r^/f CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY FROM The rayton public Library Cornell University Library arV14523 A handbook of EnaJis'i,,a'J|e,?,S^^^^ 3 1924 031 387 800 olin.anx « Cornell University B Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031387800 A HANDBOOK ENGLISH COMPOSITION BY JAMES MORGAN HART PROFESSOR OF RHETORJC AND ENGLISH PHILOLOGY IN CORNELL UNIVERSITY PHILADELPHIA Eldredge & Brother No. 17 North Seventh Street 189S (. '. ,, I — ..o^«- Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1895, by ELDREDGE & BROTHER, in the Ofl&ce of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. ••o^o*- ^' WESTCOTT & THOMSON, ELECTROTYPE RS, PHILADA. -^ The indications of a growing demand for more practical methods of instruction in English Composition are un- mistakable. To meet this demand is the object of the present book. In pursuance of such an object I have consistently refrained from touching upon the theory of Rhetoric, or upon the relations of Rhetoric to Grammar, Logic, and Esthetics, and have tried to state — in the plainest way possible — only those things which every educated person ought to know. In this Preface I take the liberty of calling attention to two general features. First, it has been my constant endeavor to make the book interesting and stimulating. Second, it has been no less my endeavor to make the book available both Jor school and for college. How far I may have succeeded, must be left to the reader's judg- ment. I do not believe that anything here treated, pos- sibly the chapter on Argumentation excepted, is too diffi- cult for the boy or girl of average ability ; or, on the other hand, that any rules are here laid down which one would be tempted to discard in maturer years. After all, the doctrine which teaches from these pages is not of my invention ; it is merely the formulated practice of the best writers, exemplified in the illustrative extracts. IV PREFACE. The statement of Sequence in paragraphs of Exposi- tion and Argumentation, in §5, may appear somewhat meagre. The fault, if it be one, lies in the nature of the subject. Sequence, or Order, is a quality which cannot be formulated rigorously, much less can it be apprehended by the aid of rules. It is to be acquired only through the close study and imitation of good models. The reader is referred, therefore, to the illustrative extracts in Chapters VII. and VIII. A suggestion of the best plan of using the book in schools may not be amiss. I would recommend that the beginning be made with * Chapters II.-IV. Here the student should be required to search for similar paragraphs in other books of general reading. Next Chapter XIII. should be mastered, and the student required to write a number of simple narra- tive and descriptive pieces, exemplifying both the inde- pendent paragraph and connected paragraphs. Having thus acquired some facility in expression, the student should then take up Chapters IX.-XI., and Chapter XIV., with further writing along the lines indicated in §§ 142-156. This would be enough for the first year. In the second year may be taken up Chapters V.-VIII., Chapter XII., and the remainder of Chapter XV. Lastly, in a third year, there should be a general review of Parts I.-III., with especial attention to §§ 152-165. Part IV. is not offered as a substitute for the systematic study of the history of English Literature, but as a gen- eral aid to the student in his reading, whether in school PREFACE. V or at home. In this part I have endeavored to awaken the student to a juster appreciation of the various forms of poetry, of versification, and of oratory. Still more obviously is the chapter upon the History of the Language intended to be stimulating rather than dog- matic. Technicalities have been avoided and the subject is presented only in its broadest and most practical as- pects. From this treatment the student will, I hope, get at least a brief but attractive insight into the evolu- tion of our English speech. J. M. HART. CoBNELL University, Ithaca, N. Y. PART I— INVENTION. CHAPTER I. SECTION Invention in General . . 1 CHAPTEE II. The Pabagkaph in General. Two Kinds of Paragraph 2 Unity . ...... 3 Violation of Unity . .... 4 Sequence . ...... .5 Selection, Proportion, Variety .... .6 Practical Suggestions . . . ... .7 The Echo . 8 Connectives . . 9 Eepeated Structure . .... 10 Subject- (Topic-) Sentence .... ... 11 Subject-Sentence in Narration, Description . , . . 12 Subject-Sentence in Exposition, Argumentation . . 13 CHAPTEE III. The Independent Pabagkaph. Its Nature . . 14 Peculiar Conciseness . 15 Usefulness in School- Work 16 CHAPTEE IV. Connected Pabageaphs. Paragraph-Echo 17 Link-Paragraph 18 Sequence and Co-ordination 19 Introduction and Conclusion .... 20, 21 CONTENTS. vii CHAPTER V. Nakeation. section General Features 22 Unity 23 Interest 24 Sequence 25 Eeverting Narration 26 Overlapping Narration 27 Digression 28 Episode 29 Intercalated Narrative ... 30 Eetarded and Accelerated Movement 31 Narration Supported by Description . . 32 Mixed Narration and Description 33 Generalized Narration . 34 Biography and History 35 Drama and Fiction . 36 CHAPTER VI. Descmption. Description Proper 37 Character-Description 38 Difficulties of Description ... .... 39 Diagram ; Points of Reference . . 40 Shifting Point of "View 41 Introducing Personal Element 42 Dynamic Description . . . 43 Sketch, Suggestion 44 Figurative Language .... 45 Epithet . . . 46 Generalized Description 47 CHAPTER VII. Exposition. General Features 48 Definition 49 Loose Definition ... - 50 Classification, Division, Partition 51 Cross-Division . 52 General Phenomenon 53 Expository Description 54 General Law • . 55, 50 General Relation 57 vill CONTENTS. SECTION General Idea 58 Mixed Exposition 59 The Essay .... 60 Personal, Didactic, Critical Essay 61 CHAPTER VIII. Argumentation. In General . ... . . . 62 General Features . . . . . 63 Certainty and Probability . . . 64-66 General and Particular . . 67 Induction, Deduction . . . . . . . 68 Assumption ... ... 69 Testimony, Authority . . 70 Analogy . . 71 Argumentation in Law . . .72 Case-Law . . . . , ... .73 Special Terms . . . . .... 74 Practical Suggestions (Terms ; Syllogism) . 75 PART II.— EXPRESSION. Expression in General 76 CHAPTER IX. Clearness. Clearness in the Paragraph . 77 Difficulties in English Words . ... .78 Use of Dictionaries . .... ... .79 Good Reading . . SO Blunders in Use of Words ... . . ... 81 Precision . . 82 Clearness in the Sentence 83 Pronouns 84 Who, which ; that ■ 85 Modifiers 86 Dislocation of Clauses 87 CHAPTER X. Force. In Single Words 88 Abused Words . . 89 CONTENTS. ix SECTION And] 90 But _^ 91 Position and Balance in Sentence . '. 'r'\- , . . . /*'i92 Unity and Stability of Structure 93 Brevity . . 94 Climax 95 Sustained Effect 96 Historical Present 97 CHAPTER XL Pkopeiett. National Speech 98 Present Speech 99 Eeputable Speech 100 Newly-coined Verbs 101 Abbreviations 102 Useless Words 103 Misused Words 104 Foreign Words 105 Some Grammatical Inelegancies 106 Harsh and Awkward Word-combinations . ... 107) 108 CHAPTER XII. Figurative Expression. General Features . .... 109 Synecdoche, Metonymy, Hyperbole . 110 Simile, Comparison, Contrast Ill Metaphor, Allusion . 112 Personification . 113 Vision, Apostrophe, Prosopopeia 114 Irony, Doubt, Interrogation 115 Antithesis, Oxymoron . . . 116 Allegory, Parable, Fable 117 Uses of Figurative Expression 118 Practical Suggestions ..119 PART III.— SOME PRACTICAL FEATURES OF COMPOSITION. CHAPTER XIII. Preparing a Composition. A Composition Defined . .... 120 CONTENTS. Formulating the Subject Working Plan . . . First Draught Revision Introduction and Conclusion Link-Paragraphs Title CHAPTER XIV. Punctuation. Interrogation, Exclamation Period, Colon, Semicolon Comma . . . . Dash Parenthesis, Bracket ... .... Quotation . Practical Remarks Capitals Italics . Word-Breaking . . CHAPTER XV. Reading and Composition. Position of English in School . . . . Writing in Connection with Reading . . Narration and Description .... Pup Van. Winkle . . . Sleepy Hollcni) The Angler . . ... Silas M(iriii:r .... Merrlmnl of Venire, Jnlins Caesar, Macbeth The Pr'niee^'i^ . Macaulay's Johison . . ... Macaulay's Chatham De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars Burke's Conciliation . ... Webster's Bunker Hill . . . School Exercises in Description . . School Exercises in Narration Letters . . . , Denotation Connotation ..... SECTION 121 122 123 124. 125 126 127 . . 128 . . 129 130-134 135 136 . . 137 . . 138 . . 139 . . 140 . 141 . 142 143 . . 144 145 . 146 . . 147 . . 148 149 150 151 152-155 156 157 . . 158 159 . . 160 161 162 163-165 CONTENTS. XI PART IV.— MISCELLANEOUS SUBJECTS. CHAPTER XVI. POETBY. SECTION General Nature of Poetry . . 166 Lyric Poetry in General . . . 167 Poems of Conviviality, Love, Friendship, Patriotism, Religion . 168 Poems of Nature ; Sonnet ; Ode 169 Elegy; Threnody .... 170 Folk-Epic ; Art-Epic ; Allegorical Epic ; Mock Epic . .171 Romances of Chivalry ; Ecclesiastical Romances . . . 172 Historical Romances ; Private ; Idylls ; Ballad . 173 Historical Sketch of English Drama .... . . 174 Character of Elizabethan Drama . ... 175 Tragedy ; Comedy 176 The Unities ... 177 Didactic Poetry 178 Satire 179 CHAPTER XVII. Metre. Verse .... . 180 Foot 181 General Features of English Verse . ■ 182 Length of Line ... . . . 183 Stanza in General . ...*... . 184 Hymn Forms . 185 Eight-line Stanza ; OWoua iJima ; Spenserian Stanza 186 Stanzas Without Rhyme ; Isometric Song . . ... 187 Sonnet . . • .... 188 Rhyme 189 Imperfect Rhyme ... 190 Assonance ; Alliteration . 191 Octosyllabic Verse . . . . ... 192 Heroic Verse ■ 193 Alexandrine Verse 194 Hexameter ; Elegiac Metre 195 Blank Verse ; its History . . . 196 Accentuation of Blank Verse . 197 Caesura . . . ... . . 198 Extra Syllables ; Omitted Syllables . - 199 Light and Weak Endings ; Pronunciation . .... 200 xii CONTENTS. SECTION Terza Mima . . . . 201 Irregular Ehythms .... 202 CHAPTER XVIII. Oeatory and Debate. Varieties of Oration . . 203 Conciseness ; Clearness ; Personality of the Orator . . . 204 Persuasion. . ... 205 Introduction ; Conclusion ... . . 206 Demonstrative Oratory ; Bunker Hill 207 Debate as a Ehetorical Exercise . . 208 Proposition ; Burden of Proof ... 209 Definition 210 CHAPTEB XIX. Historical Sketch op the English Language. British Language ; Eoman Conquest 211 English Conquest ... 212 Oldest English, or Anglo-Saxon ; Dialects . . . . 213 Affinities of Oldest English . . .214 Grammatical Features . . . 215 Borrowings from Latin and Danish ... 216 No Literary Standard • 217 Effect of Norman Conquest . ... 218 Dialects ; London English . . 219 Language of Chaucer ; Borrowings from French . . 220, 221 Fifteenth Century . . . . 222 Sixteenth Century ; Wholesale Borrowings . . . 223 Seventeenth, Eighteenth, Nineteenth Centuries . 224 English in America ; Americanisms 225, 226 Vocabulary ; Practical Suggestions . .... 227, 228 SUPPLEMENT I. Forms in Letter-Writing. Heading. . . 229 Signature ... . 230 Envelope-Address . 231 Invitations, Acceptances, Regrets . 232 SUPPLEMENT II. Works to be Consulted . Page 351 A HAJ^DBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. PART I. CHAPTER I. INVENTION IN GENERAL. 1. The general rules or principles of writing may be classified under the two heads of Invention and Expres- sion. Invention, as a rhetorical process, is the art of putting together what one has to say upon a subject. If the com- position is at all skilful, it will make upon the reader a clearly defined impression. Invention does not consist in finding out what to say. That is the oflice of life in general and of education In particular. Thus, the historian finds out what to say by studying documents and other records of the past; the botanist, by studying plants ; the economist, by studying the phenomena of trade and exchange. Invention con- sists rather in putting our statements of fact, our observa- tions upon men and things, our conclusions, our ideas, our feelings, into readable shape. Since invention, in its every-day sense, implies the pro- duction of something which did not previously exist — e. g. A 1 2 A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION a new machine — the young writer is apt to infer that his invention also should produce something new. This is erroneous. He may offer something new, or he may not, according to the range of his knowledge and the maturity of his mind. But in either case his invention^z. e. the shaping of his thoughts— would be the same. In fact he may even, by the process called paraphrasing, re-state the writing of another in his own words and arrangement, without adding a single new thought or fact, and still be credited with invention in the rhetorical sense. This paraphrasing, if not abused, is an extremely useful exercise — perhaps the easiest for the beginner. The teacher of any subject, after explaining the contents of a section of the book studied, may require the scholar to write down his recollections of the contents in a short paragraph, and thereby test his powers of invention. Such paragraph- writing, in substance an off-hand examination, would also be in form an exercise in composition ; although it need not be the final stage of training, it might and should be the initial. The various forms of prose writing* are classified as Narration, Description, Exposition, and Argument (with Persuasion). By this is meant that the aim of the writer is to narrate an event, or to describe an object, or to ex- pound a general fact, or to convince the reader of the truth of a proposition. Every one of the above forms may be exemplified in a single paragraph. The paragraph, therefore, by reason of its brevity, offers peculiar advantages for study and for practice. And since continuous writing is made up of individual paragraphs properly joined and grouped, the * The forms of writing are not to be confounded witli the forms of liieralurc. These latter are endless, including poetry and the drama, fiction (the novel), history and biography, book-reviews, criticism, books of travel, political and legal treatises, philosophic and scientific treatises. Any one literary form — c. g. a drama, a novel, a book of travel, a history— may embody all the forms of writing in turn. INVENTION IN GENERAL. 3 assumption is a safe and practical one, that any person trained to write a good paragraph may be readily taught to frame a longer composition. Hence the prominence given to the paragraph in this book. A few rules or suggestions for the shaping of a composition of some length are given in Chapter XIII. CHAPTER II. THE PARAGRAPH IN GENERAL. 2. In learning to compose, the first step is to get a clear understanding of the paragraph — what it is and how it should be constructed. The paragraph may be characterized as the unit of written discourse; it may be approximately defined to be a group of sentences closely connected and serving one common purpose. According to this purpose the paragraph may be of two kinds: either the writer takes up a simple, brief, inde- pendent subject, and disposes of it within the limits of the paragraph, which is then called an Isolated or Independent Paragraph, or he is developing successive portions of a longer general subject in successive paragraphs ; these are called Connected or Related Paragraphs. In modern printing and writing every paragraph is marked off to the eye by the device known as indenting. In print the first letter of the paragraph is set back one em or two ems from the flush line of the column or page ; in writing it is set back an inch or an inch and a half from the margin. A paragraph is sometimes comprised within the limits of a single line and sentence. Examples of isolated par- agraphs of this sort are common in the news columns of the newspapers and magazines; they are justified on purely practical grounds. Occasionally even an author who is writing upon a continuous subject will give un- usual prominence to an event or a saying by throwing it 4 THE PARAGRAPH IN GENERAL. 5 into the form of a single-sentence paragraph. Thus, Mat- thew Arnold, after discussing the praise bestowed by Keats and Hallam upon Chapman's translation of Homer, breaks out in the following sentence-paragraph : I confess that I can never read twenty lines of Chapman's version without recurring to Bentley's cry : " This is not Homer !" — and that from a deeper cause than any unfaithfulness occasioned by the fetters of rhyme. — Matthew Aknold : Translation of Homer, p. 302. The manner is French rather than English. It is per- missible to a very moderate extent in a writer like Arnold, who is a master of writing, but it is emphatically not a manner to be held up to the young for imitation, for the young are by nature only too apt to write disjointedly, and need careful training in the art of grouping their thoughts and impressions, and giving to their composition that quality which is aptly designated as structure. In the present book, therefore, nearly all the quotations intro- duced to illustrate paragraph-writing are of some length. There are a few exceptions in Chapter III., but they are introduced merely to exemplify the quality of extreme conciseness. A paragraph has been defined to be a group of sentences treating a subject or a definite portion of a subject (topic). Therefore the paragraph should contain only such matter as is closely connected with this subject or topic. Every sentence, every phrase, even every word, should bear upon the special purpose of the paragraph. Hence the two general rules of Unity and Sequence. Unity. 3. The conception of paragraph-unity is best learned from good concrete examples. Thus, everything in the following quotation brings into prominence the power of Paul's character and the source of that power— viz. faith in God : An 6 A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. The power of Paul's personality shines out in almost every line of the narrative consummated in the shipwreck. By the power of his personal presence he quiets the mob and gains an audience for him- self; by the same power he checks the Roman officers as they bind him, and compels their heed to his quiet declaration that he is a Ro- man citizen ; by the same power he secures a hearing for his nephew's revelation respecting the projected assassination ; by the same power he wins his acquittal from Felix and from Festus, winning that acquit- tal without calling a single witness in his favor ; by the same power he so aflects the centurion that he is allowed to go free on his parole when the ship touches at Sidon, and secures a hearing for his counsel to har- bor at Fair Haven, though overruled by the shipmaster. Never losing this hold, he it is who in the midst of the tempest stands forth, carrying cheer to sailor, soldier, and passenger, never losing presence of mind ; he it is who strengthens the shipwrecked against the dangers of exhaus- tion in the battle with the waves by distributing to them food ; and, never losing his sense of the presence of God, he bears a quiet witness to this faith by giving thanks to God, even in the midst of their fears, for their strange meal. In brief, what the story of Joseph is in the Old Testament, that is the story of Paul's voyage to Rome in the New Testament — a striking illustration of the truth and the method of Divine Providence and the power of a character whose root is faith in God. — The Outlook. In the following the unity is less obvious at first read- ing. The passage is a mixture of narrative and descrip- tion; its purpose is to awaken our sympathy with the writer at a turning-point in his life: I shed tears as I looked round on the chair, hearth, writing-table, and other familiar objects, knowing too certainly that I looked upon them for the last time. Whilst I write this, it is nineteen years ago ; and yet, at this moment, I see, as if it were but yesterday, the lineaments and expressions of the object on which I fixed my parting gaze. It was the picture of a lovely lady which hung over the mantelpiece, the eyes and mouth of which were so beautiful, and the whole countenance so radiant with divine tranquillity, that I had a thousand times laid down my pen or my book to gather consolation from it, as a devotee from his patron saint. Whilst I was yet gazing upon it, the deep tones of the old church clock proclaimed that it was six o'clock. I went up to the picture, kissed it, then gently walked out, and closed the door for ever. — De Qdincey {Confessiom), iii. 297. THE PARAGRAPH IN GENERAL. 7 The following, upon an abstruse subject, will not, per- haps, be too difScult for the young reader : The use of a theory in the real sciences is to help the investigator to a complete view of all the hitherto discovered facts relating to the science in question ; it is a collected view, Seupia, of all he yet knows in one. Of course, whilst any pertinent facts remain unknown, no theory can be exactly true, because every new fact must necessarily, to a greater or less degree, displace the relation of all the others. A theory, there- fore, only helps investigation ; it cannot invent or discover. The only true theories are those of geometry, because in geometry all the prem- isses are true and unalterable. But to suppose that, in our present exceedingly imperfect acquaintance with the facts, any theory in chem- istry or geology is altogether accurate, is absurd : it cannot be true. — S. T. Coleridge : Table Talk, ii. 198. Observe how every clause and every word help us to understand what a theory is, according to Coleridge, and how far it may be trusted. A mathematician might object to restricting " true " theories to geometry. A good specimen from Macaulay is this : The characteristic peculiarity of his intellect was the union of great powers with low prejudices. If we judged of him by the best parts of his mind, we should place him almost as high as he was placed by the idolatry of Boswell ; if by the worst parts of his mind, we should place him even below Boswell himself. Where he was not under the influ- ence of some strange scruple or some domineering passion which pre- vented him from boldly and fairly investigating a subject, he was a wary and acute reasoner, a little too rmich inclined to scepticism, and a littletoo fond of jparadox. No man was less likely to be imposed upon by fallacies in argument or by exaggerated statements of fact. But if, while he was beating down sophisms and exposing false testimony, some childish prejudices, such as would excite laughter in a well-managed nursery, came across him, he was smitten as if by enchantment. His mind dwindled away under the spell from gigantic elevation to dwarf- ish littleness. Those who had lately been admiring its amplitude and its force were now as much astonished at its strange narrowness and feebleness as the fishermnn in the Arabian tale, when he saw the genie, whose stature had overshadowed the whole sea-coast and whose might seemed equal to a contest with armies, contract himself to the dimen- sions of his small prison, and lie there the helpless slave of the charm of Solomon. — Macattlay : BosweU's Johnson. 8 A HANDBOOK OF ENOLISU COMPOSITION. The ending of the paragraph is noteworthy ; it is a simile which, to those who know the story of the fisher- man and the bottle, illustrates most forcibly the extremes of Johnson's greatness and littleness, stated in the intro- ductory sentence of the paragraph. Thus the end repeats the beginning, but with a picturesque variation. 4. It is characteristic of untrained writers and speakers to disregard the rule of unity. They wander from the subject, making remarks which have no bearing upon it. This wandering from the text is abundantly ridiculed, by dramatists and novelists ; e. g. Pompey the clown, wishing to tell Escalus the justice that Mrs. Elbow had come to the house, delivers himself thus : Sir, she came in, and longing— save your honour's reverence — for stewed prunes ; sir, we had but two in the house, which at that very distant time stood as it were in a fruit-dish, a dish of some threepence ; your honours have seen such dishes ; they are not china dishes, but very good dishes . — Meas.for Meas., ii. 1- Escalus interrupts him with an impatient " Go to ! go to! no matter for the dish, sir;" and all trained minds will echo Escalus. ' Even writers of eminence occasionally mar the unity of a paragraph ; e. g. : Sextus Quintus was not of so generous and forgiving a temper. Upon his being made pope, the statue of Pasquin was one night dressed in a very dirty shirt, with an excuse written under it that he was forced to wear foul linen because his laundress was made a princess. This was a reflection upon the pope's sister, who, before the promotion of her brother, was in those mean circumstances that Pasquin represented her. As this pasquinade made a great noise in Eome, the pope offered a con- siderable sum of money to any person that should discover the author of it. The author, relying upon his Holiness's generosity, as also on some private overtures which he had received from him, made the dis- covery himself; upon which the pope gave him the reward he had promised, but at the same time, to disable the satirist for the future, ordered his tongue to be cut out and both his hands to be chopped off. Aretine is too trite an instance. Every one knows that all the kings in Europe were his tributaries. Nay, there is a letter of his extant, in THE PABAGEAPH IN GENERAL. 9 which he makes his boasts that he had laid the Sophy of Persia under contribution. — Addison (Spectator, 23) : Libels and Lampoons, p. 195. Here the last three sentences, beginning with " Aretine," are out of place. The subject of the paragraph is the cruelty of Pope Sextus Quintus. Aretine's conduct in threatening to lampoon kings and letting himself be bought off should be treated in a separate paragraph. For an additional example of violation of unity see the extract from Addison, § 28. Sequence. 5. Sequence is secured by arranging the sentences of a paragraph in that order which will make the general sub- ject of the paragraph most readily apprehended. No general rule can be given for securing sequence. Much will depend upon the kind of writing — whether it be narration or description, exposition or argument. In Narration events are usually, but not invariably, stated in the order in which they occurred (chronological). This order, apart from a digression to the present moment of writing, is observed in the passage from De Quincey, § 3 ; see also Stanley, § 23. In Description it is usually advisable to arrest the reader's attention by putting the most conspicuous feature at the beginning of the paragraph, or at the end, or in both places. So Macaulay, § 3. In another place Macau- lay is depicting the fulness of Burke's knowledge of India. He begins with the statement : His knowledge of India was such as few, even of those Europeans who have passed many years in that country, have attained, and such as certainly was never attained by any public man who had not quitted Europe. Then follows the explanation of this extraordinary knowledge. It was acquired through untiring industry in reading and intense imagination in illuminating masses 10 A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. of fact. Then comes the middle of the paragraph, the description proper : (1) India and its inhabitants were not to him, as to most English- men, mere names and abstractions, but a real country and a real people. The burning sun ; the strange vegetation of the palm and the cocoa tree ; the rice-field ; the tank ; the huge trees, older than the Mogul Empire, under which the village crowds assemble ; the thatche'd roof of the peasant's hut; the rich tracery of the mosque where the imaura prays with his face to Mecca ; the drums and banners and gaudy idols ; the devotee swinging in the air ; the graceful maiden, with the pitcher on her head descending the steps to the river-side; the black faces; the long beards ; the yellow streaks of sect ; the turbans and the flow- ing robes, the spears and the silver maces ; the elephants with their canopies of state ; the gorgeous palanquin of the prince and the close litter of the noble lady, — all these things were to him as the objects amidst which his own life had been passed, as the objects which lay on the road between Beaconsfield and St. James's Street. (2) All India was present to the eye of his mind, from the halls where suitors laid gold and perfumes at the feet of sovereigns to the wild moor where the gypsy camp was pitched ; from the bazaar, humming like a beehive with the crowd of buyers and sellers, to the jungle where the lonely courier shakes his bunch of iron rings to scare away the hyenas. (3) He had just as lively an idea of the insurrection at Benares as of Lord George Gordon's riots, and of the execution of Nuncomar as of the execution of Dr. Dodd. Oppression in Bengal was to him the same thing as oppression in the streets of London. — Macaulay : Warren Hastings. Of the three sections, (1) gives a long list of picturesque details, all in one sentence ; (2), shorter, is more co.nspicu- ous; it sums up Burke's knowledge; (3) is intentionally soberer in tone; it states the moral temper of Burke's mind, and goes back directly to the opening statement, " His knowledge," etc. In Exposition and Argumentation the safest order is the logical. That is, premises should come before conclusions, definitions before illustrations, generals before particulars (except where the general is to be proved from the par- ticulars by induction), a law before an instance or appli- cation. The quotation from Coleridge, § 3, is a good speci- THE PARAOBAPH IN GENERAL. 11 men of sequence. The first sentence characterizes a theory by its use ; the second gives the necessary limitations of theory ; the third tells what theory cannot do ; the fourth designates the only true theory ; the fifth applies the whole doctrine to geology. This application was Coleridge's aim from the start. But in Indirect Exposition (see §§ 50, 58) it is not uncom- mon to put a negative before a positive ; e. g. : It is not the confiscation of our church property from this example in France that I dread, though I think this would be no trifling evil. The great source of my solicitude is, lest it should ever be considered in England as the policy of a state to seek a resource in confiscations of any kind, or that any one description of citizens should be brought to regard any of the others as their proper prey. — Bukke : Reflections, p. 172. An effective means of securing sequence is to introduce a number of short clauses, alike in structure and about equal in weight, and to wind up with one long clause of considerable weight. Thus : The objects of a financier are, then, to secure an ample revenue ; to impose it with judgment and equality; to employ it economically; and when necessity obliges him to make use of credit, to secure its founda- tions in that instance, and for ever, by the clearness and candor of his proceedings, the exactness of his calculations, and the solidity of his funds. — Burke : Reflections, p. 257. Selection, Proportion, Variety. 