CHAPTER V
PARAPHRASING
Paraphrasing is the reproduction of the sense of a passage, a composition or a speech, in other than the terms used by the original writer or speaker. It is the holding on to the original structure and thought, but a clothing of them in entirely new language. It is an amplification of an idea, a redressing of it; the use of new terms or different language for the presentation of an old thought; as,
What would have been the consequences, sir, if we had been conquered? Were we not fighting against that majesty? Would the justice of our opposition have been considered? The most horrid forfeitures, confiscations, and attainders would have been pronounced against us.
In paraphrasing this extract from a speech by Patrick Henry we should keep in mind his thought only and pay no attention to the language he used in expressing the thought. We should borrow his idea, but we should clothe it in language of our own; as,
Let me ask you, sir, what would have resulted from our having been conquered by Great Britain? It was the exercise of power by that nation that we combated. Would she, had our struggle for liberty failed, have considered that we fought for what we believed to be right? No, sir, history would have but repeated itself. Our patriots would have died on the gallows, their children would have been deprived of their inheritance, and no cruelty would have been too great for the conquering nation to have inflicted upon her rebellious colonies.
What good is to be derived from paraphrasing?
It trains the mind through the exercising of the power of mental concentration that is necessary in order to hold on to the thought; it helps to form the habit of constructing a framework; it aids in making a speaker arrange his thoughts consecutively; it improves the speaker’s style, and it enlarges his vocabulary.
On a first attempt it will seem almost impossible for many to paraphrase. They are apt to think the original matter so well constructed, and the thought so perfectly expressed, as to render any other arrangement of it ridiculous and practically out of the question. They cannot bring to mind words common to themselves with which to clothe the ideas of another. In trying to remember the words of the original writer or speaker they lose the thought and are unable to proceed. To all such, the author says: continue in the work; cease to think of words at all, keep the framework in mind, lay hold of the thought, and words to convey the thought will leap forward to do the work. They may not, at first, be the best possible words, but words that will answer the purpose of carrying the thought to the mind of the listener will flow freely, and with study and practice the vocabulary will become larger and more effective.
Paraphrasing helps to develop the imaginative quality by cultivating the power of producing mental images, seeing with the mind’s eye, as it were. If a speaker will hold on to his picture or his theme, he will have no trouble in drawing the one or developing the other. In presenting a picture, the speaker must keep the entire scene in his mind when describing it in detail; and when developing a theme, it must be in the speaker’s mental vision in its entirety while he develops it step by step, point by point; as,
God called man in dreams into the vestibule of heaven, saying, “Come up higher, and I will show thee the glory of My house”; and to His angels who stood about His throne, He said, “take him, strip him of his robes of flesh; cleanse his affections; put a new breath into his nostrils; but touch not his human heart—the heart that fears, and hopes, and trembles.” A moment, and it was done, and the man stood ready for his unknown voyage. Under the guidance of a mighty angel, with sounds of flying pinions, they sped away from the battlements of heaven. Some time, on the mighty angel’s wings, they fled through Saharas of darkness, wildernesses of death. At length, from a distance not counted, save in the arithmetic of heaven, light beamed upon them—a sleepy flame, as seen through a hazy cloud. They sped on, in their terrible speed, to meet the light; the light with lesser speed came to meet them. In a moment the blazing of suns around them—a moment, the wheeling of planets; then came long eternities of twilight; then again, on the right hand and the left, appeared more constellations. At last, the man sank down, crying, “Angel, I can go no further; let me lie down in the grave, and hide myself from the infinitude of the universe, for end there is none.” “End is there none?” demanded the angel. And, from the glittering stars that shown around, there came a choral shout, “End there is none!” “End is there none?” demanded the angel again, “And it is this that awes thy soul?” I answer, “End there is none to the universe of God! Lo, also, there is no beginning!”
