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BOOK III. COMPOSITION.

LEAVING now the subject of diction, which, it will be remembered, centres mainly in words their usages, their shadings and connotations, their euphonic and rhythmic potencies we enter here upon a study of the processes involved in putting words together, the constructive forms we have in view being phrases, sentences, paragraphs. Our problems now are problems not of material but of combination; and the qualities we seek are, mainly, clearness in its aspect of perspicuity, as promoted by the mutual relations of words, and force in its aspect of emphasis, as promoted by their relative positions.

The word composition, in the coming four chapters, is employed in a somewhat restricted sense, carrying the meaning, that is, only so far as we may regard the subject-matter as already in hand, ready to be moulded into style. Beyond that, in the consideration of theme, plan, and specific literary forms, we are dealing with that larger stage of organism, that work with the discovery and ordering of material, which we call invention.

It is in composition that rhetoric shows its close relationship to grammar, and at the same time its fundamental advance beyond that science. Grammar deals with the laws of correct expression; which laws rhetoric must observe, because correctness lies necessarily at the foundation of all expression, rhetorical or other. But even in employing grammatical processes as working-tools, rhetoric imparts to them

a new quality distinctively rhetorical, the quality by which they become methods in an art, means to an end. They are viewed not for themselves, but for their adaptedness to the requirements and capacities of a reader or hearer, for their power to act on men. In discussing them, therefore, we are to approach each principle, so to say, on its operative side; to take it up not at all because it is grammar, but because there is discerned in it a touch or strain of rhetoric.

CHAPTER VIII.

PHRASEOLOGY.

RHETORICALLY, we may regard as a phrase any combination of words moving together as a unit, as one element of expression. We are not concerned with the question whether it is prepositional, participial, or infinitive. It may for our purpose be no more than a noun with its adjective; it may be as much as a sentence-member with its relative or conjunction. In other words, the present chapter deals with elements of construction considered in their internal relations, without reference to the completed product they make up as joined together; or rather, with those internal relations themselves, the organic laws according to which the unity of words grows into the larger unity of the group.

I. SYNTACTICAL ADJUSTMENTS.

Not all, nor any considerable portion, of the field of syntax need be traversed here; it will be sufficient to bring up merely some points wherein the grammatical principle receives a special significance or modification from the rhetorical point of view.

That a verb should agree

Concord of Subject and Verb. in number with its subject, and a pronoun with its antecedent, is a strict grammatical law; rhetorically, however, the question sometimes rises what is the number of the subject or antecedent, a question to be answered by the logical sense.

1. The most prevalent error in concord, probably, is owing

to haste; the verb is made to agree with the nearest noun, which, it may be, has stolen in between the subject and the verb and attracted the latter to its own number.

"The enormous ex

EXAMPLES. -I. Of verb attracted to nearest noun. pense of governments have provoked men to think, by making them feel "; "This large homestead, including a large barn and beautiful garden, are to be sold next month."

2. Of subject obscured by intervening matter. "But these Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, written as simply and straightforwardly as his battles were fought, couched in the most unpretentious phrase, with never a touch of grandiosity or attitudinizing, familiar, homely, even common in style, is a great piece of literature, because great literature is nothing more nor less than the clear expression of minds that have something great in them, whether religion, or beauty, or deep experience."

If this be defended on the ground that the title of a book, though plural in form, takes a singular verb, it may be answered that the author (Howells) has made the subject plural by the word these.

2. As the word and adds two or more singular subjects together, a plural verb is by rule required. Logically, however, these subjects may sometimes be merely synonyms for the same thing; sometimes they may be a closely connected couple making up together a single idea; in which cases the singular verb is right. It should be noted that if a writer ventures on this assertion of the singular he must be sure of his case, for superficial appearances are against him.

EXAMPLES. — 1. Of synonyms. "All the furniture, the stock of shops, the machinery which could be found in the realm, was of less value than the property which some single parishes now contain." Here the writer (Macaulay) evidently views his three subjects as practically synonyms describing the aspects of one single subject of remark.

2. Of combined couples. "The composition and resolution of forces was largely applied by Newton"; "The ebb and flow of the tides is now well

understood."

In the following, the author, Mrs. Phelps-Ward, having subjects in both numbers, repeats the verb, and so gains emphasis, though grammatically the repetition is not necessary: "The kindest of audiences, and my full quota of encouragement, have not, and has not, been able to supply me

with the pluck required to add visibly to this number of public appearances. Before an audience I am an abject coward, and I have at last concluded to admit the humiliating fact."1

3. Another occasion for the writer to work by the logical rather than by the grammatical interpretation of number is the use of the collective noun. This may sometimes convey the idea of the group as a unit, and accordingly be singular; and sometimes, bringing to mind its individual constituents, be plural. The point is to be settled not arbitrarily but by the most natural implication of the sense.

EXAMPLES. -"The Jewish people were all free." Here plurality predominates, the subject being the Jews regarded as individuals. — “An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign." Here the action is so collective as to make a singular verb suitable.

In the following, the subject is so individualized in thought that the singular verb sounds inappropriate : "The study of the moon's surface has been continued now from the time of Galileo, and of late years a whole class of competent observers has been devoted to it, so that astronomers engaged in other branches have oftener looked on this as a field for occasional hours of recreation with the telescope than made it a constant study."

4. A clash of concord occurs when disjoined subjects (connected, that is, by or or nor) are in different numbers, or so numerous as to suggest not disjunction but plurality. In such cases use, where possible, a form of the verb which is the same for either number (the auxiliary forms are especially useful here); failing this, it is better to change the construction of the sentence than to fight for either the singular or the plural.

EXAMPLES. -"Neither money nor brilliant endowments was (or were ?) of use in this crisis; he could only be still and endure." Instead of this verb say "could avail," and the clash is evaded. -"Only a few, perhaps only one, were (or was?) benefited." Say rather, "received any benefit." In the following, where, “though the verb should formally be singular,

1 Quoted from McClure's Magazine, Vol. vii, p. 78.

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