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whole is finished, when the meaning is flashed back from the end to the beginning; of the second, that the construction will yield a complete sense at some point before the close. It is the closeness of connection between conclusion and commencement that gives rise to the name period, which signifies circuit. Thus the opening sentence of Paradise Lost, if stopped at 'Heavenly Muse,' would be periodic; continued to 'rhyme,' it becomes loose, several pauses being possible without incomplete

ness:

Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man

Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,

Sing, Heavenly Muse, that on the secret top

Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire

That shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed,
In the beginning how the heaven and earth

Rose out of chaos: or, if Sion hill

Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook that flowed
Fast by the oracle of God, I thence

Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song,

That with no middle flight intends to soar

Above the Aonian mount, while it pursues

Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.-Milton.

A loose sentence may often be made periodic, advantageously, either by transposition or by the use of particles:

Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city.-Revelation.

All things are artificial, for nature is the art of God.-Sir Thomas Browne.

We cannot live on our past reputation, any more than our frames can be sustained on the food of which we have partaken days ago.-McCosh.

Then come listless irresolutions and the inevitable reaction of despair, or else the firm resolve to record upon the leaves that still

remain a more noble history than the child's story with which the book began.-Longfellow.

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I realize that each generation is destined to confront new and peculiar perils to wrestle with temptations and seductions unknown to its predecessors; yet I trust that progress is a general law of our being, and that the ills and woes of our future shall be less crushing than those of the bloody and hateful past.-Greeley. Periodic

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Fallen, fallen, is that great city Babylon.'

'Since nature is the art of God, all things are artificial.'

'We can no more live on our past reputation than we can be sustained on the food of which we have partaken days ago.'

'Then come either listless irresolutions and the inevitable reaction of despair, or the firm resolve to record upon the leaves that still remain a more noble history than the child's story with which the book began.'

'While I realize that each generation is destined to confront new and peculiar perils to wrestle with temptations and seductions unknown to its predecessors, I trust not only that progress is a general law of our being, but that the ills and woes of our future shall be less crushing than those of the bloody and hateful past.'

On comparing the two kinds of structure, periodic and loose, we find that each has its advantages and disadvantages. The former savours more of artifice and design, the latter seems more the result of pure Nature. The period is nevertheless more susceptible of vivacity and force; the loose sentence is apt, as it were, to languish and grow tiresome. The first is more adapted to the style of the writer; the second, to that of the speaker. But as that style is best, whether written or spoken, which hath a proper mixture of both, so there are some things in every species of discourse which require a looser, and some which require a preciser, manner. In general, the use of periods best suits the dignity of the historian, the political writer, and the philosopher. The other man

ner more befits the facility which ought to predominate in essays, dialogues, familiar letters, and moral tales.'1

For an objectionable example of the period, objectionable because including a tiresome number of preliminary parts, the reader is referred to the preceding passage from Mr. Choate. The following are examples of the intermediate sort, neither wholly periodic nor wholly loose,a compromise between the two:

High on a throne of royal state which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind,
Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand
Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,
Satan exalted sat, by merit raised

To that bad eminence.-Milton.

The granite statue, rough hewn though it be, is far more imposing in its simple and stern though rude proportions, than the plaster-cast, however elaborately wrought and gilded.—Macaulay.

The vibrations which produce the impression of red light are slower, and the ethereal waves which they generate are longer, than those which produce the impression of violet; while the other colors are excited by waves of an intermediate length.-Tyndall.

Sentences composed of successive clauses which are constructed on the same plan, and in which corresponding words occupy corresponding places, are said to be balanced. Frequently the balanced expressions have contrasted meanings. When not carried to excess, this structure is evidently agreeable to the ear, and helpful to the memory. The following are illustrations:

None knew thee but to love thee,

Nor named thee but to praise.—Halleck.

Charms by accepting, by submitting sways,

Yet has her humour most when she obeys.-Pope.

Not that I loved Cæsar less, but that I loved Rome more.-Shakespeare.

Contempt is the proper punishment of affectation, and detestation the just consequence of hypocrisy.-Johnson.

1 Lord Campbell.

Charity creates much of the misery it relieves, but does not relieve all the misery it creates.-Senior.

When we meet an apparent error in a good author, we are to presume ourselves ignorant of his understanding, until we are certain that we understand his ignorance.-Coleridge.

As I approve of a youth that has something of the old man in him, so I am no less pleased with an old man that has something of the youth.-Cicero.

The Book of Job, the Psalms, the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, abound in sentences more or less balanced.

A group of sentences containing the development of a single topic or feature of the general subject of discourse is called a paragraph. It is indicated to the eye by indenting the initial line. Its value to the reader in announcing where the treatment of a point begins and ends can hardly be overestimated. The bearing of each constituent sentence upon what precedes should be explicit, and the passage from one sentence to another should be easy and natural. Observe how conjunctions, expletives, demonstratives, and repetitions are employed for reference, so as to make a link, as it were, between the preceding and the succeeding sentence or paragraph: there is no void to be filled up, no rupture of continuity:

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Some things are valuable finally, or for themselves, these are ends; other things are valuable, not on their own account, but as conducive towards certain ulterior ends, these are means. The value of ends is absolute, the value of means is relative. Absolute value is properly called a good, — relative value is properly called a utility. Of goods or absolute ends, there are for man but two,perfection and happiness. By perfection is meant the full and harmonious development of all our faculties, corporeal and mental, intellectual and moral; by happiness, the complement of all the pleasures of which we are susceptible.

Now, I may state, though I cannot at present attempt to prove, that human perfection and human happiness coincide, and thus constitute, in reality, but a single end. For as, on the one hand, the perfection or full development of a power is in proportion to its

capacity of free, vigorous, and continued action, so, on the other, all pleasure is the concomitant of activity; its degree being in proportion as that activity is spontaneously intense, its prolongation in proportion as that activity is spontaneously continued; whereas, pain arises either from a faculty being restrained in its spontaneous tendency to action or from being urged to a degree, or to a continuance, of energy beyond the limit to which it of itself freely tends. To promote our perfection is thus to promote our happiness; for to cultivate fully and harmoniously our various faculties is simply to enable them, by exercise, to energise longer and stronger without painful effort; that is, to afford us a larger amount of a higher quality of enjoyment.

In considering the utility of a branch of knowledge, it behooves us, in the first place, to estimate its value as viewed simply in itself; and, in the second, its value as viewed in relation to other branches. Considered in itself, a science is valuable in proportion as its cultivation is immediately conducive to the mental improvement of the cultivator. This may be called its Absolute utility. In relation to others, a science is valuable in proportion as its study is necessary for the prosecution of other branches of knowledge. This may be called its Relative utility.

In the former point of view, that is, considered absolutely, or in itself, the philosophy of mind comprises two several utilities, according as it (1) cultivates the mind or knowing subject, by calling its faculties into exercise; and (2) furnishes the mind with a certain complement of truths or objects of knowledge. The former of these constitutes its Subjective, the latter its Objective utility. These utilities are not the same, nor do they even stand to each other in any necessary proportion. As an individual may possess an ample magazine of knowledge, and still be little better than an intellectual barbarian, so the utility of one science may be chiefly seen in affording a greater number of higher and more indisputable truths,— the utility of another in determining the faculties to a higher energy, and consequently to a higher education.—Sir William Hamilton.

From these general and preparatory observations on the nature and classification of sentences, we shall pass to a more particular consideration of the qualities necessary to make sentences perfect according to the standards of reputable practice.

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