object. Just as no sentence should contain incongruous statements or distracting parentheses, so no paragraph should contain irrelevant sentences or distracting digressions.

The most common breaches of unity are:

I. Running into one paragraph what should be divided into two or more; in other words, making the paragraph a miniature chapter.

2. Splitting into two or three paragraphs the matter that is enough for one only; in other words, reducing the paragraph almost to the level of the sentence.

3. Introducing irrelevancies and useless digressions. The following passage exemplifies breaches one and two.

"The joy of the nation at the birth of the Prince was loud. Oxford celebrated the event in printed poems, and it is recorded that Cambridge's omission to do the same gave dire offence. Charles, as his portraits show, was a little person with a dark skin and good eyes. His mother thought him so ugly when he was born that she wrote a letter of laughing apology on the subject of his looks. He was somewhat uncouth as a little boy, and stammered, and was shy.

He had a funny little habit of carrying in his arms wherever he went a billet of wood, to which he was so devoted that he never would go abroad without it, and it shared his pillow."

The nation's joy is so distinct from the traits of Charles that sentences one and two should form a separate paragraph. On the other hand, the last sentence is so much akin to what precedes that, instead of being a paragraph, it should be run straight on after " was shy."

In the next passage the third sentence is altogether irrelevant.

"Catherine was by this time a pretty and engaging child of two. She was the pet of her brothers and the darling of her parents. She had been baptized in the ducal chapel of the palace of Villa Viçosa, not three weeks after her birth, and her godfather was the Marquez of Ferreira, a devoted supporter of her father. Now, as destiny would have it, it was on her second birthday that the nobles of Portugal sent secretly to pray Catherine's father, in the name of the patriots, to accept the throne of Portugal."

An example is now given of excessive digression.

"When Archibald Campbell was still of a very tender age, being only between four and five years old, he was 'fostered,' or brought up

away from home by one of his father's kinsmen. The custom in question was prevalent in Argyll and Breadalbane and in other parts of the Highlands and extended to all classes. The original object of it was to procure friends and allies in case of need--a consideration of great importance in days when the protection afforded by the laws was but slight and intermittent. There is something very engaging in the idea which lay at the root of this custom, that in a bond of friendship there is something more enduring than could be secured by treaties written with a pen and liable to be affected by the changing moods and circumstances of the contracting parties. Various members of the House of Campbell would have been glad to ‘foster' the eldest son of their chief-for such Lord Lorne had virtually been since his father had abjured his religion and forsaken his country. But the person to whom Lord Lorne committed the weighty charge of his son's upbringing was Sir Colin Campbell of Glenurquhay."

The digression in sentences two, three and four is excessive and unnecessary. We may allow the need of mentioning the prevalence of the custom, but fewer words would have done. To discuss, however, its origin and importance is unnecessary: still more so to moralize on its beauty.

No absolute rule can be laid down about digressions. They are often advantageous to give explanations. In such a case, they should, like parentheses, be to the point and as short as possible. After a long digression, if a long digression is necessary, a writer should insert a warning when the main theme is resumed. This must never be omitted when, as sometimes happens, a digression overflows the paragraph in which it starts and is extended over one or more paragraphs. Macaulay, for example, in his essay on Machiavelli praises his comedy The Mandragola, and inserts several paragraphs on the real object of the drama. He then proceeds:

"This digression will enable our readers to understand what we mean when we say that in The Mandragola Machiavelli has proved that he completely understood the nature of the dramatic art,” etc.

COHERENCE OF THE PARAGRAPH. A paragraph is coherent when the sentences are arranged in an orderly way. That is, the sentences expressing related parts of the statement come close together and follow each other naturally. The separation of what

would naturally come together causes dislocation, which makes the meaning difficult to grasp. Sometimes a writer breaks the even flow of the paragraph by some abrupt statement. This is for the sake of effect.

The order of sentences varies. It may be the order of time, or the order of cause and effect; again, a general proposition may be followed by illustrations and proofs, or a number of statements may lead up to a conclusion.

In the following paragraph the order of time is unjustifiably neglected.

"At the age of eight Charles received knighthood and was invested with the order of the Garter. Soon after his birth he had been proclaimed Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester.

Transpose the sentences, making the necessary verbal changes. The next passage exemplifies a serious dislocation.

