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 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH
 
 BOOK5 ON LNGLI5H 
 
 By Frank H. Vizetelly, Litt.D., LL.D. 
 A Desk-book of Errors in English. Eleventh Edition. 
 
 12mo, Cloth. $1.00; by mail, $1.08. 
 
 The Preparation of Manuscripts for the Printer. 
 
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 A Desk-book of Twenty-five Thousand Words 
 Frequently Mispronounced. I2mo t Cloth. $1.75; 
 
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 The Development of the Dictionary of the English 
 
 Language. Large Quarto, Cloth. $1.00; by mail, $1.16. 
 
 By Sherwin Cody 
 The Art of Speaking and Writing the English 
 
 Language. A set of six handy manuals. I. Word-study; 
 Spelling; Letter-writing, etc. II. Dictionary of Errors; Er- 
 rors in Grammar, Pronunciation, Style, etc. III. Composi- 
 tion; Description; Dialog, etc. IV. Story-writing; Journalism; 
 Business Letters; Essays; Verse, etc. V. Grammar. VI. 
 How and What to Read. 16mo, Cloth, Boxed. $4.50 Per 
 Set; by mail, $4,62. [Not sold separately.] 
 
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 by mail, $1.76. 
 
 FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Publishers 
 
 354-360 FOURTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
 
 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 DHIYEKSITY OF CALIFOIWBDi 
 L08 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES C. FERNALD, L.H.D. 
 
 AUTHOR OF "ENGLISH SYNONYMS, ANTONYMS, AND PREPOSITIONS," 
 
 "CONNECTIVES OF ENGLISH SPEECH," "A WORKING GRAMMAR 
 
 OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE," "ENGLISH GRAMMAR 
 
 SIMPLIFIED," ETC.; EDITOR OF A "STUDENTS' 
 
 STANDARD DICTIONARY" ; ASSOCIATE 
 
 EDITOR OF THE "STANDARD 
 
 DICTIONARY," ETC. 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 Ms 
 
 FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY 
 NEW YORK AND LONDON 
 
 1919
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY 
 
 FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY 
 
 [Printed in the United States of America] 
 
 Copyright Under the Articles of the Copyright Convention 
 
 of the Pan-American Republics and the 
 
 United States, August 11, 1910 
 
 Published. September, 1918
 
 PREFACE 
 
 IT is often held to be a sufficient description or defini- 
 tion of language to speak of it as "a medium of com- 
 munication among intelligent beings." Language is 
 that, indeed, and can never be less than that. But 
 that is its lowest office. The hen calls her brood by a 
 glad cluck to a fine bit of grain, or warns them by a 
 terrifying note of the sweep of a hawk. But she has 
 soon gone round the circle of ideas appropriate to her 
 species, and the "medium of communication" has no 
 place in the realm beyond, where for her and hers there 
 is nothing to communicate. In all human beings, how- 
 ever, except the most degraded, there is a demand for 
 communication of thought and feeling from one to an- 
 other beyond what language as used by them can yet 
 convey. With all mental advance the reach and range 
 and delicacy of thought and feeling evermore outstrip 
 the capacity of words to utter them. Language is under 
 a constant impulsion to express ideas and emotions 
 which are still beyond its power. 
 
 It is true that a decaying civilization may shrivel up, 
 as it were, within a language, until it has no use for 
 many words and phrases which were full of meaning 
 to men of a nobler day. Such a language is in process 
 of becoming a ' ' dead language, ' ' as the Greek and Latin 
 were becoming in Europe five centuries ago. Then, if 
 the civilization is really alive, new languages will arise 
 to express the thought and feeling of the new time, 
 as the languages of modern Europe arose when hu- 
 
 v 
 
 2O7181O
 
 vi PREFACE 
 
 manity awakened out of the night of the Middle Ages. 
 How vast and wonderful were the needs for which these 
 new languages had to provide expression! The in- 
 vention of gunpowder, changing the whole art of war; 
 the mariner's compass, opening sure ways across the 
 pathless seas; the Copernican system of astronomy, giv- 
 ing the world and man for the first time their true 
 place in the celestial spaces; the science of chemistry 
 in place of the superstitions of alchemy; steam and 
 gas, electricity and magnetism, the printing-press, the 
 railroad, the steamship, the telegraph, the telephone, 
 photography, wireless telegraphy, and now aviation: 
 all these, as arts and processes of modern life, have 
 driven every vigorous modern language into a chase 
 for words and phrases expressive enough to keep up 
 with the crowding thought and imagery of the life 
 actually about us, and beyond the direct communication 
 of ascertained facts able to utter the constantly deepen- 
 ing and broadening visions and longings of the expand- 
 ing human soul. To urge the expressiveness of language 
 is to exalt the supremacy of thought. The language 
 which is chiefly occupied with its own beauties is dying 
 or dead; the language struggling to utter what is still 
 beyond itself is alive, and none has more of this ex- 
 pansive vigor than our own. 
 
 English was a young, rude dialect when Latin was 
 old and in ornamental decay; and the circumstances of 
 the development of the new aspirant for power have 
 never permitted it to evolve like a potato-sprout in a 
 cellar, white, protracted, and delicate. By the exigen- 
 cies of its existence it has been thrashed into sturdiness 
 and vigor through centuries of conflict. Ever and ever- 
 more the concentrated energy of expression of human 
 thought and feeling has been thrust upon and through
 
 PEEFACE vii 
 
 and through the language as the essential condition of 
 its existence. 
 
 Foremost in colonization, at the front in industrial 
 and commercial achievement, possessed by that impulse 
 of actual doing in the concrete world which we call 
 "practical," full of the enthusiasm of freedom for each 
 individual life, and yet with that power of combination 
 that can cement millions scattered far over land and 
 sea into the cohesion of an empire or a world-republic, 
 spoken by more human beings than any other tongue 
 now or in ages past existing among men, the number 
 of persons using it being credibly estimated at one 
 hundred and fifty millions, the English language must 
 beyond all others seek and attain fulness of expression. 
 It presses close up to the foremost line of the world's 
 advance, to be ever ready with a new word or phrase 
 for every new thought, discovery, invention, or achieve- 
 ment. Voices from every range of human endeavor and 
 every outreach of human intellect are calling the lan- 
 guage on to express express express, ever more com- 
 prehensively and minutely all the shades and lines of 
 thought and feeling, now plain and direct as a concrete 
 highway, now toilsomely ascending as a mountain path, 
 or yet again diversified with flower and shrub and rock 
 and light and shade and sudden windings as a wood- 
 land road. Its ideal of utterance has come to be, not 
 method, measure, melody, but meaning. "Fine writ- 
 ing," once the ideal of many young writers, is now 
 disesteemed. The best speaking or writing of English 
 will be done always by asking "What do I really mean 
 to say?" or "What do I most deeply want to say?" 
 in other phrase, "What for my purpose can words now 
 and here best express?" 
 
 The present author has long believed that much thor-
 
 viii PREFACE 
 
 oughly correct English instruction fails by not keeping 
 in view the higher possibilities of language, and by not 
 awakening admiration, honor, and love for the English 
 language as a great, beneficent, and living power. If 
 students can be made to feel from the start that Eng- 
 lish is a grand, noble, and mighty means for the ex- 
 pression of thought, whether the simplest and plainest 
 or the highest and most beautiful, they will feel a call 
 to attain its mastery and a joy in bringing out its 
 possibilities. Hence, in this work, the earnest endeavor 
 has been to awaken interest, and even enthusiasm, for 
 the language from the outset. For, what interests peo- 
 ple they will learn, and learn readily. In a word, it 
 has been believed that the rhetorical treatment of Eng- 
 lish speech may be made an attractive and an easy 
 study, often fascinating as one follows its rich possi- 
 bilities of expression. 
 
 The aim has been, as far as possible, to give princi- 
 ples rather than precepts. Comparatively little is 
 learned by a series of commandments. The most ex- 
 cellent rules by themselves carry students but a little 
 way. But a principle is living and of indefinite riches 
 of application. Ideal is worth more than pattern. The 
 precept settles one case; the principle is good for a 
 thousand. 
 
 It has also been believed that the rhetorical use of 
 English may be taught in English. The Greek masters 
 of rhetoric so impressed their personality and their 
 methods upon all students that the very Greek words 
 they used have been maintained for centuries with a 
 reverent fear that the contents would be lost if the re- 
 ceptacle were changed. Then the old schoolmen clung 
 to the foreign phrases as making rhetoric an "art and 
 mystery," which only the elect few could understand.
 
 PREFACE ix 
 
 So our books still carry aposiopesis, prosopopeia, sy- 
 necdoche, and zeugma, and similar scare-words, which 
 even those who have once learned them in school are 
 afraid to venture upon unprepared in later life. A 
 few technical terms have been so far modernized that 
 we do well to retain them, as synonym, simile, metaphor, 
 etc. But the unfamiliar ones, if they mean anything, 
 can be translated into English words, and if not, can 
 be dropped. The plain English term has here been 
 always preferred. Even difficult matters have been 
 made to seem simple and easy where possible by simple 
 explanations and the use of simple words. A seemingly 
 off-hand statement has been put in place of a scholastic 
 utterance in the belief that people learn best when they 
 are not scared; when the matter considered is pre- 
 sented, not as the rare attainment of a few erudite 
 scholars, but as something "on the level," in which the 
 multitude, they themselves, starting where they are, 
 and as they are, may expect to attain success. 
 
 With the same object in view it has been found 
 necessary to set a limit to the number of topics treated. 
 The "elements of rhetoric" are so numerous that any 
 attempt to cover them all in a book of moderate size 
 reduces them to little more than an inventory or cata- 
 logue. Such an inventory may be very useful, as a 
 dictionary is, for definition and for reference, but it 
 is not very readable. By its condensation all the ele- 
 ments of rhetoric are placed practically upon a level, 
 with no chance for variety or emphasis or play of 
 thought and fancy that is, with no chance for the 
 very things the book is to teach so that a treatise on 
 rhetoric is often the driest and most unreadable thing 
 that one can take up. In place of such crowding, it 
 has seemed better to treat quite fully certain main ele-
 
 x PREFACE 
 
 ments of the study, opening vistas, at certain points, 
 with confidence that the student will almost instinctively 
 apply the method, thus found interesting and helpful, 
 to other branches of the great study. He will not 
 know all of rhetoric, but what he knows, he will know. 
 This method of treatment has succeeded in actual 
 trial. These chapters were lectures given for a series 
 of years to a class of about fifty students in the Young 
 Men's Christian Association of Washington, D. C., and 
 also to a class of public school teachers assembled under 
 the same auspices. The young men were clerks, stenog- 
 raphers, secretaries of senators, members of the staffs 
 of various Washington papers, etc. They represented 
 hundreds of thousands of bright young Americans who 
 having learned enough to know that they should know 
 more, but being engaged in the rush of life to make their 
 way and their subsistence, were limited to such knowl- 
 edge as could be rapidly gained. It was the impor- 
 tunity of these students, their delight in the course, and 
 their assurance of its practical helpfulness that first 
 moved the author to publish the series. The familiar 
 personal tone of the class-room lecture has been to a 
 considerable degree retained, and the student seeking to 
 make his way in studying by himself has been remem- 
 bered with interest and sympathy, and numerous simple 
 directions given for his benefit, as throughout chapters 
 VI, IX, XVIII, and XIX, and on pages 96, 104-107, 117, 
 120, 159, 174, 220-221, 257-258, 295, 315, 337, 340, 352, 
 372-3-4, and numerous others. Whether studied in 
 the class or individually, it is believed the book will be 
 found readable and helpful for the mastery of impor- 
 tant points of English style. J. C. F. 
 
 Montclair, N. J., June 6, 1918.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAOE 
 
 I. THE SIMPLICITY OF ENGLISH 1 
 
 II. THE POWER OF ENGLISH 24 
 
 III. THE ENGLISH TBEASUBY OF WORDS 63 
 
 IV. A WORLD-LITERATURE IN ENGLISH 79 
 
 V. ENGLISH SYNONYMS THEIR ABUNDANCE AND HELP- 
 FULNESS 98 
 
 VI. THE ENGLISH DICTIONARY AND How TO USE IT . 121 
 
 VII. ENGLISH CONNECTIVES THE LINKS OF STYLE . . . 145 
 
 VIII. ENGLISH GRAMMAR THE FRAME OF STYLE . . .179 
 
 IX. THE ENLARGEMENT AND IMPROVEMENT OF THE 
 
 VOCABULARY 209 
 
 X. THE IMPOVERISHMENT OF THE VOCABULARY. CANT, 
 
 SLANG, ETC 238 
 
 XI. DIFFICULTIES IN ENGLISH THE WAY OUT . . . 254 
 
 XII. CLEARNESS OF STYLE 267 
 
 I. The Outfit for the Speaker or Writer. 
 
 XIII. CLEARNESS OF STYLE 284 
 
 II. As Secured by Fitting Choice of Words. 
 
 XIV. CLEARNESS OF STYLE 308 
 
 III. By Mastery of Sentence-Construction. 
 
 XV. CLEARNESS OF STYLE 331 
 
 IV. By Items of Construction. 
 
 XVI. THE ART OF BREVITY 351 
 
 XVII. FIGURES OF SPEECH 365 
 
 XVIII. INVENTIVE ART IN SPEAKING AND WRITING . . . 399 
 
 XIX. CONSTRUCTIVE LITERARY WORK 433 
 
 XX. LIFE THE SUPREME ACHIEVEMENT ....... 457 
 
 xi
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE SIMPLICITY OF ENGLISH 
 
 Excellence in English is often sought too far afield. 
 The trouble with many English grammarians and rhe- 
 toricians has been that they have known too much. By 
 the time a man has mastered the hundreds of parts of 
 the Latin and the Greek verb and the Hiphil, Hophal, 
 and Hithpael of the Hebrew; when he knows the five 
 declensions of Latin and the three of Greek nouns, 
 and the various declensions of adjectives to suit all 
 those nouns; when he has labored through the Slough 
 of Despond of German genders, and added a light fringe 
 of French, Spanish, and Italian eccentricities, he is apt 
 to become an incarnate inflection. He feels that lan- 
 guage exists in order to be inflected. That is what it 
 is for. It is beautiful and rich according as it can be 
 tabulated in paradigms under the law of permutations. 
 If he is a teacher, the possibilities of browbeating and 
 sidetracking pupils, and of enticing them into laby- 
 rinths where he alone holds the thread, become so allur- 
 ing and soul-satisfying that he looks upon all that is 
 self-evident and straightforward with the scorn of an 
 expert in mysteries and occult arts. 
 
 When there are no more dead or otherwise foreign 
 languages to conquer, he sweeps his glance over the 
 unfortunate English speech and sees it destitute and 
 denuded of all its beloved intricacy only here and there 
 some remnant of old declension or conjugation standing 
 
 1
 
 2 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 separate and lonely, like surviving stumps after a forest 
 fire. His grammatical soul aches over the "lost in- 
 flections," and he puts on sackcloth and ashes for the 
 "poverty" of his native tongue. English simplicity 
 has become the "wailing place" of grammatical exiles. 
 
 In this strange language, which simply adds one word 
 to another and depends on having every word in its 
 natural place, it is no longer possible to bury the subject 
 in a mass of vocables and extricate it by the sure token 
 that it is the only noun in the sentence which is not 
 in the genitive, dative, accusative, vocative, or ablative 
 case, and must, therefore, be the Jong-lost subject; or 
 to put the adjective at one end of the sentence and the 
 noun at the other, and have them respond to each other 
 like the poles of an electric battery, however many 
 miles of insulated wire the current may have to pass 
 through between them. 
 
 If compelled to express himself in this absurdly simple 
 speech, he finds unexpected difficulties for want of the 
 linguistic stays and trusses on which his foreign models 
 have accustomed him to depend, and suffers the fate 
 of the cab-horse in "Pickwick" that "would fall down 
 as soon as he was took out of harness." He writes 
 sentences like the card which a Greek professor is said 
 to have put on the door of a college chapel at Oxford, 
 "Chapel will commence tomorrow morning at nine 
 o'clock, and continue until further notice." He dis- 
 covers or, at least, his readers or hearers discover 
 that the seeming ease of English expression is a fine 
 art, which no one may hope to attain by laboriously 
 learning "how not to do it." He longs to recast the 
 language, and run it into traditional molds, from which 
 it should come forth with cogs and cams and dovetails 
 to be interlocked with mathematical precision.
 
 For some centuries the mechanics of language labored 
 hard to import into English exotic complications, espe- 
 cially adaptations of Latin rules and idioms. But those 
 importations did not thrive in the rigorous English 
 climate, where the winds of common sense are so very 
 free and strong ; and there is now a prevalent disposition 
 to make the best of a bad bargain, holding that as we are 
 saddled with a language that knows no better than to 
 say outright what it has to say, we must try to get some 
 approximate order into this makeshift speech, giving 
 attractive glimpses here and there of the beautiful in- 
 flected languages, ancient and modern, which the pupil 
 may hope to learn in the happier days to come, and the 
 learning of which is the chief use of the formless English 
 speech. 
 
 Hence, English grammar has been largely apologetic, 
 its keynote being that we express ourselves in this or 
 that way because we can do no better, and that such 
 a method is the best means of handling these loose 
 threads of language, which have never been properly 
 wound upon the bobbin of inflection. Richard Grant 
 White proposed to cut the Gordian knot by treating 
 English as ' ' The Grammarless Tongue. ' ' But his system 
 did not prevail because it was not a system. The stub- 
 born subconsciousness of the English-speaking world 
 knows that there is a grammatical system in our lan- 
 guage, if it can only be exhumed from under the ex- 
 planations in which it has been buried. 
 
 The key of this system is simplicity always the most 
 elusive thing in any line of research. Scholarship can 
 discover everything except the obvious. The simplicity 
 of English, which has been the torment of learned re- 
 search, is the triumph and glory of the existing speech. 
 The simplification of English speech was at first a dis-
 
 4 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 covery of happy accident, and then wrought out of set 
 purpose through centuries of struggle and conflict. 
 
 The founders of our English were a new people. In 
 the fifth century of the Christian era, when the Roman 
 Empire, which had stamped on the whole known world 
 the seal of antiquity and imperialism, was tottering to 
 its well-deserved fall, certain wild tribes, steadily driven 
 northward before the Roman power, but never bowing 
 to its dominion, had reached the bleak and barren shores 
 of the North Sea. History calls them Jutes, Angles, 
 and Saxons. As the land behind was closed to them, 
 they took to the sea, and became the most daring of 
 mariners and pirates. Not a shore but trembled when 
 the horizon line was broken by their long black galleys 
 filled with reckless freebooters who feared neither wave, 
 nor storm, nor sword. When they found Britain de- 
 fenceless, they descended upon it, exterminated or swept 
 away the inhabitants and wiped every vestige of Roman 
 civilization off the face of the land, except the Roman 
 roads embedded in the soil. They started their world 
 anew, and cut history in two with the sword. British 
 history ends, and English history begins, with the 
 Anglo-Saxon invasion in 449 A.D. 
 
 These Anglo-Saxon conquerors of Britain had no past. 
 All the storied centuries, from civilization's far begin- 
 nings, the marvels of sculptured Egypt, all the record 
 of Babylon and Nineveh and Tyre, of Greece and Rome, 
 were to them a blank. They knew no more of antiquity 
 than if they had just come into being on a newly created 
 planet. There they were. There was the sea which 
 they knew how to tame and to traverse. There was the 
 subjugated land under their feet. Their language was 
 like themselves. It was nothing to them how other men 
 had spoken. How could they best utter what they had
 
 THE SIMPLICITY OF ENGLISH 5 
 
 to say? They had nothing to learn from the Britons 
 whom they conquered on every battle-field, nor from 
 once imperial Rome, that now could not send one legion 
 to dispute their dominion. 
 
 There were differences of dialect among these Jutes, 
 Angles and Saxons, but when all were shut up together 
 in the conquered island, in order to live, trade, or even 
 fight together, they were compelled to learn one another 's 
 speech. In so doing, they stumbled, all unknowingly, 
 upon a great law of language, that when different lan- 
 guages of kindred stock meet and coalesce in the same 
 territory, the effect is to drop inflections ; root-words are 
 retained, but case-endings, niceties of conjugation and 
 other mere refinements and complications are discarded. 
 Thus, as the invaders became fused into one people in 
 England, their different dialects were blended in a modi- 
 fied language of increased simplicity. Scarcely was their 
 conquest completed and their unity secured, ere the fame 
 of their prosperity attracted new swarms of Northmen 
 from Scandinavian and Danish shores all indiscrim- 
 inately called Danes who conquered wide districts, and 
 even, for a time, put on the throne of England a line 
 of Danish kings. The whole process of fusion of lan- 
 guages had to be done over again, and the speech of the 
 new invaders was blended with the Anglo-Saxon, still 
 in the line of simplicity, dropping what was complicated, 
 and retaining what was easy to learn, while broadening 
 the base of the language by the infusion of new elements. 
 Then, upon the mingled peoples fell the mailed hand of 
 the Norman, crushing them closer together, while for 
 three hundred years the Normans occupied themselves 
 in a vain endeavor to make Englishmen talk French, till 
 at last it occurred to them that it would be easier for 
 themselves to learn English.
 
 6 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 But in the long contest the Saxons had absorbed much 
 from the French, still simplifying what they appropri- 
 ated. They fell upon the French language, so far as they 
 condescended to adopt it, as the Norman invaders had 
 fallen upon their own island. Every French word, in 
 order to be naturalized, had to pass under the English 
 yoke, and no French word that has been through that 
 process is ever recognized by the natives when it goes 
 back home. On the fine inflections of French grammar 
 the Englishman set his stubborn heel. He would use 
 the French word if he must, but upon it he would play 
 no foreign variations. Still less, if possible, would the 
 Norman conquerors bother with what they deemed the 
 barbarous intricacies of the Anglo-Saxon, and those 
 were dropped by mutual consent. Thus a composite 
 language was evolved, simpler than either of its proto- 
 types. 
 
 The fierce, and often apparently aimless contests of 
 centuries blend in one great unity. From the landing 
 of Hengist to the death of Chaucer almost a thousand 
 years the process is one, the fusion of competing lan- 
 guages, always in the direction of simplicity, always re- 
 jecting complications of structure, always choosing the 
 simpler forms. Simplification of speech had now come 
 to seem natural to the Englishman. It had been from 
 time immemorial an inherent process of language as he 
 knew it. He had proved this simplicity to be consistent 
 with clearness, and his practical good sense recognized 
 that simplicity is power. Then he bent all his inventive 
 skill to secure for his language the fulness of this in- 
 herent power. He carried simplification constantly 
 further of set and earnest purpose. Whenever he found 
 a form still lingering that was troublesome, he weeded 
 it out. All the tripping terminations that make so much
 
 THE SIMPLICITY OF ENGLISH 7 
 
 of the music of Chaucer's poetry went by the board. 
 There should never be two syllables where one would do. 
 The short, simple words are the most effective on the 
 sea y in the market, in the camp and on the battle-field, 
 come, go, hark, hear, march, charge, halt! Any added 
 syllable would weaken those terms of concentrated force. 
 In grammar every inflection must show a reason for its 
 existence, or cease to exist. Whatever was difficult and 
 complicated must go, unless the proof of its utility was 
 stronger than the presumption against its difficulty. 
 
 The reason commonly given for the substitution of the 
 second person plural for the second person singular 
 "you" instead of "thou" that it originated as a fad of 
 courtesy, may explain its origin, but its universal adop- 
 tion is due to a deeper reason, namely, that the second 
 person singular of the English verb is a complicated 
 and difficult form, while the second person plural is 
 simple to the last degree. With every principal verb 
 in the language, and with every auxiliary except 
 "must", the pronoun "thou" requires a special change 
 in the form of the verb, which is often the only break 
 in an otherwise uniform series. Thus, in the present 
 tense of every verb, with the single exception of the 
 verb "be", the pronoun "you" employs the unchanged 
 root-form of the verb, as ' ' YOU love, have, can, do, shall, 
 will," etc., while "thou" requires a change of form, as 
 "THOU lovest, hast, canst, dost, shalt, wilt," etc. In 
 every such choice the unchanged root-form has always the 
 right of way. Again, with every pronoun but "thou" 
 still excepting the one verb "be" the past tense of 
 every verb is absolutely uniform, as "7, he, we, you, 
 they, loved, had, could, did, should, would," but with 
 "thou" we are driven to say "thou lovedst, hadst, 
 couldst, didst, shouldst, wouldst," etc. Moreover, some
 
 8 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 of these forms are uneuphonic and exceedingly difficult 
 to utter, requiring careful drill and momentary pause 
 to shape the vocal organs for the utterance, as in couldst, 
 shouldst, mightst, commandedst, interpretedst. Having 
 thus two forms, one of which is almost invariably com- 
 plicated and difficult, while the other is, with a single 
 exception, simple and easy, the English-speaking men 
 trampled on the rules of grammar, bidding defiance to 
 the distinction of singular and plural, in order to make 
 the simple form controlling and universal. Thus "you" 
 has become everywhere current in the busy activities of 
 life, while ' ' thou ' ' is carefully laid up in the museum of 
 antiquity or the shrine of religion. 
 
 How far this process of simplification has reached may 
 be seen by comparing English at certain points with 
 various other languages. Consider first the noun. The 
 Greek noun has three declensions with five cases and 
 three numbers, the singular, the dual, and the plural. 
 That is, there are twelve forms in which any noun may 
 appear, according to the special relation to be expressed. 
 Which twelve any particular noun may take can only 
 be known by knowing to which of the three declensions it 
 belongs, so that it is really necessary to know thirty-six 
 forms of the Greek noun in order to use any one noun 
 properly. The Latin noun has five declensions and two 
 numbers, singular and plural, with six cases in each 
 number, making sixty forms, among which it is neces- 
 sary to choose in order to use any one noun properly. 
 The English noun is not troubled with declensions. 
 While it has technically three cases, two of them, 
 the nominative and the objective, are precisely alike; 
 the possessive adds the apostrophe with s in the singu- 
 lar and without s in the plural. The regular plural 
 form adds s or es to the singular, with a small list
 
 of practically eight irregular plurals, as mice and men, 
 and a few foreign plurals like strata and memoranda. 
 
 But the crowning triumph of English is to be found in 
 the simplicity of grammatical gender that is, gender of 
 Avords as words, irrespective of sex in the objects they 
 represent. All the other leading languages give mascu- 
 line or feminine gender to names of objects with which 
 no thought of sex can be rationally associated, as moun- 
 tains, rivers, trees, clothes, tools, articles of furniture, 
 members of the human or animal body, etc. Some of 
 these languages, as the French, Italian, and Spanish, 
 have no neuter gender, so that every inanimate object 
 must be represented by a masculine or feminine noun. 
 Hence we often have a quiet smile when the Frenchman 
 or Italian in his early experiments with English, speaks 
 of the chair or table as ' ' she ' '. In languages like Greek, 
 Latin, and German, which have a neuter gender, that 
 gender is sometimes so capriciously applied that a neuter 
 noun may be used for a living being which must have 
 sex, as the German nouns madchen, ' ' maiden, ' ' and weib, 
 t ' wife, " ' ' woman, ' ' are neuter. Ingenious theories have 
 been advanced as to the giving of gender to inanimate 
 objects on account of fauns, dryads, and other divinities, 
 more or less divine, which were originally supposed to 
 preside over some of them; but the elusive gender far 
 outruns the theory. Why, for instance, should a man's 
 head be feminine in Greek, neuter in Latin, feminine in 
 French, masculine in German, and feminine again in 
 Italian? The unpoetical fact seems to be that all this 
 is due to a certain stupidity of generalization. Men of 
 the early day seem to have concluded that because some 
 nouns naturally have gender, therefore gender was an 
 inevitable property of the noun per se, and they inflicted 
 it accordingly, without reason or discrimination, upon
 
 10 
 
 every unfortunate noun that came in their way. Then, 
 as languages were artificially perfected, nouns were made 
 masculine, feminine or neuter according to classification 
 or termination without the slightest reference to nature. 
 
 Here English made an entirely new departure, so that 
 gender, as far as it is indicated in our language, usually 
 follows the meaning of the noun to which it is ap- 
 plied. "English stands entirely alone in making gen- 
 der a rational and intelligible distinction; males are 
 masculine, females are feminine, and inanimate things 
 neuter. ' ' * 
 
 The distinctiveness of English in this respect is strik- 
 ingly illustrated by a comparison of dictionaries. Take 
 a Greek, Latin, German, French, or Italian dictionary, 
 and look down its columns; after every noun you will 
 find a little letter, m, f, or n, as the case may be, de- 
 noting the noun as masculine, feminine, or neuter. The 
 gender must be expressly noted, because it is arbitrary, 
 and by no means surely indicated by the meaning of 
 the word. Now look down the columns of an English 
 dictionary, noticing the nouns, and you will not find 
 one m, f, or n. In English alone the gender is un- 
 noted, because the meaning of the word usually tells it 
 all, and no further specification is required. If the noun 
 denotes a male being, it must, of course, be masculine; 
 if a female being, feminine; if an inanimate object, 
 neuter. Hence the English dictionary alone dispenses 
 and alone can dispense with notification of gender. 
 
 That poetic personification which sometimes refers to 
 the sun as masculine or to the moon as feminine, or the 
 sailor's reference to his ship as "she," constitutes no 
 real exception to the rule, for in plain prose we say of the 
 sun or the moon "its distance," "its diameter," or the 
 
 * Ramsey: "The English Language and English Grammar," 
 231.
 
 THE SIMPLICITY OF ENGLISH 11 
 
 like, and we read in the Authorized Version of the Scrip- 
 tures, ' ' The waves beat into the ship, so that it was now 
 full." It is an inestimable advantage in our language 
 that all the innumerable nouns denoting inanimate 
 objects are regularly of the neuter gender, as by laws 
 of thought they ought to be. That which is soulless in 
 nature is naturally neuter in language. 
 
 But, not satisfied with even this sweeping generaliza- 
 tion, the English language takes a long step farther, and 
 leaves the great majority of nouns denoting living beings 
 utterly indeterminate in gender. No one can tell by the 
 word itself whether friend, neighbor, companion, animal, 
 quadruped, fish, or bird is masculine or feminine. A 
 monarch, a sovereign, a citizen or a subject may be a man 
 or a woman ; so may a writer, an author, or an editor, an 
 agent or an attorney, an artist, a sculptor or a musician, 
 a teacher or an instructor, a guest or a visitor, a relative 
 or a stranger, an enemy or a foe; nor does the word we 
 use indicate the sex of parent, babe, baby, child, ancestor 
 or descendant. We know that these words are not neuter 
 because they do not denote inanimate objects, and that 
 is all we do know about them, as regards gender. 
 
 Thus we have a multitude of such familiar nouns as 
 acquaintance, advocate, amanuensis, assailant, assistant, 
 associate, attorney, citizen, clerk, companion, comrade, 
 cousin, enemy, foe, friend, historian, interpreter, lunatic, 
 maniac, martyr, monarch, nurse, opponent, patient, per- 
 son, physician, relation, relative, reporter, secretary, sov- 
 ereign, witness; practically all the innumerable nouns 
 in er, as buyer, doer, driver, giver, hearer, intruder, in- 
 vader, interviewer, reader, receiver, singer, speaker, 
 stenographer, stranger, traveler, voyager, worshiper, 
 writer; all nouns in ist, as antagonist, artist, chemist, 
 copyist, geologist, pianist, psychologist, zoologist; most
 
 12 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 nouns in or, as author, contractor, counselor, doctor, 
 editor, orator, visitor; most names of animals, as ape, 
 bear, beaver, bird, butterfly, elephant, fish, monkey, mule, 
 ostrich, robin, shark, swallow, and innumerable others. 
 The English language, for the most part, disregards 
 gender in nouns. 
 
 Is not this indefiniteness an oversight and a defect in 
 the language ? On the contrary, it is a concession to the 
 natural movement of human thought. If we say, "This 
 error was made by the copyist," the sex of the copyist 
 is not of the slightest consequence. The very thing we 
 want is a word that will not oblige us to ascertain his- 
 torically whether the copying was done by a man or a 
 woman, before we can complete our sentence. The noun 
 copyist is indeterminate in gender because we wish it to 
 be so, and it will be found that every synonym we can 
 use for that noun, amanuensis, secretary, stenographer, 
 transcriber, or typewriter, is similarly indeterminate. It 
 would cramp the language and restrict freedom of 
 speech, if we were to tie such a word to a definite gen- 
 der. The same law of thought controls, for the most 
 part, with reference to the various animals. If a person 
 is chased by a bear in the woods, or kicked by a vicious 
 mule, the sex of the animal is ordinarily a matter of 
 indifference, and it is a decided convenience that he does 
 not have to determine the gender of his noun before 
 he can report the incident. This non-identification of 
 gender has become the general characteristic of English 
 nouns denoting living beings. So far has this been 
 carried that the number of English nouns in ordinary 
 use that can be classed as distinctively masculine or 
 feminine does not probably exceed one hundred and 
 fifty. The active tendency of the English language is 
 to minimize gender in nouns.
 
 THE SIMPLICITY OF ENGLISH 13 
 
 Turning now to the article and the adjective, and 
 treating these for the moment as separate, we find in 
 them a still more conclusive triumph of English sim- 
 plicity. In the languages that have so emphasized 
 gender in nouns, it seems to have been thought that the 
 articles and the adjectives must also have gender, in 
 order to move in the same society. In Greek the article 
 and the adjective are both declined, having each three 
 genders, three numbers and five cases. Before using a 
 Greek article or adjective it is necessary to settle the 
 gender, number, and case of the noun, and then to use 
 a special form of article or adjective according to the 
 gender, number, and case of the noun to be employed. 
 
 The Latin took the short method with the article by 
 abolishing it altogether; but the Latin has three de- 
 clensions of adjectives in three genders and two num- 
 bers, making it necessary to settle the gender, number 
 and case of the noun, and then use a special form of the 
 adjective to match the gender, number, and case of the 
 noun employed. One must know some seventy or eighty 
 principal adjective forms in either language in order to 
 be sure of applying the right form of adjective to any 
 noun it is desired to use ; and when we add comparatives 
 and superlatives, which are also declined, and various 
 irregular and variant forms, the number may be in- 
 creased almost indefinitely. In German the articles, 
 definite and indefinite, are both declined, while the 
 adjective has two forms of declension, the strong and 
 the weak, with three genders, two numbers, and four 
 cases diversifying all. Then the combinations of the 
 adjective forms with those of the article vary from the 
 scheme in an arbitrary way which is to the foreigner 
 highly confusing. 
 
 Over against all this complexity we set the English
 
 14 EXPEESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 article and adjective, absolutely without declension. A, 
 with its euphonic variant an, or the never-changing the, 
 may be used with any noun in any gender, person, 
 number, or case. Against all the varying forms of 
 adjectives in other tongues we set the constant English 
 form that knows no change, whatever* may happen to be 
 the noun which it modifies. Good, bad, fast, slow, wise, 
 foolish, strong, weak or whatever the adjective may be, 
 the English-speaking person needs to learn the original 
 form but once, and it is his in perpetuity.. He will never 
 be troubled with vowel changes or new terminations in 
 all after time. He does not appreciate the gain made 
 by this emancipation of the adjective until he tries to 
 learn one of the "highly inflected languages," in which 
 he finds himself strangely cramped. However well he 
 may know the noun he would use, yet he can not speak, 
 because he can add no article or adjective till he has 
 first diagnosed the gender, person, number, and case 
 of tha't noun, and then selected, from a tabulated collec- 
 tion an article or adjective of that same gender, person, 
 number, and case the only one that may properly be 
 administered. He finds, himself in the position of the 
 lady who can not put on a perfectly comfortable pair of 
 gloves, because they are not of the right shade to match 
 her gown. In his mother-tongue he has no such per- 
 plexities. There he may start with article or adjective 
 in one unvarying form, and wait for the noun to come 
 along, knowing that the combination can not fail to be 
 right. He can not make a mistake, because there is none 
 to be made. The child or the foreigner has to learn 
 the form of an English adjective but once, and that form 
 is right in all possible situations, for there is no change. 
 There may be said, indeed, to be a certain loss. In 
 English it is not possible, as in those other tongues,
 
 THE SIMPLICITY OF ENGLISH 15 
 
 to toss an adjective into a sentence anywhere, and be sure 
 of fitting it to some wandering ncun, as you identify 
 your trunk in the baggage-room by the duplicate check. 
 The English adjective must keep in close touch with its 
 noun, and can be known as belonging to it only by the 
 order of words. But this loss is a gain, for the English 
 order of words is also the order of thought. However 
 far the adjective may be from its noun in the inflected 
 languages, the mind must ultimately bring them to- 
 gether, jumping over the interjected words, in order to 
 complete the thought. But the English puts the adjec- 
 tive beside its noun, so that the mind associates the con- 
 nected ideas at the start, and no intellectual acrobatics 
 are required. The verbal athlete may miss a spectacular 
 performance, but the speaker or the hearer, the writer 
 or the reader, gains incalculably in readiness of appre- 
 hension. The mind receives the associated ideas together 
 in the beginning, as it must in any event bring them 
 together in the outcome. 
 
 Still, the critic may ask, how is it possible that this 
 should be adequate? How can a single English article 
 or adjective be a substitute for the many variants of 
 either in other languages? The answer is, that the in- 
 flected languages have been carrying for ages a vast 
 amount of useless lumber. This could, indeed, be fash- 
 ioned by cunning hands into artistic shapes, but it is in 
 no way necessary to the expression of human thought, 
 and the English language has proved by the sure test of 
 experience that the unmodified article and adjective can 
 say all that article and adjective ever have to say in 
 human speech. When we use the expression "the good 
 man", "the good woman", "the good house", we could 
 not describe either object more perfectly, though we 
 were to torture "the" and "good" into assuming any
 
 16 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 fantastic variations whatsoever, when they pass from 
 modifying the masculine to modifying the feminine or 
 the neuter noun. The English used has thus expressed 
 all that article and adjective can express, and since modi- 
 fications are not necessary, their existence in other lan- 
 guages is sometimes an element of weakness in those lan- 
 guages, and not an evidence of richness or strength. 
 Change of form for no adequate reason has the defect of 
 burdening the memory without illuminating the thought. 
 It is the better machine that dispenses with needless parts. 
 
 When we pass to the English pronoun we find it almost 
 genderless. Gender is found only in three personal pro- 
 nouns of the third person, and only in the singular 
 number in those three, he, she and it, their common 
 plural, they, referring either to a masculine, a feminine, 
 or a neuter antecedent. Yet how very seldom do we find 
 any difficulty in making clear the gender of any ante- 
 cedent to which a pronoun may refer! We are aware 
 of no lack of pronominal gender. Rather we often think 
 that we have still too much ; when, for instance, we start 
 into such a sentence as, "If any one fails to be present 
 on time, he or she will lose his or her seat." Then, in 
 our eagerness to escape, we long for a genderless singular 
 of the pronoun of the third person to match the gender- 
 less plural, and those who are not afraid of the school- 
 master promptly retire upon the plural, using they, their 
 and them in place of the too specific singular, wishing 
 for less gender rather than more. Still, in the pronoun, 
 English simplicity has done very well. 
 
 At the threshold of the verb in most languages* the 
 specter of gender vanishes, as the goblins of old were 
 halted by a running stream. But inflection knows no 
 charm or spell, and descends upon the verb as its pecu- 
 
 With rare exceptions, as of the Hebrew amd Russian. ,
 
 THE SIMPLICITY OF ENGLISH 17 
 
 liar prey. The Greek verb has 507* parts, which the 
 simpler Latin was able to reduce to no less than 443. 
 Here the English language has broken all precedent. 
 Omitting the second person singular the forms with 
 "thou" the most complicated English verb, the verb 
 be, has in present use but eight different forms, be, am, 
 is, are, was, were, being, been. The verb be is alone in 
 this proud distinction. No other irregular verb has more 
 than five changes of form; as give, gave, gives, giving, 
 given. A regular verb has but four changes of form ; as 
 love, loved, loves, loving; and out of at least 8,000 verbs 
 in the English language, only a little list of 200 are 
 irregular. The modes and tenses that express the manner 
 and time of actions are for the most part formed by 
 auxiliary verbs be, can, do, have, may, must, shall, will, 
 and when the forms and combinations of these eight 
 auxiliaries are once learned, they are the same for all our 
 thousands of English verbs. Four or five forms of the 
 principal verb combined with eight auxiliaries consti- 
 tute the simple scheme that the English has to deal with 
 in place of all the terminations and augments and inter- 
 nal vowel changes that other languages offer by scores 
 and hundreds. 
 
 By reason of this marvelous simplicity, our language 
 meets more fully than any other has ever done a funda- 
 mental law of the expression of thought in words. Her- 
 bert Spencer's famous paragraph on "Economy of 
 Attention" might be taken as a statement of the under- 
 lying principle that has governed the historic evolution 
 of English speech. 
 
 "Regarding language as an apparatus of symbols for the 
 
 *Curtius: "Das Griechische Verbum" (The Greek Verb), p. 5. 
 Certain other scholars have given a much greater number. I 
 here give the lowest scholarly estimate known to me.
 
 18 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 conveyance of thought, we may say that, as in a mechanical 
 apparatus, the more simple and the better arranged its parts, 
 the greater will be the effect produced. In either case, what- 
 ever force is absorbed by the machine is deducted from the 
 result. . . . The more time and attention it takes to 
 receive and understand each sentence, the less time and at- 
 tention can be given to the contained idea, and the less 
 vividly will that idea be conceived." 
 
 If the men who framed our language could have con- 
 sulted Spencer five hundred years in advance, and kept 
 his exposition before them throughout all their struggles, 
 they could scarcely have done more to realize his con- 
 ception of effective expression. The discovery that con- 
 formity of the order of words to the order of thought 
 could be a substitute for the complex machinery of inflec- 
 tion is one of the greatest inventions of the ages as re- 
 gards the use of language, and is a triumphant success. 
 
 English simplicity is no survival of spoliation and im- 
 poverishment, no residue of linguistic decay, but an at- 
 tainment, an achievement of the highest dignity and 
 value. Prom the complicated constructions of the classic 
 tongues, of the rival languages of modern Europe, and 
 even of its parent Anglo-Saxon, English has intelligently 
 and resolutely stripped itself free, as David put off the 
 encumbering armor of Saul, to gain freedom as the means 
 of power. 
 
 It would seem that this infleetionless language is what 
 the world has been waiting for. Because its simplicity of 
 structure puts so few obstacles in a foreigner 's way, the 
 English language is comparatively easy to learn, men 
 of every race finding it simpler than their own. The 
 surprize of a foreign student of English is often almost 
 comical, as he looks around for difficulties which he 
 can not find. His chief difficulty, indeed, is to get along 
 without complications. He is like a swimmer accustomed
 
 THE SIMPLICITY OF ENGLISH 19 
 
 to artificial aids, who fears to trust himself to the water, 
 though the moment he does so he is free. This facility 
 of acquirement, joined with the enterprise and efficiency 
 of the nations that use it, is fast making English a world- 
 language, spoken as their vernacular by one hundred 
 and thirty millions, and dominating the territory, the 
 government, the business and to a great extent the 
 thought, of five hundred millions of people. 
 
 A natural objection may be, that while a language 
 so simple might be a ready medium of communication, 
 yet it must be lacking in range, diversity and fulness, 
 and so tend to barrenness and monotony. But from this 
 result our language is preserved by its rich variety and 
 abundance of words inherited from its diverse ancestry, 
 and gathered by exploration, travel, commerce and con- 
 quest all around the world. Thoughts of highest sub- 
 limity and the most ordinary ideas of common life, the 
 profound researches of science, and the light flashes of 
 wit and humor, the fiery splendor of impassioned oratory, 
 and the dry precision of the legal document, find equal 
 facility of utterance in English speech. English poets 
 for five hundred years have proved that the language, 
 strong to wield the sword or the sledge, has also skill 
 to tune the lyre. It is equally perfect in adaptation in 
 Milton's sublime epic and in Tennyson's cradle song. 
 In Shakespeare the diversity of language is as marked 
 as the limitless versatility of portraiture. Kings and 
 peasants, statesmen and clowns, tradesmen and soldiers, 
 ladies and servant maids, in every extreme of frolicsome 
 joy or furious rage or heart-broken lament, all speak 
 English, but a different English, always apt and ex- 
 pressive, always fitting the character and the occasion. 
 In the centuries since that day a vast store of new words 
 has been added, to meet the demands of advancing and
 
 20 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 broadening civilization, though under the controlling 
 influence of its early type all increase of material or 
 improvement in construction has still been in the line 
 of perfected simplicity. 
 
 The literary development of our language has been 
 along the line of its historical evolution. As the poet of 
 nature and of human life, Chaucer loved the homely 
 word and the simple idiom. The men of Elizabeth's day 
 were sailing the seas, fighting the Armada, starting out 
 on the Baconian method in science, and trading to the 
 then accessible ends of the earth. Effective directness 
 was their controlling passion. They wrought their lan- 
 guage to a strength, vigor, and melody that comes to us 
 still like a free, fresh breeze from mountain or ocean. 
 In the ensuing age there was a reaction to artificiality, 
 so that the really great thoughts of certain scholars and 
 divines of that day, in their cumbrous splendor, remind 
 us of the captive Zenobia fainting, as the legend has it, 
 under the weight of her golden chains. All this was 
 happily dispelled by the Cromwellian revolution. The 
 Puritans had their own faults of style, but because they 
 were fighting for very life on earth, and for the hope of 
 eternal life beyond, they were real to the uttermost. 
 Finical embroideries of speech had for them no place. 
 When there arose within their own ranks a Milton, who, 
 while he kept the faith, dared to endow it with beauty, 
 English literature began once again to evince the high 
 qualities of the Elizabethan era. The mental and moral 
 emptiness of the Restoration fortunately prevented its 
 characteristic writers from making any permanent 
 mark upon literature, most of the favorites of the court 
 and the play-houses of the period being now known 
 only to scholars. Milton and Bunyan, though writing 
 within those years, were in fact survivors of the Crom-
 
 THE SIMPLICITY OF ENGLISH 21 
 
 wellian epoch, and even Dry den owed all that was best 
 in him to the unrecognized influence of that earlier and 
 nobler day. Enough of English manhood survived the 
 period of decline to make, in the succeeding age, an 
 audience for Addison, whose triumph was the death- 
 blow of literary affectation. Men saw and felt anew 
 what the power of genuine English, unfettered and un- 
 trammeled, could be. Pope, while failing of the sim- 
 plicity of nature, was a consummate master of the sim- 
 plicity of art. Johnson, with all his Latinisms, was found 
 to be at his best in his simplest and most idiomatic utter- 
 ances. Goldsmith's poetry and prose, clear and bright 
 as the waters of a running stream, helped the movement 
 on. Burke, even in his most ornate periods, strove for 
 luminous clearness as the means by which to convince 
 and persuade. It was proved to demonstration that 
 English needed not to seek extrinsic adornments, but 
 merely to develop its own inherent power, and that the 
 simple was also the strong, the beautiful, and the suc- 
 cessful style. 
 
 It would be possible by a survey of all the great writers 
 down to and through the Victorian era, to show that 
 those who had most of this quality have taken the highest 
 place, and also that such of their works as possess most 
 of this quality are the most admired, the most cherished, 
 and the best remembered. The palm is ever awarded to 
 the author who has the skill to use, and the courage 
 to trust, the simple style, if he have but a message that 
 will bear to be so expressed; while one who loads his 
 page with crowded words and strained constructions is 
 suspected of seeking a disguise to cover barrenness of 
 thought, or censured as lacking artistic skill. The ideal 
 of the literature responds to the ideal of the language, 
 forcing author and orator alike to recognize that with
 
 22 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 nobility, vigor and beauty of thought, simplicity of ex- 
 pression is the way to glory, honor and immortality. 
 
 We are tired of the toleration of English, instead of 
 its frank recognition as one of the grandest languages 
 on earth. We have nothing to apologize for in our 
 English speech. English has discarded inflections, not 
 because it could not keep them, but because it did not 
 want them, and could do better without them. In every 
 field English is the language of simplicity, of direct- 
 ness, effectiveness, achievement. It is the athlete of 
 languages, appareled, not for display or ceremony but 
 for freedom and vigor of movement. It comes into the 
 world's battles like a war-ship, with "decks cleared for 
 action" into the world's toils and negotiations with 
 the "shirt-sleeve" readiness at which European diplo- 
 matists have laughed, but which does the work, cuts the 
 tangled knots of perplexity, and wins the prize. 
 
 The poet or the orator or the essayist is freer to seek 
 beauty for its own sake, because not trammeled in every 
 line or paragraph by the bonds of grammatical inflection. 
 English says to the business correspondent, the journal- 
 ist, the diplomatist, the orator in the pulpit or the 
 forum, the poet in rapt utterance of poetic thought, 
 ' ' Use words for what they mean, and no arbitrary inflec- 
 tions of grammar shall stand in your way". Grammar 
 is but the servant that waits upon the sense ; the armor- 
 bearer that keeps trim and bright the sword, helmet, and 
 shield, and hands them to the knight in the moment of 
 need. The gold of the living language is yours, and in 
 the English mint no mysterious cabalistic signs are im- 
 pressed to make it difficult to identify and use the coin. 
 English words exist for what they mean, and wherever 
 they are fairly counted out shall instantly pass current 
 as the sterling specie of thought.
 
 THE SIMPLICITY OF ENGLISH 23 
 
 English simplicity is the result of no decay or decline, 
 no poverty of inheritance, but the steady evolution of 
 fifteen hundred years, from the Anglo-Saxon Conquest 
 of Britain, the genius of the English race, generation 
 after generation, cutting away, throwing off whatever 
 complications stood in the way of effectiveness. Admirers 
 of languages that riot in permutations and paradigms, 
 declensions and conjugations and mysteries of gender, 
 hold up their hands in distress over the ' ' poverty of the 
 English in inflections." But that poverty is its glory. 
 
 The unfettered freedom of English construction is a 
 long advance toward that ideal of human utterance that 
 may enable one mind to express all that it may ever have 
 to express to any other mind. As our language is still 
 living, and very much alive, with the changes that are the 
 essence and evidence of life before it still, we may be 
 confident that its future modification will be no retro- 
 gression to formality and complexity, but an onward 
 movement, free as that of ocean waves, toward the full 
 and symmetrical development of that grand simplicity 
 which has already made it a new and illustrious power 
 among the languages of the earth.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 THE POWER OF ENGLISH 
 
 The English language is a power because it is a life 
 the life of a great people expressed in words that still 
 live. It is not an inheritance from ancient despotisms, 
 not an accretion through slumberous ages, not a modern 
 manufacture made to order and for a purpose, but utter- 
 ance that sprang into being in the heat and stir and 
 glow of a people's life, pulsing with their hopes and 
 fears, their joys and sorrows, their toils, discoveries, 
 achievements, and victories; never torpid, asleep, nor 
 decadent; never having found its limit, but beyond 
 every advance pushing on toward a new horizon. At 
 each stage the language has enshrined, incarnated, the 
 thought and deeds of its earnest present to be the motive- 
 power, the inspiration of the ages to come. 
 
 We defraud ourselves if we esteem our language lightly 
 because it is our own. We fail of the breadth and range, 
 the loftiness and aspiration, the strength, the tender- 
 ness, the delicate sense of beauty of which the language 
 is capable, till, with loss nf expression, thought itself 
 is cramped, dwarfed, belittled, starved. So, too, we 
 throw ourselves out of sympathy with those master- 
 spirits who have wrestled with the genius of language, 
 till they have won such store of power that through their 
 utterance may be seen the very workings of their mighty 
 souls. To the very best of all they have to give us we 
 become color-blind. In the great cathedrals of Europe 
 may be seen from time to time some group of peasants* 
 
 24
 
 THE POWER OF ENGLISH 25 
 
 shambling on under the lofty arches, over the tesselated 
 marble floor, past the pictured frescoes and mosaics 
 and the breathing statues, with no more sign of appre- 
 ciation than might be shown by a drove of oxen. They 
 may be more impressed than we know, but on their faces 
 is no reflected light of the beauty and glory that are 
 all around, above, and beneath them. So thousands 
 pass the masterpieces of English with the flippant re- 
 mark that they are "not interesting," never knowing 
 that this lack of interest simply proclaims the limitation 
 and poverty of their own undeveloped, unresponsive 
 minds. 
 
 We are all too apt to think of English as of the atmos- 
 phere, as something needful, indeed, and even desirable, 
 but which we have as a matter of course. Multitudes 
 get along with a pitifully small allowance of air, in 
 thronged cities, crowded halls, wretched alleys, or sump- 
 tuous apartment-houses. Then, if on some holiday, they 
 find themselves on the mountain top or the ocean shore, 
 they are amazed to find what simple air can be, and exult 
 in the luxury of breathing. With equal unwisdom we 
 limit ourselves to the commonplace utterances of the 
 shop or the office, of the household or the evening party. 
 Then, if by chance we read a bit of genuine literature or 
 hear an accomplished orator, we are filled with wonder 
 and delight at the undreamed-of resources of our familiar 
 English speech. The power is ever there, though we sel- 
 dom climb to the mountain-top or stand on the free, out- 
 looking shore. 
 
 We need to awake to the grandeur of our inheritance. 
 The English language is one of the noblest ever spoken 
 or written among men. It has a genius all its own, and 
 in the hands of a master can accomplish results that 
 can not be surpassed and in some respects not attained
 
 26 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 by any other form of human speech. This is not to 
 claim that English is superior in all respects to all other 
 languages. We would not follow the example of Cole- 
 ridge, master of English and sturdy Briton that he was, 
 who astounded one of his audiences at the Royal Insti- 
 tution in London by pausing in the midst of a lecture, 
 and devoutly thanking God that he "did not know one 
 word of that frightful jargon, the French language!" 
 We freely admit the splendor and beauty of the great 
 languages in which the leaders of men have given im- 
 perishable thoughts to the world. We thank careful 
 scholars for telling us of their excellence. But we still 
 maintain that for every excellence they can show in other 
 languages English can offer a compensating advantage, 
 and that the English language has made for itself a 
 place so high that it need not take an attitude of con- 
 cession, humility, or apology before any language, living 
 or dead, ever spoken among mortal men. It is a lan- 
 guage worthy, not merely of approval, but of admira- 
 tion, eulogy, enthusiasm. 
 
 What our language can do is best seen by considering 
 what it has done. English literature is one of the young- 
 est of the great literatures, for it set forth on its mighty 
 march when the Italian was already old, and when the 
 Greek and Latin were ancient and dead. Dante died 
 in 1321, leaving his "Divine Comedy" a monument of 
 perfected Italian. Chaucer died in 1400, leaving his 
 "Canterbury Tales" as reflections of the dawn of still 
 imperfect English. But in reality the sweep of our 
 literature is much less than this. All the English that 
 the world now reads to an appreciable extent dates 
 from the Elizabethan age (1533-1603), and from the 
 latter part of that great period. Spenser published his 
 "Shepheard's Calendar" in 1579, and finished his
 
 THE POWER OF ENGLISH 27 
 
 " Faerie Queene" in 1595; he was laid to rest in West- 
 minster Abbey in 1599. Bacon published the first edi- 
 tion of his ' ' Essays ' ' in 1597. Shakespeare 's first play, 
 "Love's Labor's Lost," is placed at 1589-1590, and his 
 "Julius Caesar" at 1601. We might roughly assume the 
 year 1600 as the date of Bacon and Shakespeare. It is 
 fairly startling to perceive that within the short space of 
 a little more than three hundred years have appeared all 
 the most eminent English authors who have crystallized 
 great thoughts in immortal words. 
 
 "We are ancients of the earth, in the morning of the 
 times. ' ' 
 
 English literature has, indeed, passed the first flush 
 of youth, but it is in the very fulness of its early prime, 
 its brief record crowded with world-famous names. 
 
 It is remarkable that the English people, one of the 
 most practical of all peoples, so that they have been 
 called "a nation of shopkeepers" have found poetry a 
 favorite means of expression. Under the crust of the 
 military and the mercantile the fire of imagination has 
 ever been burning. Perhaps it is that very imaginative 
 power that has made them see the whole world at once as 
 the field for their achievement, so that they have been un- 
 able to rest until their ships have traversed every sea, 
 their soldiers and explorers crossed and their traders en- 
 tered every land. The first conspicuous expression of the 
 composite language after the Norman Conquest aside 
 from Wyclif's Bible was in the poems of Langland, 
 Gower, and Chaucer. From that point onward great poets 
 have been so numerous that we can only mention the 
 mere names of a few of the most conspicuous Spenser, 
 Shakespeare, Dryden, Milton, Pope, Cowper, Coleridge, 
 Southey, Wordsworth, Scott, Byron, Shelley, Gray, 
 Keats, Campbell, Moore, Tennyson, Goldsmith, Brown-
 
 28 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 ing; from the New World we may add Longfellow, 
 Bryant, Whittier, Lowell, Emerson, Holmes, and Poe. 
 
 The English language has been rich in oratory. Pitt, 
 Burke, Fox, Wilberforce, Brougham, Canning, Bright, 
 Cobden, Gladstone, Whitefield, Wesley, Spurgeon, in 
 England; and, in America, James Otis, Patrick Henry, 
 Webster, Clay, Everett, Beecher, Lincoln; these are 
 only a few of those whose eloquence has made them im- 
 mortal; while, besides these, a vast host have, by the 
 power of convincing and persuasive speech, influenced 
 the march of events throughout the history of the Eng- 
 lish-speaking peoples. It is characteristic of the prac- 
 tical temper of those peoples that they have allowed little 
 place to the mere splendor of fulsome and aimless ora- 
 tory. They have been too earnest to be long entertained. 
 As a rule the great English-speaking orators have spoken 
 for some direct practical result, and their winged words 
 have had effect in legislation, in movements of armies, 
 and in treaties of peace; or, when not so immediately 
 effective, have so molded public opinion that the policies 
 for which they pleaded have crystallized into govern- 
 mental action at some later day. In spite of Burke 's 
 tremendous speech of impeachment, Warren Hastings 
 was acquitted, but that speech so swayed the public 
 opinion of England as to compel a new and more 
 humane governmental administration in India, so that 
 the influence the orator then set in motion is still effec- 
 tive in the conduct of the British colonial administra- 
 tion and upon the welfare of millions in the dependen- 
 cies under the British flag. Webster's eloquence failed 
 of his primary intent, but succeeded beyond his thought. 
 It could not avert secession, but it did prevent disunion. 
 His stately and resonant periods, his cogent argument, 
 and fervid pleas for the Union were declaimed year after
 
 THE POWER OF ENGLISH 29 
 
 year by boys of the new generation in every schoolhouse 
 throughout the North, and after his death the boom of 
 cannon and the march of armies made real beyond de- 
 bate his great aspiration for "Liberty and Union, now 
 and forever, one and inseparable." English eloquence 
 has not been wont to explode in pyrotechnics, but to 
 crystallize into deeds. 
 
 The English language has proved itself competent in 
 law, where it has had the hard task of expressing a 
 new law, self -evolved. While the nations of continental 
 Europe for the most part derive their jurisprudence 
 from the ancient Civil Law of the Roman Empire, the 
 English Common Law is an independent system, which 
 grew up on English soil out of the needs and the sense 
 of justice of the English people, and has become the 
 basic law of most of the British Possessions, and of the 
 entire United States, with the exception of Louisiana. 
 The legal words were gathered where they could be 
 found, incorporating Latin and Norman French, but all 
 reshaped to English expression. You may go into a 
 great law library, and see the sheep-bound books rising 
 tier above tier, alcove within alcove; while many of 
 them are necessarily technical, the great masters, as 
 Blackstone, have written in language readily compre- 
 hensible by any educated reader of English, while the 
 chief decisions of the highest courts and judges are 
 commonly given in language of exceeding simplicity, and 
 are often fascinating studies, merely as examples of con- 
 densed expression, simple and clear, and at the same time 
 vigorous and imbued with substantial and commanding 
 strength. 
 
 English holds an eminent place as a language of 
 story-telling. From "Piers Plowman" and the "Trav- 
 els of Sir John Maundevile," in the fourteenth cen-
 
 30 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 tury through Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales ;" through 
 Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe" and Swift's "Gulliver's 
 Travels ; ' ' through the works of the great novelists, Jane 
 Austen, George Eliot, Charlotte Bronte, Scott, Dickens, 
 Thackeray, Hawthorne, Irving, and many another; 
 through the powerful histories of Clarendon, Robert- 
 son, Hume, Gibbon, Milman, Hallam, Carlyle, Macaulay, 
 Froude, Prescott, Motley, Parkman, Bancroft; through 
 a host of biographies led by Boswell's inimitable "Life 
 of Johnson ; ' ' through stories of travel, exploration and 
 adventure in every land and on every sea, English has 
 proved its facility and felicity in narrative; the charm 
 even of many of its finest poems being that of a story 
 exquisitely told. 
 
 English has developed the essay to wonderful power : 
 that limited expression, without the fulness of a treatise, 
 copious and yet free, where the writer says on one topic 
 the best he has to say then and there, free to expand 
 under rush of thought, free to stop whenever his present 
 information is exhausted or his immediate interest flags ; 
 then, at pleasure, to take up some wholly different topic 
 in the same off-hand way. The practical directness of 
 the English-speaking people has made this form of writ- 
 ing peculiarly attractive to them, and so successful have 
 English essayists been that one who should read only 
 essays, as of Bacon, Addison, Johnson, Macaulay, Car- 
 lyle, Matthew Arnold, Ruskin, Lamb, Tyndall, Huxley, 
 Emerson, Lowell, Fiske, and Stedman. would gain a 
 very wide view of history, biography, philosophy, relig- 
 ion, science, literature, and art, as well as of the move- 
 ment of thought of various epochs. It is true that his 
 view would be often fragmentary, and that he would 
 be looking through colored glasses, strongly tinted by the 
 individuality of the various writers; but everything
 
 THE POWER OP ENGLISH 31 
 
 would be vivid, while the essays themselves are litera- 
 ture, affording in themselves many noble examples of the 
 power and beauty of English style. For the drama, 
 it is necessary only to mention Shakespeare, great as a 
 poet, but supreme by the world's consent in dramatic 
 power. 
 
 English names are great in philosophy, science, and 
 invention: Bacon, pioneer of the inductive method; 
 Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Reid, Stewart, Mill. Hamilton, 
 Jonathan Edwards, strong thinkers on the mysteries of 
 the human mind and of the universe ; Darwin, who rev- 
 olutionized the conception of animate nature by his 
 theory of evolution ; Harvey, who discovered the circu- 
 lation of the blood ; the Herschels, who enabled thought 
 to traverse as never before the starry spaces; Newton, 
 discoverer of the law of gravitation; Watt, who made 
 available the mighty power of steam; Pulton, who wa., 
 one of the first to set the steam-engine afloat, and gave to 
 steam navigation that practical utility which has revolu- 
 tionized commerce on all the waters of the world ; Frank- 
 lin, who identified lightning with electricity, and put it 
 under man 's control ; Morse, who taught it to write from 
 afar in the telegraph ; Bell and Edison, who enabled it to 
 speak from afar in the telephone ; the Wright brothers, 
 making the navigation of the fields of air an accom- 
 plished fact ; these, and a multitude of others, have 
 proved English a language in which man can think to 
 purpose. This is no idle boast, for language conditions 
 and limits thought. When Rome wanted to appropriate 
 the philosophy of Greece, it often found that its martial 
 Latin tongue lacked the words adequate to express philo- 
 sophical thought. It was not until Cicero brought over 
 words from the Greek, coined new words in Latin, and 
 gave to other Latin words new significations, that phi-
 
 32 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 losophy could have a place among the Romans. Where 
 men have done great thinking, that is a sure evidence 
 that their language is one which enables them to originate 
 great thoughts, to hold in mind their own thoughts and 
 those of others, to turn them over, to compare them one 
 with another, and thus work out to clear results and 
 sound conclusions. English, originally a language of 
 farmers, fishermen, sailors, and warriors, has risen to 
 such capacity by natural development of its own inher- 
 ent power. We shall be told, doubtless, that Bacon and 
 Harvey wrote their scientific works in Latin, and that 
 hence such conclusion can not apply to them. The 
 answer is that they lived in English, the language in 
 which they conducted all the common intercourse of life, 
 and through which it may well be believed they thought 
 out to those conclusions which they wrote in Latin. 
 
 Turn where we will, we find the English language 
 a power in every department of human thought. We, 
 whose vernacular it is, may make its treasures all our 
 own by the mere ability to read and spell. We need 
 but open our eyes to see the beauty and splendor en- 
 shrined for us in the masterpieces of our mother-tongue. 
 
 The longest step toward the effective use of English is 
 to recognize its inherent power. For the estimate in 
 which we hold our language will largely determine our 
 efficiency in its use. If we are impressed with its worth 
 and utility, we shall seek command of its resources. The 
 boy or man who has an enthusiasm for baseball will learn 
 something about the game at least enough to understand 
 how other people ought to play it. The girl or woman 
 who religiously believes in the fine art of dressing well 
 will gain a magical skill in the choice and use of all the 
 various stuffs and adaptations, the niceties of color and 
 form that make a perfect toilet. One who believes in
 
 THE POWER OF ENGLISH 33 
 
 the worth of shorthand will work eagerly at its mystic 
 signs to make his hand keep pace with uttered thought. 
 Skill and proficiency in any pursuit come from some 
 adequate recognition of its power and value. 
 
 A successful sea-captain tells this story of himself. 
 When a young man, having been appointed second mate, 
 he was invited to take an observation beside his captain, 
 and congratulated himself on being only five or six 
 miles out of the way. Looking out upon the vast Atlan- 
 tic, he complacently remarked that he thought ' ' that was 
 doing pretty well;" to which the captain sternly an- 
 swered, "No, sir! You had a good instrument and a 
 clear day, and there is no excuse for your not being 
 right. You should have known exactly where your 
 ship was." If we lightly esteem the capacities of our 
 language, we may drift on through life in forlorn and 
 shabby utterance with the comfortable feeling that we 
 are "doing pretty well." But if we once recognize our 
 language as an instrument of precision by which one may 
 chart all the seas of thought, we shall become aware 
 that any failure to express ourselves well is due to some 
 fault of our own, which it should be our first business 
 to correct. We are too easily content to live in a corner 
 of our inheritance, unmindful of its past greatness and 
 possible glories: 
 
 "As in those domes where Caesars once bore sway, 
 Defaced by time and tottering in decay, 
 There in the ruin, heedless of the dead, 
 The shelter-seeking peasant builds his shed ; 
 And, wondering man could want the larger pile, 
 Exults, and owns his cottage with a smile." 
 
 We struggle with poverty in the presence of abun- 
 dance. With such riches available, many persons scrape 
 up English enough to serve as a medium of communi-
 
 34 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 cation by which to buy groceries or dry-goods or real 
 estate or stocks, run railroads or factories, or talk party 
 politics or the small chat of the sidewalk, the street-car, 
 or the evening company, and neither hope for nor imag- 
 ine anything more or better. Our vigorous commercial- 
 ism tends to degrade language, to destroy literature. 
 There is no imagination in a ledger, no poetry in a bank 
 account, no beauty or sublimity in an invoice, no rhythm 
 and melody in a deed. We are in danger of a language 
 of commodities rather than of emotions or ideals. Every- 
 thing that does not relate to some immediate demand of 
 common life is branded "academic," or in our slang 
 as ' ' high-brow. ' ' The language reacts upon the thought, 
 and all the higher things of mind and soul are bidden 
 to "clear the track," "get off the wire." If we care 
 only to satisfy mere material wants, we invite the doom 
 of the serpent, "On thy belly shalt thou go, and dust 
 shalt thou eat all the days of thy life." We may pur- 
 chase financial dominion by atrophy of all the noblest 
 powers of the soul. 
 
 A recent critic of our educational methods actually 
 complains of a teacher who set a class of high-school girls 
 to reading one of Jane Austen's novels and some essays 
 from Addison's "Spectator" "useless lumber of the 
 past" "when they might have read the latest maga- 
 zines!" Why worry, forsooth, about any century past, 
 when we have power to disport ourselves to the imme- 
 diate present, as the insects of a day, the Mayflies of 
 huflianity ? 
 
 But we may rest assured that is not a good advance 
 that would break with all the past, fling the glorious 
 centuries behind us, until little we rejoice in our petty 
 supremacy, not needing converse with the heroes and 
 Sages who have built up the very ground we stand on.
 
 THE POWER OF ENGLISH 35 
 
 Then we are proud of being "up-to-date," like an artist 
 who should determine to look at no picture nor statue 
 that was made before the year 1900 ! 
 
 Against this spirit we would set the clear and relent- 
 less logic of Edward Everett in his Bunker Hill oration 
 (in 1833) : 
 
 "I am asked, What good will the monument do? And I 
 ask, what good does anything do? What is good? Does 
 anything do any good? . . . does a railroad or canal do 
 good? Answer, yes. And how? It facilitates intercourse, 
 opens markets, and increases the wealth of the country. But 
 what is this good for? Why, individuals prosper and get 
 rich. And what good does that do ? Is mere wealth as an 
 ultimate end, gold and silver, without an inquiry as to their 
 use, are these a good? Certainly not. I should insult this 
 audience by attempting to prove that a rich man, as such, 
 is neither better nor happier than a poor one. But, as men 
 grow rich, they live better. Is there any good in this, stop- 
 ping here ? Is mere animal life feeding, working and sleep- 
 ing like an ox entitled to be called good? Certainly not. 
 But these improvements increase the population. And what 
 good does that do? Where is the good in counting twelve 
 millions, instead of six, of mere working, feeding, sleeping 
 animals? There is, then, no good in the mere animal life, 
 except that it is the basis of that higher moral existence 
 which resides in the soul, the mind, the conscience; in good 
 feelings, good principles, and the good actions (and the more 
 disinterested, the more entitled to be called good) which flow 
 from them. K^ow, sir, I say that generous and patriotic sen- 
 timents, sentiments which prepare us to serve our country, 
 to live for our country, to die for our country feelings like 
 those which carried Prescott and Warren and Putnam to the 
 battle-field are good, humanly speaking, of the highest or- 
 der. It is good to have them, good to encourage them, good to 
 commemorate them; and whatever tends to animate and 
 strengthen such feelings does as much right down practical 
 good as filling up low grounds and building railroads. This 
 is my demonstration."
 
 36 
 
 In the crash of the Civil "War which was "practical" 
 if ever anything was we needed soldiers, dollars, guns ; 
 but we needed, even more, ideals and enthusiasm to 
 strike a soul through them all. Then the gray memorial 
 shaft on hard-fought Bunker Hill became the inspiration 
 for Gettysburg; and in the stern four years of conflict 
 Julia Ward Howe's "Battle Hymn of the Republic," 
 "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the 
 Lord," was worth to the Union cause more than a rein- 
 forcement of a hundred thousand men; in fact, it was 
 sung by host after host, as they came marching in, again 
 and again, "three hundred thousand more." 
 
 We shall need the thrill of grand ideals and enthu- 
 siasms still for the different struggles and conflicts of 
 the present and the coming time. We shall need the 
 power of all the good that has come to us from days 
 gone by, to make our day helpful and memorable to 
 those who shall follow us, when our present shall have 
 become their past. For this we must have words of 
 power in which great thoughts may be expressed; for 
 principles and aspirations, unless uttered in words or 
 presented in word-pictures before the mind, are never 
 effective, and do not long subsist. If we fail of what is 
 worthiest in our native speech, we shall in the same de- 
 gree limit the expansion and exaltation of our own 
 mind and soul. Such power like all else that is worth 
 the winning can be won only by those willing to pay 
 the price. In the words of that accomplished scholar 
 of the nineteenth century, George P. Marsh : * 
 
 "English is not a language which teaches itself by mere 
 unreflecting usage. It can be mastered in all its wealth, in 
 all its power, only by conscious, persistent labor." 
 
 "Lectures on the English Language," lect. i.
 
 THE POWER OF ENGLISH 37 
 
 We must know the scope and resources of the lan- 
 guage, its rules of construction, its elements of various 
 power, effective now for one result, and again for a 
 widely different purpose ; we must know its masterpieces, 
 and those not of any single period, for no one age can 
 produce a literature. While gathering the riches of the 
 present, we must be covetous of the ampler treasures of 
 the storied past. To put ourselves back in time, to let 
 ourselves go, and mentally reproduce the conditions and 
 thoughts of the men of other days, develops the imagina- 
 tion, broadens the range of thought, and makes the very 
 words of our language rich with the content of cen- 
 turies. 
 
 Glance backward to the Elizabethan period, and note 
 a soldier's portrayal of a peaceful rural scene. Every- 
 body has heard of Sir Philip Sidney and his " Arcadia," 
 but how many have ever read a line of it? Study the 
 following extract, and its beauty will grow upon you. 
 
 "The third day after, in the time that the morning did 
 strow roses and violets in the heavenly floore against the 
 comming of the sunne, the nightingales (striving one with 
 the other which could in most daintie varietie recount their 
 wrong-caused sorrow), made them put off their sleep; and, 
 rising from under a tree, which that night had bin their 
 pavilion, they went on their journey, which by-and-by wel- 
 comed Musidorus' eies, wearied with the wasted soile of 
 Laconia, with delightfull prospects. There were hills which 
 garnished their proud heights with stately trees; humble 
 vallies whose base estate seemed comforted with the refresh- 
 ing of silver rivers ; medowes enamelled with all sorts of eye- 
 pleasing flowers ; thickets which, being lined with most pleas- 
 ant shade, were witnessed so to by the cheerfull disposition of 
 many well-tuned birds; each pasture stored with sheep, feed- 
 ing with sober securitie, while the prettie lambes, with bleat- 
 ing oratorie, craved the dammes comfort; here a shepheard's 
 boy piping as though he should never be old; there a young 
 shepheardesse knitting, and withall singing: and it seemed
 
 38 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 that her voice comforted her hands to worke, and her hands 
 kept time to her voice musick. As for the houses of the 
 countrey, for many houses came under their eye, they were all 
 scattered, no two being one by the other, and yet not so farre 
 off that it barred mutual succor; a show, as it were, of an. 
 accompanable solitarinesse, and of a civil wildenesse. . . . 
 
 "But this countrey where now you set your foot is Arcadia. 
 . . . This countrey being thus decked with peace, and the 
 child of peace, good husbandry, these houses you see so scat- 
 tered are of men, as we two are, that live upon the com- 
 modi-tie of their sheepe, and therefore, in the division of the 
 Arcadian estate, are termed shepheards; a happy people 
 wanting (lacking) little, because they desire not much." 
 
 The "Arcadia" was written in 1580 and published in 
 1590 ; yet we can read it freely to-day, merely remarking 
 some oddities of* spelling, and a certain quaintness of 
 language which only adds to its charm, as in that thor- 
 oughly English ideal of country life, with, homes entirely 
 separate and independent, "no two being one by the 
 other," yet not too far removed, producing the effect 
 of "an accompanable (companionable) solitude and a 
 civil wildenesse (wildness)." 
 
 From the same period let us choose from Spenser's 
 ' ' Faerie Queene, ' ' a poetic description of a scene of idyl- 
 lic peace, where the music of the verse even enhances 
 the beauty of the scene, which it brings, as in a fair 
 picture, before our very sight: 
 
 "A little lowly hermitage it was 
 Down in a dale, hard by a forest's side, 
 Far from resort of people that did pass 
 In travel to and fro ; a little wide 
 There wag a holy chappel edifide.* 
 Wherein the Holy hermit duly wont to say 
 His holy things each morn and eventide; 
 Thereby a chrystal stream did gently play, 
 Which from a sacred fountain welled forth alway." 
 
 * Built.
 
 THE POWER OF ENGLISH 39 
 
 That is our own English very slightly changed. The 
 Elizabeth era seems not so very far away. Of that 
 era, the greatest author can be represented by no selec- 
 tion; for, as has already been said, Shakespeare's limit- 
 less versatility gives every range of style, the solemn, 
 dignified speech of princes and prelates, statesmen and 
 generals, in triumph and in disaster, the talk of rustics 
 and workingmen and common soldiers, of queens, of 
 courtly ladies, of tradesmen's wives, of housemaids and 
 milkmaids. We can not cull out any single utterance, 
 and say, "This is Shakespeare." But as an example of 
 his higher range of thought and utterance, we may 
 choose the Soliloquy of the Sleepless King: 
 
 "How many thousand of my poorest subjects 
 Are at this hour asleep ! O sleep, O gentle sleep, 
 Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee, 
 That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down, 
 And steep my senses in f orgetf ulness ? 
 Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs, 
 Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee, 
 And husht with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber, 
 Than in the perfumed chambers of the great, 
 Under the canopies of costly state, 
 And lull'd with sounds of sweetest melody ? 
 
 Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast 
 
 Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains 
 
 In cradle of the rude, imperious surge; 
 
 And in the visitation of the winds 
 
 Who take the ruffian billows by the top, 
 
 Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging then 
 
 With deaf'ning clamors in the slippery clouds, 
 
 That with tbe burly, death itself awakes? 
 
 Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose 
 
 To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude, 
 
 And in the calmest and most stillest night, 
 
 With all appliances and means to boot,
 
 40 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 Deny it to a king? Then, happy low, lie down, 
 Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown " * 
 
 That, in its mingled dignity and simplicity, is not 
 far remote from the speech of to-day, except for here 
 and there a word. 
 
 For an even simpler style, and more purely Anglo- 
 Saxon, we may pass over a century to Bunyan 's "Pil- 
 grim's Progress," finished in 1676. Bunyan seems to 
 us old. We can scarcely persuade ourselves that he 
 lived so late as in the reign of Charles II. He was in 
 the Restoration, but not of it. He had come over from 
 the Cromwellian era, full of Puritan thought and speech. 
 Never connected with the court, never favored by princes, 
 by the wealthy or the great, he kept the language of 
 the common people, as it had survived through lapse 
 of time and changes of dynasty. In him we see how 
 good a speech the "plain people" of England had main- 
 tained, however scholarly fashions might change. In 
 the words of Macaulay: 
 
 "The style of Bunyan is delightful to every reader and in- 
 valuable as a study to every person who wishes to obtain 
 a wide command over the English language. The vocabulary 
 is the vocabulary of the common people. There is not an 
 expression if we except a few technical terms of theology 
 which would puzzle the rudest peasant. We have observed 
 several pages which do not contain a single word of more 
 than two syllables. Yet no writer has said more exactly 
 what he meant to say. For magnificence, for pathos, for 
 vehement exhortation, for subtle disquisition, for every pur- 
 pose of the poet, the orator, and the divine, this homely 
 dialect, the dialect of plain workingmen, was perfectly suf- 
 ficient." f 
 
 In another place Macaulay said that no man ever had 
 
 > "K. Henry IV," Part II, Act III, Sc. 1. 
 } Essay, "On Southey's Edition of the Pilgrim's Progress."
 
 THE POWER OF ENGLISH 41 
 
 to read a sentence of Bunyan's twice, in order to know 
 what it meant. 
 
 Let us quete only his description of the scene after 
 the pilgrims passed the dark river and came up to the 
 gate of the Celestial City. 
 
 "Now I saw in my dream that those two men went in at 
 the gate, and, lo 1 as they entered, they were transfigured, and 
 had raiment put on them that shone like gold. There were 
 also that met them with harps and crowns, and gave to them, 
 the harps to praise withal, and the crowns in token of honor. 
 Then I heard in my dream that all the bells in the city rang 
 again for joy, and it was said unto them, 'Enter ye into the 
 joy of your Lord.' 
 
 "Now, just as the gates were opened to let in the men, I 
 looked in after them, and, behold, the city shone like the 
 sun, and the streets also were paved with gold, and in them 
 walked many men with crowns on their heads, palms in their 
 hands, and golden harps to sing praises withal. There were 
 also of them that had wings, and they answered one an- 
 other without intermission, saying, 'Holy, holy, holy, is the 
 Lord.' 
 
 "And after that they shut up the gates; which, when I 
 had seen, I wished myself among them." 
 
 Of the same period as Bunyan, and also a survivor 
 of the Puritan day, in which he had been Latin Secre- 
 tary of the State Council under Oliver Cromwell, but, un- 
 like Bunyan, endowed with all that the best private and 
 university education, enriched by foreign travel, could 
 give, John Milton stands forth as representative of the 
 older English, joined with all that was worthiest in 
 .the culture of the newer time. Of his verse, let us 
 consider two noble sonnets, of which most persons know 
 only one or two ever-quoted lines. To gain the realistic 
 touch, to realize what the privation of his blindness 
 meant to the living man in daily life, and to feel the 
 sustained sublimity of high motive pervading that life,
 
 42 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 one needs to read and to ponder all the words as 
 written out of that grand mind and heart: 
 
 To CYRIACK SKANNER, 1655. 
 
 "Cyriack, this three years' day these eyes, though clear 
 
 To outward view, of blemish or of spot, 
 
 Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot; 
 
 Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear 
 Of sun or moon or star throughout the year, 
 
 Or man or woman. Yet I argue not 
 
 Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot 
 
 Of heart or hope, but still bear up and steer 
 Kight onward. What supports me, dost thou ask ? 
 
 The conscience, friend, to have lost them overplied 
 
 In Liberty's defence, my noble task, 
 Of which all Europe rings from side to side. 
 
 This thought might lead me through the world's vain 
 mask 
 
 Content, though blind, had I no better guide." 
 
 ON His BLINDNESS, 1655. 
 
 "When I consider how my light is spent 
 
 Ere half my days in this dark world and wide, 
 And that one talent which is death to hide 
 Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent 
 
 To serve therewith my Maker and present 
 My true account, lest he returning chide, 
 "Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?" 
 I fondly * ask. But Patience, to prevent 
 
 That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need 
 
 Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best 
 Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state 
 
 Is kingly, Thousands at his bidding speed, 
 
 And post o'er land and ocean without rest; 
 They also serve who only stand and wait." 
 
 All know Milton's greatness as a poet, but few are 
 aware of the power of his strenuous prose. So much 
 
 * In the old sense of "weakly" or "foolishly."
 
 THE POWER OF ENGLISH 43 
 
 of it deals with controversies which had gone before our 
 day, and were often so bitter even for that stormy time, 
 that we often fail to find the strong and even beautiful 
 utterances hidden in his rugged tracts. Let us quote 
 but one paragraph: 
 
 OP TRUTH 
 
 "And though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to 
 play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuri- 
 ously by licensing and prohibiting to misdoubt her strength. 
 Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth to be 
 put to the worse in a fair and open encounter? . . . For 
 who knows not that Truth is strong, next to the Almighty; 
 she needs no policies, nor stratagems, nor licensings to make 
 her victorious; those are the shifts and the defences that 
 error uses against her power." 
 
 Of all Dryden's poetry nothing surpasses in vigor 
 the lines which he wrote in his young manhood in 
 his "Heroic Stanzas to the Memory of Oliver Crom- 
 well." 
 
 Having said of him, 
 
 "His ashes in a peaceful urn shall rest, 
 
 His name a great example stand to show, 
 How strangely high endeavor may be blest, 
 Where piety and valor jointly go," 
 
 he summarizes his conquering career in the four swift 
 lines : 
 
 "Swift and resistless through the land he passed, 
 Like that bold Greek who did the East subdue, 
 And made to battles such heroic haste, 
 As if on wings of victory he flew." 
 
 Let us next turn to a style lighter and more varied, 
 and take up Addison 's incomparable ' ' Spectator. ' ' We 
 may consider the paper, number 231, from the third vol- 
 ume, the very volume which, as Franklin relates, so in-
 
 44 I EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 terested him in his boyhood, an essay on true and false 
 modesty. The essay is introduced by a letter, which, 
 of course, is written by Addison himself as follows : 
 
 "Mr. Spectator: You, who are no stranger to public as- 
 semblies, can not but have observed the awe they often strike 
 on such as are obliged to exert any talent before them. This 
 is a sort of elegant distress to which ingenuous minds are 
 the most liable. . . . Many a brave fellow, who has put 
 his enemies to flight in the field, has been in the utmost 
 disorder upon making a speech before a body of his friends 
 at home. (Observe the fine antithesis between 'enemies' and 
 'friends,' 'field' and 'home'.) One would think there was some 
 kind of fascination in the eyes of a large circle of people 
 when darting all together upon one person. I have seen a 
 new actor in a tragedy so bound up by it, as to be scarce able 
 to speak or move. ... It would not be amiss if such 
 an one were at first introduced as a ghost or a statue, until 
 he recovered his spirits and grew fit for some living part." 
 
 To this the "Spectator" replies: 
 
 "A just and reasonable modesty does not only recommend 
 eloquence, but sets off every great talent which a man can 
 be possessed of. It heightens all the virtues which it ac- 
 companies ; like shades in painting it raises and rounds every 
 figure, and makes the colors more beautiful, though not so 
 glaring as they would be without. . . . 
 
 "There is another kind of vicious modesty, which makes a 
 man ashamed of his person, his birth, his profession, his 
 poverty, and the like misfortunes, which it was not in his 
 choice to prevent, and is not in his power to rectify. If a 
 man appears ridiculous by any of the aforementioned cir- 
 cumstances, he becomes much more so by being out of coun- 
 tenance for them. They should rather give him occasion to 
 exert a noble spirit, and to palliate those imperfections which 
 are not in his power by those perfections which are; or, 
 to use a very witty allusion of an eminent author, he should 
 be like Caesar, who, because his head was bald, covered that 
 defect with laurels."
 
 THE POWER OF ENGLISH 45 
 
 It is vain to attempt a critical analysis of Addison. 
 Many critics have tried it, and all have been foiled by 
 a something in the style that is beyond them. At first 
 glance every sentence and paragraph seems so easy that 
 you feel that any one might write like that, until you 
 try. The style has power without the trappings or 
 parade of power. The reality of that power is best seen, 
 and its greatness best measured by its effects. Its seem- 
 ing lightness and ease produced results at which we 
 wonder still, changing the thought of all England, and 
 deluding a corrupt society into the admiration of virtue. 
 It is best to read Addison as we breathe mountain air, 
 drawing in a stimulus, strength, and vigor which we 
 can not wholly explain. 
 
 Dr. Samuel Johnson's work may be taken as repre- 
 sentative of the Latinized style. Johnson has often been 
 criticised for using that element to excess, and filling 
 his pages with -ations and -osities. But you will find 
 in his writings much that is at once strong, refined, 
 and beautiful. Note the celebrated introduction to his 
 "History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia," a story 
 which, by the way, was written in the evenings of one 
 week, in order to pay the expenses of his mother's fu- 
 neral. What command of the stores of choice English 
 diction a man must have had to write page after page 
 like this at that rushing speed. 
 
 "Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy and 
 pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope, who expect that 
 age will perform the promises of youth, and that the defi- 
 ciencies of the present will be supplied by the morrow, attend 
 to the history of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia." 
 
 Then let us consider his description of the Happy 
 Valley, which was the princes ' retreat :
 
 46 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 "The place which the wisdom or policy of antiquity had 
 destined for the residence of the Abyssinian princes was a 
 spacious valley in the kingdom of Ambara, surrounded on 
 every side by mountains, of which the summits overhung the 
 middle part. The only passage by which it could be entered 
 was a cavern that passed under a rock, of which it has long 
 been disputed whether it was the work of nature or of 
 human industry. The outlet of the cavern was concealed by 
 a thick wood; and the mouth which opened into the valley 
 was closed with gates of iron forged by the artificers of 
 ancient days, so massy that no man could, without the help 
 of engines, open or shut them. The valley, wide and fruit- 
 ful, supplied its inhabitants with the necessities of life, and 
 all delicacies and superfluities were added at the annual visit 
 which the emperor paid his children, when the iron gates 
 were opened to the sound of music, and during eight days 
 every one that resided in the valley was requested to propose 
 whatever might contribute to make seclusion pleasant, to fill 
 up the vacancies of attention, and lessen the tediousness of 
 time. Every desire was immediately granted. All the ar- 
 tificers of pleasure were called to gladden the festival, the 
 musicians exerted the power of harmony, and the dancers 
 showed their activity before the princes, in the hope they 
 should pass their lives in this blissful captivity, to which 
 those only were admitted whose performance was thought 
 able to add novelty to luxury. Such was the appearance of 
 security and delight which this retirement afforded, that 
 they to whom it was new always desired that it might be 
 perpetual; and as those on whom the iron gate had once 
 closed were never suffered to return, the effect of long ex- 
 perience could not be known. Thus every year produced 
 new schemes of delight, and new competitors for imprison- 
 ment." 
 
 To show the wide variety of which our language is 
 capable and its power of sudden adaptation to the most 
 diverse and contrasted scenes and activities, it is worth 
 while to read with somewhat critical care the opening 
 stanzas of Scott's "Lady of the Lake":
 
 THE POWER OF ENGLISH 47 
 
 "The stag at eve had drunk his fill, 
 Where danced the moon on Monan's rill, 
 And deep his midnight lair had made 
 In lone Glenartney's hazel shade." 
 
 At first, how calm the scene! The stag "had drunk 
 his fill" in the silence, because there came no sight nor 
 sound, no odor on the evening breeze, to alarm his quick, 
 watchful sense. We see the dimly lighted glen and the 
 gentle flow of the stream that made the moonbeams 
 "dance" on the rippling waves. Then we observe the 
 wary watcher seeking his restful couch "deep in the 
 hazel shade," and the still night glides by. Sharply 
 conies the transition to earliest dawn. Before the light 
 had flooded the earth, while it is touching only the 
 mountain-tops, the rising sun, hidden by the mountain, 
 sending up its first rays to light as with a ' ' red beacon ' ' 
 the highest peak, disturbance comes. 
 
 "But, when the sun his beacon red 
 Had kindled on Benvoirlich's head, 
 The deep-mouth'd bloodhound's heavy bay 
 Kesounded up the rocky way, 
 And faint, from farther distance borne, 
 Were heard the clanging hoof and horn." 
 
 The verse and the very words fit the changing scene. 
 The broad, open vowels the "deep-mouthed blood- 
 hound's" "bay" "resounded" boom with the rude 
 intrusion "up the rocky way." Then, suddenly, the 
 words accelerate: 
 
 "As chief / who hears / his ward / er call:" 
 
 while the next broken line, 
 
 "To arms! the foe / men storm / the wall"
 
 48 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 rings with the sharp alarm. At once, then, 
 
 "The antler'd monarch of the waste 
 Sprung from his heathery coueh in haste. 
 But, ere his fleet career he took, 
 The dewdrops from his flanks he shook ; 
 Like crested leader proud and high, 
 Toss'd his beam'd frontlet to the sky; 
 A moment gazed adown the dale, 
 A moment snuff'd the tainted gale, 
 A moment listen'd to the cry, 
 That thicken'd as the chase drew nigh." 
 
 The "crested leader" proves himself "monarch of the 
 waste," calmly pausing to shake "the dewdrops from, 
 his flanks" and to take the measure of his foes, as withi 
 lifted head he "gazed adown the dale." 
 
 "Then, as the headmost foes appear'd, 
 With one brave bound the copse he cleared, 
 And, stretching forward free and far, 
 Sought the wild heaths of TJam-Var." 
 
 There is the sudden bound across the barrier. Then 
 the alliterative verse, 
 
 "And stretch / ing for / ward free / and far," 
 
 pictures the swift, sustained run of the hunted stag in 
 the pride of his morning strength. 
 
 Again a change! The "view" is a special hunting 
 term. It denotes a moment of tremendous excitement. 
 When the game that has been wearily tracked appears 
 suddenly in "view" in plain sight before the pur- 
 suers' eyes, the deep "bay" of the tracing hounds breaks 
 instantly into wild, sharp cries. The verse changes 
 accordingly. The verb comes first, and a verb of wild 
 outcry: 
 
 'TELL'D on the view the opening pack; 
 Rock, glen, and cavern paid them back."
 
 THE POWER OF ENGLISH 49 
 
 Then the hard, jagged sounds, in "rock, glen, paid, 
 back," represent the harsh confusion, intensified soon. 
 
 "To many a mingled sound at once 
 The awaken'd mountain gave response. 
 A hundred dogs bay'd deep and strong, 
 Clatter'd a hundred steeds along, 
 Their peal the merry horns rung out, 
 A hundred voices join'd the shout; 
 With hark and whoop and wild halloo, 
 No rest Benvoirlich's echoes knew." 
 
 The varying elements that make up the riot of the hunt 
 in full cry are crowded swiftly together. 
 
 "Far from the tumult fled the roe, 
 Close in her covert cower'd the doe." 
 
 The wild creatures of the waste fly or crouch before the 
 dread invasion. 
 
 "The falcon, from her cairn on high, 
 Cast on the rout a wondering eye, 
 Till far beyond her piercing ken, 
 The hurricane had swept the glen." 
 
