ON DIVIDING A PARAGRAPH INTO SENTENCES
=The Sentence not its own Master.=—Everybody learns at an early age some
such definition as this: A sentence is the expression of a complete
thought in words. But many students who have just left the grammar school
are not very clear in their own minds as to what the definition means.
When they come to write sentences they find it hard to decide what
constitutes a complete thought. They know what the test of grammatical
completeness is—the sentence must have a subject and a predicate; but
they are hazy as to when the sentence is logically complete. Frankly, the
most accomplished writers are sometimes troubled to decide this question.
Having two ideas, they are not sure whether these ought to stand in
separate sentences, or in semicolon clauses. There is no magic rule; but
by the right kind of practice one may become perfectly sure, in nine
cases out of ten, of the best course to take.
Perhaps the easiest way to approach the matter is to remember that the
sentence is only a part of a larger unit,—the paragraph. A paragraph is
either a miniature composition, or a main part of a short composition.
In long works, the _chapter_ is the short composition of which the
paragraphs are the divisions. The sentence, in turn, is a main part of
the paragraph. Whether a sentence should be long or short depends on the
part it plays in the paragraph.
To make this statement plain, we need consider only the paragraph that
stands alone, a miniature composition. Whatever be the number of its
sentences, each forms a main part or step in the development of the
paragraph-thought. All are concerned with _explaining_ the same thing;
each contributes something to the idea. If there is a topic sentence and
this be likened to a root, the other sentences are like the stalks and
leaves which grow from the root.
Note how each of the following miniature compositions[18] has a root,
from which the rest of the paragraph springs necessarily.
1. Flowers have an expression of countenance as much as men or
animals. Some seem to smile; some have a sad expression; some
are pensive and diffident; others again are plain, honest, and
upright, like the broad-faced sunflower and the hollyhock.—H.
W. BEECHER.
2. There are three wicks ... to the lamp of a man’s life;
brain, blood, and breath. Press the brain a little, its
light goes out, followed by both the others. Stop the heart a
minute, and out go all three of the wicks. Choke the air out
of the lungs, and presently the fluid ceases to supply the
other centres of flame, and all is soon stagnation, cold, and
darkness.—DR. HOLMES.
Consider the parts of the paragraphs just given. Mr. Beecher has two
sentences, the second grouping together the details which explain the
first. But the first sentence is made much shorter than the second,
because, word for word, it is to be more emphatic. The second is the
longer, because no one of the separate clauses seemed to the writer
important enough to stand alone. The clauses of detail taken together
form one main division of the paragraph. The short sentence that states
the gist of the paragraph is another main division. In Dr. Holmes’s brief
parable, there are four sentences. Three of them develop the general idea
stated in the first. Dr. Holmes cannot condense these three into one
explanatory sentence, as Beecher does; he has too much to say. By giving
a sentence to each of the three “wicks,” he shows that he considers them
all approximately equal in importance.
Study now another paragraph:—
It is saying less than the truth to affirm that an excellent
book (and the remark holds almost equally good of a Raphael
as of a Milton) is like a well-chosen and well-tended fruit
tree. Its fruits are not of one season only. With the due and
natural intervals, we may recur to it year after year, and it
will supply the same nourishment and the same gratification,
if only we ourselves return to it with the same healthful
appetite.—COLERIDGE.
In this passage from Coleridge the first sentence is the root of the
paragraph; ‘a book is like a fruit tree.’ But the second sentence is made
shorter than the first, because it is to state the pith of the paragraph
more clearly and emphatically than did the first. The meaning of the
first sentence is a little vague; how a book is like a fruit tree, it
does not say. The second sentence does say how. Note, then, that a short
sentence is always emphatic, and that accordingly it should be used to
state something that is important in the paragraph.
Study also the following paragraph:—
Our chief want in life, is somebody who shall make us do what
we can. This is the service of a friend. With him we are easily
great. There is a sublime attraction in him to whatever virtue
is in us. How he flings wide the doors of existence! What
questions we ask of him! what an understanding we have! how few
words are needed! It is the only real society.—EMERSON.
