trying to state. Muddy thoughts naturally employ uncertain words. Therefore the profoundest thinkers, the best speakers, the ablest writers, are generally perspicuous.*

A writer may often improve his style in this respect by reading his productions to others, and carefully noting the expressions which are misinterpreted or not understood, also by reading his own productions a long time after they were written, and by noting what appears to himself obscure.

43. Perspicuity violated sometimes by Parentheses.— Perspicuity is often violated by the too frequent use of parenthetical clauses or sentences, which, by diverting the attention from the main point in view, confuse and befog the hearer. Even some of the most elegant writers in the language err in this respect, arising from the fact, undoubtedly, that their productions were intended to be read, and not to be spoken. The following sentence from Thomas De Quincey, whose style has been much commended by some, is an example:

"The fact really was, that the human intellect had been for some time outgrowing its foul religions; clamorously it began to demand some change; but how little it was able to effect that change for itself, is evident from no example more than that of Plato; for he, while dismissing as fables some of the grosser monstrosities which the pagan Pantheon offered, loaded in effect that deity, whom he made a concurrent party to his own schemes for man, with vile qualities quite

* "The greatest thinkers and writers the world has yet seen have not been obscure; they may give some trouble sometimes, but their meaning for the most part is plain enough, and, with a little extra diligence, even their difficult passages become so" (Rev. Henry Rogers's Greyson Letters, p. 571).

as degrading as any which he removed; and in effect so much the worse, as regarded the result, because, wanting the childish monstrosities of the mythologic legends, they had no benefit from any allegoric interpretations in the background."*

44. Unity Defined.-The unity of a sentence is violated in long, complicated, and confused paragraphs. Such a style is not adapted to public speaking, or to be understood from the utterance. One can only com prehend it with the book before him, allowing him frequently to review what he has read. Unity requires that a sentence should have a leading subject, around which all the subordinate parts naturally cluster, and the predicate should clearly belong to the leading subject alone. If this is violated a sentence becomes a mob without a leader, instead of an army in a stately march.

Still too much regard must not be paid to this at all times, or the sentences will have an appearance of uniformness and stiffness.

45. Perspicuity may be Intentionally Violated.-It has been taken for granted, in the recommendation of perspicuity, that the object of the author is to convey information; if he has another object, his style must be adapted to accomplish his purpose. He may intend to conceal thought, or simply to pass away time, or to excite feeling, or to suggest more than he says, or to astonish by a strange use of language; and in such productions perspicuity may be of no value, and may be even a blemish. This thought naturally suggests another element of a good style.

* De Quincey's Historical and Critical Essays (Boston, 1853), vol i. p. 195.

46. Style should be adapted to its Purpose.—A good style is always adapted to the purpose in view.

If an address is made to children, such language as they can be expected to appreciate is employed. To use recondite terms, long involved sentences, arguments requiring close attention and careful ratiocination, in an address to children, would be very absurd.

Witticisms in a funeral oration, short, abrupt expressions in the description of a beautiful landscape, poetical terms in a scientific treatise, quotations from the Bible in a burlesque performance, would all offend a man of good sense.

The style will correspond with the thought if the writer is a man of power and culture. When he reasons, he will use a clear, logical style; when he persuades, he will repeat and enforce his views by many illustrations, according to the abundance of his information and the vigor of his mind. Sometimes he will use many short sentences, sometimes perhaps a flowing period; sometimes he will question, sometimes command. Sometimes his connected thoughts will flow out in a stream that would, properly printed, form a paragraph covering many pages, and sometimes the thoughts will find their most adequate expressions in disconnected sentences, each a paragraph.

47. A Variety should be sought.—If a young writer finds himself falling into a monotonous style of expressing his thoughts, he should make assiduous efforts to break it up. The best of styles wearies us if a speaker or writer always uses the same. Even such a work as Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman

A SPECIFIC STYLE POOR.

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Empire" would be more interesting if its style was more varied.

On this subject Mr. Herbert Spencer has well said:

"To have a specific style is to be poor in speech. If we remember that in the far past men had only nouns and verbs to convey their ideas with, and that from then to now the growth has been toward a greater number of implements of thought, and consequently toward a greater complexity and variety in their combinations, we may infer that we are now, in our use of sentences, much what the primitive man was in his use of words; and that a continuance of the process that has hitherto gone on must produce heterogeneity in our modes of expression."

CHAPTER VIII.

IDIOMS AND PROVERBS.

CRITICS often characterize some particular author as employing an idiomatic style, but what is properly meant by the phrase has perhaps never been accurately defined.

48. Definition.An Idiom is a collection of words justified by custom, and yet used so peculiarly that other words, meaning nearly or quite the same thing, can not with propriety be used in the same way. It is also applied to expressions in which the strict rules of general grammar are not obeyed, so that they can not be translated literally into another language and be understood. "Not at all" is an Idiom. Substitute neither for not, and the phrase "neither at all" becomes unpleasant, though perhaps in some combinations it might barely be excused. Substitute for "all" every one, and "not at every one" becomes absurd; nor can "not at all" be translated literally into any other language. And yet this unconstruable expression is so convenient and strong that we can not at all think of sparing it from our language.

49. Every Language has peculiar Idioms.- Every language has its own stock of idioms. The Latins, instead of saying with their own words "I have a