of firm precision be the effect which a writer wishes to produce, he may most probably produce it by deliberate disregard of nearly everything that in this discussion of paragraphs I have advised. An effect of confusion can be produced in no more simple way than by deliberately disregarding coherent unity of paragraph; an effect of indecision in no more simple way than by deliberate weakening of mass. And the maker of paragraphs, just as truly as the maker of sentences or the chooser of words, has before him. at any given moment no more definite question than this: What is the effect I wish to produce, and how may I best produce it?

In answering this question, we find ourselves just where we found ourselves at the close of our consideration of words and of sentences. In deciding just what effect we wish to produce, the inevitable inadequacy of the means at our disposal to the matters we would express the inevitable limit of vocabulary compels us carefully to consider two phases of the inevitably complicated thing we wish to express. In the first place, we must ask ourselves what the actual facts are which we wish to denote; in the second, we must ask ourselves what are the associated thoughts and emotions which we wish to connote.

In the composition of sentences, we saw, denotation and connotation are things just as real, just as vital, as in the choice of words. In truth they are things inevitable to any expression of human thought. No word can be quite free from suggestions of things it

leaves unnamed; and if this be true, no combination of words can be quite free from suggestions of things and of combinations of things that do not meet the eye of a reader or the ear of a listener. You will remember the example I gave you of how the arrangement of mere proper names in climax or in anticlimax actually alters the whole character of a clause. "The English Bible, Shakspere, Addison, and Fisher Ames," says one thing, "Fisher Ames, Addison, Shakspere, and the English Bible," says another. True of mere words in composition, this is far truer of sentences in composition. A little while ago I happened to read an admirable translation of the prose of Heine. The effects Heine produced were remarkably reproduced by the translator. Even in English they were not short of amazing; and the secret of them seemed to lie chiefly in the point to which I am now calling your attention. The connotation of one sentence was again and again so startlingly different from the connotation of the last that it made one stop, half breathless. Here is a man, one said, who sees infinities all at once, great and small, pure and vile, celestial and devilish and earthly. And yet almost all this was in what he left unsaid; and chiefly in what he left unsaid in the composition of utterly incoherent paragraphs, — paragraphs, too, and sentences, where nothing could have done his work but utter disregard of unity. And literature without Heine were a poorer thing than the literature we have to-day. Effects, after all, denotation and connotation in their infinitely

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delicate combinations, are what the writer must always keep in mind.

And so, in leaving this subject of paragraphs, we must keep in mind other things than those I have laid down so dogmatically. Generally true in human practice, these by themselves are not enough to guide us. They are generally true here more than else. where, here more than elsewhere we may generally keep them in mind, because alone of the elements of style paragraphs belong to written composition, and not to spoken. But in written composition, just as in spoken, what the maker really has to do is not to conform to any rules more rigid than those of good use; it is to know what effects he wishes to produce, and then by every means in his power to strive to produce them. And in his effort to know what effects he would produce, the maker of paragraphs must be just as careful as the maker of sentences or the chooser of words he must know not only what he would say, but what he would leave unsaid. And he must learn by toilsome practice the wonderful subtilty with which, by varying his kinds of paragraphs, and by applying to his paragraphs with elastic intelligence the broadly simple principles of composition, he may almost infinitely vary his effects, in denotation and in con notation alike.

V.

WHOLE COMPOSITIONS.

We come now to the last of the elements of style,to compositions larger than paragraphs. Of course there may be more than one kind of these. A chapter, a volume, a book in several volumes, even a series of books in themselves independent, would all come under this head. So would any single chapter in this book I am now trying to compose intelligibly, and the whole book itself. But for our purposes all these larger forms of composition may be considered together; for both usage and principle affect them all in about the same way.

In spite of their familiarity, we shall do well briefly to glance at the conclusions we have already reached. Style, we remember, consists primarily of words, arbitrary sounds to which the common consent we call "good use" has given definite significance. Before these words can convey any organic meaning they must be composed - put together in sentences. In sentences, grammar and idiom - the forms in which good use controls composition -are extremely powerful; and as nothing can justify a violation of good use, our composition of sentences must be far from arbitrary. But for all this, the moment we begin to

compose, even in sentences, we have found that within the limits of good use we may wisely govern our work by certain very simple principles of composition. The principle of Unity counsels that each composition be grouped about one central idea; the principle of Mass counsels that the chief parts of every composition be so placed as readily to catch the eye; the principle of Coherence counsels that the relation of each part of a composition to its neighbors be unmistakable. And arbitrary though these principles seem, there is good reason to think that the common-sense of English-speaking people has in a general way tended to a growing, though hardly a conscious, observance of them. At least, I think this may be said: a style whose sentences do not violate these principles will generally be felt a superior vehicle of modern thought and emotion to a style whose sentences neglect them. In paragraphs we found good use greatly relaxed. Without fear of violating either grammar or idiom, we found ourselves at liberty to compose our paragraphs with pretty strict attention to the principles; and some years of practical experience have convinced me that paragraphs are really parts of composition as definitely organic and quite as important as sentences themselves. What is more, having escaped the authority of good use, they are parts of composition which any one who knows the principles may easily make conform to them, often with surprising results.

With whole compositions, particularly of the larger