satisfactory style may often be discovered in the skilful massing of its paragraphs. While there is no consent of good use to govern us, then, there is no consent of good use to thwart us; and I believe that to-day no writer can intelligently follow any one principle with more certainty than that which shall encourage him carefully to mass his paragraphs.

So we come to the principle of Coherence, which governs the internal structure of paragraphs: that the relation of each part of a composition to its neighbors should be unmistakable. Applying this principle to paragraphs, remembering that a paragraph is a composition of sentences, and is to a sentence what a sentence is to a word,

we can see at

once exactly what it means. A paragraph is coherent when the relation of each sentence to the context is unmistakable.

In discussing the coherence of sentences, you will remember we found the subject so full of detail that we were compelled for convenience to divide it into three parts. All general rules which concern colerence, so frequent in the textbooks, we found might be grouped under one of three heads. order of words, constructions, or connectives. In discussing the coherence of paragraphs we may best follow exactly the same method: it will bring us, I dare say, to nothing new; but I think it will serve to fix the principle Coherence in the order

finally, the use of connectives in paragraphs, we shall consider in turn.

First, then, for coherence in the order of sentences The general principle that underlies it is this: Matters closely connected in thought should be kept together matters distinct in thought kept apart. In sentences you will remember, this principle is much thwarted by good use. Uninflected English indicates the grammatical relation of word to word chiefly by their actual order; the limits within which we are at liberty to vary the order of our words in sentences, then, are very narrow. In paragraphs, on the other hand there is no such trouble. So far as I know, there is absolutely no reason why we should not arrang our sentences in any order we please. We may apply this principle with unfettered freedom.

This perfect freedom and the axiomatic good sense of the principle would lead us to expect careful writers in general to observe it. Oddly enough they do nothing of the kind; in careful writers, as in other human beings, actual manifestations of practical good sense are not so frequent as to grow tedious. The truth is that the human head is nor mally muddled; to bring order out of the chaos that dismays each one of us within himself is n small feat. It has taken me the better part of ter years to think out, from a snarl of books and of practical experiments, the very obvious principles that I am trying to lay before you now; and ever now I am fully aware that they might well be though

out and composed more definitely and firmly. our difficulties are not solved when we quite understand that according to the principle of Coherence matters connected in thought should be kept together, and that in paragraphs there is no reason why we should not so keep them. After all, what matters really are most closely connected in thought? Every new case in any man's experience brings up this question afresh; every new case demands a new answer. Before we can tell anything about form we must understand much about substance; and this, with our poor muddled human heads, is no easy thing.

In truth, we are now face to face with a fact that makes this art of composition utterly discouraging to some temperaments, and profoundly fascinating to others. Every problem that presents itself to a In human life literary artist is really a new one. there cannot be any two instants whose conditions are The moment when it is perfectly precisely the same. easy to disentangle from the riotous thicket of thought and emotion we all know within ourselves the exact thoughts and emotions whose mutual relations as well as whose independent selves shall serve our purpose of imparting to readers what we have in mind, is a moment that to most of us never comes. We are face to face with a problem that is ever remaking itself. Nothing but constantly fresh intelligence

and firmly. So
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year after year; they mean that they won't thin But an active mind is constantly more stimulated, b each difficulty it surmounts, courageously to attac the next. The contest is one where wit may alway win much if no absolute victory be possible, a har fight is sure to bring some measure of success.

But I am straying again from the technical matte properly before us. The general principle underlyin coherence in the order of sentences we have seen be this: Matters closely connected in thought shoul be kept together, matters distinct in thought kep apart. We must turn now to the second phase coherence, coherence in constructions.

Here, too, there is a simple general statement the principle we should keep in mind: Phrases tha are similar in significance should be similar in forn Outward form is, after all, what we see in style, jus as truly as it is what we see in human beings; an the same general law of thought which makes all wh have eyes know that men are not in all respects a trees walking, impels us instinctively to class togethe phrases and sentences that look and sound alike This fact is very little appreciated by writers in ger eral: in general, as I have said, hardly anybody seem quite to have understood the merely physical condi tions involved in the fact that written style is ad dressed primarily to the eye. But though the book of Rhetoric say nothing of this phase of the matter recent books have a good deal to say about th general principle that phrases similar in though

should be similar in form. The rule of parallel con struction, some of them call it, a rule which any one can see has a good deal to do with such devices as antithesis and balance.

Perhaps the easiest way of discussing it, and of beginning to appreciate its scope and its limits, is to consider one or two simple examples. For our purposes we may consider as a paragraph the most familiar piece of English in the language, the Lord's Prayer. Every one of us knows and feels its marvellous effect, merely as a piece of style. Few of us, I take it, have ever thought of analyzing the means by which this effect is produced. It begins with an invocation: "Our Father who art in heaven." Then

come three clauses of praise: "Hallowed be Thy name; Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Then come four distinct petitions: "Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us; lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil." Finally comes a final clause of praise: "For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever." Examining these clauses, we find that the first words of the invocation call our attention directly to the infinite fatherhood of God. There are eight other clauses, three of praise, four of petition, and a final one of praise. Each of these is a separate address direct to God And of