arrogance, the love and sympathy that lie back of his violent objurgations and in a way prompt them. .

Again, Johnson owed much more to his times than Carlyle did to his.

Is it possible to feel as deep an interest in and admiration for Carlyle, apart from his works, as we do in Johnson? Different temperaments will answer differently. Some people have a natural antipathy to Carlyle, based, largely, no doubt, on misconception. But misconception is much easier in his case than in Johnson's. He was more of an exceptional being. He was pitched in too high a key for the ordinary uses of life. He had fewer infirmities than Johnson, moral and physical. Johnson was a typical Englishman, and appeals to us by all the virtues and faults of his race. Both men had the same proud independence, the same fearless gift of speech, the same deference to authority or love of obedience. Yet the fact remains that Johnson lived and moved and thought on a lower plane than Carlyle, and that he cherished less lofty ideals of life and of duty. It is probably true also that his presence and his conversation made less impression on his contemporaries than did Carlyle's; but, through the wonderful Boswell, a livelier, more lovable, and more real image of him is likely to go down to succeeding ages than of the great Scotchman through his biographer.

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Important things for the writer to consider are the beginning and the ending of his composition. Except in books and treatises of considerable length, formal and extended introductions are quite out of place. Ordinarily, the writer should begin at once with the subject in hand. In very short compositions,

he should always do so. The space at his disposal is usually all needed for the development of his theme, and should therefore be used for that purpose and for no other. Notice the directness with which Lowell, for example, begins his essay on Emerson the Lecturer. "It is a singular fact that Mr. Emerson is the most steadily attractive lecturer in America." It is not always necessary to begin in this direct fashion, but, in general, it is a good way to begin. Begin at the real beginning and waste as little time on introductory matter as possible, this is the safest of all rules for the young writer to follow.

With regard to the ending, a somewhat similar rule may be given. End when everything that it is really necessary to say has been said. Never prolong a composition beyond its natural and proper close. A good ending should leave the reader satisfied, neither surprised at its suddenness nor impatient that it is long drawn out. As a rule, the ending should have something of the nature of a climax; that is, the interest in the composition should heighten steadily toward the end and be greatest at, or near, the conclusion.

4. PARAGRAPHING

All compositions, except the very shortest, have subdivisions, called paragraphs, in which are discussed the various topics coming under the general subject. When the composition is reduced to its lowest terms,— that is, when it consists of but a single paragraph,-the paragraph becomes, of course, identical with the whole composition; but ordinarily it is a subdivision of the

whole composition, and its function is the facilitating of the discussion of the subject by providing a means of taking up, one by one, the several topics into which the subject may be divided. Practically, therefore, the paragraph is the working unit of discourse; for, although the sentence is the ultimate unit of expressed thought, compositions are built up paragraph by paragraph, rather than sentence by sentence.

Good paragraphing, it should be needless to say, is an essential part of good writing. There is no truer test of clear thinking on the part of the writer than good paragraphing in his composition. Paragraphs do not take shape of their own accord. They are not the result of spontaneous effort, as sentences often are. They are, on the contrary, the result of conscious prevision or planning. In writing a paragraph, one must have clearly in mind, not only his topic but everything he wishes to say in developing that topic. If he would hope to produce a given effect, he must foresee the end from the beginning, and he must not leave anything to chance.

All paragraphs are not, of course, planned alike. The great majority of normal paragraphs, however, conform more or less closely to one and the same scheme, which may be outlined as follows: (1) the statement of the topic; (2) the development or discussion of the topic; and (3) the conclusion.

Observe how closely the following paragraphs, for example, conform to this scheme:

The great error in Rip's composition was an insuperable aversion to all kinds of profitable labor. It could not be from the want of assiduity or perseverance; for he would

sit on a wet rock, with a rod as long and heavy as a Tartar's lance, and fish all day without a murmur, even though he should not be encouraged by a single nibble. He would carry a fowling-piece on his shoulder for hours together, trudging through woods and swamps, and up hill and down dale, to shoot a few squirrels or wild pigeons. He would never refuse to assist a neighbor, even in the roughest toil, and was a foremost man at all country frclics for husking Indian corn, or building stone fences; the women of the village, too, used to employ him to run their errands, and to do such little odd jobs as their less obliging husbands would not do for them. In a word, Rip was ready to attend to anybody's business but his own; but as to doing family duty, and keeping his farm in order, he found it impossible.1

To go light is to play the game fairly. The man in the woods matches himself against the forces of nature. In the towns he is warmed and fed and clothed so spontaneously and easily that after a time he perforce begins to doubt himself, to wonder whether his powers are not atrophied from disuse. And so, with his naked soul, he fronts the wilderness. It is a test, a measuring of strength, a proving of his essential pluck and resourcefulness and manhood, an assurance of man's highest potency, the ability to endure and to take care of himself. In just so far as he substitutes the ready-made of civilization for the wit-made of the forest, the pneumatic bed for the balsam boughs, in just so far is he relying on other men and other men's labor to take care of him. To exactly that extent is the test invalidated. He has not proved a courteous antagonist, for he has not stripped to the contest.2

The average paragraph has not, perhaps, quite so regular a construction as those just cited, both of which

1 From Irving's Rip Van Winkle.

2 From Stewart Edward White's The Forest.

have an explicit statement of the topic in the first sentence and a clearly defined conclusion. Still, it tends in the direction of the type form outlined above, and departs from that form only because of the necessity of avoiding monotony. Owing to the need of variety, we find the set conclusion frequently omitted and the topic stated in some other sentence than the opening one, or even left without explicit statement at all. In this last case the paragraph must be so constructed that the reader will have no difficulty in formulating the topic for himself. In the following paragraph, for example, there is no statement of the topic, but the reader easily perceives what the paragraph is about:

As the escort disappeared, their pent-up feelings found vent in a few hysterical tears from the Duchess, some bad language from Mother Shipton, and a Parthian volley of expletives from Uncle Billy. The philosophic Oakhurst alone remained silent. He listened calmly to Mother Shipton's desire to cut somebody's heart out, to the repeated statements of the Duchess that she would die in the road, and to the alarming oaths that seemed to be bumped out of Uncle Billy as he rode forward. With the easy

good-humor characteristic of his class, he insisted upon exchanging his own riding-horse, "Five Spot," for the sorry mule which the Duchess rode. But even this act did not draw the party into any closer sympathy. The young

woman readjusted her somewhat draggled plumes with a feeble, faded coquetry; Mother Shipton eyed the possessor of "Five Spot" with malevolence, and Uncle Billy included the whole party in one sweeping anathema.1

From Bret Harte's Outcasts of Poker Flat.