In this paragraph of Emerson’s, the main ideas are stated in brief
sentences, and the summary of the paragraph comes in a sentence of six
short words. But note that in the last sentence except one, the writer
groups three clauses, because the three constitute parts of one main idea
of the paragraph.
Read the following rather abstruse paragraphs, and decide as to which
shows the chief divisions of the whole thought.
There is, first, the literature of knowledge; and, secondly,
the literature of power. The function of the first is, to
teach; the function of the second is, to move; the first is a
rudder, the second an oar or a sail. The first speaks to the
mere discursive understanding; the second speaks ultimately, it
may happen, to the higher understanding or reason, but always
through affections of pleasure and sympathy.—DE QUINCEY.
There is, first, the literature of knowledge. And, secondly,
the literature of power. The function of the first is, to
teach. The function of the second is, to move. The first is a
rudder. The second, an oar or a sail. The first speaks to the
mere discursive understanding. The second speaks ultimately, it
may happen, to the higher understanding or reason, but always
through affections of pleasure and sympathy.
From a study of the foregoing selections, it becomes clear that the
sentence is not its own master. It is the servant of the paragraph. The
paragraph, having an idea to give, uses sentences to develop this idea. A
skilful writer is not in haste to crowd into a sentence all of one large,
complex thought. The full expression of that thought is the task of the
paragraph. The sentences are the means by which its parts may be made
clear. The long sentences are for explanatory details; the short ones are
for emphatic summaries or generalizations, and for rapid narrative.
=Sentence Unity.=—I. _A sentence that possesses Unity of Substance
constitutes one main step in the development of the paragraph-idea._ A
main step, as thus employed, usually means a sentence giving one of the
following: (1) the general subject of the paragraph; (2) the general
thought or assertion of the paragraph; (3) the repetition of a preceding
idea in new words; (4) an illustration; (5) a group of particulars or
details; (6) one proof, or term, in a chain of reasoning; (7) a brief
contrast; (8) a cause and an effect; (9) an assertion and a very brief
illustration. It would be absurd to hold these principles of unity
anxiously in mind when one is writing. Having thought them over a little,
and taken to heart the general doctrine that the sentence should be one
main step, the scholar should trust his own sense of unity. The chief
value of any such analysis is that it may help the scholar to give
thought to his own sentences.
II. _A sentence that possesses Unity of Form keeps one coherent structure
throughout, and subordinates unimportant clauses to the important._ Unity
of form does not concern the division of the paragraph into sentences. It
will be considered in Chapter VI., under Well-knit Sentences.
=I. Unity of Substance by Excluding Irrelevant Ideas.=—Perhaps the
first thing that is noticed in reading hasty composition, is that some
sentences are too long. Here is one, written by a lad of fourteen. It
will seem to most readers to be a sentence of infantine simplicity, such
as no high school student is in the slightest danger of perpetrating. My
apology for giving it is that it renders every heterogeneous sentence
ridiculous.
Oliver Orlando’s brother did not like him and when he heard
that Orlando whipped Charles he was very angry and was going
to burn Orlando’s house up with him in it, but Adam, Orlando’s
faithful servant, ran out and told him, so they got all the
money they had and started for the forest of Arden, when they
got pretty near there Adam being so old fainted from hunger.
The student who wrote this was not thinking of the parts of his
paragraph; he was thinking merely of the story of _As You Like It_. He
plunged ahead after the story, never looking behind him. The result is a
long, rambling sentence, with several chief thoughts in it. These chief
thoughts are four: (1) Oliver hatefully plots to kill Orlando. (2) Adam
foils Oliver. (3) Adam and Orlando flee. (4) Adam at last faints. The
paragraph therefore divides into four decent, though childish, sentences:—
Oliver, Orlando’s brother, did not like him; and when he heard
that Orlando whipped Charles he was very angry, and was going
to burn Orlando’s house up with him in it. But Adam, Orlando’s
faithful servant, ran out and told him. So they got together
all the money they had, and started for the forest of Arden.
When they got pretty near there, Adam, being so old, fainted
from hunger.
Periods are now substituted for several of the student’s commas. That
writer had confused these two marks, the comma and the full stop. Such
an error may be called, for mere convenience, _the comma fault_. It is
readily seen that of all possible mistakes in punctuation, the comma
fault is the most serious and elementary. To begin a new sentence after a
comma is an infallible sign of illiteracy.