This is a story taken from the German and used by O. M. Mitchell in his address “The Immensity of the Creation,” and it made a striking illustration. It will be an easy matter to paraphrase this vivid portraiture if the student will keep in mind the idea of the angel and the man flying through space as the scene shifts. There is a continuous change in the surroundings as the angel and man continue to fly through space, but the mind of the speaker should accompany them and see all the changes that occur without losing sight of the angel and the man, as they are the picture, the surroundings being merely the accessories or details, and while these are being described the angel and the man must still be in view. The angel and the man must be seen standing at the portals of heaven, they must be seen speeding from the battlements of that glorious place. The scene now shifts to a desert of darkness, but still the angel and the man are within the mental vision of the speaker. Now a ray of light, breaking through a misty cloud, showers its brightness upon them. The scene has again changed, but the picture of the angel and the man remains. The light grows in brightness and immensity, other details enter into the picture—the suns, the planets, and the twilight—but still the angel and the man are there. Again the scenery is shifted, the man sinks down in weariness, the chorus of angel voices is heard as the multitude of stars open their portals to let out the heavenly shout, “End there is none,” but still the picture is there—the picture of the angel and the man.
In developing a theme, the same principle prevails. It is for this reason that it is wise to have in a speech but one proposition to expound, one subject to discuss, one object to accomplish. By dragging in many points, instead of developing the one, the speaker is apt to ramble, the listener to become confused, and the speech to fail. By this it is meant that there must be one grand central idea or point around which all others must revolve. This principal idea, proposition, or point must be like the hub of a wheel—it may have any number of spokes, but they must all radiate from the hub. It is like the picture of the angel and the man flying through space—the scene changes, but the angel and the man are always present to the imaginative eye of the speaker—and it is for this reason he is able to describe so vividly his picture or develop his theme to make them apparent even to the mind of the unimaginative listener.
Let us consider the developing of a theme in place of the drawing of a picture. For this purpose we will take an extract from a speech of that clear reasoned and eminent theologian, William Ellery Channing:
The grand idea of humanity, of the importance of man as man, is spreading silently, but surely. Even the most abject portions of society are visited by some dreams of a better condition for which they were designed. The grand doctrine, that every human being should have the means of self-culture, of progress in knowledge and virtue, of health, comfort, and happiness, of exercising the powers and affections of a man—this is slowly taking its place as the highest social truth. That the world was made for all, and not for a few; that society is to care for all, that no human being shall perish but through his own fault; that the great end of government is to spread a shield over the rights of all—these propositions are growing into axioms, and the spirit of them is coming forth in all the departments of life.
How beautifully Dr. Channing holds on to his theme through the entire passage. He starts by telling us what the grand idea of humanity is, and then he proceeds to expound it. The first laying down of the proposition is, that “the importance of man as man” (this is the grand idea of humanity) is becoming universal. He then amplifies the idea by stating that even the lowest specimens of humanity are awakening to a realization of it. He then develops what this idea consists of—the right of all men to education, proper housing, and sufficient food, in short, the right to live as human beings—and asserts that it has become the most important of the social truths. He then enumerates what at one time were considered debatable opinions but are now recognized as undeniable facts. Notice how, while he brings in many statements, they all radiate from the one proposition that “the importance of man as man is spreading silently, but surely,” and never once does he permit you to lose sight of the theme, because he continuously has it before his mental eye. No matter what he says, “the importance of man as man” is uppermost, just as was the picture of the angel and the man, and if the student in paraphrasing the passage will keep that one point in mind, he should have no serious difficulty in presenting it in a new garb clearly to the minds of others. A carrying out of this principle will enable an extempore speaker to form his matter with perfect ease, and this is one reason why paraphrasing is beneficial to the student of public speaking. It is a valuable stepping stone that should be used by all in attempting to attain proficiency in the art of expressing thought by means of the spoken word.
Any material that comes to hand may be used for the purpose of paraphrasing provided it be properly constructed and expressed in good language. These are two important points to remember in choosing selections for paraphrasing, as students are sure to be influenced by the construction and diction of the matter they employ for this purpose.
The following extracts furnish splendid matter for paraphrasing.
EDUCATION
Horace Mann
From her earliest history, the policy of this country has been to develop the minds of all her people, and to imbue them with the principles of duty. To do this work most effectually, she has begun with the young. If she would continue to mount higher and higher toward the summit of prosperity, she must continue the means by which her present elevation has been gained. In doing this, she will not only exercise the noblest prerogative of government, but will coöperate with the Almighty in one of His sublimest works.
