there is little analysis of paragraphs. To my thinking there is more
to be gained from the latter than from the former. The analysis of
the paragraph calls for a wider view, for a better comprehension of
subject, and for a more developed idea of form. I do not wish to be
understood as endeavoring to invent a new torture for pupils or one
more device for further overburdening teachers already overloaded. I
merely call attention to the value as a means of mental and literary
training of the study of paragraph structure in the works of the
masters of style, and to the fact that such study is an indispensable
part of a literary training.
* * * * *
Of course the ultimate appeal in all that concerns the mechanics of
composition is to what is commonly called Good Use. All written symbols
by which intelligence is conveyed from man to man are arbitrary. It
is merely because it is agreed that the character “I” shall represent
a sound and that this sound shall stand for an idea, that we are able
to bring up the idea in the mind of others simply by writing the
sign. That there is nothing innate in the symbol is evident from the
fact that other signs have been used to represent this sound, and
that other syllables have stood for the pronoun in the first person
singular. The examples which might be given to illustrate this point
are limited only by the number of words in existence. Consciously or by
tacit consent--oftener, of course, by the latter--it has been agreed
to attach sounds to ideas and to represent those sounds by definite
symbols. It follows that he who wishes to communicate an idea in
writing has no resource outside of the means which have been agreed
upon by the consent of his fellow-men. A writer may decide to have a
new vocabulary and to write it in novel characters. The difficulty is
that it will be understood by nobody. He is forced to use the language
of men, and to use it in the fashion in which it is employed by others.
He is bound by the habit of men who write, established by custom and
defined by common acceptance. In other words, he is constrained to
follow Good Use.
Good Use is the general agreement in regard to conventions by means
of which ideas are conveyed. It is the basis of all composition, and
without an intimate knowledge of it no one can write successfully. What
the best general agreement is, is to be determined by the practice
of the most eminent and widely recognized authors. The fact of their
general indorsement and recognition is a sufficient proof that their
use is intelligible to their public, and that it is therefore safe to
follow them. Their custom decides not because of their authority, but
because their reputation proves that their use is the one which is
tacitly accepted by intelligent readers, and which is therefore the
only one that will insure comprehension.
There are certain things which in writing it is necessary to keep
constantly in mind until they are observed unconsciously and
instinctively. Always a writer must hold to three Principles of
Structure and three Principles of Quality. The division is of course
arbitrary, but it is logical and convenient. The three Principles of
Structure,--the mechanical principles, so to say, those which direct
most obviously the mechanics of language,--are Unity, Mass, and
Coherence. The three Principles of Quality--those which govern the
inner and more intellectual character of a composition--are Clearness,
Force, and Elegance.
The first principle of structure, Unity, has to do with the substance
of a sentence or a composition. It is the law which requires that every
composition shall be informed with a general intention, shall centre
around one fundamental idea; that every paragraph and every sentence
shall be dominated by one essential thought or purpose. It is the
principle which produces the difference between a well-ordered whole
and an unorganized collection of scraps; between a rich embroidery
and a sampler, a mosaic and a crazy-quilt. Without Unity as a whole a
composition becomes as disjointed as a dictionary, without attaining
to the instructiveness of that necessary book; and in degree only less
from the proportionate importance of a part to the whole, the lack of
Unity in a sentence destroys the value and effectiveness of the entire
work.
The second principle, that of Mass, concerns the external arrangement
of what is written. It is the rule which enjoins the putting of the
chief parts of the composition, of the paragraph and of the sentence,
in the places which most readily catch the eye or the ear. This is
sometimes spoken of as Emphasis, but the term is hardly comprehensive
enough. All questions of proportion come of course under the head of
Mass, and so does whatever in the outward form of a composition appeals
to the eye.
Coherence, the third principle of structure, is the law of internal
arrangement. The relation of each part to the others must be made
clear and unmistakable. We are all but too familiar with the style
of writing which resembles the valley of dry bones of the prophet’s
vision, composition wherein the relation of one fragment to another is
to be discerned only by the most careful research. Coherence is as the
inspired prophecy of Ezekiel, whereby the bones came together, bone to
bone, so that the valley was filled with an exceeding great army.
Unity is at once the simplest and the most easily secured of these
three requirements. It is within the power of any writer of reasonable
judgment to tell when the matter contained in a sentence concerns a
single idea or several ideas so closely connected that they must belong
together. It is a matter of perception, and for avoiding incongruous
constructions there is perhaps no other rule so good as the simple
injunction: Be sure that sentences have Unity. Every text-book upon
rhetoric warns against this fault and contains examples of it. The
writer who accustoms himself to realize vividly what he is saying is
not likely to fall into the error.
