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PRACTICAL

ENGLISH COMPOSITION

CAROLYN M. GERRISH, A.B.

head of department of english
girls' latin school, boston

AND

MARGARET CUNNINGHAM

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH, DORCHESTER HIGH SCHOOL

D. C HEATH AND COMPANY

BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO

• • •

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1 K 2

PREFACE

It is the purpose of this book to accomplish four things for
the student: (i) to give him continually increasing power in
original composition; (2) to train him in habits of accuracy
in mechanical form (spelling, punctuation, sentence structure,
etc.); (3) to develop his interest in good literature; and
(4) to stimulate his interest in the affairs of the world in
which he lives.

From the beginning of the book to the end, students are
required to do creative work and are trained to select, ar-
range, and express ideas so as to make the best use of what
they know.

The method of teaching is inductive. Models are used in
such a way as to encourage and to develop original thought
and expression. No blind imitation of models is possible if
the method of the book is followed. This requires persistent
effort along definitely indicated lines. Beginning with very
simple work, the exercises gradually increase in difficulty in
both subject matter and technical requirement.

The assignments for student practice are varied and very

extensive, ranging from the practical to the theoretical, from

matters of everyday experience to matters of imagination

and fancy. The subjects assigned have been taken almost

entirely from lists made out by students when asked to hand

in subjects in which they were interested and on which they

would like to write. Necessarily, these subjects touch all

phases of the lives of young people.

iii

IV PREFACE

The exercises for creative work are accompanied by exer-
cises which teach students how to criticize systematically
their own work as well as that of others. These exercises
call for class criticisms of themes on the same topic, — a valu-
able exercise in constructive criticism by which the entire
class can improve. All the criticism requires the scientific
application of the laws of composition.

As each chapter is complete in itself, those who prefer a
different order of topics from that of the book may readily
rearrange the chapter sequence to suit their needs.

While the authors have shared equally in the task of pre-
paring the book, each is under more than ordinary obligation
to the other for supplying certain qualities and certain forms
of development that otherwise the work would have lacked.
They also take pleasure in acknowledging their debt of grati-
tude to the friendly critics who have contributed in no slight
degree to its perfecting ; and to the various publishers who
have courteously granted permission to make brief extracts
from copyrighted books.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGB

I. Composition i

II. Oral Composition .26

III. Description 38

IV. Narration 94

V. The Paragraph 137

VI. The Sentence 169

VII. Words • . . . 216

VIII. Letter Writing 225

IX. Rules for Spelling 268

X. Exposition 276

• XI. Argument and Persuasion 307

XII. Figures of Speech 339

XIII. Poetic Form . . . . * 360

XIV. Supplementary Readin(; 380

XV. Punctuation of the Sentence 394

Index 421

PEACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

CHAPTER I
COMPOSITION

Whenever a person puts together ideas for the sake of
expressing his thoughts or feelings about any subject, he
forms a composition in language. In ordinary life composi-
tions are usually oral, while written compositions generally
take the form of letters, diaries, recipes, or reports, or of
documents, such as deeds, wills, etc.

Choice of Subject. — The subject matter of most oral com-
positions as well as of most letters and diaries is made up of
the interests and happenings of everyday life, for people talk
and write with greatest ease and effectiveness about the
matters which most nearly concern them and about which
they know most. Just what particular subject a person shall
talk or write about at any particular time depends, however,
not only upon his own interests and knowledge, but also
upon the person whom he is addressing and upon the place
and the occasion which make him speak or write at all.

EXERCISE I

1. Name five subjects in which you are interested and about which
you know enough to talk or to write.

2. Name five subjects in which you are interested, but about which you
do not at present know enough to talk or to write.

3- (I- Name, five subjects that you have recentlv discussed with your
parents % name five that you have talked about with companions : name
three about which you have written to friends or relatives who do not live
in your own town or city.

PRACTICAl^ ENGLISH COMPOSITION

b. Which of these subjects would you have discussed only with the
persons with whom you did discuss them? Why?

4. Name three subjects about which you would not talk in a public
conveyance.

EXERCISE II

1. From the following list of subjects, select ten that you would talk
about to a, person that you have just met at a party.

2. Select three that you would discuss only with a member of your own
family.

3. Select five that you would talk about to your club or society.

4. Select five that you would talk about to your English class.

5. Select three that are unsuitable for conversation with a Uttle child.

A Great Race.

