[23]
which must be
considered in connexion with words taken both
singly and in conjunction. Words taken singly are
known as asyndeta (unconnected). In dealing with
them we must take care that our style does not
diminish in force through the fact that a weaker
word is made to follow a stronger: as, for example,
if after calling a man a despoiler of temples we were
to speak of him as a thief, or after styling him a
highwayman were to dub him an insolent fellow.
For sentences should rise and grow in force: of this
an excellent example is provided by Cicero,1 where
he says, “You, with that throat, those lungs, that
strength, that would do credit to a prizefighter, in
every limb of your body”; for there each phrase is
followed by one stronger than the last, whereas, if
he had begun by referring to his whole body, he
could scarcely have gone on to speak of his lungs
and throat without an anticlimax. There is also
another species of order which may be entitled
natural, as for example when we speak of “men and
women,” “day and night,” “rising and setting,” in
preference to the reverse order.
1 Phil. II. xxv. 63.
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