CHAPTER V

ON DIVIDING A PARAGRAPH INTO SENTENCES

=The Sentence not its own Master.=—Everybody learns at an early age some such definition as this: A sentence is the expression of a complete thought in words. But many students who have just left the grammar school are not very clear in their own minds as to what the definition means. When they come to write sentences they find it hard to decide what constitutes a complete thought. They know what the test of grammatical completeness is—the sentence must have a subject and a predicate; but they are hazy as to when the sentence is logically complete. Frankly, the most accomplished writers are sometimes troubled to decide this question. Having two ideas, they are not sure whether these ought to stand in separate sentences, or in semicolon clauses. There is no magic rule; but by the right kind of practice one may become perfectly sure, in nine cases out of ten, of the best course to take.

Perhaps the easiest way to approach the matter is to remember that the sentence is only a part of a larger unit,—the paragraph. A paragraph is either a miniature composition, or a main part of a short composition. In long works, the _chapter_ is the short composition of which the paragraphs are the divisions. The sentence, in turn, is a main part of the paragraph. Whether a sentence should be long or short depends on the part it plays in the paragraph.

To make this statement plain, we need consider only the paragraph that stands alone, a miniature composition. Whatever be the number of its sentences, each forms a main part or step in the development of the paragraph-thought. All are concerned with _explaining_ the same thing; each contributes something to the idea. If there is a topic sentence and this be likened to a root, the other sentences are like the stalks and leaves which grow from the root.

Note how each of the following miniature compositions[18] has a root, from which the rest of the paragraph springs necessarily.

1. Flowers have an expression of countenance as much as men or animals. Some seem to smile; some have a sad expression; some are pensive and diffident; others again are plain, honest, and upright, like the broad-faced sunflower and the hollyhock.—H. W. BEECHER.

2. There are three wicks ... to the lamp of a man’s life; brain, blood, and breath. Press the brain a little, its light goes out, followed by both the others. Stop the heart a minute, and out go all three of the wicks. Choke the air out of the lungs, and presently the fluid ceases to supply the other centres of flame, and all is soon stagnation, cold, and darkness.—DR. HOLMES.

Consider the parts of the paragraphs just given. Mr. Beecher has two sentences, the second grouping together the details which explain the first. But the first sentence is made much shorter than the second, because, word for word, it is to be more emphatic. The second is the longer, because no one of the separate clauses seemed to the writer important enough to stand alone. The clauses of detail taken together form one main division of the paragraph. The short sentence that states the gist of the paragraph is another main division. In Dr. Holmes’s brief parable, there are four sentences. Three of them develop the general idea stated in the first. Dr. Holmes cannot condense these three into one explanatory sentence, as Beecher does; he has too much to say. By giving a sentence to each of the three “wicks,” he shows that he considers them all approximately equal in importance.

Study now another paragraph:—

It is saying less than the truth to affirm that an excellent book (and the remark holds almost equally good of a Raphael as of a Milton) is like a well-chosen and well-tended fruit tree. Its fruits are not of one season only. With the due and natural intervals, we may recur to it year after year, and it will supply the same nourishment and the same gratification, if only we ourselves return to it with the same healthful appetite.—COLERIDGE.

In this passage from Coleridge the first sentence is the root of the paragraph; ‘a book is like a fruit tree.’ But the second sentence is made shorter than the first, because it is to state the pith of the paragraph more clearly and emphatically than did the first. The meaning of the first sentence is a little vague; how a book is like a fruit tree, it does not say. The second sentence does say how. Note, then, that a short sentence is always emphatic, and that accordingly it should be used to state something that is important in the paragraph.

Study also the following paragraph:—

Our chief want in life, is somebody who shall make us do what we can. This is the service of a friend. With him we are easily great. There is a sublime attraction in him to whatever virtue is in us. How he flings wide the doors of existence! What questions we ask of him! what an understanding we have! how few words are needed! It is the only real society.—EMERSON.

