A Practical Method.

Aristotle's method, though perfect in theory, has failed in practice. Franklin's method is too elementary and undeveloped to be of general use. Taking Aristotle's method (represented by our standard textbooks on rhetoric) as our guide, let us develop Franklin's method into a system as varied and complete as Aristotle's. We shall then have a method at the same time practical and scholarly.

We have studied the art of writing words correctly (spelling) and writing sentences correctly (grammar).* Now we wish to learn to write sentences, paragraphs, and entire compositions effectively.

*See the earlier volumes in this series.

First, we must form the habit of observing the meanings and values of words, the structure of sentences, of paragraphs, and of entire compositions as we read standard literature—-just as we have been trying to form the habit of observing the spelling of words, and the logical relationships of words in sentences. In order that we may know what to look for in our observation we must analyse a little, but we will not imagine that we shall learn to do a thing by endless talk about doing it.

Second, we will practise in the imitation of selections from master writers, in every case fixing our attention on the rhetorical element each particular writer best illustrates. This imitation will be continued until we have mastered the subject toward which we are especially directing our attention, and all the subjects which go to the making of an accomplished writer.

Third, we will finally make independent compositions for ourselves with a view to studying and expressing the stock of ideas which we have to express. This will involve a study of the people on whom we wish to impress our ideas, and require that we constantly test the results of our work to see what the actual effect on the mind of our audience is.

Let us now begin our work.

CHAPTER I.

DICTION.

"Diction" is derived from the Latin dictio, a word, and in rhetoric it denotes choice of words. In the study of grammar we have learned that all words have logical relationships in sentences, and in some cases certain forms to agree with particular relationships. We have also taken note of "idioms," in which words are used with peculiar values.

On the subject of Idiom Arlo Bates in his book "On Writing English" has some very forcible remarks. Says he, "An idiom is the personal—-if the word may be allowed—-the personal idiosyncrasy of a language. It is a method of speech wherein the genius of the race making the language shows itself as differing from that of all other peoples. What style is to the man, that is idiom to the race. It is the crystalization in verbal forms of peculiarities of race temperament—- perhaps even of race eccentricities . . . . . English which is not idiomatic becomes at once formal and lifeless, as if the tongue were already dead and its remains embalmed in those honorable sepulchres, the philological dictionaries. On the other hand, English which goes too far, and fails of a delicate distinction between what is really and essentially idiomatic and what is colloquial, becomes at once vulgar and utterly wanting in that subtle quality of dignity for which there is no better term than distinction."*

*As examples of idioms Mr. Bates gives the following: A ten-foot (instead of ten-feet) pole; the use of the "flat adverb" or adjective form in such expressions as "speak loud." "walk fast," "the sun shines hot," "drink deep;" and the use of prepositions adverbially at the end of a sentence, as in "Where are you going to?" "The subject which I spoke to you about," etc.

We therefore see that idiom is not only a thing to justify, but something to strive for with all our might. The use of it gives character to our selection of words, and better than anything else illustrates what we should be looking for in forming our habit of observing the meanings and uses of words as we read.

Another thing we ought to note in our study of words is the suggestion which many words carry with them in addition to their obvious meaning. For instance, consider what a world of ideas the mere name of Lincoln or Washington or Franklin or Napoleon or Christ calls up. On their face they are but names of men, or possibly sometimes of places; but we cannot utter the name of Lincoln without thinking of the whole terrible struggle of our Civil War; the name of Washington, without thinking of nobility, patriotism, and self-sacrifice in a pure and great man; Napoleon, without thinking of ambition and blood; of Christ, without lifting our eyes to the sky in an attitude of worship and thanksgiving to God. So common words carry with them a world of suggested thought. The word drunk calls up a picture horrid and disgusting; violet suggests blueness, sweetness, and innocence; oak suggests sturdy courage and strength; love suggests all that is dear in the histories of our own lives. Just what will be suggested depends largely on the person who hears the word, and in thinking of suggestion we must reflect also on the minds of the persons to whom we speak.

The best practical exercise for the enlargement of one's vocabulary is translating, or writing verses. Franklin commends verse-writing, but it is hardly mechanical enough to be of value in all cases. At the same time, many people are not in a position to translate from a foreign language; and even if they were, the danger of acquiring foreign idioms and strange uses of words is so great as to offset the positive gain. But we can easily exercise ourselves in translating one kind of English into another, as poetry into prose, or an antique style into modern. To do this the constant use of the English dictionary will be necessary, and incidentally we shall learn a great deal about words.

As an example of this method of study, we subjoin a series of notes on the passage quoted from Franklin in the last chapter. In our study we constantly ask ourselves, "Does this use of the word sound perfectly natural?" At every point we appeal to our instinct, and in time come to trust it to a very great extent. We even train it. To train our instinct for words is the first great object of our study.

Notes on Franklin. (See "How Franklin Learned to Write" in preceding chapter.)

1. "The female sex" includes animals as well as human beings, and in modern times we say simply "women," though when Franklin wrote "the female sex" was considered an elegant phrase.

2. Note that "their" refers to the collective noun "sex."

3. If we confine the possessive case to persons we would not say "for dispute's sake," and indeed "for the sake of dispute" is just as good, if not better, in other respects.

4. "Ready plenty" is antique usage for "ready abundance." Which is the stronger?

5. "Reasons" in the phrase "strength of his reasons" is a simple and forcible substitute for "arguments."

6. "Copied fair" shows an idiomatic use of an adjective form which perhaps can be justified, but the combination has given way in these days to "made a fair copy of."

7. Observe that Franklin uses "pointing" for punctuation, and "printing-house" for printing-office.

8. The old idiom "endeavor at improvement" has been changed to endeavor to improve, or endeavor to make improvement.

9. Note how the use of the word sentiment has changed. We would be more likely to say ideas in a connection like this.

10. For "laid them by," say laid them away.

11. For "laid me under . . . . . . necessity" we might say compelled me, or made it necessary that I should.

12. "Amended" is not so common now as corrected.

13. For "evading" (attendance at public worship) we should now say avoiding. We "evade" more subtle things than attendance at church.

There are many other slight differences in the use of words which the student will observe. It would be an excellent exercise to write out, not only this passage, but a number of others from the Autobiography, in the most perfect of simple modern English.

We may also take a modern writer like Kipling and translate his style into simple, yet attractive and good prose; and the same process may be applied to any of the selections in this book, simply trying to find equivalent and if possible equally good words to express the same ideas, or slight variations of the same ideas. Robinson Crusoe, Bacon's Essays, and Pilgrim's Progress are excellent books to translate into modern prose. The chief thing is to do the work slowly and thoughtfully.

CHAPTER II.

FIGURES OF SPEECH.

It is not an easy thing to pass from the logical precision of grammar to the vague suggestiveness of words that call up whole troops of ideas not contained in the simple idea for which a word stands. Specific idioms are themselves at variance with grammar and logic, and the grammarians are forever fighting them; but when we go into the vague realm of poetic style, the logical mind is lost at once. And yet it is more important to use words pregnant with meaning than to be strictly grammatical. We must reduce grammar to an instinct that will guard us against being contradictory or crude in our construction of sentences, and then we shall make that instinct harmonize with all the other instincts which a successful writer must have. When grammar is treated (as we have tried to treat it) as "logical instinct," then there can be no conflict with other instincts.

The suggestiveness of words finds its specific embodiment in the so called "figures of speech." We must examine them a little, because when we come to such an expression as "The kettle boils" after a few lessons in tracing logical connections, we are likely to say without hesitation that we have found an error, an absurdity. On its face it is an absurdity to say "The kettle boils" when we mean "The water in the kettle boils." But reflection will show us that we have merely condensed our words a little. Many idioms are curious condensations, and many figures of speech may be explained as natural and easy condensations. We have already seen such a condensation in "more complete" for "more nearly complete."

The following definitions and illustrations are for reference. We do not need to know the names of any of these figures in order to use them, and it is altogether probable that learning to name and analyse them will to some extent make us too self-conscious to use them at all. At the same time, they will help us to explain things that otherwise might puzzle us in our study.

1. Simile. The simplest figure of speech is the simile. It is nothing more or less than a direct comparison by the use of such words as like and as.

Examples: Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel. How often would I have gathered my children together, as a hen doth gather her broodunder her wings! The Kingdom of God is like a grain of mustard seed, is like leaven hidden in three measures of meal. Their lives glide on like rivers that water the woodland. Mercy droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath.

2. Metaphor. A metaphor is an implied or assumed comparison. The words like and as are no longer used, but the construction of the sentence is such that the comparison is taken for granted and the thing to which comparison is made is treated as if it were the thing itself.

Examples: The valiant taste of death but once. Stop my house's ears. His strong mind reeled under the blow. The compressed passions of a century exploded in the French Revolution. It was written at a white heat. He can scarcely keep the wolf from the door. Strike while the iron is hot. Murray's eloquence never blazed into sudden flashes, but its clear, placid, and mellow splendor was never overclouded.

The metaphor is the commonest figure of speech. Our language is a sort of burying-ground of faded metaphors. Look up in the dictionary the etymology of such words as obvious, ruminating, insuperable, dainty, ponder, etc., and you will see that they got their present meanings through metaphors which have now so faded that we no longer recognize them.

