It is the honest man who falls into heresy. But the latter-day sinner is sleek, orthodox, and unoffending. He conforms in everything save conduct. No one can outdo him in lip homage to the law and the prophets. It is the law-abiding who are scandalized by one another's nonconformity. They split on beliefs and practices because they care for such things. But men who take the cash register for their compass are wholly tolerant. This is why, in these times that try men's fortunes, sinners rush to one another's excuse and support one another under fire. The monopolists, small and great, local and national, grope their way to one another, strike hands, and as "captains of industry" present to their critics an unbroken front. The security jugglers from the county-seat town to Wall Street, feel that as "authors of prosperity" an injury to one is the concern of all. Adulterators and commercial crooks rally as "enterprising business men." The puppets of the Interests, from the town council to Congress, stand together as "Statesmen." On the other hand, the public they plunder, like Martha "troubled about many things," divides on race, creed, or style, pelts the non-conformist more than the sinner and lays on a little finger where it ought to wield a fist. Thus the wolves hunt in packs, while the watchdogs snap at one another.1

C. EMPHASIS IN THE SENTENCE

The demand for some treatment or some arrangement of parts that will secure emphasis within the sentence arises from one of the differences between speaking and writing. When we speak, we gain emphasis by gestures and by placing vocal stress upon important words. When we write, it is not possible for us to make use of these expedients. Yet in some manner we must produce the effects which they normally produce. What, then, shall we substitute for them? May we with impunity throw ourselves upon the intelligence of our readers by offering no substitute at all? No one, we may say, would suggest that. Yet many young writers habitually act in keeping with such a possible suggestion. They disregard their readers by writing down every sentence exactly in the form which it first takes in the mind. If they have a vague feeling that that form is not entirely effective, they resort to the much-abused expedient of underscoring all words that demand emphasis, or, in case they

1 Edward Alsworth Ross, Sin and Society, p. 87 f. Houghton Mifflin Company.

have too frequent underscorings on their pages, they seek to give prominence to some of the words by writing them in capitals. Such devices are so artificial that they should be used rarely. In the end it is always better to accomplish the desired result by shifting some of the words or by completely reorganizing or remaking the sentence.

1. Emphasis by proportion. Proportion as a means of emphasis within the sentence can scarcely be employed consciously with assurance of success. It is true that one kind of sentence may elevate some of its parts more clearly than other kinds do; and part of this effect is the result of proportion. Usually, however, as we shall soon see, sentence emphasis is chiefly a matter of position. Moreover, that part of it which is due to proportion may be regarded rather as the outgrowth of a welldeveloped feeling for thought values than as the result of any skill in handling the sentence itself.

For

2. Emphasis by word position. The general principle underlying position as a source of emphasis assumes a special aspect when it is applied to the sentence. In every language some sentence order is recognized as the most natural one. example, in English the subject and its modifiers usually come first, and the verb and its complements second. It is well known, too, that anything which is out of its usual position attracts more attention, favorable or unfavorable, than if it were in its accustomed place. In composition, then, any arrangement which brings a word into a position where normally it would not be expected, will, if not so unnatural as to offend taste, give the word an agreeable stress. Let us observe some sentences in which words or phrases gain emphasis by being brought into the initial position.

Blessed are the peacemakers.

"Go!" was the command he gave.

Here it is.

How pleasant the fields are!

With a roar the train crashed by and was soon lost to view in the distance.

ART WRIT. ENG.IO

Any discussion of the end of the sentence as an emphatic position resolves itself into a consideration of two types of sentence, the periodic and the loose. A periodic sentence, as the name implies, is never complete until the end. A loose sentence is always complete at one or more points before the end. Let it be remembered for all time that neither type is inherently good or inherently bad. Sometimes one is effective, sometimes the other. In conversation, for example, we use comparatively few sentences that are periodic. We make the principal part of a remark, add one qualifying word, phrase, or clause, then another, and another, until we have produced the desired impression. In formal writing, on the other hand, we should become wearisome if we followed this conversational method. In order to keep the reader's attention, we must sometimes require him to look forward as well as backward; we must keep him in a state of expectancy until he has grasped the full thought of the sentence. We are restricted, therefore, in utilizing the end of the sentence for emphasis, by the degree of formality we wish to give to our writing. The examples which follow make clear the difference of effect that may be produced:

Of course, when we wish to emphasize a modifier rather than the subject or the verb, it would be folly to make the sentence

1 Frank Norris, The Pit. Doubleday, Page and Company.

completely periodic. Thereby we should immediately defeat our own purpose. Moreover, it is an easy matter to fall into the habit of making periodic sentences awkward and unnatural. The poet may employ a word order that is severely contorted, for he must express himself within the limitations placed upon him by the demands of rhyme and meter. But since the prose writer is not bound down by these restrictions, he should not let himself be forced too far from the natural order. He must ever be deciding between the extreme of naturalness and the extreme of emphasis, bearing in mind all the while that the only standard by which he may choose is the chief impression he desires to make.

Emphasis by contrast within the sentence is usually expressed in what is technically called a balance. The term unfortunately is often misunderstood, inasmuch as it is easy to assume that everything in the form of a balance is of necessity a contrast. As a matter of fact, it is almost as likely to be a comparison; that is, its members may be like, as well as unlike. Nevertheless, it lends itself readily to antithetical statements; and antithetical statements are always emphatic. Study the following familiar sentences from the Bible:

A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning: but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.

He that refuseth instruction despiseth his own soul: but he that heareth reproof getteth understanding.

When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.

Note, too, that very little of the effect is lost even when the sentence is longer:

Dryden's page is a natural field, rising into inequalities, and diversified by the varied exuberance of abundant vegetation; Pope's is a velvet lawn, shaven by the scythe and leveled by the roller.

The danger, of course, in such formal expression of contrast lies in the certainty with which it becomes monotonous. More

over, since the balanced sentence does not admit easily of qualifying clauses or phrases, the person who employs it freely is ever in danger of saying things which are clever but which are only half true or, what amounts to the same thing, more than true.

IV. VARIETY

Sometimes a piece of writing constructed in accordance with the principles of unity, coherence, and emphasis, fails to produce an agreeable impression simply because it lacks variety. This principle, like the others we have studied, is well established. In truth, it is the one principle of life that makes existence bearable. We can toil almost ceaselessly and we can toil cheerfully if our labor is only varied; we can travel for many hours without becoming weary if the country is not all prairie; we can find pleasure in reading a very solid book if the thought is only enlivened with concrete instances and different approaches. In the field of the writer, as in other fields of work, "the one rule is to be infinitely various." Long ago, Dionysius of Halicarnassus recognized this principle when he said: "That style is best of all which has most reliefs and changes of harmony, — when part is arranged in period and part loosely; when one period is composed of many clauses and another of fewer; when of the clauses themselves this is short and that long, this aiming at nervous intensity, that more languid, a third more rigidly close to the sense; when the rhythms are different, the figures of all kinds; and when the very tensions and intonations of the voice vary so as to cheat weariness by their multiplicity." 1

Sometimes we are led to infer that variety is only another name for naturalness and sincerity. Goethe used to say that each poetic motive brought with it a rhythm and a stanza proper to itself; and this remark might be extended to the minutest particles of thought conveyed in language." Likewise, in

1 De Compositione Verborum. Quoted by Professor George Saintsbury in Loci Critici, p. 35. Ginn and Company.

2 J. A. Symonds, Essays Speculative and Suggestive, p. 226.