connection or incoherence of
the parts.[3221]--The procedure used in arranging a simple sentence also
governs that of the period, the paragraph and the series of paragraphs;
it forms the style as it forms the syntax. Each small edifice occupies
a distinct position, and but one, in the great total edifice. As the
discourse advances, each section must in turn file in, never before,
never after, no parasitic member being allowed to intrude, and no
regular member being allowed to encroach on its neighbor, while all
these members bound together by their very positions must move onward,
combining all their forces on one single point. Finally, we have for
the first time in a writing, natural and distinct groups, complete and
compact harmonies, none of which infringe on the others or allow others
to infringe on them. It is no longer allowable to write haphazard,
according to the caprice of one's inspiration, to discharge one's ideas
in bulk, to let oneself be interrupted by parentheses, to string along
interminable rows of citations and enumerations. An end is proposed;
some truth is to be demonstrated, some definition to be ascertained,
some conviction to be brought about; to do this we must march, and ever
directly onward. Order, sequence, progress, proper transitions, constant
development constitute the characteristics of this style. To such
an extent is this pushed, that from the very first, personal
correspondence, romances, humorous pieces, and all ironical and gallant
effusions, consist of morsels of systematic eloquence.[3222] At the
Hotel Rambouillet, the explanatory period is displayed with as much
fullness and as rigorously as with Descartes himself. One of the words
most frequently occurring with Mme. de Scudery is the conjunction for
(in French car). Passion is worked out through close-knit arguments.
Drawing room compliments stretch along in sentences as finished as
those of an academical dissertation. Scarcely completed, the instrument
already discloses its aptitudes. We are aware of its being made to
explain, to demonstrate, to persuade and to popularize. Condillac, a
century later, is justified in saying that it is in itself a systematic
means of decomposition and of recomposition, a scientific method
analogous to arithmetic and algebra. At the very least it possesses the
incontestable advantage of starting with a few ordinary terms, and of
leading the reader along with facility and promptness, by a series of
si