only one is good; we do not always fall in with it in speaking or in writing. It nevertheless exists, and every other except that is feeble.' That the want of propriety may be felt, it suffices that the exact correspondence of the term to the idea is not felt. If readers or hearers 'do not distinctly notice that the term is improper, they at least do not receive from it the impression, the stroke, so to speak, which they should receive; the hammer has struck by the side of the nail or struck the nail on the side.' '

1

Specific, individual words, being more definite and lifelike, are to be chosen in preference to abstract ones. The former give a distinct picture, readily seized; the latter, a vague statement, grasped with difficulty. The great preachers particularize, dealing little in abstractions. When the Savior would express the goodness or the providence of God, he does it in concrete terms: 'Are.not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall to the ground without your Father.' 'Even the very hairs of your head are numbered.' Great orators, great dramatists, are direct, not general. Observe how Shakespeare, his object being to excite horror, puts into the mouth of Antony the most particular expressions:

O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!
Thou art the ruins of the noblest man

That ever lived in the tide of times.

Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood!
Over the wounds now do I prophesy,-
Which, like dumb mouths, do ope their ruby lips,
To beg the voice and utterance of my tongue,——

A curse shall light upon the limbs of men;
Domestic fury, and fierce civil strife,

Shall cumber all the parts of Italy;
Blood and destruction shall be so in use,

1M. Vinet.

And dreadful objects so familiar,

That mothers shall but smile when they behold
Their infants quarter'd with the hands of war;
All pity chok'd with custom of fell deeds;
And Cæsar's spirit, ranging for revenge,
With Até by his side, come hot from hell,
Shall in these confines, with a monarch's voice,
Cry Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war;
That this foul deed shall smell above the earth
With carrion men, groaning for burial.

To economize spaceso far as this can be done consistently with the adequate expression of the meaningis to economize the recipient's mental energy, and hence to augment the effect; for the more time and power it takes to receive and understand each sentence, the less can be used to realize the thought conveyed. 'As, when the rays of the sun are collected into the focus of a burning glass, the smaller the spot is which receives them, compared with the surface of the glass, the greater is the splendor, so, in exhibiting our sentiments by speech, the narrower the compass of words is, wherein the thought is comprised, the more energetic is the expression. Accordingly, we find that the very same sentiment expressed diffusely, will be admitted barely to be just; expressed concisely, will be admired as spirited.'

A pic

A word, if apt, may tell more than a sentence. ture may say more than a volume. What is suggested is more vivid than what is told. Sir Joshua Reynolds says that Titian knew how to place upon the canvas the image and character of any object he attempted, by a few strokes of the pencil, and that he thus produced a truer representation than any of his predecessors who finished. every hair. So the great writers and speakers group instead of analyzing, knowing well that in these days. men think and act quickly, with all their faculties on the alert:

If thou be'st he

but O, how fallen, how changed!-Milton. Richter says, in the Island of Sumatra there is a kind of 'Lightchafres,' large Fire-flies, which people stick upon spits, and illuminate the ways with at night. Persons of condition can thus travel with a pleasant radiance, which they much admire. Great honour to the Fire-flies! But--Carlyle.

There's no one now to share my cup.-Thackeray.

Brevity is misplaced, however, if it involves the omission of words necessary to perspicuity. Nor should it be sought alike on every subject and occasion. The ignorant require more explanation than the intelligent. Writing may be more concise than speaking. A reader can re-peruse a sentence, if necessary, or stop and think. A hearer can scarcely pause, without loss, to catch the meaning. Wherever the purpose is persuasion, a certain time, as the skilful orator well knows, is requisite for working up the feelings. Emphasis is increased both by repetition of words and by varying the form of presenta

tion:

Charge, Chester, charge! on, Stanley, on!-Scott.

None but the brave,

None but the brave,

None but the brave deserve the fair.-Dryden.

If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop were landed in my country, I would never lay down my arms - never, never, never!-Chatham.

6

'Educate the people,' was the admonition of Penn to the commonwealth he founded. 'Educate the people,' was the last legacy of Washington to the Republic of the United States. Educate the people,' was the unceasing exhortation of Jefferson.-Macaulay. A chief excellence of oratory is the power to amplify a thought by unfolding it in diverse directions, presenting it in various lights, each distinct from the other in appearance rather than in reality. Observe, in the following extract, the return to a single, central idea, each time from

an advanced, a higher point, to the last sentence, which is a condensed conclusion of the whole:

Power, of some kind or other, will survive the shock in which manners and opinions perish; and it will find other and worse means for its support. The usurpation which, in order to subvert ancient institutions, has destroyed ancient principles, will hold power by arts similar to those by which it has acquired it. When the old feudal and chivalrous spirit of fealty, which, by freeing kings from fear, freed both kings and subjects from the precautions of tyranny, shall be extinct in the minds of men, plots and assassinations will be anticipated by preventive murder and preventive confiscation, and that long roll of grim and bloody maxims, which form the political code of all power not standing on its own honor, and the honor of those who are to obey it. Kings will be tyrants from policy when subjects are rebels from principle.-Burke.

.

is

A résumé, or summary, which is a form of reiteration, is often very beneficial. It assists the mind as the reaper assisted in carrying his sheaf by the band which surrounds. and compresses it: 'In the senate and, for the same reason, in a newspaper, it is a virtue to reiterate your meaning; variation of the words, with a substantial identity of the sense and dilution of the truth, is oftentimes a necessity. . . . Time must be given for the intellect to eddy about a truth, and to appropriate its bearings, and this is obtained by varying the modes of presenting it now putting it directly before the eye, now obliquely, now in an abstract shape, now in the concrete; all which being the proper technical discipline for dealing with such cases, ought no longer to be viewed as a licentious mode of style, but as the just style in respect of those licentious circumstances. And the true art for such popular display is to continue the best forms for appearing to say something new, when in reality you are but echoing yourself; to break up massy chords into running vibrations, and to mask by slight differences in the manner a verbal identity in the substance.'

As a rule, an

Thus:

excess of connectives is enfeebling.

The Academy set up by Cardinal Richelieu, to amuse the wits of that age and country, and divert them from raking into his politics and ministry, brought this into vogue; and the French wits have, for this last age, been wholly turned to the refinement of their style and language; and, indeed, with such success that it can hardly be equalled, and runs equally through their verse and prose.--Temple. Omission of the conjunction favors that rapidity which marks and imparts energy. Note the almost simultaneous connection of cause and effect:

For there is wrath gone out from the Lord - the plague is begun. -Numbers.

What a concentration of calamity:

And every eye

Glared light'ning, and short pernicious fire,

Among th' accursed, that wither'd all their strength,
And of their wonted vigor left them drain'd,

Exhausted, spiritless, afflicted, fallen.— Milton.

Observe the fine effect of asyndeton in the following:
One effort, one to break the circling host,

They form, unite, charge, waver--all is lost!-Byron.

On the other hand, emphasis not seldom requires the multiplication of these particles. It may be desired to make the mind rest on each of the objects enumerated:

Love was not in their looks, either to God,

Or to each other, but apparent guilt,

And shame, and perturbation, and despair,

Anger and obstinacy, and hate, and guile.-Milton.

The violations of conciseness are:

1. Tautology, or the useless repetition of the same sense in different words:

Never did Atticus succeed better in gaining the universal love and esteem of all men.-Spectator.