66 arts of deceit and cunning do continually grow weaker, and less effectual and serviceable to them that use them."1 — Many pairs of terms have come into the language which, though tautological, are used without analysis as single terms, as ways and means,' ""head and front," "end and design"; but as soon as they are discriminated, as is done by the word neither in the following example, the essential tautology becomes evident: "It might be accounted a tribute to the enterprise of Old Sledge that mountain barriers proved neither let nor hindrance, and here in the fastnesses was held that vivacious sway, potent alike to fascinate and to scandalize." 2 2. Of tautology obviated by variation. In the following (already quoted on p. 50, above) the nearly synonymous words are justified by their evident climax: "I am astonished, I am shocked to hear such principles confessed; to hear them avowed in this house and in this country."— In the following the verb had failed has the stress at first, and then in the repeat is thrown into subordinate relation: “I had, indeed, begun the task, and had failed; I had begun it a second time, and, failing again, had abandoned my attempt with a sensation of utter distaste." — In the following stress is laid first on the adverb, and then on the verb: "In the literary movement of the beginning of the nineteenth century the signal attempt to apply freely the modern spirit was made in England by two members of the aristocratic class, Byron and Shelley. . But Byron and Shelley did not succeed in their attempt freely to apply the modern spirit in English literature; they could not succeed in it; the resistance to baffle them, the want of intelligent sympathy to guide and uphold them, were too great." 4 Repetition of Construction. The forward movement of the thought is effected, not by the successive enumeration of details merely, but by the perpetual pairing and balance of elements; which latter, as they must be thought of together, have to be so expressed that their mutual relation is apparent. 40. Elements of the thought that are paired together, or that answer to each other, should evince that relation by being of like speech-part-ship and like form of phrase. This is called Parallel Construction. 1 TILLOTSON. Cited by Bain, English Composition and Rhetoric, p. 68. 2 MURFREE (CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK), In the Tennessee Mountains, P. 81. 3 KINGLAKE, Eothen, Preface. 4 MATTHEW ARNOLD, Essays in Criticism, First Series, p. 176. EXAMPLES. - In the following note how the proposed amendments, in brackets, aid in the mutual relations of the sentence-elements: "He had good reason to believe [or, for believing] that the delay was not an accident [accidental] but premeditated, and for supposing [to suppose, or else, for believing, above] that the fort, though strong both by art and naturally [nature], would be forced by the treachery of the governor and the indolent [indolence of the] general, to capitulate within a week."1 Not infrequently words are iterated to give a better parallelism of construction; as, 66 If I have had my share in any measure giving quiet to private property and private conscience." 2- The following is a rather striking example: "He looked unlike other men, with his tall thin figure, his long thin face, his nervous thin hands." 3 In the following the lack of the words here supplied in brackets leaves the phrases unbalanced : "The Aryan genius ranges far and wide, observes, compares, classifies, generalizes, both in the world of matter and [in the world] of spirit." 4 41. A broader application of parallel construction is made in what is called Balanced Structure, wherein clauses or sentences are related to each other by likeness of construction, and by similarity or antithesis of thought. The sharp relief thus effected between statements is an aid to clear definition and to memory. EXAMPLES. Balance of clauses. "It contains the history of a miracle, of Creation and Redemption; it displays the power and the mercy of the Supreme Being; the probable therefore is marvellous, and the marvellous is probable." — " They habitually ascribed every event to the will of the Great Being, for whose power nothing was too vast, for whose inspection nothing was too minute." 6 Balance of sentences. "If they were unacquainted with the works of philosophers and poets, they were deeply read in the oracles of God. If their names were not found in the registers of heralds, they were recorded in the Book of Life. If their steps were not accompanied by a splendid train of menials, legions of ministering angels had charge over them." 6 1 ABBOTT, How to Write Clearly, p. 34. 2 BURKE, as quoted above, p. 439. 8 MATTHEWS, Aspects of Fiction, p. 129. 4 MCCURDY, History, Prophecy, and the Monuments, Vol. i, p. 5. 