Development of Form in Literature. 



25 



/3 so Z3 30 3S <fO' ^ SO SS 60 '6S 70 

 Bartol: Radicalisin ; Father Taylor. 



What, then, was the meaning of the decrease in predica- 

 tions and sentence lengths now shown? They seemed to 

 indicate pretty clearly the trend of rhetorical progress in 

 modern days. It is of the essence of the times to covet 

 high culture, but not to exploit it. Men are becoming more 

 and more specialistic, but less and less professional. Some 

 of the most polished of present stylists studiously eschew 

 seeming better than conversational writers. The style of 

 the future is likely to be yet more informal and easy than 

 the best examples of this sort now extant. It will not prob- 

 ably abound in numerical averages as low as Bartol's or 

 Emerson's, and will be less disjointed and staccato. An 

 informal organic sentence need not be long, but must not 

 be weighed down with predications. Effective individual 

 styles not hard to find in the periodical literature of these 

 days will average perhaps as high as twenty words of 

 numerical length, yet show not above 1.60 predications per 

 sentence, nor less than 65 per cent of simple sentences. 



361 



