is writing. Always the way to learn to write is to write. The way to
increase one’s power of expression is to strive to express. The habit
of seeking constantly for the right word results in ability to find the
right word. It acts not only directly, widening one’s domain in the
realm of language, but it renders a hundred-fold more effective the
use of reading and of talk. It puts the mind into an attentive mood
so that when a new term is met with it is remembered. The perception
on the alert for words becomes susceptible to them, so that they are
appreciated and retained. Cultivate the habit of putting things into
words and the words will come unconsciously; practice phrasing thought
and the means of phrasing it will not long be wanting.
* * * * *
When we go on from the consideration of words to that of sentences we
find that here Good Use is more clearly defined. The rules for the
construction of sentences are to a large extent more formal than those
which govern the choice of terms, and the most obvious of them are
conveniently collected and arranged under the name of Grammar.
Grammar is the account-book of custom; it is in reality a reckoning
up of the popular suffrages in regard to verbal proprieties. In other
words, grammar is the formal statement of the decisions of Good Use
in so far as they apply to the relative forms of words. It is of
course not necessary to speak here in detail of these. I only wish to
call attention to the rules of the grammarian as a particularly well
defined example of the supremacy of Good Use in all matters relating to
language and its employment in literature. It is because the general
consent has decided that a certain form of the verb shall be plural
that the grammarian declares it to be in that number. Grammars follow
and formulate custom; they neither precede nor dictate.
The inability of the grammarian to dictate to custom is made especially
evident when we consider that thing more subtle than syntax and in
composition no less important, which we call Idiom. That a writer
shall be idiomatic is as essential to writing well as the avoidance of
solecisms, yet every student of the language knows how elusive and
difficult of attainment is a sound understanding of the idioms of any
tongue.
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 crystallization in verbal forms of peculiarities of race
temperament--perhaps even of race eccentricities.
It is customary to define an idiom as the form of language which cannot
be translated into another tongue; and the example which is commonly
given is the habit English-speaking peoples have of saying: “You are
right,” whereas the Latin form--literally translated--would be: “You
speak rightly,” the French: “You have reason,” and the German: “You
have right.” An idiom is independent of grammatical rules,--sometimes
is in distinct violation of them. It makes us say: “A ten-foot pole,”
“A two-dollar bill,” “A five-acre lot,”--where a plural adjective
modifies a singular substantive, or to speak more accurately is
compounded with it. It decides that we shall write: “More [friends]
than one friend has told me,”--although the subject of “told” is
“friends” understood. An idiom boldly ignores the derivation of words.
Since “circumstances” means “things standing around,” it is evidently
logical to use the phrase, “in these circumstances.” The genius of the
language decides that the form shall be, “under these circumstances;”
and whoever writes “in” for “under” not only uses unidiomatic English,
but lays himself open to the charge of pedantry. Untranslatable and
above rules, Idiom is as inviolable as the laws of the Medes and the
Persians, and for him who sins against it there is no pardon.
For idioms there is no law save that of Good Use, and perhaps in the
discernment of no other rules is required so critical and so nice a
discrimination. 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. The grammarian, moreover, wageth against Idiom a warfare
as bitter as it is unceasing. It is distinctly idiomatic to use in
certain cases what is known as the “flat adverb,”--the adverb in the
adjective form without _ly_. The man who writes “speak loudly,” “speak
more loudly,” “speak plainly,” “walk fastly,” “drink deeply,” “speak
lowly,” “the moon shines brightly,” “the sun shines hotly,” may have
the applause of grammarians and his own misguided conscience, but he
is not writing idiomatic English. His virtue must be its own reward,
since he can never win the approval of lovers of sound, wholesome,
living English. Those who use the language idiomatically write “speak
loud,” “speak louder,” “speak plain,” “walk fast,” “drink deep,” “speak
low,” “the moon shines bright,” and “the sun shines hot.” Yet these
idiomatic distinctions are often very delicate. An adverb is sometimes
properly used in its flat form with an imperative when in other cases
the form in _ly_ is proper. We say, for instance, “walk slow, walk
slower;” but “He walked slowly across the field and more slowly over
the bridge.” Nothing but the careful training of the perceptions avails
for distinctions such as these.
Another idiomatic construction against which the purist waggeth his
tongue and gritteth his teeth is the ending of a sentence with a
particle. Instead of the good old idiomatic “Where does it come from?”
he would have us say “Whence does it come?” For “Where is it going to?”
he offers “Whither is it going?” Both of his phrases are eminently
respectable, but there is sometimes a lack of vitality in too eminent
respectability! Do not be afraid to say: “The subject which I spoke to
you about;” “The conclusion that we came to;” “The man whom I talked
with;” “This is a cause to stand up for;” “It is worth living for;”
“A name to conjure with;” and the allied phrases which would never
have been tolerated for an instant if the language had been made in
libraries instead of having grown up in the lives of peoples and on the
tongues of breathing men.
