So long as men had slender means, whether of keeping out cold or checkmating it with artificial heat, Winter was an unwelcome guest, especially in the country.
So long as men had slender means, especially in the country, of keeping out cold or checkmating it with artificial heat, Winter was an unwelcome guest.
It requires a more trained perception to feel the variations which result from altering in the following example the position of “only.”
The theory that the poet is a being above the world and apart from it is true of him as an observer only who applies to the phenomena about him the test of a finer and more spiritual sense.—Lowell: Life and Letters of James Gates Percival.
If we say “is true only of him who as an observer,” we shall mean one thing,—and I confess to a suspicion that this is the thing which Lowell intended!—whereas the passage as it stands asserts that the theory is true considering the poet as merely an observer.
It is not necessary to multiply examples. Every student who attempts careful expression will come upon illustrations enough in his own work. The important thing is to be clearly aware of what is to be said, and then to be sure that it is said, and said unmistakably.
In the construction of sentences the coherent arrangement of words is frequently hindered by the grammatical relations; no such limitation prevents the proper placing of sentences in the formation of paragraphs. In the construction of paragraphs, however, even more than in the construction of sentences, is necessary the utmost clearness of ideas. It is here essential to know not only what one has to say, but the relative strength which should be given to each link in the chain of thought. The question of proportion must here have the fullest answer. The relative stress which is to be given by position and the relative stress which is to be imparted by proportion are alike of the greatest importance in the making of the paragraph.
Something of this may be shown by an example. The following is a paragraph from the essay by Jeffrey on “The Characters in Shakespeare’s Plays:”—
Everything in him [Shakespeare] is in unmeasured abundance and unequaled perfection,—but everything so balanced and kept in subordination, as not to jostle or disturb or take the place of another. The most exquisite poetical conceptions, images, and descriptions, are given with such brevity, and introduced with such skill as merely to adorn without loading the sense they accompany…. All his excellences, like those of nature herself, are thrown out together; and instead of interfering with, support and recommend each other.
Let this now be read with a transposition of sentences:—