27.

Stuck in the Mud.

The Aviator's Flight.

28.

A Barbecue.

A Desperate Struggle.

29.

A Clambake.

A Fishing Trip.

30-

A Candy Social.

Camping Out.

31-

An Ideal Country Gaiden.

A Day at the Beach.

32.

The Hardware Show.

An Unexpected Visitor.

33-

Making Wireless Instruments.

At the Circus.

34-

Automobile Mishaps.

A Bad Scare.

35-

My Street in a Snowstorm.

10.

Chased by a Mad Dog.

36.

Our Hurdy-Gurdy Man.

II.

My Day of Rest.

37-

The Building of a Pigeon\s Nest.

12.

A Snow Fight.

38.

Huyler's on a Saturday After-

13-

Floadng on Ice Cakes.

noon.

14.

Why Tad Left Home.

39-

Teaching a Stubborn Dog

•5-

Reflecting Mirrors.

Tricks.

16.

How Coal is Mined.

40.

Indian Baskets.

17-

A Week in a Lumber Camp.

41.

My First Impressions of a Farm.

18.

From New York to Liverpool

42.

Shop Windows.

on a Tramp Steamer.

43-

My Need of New Clothes.

19.

The Life of a Reaper.

44.

My Need of a Larger Allow-

20.

Tlie Try-Out.

ance.

21.

The Intelligence of Animals.

Why A is a good friend

22.

Mv Chum.

for me.

The Use of Vacuum Cleaners.

46.

How Outdoor Sports cultivate

24.

The Recipe for Fudge.

Self reliance.

21;.

Damminc: a Brook.

Does a Definite Purpose secure

26.

Stignring Off.

Economy of Effort?

COMPOSITION

48. Why I should gain skill in

swimming.

How to Make a Toy Engine.

Can a Person without excep-
tional Skill be Popular?

The Wreck of the Federal Ex-
press.

The Collapse of the Tenement
Block.

The Burning of the Excursion
Steamer.

The Tramps seen Lurking in
the Woods.

The Hold-Up.

The Shot in the Orchard.

The Ghost in the Hollow.
58. My Trip through the News-
paper Plant.

The Face at the Window.

The Stealthy Step on the
Piazza.

The Manufacture of Chocolate.

49.
50.

51-

52.

53-
54-

55-
56.

57-

59
60

62. Typhoons.

63. The Leading Products of the

United States.

64. My Daily Chores.

65. Putting up Preserves.

66. The County Fair.

67. The Baby Show.

68. Gathering Apples.

69. Harvesting Corn.

70. Sailing an Ice Boat.
Cutting Ice.
Breaking in the Colt.

71
72

73
74
75

Driving an Artesian Well.
Irrigation.

How to put Electric Bells into
a House.
76. A Day's Hunt.
'jf . Lost in the Swamp.

Life on a Canal Boat.

Sheep Shearing.

78.

79-
80.

81.

Branding the Cattle.
Glass-Blowing.

SUMMARY I

A. Composition in language is the expression in words of one's
thoughts or feelings about a subject.

B. To make an effective composition :

1. Choose a subject in which you are interested and about which

you know enough to talk or to write.

2. Choose a subject which will interest the person addressed.

3. Choose a subject suitable to the occasion.

The Selection of the Point to be Made. — Even when a per-
son has chosen a suitable subject, he often fails to make an
effective composition because he makes no point about his
subject ; that is, he does not make any one idea stand out as
the idea which leads him to discuss the subject. For example,
each of the following compositions was written on the sub-
ject, *' Coming to School."

4 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

Coming to School

This morning I started from my home about quarter of eight to walk to
school. When I got to my friend's house, she was already outside waiting
for me, so we started right otT. In front of us were a few girls whom we
knew. They were all talking about the wedding they had been to the
night before. As my friend and I had the same home lesson in French,
we were trying to pronounce the words which seemed queer to us. As
we walked fast, we reached school at twenty minutes past eight.

Coming to School

It was fifteen minutes after eight o'clock when I started for school with
an armful of heavy books and a feeling that I had left something impor-
tant behind in my desperate hurry. As I hastened along Washington
Street, something dropped on the sidewalk at my feet. It was my note-
book. I impatiently picked it up and hurried on toward school. A little
farther along, I met my chum, who joined me in my haste, for neither of
us cared to spoil our records by tardiness, especially so near the beginning
of the school term.

