large proportion of such discourse is, and will continue to be, written and then read or recited in public. With some literary tasks, as for instance public lectures, this is indeed almost a necessity; and doubtless the temperament and habits of thought of a great many public speakers are such that they can represent themselves better by discourse read from manuscript than by purely extemporaneous utterance.

1. The difference between unpremeditated utterance and manuscript discourse is a difference not of arbitrary election merely but largely demanded by subject-matter. Where the endeavor is merely to set forth a plain proposition, with amplification of particulars, figures, anecdote, all the resources of expression needed can ordinarily be trusted to the inspiration of the moment. Where, on the other hand, the logical structure is close, the discriminations and colorings fine, the issues weighty, it is an advantage to commit the expression carefully to writing. Something therefore depends, for the settlement of this question, on the kind of thinking that the orator elects to do. The extempore kind is of course entirely worthy; but many, committing themselves to it out of reluctance to undergo the labor of pen work, simply commit themselves thereby to thin and sloppy habits of thought.

2. The motive for writing a public address beforehand is simply conscientious fidelity to a deeply felt truth, and the overmastering desire to put it in such words as the speaker can stand by. Many are the indignant denials on the part of public speakers who, carried away by the ardor of debate or interest, overstate their case or say what they do not mean. The manuscript speech furnishes a means of keeping within bounds.1

3. The thing most necessary to be remembered, and yet

1 "Do not think that I am speaking under excited feeling, or in any exaggerated I have written the words I use, that I may know what I say, and that you, if you choose, may see what I have said." - RUSKIN, Two Paths, p. 50.

terms.

oftenest disregarded, in such writing, is that its texture is precisely that of spoken discourse. The quiet mood of the writer in his study must give way to the impassioned mood of the orator in the presence of his audience. Sentences must be simple and pointed; the distance between pauses should be short; the articulations of the thought should be vigorously marked; and the hearer should not be made to carry a burden of thought in mind, waiting for its result or application. The same need exists for repetition and amplitude as in purely spoken discourse. The irregularities of style, and the exaggeration due to intensity, while still perceptible and spontaneous, are naturally somewhat toned down, both on account of the subject-matter which this discourse generally works in, and by the transmission through the process of writing.

ILLUSTRATIONS of Spoken DICTION. — Two passages are here adduced to show the general texture of spoken diction and how it answers its

occasion.

1. The first, from one of Cardinal Newman's sermons, in its simplicity of structure, brevity of sentence members, and skilful repetition and amplification of thought, well illustrates the tissue of style suitable alike to extempore discourse and to discourse written for public delivery:

"There are two worlds, 'the visible and the invisible,' as the Creed speaks, the world we see, and the world we do not see; and the world which we do not see as really exists as the world we do see. It really exists, though we see it not. The world that we see we know to exist, because we see it. We have but to lift up our eyes and look around us, and we have proof of it: our eyes tell us. We see the sun, moon and stars, earth and sky, hills and valleys, woods and plains, seas and rivers. And again, we see men, and the works of men. We see cities, and stately buildings, and their inhabitants; men running to and fro, and busying themselves to provide for themselves and their families, or to accomplish great designs, or for the very business' sake. All that meets our eyes forms one world. It is an immense world; it reaches to the stars. Thousands on thousands of years might we speed up the sky, and though we were swifter than the light itself, we should not reach them all. They are at distances from us greater than any that is assignable. So high, so wide, so deep is the world; and yet it also comes near and close to us. It is everywhere; and it seems to leave no room for any other world.

"And yet in spite of this universal world which we see, there is another world, quite as far-spreading, quite as close to us, and more wonderful; another world all around us, though we see it not, and more wonderful than the world we see, for this reason if for no other, that we do not see it. All around us are numberless objects, coming and going, watching, working or waiting, which we see not: this is that other world, which the eyes reach not unto, but faith only."1

2. The second, from Charles James Fox, illustrates the impetuous, irregular, intensified structure of extemporaneous speech :

"We must keep Bonaparte for some time longer at war, as a state of probation. Gracious God, sir! is war a state of probation? Is peace a rash system? Is it dangerous for nations to live in amity with each other? Are your vigilance, your policy, your common powers of observation, to be extinguished by putting an end to the horrors of war? Cannot this state of probation be as well undergone without adding to the catalogue of human sufferings? But we must pause!' What! must the bowels of Great Britain be torn out — her best blood be spilled — her treasure wasted