In this paragraph of Emerson’s, the main ideas are stated in brief sentences, and the summary of the paragraph comes in a sentence of six short words. But note that in the last sentence except one, the writer groups three clauses, because the three constitute parts of one main idea of the paragraph.

Read the following rather abstruse paragraphs, and decide as to which shows the chief divisions of the whole thought.

There is, first, the literature of knowledge; and, secondly, the literature of power. The function of the first is, to teach; the function of the second is, to move; the first is a rudder, the second an oar or a sail. The first speaks to the mere discursive understanding; the second speaks ultimately, it may happen, to the higher understanding or reason, but always through affections of pleasure and sympathy.—DE QUINCEY.

There is, first, the literature of knowledge. And, secondly, the literature of power. The function of the first is, to teach. The function of the second is, to move. The first is a rudder. The second, an oar or a sail. The first speaks to the mere discursive understanding. The second speaks ultimately, it may happen, to the higher understanding or reason, but always through affections of pleasure and sympathy.

From a study of the foregoing selections, it becomes clear that the sentence is not its own master. It is the servant of the paragraph. The paragraph, having an idea to give, uses sentences to develop this idea. A skilful writer is not in haste to crowd into a sentence all of one large, complex thought. The full expression of that thought is the task of the paragraph. The sentences are the means by which its parts may be made clear. The long sentences are for explanatory details; the short ones are for emphatic summaries or generalizations, and for rapid narrative.

=Sentence Unity.=—I. _A sentence that possesses Unity of Substance constitutes one main step in the development of the paragraph-idea._ A main step, as thus employed, usually means a sentence giving one of the following: (1) the general subject of the paragraph; (2) the general thought or assertion of the paragraph; (3) the repetition of a preceding idea in new words; (4) an illustration; (5) a group of particulars or details; (6) one proof, or term, in a chain of reasoning; (7) a brief contrast; (8) a cause and an effect; (9) an assertion and a very brief illustration. It would be absurd to hold these principles of unity anxiously in mind when one is writing. Having thought them over a little, and taken to heart the general doctrine that the sentence should be one main step, the scholar should trust his own sense of unity. The chief value of any such analysis is that it may help the scholar to give thought to his own sentences.

II. _A sentence that possesses Unity of Form keeps one coherent structure throughout, and subordinates unimportant clauses to the important._ Unity of form does not concern the division of the paragraph into sentences. It will be considered in Chapter VI., under Well-knit Sentences.

=I. Unity of Substance by Excluding Irrelevant Ideas.=—Perhaps the first thing that is noticed in reading hasty composition, is that some sentences are too long. Here is one, written by a lad of fourteen. It will seem to most readers to be a sentence of infantine simplicity, such as no high school student is in the slightest danger of perpetrating. My apology for giving it is that it renders every heterogeneous sentence ridiculous.

Oliver Orlando’s brother did not like him and when he heard that Orlando whipped Charles he was very angry and was going to burn Orlando’s house up with him in it, but Adam, Orlando’s faithful servant, ran out and told him, so they got all the money they had and started for the forest of Arden, when they got pretty near there Adam being so old fainted from hunger.

The student who wrote this was not thinking of the parts of his paragraph; he was thinking merely of the story of _As You Like It_. He plunged ahead after the story, never looking behind him. The result is a long, rambling sentence, with several chief thoughts in it. These chief thoughts are four: (1) Oliver hatefully plots to kill Orlando. (2) Adam foils Oliver. (3) Adam and Orlando flee. (4) Adam at last faints. The paragraph therefore divides into four decent, though childish, sentences:—

Oliver, Orlando’s brother, did not like him; and when he heard that Orlando whipped Charles he was very angry, and was going to burn Orlando’s house up with him in it. But Adam, Orlando’s faithful servant, ran out and told him. So they got together all the money they had, and started for the forest of Arden. When they got pretty near there, Adam, being so old, fainted from hunger.

Periods are now substituted for several of the student’s commas. That writer had confused these two marks, the comma and the full stop. Such an error may be called, for mere convenience, _the comma fault_. It is readily seen that of all possible mistakes in punctuation, the comma fault is the most serious and elementary. To begin a new sentence after a comma is an infallible sign of illiteracy.

