Parallel Construction and the Law of-Repetition.

In our study of the sentence and the para¬graph in previous exercises we have emphasized again and again the principle of variety or change.

There is, however, another principle, the opposite of this, that of monotony, which we find used effectively not only in the arts but in nature. In a sentence or paragraph, monotony may be secured, when it is desired, by the use of parallel construction, the rep¬etition of the same pattern in structure.

The effect of monotony is to give majesty of tone. Parallel construction is therefore most frequently found in exalted passages, especially those of oratory. It should not be used in presenting a thought which is commonplace.

Read the following selection from Ruskin which treats of the combination of the law of monotony and the law of change, or variety, in art and nature :

I believe that the true relations of monotony and change may be most simply understood by observing them in music. We may therein notice, first, that there is a sublimity and majesty in monotony which there is not in rapid or frequent variation. This is true through¬out all nature. The greater part of the sublimity of the sea depends on its monotony ; so also that of deso¬late moor and mountain scenery ; and especially the sublimity of motion, as in the quiet, unchanged fall and rise of an engine beam. So also there is sublimity in darkness which there is not in light.

Again, monotony after a certain time, or beyond a certain degree, becomes either uninteresting or intoler¬able, and the musician is obliged to break it in one of two ways : either while the air or passage is perpetually repeated, its notes are variously enriched and harmo¬nized; or else, after a certain number of repeated pas¬sages, an entirely new passage is introduced, which is more or less delightful, according to the length of the previous monotony. Nature, of course, uses both these kinds of variation perpetually. The sea-waves resem- bling each other in general mass, but none !like its brother in minor divisions and curves, are a monotony of the first kind ; the great plain, broken by an emer¬gent rock or clump of trees, is a monotony of the second.

-JOHN RUSKIN, Stones of Venice