 All the human riot is minimized among nature's vast 
 solitudes. But how tell the story of the receding tumult ? 
 How restore the scene to nature's calm again? Four 
 lines suffice: 
 
 "Faint, and more faint, its failing din 
 Returned from cavern, cliff, and linn, 
 And silence settled, wide and still, 
 On the lone wood and mighty hill." 
 
 The whole story is told in forty-six lines ! The reader 
 seems to be swept from the peaceful evening through
 
 50 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 the rushing onset with the hunters at dawn ; then to be 
 made to pause while nature reasserts her reign amid 
 "silence wide and still." 
 
 Now study Ruskin's sumptuous and splendid descrip- 
 tion of an Alpine sunrise. One who has not traveled 
 among vast mountain ranges will probably think the 
 picture overdrawn, but those who have had such ex- 
 perience will be aware that all is but the struggling 
 effort of language to set forth a glory that is beyond 
 expression. 
 
 "And then wait yet for one hour, until the East again 
 becomes purple, and the heaving mountains, rolling against 
 it in darkness like waves of a wild sea, are drowned one by 
 one in the glory of its burnings; watch the white glaciers 
 blaze in their winding paths about the mountains, like mighty 
 serpents with scales of fire; watch the columnar peaks of 
 solitary snow kindling downwards, chasm by chasm, each 
 in itself a new morning; their long avalanches cast down in 
 keen streams brighter than the lightning, sending each his 
 tribute of driven snow like altar-smoke up to heaven; the 
 rose-light of their silent domes flashing that heaven about 
 them and above them, piercing with purer beams through its 
 purple lines of lifted cloud, casting a new glory on every 
 wreath as it passes by, until the whole heaven one scarlet 
 canopy is interwoven with a roof of waving flame and burn- 
 ing vault beyond vault, as with the drifted wings of many 
 companies of angels; and then, when you can look no more 
 for gladness, and when you are bowed down with fear and 
 love for the Maker and Doer of all this, tell me who has 
 best delivered his message unto men." 
 
 How much of the majesty of nature human words 
 here have told ! Contrast with the ' ' brightening east ' ' the 
 "heaving mountains rolling against it in darkness like 
 waves of a wild sea"; the optical illusion pictured, as 
 the mind gives to the giant forms in the changing 
 light the suggestion, not of mere inert masses, but of
 
 THE POWER OF ENGLISH 51 
 
 vast active agencies, apparently shouldering each other 
 through mist and shadow, as they seem to crowd toward 
 some far center, that one word "rolling" tells the 
 story "rolling against it like waves of a wild sea." 
 Mark how "the white glaciers blaze" in their winding 
 paths about the mountains; change but the one word 
 "blaze" to "gleam" and see how at once you have 
 dimmed the scene. Note the "driven snow," perhaps 
 the whitest thing in the visible creation, white with 
 an inner, living light rising "like altar-smoke up to 
 heaven;" change that "altar-smoke" to "the smoke of 
 altars," and observe how you have impeded the ex- 
 pression, how heavy it becomes. Catch the vision of 
 "the purple lines of lifted cloud"; you know how the 
 mists of the valleys rise, "lifted" by the beams of the 
 morning sun into low-floating clouds, while the same 
 sun sheds ' ' a new glory on every wreath, as it passes by. ' ' 
 Then you begin to perceive how much is in the magic 
 of words, and how rich the language must be that can 
 supply the master with store of words fitted to tell the 
 glory of that wondrous scene. 
 
 It will not often be possible in our brief space thus 
 to analyze selections, but these notes on the passages 
 thus far cited will indicate how the work may be done, 
 and each reader may follow out the method for him- 
 self without any great critical apparatus. Simply try 
 from point to point, in any selection that interests you, 
 to substitute other words; see if they produce the same 
 effect, and, if not, wherein they fail. Sometimes get 
 the thought of the passage into your mind, and then 
 rewrite as best you can, without looking at the book. 
 Unless you have memorized the words, you will be sure 
 to find that you have made many changes. Wherever 
 your expression is inferior to your author's, study to
 
 52 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 know the reason why; and as you find out why your 
 words are less desirable, you will by that very act per- 
 ceive why his are more effective. Skill in such judg- 
 ment will grow upon you, will increase your enjoyment 
 of reading, and will react upon your own spoken or 
 written style. 
 
 Pass now from sunset to night, and from prose to 
 poetry again, with the following on a winter's night 
 from Shelley's "Queen Mab": 
 
 "How beautiful this night! The balmiest sigh 
 Which vernal zephyrs breathe in evening's ear 
 Were discord to the speaking quietude 
 That wraps this moveless scene. Heaven's ebon vault, 
 Studded with stars unutterably bright, 
 Through which the moon's unclouded grandeur rolls, 
 Seems like a canopy which love has spread 
 To curtain her sleeping world. Yon gentle hills 
 Robed in a garment of untrodden snow; 
 Yon darksome rocks whence icicles depend, 
 So stainless that their white and glittering spires 
 Tinge not the moon's pure beam; yon castled steep, 
 Whose banner hangeth o'er the time-worn tower 
 So idly, that rapt fancy deemeth it 
 A metaphor of peace; all form a scene 
 Where musing solitude might love to lift 
 Her soul above this sphere of earthliness; 
 Where silence undisturbed might watch alone, 
 So cold, so bright, so still!" 
 
 That can be read again and again, and at every reading 
 its beauty grows upon you. The study walls seem 
 silently to move away, and we are out under the open 
 sky in the still, perfect night. Change the scene again, 
 combine night with storm, and observe how the lan- 
 guage responds to the sterner harmonies of nature in 
 Byron's account of an Alpine thunder-storm, in "Childe 
 Harold":
 
 THE POWER OF ENGLISH 53 
 
 "The sky is changed ! and such a change ! Oh night 
 And storm and darkness, ye are wondrous strong, 
 
 Yet lovely in your strength 
 
 Far along 
 
 From peak to peak, the rattling crags among, 
 Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud, 
 But every mountain now hath found a tongue, 
 And Jura answers through her misty shroud, 
 Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud." 
 
 Observe the power of that succession of simple words, 
 " night and storm and darkness." They alone set forth 
 the scene, needing no adjective, and almost telling the 
 story without a verb. The "Far along" pictures the 
 swift, long line of the lightning flash. The shivering effect 
 of the thunder-burst is heard in the phrase, ' ' the rattling 
 crags." The clouds have become the "misty shroud" 
 of the mighty Jura range, yet through the veil she 
 answers "the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud." It 
 needed but a poet to see and hear, and the power of 
 the language was ready with instant response to bring 
 to the soul of every one who can but read the sight 
 and sound of the mighty movement of nature. 
 
 Turning again to prose, note with what thrilling 
 realism one of England's great novelists in "David 
 Copperfield" has described an ocean scene on England's 
 storm-beaten shore: 
 
 "When we came in sight of the sea, the waves on the 
 horizon, caught at intervals above the rolling abyss, were 
 like glimpses of another shore with towers and build- 
 ings. . . . 
 
 "The tremendous sea itself, when I could find sufficient 
 pause to look at it, in the agitation of the blinding wind, the 
 flying stones and sand, and the awful noise, confounded me. 
 As the high watery walls came rolling in, and at their highest 
 tumbled into surf, they looked as if the least would engulf 
 the town. As the receding wave swept back with a hoarse
 
 54 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 roar, it seemed to scoop out deep caves in the beach, as if 
 its purpose were to undermine the earth. When some white- 
 headed billows thundered on, and dashed themselves to pieces 
 before they reached the land, every fragment of the late 
 whole seemed possessed by the full might of its wrath, rush- 
 ing to be gathered to the company of another monster. Un- 
 dulating hills were changed to valleys; undulating valleys 
 (sometimes with a solitary storm-bird skimming through 
 them) were lifted up to hills; masses of water shivered and 
 shook the beach with a booming sound ; every shape tumultu- 
 ously rolled on, as soon as made, to change its shape and 
 place, and beat another shape and place away; the ideal shore 
 on the horizon, with its towers and buildings, rose and fell; 
 the clouds flew fast and thick; I seemed to see a rending and 
 upheaval of all nature." 
 
 Would you have a battle-song? Take Campbell's his- 
 toric lay: 
 
 "Ye mariners of England 
 That guard our native seas, 
 Whose flag has braved a thousand years 
 The battle and the breeze ! 
 Your glorious standard launch again 
 To match another foe! 
 And sweep through the deep, 
 While the stormy winds do blow; 
 While the battle rages loud and long, 
 And the stormy winds do blow." 
 
 "The meteor flag of England 
 Shall yet terrific burn, 
 Till danger's troubled night depart, 
 And the star of peace return. 
 Then, then, ye ocean warriors, 
 Our song and feast shall flow 
 To the fame of your name, 
 When the storm has ceased to blow; 
 When the fiery fight is heard no more, 
 And the storm has ceased to blow."
 
 THE POWER OF ENGLISH 55 
 
 The very swell of ocean and sweep of wind are in 
 the lines. American hearts answer to their music, for 
 we, too, love the ocean ; and, though in defense of other 
 seas and other shores, we, too, know how to "brave the 
 battle and the breeze." 
 
 Now read two stanzas bringing the splendid move- 
 ment and excitement of the battle into touching contrast 
 with nature's quiet beauty, from Byron's stanzas on 
 " Waterloo'': 
 
 "And there was mounting in hot haste; the steed, 
 The mustering squadron, and the clattering car, 
 Went pouring forward with impetuous speed, 
 And swiftly forming in the ranks of war; 
 And the deep thunder peal on peal afar, 
 And, near, the beat of the alarming drum 
 Roused np the soldier ere the morning star; 
 While throng'd the citizens with terror dumb, 
 Or whispering, with white lips 'The foe! They cornel 
 They come!' 
 
 "And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves, 
 Dewy with Nature's tear-drops, as they pass, 
 Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves, 
 Over the unreturning brave alas ! 
 Ere evening to be trodden like the grass, 
 Which now beneath them, but above shall grow 
 In its next verdure, when this fiery mass 
 Of living valor, rolling on the foe, 
 And burning with high hope, shall molder cold and low." 
 
 Taking t*hese two stanzas by themselves, one can scarcely 
 read them without tears. How the splendor of the 
 charge melts into the moan for the slaughter of heroes : 
 "the unreturning brave!" Is there lack of martial 
 energy, stir, and fire, or of tender pathos in English 
 speech ?
 
 56 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 Coming closer to our own time, read in "The Prin- 
 cess" Tennyson's echo song: 
 
 "The splendor falls on castle walls 
 
 And snowy summits old in story: 
 The long light shakes across the lakes 
 
 And the wild cataract leaps in glory. 
 Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, 
 Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying." 
 
 The whole scene is pervaded by the sunset "splen- 
 dor," giving to "castle walls" and "snowy summits" 
 a beauty till then unknown; the "long" rays of the 
 descending sun, tremulous in the evening air are seen 
 to "shake across the lakes," and the "wild cataract" 
 becomes more than a mere waterfall, it "leaps in 
 glory." Then is brought out that effect, familiar to 
 all who have traveled in Alpine regions, of the echo 
 repeated over and over and over again, ever fainter as 
 borne from farther distance till strains of fairy music 
 seem to answer each other from height to height. 
 
 "O hark, O hear! how thin and clear 
 
 And thinner, clearer, farther going! 
 O sweet and far from cliff and scar 
 
 The horns of Elfland faintly blowing! 
 Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying: 
 Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying." 
 
 From the New World let us choose only two poetic 
 gems, each so true a classic that in its thoughtful beauty 
 and majesty it rises beyond all limitation of time and 
 place ; and first Bryant 's "To a Waterfowl ' ' : 
 
 'Whither, midst falling dew, 
 
 While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, 
 Far, through their rosy depths, dbst thou pursue 
 Thy solitary way?
 
 THE POWER OP ENGLISH 57 
 
 "Vainly the fowler's eye 
 
 Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, 
 As, darkly limned upon the crimson sky, 
 Thy figure floats along. 
 
 "There is a Power whose care 
 Teaches thy way along that pathless coast 
 The desert and illimitable air 
 Lone wandering, but not lost. 
 
 "All day thy wings have fanned, 
 At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere, 
 Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land, 
 Though the dark night is near. 
 
 "And soon that toil shall end ; 
 Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, 
 And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend, 
 Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest. 
 
 "Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven 
 Hath swallowed up thy form; yet on my heart 
 Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, 
 And shall not soon depart. 
 
 "He who. from zone to zone, 
 
 Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, 
 In the long way that I must tread alone 
 Will lead my steps aright." 
 
 So calmly great, so perfect in finish, yet, withal so 
 simple, the picture grows in clearness, and the lesson 
 in impressiveness, the oftener the lines are read. The 
 " boundless sky," with its vastness, its "rosy depths, " 
 the ''desert and illimitable air," the "far height," the 
 "abyss of heaven," is opened before the mind, and 
 almost visualized to the eye. 
 
 Then conies the subjective element, the human inter-
 
 58 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 est, like that which glorified in Holy Writ the " lilies 
 of the field," the "fowls of the air," and the falling 
 "sparrow," lifting the thought to that wise, mighty, 
 and beneficent Power on which each human soul may 
 depend, to "lead my steps aright." 
 
 Next a few stanzas of Whittier, of which the final one 
 is often quoted by itself alone, though it will be seen to 
 gain immeasurably when associated with its context. 
 The lines are taken from that poetic confession of faith 
 which the author entitled "The Eternal Goodness": 
 
 "I long for household voices gone, 
 
 For vanished smiles I long, 
 But God hath led my dear ones on, 
 And He can do no wrong. 
 
 "I know not what the future hath 
 
 Of marvel or surprise, 
 Assured alone that life and death 
 His mercy underlies. 
 
 "No offering of my own I have, 
 No works my faith to prove; 
 I can but give the gifts He gave, 
 And plead His love for love. 
 
 "And so beside the Silent Sea 
 
 I wait the muffled oar; 
 No harm from Him can come to me 
 On ocean or on shore. 
 
 "I know not where His islands lift 
 
 Their fronded palms in air; 
 I only know I cannot drift 
 Beyond His love and care." 
 
 From the abundant store of oratorical material, let 
 us select but one brief example, Chatham's words on
 
 THE POWER OF ENGLISH 59 
 
 "Justice to America," as spoken in the House of Lords, 
 on January 20, 1775 : 
 
 A' 
 
 "I contend not for indulgence, but for justice, to America. 
 . . . The spirit that now resists your taxation in America 
 is the same which formerly opposed loans, benevolences, and 
 ship-money in England; the same spirit which called all 
 England on its legs, and by the Bill of Rights vindicated 
 the English Constitution; the same spirit which established 
 the great fundamental, essential maxim of your liberties, 
 that no subject of England shall be taxed but by his own 
 consent. This glorious Whig spirit animates three millions 
 in America, who prefer poverty with liberty to gilded chains 
 and sordid affluence; and who will die in defense of their 
 rights as men, as freemen. What shall oppose this spirit, 
 aided by the congenial flame glowing in the breast of every 
 Whig in England ? ' 'Tis liberty to liberty engaged/ that 
 they will defend themselves, their families, and their coun- 
 try. In this great cause they are immovably allied; it is 
 the alliance of God and nature immutable, eternal fixed 
 as the firmament of heaven. . . . This wise people speak 
 out. They do not hold the language of slaves. They do not 
 ask you to repeal your laws as a favor. They claim it as a 
 right they demand it. And I tell you the acts must be 
 repealed. We shall be forced ultimately to retract. Let us 
 retract while we can, not when we must. I say we must 
 necessarily undo these violent, oppressive acts. They must 
 be repealed. You will repeal them. I pledge myself for it 
 that you will, in the end, repeal them.* I stake my reputa- 
 tion on it. I will consent to be taken for an idiot, if they 
 are not finally repealed. Avoid, then, this humiliating, this 
 disgraceful necessity. Every motive of justice and of policy, 
 of dignity and of prudence, urges you to allay the ferment 
 in America by a removal of your troops from Boeton, by a 
 repeal of your acts of Parliament." 
 
 Let us add to the selections given a single one illus- 
 
 * This prediction was fulfilled by the repeal of the acts three 
 years later; when, however, it had become too late.
 
 60 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 trating the majestic sweep of the Elizabethan English 
 in the Authorized Version of the Scriptures : 
 
 
 "The Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and in the 
 storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. 
 
 He rebuketh the sea, and maketh it dry, and drieth up all 
 the rivers; Bashan languisheth, and Carmel, and the flower 
 of Lebanon languisheth. 
 
 The mountains quake at him, and the hills melt, and the 
 earth is burned at his presence, yea, the world, and all that 
 dwell therein. 
 
 Who can stand before his indignation? and who can abide 
 in the fierceness of his anger? his fury is poured out like 
 fire, and the rocks are thrown down by him. 
 
 The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and 
 he knoweth them that trust in him." Ndhum i, 3-Y. 
 
 Nor may we overlook the grand Christian lyrics, the 
 hymns of the ages. It is true that many devout souls 
 have expressed the heart's devotion in feeble verse, 
 whence many persons have a vague idea that all re- 
 ligious song is marked by literary inferiority. Take, for 
 a single example to the contrary, this triumphant hymn 
 of Dean Henry Alf ord, learned as he was devout : 
 
 "Ten thousand times ten thousand 
 
 In sparkling raiment bright 
 The armies of the ransomed saints 
 
 Throng up the steeps of light; 
 *Tis finished, all is finished, 
 
 Their fight with death and sin; 
 Fling open wide the golden gates, 
 
 And let the victors in. 
 
 / 
 What rush of hallelujahs 
 
 Fills all the earth and sky! 
 What ringing of a thousand harps 
 
 Bespeaks the triumph nigh !
 
 THE POWER OF ENGLISH 61 
 
 O day for which creation 
 
 And all its tribes were made! 
 O joy, for all its former woes 
 
 A thousandfold repaid! 
 
 Oh, then what raptured greetings 
 
 On Canaan's happy shore, 
 What knitting severed friendships up, 
 
 Where partings are no more!" 
 
 There is true poetry in such hymns as Faber's 
 "There's a wideness in God's mercy like the wideness 
 of the sea;" in Newman's "Lead, Kindly Light;" in 
 Addison's "The spacious firmament on high," and in 
 many another. The great chants and anthems of the 
 church lay a solemn, reverent hush upon the soul. Many 
 of our simplest English hymns have been found so ex- 
 pressive that they have followed the path of English 
 and American missions all around the globe, and been 
 translated into all the languages of the earth. Creeds, 
 indeed, change; theological conceptions change; but it 
 is narrow and petty to reject, because of some theological 
 disagreement, the aspiring trust and longing expressed 
 in the hymn of a soul that mightily believed. We need 
 only to be big enough to draw into our own souls the 
 faith, devotion, love, patience, rapture, triumph, that 
 breathe in the noblest and sweetest Christian lyrics of 
 the ages. 
 
 As you read a great poem, oration, drama, history, or 
 essay, the bigness of life grows upon you the majesty 
 of mighty men and of the administration of nations, 
 the wonderful power of human affection and devotion, 
 courage and resolve, ambition and self-sacrifice. You 
 begin to translate all into terms of the present, and the 
 present grows nobler before your very eyes ; undreamed-
 
 62 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 of possibilities of grandeur rise upon your thought ; you 
 are more because you have felt the magic power of grand 
 and beautiful thought embodied in a noble, flexible, and 
 richly expressive speech.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 THE ENGLISH TREASURY OF WORDS 
 
 Critics point out from time to time that English is de- 
 ficient in the power of composition or combination, that 
 is, of forming compounds possessed by some other lan- 
 guages, notably the Greek, Latin and German. It must 
 be admitted that in modern English this power is very 
 limited. English compounds rarely include more than 
 two, or at most, three simple words; as "bluefish", 
 "daylight", "goldenrod", "schoolhouse", "steam- 
 boat", "sunbeam". Many of our compounds, too, are 
 unstable forms, the elements spaced off from each other 
 by the hyphen; as "printing-press", "ready-to-wear", 
 "steam-engine", "up-to-date". Words of the latter 
 class vary in form among different writers, diction- 
 aries, and publishing houses, so that one may find 
 "barebacked" or "bare-backed", "fence-corner" or 
 "fence corner", "water-course" or "watercourse", for 
 instance, according to the judgment or taste of certain 
 authors or publishers. Moreover, it must be admitted, 
 that in this respect, English has lost a power it once 
 had; for the Anglo-Saxon freely made long compounds 
 from native words ; as unanbindendlicum for ' ' insepara- 
 ble". For the disappearance of such forms we have to 
 thank the coming in of the Norman-French and the 
 Latin, and later of the Greek, from which sources it has 
 long been the English custom to derive all extensive 
 compounds, instead of working up the native stock for 
 that purpose. 
 
 63
 
 64 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 The German has retained this power which the Eng- 
 lish has lost, and by reason of the strong movement of 
 the nineteenth century for German nationalism, has ex- 
 tended and intensified it. Such words as Zerglieder- 
 ungskunst or Zergliederungswissenschaft (meaning 
 "anatomy") do not impress the German mind as un- 
 reasonably long or complicated. So strong is the ten- 
 dency of their language to such agglutination that the 
 telegraph companies of Germany have been compelled 
 to take cognizance of it. The thrifty German people 
 quickly saw its possibilities in a message of ten words, 
 and found themselves able to include a considerable 
 treatise within that limit, so that it became necessary 
 to restrict the length of one word to sixteen letters, any 
 combination exceeding that number to be counted as 
 two or more words. The Greek had this power of com- 
 bination in an unsurpassed degree. For the Greeks it 
 was a necessity, for they had no other cultivated lan- 
 guage from which to draw. As culture and science ad- 
 vanced among them they could only meet the new 
 demands by combining the materials they already had, 
 either by joining entire words to each other or attach- 
 ing to existing words some of their store of prefixes and 
 suffixes, so that each combination should have the effect 
 of a new word. In this they were aided by the remark- 
 able pliability, what one might almost call the fluidity 
 of their language. They themselves were aware of a 
 possible tendency to excess in this, and their comic poet, 
 Aristophanes, amused himself, and them by coining 
 a word of seventy-two syllables! 
 
 "Greek has the advantage of combining 1 with extraordinary 
 facility into pronounceable compounds. Its consonants and 
 vowels are not gathered into solid, insoluble lumps, but very
 
 ENGLISH TREASURY OF WORDS 65 
 
 evenly distributed, and upon a page are almost equal in 
 number. This, I think, is the foundation of its excellence. 
 
 "The languages of northern Europe abound in undistrib- 
 uted consonants sirz, ntzsch, Idschm, Jcrzyz. Hence, in 
 combining several words into a new compound, each part 
 is apt to begin and end with consonants, and the result is 
 such a word as Griindungsschwindeln (Ger. 'fraudulent- 
 establishment-of-a-business,' etc.). Compared with such an 
 unwieldy Leviathan the longest term in Greek is a play- 
 thing. Skorodopandokeutriartopolis (Gr. 'a garlic-bread- 
 selling-hostess') ripples along as pleasantly as a summer 
 brook on a pebbly bed; and the farrago of Aristophanes that 
 contains 169 letters, moves so trippingly on the tongue, that 
 one might dance to it." 
 
 RAMSEY, "English Language, etc.," Chap. II, p. 32. 
 
 Hence for all extensive compounds, the English, lan- 
 guage since losing the power to make such for itself, has 
 resorted either to the Latin or to the more pliable Greek ; 
 not to mention that many of these forms which we de- 
 rive from the Latin had come to that language through 
 the Greek. Thus we have the familiar word "aristoc- 
 racy" (from the Greek aristos, "best", plus krateo, 
 "rule") meaning "government by the best (in the sense 
 of the chief or leading) citizens"; this could not be 
 translated easily, if at all, by any combination of words 
 from the Anglo-Saxon, "best-rule", or "chief -rule" 
 would be quite impossible, and would not express the 
 meaning. Even if we could tolerate such nouns, we still 
 could not form an adjective from either, as "best- 
 ruling" or "chief -ruling". The adjective "aristo- 
 cratic", however, comes ready-made from the Greek, is 
 smooth and easy in sound, and has a definite meaning 
 which every one in the English-speaking world under- 
 stands ; we may, if we prefer, use the form ' ' aristocrati- 
 cal", which is just as smooth in sound, though not so
 
 66 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 brief. Then, for an individual, we have the noun 
 "aristocrat", to designate a member of an aristocracy, 
 one of a superior or would-be superior class. In like 
 manner we have "democracy" (from the Greek demos, 
 "people", plus krateo, "rule") meaning "government 
 by the people", which we could not well express by 
 " people 's-rule" or any other native compound; and 
 from this we form in a similar way "democratic" or 
 ' ' democratical ' ', and for an individual, the noun ' ' dem- 
 ocrat". 
 
 We have done better to borrow. It is almost unneces- 
 sary to say that we have derived still more from the 
 Latin than from the Greek, words of Latin derivation, 
 often through the French, constituting about one-half 
 the number in our dictionaries, though entering in much 
 smaller proportion into common use in our speaking or 
 writing. The words so derived are often not inferior to 
 those from the Greek in ease of utterance and smooth- 
 ness of sound, even when very long; as "circumnavi- 
 gate", "degeneration", "immortality", "infinitude", 
 "infinitesimal", "international", "publication", "rep- 
 resentatives", "supernatural", "supernumerary", 
 * ' transsubstantiation ' '. 
 
 It is worthy of notice, in connection with this matter, 
 that while we derive "democracy" and "democratic" 
 from the Greek, we obtain "republic" and "republi- 
 can" from the Latin, and with a difference in sense. The 
 Greek ideal of. "democracy", the people's rule, was 
 that where, as in Athens, all the citizens came together 
 in the Agora or market-place, and voted directly on 
 public measures. The Roman ideal was of the solidity 
 of the State; the "republic" was the res publica, "the 
 public welfare", however secured, which was for the 
 most part, and in their view preferably, through repre-
 
 ENGLISH TREASURY OF WORDS 67 
 
 sentatives, as consuls, tribunes, etc., elected by and act- 
 ing for the people. Hence " democracy " is a system 
 where every citizen acts directly in the government, a 
 system only practicable in a small community, as in the 
 old New England "town meeting", or in the small cities 
 of Greece, where each city was a separate and independ- 
 ent state; a system which the modern "initiative and 
 referendum" attempts to carry out on a larger scale. 
 A "republic", on the contrary, is a system where the 
 "public welfare" is sought through the action of repre- 
 sentatives chosen by, and supposed to act for the people, 
 which was the original idea of the constitution of the 
 United States and of each state composing the nation 
 from the beginning. Some of the most difficult prob- 
 lems now disturbing the American people arise from 
 the conflict or attempted adjustment of these two sys- 
 tems. Is our government to be a republic or a democ- 
 racy, or some possible combination of the two? There 
 is a native English word, "commonwealth", which al- 
 most exactly translates the Latin "republic"; this has 
 historic use, for the governmental system of England in 
 Cromwell's day was called a "commonwealth" and the 
 nation was officially designated as the Commonwealth 
 of England. But that government, which was at first 
 that of a parliament without a king, degenerated into a 
 military despotism, and the name became unpopular, 
 though in the oldest of the New England states the gov- 
 ernor still closes proclamations with the words, "God 
 bless the Commonwealth of Massachusetts!" Besides, 
 this word, like most Anglo-Saxon words, is more broadly 
 inclusive, and therefore less sharply definite than the 
 words from the Greek and Latin; a despot might claim 
 to be acting for the commonwealth the public welfare 
 but scarcely for the republic or the democracy.
 
 8 
 
 It is to be added that our borrowing has come to be 
 largely manufacture, using Greek or Latin elements to 
 form compounds unknown to the Greek or the Latin 
 language. The modern barbarians of the North are 
 treating the ancient languages as the barbarians of old 
 treated the ancient edifices. Because those destroyers 
 of the Roman Empire were not barbarous enough to set 
 men to slaughter each other or to fight with wild beasts 
 in the arena for their amusement, they had no use for 
 the Coliseum which the cultured Romans had built for 
 those gentle pastimes, but viewed it as a most serviceable 
 quarry of ready-hewn stone, from which to take blocks 
 at will for building their own palaces. So we descend 
 upon the ancient classic languages, with the difference 
 that we do not destroy their noble monuments. Homer 
 and Vergil, Demosthenes and Cicero, and all the rest, 
 remain unharmed after we have done our best, or our 
 worst, with their original tongues. Scholars can read 
 their masterpieces still, while we quarry the languages 
 to build new words, such as they would have had to 
 build if they had lived long enough and been inventive 
 enough to know as much as we. It has long been the 
 accepted custom to give Greek names to all new scien- 
 tific discoveries or mechanical inventions, and the num- 
 ber of Greek compounds so introduced into English is 
 enormous, though Latin terms and elements are still to 
 some extent employed. Our scholars have learned the 
 trick of combining Greek or Latin elements into words 
 describing things the Greeks or Romans never imagined, 
 and the words so formed are as modern and brand-new 
 as the discoveries or inventions they designate. The 
 familiar words, "telegraph", "telegram", "telephone", 
 ' ' phonograph ' ', and ' ' graphophone ' ' are all pure Greek, 
 but all of English manufacture, as the Greeks not only
 
 ENGLISH TREASURY OF WORDS 69 
 
 never had, but never imagined, the things these words 
 denote. Sometimes a mechanic who is not a scholar gets 
 hold of the classics, and forges Greek and Latin to- 
 gether into a single term; as "audiphone" or "dieto- 
 phone" from the Latin audio, "hear", or dido, 
 "speak", combined with the Greek phone, "sound". 
 Sometimes an apprentice gets hold of the classics and 
 produces such monstrosities as we see advertised, con- 
 taining the word oxogen, which is unknown either to 
 Greek or English. (Anyone desiring a clue to the mean- 
 ing will please look up "oxygen" in any good English 
 dictionary.) 
 
 The new art of flying, as at length made possible for 
 man, gives many interesting combinations. Man's first 
 device was to attach himself to an inflated gas-bag, for 
 which a name was obtained from the Italian, "balloon", 
 from the ball-shape which such a bag naturally as- 
 sumed. But as this could only float and drift, the quest 
 began for a "balloon" that could be propelled, and thus 
 steered or directed, for which was adopted the adjec- 
 tive "dirigible" from the Latin dirigo, "direct", and 
 we had the "dirigible balloon," the name of which is 
 now often contracted by making the adjective a noun 
 and calling the conveyance "a dirigible". For the per- 
 son who navigates the air we went to the Greek and 
 formed the word "aeronaut", from aer, "air", and 
 nautes, "sailor", whence we have formed the adjective 
 "aeronautic" and the noun "aeronautics" for the art 
 of air-navigation. In the latter part of the nineteenth 
 century studious men like the Duke of Argyle and Pro- 
 fessor Langley, of the Smithsonian Institution, gave prac- 
 tical emphasis to the fact that every bird is heavier than 
 air, a fact that must have been always known, since a 
 bird that is shot, at once falls to the ground, its power
 
 70 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 to sustain itself in air being due, not to its lightness, 
 but to its propulsive motion. Then the study came to 
 be to enable man to fly as the bird flies, sustained only 
 by motion, and from the Latin avis, "a bird", we 
 formed "aviation" and "aviator". Naturally, "aero- 
 naut" is applied to one who sails in a balloon, or the 
 like, and "aviator" to one who flies like a bird, in a 
 " heavier-than-air " machine. Since such a machine is 
 sustained by planes, we have devised for the form with 
 two planes the all Latin term ' ' biplane ' ' from the Latin 
 bi. "two", and planus, "flat, level"; while the form 
 with one plane is designated by the hybrid word ' ' mono- 
 plane ' ', from the Greek monos, ' ' alone, single ' ', plus the 
 Latin planus. In pure English we have "air-ship", 
 "air-plane", and "flying-machine", which are good 
 general terms, but not closely descriptive, "air-ship" 
 being commonly applied to the dirigible balloon, and 
 "flying-machine" to some conveyance of the monoplane 
 or biplane class. 
 
 In fact it is part of the absorptive power of English, 
 when it has once adopted an element from another lan- 
 guage, to fling etymology to the winds, and use that 
 word or element as a native word or formative. Thus 
 we have made the Greek prefix anti, "against", so thor- 
 oughly our own that we attach it to any word whatever, 
 without a thought of the source from which that other 
 word is derived; we join it with French derivatives, 
 forming "antimason", "antirent", and many others; 
 with Latin derivatives, forming " antiprohibition ", 
 " antirepublican ", "antislavery", "antisuffrage", "an- 
 tisuffragist", " antisuff ragette ", etc.; or with plain 
 Anglo-Saxon words, forming "antiburgher", "anti- 
 fat", "antitrade", and the like. We even make the pre- 
 fix an independent noun, and apply it to the opponents
 
 ENGLISH TREASURY OF WORDS 71 
 
 of some well-known policy; as "an anti", or "the 
 antis". The dictionaries insist that this noun-use is 
 colloquial, but the fact that it is colloquial shows the 
 popular sense of complete proprietorship of this ancient 
 Greek preposition as an integral part of English speech. 
 So we join the Latin prefix ante "before", with an 
 English noun, forming "anteroom", or with a Greek 
 noun, forming " antestomach ". To the Latin prefix 
 inter, "between", we add Anglo-Saxon verbs to form 
 "interknit", "interweave", "interwoven", etc. From 
 the Latin pro, "for", and contra, "against", we have 
 the established English phrase, "the pros and cons", 
 denoting arguments for and against. The Latin re, 
 "back, again, over again", is joined with plain Anglo- 
 Saxon forms, making "refit", "renew", "resell", "re- 
 sold", "retell", "retold", and numeroi^jf other familiar 
 compounds. The Latin sub, "under", freely unites with 
 any Anglo-Saxon element, forming such words as ' ' sub- 
 kingdom", "sublet", "subway", "subworker". Sim- 
 ilar words are popularly formed at will ; as " revamp ' ', 
 ' ' subbasement ", "subcellar", etc. 
 
 Common usage makes some feeble attempts to classify 
 forms according to derivation ; as to restrict the use of 
 in, "not", to words of Latin, and of un, "not", to those 
 of Anglo-Saxon origin. But un long ago overflowed all 
 banks and dams, and may now be found combined with 
 words from the most various sources. We have "incon- 
 testable", but " uncontested " ; "inconceivable", but 
 "unimagined"; "indeterminable", but "undeter- 
 mined"; "imperceptible", but " unperceived ". Thou- 
 sands of instances might be given of incongruous ele- 
 ments combined without the slightest reference to their 
 original sources to form English words, and in the ma- 
 jority of instances it must be admitted that they easily
 
 72 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 work together. Some have been so long in the language 
 that they could not now be eradicated by any critical 
 force. New ones of the same kind are at once condemned 
 as monstrosities, and compelled to fight their way. It is 
 well that they should be. Let them win their spurs. 
 But if they meet a real popular demand, nothing can 
 keep them out of the language. Probably nothing could 
 now stop the use of the word "monoplane", unless the 
 machine itself should become obsolete. Commercial 
 standing is stronger than scholarly criticism. Just now 
 the most disputed word is "cablegram", which is philo- 
 logically an abomination, being made from the French- 
 English word cable plus the Greek gram, clipped 
 from the end of ' ' telegram ' ' or the like. But if the de- 
 mand of the market is strong enough, ' ' cablegram ' ' will 
 come in, and scholars will be compelled to swallow it, 
 however hard it may go down. At present the tendency 
 seems to be to settle the matter by apocopation, using 
 the brief noun "cable" for the message, as well as for 
 the conductor; as "He sent me a cable from Paris". 
 Criticism is the Ellis Island of word-immigrants, where 
 a board of scholars pass upon their claims. If rejected 
 by the board, they still have a special privilege of ap- 
 peal to a plebiscite of all English-speaking people, and, 
 if accepted there, they may enter in spite of the exam- 
 ining board ; otherwise they are deported. 
 
 With its readiness to adopt elements or entire words 
 from outside sources, English has now become very in- 
 tolerant of long home-made forms. It has compared 
 them with the mere elegant forms from ancient classic 
 sources, and has found them clumsy. It does not like 
 them. This is partly due, also, to the extremely practi- 
 cal character of the English-speaking peoples. How 
 eaiily a German may separate the portions of a long
 
 ENGLISH TREASURY OF WORDS 73 
 
 compound we, of course, can not adequately judge ; but 
 to us it seems that this must require a distinct mental 
 exertion, which we, as labor-saving people, are unwill- 
 ing to burden ourselves with, when we can so easily 
 avoid it. We could write ' ' the webperf ectingnewspaper- 
 printingpress ", but to us this seems ungainly, and it 
 takes us longer to read it. We read much more readily 
 "the web perfecting newspaper-printing-press", and 
 even when we connect some of the words by hyphens, 
 the hyphen marks the joints to the eye, so that we need 
 not hesitate an infinitesimal fraction of a second. We 
 instantly join the thoughts of the associated words into 
 one mental whole, and find mental fusion quicker and 
 easier than typographical confusion. 
 
 English-speaking people are always inclined to laugh 
 at a long string of words run together without a break. 
 A foreign compound of this character was recently 
 treated jocosely in a New York newspaper, evoking 
 from an aggrieved native the following rejoinder: 
 
 To THE EDITOR OF THE EVENING SUN: 
 
 Sir: I can see nothing funny in the name Dampskibsak- 
 tieselskabet. . . . It is a Danish compound noun, writ- 
 ten without hyphens, as is the Danish custom. The German 
 equivalent is Dampfschiffsaktiengesellschaft. Damp means 
 "steam"; skibs, "ship"; aktie, means "issuing stock"; selskab 
 means "company" and et is a suffix used as the definite 
 article, "the." The whole name means "The Steamship 
 Stock Company," which is not funny at all. 
 
 And after reading this sober explanation, the whole 
 thing seems to the English-speaking man funnier than 
 ever. Seriously, the whole explanation above given 
 must be gone through, however swiftly, by the Dane or 
 the German in order to make the idea of either com- 
 pound clear to his own mind. We, too, could write
 
 74 
 
 " Thesteamshipstockcompany ", but should feel our- 
 selves encumbered by so doing, and we find ' ' The steam- 
 ship stock company" vastly more perspicuous, and con- 
 veying to our minds a more truly instantaneous idea. 
 
 With lack of the facility of compounding possessed 
 by the Greek, German, Danish, or other languages, 
 English has something better, an incomparable facil- 
 ity of assimilation. It appropriates words from all 
 lands and ages, as the human body takes into its own 
 substance foods from every realm and clime. Rarely 
 do we think where the viands come from, so long as 
 they taste good. We feel no need to raise oranges, 
 bananas, or spices in our own hothouses. We will let 
 them grow where they are naturally produced, and then 
 send out our ships and bring them in when we want 
 them, if we want them. 
 
 What our language takes it transforms. There is no 
 patching nor pasting on. The process is like that of the 
 physical organism, which transmutes all appropriated 
 food into blood and muscle, flesh and bone, making it its 
 very own. Every foreign applicant for admission must 
 be naturalized, and put on the English dress, before it 
 can be free of the English republic of words. Untrans- 
 formed words stand timidly on the threshold of our 
 speech, coming in when invited, hat in hand, and with 
 apologetic mien. The pronunciation of the French word 
 ennui must be learned by main force, and when that is 
 done, it is hardly worth while, for we have no time nor 
 disposition for the thing. Most of us think we can say 
 menu, though very few of us can, and one who should 
 utter it with the true French accent would make him- 
 self slightly peculiar by his precision; the word is so 
 far Anglicized that it passes current with a half-French 
 pronunciation ; it is still so much of a stranger as to ap-
 
 ENGLISH TREASURY OF WORDS 75 
 
 pear only at the full-dress dinner where even the con- 
 versation becomes swallow-tailed; on ordinary occasions 
 we are much more at home with a "bill of fare". 
 " Entente" is another French word that for us is prac- 
 tically unpronounceable ; we may have to use it to dis- 
 tinguish the Triple Entente of European powers from 
 the Triple Alliance; but when entente is merely a gen- 
 eral term for mutual understanding or agreement, the 
 plain English word ''understanding" or "agreement" 
 is far preferable. An English paper remarks that 
 "when an Englishman does get a French word or 
 phrase, he immediately thinks it his own", and relates 
 that when French and English sailors were fraternizing 
 in recent maneuvers, an English tar turned to the 
 Frenchman he was entertaining, with the question, 
 "Say, Frenchy, what's the blooming French for 'en'tent 
 cor'dial'?" The French word debacle has long been 
 recognized as English by the dictionaries, which is 
 well, because when we read in the account of some ca- 
 tastrophe of war that the "retreat became a debacle," it 
 is convenient to go to the dictionary to learn that 
 debacle in such use is practically equivalent to the fa- 
 miliar English word "rout". So long as a word re- 
 tains a distinctly foreign type, it is used only apologeti- 
 cally or playfully by real men and women. It is well 
 for a young writer always to avoid a foreign word or 
 phrase for which he can find a good English equivalent. 
 Do not say or write coup d'cBil when what you mean 
 could be expressed by the single English word "glance", 
 or possibly by the phrase "a sudden glance". 
 
 But of foreign words touched by the magic wand of 
 English transformation, there are thousands upon thou- 
 sands which we use without a thought that they are 
 not native to the soil. Professor Marsh remarks:
 
 76 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 "The Anglo-Saxon tongue has a craving appetite, and 
 is as rapacious of words and as tolerant of forms as are its 
 children of territory and religions. . . . The multi- 
 farious etymology of our Babylonish dialect, and the com- 
 posite structure of our syntax are peculiarities of the Eng- 
 lish tongue not shared in equal degree by any European 
 speech known in literature." 
 
 This would seem to be a natural result of the historic 
 evolution of English speech. From the Anglo-Saxon 
 conquest, through nearly fifteen hundred years, not 
 one language or dialect planted on British soil has ever 
 been allowed to attain completion by the development 
 of its own inherent resources. Each has been compelled 
 to fight its way, and to hold what at last it held as the 
 result of concession and compromise, supplying its own 
 deficiencies, not by internal development, but by free 
 borrowing or unwilling acceptance of supplies from 
 some contesting language. Especially was this the case 
 after so large a part of the Anglo-Saxon speech perished 
 in the two centuries following the Norman conquest, 
 when the Saxons supplied the lack by wholesale appro- 
 priation of words from the language of their conquer- 
 ors, reshaped into conformity with their own. From 
 that time on, when a word was wanted, nothing seemed 
 so natural as to take it from some source where it might 
 be found existing. This has long been the settled habit 
 of the English language, and has become so much a mat- 
 ter of course as seldom to excite remark. The language 
 has gone on advancing, gathering into itself from every 
 source words to express all the advance of discovery 
 and science, until its words already number more than 
 400,000, and still there is no limit in sight. If there 
 shall be found to-morrow in any language a good word 
 that we have not for any idea we care to express, we
 
 ENGLISH TREASURY OF WORDS 77 
 
 shall not be downcast over our own lack of originality, 
 but shall exult in our new range of discovery; we will 
 instantly adopt that word, and be so much the richer. 
 Wherever any people has invented or shall invent any 
 word for anything that we care to name, that word is 
 ours for the taking. 
 
 In this is a marvelous advantage. Instead of pain- 
 fully piling home-grown syllables upon each other or 
 jamming words together under hydraulic pressure of 
 thought, we may simply reach out and raid the universe 
 of speech, and our captures from all ages and nations 
 settle peacefully side by side, while English rejoices in 
 the garnered riches of the past and present of all the 
 world. Some objector may say, ''You are, in very deed, 
 the lineal descendants of the Saxon and Norman pirates 
 of the North Sea, actually delighting in triumphant 
 linguistic piracy". Call it so, if you will. We are not 
 worried. We accept Dry den's defense in his "Discourse 
 of Epick Poetry", in reply to the charge that he "Latin- 
 ized too much": 
 
 "It is true that when I find an English word significant 
 and sounding, I neither borrow from the Latin nor any 
 other language; but when I want at home I must seek 
 abroad. If sounding words are not of our growth and manu- 
 facture, who shall hinder me to import them from a foreign 
 country? I carry not out the treasure of the nation which 
 is never to return; but what I bring from Italy I spend in 
 England; here it remains, and here it circulates; if the 
 coin be good, it will pass from one hand to another. I 
 trade both with the living and the dead for the enrichment 
 of our native language. We have enough in England to 
 supply our necessity; but if we will have things of magnifi- 
 cence and splendor, we must get tbem by commerce. . . . 
 Therefore, if I find a word in a classic author, I propose 
 it to be naturalized by using it myself, and if tbe public 
 approve of it the bill passes."
 
 78 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 We rob no one. The words we take we leave still ex- 
 isting in their native speech, while we give them a wider 
 range, and often uplift them into grander companion- 
 ship. We are horticulturists, rather than pirates, set- 
 ting choice scions from all far lands in our native speech 
 and gladdening new lands and generations with their 
 fruits. By all this we have gained more than we have 
 lost. We can well afford to give up the power of com- 
 bination for the greater power of limitless appropria- 
 tion. The resources of the English vocabulary are to 
 be measured only by the riches of all the languages of 
 the nations.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 A WORLD-LITERATURE IN ENGLISH 
 
 Words, indeed, we shall be told, are only the means 
 of expressing thought, the currency by which mental 
 wealth is passed from mind to mind. However rich its 
 vocabulary, what has English to offer in stores of 
 thought itself? Of its rich literature something has 
 already been said. "But," urges the objector, "when 
 you have told the utmost of the excellence of its litera- 
 ture, English is still a very limited language. It has 
 not the poetry, philosophy, history, or oratory of Greece 
 and Eome, the deep reasoning and mystic contempla- 
 tion of the Orient, the literary treasures of France, Ger- 
 many, Italy, and Spain, nor the newly awakened thought 
 of Eussia, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. English 
 may do very well for those who can not have more. But 
 it is, after all, exceedingly modern, and off at one side 
 of the world. Much of the world's best thought is inac- 
 cessible in English." 
 
 On the contrary, nothing is more remarkable in Eng- 
 lish than its greediness in translation. Just as English 
 and American explorers, travelers, merchants, mission- 
 aries, and conquerors have been driven on by the pas- 
 sion of exploration and discovery to sail every strip of 
 water where a ship could float, and to tread every land 
 where there is room for man to set his foot, so their 
 eager scholars have gone out into every field of human 
 thought, ancient or modern, of all the world, and as 
 soon as they have mastered any worthy writing of any 
 
 79
 
 80 
 
 age or clime, have been unable to rest in their own 
 achievement, but have been impelled by a consuming: 
 passion to render whatever they have found of value 
 into English. Just as their discoverers plant on any 
 new shore the British or the American flag, so every 
 master of any piece of foreign work or of ancient his- 
 tory or scholarship promptly raises over it the standard 
 of the English speech. Their patriotism is racial or 
 linguistic; the English language is their fatherland of 
 thought. They are harking back to the beloved and 
 honored millions who can not read the hieroglyphics or 
 the papyrus, the Greek, Latin, Persian, or Sanskrit, the 
 Italian, Spanish, French, German or Russian, and for 
 their sake they are determined, that, if the thing is 
 really good, not a moment shall be lost in annexing it 
 to the English-speaking domain. Their linguistic patri- 
 otism is aided by the widespread popular education in 
 the English-speaking lands that insures a great reading 
 public ready to welcome and applaud any new contri- 
 bution to the sum of human thought; and so strong is 
 the home-loving instinct of the race that the applause 
 and appreciation of that home public are dearer to the 
 heart than the praise of all the world besides. 
 
 It is true, there is a superstition against translations, 
 and, like all other superstitions, this has behind it a cer- 
 tain amount of truth. The universities have done much 
 to foster it. There is no wonder that a professor who is 
 an accomplished scholar in Greek or Latin, French, Ger- 
 man, or Italian should look with aversion or even with 
 contempt upon any translation of the works he reads 
 with delight in the original. To him the best version 
 seems hard, stiff, and wooden. The students catch his 
 feeling, which in them becomes the conceit that they 
 will not be wise by translations, when they can not be
 
 WORLD-LITERATURE IN ENGLISH 81 
 
 otherwise. For, with the exception of some who are 
 specializing in some foreign language, few of them can 
 read, and practically none of them do read, any foreign 
 work outside the classroom. "What do you think of 
 Plato's 'Phsedo'?" Fine thing, no doubt. Haven't 
 read it. It's not in our course." "But you can get it 
 in English." "Oh, translations are such wretched 
 things!" "Why not read it in the original?" 
 ' ' Haven 't time. Takes too long to bone out the Greek. ' ' 
 So you may go down the line of the world's best litera- 
 ture in the dead or foreign languages, and you will find 
 that always with the exception of the studious few 
 students go through the precious four years of learned 
 leisure without reading a page of any of those great 
 works beyond what are formally included in the cur- 
 riculum. And after graduation? Then you may be 
 very sure you will not ' ' catch them ' ' meddling with any 
 such materials. Then it is often true that they liter- 
 ally "have not time." This condition of things should 
 somehow be bettered. 
 
 Beyond question there is much in any vivid or vigor- 
 ous work in one language that can not be carried over 
 into another, any more than the perfume of a flower 
 can be transferred to the most exquisite painting. 
 Hence, every translation must be, to some degree, im- 
 perfect. In numberless instances a word of one lan- 
 guage does not exactly overlap its nearest equivalent in 
 another. The word the translator must use in his ver- 
 sioji may be stronger or weaker than the corresponding 
 word in the original, causing nis rendering to seem 
 either violent or feeble. The word in the original may 
 be picturesque, and the corresponding word in the new 
 language prosaic, or in some other way there may be 
 lack of fitness. It is often as if a workman had to build
 
 82 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 a wall with bricks of different measure, and here and 
 there to fit in a piece of flat or curved tile ; it may take 
 much extraneous mortar to cover the joining. The 
 "local color," the characteristics of place and period 
 is, for the most part, non-transferable. We can not 
 translate Homer into English without loss, nor could 
 we render Shakespeare into Greek without loss and 
 probably greater loss. English can not adequately 
 translate Dante's Italian, because England never had 
 the experience of Dante's Italy. The deadly feuds and 
 battles, the hostile fortifications of private individuals 
 within a civilized city, are foreign to our thought. We 
 look with amazement to-day upon the medieval Italian 
 palaces, with their narrow, grated windows opening on 
 the street, and their curved rows of spikes aloft on the 
 corners to hold the heads of enemies slaughtered in pri- 
 vate war. The Wars of the Roses are not a parallel, 
 for, however personal the strife, all the individuals of 
 each faction claimed to be fighting England's battles. 
 AVe can scarcely conceive of cities conducting formal 
 "war" against other cities a dozen miles away. English 
 cities have many times been in conflict, but only as cen- 
 ters of some greater struggle, as when Charles I had 
 his headquarters at Oxford and the Parliamentary 
 army in London. The war, however, was not between 
 Oxford and London, but between the king and the par- 
 liament of all England. Above all, England has never 
 known a state of hopeless and chronic subjugation by 
 any endless succession of conquerors, so that the only 
 question of the common people could be what new 
 master they should be compelled to obey, or when, or 
 for how long. England has occasionally had mercen- 
 ary soldiers, ready to serve upon any side in any cause 
 for pay, and for whom she must borrow the Italian
 
 WORLD-LITERATURE IN ENGLISH 83 
 
 name of condottieri. On the other hand, England has 
 never had the sunny climate and the beautiful land, 
 ' ' the fatal dower of beauty, ' ' the music, the art, nor the 
 ancient civilization of Italy. Hence, Italian words and 
 forms of speech often carry, deep embedded in their 
 substance, a something which English forms can not 
 fully render. Doubtless the Italian would find itself 
 seriously limited in the attempt to express the soaring, 
 expansive freedom of Milton's verse. The same is sub- 
 stantially true of any two languages of any period. 
 Neither can exactly fit into the mold of the other. 
 
 The case is worst in poetry, because there, if the trans- 
 lator attempts to translate into English verse, he is 
 hampered by necessities of rime or meter, or both. 
 Often he must sacrifice the though^ of the original in 
 order to get an English verse that can at all be read. 
 There are foreign meters that the English language 
 simply will not adopt. They are too foreign to its type 
 ever to become popular. There is the hexameter of the 
 Greek and Latin poets, the six-foot verse of the Iliad 
 and Odyssey and of Vergil's JEneid. That this can be 
 made poetic in English, Longfellow and Bryant nave 
 demonstrated. But it remains true that the English 
 language does not take kindly to it. Take the first line 
 of Longfellow's beautiful ' ' Evangeline, " 
 
 "In the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of Minas." 
 
 This is musical, but the movement is slow. There are 
 in the line 12 words and 17 syllables, which would suf- 
 fice for a tolerably long English sentence. Thus, the 
 sentence, "I will not be cheated out of my inheritance 
 by such base methods, ' ' contains 12 words and 17 sylla- 
 bles, and makes a complete and somewhat extended 
 statement ; but in Longfellow 's line of the same number
 
 84 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 of words and syllables we have only the introductory 
 clause of a still incomplete sentence, which it requires 
 a line and a half more to finish. English words are so 
 largely monosyllabic or dissyllabic that the hexameter 
 line holds too many, and the verse seems heavy. If any- 
 thing sudden, impetuous, or thrilling, is to be told, the 
 action seems impeded by the verse. It will answer for 
 a contemplative, descriptive poem like the "Evangel- 
 ine," though even there the excitement of the captured 
 men in the church and the sudden partings and em- 
 barkation at the seashore lack vividness, because the 
 verse lingers in the telling. Vivid or vigorous action 
 demands in English a shorter measure. Hence, the five- 
 foot line, with two syllables in each foot, and the accent 
 thrown forward to the second of each two syllables the 
 Iambic pentameter is the favorite English heroic verse,, 
 the meter of Milton 's ' ' Paradise Lost ' ' ; as, 
 
 So started up in his true shape the fiend ; 
 
 Back stepped those two fair angels, half amazed. 
 
 Pope cast aside all trammels of the original, adopted 
 the five-foot rimed heroic verse, and sacrificed the Greek 
 where necessary to make stirring and readable English 
 poems. He did what he undertook to do, producing a 
 translation of which it has been said, "It is magnificent, 
 but it is not Homer." Yet Pope does tell the essential 
 story, and his are the most popular of all translations 
 of the Homeric poems. 
 
 Such are some of the difficulties that beset poetic 
 translation. The tendency now is to prefer the best 
 literal prose translations of the Homeric poems, as those 
 of Lang and Leaf, where, with no limitations of rime or 
 meter, the story and the illustrations and descriptions 
 are accurately and often beautifully given. It is not to
 
 WORLD-LITERATURE IN ENGLISH 85 
 
 be expected that a thorough Greek scholar will be satis- 
 fied with either. 
 
 But what are the rest of us to do? How many lan- 
 guages can we know well enough for enjoyable reading? 
 It is not a question of smattering. Rapidity is impor- 
 tant if one is to read more than a very few books, if he 
 is to have freedom, range, and outlook. Appreciation 
 is necessary in order to make it worth while to read at 
 all. If he is not getting the meaning fully and accu- 
 rately and with broad and helpful comprehension of the 
 work as a whole in the original, he had better read a 
 good translation. 
 
 For it is to be remembered that until he knows a 
 language so as to think in it, he himself is only trans- 
 lating when he reads it. Now many approved printed 
 translations have been made by some one who knows 
 the foreign language well, and has made some special 
 study of the author whose work he renders. If you 
 know the language but slightly, you are getting in 
 your own reading only the translation of an amateur, 
 which is quite sure to be inferior to that of an expert. 
 It is a piece of very considerable self-conceit for the 
 callow student who can only hammer out a language 
 with grammar and dictionary to look with contempt on 
 the best 'work of a specialist in that language because 
 it is "only a translation." 
 
 The average college graduate may apply this test to 
 himself : Would you be willing to translate at sight some 
 passage from an unfamiliar Greek or Latin classic, and 
 go into print with that translation over your own name? 
 If you would not look it up first in some approved 
 translation, or at least do some careful work with a 
 Greek or Latin dictionary, you are more than an aver- 
 age college graduate.
 
 86 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 But the average college graduate is more to be pitied 
 than blamed. From the time when he plowed through 
 Vergil and Cicero in the high school, he has been forced 
 to treat the classic authors simply as exercises in ety- 
 mology. In old time the classics were endeared to the 
 schoolboy by sound floggings, and in more recent times 
 by "keeping after school." The school-teachers, and 
 later, the college professors, all go on the assumption 
 that every one of these students is to be made an ety- 
 mologist, when not one in a thousand could be if he 
 would, or would be if he could. Hence, they must go 
 into the garden plot of one of Vergil's most beautiful 
 descriptions, and pull up every word by the roots to see 
 what it is made of. They must massacre every line of 
 Homer, till the slaughter of Greeks and Trojans becomes 
 a negligible quantity. If by any chance a student is 
 caught feeling any real interest in a passage, he is 
 dragged through some wire-fences of syntax or some 
 underbrush of Doric or ^Eolic variants, till not only 
 the conceit is taken out of him, but also all interest in 
 the author's thought. There has been nothing like it 
 since the legendary Puritan days when misbehaving 
 children were set to read the Bible as a punishment. 
 We know one boy who was kept two hours after school 
 because he was indiscreet enough to see the joke in a 
 story in his German reader and to laugh at it. The vic- 
 tims estimate their progress as convicts their sentence, 
 not by what they have accomplished, but by what they 
 still ' ' have got to read. ' ' The system is venerable by its 
 antiquity, and has abundant British precedent. It is 
 objectionable chiefly because it does not teach the lan- 
 guages to which it is applied, and does make the authors 
 who have written in them detested. 
 
 A graduate goes to a hotel on the Continent of Europe,
 
 WORLD-LITERATURE IN ENGLISH 87 
 
 and finds the proprietor able to converse with him in 
 English, and at intervals with another guest in German, 
 give directions to his servants in Italian, while writing, 
 as opportunity allows, a letter in French. The helpless 
 graduate says wrathfully to himself, "I have spent my 
 best years since I was thirteen studying Latin and Greek 
 and some modern languages. I have at least average 
 ability, and have been fairly industrious, yet I could not 
 carry on an intelligent conversation or write a respecta- 
 ble letter in any language except my own if my life de- 
 pended upon it. I do not know whether this man could 
 'pass' one of our examinations, but he does know what 
 languages are for, and can use them effectively." The 
 same traveler finds the "English" hotels full of edu- 
 cated Britons and Americans as helpless as himself. 
 He sees a college president try in vain to talk with a 
 child in French, while a traveler of far inferior scholar- 
 ship falls into easy conversation with the little one, and 
 he feels that scholarship has somehow missed its mark. 
 A few scholars survive even the school and university 
 system. But even these, when they get out into the 
 work of modern life, are hard driven by the exactions 
 of their calling, and find the dead languages becoming 
 ever deader, while even the living ones grow coy and 
 shy. You go to see a friend off on a French steamer. 
 The steward doesn't understand plain English, and you 
 meditate a sentence in French, but, before you can get 
 it constructed, the march of events has carried you to 
 the next deck a lack of readiness which discourages 
 conversation. The same hesitancy hampers you if you 
 sit down to read a classic in a language other than your 
 own, and the reading goes like a dinner where you 
 have to wait for each dish to be separately cooked and 
 served.
 
 88 EXPEESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 If you find a man who can read one day 'in Latin, the 
 next in Greek, then in French, German, and Italian, 
 and another day in Spanish, with enjoyment of his vari- 
 ous authors and clear comprehension of their meaning, 
 you have found a man of very unusual attainments, and 
 he is practically certain to be a man of letters, not ac- 
 tively engaged in business, politics, or professional life. 
 Gladstone, indeed, could study Homer for recreation in 
 the intervals of official activity ; Macaulay did not think 
 it necessary to translate the Italian quotations in his 
 Essays, supposing apparently that " every schoolboy" 
 could read them at sight. There are a few a very few 
 such men in every generation. Any such accom- 
 plished scholar may be summarily dismissed from our 
 consideration here. He will take care of himself. Gen- 
 eral rules are not for him. If he dismisses us from con- 
 sideration we will bear that as best we may. Business 
 men, clerks, stenographers, editors, Jawyers, doctors, 
 and ministers who are crowded with daily work, and 
 only able to read by snatches, can not keep his pace. 
 But these are the very ones we care jnost for, and the 
 only ones who need our consideration. For them the 
 question returns, Is every man or woman who can read 
 nothing but English to be shut out of everything not 
 originally written in English, because it is "unschol- 
 arly" to read a translation? 
 
 Here we would say, by way of precaution, that it is 
 eminently desirable for every one who has the oppor- 
 tunity to know at least one language besides his own. 
 By that he will better understand his own. The case is 
 that of the "me" and "not me" of psychology. As 
 beautifully stated by Tennyson : * 
 
 * "In Memoriam," xlv. [Strahan, London, 1872.]
 
 WORLD-LITERATURE IN ENGLISH 89 
 
 "The baby new to earth and sky, 
 
 What time his tender palm is prest 
 Against the circle of the breast, 
 Has never thought that 'this is I' : 
 
 But as he grows he gathers much 
 
 And learns the use of 'I' and 'me/ 
 And finds 'I am not what I see, 
 
 And other than the things I touch.' " 
 
 We understand ourselves better, and perhaps only 
 understand ourselves, by coming into contact with what 
 is not ourselves. This is the good of travel, the good of 
 the varying demands of business, that the "me" has to 
 be perpetually measured against some new form of the 
 "not me." Hence it is that the man who stands all 
 day at one punching machine, the woman who takes 
 sheets all day long off one folder in the printing office, 
 or the theorist who sits all day at one desk arranging 
 the universe, tends to become what we call narrow- 
 minded. The mind of such a person does not expand 
 with any symmetry for want of being called out in vari- 
 ous directions to act upon or resist things that are not 
 itself. Thus the objection to Adam Smith's explana- 
 tion of the wonderful dexterity to be gained in making 
 pin-heads by the man who does nothing else is well 
 taken, that the man who spends all his days from 
 morning to night in making pin-heads will come to have 
 nothing but a pin-head himself! 
 
 A new language tends to break up all narrow ex- 
 clusiveness. It compels you to compare notes with 
 thinkers who have cast their thoughts in a different 
 mold. This is a great mental advantage; but if your 
 study-time is limited, do not try to learn too many lan- 
 guages ; it is better to be comfortable and efficient in one 
 foreign language than helpless and tormented in six.
 
 90 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 Yet, even in your new language, do not be afraid of 
 English translations. The inductive method of some 
 schoolbooks starts the learner with an interlinear Eng- 
 lish translation at the outset. Good scholars recommend 
 the learner to read the Scriptures in the new language, 
 because a thought that has become familiar in his own 
 tongue will help him to approach the words of another ; 
 and this process is found to be not less, but more, de- 
 votional, for the passage which has become so familiar 
 in his own language that he may read it as he drinks 
 Water, without tasting it, gains new thought and mean- 
 ing when he is compelled to pause on the words of a 
 new language. In reading other books in a foreign 
 language, do not fear to keep a good translation beside 
 you and turn to it whenever you strike a snag. When 
 you reach clear water again, go on with the original as 
 far as your sailing powers will carry you. Then refer 
 at pleasure to your translation for guidance and com- 
 parison. You will get the author's thought more rap- 
 idly, and so be in more sympathy with his spirit, as you 
 are able to read freely and easily. You will learn many 
 words by simple absorption, by context and derived 
 thought, just as a child learns them and the words 
 will be more alive than the same words in a dictionary. 
 A child must learn a language before he can use a dic- 
 tionary. How he can do it, starting with absolutely 
 nothing, is one of the mysteries of human existence. 
 There is no better way to enter the kingdom of a for- 
 eign language than to become as a little child. 
 
 "Yet how would this work in a school or college?" 
 Exceedingly well, we think. If you are a teacher, say 
 to your students, ' ' I do not care how many translations 
 you use, or who helps you outside the classroom. The 
 one thing is that you know the language. Whether
 
 WORLD-LITERATURE IN ENGLISH 91 
 
 you do that or not, I can quickly discover in your recita- 
 tion ; and whatever helps you really to know a language 
 you are welcome to use. The more you know of the 
 language before you come into class, the more time we 
 shall have for the author's thought and style." If you 
 make your students really interested in the thought of 
 a foreign author, they will learn more of the foreign 
 language than could be drilled into them or extorted 
 from them by any other process. 
 
 The average college graduate will get more from 
 Jowett's translation of Plato, or Coleridge's transla- 
 tion of Schiller's ' ' Wallenstein, " or Longfellow's trans- 
 lation of Dante, than from his own; and the mere 
 English reader who knows neither Greek, German, nor 
 Italian will get mbre from any one of the three works 
 named than the imperfect scholar will get by reading 
 the original. Let the student with an imperfect knowl- 
 edge of a foreign tongue aid himself by the translation, 
 and let the English reader rely confidently upon the 
 translation. 
 
 We want the best thoughts of the master-minds of all 
 lands and all time to broaden and exalt our own. If we 
 can read them in the languages in which they were 
 written, very well. If not, let us go for them, and go 
 for them very strongly and heartily, in the best attain- 
 able English translations. 
 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson, himself no mean scholar, 
 writes (Italics ours) : * 
 
 "The respectable and sometimes excellent translations of 
 Bonn's Library have done for literature what railroads have 
 done for internal intercourse. I do not hesitate to read all 
 the books I have named, and all good books, in translations. 
 
 "Society and Solitude," Books and Reading.
 
 92 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 What is really best in any book is translatable, any real 
 insight or broad human sentiment. Nay, I observe that in 
 our Bible, and other books of lofty moral tone, it seems easy 
 and inevitable to render the rhythm and music of the origi- 
 nal into phrases of equal melody. ... I rarely read any 
 Latin, Greek, German, Italian, sometimes not a French 
 book, in the original, which I can procure in a good version. 
 I like to be beholden to the great metropolitan English 
 speech, the sea which receives tributaries from every region 
 under heaven. I should as soon think of swimming across 
 Charles River when I wish to go to Boston, as of reading 
 all my books in originals when I have them rendered for 
 me in my mother-tongue." 
 
 Dr. W. C. Wilkinson remarks : * 
 
 "Goethe was before Emerson in standing up strong for 
 translation, maintaining that the essence, the substance, of 
 any literary work is quite capable of being translated from 
 language to language." 
 
 Emerson's illustration of the English translation of 
 the Scriptures is peculiarly happy. We catch the spirit- 
 ual glory of the Hebrew poetry in the rapt visions of 
 Isaiah, the pleadings, the exalted faith, the ascriptions 
 of praise of the Psalms ; and we feel a difference in the 
 language not merely in the thought when we turn to 
 the simple narratives of the Gospels or the didactic 
 style of the Epistles. Nor only so ; we seem to catch a 
 transition of style in passing from the Old Testament 
 narratives, like the story of Joseph, to the New Testa- 
 ment narratives, like the account of the Transfigura- 
 tion or the parable of the Good Samaritan ; and it seems 
 not fanciful to think that the style of the translators 
 was insensibly influenced by the unlikeness of the Greek 
 and the Hebrew idiom, each of which they caught by a 
 
 * "The Good of Life," Goethe's "Faust," p. 319.
 
 WORLD-LITERATURE IN ENGLISH 93 
 
 fine, scholarly instinct, and expressed vividly in the 
 sensitive English. 
 
 And it is not amiss to remark at this point that 
 the entire faith of Christendom is based upon transla- 
 tions. The Latin Vulgate, which was for centuries the 
 only Bible of western Europe, is a translation from the 
 Greek and Hebrew. Though the Greek Church may use 
 the New Testament in the original Greek, its Old Testa- 
 ment is the Septuagint, a Greek translation from the 
 original Hebrew. If, as many scholars believe, and as 
 some passages of the Gospels seem to indicate, Jesus 
 commonly spoke Aramaic, the dialectical Hebrew of 
 Palestine, we have in the Greek Testament itself only 
 translations of the very utterances of the Founder of 
 the Christian faith. By translations the Bible has gone 
 round the world, producing in the Orient, in Africa, 
 and in the islands of the sea an essential unity of Chris- 
 tian faith. No more stupendous spiritual force has ever 
 been exerted upon earth than that of the translations of 
 the Scriptures. 
 
 So, too, Emerson's remark that " Whatever is really 
 best in any book is translatable," is one of his crucial 
 sayings that justifies itself. Something of form, and 
 of what we might call flavor, we must lose, but the es- 
 sence, the gist if there is any can be carried over. 
 The converse is equally true, that whatever is worst in 
 any book is translatable, though translators often show 
 an aversion, which must be commended, to doing it. If 
 a book in a translation is utterly empty and stupid, it 
 is empty and stupid in the original. The translator did 
 not put the emptiness in; rather you may be sure he 
 did his best to fill the vacuum. If a book is mean and 
 wretched in translation, it is mean and wretched in the 
 original. Thus Jeffrey said of Goethe's "Wilhelm
 
 94 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 Meister," "This book could not have been written in 
 English," and with his Scotch directness and courage 
 gives literal translations of some passages, of which we 
 might say that they could not now be printed in Eng- 
 lish. They were and are just as bad in the German, 
 though the foreign language often acts as a kind of 
 veil or disguise to screen the full atrocity from the 
 English reader of the original. It is very safe to say 
 that what will not bear full translation into English is 
 not fit to read in any language unless when the his- 
 torian or scholar is reading, as a physician investigates, 
 to understand the diseases of the world. Fortunately, 
 the English reader will have little of this obtruded upon 
 him. English translators have, for the most part, been 
 persons of clear judgment and good taste, and English 
 and American publishers have had, on the whole, a 
 sound judgment of what the reading public of the 
 English-speaking world would bear. Rather they have 
 given us a glorious accumulation of all that is grand, 
 beautiful, and good in all the languages of the earth. 
 
 So considered, we view our English privileges with 
 wonder and delight. 
 
 Do you care for Homer or Vergil, for Demosthenes 
 or Cicero, for Herodotus, Thucydides, Livy, or Tacitus, 
 or Plutarch, for Aristotle, Plato, or Xenophon, for 
 JEschylus, Euripides, or Sophocles, for Aristophanes, 
 Ovid, or Juvenal, for the fables of JEsop or The Arabian 
 Nights Entertainments, for Cervantes' "Don Quixote" 
 or the "Chronicle of the Cid," for Dante or Petrarch 
 or Boccaccio or Ariosto, for Kepler or Leibnitz or Fichte 
 or Kant or Descartes, for Spinoza or Swedenborg, for 
 Goethe or Schiller or Lessing, for Fenelon or Bossuet, 
 Malebranche or Pascal, for Moliere, Voltaire, or Rous- 
 seau, for Dumas, Balzac, or Victor Hugo, for Ibsen or
 
 WORLD-LITERATURE IN ENGLISH 95 
 
 Tolstoi, or a thousand others? You may read them all 
 in the language in which you read your morning paper. 
 Are you interested to know about the Vedas or the 
 Eddas or the Zend A vesta? You may read all that is 
 most important of them in English. Would you learn 
 what Mohammed really taught? There is an English 
 translation of the Koran. Do you wish to understand 
 the teaching of Buddhism? Many admirable and 
 learned English works will give you translations and 
 digests of the chief monuments of that faith. Scholarly 
 translations of the texts and classics of Confucianism 
 are easily accessible in English. You may read in 
 English the songs of the Troubadours, the inscriptions 
 on the bricks and clay cylinders ef Babylon and Nine- 
 veh, or the hieroglyphics on the tombs and pyramids 
 of Egypt. Of modern works, anything that commands 
 wide attention is almost instantly rendered into 
 English. The chances are that an English translation 
 will be published in England or America simultane- 
 ously with the appearance of the original in its own 
 country. Through our native language we may keep 
 our finger on the pulse of all the world. By its facility 
 and felicity of translation, its power to express the es- 
 sential thought of any writing produced in any lan- 
 guage, English has become the Pentecost of the nations, 
 so that their utterances in every variety of human 
 speech we may hear "every man in our own tongue 
 wherein we were born." 
 
 That this is no rhetorical rapture the following inci- 
 dent will show: A young minister had failed of a col- 
 lege education because of the belief that he must lose 
 not a moment in going to men with the Christian mes- 
 sage "to preach the gospel." Later, as he came to 
 see how much that gospel message involved, he was
 
 96 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 aware that he had made a mistake, which it was then 
 too late to correct. What could he do? He resolved, 
 "I will study, as far as I can reach it in English, the 
 best of all that college men learn, so that when I meet 
 a college man I shall know something of the best of all 
 he knows, and be able to converse with him intelli- 
 gently." Bight there he began a course of self -educa- 
 tion which has placed him among the scholarly men of 
 the world. That man was the one now honored as 
 Bishop Vincent, who told this story of his own youth 
 at the great Chautauqua which he founded, and whose 
 Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Association has 
 opened the treasures of learning through the English 
 tongue to thousands of readers, young and old, in homes, 
 on farms, in factories and offices, all over the English- 
 speaking world. In his own person, and through the 
 great society he has founded, he has demonstrated that 
 the essentials of a liberal education may be secured by 
 any industrious student by means of the English lan- 
 guage alone. 
 
 The scholar and the university should be in full sym- 
 pathy with such wide, dissemination of the best results 
 of university training through the medium of the "cos- 
 mopolitan English speech" accessible to all our people. 
 The desirability of such wide diffusion of learning was 
 well stated by President Hibben of Princeton Univer- 
 sity in a noble address recently given before the Brook- 
 lyn Institute of Fine Arts on "The Functions of the 
 University in America," as follows: 
 
 "The world is coming into possession of a greater mass 
 of knowledge than ever before, a knowledge of a peculiar 
 kind that which gives a man a more intimate knowledge 
 of himself, of the conditions of his life, of the relations 
 which he sustains, and of the obligations which re?t vpon
 
 WORLD-LITERATURE IN ENGLISH 97 
 
 him as a son, father, neighbor, friend, and citizen a knowl- 
 edge which, if properly apprehended and properly applied, 
 will tend, not merely to preserve human life, but to enrich 
 and ennoble it. This human knowledge must be both 
 gained and augmented by university investigation and reach, 
 and it is incumbent upon the university also to cause 
 this knowledge to be diffused as widely as possible, so that 
 it may become the free possession of the many, and not the 
 hidden secret of the few. The university, not merely 
 through its teaching body, but through the men whom it is 
 yearly equipping and sending forth into the work of the 
 world, must be able to interpret this knowledge, to simplify 
 it, and to express it in terms which the multitude will be 
 able to understand and use."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 ENGLISH SYNONYMS THEIR 
 ABUNDANCE AND HELPFULNESS 
 
 The word synonym is from the Greek, a compound 
 of syn- (or sun-), meaning "with" or "together," and 
 onoma, "name," and is applied to any one of two or 
 more words that "name together," fellow-names for 
 the same thing. "We might call a pair of synonyms in 
 English "twin-names" for one meaning. From this 
 we have the adjective synonymous, which in strictness 
 signifies "equivalent in meaning;" but the adjective 
 synonymous holds more strictly to the original mean- 
 ing than the noun synonym. Most people know that if 
 you say one word is a synonym of another, it may not 
 mean exactly the same thing. If you say the words are 
 synonymous, on the other hand, they then feel that you 
 mean they are identical. 
 
 As a matter of fact, it is very rare to find any two 
 words that have precisely the same meaning so as to be 
 always interchangeable. There is almost always a dif- 
 ference either in meaning or in use. You will find 
 many words that you can not discriminate in meaning 
 by the dictionary, but the moment you attempt to use 
 them you will see you can use one in some connections, 
 while in others you must not employ it. Take the two 
 verbs begin and commence, with their nouns, beginning 
 and commencement. Their meaning seems at first sight 
 to be identical. We may say, "The service will com- 
 
 98
 
 ENGLISH SYNONYMS 99 
 
 mence at 8 o'clock", or "The service will begin at 8 
 o'clock," and there is no perceptible difference between 
 these two statements. "We may say, ' ' This was the begin- 
 ning or this was the commencement of the enterprise 
 of the hostilities. ' ' But we soon became aware of a cer- 
 tain formality about commencement that is not in be- 
 ginning. Take the opening verse of Mark's gospel: 
 "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the son 
 of God. ' ' We should weaken it indescribably if we were 
 to make it read "The commencement of the gospel of 
 Jesus Christ." We should lose the plain simplicity of 
 the Anglo-Saxon in the literary formality of the Latin. 
 Still more would this be true of the first verse of Gene- 
 sis, if we were to change "In the beginning God created 
 the heaven and the earth " ; to read ' ' In the commence- 
 ment God created the heaven and the earth." On the 
 other hand, take the common expression for graduation 
 day, the college commencement, and how strange it 
 would seem to speak of the beginning of the college. 
 We should think that it meant its historical origin. It 
 would not even mean the same thing as now, the com- 
 mencement, of course, meaning the day on which the 
 graduates commence their graduate life, commence their 
 course as Bachelors of Arts, for instance. Perhaps 
 there are no other two words in the language that have 
 so little difference between them, and yet even these are 
 not always interchangeable. 
 
 The English language is peculiarly rich in synonyms, 
 as with such a history it could not fail to be. From the 
 fall of the Roman Empire, Britons, Jutes, Angles, Sax- 
 ons, Danes, Northmen, and Normans, fighting, fortify- 
 ing, and settling upon the soil of England, and all 
 fenced in together by the sea, could not but influence 
 one another's speech. English merchants, soldiers, sail-
 
 100 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 ors, and travelers, trading, warring, and exploring in 
 every clime, of necessity brought back new terms of sea 
 and shore, of shop and camp and battle-field. English 
 scholars have studied Greek and Latin for a thousand 
 years, and the languages of the Continent and of the 
 Orient in more recent times. English churchmen have 
 introduced words from Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, 
 through Bible and prayer-book, sermon, and tract. 
 From all this it results that there is scarcely a language 
 ever spoken among men that has not some representa- 
 tive in English speech. Often words derived from two 
 or more sources would be equivalent in meaning, and 
 for a while these equivalent words would dwell side by 
 side, and be used indiscriminately and quite at random 
 for the same thing. 
 
 Then thoughtful English people would come to in- 
 quire, what is the use of having several words for one 
 thing. After that, as any object or idea may be viewed 
 in various aspects, one of these words would be seen 
 to have one aspect and another word to have another, 
 while all of them, differing in particulars, have one 
 common ground. They may be compared to streams 
 which for part of their course blend their waters into 
 one, while above their confluence each flows independ- 
 ently as a separate river, under its own distinctive 
 name. So with a group of synonyms, you will find there 
 is a certain ground which they cover, where they are 
 practically identical, and within this common territory 
 they may be used interchangeably; and you will find 
 there is a certain line of meaning or of usage for each, 
 where it differs from the other or others, and demands 
 distinctive use. Hence arises the wonderful power of 
 our language to exhibit almost any idea in various 
 lights, as by the gem-cutter a single diamond can be
 
 ENGLISH SYNONYMS 101 
 
 made to reveal the light in ever-varying gleams from its 
 numerous facets. 
 
 Thus the field of choice is very wide. This will ap- 
 pear from the following list of words taken at random, 
 for which synonyms have been enumerated as follows: 
 
 beautiful, 17 candid, 20 poverty, 10 
 
 beginning, 14 fickle, 25 power, 28 
 
 benevolence, 16 hatred, 20 renounce, 15 
 
 bright, 31 hinder, 27 wealth, 20 
 
 These numbers may be made a trifle more or less, ac- 
 cording to the methods of enumeration of different 
 authors. For the word pure there are thirty-seven 
 synonyms, as follows: 
 
 absolute, chaste, classic, classical, clean, clear, continent, 
 fair, genuine, guileless, guiltless, holy, immaculate, incor- 
 rupt, innocent, mere, perfect, real, sheer, simple, spotless, 
 stainless, true, unadulterated, unblemished, uncorrupted, un- 
 defiled, unmingled, unmixed, unpolluted, unspotted, un- 
 stained, unsullied, untainted, untarnished, upright, virtuous. 
 
 One of the first things for every young speaker or 
 writer to do is to make it clear to himself that 
 
 THERE ARE SYNONYMS. 
 
 He is, in all probability, using the same word much 
 too frequently, consciously or unconsciously. Thus 
 "great" is a very excellent and valuable word, but it 
 becomes to some writers the only term to express any 
 idea of magnitude whatever, as in the following: 
 
 "We were greatly surprised to see so great a crowd of 
 people assembled, evidently for some great occasion. On 
 inquiry we learned that a great man was to address the 
 people on a subject of great interest. The great size of the 
 field, which sloped like an amphitheater, enabled the great 
 crowd to hear every word with great ease, and all listened 
 with great attention to the great thoughts presented."
 
 102 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 That is perfectly correct English. Great is used cor- 
 rectly in every one of these phrases, and yet you see 
 how ruinous the effect of the repetition is to the pas- 
 sage. That is but a slight exaggeration of the style into 
 which some writers fall, and from which they seem un- 
 able to get out. The way out is by the path of syno- 
 nyms. Let us take the specimen just given and see what 
 synonyms will do for it. 
 
 "We were much surprised to see so large a number of 
 people assembled, evidently for some important occasion. 
 On inquiry we learned that an eminent man was to address 
 the people on a subject of especial interest. The ample 
 size of the field, which sloped like an amphitheater, enabled 
 the vast crowd to hear every word with perfect ease, and all 
 listened with the utmost attention to the noble thoughts 
 presented." 
 
 That is at least readable. It would answer for a de- 
 scription that could be either spoken or printed, in place 
 of the other, which would be intolerable either in speak- 
 ing or writing. The pitiful repetition with which many 
 persons use such words as elegant, splendid, clever, aw- 
 ful, horrid, etc., to indicate for they can not be said 
 to express almost any shade of approved or objection- 
 able qualities, shows a poverty of language which it is 
 of the first importance to correct. It would be well for 
 every young writer to ask himself, or ask some judicious 
 friend, from time to time, "Am I using any one word 
 too much?" "Have I used any word repetitiously in 
 this article or in this paragraph?" If you find your- 
 self harping on one string, then from the abundant 
 synonyms of our language, restring your lyre, and bring 
 out the various tones in rich and pleasing harmony. In 
 revising any article of your own, look through it for rep- 
 etition, as for an intruder or a blemish. And, whenever
 
 ENGLISH SYNONYMS 103 
 
 any word appears too often, say to yourself, A substitute 
 for that repeated word can be and shall be found. Then 
 set to work to find it. 
 
 i 
 
 SYNONYMS AS INTERCHANGEABLE 
 
 The numerous synonyms that are interchangeable 
 are of especial value in contributing to excellence of 
 style. For this purpose they supply: 
 
 1. Variety. Avoidance of repetition is a worthy aim. 
 The hearer or reader instinctively feels, when the same 
 word returns, that the same thought is coming back. He 
 seems to be listening to a thrice-told tale, and getting 
 nowhere. The innate instinct of progress makes the 
 mind resent even the suggestion of being dragged back 
 and forth over the same ground. 
 
 There is a vicious tendency, which sometimes over- 
 comes even the practised speaker or writer, to use an 
 expression merely because he has used it shortly before. 
 The explanation of this is that every mental activity 
 may be said, roughly speaking, to cut a groove in the 
 brain, and the easiest thing for any subsequent mental 
 activity to do is to follow that groove, as the line of least 
 resistance. But that is precisely what we do not want. 
 Great things are seldom done or said in the line of least 
 resistance, but ra,ther by the power of an aroused mind 
 to resist inertia, to act with new initiative, to strike out, 
 invent, discover, originate. Following a previous track 
 of thought is the result of mental indolence, while really 
 worthy work requires that the mind be alert, energetic, 
 active, eager, intense. Repetitiousness is thus usually 
 a sign of mental drowsiness or drifting. 
 
 Beware of favorite words. Often the best evidence 
 that a word .is wrong on the present occasion is that it 
 was right on some quite different occasion. Physicians
 
 104 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 come to be much afraid of the survival of their own 
 prescriptions, as they find a patient taking, or still 
 worse administering to others, for a sore throat a rem- 
 edy that was originally successful in curing indigestion. 
 A favorite or habitual word is quite sure to be, in the 
 majority of cases, misused. Every little while an ad- 
 mired author or popular orator employs some word so 
 aptly that it fixes itself in the public mind, and after 
 that everybody uses it, on every occasion where it can 
 possibly be brought in. At one period the word was 
 permeate, "to be thoroughly diffused through, pervade, 
 saturate," and everything was permeated by some es- 
 sence or influence. At a later time trend which fitly 
 describes some vast, slow geologic movement was the 
 favorite. Everything had a trend. Buying stocks on 
 the wrong side of the market had a trend toward the 
 bankruptcy which was its swift and sure result. Later, 
 meticulous was felt to have a fine, cryptic, and dainty 
 significance, and no article was complete which did not 
 contain some meticulous distinction or suggestion. The 
 European war brought in camouflage as fascinatingly 
 descriptive, but that swiftly lost its charm by excessive 
 use. If you have a favorite word, be sure not to use 
 that word, except when you can not help it. Then, on 
 some occasion when it is the very best word to use, that 
 shop-worn term will become new, even to yourself, by 
 its happy appropriateness. 
 
 There is a special danger of repetition of the common 
 words, the supposedly "simple" words, because they 
 include so many meanings. Dictionary-makers find 
 those the very hardest to define. It is easy to give a 
 definition of arterio-sclerosis, because that means just 
 one thing, and when you have told that one thing, your 
 definition is done. But the so-called "simple" words,
 
 ENGLISH SYNONYMS 105 
 
 the "easy words," are mostly from the Anglo-Saxon, 
 and the Anglo-Saxon mind dealt in the concrete. It 
 used short, forceful words for great masses of meaning, 
 trusting hearers or readers to pick out the sense re- 
 quired in any particular case, when the time came. 
 Whatever was desirable in any one of a thousand ways 
 was good. Whatever was not good was bad. Why 
 worry over fine distinctions? So our children largely 
 think and speak to-day. Hence their language is pre- 
 dominantly Anglo-Saxon. But the world has grown 
 up. The orator or author addresses a constituency that 
 has advanced far beyond that early simplicity, and if he 
 would meet the needs of the time that now is, he must 
 use a store of special and distinctive words, such as the 
 Anglo-Saxons would have had to invent if they had 
 lived and progressed without any Norman invasion. 
 
 Take the little word give. We say that is an "easy" 
 word. "Every child understands that." But the 
 "Standard Dictionary" has thirty-two definitions of 
 that little word, and the "Century Dictionary" also has 
 a like number, not including obsoletes. Thus if you 
 were to use that little word give in all its various senses, 
 you might bring it in some twenty or thirty times within 
 a limited space, each time correctly, but with a total 
 effect of appalling monotony. By selection of synonyms 
 we obtain other forms of expression for these various 
 meanings, which also express them more exactly. Thus : 
 
 Give 
 
 Synonyms : 
 
 bestow, cede, communicate, confer, deliver, furnish, grant, 
 impart, present, supply. 
 
 To give is primarily to transfer to another's possession 
 or ownership, without compensation; in its secondary
 
 106 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 sense in popular use, it is to put into another's possession 
 by any means and on any terms whatever; a buyer may 
 say "Give me the goods, and I will give you the money"; 
 we speak of giving answers, information, etc., and often of 
 giving what is not agreeable to the recipient, as blows, 
 medicine, reproof; but when there is nothing in the con- 
 text to indicate the contrary* give is always understood in 
 its primary sense; as, this book was given me. Give thus 
 becomes, like get, a term of such general import as to be a 
 synonym for a wide variety of words. To grant is to put 
 into one's possession in some formal way, or by authorita- 
 tive act; as Congress grants lands to a railroad corpora- 
 tion. To speak of granting a favor carries a claim or con- 
 cession of superiority on the part of the one by whom the 
 grant may be made; to confer has a similar sense; as, to 
 confer a degree or an honor; we grant a request or a peti- 
 tion, but do not confer it. To impart is to give of that 
 which one still, to a greater or less degree, retains; the 
 teacher imparts instruction. To bestow is to give -that of 
 which the receiver stands in especial need; we bestow alms. 
 
 Hence, instead of using the one word give for every 
 one of these various meanings, think which meaning 
 you wish to express, and use the synonym for that spe- 
 cial meaning. Thus your language will be marked by 
 a natural and pleasing variety, and will, at the same 
 time, be more explicit. 
 
 One convenient item to remember in the study of 
 variety is, that it is always possible to vary by passing 
 from the specific to the generic. Thus, if you are speak- 
 ing of a horse, and if that one specified word is recur- 
 ring too often, it is always possible to use one of certain 
 generic terms. In some cases you may say beast, the 
 ' ' poor beast, ' ' or the ' ' lazy beast ;" if he is ill-tempered 
 and tricky, you may speak of the " vicious brute;" you 
 may say in pity, "the poor creature showed signs of 
 distress." Then, you have always in store the broad
 
 ENGLISH SYNONYMS 107 
 
 generic word, animal. The horse, of whatever kind or 
 quality, is sure to be an animal, and you may say, "I 
 pitied the poor animal," or, "I admired the noble ani- 
 mal". So, for the specific designation of city, town, 
 village, or hamlet, it is always possible to substitute the 
 one generic word, "place". Either hope or fear, joy or 
 sorrow, is a feeling, and is also an emotion. If you 
 have already used the specific term, you may refer back 
 to it as a " feeling " or an. " emotion, ' ' and the reference 
 will be readily understood. 
 
 Repetition should also be shunned on grounds of good 
 taste, vivacity, and interest. There is nothing so deadly 
 in style as monotony. In describing a lake on a wind- 
 less day, I may speak of it as calm, placid, quiet, smooth, 
 still, or tranquil, and any one of these six adjectives is 
 fitting. But if I have occasion to refer to that sheet of 
 water six times, and each time call it the "placid lake", 
 can the repetition fail to be wearisome? If, however, I 
 refer to it now as calm, again as quiet, smooth, still, or 
 tranquil, there comes at each time a new turn of thought. 
 My hearer or reader is a guest in my house, from which 
 six windows look out upon the lake, each at a different 
 angle. If I wish him to be impressed with the beauty of 
 the scene, I may take him six times to one window, a 
 process which would come to have a certain sameness. 
 But if I invite him at fitting moments to each of the six, 
 he gains at each a fresh impression, sees a new land- 
 scape, and his sense of the loveliness of the view grows 
 upon him throughout the whole time of his stay. Vari- 
 ety, within rational limits, is a delight in and for itself, 
 and is a worthy object of painstaking endeavor. 
 
 2. Dignity. There are certain words that have al- 
 ways moved amid high association, which have never 
 been made commonplace, never worn threadbare in the
 
 108 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 shop and the market, never "soiled by ignoble use." 
 They are especially the words we inherit from the classic 
 tongues of Greece and Rome, not because those lan- 
 guages had no inferior words, but because it is chiefly 
 the works of the masters of their literature that have 
 come down to us, carrying still the nobility of their ori- 
 gin. Not a few words from other sources partake of a 
 like nobility. There are many situations where nothing 
 less than one of these choicer words is adequate to sus- 
 tain a sentence or paragraph at its due elevation. 
 
 How Coleridge's famed poem would be brought down 
 to the commonplace, if we were to substitute for the 
 "Ancient Mariner" the equivalent phrase, the "Old 
 Sailor!" Byron's famed description of the Battle of 
 Waterloo begins: 
 
 "There was a sound of revelry by night, 
 And Belgium's capital had gather'd then 
 Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright 
 The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men." 
 
 Try the substitution of any word of less dignity for 
 ' ' revelry, ' ' as : ' ' there was a sound of merriment, ' ' or 
 "there was a sound of jollity by night," and note the 
 loss. It would be equally hard to give a good equivalent 
 for the word "chivalry." These words are, indeed, 
 from the French, but they are from its higher reaches 
 of style. There are occasions where one ill-chosen word 
 would cause a fine paragraph to slump disastrously. 
 Take the conclusion of Webster's oration on Bunker 
 Hill Monument: 
 
 "Let it rise till it meet the sun in his coming! Let the 
 earliest light of morning gild it, and parting day linger and 
 play on its summit!" 
 
 This beautiful paragraph is built throughout of the
 
 ENGLISH SYNONYMS 109 
 
 simplest Anglo-Saxon words, till at the very end we 
 have the word ' ' summit, ' ' taken almost unchanged from 
 the Latin. Why? Well, try to substitute some other 
 term. "Summit" may be defined as top, peak, or apex. 
 Which of these could we use ? To say, Let parting day 
 linger and play on its top, would destroy the magic of 
 the noble conclusion, and fall little short of making it 
 ludicrous. In the same orator's grand tribute to Massa- 
 chusetts, in his reply to Hayne, he says : 
 
 "There is her history; the world knows it by heart. The 
 past, at least, is secure. TEere is Boston, and Concord, and 
 Lexington, and Bunker Hill; and there they will 'remain 
 forever." 
 
 Suppose we substitute a common phrase for those last 
 two words, and make the sentence end, ' ' and there they 
 will always stay." We have not changed the meaning, 
 but we have spoiled the entire effect. 
 
 But this seeking for dignity must be subject to the 
 requirements of good sense and of cultured taste. 
 Otherwise it will become pretentious and stilted. Some 
 of the greatest thoughts require, even because of their 
 greatness, the very simplest words. Here only the mas- 
 ter of language knows how adequately to choose. 
 