=Oral Exercise.=—In the following passages, correct the comma fault wherever it appears. Change the sentences in other ways to give a more mature tone to them.

1. I don’t know what to do in such a case, it is too hard to decide. [Change comma to semicolon.]

2. Romeo fell in love at once, he couldn’t help himself, he had never seen any person so lovable.

3. So they also started for the forest of Arden disguised as a countryman and woman, when they got there they bought a house that was to be sold at auction, once while wandering around they met Orlando and Rosalind asked him if it was he that was spoiling the trees by carving love sentences on them, and he said it was, so she said he could pretend that she was Rosalind, so he came there every day until one day he was detained by seeing a lioness just going to spring on Oliver.

=Theme.=—Write a paragraph of six to ten short sentences. Let the first state the whole event in brief. Let the others give the steps of the action tersely, rapidly, emphatically. Revise for spelling and punctuation. Suggested topics:—

1. Shooting the rapids. 2. How the water comes down at the falls. 3. How the accident happened. 4. How a log-jam is broken. 5. The way to shoot a glass ball. 6. Down a hill on a wheel. 7. Sights from a car window. 8. A fall on the ice. 9. Shooting the “Chutes.” 10. A runaway. 11. A flash-light photograph. 12. How the bird (or game) escaped. 13. Paul Revere’s ride. 14. An exciting moment.

=II. Unity of Substance by Including all the Parts of an Idea.=—It has already been said that a paragraph may be composed of several very short sentences, each one a main step of the paragraph, each one a unit. For example:—

A great silence made itself felt. Then, on a sudden, a dry sound cracked in the air. The viscount had slapped his adversary’s face. Every one rose to interfere. Cards were exchanged between the two.

Here, indeed, it may be that the second and third sentences are halves of one idea, divided to make its parts more emphatic. At all events, while a sentence may be very short and still constitute a principal factor of the paragraph, sentences should not be so brief that each is, so to speak, only half a main thought. A main thought may be composite. Thus, it is often effective (_a_) to _state_ and to _explain_ an idea very briefly, within the one sentence; (_b_) to show an extremely close relation of _cause_ and _effect_, by stating both within the one sentence; (_c_) to _contrast_ two things very briefly within the one sentence.

Now, a child gives his ideas in mere bits; he cannot express the relations of the bits to each other. For example:—

My aunt was a very large woman. My uncle was a very thin man. He was very delicate. He dwindled. I mean, he got thinner and punier every day. And my aunt thought a great deal of him. She wished him to get well. She gave him a great deal of medicine. She gave him so much that he began to get worse. He finally died.

This paragraph tells the story of how a woman doctored her husband to death. The writer has made eight steps in the story, which perhaps has not really more than four main parts: (1) The _contrast_ between my aunt and uncle. (2) My uncle “dwindled”—_explained_ by saying he got punier daily. (3) My aunt’s love, and its _consequence_—her wish for my uncle’s recovery. (4) The form the wish took,—giving of medicine. (5) The twofold result,—aggravation of the disease, then death.

The original sentences may be combined into four. In combining them, what pointing shall be used instead of so many full stops? We may use commas, but only if we make one clause dependent or join two clauses or propositions by a conjunction. We may say, for example, “My aunt was a very large woman, and my uncle a very thin, delicate man.” We have inserted an _and_; this permits the use of a comma. The result is a pretty good sentence, having one complex idea,—the contrast between the ample lady and her slight husband.

But another invaluable means of showing the real _factors_ of the sentence is the semicolon. The semicolon, as was said in Chapter III., is a kind of weak full stop. Nearly always it connects statements that are unrelated and independent grammatically, but intimately related in sense. In a way,[19] the semicolon connects sentences, a period separates sentences. The former sign is priceless to the writer who, when he comes to expand each idea of his paragraph, finds the structure growing too complicated. He has merely to place a semicolon and go ahead with a miniature new sentence, which every reader will understand to be a part of the logical unit in hand.

