Paragraph

“ Summary.+—To summarize the preceding paragraphs, the authority we quote, the maxims we state, the facts we adduce become valuable because they appeal to general theories already believed by the reader. Success in argument demands, therefore, that we consider carefully what theories may probably be in the mind of our audience, and that we present our argument in such a way as to appeal to those theories. ”

“ When expressed in the paragraph, the topic statement may be a part of a sentence, a whole sentence, or it may extend through two sentences. It is usual to place the topic statement first, but it may be preceded by one or more introductory sentences, or even withheld until the end of the paragraph. For emphasis it may be repeated, though usually in a slightly different form.
EXERCISES Determine the topic statements of the following paragraphs. If one is not expressed, make one.
1. No less valuable is the mental stimulus of play. ”

“ If it is moved to strike out a paragraph, then a new principle is involved, because inasmuch as the whole paragraph is to be struck out there will be nothing left upon which to ingraft an amendment, and if struck out it cannot be restored in whole or in part, or if the motion to strike out is rejected the assembly has really adopted the paragraph and it cannot be amended ”

“ SUGGESTIONS FOB COMPOSITION WORK. TO THE TEACHER.—See suggestions, pages 159, 160.
Exercises on the Composition of the Sentence and the Paragraph.
FROM BEECHER'S "LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN." 1. Indolence inclines a man to rely upon others and not upon himself, to eat their bread and not his own. 2. His carelessness is somebody's loss; his neglect is somebody's downfall. 3. If he borrows, the article remains borrowed; if he begs and gets, it is as the letting out of waters—no one knows where it will stop. ”

“ We may despise them, but still we read; and nothing that is read with interested attention by fifty millions of people is really despicable. The average newspaper writer may well be content to toss off paragraphs for us; he need not care who constructs our leading editorials. The influence of the paragraph is incomparably the greater; it has the raciness of the soil, shrewd wit driven home with our native exaggeration and the sting of the epigram. And much of that which is bound between covers has this peculiar aroma of journalism—its fitness to-day, its staleness to-morrow. ”

“ So, if you have an original height="5400" & width="3300" for the full "virtual-paper" size, a set DPI (dots per inch) of 600 and a bunch of x-min, y-max, x-max, y-min coordinates for at least the in a you can easily envision how computerized computation can determine not only appropriate font size to mimic the original proportions found in the original scanned [paper] page but also the means to extrapolate the values for margins, columns, tables, word spacing, line-heights, indentation, paragraph spacing and the like. ”

“ In every relation of life, at every moment [3] of our active being, in every thing we think or do, it is on the meaning and inflection of a word that the direction of our thoughts, and the expression of our will, turn. The soundness of our reasonings, the clearness of our belief and of our judgment, the influence we exert upon others, and the manner in which we are impressed by our fellow-men,—all depend upon a knowledge of the value of words. ”

“ The manner in laughter, in tears, in irony, in indignations and enthusiasms, in judgments--and even in love. The manner in which, as in the features and character of a human face, the inner truth is foreshadowed for those who know how to look at their kind. ”

“ He employs [p. 2] the series, the contrasts (single, double, and triple) , the conditional, the negative, the positive, and, in fact, all the known forms of arranging words so as to make them best express the orator’s meaning. Here is an effective concluding series he uses: “A city is adorned by good citizenship, the body by beauty, the soul by wisdom, acts by virtue, and speech by truthfulness,” and he follows this sentence with the following one: “But the opposites of these virtues are a disgrace.” ”

“ To a mind naturally strong and capacious, enriched by much reading and the experience of many years, he added a manner of communicating his thoughts peculiarly his own—in which simplicity, beauty, and strength were equally conspicuous. ”

“ It is in the writings of these illustrious characters that we find originality of thought, justice of sentiment, and force of reasoning, occasionally elevating our conceptions, convincing our judgments, and softening our feelings. Many more examples might be adduced of those who prefer the exercise of composition to that of conversation, and who, in silently meditating upon some rational subject, and in recording the spontaneous flow of ideas and reflections, have felt a silent satisfaction, and an enlargement of mind, never found among the restraints, or the gaieties of society. ”

“ And how many of those slighter details, occurrences, projects, or intrigues, that link small matters with great—how many points of manner, conduct, temper, or peculiarity that make up the sum of human character, are thus lost, of which we would gladly be informed! ”

“ To be compelled to shape the course of remark so as to suit a sentence which is by and by to come, or to introduce certain expressions which are waiting for their place, is a check to the natural current of thought. ”

“ Let us resume our reflections upon men, their characters, their manners, in a word, our reflections upon the world. They may help you to form yourself, and to know others; a knowledge very useful at all ages, very rare at yours. ”

“ I have yet to learn that the whole of its world of spirits, now for many years at the beck and call of countless mediums, professional and private, has ever dictated or written a single great sentence, revealed a single great truth—discovered a single important fact. ”

“ But it is absolutely necessary, for right progress in knowledge, that you begin by observing and tracing decisive lines; and that you consider dignity and simplicity of expression more than beauty of feature. ”

“ For so, every preceding proposition preparing the mind for that which is to follow, and the reader often anticipating it, he proceeds with ease, and pleasure, and approbation, as seeming continually to meet with his own thoughts. ”

“ You see, my friends, what immense conclusions, touching our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor, may be reached by means of very insignificant premises. This is eminently true of manners and forms of speech; a movement or a phrase often tells you all you want to know about a person. ”

“ Though necessarily dealing with great masses of detail, general principles are wisely and impressively emphasised ; though constantly concerned with abstractions and tendencies, it has rightly been pronounced to be ’marvellously concrete.' Self-suppression, impartiality, accuracy, sympathy, sobriety of judgment, and sense of proportion stand out in every part of the great book. ”

