English: Composition and Literature

by W. F. Webster

The Period. The philosophy of the periodic sentence has been best stated by Herbert Spencer. He starts with the axiom that the whole amount of attention a reader can give at any moment is limited and fixed. A reader must give a part of it to merely acquiring the meaning; the remainder of his attention he can give to the thought itself. In reading Cicero the pupil has to put a large part of his attention upon the vocabulary, upon the order and construction of the words; the barest fragment of attention he can bestow upon the thought of the great orator. So when the reader attacks one of Browning’s most involved and obscure passages, he is kept from the thought by the difficulties in the language. As it is the purpose of language [213] to convey thought, and as it is usually the wish of an author to be understood, he should use up as little as possible of the reader’s limited attention for the mere acquisition of the thought, and leave the reader as much as he can to put upon the meaning. In applying this to sentences, the question is, which form of sentence demands least effort to get at its meaning: the periodic sentence, which suspends the meaning to the end; or the loose sentence, which may be broken at several points and gives its meaning in installments? The old example is as good as any: shall we say as the French do, a horse black; or shall we say as the English do, a black horse? for in the arrangement of these three words there lies the difference between a loose and a periodic sentence. Consider the French order first. When a person hears the words “a horse,” he at once thinks of the horse he knows best; that is, generally, a bay horse. When the word “black” follows, the whole image has to be changed from the bay horse he knows to the black horse he has occasionally seen. There has been a waste of attention. On the other hand, when the words “a black” are heard, the mind constructs no image; it waits until the noun modified is spoken. Then the whole image springs up at once; it is correct and it needs no remodeling. The following sentence illustrates the point. “I am wasting time” is the beginning. It would be difficult to enumerate the many thoughts suggested by these words; each person has his own idea of wasting time. When the rest of the sentence is added, “trying to learn my geometry lesson,” the whole has to be reconstructed. On the other hand the periodic statement suspends the meaning to the end. There is no place where, without additions to the words used, the mind can rest. “Trying to learn a geometry lesson is for me a waste of [214] time.” Theoretically the periodic sentence is better than the loose sentence; for it economizes attention.

There is another side to the question, however. If the details be many, and if each be long, they would be more than the mind could carry without great effort; and instead of economy of attention, there is improvident waste. The mind will carry a long, carefully arranged period at intervals; but a succession of periods is sure to result in its absolute refusal to do so any longer. There is a limit to the length of a period that economizes attention; and there is a limit to the number of successive periods which a reader can endure.

Periodic and Loose combined. There is another form of sentence, which combines the loose and the periodic. It generally begins with the periodic form and sustains this until it is better to relieve the mind of the stress, when the period ends or the loose structure begins; and the sentence may as a whole be periodic while containing parts that are loose. This kind of sentence is a common form for long sentences. It gives to prose much of the dignity of the period, together with the familiarity of the loose sentence.

The sentence below may be changed, by putting the last clause first, to a loose sentence; and by placing it after the word “subject” it becomes mixed.

“By all persons who have written of the subject, for the grandeur of its mountains and the deep quiet of its green valleys for the leaping torrents of its foaming rivers and blue calm of its crag-walled lakes, Switzerland has been named ‘the Paradise of Europe.’”

The following paragraph from Burke contains examples of loose, periodic, and mixed sentences:—

“To restore order and repose to an empire so great and so distracted as, ours, is, merely in the attempt, an undertaking [215] that would ennoble the flights of the highest genius, and obtain pardon for the efforts of the meanest understanding. Struggling a good while with these thoughts, by degrees I felt myself more firm. I derived, at length, some confidence from what in other circumstances usually produces timidity. I grew less anxious, even from the idea of my own insignificance. For, judging of what you are by what you ought to be, I persuaded myself that you would not reject a reasonable proposition because it had nothing but its reason to recommend it. On the other hand, being totally destitute of all shadow of influence, natural or adventitious, I was very sure that, if my proposition were futile or dangerous—if it were weakly conceived, or improperly timed,—there was nothing exterior to it of power to awe, dazzle, or delude you. You will see it just as it is; and you will treat it just as it deserves.”[46]

Which shall be used? Which shall be used, loose sentences or periodic? In literature the loose more frequently occur. They are informal and conversational, and are especially suited to letter-writing, story-telling, and the light essay. The period is formal; it has the air of preparation. The oration, the formal essay, well-wrought argument,—forms of literature where preparation is expected,—may use the period with good effect. It has a finish, a scholarly refinement, not found in the loose sentence; and yet a series of periods would be as much out of place in a letter as a court regalia at a downtown restaurant. The loose sentence is easy, informal, and familiar; the periodic is stiff, artificial, and aristocratic. To use none but loose sentences gives a composition an air of familiarity even to the verge of vulgarity; to employ only periodic sentences induces a feeling of stiff artificiality bordering on bombast. The fitness of each for its purpose is the guide for its use.

[216] There is, however, a reason why young persons should be encouraged to use periodic sentences. Usually they compose short sentences, so there is little danger of overburdening the reader’s attention. With this danger removed, the result of the generous use of periodic sentences will be nothing worse than a too obvious preparation. The sentences will all be finished to a degree, and unquestionably will give a feeling of artificiality. However, the attention to sentence-structure necessary in order to make it periodic is a thing devoutly to be wished at this stage of growth. No other fault is so common in sentence-construction as carelessness. A theme will be logically outlined, a paragraph carefully planned, but a sentence,—anybody standing on one foot can make a sentence. A well-turned sentence is a work of art, and it is never made in moments when the writer “didn’t think.” The end must be seen at the beginning: else it does not end; it plays out. There is no other remedy for careless, slipshod sentence-making so effective as the construction of many periodic sentences.

Not only will there be care in the arrangement of the material, but when all details must be introduced before the principal thought, there will be little chance of any phrase slipping into the sentence that does not in truth belong there. Dangling participles, trailing relatives, and straggling generalities can find no chance to hang on to a periodic sentence. Every detail must be a real and necessary modification of the germ thought of the sentence, else it can hardly be forced in. Periodic sentences, then, besides insuring a careful finish to the work, are also a safeguard against the introduction of irrelevant material,—the commonest offense against sentence-unity.