As a final example I will cite a passage from M. Taine:—­“De la encore cette insolence contre les inferieurs, et ce mepris verse d’etage en etage depuis le premier jusqu’au dernier.  Lorsque dans une societe la loi consacre les conditions inegales, personne n’est exempt d’insulte; le grand seigneur, outrage par le roi, outrage le noble qui outrage le peuple; la nature humaine est humilie a tous les etages, et la societe n’est plus qu’un commerce d’affronts.”

The law of Sequence by no means prescribes that we should invariably state the proposition before its qualifications—­the thought before its illustrations; it merely prescribes that we should arrange our phrases in the order of logical dependence and rhythmical cadence, the order best suited for clearness and for harmony.  The nature of the thought will determine the one, our sense of euphony the other.

IV.  The law of climax.

We need not pause long over this; it is generally understood.  The condition of our sensibilities is such that to produce their effect stimulants must be progressive in intensity and varied in kind.  On this condition rest the laws of Climax and Variety.  The phrase or image which in one position will have a mild power of occupying the thoughts, or stimulating the emotions, loses this power if made to succeed one of like kind but more agitating influence, and will gain an accession of power if it be artfully placed on the wave of a climax.  We laugh at

“Then came Dalhousie, that great God of War, Lieutenant-Colonel to the Earl of Mar,”

because of the relaxation which follows the sudden tension of the mind; but if we remove the idea of the colonelcy from this position of anti-climax, the same couplet becomes energetic rather than ludicrous—­

“Lieutenant-Colonel to the Earl of Mar,
Then came Dalhousie, that great God of War.”

I have selected this strongly marked case, instead of several feeble passages which might be chosen from the first book at hand, wherein carelessness allows the sentences to close with the least important, phrases, and the style droops under frequent anti-climax.  Let me now cite a passage from Macaulay which vividly illustrates the effect of Climax:—­

“Never, perhaps, was the change which the progress of civilisation has produced in the art of war more strikingly illustrated than on that day.  Ajax beating down the Trojan leader with a rock which two ordinary men could scarcely lift; Horatius defending the bridge against an army; Richard, the lion-hearted, spurring along the whole Saracen line without finding an enemy to withstand his assault; Robert Bruce crushing with one blow the helmet and head of Sir Harry Bohun in sight of the whole array of England and Scotland,—­such are the heroes of a dark age. [Here is an example of suspended meaning, where the suspense intensifies the effect, because each particular is vividly apprehended