6 MACAULAY, Essay on Milton. Sometimes in the balancing members an inversion of order may alternate the stress; e.g. "To leave the world, or any part of the world, is to follow John the Baptist; to follow Christ is to enter the world and every phase of the world." 1 Sometimes, where there is a large number of balancing members, they may with elegance be broken into varying groups. In the following fine passage from Cardinal Newman the groups of uniform clauses are set off by lines: He writes passionately, because he feels keenly; forcibly, because he conceives vividly; | he sees too clearly to be vague; he is too serious to be otiose; | he can analyze his subject, and therefore he is rich; he embraces it as a whole and in its parts, and therefore he is consistent; he has a firm hold of it, and therefore he is luminous. | When his imagination wells up, it overflows in ornament; when his heart is touched, it thrills along his verse.' "2 1 ABBOTT, Christianity and Social Problems, p. 69. This very practical though rather rhetorical inversion in the balancing members of a sentence is called Chiasmus, from the Greek letter Chi (X), which character was used by the ancient rhetoricians to mark the cross relation; thus: "To leave the world to follow Christ is to follow John the Baptist; 2 NEWMAN, Idea of a University, p. 292. 312 CHAPTER X. THE SENTENCE. THUS far our study has dealt with materials and detached processes, waiving for the time the consideration of finished results. It is time now to take up this latter subject; and in the coming three forms of utterance, the Sentence, the Paragraph, and the Composition as a Whole, it will be treated through successive applications of what are essentially the same underlying principles, varying only in scale and scope. In the sentence, then, we reach the first complete organic product of thinking. As such, and as embodying on its scale the qualities necessary to effect the purpose of the whole work, the sentence may be regarded as the unit of style.1 Definition of the Sentence. A sentence is a combination of words expressing a single, complete thought. However complex it may be — and it may attain a considerable degree of complexity—the thought of the sentence must be single, must with all its colorings and details leave on the reader's mind one focal impression; however restricted its range or inclusion, it must appear as a complete and finished utterance. 1 "For the sentence is the unit of style; and by the cadence and music, as well as by the purport and bearing, of his sentences, the master of style must stand or fall." SAINTSBURY, Miscellaneous Essays, p. 110. -"From the arrangement of according letters, which is altogether arabesque and sensual, up to the architecture of the elegant and pregnant sentence, which is a vigorous act of the pure intellect, there is scarce a faculty in man but has been exercised. We need not wonder, then, if perfect sentences are rare, and perfect pages rarer.". STEVENSON, On Some Technical Elements of Style in Literature, Works, Vol. xxii, p. 265. 313 NOTE. The typical sign of completeness is the period, the mark of a full-rounded declarative sentence. Other marks of end-punctuation, the exclamation mark, the interrogation mark, the dash, are really marks of incompleteness: the exclamation signifying rather an emotional outburst than a composed thought; the interrogation implying and requiring an answer to complete it; and the dash confessedly an abrupt dropping of the subject. Thus, while grammatically there may be exclamatory and interrogative as well as declarative sentences, from the point of view of rhetorical construction these are somewhat out of the literal order, being in fact expressions of emotional connotation; see above, pp. 95, 96. I. ORGANISM OF THE SENTENCE. Sentences have both a grammatical and a rhetorical organism: the grammatical having to do with the parts of speech, their offices and relations; the rhetorical dealing rather with the logical bearings and dependencies of the thought. With the grammatical organism our business at present is only indirect and casual; the assured mastery of it must, at this stage of study, be presumed. With the rhetorical organism of the sentence a writer must get the same intimate familiarity as with the grammatical; the sense of it, and of its requirements, must become ingrained in his mind; and, as accessory to this, he needs to form the habit of parsing his sentence rhetorically, settling its unitary and distributive relations, its main and tributary lines, as he goes along. No other habit or procedure in rhetoric can outweigh this in importance. I. The same essential structure undersentence, the first It is a dual struc Elements of Structure. lies all forms of composition, from the complete utterance of a thought, onward. ture, a structure framed on two elements. basic idea or term, what the assertion is about, and secondly the assertion or declaration itself, what is said about this. There is first the |