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26. A loose sentence is one in which there is a single point, at least, before the close, where a thought is completed; but what follows is not, by itself, complete.'-Prof. Kellogg.

27. Those with whom we can apparently become well acquainted in a few moments, are generally the most difficult to rightly know and understand.-Hawthorne.

28. The first we call by an unwriteable name, and which we cannot more nearly describe than by saying that it is the sound which drops out of the half-open mouth, with the lowest degree of effort, at utterance.-Prof. Earle.

29. It is the complex dependences, the involved relations, the assertion sliding on from point to point, that embarrass the mind, tripping it in the meshes of grammar.-Dr. Bascom.

30. Whosoever you take him to be, he is Ajax.-Shakespeare. 31. I expected to have found Petersburg a wonderful city.Buliver.

32. Let him know that I shall be over in spring, and that by all means he sells the horses.-Swift.

33. As soon as they were established in their new residence, and her father had entered on the routine of his avocations, she arranged the little household as exactly as if her husband had been there.Dickens.

34. Does it, in your eyes, deteriorate from Milton's peculiar greatness that he could not have given us the conception of Falstaff?— F. W. Farrar.

35. Shakespeare, the mutual ancestor of Englishmen and Americans.-Miss Mitford.

36. You will be pleased, madam, to remember, the lad was sent with a verbal message to the doctor.—Fielding.

37. And this prevents their attending enough to what is in the Bible, and makes them battle for what is not in the Bible, but they have put it there.-Matthew Arnold.

38. I must not omit one [name], which would alone have been sufficient to have shown that there is no necessary connection between skepticism and the philosophy of the human mind; I mean Bishop Butler.-Sidney Smith.

1 Text-Book on Rhetoric. 2 Philology of the English Tongue.

39. A young hunter fell in love with a beautiful girl whom he sought for his wife, and being the pride of his tribe, both for swiftness in the race and for courage in war, his suit was accepted by her father.-Hepworth Dixon.

40. Being the only child of a man well to do, nobody would have been surprised had Agnes Stanfield been sent to a boarding-school.— Mrs. Oliphant.

41. I really believe that, except to doctors and clergymen, and the very few intimate friends who have seen me frequently, even my state of extremity has been doubted.—Miss Mitford.

42. To the Italian (even to one who carries a stiletto) the English practice of boxing is a sheer brutality; while to an Englishman (himself perhaps not a Joseph) the cavaliere servente is looked upon with reprobation tempered by scorn.-George Calvert.1

43. Scarcely had Bentley thus established his fame in this department of letters than he as suddenly broke forth in a still higher.-Quarterly Review.

44. But as it happened, scarcely had Phoebe's eyes rested again on the judge's countenance than all its ugly sternness vanished. -Hawthorne.

45. I know no course of reading so likely on the one hand to allay the prejudices and animosities of two eager politicians, and, on the other, to rouse the careless and desponding to a generous concern and an animating hope for the public good, than the historical writings in question.-Jeffrey.

46. Culture points out that the harmonious perfection of generations of Puritans and Nonconformists have been, in consequence, sacrificed.-Matthew Arnold.

47. I have no feeling connected with my general recollection of them, but those to which the combination of good sense, wit, and genius naturally give rise.-Sidney Smith.

48. But I think that experience, both in nature and in society, are against that ditch-water philosophy.-Charles Kingsley.

49. Unconscious pioneers of all the wealth, and commerce, and beauty, and science, which has in later centuries made that lovely isle the richest gem of all the tropic seas.-Ibid.

1 Essays Esthetical.

50. The fire which glows in Macaulay's history, the intense patriotic feeling, the love of certain moral qualities, is not altogether of the highest kind.-Leslie Stephen.

51. Who are the Ministers of the Crown are the accidents of history.-Disraeli.

52. The very two individuals whom he thought were far away.— Ibid.

53. Those too, no matter who spoke, or whom was addressed, looked at each other.-Dickens.

54. That night every man of the boat's crew, save Amyas, were down with raging fever.-Charles Kingsley.

55. God forbid that John Hawkins' wife should refuse her last penny to a distressed mariner, and he a gentleman born. — Ibid.

