imperial master, and of saving themselves from exposure. They provided the editor with a position in the RussoChinese Bank at a princely salary, and subscribed for many thousands of copies of the paper. The prosperity of the Viedomosti is assured. It is a prosperity that depends on continued official favor. The paper is free to criticise; A strange to say, it shows less disposition to find fault with the official classes than before it was relieved of censorship. its freedom is an illusion. the Czar is puzzled. Λ Λ Λ Λ Λ There is no enlargement, unless there be a comparison of ideas one with another, as they come before the mind, and a systematizing of them. We feel our minds to be growing and expanding then, when we not only learn, but refer what we learn to what we know already. a truly great intellect is one which takes a connected view of old and new, past and present, far and near, and which has an insight into the influence of all these, one on another; without which there is no whole, and no centre. It possesses the knowledge, not only of things, but also of their mutual and true relations; knowledge, not merely considered as an acquirement, but as philosophy. Λ when this analytical, distributive, harmonizing process is away, the mind experiences no enlargement, and is not reckoned as enlightened or comprehensive, whatever it may add to its knowledge. a great memory, as I have already said, does not make a philosopher, any more than a dictionary can be called a grammar. There are men who embrace in their minds a vast multitude of ideas, with little sensibility about their real relations toward each other. A if they are nothing more than well-read men, or men of information, they have not what specially deserves the name of culture of mind, or fulfils the type of Liberal Education. Λ we sometimes fall in with persons who have seen much of the world, and of the men who, in their day, have played a conspicuous part in it, who generalize nothing, and have no observation, in the true sense of the word. They abound in information in detail, curious and entertaining, about men and things; having lived under the influence of no very clear or settled principles, they speak of every one and every thing, only as so many phenomena, which are complete in themselves, and lead to nothing, not discussing them, or teaching any truth, or instructing the hearer, simply talking. Λ There are virtues, which the world is not fitted to judge Λ of or to uphold, such as faith, hope, and charity; it can judge about truthfulness; it can judge about the natural virtues, and truthfulness is one of them. Natural virtues A become supernatural; truthfulness is such, that does not withdraw it from the jurisdiction of mankind at large. Λ Λ Λ About this time I met with an odd volume of The Spectator. I had never before seen any of them. I bought it, read it over and over, and was much delighted with it. I thought the writing excellent, and wished if possible to imitate it. Λ I took some of the papers, and making short hints of the sentiments in each sentence, laid them by a few days, without looking at the book, tried to complete the papers again, by expressing each hinted sentiment at length, ▲ as fully as it had been expressed before, in any suitable words that should occur to me. I compared my Spectator with the original, discovered some of my faults, and corrected them. I found I wanted a stock of words, or a readiness in recollecting and using them, which I thought I should have acquired before that time, if I had gone on making verses; the continual search for words of the same import, of different length to suit the measure, or of differ Λ Λ ent sound for the rhyme, would have laid me under a con. stant necessity of searching for variety, have tended to fix that variety in my mind, and make me master of it. Λ I took some of the tales in The Spectator, turned them into verse; after a time, when I had pretty well forgotten the prose, turned them back again. Λ Λ л Λ I sometimes jumbled my collection of hints into confusion, after some weeks endeavored to reduce them into the best order I began to form the full sentences and complete the subject. This was to teach me method in the arrangement of the thoughts. By comparing my work with the original, I discovered many faults, and corrected them; I sometimes had the pleasure to fancy that, in certain particulars of small consequence, I had been fortunate enough to improve the method or the language, this encouraged me to think that I might in time come to be a tolerable English writer, of which I was extremely ambitious. Λ CHAPTER IV. SENTENCES. Introduction. 34. Having studied the larger independent units of composition, and the smaller units, called paragraphs, of which they are composed, we are now ready to take up the still minuter elements that go to the making of paragraphs. These last are sentences. Whether standing independently by itself or uniting with other related sentences to make a paragraph, every sentence should be a unit. Both for the reader and for the writer this is a principle of the greatest importance. In order that reader and writer may understand one another readily, each must recognize that the capital letter at the beginning and the period at the close always mark off a thought. The reader is disappointed if what is of fered to him as a sentence is really only a piece of a sentence, or if two sentences are wrongfully united. All readers of novels are familiar with such a furious separation of things belonging together, as is seen in the following: "I acted as if I were angry. Though really I didn't mind what he said." This should be written, "I acted as if I were angry, though really I didn't mind what he said." Not uncommon are wrong combinations, as, "The rain was falling, therefore they hurried in," which is better written: "The rain was falling. Therefore they hurried in," or still better, "Since the rain was falling, they hurried in." Complex and Compound Sentences. Does the senDoes it express 35. The question whether a thought should be expressed in simple sentences, or in a complex or a compound sentence, is a question of logic. tence say what it was intended to say? the relation, coördinate or subordinate, that the writer meant to express? In "I shouted to my companion to jump, and the danger was over," the two facts are joined in a compound sentence by the word "and," as if they were coördinate; but a moment's reflection shows that the relation intended is a subordinate relation, and therefore demands a complex sentence for its true expression. We try, "I shouted to my companion to jump, — when the danger was over," but we find that now we have subordinated the principal statement. The sentence should read, "When I shouted to my companion to jump, the danger was over," or, "Before I could shout to my companion to jump, the danger was over. In short, the compound sentence must express a real, and not merely a pretended, coördination of ideas, and a complex sentence must express real subordination, putting the main idea in the principal clause and not in some modifier. Danger of Overcrowding. 36. Even when the sentence is logical and all the details are relevant (as they are in the sentence below), there is danger of overcrowding. It is false economy to try to make one sentence tell too much, for then the main idea is harder to find. |