CHAPTER VIII PARAGRAPHS 334. Introductory. Thus far, we have dealt with the four forms of discourse, narration, description, exposition, and argument, having studied the essential features and characteristics of each in the whole composition. It remains to learn something of the elements of which the whole composition is composed paragraphs, sentences, and words. 335. Definition of the Paragraph. You learned in connection with oral composition (§ 250, p. 168) that as soon as you collect your thoughts upon a subject, your ideas naturally group themselves around topics; that the sentences which express these ideas in like manner fall into groups, each group treating of one topic; and that such a group of sentences constitutes a paragraph. Hence we define a paragraph as a group of sentences all closely related and treating of one topic. The division of a composition into paragraphs is indicated by indenting the first line of each paragraph. Read again in this connection § 284 (p. 215). 336. The Importance of the Paragraph. Since paragraphs indicate the divisions of a composition by showing when one topic is completed and another begins, it is evident that they play an important part in helping the reader to follow the thought. If a composition is skilfully paragraphed, the reader has the topics clearly set before him and can grasp the thought quickly and easily, whereas bad paragraphs or lack of proper divisions confuse him and retard his understanding. 337. The Topic Sentence. As each paragraph treats of a single subject and all the sentences in the paragraph develop this subject, it is customary to state the main thought or topic in a phrase or sentence, usually at the beginning of the paragraph. This helps the writer to keep to his subject and the reader to get the thought. Such a sentence sums up the contents of the paragraph and is called the topic sentence. If the writer does not definitely state his topic, he should so write his paragraph that such a sentence can be easily framed, for it is only by being able to select, or make such topic sentences that the thought can be grasped, especially in expository and argumentative paragraphs. 338. Position of the Topic Sentence. The topic sentence, as has been said before, usually stands at the beginning of the paragraph. It may be preceded by only a phrase or a clause, or it may be delayed until the middle of the paragraph even. Very rarely it is stated at the beginning of the paragraph and again in a different form at the end. This is for the purpose of emphasis and aims to hold the reader's attention. EXERCISE 67 1. In each of the following paragraphs point out the topic sentence, noting its position in the paragraph. If the topic is not definitely expressed, form your own topic sentence. (a) It was a strange figure like a child: yet not so like a child as like an old man, viewed through some supernatural medium, which gave him an appearance of having receded from view, and being diminished to a child's proportions. Its hair, which hung about its neck and down its back, was white as if with age; and yet the face had not a wrinkle in it, and the tenderest bloom was on the skin. The arms were very long and muscular; the hands the same, as if its hold were of uncommon strength. Its legs and feet, most delicately formed, were, like those upper members, bare. It wore a tunic of purest white; and round its waist was bound a lustrous belt, the sheen of which was beautiful. It held a branch of fresh green holly in its hand; and, in singular contradiction of that wintry emblem, had its dress trimmed with summer flowers. But the strangest thing about it was, that from the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear jet of light, by which all this was visible; and which was doubtless the occasion of its using, in its duller moments, a great extinguisher for a cap, which it now held under.its arm. DICKENS: Christmas Carol. (b) The soul of that party was Oliver Cromwell. Bred to peaceful occupations, he had, at more than forty years of age, accepted a commission in the parliamentary army. No sooner had he become a soldier than he discerned, with the keen glance of genius, what Essex and men like Essex, with all their experience, were unable to perceive. He saw precisely where the strength of the Royalists lay, and by what means alone that strength could be overpowered, He saw that it was necessary to reconstruct the army of the Parliament. He saw also that there were abundant and excellent materials for the purpose, materials less showy, indeed, but more solid, than those of which the gallant squadrons of the King were composed. It was necessary to look for recruits who were not mere mercenaries, for recruits of decent station and grave character, fearing God and zealous for public liberty. With such men he filled his own regiment, and, while he subjected them to a discipline more rigid than had ever before been known in England, he administered to their intellectual and moral nature stimulants of fearful potency. MACAULAY: History of England. In the silence of night how real and divine the universe becomes! Doubt and unbelief retreat before the awful voices that were silenced by the din of the day, but now that the little world of man is hushed, seem to have blended all sounds into themselves. Beyond the circle of trees, through which a broken vision of stars comes and goes with the evening wind, the broad earth lies hushed and hidden. Along the familiar road a new and mysterious charm is spread like a net that entangles the feet of every traveler and keeps him loitering on where he would have passed in unobservant haste by day. The great elms murmur in low, inarticulate tones, and the shadows at their feet hide themselves from the moon, moving noiselessly through all the summer night. The woods in the distance stand motionless in the wealth of their massed foliage, keeping guard over the unbroken silence that reigns in all their branching aisles. Beyond the far-spreading waters lie white and dreamlike, and tempt the thought to the fairylands that sleep just beyond the line of the horizon. A sweet and restful mystery, like a bridal veil, hides the face of Nature, and he only can venture to lift it who has won the privilege by long and faithful devotion. MABIE: Under the Trees. 2. The following selection is not paragraphed here as the author wrote it. Rewrite it as you think it was originally paragraphed. First, decide what topics are treated, then make as many paragraphs as you have topics. Write out the list of topics. Is there a topic sentence for each paragraph? The heat of his work, the stifling air, the many-toned woods, the sense of the vast summering land these things were not in his thoughts. Some days before, despatched from homestead to homestead, rumors had reached him away off here at work on his father's farm, of a great university to be opened the following autumn at Lexington. The like of it with its many colleges Kentucky, the South, the Mississippi Valley had never seen. It had been the talk among the farming people in their harvest fields, at the crossroads, on their porches the one deep sensation among them since the war. For solemn, heart-stirring as such tidings would have been at any other time, more so at this. Here, on the tableland of this unique border state, Kentucky - between the halves of the nation lately at strife scene of their advancing and retreating armies—pit of a frenzied commonwealth - here was to arise this calm university, pledge of the new times, plea for the peace and amity of learning, fresh chance for study of the revelation of the Lord of Hosts and God of battles. The animosities were over, the humanities re-begun. Can you remember your youth well enough to be able to recall the time when great things happened for which you seemed to be waiting? The boy who is to be a soldier. one day he hears a distant bugle at once he knows. A second glimpses a bellying sail : straightway the ocean path beckons to him. A third discovers a college, and towards its kindly lamps of learning turns young eyes that have been kindled and will stay kindled to the end. |