bers of sleepless men, sleepless women, sleepless children, from Ganges to the Nile, from Nile to Mississippi. And her, because she is the firstborn of her house, and has the widest empire, let us honor with the title of 'Madonna.'" 1

Beginnings and Endings. How these are to proportion in the paragraph cannot, of course, be laid down by rule; but some suggestions, founded on their function, may here be given.

The opening sentence of a paragraph, being either the topicsentence or a connecting link with the preceding, is ordinarily a rather short and condensed sentence. When the topic is defined by some phase of repetition several short pithy sentences, succeeding each other at the beginning, form a very effective means of getting the paragraph under way. The style of such opening sentences calls more naturally for conciseness and simplicity than for ornament.

The closing sentence of the paragraph, following the principle of climax, is quite apt to derive a certain roll and momentum from previous sentences; in which case it is somewhat long, often periodic, and forms, indeed, the cadence of the paragraph. This is especially noticeable in impassioned and oratoric language. An exception to this elaborated structure, sometimes adopted to excellent effect, is the apothegmatic ending a terse and pithy short sentence gathering into one statement the gist of the idea which has been expanded in the sentences preceding.

EXAMPLES.-I. Both the short opening and the longer closing sentence are so common as hardly to need a quotation here; see, for example, the paragraph from Macaulay on p. 359, above.

2. The apothegmatic close may be illustrated from Burke, with whom it was a favorite:

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But power, of some kind or other, will survive the shock in which manners and opinions perish; and it will find other and worse means for

1 DE QUINCEY, Levana and our Ladies of Sorrow, Works, Vol. i, p. 241.

its support. The usurpation which, in order to subvert ancient institu has destroyed ancient principles, will hold power by arts similar to t by which it has acquired it. When the old feudal and chivalrous spirit of Fealty, which, by freeing kings from fear, freed both kings and subjects from the precautions of tyranny, shall be extinct in the minds of men, plots and assassinations will be anticipated by preventive murder and preventive confiscation, and that long roll of grim and bloody maxims, which form the political code of all power, not standing on its own honor, and the honor of those who are to obey it. Kings will be tyrants from policy when subjects are rebels from principle." 1

III. KINDS OF PARAGRAPHS.

The different kinds of paragraphs that evolve themselves in the course of a composition may be explained, for the most part, as modifications of the typical scheme already given,2these modifications rising naturally from the claims of brevity, or from the amount of detail to be disposed of. In other words, instead of crowding the whole treatment of a given topic into one paragraph, we may choose to make it more manageable by giving only a section at a time, or by condensing part or all to an outline. This sectional treatment, in the paragraph, is analogous to the punctuation of a composita sentence by periods instead of semicolons, and has the similar justification of lightness and point to commend it.

3

The following kinds of paragraph may here be noted.

The Propositional Paragraph. - This kind comes nearest to filling out the type, being controlled in all its course by a topic, or quasi proposition, at the beginning, and giving enough of explication to make a fairly rounded sum. Considered as a section of the type, it may be regarded as the topic followed out at least through the first stage, and left ready for further amplification.

1 BURKE, Reflections on the Revolution in France, p. 91.

2 Compare above, pp. 366, 367.

3 Compare preceding chapter, pp. 318 and 326.

EXAMPLE. The following propositional paragraph has the somewhat exceptional interest of propounding its topic in stages, as may be seen by comparing the first and the third sentences. This is not the same as the double topic, defined on p. 363, above.

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History, at least in its state of ideal perfection, is a compound of poetry and philosophy. It impresses general truths on the mind by a vivid

7 representation of particular characters and incidents. But, in fact, the two

hostile elements of which it consists have never been known to form a perfect amalgamation; and at length, in our own time, they have been completely and professedly separated. Good histories, in the proper sense of the word, we have not. But we have good historical romances, and good historical essays. The imagination and the reason, if we may use a legal metaphor, have made partition of a province of literature of which they were formerly seised per my et per tout; and now they hold their respective portions in severalty, instead of holding the whole in common."1

It will be noted that all the amplification given here is of the nature of definition, and belongs thus to the first stage of the type.

2

The Amplifying Paragraph. This kind of paragraph represents the middle section of the type, its office being to particularize or amplify some statement made previously, or to enumerate the details of a description or narrative. It is the peculiarity of this kind of paragraph that the subject is not definitely expressed, at least within its limits, but is gathered from the general bearing of the whole; and the structure has merely to devise such plan as will make the most lucid and logical arrangement of coördinate facts.

