Explain, by illustration:—
- A gentleman, to a gamin.
- Ice, to a native of the tropics.
- The charm of foot-ball, to a girl.
- The pleasure of work, to a shirk.
- Wagner’s music, to a deaf painter.
- The charm of foot-ball, to a soldier.
- The solar system, to a child of eight.
- Oranges, to a native of the polar regions.
- The charm of a true lady, to an awkward lad.
- The Jungle Book, to a North American Indian.
- A newsboy’s life, to an earl’s son or a millionnaire’s son.
- A sleepless night, to a person who sleeps like a top.
- A headache, to a person who never had a headache.
- The charm of Stevenson, to a reader of dime novels.
- Taking gas at the dentist’s, to a person who never lost a tooth.
- An encyclopædia, to a man who never heard of such a book.
- Paragraph construction, to a youth who cares only for the shop.
- The danger of open windows, to a child who never heard of death.
- Some good monthly, to a bright boy or girl who had never seen a magazine.
Transitions between Paragraphs.—Suppose that a given theme is a unit, no idea being admitted that does not bear on the topic; suppose, further, that the paragraphs are units, each treating a distinct part of the theme idea; it remains to be sure that the reader gets easily from paragraph to paragraph. Sometimes the writer is so anxious to make each paragraph a unit in itself that the reader does not feel at once that the new section has anything to do with the preceding.
Look back to the theme on the Glimpse of the Lake. There were three things to talk about: water, boats, fishing. At the end of the paragraph on the water the attention must be led over without any jar to the subject of boats. The last idea of the water paragraph was that the edge of the lake grew white and distinct. In beginning the new paragraph, we may refer to that idea. “Breaking through that white streak of water near the shore comes a dark something,” etc.
Now look at the paragraph on fishing. How does the writer try to get over to the fishing from the boats? Explain in recitation.
The joints of the theme should be smooth and strong, like the joints of bamboo—not a rude joint made by chisel and hammer.
Written Exercise.—The instructor will hand you in class your themes thus far written. Go over them carefully, trying by revision to make the thought connection closer between the paragraphs. For the future, always read carefully the whole paragraph before beginning the next.
Transitions between Sentences.—Within the paragraph each sentence should grow vitally out of the preceding. “Connection is the soul of good writing,” said the great translator, Jowett of Balliol. Plan sentences ahead; and read each sentence before you write the next. Make it impossible for people to say of you as they used to say of Emerson, “His sentences read equally well in any order.” Make it impossible to pick a sentence out and set it down elsewhere, without tearing the theme as Æneas rent young Polydore.
Frequently the sentences can be bound tighter together by beginning the next with a reference to some idea contained in the preceding. Burke, pleading in Parliament for America, said: “But with regard to her own internal establishment, she may, I doubt not she will, contribute in moderation. I say in moderation, for she ought not to be permitted to exhaust herself. She ought to be reserved to a war, the weight of which, with the enemies that we are most likely to have, must be considerable in her quarter of the globe. There she may serve you, and serve you essentially.” Here the last words of each sentence suggest the first words of the next. Of course this way of getting coherence is easily overdone; but it is very valuable, nevertheless.
It is easy to discover the order in which Ruskin wrote the following sentences, here printed in wrong order. Find the true arrangement, and tell how it was found.