 In Macaulay's famed description of the Puritan, in 
 his ' ' Essay on Milton, ' ' occurs the following passage : 
 
 "Thus the Puritan was made up of two different men, the 
 one all self-abasement, penitence, gratitude, passion, the 
 other proud, calm, inflexible, sagacious. He prostrated him- 
 self in the dust before his Maker: but he set his foot on the 
 neck of his king." 
 
 Note how the Latin words predominate in the array 
 of the abstract and spiritual elements of character, 
 self-abasement, penitence, gratitude, passion, inflexible,
 
 110 EXPKESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 sagacious. We would not change a word of them. They 
 give to the paragraph a noble elevation, fitting to the 
 type of character portrayed. We come then to a con- 
 crete act, though of tremendous significance, and this is 
 stated in the very plainest Anglo-Saxon words, "he 
 set his foot on the neck of his king." It comes like the 
 stroke of the headsman's axe, sharp, final, resistless. 
 We would not change a word of that. But how is one 
 to know which words are best at any given time? Use 
 your best endeavors to become a master of language. 
 Then you will know, by a kind of second sight, the 
 theme and the occasion impelling the trained mind to 
 fitting choice. 
 
 3. Euphony. This may be counted among the minor 
 graces of style, but it is not unimportant. Of two or 
 more words equally appropriate in meaning, one may 
 be preferable simply because it will enter a particular 
 combination with euphonic power. 
 
 It is comical to hear certain foreign actors or singers 
 who can not speak English without a barbarian burr 
 that can be recognized as far as their voice can be heard, 
 tell us that "the English language is not euphonious!" 
 No wonder they think so! In their rendering it cer- 
 tainly is not. And some of them are teachers. If they 
 have to teach a pupil to sing or recite in French, Ger- 
 man, or Italian, they will insist on every nicety of pro- 
 nunciation in those languages. But no pains need be 
 taken to pronounce English, the language of one hun- 
 dred and fifty millions of people! For that a few 
 broad vowels, ah and oh and oo, are capital enough ; 
 and the patient English-speaking audience read the 
 printed text to find out what is being said or sung in 
 their own language. On the lips of one who can speak 
 it, however, the English speech is capable of great
 
 ENGLISH SYNONYMS 111 
 
 beauty. Its orators, and especially its poets, have made 
 much of its possible melody and rhythm. Thus Whit' 
 tier writes: 
 
 "I love the old melodious lays, 
 That softly melt the ages through, 
 The songs of Spenser's golden days, 
 Arcadian Sidney's silver phrase, 
 Sprinkling our noon of time 
 With freshest morning dew." 
 
 Again we may note this quality in one of the two 
 stanzas which Gray wrote for his "Elegy" and after' 
 ward for what reason no one knows eliminated from 
 the poem: 
 
 "The thoughtless world to majesty may bow 
 
 Exalt the brave and idolize success, 
 But more to innocence their safety owe 
 
 Than power or genius ere conspired to bless." 
 
 Much of the charm of Milton's poetry is in its eu- 
 phonic power, as in the following from ' ' Paradise Lost : ' ' 
 
 "Heaven opened wide 
 
 Her ever-during gates, harmonious sound, 
 On golden hinges moving." 
 
 He knew how, too, on occasion to utilize the uneu- 
 phonic, as again from "Paradise Lost" (Bk. II) : 
 
 "On a sudden open fly, 
 With impetuous recoil and jarring sound, 
 The infernal doors, and on their hinges grate 
 Harsh thunder, that the lowest bottom shook 
 Of Erebus." 
 
 But though he could deal with horrors, his love was 
 for the beautiful. How charming are these lines in 
 Eve's evening talk to Adam in Paradise:
 
 112 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 "Sweet is the breath, of morn, her rising sweet, 
 With charm of earliest birds ; pleasant the sun 
 When first on this delightful land he spreads 
 His orient beams on herb, tree, fruit, and flower, 
 Glist'ring with dew ; fragrant the fertile earth 
 After soft showers; and sweet the coming on 
 Of grateful ev'ning mild; then silent night, 
 With this her solemn bird and this fair moon, 
 And these the gems of heav'n, her starry train." 
 
 "Paradise Lost," Bk. IV. 
 
 So perfect are the lines that the poet dares to subject 
 them to the severest test, that of studied repetition, 
 and we read them over again immediately afterward 
 with added pleasure: 
 
 "But neither breath of morn when she ascends 
 With charm of earliest birds, nor rising sun 
 On this delightful land, nor herb, fruit, flower, 
 Glist'ning with dew, nor fragrance after showers, 
 Nor grateful ev'ning mild, nor silent night 
 With this her solemn bird, nor walk by moon 
 Or glittering starlight, without thee is sweet." 
 
 Here is just change enough not to weary interest by 
 monotony, but the recurrence of a refrain so lovely that 
 we gladly welcome its return. 
 
 Every leading orator or writer will be found to have 
 some euphonic standard, some rhythm or cadence 
 which he loves, sometimes too much, so that he tends 
 to return to it with too constant uniformity. Yet the 
 fact that he has a standard preserves him from harsh 
 and dissonant constructions that would ruin his diction. 
 One great value of the interchangeableness of synonyms 
 is, that many a time a word that would make a sentence 
 harsh and forbidding in tone may be replaced by an- 
 other near enough in meaning to fit the sense, and yet 
 far more euphonious in connection with the associated
 
 ENGLISH SYNONYMS 113 
 
 words; and the utterance of the highest truth has in- 
 creased power when it is expressed in words that fall 
 musically upon the ear, so appealing to the imagination 
 and the sensibilities, as well as impressing the intellect. 
 Beauty is itself a power. 
 
 THE NON-IDENTITY OF SYNONYMS 
 
 This has even a higher utility as adapting them most 
 perfectly to the expression of thought. There is a mar- 
 velous power in that aggregation of symbols which we 
 call language, by which something so fleeting and eva- 
 nescent as thought may be crystallized into permanent 
 form, able to arouse in another mind the same mental 
 activity with which it left our own. A particular 
 language may cease to be spoken among men, becoming 
 what we call a ' ' dead language ; ' ' but if we can discover 
 what its words once meant as symbols of thought, we 
 may take some musty manuscript, yellow with lapse of 
 time and covered with the dust of centuries, and those 
 long-forgotten words will bring to us the very thought, 
 will awaken in us the very emotion that stirred the soul 
 of that author of ancient days. Critics may dispute 
 whether Homer ever lived, but in the Iliad and Odyssey 
 Homer is alive to-day. Or, apply the test of the newest 
 science; put a living thought upon the telegraph-wire, 
 let the rattling key click it off over thousands of miles, 
 and it will stir the soul of nations. But to do this the 
 words must fit the thought. In a deep and true sense 
 they must express that thought. 
 
 To such adequate expression the study of synonyms 
 helpfully contributes. Among the qualities to be se- 
 cured by a comparative review of the words possible to 
 use in the utterance of a thought may be mentioned :
 
 114 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 1. Exactness. How often do we meet persons who 
 seem always incapable of saying what they mean? They 
 will go all around their thought, but never quite touch 
 it. They will fairly wrestle with language, till they find 
 the wrong word. Sometimes such a person is dimly 
 aware of his own futility, and hints at it by adding to 
 his inadequate words such phrases as, "you see," "you 
 know," "you understand," in the attempt to inject into 
 another mind by suggestion what fitting words would 
 enable him simply and directly to say. Sometimes he 
 completes his blundering phrases by the addition of the 
 remark, ' ' If you get what I mean, ' ' thus implying, with 
 a fine instinct of impoliteness, that he has expressed the 
 thought clearly enough, but the question is whether 
 you have intellectual capacity to comprehend it. Such 
 a speaker or writer reminds us of the Alaskan savage 
 wrapped in furs and cowering over a fire of twigs, with 
 coal mines that might warm nations under his feet. Dig 
 out, rather, the hidden riches of language, till every 
 thought shall find a tongue, the very word or words to 
 express its clear, full, and utmost meaning. 
 
 When a thought is expressed by some happy word or 
 form of words, that says all that is meant, and says 
 nothing more and nothing different, the mind rests. 
 Such an expression is like the perfect focus of a tele- 
 scope, giving a clear image, with no divergent rays, or 
 like a fixed point in a diagram, from which we may 
 measure on in any new direction, and to which we may 
 readily return. This is what Kipling has described as 
 "the magic of the necessary word." It is of the first 
 importance to provide good series of words for various 
 ideas, and this is not a mere matter of phrase. It is a 
 matter of thinking. Whoever will study any good set 
 of defmitio-'Q, look up the different words in the die-
 
 ENGLISH SYNONYMS 115 
 
 tionary, and see where they agree and where they divide, 
 will define his own ideas. He will lay off the territory of 
 his own thought, and it will be made new as an expanse 
 of ground is after the surveyor has been over it. He 
 will know how many acres it contains, and in what direc- 
 tions of the compass they lie, and where the woodland is, 
 and where the pastures, the streams, and the meadows 
 are. When you have laid out and measured the territory 
 of thought, you will be able after that to traverse it with 
 a readiness and certainty that could never otherwise be 
 attained. A century ago the maps of Africa had in the 
 center a vast blank space, across which was printed with 
 great letters in a waving line, ' ' Mountains of the Moon. ' ' 
 Now we trace there the course of the mighty Congo, and 
 the outline of those great lakes, the Albert and Victoria 
 Nyanzas, and the boundaries of the colonies that power- 
 ful European nations have established within that once 
 uncharted space. 
 
 The center of many a mind is occupied by some 
 vaguely traced chain of "Mountains of the Moon," 
 where exploration, measurement, definition, would reveal 
 available mental territory, within which new and nobler 
 activities of thought might find a home. In proportion 
 as you insist on finding a distinctive word for each sep- 
 arate idea, you. are exploring and mapping off your 
 mental territory for intelligent and profitable occu- 
 pancy. One, on the contrary, who is content to use some 
 single word for quite distinct ideas, keeps his mind a 
 chaos : 
 
 "a dark 
 
 Illimitable ocean, without bound, 
 
 Without dimension; where length, breadth, and height, 
 And time and place are lost; 
 Chance governs all."
 
 116 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 Poverty of language is always accompanied by pov- 
 erty of thought. Do not rest till you have found a dis- 
 tinct word to express each distinct idea. When you 
 have found that word, you will often be astonished to 
 discover how the thought itself is clarified, made more 
 clear by clear expression. That happy and fitting term 
 will many a time be a gateway, beyond which new vistas 
 of thought expand before you. You have enriched your 
 own mind and increased your own capacity of thinking 
 by fitting and appropriate expression of thought. Thus 
 Burke says in his speech, "On Conciliation with 
 America ' ' : 
 
 "They [the American colonies] complain that they are 
 taxed without their consent: you answer that you will fix 
 the sum at which they shall be taxed. That is, you give 
 them the very grievance for the remedy." 
 
 "Grievance" is there the one very word for the 
 thought to be expressed, and, turn as you will, you will 
 find it hard to substitute any other which shall be ade- 
 quate. 
 
 When, in the great speech in Faneuil Hall which laid 
 the foundation of his fame, the young orator, Wendell 
 Phillips, said: 
 
 "I thought those pictured lips would have broken into 
 voice to rebuke the recreant American the slanderer of the 
 dead," 
 
 that word "rebuke" was the one word for the occasion. 
 Sometimes in writing you catch a word that does not 
 satisfy you. Perhaps it suggests what you want, but 
 does not fully express your meaning. Perhaps it sug- 
 gests what you do not want. You feel uncomfortable 
 over it. Often in conversation one pauses and hesitates, 
 he is not saying just what he wants to say by the
 
 ENGLISH SYNONYMS 117 
 
 only word that rises to his lips. Or perhaps you are 
 not sure which of two, or even three, words is the one 
 you want. Now, how to manage them. You are writing, 
 perhaps in a hurry, or in some great stress of excite- 
 ment. All the best writing is done under stress. When 
 the thought is looming ahead, the pen can not possibly 
 be fast enough to keep up with it, and there is danger 
 lest it slip away before you can fix it upon the page. 
 At such a time shall you lay aside your writing, and go 
 to the dictionary or the book of synonyms, to wrestle 
 with a word? That is a ruinous method, sure to produce 
 a wooden style. By the time you have done that, the 
 heat and glow of your writing will be gone, and your 
 vivid interest in the subject dulled or deadened. You 
 have exchanged the telescope for the microscope, and 
 the landscape has vanished. Do not stop a moment. On 
 the other hand, do not let it go at random, so that the 
 doubtful or inadequate word shall appear in the final 
 copy. Write the word that seems at the moment most 
 nearly suitable, and then underscore it with a wave-line, 
 or mark it with an accountant's check. Later, in your 
 revision you may deal adequately and deliberately with 
 that single item of style. If the choice is between two 
 words, as "armistice" and "truce," it may be well to 
 write them both. Put ' ' armistice, ' ' for instance, in your 
 text, and enter after it in parenthesis or in the margin 
 ("truce"), and go on. In your revision your atten- 
 tion will be recalled to such items by your warning 
 notes, and in the revision you are master of the situa- 
 tion. What you have written is nailed down, and can 
 not get away from you. You are then able to descend 
 upon the doubtful items with your book of synonyms 
 and your dictionary, and so make the choice of words 
 more nearly suitable to the demands of the occasion.
 
 118 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 2. Delicacy of Discrimination. As you view one of 
 the paintings that delight the centuries you soon become 
 aware of the difficulty of setting limits to its various 
 shades of color. The sky is blue, but it is not all the 
 same blue. Where does it begin to lighten or deepen? 
 Here is a rich red robe falling in careless folds around 
 a figure, but it is a different red, according to each gra- 
 dation of light or shadow. The green of the forest trees 
 proves to be of many shades and hues, all subtly blend- 
 ing into one. 
 
 At various points in some great gallery you will see 
 artists' easels, where copyists are working with feverish 
 haste to reproduce the masterpiece before them. They 
 are painting mechanically. There is red, and they put 
 on red; there is blue, and they make it one solid blue; 
 and when the work is done, it is oftenest a travesty, 
 rather than a copy of the world-renowned painting. 
 The master, with limitless skill and toil, patiently elab- 
 orated those infinitely varying hues and tints that make 
 the wondrous perfection. So the artist in language toils 
 laboriously, and not all in vain, to present by fitting 
 words the infinitely varying tints and shades of thought, 
 which only the amplest command of language can enable 
 him at all to do. 
 
 It will be seen on reflection that this delicacy of dis- 
 crimination is but a department of exactness. In pro- 
 portion as the speaker or writer fits his words exactly 
 to his thought, they will vary with every modification of 
 the thought. It is the sunlight itself that varies the 
 hues of the forest or the sky. The artist but seeks to 
 portray upon the canvas what nature has done. So the 
 power of delicately chosen words is that they portray 
 with a fine fidelity the variations that actually exist in 
 the world of thought.
 
 ENGLISH SYNONYMS 119 
 
 We have spoken previously of discreet change of 
 phrase as a worthy means of securing variety of style. 
 But by simple faithfulness in the expression of thought 
 through all its varied transformations we attain a va- 
 riety that is deeper, more essential and pervading, than 
 can be elaborated by any artifices of style. As scarcely 
 any two ideas or emotions are completely alike, if we 
 can find for each an exact expression, our expressions 
 must be constantly varied and ever new. By its fitness 
 our utterance will have the variety of life, the sparkle 
 and freshness of ever-changing thought. 
 
 3. Fulness. Often it is a gre"at study to bring lan- 
 guage up to the exaltation of thought. The far summit 
 rises beyond the clouds, white in the light of a loftier 
 sky. What words may picture for others the vision of 
 grandeur that the soul in some supreme moment has 
 attained? Many a vision fades and dies, just because 
 no words were found to portray the splendor of its 
 glory. This is the problem of the orator, the poet, the 
 essayist, of all who would greatly influence their fellow 
 men by speech. The commonplace is everywhere. To 
 rise above it, one must know the words of loftiest range. 
 
 Thus in Tennyson's "Ode on the Death of the Duke 
 of Wellington," when he would picture the victor of 
 Waterloo as he stood in the affection and reverence of 
 his countrymen, he writes : 
 
 "Great in council and great in war, 
 Foremost captain of his time, 
 Rich in saving common-sense, 
 And as the greatest only are, 
 In his simplicity sublime." 
 
 " Sublime" is the only word that could fitly close the 
 sketch of such a character as the poet has pictured. 
 1 ' Grand, " " noble, " " lofty, " " majestic, " ' ' admirable, ' '
 
 120 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 all would fall short. SUBLIME rises to the supreme 
 height of greatness. It is all the more effective since it 
 is made the last word in the sentence. William E. 
 Henley knew the value of last words when he wrote his 
 familiar lines : 
 
 "It matters not how strait the gate, 
 
 How charged with punishments the scroll, 
 I am the master of my fate: 
 I am the captain of my soul." 
 
 The same may be said of the lamented Rupert Brooke, 
 the English poet, who .died of illness at Scyros while on 
 his way to serve in the operations in the u33gean during 
 the early part of the great European war of 1914, and 
 who, in a poem entitled "The Soldier," wrote: 
 
 "If I should die, think only this of me: 
 
 That there's some corner of a foreign field 
 That is forever England. There shall be 
 In that rich earth a richer dust concealed." 
 
 That these highest words may be available for noble 
 uses, they must not be brought forth on ordinary or 
 trivial occasions, but be held carefully in reserve. Other- 
 wise one comes to some great occasion with no words to 
 meet its demand except such as have been already pro- 
 faned or belittled by ignoble use. 
 
 There are times for the ordinary and commonplace. 
 On those occasions use ordinary and commonplace words. 
 Your words are fitting then, and you are saving your 
 strength and the attention of your hearers or readers for 
 something greater to come. Then, as the plane of thought 
 rises, let the words rise with it, fitting the thought still. 
 So, at the very climax of your attainment, you have 
 other words, yet unused and unworn, that may come 
 forth with their own native force to match the greatest 
 thought you have to utter.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE ENGLISH DICTIONARY AND 
 HOW TO USE IT 
 
 A complete dictionary is a compendium of all human 
 knowledge so far, at least, as that can be expressed in 
 the words of one language. For all real knowledge is 
 sure to find its expression in words, so that if we know 
 all the words of a language, we have a general knowledge 
 of all which that language can tell. 
 
 The making of a dictionary is a vast undertaking. In 
 the olden time an English dictionary could be made by 
 one man, with a certain amount of clerical assistance. 
 So, doubtless, was prepared the first English dictionary 
 worthy of the name, giving not only words, but their 
 definitions in English. This was the work of John Bullo- 
 kar, published in 1616, and entitled "The English Ex- 
 positor. ' ' We know certainly that Dr. Samuel Johnson 's 
 "Dictionary of the English Language," published in 
 1755, was made in seven years by that one man, with 
 only the aid of humble assistants, whose work consisted 
 very largely in copying quotations, which he had selected 
 and marked for them. In the United States, in 1807, 
 Noah Webster, then forty-nine years of age, and distin- 
 guished for a quarter of a century as a writer and 
 educator, and especially as the author of "Webster's 
 Spelling Book," which had come to be used almost uni- 
 versally in the United States, set definitely to work at 
 his "American Dictionary of the English Language," 
 
 121
 
 122 EXPKESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 for which he had long been collecting material. He 
 spent twenty-one years in all in the preparation of hia 
 dictionary, exclusive of the preliminary work done before 
 1807, himself denning from 70,000 to 80,000 words. 
 Worcester's "Dictionary of the English Language," 
 published in 1859, was likewise an individual work. 
 Since that period no great English dictionary has been 
 the personal achievement of a single editor. The rapid 
 advance of knowledge has made this a physical impossi- 
 bility. The later editions of the "Webster's" diction- 
 aries, which are new works in all but the name, the 
 ''Century Dictionary," of 1891, and the "Standard Dic- 
 tionary," of 1893, were each many years in preparation 
 under the hands of an extensive staff of eminent scholars. 
 The "New Standard Dictionary" of 1913 numbers 
 among its editors "more than 380 specialists and other 
 scholars. ' ' The ' ' New English Dictionary on Historical 
 Principles," published at Oxford, England, commonly 
 called from the name of its leading editor, "Murray's 
 Dictionary, " is a vast work in ten volumes, the prepara- 
 tion of which in its present form has occupied more 
 than thirty-eight years, while the collections on which it 
 is founded had begun long before under the charge of 
 the Philological Society of England. In every one of 
 these great dictionaries of recent years, each department, 
 as of Zoology, Botany, Chemistry, Geology, Astronomy, 
 Physics, Etymology, etc., has been under the charge of 
 a specialist of eminence in that department, while an 
 extensive office staff of scholarly editors, with a special 
 bureau of quotations, has reviewed and unified all the 
 work of the various departments and shaped all into 
 proper lexicographical form. Not one of the learned 
 editors could have done it all ; not one of them but has 
 occasion often to seek instruction from the very diction-
 
 THE ENGLISH DICTIONARY 123 
 
 ary on which he has labored, when he would know of 
 matters outside of his own department. 
 
 The result of all this is that the student should respect 
 the dictionary. It knows more than you do. Under any 
 given word you may be sure of obtaining a definition 
 prepared by a master of that subject, and giving the 
 best result available up to the time of going to press. 
 No dictionary is infallible, but any error a great modern 
 English dictionary may contain will be one that has 
 entered in spite of all that the care and toil of a force of 
 scholars including some of the most eminent men of the 
 day could do to prevent. The chance of an average 
 reader finding such an error may be regarded as neg- 
 ligible. Come to your dictionary in a humble and teach- 
 able spirit. If its statements differ from your previous 
 belief or practise on any point, conclude that you, your- 
 self, have been in error unless you are able to reverse 
 its decision by some other authority of equal ability. Be 
 sure that if you do not study the dictionary at all, you 
 are living in a density of ignorance with which you can 
 only be satisfied because it is so complete. 
 
 "But the dictionary contains so much that I do not 
 want. ' ' So does the telephone directory. You are visit- 
 ing or trading with very few of the persons named 
 therein ; but you do not know at what moment you may 
 wish to call up any one of them, from Adams to Zim- 
 merman. The directory gives you the power to speak at 
 will with any one of thousands in a great city. The dic- 
 tionary is a directory of words. Within its covers are 
 ranged thousands upon thousands, waiting silently, un- 
 obtrusively, patiently, for your summons. 
 
 But do not be afraid of the extra words. They can 
 not get out. Some persons have a horror of the dic- 
 tionary, looking upon it as a beehive from which, if care-
 
 124 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 lessly joggled, swarms of unreasoning words may burst 
 out and sting them with demand for instant utterance. 
 Such a disaster has never been known to happen within 
 the history of lexicography. The captive words are like 
 the Arabian genii imprisoned under the seal of Solomon, 
 powerless to escape until some one releases the seal. In 
 fact, persons have been known to live for years in the 
 same room with a massive dictionary without being in 
 the slightest degree affected by the proximity. 
 
 On the other hand, the possibilities of the transfusion 
 of knowledge from such a reservoir to the receptive mind 
 are magnificent. How often we should be glad of a wise, 
 kind friend at hand to explain to us at any moment 
 some perplexity that arises, as a child confidently asks 
 a father at any instant for full information on any sub- 
 ject of human knowledge. In all his early years the 
 child, by his ceaseless questions, is using father, mother, 
 nurses, and friends as dictionaries. In your own experi- 
 ence you come with equal suddenness to a perplexity in 
 your reading. You have only to turn to your waiting 
 dictionary for instant explanation. 
 
 A very common way to deal with such difficulties is 
 to "give them the go-by" pass them with "never 
 mind". Such apathy is characteristic of the vegetative 
 mind. Some years ago a literary man set out to find 
 the cable power-house in New York, but having failed 
 to note with sufficient accuracy the exact location, was 
 dropped by the street-car several blocks away, in a dis- 
 trict largely occupied by foreigners. Then began a quest. 
 Passers-by whom he accosted knew nothing of the cable 
 power-house. He applied confidently to the drivers of 
 several delivery wagons, who had never heard of it. He 
 burst into a barber's shop, but neither the barber nor 
 the customer on whom he was operating had ever heard,
 
 THE ENGLISH DICTIONARY 125 
 
 of such an institution. There appeared to be no police- 
 man in that precinct, so that it was impossible to appeal 
 to the majesty of the law. Yet all the while he could 
 hear the boom of the great engines of the cable power- 
 house filling the air. At length the explorer set out to 
 follow the sound, as of a torrent in the wilderness, and 
 so, at last, by his own unaided intelligence, came out at 
 the back door of the building that filled an entire block. 
 Those people lived in the hum of that machinery and 
 never asked the cause. Perhaps they knew the building 
 by some other name ? That is possible, but by no means 
 certain. A little later the same investigator came sud- 
 denly upon an imposing structure rising to completion 
 in lower New York, and was at once interested to learn 
 what it was. He observed a man standing near and 
 watching very intently the workmen who were swinging 
 a great stone into place on the cornice. He stepped up 
 to him and inquired : "Will you please tell me, sir, what 
 building that is?" The man turned with a start, and 
 answered with unaffected surprise : ' ' Z don 't know. ' ' It 
 had not occurred to him as a matter of interest to ascer- 
 tain that he was watching the completion of the Hall of 
 Records of the chief city of the New World. Yet there 
 are persons who covet such an apathetic existence, suited 
 to the mind of an oyster rather than of a man, and 
 resent any attempt to arouse them from it. The worst 
 of that condition is that it is progressive, and that, with 
 lapse of years, tolerated dulness develops into impene- 
 trable stupidity. Any shock or any urgency that can 
 set such an intellect scouting toward its own frontiers 
 may lead it to the discovery of unimagined realms 
 beyond. 
 
 The intellect needs often to be roused to activity. 
 Place a wakeful sentinel of inquiry at every outpost;
 
 126 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 establish a picket-line of interrogation; challenge every 
 new word and every new fact with an everlasting * ' Who 
 goes there?" You come to the startling discovery, 
 "Here's a word in my own language that I don't know. 
 Isn't there some way to find out?" Why, certainly. 
 Treat the new word in your own language with the 
 same respect you would pay to a new word in Latin or 
 Greek, French, German, or other foreign language, if 
 you were studying that. Look up that word in your 
 dictionary. Like a good general, do not leave an enemy 
 in your rear in the shape of an undefined word. 
 
 The first step in education beyond the primary school 
 is to have a dictionary. It is one of the most beneficent 
 of modern literary institutions, and is supremely neces- 
 sary for self -education, where one has not the advantage 
 of continual association with teachers and studious com- 
 panions. But do not fall into the easy delusion that "A 
 dictionary is a dictionary, ' ' as some people will buy any- 
 thing called a watch, to find that it will stop at uncer- 
 tain intervals by day or night, lose an hour or two with- 
 out visible provocation, and that it needs to be set when- 
 ever you wish to know the time of day. A cheap dic- 
 tionary reprinted from plates seventy-five years old, in 
 squalid, heart-breaking type, is enough to wreck the 
 English scholarship of the most ambitious and long-suf- 
 fering student. Nor will a showy binding help the 
 shabby interior, any more than a gold case will help the 
 movement of the timeless watch. An inexperienced stu- 
 dent will do best to ascertain from a teacher or other 
 trusted friend what dictionary is best for his circum- 
 stances and present stage of progress. 
 
 There is much to be said in favor of the smaller dic- 
 tionaries. In the first place, you will want a small dic- 
 tionary, anyway, even if you have the most extended
 
 THE ENGLISH DICTIONARY 127 
 
 of the great "unabridged." You are sure to need a 
 handbook of English, giving you the substance of all you 
 will ordinarily require, and of a size to be carried from 
 place to place in your study, or from room to room, as 
 your convenience in reading may require. Such a book 
 has the advantage that it may always be taken on occa- 
 sion to a better light, and that it gives you fewer pages 
 to turn over each time you look for a word. For many 
 persons, students, clerks, stenographers, and others, a 
 consideration not to be despised is that such a book 
 will be more moderate in price. But pay what is neces- 
 sary in order to get what is worth buying at all. The 
 abridgments of the chief dictionaries have been carefully 
 made under the supervision of competent editors, well 
 acquainted in each case with the larger work, so that 
 the smaller book has, as far as it goes, the best qualities 
 of that from which it is abridged. Large or small, get 
 a dictionary that may be depended upon as accurate 
 and excellent. 
 
 By one who has a settled home or office, and can 
 afford the expense, a full or "unabridged" dictionary, 
 covering the entire range of English reading, is greatly 
 to be desired. In a school, while every pupil should 
 have his or her own dictionary, there should be also a 
 complete dictionary readily accessible to all. In every 
 case the large and the small dictionary should belong to 
 the same system, so as to agree, and not conflict with 
 each other in phonetics, spelling, division of syllables, 
 etc. One who has occasion to consult a dictionary in 
 school or office, and also at home, should have, if possi- 
 ble, a copy at each place, that there may be no "lost 
 motion". The apparatus providing the very funda- 
 mentals of speech should be always, everywhere, and in- 
 stantly available.
 
 128 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 We would even suggest, with some trepidation, that 
 it is a good thing to read the dictionary. Undoubtedly 
 this will be scouted by many as monstrous. Yet some 
 masters of language have done just that, among them 
 Brougham, Macaulay, Daniel Webster and Emerson. 
 Try it, not with grim resolution as you take medicine, 
 but as you sometimes glance at objects in a showcase, 
 with no expectation of buying, and often buy in con- 
 sequence. You will probably be disposed to skip some 
 dry, technical terms, and for this will need no direc- 
 tions. But it will be strange if you do not find some 
 word to you unfamiliar, yet so forcible and excellent 
 that you are glad to know it; or some new meaning of 
 a word that you supposed you knew well, so well that 
 you would not have looked it up ; or if you do not have 
 recalled to your memory something that you once knew 
 well, but have been in danger of dropping out of use ; or 
 have ideas that have become vague and worn by frequent 
 handling, cut to sharp edges again by exact definition. 
 Macaulay seems to assume that a dictionary is of course 
 to be read, when he speaks of Johnson's as "the first 
 dictionary which could be read with pleasure." He adds 
 that ' ' a leisure hour may always be very agreeably spent 
 in turning over the pages. ' ' Emerson writes : 
 
 "Neither is a dictionary a bad book to read. There is no 
 cant in it, no excuse of explanation, and it is full of sug- 
 gestion the raw material of possible poems and histories. 
 Nothing is wanting but a little shuffling, sorting, ligature 
 and cartilage."* 
 
 Horace Greeley said regarding the resumption of 
 specie payments after the Civil War, "The way to re- 
 sume is to resume," and the event justified the utter- 
 
 * "Society and Solitude." Books and Reading.
 
 THE ENGLISH DICTIONARY 129 
 
 ance. So the way to use the dictionary is to use it. Say 
 to yourself, "Somehow I am going to get out of that 
 book what there is in it. Others have done it, and what 
 they have done I can do." 
 
 Much may be done without a method. Plunge in 
 somewhere, look up something, then the next thing, and 
 the next, and you will ultimately evolve a method of 
 your own. Whoever begins to use the dictionary with 
 simple, dogged determination will come out somewhere. 
 He will learn to use it in some way, even if not in the 
 best way. But some suggestions will help the learner 
 to get the most out of this repository of knowledge. 
 
 1. Locate your dictionary so that it can be used. It 
 has been found that the athlete who can win the hun- 
 dred-yard dash can not cross a large room or climb a 
 flight of stairs to consult a dictionary. The most studi- 
 ous woman will scarcely undertake to lift a twenty- 
 pound dictionary from a lower shelf to the level of a 
 table for the purpose of consulting it, while for a child 
 this is physically impossible. A handsome and expen- 
 sive dictionary in several volumes in a glass case in 
 a parlor will be about as useful as a cabinet of Japanese 
 bric-a-brac. Whatever an intelligent person really means 
 to use often, he or she locates so that it can be used 
 readily. Do not allow your fine dictionary to be like 
 the bow of Ulysses, which, as a critic shrewdly remarks, 
 ' ' was chiefly famed for the difficulty of using it. ' ' The 
 head of a certain office had a disputed question to settle, 
 requiring use of the dictionary, to which he seemed 
 unaccountably disinclined to refer. At length he rose 
 reluctantly, walked some yards to the safe, removed a 
 pile of reports and some miscellaneous volumes, lifted 
 the heavy ''unabridged", carried it over to his desk, 
 where he scraped a place for it, and then proceeded to
 
 130 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 look up his word. Evidently nothing but dire necessity 
 could drive him to that exertion. 
 
 A large dictionary should have a convenient, acces- 
 sible location, as much as a cash-register, as a prime con- 
 sideration. Preferably it should have some exclusive 
 support. There are a number of dictionary-holders in 
 the market. The best are of metal, adjustable to any 
 desired height, so contrived as to hold the book closed 
 when not in use, but to permit it to be opened at any 
 moment to any page, and to hold it open at that page as 
 long as may be desired. There are brackets that may be 
 attached to the wall or to a table or desk for the same 
 purpose, and there are revolving bookcases provided 
 with a dictionary-holder on the top. Cheapest of all is 
 a light wooden frame, such as any one with a little skill 
 in woodworking can easily make for himself, just large 
 enough to hold the book when open, and set at the right 
 angle for easy reading. This latter is a very important 
 consideration in the use of any large book. If it lies 
 flat on table or desk, the eye, as it travels down the 
 page, must be continually adjusting itself to a new focus, 
 and the reader becomes tired without knowing why. 
 Thus a new trap is set for laziness. Such a book should 
 be held by some means at an angle of about forty-five 
 degrees, as one unconsciously holds a newspaper; then 
 the eye reads with a constant focus, and with the mini- 
 mum of fatigue. 
 
 The small dictionary has tricks of its own. It may 
 abscond into a seldom-used room ; it may hide among a 
 quantity of books and papers, from which the labor of 
 unearthing it is more than the exertion of using it after 
 it is found. The small dictionary must be assigned a 
 well-known and convenient place, to which it shall be 
 regularly and continually returned. If various mem-
 
 THE ENGLISH DICTIONARY 131 
 
 bers of the same family wish to use the same dictionary, 
 they should be provided with separate copies. Have a 
 down-stairs and an up-stairs copy, for instance, each 
 kept where it can always be found. In the office of an 
 eminent editor, when a question arose, he reached out 
 without turning his revolving chair, and laid his hand 
 upon a medium-sized dictionary, settled the matter, and 
 put the book back where he could find it just as easily 
 the next time. He could have laid his hand upon it in 
 the dark. And the shelf was in a little bookcase of plain 
 boards, such as any good workman could put together 
 in half an hour, fitted into a niche close beside him. Its 
 merit was not beauty, but accessibility. 
 
 2. Learn how to handle the tool. The dictionary is a 
 tool for a lifetime. Every good worker, in beginning 
 with a new tool or apparatus of any kind a gun, auto- 
 mobile, typewriter, sewing-machine, harvester, or fireless- 
 cooker will, first of all, learn something about it. Then 
 he may develop his own individual way of handling the 
 instrument, but that will be in harmony with its original 
 construction, and vastly better than any method he might 
 have fallen into without study or explanation. Find out 
 all you can about this tool before beginning to work with 
 it. It will pay you to take the time required at the out- 
 set. We will not inflict the advice, always given, but 
 never taken, to "read the preface", but we will say, 
 look it over. Find what the editors and publishers think 
 they have to offer. Especially obtain a good preliminary 
 knowledge of a section dealing with ' ' abbreviations used 
 in this book. ' ' You will not probably at once remember 
 them all, but you will know where to find them. Then 
 turn back to them from time to time till you know them 
 all. We will undertake that many a person who has 
 used one dictionary for years could not pass an examina-
 
 132 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 tion on its abbreviations and arbitrary signs, which he 
 has been sliding over, leaving unexplored corners of 
 knowledge, and never quite sure what his own dictionary 
 was trying to say to him. Till you understand its sys- 
 tem, a book is never all your own. 
 
 3. Learn the geography of your dictionary so that 
 you can travel through it freely. If it has, as most of 
 such works now have, a thumb-index, practise the use of 
 that. Apply a little intelligence to the mechanism. 
 Study the space occupied by the various letters. Thus, 
 in the Standard Dictionary, A occupies 149 pages; 
 B, 111 pages; C, 202 pages; A, B, and C together, a 
 little less than one-fourth of the total number of pages 
 in that dictionary. On the other hand, J occupies 16 
 pages only ; K includes 17 ; Y, 6 ; Z, 7, and X, 2. The 
 first twelve letters, A to L (inclusive) occupy almost 
 one-half the space given to the entire alphabet. If you 
 open the book in the middle, you will come almost 
 exactly to the beginning of M. Learn what we may call 
 "the sub-alphabet system," by the second, third, and 
 subsequent letters of words, so that you think instantly 
 that cor comes after car, and that cur comes a long way 
 after both. Not every word in C, for instance, will be 
 found close to the marginal C of the thumb-index, and 
 if you want a word near the end of the list under C, 
 there is no reason why you should begin at cab, and sol- 
 emnly turn over two hundred pages to find your way 
 to czar. You know that a word in Cz must be almost 
 at the end of the C alphabet. Open at D of your thumb- 
 index, and czar will probably be directly before your 
 eyes at the end of C. By this preliminary knowledge 
 of the relative space occupied by the various letters, 
 ready familiarity with sub-alphabeting, and a deft use of 
 the thumb-index, you can soon make the book obey your
 
 THE ENGLISH DICTIONARY 133 
 
 hand and answer to your thought. Practise a little in 
 quick turning to various letters. This will speedily 
 become automatic. You will be saved from the night- 
 mare feeling that you have that whole book in solution, 
 to deal with all at once when you want only one little 
 word ; and you will gain the pleasure that always comes 
 with easy control of mechanism. 
 
 4. Learn the phonetic system of your dictionary. 
 This will almost certainly differ from the phonetic sys- 
 tem of any other dictionary. Each work has its own 
 special set of symbols for denoting the same sounds. If 
 you do not know the system of your book, you will be 
 as helpless as one who should try to talk Dutch in Paris. 
 As you expect to make yourself at home in your dic- 
 tionary, take pains to learn its language of symbols or 
 diacritics. Go through its entire phonetic key at least 
 once, pronouncing the letters in the easy specimen words 
 given. Make sure how your own dictionary distinguishes 
 the sound of a in at, for instance, from the sound of 
 a in all. You will then speedily fix the system in mind 
 by referring as occasion arises, either to the full pro- 
 nouncing key or to the abbreviated key repeated at the 
 top or bottom of every page. This will soon become a& 
 clear to you as if some one spoke the marked word in 
 your hearing. 
 
 Remember that, in speaking, the word as pronounced 
 is the only word the hearer gets. How can he tell 
 whether you mean fallow, fellow or follow, seller or 
 sailor, sample or simple, set or sit, tail or tall or tell 
 or toll, except by the difference you make in the sound 
 of the leading vowel in each case? Hence, every word 
 should be rightly spoken. It is true we do guess out 
 much of very imperfect speech by the context; but a 
 person of any education should be ashamed to have
 
 134 EXPKESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 others guessing out his utterances as those of an ignorant 
 foreigner. Moreover, mispronounced words may be mis- 
 understood or absolutely lost ; if you say lnor'i-zn, your 
 hearer may not know that you meant ho-rl'zon. 
 
 Then, we owe something to the euphony and delicacy 
 of our language. There is a constant tendency among 
 ill-educated and negligent persons toward a coarsening 
 of speech, reducing all sounds to a very few, and those 
 the harshest, or such as are pronounced with the least 
 intelligent effort. They speak the finer and more deli- 
 cate merry so that it can not be distinguished from 
 marry. Especially they give in as many syllables as pos- 
 sible the short u sound, which requires no distinct exer- 
 tion of the vocal organs, but mere emission of breath, 
 the inarticulate grunt of the hog ; they say guv'ur-munt, 
 sup'plu-munt, in'stur-munt. It is along such lines of 
 ignorant, indolent, rude, or harsh utterance that the 
 degradation of a language is wrought out. By such 
 means the dialect of the lower classes in some parts of 
 Italy has lost all the sweetness and music that mark the 
 pure Italian. One prime object of education is to resist 
 all such corrupting tendencies. 
 
 Note the pronunciation of every word you look up in 
 your dictionary, however well you think you know it. 
 You may find that you have been pronouncing it wrong 
 for years. You may have been saying ad'dress for 
 ad-dress', ideer' or i-dee f for i-de'a, i-deel' for i-de'al, 
 reel for re'al, pome for po'em, po'try for po'et-ry, and 
 sat'n for sat'in. It is certainly droll to hear a student, 
 supposedly acquiring a "liberal education," unable to 
 pronounce in English the name of the language of 
 ancient Borne, but informing you that he is "studying 
 Lat'n." On the other hand, you need not cultivate the 
 false precision of pronouncing the t in often; say, not
 
 THE ENGLISH DICTIONARY 135 
 
 of 'Ten, but ofn. Are you accustomed to make any dif- 
 ference in the pronunciation of the words dew, do, and 
 due? Your dictionary will tell you that there is a fine 
 difference of sound there well worth preserving. Many 
 persons have acquired pronunciations so false that they 
 have gone astray on the spelling of some words in con- 
 sequence, and cannot find them in the dictionary. A 
 story is told of two "Western lawyers of the olden time, 
 who had just installed in their office a copy of "Web- 
 ster's Unabridged". Soon after, one turned to the 
 other, and inquired: "Do you spell eque or equi in 
 ' ' equinomical " ? ' ' I 'm not sure, ' ' said the other ; ' ' look 
 in the dictionary." After a search the first said with 
 surprise, " 'Tain't here!" The second came to help 
 him, but had no better success. Then they stared at 
 each other, till one exclaimed : ' ' Well, what do you think 
 of a man that would get up a big dictionary like that, 
 and not put in such a common word as ' equinomical' ?" 
 
 Sometimes you will find that more than one pronun- 
 ciation is allowed, and perhaps that some pronunciation 
 you have thought erroneous is justified by good author- 
 ity. A swift glance at the phonetics of every word to 
 which you open will inform you of these things, preserve 
 you from falling into ruts of utterance, and make mind 
 and ear delicately attentive to the acoustics of speech. 
 This wide-awake alertness is wholesome, helping to keep 
 the mind alive, in all its powers, as a healthy body is, to 
 the finger-tips. 
 
 5. Note spellings as you pass and with them divi- 
 sion of syllables. This becomes very easy when it is 
 habitual. Observe whether your dictionary spells skU- 
 ful or skillful; wilful or willful; traveler or traveller. 
 Observe whether you should write etherial or ethereal; 
 erronious or erroneous. You will soon pick up these
 
 136 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 things as you go, with scarcely perceptible effort. It is 
 astonishing how much can be done by mere absorption, 
 when attention is once aroused. This is illustrated by 
 the familiar fact that you can walk or run faster over 
 a path which you know. Once you had to notice all the 
 turns, the stones and puddles; but, having at first 
 noticed them, you have now relegated them to the sub- 
 consciousness, and you turn or step around or over them 
 by an automatic decision swifter than thought. So you 
 may make your dictionary help you to unconscious cor- 
 rectness of spelling. 
 
 6. Pick up derivations. Observe, we do not say: 
 " study etymology". Most people have a horror of ety- 
 mology perhaps due to undesirable pedagogical meth- 
 ods of administration. Yet an intelligent scholar can 
 interest a mixed company of young and old in the deri- 
 vation of some one familiar word. The old fable told 
 of a clock that stopped because the pendulum had been 
 calculating that it would have to tick 31,536,000 times 
 in the ensuing year, till the minute-hand redeemed the 
 situation by asking Mr. Pendulum to ' ' please tick once, ' ' 
 and inquired: "Did you find that very fatiguing?" 
 The matter assumed a wholly different guise on the basis 
 of only one tick a second. It is marvelous how in- 
 geniously the average reader contrives to escape etymol- 
 ogies. In most dictionaries these are placed as chevaux- 
 de-f rise in front of the definition. Yet most people do 
 get by without even the smell of etymological fire upon 
 their garments. In the Standard Dictionary the etymol- 
 ogies are placed at the end of each article, after the 
 definition, and most readers cheerfully quit before com- 
 ing to them. Yet it is not very hard, and it is interest- 
 ing to note whether the particular word you are dealing 
 with is derived from the Latin, Greek, French, Anglo-
 
 THE ENGLISH DICTIONARY 137! 
 
 Saxon, or other origin. By merely glancing at such 
 items in passing one may make a good English diction- 
 ary largely supply the want of a knowledge of Latin, 
 Greek, or other languages that have contributed to our 
 own. 
 
 7. Put solid work upon definitions. Many other 
 things are important, but correct definition is indispen- 
 sable, in order that language may be a medium of com- 
 munication between man and man. " If I know* not the 
 meaning of the voice, I shall be to him that speaketh a 
 barbarian, and he that speaketh shall be a barbarian 
 unto me." That for which persons oftenest go to the 
 dictionary is the meaning of some word. The meaning 
 of words is worth working for, because it is the very 
 life and essence of language. But this solid work is not 
 necessarily hard work ; it may sometimes be, and no one 
 unwilling to do some hard work can succeed in language 
 or in anything else. Much of the time, however, this 
 gathering of information is fascinating work. Here are 
 so many things, not that you must, but that you may 
 know. Now is your opportunity to find out. Here are 
 nuggets to be picked up, and you are going to fill your 
 hands. 
 
 One of the first things that will impress you in defini- 
 tions is the surprising number often found under a 
 single word. Of set there are 39 definitions for the 
 verb, 7 for the adjective, and 18 for the noun 64 in all. 
 The numbers vary in different dictionaries, some much 
 exceeding those above given. It is not the long words, like 
 illimitable and interminable, that are hard to define, but 
 the short and supposedly ' ' easy ' ' ones. Among those es- 
 pecially difficult Dr. Johnson enumerates in his preface, 
 bear, break, come, cast, full, get, give, do, put, send, go, 
 run, make, take, turn, throw. Noting this abundance of
 
 138 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 meanings will keep you from the error of the petty 
 critics, who, knowing one meaning of a word, insist that 
 its use in any other sense must be erroneous. More of 
 the puristic criticism with which the English-speaking 
 world has been nagged and goaded has sprung from 
 this source than from any other. Here is an author who 
 has learned that administer means "to direct, manage, 
 regulate, as a government or an estate." Hence, he is 
 inexpressibly shocked, so that not even shrieking cap- 
 itals can express his consternation, that any one should 
 speak of administering medicine or punishment. But, 
 turning to our dictionary, we find, as definition 2, "to 
 supply, furnish, or provide with, as something necessary 
 or required ; apply to, or superintend the application 
 of; as, to administer the sacraments, punishment, medi- 
 cine, etc. ' ' That use of the word seems not to be so bad, 
 when we know enough. We need to know a word all 
 round before we are competent to dogmatize about it. 
 
 One objector says: "I'm a busy man; I haven't time 
 to go through twenty or thirty meanings when I want 
 one. I might as well ring the bell at every house in a 
 block till I come to the right number. ' ' Even so, you do 
 have time to note whether there are other houses in that 
 block, or only vacant lots. Do as much for your dic- 
 tionary. By the swiftest glance you may notice, if you 
 only will notice, ' ' How many meanings that word has ! ' ' 
 You snatch the one you want on the instant. But an 
 intelligent curiosity is aroused, and on more leisure you 
 come back to study that list through. You will find it 
 interesting to ascertain, if possible, how one meaning was 
 derived from another, and how large a bank account 
 that word has, which you have thought of as only an 
 ordinary individual. Any word becomes more to you 
 when you know all its resources of meaning. Here is a
 
 THE ENGLISH DICTIONARY 139 
 
 crystal of quartz, of which one remarks that it is a pretty 
 bit of stone. But hold it up and turn it in the sunshine 
 till the light is reflected from its many faces and thrown 
 back from its clear depths, and it becomes far more than 
 a " pretty bit of stone", as you appreciate its perfect 
 fashioning and its many-sided brilliancy. 
 
 By watchful observation of words you may find that 
 your favorite magazine-writer is using some word in a 
 wrong sense: perhaps that you yourself have been 
 accustomed to do so. You may read that "The earth- 
 quake at Krakatoa transpired August 26, 1883." Now, 
 when an earthquare happens, it has no occasion to trans- 
 pire, for it is at once widely known to a large part of 
 the earth's inhabitants. But to transpire is "to become 
 known slowly or gradually ; to exhale, as it were, into 
 publicity." Thus it may transpire that a supposedly 
 wealthy man was bankrupt at his death. The use of the 
 word as a synonym for happen is a recent corruption, 
 and also unfortunate, inasmuch as we have two per- 
 fectly good synonyms for happen, namely, occur and 
 take place, not to mention chance, come to pass, and 
 certain others. You may have been accustomed to say- 
 ing that some one's conduct aggravates you. But your 
 dictionary will tell you that is a false use of the word. 
 Aggravate properly means to increase. Disease may be 
 aggravated by anxiety; but for the sense of rousing to 
 anger, you have a number of good words, such as anger, 
 exasperate, irritate, or provoke. 
 
 Look up in your dictionary any unfamiliar word, or 
 any familiar word used in an unfamiliar sense. That 
 usage which is strange to you may be wrong. If so, you 
 will learn the fact, and can drive a stake of negation 
 there. You have settled one thing. That word is not to 
 be used, or not to be so used. But that usage may be
 
 140 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 right, in which case you have made a positive increase 
 of knowledge; you have gained a new word or a new 
 meaning. Get things settled. Recognize the fact that 
 there is ultimate authority: that certainty is possible. 
 Flee from the cloud-land of conjecture. Banish the 
 dogmatism of personal opinion. It is amusing to hear 
 a group of persons disputing as to the meaning of a 
 word, with a dictionary easily accessible, perhaps in the 
 very room where they are gathered. So strong is this 
 tendency to trust haphazard opinions, that one group 
 of students known to the author had actually to make 
 the rule "Never to discuss anything that could be set- 
 tled by the dictionary." 
 
 But do not think we would ask you always to stop 
 your reading to look up the word in question. Read- 
 ing, to be attractive, or even useful, must have some life 
 and movement. Read on. Follow the thought. Let 
 your word wait if you can possibly get by. But keep 
 a pad or memorandum book beside you, and swiftly 
 note down that word. By the time you come to a 
 breathing-space, that word will probably have some 
 companions picked up on the way. Then concentrate 
 your notes upon your dictionary until you have settled 
 the last doubtful item. In listening to a public address 
 a similar method is practicable. Have a pencil and an 
 unpretentious memorandum book, and note from time 
 to time any word or phrase you may wish afterward 
 to look up. It is no discourtesy to a speaker to show 
 yourself interested enough to take notes. Or, by a lit- 
 tle practise, you can accustom yourself to make mental 
 notes of matters to be verified afterward. One advan- 
 tage of this method is that when you hear an unfamil- 
 iar word or phrase in conversation you are not com- 
 pelled to put up a signal of distress, but may simply fix
 
 THE ENGLISH DICTIONARY 141 
 
 the expression in mind, and at the first opportunity re- 
 sort to the tribunal of your dictionary. 
 
 Let us consider for a moment a single definition, and 
 see what it contains. Take the following definition of 
 the noun mood: 
 
 "Temporary or capricious state or condition of the mind 
 in regard to passion or feeling; especially, inclination toward 
 some particular act or occupation; temper of mind; humor; 
 disposition; as, in angry mood." 
 
 "On all his sad or restless moods 
 The patient peace of Nature stole." 
 
 WHITTIER: "My Namesake," St. 24. 
 
 Here are to be noted four elements : 
 
 (a) What is termed the ''definitive statement," ex- 
 tending to the word "occupation." This definitive 
 statement is the gist of the definition, as far as the edi- 
 tor found himself able to put it into words. This is 
 always to be first and most carefully considered. 
 
 (b) Synonyms. In this case we have three: "temper 
 of mind; humor; disposition." These words are not 
 exact, but partial, equivalents. For instance, "dispo- 
 sition" does not express all we mean by "mood." But 
 it helps to give an idea of the meaning by suggestion. 
 As a rule, such synonyms should be looked up, when 
 time allows, and their definitions considered one by one. 
 When lists or paragraphs of synonyms are separately 
 given, those should be carefully studied. 
 
 (c) The illustrative phrase: "as, an angry mood." 
 Such illustrative phrases are very carefully chosen, as 
 giving the editor's idea of the way in which the word 
 defined may be properly used, and should always be 
 thoughtfully noted. 
 
 (d) The quotation. This shows how an eminent au- 
 thor has actually used the word in literature. Some-
 
 142 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 times a number of quotations are given. In the great 
 "Murray's" dictionary they are very numerous. These 
 are of supreme importance, as indicating the best Eng- 
 lish usage, and the best usage is the final authority in 
 language. Words mean what the foremost writers and 
 speakers have understood and used them to mean. We 
 might say that quotations make the dictionary: not 
 the few that can be actually printed within the crowded 
 space of any single work, but the multitude that have 
 been collected and pondered by a long succession of edi- 
 tors, each reviewing the results obtained by all his pre- 
 decessors. 
 
 8. Make the dictionary define itself. The complaint 
 is often made, "Why, I don't understand some of the 
 very words used in the definitions." Look them up, 
 friend! Look them up! Did you imagine editors 
 could make a dictionary out of the stock of words you 
 had to start with? Of course you will find unfamiliar 
 words, but welcome them. Do not treat them after the 
 fashion of trolley-car operators, who regard stopping 
 for passengers as an annoying interruption to the com- 
 fort and continuity of their trip. You are after knowl- 
 edge. Here are some new words which you may learn. 
 Take them on board right now. Go from definition to 
 definition. Run down the meaning to its last retreat. 
 Do not hold your dictionary by one end, with the lever- 
 age all against you. Coordinate the entire apparatus, 
 and make one part minister to and explain another. 
 Thus every time you turn to the book you will come 
 away knowing that much more. By following up defi- 
 nitions you will build up every meaning with many re- 
 lations, and will call in the great power of association 
 of thought, to make all better understood and better 
 remembered.
 
 THE ENGLISH DICTIONARY 143 
 
 9. Look at the pictures. This may seem to some per- 
 sons a frivolous suggestion, because they do not under- 
 stand the purpose of the pictorial part of the diction- 
 ary. They feel, "We are not children, to be amused 
 with a picture-book." But the pictures are illustra- 
 tions as truly as the illustrative phrases. They are 
 carefully chosen for that express purpose, and are, in 
 actual intent, parts of the definitions. Thus, it has been 
 found practically impossible to define a blacksmith's 
 anvil in mere words, so that the definition shall describe 
 that object, and not apply to anything else. But by a 
 lettered picture of an anvil accompanying the defini- 
 tion all may be clearly told. So most machines and 
 parts of machinery, the form and structure of animals 
 and plants, of leaves and flowers, and a multitude of 
 other objects can in no way be so clearly defined as in 
 connection with adequate pictures. No words can con- 
 vey to the mind so clear an idea of the various orders 
 of architecture, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, etc., as can be 
 given by direct views of columns and capitals, palaces 
 and temples. Study of the pictorial illustrations of a 
 dictionary is study of definition in one of its most effec- 
 tive forms, in artistic presentation to the eye. 
 
 So used, by one who thus avails himself of all its vari- 
 ous elements of power, the dictionary broadens the base 
 of knowledge, which is one of the prime objects of a 
 liberal education. It calls the mind out in many direc- 
 tions, arousing and vitalizing faculties that might other- 
 wise lie dormant or perish from atrophy. It tends to 
 accuracy and definiteness, not allowing the student to 
 satisfy himself with "about" and "perhaps". It tends 
 to confidence and certainty. Where our dictionaries 
 substantially agree we have a consensus of authority 
 reaching through more than one hundred and fifty
 
 144 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 years, counting from the publication of Johnson's dic- 
 tionary in 1755. We may trust something to a century 
 and a half of the best English scholarship. The case 
 is like that of our currency, where we may rely upon 
 the stamp of the mint and the imprint of the govern- 
 ment printing-office and the approval of the great bank- 
 ing-houses through which it has come to us, without 
 needing to weigh and test every coin and put every 
 note under the microscope, knowing that the chance of 
 a counterfeit is not one in thousands. 
 
 Worthy of especial note is the fact that intelligent 
 use of the dictionary tends to form the habit of defi- 
 nition, one of the most important of mental activities. 
 A perfect definition includes all that belongs to the 
 matter defined, and excludes everything else. Every 
 time one attains such a definition he has taken a long 
 step toward general clearness of thought. Many a fierce 
 and interminable dispute arises because the contestants 
 are using the same \vords in different senses, when a 
 clear definition would at once bring peace. Many a 
 debate is won by the disputant who sees and holds fast 
 a clear definition of the terms employed. That ' ' division 
 of the question" which often clarifies the action of a 
 deliberative assembly is simply an act of clear definition, 
 separating propositions that were previously confused. 
 A clear style is due to that habitual accuracy of defini- 
 tion which leads the speaker or writer to express at every 
 instant just what, and only what, he wished then and 
 there to say. Rational mastery of definition reaches 
 beyond the dictionary, becoming an important element 
 of power in mind and life.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 ENGLISH CONNECTIVES THE LINKS 
 OF STYLE 
 
 There are certain words that express the great essen- 
 tials of human thought, as objects, qualities, or actions; 
 such are nouns, verbs, and adjectives. Such words 
 must always make up the substance of language. Yet 
 they are dependent for their full value and utility 
 upon another class of words, the thought-connectives, 
 that simply indicate relation; these are chiefly prepo- 
 sitions, conjunctions, relative pronouns, and relative or 
 conjunctive adverbs. If we compare the nouns, adjec- 
 tives, and verbs to the bricks that make up the substance 
 of a wall, we may compare the thought-connectives to 
 the mortar that binds the separate elements into the 
 cohesion and unity of a single structure. 
 
 The value of these connectives may be clearly mani- 
 fested by striking them out of any paragraph, and no- 
 ticing the barrenness and confusion that result. Thus, 
 by the omission of the thought-connectives, the first sen- 
 tence of the Declaration of Independence becomes a 
 mere cipher, needing a key for its interpretation; while 
 by restoring them the meaning becomes luminous: 
 
 The course human events When in the course of 
 
 becomes necessary one peo- human events, it becomes 
 
 pie dissolve the political necessary for one people to 
 
 bands have connected them dissolve the political bands 
 
 another, assume the powers which have connected them 
 
 the earth the separate equal with another, and to assume 
 
 145
 
 146 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 station the laws nature na- among the powers of the 
 ture's God entitle them, a de- earth the separate and equal 
 cent respect the opinions station to which the laws of 
 mankind requires they nature and of nature's God 
 should declare the causes entitle them, a deoent re- 
 impel them the separation. spect to the opinions of man- 
 kind requires that they 
 should declare the causes 
 which impel them to the 
 separation. 
 
 In this brief extract of seventy-one words, we have 
 twenty-two connectives, which are all necessary in 
 order fully and clearly to bring out the meaning of the 
 sentence. It is the connectives that make English, a 
 language in distinction from a vocabulary. With all 
 our nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and verbs, we could 
 not express a coherent thought of any fulness and range 
 without connectives. Deprived of such helps, all speech 
 would be made up of brief, isolated, and fragmentary 
 sentences. This is seen in the so-called Gallic or French 
 style sometimes adopted on the stage or in sensational 
 novels : ' ' He sees. He hears. He turns. He falls. He 
 dies. All is over." This style may be very effective at 
 moments in single passages, but it wearies, if long con- 
 tinued, and ultimately disgusts. As has been well said 
 by an eminent critic : * 
 
 "No man can be supremely eloquent in laconics. You 
 cannot express the rising and the expanding and the sweep 
 and the circling of eloquent feeling in a style resembling 
 that which seamen call 'a chopping sea.' For such thinking 
 you must have at command a style of which an oceanic 
 ground-swell or the Gothic interweaving of forest trees is 
 the more becoming symbol. In the construction of such a 
 style, you must use connective words, links elaborately 
 
 * AUSTIN PHELPS: "English Style in Public Discourse."
 
 ENGLISH CONNECTIVES 147 
 
 forged, inserted in the right joints of style, to make them 
 flexible without loss of compactness. One word of such 
 exact connective force in the right place, with the right 
 surroundings before and after, may make all the difference 
 between the disjointed and the linked style." 
 
 These connective words, "links elaborately forged" 
 through centuries, are worthy of thorough and careful 
 consideration such as students of language rarely ac- 
 cord them. In the continuous, connected style, the 
 hearer or reader is privileged to advance along a firm, 
 free path, instead of jumping from stepping-stone to 
 stepping-stone, with many a risk of falling between. 
 An incidental but important result of the endeavor to 
 make the connection of thought clear to the person ad- 
 dressed is, that it compels the speaker or writer to make 
 the connection clear to himself, sometimes to ascertain 
 whether there is any connection. If there is, it still be- 
 comes necessary to consider whether the ideas are re- 
 lated by similarity of nature, by succession in time, by 
 the principle of cause and effect, or otherwise, in order 
 that one may know what connective word to employ. 
 Careful connection thus tends to clear thinking. The 
 gain so made is inestimable. Discourse loosely jumbled 
 together differs from that compactly and skilfully 
 joined as a tangle of loose threads differs from a woven 
 garment, or a heap of steel-filings from a cannon-shot. 
 
 The English connectives have never yet been treated 
 in their full range and extent, chiefly for the reason 
 that their various uses are so many, and the shades of 
 distinction between them often so fine, as to make it 
 impossible to cover them all in any work of moderate 
 size. Most of the great dictionaries, as "The New Eng- 
 lish Dictionary" (also called "Murray's" or "The Ox- 
 ford Dictionary"), the "Century," the "Standard,"
 
 148 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 and "Webster's International," give many notes of the 
 prepositions used in various relations, especially after 
 verbs, in connection with the definition of each particu- 
 lar verb; as, "to rely on or upon," etc. Maetzner's 
 "English Grammar" gives several hundred pages to 
 the treatment of connectives, with numerous illustrative 
 quotations. Goold Brown, in his ' ' Grammar of English 
 Grammars", devotes much space to the treatment of 
 these parts of speech. Fallows' "100,000 Synonyms 
 and Antonyms" introduces twenty-six pages of very 
 clear and interesting explanations of various uses of 
 prepositions. ' ' Connectives of English Speech, " * by 
 the present author, discusses very fully the uses of 
 these important words, and supplies very numerous 
 quotations showing their actual employment in the best 
 English literature. 
 
 But all such helps are only partial. The most that 
 they can do is to make clear the chief lines of meaning 
 of the various connectives and their ordinary use to 
 express the principal relations which they indicate. Be- 
 yond this are a multitude of exceptional yet approved 
 uses, which can only be learned as we learn the faces of 
 friends and acquaintances, clearly identified through 
 all varieties of expression which they may assume as 
 influenced by the varying interests or emotions of life. 
 Rules, definitions, and explanations can but start us 
 upon true lines of differentiation. Then, beyond all 
 these, we must depend upon the sympathetic and watch- 
 ful study of the best literature of our language, and 
 upon listening to the best speakers, both in conversa- 
 tion and in public address, to give the eye and ear the 
 
 * Connectives of English Speech. The Correct Usage of 
 Prepositions, Conjunctions. Relative Pronouns and Adverbs Ex- 
 plained and Illustrated. By James C. Fernald, L.H.D. Funk & 
 Wagnalls Company, New York.
 
 ENGLISH CONNECTIVES 149 
 
 sure recognition of the appropriate connective and the 
 swift, instinctive feeling of its fitness in any one of the 
 innumerable exigencies of English speech. 
 
 PREPOSITIONS 
 
 These are not, by many persons, thought of as con- 
 nectives. The old-time grammarians looked only to the 
 relation of the preposition to the word following it. 
 Hence they disposed of it by the statement that "A 
 preposition governs a noun or pronoun in the objective 
 case." This is a rule derived from the Latin and Greek 
 languages, where the preposition may be said to ''gov- 
 ern" a following noun or pronoun, because it requires a 
 change of form of that noun or pronoun into the geni- 
 tive, dative, accusative, or other case. But no such rule 
 holds in the case of any English noun, since the noun 
 undergoes no change of form, whether it is the subject 
 or the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition. 
 In a few pronouns, indeed, a change of form appears, 
 so that 7, we, thou, Tie, she, they, or who, becomes me, 
 ws, thee, him, her, them, or whom when used as the ob- 
 ject of a verb or of a preposition. But apart from this 
 little list of pronouns, the preposition has no effect what- 
 ever upon the word it is said to "govern," except to 
 show the relation of that word to some other word, 
 which ordinarily precedes it in the sentence. The word 
 preceding the preposition, either in place or in thought, 
 and to which it refers back, is fittingly called its ante- 
 cedent. 
 
 In the use of the preposition the word or phrase that 
 precedes it in construction, its antecedent, is as im- 
 portant as that which follows, its so-called object. If 
 we say, "to New York," the question at once arises, 
 "WHAT to New York." Is it the ROAD to New York,
 
 150 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 the TRAIN to New York, the MAIL to New York, or is 
 someone sending or going to New York. That prepo- 
 sition to is meaningless, until we know what comes be- 
 fore it in speech or thought. So, in every possible case, 
 the preposition points backward as well as forward. Its 
 least office is to limit the use of the word that follows it. 
 Its chief value is in showing the relation of that word 
 to some preceding term, thus binding the words to- 
 gether into that unity of thought that makes possible 
 the coherent sentence. The preposition is a relation- 
 word, and thus a true connective. 
 
 A true analysis of the force of this part of speech 
 shows that its very name is a misnomer. The old Latin 
 grammarians named it from an accidental quality. Be- 
 cause in Latin it must precede the word which it is said 
 to ' ' govern, ' ' they recognized this fact alone, and called 
 it from the Latin pre-, "before," and pono, "place," 
 the "preposition" or "word placed before." Then, 
 when the attempt was made to construct English gram- 
 mar on the model of the Latin, the scholastic gramma- 
 rians said, "Why, preposition means placed before, and 
 the preposition must always be placed before some other 
 word; hence, it can never end a sentence." The tra- 
 dition has been handed down, and in the schools of 
 to-day teachers religiously insist upon the rule, "Never 
 end a sentence with a preposition." The schoolboys' 
 Anglo-Saxon language-sense rebelled at this, and they 
 paraphrased the rule into "Never use a preposition to 
 end a sentence with." And the schoolboys' instinct is 
 right. There never was any sense in the "rule," and 
 people go on using the prohibited idiom every day, for 
 the reason that, though English contains numerous 
 words derived from the Latin, yet the idiom of our lan- 
 guage is Germanic, and the idiom is so interwoven with
 
 ENGLISH CONNECTIVES 151 
 
 the fiber of the language that no schoolroom instructions 
 can get it out. If there is any usage a German delights 
 in, it is to round out a sentence with a good vigorous 
 preposition. The same usage has come down through 
 English literature, and is frequent in the works of the 
 foremost writers of our language. It is found in the 
 Authorized Version of the English Bible : 
 
 Until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of. 
 
 Gen. xxviii, 15. 
 
 Shakespeare uses it freely: 
 
 I have a letter from her of such contents as you will 
 wonder at. "Merry Wives of Windsor," Act III, Sc. 6. 
 
 There is no better way than that they spoke of. 
 
 Ibid., Act IV, Sc. 4. 
 
 Benjamin Franklin writes: 
 
 Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time; for that 
 is the stuff that life is made of. 
 
 Three things are men most likely to be deceived in, a 
 horse, a wig, and a wife. 
 
 Addison writes: 
 
 A just and reasonable modesty does not only recommend 
 eloquence, but sets off every great talent a man can be 
 possessed of. "Spectator," Vol. Ill, No. 231. 
 
 James Russell Lowell says of Garfield: 
 
 The soil out of which such men as he are made is good 
 to be born on, good to live on, good to die for, and good to 
 be buried in. "Among My Books." Second Series. 
 
 If we use the relative that, we must carry the prepo- 
 sition to the end of the clause or sentence; as, "This is 
 the book that I came for." It would, of course, be pos- 
 sible to say, "This is the book for which I came;" but
 
 152 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 then we have not merely transferred the preposition, 
 but we have wiped out the pronoun that. The "for 
 which" style is eminently correct, but a trifle formal 
 and prim. In free, off-hand speech or writing "the 
 book that I came for" is natural and forceful, and in 
 accordance with the best usage of the language. 
 
 It may be noticed, also, that there are certain prepo- 
 sitions which join very closely with certain verbs, so as 
 virtually to form compounds, though the words are 
 written separately; as, to laugh at, to bring out, to 
 clear up, etc. In these, the preposition must always 
 stay with its verb, whether at the end of the sentence 
 or not. "That is a thing to be laughed at" is good 
 English; "That is a thing at which to be laughed" is 
 impossible. The virility and vigor of our language are 
 shown in the obstinate persistence of this and various 
 other forceful idioms that come down from ancient days 
 and sweep over the prohibitions of grammatical theorists 
 like a great river over a dam. 
 
 There is a real objection to a final preposition in cer- 
 tain cases, but that objection has nothing to do with 
 the preposition. It is based on a principle that is rhe- 
 torical and not grammatical. There is a valid objection 
 to the use of any small and unemphatic word at the 
 close of a period, because that is the chief place of em- 
 phasis, and any insignificant word just there violates 
 the fitness of construction. Thus the following sentence 
 is faulty in conclusion: 
 
 "There is not, in my opinion, a more pleasing and trium- 
 phant consideration in religion than this, of the perpetual 
 progress which the soul makes toward the perfection of its 
 nature without ever arriving at a period in it." 
 
 You feel at once the drop in the style when that im-
 
 ENGLISH CONNECTIVES 153 
 
 pressive sentence ends with those two insignificant 
 words ' ' in it. ' ' And it is noticeable that the final word 
 is not a preposition. Rhetorically we are concerned 
 with the force and dignity of the ending, and not at all 
 with the parts of speech involved. Any other small and 
 unimportant word is as objectionable as the preposition 
 in such a place. Such a sentence should be recon- 
 structed. 
 
 Here it may be well to call attention to an undesirable 
 form of construction known as "the splitting con- 
 struction." Some authors would remodel the sentence 
 just given by holding back the noun, and writing 
 
 "The progress which the soul makes toward, without ever 
 arriving at a period in, the perfection of its nature." 
 
 Here the first member of the sentence is left incom- 
 plete "the progress which the soul makes toward" 
 and that preposition, "toward", has no apparent ob- 
 ject. You have to hold your breath, as it were, and 
 wait till the next portion of the sentence brings around 
 the object. The train of thought is stopped until a new 
 passenger has got on, and only then are we permitted 
 to proceed to our destination. This style (the so-called 
 "splitting construction") may have at times the ad- 
 vantage of great definiteness and explicitness, especially 
 in scientific or technical statements, but it is always-, 
 somewhat harsh, and preferably to be avoided. 
 
 The task of prepositions in English is vast, and their 
 work incessant, because all that is done by the many 
 cases of nouns and pronouns in the inflected languages 
 must in English be done for all nouns and for most pro- 
 nouns wholly and solely by prepositions. For instance, 
 the Greek, Latin, German, and some other languages 
 have a dative case, expressing the relation of to or for.
 
 154 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 The English has but one little remnant of the dative, ap- 
 pearing in such a sentence as, / 
 
 "Give him the book." 
 
 We do not now call this the dative case, but the "in- 
 direct object." That a preposition is mentally under- 
 stood here is evident from the fact that the moment we 
 change the position of the words we must supply a 
 preposition, as 
 
 "Give the book to him." 
 
 To express practically all other relations of nouns or 
 pronouns, which defy enumeration, we must depend 
 upon prepositions. When we consider how many are 
 these relations, and how delicate in many cases are the 
 distinctions, we can understand the very great impor- 
 tance of the correct use of prepositions in English 
 speech. The chief English prepositions are: 
 
 About, above, across, after, against, along, amid or amidst, 
 around (which is virtually the same as round), athwart, be- 
 fore, behind, beneath, beside or besides, between, betwixt, 
 beyond, but (in the sense of except), by, down, during, ere, 
 for, from, mid, midst (which are the same as amid and 
 amidst), notwithstanding, of, off, on, upon, out, outside, 
 over, round (around), since, through, out, till (until), to, 
 toward, towards, under, underneath, until, up, upon (on), 
 with-, within, without. 
 
 It is to be noted that these are all Anglo-Saxon, justi- 
 fying the common statement that the warp or main sub- 
 stance of our speech is Anglo-Saxon. A few preposi- 
 tions are of Latin derivation, as except, past, save, etc. 
 We might add the Latin per, which is frequent in com- 
 mercial use, and via. Of these it is to be said that the 
 distinction is made that per may be used with a Latin
 
 ENGLISH CONNECTIVES 155 
 
 word but not with an English word. You may say per 
 diem, but not per day; that undoubtedly is true in the 
 first instance, but it is not a finality. Per day, per yard, 
 so much per hour, have become very frequent in com- 
 mercial use, and it is quite possible that the usage of 
 per commercially may give it permanence as an Eng- 
 lish preposition to be used with English words. But 
 the use of per with the object omitted, as "He gets 15 
 per," meaning fifteen dollars a week, is simply and dis- 
 tinctively slang, and not to be tolerated. 
 
 There are also certain participial prepositions, as con- 
 cerning, considering, excepting, regarding, respecting. 
 Of these it is to be noted that considering is almost al- 
 ways deprecatory or depreciatory. You say "Consid- 
 ering his education he does very well;" "Considering 
 the circumstances I will overlook the matter." There 
 is always something to be abated when we say consider- 
 ing. We must now also accept as a preposition the word 
 pending, though it is really a reversed participle. You 
 say, "pending the receipt of orders." That means 
 while the receipt of orders is "pending"; it is some- 
 thing you are waiting for. But pending has been taken 
 out of this connection and made a preposition, pending 
 the receipt of orders. Then there are prepositional 
 phrases, as, according to, in accordance with, on account 
 of, because of, by means of, in default of, in consequence 
 of. These can be taken to pieces and parsed as separate 
 words, but they are almost always used together and it 
 is very natural to consider them as phrases having the 
 force of compound prepositions. 
 
 The prepositions are difficult to define, because they 
 denote relations so elemental that it is scarcely possible 
 to state them more simply, and it is practically impossi- 
 ble to avoid using prepositions in the definition of prep-
 
 156 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 ositions. Nowhere does the instinct of language count 
 for more. The meaning and force of prepositions must 
 be learned chiefly by context, by constant association of 
 the words with phrases in which they are correctly used, 
 until the mind chooses right with no thought of the 
 reason why. The great thing that detailed study can 
 do is to arouse the intellect to attention and watchful- 
 ness to catch the fine shades of distinction that are con- 
 stantly flitting past. It is rarely possible to give exact 
 models that can be followed by rote, because on the next 
 occasion for use the phrase is likely to vary. The best 
 models become suggestions, rather than patterns. 
 
 Prom time to time some well-constructed utterance 
 shows strikingly what prepositions can do. How ad- 
 mirably has Byron, in his ' ' Prisoner of Chillon, ' ' lit up 
 his description of the "little isle" by the fine choice of 
 prepositions : 
 
 "And then there was a little isle 
 Which in my very face did smile, 
 
 The only one in view; 
 A small green isle, it seem'd no more, 
 Scarce broader than my dungeon floor, 
 But in it there were three tall trees, 
 And o'er it blew the mountain breeze, 
 And by it there were waters flowing, 
 And on it there were young flowers growing, 
 
 Of gentle breath and hue." 
 
 Even more strikingly does this appear in Lincoln's 
 world-famous phrase, 
 
 "Government of the people, by the people, for the people." 
 
 "Of the people": The people are to be governed; 
 for the order, safety, stability, and welfare of civilized 
 society there must be "government of the people."
 
 ENGLISH CONNECTIVES 157 
 
 "By the people": Who shall exercise that government 
 over the people ? Shall it be some external power, apart 
 from themselves, and not responsible to them. No. The 
 people themselves shall exercise it. Not kings or nobles, 
 supposed to rule by divine right and by superior excel- 
 lence and power, but the people themselves shall gov- 
 ern. Government of the people shall be by the people. 
 They themselves shall rule themselves. "For the peo- 
 ple": Not in the interest of any dynasty, class, or 
 clique, not for the advantage of their own chosen rulers, 
 to make them rich and great, but first, supremely and 
 finally, to secure the happiness and well-being of the 
 people themselves. This government of the people by 
 the people must be in purpose, intent, and exercise for 
 the good and advantage of the people, "for the peo- 
 ple". The wonderful power of the statement is that 
 the three well-chosen prepositions concentrate and mass 
 all this, so that the mind sees it at a glance, and remem- 
 bers it forever. Three prepositions summarize the phi- 
 losophy of free government, and by that summary have 
 become immortal. 
 
 The correct usage of prepositions can not be finally 
 determined by knowing their individual meanings. We 
 must know also, and that by very close observation, their 
 usual connections with nouns, adjectives, verbs, and 
 adverbs. These are the more perplexing because they 
 are subject to no definite controlling rules. A Danish 
 scholar, learning English, wrote of a certain man, "I 
 am disgusted from him." On being told he should say 
 "disgusted with him," he resented the criticism, ex- 
 claiming, "No! I am not with him, but as far as I can 
 get away from him; I am disgusted from him." A 
 fuller knowledge of the meaning of "with" might have 
 helped this student; but if he had been then informed
 
 158 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 that he might also say, "I am disgusted by his behav- 
 ior," or "at his cowardice," he would doubtless have 
 been still more perplexed. It is noticeable that while 
 we use ''glad of", we say conversely "sorry for," or 
 "sad at". We speak of being "considerate or thought- 
 ful of", but of being "sensitive to"; of being "careless 
 of" f but "indifferent to". Then, while' the negative 
 compound "indifferent" takes to, yet when we use 
 the simple adjective "different," we say "different 
 from." 
 
 Some have tried to establish the rule that the Eng- 
 lish preposition following a word must correspond with 
 any Latin, Greek, or French preposition involved in the 
 word as derived from another language. This works 
 very well in certain cases. Thus attract is derived from 
 the Latin ad, "to", and traho, "draw", and we say 
 ""attracted to." Yet even here we may also say "at- 
 tracted by." But abhorrent is derived from the Latin 
 ah, "from", and horreo, "shudder", yet we do not say 
 
 "That is abhorrent from me," but " abhorrent to 
 
 me." Depend is from the Latin de, "from", and 
 pendeo, ' ' hang ' ' ; yet it is only in a technical or closely 
 literal sense that we speak of one object as "depending 
 from" another; in constant figurative use we say "de- 
 pend on or upon;" "I depend on his courage and loy- 
 alty". The etymological explanation breaks down, and 
 this is as well, for etymology is too slow and minute to 
 be a resource in ready speech and writing. We must 
 know the associations of prepositions as matters of ar- 
 bitrary, concrete fact, just as we know in the alphabet 
 that a precedes b, or that y comes before z. A thorough 
 knowledge of the meaning of each preposition is exceed- 
 ingly helpful, but after all we are constantly driven 
 back upon the fact that a certain preposition is to be
 
 ENGLISH CONNECTIVES 159 
 
 used in a certain connection because that is English 
 usage. Turn as we will, there is no escape from the 
 fact that English must be definitely and patiently 
 learned as English. 
 
 The method recommended for attaining mastery of 
 other elements of English is equally valuable here, viz. : 
 much thoughtful reading of the best English authors. 
 We read not merely words, but phrases, and certain 
 phrase-forms then cling to our thought, so that any 
 other connection of words would seem strange. If, as 
 may often be the case, there is a reason for a different 
 connection to express some varying shade of thought, 
 we learn that by its very contrast with the more famil- 
 iar. With such reading is to be joined the constant 
 hearing of the best English speech to which the oppor- 
 tunities of life give us access. 
 
 The direct study of these connectives is of especial 
 value by the fact that it calls attention to them, fixes 
 the mind upon them, so that one learns to observe, in- 
 stead of merely swallowing the correct style as a thirsty 
 man drinks water. It would be well for any student to 
 study up one preposition in the dictionary each day, 
 noting all illustrative phrases or quotations there given, 
 then looking for instances of the use of that connective 
 in his reading for that day. 
 
 It will be found very interesting to study some par- 
 ticular verb, noting the prepositions by which it is com- 
 monly followed. This may readily be done by means of 
 some one of the excellent concordances now easily ac- 
 cessible. Some concordance of the Bible is now in al- 
 most every home. Concordances of Shakespeare, 
 Browning, Tennyson, etc., may be found in any good 
 public library. Turn, for instance, to the verb rejoice. 
 You will find at once that rejoice at has frequent and
 
 160 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 approved use. We rejoice at something outside of or 
 remote from ourselves. 
 
 Yea, the fir trees rejoice at thee (the fallen Babylon), etc. 
 
 Is. xiv, 8. 
 
 As thou didst rejoice at the inheritance of the house of 
 Israel, because it was desolate. EzeJc. xxxv, 15. 
 
 Or at something which is a mere occasion of joy: 
 
 They take the timbrel and harp, and rejoice at the sound 
 of the organ. Job xxi, 12. 
 
 Rejoice in denotes intimate connection, participation, 
 or sympathy. 
 
 I will rejoice in thy salvation. Ps. ix, 14. 
 For our heart shall rejoice in him, because we have 
 trusted in his holy name. Ps. xxxiii, 21. 
 
 The Lord shall rejoice in his works. Ps. civ, 31. 
 
 Shakespeare represents Brutus as making a coldly 
 logical speech at Caesar's funeral, in the course of which 
 he observes: 
 
 As Ca3sar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate 
 I rejoice at it. 
 
 SHAKESPEARE : "Julius Caesar," Act III, Sc. 2. 
 
 He fails to reach the phrase expressing hearty sym- 
 pathy. He does not rejoice in Caesar's good fortune as 
 an interested friend, but at it, as an observant outsider. 
 A certain church covenant has actually changed its old 
 form that "we will rejoice in each other's prosperity" 
 to "we will rejoice at each other's prosperity, and en- 
 deavor with tenderness and sympathy to bear one an- 
 other's burdens and sorrows." The "tenderness and
 
 ENGLISH CONNECTIVES 161 
 
 sympathy" would be far better intimated in the first 
 clause by " rejoice in". 
 
 ''Rejoice over" may denote appropriative or pro- 
 tecting triumph. 
 
 As the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy 
 God rejoice over thee. Is. Ixii, 5. 
 
 But sometimes "rejoice over" may be used to indi- 
 cate hostile triumph, as of the warrior who stands above 
 his fallen enemy. 
 
 Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and 
 prophets, for God hath avenged you on her. Rev. xviii, 20. 
 
 Sometimes a similar idea, less triumphant, but more 
 sharply hostile, is expressed by rejoice against. 
 
 Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy; when I fall, I 
 shall arise. Micah vii, 8. 
 
 As in denotes the object of sympathetic rejoicing, so 
 with refers to the person or persons in sympathy with 
 whom we so rejoice. 
 
 Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost. 
 
 Luke xv, 6. 
 
 The object or cause of rejoicing may also be intro- 
 duced by because of, for, or in the older English by 
 
 */ 
 
 The daughters of Judah rejoiced "because of thy judg- 
 ments, Lord. Ps. xcvii, 8. 
 
 Jethro rejoiced for all the goodness which God had done 
 to Israel. Ex. xviii, 9. 
 
 He rejoiceth more of that sheep than of the ninety and 
 nine which went not astray. Matt, xviii, 13. 
 
 The verb wait may be followed by for as expressing 
 expectation or suspense.
 
 162 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 Mine eyes fail while I wait for my God. Ps. Ixix, 3. 
 I waited patiently for the Lord, and he inclined unto me 
 and heard my cry. Ps. xl, 1. 
 
 But wait may also be used with on or upon. In mod- 
 ern usage this phrase wait on or upon is so largely used 
 of attendance as a servant that many have come to 
 think that the only meaning. But in higher sense wait 
 on or upon is used as expressing dependence, confidence, 
 trust : 
 
 The isles shall wait upon me, and on mine arm shall they 
 trust. Is. li, 5. 
 
 Art not thou he, O Lord our God ? Therefore we will wait 
 upon thee, for thou hast made all these things. Jer. xiv, 22. 
 
 The eyes of all wait upon thee (Margin, "look unto thee"), 
 and thou givest them their meat in due season. 
 
 Ps. cxlv, 15. 
 
 The translators of the Revised Version seem to have 
 almost completely ignored this English idiom. With- 
 out attempting to pass upon its accuracy as a matter 
 of translation, it must be observed that their rendering 
 has quite changed the meaning of some important pas- 
 sages. For instance, the Authorized Version gives: 
 
 But they that wait upon the Lord (in trustful dependence) 
 shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings 
 as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; and they shall 
 walk and not faint. 7s. xl, 31. 
 
 This the Revised Version renders ''they that wait for 
 Jehovah." But this attitude of mere expectancy is not 
 at home in the passage. People who are "waiting for" 
 something or some one are not generally doing much. 
 But this passage is full of vigor and activity. There is 
 nothing passive or lingering in it. Waiting on a divine 
 leader with trust and service is more in harmony with
 
 ENGLISH CONNECTIVES 163 
 
 the context than waiting for him in expectation and 
 
 suspense. 
 
 CONJUNCTIONS 
 
 Conjunctions may be regarded as the simplest of con- 
 nectives, merely conjoining or joining together (Latin 
 conjunctio, a " joining", from conjungo, "join to- 
 gether") words, phrases, or sentence. The joining of 
 words by conjunctions is much less close and intimate 
 than the joining by prepositions. When words are con- 
 nected by prepositions, the grammatical relation of any 
 noun involved is at once affected. If we say, "John 
 went to James, John is the subject and James the ob- 
 ject of the action, or, as we commonly say, James is "in 
 the objective case" after the preposition. But if we 
 say, "John and James went together," there is no dif- 
 ference in the relation of the two nouns ; one is as much 
 nominative as the other. If we say, ' ' The man with his 
 son is at the door," son is in the objective case after the 
 preposition and can not be the subject of the verb, which 
 is therefore singular, "is". But if we say, "The man 
 and his son are at the door," both nouns are nomina- 
 tives, and the verb is therefore plural, "are". In the 
 sentence, "It is three thousand miles from New York 
 to Liverpool," both New York and Liverpool are ob- 
 jectives after the prepositions from and to, and neither 
 of those nouns could be the subject of a verb. But in 
 "New York and Liverpool are three thousand miles 
 apart," both nouns, New York and Liverpool, are nom- 
 inatives, and form jointly the plural subject of the verb 
 are. The difference is still more strikingly shown in 
 pronouns, as "He and I are associated," or, "He is as- 
 sociated with me." 
 
 In the joining of words by conjunctions the paradox
 
 164 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 appears that the unrestricted use of the conjunction 
 seems to separate the words, emphasizing the individual 
 items and protracting the enumeration, thus making it 
 often more impressive. 
 
 O night 
 
 And storm and darkness, ye are wondrous strong, 
 Yet lovely in your strength. 
 
 BYRON: "Childe Harold," Can. iii; St. 92. 
 
 East and west and south and north 
 
 The messengers ride fast, 
 And tower and town and cottage 
 
 Have heard the trumpet's blast. 
 
 MACAULAY: "Horatius," St. 2. 
 
 The chains, and the bracelets, and the mufflers. Isa. iii, 19. 
 
 And boy and dog, and hostler and Boots, all slunk back 
 again to their holes. IRVING: "Bracebridge Hall," p. 78. 
 
 For I have neither wit nor words nor worth, 
 Action nor utterance, nor the power of speech, 
 To stir men's blood. 
 SHAKESPEARE : "Julius Casar," Act III, Sc. 2, 1. 222. 
 
 It is very noticeable in this last quotation how reck- 
 lessly Shakespeare has violated the supposed rule that 
 "neither" can be used to distinguish only two objects. 
 Shakespeare has here an enumeration of six objects be- 
 ginning with "neither," and in which the correlative 
 "nor" is used four times in succession. 
 
 On the contrary, the entire omission of the connect- 
 ive seems to join the words more closely, crowding the 
 terms of the enumeration together a method forcible 
 by its very abruptness : 
 
 Love rules the court, the camp, the grove. 
 SCOTT: "The Lay of the Last Minstrel," Can. iii, St. 2,1. 5. 
 
 Two horses have emerged from the ruck, and are sweep- 
 ing, rushing, storming, toward us, almost side by side. 
 
 HOLMES : "Our Hundred Days," Ch. 1, p. 54.
 
 ENGLISH CONNECTIVES 165 
 
 This method is to be sparingly used, as its too fre- 
 quent employment gives a jerky effect, and seems to 
 mark an undue straining after force. The familiar 
 method of omitting the conjunction between all items 
 of an enumeration except the last two is very conven- 
 ient and effective. 
 
 The Goth, the Christian, Time, War, Flood, and Fire 
 Have dealt upon the seven-hilled city's pride. 
 
 BYRON: "Childe Harold," Can. iv, St. 80. 
 
 The mark is there and the wound is cicatrized only no 
 
 time, tears, caresses, or repentance can obliterate that scar. 
 
 THACKERAY : "Henry Esmond," Bk. ii, Ch. 1, p. 144. 
 
 A pleasant variation is often found in joining the 
 items of a series in pairs. 
 
 A fairy realm; where slope and stream, 
 Champagne and upland, town and grange. . . . 
 Forever blend and interchange. 
 
 E. C. STEDMAN: "Bohemia," St. 6. 
 
 Conjunctions connecting words or phrases must con- 
 nect those of the same class, as nouns with nouns, ad- 
 jectives with adjectives, etc. Correlative conjunctions 
 should be so placed as to apply directly to the words 
 that are to be so connected. To say, "Not only a man 
 rich but influential is required" is both awkward and 
 obscure; the sentence becomes clear when the conjunc- 
 tive phrase "not only" is correctly placed, "A man 
 not only rich but influential is required." A violation 
 of this rule may be confusing or even ludicrous, as in 
 the following: 
 
 "NOTICE The Shelleyville selectmen have enacted an 
 ordinance which I am bound to enforce, that of prohibiting 
 chickens from running around the streets at large, and rid- 
 ing bicycles on the sidewalk. J. Lindley, Constable." 
 {Notice in the Shelleyville, Mich., Star.)
 
 166 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 Useful as is the work of conjunctions in joining words 
 and phrases, it remains as one of their most important 
 offices to unite sentences or propositions, sometimes 
 uniting simple sentences into the greater whole of a 
 compound sentence, sometimes extending their effect 
 across a period, so that two sentences grammatically in- 
 dependent are united as parts of one continuous train 
 of thought. So used, conjunctions have the effect of 
 weaving not merely words, but thoughts, together. 
 Here the conjunction does a work which the preposi- 
 tion can not do. Thus, "// you find the work hard, 
 come to me, and tell me your trouble." Here the if 
 introduces a conditional idea. On condition that you 
 find the work hard, come and tell me. The if also ex- 
 presses the condition as uncertain or hypothetical, im- 
 plying that in case you do not find the work hard, you 
 will have no occasion to come. The and joins the com- 
 ing with the telling as two closely connected acts. Ob- 
 serve how abrupt and harsh the same remark would be 
 without the conjunctions, "You find the work hard. 
 Come to me. Tell me your trouble." 
 
 As thus connecting sentences or propositions, a prin- 
 cipal division of conjunctions is into coordinate and 
 subordinate, the coordinate connecting propositions that 
 stand as equal and independent; the subordinate con- 
 necting those of which one is dependent upon another. 
 The chief coordinate conjunctions are: 
 
 Also, and, both, but, either, neither, nor, or, then. 
 
 These are further subdivided into Copulative and 
 Disjunctive Conjunctions. Some add as a third class 
 Adversative, but since the adversative are necessarily 
 disjunctive, this further division does not seem worth 
 while.
 
 ENGLISH CONNECTIVES 167 
 
 The typical copulative (i.e., linking, uniting) con- 
 junction is and, which, in its most frequent use, simply 
 adds one thing to another, or associates it with another. 
 Yet and is capable of varying use, in which it becomes 
 more than a mere plus sign. For example, it may de- 
 note one statement as the result or consequence of what 
 has gone before; in which case and approaches the 
 meaning of accordingly, consequently, or therefore: 
 
 You bear a gentle mind, and heavenly blessings 
 Follow such creatures. 
 
 SHAKESPEARE : "K. Henry VIII," Act II, Sc. 3. 
 
 Enlist the interests of stern morality and religious en- 
 thusiasm in the cause of political liberty, as in the time of 
 the old Puritans, and it will be irresistible. 
 
 COLERIDGE: "Table Talk," May 8, 1830. 
 
 I was brought up in a New England village, and I knew 
 
 . . . where all those things were that boys enterprise after. 
 
 BEECHER in Abbott's "Henry Ward Beecher," p. 15. 
 
 We only know that God is just. And every wrong shall die. 
 WHITTIER: "At Port Royal," St. 15. 
 
 Hence the grotesque effect of using and with result- 
 ant suggestion, where such implication is not intended, 
 as a Japanese experimenter with English wrote ear- 
 nestly to his friend, "Don't fail to come to our house, 
 and disappoint us." 
 