6. Some authorities upon the paragraph have mentioned additional features — viz. : Selection, Proportion, Variety. By Selection is meant that the writer introduces into the paragraph only those items which are most important and most available. But no principle can be laid down for guiding us in our choice. Every writer must, on the one hand, acquire for himself the good taste to perceive that he has said enough and said his best ; on the other, he must train his thinking faculties to judge that what he writes is essential to the purpose and is arranged in proper 12 A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. order. The young cannot learn too soon that all good writing is merely the accurate expression of careful thinking. By Proportion is meant that each item in the paragraph gets that share of space and that prominence which it deserves. Here again no rule can be given. Every para- graph is to be considered as a law unto itself. But a close observance of the principles of Sequence will scarcely fail to ensure Proportion. By Variety is meant that the writer does not make his sentences all long, or all short ; does not employ the same words or the satoe sentence-structure too frequently ; does not construct his paragraphs too much alike. Here again taste and judgment will be more helpful than any rules. Also, one must study the methods of the best masters. Thus: 4' ',. )U(".' f. '--• |. (1) So, then, Oxford Street, stony-hearted stepmother, thou that lis- tenest to the sighs of orphans and drinkest the tears of children, at length I was dismissed from thee ! The time was come that I no more should pace in anguish thy never-ending terraces, no more should wake and dream in captivity to the pangs of hunger. Successors too many to myself and Ann have, doubtless, since then trodden in our footsteps, inheritors of our calamities. Other orphans than Ann have sighed ; tears have been shed by other cliildren ; and thou, Oxford Street, hast since those days echoed to the groans of innumerable hearts. (2) For myself, however, the storm which I had outlived seemed to have been the pledge of a long fair weather ; the premature sufferings which I had paid down, to have been accepted as a ransom for many years to come, as a price of long immunity from sorrow ; and if again I walked in London, a solitary and contemplative man (as oftentimes I did), I walked for the most part in serenity and peace of mind. (3) And, although it is true that the calamities of my novitiate in Loudon had struck root so deeply in my bodily constitution that afterwards they shot up and flourished afresh, and grew into a noxious umbrage that has overshadowed and darkened my latter years, yet these second assaults of suffering were met with a fortitude more confirmed, with the resources of a maturer intellect, and with alleviations, how deep ! from sympa- thising affection. — De QniNCEY {Confessions), iii. 375. In the above there is every element of variety. In (1) THE PARAGRAPH IN GENERAL. 13 the clauses are crisp and nervous ; in (2), longer and more reflective ; (3) is all one long sentence, one profound reflec- tion. Such concrete phrases as " sighs of orphans," " tears of children," " pangs of hunger," are replaced in (2) hy the vaguer general phrase " premature sufferings." " Pace in anguish " (1) is contrasted with " walked in serenity and peace of mind " (2). There is also a marked linguistic contrast between " stony-hearted," " never-ending " (1) and " noxious umbrage," " alleviations from sympathising afiec- tion " (3). Practical Suggestions. 7. It has been stated that no general rule can be given for securing sequence. But the following suggestions will be of help to the young writer: 1. Study carefully the sequence in the paragraphs of the best prose authors. Of the authors usuall}' read in school, the best in this respect are Hawthorne, Irving, and Macaulay. De Quincey is scarcely an author for the school ; he is extremely painstaking in his paragraph- structure when writing seriously, but in his humorous passages is apt to bring in irrelevant matter, and thereby mar both sequence and unity. Webster's paragraphs are well constructed. So are Addison's, with an occasional slip. Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, and George Eliot are less careful. 2. Having read a paragraph through, write down, in a short clause, what you judge to be its leading subject. Then write down, in still shorter clauses, the items which make up the body of the paragraph. This will lay bare the mechanism of the paragraph — its "skeleton." 3. Before composing a paragraph of your own, prepare a skeleton in like manner. That is, write down the sub- ject (what you purpose treating in the paragraph) and the several items, and arrange and rearrange the items until you are satisfied that you have hit upon the best order. See § 122. 14 A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. 8. The Echo. — Make the sentences of the paragraph fit into each other by letting the beginning clause of one sen- tence echo the thought, and perhaps even the wording, of the last clause of the sentence immediately preceding. This echo device is extremely effective ; it has been em- ployed, consciously or unconsciously, by many of the best writers. Thus : Just as I was pulling on my boots the nine o'clock bell rang. " There 1" I cried, '' that serves me right for lying abed." Observe how direct and obvious the connection between the ejaculation " There !" and the "rang," and how the con- nection would be broken by a different arrangement, as : The nine o'clock bell rang just as I was pulling on my boots. " There !" I said, " that serves me right for lying in bed 1" * Observe the echo in the following quotations, in which the echoing words have been italicized for the purpose : I was roused from this fit of luxurious meditation by a shout from my little travelling campanwns. They had been looking out of the coach-windows for the last few miles, recognizing every tree and cottage as they approached home, and now there was a general burst of joy. "There's John! and there's old Carlo! and there's Bantam!" cried the happy little rogues, clapping their hands. — Irving : The Stage-Coach. Accordingly, with such a tramp of his ponderous riding-boots as might of itself have been audible in the remotest of the seven gables, he [the lieutenant-governor] advanced to the door, which the servant pointed out, and made its new panels re-echo with a loud, free knock. Then, looking round with a smile to the spectators, he awaited a response. As none came, however, he knocked again, but with the same unsatis- factory results as at first. And now, being a trifle choleric in his temper- ament, the lieutenant-governor uplifted the heavy hilt of the sword, wherewith he so beat and banged upon the door that, etc. — Haw- thorne : Seven Gables, ch. i. In the following : In this place then I resolved to fix my design, and accordingly I pre- pared two muskets and my ordinary fowling-piece. The two muskets I * This example is talten from A. S. Hill, Foundations oj Bhetoric, p. 806, where the matter is fully treated. THE PARAGRAPH IN GENERAL. 15 loaded with a brace of slugs each, and four or five smaller bullets, about the size of pistol-bullets ; and the fowling-piece I loaded with near a handful of swan-shot of the largest size, etc. — De Foe : Robinson Cru- soe, p. 200. the connection is more evident than if the author had written : " I loaded the two muskets." The following is an apt illustration of echo-sequence in a more complicated structure : History will record that on the morning of the 6th of October, 1789, the king and queen of France, after a day of confusion, alarm, dismay, and slaughter, lay down, under the pledged security of public faith, to indulge nature in a few hours of respite and troubled melancholy repose. From this sleep the queen was first startled by the voice of the sentinel at her door, who cried out to her to save hereelf by flight — that this was the last proof of fidelity he could give — that they were upon him, and he was dead. Instantly he was cut down. A band of cmel ruffians and assassins, reeking with his blood, rushed into the chamber of the queen, etc. — Burke : Reflections, p. 78. We are to understand that the sentinel was cut down by the band of rufi&ans. In the following passage the sequence is marred by the introduction of a contrast for which there has been no preparation : Nor must we forget that all, or almost all, to whom, when placed at the head of affairs, he could apply for assistance, were persons who owed as little as himself, or less than himself, to education. A minister in Europe finds himself, on the first day on which he commences his func- tions, surrounded by experienced public servants, the depositaries of ofiicial traditions. Hastings had no such help. His own reflection, his own energy, were to supply the place of all Downing Street and Somer- set House. — Macadlay : Warren Hastings. While reading of Hastings in India we pass all at once to a minister in Europe, and we are naturally startled. The transition would have been made much easier by a slight change : " Unlike a minister in Europe, who finds himself . . . traditions, Hastings had no one to counsel him. His own," etc. 16 A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. 9. Connectives. — Study the force of and learn to use connectives — i. e. certain words and short phrases which indicate the transition from one thought to the next, or which justify, enforce, restrict, or otherwise modify an as- sertion. The value of connectives has been aptly stated : A close reasoner and a good writer in general may be known by bis pertinent use of connectives. Read that page of Johnson : you cannot alter one conjunction without spoiling the sense. It is a linked strain throughout. In your modern books, for the most part, the sentences in a page have the same connection with each other that marbles have in a bag ; they touch without adhering. — S. T. Coleridge : Table Talk, ii. 185. Note, in the following, how clearness is enhanced by the italicized words : Even the critics, whatever may be said of them by others, he [the present author, Irving] has found to be a singularly gentle and good- natured race ; it is true that each has in turn objected to some one or two articles, and that these individual exceptions, taken in the aggre- gate, would amount almost to a total condemnation of his work ; but then he has been consoled by observing, that what one has particularly censured, another has as particularly praised ; and thus, the encomiums being set off against the objections, he finds his work upon the whole commended far beyond its deserts. — Irving : L' Envoy. In the following : The two principles of conservation and correction operated strongly at the two critical periods of the Restoration and Revolution, when England found itself without a king. At both those periods the nation had lost the bond of union in their ancient edifice ; they did not, how- ever, dissolve the whole fabric. On the contrai-y, in both cases they regenerated the deficient part of the old constitution through the parts which were not impaired. They kept these old parts exactly as they were, that the part recovered might be suited to them. — Burke : Reflec- tions, p. 23. not only is the general sequence close, but the whole paragraph may be said to turn upon the words italicized. The young writer should note the use of these words and phrases in good writers, and of similar expressions — e. g. ''notwithstanding," "after all," "all in all," "like- THE PARAGRAPH IN GENERAL. 17 wise," " further," " consequently," etc. — and should en- deavor to employ them in his own writing. 3 10. Repeated Structure. — This is an efifective device of certain writers who have paid especial attention to form. Its use, if not excessive, gives to the thought-sequence a peculiar power and dignity as well as clearness. But, like the single-sentence paragraph, § 2, it is not without dan- ger for the young. An example of repetition is : Of books, so long as you rest only on grounds which, in sincerity, you believe to be true, and speak without anger or scorn, you can hardly say the thing which ought to be taken amiss. But of men and women you dare not, and must not, tell all that chance may have revealed to you. Sometimes you are summoned to silence by pity for that general human infirmity which you also, the writer, share. Sometimes you are checked by the consideration that perhaps your knowledge of the case was originally gained under opportunities allowed only by confidence or by unsuspecting carelessness. Sometimes the disclosure would cause quar- rels between parties now at peace. Sometimes it would inflict pain, such as you could not feel any right to inflict, upon people not directly but collaterally interested in the exposure. Sometimes, again, if right to be told, it might be difiicult to prove. 'Thus, for one came and another, some things are sacred and some things are perilous amongst any personal relations that else you might have it in your power to make.^ — De Quin- CEY ( On Wordsworth's Poetry), xi. 294. See also the first passage from Burke, § 13 ; De Quincey (from, as from), § 31 ; and The Outhoh {By the 'power), § 3. Simpler, and therefore safer for the young to imitate, is the following: On this sacred day [Sunday] the gigantic monster [London] is charmed into repose. The intolerable din and struggle of the week are at an end. The shops are shut. The fires of forges and manufac- tories are extinguished, and the sun, no longer obscured by murky clouds of smoke, pours down a sober yellow radiance into the quiet streets. The few pedestrians we meet, instead of hurrying forward with anxious countenances, move leisurely along ; their brows are smoothed from the wrinkles of business and care ; they have put on their Sunday looks and Sunday manners with their Sunday clothes, and are cleansed in mind as well as in person. — Ibving : A Sunday in London. 2 B* 18 A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. Note, in the above, the repetition of " the ;" also its giv- ing way to " they " and " their," and the repetition of " Sunday." 11. The Subject-Sentence, or Topic-Sentence. — In § 7, No. 3, the writer is advised to prepare a skeleton of the paragraph, consisting of the subject and the several items. But this skeleton is merely for his private guidance. In actual composition he is called upon to make the subject, or some aspect of the subject, conspicuous in the paragraph. That is, he should express this subject, or this aspect, in a sen- tence or a phrase which stands out from the rest of the paragraph and arrests the reader's attention. Such a sentence or phrase may be called the Subject- Sentence ; by some it is called the Topic-Sentence. A few examples from prominent writers will show how common and effective the device is. Note the italicized sentences. Thus: Faith in God, faith in man, faith in work, — this is the short formula in which we may sum up the teaching of the founders of New England — a creed ample enough for this life and the next. If their municipal regulations smack somewhat of Judaism, vet there can be no nobler aim or more practical wisdom than theirs, for it was to make the law of man a living counterpart of the law of God, in their highest concep- tion of it. Were they too earnest in the strife to save their souls alive ? Thai is still the problem which every wise and brave man is lifelong in solving. If the Devil take a less hateful shape to us than to our fathers, he is as busy with us as with them ; and if we cannot find it in our hearts to break with a gentleman of so much worldly wisdom, who gives such ad- mirable dinners, and whose manners are so perfect, so much the worse for us. — LOWELI, : New England, p. 229. Boswell has already been much commented upon, but rather in the way of censure and vituperation than of true recognition. He was a man that brought himself much before the world ; confessed that he eagerly coveted fame, or, if that were not possible, notoriety ; of which latter, as he gained far more than seemed his due, the public were in- cited, not only by their natural love of scandal, but by a special ground of envy, to say whatever ill of him could be said. Out of the fifteen millions that then lived and had bed and board in the British Islands, THE PARAGRAPH IN GENERAL. 19 this man has provided us a greater pleasure than any other individual at whose cost we now enjoy ourselves ; perhaps has done us a greater service than can be specially attributed to more than two or three : yet, ungrateful that we are, no written or spoken eulogy of James Boswell anywhere exists ; his recompense in solid pudding (so far as copyright went) was not excessive ; and as for the empty praise, it has altogether been denied him. Men are unvtiser than children; they do not know the hand that feeds them. — Cablyle: Boswell' s Johnson. Carlyle's leading thought is English ingratitude to Bos- well, but the full force is felt only at the end. The reader should bear in mind that satire is usually like a wasp : the sting is in the tail. The following is not satire, but simple explanation : Had the colonel survived only a few weeks longer, it is probable that his great political influence and powerful connections at home and abroad would have consummated all that was necessary to render the claim [to vast possessions in Maine] available. But, in spite of good Mr. Higginson's congratulatory eloquence, this appeared to be the one thing which Colonel Pyncheon, provident and sagacious as he was, had allowed to go at loose ends. So far as the prospective territory was con- cerned, he unquestionably died too soon. His son lacked not merely the father's eminent position, but the talent and force of character to achieve it : he could therefore eflfect nothing by dint of political inter- est ; and the bare justice or legality of the claim was not so apparent after the colonel's decease as it had been pronounced in his lifetime. Some connecting link had slipped out of the emdence, and could not any- where be found. — Hawthorne : Seven Gables, ch. i. yet the explanation is not suggested until the end ; whereas in the following the key-note is struck in the opening sen- tence : In this republican country, amid the fluctuating waves of our social life, somebody is always at the drowning-point. The tragedy is enacted with as continual a repetition as that of a popular drama on a holiday ; and, nevertheless, is felt as deeply, perhaps, as when an hereditary noble sinks below his order. More deeply, since with us rank is the grosser substance of wealth and a splendid establishment, and has no spiritual existence after the death of these, but dies hopelessly along with them. And therefore, since we have been unfortunate enough to introduce our heroine at so inauspicious a juncture, we would entreat for a mood of 20 A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. due solemnity in the spectators of her fate. — Hawthorne: Seven Gables, ch. ii. 12. The use, the form, and the position of the subject- sentence depend in great measure upon the form of com- position. In Narration and in Description (see Chapters V. and VI.) it is usually impossible to introduce a genuine subject- sentence, for the reason that a narrative or a description usually consists of a number of independent facts — phys- ical objects or movements — which cannot be summed up in a single statement. Yet even here the writer may select one object, one feature, one movement, and make it the centre of interest. Thus : At the end of a lane there was an old, sober-looking servant in liv- ery, waiting for them ; he was accompanied by a superannuated pointer and by the redoubtable Bantam, a little old rat of a pony, with a shaggy mane and long, rusty tail, who stood dozing quietly by the roadside, little dreaming of the bustling times that awaited him. Of the three figures, it would be easy to guess that the pony is the most important, even were we not to read the following paragraph : I was pleased to see the fondness with which the little fellows leaped about the steady old footman and hugged the pointer, who wriggled his whole body for joy. But Bantam was the great object of interest; all wanted to mount at once, and it was with some difficulty that John arranged that they should ride by turns, and the eldest should ride first. — Irving : The Slage-Coach. In the description of Master Simon : He was a tight, brisk little man, with the air of an arrant old bach- elor. His nose was shaped like the bill of a parrot; his face slightly pitted with the small-pox, with a dry perpetual bloom on it, like a frost-bitten leaf in autumn. He had an eye of great quickness and vivacity, with a drollery and lurking waggery of expression that was irresistible. He was evidently the wit of the family, dealing very much in sly jokes and innuendoes with the ladies, and making infinite merriment by harping upon old themes, which, unfortunately, my ignorance of the family chronicles did not permit me to enjoy. It seemed to be his THE PARAGRAPH IN GENERAL. 21 great delight during supper to keep a young girl next him in a contin- ual agony of stifled laughter, in spite of her awe of the reproving looks of her mother, who sat opposite. Indeed, he wai the idol of the younger part of the company, who laughed at everything he said or did and at every turn of his countenance ; I could not wonder at it, for he must have been a miracle of accomplishments in their eyes. He could imi- tate Punch and Judy ; make an old woman of his hand, with the assist- ance of a burnt cork and pocket-handkerchief; and cut an orange into such a ludicrous caricature that the young folks were ready to die with laughing. — Irving : Christmas Eve. the clauses here italicized are paragraph-centres. They diifer from the rest in structure ; also, each states a general fact. In the following : It was the very witching time of night that Ichabod, heavy-hearted and crestfallen, pursued his travel homewards along the sides of the lofty hills which rise above Tarry Town, and which he had traversed so cheerily in the afternoon. The hour was as dismal as himself. Far below him, the Tappan Zee spread its dusky and indistinct waste of waters, with here and there the tall mast of a sloop riding quietly at anchor under the land. In the dead hush of midnight he could even hear the barking of the watch-dog, etc. — Irving : Sleepy Hollow. the sentence here italicized expresses the sentiment of the situation. In the description of the burning of Canonchet's fort : The victors set fire to the wigwams and the fort ; the whole was soon in a blaze ; many of the old men, the women, and the children per- ished in the flames. This last outrage ova-came even, the stoicism of the savage. The neighboring woods resounded with the yells of rage and despair, uttered by the fugitive warriors, as they beheld the destruction of their dwellings, and heard the agonizing cries of their wives and oflspring, etc. — Irving : Philip of Pokanoket. the sentence here italicized is conspicuous by introducing tlie moral element into a scene of horror. Note, on the other hand, the passage from Macaulay, § 3, where the subject-sentence is put boldly at the begin- ning. Examine also the paragraphs quoted in the chap- ters on Narration and Description, and in your own writing 22 A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. do not fail to make some one feature of the object described, some one incident of the event narrated, stand out conspicuous in the paragraph. 13. Exposition. — From the very nature of this form of writing (see Chapter VII.), it follows that every paragraph should have a topic-sentence. For, since exposition is at bottom explanation — i. e. making the difficult more intel- ligible — the writer must at least state precisely what he is trying to explain. Usually the topic-sentence is placed at or near the begin- ning of the paragraph. But exceptions are not infrequent. Thus, in the following humorous explanation of Ichabod's perplexity : All these [ghost stories], however, were mere terrors of the night, phantoms of the mind that walk in darkness ; and though he had seen many spectres in his time, and been more than once beset by Satan in divers shapes in his lonely perambulations, yet daylight put an end to all these evils ; and he would have passed a pleasant life of it, in de- spite of the devil and all his works, if his path had not been crossed by a being that causes more perplexity to mortal man than ghosts, goblins, and the whole race of witches put together, and that was — a woman. — Ikving: Sleepy Hollow. Irving makes his jest (see remarks on the passage from Carlyle, § 11) effective by introducing the cause at the very last. Woman is a general source of trouble, as Irving jest- ingly puts it. Moreover, the passage is not pure exposi- tion, but borders on description. In the following extract, a perfectly sober passage : In discussing the savage character, writers have been too prone to indulge in vulgar prejudices and passionate exaggeration, instead of the candid temper of true philosophy. They have not sufficiently consid- ered the peculiar circumstances in which the Indians have been placed, and the peculiar principles under which they have been educated. No being acts more rigidly from rule than the Indian. His whole conduct is regulated according to some general maxims early implanted in his mind. The moral laws that govern him are, to be sure, but few, but then he conforms to them all; the white man abounds in laws of re- THE PARAGRAPH IN GENERAL. 23 ligion, morals, and manners, but how many does he violate? — Irving: Traits of Indian Character. the general principle, upon which everything turns, is in the italicized sentence at the middle. In still another paragraph : But if courage intrinsically consists in the defiance of danger and pain, the life of the Indian is a continued ezhibiiion of it. He lives in a state of perpetual hostility and risk. Peril and adventure are congenial to his nature; or rather seem necessary to arouse his faculties and to give an interest to his existence. Surrounded by hostile tribes, whose mode of warfare is by ambush and surprisal, he is always prepared for fight, and lives with his weapons in his hand, etc. — Irving : Traits of Indian Character. the subject-sentence is at the beginning. Usually a general principle is stated before the applica- tion to individual cases ; a rule is given before the excep- tions; a positive assertion before the negative converse. But examples of the opposite arrangement are to be found in good writers. Before composing an expository paragraph, settle clearly in your mind the leading thought or mew that you wish to ad- vance, and make it conspicuoios somewhere in the paragraph. If, after the paragraph is written, this thought does not seem conspicuous enough, reconstruct the whole. See § 122 ; study also the extracts in Chapter VII. Argumentation. — As stated in Chapter VIII., the object of an argument is to prove or disprove a definite assertion, called a proposition. This proposition," accordingly, is the essence of the paragraph, and is itself the subject-sentence. It must be stated, therefore, clearly, concisely, and con- spicuously. In very exact reasoning — e. g. in mathematics and phys- ical science — the proposition may be placed at the begin- ning, or at the end, or in both places. In geometry the usual place is at the beginning. In argumentative writing that is less rigorous in its 24 A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. method and less accurate in its results, the true place for the proposition is at the end — i. e. as a conclusion. But a very careful writer will frequently state, or at least indi- cate, it at the beginning also, in order to prepare the reader's mind in advance. In the following passage Burke is contending that the disestablishment of the Church and the confiscation of its property [French Revolution of 1789] was tyrannical. The direct assertion, however, is not made until the very close : When men are encouraged to go into a certain mode of life by the existing laws, and protected in that mode as in a lawful occupation — when they have accommodated all their ideas and all their habits to it — when the law had long made their adherence to its rules a ground of reputation, and their departure from them a ground of disgrace and even of penalty, — I am sure it is unjust in legislature, by an arbitrary act, to offer a sudden violence to their minds and their feelings ; forcibly to degrade them from their state and condition, and to stigmatize with shame and infamy that character and those customs which before had been made the measure of their happiness and honour. If to this be added an expulsion frgm their habitations and a confiscation of all their goods, I am not sagacious enough to discover how this despotic sport made of the feelings, consciences, prejudices, and properties of men can be discriminated from the rankest tyranny. — BuKKE : Reflections, p. 175. It comes as a quasi-induction from a number of painful details. In another passage, comprising several paragraphs in succession, Burke demonstrates that the English consti- tution was not established, and cannot be maintained, in disregard of the past. In the first paragraph he shows that the oldest English constitutional document. Magna Charta, has always been considered to be the embodiment of still more ancient rights. In the second he quotes from the Petition of Right addressed by Parliament to Charles I.: "Your subjects have inherited this freedom" — prefer- ring, evidently, a positive, recorded, hereditary title to any vague speculative right. In the third he quotes from the Declaration of Right under William and Mary, in which THE PARAGRAPH IN GENERAL. 25 Parliament prays the king and queen " that it be declared and enacted that all and singular the rights and liberties asserted and declared are the true ancient and indubitable rights and liberties of the people of this kingdom." The fourth paragraph is here given entire : You will observe that, from Magna Charta to the Declaration of Right, it has been the uniform policy of our constitution to claim and assert our liberties as an entailed inheritance derived to us from our fore- fathers, and to be transmitted to our posterity ; as an estate specially belonging to the people of this kingdom, without any reference whatever to any other more general or prior right. By this means our constitu- tion preserves an unity in so great a diversity of its parts. We have an inheritable crown, an inheritable peerage, and an house of commons and a people inheriting privileges, franchises, and liberties frmn a long line of ancestors. — BuRKE : Reflections, p. 36. The doctrine of inheritance runs through it all, appearing in every sentence. But the doctrine is formulated at the outset, in the clause, " claim and assert our liberties as an entailed inheritance," and is repeated in the final clause, " from a long line of ancestors." For further examples see Chapter VIII. This kind of writing is extremely difficult, as is there stated. Neverthe- less, the young student may profit greatly from examining argumentative paragraphs in the best authors, and ana- lyzing each one into proposition, proof, and illustration. C CHAPTER III. THE INDEPENDENT OR ISOLATED PARAGRAPH. 14. This form of stating one's views or knowledge is comparatively modern. In our day its use is growing rapidly in the daily and weekly newspapers and the monthly magazines. Not only the news-columns, but even the editorial pages, abound in isolated paragraphs, varying in length from two or three lines to thirty or forty, and touching upon every conceivable subject. A few examples will suffice. The first paragraph is one that gained a prize for saying the most upon the subject in two hundred words : I feel repaid for the expense of my trip to the World's Fair because strengthened in seven ways. 1. Spiritually. I know as never before that we, the people of this world, are brothers, and all need the gospel : that missionaries should be sent to every land. 2. Mentally. This Fair has caused me to think more intelligently. Before attending the Fair I studied faithfully, to be able to use my time wisely. Since reaching home I have been doubly interested not only in news concerning the Fair, but in the general news and history of all nations. S. Physically. For several years I had not had one day of freedom from the care of my little one<. That week's outing gave me a complete rest and change. 