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

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

The animus of innuendo is illustrated in the following: "The editor is clearly no witch at a riddle," 2 where it is playfully intimated that he is surprisingly stupid.—“I made up my mind that ambulances, viewed as vehicles for driving distinguished ladies to military reviews, were not a stupendous success, and that thereafter they had better be confined to their legitimate uses of transporting the wounded and attending funerals.” 3 In this last example the innuendo is a little overdone; it lacks fineness.

1 MACAULAY, Essay on Milton.

2 CARLYLE, Essay on Boswell's Johnson.
8 PORTER, Campaigning with Grant.

CHAPTER V.

PROSE DICTION-STANDARD AND OCCASIONAL.

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

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

Definition of Prose. -It is important to have as startingpoint a just idea of what is most central and character-giving in prose, and this is well furnished by the various terms that in time past have been used to designate it.

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

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

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

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

1 In MOLIÈRE's Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme.

I. STANDARD PROSE DICTION.

Prose diction covers too vast and complicated a field, and depends on too great a number of relative considerations, to reduce itself easily, as does poetic diction, to formulated rules.1 All that can be undertaken here is to summarize the main principles that condition prose diction, as traced in the choice, arrangement, and connection of words.

I.

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

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

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

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

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

The staple of a diction governed by such practical mood will, of course, be the words of ordinary life and the recognized usage of the day. Any departure from this into a more abstruse or dignified region carries with it its sober justification.1 The hardest words to reconcile with this utilitarian vocabulary are the archaic and abbreviated forms of poetry; if in any prose they are found, it is such prose as seeks confessedly to produce poetic effects. This exception aside, inasmuch as the pedestrian movement of prose has no occasion for quaintness, and the rhythm of prose does not require abbreviation, when such terms are employed they have merely the effect of affec`tation and finery.2

NOTE. The illustration of this point may best be quoted from Professor Earle: "As a general rule sober words should be chosen in preference to those which are elevated or romantic. The young writer should not write brethren for brothers, should not call a horse a charger, or a palfrey, or a steed; should not write welkin for sky, or whilome for once, or ere for before, or vale for valley, or thrall for slave, or thraldom for slavery." 8

1 As is seen, for instance, under paragraph 11, p. 68, above.

2 See Fine Writing, p. 71, above.

8 EARLE, English Prose, p. 153.

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