62. Round thee the sea flings her steel-bright armor and shields thee from the guile and hurt of thy foes.

63. The quick eye of Clive soon perceived that the head of the young volunteer would be more useful than his arm.

64. That means the removal of hindrances and the surmounting of obstacles broad as continents, high as the Himalayas.

65. It is not the crozier spear, but the sceptre.

66. Another morning came, and there they sat ankle-deep in cards.

67. His purse was ever an assistance to the men of letters. 68. As the tall corn bends beneath the sweeping hurricane, wave succeeding wave, so did the steel-clad squadrons of the enemy before the victorious torrent of the dashing cavalry.

69. Can any one study Shakespeare without reaping benefit? 70. Their souls rose on the ardor of prayer like Elijah ascending to heaven.

71. Smiles are the channels of future tears. 72. The life of man is the path of an arrow, closes up.

which immediately

73. The soft snow came; it seemed as if nature had let fall its handkerchief to hide the earth.

74. Diligence is the mother of good luck, and God gives all things to industry.

75. We may be sure that confidence sat undisturbed upon his brow.

76. In the best of Whittier's poems the pulse of human sympathy beats more strongly than in any of Longfellow's songs.

77. If I could shake off but one seven years from these old arms and legs, I would go with thee every foot.

78. His heart's his mouth: what his breast forges, that his tongue must vent.

79. Time writes no wrinkles on thine azure brow.

LESSON XXXIX.

THE QUALITIES OF STYLE.

The properties of Style studied in preceding Lessons are called Elements of Style, because they belong pre-eminently to Words, Sentences, and Paragraphs, which are the mechanical elements of language. Besides these, Style possesses other subtler properties, known as the Qualities of Style. Among these qualities may be mentioned Perspicuity, Picturesqueness, Force, Pathos, The Ludicrous, Melody, Harmony, Taste, and Beauty.

These qualities may, with some correctness, be classified as follows:

1. Intellectual: Perspicuity and Picturesqueness;

2. Emotional: Force, Pathos, The Ludicrous;

3. Esthetic Melody, Harmony, Taste, Beauty.

Perspicuity is the quality of being easily understood. It applies to the general form of expression, to the way in which the thoughts are presented. Either simple or abstruse thoughts may be placed clearly before the reader; yet abstruse thoughts may still be difficult to apprehend, although clearly expressed; and simple thoughts may be so expressed as to appear confused or ambiguous. Perspicuity may be gained by

(a) Familiar words convey ideas more clearly than do those that are seldom heard.

(b) Concrete terms call up more definite ideas than do

abstract.

(c) Particular terms, likewise, are always more striking than general.

b. In structure,

(a) Of sentences, (b) of paragraphs, (c) of the plan of

the discourse.

C.

c. In figures of speech. Figures which are simple and familiar, but not trite, are object lessons to the mind. The following sentence illustrates how obscurity arises from some of these causes :

66

Seraphite, the marvellous creature, whose passage from Matter to Spirit, from the Specialist to the Divine conditions, the theme of Balzac's genius, in this case is intended to typify the final function of a long course of steadfast upward working by a soul which has, by many re-incarnations, won its way past the instinctive and abstractive spheres of existence, and has at length attained that delicate balance of the material and spiritual which is the last possible manifestation on the earthly plane."

2.) Precision in the use of language. This is indispensable to perspicuity. The thought must be fully and clearly grasped by the mind, and then words must be found that faithfully reproduce it.

3The employment of a definite and apparent plan or outline. The reader's attention should be fixed upon some central thought or bold framework on which the entire structure is made to depend.

4. The systematic arrangement of the subordinate parts. For example, if any one will take the pains to examine critically the ninety-third paper of the "Spectator," he will find that it owes its perspicuity in a great degree to the points mentioned in 3 and 4.

The framework is as below:

Theme: The proper employment of leisure.

b. Men are also inconsistent in wishing time away.
c. About nineteen parts out of twenty, of leisure, is
wasted.

2. Employments suggested,

a. The practice of virtue.

1. In acts of benevolence.

2. In communion with the Creator.

b. Innocent amusements.

1. The stage.

2. Conversation.

3. The fine arts.

4. Reading.

5. A skilful use of the various means of illustration. This may be

a. By example; as, "Exclusiveness is deadly. The exclu-
sive in social life does not see that he excludes himself
from enjoyment in the attempt to appropriate it."
b. By contrast; as, "Drawing lots would be a prudent and
reasonable method of appointing the officers of state,
compared to a late disposition of the secretary's
office."

c. By an anecdote or story; this has the advantage of the
concrete and of the particular. Thus: "Virtue is its
own reward. Catherine of Livonia, a common peasant
girl, attracted, by her modest and virtuous conduct,
the attention of Peter the Great; became his wife;
and, after his death, was proclaimed his successor in
the Russian Empire."

d. By a parallel case; as, "I have seen eagles in a cage;
but their wings showed me that nature never intended
them to be there. So I have seen man covered with
the leprosy of sin and moral disease; but his aspirations
after goodness told me that his Creator never designed
him for the pest-house. A nobler destiny is his.”
e. By a judicious use of the figures of speech, especially
of Simile, Metaphor, and Antithesis.

case.

f. By employing several of these methods in the same For example, in the following, the idea is illustrated (1) by a contrast in the nature of the things; (2) by a contrast of their effects; (3) by figures.

"Mirth I consider as an act; cheerfulness, as a habit of the mind. Mirth is short and transient ;

cheerfulness, fixed and permanent. Those are often raised into the greatest transports of mirth, who are subject to the greatest depression of melancholy. Mirth is like a flash of lightning that breaks through a gloom of clouds and glitters for a moment; cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity."

6. The careful observance of the suggestions made under the head of Clearness. These, if followed, will enable the writer to use language in such a way as to secure clearness of expression in minor details.

PICTURESQUENESS.

When a scene, object, or event is represented in language in such a way as to picture it to the mind as it actually is or was, the style is said to be picturesque.

This quality depends chiefly on the following considerations:

1. A clear and comprehensive view of the scene, object, or event. The outline must be definite, and the parts must be arranged in the order of time, place, and importance.

2. The use of appropriate epithets and phrases. These may introduce

a. Some quality whose incidental mention adds reality; as, "Those tireless wheels whose busy hum never ceases." b. Some associated circumstance that tends to give completeness; as, "A huge sea of verdure that was tenanted by flocks and herds which seemed to wander unrestrained and unbounded through the rich pasture." c. Some pleasing feature; as, "The lurid lightning flashed over the tempest-tossed ocean." "The gigantic corpses of dead trees, decaying on the leaf-strewn soil."

C.

3. A scene may be presented more vividly by mentioning some striking particulars instead of using a general statement; as, "They looked forth, they saw the river thick set with rocks, where plunging over ledges, gurgling over drift-logs, darting along