If we combine the eight sentences by the help of the semicolon, we get four, somewhat like the following:—

My aunt was a very large woman; my uncle, on the contrary, was a very thin delicate man. He dwindled; that is, he got thinner and punier every day. My aunt thought a good deal of him, and naturally she wished him to get well. She gave him, accordingly, a great deal of medicine. She gave him so much indeed that he began to get worse; and, finally, he died.

Most students do not use the semicolon enough. Two or three semicolon clauses, however, are sufficient for a very long sentence. If more are written there is usually danger of encroaching upon the next main thought of the paragraph. _It is better to write too many short sentences than too many long ones._

=Oral Exercise.=—Consider the following paragraph, and decide whether the main thoughts of it are nine, as here indicated, or four. If four, the thoughts are: (1) Contrast between light above and dark below. (2) The growing dark. (3) The faint, weird sights and sounds that come to the narrator. (4) His retreat from the abbey. If, having given the matter careful thought, you think there should be but four sentences, or if you think there is any other fault in the punctuation, explain how you would repoint.

The last beams of day were now faintly streaming through the painted windows in the high vaults above me. The lower parts of the abbey were already wrapped in the obscurity of twilight. The chapels and aisles grew darker and darker. The effigies of the kings faded into shadows. The marble figures of the monuments assumed strange shapes in the uncertain light. The evening breeze crept through the aisles like the cold breath of the grave. And even the distant footfall of a verger, traversing the Poet’s Corner, had something strange and dreary in its sound. I slowly retraced my morning’s walk. And as I passed out at the portal of the cloisters, the door, closing with a jarring noise behind me, filled the whole building with echoes.

=Punctuation for Emphasis.=—Below are given three ways of punctuating the same words. We may suppose the same words to be used by three different generals.

1. General A. twirled his moustache, and spoke softly, in his calm, unruffled way, as if he were explaining a mathematical problem to a cadet; he said to the soldier, “You are a coward: you shrink, you dodge, you hide, you run away when the danger comes.” He spoke meditatively, and with a little drawl, letting his voice rise at each pause.

2. General B. looked at the soldier steadily, and said in a sharp, decided tone: “You are a coward: you shrink; you dodge; you hide; you run away when the danger comes.”

3. General C. sprang up from his camp-stool, angry and indignant. He spoke explosively and incoherently. “You are a coward! You shrink. You dodge. You hide. You run away when the danger comes.”

Evidently the punctuation here is largely dependent on the different states of mind. A calm, logical attitude is reflected in the nice distinctions conveyed by the colon and comma. An excited mood over-emphasizes each detail, and makes it a sentence. There is sometimes need of indignant emphasis on each detail. Perhaps therefore the strict unity of the sentence may sometimes be sacrificed for the sake of emphasis. Such a sacrifice however should very rarely be made.

=Oral Exercise.=—Consider the following paragraph as a whole, and decide whether the sentences represent the main factors of the paragraph-thought. If you agree that “the song of a young girl’s voice” is as important in the paragraph as several of the other songs put together, how can this importance be indicated by punctuation?

The first thing which Tom saw was the black cedars, high and sharp against the rosy dawn. And St. Brandan’s Isle reflected double in the still broad silver sea. The wind sung softly in the cedars, and the water sung among the caves. The sea-birds sung as they streamed out into the ocean, and the land-birds as they built among the boughs. And the air was so full of song that it stirred St. Brandan and his hermits, as they slumbered in the shade. And they moved their good old lips, and sung their good old hymn amid their dreams. But among all the songs one came across the water more sweet and clear than all, for it was the song of a young girl’s voice.

=Theme.=—Write a paragraph of four sentences on one of the following subjects. Let the first sentence be a general statement. Then let each of three compound sentences group together details, and so explain the first.

1. The three parts of a tree, and their characteristics. 2. The three parts of my town. 3. A picture I like: its background, its figures, its coloring. 4. The lunch-room. 5. A sleeping-car: the car itself, the travellers, the porter. 6. Uses of a jack-knife: legitimate, illegitimate, doubtful. 7. Three men representing three kinds of true Americanism. 8. Three great men, typically English. 9. Three great men, typically Roman. 10. Three types of philanthropist. 11. Three kinds of coward. 12. Three kinds of hero. 13. Three noble American women. 14. Three women who write stories.