The Greek rhetorician, Longinus, quotes from the Mosaic account of the creation what he calls the sublimest passage ever uttered: “God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light!” From the centre of black immensity effulgence burst forth. Above, beneath, on every side, its radiance streamed out, silent, yet making each spot in the vast concave brighter than the line which the lightning pencils upon the midnight cloud. Darkness fled as the swift beams spread onward and outward, in an unending circumfusion of splendor. Onward and outward still they move to this day, glorifying, through wider and wider regions of space, the infinite Author from whose power and beneficence they sprang. But not only in the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, did he say, “Let there be light!” Whenever a human soul is born into the world, its Creator stands over it, and again pronounces the same sublime words, “Let there be light.”
Magnificent, indeed, was the material creation, when, suddenly blazing forth in mid-space, the new-born sun dispelled the darkness of the ancient night. But infinitely more magnificent is it when the human soul rays forth its subtler and swifter beams; when the light of the senses irradiates all outward things, revealing the beauty of their colors and the exquisite symmetry of their proportions and forms; when the light of reason penetrates to their invisible properties and laws, and displays all those hidden relations that make up all the sciences; when the light of conscience illuminates the moral world, separating truth from error, and virtue from vice. The light of the newly kindled sun, indeed, was glorious. It struck upon all the planets, and waked into existence their myriad capacities of life and joy. As it rebounded from them, and showed their vast orbs all wheeling, circle beyond circle in their stupendous courses, the sons of God shouted for joy. The light sped onward, beyond Sirius, beyond the pole-star, beyond Orion and the Pleiades, and is still spreading onward into the abysses of space. But the light of the human soul flies swifter than the light of the sun, and outshines its meridian blaze. It can embrace not only the sun of our system, but all suns and galaxies of suns; ay! the soul is capable of knowing and enjoying Him who created the suns themselves; and when these starry lusters that now glorify the firmament shall wax dim, and fade away like a wasted taper, the light of the soul shall still remain, nor time, nor cloud, nor any power but its own perversity, shall ever quench its brightness. Again I would say, that whenever a human soul is born into the world, God stands over it and pronounces the same sublime fiat, “Let there be light!” and may the time soon come, when all human governments shall coöperate with the Divine government in carrying this benediction and baptism into fulfilment!
DIGGING FOR THE THOUGHT
John Ruskin
When you come to a good book, you must ask yourself, “Am I inclined to work as an Australian miner would? Are my pickaxes and shovels in good order, and am I in good trim myself—and my sleeves well up to the elbows, and my breath good, and my temper?” And, keeping the figure a little longer, even at the cost of tiresomeness, for it is a thoroughly useful one, the metal you are in search of being the author’s mind or meaning, his words are as the rock which you have to crush and smelt in order to get at it. And your pickaxes are your own care, wit, and learning; your smelting-furnace is your own thoughtful soul. Do not hope to get at any good author’s meaning without those tools and that fire. Often you will need sharpest, finest chiselling, and patientest fusing before you can gather one grain of the metal.
And, therefore, first of all, I tell you earnestly and authoritatively (I know I am right in this), you must get into the habit of looking intensely at words, and assuring yourself of their meaning, syllable by syllable—nay, letter by letter. For, though it is only by reason of the opposition of letters in the function of signs to sounds that the study of books is called “literature”, that a man versed in it is called, by the consent of nations, a man of letters, instead of a man of books or of words, you may yet connect with that accidental nomenclature this real fact—that you might read all the books in the British Museum (if you could live long enough) and remain an utterly illiterate, uneducated person; but that if you read ten pages of a good book, letter by letter, that is to say, with real accuracy, you are forevermore in some measure an educated person. The entire difference between education and non-education (as regards the merely intellectual part of it) consists in this accuracy. A well-educated gentleman may not know many languages, may not be able to speak any but his own, may have read very few books; but whatever language he knows, he knows precisely; whatever word he pronounces, he pronounces rightly. Above all, he is learned in the peerage of words, knows the words of true descent and ancient blood, at a glance, from words of modern canaille; remembers all their ancestry, their inter-marriages, distant relationship, and the extent to which they were admitted, and offices they held among the national noblesse of words at any time and in any country. But an uneducated person may know, by memory, many languages, and talk them all, and yet truly know not a word of any—not a word even of his own. An ordinarily clever and sensible seaman will be able to make his way ashore at most ports; yet he has only to speak a sentence of any language to be known for an illiterate person. So also the accent, or turn of expression of a single sentence, will at once mark a scholar. And this is so strongly felt, so conclusively admitted, by educated persons, that a false accent or a mistaken syllable is enough, in the parliament of any civilized nation, to assign to a man a certain degree of inferior standing forever.
