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390

CARE IN COMPOSITION.

Whatever may be the rules which order and experience may enjoin, the observance of them will not ensure either a correct or graceful style, without much exercise in composition. At first, it should be attempted with leisure and much care. Negligence and haste should be avoided. The practice of composition should be slow and with anxious deliberation. Writing well is the surest method to acquire the power of writing speedily. Vinet states, in regard to Pascal's frequent retouching of his works :-“ Pascal was accustomed to polish all his works, so much, that he was hardly ever pleased with his first thoughts, however good they appeared to others. He wrote over again, eight or ten times, pieces that every one but himself thought admirable from the first.” The eighteenth of Pascal's Provincial Letters was written over thirteen times. Boileau devoted eleven months to the writing of his “Equivoque"-consisting of three hundred and forty-six lines—and three years to reviewing it. When the mind is excited, the composition should be prosecuted without interruption. Inaccuracies may thus slip in ; but when the composition has been for a while laid aside, careful revision will discover and remove them. The work of correction may be laborious and unpleasant at first, but it is absolutely necessary, and continuance in the exercise will render it less irksome and more practicable. Thus unsuitable words may be erased, redundancies pruned, and the arrangement of sentences aptly adjusted.

A thorough acquaintance with the writings of the most approved authors should be acquired. This is necessary in order to form a just taste in style, and to acquire an ample stock of words adapted to every subject. But there must, nevertheless, be the free energetic working of the mind. If the mind be not allowed to work by itself, irrespective of all models, the style will not be good. When imitation is deliberate, the faults of a writer are as apt to be copied as the excellencies. When it is close, and characteristic, it is intolerable. No writer should yield to the meanness of attempting to shine in borrowed splendour. Among those most imitated may be mentioned Johnson, Gibbon, Addison, Thomas Chalmers, and Carlyle. The style of these

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writers is distinctive and marked; and, in the case of most, if not all of them, with the exception perhaps of Addison, it is not very difficult to imitate. There may be an assumption of the forms in which they appear, without the spirit that animates these forms. The best instance of the closeness and ridiculousness of such imitation may be the “Life of Ruddiman," by George Chalmers. He makes a continuous effort to imitate the great essayist, not only in his distinctive style of composition, but in his strain of moral reflections; and the effort only tends to provoke derision and excite contempt. But Chalmers's folly was not confined to servile imitation. He had the presumption to write a life of an eminent Latin grammarian, though he himself had a very slender acquaintance with the language. Whately and Irving's castigation of Chalmers’s work is richly deserved. To acquire much elevation and elegance of style, continued and earnest attention should be given to the works of the most approved poets. They will aid in refining the taste and ennobling the mind. Some of the best prose writers—as Dryden, Pope, Addison, Goldsmith, Beattie, Wordsworth, and Tennyson—have given themselves to the study and cultivation of poetry. The careful perusal of the works of Milton, Johnson, Gibbon, Addison, Goldsmith, Hume, Reid, Smith, Dugald Stewart, Robertson, Chatham, Burke, Fox, Maclaurin, Thomas Brown, Horsley, Robert Hall, Coleridge, Foster, Macaulay, and Scott, will aid in giving clearness, power, and ornament to composition. Nor should an adaptation of style to the subject, and to the capacity of those whose instruction may be contemplated, be overlooked. Much ornateness and elaboration are unsuited to reasoning; and magnificence of expression is useless when addressed to persons who are unable to comprehend it.

The power of writing in a good style is a valuable and an influential attainment. When abundance of thought is combined with polish, composition becomes an appropriate and efficient means of advancing the intellect, influencing the heart, and moulding the character. By it, genius makes its benignant and noblest achievements, and gains its most enduring triumphs. No

392

PERMANENT POWER OF GOOD WRITING.

power is so great, and no honour so bright as this. Mind, immortal mind, is the object to whose benefit and enjoyment it is directed. The race, through many successive ages, may be the subject on which it enlightenedly acts, and which it largely contributes to elevate, refine, and felicitate. Mind is the empire which it bows by its sway; and all time may be the period of its beneficent rule.

