into the form of a single-sentence paragraph. Thus, Matthew 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 ARNOLD: Translation of Homer, p. 302.

The manner is French rather than English. It is permissible 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 introduced 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:

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 himself; 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 Roman 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 acquittal without calling a single witness in his favor; by the same power he so affects 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 harbor 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 exhaustion 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 reading. The passage is a mixture of narrative and description; 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 QUINCEY (Confessions), iii. 297.

The following, upon an abstruse subject, will not, perhaps, be too difficult 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, &ɛwpía, 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, therefore, only helps investigation; it cannot invent or discover. The only true theories are those of geometry, because in geometry all the premisses are true and unalterable. But to suppose that, in our present exceedingly imperfect acquaintance with the facts, any theory in chemistry 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 influence of some strange scruple or some domineering passion which prevented him from boldly and fairly investigating a subject, he was a wary and acute reasoner, a little too much inclined to scepticism, and a little too fond of paradox. 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 dwarfish 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 fisherman 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 dimensions of his small prison, and lie there the helpless slave of the charm of Solomon.-MACAULAY: Boswell's Johnson.

The ending of the paragraph is noteworthy; it is a simile which, to those who know the story of the fisherman and the bottle, illustrates most forcibly the extremes of Johnson's greatness and littleness, stated in the introductory 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 Rome, the pope offered a considerable 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 discovery 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

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 subject 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 Macaulay 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