We seemed to make very good time, and were within sight of the school
building, when I suddenly remembered that I had been told to leave an
order at the creamery on my way to school. Much dismayed and dis-
couraged, I left my friend, retraced my steps a short distance, and entered
the store, entirely out of breath. As nobody appeared to wait on me, I
made as many unnecessary noises as I could conveniently, and soon a
young man came out from the rear of the store, deliberately donning
his white coat. It seemed to me that I stood there half an hour while
he adjusted that coat and wrote down my order, but, in reality, it was
only two minutes. At the end of that time I rushed from the store and
ran the remaining short distance to the school in breathless haste. Luckily,
I didn't have to climb any stairs, but reached my home room and sank into
my chair exhausted, just as the last bell rang. Right there and then, as
soon as I recovered my breath, I resolved to start for school earlier there-
after and avoid a repetition of such a rush.

The first composition is ineffective because it recounts a
mere string of happenings which bring out no point what-
ever. The second composition, on the other hand, is effective

COMPOSITION 5

because the happenings recounted bring out the one point of
interest to the writer about her coming to school on a particular
morning, namely, the escape from tardiness.

The Nature of the Point. — The ideas in a composition,
then, should bring out a point. In order that a composi-
tion may be really worth while, the point made must be either
entertaining or instructive to the person addressed. The two
compositions which follow illustrate each kind of point.

A Midnight Experience

It was midnight. The clock on the far-away church tower had just
struck and I lay in my bed unable to sleep. Suddenly I felt that there
was another presence in the room. I turned my eyes toward the window
and felt my heart almost stop its beating as I saw a dark form moving
toward the bed. Nearer and nearer it crept, until it seemed that I must
scream if it moved a step nearer. I could not scream, however, but only
lay there shaking, my eyes fixed on the spot. Could I get out of the other
side of the bed and escape by the door.? No, the door seemed miles away.
I gasped as the object moved again. In a moment it would be upon me.
I could almost see a dreadful weapon ready to strike me. Again it moved
and still I could not stir. Another step, and it was near enough to
strike. With a mighty effort I stretched out my arm to ward off the
blow. My hand touched something. It was not the cold metal of a re-
volver, as I had expected it would be, but, instead, the soft, warm fur of
my friendly dog that had been creeping to his accustomed bed on the floor
beside me.

Barrel Shook Making

The staves which constitute barrels, hogsheads, etc., are called shook.
The particular kind of shook which I am going to tell about is that which
is to be used for sugar barrels.

First, the staves come to the shop finished off in the right length.
Then the m.en set the staves up inside a hoop which is the right size for
the finished end of the barrel. After the staves are fitted tightly in this
hoop, a larger hoop is put on and pushed as near to the opposite end of
the staves as possible. Then the shook, in this shape, is set on its large
end over a fire in a grate to heat the staves on the inside. As the staves

6 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COAIPOSITION

are heating, the men keep pushing the large hoop toward the large end of
the shook, thus bending the staves into the shape of a barrel. After the
shook has been heated for some time, it is taken away from the fire, and
is ready to be pulled in at the large end to a circumference equal to that of
the end already the right size. It is then drawn in by means of a cable
made into a slipnoose and drawn over an iron wheel which the men turn
with a crowbar. When the shook is pulled so tight that a hoop, equal
in size to the one on the first end may be put around it, it is placed over
the fire again to be bent into the proper shape. This done, the shook, in
the form of a barrel, is put into a rack, called a cradle. In this cradle the
men level the ends of the staves on the inside. This leveling is where
the head and the bottom of the barrel fit.

In this way the barrel is made. Then the hoops are knocked off and
the staves are piled up in a compact bundle and bound together on each
end with steel bands. The shook is then ready for shipping.

EXERCISE III

1. From the list of subjects begun on page 2, select five that at once
suggest points that are entertaining rather than instructive ; select five
that at once suggest points that are instructive rather than entertaining;
select five that suggest points that are equally entertaining and instructive

2. Write a composition on one subject from each of your three lists.

3. Read your themes to the class.

a. Did the class get the point of each of your themes?

b. What did thev think about it?