HISTORICAL READING
Arthur James Balfour
It is no doubt true that we are surrounded by advisers who shall tell us that all study of the past is barren except in so far as it enables us to determine the laws by which the evolution of human societies is governed. How far such an investigation has been up to the present time fruitful in results I will not inquire. That it will ever enable us to trace with accuracy the course which states and nations are destined to pursue in the future, or to account in detail for their history in the past, I do not indeed believe.
We are borne along like travelers on some unexplored stream. We may know enough of the general configuration of the globe to be sure that we are making our way towards the ocean. We may know enough by experience or theory of the laws regulating the flow of liquids, to conjecture how the river will behave under the varying influences to which it may be subject. More than this we cannot know. It will depend largely upon causes which, in relation to any laws which we are ever likely to discover, may properly be called accidental, whether we are destined sluggishly to drift among fever-stricken swamps, to hurry down perilous rapids, or to glide gently through fair scenes of peaceful cultivation.
But leaving on one side ambitious sociological speculations, and even those more modest but hitherto more successful investigations into the causes which have in particular cases been principally operative in producing great political changes, there are still two modes in which we can derive what I may call “spectacular” enjoyment from the study of history.
There is first the pleasure which arises from the contemplation of some great historic drama, or some broad and well-marked phase of social development. The story of the rise, greatness, and decay of a nation is like some vast epic which contains as subsidiary episodes the varied stories of the rise, greatness, and decay of creeds, of parties and of statesmen. The imagination is moved by the slow unrolling of this great picture of human mutability, as it is moved by the contrasted permanence of the abiding stars. The ceaseless conflicts, the strange echoes of long forgotten controversies, the confusion of purpose, the successes which lay deep the seeds of future evils, the failures that ultimately divert the otherwise inevitable danger, the heroism which struggles to the last for a cause foredoomed to defeat, the wickedness which sides with right, and the wisdom which huzzahs at the triumph of folly—fate, meanwhile, through all this turmoil and perplexity, working silently toward the predestined end—all these form together a subject the contemplation of which need surely never weary.
But there is yet another and very different species of enjoyment to be derived from the records of the past, which requires a somewhat different method of study in order that it may be fully tasted. Instead of contemplating, as it were, from a distance, the larger aspects of the human drama, we may elect to move in familiar fellowship amid the scenes and actors of special periods.
We may add to the interest we derive from the contemplation of contemporary politics a similar interest derived from a not less minute and probably more accurate knowledge of some comparatively brief passage in the political history of the past. We may extend the social circle in which we move—a circle perhaps narrowed and restricted through circumstances beyond our control—by making intimate acquaintances, perhaps even close friends, among a society long departed, but which, when we have once learnt the trick of it, it rests with us to revive.
It is this kind of historical reading which is usually branded as frivolous and useless, and persons who indulge in it often delude themselves into thinking that the real motive of their investigation into bygone scenes and ancient scandals is philosophic interest in an important historical episode, whereas in truth it is not the philosophy which glorifies the details, but the details which make tolerable the philosophy.
Consider, for example, the use of the French Revolution. The period from the taking of the Bastille to the fall of Robespierre is of about the same length as very commonly intervenes between two of our general elections. On these comparatively few months libraries have been written. The incidents of every week are matters of familiar knowledge. The character and the biography of every actor in the drama has been made the subject of minute study; and by common admission there is no more fascinating page in the history of the world.
But the interest is not what is commonly called philosophic, it is personal. Because the Revolution is the dominant fact in modern history, therefore people suppose that the doings of this or that provincial lawyer, tossed into temporary eminence and eternal infamy by some freak of the revolutionary wave, or the atrocities committed by this or that mob, half-drunk with blood, rhetoric, and alcohol, are of transcendent importance.
In truth, their interest is great, but their importance is small. What we are concerned to know as students of the philosophy of history is, not the character of each turn and eddy in the great social cataract, but the manner in which the currents of the upper stream drew surely in toward the final plunge, and slowly collected themselves after the catastrophe, again to pursue, at a different level, their renewed and comparatively tranquil course.
