the clauses are crisp and nervous; in (2), longer and more reflective; (3) is all one long sentence, one profound reflection. Such concrete phrases as "sighs of orphans," "tears of children," "pangs of hunger," are replaced in (2) by the vaguer general phrase "premature sufferings." "Pace in anguish" (1) is contrasted with "walked in serenity and peace of mind” (2). There is also a marked linguistic contrast between " stony-hearted," " never-ending " (1) and "noxious umbrage," "alleviations from sympathising affection" (3).

PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS.

7. It has been stated that no general rule can be given for securing sequence. But the following suggestions will be of help to the young writer:

1. Study carefully the sequence in the paragraphs of the best prose authors. Of the authors usually read in school, the best in this respect are Hawthorne, Irving, and Macaulay. De Quincey is scarcely an author for the school; he is extremely painstaking in his paragraphstructure when writing seriously, but in his humorous passages is apt to bring in irrelevant matter, and thereby mar both sequence and unity. Webster's paragraphs are well constructed. So are Addison's, with an occasional slip. Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, and George Eliot are less careful.

2. Having read a paragraph through, write down, in a short clause, what you judge to be its leading subject. Then write down, in still shorter clauses, the items which make up the body of the paragraph. This will lay bare the mechanism of the paragraph-its "skeleton."

3. Before composing a paragraph of your own, prepare a skeleton in like manner. That is, write down the subject (what you purpose treating in the paragraph) and the several items, and arrange and rearrange the items until you are satisfied that you have hit upon the best order. See § 122.

B

8. The Echo.-Make the sentences of the paragraph fit into each other by letting the beginning clause of one sentence echo the thought, and perhaps even the wording, of the last clause of the sentence immediately preceding. This echo device is extremely effective; it has been employed, consciously or unconsciously, by many of the best writers. Thus:

Just as I was pulling on my boots the nine o'clock bell rang. "There!" I cried, "that serves me right for lying abed."

Observe how direct and obvious the connection between the ejaculation "There!" and the "rang," and how the connection would be broken by a different arrangement, as:

The nine o'clock bell rang just as I was pulling on my boots. "There!" I said, "that serves me right for lying in bed!" *

Observe the echo in the following quotations, in which the echoing words have been italicized for the purpose:

I was roused from this fit of luxurious meditation by a shout from my little travelling companions. They had been looking out of the coach-windows for the last few miles, recognizing every tree and cottage as they approached home, and now there was a general burst of joy. "There's John! and there's old Carlo! and there's Bantam !" cried the happy little rogues, clapping their hands.—IRVING: The Stage-Coach.

Accordingly, with such a tramp of his ponderous riding-boots as might of itself have been audible in the remotest of the seven gables, he [the lieutenant-governor] advanced to the door, which the servant pointed out, and made its new panels re-echo with a loud, free knock. Then, looking round with a smile to the spectators, he awaited a response. As none came, however, he knocked again, but with the same unsatisfactory results as at first. And now, being a trifle choleric in his temperament, the lieutenant-governor uplifted the heavy hilt of the sword, wherewith he so beat and banged upon the door that, etc.-HawTHORNE: Seven Gables, ch. i.

In the following:

In this place then I resolved to fix my design, and accordingly I prepared two muskets and my ordinary fowling-piece. The two muskets I

*This example is taken from A. S. Hill, Foundations of Rhetoric, p. 306, where the matter is fully treated.

loaded with a brace of slugs each, and four or five smaller bullets, about the size of pistol-bullets; and the fowling-piece I loaded with near a handful of swan-shot of the largest size, etc.-DE FOE: Robinson Crusoe, p. 200.

the connection is more evident than if the author had written: "I loaded the two muskets."

The following is an apt illustration of echo-sequence in a more complicated structure:

History will record that on the morning of the 6th of October, 1789, the king and queen of France, after a day of confusion, alarm, dismay, and slaughter, lay down, under the pledged security of public faith, to indulge nature in a few hours of respite and troubled melancholy repose. From this sleep the queen was first startled by the voice of the sentinel at her door, who cried out to her to save herself by flight-that this was the last proof of fidelity he could give-that they were upon him, and he was dead. Instantly he was cut down. A band of cruel ruffians and assassins, reeking with his blood, rushed into the chamber of the queen, etc.-BURKE: Reflections, p. 78.

