the direct manner, where the sentences are anywise intricate. To
recollect a number of preliminaries stated in elucidation of a coming
idea, and to apply them all to the formation of it when suggested,
demands a good memory and considerable power of concentration.
To one possessing these, the direct method will mostly seem the
best; while to one deficient in them it will seem the worst. Just
as it may cost a strong man less effort to carry a hundred-weight
from place to place at once, than by a stone at a time; so, to an
active mind it may be easier to bear along all the qualifications
of an idea and at once rightly form it when named, than to first
imperfectly conceive such idea and then carry back to it, one
by one, the details and limitations afterwards mentioned. While
conversely, as for a boy, the only possible mode of transferring
a hundred-weight, is that of taking it in portions; so, for a weak
mind, the only possible mode of forming a compound conception may
be that of building it up by carrying separately its several parts.
29. That the indirect method--the method of conveying
the meaning by a series of approximations--is best fitted for the
uncultivated, may indeed be inferred from their habitual use of
it. The form of expression adopted by the savage, as in "Water,
give me," is the simplest type of the approximate arrangement. In
pleonasms, which are comparatively prevalent among the uneducated,
the same essential structure is seen; as, for instance, in--"The
men, they were there." Again, the old possessive case --"The king,
his crown," conforms to the like order of thought. Moreover, the
fact that the indirect mode is called the natural one, implies that
it is the one spontaneously employed by the common people: that
is--the one easiest for undisciplined minds.
30. There are many cases, however, in which neither the direct
nor the indirect structure is the best; but where an intermediate
structure is preferable to both. When the number of circumstances and
qualifications to be included in the sentence is great, the most
judicious course is neither to enumerate them all before introducing
the idea to which they belong, nor to put this idea first and let
it be remodeled to agree with the particulars afterwards mentioned;
but to do a little of each. Take a case. It is desirable to avoid
so extremely indirect an arrangement as the following:--"We came
to our journey's end, at last, with no small difficulty after much
fatigue, through deep roads, and bad weather." Yet to transform this
into an entirely direct sentence would not produce a satisfactory
effect; as witness:--"At last, with no small difficulty, after
much fatigue, through deep roads, and bad weather, we came to our
journey's end."
31. Dr. Whately, from whom we quote the first of these two
arrangements,' proposes this construction:--"At last, after much
fatigue, through deep roads and bad weather, we came, with no
small difficulty, to our journey's end." Here it will be observed
that by introducing the words "we came" a little earlier in
the sentence, the labour of carrying forward so many particulars
is diminished, and the subsequent qualification "with no small
difficulty" entails an addition to the thought that is very easily
made. But a further improvement may be produced by introducing
the words "we came" still earlier; especially if at the same time
the qualifications be rearranged in conformity with the principle
already explained, that the more abstract elements of the thought
should come before the more concrete. Observe the better effect