Particles of Correlation.

neither

nor, on the one hand. . . on the other hand, not only . . . but also, serve to prepare for coming alternatives of thought, enabling the reader thus to anticipate the whole circuit and prepare for its relations at the outset.

NOTE. Consider how necessary it is, for example, in the following sentence, to prepare the reader from the first for an alternative: "You must take this extremely perilous course, in which success is uncertain, and failure disgraceful, as well as ruinous, or else the liberty of your country is endangered." The correlatives, "Either you must take . . . or else,” etc., save much liability to misinterpretation and obviate the necessity of correcting an impression formed and held for half a sentence. -It may sometimes be desirable to neglect the correlation on purpose to give the sentence a sudden epigrammatic turn; see below, under Epigram, p. 273.

...

38. The words not only and but, or but also, when correlative, should be followed by the same part of speech.

EXAMPLES. "He not only gave me advice but also help" is wrong. Write, "He gave me not only advice but also help." What part of speech follows these particles is immaterial; simply make them the same,

nouns, verbs, or prepositional phrases, — and they will articulate their respective thoughts clearly. "He spoke not only forcibly but also tastefully [adverbs], and this too, not only before a small audience but also in a large public meeting [prepositions], and his speeches were not only successful, but also worthy of success [adjectives]."

Sometimes the also may be separated from the but by considerations of grace or strength, for example: "But by seeking the other things first, as we naturally do, we miss not only the Kingdom of God, but those other things also which are truly attained only by aiming beyond them." 1

39. The particles indeed, in fact, in truth, to be sure, and the like, are much used, by way of concession, to prepare for a coming adversative, but, still, or yet. They may thus control the relation of a clause, a sentence, or even a whole paragraph, before the adversative correlate is reached.

1 Rule and examples taken mostly from Abbott's How to Write Clearly.

EXAMPLES.

- The following examples are all taken from Macaulay, who used this construction almost to the extent of mannerism.1 "No writer, indeed, has delineated character more skilfully than Tacitus; but this is not his peculiar glory.”—“It is true that his veneration for antiquity produced on him some of the effects which it produced on those who arrived at it by a very different road. [Here intervenes a sentence of amplification.] Yet even here we perceive a difference.”—“The fashionable logic of the Greeks was, indeed, far from strict." [This sentence introduces a paragraph, and the indeed controls the thought of it all. The next paragraph then begins:] "Still, where thousands of keen and ready intellects were constantly employed in speculating on the qualities of actions and on the principles of government, it was impossible that history should retain its old character."

Often this correlation is effected in the first member, without the aid of a particle, by introducing a thought so obviously concessive that the but is naturally suggested.

EXAMPLES. "He has written something better, perhaps, than the best history; but he has not written a good history; he is, from the first to the last chapter, an inventor." "Of the concise and elegant accounts of the campaigns of Cæsar little can be said. They are incomparable models for military dispatches; but histories they are not, and do not pretend to be."

VII. CONJUNCTIONAL RELATION.

More perhaps than on any other one thing, the progress, the flexibility, and the delicacy of a writer's expression, are dependent on the fine and accurate use of conjunctions. They mark every change of direction and relation. Their office is to take ideas that otherwise would be loosely strung together, and make them interlinked and continuous, "true composition and not mere loose accretion." The mastery

1 Examples all from Macaulay's essay on History.

2

2 PATER, Appreciations, p. 20. "A close reasoner and a good writer in general may be known by his pertinent use of connectives. Read that page of Johnson; you cannot alter one conjunction without spoiling the sense. It is in a linkèd strain throughout. In your modern books, for the most part, the sentences in a page have the same connection with each other that marbles have in a bag; they touch without

of conjunctions, therefore, is more than mere proficiency in verbal distinctions; just as accurate reference called for an ingrained grammatical habit, so here is needed what may be called the logical habit, the habit of noting the relations of ideas, and of estimating closely the kind, the degree, the shadings of such relations.

Out of the two great classes into which conjunctions fall, the coördinating and the subordinating, rise two leading types of sentence structure, the composita and the evoluta, of which more will be said in the chapter on The Sentence.1

I.

The Coördinating Class. By the coördinating sense is meant that the conjunctions of this class introduce a thought having the same rank, the same grammatical importance, as the thought preceding; the whole utterance, therefore, with its conjunctive link, being a composite utterance, one part added to or growing out of the other.

