CHAPTER XV. SENTENCES: LOOSE, PERIODIC, AND BALANCED. sense. 107. Kinds of Sentences and Their Use. Sentences are distinguished as short or long, and as loose, balanced, or periodic. Short sentences are used for emotional emphasis; long sentences, for thought emphasis. A loose sentence is one which may be terminated at one or more places before the conclusion and still make The periodic sentence, on the contrary, keeps the meaning in suspense until the end, and would not give the complete meaning if terminated earlier. By its structure, then, the periodic sentence, unless short, has the effect of climax, and so gives emphasis. The loose sentence, which is the normal sentence of ordinary conversation, is to be employed when emphasis in structure is not especially required. In a measure the loose sentence is equivalent to a series of short sentences; its emphasis is the emphasis of emotion. In rare instances the periodic sentence may also have the emphasis of emotion when the emphasis is that of mass, as in the piling up of subjects in apposition in sentence 9 on page 96. In the balanced sentence the emphasis is that of contrast. The following are examples of loose and periodic sentences: LOOSE. 1. You ordered him to death while the sacred words, "I am a Roman citizen," were on his lips. 2. I shall not vote for this row. 4. Greene was the ablest commander in the revolutionary war, next to Washington. PERIODIC. 1. While the sacred words, 2. Unless this measure is 4. Next to Washington, The following from Johnson's reply to Lord Chesterfield is a balanced sentence: The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labors had it been earlier, had been kindly; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary and cannot impart it; till I am known and do not want it. The second clause here is nearly equal to the first in length, weight, and structure. Unlikeness in meaning and the likeness in other respects serve to give it emphasis. The last three clauses are an example of parallelism, in which the emphasis is that of mass, as in the employment of a series of terms in apposition. The loose sen 108. The Normal English Sentence. tence is the natural sentence of ordinary English prose. Short sentences can hardly be called distinctly loose or distinctly periodic, since in the short sentence we cannot have the sense of suspended meaning in any appreciable degree; and within the confines of one or two lines it is not ordinarily possible to provide for more than one place where the meaning may end. The balanced sentence may consist of two short clauses, and these two may together constitute a short sentence. In the selection that follows the first sentence is periodic; and it will be observed that it is not arranged in the natural order, in which order the first clause would follow the word "inquire." This is characteristic of the periodic sentence. It is almost always artificial, and the employment of it to any great degree gives the writer's style the air of artificiality. This is especially true when the sentence is both long and periodic, since the longer a periodic sentence is the greater is the suspense. The balanced sentence is also a highly artificial form, and should be employed only for the purpose of emphasizing contrasting or parallel ideas. What Parkman might have done, had he been able to command the full use of his mind, it is useless to inquire; but what he did under the constraint of "repressed activity," by absolute control of an eager and impulsive temperament, and by the discipline of himself, is more remarkable as an example of what the human will can accomplish when controlled for the highest ends, than his greatness as a historian. Compelled to reserve all his strength for his work, to taste of the pleasures of life as a forbidden luxury, to do constantly what to one of his temperament was the most odious thing to him, and completely to remake himself in order to accomplish what he aimed to do, his fifty years of struggle with an undertaking which only a well man would have dared to enter upon, is one of the boldest, most unflinching, and most heroic achievements on record in the annals of literature. If the story of his life should be written as he lived it, as the mind rose above and compelled the body, it will make one of the most thrilling narratives of heroic effort that has ever been given to the world. JULIUS H. WARD: Francis Parkman and His Work. Written Exercise. In the use of the periodic sentence here it will be observed that the thought of the sentence is delayed in order that, by the previous presentation of the accompanying circumstances, it may have added weight and dignity. Further, expectation is aroused by this delay, and each additional phrase or clause introduced before the conclusion to which it leads heightens that expectation. Note that suspense in a periodic sentence is secured by introducing phrases,prepositional, participial, or infinitive, — and clauses, either adjective or adverbial. Phrases introduced for the purpose of securing suspense are usually participial. Single words demanding a correlative further along in the sentence, such words as neither, more, so, whether, or any expression requiring something to complete it, produce suspense. Re-write the paragraph in loose sentences, and note whether it is tamer, less filled with power and dignity, than before. 1. Again, when we remember that Florence, Pisa, Siena, Perugia, are all practically in Tuscany, and that Florence alone has really given to the world Dante and Boccaccio, Galileo and Savonarola, Cimabue and Giotto, Botticelli and Fra Angelico, Donatello and Ghiberti, Michael Angelo and Raffael, Leonardo da Vinci and Machiavelli and Alfieri, and a host of other almost equally great names, it will be obvious to every one that the problem of the origin of this Tuscan nationality must be one that profoundly interests the whole world. 2. Nay, more, we must remember, too, that Etruria has other and earlier claims than these; that it spreads up to the very walls of Rome; that the Etruscan element in Rome itself was immensely strong; that the Roman religion owed, confessedly, much to Etruscan ideas; that Latin Christianity, the Christianity of all the western world, took its shape in semi-Etruscan Rome; that the Roman empire was largely modelled by the Etruscan Mæcenas; that the Italian Renaissance was largely influenced by the Florentine Medici; that Leo the Tenth was himself a member of that great house; and that the artists whom he summoned to the metropolis to erect St. Peter's and to beautify the Vatican were, almost all of them, Florentines by birth, training, or domicile. GRANT ALLEN: A Persistent Nationality. American Review, May, 1889. North Written Exercise. In this it will be noticed that the first sentence is of the periodic form, and that the second is loose in structure. In the one the reasons for the principal statement must be given before that can be arrived at, and in the other the clauses that follow the first independent clause are but details of that clause |