4. Socially. I have more to talk about, and need not spend time dis- cussing my neighbors' failings. 5. In manners. With few social advan- tages, I find the travelling and staying at large hotels have been advan- tages to me. 6. In refinement. The pictures, lectures, concerts, all had a refining influence. 7. In the nursery. I got many ideas in the care and training of children. — The Golden Rule, Dec. 28, 1893. An exhibition of exceeding interest has just been opened at the Vienna Museum. This consists of a collection of upwards of 10,000 Egyptian papyrus documents, which were discovered at El Fay(im, and purchased by the Austrian Archduke Eainer several years ago. The 26 THE INDEPENDENT OR ISOLATED PARAQBAPH. 27 collection is unique, and the documents, which are written in eleven different languages, have all been deciphered and arranged scientif- ically. They cover a period of 2500 years and furnish remarkable evi- dence as to the culture and public and private life of the ancient Egyp- tians and other nations. They are also said to contain evidence that printing from type was known to the Egyptians as far back as the tenth century b. c. Other documents show that a flourishing trade in the manufacture of paper from linen rags existed six centuries before the process was known in Europe. Another interesting feature in the col- lection is a number of commercial letters, contracts, tax-records, wills, novels, tailors' bills, and even love-letters, dating from 1200 B. c. — N. Y. Evening Post. We may soon expect to see our maidens working mythological cha- racters, and illustrating fables and legends on our bedspreads, with descriptive lines by some of our poets. At least they will do so if they follow English precedent. The idea of a bedspread with a good and appropriate poem embroidered on it is rather a pleasing one, and would, I think, be far more interesting on a cold morning, when one hesitates about rising, or when one is a little ill, than impossible flowers, or a quilt of many colors that puts out the eyes by its brilliance. At the London Society of Arts and Crafts there was lately shown a linen bed- spread worked in wools, on which were embroidered verses by the poet William Morris. The work was done by his daughter, u, most talented young woman, who is of great assistance to her father in the invention and execution of beautiful things for English households. — N. Y. Eve- ning Post. From a mixture having the proportions of about one quart of crude petroleum to two ounces of resin, five ounces of powdered soap, and eleven ounces of caustic soda, Engineer Maestraeci of the Italian navy produces fuel bricks that he recommends for vessels as being less bulky than coal and safer than liquid fuel. The materials are heated until converted into a thick paste, poured into moulds, and placed for a few minutes in a drying oven. The addition of 20 per cent, of wood saw- dust and 20 per cent, of clay is advised as a means of making the briquettes cheaper and more solid. Tried on tugboats, the petroleum briquettes furnished about three times as much heat as coal briquettes, and gave out very little smoke and left little or no ash. 15. Peculiar Conciseness of the Independent Para- graph. — Inasmuch as the independent paragraph is an attempt to dispose of a subject in a few lines, it must be 28 A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. extremely concise. This conciseness can be secured only by observing with the utmost rigor the rules of unity and sequence. The writer must advance rapidly from point to point, without the slightest deviation from the main purpose. He must perceive with perfect clearness what he has to say, and must say it with exactness. The fol- lowing quotations will show what can be done within very narrow limits : A mouse saw his shadow on the wall. Said he, " I am larger than an elephant ; I will go forth and conquer the world." At that moment he espied a cat. In the ne.Kt he had slipped through a hole in the wall. — Berry Benson : Century May., January, 1894. Land was the only species of property which, in the old time, carried any respectability with it. Money alone, apart from some tenure of land, not only did not make the possessor great and respectable, but actually made him at once the object of plunder and hatred. Witness the history of the Jews in this country in the early reigns after the Conquest. — S. T. Coleridge ; Table Talk, ii. 154. Friends as we are, have long been, and ever shall be, I doubt whether I should have prefaced these pages with your name were it not to regis- ter my judgment that, in breaking up and cultivating the unreclaimed wastes of Humanity, no labors have been so strenuous, so continuous, or half so successful, as yours. While the world admires in you an unlimited knowledge of mankind, deep thought, vivid imagination, and bursts of eloquence from unclouded heights, no less am I delighted when I .see you at the school-room you have liberated from cruelty, and at the cottage you have purified from disease. — Landor ; Dedication to Dickens, p. 340. These are all excellent, each in its own line. But the fol- lowing, from Goldsmith, is faulty : There are an hundred faults in this thing, and an hundred things might be said to prove them beauties. But it is needless. A book may be amusing with numerous errors, or it may be very dull without a single absurdity. The hero of this piece unites in himself the three greatest characters upon earth : he is a priest, an husbandman, and the father of a family. He is drawn as ready to teach, and ready to obey ; as simple in affluence, and majestic in adversity. In this age of opu- lence and refinement, whom can such a character please ? Such as are THE INDEPENDENT OR ISOLATED PARAGRAPH. 29 fond of high life will turn with disdain from the simplicity of his coun- try fireside ; such as mistake ribaldry for humour will find no wit in his harmless conversation ; and such as have been taught to deride religion will laugh at one whose chief stores of comfort are drawn from futur- ity. — Goldsmith : Adva-iisement to Vicar of Wakefield. The above lacks unity. Goldsmith sets out, apparently, with the hope that his book may prove to be good and acceptable in spite of its defects. Then he gives an abstract of the character of the Vicar, and ends with the intimation that such a character cannot possibly find favor with a flippant and irreligious public. The hope and the doubt do not harmonize. 16. The Independent Paragraph in School Work. — The usefulness of practice in paragraph-writing for school (and also college) work can scarcely be over-estimated. This usefulness is not restricted to the English room proper, but, on the contrary, extends to all departments and subjects. Every written answer to an examination question, whether in geography, history, science, or litera- ture, is an independent paragraph. Since, as all examiners know,- a large percentage of time and energy is wasted upon examination-papers in the mere effort to puzzle out what the writers really meant to say, and since this waste might be avoided were the writers carefully trained to observe unity and sequence, it follows that the question of correct paragraphing is one which interests every teacher. In fact, it may be asked whether every teacher should not teach his own pupils to write paragraphs upon subjects in his line of study, and thereby co-operate in making the whole curriculum a drill in correct and rapid composition. In subjects other than English the para- graphs would usually be of an expository nature, although opportunities for narration and description would be fre- quent enough, e. g., in history and geography. In the English room proper the paragraph is the most available means of specific training in the details of Eng- 30 A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. lish composition. Being short, it can be written in twenty to thirty minutes. Therefore it may be required very fre- quently, almost daily. And since every paragraph embod- ies most of the features of Invention and Expression, every paragraph gives an opportunity for correcting what may be called the writer's chronic faults. Compared with the paragraph, the essay or old-fashioned composition is at a disadvantage. It must be written at intervals or piece- meal, can be required less frequently, and yet offers no greater opportunity for correction. That is, although a composition may contain three or four times as many errors, in the aggregate, as a short paragraph, it will not contain more kinds of error than a short paragraph by the same writer. Furthermore, the fact that the paragraph is written in the school-room, under the eye of the teacher, is a guarantee of honest work, whereas it is almost impos- sible to have an equivalent guarantee in the case of com- positions written outside the school-room. One can never be quite certain that the writer may not have received improper aid. There is a growing belief that the school instruction of the future in English will lie in the direction of the para- graph. This belief rests upon two grounds : first, that the essentials of composition can be learned through the para- graph, and that the paragraph can be required in sufficient quantity under any school-system ; second, that the pupil who has been carefully trained to express himself in para- graphs, even should he be carried no farther in school, will have little difficulty in subsequently mastering the art of building up an essay from the paragraph, especially if he has been trained to study paragraphs in groups — a matter which is treated in the next chapter. CHAPTER IV. CONNECTED OR RELATED PARAGRAPHS. Paragraphs standing in combination as parts of a com- prehensive whole (essay or composition) are influenced by certain principles which do not obtain when the paragraph is independent. 17. Paragraph-Echo. — This resembles the sentence-echo discussed in § 8. It consists in making the beginning sen- tence of the paragraph echo the thought, and sometimes even the wording, of the conclusion of the preceding para- graph ; e. g. De Quincey, narrating his running away from school and his efforts to meet his sister, who was to act as peacemaker between him and the mother, ends one para- graph and begins the next thus : . . . Not one minute had I waited, when in glided among the ruins — not my fair sister, but my bronzed Bengal uncle I A Bengal tiger would not more have startled me. Now, to a dead certainty, I said, here comes a fatal barrier to the prosecution of my scheme, etc. — De Quincey {Confessions), iii. 312. The following is from Swift. The emperor of Lilliput has sent an envoy to Blefuscu to demand the return of Gulliver. The answer of the emperor of Blefuscu is given in a second paragraph. The third begins thus : With this answer the envoy returned to Lilliput, etc. — Swift: Gulli- ver {Lilliput, ch. viii.). The connection would have been less direct had Swift written : " The envoy returned with this answer," etc. The following is from Hawthorne. Hepzibah Pyncheon is expecting the return of her brother Clififord, but not so soon. The first paragraph runs : 31 32 A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. During the latter process an omnibus came to a standstill under the branches of the elm tree. Hepzibah's heart was in her mouth. Remote and dusky . . . was that region of the Past whence her only guest might be expected to arrive. Was she to meet him now ? The next begins : Somebody, at all events, was passing from the furthest interior of the omnibus towards its entrance. A gentleman alighted ; but it was only to offer his hand to a young girl whose slender figure lightly descended the steps . . . towards the House of the Seven Gables, etc. — Haw- thorne: Seven Gables, ch. iv. In the above the combination of paragraph-echo with the actual shock of surprise to Hepzibah is admirable. Occasionally we find even what may be called chapter- echo. Thus ch. ii. of Hawthorne's Marble Faun ends: " ' Miriam,' whispered Hilda, . . . ' it is your model.' " Ch. iii. begins : " Miriam's model has so important a connec- tion," etc. This is the more remarkable since ch. iii. is a Reverting Narrative, see § 26 ; it begins the story some months earlier than the events of chs. i. and ii. 18. Link-Paragraph. — This is a paragraph, usually a short one, the purpose of which is to mark a stage in the progress of the discourse. Sometimes the link-paragraph gives weight '^nd solem- nity to a thought when first introduced, and suggests its significance for the future ; e. g. Hawthorne, after narrating at length the festivities for opening the House of the Seven Gables, just built, and the startling discovery of the owner, Colonel Pyncheon, sitting dead in his chair, inserts this short paragraph : Thus early had that one guest — the only guest who is certain, at one time or another, to find his way into every human dwelling — thus early had Death stepped across the threshold of the House of the Seven Gables ! — Hawthorne : Seven Gables, ch. i. The reader feels instinctively that death, sudden and mys- terious death, is to be a prominent feature in the sequel. At other times the link-paragraph recalls us to the pre- CONNECTED OR RELATED PARAGRAPHS. 33 cise point in the narrative or discussion from which there has been a departure for some specific purpose ; e. g. in The House of the Seven Gables (oh. xv.), Hepzibah, goaded to frenzy, pours out her full wrath upon the Judge. Then follow several pages, taken up with an analysis of his cha- racter, past and present. Then comes this short para- graph, recalling us to the present situation : But our affair now is with Judge Pyncheon as he stood confronting the fierce outbreak of Hepzibah's wrath. Without premeditation, to her own surprise and indeed terror, she had given vent, for once, to the inveteracy of her resentment, cherished against this kinsman for thirty years. — Hawthoene: Seven Oables, ch. xv. Again, the link-paragraph may sum up one or more preceding paragraphs and offer an easy transition to the following subject. Thus, in the Voyage to Brobdingnag (ch. iii.), Gulliver delivers at considerable length, in spite of his imperfect knowledge of the language, a speech to the Queen. Then comes the link : This was the sum of my speech, delivered with great improprieties and hesitation. The latter part was altogether framed in the style pecu- liar to that people, whereof I learned some phrases from Glumdalclitch while she was carrying me to court. This is an easy transition to the following paragraph : The queen . . . was surprised at so much wit and good sense in so diminutive an animal. She . . . carried me to the king, etc. — Swin : Oulliver {Brobdingnag, ch. iii.). The second chapter of Silas Marner ends thus : But about the Christmas of that fifteenth year a second great change came over Marner's life, and his history became blent in a singular manner with the life of his neighbors. — George Eliot : SUas Marner, ch. ii., end. Chapter third introduces the neighbors. Another good example of summing up and leading on to the next subject is this from De Quincey. After contro- verting, in two pages, the common opinion that Words- worth at Grasmere, in 1809, was the idol of a large circle 34 A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. of admiring neighbors, and showing by many details that Wordsworth was almost a stranger in the country, he inserts the link : Except, therefore, with the Lloyds, or occasionally with Thomas \\'ilkinson the Quaker, or very rarely with Southey, Wordsworth had no intercourse at all beyond the limits of Grasmere : and in that valley 1 was myself, for some years, his sole visiting friend ; as, on the other hand, my sole visitors, as regarded that vale, were himself and his fam- ily. — De Quincey (Autobiography), ii. 440. The next paragraph is worth quoting for its echo : Among that family . . . was a little girl whose life . . . and whose death . . . connected themselves with the records of my own life by ties of passion so profound, by a grief so frantic, . . . [then follows the touching story of little Catherine Wordsworth, not the least remarkable incident in a life that abounds in the unusual]. See also Burke, § 126. Occasionally we meet with a paragraph which does not sum up, but rather expands and illustrates, the thought of the preceding ; e. g. Macaulay, at the beginning of his second essay on Chatham, devotes one paragraph to the doctrine that " during the forty-six years which followed the accession of the house of Hanover " the Whigs and Tories had exchanged roles. This is expanded and illus- trated in the following remarkable link : Dante tells us that he saw, in Malebolge, a strange encounter between a human form and a serpent. The enemies, after cruel wounds inflicted, stood for a time glaring on each other. A great cloud surrounded tliem, and then a wonderful metamorphosis began. Each creature was trans- figured into the likeness of its antagonist. The serpent's tail divided itself into two legs; the man's legs intertwined themselves into a tail. The body of the serpent put forth arms ; the arms of the man shrank into his body. At length the serpent stood up a man, and spake ; the man sank down a serpent, and glided hissing away. Something like this was the transformation which, during the reign of George the First, befell the two English parties. Each gradually took the shape and color of its foe ; till at length the Tory rose up erect, the zealot of free- dom, and the Whig crawled and licked the dust at the feet of power. It is true that, when these degenerate politicians discussed questions CONNECTED OR BELATED PARAGRAPHS. 35 merely speculative, and, above all, when they discussed questions relat- ing to the conduct of their own grandfathers, they still seemed to diifer as their grandfathers had differed, etc, — Macaulay : Chatham (Second Essay). The initial sentence of the succeeding paragraph has been quoted to show the leading-on. 19. Sequence and Co-ordination of Paragraphs. — Since no two subjects are treated in the same way, no general rules can be given for determining the order in which one paragraph should follow another, or for esti- mating the relative size and importance of paragraphs. But one or two suggestions may be of help. 1. Paragraphs should vary in length; i. e., it is desirable to have an alternation of moderately long and moderately short paragraphs. This, which is the practice of the most careful writers, has a twofold advantage : it prevents monot- ony, and it permits the size of the paragraph to indicate the relative importance of the several sections of the sub- ject. The first twenty-three paragraphs of Macaulay's second essay on the Earl of Chatham exhibit the follow- ing variations in line-numbers : * 16, 8, 4, 22, 16, 25, 9, 12, 23, 23, 10, 17, 21, 50, 19, 6, 10, 4, 10, 23, 16, 12, 10. It is interesting to note the very long, 50, 19, followed by the succession of shorts, 6, 10, 4, 10. The long 50-line paragraph describes the partition of powers between Pitt and Newcastle, and goes into many details. It is shared almost evenly between the two men. Although long, it is easily grasped. 2. Paragraphs following each other may be made to vary, not only in length, but also in quality. Thus, of the twenty -three paragraphs just cited, the longer ones abound in details, the shorter ones sum up in brief statements. And usually, but not invariably, the longer sentences are in the longer * The figures will vary somewhat, according to the edition used, but the ratio will remain the same. 36 A HANDBOOK OF ENGfLISH COMPOSITION. paragraphs ; yet the longest paragraph of all has only one sentence of any length, and that near the middle. The student is not advised to take Macaulay as his sole guide in paragraphing. Other writers have equal claims. De Quincey, when not in quest of the ridiculous, will repay study and imitation. Hawthorne and Irving have an extremely delicate appreciation of the art of paragraph- ing. Any section of ten to twenty pages, selected from either of these two writers, will reveal many a skilful device in varying the length and quality of the paragraph. 3. What has been said of the length of paragraphs will apply to the Sequence. Although no rule can be given for sequence in general, the order of paragraphs in sim- ple Narration is usually the chronological. This may be verified by examining the shorter stories of Irving. In Description the order is either that of relative importance or that of grouping by natural divisions. Much will de- pend upon the purpose of the description. Thus, we may describe a town with regard to its topography, or to its architecture, or to its trade and manufactures. Each of these lines of description would necessitate a different order of paragraphing. Exposition is still less subject to general rules. The only safe advice is to study the methods of experienced writers, especially to cultivate the habit of noting down the sub- ject or leading thought of each successive paragraph of a chapter. This habit will develop the gift of consecutive thinking, which is, after all, the secret of good writing. 20. Paragraphs of Introduction and Conclusion. — In a composition of any length it is customary to introduce the general subject (theme) in a short paragraph, also to state the conclusion in a similar short paragraph. There can be no objection to this practice, provided it is not suf- fered to become too mechanical and artificial. See § 125. The length and quality of introductory and concluding paragraphs will vary greatly according to the nature and CONNECTED OB RELATED PARAGRAPHS. 37 amplitude of the composition itself. In an elaborate essay for publication — e. g., an essay by Macaulay — both para- graphs may be somewhat long. An examination of thirty- six essays by Macaulay shows that the longest introduc- tion, that to Madame D'Arblay, has about 490 words ; the shortest, Robert Montgomery, has only 60 words. The aver- age length is approximately 250 words. But Macaulay's essays, being nearly aU in the form of book-reviews, do not, perhaps, offer a safe test. The reviewer gives the nominal introductory paragraph, sometimes more than one paragraph, to a brief estimate of the book, before pass- ing to his real subject, the person who is the central figure of the book. Hence we are not always certain which paragraph to take as the introduction. As to the conclud- ing paragraph in Macaulay, that might be assumed a priori to tend toward uniformity. But the facts are otherwise. The longest, that to Lord Holland, has approximately 630 words; the two shortest. Restoration Dramatists and Wal- pole's Letters, have only 30 and 33 words. There are a few others almost as short. These short paragraphs, when examined, will be found to have a peculiar personal cha- racter — to state an after-thought to the real conclusion. T^he average length is perhaps 230 words. These statistics demonstrate that the representative essayist of the century did not hesitate to write, when he saw fit, quite long introductions and conclusions, and seldom wrote very short ones. His example is counter to the rule usually given, that introductions and conclusions should be short. A cursory examination of vol. iv. of De Quincey, his Biographies and Biographic Sketches, reveals an equal amount of freedom in him. In P. G. Hamerton's Human Intercourse the introductory paragraphs of the sev- eral essays range from 9 words to 270 ; the concluding, from 37 to 603. The average for the introductory is not much over 100 ; for the concluding, nearly 300. 21. But the writings of Macaulay, De Quincey, and 38 A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. Hamertoii are not to be looked upon as models after which to construct school compositions and college es- says. These latter are necessarily very short and simple in structure. The writer does not attempt to treat the subject fully, but merely to present a few points coher- ently. Hence the utility of the rule for school and col- lege, that paragraphs of introduction and conclusion — if employed at all — should be short. Bee § 125. The introduction should state the general subject as con- cisely as may be without sacrificing clearness. Probably 50 words would be an ample limit, ^^^ebster's argument in the Dartmouth College case is a model : The general question is, whetiier tlie acts of the legislature of Ivew Hampshire of the 27th of June and of the 18th and 26th of December, 1816, are valid and binding on the plaintiffs without their acceptance or assent. The following, somewhat longer, but equally good, is from Ruskin's lecture on Turner and his Works: My object this evening is [not so much to give you any account of the works or the genius of the great painter whom we have so lately lost (which it would require rather a year than an hour to do), as] to give you some idea of the position which his works hold with respect to the landscape of other periods, and of the general condition and prospects of the landscape art of tlie present day. [I will not lose time in prefatory remarks, as I have little enough at any rate, but will enter abruptly on my subject.] By suppressing the portions in square brackets, Ruskin might have stated his subject in 40 words ; but the extra words have their value, as cverj- reader will see. If the composition is in simple Narration, the introduc- tory paragraph may consist of a brief statement of the time, place, and occasion from which the action starts ; e. g. : On the summit of one of the heights of the Odenwald, a wild and romantic tract of Upper Germany, that lies not far from the confluence of the Main and the Rhine, there stood, many, many years since, the CONNECTED OB RELATED PARAGRAPHS. 39 castle of the Baron von Landshort, etc. — Irving : The Spectre Bride- groom. But there is less need of an introduction in Narration than in any other form of writing. In Description (i. e. a long, circumstantial description) it is advisable to begin by locating the object described. Thus: Half-way down a by-street of one of our New England towns stands a rusty wooden house, with seven acutely-peaked gables, facing towards various points of the compass, and a huge, clustered chimney in the midst. The street is Pyncheon street ; the house is the old Pyncheon house ; and an elm tree of wide circumference, rooted before the door, is familiar to every town-born child by the title of the Pyncheon elm, etc. — Hawthorne; Sewn Gables, ch. i. In Exposition and Argument it is highly advisable, if not indispensable, to introduce clearly and succinctly the thing to be expounded or the proposition to be established. Thus: The subject to which I have to beg your attention during the ensuing hour is " The Relation of Physiological Science to Other Branches of Knowledge." [Here follows a paragraph of personal explanation.] Eegarding Physiological Science, then, in its widest sense, as the equivalent of Biology, the Science of Indi vidual Life, we have to con- sidei in succession : 1. Its position and scope as a branch of knowledge. 2. Its value as a means of discipline. 3. Its worth as practical information. 4. At what period it may best be made a branch of education. Huxley (v.), p. 72. The concluding paragraph of a composition should, if possible, leave upon the reader's mind an impression of power. It should not merely sum up the writer's views and statements, but it should drive them home by a suc- cession of quick hard blows. There should also be, if the subject admits of it, an expression of feeling. The conclu- sion of Macaulay's second essay on The Earl of Chatham is at once forcible, dignified, and profoundly emotional : 40 A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. Chatham sleeps near the northern door of [Westminster Abbey], in a spot which has ever since been appropriated to statesmen, as the other end of the same transept has long been to poets. Mansfield rests there, and the second William Pitt, and Fox, and Grattan, and Canning, and Wilberforce. In no other cemetery do so many great citizens lie within so narrow a space. High over those venerable graves towers the stately monument of Chatham, and from above, his own effigy, graven by a canning hand, seems still, with eagle face and outstretched arm, to bid England be of good cheer and to hurl defiance at her foes. The gen- eration which raised that memorial of him has disappeared. The time has come when the rash and indiscriminate judgments which his con- temporaries passed on his character may be calmly revised by history. And history, while, for the warning of vehement, high, and daring natures, she notes his many errors, will yet deliberately pronounce that, among the eminent men whose bones lie near his, scarcely one has left a more stainless, and none a more splendid, name. — Macaulay: Chatham (Second Essay). The above is oratorical in tone. This is simpler : But there is another memorial of Edgar Tryan, which bears a fuller record: it is Janet Dempster, rescued from self-despair, strengthened with divine hopes, and now looking back on years of purity and help- ful labor. The man who has left such a memorial behind him must have been one whose heart beat with true compassion and whose lips were moved by fervent faith. — Geobgb Eliot : Janet's Repentance, ch. xxviii., end. The conclusion of Darwin's Origin of Species is remark- able for the ability with which the author sums up (see § 59) and makes concrete the results of his reasoning : It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that thes^elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent upon each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Beproduction ; Inheritance, which is almost implied by reproduction ; Variability, from the indi- rect and direct action of the conditions of life, and from use and disuse ; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, from the war of CONNECTED OR RELATED PARAGRAPHS. 41 nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several ' powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one ; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved. — Darwin : Origin of Species, ch. xv., end. D» CHAPTER V. NARRATION. 21}. A NARRATIVE is, in general, the statement of the de- tails of something accomplished. This mny be an act of nature, e. g., a storm, an earthquake, an eclipse of the sun. Or it may be the act of man, or of some other animal en- dowed with intelligence and will. Again, it may be real or it may be imagined. Thus, the storm in which the poet Shelley was drowned, and which is narrated in the biographies of him, was real; the snow-storm in which Eppie's mother perished (Silas Manier, ch. xii.) existed only in George Eliot's imagination. The story of Philip of Pokanoket in Irving's Sketch-Book is real ; that of Rip Van Winkle is wholly imaginary. The tales of animals and birds in ^sop's Fables are fictitious ; the following is fact: I liave seen a mother-monkey, disturbed in her gambols on the groimd by the whining of a tiny baby left half-way up an adjacent tree, suddenly break ofT, and, hastily shinning up the tree, snatch up the baby, hurry to the very topmost branch, where she plumped it down, as who should say, " Tiresome little wretch !" and then come down to resume her play. Thus is a mischievous midshipman mast-headed, and thus is the British baby sent up to the nursery while mamma amuses herself. — Kipling, ch. iii. p. 72. Whatever be the basis of a narrative, whether it be fact or fiction, an act of nature or the deed of man, it must be something more than a passing movement. It must be something that has a clearly-marked beginning and a clearly-marked end. We may narrate the coming on of a stui-m,its progress, its cessation; but a single flash oflight- 42 NARRATION. 