friends inquired eagerly into his design, down to the last details, but did not let Fred know that they had stolen his secret.

Another youthful specimen of the genus homo (7, 11, 13), of about Fred's age and size, named Sim Lewis, was a kind of village pet. Through some mishap of sickness or accident in his childhood he had been left rather incompletely furnished in the upper story (11), and now followed the honest but not strictly illustrious (11)i occupation of polisher of pedal integuments (11) and general servant. This Sim Lewis was chosen by the reprehensible individuals in question (11, 13) to be the innocent instrumenti of what is vulgarly denominated a put-up job (11) on Fred, a scheme which the sartorial artist (11), as it was decidedly to his own advantage, was not slow to abet.

n

The eventful Sunday was as pleasant as could be wished, and all was reported ready. The conspirators, who were not to be seen, were keenly awaiting developments (8, 13).1 About ten o'clock our hero (13) appeared at the top of Main Street, his whole locomotion and deportment (5) betraying m that, as the vulgar hath (10)" it, he thought no small beer of himself (11). As he neared the Baptist Church, however, he was [surprised, startled, horrified, dismayed? 1, 2] to see the wielder of the boot-brush (11)° coming to meet him, arrayed (12) P also in the acme (5, 8) of the fashion. A second glance revealed that Sim's suit was an exact repeat (4) of his own; the same vociferous (11) plaid in the pants (9), the same resplendency of waistcoat," the same patent leather boots, the same style of hat It a grey beaver with broad black band. was a cruel blow to Fred to witness (2, 11) his faultless styles [adorning, bedecking, decorating, dressing up, bedizening? 2] an idiotic individual (11). His jaw dropped, his stride wilted to a spiritless shuffle,t and turning hastily up a back street, he speedily became invisible to the naked eye (13).

Sim continued to wear his clothes until they were in rags, but no money could have hired Fred to indue (5) himself again with the ill-starred habiliments (11).u

NOTES TO THE ABOVE. a. The equivalent most fitting to this place, perhaps, is "painful." To call the occurrence painful when it is rather amusing is what is called irony, and is admissible in humor. -b. An idiom; see Rule 6.-c. Put each of these into a single word, the simplest you can find. —d. Possessed is not too pretentious a word here.—e. To translate this French phrase literally, "gilded youth," would still be undesirable, as it is a stock expression. "One of the village exquisites" would be fitting here.—f. The word sport admissible here.—g. Is the long hackneyed quotation needed here at all? Do we need to set off the spring? Say merely "One spring."―h. “In all his glory," though a stock expression, will have to be used here.-i. No description of the occupation is needed.—j. "Innocent instrument," though somewhat learned sounding, is exact.—k. One characteristic of "fine writing" is to shun slang and vulgarity, and when using it to advertise it as here. Choose an equivalent that will clear the whole affectation away.—l. "Awaiting developments" is a hackneyed newspaper expression. — -m. Betraying" is the exact term.-n. Another mark of “fine writing" is the occasional use of an antiquated form.—o. Is anything gained by this fine expression? Why not simply Sim Lewis?—p. "Arrayed" is more natural to a higher style of prose, or poetry. —q. "Resplendency," though an elaborate word, is in place here.- -r. A tradeword for waistcoat is "vest"; but waistcoat is better.- -s. The plainest word is here the most effective, "a fool.”. -t. This clause is descriptive, but not "fine writing."-u. Is there any call for refining on the expression here?

3. Work out the following problems.

Write a short account of a street catastrophe a collision, a runaway, a man injured, a crowd gathered; and be careful in writing not to use stock expressions.

Describe the approach of a summer twilight-the stillness, the weather, the appearance of the landscape; using fitting language; but shunning poetic words and forms

Put into a sentence of three words all that is of practical importance in the following: "One of those omnipresent characters who, as if in pursuance of some previous arrangement, are certain to be encountered in the vicinity when an accident occurs, ventured the suggestion."

A

CHAPTER II.

PHRASEOLOGY.

FTER the question how to choose words so as to satisfy the demands of precision, plainness, good usage, and good taste, rises immediately the question how to put words together so as to make correct and clear sense.

Scope of Phraseology. With the putting of words together the science of Grammar has to do; and indeed, so far as these elementary qualities, correctness and clearness,1 are concerned, grammatical usages must enter into Rhetoric. It is the business of the present chapter to gather together such of these as require special attention; hence, for our present purpose, we may define Phraseology as the grammar part of composition.

In the present chapter, then, we are not thinking of the completed sentence, as such. That, with its complexities of structure, is reserved for a future chapter, being the first finished result of the organization of materials. We are thinking rather of the elements, whether words, phrases, or clauses, that go to make up the sentence, and of the various problems of relation, agreement, and arrangement that have oftenest to be solved in the work of composition.

Some Definitions. - In order to discuss more intelligently the office of these elements, a few definitions are here necessary.

1 Other qualities involved in composition are reserved for the next chapter, on Special Objects in Style.

A SENTENCE is a combination of words expressing a complete thought.

In order to express any complete thought, whether in sentence form or in the larger forms of the paragraph and the whole composition, two things are necessary: first, we must have something to talk about; secondly, we must say something about it. These two necessary elements in the simple sentence are called the SUBJECT and the PREDICATE. Reduced to the nucleus form where each of these is represented by a single word, a simple sentence consists of a substantive (noun or pronoun) and a verb; as in the shortest verse of the Bible, "Jesus wept." A

But the subject is often more than a single word, being made up of the substantive word and any accompaniments that go to modify or extend its meaning. The predicate verb, likewise, seldom stands alone; it may have an object, or (if it is any form of the verb to be) a noun or adjective in predicate, or modifiers. And any of these accompaniments, as also the principal elements, may be words or phrases or clauses.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

1. The following examples will show some of the forms in which subject and predicate may exist.

Subject noun: Alexander sighed for more worlds to conquer.
Subject pronoun: He was covetous of universal dominion,

which was the supreme ideal in ancient times. Predicate verb with object: He had many able generals. Predicate verb with adjective: He was abler than any of them. Predicate verb with noun: He was the greatest conqueror of the ancient world.

The above examples have confined themselves to cases where subject and predicate are represented, in their nucleus, by single words. But a subject may take the form of a phrase or a clause; a predicate

also may be complicated by phrases and clauses in various ways; which, however, need not be brought up here.

2. To show the various forms that modifiers may assume, let us take the nucleus-sentence given above and add modifiers to the subject and the predicate.

Jesus

Subject.

wept.

Predicate.

The kind and friendly Jesus silently wept with sympathy, as he stood by the grave of his dear friend Lazarus.

Of word-modifiers we notice here the adjectives "kind," "friendly,” "dear"; the adverb " silently"; the possessive "his"; and a noun in apposition, “friend.”

A PHRASE is a group of words making up one grammatical construction, but not containing a finite verb, and not of itself making independent sense.

Though not admitting a finite verb, a phrase may contain a verb in the infinitive or a participle; so the three classes of phrases are Prepositional, Infinitive, and Participial.

EXAMPLES. Only phrases of the first class are exemplified in the sentence above.

1. Prepositional phrases: "with sympathy"; "by the grave"; "of his dear friend Lazarus."

2. Infinitive phrases: "to estimate fairly"; "in recounting." 1 3. Participial phrase: "being an enthusiast in science."

A CLAUSE is a group of words making a complete grammatical sentence in itself, that is, containing a subject and a predicate; but at the same time it is only a member of a larger sentence. Its connection with other

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1 For a justification of this form in -ing as an infinitive, see Earle, Philology of the English Tongue," pp. 536-544.