(1). Clearness.
The most important quality of style is clearness. Clearness is a valuable aid to interest, for the human mind delights in lucidity. The audience or reader will seldom take the trouble to figure out exactly what idea is intended to be conveyed. Most audiences are lazy and must be assisted to think. The way in which a conclusion is to be reached must be pointed out to them. Hence the necessity of making plain an argument which is to be delivered orally is especially great.
Error can easily be smuggled into an argument under cover of confused language, but clearness shows forth the argument in such a light that any mistake must be apparent. This satisfies the minds of those addressed, because they can see and judge for themselves. Moreover, there is a quality of elegance coming from perfect clearness which carries conviction with it. If clearness is lacking, grave errors may be lurking in the obscure phrasing of the discourse and the reader or hearer cannot feel satisfied in his own mind. Therefore, for the sake of the writer and for the sake of those to whom the argument is addressed, clearness should be the predominating quality of style.
It is not amiss at this point to quote in full the famous description of eloquence from Webster’s oration on Adams and Jefferson. It is not only a description but it is a great example of the thing described. The student will do well to ponder over it and try to realize the full significance of every statement.
“Clearness, force, and earnestness are the qualities which produce conviction. True eloquence, indeed, does not consist in speech. It cannot be brought from far. Labor and learning may toil for it, but they will toil in vain. Words and phrases may be marshalled in every way, but they cannot compass it. It must exist in the man, in the subject, and in the occasion. Affected passion, intense expression, and pomp of declamation, all may aspire to it; they cannot reach it. It comes, if it comes at all, like the outbreaking of a fountain from the earth, or the bursting forth of volcanic fires, with spontaneous, original, native force. The graces taught in the schools, the costly ornaments and studied contrivances of speech, shock and disgust men, when their own lives, and the fate of their wives, their children, and their country, hang on the decision of the hour. Then words have lost their power, rhetoric is vain, and all elaborate oratory contemptible. Even genius itself then feels rebuked and subdued, as in the presence of higher qualities. Then patriotism is eloquent; then self-devotion is eloquent. The clear conception outrunning the deductions of logic, the high purpose, the firm resolve, the dauntless spirit, speaking on the tongue, beaming from the eye, informing every feature, and urging the whole man onward, right onward to his object,—this, this is eloquence; or rather it is something greater and higher than all eloquence,—it is action, noble, sublime, godlike action.”
Simplicity of expression is an important aid to clearness. No speaker should strive for effect alone. The simplest words and the simplest sentences should be chosen. Fine writing or high sounding language should be avoided. The writer should make use of that directness which characterizes his conversation when he is in earnest.
Concreteness is a most important aid to clearness, for general statements make little impression upon the average mind. To secure the best effect concrete particulars must be used to amplify and illustrate all general statements. This not only makes the meaning of the speaker more clear but it also gives a force and vigor to the idea presented. In fact, some writers have named concreteness as the most important aid to force. In Alden’s Art of Debate a speaker during the time of the Chicago strike is quoted as having moved his hearers to enthusiasm by declaring: “If necessary, every regiment in the United States army must be called out, that the letter dropped by the girl Jennie, at some country post-office back in Maine, may go on its way to her lover in San Francisco, without a finger being raised to stop its passage.” This is concreteness as distinguished from generality. How much less clear and less forcible would be the general abstract statement that “If necessary, the whole force of the United States army will be called into action for the purpose of preventing interference with the mails.”
Instead of making the general statement “There has been a constant improvement in the methods devised by man for killing his fellow men in war,” the idea would be more concrete if expressed in the following terms: “Ever since Shamgar slew the opposing army of the Philistines with an oxgoad man has been improving the instruments of war until to-day we have the modern dreadnought weighing thousands of tons and costing millions of dollars.” Or, the idea can be presented in a still more concrete manner by stating the following facts: “Ever since David, the shepherd boy, picked a pebble from the brook; placed it in his sling; threw it and killed Goliath, man has been improving the method of throwing things at his fellow men, in order to kill them, until to-day we have the thirteen inch gun, which throws a projectile weighing one thousand pounds a distance of thirteen miles.” These concrete instances when elaborated become illustrations or illustrative instances. In fact, the last statement given above might be dignified with the name illustration. Lincoln in his Cooper Institute speech aptly illustrated the attitude of the South toward secession when he said: “But you will not abide the election of a Republican President! In that supposed event you say you will destroy the Union! and then, you say, the crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear and mutters through his teeth ‘Stand and deliver or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer.’” Again Lincoln uses a most clear and forcible illustration in his Springfield speech when he presents the following argument from analogy:
“We cannot absolutely know that all these adaptations are the result of preconcert. But when we see a lot of framed timbers, different portions of which we know have been gotten out at different times and places and by different workmen,—Stephen, Franklin, Roger, and James, for instance,—and when we see these timbers joined together, and see they exactly make the frame of a house or a mill, all the tenons and mortices exactly fitting, and all the lengths and proportions of the different pieces exactly adapted to their respective places, and not a piece too many or too few,—not omitting even scaffolding,—or, if a single piece be lacking, we see the place in the frame exactly fitted and prepared yet to bring the piece in—in such a case, we find it impossible not to believe that Stephen and Franklin and Roger and James all understood one another from the beginning, and all worked upon a common plan or draft drawn up before the first blow was struck.”
Such concrete illustrations as are contained in the above quotation should abound in every argument. The homelier the illustration, the more pronounced the effect. It requires no especial insight into human nature to see that such incidents as those quoted above will hold the interest of the audience or reader much more effectively than cold, formal, generalized statements. Therefore, the student should make use of concreteness, and, in fact of all rhetorical devices, for the purpose of making his argument clear and interesting. Even narratives of some extended length may be introduced when they are especially pertinent to the point at issue.