Choice of Point Limited by Time or Space at Writer's Dis-
posal. — A point about a subject may be worth making, and
yet not be well chosen for the time or the space at the com-
mand of the speaker or the writer.

A boy may be eager to tell his friends how he has spent
his summer vacation. Out of the many things he has done
a dozen or so at once occur to him as well worth telling about.
Of his experiences at camp, the ivatcr sports, his camp duties,
initiatijig tJic newcomer, going after supplies, and tramps
across coiuitry are topics that offer interesting possibilities.
At home, taking care of the lawn, weeding the garden, driv-

COMPOSITION 7

ing the grocer s wagon, doing cJiores for tJie jieig/ibors, stand
out as important because of the time they took or the profit
they gave. The airsJiip, the model of a railroad, the little
steam sawmill, the telegraph apparatus, the bookcase, the
table^ or the what-not completed in his workshop in leisure
moments, are sources of such pride as to merit discussion ;
while getti?tg ready for the fair, private theatricals, and col-
lecting birds' eggs are other interesting vacation items.

All of these topics are interesting, and some of them are
valuable for information ; but to develop each properly would
require the giving of a lecture or the writing of a small book.
Just to enumerate theni would give a mere outline of the
varied interests of the vacation, while to say a little on each
would probably result in hodge-podge. Which of them,
then, shall he select to talk or write about at any one time .''
His choice must be governed not only by the interests of the
person whom he is addressing and by the occasion of speak-
ing or writing, but also by the time or the space at his dis-
posal. If he has but ten minutes and is talking to a person
particularly interested in athletics, he can speak of the water
sports at camp, while to a person about to go camping he
may speak of the initiation of the newcomer, of camp duties,
or of some such topic as what should make up a camper's
kit. If he has a whole afternoon for his talk to people in-
terested in camp life, he may take as his point My Life at
Camp^ and tell about all these topics and more, too.

Just as the point of a talk depends largely upon the time
at the disposal of the speaker, the point of a written article
depends upon the space at the disposal of the writer. If a
person must get what he has to say into five hundred words,
he is unwise to attempt to develop a point that requires fifteen
hundred words. A boy is asked to write for his school paper
an article of six hundred words on what he has done in his

8 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

workshop. This amount of space is too small to allow him
to tell all that he has done there. It is too large for him to
discuss merely the making of a bookcase or of a table. It is
about right for him to tell how he made an airship that
worked, how he constructed a toy railroad system, or how he
set up his telegraph apparatus. For the article in question,
therefore, he should choose some topic like one of the last
three.

A point is well chosen, then, when it is interesting or val-
uable as information to the person addressed and when it
can be brought out in the time or the space at the command
of the speaker or the writer.

Bringing out the Point. — A point may be well chosen and
yet a composition may be ineffective because the point is not
properly brought out.

Compare the two following compositions :

A Trip to the Blue Hills

One morning in July we — my mother, five girls, six boys, and I —
started for the Blue Hills to pick berries. On the cars that we took there
were only three people besides ourselves, and you should have seen how
fast we went. Arriving at the Blue Hills, we started at once to pick berries.
We picked for about an hour and then had luncheon. We ate our lunch-
eon away up on a rock at the top of Great Blue Hill. After that we went
through the observatory. It was interesting to see all the different instru-
ments they have for seeing how the wind blows, etc. About three o'clock
we started in picking berries again and picked until five. At six o'clock
we started for home with about sixteen quarts of berries, after a very pleas-
ant day.

A Mean Trick

One day last summer, three girls, two boys, and I went out picking
blueberries. The boys bet they could pick more berries in an hour than
we could. We girls picked and picked until our fingers were sore, the
boys, meanwhile, picking lazily and continually laughing at some joke they
had between themselves. Within an hour the boys' cans were full, while

COMPOSITION 9

ours were only half full. Then, as we were hungry and tired, we started
home. As we were racing down a steep hill, one of the boys stumbled on
a root of a tree and went rolling down the hill with his can rolling after
him, spilling out the berries as it went. As quickly as I could I picked it
up and found that the bottom was stuffed with paper. Then we made the
other fellow empty his can and we found the bottom of his stuff"ed, too.
They were angry because we found them out, and they would not speak
to us the rest of the way home !