43 ning or the dash of a single wave cannot make up a nar- rative : it can only be an item in the narrative. Furthermore, the act narrated must be concrete and in- dividual, not general. By this is meant that it takes place only once or only at rare intervals, and is not repeated incessantly and uniformly. Thus, we may narrate the appearance of a tidal-wave at a certain place on a certain day ; but the daily ebb and flood of the regular tides at that same place we do not narrate, we discuss them in the way of Exposition. We may narrate the beheading of Louis XVI. (fact) or of Sydney Carton (fiction, in Dickens's Tale of Two Cities), but we do not narrate the process of death in general. We treat that only in the way of Exposition, medical, philosophic, or religious. In the matter of length there is every conceivable varia- tion, from Browning's Ring and the Book to the very con- cise fable of the mouse, § 15. Most of the specimens of narration quoted in this book are not complete in them- selves, but are only passages selected from a longer narra- tive. Thus : Phcebe took leave of the desolate couple and passed through the shop, twinkling her eyelids to shake oif a dewdrop ; for — considering how brief her absence was to be, and therefore the folly of being cast down about it — she would not so far acknowledge her tears as to dry them with her handkerchief. On the door-step she met the little urchin whose marvellous feats of gastronomy have been recorded in the earlier pages of our narrative. She took from the window some specimen or other of natural history — her eyes being too dim with moisture to in- form her accurately whether it was a rabbit or a hippopotamus — put it into the child's hand, as a parting gift, and went her way. Old Uncle Venner was just coming out of his door, with a wood-horse and saw on his shoulder ; and, trudging along the street, he scrupled not to keep company with Phcebe, so far as their paths lay together ; nor, in spite of his patched coat and rusty beaver, and the curious fashion of his tow-cloth trousers, could she find it in her heart to outwalk him. — Hawthorne : Seven Qahles, ch. xiv. But there are in all modern literatures innumerable 44 A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. short stories, only a paragraph or two in length, written either as independent narratives or inserted in a longer narrative in such a way as to be easily detached. Such stories are usually called anecdotes. The following anec- dote, told of one of Ruskin's college friends, will serve as a specimen : When Acland . . . was wrecked in the steamer Tyne, off the coast of Dorset, . . . the officers in anxious debate, the crew in confusion, the passengers in hysterics or at prayers, were all astonished, and many scandalized, at the appearance of Dr. Acland from the saloon in punc- tilious morning dress, with the announcement that " breakfast was ready." To the impatient clamour of indignation with which his un- sympathetic conduct was greeted, he replied by pointing out that not a boat could go on shore, far less come out from it, in that state of the tide, and that in the mean time, as most of them were wet, all cold, and at the best must be dragged ashore through the surf, if not swim for their lives in it, they would be extremely prudent .to begin the day, a-s usual, with breakfast. The hysterics ceased, the confusion calmed, what wits anybody had became available to them again, and not a life was ultimately lost. — EnSKiN : Prceterita, i. 379 (ch. xi.). General Principles of Narration. The chief principles are three: Unity, Interest, and Sequence. 23. Unity. — This is obtained by observing the principles of Grouping and Climax of Interest. In a narrative of fiction the subordinate persons are grouped around one or more leading persons (called hero and heroine), and the action reaches a point of highest interest (climax), after which it diminishes. In a narrative of fact no such com- pletely artistic method can be resorted to. Yet the narra- tor, if he is skilful, will select and combine, will abridge or even omit what is of slight interest, and expand fully what is important, thereby introducing artistic method to a limited extent. In narrating natural events one is still more tied down to facts. Yet even here the narrator rhay select and group with an eye to effect, e. g. : NARRATION. 45 We had just emerged out of this baneful stretch of marshy ground . . . when the forest became suddenly darkened, so dark that I could scarcely read the compass, and a distant murmur increasing into loud soughing and wrestling and tossing of branches and groaning of mighty trees warned us of the approach of a tempest. As the ground round about was most uninviting, we had to press on through the increasing gloom, and then, as the rain began to drip, we commenced to form camp. The tents were hastily pitched over the short scrubby brush, while bill-hooks crashed and axes rang, clearing a space for the camp. The rain was cold and heavily dripped, and every drop, large as a dollar on their cotton clothes, sent a shiver through the men. The thunder roared above, the lightning flashed a vivid light of fire through the darkness, and still the weary caravan filed in until nine o'clock. The rain was so heavy that fires could not be lit, and until three in the morning we sat huddled and crouching amid the cold, damp, and reeking exhala- tions and minute spray. Then bonfires were kindled, and around these scores of flaming pyramids the people sat, to be warmed into hilarious animation, to roast the bitter manioc, and to still the gnawing pain of their stomachs. — Stanley : Darkest Africa, i. 144. In the above the thread of artistic unity is found in the varying sensations of discomfort in the travellers. Short narratives, such as the young are called upon to v?rite, are not troublesome in the matter of unity ; but long narratives are extremely difficult, and the discussion of unity in them belongs properly to the study of litera- ture and literary methods. 24. Interest. — What is meant by saying that a narrative should be interesting? Certainly " interesting " is not the same as " exciting," although young readers are apt to confound the two. A story is interesting when it has " point," when it tells us something worth reading, when it adds to our stock of useful knowledge, or opens our eyes to the problems of life and awakens our sympathy in the welfare of others. A story should have a moral, should teach. This does not mean that it should be a sermon. The story of an earthquake is no sermon, yet it interests us by teaching us the ways of Providence. Many stories of human life interest by amusing us, by illustrating the 46 A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. humorous side of human character. Their value lies in teaching us what to avoid. The exact value and position of the moral in a story has been well stated by Hawthorne : The author has considered it hardly worth his while, therefore, re- lentlessly to impale the story with its moral, as with an iron rod, — or, rather, as by sticking a pin through a butterfly, — thus at once depriving it of life and causing it to stiffen in an ungainly and unnatural attitude. A high truth, indeed, fairly, finely, and skilfully wrought out, and crowning the final development of a work of fiction, may add an artistic glory, but is never any truer, and seldom any more evident, at the last page than at the first. — Hawthobne: Seven Gables (Preface). At all events, the young writer is not to suppose that the mere recital of things done is a narrative. There is a difference between doing and accomplishing, which is neatly hit off in Johnson's parody : I put my hat upon my head, And walked into the Strand, And there I met another man With his hat in his hand, (j. B. Hill's ed. of Bosivetl's Johnson, ii. 136, note 4. Although it is difficult, j^erhaps impossible, to put into exact words of definition the difference between a genuine narrative, however brief, and a mere statement of fact, yet the youngest child feels the difference, and the young- est writer should observe it. One need only study the short stories written by any author of ability, and note how he introduces his teachings. '2b. Sequence. — In what order should the items or inci- dents be narrated ? No universal rule can be given. Se- quence in a narrative running through many paragraphs is like sequence within the paragraph : that order is best which makes upon the reader's mind the clearest and the deepest impression. In a very short story, especially one dealing with an event of nature, the order is usually chronological ; e. g., in the passage from Stanley, § 23. But frequently, even in NARRATION. 47 quite simple narration, the order of events may be very properly interrupted by the expression of feelings called forth by the events. Thus : I have presumed to mark the moment of conception [viz. Gibbon's great work on the Decline and Fall of Kome] ; I shall now commemo- rate the hour of my final deliverance. It was on the day, or rather night, of the '27th of June, 1787, between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last lines of the last page in a summer-house in my garden. After laying down my pen, I took several turns in a berceau, or covered walk of acacias, which commands a prospect of the country, the lake [Geneva], and the mountains [the Alps]. The air was tem- perate, the sky was serene, the silver orb of the moon was reflected from the watei-s, and all nature was silent. I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom and perhaps the estab- lishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over my mind, by the idea that I had taken an everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion, and that, whatso- ever might be the future date * of my History, the life of the historian must be short and precarious. — Gibbon : Memoirs, p. 188. Sometimes it is necessary to interrupt the direct thread of narrative by inserting a subordinate narrative or state- ment, the object of which is to introduce certain persons or agencies affecting the principal action. Thus Macau- lay, after narrating at length the bitter attacks made upon Hastings and the desperate efforts to remove him from office, states that suddenly all such designs were discon- tinued, and at the expiration of his term he was quietly reappointed. The following paragraph explains: The crisis was indeed formidable. That great and victorious empire, on the throne of which George the Third had taken his seat eighteen years before, . . . had been brought to the verge of ruin. In America, millions of Englishmen were at war with the country from which their blood, their language, their religion, and their institutions had been derived. . . . The great powers of Europe . . . now rejoiced in the pros- pect of a signal revenge. The time was approaching when our island . . . was to be assailed by France, Spain, and Holland, . . . when the British flag was to be scarcely able to protect the British channel. Great * Date is used here in the sense of terminus ad quern. 48 A BANDBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. as were the faults of Hastings, it was happy for our country that at that conjuncture, the most terrible through which she has ever passed, he was the ruler of her Indian dominions. — Macaulay : Warren Hastings. The above is no digression (§ 28), but a brilliant sum- mary of indispensable information. It also exemplifies the principle that the order of cause and effect is even more important than the order of time. Special Varieties op Narrative Form. 5J6. Reverting Narration. — Ever since the days of the Greeks and Romans there has been a disposition, notably among writers of epic poetry, to narrate certain earlier portions of the story after the main action has been car- ried on a while. The story goes back, reverts, to the real beginning, or at least to an earlier stage. Thus, in the Odyssey, the hero, Odj'sseus, having been shipwrecked on the coast of Phseacia and hospitably entertained there by the king, Alcinoiis (books v.-viii.), narrates to Alcinoiis his previous adventures among the Cicones and Lotos-eaters, with Polyphemus, iEolus, Antiphates, Circe, his descent to the nether world, his escape from the Sirens, etc. (books ix.-xii.). Similarly, in the JEneid, Mneas, having been shipwrecked and received by Dido, queen of Carthage (Ijook i.), narrates to her his adventures during the seven years from the fall of Troy to the present moment (books ii. and iii.). In 3Ir. Gilfil's Love-Story the first chapter rep- resents him as dead, and gives a sketch of him in the lat- ter period of his life. His early life and his relations with Tina are begun in chapter ii. The first two chapters of Daniel Deronda introduce the heroine, Gwendolen, at Leu- bronn, a German watering-place. All the rest of book i. (chs. iii.-x.) and part of book ii. (chs. xi.-xv.) narrate Gwendolen's previous life in England and bring the reader back to Leubronn. In Irving's story of The Widow and her Son (Sketch-Book) we first have the account of the burial NARRATION. 49 of George Somers, and afterwards the story of his misfor- tunes and death. See also Hawthorne, § 17. A remarkable specimen of reverting narrative is Grant Allen's Recalled to Life. The opening scene depicts the heroine standing over the body of a murdered man, her father. Her mind is perfectly sound, but she has lost all memory. She cannot recollect how she came to be there, who fired the pistol — in short, any event of her previous life. The rest of the story relates her efforts to recover her memory and reconstruct her past life piece by piece. The narrative is autobiographic in form. The present remarks are not offered as an adequate treatment of this mode of writing, but only as a hint to the reader to discover additional instances for himself 27. Overlapping Narration. — In long and complex nar- ratives the personages arrange themselves in groups. Each group has its own peculiar interests and leads its own life, while they all move forward to a common goal, i. e., they co-operate in carrying on the fortunes of the hero. They act upon him, he acts upon them. It is in this linking together of groups that the story-teller has abundant op- portunity of displaying his art. He should make it effect- ive without letting it become obtrusive. To discuss the various devices by which groups may be linked would not be feasible in a book like the present. The problem is too complicated, and pertains rather to the study of literary methods. Yet the reader can and should appreciate, in a measure at least, the grouping in Dickens, Scott, George Eliot, and other authors commonly read. A good deal can be accomplished by writing down the name of every person as soon as he or she appears, then, when the list is complete, sorting the persons into their natural groups, and finally determining which persons in every two groups constitute the link. By overlapping narration is meant briefly this. The narrator tells his story piecemeal, i. e., recounts the sayings 4 ii 50 A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. and doings (the action) first of one group, then of a second group (perhaps in a different place), then of a third, and so on. If now the action of the second group, let us say, has been in part simultaneous with that of the first group, the action overlaps. An example or two will make this clear. Chapter xxii. (book i.) of The Old Curiosity Shop ends with Barbara shelling peas and Kit watching her. Then follow fifteen chapters narrating the doings of Dick Swiveller, Quilp, Little Nell, Mrs. Jarley, etc. Chapter xxxviii. then opens : Kit, . . . while the mattei's treated of in the last fifteen chapters were yet in progress, was, as the reader may suppose, gradually familiarizing himself more and more with Mr. and Mrs. Garland, Mr. Abel, the pony, and Barbara, and gradually coming to consider them one and all as his particular private friends, etc. The story of Nell, after being carried through chapters xlii.-xlvi., breaks off, leaving her in the church-yard. Chapters xlvii.-li. give the story of Kit's mother, Quilp, and the Brass family. Chapter Hi. then takes us back to Nell. It is really introduced by the concluding sentence of chapter li. : Leaving him [Quilp] to visions in which, perhaps, the quiet figures in the old church porch were not without their share, be it our task to rejoin them as they sat and watched. This linking of the two groups by means of the dwarf's dreams is an ingenious device. There are several more instances of overlapping narration in The Old Curiosity Shop. In fact, the whole plot deserves careful study from this point of view. In The House of the Seven Gables there is also an instance of overlapping narration, thus indicated : Judge Pyncheon, while his two relatives have fled away with such ill-considered haste, still sits in the old parlor, keeping house, as the familiar phrase is, in the absence of its ordinary occupants. To him, and to the venerable House of the vSeven Gables, does our story now betake itself, like an owl bewildered in the daylight and hastening back to his hollow tree. — Hawthobne: Seven Oables, ch. xviii. NARRATION. 51 The battle of Beal' an Duine in The Lady of the Lake (canto vi. st. 16-21), if we consider it merely chronolog- ically, might be classified as overlapping. But if we con- sider it as something apart from and independent of the main narrative (it is not an essential part), we may classify it rather as an Episode (§ 29). Pew writers are as painstaking as Dickens and Haw- thorne in indicating the chronology of their narratives. Scott and Thackeray not infrequently leave the reader in uncertainty. But the most careless writer in this respect is George Eliot. She rarely, if ever, informs us explicitly when the narrative passes from one group to another and when it overlaps. Her Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda are so loosely put together, in this respect, that the reader who wishes to master these stories thoroughly must con- struct a diary, as it were, of the action. It is quite possible to compose a long, complex narrative without overlapping, e. g., David Copperfield. The explana- tion is simple : the story is told in strict autobiographic form. David tells only what happened to himself from time to time, and each group appears on the scene only in so far as he is for the time a member of it. 28. Digression. — In a loose, general way, digression may be defined to be wandering from the subject. But there are two kinds of digression, which should be carefully distinguished. In the one kind the writer violates the unity of the para- graph (§ 4) by introducing matter which is connected with the general subject, but which should be treated by itself in a separate paragraph. Thus, the account of Sir Roger's death, written by his butler, Edward Biscuit : Upon his coming home, the first complaint he made was, that he had lost his roast-beef stomach, not being able to touch a sirloin, which was served up according to custom ; and you know he used to take great delight in it. From that time forward he grew worse and worse, but still kept a good heart to the last. Indeed, we were once in great hope 52 A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. of his recovery, upon a kind message that was sent him from the widow lady wliom he had made love to the forty last years of his life ; but this only proved a lightning before death. He has bequeathed to this lady, as a token of his love, a great pearl necklace, and a couple of silver bracelets set with jewels, which belonged to my good old lady his mother ; he has bequeathed the fine white gelding, that he used to ride a hunting upon, to his chaplain, because he thought he would be kind to him, and has left you all his books. He has, moreover, bequeathed to the chaplain a very pretty tenement with good lands about it. It being a very cold day when he made his will, he left for mourning, to every man in the parish, a great frieze coat, and to every woman a black riding-hood. It was a most moving sight to see him take leave of his poor servants, commending us all for our fidelity, whilst we were not able to speak a word for weeping. As we most of us are grown gray- headed in our dear master's service, he has left us pensions and legacies, which we may live very comfortably upon, the remaining part of our days. He has bequeathed a great deal more in charity, which is not yet come to my knowledge, and it is peremptorily said in the parish that he has left money to build a steeple to the church ; for he was heard to say some time ago, that if he lived two years longer, Coverley church should have a steeple to it. The chaplain tells everybody that he made a very good end, and never speaks of him without tears. He was buried, according to his own directions, among the family of the Coverleys, on the left hand of his father. Sir Arthur. The coffin was carried by six of his tenants, and the pall held up by six of the quorum ; the whole parish followed the corpse with heavy hearts, and in their mourning suits, the men in frieze, and the women in riding-hoods. — Addison {Spectator, 517) : Death of Sir Roger. The grotesqueness of the above is produced by the inter- mixture of incidents of the death-scene with will-making, bequests, and other business. A skilful narrator would have reserved the business for a separate paragraph. But the Spectator is intentionally burlesquing the rambling manner of an uneducated servant. In like manner, Shy- lock's raving over his daughter and his ducats (Merchant of Venice, ii. 8) is intended by the dramatist to give to Sliylock's really intense grief a strong touch of the ridicu- lous, in the eyes of Salarino and Solanio at least. In the other kind, Digression proper, the writer intro- NARRATION. 53 duces into the story matter which has only a very remote connection with it. Thus Victor Hugo gives in Les Mis'e- rables a full account of the battle of Waterloo, forty to fifty pages in length, the sole thread of connection being the circumstance that the father of the young hero, Marius, was wounded in the battle. Even Macaulay, who usually keeps closely to his subject, digresses occasionally, e. g., in the essay on Warren Hastings. Here he devotes three or four long paragraphs to considering the question whether Philip Francis was the author of the Junius letters, although the question has no bearing whatever upon the quarrel be- tween Francis and Hastings. 29. Episode. — This term is not easily defined, and has often been misapplied. A genuine episode depends upon two conditions : the actors in it are not the principal per- sons of the story, but minor characters; the action, although growing out of the main story, is not an essential part. Furthermore, the episode is narrated continuously, i. e., it is given all in one place, without interruption, and is read- ily detached from the main narrative. The Battle of Beal' an Duine (Lady of the Lake, canto vi.) is an episode. Also the trial and execution of Con- stance and the Monk (Marmion, canto ii.) ; in the ^neid, the adventure of Nisus and Euryalus (book ix.) ; in Swift's satire of The Battle of the Books, the episode of Bentley and Wotton, modelled to some extent after Nisus and Euryalus. Matthew Arnold has called his Sohrab and Rustum an epi- sode because it commemorates a minor incident in the protracted struggle between the Tartars and Persians. Note the abrupt beginning : "And the first gray of morn- ing filled the east." There are not very many genuine episodes in the books, ancient or modern, commonly read. The passages fre- quently termed episodes are in reality incidents of the main narrative expanded to disproportionate length : thus, the parting of Hector from Andromache and Astyanax 54 A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. {Iliad, vi.) ; the meeting of Odysseus and Nausikaa (Odys- sey, vi.). It may also be noted that these two passages, and others like them in other books, are famous for beauty of style and conception. Their authors have evidently bestowed upon them more than usual care. The trial- scene in The Heart of Midlothian, the very different trial- scene in the Pickwick Papers, the death of Judge Pyncheon in The House of the Seven Gables, display each the peculiar gift of the author at its best. 30. Intercalated Narrative. — Occasionally we find in- serted in the body of the main narrative a story quite in- dependent of, and yet bearing upon it, e. g., the story told by Wandering Willie in Red Gauntlet (I., letter xi.). This, probably Scott's most brilliant short story, might with perfect ease be detached from its present place and printed as a separate narrative. Nevertheless, it plays a part in the main narrative by giving a vivid sketch of Darsie Latimer's ancestry. Better still is the story of Alice Pyn- cheon in The House of the Seven Gables (ch. xiii.). The narrator, Holgrave, introduces it as a story which he means " to publish in a magazine ;" and in truth it might very well have been printed in the Godey or Graham of 1851. But no one can read it in its actual place without instantly perceiving that it has a direct, almost organic, connection with the main story. The tale of the Elfin Knight (Mar- mion, iii. 19-25) has also its bearing upon Marmion's for- tunes. But The Stroller's Tale, The Convict's Return, A Madman's Manuscript, foisted into the Pickwick Papers (chs. iii., vi., xi.), have nothing whatever to do with the adventures of Mr. Pickwick and his friends; they are mere "padding." 31. Retarded and Accelerated Movement. — In every long narrative the action moves in one place more rapidly, in another more slowly. This accelerated or retarded movement is usually the result of design on the part of the writer. NABBATION. 55 The movement may be retarded either by dwelling upon descriptive details or by introducing a number of minor actions. Thus, in The House of the Seven Gables (ch. ii.), the description of the shop and its contents, and the mixed narrative-description of Hepzibah's clumsy attempts to put her wares in order, intensify our sense of her misery. In chapter iii. the visits of Holgrave and Dixey, kind- hearted callers rather than customers, contrast with, and, by the feeling of suspense which they produce, give em- phasis to, the coming of the first real customer, the small boy in quest of gingerbread. Also the first half of ch. xvi. is retarded narrative. The interval from Hepzibah's leav- ing Judge Pyncheon until her return to the parlor is actu- ally only a few minutes, but the visions of terror that crowd her imagination make it seem an hour. In The Lady of the Lake (vi. 1-7) the description of the guard- room and its rude soldiers after a night of revelry enhances the effect of Ellen's unexpected appearance. In the Mer- chant of Venice (iv. 1, the trial scene), every appeal for mercy is exhausted by the Duke, Bassanio, Portia. This brings out Shylock's character and intensifies our sus- pense, until the turn comes abruptly with Portia's Tarry a little ; there is something else. On the other hand, movement may be accelerated by suppressing descriptive details and giving only the essen- tial features of the action in short, nervous phrases, or by summing up the incidents in brief. Even the youngest reader will not fail to detect the difference, e. g., in Gulli- ver^s Travels, when the voyage from Lilliput back to Eng- land is narrated. One of the best specimens of alternate retarded and ac- celerated movement is in De Quincey's The English Mail- Coach, the section called The Vision of Sudden Death. The writer is giving an incident of his own experience ; he tells how the heavy mail-coach on which he was a passenger 56 A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. nearly ran down, while tearing along by night at full gal- lop, a slight gig in which were two lovers. As it was, the swingle-bar, or perhaps the haunch of the near leader, struck the gig and almost overturned it. The concluding paragraphs give the scene as viewed by De Quincey look- ing back from his seat on the coach-box : Here was the map of the passion that now had finished. The horse was planted immovably, with his fore feet upon the paved crest of the central road. He, of the whole party, might be supposed untouched by the passion of death. The little cany carriage — partly, perhaps, from the violent torsion of the wheels in its recent movement, partly from the thundering blow we had given to it — as if it sympathized with human horror, was all alive with tremblings and shiverings. The young man trembled not, nor shivered. He sat like a rock. But his was the steadiness of agitation frozen into rest by horror. As yet he dared not to look round, for he knew that, if anything remained to do, by him it could no longer be done. And as vet he knew not for certain if their safety were accomplished. But the lady — But the lady — Oh, heavens ! will that spectacle ever depart from my dreams, as she rose and sank upon her seat, sank and rose, threw up her arms wildly to heaven, clutched at some visionary object in the air, fainting, praying, raving, despairing? Figure to yourself, reader, the elements of the case ; suffer me to recall before your mind the circum- stances of that unparalleled situation. From the silence and deep peace of this saintly summer night — ^from the pathetic blending of this sweet moonlight, dawnlight, dreamlight — from the manly tenderness of this flattering, whispering, murmuring love — suddenly as from the woods and fields — suddenly as from the chambers of the air opening in reve- lation — suddenly as from the ground yawning at her feet, leaped upon her, with the flashing of cataracts. Death the crowned phantom, with all the equipage of his terrors, and the tiger roar of his voice. The moments were numbered ; the strife was finished; the vision was closed. In the twinkling of an eye our flying horses had carried us to the termination of the umbrageous aisle ; at the right angles we wheeled into our former direction ; the turn of the road carried the scene out of my eyes in an instant, and swept it into my dreams for ever. — De Quincey: Mail-Coach, xiii. 317. Observe in the first paragraph the map of the passion, the immobility of the young man. In the second, observe the frantic movements of the lady, then the quiet, leisurely NARRATION. 57 enumeration of the elements of the situation, ending in the rush and roar of Death. In the third, note the intense rapidity, how each phrase seems to imitate the hoof-beats of the flying horses. Without presuming to rival De Quincey, the young writer should at least test occasionally his ability to ac- celerate and retard in narrating. The effort is well worth making. It will perhaps help to cure the faults of monot- ony and stiffness. But to this end one must study closely the manner of the best writers, noting the devices by which they keep us in suspense or hurry us on. For Vivacity in narrating, see Historical Present, § 97. 