2.  It is gloomy in the woods on a rainy day.

3.  The government is always in need of honest men.

4.  Rural free delivery of mail will have a great effect on country life.

5.  Not every boy in school uses his time to the best advantage.

6.  Haste is waste.

7.  Regular exercise is one of the essentials of good health.

(Have the repetitions really made the idea of the topic sentence clearer or more emphatic or more definite?  What other methods of development have you used?)

+51.  Development by a Combination of Methods.+—­A paragraph should have unity of thought, and, so long as this unity of thought is kept, it does not matter what methods of development are used.  A dozen paragraphs taken at random will show that combinations are very frequent.  Often it will be difficult to determine just how a paragraph has been developed.  In general, however, it may be said that an indiscriminate mixture of methods is confusing and interferes with unity of thought.  If more than one is used, it requires skillful handling to maintain such a relation between them that both contribute to the clear and emphatic statement of the main thought.

The paragraph from Dryer, page 74, shows a combination of cause and effect with specific illustrations; that from Wolstan Dixey, page 81, shows a combination of repetition with specific instances.

EXERCISES

What methods of paragraph development, or what combinations of methods, are used in the following selections?

1.  I believe the first test of a truly great man is his humility.  I do not mean, by humility, doubt of his power, or hesitation in speaking of his opinions; but a right understanding of the relation between what he can do and say and the rest of the world’s sayings and doings.  All great men not only know their business, but usually know that they know it; and are not only right in their main opinions, but they usually know that they are right in them; only they do not think much of themselves on that account.  Arnolfo knows he can build a good dome at Florence; Albert Duerer writes calmly to one who had found fault with his work, “It cannot be better done”; Sir Isaac Newton knows that he has worked out a problem or two that would have puzzled anybody else; only they do not expect their fellow-men therefore to fall down and worship them; they have a curious undersense of powerlessness, feeling that the greatness is not in them, but through them; that they could not do or be anything else than God made them.  And they see something divine and God-made in every other man they meet, and are endlessly, foolishly, and incredibly merciful.

—­Ruskin.