=Oral Exercise.=—In the following passages, correct the comma fault
wherever it appears. Change the sentences in other ways to give a more
mature tone to them.
1. I don’t know what to do in such a case, it is too hard to decide.
[Change comma to semicolon.]
2. Romeo fell in love at once, he couldn’t help himself, he had never
seen any person so lovable.
3. So they also started for the forest of Arden disguised as a countryman
and woman, when they got there they bought a house that was to be sold at
auction, once while wandering around they met Orlando and Rosalind asked
him if it was he that was spoiling the trees by carving love sentences
on them, and he said it was, so she said he could pretend that she was
Rosalind, so he came there every day until one day he was detained by
seeing a lioness just going to spring on Oliver.
=Theme.=—Write a paragraph of six to ten short sentences. Let the
first state the whole event in brief. Let the others give the steps
of the action tersely, rapidly, emphatically. Revise for spelling and
punctuation. Suggested topics:—
1. Shooting the rapids.
2. How the water comes down at the falls.
3. How the accident happened.
4. How a log-jam is broken.
5. The way to shoot a glass ball.
6. Down a hill on a wheel.
7. Sights from a car window.
8. A fall on the ice.
9. Shooting the “Chutes.”
10. A runaway.
11. A flash-light photograph.
12. How the bird (or game) escaped.
13. Paul Revere’s ride.
14. An exciting moment.
=II. Unity of Substance by Including all the Parts of an Idea.=—It has
already been said that a paragraph may be composed of several very short
sentences, each one a main step of the paragraph, each one a unit. For
example:—
A great silence made itself felt. Then, on a sudden, a dry
sound cracked in the air. The viscount had slapped his
adversary’s face. Every one rose to interfere. Cards were
exchanged between the two.
Here, indeed, it may be that the second and third sentences are halves
of one idea, divided to make its parts more emphatic. At all events,
while a sentence may be very short and still constitute a principal
factor of the paragraph, sentences should not be so brief that each is,
so to speak, only half a main thought. A main thought may be composite.
Thus, it is often effective (_a_) to _state_ and to _explain_ an idea
very briefly, within the one sentence; (_b_) to show an extremely
close relation of _cause_ and _effect_, by stating both within the one
sentence; (_c_) to _contrast_ two things very briefly within the one
sentence.
Now, a child gives his ideas in mere bits; he cannot express the
relations of the bits to each other. For example:—
My aunt was a very large woman. My uncle was a very thin man.
He was very delicate. He dwindled. I mean, he got thinner and
punier every day. And my aunt thought a great deal of him. She
wished him to get well. She gave him a great deal of medicine.
She gave him so much that he began to get worse. He finally
died.
This paragraph tells the story of how a woman doctored her husband to
death. The writer has made eight steps in the story, which perhaps has
not really more than four main parts: (1) The _contrast_ between my aunt
and uncle. (2) My uncle “dwindled”—_explained_ by saying he got punier
daily. (3) My aunt’s love, and its _consequence_—her wish for my uncle’s
recovery. (4) The form the wish took,—giving of medicine. (5) The
twofold result,—aggravation of the disease, then death.
The original sentences may be combined into four. In combining them,
what pointing shall be used instead of so many full stops? We may use
commas, but only if we make one clause dependent or join two clauses or
propositions by a conjunction. We may say, for example, “My aunt was
a very large woman, and my uncle a very thin, delicate man.” We have
inserted an _and_; this permits the use of a comma. The result is a
pretty good sentence, having one complex idea,—the contrast between the
ample lady and her slight husband.
But another invaluable means of showing the real _factors_ of the
sentence is the semicolon. The semicolon, as was said in Chapter III.,
is a kind of weak full stop. Nearly always it connects statements that
are unrelated and independent grammatically, but intimately related in
sense. In a way,[19] the semicolon connects sentences, a period separates
sentences. The former sign is priceless to the writer who, when he comes
to expand each idea of his paragraph, finds the structure growing too
complicated. He has merely to place a semicolon and go ahead with a
miniature new sentence, which every reader will understand to be a part
of the logical unit in hand.
