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CONTENTS.

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Style is the expression of thought and feeling in written words. All style

must impress us, more or less, in three ways, -intellectually, emotionally,

and æsthetically; in other words, it must possess or lack Clearness, Force,

and Elegance. But all style consists solely of arbitrary signs — letters

which common consent makes symbolic of arbitrary sounds words

which common consent in turn makes symbolic of the immaterial reality

- thought and emotion - which forms our conscious life. In choosing words,

we must be governed wholly by this common consent, which we call Good

Use. In composing words, we find three distinct stages of composition,

groups of words, which we call Sentences; groups of sentences, which we

call Paragraphs; and larger groups, which we call Whole Compositions.

In making any of these compositions, we may to advantage observe three

general principles. The first, the principle of Unity, concerns the substance

of a composition: every composition should group itself about one central

idea. The second, the principle of Mass, concerns the external form of

a composition: the chief parts of every composition should be so placed

as readily to catch the eye. The third, the principle of Coherence, con-

cerns the internal arrangement of a composition: the relation of each part

of a composition to its neighbors should be unmistakable. In composing

sentences, the operation of these principles is greatly limited by good use,

in the form of grammar. In composing paragraphs and whole composi-

tions, good use hampers us less and less. And all style may be re-

garded as the result of a constant conflict between good use and the prin-

tiples of composition

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A paragraph is to a sentence what a sentence is to a word. The prin-
ciples which govern the arrangement of sentences in paragraphs, then, are
identical with those that govern the arrangement of words in sentences.

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Force is the distinguishing quality of a style that holds the attention. It
consists in such choice and composition of the elements of style as shall not
only denote our meaning, but also connote the emotions we have in mind.
Tropes, figures of speech,-which carry the process of forcible selection

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I.

THE ELEMENTS AND THE QUALITIES OF STYLE.

DURING the past ten years I have been chiefly occupied in teaching, to undergraduates of Harvard College, the principles of English Composition. In the course of that time I have been asked a great many questions concerning the art, mostly by friends who found themselves writing for publication. Widely different as these inquiries have naturally been, they have possessed in common one trait sufficiently marked to place them, in my memory, in a single group: almost without exception, they have concerned themselves with matters of detail. Is this word or that admissible? Why, in a piece of writing I once published, did I permit myself to use the apparently commercial phrase "at any rate"? Are not words of Saxon origin invariably preferable to all others? Should sentences be long or short? These random memories are sufficient examples of many hundreds of inquiries.

They have in common, as I have just said, the trait of concerning themselves almost wholly with matters of detail. They have too another trait: generally, if not invariably, they involve a tacit assumption that any given case must be either right or wrong.

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