32. Narration Supported by Description. — A narrative may be restricted to the mere statement of what has been done or said. But usually it is accompanied by descrip- tion — viz. of the place of action (scene), of the persons taking part, and the like. In narrating an event in nature, e. g., a storm or an earthquake, some description of the place is necessary. And this holds good ctf the narration of real life, i. e., biography and history. An account of the life of Wash- ington would scarcely be intelligible without some descrip- tion of Virginia and the other colonies in the eighteenth century. The story of the discovery of America by Co- lumbus would lose much of its fascination were the nar- rator to omit all description of the vessels in which the voyage was made and of the crews who manned them. In fiction the story-teller may exercise his discretion. Usually description is omitted from a short story, for the sake of condensation, or is introduced very sparingly. Yet even in short stories the practice varies. Contrast the lack of description in Irving 's story of The Wife with the wealth of description in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. When properly used, description gives a touch of real- ity, a bodily substance, to the action and the characters. This may be verified by trying to imagine what The Legend 58 A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. of Sleepy Hollow, or The House of the Seven Gables, or — on a much smaller scale — the story of Alice Pyncheon, would be without the fulness of descriptive details of all kinds. On the other hand, description has its dangers. If too long or too frequent, it diverts the reader's attention from what is after all the main thing, the action, and begets a feeling of impatience which shows itself in the disposition to " skip." In school-work skipping should be repressed as being unjustified. It may be assumed that any book used in school is chosen for its peculiar merits of style, of which the descriptive passages are an essential feature. By description thus far has been meant the representa- tion of inanimate objects, such as houses, rooms, fields, rivers, etc. But there is another kind of description indis- pensable to every narrative — viz. the delineation of the outward appearance and character of the personages. It is upon this delineation that the greatest writers have ex- erted their best efforts. They have recognized the princi- ple that a story, whether of fact or of fiction, can scarcely be a story without word-portraits "of the men and women who figure in it. Some of the methods employed are men- tioned in §§ 38, 45, 46. In the present chapter attention is merely called to the value of description as an auxil- iary to narration. For instance, in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow our enjoyment of the midnight chase is largely due to our knowing how each rider looks. In The House of the Seven Gables the long description of the house is really an introduction to the story. 33. Mixed Narration and Description. — Not infre- quently an event is treated in such a manner that the reader would be puzzled to decide whether the account is a narrative or a description. There may be a thread of action running through the whole, and to that extent the account is a narrative. On the other hand, the thread is proportionally so slight, and the descriptive details are so prominent, that the whole produces the effect of a descrip- NARRATION. 59 tion. An example is the battle of Waterloo, Byron's Childe Harold, iii. 21-28 : " There was a sound of revelry by night," etc. Another is Wordsworth's Feast of Brougham Castle, commemorating the exile of Lord Clifford and his return after the War of the Roses. Still another is the death of Judge Pyncheon, The House of the Seven Gables, ch. xviii. ; also the drowning of Steerforth and Ham in David Copperjield, ii. ch. xxvi. Numerous examples may also be found in every-day reading, in the accounts of pub- lic events, such as the inauguration of a new president, the dedication of a new public building, a boat-race, a ball-game. The fact that something is begun and finished makes the account a narrative. But the wealth of details lavished upon the scene and the spectators produces the effect of a description. And, indeed, such a piece of writ- ing is usually called a description. 34. Generalized Narration. — What is meant by this term may be learned most readily from an example : What evenings, when the candles came and I was expected to employ myself, but — not daring to read an entertaining book — pored over some hard-headed, harder-hearted treatise on arithmetic ; when the tables of weights and measures set themselves to tunes, as Rule Britannia, or Away with Melancholy, and wouldn't stand still to be learnt, but would go threading my grandmother's needle through my unfortunate head, in at one ear and out at the other. What yawns and dozes I lapsed into, in spite of all my care ; what starts I came out of concealed sleeps with ; what answers I never got, to little observations that I rarely made ; what a blank space I seemed, which everybody overlooked, and yet I was in everybody's way ; what a heavy relief it was to hear Miss Murdstone hail the first stroke of nine at night and order me to bed! — Dickens: David Copperjield, i. ch. viii. David is narrating how he passed, not one evening in par- ticular, but all his evenings, in the vacation at home. The account would probably not represent exactly any one evening, but it represents them all equally well. It will be observed that the phrases and many of the terms are 60 A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. general, and the passage as a whole is intended to make upon the reader the impression of a monotonous round. The reader should be on the watch for similar passages in other books, and should learn to distinguish them from genuine narrative, which always deals with a particular event. See also Generalized Description, § 47. Biography and History. 35. History and Biography are usually treated under Narration. This is neither practical nor philosophic. They are not forms of writing, but forms of Literature (see § 1, note). They may comprise, not only narrative and description, but exposition, argument, persuasion, science, philosophy, art, and many other branches of knowledge. Thus, the biography of a great man, e. g., Milton, should present not merely the facts of his life, his outward appear- ance and acts, but his character, his opinions, his relations to his predecessors and contemporaries, his influence upon his successors, his general position in the world of letters, politics, and religion. The history of a nation should make clear its origin, the sources of its wealth, the habits of the people, its struggles with other nations, its signif- icance in the development of the world. As Carlyle formu- lates the demand for Scotland : By whom and by what means, when and how, was this fair broad Scotland, with its arts and manufactures, temples, schools, institutions, poetry, spirit, national character, created and made arable, verdant, pe- culiar, great, here as I can see some fair section of it lying, kind and strong (like some Bacchus-tamed lion), from the Castle-hill of Edin- burgh ? — Carlyle : BosweU's Johnson. The task of writing history, then, is exceedingly difficult. Even the reading of history thoroughly is so difficult that the study is excluded from school-work. Although some schools require a small amount of English and American history, this is restricted to an acquaintance with a few of the most imj^ortant facts. Biography, being less extensive NARRATION. 61 than history, is less bewildering. Yet it presents difficul- ties of its own, which are not to be overlooked. Among the books read in school, the following touch upon history : Scott's poems and romances — e. g. Marmion, Ivanhoe, Quentin Durward, etc. ; Longfellow's Evangeline and The Courtship of Miles Standish; Shakespeare's Julius Cassar. But, to read these books with profit as literature, it is not necessary to treat them as historical writings. Their authors have suppressed, and even altered, many facts ; to them the story is the main thing, and the history is only a background. The reader, on his part, may con- tent himself with regarding the story as a mere narrative, partly fact, partly fiction. How much of fact, how much of fiction, is a question into which he need not enter. With the biography read in school the case is otherwise. Macaulay's essays on Clive, Warren Hastings, the Earl of Chatham, and Addison, Johnson's lives of Swift and Gray, Thackeray's English Humourists, treat of persons not in the least fictitious, and their aim is to instruct in English lit- erature and politics. We are not free, therefore, to read them as we read Rip Van Winkle or Silas Marner. How to read biography adequately is a problem for col- lege and university training. It is in strictness beyond the school range. Yet even in the school much profit can be had fi-om the study, if it be conducted fairly. Certainly the scholar can get some insight into the biographer's art and acquire a relish for it. The following suggestions are not proffered as a theory of biographical criticism, but merely as a help to the young. 1. Ascertain whether the writer is consistent in his opin- ions, or whether he advances different opinions in difi'erent places. 2. After reading one biography, read another of the same person by a different author, and compare the opinions of the two. If they seem to differ, is the difference real, or is it due merely to their viewing the same object from dif- F 62 A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. ferent points, as a house varies when viewed from one side or the other ? 3. Note carefully every trait of the man's personal ap- pearance, character, habits, and from these traits construct your own portrait of the man. 4. Sum up all that the man endured, suffered, attempted, and accomplished. Put this in your own language. 5. Is the man compared with other men of his time, or with men in the same line of life before or since ? Make an abstract of these comparisons, and also make some comparisons of your own between him and other men (of like position) of whom you have read. 6. Make a summary of the information that you have gained (from this biography) upon the country in which the man lived, and its customs. The Drama and Fiction. 36. Although the Drama and Fiction are forms of Lit- erature, and can be adequately treated only in a work which professes to deal with literary art, yet, in view of their connection with Narration, a few remarks here will be of service in enabling the reader to perceive more clearly what that connection really is and what misconceptions are to be guarded against. Drama. — A drama is neither a narrative nor a descrip- tion. It is a human story acted, or intended to be acted, before our eyes. It is an imitation of life itself It is not told, but acted. What rules or principles should govern such mimetic representation of life, — that is a question which lies outside the province of this book. All that need be said here is briefly this: every drama should bring upon the stage a number of persons in conflict with each other; this conflict should be started, carried to a crisis, and brought to a final solution^the denoue- ment. What these persons say and do to each other on the stage embodies the action of the drama. NARRATION. 63 But, in addition to the action upon the stage, we are frequently to suppose something done or existing off the stage; and of this we are informed in a narrative or a narrative-description dehvered by one of the actors. Thus {Hamlet, iv. 7), the account of Ophelia's drowning, told by the Queen, is a narrative-description. Hamlet's account (v. 2) of his opening and altering the commission given to Guildenstern and Rosencrantz is a narrative. So also the story told by the Ghost (i. 5), of the uncle pouring the juice of hebenon into his ears. In As You Like It (ii. 1) the account of the Melancholy Jaques is description rather than narration. In The Merchant of Venice (i. 3) the story of Jacob and Laban is a narrative ; in i. 2 several suitors for the hand of Portia (they do not appear at all in the action) are described by her. The young reader will find it useful, in reading Shake- speare or any other dramatist, to distinguish such narra- tive and descriptive passages from the action proper. Fiction. — A work of fiction, popularly called a novel or a romance, is at bottom a narrative. But it is usually cast, in great part, in the dramatic form — i. e., as dialogue between two or more of the persons. What these persons say to each other, in their own words, corresponds to the action in a drama. But what they say is frequently sum- med up by the narrator in the ordinary form of narration. So also what they do is narrated. Thus : (1) "Dear Clifford," said Hepzibah, . . . "this is our cousin Phcebe — little Phcebe Pyncheon^Arthur's only child, you know. She has come from the country to stay with us a while ; for our old house has grown to be very lonely now." (2) "Phcebe?— PhcEbe Pyncheon ?— Phoebe ?" repeated the guest. . . . "Arthur's child ! Ah, I forget ! No matter I She is very welcome." (3) " Come, dear Clifford, take this chair," said Hepzibah, leading him to his place. " Pray, Phoebe, lower the curtain a very little more. Now let us begin breakfast." (4) The guest seated himself in the place assigned him, and looked strangely around. He was evidently trying to grapple with the present 64 A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. scene, and bring it home witli a more satisfactory distinctness, etc. — Hawthorne : Seven Oables, ch. vii. The paragraphs 1-3 are action in tlie dramatic sense ; the italicized clauses would not be expressed in a drama, or would lie given only as stage-directions. Paragraph 4 is ordinary narration. In addition to the dramatic form, there is in most works of fiction another feature to be noted. The author is apt to utilize his story for conveying his peculiar views upon social, political, religious, and other general issues. And such views are frequently given in the form of Exposition. For illustrative passages see §§ 48, 54. The reader cannot learn too soon or too thoroughly to distinguish genuine narration, generalized narration, and exposition. The \mtings of Hawthorne and George Eliot abound in ex- pository passages. CHAPTER VI. DESCRIPTION. Description is primarily the delineation of a concrete visible object, real or fictitious (description proper). By extension of the term, the attempt to convey an estimate of a certain person's mind or disposition is also called description (character-description). Description Proper. 37. The concrete object described may be a single object, e. g., a certain tree, a certain house, the outward appear- ance of a certain man ; or it may be a group of objects, e. g., a clump of trees, a landscape, an army encamped by a river, as in Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum. The method to be followed is largely determined by one general consideration. What is the purpose of the descrip- tion ? Is it merely to give pleasure ? Or is it to give in- formation ? and if so, what kind of information ? In a fictitious narrative, the chief aim of which is to give pleasure, the objects described may be fictitious also ; although writers of fiction frequently introduce not only historical personages, but scenery and buildings that act- ually exist or have existed. Yet even in this case the writer is apt to treat such persons and things as if they were im- aginary ; at least, he feels free to omit troublesome details, and give only so much as he needs for his story. Whereas the writer of a description intended for information is re- quired to be scrupulously exact, and also to give the full- est details. Yet there are numerous exceptions on either liand : a writer of fact will occasionally give very little 5 j7ie 65 66 A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. detail, and a writer of fiction will describe with great ful- ness. Thus : No person could imagine anything so beautiful as th^ ancient town of Bahia. It is fairly embosomed in a luxuriant wood of beautiful trees, and situated on a steep bank, and overlooks the calm waters of the great bay of All Saints. The houses are white and lofty, and, from the win- dows being narrow and long, have a very light and elegant appearance. Convents, porticos, and public buildings vary the uniformity of the houses ; the bay is scattered over with large ships ; in short — and what can be said more ? — it is one of the finest views in the Brazils. — Dar- win : Life and Letters, i. 204. The above may be contrasted with the very full description of St. Cuthbert's cell in Scott's Abbot, i. ch. 8. But, after all, such exceptions are more apparent than real. Darwin's real purpose was not so much to give a scientifically accurate picture of Bahia as to give to his correspondent a general view, to sketch the scene. (See § 44.) Scott's real purpose in picturing St. Cuthbert's cell was partly to provide a fit meeting-place for Roland and his grandmother, but chiefly to make the reader estimate the devastation which attended the Protestant Reformation in Scotland. In order to test the merits of description, one may compare closely a good work of fiction with a good book of travel. In the former the description should certainly be subordinate to the narrative.. If the descriptive pas- sages are too numerous and too long, so as to interrupt the narrative and provoke a feeling of impatience, they are faulty. But in a book of travels introducing the reader to scenes and objects little known or perhaps wholly un- known, the descriptive parts are sometimes more import- ant than the narrative, and it is a merit in the writer to make them as full as his limits will permit ; e. g. : As will be seen from the various sketches of the profile, the summit of the range is broken up into many sharp triangular casques or narrow saddle-shaped ridges. I'^ach casque, separately examined, seems to be a miniature copy of the wlmlc range, and dented by the elements, time DESCRIPTION. 67 and weather, wind, rain, frost, and snow ; and every side of Ruwenzori appears to represent, though in an acuter degree, the multitudinous irregularities of slopes and crests so characteristic of its mighty neigh- bours which lie nearest to us, and are fully exposed to the naked eye. Mostly all these triangular casque-like tops of the range are so precip- itous that, despite the everlasting snowfalls hardened by the icy winds blowing over their exposed sides and summits, very little snow is seen ; but about 300 feet below, as may be estimated, ground more adapted for the retention of the snow is found, which in some parts is so extensive as to represent a vast field. Below this, however, another deep preci- pice exposes its brown walls, and at the foot of it spreads out another great field of snow joined here and there by sloping ground, and this explains why the side of the range presented to view is not uniformly covered with snow, and why the fields are broken up by the brown patches. For quite 3000 feet from the summit, as may be seen most clearly from the view obtained from Karimi, there is illustrated a great snowy continent enclosing numerous brown islands. — Stanley: Dark- est Africa, ii. 325. The above — one of a series of paragraphs upon the great snow-range of Equatorial Africa — is perfectly proper ; Stan- ley is announcing to the civilized world a great discovery. Ohabacteb-Description. 38. This, like description proper, may be either fact or fiction. In either case it is extremely difficult — too dif- ficult (except in a very simple form) for young writers. The greatest historians and the greatest poets and ro- mancers have put forth their best efforts in delineating the characters of their heroes. Occasionally, even, we see poet and historian in rivalry, as it were. Thus, Green's portrait of Queen Elizabeth : Her moral temper recalled in its strange contrasts the mixed blood within her veins. She was at once the daughter of Henry and of Anne Boleyn. From her father she inherited her frank and hearty address, her love of popularity and of free intercourse with the people, her dauntless courage, and her amazing self-confidence. Her harsh, man- like voice, her impetuous will, her pride, her furious outbursts of anger, came to her with her Tudor blood. ... But strangely in contrast with the violent outlines of her Tudor temper stood the sensuous, self-indul- 68 A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. gent nature she derived from Anne Boleyn. Splendor and pleasure were with Elizabeth the very air she breathed. . . . She loved gayety and laughter and wit. A happy retort or a finished compliment never failed to win her favor. . . . Her vanity remained, even to old age, the vanity of a coquette in her teens. No adulation was too fulsome for her, no flattery of her beauty too gross. . . . Her levity, her frivolous laughter, her unwomanly jests, gave color to a thousand scandals. Her character, in fact, like her portraits, was utterly without shade. Of womanly reserve or self-restraint she knew nothing. No instinct of delicacy veiled the voluptuous temper which had broken out in the romps of her girlhood, and showed itself almost ostentatiously through- out her later life. — Green : Short History, etc., ch. vii. sec. 3. may be compared with Tennyson's : Many points weather' d, many perilous ones, At last a harbour opens ; but therein Sunk rocks — they need fine steering — much it is To be nor mad, nor bigot — have a mind — Nor let priests' talk, or dream of worlds to be, Miscolour things about her — sudden touches For him, or him — sunk rocks ; no passionate faith — But — if let be — balance and compromise ; Brave, wary, sane to the heart of her — a Tudor School'd by the shadow of death— a Boleyn, too, Glancing across the Tudor — not so well. Tennyson : Qxieen Mary, v. sc. 5. The speech is uttered by Cecil (Burleigh) as a quasi- prophecy, while Elizabeth, still princess, is at the death- bed of her sister Mary. Character is something intangible, invisible, and there- fore not to be drawn. In strictness we can only enumerate certain mental traits of the person, as courage, jealousy, prudence, etc. Nevertheless, a good writer may make the person reveal his character in his actions. Thus : They now went below stairs, where Pha?be — not so much assuming the olfice as attracting it to herself by the magnetism of innate fitness — took the most active part in preparing breakfast. The mistress of the house, meanwhile, as is usual with persons of her stiff and unmalleable cast, stood mostly aside. . . . Phoebe, and the fire that boiled the kettle, were equally bright, cheerful, and efficient in their respective offices. DESCRIPTION. 69 . . . Whatever she did, too, was done without conscious effort, and with frequent outbreaks of song, which were exceedingly pleasant to the ear, etc. — Hawthorne : Seoem Oables, ch. v. Difficulties of Description. 39. Every one experienced in writing knows that de- scribing is always a difficult task. This difficulty, which lies in the nature of the work itself, was first treated philo- sophically by the German critic Lessing. Objects, and parts of an object, exist simultaneously in space; when we look at them, our eye perceives them instantaneously, or almost instantaneously. This is expressed in the phrase " taking in an object or a scene at a glance." Whereas words and phrases follow one another in time. Therefore, when we undertake to describe an object by means of words and phrases, we use a slow, measurable process as a substitute for one that is practically instantaneous. The result is that when we get to the end of our description the reader has had time to forget the beginning. If he really desires to profit by the description, he must recollect each step, and from these recollections construct for himself a mental image of the whole. This, of course, is difficult. The reader need only apply the test to any long description of a complicated object or scene. He will perceive that in order to get his mental image he must make a severe and prolonged conscious mental effort. Hence the demand for pictures, drawings, maps, etc. in books of travel, of science, and the like, in which the description of visible objects forms an essential part. In works in which description is subordinate to narration or exposition, e. g., in biography, history, essay, romance, various means may be resorted to for overcoming or avoiding the difficulty. 40. Diagram ; Points of Reference. — If the description is necessarily long, the writer may begin by giving an out- line of the scene. Thus Victor Hugo, in Les Miserables, opens his account of Waterloo with the statement: 70 A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. Those who would get a clear idea of the battle of Waterloo have only to lay down upon the ground in their mind a capital A. The left stroke of the A is the road from Nivelles, the right stroke is the road from Genappe, the cross of the A is the sunken road. . . . The top of the A is Mont Saint Jean ; Wellington is there, etc. De Quincey, in order to make clear the general situation of the incident narrated in his English Mail- Coach (see § 31), appends the note : Suppose a capital Y. Lancaster is at the foot of this letter ; Liver- pool at the top of the right branch ; Manchester at the top of the left branch ; Proud Preston at the center, etc. Without resorting to such mechanical devices, a skilful writer may indicate lines and outlines. Thus : This lake [Como] exceeds anything I have ever beheld in beauty, with the exception of tlie Arbutus Islands in Killarney. It is long and narrow, and has the appearance of a mighty river winding among the moun- tains and forests. We sailed from the town of Como to a tract of coun- try called "The Tremezina," and saw the various aspects presented by that part of the lake. The mountains between Como and that village, or rather cluster of villages, are covered on high with chestnut forests, the eating-chestnuts on which the inhabitants of the country subsist in time of scarcity, which sometimes descend to the very verge of the lake, overhanging it with their hoary branches. But usually the immediate border of this shore is composed of laurel trees, and bay, and myrtle, and wild fig trees, and olives, which grow in the crevices of the rock, and overhang the caverns, and shadow the deep glens, which are filled with the flashing light of the waterfalls. Other flowering shrubs, which I cannot name, grow there also. On higli, the towers of village churches are seen white among the dark forests. Beyond, on the opposite shore, which faces the south, the mountains descend less precipitously to the lake, and although they are much higher, and some covered with per- petual snow, there intervenes between them and the lake a range of lower hills, which have glens and rifts opening to the other, such as I should fancy the abysses of Ida or Parnassus. Here are plantations of olive, and orange, and lemon trees, which are now so loaded with fruit that there is more fruit than leaves ; and vineyards. This shore of the lake is one continued village, and the Milanese nobility have their villas here. The union of culture and the untamable profusion and loveliness DESCRIPTION. 71 of nature is here so close that the line where they are divided can hardly be discovered. — Shelley : Letters, p. 25. The words here italicized give the reader his " bearings." 41. Shifting the Point of View, or giving the descrip- tion in stages. This introduces narration as a help to de- scription. The dry enumeration of parts is turned into a succession of views. In the following, the eye instinctively passes from group to group : It was such a strange scene to me, and so confined and dark, that at first I could make out hardly anything ; but by degrees it cleared, as my eyes became more accustomed to the gloom, and I seemed to stand in a picture by Ostade. Among the great beams, bulks, and ringbolts of the ship, and the emigrant-berths, and chests, and bundles, and bar- rels, and heaps of miscellaneous baggage — lighted up, here and there, by dangling lanterns, and elsewhere by the yellow daylight straying down a windsail or a hatchway — were crowded groups of people, mak- ing new friendships, taking leave of one another, talking, laughing, crying, eating, and drinking ; some, already settled down into the pos- session of their few feet of space, with their little households arranged, and tiny children established on stools or in dwarf elbow-chairs ; others, despairing of a resting-place, and wandering disconsolately. From babies who had but a week or two of life behind them, to crooked old men and women who seemed to have but a week or two of life before them ; and from ploughmen bodily carrying out soil of England on their boots, to smiths taking away samples of its soot and smoke upon their skins ; every age and occupation appeared to be crammed into the narrow compass of the 'tween-decks. — Dickens: David Copperfield, ii. ch. xxviii. In this, the view from the lofty tower : What made the valley look still wider was the two or three varieties of weather that were visible on its surface, all at the same instant of time. Here lay the quiet sunshine ; there fell the great black patches of ominous shadow from the clouds ; and behind them, like a giant of league-long strides, came hurrying the thunderstorm which had already swept midway across the plain. In the rear of the approaching tem- pest brightened forth again the sunny splendor which its progress had darkened with so terrible a frown. All round this majestic landscape the bald-peaked or forest-crowned mountains descended boldly upon the plain, etc. — Hawthorne : Marble Faun, ii. ch. iii. 72 A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. is quickened by the shifting of vision. See also the well- known description of Dover Cliff, King Lear, iv. 6. 42. Introducing the Personal Element. — This is easier to illustrate than to define. The writer may impart the spirit of the scene by introducing details which will awaken in the reader's mind certain associations. Or, by mentioning the impressions made by the scene upon an observer, he may create similar impressions in the reader. Thus: Phoebe found an unexpected charm in this little nook of grass and foliage and aristocratic flowers and plebeian vegetables. The eye of Heaven seemed to look down into it pleasantly, and with a peculiar smile, as if glad to perceive that nature, elsewhere overwhelmed and driven out of the dusty town, had here been -able to retain a breathing- place. The spot acquired a somewhat wilder grace, and yet a very gentle one, from the fact that a pair of robins had built their nest in the pear tree and were making themselves exceedingly busy and happy in the dark intricacy of its boughs. Bees, too, . . . had thought it worth their while to come hither. . . . Yet, late as it now was, there still arose a pleasant hum out of one or two of the squash -blossoms, in the depths of which these bees were plying their golden labor. — Hawthoene: Seven Gables, ch. vi. Hawthorne has made the old garden homelike by reviving our slumbering recollections. The robins and the bees, too, are old friends. It is also to be noted that the pear tree and the squash are not mentioned independently, but only in connection with the roliins and the bees. Ani- mated nature thus introduces inanimate. This is again a touch of action, as distinct from mere description. The following is a specimen of describing by means of the impressions produced upon the mind of an observer. The scene is Loch Katrine : From the steep promontory gazed The stranger, raptured and amazed. And, " What a scene were here," he cried, " For princely pomp or churchman's pride I On this bold brow, a lordly tower ; In that soft vale, a lady's bower ; DESCRIPTION. 73 On yonder meadow far away, The turrets of a cloister gray ; How blithely might the bugle-horn Chide on the lake the lingering morn I How sweet at eve the lover's lute Chime when the gi'oves were still and mute ! And when the midnight moon should lave Her forehead in the silver wave, How solemn on the ear would come The holy matin's distant hum. While the deep peal's commanding tone Should wake, in yonder idet lone, A sainted hermit from his cell," etc. Scott : The Lady of the Lake, i. xv. Fitz-James, seeing Loch Katrine for the first time, supposes the neighborhood uninhabited ; instantly his vivid imag- ination turns certain conspicuous parts of the landscape (italicized) to possible future use. We see through his eyes. Compare the description of Edinburgh in Marmion, iv. XXX. 43. Dynamic Description,* or turning the description into narration. This is somewhat akin to the use of the personal element, but is distinct from it and is far more vivid. The theory was first expounded by Lessing, who called attention to the leading example, the Shield of Achilles, Iliad, xviii. 