If we combine the eight sentences by the help of the semicolon, we get
four, somewhat like the following:—
My aunt was a very large woman; my uncle, on the contrary,
was a very thin delicate man. He dwindled; that is, he got
thinner and punier every day. My aunt thought a good deal of
him, and naturally she wished him to get well. She gave him,
accordingly, a great deal of medicine. She gave him so much
indeed that he began to get worse; and, finally, he died.
Most students do not use the semicolon enough. Two or three semicolon
clauses, however, are sufficient for a very long sentence. If more are
written there is usually danger of encroaching upon the next main thought
of the paragraph. _It is better to write too many short sentences than
too many long ones._
=Oral Exercise.=—Consider the following paragraph, and decide whether the
main thoughts of it are nine, as here indicated, or four. If four, the
thoughts are: (1) Contrast between light above and dark below. (2) The
growing dark. (3) The faint, weird sights and sounds that come to the
narrator. (4) His retreat from the abbey. If, having given the matter
careful thought, you think there should be but four sentences, or if you
think there is any other fault in the punctuation, explain how you would
repoint.
The last beams of day were now faintly streaming through the
painted windows in the high vaults above me. The lower parts of
the abbey were already wrapped in the obscurity of twilight.
The chapels and aisles grew darker and darker. The effigies
of the kings faded into shadows. The marble figures of the
monuments assumed strange shapes in the uncertain light. The
evening breeze crept through the aisles like the cold breath
of the grave. And even the distant footfall of a verger,
traversing the Poet’s Corner, had something strange and dreary
in its sound. I slowly retraced my morning’s walk. And as I
passed out at the portal of the cloisters, the door, closing
with a jarring noise behind me, filled the whole building with
echoes.
=Punctuation for Emphasis.=—Below are given three ways of punctuating the
same words. We may suppose the same words to be used by three different
generals.
1. General A. twirled his moustache, and spoke softly, in his calm,
unruffled way, as if he were explaining a mathematical problem to a
cadet; he said to the soldier, “You are a coward: you shrink, you dodge,
you hide, you run away when the danger comes.” He spoke meditatively, and
with a little drawl, letting his voice rise at each pause.
2. General B. looked at the soldier steadily, and said in a sharp,
decided tone: “You are a coward: you shrink; you dodge; you hide; you run
away when the danger comes.”
3. General C. sprang up from his camp-stool, angry and indignant. He
spoke explosively and incoherently. “You are a coward! You shrink. You
dodge. You hide. You run away when the danger comes.”
Evidently the punctuation here is largely dependent on the different
states of mind. A calm, logical attitude is reflected in the nice
distinctions conveyed by the colon and comma. An excited mood
over-emphasizes each detail, and makes it a sentence. There is sometimes
need of indignant emphasis on each detail. Perhaps therefore the strict
unity of the sentence may sometimes be sacrificed for the sake of
emphasis. Such a sacrifice however should very rarely be made.
=Oral Exercise.=—Consider the following paragraph as a whole, and
decide whether the sentences represent the main factors of the
paragraph-thought. If you agree that “the song of a young girl’s voice”
is as important in the paragraph as several of the other songs put
together, how can this importance be indicated by punctuation?
The first thing which Tom saw was the black cedars, high and
sharp against the rosy dawn. And St. Brandan’s Isle reflected
double in the still broad silver sea. The wind sung softly in
the cedars, and the water sung among the caves. The sea-birds
sung as they streamed out into the ocean, and the land-birds as
they built among the boughs. And the air was so full of song
that it stirred St. Brandan and his hermits, as they slumbered
in the shade. And they moved their good old lips, and sung
their good old hymn amid their dreams. But among all the songs
one came across the water more sweet and clear than all, for it
was the song of a young girl’s voice.
=Theme.=—Write a paragraph of four sentences on one of the following
subjects. Let the first sentence be a general statement. Then let each of
three compound sentences group together details, and so explain the first.