66 Adam Smith was professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glasgow for twelve years. He then left Glasgow to travel as tutor with the young Duke of Buccleuch, and visited France and Switzerland, residing eighteen months at Toulouse-a curious choice, due we may believe to the tutor, not to the pupil-and some time in Paris. In Paris he made the acquaintance of the brilliant circle of economists and encyclopædists, Quesnay, Turgot, D'Alembert, Helvetius, and Morellet. On leaving Glasgow he forced his students, with whom he was a great favourite, to receive back their fees as the session was not finished. Like many of his countrymen he could not learn to speak French well. One of the Parisian wits said he talked not French but

banks and credit."

The sentence "On leaving Glasgow" etc. is manifestly out of place. Its natural position is immediately after "left Glasgow to travel...Buccleuch." Accordingly put a full stop after "Buccleuch"; then insert the information about returning the fees; and follow up with a new sentence about the visit to France and Switzerland.

Macaulay is fond of the abrupt introduction of general statements. Here is an example from his essay on Machiavelli. One paragraph opens with a contrast between the feudal nobles

in other parts of Europe and those of Lombardy and Tuscany. Then the paragraph proceeds:

"The state of society in the Neapolitan dominions, and in some parts of the Ecclesiastical State, more nearly resembled that which existed in the great monarchies of Europe. But the governments of Lombardy and Tuscany, through all their revolutions, preserved a different character. A people when assembled in a town is far more formidable to its rulers than when dispersed over a wide extent of country. The most arbitrary of the Cæsars found it necessary to feed and divert the inhabitants of their unwieldy capital at the expense of the provinces. The citizens of Madrid have more than once besieged their sovereign in his own palace, and extorted from him the most humiliating concessions. The Sultans have often been compelled to propitiate the furious rabble of Constantinople with the head of an unpopular Vizier. From the same cause there was a certain tinge of democracy in the monarchies and aristocracies of Northern Italy."

Note the abruptness. After Macaulay mentions "a different character," instead of telling us that the difference consisted of "a certain tinge of democracy," he suddenly whirls us away to consider the general proposition of the greater unruliness of town-states. Then he gives three illustrations of his proposition before indicating what it has to do with Lombardy and Tuscany. Such abruptness, when employed, should be carefully handled. Otherwise instead of rousing interest, it may cause bewilderment.

MUTUAL RELATION OF SENTENCES. The coherence of a paragraph will be better seen when the relation of each sentence to its neighbour is made as clear as possible. It should be evident if the second sentence is an addition to the first, or if it is in opposition, or if it is a reason or a consequence; and so on. In this way the writer will be less apt to fall into a faulty order of sentences or into breaches of the unity of the paragraph.

The most formal way of showing the relation of sentences, of explicit reference as it has been named, is to use certain conjunctions, or adverbs, or other connecting words and phrases. Note the force of but, hence, on the other hand, under these circumstances, in the following passages.

"The explanation might have been easy, if he had been a very weak or a very affected man. But he was evidently neither the one nor the other."

"To be butchered on the smoking ruins of their city, to be dragged in chains to a slave-market, to see one child torn from them to dig in the quarries of Sicily, and another to guard the harems of Persepolis, these were the frequent and probable consequences of national calamities. Hence, among the Greeks, patriotism became a governing principle, or rather an ungovernable passion."

"The judicious and candid mind of Machiavelli shows itself in his luminous, manly, and polished language. The style of Montesquieu, on the other hand, indicates in every page a lively and ingenious but an unsound mind."

"The contests of opposite factions were carried on, not as formerly in the senate-house or in the market-place, but in the ante-chambers of Louis and Ferdinand. Under these circumstances, the prosperity of the Italian States depended far more on the ability of their foreign agents than on the conduct of those who were intrusted with their domestic administration."

Other connectives are: further, then, again, besides, too, also, or, nor, otherwise, still, yet, however, therefore, so, and, add to this, at the same time, once more, on the contrary, in short, on the whole, in a word.

It should be noted that in modern English and is a very rare connective of sentences. The following shows its use for adding an emphatic conclusion.

"A mannerism which does not sit easy on the mannerist, which has been adopted on principle, and which can be sustained only by constant effort, is always offensive. And such is the mannerism of Johnson."

A second method of indicating relation is to repeat what we wish to refer to. The repetition need not be literal. It may be introduced by phrases like "as we have already stated," "we have now proved," "we again repeat," "it was said before."

A third way is by arrangement of words, as by inversion in the following.

"The times which shine with the greatest splendour in literary history are not always those to which the human mind is most indebted. Of this we may be convinced, by comparing the generation which follows them with that which had preceded them."