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Long sentences are useful for grouping subordinate details, for explanations and contrasts, for climax, and for dignity and rhythmical movement.

EXERCISE 45.

Account for the use of the long sentences of the paragraphs quoted in Lessons 12 to 20.

EXERCISE 46.

Convert the following short-sentence paragraphs into paragraphs of longer sentences of different lengths.

The winter put a stop to military operations. All had hitherto gone well. But the real tug of war was still to come. It was easy to foresee that the year 1757 would be a memorable era in the history of Europe.

The scheme for the campaign was simple, bold, and judicious. The Duke of Cumberland with an English and Hanoverian army was in Western Germany, and might be able to prevent the French troops from attacking Prussia. The Russians, confined by their snows, would probably not stir till the spring was far advanced. Saxony was prostrated. Sweden could do nothing very important. During a few months Frederick would have to deal with Austria alone. Even thus the odds were against him. But ability and courage have often triumphed against odds still more formidable.

Early in 1757 the Prussian army in Saxony began to move. Through four defiles in the mountains they came pouring into Bohemia. Prague was his first mark; but the ulterior object was probably Vienna. At Prague lay Marshal Brown with one great army. Daun, the most cautious and fortunate of the Austrian captains, was advancing with another. Frederick determined to overwhelm Brown before Daun should arrive. On the sixth of May was fought, under those walls which a hundred and thirty years before had witnessed the victory of the Catholic league and the flight of the unhappy Palatine, a battle more bloody than any which Europe saw during the long interval between Malplaquet and Eylau. The king and Prince Ferdi

nand of Brunswick were distinguished on that day by their valor and exertions. But the chief glory was with Schwerin. When the Prussian infantry wavered, the stout old marshal snatched the colors from an ensign, and, waving them in the air, led back his regiment to the charge. Thus at seventy-two years of age he fell in the thickest of the battle, still grasping the standard which bears the black eagle on the field argent. The victory remained with the king. But it had been dearly pur

chased. Whole columns of his bravest warriors had fallen. He admitted that he had lost eighteen thousand men. Of the enemy,

twenty-four thousand had been killed, wounded, or taken.

Part of the defeated army was shut up in Prague. Part fled to join the troops which, under the command of Daun, were now close at hand. Frederick determined to play over the same game which had succeeded at Lowositz. He left a large force to besiege Prague, and at the head of thirty thousand men he marched against Daun. The cautious marshal, though he had great superiority in numbers, would risk nothing. He occupied at Kolin a position almost impregnable, and awaited the attack of the king.

EXERCISE 47.

On one of the following outlines write a paragraph, using short sentences almost exclusively. On the same outline write another paragraph, using long sentences almost exclusively. Compare the two. Which reads the better? Which is the more easily followed by a listener? What is lacking in the first, what in the second? Write a third paragraph on the same outline, combining the best parts of the other two, and using sentences of different lengths. Bring all three of the paragraphs to class.

I. Theme: Learning to ride a bicycle.
Topic-sentence: Difficulty of the task.

a. Mounting.

b. First fall.

c. Collision with a pedestrian.

d. Into the ditch.

e. A friend to the rescue.

f. The secret won.

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II. Theme: Books that I have enjoyed reading. Topic-sentence: The kinds of books that I enjoy. a. Poetry (several sentences stating names of authors and poems, and reasons why the poems are pleasant reading).

b. Prose (as under a).

III. Theme: The character of a friend.
Topic-sentence: His most prominent trait.
a. His likes, with illustrations.

b. His dislikes, with illustrations.

IV. Theme: Advantage of knowing how to sing. Topic-sentence: General nature of these advantages. a. Singing is a pleasure to one's self.

b. Ability to sing gives certain social advantages. c. Disadvantages of inability to sing illustrated from observation or experience.

EXERCISE 48.

On one of the following topic-sentences write a paragraph of about two hundred and fifty words. After writing, examine the paragraph with these two questions in mind: (1) Does the division of the paragraph into sentences correspond to the natural division of the thought? (2) Is there variety of sentence-lengths? Revise the paragraph so that these two questions may be answered affirmatively.

1. It was an old tumble-down house.

2. Lincoln's journey to Washington was fraught with secret perils.

3. "Study what you like" has an attractive sound, but is it good advice?

4. It is not true charity to give money to every beggar one meets.

5. Not what a man earns, but what he saves, makes him rich.

6. I should like a newspaper without advertisements. 7. Fashions in dress are less extreme than formerly. 8. We are willing to admit that the English sparrows have some very admirable traits.

9. A Chinese school-room is a noisy place.

10. It is hard to explain the actions of some people.

LESSON 23.

Uses of the Loose Sentence.

Whether long or short, every sentence is also, in the arrangement of its parts, loose or periodic or balanced. sentence is said to be loose if, without destroying its meaning, it can be ended at a point earlier than the close. Notice the structure of the sentences in the following paragraph. In every one of them there is at least one point, before the close, at which the sentence might end, without violence to the sense.

1. One afternoon we visited a cave, some two miles down the stream which had recently been discovered. 2. We squeezed and wriggled through a big crack or cleft in the side of the mountain for about one hundred feet, when we emerged into a large, domeshaped passage, the abode, during certain seasons of the year, of innumerable bats, and at all times of primeval darkness. 3. There were various other crannies and pit-holes opening into it, some of which we explored. 4. The voice of running water was everywhere heard, betraying the proximity of the little stream by whose ceaseless corroding the cave and its entrance had been worn. 5. This streamlet flowed out of the mouth of the cave, and came from a lake on the top of the mountain; this accounted for its warmth to the hand, which surprised us all. - BURRoughs: Wake Robin; Adirondack.

The paragraph of loose sentences resembles good conversation. It is easy and natural and entirely without pom

pousness; there is no waiting for the full meaning. In each loose sentence the main statement (subject and verb) is given at once and is followed by an added clause or phrase. Loose sentences are such as one finds in great numbers in letters, stories, news-articles, and familiar discourse of all kinds.

Broadway is miles upon miles long, a rush of life such as I never have seen; not so full as the Strand, but so rapid. The houses are always being torn down and built up again, the railroad cars drive slap into the midst of the city. There are barricades and scaffoldings banging everywhere. I have not been into a house, except the fat country one, but something new is being done to it, and the hammerings are clattering in the passage, or a wall or steps are down, or the family is going to move. Nobody is quiet here, no more am I. The rush and restlessness pleases me, and I like, for a little, the dash of the stream. I am not received as a god, which I like too. There is one paper which goes on every morning saying I am a snob, and I don't say no. Six people were reading it at breakfast this morning, and the man opposite me popped it under the table cloth. But the other papers roar with approbation. Letters of Thackeray, 159.

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It is not often that a paragraph is made up exclusively of loose sentences. In the great majority of paragraphs it is desirable to employ sentences of various types and of various lengths. The following selection contains four loose sentences (2, 3, 5, 7) out of a total of seven

sentences:

1. If the art of writing had been unknown till now, and if the invention of it were suddenly to burst upon the world as did that of the telephone, one of the things most generally said in praise of it would be this. 2. It would be said-"What a gain to friendship now that friends can communicate in spite of separation by the very widest distances!"

3. Yet we have possessed this means of communication, the fullest and best of all, from remote antiquity, and we scarcely make any use of it—certainly not any use responding to its capabilities; and as time goes on, instead of developing those capabili

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