1. From Macaulay:

READING LESSON VI

"The advocates of Charles the First, like the advocates of other malefactors against whom overwhelming evidence is produced, generally decline all controversy about the facts, and content themselves with calling testimony to character. He had so many private virtues! And had James the Second no private virtues? Was Oliver Cromwell, his bitterest enemies themselves being judges, destitute of private virtues?

"And what are the virtues ascribed to Charles? A religious zeal, not more sincere than that of his son, and fully as weak and narrow-minded, and a few of the ordinary household decencies which half the tombstones in England claim for those who lie beneath them. A good father! A good husband! Ample apologies indeed for fifteen years of persecution, tyranny, and falsehood!

"We charge him with having broken his coronation oath; and we are told that he kept his marriage vow. We accuse him of having given up his people to the merciless inflictions of the most hot-headed and hard-hearted of prelates; and the defense is, that he took his little son on his knee and kissed him. We censure him for having violated the articles of the Petition of Right, after having, for good and valuable consideration, promised to observe them; and we are informed that he was accustomed to hear prayers at six o'clock in the morning. It is to such considerations as these, together with his Vandyke dress, his handsome face, and his peaked beard, that he owes, we verily believe, most of his popularity with the present generation."

2. Phillips Brooks, in his address to young men on "The Symmetry of Life,” says that the symmetrical life should have three dimensions, length, breadth, and height. By length, he means purpose; by breadth, sympathy for our fellows; by height, love to God. He closes as follows:

"Do not dare to live without some clear intention toward which your living shall be bent. Mean to do something with all your might. Do not add act to act and day to day in perfect thoughtlessness, never asking yourself whither the growing line is leading. But at the same time do not dare to be so absorbed in your own life, so wrapped up

in listening to the sound of your own hurrying heels, that all this vast pathetic music, made up of the mingled joy and sorrow of your fellowmen, shall not find out your heart and claim it and make you rejoice to give yourself for them. And yet, all the while keep the upward windows open. Do not dare to think that a child of God can worthily work out his own career or worthily serve God's other children unless he does both in the love and fear of God their Father." 3. W. J. Fox before the first meeting of the Corn Law League, in 1843:

"The supporters of the Corn Laws are very fond of complaining of the long speeches made by the Leaguers against them when they know they have nothing novel to say. Now, I should be very glad to effect a compromise with those objectors. I should be very ready to say to them, 'If you will spare our pockets, we will spare your intellects. If you will allow the people's mouths to be filled, we will abstain from filling your ears with their remonstrances. If you will untax our bread, we will no longer tax your patience.'

"Even the bread that is given in charity must first pay the tax imposed by these laws; and if, by a royal begging letter, some hundreds of thousands of pounds are collected for the poor of Paisley, why, the rapacity of this dominant class must needs step in and take some £30,000 of the money thus bestowed in charity. That Book which we profess to revere tells us to pray for our daily bread; therefore it cannot possibly teach men to tax our daily bread. There is one precept in that Book with the fulfillment of which these laws directly interfere; there the young man is told to sell all that he has and give to the poor. That precept it is impossible to obey in our day. The Corn Laws have rendered it impossible. It must be altered and in future it will stand: 'Sell all thou hast, and divide the proceeds between the richest and the poorest, between the pauper and the landlord.""

Introduction.

CHAPTER X

THE ART OF PHRASING

What we have already learned about unity, coherence, and emphasis has had to do mainly with the choice and arrangement of ideas. In this chapter we shall learn further how to secure these artistic qualities by the choice and arrangement of words.

I. UNITY

Meaning of Sentence Unity. A sentence is said to have unity when it expresses one and only one main idea. It is not hard for the speaker to secure unity when he uses the simple sentence (a sentence with one main clause). Neither is it difficult if he uses the complex sentence (a sentence with one main clause and one or more dependent clauses); for the main idea is naturally placed in the main clause. It is when the speaker uses the compound sentence (a sentence with two or more independent clauses) that he is likely to violate the principle of unity.

Correct Use of the Compound Sentence. There are three sorts of ideas which may be expressed correctly in the form of a compound sentence: (1) A contrast may be so expressed, because the idea of difference furnishes the unifying thought. For example, in the sentence, "You worked, as a statesman, for the enemy, but I worked for my country," the main idea is that the two statesmen worked in different ways. (2) A general idea may be

illustrated by two or more clauses of similar construction. Grady, for instance, said, "Horses that had charged Federal guns marched before the plow; fields that ran red with human blood in April were green with harvest in June." The swift restoration of the South is the one general idea that is illustrated by each of these clauses. (3) Ideas which are equal and very closely related may be united in a compound sentence without marring its unity. Thus, "Webster went down to Faneuil Hall to protest, and four thousand of his fellow Whigs went out to meet him." The two acts referred to in this sentence probably occurred at the same time and were equally necessary to the situation that formed the basis of the story.

Incorrect Use of the Compound Sentence. — There are two ways in which young speakers very commonly form compound sentences that violate the principle of unity. In the first place, in telling a story they are liable to join that which follows in time to that which precedes by and, and then, or and so. An event which follows another in time may not be closely enough related to it to be placed in the same sentence with it.

In the second place, students often form into a compound sentence ideas which are related but which are not of equal value: as, "It was a fine day and we went for a walk." Since the fact that "we went for a walk” is the principal information which the speaker desired to give, it should have been placed in the main clause and the idea of the fine day in a dependent clause. The result would have been the complex sentence, "As it was a fine day, we went for a walk."

II. COHERENCE

Connective Words or Phrases: We have already seen that a speaker may secure coherence by an orderly arrangement of ideas. He may also make his speech hang together by certain tricks of language. Almost every sentence should contain within it some word or phrase which makes reference to a preceding idea. Personal pronouns (them, it, etc.), adjectives (such, these, this, etc.), and conjunctions (while, therefore, and others listed in Ex. III) may be so used as to lead the mind easily from one thought to the next. One may use not only single words but also phrases to indicate the relation between ideas. Lincoln does this in the Gettysburg Address when he says, "But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate," etc. By this phrase, we are reminded of the narrower sense in which he treated the subject of dedication in the preceding sentences.

Parallel Construction. By giving to similar ideas a similar or parallel construction, the speaker may help his audience to follow more easily a desired line of thought. Ideas are given a similar construction when the parts of the sentence, such as the subject, predicate complement, and modifiers, are all in the same relative positions. Chapter III, Ex. VI, Selection 1 furnishes an excellent example of the coherent value of this rhetorical method, which was a very prominent feature of Webster's style also.

Several illustrations may be found in Chapter III, Ex. IV, 2, and Ex. V, 2. Let us study one of them. Webster says, "If the prisoner's guilt has been shown and proved beyond all reasonable doubt, you will convict him. If such reasonable doubt of guilt still remains, you