Professor Reed, of the University of Pennsylvania, admirably says:--
The false fastidiousness which shuns a short particle at the end
of a sentence is often fatal to a force which belongs to the
language in its primal character.
He points out that only the misapplication of analogies from
Continental languages has brought into discredit this characteristic
English idiom. He quotes Bacon, “Houses are built to live in, and not
to look on;” Donne, “Hath God a name to curse by?” and Burke, “The
times we live in.” He might have gone to contemporary authors, and
cited Stevenson, “After expedients hitherto unthought of,” “He was all
fallen away and fallen in;” James, “The different bedrooms she has
successively slept in,” “There is almost literally nothing he does not
care for;” Newman, “The elect are few to choose out of;” Lowell, “In
accomplishing what he aimed at,” “The words are chosen for their value
to fill in,” “The soil out of which such men as he are made is good
to be born on, good to live on, good to die for and be buried in.” It
would not be difficult to extend the list until it should include all
the writers of idiomatic English.
It is necessary, however, to add here a word of warning. Allowing a
particle to come at the end of a sentence or clause because it belongs
there idiomatically is one thing; letting the particle drag loosely
along behind from a lack of skill or energy sufficient to manage the
construction properly is quite another. Idiom is a cloak which may
be made to cover as many vices as virtues. The beginning and end of
clause or sentence are the emphatic parts, and to give the close to an
unimportant word is to waste an opportunity and weaken the effect of
the whole. The reason why the idiomatic final particle is permissible
is because it really belongs to the emphatic idea or is practically a
part of the verb which precedes it. In the phrase “the times we live
in,” it is evident that “in” is in intention part of the idea expressed
by the verb, so that the sentence does not close with the particle “in”
but with the verb “live in;” and so on for the other examples which
have been quoted.
A common instance of unidiomatic use of a particle at the end of a
sentence is that of closing with the sign of the infinitive. “Do as you
have a mind to” is bad English because the words “mind” and “to” do
not in idea belong together. Either the verb should be expressed,--“Do
as you have a mind to do,” or the sentence should be recast. However
strong colloquial precedent may seem, do not allow that forlornly
orphaned sign of the infinitive to come trailing along alone as a last
word.
The idiomatic use of conjunctions is one mark of a finished and careful
style. It is perhaps too much to say that if a writer takes care of
his particles the other parts of speech will take care of themselves,
but it is at least true that no style can be lucid and polished in
which the particles--and especially the conjunctions--have not been
looked to most carefully. Amateur writers are apt to seem aware of
the existence of only two conjunctions, “and” and “but;” while they
are especially careful to omit the conjunction “that.” It has been
remarked that one of the important means by which the French masters
secure that wonderful clarity and vivacity of style which so few
English authors have been able to approach is a careful and explicit
discrimination of the value of connectives. A stylist might be not very
inaccurately defined as a writer who is always conscientious in his
choice of conjunctions. Coleridge’s remarks on this point have often
been quoted:--
A close reasoner and a good writer in general may be known by
his pertinent use of connectives. Read that page of Johnson;
you cannot alter one conjunction without spoiling the sense.
It is in a linked strain throughout. In your modern books for
the most part, the sentences in a page have the same connection
with each other that marbles have in a bag; they touch without
adhering.--_Table Talk_, May 15, 1833.
This is impatiently inexact, it may be, but the modern tendency,
especially in careless newspaper work, is to do away with connectives
for the sake of securing briskness. The result is abruptness always
and confusion generally. Insignificant as they seem, connectives are
the articulations of the skeleton of a composition, and unless they be
flexible and delicately adjusted there is no possibility of freedom of
movement in the whole.
Certain weak idioms which are common in conversation are apt to creep
into the writings of those not over sensitive to literary effects,
but these colloquialisms are religiously avoided by careful writers.
An example of this sort of thing is the detestable use of “got”--as
a substitute for “have” or as a superfluous appendage to it,--which
is so conspicuous a vice in England. In America this is at least
theoretically frowned upon, and indeed it is protested against by the
best authorities on the other side of the water.
Of course I have not space to take up one by one all the idiomatic
expressions of the language. These given will serve as examples, and
I have but to add that there is perhaps no better way of becoming
sensitive to idiom than by conversing with rustics and reading the
English classics. Neither method is of value without the restraining
and enlightening influence of sound good judgment, but the student
who is able to criticise his own work and compare it with that of the
masters will find the talk of country folk and the works of the old
masters alike helpful in the formation of an idiomatic style.