-

that you may make an experiment? Put yourselves, oh! that you would put yourselves in the field of battle, and learn to judge of the sort of horrors that you excite! In former wars a man might, at least, have some feeling, some interest, that served to balance in his mind the impressions which a scene of carnage and of death must inflict. If a man had been present at the battle of Blenheim, for instance, and had inquired the motive of the battle, there was not a soldier engaged who could not have satisfied his curiosity, and even, perhaps, allayed his feelings. They were fighting, they knew, to repress the uncontrolled ambition of the Grand Monarch. But if a man were present now at a field of slaughter, and were to inquire for what they were fighting- Fighting!' would be the answer; 'they are not fighting; they are pausing.' 'Why is that man expiring? Why is that other writhing with agony? What means this implacable fury?' The answer must be, 'You are quite wrong, sir, you deceive yourself - they are not fighting - do not disturb them—they are merely pausing! This man is not expiring with agony- that man is not dead - he is only pausing! Lord help you, sir! they are not angry with one another; they have now no cause of quarrel; but their country thinks that there should be a pause. All that you see, sir, is nothing like fighting—there is no harm, nor cruelty, nor bloodshed in it whatever it is nothing more than a political pause! It is merely to try an experiment - to see whether Bonaparte will not behave himself better than heretofore; and in the meantime we have agreed to a pause, in pure friendship!' And is this the way, sir, that you

1 NEWMAN, Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. iv, p. 200.

are to show yourselves the advocates of order? You take up a system calculated to uncivilize the world- to destroy order—to trample on religion to stifle in the heart, not merely the generosity of noble sentiment, but the affections of social nature; and in the prosecution of this system, you spread terror and devastation all around you."1

It will be noted that the logical structure of this second example, which is very simple, consists mostly in ringing changes on the idea of pausing, and in supplying such descriptive amplification as suggests itself to an excited mind: a structure, therefore, well adapted to the purely extempore.

II.

The Diction of Written Discourse. As has been intimated above, writing is merely the permanent form given to what is fundamentally the spoken word. Its determining motive therefore is permanence. What is spoken is for the occasion; what is written is for all occasions. Further, modern times add another standard: what is written, that is, as seriously meant literature, is for print. The marks and methods of print apply also to the manuscript; there is no more reason for the writer to neglect the conventional signs of print, or to devise methods of his own, than there is for him to translate oral discourse from speaking into singing. The motive of permanence, with observance of the standards that represent permanent rather than temporary expression, is to govern him.

This engenders for writing a dominating mood of accuracy,the desire to get the expression just right, beyond the need of revision or correction. Along with this mood goes undeniably a certain sense of formalism and dignity, different in degree according to the undertaking, from a descriptive sketch to a state document; a mood to be watched and corrected by constant recollection of the primal standard, speech, and overcome in favor of a greater approach to the colloquial according as the sense of formalism tends to pass into the stiff and

1 CHARLES JAMES FOX, Speech on Rejection of Bonaparte's Overtures, Select British Eloquence, p. 549. It is this edition that must be responsible for the punctuation.

pedantic. In the management of this quality is scope for the writer's skill and naturalness.

Distinctions from Spoken Discourse. Three general characteristics may here be given, in which the differences between written and spoken discourse are marked enough to affect the tissue of the diction:

1. The prevailing mood of accuracy and form shows itself in the somewhat scrupulous tone of statements. The words chosen must express neither more nor less than the thought; and often statements are guarded and qualified in order to be kept safe within the bounds of truth; for the writer needs to say only what he can stand by, having no opportunity of oral explanation or correction.

NOTE. This disposition to supply saving clauses and guarding modifiers may of course become excessive. It is softened and disguised in the lighter forms of prose, as narrative and description; but even in its disguised form an actual conscientiousness for the exact word and color exists and is traceable.

2. Writing, except when it imitates conversation, discards the contractions of unguarded speech, such as, don't, can't, it's for it is, he's for he is, he'll for he will, and the like; not that these lack in correctness or even in dignity, but they connote a mood too informal for written literature. It also supplies particles where conversation is freer to omit them, and discards many of the elliptical, inexact phrases used in speech.

NOTE. In discourse written for public delivery, as, for instance, one of Professor Huxley's lectures, the conversational contractions are often retained in the printed edition, serving to limber up the somewhat abstruse subject-matter of science, and keep the style within hailing distance of conversation.

3. Writing is less varied in construction, and at the same time more complex, than speech. Less varied, because it must keep, for the most part, to one tone of discourse; it has not the impassioned occasion of speech; hence interrogation,