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15. The young man replied that he had an abundance of money to meet his wants.

16. It was our purpose to be here early.

17. The young prisoner avowed his guilt when arrested.

18. There are many obstacles that we must surmount, and many difficulties that we must overcome.

19. The (whole or entire) house is occupied.

20. All the furniture has been removed and the house is now (vacant or empty).

21. We (begged or asked) our friends to help us, but none came to our (relief or aid).

22. It is wise to rectify bad habits early.

23. The driver asserted his willingness to accompany us to the shore of the creek.

24. The Frenchman hastily cried out, I will be drowned, for nobody shall help me.

25. Do you think we will have fine music at the concert?

26. This is splendid weather; it is just cold enough.

27. These peaches are elegant; I just love them.

SENTENCES.

THE treatment of Style thus far has considered only diction, or the right use of words. There are essential qualities of style also as regards sentences and their construction. These are known as Clearness, Strength, Harmony, and Unity.

KINDS OF SENTENCES.

Rhetorically considered, sentences may be regarded as loose, periodic, and balanced.

A Loose sentence is one that may be separated into parts without destroying the sense.

"First our pleasures die, | and then

Thus:

Our hopes, and then our fears; | and when
These are dead the debt is due; |

Dust claims dust,

and we die too."

sentence may be closed at any of the

Remark. Notice that the marks indicated, and make sense.

Use of the Loose Sentence.-The chief use of this form of sentence is to create variety in style. If discourse were made up wholly of any one class of sentences, it would become monotonous. Should it consist, therefore, chiefly of periodical sentences, an occasional loose sentence will serve to give proper variety.

Danger of the Loose Sentence. The serious danger with inexperienced writers is that they will use too

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many loose sentences, and thus weaken their discourse. If not carefully constructed, the tendency of loose sentences is to interfere with the proper expression of thought, and it is therefore prudent to use this kind of sentence sparingly.

A Periodic Sentence is one in which the complete sense is not expressed until the close; as,

"Of all the causes which conspire to blind
Man's erring judgment and misguide the mind,
What the weak head with strongest bias rules
Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools."

A Balanced Sentence is one that contains two clauses similar in form. Frequently, also, these are to some extent contrasted in meaning. The following will serve as examples:

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1. Worth makes the man, the want of it the fellow.-Pope. 2. Dryden obeys the motions of his own mind; Pope constrains his mind to his own rule of composition.--Johnson. 3. A wise son maketh a glad father, but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother.-Bible.

4.

How short our happy days appear!

How long the sorrowful!-Ingelow.

5. Truth is the summit of being; justice is the application of it to affairs.-Emerson.

Note.-Balanced sentences are used to a great extent in making contrasts or drawing parallels. They are extensively used in some books of the Bible, as in Proverbs, Job, the Psalms, etc.

The only rule that can be given with regard to the use of the various kinds of sentences here named is, that a composition should never be characterized by any one of them to such an extent as to make the style monotonous. They should be intermingled in such a way as to give variety to the manner of expression. The same

will hold true with regard to long and short sentences, they should be judiciously intermingled.

EXERCISE.

Name the kind of sentence, whether loose, periodic, or balanced; also, reconstruct loose sentences so as to make them periodic.

1.

The more we live, more brief appear

Our life's succeeding stages.-Campbell.

2. Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love.-Shakespeare.

3. Before man made us citizens, great Nature made us men.— Lowell.

4. Everywhere in life the true question is, not what we gain, but what we do.-Carlyle.

5. To think often, and never retain it so much as one moment, is a very useless sort of thinking.—Locke.

6. Old Time, in whose bank we deposit our notes,

Is a miser who always wants guineas for groats.-Holmes. 7. The memory of the just is blessed; but the name of the wicked shall perish.

8. In peace, children bury their parents; in war, parents bury their children.

9.

Oh! a wonderful stream is the river Time,

As it runs through the realms of Tears,
With a faultless rhythm and a musical rhyme,
And a broader sweep, and a surge sublime,

As it blends with the ocean of Years.-B. F. Taylor. 10. Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.-Tennyson. 11. Words are women, deeds are men.-Herbert. 12. A thousand years scarce seem to form a state; An hour may lay it in the dust.—Byron.

13. Poetry is found to have few stronger conceptions, by which it would affect or overwhelm the mind, than those in which it presents the moving and speaking image of the departed dead to the senses of the living.-Webster.

14.

The meanest floweret of the vale,

The simplest note that swells the gale,

- 15.

16.

17.

The common sun, the air, the skies,
To him are open paradise.-Gray.
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes,

By the deep sea, and music in its roar.-Byron.
The night is calm and cloudless,

And still as still can be,

And the stars come forth to listen
To the music of the sea.-Longfellow.

When I remember all

The friends so linked together,

I've seen around me fall,

Like leaves in wintry weather,

I feel like one who treads alone

Some banquet-hall deserted,
Whose lights are fled, whose garlands dead,
And all but he departed.-Moore.

1. CLEARNESS.

Importance.-Clearness, or Perspicuity, consists in such a use and arrangement of words in sentences as will convey distinctly the thought of the writer or speaker.

A sentence may be so constructed as to comply strictly with the requirements of Diction, and yet its arrangement be such that the meaning of the author is not clear. Something more than the qualities of style heretofore named is necessary to constitute the quality of Clearness.

Nor is it enough that the sentence be so constructed that it convey but one probable meaning. In this respect it is like one's signature. A man may know his own signature at a glance, however poorly it may be written. In a similar manner, he may know the meaning of his own sentences, however poorly they may be

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