174

In a In certain kinds of writing, this mere arrangement will assure all the coherence that is necessary. novel, for example, or a simple historical narrative, it is often enough to arrange the parts that make up the whole in such order that each naturally leads from the last to the next; but whenever one gets into a kind of composition where one cannot move straight ahead, where one must gather together more than one thread of discourse, other devices become necessary.

The device of parallel construction is at once less useful and more dangerous in whole compositions than in paragraphs. It is less useful because it is not nearly so perceptible; more dangerous because, if it is perceptible, it is apt to be more palpably artificial. And yet complete disregard of it may be decidedly On confusing in effect. An article in a magazine that I lately glanced through will show what I mean. the page where I happened to open the book I observed two paragraphs: "Thirdly," began one, "we believe this to be the case because," "Fourthly," and

- and so on.

Some

so on, began the next. thing in the text caught my attention. I turned back a page or two, in hopes of finding what the But though beyond first and second headings were.

doubt there were first and second headings somenever so described, nor, if there

were

were any

in just the same relation to the main proposition, a so were cast in a form superficially similar, and were coherent in construction. But there were oth paragraphs that by the very terms that demonstrat the coherence of these "thirdly" and "fourthly " must inevitably stand in just their relation to the ma proposition; and the very change of constructi which made them hard to find when I looked back them made them hard to recognize in exactly the true character when I read the article straight fo ward. In such a series as I suggest here, perha the value of coherence in the constructions of who compositions is most apparent. To phrase each these separate headings in a notably similar w might well have been to grow palpably monotonou To introduce each of them by its regular title "first," "secondly," and so on-would certainly ha gone a long way to obviate any other device for t securing of coherence.

And yet in the most finished models of compositi such coherence as I have just suggested is discard as too palpable. One of the most finished bits composition I know is the passage from Burke speech on Conciliation with America, which discuss the temper and character of America. At this poin it is worth analyzing in some detail: "In this chara ter of the Americans," it begins, "a love of freedo is the predominating feature, . . . and this from great variety of powerful causes. " "First," begins t next paragraph. “ the people of the colonies are d

scendants of Englishmen. England, sir, is a nation which still, I hope, respects, and formerly adored her “They freedom," and so on for more than a page. were further confirmed in this pleasing error," begins the next paragraph, — which might have begun "secondly," "by the form of their provincial legislative assemblies. Their governments are popular in a high 6. If degree." And this, too, he develops a little. anything were wanting to this necessary operation of the form of government," comes instead of "thirdly," "religion would have given it a complete effect. The religion most prevalent in our northern colonies is a refinement on the principle of resistance; it is the dissidence of dissent, and the Protestantism of the Protestant religion." And there is well on to a page of this. "Sir," begins the next paragraph, which might have begun "fourthly,' "I can perceive that some gentlemen object to the latitude of this description, because in the southern colonies the Church of England forms a large body, and has a regular establishment. . . . There is, however, circumstance attending these colonies which, in my opinion, fully counterbalances this difference. . . . It is that in Virginia and the Carolinas they have a vast Freedom is to them not only multitude of slaves. kind of rank and privilege."

but

a

is a nation adored her ge. "They

ror," begins

begun "sec

al legislative lar in a high little.

"If y operation instead of a complete

n our northple of resistt, and the And there ins the next ourthly," t to the latiuthern coloe body, and

,however, a hich, in my

ce. . . . It have a vast em not only privilege."

Permit me,

next para

colonies,

66

and effect of this intractable spirit. I mean their cation. In no country, perhaps, in the world is law so general a study." "They augur misgov ment at a distance," the paragraph closes, " and s the approach of tyranny in every tainted bree "The last cause of this disobedient spirit in the nies," begins the sixth paragraph, "is hardly less I erful than the rest, as it is not merely moral, but deep in the natural constitution of things. T thousand miles of ocean lie between you and the And so on for a page more. His enumeration the causes of American love of freedom is complete.

Burke's business now is to proceed further in speech, - to discuss what conduct should be purs toward a people whose chief characteristic he has t defined and explained. But this definition and planation, which, even as I have mutilated it, is precisely brief, has filled, in the edition from wh I quote, almost six closely printed pages. And i highly desirable that it should be finally presented a form so compact that a reasonably attentive liste may rationally be hoped to keep it completely mind. Before proceeding with his discourse, th Burke gives a short paragraph to a deliberate s mary of these last six. "Then, sir," he says, "f these six capital sources, of descent; of form of ernment; of religion in the northern provinces manners in the southern; of education; of rem first of situation from the souro0 of COT

178

ENGLISH COMPOSITION.

ment, from all these causes a fine spirit of liberty

has grown up."

Mutilated as my citations from this passage have inevitably been, they are enough, I hope, to show pretty clearly two of the devices by which Burke — one of the most coherent writers in English literature gives coherence to his style. From point to point of the six heads by which he accounts for the fine spirit of American liberty that just four weeks later burst into open rebellion at Lexington and Concord, he marks his transitions with a care which makes impossible the slightest misapprehension of Though we may sometimes forget their nature. whence we have come or whither we are going, there is never a moment when we can doubt where we are. Every transition is as carefully defined as In the second place, when he has every point. reached a point where a summary is practicable, he summarizes what he has said in the order in which he has said it; and his summary, gathering up in a single sentence the matter that he has impressed on our minds by expanding it into six full paragraphs, leaves it with us in a form where we can finally grasp it as a whole, and in full possession of it proceed to a consideration of the further matter that he must lay before us.

Luence of whole compositions these two

and carefully