The first composition is not effective because the point, my
pleasant day berrying in the Blue Hills, is suggested only by
an outline of events, no one of which is developed by enough
details to show what made it pleasant. The second composi-
tion is effective because each of the events which lead up to
the point, the discovery of the boys' trick, is developed by
the details which make the experience seem real and which
emphasize the point.

/;/ order to brijig out the point of any compositio7i properly
the composition must be made tip of the details which will
arouse interest in the poi7it and which will make the pot?it
clear.

EXERCISE IV

I. State five points worth making about each of ten of the following
subjects :

Our farm.

Misplaced charity.

17-

An Indian camp

Excursions.

ID.

New Orleans.

18.

School days.

Rain.

II.

The fashion plate.

19.

Jokes.

Bread.

12.

Battleships.

20.

Cotton.

Mining.

13-

Life in Virginia.

21.

Boats.

West Point.

14.

Haying.

22.

Games.

Summer sports.

15-

Fishing.

23-

Bird-nesting.

The woodchuck.

16.

The factory.

24.

Swimming.

2. Out of the fifty points selected name fifteen, any one of which you
can develop with completeness in ten minutes.

3. Prepare and give to your class a four-minute talk on some one of
these topics.

TO PRACTICAL I'AC.LIMI LOMruSlllON

a. Did the class get your point ?

if. What did they think about the value of your point ?

4. Of the fifty points, name five that you would need thirty minutes to
complete a talk on.

5. Write in class for thirty minutes on one of these five points. Read
your theme to the class.

a. What did the class think about the value and the suitability of

your point ?
i). What did they say about the way in which you brought out the

point ?

6. Discuss another of these five points in a letter to an intimate friend.

7. Write up in one hundred and fifty or two hundred words one of the
points in your list.

8. Write up in three hundred or three hundred and fifty words any
point that you choose.

SUMMARY II

To make the subject effective:

1. Choose a point that is entertaining or instructive.

2. Choose a point that can be handled properly in the time or

the space at your command.

3. Develop a composition by the details which will arouse interest

in the point and make it clear.

The Selection and Arrangement of Ideas. — Sometimes,
even when a point has been well chosen and ideas that tend
to bring it out have been used, the composition is a failure
because among the ideas that tend to bring out the point, there
are others that have nothing to do with it or that are not es-
sential to it.

Read the following composition :

Circus Day in the Country

One of the most vivid memories of my life is a circus day in the country.
In rural circles anything that is unusual is gladly welcomed by all. The
coming of the circus was an ei'ent looked forward to by one and all.

A few friends of mine invited me to enjoy with thorn the pleasure of
seeing the circus train unload. We were all up bright and early to meet

COMPOSITION II

the train, which came in three sections. In the first part were the horses
and teamsters. No sooner had the cars stopped than the doors opened
and the horses came out. In less than half an hour the whole freight
yard was changed into a veritable show.

We followed the truck horses to the grounds, where we watched the
workmen •* putting up the big top." We were so interested that we forgot
our breakfast and did not return home until nearly lunch time.

We met again after lunch and went to the afternoon show. ^411 day
the clouds had been loivering. and as we luere about to enter the big tent,
it seemed as if it woidd surely raifi. When we were getting ready to leave
and were congratulating ourselves over our good fortune, a tremendous
gust of wind came, making a big gash in the canvas, through which tor-
rents of rain came. We felt not only that we had had our money s worth
of circus, but that we had a shower bath thrown in.

Although the point of the composition is good and most of
the ideas help to bring it out, the composition is faulty in two
ways : first, the ideas expressed in italicized words have no
bearing on the point ; i.e., they are digressions ; second, some
ideas essential to the development of the point are left out,
as in the case of the details of the "afternoon show."

Contrast this composition with the following one in which
every detail used helps to bring out the point and from
which no detail necessary to make the point clear has been
omitted.

The Rescuing Cannibal

When I was a child of six, we lived in a house very near the edge of a
steep and dangerous cliff. At the foot of this cliff was a small white cot-
tage inclosed by a picket fence, one side of which was against the base of
the rock. This dwelling was a very great mystery to all of us children, as
we never saw any one enter or leave it, yet at odd times during the day
gray smoke would blow fiercely up at us from the black chimney.