EXAMPLE. The following paragraph immediately succeeds the one last quoted, and will be recognized as merely an amplification of the same topic. The two antithetic sides of the topic determine its plan : —

"To make the past present, to bring the distant near, to place us in the society of a great man, or on the eminence which overlooks the field of a mighty battle, to invest with the reality of human flesh and blood beings whom we are too much inclined to consider as personified qualities in an allegory, to call up our ancestors before us with all their peculiarities of language, manņers, and garb, to show us over their houses, to seat us at 1 MACAULAY, Essay on Hallam's Constitutional History, beginning.

2 The word amplificatory, if it were not so unwieldy, would be perhaps the term to use here.

their tables, to rummage their old-fashioned wardrobes, to explain the uses of their ponderous furniture, these parts of the duty which properly belongs to the historian have been appropriated by the historical novelist. On the other hand, to extract the philosophy of history, to direct our judgment of events and men, to trace the connection of causes and effects, and to draw from the occurrences of former times general lessons of moral and political wisdom, has become the business of a distinct class of writers."

The paragraph succeeding this in the essay carries on the amplification still another step by proposing and detailing the simile of map and picture which has been quoted on p. 78, above.

The Preliminary Paragraph, and the Transitional Paragraph. Strictly speaking these are hardly to be regarded as paragraphs, consisting as they generally do of one or two sentences merely; but their office in the whole composition is too important to be omitted from the list of kinds at the writer's disposal. Pointing out the landmarks, the connecting links, they are naturally of greater use as the subject-matter taxes the mind more; they serve, in fact, like the short sentence in the paragraph, as points of definition and departure.

By a preliminary paragraph is meant a paragraph that in a condensed way lays out what is to be treated in the one or several paragraphs succeeding; this it does either by stating merely the theme, or by giving some main heads of plan. Considered in relation to the type, it may be regarded as singling out for statement merely the bare topic or merely the outline, and leaving all the amplification to be made later.

By a transitional paragraph is meant a paragraph introduced between principal divisions of a discourse to mark the close of one and leave the reader ready to take up another. It relates to what has gone before, as the preliminary paragraph relates to what is to come. Not infrequently the two kinds are united in one; sometimes also a transitional paragraph is immediately followed by a preliminary.

EXAMPLES. —1. Of preliminary paragraph. The following sentence, printed as a paragraph, lays out a considerable section of discourse: :

"In explaining to you the proceedings of Parliament which have been complained of, I will state to you, first, the thing that was done; next, the persons who did it; and, lastly, the grounds and reasons upon which the Legislature proceeded in this deliberate act of public justice and public prudence."1

2. Of transitional paragraph. The following sentence closes one division, while the next paragraph, of which the beginning is here quoted, goes on to the next:

"So far as to the first cementing principle.

"The second material of cement for their new republic is the superiority of the city of Paris; and this I admit is strongly connected with the other cementing principle of paper circulation and confiscation. It is in this part of the project we must look," 2 etc.

3. The two in one. The following, standing in the middle of a long essay, both marks the end of a preceding treatment and announces the manner of a new one:

"We begin, like the priest in Don Quixote's library, to be tired with taking down books one after another for separate judgment, and feel inclined to pass sentence on them in masses. We shall therefore, instead

of pointing out the defects and merits of the different modern historians, state generally in what particulars they have surpassed their predecessors, and in what we conceive them to have failed." 3

4. Transitional followed by preliminary :

"These illustrations of Aristotle's doctrine may suffice.

"Now let us proceed to a fresh position; which, as before, shall first be broadly stated, then modified and explained. How does originality differ from the poetical talent? Without affecting the accuracy of a definition, we may call the latter the originality of right moral feeling.

Alternation of Kinds.

By the best writers the same care is taken to secure variety in paragraphs as in sentences; and this variety is obtained by analogous means. Most natural and frequent is the alternation of length; short or medium-sized paragraphs setting off and relieving the longer ones. Closely connected with this is the alternation of thought, by which a

1 BURKE, Speech to the Electors of Bristol, Select British Eloquence, p. 300. 2 BURKE, Reflections on the Revolution in France, p. 232.

3 MACAULAY, Essay on History, Essays, Vol. i, p. 409.

4 NEWMAN, Essays Critical and Historical, Vol. i, p. 20.