Page:The Elements of Style (Strunk).djvu/20

 nature of a picnic. $3$A walking tour should be gone upon alone, because freedom is of the essence; because you should be able to stop and go on, and follow this way or that, as the freak takes you; and because you must have your own pace, and neither trot alongside a champion walker, nor mince in time with a girl. $4$And you must be open to all impressions' and let your thoughts take colour from what you see. $5$You should be as a pipe for any wind to play upon. $6$"I cannot see the wit," says Hazlitt, "of walking and talking at the same time. $7$When I am in the country, I wish to vegetate like the country," which is the gist of all that can be said upon the matter. $8$There should be no cackle of voices at your elbow, to jar on the meditative silence of the morning. $9$And so long as a man is reasoning he cannot surrender himself to that fine intoxication that comes of much motion in the open air, that begins in a sort of dazzle and sluggishness of the brain, and ends in a peace that passes comprehension. — Stevenson, Walking Tours.

$1$Topic sentence. $2$The meaning made clearer by denial of the contrary. $3$The topic sentence repeated, in abridged form, and supported by three reasons; the meaning of the third ("you must have your own pace") made clearer by denying the contrary. $4$A fourth reason, stated in two forms. $5$The same reason, stated in still another form. $6—7$The same reason as stated by Hazlitt. $8$Repetition, in paraphrase, of the quotation from Hazlitt. $9$Final statement of the fourth reason, in language amplified and heightened to form a strong conclusion.

$1$It was chiefly in the eighteenth century that a very different conception of history grew up. $2$Historians then came to believe that their task was not so much to paint a picture as to solve a problem; to explain or illustrate the successive phases of national growth, prosperity, and adversity. $3$The history of morals, of industry, of intellect, and of art; the changes that take place in manners or beliefs; the dominant ideas that prevailed in successive periods; the rise, fall, and modification of political constitutions; in a word, all the conditions of national well-being became the subject of their works. $4$They sought rather to write a history of peoples than a history of kings. $5$They looked especially in history for the chain of causes and effects. $6$They undertook to study in the past the physiology of nations, and hoped by applying the experimental method on a large scale to deduce some lessons of real value about the conditions on which the welfare of society mainly depend.—Lecky, The Political Value of History.

$1$Topic sentence. $2$The meaning of the topic sentence made clearer; the new conception of history defined. $3$The definition expanded. $4$The definition explained by contrast. $5$The definition supplemented: another element in the new conception of history. $6$Conclusion: an important consequence of the new conception of history.