Invisible Transitions

I once read in a book about writing that the best transitions were none at all. What the author of the book meant was that a properly used transition word, such as “however” or “therefore,” can be effective, but the best transitions between paragraphs, or even sentences, involve no transition words whatsoever.

Today, as I was listening to the Gettysburg Address -- don’t bother asking why I was listening to the Gettysburg Address; I just was -- I noticed that it was a good example of a piece of writing that moves seamlessly from one thought to another without the use of transition words.

To show you exactly what I mean, I'm going to reproduce the super famous speech, or at least the part of it that relates most to my point, and I’m going to highlight the words that Lincoln uses to connect his ideas in subsequent pieces of text with those in previous ones.

I hope you find it all of  some interest. 

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.    

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.