CHAPTER II.

THE NUMBER OF WORDS.

57. The Figures of Speech all conduce to the greater effectiveness of style; they either present a thought more vividly to the intellect, or operate more powerfully upon the feelings.

It is now requisite to consider two other devices having the same objects in view as figures. The one regards the Number of Words employed, and the other their Arrangement.

58. On the principle of attaining ends at the smallest cost, Brevity is a virtue of language.

Every word uttered taxes the attention and occupies a space in the thoughts; hence when words are used only as instruments, they should be compressed into the least compass consistent with the adequate expression of the meaning. The epithets "terse," "concise," "laconic," imply strength as the result of brevity. The veni, vidi, vici of Cæsar is unsurpassed and immortal. Of the ancients, Thucydides, Horace, and Tacitus were celebrated for brevity. Dante is likewise a great example. Though the genius of the English language is not so favorable to condensed forms of expression as that of the classical tongues, yet some of our writers are models of an elegant brevity; it is sufficient to mention Shakespeare and Pope.

59. The chief sources of Brevity are (1) the selection of the aptest words; (2) a condensed grammatical structure; and (3) the employment of figures, more especially Comparison and Metaphor, Transferred Epithet, Antithesis, Epigram, and the admissible forms of Ellipsis.

(1.) For the selection of words no precise rules can be

SOURCES OF BREVITY.

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given. The effect, on trial, will show what answers the purpose of conveying much meaning in a small compass.

(2.) There are certain constructions favorable to brevity. These are the use of the participle for the clause with a finite verb; apposition, instead of connectives; the employment of the abstract noun (See Simplicity); the use of adjectives for adjective clauses,* of nouns for adjectives (" knowledge qualification," "stump orator"), of the phrase made up of preposition and noun, with or without an adjective (“action for trespass," "the right of the strongest"); the contracted and the condensed sentence.

(3.) As regards the employment of figures, it is apparent, from the illustrations already given, that the species named contribute to Brevity. The following are a few additional examples:—Pitt's defence of the rotten burgh system was, "Their amputation would be death" (to the country). Curran's saying on Irish liberty is equally terse: "I sat at her cradle, I followed her hearse."

The proverb, or aphorism, is a condensed expression of a truth, generally embodying an epigram, or a balanced structure. "Least said, soonest mended."

60. Brevity has to be sought without sacrificing perspicuity and the proprieties of language.

There are occasions when the desired effects of style are gained by diffuseness.

For example, an explanation must be suited in length to the state of mind of the persons addressed; while things well known are recalled by brief allusion. In working up the feelings, a certain length of time is requisite, which the orator and poet know how to adjust. Again, in suiting the sound to the sense, a polysyllabic word, or a lengthened clause, may be required. Thus the long word stupendous better corresponds with a state of intense astonishment than the monosyllable "The clouds . let all their moisture flow, In large effusion, o'er the freshened world." Byron describes the Rhine castles as "all tenantless, save to the crannying wind."

vast; magnificent is more powerful than grand. The highsounding word ambassador suits a dignified functionary; while we often express contempt by a curt appellation, as a flirt, a fop, a sot, a thief, bosh.

It is a general rule that an excess of the connecting parts of speech—as pronouns and conjunctions—enfeebles the style. Yet emphasis sometimes requires their multiplication; as in the words of St. Paul, "For I am persuaded that neither life, nor death, nor," " &c.

"Seasons return, but not to me returns

Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom or summer's rose,
Or flocks or herds, or human face divine."

Other exceptions will appear in what follows.

61. The violations of Brevity are of three kinds, denominated Tautology, Redundancy, and Circumlocution.

I. Tautology means the repetition of the same sense in different words; as when Swift says, "In the Attic commonwealth, it was the privilege and birthright of every citizen and poet, to rail aloud and in public." The meaning is the same as, "it was the privilege of every citizen to rail in public."

The following sentence from Tillotson contains numerous tautologies: "Particularly as to the affairs of this world, integrity hath many advantages over all the fine and artificial ways of dissimulation and deceit; it is much the plainer and easier, much the safer and more secure way of dealing with the world; it has less of trouble and difficulty, of entanglement and perplexity, of danger and hazard in it. The arts of deceit and cunning do continually grow weaker, and less effectual and serviceable to them that use them."

So in Addison :—

"The dawn is overcast; the morning lowers,
And heavily in clouds brings on the day."

These three clauses all express the same fact.

Through constantly aiming at a balanced structure of sentence, Johnson sometimes approaches this fault. Speaking of the style of Pryor, he says: "He had often infused into it much knowledge and much thought; had often polished it into elegance, often dignified it into splendor, and sometimes heightened it to sublimity; and did not discover that it wanted the power of engaging attention and alluring curiosity."

The coupling of synonymous words and phrases is admissible under the following circumstances:—

(1.) When one word does not express the full sense intended.

No two words are exactly synonymous for all purposes; one has a shade that the other wants; and it may take both to give the whole meaning. Hence we are accustomed to such phrases as "ways and means," "passing and transitory," "subject-matter." In legal documents synonymous words are joined for the sake of exhaustive completeness. When Wordsworth couples "the vision and the faculty divine," he intends that the two phrases, which are nearly alike, should unfold between them a greater amount of meaning than either conveys.

(2.) For the sake of putting greater stress on the prominent points of the exposition.

Good exposition requires that the main subject should be distinguished from the subordinate parts. This is effected, among other ways, by dwelling longer upon it; and repetition by means of equivalent phrases may be occasionally resorted to. "The head and front of his offending: ""the end and design."

It is implied in the foregoing principle that wordy diffuseness should be especially avoided in subordinate clauses and statements.

It is often better that a subordinate clause should be feeble or obscure, than that it should be raised out of its place by amplification. Gibbon, speaking of the deification of the Roman Emperors, says: "This legal, and, as it should seem,

injudicious profanation, so abhorrent to our stricter principles, was received with a very faint murmur by the easy nature of Polytheism." This is better than, "by Polytheism, which was of a nature easy and accommodating."

(3.) In strong passion, when the mind is disposed to dwell upon the object of the passion.

Chatham's famous address abounds in tautologies referable to this principle. "I am astonished, I am shocked, to hear such principles confessed; to hear them avowed in this house and in this country." So, Bolingbroke exclaims in an invective against the times: "But all is little, and low, and mean among us." Cicero's exultation over Catiline's discomfiture was expressed by the use of four verbs nearly equivalent in meaning "Abiit, excessit, evasit, erupit."

Affection and admiration lead to similar repetitions.

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It is desirable to avoid such tautologies as the "first aggressor," the "standard pattern," the "verdant green,” some few." So, excess of inflection is objectionable; as "chiefest," 99.66 extremest," worser," ," "most highest."

62. II. Redundancy, or Pleonasm, consists of additions not essential to the sense.

As when something sufficiently implied in the words already used is also separately expressed. The following is an extreme illustration: "They returned back again to the same city from whence they came forth;" the five words in italics are redundant. "The different departments of science and of art mutually reflect light on each other;" either of the expressions in italics embodies the whole idea. A very common redundancy is exemplified in the expression, "the universal opinion of all men." In the sentence, "I wrote you a letter yesterday," the words a letter may be omitted, being already implied in "I wrote you."

While Tautology adds a superfluous word in the same grammatical place, Redundancy repeats the meaning in a different place: "I rejoiced at the glad sight."