Sometimes we get into trouble by introducing two comparisons in the same sentence or paragraph, one of which contradicts the other. Thus should we say "Pilot us through the wilderness of life" we would introduce two figures of speech, that of a ship being piloted and that of a caravan in a wilderness being guided, which would contradict each other. This is called a "mixed metaphor."

3. Allusion. Sometimes a metaphor consists in a reference or allusion to a well known passage in literature or a fact of history. Examples: Daily, with souls that cringe and plot, we Sinais climb and know it not. (Reference to Moses on Mt. Sinai). He received the lion's share of the profits. (Reference to the fable of the lion's share). Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed by a kiss. (Reference to the betrayal of Christ by Judas).

4. Personification. Sometimes the metaphor consists in speaking of inanimate things or animals as if they were human. This is called the figure of personification. It raises the lower to the dignity of the higher, and so gives it more importance.

Examples: Earth felt the wound. Next Anger rushed, his eyes on fire. The moping Owl doth to the Moon complain. True Hope is swift and flies with swallow's wings. Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, as to be hated needs but to be seen. Speckled Vanity will sicken soon and die.

(Note in the next to the last example that the purely impersonal is raised, not to human level, but to that of the brute creation. Still the figure is called personification).

5. Apostrophe. When inanimate things, or the absent, whether living or dead, are addressed as if they were living and present, we have a figure of speech called apostrophe. This figure of speech gives animation to the style. Examples: O Rome, Rome, thou hast been a tender nurse to me. Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks. Take her, O Bridegroom, old and gray!

6. Antithesis. The preceding figures have been based on likeness. Antithesis is a figure of speech in which opposites are contrasted, or one thing is set against another. Contrast is almost as powerful as comparison in making our ideas clear and vivid.

Examples: (Macaulay, more than any other writer, habitually uses antitheses). Saul, seeking his father's asses, found himself turned into a king. Fit the same intellect to a man and it is a bowstring; to a woman and it is a harp-string. I thought that this man had been a lord among wits, but I find that he is only a wit among lords. Better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven. For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

7. Metonymy. Besides the figures of likeness and unlikeness, there are others of quite a different kind. Metonymy consists in the substitution for the thing itself of something closely associated with it, as the sign or symbol for the thing symbolized, the cause for the effect, the instrument for the user of it, the container for the thing contained, the material for the thing made of it, etc.

Examples: He is a slave to the cup. Strike for your altars and your fires. The kettle boils, He rose and addressed the chair. The palace should not scorn the cottage. The watched pot never boils. The red coats turned and fled. Iron bailed and lead rained upon the enemy. The pen is mightier than the sword.

8. Synecdoche. There is a special kind of metonymy which is given the dignity of a separate name. It is the substitution of the part for the whole or the whole for the part. The value of it consists in putting forward the thing best known, the thing that will appeal most powerfully to the thought and feeling.

Examples: Come and trip it as you go, on the light fantastic toe. American commerce is carried in British bottoms. He bought a hundred head of cattle. It is a village of five hundred chimneys. He cried, "A sail, a sail!" The busy fingers toll on.

Exercise.

Indicate the figure of speech used in each of the following sentences:

1. Come, seeling Night, scarf up the tender eye of pitiful Day.

2. The coat does not make the man.

3. From two hundred observatories in Europe and America, the glorious artillery of science nightly assaults the skies.

4. The lamp is burning.

5. Blow, blow, thou winter wind, thou art not so unkind as man's ingratitude.

6. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff.

7. Laughter and tears are meant to turn the wheels of the machinery of sensibility; one is wind power, the other water power.

8. When you are an anvil, hold you still; when you are a hammer, strike your fill.

9. Save the ermine from pollution.

10. There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; omitted, all the voyage of their lives is bound in shallows and in miseries.

Turn each of the above sentences into plain language. Key: (the numbers in parantheses indicate the figure of speech in the sentences as numbered above). 1. (4); 2. (7); 3. (2); 4. (7); 5. (5); 6. (1); 7. (2 and 6); 8. (2 and 6); 9. (7); 10. (2).

CHAPTER III.

STYLE.

There have been many definitions of style; but the disputes of the rhetoricians do not concern us. Style, as the word is commonly understood, is the choice and arrangement of words in sentences and of sentences in paragraphs as that arrangement is effective in expressing our meaning and convincing our readers or hearers. A good style is one that is effective, and a bad style is one which fails of doing what the writer wishes to do. There are as many ways of expressing ideas as there are ways of combining words (that is, an infinite number), and as many styles as there are writers. None of us wishes precisely to get the style of any one else; but we want to form a good one of our own.

We will briefly note the elements mentioned by those who analyse style, and then pass on to concrete examples.

Arrangement of words in a sentence. The first requirement is that the arrangement of words should be logical, that is grammatical. The rhetorical requirements are that—-

1. One sentence, with one principal subject and one principal predicate, should try to express one thought and no more. If we try to mix two thoughts in the same sentence, we shall come to grief. Likewise, we shall fail if we attempt to mix two subjects in the same paragraph or composition.

2. The words in the sentence should be arranged that those which are emphatic will come in the emphatic places. The beginning and the end of a sentence are emphatic positions, the place before any mark of punctuation is usually emphatic, and any word not in its usual place with relation to the word it modifies grammatically is especially emphatic. We must learn the emphatic positions by experience, and then our instinct will guide us. The whole subject is one of the relative values of words.

3. The words in a sentence should follow each other in such a simple, logical order that one leads on to another, and the whole meaning flows like a stream of water. The reader should never be compelled to stop and look back to see how the various ideas "hang together." This is the rhetorical side of the logical relationship which grammar requires. Not only must grammatical rules be obeyed, but logical instinct must be satisfied with the linking of idea to idea to make a complete thought. And the same law holds good in linking sentences into paragraphs and paragraphs into whole compositions.

These three requirements have been named Unity, Mass, and Coherence.

The variations in sentences due to emphasis have given rise to a rhetorical division of sentences into two classes, called loose and periodic.

A loose sentence is one in which words follow each other in their natural order, the modifiers of the verb of course following the verb. Often many of these modifiers are not strictly necessary to complete the sense and a period may be inserted at some point before the close of the sentence without destroying its grammatical completeness. The addition of phrases and clauses not strictly required constitutes looseness of sentence structure.

A periodic sentence is one which is not grammatically or logically complete till the end. If the sentence is somewhat long, the mind is held in suspense until the last word is uttered.

Example. The following is a loose sentence: "I stood on the bridge at midnight, as the clocks were striking the hour." The same sentence becomes periodic by transposition of the less important predicate modifiers, thus—-"At midnight, as the clocks were striking the hour, I stood on the bridge."

It will be observed that the periodic form is adapted to oratory and similar forms of eloquent writing in which the mind of the reader or hearer is keyed up to a high pitch of expectancy; while the loose sentence is the one common in all simple narrative and unexcited statement.

Qualities of Style. Writers on rhetoric note three essential qualities of style, namely clearness, force, and elegance.

Clearness of style is the direct result of clearness and simplicity of thought. Unless we have mastered our thought in every particular before trying to express it, confusion is inevitable. At the same time, if we have mastered our thought perfectly, and yet express it in language not understood by the persons to whom and for whom we write or speak, our style will not be clear to them, and we shall have failed in conveying our thoughts as much as if we had never mastered them.

Force is required to produce an effect on the mind of the hearer. He must not only understand what we say, but have some emotion in regard to it; else he will have forgotten our words before we have fairly uttered them. Force is the appeal which words make to the feeling, as clearness is the appeal they make to the understanding.

Elegance is required only in writing which purports to be good literature. It is useful but not required in business letters, or in newspaper writing; but it is absolutely essential to higher literary art. It is the appeal which the words chosen and the arrangement selected make to our sense of beauty. That which is not beautiful has no right to be called "literature," and a style which does not possess the subtle elements of beauty is not a strictly "literary" style.

Most of us by persistent effort can conquer the subject of clearness. Even the humblest person should not open his mouth or take up his pen voluntarily unless he can express himself clearly; and if he has any thought to express that is worth expressing, and wants to express it, he will sooner or later find a satisfactory way of expressing it.

The thing that most of us wish to find out is, how to write with force. Force is attained in various ways, summarized as follows:

1. By using words which are in themselves expressive.

2. By placing those words in emphatic positions in the sentence.

3. By varying the length and form of successive sentences so that the reader or hearer shall never be wearied by monotony.

4. By figures of speech, or constant comparison and illustration, and making words suggest ten times as much as they say.

5. By keeping persistently at one idea, though from every possible point of view and without repetition of any kind, till that idea has sunk into the mind of the hearer and has been fully comprehended.

Force is destroyed by the—-Vice of repetition with slight change or addition; Vice of monotony in the words, sentences or paragraphs; Vice of over-literalness and exactness; Vice of trying to emphasize more than one thing at a time; Vice of using many words with little meaning; or words barren of suggestiveness and destitute of figures of speech; and its opposite, the Vice of overloading the style with so many figures of speech and so much suggestion and variety as to disgust or confuse. These vices have been named tautology, dryness, and "fine writing." Without doubt the simplest narration is the hardest kind of composition to write, chiefly because we do not realize how hard it is. The first necessity for a student is to realize the enormous requirements for a perfect mastery of style. The difficulties will not appear to the one who tries original composition by way of practice, since there is no way of "checking up" his work. He may (or may not) be aware that what he is doing does not produce the effect that the writing of a master produces; but if he does realize it, he will certainly fail to discover wherein his own weakness consists.

