"
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
in itself, and all culminate in the conclusion; they do not complicate
the thought, or puzzle us, they only heighten expectation].
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