The danger attending upon the effort to secure Unity is that of
Dryness. The writer who is excessively careful about confining every
sentence to a single thought and every paragraph to a single group of
thoughts dominated by a central idea is sometimes likely to fail of
variety and richness of structure. He becomes timid about admitting
even proper ornaments, and gives to his style an air of being
constructed upon the model of a wall of brick masonry. Variety is as
essential to composition as is Unity, and it is necessary to be careful
lest in securing one the other be lost. Every student should become
sufficiently self-critical to know in which direction he is more likely
to err, and to direct his efforts for improvement accordingly.
The question of Mass is more difficult. This principle governs
the places of words and clauses in the sentence, of sentences in
paragraphs, of paragraphs in longer compositions. The whole matter is
admirably and succinctly put by Mr. Wendell:--
In any composition the points which most readily catch the eye
are evidently the beginning and the end. From which, of course,
it follows that, broadly speaking, every composition--sentence,
paragraph, chapter, book--may conveniently begin and end with
the words which stand for ideas that we wish to impress on our
readers.... Broadly speaking, the office of punctuation is to
emphasize,--to do for the eye what vocal pauses and stress do for
the ear,--to show what parts of a composition belong together,
and among these parts to indicate the most significant. It is
clear that periods emphasize more strongly than semi-colons; and
semi-colons than commas. From this, of course, it follows that in
an ideally massed sentence the most significant words come close
to the periods, the less significant close to the lesser marks of
punctuation, the least significant in those unbroken stretches
of discourse where there is nothing but words to arrest the eye.
The test of a well-massed sentence, then, is very simple: Are the
words that arrest the eye the words on which the writer would
arrest your attention?
The application of this principle to books is easily seen, and perhaps
is especially obvious in fiction. In an effective novel it will
generally be found that some interesting and striking situation has
been chosen for the beginning. Frequently the author makes a bold
plunge into the very heart of the story in order to find an impressive
passage with which to begin. The more important emphasis, that of the
conclusion, must be properly employed or the entire effect of the work
as a whole is sacrificed.
A good example of the ill effect of failing to employ the emphatic
points of a book properly is afforded by Stanley J. Weyman’s pleasing
story, “My Lady Rotha.” The first seven chapters are occupied with an
account of the rebellion of a village against its chatelaine and of
her flight from her castle to avoid their rage. Once the Lady Rotha is
free of the castle, however, the book is devoted to her adventures in a
country where the King of Sweden, the great Wallenstein, and numerous
other leaders are filling the land with war and danger and bloodshed.
To the very end of the tale the reader expects that the narrative will
return to the castle, and that there will appear some better excuse
for the opening chapters than the need of starting the heroine on her
perilous travels; but the novel finishes without going back to the
castle or telling how matters were settled there. The book is so badly
massed that the very force of its beginning injures instead of aiding
the effect of the whole.
In another and better tale by the same author, “A Gentleman of France,”
the first emphasis is given to the poverty and undeserved ill fortune
of the hero; so that when in time fate leads him to better things the
later joy is heightened by contrast with the earlier gloom. I take
these two books because they have been widely read of late, but any
novel that comes to hand is an illustration of one sort or another.
The danger to be avoided in endeavoring to secure effective massing
of compositions is that of artificiality. This is especially obvious
in the construction of sentences. In an uninflected language, like
English, wherein the relative places of words are necessarily fixed
more or less absolutely, it is not easy to re-order the arrangement
without giving to the style an appearance of artifice. Dexterously to
overcome this difficulty is one of the things which the student has to
learn, and perhaps more upon the success with which he is able to do so
than upon any other single thing will depend the effectiveness of what
he writes.
The third principle of structure, Coherence, is one of which the lack
is easily perceptible, but the securing of which is often difficult.
The rule is that words closely related by their share in the thought to
be conveyed shall be kept together,--and so stated is simple enough. No
one, however, is likely to have written even a page upon any subject
at all intricate without having to pause to rearrange the clauses of
some involved sentence or of some confused paragraph. A great hindrance
in the struggle for Coherence, it should be added, is a want of clear
perception of what one wishes to say. The position of words is often
determined by the choice of shades of expression which are extremely
delicate, and unless the writer has an accurate and acute perception of
these he cannot be sure of the order of his words and clauses.
It is easy enough to see how the phrases are misplaced in the stock
examples of incoherence which are given in the books of rhetoric. Any
novice could improve a sentence of this sort:--
He left off his old coat to marry a lady with a large Roman nose
which had been worn continuously for ten years.