The fear inspired by this display was, as a rule, an effectual aid to our
parents in keeping us away from the edge of the cliff, but one day, in the
midst of a wild game of tag, we forgot all prohibitions and lunged back
and forth at the very brink, darting, dodging, and scrambling over the
stones. One of these, particularly smooth and rounded on top, overhung

12 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

the precipice and the yard of the little white house, and upon this, in the
vigor and excitement of the chase, one of my companions led me. She
crossed safely, but I slipped, and, clutching in vain at the even edges of
stone, was sent hurtling downward, turning over and over until my head
struck the picket fence. A great gush of blood almost blinded me, but
through the red haze I saw the door of the house burst open and an
immense black man rush out. As he snatched me from the ground, such
a wave of terror swept over me as I have never since experienced, and
throwing my arms about his neck, I shrieked, " Oh, please, Mr. Nigger,
don't eat me."

When I next recovered consciousness, I found myself well bandaged
and tucked safely in my own bed. The evil effects of my fall wore off in a
few days, but I have never forgiven myself for my conduct at the most
exciting moment of my life.

In order to be a clear and forcible development of a single
point, a composition must be made up of those ideas which
are essential to develop one point — in other words, it must
conform to the principle of unity.

SUMMARY III

Unity is the principle of composition which requires that a composition
consist of only the ideas essential to the development of a single point.
To conform to the principle of unity:

1. a. Select ideas that bear on the point.

b. Discard ideas that have nothing to do with the point; i.e.,
avoid digressions.

2. Use the ideas essential to a clear understanding of the point.

EXERCISE V

Criticize the following students' themes for point and for choice of de-
tails to bring out the point :

The School of One Hundred and Twenty Years Ago

When I first entered the Dorchester High School, I was reminded of
the difference between it and the First Free School in America, the site
of which I had visited a few months previously. However, before 1 show
the differences between the two schools, I shall say that the First Free

COMPOSITION 13

School was built here in Dorchester at the corner of Pond and Pleasant
streets.

It was for boys only, and was used for about sixty years. Girls were
considered as not needing an education until one hundred years afterward.
It was maintained by the rents which the town received from Thompson's
Island.

Now, electric lights and well-printed and neatly bound books are substi-
tuted for candles and books which were bound with wood or paper and
printed with poor type.

The First Free School in America used the New England Primer, which
was first published about 1785 or 1790. In place of the present brick
buildings with furnaces and steam heat were log houses with great fire-
places and roaring fires.

A Blueberry Pick

One morning, the summer before last, when the sun was just rising, a
friend and I went to a blueberry patch, called Brush Hill, in South Fram-
ingham. After a walk of about thirty-five minutes, we arrived at the foot
of the hill. We then proceeded halfway up the hill, where we found the
blueberries the thickest. After our pails were about half filled, we were
aroused by a noise which scared us very much. We stopped picking and
ran until we discovered that the noise was only the rustling made by a
number of cows which had happened to wander our way. Then we started
picking again. At the end of twenty minutes we had our pails filled, so we
started homeward.

On descending the hill, we unexpectedly got into the path of a bull,
which chased us down the remainder of the hill. At the foot of the hill
we came to a fence and thought we were going to be trapped, but we man-
aged to get over in time to escape. We lost about half of our berries and
tore our clothes badly in our scramble over the fence. We arrived home
in time for dinner, which was very welcome to us. It seems I never have
luck in berrying, for something always happens. This was my first time,
too, and I think that didn't give me any encouragement.

EXERCISE VI
A. Write a composition about one of the following subjects :

1. How I Won my Wager.

2. Learning to Skate.

14 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

3. The Prize DriU.

4. My First Hunting Trip.

5. Putting Out tl\e Forest Fire.

6. My First Business Experience.

B. Read your theme to your class.

1. What did the class say about the value of your point?

2. What did they think about your choice of details to develop

the point .-^

a. Did your composition contain any digressions?

b. Did it contain details unessential to the point?

C Rewrite your theme, making the kind of improvements suggested
by the class.

D. Examine your rewritten theme to see: (i) that you have said
exactly what you meant to say ; (2) that you have put a period, a question
mark, or an exclamation mark at the end of each sentence; (3) that you
have spelled all words correctly and that you have made no errors in
grammar.