 Again, and may have almost adversative use, nearly 
 akin to but, though with added force, on the principle 
 that nothing brings out a contrast so strikingly as the 
 mere placing of the contrasted objects or ideas side by 
 side. White is seen with fullest distinctness against 
 black. Thus : 
 
 It is one thing to entertain, and another to be entertaining. 
 C. D. WARNER : "Little Journeys in the World," 
 
 Cb. 13, p. 227.
 
 168 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 I have brought you here to reason, . . . and wrang- 
 ling is caddish. 
 
 E. LYNN LINTON : "Patricia Kemball," Ch. 20, p. 214. 
 
 In schools and colleges, in fleet and army, discipline means 
 success, and anarchy means ruin. 
 
 FROUDE : "Short Studies," Kerry in second series, p. 381. 
 
 It is by the observance of these finer distinctions that 
 we gain the full advantage of the flexibility and vigor 
 of our language, in contrast with the methodical and 
 wooden correctness of those who learn only a few chief 
 rules, and apply them undeviatingly upon every pas- 
 sage of prose or poetry that they fall upon or hew out. 
 
 Here may be noted the use of and with an added verb 
 after go, come, send, try, etc., which some have cen- 
 sured. It has been assumed that and in such use is 
 equivalent to to, and hence should be condemned as su- 
 perfluous and incorrect. We have the familiar Puristic 
 argument that because one expression can be used in a 
 certain case, therefore it must always be erroneous to 
 use any other expression in a like case; because it is 
 possible to say, "Come to see," therefore it must be 
 wrong to say, ' ' Come and see. ' ' But the latter usage is 
 sustained by the highest authority, and when we come 
 to balance the expressions, is sustained also by the logic 
 of linguistic thought. If we change "Go and get it," 
 for instance, into "Go to get it, ' * there is an immediate 
 loss of force. Why? Because "Go to get it" refers 
 only to a purpose, which may never be fulfilled, while 
 "Go and get it" contemplates the getting as the sure 
 result of the going, which may therefore be viewed as 
 an accomplished fact. Hence this idiom has a con- 
 clusiveness to be attained by no other form of expres- 
 sion.
 
 ENGLISH CONNECTIVES 169 
 
 They said unto him, Eabbi, . . . where dwellest thou? 
 He saith unto them, come and see. John i, 38. 
 
 He saith unto them, How many loaves have ye ? go and see. 
 
 Mark vi, 38. 
 
 Go and shew John again those things which ye do hear 
 and see. Matt, xi, 4. 
 
 * 
 
 In rapid, emphatic utterance, the and of such expres- 
 sions is often omitted ; as, go, bring me my hat. 
 
 Come, see a man which told me all things that ever I did. 
 
 John iv, 29. 
 
 Let me not stay a jot for dinner; go, get it ready. 
 
 SHAKESPEARE: "King Lear," Act I, Sc. 4, 1. 82. 
 
 Come, gentle dreams, the hour of sleep beguile! 
 
 LONGFELLOW: "The Child Asleep," St. 5. 
 
 But is the typical example of the disjunctive con- 
 junction. It regularly connects ideas that are in con- 
 trast or contradiction. As it varies all the way from 
 the slightest difference to the most decided antagonism, 
 care must be taken to avoid its excessive use. Almost 
 any sentence or paragraph that brings in a new view 
 or an added thought may, if one so pleases, be intro- 
 duced by but, until this may become the most frequent 
 of all connectives, and have a harsh and jarring effect, 
 so that one is fain to ask, ' ' Must I be perpetually on the 
 outlook for a contrast?" The style of a popular mod- 
 ern historian, which is for the most part singularly 
 felicitous and often beautiful, is yet marred by the con- 
 tinual recurrence of but for almost any variation of 
 thought. This may be obviated by using skilfully some 
 one of the subordinate conjunctions, although, though, 
 however, nevertheless, notwithstanding. Often the 
 mildest concessive conjunction has a better effect than 
 the sharply adversative but.
 
 170 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 But is often used to introduce a substitute or an 
 equivalent; as, "I can not pay you now, but (instead) 
 I will give you my note at thirty days;" "He could 
 no longer reign, but (what might be an equal, or even 
 a greater, achievement) he could die like a king." 
 Hence the sudden shock when but in such connection 
 introduces a great disparity, as when a rural real-estate 
 agent writes: "The house has no bath-room, but it is 
 provided with a large cistern and a fine deep well." 
 
 But after a negative has often the meaning of 4 ' other- 
 wise than;" as, "I can not but believe that he will come 
 (i.e., I can not believe otherwise than that he will 
 come). With this is often confused a similar expres- 
 sion of quite different meaning, "I can but." The lat- 
 ter usage is often supposed to be a mere abbreviation 
 of the former, leaving out the not. and so preferable as 
 briefer. In fact, but in the latter form ceases to be a 
 conjunction, and has merely the effect of an adverb, 
 equivalent to only. Thus "I can not but hope that he 
 will come" means "I can not help hoping I can not 
 stop myself from hoping," etc., while "I can but hope" 
 means "I can only hope," implying much less confi- 
 dence, equivalent to "I can scarcely force myself to 
 hope," etc. 
 
 We cannot but believe that there is an inward and essen- 
 tial truth in art. 
 
 CARLYLE : "Essay on Goethe," Vol. I, p. 237. 
 
 The question of the nominative or objective form of 
 the pronoun after but depends upon the consideration 
 whether but is used in a given case as a preposition or 
 as a conjunction. As a preposition, but would be fol- 
 lowed by the objective, and we should say, ' ' There is no 
 other but HIM (i.e., apart from or besides HIM). But
 
 171 
 
 the prevailing tendency in English now is to treat but 
 in such use as a conjunction, however difficult it may 
 be to fill the ellipsis, and to say, as the Authorized Ver- 
 sion of the Scriptures says: 
 
 There is one God, and there is none other but he. 
 
 One familiar line of Mrs. Hemans' poem, "Casabi- 
 anca, ' ' has been quoted on both sides : 
 
 The boy stood on the burning deck, 
 Whence all but he had fled, 
 
 Or, 
 
 WhenceJ-all but him had fled. 
 
 Which is correct? The line is printed differently ir> 
 different editions of the poet's works that seem of equal 
 authority. Some one has edited it. But which way? 
 Or did the author herself change it in some new edi- 
 tion, and, if so, which way? Our own impression is 
 that the pronoun is made nominative by attraction, from 
 a confused feeling that it is the subject of the following 
 verb, "had fled": though we see on reflection that it 
 is not, for "he" had not fled. Yet the impression is so 
 strong that "him had fled" has the appearance of false 
 syntax, though that is not the fact. At all events, the 
 present tendency, and one long established, is to treat 
 but in such use as a conjunction, taking the same case 
 after it as before it : 
 
 No one escaped the wreck but he; 
 The wreck was fatal to all but him. 
 
 Or , or. Other prominent disjunctive conjunctions 
 are or and nor. Or presents a simple alternative, but 
 nor presents an alternative with vigorous negation. 
 While and joins absolutely, or in joining keeps the line
 
 172 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 of separation distinct. Or always suggests substitu- 
 tion. The ideas connected by and are both or all in- 
 cluded in the enumeration; those connected by or ex- 
 clude each other. "I will take this and that" means 
 that I will take both; "I will take this or that" means 
 that if I take one, I will leave the other. "Your money 
 or your life" sharply announces that you cannot keep 
 both. 
 
 "This or that," not "this and that" is the rule to which all 
 of us have to submit, and it strangely equalizes the destinies 
 of men. 
 HAMERTON : "The Intellectual Life," Pt. iv, Letter v, p. 165. 
 
 Hence the great difference in grammatical construc- 
 tion between nominatives connected by and and nomi- 
 natives connected by or. And pluralizes singular nomi- 
 natives, so that they take a plural verb ; as, " Time and 
 tide WAIT for no man. Or separates the singular nom- 
 inatives, which it at the same time connects, so that, 
 however many they may be, each takes separately a 
 singular verb; as, "A horse or a mule is needed for this 
 work." 
 
 Nor is the necessary correlative of neither, but is not 
 limited to that construction; any negative, as not, no, 
 never, etc., may be followed by nor, when it is desired 
 to make the opposition of elements vigorous and de- 
 cisive. Thus not may be followed by either or or nor, 
 but with difference of meaning, nor being more strongly 
 adversative; as, "Will he not come or send (one or the 
 other)?" but, "Will he not come nor send (and not 
 even send) ?" 
 
 NOT spoke in word, nor blazed in scroll, 
 But borne and branded on my soul. 
 
 SCOTT : "Lady of the Lake," Can. iv, St. 6,
 
 ENGLISH CONNECTIVES 173 
 
 Let NOT our variance mar the social hour, 
 Nor wrong the hospitality of Randolph. 
 
 JOHN HOME : "Douglas," Act IV, Sc. 1. 
 
 The appellations in common use are NOT applied with tech- 
 nical exactness, nor do they answer the ends of a philosophical 
 explanation. 
 
 PORTER : "Human Intellect," Pt. ii, Ch. 6, p. 351. 
 
 Spirit is NOT matter, nor matter spirit. 
 
 C. HODGE: "Systematic Theology," 
 
 Vol. I, Pt. i, Ch. 5, p. 379. 
 
 No Spring, nor Summer's beauty, hath such grace, 
 As I have seen in one autumnal face. 
 
 JOHN DONNE : "The Autumnal," 1. 1. 
 
 In this intense eagerness to press forward, he [Pestalozzi] 
 NEVER stopped to examine results, nor to coordinate means 
 with ends. 
 
 Jos. PAYNE: "Science of Education," Lect. iii, p. 84. 
 
 The subordinate conjunctions are very numerous, as: 
 
 although, as, because, except, excepting (that), for, however, 
 if, lest, nevertheless, notwithstanding, provided, save, seeing, 
 since, so, still, than, that, then, therefore, though, unless, 
 whereas, whereat, wherefor, wherefore, wherever, whether, 
 while, without. 
 
 "With these are joined certain conjunctive adverbs, 
 often listed as conjunctions, viz. : 
 
 after, before, hence, how, now, thence, till, until, when, 
 whence, whenever, where, whereby, wherein, whereof, whereon, 
 whereupon, whither, why. 
 
 The limits of the present work do not allow of the 
 separate consideration of these many items, all which 
 will be found of interest, as well as of importance. As 
 with prepositions, these conjunctions are relatively of 
 more consequence in English, than in a more highly in-
 
 174 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 fleeted language, because they must completely fill the 
 place of verb-changes which the English has discarded. 
 For instance, the subjunctive mode has almost disap- 
 peared from our language and some conjunction must 
 appear at the beginning of the clause to indicate the re- 
 lation that might otherwise be shown by the form of the 
 verb. In the older style, as of our Authorized Version 
 of the Scriptures, we read: 
 
 But, lie it so, I did not burden you. II Cor. xii, 16. 
 
 This style would now be unusual, and would seem 
 somewhat formal and pedantic. We should perhaps 
 write, "If it was so," or "Granting that it was so." 
 The connections of all dependent clauses must now be 
 expressed largely by subordinate conjunctions, and the 
 relations that these express, while always important, 
 are often also of exceeding delicacy, refinement, and 
 beauty. One who limits himself to a small number of 
 the chief connectives misses these fine shades of mean- 
 ing, and may himself be perplexed to understand why 
 what is substantially correct in his own style is yet 
 harsh, heavy, or discordant, as compared with the style 
 of one who knows better how to weave his thoughts to- 
 gether by apt and fitting choice of the very connective 
 that would express at every turn the nice shade of mean- 
 ing these require. 
 
 As suggested for prepositions, the student will do 
 well to take up one conjunction at a time (or two or 
 three that are closely related), study that sufficiently 
 to fix its use in mind, and be on the outlook for its re- 
 currence. His own awakened attention and observation 
 will do more for him than any precepts that can be 
 given. As in the study of synonyms, it will be well at 
 times to make enforced changes in some passage that
 
 ENGLISH CONNECTIVES 175 
 
 one admires, and see what the substitution of a different 
 connective would do for it. Ordinarily one will find 
 that this will involve a loss, either of power or beauty. 
 Then it is incumbent upon him to discover why. The 
 fault in our ordinary reading is that we slide over these 
 links of style as we run a watch-chain through our 
 fingers, without a thought of the delicate fitting of link 
 after link. To become ' ' a cunning workman, ' ' one must 
 be able to observe just that, to note thoughtfully the 
 skilful work of the masters of style, until able to emulate 
 their excellence. 
 
 KELATIVES 
 
 The relative has more effect than any other part of 
 speech in closely interlocking propositions or clauses. 
 The conjunction stands somewhat apart from each of 
 the connected clauses. But the relative is a part of the 
 subordinate clause, linked with it in grammatical struc- 
 ture, while it also limits something in the principal 
 clause, depends for its own meaning upon the principal 
 clause, and often gives to the principal clause all the 
 meaning that it possesses. Thus: 
 
 "Those may enter who are ready." 
 
 Without the relative, those means nothing; "those may 
 enter" we must still ask, who? On the other hand, 
 without the principal clause, the who is almost meaning- 
 less. "Who are ready" by itself tells nothing, but when 
 associated with the principal clause, that relative clause 
 "who are ready" has the effect of an adjective limiting 
 and defining those; "those who are ready (the ready 
 ones)." In fact, we may telescope the relative clause 
 within the principal clause, making the combination still
 
 176 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 more manifest and vivid: "Those who are ready may 
 enter. ' ' 
 
 Hence the use of a relative to introduce a clause 
 which is but slightly connected in thought with the 
 principal clause, but which comes as a loosely attached 
 afterthought, is always a fault of style. Such construc- 
 tion is false to the very ideal of construction by the 
 relative pronoun. This blemish of style is technically 
 designated as that of "the trailing clause." Of this the 
 following clipping from a newspaper of the Far West 
 may be given as an extreme example : 
 
 The injured man's wounds were dressed by Dr. F. D. 
 Brown, who was on his way to the hospital to see the Rev. 
 W. H. Marks, who is seriously ill with typhoid fever, and it 
 is thought he will recover. 
 
 This critical rule is not an impeachment of the "loose 
 sentence," which, as used by Addison, Irving, and other 
 masters of style, is capable of great elegance and force, 
 all the dependent clauses that seem so lightly attached 
 joining in one movement of thought as continuous as 
 that of a picturesque stream, of which every wave and 
 ripple adds its power and its touch of grace to the 
 onward-flowing current. 
 
 The relatives, with one exception, are delightfully sim- 
 ple, because they have no gender, person, number, nor 
 case, and hence can scarcely be grammatically misused. 
 Who alone possesses the much-bewailed "lost inflec- 
 tions," or some of them having a nominative, a pos- 
 sessive, and an objective case. Hence, when you encoun- 
 ter whom in an ordinary publication, you may be quite 
 sure antecedently that it is misused. The rules for dis- 
 criminating who and whom are, nevertheless, so simple 
 that they can be mastered by a small part of the pains 
 often taken to secure the wrong construction.
 
 ENGLISH CONNECTIVES 177 
 
 INTRODUCTORY PARTICLES 
 
 The introductory particles, it and there, are also to 
 be viewed as connectives. When we say, "It is a fine 
 day," we do not think of any special antecedent of the 
 pronoun "it," and when we say, "There is money 
 enough in the bank, " we do not think of the particular 
 location of that "money." The "it" and "there" are 
 used in such cases like the algebraic x or y simply to 
 fill the place of some quantity not exactly specified, but 
 to be supplied later. In such expressions as "It is 
 pleasant weather," "It is I," the "it" simply holds the 
 thought in expectancy for the coming predicate. In such 
 expressions as "It is time to go," the "it" serves the 
 same purpose. 
 
 In the phrase "there is," the word "there" is so 
 independent of local suggestion that a local adverb, as 
 "here" or another "there," may be added to give the 
 local meaning which the introductory "there" fails to 
 express, and we may say, "There is material here," or 
 "There is a gate there," the final adverb keeping the 
 local meaning which the introductory adverb has lost. 
 The introductory "there" is more slightly pronounced 
 than "there" denoting location. 
 
 There is a lad here, which hath five barley loaves and two 
 small fishes. John vi, 9. 
 
 Because the close of the sentence is the most emphatic 
 position the mind spontaneously endeavors to hold back 
 any main item or extended phrase for that place of 
 emphasis. It would be possible to say, "A lad who has 
 five barley loaves and two fishes is here," but by that 
 time the "lad" and his food-supply would have drifted 
 somewhat out of prominence. But in the Scriptural text
 
 178 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 the introductory there shows that something is to fol- 
 low, and points onward so that the mind waits with 
 expectant interest for the "lad" and his store to com- 
 plete the statement. In the proverb, "There is no jest- 
 ing with edge-tools," it would be very flat to say, "No 
 jesting with edge-tools is." In the following sentence 
 the introductory "It is" is of great service in throwing 
 the important items on to the place of emphasis at the 
 close : 
 
 "It is in general more profitable to reckon up our defects 
 than to boast of our attainments." 
 
 CARLYLE'S Essay on "Signs of the Times." 
 
 When attention is once fastened upon the English 
 connectives it is surprising to note how wide is the 
 range, and how various the relations of these links of 
 style, and how much study is needed for their most 
 effective use. "Whoever will faithfully master the mean- 
 ings, associations, and suggestions of these vital connec- 
 tives will find a new interest in the delicate joining and 
 grouping of elements that make up the mosaic of style, 
 and will also gain increased power to utter clearly, 
 vividly, and worthily the very thought he would at any 
 time express.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 ENGLISH GRAMMAR THE FRAME OF STYLE 
 
 Every natural language was in use long before the 
 compiling of its grammar. The earliest grammar known 
 to the modern world is the Sanskrit grammar of Panini 
 (about 300 B.C.), giving in eight books with three thou- 
 sand sections, the rules for classical Sanskrit. But 
 Panini himself enumerates sixty-four grammatical prede- 
 cessors, and the oldest Sanskrit literature is convention- 
 ally placed at 1500 B.C., though undoubtedly much 
 older. A language, however, must exist in a tolerably 
 complete form before a literature can be composed in it, 
 so that the Sanskrit language reaches beyond the earliest 
 Sanskrit literature far back into a dim antiquity. The 
 language had existed for unknown centuries, and had 
 been the medium of a great literature for probably a 
 thousand years before its grammar began. Greek gram- 
 mar had an independent and later origin. The Homeric 
 poems were the monuments it most eagerly studied. But 
 those poems are placed at 900-1100 B.C., while the first 
 notable, though disconnected, observations on grammar 
 were made by Plato (427-347 B.C.) and Aristotle (384- 
 322 B.C.). It was not until Dionysius Thrax ("The 
 Thracian"), who taught in Rome in the first century 
 B.C., composed his "Art of Grammar," that the gram- 
 mar of the Greek language had full development. Thus 
 again about a thousand years elapsed after the fulness 
 and power of the Greek language had been revealed in 
 the "Iliad" and "Odyssey," before grammatical analy- 
 
 179
 
 180 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 sis was ready to explain what the language had long 
 since done. 
 
 The grammatical work of the Romans was but an imi- 
 tation of their Greek models. Varro in the first cen- 
 tury B.C. produced a work of great value on the Latin 
 language, and Priscian, about the close of the fifth cen- 
 tury A.D., published his ' ' Grammatical Commentaries, ' ' 
 of which twelve were on inflection and two on syntax. 
 This became the accepted authority on Latin grammar 
 throughout the Middle Ages. But all that was greatest 
 in Latin literature had been written long before. 
 
 The record of English grammar is similar, traced 
 back to the "Bref Grammar for English" of William 
 Bullokar, published in 1586, the "English Grammar" by 
 Ben Jonson, issued in 1640, and the ' ' Grammatica Lin- 
 guae Anglicanse" of John Wallis, published in 1653. The 
 earliest of these works was written five hundred years 
 after the Norman Conquest, and two centuries after 
 Chaucer had shown what the English language by itself 
 could do. 
 
 Considered a priori we should at once say that nothing 
 could be more rational, convenient, and desirable than a 
 directory of the combinations of words, showing what 
 words must mean when associated in certain ways, ac- 
 cording to the custom, or, as we sometimes say, the 
 "genius," of the language. How is it, then, that in 
 English the word "grammarian" has become almost a 
 term of reproach, and that "grammatical rules" have 
 come to be considered an oppression and an abomina- 
 tion ? This is due 'to the fact, just recorded, that in the 
 early days a foreign grammar was imposed upon Eng- 
 lish, ready-made from without, and with practically no 
 reference to what had grown up within the language. 
 The fact that Chaucer and Gower had written widely 
 popular tales and poems no more made English schol-
 
 ENGLISH GRAMMAR 181 
 
 arly, in the view of the grammarians, than the popu- 
 larity of moving pictures to-day would in an artist's 
 view give them a place in classical art. Those famous 
 poets and later English writers in verse and prose had 
 done very well, the scholar would admit, considering 
 the poor material in which they had to work. But 
 English was still in his view an inferior language, "the 
 vulgar tongue," toward which the scholar must exercise 
 such patience as he could. Even Lindley Murray in his 
 English Grammar of 1795, contrasts English with "the 
 learned languages," which for him were notably the 
 Greek and Latin. 
 
 The Latin, especially, was the beloved language of 
 English scholars. The work which an Englishman might 
 write in Latin could be read by any scholar in France, 
 Germany, or Italy, Sweden, Denmark or Spain. In that 
 language he was at home in the ' ' Republic of Letters. ' ' 
 Bacon in 1620 wrote his "Novum Organum" in Latin, 
 as did Harvey in 1628 his work on the "Circulation of 
 the Blood." When the scholars turned to English they 
 missed almost everything that made Latin grammar a 
 certainty and a delight. As English was evidently deter- 
 mined to live, they agonized to shape it to the Latin 
 model. It must have genders, persons, numbers, cases, 
 and conjugations, wherever the Latin had them, or the 
 want of these must be explained or apologized for, and 
 words or whole clauses must be "understood," to show 
 what the expression would have been in the nobler and 
 more orderly Latin. It was taken for granted that the 
 English had failed of this only because it was unable, 
 as yet, to obtain it. Everything possible must be done 
 to hasten the reshaping of the native speech to the Latin 
 perfection. 
 
 In England the very name of "grammar school" sig-
 
 182 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 nified a school where the chief studies were Greek and 
 Latin, predominantly Latin, as more strictly the lan- 
 guage of western Europe. So far as English was thought 
 worthy of any attention whatever, it was with the unde- 
 viating purpose of remaking it to fit the Latin scheme. 
 Hence, there was constant strain and friction between 
 the living, vigorous, hustling language and the antique 
 and immobile frame into which it was determined to 
 thrust it. We can hear the language struggle and groan 
 and the joints of the frame-work creak wherever the 
 attempt is persisted in, to this day. Thousands of stu- 
 dents gave up the study except as compelled to go 
 through perfunctory recitations, and those who at- 
 tempted to write or talk according to the book were 
 given up by the rest. At length, in the nineteenth cen- 
 tury, and especially in America, teachers awoke to the 
 fact that the results of this system bore no proportion 
 to the time and labor bestowed on the instruction. Then 
 there was a general revolt against grammar as such. 
 Many schools abolished the very name, and substituted 
 "language" lessons, not seeing that they were trying to 
 do without a system the very thing that the discarded 
 English grammar had tried to do by a false system. 
 Then we had "inductive methods," in which the poor 
 callow things of eight to fourteen years of age were to 
 study out and discover in a few hours of their school 
 course the evolution of centuries. Out of all these com- 
 plicated failures there has grown up in many minds the 
 persuasion that what is called "English grammar" is 
 an outgrown superstition, a fiction, or a joke. Some 
 instructors in English have affirmed that "Grammar is 
 simply good common sense," or that "Good grammar 
 is simply speaking so as to be understood. ' ' 
 
 Such a solution utterly breaks down under the test
 
 ENGLISH GRAMMAR 183 
 
 of fact. A recent paper gives the repartee of a colored 
 shopper with a dealer of her own race. "Is dese aigs 
 fresh?" she asks. "I ain't savin' dey ain't," is the 
 reply. To which she answers, "I ain't askin' you, Is 
 dey ain't; but, is dey is. Is dey?" Here certainly was 
 good sense. The analysis of the subject would do credit 
 to an accomplished debater: "I am not asking what 
 they are not, but what they are. Are they as specified?" 
 As to "being understood" this dialectic statement is 
 perfectly intelligible. Yet its violations of grammar are 
 too many to enumerate. The prevalence of such a style 
 would hopelessly corrupt and degrade the language. 
 
 Now, what is that thing called "grammar," which is 
 thus violated? It is the immemorial usage of the lan- 
 guage regarding the connection of words, as established 
 by consensus of its best writers and speakers through all 
 the past. Changes have come from period to period, 
 but yet, on the whole, an essential unity has character- 
 ized the English language for five hundred years. Its 
 best writers and speakers have been persons of clear and 
 vigorous thought, and, in the main, of good taste and 
 fine feeling. They have been most competent to decide 
 what constructions should live, and their approval and 
 use have fixed those constructions in the language. 
 Where they have agreed that a plural form of the verb, 
 for instance, should be used, we should do ill to set aside 
 that agreement and employ a singular form. Those 
 masters of style have given elegance and dignity to cer- 
 tain constructions, so that on the edge of the ungram- 
 matical there is always a zone of the inelegant and 
 undignified, which, if not explicitly to be condemned, is 
 yet to be avoided. All these conditions are violated by 
 the dialectical quotation given above, in spite- of the fact 
 that it expresses good sense, and can be readily under-
 
 184 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 stood. Good sense and intelligibility do not by them- 
 selves constitute good grammar. 
 
 There are others who say, "People who have been 
 brought up in good society speak properly without ever 
 thinking of grammar." Without discussing to what ex- 
 tent this statement may be true, the fact is at once 
 evident that it provides for an exceedingly small part 
 of the English-speaking world. In fact, it seems rather 
 snobbish, saying in effect, "If you are one of us who 
 have had certain advantages, you will need no grammar. 
 If not, there is probably no help for you." But even 
 admitting that there is a formative power in the usage 
 of cultured society to impress proper habits of speech 
 without direct instruction, the question arises: cannot 
 its governing principles and accomplished facts be sys- 
 tematized and reduced to orderly statement that can be 
 learned by people who have not had access to the 
 charmed circle? Is there not some grammatical salva- 
 tion for the mass of men? A book or a system that 
 would put the English usage of cultured society in a 
 shape to be learned by the general public would be an 
 English grammar of a high order and of practical 
 value. To meet such demands, the traditional system of 
 English grammar needs to be stripped of very much 
 that in the course of centuries has accumulated around 
 the essential grammar of the language. It is helpful 
 to consider what grammar is not. 
 
 1. Grammar is not rhetoric. Some grammars are still 
 encumbered with "figures of speech," with which gram- 
 mar has nothing to do. If the Scripture says, "God is 
 a rock," rhetoric informs us that this is a metaphor, 
 which is a very useful classification. But grammar 
 knows nothing of such a distinction. Grammatically 
 that sentence is exactly like the literal sentence, "God
 
 ENGLISH GRAMMAR 185 
 
 is a spirit." Each has a subject, a verb, and a predicate 
 nominative. If those are correctly used and placed, the 
 work of grammar is done, as much for the one sentence 
 as for the other. If one says of some disreputable char- 
 acter, ' ' He is a fine fellow, ' ' that is a use of a rhetorical 
 figure called irony. But grammatically it is a simple 
 sentence, with subject and predicate correctly joined. 
 There its grammatical treatment ends. Rhetoric may do 
 with it what it will. Why try to jam grammar and 
 rhetoric together in one lesson, any more than grammar 
 and geometry? 
 
 2. Grammar is not metaphysics or philosophy. Many 
 English grammars contain explanations or classifications 
 that are wholly metaphysical. Such discriminations may 
 be very keen and elegant, considered as metaphysics, but 
 in no way help to mastery of the actual facts of gram- 
 mar, which would be the same without them. We need 
 not decide whether a piece of metaphysics is good or 
 bad, acute or absurd. It is enough that it is not gram- 
 mar, and should be ruled out of a grammatical treatise. 
 
 Numerous grammars, for instance, laboriously carry 
 the distinction between abstract and concrete or material 
 nouns. Metaphysics may have some use for the distinc- 
 tion, but the English language knows nothing of it. It 
 treats the so-called abstract nouns like mercy, hope, fear, 
 joy, precisely as it treats air, water, rock, and free, 
 which are called concrete or material nouns. But we are 
 told "abstract nouns have no plural." Yet we speak 
 just as freely of mercies, hopes, fears, joys, as of airs, 
 waters, rocks, trees. "Oh, but," we are told, "when 
 an abstract noun is used in the plural, it ceases to be an 
 abstract noun, and becomes concrete. ' ' Here the average 
 intellect gives up. As to abstract nouns becoming con- 
 crete, when used in the plural, it still seems to us that
 
 186 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 liberties are more abstract than potatoes. This is a good 
 example of the result of inflicting metaphysics upon 
 grammar. Why should a grammatical student spend 
 one moment on such distinction, when he can place and 
 connect his words without it, and without ever having 
 heard of it? 
 
 3. Grammar has nothing to do with the truth of prop- 
 ositions nor with the good sense or nonsense of what is 
 uttered. The "Mother Goose" rimes are for the most 
 part perfectly grammatical. Take this description of 
 an ancient Pacifist: 
 
 "There once was a man who said, How 
 Shall I flee from this horrible cow? 
 I will sit on the stile and continue to smile, 
 Which may soften the heart of this cow." 
 
 What possible grammatical fault is there in that stanza ? 
 Or, again, it is perfectly grammatical to say or write, 
 "The moon is made of green cheese." Subject, verb, and 
 predicate are all properly connected, which is all that 
 grammar requires. It is perfectly grammatical to say, 
 "Light is the same as darkness," or, "The sum of the 
 three angles of any triangle is equal to three right- 
 angles." However false these statements may be, the 
 words are properly connected, which is all that grammar 
 requires. Yet one will still hear teachers saying, "Oh, 
 that would not be grammatical, because it would not be 
 good sense," or, " because it would not be true." On 
 the contrary, there is no way so good to detect falsehood, 
 sophistry, or absurdity, as to have it stated with strict 
 grammatical accuracy. If there is grammatical error, 
 you may think the fault is there. But if the grammar 
 is perfect, the fault must be in the thought expressed. 
 The old arguments for the Divine Right of Kings were
 
 ENGLISH GRAMMAR 187 
 
 often most perfect in form of statement. For that very 
 reason they could be refuted, because there was some- 
 thing clear and definite to answer. Let grammar do its 
 own work, and be charged with nothing more. 
 
 "But, after all," says the objector, "is it not inter- 
 esting to treat these other things? Are we not giving 
 the pupils that much more, and making grammar a 
 richer study for them?" Well, here is a business man 
 who wishes to have the accounts of office-expenses always 
 accessible, so that he may turn at any moment to any 
 item. His stenographer sees that there is room to spare 
 in the file-case, and puts in transportation charges, in- 
 terest on loans, bills receivable and bills payable, etc., 
 and says, ' ' See how much richer the content of that file- 
 case is now! What a number and variety of matters 
 it includes ! " Or shall the professor lose the opportunity 
 to include some General History in his Chemistry, or 
 some excellent Theology in his Analytical Geometry? 
 The departments of business are not more closely segre- 
 gated than the departments of study now are, and in 
 that segregation there is power. Most of the intricacy, 
 complication, and perplexity of the majority of English 
 grammars would be removed at a stroke by cutting out 
 of English grammar all that does not relate directly to 
 English grammar. That eminent scholar of the nine- 
 teenth century, George P. Marsh, declared : 
 
 "A truly philosophical system of English syntax cannot be 
 built up by means of the Latin scaffolding, which has served 
 for the construction of all the Continental theories of gram- 
 mar, but must be constructed and executed on a wholly new 
 and original plan." * 
 
 Our first constructive principle must be that English 
 grammar is the grammar of the English language,- 
 
 "Origin and History of the English Language," Lect. 1, p. 22.
 
 188 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 language which has started new in the world, built upon 
 a model of its own, and which is not shaped, and is not 
 to be shaped, to the pattern of any other; which has 
 vindicated its right to an independent existence by a 
 noble and honored literary history of five hundred years, 
 and has demonstrated its utility as a medium of com- 
 munication by becoming the vernacular of one hundred 
 and fifty millions of men, almost one-tenth of the 
 world's population. The language must make and con- 
 trol the grammar. All questions of English grammar 
 are thus questions of established fact. We have only to 
 inquire, "What do English-speaking people mean to 
 express by words in a certain combination ? ' ' and ' ' What 
 do English-speaking people understand to be expressed 
 by that combination, when they read or hear it ? " That 
 is for the English language final, ultimate fact, and a 
 systematized statement of all facts that can thus be col- 
 lected is the whole of English grammar. 
 
 English grammar, then, is simply a systematized and 
 comprehensive statement of the facts of approved Eng- 
 lish usage. Oftentimes a disputed question of grammar 
 can be no better settled than by turning to the Oxford 
 (Murray's) Dictionary, following down the citations 
 from approved English authors of all centuries since the 
 Anglo-Saxon day, and accepting their consensus of usage 
 as the law or "rule" of the language. Some other book 
 of citations may accomplish the same purpose. If the 
 study is adequate, the student has found the "rule" of 
 English grammar on the point in question. A number 
 of such established facts may establish a . controlling 
 principle of English usage. Since "rules" have been 
 so often imposed arbitrarily and unreasonably in the 
 past, it seems better to speak of the facts and principles 
 of English grammar, rather than of its rules. Study
 
 ENGLISH GRAMMAR 189 
 
 of many instances will enable one to find a certain anal- 
 ogy of English usage, which is often helpful, but must 
 be followed with caution, since the language, like every 
 vigorous speech, reserves the right at times to break 
 away in an idiom, which becomes good usage simply be- 
 cause it gets into such general use. 
 
 English accepts the eight parts of speech common to 
 the Indo-European languages: noun, pronoun, adjec- 
 tive, verb, adverb, preposition, conjunction, and inter- 
 jection. The wide prevalence of this classification would 
 indicate it to be at once natural and rational. The 
 noun stands as the name of any object, whether material 
 or immaterial, existing in the outer world or only in the 
 world of thought ; the pronoun has place on fitting occa- 
 sion as a substitute for a noun, whether as rep- 
 resenting some particular noun, or as taking a place 
 which a noun might hold; the adjective describes 
 or in some way limits the meaning of a noun or 
 pronoun; the verb is the action-word, even when 
 it specifies state or condition carrying a suggestion 
 of mental movement, so that "matter exists" has a dif- 
 ferent force from "the existence of matter"; the adverb 
 is to the verb what the adjective is to the noun, or it may 
 carry its descriptive or limiting power to shade the mean- 
 ing of an adjective or even of another adverb ; the prepo- 
 sition connects words so as to show a dependence of one 
 upon the other in meaning; the conjunction connects 
 words by mere juxtaposition, or connects sentences so as. 
 to bring out the most varied, and often the most delicate, 
 shades of dependence or other relation; the interjection 
 is mere formless and disconnected utterance of emotion. 
 
 While English thus has the same parts of speech with 
 the other languages of its group, it has one way of using 
 them which is quite distinctive. The same word may
 
 190 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 cross from one part of speech to another with the utmost 
 freedom. The noun may be used as an adjective; as, a 
 gold watch, silver hair, a steel bar, an iron ring. Or 
 the noun may be used as a verb; as, to man a ship, to 
 arm a man, to bridge a river, to sample sugar, to railroad 
 a bill, to nail the flag to the mast. Sometimes an added 
 preposition helps to this verbal force of the noun ; as, to 
 board up a fence, to fence off a lot, to brick up a wall. 
 Such use is so readily intelligible that children readily 
 make new transfers of their own, like the little boy who 
 called out, "Father, the cow tailed my hat off." The 
 adjective may be used as a noun ; as, to return good for 
 evil, ' ' The rich and the poor meet together. ' ' The prep- 
 osition may be used as a noun ; as, the outs always oppose 
 the ins; or as a verb, as "Down, soothless insulter! 
 to down the enemy; up with it! out with him!" This 
 freedom and flexibility of English result from the fact 
 that no part of speech has any fixed forms in which it 
 must appear. Noun, adjective, verb, etc., may terminate 
 with any letter or any combination of letters, so that 
 any word may be transferred at pleasure from one part 
 of speech to another, and be instantly at home in its 
 new connection. In Latin this could in no wise be done. 
 If we were to connect the Latin words pons, "bridge," 
 with flumen, "river," and say pons flumen, that would 
 not only not mean "to bridge a river," but it would not 
 mean anything. This is but one instance of the incon- 
 gruities that make English construction upon the Latin 
 model impossible and hopeless. English can do what 
 the Latin cannot do, and we may be very glad of it. 
 
 NOUNS 
 
 Nouns are credited with the properties of gender, per- 
 son, number, and case.
 
 ENGLISH GRAMMAR 191 
 
 Gender. This attribute has been quite fully discussed 
 in the opening chapter on ' ' The Simplicity of English, ' ' 
 where it is shown that the uniform tendency of the 
 English language is to minimize gender in nouns, not 
 more than about one hundred and fifty nouns being dis- 
 tinguishable as masculine or feminine and not one noun 
 being recognizable as masculine, feminine or neuter by 
 its form. Of the once numerous feminine nouns formed 
 after the French analogy in ess, most have disappeared 
 and others are constantly falling into disuse. It is not 
 now good form to say or write "authoress," "poetess,'* 
 * ' songstress, ' ' etc. We refer to the woman as to the man 
 as "author," "poet," "singer," etc. The genius of 
 the language tends strongly to the disuse of any dis- 
 tinctively masculine or feminine terminations. We have 
 already remarked the vast number of nouns like com- 
 panion, friend, neighbor, parent, child, bird, fish, etc., 
 denoting living beings, but with no indication of sex or 
 gender. The entire tendency of the English language is 
 to minimize gender in nouns, as in other parts of speech. 
 
 Person. Person in English nouns is practically neg- 
 ligible. A noun cannot be in the first person without a 
 pronoun of the first person accompanying it; as, "I, 
 Paul, say unto you"; "We, the people, do ordain and 
 establish this constitution. ' ' All nouns are of the third 
 person, unless an accompanying pronoun or other spe- 
 cial indication marks them as of first or second. 
 
 Number. Number in nouns, as singular or plural, is 
 indicated with special care. On the threshold we meet 
 a conflict of definitions, some authorities defining the 
 plural as "denoting more than one"; others as "denot- 
 ing two or more." Between these definitions come cer- 
 tain fractional quantities. Shall we say, "One and a 
 half ton was delivered," or "One and a half tons were
 
 192 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 delivered"? The prevailing usage is certainly in favor 
 of the latter form, and the best modern dictionaries de- 
 fine the plural as ' ' denoting more than one. ' ' 
 
 The common or regular form of the plural is obtained 
 by adding s to the singular, or after a sibilant sound, 
 as where a word ends in ch, s, sh, x, or z, adding es, for 
 the sake of euphony, as in churches, bushes, gases, foxes, 
 etc. The es in such cases forms a separate syllable. 
 That the e inserted in these forms is euphonic is shown 
 by the fact that an e is pronounced in the possessives 
 of the same words, where none is written. Thus, fox's 
 (possessive) is pronounced precisely like foxes (plural). 
 Some care and pains must be taken to master the very 
 small list of irregular plurals and the somewhat larger 
 number of foreign plurals, which are, nevertheless, not 
 numerous. Some are perplexed over nouns in y till they 
 learn the very simple rule that if the y is preceded by a 
 vowel, the plural merely adds s, but if no vowel precedes 
 the y is changed to ie before adding s; as, valley, valleys; 
 lady, ladies. Nouns in o will probably always be some- 
 what of a vexation, since they form their plurals in s or 
 es by no certain rule; as, canto, cantos; echo, echoes. 
 But these are not so numerous as greatly to worry a per- 
 son who is willing to take a little pains. 
 
 Case. Case in English nouns is very slightly indi- 
 cated. There are but two case-forms, and but one change 
 of form for case in either the singular or the plural. 
 How is it, then, some will ask, that nouns are said to 
 have three cases, nominative, possessive, and objective ? 
 Because we call the ordinary, unchanged form of the 
 noun either nominative or objective at pleasure. No one 
 can say of the word man standing alone that it is nomi- 
 native or objective. It may be either according to its 
 relation to other words, and this is indicated almost
 
 ENGLISH GRAMMAR 193 
 
 entirely by its position in a sentence, that is to say, by 
 the order of words. Nominative or objective case indi- 
 cates not a form but a relation of the word so designated. 
 The possessive case is indicated by a change of form, 
 which may be very slight, adding s preceded or followed 
 by an apostrophe, according to a method so simple that 
 few persons are ever perplexed by it, or in some in- 
 stances, as of plurals in s, adding an apostrophe only; 
 as, the foxes' den. 
 
 PRONOUNS 
 
 The pronoun is looked upon as the stronghold of inflec- 
 tion in English. Yet it is surprising how little is there. 
 "We proudly boast of one declension the only one in the 
 English language which contains all the properties of 
 gender, person, number and case the personal pronoun 
 of the third person, expressed in the nominative singular 
 by Tie, she, or it. But we are suddenly awakened to the 
 fact that this one lonely declension is not complete, for 
 gender vanishes in its plural, and for lie, she, or it we 
 have the one genderless plural they, their, theirs, them. 
 In fact, at this point we have used up our entire stock 
 of gender. 7 and thou, we and you are genderless. So 
 are all other pronouns, as who, which, that, etc. A few 
 pronouns, this and that, one, other, etc., have number, 
 but no person, gender, nor case. One pronoun, who, has 
 a full set of cases (who, whose, whom) but no gender, 
 person, or number. The pronoun who, in all its forms, 
 is as indifferent to singular or plural as the noun sheep. 
 The wonderful thing is how well we get along without 
 the many variations which the language has discarded, 
 and how well English seems to be equipped in the matter 
 of pronouns, with so few forms to respond to actual 
 count.
 
 194 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 ADJECTIVES 
 
 The English adjective has the freedom of the at- 
 mosphere. No variation for gender, person, number or 
 case. Good, bad, fast, slow, light, heavy, precious, 
 u'orthless, any such English adjective, once learned, is 
 yours for all time. Like a pass-key, it fits equally in 
 every lock. If you wish to vary the degree of the qual- 
 ity, you may change to comparative or superlative. 
 Otherwise your adjective, once learned, is yours in per- 
 petuity. How much this means only he can understand 
 who Eas stood with a disconnected French, German, 
 Spanish, or Italian adjective suspended in mid air, find- 
 ing himself wholly unable to fit it to the waiting noun. 
 
 But because it is free from the bondage of inflection, 
 the English adjective comes under the law of position, 
 and must be placed so near its noun that the relation 
 is unmistakable. The practical ease and certainty with 
 which this is done in innumerable instances is the suf- 
 ficient vindication of construction by position. The 
 matter is so simple, that if ever an adjective is made 
 meaningless or incongruous by misplacement, we laugh 
 at the false construction as a bit of ineptness that or- 
 dinary care might have avoided. 
 
 VERBS 
 
 English verbs may be said to constitute one great 
 conjugation, forming its past inflected forms by adding 
 ed. As this class includes almost all the 8,000 or more 
 English verbs, this is called the regular formation. 
 Outside of these is "a little wilful group" of about 200 
 verbs, each of which forms its past tense and past par- 
 ticiple according to a fashion of its own; as, do, did, 
 done; fly, flew, flown; see, saw, seen. These have been
 
 ENGLISH GRAMMAR 195 
 
 called by Grimm and certain other German philologists 
 "strong verbs," for reasons satisfying to the Teutonic 
 mind apparently because they are incorrigible leav- 
 ing the immense mass of English verbs as ' ' weak verbs. ' ' 
 A few English grammarians have accepted this title, 
 though with many protests, an increasing majority 
 terming verbs of the prevalent and usual form regular 
 and the few anomalous survivors irregular. With these 
 200 irregular verbs there is absolutely but one thing to 
 do learn them "by heart" by arbitrary memory. 
 There is no royal road around or past them. Learning 
 these few forms is not a great job. By learning ten 
 irregular verbs a day all may be mastered in three 
 weeks, and the work is done for all time, for there will 
 never be any more. In fact, their number tends stead- 
 ily to diminish. We may now say builded for built, 
 clothed for clad; bereaved is more common than bereft, 
 and dared has supplanted durst. 
 
 This slight array of old-time forms disposed of, the 
 way through the verb opens very clearly. Eight little 
 monosyllabic auxiliaries, each practically unchangeable 
 in its own domain, point the way to all the relations in- 
 dicated by the hundreds of verb-forms of the Latin, 
 Greek, and many other languages. Some of these aux- 
 iliaries, be, can, do, have, may, must, shall, will, associ- 
 ate with themselves the pure infinitive, that is, the un- 
 changed root-form of the verb without the sign to; as, 
 "I will go", "he may come", etc. Others join them- 
 selves to the past participle, regular or irregular, of the 
 verb, forming thus a verb-phrase with special indica- 
 tion of time, intention, certainty, possibility, or the like ; 
 as, "I have done"; "the book is finished". These are 
 found in actual fact to afford combinations sufficient 
 to cover all the innumerable variations of human
 
 196 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 thought or opinion to be expressed by the use of the 
 verb. 
 
 PARTICIPLES AND VERB-PHRASES 
 
 The participle is a wonderful contrivance of language 
 for carrying over the idea of the verb into close and 
 vivid connection with other words, to modify a noun, 
 to take an object, or to be itself the subject or the ob- 
 ject of a proposition. The participle expresses the idea 
 of a verb otherwise than as a predicate; it might be 
 called the non-predicable verb, or most fittingly "the 
 participial mode of the verb," having three tenses, 
 present, past, and perfect. 
 
 Any participle may be used as an adjunct of subject 
 or predicate without forming a separate clause as a 
 finite verb would do, in a similar connection of ideas. 
 Thus: "Hoping you are well, I remain, etc." This is 
 much less formal than "I hope you are well, and I re- 
 main, etc. ' ' So, ' ' Having seen his friends, he departed, ' ' 
 is used in place of ' ' He saw his friends, and departed ; ' ' 
 or "Being found trustworthy, he was promoted," in- 
 stead of "He was found trustworthy, and was pro- 
 moted." The thoughts expressed in the participial 
 form are more closely woven with the associated mat- 
 ter, and have greater unity. But associated with one 
 of the auxiliaries, such a participle makes a definite 
 affirmation and forms a coherent sentence; and this is 
 the most common way in English of expressing affirma- 
 tion, opinion, possibility. The easy interweaving of the 
 auxiliaries with the infinitive or participle in verb- 
 phrases forms a mosaic of wonderful power, fluency, 
 fulness and beauty, adapted beyond all that would be 
 antecedently thought possible to the expression of the 
 subtle variations of thought.
 
 ENGLISH GRAMMAR 197 
 
 ADVERBS 
 
 There has appeared from somewhere in recent years 
 the edict that no adverb or other word shall appear 
 within the limits of a verb-phrase, i.e., between the aux- 
 iliary and the participle representing the principal verb. 
 Many of our younger writers are laboriously endeavor- 
 ing to observe this, directly against the genius and usage 
 of the language; so that we have such nerve-racking 
 sentences as, "The conspiracy never previously had been 
 suspected;" "The investment irrecoverably will be 
 lost;" "The speaker furiously was interrupted." Some- 
 times the attempt to observe the requirement puts an 
 adverb in a place where it becomes confusing, as in the 
 following : 
 
 "The old French cruiser Chateaurenault was torpedoed and 
 sunk in the Mediterranean, and the submarine which at- 
 tacked her later was destroyed, etc." 
 
 The New York Tribune, Dec. 20, 1917. 
 
 We have heard many desperate deeds of submarines, 
 but this of going down and attacking "later" a ship 
 that had been already sunk surpasses all. 
 
 There seems to be nothing behind the rule but some- 
 one 's ipse dixit. The entire trend of English usage is 
 against it. The one adverb most frequent in negation, 
 the adverb not, almost uniformly breaks the verb- 
 phrase; as, "I have not seen him"; "I will not do it"; 
 "I do not believe it"; "the package has not come." 
 It is only a very ill-taught foreigner who says: "I not 
 have seen him"; "I not will do it"; "the package not 
 has come." This adverb not is very apt to carry with 
 it any associated adverb, also, into the place between 
 the auxiliary and the form of the principal verb; as, 
 "I shall not soon forget your kindness". Compare 
 this with, "I soon shall not tor get your kindness"; or,
 
 198 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 "I shall not forget soon your kindness". Never tends 
 to the same position as not; as, "I have never met him" ; 
 "I have never heard so strange a tale"; "He will prob- 
 ably never return ". 
 
 Again, in questions, the subject, noun or pronoun, 
 naturally and almost inevitably comes between the aux- 
 iliary and the principal verb ; as, " Will you go"? "Did 
 he say that"? The subject, so placed, very commonly 
 carries with it any attributive words; as, "Has that ex- 
 cellent and estimable man been so deceived"? 
 
 The fact is that the language is not nearly so wooden 
 as many of its expositors. It trusts the auxiliary to 
 pick up its principal verb in almost any part of the 
 sentence, whatever may have come between, and this is 
 readily done by all intelligent people. Moreover, the 
 association of the adverb or qualifying phrase is very 
 rarely with the auxiliary, and almost always with the 
 principal verb. If one says: "He constantly has 
 been "; "That justly will be "; "This strenuously 
 must be "; those adverbs have practically no force 
 whatever. But if we fill out the sentence, and say, "He 
 has been constantly misunderstood"; "that will be 
 justly administered"; "this must be strenuously in- 
 sisted upon ' ' ; then ' ' constantly misunderstood, " " justly 
 administered," "strenuously insisted upon" have defi- 
 nite and vigorous meaning, because each adverb is 
 closely joined to the principal verb which it is of inter- 
 est and consequence that it should modify. Suppose 
 one inspects a body of troops, and finds the clothing de- 
 fective ; he may easily sum up the result without form- 
 ing a sentence, and say "insufficiently clothed"; but if 
 he starts to form a sentence, "The men insufficiently" 
 means nothing, and "The men insufficiently were" still 
 means nothing; he may say, "The men insufficiently
 
 ENGLISH GRAMMAR 199 
 
 were clothed," but in so doing he has separated his ad- 
 verb from the one vital element which it must modify 
 if the sentence is to mean anything, and has secured by 
 much labor a forced construction, which is elaborately 
 obscure, because the only way the reference of an ad- 
 verb can be known in English is by its position, as near 
 as possible to the word it is to modify. But if he says, 
 "The men were insufficiently clothed," he has massed 
 his meaning with compactness and cohesion, so that the 
 reader or hearer gets the whole idea at a stroke. Such 
 English is both easy and natural, and has been favored 
 throughout the whole course of English literature. In 
 fact, the natural adjustment of the auxiliary to its prin- 
 cipal verb across any intervening words is so commonly 
 required and so readily made that it is hard to gather 
 specimens of it, the mind slipping down the stream of 
 such fluent construction so readily as not to note any 
 break in the movement. Let us consider a few passages 
 that have been hastily gathered from the Authorized 
 Version of the Scriptures : 
 
 Gen. ii, 16-17. Of every tree of the garden them mayest 
 freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and 
 evil, thou shalt not eat of it : for in the day that thou eatest 
 thereof thou shalt surely die. 
 
 Would it improve this to write, "Thou surely shalt die," 
 or "Surely thou shalt die?" 
 
 2 Sam. ix, 7. I will surely shew thee kindness. 
 
 Prov. xxix, 1. He that being often reproved, hardeneth 
 his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without 
 remedy. 
 
 If. xxiv, 3. The land shall be utterly emptied. 
 
 Jer. xlii, 10. If ye will still abide in this place. 
 
 Ezra iv, 18. The letter which ye sent unto us hath been 
 plainly read before me.
 
 200 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 Acts ii, 8. Nothing common nor unclean hath at any time 
 entered into my mouth. 
 
 Rev. xxi, 27. And there shall in no wise enter into it 
 anything that defileth. 
 
 Or, again, from Shakespeare: 
 
 777 King Henry VI, Act i, Sc. 2. While you are thus 
 employed. 
 
 Ib., Act i, Sc. 4. 'Tis beauty that doth oft make women 
 proud. 
 
 Ib., Act ii, Sc. 1. 
 
 And he that throws no* up his cap for joy 
 Shall for that fault make forfeit of his head. 
 
 King Richard III, Act iii, Sc. 1. 
 
 For we to-morrow hold divided councils 
 Wherein thyself shalt highly be employed. 
 
 Ib., Act ii, Sc. 2. I know they do, and I have well de- 
 served it. 
 
 King Henry VIII, Act i, Sc. 2. 
 I have no farther gone in this 
 Than by a single voice. 
 
 From the "Spectator" illustrations become so numer- 
 ous that we may content ourselves with quoting a few 
 from a single paper by Addison (Vol. viii, No. 387) : 
 
 But having already touched on this last consideration, I 
 shall here take notice, etc. 
 
 We may further observe how Providence has taken care, 
 etc. 
 
 I shall not here mention the several entertainments of art. 
 
 This interspersion of evil with good is very truly ascribed, 
 etc. 
 
 Similar illustrations may be found on almost any page, 
 and in the work of any one of that brilliant corps of 
 "Spectator" writers. From Macaulay we may select 
 the following, which occur in the essay on Lord Bacon :
 
 ENGLISH GRAMMAR 201 
 
 His fine was speedily released by the crown. He was next 
 suffered to present himself at court. 
 
 Our opinion of the moral character of this man has al- 
 ready been sufficiently explained. 
 
 Again from the essay on Lord Clive: 
 
 An army of forty thousand men was speedily assembled 
 round him. 
 
 From the essay on Frederick the Great: 
 
 It might not unreasonably be expected, etc. 
 
 The Saxon camp at Pirna was in the meantime closely 
 invested. 
 
 But we should very imperfectly describe the state of Fred- 
 erick's mind, etc. 
 
 Here citations must stop, or we should have to quote 
 a large part of English literature. In a word, there is 
 absolutely no literary warrant for putting adverbs and 
 limiting expressions in purgatory, in order to keep every 
 auxiliary of a verb-phrase solid with its principal verb 
 for the benefit of those who are supposed not to have 
 the wit to put the parts together if they are once sepa- 
 rated. The English language luxuriates in confidence 
 in the common sense of those who inherit it, and BO 
 gives them ample measure of wholesome freedom. 
 
 The auxiliaries shall and will do offer certain diffi- 
 culties which no one believes that any one else has per- 
 fectly mastered. We are reminded of Bunyan's de- 
 scription : 
 
 "Yea, and to my knowledge, said he, here have been swal- 
 lowed up at least twenty thousand cartloads, yea millions 
 of wholesome instructions, that have -at all seasons been 
 brought from all places of the King's dominions; (and they 
 that can tell say, that they are the best materials to make 
 good ground of the place, if so be it might be mended)."
 
 202 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 Yet there is a charm in the midst of the perplexities. 
 For English has performed the unique feat of dividing 
 the future longitudinally along parallel lines, so that 
 shall is as much future as will, and will as much future 
 as shall, but a different future. For example: 
 
 "Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again." 
 
 How weak and flat that would become, if we were to 
 make it "will rise again," because we should have lost 
 the future of resolve or destiny, and acquired only that 
 of extended time. Shall, from the Anglo-Saxon sceal, 
 the present indicative of sculan, to owe (hence to be 
 under obligation or necessity), has a force and impli- 
 cation that will never attains. On the other hand, will, 
 from the Anglo-Saxon willan, signifies to have purpose 
 or intention, and may at times, by emphasis, denote the 
 most strenuous resolution. In ordinary use, as making 
 up the future tense, these original meanings are shaded 
 off so as to be less sharply distinctive. In this way are 
 formed two schemes of the future tense, one declarative, 
 denoting simple anticipated fact; the other purposive, 
 denoting volition, either as exercised by the speaker for 
 himself or as enforced upon the one spoken to or spoken 
 of. Thus : 
 
 (Declarative) (Purposive) 
 
 I shall 
 he will 
 we shall 
 you will 
 they will 
 
 I will 
 he shall 
 - go we will 
 
 you shall 
 they shall 
 
 Thus shall and will change with the persons in a way 
 that is to learners somewhat perplexing, but is easily 
 mastered by a little study and care.
 
 ENGLISH GRAMMAR 203 
 
 But having learned this broad distinction, many at 
 once fall into error by supposing this rule of thumb to 
 cover all cases of the use of shall and will. Thus the 
 author of a work for the most part able and scholarly 
 complicates the whole question of these auxiliaries into 
 one of dark perplexity by making this rule exclusive, 
 and then censuring all other use as erroneous, no mat- 
 ter how numerous or eminent the authorities for the 
 varying use. For example, he writes : 
 
 "Shall is a word of authority and command. . . . Shall 
 is properly used only by the power that can enforce it. 
 
 "But what is 'I shall?' Remembering that shall expresses 
 compulsion emanating from the speaker, if the natural sense 
 of the words be regarded, they mean, 'I will compel myself.' 
 But it is only the unwilling who need compulsion; and if 
 unwilling, whence comes the motive-power to compel? The 
 expression, like several others, is an absurdity." 
 
 Shall is properly used only by one in authority, but in the 
 Bible it is in the mouths of all alike. Again, one having 
 authority does not command or threaten anything at vari- 
 ance with bis own character and sentiments. 
 
 "For many shall come in my name, saying I am Christ, 
 and shall deceive many. . . . Nation shall rise against na- 
 tion and kingdom against kingdom. . . . Then shall they 
 deliver you up to be afflicted and shall kill you. . . . And 
 many false prophets shall arise and shall deceive many. 
 
 "It would be inconsistent with all ideas ever entertained 
 of Jesus to think these calamities and wrongs ordered, in- 
 tended, or desired by him. . . . Evidently shall was merely 
 an expression of futurity." 
 
 The simple fact is, as this author's own examples 
 should have shown him, that shall is often and elegantly 
 used to express something more and other than com- 
 mand or compulsion, what is destined or sure to hap- 
 pen, a certain future result or event without reference
 
 204 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 to any one's authority or volition. "I shall be at the 
 office to-morrow (in the ordinary course of events)." 
 David says of his lost child: 
 
 "I shall go to him but he shall not return to me." 
 
 2 Sam. xii, 23. 
 
 The prophetess says to the unwilling warrior: 
 
 "I will surely go with thee; notwithstanding the journey 
 that thou takest shall not be for thine honor; for the Lord 
 shall sell Sisera into the hand of a woman." Judges iv, 8-9. 
 
 Not that she could compel or coerce the Almighty, but 
 she had a vision of the destined sure event. Thus Eng- 
 lish speech and literature are full of instances of the 
 delicate and effective use of shall where no thought of 
 personal command or compulsion can be suggested. So 
 the distinction between shall and will passes far be- 
 yond a technical rule of grammar, and becomes a mat- 
 ter of style. He who insists on a narrow iron rule or a 
 metaphysical explanation will miss this nicety of lan- 
 guage forever, while it will become delightfully clear 
 and satisfying to him who will simply steep himself in 
 the best English usage, written or spoken, till he comes 
 not to wrangle or dogmatize about it, but to feel it. 
 
 PREPOSITIONS and CONJUNCTIONS have been treated in 
 the chapter on connectives, the links of style. 
 
 INTERJECTIONS constitute a kind of formless emotional 
 language which may be appended almost anywhere to 
 the formal and analytical style. These words are com- 
 monly said to have no grammatical connection with the 
 rest of the sentence in which they appear. Yet the in- 
 terjection often gives a fulness to expression of thought 
 and feeling that could not otherwise be secured. Thus, 
 "Oh that Israel had hearkened to my voice and my peo-
 
 ENGLISH GRAMMAR 205 
 
 pie had walked in my ways." Here the "Oh" com- 
 pletes the sentence with a touch of feeling, as it were 
 breathing a soul into the statement which would be dry 
 and formal without it. 
 
 English syntax is determined by the lack of inflection 
 in the language. An inflected language, as the Latin, 
 could put a noun or pronoun almost anywhere in the 
 sentence, because the form of the word would show 
 whether it was subject or object of the verb. Thus, the 
 Latin word Roma is nominative in form, and can never 
 be the object of a verb. If it is to be an object, its form 
 must be changed to Romam (the Latin accusative, cor- 
 responding to the English objective case). That form, 
 Roma:n, may be placed anywhere in a sentence, and will 
 still show its case by its form. In like manner the noun 
 Carthago must be a nominative, and can not under any 
 circumstances be the object of a verb. If it is to be 
 made the object, its form must be changed to the ac- 
 cusative Carthaginem. The English sentence ''Rome 
 destroyed Carthage," may be translated verbatim into 
 Latin as: "Roma delevit Carthaginem," but, because 
 Roma shows by its form that it is a nominative, while 
 Carthaginem shows by its form that it is an objective, 
 the order of the words may be changed in any possible 
 way without affecting the meaning. We may have: 
 
 Roma delevit Carthaginem; 
 Delevit Carthaginem Roma; 
 Delevit Roma Carthaginem; 
 Carthaginem delevit Roma; 
 Carthaginem Roma delevit; 
 Roma Carthaginem delevit. 
 
 In either arrangement the meaning of the sentence is 
 not affected in the slightest degree. In any one of these 
 six forms the sentence means that Rome was the de-
 
 206 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 stroyer, and Carthage the destroyed. Now try a similar 
 inversion in English: 
 
 Home destroyed Carthage; 
 Carthage destroyed Eome: 
 
 and we have a flat contradiction, unless we mean that 
 each destroyed the other. "Carthage destroyed Eome" 
 would contradict the truth of history. If we say, 
 "Carthage Rome destroyed," or "Rome Carthage de- 
 stroyed," we cannot decide from either of those sen- 
 tences which was the destroyer, and which the destroyed. 
 We have lost the advantage of position of the nominative 
 and objective, which alone could make the meaning 
 sure in English. 
 
 As the English personal pronouns and the pronoun 
 who have distinct forms in the objective case, their ob- 
 jectives are not necessarily limited to the place after the 
 verb, but may take any position in the sentence; as, 
 "Me he restored to mine office;" "Them will I bring 
 to my holy mountain;" "Whom he would he set up, 
 and whom he would he put down." Yet the tendency 
 to place the object after the verb is so strong in English 
 that objective pronouns are as a rule ordinarily so 
 placed; as "The work pleases me;" "His mother 
 loves him." 
 
 GRAMMAR BROADENS THE BASE OF CULTURE 
 
 An adequate knowledge of grammar tends to the 
 democratization of culture. You tell us that one who 
 has been brought up in cultured society, and in favora- 
 ble surroundings, will speak English correctly with no 
 special knowledge or thought of grammar. This is a 
 limited truth, which is often flung out as the challenge 
 of a caste or clique, as if one should say, Is not that 
 enough? What more would you ask? In such view
 
 ENGLISH GRAMMAR 207 
 
 you offer us the aristocracy of culture. Would you 
 hear correct English? Associate only with the cultured 
 and favored few. Would you use correct English? Be 
 one of that charmed circle. For the rest of mankind, 
 they exist that you may have the privilege of smiling 
 at their uncouthness. 
 
 But is the superior smile of a cultured group, even 
 if that group includes yourself, an adequate reason for 
 the existence of multitudes of human beings? Why 
 not extend the circle of correctness to include the whole 
 host of humanity, and bring all into a true " republic 
 of letters?" 
 
 The things that make cultured and elegant speech 
 can be stated in clear words. These statements can be 
 arranged in consistent relation to each other so as to 
 form a grammatical system, which can be learned by 
 any intelligent person, so that all educated people may 
 share in excellence of language, and each one be, not a 
 member of a little self-satisfied clique, but a citizen of 
 a vast realm where all share in the inspiration, the 
 power, and the freedom of a truly cultured speech. 
 That is a desirable object of education, worthy of study 
 and toil to teach and win. 
 
 Such systematized grammatical study tends to the 
 unity of the language: 
 
 1. In space. A widely extended language tends to 
 break up into dialect by mere extent and diffusion. 
 Communities separated by mountain ranges, by rivers, 
 or even by oceans, the members of which rarely, if ever, 
 meet each other in personal converse, insensibly de- 
 velop different forms and meanings of words, and dif- 
 ferent methods of connecting words and ideas in con- 
 tinuous speech, or, as we say, differences of idiom. Thus 
 dialects springing from a common stock may drift so
 
 208 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 widely apart that those using one cannot understand 
 the other. To prevent this the dictionary must hold 
 the words to a common form and meaning, and the 
 grammar must hold the methods of connecting words 
 to a common model. Especially in the " far-flung " 
 English speech, which is constantly enrolling recruits 
 from every race and nation, there is not merely disin- 
 tegration, but absolute conflict and wrenching, as each 
 new learner seeks to distort this strange English to suit 
 his preconceived ideas of what a language should be. 
 Here a system of grammar, established and honored, 
 and the same on every soil or shore, has useful and 
 commanding place. 
 
 2. In time. Every language, like every living organ- 
 ism, is undergoing a constant process of change, so long 
 as it is alive. The perspectives of years, generations, 
 and centuries vary. The vicissitudes of prosperity and. 
 adversity, of war and peace, the advance or decline of 
 agriculture, manufactures, and various arts, the free- 
 dom or restriction of travel, insensibly cause adoption 
 of new words, the dropping of some once in favor, and 
 the extension or restriction of meaning of those still 
 favored. It is only in the dead languages that rules and 
 meanings are absolute and changeless. The English 
 language, at the forefront of every great movement of 
 the world's progress, must have rational privilege of 
 variation with movement of time and events. A true 
 system of English grammar, historic in basis, rational in 
 construction, yet free and elastic as the movements of 
 life demand, will enable the language to change and de- 
 velop by the advancing activity of life, but not by retro- 
 gression, decline, and decay, keeping ever through the 
 advancing present a grand unity with the best of all its 
 mighty and glorious past.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE ENLARGEMENT AND IMPROVEMENT 
 OF THE VOCABULARY 
 
 The vocabulary of any person is the number of words 
 which that person habitually uses ; or, in a wider sense, 
 the number of words that he readily understands when 
 he hears or reads them. As regards expression, the 
 first sense only is of importance, namely: the number 
 of words that one habitually or readily uses. Persons 
 are numerous who recognize a twenty-dollar gold-piece 
 or bank-note, when they see it; but they very seldom 
 see either, and for all practical purposes of life they 
 are as if those denominations of money did not exist. 
 "We are rich only by the money in our actual possession 
 or ready for us on call. Similarly, our vocabulary is 
 the aggregate of words we have in actual possession, so 
 that we can produce them on demand. A former Amer- 
 ican consul at Rome remarked on one occasion, ' ' Though 
 I have been resident at Rome for twenty years, and can 
 understand anything that an Italian gentleman or lady 
 may say, I can not yet understand the talk of the com- 
 mon people on the street. Yet these people all under- 
 stand what a gentleman or lady may say to them in pure 
 Italian. ' ' That is, the common people recognize the bet- 
 ter speech when it comes before them, but for all the 
 ordinary purposes of life, the pure Italian does not exist 
 for them. 
 
 This is, to a considerable degree, the case with the 
 average American schoolboy and schoolgirl, and with 
 
 209
 
 210 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 the slightly educated classes of the community, though 
 much modified by our general system of public instruc- 
 tion. The children and the crowd understand the schol- 
 arly style when they hear or read it, but they regard it 
 as a kind of dress-parade speech, which they would 
 never think of using in common life; and they would 
 soon find themselves confused, if they should try to 
 speak it. There is an anecdote in a recent paper of a 
 mother who was much annoyed by her boy's way of 
 talking to his dog. "Tom," she said, "why will you 
 constantly say to Jeff, 'Set up,' when you know per- 
 fectly well you ought to say 'sit up'?" "Oh, well, 
 mother," Tom cheerfully replied, "of course I have lots 
 of grammar, but I don't want to waste it on him, when 
 he's only a dog." 
 
 But the great object of the study of language is, to 
 gain command of a pure, noble, and elegant type of 
 speech, which shall come readily to tongue or pen, and 
 which shall not be too good for daily use. At the same 
 time one who aspires to literary composition or public 
 speaking should be able to rise still above what is good 
 and admirable for ordinary use, and to employ a choicer 
 style of especial dignity, according to the demands of 
 the subject and the occasion. 
 
 The important consideration is, what range of words 
 each one of us has available as the means of expression 
 of our own thought. If we go back to the etymology of 
 the word "vocabulary," which is from voco, call, we 
 may say that the vocabulary of every person is the num- 
 ber of words he has ready on call. 
 
 The English language contains upward of 400,000 
 words, for more than that number have been actually 
 listed in the Standard Dictionary. But the words actu- 
 ally used by any one person are the merest fraction of
 
 ENLARGEMENT OF THE VOCABULARY 211 
 
 this vast store. Dr. George P. Marsh, writing in 1850, 
 and estimating the number of English words then in 
 actual use at 100,000, says: 
 
 "Now there are persons who know this vocabulary in nearly 
 its whole extent, but they understand a large proportion of 
 it, very much as they are acquainted with Greek or Latin, 
 that is, as the dialect of books or of special arts or profes- 
 sions, and not as a living speech, the common language of 
 daily and hourly thought. Or if, like some celebrated Eng- 
 lish and American orators, living and dead, they are able 
 upon occasion to bring into the field in the war of words 
 even the half of this vast array of light and heavy troops, 
 yet they habitually content themselves with a much less 
 imposing array of verbal force, and use for ordinary purpose 
 but a very small proportion of the words they have at their 
 command. Out of our immense magazine of words and their 
 combinations, every man selects his own implements and 
 weapons. . . . 
 
 "Few writers or speakers use as many as 10,000 words, 
 ordinary persons of fair intelligence not above three or four 
 thousand. If a scholar were required to name, without exam- 
 ination the authors whose English vocabulary was the largest, 
 he would probably specify the all-embracing Shakespeare 
 and the all-knowing Milton. And yet, in all the works of 
 the great dramatist there occur not more than 15,000 words, 
 in the poems of Milton not above 8,000. . . . 
 
 "To those whose attention has not been turned to the sub- 
 ject, these are surprising facts, but if we run over a few 
 pages of a dictionary and observe how great a proportion of 
 the words are such as we do not ourselves individually use, 
 we shall be forced to conclude that we each find a very lim- 
 ited vocabulary sufficient for our own purposes." 
 
 Even a small vest-pocket dictionary contains some 
 25,000 words. From the number of English words actu- 
 ally used, listed, and defined we see how wide is the 
 range of possible choice. Probably there is not one of 
 us who could not greatly improve our power of expres- 
 sion by increasing the number of well-chosen words
 
 212 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 ready for use at our pleasure. Many persons would be 
 astonished, if their conversation could be reproduced by 
 dictaphone, to find how often they repeat some few 
 words, or even some single word. They would find the 
 same characteristic in their own hastily written letters. 
 That is, they are unconsciously restricting themselves to 
 an exceedingly limited vocabulary, when a wider range 
 of words would be, not only more elegant, but also more 
 interesting and expressive. An extreme instance of such 
 limitation may be seen in the following copy of a letter 
 taken from an old English publication : 
 
 "I got on horseback within ten minutes after I got your 
 letter. When I got to Canterbury, I got & chaise for town, 
 but I got wet through before I got to Canterbury, and I have 
 got such a cold as I shall not be able to get rid of in a 
 hurry. I got to the Treasury about noon, but, first of all, I 
 got shaved and dressed. I soon got into the secret of getting 
 a memorial before the Board, but I could not get an answer 
 then. However, I got intelligence from the messenger that 
 I should most likely get an answer the next morning. As 
 soon as I got back to my inn, I got to bed. It was not long 
 before I got to sleep. When I got up in the morning, I got 
 myself dressed, and got my breakfast, that I might get out 
 in time to get an answer to my memorial. As soon as I got 
 it, I got into the chaise and got to Canterbury by three, and 
 about tea-time I got home. I have got nothing more to say." 
 
 Here the unfortunate word "get" occurs in some form 
 twenty-eight times. The use of nineteen new words is 
 urgently called for, besides the varying of phrase at 
 other points. By these slight changes the letter may be 
 made very presentable. Thus : 
 
 "I mounted on horseback within ten minutes after I 
 received your letter. When I reached Canterbury, I procured 
 a chaise for town, but I had become wet through before I 
 arrived at Canterbury, and I have taken such a cold as I 
 shall not be able to recover from in a hurry. I went to the
 
 ENLARGEMENT OF THE VOCABULARY 213 
 
 Treasury about noon, but first of all I took care to be shaved 
 and dressed. I soon learned the secret of bringing a memorial 
 before the Board, but I could not secure an answer then. 
 However, I obtained intelligence from the messenger that I 
 should most likely receive an answer the next morning. As 
 soon as I returned to my inn, I had my supper, and went 
 to bed. It was not long before I fell asleep. When I arose 
 in the morning, I dressed and ate my breakfast, that I might 
 go out in time to obtain an answer to my memorial. As soon 
 as I received it, I got into the chaise, and arrived at Canter- 
 bury by three, and about tea-time I reached home. I have 
 nothing more to say." 
 
 It is to be noticed that none of the words thus sup- 
 plied are out of the ordinary. All are such as any intel- 
 ligent person should be able to use without a second 
 thought. The illustration shows, however, that a speaker 
 or writer needs to have at command a very considerable 
 number of good words, in order to express himself well, 
 even in a brief communication. 
 
 But mere number of words is not enough ; they must 
 be excellent, appropriate, felicitous words. Every one 
 has heard persons who, in public address and in con- 
 versation, had an inexhaustible supply of words with a 
 readily exhaustible supply of thought, making us recall 
 Hamlet, who, in his answer to an intrusive question : 
 
 <r What do you read, my lord ?" 
 replied, 
 
 "Words, words, words;" 
 
 or the glib talker caricatured in "The Merchant of 
 Venice " : ' ' Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing ; 
 more than any man in all Venice." An abundant, but 
 ill-chosen and ill-assorted vocabulary gives one the im- 
 pression you gain in going through some bargain-stores, 
 where the articles are numerous enough and cheap in 
 price, but also cheap in quality, and you feel that you
 
 214 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 are letting down the standards of life by even spending 
 your time among them. Hence, in seeking to increase 
 the store of words at our command, we should take pains 
 also to improve our stock by adding only such as are 
 among the real treasures of speech, just as we would 
 avoid seeking a false appearance of wealth by wearing 
 paste diamonds and filling our purses with counterfeit 
 money. The enlargement and improvement may even at 
 times consist in dropping some less desirable words quite 
 out of use, or in using much more seldom than hereto- 
 fore certain words excellent in themselves, but that have 
 been indiscriminately employed for meanings that other 
 words may more fitly express. On this subject, Edwin 
 L. Shuman in his "Practical Journalism" (p. 171) very 
 admirably remarks: 
 
 "The right use of words should be a matter of life-long 
 study. No man can ever learn all there is to know about 
 the magnificent instrument of expression called the English 
 language, but any student can in time acquire a pure and 
 beautiful diction. 
 
 "The best guide to such a style is a sensitive literary con- 
 science, acquired by reading only the best authors and absorb- 
 ing their vocabulary. This should be supplemented with a 
 habitual study of the root-meanings of words. 
 
 "The errors that most do flourish in the reporters' room 
 of the modern newspaper consist in the slight misuse of 
 words not marked enough to attain the charm of Mrs Part- 
 ington's literary style, yet not correct enough to be good 
 English. ... I have little sympathy with the purists, who 
 would reduce the English to a dead language by forbidding 
 all change or growth. . . . But the fact remains that a 
 habitual carelessness in the choice of words ruins the writer's 
 style, and ultimately extinguishes his hope of advancement." 
 
 The work necessary for the enlargement and improve- 
 ment of the vocabulary may be divided into three 
 branches, reading, hearing, and doing.
 
 ENLABOEMBWT OF THE VOCABULARY 215 
 
 I. READING 
 
 The first requirement for an adequate vocabulary is 
 general reading. This reading for command of words is 
 different from reading for mastery of any particular 
 subject. In the latter case you will read a great number 
 of books of the same kind, as law books, medical books, 
 or the like. But to gain an extensive supply of valuable 
 words, you want to make your reading as wide and as 
 various as possible, with the single proviso that it shall 
 be in really good English. It must be excellent of its 
 kind, worth being influenced by, and worth remem- 
 bering. 
 
 1. Read books in distinction from periodicals and 
 newspapers. We do an uncomputed amount of fugitive 
 reading, absolutely without value, and almost without 
 motive. The news of the day we must note. Current 
 opinion, as shown in able reviews, we wish to follow. A 
 light, breezy story may sometimes rest by unbending the 
 mind. Some of our magazine stories and articles are 
 beautiful as well as entertaining, and have the advan- 
 tage of giving the best current speech of our own very 
 day. The dialect stories so much in vogue for a while, 
 and still appearing at times, are from a literary point 
 of view, simple abominations. Inaccuracy and imper- 
 fection are easy enough to find. We do not need that 
 any one should exploit them for us in print. We would 
 not join in the old stereotyped criticism of " newspaper 
 English." However it may once have been, the better 
 class of newspapers of the present day have attained a 
 very admirable style, for its purpose, the statement of 
 facts and the expression of opinion on the passing events 
 and current topics of the day. Their editors are able 
 men, often highly educated, always well educated for
 
 216 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 their special work. From the driving haste with which 
 their issues are sent forth, errors will slip in, at which 
 we enjoy many a chuckle. But if the most careful and 
 profound scholar were to attempt to get out one issue 
 within their limited time, he would give them ampler 
 opportunity to laugh at him. Moreover, he would often 
 improve the staid drowsiness of his own style, if he 
 could catch the life, movement, stir, crispness, and vigor 
 which a good editor or reviewer puts into his best 
 articles. The weakness of the newspaper style is that 
 it is fugitive, momentary, and compelled to be "popu- 
 lar." An editor who should "write for immortality," 
 or for posterity, would not be an editor long. Neverthe- 
 less a higher and more enduring style is required for 
 the best purposes of literature and oratory. 
 
 Vocabulary-building should go beyond commonplace 
 words and momentary interests. We need the materials 
 supplied by the world of books. Then, we must get over 
 the illusion that ' ' a book is a book. ' ' How many of the 
 * ' best sellers ' ' of last year will be remembered next year, 
 even by their names? Some books, it is true, are worth 
 reading, even while the authors are alive. There are a 
 few such in almost every generation. It would have 
 been a mistake not to read the "Waverley Novels" or 
 "Vanity Fair" or "David Copper-field" or "The Scarlet 
 Letter" when those works came fresh from the press. 
 They were as good then as they are to-day. But, with 
 the multitude of books now constantly appearing, one 
 who would read for intellect and style can seldom afford 
 to read a new book ' ' to see if it is good. " It is a favorite 
 diversion in some parts of the western United States to 
 beguile an unsuspecting stranger into eating a root 
 known as the "Indian turnip," which has the peculiar 
 quality that it may be eaten in considerable quantity
 
 ENLARGEMENT OF THE VOCABULARY 217 
 
 before any bad taste is perceived. Then the guileless 
 experimenter is as eager as Lady Macbeth for unavail- 
 able floods of water to wash away the intolerable flavor. 
 There are some books of sudden popularity that a good 
 mind may reject at once on Dr. Johnson's principle. 
 When he was challenged for condemning a book which 
 he had not read, the sturdy old scholar replied, "Sir, I 
 do not need to eat a whole joint of meat to find out 
 whether it is tainted. The first mouthful is enough. " 
 There are others of which the severest censure is, that 
 their reading is a woful waste of time. When we con- 
 sider that no human being can hope in one lifetime to 
 read all the first-class books of the world, little time 
 should be spent on the second-class even, while trash 
 should have no place. The stream will not rise above 
 its source, and our style will not be superior to that of 
 our models. The average person will do best to take the 
 opinion of good judges, and to pass by any book not so 
 recommended. On the other hand, a book that has lived 
 fifty years is sure to be above the ordinary standard; 
 otherwise it would not have lived. Such books bring 
 one among the master-spirits of human thought, whose 
 language is sure to partake of their own greatness. 
 
 When the Hungarian patriot, Kossuth, came to Amer- 
 ica in the middle of the last century, our people were 
 surprised at his excellent and beautiful English. The 
 explanation was that he had learned English from 
 books, and brought back to us what was best in our own 
 literature, turned into living speech. Something like 
 this was the experience of Mrs. Browning. For years 
 an invalid, shut out from the active world, she read the 
 best of our older literature, and gained a singularly 
 rich and elegant style. She was by some critics cen- 
 sured for affectation because she would use from time
 
 218 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 to time an archaic or even an obsolete word. But this 
 was innocently done. These were the words of the books 
 she read ; and she did not mingle with the world enough 
 to know that the world had left them behind. These, 
 however, are but occasional blemishes upon otherwise 
 beautiful work, fresh still because it draws from the 
 accumulated stores of the past. Its excellence is shown 
 by the fact that her poems have lived. It is probable 
 that a speaker or writer who should carefully form him- 
 self upon the old masters, with reasonable consideration 
 of the present, would be looked upon as having a new 
 style. 
 
 2. Read books, rather than about books. Many think 
 they know an author because they have read an article 
 about him in an encyclopedia. By that process they 
 know the author just as much as they would have known , 
 the man if they had stood beside his burial casket. Not 
 much is added by picking up some few of his sentences 
 in a volume of "Familiar Quotations." To know him, 
 you must read some mass of his writings: see how he 
 leads up to his subject; how he struggles through or 
 around its difficulties; how he reaches his strong con- 
 clusions ; note his faults and his prejudices, his strength 
 and his weakness, all that is human in him ; breathe the 
 atmosphere of his day, as it insensibly pervades his 
 work. Then he and his style are real to you forever- 
 more. 
 
 3. Read in quantities: just as much as you have 
 time for, and can master at one stretch. By such read- 
 ing your mind becomes charged with an author's style 
 as by no other means. You get a something that will 
 not come by picking out words or reading selections. 
 Memory of language is by association. If you have but 
 one line of association for a word, that word will be
 
 ENLARGEMENT OF THE VOCABULARY 219 
 
 difficult to recall, and will not fit in naturally with 
 familiar words, which have a thousand associations. In 
 your conversational style that word will sound stiff and 
 artificial, or, as we say, ' ' pedantic, ' ' and in your written 
 or printed style it will stand out from the context, as if 
 written or printed in red ink. Here is a person, for 
 instance, to whom the word reciprocal is not familiar. 
 He encounters it once in some book. He thinks it a 
 nice word. He resolves to use it at the first opportunity. 
 But when he tries, he finds it a little hard to remember. 
 When it does come to mind he makes a grab at it, lest 
 it get away. Then he is not quite sure how to fit his 
 other words to it, and, like the new cloth in the old gar- 
 ment, "the piece that is put in agreeth not with the 
 old." But suppose he finds that word repeatedly in his 
 reading, and used in different connections. He also 
 comes upon reciprocate and reciprocity. Many associa- 
 tions with that word are developed. It no longer seems 
 strange and foreign. He has come to think it. Then it 
 joins insensibly with the other contents of his thought, 
 and when he comes to use it, it will be easy, natural, 
 and almost certainly appropriate. It will make natural 
 connections with the rest of his speech, because it has 
 made natural connections in his thought. 
 
 By reading in quantities you come upon words of the 
 better class over and over again, and in ever new con- 
 nections. Thus you invoke the instinctive subconscious 
 activities of the mind, which will often do more than 
 direct intent. If a plant needs development, you can do 
 but little by pouring water over its leaves ; you can not 
 inject water or carbon into them. Your best way is to 
 supply water at the roots, place the plant so that the 
 due amount of sunlight shall fall upon it, and wait for 
 the untraceable microscopic activities of the entire or-
 
 220 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 ganism to renew all its tissues to vigorous life. It is the 
 water absorbed by the root that will helpfully reach the 
 leaf. In like manner, you need to absorb an author's 
 style, so that, after earnest and continuous reading, you 
 will find yourself involuntarily constructing phrases or 
 sentences after that author 's pattern ; you will be reach- 
 ing out for his words as means of expression in your own 
 new thinking. Then, if you suddenly come upon an 
 extract from his writings without his name, you will say, 
 "That reads like Emerson; like Carlyle; like Macau- 
 lay; like Addison;" as the case may be. Then you 
 have come really to know that author. His style has 
 taken actual hold upon your mind, has become part of 
 the content of your thought. By that time you have 
 probably had enough of that author for the immediate 
 present, for you must not become his slave nor his imi- 
 tator. Take up then some different author, and repeat 
 the process. 
 
 4. Read rapidly, to secure such absorption. We 
 would not advise you, as the orthodox treatises do, 
 to "read with pencil in hand," and make notes every 
 few minutes. That method, if it could be enforced, 
 would exterminate the reading of sensational novels. 
 Read freely, just as if you were listening to an inter- 
 esting speaker, whom you could not interrupt in every 
 other sentence, to say, "What was that word or phrase? 
 Wait a moment, while I note it down." Make your 
 book a companion, and let it talk to you. Then, at some 
 natural break in your reading, try to recall what is best 
 worth remembering, turning back over the book, if neces- 
 sary, to fix important items. Make notes then, if you 
 like; but try to remember as much as possible without 
 the notes. If the book is your own, mark freely by a 
 perpendicular stroke alon<r the margin any passage that
 
 ENLARGEMENT OF THE VOCABULARY 221 
 
 especially interests you. Then you can easily pick out 
 those passages in rereading. Sometimes write in a few 
 salient words in the margin the instant impression you 
 gain of the author's words or thought, favorable or 
 unfavorable. You will find those among the most valu- 
 able notes you will ever make, even if you have to cor- 
 rect them on revision, because they will be alive, full of 
 the fresh thought of that moment, which with the same 
 intensity and complexion will not return. But read, 
 and read eagerly on. 
 
 When possible, read a whole book or a whole section 
 ' ' at a sitting. ' ' It does not take so long to read a whole 
 play of Shakespeare as to go to the theater to hear it ; for 
 you save at least the time of going and coming. So 
 the play becomes more than if read piecemeal. Hamlet's 
 talk with the grave-diggers means something when you 
 are full of interest in the character of Hamlet, and have 
 suddenly contrasted with his thoughts the ideas of the 
 common laborers. The very best way to read any poem 
 of moderate length is to read it from start to finish 
 without a break, and let its entire impact come upon 
 the mind like a minstrel 's song. In the case of a longer 
 poem, read one division in that way; as, for instance, 
 one book of ' ' Paradise Lost. ' ' Then, after some interval, 
 read that same poem or portion again critically, line by 
 line, studying the finest passages word by word. See 
 where the power dwells, and if you can how the magic 
 is wrought. Many persons would find the English Bible 
 made wholly new by reading it, as it was written, in 
 large sections, regardless of chapters, as Franklin is 
 said to have copied out the book of Ruth and read it as 
 an Oriental tale in the pre-revolutionary days in Paris,, 
 to a club of infidel philosophers and literary men, who 
 greatly admired his discovery. It is the saturating of
 
 222 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 the mind with a book that makes its style your own 
 possession. 
 
 Only one form of interruption in such reading is to 
 be recommended. You come to some exceptionally beau- 
 tiful or noble passage in poem, oration, essay, or history ; 
 pause and learn those lines or that sentence by heart. 
 That will be easy, because their impression is then fresh 
 and strong upon you. That will not check the eagerness 
 of your reading. You will be nearer to your author by 
 having made something of his your very own, and you 
 will hurry on with tense interest to find new gems along 
 the same inviting path. The portions thus learned will 
 come back to you at many unexpected times, as a mental 
 delight, or as a help in expressing or emphasizing your 
 own thought as you speak or write. You are richer for 
 those stored-up treasures. 
 
 By such abundant and continuous reading you will 
 develop the instinct of language. In this capacity as a 
 natural endowment persons greatly differ, but in all it 
 is capable of indefinite increase. One who possesses the 
 greatest natural facility has still to seek perfection, if 
 only in the restraining and pruning of his own exuber- 
 ance. Another, of the strongly executive type, who finds 
 it easier to do the hardest thing than to say the easiest, 
 needs, nevertheless, to be capable of something more 
 than a grunt of agreement or a growl of dissent. The 
 mind of either type needs to cultivate a vocabulary 
 suited to the possessor's life-purpose. For this either 
 will profit by abundant reading. 
 
 4. Read by snatches. Every truth has a converse 
 that is equally true. When life's demands do not permit 
 us to do all that is desirable, we may checkmate neces- 
 sity by doing what we can. There are odd half-hours 
 that, if utilized, will accumulate, like the compound
 
 ENLARGEMENT OF THE VOCABULARY 223 
 
 interest of a savings-bank into a surprising total. Keep 
 some first-class book at hand literally, "at hand"- 
 where it can be picked up and read in odd minutes of 
 waiting or resting. Much of our best literature is ex- 
 actly adapted to be so read, as the shorter poems of 
 Wordsworth, Tennyson, Moore, Hood, Bryant, or Whit- 
 tier. Any one of Bacon's "Essays" may be so read. 
 You would know Addison? His papers in the "Spec- 
 tator" were especially designed "to be read at all 
 breakfast-tables." Keep a volume of the "Spectator" 
 within easy reach, and in any available half-hour read 
 any paper in the volume signed by one letter of the 
 name CLIO. Those are Addison 's. So day by day you 
 will come into touch with the thought and style of one 
 of the great masters of English literature. Many books 
 which look quite formidable are easily read a chapter 
 at a time. 
 
 5. Read what you like. There was a time when easy 
 and happy learning was suspected of shallowness. The 
 ideal of education was discipline, and if learning came 
 too easily, something must be done to make it grind. If 
 the student was in danger of thoroughly enjoying Cicero, 
 he must be put upon a course of Zumpt's grammar, 
 which would have been too much for Cicero himself. It 
 is pitiful to see how the triumphant eagerness with 
 which the little ones rush along the early grades, happy 
 in being wiser every day, often changes to weariness and 
 dread as they reach the grammar and high schools. It 
 has been, even in recent years, a custom, perhaps not 
 yet wholly extinct in certain schools, to require the 
 pupil to put in a stipulated amount of "home work," 
 often two hours upon a certain lesson, and to report 
 the same next day. One business man of the author's 
 acquaintance received from a principal a letter asking,
 
 224 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 ' ' How much time did your daughter spend yesterday on 
 (certain specified) lessons. " To which he replied : "If 
 my daughter knows her lessons, there is no further 
 inquiry to be made. If she does not, report to me, and 
 I will see that she learns them. She is not to be worried 
 about any stipulated time of study." 
 
 It is fairly amusing to note in biographies of literary 
 men how often the statement is made in some form that 
 "at the university he did not greatly distinguish him- 
 self in studies," or "he was considered remiss in 
 study," but "he did a great amount of desultory read- 
 ing." This "desultory reading" proved to be the best 
 thing for him, as his intellectual instinct led him off 
 the beaten track. This is no plea for idleness, negli- 
 gence and intellectual vagrancy. There have been great 
 men who were good scholars, even according to the 
 university standard. But we would have the books the 
 playthings or tools of the student, he always more 
 than they. We would give scope to the natural bent 
 of the individual mind, as a divine revelation of what 
 that individual was created to do. "We would maintain 
 that true scholarship is compatible with freedom and 
 delight in reading the books that impart it. Thus Mrs. 
 Browning tells of her early unguided studies : 
 
 (I) read my books 
 
 Without considering whether they were fit 
 To 3o me good. Mark there. We get no good 
 By being ungenerous, even to a book, 
 And calculating profits ... so much help 
 By so much reading. It is rather when 
 We gloriously forget ourselves and plunge 
 Soul-forward, headlong, into a book's profound, 
 Impassioned for its beauty and salt of truth 
 'Tis then we get the right good from a book.* 
 
 "Aurora Leigh," Bk. 1, St. 36.
 
 ENLARGEMENT OF THE VOCABULARY 225 
 
 6. Read what you do not like. Again a converse 
 proposition as true as its opposite. By following one's 
 likings limitlessly there is danger of developing mental 
 one-sidedness, like the bodily deformity of one who car- 
 ries some weight always in the right or always in the 
 left hand. No good thing in this world is ever accom- 
 plished by doing only what one likes to do. By reading 
 only on that principle, one is in danger of developing 
 overmuch some mental traits already too strong. The 
 mind should have room for freedom and delight, but it 
 must learn also to act by mere resolve and determina- 
 tion. A well-disciplined mind can do some work, at 
 times some of its best work under compulsion. When 
 that is done, the freedom will be all the more free, and 
 the delight more delightful. No man is good for any- 
 thing who can not say on occasion, ' ' This must be done ; 
 it can be, and it shall be, and I am the one to do it, 
 liking or not liking, right now." 
 
