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Book II.

SENTENCES TO CHOOSE

Chapter I.

LONG OR SHORT SENTENCES

SOME writers prefer long to short sentences, others short to long ones; but it is far more important that sentences should be skilfully constructed than that they should be of a certain length.

A sentence that conforms to the English idiom, and that presents a single idea with perfect clearness, is practically shorter than one that contains fewer words, but that is heterogeneous in substance and obscure or confused in form. That which lacks correctness, clearness, and unity is understood, if understood at all, with difficulty, and it may require a second reading; that which has clearness and unity is understood at once. A sentence conspicuous for force or for ease is practically shorter than one of apparently the same length which is feeble or clumsy in expression. Force, by stimulating the attention, and ease, by diminishing the strain on the attention, enable a reader to get at the meaning without wasting time on words that signify nothing, or on sounds that jar on the ear or offend the taste.

If, then, a sentence possesses the five merits of correctness, clearness, force, ease, and unity, its length if not excessive matters little. For example

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Haste makes waste.

Whatever is, is right.

Our antagonist is our helper.
There's no such word as "fail."

The pen is mightier than the sword.

When bad men conspire, good men must combine.
The church door was open, and I stepped in.

So the prince, for all his cleverness, was not happy.

A few rough logs, laid side by side, served for a bridge over this stream.

One would think that in personifying itself a nation would be apt to picture something grand, heroic, and imposing, but it is characteristic of the peculiar humor of the English, and of their love for what is blunt, comic, and familiar, that they have embodied their national oddities in the figure of a sturdy, corpulent old fellow, with a three-cornered hat, red waistcoat, leather breeches, and stout oaken cudgel.

Although the last sentence, which comes from Washington Irving, contains precisely the same number of words — sixty-nine as the ten sentences before it taken together, it is so arranged that a reader of ordinary intelligence, far from being incommoded by its length, goes with ease and speed from word to word and from clause to clause.

Mingled with the more headlong and half-drunken crowd there were some sharp-visaged men who loved the irrationality of riots for something else than its own sake, and who at present were not so much the richer as they desired to be, for the pains they had taken in coming to the Treby election, induced by certain prognostics gathered at Duffield on the nomination-day that there might be the conditions favorable to that confusion which was always a harvesttime.

Though this sentence from George Eliot contains only nine more words than that quoted from Irving, it is much more difficult to follow. The difficulty lies partly in the fact that the main assertion in the sentence- the asser

tion that in the crowd were men who had come for the purpose of thieving - is not plainly expressed. Another difficulty lies in the unwieldiness of the last part of the sentence, beginning with the word "induced."

I cannot, from observation, form any decided opinion as to the extent in which this strange delight in nature influences the hearts of young persons in general; and, in stating what has passed in my own mind, I do not mean to draw any positive conclusion as to the nature of the feeling in other children; but the inquiry is clearly one in which personal experience is the only safe ground to go upon, though a narrow one; and I will make no excuse for talking about myself with reference to this subject, because, though there is much egotism in the world, it is often the last thing a man thinks of doing, — and, though there is much work to be done in the world, it is often the best thing a man can do, - to tell the exact truth about the movements of his own mind; and there is this farther reason, that whatever other faculties I may or may not possess, this gift of taking pleasure in landscape I assuredly possess in a greater degree than most men; it having been the ruling passion of my life, and the reason for the choice of its field of labor.

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In the first part of this sentence- extending through "a narrow one" the author (Mr. Ruskin) says that, though it would be unsafe to generalize from his own experience, "personal experience is the only safe ground to go upon." In the second part-extending through "his own mind" — the author says that he will make no excuse for talking about himself, because often the best thing a man can do is to tell the truth about the working of his own mind. In the third and last part, the author gives as a further reason for talking about himself the fact that he possesses in greater degree than most men the "gift of taking pleasure in landscape." Each of these three parts might to advantage, perhaps - have formed a separate sentence; but clearness of thought, and simplicity of language make the sentence, in its present form, as easy to follow as a sen

tence of two hundred words can be. Sentences of this length are rare in modern English, and it is only a master of expression who can safely indulge in them.

There is danger in making sentences very long; but there is also danger in making them very short. It will never do to base a general rule on a remark attributed to the late Dr. Freeman. The story runs that during that distinguished historian's visit to this country a few years ago, he happened to go into a college class-room while an exercise in English composition was going on. The teacher was laboriously endeavoring to make a young woman understand how to make her English clearer and more forcible. "Tell her," broke in Dr. Freeman, who was not the most patient of men, - "tell her to write short

sentences."

In the case in hand, Dr. Freeman's advice may have been the best possible. It is certainly the best for boys or girls at a certain stage of development, when their besetting sin is an addiction to long sentences, a sin often caused by obscurity or confusion of thought, and usually accompanied by sins against clearness, force, ease, or unity, one or all. This stage is, however, not uncommonly followed by another, in which short sentences abound to such an extent that the reader is disposed to echo the exclamation of a character in the Earl of Beaconsfield's "Endymion," "I hate short sentences, like a dog barking."

Advantages of a Long Sentence. An idea which is so simple in itself and so simply expressed that a reader of ordinary intelligence can grasp it at once, should, as a rule, be put into one moderately-long sentence, not scattered through several short sentences.1 Several short sentences give the idea in pieces which the reader has to put together; one long sentence gives it as a whole.

1 See page 285.

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