Now, if so much of the interest of the French Revolution depends on our minute knowledge of each passing incident, how much more necessary is such knowledge when we are dealing with the quiet nooks and corners of history—when we are seeking an introduction, let us say, into the literary society of Johnson or the fashionable society of Walpole! Society, dead or alive, can have no charm without intimacy, and no intimacy without interest in trifles.
If we would feel at our ease in any company, if we wish to find humour in its jokes and point in its repartees, we must know something of the beliefs and prejudices of its various members—their loves and their hates, their hopes and their fears, their maladies, their marriages, and their flirtations. If these things are beneath our notice, we shall not be the less qualified to serve our queen and country, but need make no attempt to extract pleasure out of one of the most delightful departments of literature.
EULOGY OF GENERAL GRANT
Dean Farrar
Every true man derives his patent of nobleness direct from God. Did not God choose David from the sheepfolds to make him ruler of his people Israel? Was not the “Lord of life and all the worlds” for thirty years a carpenter at Nazareth? Do not such careers illustrate the prophecy of Solomon, “Seest thou the man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings.” When Abraham Lincoln sat, book in hand, day after day, under the tree, moving around it as the shadow moved, absorbed in mastering his task; when James Garfield rang the bell of Hiram Institute, day after day, on the very stroke of the hour, and swept the school room as faithfully as he mastered the Greek lesson; when Ulysses Grant, sent with his team to meet some men who were to load the cart with logs, and finding no men there, loaded the cart with his own boy strength—they showed in conscientious duty and thoroughness the qualities which were to raise them to rule the destinies of men.
But the youth was not destined to die in that deep valley of obscurity and toil in which it is the lot—perhaps the happy lot—of many of us to spend our little lives. The hour came: the man was needed.
In 1861 there broke out the most terrible war of modern days. Grant received a commission as colonel of volunteers, and in four years the struggling toiler had risen to the chief command of a vaster army than has ever been handled by any mortal man. Who could have imagined that four years could make that stupendous difference? But it is often so. The great men needed for some tremendous crisis have often stepped as it were through the door in the wall which no one had noticed, and, unannounced, unheralded, without prestige, have made their way silently and single-handed to the front.
And there was no luck in it. He rose, it has been said, by the upward gravitation of natural fitness. It was the work of inflexible faithfulness, of indomitable resolution, of sleepless energy, of iron purpose, of persistent tenacity. In battle after battle, in siege after siege, whatever Grant had to do he did it with his might. He undertook, as General Sherman said, what no one else would have adventured, till his very soldiers began to reflect some of his own indomitable determination. With a patience which nothing could tire, with a firmness which no obstacle could daunt, with a military genius which embraced the vastest plans, yet attended to the smallest minutiæ, he defeated one after another every great general of the Confederates except General Stonewall Jackson.
Grant had not only to defeat armies, but to “annihilate resources”—to leave no choice but destruction or submission. He saw that the brief ravage of the hurricane is infinitely less ruinous than the interminable malignity of the pestilence, and that in that colossal struggle victory—swift, decisive, overwhelming, at all costs—was the truest mercy. In silence, in determination, in clearness of insight, he was your Washington and our Wellington. He was like them also in this, that the word “can’t” did not exist in his soldier’s dictionary, and that all he achieved was accomplished without bluster and without parade.
After the surrender at Appomattox the war of the Secession was over. It was a mighty work, and Grant had done it mightily. Surely the light of God, which manifests all things in the slow history of their ripening, has shown that for the future destinies of a mighty nation it was a necessary and a blessed work. The Church hurls her most indignant anathema at unrighteous war, but she never refused to honor the faithful soldier who fights in the cause of his country and his God. The gentlest and most Christian of poets has used the tremendous words that—
God’s most dreaded instrument,
In working out a pure intent,
Is man—arrayed for mutual slaughter;
Yea, carnage is his daughter.
We shudder even as we quote the words; but yet the cause for which Grant fought—the unity of a great people, the freedom of a whole race of mankind—was as great and noble as that when at Lexington the embattled farmers fired the shot which was heard round the world. The South has accepted that desperate and bloody arbitrament. Two of the Southern generals will bear General Grant’s funeral pall. The rancor and the fury of the past are buried in oblivion. True friends have been made out of brave foemen, and the pure glory and virtue of Lee and of Stonewall Jackson will be part of the common national heritage with the fame of Garfield and of Grant.