does not add to the thought. The various ways in which unnecessary words creep into one's writings have been classified, and are named as follows:

(a) Tautology, or repeating a thought that has just been stated.

Violation. He answered their question with bitter sarcasm.
He replied to them with stinging words.

Correction. (Either sentence alone tells as much as both.)
He has attained the summit of his ambition.

He has all that he desires. (Correction same as

above.)

(b) Redundancy, or the addition of words, which, though not repeating the thought, add nothing to it.

Violation. He indorsed his name on the back of the check.
Correction. He indorsed the check.

Unnecessary words are often made use of in the form of qualifying expressions which add nothing to the word qualified.

Violation.

How many lessons we may draw from the unselfish, beautiful life of Jesus!

No adjective can introduce any loftier thoughts than those suggested by the simple mention of the life of Jesus, and therefore the presence of any adjective takes from the force of the sentence.

Correction. How many lessons we may draw from the life of Jesus!

Ex. Paul was the hero of that famous book, the Acts of the

Apostles.

The close of his life reminded one of a beautiful glorious sun

set in a summer day.

She died like a noble martyr.

He lived throughout the life of a true and consistent apostle of Christ.

(c) Verbosity or wordiness, a fault consisting in a general failure to condense thought into few words, especially by lengthening out the unimportant parts of the theme, and thus wearying the reader.

Power in Short Words. The pupil should abandon the notion that force is to be gained by the use of big words. No one who has read much of English literature, or who has read little observingly, can fail to appreciate that short words often contain the greatest power. Yet it is strange how apt young writers are to drop into the use of long words; and when once the vocabulary is formed, it is very hard to be changed. We fall insensibly into the use of certain words and phrases; and they become part and parcel of our modes of thought and of our style. Long words with their full volume of sound express some ideas better than short words will express them; but the student is urged to use short words as far as possible without impairing the clearness of his writing.

It

What has just been said refers to all short words, whether derived from the Latin, French, or Saxon. is, however, from the last-mentioned source that the English that we speak draws its best life and power. Illustrations from the Bible. How many of our most

familiar words, expressive of all that is best and dearest, are Saxon monosyllables! The first and great commandment speaks in these words:

"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength."

Our English version of the Bible abounds in passages full of the pith and marrow of the Anglo-Saxon tongue; some of them have a grace which is beyond the reach of any later art. Take as an instance the parable by which Nathan showed to David as in a glass the image of his fatal crime (2 Sam. xii. 1-4). If you will count the words in this parable, you will find it contains, in all, a hundred and twenty-eight words, of which a hundred and thirteen are words of one syllable.

Wicklif, in his translation of the Bible, puts in words of one syllable, or their compounds, our Lord's saying to the Seventy :

"There is much ripe corn, but few workmen. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the ripe corn that he send workmen into his ripe corn."

Further Illustrations. Dr. Gregory says in his "Memoir of Robert Hall:

"In one of my earlier interviews with him, I used the word felicity three or four times. He asked, 'Why do you say felicity? Happiness is a better word, and genuine English, coming from the Saxon, and more musical, as are generally the words derived from the Saxon. Listen: 66 My heart is smitten and withered like grass." There's plaintive music. Again, "Thou hast delivered my eyes from tears, my soul from death, and my feet from falling: "all Saxon except delivered. I could think of that word tears till I wept. Then again for another

specimen, almost all good old Saxon, "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever."

Bunyan's 'Pilgrim's Progress" owes much of its never weakened power to its plain, short words. You can read from this book to a mixed company of old and young, of all grades of intelligence, and they will listen : the most illiterate, because it is so artless in its simple, graphic style and vivid pictures; and the most educated, because it fulfills the highest conditions of art in its perfect fidelity to nature and truth.

In one of the interior counties of New York State a law case was being tried which turned upon the date at which a certain thing was done. The judge told the jury that their verdict must be for the plaintiff or the defendant, according as they found that the thing in question was done prior or subsequent to a given date. The case was perfectly simple; but after a considerable time the jury returned to the court room and asked for further instructions. They wanted to know what his Honor the Judge meant by “prior or subsequent." The judge promptly substituted before and after, and the jury agreed on a verdict. To the untutored minds of this rustic jury the conversion of such plain homespun words as before and after into the Latin derivatives prior and subsequent, was as complex a transformation as that by which Dr. Johnson in his definition of network turns it into "anything reticulated or decussated at equal distances, with interstices between the intersections."

It is hard to see why text-books of rhetoric which urge simplicity in the use of words should turn chapters. on "Letter Writing" into directions for "Epistolary Correspondence."

SCH. ENG.—
G.-7

III. Order of Words.

The emphasis given to a word or clause depends chiefly upon its position in the sentence. Certain methods of arranging words have become recognized forms known by distinct names. Though often regarded as figures of speech, and classed under that head in works on rhetoric, they are given here as being the chief means by which force has been gained in many well-known examples from English literature.

(a) Force is lost by failure to make use of a natural climax.

Climax consists in arranging a series of thoughts or ideas so that the more important follow the less important.

Ex. I came, I saw, I conquered.

Notice the loss of force from disturbing the climax, even though the order in time be preserved :

I conquered after I came and saw.

A sentence in which the less important thought follows the more important is called an anti-climax.

All the force of the well-known original is lost by the new order of the phrases in the following sentence: Ex. Washington was first in the hearts of his countrymen, and first in peace, and first in war.

One of the best examples of effective climax is the following extract from Burke's speech against Warren Hastings:

"Therefore, hath it with all confidence been ordered by the Commons of Great Britain, that I impeach Warren Hastings of high crimes and misdemeanors. I impeach him in the name