The only effective way of making the discovery is that described by Franklin, and there is no masterpiece of literature better to practise upon than Ruskin's "The King of the Golden River." Unlike much beautiful and powerful writing, it is so simple that a child can understand it. Complete comprehension of the meaning is absolutely necessary before any skill in expressing that meaning can be looked for, and an attempt to imitate that which is not perfectly clear will not give skill. And with this simplicity there is consummate art. Ruskin uses nearly all the devices described in the preceding pages. Let us look at some of these in the first three paragraphs of Ruskin's story:

In a secluded and mountainous part of Styria, there was, in old time, a valley of most surprising and luxuriant fertility. It was surrounded on all sides by steep and rocky mountains rising into peaks which were always covered with snow and from which a number of torrents descended in constant cataracts. One of these fell westward, over the face of a crag so high that, when the sun had set to everything else, and all below was darkness, his beams still shone full upon this waterfall, so that it looked like a shower of gold. It was, therefore, called by the people of the neighborhood the Golden River{.} It was strange that none of these streams fell into the valley itself. They all descended on the other side of the mountains, and wound through broad plains and by populous cities. But the clouds were drawn so constantly to the snowy hills, and rested so softly in the circular hollow, that, in time of drought and heat, when all the country round was burnt up, there was still rain in the little valley; and its crops were so heavy, and its hay so high, and its apples so red, and its grapes so blue, and its wine so rich, and its honey so sweet, that it was a marvel to every one who beheld it, and was commonly called the Treasure Valley.

The whole of this little valley belonged to three brothers, called Schwartz, Hans, and Gluck. Schwartz and Hans, the two elder brothers, were very ugly men, with overwhelming eyebrows and small, dull eyes, which were always half shut, so that you couldn't see into them, and always fancied they saw very far into you. They lived by farming the Treasure Valley, and very good farmers they were. They killed everything that did not pay for its eating. They shot the blackbirds, because they pecked the fruit; and killed the hedge-hogs, lest they should suck the cows; they poisoned the crickets for eating the crumbs in the kitchen; and smothered the cicadas, which used to sing all summer in the lime-trees. They worked their servants without any wages, till they could not work any more, and then quarrelled with them and turned them out of doors without paying them. It would have been very odd, if, with such a farm, and such a system of farming, they hadn't got very rich; and very rich they did get.

They generally contrived to keep their corn by them till it was very dear, and then sell it for twice its value; they had heaps of gold lying about on their floors, yet it was never known that they had given so much as a penny or a crust in charity; they never went to mass; grumbled perpetually at paying tithes; and were, in a word, of so cruel and grinding a temper, as to receive from all those with whom they had any dealings, the nickname of the "Black Brothers."

The youngest brother, Gluck, was as completely opposed, in both appearance and character, to his seniors as could possibly be imagined or desired. He was not above twelve years old, fair, blue-eyed, and kind in temper to every living thing. He did not, of course, agree particularly well with his brothers, or rather they did not agree with him. He was usually appointed to the honorable office of turnspit, when there was anything to roast, which was not often; for, to do the brothers justice, they were hardly less sparing upon themselves than upon other people. At other times he used to clean the shoes, the floors, and sometimes the plates, occasionally getting what was left on them, by way of encouragement, and a wholesome quantity of dry blows, by way of education.

The author starts out with a periodic sentence, beginning with a predicate modifier and placing the subject last. This serves to fix our attention from the first. The arrangement also throws the emphasis on "surprising and luxuriant fertility." The last word is the essential one in conveying the meaning, though a modifier of the simple subject noun "valley." The next sentence is a loose one. After catching the attention of the reader, we must not burden his mind too much till he gets interested. We must move along naturally and easily, and this Ruskin does. The third sentence is periodic again. We are now awake and able to bear transposition for the sake of emphasis. Ruskin first emphasizes "so high," the adjective being placed after its noun, and then leads the way to the chief emphasis, which comes on the word "gold," the last in the sentence. There is also an antithesis between the darkness below and the light on the peak which is bright enough to turn the water into gold. This also helps to emphasize "gold." We have now had three long sentences and the fourth sentence, which concludes this portion of the subject, is a short one. "Golden River" is emphasized by being thrown quite to the end, a little out of its natural order, which would have been immediately after the verb. The emphasis on "gold" in the preceding sentence prepared the way for the emphasis on "Golden River;" and by looking back we see how every word has been easily, gracefully leading up to this conclusion.

Ordinarily this would be the end of a paragraph. We may call the first four sentences a "sub-paragraph." The capital letters in "Golden River" mark the division to the eye, and the emphasis marks the division to the mind. We do not begin with a new paragraph, simply because the subject that follows is more closely connected with the first four sentences than with the paragraph which follows.

Beginning with "It was strange that none of these streams" etc., we have two rather short, simple, loose sentences, which introduce us in a most natural manner to the subject to be presented, and prepare the way for a very long, somewhat complicated sentence, full of antitheses, ending with the emphatic words "Treasure Valley." These two words are to this part of the paragraph what the words "Golden River" were to the first part; and besides, we see before us the simple, beautiful picture of the Golden River above the Treasure Valley, presented in words whose power and grace we cannot fail to appreciate.

The second paragraph goes forward in the most matter-of-course and easy way. The first sentence is short, but the second is longer, with a pleasing variation of long and short phrases, and it ends with a contrast marked to the eye by the italic words "them" and "you." The next two sentences are quite short, and variety is given by the simple transposition in "and very good farmers they were." This is no more than a graceful little twirl to relieve any possible monotony. The fourth sentence in the paragraph is also very short, purposely made so for emphasis. It gives in a word what the following long sentence presents in detail. And observe the constant variation in the form of this long sentence: in the first clause we have "They shot . . . . because," in the second, "and killed . . . . lest" (the subject of killed being implied, but its place supplied by and), while in the third, the subject of the verb is again expressed, and then we have the prepositional form "for eating" instead of the conjunction and verb in a subordinate sentence. Moreover we have three different verbs meaning the same thing—-shot, killed, poisoned. By the variation Ruskin avoids monotony; yet by the similarity he gains emphasis. The likeness of the successive clauses is as important as their difference. There is also in each an implied contrast, between the severe penalty and the slight offense. By implication each word gives an added touch to the picture of hardness and cruelty of the two brothers. Ruskin finds a dozen different ways of illustrating the important statement he made in the second sentence (the first sentence being merely introductory). And at the end of the paragraph we have the whole summed up in a long sentence full of deliberate rather than implied contrasts, which culminate in the two words "Black Brothers."

It is easy to see that much of the strength of these two paragraphs lies in the continued and repeated use of contrast. The first paragraph, with its beautiful description of the "Golden River" and the "Treasure Valley," is itself a perfect contrast to the second, with its "Black Brothers" and all their meanness; and we have already seen that the second paragraph itself is filled with antitheses.

In these two paragraphs we have but two simple ideas, that of the place with all its beauty, and that of the brothers with all their ugliness. Ruskin might have spoken of them in two sentences, or even in one; but as a matter of fact, in order to make us think long enough about these two things, he takes them one at a time and gives us glints, like the reflections from the different facets of a diamond slowly turned about in the light. Each is almost like the preceding, yet a little different; and when we have seen all in succession, we understand each better, and the whole subject is vividly impressed on our minds.

In the third paragraph we have still another contrast in the description of little Gluck. This paragraph is shorter, but the same devices are used that we found in the preceding.

In these three paragraphs the following points are well illustrated:

1. Each paragraph develops one subject, which has a natural relation to what precedes and what follows;

2. Each idea is presented in a succession of small details which follow in easy, logical order one after the other;

3. There is constant variety and contrast, difference with likeness and likeness with difference.

CHAPTER IV.

HUMOR:

Addison, Stevenson, Lamb.

Mere correctness in sentence structure (grammar) may be purely scientific; but the art of rhetoric is so wrapped up with human emotion that the study of human nature counts for infinitely more than the theory of arrangement, figures of speech, etc., Unless the student has some idea how the human mind works (his own mind and the minds of his readers), he will make little or no progress in his study of this subject. Professional teachers ignore this almost completely, and that is one reason why they so often fail; and it is also a reason why persons who do not go to them for training so often succeed: the latter class finds that knowledge of the human heart makes up for many deficiencies.

The first important consideration is good nature. It is not often that we can use words to compel; we must win; and it is an old proverb that "more flies are caught with molasses than with vinegar." The novice in writing is always too serious, even to morbidness, too "fierce," too arrogant and domineering in his whole thought and feeling. Sometimes such a person compels attention, but not often. The universal way Is to attract, win over, please. Most of the arts of formal rhetoric are arts of making language pleasing; but what is the value of knowing the theory in regard to these devices when the spirit of pleasing is absent?

We must go at our work gently and good-naturedly, and then there will be no straining or morbidness or repulsiveness of manner. But all this finds its consummation in what is called humor.

Humor is a thing that can be cultivated, even learned; and it is one of the most important things in the whole art of writing.

We will not attempt to say just what humor is. The effort could bring no results of value. Suffice it to say that there is implanted in most of us a sense of the ridiculous—-of the incongruous. If a thing is a little too big or a little too small for the place it is intended to fill, for some occult reason we regard it as funny. The difference of a hair seems to tickle us, whereas a great difference does not produce that kind of effect at all.