It takes only a little thought to see the error in the phrase:--
The crowd turns, departs, disintegrates;
where it is evident that the connection is between “turns” and
“disintegrates,” and that the crowd departs after it has broken up. Not
less obvious, when attention is called to it, is the fault here:--
Lothair was unaffectedly gratified at _not only_ receiving his
friends at his own castle, _but_ under these circumstances of
intimacy.[2]
It is not hard to see the difference of meaning between these two
sentences:--
So long as men had slender means, whether of keeping out cold
or checkmating it with artificial heat, Winter was an unwelcome
guest, especially in the country.
So long as men had slender means, especially in the country, of
keeping out cold or checkmating it with artificial heat, Winter
was an unwelcome guest.
It requires a more trained perception to feel the variations which
result from altering in the following example the position of “only.”
The theory that the poet is a being above the world and apart from
it is true of him as an observer only who applies to the phenomena
about him the test of a finer and more spiritual sense.--Lowell:
_Life and Letters of James Gates Percival_.
If we say “is true only of him who as an observer,” we shall mean one
thing,--and I confess to a suspicion that this is the thing which
Lowell intended!--whereas the passage as it stands asserts that the
theory is true considering the poet as merely an observer.
It is not necessary to multiply examples. Every student who attempts
careful expression will come upon illustrations enough in his own work.
The important thing is to be clearly aware of what is to be said, and
then to be sure that it is said, and said unmistakably.
In the construction of sentences the coherent arrangement of words is
frequently hindered by the grammatical relations; no such limitation
prevents the proper placing of sentences in the formation of
paragraphs. In the construction of paragraphs, however, even more than
in the construction of sentences, is necessary the utmost clearness
of ideas. It is here essential to know not only what one has to say,
but the relative strength which should be given to each link in the
chain of thought. The question of proportion must here have the fullest
answer. The relative stress which is to be given by position and the
relative stress which is to be imparted by proportion are alike of the
greatest importance in the making of the paragraph.
Something of this may be shown by an example. The following is a
paragraph from the essay by Jeffrey on “The Characters in Shakespeare’s
Plays:”--
Everything in him [Shakespeare] is in unmeasured abundance and
unequaled perfection,--but everything so balanced and kept in
subordination, as not to jostle or disturb or take the place of
another. The most exquisite poetical conceptions, images, and
descriptions, are given with such brevity, and introduced with
such skill as merely to adorn without loading the sense they
accompany.... All his excellences, like those of nature herself,
are thrown out together; and instead of interfering with, support
and recommend each other.
Let this now be read with a transposition of sentences:--
Although in Shakespeare everything is so balanced and kept in
subordination as not to jostle or disturb or take the place of
another, and is in unequaled perfection, yet everything is in an
unmeasured abundance. He gives with such brevity and introduces
with such skill as to adorn without loading the sense they
accompany, the most exquisite poetical conceptions, images, and
descriptions. All his excellences, although they support and
recommend instead of interfering with each other, are thrown out
together like those of nature herself.
The words and phrases are identical in these two paragraphs, save for
the slight alterations and changes of connectives made necessary by
transposition; and yet the effect is distinctly different. The first,
as Jeffrey intended, remarks that in spite of the great luxuriance of
Shakespeare’s work it is always well ordered; the second declares that
although well ordered the poet’s work is as luxurious as nature herself.
If the proportion were changed, the effect would be varied again.
Cutting out a few clauses from the original, we have:--
Everything in Shakespeare is so balanced and kept in subordination
as not to jostle or disturb or take the place of another. The most
poetical conceptions are given with such brevity and introduced
with such skill as merely to adorn without loading the sense
they accompany. All his excellences are thrown out together, and
instead of interfering with, support and recommend each other.
Here Shakespeare’s fine ordering of his style is made more emphatic
than in the original, and a glance will show how, by the suppression
of other phrases, the luxuriance of his work could have been given the
more prominence. A writer must know which of many possible shades of
meaning is the one which he desires to convey, and he is likely to be
successful in his work or the reverse according to the sharpness of
his own apprehension of what he is aiming at. The gunner who shuts his
eyes when he fires is more likely to hit the mark than is the writer
who vaguely endeavors to say something likely to succeed in accurately
saying anything.
[Footnote 1: In this chapter and the next three I am so greatly
indebted to Professor Barrett Wendell’s “English Composition” that this
part of my book might almost be called a summary of his, although I
have of course omitted much and have introduced some things upon which
he has barely touched.]
[Footnote 2: Disraeli: _Lothair_. Quoted by Professor Hill.]
IV
DETAILS OF DICTION
The student who endeavors to apply to words the tests of Good Use
finds himself confronted with some questions which are very easily
answered and with others so difficult that even the experts of language
may disagree concerning them. It is of course to be supposed that
we have all mastered the canons which forbid the use of Barbarisms,
Improprieties, and Solecisms,--however much we allow ourselves to be
influenced by the newspapers into the habit of violating them. We have
not got through our early school years without having our attention
called to the difference of effect produced by long and short words.