CHAPTER IX.

PHYSICAL STRUCTURE OF MAN : ITS CONSTITUENT PARTS, WITH

THEIR PROPER TRAINING, AND THE LESSONS SUGGESTED.

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The human structure pre-eminent among animal organisations : Solid parts,

as bones ; soft parts, as muscles ; fluids, as blood. Bones designed for strength : Skin for covering : Perspiration. Life : Elements of vitality. Body divided into three departments - The Head ; The Trunk ; The extremities, superior and inferior. The head contains the brain ; the face contains fourteen bones ; the two sections of the eye ; the globe and its appendages ; three parts of the ear, the external ; the air passages ; the internal—the nose, mouth, tongue, and teeth. The trunk-main organs in the chest; the lungs, with their air tubes ; the heart, with its vessels : Tubes passing from the mouth to the stomach : The two lungs, form, parts, position, uses : The heart, centre of circulation : The abdomen, digestive and secretive organs : The gastric juice. Extremities, superior and inferior : Sleep, its nature, design, and cause. The body liable to de. privation of life at any time. Two kinds of life : the organic, its nature; the animal, its nature. Animal life may pass while the organic remains : A failure in any part of the organic brings death : Importance and solemn. ity of the transition : Training of the physical constitution : Injuries from the violation of physical laws. The social ; Character: The spiritual : Soul. Works on the preservation of health : Food : Character of nations affected thereby–Vegetable : Animal. Regular exercise : Swimming ; Skating; Exercises in the army; Recreation; Cleanliness, and its means ; Diversities among nations : German, Dutch, Scotch, English : Auxiliary to health-Attire : Singularity and foppery to be avoided : Examples quoted; neatness desirable. Moderation in eating and drinking: Opinions of eminent men. Stimulants—Alcoholic liquors : Opium : Teas : Opinions and practice of distinguished authors and professional men. Evidence in the human body of Divine workmanship : Examples : The eye, Paley : The heart : The hand, Sir Charles Bell's work. Every effect has an adequate cause : The adaptation of means to a specific end : The law of gravitation, Keplar : Chalmers : Adaptation not casual. OpinionsPlato : Cicero : Newton : Dr. M'Cosh. The human body should be con. secrated to God.

The human structure, when compared with other animal organisations, though admirably adapted to the condition in

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which they are placed, and to the specific ends they are designed to subserve, stands pre-eminent among them. Its form directed upward and heaven-ward,-its striking proportional arrangements,-its plastic powers of movement, the countenance, which various emotions animate,-the eye, which gleams with intelligence, and the whole aspect and gait, which indicate stateliness, dignity, and capability of dominion,-contribute to originate and strengthen this impression.

In regard to structure, it may be considered the same as arrangement. It is the adjustment of parts in a determinate order, and according to a determinate plan. "The arrangement of the threads of the cellular web into areola or cells,-the combination of the primary threads into fibres or laminæ,-the disposition of the muscular pulp into filaments, placed parallel to each other, the investment of the filaments in membraneous sheaths, the combination of the filaments, included in their sheaths, into fibres,-the aggregation of fibres into fasciculi, and the analogous arrangement and combination of the nervous pulp, are examples of structure. But when those structures are applied to particular uses,-when they are so combined and disposed as to form a peculiar instrument, endowed with a specific function,-when the cellular fibres are so arranged as to make a thin, dense, and expanded tissue,-when to this tissue are added blood-vessels, absorbents, and nerves, this is organisation." Structure is the mere arrangement of the materials. Organisation is the adaptation and employment of the prepared material to a specific use. Thus an organised structure is peculiarly adapted for attaining a specific end; the organised body is the aggregate combination of the individual organs. Between these individual parts there is a close relation, so close that no one of them can be removed or injured, or in any manner affected, without producing a corresponding effect upon the whole. Thus, in the human body, if the action of the heart ceases, so also will that of the lung; and if the action of the lung ceases, so also will that of the brain; and if that of the brain ceases, so also will that of the stomach. This principle prevails through every vital

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