We may secure humor by introducing into our writing the slightest possible exaggeration which will result in the slightest possible incongruity. Of course this presupposes that we understand the facts in a most thorough and delicate way. Our language is not precisely representative of things as they are, but it proves better than any other language that we know just what the truth is.

Humor is the touchstone by which we ought to try ourselves and our work.

It will prevent our getting very far away from what is normal and natural.

So much for its effect on ourselves. To our readers it proves that we are good-natured, honest, and determined to be agreeable. Besides, it makes an appeal to them on their weakest side. Few people can resist a joke. There is never any occasion for them to cultivate resistance. So there is no more certain way by which we can get quickly and inevitably into their confidence and fellowship. When once we are on good terms with them they will listen to us while we say anything we may have to say. Of course we shall often have many serious things to say; but humor will open the way for us to say them better than any other agency.

It is to be noted that humor is slighter and more delicate than any other form of wit, and that it is used by serious and accomplished writers. It is the element of success in nearly all essay-writing, especially in letters; and the business man will find it his most powerful weapon in advertising. Its value is to be seen by uses so various.

The student is invited to study three examples of humor. The first is Addison's "Advice in Love." It is obvious that this subject could not very well be treated in any other way. It is too delicate for anything but delicate humor, for humor can handle subjects which would be impossible for any other kind of language. Besides, the sentiment would be likely to nauseate us by its excess or its morbidity, except for the healthy salt of humor. Humor makes this essay instructive and interesting.

Next we present two letters from Stevenson. Here we see that humor makes commonplace things interesting. How deadly dull would be the details Stevenson gives in these letters but for the enlivenment of humor! By what other method could anything worth reading have been gotten out of the facts?

The selection from Charles Lamb is an illustration of how humor may save the utterly absurd from being unreadable. Lamb had absolutely nothing to say when he sat down to write this letter; and yet he contrived to be amusing, if not actually interesting.

The master of humor can draw upon the riches of his own mind, and thereby embellish and enliven any subject he may desire to write upon.

Of these three selections, the easiest to imitate is Addison. First, we should note the old-fashioned phrasing and choice of words, and perhaps translate Addison into simple, idiomatic, modern English, altering as little as possible. We note that the letter offered by Addison is purposely filled with all the faults of rhetoric which we never find in his own writing. Addison's humorous imitation of these faults gives us twice as good a lesson as any possible example of real faults made by some writer unconsciously.

In Stevenson's letters we see the value of what has been called "the magic word." Nearly the whole of his humor consists in selecting a word which suggests ten times as much as it expresses on its face. There is a whole world of fun in this suggestion. Sometimes it is merely commonplace punning, as when he speaks of the "menial" of "high Dutch extraction" as yet "only partially extracted;" and again it is the delicate insinuation contained in spelling "Parc" with a c, for that one letter gives us an entire foreign atmosphere, and the disproportion between the smallness of the letter and the extent of the suggestiveness touches our sense of the ridiculous.

The form of study of these passages may be slightly altered. Instead of making notes and rewriting exactly as the original authors wrote, we should keep the original open before us and try to produce something slightly different in the same vein. We may suppose the letter on love written by a man instead of by a woman. Of course its character will be quite different, though exactly the same characteristics will be illustrated. This change will require an alteration in almost every sentence of the essay. Our effort should be to see how little change in the wording will be required by this one change in subject; though of course we should always modernize the phrasing. In the case of Stevenson, we may suppose that we are writing a similar letter to friends, but from some other city than San Francisco. We may imitate Lamb by describing our feelings when afflicted by some other ailment than a cold.

ADVICE IN LOVE.

By Joseph Addison.

It is an old observation, which has been made of politicians who would rather ingratiate, themselves with their sovereign, than promote his real service, that they accommodate their counsels to his inclinations, and advise him to such actions only as his heart is naturally set upon. The privy-counsellor of one in love must observe the same conduct, unless he would forfeit the friendship of the person who desires his advice. I have known several odd cases of this nature. Hipparchus was going to marry a common woman, but being resolved to do nothing without the advice of his friend Philander, he consulted him upon the occasion. Philander told him his mind freely, and represented his mistress to him in such strong colors, that the next morning he received a challenge for his pains, and before twelve o'clock was run through the body by the man who had asked his advice. Celia was more prudent on the like occasion; she desired Leonilla to give her opinion freely upon a young fellow who made his addresses to her. Leonilla, to oblige her, told her with great frankness, that she looked upon him as one of the most worthless—- Celia, foreseeing what a character she was to expect, begged her not to go on, for that she had been privately married to him above a fortnight.

The truth of it is a woman seldom asks advice before she has bought her wedding clothes. When she has made her own choice, for form's sake she sends a conge d'elire to her friends.

If we look into the secret springs and motives that set people at work on these occasions, and put them upon asking advice, which they never intend to take; I look upon it to be none of the least, that they are incapable of keeping a secret which is so very pleasing to them. A girl longs to tell her confidant that she hopes to be married in a little time, and, in order to talk of the pretty fellow that dwells so much in her thoughts, asks her gravely, what she would advise her to in a case of so much difficulty. Why else should Melissa, who had not a thousand pounds in the world, go into every quarter of the town to ask her acquaintance whether they would advise her to take Tom Townly, that made his addresses to her with an estate of five thousand a year? 'Tis very pleasant on this occasion to hear the lady propose her doubts, and to see the pains she is at to get over them.

I must not here omit a practice that is in use among the vainer part of our own sex, who will often ask a friend's advice, in relation to a fortune whom they are never likely to come at. Will Honeycomb, who is now on the verge of threescore, took me aside not long since, and ask me in his most serious look, whether I would advise him to marry my Lady Betty Single, who, by the way, is one of the greatest fortunes about town. I stared him full in the face upon so strange a question; upon which he immediately gave me an inventory of her jewels and estate, adding, that he was resolved to do nothing in a matter of such consequence without my approbation. Finding he would have an answer, I told him, if he could get the lady's consent, he had mine. This is about the tenth match which, to my knowledge, Will has consulted his friends upon, without ever opening his mind to the party herself.

I have been engaged in this subject by the following letter, which comes to me from some notable young female scribe, who, by the contents of it, seems to have carried matters so far that she is ripe for asking advice; but as I would not lose her good-will, nor forfeit the reputation which I have with her for wisdom, I shall only communicate the letter to the public, without returning any answer to it.

"Mr. Spectator, Now, sir, the thing is this: Mr. Shapely is the prettiest gentleman about town. He is very tall, but not too tall neither. He dances like an angel. His mouth is made I do not know how, but it is the prettiest that I ever saw in my life. He is always laughing, for he has an infinite deal of wit. If you did but see how he rolls his stockings! He has a thousand pretty fancies, and I am sure, if you saw him, you would like him, he is a very good scholar, and can talk Latin as fast as English. I wish you could but see him dance. Now you must understand poor Mr. Shapely has no estate; but how can he help that, you know? And yet my friends are so unreasonable as to be always teasing me about him, because he has no estate: but I am sure he has that that is better than an estate; for he is a good-natured, ingenious, modest, civil, tall, well-bred, handsome man, and I am obliged to him for his civilities ever since I saw him. I forgot to tell you that he has black eyes, and looks upon me now and then as if he had tears in them. And yet my friends are so unreasonable, that they would have me be uncivil to him. I have a good portion which they cannot hinder me of, and I shall be fourteen on the 29th day of August next, and am therefore willing to settle in the world as soon as I can, and so is Mr. Shapely. But everybody I advise with here is poor Mr. Shapely's enemy. I desire, therefore, you will give me your advice, for I know you are a wise man: and if you advise me well, I am resolved to follow it. I heartily wish you could see him dance, and am, "Sir, your most humble servant. B. D." "He loves your Spectator mightily."

Notes.

Addison's object in writing this paper is largely serious: he wishes to criticise and correct manners and morals. He is satirical, but so good-humored in his satire that no one could be offended. He also contrives to give the impression that he refers to "the other fellow," not to you. This delicacy and tact are as important in the writer as in the diplomat, for the writer quite as much as the diplomat lives by favor.

Addison is not a very strict writer, and his works have given examples for the critics by the score. One of these is seen in "begged her not to go on, for-that she had been privately married:" "begged" and "for that" do not go well together. To a modern reader such a phrasing as "If we look into . . . . . . I look upon it to be" etc., seems a little awkward, if not crude; but we may excuse these seeming discrepancies as "antique usage," along with such phrases as "advise her to in a case of such difficulty" and "to hear the lady propose her doubts, and to see the pains she is at to get over them."

"Fortune whom" is evidently a personification. The use of party in "to the party herself" is now reckoned an Americanism (!) "Engaged in this subject" is evidently antiquated.

We miss in Addison the variety which we found in Ruskin. He does not seem to understand the art of alternating long and short sentences, and following one sentence form by another in quick succession. The fact is, English prose style has made enormous advances since the time of Addison, and we learn more by comparing him with a writer like Ruskin than by deliberately imitating him. At the same time his method is simpler, and since it is so we may find him a good writer to begin our study with. In spite of any little faults we may find with him, he was and is a great writer, and we should be sure we can write as well as he before we reject him.

LETTERS.

By Robert Louis Stevenson.

I.