56. It is true that when perspective was first discovered, everybody amused themselves with it.-Ruskin.

57. He turned to her father as he spoke with the instinct of good breeding. Mrs. Oliphant.

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58. The language of Algernon Sidney differs not at all from that which every well-educated gentleman would wish to write. Neither one nor the other differ half as much from the general language of cultivated society as the language of Mr. Wordsworth's homeliest composition differs from that of a common peasant.— Coleridge.

59. The position of the notes, up or down on the scale, indicate various degrees of shrillness or gravity in the sounds.-Professor Nichol.1

60. The time supposed to elapse should neither be so long or short as to offend a sense of propriety.-Dr. E. 0. Haven.?

61. It should in justice be remarked, however, that neither Dryden Vnor Locke, in their use of the term wit, seem to have had in mind what we now understand by it.-Dr. Joseph Haven.3

62. It is this unexpected union and quick recoil of ideas that please the mind.-Dr. Bascom.

63. It is the vividness of the ideas presented which arouse emotion, and thus carry over conviction into persuasion.—Ibid.

64. But neither of these ideas are in any way connected with eternal beauty.—Ruskin.

1 English Composition.

2 Rhetoric.

3 Mental Philosophy.

CHAPTER V.

METHODS OF EXPRESSION - ENERGY.

Scattering shot do little execution.-REV. E. O. HAVEN.

He that hath knowledge spareth his words.--PROVERBS.

Speak not at all, in any wise, till you have somewhat to speak; care not for the reward of your speaking, but simply, and with undivided mind, for the truth of your speaking.-CARLYLE.

HERIDAN, returning one morning from the meeting

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news of the day, replied that he had enjoyed a laugh over the speeches of Mr. Fox and Lord Stormont, the latter of whom began by declaring in a slow, solemn, nasal monotone, that 'when― he—considered — the enormity-and the unconstitutional - tendency-of the measuresjust—proposed, he was — hurried — away in a-torrent of passion and a whirlwind of im-pet-u-os-i-ty.' Mr. Fox was described as springing to his feet, and beginning, lightning-like, thus: 'Mr. Speaker, such is the magnitude such the importance such the vital interest of the question that I cannot but implore I cannot but adjure the House to come to it with the utmost calmness the utmost coolness the utmost deliberation.' Each manner is here significant of the real state of the writer's mind: but the one is characterized by immobility, which is death; the other by movement, which is the effect and evidence of life. Both are clear, but the former is crawling, colorless, feeble; the latter is anxious, active, and hence communicative. A thought may be expressed clearly in the highest degree, yet be capable of more

effective presentation. Thus, again, in the following, how much more impressive, though not more perspicuous, is the interrogative than the declarative would be:

Can gray hairs render folly venerable?-Junius.
Who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely?

-Shakespeare.

Energy may therefore be defined as the force, vigor, or strength of expression, whereby the mind addressed is more or less powerfully influenced or interested. In general, it is promoted by whatever promotes clearness, since what is obscure is, in the measure of its obscurity, not felt. Hence in the choice, number, and arrangement of words, many of the principles which render language clear, render it also energetic.

A first requisite of vigorous statement is simplicity, which is the economy of means. Its true name, in eloquence proper, in oratory, is popularity, a quality that consists in the use of language composed of expressions familiar to the majority. Popular language is the common ground on which all classes of society meet and communicate with one another. Its best part is Saxon, the strength of which has become one of the truisms of literature. The vernacular carries weight, too, because it is interwoven with the sensibilities of those who use it. Swiss soldiers in the Austrian service used to be forbidden to sing their country's songs in their native tongue because it tempted so many to desertion.

Another essential is propriety, or justness, including precision; that is, the choice not only of good English, but of such English as shall express our meaning, no more, no less, no other. Ill-chosen words diminish perspicuity, without which we can never be strong. Says La Bruyère on this subject: 'Among all the different expressions which may render one and the same thought,

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