weakness is his strength. The one is never prepared for combat, the other is always ready. Therefore it is that in this world the man that is in the wrong almost invariably conquers the man that is in the right, and invariably despises him." 1

"But after every allowance, it will remain that members of the government which preceded the administration opened the gates to treason, and he closed them; that when he went to Washington the ground on which he trod shook under his feet, and he left the republic on a solid foundation; that traitors had seized public forts and arsenals, and he recovered them for the United States, to whom they belonged; that the Capital which he found the abode of slaves, is now only 2 the home of the free; that the boundless public domain which was grasped at, and, in a great measure, held for the diffusion of slavery, is now irrevocably devoted to freedom."8

"A debt of $600,000,000 now is a less sum per head than was the debt of our Revolution when we came out of that struggle, and the money value in the country bears even a greater proportion to what it was then than does the population. Surely each man has as strong a motive now to preserve our liberties as each had then to establish them.

"A right result at this time will be worth more to the world than ten times the men and ten times the money." 4

Burke makes frequent and effective use of antithesis. For example:

"The question with me is, not whether you have a right to render your people miserable; but whether it is not your interest to make them happy. It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do. Is a politic act the worse for being a generous one? Is no concession proper, but that which is made from your want of right to keep what you grant? ...

1 Anthony Trollope: Barchester Towers, vol. ii. chap. x. Tauchnitz edition.

2 See page 179.

3 George Bancroft. Quoted in "Abraham Lincoln's Pen and Voice” (edited by G. M. Van Buren); Preface.

4 Abraham Lincoln: First Message to Congress, July 4, 1861.

"Compare the two.

This I offer to give you is plain and simple; the other full of perplexed and intricate mazes. This is mild; that harsh. This is found by experience effectual for its purposes; the other is a new project. This is universal; the other calculated for certain colonies only. This is immediate in its conciliatory operation; the other remote, contingent, full of hazard. Mine is what becomes the dignity of a ruling people; gratuitous, unconditional, and not held out as matter of bargain and sale. . . .

...

a great empire and little minds go ill together . . . our ancestors have turned a savage wilderness into a glorious empire; and have made the most extensive and the only honourable conquests; not by destroying, but by promoting, the wealth, the number, the happiness, of the human race.'

"1

Burke's antitheses are peculiarly valuable as examples, because they are real antitheses corresponding to a real opposition of ideas, and also because they are not so frequent or so protracted as to become monotonous, excellences which cannot be fully appreciated without a thorough study of one of Burke's speeches as a whole.

the use of

In striking contrast with this great writer's temperate use of antithesis are the excesses into which Dr. Johnson, Gibbon, Junius, and Macaulay fall. Some- Excesses in times these authors perplex or mislead their antithesis. readers by throwing simple sentences into an antithetical form "by the addition of clauses, which add little or nothing to the sense; and which have been compared to the false handles and keyholes with which furniture is deco. rated, that serve no other purpose than to correspond to the real ones." 2 Sometimes these authors weary their readers by so frequent a use of antithesis as to give to the composition an artificial air; they seem to pay more attention to manner than to matter; they stimulate till stimulants lose their power. Such excessive use of an

1 Burke: Speech on Conciliation with America.

2 Whately: Elements of Rhetoric, part iii. chap. ii. sect. xiv.

tithesis leads to exaggeration. The most striking contrasts are between extremes; but the truth rarely lies at either extreme.

Besides employing "unnecessary antithesis to express very simple propositions," "Macaulay," says Minto, "has a tendency to make slight sacrifices of truth to antithesis. The chapter on the state of society in 1685 has been convicted of many exaggerated statements by less dazzling antiquarians. In his numerous comparisons between different men, he unquestionably tampers with the realities for the sake of enhancing the effect. He exaggerates the melancholy of Dante's character on the one hand, and the cheerfulness of Milton's on the other; he puts too strongly the purely illustrative character of Dante's similes in contradistinction to the purely poetic or ornamental character of Milton's. So he probably overstates the shallowness and flippancy of Montesquieu, to heighten by contrast the solidity and stateliness of Machiavelli." 1 Force, as well as clearness, favors the arrangement of words and clauses in an ascending series, called a CLIMAX, the general coming before the speClimax. cific, the negative (usually) before the positive, the less important before the more important, the less interesting before the more interesting. "As immediately after looking at the sun we cannot perceive the light of a fire, while by looking at the fire first and the sun afterwards we can perceive both; so, after receiving a brilliant, or weighty, or terrible thought, we cannot appreciate a less brilliant, less weighty, or less terrible one, while, by reversing the order, we can appreciate each."4