Additive and Cumulative. It is the function of these conjunctions to add a new assertion having the same bearing, and moving in the same direction, as what preceded.

TYPE CONJUNCTION AND LIST.—The great representative of these conjunctions is AND. Others are also, yea, likewise, in like manner, again, besides, too, further, moreover, furthermore, add to this. Most of these head their clauses; the word too, however, is put after another word in close sequence, and the words also and likewise may be placed after the first pause.

adhering."-COLERIDGE, Table Talk, May 15, 1833." This is a feature in which our Prose stands in contrast with French prose. French writers are much more explicit in Conjunctions than we are; and perhaps this is one of the traits which produce the wonderful luminousness of French diction. Perhaps it would be as well for English writers to cultivate our Conjunctions with a little more attention, keeping an eye not only upon the French page, but also on that of Hooker and other Elizabethan authors."- EARLE, English Prose, p. 196.

1 See below, pp. 317, 318.

40. The shadings of relation in these conjunctions come from their adverbial sense; for it is to be noted that conjunctions are mostly derived from adverbs, and may present all stages of use, from almost purely adverbial to almost purely connective. The degree of relation may be softened, that is, rendered less obtrusive, by using a conjunction that may be removed from the beginning and buried in its clause.

NOTE. In the sentence, "He taught me also, and said unto me, Let thine heart retain my words," the assertion is slipped in, as it were, before its relation to the previous is revealed; this throws the stress upon the assertion rather than upon the connection, leaving the latter to perform its function unmarked.

41. A thought moving in the same direction needs often to be intensified in succeeding members, in order that better progress and climax may be secured. Connectives that also intensify are sometimes called cumulative, from the Latin cumulo, "to heap up."

NOTE. We see this cumulative force in such connectives as more than this, especially, in greater degree, all the more, much more, after all. Nay is an old-fashioned cumulative, quite serviceable on occasion but suggestive of archaism; as, “To the end of his days he enjoyed his bottle after dinner, nay, could scarce get along without it; and mixed a punch or a posset as well as any in our colony.” 1

The following sentence, from its lack of cumulation, is tame: "But anything is better than pedantry displaying itself in verse, and in connection with the name of Homer." We expect "and especially," or some word which will make the second member worth saying.

Adversative. - These introduce a new statement contrary in some respect to the preceding, — either as limiting, or as arresting a seeming inference from it.

TYPE CONJUNCTION AND LIST. The representative of adversative particles is BUT. Others are still, yet, however, only, nevertheless, notwithstanding, at the same time, for all that, after all.

1 CHURCHILL, Richard Carvel, p. 4.

Of these the word however does not stand at the head of its member, but after the first pause; and only can be used conjunctively only as it stands at the head of its clause and is set off by a comma.

The word though, which is generally a subordinating conjunction, may be used as an adversative when its clause succeeds another, and when a large pause is made between.

42. When the word but is used to arrest an implied inference from the preceding and turn the thought in opposite direction, be sure that such inference is natural, and that the added idea is antithetic; in other words, that the adversative relation is real.

EXAMPLES. - In the sentence "He is poor, but proud," the antithesis of proud to poor is real, because it is natural to infer that a poor man would be humble. Compare, however, the following: "Luther's character was emotional and dogmatic, but exceedingly courageous." Here courageous does not arrest any natural inference from the preceding; on the contrary it seems to supply a thought in the same direction, and the but has no real adversative function. And would be more accurate. Or if we were to take as the inference that Luther, being emotional and dogmatic, was nothing else, we could say, "Luther's character was emotional and dogmatic, but also exceedingly courageous."

43. The adversative relation is susceptible of various degrees and shadings. The strongest adversative, but, when used exclusively, as it often is by unskilled writers, gives a certain hardness and glare to the style. It is better suited to spoken diction; while the softer adversative however, though more bookish and studied, makes the relation less obtrusive, and sets the opposed ideas less definitely over against each other.

EXAMPLES. The effect of the exclusive use of but adversative can be shown only by an extended passage; here an example may be adduced showing how it may be desirable to soften the relation. "This society was founded in 1817, since which time it has done a truly noble work in aiding needy applicants for help. But at present the churches seem little disposed to support it." Here the word but is rather abrupt, and seems to