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"A work on english grammar and composition"


THE PARAGRAPH.
+The Paragraph+.--The clauses of complex sentences are so closely united in
meaning that frequently they are not to be separated from each other even
by the comma. The clauses of compound sentences are less closely united--a
comma, a semicolon, or a colon is needed to divide them.
Between sentences there exists a wider separation in meaning, marked by a
period or other terminal point. But even sentences may be connected, the
bond which unites them being their common relation to the thought which
jointly they develop. Sentences thus related are grouped together and form,
as you have already learned, what we call a Paragraph, marked by beginning
the first word a little to the right of the marginal line.
+Direction+.--_Notice the facts which this paragraph contains, and the
relation to each other of the clauses and the sentences expressing these
facts_:--
After a breeze of some sixty hours from the north and northwest, the wind
died away about four o'clock yesterday afternoon. The calm continued till
about nine in the evening. The mercury in the barometer fell, in the
meantime, at an extraordinary rate; and the captain predicted that we
should encounter a gale from the southeast. The gale came on about eleven
o'clock; not violent at first, but increasing every moment.


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