Coherence. — If a composition is to be a true unit, not only
must the ideas of which it consists be the ideas essential to
develop the point, but these ideas must be arranged in the
right order and must be expressed in the right words to make
unity, or 07iencss of thought, evident; i.e., they must conform
to the principle of coherence.

Read the following compositions, noticing the order in
which the details are given :

The evening meal was ended in Dhunni Bhagat's Chubara and the old
priests were smoking or counting their beads. A little naked child pattered
in, with its mouth wide open, a handful of marigold flowers in one hand
and a lump of conserved tobacco in the other. It tried to kneel and make
obeisance to Gobind. but it was so fat that it fell forward on its shaven
head and rolled on its side, kicking and gasping, while the marigolds
tumbled one way and the tobacco the other. Gobind laughed, set it up
again, and blessed the marigold flowers as he received the tobacco.

— The Finances of the Gods, Kipling.

COMPOSITION 15

This composition begins by giving a clear idea of the situa-
tion in which the incident took place and immediately intro-
ducing the chief actor. Then the details necessary to develop
the point are given in the order in which they were seen.
The composition ends with a statement of the final outcome
of the occurrence.

... In 161 2 he (Nicolas de Vignau) reappeared in Paris, bringing a
tale of wonders ; for, says Champlain. •• he was the most impudent liar that
has been seen for many a day." He averred that at the sources of the
Ottawa he had found a great lake : that he had crossed it and discovered a
river flowing northward ; that he had descended this river and reached the
shores of the sea ; that here he had .seen the wreck of an English ship,
whose crew, escaping to land, had been killed by the Indians : and that
this sea was distant from Montreal only seventeen days by canoe. The
clearness, consistency, and apparent simplicity of his story deceived Cham-
plain, who had heard of a voyage of the English to the northern seas,
coupled with rumors of wreck and disaster, and was thus confirmed in
his belief of Vignau's honesty.

— The Piofieers of France in the JVew IV'orld, Parkman.

This composition begins by stating the subject and sug-
gesting the point to be made. The point is developed by
presenting the essential details in the order in which they
happened. The composition concludes with a statement of
the final outcome of the telling of the story.

The wealth of Clive was such as enabled him to vie with the first
grandees of England. There remains proof that he had remitted more
than a hundred and eighty thousand pounds through the Dutch East India
Company and more than forty thousand pounds through the English
Company. The amount which he had sent home through private houses
was also considerable. He had invested great sums in jewels, then a very
common mode of remittance from India. His purchases of diamonds at
Madras alone amounted to twentv-five thousand pounds. Besides a great

1 6 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

mass of ready money, he had his Indian estate, valued by himself at twenty-
seven thousand a year. His whole annual income, in the opinion of Sir
John Malcolm, who is desirous to state it as low as possible, exceeded
forty thousand pounds ; and incomes of forty thousand pounds at the time
of the accession of George the Third were at least as rare as incomes of a
hundred thousand pounds now. We may safely affirm that no Englishman
who started with nothing has ever, in any line of life, created such a
fortune at the early age of thirty-four. — Lord Clive, Macaulay.

This composition also opens with a statement of the subject
and the point to be made. Of the details used to develop
the point, those first given are details which are known to be
true. These are followed by details less well known or less
easy of proof. The composition concludes with a summa-
rizing statement which emphasizes the point.

In each of the compositions the relation of the details to
one another and to the point is made evident by the way in
which the details are expressed.

In the first composition, attention is at first centered on the
priests before whom the little child was to act. It is next
centered upon the child, the marigold flowers, and the tobacco.
In each sentence which develops the incident, the child is
made the subject of the sentence. In each the marigold
flowers and the tobacco are mentioned. In the last sentence,
all these elements of the incident are disposed of by bringing
priest, child, marigold flowers, and tobacco together to show
the final outcome of the incident.

In the second composition, the attention is at first centered
on De Vignau's "tale of wonders" and Champlain's resulting
opinion of De Vignau as a '* liar." The reason for this opinion
is made clear in the second sentence by the use of the word
averred, which at once throws doubt on the truth of what is to
follow, and by the expressing in noun clauses as objects of
averred the particulars of the talc of wonders in the order in
which they were said to occur. The final sentence emphasizes

COMPOSITION 17

Champlain's reason for believing De Vignau a liar by point-
ing out the qualities of the story which would tend to impose
upon any one and by stating why they deceived Champlain.