My Dear Mother,—-I am here at last, sitting in my room, without coat or waistcoat, and with both window and door open, and yet perspiring like a terra-cotta jug or a Gruy{S} ere cheese:

We had a very good passage, which we certainly deserved no compensation for having to sleep on the cabin floor and finding absolutely nothing fit for human food in the whole filthy embarkation. We made up for lost time by sleeping on deck a good part of the forenoon. When I awoke, Simpson was still sleeping the sleep of the just, on a coil of ropes and (as appeared afterwards) his own hat; so I got a bottle of Bass and a pipe and laid hold of an old Frenchman of somewhat filthy aspect (fiat experimentum in corpora vii) to try my French upon. I made very heavy weather of it. The Frenchman had a very pretty young wife; but my French always deserted me entirely when I had to answer her, and so she soon drew away and left me to her lord, who talked of French politics, Africa, and domestic economy with great vivacity. From Ostend a smoking hot journey to Brussels! At Brussels we went off after dinner to the Pare. If any person wants to be happy, I should advise the Pare. You sit drinking iced drinks and smoking penny cigars under great old trees.

The band place, covered walks, etc., are all lit up; and you can't fancy how beautiful was the contrast of the great masses of lamplit foliage and the dark sapphire night sky with just one blue star set overhead in the middle of the largest patch. In the dark walks, too, there are crowds of people whose faces you cannot see, and here and there a colossal white statue at the corner of an alley that gives the place a nice, artificial, eighteenth-century sentiment. There was a good deal of summer lightning blinking overhead, and the black avenues and white statues leapt out every minute into short-lived distinctness.

II.

My dear Colvin,—-Any time between eight and half-past nine in the morning, a slender gentleman in an ulster, with a volume buttoned into the breast of it, may be observed leaving No. 608 Bush and descending Powell with an active step. The gentleman is R. L. S.; the volume relates to Benjamin Franklin, on whom he meditates one of his charming essays. He descends Powell, crosses Market, and descends in Sixth on a branch of the original Pine Street Coffee House, no less; I believe he would be capable of going to the original itself, if he could only find it. In the branch he seats himself at a table covered with waxcloth, and a pampered menial, of high Dutch extraction and, indeed, as yet only partially extracted, lays before him a cup of coffee, a roll, and a pat of butter, all, to quote the deity, very good. Awhile ago, and H. L. S. used to find the supply of butter insufficient; but he has now learned the art to exactitude, and butter and roll expire at the same moment. For this refection he pays ten cents, or five pence sterling (L0 0s 5d).

Half an hour later, the inhabitants of Bush Street observe the same slender gentleman armed, like George Washington, with his little hatchet, splitting kindling, and breaking coal for his fire. He does this quasi-publicly upon the window-sill; but this is not to be attributed to any love of notoriety, though he is indeed vain of his prowess with the hatchet (which he persists in calling an axe), and daily surprised at the perpetuation of his fingers. The reason is this: that the sill is a strong, supporting beam, and that blows of the same emphasis in other parts, of his room might knock the entire shanty into hell. Thenceforth, for from three to four hours, he is engaged darkly with an ink-bottle. Yet he is not blacking his boots, for the only pair that he possesses are innocent of lustre and wear the natural hue of the material turned up with caked and venerable slush. The youngest child of his landlady remarks several times a day, as this strange occupant enters or quits the house, "Dere's de author." Can it be that this bright-haired innocent has found the true clue to the mystery? The being in question is, at least, poor enough to belong to that honorable craft.

Notes.

The first of these two letters by Stevenson was written very early in his literary career, the second when he may be supposed to have been at the height of his powers. It is interesting to see to what extent he had improved his style.

Note now much suggestiveness (apart from the apparent meaning) is contained in such words and phrases as "the whole filthy embarkation;" "made very heavy weather of it" (speaking French); "Parc"; "artificial" (the peculiar meaning being indicated by italicizing); "pampered menial" (the reference being to just the opposite).

There is a peculiar mechanical sort of humor in omitting the word street after "Bush," "Powell," etc., and in giving the cost of his meal so elaborately—-"ten cents, or fivepence sterling (L0 0s 5d)."

The chief source of fun is in giving small things an importance they do not deserve. The author is making fun at himself. Of course since he makes fun at himself it is good-natured; but it must be just as good-natured if one is to make fun of any one else. Addison was so successful because no suggestion of malice ever crept into his satire.

A LETTER TO BERNARD BARTON.

By Charles Lamb.

January 9, 1824.

Dear B. B.,—-Do you know what it is to succumb under an insurmountable day-mare,—-a "whoreson lethargy," Falstaff calls it,—-an indisposition to do anything or to be anything; a total deadness and distaste; a suspension of vitality; an indifference to locality; a numb, soporifical good-for-nothingness; an ossification all over; an oyster-like insensibility to the passing events; a mind-stupor; a brawny de—-fiance to the needles of a thrust-in conscience? Did you ever have a very bad cold with a total irresolution to submit to water-gruel processes? This has been for many weeks my lot and my excuse. My fingers drag heavily over this paper, and to my thinking it is three-and-twenty furlongs from here to the end of this demi-sheet. I have not a thing to say, nothing is of more importance than another. I am flatter than a denial or a pancake; emptier than Judge Parke's wig when the head is in it; duller than a country stage when the actors are off it,—-a cipher, an o! I acknowledge life at all only by an occasional convulsional cough, and a permanent phlegmatic pain in the chest. I am weary of the world; life is weary of me. My day is gone into twilight, and I don't think it worth the expense of candles. My wick bath a thief in it, but I can't muster courage to snuff it. I inhale suffocation; I can't distinguish veal from mutton; nothing interests me. 'Tis twelve o'clock, and Thurtell* is just now coming out upon the new drop, Jack Ketch alertly tucking up his greasy sleeves to do the last office of mortality; yet cannot I elicit a groan or a moral reflection. If you told me the world will be at an end tomorrow, I should say "Will it?" I have not volition enough left to dot my i's, much less to comb my eyebrows; my eyes are set in my head; my brains are gone out to see a poor relation in Moorfields, and they did not say when they'd come back again; my skull is a Grub-street attic to let,—-not so much as a joint-stool left in it; my hand writes, not I, from habit, as chickens run about a little when their heads are cut off. Oh for a vigorous fit of gout, colic, toothache—-an earwig{#} * in my auditory, a fly in my visual organs; pain is life,—-the sharper the more evidence of life; but this apathy, this death! Did you ever have an obstinate cold, a six or seven weeks' unintermitting chill and suspension of hope, fear, conscience, and everything? Yet do I try all I can to cure it. I try wine, and spirits, and smoking, and snuff in unsparing quantities; but they all only seem to make me worse, instead of better. I sleep in a damp room, but it does no good; I come home late o' nights, but do not find any visible amendment! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

*Hanged that day for the murder of Weare.

{#} *An ant

It is just fifteen minutes after twelve. Thurtell is by this time a good way on his journey, baiting at Scorpion, perhaps. Ketch is bargaining for his cast coat and waistcoat; and the Jew demurs at first at three half-crowns, but on consideration that he may get somewhat by showing 'em in the town, finally closes. C. L.

Notes.

The danger of not adapting your method to your auditor is well illustrated by the beginning of Lamb's next letter to the same person:

"My dear sir,—-That peevish letter of mine, which was meant to convey an apology for my incapacity to write, seems to have been taken by you in too serious a light,—-it was only my way of telling you I had a severe cold."

Lamb's letter is filled with about every figure of speech known to rhetoricians: It will be a useful exercise to pick them out.

Any person who does not have a well developed sense of humor will hardly see the force of the reference to Thurtell, the murderer. It is a whimsical way of indicating by a specific example how empty the writer's brain was, forcing him to reflect on such a subject in so trivial a manner.

Observe the occasional summing up of the meaning, curiously repeating exactly the same thing—-"Did you ever have a very bad cold—-?" "Did you ever have an obstinate cold—-?" The very short sentences summarize the very long ones. The repetition is meant to give the impression of being clumsy and stupid. In describing harshness we use words that are harsh, in describing awkwardness we use words that are awkward, in describing brightness and lightness we use words that are bright and light, in the very words themselves giving a concrete illustration of what we mean.

CHAPTER V.

RIDICULE:

Poe.

I have said that humor is good-natured and winning. This is always true, though the winning of one reader may be at the expense of some other. Humor used to win one at the expense of another is called satire and sarcasm. The simplest form of using satire and sarcasm is in direct ridicule.

Ridicule, satire, and sarcasm are suitable for use against an open enemy, such as a political opponent, against a public nuisance which ought to be suppressed, or in behalf of higher ideals and standards. The one thing that makes this style of little effect is anger or morbid intensity. While some thing or some one is attacked, perhaps with ferocity, results are to be obtained by winning the reader. So it comes about that winning, good-natured humor is an essential element in really successful ridicule. If intense or morbid hatred or temper is allowed to dominate, the reader is repulsed and made distrustful, and turns away without being affected in the desired way at all.

The following, which opens a little known essay of Edgar Allan Poe's, is one of the most perfect examples of simple ridicule in the English language. We may have our doubts as to whether Poe was justified in using such withering satire on poor Mr. Channing; but we cannot help feeling that the workmanship is just what it ought to be when ridicule is employed in a proper cause. Perhaps the boosting of books into public regard by the use of great names is a proper and sufficient subject for attack by ridicule.

WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING.

By Edgar Allan Poe.

