ordinating some thoughts to others so as to show their logical relations. We should use complex, compound, and simple sentences with equal ease in our writing.

Sentences should vary not only in grammatical structure, but in length. Neither the short nor the long sentence should be allowed to become tiresome by being used too frequently.

There is still a third way for securing variety in the sentence. When we put the subordinate elements first and do not complete the principal statement until the close of the sentence, we are using what is called the periodic sentence. When we reverse this order, completing the principal statement early in the sentence and bringing in the clauses toward the close, we are using the loose sentence. We should strive to use both the loose and the periodic sentence in our composition.

To sum up what has been said on the subject of variety in the sentence: The sentences in a paragraph or a theme should vary in length, and in grammatical and rhetorical structure.

Exercise

In each of the examples of the situation quoted in section 9, how many long sentences are there? How many short sentences? How many compound? How many simple? How many complex? How many loose sentences do you find? How many

periodic?

Do any of the examples of the situation violate the law of variety in regard to sentence length? to grammatical structure? to rhetorical structure?

CHAPTER II.

SENTENCE STUDIES

15. The Material Used for Sentence Study. In the following studies of the sentence, the situation I will be used for most of the material so that the exercises may not be upon detached sentences, but upon sentences combined to make a situation paragraph, whose use in the theme we already understand. (See §§ 1 to 5.)

16. Outline of Sentence Study. The following is an outline of sentence study as treated in this chapter:

Sentence Study I. treats of the comma fault, which consists in writing several distinct and independent sentences as if they were one. Students sometimes omit all marks of punctuation between such sentences, or separate them by commas (hence the name of the error, comma fault). A sentence should, of course, close with a period, an interrogation point, or an exclamation point.

Sentence Study II. deals with a series of independent statements.

Sentence Study III. has to do with the reducing of independent to coördinate statements when the thoughts expressed are coördinate.

Sentence Study IV. shows how a coördinate statement may be reduced to a subordinate element in the sentence. Students often use the compound sentence when the logical relations of the statements in a

sentence require that it be complex. Study IV. is intended to correct this error.

We shall learn in the first study when a sentence ends; in the second, third, and fourth, to avoid a series of short, disconnected sentences, and the excessive use of statements connected by the word "and."

17. Sentence Study I.-THE "COMMA FAULT." For lack of a better term the expression, "comma fault," is here used loosely to cover the two kinds of errors mentioned under Sentence Study I. in section 16; namely, the use of the comma instead of the period to separate sentences, or the writing of a series of sentences with no mark of punctuation between them. In connection with this sentence study, consult Appendix I. on Punctuation. Refer to the rules there whenever you are writing a theme or exercise. The following excerpt illustrates the

“comma fault":

"As Baucis had said there was but a scanty supper for two hungry travelers in the middle of the table was the remnant of a brown loaf with a piece of cheese on one side of it and a dish of honeycomb on the other there was a pretty good bunch of grapes for each of the guests a moderately sized earthen pitcher nearly full of milk stood at a corner of the board"

Exercises

I. How many statements are there in the passage quoted above? Name the verb in each statement. Name the subject in each statement. Punctuate this paragraph correctly, beginning each sentence with a capital and ending it with a period. Prove that this paragraph is a situation by finding the four w's.

II. How many statements are there in each of the situations quoted in section 9? Find the subject and the predicate in each statement. Underscore the predicate verbs as before. Do not give as a reason for your knowing that a given group of words is a sentence, "It begins with a capital." Consider the thought.

III. Punctuate the following quotations for capitals and periods:

I.

"One evening in times long ago old Philemon and his old wife Baucis sat at their cottage-door enjoying the calm and beautiful sunset they had already eaten their frugal supper and intended now to spend a quiet hour or two before bedtime so they talked together about their garden and their cow and their bees and their grapevine which clambered over the cottage-wall and on which the grapes were beginning to turn purple but the rude shouts of children and the fierce barking of dogs in the village near at hand grew louder and louder until at last it was hardly possible for Baucis and Philemon to hear each other speak"

II.

"From far-off hills the panting team for us is toiling near for us the raftsmen down the stream their island barges steer rings out for us the axe-man's stroke in forests old and still for us the century-circled oak falls crashing down his hill"

III.

"With these words of cheer they arose and continued their journey softly the evening came the sun from the western horizon like a magician extended his golden wand o'er the landscape twinkling vapors arose and sky and water and forest seemed all on fire at the touch and melted and mingled together hanging between two skies a cloud with edges of silver floated the boat with its dripping oars on the motionless water"

IV.

"Near to the bank of the river o'ershadowed by oaks from whose branches garlands of Spanish moss and of mystic mistletoe flaunted such as the Druids cut down with golden hatchets at Yule-tide stood secluded and still the house of the herdsman a garden girded it round about with a belt of luxuriant blossoms filling the air with fragrance the house itself was of timbers hewn from the cypress-tree and carefully fitted together large and low was the roof and on slender columns supported rose-wreathed vine-encircled a broad and spacious veranda haunt of the humming-bird and the bee extended around it"

V.

"The night is falling comrades mine our footsore beasts are weary and through yon elms the tavern sign looks out upon us cheery the landlord beckons from his door his beechen fire is glowing these ample barns with feed in store are filled to overflowing"

VI.

"She sat beneath the broad-armed elms that skirt the mowing-meadow and watched the gentle west wind weave the grass with shine and shadow beside her from the summer heat to share her grateful screening with forehead bared the farmer stood upon his pitchfork leaning"

VII.

"Nearer ever nearer among the numberless islands darted a light swift boat that sped away o'er the water urged on its course by the sinewy arms of hunters and trappers northward its prow was turned to the land of the bison and beaver at the helm sat a youth with countenance thoughtful and careworn dark and neglected locks overshadowed his brow and a sadness somewhat beyond his years on his face was legibly written"

IV. Punctuate the above quotations for commas and semicolons. (See Appendix I. for rules.) V. Determine which ones are situations.