 At times the best reason for taking up some line of 
 study or reading is that one does not like it. That 
 shows a mental deficiency which it is important to cor- 
 rect. Here is a student who loves argument and soaring 
 raptures of imagination, but hates mathematics, because 
 that seems to him but dry bones of cabalistic signs and 
 profitless (ynisrmas. He forces himself to master it in 
 order to hold a respectable place in college; and sud- 
 denly he finds that he can handle argument as never 
 before, because he knows now what Lincoln studied 
 geometry in order to learn, "what is meant by demon- 
 stration." At the same time he is less in danger of 
 wild flights of fancy and of mixed metaphor, because 
 he has learned the mighty laws of equality and propor- 
 tion, and that, through all theories and rhapsodies, fixed
 
 226 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 facts and universal laws will come back with their 
 resistless demands. 
 
 Here is another who "does not like poetry." He is 
 probably one of the many who have never learned how 
 to read poetry. The man of the literal and pragmatic 
 type of mind takes up Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner," 
 and says, "Oh, come now! All that never could have 
 happened. The shooting of that bird could not possibly 
 have had any effect on the direction of the winds, which 
 are determined by meteorological laws, and can be 
 mapped out in advance. This thing is contrary to the 
 known facts." 
 
 But he is overlooking one known fact, viz. : that per- 
 sons of admirable intellect have found power in that 
 poem. Power of some kind must be there, and it would 
 be a rational scientific process to inquire what that 
 power is. It is even possible that there may be a defi- 
 ciency in the objector's own mind which it would be 
 highly desirable to supply. Suppose he should be able 
 to open up some hitherto closed tracts of mental activity. 
 Let him say, "People of good minds have enjoyed this, 
 and I am going to learn what they have found there." 
 Get the poet's view of the wide, marvelous, mysterious 
 sea, where unimagined wonders meet the voyager by day 
 and night. Easiest of all explanations to primitive man 
 was that of magic. So sailors in ancient days were 
 always superstitious. There were mermen and mer- 
 maids, griffins and dragons and giants in the sea or on 
 its shores; there were sirens that lured to dangerous 
 rocks ; there was Calypso 's enchanted isle and the lotus- 
 eater 's dreamy land; it was not rocks that threatened 
 off the coast of Italy, but Scylla and Charybdis roaring 
 from their ocean caves. The sea was much more inter- 
 esting then. We will be for the moment companions of
 
 ENLARGEMENT OF THE VOCABULARY 227 
 
 those "ancient mariners." We will let ourselves go, 
 under the poet's spell, and, as the children say, "make 
 believe" that it is all true. Then we can be thrilled 
 by the wonderful story, and admire its exquisite diction. 
 So the poet transports us out of ourselves, and our men- 
 tal world is wider in range and richer by the new 
 images with which he has peopled it. The first condition 
 for reading poetry is to give ourselves up to its illusion. 
 Then we can feel its charm. Poetry is one of the best 
 forms of reading, even in preparation for speaking or 
 writing prose. For poetry awakens the imaginative 
 power of the mind, the want of which makes much sub- 
 stantial prose and much well-intended public speaking 
 so deadly dry and barren. 
 
 As regards the vocabulary, it is to be remembered 
 that any true poet is a master of words. He must be. 
 The demands of meter or rime, or both, compel him to 
 reject many a word that would be adequate in prose. 
 He must find by careful search some word that will 
 express his meaning and still fit his verse, or else he 
 must reconstruct the verse. Hence he lives in an atmos- 
 phere of word-study, and as you read his lines you will 
 find yourself amid choice words, selected for the most 
 part with fine taste and wise discrimination. 
 
 Another reader finds history dreary, as he has 
 studied it in school. But every one likes a story. Sup- 
 pose we read to find the "stories" that are in history. 
 There we have a supply that can never run out, stranger, 
 grander, and often more beautiful than fiction. Instead 
 of some one's imagination of what an imaginary char- 
 acter might have done in imaginary situations, we have 
 what was actually done in the living world by people as 
 real as ourselves, and they the chiefs of the nations and 
 the ages; for only the deeds of such have come down
 
 228 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 through time, except as some inferior characters gain 
 a factitious immortality by association with the great. 
 
 Bead history by connected interest of period with 
 period, of nation with nation, or of the historic story 
 with any topic in which for the moment you are inter- 
 ested. If, for instance, you are engaged upon Eliza- 
 bethan literature, read Froude's account of the victory 
 of the little English fleet over the dread Spanish Ar- 
 mada ; a victory which energized the English nation as 
 Marathon and Salamis vivified and exalted the Greeks. 
 In thus reading for the story you do not need greatly 
 to worry about dates and statistics. It is well to pick 
 up what one can in passing. It is easy to remember, for 
 instance, that Charles V was born in 1500, so that each 
 year of his life corresponds to a year of the same num- 
 ber in the century; hence, when he presided in 1521 at 
 the Diet of Worms, the young emperor was just twenty- 
 one years old. Again, one may easily remember that 
 Ferdinand and Isabella took the Moorish capital of 
 Granada in 1492, the very year in which Columbus dis- 
 covered America. 
 
 This method of reading, you will perceive, is wholly 
 different from reading for mastery of historical facts, 
 when it may be necessary to toil through some fearfully 
 dry books. But many of the great historians, as Gib- 
 bon, Hume, Macaulay, Motley, Prescott, Carlyle, Froude, 
 and numerous others, have been masters of a noble 
 English style. In reading for the style you gather a 
 great store of facts and incidents, which are admirable 
 illustrative material, while you are at the same time 
 absorbing the vocabulary and modes of expression of 
 these great masters. This may be very heterodox from 
 the professorial point of view, but it is practicable, en- 
 tertaining, delightful.
 
 ENLARGEMENT OF THE VOCABULARY 229 
 
 7. Diversify your reading. By no means confine 
 yourself to one subject, still less to one author. There 
 is a great snare in the "sets" of single authors, ele- 
 gantly printed and bound, and even if moderate in 
 price, yet costing enough to keep an ordinary pur- 
 chaser from buying many other books. It is not desir- 
 able to read and reread all of Scott, or all of Dickens, 
 admirable as many of their works are. One who does 
 this becomes a slave of one author, and is sure to become 
 also an imitator, with the result that befalls all imitators, 
 of copying defects and falling short of excellencies. In 
 reading for command of words, choose authors of the 
 most different and divergent styles. Not only do not 
 limit yourself to one author, but not to one period or 
 one school of literary art. Vary the Victorian period 
 with the Elizabethan, fiction with history, solid prose 
 with dashes into poetry for refreshment and inspiration, 
 the lofty, Latinized style of Johnson with the simple, 
 easy, rippling sentences of Addison, the fervor of Byron 
 with the contemplative quiet of Wordsworth, etc. Thus 
 you will gain an all-round literary development, that 
 will give you a store of varied words suited to all the 
 changing demands of literary expression, and of com- 
 mon speech. 
 
 The study of language we may here treat incidentally 
 under the general head of Reading. Important as word- 
 study is in itself, it is of limited utility in the formation 
 of a good working vocabulary. Very little for this pur- 
 pose is gained by distillation and dissection of words. 
 If any one wishes a dry, heavy, dreary, wooden, and 
 lumbering style, let him read the books of experts on 
 etymology. The reason is that their view of language 
 has become a view of the ultimate components of lan- 
 guage. They have lost range and perspective. Their
 
 230 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 linguistic study is like landscape-gardening with a 
 microscope. Words have ceased to be alive for them, 
 and are no more fit to be introduced to an audience than 
 an articulated skeleton from an anatomical museum. It 
 is the word as read or heard, in some connection with 
 other words, and in vital touch with human thoughts 
 and human interests, that is valuable to the orator or 
 the author when he would address his fellow men. 
 
 The study of at least one foreign language will help 
 the student to mastery of his own, because in trans- 
 lating he is constantly compelled to select English words 
 to match the foreign equivalent, and often the choice 
 requires much study and care. For similar reasons a 
 good book of differentiated synonyms is of advantage, 
 because the words it discusses are exhibited in action in 
 connection with other words, and the student is com- 
 pelled to make each time an independent choice for the 
 particular occasion and context in which he would use 
 any single word. Etymology has a very practical value. 
 It is pitiable that many persons never learn to distin- 
 guish between principal and principle, never see any 
 reason why they should not write seperate for separate, 
 and even confuse words so unlike as quite and quiet. 
 Etymology and word-study are of exceeding use in pre- 
 venting such lapses, and are to be recommended if 
 restricted to a limited amount of the student's time, not 
 encroaching upon more important study. It must never 
 be forgotten that the word as used in connection with 
 other words for expression of thought is our prime con- 
 cern in the acquirement of a vocabulary. The dictionary 
 does not tend to repress constructive thought, because it 
 is used for words in action and expressly to determine 
 their meaning in connection with other words. You 
 hear or read a word you do not know, look it up in the
 
 ENLARGEMENT OF THE VOCABULARY 231 
 
 dictionary, and go readily on. Instead of being burdened 
 with a task, you are freed from an impediment. 
 
 II. HEARING 
 
 The most direct of all ways of learning language is 
 by the ear. So the children of all races learn their 
 mother-tongue. They have virtually learned a language 
 before they are able to read or write. In families where 
 correct and excellent English is habitually spoken, the 
 children commonly grow up with a good command of 
 language. Let us utilize intelligently and with set pur- 
 pose this great power for the enlargement and improve- 
 ment of our vocabulary. Opportunity for such utiliza- 
 tion presents itself under two chief forms: 
 
 1. Conversation. Take every possible occasion to 
 converse with the best educated and most cultured per- 
 sons it may be your privilege to meet. Seek to create 
 such opportunities by obtaining introductions and form- 
 ing friendships. This involves intelligent choice. The 
 college-student, for instance, may have the choice be- 
 tween passing his time with some thoroughly ' ' good fel- 
 low", who is an agreeable companion, but whose talk is 
 chiefly on sports and games, and in college slang, or of 
 spending some of the same hours with a man who is 
 earnest in study, and whose speech bears the stamp of 
 the culture he is acquiring. Without making himself a 
 recluse, he will do best for his own training by giving 
 the preference to the better form of companionship ; and 
 where two or more of such type meet, each reaches a 
 higher level by reason of tho stimulus or even the 
 rivalry, of the other or others. In every walk of life 
 the intelligent seeker after improvement will find some 
 one whose society will bring out the best that is in him. 
 But conversation must be mutual. It is interchange of
 
 232 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 thoughts and opinions. For true conversation one must 
 develop the admirable quality of being a good listener. 
 By the power of attending to the words and thoughts 
 of another, even if he does not always agree with him 
 in opinion, sometimes most when he disagrees, one 
 is developing himself, and is stirred to his own best in 
 response. Friendship is not full and clear till there is 
 an understood freedom of kindly mutual criticism. One 
 must be able to ask, ' ' Is that the correct meaning, or the 
 correct use, of that word ? ' ' and both submit the decision 
 to the arbitrament of the dictionary or of some standard 
 author. Such acquaintance and friendship are among 
 the best means of education, the most vivid, inspiring, 
 and practical. 
 
 It goes without saying that one who would have a 
 wide influence in the world of living men must be at 
 home in the language of common life. But that is 
 easily acquired by one who has a healthful interest in 
 human affairs. Granting such interest, he will find that, 
 even when using the language of common life, he will 
 be not less, but more influential because he knows some- 
 thing better. One will best reach an ordinary crowd by 
 a style a little, though not too much, above their own. It 
 is a natural and a rational demand of the human mind 
 that a teacher shall know more than those he undertakes 
 to teach. Moreover, all intelligent people enjoy mental 
 outlook and uplift. Hence the style most effective with 
 great masses of men is that which uses homely and com- 
 mon words, but uses always the best and choicest of 
 them ; and also adds some words of higher grade, which 
 they understand, but would not themselves employ in 
 common speech. Such a speaker stands as a prince 
 among the throng. 
 
 2. Public Addresses. Let one who would acquire a
 
 ENLARGEMENT OF THE VOCABULARY 233 
 
 good vocabulary take every opportunity of listening to 
 really able speakers in the pulpit or on the platform. 
 The power of taking brief notes will be helpful, but, 
 even without that, he will be involuntarily making swift 
 mental note of felicitous or powerful phrases or sen- 
 tences, and the process of silent absorption will be con- 
 tinuously going on. Every really able public speaker 
 is an instructor in language, and it is no impeachment 
 of his main purpose to avail ourselves of the help he 
 has so to give. 
 
 III. DOING 
 
 This involves the habitual compelling of oneself to 
 expression, and to the best expression. You know that 
 moralists tell us of a factitious morality, which knows 
 all the good maxims, and delights in the sentimental 
 experience of moral emotions, as the Russian countess 
 in a January night in Petrograd is said to have 
 luxuriated in pity and tears for the sufferings of the 
 heroine on the stage, while her coachman, holding her 
 horses and carriage outside, actually froze to death upon 
 the box. It is an accepted principle of morals now, that 
 the more one experiences lofty or tender emotions with- 
 out acting on them, the more unfitted the character 
 becomes for active and actual virtues. 
 
 In the realm of athletics we have a parallel result, in 
 the case of the young fellows who will neglect every 
 great thing in life to watch how other men play base- 
 ball. They know just how to applaud every good hit 
 and every good catch, and to roar condemnation for 
 every failure, but would be helplessly scared if called to 
 the bat or into the pitcher 's or catcher 's place ; and those 
 who depended on their supposed skill would be utterly 
 dismayed. Proficiency there comes only from doing.
 
 234 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 While it is true that in good reading one insensibly 
 absorbs a certain amount of excellent material, and 
 forms certain high standards of taste, yet the occasions 
 and connections in which he would himself be called on 
 to use words in speech or writing are so different from 
 those in which his authors employed them, that unless 
 he has the actual practise in expression, he is almost 
 sure to fall back upon the words and phrases which he 
 uses most in common utterance. In order worthily to 
 utilize the stores acquired by reading and study, one 
 must have the practical training of the athlete or soldier 
 of language in the actual use of words and choice of 
 phrase, to express his own ideas. 
 
 Composition. As a method of acquiring such facility, 
 no better thing can be suggested to the beginner than 
 the timeworn practise of what is called "composition," 
 which is something different from writing for a purpose. 
 You are writing to a friend with the knowledge that the 
 mail closes all too soon. You want to get the essential 
 things said, somehow, and down they go in the words 
 that come first. You can not stop to pick and choose 
 among synonyms. Or you are writing "copy" for a 
 newspaper, with the office-boy waiting behind you, and 
 the hum of the presses in your ears. What you have to 
 say must be said somehow, anyhow, as you then can. A 
 young reporter recently told me that in writing up his 
 matter, it was a constant experience to have the office- 
 boy pick up the typewritten sheet the moment he drew 
 it from the machine, so that he could not look back to 
 verify the last word on the finished page, and to know 
 what should be the first word on the page next to be 
 begun. In such work any nice choice of language is 
 impossible. 
 
 Those who rely for practise only on writing for a pur-
 
 ENLARGEMENT OF THE VOCABULARY 235 
 
 pose always end with perpetuating their own faults, and 
 the more they write in this way, the more inveterate 
 those faults become. To form a really good style, there 
 must be some writing merely for practise in expression, 
 and with a view to self-criticism, or if possible for 
 criticism by some other person. Perhaps no better 
 method could be suggested for this purpose than that 
 which the Boston boy, Benjamin Franklin, with his 
 native shrewdness, devised for himself, as related in his 
 autobiography. He writes: 
 
 "About this time [when he was thirteen years old] I met 
 with an odd volume of the 'Spectator.' It was the third. I 
 had never before seen any of them. I bought it, read it over 
 and over, and was much delighted with it. I thought the 
 writing excellent, and wished, if possible, to imitate it. With 
 this view I took some of the papers, and making short hints 
 of the sentiments in each sentence, laid them by a few days, 
 and then, without looking at the book, tried to complete the 
 paper again, by expressing each hinted sentiment at length, 
 and as fully as it bad been expressed before, in any suitable 
 words that should come to hand. Then I compared my 
 'Spectator' with the original, discovered some of my faults, 
 and corrected them. . . . 
 
 "I also sometimes jumbled my collection of hints into con- 
 fusion, and after some weeks endeavored to reduce them into 
 the best order before I began to form the full sentences, and 
 to complete the paper. This was to teach me method in the 
 arrangement of thought. By comparing my work afterwards 
 with the original, I discovered many faults and amended 
 them: but I sometimes took the pleasure of fancying that, 
 in certain particulars of small importance, I had been lucky 
 enough to improve the method or the language, and this 
 encouraged me to think I might possibly in time come to be 
 a tolerable English writer, of which I wae extremely ambi- 
 tious." 
 
 It would be well to try Franklin's method, not merely 
 upon the incomparable ' ' Spectator, ' ' but upon any good
 
 236 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 writers or speakers of our own day any really valuable 
 book one is interested in reading, rewriting portions, and 
 after a certain lapse of time comparing them with the 
 originals, and seeing wherein one's own style may be im- 
 proved by the example of an acknowledged master of 
 expression. 
 
 Such practise is for the apprentice period. And 
 apprenticeship is essential. There would be fewer broken 
 hearts, if young authors would remember that they have 
 their trade to learn, their spurs to win. But in active 
 life one must use his own ' ' writing for a purpose " as a 
 means of self-criticism. For this, Franklin's device of 
 laying aside the written material before criticism is of 
 very great importance. After a certain lapse of time 
 you can read your own manuscript as if it were an- 
 other's. 
 
 If you are writing for publication, or as a sketch for 
 public speaking, or as a report for some special occasion, 
 finish in advance of the time for direct use, if possible. 
 Then, take that manuscript after some hours or days, 
 and read it as if someone else had written it go over 
 it with dauntless self-criticism, and see where any change 
 of phrase may make it more clear, more elegant, more 
 vigorous, or in any other way more worthy of the pur- 
 pose for which it is designed. Thus Stevenson is said to 
 have rewritten a single chapter seven times before send- 
 ing it to the printer. 
 
 There is, however, one important caution here, 
 namely: Stop short of perfection. You say, "That is 
 easy; or, rather, it is inevitable." Yes, but it is not 
 easy that you should make up your mind to it, which is 
 the thing that must be done. There have been gifted 
 authors whose early work has been greedily read, but 
 as they went on in life they became possessed of the
 
 ENLARGEMENT OF THE VOCABULARY 23? 
 
 demon of perfection. Every manuscript was interlined 
 till scarcely legible, every galley-proof and page-proof 
 cut up to the despair of compositors, and the work was 
 never done till actually on the press, probably to be 
 corrected in the next edition. Their later work was 
 praised by the critics, who were the only persons to 
 read it. 
 
 When the style becomes the main thing in the writer 's 
 conception of his work, it hinders his pace, so that the 
 thought lags and petrifies. Sometimes the style obscures 
 to him the fact that the thing so beautifully said is not 
 true, or, if true, was not worth saying. When he has 
 put together a collection of euphonious and elegant 
 words, he really supposes he must have said something. 
 A young student went to hear a famous preacher in a 
 fashionable church, and told his father on his return 
 that he had heard a wonderful sermon. "I am glad," 
 said the father. "What was it about?" Then the boy 
 was dismayed to find that he did not know. No idea 
 of the subject, instruction, or exhortation remained in 
 his mind: nothing but the remembered music of ex- 
 quisite words. 
 
 The only use of a full and rich vocabulary is to express 
 thought. Whenever the style gets in the way of the 
 thought, smash the style. The thought is that for which 
 we write. Will an exquisite style best express it ? Then 
 attain that if you can. But if the exquisite style is not 
 the clearest and fittest, or if you can not attain it, then 
 give us a style less exquisite, so that the thought be 
 expressed.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE IMPOVERISHMENT OF THE 
 VOCABULARY. CANT, SLANG, ETC. 
 
 The touch of decay is upon all things earthly. Frost, 
 rain, and wind are casting down the mountains, and 
 the rivers are washing the rock-dust far out into the 
 sea. The ocean-waves beat down the cliffs that frown 
 so massively above them. The Pyramids, stripped of 
 the casing of hewn stone that once covered them, are 
 now but rude, though mighty towers in the lonely desert. 
 The Parthenon, still crowning the height of Athens, 
 was desolated long ago, and though still beautiful, is 
 beautiful only in ruin. The stately monuments of im- 
 perial Rome are dismantled from the top and dust- 
 embedded from the base. 
 
 Language shares the same tendency to decay. The 
 noble Hebrew has become the degenerate Yiddish, as 
 spoken in the Jewish quarters of our cities. The clas- 
 sic language of ancient Greece has a far inferior coun- 
 terpart in the modern Greek. The Latin of conquering 
 Rome, the language of war and of jurisprudence, of 
 history and of poetry, of philosophy and of religion, 
 has successors in some ways inferior in the Italian, 
 French, and Spanish. The tendencies to the breaking 
 down and the pulling down of our own noble language 
 are as incessant as the pressure of the ocean and the 
 beating of the surge upon a ship at sea. Our schools 
 and colleges have constantly to correct this tendency, 
 which, but for them, would be overmastering. 
 
 238
 
 IMPOVERISHMENT OF THE VOCABULARY 239 
 
 Now, any highly perfected language is a wondrous 
 development of human power. It is the growth of cen- 
 turies. It bears embedded in it the history of genera- 
 tions that have lived and died. It has been shaped by 
 the toils of peace, the fatigues, dangers, victories, and 
 disasters of war; by the loves and joys of home; by the 
 laments of earth's myriad tragedies and sorrows; by 
 the explorations of travel, the discoveries of science, 
 and the patient unfolding, pruning, and systematizing 
 of scholarship. 
 
 To master such a means of expression, so as to bring 
 into ready and effective use all its varied power, is a 
 mental achievement. To learn a language involves 
 memory, to acquire and store in labeled pigeon-holes 
 of the brain thousands of words, that shall come forth 
 readily on call; it involves discrimination and judg- 
 ment to see that words differ, and -where and how they 
 differ, making each the fittest for some special use, and 
 for that very reason most unfit for some other special 
 use: it involves imagination, to catch the poetry that is 
 in words the pictorial power that gives vividness to 
 speech or writing; it involves foresight to look ahead 
 through a sentence, and see what words and forms will 
 be needed to complete the expression of thought; it in- 
 volves self-control, to hold oneself in hand sufficiently 
 to choose what shall be said, before one is driven to the 
 necessity of utterance as the athlete swiftly surveys 
 the distance to be passed, the height of the bar, and the 
 character of the ground where he must land, before he 
 springs off for the running jump ; it involves, also, the 
 power of mental association, which may be called con- 
 nected memory. This is one of the most mysterious 
 mental processes, by which an idea suggests a word 
 which we cannot discover to have anything in eoaonon
 
 240 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 with the idea. What is there in the appearance of a 
 soldier walking a beat or watching at a door to suggest 
 the word sentinel or sentry ? Yet we think of the word 
 the moment we see the armed man. But all these quali- 
 ties which good use of language demands, benefit 
 thought as much as speech. Memory, judgment, imagi- 
 nation, foresight, self-control, are among the noblest 
 powers of the human mind, and it is a distinct advan- 
 tage that the acquirement and retention of a highly de- 
 veloped language does involve the constant exercise of 
 these high intellectual powers. 
 
 It is important for intellectual vigor and excellence 
 that these high powers of mind which are concerned in 
 the best use of language should be kept in tone and 
 training, and be all awake at each moment of utterance. 
 Especially does the law of association depend upon con- 
 tinual practise, keeping the stores of language in con- 
 stant connection with the stores of thought. A mission- 
 ary who had been thirty years in the South Sea Islands 
 found on returning to his native land that he had al- 
 most completely forgotten his mother-tongue. All his 
 associations of thought for the lifetime of a generation 
 had been with words of another speech. In a lecture in 
 which he was describing a horseback ride, he could not 
 recall the English word for stirrup, and was forced to 
 content himself with saying by circumlocution, "the 
 thing you put your foot in." He had lost the connec- 
 tion between the object and the English word denoting 
 it. 
 
 A young lady, who for a while was assisting in her 
 father's store, was commiserated on the number of 
 goods she had been obliged to take down for an un- 
 profitable customer; to which she replied philosoph- 
 ically, "Oh, I don't mind it; you want to know what
 
 IMPOVERISHMENT OF THE VOCABULARY 241 
 
 you have, and that's about as good a way as any." So 
 in language we need practice and watchful care to 
 "know what we have." Just as the boxer exercises 
 himself in sportive bouts, as the soldier practises on the 
 parade ground and the rifle range, as the ship of war 
 shoots away tons of powder and shot at targets on the 
 sea, so the athlete of language needs to keep in constant 
 practice with the instrument of expression, and to have 
 at every instant all the noblest powers of the mind sen- 
 sitive, perceptive, and ready for the worthy and fitting 
 choice of words. 
 
 Pure English is the use of fitly chosen words in ap- 
 proved combinations. Our language has become what 
 it is by a constant process of selection. The common 
 people, workingmen, tradesmen, travelers, soldiers, 
 fathers, mothers, housekeepers, have brought in the 
 words, and the artists of speech, poets, orators, essay- 
 ists, dramatists, historians, novelists, rhetoricians, sages, 
 prophets and seers, have toiled and struggled with the 
 material, choosing, shaping, and fitting, to get out of 
 all the very best words for the expression of single 
 thoughts, and the best combinations of words for the 
 expression of connected thought, that the well-con- 
 structed sentence may bind the ideas together in strong 
 yet flexible union, as by a golden chain. Each century 
 has added something to the achievements of the century 
 preceding, and the best English speech of "to-day is the 
 flower and crown of the life and the scholarship of the 
 English-speaking peoples through five hundred years. 
 
 Since the right use of language requires all this, it is 
 easy to see how the decay and impoverishment of lan- 
 guage should come unsought. One needs only to let go 
 and do nothing in order to have his power of language 
 decline. A little drowsy carelessness, like that which
 
 242 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 makes the engineer run past his signals, a little laziness, 
 taking the first and poorest word that comes to mind, 
 and the decline of diction will take care of itself, like 
 the decay of a neglected body. Disease will come of 
 doing nothing. 
 
 We see what wholly illiterate people can make of a 
 language by the dialect of our Southern negroes, who 
 were so long wholly without education. With them 
 "brother" became "br'er, " as we find it in the ''Uncle 
 Remus" stories; "tolerable" became "tolluble" and 
 ' ' certainly " " suttingly ' ' ; while the elegant, classic 
 "how comes it?" is hopelessly disguised in the recreant 
 "huccum," used without a suspicion of its meaning as 
 the equivalent of the interrogative adverb "why?" It 
 would need but a few generations, if black and white 
 were alike untaught, to make the English language un- 
 recognizable. One special danger for us now is the 
 great influx of ignorant foreigners, whose very ideal of 
 English is corruption and barbarism; a danger which 
 our public schools are too imperfectly repressing, while 
 our "yellow journals" are accentuating it in their 
 eagerness for cheap popularity. 
 
 1. One of the first results of this mental indolence 
 and negligence is the use of a few words to do duty fcr 
 many. These overworked words may be excellent in 
 themselves, even noble and beautiful but they are 
 utterly inadequate to the work required of them, and 
 hence much of their use is perverted use. 
 
 Suppose a tyro in mechanics is put into a carpenter's 
 shop. A chest of fifty or sixty tools is placed before 
 him. But at some time he has happened to work with 
 a chisel, and it has struck his fancy. He says, "This 
 is all I want; never mind those others: lock up the 
 chest." Now, a chisel is really a very admirable tool,
 
 but its use is limited. The bungler wants to cut a board 
 in two. The cross-cut saw would do it quickly and 
 deftly, but he contrives to dismember it by hewing a 
 channel across with his chisel. He needs to smooth the 
 edge, where a good workman would skilfully employ a 
 plane; but he chews the splinters off somehow with the 
 chisel, and though the edge is not very presentable, he 
 concludes he will ' ' let it go at that. ' ' So, through all the 
 activities of the shop, he achieves disappointing results, 
 because he will not avail himself of the store of tools 
 for such cases made and provided. You will say, "No 
 mechanic was ever such a fool"; but the workmen of 
 language do such things every day. 
 
 Take, for instance, the word splendid an excellent 
 and even noble word. It is from the Latin splendeo, 
 shine, and is associated with our word splendor, as 
 when we speak of the splendor of a starry night or the 
 splendor of some achievement of valor or genius. Splen- 
 did signifies "shining, brilliant, glorious, illustrious"; 
 in such sense the word splendid is capable of fitting and 
 admirable use. But splendid is now employed by many 
 persons to describe everything that they approve. They 
 speak of a splendid suit of clothes, a splendid necktie, 
 a splendid beefsteak, a splendid bargain at a bargain 
 counter, a splendid basement with a splendid founda- 
 tion under it, down in the dark ground, a splendid ride, 
 behind a splendid pair of horses, with a splendid coach- 
 man ; a splendid game, a splendid batter, catcher or 
 pitcher ; a splendid doctor or dentist, a splendid remedy 
 for a toothache. By that time the noble word has be- 
 come a poor, common drudge, like a bloodhorse hauling 
 a cab about the city streets. So used, the word splendid 
 almost ceases to have a meaning, and becomes a mere 
 symptom of approval. If one would speak of an elegant
 
 244 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 suit, a becoming tie, a nice beefsteak, a good bargain, a 
 spacious basement, a substantial foundation, a delight- 
 ful ride, a fine pair of horses, an excellent coachman, a 
 capital game, expert batter, catcher or pitcher, a skilful 
 doctor or dentist, a valuable or effective remedy, each 
 word would mean something, distinctive, as would many 
 other words that might be substituted. True, one would 
 have to do more thinking, but that is the very thing to 
 be desired. We do not wish to be like Dickens 's "Mr. 
 Bumble" who had "enough to do without thinking." 
 It is one prime recommendation of a fitting choice of 
 words that it compels thinking; it keeps the intellect 
 awake; it leads thought out in various and divergent 
 paths; it trains judgment and discrimination; it makes 
 perception quick and alert. 
 
 2. Trite expressions may become a serious blemish of 
 speech, especially in what is often supposed to be "fine 
 writing." Bechtel, in his "Slips of Speech," remarks: 
 
 "Words and phrases that may have been striking or 
 effective, or witty and felicitous, but which have been 
 worn out by oft-repeated use, should be avoided, such 
 as: "the staff of life," "counterfeit presentment," "the 
 hymeneal altar," "bold as a lion," "throw cold water 
 on," "the rose on the cheek," "lords of creation," "the 
 weaker sex," "the better half," "the rising genera- 
 tion," "tripping on the light, fantastic toe," "the cup 
 that cheers but not inebriates," "in the arms of Mor- 
 pheus," "paid the debt of nature," "the bourne whence 
 no traveler returns," "to shuffle off this mortal coil," 
 "the devouring element," "a brow of alabaster," to 
 which we may add the remark of the good orthodox old 
 lady in a religious discussion, "Some people believe that 
 everybody will be saved, but we "hope for better things." 
 In a word, all use of words and phrases that have be-
 
 IMPOVERISHMENT OF THE VOCABULARY 245 
 
 come unmeaning by idle repetition must be avoided by 
 painstaking care. These are the second-hand and shop- 
 worn goods of speech. 
 
 3. Cant is a blemish to be avoided. Cant is most fa- 
 miliar in its religious sense. In that use it is well de- 
 fined by Drummond, who says: "There is a type of 
 religious experience natural to a man of fifty, and a 
 different type natural to a youth of fifteen. If the 
 youth of fifteen talks in the style of the man of fifty, 
 that is cant." This sweeps in a great deal of our re- 
 ligious phraseology, which is used, not because it ex- 
 presses what we mean, now, but because we have in- 
 herited it from those with whom it did mean something 
 sacred long ago. Archbishop Whately remarks that 
 many of these inherited expressions are used "not as 
 vehicles of thought, but as substitutes for thought."' 
 Such expressions as "renouncing the vanities of the 
 world" are often used without a thought of giving up 
 anything that the speaker really cares for. 
 
 It is related of Henry Ward Beecher in his early days 
 in Plymouth Church, that in a prayer-meeting where 
 a member was bemoaning himself in set terms as a 
 "wretched and miserable sinner," Beecher interrupted 
 with the remark. "Very well, brother, just tell us what 
 you've been doing," when the penitent suddenly sat 
 down. To know whether we are really sincere we need 
 to translate many old phrases into common speech, and 
 see if we mean them then. If we really do, we shall be 
 apt to use the common speech in expressing them. Even 
 some form of the divine name is used by many persons 
 in public prayer with such tedious reiteration that one 
 cannot help feeling that it is used to fill a blank, and is 
 thus literally "taking the name of the Lord in vain.'* 
 "Use not vain repetitions as the heathen do." There is
 
 246 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 one perfectly appropriate word to use when one comes 
 to a pause of thought in public prayer, and that word 
 is, "Amen." 
 
 It may be remarked here, incidentally, that much of 
 profane swearing is a mere substitute for thought. The 
 man thinks of no appropriate word to use, and so falls 
 back upon an oath, the blasphemy in his mouth serving 
 as a disguise for the emptiness of his head. 
 
 In a wider sense "cant" denotes the constant use of 
 terms belonging to one's profession or business, the 
 minister, teacher, lawyer, tradesman or editor using 
 words peculiar to his particular work, or using common 
 words in a special, technical sense. Thus in the news- 
 paper, aside from the editorials, everything is either an 
 "ad" (advertisement) or a "story" (this word denot- 
 ing almost anything that can be printed except an 
 "ad"). 
 
 In society, at clubs and in social parties there is an 
 unwritten law against "talking shop," that is, talking 
 of one's special business, and many persons suppose 
 this to be a mere social fad; but it is founded upon a 
 deep law of human nature. "Talking shop" is nar- 
 rowing, and keeps one narrow. Many a man when he 
 first encounters this prohibition finds himself instantly 
 in a "dry town." He says, "Why, what can I talk 
 about?" That shows that he has already become nar- 
 row. His whole mental force runs in the grooves of his 
 common work. He is the very man who needs to be put 
 where he can not talk of his business, and must talk of 
 something else. So he will awaken to the wider inter- 
 ests of the world, gain mental freedom, and be on the 
 path of true culture. He will begin to notice things 
 outside his business. He will be hunting for them and 
 reading about them, in order not to be a mere dummy
 
 IMPOVERISHMENT OF THE VOCABULARY 247 
 
 in a dress coat when he comes into society; and that 
 broadening out is good for him. He will even be a bet- 
 ter business man for it, touching human life outside his 
 trade. 
 
 Whenever we find it hard to keep from the language 
 of our daily work, that work is getting to be a mental 
 obsession. Then we should force ourselves to change 
 and variety, and with the broadening of interests will 
 come a wider and richer command of pure English 
 suited to the broader interests of the great, living world. 
 
 4. Slang may be defined as: 
 
 "Any word or phrase current among the uneducated or 
 ruder classes, and not accepted or approved by good literary 
 authority; also, any legitimate word or phrase used in a 
 sense not so approved." 
 
 Greenough and Kittredge, in their excellent volume, 
 "Words and Their Ways in English Speech," give a 
 more breezy definition as follows: 
 
 "A peculiar kind of vagabond English, always hanging on 
 the outskirts of legitimate speech, but continually straying 
 or forcing its way into the most respectable company, is 
 what we call slang." 
 
 Slang, for the most part, comes up from the coarser 
 and more ignorant portion of the community. Reading 
 but few books, and those usually of no literary merit, 
 they have nothing to hold them up to high standards of 
 speech. Coarse and rude associations lead to coarse and 
 rude expression. Even words and phrases once excel- 
 lent in meaning come to express some idea of the saloon 
 or the gutter. If these expressions are vigorous, they 
 quickly become current, for feeble, lethargic, and unin- 
 ventive minds are glad to be caught up and carried 
 along by those of more originality and force, who are
 
 248 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 yet not too far above their own grade. Thus some word 
 or phrase that is rudely picturesque or energetic will go 
 down street after street, through whole sections of a 
 city. The low theaters catch it up, the saloons pass it 
 over the bar, the yellow journals print it, business men 
 who deal with the rough element adopt it, children learn 
 it from their playmates. 
 
 There is slang that comes from special classes or pro- 
 fessions. A distinct variety of this is "college slang." 
 Students, who know perfectly well that an expression 
 is undesirable, use it defiantly, because it is a badge of 
 studenthood, and the public opinion they care most for 
 that of their own mates sustains them in it. It was 
 said of a certain student in Harvard that he had but 
 two adjectives "stunning" for whatever he approved, 
 and "beastly" for anything he disliked. 
 
 "Widely prevalent is the slang that consists simply 
 in the perversion of some perfectly good word or phrase. 
 The word "kick" may have proper use, as when the 
 football player "kicks a goal." But when the word is 
 used as meaning "to object," that use is slang. A dear 
 old lady who kept a country post-office failed to deliver 
 a letter in time, and the aggrieved correspondent com- 
 plained to the Post-Office Department. As his footman 
 stated it, "he kicked at that;" on which she remarked, 
 "I suppose that means that he stomped his foot. It 
 showed a bad temper." 
 
 "Circus" is a perfectly good word, coming down from 
 the old Roman times, but when it is said that "the pro- 
 fessors had a circus over the behavior of the students," 
 the word in that use becomes slang, since it is not to be 
 supposed that there were elephants, lions, tigers, or per- 
 forming monkeys in the faculty-room. 
 
 There is the word "fierce." It is proper to say that
 
 IMPOVERISHMENT OF THE VOCABULARY 249 
 
 a tiger is fierce, but to say that an ill-fitting suit is fierce 
 is slang. 
 
 The phrase "all right" in its proper use is unexcep- 
 tionable, as when we say, "Those examples are all 
 right;" or "That price is all right." But the phrase 
 may become very objectionable slang when used in an 
 adverbial sense to mean "certainly," "undoubtedly;" 
 as, "He stole the money all right;" "He knocked him 
 down all right;" meaning, not that larceny or assault 
 and battery are ethically commendable, but that these 
 things undoubtedly happened. In this case the phrase 
 is doubled upon itself in a way that strikingly illustrates 
 the poverty of thought out of which slang arises. Thus 
 it is said of a successful prize-fighter, "He's all right 
 all right;" the first "all right" meaning that he is a 
 competent bruiser, and the second "all right" signify- 
 in? that the first "all right" is beyond a doubt. Out 
 of three hundred thousand words in the English lan- 
 guage, the pitiable poverty of slang cannot find variants 
 enough to prevent using one poor phrase twice over in 
 a little sentence of seven words. 
 
 It is proper to say we are "tired" when that is the 
 fact, but the phrase becomes slang when it is used to 
 mean "disgusted" or "annoyed." I may say "Climb- 
 ing these hills makes me tired," but if I say "That 
 man's self-conceit makes me tired," I am using slang. 
 
 The race-track has supplied a slang perversion of the 
 phrase "out of sight." Yet the unspoiled phrase is 
 capable of noble and beautiful use, as when Tennyson 
 writes : v 
 
 <f Love took up the harp of life, and smote on all the chords 
 
 with might 
 Smote the chord of self, which trembling passed in music 
 
 out of sight."
 
 250 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 Now the question arises, When good words and 
 phrases are thus perverted, what are we to do? Must 
 we give them up because certain classes use them amiss ? 
 This may, in rare cases, be necessary. Some words once 
 approved in the best society have gone out of respecta- 
 ble use because slang usage had profaned them beyond 
 recovery. 
 
 But, as a rule, it is the part of the educated classes to 
 hold the good word or phrase to its true literary level 
 and use, never using it in any false or doubtful sense, 
 and never recognizing the false use. Ordinarily, if the 
 correct use is firmly held by speakers, writers and 
 teachers, it will conquer in the end. For slang is essen- 
 tially ephemeral. The uneducated classes have short 
 memories. The lack of fixedness of language among 
 them for want of books and reading affects even their 
 slang dialect, so that expressions at one time common 
 among them are soon forgotten, and a new variety of 
 corruptions takes the place of the extinct monstrosities, 
 while pure English still holds on its way. 
 
 As regards the class of slang words that originated 
 in corruption and are below the reach of redemption, it 
 is not the object of this work to supply a slang diction- 
 ary. 
 
 Any attempt to give a list of slang expressions that 
 are to be avoided is wholly vain. Whoever will look 
 over such lists in any rhetorical book that has been five 
 years on the market will find himself commenting, 
 "Why, nobody says this; nobody says that." The 
 rude toy is flung away when it is no longer new, so that 
 a list of slang words and phrases becomes obsolete by 
 the time it is printed. The chief test is a negative one. 
 A word or phrase that is not in good literature, and is 
 not used by persons of education and refinement, may
 
 IMPOVERISHMENT OP THE VOCABULARY 251 
 
 be safely set down as slang, not to be used, unless, 
 after adequate probation, it shall prove itself worthy 
 of place in the language. 
 
 The element which makes slang attractive to some 
 among the better classes is a surfeit of correctness, just 
 as some years ago people became tired of the faultless 
 printing of the Riverside Press, and for awhile we had 
 title-pages with letters of all sizes mixed in hopeless 
 confusion and leaning to all points of the compass a 
 momentary fashion that passed so quickly as to be now 
 forgotten. But the fickle taste that becomes tired of 
 correctness soon finds deformity tedious when that is 
 made common. Then correctness comes to its own, and 
 those who have kept on using pure English are in the 
 fashion, because the fashion has come back to the stand- 
 ard. Real gold or choice lace does not lose value by 
 not being new. 
 
 As a rule the words of the race-track, the gambling 
 table, the liquor saloon, and the lower life of the street 
 are undesirable. To "pass in his checks" can never 
 become a good synonym for "die," because it represents 
 the act of the defeated gambler who has lost everything, 
 and no self-respecting person wishes thus to think of 
 the solemn close of life. 
 
 "So live that when thy summons comes 
 To join the innumerable caravan that moves 
 To the pale realms of shade when each shalt take 
 His chamber in the silent halls of death, 
 Thou go, not like the quarry slave at night 
 Scourged to his dungeon, but sustained and soothed 
 By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave, 
 Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 
 About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams." 
 
 The lower life must not be permitted to soil and spoil 
 all that has upheld the noblest souls for ages.
 
 252 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 It should be said in fairness that among the enormous 
 multitude of slang words and phrases there are in each 
 generation a few that meet a real need of the language, 
 and win their way to acceptance. Dean Swift, in 1750, 
 objected to the words sham, banter, bubble, mob, and 
 shuffle, all of which have become approved English. In 
 our own day the word graft has probably made its place, 
 because it is an expressive utterance of a fact. Just as 
 the horticulturist sets a twig into a stock of a different 
 kind, so the policeman grafts upon his salary protection 
 money for the Sunday saloon, or the politician grafts 
 upon his legislative recompense some perquisites from 
 corrupt corporations. 
 
 When a slang word or phrase is vigorous and ex- 
 pressive, when it meets a real need of the language, it 
 will gradually be adopted by the educated class ; at first 
 in quotation marks, or with some saving clause, such as 
 "to use a common phrase," "so to speak," or the like. 
 Then, at length, with all marks of quotation or apology 
 removed, it will take its place as accepted English. Be- 
 cause our language is alive, it is susceptible of change. 
 It is only the dead languages, like the Latin or the clas- 
 sic Greek, that are fixed and unchangeable. 
 
 But the burden of proof is always against the slang 
 expression. Let it be put on probation before it is ad- 
 mitted into good society. Be sure that it is among the 
 elect. Make sure that there is a real need for that 
 word or phrase. If it has genuine merit, it will not be 
 hurt by objection and criticism, while our caution will 
 save our language from the inroad of a host of worth- 
 less adventurers. 
 
 The only safe rule is: that slang is never to be used 
 except with care and intent, knowing it to be slang, be- 
 lieving it to be expressive for the immediate purpose,
 
 IMPOVERISHMENT OF THE VOCABULARY 253 
 
 and when no better word or phrase equally forcible can 
 be substituted. 
 
 But in the vast majority of cases it will be found that 
 one chief count of the indictment against slang is, that 
 it saves the trouble and the glory of thinking. The 
 same cheap word or phrase may be used for any one of 
 a hundred ideas; and it will be found that those who 
 use slang are constantly repeating themselves. Slang 
 is the advertisement of mental poverty. 
 
 Because it is easy, because it may make one word or 
 phrase answer for many ideas, thus weakening the dis- 
 criminating faculty of the mind, because it may be a 
 substitute for thought, slang tends to the impoverish- 
 ment of the vocabulary. Because it so largely comes 
 from the coarse and rude elements of our population, or 
 even from the baser associations and pursuits, it tends 
 to the degradation of style, whether in conversation or 
 in public speaking or writing. 
 
 The stir of the lower life is constantly bringing to the 
 surface mud, slime, antique carving or inlaid work per- 
 verted to some base or ignoble use. It is for those who 
 have had the privilege of education and culture to hold 
 fast to what they know is good and beautiful in accepted 
 standards, and thus help the whole community to keep 
 unspoiled the grand inheritance of our toil-won, hard- 
 won, and nobly expressive English speech.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 DIFFICULTIES IN ENGLISH THE 
 WAY OUT 
 
 To minds of a certain order often of a very learned 
 the English language bristles with difficulties. 
 It is sown thick with perplexities. The fact that Eng- 
 lish-speaking people are quite generally unaware of 
 these affords the censors no relief. In their view, this 
 simply shows the dense stupidity of the uninstructed 
 "masses," and the careless superficiality of multitudes 
 who mistakenly suppose themselves to be educated. 
 
 It is related that a Western cowboy, on a visit to 
 town, applied to a dentist to fill two teeth for him, but 
 the dentist refused, assuring him that the teeth were 
 perfectly sound. Next day the cowboy returned, ex- 
 claiming triumphantly, "I went to that dentist over 
 the way, and he filled those two teeth for me." "That 
 is strange," said the first practitioner, "for I could not 
 find any cavities." "Oh, well," was the cheerful reply, 
 "he couldn't till he'd drilled a spell." There are lin- 
 guistic operators who have drilled the English language 
 so thoroughly that they have published thick books, 
 showing the cavities they would fill with the pure gold 
 of scholarship, manifestly superior to the mere natural 
 growth. Such books have upon the average student 
 much the effect that the reading of patent-medicine ad- 
 vertisements has upon a healthy man. He is quite sure 
 he has some of the symptoms, and all these diseases may 
 be lying in wait for him. So the numberless "errors" 
 
 254
 
 DIFFICULTIES IN ENGLISH 255 
 
 in English may have left their trail over all he has ever 
 spoken or written who shall say where? and may 
 blemish all he shall ever yet speak or write. Under 
 such treatment the speaking or writing of English be- 
 comes a fearsome thing. As in the ancient prophetic 
 vision, "He that fleeth from the fear shall fall into the 
 pit, and he that cometh up out of the pit shall be taken 
 in the snare." 
 
 The researches of these experts of inaccuracy remind 
 one of the fox-hunting of Sir Koger de Coverley, when 
 he killed more foxes than were ever before known to be 
 in the country, and confided to the "Spectator" that 
 he used to pay collectors to introduce and liberate the 
 animals surreptitiously, in order that they might be 
 hunted down. The pleasure, be it understood, is not in 
 the elimination of the foxes or the difficulties, but in 
 the hunting of them. Let us note a few of the difficul- 
 ties and, first, 
 
 "THE NON-TRANSFERABLE GENDER:" 
 
 "If any lady or gentleman has lost her or his purse, and 
 if dhe or he will call at the office, and identify the same as 
 her or his property, it will be returned to her or him." 
 
 But did any one, in actual fact, ever get entangled 
 in a sentence like this? No man ever found such a cav- 
 ity in English without drilling for it. This is not a 
 morass into which the unwary traveler may fall, but a 
 ditch deliberately dug for a critic to wade in. 
 
 There is less gender in English than in any other of 
 the great, leading languages. But there still appears to 
 be too much. Among the hundreds of thousands of 
 English words, there is just one set of forms those of 
 the pronoun of the third person singular, that must 
 be masculine, feminine, or neuter. On that unfortunate 
 pronoun the censors sweep down with the unerring cer-
 
 256 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 tainty of vultures from a clear sky on the only bit of 
 carrion in the landscape. They find an amount of per- 
 plexity in inverse ratio to the original equipment. In 
 their distress of mind, they have even labored to invent 
 a genderless pronoun, "THON," to be used as a life- 
 preserver in such emergencies. But it has been found 
 impossible to inflate the contrivance sufficiently to keep 
 it afloat and it is now shelved among the curiosities of 
 the dictionary. 
 
 But why meet the difficulty at all ? Here is a steers- 
 man on the open sea, who says, "There's an iceberg 
 dead ahead. What shall I do when I come to it ? " The 
 answer is, "Don't come to it. Steer around it." The 
 English language is not a canal, but an ocean. There 
 is always sea-room. Steer around the difficulty. It may 
 require a little foresight. "The prudent man foreseeth 
 the evil, and hideth himself ; the simple pass on, and are 
 punished." The military device of a flank movement 
 is as valuable in language as in war. Try it on the sen- 
 tence above given. We refuse to step into the trap. It 
 is easier to keep out than to get out. We say, "Any 
 lady or gentleman who has lost a purse may obtain it 
 at the office by proving property." Could anything be 
 simpler? What has become of the difficulty? Or, we 
 may start with the purse, and say, "A purse has been 
 found, which the owner may obtain at the office by prov- 
 ing property." Still other forms of expression will 
 avoid the difficulty equally well. In fact, the ways 
 around are so many as to make it surprising that any 
 one ever fell in, but especially that any one was ever 
 entrapped twice. 
 
 Nevertheless, it is asked, what shall we do for the 
 "plain people," who stumble into sentences, where they 
 are driven to use "they" or "their" as singular pro-
 
 DIFFICULTIES IN ENGLISH 257 
 
 nouns, to fill out the construction? as, "If any one tries 
 that, they will fail," etc. Dear friend, omit the "if," 
 and say, "Any one who tries that will fail." Is the 
 difficulty very serious now? English has an ample sup- 
 ply of sentence-forms, so that we need not continue to 
 wrestle with the one that first occurred to the mind. A 
 sentence is but an envelope for a thought; if the en- 
 velope first chosen does not fit, try another. The diffi- 
 culty will usually vanish with the transition. That is 
 one prime secret of good writing or speaking, and, 
 like most great discoveries, one of the simplest appli- 
 cations of common sense. 
 
 Suppose, however, that you, at some time, thought- 
 lessly run into the double-gender sentence too far to get 
 back, what then? Then hew your way out with a vigor- 
 ous he, his, him. The masculine has stood as the repre- 
 sentative gender for a "time whereof the memory of 
 man runneth not to the contrary, ' ' and that immemorial 
 prescription still holds good, even in this period of mili- 
 tant feminism. Trust it, with the consent of the ages 
 behind you, and every sensible English-speaking person 
 will understand you, and, even in spite of himself, ap- 
 prove. 
 
 Occasionally, indeed, we encounter a difficulty so real 
 that it may beset even the unlearned: 
 
 WHO OR WHOM 
 
 T T ,,. 
 
 I met two men { , } . I believe, were police- 
 | whom ) 
 
 men. They were seeking a man \ ( , I am told, 
 
 I whom y 
 
 they found." 
 
 Which is right? Here our trouble is not with gender 
 but with case, yet for a precisely similar reason. We 
 have so little declension in English that we do not know
 
 258 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 what to do with it when we find it. There is just one 
 of the relative or interrogative pronouns that has a 
 semblance of declension, and we are at our wits' end 
 how to handle it. We are appalled at a word that riots 
 in the luxury of a nominative, possessive, and objective 
 case, who, whose, whom. Well, if you will observe 
 actual usage, you will find that almost all the real per- 
 plexity occurs when who or whom is followed, as in the 
 examples just given, by a parenthetical expression, as 
 "I believe," "I am told," or the like. Very well. 
 Omit, for the moment, the parenthetical expression, 
 since a parenthesis does not affect the construction of 
 the rest of the sentence. Then the form, either who or 
 whom, which is right without that parenthetical ex- 
 pression, is right with it. Thus: "I met two men who 
 
 | j were policemen. They were seeking a man 
 
 whom | 1 they found." The explanation, when 
 
 given, seems too simple to be needed, for which reason 
 it is rarely given in critical works, perhaps on the prin- 
 ciple that the eternal pursuit of syntax is more desira- 
 ble than its attainment. 
 
 It must be admitted that a somewhat advanced 
 knowledge of English grammar is required for the cor- 
 rect use of who or whom in certain special construc- 
 tions, so that inexperienced persons had best treat this 
 pronoun like a firearm, and let it alone if they are not 
 sure at which end it will go off. The relative may be 
 omitted altogether: "They were seeking a man, and I 
 am told they afterward found him." Even the way- 
 faring man need not err in that construction. Or, we 
 may keep any parenthetical phrase from intruding be- 
 tween the relative and its verb, in which case all trouble 
 disappears: "I met two men who were, I believe, po- 
 licemen. They were seeking a man whom they after-
 
 DIFFICULTIES IN ENGLISH 259 
 
 ward found, as I am told." Neither of those construc- 
 tions should puzzle an intelligent boy or girl in the 
 grammar school. Either who or whom will ordinarily 
 take care of itself if not insulated from its verb by some 
 non-conducting phrase. 
 
 But though the spell of who or whom be thus laid, the 
 conjurer of difficulties reinforces it by the magic word 
 ever into a darker and deadlier hoodoo: "Give the job 
 
 to \ lean do it best." Which of these forms 
 
 1^ whomever j 
 
 is right? Is either right? Let us ask, Who is to have 
 the job? The answer is, " whoever can do it best." All 
 those words go together to describe the successful appli- 
 cant. The whole clause is one noun-element, and is the 
 object of the preposition "to," so that the sentence 
 properly is, "Give the job to whoever can do it best." 
 We have the answer, but is it worth while ? In the time 
 taken to puzzle that out, we could have used any one 
 of several transparently clear forms, as, for instance, 
 "Give the job to the one who can do it best;" and gone 
 on to something more profitable. Another specter is 
 
 THE INCOHERENT NOMINATIVE 
 
 "Either you or I \ t mistaken." "Neither he 
 | are j 
 
 !ts i 
 v to blame. ' ' Why does any one want to 
 am J 
 
 drive into such a blind alley, where there is so plainly 
 "no thoroughfare"? Still, if you do rush in, how 
 are you to get out? Grammatical rules have been in- 
 vented to relieve the strain, but few persons can re- 
 member them in time to be of service. Here, again, try 
 the flank movement. There are various convenient 
 auxiliaries that are innocent of person and number
 
 260 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 may, can, must, shall, will, might, could, would, should. 
 Among these you may choose with absolute safety, 
 always supposing you are not using thou as one of your 
 pronouns, a supposition which, in modern usage, may 
 commonly be taken for granted. You may say, ' ' Either 
 you or I may be must be will be found to be may 
 prove to be mistaken;" "Neither he nor I can be to 
 blame" or "should be blamed." Another simple de- 
 vice is to detach any nominative after the first, and let 
 it follow in a separate clause, as : ' ' Either you are mis- 
 taken, or / am," etc. With a very moderate degree of 
 skill, one instinctively steers clear of forms thus in- 
 herently awkward or clumsy, so that specimens of them 
 are rarely to be found, except in the critical books that 
 lament their occurrence. 
 
 "THE NON-TRANSFERABLE AUXILIARY" 
 
 "Arkansas never has, and never will be represented 
 by a better man." Of course, the simple way is to fill 
 out the construction: "Arkansas never has been, and 
 never will be," etc. But all possibility of blundering 
 would be obviated by keeping the past and future ex- 
 pressions entirely separate : ' ' Arkansas never has been 
 represented by a better man, and never will be." A 
 newspaper account of conditions among the Mexican 
 refugees at Fort Bliss, a few years ago, reads as fol- 
 lows: "Not less than a baby a day, and on one day 
 five, has been born since the camp was formed." This 
 unexpected crowding of population appears to have had 
 a sympathetic effect in crowding the reporter's state- 
 ment. We are so perpetually warned against using too 
 many words, that we lose sight of the possibility of 
 using too few. By an added clause the statement be- 
 comes at least grammatical. ' ' Not less than a baby a day
 
 261 
 
 lias been born, etc., and on one day five were born." 
 Use words enough. English will not bear more than 
 a certain amount of jamming. That is a merit of the 
 language, requiring orderly development of thought as 
 a prerequisite to simplicity of expression. 
 
 "I DON'T THINK So" 
 
 Alas for the gentle and patient rows of Normal 
 School teachers and Chautauqua victims who are dra- 
 gooned into dread of the harmless expression, "I don't 
 think so ! " The instructor has found in his dictionary 
 that "to think" is "to exercise the mental faculties; to 
 carry on the process of thought." Hence, to say that 
 you do not think is an awful thing. It is a confession 
 of imbecility. It is a pity that the critic did not read 
 just a little further in his dictionary, instead of going 
 off at half-cock. Then he would have ascertained that 
 "to think" means also, "to entertain a particular opin- 
 ion. " If I do not ' ' entertain the particular opinion ' ' 
 that the critic ' ' entertains, ' ' that may be disappointing 
 to him, but is it necessarily absurd in me? Our answer 
 to him is, "I think, indeed, but not as you do. I think, 
 but not so. In short, I do not think so. ' ' But, why not 
 say, "I think not?" Because that is more than an 
 equivalent, signifying that I definitely entertain a con- 
 trary opinion, which may not be the fact. When I say, 
 "I do not think so," I simply do not accept the "par- 
 ticular opinion" advanced, though I may not hold a 
 definite opinion to the contrary. 
 
 PREPOSITION ENDING SENTENCE 
 We are told, "Never end a sentence with a preposi- 
 tion." Why not? Because it cannot be done in Latin. 
 Very well. That is one of the disabilities of the Latin. 
 But English is independent in origin and idiom, and
 
 262 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 can do more and better things in many ways than the 
 Latin ever did or could. The English usage that may 
 on occasion throw a preposition to the end of the clause 
 or sentence has come down from ancient days, as indi- 
 cated by the quotations given in a previous chapter 
 (Ch. VII, p. 151). Take one quotation there given: 
 
 "The soil out of which such men as he are made is good 
 to be born on, good to live on, good to die for, and to be 
 buried in." 
 
 We should weaken this indescribably, if we were to 
 make it read: 
 
 " good on which to be born, on which to live, for 
 
 which to die, and in which to be buried. ' ' 
 
 Why? Because we have separated the important 
 words in each clause by the uncared-for particles, on, 
 
 for in which, and the mind must hurry 
 
 past these to reach the items really of interest, finding 
 the elements of constructive formality very much in its 
 way. Unfettered and vigorous speech brushes these 
 formalities aside, gives first place to the words express- 
 ing the important thought, and then pays its gram- 
 matical scot in the preposition appended at the end 
 of the clause or sentence, "good to die for," etc. 
 It is an element of power in the English language that 
 it can thus march across technicalities to attain the 
 great purpose of speech the expression of thought. 
 
 It may be further mentioned here that the relative 
 pronoun that necessarily sends the preposition to the 
 end of the clause or sentence: "This is the point that 
 I insist upon." There is no difficulty of English here, 
 except the "difficulty" of imposing a misfit rule of 
 Latin syntax upon English sense. But nothing suits 
 the difficulty-hunter so well as to fall foul of an ac-
 
 DIFFICULTIES IN ENGLISH 263 
 
 cepted English idiom, sure to recur. It is like a runway 
 for game. Set your snare across that, and you will in- 
 fallibly catch somebody. 
 
 We believe that Purists have their use. It is well 
 that some boundaries should be delimited, even by wire 
 fences, to prevent all speech from relapsing into a lin- 
 guistic wilderness; but it would sadly hinder freedom 
 of communication and enjoyment of nature, if barbed 
 wires bordered every sidewalk and every woodland 
 path. What we resent is the assumption that difficuL 
 ties are the main thing in English, constituting its chief 
 charm and the prime purpose of its existence. We ob- 
 ject to arbitrary tests set like the two pillars at the en- 
 trance of the Mohammedan temple, so that no devotee 
 who cannot squeeze between them can hope to enter 
 Paradise. 
 
 Correct English is a comparatively slight thing, an 
 incidental propriety, like a man's keeping his face 
 clean, which it is no special merit to observe, but very 
 discreditable to neglect when the exigencies of life make 
 it possible, though the soldier or the sailor, the miner 
 or the machinist, may well have things so much more 
 important to do that he can not for a time even think of 
 that. Correctness of speech is but incidental to the main 
 purpose of speech. We need correct English, indeed; 
 but, far more than that, we need English worthy of its 
 history and its destiny, noble, achieving, masterful 
 English, Instinct with life, able to move the world. 
 There is a correctness so deadly dull that a good, vigor- 
 ous blunder would be a relief and a delight. There is 
 such a thing as freedom, the birthright of the Anglo- 
 Saxon race, and this freedom pervades our language. 
 English has refused to accept the iron rules within
 
 264 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 which so many other languages are corseted, and con- 
 tinues to refuse and resent the stays. 
 
 Dr. Hugh Blair has devoted twenty-six pages of his 
 "Lectures on Rhetoric" to critical examination of four 
 of Addison 's papers in the "Spectator," and certainly 
 convicts that illustrious author of some inaccuracies. 
 Yet, when Dr. Blair reconstructs a sentence, and tells 
 us what Addison "might have said," we are almost in- 
 variably glad that Addison did not say it. If he had 
 set his heart on the formal correctness his critic de- 
 mands, that correctness would have stolen his simplicity 
 and his charm. That folly Addison never committed. 
 Ease and naturalness marked all he wrote. As the re- 
 sult, the carouse- wearied gentry of Queen Anne's day 
 read his seemingly off-hand essays at their breakfast 
 tables, and amended their ideals and their morals. 
 Thousands since have read with delight the unconnected 
 "Spectator"; but have any, except a few curious rhe- 
 toricians, ever read Dr. Hugh Blair's corrections? 
 There are those who can tell of Sir "Walter Scott only 
 that he fell into certain errors of style, and even of 
 grammar. Yet the majority of readers have never found 
 one. They recognize those that the critics have hunted 
 down, but in their own reading they have been carried 
 past them unconsciously by the rush of incidents or the 
 splendor of description, just as Scott himself, in the 
 fervor of composition, was swept by. "When he wrote 
 "Guy Mannering" in six weeks and "The Bride of 
 Lammermoor" in two weeks, he could only follow the 
 flashing thought, and trust for words and construction 
 to the habitual language of a cultured gentleman. 
 
 And he did well. Every great author or orator who 
 has won and held the attention of the world has some- 
 times, or often, let himself go. No better rule can be
 
 DIFFICULTIES IN ENGLISH 265 
 
 given to the young writer or speaker than to get full 
 of information, thought, emotion, enthusiasm, then 
 trust the facile, flexible English speech, if you have once 
 learned it well, and make a hearty, genuine blunder when 
 you must, so that you get something real really said 
 or written. In revision the author may well become his 
 own critic; but, even then, let him beware that the 
 critic does not exterminate the creator. Even so sim- 
 ple a movement as going down stairs cannot be per- 
 formed at once swiftly and securely by fixing attention 
 on every step ; the stairs will obliterate the stairway. 
 It is related of Father Taylor, of the Seaman's Bethel 
 in Boston, that, at one time, finding himself involved in 
 a sentence with no possible outlet, he paused, and ex- 
 claimed, "Brethen, I've lost the track of the nominative 
 case, but one thing I know, I'm bound for the king- 
 dom of heaven!" and the audience responded "Amen! 
 Amen ! " to the preacher who thought more of salvation 
 than of syntax. 
 
 Keeping one's mind on the hunt for difficulties in 
 English makes one blind to all the effectiveness and 
 majesty of our noble language. Here is a man, for in- 
 stance, who has heard of persons slipping to death on 
 orange-peel or banana-skins, and he walks the streets 
 of New York with scrutinizing gaze ever fixed on the 
 pavement, and never sees the high buildings, the rush- 
 ing crowds, the stir of a great life of humanity all about 
 him. Around the author or the orator is the tide of life, 
 with its towering achievements, struggle momentarily 
 crystallizing into history, grand ideals of possible ad- 
 vancement and excellence shining in the heaven above, 
 and closing every vista of the yet untraveled way. 
 Movement, enterprise, conquest, are his inspiration. 
 Difficulties, indeed, are to be avoided, but only that they
 
 266 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 may not hinder that full and effective expression that 
 shall move humanity through the medium of speech. 
 The railway engineer oils his engine, but only that it 
 may be free to move ; the mission of that assemblage of 
 power, whose throttle is in his hand, is something more 
 than avoidance of friction ; it must act, advance, accom- 
 plish results, speeding its freight of human life and 
 treasure far on into the hopeful distance; and nothing 
 but grim necessity may be allowed to hold it even mo- 
 mentarily in the repair-shop.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 CLEARNESS OF STYLE I 
 
 THE OUTFIT FOR THE SPEAKER OR WRITER 
 
 To say what one means so that it will be readily 
 understood by some one else would seem to be one of the 
 simplest and easiest things imaginable. As a matter of 
 fact, it is one of the most difficult. It is probable that 
 one mind never exactly expresses its meaning to an- 
 other. If one uses so simple an expression as, "It is a 
 fine day," that does not necessarily convey to the mind 
 of the hearer the same thought that was in the mind of 
 the speaker. The speaker may be thinking of the beauty 
 of the scenery, the light on the hills, the sunlit clouds 
 floating across the sky; the hearer may think only of 
 the general agreeableness of the weather, and of the 
 fact that he does not need an umbrella. Harriet Beecher 
 Stowe in her "Oldtown Folks" thus describes the vain 
 appeal of a glorious sunrise to a certain type of mind: 
 
 "The next morning showed as brilliant a getting up of 
 gold and purple as ever belonged to the toilet of a morning. 
 There was to be seen from Miss Asphyxia's bedroom window 
 a brave sight, if there had been any eyes to enjoy it, a range 
 of rocky cliffs with little pin-feathers of black upon them, 
 and behind them the sky all aflame with bars of massy light, 
 darting hither and thither, touched now the window of a 
 farmhouse, which seemed to kindle and flash back a morning 
 salutation; now they hit a tall scarlet maple, and now they 
 pierced between clumps of pine, making their black edges 
 flame with gold; and over all, in the brightening sky, stood 
 the morning star, like a great, tremulous tear of light, just 
 ready to fall on a darkened world. 
 
 267
 
 268 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 "Not a bit of all this saw Miss Asphyxia, though she looked 
 straight out at it. Her eyes and the eyes of the cow, who, 
 with horned front, was serenely gazing out of the barn win- 
 dow at the same prospect, were equally unreceptive. 
 
 "She looked at all this solemn pomp of gold and purple, 
 and the mysterious star, and only said : 'Good day for killin* 
 the hog.' " 
 
 In fact, the ordinary reader seldom catches at first 
 reading the full thought which a great poet or essayist 
 has in mind, if, indeed, he ever attains it; and the 
 orator never knows, except by the effect of his speaking, 
 how much of his thought has actually reached his audi- 
 ence. The aim of perspicuity is to convey the thought 
 of the speaker or writer to the mind of the hearer or 
 reader just as clearly as thought can be conveyed by 
 human speech. 
 
 The word perspicuity may be denned as ' ' see-through- 
 it-ive-ness, " being derived from the Latin perspicio, 
 ' ' see through, ' ' from per, ' ' through, ' ' and specio, ' ' look 
 see. ' ' Perspicuity is the quality of presenting thought 
 in words so that the thought will be seen readily, through 
 the words. Perspicuity is the first, vital, fundamental 
 quality of style. Without being understood, all worda 
 are vain. Thus the great Apostle of the Gentiles writes : 
 
 "And even things without life giving sound, whether pipe 
 or harp, except that they give a distinction in the sounds, 
 how shall it be known what is piped or harped ? 
 
 "For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall 
 prepare himself to the battle ? 
 
 "So likewise ye, except ye utter by the tongue words easy 
 to lie understood, how shall it be known what is spoken ? For 
 ye shall speak into the air 
 
 "Therefore if I know not the meaning of the voice, I shall 
 be unto him that speaketh a barbarian, and he that speaketh 
 shall be a barbarian unto me."
 
 OUTFIT FOR THE SPEAKER 269 
 
 Perspicuity, or clearness, is essential in order to make 
 it of any use for one to speak or write at all. The per- 
 spicuous style opens to reader or hearer the speaker's 
 or author's very thought, not hindered by the words 
 that express it, but even enhanced in clearness and at- 
 tractiveness by the perfect transparency of the expres- 
 sion. The perspicuous style may indeed be dry or plain, 
 or even rugged or abrupt. Yet it has this one merit, 
 that it can be understood. One who cares enough about 
 the subject can get the idea, even where there is no 
 beauty of expression, if there is but this perfect clear- 
 ness. Hence, the first study of every speaker or writer, 
 especially of the young or inexperienced, should be to 
 express himself so as to make each thought absolutely 
 clear. Then he may adorn it with every touch of beauty 
 of which he is capable, so that the ornament never hides 
 nor obscures the thought. The " safety first" of travel 
 must be answered by the "clearness first" of spoken or 
 written language. If ever clearness fails in beauty it 
 gains, nevertheless, in strength. Men instinctively trust 
 the expression which lies clear before them like a level 
 and open road, and the trust of those addressed is to 
 the speaker or writer an element of power. Yet clear- 
 ness has also a beauty of its own. The clear or perspicu- 
 ous style is like a pane of plate glass, of which the eye 
 takes no note, absorbed in observing what is to be seen 
 through it. But when our attention is once directed 
 to the medium, we find a rare beauty in that sheet of 
 firm, almost viewless crystal, lost in its own trans- 
 parency. 
 
 "Perspicuity in writing is not to be considered as merely 
 a sort of negative virtue, or freedom from defect. It has 
 higher merit; it is a degree of positive beauty. We are 
 pleased with an author, we consider him as deserving praise,
 
 270 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 who frees us from, all fatigue of searching for his meaning; 
 who carries us through his subject without any embarrass- 
 ment or confusion; whose style flows always like a limpid 
 stream, where we see to the very bottom." 
 
 So writes Dr. Hugh Blair in his "Lectures on Rhet- 
 oric" (Lect. 10, p. 102). He sums up the matter as 
 follows : 
 
 "Perspicuity, it will be readily admitted, is the funda- 
 mental quality of style; a quality so essential in every kind 
 of writing that for the want of it nothing can atone. With- 
 out this, the richest ornaments of style only glimmer through 
 the dark, and puzzle instead of pleasing the reader. This, 
 therefore, must be our first object, to make our meaning 
 clearly and fully understood, and understood without the 
 least difficulty. 'Discourse,' says Quintilian, 'ought always 
 to be obvious, even to the most careless and negligent hearer; 
 so that the sense shall strike the mind as the light of the 
 sun does our eyes, though they are not directed to it. Where- 
 fore care must be taken, not only that one may understand, 
 but that he cannot possibly fail to understand.'" 
 
 Perspicuity is called a "relative quality"; relating, 
 that is, on the one side to the speaker or writer, and on 
 the other to the hearer or reader. Let us consider, 
 under this double aspect, the qualifications of the 
 speaker or writer. For clear expression he must have: 
 
 1. Some Clear Idea to Express. No man can give 
 more or better than he has. If you would speak or write 
 for others, what have you to give them? Is that sure 
 and clear in your own mind? You can not possibly 
 make clear to other minds what is dim, vague, or con- 
 fused in your own. Hence, the very first condition of 
 clear expression is a clear idea to be expressed. 
 
 Here is a man who knows nothing of the conditions 
 produced by the French Revolution of 1789-93, of the 
 raw volunteers who crowded to the colors, of the med-
 
 OUTFIT FOR THE SPEAKER 271 
 
 ley of adventurers who became their officers, and of the 
 personal qualities of the young conqueror who then 
 arose; of his treatment of defeated nations and subju- 
 gated provinces, and its effect upon the temper of those 
 peoples; of the ratio of the loss of French lives in the 
 field to the natural increase of the French population; 
 of the economic situation created by the strain of in- 
 cessant war. Now ask that man to give a clear state- 
 ment of the causes of the downfall of Napoleon Bona- 
 parte. You are asking not for bricks without straw, 
 but for bricks without clay. 
 
 Or a business house receives a letter offering certain 
 goods according to sample sent. Many questions are in- 
 volved: Is the house that makes the offer trustworthy, 
 so that goods may be depended upon to be according to 
 sample? Are they efficient, so that delivery will be 
 prompt and sure? Will the goods suit the local public 
 taste? How many could we probably use? Have we 
 facilities for storing and handling them till sold? If 
 we buy at price offered, can we sell so as to make a fair 
 profit? Can we conveniently pay for the goods on de- 
 livery? If not, what credit should we need, that the 
 receipts from sales may enable us to meet the account? 
 Suppose some clerk, in whose mind not one of these 
 items is settled, attempts to answer that proposal. How 
 can he possibly write a clear letter? He will soon find 
 the various items chasing each other without order or 
 coherence, and the attempted answer on one item inter- 
 fering with the possible answer to another. The true 
 business man answers every one of these preliminary 
 questions in his own mind, at least, before he begins to 
 frame his reply. Then he can dictate in a few lines an 
 absolutely clear letter, for he knows every requirement 
 and every limitation to be insisted on. Having satis-
 
 272 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 fied himself, for instance, of the standing and dependa- 
 bility of the dealers in question, and of his own facili- 
 ties and needs, he has only to write: 
 
 "In reply to yours of , you may send us (a specified 
 
 quantity) of the goods named, the same to be strictly accord- 
 ing to sample, and to be delivered on (a specified date) with 
 bill payable in thirty days." 
 
 The clear thinking that has gone before makes the 
 necessary statements few and plain. 
 
 In the affairs of common life, in all contemplative 
 and studious utterance, behind every great decision, is 
 clear thinking as the prerequisite of clear expression. 
 It is much for a thinker to put an idea into words that 
 are thoroughly clear to himself. Scholars of the earlier 
 centuries would write their thoughts in Latin, then sup- 
 posed to be the only language for the learned; after- 
 ward, perhaps, as a condescension to the general pub- 
 lic, they would translate their statements into the 
 ''vulgar tongue." The thought once written in the 
 Latin was fixed, and, if worthy to live, became the en- 
 during property of the world. So, always, when he has 
 once reduced his thought into words that are definite 
 and adequate for himself, the thinker has crystallized 
 that thought in speech, and given it imperishable form ; 
 then he, or another thinker who knows his vocabulary, 
 can at any time translate the statement into simpler or 
 more popular terms. Fasten down your thought so 
 that you, at least, know definitely what it means. 
 
 2. The Habit of Clear Thinking. This goes beyond 
 any single occasion. No man can be sure of clear 
 thought upon one occasion who is not in the habit of 
 clear thinking on all occasions. Habit largely domi- 
 nates action, and in excitement or emergency always
 
 273 
 
 controls. A young person by courtesy called a student, 
 who has never formed a clear idea of one lesson studied, 
 never given a clear rendering of one sentence supposed 
 to be translated, never gained one clear idea from any 
 lecture heard, whose reading is of the flitting trash of 
 the cheap magazine, and whose ordinary conversation 
 drifts in that underworld of indeterminateness com- 
 monly known as slang, sits down upon some supreme 
 occasion and says, ' ' Go to, I will now write a clear dis- 
 cussion of this important subject assigned me. ' ' As well 
 might the untrained clerk rise from his desk and go 
 out to distinguish himself on the instant upon the base- 
 ball or football field. 
 
 One who would attain perspicuity of spoken or writ- 
 ten style must make clearness of thought and expres- 
 sion the habit of common life, the experience of every 
 day. Never tolerate a vague idea in your own mind. 
 Do not leave a single thought at loose ends. In the 
 many cases where you can not at once reach a conclusion, 
 be clear as far as you go : "So far, such seems to be the 
 fact or the truth." If there is a doubt, make clear to 
 yourself what you doubt: "the unsettled item is this, 
 
 ." Leave not an unfinished sentence in your 
 
 own thinking ; see it through to a period, just as if dic- 
 tating to a stenographer. So all your thinking will be 
 precise and sure. 
 
 Habitually clear thinking will spontaneously tend to 
 clear expression. Therefore, make that your positive 
 endeavor. Send a swift thought ahead to shape what 
 you have next to utter. Do not fear a brief pause when 
 necessary to think a sentence through before beginning 
 it. If your hearer is delayed at the start, he will save 
 the time in reaching the conclusion; instead of a local 
 with many stops, one may well wait for an express
 
 274 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 train that goes straight through. Make your reading 
 serve the same purpose. Read the works of those who 
 have had a definite message to give to the world, and 
 have known how to give it so that the world can under- 
 stand. Avoid like a pestilence the craze for epigram 
 and paradox, of which the charm is that it is like a 
 Delphic oracle, equally suited to the most contradictory 
 results. Read those things which are so clear that, if 
 right, they may be known to be right and, if wrong, 
 may be proved to be wrong. In this earnest world, why 
 fight with shadows and fogs and windmills? Listen to 
 the most thoughtful and definite utterances you can 
 hear from pulpit and platform. Converse with those 
 who have something to say and know how to say it. To 
 a thinker so self-disciplined, the instantly intelligible 
 expression will come to seem the only natural expres- 
 sion, and any vague, clumsy, indefinite utterance will 
 become almost impossible. 
 
 3. All Attainable Knowledge is, indeed, a prerequi- 
 site to clear thinking, but it is important enough to be 
 treated by and for itself. We say "all attainable 
 knowledge," not all that is possible in the nature of 
 things, for which life does not allow us to wait, but 
 the fullest attainable within our limits of time, place, 
 and circumstance. Life continually compels us to act 
 on imperfect knowledge, if we would act at all. It was 
 with imperfect knowledge that Columbus brought his 
 keel to graze the shore of the "Western World. But 
 within the limits of what is for you attainable, bring 
 together all possible data for clear opinion and decision. 
 The very last item gathered may be the most important, 
 or may be the key to all the rest. An old clergyman was 
 asked by a young preacher to tell him how to prepare 
 a sermon. "Fill up the cask, young man," said the vet-
 
 OUTFIT FOR THE SPEAKER 275 
 
 eran; "fill up the cask. Then, whenever you tap it 
 you'll get a stream." For the briefest statement one 
 can not know too much. He who has the fullest store 
 of knowledge is in a position to select the necessary or 
 the most important items, and to be sure that so far 
 as he can yet make it his every statement is adequate. 
 
 Such knowledge is important, not only for knowing 
 what to say, but also for knowing what not to say. We 
 are reminded of the comment of the old colored brother 
 on the theory that God is ignorant of some things be- 
 cause he chooses not to know them : ' ' 'Pears like God 
 would have to know everything 'fore he could know 
 what not to know." The speaker or writer is in just 
 that case. He needs to know all that might be said 
 before he can know what not to say. You may always 
 be sure that the statement which says just enough, and 
 with perfect clearness, is the result of thorough knowl- 
 edge and careful study. Every path of scientific re- 
 search is strewn thick with what the man of science 
 calls "dead work," useful only as the means of discov- 
 ering what cannot be known or done, or as leading up 
 to what alone is valuable to know. 
 
 Such "dead work" may never be mentioned in the 
 worker 's published results, or mentioned only by a pass- 
 ing reference to what can not be; but with how sure a 
 step may the guide advance who has made himself abso- 
 lutely sure of not straying into any impassable road or 
 cul-de-sac! Every inventor, every deep thinker, has 
 much of the same experience. The discourse you hear 
 or the book you read with rapt attention is the better 
 for the thoughts resolutely shut out, or for the matter 
 actually written, and then consigned to the waste-basket. 
 Clearness comes often from the non-interference of that 
 which can not be made clear.
 
 276 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 4. Systematized Knowledge. There is probably no 
 person more helpless, either for speech or action, no one 
 more incapable of a clear opinion, than the victim of a 
 mass of undigested facts and ill-assorted conclusions. 
 One who would be clear must analyze data and argu- 
 ments, either in formal abstract or in the silent action 
 of his own mind. A very successful editor kept near 
 his desk two drawers, one labeled "May" and the other 
 labeled "Must." Everything absolutely necessary for 
 the next issue of the paper went into the "Must" 
 drawer. That drawer must be emptied before the paper 
 went to press. The things desirable, but not essential, 
 went into the "May" drawer, and from that the fore- 
 man might take out more or less, according as space or 
 other circumstances would permit. Such an analysis 
 may and must items should be in the mind of a speaker 
 or writer, as he runs through the data pertaining to the 
 matter on which he is to speak or write. 
 
 5. Conference with Other Minds. No one mind 
 knows everything. No one mind sees its own knowledge 
 in all possible lights. Sometimes the remark of a child 
 will illuminate the thought of a sage. The man on the 
 street sees what would not occur to the scholar in his 
 study. It is related of a nobleman on the Scottish bor- 
 der that, walking across his estate with a shepherd one 
 bright morning, he observed the sheep all clustered on 
 the shady side of the hills. "Now, if I were a sheep," 
 said his lordship, "I would get on the sunny side." 
 "Gin ye waur a sheep, my laird, ye wud hae mair 
 sense," replied the shepherd, who knew that the sun- 
 shine, so agreeable to the man, would be oppressive to 
 the sheep burdened with a heavy fleece. One can never 
 tell what sidelights may be thrown upon a topic by the 
 least promising adviser. Often, too, the statement of a
 
 OUTFIT FOR THE SPEAKER 277 
 
 matter to another shows one how much statement is 
 needed, and what may require explanation that at first 
 seemed obvious. 
 
 Then, the human mind is so constituted that it arouses 
 itself by contact with another mind to do its own best 
 thinking. How often do we ask a person a question 
 and see the answer before he can reply. As a rule, the 
 solitary thinker becomes limited and one-sided. Then 
 he often retires into a proud contempt of the "gross 
 intellects" of the great mass of mankind, who can not 
 understand what he has made unintelligible. The ordi- 
 nary speaker or writer may set it down as a fixed prin- 
 ciple that if he can not explain an idea so that it will 
 be understood by rational men of average education, 
 there is some fault either in the idea or in his explana- 
 tion. In the attempt so to explain to others his own 
 mind is aroused and vivified. His knowledge is increased 
 by the very attempt to impart it. Thus that eminent 
 educator of the nineteenth century, Moses Stuart, once 
 remarked, "I have never really known anything until 
 I have either taught it or written upon it." According 
 to Bacon's succinct and vigorous statement: 
 
 "Friendship . . . maketh daylight in the understanding 
 out of darkness and confusion of thoughts; neither is this 
 to be understood only of faithful counsel, which a man 
 receiveth from his friend, but before you come to that, cer- 
 tain it is, that whosoever hath his mind fraught with many 
 thoughts, his wits and understanding do clarify and break 
 up in the communicating and discoursing with another: he 
 tosseth his thoughts more easily; he marshalleth them more 
 orderly; he seeth how they look when they are turned into 
 words; finally, he waxeth wiser than himself: and that more 
 by an hour's discourse than by a day's meditation. Neither 
 is this . . . fruit of friendship, in opening the understand- 
 ing, restrained only by such friends as are able to give a man 
 counsel. They are indeed best; but, even without that, a
 
 278 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 man learneth of himself, and bringeth his own thoughts to 
 light, and whetteth his wits as against a stone, which itself 
 cuts not. In a word, a man were better relate himself to 
 a statua or a picture, than to suffer his thoughts to pass in 
 smother." * 
 
 6. Mastery of Language. The choice of words for 
 perspicuous utterance will be more fully considered from 
 the side of the hearer or reader ; here it must be treated 
 as part of the author's or orator's equipment. When 
 on his feet before an audience, when striving to get 
 something said, one can not go scouting for words he 
 does not know. The writer who attempts to hammer 
 out a vocabulary in stress of composition will chill all 
 fervor, eagerness, and range of thought. His writing 
 will have a smack of artificiality it will " smell of the 
 lamp.*' These close researches of items will pin him 
 down to the little steps of the grain-pecking barnyard 
 fowl, in contrast with the eagle's soaring, sweeping 
 flight. The author full of an impelling idea will do best 
 to put it down fast, even in what he knows to be inade- 
 quate words. Time for revision can be found or made, 
 but the fire and glow and outreach of thought once 
 chilled can not easily, if ever, be rekindled. For the 
 time the author is like a soldier in battle, who must use 
 the weapons he has ample cartridges if possible ; if not, 
 the bayonet, or even the musket-butt, to strike some- 
 how. But cartridges and other equipment should be 
 provided before the battle. Words must be accumulated 
 in such store that they will be snatched automatically, 
 the speaker or writer being often scarcely aware of the 
 felicity of his choice, because the words are so habitual 
 to his thought that their use seems as natural and in- 
 stinctive as drawing breath. For the most effective ora- 
 
 * Bacon : "Essays," On Friendship.
 
 OUTFIT FOR THE SPEAKER 279 
 
 torical or literary power, one must have a wide and rich 
 vocabulary in actual possession and use, alive with all 
 the most vivid associations of thought and life. Then the 
 right word, according to the familiar phrase, will 
 ' ' spring to the lips. ' ' His experience with words will re- 
 call what Webster said of facts, arguments and illustra- 
 tions in his Reply to Hayne: "Only to reach up, pluck 
 down a thunderbolt and hurl it at- him. ' ' 
 
 Here must be noted that psychological principle that 
 the mind tends always to follow the track of a previous 
 thought as the line of least resistance. Words, once 
 used, have a tyranny over thought. Beware of ever 
 writing a poor, confused, or clumsy sentence, because 
 your own words are liable to dominate your thought in 
 what you afterward write. 
 
 Where repetition is detected, you will often find some- 
 thing behind the literary fault. You have used that 
 word the second time, not because you wanted it, but 
 because you had used it before, and it has switched your 
 very thought aside, in accordance with the psychological 
 tendency of the mind to follow the channel of a previous 
 thought. Seeking the non-repetitious word, you get one 
 that expresses clearly the new thought, not confused by 
 a dim echo of the old. 
 
 Every argument for the attainment of a wide and 
 rich vocabulary, every argument against the mental 
 slovenliness of slang, is an argument for the possibility 
 of perspicuity. The vocabulary equal to all occasions 
 enables the speaker or writer to be clear on every occa- 
 sion. If the speaker's or writer's idea is clear to him- 
 self, the meaning of the words he uses must also be clear 
 to himself. Otherwise, with the best intentions, he will 
 confuse the hearer or reader. 
 
 7. Moral Courage. it often requires no small degree
 
 280 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 of courage to express one's meaning with absolute plain- 
 ness. 
 
 It is related of an eminent diplomat that on one occa- 
 sion he spent a long time writing, revising, and correct- 
 ing an important letter, and then submitted it to a friend 
 with a request for his opinion upon it. The friend read 
 and reread it, and at length remarked, ' ' It is beautifully 
 written and seems very clear, but, if you will pardon 
 my saying so, I cannot discover from it exactly what you 
 mean to do. " " Ah, thank you, ' ' exclaimed the author, 
 "it is a perfect success," and at once signed and de- 
 spatched it. That was the result he had labored for. 
 Many persons attain similar results without conscious 
 endeavor, simply from the fear that they may inadver- 
 tently say just what they mean. 
 
 The schoolboy with a lesson imperfectly learned stam- 
 mers through an "er er" recitation in constant fear 
 that he may fall into some definite statement, and that 
 statement be wrong. A college student confessed to a 
 classmate that he had great trouble in his Greek exer- 
 cises to distinguish between the acute and the grave 
 accents, which lean opposite ways. His friend replied, 
 "I don't. I make them all exactly perpendicular, and 
 the professor can't tell for his life which way I meant 
 them to lean." The reluctant witness, fearing to per- 
 jure himself, and fearing more to tell the truth, equivo- 
 cates through ambiguous statements which he hopes can 
 not be construed into exact affirmation or denial of 
 important matters. The preacher, doubting some points 
 of the accredited creed of his church, takes refuge in 
 misty platitudes which he trusts will neither explicitly 
 affirm nor deny. The politician, not yet sure which way 
 the tide will turn, talks of good government, the will 
 of the people, the public welfare, in terms which will
 
 OUTFIT FOR THE SPEAKER 281 
 
 apply equally well to any decision. The social reformer, 
 who does not want to say, even to himself, ' ' confiscation 
 of property," when a stout argument might back him 
 up against that wall involves the whole subject in misty 
 declamation, and escapes in nebulous clouds of rhetoric. 
 
 There are, indeed, times when prudence, kindness, 
 even duty, call for an honorable reserve, but so far as 
 speech is used, it finds its best exercise in putting a sure 
 and definite meaning into unflinching words. 
 
 The medieval Florentine, Nicholas Machiavelli, had 
 the courage of his unscrupulousness, and in his 
 "Prince" advocated clearly and coolly what thousands 
 of leaders have done under euphemistic names. Macau- 
 lay says of him, that ''His only fault was that, having 
 adopted some of the maxims then generally received, 
 he arranged them more luminously, and expressed them 
 more forcibly than any other writer." 
 
 For this he has been execrated by the mass of men 
 until 
 
 "Out of his surname they have coined an epithet for a 
 knave, and out of his Christian name a synonym for the 
 Devil." 
 
 Yet, even so, he did better than he would have done 
 through vagueness or obscurity with the same underlying 
 motive. There the vices stand, pilloried for all time. 
 The frank and avowed opponents of truth and right 
 have often rendered it unintended service. Men seeing 
 just what they mean have declared, "This is what we 
 will not have. " It is not the evil boldly outspoken, but 
 the evil deliberately veiled, that is dangerous. 
 
 The frank, transparent statement of an intolerable 
 conclusion often rescues the author himself. He says, 
 ' ' My reasoning leads up to this ; but this is abominable.
 
 282 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 There must be a flaw in the argument that necessitates 
 such a result, ' ' and he studies back till he finds the error. 
 It is doubtful whether Benedict Arnold could have per- 
 severed in his course, if he had called every act by its 
 right name: if he had frankly said to himself, "This is 
 downright treachery. I am about to betray my people, 
 my commander and my comrades in arms, who have 
 trusted me and faced death at my side. If I succeed I 
 shall send the Continental armies to defeat and the lead- 
 ers to the scaffold. I shall smirch my own military 
 record, by an action which no soldier ever forgives. 
 Even if the British win, they will scorn the traitor who 
 gave them the victory." All his cherished grievances 
 would have seemed infinitesimally petty, and all prom- 
 ised rewards worthless and mean before the clear state- 
 ment of what his action meant. 
 
 Thus perspicuity is far more than a convenience or 
 beauty of style. In its fullest exercise it is the out- 
 speaking of a brave and resolute spirit, and so is strong. 
 
 What gives his special power to the desperate man? 
 Absolute clear thinking. He has decided what he must 
 and will have at any cost. He has canvassed all possi- 
 bilities affecting himself. Wounds, death, prison, dis- 
 honor, all are nothing in his thought. He has canvassed 
 all that his action may bring to his antagonist. Pain, 
 distress, poverty, hardship, death, of his intended victim 
 are nothing in the assailant's thought. He is deaf to 
 argument or entreaty, for he has discounted all restrain- 
 ing motives, and put them out of consideration. He will 
 take the maddest chances, because they can bring him 
 nothing but what he is ready to meet. 
 
 The same qualities appear in nobler exercise. The 
 "six hundred" of the Light Brigade receive the fatal 
 order, form without an instant's hesitation in battle
 
 OUTFIT FOR THE SPEAKER 283 
 
 array, the commander, as he rides to their head, saying 
 to a friend whom he passes, "Here goes the last of the 
 Cardigans !" Their minds had been made up long before 
 to all that the day could bring, and their clear answer 
 to the command was instant action. These qualities 
 were displayed by Washington when, touched by the 
 sufferings of Boston resulting from the enforcement of 
 the Boston Port Bill, he exclaimed (at the provincial 
 convention at Williamsburg, August 1, 1774) : "I will 
 raise a thousand men, subsist them at my own expense, 
 and march with them at their head for the relief of 
 Boston." The men of the Continental Congress, with 
 the Declaration of Independence before them, had fore- 
 cast all it might involve when they signed their names 
 under the words, "And, for the support of this Declara- 
 tion, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine 
 Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, 
 our fortunes, and our sacred honor."
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 CLEARNESS OF STYLE II 
 AS SECURED BY FITTING CHOICE OF WORDS 
 
 Whatever mystic value there might be in an expres- 
 sion of thought understood only by the mind that origi- 
 nated it, such an expression would be rhetorically worth- 
 less. Rhetoric has been well defined as: "The art of 
 perfecting man's power of communicating to others his 
 mental acts or states by means of language. ' ' In rhetor- 
 ical estimate, the sole object of speaking or writing is, 
 not that thought may exist, but that it may be con- 
 veyed or communicated to others. "Communicate" is 
 from the Latin communis, "common", and signifies to 
 make something the common property of two or more 
 persons. In thought or speech, without the union of two 
 or more minds, there is no "communication." If one 
 could have the mental vision of a star-eyed angel, he 
 would be helpless to "communicate" anything to men 
 by speech unless he could use some language that men 
 could understand. Perspicuity begins in the clear 
 thought of orator or author, but does not become an 
 accomplished fact till the same thought illuminates the 
 mind of hearer or reader with equal clearness. The 
 supreme test of success in reaching men by speech is not 
 what you give, but what they receive. Whatever you 
 may offer, you really give them only what they get. So 
 Tennyson opens his "Day Dream" with the question, 
 
 "But would you have the thought I had. 
 And see the vision that I saw ?" 
 