Most of us have had more or less confusing instruction on the subject
of the use of Latin words and words which are somewhat inexactly termed
Anglo-Saxon. We have all known brief but bewildered intervals during
which we endeavored to live up to a noble resolution to make our
vocabulary strongly Anglo-Saxon; and we are most of us conscious in our
secret hearts that we neither did this ever, nor ever for a moment knew
how to set to work to do it.
It is as well for the written language of to-day that there has never
been possible a practical revision of the tongue by the dropping
of words of Latin origin. It is a most mistaken notion which turns
attention to the race origin of words instead of directing study to
their actual force in use. It sounds admirably learned to talk of a
diction which is too strongly Latin or which is markedly Anglo-Saxon;
it is possible enough to see that in general a preponderance of
classical words imparts dignity and that an abundance of Saxon gives
terseness to a style; but the man who in desiring to secure the one
effect or the other goes to work to select his language on this basis
is utterly ignoring the very first principles of practical composition.
Words are to be chosen with reference to a desired effect, and their
pedigree is of no more consequence than is that of the players on
a foot-ball team. The boys of one descent may do better than those
of another, and words of one or of another derivation may produce a
desired effect,--but the contrary may be true, so that such a principle
of selection is as absurd in one case as in the other.
Of long and short words much the same might be said. We are pretty well
out of the days when it was still needful to insist upon the admonition
of Frere:--
And don’t confound the language of the nation
With long-tailed words in _osity_ and _ation_.
The childish love of fine words which belongs to the infancy of
literature is generally outgrown. It is recognized that words are to be
selected solely for their effect, and not for extraneous pretensions.
In this way is to be made the choice between words general and
specific, and of words literal or figurative.
A consideration which is of importance in the choice of words, and
one with which we shall be concerned later on, is that of denotation
and connotation. A word denotes what it expresses directly; it
connotes what it expresses indirectly; it denotes the idea which it
names, and connotes the idea that it implies; it denotes what it
says, and connotes what it suggests. The word “Washington” denotes a
particular man, whose history we know, but with that history go so
many suggestions and associations that the name connotes the idea
of patriotism, military skill, and devotion to the nation from the
very hour of its birth. The word “treason” denotes a specific offense
against the government; while it connotes all the shame with which men
regard one who betrays his country. In the familiar line of Wordsworth,
A violet by a mossy stone,
the words denote a certain common flower beside a stone covered with
another common and ordinary vegetable growth; they connote all the
beauty of the azure blossom, the sweetness of the springtide, the
quietude of a sylvan scene, all those lovely and touching associations
which can be expressed only by suggestion. It is in the fact that
certain sentiments can be conveyed by indirect means only that the
value of connotation lies. To suggest by the choice of words those
delicate and subtle ideas which are like a fragrance or like the
iridescent sheen of nacre is one of the highest triumphs of literary
art; and the nice artist in words is certainly not less careful in
regard to the connotation of words than he is of their denotation.
One of the things which often puzzles beginners is how to increase
their vocabulary. Of course reading is one of the most effective means
of enlarging one’s knowledge of the language,--but it is only careful
reading, reading in which are studied the force and the color of terms
as well as their literal meaning, that is of any marked value in this
direction. It is said that Thackeray was in the habit of studying the
dictionary with a frank purpose of adding to his knowledge of words. I
have known two literary men who followed this practice, but they both
deliberately selected unusual and bizarre examples with the avowed
object of adding a unique and whimsical flavor to their journalistic
work. Such an example is of course to be shunned, but in general there
is far too little stress laid upon the use of the dictionary. There
should be in every preparatory school a regular exercise in the use of
the dictionary, and in it all students should be required to join. The
teacher should read an extract or a sentence, or should give out words
to the class, and have the meanings and derivations actually looked up
at the moment. The differing values of synonyms should be examined; and
if possible something of the history of the words given. The aim should
be to encourage the student in the habit of having a lexicon at hand
and of using it constantly.
Another important means of increasing one’s command of language
is conversation, and the value of conversation in this respect as
in every other is in direct ratio to its character. To talk is not
enough; it is necessary that the talker exert himself to do his best.
Chatter is of no value as intellectual training; it is the exercise
of the mind which tells. The subject of conversation may be as light
as possible; but it is important that whatever is said is said well,
whether it be a compliment to a mistress’ eyebrow, a discussion of the
deepest philosophy of life, or the latest bon-mot of the clubs. “Every
variety of gift,” Emerson says truly,--“science, religion, politics,
letters, art, prudence, war, or love,--has its vent and exchange in
conversation,” and it follows that conversation properly conducted
helps to the power of expression in all of these.