Variation of Sentence-Constants in Literature 



17 



posed to it,^ it may be worth the while to examine such data as 

 are available, for the purpose of detecting" some relation. For- 

 tunately there is some material at hand with which to work. 

 Among the hundreds of works examined by Mr. Gerwig^ for 

 predication averages and simple-sentence-percentages there are 

 some twenty titles which also occur in the list of works subse- 

 quently examined by Miss Whiting'' with reference to sentence- 

 length. Both sets of data are presumably based upon the orig- 

 inal punctuation,* thus making a comparison possible. While 

 the number of works thus furnished is not as large as one would 

 desire, it has the advantage of precluding any results which could 

 be attributed to an unconscious bias in case the works had been 

 selected by myself. 



TABLE II 



A 

 B 

 C 

 D 

 B 

 F 

 G 

 H 

 I 



J 

 K 

 L 



M 

 N 

 O 

 P 



Q 



R 



S 



AUTHOR AND TITLE 



Chaucer, Ta/e of Melibeus 



More, Life of Richard III. 



Spenser, View of Present state of Ireland 

 Hakluyt, Voyages of the Eng, Nation to A. 



Hooker, Ecc esiaslical Policy 



Sidney, Defense of Poesie 



Lyly, Euphues 



Bacon , Essays ^ 



Milton, Areopagitica 



Bunyan, Holy War^ 



Swift, Tale of the Tub 



Hume, History of England 



Junius, Letters 



Channing, Self Culture 



De Quincey , Co///^.y.?'//.y of an Opium Eater 

 Macaulay, History of England^.. . . 



Newman, Idea of a University 



Emerson, D. viftity School Address. . 

 Bartol, Radical Problems 



48.0 

 36.5 

 49.7 

 56.8 

 40.9 

 39.3 

 37.1 

 32.9 

 43.7 

 37.5 

 43.0 

 38.2 

 28.7 

 25.9 

 32.6 

 23.3 

 41.7 

 18.0 

 15.9 



^Gerwig states that " the proportion between the average number of 

 predications and the percentage of simple sentences is approximately con- 

 stant " Thesis, Univ. of Neb (unpublished). 



'^University Studies, vol. II, no. 1 , pp. 31-44. 



^Master^s Thesis, Univ. of Neb., 1898 (unpublished). 



* Three works, Latimer's Sermons, Ascham's Schoolmaster, and Bacon's 

 E says, presented such anomalous results that I questioned their correct- 

 ness. A rough count revealed a large discrepancy between Gerwig's and 

 Miss Whiting's figures which I attribute to a difference in the punctuation 

 of the texts exammed. 



^Bacon's constants are taken from Hildreth's paper, and Macaulay's and 

 Bunyan's sentence-lengths from Professor Sherman's. 



245 



