repel as too hard; and a series of paragraphs of less than a
quarter of a page impresses a reader as scrappy, and the work seems to
lack the authority of complete treatment. An author will serve his
readers and himself best by so subdividing his subject that the
paragraphs are within these limits.

The following paragraph is much too long and can with no difficulty be
subdivided. The paragraphs in the next group are too short, and they
are incomplete.

"Keating rode up now, and the transaction became more
complicated. It ended in the purchase of the horse by Bryce
for a hundred and twenty, to be paid on the delivery of
Wildfire, safe and sound, at the Batherley stables. It did
occur to Dunsey that it might be wise for him to give up the
day's hunting, proceed at once to Batherley, and, having
waited for Bryce's return, hire a horse to carry him home
with the money in his pocket. But the inclination for a run,
encouraged by confidence in his luck, and by a draught of
brandy from his pocket-pistol at the conclusion of the
bargain, was not easy to overcome, especially with a horse
under him that would take the fences to the admiration of
the field. Dunstan, however, took one fence too many, and
got his horse pierced with a hedge-stake. His own
ill-favored person, which was quite unmarketable, escaped
without injury; but poor Wildfire, unconscious of his price,
turned on his flank, and painfully panted his last. It
happened that Dunstan, a short time before, having had to
get down to arrange his stirrup, had muttered a good many
curses at this interruption, which had thrown him in the
rear of the hunt near the moment of glory, and under this
exasperation had taken the fences more blindly. He would
soon have been up with the hounds again, when the fatal
accident happened; and hence he was between eager riders in
advance, not troubling themselves about what happened behind
them, and far-off stragglers, who were as likely as not to
pass quite aloof from the line of road in which Wildfire had
fallen. Dunstan, whose nature it was to care more for
immediate annoyances than for remote consequences, no sooner
recovered his legs, and saw that it was all over with
Wildfire, than he felt a satisfaction at the absence of
witnesses to a position which no swaggering could make