1. The three parts of a tree, and their characteristics.
2. The three parts of my town.
3. A picture I like: its background, its figures, its coloring.
4. The lunch-room.
5. A sleeping-car: the car itself, the travellers, the porter.
6. Uses of a jack-knife: legitimate, illegitimate, doubtful.
7. Three men representing three kinds of true Americanism.
8. Three great men, typically English.
9. Three great men, typically Roman.
10. Three types of philanthropist.
11. Three kinds of coward.
12. Three kinds of hero.
13. Three noble American women.
14. Three women who write stories.
=Written Exercise.=—In the seventeenth century there were many authors
whose minds were full of Latin models. These writers tried to build up
in English, an uninflected language, sentences as complex as those of
Cicero. They tried to make the sentence do the work of the paragraph. How
utterly they failed may be seen in the following passages from Defoe and
Lord Clarendon. Considering each selection as a paragraph, rewrite with
reference to unity of substance in the sentence.
1. There is one thing more remarkable in this parish, and it
is this: twenty-six sheets of lead, hanging all together,
were blown off from the middle isle of our church, and were
carried over the north isle, which is a very large one, without
touching it; and into the churchyard ten yards’ distance from
the church; and they were took up all joined together as they
were on the roof; the plumber told me that the sheets weighed
each three hundred and a half, one with another. This is what
is most observable in our parish: but I shall give you an
account of one thing (which perhaps you may have from other
hands) that happened in another, called Kingscote, a little
village about three miles from Tedbury, and seven from us:
where William Kingscote, Esq., has many woods; among which was
one grove of very tall trees, being each near eighty foot high;
the which he greatly valued for the tallness and prospect of
them, and therefore resolved never to cut them down: but it
so happened, that six hundred of them, within the compass of
five acres were wholly blown down; (and supposed to be much at
the same time) each tree tearing up the ground with its root;
so that the roots of most of the trees, with the turf and
earth about them, stood up at least fifteen or sixteen foot
high; the lying down of which trees is an amazing sight to all
beholders.—_Defoe._
2. It is true, that as he[20] was of a most incomparable
gentleness, application, and even submission to good and
worthy and entire men, so he was naturally (which could not
be more evident in his place, which objected him to another
conversation and intermixture than his own election would have
done) _adversus malos injucundus_; and was so ill a dissembler
of his dislike and disinclination to ill men, that it was not
possible for such not to discern it. There was once, in the
House of Commons, such a declared acceptation of the good
service an eminent member had done to them, and, as they said,
to the whole kingdom, that it was moved, he being present,
“That the speaker might, in the name of the whole house, give
him thanks, and then that every member might, as a testimony
of his particular acknowledgment, stir or move his hat towards
him;” the which (though not ordered) when very many did, the
lord Falkland (who believed the service itself not to be of
that moment, and that an honourable and generous person could
not have stooped to it for any recompence) instead of moving
his hat, stretched both his arms out, and clasped his hands
together upon the crown of his hat, and held it close down to
his head; that all men might see, how odious that flattery was
to him, and that very approbation of the person, though at the
same time most popular.—_Clarendon._
=Oral Exercise.=—Examine the paragraphs by Hawthorne (p. 106), Macaulay,
Webster, Huxley (pp. 107-8) to see whether the sentences are units in
substance. Note also the different effects produced by long and short
sentences.
=III. A. Unity of Substance by Keeping to the Point.=—In a hastily
written manuscript will often be found unlike ideas joined together in
one sentence. Some persons are worse than others in this matter, but
everybody, in composing rapidly, is liable to the fault. It is amusingly
easy to fly off at a tangent, if the parts of the paragraph have not
been properly thought out. The mind often works erratically; it is
pursuing a given idea when some word used suggests a different line of
thinking and the train is switched off its track.
Cardinal Newman once wrote a burlesque of this scatter-brained kind
of writing. He pretends that the lad is writing a theme on the topic,
“Fortune favors the brave.” In the midst of it the boy says:—
Napoleon, too, shows us how little we can rely on fortune;
but his faults, great as they were, are being redeemed by his
nephew, Louis Napoleon, who has shown himself very different
from what was expected, though he has never explained how
he came to swear to the constitution, and then mounted the
imperial throne.
Here the writer has not committed the comma fault; he has not begun an
independent sentence after a comma. But he has set down ideas irrelevant
to the sentence, and, in this case, irrelevant even to the theme.