* * * * *
The matter of long sentences or short sentences is practically the same
as that of long or short words. The question is what effect the writer
wishes to produce. If he desires to treat a subject with dignity,
to impress by gravity of manner, or to produce a mood of solemnity
or melancholy, it is all but essential that his sentences shall be
long. If on the other hand it is his object to produce an effect of
lightness, to induce a feeling of gayety, of briskness, to make the
blood run swiftly in the veins, his style will be crisp with short
sentences. With even a limited amount of literary training the choice
of length in sentences becomes almost instinctive.
Something of the same principle is to be applied to sentences loose and
sentences periodic. A loose sentence is one in which the meaning and
the grammatic structure are complete at some point before the end; a
periodic sentence is one in which sense and sentence end together. If
I say, “We all praise periodic sentences, but few of us write them,” I
have given an example of the truth of the statement. The sense and the
grammatic construction are both complete at the middle of the sentence.
If this be rewritten so as to read, “Although we all praise periodic
sentences, few of us write them,” we have a periodic form in which
sense and construction are alike incomplete until the close.
That closeness of structure which in an inflected language is imparted
by the form of words must in English depend upon word arrangement;
and from this it follows that the question of making the sentence
periodic must be subordinate to the matter of bringing the right words
together. The tendency of the language is toward a loose structure; but
between the two sorts of sentences that we are considering there is the
difference that there is between giving to a person a thing in pieces
and giving it to him whole. In the loose sentence you present to him
one portion after another, often in a way which leaves him uncertain
at the end of the different parts whether there is or is not more to
come; in the periodic, you offer to him the whole at once. Evidently
the latter is the more definite, the more precise, the more finished.
It is, however, so often impossible to make a sentence periodic without
apparent effort that no style could be wholly periodic without seeming
elaborately and even painfully studied; hence as a matter of fact
all good style consists of a judicious mingling of the two kinds of
sentence.
The danger in a style too uniformly periodic is that of appearing stiff
and formal; and it seems to be true that the best and most flexible
English contains a larger portion of loose sentences than of periodic.
Reaching out my hand for volumes which chance to be within arm’s length
of my writing-table, I find that of the first fifteen sentences in
Lowell’s essay on Chaucer, ten are loose and five periodic; of the same
number at the beginning of Henry James’ essay on Balzac, nine are loose
and six periodic; at the commencement of Stevenson’s paper on Burns
the loose are to the periodic eight to seven; Saintsbury’s essay on De
Quincey begins with the same proportions; while that by the same author
on Sydney Smith opens with thirteen loose relieved but by two periodic.
Of course such examples are not conclusive, but they are at least
illustrative.
In all these matters the important thing is to train one’s self to do
whatever it seems well to do, by the use of the form most apt for the
effect desired. Since the natural tendency of the untrained writer is
towards loose sentences, it is well to conquer the art of writing
periodically. In this, as in all points of the study of composition,
the thing aimed at is to be able to do with language whatever is
desired; to become as absolutely master of it as the cunning sculptor
is master of the modeling-clay, which is as plastic under his hand as
if it were a part of his very thought.
V
PRINCIPLES OF QUALITY
When an architect builds a palace, or an edifice no matter how much
humbler, he first attends to the unity, the proportions, and to the
strength of the structure; after that he has to consider the harmony,
the finish, and the adornment. According to the nature and purpose of
the building, it may be given a coat of mineral paint, such as that
which made the transient fortune of Silas Lapham, it may be set with
clustering statues like an Old World cathedral, or it may be jeweled
with precious marbles and flower-bright mosaics like the Taj Mahal.
The analogy between this process and that of the writer is close enough
to excuse the somewhat florid comparison. First is to be considered
the mechanical form of what is written; unity, proportion, and
texture must be looked to, and afterward there must be thought of the
harmony, finish, and adornment. When we have studied the Principles of
Structure,--Unity, Mass, and Coherence,--we have next to do with the
Principles of Quality.
Whatever work interests a reader may be said to touch him in one of
three ways: it may appeal to his understanding, to his emotions, or to
his imagination. In other words, it may affect him by its intellectual,
by its emotional, or by its imaginative or æsthetic quality. Bearing
in mind that any nomenclature is a matter of convenience, and that we
use names chiefly as a means of dividing the subject into portions
which may be handled less awkwardly than the whole, we may call these
three qualities Clearness, Force, and Elegance.
