Theme.—Write a paragraph of four sentences on one of the following subjects. Let the first sentence be a general statement. Then let each of three compound sentences group together details, and so explain the first.
- 1. The three parts of a tree, and their characteristics.
- 2. The three parts of my town.
- 3. A picture I like: its background, its figures, its coloring.
- 4. The lunch-room.
- 5. A sleeping-car: the car itself, the travellers, the porter.
- 6. Uses of a jack-knife: legitimate, illegitimate, doubtful.
- 7. Three men representing three kinds of true Americanism.
- 8. Three great men, typically English.
- 9. Three great men, typically Roman.
- 10. Three types of philanthropist.
- 11. Three kinds of coward.
- 12. Three kinds of hero.
- 13. Three noble American women.
- 14. Three women who write stories.
Written Exercise.—In the seventeenth century there were many authors whose minds were full of Latin models. These writers tried to build up in English, an uninflected language, sentences as complex as those of Cicero. They tried to make the sentence do the work of the paragraph. How utterly they failed may be seen in the following passages from Defoe and Lord Clarendon. Considering each selection as a paragraph, rewrite with reference to unity of substance in the sentence.
1. There is one thing more remarkable in this parish, and it is this: twenty-six sheets of lead, hanging all together, were blown off from the middle isle of our church, and were carried over the north isle, which is a very large one, without touching it; and into the churchyard ten yards’ distance from the church; and they were took up all joined together as they were on the roof; the plumber told me that the sheets weighed each three hundred and a half, one with another. This is what is most observable in our parish: but I shall give you an account of one thing (which perhaps you may have from other hands) that happened in another, called Kingscote, a little village about three miles from Tedbury, and seven from us: where William Kingscote, Esq., has many woods; among which was one grove of very tall trees, being each near eighty foot high; the which he greatly valued for the tallness and prospect of them, and therefore resolved never to cut them down: but it so happened, that six hundred of them, within the compass of five acres were wholly blown down; (and supposed to be much at the same time) each tree tearing up the ground with its root; so that the roots of most of the trees, with the turf and earth about them, stood up at least fifteen or sixteen foot high; the lying down of which trees is an amazing sight to all beholders.—Defoe.
2. It is true, that as he[20] was of a most incomparable gentleness, application, and even submission to good and worthy and entire men, so he was naturally (which could not be more evident in his place, which objected him to another conversation and intermixture than his own election would have done) adversus malos injucundus; and was so ill a dissembler of his dislike and disinclination to ill men, that it was not possible for such not to discern it. There was once, in the House of Commons, such a declared acceptation of the good service an eminent member had done to them, and, as they said, to the whole kingdom, that it was moved, he being present, “That the speaker might, in the name of the whole house, give him thanks, and then that every member might, as a testimony of his particular acknowledgment, stir or move his hat towards him;” the which (though not ordered) when very many did, the lord Falkland (who believed the service itself not to be of that moment, and that an honourable and generous person could not have stooped to it for any recompence) instead of moving his hat, stretched both his arms out, and clasped his hands together upon the crown of his hat, and held it close down to his head; that all men might see, how odious that flattery was to him, and that very approbation of the person, though at the same time most popular.—Clarendon.
Oral Exercise.—Examine the paragraphs by Hawthorne ([p. 106]), Macaulay, Webster, Huxley ([pp. 107-8]) to see whether the sentences are units in substance. Note also the different effects produced by long and short sentences.
III. A. Unity of Substance by Keeping to the Point.—In a hastily written manuscript will often be found unlike ideas joined together in one sentence. Some persons are worse than others in this matter, but everybody, in composing rapidly, is liable to the fault. It is amusingly easy to fly off at a tangent, if the parts of the paragraph have not been properly thought out. The mind often works erratically; it is pursuing a given idea when some word used suggests a different line of thinking and the train is switched off its track.
Cardinal Newman once wrote a burlesque of this scatter-brained kind of writing. He pretends that the lad is writing a theme on the topic, “Fortune favors the brave.” In the midst of it the boy says:—
Napoleon, too, shows us how little we can rely on fortune; but his faults, great as they were, are being redeemed by his nephew, Louis Napoleon, who has shown himself very different from what was expected, though he has never explained how he came to swear to the constitution, and then mounted the imperial throne.