es repeated. Change the second to the third and see how
different it is. Then he has "public men, men of the world, men whose
names would descend to posterity,"--a steady increase in the thought,
and a corresponding increase in the length of phrases. The last
sentence contains a fine example of climax. "Of heroes and statesmen,
of literary men and philosophers, of men conspicuous for great natural
virtues, for habits of business, for knowledge of life, for practical
judgment, for cultivated tastes, for accomplishments, who have made
England what it is,--able to subdue the earth." Climax is the
arrangement that produces the effect of vigorous strength. In
arranging a succession of modifiers, so far as possible without
breaking some other more important principle, a writer will gain in
force if he seeks for climax.

Loose and Periodic.

Sentences are divided into two classes: loose and periodic. A loose
sentence may be broken at some point before the end, and up to that
point be grammatically a complete sentence. An arrangement of the
parts of a sentence that suspends the meaning until the close is
called periodic. The periodic sentence is generally so massed that the
end contains words of distinction, and the sentence forms a climax.
Not all climaxes are periods; but nearly all periods are climaxes.

The Period.

The philosophy of the periodic sentence has been best stated by
Herbert Spencer. He starts with the axiom that the whole amount of
attention a reader can give at any moment is limited and fixed. A
reader must give a part of it to merely acquiring the meaning; the
remainder of his attention he can give to the thought itself. In
reading Cicero the pupil has to put a large part of his attention upon
the vocabulary, upon the order and construction of the words; the
barest fragment of attention he can bestow upon the thought of the
great orator. So when the reader attacks one of Browning's most
involved and obscure passages, he is kept from the thought by the
difficulties in the language. As it is the purpose of language to
convey thought, and as it is usually the wish of an author to be
understood, he should use up as little as possible of the reader's
limited attention for the mere acquisition of the thought, and leave
the reader as much as he can to put upon the meaning. In applying this
to sentences, the question is, which form of sentence demands least
effort to get at its meaning: the periodic sentence