The principles governing the arrangement of clauses have now been stated. What principles govern their shaping?
The complete utterance of our thoughts takes more than one form. We throw them at one time into the shape of an assertion, at another into that of an inquiry, or a prayer, or a command, or a doubt, or a supposition, or some other shape of the kind; and into conformity with these we try to mould the diction itself. There are, in fact, many figures of diction, just as there are of thought. It is not possible to classify them exhaustively; indeed, they are perhaps innumerable. Their treatment would require a long disquisition and profound investigation. But that the same clause is not equally telling in all its various modes of presentation,
I will show by an example. If Demosthenes had expressed himself thus in the following passage, “Having spoken thus, I moved a resolution; and having moved a resolution, I joined the embassy; and having joined the embassy, I convinced the Thebans,” would the sentence have been composed with the charm of its actual arrangement,— “I did not speak thus, and then fail to move a resolution; I did not move a resolution, and then fail to join the embassy; I did not join the embassy, and then fail to convince the Thebans”? It would take me a long time to deal with all the modes of expression which clauses admit. It is enough to say thus much by way of introduction.