 284
 
 FITTING CHOICE OF WORDS 285 
 
 "The thought I had" is but one pier of a bridge, from 
 which the fairest structure stretches out over empty 
 space, unless and until it reaches a support on the 
 farther shore in the receiving mind. Of what shall that 
 be built? Of intelligible words joined in fitting con- 
 struction, so that each shall help to convey the meaning 
 of all. 
 
 Intelligible Words. There are, indeed, ways of 
 expressing one's meaning otherwise than by words, as 
 by looks and tones, which are often profoundly signifi- 
 cant. Yet these are always more or less vague, as 
 appears from the fact that one will be aware that an- 
 other is angry, but study long to guess what displeased 
 him, and at last very likely guess wrong. It is beyond 
 a doubt that looks and tones greatly help the impression 
 of spoken words, whether in oratory or in common 
 speech, so that many things are well understood that 
 are very ill uttered, and many sentences that are never 
 finished. Something may be done by expressive signs, 
 as of the finger on the lips to indicate silence. But one 
 needs only to deal with persons of whose language he 
 knows absolutely nothing to convince himself how very 
 little way this sign-language, by itself, will carry him. 
 The ultimate reliance must be upon the spoken or writ- 
 ten word, and each word must be understood in the same 
 sense by the one who uses and by the one who hears 
 or reads it. 
 
 Since expression is chiefly by use of words, one who 
 has but an imperfect command of words can not attain 
 more than imperfect expression, however clear the ideas 
 he may have to express. Thus a Japanese student ap- 
 pended to a set of examination-papers the following 
 note to his teacher:
 
 286 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 "I sent the answer to the second problem in this lesson 
 in double, as I couldn't clear my mind of which is the better. 
 Will you kindly pass your sight through them ?" 
 
 He knew, and we know, what he meant, yet the effect 
 of the whole is queer and confusing. "We must translate 
 the sentences to ourselves before we quite apprehend 
 their meaning. "In double" may be a Japanese idiom, 
 but is not an English idiom. We are not quite sure 
 what is meant till we put it into other words. He could 
 not have written "in duplicate," for he did not mean 
 that. The two solutions were not duplicates, for they 
 were not alike. The very simplest expression would have 
 been "in two forms," from which one gets the meaning 
 without a second thought. 
 
 ' ' Could not clear my mind of which is the better, ' * is 
 very blind. It gives us an idea, but an idea confused 
 and dim. He might have written, "make clear to my 
 mind, " or he might have used the shorter phrase, ' ' sat- 
 isfy my mind," or better "satisfy myself." "Pass 
 your sight through them" is intelligible, but queer, and 
 its oddity checks and hinders thought, while we put it 
 into familiar words, "glance through (or over) them." 
 
 How many supposedly familiar English words are ill- 
 understood by persons of limited education is shown in 
 Mark Twain's "English as She Is Taught," which is 
 full of gems taken (he assures us) from the examination 
 papers of school-children. Thus: "The men employed 
 by the Gas Company go around and speculate the 
 meter." On which Mark comments: "Indeed they do, 
 dear ; and when you grow up, many and many 's the time 
 you will notice it in the gas bill." To that ingenuous 
 youth "inspect" was an incomprehensible word, and 
 "speculate" equally ill-understood, but somewhat more 
 familiar. In the remark, "Holmes is a very profligate
 
 FITTING CHOICE OF WORDS 287 
 
 and amusing writer," evidently the two words "profli- 
 gate" and "prolific" were both blind alleys to that 
 child. 
 
 In "The Middle Ages comes between antiquity and 
 posterity, ' ' the only idea that young writer had of ' ' an- 
 tiquity" was that it was very far in the past; and the 
 only idea of "posterity" that it was very far in the 
 future. The "Middle Ages" were somewhere within 
 that vast gulf of time. To these specimens Mark Twain 
 adds a set of definitions, evidently euphonic: 
 
 Amenable, anything that is mean. 
 
 Assiduity, state of being an acid. 
 
 Auriferous, pertaining to an orifice. (We can see inci- 
 dentally how that pupil pronounced "orifice.") 
 
 Ammonia, the food of the gods (evidently ambrosia). 
 
 Parasite, a kind of umbrella. 
 
 Plagiarist, a writer of plays. 
 
 Sibilant, the state of being idiotic (probably by association 
 with "silly"). 
 
 Mendacious, what can be mended. 
 
 See what idea such defmers would get if a pastor should 
 speak of being ' ' amenable to justice, " or " working with 
 assiduity " ; if he should dwell upon the unworthiness of 
 ' ' living as a parasite, ' ' or refer to some story as a " men- 
 dacious narrative. ' ' Then we are informed that : ' ' Ire- 
 land is called the Emigrant Isle, because it is so beauti- 
 ful and green." It would be of no use to talk to that 
 boy about "emeralds" or "emerald green." 
 
 It is related that an English clergyman was taken to 
 task by a brother minister for "preaching over the 
 heads of the people" by using difficult words. "What 
 word did I use yesterday," he inquired, "that would not 
 be understood by everybody?" "Well, for one thing, 
 you spoke of felicity, when you should have said happi-
 
 288 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 ness." "Everybody knows what felicity means," was 
 the answer. "Very well," said the critic, "we will try 
 it on the first man we meet." The first man was a 
 farmer. ' ' Can you tell me, my friend, ' ' asked the clergy- 
 man, "what felicity is?" "Well," replied the farmer, 
 thoughtfully, ' ' I know it 's something inside of a pig, but 
 I can't tell exactly what." The English farmer has 
 American compeers. The lecture containing this anec- 
 dote was taken in shorthand by a reporter in one of our 
 leading cities, and when the typewritten transcript came 
 to me, the word felicity, each time it occurred, was 
 spelled " phillisity. " The very joke was lost upon the 
 man who reported it. 
 
 On another occasion I dictated to a seemingly intelli- 
 gent young lady stenographer a letter on the importance 
 of accuracy, and when her beautiful typewritten sheets 
 were handed me, I found the key-word, wherever it 
 occurred, given as ' ' accerisy. ' ' Unquestionably many a 
 public speaker loses his audience, and many an author 
 his readers, for want of knowing how difficult many 
 words may be to them, which seem to him simple and 
 easy. How a scholarly man may fail to attain simplicity 
 when earnestly seeking it, is amusingly shown in the 
 following statement which appears in the preface of 
 William James's "Talks to Teachers on Psychology": 
 
 "I have found by experience that what my hearers seem 
 least to relish is analytical technicality, and what they most 
 care for is concrete practical application. So I have gradu- 
 ally weeded out the former and left the latter unreduced; 
 and now, that I have at last written out the lectures, they 
 contain a minimum of what is deemed 'scientific' in psy- 
 chology, and are practical and popular in the extreme." 
 
 Here the professor is trying his utmost to use "prac- 
 tical and popular" language, and believes that he has
 
 FITTING CHOICE OP WORDS 289 
 
 done so. Yet in his very announcement of this purpose 
 he speaks of "minimum" "analytical technicality" and 
 ' ' concrete practical application ' ' among which the aver- 
 age reader would be hopelessly lost. It should be noted, 
 indeed, that he was speaking to teachers, who would not 
 find these words so difficult; but it seems quite evident 
 that he really thought the whole utterance severely sim- 
 ple. Hence, Archbishop Whately, in his "Elements of 
 Rhetoric, ' ' gives the following wise caution : 
 
 "Universally, indeed, an unpracticed writer is apt to be 
 misled by his own knowledge of his own meaning into sup- 
 posing those expressions clearly intelligible which are so to 
 himself, but which may not be so to readers whose thoughts 
 are not in the same train. And hence it is that some do not 
 write or speak with so much perspicuity on a subject which 
 has long been very familiar to them, as on one which they 
 understand, indeed, but with which they are less intimately 
 acquainted, and in which their knowledge has been more 
 recently acquired. In the former case, it is a matter of some 
 difficulty to keep in mind the necessity of carefully and 
 copiously explaining principles which by long habit have 
 come to assume in their minds tbe appearance of self-evident 
 truths. Utterly incorrect, therefore, is Blair's notion that 
 obscurity of style necessarily springs from indistinctness of 
 conception. A little conversation on nautical affairs with 
 sailors or on agriculture with farmers, would soon have unde- 
 ceived him." 
 
 One who would ' ' communicate ' ' thought must be able 
 to think from the hearer's or reader's side, and to 
 express his thought in words that the hearer or reader 
 will readily understand. So it has been many times 
 found in colleges that an eminent scholar is a failure in 
 the attempt to teach the younger students. He has so 
 long ceased to be aware of their difficulties and per- 
 plexities that he cannot even imagine what they are, 
 while some young tutor, just out of college himself, can
 
 290 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 appreciate them all, and lead the immature minds better 
 than the great man who has passed entirely out of sym- 
 pathy with them. Over and over in a thousand ways 
 the demonstration is reiterated that he who would influ- 
 ^ence men must know men. 
 
 On the other hand, a very scholarly speaker or writer 
 may fail by using words so remote from common speech 
 as not to be understood without painful effort. Thus a 
 very learned writer on English grammar, in attempting 
 to explain whether or not the superlative may be used 
 of two objects; whether, for instance, we shall say, 
 "This is the best of the two" quotes Shakespeare as 
 writing ' ' the best half, ' ' and Thackeray as saying, ' ' her 
 mother seemed the youngest of the two, ' ' and then adds 
 this illuminating comment : 
 
 "However natural and usual the comparative is in such 
 cases, the superlative is not absurd, in which the duality is 
 disregarded, and the object attributively determined is de- 
 noted as affected with the quality in the highest degree in 
 the class, which is treated as numerically indifferent." * 
 
 Do you get any definite idea of the meaning of that sen- 
 tence at first reading? Do you get any clear idea at 
 second reading? Do you not have still to flounder with 
 "duality disregarded," "object attributively deter- 
 mined," "affected with the quality," and "treated as 
 numerically indifferent?" What the writer meant to 
 say was: "The superlative indicates an object as at the 
 head of its class or group. But two objects may consti- 
 tute a class or group, and one of the two may be thought 
 of as surpassing all else in that class or group, without 
 any reference to the number of objects included, whether 
 two or more than two; and thus we may properly say 
 
 Maetzner : "English Grammar," Vol. iii, p. 285.
 
 FITTING CHOICE OF WORDS 291 
 
 'the best of the two'." That statement, I take it, any- 
 one can understand. 
 
 Technical Language. Some of the books give as a 
 primary rule, ' ' Avoid technical language. ' ' But, if you 
 are addressing a technical audience, technical language 
 is the very most intelligible that can be employed. Tort, 
 for instance, has for the lawyer a definite meaning, 
 which is somewhat diffused and scattered in the phrase, 
 "a civil or private injury." So everywhere among 
 technical workers, the established terms of their science, 
 art, or craft are more definite, more concise and more 
 readily comprehensible than any popular equivalents 
 that can be found for them. A lawyer addressing the 
 Supreme Court will be perspicuous by using the most 
 recondite legal terms, if he but uses each word in its 
 exact legal sense ; he will be more perspicuous than by the 
 use of popular language, because each of those legal 
 terms has one, and but one, definite meaning. Each 
 such term is ordinarily briefer and more compact than 
 any popular equivalent, and so enables the mind to move 
 more swiftly and surely to a conclusion. But that same 
 counsel in addressing a jury drawn from among the 
 "plain people" will take pains to speak in common and 
 popular language, and if obliged to use a technical legal 
 term, will carefully define and explain it in the forms 
 of common speech. 
 
 In addressing readers or hearers of a distinctly liter- 
 ary or scholarly type, literary and scholarly terms are 
 best. More can be packed into those terms, and more 
 effectively, than into any words of common speech. Such 
 speaking or writing has a high and worthy place, but 
 in every case its field is limited. Let us take, now, some 
 examples of readily comprehended utterance. "We start 
 with that downright saying of Dr. Johnson: "Being in
 
 292 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being 
 drowned." No man ever had to read that statement 
 twice in order to know what it meant. We understand 
 it without a second thought; the remarkable thing is 
 that the old Doctor contrived to give, not only his 
 opinion, but his feeling about seafaring, in those few 
 blunt, rugged words. A very different opinion and 
 feeling is stated more elegantly in the quotations that 
 follow : 
 
 "There the sea I found 
 Calm as a cradled child in dreamless slumber bound." 
 
 SHELLEY : "The Revolt of Islam." 
 
 "A life on the ocean wave ! 
 
 A home on the rolling deep ; 
 Where the scattered waters rave, 
 And the winds their revels keep !" 
 
 EPES SARGENT. 
 
 "O'er the glad waters of the dark blue sea, 
 Our hearts as boundless, and our souls as free, 
 Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam, 
 Survey our empire and behold our home." 
 
 BYRON: "The Corsair," Can. i, St. 1. 
 
 Here every word is simple, while the very swell and 
 surge of the ocean are in the stirring lines. Out of 
 thirty-four words, there is not one of more than two 
 syllables, while twenty-eight are monosyllables. Ele- 
 gance, rhythm, splendor are not barriers to perspicuity. 
 Let us now consider a miscellaneous group that are at 
 once perspicuous, vigorous, and effective: 
 
 "God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are 
 always ready to defend it." 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER: Speech, June 3, 1834. 
 
 "Life is not so short but that there is always time enough 
 for courtesy." EMERSON : "Social Aims."
 
 FITTING CHOICE OP WORDS 293 
 
 "Let us have faith that Right makes Might, and in that 
 faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand 
 it." ABRAHAM LINCOLN: Address, New York City, Feb. 21, 
 1859. 
 
 Equal clearness may be attained in more extended 
 statements. Thus : 
 
 "I had rather believe all the fables in the Legend, and the 
 Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is 
 without a mind." BACON: "Of Atheism." 
 
 "He that seeketh to be eminent among able men hath a 
 great task, but that is ever good for the public." 
 
 BACON : "Of Ambition." 
 
 "Nature is often hidden, sometimes overcome, seldom extin- 
 guished." BACON: "Of Nature in Men." 
 
 "To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to 
 knowledge." BENJ. DISRAELI : "Sybil," Bk. i, Ch. 5. 
 
 "There is no knowledge that is not power." 
 
 EMERSON: "Society and Solitude," "Old Age." 
 
 "Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as 
 a battle won." DUKE OF WELLINGTON : Despatch, 1815. 
 
 ''There is always hope when people are forced to listen to 
 both sides." MILL : "On Liberty." 
 
 "The reward of one duty is the power to fulfil another." 
 GEORGE ELIOT : "Daniel Deronda," Bk. vi, Ch. 46. 
 
 "The rich and the poor meet together: the Lord is the 
 maker of them all." Proverbs xxii, 2. 
 
 "Character is higher than intellect. ... A great soul 
 be strong to live, as well as to think." 
 
 EMERSON: "The American Scholar." 
 
 "It never frightened a Puritan when you bade him stand 
 still and listen to the speech of God. His closet and his 
 church were full of the reverberations of the awful, gracious, 
 beautiful voice for which he listened." 
 
 PHILLIPS BROOKS' Sermons : "The Seriousness of Life"
 
 294 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 Greatness of thought is no bar to perspicuity, nor is 
 beauty of expression a hindrance. We may apply to 
 style what Hare, in "Guesses at Truth," said of truth 
 and manhood: "The greatest truths are the simplest: 
 and so are the greatest men. ' ' 
 
 These quotations are from authors in poetry and in 
 prose, covering numerous departments of English liter- 
 ature, but all characterized by instant intelligibility. 
 What one element is the same in all ? The answer is, the 
 use of words which are understandable by the average 
 reader without a pause of thought. 
 
 The predominance of short words monosyllables or 
 dissyllables has been noted in a number of these quo- 
 tations, and will be found to characterize them all. This 
 shortness of words is characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon, 
 and analysis will show that the words in the selections 
 above given are predominantly Anglo-Saxon. Hence, 
 some have given as a rule for perspicuity, use Anglo- 
 Saxon words. But this rule, while founded on a sound 
 distinction, is practically useless, because few persons 
 can tell what words are Anglo-Saxon, without looking 
 them up one by one in the dictionary. Such etymolog- 
 ical work is prohibitive; it would destroy all freedom 
 and naturalness in speech or writing, and would make 
 any extended composition impossible. Most persons, if 
 suddenly asked, would say that air, face, form, part, 
 sense, and sound are "good old Anglo-Saxon words." 
 But "air" is from the Greek and all the others from the 
 Latin. Words of this type are very numerous. 
 
 The following nouns, adjectives, and verbs belong to 
 the Latin: (Nouns) age, art, cap, case, cent, chance, 
 cost, crust, face, fact, faulty, form, ink, line, mile, min- 
 ute, noise, noon, page, pain, pair, pane, part, peace, pen, 
 piece, point, pound, price, rule, second, sense, soil, sound,
 
 FITTING CHOICE OF WORDS 295 
 
 ton, tone, and vail; (Adjectives) able, apt, chief, clear, 
 common, cross, crude, easy, feeble, firm, frail, gentle, 
 grand, grave, human, just, large, lazy, mere, nice, pale, 
 plain, poor, pure, rare, rich, round, safe, scarce, several, 
 simple, square, sure, vain, vast, and various; (Verbs) 
 add, aid, aim, arm, bate, bet, boil, cure, charge, class, 
 close, cook, doubt, fail, fix, fry, judge, mix, move, pass, 
 pay, pelt, save, serve, sort, strain, stray, study, train, 
 try, turn, and use* 
 
 This list might be greatly extended. Thus we might 
 add account, air, amount, carry, cell, channel, count, 
 fade, fatal, fate, fence, money, number, polite, proper, 
 property, quantity, report, scarce, story, sum, term, test, 
 vacant, verb, and numerous other familiar words, de- 
 rived from the Latin (in many cases through the 
 French). 
 
 These words have all the ear-marks of the Anglo- 
 Saxon. They are short, strong, easy to utter and re- 
 member; they deal with well-known matters, or acts of 
 common life, and in use are familiar to the majority of 
 people. Every child knows the meaning of air, cap, 
 carry, cent, count, easy, modest, money, more, polite, 
 poor, rich, save, sense, story. Every person who has had 
 even a little schooling knows all those above given. 
 
 Why, then, are not these words just as good as the 
 Anglo-Saxon? The answer is that they are. There is 
 nothing sacred in etymology. It is an interesting and 
 valuable study, but is not to be a limitation upon the 
 movement and freedom of language. The Anglo-Saxons 
 and the early Englishmen, when they adopted a word 
 from another language, smashed the shell of etymology, 
 and shaped that word to the type of their own speech. 
 
 *Brainerd Kellogg: "Text-Book on Rhetoric," p. 291.
 
 296 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 What they took over, they also made over. All trace 
 of their origin lost, such words were molded to the 
 Anglo-Saxon type. It is our best way to use them for 
 what they are, with no curious desire to know whence 
 they came. We may be confident that words of the 
 Anglo-Saxon type will be always and everywhere intel- 
 ligible among English-speaking people. They are the 
 words of house, hearth, and home, of field, farm, and 
 garden, of the shop and the camp and the forest and the 
 sea words that can be understood always and every- 
 where without a pause of thought. Hence the rule is 
 simple. To reach all sorts and conditions of human 
 beings, young and old, rich and poor, learned and igno- 
 rant, men, women and children, use the words of com- 
 mon life. 
 
 The quotations already given show how wide is the 
 scope and how high the reach of such words when fit- 
 tingly combined. It is wonderful what loftiness of 
 thought, what depth of feeling may be so expressed. 
 
 The art of speaking to children is chiefly dependent 
 on skilful choice of words. The words they use are 
 chiefly monosyllables, or other short words denoting 
 common objects or simple thoughts and feelings. Some 
 speakers go off into an unintelligible discourse by using 
 learned words for little people. On one occasion a 
 speaker, in addressing a company of children, had occa- 
 sion to use the word epitome, and then said: "It may 
 be, children, that some of you do not know what epitome 
 means. Well, children, an epitome is a compendium, and 
 compendium is synonymous with synopsis." On the 
 other hand, certain speakers try to be so simple that 
 they talk for babies and give the children petty ideas 
 which they despise. The child regards such talk as an 
 insult to his intelligence, and says: "Does he think we
 
 FITTING CHOICE OF WORDS 297 
 
 don't know that?" Then you have lost the child's 
 attention by losing his respect. 
 
 The fact is, that children do a startling amount of 
 deep thinking on the most tremendous themes. They 
 are restrained by no conventionalities, they reduce 
 everything to the concrete, and they expect a definite 
 and final explanation of every problem. Hence, the rule 
 for addressing children is, use plain and simple words. 
 Then you may give the most lofty and beautiful thought 
 you can attain, and often be taxed to keep up with their 
 quick, fearless intellects. 
 
 Whoever will do this, will make another discovery, 
 namely: that when he really interests the children, he 
 holds the grown people without an effort. The most 
 scholarly part of the audience will listen with delight if 
 the thoughts, as well as the words, are worthy of the 
 children. We have not grown so far away from them 
 as we are wont to imagine. 
 
 Incidentally it will be found exceedingly difficult to 
 hide pompous nonsense or ingenious sophistry in words 
 that children can readily understand. 
 
 Yet, in choosing the common, avoid the commonplace. 
 Words are quite sure to carry some flavor of their origi- 
 nal use. Some never cease to be prosaic, some coarse 
 and rude, and can have place only when necessity com- 
 pels. A discriminating good taste is especially necessary 
 in the use of the plain, simple, common words, because 
 they are so very direct and downright that if they are 
 feeble or rude, they are so without disguise. But just 
 because of this directness, it will generally be found 
 that a lofty, noble, or worthy thought will attract to 
 itself plain words fitted for its expression, while an unfit 
 word will so jar on the consciousness as to be instinct- 
 ively rejected. Wordsworth's error in his early poems
 
 298 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 when he thought to make poetry "simple" by writing 
 about idiots, beggars, donkeys, and washtubs, was in the 
 choice, not of words, but of subjects which could not be 
 made poetic. 
 
 Let no one suppose that in order to win or influence 
 children or "the plain, ordinary people," he must de- 
 scend to their habitual mode of speech. The power of 
 understanding language is always in advance of the 
 power of using it. The little child, with not twenty 
 words in his vocabulary, understands a large part of 
 what father or mother says to him. Every great ora- 
 tion or poem is followed with delight by persons who 
 could not have constructed a sentence of it. We have 
 all an ideal of utterance far beyond what we attain. 
 Nobler or fairer words and phrases lie quiescent in our 
 minds, not near enough to our ordinary needs, not vivid 
 enough in association, to be often called into action. But 
 when some master of language brings them fittingly 
 before us as the investiture of some worthy or lofty 
 thought, we recognize them joyfully. He is a benefactor 
 who can give life and breath to our dim ideals, and make 
 them real on the earth for us. In one who can express 
 even our own very thoughts better than we could utter 
 them we recognize an element of leadership and mastery. 
 
 Hence to reach those addressed, let the speaker or 
 writer give them, not the words they would ordinarily 
 use, but the best words they are able to comprehend. 
 Such language will be not less, but more intelligible, for 
 the effort to follow that better diction is intellectual 
 stimulus, and the aroused attention will grasp the 
 thought so uttered with an ease and readiness which 
 sluggish indifference could never attain. Go before your 
 hearers or readers, but not so far before as to be out of 
 touch with them, causing them to lose their guide. Go
 
 FITTING CHOICE OF WORDS 299 
 
 far enough in advance to be their leader, but not so far 
 that they cannot follow. 
 
 There is not only a range of words but a world of 
 thought not within the cognizance of children, and its 
 expression demands words that are not in their vocabu- 
 lary. There is a larger, loftier, and more varied life 
 than is lived by the mass of men, and words beyond their 
 ordinary use are needed for its expression. The world 
 has long since outgrown the Anglo-Saxon vocabulary. 
 Those substantial old words give meaning in solid blocks, 
 where modern thought needs fine discriminations. The 
 advance of science, invention, and mechanism has 
 brought in wholly new objects and relations for which 
 we need words that the Old English stock can not sup- 
 ply. It has become the habit of our language to draw 
 these added words directly from the Latin or Greek, or 
 from those classic tongues through the French, occa- 
 sionally from other languages. A multitude of such 
 words have become so at home in English that we do 
 not think of them as out of the ordinary. Every house- 
 wife has preserves in her pantry, and the signs on every 
 ferry-boat direct our attention to life-preservers. Busi- 
 ness has its contracts and specifications, government its 
 statutes, ordinances, regulations, and penalties. Educa- 
 tion, morality, ethics, religion, philosophy, and science, 
 all derive their names from the classic tongues. It is 
 noticeable that the very adjectives we use to describe 
 the words we most readily understand, as common, easy, 
 familiar, ordinary, plain, simple, usual, and the word 
 clear itself, are all from the Latin. 
 
 One who will study the masterpieces of our literature, 
 those that win, delight, impress the ordinary mind, 
 while at the same time they captivate and enthrall the 
 scholar, the immortal utterances which the world will
 
 300 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 not let die, will find that they have met this double 
 need by a wise and skilful intermingling of the words 
 of common life with those that are out of the ordinary, 
 delicate, dignified, musical, resonant, lofty, noble, ex- 
 alted. These are deftly sandwiched in, just where they 
 will have the fullest effect of beauty or power, and in 
 their setting are instantly all at home. At each point 
 where one of these choicer words occurs, we could sub- 
 stitute no other, wish for no other. Beauty, force, dig- 
 nity, sublimity, are joined with highest perspicuity. 
 
 See how perfect is the mosaic in Gray's renowned 
 poem. In the following survey we have run through 
 the essential part of the poem, italicizing all the words 
 derived from the Latin, Greek, or French, and leaving 
 unmarked the Anglo-Saxon words, and, also, those from 
 the Danish, Norse, or kindred tongues which found their 
 way into English at so early a date that they may be 
 classed as native English words. 
 
 We may end the examination with the twenty-third 
 stanza, for there the poem really ends. The poet had 
 then exhausted his inspiration and written all he had 
 to write. The added portion, with its sickly description 
 of the melancholy swain and the studied affectations 
 of the "Epitaph," is an afterthought to finish a poem 
 that was already done. They bring in the artificiality 
 of his age, which he had avoided, when, in the essential 
 part of the poem, he simply followed the thoughts and 
 feeling of a broad-minded, thoughtful, tender-hearted 
 man. 
 
 I 
 
 The citrfew tolls the knell of parting day, 
 The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea, 
 
 The plowman homeward plods his weary way, ^ 
 
 And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
 
 FITTING CHOICE OF WORDS 301 
 
 Here the very first prominent word is of Old-French 
 derivation, curfew. Yet the word was familiar enough 
 in Gray's time not to seem remote or repellent, while 
 the Anglo-Saxon word toll carries the note of the bell 
 in its very sound, and who ever thinks of parting as 
 from the Latin ? The two closing lines of the stanza are 
 all Anglo-Saxon, and in the word "plod" you hear the 
 heavy tramp of the tired man, as he walks homeward, 
 "plod plod plod." 
 
 II 
 
 Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, 
 And all the air a solemn stillness holds, 
 
 Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, 
 And drowsy tiiiklings lull the distant folds. 
 
 The Anglo-Saxon word "glimmering" is expressive of 
 the hour. The "landscape" is perceptible in the twi- 
 light, but indistinct in the slight tremor of the evening 
 air. The Anglo-Saxon word "landscape" is perfectly 
 at home with the Old-French fade, as the "landscape" 
 fades. The Greek air and the Latin solemn fit readily 
 with the Anglo-Saxon "stillness" and "sight." In the 
 third line the introductory save, from the French, is a 
 trifle bookish, but fits well with the elevated style of the 
 poem, while the Latin distant does not seem strange or 
 foreign, but joins naturally with the "droning flight" 
 of the "beetle" and the "drowsy tinklings" of the 
 "folds." 
 
 Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower 
 The moping owl does to the moon complain 
 
 Of such as, wand'ring near her secret bower, 
 Molest her ancient solitary reign.
 
 ^302 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 The Latin mantled has become so thoroughly natural- 
 ized that it can be compounded with a pure Anglo- 
 Saxon word in ivy-mantled, while the tower, originally 
 from the Latin turris, has become so completely a part 
 of the language, that no one thinks of it as a foreign 
 derivative. The Anglo-Saxon moping owl, wandering, 
 and bower harmonize completely with the Latin and 
 Latin-French complain, secret, and molest. In the clos- 
 ing line every word except the pronoun is from the 
 Latin, either directly or through the French, but what 
 a special dignity these more scholarly words lend to the 
 line "Molest her ancient solitary reign." 
 
 IV 
 
 Beneath those rugged elms, that yew tree's shade, 
 Where heaves the turf in many a mold'ring heap, 
 
 Each in his narrow cell forever laid, 
 
 The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep. 
 
 A stanza of almost pure Anglo-Saxon, where the Latin 
 cell and rude seem as Anglo-Saxon as the rest. The 
 word hamlet, directly from the Old-French, is ultimately 
 from the Old-Friesian, a speech closely akin to the 
 Anglo-Saxon. 
 
 V 
 
 The breezy call of incense-breathing Morn, 
 
 The swallow twitt'ring from the straw-built shed, 
 
 The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, 
 No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. 
 
 The Latin Old-French clarion seems somewhat far 
 from familiar life; but perhaps there is its very charm 
 in connection with the familiar cock and shrill. "The 
 cock's shrill clarion" is more poetic than "the cock's 
 shrill crowing" would be, and the apt metaphor ele-
 
 FITTING CHOICE OF WOKDS 303 
 
 vates that familiar note with a touch of pleasant sur- 
 prise. The echoing, from the far-off Greek, combines 
 perfectly with the plain Anglo-Saxon horn. How per- 
 fectly the deftly fitted words bring the whole scene 
 before us! We seem almost to inhale the very air of 
 that "incense-breathing morn," and respond to its 
 ' ' breezy call, ' ' as the ' ' echoing horn ' ' of hunters riding 
 by answers the familiar sounds of awakening nature. 
 
 It is impossible here to trace further the items, stanza 
 by stanza and word by word, though anyone who will 
 follow out such analysis will find himself well repaid. 
 
 VI 
 
 For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, 
 Or busy housewife ply her evening care; 
 
 No children run to lisp their sire's return, 
 Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share. 
 
 VII 
 
 Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield, 
 
 Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke; 
 
 How jocund did they drive their team afield! 
 How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke! 
 
 VIII 
 
 Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, 
 Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; 
 
 Nor Grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile, 
 The short and simple annals of the poor. 
 
 IX 
 
 The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, 
 And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, 
 
 Await alike th' inevitable hour: 
 
 The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
 
 304 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 Nor you, ye Proud, impute to these the fault, 
 If Mem'ry o'er their tomb no trophies raise, 
 
 Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vauU 
 The pealing anthem swells the note of praise. 
 
 XI 
 
 Can storied urn or animated bust 
 
 Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath ? 
 
 Can Honor's voice provoke the silent dust, 
 
 Or Flatt'ry soothe the dull, cold ear of Death ? 
 
 Let us take up stanzas IX-XI, which seem most replete 
 with words of foreign derivation. Here the access of 
 classic and less familiar words fits the movement of 
 thought. Heraldry, pomp, the pealing anthem, the 
 storied urn and animated bust seem to bring before us 
 the stately scene of solemn procession down cathedral 
 aisles, as some honored leader is laid to glorious rest. 
 The less familiar words fit the majestic scene, which is 
 out of the ordinary and above the common. Yet mark 
 how completely the French beauty chimes with the 
 Anglo-Saxon wealth; how the word of native English 
 stock is at home amid its high surroundings. The 
 longest Latin derivative, inevitable, comes in simply and 
 naturally; its smoothly flowing syllables fit the poetic 
 measure, while the word has in itself a loftiness and 
 dignity which bring the whole line up to match the sol- 
 emn majesty of death "the INEVITABLE hour." 
 
 But the final line of stanza XI is entirely Anglo- 
 Saxon, yet matches perfectly with all the preceding, 
 and follows without shock or jar: 
 
 "Or Flatt'ry soothe the dull, cold ear of Death." 
 We pass on:
 
 305 
 
 XII 
 
 Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid 
 
 Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; 
 
 Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed, 
 Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre. 
 
 XIII 
 
 But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page, 
 Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll; 
 
 Chill Penury repressed their noble rage, 
 And froze the genial current of the soul. 
 
 XIV 
 
 Full many a gem of purest ray serene 
 
 The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear; 
 
 Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, 
 And waste its sweetness on the desert air. 
 
 XV 
 
 Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast 
 The little tyrant of his fields withstood; 
 
 Some mute, inglorious Milton here may rest. 
 Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood. 
 
 XVI 
 
 Th' applause of list'ning senates to command, 
 The threats of pain and ruin to despise, 
 
 To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, 
 
 And read their history in a nation's eyes, 
 
 XVII 
 
 Their lot forbade; nor circumscribed alone 
 
 Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined; 
 
 Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne, 
 And shut the gates of mercy on mankind, 
 
 XVIII 
 
 The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, 
 To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame, 
 
 Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride 
 With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.
 
 306 EXPRESSIVE EN 7 GLISH 
 
 XIX 
 
 Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, 
 Their sober wishes never learned to stray; 
 
 Along the cool sequestered vale of life 
 
 They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. 
 
 XX 
 
 Yet ev'n these bones from insult to protect 
 Some frail memorial still erected nigh, 
 
 With uncouth rimes and shapeless sculpture decked, 
 Implores the passing tribute of a sigh. 
 
 XXI 
 
 Their name, their years, spelt by th' unlettered Muse, 
 
 The place of fame and elegy supply; 
 And many a holy text around she strews, 
 
 That teach the rustic moralist to die. 
 
 XXII 
 
 For who, to dumb Forgetfulness a prey, 
 This pleasing anxious being e'er resigned, 
 
 Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, 
 Nor cast one longing, ling'ring look behind? 
 
 XXIII 
 
 On some fond breast the parting soul relies, 
 Some pious drops the closing eye requires; 
 
 Ev'n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries, 
 Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires. 
 
 In these closing stanzas (XXII-XXIII) the same 
 effect above noticed is to be observed. Each closing line 
 is all in the native speech : 
 
 "Nor cast one longing, ling'ring look behind;" 
 "Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires."
 
 FITTING CHOICE OP WORDS 307 
 
 Yet the harmony with the preceding lines of each stanza 
 is still perfect. We doubt whether the poet, finished 
 scholar though he was, consciously thought of etymolo- 
 gies as he wrote. We believe, rather, that he took at 
 each moment the word which then seemed most appro- 
 priate, and which best suited his artistic, poetic sense. 
 
 Such a study shows the profound unity which the 
 variously derived words of the English language have 
 achieved through the usage of centuries. It shows, also, 
 that the effect of clearness produced by words depends, 
 not upon the place from which they come, but upon the 
 place which they have made for themselves among the 
 harmoniously blended elements of our language. Far 
 beyond etymological research, perspicuity, as well as 
 beauty and power, is to be found in the accepted usage 
 of words and their appropriateness to place and con- 
 text in the connection which the speaker or writer as- 
 signs them.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 CLEARNESS OF STYLE III 
 BY THE MASTERY OF SENTENCE-CONSTRUCTION 
 
 Construction is literally a ' ' building together. ' ' Rhe- 
 torically, it is the building together of words into coher- 
 ent statements: first, in sentences; then in paragraphs; 
 and finally in an entire composition. 
 
 There is a sentence-structure so perfect, that every 
 word helps to the understanding of every other, 
 strengthening, explaining, or illuminating; and there is 
 a sentence-structure in which every word seems to be 
 in the way of every other, so that the hearer or reader 
 makes his way as over loose building materials, stum- 
 bling, slipping, and struggling on, hindered at every 
 step by that which, if properly constructed, would 
 afford shelter, comfort, and beauty. The ill-heaped 
 material may be of choice wood or costly stone, perhaps 
 richly carved, but its lack of structure makes it but a 
 rubbish-heap. Take, for instance, the following anec- 
 dote : 
 
 "An English professor, traveling through the Kentucky 
 hills, noted various quaint expressions. For instance, after 
 a long ride, he sought provisions at a mountain hut. "Mad- 
 am," said the professor, "can we get corn bread here? We'd 
 like to buy some of you." "Co'n bread?" replied the dame. 
 "Why, if co'n bread is all yo' want, come right in; for that's 
 jest what I hain't got nuthin' else on hand but." 
 
 Here, the words, though rude, are perfectly intelligible, 
 but are so strangely pitched together, as to compel the 
 
 308
 
 SENTENCE-CONSTRUCTION 309 
 
 mind to struggle for the meaning, which fewer words 
 would have made absolutely clear, "for that's all I 
 have on hand." Or, consider a specimen of a very dif- 
 ferent type, an announcement posted at a popular sum- 
 mer resort: 
 
 "Inattention or incivility of attendants, if notified, the pro- 
 prietor will be pleased." 
 
 In this statement the words are of a high quality, 
 more than ordinarily excellent, but the effect is con- 
 fusing. We know what is meant, but in a confused and 
 cloudy manner. Perspicuity, ' ' see-through-it-ive-ness, ' ' 
 is lacking. We see the idea, as we sometimes see a shape 
 through a pane of cathedral glass, when we may know 
 that it is a human figure, and may even be able to judge 
 whether it is that of man or woman, while no features 
 nor outlines are distinctly perceptible. In the case of 
 such a sentence, we must mentally translate the sen- 
 tence, before we are fully in possession of the meaning : 
 
 "The proprietor will consider it a favor to be notified of 
 any inattention or incivility of attendants." 
 
 Ah, yes ! All is at once evident. The words are nearly 
 the same, but the construction is now coherent. The 
 following statute is said to have been proposed in the 
 legislature of Arkansas: 
 
 "When two trains, coming from different directions, ap- 
 proach any crossing in this state, both shall come to a full 
 stop, and neither shall proceed, until the other has passed by." 
 
 This construction has the fault of undue compres- 
 sion. The writer has telescoped two sentences, with the 
 odd result, that his meaning is discernible, while his 
 statement is impossible. He simply needed a few more 
 words to fill out his scheme :
 
 310 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 " , both shall come to a full stop, after which the 
 
 one having the right of way shall proceed, while the other 
 shall wait until the first has passed by." 
 
 Observe that here, also, the words are all excellent, 
 and there is a suggestion of legal precision and exact- 
 ness; but all is precipitated into chaos just when we 
 wait for the conclusion, and the trains are left forever 
 stalled upon a contradiction in terms. 
 
 A reporter in the New York Herald, of August 5, 
 1915, undertook the difficult assignment of reporting a 
 meeting in Trinity Church, which had been understood 
 to be one of prayer for the success of the Allies, when, 
 of course, strict neutrality required that equally fer- 
 vent prayers should be offered at the same time for the 
 success of the Germans. Here is the reporter's solu- 
 tion: 
 
 "The church was thronged when the assistant rector began 
 the noon-day service. Several delegations of British socie- 
 ties marched in, and took seats. The service followed the 
 usual order. If prayers were offered for the success of the 
 Allies, as reported, they were done so privately." 
 
 Of course, prayers that were "done so" would be 
 unobjectionable. 
 
 Rhetorical is closely connected with grammatical con- 
 struction, but the rhetorical always transcends the 
 grammatical. A statement may be rhetorically prepos- 
 terous, while grammatically faultless, as in the case of 
 that attributed to Mr. Bonar Law in the House of Com- 
 mons: 
 
 "Sir, the government has fallen into the habit of letting 
 tilings drift, until they run against a precipice, which brings 
 them to a stand."
 
 SENTENCE-CONSTRUCTION 311 
 
 Grammatically this statement is correct, but rhetori- 
 cally its conjunction of ideas is astounding. For, the 
 only fault of a precipice is, that one does not "run 
 against" it, and that there is nothing to " bring (one) 
 to a stand." If something only would, the unfortu- 
 nate wayfarer might avoid going over. When this 
 statement was received with roars of laughter, Mr. Law 
 is said to have remarked that "he was aware that he 
 had expressed himself badly, but he thought the House 
 would understand him." This is an illuminating re- 
 mark. For, one of the most prolific causes of non-per- 
 spicuous utterance is just this confidence that hearers 
 or readers, from their antecedent knowledge, will ex- 
 tract a meaning, which the language employed does not 
 convey. But from truly perspicuous language it is 
 never necessary to disentangle the meaning. It lies be- 
 fore the mind as a landscape before the eye in the clear 
 light of sun or moon. It is only necessary to open the 
 eyes and see. To secure such clearness, certain require- 
 ments are absolutely indispensable. 
 
 1. The subject must stand out, manifest and inescapa- 
 ble, as the chief thing to be considered. For the gram- 
 matical subject, it is enough, if it but exists, and is in 
 right relation with the predicate verb. Then the sen- 
 tence is grammatical. But the rhetorical subject, the 
 subject of discourse, must fix and hold the attention 
 beyond a peradventure. This subject should appear 
 clearly at the outset. If limitations and negations must 
 come in, they should be held clearly subordinate to the 
 main theme, and at times that theme may need to be re- 
 stated, in order to regain its due prominence. Thus a 
 lawyer might have occasion to say, "We charge that 
 this act is a felony, not under the common law, but 
 under an express statute, which supersedes the common
 
 312 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 law; not under the laws of Pennsylvania, but of New 
 York; not to be determined by ancient precedents, but 
 by the law enacted by the legislature of the State of New 
 
 York in the year 1915, which provides ." Then 
 
 the recital of the law brings back his subject, felony. 
 So in all cases, the point to be made, the main subject 
 of discourse in the immediate connection, must stand 
 clearly evident, as the one thing the hearer or reader 
 cannot miss, overlook, nor forget. 
 
 This rhetorical subject may, or may not, coincide with 
 the grammatical subject. Where the two are identical 
 there is a special clearness in the construction, as in the 
 opening of Bacon's ''Essay on Learning:" 
 
 "Learning taketh away the wildness, barbarism, and fierce- 
 ness of men's minds." 
 
 You may approve or criticise that statement. You 
 may, perhaps, consider it a half-truth, misleading in its 
 result. But you have not an instant's doubt what it 
 means. You do not have to read it twice. It is per- 
 spicuous to the utmost. So is the following, from 
 Charles Sumner's oration on "The True Grandeur of 
 Nations : ' ' 
 
 "The true greatness of nations is in those qualities which 
 constitute the greatness of the individual." 
 
 But such identity of the rhetorical with the gram- 
 matical subject is not a matter to worry about. The 
 rhetorical subject may stand out in effective promi- 
 nence, when it is a subordinate element of the gram- 
 matical construction. Thus in the famed sentence from 
 Richard Hooker's "Ecclesiastical Polity:" 
 
 "Of law there can be no less acknowledged than that her 
 seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world.
 
 SENTENCE-CONSTRUCTION 313 
 
 All things in heaven or earth do her homage, the very least 
 as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from 
 her power." 
 
 The word "law", here, is grammatically the object 
 of a preposition, but it takes instant command of the 
 whole construction, because everything else that is said 
 is gathered around and related to the one great thought 
 which that word expresses. Sometimes, by inversion, 
 the rhetorical subject may be swept to the very end 
 of a sentence, as part of the grammatical predicate. It 
 is the rhetorical subject still. This will be seen in the 
 extract following, from Kant's "Critique of Practical 
 Reason," which, though a translation, is clear and vig- 
 orous still: 
 
 "Two things there are, which, the oftener and the more 
 steadfastly we consider them, fill the mind with an ever new, 
 an ever- increasing admiration and reverence: the starry 
 heavens above, the moral law within." 
 
 This requirement of making the subject stand out 
 may be enforced by certain negative corollaries : 
 
 (1) Do not bury the subject. Some authors, often 
 supposed to be profound, have a trick of hiding a sub- 
 ject in a sentence or paragraph so that it is unapproach- 
 able from either end. Archbishop Whately in his ' ' Ele- 
 ments of Rhetoric" quotes such a sentence: 
 
 "It is not without a degree of patient attention and perse- 
 vering diligence, greater than the generality are willing to 
 bestow, though not greater than the subject deserves, that 
 the habit can be acquired of examining and judging of our 
 own conduct wrtjh the same accuracy and impartiality as 
 that of another." 
 
 This sentence is so bad that it is not worth the space 
 required to show completely how bad it is. We may
 
 314 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 note a few items. You must pass twenty-eight words 
 before you touch the subject, and then you get but a 
 piece of it, "habit." Then the verb "can be acquired" 
 comes in to stave you off from learning what the 
 "habit" is, that is so difficult to acquire. At last that 
 appears, but so broken up by limitations of "examin- 
 ing" and "judging," "accuracy" and "impartiality," 
 that the mind infallibly goes off on a sidetrack, and 
 "finds no end, in wandering mazes lost." The Arch- 
 bishop labors valiantly to reconstruct the sentence, and 
 does make some improvement, but it remains ugly when 
 all is done. Still it requires "a degree of patient at- 
 tention and persevering diligence greater than the gen- 
 erality are willing to bestow, ' ' to find out what it means. 
 Therefore "the generality" will not try. 
 
 There is nothing to do with such a sentence, but to 
 smash it. Break it up into parts, and the mind may be 
 able to attend to them separately. What the author of 
 the sentence wants to say is : 
 
 "The habit of examining our own conduct as accurately as 
 that of another, and judging of it as impartially, is difficult 
 to acquire. It can only be attained by patient attention and 
 persevering diligence. But the result is worth the endeavor." 
 
 Broken up into three sentences, with a total of forty- 
 one words, the statement is comprehensible, as it was 
 not in the one sentence of fifty-two words. But we have 
 left out some qualifications and limitations! Yes, and 
 perhaps it would have been well to leave out more. Few 
 speakers or writers, who attain results, carry many of 
 those things along. We can spare that rap at the gen- 
 eral public, "the generality" for instance, for the 
 sake of having that general public get clearly what we 
 do say. Then, that modifying clause, "though not
 
 SENTENCE-CONSTRUCTION 315 
 
 greater than the subject deserves," which was at once 
 embarrassing and feeble, as originally sandwiched in, 
 becomes effective, when set off by contrast, as a conclud- 
 ing thought, ''But the result is worth the endeavor." 
 There is, then, a reason for trying to do this hard thing. 
 
 Whenever a writer finds himself wound up in a cum- 
 brous and clumsy sentence, which he cannot disentangle, 
 let him do what Alexander did, cut the knot. Then 
 he can separate the ends. Start the sentence anew. 
 Shake yourself free from the form in which you have 
 originally cast your sentence. A writer's own words 
 often become to him a yoke of bondage. Ask yourself, 
 "Just what do I really want to say?" Then say just 
 that, in any way you can, and you will probably find 
 that you have blundered into the very best way. What 
 is transparently clear to you is likely to be so to other 
 people. If you have dropped any modifiers or limiting 
 clauses in this process, do not let that disturb you. 
 Those you address would have dropped them, if you 
 had not, and probably much else along with them. The 
 faculty of obliteration possessed by readers and audi- 
 ences must, always be reckoned with. You cannot give 
 people more than they can understand, nor more than 
 they will take the trouble to understand. If any of the 
 eliminated matter is really important to your subject, 
 you can see that when it is outside the mass, and give 
 it such separate place as it may be worth. But most of 
 the provisos in intricate discourses and disquisitions 
 are as unimportant as kid gloves to a railroad engineer. 
 In all speech and writing the chief question must be, Is 
 the sentence or paragraph carrying the subject on to its 
 destination! 
 
 (2) Do not change the subject needlessly or heed- 
 lessly. There is a natural and legitimate change of sub-
 
 316 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 ject, asin narration or description, which conduces to 
 freed&M"/4nd variety. But there is a wanton and pur- 
 poseless change of subject that springs simply from lack 
 of definiteness in the speaker's or writer's thought. 
 Various ideas are adrift in his mind, and he picks them 
 up by whichever end is handiest, and pitches them into 
 the receptacle of his sentence, leaving the hearer or 
 reader to arrange them into such mental order as he 
 can. 
 
 "The ship reached her port in safety, but two days had 
 elapsed beyond the time when her arrival had been expected, 
 as there had been violent storms, and the sea bad been very 
 rough, so that progress was difficult, and a crowd of my 
 friends met me at the dock." 
 
 This sentence is almost as difficult as the voyage it 
 describes, and the reception of the narrator by ' ' a crowd 
 of friends" comes in at the end with a suddenness to 
 make one gasp. We had read of "the ship," but had 
 no idea that he was on board. Six subjects, ship, days, 
 arrival, storm, sea, progress, had successively claimed 
 our attention, and when he at last appears, it is not as 
 a subject, but as an object, whom the "crowd of friends" 
 liave come to see. Subsidiary topics have been brought 
 into prominence, with the effect of distracting attention 
 from one to another in succession. All the lines are dis- 
 continuous, so that there is no clear image. 
 
 As regards the choice of subject, the author should 
 train himself to ask, from time to time, "Just what do 
 I most wish to speak of here?" That, once decided, 
 should be the main subject of that sentence or para- 
 graph, to which all else should be subsidiary. In the 
 example just given, the chief consideration is the ex- 
 perience of tbe returned traveler, which, as he is him-
 
 SENTENCE-CONSTRUCTION 317 
 
 self telling the story, will naturally be in the first per- 
 son: 
 
 "I arrived safely, though two days late, after a rough and 
 stormy voyage, and was met at the dock by a crowd of 
 friends." 
 
 Following a single subject, the mind grasps the en- 
 tire meaning without conscious effort. Against such 
 confused construction as above instanced, set the fol- 
 lowing sentence, in which transparent clearness is at- 
 tained : 
 
 "The good writer says all that he means to say, says no 
 more than he means to say, and says all exactly as he means 
 to say it." 
 
 Here the "good writer" is at the front from first to 
 last, and we follow his characteristics with ease and 
 pleasure. 
 
 (3) Do not confuse the subject by following an ad- 
 junct, as in the sentence, ' ' The entire expanse of the ex- 
 tensive grounds were illuminated by electric light." 
 What is wrong about that? the novice may ask. "The 
 grounds WERE illuminated. ' ' Yes, but we were speak- 
 ing of the expanse. Of what extremes this sort of error 
 is capable may be seen in the following clipping from 
 a daily paper published at the capital of the United 
 States : 
 
 "The deliberations ended, each member of the party, which 
 numbered twenty, stationed himself at different parts of the 
 stream, and began to form a narrowing circle." 
 
 Here the reporter evidently left "each member," and 
 was going on with "the party" as his subject. But he 
 did not quite have the courage of his inaccuracy. If he 
 had gone bravely on, and said "stationed themselves," 
 that would not, indeed, have been grammatical, but it
 
 318 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 would have been intelligible. Better still, he might 
 have foreseen his need of a divisible subject, and said 
 at the outset "the members of the party." Then he 
 could have added "stationed themselves," etc., with 
 both grammatical and rhetorical consistency. Somehow 
 the indispensable prerequisite of a clear subject must 
 be met and adhered to. 
 
 This is equally true of the simplest anecdote, the 
 lightest and most playful description, and the highest 
 flights of poetry and oratory. Take, for instance, the 
 description of Ichabod Crane's steed, in Irving's 
 "Legend of Sleepy Hollow:" 
 
 "The animal he bestrode was a broken-down plow-horse, 
 that had outlived almost everything but his viciousness. He 
 was gaunt and shagged, with a ewe-neck, and a head like a 
 hammer; his rusty mane and tail were tangled and knotted 
 with burrs; one eye had lost its pupil, and was glaring and 
 spectral, but the other had the gleam of a genuine devil in it. 
 Still, he must have had fire and mettle in his day, if we may 
 judge by his name, which was Gunpowder." 
 
 All the varied particulars unite to make one vivid, 
 comic picture. Every touch brings out more clearly the 
 one theme of the paragraph, the delineation of that 
 quaint old horse, till we see him as if he had passed our 
 own door. Now turn to Tennyson's solemn "In Memo- 
 riam," and read his description of the rise of a great 
 man from humble life to the heights of power: 
 
 As some divinely gifted MAN, 
 Whose life in low estate began, 
 And on a simple village green; 
 
 Who breaks his birth's invidious bar, 
 And grasps the skirts of happy chance, 
 And breasts the blows of circumstance, 
 
 And grapples with his evil star;
 
 SENTENCE-CONSTRUCTION 319 
 
 Who makes by force his merit known, 
 And lives to clutch the golden keys, 
 To mould a mighty state's decrees, 
 
 And shape the whisper of the throne; 
 
 And moving up from high to higher, 
 Becomes on Fortune's crowning slope, 
 The pillar of a people's hope, 
 
 The center of a world's desire. 
 
 Through all that one "man" is at the forefront of 
 thought. The prolonged description of his career is 
 clear and easy to follow, because the one subject is never 
 confused, nor lost sight of. 
 
 2. The predicate must stand out : not necessarily the 
 predicate verb, which may be a mere "copula" or link 
 of construction; but the essential thing said or "predi- 
 cated" about the subject, and answering to the subject. 
 If the verb itself is the vital answer to the subject, that 
 is well. Thus: 
 
 "The Lord preserveth all them that love him; but all the 
 wicked will he destroy." 
 
 You do not have to read back, or to think back, to 
 learn the fate of the righteous or of the wicked. There 
 it is before your eyes. 
 
 "O sing unto the Lord a new song; for he hath done mar- 
 velous things: his right hand and his holy arm hath gotten 
 him the victory." 
 
 Here the prominence is given to subordinate elements 
 of the predicate, "a new song," "marvelous things," 
 ' ' victory ; ' ' but how the passage sings and triumphs ! 
 
 (1) There must always be a predicate verb. Many 
 ill-instructed persons will write a series of words like 
 the following :
 
 320 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 "Haying at last been compelled to relinquish the attempt 
 on account of numerous obstacles and difficulties and much 
 opposition." 
 
 Such a writer is not aware that he has not made a 
 sentence. Why not? There are words enough; there 
 is recital of important items; there is a period. Yes, 
 there is everything except a verb. The mind has no 
 resting-place. That "having been," with all the ensu- 
 ing words, stands only as a participial phrase, introduc- 
 tory to an expected conclusion, and there is no con- 
 clusion. The accumulated words, without a verb, fail 
 to express a complete thought. "With a verb, we might 
 have a sentence, as if the narrator had said, "Having 
 at last been compelled to relinquish the attempt, etc., / 
 went home.'' There we have completed action. 
 
 (2) The predicate verb should not be isolated, unless 
 it is by itself of supreme importance. In the following 
 verse of the fourth Psalm, we have, in the Authorized 
 English Version, both constructions: 
 
 "I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep; for thou, 
 Lord, only makest me to dwell in safety." 
 
 At the end of the first clause, the verb, "sleep," may 
 well stand alone, for it expresses the crowning act of a 
 trustful soul, even in the midst of perils. He dares to 
 "sleep." But in the second clause, the verb "dwell" is 
 no* by itself important. A certain paraphrase renders 
 this, " makest me in safety to dwell." By such ren- 
 dering the meaning is obscured. To dwell is not such a 
 great thing. It is the condition in which one dwells 
 that is of consequence. This the Authorized Version 
 brings out by carrying the modifier, and not the verb, 
 to the emphatic place at the end of the sentence, " 
 to dwell in safety." That is the thing to be desired.
 
 SENTENCE-CONSTRUCTION 321 
 
 The treatment of the predicates constitutes one of many 
 grounds of criticism upon the subjoined utterance of 
 Henry James in his essay on "The Question of Our 
 Speech:" 
 
 "But the term I here apply brings me to my second answer 
 to your three or four postulated challenges the question of 
 what I mean by speaking badly. I might reply to you, very 
 synthetically, that I mean by speaking badly, speaking as 
 millions and millions of supposedly educated, supposedly civ- 
 ilized persons that is the point of both sexes, in our great 
 country, habitually, persistently, imperturbably, and I think 
 for the most part all unwittingly, speak; that form of satis- 
 faction to you being good enough isn't it? to cover much 
 of the ground." 
 
 Here are twenty-nine words, some of them long and 
 difficult, between the subject, "millions," and the verb, 
 "speak," and we are sorry for that poor little predi- 
 cate verb, when it limps in alone at the end of the pro- 
 cession, and are fain to ask, Why does this appear, and 
 where did it come from? for we had forgotten that any 
 predicate verb was ever to be needed. 
 
 (3) The predicate should stop. We all know talkers 
 of whom no one can tell when they have finished. It is 
 impossible to interject a remark, because their every 
 statement has an appendix in continuous sequence. It 
 was the fortune of the present author to hear an ad- 
 dress by a society lady of this type. Repeatedly she 
 approached a peroration, but at the very crowning mo- 
 ment a new suggestion attached itself, and she was off 
 once more. Suddenly she burst out, "Well, the only 
 way I can stop is to sit down," which she accordingly 
 did, to her own great relief, and that of her audience. 
 The relation of many a speaker or writer to his sentence 
 is that of a rider to a runaway horse. He can neither
 
 322 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 stop nor get off. He needs the curb-bit of a period. Let 
 him settle decisively what is the legitimate end of that 
 sentence, and stop there. If he should chance to have 
 another idea, it will always be possible to construct an- 
 other sentence. If the idea is worth adding, it is worth 
 a sentence of its own. Here is to be noted the vicious 
 fault of the "trailing clause," that is, a clause gram- 
 matically attached to the end of a sentence, with which 
 it is not connected except grammatically. 
 
 "He (Tillotson) was exceedingly beloved, both by King 
 William and Queen Mary, who nominated Dr. Tennison, 
 Bishop of London, to succeed him." 
 
 The first thought suggested is, that however much the 
 king and queen loved the good man, they very promptly 
 and readily filled his place. 
 
 Sometimes a similar effect is wrought, not by a dis- 
 tinct clause, but by a descriptive phrase. An instance 
 of this occurs in a work, of which the style is, in gen- 
 eral, remarkable for excellence: 
 
 "The instruments of this revolt are likely to be found 
 among the exasperated poor; but the provocation to revolt is 
 likely to proceed from the unemployed and self-indulgent 
 rich, spenders of that which others have gained, the persons 
 of whom Mr. Ruskin has said that their wealth should be 
 called their ill-th, because it is not well, but ill with their 
 souls." 
 
 This sentence should have ended with "the unem- 
 ployed and self-indulgent rich." The descriptive por- 
 tion that follows has the effect, not only of letting the 
 thought gradually down, but also of diverting it, until 
 the added phrase has obscured the principal statement. 
 The sharpness of contrast between the "exasperated 
 poor" and the "self-indulgent rich" has disappeared.
 
 SENTENCE-CONSTRUCTION 323 
 
 The power of which the predicate, when well handled, 
 is capable may be seen in the following passages from 
 the grand Elizabethan English * of our Authorized 
 Version of the Scriptures; where in sentence after sen- 
 tence the predicate carries the wealth of thought, so 
 that some of them may be said to be almost all predi- 
 cate: 
 
 "If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, now 
 may Israel say; 
 
 "If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, when 
 men rose up against us; 
 
 "Then they had swallowed us up quick, when their wrath 
 was kindled against us; 
 
 "Then the waters had overwhelmed us, the stream had 
 gone over our soul; 
 
 'Then the proud waters had gone over our soul. 
 
 "Blessed be the Lord, who hath not given us as a prey to 
 their teeth. 
 
 "Our soul is escaped, as a bird out of the snare of the 
 fowlers, the snare is broken, and we are escaped. 
 
 "Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven 
 and earth." 
 
 "Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, 
 and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the 
 dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains 
 in scales, and the hills in a balance?" 
 
 "It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the 
 inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out 
 the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent 
 to dwell in." Is. xl, 12, 22. 
 
 * Our Authorized Version unfortunately bears the name of 
 King James I; but, as it was begun in the second year after h 
 came to the throne, and finished in the eighth, even the royal 
 authority could provide no scholars or translators, except those 
 trained and ripened under Elizabeth's reign.
 
 324 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 Here the subjects are unimportant pronouns; it is 
 the successive predicates that bring out the fulness and 
 majesty of the divine power. 
 
 LONG AND SHORT SENTENCES 
 
 Apart from the subject and predicate, as making up 
 the sentence, there are questions of the form of the sen- 
 tence as a whole, that deserve to be considered in rela- 
 tion to perspicuity. Long and short sentences are 
 relative terms, of no definitely established meaning. 
 
 "The average English sentence nowadays is said to con- 
 tain about thirty words ; any sentence over fifty words would 
 probably be called long, any sentence under twenty words 
 would be termed short. Moreover, if a writer habitually 
 used sentences averaging over fifty words, his sentences would 
 be conspicuous for their length ; if an average of twenty, the 
 reverse would be true." * 
 
 The long sentence may be as perspicuous as the short, 
 but there is always danger that it will not be. The un- 
 skilled author may lose his way in it, and the most skil- 
 ful may lose the clear sense of relation and connection, 
 as the later words in long succession draw away his own 
 attention from the earlier. This is a cause of faults of 
 style that is often overlooked. Then, too, there are al- 
 ways many hearers or readers unable to follow a long 
 sentence, however perfectly constructed, so as to grasp 
 the entire meaning from start to finish. Hence, the 
 orator or author most adept with the long sentence will 
 often do well to divide it, that the average reader or 
 hearer may the better catch his meaning. It is to be 
 added that a series of long sentences is tiresome, and 
 weariness is fatal to perspicuity. The drowsy watcher 
 may fail to see what is clearly before him. Never 
 
 *Brewster: "English Composition and Style," p. 228.
 
 SENTENCE-CONSTRUCTION 325 
 
 deaden interest, if you would be sure of being under- 
 stood. 
 
 Those skilled in addressing children commonly use 
 short sentences, as well as simple words, showing that 
 the short sentence is, as a rule, easier to understand. 
 Yet an unbroken series of short sentences becomes diffi- 
 cult to follow. On the ground of taste, such a series is 
 censured as having a "choppy" effect. But on the 
 ground of perspicuity, its fault is, that the connection 
 is dimmed by the incessant breaks at the sentence-ends, 
 which hinder the mind from gaining a complete idea of 
 the whole. 
 
 Hence, all authorities are agreed that the best effect 
 is produced by alternation and interchange of long and 
 short sentences, where the pleasing variety keeps atten- 
 tion alert, neither strained too continuously, nor inter- 
 rupted too often. Where longer sentences have led up 
 to a conclusion, a sudden summary of that conclusion 
 in one short sentence is often very effective; and con- 
 versely, where items have been accumulated by a series 
 of short sentences, great power is often attained by 
 gathering the result of all into one longer concluding 
 sentence. Judgment, taste, and study of the best liter- 
 ary models are needed to enable one to combine variety 
 and unity, so as to win, not only beauty, vividness, and 
 force, but the height of perspicuity. A fine example of 
 such felicitous combination appears in the closing para- 
 graph of Lincoln's "First Inaugural Address:" 
 
 "I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We 
 must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, 
 it must not break, our bonds of affection. The mystic cords 
 of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot 
 grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this 
 broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when
 
 326 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels 
 of our nature." 
 
 While the division of sentences into "long" or 
 "short" is mechanical, the division into "loose" or 
 "periodic" is structural. The loose sentence sets forth 
 some leading thought up to the point where the sen- 
 tence might readily end. Then a new thought is added 
 by a new clause, and perhaps another and another, all 
 either limiting or completing the effect of the leading 
 clause, until the statement is measurably complete. 
 These added features are not liable to the criticism 
 passed upon the misconnected "trailing clause." They 
 really add to the effect of the original statement, with 
 which they are closely and vitally connected. It is so 
 that we express ourselves in ordinary conversation and 
 offhand writing, following the natural advance and as- 
 sociation of thought from point to point. Hence a loose 
 sentence, when well constructed perhaps with pains- 
 taking care tends to an appearance of naturalness and 
 ease. Addison is, in English literature, the supreme 
 artist of the loose sentence, weaving together clause 
 after clause in a succession always graceful and pleas- 
 ing, sometimes lightly touching the fashions or follies 
 of the passing day, yet often embodying great intrinsic 
 power, half-veiled by seeming ease, as a masterly ath- 
 lete smilingly performs some difficult feat with no ap- 
 pearance of exertion. In more recent times, Irving at- 
 tained much of this skill in lighter literature, while 
 Lincoln carried it into those orations and state papers 
 marked by combination of power of thought with feli- 
 city of expression, which have won him immortal re- 
 nown. A fine specimen of Addison 's more serious style 
 may be quoted here:
 
 SENTENCE-CONSTRUCTION 327 
 
 "I was yesterday about sunset walking in the open fields, 
 till the night insensibly fell upon me. I at first amused 
 myself with all the richness and variety of colors which ap- 
 peared in the western part of heaven; in proportion as they 
 faded away and went out, several stars and planets appeared 
 one after another, until the whole firmament was in a glow. 
 The blueness of the aether was exceedingly heightened and 
 enlivened by the season of the year, and by the rays of all 
 those luminaries that passed through it. The galaxy ap- 
 peared in its most beautiful white. To complete the scene, 
 the full moon rose at length in that clouded majesty which 
 Milton takes notice of, and opened to the eye a new picture 
 of nature, which was more finely shaded, and disposed among 
 softer lights, than that which the sun had before discovered 
 to us. 
 
 "As I was surveying the moon walking in her brightness, 
 and taking her progress among the constellations, a thought 
 rose in me which I believe very often perplexes and disturbs 
 men of serious and contemplative natures. David himself 
 fell into it in that reflection, 'When I consider thy heavens, 
 the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou 
 hast ordained, what is man that thou art mindful of him? 
 and the son of man that thou regardest him ?' " 
 
 "Spectator," No. 565. 
 
 Thus Addison, under the guise of a casual descrip- 
 tion of an evening walk, introduces his serious paper on 
 "The Omniscience and Omnipresence of the Deity," 
 which would not have been read by the men and women 
 to whom it was addressed, if it had begun in solemn 
 metaphysical or theological style. The periodic sen- 
 tence, on the other hand, distributes as deftly as may 
 be along its course, all modifiers and clauses of limita- 
 tion or emphasis, and, then, at the very last, brings in 
 the essential statement of the predicate as at once the 
 closing and the concluding thought. Thus: 
 
 "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou 
 hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlast- 
 ing to everlasting, thou art God." Ps. xc, 2.
 
 328 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 The periodic sentence is never complete until the close. 
 The mind is held in suspense, perhaps eager suspense, 
 till the final words answer its waiting question what 
 then? Many of our greatest speakers and writers have 
 loved the long, cumulative period, where successive 
 thoughts are cunningly woven in through subordinate 
 clauses, till one emphatic and masterful utterance 
 rounds out all at the close. When a long sentence of 
 this type is thus complete from start to finish, it em- 
 bodies marvelous power. The thought has been un- 
 folded item by item, till each has made its separate im- 
 pression on the mind of hearer or reader; then all are 
 bound together by one conclusion, which masses the ac- 
 cumulated impression of the whole, as the edge of the 
 ax strikes with the impact of all the mass of steel be- 
 hind it. A sentence of this type, if well constructed, 
 will be for a vigorous and well-trained mind in the 
 highest degree perspicuous. 
 
 But such combination of unity with clearness through 
 an extended period is possible only for the speaker or 
 writer of thorough training, sound judgment, and 
 clearness of thought. Even he may be compelled to 
 recognize that many hearers or readers will be unable 
 to follow clearly to the end a long periodic sentence^ 
 and be fain for their sakes to break it up. The writer 
 has more freedom in this respect than the orator, be- 
 cause readers, with the page before them, can turn back 
 and reread the words until all is clear. Yet, even of 
 this, all but readers of highly disciplined minds become 
 impatient, if compelled to do it too often; so that the 
 author capable of fashioning the sustained periodic 
 sentence will do well to use it sparingly, making simpler 
 sentences his staple, and reserving the stately periods 
 for the strategic points. The inexperienced speaker or
 
 SENTENCE-CONSTRUCTION 329 
 
 writer may well beware of such constructions, in which 
 he may even chance to lose his own way. He will do 
 best to rely upon separate sentences of moderate length, 
 each of which he is sure he can handle. Then, for cumu- 
 lative power, let these be made to follow each other 
 toward one conclusion, like rank after rank of a charg- 
 ing army. 
 
 Perhaps the supreme master of the long, cumulative 
 periodic sentence, in the English language, is Edmund 
 Burke. A fine example of unity with clearness main- 
 tained throughout such a sentence appears in his ' ' Con- 
 ciliation with America : ' ' 
 
 "Such is steadfastly my opinion of the absolute necessity 
 of keeping up the concord of the empire by a unity of spirit 
 through a diversity of operations [here the mind can easily 
 wait for the conclusion to tell what the 'such' means], that 
 if I were sure the colonists had, on leaving this country, 
 sealed a regular compact of servitude ; that they had solemnly 
 abjured all the rights of citizens; that they had made a vow 
 to renounce all ideas of liberty for them and their posterity 
 to all generations [here we are brought to a crowning point 
 of expectancy, with the question rushing upon the mind. 'If 
 all this, what then?' and the swift answer comes to the 
 mind eagerly waiting for it], YET I should hold myself 
 obliged to conform to the temper I found universally preva- 
 lent in my own day [not yet fully telling, but foreshadowing 
 the conclusion, of which the waiting mind catches a premoni- 
 tion], and to govern two millions of men, impatient of 
 servitude, ON THE PRINCIPLES OF FREEDOM." 
 
 To that exalted "freedom" the whole sentence has 
 been leading up. Precedents, practises, or statutes of 
 compulsion amount to nothing. He has devised a case 
 stronger than the advocates of tyranny could have im- 
 agined, of accepted and stipulated colonial servitude, 
 and swept it aside with that defiant "yet", and so
 
 330 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 moved on to the grandest and strongest concluding 
 word, leaving last in the thought of every hearer or 
 reader, to abide when all else has been said, lofty, en- 
 during, triumphant, "the principles of freedom."
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 CLEARNESS OF STYLE IV 
 BY ITEMS OF CONSTRUCTION 
 
 Various parts of speech deserve attention by and for 
 themselves as related to perspicuity. 
 
 I. NOUNS 
 
 Nouns are the great basal blocks of which sentences 
 and paragraphs are built. Of them it is perhaps enough 
 to say that nouns should be used directly and squarely 
 for what they mean. The homely and familiar rule 
 to "call a spade a spade" is never outgrown nor out- 
 worn. It may at some time be convenient, in order to 
 avoid repetition, to call the "spade" a "tool" or an 
 "implement," but never so as to disguise the fact that 
 it is a "spade." If the phrase "a garden implement" 
 is so used as to leave the hearer or reader to guess 
 whether a hoe, shovel, rake, trowel, or a simple "spade" 
 is meant, then such ambiguous phrase is inimical to 
 perspicuity. Thus Blair says of Lord Shaftesbury: 
 
 "If he has occasion to mention any person or author, he 
 very rarely mentions him by his proper name. . . . He 
 descants for two or three pages together upon Aristotle, 
 without once naming him in any other way than 'the Master 
 Critic,' the 'Mighty Genius and Judge of Art,' the 'Prince 
 of Critics,' the 'Grand Master of Art,' and the 'Consummate 
 Philologist.' " 
 
 So, Ruskin remarks that, during the famine in Ire- 
 land, certain clergymen of the Church of England 
 preached upon the sufferings of the Irish people, but it 
 
 331
 
 332 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 would never do to mention the "potato," much less the 
 ' ' potato rot ; " so they spoke of the famine as caused by 
 "the failure of that esculent, on which it has pleased 
 Divine Providence that the sustenance of a large part 
 of the human race should depend." 
 
 The choice of a noun for a certain purpose is often a 
 matter of elegance, delicacy, fitness, or force, but always 
 first and foremost of clearness. The question what noun 
 to use may involve a skilful balancing of synonyms. In 
 some description, for instance, the "grass," the "sod," 
 or the "turf" may be equally clear and the choice 
 among these words may depend upon the special turn 
 of thought, the connection with other words, or, as in 
 poetry, the harmony or melody of the passage; but 
 whether we shall say the "field," the "lawn," or the 
 "roadside," depends absolutely on the scene we are de- 
 picting, and no one of these latter words can be inter- 
 changed with either of the others. That the noun shall 
 carry the exact meaning to be expressed is the demand 
 of perspicuity; the choice among those that are equally 
 clear is to be made for other reasons. 
 
 II. PRONOUNS 
 
 Pronouns for careless writers are a very special snare. 
 He, him, his, may refer to any male being whatever; 
 she, her, hers, to any female; it and its, to any inani- 
 mate object or abstract noun, to a little child, or even to 
 an entire clause or sentence. Hence, if there are in a 
 sentence two or more nouns of the same gender, the ref- 
 erence of the pronoun may become very confusing. 
 Thus in "Lisias promised his father never to abandon 
 his friends," makes us ask, "Whose friends? His own 
 or his father's? "Mrs. Jones said to her daughter that 
 perhaps she might go to the city for the zephyr she
 
 ITEMS OF CONSTRUCTION 333 
 
 needed to finish the cushion for her sister's Christmas 
 present." We ask: Who "might go to the city?" Who 
 needed the "zephyr?" Whose "sister" was to have the 
 "present?" If a personal reminiscence may be allowed, 
 the author might mention that he read the sentence 
 above given to a very intelligent lady, who instantly 
 answered, "That's perfectly clear; there's no trouble 
 about that." To the questions, "Who might go to the 
 city? Who needed the zephyr? etc.," she replied, 
 "Why, she." To the further question, "Which she?" 
 the answer was, ' ' Why, the one who is speaking. ' ' Thus 
 it would appear that feminine intuition has a capacity 
 of understanding such enigmatic utterances, to which 
 the merely critical intellect cannot attain. But it may 
 be a question whether misunderstandings, and even 
 doubts of veracity, may not sometimes arise in the re- 
 porting of such conversations, where syntax is so 
 shadowy a guide to sense. Dr. Blair quotes from Arch- 
 bishop Tillotson the following almost hopeless sentence: 
 
 "Men look with an evil eye upon the good that is in 
 others; and think that their reputation obscures them, and 
 their commendable qualities stand in their light; and there- 
 fore they do what they can to cast a cloud over them, that 
 the bright shining of their virtues may not obscure them." 
 
 This can scarcely be made clear to oneself, even by re- 
 reading, and it was uttered in a sermon, where no re- 
 reading was possible. To avoid su?h confusion, there 
 are four expedients: 
 
 1. Change the number of one of the antecedents. 
 Then the reference of the singular and of the plural 
 pronoun will become perfectly clear. Thus, in the sen- 
 tence just quoted, substitute "another" for "others," 
 when the sentence will read:
 
 334 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 "Men look with an evil eye upon the good that is in an- 
 other, and think that his reputation obscures them, and his 
 commendable qualities stand in their light; and therefore 
 they do what they can to cast a cloud over him, that the 
 bright shining of his virtues may not obscure them." 
 
 2. Change the person of one of the antecedents by 
 using direct, instead of indirect, quotation. Thus: 
 
 "Lisias promised his father, I will never abandon 
 your friends," if that is the meaning; or, "my 
 friends, ' ' if that is the intent. 
 
 "Mrs. Jones said to her daughter, 'Perhaps I may go 
 to the cityV' etc., if that is the meaning; or, " 'Per- 
 haps you may go'," etc. In either case there will be no 
 doubt of the meaning intended. 
 
 3. Repeat the noun, if there is danger of ambiguity. 
 Thus, the following sentence is thoroughly ambiguous: 
 "For the lad can not leave his father; for if he should 
 leave him, he would die." Who would die? the lad, 
 or his father? But take it as actually given in the Au- 
 thorized Version of the Scriptures, in that moving plea 
 of Judah for his younger brother, Benjamin, and the 
 reference is perfectly plain: 
 
 'Tor the lad cannot leave his father; for if he should 
 leave his father, his father would die." Gen. xliv, 22. 
 
 Here, the threefold repetition of the noun is not offen- 
 sive, because it removes every shadow of ambiguity, and 
 the pleasure of absolute transparency causes that to be 
 approved, which otherwise would be censured ; for mani- 
 fest utility is also an element of beauty. 
 
 4. Divide the Sentence. The antecedent probability 
 of clearness is always, as stated in the preceding chap- 
 ter, in favor of two or more short sentences as against 
 one long one. Often the division of the sentence is the
 
 ITEMS OF CONSTRUCTION 335 
 
 only way to get rid of a seemingly false reference of a 
 pronoun. Sometimes the same purpose can be accom- 
 plished by a resumptive break within the sentence, 
 bringing the antecedent out from a crowd of words, to 
 stand alone as the one element to which the pronoun 
 must refer. Thus : 
 
 "A good book gives a workingman something to think of 
 besides the mere mechanical drudgery of his daily occupa- 
 tion, which he can enjoy while away from home, and look 
 forward with pleasure to return to." 
 
 Is it his "daily occupation" or the " mechanical 
 drudgery of" of it, "which he can enjoy while away 
 from home?" We know it can not be either of those, 
 and by reading or thinking back, we see that the ante- 
 cedent of that "which" must be "something;" but that 
 "something" is a long way off. If we are listening to 
 a speaker, we shall probably lose his next sentence, 
 while trying to recover that connection ; and if we are 
 reading a book, the recovery is still a hindrance and a 
 vexation. Now, break that sentence, and bring the an- 
 tecedent into obvious connection with its pronoun, and 
 all is clear: 
 
 "A good book gives the workingman something to think of 
 besides the mere mechanical drudgery of his daily occu- 
 pation, something which he can enjoy while he is away 
 from home, and look forward with pleasure to return to." 
 
 How simple the device, yet how perfect the effect! 
 The thought is clear on the instant. The idea has en- 
 tered the mind by its own momentum. It is there, and 
 we are free to go on to the next suggestion. The rela- 
 tive pronoun is an especial sinner in this respect. Dr. 
 Blair quotes the following sentence from one of Bishop 
 Sherlock's sermons:
 
 336 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 "It is folly to pretend to arm ourselves against the acci- 
 dents of life by heaping up treasures, which nothing can 
 protect us against but the good providence of our heavenly 
 Father." 
 
 As if the good providence of our heavenly Father 
 were to protect us against "treasures!" Again from 
 Dean Swift: 
 
 "Many act so directly contrary to this method, that from 
 a habit of saving time and paper, which they acquired at 
 the University, they write in so diminutive a manner, that 
 they can hardly read what they have written." 
 
 It was not, as would at first appear, "time and pa- 
 per," which "they acquired at the University," but the 
 * ' habit of saving. ' ' In connection with this it is well to f 
 bear in mind one important rule, which is almost with- 
 out exception, namely: Do not make a relative clause 
 dependent upon another relative clause. The result is 
 almost sure to be confusion and obscurity. Thus : 
 
 "On my way to town I met a farmer, who was talking- 
 with a little girl, who carried a basket on her arm, which 
 contained some eggs, which she was taking to her grand- 
 mother, who lived in a cottage, which was hidden from 
 view by an orchard, which adjoined the road, which led to 
 the town, which was founded in 1640 by settlers from Eng- 
 land, who fled from the persecution of Archbishop Laud, 
 which led to the Cromwellian conflict, which, etc." 
 
 And so we come with the deadly certainty of Mr. 
 Dick's Memorial to "the head of Charles I," then we 
 might append an epitome of the system of government 
 of England and of the United States, and proceed, 
 "which differs from that of China, which," etc., until 
 that adventurous and persistent relative should have 
 circumnavigated the world, "which is but a minor
 
 ITEMS OF CONSTRUCTION 337 
 
 planet of the solar system, which," here would come 
 in the Copernican hypothesis, with a side-glance at the 
 Ptolemaic theory, "which has been long since super- 
 seded by the sublime and ingenious system of Laplace, 
 which embraces," and we have still before us all the 
 immensity of space, with all that it contains, to be 
 treated within the limits of our yet unfinished sentence. 
 
 The trouble with a certain class of writers is, that 
 when they have once embarked upon a sentence, they 
 feel that there will never be a chance for another. That 
 sentence stands to them, like Mrs. Partington 's definition 
 of "order," as "a place for everything and everything 
 in it. ' ' Somehow, all that their minds for the time con- 
 tain must be marshaled within the confines of that ill- 
 fated sentence, and they are seeking for connectives, 
 while the real object of their quest should be a period. 
 There are limits to the human capacity, whether of ex- 
 position or of apprehension, so that, after a moderate 
 number of particulars have been given, one may be very 
 sure that, if a new thought is worth adding, it is worth 
 a separate sentence. If it is not worth a separate sen- 
 tence, drop it. 
 
 One of the very smallest of the pronouns contains 
 deadliest possibilities. The little word it, already re- 
 ferred to as an introductory particle on page 177, may 
 refer to any inanimate object whatsoever or to any ab- 
 stract idea ; it may be used impersonally, as in the ex- 
 pressions, "it is cold," "it rains," "it is likely," etc. ; or 
 it may refer to an entire preceding statement; as, "Do 
 you intend to buy that lot for the college?" "I intend 
 to do it at once;" where the antecedent of it is not the 
 lot or the college, but the act specified in the question. 
 Hence, it, if carelessly used, may become a most fruit- 
 ful source of error. Take the following incoherent note :
 
 338 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 "I lost my knife in the garden, and it is so large, and so 
 full of weeds, that I have gone all through it without find- 
 ing it, and may have stepped over it without knowing it. 
 It is nearly dark now, and I must leave it, and it is likely 
 to rain before I can go out into it in the morning, though I 
 intend to do it as soon as it is light enough to see it, if it 
 is anywhere in it." 
 
 For a less flagrant example, consider the following: 
 
 "The French wits have, for this last age, been wholly 
 turned to the refinement of their style and language, and, 
 indeed, with such success that it can hardly be equaled, 
 and runs equally through their verse and their prose." 
 
 Here are four nouns, to either of which the "it" may 
 refer. Does the author mean that the "success" "can 
 hardly be equaled." or the French "language" or 
 "style," or the "refinement" of either or both? As we 
 read on, we see that it must be the "refinement," since 
 it "runs equally through their verse and their prose." 
 We at last understand the meaning, but there is a lack 
 of perspicuity in the style which requires so much re- 
 reading and analysis to make it intelligible. A minor 
 fault in the use of it consists in employing the pronoun 
 at the end of a sentence to denote some definite thing, 
 and then beginning the next sentence with an imper- 
 sonal it, which simply denotes a relation. 
 
 "There is another matter so important, that we must give 
 some attention to it. It is incomprehensible that it has so 
 often been overlooked." 
 
 Our first thought is, Why should we be required to 
 give attention to it, if it is incomprehensible? Ah, but 
 you must read the whole sentence. Then you will per- 
 ceive that it is not the "matter," but the fact "that it 
 has been so long overlooked," that is "incomprehensi- 
 ble." Yes, and just for this reason the sentence fails
 
 ITEMS OF CONSTRUCTION 339 
 
 of perspicuity, because it is necessary to check one's 
 first impression, and hold the meaning in suspense for 
 correction by the result of later reading. If a statement 
 is profound, more may be discovered beneath the sur- 
 face, but on the surface it must mean something intelli- 
 gible. Even paradox gains its power from the clearness 
 with which the false meaning is first presented impell- 
 ing the mind to reach out for the true. 
 
 There are few more important rules for clearness and 
 precision than to challenge every it, and make sure that 
 an adequate reason can be given for the presence and 
 position of that elusive pronoun. By habit a careful 
 writer comes to do this instinctively, so that a misplaced 
 it jars his sensibility like a false note in music ; but the 
 habit must be formed by painstaking care. 
 
 III. ADJECTIVES 
 
 These err most frequently by excess, either in quality 
 or degree. There is a touch of the emotional about the 
 adjective, so that it is readily used with an emphasis 
 far beyond what the occasion warrants. The number 
 of very ordinary objects that are "splendid," "sump- 
 tuous, " " gorgeous, " ' ' magnificent, " or " tremen- 
 dous," "horrible," "dreadful," or "awful," passes 
 computation. The effect of overemphasis is always be- 
 littling. In the recoil the mind discards too much. If 
 one were to speak of a hero as appearing "in the gor- 
 geous panoply of khaki uniform," the effect would be 
 satirical; and we should see the grim plainness of the 
 khaki as never before, by contrast with the fulsome de- 
 scription. But if one were to speak of him as " a grand 
 figure in the simple khaki of the soldier," that uniform 
 would gain a dignity from the fitness of the adjective 
 that described it. An accumulation of many adjectives
 
 340 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 produces a similar reversal of effect, as if we were to 
 sav: 
 
 "He was a wise, just, broad-minded, far-seeing, vigorous, 
 inflexible, patriotic, mighty, true, noble, genuine statesman." 
 
 Here the word "statesman" is belittled before we 
 reach it. We seem to come down upon it with a slump. 
 The feeling is, when we come to the noun, Is that all? 
 We have lost the substantive in the adjectives that were 
 to exalt it. See how instantly the effect is changed, if 
 we omit all the adjectives but one, and say, "He was a 
 true statesman," "a genuine statesman," or "a 
 mighty statesman." At once the noun becomes domi- 
 nant, "a statesman," "true" to all that name implies, 
 or "mighty" in the qualities that befit that great 
 name. Thus, a young writer, when he has reluctantly 
 cut out sonorous adjectives from a sentence, finds, 
 often to his great surprise, that the sentence is 
 stronger. He has given his nouns a chance. 
 
 This is a matter not merely of taste, strength, or force, 
 but of clearness. Every deduction that the mind must 
 make from the language used, in order to get the 
 thought, involves some loss of perspicuity. Attention 
 to minus signs makes multiplication more difficult. In 
 the case of numerous adjectives, the scattering of at- 
 tention dims the total effect. The light is refracted in 
 so many directions that all clearness of outline is lost. 
 
 Hence the rule for the adjective is, that if it does not 
 do good, it does harm. The young writer of any imagi- 
 native vividness can do no better thing than to go 
 through his composition and strike out every adjective 
 that can be spared. Then, those that he keeps for good 
 reasons will be found at once effective and clear. 
 
 Another item to remember is, that the adjective has
 
 ITEMS OF CONSTRUCTION 341 
 
 a trick of fusing with its noun into one composite idea. 
 If we say "a spirited white horse" we do not mean a 
 horse that has the two qualities of being "spirited" and 
 of being "white," but a "white horse" that has the 
 quality of being ' ' spirited. ' ' Hence, the grammars will 
 tell you that you need no comma between "spirited" 
 and ' ' white, ' ' because no connective is understood. The 
 "spirited" does not modify the noun "horse" alone, 
 but the composite idea expressed by adjective and noun 
 in "white horse." Such mental combination of adjec- 
 tive and noun may easily produce confusion. A fol- 
 lowing pronoun may seem to refer to the noun as modi- 
 fied by the adjective, when the real reference is to the 
 noun alone. 
 
 "The intellectual qualities of the youth were superior to 
 those of his raiment." 
 
 What were the "intellectual qualities" of "his rai- 
 ment?" For such a case, the best rule is, Separate the 
 adjective from the noun, that the reference to the noun 
 may be unmistakable; and this is ordinarily best done 
 by converting the adjective itself into a noun. Instead 
 of "the intellectual qualities of the youth," say, "the 
 qualities of the youth's intellect;" then the reference 
 runs smoothly, "were superior to those of his raiment." 
 In the old days of "wild-cat" banking, Dan Eice, the 
 famous showman, sent to Harper & Brothers a twenty- 
 dollar bill, which proved to be spurious, and which 
 they returned with a note saying, "This bill is counter- 
 feit. Send us another." After some months his answer 
 came as follows: 
 
 "Gentlemen: Pardon delay. Counterfeit 20's on the 
 -bank are becoming very scarce, but I have at 
 
 last obtained another, which I send herewith, as you re- 
 quest."
 
 342 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 Sometimes such confusion is best avoided by repeating 
 the principal noun, sometimes by complete change of 
 phrase, as, in this last instance, ' ' Send us a good one. ' ' 
 It may be mentioned in connection with this matter 
 that English is intolerant of phrases other than adjec- 
 tives inserted between an article and its noun; as, "the 
 never to be sufficiently lamented and only very recently 
 clearly comprehended disaster," or similar construc- 
 tions sometimes imported from the German. English, 
 with its genius for freedom and simplicity, objects to 
 waiting for its noun until explanatory and limiting 
 clauses are dynamited from its path. It would rather 
 have a try at them separately, after the thing immedi- 
 ately in hand has been clearly disposed of on its own 
 merits, saying, for instance: "The disaster, which can 
 never be sufficiently lamented, and which has only very 
 recently been clearly comprehended." 
 
 IV. VERBS 
 
 Of verbs, as of nouns, the chief thing to say is that 
 they should be used directly and squarely for what they 
 mean. The occasional difficulty in the agreement of a 
 verb with its subject is to be solved by the rules of gram- 
 mar. The choice of one verb in preference to another 
 is something that the speaker or writer must determine 
 on each occasion by his own sense of good usage or by 
 reference to the dictionary or to a book of synonyms. 
 Take, for instance, the following little list of synonyms : 
 
 Decline, descend, droop, drop, fail, faint, fall, lapse, set, 
 sink, subside. 
 
 It would be easy to accumulate passages in each of 
 which some one of these verbs would be preferable to 
 any other that could be chosen from the list. The rea-
 
 ITEMS OF CONSTRUCTION 343 
 
 son in each case would ordinarily be the same, that in 
 that particular connection, the verb chosen meant most 
 exactly what the speaker or writer wished then and 
 there to express. Such choice will always be perspicu- 
 ous clear beyond all rules. 
 
 There is, however, one verbal form, the participle, 
 which by misuse readily produces confusion of meaning. 
 This happens when the participle is so used that it re- 
 fers, or seems to refer, to the wrong noun : A very spir- 
 ited and entertaining writer of a certain book of travels 
 opens his account of a carriage-tour with the following 
 explanatory statement: 
 
 "Not expecting us, the horses had been turned out to 
 pasture, and were difficult to catch." 
 
 Evidently the horses should have been notified in ad- 
 vance. What is said here is that, as the horses did not 
 expect us, they had been turned out to pasture; what 
 is meant is that, as our friends did not expect us, the 
 horses had been turned out to pasture. The participle, 
 "expecting", in that sentence, can onl% agree with 
 ^"horses ; " it was meant to agree with a noun which the 
 writer had in his mind, but did not write; hence he 
 wrote nonsense. The sentence intended was: 
 
 "Our friends not expecting us, the horses had been turned 
 out to pasture." 
 
 That would have been correct, though a trifle clumsy. 
 It would have been better to change the construction, 
 and write: "As our friends were not expecting us," 
 etc. A Washington paper brings us the following in- 
 stance of confusion: 
 
 "Mr. sustained fractures of both wrists, and 
 
 his wife's arm was broken in two places, in addition to 
 receiving a severe scalp-wound."
 
 344 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 How the "right arm" could "receive a scalp-wound" 
 passes comprehension. Evidently a new pronoun 
 should have been supplied, with which the participle 
 might agree, "she also receiving," etc. Here again it 
 would be better to change the construction, writing, 
 "and she also received," etc. In some way it must be 
 indicated that it was the lady, and not the arm, that 
 received the "scalp-wound." Over and over again, in 
 analyzing errors, one is compelled to notice how many 
 of them result from undue economy of words. Brevity 
 must always yield to perspicuity. 
 
 V. ADVERBS 
 
 The danger of the adverb is its facility of adapta- 
 tion. It may modify a verb, an adjective, another ad- 
 verb, yes, or even a noun, though the grammars are 
 very shy of saying so. In the line, "Not a drum was 
 heard, not a funeral note," etc., vainly do we try to 
 attach that adverb to the verb. We have changed the 
 whole statement if we say, "A drum was not heard." 
 Was it sounded then ? If the drum was not heard, what 
 was heard? If not one drum, then how many? We 
 flounder in our syntax until we honestly admit that the 
 English language has no hesitation in attaching an ad- 
 verb to a noun or pronoun, when it can so best deliver 
 its meaning. A considerable list may be found of ad- 
 verbs which readily take this construction. We have 
 only to believe in our language, and raise our courage 
 to its freedom. 
 
 Since the adverb has so many affinities, we can con- 
 trol it only by isolating it as far as possible from words 
 with which we would not have it combine, and bringing 
 it as close as possible to any word with which we wish
 
 ITEMS OF CONSTRUCTION 345 
 
 it to unite. Clearness in the use of this part of speech 
 requires that every adverb be placed as near as possible 
 to the word it is intended to modify, and kept as far as 
 possible away from any word it is not to affect. If we 
 say, "He is considered generally insane," we imply 
 that he is insane most of the time, or in most of his 
 mental activities; if we mean, as is probable, that the 
 majority of people view him as mentally unbalanced, 
 we shall express that best by saying, "He is generally 
 considered insane. ' ' If one remarks, ' ' This letter needs 
 to be rewritten very badly," he has not expressed his 
 meaning. The letter has probably been already written 
 very badly, and nothing would be gained by having it 
 rewritten in the same way. What the critic meant to 
 say was, ' ' This letter very badly needs to be rewritten. ' * 
 
 Books of grammar and rhetoric give much space to 
 the placing of only, and certain other adverbs and ad- 
 verbial phrases, the misplacing of which may change 
 the entire meaning of a sentence. These rules are 
 worthy of careful study, and will be found of great 
 value, where special precision is required. But it will 
 be found that too minute observance of these precepts 
 would often result in a wooden exactness of style that 
 would seem pedantic. Public speaking may approach 
 the freedom of conversation, where tone and emphasis 
 are often a sufficient guide to the reference of such 
 words, and the writer may trust much to the context 
 and the reader's common sense. The use of the rules 
 is to keep one away from dangerous shoals. Especial 
 care must, however, be taken to avoid the possible 
 double reference of an adverb, which may be sometimes 
 ambiguous. 
 
