Variation of Sentence-Constants in Literature 3 



Schick even by the zvidest range and variety of sentence-lengths 

 and forms they may not escape? At once pushing the suspicion 

 to a proof, I made, first, an extended test in Macaulay's essays : 

 result, 23-I-, the number obtained before; then in Channing : 

 average again, 25."^ After several other tests with similar re- 

 sults he continues, "No evidence appearing to the contrary, it 

 seemed likely enough that sentence-rhythm urns a universal 

 la-ci'."^ (The italics in the preceding quotations as well as in 

 those which follow are mine.) 



Mr. Gerwig occupied himself particularly with the average 

 number of predications per sentence and the per cent of simple 

 sentences in various authors, to the number of one hundred. 

 His conclusions are summed up in the following words : "A 

 very little investigation served to convince me that the satne re- 

 markable uniformity zvhich had been found in the average num- 

 ber of zi'ords used by any given author per sentence would also 

 hold in regard to the number of finite verbs, or predications, 

 found in each sentence. The results obtained convinced me also 

 that there was a uniformity in the number of simple sentences 

 per hundred of a given author."^ Mr. Gerwig then examined 

 Chaucer's Tale of Melibeus and 2500 sentences from Macaulay, 

 and, finding the expected uniformity, he says : "Other authors 

 were taken in the same way until it was demonstrated that the 

 average of 500 periods of any author who has achieved a style 

 was approximately the average of his whole work."* In par- 

 ticular he discovered that "while Chaucer and Spenser habitu- 

 ally put over five main verbs in each sentence they -wrote, and 

 less than ten simple sentences in each hundred, Macaulay and 

 Emerson used only a little over two verbs per sentence, and left 

 over thirty-five sentences in each hundred simple.""* 



In neither of these quotations is there any explicit statement 

 to the effect that the principle suggested or announced is inde- 

 pendent of the nature of the composition, but tlie implication 



"^Univei si ty Studies y vol. I, no. 4, p. 348. 



*Ibid., p. 349. 



^University Studies, vol. II, no. 1, p. 17. 



*Ibid., p. 18. 



^Ibid., p. 19. 



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