“ Such portraitures of human peculiarities, gauged by their moral or social desirability as examples to be followed or avoided, form an attractive compendium for the interpretation of men and their ways. Their consideration, ranging from gossip to philosophy, supplies the common touch of nature that makes the world of every time and clime akin, and presents graphically for our psychological contemplation the outward issues of disposition as shaped by opportunity and circumstance. ”

“ A consummate Delicacy of Sentiments, and an exquisite Judgment are the very Soul of Characteristic-Writing; for every particular Stroke, as well as the whole Character, has a proper Degree of Perfection. ”

“ And if his conscience is clear, his answer to those who in the fulness of a wisdom which looks for immediate profit, demand specifically to be edified, consoled, amused; who demand to be promptly improved, or encouraged, or frightened, or shocked, or charmed, must run thus:—My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word to make you hear, to make you feel—it is, before all, to make you see. ”

“ The Image of God was not seated in the features of your face but in the lineaments of your soul. In the knowledge of your powers, inclinations, and principles, the knowledge of yourself chiefly consisteth. ”

“ And the unutterable,—feeling or sensation,—far from being the highest truth, is the most unimportant and untrue. If I say 'The individual,' 'This individual,' 'here,' 'now,' all these are universal terms. Everything and anything is an individual, a 'this,' and if it be sensible, is here and now. ”

“ If thou canst, answer me. If thou hast so much strength and spirit left thee, and art not quite spent with the distemper and the dispute, set thy words in order, and they shall have their due consideration." Those that can speak reason will hear reason. ”

“ On the part of the narrator. What shall she do about it? In each case, the outcome arrives with celerity, and love is the ruling motive in each struggle. The decision, as affected by love, testifies to the character of each person.
Characterization. Is each character so described, and does he show such action and interaction as to make logical the behavior in the particular struggle? Must the reader accept any one of the decisions on faith alone?
Setting. What is it? Has it particular contributory value, or might the locale have been, say, New York? ”

“ The valuable parts that the speaker presents are expressed through inflections that suggest breadth and freedom. Each part is felt to have a value of its own, intellectual, moral, esthetic, or spiritual. ”

“ You will understand, of course, that there is no magic or virtue in the words themselves—that is, in the grouping of the letters forming the words, or the sounds of the words—the virtue resting in the idea of which the words are the expression. ”

“ His phraseology rolls ever in solemn and majestic periods, in which every substantive marches ceremoniously accompanied by its epithet; grand pompous words peal like an organ; every proposition is set forth balanced by a proposition of equal length; thought is developed with the compressed regularity and official splendour of a procession. ”

“ What is it that builds a house and plants a garden, but the definite and determinate? What is it that distinguishes honesty from knavery, but the hard and wiry line of rectitude and certainty in the actions and intentions? ”

“ If you were to take a few strong words, a few persuasive words, and a few tender words, mightn't you mix them so—that is, so set them in order—as to make them a good medicine for a sore heart, for instance? ”

“ I am only trying to discover what you make yourself do. And do you, as a matter of fact, really dispute the main conclusions to which we have come, or rather, if you will accept my phrase, the main 'postulates of the will' which we have elicited? ”

“ Abstract from all the content that directly or indirectly you first learned from others, and were thus first taught to apply to yourself, and you will abstract from all the ideas concerning yourself that you can now express in language, from all ideas of dignity, of worth, of truth, of duty, as applied to your person, yes, from all ideas of any explicit personal characteristic or possession of your own. ”

“ Just in proportion as you feel more deeply, or notice more keenly, and as you acquire the faculty of expressing your feelings or observations more delicately and powerfully which faculty must come into practice. ”

“ We may call it a power of ennobling ordinary things by showing their relation to great things, of pouring high emotions round them, of bringing the worthier motives of human conduct to bear upon them, of touching them with the light of poetry. ”

“ This conviction, or impression if you will, has become stronger with years and with the knowledge of life; years have imparted, and time has but confirmed me in, the notion that any skill I possess lies in the detection of character, and the unravelment of that tangled skein which makes up human motives. ”

“ And when thine eyes be closed, thine hearing a-gone, thy speech withdrawn and may not speak, then shalt thou see what thy master the World will do for thee. Seek thy coffers he will, and every corner by the way of likelihood where any goods is in. ”

“ In short, if we study ourselves, and reflect what our station, character, or nature is, we shall best discern what the virtues are, and in what manner to be expressed, which sit most properly and gracefully upon us. ”

“ Thus, entering into sympathy with their situations and states, we reproduce them in ourselves. In our tones, attitudes, gestures, and expressions of countenance, we unconsciously look, act, and seem like them. ”

“ When two distinct meanings are confounded under one or more words,— (and such must be the case, as sure as our knowledge is progressive and of course imperfect) —erroneous consequences will be drawn, and what is true in one sense of the word will be affirmed as true in toto. ”

“ This is the reading of all the modern editions, and is copied from the quarto. The folio reads, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty. The true reading seems to be this, If you be honest and fair, you should admit your honesty to no discourse with your beauty. ”

“ You see as plain as can be, that I write as a man of erudition;—that even my similies, my allusions, my illustrations, my metaphors, are erudite,—and that I must sustain my character properly, and contrast it properly too,—else what would become of me? ”

“ In circles highly civilised the great things, the real things, the hard, the cruel and even the tender things, the true elements of any tension and true facts of any crisis, have ever, for the outsider’s, for the critic’s use, to be translated into terms—terms in the distinguished name of which, terms for the right employment of which, more than one situation of the type I glance at had struck me as all irresistibly appealing. ”