6. Music has to a great degree the power of arousing recollection. 7. The world gives its greatest rewards to those who have learned to do without them.

8. America has of late produced many examples of enormous private fortunes.

9. When honest men fall out, then thieves may come by what is not their own.

10. Procrastination is a thief who hides his booty beyond finding. c. Amplify the following by generalizing (4) and otherwise:

1. Throw mud enough, and some will stick.

2. Watt and Stephenson are both good examples of—

3. Watering sand will never make good soil.

4. A blackbird that can't sing and will sing should be put in a pie. 5. In his early life, Lincoln, like many another American who has become eminent

6. Tennyson reflects the life and thought of his time. (How about other great poets?)

7. Grant will be remembered as a general, not as a President . . A successful military leader is often

8. The early worm often gets caught.

9. If shallow water is muddy, we may think it deep.

10. Don Quixote was not of any one time or place. There have always been

41. Obverse Iteration. One of the points of view often valuable is taken in what is sometimes called loosely Obverse Iteration. We may often do well in stating the obverse or denying the negative of our subject or some part of it. Even to a very minor point may the principle be carried. Emerson in the paragraph quoted in 40 says in the second sentence "by the entire series of days," but in the third "by nothing less than all his history." So also may the principle be used in a larger way. We have already seen (38, c) how it may be used at the beginning of a paragraph. A more normal use is in amplifying; such a statement of the obverse or denial of the negative may come anywhere in the paragraph. The following examples, which, like those previously cited, are from Macaulay, -the essay on Bacon,-come from different parts of the

paragraph. I do not quote the whole of every paragraph, because the obverse iteration only makes up a part of it.

"It cannot be pretended that the Houses were seeking occasion to ruin Bacon, and that they therefore brought him to punishment on charges which they themselves knew to be frivolous. In no quarter was there the faintest indication of a disposition to treat him harshly. Through the whole proceeding there was no symptom of personality or of factious violence in either House. Indeed we will venture to say that no state trial in our history is more creditable to all who took part in it either as prosecutors or judges. The decency, the gravity, the public spirit, the justice moderated but not unnerved by compassion, which appeared in every part of the transaction, would do honour to the most respectable public men of our own times."

"He was not on that occasion sitting judicially. He was called in to effect an amicable arrangement between two parties."

"The complaints of his accusers were,' says Mr. Montague, not that the gratuities had, but that they had not, influenced Bacon's judgment, as he had decided against them.'

"A person who, by a bribe, has procured a decree in his favour is by no means likely to come forward of his own accord as an accuser. He is content. He has his quid pro quo.' He is not compelled either by interested or by vindictive motives to bring the transaction before the public. On the contrary he has almost as strong motives for holding his tongue as the judge himself has."

"The hundred who have got what they paid for remain

1 These three sentences might be cited as Iteration. But they are not repetition of the same idea. reason for the fact stated in the first. the reason for the second.

The second sentence gives the
The third in like manner gives

quiet. It is the two or three who have paid and who have nothing to show for their money who are noisy."

I have said that the same principle is useful on a much larger scale; it is, for example, at the bottom of Macaulay's treatment of Bacon's philosophy. It is also illustrated by Matthew Arnold's lecture on Emerson, in his Discourses in America. He first speaks of what Emerson was not, then of what he was. So in Frederick Denison Maurice's sermon On Peace (see p. 115).

EXERCISES.

Develop the following topics into paragraphs with the topic-sentence at the beginning, by obverse iteration. A contrasting idea is indicated in 1-5 in a parenthesis.

1. Temperance; (Abstinence is something different.)

2. Equality as a political idea; (does not mean equality in all respects.)

3. Japan is now the greatest power in the East; (formerly she was less considered than China.)

4. Happiness as an end in life; (does not mean that everybody should do just as he pleases.)

5. The ruling idea of the Puritan settlers of Massachusetts; (not universal liberty of religious opinion.)

6. Necessity of some day of rest.

7. The value of a college education.

8. Moral bravery.

9. The laws such as they are should be enforced.

10. True economy.

42. Explanation. Another kind of Amplification sometimes mentioned is Explanation. It is a simple means, but a useful one. As the name implies, it consists of explaining the meaning of something which has been said. Sometimes it consists of repetition in simpler language of something which has been stated in somewhat technical terms or too concisely for full understanding, as in the case of a definition. Sometimes it consists of Exposition on a small scale, or the explaining of particular terms which would

not have been readily understood. Macaulay was a master of our first means. Matthew Arnold, with an intense striving after clearness, offers not a few examples of our second. Every reader of Matthew Arnold will remember how much care he takes to explain his definitions, his distinctions, his terms. For instance, one may recall his explanations of such dicta as that "the noble and profound application of ideas to life is the most essential part of poetic greatness" (On Translating Homer), that "poetry is at bottom a criticism of life" (Introduction to Selections from Wordsworth), that "life is three fourths conduct" (Literature and Dogma, ch. i), that "the grand style arises in poetry where a noble nature poetically gifted treats with simplicity or with severity a serious subject" (On Translating Homer), that "criticism [in a larger sense than as used above] is a disinterested endeavour to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in the world" (On the Function of Criticism at the Present Time), or for example of explanation of particular expressions one will recall his effort to make quite plain just what he meant by Sweetness and Light, Philistines, Machinery, Curiosity, and many others.

Another form of explanation consists in offering the reasons for the statement which is to be amplified, or the causes of the phenomenon which it mentions. Such explanation may readily run into argument, but often enough it is merely a statement of the causes of some welladmitted events.

EXERCISES.

Amplify, as in the exercises to 40, but by explanation, the following topic sentences:

1. It is best not to judge on first appearances.

2. A written examination may be a poor test of a student's real ability.

3. Politics will always have an attraction for young men.

4. Toleration may often decline into Indifference.

5. The English constitution is not a written document.

6. We often hear the word Socialism nowadays, and often without any very definite meaning.

7. In certain circumstances, revolution may be not only a right, but a duty.

8. The true cause of earthquakes is even to-day not very generally understood.

9. The attractions to a business career are not so great as they were fifty years ago.

10. The amount of gold in the United States will vary according to Gresham's law.

b. PARAGRAPH STRUCTURE AS CONDITIONED BY KINDS OF COMPOSITION,

43. Certain Limitations. There remains to be said a few words upon the structure of the paragraph, as distinct from its substance. We have seen that we may begin either by stating or in some way indicating the subjectmatter of our paragraph, or else by expressing the connection with what goes before. We may begin by calling attention to something which will make our subject stand out more clearly by contrast, or we may begin at once with particulars, in cases where a general statement is impossible or inexpedient, or else where we desire to lead up to some direct statement at the end. If you notice especially the beginnings of paragraphs, either in classic authors or in current literature or in good newspaper writing of the day, you will find that one or another of these means occurs in the great majority of cases. Now having got a good start, how shall we go on? Here we have the question of Sequence as applied to the paragraph.

It would be very hard to lay down any special forms for the main structure of the paragraph; one can see at a glance that, what with differences in subject and in mode of treatment we should hardly be able to exhaust the possibilities. And even could we reach a statement of some