In speaking of Mr. William Ellery Channing, who has just published a very neat little volume of poems, we feel the necessity of employing the indefinite rather than the definite article. He is a, and by no means the, William Ellery Channing. He is only the son* of the great essayist deceased. . . It may be said in his favor that nobody ever heard of him. Like an honest woman, he has always succeeded in keeping himself from being made the subject of gossip. His book contains about sixty-three things, which he calls poems, and which he no doubt seriously supposes to be such. They are full of all kinds of mistakes, of which the most important is that of their having been printed at all.

They are not precisely English—-nor will we insult a great nation by calling them Kickapoo; perhaps they are Channingese. We may convey some general idea of them by two foreign terms not in common use—-the Italian pavoneggiarsi, "to strut like a peacock," and the German word for "sky-rocketing," Schwarmerei. They are more preposterous, in a word, than any poems except those of the author of "Sam Patch;" for we presume we are right (are we not?) in taking it for granted that the author of "Sam Patch" is the very worst of all the wretched poets that ever existed upon the earth.

In spite, however, of the customary phrase of a man's "making a fool of himself," we doubt if any one was ever a fool of his own free will and accord. A poet, therefore, should not always be taken too strictly to task. He should be treated with leniency, and even when damned, should be damned with respect. Nobility of descent, too, should be allowed its privileges not more in social life than in letters. The son of a great author cannot be handled too tenderly by the critical Jack Ketch. Mr. Channing must be hung, that's true. He must be hung in terrorem —and for this there is no help under the sun; but then we shall do him all manner of justice, and observe every species of decorum, and be especially careful of his feelings, and hang him gingerly and gracefully, with a silken cord, as Spaniards hang their grandees of the blue blood, their nobles of the sangre azul.

*Really the nephew.

To be serious, then, as we always wish to be, if possible, Mr. Channing (whom we suppose to be a very young man, since we are precluded from supposing him a very old one), appears to have been inoculated at the same moment with virus from Tennyson and from Carlyle, etc.

Notes.

The three paragraphs which we have quoted illustrate three different methods of using ridicule. The first is the simple one of contemptuous epithets—"calling names," as we put it in colloquial parlance. So long as it is good-humored and the writer does not show personal malice, it is a good way; but the reader soon tires of it. A sense of fairness prevents him from listening to mere calling of names very long. So in the second paragraph Poe changes his method to one more subtile: he pretends to apologize and find excuses, virtually saying to the reader, "Oh, I'm going to be perfectly fair," while at the same time the excuses are so absurd that the effect is ridicule of a still more intense and biting type. In the third paragraph Poe seems to answer the reader's mental comment to the effect that "you are merely amusing us by your clever wit" by asserting that he means to be extremely serious. He then proceeds about his business with a most solemn face, which is as amusing in literature as it is in comic representations on the stage.

In practising upon this type of writing one must select a subject that he feels to be decidedly in need of suppression. Perhaps the most impersonal and easy subject to select for practice is a popular novel in which one can see absurdities, or certain ridiculous departments in the newspapers, such as the personal-advice column. Taking such a subject, adapt Poe's language to it with as little change as possible.

CHAPTER VI.

THE RHETORICAL, IMPASSIONED AND LOFTY STYLES:

Macaulay and De Quincey. The familiar style of the humorist is almost universal in its availability. It is the style of conversation, to a great extent—-at least of the best conversation,—-of letter-writing, of essay-writing, and, in large part, of fiction. But there are moments when a different and more, hard and artificial style is required. These moments are few, and many people never have them at all. Some people try to have them and thereby fall into the fault of "fine writing." But it is certainly very important that when the great moment comes we should be prepared for it. Then a lofty and more or less artificial style is demanded as imperatively as the key-stone of an arch when the arch is completed except for the key-stone. Without the ability to write one lofty sentence, all else that we have said may completely fail of its effect, however excellent in itself.

There are three kinds of prose which may be used on such occasions as we have described. The lowest and most common of these, as it is the most artificial and most easily acquired, is the rhetorical, or oratorical, style, the style of all orators, the style which is called eloquence. Of course we may find specimens of it in actual oratory, but it is best illustrated in its use for written compositions in Macaulay. The next variety, more rarely used, was especially developed if not actually invented by De Quincey and was called by him impassioned prose.

It would seem at first that language could go no higher; but it does mount a little higher simply by trying to do less, and we have loftiness in its plain simplicity, as when man stands bareheaded and humble in the presence of God alone.

Macaulay's style is highly artificial, but its rotundity, its movement, its impressive sweep have made it popular. Almost any one can acquire some of its features; but the ease with which it is acquired makes it dangerous in a high degree, for the writer becomes fascinated with it and uses it far too often. It is true that Macaulay used it practically all the time; but it is very doubtful it Macaulay would have succeeded so well with it to-day, when the power of simplicity is so much better understood.

De Quincey's "impassioned prose" was an attempt on his part to imitate the effects of poetry in prose. Without doubt he succeeded wonderfully; but the art is so difficult that no one else has equalled him and prose of the kind that he wrote is not often written. Still, it is worth while to try to catch some of his skill. He began to write this kind of composition in "The Confessions of an English Opium Eater," but he reached perfection only in some compositions intended as sequels to that book, namely, "Suspiria de Profundis," and "The English Mail Coach," with its "Vision of Sudden Death," and "Dream-Fugue" upon the theme of sudden death.

What we should strive for above all is the mighty effect of simple and bare loftiness of thought. Masters of this style have not been few, and they seem to slip into it with a sudden and easy upward sweep that can be compared to nothing so truly as to the upward flight of an eagle. They mount because their spirits are lofty. No one who has not a lofty thought has any occasion to write the lofty style; and such a person will usually succeed best by paying very little attention to the manner when he actually comes to write of high ideas. Still, the lofty style should be studied and mastered like any other.

It is to be noted that all these styles are applicable chiefly if not altogether to description. Narration may become intense at times, but its intensity demands no especial alteration of style. Dialogue, too, may be lofty, but only in dramas of passion, and very few people are called upon to write these. But it is often necessary to indicate a loftier, a more serious atmosphere, and this is effected by description of surrounding details in an elevated manner.

One of the most natural, simple, and graceful of lofty descriptions may be found in Ruskin's "King of the Golden River," Chapter III, where he pictures the mountain scenery:

It was, indeed, a morning that might have made any one happy, even with no Golden River to seek for. Level lines of dewy mist lay stretched along the valley, out of which rose the massy mountains,—-their lower cliffs in pale gray shadow, hardly distinguishable from the floating vapor, but gradually ascending till they caught the sunlight, which ran in sharp touches of ruddy color along the angular crags, and pierced in long, level rays, through their fringes of spear-like Pine. Far above, shot up splintered masses of castellated rock, jagged and shivered into myriads of fantastic forms, with here and there a streak of sunlit snow, traced down their chasms like a line of forked lightning; and, far beyond, and far above all these, fainter than the morning cloud, but purer and changeless, slept in the blue sky, the utmost peaks of the eternal snow.

If we ask how this loftiness is attained, the reply must be, first, that the subject is lofty and deserving of lofty description. Indeed, the description never has a right to be loftier than the subject. Then, examining this passage in detail, we find that the words are all dignified, and in their very sound they are lofty, as for instance "massy," "myriads," "castellated," "angular crags." The very sound of the words seems to correspond to the idea. Notice the repetition of the letter i in "Level lines of dewy mist lay stretched along the valley." This repetition of a letter is called alliteration, and here it serves to suggest in and of itself the idea of the level. The same effect is produced again in "streak of sunlit snow" with the repetition of s. The entire passage is filled with alliteration, but it is used so naturally that you would never think of it unless your attention were called to it.

Next, we note that the structure rises gradually but steadily upward. We never jump to loftiness, and always find it necessary to climb there.

"Jumping to loftiness" is like trying to lift oneself by one's boot-straps: it is very ridiculous to all who behold it. Ruskin begins with a very ordinary sentence. He says it was a fine morning, just as any one might say it. But the next sentence starts suddenly upward from the dead level, and to the end of the paragraph we rise, terrace on terrace, by splendid sweeps and jagged cliffs, till at the end we reach "the eternal snow."

Exercise.

The study of the following selections from Macaulay and De Quincey may be conducted on a plan a trifle different from that heretofore employed.

The present writer spent two hours each day for two weeks reading this passage from Macaulay over and over: then he wrote a short essay on "Macaulay as a Model of Style," trying to describe Macaulay's style as forcibly and skillfully as Macaulay describes the Puritans. The resulting paper did not appear to be an imitation of Macaulay, but it had many of the strong features of Macaulay's style which had not appeared in previous work. The same method was followed in the study of De Quincey's "English Mail Coach," with even better results. The great difficulty arose from the fact that these lofty styles were learned only too well and were not counterbalanced by the study of other and more universally useful styles. It is dangerous to become fascinated with the lofty style, highly useful as it is on occasion.

If the student does not feel that he is able to succeed by the method of study just described, let him confine himself to more direct imitation, following out Franklin's plan.

THE PURITANS.

(From the essay on Milton.)

By T. B. Macaulay.