478-608. Here we have, not a de- scription of the shield when made, but a minute account, step by step, of the making of it by Vulcan. In Goethe's Hermann und Dorothea (iv. 1-59) the mother goes from place to place in search of her son ; the passage is in real- ity an indirect description of the stables, garden, vineyard, fields — in short, the family estate. De Foe, wishing to inform his readers that Robinson Crusoe is upon an island of a certain size and kind, nar- rates thus : * This term is used in Genung's Practical Rhetoric, p. 335, but in a different sense. G 74 A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. My next work was to view the country, and seek a proper place for my habitation. . . . Where I was, I yet knew not — whether on the con- tinent or on an island, whether inhabited or not inhabited, whether in danger of wild beasts or not. There was a hill not above a mile from me, which rose up very steep and high, and which seemed to overtop some other hills, which lay as in a ridge from it northward. I took out one of the fowling pieces, . . . and thus armed I travelled for dis- covery up to the top of that hill, where, after I had with great labour and difficulty got to the top, I saw my fate to my great affliction, viz., that I was in an island environed every way with the sea, no land to be seen, except some rocks which lay a great way off, and two small islands less than this, which lay about three leagues to the west. — De Foe : Mobinson Crusoe, p. 60. One of the most striking examples of genuine dynamic description is the following, where De Quincey calls upon an imaginary painter to come to his aid : But here, to save myself the trouble of too much verbal description, I will introduce a painter, and give him directions for the rest of the picture. Painters do not like white cottages, unless a good deal weather- stained ; but, as the reader now understands that it is a winter night, his services will not be required except for the inside of the house. Paint me, then, a room seventeen feet by twelve, and not more than seven and a half feet high. This, reader, is somewhat ambitiously styled, in my family, the drawing-room ; but, being contrived " a double debt to pay," it is also, and more justly, termed the library ; for it hap- pens that books are the only article of property in which I am richer than my neighbours. Of these I have about five thousand, collected gradually since my eighteenth year. Therefore, painter, put as many as you can into this room. Make it populous with books ; and, further- more, paint me a good fire ; and furniture plain and modest, befitting the unpretending cottage of a scholar. And near the fire paint me a tea-table ; and (as it is clear that no creature can come to see one on such a stormy night) place only two cups and saucers on the tea-tray ; and, if you know how to paint such a thing, symbolically or otherwise, paint me an eternal tea-pot — eternal a parte ante, and a parte post; for I usually drink tea from eight o'clock at night to four in the morning. And, as it is very unpleasant to make tea, or to pour it out for one's self, paint me a lovely young woman sitting at the table. Paint her arms like Aurora's, and her smiles like Hebe's ; but no, dear M 1 * * His wife. DESCRIPTION. 75 not even in jest let me insinuate that thy power to illuminate my cot- tage rests upon a tenure so perishable as mere personal beauty, or that the witchcraft of angelic smiles lies within the empire of any earthly pencil, etc. — De Quincey {Confessions) : iii. 408. Compare Alice Carey's poem, An Order for a Picture. All highly imaginative and graphic writing contains dynamic passages ; e. g. : See how she rushes noiselessly, like a pale meteor, along the passages and up the gallery stairs ! Those gleaming eyes, those bloodless lip.s, that silent tread, make her look like the incarnation of a fierce purpose, rather than a woman. The mid-day sun is shining on the armor in the gallery, making mimic suns on bossed sword-hilts and the angles of pol- ished breastplates. Yes, there are sharp weapons in the gallery. There is a dagger in that cabinet ; she knows it well. And as a dragon-fly wheels in its flight to alight for an instant on a leaf, she darts to the cabinet, takes out the dagger, and thrusts it into her pocket, etc. — Geokqe Eliot : Mr. OilJU, eh. xiii. The following stands midway between dynamic descrip- tion and description by stages : The house had that pleasant aspect of life which is like the cheery expression of comfortable activity in the human countenance. You could see, at once, that there was the stir of a large family within it. A huge load of oak-wood was passing through the gateway, towards the out-buildings in the rear ; the fat cook — or probably it might be the housekeeper — stood at the side-door, bargaining for some turkeys and poultry which a countryman had brought for sale. Now and then a maid-servant, neatly dressed, and now the shining sable face of a slave, might be seen bustling across the windows in the lower part of the house. At an open window of a room in the second story, hanging over some pots of beautiful and delicate flowers — exotics, but which had never known a more genial sunshine than that of the New England autumn — was the figure of a young lady, an exotic, like the flowers, and beautiful and delicate as they. Her presence imparted an indescribable grace and faint witchery to the whole edifice. — Hawthorne: Seven Gables, ch. xiii. The approach of the boats in The Lady of the Lake (ii. xvi.) is an interesting study. Is it dynamic description ? Or is it genuine narrative with the effect of description ? M. Sketch ; Suggestion. — Where ample details are not 76 A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. positively required, it is always possible, and usually ad- visable, to abridge the description into a sketch. The best writings are full of such sketching, in which the writer gives only the salient points or features. In fact, the abil- ity to sketch effectively is sure evidence of a writer's power ; e. g. : Noble Mansion ! There stoodest thou, in deep Mountain Amphi- theatre, on umbrageous lawns, in thy serene solitude ; stately, massive, all of granite; glittering in the western sunbeams, like a. palace of El Dorado, overlaid with precious metal. Beautiful rose up, in wavy curvature, the slope of thy guardian Hills : of the greenest was their sward, embossed with its dark-brown frets of crag, or spotted by some spreading solitary Tree and its shadow. — Caelyle : Sartor Resartus, ii. ch. v. From the classic writings we may select this : A thousand fires burnt brightly ; and round each Sat fifty warriors in the ruddy glare ; Champing the provender before them laid. Barley and rye, the tethered horses stood Beside the cars, and waited for the morn. Iliad, viii. 562 (Derby's translation). Compare this with Carlyle, § 97. Somewhat longer, but still a sketch, is the following : A very ancient woman, in a white short gown and a green petticoat, with a string of gold beads about her neck, and what looked like a night-cap on her head, had brought a quantity of yarn to barter for the commodities of the shop. She was probably the very last person in town who still kept the time-honored spinning-wheel in constant revo- lution. It was worth while to hear the croaking and hollow tones of the old lady and the pleasant voice of Phoebe mingling in one twisted thread of talk, etc. — Hawthorne : Seven Oahtes, ch. v. That it is a sketch will be evident if we contrast it with the following full-length portrait: She had on a light dress which sat loosely about her figure, but did not disguise its liberal, graceful outline. A heavy mass of straight jet- black hair had escaped from its fastening and hung over her shoulders. Her grandly-cut features, pale, with the natural paleness of a brunette, had premature lines about them, telling that the years had been length- DESCRIPTION. 77 ened by sorrow, and the delicately-curved nostril, which seemed made to quiver with the proud consciousness of power and beauty, must have quivered to the heart-piercing griefs which had given that worn look to the corners of the mouth. Her wide-open black eyes had a strangely fixed, sightless gaze, as she paused at the turning, and stood silent before her husband. — George Eliot : Janet's Mepentanee, ch. iv. By Suggestion is here meant the introduction of such traits and terms as lead the reader easily and naturally to think out the rest. The writer puts the reader in a con- templative mood ; e. g., the description of the philosopher at the North Cape on a June midnight: Silence as of death, for midnight, even in the Arctic latitudes, has its character : nothing but the granite cliffs ruddy-tinged, the peaceable gurgle of that slow-heaving Polar Ocean, over which in the utmost North the great Sun hangs low and lazy, as if he too were slumbering. Yet is his cloud-couch wrought of crimson and cloth-of-gold ; yet does his light stream over the mirror of waters, like a tremulous fire-pillar, shooting downwards to the abyss, and hide itself under my feet. In such moments, Solitude also is invaluable ; for who would speak, or be looked on, when behind him lies all Europe and Africa, fast asleep, ex- cept the watchmen ; and before him the silent Immensity, and Palace of the Eternal, whereof our Sun is but a porch-lamp. — Caelyle: (Sartor Hesarlus, ii. ch. viii. Another highly suggestive passage is this : We know not how to characterize, in any accordant and compatible terms, the Rome that lies before us ; its sunless alleys, and streets of palaces ; its churches, lined with the gorgeous marbles that were orig- inally polished for the adornment of pagan temples ; its thousands of evil smells, mixed up with fragrance of rich incense diffused from as many censers ; its little life, deriving feeble nutriment from what has long been dead. Everywhere, some fragment of ruin suggesting the magnificence of a former epoch ; everywhere, moreover, a Cross — and nastiness at the foot of it. As the sum of all, there are recollections that kindle the soul, and a gloom and languor that depress it beyond any depth of melancholic sentiment that can be elsewhere known. — Hawthobne ; Marble Faun, i. ch. xii. Coleridge's Ancient Mariner is all sketch and suggestion ; hence its peculiar charm and power. G* 78 A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. 45. Figurative Language. — How description may be aided by figurative language is readily learned from ex- amples. The usual figures are simile, comparison, meta- phor, and personification. Thus : Even as it was, a change grew visible ; a change partly to be regret- ted, although whatever charm it infringed upon was repaired by an- other, perhaps more precious. She was not so constantly gay, but had her moods of thought. . . . Her eyes looked larger and darker and deeper; so deep, at some silent moments, that they seemed like Artesian wetts, down, down, into the infinite. — Hawthorne : Seven Gables, ch. xii. W^onderfully expressive is the following metaphor in Webster's apostrophe to Lafayette: Fortunate, fortunate man I With what measure of devotion will you not thank God for the circumstances of your extraordinary life 1 You are connected with both hemispheres and with two generations. Heaven saw fit to ordain that the electric spark of liberty should be conducted through you from the New World to the Old, etc. — Webster : Bunker Hill. Carlyle's description of the vanity of the two Boswells, father and son, so difi'erent in kind, is remarkable for its graphic humor: Old Auchinleck had, if not the gay, tail-spreading, peacock vanity of the son, no little of the slow-stalking, contentious, hissing vanity of the gander ; a still more fatal species. — Carlyle : Boswell's Johnson. The value of personification, i. e., giving to inanimate objects the properties of life, may be learned from Haw- thorne's description of the trees in the Villa Borghese ; the impression of hoary antiquity is deepened by the iron- ical " only a few years ago " : The ilex trees, so ancient and time-honored were they, seemed to have lived for ages undisturbed, and to feel no dread of profanation from the axe any more than overthrow by the thunder-stroke. It had already passed out of their dreamy old memories that only a few years ago they were grievously imperilled by the Gaul's last assault upon the walls of Kome. As if confident in the long peace of their lifetime, they as- sumed attitudes of indolent repose. They leaned over the turf in pon- derous grace, throwing abrond their great branches without danger of DESCRIPTION. 79 interfering with other trees, though other majestic trees grew near enough for dignified society, but too distant for constraint. — Haw- thorne : Marble Fawn, i. eh. viii. 46. Epithet. — By this is meant an adjective indicating some quality or attribute which the writer regards as cha- racteristic of the person or thing described. The term may be extended to include a noun or noun-phrase hav- ing the effect of a characteristic adjective. Classical stu- dents are familiar with the Homeric epithets: "well- greaved " Greeks ; " white-armed " Juno ; " blue-eyed " Minerva, etc. Folk-poetry is full of such conventional epithets, which have lost nearly all their original signif- icance and become mere tags or labels. Modern literature discards conventional epithets, and employs only such adjectives and phrases as really distinguish the person or object. Among modern prose-writers Carlyle is the one most given to epithets. Thus, in a letter to Emerson he sums up his description of Daniel Webster in the clause, " I have not traced as much of silent Berserkir rage, that I remember, in any other man." The epithet marks Web- ster's force of suppressed passion. Emerson, in reply, describes Carlyle as having " thirsty, portrait-eating, por- trait-painting eyes." Carlyle 's use of epithet is excessive ; it often amounts to nicknaming. He incessantly speaks of the very stout Countess of Darlington as the " cataract of tallow;" her opposite, the Duchess of Kendal, as the " Maypole, or lean human nailrod ;" political economy is " the dismal science." Every reader of David Copperfield will remember Uriah Heep's use of the word " 'umble ;" also the application of " respectable," " respectability," to Littimer, in ch. xxi. In Coleridge's Ancient Mariner (211) " the star-dogged Moon " is most striking. Note also : " I stole from court, . . . Cat-footed thro' the town," Tenny- son's Princess, i. 103; or Lady Blanche's eye, "A lidless watcher of the public weal," iv. 306. The happy use of epithet is a badge of ability ; one 80 A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. must have a keen eye and the gift of language, also sound taste. It is dangerous ground for the young writer. 47. Generalized Description. — This is analogous to gen- eralized narration (§ 34). In it the writer delineates a particular group or assemblage, not as it actually appeared on a certain occasion, and only then, but as it may have appeared on any one of a number of occasions ; e. g., this account of the famous weekly " Punch " dinners : On Wednesday evenings the celebrated hebdomadal dinner is held, when the contents of the paper for the following week are discussed and determined. Upstairs the sacred function is held, in a room reached by an ancient and rather crazy staircase. Sir Joseph Paxton and a lady — the wife, I believe, of one of the publishers — are said to be the only strangers who ever were admitted to witness this esoteric celebration. The "table" — at which only the staff, and not even the regular outside contributors, have any right or chance to sit — is then surrounded by the gentlemen of the staff, artists and writers, presided over by the editor, and supported with more or less regularity by Mr. Bradbury and Mr. William Agnew, the proprietors. As a piece of furniture this hospit- able but rather primitive board is not of much account, being of plain deal, oblong in shape, with rounded ends. But its associations render it a treasure among treasures; for at this table every man upon the staff from the first has carved his name with a penknife ; and here may be seen the handiwork of those so many of whom are on England's roll of fame, as well as that of others who, with less of genius, have still a strong claim on the gratitude and the recollection of the people. The editor, as I have said, presides ; should he be unavoidably absent, an- other writer — usually, nowadays, Mr. Arthur a Beckett — takes his place, the duty never falling to an artist. Mr. Burnand — who as a, president is believed to excel all previous editors, as Mr. Frederick Leighton sur- passes all past P. E. A.'s — invites suggestions, listening, weighing, and, with rare tact and art, "drawing" his staff as well as any artist upon it could. Dinner is over and the cloth is removed before the business of the evening is touched upon. Jokes, laughter, and discussion are the order of the evening. On the editor's right sit Mr. Tenniel, Mr. Du Maurier, Mr. Sarabourne, Mr. Furniss, and Mr. Keed; and then there are Mr. a Beckett, Mr. Milliken — one of the most talented, as he is one of the most modest men upon the paper — Mr. (Anstey) Guthrie, Mr. Lucy ("Toby"), and Mr. Lehmann. — G. S. Layard: Life and Letters of 0. S. Keene. DESCRIPTION. 81 How are we to classify the description of an object, one of hundreds or thousands, all alike, e. g., a rifle, a watch, a sewing-machine ? Is it an ordinary description, or a gen- eralized ? Or is it exposition ? Whatever theoretical an- swer we may give, we shall not err practically if we treat it as an ordinary description, for the reason that, in the describing, we start from one individual object and deline- ate it just as we see it. Our delineation is not influenced by the circumstance that it will fit all others. The de- scribing is concrete, not general. For Expository Description see § 54. CHAPTER VII. EXPOSITION. 48. Exposition may be characterized as that form of composition in which the writer discusses, not a single object or event, but objects or events in their general as- pects, or inculcates a general principle, or defines a general term. Thus, to write of the death of a certain person is de- scription or narration ; but to write upon death in general is exposition. To delineate the features of a certain man is description ; to tell wherein man in general differs from other animals is exposition. It is also exposition to ex- plain the working of a steam-engine, or to set forth the advantages of punctuality. Text-books of science, history, literature, are expository ; so are essays. In text-books and essays, it is true, we often find descriptive or narrative passages, but the book or essay is in the main expository. Its aim is to acquaint us with the general truths of science or history, or with the general relation of an individual to his times ; e. g., Macau- lay's essay on Warren Hastings, although it contains a good deal of narration and description, is, as a whole, an exposition of the policy of Hastings, his services to Eng- land, and his position in the history of the world. As descriptive and narrative passages occur in writings that are essentially exposition, so expository passages occur in writings essentially description or narration. Such an expository passage usually embodies a passing reflection or meditation ; it moralizes, as we say, upon the 82 EXPOSITION. 83 persons described or the events narrated. A very grace- ful example is in the scene where Donatello calls upon Miriam in her studio and finds her " busied with the femi- nine task of mending a pair of gloves " : There is something extremely pleasant, and even touching — at least, of very sweet, soft, and winning effect — in this peculiarity of needle- work, distinguishing women from men. Our own sex is incapable of any such by-play aside from the main business of life ; but women — be they of what earthly rank they may, however gifted with intellect or genius, or endowed with awful beauty — have always some little handi- work ready to fill the tiny gap of every vacant moment. A needle is familiar to the fingers of them all. A queen, no doubt, plies it on oc- casion ; the woman-poet can use it as adroitly as her pen ; the woman's eye, that has discovered a new star, turns from its glory to send the pol- ished little instrument gleaming along the hem of her kerchief. ... A vast deal of human sympathy runs along this electric line, stretching from the throne to the wicker-chair of the humblest seamstress, and keeping high and low in a species of communion with their kindred beings, etc. — Hawthoene : Marble Faun, i. ch. 5. Even a general proposition (assertion), which is in strict- ness something to be proved (see § 63), is usually first expounded, that the reader may clearly perceive the pre- cise point to be proved. Thus, whoever undertakes to persuade us that " fortune favors the bold " should first explain what he means by " fortune " and by " bold ;" for by fortune some persons might understand mere " luck," others " providence ;" " bold " might mean " venturesome," or again, "knowing the danger, but not shrinking from it." In discussing a general moral theme the writer fre- quently goes beyond exposition, and proceeds to apply and enforce his teaching for the reader's personal improve- ment. This is the practice in sermons, which are usually the exposition of Christian doctrine. The various processes of exposition proper may be summed up under three heads : Definition, Classification, General Statement. 84 A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. Definition. 49. Defining an object means separating it from all other objects by marking the boundary-lines ; e. g., a tele- scope is said to define accurately when it enables us to see clearly the lines of a heavenly body. A photograph is poor in definition when the lines are faint or blurred. In rhetoric and logic we define a term when we distinguish it from every other term. Defining, in the strict sense, is extremely difficult, too difficult for those who have not mastered logical methods, for it is essentially logical in its procedure. It consists in stating the genus and the difierentia, i. e., the class to which the object defined belongs, and the peculiarities which difierentiate it from everything else of that class. Thus Ruskin defines architecture as : "The art which so disposes and adorns the edifices raised by man for whatsoever uses, that the sight of them contributes to his mental health, power, and pleasure." — EtJSKiN : Seven Lamps, ch. i. In other words, building (" edijice ") is the genus ; man's pleasure is the differentia. Science, especially mathematics and physics, abounds in rigorous definitions ; e. g., " a circle is a plane figure contained by one line everywhere equidistant from a point within called the centre," i. e., plane figure is the genus, radius-measurement the diflferentia. In the sciences which deal with life defining is some- times less easy, the dividing-line is less readily appre- hended. Huxley {Lay Sermons, ch. v.) thus defines the class Mammalia as " all animals which have a vertebrated skeleton and suckle their young." In ch. xii. he defines a horse as an animal having : " 1. A vertebral column ; 2. Mammae ; 3. A placental embryo ; 4. Four legs ; 5. A sin- gle well-developed toe in each foot provided with a hoof; 6. A bushy tail ; 7. Callosities on the inner sides of both the fore and the hind legs." EXPOSITION. 85 In human affairs the difficulty of defining increases in proportion as we pass from the material to the spiritual, until at last definition — in any just sense — becomes an impossibility. We may readily define a " minor " to be " a person of either sex who has not attained the age at which full civil rights are accorded." But to frame a legal definition of '' property " is much less easy. To define " church," i. e., not the building, but the association of per- sons for religious purposes, is perhaps impossible. Cath- olics and Protestants would not agree, nor would any two Protestant denominations agree wholly. " Literature," " eloquence," " poetry," are not to be defined. The young reader need not hesitate to admit that he uses words which he is unable to define. These words are not always abstract terms ; on the contrary, they may be quite concrete. Certainly the average boy would be puz- zled were he Unexpectedly called upon to define " knife," "pencil," "floor," "room." Still harder would he find " lesson," " question," " answer." How can the young learn to use terms ? To this it may be answered that it is the office of education in general, and not of any one instructor alone, to teach the accurate use of terms. Every department of knowledge has its own terminology, and everj' student who masters the subject masters the terms, with or without formal definition. Thus, one who reads poetry diligently will acquire a sense of its significance, even although he will never be able to translate that significance into a definition. A few practical suggestions may be helpful : 1. Consult dictionaries constantly, but remember that no dictionary is quite complete or perfect. Frequently the best part of a dictionary is in its quotations from good authors, illustrating the shades of meaning of a word. 2. In reading, note carefully whether the author uses the same word in different senses in different places. If he does, try to express the difference. H 86 A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. 3. Consult teachers and other persons of experience, and get them to suggest an explanation or correct any misuse of a term. 4. In writing, attach a definite meaning to each term, and carefully avoid using it in any other sense in that composition. 50. Loose or Indirect Definition.^ — The sense of an in- definable term may be conveyed indirectly. Thus Swift defined style to be " proper words in their proper places.'' Coleridge improved upon this : The definition of good Prose is — proper words in their proper places ; of good Verse — the most proper words in their proper places. The propriety is in either case relative. The words in prose ought to ex- press the intended meaning, and no more ; if they attract attention to themselves, it is in general a fault. . . . But in verse you must do more ; there the words, the media, must be beautiful, and ought to attract your notice.— S. T. Coleridge : Table Talk, ii. 214. Emerson characterized eloquence as " a taking sovereign possession of the audience ;" De Quincey ( Works, x. 92) wrote; "By eloquence we understand the outflow of pow- erful feelings upon occasions fitted to excite them." (See also Webster, § 58.) Matthew Arnold (Essays in Criticism, l>. 36) defined criticism to be " a disinterested endeavor to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in the world." This does not distinguish criticism from learning, on the one hand, or from teaching, on the other. But it relieves criticism from the charge of being mere negative fault-finding, and shows it to be a positive and beneficial accomplishment. Classification. 51. Under this head is included Division, and also Partition. An understanding of the process of Classification may be got from its application in natural history : I have hitherto spoken as if the lobster were alone in the world, but, EXPOSITION. 87 as I need hardly remind you, there are myriads of other animal organ- isms. Of these, some, such as men, horses, birds, fishes, snails, slugs, oysters, corals, and sponges, are not in the least like the lobster. But other animals, though they may differ a good deal from the lobster, are yet either very like it, or are like something that is like it. The cray- fish, the rock lobster, and the prawn, and the shrimp, for example, how- ever difierent, are yet so like lobsters, that a child would group them as of the lobster kind, in contradistinction to snails and slugs ; and these last again would form a kind by themselves, in contradistinction to cows, horses, and sheep, the cattle kind. But this spontaneous grouping into " kinds " is the first essay of the human mind at classification, or the calling by a common name of those things that are alike, and the arranging them in such a manner as best to suggest the sum of their likenesses and unlikenesses to other things. Those kinds which include no other subdivisions than the sexes, or various breeds, are called, in technical language, " species." The Eng- lish lobster is a species, our cray-fish is another, our prawn is another. In other countries, however, there are lobsters, cray-fish, and prawns, very like ours, and yet presenting sufficient difierences to deserve dis- tinction. Naturalists, therefore, express this resemblance and this di- versity by grouping them as distinct species of the same " genus.'' But the lobster and the cray-fish, though belonging to distinct genera, have many features in common, and hence are grouped together in an assem- blage which is called a " family." More distant resemblances connect the lobster with the prawn and the crab, which are expressed by put- ting all these into the same " order." Again, more remote, but still very definite, resemblances unite the lobster with the wood-louse, the king-crab, the water-flea, and the barnacle, and separate them from all other animals ; whence they collectively constitute the larger group or " class," Crustacea. But the Crustacea exhibit many peculiar features in common with insects, spiders, and centipedes, so that these are grouped into the still larger assemblage or "province" Articulala; and, finally, the relations which these have to worms and other lower animals are expressed by combining the whole vast aggregate into the "sub-king- dom" of AnmUosa. — Huxley (vi.), p. 101. In other words, we include all the common English lob- sters in one species, the American lobsters in another spe- cies ; all the species of lobster in the world we sum up in the genus Lobster ; the genus lobster and the genus cray- fish we sum up in the family Homaridse; this and kindred 88 A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. families we sum up in the order Decapods;. this and kin- dred orders we sum up in the class Crustacea ; and so on until we reach the sub-kingdom of Annulosa. Division is classification reversed. Thus we divide the animal kingdom into sub-kingdoms, each sub-kingdom into provinces, each province into classes, each class into orders, and so on until we reach the species. With spe- cies, classification and division proper end ; we have only varieties and individuals left. Partition is the breaking up of an individual into its component parts. Thus a horse may be partitioned (dis- sected) into its bony skeleton, muscles, internal organs, outward covering (hair), etc. The species " horse," i. e., the ordinary domestic horse, is classified in one and the same genus with the ass and the zebra. In loose popular language " divide " and " division " are very frequently used when " partition " is really meant. This is much to be regretted, but the habit can scarcely be overcome now. At all events, the young reader should learn to appreciate thoroughly the fundamental difference between partition and classification-division. In science, biological or physical, the criteria for classify- ing and dividing are in nature itself; they may therefore be determined exactly and applied rigorously. In ex- pounding them we must give them as we find them, with- out altering or abridging. Thus Tait, discussing the avail- able sources of terrestrial energy, classifies them as : First (potential). 