If we examine our feelings in regard to anything which we read, we
find that it has been easily intelligible, or that it has bothered
our comprehension; it has interested us, stirred us, or has left
us indifferent or bored; and it has or has not produced in us a
sense of beauty and elevation of mood. Neither these sensations nor
the qualities which produce them are sharply separable; but the
distinctions perceptibly exist, so that for purposes of study the
qualities may conveniently be treated one at a time. It is easy to see
that in understanding the meaning of a thing we most markedly use the
intellectual faculties; that in liking or disliking we respond to an
appeal to the emotions; and that in feeling beauty and appreciating
the æsthetic, we necessarily employ the imagination. The first is a
question of comprehension; the second of feeling; and the third of
taste. Clearness is the intellectual principle of style; Force the
emotional; and Elegance the æsthetic.
The Principles of Structure must precede and underlie those of Quality.
Speaking broadly, we may say that it is idle to attempt to give to a
composition or to a sentence Clearness, Force, or Elegance, unless it
is already satisfactory in Unity, Mass, and Coherence. The closest
attention to the laws of mechanical form, however, is not sufficient
to secure quality. For the secret of that it is needful to go further.
It is in Clearness that the Principles of Quality are most obviously
associated with those of Structure. If an author has carefully
considered the Unity of his composition, if he has massed it properly
in parts and as a whole, if he has looked well to its Coherence,--it
is hardly possible that he should fail of being readily understood.
Close attention to the mechanics of style will generally make a
writer intelligible, provided always that he wishes his meaning to be
apprehended easily, and that he himself knows what he is attempting to
say.
These two considerations are of much practical importance. Sometimes
writers do not choose to be clear. George Meredith seems often to write
with the deliberate intention of forcing the reader to go slowly,--as
if from the feeling that what can be read rapidly is in danger of
being merely skimmed over. There are others, like Thomas Carlyle, who
deliberately obscure what they write, apparently in the hope of adding
by complexity an air of mystery to commonplaces and a meretricious
dignity to wisdom.
Take, for instance, this sentence:--
If for the present, in our Europe, we estimate the ratio of Ware
to Appearance of Ware so high even as One to a Hundred (which,
considering the Wages of a Pope, Russian Autocrat, or English
Game-Preserver, is probably not far from the mark),--what almost
prodigious saving may there not be anticipated, as the Statistics
of Imposture advances, and so the manufacture of Shams (that of
Realities rising into clearer and clearer distinction therefrom)
gradually declines, and at length becomes all but wholly
unnecessary!--Carlyle: _Sartor Resartus_, ii. 3.
Here the lack of lucidity is intentional. The author has sacrificed
it to the particular effect which he wished to produce. He sought to
give to what he wrote an air of bizarre and piquant individuality,
and it is for this that he so distorts and convulses his sentences.
The purpose is as conscious as that which informs the gyrations of an
acrobat. There is the same relation between a page of “Sartor Resartus”
or the “French Revolution” and a page of ordinary prose that there is
between the marvelous distortions of a contortionist and the walk of a
gentleman,--each, of course, being well in its place.
Compare with the sentence just given, this passage from an
undergraduate’s theme:--
Chaucer’s influence on the language was great, and he helped to
put the language before the people in a way that had not been done
before, so that it is evident that there was a great result from
this. This was because he helped to change the English language,
and in this way he was very influential in affecting the language.
Here an unhappy youth, engaged in all but mortal combat with an
examination paper, was endeavoring to say something when he had nothing
to say. Of course he could not but fail, since it is impossible to show
clearly what one does not see clearly.
With these put also this, which again is from an undergraduate’s
theme:--
If the student respects a professor, as many do, he can show his
respect in many ways; if he does not, and there are teachers who
do not command the respect of students (I do not consider the
question to be confined to this school, and in some colleges there
are men on the Faculty who are not respected, nor do they deserve
to be) and I think a man should raise his hat only to ladies or to
gentlemen that have ladies with them.
Here the writer knew fairly well what he wished to say, although he had
not taken the trouble to think it out very sharply. His difficulty was
that he lacked technical skill in expression.
These examples illustrate the causes from which obscurity may arise.
The first is legitimate. Whether we agree that Carlyle or George
Meredith or Browning has carried obscurity beyond the farthest limit
at which it is permissible has nothing to do with the fact that there
are times when it is the right of an author to sacrifice Clearness to
some other effect which he seeks. It is, however, fair to say that in
ordinary experience these emergencies are pretty nearly as rare as the
appearance of white blackbirds; and that at least no writer has a right
to discard Clearness until he has secured it. Certainly no one can
successfully employ obscurity as a means of producing literary effect
until he has acquired the art of writing with transparent simplicity.
Of the second cause it is sufficient to say here that no outward aid
can enable the student to overcome it. To think sharply and lucidly is
the result of self-discipline. It is a matter of mental exercise, and
while a student may be sent to a mental as to a physical gymnasium,
all strengthening of the mind as of the muscles must be the result of
individual exertion. There has as yet been discovered no system of
intellectual _massage_, by means of which the understanding may attain
to the benefits of work without doing anything.