=Written Exercise.=—In the seventeenth century there were many authors whose minds were full of Latin models. These writers tried to build up in English, an uninflected language, sentences as complex as those of Cicero. They tried to make the sentence do the work of the paragraph. How utterly they failed may be seen in the following passages from Defoe and Lord Clarendon. Considering each selection as a paragraph, rewrite with reference to unity of substance in the sentence.

1. There is one thing more remarkable in this parish, and it is this: twenty-six sheets of lead, hanging all together, were blown off from the middle isle of our church, and were carried over the north isle, which is a very large one, without touching it; and into the churchyard ten yards’ distance from the church; and they were took up all joined together as they were on the roof; the plumber told me that the sheets weighed each three hundred and a half, one with another. This is what is most observable in our parish: but I shall give you an account of one thing (which perhaps you may have from other hands) that happened in another, called Kingscote, a little village about three miles from Tedbury, and seven from us: where William Kingscote, Esq., has many woods; among which was one grove of very tall trees, being each near eighty foot high; the which he greatly valued for the tallness and prospect of them, and therefore resolved never to cut them down: but it so happened, that six hundred of them, within the compass of five acres were wholly blown down; (and supposed to be much at the same time) each tree tearing up the ground with its root; so that the roots of most of the trees, with the turf and earth about them, stood up at least fifteen or sixteen foot high; the lying down of which trees is an amazing sight to all beholders.—_Defoe._

2. It is true, that as he[20] was of a most incomparable gentleness, application, and even submission to good and worthy and entire men, so he was naturally (which could not be more evident in his place, which objected him to another conversation and intermixture than his own election would have done) _adversus malos injucundus_; and was so ill a dissembler of his dislike and disinclination to ill men, that it was not possible for such not to discern it. There was once, in the House of Commons, such a declared acceptation of the good service an eminent member had done to them, and, as they said, to the whole kingdom, that it was moved, he being present, “That the speaker might, in the name of the whole house, give him thanks, and then that every member might, as a testimony of his particular acknowledgment, stir or move his hat towards him;” the which (though not ordered) when very many did, the lord Falkland (who believed the service itself not to be of that moment, and that an honourable and generous person could not have stooped to it for any recompence) instead of moving his hat, stretched both his arms out, and clasped his hands together upon the crown of his hat, and held it close down to his head; that all men might see, how odious that flattery was to him, and that very approbation of the person, though at the same time most popular.—_Clarendon._

=Oral Exercise.=—Examine the paragraphs by Hawthorne (p. 106), Macaulay, Webster, Huxley (pp. 107-8) to see whether the sentences are units in substance. Note also the different effects produced by long and short sentences.

=III. A. Unity of Substance by Keeping to the Point.=—In a hastily written manuscript will often be found unlike ideas joined together in one sentence. Some persons are worse than others in this matter, but everybody, in composing rapidly, is liable to the fault. It is amusingly easy to fly off at a tangent, if the parts of the paragraph have not been properly thought out. The mind often works erratically; it is pursuing a given idea when some word used suggests a different line of thinking and the train is switched off its track.

Cardinal Newman once wrote a burlesque of this scatter-brained kind of writing. He pretends that the lad is writing a theme on the topic, “Fortune favors the brave.” In the midst of it the boy says:—

Napoleon, too, shows us how little we can rely on fortune; but his faults, great as they were, are being redeemed by his nephew, Louis Napoleon, who has shown himself very different from what was expected, though he has never explained how he came to swear to the constitution, and then mounted the imperial throne.

Here the writer has not committed the comma fault; he has not begun an independent sentence after a comma. But he has set down ideas irrelevant to the sentence, and, in this case, irrelevant even to the theme.

