form. Still, the paragraph as a whole is improved by the change.

51. Sentence-Connectives.-By sentence-connective is here meant a short expression having little or no significance of its own in a given sentence, and introduced in that sentence for the purpose of marking the connection with the preceding The connective may be a single word, or a phrase, or a brief sentence reduced to a parenthetic expression (compare § 28).

sentence.

Connectives are of two general classes: copulative and disjunctive.

a. A copulative connective carries on the thought of the preceding sentence by way of addition, expansion, or illustration, or by way of stating cause and effect. Connectives of

addition are :

Now; also, too; likewise; besides; again; nor, in the sense of and not; further, furthermore; moreover; yes, nay; first, secondly, thirdly, etc.; at last, at length, finally. As phrases or sentences: add to this; in like manner; in fact, in truth; in short; to proceed, to return, to conclude; as I have said before; let me repeat, etc.

Connectives denoting cause (reason) and effect (inference, consequence) are :

Else; otherwise; for; then; therefore; so; accordingly. The word thus is somewhat ambiguous; it may denote either an illustration (example) or an effect (inference).

Because, which formerly was used only to connect members of a sentence, is now establishing itself by the side of for. b. The disjunctives are:

But; however; still; yet; nevertheless; on the contrary; on the other hand.

The expressions thus far, hitherto, are less strongly disjunctive than the others: still, they suggest at least a change of thought.

Whereas is used in two senses widely differing. In formal legal usage it is copulative; it states the premises from which

a conclusion is drawn. Thus, in preparing resolutions the usual formula is: Whereas whereas . therefore be it resolved, etc. In literary usage whereas expresses decided opposition or difference and resembles closely on the other hand. In the use of connectives a few general points are to be carefully noted.

1. One and the same word may be either a connective or a simple adverb. For example:

On this statement, then, you may rely (connective).

I believed you then (adverb).

I think, too, that you are discontented (connective).

I think you are too selfish (adverb).

He promised, however, to reform (connective).
However much he promised, he did little (adverb).

2. The most difficult connectives to use are the disjunctive. The word "but" has been already discussed, § 39. In consequence of its excessive use the writer of to-day is apt to overlook the existence and function of the other disjunctives. Properly used, "but" expresses direct opposition. example:

For

Of books, so long as you rest only on grounds which, in sincerity, you believe to be true, and speak without anger or scorn, you can hardly say the thing which ought to be taken amiss. But of men and women you dare not, and must not, tell all that chance may have revealed to you. — DE QUINCEY. [See ? 50.]

It is not often, however, that we actually express direct opposition. Far more often we are seeking to express some modification, some reservation or qualification; we concede up to a certain point, when we begin to retract or to give to the thought a different turn. For such modification or turn we should use "however," "still," "yet," "whereas."

Which of these four is the proper word in a given sentence cannot be taught by rule. One must study with the utmost care the practice of the best writers. For example:

Next, we know that parties must ever exist in a free country. We know, too, that the emulations of such parties . . . must send them all

in their turns to him that holds the balance of the state. The parties are the gamesters; but Government keeps the table, and is sure to be the winner in the end. When this game is played, I really think it is more to be feared that the people will be exhausted than that Government will not be supplied. Whereas, whatever is got by acts of absolute power ill obeyed because odious, or by contracts ill kept because constrained, will be narrow, feeble, uncertain, and precarious.—BURke.

The "Ode to Evening" [by Collins] is like a river which loses itself in the sand, whereas Gray's best poems have an evolution sure and satisfying.-MATTHEW ARNOLD.

Taylor's was a great and lovely mind; yet how much and injuriously was it perverted by his being a favourite and follower of Laud.-COLE

RIDGE.

Mr. is, I suppose, one of the rising men of the day; yet he went on talking, the other evening, and making remarks with great earnestness, some of which were palpably irreconcilable with each other.-COLERIDGE. Hawthorne's literary talent is of the first order. His subjects are generally not to me subjects of the highest interest; but his literary talent is of the first order, the finest, I think, which America has yet produced,finer, by much, than Emerson's. Yet"Our Old Home" is not a masterpiece any more than "English Traits."-MATTHEW ARNOLD.

Meanwhile I was alone with his remains. His notion of their being transported to Caterham was of course impossible. Still, I did not like to leave an old acquaintance to the crows.-MATTHEW ARNOLD.