This lack of unity often arises from putting down, as the sentence
proceeds, the details that occur parenthetically to the writer; he
empties his mind upon the paper. Thus:—
My aunt happened to notice, as she stood looking into the glass
and thinking how pretty she was, for she was really pretty for
one so old, that the eyes of a portrait or one of the eyes was
moving, for my aunt had a large picture of my uncle in her room
in her country-house, which was in Derbyshire.
=B.= Many a sentence which ends in an irrelevant clause can be made to
show unity by the insertion of some intermediate link that occurred in
the mind but was overlooked in the writing. “Johnson wrote political
articles, and took care that the Whigs did not get the best of it,”
becomes a unit if we supply a few words: “Johnson wrote political
articles, _and in those which referred to parliamentary debates_ took
care that the Whigs did not get the best of it.” In other words, a
sentence must not merely include the _expressed_ parts of a main thought,
as in the second kind of unity of substance; it must _express_ every part
of the main thought.
=Oral Exercise.=—Trim the following sentences into shape, so that each
shall be a unit. If necessary, divide the sentence.
1. He was young; but his foolishness stood him in good stead.
2. The cholera in Egypt is assuming a more loathsome form, among the dead
being Major Roddy Owen, the famous Uganda explorer.
3. The delegates, wearied by the excitement of the past week, have
hurried to their homes, a few remaining for all the business men have
been making unusual displays in spite of the hard times.
4. The new light is placed upon a gas-jet, which supplies the gas to a
curious film, which is made of some chemically prepared substance that
becomes incandescent, not having to be changed oftener than twice a year,
if you are careful with it.
5. The electric lights, which are of the Edison pattern, are not burned
later than six o’clock. They are more convenient than gas, and they come
packed in straw.
=Oral Exercise, in Review.=—Decide whether the following sentences are
units or not. Indicate which form of sentence unity each has or lacks.
Suggest improvements.
1. In the midst of life we are in death, and it has been said that the
tariff is a tax.
2. Jesu! Jesu! Dead!—he drew a good bow;—and dead!—he shot a fine
shoot:—John of Gaunt loved him well, and betted much money on his
head.—_2 Henry IV._, Act III., Sc. 2, l. 48.
3. He had one claw knobbed and the other jagged; and Tom delighted in
watching him hold on to the sea-weed with his knobbed claw, while he cut
up salads with his jagged one, and then put them into his mouth, after
smelling at them, like a monkey, and always the little barnacles threw
out their casting nets and swept the water, and came in for their share
of whatever there was for dinner.
4. We were now thoroughly broken down, but the intense excitement of the
time denied us repose, and after a unique slumber of some three or four
hours’ duration, we arose, as if by preconcert, to make examination of
our treasure.
5. Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt [partly-gilt] goblet,
sitting in my Dolphin-chamber, at the round table, by a sea-coal fire,
upon Wednesday in Whitsun week, when the prince broke thy head for
likening his father to a singing man of Windsor; thou didst swear to me
then, as I was washing thy wound, to marry me, and make me my lady thy
wife.—_2 Henry IV._, Act II., Sc. 1, l. 94.
6. There was something in the tone of this note which gave me great
uneasiness. Its whole style differed materially from that of Legrand;
what could he be dreaming of? what new crotchet possessed his excitable
brain? what “business of the highest importance” could _he_ possibly have
to transact? Jupiter’s account of him boded no good; I dreaded lest the
continued pressure of misfortune had, at length, fairly unsettled the
reason of my friend; without a moment’s hesitation, therefore, I prepared
to accompany the negro.
7. And in that country is an old castle, that stands upon a rock, the
which is cleped the Castle of the sparrowhawk, that is beyond the city
of Layas, beside the town of Parsipee, that belongeth to the lordship of
Cruk; that[21] is a rich lord and a good Christian man; where men find
a sparrowhawk upon a perch right fair, and right well made; and a fair
Lady of Fayryre, that keepeth it.—_Mandeville._
8. And thus will the city have more lights on the subject, and what will
be a gain in lighting to the city will be a greater loss in cash, and the
city’s loss will be the Water Works company’s gain, and we are glad of it
so far as the company is concerned, for the company was put off and were
refused a renewal of its contract with the city at terms that were most
reasonable, and the company will also make up for lost time now in good
shape.