 "The hope that war in the Balkans might be averted
 
 346 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 virtually has been abandoned," said the New York 
 Herald, in October, 1915. Was the war to be "virtually 
 averted," or had the hope been "virtually abandoned"? 
 "We have endeavored to meet Mr. Sanders 's ques- 
 tions, and through them many others of the same sort 
 which are asked us fairly, coolly, and dispassionately," 
 said the New York Sun, on Sept. 9, 1915. We give the 
 punctuation of the original. It will be seen that there 
 is nothing in the passage to indicate whether the ques- 
 tions are asked "fairly, coolly, and dispassionately," 
 or whether the editor endeavors to meet them in that 
 spirit. The entire editorial from which the passage is 
 quoted would indicate that either or both might be true. 
 But which was specifically intended? In neither of 
 these instances just quoted is the blemish serious. But 
 in the following, actually clipped from the "Pulpit 
 Notices" of a prominent religious paper, the misplace- 
 ment of an adverbial phrase becomes ludicrous: "The 
 
 Rev. is about to leave the congregation to 
 
 which he has ministered for the past eighteen years 
 to their deep regret." Evidently the congregation were 
 now to be congratulated. 
 
 VI. CONNECTIVES 
 
 These are notably the Preposition and Conjunction. 
 The importance of these parts of speech is greater in 
 English than in most other languages, because the lack 
 of inflection in our language makes more to depend on 
 connecting particles. Among these connectives relative 
 pronouns and relative or conjunctive adverbs, already 
 mentioned, are to be considered. The proper handling 
 of all these requires careful and extended study, and 
 beyond all study of particular words and phrases, 
 wide and attentive observation and reading. There is
 
 ITEMS OF CONSTRUCTION 347 
 
 what may be called constructive reading and listening, 
 which follows speaker or author through spoken word 
 or printed page, as if with the constant silent question, 
 "How does he do it?" What makes that phrase so 
 felicitous? Now one finds the answer in a skilfully 
 placed preposition, conjunction, or other connective at 
 just the right point; or, again, in the skilful avoidance 
 of any connective which sets unrelated phrases in sharp 
 distinction. What makes some other sentence harsh and 
 jarring? Why, it is that misplaced, ill-chosen, or lack- 
 ing connective, omitted when it should have been used, 
 used when it should have been omitted, or when another 
 connective would have better expressed the meaning. 
 
 This does not involve perpetual note-taking. That 
 process, valuable as it is at times, would, in constant 
 use, too much restrain range and speed. We need to 
 hear many, very many good speakers, on the platform 
 and in conversation, and to read numerous books worthy 
 to be models ; and to do this at all, it must be done with 
 a certain rush. We must get what we can in the flitting 
 moment. Besides, alertness is an end in itself. Vivid 
 attention often sees more than laborious analysis. 
 When in constant association with good models, one 
 gains much by mere absorption, as good- manners are 
 formed by moving in good society. In a matter involv- 
 ing so many and such diversified items as the connec- 
 tives of English speech, direct instruction must be 
 chiefly effective by setting the observing, imitative, and 
 inventive faculties vigorously at work. Notes when 
 possible, alert observation always. 
 
 We are to avoid what Campbell has called "The ob- 
 scure by defect, ' ' of which he gives one of his best ex- 
 amples under a different heading. He quotes from the 
 "Spectator" the sentence:
 
 348 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 "I have hopes that when Will confronts him, and all the 
 ladies in whose behalf he engages him cast kind looks and 
 wishes at their champion, he will have some chance." 
 
 On this he remarks: 
 
 "The first part of the sentence suggests that Will is to 
 confront 'all the ladies,' but afterwards we find it neces- 
 sary to construe this clause with the following verb. This 
 confusion is removed at once by repeating the (connective) 
 adverb 'when'; as, 'I have hopes that when Will confronts 
 him, and when all the ladies .... cast kind looks, 
 etc.' " 
 
 In the following sentence obscurity is produced by 
 omission of the connecting relative, that or which: 
 
 "Ignorance, inefficiency, low standards, are to have the 
 money high worth has attained showered upon them." 
 
 The New York Sun, Sept. 4, 1915. 
 
 The average person will find it necessary to read that 
 sentence twice, in order to get the meaning. The ob- 
 scurity at once disappears by the insertion of one little 
 connective pronoun: 
 
 "Ignorance, inefficiency, low standards, are to have the 
 money that high worth has attained showered upon them." 
 
 In contrast with this lack of connectives, is to be noted 
 their excess, which is wholly vicious as connecting 
 things that should be separated : 
 
 "The many friends of Miss will be glad to 
 
 know that she is to accept a position at Pownal, and will 
 leave at once." The Portland Press. 
 
 In all ordinary courtesy, the fact that the young lady 
 "will leave at once" should be dissociated from the 
 "gladness" of her friends. 
 
 "Poli's Palace will have a clever bill for the first three 
 days of the week, and a complete change on Thursday." 
 
 The Springfield Republican.
 
 ITEMS OF CONSTRUCTION 349 
 
 Evidently those interested in a "clever bill" should 
 hasten to attend during the "first three days." 
 
 Errors such as these, though not always so glaring, 
 proceed from that obsession previously adverted upon 
 (pp. 336-7) of getting all that is to be said within the 
 confines of one sentence before stopping to take breath. 
 There is often no connection so good as disconnection. 
 The ballad, the ode, and some forms of narrative often 
 gain power by omitting incidents and neglecting in- 
 tervals that the mind can spring across without a bridge 
 of speech. This trait has often been remarked upon in 
 the plays of Shakespeare, who does not tell us that Ham- 
 let is visionary and irresolute, nor that Macbeth alone 
 sees the ghost invisible to all about him. In Bayard 
 Taylor's "Song of the Camp" this artistic disconnec- 
 tion is used with great effect : 
 
 They lay along the battery's side 
 
 Below the smoking cannon; 
 Brave hearts from Severn and from Clyde, 
 
 And from the banks of Shannon. 
 
 They sang of love and not of fame; 
 
 Forgot was Britain's glory; 
 Each heart recalled a different name, 
 
 But all sang "Annie Laurie." 
 
 Voice after voice caught up the song, 
 
 Until its tender passion 
 Rose like an anthem, rich and strong, 
 
 Their battle-eve confession. 
 
 Dear girl, her name he dared not speak, 
 
 But, as the song grew louder, 
 Something upon the soldier's cheek 
 
 Washed off the stains of powder. 
 
 Beyond the darkening ocean burned 
 
 The bloody sunset's embers, 
 While the Crimean valleys learned 
 
 How English love remembers.
 
 350 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 And once again a fire of hell 
 
 Rained on the Russian quarters, 
 With scream of shot and burst of shell, 
 
 And bellowing of the mortars! 
 
 And Irish Nora's eyes are dim 
 
 For a singer dumb and gory, 
 And English Mary mourns for him 
 
 Who sang of "Annie Laurie." 
 
 Before that last stanza, how sharp a break! Nothing 
 is told of the assault, nor whether it resulted in victory 
 or repulse. There is no list of casualties. We read the 
 conclusion only in the tears and grief of loving hearts 
 in the far islands beyond the sea. But who would wish 
 to fill the blank? All that mind or heart calls for is 
 told. We ask no prosaic particulars. The story, while 
 not less clear, is far more effective for its well timed 
 reticence. 
 
 In ancient building the entire space was filled with 
 some solid material, as brick or stone, the mass being 
 depended on to resist all varieties of strain and stress. 
 Gradually men learned to leave out the surplus ma- 
 terial, giving open spaces by column and arch; and in 
 modern building the various lines of force are scientifi- 
 cally calculated, and only so much material is used as is 
 necessary to resist pressure, stress, and thrust where 
 it is known beforehand that they will fall, while all the 
 rest of the structure is left open to the day. So a good 
 style provides support for the advance of thought, 
 wherever doubt or uncertainty or confusion might arise, 
 while not encumbering itself with superfluous words or 
 tedious explanations. A style in which well-chosen 
 words are so built together is sure to be perspicuous.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 THE ART OF BREVITY 
 
 There is a brevity measurable by the clock or by count 
 'of words, which may be called 
 
 MECHANICAL BREVITY 
 
 Such brevity is as definite and positive as the figures 
 on the face of a check, and often as obligatory. If six 
 speakers are to have ten minutes each in a meeting of 
 one hour, no one speaker can take more than his ten 
 minutes without defrauding another. Then technical, 
 mechanical brevity is simple honesty. You have no 
 right to increase your own time, or to appropriate the 
 time of some one behind you. It may chance to be no 
 small disappointment to some later speaker to be driven 
 to present something he has much at heart to an ex- 
 hausted audience chiefly desirous not to listen to an- 
 other word on any subject. Simple commercial hon- 
 esty has place on the platform as at the bank, and in 
 the former case, as in the latter, will be found to be 
 "the best policy," for each speaker shares in the suc- 
 cess of the whole occasion. The writer faces a similar 
 requirement under still more imperious rule. 
 
 Physical and mechanical necessities do largely con- 
 trol speaking and writing, however much we may re- 
 sent the fact. For the speaker limited to a certain time, 
 there are two chief rules : 
 
 1. Fix in mind what you surely want to say, if you 
 
 351
 
 3f>2 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 say nothing else, the sine qua non, and somehow get 
 that said. 
 
 2. Fix in mind what you would like to say as the last 
 word in the last minute, and watchfully save that min- 
 ute, in which to say that thing. 
 
 For die writer the rules are practically the same, but 
 with the advantage that he can go back over his work, 
 and force place for the essential by omitting what can 
 be better spared. The power of concentrating as one 
 writes is of much value, and can be largely increased 
 by training and self-discipline. 
 
 This, however, can be overdone. Many severely brief 
 paragraphs give the reader an impression of forced 
 condensation. He feels and winces at the tightening of 
 the screws. Naturalness is absolutely squeezed out. No 
 writer should keep himself continuously in a straight- 
 jacket. But when one has written with freedom and 
 naturalness, it is astonishing how much deliberate word- 
 pruning can do. The first items to watch are adjectives 
 and adverbs. You have spoken, it may be, of " a violent 
 storm" or "a tremendous peal of thunder." But a 
 "storm" is likely to be "violent," while a "peal of 
 thunder" is quite sure to be "tremendous." You may 
 dispense with those adjectives. Or you have said, "I 
 was exceedingly astonished." But one who is aston- 
 ished is always impressed "exceedingly." You can 
 spare the adverb. Most of the "very's" can be relent- 
 lessly extirpated. You will be surprized at the gain in 
 strength and effectiveness when the main columns are 
 left without scaffolding. Introductory phrases are 
 often needless. The saying, "There is nothing which 
 so soon perverts the judgment," may be cut to "Noth- 
 ing so soon perverts the judgment," and be better for 
 the cutting. ' ' There are many persons who deny this, ' '
 
 THE ART OF BREVITY 353 
 
 is more forcible in the form, ' ' Many persons deny this, ' ' 
 or, briefer still, "Many deny this." Relative pronouns 
 and relative clauses are objects of suspicion. Instead 
 of "John Brown, who was their leader," write "John 
 Brown, their leader," or "Their leader, John Brown." 
 On the other hand, an extended phrase may often be 
 reduced to an adverb. "At that particular instant of 
 time" may be sufficiently accounted for by the adverb 
 ' ' then, ' ' or, perhaps, ' ' just then. ' ' The habit of study- 
 ing concise writings, such as Bacon's "Essays" or Lin- 
 coln 's ' ' Gettysburg Oration ' ' or the best state papers of 
 England and America, will show how such condensa- 
 tion may be made, and develop a taste for its concen- 
 trated power, yes, and beauty, the beauty of Doric 
 architecture, without a needless line to mar its aspect 
 of grace combined with boundless strength. 
 
 It must be admitted, however, that oftentimes the 
 difficulty of attaining mechanical brevity is not in per- 
 formance, but in demand. A set of managers with 110 
 sense of humor desire simply to trot out the lions they 
 have in captivity, that the audience may actually hear 
 them roar. Then they rush them across the arena at 
 such speed that they can not even roar in comfort. 
 
 We can not but think that our New England ancestors 
 had a better method than ours, in those dark days, when, 
 on their broad farms and in their spacious mansions, 
 they lived that "restricted life," for which popular 
 authors caged in New York apartment houses now pity 
 them. Being without the.elevating influence of ' ' moving ' ' 
 pictures and the tango and vaudeville, and not having 
 the rapid-transit facilities of our day, they were re- 
 duced to the necessity of listening for an entire evening 
 to a single speaker, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, 
 Henry Ward Beecher, Oliver Wendell Holmes, or Ed-
 
 354 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 ward Everett, and occasionally devoting half a day to 
 an oration of Daniel Webster. Then, in their homes, 
 at the grocery and the post-office, across the farm fences, 
 and along the roads, they would discuss the brilliant or 
 mighty thoughts that each great man had elaborated in 
 his lecture, comparing each successive orator with those 
 who had gone before, and a university extension course 
 was conducted all over New England. So the "long- 
 headed Yankees" were evolved, men capable of think- 
 ing, and of thinking things through. So, too, a school 
 of orators was developed: men who had time enough 
 to present a thought in various lights, to sustain it by 
 facts and arguments, to explain it by helpful illustra- 
 tions, and to light it up by images of beauty. Those 
 leaders of men could never have elaborated their high 
 thoughts in such exquisitely chosen words under the 
 whip and spur of snap-shot speeches, where the chief 
 end of man is to get out of the way of the next man. 
 We read now as "classics" the very lectures to which 
 the men and women, the youths and maidens, of an 
 earlier day listened with rapt attention in the Lowell 
 Institute, in the plain old churches, the town halls, and 
 the country schoolhouses. 
 
 Mechanical brevity has now become, with many per- 
 sons, an obsession, and in our publications merit is 
 measured by fractions of an inch. To-day speed is 
 the first law of mental, as of social and commercial, 
 activity. Literature is to be reduced to one dimen- 
 sion, and its excellence estimated in proportion to its 
 shortness. 
 
 So we are developing a host of people who can think 
 only in giblets. Their minds are impatient of any con- 
 tinuous process of thought, and move only by jerks of 
 impulse and impression. They never really know any-
 
 THE ART OF BREVITY 355 
 
 thing, but decide life's weightiest matters by transitory 
 spurts of feeling. They do not want to be made to 
 know anything, nor to think definitely about anything. 
 That is "tiresome." Something of this tendency is 
 doubtless due to the fifteen-minute or twenty-minute 
 "periods" in our public schools, where a class is dis- 
 missed just at the moment when the subject might be- 
 come interesting, and where any explanation, illustra- 
 tion, or enforcement of anything would "interfere with 
 the schedule." Our salvation, as yet, is in the profes- 
 sions where minister, lawyer, and doctor have to study 
 complicated problems till their heads ache ; in our solid 
 business men, engineers, architects, and financiers, com- 
 pelled to wade through piled sheets of specifications, 
 ponder every item, and then mass all together into a 
 unity ; in our colleges, where professors agonize to in- 
 duce butterfly students to think, and succeed in evolv- 
 ing some intellectual processes in the minds of a certain 
 per centage of them. 
 
 Every opinion worth having requires toil and time. 
 Thinking takes time, and the expression of thought in 
 writing or printing requires space. Let a dozen per- 
 sons join hands in a circle, and transmit a pressure of 
 the leader's right hand around the circle to his left 
 hand again, and the time occupied is measurable by the 
 watch, showing that each person has occupied an ap- 
 preciable time in so simple a process as receiving a 
 pressure by his right hand, and transmitting it by his 
 left. Who that has ever done anything worth doing 
 has not found himself compelled to spend minutes, 
 hours, even years, to bring scattered items and observa- 
 tions to an orderly and definite conclusion? There are 
 comprehensive truths that can not be grasped till one 
 has mastered the preliminary truths of which they are
 
 356 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 made up. Time and space must be given for the mind's 
 advance, for most of our knowledge is composite, and is 
 gained by assembling ideas previously known, so that by 
 their association the mind is led to truth previously un- 
 known, just as tourists along Alpine pathways zigzag 
 up the face of some towering cliff, turning now this way, 
 now that, but always ascending, till, step by step, they 
 reach the summit. 
 
 Hence, Herbert Spencer errs in his otherwise admira- 
 ble essay on "The Philosophy of Style" in making all 
 the power of speaking or writing consist in "Economy 
 of Attention." Valuable as that is, it is by no means 
 all, nor even always the chief thing. There is a power 
 of emphasis and of impression. There are times when 
 what is needed is, not to economize, but to arouse, fix, 
 focus attention to secure, above all things, the "arrest 
 of thought." The electric current that flows smoothly, 
 without interruption, from positive to negative pole, 
 does no work; it is when checked and restrained, com- 
 pelled to fight its way, that it speaks through the tele- 
 graph key, drives the car, or blazes in the arc-light. 
 There are thoughts on which the mind needs to pause, 
 till by the very lingering the new idea is brought into 
 touch with myriad associations, with the memories of 
 childhood, the loves and joys, the hopes and possibilities 
 of the individual and of humanity, while in the pause 
 the mind itself has time to expand to the vastness and 
 majesty of the truth. To effect just this is often the 
 crowning triumph of the orator or the author, and this, 
 the craze for brevity would rush him by on an express 
 train. Mechanical brevity must not be allowed to con- 
 trol that which is far more important than space or 
 time. Then our thought must be, not of mechanical, 
 but of
 
 THE ART OF BREVITY 357 
 
 ESSENTIAL BREVITY 
 
 1. Essential brevity is not a mere matter of time or 
 space. It can not be measured by the clock, nor deter- 
 mined by count of words. One man will make a three- 
 minute anecdote so tedious that the listener is reminded 
 of a pressing engagement, while another will charm by 
 an hour of story-telling. Webster occupied four hours 
 in delivering his Reply to Hayne, and no man who heard 
 it wished it to have been less. Essential brevity is say- 
 ing just enough for the subject and the occasion, and 
 no more. So considered, brevity is simply an apt fitting- 
 in to the time system of the universe. 
 
 2. Essential brevity is not a mere unconsidered pau- 
 city of words. One who does not think clearly will 
 make a communication brief by' leaving out what it is 
 highly important to say. A friend writes, "I will come 
 at 7.40 to-morrow, and talk the matter over with you." 
 Does he mean at 7.40 A. M., or 7.40 P. M? Is it the 
 train leaving his station at 7.40, or the train reaching 
 your station at that hour? There are three connecting 
 roads; which of those is intended? You might desire 
 to know, so as to meet him at the station on arrival. All 
 these points might have been covered without making 
 the note appreciably longer by writing as follows: "I 
 will come by B. & O. train leaving here at 7.40 A. M. 
 to-morrow, and talk the matter over with you." The 
 advantage of the few added words is worth far more 
 than the trouble of writing them. The number of tele- 
 grams over which the recipient puzzles in dumb amaze- 
 ment is appalling. And words beyond the original cost 
 but two cents each. Brevity when it becomes confusing 
 is not a virtue, but a vice. The good and safe rule is, 
 Never sacrifice clearness or force for the sake of brevity.
 
 358 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 When in doubt, be explicit. True brevity makes sure 
 of saying that, the saying of which is the only object 
 for speaking or writing. A perfect example of brief 
 explicitness is a despatch from the English commander, 
 Clive, to his native ally: 
 
 "Tell Meer Jaffier to fear nothing. I will join him with 
 three thousand men who never turned their backs. Assure 
 him that I will march day and night to his relief, and 
 stand by him as long as I have a man left." 
 
 Everything is said: that the commander will be 
 there in person; the number of his force; their quality 
 of tried and dauntless valor; his rapid march and un- 
 flinching steadfastness ; and all in forty-two words, that 
 stir the blood like a trumpet blast. No wonder that the 
 man who could write that despatch could conquer In- 
 dia! True brevity can afford to be explicit in the es- 
 sentials, and gains time and space for that by omitting 
 non-essentials. To repeat: True brevity says that the 
 saying of which is the only object for speaking. To 
 turn now to the affirmative, it may be remarked that : 
 
 1. Brevity is Condensation. In college days at Har- 
 vard a cricket-ball had suffered from acquaintance with 
 the bat, and two students had the curiosity to open 
 it in their room. The ball proved to be stuffed with 
 feathers, and it soon began to appear that a college 
 room was not large enough to contain the feathers that 
 had been compressed into that small sphere. A dis- 
 course that has been packed with thought under hy- 
 draulic pressure will always be found elastic and resili- 
 ent, and will never seem long if in harmony with the 
 limits of the occasion. The hearer gets the impression 
 of brevity because he wants to pause to expand or medi- 
 tate upon what the speaker is hurrying him by. After
 
 THE ART OF BREVITY 359 
 
 such a discourse people will be saying, "If he had only 
 carried that thought out a little further" or, "He 
 might have added this or that." Such condensation 
 makes the suggestive style. The utterance is felt to be 
 brief in proportion to what the speaker had to utter. 
 Interest, as well as respect, always attends the mani- 
 festation of reserved power. 
 
 2. Brevity is Terseness of Expression, care and skill 
 in the choice and rejection of words, with a preference 
 for the tense vigor of the Anglo-Saxon. The aim should 
 be to make each sentence the most compact carrier of 
 the thought that it can be made, and be at the same 
 time effective and worthy of the thought. 
 
 3. Brevity is Progress. It is advance with a purpose. 
 The soul of humanity loves progress from the time when 
 the growing boy announces himself as "going on ten 
 or twelve," instead of stationary at nine or eleven. 
 When each sentence or paragraph is a step onward, the 
 hearer catches the glow of the forward movement, ex- 
 pectancy keeps time to the march of thought, and the 
 very body of the listener leans forward, reaching 
 toward that new land of truth to which the speaker is 
 leading him on. 
 
 This process may be reversed with disastrous result. 
 A preacher will give a good, strong sermon for fifteen 
 or twenty minutes. Then one can see that he began 
 gleaning his notes for every feeble thought which he 
 had rejected when the enthusiasm of expression was 
 strong upon him. Still, in his selection, he takes every 
 time the best of the leavings, till finally the last repro- 
 bate item is thrust into the mouth of the audience as a 
 finishing morsel. The preacher skims for his hearers a 
 pint of rich cream, and then, that nothing may be lost, 
 pours in the whole gallon of skim milk.
 
 360 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 Mark Twain quotes Franklin's experience with White- 
 field, when, as the philosopher listened to that prince 
 of preachers pleading for a charity, he first resolved to 
 give him all the copper he had in his purse in those 
 days of specie. Soon he decided to give him all the sil- 
 ver, too. Then, at the conclusion, he threw copper, 
 silver, and gold, purse and all into the collection. "I 
 had, ' ' says Mark Twain, ' ' the very opposite experience. 
 I heard a preacher appealing for missions. When he 
 had spoken ten minutes, I decided to give him all the 
 money I had about me. He went on ten minutes longer, 
 and I determined to give him half. He spoke another 
 ten minutes, and I thought a quarter of my money 
 would be enough. He went on ten minutes longer, and 
 I made up my mind not to give him any. Then, he 
 added a final appeal, and that so worked upon my feel- 
 ings that I took a dime out of the collection-basket 
 as soon as it came my way." 
 
 4. Again, brevity is Economy of Material in actual 
 use. This does not conflict with what has been said of 
 Condensation and Reserve Power. Many a speaker has 
 the reserves without the power. All his reserves are 
 crowding into the discourse. He can not give a truth 
 without detailing the mental processes by which he 
 reached it. If there is anything doubtful, he must im- 
 press on the hearers the hazy mystery or mistiness of 
 his doubts. The effect is as if the contents of a bakery 
 were shoveled upon one 's breakfast table. 
 
 A merchant had spent a large sum in furnishing his 
 drawing-room, but was dissatisfied with the result. He 
 went to a leading furniture dealer, and asked him to 
 find and correct the fault at any cost. The dealer said, 
 "Let me go into that room alone." Soon he called the 
 owner, who said with delight, "It's all right now. What
 
 361 
 
 have you done?" The artist in furnishing took him to 
 a corner of the hall, and showed him three chairs which 
 he had taken out, changing the parlor from a wareroom 
 to a residential apartment. He had simply removed the 
 excess of material. The crowding of thought must be 
 behind the spoken word never piled in front of it or 
 around it. 
 
 The audience needs, not processes, but results, and 
 just enough of these for effective use. Every scientist 
 does a vast deal of what he calls "dead work" calcu- 
 lations and experiments that do not appear in his com- 
 pleted statement, and that are largely effective in telling 
 him what not to say. There is precisely similar work 
 for the writer or the public speaker to do, and it may 
 be affirmed that the "dead work" of the study is the 
 life of brevity in the spoken or written result. As where 
 the Alps rise in morning majesty above a sea of cloud, 
 the master of eloquence does not go down to follow miles 
 of mule-tracks through mist and shadow, but carries his 
 hearers from mountain top to mountain top on wings of 
 light. 
 
 5. Brevity is Unity. One paragraph aside from the 
 main topic, or not seen to connect with it, brings the 
 hearer to mental pause, so that he hears the watch tick- 
 ing in his pocket. 
 
 An engineer may have good reasons for going upon a 
 siding, but it is fearfully tedious for the passengers, and 
 when the rhetorical engineer is also the train-despatcher, 
 he is bound by all the laws of success to insure his audi- 
 ence a clear track ahead. The sidings should have both 
 termini in the speaker's or writer's study. Deadliest 
 of all enemies to apparent brevity is repetition, leading 
 the hearer to exclaim, "Oh, do we have to hear that all 
 over again." "What belongs to one head should be ex-
 
 362 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 hausted there, and each fresh division should include 
 all that belongs to the new topic, and rigorously exclude 
 everything else. Divisions should never overlap, either 
 in utterance or essence. 
 
 It is well to go through a discourse and ask of each 
 topic or paragraph, ' ' Does this help the main thought ? ' ' 
 If not, that topic or paragraph or sentence is all too 
 much for that place and time, and is destructive to the 
 soul of brevity. Sometimes the apparent lack of unity 
 will be found to be a mere fault of arrangement, so that 
 simply transposing a paragraph will change it from a 
 discordant note to a part of a complete harmony. 
 
 6. Brevity is Comprehensiveness according to the de- 
 rivation, the "grasping together" of the subject, so that 
 the speaker or writer sees the whole at once and all parts 
 in their relations. 
 
 Visitors to St. Peter's Church in Rome often find dif- 
 ficulty in appreciating its vastness because all is in such 
 perfect adaptation. You go up to the infantile cherubs 
 near the entrance, and find to your .surprize that it takes 
 your two hands to clasp one baby arm. You learn that 
 in the apparently life-size picture of St. Luke at the 
 base of the dome, the pen in the hand of the evangelist 
 is seven feet long. Then you begin to feel the sweep of 
 that comprehensive genius that reared the vast pile, and 
 proportioned all the objects to the immensity. 
 
 Hence it will readily appear that brevity is an attain- 
 ment an achievement the result of hard work, and of 
 the exercise of some of the highest qualities of oratorical 
 or rhetorical genius. 
 
 7. Brevity is the Right Finish. Two young ministers 
 were comparing notes. The first said, ' ' I don 't see how 
 it is. My education is all as good as yours. In many 
 ways, certainly, I have as much ability. My sermons
 
 THE ART OF BREVITY 363 
 
 are no longer than yours, but I always leave an audi- 
 ence tired, while you leave them delighted and in- 
 spired. ' ' 
 
 "I will tell you," said his friend. "You put your 
 best illustration into your introduction and your best 
 arguments into the body of the sermon, and reach the 
 closing part tired and hurried and glad to get through 
 as you can, and your audience feels the same way. 
 
 "I write my conclusion first. I put the very best 
 thing I have into it. I learn it by heart. Then, how- 
 ever I may stumble or forget, when the time comes, I 
 fire that conclusion, and go off in a cloud of glory. ' ' 
 
 There is more in this than first appears. It is more 
 than an oratorical trick. It involves oratorical perspec- 
 tive, seeing through the vista of the discourse the fitting 
 close. 
 
 Conclusion is more than end or finish. It is by deriva- 
 tion, a "shutting together," bringing all to complete- 
 ness, all that has been said leading up to this. The con- 
 clusion should be alive, vigorous, climactic, with the 
 power of the whole discourse pressing behind it. Take 
 the famous close of "Paradise Lost:" ' 
 
 "The world was all before them where to choose 
 Their place of rest, and Providence their guide. 
 They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow, 
 Through Eden took their solitary way." 
 
 An inferior poet would have added some paragraphs 
 to tell us about the scenery, the miles they walked, and 
 where they got their dinner, in contrast with this ma- 
 jestic finish which bears in its plaintive cadence all that 
 the poem set out to tell : 
 
 "Of man's first disobedience . . . 
 With loss of Eden till one greater Man 
 Bestore us and regain the blissful seat."
 
 364 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 This simple close leaves the reader in a hush of musing 
 expectancy. 
 
 The public speaker, especially, needs to watch against 
 the insidious temptation, when the very climax and acme 
 of oratorical triumph is reached, and the whole audience 
 is in vivid sympathy at the crowning moment that is 
 so grand, so thrilling just to add a few paragraphs to 
 "improve the occasion," and lo! the occasion has van- 
 ished, like a sunset while the artist was vainly trying to 
 fasten it down on canvas. Hence, the final and abso- 
 lute rule of brevity is, At the conclusion STOP!
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 FIGURES OF SPEECH 
 
 Figurative language is so far from being artificial 
 that it is one of the most natural modes of expression 
 of human thought. The first words of all languages 
 must have been in some way connected with material 
 and sensible objects, as sun, moon, stars, earth, rocks, 
 hills, trees, rivers, birds, beasts, men, women, and chil- 
 dren; the voices of men or animals, the song of birds, 
 the sighing of the wind, the falling of rain or snow, the 
 peal of the thunder; and with these such verbs of mo- 
 tion as go, walk, run, etc. Then, as words came to be 
 needed to express abstract ideas and spiritual emotions, 
 the natural way, and perhaps the only way, to obtain 
 such words was by adapting some material term to spir- 
 itual import. Thus the very word for spirit or soul in 
 both Latin and Greek is one that originally signified 
 wind or breath. Darkness, always somewhat oppres- 
 sive, was especially depressing to primeval man, when, 
 through the long, unlighted nights, he "watched for the 
 morning." It was therefore natural to use any word 
 denoting absence of light or brightness as expressive of 
 sorrow or sadness. The idea has come down to us 
 through the ages. Thus Longfellow writes in the well- 
 known lines: 
 
 "The day is cold, and dark, and dreary; 
 
 "My life is cold, and dark, and dreary; 
 It rains, and the wind is never weary; 
 My thoughts still cling to the mouldering past, 
 But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast, 
 And the days are dark and dreary." 
 365
 
 366 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 With such association the words dark, gloomy, som- 
 ber, shadowy, all suggest sorrow, grief, or melancholy. 
 We speak of a sorrowing one as "walking in the 
 shadow," we speak of "the valley of the shadow of 
 death," and we wear black in token of mourning. 
 
 Again, in matters of the intellect, ignorance and dul- 
 ness make one fail and err, as darkness makes one stum- 
 ble or wander; so Europe's centuries of ignorance are 
 called the "Dark Ages." Spiritually, a dark deed is 
 one that skulks and hides from exposing light. 
 
 But in another aspect, shade or shadow may suggest 
 a wholly different idea. In tropical lands, nothing is so 
 wasting and desolating as the heat of the sun, and there 
 shadow becomes a symbol of rest and protection. The 
 divine care is thus likened in the Scripture to "the 
 shadow of a great rock in a weary land." 
 
 Storm is naturally an emblem of conflict. The ele- 
 ments seem to be contending. Accordingly, we have the 
 expressions, " warring winds," the "storm of battle." 
 A gathering mass of clouds suggests a thronging assem- 
 bly, and we speak of a "cloud of witnesses." 
 
 Man invented a word to express the swift movement 
 of a living creature, and said, ' ' The horse, the deer, the 
 dog, runs. Soon he extended the word to anything 
 marked by the underlying conception of swift, continu- 
 ous movement, and said, ' ' The fire runs through the dry 
 grass ; " " the river runs to the sea. ' ' Next the word was 
 extended to mental conceptions, as of thought and ut- 
 terance. Our old law books speak of time ' ' whereof the 
 memory of man runneth not to the contrary." The 
 Psalmist says, "God's word runneth very swiftly." 
 The word lapse, from the Latin lapsus, a slipping, de- 
 scribed the sliding movement of a stream, and men came 
 to speak of the lapse of time; or, by more direct com-
 
 FIGURES OF SPEECH 367 
 
 parison, we say events are "borne down the stream of 
 time," or when a thought or fact has quietly passed out 
 of mind, we speak of a "lapse of memory." 
 
 Thus early language was highly figurative, and if we 
 study the origin or derivation of our words, they are 
 found to be, almost all, at the root symbolic or pictorial. 
 We have largely lost sight of these comparisons, and 
 take our words, as we take our coins, at their current 
 face value, without thinking of the minted gold or sil- 
 ver, or noting the emblem stamped upon them; but as 
 we go back to observe the earlier meanings, we find all 
 primitive language exceedingly picturesque. Hence, as 
 Macaulay has pointed out, early ages are the most po- 
 etical: 
 
 "Language, the machine of the poet, is best fitted for hia 
 purpose in its rudest state. Nations, like individuals, first 
 perceive, and then abstract. They advance from particular 
 images to general terms. Hence, the vocabulary of an en- 
 lightened society is philosophical, that of a half-civilized 
 people is poetical. ... In a rude state of society men 
 are children with a greater variety of ideas." * 
 
 Still, even in the most advanced society, every human 
 being starts with a background of the physical and the 
 concrete, which has been the basis of thought through 
 all his childhood, and is inseparably united with what 
 will always be its precious memories. Still, by the needs 
 of food, clothing, and shelter, the alternations of heat 
 and cold, storm and sunshine, the vicissitudes of sick- 
 ness or health, bodily pleasure or pain, the needs of 
 travel by land and sea, and at times of forcible defense 
 against violence from within or without, the physical 
 and concrete form the basis and enclosure of the high- 
 est intellectual and spiritual life. The tooth-ache is as 
 
 "Essay on Milton."
 
 368 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 real for the philosopher as for the savage. Hence im- 
 ages from the physical and material will always make 
 ready appeal to human thought and feeling, and often 
 aid effectively in the expression of the highest spiritual 
 truths, as when the Scripture declares, "God is light, 
 and in him is no darkness at all." Figurative style is 
 thus not to be thought of as merely ornamental. Well- 
 chosen figures of speech do supply ornament and beauty, 
 which within due limits are worthy aims, but also, in 
 their best use, add to the clearness, force, and effective- 
 ness of what is said or written. 
 
 The chief figures given in books of Rhetoric are 
 simile, metaphor, antithesis, epigram, paradox, meton- 
 ymy, synecdoche, interrogation, exclamation, apostro- 
 phe, personification, climax, hyperbole, irony. Allegory, 
 parable, and fable are added by many rhetoricians; but 
 these are not properly figures of speech, but forms of 
 literature, partaking of the nature of narrative. 
 
 These figures may be arranged in groups as follows: 
 
 .. ( Simile * j Interrogation 
 
 I Metaphor ( Exclamation 
 
 Antithesis 
 
 Epigram t j Personification 
 
 Paradox ( Apostrophe 
 Irony 
 
 o j Metonomy /. j Hyperbole 
 
 { Synecdoche ( Climax 
 
 Distinction between Simile and Metaphor. 
 
 Simile and metaphor are both figures of comparison, 
 and many persons have difficulty in distinguishing one 
 from the other. The difference is the simplest possible. 
 A comparison introduced by the use of some compara- 
 tive word, as, like, such, etc., is a simile. A coin-
 
 FIGURES OF SPEECH 369 
 
 parison made without the use of a comparative word is 
 a metaphor. If we say of a man, "He upholds the 
 church as a pillar supports an edifice," we use a simile. 
 But if we say, ' ' He is a pillar of the church, ' ' that is a 
 metaphor. 
 
 THE SIMILE. Every simile is a comparison, but not 
 every comparison is a simile. A rhetorical simile must 
 involve the element of imagination. To secure this 
 effect, the rule is absolute that : A simile must compare 
 some object with another of a different class. 
 
 If we say that one city is like another city, we have, 
 not a simile, but a direct comparison. To say, "A mule 
 is like a horse, but with very long ears," is not simile, 
 but description. For simile, the imaginative element 
 must come in. Thus, when we speak of some vast bank 
 of clouds as "like a city with spires and towers and 
 palaces," we have a simile, because the imagination has 
 built its city out of the airy shapes of cloudland. 
 
 But, though imaginative, the likeness must be real. 
 Here, as in all good writing or speaking, truth is the 
 supreme test of excellence. An illustration, however 
 beautiful in itself, if it does not fit the case, leaves the 
 reader or hearer with a sense of being defrauded by a 
 comparison that does not compare. 
 
 The likeness must be intelligible, and readily intelli- 
 gible, to those to whom it is addressed. The very first 
 use of simile is for explication or explanation, to bring 
 some thought clearly before the mind by an apt com- 
 parison. As used for explanation a simile should al- 
 ways explain the less known by the better known. Take, 
 for instance, the Scriptural simile: 
 
 "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou nearest the 
 sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, nor 
 whither it goeth, so is every one that is born of the Spirit."
 
 370 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 Here the wind, which everyone knows as powerful, 
 though unseen, is used to explain the action of the di- 
 vine Spirit, viewless yet mighty. But a simile, however 
 rich and beautiful in and of itself, is useless for rhetori- 
 cal purposes, if drawn from objects unfamiliar to the 
 reader or hearer. He has made no advance. Nothing 
 is clearer to him. In this respect, Browning is especially 
 faulty. His admirers say, "How rich and beautiful 
 that simile is!" after they have studied it out by the 
 encyclopedia and the mythological dictionary. The 
 plain man often understands everything in the passage 
 except the illustrations. Thus: 
 
 "As some forgotten vest, 
 Woven of painted byssus, silkiest, 
 Tufting the Tyrrhene whelk's pearl-sheeted lip, 
 Left welter where a trireme let it slip 
 F the sea, and vexed a satrap; so the stain 
 O' the world forsakes Sordello; how the tinct 
 Loosening escapes, cloud after cloud." 
 
 How many persons get any intelligible idea from this 
 at first reading ? One reviewer * thus explains the pas- 
 sages: 
 
 "Now, what is the picture painted here? Analyze it, and 
 this is the result: An eastern satrap, sailing upon a galley 
 or trireme, wears a vest of byssus, dyed with Tyrian purple. 
 He lets it fall overboard, and, as he looks down through the 
 clear sea, sees the purple dye escaping and clouding the 
 water. So Sordello is cleansed from the stain of the world. 
 It is a very beautiful illustration, but its beauty is not per- 
 ceived till we recollect that purple is taken from the tuft of 
 the "whelk's pearl-sheeted lip," and a garment so dyed, if 
 cast into the sea, throws off its color in tremulous clouds." 
 
 It may be so. We would not dogmatize. Whether 
 
 * W. J. Dawson: "Literary Leaders of Modern England," Ch. 
 xiii.
 
 FIGURES OF SPEECH 371 
 
 the dye would wash out fast enough to be seen in suc- 
 cessive "clouds" before the "vest" disappeared from 
 view we are not sure; we can only take the poet's word 
 for it. The same reviewer adds: 
 
 "Does anyone see the meaning at first sight? And how 
 many might read it, and never see any meaning at all ! This 
 is an example of Browning in his worst mood ; and we cannot 
 wonder, when we consider it, that a simple-minded poet like 
 Charles Mackay called him 'the High Priest of the Unin- 
 telligible'; or that Browning Societies have had to be in- 
 vented to reduce his recondite fancies to lucidity." 
 
 But such similes are for the closet reader, who has 
 all the time there is, and all the antiquarian books at 
 hand, with which to hammer out and explain the illus- 
 trations. For anyone who would address men in the 
 stress and strain of active, hurrying life, such a simile 
 is useless. It is even worse than useless, because it dis- 
 tracts attention by the vain attempt to decipher the ob- 
 scure and perplexing. Contrast with such obscurity the 
 illustration by the war-correspondent, Coffin, of ' ' Stone- 
 wall" Jackson's charge with his massed forces upon the 
 flank of the long-extended Federal line at Chancellors- 
 ville : 
 
 "That charge broke the Union line as you would break a 
 stick of candy l>y striking it on end with a sledge-hammer." 
 
 That simile, from the well-known and familiar, really 
 explains the military movement, makes it clear to the 
 intellect, and at the same time impresses the imagina- 
 tion. Or take Tennyson's description of the innocent 
 young girl in a moment of surprise : 
 
 "Melissa, with her hand upon the lock, 
 A rosy blonde, and in a college gown, 
 That clad her like an April daffodilly, 
 '. . . . with her lips apart,
 
 372 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 And all her thoughts as fair within her eyes, 
 As bottom agates seem to wave and float 
 In crystal currents of the morning seas." 
 
 This requirement of intelligibility does not, however, 
 imply that the simile should be drawn from the ordi- 
 nary, much less from the commonplace. The simile may 
 involve the remote and grand, if only such as the reader 
 or hearer can readily understand or picture. Everyone 
 has read and heard of shipwrecks. Hence we instantly 
 feel the power of Scott's sadly beautiful lines: 
 
 "As the tall ship, whose lofty prore 
 Shall never stem the billows more, 
 Deserted by her gallant band, 
 Amid the breakers lies astrand, 
 So on his couch lay Roderic Dhu!" 
 
 That comparison is as real and as intelligible as it is 
 beautiful in its tender pathos. 
 
 But suppose that the author or the orator sees a 
 valuable illustration in some scientific mechanical, or 
 other fact or process with which his readers or hearers 
 cannot be expected to be familiar. Must he reject it? 
 No. Make them familiar with it before he compares it to 
 anything. Let him begin with some introductory state- 
 ment, such as, "It has been found by scientific research 
 that" then go on and explain the fact or process in 
 simple phrase till it is clear to every thoughtful mind. 
 Now he can perfect his simile with "So in human life " 
 or "So in the affairs of nations ," etc. His simile 
 will be intelligible because his explanation has made it 
 so, and readers or hearers will derive an added delight 
 from the new knowledge thus put within their grasp, 
 and connected with some thought in which they have a 
 practical interest. 
 
 A simile must not be carried too far. Scriptural in-
 
 FIGURES OF SPEECH 373 
 
 terpreters have laid it down as a rule that "a parable 
 must not be made to go on all fours." If the simile 
 goes too much into detail, the imagination is lost in the 
 assemblage of particulars. This is in part the fault of 
 the example already given from Browning 's ' ' Sordello. ' ' 
 The "Tyrrhene whelk," the "trireme," and the "sa- 
 trap" are in the way. What is that "satrap" doing 
 there? What do we care whether there was a "satrap," 
 or not, or whether he was "vexed," or not? We must 
 get by him, and dismiss him from our thoughts before 
 we can reach the real simile of "cloud after cloud" of 
 color. 
 
 But, while too many particulars must not crowd upon 
 the canvas, the simile should be thought through, to be 
 sure that no suppressed detail is such as will be likely 
 to occur to the mind of reader or hearer with damaging 
 effect ; and, especially in discussion or debate, that noth- 
 ing is overlooked which may enable an opponent to turn 
 the simile back upon its author with damaging effect. 
 This caution is especially important for the extempo- 
 raneous speaker. In preparing his notes he often indi- 
 cates an illustration merely by a word or phrase, but 
 when he starts in upon it finds that it involves some 
 elements that are not to his purpose, and may even lead 
 the wrong way. He can not stop, and finds his illustra- 
 tion running away with him, like a bicycle without a 
 brake rushing down hill, with the certainty of wreck at 
 the foot. Every illustration should be studied as care- 
 fully as the argument, and even more so, for those who 
 forget the argument are quite sure to remember the il- 
 lustration. 
 
 But how about the sudden illustrations that spring to 
 the lips when the speaker is looking into the eyes of his 
 audience, and which are some of the best he will ever
 
 374 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 have? The answer is, that only this very carefulness 
 of training will prepare him to utilize these safely and 
 successfully, as it is only the trained marksman who is 
 likely to succeed with the chance shot. The master of 
 speech can think ahead fast enough to seize these in- 
 spirations, and make them spells of power. 
 
 Worn and hackneyed similes should be avoided. "As 
 quick as lightning ; " "as dark as Egypt ; " "as black as 
 a crow ; " " as blind as a bat ; " " as obstinate as a mule ; ' ' 
 "as sharp as a needle;" "as neat as a pin;" "as keen 
 as a brier;" "as true as the needle to the pole;" all 
 these had vivid meaning once, but have lost all point and 
 edge by continual use. Such similes give to speech or 
 writing an effect of cheapness, which is the very fact. 
 They show that the speaker or writer has spent no time 
 or labor to secure the gems and gold of speech, but has 
 pitched into his collection the first wayside pebbles he 
 chanced to pick up. But whoever would address an as- 
 sembly or write for publication aspires to be a leader 
 of men, and to lead he must be in advance of them. 
 They expect this of him when they give him their time 
 and attention. He defrauds them if he does not offei 
 them something that will pay them for reading or 
 listening; and the punishment of this fraud is auto- 
 matic; they cease to read or listen. So the cheap style 
 defeats the very purpose of oratory or authorship. 
 
 Still more emphatically it must be urged that a simile 
 should never be drawn from objects essentially coarse, 
 inferior, or belittling, unless for satire or denuncia- 
 tion, and even then with care that one does not seem to 
 degrade what is high, good, and beautiful. Thus, when 
 Butler, in his "Hudibras," says: 
 
 "And, like a lobster boiled, the morn 
 From black to red began to turn,"
 
 FIGURES OF SPEECH 375 
 
 he insults every reader's sense of beauty by comparing 
 the glory of sunrise to so coarse and rude a thing as a 
 boiled lobster. The comparison is not even funny, but 
 simply disgusting. The true use of simile is to beautify 
 and exalt. An example of this you will find in Gold- 
 smith's beautiful description of the village pastor in his 
 famed poem, "The Deserted Village:" 
 
 "And as a bird each fond endearment tries 
 To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies, 
 He tried each art, reproved each dull delay, 
 Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way." 
 
 And again, summing up his grand life: 
 
 "To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given, 
 But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven. 
 As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, 
 Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm, 
 Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, 
 Eternal sunshine settles on its head." 
 
 Of a different, but still of a noble type, are the similes 
 in Byron's poem, "The Destruction of Sennacherib:" 
 
 "The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, 
 And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold, 
 And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, 
 When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. 
 
 "Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green, 
 That host with their banners at sunset were seen ; 
 Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown, 
 That host on the morrow lay withered and strown. 
 
 "And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, 
 Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord !" 
 
 The simile is subject to another limitation of a di- 
 rectly opposite character, viz.: The illustration must
 
 373 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 never be more or greater or more preoccupying than the 
 matter illustrated. Never attempt to carry a flat or 
 commonplace thought aloft on the wings of soaring 
 imagery. Only a great truth is worthy of a magnificent 
 illustration, and, even so, the truth must be maintained 
 in manifest supremacy. You will sometimes hear a 
 preacher who will give such a realistic description of 
 the earthquake at San Francisco, or the battle of the 
 Marne, that the truth which all that was to illustrate is 
 quite obliterated, and the audience go out thinking of 
 earthquake and battle, quite oblivious of the gospel. 
 The speaker or writer must feel, and so express himself 
 as to make readers or hearers feel, that the image is but 
 a partial representation of a grander, mightier thought. 
 Illustrations must be like the electric lights around Ni- 
 agara, only revealing the majestic cataract that has been 
 thundering down, whether in light or darkness, through 
 the ages. 
 
 The controlling rule is that laid down by Dr. Samuel 
 Johnson : 
 
 "A simile, to be perfect, must both illustrate and ennoble 
 its subject." * 
 
 THE METAPHOR. Metaphor is closely akin to simile, 
 but is more vigorous, intense, and vivacious. When the 
 simile says, "This is like that," we realize that the 
 resemblance may be only in some one feature, all non- 
 resembling elements being left out of consideration. 
 But when the metaphor says, "This is that," the re- 
 semblance is affirmed to be so close and striking that 
 the one word or thing may be substituted for the other. 
 When we read, ' ' The Lord is my rock and my fortress, 
 .." . . my shield and my trust," we see how much 
 
 * "Lives of the Poets."
 
 FIGURES OF SPEECH 377 
 
 more forcible those metaphors are than the correspond- 
 ing similes would have been, ''The Lord is like a shield 
 and a fortress to me. ' ' The mind comes with one bound, 
 as it were, to the fulness of meaning. 
 
 Metaphor is not merely in nouns, however, but often 
 also in verbs and adjectives. When Pope says,* "Shoot 
 folly as it flies," the noun "folly" is used in its ordinary 
 and literal meaning. The metaphor is in the verbs 
 "shoot" and "flies," the mind instinctively likening 
 "folly" to a bird, which can be shot on the wing. Byron 
 writes,! when he would picture the vanished glory of 
 Greece : 
 
 "The warrior's weapon and the sophist's stole 
 Are sought in vain, and o'er each mouldering tower, 
 Dim with the mist of years, gray flits the shade of power." 
 
 Here some would seek the metaphor wholly in the noun 
 ' ' shade, ' ' but how feeble it would be, if that were all : 
 the power of Greece has become a "shade!" The full 
 effect of the imagery is found only by including the ad- 
 jectives and the verb: "dim with the mist of years," 
 "gray (with unmeasured age)"; "flits (silent, ghost- 
 like) the shade of power." 
 
 The limitations upon the use of metaphor are in many 
 respects the same as those already stated upon the use of 
 simile. The metaphor must not be worn and hackneyed : 
 "He drowned his sorrows in the flowing bowl;" 
 "They have drifted down the stream of time;" "He 
 entered on the stage of public life;" "He shuffled off 
 this mortal coil," etc. When some speaker first said, 
 "Another year has rolled around," the figure was beau- 
 tiful and impressive with the thought that the great 
 
 * "Essay on Man." Ep. 1, line 13. 
 f "Childe Harold," Can. ii, St. ii.
 
 378 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 wheel of time had completed another annual cycle, but 
 the metaphor now comes forth like a forlorn old gar- 
 ment from an attic, threadbare, faded, musty, and dusty. 
 Its instant effect is to suggest that the speaker or writer 
 is incapable of evolving a new thought, and has invited 
 us to a "rummage sale" of ancient relics. The unfor- 
 tunate survival cheapens all else he may have to say. 
 
 One exception should be noted here. We may use the 
 old and familiar if by some original suggestion we can 
 make it new. Under the quickening touch of imagina- 
 tion, even the dead metaphor comes to life. To com- 
 pare a young girl to a flower, for instance, is a suffi- 
 ciently familiar figure of speech ; but how new it becomes 
 in Wordsworth's lines: 
 
 "She dwelt among the untrodden ways 
 
 Beside the springs of Dove, 
 A maid whom there were none to praise, 
 And very few to love. 
 
 "A violet by a mossy stone 
 
 Half hidden from the eye." . . . 
 
 Then, to this beautiful metaphor he adds a loftier sim- 
 tte: 
 
 "Fair as a star, when only one 
 Is shining in the sky." 
 
 In the midst of the dubious battle of Picardy that 
 opened the campaign of 1918 in France, the memorable 
 proclamation of Field Marshal Haig, which will be one 
 of the immortal documents of the war, centers and 
 turns upon a metaphor. After reciting the terrific 
 onslaught of one hundred and six hostile divisions of 
 the enemy along a fifty mile front, stayed only by the 
 "determined fighting and self-sacrifice" of the British
 
 FIGURES OP SPEECH 379 
 
 troops, with the Channel coast and ports in all too close 
 proximity behind their line, the commander says : 
 
 "Every position must be held to the last man. There 
 must be no retirement. WITH OUR BACKS TO THE WALL, and 
 believing in the justice of our cause, each one of us must 
 fight to the end." 
 
 The heart-beat stops with the recognition that this 
 great and splendid army, the last hope of the banded 
 nations, has now, in very deed, its "back to the wall." 
 The thrill of resistance stiffens, the summons to the last 
 energy of endurance reaches down into the far depths 
 of the soul. "Whoever reads, whoever remembers, that 
 proclamation will read or remember it with these words 
 as the key-note "with our backs to the wall." 
 
 By such remolding under the power of imagination 
 and sensibility, the common ceases to be commonplace. 
 To have the power of accomplishing such results, the 
 speaker or writer needs to live every possible moment 
 among the exalted things of life the beautiful, the re- 
 fined, the inspiring. He should read freely and gener- 
 ously the best poetry and prose, including the world's 
 great orations; his reading should be chiefly of books, 
 rather than of newspapers and magazines; and those 
 books should be the classics, that have been approved 
 by the world's best thought, and that have lived long 
 enough to die, if it were possible for them to die, the 
 immortals. With this must be joined loving study of 
 the beautiful and grand in nature and in art, and asso- 
 ciation with persons of the strongest intellect, the finest 
 taste, the best powers of expression, the noblest and 
 purest character that one may be able to make his com- 
 panions. Of course, one who would have widest influ- 
 ence must also be friendly with those who can not di- 
 rectly help him. It is much to know average human
 
 380 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 wishes and needs, and how to help those who have least 
 to give; but for the strongest and worthiest influence 
 over those who need it most, one must have stores to 
 give them such as they themselves could never gather. 
 Then that high tribute of olden time may be true of him, 
 "He touched nothing that he did not adorn." 
 
 In metaphor, especially, care must be exercised to 
 avoid the mingling of incongruous elements in the same 
 construction. The metaphor is more exposed to this 
 danger than the simile. For the simile is deliberate and 
 careful in statement, with its "as" or "like," so that 
 one is not apt to say in formal phrase that the same 
 thing is "like" two incompatible things. But the meta- 
 phor is so sudden, abrupt, and momentary, that one may 
 be whirled along in the rush of thought to associate com- 
 parisons that go very ill together. For avoiding this, 
 the two chief cautions to be given are : 
 
 1. Never mix a metaphorical with a literal statement 
 in the same immediate connection. Thus: 
 
 "Boyle was the father of chemistry and the brother of the 
 
 Earl of Cork." 
 
 * 
 
 After the metaphorical statement that "Boyle was 
 the father of chemistry," we are expecting the meta- 
 phorical still ; the mind has not time to adjust itself to 
 the sudden drop to a literal statement, but comes down 
 with a jolt. 
 
 2. Never mix in the same statement images that are 
 incompatible or mutually contradictory. Thus Addison 
 writes : 
 
 "I bridle in my struggling Muse with pain, 
 That longs to launch into a nobler strain." 
 
 Here the metaphors are contained in the two verbs, 
 "bridle" and "launch." By the first the Muse is com-
 
 FIGURES OF SPEECH 381 
 
 pared to a horse that must be restrained by bit and 
 "bridle;" then, suddenly, in the very same sentence, 
 the horse is eager to "launch," as a ship, upon the sea 
 of lofty theme! It is related that an ambitious young 
 preacher, extolling the glory of the church, pictured it 
 as a ship "sailing grandly on through battle and storm, 
 past dangerous shoals and shores," and then went on to 
 say: 
 
 "After all this stormy voyage, the majestic church still 
 floats in triumphant majesty. And now, my brethren, why 
 does it float? Because it is founded upon a rock!" 
 
 His closing thought was excellent, and eminently 
 Scriptural, but its connection was most unfortunate. 
 On the eve of the Civil War it is credibly reported that 
 a fiery newspaper writer burst forth with this tremen- 
 dous warning: 
 
 "The apple of discord has been thrown in our midst, and 
 unless it is nipped in the bud, it will break forth in a confla- 
 gration that will deluge our land in blood." 
 
 Here are other specimens : 
 
 "We plunge into the sea of life, having a divine hand at 
 the helm." 
 
 "Democracy began her reign by feeling the public pulse, 
 and trimrrumg her sails, so as not to collide too violently 
 with it." 
 
 That is, Democracy began to "reign" as a queen, but 
 was immediately transformed into a physician, "feel- 
 ing the public pulse," and then swiftly became a navi- 
 gator, "trimming her sails," with the thoughtful en- 
 deavor "not to collide" with the "public pulse!" After 
 such precaution Democracy certainly should be secure. 
 A sovereign remedy against all confusions such as these 
 is, if you are not sure how to manage your metaphor,
 
 382 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 drop it, and give a plain literal statement. That, it may 
 be hoped, will at least be sense. 
 
 Independently of the danger above defined, the 
 speaker or writer must beware of using for the purpose 
 of metaphor a word or phrase that is in itself belittling. 
 Thus, one reporter acclaimed an eminent speaker as 
 ' ' one of the stars of the horizon of oratory. ' ' When we 
 take the real meaning of " horizon," as the boundary 
 between earth and sky, we see that a "star of the ho- 
 rizon" is just as low down as it can be, to be visible at 
 all. Hence, the metaphor was the reverse of a compli- 
 ment to the orator. Again, an advertiser said of a cer- 
 tain volume, "It is the peer of any other work on this 
 subject." He meant to say, doubtless, that it is superior 
 to any other, from some confused idea that a "peer" is 
 a nobleman, superior to the common man. But "peer" 
 in such connection as that above quoted means an equal. 
 When the law provides that an accused person "shall 
 be judged by a jury of his peers," the meaning is not a 
 jury of noblemen, the very thing the common man in 
 the old days would most desire to be saved from, but 
 by a jury of his equals, citizens of the same rank, and 
 with the same rights as himself. So when Milton wrote, 
 ''For Lycidas is dead, and hath not left his peer," 
 his meaning was that Lycidas had left no equal. Thus 
 you do not give a book distinctive praise by saying that 
 " it is the peer of any, ' ' that is to say, ' ' as good as the 
 rest of them." 
 
 ANTITHESIS. Antithesis may be considered in this 
 connection as a reversed simile or metaphor, though it 
 may also consist in other forms of opposition of ideas, 
 that gain force by being set against each other; as 
 white is best seen against black, or as a sudden sound 
 is heard with wonderful distinctness when it breaks in
 
 FIGURES OF SPEECH 383 
 
 on the hush of midnight. A fine example of the re* 
 versed simile occurs in Mrs. Hemans ' poem, ' ' The Land- 
 ing of the Pilgrim Fathers:" 
 
 "Not as the conqueror comes, 
 
 They, the true-hearted came, 
 Not with the roll of the stirring drums, 
 And the trumpet that sings of fame; 
 
 "Not as the flying come, 
 
 In silence and in fear; 
 They shook the depths of the desert's gloom 
 With their hymns of lofty cheer." 
 
 The one sure rule for all forms of antithesis is to 
 make all other things in the contrasted clauses as like 
 as possible, that the full effect of the contrast may fall 
 upon the elements that are opposed. Nouns should be 
 contrasted with nouns, verbs with verbs, etc., and the 
 order of words in the contrasted clauses or phrases 
 should be as nearly as possible the same. Thus a black 
 and a white object are in sharpest contrast if both are 
 cubes, or if both are spheres, or the like. When the con- 
 trasted sentences, clauses, or phrases are alike in all else, 
 the contrasted terms stand sharply out. Macaulay is 
 the supreme master of antithesis in English literature, 
 a style in which he had such facility that he often used 
 it to excess. Yet constantly in his writings it bursts 
 upon the reader with exceeding vigor and effectiveness. 
 Thus he says of certain Royalists of the Restoration : 
 
 "They valued a prayer or a ceremony, not on account of 
 the comfort which it conveyed to themselves, but on account 
 of the vexation which it gave to the Roundheads, and were so 
 far from being disposed to purchase union by concession that 
 they objected to concession chiefly because it tended to pro- 
 duce union." * 
 
 * "History of England," Ch. ii, p. 102.
 
 384 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 PARADOX. Paradox differs from antithesis in not 
 really stating the contrary or converse, but only ap- 
 pearing to do so; especially in stating, not the con- 
 trary of what has been said, but of what the mind would 
 naturally expect as likely to be said. It often affirms 
 something which at first thought seems false, but which 
 is afterward seen to be really and deeply true. Thus, 
 in the saying attributed to the veteran diplomatist, 
 Talleyrand, "Speech was given to man to disguise his 
 thoughts," the mind would expect the conclusion to be, 
 "to express or reveal his thoughts;" but there are cer- 
 tain astute and secretive persons who are never so far 
 from revealing their real intent as when they seem to 
 talk most freely, leading the hearer farther away every 
 moment from what he would learn, along trails of other 
 ideas that lose him in the wilderness. Paradox, how- 
 ever, is often very effective in rousing the mind by the 
 effect of surprise, and, by its convincing truth in spite 
 of first appearances, making a statement unforgetable. 
 
 EPIGRAM. This has been defined as, "any brief say- 
 ing remarkable for brevity and point. ' ' Epigram is fre- 
 quently marked by antithesis or paradox. Sometimes 
 it makes its point by a mere play upon words. Most of 
 the familiar proverbs are epigrams. Of the paradoxi- 
 cal form, "The child is the father of the man" is a fa- 
 miliar example. The following are some noticeable epi- 
 grams : 
 
 "The royal crown cures not the headache." 
 "The scalded dog fears cold water." 
 "Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead." 
 "We could not see the wood for the trees." 
 "Weakness of mind is the only fault incapable of correc- 
 tion." 
 
 The epigrammatic style is at present very popular
 
 FIGURES OF SPEECH 385 
 
 among certain classes. Jaded minds, persons perishing 
 for a "thrill", empty minds, drowsy intellects, too in- 
 dolent to think any truth through, welcome the pepper 
 and mustard of epigram as pleasant substitutes for 
 thought. That the style leads nowhere does not dis- 
 turb those who have no mental end in view. Epigram, 
 however, when overdone, at length becomes wearisome. 
 A dinner is not expected to consist wholly of condi- 
 ments; there comes ultimately a demand for something 
 to eat. Epigram in excess also gives the appearance of 
 insincerity. It becomes evident that the author's chief 
 care is to say the smart or the smarting thing, and 
 we know that men really and deeply in earnest do not 
 talk or write that way. The real use of epigram is, after 
 something has been proved or illustrated, to pack the 
 truth into some compendious phrase that memory will 
 not let die. 
 
 IRONY. Irony is an unspoken antithesis, where one 
 thing is said, in order that the contrary may be under- 
 stood, as when Job says to his professed friends, "No 
 doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom shall die 
 with you"; or when Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, 
 * ' Cry aloud, for he is a god, either he is talking, or he is 
 pursuing, or he, is in a journey, or peradventure he 
 sleepeth, and must be awaked." Irony is one of the 
 most natural of the figures of speech; it is freely used 
 by children and by uneducated people, and is at times 
 a very effective weapon of attack ; but it falls below the 
 highest dignity, and in the best writing and speaking 
 can be but sparingly used. 
 
 The books tell of two figures of speech, called Meton- 
 ymy and Synechdoche, which few persons in active 
 life really notice, but which we all constantly use, be- 
 cause they are inwrought into language. Most persons
 
 386 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 find it very hard to distinguish, one of these from the 
 other: by which we may be sure that the distinction 
 is not very important. In fact, metonymy includes 
 synechdoche, so that we may concentrate our attention 
 wholly upon metonymy. Of this, the best definition I 
 have seen is that of Dr. Quackenbos (Rhetoric, Pt. iii, 
 Lesson 1, p. 248) : 
 
 "Metonymy is the exchange of names between things re- 
 lated. It is founded not upon resemblance, but upon rela- 
 tion." 
 
 Herein metonymy differs from metaphor. If one thing 
 is put for another because of resemblance, we have meta- 
 phor; if because of relation, we have metonymy. Me- 
 tonymy puts ''gray hairs" for "old age"; the "bottle" 
 for "drunkenness"; "the Crescent" for "Mohammed- 
 anism"; "the Cross" for "Christianity"; "the crown" 
 for the "royal authority"; "the bench" for the "judge 
 or judges " ; " the bar ' ' for ' ' lawyers collectively " ; " the 
 chair" for (the one occupying it) "the moderator"; a 
 "sail" or a "keel" for a "ship"; "roof" for "house" 
 or "home", etc. 
 
 Metonymy is a familiar, pleasing, and often a very 
 powerful figure. Thus, "England" may be put for all 
 that England represents: its territory, with its hills 
 and vales and streams and cities; its people, with all 
 they believe and all they cherish; its place among the 
 nations, its reputation for every quality that English- 
 men stand for, and that the world honors; its history 
 and its hopes. All that was meant in Nelson's signal, 
 "ENGLAND expects every man to do his duty"; and 
 every man in the fleet understood it, and felt that it was 
 for him to be worthy of the utmost that great name 
 could mean. 
 
 INTERROGATION. Interrogation, as a rhetorical figure,
 
 FIGURES OF SPEECH 387 
 
 differs from the ordinary asking of questions in that 
 it asks a question to which the speaker or writer knows 
 the answer, though he deems it more effective to ask 
 the hearer or reader to supply it for himself. It may 
 be a question the answer to which will spring instantly 
 to the mind of the person addressed, but will come with 
 more emphasis when formulated as an answer to a 
 direct question. Ehetorical interrogation has two main 
 uses: 
 
 1. To awaken expectancy. The hearer may not know 
 the answer, but is instantly intent to find one. We all 
 know how a conundrum will at once enliven a dull com- 
 pany, because each person feels it a challenge to his in- 
 genuity, and sets his wits to work to supply an answer. 
 Interrogation, so used, gives the hearer or reader an ex- 
 pectant interest in all the speaker or writer may now 
 have to advance. He is searching his own thought to 
 see if he himself can answer the question, and, if not, 
 to see whether the speaker or writer can. 
 
 2. The second main use of rhetorical interrogation is 
 to clinch conviction, by making the person addressed 
 supply an inevitable answer. That answer may be some 
 essential and self-evident truth, which no one can doubt ; 
 or it may spring from facts so well-known that they 
 need not be mentioned. Then the question has power 
 by simply recalling well-known truth or fact, and bring- 
 ing it into connection with the matter in hand: often 
 a great achievement. Or, the answer may be from fact 
 and argument which the speaker or writer has already 
 given, and in regard to which he appeals to the reader 
 or hearer to say, what is now the inescapable conclusion 1 
 A famed oration of Patrick Henry, which all American 
 schoolboys have loved to declaim, bristles with rousing 
 interrogation, seventeen questions in twenty-six lines.
 
 388 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 "Judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been 
 in the conduct of the British ministry for the last ten years 
 to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased 
 to solace themselves and the House? . . . Are fleets and 
 armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? . . . 
 I ask gentlemen, Sir, what means this martial array, if its 
 purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlemen 
 assign any other possible motive for it? Has Great Britain 
 any enemy in this quarter of the world to call for all this 
 assemblage of navies and armies ? . . . And what have we to 
 oppose to them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been 
 trying that for the last ten years. Shall we resort to entreaty 
 and humble supplication ? What terms shall we find that 
 have not already been exhausted? 
 
 "They tell us, Sir, that we are weak. . . . But when shall 
 we be stronger? Will it be the next week or the next year? 
 Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British 
 guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather 
 strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the 
 means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs, 
 and hugging the delusive phantoms of- hope, till our enemies 
 have bound us hand and foot? . . . Our brethren are already 
 in the field. Why stand we here idle? What is it that gen- 
 tlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or 
 peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and 
 .slavery? (To all which, clinching the sure decision of every 
 patriotic heart, he fulminates his own eager answer.) For- 
 Md it, Almighty God!" 
 
 See how the swift questions crowd the argument on! 
 The power of interrogation is, that, if properly used, it 
 compels the reader or hearer to answer the question 
 from his own mind. Thus the answer seems to him, 
 and is, not something that the writer or speaker has 
 thrust upon him, but something that he himself has 
 evolved by his own thinking; and there is no such tri- 
 umph of eloquence as when the one addressed is made 
 to think of the conclusion as his very own, the irre- 
 sistible working of his own mind.
 
 FIGURES OF SPEECH 389 
 
 EXCLAMATION is another eminently natural figure of 
 speech. Its power is that, in it, art follows nature, as a 
 skilful landscape gardener follows natural vales and 
 dells and heights in laying out a park, only removing 
 what is harsh, inharmonious, or unsightly. Thus Job, 
 in his distress, says of his God, who seems to have for- 
 saken him : 
 
 "Oh, that I knew where I might find him! that I might 
 come even to his seat! I would order my cause before him, 
 and fill my mouth with arguments." 
 
 The limitation is, that the thought must be really 
 great or thrilling enough to justify the form. Other- 
 wise the exclamation seems like a poor bit of acting. 
 The climax of such pretense is, when the inexperienced 
 but gushing young writer relies for the whole force of 
 exclamatory utterance upon the exclamation-point at 
 the end of a sentence that would have been much better 
 closed with a period. 
 
 PERSONIFICATION. This figure of speech treats things 
 without life as persons, with all the qualities of living 
 beings. The things personified may be inanimate ob- 
 jects, as rocks, mountains, sun, moon, stars, etc. ; or they 
 may be abstract ideas or qualities, as truth, falsehood, 
 virtue, vice, etc. ; or organized entities, as church, state, 
 family, or the like. Whenever an object without life is 
 treated as possessing the attributes of living beings, we 
 have personification. 
 
 One of the simplest and readiest forms of personifica- 
 tion is by the use of pronouns. Since, in English, all 
 inanimate objects are of the neuter gender, designated 
 by "it" or "its", the application to such an object of 
 a masculine or feminine pronoun at once personifies it. 
 Thus, when the familiar hymn says of the Church:
 
 390 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 'Tor her my tears shall fall, 
 
 For her my prayers ascend, 
 To her my toils and cares be given, 
 Till toils and cares shall end," 
 
 we readily perceive how much higher and more tender is 
 the effect than if the lines were made to read, "For it 
 my tears shall fall," etc. 
 
 Nearly akin to this personification by pronouns is per- 
 sonification by adjectives, which is so common as often 
 not to be recognized as a figure of speech. Man so nat- 
 urally ascribes his own feelings and motives to the ele- 
 ments and the natural objects around him, that he almost 
 instinctively speaks of "an angry sea," "the thirsty 
 ground", etc. Yet such figures are capable of great 
 power and beauty. 
 
 Still more effective is personification by verbs, because 
 then inanimate objects are represented as acting in a 
 way appropriate to living beings. "With verbs so used, 
 nouns are often very effectively associated to complete 
 the expression of personal action, as when the prophet 
 says: 
 
 "The mountains saw thee, and they trembled; 
 
 The overflowing of the water passed by; 
 The deep uttered his voice, 
 
 And lifted up his hands on high" 
 
 Hebrew poetry is very rich in such personification, often 
 reaching the highest sublimity of imagery, making all 
 nature respond to the spiritual ideas expressed. There 
 is no storehouse of such utterance comparable to the 
 Scriptures of the Old Testament. This element also 
 runs, often unnoticed, through our poetry and the high- 
 est oratory, as well as description and narrative, and 
 even lights up common speech. We catch the gleam, 
 the light, life, and feeling it imparts, without analyzing
 
 FIGURES OF SPEECH 391 
 
 the utterance to find the source of the impression. Thus, 
 in Campbell's " Pleasures of Hope": 
 
 "Why do those cliffs of shadowy tint appear 
 More sweet than all the landscape smiling near?" 
 
 Or when Shakespeare makes Cassius tell how 
 
 "The torrent roard, and we did buffet it, 
 With lusty sinews throwing it aside, 
 And stemming it, with hearts of controversy." 
 
 Or Bryant, in his ''Hymn to the North Star": 
 
 "The sad and solemn night 
 Hath yet her multitude of cheerful fires; 
 
 The glorious host of light 
 Walk the dark hemisphere till she retires." 
 
 APOSTROPHE. This is a form of impassioned address 
 to some absent or unseen person, as to some departed 
 hero, to the Deity, or to some personified quality or 
 attribute, or even to some inanimate object that one 
 would bring into the foreground by strong appeal. 
 Apostrophe is frequently, but not always or necessa- 
 rily combined with personification. Consider Webster's 
 apostrophe to the dead, that breaks in upon his address 
 to the surviving soldiers of Bunker Hill : * 
 
 "But, alas ! you are not all here ! Time and the sword have 
 thinned your ranks. Prescott, Putnam, Stark, Brooks, Reed, 
 Pomeroy, Bridge! our eyes seek for you in vain amid this 
 broken band. But let us not too much grieve that you have 
 met the common fate of men. You lived to see your coun- 
 try's independence established and to sheathe your swords 
 from war. On the light of Liberty, you saw arise the light 
 of Peace, like 'another morn risen on mid-noon;' and the 
 sky on which you closed your eyes was cloudless. 
 
 "But ah him! the first great martyr in this great cause! 
 . . . falling ere he saw the star of his country rise; pouring 
 
 * First Bunker Hill Oration, June 17, 1825.
 
 392 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 out his generous blood like water, before he knew whether 
 it would fertilize a land of freedom or of bondage! how 
 shall I struggle with the emotions that stifle the utterance 
 of thy name! Our poor work may perish, but thine shall 
 endure ! . . . Wheresoever among men a heart shall be found 
 that beats to the transports of patriotism and liberty, its 
 aspirations shall be to claim kindred with thy spirit!" 
 
 HYPERBOLE. As a figure of speech, hyperbole is in- 
 tentional overstatement, intended to be understood as 
 overstatement. In this it differs from mere exaggera- 
 tion, which may be due to carelessness, ignorance or 
 recklessness, and has none of the artistic qualities that 
 give hyperbole rhetorical consideration. Hyperbole is 
 one of the most dangerous of the figures of speech. 
 If too much indulged in, it tends to degenerate into 
 mere exaggeration; and exaggeration has the cumula- 
 tive power of all intoxicants. The victim of the habit 
 becomes unaware of his own excess, and feels any 
 sober, literal statement to be flat and tame. On the 
 other hand, audiences or readers long fed upon such a 
 style come to miss their wonted stimulus, when offered 
 sober truth. The ' ' thrill ' ' is lacking ; and the dose must 
 be constantly increased. This explains the wild utter- 
 ances often heard in political, and even in reform, con- 
 ventions. It is only the extreme statement that gets the 
 applause, and speakers are thus tempted on to more and 
 more desperate excess. At the same time, for judicious 
 readers or hearers, exaggerated utterance loses the sense 
 of reality, of the practical, the exact, and the true. 
 They are compelled always to make allowance, and come 
 to allow too much, like the man who loses his train 
 because his watch was fast, and he has overdiscounted 
 the discrepancy. The extreme utterance may excite, but 
 the substantial alone convinces. 
 
 The essential thing about hyperbole is, that the speaker
 
 FIGURES OF SPEECH 393 
 
 or writer, together with the hearers or readers, shall 
 recognize it as conscious overstatement made for the 
 .sake of impressive imagery. Then from the telling figure 
 it is always possible to pass to the dealing with literal 
 fact or practical duty. This figure may be used play- 
 fully with pleasing effect, as when Hawthorne writes : 
 
 "On this particular afternoon, so excessive was the warmth 
 of Judge Pyncheon's kindly aspect that (such, at least, was 
 the rumor about town) an additional passage of the water- 
 carts was found essential, in order to lay the dust occasioned 
 hy so much extra sunshine." 
 
 On the other hand, hyperbole may rise to the height 
 of the sublime. This, again, is especially the case in the 
 Hebrew poetry, where the exuberance and the limitless 
 daring of the Oriental imagination have full sway. Thus 
 we see it in that psalm of David, ' ' when the Lord deliv- 
 ered him out of the hand of all his enemies and from 
 the hand of Saul ' ' : 
 
 "In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried unto my 
 God : he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came 
 before him, even into his ears. 
 
 "Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also 
 of the hills moved and were shaken, because he was wroth. 
 
 "He bowed the heavens also, and came down: and darkness 
 was under his feet. The Lord also thundered in the heavens, 
 and the Highest gave his voice. 
 
 "He sent from above, he took me, he drew me out of many 
 waters." 
 
 The trial had been so terrible, the danger so over- 
 whelming, that the deliverance, as pictured in vivid 
 remembrance, was as if all that had happened, and all 
 nature had been moved at the mighty intervention of 
 Jehovah. Then fitly follows the calm literal statement : 
 
 "He delivered me from my strong enemy, and from them 
 which hated me : for they were too strong for me."
 
 394 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 CLIMAX. This is one of the mightiest of rhetorical 
 figures. The word is from the Greek klimax, ' ' a ladder ' ', 
 thought of only as a means of ascent. Coming down is 
 so easy that rhetoric takes no account of it, except as a 
 blemish under the name of anti-climax. Climax is such 
 an advance of thought that each new idea, each new 
 word, leads the mind on to something higher, stronger, 
 more beautiful, or more impressive than that which last 
 preceded, until at the very loftiest thought, the strong- 
 est argument, the most impressive appeal to emotion, 
 the movement ends. When the greatest thing is said, 
 why seek to add to it ? Why try still to climb, when the 
 summit rock is already under your foot ? 
 
 The impression made by such an advance is far more 
 powerful than if the chief thing had been said first, 
 because the mind has been both prepared and stimulated, 
 the thought every moment rising and expanding, 
 "going from strength to strength." Then, at the end, 
 the greatest thought is left as the last impression, to 
 have, without check, hindrance, or confusion, its abiding 
 effect upon the mind. 
 
 Every composition, every oration, every poem, should 
 be climactic. The closing utterance may not be in every 
 case the most splendid, but it should be that to which 
 the movement of the whole has led up, the greatest 
 thing then to be said or written, the thought worth 
 leaving as the last in memory. Any series of para- 
 graphs should be climactic. A single sentence or para- 
 graph may also be climactic with powerful effect; but 
 it is not desirable that every sentence or every paragraph 
 be so constructed. Such writing would have an artificial 
 and unnatural effect, for the excellent reason that it 
 would be artificial and unnatural. Something must be 
 conceded to freedom and unstudied simplicity, and a
 
 FIGURES OF SPEECH 395 
 
 sentence or paragraph, like a stream in a landscape, 
 may fulfil the poetic figure that, "wandering at its own 
 will, " it " yet doth ever flow aright. ' ' 
 
 The finest examples of climax in our language have 
 been many times quoted. Among them all, Burke 's 
 cumulative recital of the charges against Hastings still 
 stands unsurpassed, if not unequaled. Perhaps we may 
 best pass that as too familiar. Let us turn back in the 
 same mighty address to the prelude of those impeach- 
 ment charges, the rush of the rising wind before the 
 crash of the storm : 
 
 "My Lords, what is it we want here to a great act of na- 
 tional justice? Do you want a cause, my Lords? You have 
 the cause of oppressed princes, of undone women of the first 
 rank, of desolated provinces, and of wasted kingdoms. 
 
 "Do you want a criminal, my Lords? When was there so 
 much iniquity ever laid to the charge of anyone? No, my 
 Lords, you must not look to punish any other such delinquent 
 from India. Warren Hastings has not left substance enough 
 in India to nourish such another delinquent." 
 
 Figures of speech impart to style variety and anima- 
 tion. A simile, if explanatory, relieves the mind from 
 direct, continuous listening or studying, and throws a 
 side-light upon the thought ; if it is a mere ornament of 
 style, yet, if fitly devised, it is animating, as the mind 
 says, "Why, this is not only true, but beautiful"; if it 
 is but a light touch of fancy, it still gives the mind a 
 moment 's play, from which it turns refreshed to serious 
 work. At another time a question relieves the strain 
 of continuous statement or argument, and calls the mind 
 to be not merely receptive, but definitely active, think- 
 ing out toward a result for itself. So a touch of irony 
 may be more telling than labored censure, because the 
 mind then reacts from listening or reading to spontane- 
 ous activity, as it reconstructs the ironical saying, and
 
 396 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 itself postulates the real underlying thought. The aver- 
 age mind becomes wearied and impatient in following 
 for a long time any one continuous track of thought, 
 and finds in figures of speech welcome diversion and 
 relief, while these, if well managed, do not detract from, 
 but heighten, the final impression. 
 
 But, above all else, figures of speech are of value as 
 appealing to the imagination. Hence, they are essential 
 to the elevated style. It is true that much power may, 
 upon occasion, be exerted by the severely literal presen- 
 tation of fact. An example of this often referred to is 
 found in the chapters of the Gospels which narrate the 
 closing scenes in the life of Christ. They move the soul 
 to its depths, because so severely restricted to the recital 
 of incidents which seem as if even now passing in the 
 reader's very presence. Dr. Hugh Blair in his "Lec- 
 tures on Rhetoric" remarks that "The strong pathetic 
 and the pure sublime not only have little dependence 
 upon these ornaments of style, but generally reject 
 them." He instances as an example the words in Gen- 
 esis, ' ' And God said, Let there be light : and there was 
 light. ' ' In such case the imagination is called into action 
 without direct appeal, and plays around or behind the 
 severely simple phrase. We feel the brooding, unbroken 
 "darkness upon the face of the deep," and swiftly pic- 
 ture what it must have been when first in the march of 
 creation "there was light." But the ordinary imagina- 
 tion is not sufficiently awake nor sufficiently vigorous to 
 rise of itself to the impassioned thoughts of mighty souls. 
 It must be caught and borne up on the wings of the 
 imagery by which they struggle to put into human 
 speech thoughts which still transcend all words. Only 
 so could the passionate intensity of psalmist and prophet 
 have found expression, as in the rapt visions of Isaiah.
 
 FIGURES OF SPEECH 397 
 
 So every orator who has greatly moved the souls of men 
 has depended upon leading them through and beyond 
 the concrete and the material to loftier thought and 
 intenser feeling than could be spoken in literal words. 
 
 There is the simile which pictures, "Oh, that I had 
 wings like a dove [for free, strong, long-sustained 
 flight] ; then would I fly away and be at rest." There 
 is the metaphor, which, as it were, concentrates thought 
 and feeling around a mental image so vivid as to need 
 no comparative word ; perhaps bringing visions of peace 
 and quietness, "The Lord is my shepherd ; He lead- 
 eth me in green pastures and beside the still waters"; or 
 visions of struggle, defense, and power, "The Lord is 
 my rock, my fortress, my shield, and my trust." An 
 apostrophe to a departed hero seems to bring him out of 
 the past, back from beyond the veil, till all that he was 
 becomes more real to us, as we feel ourselves standing in 
 his very presence. An apostrophe to a city, a nation, a 
 state, embodies its thousands as one, and crowds cen- 
 turies into the present moment, as when Byron exclaims : 
 
 "O Rome ! my country ! city of the soul ! 
 The orphans of the heart must turn to thee, 
 Lone mother of dead empires!" 
 
 Then, with swift change to metaphor, how thrilling ! 
 
 "The Niobe of nations ! there she stands, 
 Childless and crownless in her voiceless woe; 
 An empty urn within her witherM hands, 
 Whose holy dust was scattered long ago." 
 
 All the pages of Gibbon's detailed history do not so 
 picture the fall of Rome, nor so touch the heart as these 
 few lines of poetic imagery. Hence, the writer of prose, 
 and above all, the orator, needs to read much of poetry 
 for the arousal and development of imaginative power.
 
 398 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 Beyond the world of the seen and temporal is the greater 
 world the universe of the unseen and eternal. Chil- 
 dren, with their limited powers and reach, find their 
 joy and freedom largely in the land of "make-believe." 
 In all the advance of life never do we reach the limit 
 where ideas greater and nobler than the literal, the 
 technical, the material, and the prosaic, are not waiting 
 for us, if we have but eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts 
 to feel. Imagination enables us to "mount up on wings 
 as eagles," till in the vastness voices unheard at other 
 times call to the soul from the starry spaces. Whoever 
 can lead us beyond the concrete, the ordinary, and the 
 commonplace by arraying around the truth images of 
 beauty and power, of tenderness, love, hope, and un- 
 selfish devotion, opens before us the door of a life wider, 
 richer, and grander, more joyous and more satisfying, 
 than is ever entered without imagination's exalting and 
 beneficent aid.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 INVENTIVE ART IN SPEAKING AND 
 WRITING 
 
 One may sometimes chance to read the same news-item 
 in two different papers. In the one, all is clear, vivid, 
 interesting, culminating. You read it greedily, and 
 remember it perfectly. In the other, all is entangled 
 and confusing, and you are out of patience before you 
 reach the end. So simple a matter as the telling of news 
 requires an art in the telling. So in every subject ever 
 treated in speech or writing there is an art in the treat- 
 ment, on which its interest and power largely depend. 
 Behind all statement of truth or fact, all reasoning, all 
 expression of feeling, must be the shaping power which 
 may bring the thought of writer or speaker most effect- 
 ively to act upon the mind to which it is addressed. This 
 shaping power rhetoricians have called invention, from 
 the Latin invenio, "find." This may not be the happi- 
 est term, but it has been long and widely used, and it is 
 difficult to substitute for it any other equally compre- 
 hensive. 
 
 Rhetorical invention is the finding what to say, and 
 how to say it from start to finish. It is the inventive art 
 by which the speaker or writer brings some thought into 
 effective contact with other minds. 
 
 Every library is full of books written with laborious 
 industry by authors who have known almost everything 
 except how to tell what they knew. Rhetorical inven- 
 tion supplies this fatal lack. Every public speaker, 
 
 399
 
 400 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 probably, has experienced what is known as "stage 
 fright, ' ' when he would be aware of himself as standing- 
 before an audience and expected to address them, while 
 unconscious of anything that could ever be spoken about, 
 and of anything that could ever be said about anything. 
 The universe was filled by the expectant audience and 
 his own unresponsive and incompetent self, isolated in 
 the awful vacuum of absolute intellectual paralysis. 
 There are times when a ream, of white paper seems to 
 have an equivalent effect upon an author. Rhetorical 
 invention breaks the spell, supplying, first, something to 
 be spoken or written about, and, secondly, something to 
 be said or written about it. 
 
 THE SUBJECT OR THEME 
 
 That which is to be spoken or written about is, in a 
 general way, called the Subject; but there is an advan- 
 tage in distinguishing between the Subject and the 
 Theme, letting the subject stand for the whole general 
 idea or mass of thought that the speaker or writer has to 
 consider, while the theme may be defined as the essence 
 or gist of that subject, so far as it suits his purpose to 
 deal with it. A subject, whether presented by others, 
 by the demand of circumstances, or by the first sugges- 
 tions of one's own mind, is seldom so clear-cut, so accu- 
 rately defined and limited, as it needs to be, in order to 
 become the basis of the discourse. The speaker or writer 
 frequently needs to digest, define, analyze, and variously 
 limit the subject originally presented to his mind, in 
 order to obtain a theme on which he can work effectively 
 for an entire discourse. Thus the Theme might be termed 
 the revised or perfected Subject. 
 
 The Theme has been well defined as "the working idea
 
 ART IN SPEAKING AND WRITING 401 
 
 of the discourse."* It is the conception that underlies 
 and dominates all that is to be said or written then and 
 there. It is the substratum of all, and at the same time 
 the test by which every item must be judged as to its 
 correspondence and harmony with that primal concep- 
 tion. The theme must so pervade the speaker's or the 
 writer's own mind as to have a selective and controlling 
 power over all his thoughts and materials, so that what- 
 ever will not agree with or enforce that theme will be 
 resolutely rejected. A really central and dominating 
 theme will so pervade a composition that anything not 
 in harmony with that theme will ring false and hollow, 
 and hearers or readers will be dulled, jarred, or repelled 
 by the intrusion of that foreign element, without know- 
 ing why. The speaker will be aware that he is suddenly 
 losing his audience. In the written article the effect is 
 of an unexplained break. However excellent, elegant, or 
 beautiful that incongruous element may be by and for 
 itself, it will detract from the power of the composition 
 as a whole. The matter may be so good as to delude the 
 author. He cannot see why it is, that when all was 
 moving well, suddenly the chariot wheels seem to be 
 taken off, and progress is checked. Then, perhaps, it 
 occurs to him, "That is good, in itself, but not in har- 
 mony with the present theme. Some time that may be- 
 come part of an independent discourse or treatise. Here 
 and now it must be banished. ' ' The ideal of oratory or 
 authorship is, that the theme shall take possession both 
 of the man and the utterance, so that for the time the 
 speaker or writer is the slave of the theme, moved on by 
 a tide so strong that he cannot and would not resist it, 
 only fearing lest some eddy may sweep him out of the 
 
 * Genung: "Elements of Practical Ehetoric," Pt. ii, Ch. ii, 
 
 p. 248.
 
 402 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 current, and force him to land on some unwelcome 
 shore. 
 
 The theme may be directly stated, in which case it is 
 known as the Expressed Theme; or it may be silently 
 inwrought into the composition, to be evolved by hearers 
 or readers, perhaps unconsciously, perhaps even in spite 
 of themselves, as the work moves on, in which case we 
 have what is known as the Diffused or Pervading Theme. 
 
 The Expressed Theme has the advantage of simplicity 
 and directness. All parties know whither they are, or 
 ought to be going. The hearer or reader can be sure in 
 which direction he is moving, and is able, on occasion, 
 to retrace his path. Hence the expressed theme is com- 
 monly used in sermons, in legal pleas or arguments, in 
 scientific discourses, in senatorial addresses, in political 
 appeals, and often though not always in popular 
 essays. For fair and orderly debate it is essential that 
 the theme be a definite proposition, to the exact terms 
 of which both the affirmative and negative must be 
 strictly held. The preacher urging some spiritual truth 
 or practical duty, the lawyer addressing a court or a 
 jury, a man of science explaining some discovery or some 
 natural law, a political leader arguing for or against 
 certain legislation or governmental action, a writer de- 
 fending some view of truth for popular reading: in a 
 word, any one dealing directly with practical matters 
 can seldom do better than to express the theme on which 
 his whole work is based, and to take hearers or readers 
 from the outset into definite conjunction with himself in 
 his purpose and endeavor. The expressed theme should 
 be brought to such definiteness and exactness of state- 
 ment that hearers or readers cannot hold the speaker or 
 writer responsible for anything aside from or beyond 
 that predicated statement, while, at the same time, that
 
 ART IN SPEAKING AND WRITING 403 
 
 exact statement holds the speaker or writer to a fixed 
 course, from which he will not allow himself to depart. 
 So far is such precision of theme from cramping or 
 hampering the speaker or writer that it gives him the 
 assurance and security which the locomotive has when 
 it adheres unswervingly to the supporting and guiding 
 rails. Whatever line of literary work he may ultimately 
 follow, every young speaker or writer will do well dur- 
 ing the training period to give much attention to the 
 formulating and development of the expressed theme, so 
 that he can at any time shape up his material according 
 to this method, and that the power of such expression 
 shall become a natural and dependable mental capacity. 
 The habit of such mental action will control him, even 
 when he does not definitely think of it, and all his work 
 will be better for its unifying influence. 
 
 The Diffused or Pervading Theme, on the contrary, is 
 the one suited for description, narration, or dramatic 
 composition. In this style, the author not merely leaves 
 the theme unexpressed, but carefully avoids its expres- 
 sion. Nothing could so kill interest at the start, as to 
 say, "I will now tell you a story to illustrate the danger 
 of listening to flattery." But the old fable of the Fox, 
 who inveigled the Crow into dropping the cheese in the 
 attempt to sing, has a perennial interest, and silently 
 teaches its lesson. If the theme is appended at the close, 
 "This fable teaches", the expression is always jar- 
 ring. Even children shun this style. A little girl at a 
 summer resort was the pet of a number of gentlemen, 
 who told her their best stories ; but among them all she 
 was most attracted to one eminent clergyman, and on 
 being asked the reason, calmly replied, "Because he has 
 no morals. ' ' The others had appended ' ' morals ' ' to their 
 stories, so that she might be sure to get the lesson. But
 
 404 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 the great man knew how to tell a story so that its moral 
 was interwoven, and had no need to be tacked on the 
 outside. When the novelist or the dramatist has to tell 
 in express terms what his novel or play is to teach, he 
 has missed the true power of his art. On the other 
 hand, the Diffused Theme can rarely have place in ora- 
 tory. The speech which Shakespeare puts into the 
 mouth of Mark Antony at Caesar's funeral is masterly 
 as a dramatic conception, but any orator who should 
 make such an attempt in real life would be greatly 
 in danger of influencing his audience against his 
 purpose. 
 
