RHETORIC AND BELLES-LETTRES. 



HETORIC is a branch of knowledge and 

 -LV practice having reference to spoken and 

 written compositions, and to the means of employ- 

 ing language so as to produce its greatest possible 

 effect on the minds of men. While the rules of 

 grammar are intended to secure correctness and 

 uniformity in inflecting words, and in joining 

 together the parts of speech in sentences, accord- 

 ing to the established usages of each separate 

 language, Rhetoric considers the meaning and 

 form of the composition, and the total effect upon 

 the persons addressed. 



Belles-lettres, or Polite Literature, expresses a 

 class of literary productions whose subjects are 

 the principal matters of human interest occurring 

 in the world, and which are adorned with the 

 utmost elegance and polish of style and treatment. 

 They correspond to what is universally interesting 

 the conversation of the most cultivated classes 

 of society. The chief works contained under this 

 branch of composition are the productions of the 

 poetic art, together with prose narrations, exposi- 

 tions, and criticisms in reference to nature and 

 human life ; including histories, annals, and biog- 

 raphies ; discussions of the doctrines bearing on 

 human welfare ; criticisms and judgments of the 

 characters, works, and ways of men, calling forth 

 the attendant emotions of reverence, admiration, 

 esteem, love or hatred, sympathy or antipathy. 

 The greater portion of our periodical literature 

 comes under this head. Such productions are 

 contrasted with works of science ; for these are 

 supposed to inform us, once for all, on some 

 branch of nature ; whereas works of literature 

 are intended to supply an undying appetite for 

 intellectual and emotional excitement. 



THE ATTRIBUTES OF STYLE IN GENERAL. 



The leading attributes of style that are of a 

 Rhetorical kind may be set forth under the follow- 

 ing heads ; it being assumed that grammatical 

 and idiomatic purity and correctness have been 

 previously secured by the appropriate means : 



Simplicity. 



By Simplicity we are to understand what is 

 easily comprehended, or what is level to the 

 ordinary capacity of men. It is opposed not so 

 much to the complex as to the abstruse; and 

 implies a mode of address that does not require 

 severe effort, or a special training for its compre- 

 hension. The possibility of being simple in this 

 sense will of course depend much upon the 

 subject-matter ; but we can nevertheless consider, 

 in general, what things are requisite to bring out 

 the quality. 



Simplicity is twofold simplicity of terms, and 

 simplicity of structure. 



Terms are simple, in opposition to abstruse, on 

 various grounds : 

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1. They may be the names of common and 

 familiar objects and actions, instead of such as 

 are rare or remote. ' He that doeth these sayings 

 is like to a man that buildeth his house upon a 

 rock ; ' in this sentence, every one of the terms 

 has the simplicity that attaches to meanings com- 

 mon and familiar. Objects of a technical descrip- 

 tion, or such as come under the notice of only 

 limited classes of people, cannot enter into simple 

 composition. 



2. The terms may relate to things that are in 

 their nature palpable and conceivable, rather than 

 obscure or invisible. The world is partly made 

 up of objects of a kind to act upon all our senses, 

 such as the solid masses that support and sur- 

 round us ; and partly of subtle and impalpable 

 agents, like electricity, or the mysterious attrac- 

 tions and repulsions that keep up the activity of 

 the sensible masses. Now, all references to the 

 one class of things are universally intelligible, 

 while allusions to the others are understood only 

 by such as have received the artificial training 

 necessary to grasp them. The common objects 

 of the landscape are simple in this sense : the dis- 

 cussions about gaseous bodies, gravity, elasticity, 

 vitality, and the like, are necessarily abstruse. 



3. What are called concrete terms are, in general, 

 more intelligible than the names of abstractions. 

 A concrete object is a thing as it exists in nature, 

 with all its parts and peculiarities such as a 

 mountain, a river, a metal ; while an abstraction 

 is some property of these artificially conceived 

 apart from the rest such as height, density, 

 velocity, liquidity, lustre, specific gravity. Now, 

 the gross object is usually more conceivable by 

 the mind than its separate properties ; hence, 

 although this abstract mode of viewing things is 

 essential to the thorough comprehension of the 

 world, yet for popular composition the terms of 

 the other class are more suitable. There is, how- 

 ever, the greatest possible difference in the 

 intelligibility of abstractions : while some are 

 within the reach of the least cultivated minds, 

 others, such as the subtlest ideas of mathematics, 

 chemistry, and physiology, presuppose a long 

 course of laborious studies. Height, depth, 

 strength, whiteness, virtue, are popular abstrac- 

 tions ; polarity, infinitesimal, ellipsoidal, express 

 notions that can never enter into popular com- 

 position. 



Simplicity of structure means such an arrange- 

 ment of terms in clauses, and of clauses in sen- 

 tences, as renders the meaning comprehensible 

 without severe attention or special study. When 

 the clauses succeed one another in the exact 

 order in which the ideas can be best apprehended ; 

 when what is necessary to complete a meaning t: 

 not too long delayed, nor interrupted by other 

 distracting meanings; when only a moderate 

 number of particulars is required to make up one 

 complete statement ; and when no circumstances 

 are present to produce complexity, distortion, 