We are to understand that the sentinel was cut down by the band of ruffians.

In the following passage the sequence is marred by the introduction of a contrast for which there has been no preparation:

Nor must we forget that all, or almost all, to whom, when placed at the head of affairs, he could apply for assistance, were persons who owed as little as himself, or less than himself, to education. A minister in Europe finds himself, on the first day on which he commences his functions, surrounded by experienced public servants, the depositaries of official traditions. Hastings had no such help. His own reflection, his own energy, were to supply the place of all Downing Street and Somerset House.-MACAULAY: Warren Hastings.

While reading of Hastings in India we pass all at once to a minister in Europe, and we are naturally startled. The transition would have been made much easier by a slight change: "Unlike a minister in Europe, who finds himself. . . traditions, Hastings had no one to counsel him. His own," etc.

9. Connectives.-Study the force of and learn to use connectives-i. e. certain words and short phrases which indicate the transition from one thought to the next, or which justify, enforce, restrict, or otherwise modify an assertion. The value of connectives has been aptly stated:

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 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.-S. T. COLERIDGE: Table Talk, ii. 185.

Note, in the following, how clearness is enhanced by the italicized words:

Even the critics, whatever may be said of them by others, he [the present author, Irving] has found to be a singularly gentle and goodnatured race; it is true that each has in turn objected to some one or two articles, and that these individual exceptions, taken in the aggregate, would amount almost to a total condemnation of his work; but then he has been consoled by observing, that what one has particularly censured, another has as particularly praised; and thus, the encomiums being set off against the objections, he finds his work upon the whole commended far beyond its deserts.-IRVING: L'Envoy.

In the following:

The two principles of conservation and correction operated strongly at the two critical periods of the Restoration and Revolution, when England found itself without a king. At both those periods the nation had lost the bond of union in their ancient edifice; they did not, however, dissolve the whole fabric. On the contrary, in both cases they regenerated the deficient part of the old constitution through the parts which were not impaired. They kept these old parts exactly as they were, that the part recovered might be suited to them.-BURKE: Reflections, p. 23.

not only is the general sequence close, but the whole paragraph may be said to turn upon the words italicized.

The young writer should note the use of these words and phrases in good writers, and of similar expressionse. g. "notwithstanding," "after all," "all in all," "like

wise," "further," " consequently," etc.-and should endeavor to employ them in his own writing.

10. Repeated Structure. This is an effective device of certain writers who have paid especial attention to form. Its use, if not excessive, gives to the thought-sequence a peculiar power and dignity as well as clearness. But, like the single-sentence paragraph, § 2, it is not without danger for the young. An example of repetition is:

Of books, so long as you rest only on grounds which, in sincerity, you believe to be true, and speak without anger or scorn, you can hardly say the thing which ought to be taken amiss. But of men and women you dare not, and must not, tell all that chance may have revealed to you. Sometimes you are summoned to silence by pity for that general human infirmity which you also, the writer, share. Sometimes you are checked by the consideration that perhaps your knowledge of the case was originally gained under opportunities allowed only by confidence or by unsuspecting carelessness. Sometimes the disclosure would cause quarrels between parties now at peace. Sometimes it would inflict pain, such as you could not feel any right to inflict, upon people not directly but collaterally interested in the exposure. Sometimes, again, if right to be told, it might be difficult to prove. Thus, for one cause and another, some things are sacred and some things are perilous amongst any personal relations that else you might have it in your power to make.-DE QUINCEY (On Wordsworth's Poetry), xi. 294.

See also the first passage from Burke, § 13; De Quincey (from, as from), § 31; and The Outlook (By the power), § 3. Simpler, and therefore safer for the young to imitate, is the following:

On this sacred day [Sunday] the gigantic monster [London] is charmed into repose. The intolerable din and struggle of the week are at an end. The shops are shut. The fires of forges and manufactories are extinguished, and the sun, no longer obscured by murky clouds of smoke, pours down a sober yellow radiance into the quiet streets. The few pedestrians we meet, instead of hurrying forward with anxious countenances, move leisurely along; their brows are smoothed from the wrinkles of business and care; they have put on their Sunday looks and Sunday manners with their Sunday clothes, and are cleansed in mind as well as in person.-IRVING: A Sunday in London.