Variation of Sentence-Constants in Literature 5 



and realizes that "it would be manifestly unfair to compare trun- 

 cated, dramatic dialogue (such as Shakespeare's), abounding in 

 exclamations and broken sentences, with the even flow of the 

 ■Hind and tJie Panther.'^ ^ To equalize matters, he proposes to 

 examine only passages three or more lines in length. 



But whatever limitations to the Sherman principle^ may have 

 been recognized by its author and Mr. Gerwig, they were all 

 swept aside at one stroke in an article which appeared in 1897.^ 



In this article, the principle of constancy of sentence-length, 

 predication-averages, and simple-sentence-percentages is set forth 

 as follows : "Ten years or more ago Professor Sherman, while 

 investigating the course of stylistic evolution in English prose, 

 made the discovery that authors indicate their individuality by 

 constant sentence-proportions, personal and peculiar to them- 

 selves. This was demonstrated especially with the number of 

 words used per sentence in large averagings. It was found that 

 De Quincey, Channing, and Macaulay, if five hundred periods or 

 more were taken, evinced this average invariably, and in the ear- 

 liest as well as in the latest period of their authorship. This 

 iliscovery led to the suspicion that good writers would be found 

 constant in predication averages, in per cent of simple sentences, 

 and other stylistic details. Acting upon a suggestion to this 

 efifect, Mr. G. W. Gerwig, then a pupil of Professor Sherman, 

 undertook an investigation that established the constancy of pred- 

 ication, as ivell as simple-sentence frequency, in given authors. 

 1^-ofcssor Sherman and Mr. Gerwig have thus estab- 

 lished by the examination of a great many authors, that writers 

 are structurally consistent with themselves; that they possess a 

 certain sentence-sense peculiarly their own. These investigators 

 have established that by this instinct authors use a constant aver- 

 age sentence-length, and a certain number of predications per 

 sentence, and that a given per cent of their sentences zvill be 

 simple sentences. . . . The work of these investigators cov- 



Udid.,-p.3. 



2 In honor of its discoverer, I shall call the principle of sentence-instinct, 

 into whatever form it may ultimately crystallize, the Sherman principle. 

 ^University Studies, vol. II, no. 2, p. 131. 



233 



