inventive genius began to Btudy its possibilities, and no one could have foreseen in any of its earlier forms that it was to be to modern building what the steam-engine is to transportation, a revolutionary agent. Steam- power was applied to it in 180(5. The result was an apparatus with so many faults that it presented clearly all the necessities for success. It was slow, jerky, and dangerous. To overcome these defects the experimenters turned to hydraulic power, in the water-balance elevator. A car was carried up by the weight of a water-vessel filled at the top of the shaft, and was let down by emptying the water at the bottom. Speed and smoothness of motion were thus secured, but the control was doubtful, and though the accidents that occurred were not fatal they were wet and disagreeable. Absolute safety was first achieved in the direct- acting ram hydraulic elevators; but they, too, were slow and, for high structures, impracticable, since the cylinder had to be sunk as deep below ground as the shaft rose high above it. Having safety, however, the makers clung to the hydraulic power till they eliminated one by one all the defects of their machine. Mean- while electricity was applied successfully, and now there are sev- eral systems that satisfy all the requirements of the highest buildings and the most impatient of human beings. With the elevator, long before it was perfected, rose all that made the problem of high building — high rents, high prices for ground space, and high hopes. There was great risk in the first application of the elevator to the office building, but it is capital that is timid, not th