We would speak first of the Puritans, the most remarkable body of men, perhaps, which the world has ever produced. The odious and ridiculous parts of their character lie on the surface. He that runs may read them; nor have there been wanting attentive and malicious observers to point them out. For many years after the Restoration, they were the theme of unmeasured invective and derision. They were exposed to the utmost licentiousness of the press and of the stage, when the press and the stage were most licentious. They were not men of letters; they were, as a body, unpopular; they could not defend themselves; and the public would not take them under its protection. They were therefore abandoned, without reserve, to the tender mercies of the satirists and dramatists. The ostentatious simplicity of their dress, their sour aspect, their nasal twang, their stiff posture, their long graces, their Hebrew names, the Scriptural phrases which they introduced on every occasion, their contempt of human learning, their destestation of polite amusements, were indeed fair game for the laughers. But it is not from the laughers alone that the philosophy of history is to be learnt. And he who approaches this subject should carefully guard against the influence of that potent ridicule which has already misled so many excellent writers.

. . . . . . . .

Those who roused the people to resistance, who directed their measures through a long series of eventful years, who formed out of the most unpromising materials, the finest army that Europe has ever seen, who trampled down King, Church, and Aristocracy, who, in the short intervals of domestic sedition and rebellion, made the name of England terrible to every nation on the face of the earth, were no vulgar fanatics. Most of their absurdities were mere external badges, like the signs of freemasonry, or the dress of the friars. We regret that these badges were not more attractive. We regret that a body to whose courage and talents mankind has owed inestimable obligations had not the lofty elegance which distinguished some of the adherents of Charles the First, or the easy good-breeding for which the court of Charles the Second was celebrated. But, if we must make our choice, we shall, like Bassanio in the play, turn from the specious caskets which contain only the Death's head and the Fool's head and fix on the plain leaden chest which conceals the treasure.

The Puritans were men whose minds had derived a peculiar character from the daily contemplation of superior beings and eternal interests. Not content with acknowledging in general terms an overruling Providence, they habitually ascribed every event to the will of the Great Being, for whose power nothing was too vast, for whose inspection nothing was too minute. To know him, to serve him, to enjoy him, was with them the great end of existence. They rejected with contempt the ceremonious homage which other sects substituted for the pure worship of the soul. Instead of catching occasional glimpses of the Deity through an obscuring veil, they aspired to gaze full on his intolerable brightness, and to commune with him face to face. Hence originated their contempt for terrestrial distinctions. The difference between the greatest and the meanest of mankind seemed to vanish, when compared with the boundless intervals which separated the whole race from him on whom their eyes were constantly fixed. They recognized no title to superiority but his favor; and, confident of that favor, they despised all the accomplishments and all the dignities of the world. If they were unacquainted with the works of philosophers and poets, they were deeply read in the oracles of God. If their names were not found in the registers of heralds, they were recorded in the Book of Life. If their steps were not accompanied by a splendid train of menials, legions of ministering angels had charge over them. Their palaces were houses not made with hands; their diadems crowns of glory which should never fade away. On the rich and the eloquent, on nobles and priests, they looked down with contempt: for they esteemed themselves rich in a more precious treasure, and eloquent in a more sublime language, nobles' by the right of an earlier creation, and priests by the imposition of a mightier hand. The very meanest of them was a being to whose fate a mysterious and terrible importance belonged, on whose slightest action the spirits of light and darkness looked with anxious interest, who had been destined, before heaven and earth were created, to enjoy a felicity which should continue when heaven and earth should have passed away. Events which shortsighted politicians ascribed to earthly causes, had been ordained on his account. For his sake empires had risen, and flourished, and decayed. For his sake the Almighty had proclaimed his will by the pen of the Evangelist, and the harp of the prophet. He had been wrested by no common deliverer from the grasp of no common foe. He had been ransomed by the sweat of no vulgar agony, by the blood of no earthly sacrifice. It was for him that the sun had been darkened, that the rocks had been rent, that the dead had risen, that all nature had shuddered at the suffering of her expiring God.

Thus the Puritans were made up of two different men, the one all self-abasement, penitence, gratitude, passion, the other proud, calm, inflexible, sagacious. He prostrated himself in the dust before his Maker: but he set his foot on the neck of his king. In his devotional retirement, he prayed with convulsions, and groans, and tears. He was half maddened by glorious or terrible illusions. He heard the lyres of angels or the tempting whispers of fiends. He caught a gleam of the Beatific Vision, or woke screaming from dreams of everlasting fire. Like Vane, he thought himself intrusted with the sceptre of the millienial year. Like Fleetwood he cried in the bitterness of his soul that God had hid his face from him. But when he took his seat in the council, or girt on his sword for war, these tempestuous works of the soul had left no perceptible trace behind them.

People who saw nothing of the godly but their uncouth visages, and heard nothing from them but their groans and their whining hymns, might laugh at them. But those had little reason to laugh who encountered them in the hall of debate or in the field of battle. These fanatics brought to civil affairs a coolness of judgment and an immutability of purpose which some writers have thought inconsistent with their religious zeal, but which were in fact the necessary effects of it. The intensity of their feelings on one subject made them tranquil on every other. One overpowering sentiment had subjected to itself pity and hatred, ambition and fear. Death had lost its terrors, and pleasure its charms.

They had their smiles and their tears, their raptures and their sorrows, but not for the things of this world. Enthusiasm had made them Stoics, had cleared their minds from every vulgar passion and prejudice, and raised them above the influence of danger and of corruption. It sometimes might lead them to pursue unwise ends, but never to choose unwise means. They went through the world like Sir Artegal's iron man Talus with his flail, crushing and trampling down oppressors, mingling with human beings, but having neither part nor lot in human infirmities, insensible to fatigue, to pleasure, and to pain, not to be pierced by any weapon, not to be withstood by a n barrier.

Such we believe to have been the character of the Puritans. We perceive the absurdity of their manners. We dislike the sullen gloom of their domestic habits. We acknowledge that the tone of their minds was often injured by straining after things too high for mortal reach: and we know that, in spite of their hatred of Popery, they too often fell into the worst vices of that bad system, intolerance and extravagant austerity, that they had their anchorites and their crusades, their Dunstans and their De Montforts, their Dominics and their Escobars. Yet, when all circumstances are taken into consideration, we do not hesitate to pronounce them a brave, a wise, an honest, and a useful body.

Notes.

The most casual examination of Macaulay's style shows us that the words, the sentences, and the paragraphs are all arranged in rows, one on this side, one on that, a column here, another just like it over there, a whole row of columns above this window, and a whole row of columns above that window, just as bricks are built up in geometrical design. Almost every word contains an antithesis. The whole constitutes what is called the balanced structure.

We see also that Macaulay frequently repeats the same word again and again, and the repetition gives strength. Indeed, repetition is necessary to make this balanced structure: there must always be so much likeness and so much unlikeness—-and the likeness and unlikeness must just balance.

We have shown the utility of variation: Macaulay shows the force there is in monotony, in repetition. In one sentence after another through an entire paragraph he repeats the same thing over and over and over. There is no rising by step after step to something higher in Macaulay: everything is on the dead level; but it is a powerful, heroic level.

The first words repeated and contrasted are press and stage. The sentence containing these words is balanced nicely. In the following sentence we have four short sentences united into one, and the first clause contrasts with the second and the third with the fourth. The sentence beginning "The ostentatious simplicity of their dress" gives us a whole series of subjects, all resting on a single short predicate—-"were fair game for the laughers." The next sentence catches up the, word "laughers" and plays upon it.

In the second paragraph we have as subject "those" followed by a whole series of relative clauses beginning with "who," and this series again rests on a very short predicate—-"were no vulgar fanatics."

And so on through the entire description, we find series after series, contrast after contrast; now it is a dozen words all in the same construction, now a number of sentences all beginning in the same way and ending in the same way.

The first paragraph takes up the subject of the contrast of those who laughed and those who were laughed at. The second paragraph enlarges upon good points in the objects of the examination. The third paragraph describes their minds, and we perceive that Macaulay has all along been leading into this by his series of contrasts. In the fourth paragraph he brings the two sides into the closest possible relations, so that the contrast reaches its height. The last short paragraph sums up the facts.

This style, though highly artificial, is highly useful when used in moderation. It is unfortunate that Macaulay uses it so constantly. When he cannot find contrasts he sometimes makes them, and to make them he distorts the truth. Besides, he wearies us by keeping us too monotonously on a high dead level. In time we come to feel that he is making contrasts merely because he has a passion for making them, not because they serve any purpose. But for one who wishes to learn this style, no better model can be found in the English language.



DREAM-FUGUE

On the Theme of Sudden Death.*

By Thomas De Quincey.

*"The English Mail-Coach" consists of three sections, "The Glory of Motion," "vision of Sudden Death," and "Dream-Fugue." De Quincey describes riding on the top of a heavy mail-coach. In the dead of night they pass a young couple in a light gig, and the heavy mail-coach just escapes shattering the light gig and perhaps killing the young occupants. De Quincey develops his sensations in witnessing this "vision of sudden death," and rises step by step to the majestic beauty and poetic passion of the dream-fugue.

"Whence the sound Of instruments, that made melodious chime, Was heard, of harp and organ; and who moved Their stops and chords, was seen; his volant touch Instinct through all proportions, low and high, Fled and pursued transverse the resonant fugue."

Paradise Lost, Book XI.



Tumultuosissimamente.

