INTRODUCTION.

CHAPTER I.

N a case disputed at law, the object of the judge and jury is to ascertain, by all the means in their power, "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." And every witness who appears in the case is called upon to declare, in the most solemn way, that what he has to say will be said in the most honest spirit and with the most exact correspondence to the facts.

Similarly, the object of a person who studies what is called "Composition" is to learn how to express his meaning, his whole meaning, and nothing but his meaning. Language is the road by which one person travels to the mind of another person; and it is necessary to know the windings and turnings of this road exactly, before we can make ourselves fully intelligible to our neighbours.

I. Our meaning.-If we wish to convey in writing our meaning to other persons, it is necessary first of all that we should have a meaning. We must not attempt to say anything, until we have something to say. In other words, we must have fully ascertained the facts or the truth on that subject, or part of a subject, on which we have re

solved to write. We must have read about it, ascertained the facts at first-hand if possible, and thought much about it, before we sit down to write a paper. Our minds must in fact be full of the subject before we begin to discuss it.

If we are not fully acquainted with what we are going to write about, the danger is that we shall fill up the gaps in our knowledge with mere words and phrases. In this way, we shall first deceive ourselves, and then we shall deceive others. We shall be led into the sin of "fine writing," and pretend to know and to feel what we do not know and do not feel. And the English language, with its enormous copiousness and variety, lends itself to this great intellectual sin with exceeding ease. If we examine a book like Roget's Thesaurus of Words and Phrases, we shall find scores of different ways of expressing the same idea or half-idea; and the constant use of such a book might in some cases be attended with the consequence of actually creating a love for and a habit of the garrulous and the verbose. Especially do the French and Latin elements of the language give frequent opportunities of covering with a phrase or set of phrases a half-idea or a no-idea. For the French and Latin elements are exotics, are foreigners, and have little or no relation to the facts and feelings of everyday life. More, they almost always express abstract notions; and, as these notions are only counters or representatives of value, they are constantly given and taken for more than they are really worth.

From the above statements it follows that there are two duties in front of the person who is going to write-a positive and a negative one. The positive duty is that he have his meaning and his knowledge fully in his mind; and the negative duty is that he do not try to hide from himself or others any gaps of ignorance by the help of mere

phrases. The positive duty will be fulfilled by his obedience

to

THE LAW OF FULNESS;

and the negative duty by his obedience to

THE LAW OF SINCERITY.

II. Our Whole Meaning.-This part of our purpose relates to the fundamental virtue of clearness. Talleyrand said that "language was given to man to conceal his thoughts;" but this is the extreme expression of a view, which, if carried into practice,would break down the whole organization of human society. The English nation is still the frankest nation in the world; and to cultivate perfect clearness of expression is to cultivate and to develop our best national peculiarity. On the other hand, the French have cultivated clearness in style to a very high degree; but very often at the expense of truth and fulness. Their object has been that their meaning should strike a reader at once, and save him all reflection. For this purpose, they are madly fond of epigram and antithesis; and they know no better way of impressing their meaning on their readers than by making the last half of their sentence contradict the first. It is just as if a painter were to confine himself to painting in complementary colours-red and green together, black and white, blue and yellow, and so on: he would produce a striking picture, but it would have no relation to nature and to truth.

The object of an honest writer is not to strike or to astonish, but simply to state what he knows and has ascertained to be true. Cobbett says that an English sentence ought to be as clear as "mountain water flowing over a rock." English writers have in general not attained to this; but their fault has arisen from an excess of virtue.

The

English writers have been much more careful to acquire knowledge and to get at truth, than to impart the knowledge they have acquired with clearness and adequacy. opposite French virtue of clearness has arisen from an excess of vice. French writers have in general been too careless of the truth; they appear in general determined to force the facts to suit the theory they have set their hearts upon; and, if the facts will not take their places obediently and pleasantly in the theory-tant pis pour les faits-they are remoulded, or cast out altogether.

It appears, then, that we must, in order to express our whole meaning, obey

THE LAW OF CLEARNESS.

How the highest degree of clearness is to be attained will be the subject of a separate chapter.

III. Nothing but our Meaning.—We must further take the greatest care that we do not, along with the statements we wish to make, say a great deal more than we mean, or something really different from what we mean. That is to say, we must have a thorough knowledge of the real meaning of the words we employ,-of the meanings that have been imposed upon them by the best, most careful, and most thoughtful writers. A word or phrase may not only express what we wish to say, but it may, by having too large a content, by being too general, express a great deal To take an exaggerated example, no one would say an agricultural instrument for a spade; no one would say a weapon of war instead of a rifle. That is, we are bound to be as specific as the nature of the case demands; we are bound to use the words that will most precisely express our meaning. This may be called

more.

THE LAW OF SPECIFICATION OR OF PRECISION.

In close alliance with this duty is the duty of using that class of words which have the kind of colouring or associations that best harmonize with the feelings we may wish to express. There are certain phrases that have a humorous tinge; others that are gloomy and sombre in tint; others that are serious and sober. Such phrases and words must not be mixed; and a person who has read the best English books and possesses an average judgment will not mix them. To take an extreme instance, we would not, if we were seriously talking of the punishment of a person who had been guilty of a grave moral offence, talk of the propriety of serving him out, giving him a dressing, or serving him right. These phrases are to be found in Roget; but, in addition to their being "vulgar," that is, expressing a merely thoughtless or inconsiderate habit of mind, they are not in harmony with the feeling we are supposed to have. They might be in place in a dramatic account of an event, but they are not in place in an ordinary sober narrative. These considerations guide us to the

LAW OF KEEPING.

The remarks made above relate to the exact and truthful expression in words of thoughts and of facts. But there is a large number of books that are devoted entirely to the expression of feeling. Among these, POETRY takes the highest place; and its purpose is to express, in beautiful words, the pleasurable feelings which the poet has when he contemplates the beauty of nature, or the beauty of mind, or the beauty of the social relations. There is also a kind of writing in prose which expresses either mere feeling, or feeling as predominant. Such are speeches, sermons, and religious books in general.

The expression of our meaning, our whole meaning, and