reënforced by antithesis; and sometimes it varies the distri bution of emphasis by the employment of chiasmus.

EXAMPLE. "He defended him when living, amidst the clamors of his enemies; and praised him when dead, amidst the silence of his friends." The antithetic words living, dead; clamors, silence; enemies, friends, make this balance very elaborate.

The balanced structure is easy to interpret, and easy to remember, because the similarly ordered clauses lend distinction to each other, and make it easy to fix the points that are of most importance. This fact suggests what the balanced sentence is especially good for: to put into rememberable form, into a kind of aphorism, the occasional thought that comes out of surrounding material like a gist, or lesson, or summary.

On the other hand, as it is the most artificial type of sentence, it is the most easily overdone; its rhetorical power, in fact, depends on the comparative rarity of its use. Being so artificial, too, it is apt to become enslaving and manneristic. From the craving for the familiar measure, there is a temptation to fill out the balance by tautological or forced assertions.1

EXAMPLE. — The evil of attempting to make balance, with its aids of antithesis and alliteration, the staple of writing, is illustrated in the style called euphuism, which, though utterly unreadable now, had a prodigious vogue among the courtiers of Queen Elizabeth. The following few sentences will give a little taste of euphuistic style: "Therfore my good Euphues, for these doubts and dumpes of mine, either remoue the cause, or reueale it. Thou hast hetherto founde me a cheerefull companion in thy myrth, and nowe shalt thou finde me as carefull with thee in thy moane. If altogether thou maist not be cured, yet maist thou bee comforted. If ther be any thing yat either by my friends may be procured, or by my life atteined, that may either heale thee in part, or helpe thee in all, I protest to thee by the name of a friend, that it shall rather be gotten with

1 The same danger has been noticed, page 275, above, of antithesis, which, in fact, figures largely in balance. These two, to which may be added alliteration, are the rhetorical devices most liable to become a snare to the writer.

the losse of my body, than lost by getting a kingdome. Thou hast tried me, therefore trust me: thou hast trusted me in many things, therfore try me in this one thing. I never yet failed, and now I wil not fainte. Be bolde to speake and blush not: thy sore is not so angry but I can salue it, the wound not so deepe but I can search it, thy griefe not so great but I can ease it. If it be ripe it shalbe lawnced, if it be broken it shalbe tainted, be it never so desperat it shalbe cured." 1

tences of a passage, as we have seen, are related to each other, roughly speaking, somewhat as statement and detail, proposition and enlargement. The relations of periodic and loose sentences rise more out of the dynamic stress; the loose sentence, its stress-point attracted to the beginning, taking up the cue at the end of the period preceding. Thus the two types answer to and reënforce each other.

As a matter of fact, however, the actual number of periodic sentences is much smaller than the number of loose sentences; and when we recognize the so-called periodic style we get its peculiar effect not from a predominance but from a moderate percentage of periodic sentences.

1. By the best writers periodic sentences are constantly relieved by loose ones; it would indeed be hard to find two rigid periods in succession, except in cases where the periodic order is accumulated for the iteration of structure. requirements of the dynamic stress necessitate variation.

The

NOTE. The following, with its three sentences all of varying types and lengths, derives a charm from this very diversity: "And then, in the deep stillness of the desert air- unbroken by falling stream, or note of bird, or tramp of beast, or cry of man — came the whisper, of a voice as of a gentle breath of a voice so small that it was almost like silence. Then he knew

that the moment was come. He drew, as was his wont, his rough mantle over his head; he wrapped his face in its ample folds; he came out from 1 Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit, Arber's reprint, p. 65.

the sheltering rock, and stood beneath the cave to receive the Divine communications." 1

2. Nor is it often that sentences are found conforming rigidly throughout to the periodic structure. The same sentence, especially if long, may follow the suspensive structure up to a certain point, and then be finished loose; this is a natural course, too, the loose addition building its detail on what the periodic has put into stress.

EXAMPLE. The following sentence, strictly periodic as far as the word "opinion," goes on loose to enlarge on what the first part has yielded. “I think that in England, partly from the want of an Academy, partly from a national habit of intellect to which that want of an Academy is itself due, there exists too little of what I may call a public force of correct literary opinion, possessing within certain limits a clear sense of what is right and wrong, sound and unsound, and sharply recalling men of ability and learning from any flagrant misdirection of these their advantages.'

"2

1 STANLEY, History of the Jewish Church, Vol. ii, p. 341.

2 MATTHEW ARNOLD.

CHAPTER XI.

THE PARAGRAPH.

As in the sentence we reach the first complete organic product of thinking,1 so in the paragraph we first attain the range and finish of a whole composition; in one case, indeed, that of the editorial paragraph, it ranks definitely as an independent literary form. As such, and as obeying the essential procedure of every full discourse, it is the unit of invention, as the sentence is the unit of style. Because, however, the internal articulations and proportions, though clearly traceable, are still on a small scale, still somewhat embryonic, the paragraph is better studied as a stage of style than as a beginning of invention.

Definition.

A paragraph is a connected series of sentences constituting the development of a single topic.

NOTE. Mechanically, a paragraph is distinguished, both in print and manuscript, by beginning on a new line, and by indenting, that is, withdrawing the opening word an em's width toward the middle.

In recording conversation between different persons, the form of a new paragraph is given to what each interlocutor says, irrespective of the amount or nature of the matter included. This, unless constructed to a topic, is hardly to be called a paragraph; it is a thing in paragraph's clothing.

In this definition are implied the qualities that should govern a paragraph: unity, because it is concerned with a single topic; continuity, because it is a connected series of sentences; and proportion, because it is an orderly, systematic

1 See above, p. 311.

development. All the stages and details of construction must keep the integrity of these qualities in view.

How Long a Paragraph should be. A subordinate question this, but by no means idle or unimportant. For it is not mechanical alone; it is a question how to use rightly both the instinctive impressions and the interpreting powers of the reader. And as is true in so many other cases, it is answered by a judicious compromise between the too-long and the too-short.

On the one hand, in keeping the paragraph from running on too long, due regard should be had for the appearance of the page. Every reader can recall how often he has been repelled from a book by the mere fact that whole solid pages occur without paragraph breaks; and how often he has yielded to the attraction of an open, easy looking page. To write with this instinctive feeling of the reader in mind is not to humor a whim; rather it is a practical though indirect way of trying to get the cumbrous and lumbering tendency out of one's thought and bring it vigorously to its point. It is therefore a dictate both of good looks and good workmanship to avoid paragraphs of more than a page in length; and frequent relief of long paragraphs by shorter ones is a great help to readableness.

On the other hand, it must be recognized that too short a paragraph lacks weight and articulation. Ordinarily as many as three or more sentences are requisite to give mass enough to develop a topic satisfactorily.1 Less than that number is apt, while it gives a Frenchy, snippy effect to the style, to leave the topic too superficially treated.

NOTE.

Professor Earle's idea of the smallest scale on which a built paragraph is practicable, with his example, may here be quoted. The

1 This refers, of course, to the paragraph that not only proposes but develops a topic. The short transitional or preliminary paragraph, to be noticed later (p. 381), is an exception more apparent than real.