II. THE MAIN PART OF THE PARAGRAPH.

a. AMPLIFICATION.

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39. Amplification. It is now a matter of interest to consider the process by which our plan with its bare headings, or even its topic sentences, if we have gone so far, is to be enlarged, developed, filled out into a sufficient and satisfactory treatment. Something or other must obviously be done, we have noted down our "heads so that we see our idea taking shape, but of course we must in some way embody it, give it form and fulness, in a word amplify it, so that it may mean as much to everybody else as it does to us. One or another head serves to fix in our mind a good many ideas, although they may be but vaguely gathered about it; we must express them so that they will call those ideas into the mind of the reader. This is, to tell the truth, rather a question of fact than otherwise; the skeleton does somehow take form. If you take the work of any good writer you will find that you can always make an abstract, which shall be much shorter than the work itself and yet state all the important points, so that it serves excellently to call to mind the course of his ideas. Yet no one would think of stating his ideas in so bare a form as an abstract, except for a memorandum, perhaps, or for some such purpose. So in one way or another everybody goes through a process the reverse of making an abstract. And for the various processes which people follow naturally enough in working out their plan or analysis into a complete treatment rhetoricians have various names, the different processes being usually included under the general head Amplification. Of these processes I shall speak here only of Repetition, Obverse Iteration, and Explanation. Another and a very useful form of Amplification (it should perhaps be included under the head of Repetition) consists of Illustration and Figure, to group under a

double name things which are not very clearly distinguished. But this topic is such that it is worth while to treat it more fully than the others, and we will take it up later in Part Four; it is more difficult than the others, and to most people comes less naturally.

40. Repetition. The term Repetition and also the name Iteration, which is sometimes used, are both likely to be a little misleading. We certainly do not mean, by either of them, repetition of the same thought in the same words. or in other words. Such real repetition may now and then be of value in spoken discourse, where it is more necessary to impress an idea upon the hearer, who can never pause over anything to consider it fully. In oratory it may sometimes, I suppose, be well to repeat the same thought in different words, or even in the same words. But even in oratory such a practice tends to lead the hearer to imagine that he is getting more than he really is. The English language with its store of words from different sources (p. 198) offers a constant temptation in this direction' which one must be careful to avoid.

The kind of Repetition which is useful is an enlargement of your idea, a stating all that is implied in it, a getting at different aspects of it, a development of it. Don't repeat the very same idea, except to impress it upon the attention; it's the way to become verbose. Enlarge your idea, however, develop its resources, look at it from another point of view, and you will make a gain. To speak exactly, this is not merely Repetition, but the name will serve our purpose. A good example which would come in here may be found in some remarks of Barrett Wendell on the character of certain forms of artistic expression:

(a) "To phrase an emotional mood an artist must, as it

1 Even down to the using pairs of words which mean no more than one of them alone, as "will and testament," "aid and abet,' beg and beseech."

were, cut his nature in two. With part of himself he must cling to the mood in question, or at least revive it at will. With another part of himself he must deliberately withdraw from the mood, observe it, criticise it, and carefully seek the vehicle of expression which shall best serve to convey it to other minds than his own. The self who speaks, in short, is not quite the self whom he would discuss. To put the matter otherwise, an artist must sometimes be almost conscious of what modern psychologists would call double personality. To put it differently still, every art of expression involves a fundamental use of the art which is in least repute, the histrionic. The lyric poet must first experience his emotion, must then abstract himself from it, thereby relieving himself considerably,and finally must imaginatively and critically revive it at will."-Barrett Wendell: William Shakespere, p. 228.

Here the matter is first put in a figure. In the two sentences following the process is stated somewhat precisely. The matter is in the fourth sentence generalized. It is next put into the language of psychology. It is then put into connection with the science of æsthetics. Lastly, it is again stated in a somewhat abstract manner.

For another example we may take the second paragraph of Emerson's essay on History. We have already seen that the topic is stated in the first sentence (p. 133); we want now to see how that topic is amplified.

(b) "Of the works of this mind history is the record. Its genius is illustrated by the entire series of days. Man is explicable by nothing less than all his history. Without hurry, without rest, the human spirit goes forth from the beginning to embody every faculty, every thought, every emotion, which belongs to it in appropriate events. But the thought is always prior to the fact; all the facts of history pre-exist in the mind as laws. Each law is made by circumstances predominant, and the limits of nature

give power to but one at a time. A man is the whole encyclopædia of facts. The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn, and Egypt, Greece, Rome, Gaul, Britain, America, lie folded already in the first man. Epoch after epoch, camp, kingdom, empire, republic, democracy, are merely the applications of his manifold spirit to the manifold world."-Essays: First Series.

Looking through this paragraph, we note that the important word in the second sentence is entire, which develops an idea implied to some extent in the first sentence. The third sentence brings us back from mind to man (cf. the topic of the first paragraph, p. 133): it is in a measure a connecting sentence. The fourth states the idea in somewhat figurative language and a little more at length; aside from the figure the words the human spirit . embody appropriate events, convey the ideas mind, record, history of the first sentence. The fifth sentence has for additions to the idea the words prior and pre-exist. The sixth explains more fully how the idea comes to realization. The next two sentences are figurative. The last is a statement which suggests some particulars.

The forms of Repetition, then, as we observe them in these extracts, are as follows (the references are to the 1st, 2d, 3d, sentences, etc., in either extract):

1. More detailed statement, mention of how, when, where, etc. a 2, a 3, a 4.

2. Necessary addition and completion, statement of something implicit in the first sentence: b 2, b 5.

3. Particularization: b 9.

4. Generalization: a 4.

5. The language of different standpoints: a 5, a 6. 6. Figure: a 1, b 4, b 7, b8.

This is of course no complete enumeration; by analyzing other paragraphs you could find other forms of Repetition. But the above are the points to which attention is commonly called.

EXERCISES.1

Take the following sentences as in the paragraph sentences first and amplify them by repetition. I indicate the forms of repetition which seem most available, except in the case of 5, which is not easy of practice, and of 6, in which exercises are deferred to Part Four. You need not, however, confine yourselves to the modes of repetition indicated:

a. Amplify (1) by more detailed statement and (2) necessary addition and completion :

1. The New York Central trains make very short time between New York and Buffalo.

2. England is the great colonizing power of the Nineteenth Century.

3. The great generals of the Civil War are now almost all gone. 4. The present working of our system of electing a President was not foreseen by the makers of the Constitution.

5. The past football season has done a good deal to raise the game in general estimation.

6. The American citizen has other duties besides voting.

7. European History during the last hundred years is full of attempts at revolution.

8. Lovejoy was not the only Abolitionist to suffer for his opinions. 9. The wholesale destruction of forests has a serious effect upon climate.

10. College life involves a good deal more than the mere acquisition of knowledge.

b. Amplify the following by particular examples (3) real or imaginary:

1. Great wealth has its responsibilities.

2. There may be too much even of a good thing.

3. The man who is always late robs his friends.

4. The same thing often looks very differently to different people. 5. Disappointment makes many penitents.

This form of exercise, used also in 42, was devised by Scott and Denney, and developed with much skill in their Paragraph Writing.

After the fashion of scholars, however, they have not patented their method, and allow me to avail myself of it. Two of the above sentences are taken from their book, as I have found them successful in class-room work.