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 following 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 next he had slipped through a hole in the wall.— BERRY BENSON: Century Mag., 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 register 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 following, 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

fond of high life will turn with disdain from the simplicity of his country 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 futurity.—GOLDSMITH: Advertisement 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 literature, 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 paragraphs would usually be of an expository nature, although opportunities for narration and description would be frequent 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

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lish composition. Being short, it can be written in twenty to thirty minutes. Therefore it may be required very frequently, almost daily. And since every paragraph embodies 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 piecemeal, 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 impossible to have an equivalent guarantee in the case of compositions 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 paragraph. This belief rests upon two grounds: first, that the essentials of composition can be learned through the paragraph, 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 paragraphs, 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 comprehensive 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 sentence of the paragraph echo the thought, and sometimes even the wording, of the conclusion of the preceding paragraph; 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 paragraph 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!

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: Gulliver (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 Clifford, but not so

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.-HAWTHORNE: 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 chapterecho. 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 connection," 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 and solemnity 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 mysterious death, is to be a prominent feature in the sequel.

At other times the link-paragraph recalls us to the pre