II. — Some Observations upon the Sentence-Length in 



English Prose. 



By L. a. SHERMAN. 



So far as I am aware, no special investigation of the 

 sentence-length in English has yet been made. It has 

 therefore seemed on the whole worth while, pending a 

 somewhat extended examination of chief authors, to publish 

 some of the results already established, with statistical illus- 

 trations from representative periods. 



It is, I think, usually taken for granted that there is a pro- 

 gressive diminution of length in the English sentence from 

 the earliest writers until the present ; in other words, that it 

 is the relative modernness of an author which determines 

 the lightness of his style. But, quite contrary to any such 

 assumption or expectation, we find that the determining factor 

 in each case is the relative capacity of the author to respond 

 to what may be called the sentence-sense in his own mind. 



The English instinct of sentence-length, in effect, is this, — ■ 

 Say or write no more in one sentence than has been brought 

 before the mind in a single view, or single judgment. This 

 also includes all that is meant by " Unity " in Rhetoric. 



This sense or impulse to write as one speaks and to speak 

 as one thinks is obeyed in general with marvellous fidelity by 

 our early poets. To take one of the most familiar of possible 

 illustrations, it were hard indeed to find anywhere a more 

 natural management of the sentence than in Chaucer's Pro- 

 logue to his Canterbury Tales. Note how easily the scenes 

 glide before the mind, and how naturally the sentence shifts 

 when each is finished : — 



University Studies, Vol. I., No. 2, Octorer, 188S. I ^Q 