 But whether expressed or not, the theme must be 
 clearly manifest to the speaker or writer himself, and 
 dominate his whole thought. In a story the theme may 
 be what has been called ' ' the narrative conception, ' ' the 
 author's vision of the story as a whole, which controls 
 all grouping of particulars. In a poem the theme may 
 be some conception of beauty, grandeur, or power, or 
 even of terror, such as an artist might paint upon canvas 
 or carve in marble by and for itself, with no ulterior 
 purpose. In a description the speaker or writer, if he 
 would be clear and impressive, must have some well- 
 defined impression which the scene has produced upon 
 his own mind. Nature is what we see in it, and that 
 impression his description can unfold to his audience. 
 That primal conception will guide him in the choice of 
 the particulars he selects. The reader may only collect 
 the theme as the result of his reading. With the writer 
 the theme controls the production, and the theme most 
 clearly and definitely expressed by speaker or writer is 
 commonly the result of thorough study and analysis of 
 his subject in his own mind. When once evolved, it sets 
 for him a standard to which all his work must conform.
 
 ART IN SPEAKING AND WRITING 405 
 
 Among many characteristics which should mark the 
 theme, three may be especially noted. 
 
 1. The theme should have Distinction, that is distinct- 
 iveness, to set off some part of the great realm of knowl- 
 edge and of thought for especial treatment on the exist- 
 ing occasion. Thus Ruskin, in "Two Paths," says of 
 "human invention," 
 
 "Out of the infinite heap of things around us in the world, 
 it chooses a certain number which it can thoroughly grasp, 
 and presents this group to the spectator in the form best 
 calculated to enable him to grasp it also, and to grasp it with 
 delight." 
 
 To the traveler visiting Rome, the Campagna, that 
 undulating plain stretching from the city to the Alban 
 Hills miles away on the one side and to the horizon line 
 in other directions, brings no special sense of vastness. 
 It is a wide plain, and that is all. But when an insig- 
 nificant portion of that space, six hundred feet in length 
 by four hundred and fifty in breadth, is set off and 
 walled in with stone, the eye and the mind are deeply 
 impressed by the measurable and comprehensible immen- 
 sity of Saint Peter's church. A limited vastness has 
 become appreciable to the sense. 
 
 The young writer always has the feeling that the 
 broader his subject the more he will have to say; and 
 generation after generation of students are surprised 
 to learn that the very reverse is the fact. Thus, if one 
 were to take "Education" for his theme, he would feel 
 as if in a wilderness, not knowing where to set his foot 
 nor which way to turn. But if he will treat "Educa- 
 tion in the Home," or "The Kindergarten"; or if he 
 will discuss ' ' Primary, " " Secondary, " " Collegiate, ' ' or 
 "Technical" Education, he will be surprized at the ful- 
 ness and fruitfulness of any one of these restricted
 
 406 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 topics. The theme must be the subject reduced to a dis- 
 tinct and manageable entity. Often the first important 
 step that a speaker or writer can take, when a subject is 
 assigned to him, is to limit that subject to a statement 
 or topic which he can handle effectively. In literary 
 work of every kind we constantly find fulfilled the para- 
 dox that "A part is greater than the whole." 
 
 2. The theme must have Relation. It must somehow 
 touch matter of interest to those addressed. The most 
 thorough and learned lecture on "The Hebrew Vowel- 
 Points" would be intolerable as a lecture and unread- 
 able as a book for the majority of people, because they 
 do not care in the slightest degree about the matter, and 
 it is difficult to see how it could be made to connect with 
 ordinary human interests to-day. But let us suppose 
 that one were assigned as a subject, * ' The Ancient Assyr- 
 ian Empire." It is possible to bring that subject into 
 touch with present human interests. For instance, there 
 are great numbers of people who are interested in Bible 
 history. The Assyrian history might be taken up at the 
 point where it first touches that of the Hebrews. Then 
 it would be easy to run back and note what the great 
 empire had been doing in its earlier period, showing 
 how it had come to be what it was in Biblical times. 
 The rude idolatry of Assyria, as opposed to the pure 
 monotheism of the Hebrews, is another obvious element 
 of contrast, and so of interest. The real theme would 
 then be "The Ancient Heathen Empire of Assyria as 
 Contrasted with the Hebrew Theocratic Commonwealth. ' ' 
 That would be the basis of thought on which the speaker 
 or writer would be working, and which he would bring 
 all his materials to illustrate and enforce. Of course, 
 that theme would never do for a title. He must seek a 
 title having some element of attractiveness, and prob-
 
 ART IN SPEAKING AND WRITING 407 
 
 ably expressing but a small part of his controlling 
 thought; as, for instance, "The Assyrian Oppressor of 
 Israel." Or, again, he might find another element of 
 Relation to present human interests by contrasting Des- 
 potism at its Maximum with the democratic systems fast 
 taking control of the world to-day. Somehow he must 
 bring his theme into touch with things that men think 
 of and care for in the living world. 
 
 3. The theme must have Unity. If it has not, the dis- 
 course will be what people call "rambling"; and few 
 readers or hearers are willing to wander aimlessly and 
 far afield, even in company with some one of high intel- 
 lectual ability. 
 
 The test of unity is, whether the whole gist of the 
 subject can be reduced to one compact phrase or propo- 
 sition. Until the writer can so reduce it for himself, he 
 is not in a position to go to work upon it for others. 
 He must, so to speak, walk round and round his subject, 
 view it from every side and in every light, till from it 
 he has evolved one controlling thought, around which 
 everything in the whole treatment shall center, and to 
 which in the conclusion all shall at last return. Such is 
 the comprehensive result which must be the ideal of 
 every author and of every orator, as of every artist. 
 
 Thus the architect masses the brick and stone and glass 
 around one viewless thought, till the dead matter be- 
 comes alive with the conception of a living soul. He 
 builds a great library with such an aspect of compact 
 inclusiveness that from afar the beholder feels that some 
 choice treasure is massed under its gilded dome. You 
 pass the silent-closing door into the white marble vast- 
 ness, with the upward-reaching stairway on either hand, 
 graceful chiseled forms clinging around the balustrades 
 or holding aloft the delicately molded lamps, while his-
 
 408 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 toric pictures look down from panels far above, and 
 arched aisles and alcoves open before your vision with 
 perspective of invitation and promise. A nameless 
 something in every stone and every line says, "This is 
 a place for study and thought." So compelling is the 
 effect that there is scarce need of the gilded motto 
 "SILENCE," that meets you as you open the door into 
 the stately and well-appointed reading-room. The domi- 
 nant impression of the great, beautiful building is one: 
 Meditation, study, thought. 
 
 Similarly a landscape artist will lay out a vast park, 
 so that every winding road, every overarching tree, 
 every clump of shrubbery, every gleaming stream or 
 lake, makes harmonious appeal to the sense of the beau- 
 tiful in nature. 
 
 There is an equestrian statue at the junction of Four- 
 teenth Street and Vermont Avenue in Washington that 
 is a study in unity. From whichever side you view it, 
 the impression is one. The horse is a beautiful animal, 
 a model of grace, swiftness and power. He stands light 
 on his feet as a bird about to fly. Yet he is steadfast, 
 waiting on the higher intelligence of his commander. 
 The man is firm, erect in the saddle, his whole figure 
 braced with the strain of intense feeling. 
 
 Yet there is no flurry of excitement. The horse is not 
 prancing. The rider is not thinking of horsemanship. 
 As you approach from the side or the rear, you see that 
 both man and horse are intent on something far before 
 them. The horse, whose fine head with dilated nostrils 
 and forward listening ears you catch beyond the rider's 
 shoulder, is watching what his equine intellect enables 
 him to apprehend of the scene in the distance. The 
 rider, too, is looking and listening afar. Both are watch- 
 ful, eager, expectant, yet steadfast. As you advance
 
 ART IN SPEAKING AND WRITING 409 
 
 toward the front, the impression deepens, till you come 
 full before the figure, when all else is lost in the face 
 of the man. There it all is, the forward vision, keen, 
 eager, vivid, that will miss not a movement on all the 
 field, the repressed energy, ready to speak or act on the 
 first instant of need, yet, withal, grand, masterful, calm, 
 strong to endure and to wait ; to fail, if it must be, while 
 doing all that man can do ; or, if it may be, through all 
 and in spite of all, to conquer. 
 
 The whole story is told in bronze, and you feel as you 
 gaze that through all that hazardous, doubtful, glorious 
 day, amid imminent peril of defeat and disaster, unter- 
 rified, unshaken, with intent alertness for action, but 
 having under all the still, firm energy of silent endur- 
 ance, so abode Thomas, ' ' the Rock of Chickamauga. ' ' 
 
 Such unity of conception underlies all that is best in 
 literature. Thus the "Iliad" opens with "the wrath 
 of Achilles, ' ' the doughty warrior, the best soldier in the 
 whole Greek army, angered by the selfish despotism of 
 King Agamemnon. Achilles' wrath vents itself in sim- 
 ply retiring from battle, and leaving the Greeks to do 
 the best they can without him. The story goes on with 
 accounts of vain enterprises and disastrous battles, till 
 at last Achilles, maddened by the death of his dearest 
 friend, forgets his personal resentment, rushes into bat- 
 tle, slays Hector, the foremost champion of resisting 
 Troy, and once again takes his place as the leader of 
 Grecian warriors. The poet does not pursue the story 
 to the capture of Troy. He has told enough: Achilles, 
 the irresistible, is again in the forefront of battle; the 
 mightiest defender of Troy is dead; the imagination of 
 every reader can foresee the proud city's fall; and like 
 a master artist, the poet leaves imagination to complete 
 the picture.
 
 410 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 Gibbon's vast history of the "Decline and Fall of the 
 Roman Empire ' ', extending over fourteen centuries, from 
 the reign of Trajan to the capture of Constantinople 
 by the Turks, has one continuous movement from the 
 splendor of Rome in the pride of her power to the crush- 
 ing of the last remnant of that power under the assault 
 of the ruthless Saracen. Every barbarian tribe that 
 assails the imperial frontiers is pictured in its far-off 
 home, traced through its devastating march, and its full 
 story told in victory or defeat. All the oppression and 
 corruption within the Empire, that sapped the power 
 of her once resistless legions, is patiently analyzed. Yet 
 always the story returns upon the " Decline ", and ter- 
 minates at last with the "Fall". The last sentence of 
 the six matchless volumes answers to the first. Every 
 episode and every incident is held in subjection to the 
 one controlling thought. 
 
 Turn, again, to a narrative poem, like Scott's "Mar- 
 mion." It opens with the hero in the full splendor of 
 power and fame, received at a sumptuous banquet in a 
 baronial castle, as he goes on a mission from the king. 
 In the midst of the entertainment one of his retainers 
 sings a song containing the stanza: 
 
 "Where shall the traitor rest, he, the deceiver, 
 Who could win maiden's breast, ruin and leave her? 
 In the lost battle, borne down by the flying, 
 Where mingles war's rattle with groans of the dying." 
 
 Marmion 's heart sinks within him with a sudden thrill 
 of remorse, for the song brings to memory one whom 
 he has betrayed. The poem sweeps on through many a 
 scene of excitement and splendor, honors gathering thick 
 about the warrior chief; till we reach the melancholy 
 close:
 
 ART IN SPEAKING AND WRITING 411 
 
 "With that, straight up the hill there rode 
 Two horsemen drenched with gore, 
 And in their arms, a helpless load, 
 A wounded knight they bore. 
 . . . The falcon crest and plumage gone, 
 Can that be haughty Marmion?" 
 
 Then in his half delirious faintness the stricken war- 
 rior murmurs : 
 
 'In the lost battle borne down by the flying, 
 Where mingles war's rattle with groans of the dying." 
 
 It is true that Scott, with his hearty optimism, must 
 fling a light upon the cloud. The tide of war turns, and 
 England wins, but in the very moment of victory, on the 
 battle verge, Marmion dies alone. 
 
 The same law governs the novel. Thus in Dickens' 
 "David Copperfield", the interest centers around two 
 characters, the neglected orphan boy, David, who fights 
 his way up to success and eminence, and Steerforth, the 
 spoiled darling of wealth, who closes a life of harmful 
 self-indulgence by a tragic death. "Dombey & Son" 
 depicts mercantile selfishness. The conception of life 
 held by the prosperous Mr. Dombey is thus outlined : 
 
 "The earth was made for Dombey & Son to trade in, and 
 the sun and moon were made to give them light. Rivers 
 and seas were formed to float their ships; rainbows gave 
 them promise of fair weather; winds blew for or against 
 their enterprises; stars and planets circled in their orbits to 
 preserve inviolate a system of which they were the center." 
 
 The tale, goes on through a proud and stern career of 
 conflict and sorrow, till, at the end, the broken old mer- 
 chant is rescued from the last disaster by the power of a 
 sentiment which he had always despised a daughter's 
 tender, self-devoted lore.
 
 412 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 Each of Irving 's short stories is complete from start 
 to finish. Rip Van Winkle, the good-natured idler, who 
 would work at any business but his own, and help any 
 person who had no claim upon him, and who joined with 
 his easy-going idleness the love of liquor that commonly 
 accompanies it, helps the stranger carry a keg up the 
 mountain, readily consents to act as waiter for the mys- 
 terious company whom he finds at their games, tastes the 
 liquor which he is passing around, finds it good, and 
 drinks till he falls into a drunken sleep, from which he 
 wakes after twenty years to find how far the civilization, 
 which he had never helped, has gone on without him. 
 Ichabod Crane, the schoolmaster of Sleepy Hollow, had 
 prepared himself by a long course of superstitious train- 
 ing to be the victim of the Headless Horseman, who 
 chases him out of his beloved retreat with clouds of 
 dust, thunder of hoofs, and ignominious fall. 
 
 We might multiply instances without number to show 
 how the shaping of poem, oration, story, or essay around 
 one dominant thought is the essential element of its 
 charm and power. Sometimes a subject made up of ill- 
 assorted or even discordant elements must be forced to 
 yield a theme. 
 
 Since all items cannot be treated at once, there must 
 be some selection and order of treatment. That is the 
 Plan of the discourse. Occasionally we meet a person in 
 whose mind all opinions and all remembered facts are 
 mingled in a formless and orderless chaos. A lawyer 
 may have a perfectly well-intentioned and willing wit- 
 ness, but utterly incapable of orderly thinking. Items 
 are poured forth without the slightest reference to their 
 importance or connection. Questions, unless very adroit 
 and patient, are found only to confuse. At length, amid 
 a flood of insignificant particulars, the one vital item
 
 ART IN SPEAKING AND WRITING 413 
 
 of the testimony is accidentally dropped out. Many 
 children exhibit this mental condition, and parents and 
 experienced teachers learn to "let them tell their story 
 in their own way," and then themselves shape all into 
 order and connection. But no person of such mentality 
 can lead or interest others by speech or writing, even 
 to the extent of reporting news-items for a daily paper. 
 One of the very first requisites for the speaker or writer 
 is to master the process and the habit of orderly think- 
 ing. For whatever is to be said or written, there must 
 be a rational plan. 
 
 THE PLAN 
 
 The plan distributes what the theme concentrates. 
 
 While the author must have bent his best energies 
 toward grasping the whole subject at once, in order to 
 get his theme, he can not expect his hearers or readers 
 to start where he then left off. He must present the 
 thought in varied detail, that they may apprehend it 
 item by item. A great river may flow through arid 
 plains, bearing a flood of wafers uselessly to the sea; 
 but by draining off the waters into orderly intersecting 
 channels across the land, the well-distributed streams 
 will transform desert sands into fruitful fields. 
 
 The human mind can not comprehend all truth at 
 once, and often loses the substance of thought in the 
 vagueness of a severely condensed statement. There is a 
 mythical anecdote of a Persian emperor who ordered his 
 vizier to examine the great imperial library and report 
 to him what in it was superfluous. After prolonged 
 study, the vizier reported that all the truth contained in 
 the library might be summed up in the one word "God." 
 Whereupon the emperor ordered a golden plate inscribed 
 with the divine name to be placed in the central hall
 
 414 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 of the library, and all the books to be burned. But by 
 that act he destroyed all the steps of progressive ascent 
 by which the mind could reach the central idea. He 
 burned down all the stairways by which thought might 
 climb to the Great Supreme. How different the method 
 of the Hebrew psalmist and prophet : 
 
 "When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the 
 moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained, 
 
 What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son 
 of man that thou visitest him? 
 
 For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and 
 hast crowned him with glory and honor. . . . 
 
 O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the 
 earth!" Ps. viii. 
 
 "Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, 
 and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the 
 dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains 
 in scales, and the hills in a balance? 
 
 Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are 
 counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh 
 up the isles as a very little thing. 
 
 Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard that the ever- 
 lasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, 
 fainteth not, neither is weary?" 7s. xl. 
 
 How the thought is led up from the things visible and 
 familiar to some possible conception of the majesty of 
 Deity! The distributing plan must be wrought out by 
 careful thought and every thought well adjusted to every 
 other. The fault of many a brilliant writer is impa- 
 tience of the machinery of an orderly plan. It is grand 
 to have the dream of a soaring bridge, linking height to 
 height, looking light as gossamer, yet proving firm as the 
 everlasting hills, but all this depends upon the mathe- 
 matical measurement of truss and girder and the perfect 
 setting of the rivets in every joint. Many an ambitious
 
 ART IN SPEAKING AND WRITING 415 
 
 tructure has fallen in wreck for want of such common- 
 place accuracy. How shall this be attained? 
 
 The development of the theme, already described, is 
 sure to give some elements of the plan, such as support- 
 ing reasons, objections to be met, questions to be an- 
 swered, elements of likeness to or contrast with other 
 subjects, etc. It then devolves upon the speaker or 
 writer to marshal these in intelligent order, and to fill 
 up what is lacking in this general scheme. 
 
 It is by no means necessary, and it is often highly 
 undesirable, that he should present the various consid- 
 erations to hearers or readers in the very order in which 
 they occurred to him. Those he addresses need not be 
 led along every blind path he has followed in vain 
 pursuit, and into every morass he has waded through. 
 The good guide is the one who can keep us out of those 
 very things. The advantage of his going first is to make 
 sure a plain path for those who follow him. There is 
 nothing of so little interest to the world in general as 
 one's own past mental processes. We all know the indi- 
 vidual who can not give his opinion on any subject with- 
 out recounting what he told his wife or his neighbor or 
 his enemy last week or last year. What he once said 
 seems to have a historic value for him and to be worthy 
 of indefinite repetition. But the effective speaker or 
 writer must hold his own personality negligible, and 
 think from the side of those he addresses. The question 
 is not, How did I attain this truth ? but, How can I best 
 lead others to it? The answer to that last question de- 
 termines his plan. 
 
 There are minds so intensely logical, that on the first 
 presentation of a subject all items in the development 
 of the thought present themselves in orderly array, and 
 such a thinker can at once lay off a connected scheme
 
 416 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 of treatment. Persons so constituted often become teach- 
 ers, and assume that such logical division of a subject 
 is easy and natural for every one. But to the ordinary 
 mind the various points of a subject are likely to present 
 themselves in no systematic order, and the bringing of 
 them to the most suitable arrangement is a matter of 
 much study and experiment. 
 
 The plan should have 
 
 1. Unity. The unity of the theme must pervade the 
 plan. All that has been said of unity in the theme may 
 be applied with even increased emphasis to the plan. 
 For, while a well-contrived plan may cover the defects 
 of an ill-chosen theme, on the other hand a heteroge- 
 neous, scattering and confusing plan will seem to break 
 the unity of the most perfect theme. Anything in the 
 plan discordant with the theme is, of course, a fault. 
 Any conflict or contradiction between different elements 
 of the plan is a manifest fault. But it is not so gener- 
 ally recognized that mere distraction is a fault, with- 
 out any reference to the inherent merit of that which 
 distracts. In fact, the more thrilling or beautiful the 
 distraction is, the worse fault it is. The tendency to dis- 
 traction is everywhere, and the speaker or writer who 
 heedlessly introduces a distracting thought or image 
 into his plan is himself helping this tendency, and actu- 
 ally inviting his readers or hearers to divert their inter- 
 est from his chosen theme, which should be the con- 
 trolling theme. He must have the moral courage severely 
 to cut down or cut out what is good and beautiful, if 
 it leads away from the main theme and plan. That is 
 his sacrifice to unity. 
 
 A plan of which every part agrees with and supports 
 every other has a sustained and satisfying onward move- 
 ment like that of the express train in which every stroke
 
 ART IN SPEAKING AND WRITING 417 
 
 of the piston meets harmonious response from every part 
 of the mechanism, and even the dead weight of the mov- 
 ing mass helps to give it stability on the track and 
 assured direction of progress. 
 
 2. Exclusion. By this is meant that under each divi- 
 sion of the plan shall be treated only what applies to 
 that division, so that every division shall be complete by 
 and for itself and " exclude" every item of every other 
 division. If one part of an idea is treated under one 
 division of the plan, and another part of that same idea 
 under another division, there is the dulling effect of ap- 
 parent repetition; but, far worse than that is the effect 
 of confusion, as of a tangled skein, which would be use- 
 ful if only each thread could be made to run clear of all 
 the rest. Exclusion is simply the principle of Unity 
 applied to each separate division of the plan. Each 
 must handle its own material, carry its own weight and 
 no more. None must infringe upon any other. 
 
 3. Sequence. The items of the plan should be ar- 
 ranged in an order which the mind can naturally and 
 readily follow. Sometimes the very first order that oc- 
 curs to the speaker or writer is the best, because it is 
 according to the natural laws of association of thought. 
 "When a vast mountain is the chief feature in a land- 
 scape, the thought of every beholder is drawn first to 
 that commanding height. Hence, any description which 
 begins with the mountain will seem natural to any hearer 
 or reader. So Coleridge begins his ' ' Hymn Before Sun- 
 rise in the Vale of Chamouny ' ' : 
 
 "Hast thou a charm to stay the morning star 
 In his steep course? So long he seems to pause 
 On thy bald, awful head, O sovran Blanc!" 
 
 Afterward he can speak of the torrents, the "silent 
 sea of pines," the glaciers, and even the mountain flow-
 
 418 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 ers. The laws of association connect cause and effect. 
 But the connection may be made either way. "When 
 Crusoe saw the footprint on the sand, his thought leaped 
 instantly from the effect to its cause, an intruding 
 human presence. But when the trailer on the plains 
 is scanning the sands, it is because he is confident of a 
 cause in the flight of a fugitive, and seeks the effect in a 
 footprint. Likeness is a ground of association, but so, 
 alas, is contrast. The mind turns readily from black 
 to white, swiftly appreciating sharp opposition. 
 
 Any thought not in some line of natural sequence 
 mars the whole scheme. It does not agree with what 
 precedes, and hence comes in with jarring or disturbing 
 effect. The instant mental question is, "What is this 
 doing here? It does not lead up to that which follows, 
 and thus slows up the whole movement of thought. The 
 hearer or reader can not go on until he has got by that 
 misplaced thought, or got rid of it. Yet that inconse- 
 quent idea may be excellent and useful. It may legiti- 
 mately pertain to the subject, and so be no violation of 
 unity. If it can be transferred to a point where it nat- 
 urally connects with what will there precede and follow 
 it, the seemingly intrusive idea may vindicate itself as 
 useful and important, and may help on the whole move- 
 ment of the discourse. 
 
 However attained, that is a good plan over which, 
 when once presented, a normal mind can progress with 
 readiness and ease. The test of a plan is like the test 
 of a coat. Does it fit when made ? 
 
 4. Proportion. This means that the different elements 
 of the plan should be given an importance in presenta- 
 tion suited to their actual importance in the development 
 of the theme. An element that stands out as absolutely 
 vital must have accumulated upon it all that can be of
 
 ART IN SPEAKING AND WRITING 419 
 
 impressiveness. The less important matter should be 
 minimized in the treatment. 
 
 The most obvious way of doing this is by assignment 
 of time or space to each topic in proportion to its impor- 
 tance. The inexperienced speaker or writer often takes 
 some subordinate topic of his plan in due course, be- 
 comes interested in it, follows out its various suggestions, 
 supplies illustrations, until he suddenly becomes aware 
 that his time and space are limited, and the really vital 
 matters, yet to follow, must be despatched as best they 
 can be by summary execution. Sometimes an interesting 
 novel comes to such inglorious finish. You have followed 
 the various characters with admiring or pathetic inter- 
 est, till in the final chapter you can almost hear the 
 author saying, ' ' This thing must be wound up here and 
 now," and the personages come up for prosperity, glori- 
 fication, or slaughter, as if a charge of cavalry had been 
 let loose upon the dramatis persona?. Again, a preacher 
 becomes so absorbed in portraying the harmful effects 
 and enslaving power of evil habits, that he finds his 
 half -hour almost expired, and can only add some hurried 
 suggestions of possibility of recovery and reform, which 
 are cold and weak by contrast with what has gone before. 
 Even an experienced speaker may fall into this snare in 
 extemporaneous discourse. His own ardor and eloquence 
 lure him on, till he sees the jump of conclusion springing 
 into view before him. 
 
 Hurry sometimes must be. Some of the very best 
 speaking or writing ever done is doing in driving haste, 
 where the exigency and the speed stimulate to utmost 
 intensity and vigor. But somewhere and somehow be- 
 hind the rush there must be forced in a plan, noting the 
 most and the least important things with resolute appor- 
 tionment of time or space, and that plan must control
 
 420 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 the whole discourse, as his schedule controls all along 
 the line the engineer of the express train. But where 
 time for deliberate study can be given, most valuable 
 results may be attained by apportioning and reappor- 
 tioning the time or space to be allowed to each item of 
 the discourse. 
 
 Another element of proportion is force. There is a 
 statement that says on one subject the utmost that can 
 be said. If we say of Machiavelli, for instance, "He 
 was the most ingenious, ruthless, and unscrupulous poli- 
 tician that the world ever saw," that may be an over- 
 statement of fact, but it reaches the limit of comprehen- 
 siveness, for that statement can not well be surpassed. 
 So there are words that reach the limit of intensity or 
 power: Ecstasy, rapture, perfection, conquest, victory, 
 calamity, disaster, destruction, ruin, enraptured, over- 
 joyed, desolate, woful, majestic, awful, august, sublime, 
 and many another. A brief passage pervaded by such 
 absolute statement and by such intensity and force of 
 language may eclipse a much longer passage expressed 
 in quiet and unemphatic style. Thus a just proportion 
 of the various divisions of a plan may be in part secured 
 by a wise adjustment of relative force, and not merely 
 by length or brevity. How force may be gained for a 
 whole composition by the deliberate weakening of cer- 
 tain portions is well shown by Professor Barrett 
 Wendell. 
 
 "The truth is that in written style, as well as in declama- 
 tion, there is at any moment a fairly distinct limit to the 
 power of any given man. You can shout just so loud and no 
 louder; you can be just so passionate, just so funny, just 
 so pathetic, and not a bit more. . . . There are moments, 
 of course, that call for your utmost power; but these are 
 rare. And your utmost strength should be reserved for them. 
 . . . There is no mere technical device for strengthening
 
 ART IN SPEAKING AND WRITING 421 
 
 style, then, more apt to be of value than the deliberate 
 weakening of passages you have written in your very strong- 
 est way. Such deliberate weakening of all but the very 
 rare passages which really demand your utmost power re- 
 sults at once in a connotation directly opposite to that of 
 vocal or written rant. It is evident in such cases that there 
 is power in reserve. . . . The tact by which style may be 
 kept strong enough to connote no weakness, and weak enough 
 to connote indefinite strength, is perhaps the finest trick of 
 the writer's trade.* 
 
 Thus a statement may be made true and sufficient for 
 the purpose by saying very much less than might be 
 stated. Instead of saying, ' ' Overwhelming financial dis- 
 aster brought the enterprise to inevitable and hopeless 
 ruin, ' ' it may be quite enough to say, ' ' Financial reverses 
 compelled the discontinuance of the enterprise." From 
 that milder statement there is possible an indefinite in- 
 crease of force for some other passage where greater 
 force may be required. It is ill to speak or write always 
 at the top of one's power. If the most strenuous state- 
 ments and the most exalted, pathetic, or tremendous 
 words are resolutely kept out of the less important pas- 
 sages, they may come in with utmost impressiveness in 
 passages that are meant to convey the greatest power. 
 So a painter by deepening the shadows and subduing 
 the tints in some parts of his picture causes the light 
 to beam forth where he will with a brightness otherwise 
 unattainable. Severe restraint in many parts of a dis- 
 course makes possible exceeding power in others where 
 the orator or author would exert his utmost force. Such 
 due proportion at once of space and force will give a 
 composition or discourse that noble and shapely com- 
 pleteness which we admire as Symmetry. 
 
 5. Climax. The books treat Climax as a "figure of 
 
 * Barrett Wendell : "English Composition," Ch. vii, p. 270.
 
 422 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 speech," chiefly in connection with the sentence or, 
 sometimes, the paragraph. But it is by no means desir- 
 able that every sentence, still less every paragraph, 
 should be climactic. Such a style would be as oppressive 
 as the company of the man or woman who is always 
 posing, assuming attitudes, and uttering epigrams. Ex- 
 cessive use of climax in sentence and paragraph not only 
 seems artificial, but concentrates attention unduly upon 
 these minor features of composition. But for every total 
 of literary production, the rule is almost, if not abso- 
 lutely, invariable, that every argument, discussion, ora- 
 tion, poem, or narrative, should be climactic. This is 
 almost a necessary consequence of the laws of thought. 
 When the strongest thing has been said, why go on? 
 Any addition then at once says to the hearer or reader 
 that that strongest thing is not strong enough. He sees 
 that in your view it needs buttressing. But you have 
 nothing stronger with which to support it. "Whatever 
 you now add must be weaker. You have foregone the 
 advantage of a strong position in order to make a stand 
 upon a less defensible one. This is a pitiable reversal 
 of sound literary strategy. Then, since the capacity of 
 human memory is limited, and still more limited the 
 capacity of sustained impression, the chief care of orator 
 or author must be the final impression, which the hearer 
 or reader infallibly carries away. 
 
 Out of the items of the plan the very strongest thing 
 must be chosen for the finish. Then those that lead up 
 to it must be arranged in an ascending order so that the 
 latest thing said at any point shall never be weaker, but 
 always stronger, than that which went before. These 
 must never be a step down or backward, but always 
 ascending and advancing. The speaker who can main- 
 tain this steady increase of interest holds an audience
 
 ART IN SPEAKING AND WRITING 428 
 
 in the hollow of his hand ; the writer who can maintain 
 it may be sure that the reader will follow on and on 
 till the last word is read. 
 
 The climactic power of proportion by force may often 
 and well supersede proportion by space and time. When, 
 for instance, the early part of a discourse has laid, by 
 extended treatment, the foundations of belief, one brief 
 paragraph of concentrated force may be the one thing 
 needed to rush the mind to swift and sure conclusion. 
 
 In any oration or treatise that aims at that greatest 
 of all practical results, the influencing of man to action, 
 the plan must take account of the three great elements 
 of the human mind, the intellect, the emotions, and the 
 will. The will is never moved without some emotion. 
 You have not stirred a man to action as long as he says, 
 "This is doubtless true, but I don't care." He must 
 be made to care by some influence upon the emotions. 
 The thought must be impressed upon the intellect as 
 true, then it must enlist the feelings and sympathies, 
 after which it is a short step to lead the will to act on 
 what the intellect believes and the heart desires. The 
 strongest emotional appeal should be at the climactic 
 close. Nothing must follow to chill its glow ; and it must 
 be remembered, that, since emotion is essentially transi- 
 tory, it will cool upon the very anvil, if it is hammered 
 too long. 
 
 THE TITLE 
 
 The title is the name or form under which the speaker 
 or writer chooses to present his subject for first consid- 
 eration. At times the subject to be treated is so clear-cut 
 a proposition as to be itself the theme, and to be also 
 the very best title. But, as a rule, the title is chosen 
 for some supposed element of attractiveness, and may
 
 424 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 only very distantly, or even not at all, intimate the 
 theme. The "Iliad" evidently has some reference to 
 the siege of Troy, and the "J^neid" to the story of 
 ./Eneas; "Paradise Lost" carries the very central 
 thought of the poem; "Marmion" means nothing until 
 one has read the story. The title of most novels, as 
 "Ivanhoe," "Guy Mannering," "Rob Roy," "David 
 Copper-field," "Martin Chuzzlewit," "Oliver Twist," 
 give little or no clue to the purpose and character of the 
 works they name. If a work is good, it will make its 
 way under any title; if it is not, no title can give it 
 life and power. "Where a title can be found that will 
 give an adequate key to the work, there is a distinct 
 advantage, as the hearer or reader feels at every step 
 and at the end the satisfaction of quid pro quo, the 
 receiving an expected equivalent for his expenditure 
 of attention and of time. Still the thought of Dr. John- 
 son's utterance controls, that the fate of a book is de- 
 cided "not by what is written about it, but by what is 
 written in it." If another man shall arise who can 
 write plays equal to Shakespeare's, he may give them 
 titles as colorless as "The Tempest," "Macbeth," or 
 "Hamlet, Prince of Denmark," and the world will be 
 well content. 
 
 Certain publishers secure a collection of pictures illus- 
 trating great catastrophes by fire, flood, cyclone, volcano, 
 and earthquake. An author is requested to write an 
 introduction to the volume. Where can unity be found 
 in such a mixture? The effect of fire is the very oppo- 
 site of that of flood; the cyclone is a convulsion of the 
 air, and the earthquake a shaking of the ground. At 
 first, unity seems hopeless, but suddenly you see that all 
 these agencies have destroyed cities and homes and lives. 
 There is the point of resemblance. They are alike in
 
 ART IN SPEAKING AND WRITING 425 
 
 their effect upon humanity. Hence you may have the 
 theme, ' ' Elemental Disasters in Their Effect Upon Man. ' ' 
 This theme has unity, so that you can work upon it, 
 and combine these various elemental agencies of destruc- 
 tion in a single treatment as regards man, who may be 
 the victim of their fury. 
 
 But this theme would never do for a title, because it 
 is heavy in statement and repellant in tone. People are 
 not attracted to a chapter of "disasters." What title 
 can we get that will be briefer and more attractive? 
 Suppose we say, "Nature's War Upon Man." This is 
 brief in statement, true to the theme, and at the same 
 time has the wild charm that always attaches to a story 
 of battle. On that we can build somewhat as follows : 
 
 We talk boastfully of man's conquest of Nature, and his 
 triumphs, indeed, are wonderful. But it is not all triumph. 
 There are defeats and reverses in this age-long war, and 
 Nature from time to time breaks out in fierce reprisal. 
 
 We dwell on the surface of a little globe that is whirled 
 like a grain of dust through the infinite spaces, held by the 
 invisible thread of the sun's attraction from whirling off into 
 the outer darkness, and by the unknown primal impulse of 
 planetary motion from dropping into the globe of fire. We 
 move and build on a thin crust spread over a seetbing fur- 
 nace, everywhere but a little way beneath our feet. Frm 
 time to time tbe bidden fires force mountains of molten 
 rock forth from the volcano, or the earthcrust shivers and 
 wrinkles and topples down our cities as the planet cools; 
 seas and rivers slightly change their level and floods over- 
 whelm our habitation; or warring winds from north and 
 south whirl past in the fury of conflict, and man himself 
 and bis proudest works are borne like feathers on the blast; 
 or the sea of oxygen in which we live suddenly begins to 
 combine on a mighty scale with tbe carbon of which all our 
 structures are built, and we are in a sea of flame, and where 
 one day were proud marts of trade and miles of peaceful 
 homes, the next there is a blackened waste.
 
 426 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 But through all these catastrophes comes out triumphant 
 the soul of man. There is enforced recognition of human 
 brotherhood when rich and poor are involved in one com- 
 munity of disaster. Those who escape will toil in weariness 
 and pain and heartache to rescue and relieve the injured; 
 far-off cities rush in their relief trains; physicians, with the 
 brave humanity of science, come from distant homes to labor 
 all unpaid till heart and hand fail in generous devotion to 
 the needs of suffering fellow-men. Then, when all is done, 
 the smitten host rise up heart to heart and shoulder to 
 shoulder, rebuild their city, fence out river and ocean by 
 mightier walls, put steel and stone in place of wood, and 
 conquer prosperity again. 
 
 Out of the vastness of disaster shines forth the glory of 
 man's spiritual nature, superior to all the blind world of 
 matter, and proving the deep truth of Pascal's saying: 
 
 "Man is the feeblest thing in nature. . . . But though the 
 universe should arm itself against him, man is still greater 
 than that which destroys him, for he knows that he dies, 
 while of the power which it has over him the universe knows 
 not anything." And out of wreck and rain come those grand 
 traits of human courage, endurance, generosity, and com- 
 passion, that are more than life and stronger than death, 
 and that point to a yet nobler immortal life. 
 
 See how much has come out of the mixture of incon- 
 gruous items of a single subject, when out of that sub- 
 ject you have evolved the unity of a controlling theme. 
 
 As to special details of the Plan: 
 
 (1) The Introduction is for the sake of the audience, 
 to awaken interest in the topic, so as to enable the 
 reader or hearer to start fairly with you. This is what 
 the books of rhetoric mean by "conciliating" the audi- 
 ence. Not that it is ever to be assumed that an audience 
 is hostile, but that it is desirable to seek at the start some 
 common ground some point of possible present agree- 
 ment. Sometimes the introduction may state the subject 
 of the discourse ; sometimes, as in telling a story, that is
 
 ART IN SPEAKING AND WRITING 427 
 
 held in reserve till the close, the introduction merely 
 saying enough to make the reader or hearer desire to 
 know the rest. In any case, the purpose of the introduc- 
 tion is somehow to awaken an interest in what is to come. 
 Often the very best introduction consists in beginning 
 squarely with what one has to say. Why not ? Hearers 
 or readers are ready to enter upon the subject, or they 
 would not have come to the audience-room or taken up 
 the book. Let them have at once what they have come 
 for. Stronger than all his carefully wrought introduc- 
 tions is Cicero's plunge into attack in the fourth Catili- 
 narian oration, "How long then, Catiline, dost thou 
 abuse our patience ? ' ' in which he doubtless uttered the 
 instinctive resentment of all loyal senators at the effront- 
 ery of the conspirator in taking his seat among them. 
 The short story is apt to start in the midst of some scene, 
 only afterward, perhaps, giving a clue to what had hap- 
 pened before. There are other occasions when a special 
 introductory utterance is needed to bring the minds of 
 those addressed into a ready accord with the main 
 thought the speaker or writer would present. All intro- 
 duction beyond this is futile, and a hindrance, however 
 beautiful. 
 
 (2) Objections that must be noticed should be deftly 
 sandwiched in. As an almost invariable rule, objections 
 should not appear either in the introduction or in the 
 conclusion: not in the introduction, lest you start with 
 antagonism; not in the conclusion, lest you leave the 
 objection as the last impression on the reader's or hear- 
 er's mind, so that his final thought is, "There's a great 
 deal to be said on the other side after all. ' ' This leaves 
 the speaker or writer on the defensive at the end, instead 
 of triumphant. 
 
 Unless you can answer an objection conclusively, do
 
 428 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 not mention it. Your omission of it may be thought 
 to be because you do not consider it of consequence, but 
 your failure to answer it when mentioned is confession 
 of defeat. Very likely those you address have never 
 heard of the objection, and may never think of it. Do 
 not plunge them into difficulty from which you can not 
 help them out. Thus the present writer heard a promi- 
 nent preacher begin a sermon on the temptations of the 
 devil with an objection to the very existence of a per- 
 sonal devil ; the objection was stronger than anything 
 in the preacher's reply, and coming at the very begin- 
 ning of the discourse left all the rest in shadow. That 
 objection is the only thing I remember of that sermon, 
 the one thing I can never forget. 
 
 Start well with your subject ; develop your thought on 
 some point of power and interest ; then, if necessary 
 mention that some persons have made certain objections, 
 which you will now incidentally brush aside. Get the 
 difficulties out of the way. You have disposed of all 
 that. Then go on with something positive, and come 
 to the concentrated power of your conclusion. 
 
 (3) The Conclusion. This has often been treated as 
 a necessary appendix to be added to a discourse after 
 all has been said. But a detached conclusion is a blemish 
 and a deformity. At some time a formal conclusion 
 strengthens a discourse by giving it definite final direc- 
 tion. An argument may be reenforced by a vigorous 
 summary of its main points as a conclusion, sweeping 
 the substance of all that has been said in swift review 
 at the final moment. There are occasions when bringing 
 all the preceding utterance into direct connection with 
 some matter of time, place, or personality may focus the 
 thought upon something of deep interest to hearers or 
 readers ; though often, if they are simply left with the
 
 ART IN SPEAKING AND WRITING 429 
 
 main thought, they may be trusted to make more effec- 
 tive application of it by and for themselves than any- 
 thing the speaker or writer might add would lead 
 them to. 
 
 Often and often there is nothing better than to end 
 with the strongest thing you have to say; the one chief 
 thought you wish to impress growing naturally out of 
 all that has been said before, so that the whole discourse 
 is masked behind the clear, shining climax, which is your 
 conclusion. When circumstances permit, the very best 
 conclusion is simply to stop at the height of achievement. 
 
 THE COMPLETE EXPRESSION 
 
 This is the filling up and rounding out of every 
 feature of the plan, to give it force, effect, and beauty 
 in the appreciation of the readers or hearers. 
 
 The one theme has been found and clearly defined. 
 Its elements have been drawn out in the lines and 
 branches of the orderly plan. Now, in the complete 
 expression, all that is in the theme and plan is to be put 
 in finished, effective, and attractive form. 
 
 This shaping of all the material into Complete Expres- 
 sion is called, in the books of rhetoric, Amplification. 
 The idea is that the plan is a condensed composition, and 
 that the final utterance is but amplification of the plan. 
 While this is always theoretically true, it may at times 
 be far from the actual fact. A vigorous mind may be 
 almost swamped by its own rush of thought. Intense 
 interest may accumulate material far beyond what time 
 or space will permit one to use, so that the so-called 
 amplification is in fact abridgment. Yet if the abridg- 
 ment is good, it will be according to a plan, which can 
 be abstracted from the mass and definitely stated in con-
 
 430 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 secutive items, the complete expression being then the 
 amplification of that abstract. 
 
 In the complete expression, illustration, ornament, 
 emotional suggestion or appeal may find place. Here 
 the speaker or writer comes into personal touch with 
 those he addresses, every word designed to go direct from 
 him to them. 
 
 The amplification must be as much in harmony with 
 the theme as is the plan itself, and must have the unity 
 of the theme, every finishing touch bringing out more 
 perfectly the central controlling thought. It is as when 
 in the opening spring the strong branches and feathery 
 twigs of the tree, that form its substantial unity of 
 structure, (the plan of the tree) burst out with leaves, 
 blossoms, and fruit from the inherent power of life per- 
 vading all the perfect organism. Amplification reaches 
 out into the universe of thought, and draws in every 
 idea and every image that may be fitly gathered within 
 that field along those lines. 
 
 Now the element of exclusion in the plan becomes 
 helpful. The author takes each subordinate topic for 
 the moment as if there were no other. All he has to 
 say on that division of the plan, he will, within his pre- 
 scribed limits of place and time, say then and there. 
 Inventive art is working now along narrower lines. 
 Within those limits he may deal with that single topic 
 independently with all freedom and fulness, as nature 
 perfectly finishes every petal that joins to make th^ 
 rose. 
 
 It was my privilege many years ago to see that great 
 painting, Church's " Heart of the Andes." It was a 
 large canvas, filling the center of one side of a great 
 room. Each visitor was provided with an opera glass 
 for better view. At first one did not seem to need the
 
 ART IN SPEAKING AND WRITING 431 
 
 glass. There were the giant mountains. On the left 
 were snow-capped peaks rising far into the sunny 
 heaven, the fleecy clouds flitting midway about their 
 giant forms. On the right were other peaks of less ele- 
 vation, grim, rugged masses of rock, dark in the fury 
 of a thunder-storm. You could see that they were dis- 
 tant many a mile, far away, under another sky. Be- 
 tween them stretched lower hills, forests, and forest 
 glades, while far back in the center of the landscape 
 shone the blue waters of a quiet lake. You could just 
 distinguish the groves and scattered trees along its 
 shores, and on the farther side could note a group of 
 white specks, which you knew to be the houses of a vil- 
 lage. In the foreground were dense masses of forest, 
 and in the very center a sunlit space full of bright trop- 
 ical flowers. 
 
 When eye and mind had taken in all the scene, we 
 turned upon it the magnifying-glass, when all increased 
 in grandeur and beauty. Every separate crag, every 
 jutting rock of the mountains came out clearly into 
 view ; we could distinguish the crowns of the individual 
 trees that made up the mass of the forest ; the houses of 
 the far village and the white church with its clock-tower 
 stood out in clear contour; and we could trace every 
 petal of the bright flowers that seemed to lie at our very 
 feet in the foreground. 
 
 The artist had first swept the whole scene with a mas- 
 ter's vision, and sketched out the mountain masses and 
 all other great features in grand relief and just propor- 
 tion. That comprehensive sketch answered to the 
 author's or orator's plan of his entire discourse or 
 treatise. Then he had treated with loving care each 
 feature of the vast landscape, devoting himself for the 
 time to that single scene as if it were an independent
 
 432 EXPEESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 picture, and as if that scene were all, bringing out the 
 rocks and crags on the mountain-side, the individual 
 trees that signalized themselves in the forest, and each 
 flower of nature's bright garden that filled the fore- 
 ground. Each minor scene was perfected as if it were 
 all, yet its relation to the total was never lost, but each 
 was more by association or contrast with all else that 
 made the picture. The mountain lake was more placid 
 by contrast with the thunder-smitten crags, the luxuri- 
 ant forests were brighter with fulness of life, and the 
 flowers of the plain more delicately beautiful because 
 of the icy peaks rising into eternal cold and silence 
 beyond. 
 
 Only by a like comprehensive perfection does the 
 artist of speech become truly master of his art.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 CONSTRUCTIVE LITERARY WORK 
 
 To apply the principles of inventive art in speaking 
 and writing to the actual performance to turn theory 
 into achievement is the problem that besets, and often 
 dismays, the inexperienced speaker or writer ; and from 
 its difficulties even the accomplished orator or author 
 never wholly shakes himself free. Beyond all knowl- 
 edge of how the thing may be done is the practical ability 
 to do it, so that words shall be spoken worthy the atten- 
 tion of a listening audience, or an effective writing fin- 
 ished under one's hand. "We need what the Romans 
 expressed by res gestce, "things done," and the French 
 by fait accompli, "accomplished fact." By what means 
 may such actual result be attained? 
 
 Here is a ream of paper, a pencil or pen, and a writer. 
 How is an essay, a poem, a book, to be made out of that 
 combination? It can be done. It has been done. Sir 
 Walter Raleigh, while a prisoner in the Tower of London, 
 wrote his ' ' History of the World ; ' ' Bunyan, in Bedford 
 jail, his "Pilgrim's Progress;" Milton, in blindness, his 
 ' ' Paradise Lost ; ' ' Scott dictated some of his novels while 
 suffering such excruciating pain that he kept the doors 
 of his study closed, lest his irrepressible cries should 
 disturb those without. If there is thought and opportu- 
 nity, that thought can be written down in readable 
 words. Or, again, here is a man and an assembly wait- 
 ing for him to address them. How shall he speak words 
 that may hold their interested attention? 
 
 433
 
 434 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 Such are the problems presented in literary construc- 
 tion, for oratory, so far as it is premeditated, is a form 
 of literary work. If it lives beyond its immediate occa- 
 sion and effect, it lives only as literature. The orations 
 of Demosthenes and Cicero are but a form of literature 
 to the modern world. That the best work may be done, 
 there must be some method of construction for a writing 
 or a speech as truly as for a building. What shall that 
 method be? 
 
 I. THE SUBJECT OR THEME 
 
 In the first place, there must be a subject. Sometimes 
 this is supplied by those who demand the work pub- 
 lishers, a society, a college, an audience; sometimes by 
 an occasion, as the Landing of the Pilgrims, the Birth- 
 day of Washington or of Lincoln ; often it is left to the 
 free choice of the speaker or writer himself. From his 
 subject, however obtained, he must then derive a theme 
 which shall be his own. How is that to be secured ? 
 
 There are times, indeed, of no perplexity. Some truth 
 or belief has long been shaping itself in thought. The 
 life of the thinker has woven itself around it. All the 
 occurrences of the outer world have seemed to illustrate 
 it. When he would speak or write upon it, thoughts 
 crowd thick upon him. The only question is, how he 
 shall marshal them. Sometimes the plan also springs 
 full-formed into the mind. The author sees, as down a 
 forest vista, what shall be the opening thought, what 
 shall follow in effective order, and what shall be the 
 climax of conclusion. Then he has only to be "obedient 
 to the heavenly vision," seize the cloud-shapes before 
 they dissolve or fade, and put them into permanent form 
 to impress the minds of other men. It was such sudden 
 awakening and marshaling of thought that the ancients
 
 CONSTRUCTIVE LITERARY WORK 435 
 
 spoke of as the ' ' divine frenzy ' ' of the poet, and depicted 
 under the figure of the ''Muse," bringing to him from 
 Olympian heights his inspiration. 
 
 These times of vision are glorious. In such crowding 
 upon the mind of the gathered thought and feeling of 
 months or years, some of the greatest work the speaker 
 or writer can ever do will be performed. It was thus in 
 Webster's Reply to Hayne, for which he had had no 
 opportunity to prepare. All the studies of years as to 
 the constitution of our federal government, all the long- 
 cherished enthusiasm for the sacredness of the Union 
 came rushing into his mind, eager and in haste for ex- 
 pression. He himself said of it, "The air around me 
 seemed to be full of arguments ; I had only to reach up 
 and pull down a thunderbolt and hurl it at him." 
 
 But such times of vision are rare, even for the masters 
 of oratory or of literature. One who waits for them 
 will do but desultory and fragmentary work. The 
 world's great enterprises are not to be conducted by 
 sudden bursts, even of transcendent eloquence. One who 
 will work only under the impetus of hurrying vision, 
 will spend a large part of his life as a literary Micawber, 
 "waiting for something to turn up." His course will 
 be like that of a tropical river, most of the year flowing 
 in a feeble and sluggish stream amid barren sands, use- 
 less by its weakness, then, in times of freshet, a raging 
 torrent, too often useless by its violence. 
 
 One who would have enduring power in the world 
 must do steady continuous constructive work, not always 
 as he would, but as he can. This is the kind of service 
 most useful and most esteemed in the ordinary course 
 of life. Such work demands steady and resolute indus- 
 try for the author or the orator, as much as for the car- 
 penter. Dr. Parker, the great London preacher, tells
 
 43G EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 how he thus labored year after year, going resolutely 
 into his study at the appointed time, and beginning to 
 work at what seemed to him a fitting text, which often 
 at first offered no suggestion, with the resolve, "This 
 text shall yield me a sermon. ' ' He did not always reach 
 the supreme heights of eloquence, but such solid work 
 always yielded some worthy result, something to make 
 it worth while for an audience to come, something to 
 pay them for coming. A vigorous mind, by resolute 
 thinking, with the infinite universe to draw upon, can 
 find a theme suited to any occasion that may arise. It 
 is told of Frederick the Great of Prussia, who loved ec- 
 centric exertions of despotism, that at one time, when 
 seeking a court chaplain, he made it a condition that 
 every candidate for the office should preach only upon 
 a subject given him after he entered the pulpit. One 
 Sunday the minister was allowed to go through all the 
 opening services without a suggestion, and only at the 
 last moment when he must rise to preach, an orderly 
 stepped up, and handed him a sealed envelope. The 
 envelope contained only a blank sheet of paper. After 
 scrutinizing it to be sure there was no hidden mark, the 
 preacher stepped forward and held the paper up before 
 his audience, saying, "My brethren, here is nothing; 
 and," turning the sheet over, "there is nothing; and 
 out of Nothing God made all things." Then he began 
 a powerful sermon on the Creation. He had brought 
 absolute vacuity into relation with the creative power of 
 the Lord God Omnipotent. 
 
 The theme once chosen, what shall be the next step? 
 Many books and teachers answer, to make an abstract 
 form a plan. This is theoretically a sound and excel- 
 lent rule. But in practise an abstract or analysis is often 
 the most baffling of all things. Why? Because, to
 
 CONSTRUCTIVE LITERARY WORK 437 
 
 abstract there must be something to be abstracted; to 
 make an analysis there must be something to be analyzed. 
 Often the very elemental ideas of which a plan might 
 be built do not yet exist in the speaker's or writer's 
 mind. Hence, to meet the needs of a vast number, we 
 would take up next, not the plan, but : 
 
 II. THE GATHERING OF MATERIAL 
 
 If a subject seems barren and empty, so that you do 
 not see how any one could write upon it, that is because 
 you do not know enough about it. Then the first thing 
 to do is to gather material. Any subject can be made 
 interesting if you know enough about it, and know how 
 to tell it. The present author heard at one time a very 
 pleasing lecture upon table-knives; but it was from an 
 expert in their manufacture. 
 
 Suppose you are called upon for an address or an 
 essay on a subject as to which you can form no definite 
 plan, because you have yet no adequate knowledge. The 
 exigencies of life do make such demands. Then start 
 in with the drag-net method. 
 
 (1) Get a blank-book or a bound pad of suitable size. 
 Have nothing to do with loose sheets, which are liable 
 to be scattered or lost. Be sure that you are going to 
 keep all together, and all ready on demand, the items 
 you are to gather with painstaking care. If you foresee 
 much material to collect, your book or pad may be one 
 of a set, of uniform size, which you can number 1, 2, 3, 
 etc. A vest-pocket memorandum-book will be a useful 
 auxiliary for such items as may occur to you when 
 absent from your desk. 
 
 This is to be your omnium gatherum a convenient 
 receptacle for material of every kind awaiting classifica-
 
 438 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 tion at a future time. You are emancipated from all 
 bondage of order or system. You are starting out for a 
 raid upon the universe, to gather supplies wherever you 
 can find them. You do not yet know which will prove 
 to be the most important. You need not pause to know 
 while gathering, but thrust all into your receptacle, 
 to be assorted afterward according to their value or 
 connection. 
 
 (2) To start your collection, write down all you al- 
 ready know about the subject; also all you think or 
 imagine about it. This is important, because it is your 
 own. Much of it may be very crude or very worthless, 
 but it is genuine for you. Even if you afterward reject 
 it, you will be the better off for having sifted your own 
 thoughts, and found out what you do not want. Mat- 
 ters of which you are in doubt should be noted with a 
 very conspicuous question mark, which printers call a 
 "query." On a subject such as we have supposed, 
 where you have little information to start with, this 
 record of your original thought will not take much time 
 or space. 
 
 (3) Find what books there are to read on that sub- 
 ject. Make careful memoranda of all the best, or all that 
 your time and circumstances will make it possible for you 
 to read, with the full title of each work and the names of 
 author and publishers. This is work of far-reaching and 
 enduring utility. One of the most important forms of 
 knowledge for every student is of the sources from which 
 knowledge may be obtained. You can rarely hope to 
 gain it all at once, but you have learned the path, and 
 can at any time go back, and fill your cup at the same 
 spring. Always when possible consult the actual book, 
 rather than a quotation from it, or what someone has 
 written about it. In doing this you will be sure to get
 
 CONSTRUCTIVE LITERARY WORK 439 
 
 more than you go for, and will be better prepared to 
 go again. 
 
 (4) Begin reading with the first good book you can 
 get hold of. You will lose time, chill your enthusiasm, 
 and get the dawdling habit, if you will not read anything 
 till you can get the very best. The most important thing 
 is to set your own mind fairly at work. Do something. 
 In the vivid language of the street, "Get a move on." 
 Begin to read some book, even while you are waiting to 
 get the very best one. 
 
 (5) If the book is your own, mark important passages 
 freely; write the moment's comment in the margin. 
 Those instantaneous suggestions will be some of the best 
 you will ever get. You may toil in vain to reach the 
 same afterward by dull and cold reflection. Moreover, 
 you can find anything you want in that marked book as 
 fast as you can turn the pages. At all specially inter- 
 esting or important points make notes in your note-book, 
 with a few key-words and reference to volume and page 
 just to blaze your track, so that you can go back over 
 it again when you will. Do not try to write a laborious 
 abstract of every paragraph you read, as some old books 
 recommend. That process would take the life out of a 
 sensational novel. Read fast, fast enough to get inter- 
 ested, and catch the movement and scope of the author 's 
 thought. Then, when you have run through a portion 
 so, go back over it, while all is still fresh in your mind, 
 and make your notes on that portion. Then start on 
 another stretch of reading, and so move forward by 
 stages till you have finished the book, or so much of it 
 as you have use for. If the book is a library book, which 
 you cannot mark, make more careful notes of the pas- 
 sages you care for, with reference to volume and page.
 
 440 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 Preferably, if you can, copy out important passages in 
 full at once. 
 
 (6) Write, during your reading, everything that oc- 
 curs to you that 's not in the book. This is the most im- 
 portant matter you will have, because it is your own, and 
 not the author 's. So you may combine original thought 
 with study. If you agree with the author for some 
 reason which he has not stated, write that. If you differ 
 with him, write that, and why; put your objections in 
 shape. Make them clear to yourself. If you doubt 
 anything the author states,, write a query, with a big 
 question mark, so that you may look up that matter 
 later. 
 
 Sometimes, when in haste, write a few vigorous words 
 to preserve the idea. But when some thought is clear 
 and vivid to you, write it down in the very words that 
 come at the instant. Those are likely to be the most 
 live, apt, and vigorous you will ever reach on that 
 thought. At that moment the idea is new-born, and the 
 expression is alive. Any after-statement will be manu- 
 factured. 
 
 In all this preliminary gathering, do not bother about 
 the order. Put your ideas and discoveries in just as 
 you catch them, as a fisherman puts fishes in a creel, so 
 that they shall not slip away while you are after more. 
 
 (7) Review your gathered material from time to time. 
 Refresh your memory. Size up the matter already 
 obtained. What you see to be of chief importance mark 
 with vertical line in the margin of your note-book ; and 
 you may vary the degrees of importance by using now 
 one line, now two, and again three for the very highest. 
 As you find answers to your queries, strike out the 
 question mark, or write out the answer, referring to 
 author, volume, and page where found. If you use
 
 CONSTRUCTIVE LITERARY WORK 441 
 
 clippings, make a memorandum of any one you care to 
 quote in connection with the topic to which it applies. 
 
 (8) Trust much to unconscious cerebration, or what 
 is often called the subconscious mind. There is a mys- 
 tery here, but it is a fact that a thought once started 
 in the mind, if let entirely alone, will, after some hours 
 or days perhaps after a night's rest be found to have 
 gained clearness and power. Somehow all you have 
 ever thought or known gathers round that idea once 
 committed to the mind. The most unthought-of things 
 illustrate it. The most opposite things have one side 
 to match it, or else shed light upon it by negation or 
 contrast. The slumbering idea is like money in a sav- 
 ings bank, gathering interest while you work or sleep, 
 so that you take out more than you put in. 
 
 Not only does the mind unconsciously think things 
 through, but it carries on a constant process of un- 
 conscious selection, associating ideas in groups, so that 
 relations are seen which were not at first perceived. 
 Thus at any moment in your gathering of material the 
 plan may develop itself out of the mixed mass. The 
 material begins to divide itself off in strata. You see 
 what is most important, what is subsidiary, and what 
 is negligible. You grasp at least a partial order of 
 thoughts, which you can mark off as one, two, three, 
 etc. From that moment your gathering of materials 
 will be more systematic. You know where to bestow 
 new material, along which lines to work, what most 
 needs following up, what is worthy of most labor. 
 
 (9) Cease Gathering. You carry on this gathering 
 process until, 
 
 (a) Yon have gathered all you know how to collect, 
 or all that you see that you can profitably use. That 
 is for you at present all there is. Then the sooner
 
 442 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 you write the better, before the matter gets cold and 
 your interest dies; or 
 
 (b) Until the time comes when you must write, in 
 order to get the work done, if not as you would, yet as 
 you can. 
 
 For one reason or the other, either from choice or 
 necessity, you have reached the end of your gathering 
 time. Now determine your plan. Look over your ma- 
 terial, and decide what is the very chief thing which 
 you want most to impress upon your hearers or readers. 
 That should come at, or very near your conclusion. 
 Everything else must lead up to that, establish that. 
 
 Now the order of propositions almost settles itself. 
 You have only to lay out the road for reaching an ascer- 
 tained goal. Which propositions lead up to others? 
 Which naturally follow from others? Let these come 
 into your composition in the natural order of thought. 
 
 Select these out of your notes, with the natural sub- 
 divisions that you will find there, and, fast as you use 
 them for your plan, mark them out of your notes, with 
 a plain stroke that will cancel, but not obliterate, as 
 you may wish to glance at them again. Then run back 
 over the mass, and see if there is anything yet unmarked 
 that is still desirable and available now. You will prob- 
 ably find many good things that you must pass by, 
 either because you have not room for them, or because 
 they would lead off from the main subject, and break 
 the current of thought. 
 
 By this time you have a tentative plan, which may, 
 however, require some readjustment. We are pro- 
 foundly skeptical of the perfect plans given in the 
 books with I, II, III; 1, 2, 3; (1), (2), (3) ; (a), (b), 
 (c), etc. We obstinately believe that the entire work 
 grew first, and that this neatly articulated skeleton was
 
 CONSTRUCTIVE LITERARY WORK 443 
 
 afterward dissected out. The average person will reach 
 an orderly and connected plan only by much review and 
 reconsideration. To secure such readjustment of plan 
 as will commonly be found desirable, one obvious method 
 is to write the theme at the head of a sheet, and then 
 to write under it, in the best order you can at first see, 
 the various heads of the plan contemplated. Write each 
 heading in the fewest possible words that will give the 
 gist of the thought. You can compare them, not only 
 more swiftly, but more surely, if each is a brief, swift 
 suggestion, rather than an extended statement. Then 
 it is easy to note any rearrangement that may seem de- 
 sirable, and to recopy the whole scheme when complete. 
 
 In the readjustment watch to see whether any item 
 includes another or any part of another, and, if so, 
 unite or closely combine those which belong together. 
 If one item depends upon some other, connect them so 
 that the true relation will be shown. Also study whether 
 any more clear, forcible, and effective form of state- 
 ment can be found for each topic than that at first 
 suggested. 
 
 The method just sketched has been used time out of 
 mind, and found practical and efficient, though some- 
 what laborious. Now rhetoric has adopted the modern 
 device of the "card index," and found it very useful 
 and helpful. Of this Professor Wendell says: 
 
 "In my teaching I have found one purely mechanical de- 
 vice of much value here. Whatever our object, whatever kind 
 of writing we undertake, and on whatever scale, our work 
 must inevitably divide itself into certain separate parts. 
 . . . What shall these parts be? is the question; in what 
 order shall they be arranged ? The simplest way I have found 
 of answering these questions is this : On separate slips of 
 paper cards, if they be at hand I write down the separate 
 headings that occur to me. in what seems to me the natural
 
 444 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 order. Then, when my little pack of cards is complete I 
 study them and sort them almost as deliberately as I should 
 a hand at whist; and it has very rarely been my experience 
 to find that a shift of arrangement will not decidedly im- 
 prove the original order. ... A few minutes' shuffling of 
 these little cards has often revealed to me more than I 
 should have learned by hours of unaided pondering." * 
 
 If this latter method is adopted, it will probably be 
 found desirable to copy the entire plan, in the form 
 finally decided upon, on a single sheet or series of 
 sheets, so that all may be brought swiftly and connect- 
 edly Binder the eye, and be viewed as a whole, yet with 
 due recognition of its various subdivisions. Any method 
 is good by which this purpose is accomplished. Inci- 
 dentally, it is well to note briefly the space and em- 
 phasis to be assigned to each topic, as well as you can 
 judge in advance. 
 
 The theme has been chosen, the plan systematized. 
 Now comes the work of expressing in full what the plan 
 has but sketched in outline. It is as when the frame 
 of a building has been set up, but there still remains 
 the task of enclosing it with roof and sides, and placing 
 windows and doors affording light and communication 
 for the sake of those who are to occupy it, and whatever 
 may be of ornament for those who are to look upon it. 
 Without this enclosing, the frame might stand empty 
 and useless till it fell in ruin. 
 
 That enclosing is now your job. Your plan tells you 
 where you are to start, whither you are going, and how 
 to get there. You do not have to deliberate about all 
 that. Your gathered material is ready at your hand to 
 draw upon. Now, what shall you do? 
 
 "English Composition," Ch. v, p. 164.
 
 CONSTRUCTIVE LITERARY WORK 445 
 
 1. Start. Begin with the first item of your plan. Do 
 not bother about a prefatory "introduction" to be put 
 in place of what you want to say. If a preface should 
 prove to be desirable, you can write it after the main 
 work is done, as Cicero wrote all his introductions. The 
 question now is, what have you to say under the first 
 division of your plan, and how are you to say it ? 
 
 Begin writing on that somehow. Even if not your 
 best, if not what the subject deserves, even if you should 
 ultimately discard it, this initiatory writing will have 
 its use. There is a mental, as there is a physical, inertia, 
 which is only broken by action, and the act of writing 
 is action. To that extent the mind is stirred, and like 
 a moving body, it rapidly becomes capable of increasing 
 velocity. The preliminary canter of the race-horse gets 
 him nowhere, but it does put his muscles in responsive 
 condition for the race. Then, too, words crystallize 
 thought. They become material entities outside the mind. 
 That which has floated in a nebulous haze in the mental 
 spaces is made to take concrete form. If the written 
 w r ords seem feeble and cold, they often react as a spur 
 to the mind. You challenge yourself with the question, 
 ' ' Is that the best I can do on such a subject ? Is that all 
 it means to me?" Then the mind bestirs itself in re- 
 sponse, and rouses its latent energies. So the whole dis- 
 course will be better for the writing that may go into 
 the waste-basket. You have begun. You are alive, at 
 Avork. 
 
 2. Make the Start Interesting. Some of the books will 
 tell you to make it pleasing. But this is too narrow a 
 rule. For many occasions, it is indeed, important to 
 please at the outset. There are other occasions when 
 pleasing is not a consideration. We have had too much 
 of ' ' Smile into the telephone. " It is far more important
 
 446 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 to speak distinctly. The "cheerful idiot" has been pro- 
 moted to the high places, and his demeanor has been 
 aped by those capable of better things. At times a smile 
 is simply exasperating, when we want a deed and get a 
 smirk. Earnestness is often worth infinitely more than 
 cheerfulness. 
 
 When a financial panic holds the nation in its grip, 
 bringing disaster and suffering into every home, pleas- 
 ing words are but empty and irritating platitudes. When 
 some pressing matter of public interest, as of peace or 
 war, is calling for decision, no one wants to be amused 
 or cajoled. When the news of Lincoln's death had been 
 just received, no oration or writing on that event had 
 any space for pleasing. The key of utterance then was 
 rather the opening of David's Lament over Saul and 
 Jonathan : 
 
 "The beauty of Israel is slain upon our high places. How 
 are the mighty fallen!" 
 
 But things that have no element of pleasing are vividly 
 interesting when they meet the immediate demand. A 
 sense of the situation, a prevision of popular demand, 
 will tell the speaker or writer what is fitting, and what 
 is fitting will always be interesting. Often the most 
 surely interesting thing to begin with is that thing which 
 you yourself most want to say first. 
 
 3. Keep the Assigned Proportion of Space as Nearly 
 as Practicable. In your plan you have settled approxi- 
 mately how much you can allow to each topic. If the 
 opening thought grows upon you, and many ideas or 
 illustrations occur to you far in excess of the allotted 
 space, cut out the excess, however good. Nothing is bet- 
 ter for any speech or writing than a crowding of thoughts 
 beyond the spoken or written words. By those unuttered
 
 CONSTRUCTIVE LITERARY WORK 47 
 
 thoughts the actual utterance gains the effect of reserved 
 power the suggestive style. 
 
 Yet this decreed proportion of space can be but ap- 
 proximate. We do not credit any human being with 
 anticipatory omniscience that can lay out the future 
 beyond contingency. For a thirty-minute paper you 
 know that you cannot allow a ten-minute introduction. 
 You have assigned three minutes. But that opening 
 portion grows upon you. You see an apt and telling 
 illustration that will extend it to five minutes. It may 
 then be well to give that needed expansion, if the rest 
 of the work will possibly permit. If in the advance of 
 your work it becomes clear that certain sections require 
 for adequate development more space than at first as- 
 signed, you may sometimes do well to omit some whole 
 section which is good, but not essential, so that those you 
 retain may have their full and adequate power. In the 
 complete expression you are nearer to each topic than in 
 your preliminary plan. Your concentration on that item 
 has made you understand it better, and see more clearly 
 its relations, so that the complete expression often reacts 
 upon the plan with helpful change. Thus no writing is 
 done until it is finished. The very plan must be held 
 flexible enough to be modified, if need be, in the final 
 expression. 
 
 4. Regulate the Proportion of Force. If you put your 
 utmost power of expression into your opening, you have 
 destroyed the possibility of progress and climax, for 
 beyond your utmost you cannot rise. In fact you are 
 sure to fall below it. The schoolboy springs upon the 
 platform with a shout, 
 
 "Aye, tear her tattered ensign down!" 
 and so rushes through the poem, and when he reaches
 
 448 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 the climax, he has no more force to add. He has not so 
 much as at first, for he is tired now. So he finishes in 
 a breathless gasp, 
 
 "Nail to the mast her holy flag! 
 
 Set every threadbare sail, 
 And give her to the god of storms, 
 The lightning and the gale!" 
 
 No mind can endure indefinitely the strain of its 
 own utmost exertion. Weariness will make it flag, and 
 the decline comes where advance is needed most. 
 
 If, indeed, as sometimes happens, your opening utter- 
 ance or some later portion comes upon you with an ex- 
 uberant rush of thought and eager words, you may do 
 well to let it have its way. Enthusiasm is precious and 
 we may do ill to chill it with a wet blanket of precaution. 
 Later, in the revision, you may tone it down so much as 
 may be needed. Or, you may find, on the contrary, that 
 the opening paragraphs, when you were struggling to 
 break somehow into your subject, are cold and dull, and 
 you may need to electrify them by the touch of what you 
 now feel to be the true power of your theme. Harmony 
 is best found in final review of all. 
 
 5. Treat Each Topic as a Little Theme. For your 
 immediate purpose it stands alone. It must have a unity 
 of its own, and a definite relation of its own to some 
 interest of those addressed. It must have also the rhetor- 
 ical merit of exclusion, to include all that is to be said 
 on that topic and to exclude everything else. Limit 
 your horizon for the moment to the topic in hand. Some 
 item that is to be considered later might add vividness 
 to your opening. But if you use it there, you have 
 killed it. If you take it up later, it will seem an old 
 story. If you really want that thought later, cut it reso-
 
 CONSTRUCTIVE LITERARY WORK 449 
 
 lutely out of your opening. So with every subsequent 
 item. 
 
 Yet, while perfecting this division for itself, the author 
 must see, with constantly recurrent glance, the relation 
 of this subordinate portion to all that has gone before 
 and to all that is to follow. The whole production is to 
 be essentially one. 
 
 6. Power and Limit of the Paragraph. We are in 
 the age of the apotheosis of the paragraph. It is found 
 exceedingly convenient in school exercises, since it can 
 ordinarily be written within half an hour, and corrected 
 in much less time, besides being a very effectual check 
 upon the loquacity that often mars longer compositions. 
 Also, the "independent paragraph" is favored by many 
 newspapers, as arresting the attention of those who will 
 read only by snatches. Then logic comes in, and tells us 
 that the paragraph is made up of sentences, and the 
 entire composition is made up of paragraphs, the infer- 
 ence being that you may construct sentence after sen- 
 tence till the paragraph is attained, then paragraph after 
 paragraph until the entire composition is done. 
 
 The tendency of this teaching is to concentrate undue 
 attention upon fractional units of composition. In writ- 
 ings constructed on this system, you will find many a 
 beautiful paragraph, almost or quite a gem by itself, 
 but set into the writing like a piece of choice inlaid work 
 in an elegant table, while the body of the discourse seems 
 but like the plain wood which binds these insertions to- 
 gether. The best work can not be so done. 
 
 As well argue that a building is made of brick or stone, 
 and you have only to lay one brick or stone on another 
 till you reach the top, when your building is done. No 
 architect is a mere bricklayer. He sees the building 
 whole before the very foundation is laid, and each brick
 
 450 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 or stone is but an incident in the completion of his com- 
 prehensive scheme. We do not believe that any master- 
 piece of literature or any speech or writing that has 
 deeply moved the souls of men was ever constructed by 
 piecing paragraphs together. In a stirring production 
 like Macaulay's essay on Milton, the impetus of the 
 whole composition so sweeps through the paragraph that 
 one is scarcely aware of it as a separate entity, and only 
 finds it such upon careful rereading. 
 
 Completeness can seldom be attained in a paragraph 
 that forms part of a continuous discourse ; nor is it often 
 desirable, because the connected paragraph should look 
 forward and backward, keeping the reader or hearer 
 interested in what has already been said, and in what 
 is yet to come. But the connected paragraph should 
 have a completeness of its own the completeness of one 
 link of a chain, able to join with and sustain all that 
 precedes and all that follows, while also able to sustain 
 fully its own part of the weight. "Within itself the same 
 general laws hold for the paragraph as for the whole 
 composition. It must be governed by one prevailing 
 thought, and it must so far complete that thought that 
 no other paragraph shall need to return over that topic ; 
 but its completeness is not within and for itself. It is 
 part of the forward movement of the whole discourse, 
 but its range of view is shorter. The bicyclist rushing 
 at speed, or the horseman riding at a gallop, catches, 
 indeed, the far vista of the landscape, but closely notes 
 at each instant only a space about twenty feet ahead. 
 That is the paragraph. 
 
 7. Seek the Glow of Composition. One who has a 
 fitly chosen theme and a well-defined plan, will find in 
 the complete expression that the work grows under his 
 hand. You are nearer to it now. Your attention is more
 
 CONSTRUCTIVE LITERARY WORK 451 
 
 minutely concentrated on each successive item, as you 
 take it up in turn. You are seeing it, not in far per- 
 spective, but with a shorter focus, as a matter of present 
 interest by and for itself. Your thoughts become more 
 vivid as you express them in concrete form. Our words 
 react upon ourselves, so that one can make himself 
 angry or considerate by the form of utterance in which 
 he expresses hie emotion. As your attention is closely 
 fixed upon one unit you see more clearly what it involves. 
 You think of illustrations to be used, of difficulties to 
 be avoided or met, of contrasts and relations before un- 
 perceived. You have set in action the mighty law of 
 association of thought. We all know how much associa- 
 tion can do to hinder. A story or a joke that will not 
 go out of the mind, a tune played by a hand-organ on 
 the street, may for a time disorder one's finest thinking. 
 It is for the writer to turn the laws of association into 
 a mighty and beneficent ministry. You begin to see 
 rapidly and instinctively other thoughts that naturally 
 join with the one immediately under consideration. 
 Often suggestions that you can not use instantly, but 
 may avail yourself of later, so crowd upon the mind 
 that the writer needs, as Quintilian said long ago, to 
 keep loose sheets of paper close to his hand, to note with 
 flying abruptness these visiting fairies of reason and 
 fancy, sometimes writing merely a few key-words that 
 may act as a charm to call them back when he has time 
 to entertain them, and make for them a permanent home 
 of fitting phrase. At one moment the sweep of associa- 
 tion will flash upon you a simile that will explain more 
 clearly what you would express, and perhaps be also for 
 its own sake a thing of beauty. Again comes a vivid 
 metaphor that will impress the thought more deeply. 
 At another moment a sharp contrast appears, giving
 
 452 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 the vigor of antithesis. Yet again one feels by antici- 
 pation such harmony of view with hearers or readers 
 that he can turn a statement into a question, "Do you 
 believe this?" "Would you do that?" evoking the con- 
 clusion from the minds of those addressed, instead of 
 urging it upon them as his own. Sometimes the develop- 
 ment of thought wiD. be by drawing out from the gen- 
 eral statement a particular instance which the reader 
 or hearer may more fully apprehend, and in which his 
 feelings may be more deeply interested, and with this 
 the adding of descriptive details, by which what was a 
 mere fact becomes a vivid picture. All the devices of 
 rhetoric become instinctive with the writer when his sub- 
 ject possesses him, and he concentrates all the powers of 
 his mind upon its fullest and best expression. 
 
 In such expression use at every point the very best 
 thought you have. Do not try to save it over as too 
 good for the occasion. If you do that, the choice thought 
 will be like the manna of the Israelites, which spoiled 
 if they tried to keep it over night, while if they trust- 
 fully used it, they would find on the coming day the 
 whole face of the wilderness covered with new material 
 like morning dew. There is always something better 
 to be said than has yet been uttered. Using the best 
 thought you have up to this moment puts the mind in 
 condition to reach out for more and better. The very 
 vacuum you create will suck in fresh supplies from all 
 the waiting universe. 
 
 8. Provide Transitions. Advance of thought involves 
 change. As you pass from point to point, sometimes even 
 from sentence to sentence or from paragraph to para- 
 graph, shall those changes be unheralded? Often they 
 may well be. Hearers and readers have more capacity 
 of memory and swift inference than those who address
 
 CONSTRUCTIVE LITERARY WORK 453 
 
 them give them credit for. And they love the exercise 
 of their wits in keeping up with a vigorous style, even 
 when at times abrupt. But a break that is rude and 
 harsh, and that seems aimless, is a blemish to style. 
 Some well-devised phrase, sentence, or paragraph, look- 
 ing back and pointing on, may often save a style from 
 jerkiness and rudeness without in the least impairing 
 its vigor. But in the process of writing one should not 
 worry too much about getting from one point to another. 
 The main thing is to get on. The new forward step is 
 clear to you, and you are eager to advance. Go forward. 
 That fervor of thought may be deadened beyond recov- 
 ery while you are constructing an elegant approach to 
 it. Trust to your own knowledge that there is connec- 
 tion, and express the thought while it is vivid and clear. 
 Then, at more leisure, you may express the connection. 
 
 9. Revise for Perfection. That revision is important 
 need not be urged. Rarely, indeed, is anything so well 
 said or written that the author himself can not better it 
 by attentive review. The point to be made here is that 
 revision should be depended on for all final approach 
 toward perfection. The best writing is never done under 
 a microscope. Progress is not made by the car that must 
 be constantly stopped for repairs. In your original 
 draft you will constantly seek to use the best and most 
 fitting words. You will often struggle to catch some 
 word or phrase of which you are dimly aware, but which 
 seems to be eluding you. That is helpful. But sup- 
 pose, as has already been suggested, it still eludes 
 you, and you must search dictionaries, or books of 
 synonyms to find it. That is asking too much. The 
 thought you have in mind will be growing cold, 
 while you are capturing a word by which to express it. 
 Do not stay for it. Put some Warning mark over or
 
 454 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 under the inadequate word you now think of, and go on. 
 Or you see that you need to verify a fact, a name or 
 a date. But to do that you must search an encyclopedia, 
 or even go to the library. Meanwhile the thoughts that 
 are crowding upon you now will have faded from con- 
 sciousness, and you may even start some inharmonious 
 or misleading lines of association. The finest thoughts 
 are commonly the most ethereal, and will vanish into 
 thin air while the author is painfully hammering out 
 some prosaic verification of items. That verifying can 
 wait. Set up a warning signal by a mark in the margin, 
 and put your soul into the thought to be expressed now. 
 
 Again, it is beyond doubt that you should make every 
 sentence clear and correct, and you find you have 
 achieved one that is awkward. Very well. There is but 
 one question: Can the idea you want be found in that 
 deformed sentence? If so, check that sentence in the 
 margin for correction of form, and move forward to the 
 next. The rules of grammar will be the same to-morrow 
 or next week, and you can then hew and pulverize and 
 reconstruct that sentence at pleasure. Just now get the 
 next thing said. Or, still again you see that some com- 
 parison might be more beautifully expressed, and beauty 
 is worth study. Adornment is important. But it is 
 more important to have something to adorn. If you 
 make the essentials of your thought strong and clear in 
 your first writing, you can carve and polish the orna- 
 ments at pleasure in your revision. In constructive 
 work depend upon revision to bear its own part of the 
 burden. 
 
 Revision is best effected after an interval long enough 
 to enable the mind to return with fresh outlook not 
 long enough to allow suggestions to be chilled and out- 
 lines to fade. The lapse of twenty-four hours is a good
 
 CONSTRUCTIVE LITERARY WORK 455 
 
 and frequently available interval. Of course, actual 
 conditions may defeat the ideal. Much newspaper work 
 is printed without even rereading. Revision itself must 
 often be hurried. Still the ideal holds, that where one 
 may expect reasonable opportunity to revise, the original 
 composition should concern itself chiefly with substance 
 of thought, while subordinate matters of correctness and 
 many graces of style may be trusted to thoughtful re- 
 vision. 
 
 Is the method above sketched offered as the one infal- 
 lible system by which any one can produce able and suc- 
 cessful work at will, and without which he can not pro- 
 duce it at all ? By no means. On the contrary, nothing 
 is more notable than the strong individuality of all fore- 
 most orators and authors. Let any gifted literary worker 
 detail his method, and probably the first remark made 
 by any other of the craft will be, "That would not do 
 for me," or "I never could work in that way." One 
 has gathered his material from the unstudied experiences 
 of life, so that his very theme is evolved from his wait- 
 ing, heaped-up stores. Another trusts, and can safely 
 trust, to the development of his plan from point to point, 
 as his work advances though this is rare. Such a 
 writer would say that his plan ' ' comes to him. ' ' by some 
 sure instinct, which he has never defined, but which is 
 for him sufficient. So, in numberless ways will be found 
 something in the individual that does not take kindly 
 to an alien scheme. No rhetorical teacher ever made 
 an author or an orator of a pupil who was not poten- 
 tially one already. 
 
 What then? Is all instruction, are all schemes use- 
 less? All the mechanics of the world could not have 
 made Edison. Yet Edison is using every hour mechan- 
 ical laws and methods wrought out by men who could
 
 456 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 not do hm work. These have become so truly "second 
 nature" to him that he avails himself of them without 
 a conscious thought. In substance the rhetorical scheme 
 is one for all the world's literary workers. A theme 
 there must be, whether evolved from the material, or 
 chosen antecedently to all collection of data. Material 
 there must be, whether accumulated by the toils and the 
 very accidents of life, or patiently elaborated for the 
 special occasion. A plan must be formed, whether 
 evolved laboriously or almost unconsciously, if the work 
 is to have any consistency and coherence. The complete 
 expression must conform to certain laws of expression, 
 or be a failure : not because those laws make the expres- 
 sion, but because they have been found to control the 
 best of all that man has done by voice or pen. Ordina- 
 rily one will move most freely and effectively according 
 to his own individual bent who knows the laws that have 
 aided others, and the places where he must not step off. 
 The theme, the plan, the gathered material, and the 
 essential laws governing the complete expression will be 
 the very means of setting his own individuality free, 
 and of enabling him in his own way to do his own very 
 best. No one is so little the slave of rules and laws as 
 the one who has thoroughly mastered them.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 LIFE THE SUPREME ACHIEVEMENT 
 
 Beyond invention, beyond accumulated information, 
 beyond constructive method, beyond all that art can do, 
 remains one requirement surpassing all. There may be 
 found many an oration, many a piece of literature so 
 elegant, so perfectly fashioned according to all rhetorical 
 rules, that it is referred to as a model of style, while yet 
 it does not take hold, and never has taken hold, of the 
 heart of man, but stands in cold statuesque beauty on 
 library shelves, visited only by the researchful scholar. 
 What ails a thing so fine? It has almost every excel- 
 lence. It has the very appearance of life. Yes, but it 
 has not life : and for the want of life nothing can com- 
 pensate. 
 
 As you read any mere "plan" of discourse, however 
 perfect, you can not escape the feeling that it is dry and 
 dead. It is well called a " skeleton. " The skeleton holds 
 important place and does indispensable service in the 
 human organism, but all our direct interest in it is when 
 it is not only covered by the rounded form, but animated 
 by the energy and the eager activity of life. 
 
 In the ancient prophetic vision, the seer prophesied to 
 the dry bones in the valley of slaughter with wonderful 
 effect. There was "a shaking, and the bones came to- 
 gether, bone to his bone" perfected skeletons. There 
 was even a fuller result ; ' ' the sinews and the flesh came 
 
 457
 
 458 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 up upon them, and the skin covered them above," the 
 complete expression of the forms of life, "but there 
 was no breath in them. ' ' Then came the message, ' ' Come 
 from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these 
 slain that they may live. ' ' In response to that summons, 
 "the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood 
 up upon their feet, an exceeding great army. ' ' Were it 
 but possible for us now so to arouse some dead rhetorical 
 perfection into life! 
 
 But no miracle-working power is given us. All the 
 skill of our boasted modern science can not build a 
 tree. We could fashion one in perfect outward sem- 
 blance from the rounded trunk through the arching 
 branches to the tiniest twig. We could cover it with so 
 fine an Imitation of bark, leaves, and even blossoms or 
 fruit, that the unaided eye could not detect the differ- 
 ence. We could set it up so that it would stand proudly 
 in its appointed place. But, after all, it would be but a 
 statue of a tree, an elegantly fashioned and carven post. 
 The showers and sunshine of spring, the heat of summer, 
 could not call out one leafy spray from its perfectly 
 fashioned boughs. It lacks that incommunicable, inef- 
 fable, and transcendent force, which we call LIFE. 
 
 Life can not be put upon any structure from the out- 
 side. You can not take a cold literary product after it 
 is made, and say, "Now I will give it life." If the work 
 is not already instinct with life, in vain will you attempt 
 to vivify it by piling upon its cold surface resounding 
 adjectives, vigorous phrases, exquisite similes, and meta- 
 phors of power. The essential deadness of the thing 
 itself will wither all your superimposed accessories of 
 energy and vigor. Still more hopeless is the attempt, 
 into which untrained writers are often betrayed, to 
 impart a semblance of life by typographical devices of
 
 italics, capitals, and exclamation-points. "Where an ex- 
 clamation-point may be properly used, the sentence 
 would exclaim without it. Neither can you make an or- 
 ganism alive by vivifying a single member. Your elec- 
 tricity may make the dead frog's leg twitch, but the 
 moment you shut off the current the poor batrachmn is 
 as dead as before. If you have constructed a rhetorical 
 masterpiece without the glow of life, you can not rouse 
 a pulse in the body of your work by bursting with furi- 
 ous intensity into your conclusion. 
 
 Life, if real, must pervade an entire organism. The 
 life of the tree must be in the delicate white rootlets 
 hidden in the soil ; it must stir in the substance of the 
 solid wood beneath the bark of trunk and branch and 
 bough; and must flow with constant current from cell 
 to cell of every topmost leaf. Nothing less than this must 
 be the ideal of every one who would worthily speak or 
 write. The life of a speech or a writing must pervade 
 it all from beginning to end. Any sentence or any word 
 not imbued with that controlling life needs to be stricken 
 out. Whatever is really worth speaking or writing ful- 
 fils Milton 's description : 
 
 "For spirits that live throughout, 
 Vital in every part, . . . 
 Can not but by annihilating die." * 
 
 There is a power that can do in human utterance what 
 is so grandly wrought in all nature by the elemental 
 forces. It is the power of the living interest of the 
 speaker or writer in what he would say to men. If that 
 thought is worth speaking of to any one, if it is worth 
 writing down in permanent form, it should interest him- 
 
 "Paradise Lost," Bk. vi, 1. 345.
 
 460 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 self. If it does not interest him, how can he expect 
 it shall interest any one else? If it does stir his mind 
 and heart, his interest should increase from beginning 
 to conclusion. At every step he knows more about his 
 subject. He sees more of its connections and associa- 
 tions. The very labor he has bestowed upon it gives it 
 value, as we cherish what we have toiled for. His only 
 question comes to be how he can make others appreciate 
 the beauty, worth, and power which his subject has come 
 to possess for him. Not a word or sentence must fail 
 to carry some touch of that moving impulse that pos- 
 sesses him. All will have the thrill of that comprehen- 
 sive life. 
 
 Life may pervade the briefest utterance, as when 
 Anthony Wayne said to his soldiers, mustering for the 
 assault on Stony Point, 
 
 "Men, if I fall, step over me, and go into the fort!" 
 
 Then, when he did fall, but found himself still alive, 
 shouted, 
 
 "Men, take me up and carry me into the fort! I 
 will die at the head of my column!" 
 
 Life may pervade the most extended work, as the 
 stately and sustained march of Gibbon's "Decline and 
 Fall of the Roman Empire, ' ' or Burke 's ' ' Impeachment 
 of Warren Hastings," or his "Conciliation with the 
 American Colonies," or Webster's sustained argument 
 for the supremacy and perpetuity of the Federal Union, 
 in his "Reply to Hayne," Lincoln's Inaugurals, the 
 First with its comprehensive sweep of argument and 
 intent, the Second with its prophetic fervor of pur- 
 pose nearing fulfilment. Life appears in Coleridge's 
 poem, the ' ' Ancient Mariner, ' ' never more shudderingly 
 alive than on the ship of the dead ; it moves in Byron 's 
 "Childe Harold," without unity and almost without
 
 LIFE THE SUPREME ACHIEVEMENT 461 
 
 plan, yet never without some deep sympathy with human 
 hardship, sorrow, or misfortune pulsing through all its 
 sad, fierce, or melancholy lines. There is life in Ir- 
 ving 's "Legend of Sleepy Hollow," in Mark Twain's 
 and Bret Harte's extravagances, and in everything that 
 on any side or in any form has taken hold upon the 
 lives and souls of men. 
 
 This does not mean that every speech should be a 
 philippic, every poem or essay a vehement outburst of 
 passion. The heat of white-hot steel is not less intense 
 than that of blazing and crackling twigs. The power 
 of the sunshine is as real as that of the thunderstorm, 
 and far more beneficent. A quiet speech may thrill with 
 an intense earnestness that will move every heart. A 
 scientific treatise may carry in every sentence the im- 
 press of the still intensity of the author's devotion to his 
 study. Darwin's "Origin of Species" stirred nations, 
 and can still be read with interest to-day, as we follow 
 the great thinker through his patient experiments, every- 
 where animated by his earnest purpose. 
 
 There may be parts of any production that can not be 
 made vigorous or brilliant. For instance, a certain ex- 
 planation must be given. You can not make it seem en- 
 trancing or exalting, but you can make it seem germane 
 to the subject. That is an element of interest. You can 
 make it concise. That shows that you are eagerly has- 
 tening on to something you care more for. There enters 
 the interest of expectancy. There may be statistics which 
 it is essential to introduce, and statistics will kill a speech 
 or writing if anything can. But one interested in his 
 subject and eager for its effect will select his statistics. 
 He can give them proportion and symmetry. Then, be- 
 cause a living soul has assimilated them, the dead numer- 
 als and digits become alive, as the inanimate matter of
 
 462 EXPRESSIVE ENGLISH 
 
 the food we eat braces the living muscles, throbs in the 
 pulses, gives color to the cheek and light to the eye. The 
 author's own deep interest in the thought he would pre- 
 sent can give to every item of his speech or writing the 
 pulse of life. 
 
 Another vital element is his interest in his readers or 
 hearers what we may call the vision of the audience. 
 As he advances in his work, he becomes ever increas- 
 ingly near to them, and they become more and more an 
 invisible but manifest and expectant presence. The more 
 clearly he can make himself aware of their needs, sym- 
 pathize with their feelings, views, and wishes, care to 
 interest, guide, or help them, the better will be his prod- 
 uct, as it answers to the thrill of a life beyond his own. 
 
 Such interest in the thought, and in those to whom he 
 would appeal will, if genuine and earnest, affect every 
 part of any speech or writing. It will be anticipatory, 
 seeking from the outset to lead those addressed on- 
 ward to the perception and acceptance of the author's 
 thought. It will be pervading, watching at every mo- 
 ment to bring out the thought with due power at each 
 stage of progress, cutting out any word, sentence, or 
 paragraph, however attractive, that would hinder the 
 one great movement, filling any blank where the hearer's 
 or reader's interest might be checked or chilled, choosing 
 so far as possible the very word nobler, more forcible, 
 more gentle, more tender, or more perspicuous that may 
 best convey his treasure of thought to the minds and 
 souls of men. It will be cumulative, that which has 
 already been said or written pressing on toward the con- 
 clusion, as an ocean-wave heaves itself shoreward. 
 
 Where a theme has been wisely chosen, a plan skilfully 
 framed, and the complete expression well adapted to 
 theme and plan, and where such human interest thrills
 
 LIFE THE SUPREME ACHIEVEMENT 463 
 
 through all as a living power, the work so produced, if 
 on an ordinary subject and on the general level of 
 thought, will be attractive and useful; or, if it deals 
 worthily with that which is itself grand and command- 
 ing, such a work may take its place among the master- 
 pieces of human achievement, and exert a world-wide 
 influence parallel with the march of time. 
 
 THE END
 
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