I disparaging or discouraging the thorough acquisition of any one of these studies, or denying that, as far as it goes, such thorough acquisition is a real education of the mind. All I say is, call things by their right names, and do not confuse together ideas which are essentially different. A thorough knowledge of one science and a superficial acquaintance with many, are not the same thing; a smattering of a hundred things or a memory for detail, is not a philosophical or comprehensive view. Recreations are not education; accomplishments are not education." And so on. From this point to the end of the paragraph, as the thought lies all in the same direction, no connectives are used.

It is a frequent error in young writers to change the direction of their thought too often, and thus burden their style with connectives. The following is a parody and of course an exaggeration of this tendency to shift thought. 666 'Hard at it, Joshua!' he said.

'Yes, yes!' said Joshua, looking up through his steel-bowed spectacles. 'Hev to work hard to make a livin' — though I don't know's I ought to call it hard neither; and yet it is rather hard, too; but then, on t'other hand, 'taint so hard as a good many other things-though there's a good many jobs that's easier. That's so! That's so!

"Must we be kerried to the skies
On feathery beds of ease?"

Though I don' know's I oughter quote a hymn on such a matter; but then I don' know's there's any partic❜lar harm in't, neither.'"

2. By demonstrative words and phrases, and by repetition, either literally or in summary, of the part of the previous idea that is to be utilized in the reference.

NOTE.

Of demonstrative words, the personal and demonstrative pronouns are most relied on. The relative was formerly so used; for example: "But he who was of the bond woman was born after the flesh; but he of the free woman was by promise. Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar." Nowadays, however, the relative is used only inside the sentence.

Demonstrative phrases are for the most part the combination of a demonstrative pronoun with other words, so as to denote some adverbial relation; as, in this case, under these circumstances, in this manner, after what has been said, and the like.

The following paragraph, from Carlyle, will illustrate reference both by demonstratives and by repetition:

"Friedrich does not neglect these points of good manners, along with which

something of substantial may be privately conjoined. For example, if he had in secret his eye on Jülich and Berg, could anything be fitter than to ascertain what the French will think of such an enterprise? What the French; and next to them, what the English- that is to say, Hanoverians, who meddle much in affairs of the Reich. For these reasons and others he likewise, probably with more study than in the Bielfeld case, dispatches Colonel Camas to make his compliment at the French court, and in an expert way take soundings there. Camas, a fat, sedate, military gentleman of advanced years, full of observation, experience, and sound sense with one arm, which he makes do the work of two, and nobody can notice that the other arm resting in his coat-breast is of cork, so expert is he'—will do in this matter what is feasible; probably not much for the present. He is to call on Voltaire as he passes, who is in Holland again, at the Hague for some months back, and deliver him a little cask of Hungary wine,' which probably his Majesty had thought exquisite; of which, and the other insignificant passages between them, we hear more than enough in the writing and correspondences of Voltaire about this time."

3. By modifying the structure of the succeeding sentence in obedience to the attraction exerted by a previous idea. This modification of structure has already been described, under the head of Inversion for Adjustment; see preceding, page 166. Thus a series of sentences may be formed, in which words or turns of thought in each previous sentence may be taken as the starting-point or occasion for what follows.

Skillfully managed, this manner of reference is very graceful and effective; the writer needs, however, to keep his paragraph-subject well in mind, as well as the suggestion of the previous sentence; otherwise there is danger of making too great excursions from the path of the thought.

EXAMPLE. - In the following, from De Quincey, observe how frequently the sentence is inverted through the influence, either similarity or contrast, of a previous idea. Other means of explicit reference, also, are marked.

"All is finite in the present; and even that finite is infinite in its velocity of flight towards death. But in God there is nothing finite; but in God there is nothing transitory; but in God there can be nothing that tends to death. Therefore, it follows, that for God there can be no present. The future is the present of God, and to the future it is that he sacrifices the human present. Therefore it is that he works by earthquake. Therefore it is that he works by grief. O, deep is the ploughing of earthquake! O, deep is the ploughing

of grief! But oftentimes less would not suffice for the agriculture of God. Upon a night of earthquake he builds a thousand years of pleasant habitations for man. Upon the sorrow of an infant he raises oftentimes from human intellects glorious vintages that could not else have been. Less than these fierce ploughshares would not have stirred the stubborn soil. The one is needed for earth, our planet — for earth itself as the dwelling-place of man; but the other is needed yet oftener for God's mightiest instrument, —yes, is needed for the mysterious children of the earth!"

4. In a large proportion, perhaps in the majority of cases, however, the foregoing means of explicit reference may be safely omitted. It is an advantage when this can be done, especially when thereby connective words and phrases are obviated, because connectives in general tend to load and encumber the composition. The tendency of modern literary style is to dispense more and more with them.

