only loose sentences, and might punctuate their writ ings so as to seem to use only short sentences. There is a great variety of forms in which loose sentences may be constructed, which the careful student of Rhetoric in his general reading ought to ob serve. 18. Periods.-A Period is a compound sentence not making full sense till closed. EXAMPLES. "Favored child of an age of trial and struggle, carefully nursed through a period of hardship and anxiety, endowed at that time by the oblations of men like Harvard, sustained from its first foundation by the paternal arm of the commonwealth, by a constant succession of munificent bequests, and by the prayers of all good men, the University at Cambridge now invites our homage, as the most ancient, the most interesting, and the most important seat of learning in the land." The following sentence from the writings of Richard Hooker, a celebrated divine of the 16th century, is a good specimen of a period: "Now, if Nature should intermit her course, and leave altogether, though it were but for a while, the observation of her own laws; if those principal and mother elements of the world, whereof all things in this lower world are made, should lose the qualities which now they have; if the frame of that heavenly arch erected over our heads should loosen and dissolve itself; if celestial spheres should forget their wonted motions, and by irregular volubility turn themselves any way as it might happen; if the prince of the lights of heaven which now as a giant doth run his unwearied course, should, as it were, through a languishing faintness, begin to stand and to rest himself; if the moon should wander from her beaten way, the times and seasons of the year blend themselves by disordered and confused mixtures, the winds breathe out their last gasp, the clouds yield no rain, the earth be defeated of heavenly influence, the fruits of the earth pine away as children at the withered breasts of their mothers no longer able to yield them relief: what would become of man himself, whom these things now do all serve ?" 19. Value of Periods.-Great orators have produced their sublimest impression by the use of the period. Let no student suppose that he can command thoughts worthy of such a dress without much study, or clothe his worthy thoughts in such a stately garb without much careful practice. Lord Brougham, one of the most successful orators of modern times, states that he composed the peroration of a certain speech "twenty times over at least, and it certainly succeeded in a very extraordinary degree." To show what kind of sentences were the result of so much labor, we give the peroration to which he referred-the close of his speech in behalf of Queen Caroline: My lords, I pray you to pause. I do earnestly beseech you to take heed! You are standing upon the brink of a precipice-then beware! It will go forth your judgment, if sentence shall go against the queen. But it will be the only judgment you ever pronounced which, instead of reaching its object, will return and bound back upon those who give it. Save the country, my lords, from the horrors of this catastrophe. Save yourselves from this peril; rescue that country, of which you are the ornaments, but in which you can flourish no longer, when severed from the people, than the blossom when cut off from the roots and the stem of the tree. Save that country, that you may continue to adorn it. Save the Crown, which is in jeopardy-the Aristocracy, which is shaken. Save the Altar, which must stagger with the blow that rends its kindred throne! You have said, my lords, you have willed-the Church and the king have willed-that the queen should be deprived of its solemn service. She has, instead of that solemnity, the heartfelt prayers of the people. She wants no prayers of mine. But I do here pour forth my humble supplications at the Throne of Mercy, that that mercy may be poured down upon the people in a larger measure than the merits of its rulers may deserve, and that your hearts may be turned to justice." It will be observed that it consists of a succession of short sentences, with an occasional longer and loose sentence. 20. The most emphatic Words and Thoughts should be placed at the close.—In a well-constructed period, not only is the sense incomplete till the last clause is pronounced, but the most emphatic and important thought is in the last expression. We subjoin an eloquent period from the eulogy of Rufus Choate upon Daniel Webster: "And yet, if on some day, as that season "[his college life] "was drawing to its close, it had been foretold to him that before his life, prolonged to little more than three-score years and ten, should end, he should see that country, in which he was coming to act his part, expanded across a continent; the thirteen States of 1801 multiplied to thirty-one; the territory of the North-west and the great valley between sown full of those stars of empire; the Mississippi forded, and the Sabine and Rio Grande, and the Nueces; the ponderous gates of the Rocky