His style has nothing Corinthian about it; its lightness and brightness make it almost Attic. It is not quite Attic, however; it has not the infallible sureness of Attic taste.-MATTHEW ARNOLD.

3. The proper field for the employment of sentence-connectives is exposition, including argumentation. When we are trying to explain general facts and principles or to prove a point, we can scarcely be too particular in marking every stage and transition and shade of thought, whereas in simple description and narration sentence-connectives are apt to do more harm than good, by checking the rapidity of movement which is characteristic of good description and narration. The mere placing of two sentences side by side implies that they are intimately connected, that the features described or the incidents narrated follow one the other.

52. Sentence-Length.-The question whether sentences

should be long or short can be properly discussed only from the point of view of the paragraph. In itself, a sentence is not to be pronounced faulty because it is long, or correct because it is short; whether long or short, it is correct if it embodies a unit of thought (see §§ 10-18), and is also clear, forcible, and easy. On the other hand, sentences should vary in length to correspond to the alternations of thought in the paragraph. The human mind is not a machine, moving at at unvarying speed; it is an organism, and therefore, like all other organisms, its movements must be alternately rapid and slow. At times the mind hastens from point to point with eager rapidity; then the sentences will be naturally short, abrupt, direct. At other times the mind pauses to deliberate, to meditate, to sum up; then the sentences will be long, deliberate, and involved.

The following is the concluding paragraph of Macaulay's essay on Addison :

It is strange that neither his opulent and noble widow nor any of his powerful and attached friends should have thought of placing even a simple tablet, inscribed with his name, on the walls of the Abbey. It was not until three generations had laughed and wept over his pages that the omission was supplied by the public veneration. At length, in our own time, his image, skillfully graven, appeared in the Poets' Corner. It represents him, as we can conceive him, clad in his dressing-gown and freed from his wig, stepping from his parlor at Chelsea into his trim little garden, with the account of the Everlasting Club or the Loves of Hilpa and Shalum, just finished for the next day's Spectator, in his hand. Such a mark of national respect was due to the unsullied statesman, to the accomplished scholar, to the master of pure English eloquence, to the consummate painter of life and manners. It was due, above all, to the great satirist, who alone knew how to use ridicule without abusing it; who, without inflicting a wound, effected a great social reform; and who reconciled wit and virtue after a long and disastrous separation, during which wit had been led astray by profligacy, and virtue by fanaticism.

The following is from the conclusion of Macaulay's essay on Warren Hastings:

With all his faults-and they were neither few nor small-only one cemetery was worthy to contain his remains. In that temple of silence

and reconciliation where the enmities of twenty generations lie buried, in the Great Abbey which has during many ages afforded a quiet restingplace to those whose minds and bodies have been shattered by the contentions of the Great Hall [of parliament], the dust of the illustrious accused should have mingled with the dust of the illustrious accusers. This was not to be. Yet the place of interment was not ill chosen. Behind the chancel of the parish church of Daylesford, in earth which already held the bones of many chiefs of the house of Hastings, was laid the coffin of the greatest man who has ever borne that ancient and widely extended name. On that very spot probably, fourscore years before, the little Warren, meanly clad and scantily fed, had played with the children of ploughmen. Even then his young mind had revolved plans which might be called romantic. Yet, however romantic, it is not likely that they had been so strange as the truth. Not only had the poor orphan retrieved the fallen fortunes of his line. Not only had he repurchased the old lands, and rebuilt the old dwelling. He had preserved and extended an empire. He had founded a polity. He had administered government and war with more than the capacity of Richelieu. He had patronized learning with the judicious liberality of Cosmo. He had been attacked by the most formidable combination of enemies that ever sought the destruction of a single victim; and over that combination, after a struggle of ten years, he had triumphed. He had at length gone down to his grave in the fulness of age in peace, after so many troubles; in honor, after so much obloquy.

The person who can read these lines without recognizing and sympathizing with the alternations in the movement of Macaulay's spirit must be hopelessly obtuse. Peculiarly interesting, in the last passage, is the combination of repeated structure ("He had") with the gradual lengthening of sentence and deepening of thought toward the close.

That length of sentence is wholly compatible with clearness, force, and ease may be further illustrated by two examples. The first, from Hawthorne's Wakefield, contains forty-two words:

Amid the throng of a London street, we distinguish a man, now waxing elderly, with few characteristics to attract careless observers, yet bearing, in his whole aspect, the handwriting of no common fate, for such as have the skill to read it.

The second, from Matthew Arnold, The Function of Criti