This discarding of connectives is due not to any tendency to leave the structure of thought imperfectly articulated, but to the greater directness of thought and expression, which makes the road plain and obvious without need of particles to point it out. For the absence of connectives has a meaning and justification as distinct as has their presence. When the thought, having been once clearly proposed, needs only to be kept on in the same direction, each succeeding statement is its own guide. It is only when the direction is to be changed that a connective is needed.

The chief cases where connectives may be omitted are: (1) When a sentence repeats, or explains, or illustrates, or particularizes what goes before. The nature of the reference is supposed to be shown by the context. (2) In the accumulation of details. "When a number of particulars are given in succession — whether descriptive, narrative, or expository — they are presumed, in the absence of any contrary indication, to have a common bearing."1 (3) Sometimes in cases where they would more naturally be expressed, in order to make a more abrupt and forcible transition. In impassioned language this omission is often an aid to vivacity.

1 Bain," English Composition and Rhetoric," p. 145.

EXAMPLE.

The following will illustrate the absence of connectives, and also stand as an example of the type of paragraph-structure — namely, subject and proof that will best bear their absence.

"When most disguised and repressed the wisdom of the gospel has been modifying our philosophy and teaching a loftier system of its own. A Howard, sounding and circumnavigating the ocean of human misery, is only an obedient agent of its philanthropy. A Clarkson and a Wilberforce have only given utterance to its tender and righteous appeals for the slave. A Raikes, a Bell, and a Lancaster, have simply remembered its long neglected injunction, Suffer little children to come unto me.' 999 HARRIS.

III.

Proportion. The Relation of Parts. On the principle that all statements should have bulk and prominence according to their importance, a due proportion needs to be maintained between principal and subordinate ideas in the paragraph. Every part should be so treated as to show for just what it naturally is, in rank, and in its relation to the whole.

Digressions. When a subordinate or illustrative idea is expanded, either in volume or emphasis, beyond its proportion, it becomes a digression, and distracts from the effect of the main topic.

Digressions are to the paragraph or discourse what parentheses are to the sentence. They may sometimes be effectually introduced, as when, for instance, it is desirable to divert the reader's attention for a time from a strenuous and exacting argument, or from a highly-wrought and exciting passage, for the sake of recovering calmness and buoyancy of mind. The boundaries of a digression should, however, be carefully drawn, and its digressive character made and kept obvious.

NOTE. Of modern authors the most digressive is De Quincey; and nothing could justify his inveterate tendency to wander off from his subject, except his remarkable care and skill in explicit reference, which generally keeps him within returning distance of his main topic; but even this does not prevent his discursiveress from becoming occasionally vexatious.

Parallel Construction. We have seen that it is a help to the reader's attention when corresponding clauses and phrases are formed, as nearly as may be, on the same plan; see paragraph 79, page 164. The same principle holds also, with a somewhat broader application, in the structure of the paragraph. Successive sentences dealing with the same subject should preserve the prominence of leading ideas by keeping the principal subject and the principal predicates, if possible, in corresponding places. In pursuance of the same principle, subordinate or digressive ideas should receive a different distribution of emphasis, and not usurp the place where the main ideas are naturally looked for.

NOTE. In the following paragraph, from De Quincey, it will be noticed that the principal subject of remark is kept well in the forefront throughout; and that in the sentences where a new subject is introduced (marked here by square brackets) the new subject is kept consistently in a less prominent part of its sentence. The main subject is Our Lady of Tears.

"Her eyes are sweet and subtile, wild and sleepy, by turns; oftentimes rising to the clouds, oftentimes challenging the heavens. She wears a diadem round her head. And I knew by childish memories that she could go abroad upon the winds, when she heard that sobbing of litanies, or the thundering of organs, and when she beheld the mustering of summer clouds. This sister, the elder, it is that carries keys more than papal at her girdle, which open every cottage and every palace. She, to my knowledge, sate all last summer by the bedside of the blind beggar, him that so often and so gladly I talked with, whose pious daughter, eight years old, with the sunny countenance, resisted the temptations of play and village mirth to travel all day long on dusty roads with her afflicted father. [For this did God send her a great reward. In the springtime of the year, and whilst yet her own spring was budding, he recalled her to himself. But her blind father mourns forever over her; still he dreams at midnight that the little guiding hand is locked within his own; and still he wakens to a darkness that is now within a second and a deeper darkness.] This Mater Lachrymarum also has been sitting all this winter of 1844-5 within the bedchamber of the Czar, bringing before his eyes a daughter (not less pious) that vanished to God not less suddenly, and left behind her a darkness not less profound. By the power of her keys it is that Our Lady of Tears glides a ghostly intruder into the chambers of sleepless men, sleepless women, sleepless children, from Ganges to the Nile, from Nile to Mississippi. And her, because she is the first-born of her house, and has the widest empire, let us honor with the title of 'Madonna.'"