1. Fuel (including wood, coal, zinc, for galvanic battery, etc.). 2. Food of animals. 3. Ordinary water-power. 4. Tidal water-power. Second (kinetic). 1. Winds. 2. Currents (ocean-cur- rents). 3. Hot springs and volcanoes. He then adds cautiously : There are other very small sources known to us, exceedingly small; but these I have named include our principal resources. — Tait : Becent Advances, vii. p. 160. Having thus classified them, he proceeds to show that EXPOSITION. 89 almost all are to be traced back to solar radiation. The conclusion is that terrestrial energy, all but a very small part, is due to the rays of the sun. 52. Cross-Division. — In matters of human invention and in purely spiritual matters rigorous classification, like rigorous definition, becomes difiicult and almost impossi- ble. Thus the government of the United States is divided into three factors, legislative, executive, judicial ; but, in- asmuch as the chief executive, the President, has also, by virtue of his veto, a direct share in law-making, he must be classified — to that extent — with Congress. On the other hand, the Senate, through its right of rejecting presidential appointments, has a share in executing the law. Still fur- ther, the Senate and House, through the right of impeach- ment, are invested with judicial functions. This overlapping of division-lines is technically called Cross-Division. The tendency to cross-division exists in all classification which does not rest upon scientific criteria. The young reader can test this for himself If he is a member of a large school, let him classify all the scholars. He may group them by school classes, in alphabetical or numerical order ; he may group them according to sex, if the school is mixed ; he may group them according to scholarship, into poor, fair, good ; or into boarders and day -scholars. These several groupings would cross each other. The reader can further test his ability to classify, by grouping the persons of his acquaintance, the books that he may see in a library, the studies that he may pursue. Gbnbeal Statement. By general statement is here meant the setting forth of a general phenomenon, law, relation, or idea. 53. General Phenomenon. — A very good statement of one is this : 90 A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. But sound, like light, may be reflected several times in succession, and as the reflected light under these circumstances becomes gradually feebler to the eye, so the successive echoes become gradually feebler to the ear. In mountain regions this repetition and decay of sound pro- duces wonderful and pleasing efiects. Visitors to Killarney will remem- ber the fine echo in the Gap of Dunloe. When a trumpet is sounded at the proper place in the gap, the sonorous waves reach the ear in suc- cession after one, two, three, or more reflections from the adjacent clifis, and thus die away in the sweetest cadences. There is a deep cul-de-sac, called the Ochsenthal, formed by the great clifls of the Engelhorner, near Kosenlaui, in Switzerland, where the echoes warble in a wonderful manner. Tlie sound of the Alpine horn also rebounding from the rocks of the Wetterhorn or the Jungfrau, is in the first instance heard roughly. But by successive reflections, the notes are rendered more soft and flute- like, the gradual diminution of intensity giving the impression that the source of sound is retreating further and further into the solitudes of ice and snow. — Tyndall : Sound (i.), p. 17. A remarkable phenomenon of insect-life is this : This remarkable instinct was first discovered in the Formica (Poly- erges) rufescens by Pierre Huber, a better observer even than his cele- brated father. This ant is absolutely dependent on its slaves ; without their aid, the species would certainly become extinct in a single year. The males and fertile females do no work of any kind, and the workers or sterile females, though most energetic and courageous in capturing slaves, do no other work. They are incapable of making their own nests, or of feeding their own larvae. When the old nest is found in- convenient, and they have to migrate, it is the slaves which determine the migration, and actually carry their masters in their jaws. So ut- terly helpless are the masters, that when Huber shut up thirty of them without a slave, but with plenty of the food which they like best, and with their own larva? and pupfe to stimulate them to work, they did nothing ; they could not even feed themselves, and many perished of hunger. Huber then introduced a single slave (F. fusca), and she in- stantly set to work, fed and saved the survivors ; made some cells and tended the larvae, and put all to rights. — Darwin : Origin of Spedes, ch. viii. p. 216. The general phenomena of man's social and spiritual life are far more difficult to state fully and accurately. The difficulty is twofold. First, the facts and data upon EXPOSITION. 91 which to generalize are very hard to get. Second, we are apt to approach such questions in a spirit of prejudice. The historian, for instance, is apt to sympathize with one of two conflicting parties in the past because of its resemblance, real or assumed, to his own party in the present. There is even a third source of error. In writing that is literary rather than scientific the writer is often de- sirous of writing effectively, as it is called. He seeks to produce by his manner a deep impression on the reader, and in so doing often overstates, sometimes even mis-states, his facts. The following presentation of literary Bohemia in the first half of the eighteenth century is an example : As every climate has its peculiar diseases, so every walk of life has its peculiar temptations. The literary character, assuredly, has always had its share of faults : vanity, jealousy, morbid sensibility. To these faults were now superadded the faults which are commonly found in men whose livelihood is precarious, and whose principles are exposed to the trial of severe distress. All the vices of the gambler and of the beggar were blended with those of the author. The prizes in the wretched lottery of book-making were scarcely less ruinous than the blanks. If good fortune came, it came in such a manner that it was almost certain to be abused. After months of starvation and despair, a full third night or a well-received dedication filled the pocket of the lean, ragged, unwashed poet with guineas. He hastened to enjoy those luxuries with the images of which his mind had been haunted while he was sleeping amidst the cinders and eating potatoes at the Irish ordinary in Shoe Lane. A week of taverns soon qualified him for another year of night-cellars. Such was the life of Savage, of Boyse, and of a crowd of others. Sometimes blazing in gold-laced hats and waistcoats ; sometimes lying in bed because their coats had gone to pieces, or wearing paper cravats because their linen was in pawn ; some- times drinking Champagne and Tokay with Betty Careless ; sometimes standing at the window of an eating-house in Porridge Island, to snuif up the scent of what they could not afford to taste : they knew luxury ; they knew beggary ; but they never knew comfort. — Macaulay : Bos- well's Johnson. There is undoubtedly much truth in the above. But every thoughtful student will suspect that it is also highly overwrought. Overstatement is, in fact, the prevalent 92 A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. blemish in Macaulay's method. Matthew Arnold touches upon it lightly but firmly when he says : I remember hearing Lord Macaulay say, after Wordsworth's death, when subscriptions were being collected to found a memorial of him, that ten years earlier more money could have been raised in Cambridge alone, to do honour to Wordsworth, than was now raised all through the country. Lord Macaulay had, as we know, his own heightened and telling way of putting things, and we must always make allowance for it. — Matthew Aenom) : Preface to Wordsworth's Poems. The ability to see clearly and state fairly is a matter of sober temperament and philosophic inquiry rather than of mere knowledge. The following passage illustrates Matthew Arnold's own method, in comparison with Ma- caulay's : One of these [inconveniences] is, certainly in English public life, the prevalence of cries and catchwords, which are very apt to receive an application, or to be used with an absoluteness, which do not belong to them ; and then they tend to narrow our spirit and to hurt our practice. It is good to make a catchword of this sort come down from its strong- hold of commonplace, to force it to move about before us in the open country, and to show us its real strength. Such a catchword as this : The state had better teare thiiiys alone. One constantly hears that as an absolute maxim ; now, as an absolute maxim, it has really no force at all. The absolute maxims are those which carry to man's spirit their own demonstration with them ; such propositions as : Duty is the law of life ; Man is morally free, and so on. The proposition : The state had bet- ter leave things alone, carries no such demonstration with it ; it has, there- fore, no absolute force ; it merely conveys a notion which certain people have generalized from certain facts which have come under their ob- servation, and which, by a natural vice of the human mind, they are then prone to apply absolutely. Some things the state had better leave alone, others it had better not. Is this particular thing one of these, or one of those ? — that, as to any particular thing, is the right question. — Matthew Arnold : A French Eton, p. 472. See also A priori, § 74. The following is in a lighter vein : At almost every step in life we meet with young men ... for whom we anticipate wonderful things, but of whom, even after much and care- ful inquiry, we never happen to hear another word. The effervescence EXPOSITION. 93 of youth and passion, and the fresh glows of the intellect and imagina- tion, endow them with a false brilliancy which makes fools of them- selves and other people. Like certain chintzes, calicoes, and ginghams, they show finely in their first newness, but cannot stand the sun and rain, and assume a very sober aspect after washing-day.^HAWTHOENE : Seven Oahles, ch. xii. 54. Expository Description. — Attention was called in § 47 to generalized, description. The generalizing process may be carried to such length that the composition ceases to be description, and becomes exposition. Irving's paper entitled " John Bull," in the Sketch-Book, is an instance. The following passage will suffice for illustration : John Bull, to all appearance, is a plain, downright, matter-of-fact fel- low, with much less of poetry about him than rich prose. There is little of romance in his nature, but a vast deal of strong natural feeling. He excels in humor more than in wit ; is jolly rather than gay ; melan- choly rather than morose ; can easily be moved to a sudden tear, or sur- prised into a broad laugh ; but he loathes sentiment, and has no turn for light pleasantry. He is a boon-companion, if you allow him to have his humor and to talk about himself, and he will stand by a friend in a quarrel with life and purse, however soundly he may be cudgelled. — Irting : John Bull. A comparison of the above with the descriptions of Queen Elizabeth (§ 38) and Master Simon (§ 12) will make the difference felt. The difference between John Bull and the generalized description of the Punch-dinner (§ 47) is less obvious, but is nevertheless real. The writer of the Punch-dinner is trying to describe one place and one set of persons, but he makes his description applicable to more than one occasion; whereas Irving's John Bull is not intended to be the portrait of any one Englishman, or even to be applicable directly to any one, but is the gen- eralization of all that Irving read and observed of English character. It is like a composite photograph. 55. General Law. — The process of expounding a gen- eral law is illustrated by Tait's statement, based upon Newton's Prindpia, of the law of gravitation : 94 A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. Every particle of matter in the universe attracts every other particle with a force whose direction is that of the line joining the two, and whose magnitude is directly as the product of their masses, and in- versely as the square of their distance from each other. — Tait : Prop, of Matter (vii.), p. 110. The phenomenon is thus measurable, directly according to mass, inversely according to distance. A law of biological science — viz. the measurable circu- lation of the blood — is thus stated : The friction in the minute arteries and capillaries [connecting the arteries with the veins] presents a considerable resistance to the flow of blood through them into the small veins. In consequence of this resistance, the force of the heart's beat is spent in maintaining the whole of the arterial system in a state of great distention ; the arterial walls are put greatly on the stretch by the pressure of the blood thrust into them by the repeated strokes of the heart; this is the pressure which we spoke of above as blood-pressure. The greatly distended arterial system is, by the elastic reaction of its elastic walls, continually tending to empty itself by overflowing through the capillaries into the venous system ; and it overflows at such a rate, that just as much blood passes from the arteries to the veins during each systole and its succeeding diastole as enters the aorta at each systole. — Foster : Physiology, ch. iv. §119. 56. In human affairs — politics, history, ethics, literature, etc. — it is far more difficult to formulate general laws. Much, indeed, that is popularly called " law " is in strict- ness no law at all, but merely the statement of a phenom- enon that occurs frequently, perhaps usually, but not in- variably. Thus, not a few of the laws of political econ- omy are nothing more than statements of general tend- encies. They operate " in the long run," but not in every single case. Therefore we cannot count upon them as we count upon the law of gravitation. E. g., men usually buy where they can buy cheapest ; but there are excep- tions ; one man may have certain prejudices or habits which lead him to one shop rather than another. The' " laws " that we read in our statute-books are not laws, but statutes, i. e., the expression of the will of the EXPOSITION. 95 people through its legislature. And, like every other ex- pression of will, they can be recalled, i. e., repealed. E. g., the Silver Bill was merely the will of Congress that so much silver should be bought every year by the Treasury. When repealed in 1893, it ceased to be the national will. Many of the so-called laws in historical writings are only hasty and untrustworthy generalizations; e. g., the following : Thierry, in liis " History of the Gauls," observes, in contrasting the Gaulish and Germanic races, that the first is characterized by the in- stinct of intelligence and mobility, and by the preponderant action of individuals ; the second, by the instinct of discipline and order, and by the preponderant action of bodies of men. — Matthew Abnold: A French Eton, p. 481. Even were the above true, it would scarcely be a law, but rather a general phenomenon. Besides, our knowledge of the Gaulish race is altogether too meagre for such sweep- ing induction. The popular belief in self-betrayal, " murder will out " (see § 69), is set forth by Webster in one of his great im- aginative efforts : Meantime the guilty soul cannot keep its own secret. It is false to itself; or rather it feels an irresistible impulse of conscience to be true to itself. It labors under its guilty possession, and knows not what to do with it. The human heart was not made for the residence of such an inhabitant. It finds itself preyed on by a torment which it dares not acknowledge to God or man. A vulture is devouring it, and it can ask no sympathy or assistance, either from heaven or earth. The secret which the murderer possesses soon comes to possess him ; and, like the evil spirits of which we read, it overcomes him, and leads him whither- soever it will. He feels it beating at his heart, rising to his throat, and demanding disclosure. He thinks the whole world sees it in his face, reads it in his eyes, and almost hears its workings in the very silence of his thoughts. It has become his master. It betrays his discretion, it breaks down his courage, it conquers his prudence. When suspicions from without begin to embarrass him, and the net of circumstances to entangle him, the fatal secret struggles with still greater violence to burst forth. It must be confessed, it will be confessed ; there is no ref- 96 A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. uge from confession but suicide, and suicide is confession. — Webster : Murder of White. The following statement of the fundamental law of civil society, although somewhat abstruse, deserves attention : If civil society be the offspring of convention, that convention must be its law. That convention must limit and modify all the dascriptions of constitution which are formed under it. Every sort of legislative, judicial, or executory power are its creatures. They can have no being in any other state of things ; and how can any man claim, under the conventions of civil society, rights which do not so much as suppose its existence ? Eights which are absolutely repugnant to it ? One of the first motives to civil society, and which becomes one of its fundamental rules, is, that no man should be judge in his own cause. By this each per- son has at once divested himself of the first fundamental right of an uncovenanted man, that is, to judge for himself, and to assert his own cause. He abdicates all right to be his own governor. He inclusively, in a great measure, abandons the right of self-defence, the first law of nature. Man cannot enjoy the rights of an uncivil and of a civil state together. That he may obtain justice, he gives up his right of deter- mining what it is in points the most essential to him. That he may secure some liberty, he makes a surrender in trust of the whole of it. — Bdkke: Reflections, p. 65. 57. General Relation. — By relation is meant here the connection between two things, the influence exerted by one upon the other. Thus, we may speak of the relation between the United States and England, and this relation we may discuss in its bearing upon politics, trade, literature, science, religion, etc. Again, we may discuss the general relation between man and wife, between parent and child ; or the relation between the citizen and the State, or between man and his Creator. The most general relation is that of cause and effect. It exists both in nature and in human society, and when demonstrated in nature it is susceptible of strict scientific exposition. E. g., Tyndall explains the blue of the atmo- sphere to be caused by the reflection of light from ex- tremely minute particles: EXPOSITION. 97 Small in mass, the vastness in point of number of the particles of our sky may be inferred from the continuity of its liglit. It is not in broken patches, nor at scattered points that the heavenly azure is revealed. To the observer on the summit of Mont Blanc the blue is as uniform and coherent as if it formed the surface of the most close-grained solid. A marble dome would not exhibit a stricter continuity. . . . Everywhere through the atmosphere those sky-particles are strewn. They fill the Alpine valleys, spreading like a delicate gauze in front of the slopes of pine. They sometimes so swathe the peaks with light as to abolish their definition. This year I have seen the Weisshorn thus dissolved in opalescent air. ty proper instruments the glare tlirown from the sky-particles against the retina may be quenched, and then the moun- tain which it obliterated starts into sudden definition. Its extinction in front of a dark mountain resembles exactly the withdrawal of a veil. It is the light then taking possession of the eye, and not the particles acting as opaque bodies, that interferes with the definition. By day this light quenches the stars ; even by moonlight it is able to exclude from vision all stars between the fifth and the eleventh magnitude. It may be likened to a noise, and the stellar radiance to a whisper drowned by the noise. — Tyndall: Fragments (vii.), p. 149. A causal relation in human affairs is less easy to ex- pound. Occasionally, but . not often, we may discern a cause without apparent effect. More commonly we are puzzled by an effect without assignable cause. Even where we plainly discern both cause and effect, we may fail to state the ratio very exactly ; e. g., there is, beyond doubt, a connection between poverty and crime, but this relation cannot be formulated as exactly as the corre- sponding relation between bad food and certain kinds of disease. For a specimen of effect without assignable cause the reader may study Webster's speech in the celebrated Ken- niston case. One Major Goodridge alleged that he had been attacked and wounded and robbed of a large sum of money while travelling at night, and charged the Ken- niston brothers and some other men with the crime. Web- ster defended successfully his clients by his sharp crossT examination of Goodridge, in whicli he involved the latter 7 I 98 A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. in many contradictions. In his speech to the jury he touched upon the absence of motive: But, on the threshold of the inquiry, every one puts the question. What motive had the prosecutor to be guilty of the abominable conduct of feigning a robbery ? It is difficult to assign motives. The jury do not know enough of his character or circumstances. Such things have happened, and may happen again. Suppose he owed money in Boston, and had it not to pay ? Who knows how high he might estimate the value of a plausible apology? Some men have also a whimsical ambi- tion of distinction. There is no end to the variety of modes in which human vanity exhibits itself. A story of this nature excites the public sympathy. It attracts general attention. It causes the name of the prosecutor to be celebrated as a man who has been attacked, and, after a, manly resistance, overcome by robbers, and who has renewed his re- sistance as soon as returning life and sensation enabled him, and, after a second conflict, has been quite subdued, beaten and bruised out of all sense and sensation, and finally left for dead on the field. It is not easy to say how far such motives, trifling and ridiculous as most men would think them, might influence the prosecutor, when connected with any expectation of favor or indulgence, if he wanted such, from his cred- itors. — Webster : Defence of Kennistons. It may be observed that had Webster been trying to con- vict Goodridge, instead of trying to acquit his clients, he would undoubtedly have failed. It will be noticed that Webster uses the word " motive." This is the correct designation of those impulses which urge a person to the doing of an act. The word " instrument " or " agency " is used to desig- nate the person or thing by means of which a result is produced. A railroad, e. g., is an instrument or means of communication. In writing upon the benefits of railroads we undertake to state the good results that come from using them. We may in like manner state the benefits of the telegraph, of the telephone, etc. 58. General Idea. — The word " idea," as here used, in- cludes not only mental impressions (ideas proper), but also mental states and qualities and powers, which cannot be strictly classified and defined. EXPOSITION. 99 E. g., memory, as a faculty of the mind, can be defined by the psychologist. But mercy is not susceptible of definition. Yet that it can be successfully expounded is evidenced by Portia's speech, Merchant of Venice, iv. sc. 1. Two definitions, loose and indirect, of eloquence have been given (§ 60). The following is Webster's weU-known indirect exposition of it : When public bodies are to be addressed on momentous occasions, when great interests are at stake, and strong passions excited, nothing is valuable in speech farther than as it is connected with high intellect- ual and moral endowments. Clearness, force, and earnestness are the qualities which produce conviction. True eloquence, indeed, does not consist in speech. It cannot be brought from far. Labor and learning may toil for it, but they will toil in vain. Words and phrases may be marshalled in every way, but they cannot compass it. It must exist in the man, in the subject, and in the occasion. Affected passion, intense expression, the pomp of declamation, all may aspire to it ; they cannoli reach it. It comes, if it comes at all, like the outbreaking of a fountain from the earth, or the bursting forth of volcanic fires, with spontaneous, original, native force. The graces taught in the schools, the costly orna- ments and studied contrivances of speech, shock and disgust men, when their own lives, and the fate of their wives, their children, and their country, hang on the decision of the hour. Then words have lost their power, rhetoric is vain, and all elaborate oratory contemptible. Even genius itself then feels rebuked and subdued, as in the presence of higher qualities. Then patriotism is eloquent ; then self-devotion is eloquent. The clear conception, outrunning the deductions of logic, the high purpose, the firm resolve, the dauntless spirit, speaking on the tongue, beaming from the eye, informing every feature, and urging the whole man onward, right onward to his object, — this, this is eloquence ; or rather, it is something greater and higher than all eloquence, — it is action, noble, sublime, godlike action. — Webstee : A&kms and Jefferson. All such definition and exposition, when examined, will be found to consist either in stating what the idea is not, or in enumerating the effects produced by an indefinable force, or in using an illustrative •parallel (analogy). By means of analogy Emerson defines the orator, saying of him that he plays upon his audience as a musician plays 100 A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. upon the keys of a piano. St. Paul expounds charity negatively : Charity suffereth long and is kind ; charity envieth not ; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth. — 1 Cor. xiii. 4. 59. Mixed Exposition. — Nearly all expository writing may be put under one or the other of the three heads, Definition, Classification, and General Statement, although the dividing-lines are not always to be sharply drawn. Occasionally we meet with a passage that seems too com- posite to be put under any one head; e. g., the passage from Darwin (§ 21). Here the author begins by sketching in the most general way a bit of animated nature. This is partly generalized description, partly the exposition of a group of phenomena. Then follow the laws which ac- count for the phenomena. At last, the moral emotions evoked by the sight of varying life under unvarying laws. The numerous experiments mentioned in works of sci- ence are, in the main, tests or arguments to prove or dis- prove certain views. Yet they are also expositions of the phenomena under examination. Furthermore, by giving each step in the experiment in chronological order they assume the form of narration. PoPULAB Exposition — The Essay. 60. Thus far Exposition has been taken in its strict sense. But the term is also used in a loose popular sense to designate Ifeat mode of writing in which the writer un- dertakes to give a summary of his views upon a matter of public interest. In this sense an exposition is practi- cally an Essay; e. g., Macaulay's essays on the Civil Dis- abilities of the Jews, on Mill, on Benthmn, on the Utilitarian Theory of Government. These essays just named are a mix- ture of exposition and argument. The essay on Lord Bncon is. in part biography, in part an exposition of Ba- EXPOSITION. 101 con's doctrines. The essay on Chatham is for the most part biographical and historical narrative and description, but with some exposition. The young reader should not let himself be confused by mere words. Thus Tyndall denominated one of his books, Fragments of Science, a " series of detached essays, lectures, and reviews." He used the word here in its original sense of a trial or attempt, and meant thereby that he was trying to give the reader a brief expository outline of the doctrines of physical science. On examination, the book is found to be scientific exposition pure and simple, but adapted to the unprofessional reader. An essay by Macaulay and one by Tyndall are thus quite different in substance ; but in form they are alike to the extent that they are both short popular attempts, rather than complete treatises. Essays of the Macaulay kind may be called, by way of distinction, literary essays. 61. The varieties of Literary Essay are too numerous and too heterogeneous for systematic treatment. Only a few of the most striking can be mentioned here. The Conversational or Personal Essay is a rambling discourse upon men and books and events. It has no principle of unity other than the individuality of the writer. If that is sufficiently important and attractive, we are glad to put ourselves under its influence. For the influence of any strong character helps to form our own character, independently of any positive knowledge we may gain by the way. The writings of Montaigne are often cited as examples of the personal essay. Many of the " Spectator '' papers are in this line ; they introduce the personality ol Addi- son or Steele, giving the writer's polite jest at the foibles and follies of society. Many ol De Quincey's writings, also, are personal essays. They acquaint us with his physical and mental traits, with his opinions, his esti- mates of his friends, and theirs of him. In fact, De Quin- ,1* 102 A HANDBOOK OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION. cey found it impossible to exclude himself wholly from anything that he wrote, even from such didactic or critical writings as those upon Rhetoric and Style. The Didactic Essay is an attempt to treat in a popular manner some question of popular interest, e. g., in finance, politics, public morals, jurisprudence, without obtruding the writer's personality. It is substantially exposition, but exposition unsystematic and suited to the comprehen- sion of the unsystematic reader. Most of the magazine and review articles of the present time are of this kind. They are necessarily sketchy, raising many questions, per- haps, but answering onlj' a few, and in general stimulating the reader's curiosity rather than satisfying his desire for knowledge. The Critical Essay is an attempt to apply the canons of art to recent productions, and to inform thereby the reader as to their merits. Much valuable literature has come to us in this shape. Thus Lessing's Hamburg Dramaturyie, which began as a series of semi-weekly criti- cisms upon the plays and actors of the Hamburg stage, soon developed into the most suggestive exposition of dramatic art in general. Matthew Arnold's papers, On Translating Homer, while they dealt nominally with the insufficiencies of certain translators, old and new, of Homer, in reality developed a theory of the literary value of Homeric poetry. But usually the critical essay, like the didactic, is too short and too unsystematic to give wholly satisfying information. CHAPTER VIII. ARGUMENTATION. 