This lack of unity often arises from putting down, as the sentence proceeds, the details that occur parenthetically to the writer; he empties his mind upon the paper. Thus:—

My aunt happened to notice, as she stood looking into the glass and thinking how pretty she was, for she was really pretty for one so old, that the eyes of a portrait or one of the eyes was moving, for my aunt had a large picture of my uncle in her room in her country-house, which was in Derbyshire.

=B.= Many a sentence which ends in an irrelevant clause can be made to show unity by the insertion of some intermediate link that occurred in the mind but was overlooked in the writing. “Johnson wrote political articles, and took care that the Whigs did not get the best of it,” becomes a unit if we supply a few words: “Johnson wrote political articles, _and in those which referred to parliamentary debates_ took care that the Whigs did not get the best of it.” In other words, a sentence must not merely include the _expressed_ parts of a main thought, as in the second kind of unity of substance; it must _express_ every part of the main thought.

=Oral Exercise.=—Trim the following sentences into shape, so that each shall be a unit. If necessary, divide the sentence.

1. He was young; but his foolishness stood him in good stead.

2. The cholera in Egypt is assuming a more loathsome form, among the dead being Major Roddy Owen, the famous Uganda explorer.

3. The delegates, wearied by the excitement of the past week, have hurried to their homes, a few remaining for all the business men have been making unusual displays in spite of the hard times.

4. The new light is placed upon a gas-jet, which supplies the gas to a curious film, which is made of some chemically prepared substance that becomes incandescent, not having to be changed oftener than twice a year, if you are careful with it.

5. The electric lights, which are of the Edison pattern, are not burned later than six o’clock. They are more convenient than gas, and they come packed in straw.

=Oral Exercise, in Review.=—Decide whether the following sentences are units or not. Indicate which form of sentence unity each has or lacks. Suggest improvements.

1. In the midst of life we are in death, and it has been said that the tariff is a tax.

2. Jesu! Jesu! Dead!—he drew a good bow;—and dead!—he shot a fine shoot:—John of Gaunt loved him well, and betted much money on his head.—_2 Henry IV._, Act III., Sc. 2, l. 48.

3. He had one claw knobbed and the other jagged; and Tom delighted in watching him hold on to the sea-weed with his knobbed claw, while he cut up salads with his jagged one, and then put them into his mouth, after smelling at them, like a monkey, and always the little barnacles threw out their casting nets and swept the water, and came in for their share of whatever there was for dinner.

4. We were now thoroughly broken down, but the intense excitement of the time denied us repose, and after a unique slumber of some three or four hours’ duration, we arose, as if by preconcert, to make examination of our treasure.

5. Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt [partly-gilt] goblet, sitting in my Dolphin-chamber, at the round table, by a sea-coal fire, upon Wednesday in Whitsun week, when the prince broke thy head for likening his father to a singing man of Windsor; thou didst swear to me then, as I was washing thy wound, to marry me, and make me my lady thy wife.—_2 Henry IV._, Act II., Sc. 1, l. 94.

6. There was something in the tone of this note which gave me great uneasiness. Its whole style differed materially from that of Legrand; what could he be dreaming of? what new crotchet possessed his excitable brain? what “business of the highest importance” could _he_ possibly have to transact? Jupiter’s account of him boded no good; I dreaded lest the continued pressure of misfortune had, at length, fairly unsettled the reason of my friend; without a moment’s hesitation, therefore, I prepared to accompany the negro.

7. And in that country is an old castle, that stands upon a rock, the which is cleped the Castle of the sparrowhawk, that is beyond the city of Layas, beside the town of Parsipee, that belongeth to the lordship of Cruk; that[21] is a rich lord and a good Christian man; where men find a sparrowhawk upon a perch right fair, and right well made; and a fair Lady of Fayryre, that keepeth it.—_Mandeville._

8. And thus will the city have more lights on the subject, and what will be a gain in lighting to the city will be a greater loss in cash, and the city’s loss will be the Water Works company’s gain, and we are glad of it so far as the company is concerned, for the company was put off and were refused a renewal of its contract with the city at terms that were most reasonable, and the company will also make up for lost time now in good shape.