Chapter CLXXV: Section V: Of Unity

Unity consists in avoiding needless pauses, and keeping one object predominant throughout a sentence or paragraph. Every sentence, whether its parts be few or many, requires strict unity. The chief faults, opposite to this quality of style, are suggested in the following precepts. PRECEPT I.--Avoid brokenness, hitching, or the unnecessary separation of parts that naturally come together. Examples: "I was, soon after my arrival, taken out of my Indian habit."--_Addison, Tattler_, No. 249. Better: "Soon after my arrival, _I_ was taken out of my Indian habit."--_Churchill's Gram._, p. 326. "Who can, either in opposition, or in the ministry, act alone?"--_Ib._ Better: "Who can act alone, either in opposition, or in the ministry?"--_Ib._ "I, like others, have, in my youth, trifled with my health, and old age now prematurely assails me."--_Ib._, p. 327. Better: "Like others, I have trifled with my health, and old age now prematurely assails me."

PRECEPT II.--Treat different topics in separate paragraphs, and distinct sentiments in separate sentences. Error: "The two volumes are, indeed, intimately _connected, and constitute_ one uniform system of English Grammar."--_Murray's Preface_, p. iv. Better thus: "The two volumes are, indeed, intimately connected. _They_ constitute one uniform system of English _grammar_."

PRECEPT III.--In the progress of a sentence, do not desert the principal subjects in favour of adjuncts, or change the scene unnecessarily. Example: "After we came to anchor, they put me on shore, where I was welcomed by all my friends, who received me with the greatest kindness, which was not then expected." Better: "The vessel having come to anchor, I was put on shore; where I was unexpectedly welcomed by all my friends, and received with the greatest kindness."--See _Blair's Rhet._, p. 107.

PRECEPT IV.--Do not introduce parentheses, except when a lively remark may be thrown in without diverting the mind too long from the principal subject. Example: "But (saith he) since I take upon me to teach the whole world, (it is strange, it should be so natural for this man to write untruths, since I direct my _Theses_ only to the Christian world; but if it may render me odious, such _Peccadillo's_ pass with him, it seems, but for _Piæ Fraudes_:) I intended never to write of those things, concerning which we do not differ from others."--_R. Barclay's Works_, Vol. iii. p. 279. The parts of this sentence are so put together, that, as a whole, it is scarcely intelligible.