Passion of sudden death! that once in youth I read and interpreted by the shadows of thy averted signs!—-rapture of panic taking the shape (which amongst tombs in churches I have seen) of woman bursting her selpuchral bonds—-of woman's ionic form bending forward from the ruins of her grave with arching foot, with eyes upraised, with clasped, adoring hands—-waiting, watching, trembling, praying for the trumpet's call to rise from dust forever! Ah, vision too fearful of shuddering humanity on the brink of mighty abysses!—-vision that didst start back, that didst reel away, like a shivering scroll before the wrath of fire racing on the wings of the wind! Epilepsy so brief of horror, wherefore is it that thou canst not die? Passing so suddenly into darkness, wherefore is it that still thou sheddest thy sad funeral blights upon the gorgeous mosaic of dreams? Fragments of music too passionate, heard once and heard no more, what aileth thee, that thy deep rolling chords come up at intervals through all the worlds of sleep, and after forty years, have lost no element of horror?

I.

Lo, it is summer—-almighty summer! The everlasting gates of life and summer are thrown open wide; and on the ocean tranquil and verdant as a savannah, the unknown lady from the dreadful vision and I myself are floating—-she upon a fairy pinnace, and I upon an English three-decker.

Both of us are wooing gales of festive happiness within the domain of our common country, within that ancient watery park, within that pathless chase of ocean, where England takes her pleasure as a huntress through winter and summer, from the rising to the setting sun. Ah, what a wilderness of floral beauty was hidden, or was suddenly revealed, upon the tropic islands through which the pinnace moved! And upon her deck what a bevy of human flowers—-young women how lovely, young men bow noble, that were dancing together, and slowly drifting toward us amidst music and incense, amidst blossoms from forests and gorgeous corymbi from vintages, amidst natural carolling, and the echoes of sweet girlish laughter. Slowly the pinnace nears us, gaily she hails us, and silently she disappears beneath the shadow of our mighty bows. But then, as at some signal from heaven, the music, and the carols, and the sweet echoing of girlish laughter,—-all are hushed. What evil has smitten the pinnace, meeting or overtaking her? Did ruin to our friends couch within our own dreadful shadow? Was our shadow the shadow of death? I looked over the bow for an answer, and, behold! the pinnace was dismantled; the revel and the revellers were found no more; the glory of the vintage was dust; and the forests with their beauty were left without a witness upon the seas. "But where," and I turned to our crew—-"where are the lovely women that danced beneath the awning of flowers and clustering corynibi? Whither have fled the noble young men that danced with them?" Answer there was none. But suddenly the man at the masthead, whose countenance darkened with alarm, cried out, "Sail on the weather beam! Down she comes upon us; in seventy seconds she also will founder,"

II.

I looked to the weather side, and the summer had departed. The sea was rocking, and shaking with gathering wrath. Upon its surface sat mighty mists, which grouped themselves into arches and long cathedral aisles. Down one of these, with the fiery pace of a quarrel from a crossbow, ran a frigate right athwart our course. "Are they mad?" some voice exclaimed from our deck. "Do they woo their ruin?" But in a moment, as she was close upon us, some impulse of a heady current or local vortex gave a wheeling bias to her course, and off she forged without a shock. As she ran past us, high aloft amongst the shrouds stood the lady of the pinnace. The deeps in malice opened ahead to receive her, the billows were fierce to catch her. But far away she was borne upon the desert spaces of the sea: whilst still by sight I followed her, she ran before the howling gale, chased by angry sea-birds and by maddening billows: still I saw her, as at the moment when she ran past us, standing amongst the shrouds, with her white draperies streaming before the wind. There she stood, with hair dishevelled, one hand clutched amongst the tackling—-rising, sinking, fluttering, trembling, praying—-there for leagues I saw her as she stood, raising at intervals one hand to heaven, amidst the fiery crests of the pursuing waves and the raving of the storm; until at last, upon a sound from afar of malicious laughter and mockery, all was hidden forever in driving showers; and afterwards, but when I know not, nor how.

Notes.

De Quincey's "Dream-Fugue" is as luxuriant and extravagant a use of metaphor as Macaulay's "Puritans" is of the use of antithesis and the balanced structure. The whole thing is a metaphor, and every part is a metaphor within a metaphor.

This is much more than mere fine writing. It is a metaphorical representation of the incident he has previously described. In that incident he was particular struck by the actions of the lady. The young man turned his horse out of the path of the coach, but some part of the coach struck one of the wheels of the gig, and as it did so, the lady involuntarily started up, throwing up her arms, and at once sank back as in a faint. De Quincey did not see her face, and hence he speaks in this description of "averted signs?" The "woman bursting her sepulchral bonds" probably refers to a tomb in Westminster Abbey which represents a woman escaping from the door of the tomb, and Death, a skeleton, is just behind her, but too late to catch her "arching foot" as she flies upward—-presumably as a spirit.

So every image corresponds to a reality, either in the facts or in De Quincey's emotion at the sight of them. The novice fails in such writing as this because he becomes enamored of his beautiful images and forgets what he is trying to illustrate. The relation between reality and image should be as invariable as mathematics. If such startling images cannot be used with perfect clearness and vivid perception of their usefulness and value, they should not be used at all. De Quincey is so successful because his mind comprehends every detail of the scene, and through the images we see the bottom truth as through a perfect crystal. A clouded diamond is no more ruined by its cloudiness than a clouded metaphor.

As in Ruskin's description of the mountain, we see in this the value of the sounds of words, and how they seem to make music in themselves. A Word lacking in dignity in the very least would have ruined the whole picture, and so would a word whose rotund sound did not correspond to the loftiness of the passage. Perhaps the only word that jars is "English three-decker"—-but the language apparently afforded De Quincey no substitute which would make his meaning clear.

CHAPTER VII.

RESERVE:

Thackeray.

It has been hinted that the rhetorical, impassioned, and lofty styles are in a measure dangerous. The natural corrective of that danger is artistic reserve.

Reserve is a negative quality, and so it has not been emphasized by writers on composition as it ought to be. But if it is negative, it is none the less real and important, and fortunately we have in Thackeray a masterly example of its positive power.

Originally reserve is to be traced to a natural reticence and modesty in the character of the author who employs it. It may be studied, however, and cultivated as a characteristic of style. As an artistic quality it consists in saying exactly what the facts demand, no more, no less—-and to say no more especially on those occasions when most people employ superlatives. Macaulay was not characterized by reserve. He speaks of the Puritans as "the most remarkable body of men the world ever produced." "Most" is a common word in his vocabulary, since it served so well to round out the phrase and the idea. Thackeray, on the other hand, is almost too modest. He is so afraid of saying too much that sometimes he does not say enough, and that may possibly account for the fact that he was never as popular as the overflowing Dickens. The lack of reserve made Dickens "slop over" occasionally, as indelicate critics have put it; and the presence of reserve did more than any other one thing to give Thackeray the reputation for perfect style which all concede to him.

One of the most famous passages in all of Thackeray's works is the description of the battle of Waterloo in "Vanity Fair," ch. XXXII:

All that day, from morning till past sunset, the cannon never ceased to roar. It was dark when the cannonading stopped all of a sudden.

All of us have read of what occurred during that interval. The tale is in every Englishman's mouth; and you and I, who were children when the great battle was won and lost, are never tired of hearing and recounting the history of that famous action. Its remembrance rankles still in the bosoms of millions of the countrymen of those brave men who lost the day. They pant for an opportunity of revenging that humiliation; and if a contest, ending in a victory on their part, should ensue, elating them in their turn, and leaving its cursed legacy of hatred and rage behind to us, there is no end to the so called glory and shame, and to the alternation of successful and unsuccessful murder, in which two high-spirited nations might engage. Centuries hence, we Frenchmen and Englishmen might be boasting and killing each other still, carrying out bravely the Devil's code of honor.

All our friends took their share, and fought like men in the great field. All day long, while the women were praying ten miles away, the lines of the dauntless English infantry were receiving and repelling the furious charges of the French horsemen. Guns which were heard in Brussels were ploughing up their ranks, and comrades falling, and the resolute survivors closing in. Towards evening, the attack of the French, repeated and resisted so bravely, slackened in its fury. They had other foes besides the British to engage, or were preparing for a final onset. It came at last; the columns of the Imperial Guard marched up the hill of Saint Jean, at length and at once to sweep the English from the height which they had maintained all day and spite of all; unscared by the thunder of the artillery, which hurled death from the English line,—-the dark rolling column pressed on and up the hill. It seemed almost to crest the eminence, when it began to wave and falter. Then it stopped, still facing the shot. Then, at last, the English troops rushed from the post from which no enemy had been able to dislodge them, and the Guard turned and fled.

No more firing was heard at Brussels,—-the pursuit rolled miles away. Darkness came down on the field and city; and Amelia was praying for George, who was lying on his face, dead, with a bullet through his heart.

Who before ever began the description of a great victory by praising the enemy! And yet when we consider it, there is no more artistically powerful method than this, of showing how very great the enemy was, and then saying simply, "The English defeated them."

But Thackeray wished to do more than this. He was preparing the reader for the awful presence of death in a private affliction, Amelia's loss of her husband George. To do this he lets his heart go out in sympathy for the French, and by that sympathy he seems to rise above all race, to a supreme height where exist the griefs of the human heart and God alone.

With all this careful preparation, the short, simple closing paragraph—- the barest possible statement of the facts—-produces an effect unsurpassed in literature. The whole situation seems to cry out for superlatives; yet Thackeray uses none, but remains dignified, calm, and therefore grand.