Mountains opened to shut no more; the great tranquil sea become our sea; her area seven times larger, her people five times more in number; that through all experiences of trial, the madness of party, the injustice of foreign powers, the vast enlargement of her borders, the antagonisms of interior interest and feeling, the spirit of nationality would grow stronger still and more plastic; that the tide of American feeling would run even fuller; that her agriculture would grow more scientific; her arts more various and instructive, and better rewarded; her commerce winged to a wider and still wider flight; that the part she would play in human affairs would grow nobler ever, and more recognized; that in this vast growth of national greatness time would be found for the higher necessities of the soul; that her popular and her higher education would go on advancing; that her charities and all her enterprises of philanthropy would go on enlarging; that her age of lettered glory should find its auspicious dawn-and then it had been also foretold him that even so, with her growth and strength, should his fame grow, and be established and cherished, there where she should garner up his heart; that, by long gradations of service and labor, he should rise to be, before he should taste of death, of the peerless among her great ones; that he should win the double honor, and wear the double wreath of professional and public supremacy; that he should become her wisest to counsel and her most eloquent to persuade; that he should come to be called the Defender of the Constitution, and the preserver of honorable peace; that the 'austere glory of suffering' to save the Union should CLIMACTERIC PERIOD. 207 be his; that his death, at the summit of greatness, on the verge of a ripe and venerable age, should be distinguished less by the flags at half-mast on ocean and lake, less by the minute-gun, less by the public procession and the appointed eulogy, than by sudden paleness overspreading all faces, by gushing tears, by sorrow, thoughtful, boding, silent, the sense of desolateness, as if renown and grace were dead-as if the hunter's path, and the sailors, in the great solitude of wilderness or sea, henceforward were more lonely or less safe than before-had this prediction been whispered, how calmly had that perfect sobriety of mind put it all aside as a pernicious or idle dream!” Desirable as it may be in oratory, and in a dignified style, to keep the attention alive and the mind expectant, by the frequent use of the period, in our English language, which has so few inversions, and admits of comparatively few transpositions, it is often impracticable. Care should be taken while aiming at this special accomplishment, not to form a habit of constructing long sentences after one model. We subjoin an example of a loose sentence changed into a period : "How can we find that wisdom which shines through all of God's works, in the formation of man, without looking on this world as only a nursery for the next, and believing that the several generations of rational creatures, which rise up and disappear in such quick succession, are only to receive their first rudiments of existence here, and afterwards to be transplanted into a more friendly climate where they may spread and flourish to all eternity ?" Is not the following form far more expressive? "Unless we look on this world as only a nursery for the next, and believe that the several generations of rational creatures, which rise up and disappear in such quick succession, here receive only the first rudiments of their existence, afterwards to be transplanted into a more friendly climate, where they may spread and flourish to all eternity, how can we find in the formation of man that wisdom which shines through all the works of God ?" CHAPTER V. INTERROGATIONS, EXCLAMATIONS, CLIMAX, REPETITION. 21. Interrogations.—THE prime design of a question is to ask for information; but as a question naturally arrests the attention as if to demand a reply, it is often resorted to in excited feeling to express an assertion, by assuming that no other reply could be given than the one which the speaker believes to be correct. Therefore in oratory the question is often used with great effect. This figure is so natural and so common that we need not illustrate it largely. We subjoin a few specimens culled at random from good authors: "Can gray hairs render folly venerable ?" "Is the world to gaze in admiration on this fine spectacle of virtue; and are we to be told that the Being who gave such faculties to one of his children, and provides the theatre for their exercise, that the Being who called this moral scene into existence, and gave it all its beauties, is to be forgotten and neglected, as of no consequence?" "Is talent or genius confined to the rich or powerful; or is it conferred indiscriminately on poor and rich, on weak and powerful ?" "He clothes the lily; feeds the dove, The meanest insect feels his care A great part of the speaking and writing of earn |