would sound affected or declamatory, the loose form is better. PERIODIC Equally, in fact, as regarded my physics and my metaphysics; in short, upon all lines of advance that interested my ambition, I was going rapidly ahead.1 The true principles of contract appear to us to forbid the allowing a third party, from whom no consideration moves and who is in no way privy to the agreement, an action. Flanked on both sides by tangled forests, from whose2 coverts the quail's note is often heard and looking across a level marsh, of ever-varying green, to the blue waters of the Bay beyond, stands our house. In each of these examples, the loose sentence is preferable to the periodic for the reason that it follows the natural English order, the order in which the words would naturally come to an English-speaking person who was thinking more about what he wanted to say than about forms of expression. These examples are enough to show that the sweeping advice sometimes given to young writers that they should make their sentences periodic may mislead them. Sentences partly Periodic, partly Loose. Often the best sentence for the purpose in hand is neither wholly periodic nor wholly loose: it is a combination of the two. example: For 1 Quoted from De Quincey in William Minto's "Manual of English Prose Literature." 2 See page 127. As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place where was a den, and laid me down in that place to sleep; and, as I slept, I dreamed a dream. Although this sentence is, as a whole, loose, it begins like a periodic sentence, and would be one if it stopped at "place." It stands at the beginning of "The Pilgrim's Progress," a book written in a colloquial style throughout, and therefore containing few sentences that are even so nearly periodic as that just quoted, as is evident to any one who will take the trouble to read a few pages of Bunyan. If then the power of speech is a gift as great as any that can be named, — if the origin of language is by many philosophers even considered to be nothing short of divine, -if by means of words the secrets of the heart are brought to light, pain of soul is relieved, hidden grief is carried off, sympathy conveyed, counsel imparted, experience recorded, and wisdom perpetuated, if by great authors the many are drawn up into unity, national character is fixed, a people speaks, the past and the future, the East and the West are brought into communication with each other, — if such men are, in a word, the spokesmen and prophets of the human family,—it will not answer to make light of Literature or to neglect its study; rather we may be sure that, in proportion as we master it in whatever language, and imbibe its spirit, we shall ourselves become in our own measure the ministers of like benefits to others, be they many or few, be they in the obscurer or the more distinguished walks of life, — who are united to us by social ties, and are within the sphere of our personal influence. 1 This long sentence- which comes from a university lecture by Cardinal Newman, who is master of a style very different from that of Bunyan - appears at first sight to be periodic in form; but it is not, for it might have stopped at "Literature," or "study," or "others,' or "few," or "life," or "ties." Choose that form of sentence -- periodic, loose, or partly periodic and partly loose — which is best adapted to the purpose in hand. 1 For another example, see the sentence from Irving, quoted on page 364. EXERCISE CLIX Change the form of each sentence from loose to periodic : 1. This was forbidden by taste as well as by judgment. 2. His acts were frequently censured; but his character was above reproach. 3. I shall not vote for this measure unless it is clearly constitutional. 4. What is flour worth in gold, if it costs $10 a barrel in silver? 5. I didn't know anybody there, so I made up my mind that eating would be the most profitable way of passing the time. 6. The college-bred aspirant for newspaper honors is still regarded with aversion by the editor1 of the old school, who worked his way up from the case and who in his early days handled his stick and galley far more correctly than he now does his pen. EXERCISE CLX Change the form of each sentence from periodic to loose: 1. Either with the fish he caught, or with the goats he shot, he kept himself alive. 2. When there's anybody worth talking to, he can talk. 3. Because I leave these calls unmade, I am thought a boor. 4. Although we must admit that in athletic contests success has a real value in keeping up an interest in the sports and thus encouraging exercise, it is not the sole aim. 5. Those whose faith or whose fanaticism led them to believe themselves soldiers of the Almighty, and who in that dread enlistment feared nothing but to be found unworthy of their calling, were gone. EXERCISE CLXI In a page of some book you are reading, pick out the periodic sentences, the loose sentences, and those which are partly periodic and partly loose.2 1 Make "the editor," etc., the subject. 2 The best page for this purpose is one that contains sentences of various kinds, including some conversation. The exercise may be oral. CHAPTER III WORDS AND PHRASES I. A WORKING VOCABULARY OTHER things being equal, it is obvious that a man whose stock of words is small is less likely to find in his assortment the word which exactly expresses his meaning than a man who has a large number of words to choose from. It is, therefore, worth while for a young writer to keep his ears open while conversation is going on about him and his eyes open while he is reading, and to note and remember every word that is new to him either in itself or in the meaning given to it. He may thus, while avoiding both vulgarisms and high-flown expressions, enrich his vocabulary by drawing from the racy idioms of plain people and from the best utterances of great authors, the two sources of life in a language. If he is a student of other tongues, whether ancient or modern, he may make his work in translation a third means of adding to his stock of English. “Translation," said Rufus Choate, "should be pursued to bring to mind and to employ all the words you already own, and to tax and torment invention and discovery and the very deepest memory for additional, rich, and admirably expressive words." It would, of course, be absurd for a boy to have constantly in mind the desirability of enlarging his vocabulary; but if he keeps his ears and eyes open in the schoolroom and out of it, he will be surprised to find how rapidly his vocabulary grows. "When I was a boy," Lincoln is reported to have said, "I used to hear the neighbors talking, and it bothered me so because I could not under stand them that I used to sit up half the night thinking things out for myself. I remember that I did not know what the word demonstrate meant. So I stopped my studies then and there and got a volume of Euclid. Before I got through I could demonstrate everything in it, and I have never been bothered with demonstrate since."1 Overworked Words. A writer whose stock of words is small necessarily demands too much work from the few at his command. One whose resources are larger but who is too lazy to profit by them overworks words that are at his tongue's end, and underworks others. Even a good writer may have favorite expressions that are constantly getting into his sentences, as King Charles the First's head kept getting into Mr. Dick's "Memorial."2 Matthew Arnold, for example, at one time talked so persistently about "culture" as to make the word a public nuisance; and Emerson had occasion, it is said, to thank a friend for calling his attention to a phrase which he had used too often for the comfort of his readers. In this matter, young writers can hardly be expected to attain ideal excellence; but they may at least have pet words of their own instead of using those that are in everybody's mouth. They may refrain from calling everything that they like elegant or splendid, and everything that they dislike beastly or disgusting or dreadful or horrid. Such words are to be avoided, not because they are objectionable in themselves, but because they have been used so often and for so many purposes that their virtue has gone out of them. Some words have been overworked for many years. Nice, for example, was condemned by Jane Austen more than three generations ago: — 1 Quoted by Winston Churchill, in "The Crisis." [a living American author] should particularly be on his guard; for, used as indiscriminately as he uses it, it produces a sense of fatigue in the reader, and leaves no possibility of legitimate climax to the writer. The Spectator [19th century]. |