8

The climax possesses two principal merits: it prevents mental fatigue by continually increasing the pleasure of

1 William Minto: A Manual of English Prose Literature, part i. chap. ii 2 From κλîμaş, a ladder or staircase. * See page 89. Herbert Spencer: The Philosophy of Style.

mental exertion; and it supplies means of measuring the value of the final assertion, as the lower Alps help the eye to measure the height of Mont Blanc. There are no better examples of climax than the hackneyed ones from Cicero:

"He is gone, he has left us, he has escaped, he has broken away."1

"To put a Roman citizen in chains is a misdeed; to scourge him is a crime; to kill him is almost parricide; to crucify him what shall I say? For so nefarious an act there is no word."2

Another example may be taken from Demosthenes :

"Nor did I make a speech without making a motion, nor make a motion without undertaking the embassy, nor undertake the embassy without prevailing on the Thebans.” 8

The following examples are less striking than those from Cicero and Demosthenes, but they more accurately represent the climax as used in modern writing:

"Your children do not grow faster from infancy to manhood, than they [the American colonists] spread from families to communities, and from villages to nations." 4

"It is the spirit of the English constitution, which, infused through the mighty mass, pervades, feeds, unites, invigorates, vivifies, every part of the empire, even down to the minutest member." "5

1 Abiit, excessit, evasit, erupit. - Cicero: Orationes in Catilinam, ii. i. 2 Facinus est vincire civem Romanum, scelus verberare, prope parricidium necare: quid dicam in crucem tollere? verbo satis digno tam nefaria res appellari nullo modo potest. - Ibid.: Orationes in Verrem, ii. v. Ixvi.

8 Συνεπαινεσάντων δὲ πάντων καὶ οὐδενὸς εἰπόντος ἐναντίον οὐδὲν οὐκ εἶπον μὲν ταῦτα, οὐκ ἔγραψα δὲ, οὐδ ̓ ἔγραψα μὲν, οὐκ ἐπρέσβευσα δὲ, οὐδ ̓ ἐπρέσβευσα μὲν, οὐκ ἔπεισα δὲ Θηβαίους. — Demosthenes: ΠΕΡΙ ΤΟΥ ΣΤΕ ΦΑΝΟΥ, § 179.

4 Burke: Speech on Conciliation with America.

5 Ibid. The force of this sentence is increased by the omission of and: see page 159.

"Events which short-sighted politicians ascribed to earthly causes, had been ordained on his [the Puritan's] account. For his sake empires had risen, and flourished, and decayed. For his sake the Almighty had proclaimed his will by the pen of the Evangelist, and the harp of the prophet. He had been wrested by no common deliverer from the grasp of no common foe. He had been ran somed by the sweat of no vulgar agony, by the blood of no earthly sacrifice. It was for him that the sun had been darkened, that the rocks had been rent, that the dead had risen, that all nature had shuddered at the sufferings of her expiring God!" 1

“A character has been drawn of a very eminent citizen of Massachusetts, of the last age, which, though I think it does not entirely belong to him, yet very well describes a certain class of public men. It was said of this distinguished son of Massachusetts, that in matters of politics and government he cherished the most kind and benevolent feelings towards the whole earth. He earnestly desired to see all nations well governed; and to bring about this happy result, he wished that the United States might govern the rest of the world; that Massachusetts might govern the United States; that Boston might govern Massachusetts; and as for himself, his own humble ambition would be satisfied by governing the little town of Boston." 2

The value of the climax is further shown by the absurd effect of the anti-climax :·

Anti-climax.

:

An obituary notice, after enumerating the virtues of the deceased, ended with praise of his handwriting.

"What pen can describe the tears, the lamentations, the agonies, the animated remonstrances of the unfortunate prisoners!"

"Language . can inform them [words] with the spiritual philosophy of the Pauline epistles, the living thunder of a Demosthenes, or the material picturesqueness of a Russell.” 8

"When I was at Milan I saw a book newly published, that was dedicated to the present head of the Borromean family, and enti

1 Macaulay Essays; Milton. This is an instance of skilful repetition : see pages 150-152.

2 Daniel Webster: Speech at Niblo's Saloon, New York, March 15, 1837.

Marsh: Lectures on the English Language, lect. xiii.