62. Argumentation is the most difficult kind of com- position. It is, in fact, too difficult for the young and im- mature. To deal with it profitably, one should be familiar with the general principles of Logic, i. e., with the Syllo- gism, the relation of Cause and Effect, Analogy, the nature of Evidence, the processes of Induction and Deduction. At least all these branches are involved in the study of the general theory of argumentation, although in actual life each profession makes especial use of one branch, so that the individual member of the profession acquires technical facility in the use of the methods peculiar to it. Thus the lawyer, as lawyer, is trained in the (Court) rules of Evi- dence, see § 70 ; his argumentation is chiefly in the line of Analogy, or of deduction from Definitions, see §§ 72, 73. The mathematician uses almost exclusively the process of Deduction from Definitions and Axioms, see § 69. The scientist uses Induction and Deduction, see § 68. In the present work nothing is attempted beyond indi- cating briefly the various classes of arguments, their re- spective values, and the uses to which they may be put. Enough is given to enable the young reader to follow a line of argumentation and estimate approximately its force and its weakness. Genbeal Features. 63. Argumentation is an attempt to prove or disprove a proposition. By proposition is meant an assertion which is or may be drawn up in the form : A. is B., e. g., " Every 10,etter to Noble 3o3 354 INDEX. {References are to Pages. Lord, 158 ; Reflections, II, 15, 16, 24, 25, g6. [Se- lect Works. Ed. by E. J. Payne. Oxford ; Claren- don Press. 1892. Reflec- tions on the Revolution in France, Ed, by F. G. Selby. London; Macmil- lan. 1890.] Burns, Highland Mary, 265; John Anderson, 265 ; To a Mouse, 266 business, letters of, 252 but, misused, 148, 175 but also, 138 Butler, Hudibras, 180 Byron, satire, 282 ; Beppo, 292 ; Cain, 300, 310 ; Childe Harold, 59; Don Juan, 292 ; Vision of Judgment, 292 cab, 166 cable, to, 165; cablegram, 165 calculated, 167 caesura, 289, 306, 307 call, 331 callosities, 133 Campbell, Battle of Baltic, 265; Pleasures of Hope, 281 ; River of Life, 290 can, may, 173 candlestick, canstick, 310 Canterbury, 332, 334 cap., for captain, 166 capitals, use of, 226 capon. 331 Carlyle, abuse of dash, 220; abuse of capitals, 228 ; use of adjectives, 145 ; On Biography, 151 ; Boswell's Johnson, 19, 60, 78, 181 182,216; Cromwell, 184; Doctor Francia, 160, Frederick, 228; Hero Worship, 185 ; Sartor Re- sartus, 76, 77 carriage, for car, 162 case-law, 120 -caster, 331 catchwords, 92 cruise and effect, 96-98; in narration, 48 certainty, in mathematics and science, 104; not at- tainable by analogy, 116 champion, to, 145 chapter-echo, 32 character-description, 67 charity, 100 Cliarlemagne romances, 269 Chatham, Lord, 40, 118, 242 Chaucer, language of, 335 ; Monk's Tale, 292 ; Pro- logue, 296 ; Troilus, 27a -Chester, 331 Chester Plays, 274 chivalry, romances of, 269 choriambus, 285, 305 Christian oratory, 315 Christianity, introduced in England, 327, 328 chronicle-history, 275 chronicle, rhyming, 280 church, denotation and con- notation of, 256, 257 church plays, 273 Cicero, 157, 183, 184, 185 circle, defined, 84 circulating medium, 117 circulation of blood, 94, iii circumlocution, 156 civil society, law of, 96 claim, to, 167 classical drama, 275 classical romances, 270 classification, 86-88 class words, 145 clauses, dislocation of, 141 ; when marked with com- ma.s, 216-218 clearness, indispensable, 126; in the sentence, 134; in oratory, 316 cleft infinitive, 171 clei^men, how addressed, 348 clerk, to, 165 Cleveland, Square Cap, 265, 313 climax, 157; its connota- tion, 259 Clough, Bothie, etc.,'304 Cnut, laws of, 331 Coleridge, view of poetry, 86,125, 263; Table Talk, 7, 16, 28, 86, 137 ; Ancient Mariner, 77, 297 ; Cha- mouni Hymn, 285 ; Trans- lation from Schiller, 304. [Specimens of the Table Talk of the late Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Lon- don ; Murray. 1835.] collective mystery, 274 colon, for marking larger sections, 209; for intro- ducing quotation, 209 colonial period of English in America, 338 combine, as noun, 166 comedy, 278 comma, use of, 138, 21 1-2 18 ; wrong use of, 225 ; facility indispensable, 224 common metre, 291 Como, Lake of, 70 comparison, 180, 188 compensation, in verse, 286 complex sentence, 154 complexion, 310 composition, in school, 193 compound sentence, 154 compound words, 165 conceptualism, 337 concession, marked by com- ma, 217 conciseness, of independent paragraph, 28 ; in sen- tence, 155, 200 ; in ora- tory, 316 conclusion, paragraphs of, 36-41, 201 ; in oratory, 320 conclusive presumption, 112 condition, marked by com- ma, 217 conduct, to, 162, 168 confess, 167 conjectural emendations, in brackets, 221 conjugation, in Oldest Eng- lish, 330 connectives, 16, 199 connotation, 234, 256-261 consecutive, 351 consequently, with comma, 215 continuous verse, 300 contrast, 180 conversational essay, lor conviviality, poems of, 265 co-ordination of short para- graphs, in Macaulay and Burke, 246, 247 co-ordinative clauses, mark- ed by commas, 212-214 co-ordinative relative pro- nouns, 136, 214 copper, 331 correlation, with comma, 217 ; without, 218 couplet, 289 ; Alexandrine, 303 ; long, 301 ; short, 300 ; not used in strict sonnet, 294 Coventry Plays, 274 Cowper, John Gilpin, 272 ; Loss of Royal George, 265 ; Task, 281 crave, 331 creed, 331 critical essay, 102 criticism, 86 . cross-division, 89, 109; in classifying figures of speech, 177 cross-examination, 114 curry, two words, 128, 130, 131 Cuvier, 107 dactylic foot, 284 ; hexame- ter, 303 Dane-lagh, the, 331 Danish, borrowings from, 331. 333. 342 Dante, Divine Comedy, 269, 311 Darwin, Charles, 40, 66, 90, TOO, 105, 137. [Charles Darwin on the Origin of of Species. New York; Appleton. 1873. Life and Letters of Charles Dar- win. By Francis Darwin. References are to Pa^es.\ INDEX. 355 New York ; Appleton. 1887.J Darwin, Erasmus, Botanic Garden, Zoonomia, Phy- tologia, 281 dash, 319 ; wrong use, 220, 225 date, of letter, 343, 344 ; of note, 349, 350 deacon, 331 debate, 322, 325 declension, in Oldest Eng- lish, 330 deduction, 107, no, 123 deed, to, 165 defer, two words, 131 definition, 84, 85; indirect, 86; in law, 118 ; in de- bate, 325 De Foe, Robinson Crusoe, 15, 74, 221, 228. [Reprint of first ed., 1719, by Aus- tin Dobson. London; Stock. 1883. Spelling and punctuation modernized in this Handbook, except p. 228.] deliberative oratory, 315 demean, 130 demonstration, 104 demonstrative oratory, 315 denotation, 255; learned through reading, 234 De Quincey, 13; Autobiog- raphy, 34, 341 ; Confes- sions, 6,12, 31, 74, 137; Joan of Arc, 214, 223; Mail Coach, 56, 70; Re- volt of Tartars, 244-246; Samuel Parr, 229 ; Words- worth's Poetry, 17. [Col- lected Writings. Ed. by David Masson. Edin- burgh; Black. 1889.] description, seech, vi. ; ex- pository, 93 ; mixed with narration, 58 ; sequence in paragraph, 9, 36 ; sub- ject-sentence, 20 ; school exercises in, 235-241, 250 detached expressions, with comma, 215 determinism, 337 De Vere, Legends, 271 diagram, in description, 69 dialects in English, 161, 328, 333, diastole; 133, 337 Dickens, abuse of dash, 220 ; Landor's dedication to, 28 ; David Copperfield, 59, 71, 160,220; Old Curi- osity Shop, 50; Tale of Two Cities, 43, 260 diction, in England and in America, 162, 338 dictionary, use of, 128 didactic essay, 102 didactic poetry, 280, 281 Dies Irse, 266 diff., for difference, 166 differential, 337 digression, 51 dilemma, 121 dinner, 257 direct question, with inter- rogation-sign, 206 direct quotation, in " ", 222 dish, 331 dislocation of clauses, 141 division, 88; cross, 89 doc, for doctor, 166, 348 doctor of medicine, how ad- dressed, 348 don't, 166 double rhyme, 297 doubt, as figure of speech, 185, 259. 321 drama, 62,279; history of, in England, 273-277 drinking song, 265, 313 Dryden, Absalom and Achi- tophel, 282 ; Alexander's Feast, 266 ; All for Love, 305 ; Don Sebastian, 305 ; Dramatic Poesy, 191 Dryden-Pope era, 337 dude, 257 duel, to, 165 Durham, 332, 334 dynamic description, 73 earnestness, in oratory, 317 ecclesiastical romances, 270 echo, rhetorical, within paragraph, 14 ; from para- graph to paragraph, 31 ; chapter to chapter, 32 echo, among mountains, 90 Eclogues, see Virgil editorial, 166 eight-line stanza, 292 either... or, position, 140 ejaculation, with mark of exclamation, 207 eke, 163 electrocide, electrocute, 164 elegiac metre, 304 elegy, 267 elevator, lift, 162 Elizabeth, Queen, 68 Elizabethan period, 276, 336 ellipsis, with comma, 211 Ellis, A. J., Quantitative Pronunciation of Latin, 28s eloquence, 85, 86, 99 Emerson, O. F., History of English Language, 326 Emerson, R. W., 86 empiric fact, no, iir empty (itself), 168 end of sentence, to be made conspicuous, 199 end-stopt verse, 308 engine-driver, engineer, 162 enjambement, 302 enthuse, 164 envelope-address, 252, 346 eocene, 337 epic poetry, 267 episode, 53 epithet, 79 esprit, 160 Esq., or Mr., 348 essay, in literature and sci- ence, 100-102 ■ in school, 193 ethyl, 337 eulogy, 315 euphony, 173 exaggeration, 179 exam., 166 example, argument from, 109, 116, 120 exclamation, sign of, 207 exordium, in oratory, 319 expect, suspect, 131 experiment, as scientific , process, 100, no expert testimony, 115 exposition, see ch. vii ; in fiction, 64 ; sequence in exposition, 10, 36 ; sub- ject- (topic-) sentence, 22 ; use of capitals, 227; school exercises in, 246-250 expression, style, 125 extra syllables, in verse, 284, 307, 308, 311 fable, 187; example of, 28 fall, to, 330 fallacy, 124, 214 false analogy, 117 farce, 279 faults, in school composi- tions, 197, 190, 200 favor, to resemble, 167 feminine rhyme, 296, 297 fiance, x68 fiction, 63, 263 figurative language, 177 ; criteria, 189; uses, 188 finally, with comma, 215 fine, 145 ; see also, in fine first draught, in composi- tion, igS firstly, 166 fix, 167 folk-epic, 267 font, 331 foot, in verse, 283, 285 foramen, 133 force, indispensable, 126 ; relative, not absolute, 143 foreign words, 168 forensic oratory, 315 form, 145 formulating subject, of com- position, 194 ; of para- graph, 13, 197 Foster, M., 94. [A Text- Book of Physiology. Fifth ed.. Part I. London ; Macmillan. 1888.] 356 INDEX. [References are to Pages. Francis, Sir Philip, Jo6, 124 fraud, 144 French drama in England, 276 French words in English, 168, 169, 334, 337 friendship, letters of, 253, 345. 346 friendship, poems of, 265 furthermore, 163 Gaelic language, 326 gamin, 168 GauHsh race, 95 gemiith, 169 general idea, gS ; law, 93- 96 ; phenomenon, 89-93 '• relation, g6 ; general to particular, 109, 121 generalized description, 80 ; narration, 59 gentleman, 257 gents, 166 Genung, J. F., Practical Elements of Rhetoric, 73, 148, 159, 160, 163; Out- lines of Rhetoric, 153, 352 George Eliot, faulty para- graph-structure, 238 ; ex- ercises from, 239 ; Daniel Deronda, 48, 51 ; Janet's Repentance, 40, 77, 137; Mr. Gilfil, 48, 75 ; Mid- dlemarch, 51, 158; Silas Marner, 33, 239, 360 Georgics, see Virgil. German, relations to Eng- lish, 329 ; race, 95 Gibbon, 47. [Memoirs of Edward Gibbon, written by Himself. London ; Routledge, 1891.] gigantic, 144 Goethe, Herm, & Dor., 73, 304 Goldsmith, 28, 174 Gorboduc, 304 Gordon, Lord, 114, 119 Gosse, 303 gotten, 163 Gower, 334 go without saying, 168 gravitation, 93, 94 Gray, Bard, 266 ; Elegy, 214,267, 290; Progress of Poesy, 266 GreekjScientific terms from, 337» 341 Green, J. R., 67. [A Short History of the English People. New York; Har- per. 1876.] grippe, 168 Gudrida's Prophecy, 293 Gummere, Ballads, 272 hack, 166 hagiology, 337 Halleck, 266 Hamerton, 37, 169 haply, 163 Harper and Burgess, 154 Hawthorne, echo in, 14; sub- ject-sentence, 19 ; House of Seven Gables, 14, 19, 20, 32, 33, 39, 43, 46, 50, 63, 68, 72, 75, 76, 78, 93, ^37, 179 '• Marble Faun, , 71. 77, 78, 83, 179 heading of letter, 343 heart -beats, 133 hearth, 259 Heber, 284 Henry, Patrick, 157 heptameter, 288 Herod, in old plays, 273 heroic verse, 301 Herrick, 265 hexameter, 303 Heywood, John, 275 Hill, A. S., Foundations of Rhetoric, 14, 159, 175, 352 ; Principles of, 157, 190 Hill, D. J., Elements of Rhetoric, 201 him, his, ambiguous, 135 hint, 259, 260 historical evidence, 106, 115 historical present, 159, 183, historical romance, 271 history, 60, 115, 116 Hood, 297 horrid, 145 horse, 84 hovering accent, 305 however, with comma, 215 ; without, 216 bring. An. Saxon, 330 Hugo, Victor, 53, 69 husband, 331 hustings, 331 Huxley, 39, 84, 87, 107, III, [Lay Sermons and Ad- dresses. New York; Ap- pleton. 1874.] hydrogen, 337 hymns, 266, 291 hyperbole, 179 iambic foot, 284, 285 ; hex- ameter, 303 ; pentameter, 301 ; tetrameter, 300 idea, general, 98 ideal, in poetry, 262 identical rhyme, 296 idyll, 270, 271, 272 if, construction with, 141 ; with comma, 217 ignominy, ignomy, 310 Iliad, 53, 73, 76, 267 illy, 166 imperfect rhymes, 297 in a word, in brief, with i comma, 215 , incarnation, 332 I indeed, with comma, 215 indenting, 4 Indian character, 22 indirect definition, 86 indirect exposition, 11, 86, indirect question, without sign of interrogation, 206 indirect quotation, 223 induction, 107, no in fact, in fine, with comma, . ^^5 . infinitive, without comma, 218 ; cleft infinitive, 171 -ing, too much used, 175 In Memoriam stanza, 291 innocence, inn'cence, 310 innuendo, 260 in order that, to, 218 in reality, in short, with comma, 215 instrument, 98 integral, 337 intercalated narrative, 54 interest, in narration, 45 interlude, 275 intermediate expressions, with comma, 215 interrogation, as figure of speech, 186, 259 interrogation, sign of, 206 interruption, marked by dash, 219 interview, to, 165 introduction, paragraphs of 36-39, 201 ; in oratory, 319 in truth, how punctuated, 215, 216 inverted sentence, 151 invitations, formal, 349 invite, noun, 166 irony, 180, 185, 259 irregular rhythms, 312 Irving, connectives, 16; echo, 14 ; repeated struc- ture ,17 ; subject- sentence, 20 ; Angler, 237 ; Christ- mas Eve, 21, 202 ; Indian Character, 23 ; John Bull, 93; L'Envoy, 16; Philip of Pokanoket, 21 ; Rip Van Winkle, 236 ; Sleepy Hollow, 21, 22, 236 : Spec- tre Bridegroom, 38 ; Stage Coach, 14, 20, 202 ; Sun- day in London, 17 island, isle, 127 isometric song, 293 it, use and misuse, 135, 136 Italian drama, 276; sonnet, 294 italics, 222, 228 items of composition, 13, 196 Job, 185, 186 John the Evangelist, 216 John Bull, 93 Johnson, Samuel, Irene, References are to Pages.^ INDEX. 357 305; parody of ballad, 46 ; reply to Chesterfield, 150; portrayed by Ma- caulay, 7 ; by Carlyle, 182 ; his life, 241 ; Vanity of Human Wishes, 154 Jonson, Ben, To Celia, 265 jotting down items, 13, 196 judicial oratory, 315 Junius, 105, 106, 124 Kalevala, the, 267 Keats, Human Seasons, 297 ; Sleep and Poetry, 302 Keltic languages, 326 Kentish dialect, 332 King and Miller, 312 kingly, 258 Kingsley, Chas., Androm- eda, 304; Three Fishers, 272 Kipling, 42. [John Lock- wood Kipling, Beast and Man in India. London; Macmillan. 1891.] Klopstock, Messiah, 268 knife, 331 lady, 258 lady, how addressed, 344, 348 ; signature of, 345, 346 Lafayette, 78, 240 Lamb, Old Familiar Faces, 265 Landor, 28. [Selections from Writings of Walter Sav- age Landor. By Sidney Colvin. London; Macmil- lan. 1882.] Langland, Piers Plowman, 268 language, imperfect, 255 Latin, in England, 327; in English, 331,335, 337,341 laundress, 259 law, in science, 93 ; in hu- man affairs, 94 law-trials, 108; argumenta- tion, 118 lay, for bet, 162 Layard, G. S., 80 leader, editorial, 166 learned, 145 leave, let, 167 legislation, 108 legislative oratory, 315 Lessing, Laocoon, 69 ; Dra- maturgie, 102 let, two words, 132 ; let, leave, 167 letters, 251-254, 343-350 liable, 130 liberty and equality, Z12 lift, elevator, 162 light endings in blank verse, 308 Lincoln, Gettysburg ad- dress, Z12 line, in poetry, 386-289 link-paragraph, 32-35, 203, 243. 247, 249 literary argument, 106, 115 literary men in eighteenth century, 91 literature, forms of, 2 ; terms of, vague, 85, 256 little-brained, 128 lobster, 87, 331 Loch Katrine, 72 London English, 162, 334, 339 long couplet, 301 Longfellow, Blind Bartime- us, 296 ; Daybreak, 289 ; Evangeline, 271, 304 ; Golden Legend, 274 ; Hia- watha, 268, 284, 301 ; King Olaf, 296; Miles Stand- ish, 304 ; Old Danish Song Book, 293; Old Clock on Stairs, 288; Tegner's Drapa, 293 ; Vil- lage Blacksmith, 289 ; Wreck of Hesperus, 272 long metre, 291 loose definition, 86 loose sentence, 152 Lounsbury, T. R., History of English Language, 326 love, conjugation, 330 love, poems of, 265 lovely, 145 Lowell, 18. [Among my Books. Boston ; Fields, Osgood & Co. 1870.] Big- low Papers, 282 ; Com- memoration Ode, 266, Voyage to Vinland, 293 -ly, too much used, 175 lyric poetr>', 264 Macaulay, his essays in general, 100 ; exaggera- tion, 91 ; paragraph- length, 35, 242,246; para- graph-sequence broken, 15 ; paragraphs of conclu- sion, 40, of introduction, 37; Boswell's Johnson, 7, gi, 137, 153, 210; Chat- ham, 34, 40, 137, 214,242- 244; Comic Dramatists, 149, 151, 186 ; Life of Johnson, 241 ; Warren Hastings, 9, 10, 15, 47, 106, 137 macrencephaloiis, 128 mad, for angry, 167 Magnificence, old play, 188 Mahabharata, 267 mammae, 133 ; mammalia, 84. mansion, 144 Marlowe, Passionate Shep- herd, 265 ; Tamburlaine, 304 masculine rhyme, 296 mass, 331 materialize, to, 167 may, can, 173 maxim, X12 medicine, medcine, 310 memorial verses, 280 Mercian dialect, 328, 332 metals, for rails, 162 metaphor, 78, 181, 189 methyl, 337 metonymy, 177, 178 micrencephalous, 128 middle rhyme, 297 Midland dialect, 328, 334 milt, 331 Milton, Allegro, 135 ; Christ's Nativity, 266 ; Lycidas, 267, 272 ; Par. Lost, 179, 222, 268, 305, 306,307; Par. Reg., 268, 305 ; Penseroso, 181, 301 ; Samson, 276, 305 ; Sonnet on Blindness, 958, 295; Tractate, 228 minor, a, 85 minster, 331 miracle play, 274 misrelated participle, 140 mixed description and nar- ration, 58; mixed exposi- tion, 100 mixed figures, 190 mixed questions, 318 mob, 166 mock epic, 269 Modern English, 328, 334, 336, 338, 340 modifiers, 138 money, 132 monk, 331 Moore, Light of Other Days, 265 moral, in story, 45 morality play, 188, 274 moreover, with comma, 215 mortal, two senses, 128 motive, 98 Moulton, R. G., 209, 213, 218,226,229, 280. [Shake- speare as a Dramatic Ar- tist. 3d ed. Oxford ; Clar- endon Press. 1893.] Mr., or Esq., 348 muchly, 166 murder will out, 95, 112 mystery play, 274 Nairn. Lady, Land o' the Leal, 265 namely, with comma, 215 narration, see ch. v.; se- quence in paragraph, 9 ; sequence of paragraphs, 36; subject-sentence, 20; exercises in, 235-241, 251 narrative poetry, 267 national, in speech, 161 Nativity, the, in Longfel- low's Golden Legend, 274 358 INDEX. [^References are to Pages. nature, poems of, 266 nee, 168 negative, in debate, 322 nemesis, in drama, 278 neologisms, 163-165 Neptune, discovery of, 107 nervous, various senses, 128 Nibelungen Lied, 267 nice, 143, 144 nicknames, without period, 208 no, with comma, 216 Noah, in church plays, 273 no doubt, with comma, 215 Norman Conquest, 333 Northumbrian dialect, 328, 332 not only....but also, 138 novel, the, 63, 263 nun, 331 O, and oh, 208 observance, observation, 131 occupy, 144 octameter, 288 octave, in sonnet, 294 octosyllabic verse, 300 ode, kinds of, 266 Odyssey, 48, 267 of course, with comma, 215 offer, 331 Oldest English, 328-331 omission, marked by com- ma, 211 ; by dash, 220 omission of syllable in verse, z86, 307 one, as pronoun, 170 only, not only, 138 orator, personality of, 317 Ormulum, 333 ottava rima, 292 Olway, Venice Pres., 305 overlapping narrative, 49 overlook, two senses, 132 oviposit, 337 oxygen, 337 oxymoron, 187 pail, 162 pairs of words or phrases, with comma, 212 palatial, 144 pah, 331 palm, 331 panegyric, 315 pants, 166 parable, 187 paragraph, see chapters ii.~ iv. ; echo, 199 ; in liurke, 248, in De Quincey, 245, in Macaulay, 244, in Web- ster, 249; items, in com- posing, 13, T96 ; length, in Burke, 247, in De Quin- cey, 245, in Macaulay, 35, 37, 242, 246, in Webster, 249 paraphrasing, 2 parenthesis, 220 Parker, William Kitchen, 1S2. [A Biographical Sketch, by his son, T. J. Parker. London; Mac- millan. 1893.] participle misrelated, 140 particular, general, 109, 121 partition, 88 pastoral poetry, 271 ; drama, threnody, 272 patriotism, poems of, 265 Paul, St., personality, 6; exposition of charity, 100; Ep. to Cor., 206 pause, in verse, 286 pea, 331 pear, 331 peer, 167 pentameter, 284, 301, 304 people, 156 pepper, 331 peradventure, 163 perchance, 163 perforation, 133 perhaps, with comma, 215 period, after completed sen- tence, 208; after abbrevi- ations, 2o3 ; facility in use of, 224 periodic sentence, style, 151 peroration, 319 personal element, in descrip- tion, 72; in oratory, 317 personal essay, loi personification, 78, 182 persons, 156 persuasion, 314, 317, 322 Peterborough, 334 Petrarchian sonnet, 294 phenomenon, general, 90-92 photo, 166 phrases, useless, 200 piecemeal, 165 Piers Plowman, 268 pillow, 331 pitching, 133 placental embryo, 133 Plautus, 275 pleinairiste, 169 plenty, as adverb, 167 pleonasm, 155 pliocene, 337 poetry, see ch. xvi. ; dif- ferent expression from prose, 86, 125 , not defin- able, 85 politics, argument in, 116 Pollard, A. W., English Miracle Plays, 274 ponderous, 259 Pope, use of ' nice,' 143; satire, 282; Epistle to Arbuthnot, 302; Essay on Man, 281; Rape of Lock, 269; Universal Prayer, 266 popular exposition, 190 position of words, fur force, 150, 199 postal cards, 252 ; post- card, 166 powerful, 143, 162 precision, 133, 134 predicate, to, 164 prelim,, 166 premier, 153 present use in language, 163 presumption, 112, 323 probability, 106, 108, 116 procession, 332 prof., 166, 348 professor, how addressed, 348 pronoun, ambiguity, 13s, 238 pronunciation, in Chaucer, 335; in Elizabethan drama, 310 ; in America and in England, 338 proof, in general, 104 proper names, denote, 255; connote, 257 proportion, in paragraph, 12 ; in composition, 197 proposition, 103, 112; place in paragraph, 23-25 ; in debate, 323 propriety, indispensable, 126; general nature, 161 prose, defined by Swift and Coleridge, 86; forms of, 2; different expression from poetry, 125 prosopopeia, 185 prove, to, 104 Proverbs, zo8, 209, 211 provincialisms, 162 prudence, in letters, 254 Psalms, 207 Punch dinner, 80 qualify oneself, 168 quatrain, 290, 294 question, how punctuated, 206; not suited for de- bate, 324 Quintilian, 134 quire, for choir, 301 quotation, 222-224; with comma, 217; with colon, 209 radiant heat, light, 105 railway, 162 Ramayana, 267, 268 reading, see ch. xv; also, 129 real, the, in poetry, 262 real comparison, 181 real life, romances of, 271 recipient of letter, 343-345 recitation, no test of writing ability, 233 recount, as used here, 235 reductio ad absurdum, 122 redundancy, 155, 199, 200 reference, points of, 70 referee, to, 165 References are to Pages.'\ INDEX. 359 reflection of sound, 90 Reformation, 274, 276, 336 refrain, 288 regrets, hdw worded, 349 related paragraphs, 4 relate, as used here, 235 relation, general, 96 relic, relict, 131 religion, poems of, 265 repeated structure, 17, 176, 199 reputable words, 163 resemblance, inference from, 116 reserve force, in orator, 317 residence, in letter, 343 restrictive clause, not with comma, 212-214; pro- noun, 136 retarded movement, 54, 241 reverend, reverent, 131 reverting narrative, 48 revision of writing, 199 rhyme, 296; chronicle, 280 rhythmical lines, 312 rime riche, 296 Rogers, A Wish, 290; Plea- sures of Memory, 281 romance, poems of, 269 Romance element in Eng- lish, 333 Romans in Britain, 327 round, 133 round bracket, 220 running over in verse, 302 run-on verse, 308 Ruskin, 38, 44, 84. [Prae- terita. 2d ed. New York ; Wiley. t888. Seven Lamps of Architecture. New York; Wiley. 1884.J Ruwenzori, 67 s, harsh combinations, 17^ sachem, i6q Sackville - Norton, Gorbo- duc, 304 saints, lives of, 271, 274 satire, 282 science, terms of, 255, 337 ; argumentation in, 105 ; not suited to oratory, 318 Scott and Denney, Para- graph-Writing, 209, 245, 351 Scott, Walter, Abbot, €6; Lady of Lake, 53, 55, 72, 75j 265, 271 ; Marmion, 53, 180, 271 sculp, to, 165 sectional rhyme, 297 selection, in paragraph, 11 self-betrayal, 95 ■ self-correction, 134, ^99> ^0° semicolon, 210, 224 Seneca, 27s sentence, 130, 150, 154, 173 septenary, 288 sequence, called " consec- utive" by Bain, 351; in narration, 46; in para- graph, 9,13; in para- graphs, 36 ; Burke, 247 ; De Quincey, 13, 245 ; Ma- caulay, 15,242; Webster, 249 sestet, in sonnet, 294 Shakespeare, All s Well, 287; As You Like, 63, 278; Comedy Errors, 309 ; Coriolanus, 307; Cymbe- Une, 157 ; Hamlet, 63, 206, 207,224; Henry IV., 278 ; Henry V. , 189 ; Julius Caesar, 186, 240, 342 ; Lear, 278, 279; Love's Labour, 187; Macbeth, 186, 240, 278, 30G, 307, 342 ; Mer. Venice, 55, 63, 189, 240, 27B, 279, 307, 308; Measure, 8; Merry Wives, 27B; Midsummer, 278 ; Othello, 262, 265, 278 ; Richard HL, 181, 278 ; Romeo, 187 ; Sonnets, 182, 258, 295 ; Taming Shrew, 278, 308; Tem- pest, 228, 276, 278, 307, 308, 300; Troilus, 270; Wint. Tale, 278, 308, 309 shall, will, 171 shan't, 166 Shelley, 70. [Select Let- ters. Ed. by Richard Garnett. New York ; Ap- pleton. 1883.] Adonais, 267; Alastor, 308; Cloud, 266; Euganean Hills, 298 ; To , 290 ; To Skylark, 266 shifting consonants, 330 shifting point oi view, 71 shop, i6z short couplet, 300 short metre, 291 should, would, 172 shrive, 331 shunt, to, 162 Sidney, advocate of Uni- ties, 276; Defence of Po- esy, 122, 228 sign, argument, 109, 113 signature to letter, 345 simile, 78, 180, 188 simple sentence, 154 simplicity, in oration, 316 sing, 330 single rhyme, 296 single-sentence paragraph, 4, 243. 247 Skeai, Etymology, 326 sketch, 76 slang, f64-i67, 234 slavery, among ants, 90 smack, to, 259 so, 147 some, for somewhat, 167 sonnet, 266, 294 sort of a, those sort of, 170 sound, reflection of, 90 sovereign, 258 speculative, speclative, 310 spend, 331 Spenser, Faery Queen, 268, 289,293; Shepherd's Cal- endar, 272, 312 Spenserian stanza, 292 spherical, 133 spirit, sprite, 310 spondee, 285 square brackets, 221 stability, in expression, 152, 199, 238 standard speech, 162, 332, 334, 338 Stanley, 45, 67. [In Dark- est Africa. New York ; Scribner. 1890.] stanza, 289-293 stare decisis, 120 state, the, leaving things alone, 92 state names, 347 statute, 94 stay, stop, 131 Stedman, Victorian Poets, 291, 293 stoker, i6z stop, stay, 131 striding, in verse, 302 striking places in sentence, 199 strong rhyme, 296 stupendous, 144 style, 86, 125, 145 subject of composition, for- mulated, 194 subject-sentence, 18-25, i97« 109; in Burke, 248; in De Quincey, 245 ; George Eliot, 239 ; Macaulay, 244; Webster, 249 sublime, 144 succotash, 169", such, 146 suggestion, 77, 255 suicide, to, 165 summing-up, with dash, 219 suspect, expect, 131 sustained effect, 158 swell, 145 Swift, 31, 33, 53. 86, 135. [Gulliver's Travels. Ed. for Schools. Boston ; Ginn. 1886] Swinburne, Tristram, 270 syllogi.sm, 121, 123, 213 synecdoche, 177, 178, 214 systole, 133, 337 Tait, P. G., 88, 94, 105. [Lectures on Some Recent Advances in Physical Sci- ence. 2d. ed. London ; Macmillan. 1876. Prop- erties of Matter. Edin- burgh; Black. 1885.] 360 INDEX. ^References are to Pages. take, 331 tautology, 154, 200 taxation without consent, 118 telegram, to telegraph, 165 temple, 331 Tennyson, Idylls of King, in general, 270; genuine idylls, 272; isometricsong, 293 ; Audley Court, 272, 203; Break, Break, 287; Brook, 297, 305,307; Dora, 272; Edwin Morris, 272; Enoch Arden, 271 ; Gar- dener's Daughter, 272; Harold, 174; In Memo- riam, 208, 262, 267, 284, 286, 291, 300 ; Lady of Sha- lott, 296; Lancelot, 187, 306; Locksley Hall, 28B, 289; Merman, 288; Mil- ler's Daughter, 272; Morte d' Arthur, 305; Oriana, 288 ; Passing of Arthur, 306; Princess, 241, 265, 284, 293, 307 ; Queen Mary, 68 ; St. Simeon Stylites,27i ; Two Voices, 290 ; Walking to Mail, 272; When, 288 Terence, 275 terms, 85, 122, 325 terrestrial energy, 83 terza rima, 310 testimony, 113-115, 318 tetrameter, 284, 300 text-book, use of, 232 Thackeray, Pendennis, 329 than, 139 that, clause with, not mark- ed by comma, 218 ; archa- ic use by Irving, 238 that, who, which, 136 thee, thine, thou, 163 them, they, misused for singular, 170 then, with comma, 215; without, 216 Theocritus, 271 theory, 7, 132 therefore, with comma, 215 there is, are, 155 these, ambiguous, 135 Thomson, Seasons 281, 305 threnody, 267 throwing, 133 thiisly, 166 title of composition, 203, 238 to, in addition to, 306 to be briefj sure, marked by comma, 215 too, with comma, 215 ; with- out, 216 topic-sentence, see subject- totem, i6g Towneley Plays, 273, 274 tragedy, 277 tragic, 144 transpire, 130 transposition, marked by comma, 215, 216; by dash, 219 treason, 119 tremendous, 144 trimeter, 290 trinitarian, 337 trinity, 332 triplet, 289 trisyllabic rhyme, 297 trochaic foot, 284 troglodyte, 337 trouble, to, oneself, i68 trout, 331 tumbling verse, 312 Tupper, Proverbial Phil- osophy, 281 Tyndall, John, 90, 97. [Sound. London ; Long- man. 1867. Fragments of Science. New York ; Appleton. 1875.] umpire, to, 165 unaccented syllables in foot, 284, 307 unitarian, 337 ; unity, 332 Unities, the, 275, 279 unity of composition, 194, 195, 197 ; of oration, 316 ; of paragraph, 5-9 ; in De Quincey, 13, 245 ; Ma- caulay, 242 ; Webster, 249; unity of sentence- structure, 152 variety, in paragraph, 12 verbs, from nouns, 165 verse, 283 very, 146 Villa Borghese, 78 villegiatura, 168 Virgil, jEneid, 48, 53, 267, 268 ; Eclogues, 271 ; Geor- gics, 280 vision, 183, 188, 969, 300 vocabtilary, 8g, 128, 234, 341 vocative, with comma, 208 ; with exclamation, 207 vocative expressions, with comma, 217 vulgarisms, 165, 234, 339 wampum, 169 Warren, 184 weak endings, in verse. 308 weak rhyme, 296 wear, to, 163 Webster, 38, 78, 95, 98, 99, 158, 183, 184, 248-250, 315, 318-322. [Select Speeches. Ed. by A. J. George. Boston; Heath. 1893] well, with and without com- ma, 216 Welsh language, 326 Wendell, Eng. Composition, 191, igg, 201, 255, 259, 351 West Saxon, 328, 332 whether, whe'er, 310 which, ambiguous, 135 which, that, 136 Whittier, Maud MuUer, 273 who, that, 136 why, how punctuated, 216 will, shall, 171 Williams, Composition and Rhetoric, 201 Winchester, 332,334 wire, to, 165 witness, a, 113, 115 Wolfe, Sir John Moore, 265 woman, 258 won't, 166 Worcester, 332, 334 word-breaking, 230 Wordsworth, Brougham Castle, 59, 182 ; Daffo- dils, 266; Excursion, 281 ; Fountain, 296; Glen Al- main, 297; Intimations of Immortality, 267; Sky- lark, 266 ; Tintern Abbey, 281, 305 working plan, for composi- tion, iq6 ; for letters, 253 would, should, 172 writing, most general feat- ures of, 232-235 wrong, 331 yes, with comma, 216 York, 332, 334 York Plays, 274 you know, with comma, 215 Young, Night Thoughts, 190, 281, 305 THE END. MODEL TEXT-BOOKS, Brooks' Elocution and Reading. Chase Sp Stuart's Classical Series. Crittenden Commercial Arithmetic. Edward's Hand-Booh of Mythology. Gregory's Practical Logic. Gregory's Christian Ethics. Groeshech's Practical Bookkeeping. Hart's English Composition. Mills' Physiology and Hygiene. Smyth's American Literature. Thorpe's Civil Government. Trimble's Hand-Book of Literature. Trimble's Short Course in Literature. Webb's Word Analysis. Westlake's SOOO Practice Words. Wilson's Elementary Algebra. American Literature. A Text-Book for Schools, Academies, and Colleges. BY ALBERT H. SMYTH, A.B., Of Johns Hopkins University ; Peofessor of Literature IN THE Philadelphia Central High School. There lias been for years past a growiug demand for a text-book on American Literature, comprehensive in its scope, yet sufficiently concise to be completed in one term. Such a text-book is here presented. »o»=;o« Houston's New Pfiysicai Geography is more generally used in the Private Schools, High Schools, Academies, Seminaries, and Normal Schools throughout the country at large than any other text- book on the subject. The work has been thoroughly and carefully re- vised, to accord with the latest teachings of science. An entirely new and beautiful series of maps is pre- sented, which for teaching purposes are unequalled by anything of the kind heretofore published. A large number of new and original illustrations have been introduced. The New Edition contains ISO pages. The Fron- tispiece presents a handsomely colored full- page plate of Niagara Falls. For information relative to these, or any of onr publications, please address Eldredge & Bro., PHILADELPHIA, PA.