antage predominate in emotional
passages; and may increase as the emotion rises. On the other hand,
for complex ideas, the indirect sentence seems the best vehicle. In
conversation, the excitement produced by the near approach to a
desired conclusion, will often show itself in a series of short, sharp
sentences; while, in impressing a view already enunciated, we generally
make our periods voluminous by piling thought upon thought. These
natural modes of procedure may serve as guides in writing. Keen
observation and skilful analysis would, in like manner, detect further
peculiarities of expression produced by other attitudes of mind; and
by paying due attention to all such traits, a writer possessed
of sufficient versatility might make some approach to a
completely-organized work.

iv. The Ideal Writer.

Sec. 67. This species of composition which the law of effect points out
as the perfect one, is the one which high genius tends naturally to
produce. As we found that the kinds of sentences which are theoretically
best, are those generally employed by superior minds, and by inferior
minds when excitement has raised them; so, we shall find that the ideal
form for a poem, essay, or fiction, is that which the ideal writer
would evolve spontaneously. One in whom the powers of expression fully
responded to the state of feeling, would unconsciously use that variety
in the mode of presenting his thoughts, which Art demands. This constant
employment of one species of phraseology, which all have now to strive
against, implies an undeveloped faculty of language. To have a specific
style is to be poor in speech. If we remember that, in the far past, men
had only nouns and verbs to convey their ideas with, and that from then
to now the growth has been towards a greater number of implements of
thought, and consequently towards a greater complexity and variety
in their combinations; we may infer that we are now, in our use of
sentences, much what the primitive man was in his use of words; and that
a continuance of the process that has hitherto gone on, must produce
increasing heterogeneity in our modes of expression. As now, in a
fine nature, the play of the features, the tones of the voice and
its cadences, vary in harmony with every thought uttered; so, in one
possessed of a fully developed power of speech, the mould in which
each combination of words is cast will similarly vary with, and be
appropriate to the sentiment.

S