In the third composition, the attention is first centered on
the rank of Clive's fortune. The immensity of this fortune
is brought out by expressing the details in words which give
exact sums of money, very large in themselves, or which state
the ownership of property, very valuable in itself. The final
sentence emphasizes the bigness of Clive's fortune by stating
its magnitude as compared with the shortness of the time in
which it had been made.

In each of these compositions, the writer has helped to
make unity of thought evident by beginning with a statement
that suggests the subject and hmits its scope by suggesting
the point to be made ; by giving the details in a definite
order, each additional detail being an advance toward the
point ; by concluding with a statement that is the logical out-
come of the details given ; by expressing the details in words
which make clear the relation of the details to one another
and to the point; briefly, by conforming to the principle of
coherence.

While the principle of coherence demands that ideas be
presented in definite order, no one kind of order can be used
in all compositions, for the order in which ideas shall be
presented depends upon the nature of the subject, the
knowledge and opinions of the speaker or writer, and the
kind of person to be addressed. In each different kind of
composition, however, there is usually one method of arrang-
ing ideas which is commonly followed. For example, in
stories, the particulars are usually arranged in the order in
which the events happened. In descriptions of landscape,
the details are usually arranged in the order in which they
were observed. In discussions, the details are often arranged

l8 PR.\CTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

in the order of advance from the familiar to the unfamiliar
or in the order of increasing importance. Although the
order of arrangement of ideas differs in different kinds of
composition, there must be in every composition an arrange-
ment of ideas according to some definite order suited to the
subject.

SUMMARY IV

Coherence is the principle of composition which requires that the
relation of ideas to one another and to the point be made evident.
To conform to the principle of coherence:

1. Begin with an idea that suggests the subject, its scope, and

the point to be made.

2. Present ideas so that each additional idea shall be a step in

advance toward the point.

3. Conclude with a statement which fixes the final relation of the

important ideas.

4. Express ideas in words which will make the person addressed

see clearly the relation of ideas to one another and to the
point.

EXERCISE VII
Criticize the following compositions for unity and coherence:

I am not a very good mechanic myself, but I can explain some work
that I have seen done in a room across from Symphony Hall. The man's
name is Mr. Bryant. He does almost all the repairing for my teacher and
the Symphony players. He is a very skilled artist in making a violin.
Personally, 1 always take my violin up there to be mended. Most of my
spare time when I go for my lesson Tuesday and Friday is spent in Mr.
Bryant's private workshop.

The first thing a violin has to have is sound. Where will the sound
come from ? Tlie music will come from hollow wood. He takes a piece
of foreign wood if he is to make a high-priced violin, such as a six hundred
dollar one. He first spoke-shaves this wood very carefully, using a vers
fine blade on his spoke-shavc. He next planes this wood very fine, and
then spoke-shaves a beautiful round hack. This is the underneath piece
which is the whole support of the violin. The next thing to make is the

COMPOSITION ig

upper part. This part is very hard to make. A piece of the very same
wood is used. This piece is planed flat, but slanting down a little. He
now takes a piece of wood and makes it round and about two inches
thick. This he glues between the upper and the lower parts. This is
how the violin is hollow. The next and last part is to put on the part
which holds the pegs. This is made with a fancy piece of round wood.
All these parts of wood are put in a vise and let dry.

In making this arrow four things are needed: (i) a cork stopper of
good size; (2) a long nail that, when driven through the stopper, will
stick out a half inch or more ; (3) a good wide feather ; and (4) good
common sense. In selecting the nail, pick out a good sharp one and push
it through the center. Then get a wide feather. I obtained mine from a
feather-duster, or, if a person near you keeps hens, get two hen feathers, as
they have sharper points than the feathers from a feather-duster. When
the nail is in place, make a hole right above the head and put the point of
the feather into it good and tight. Take the arrow, which is now made,
and place your first finger over the head of the nail, draw back your arm,
and it will stick in better if you just toss it, and your arrow is fini.shed.

I got up one morning and looked out of the window to see what the
weather was. The paper had predicted rain, but, if any had fallen through
the night, all traces of it were gone, and I looked upon a clear blue sky
and bright sun.

When I went out of doors, the singing of the locust in the field, the
sound of the mowing machines on the neighboring hill, the hot wind that
met me as I came out, the hot sun that beat unmercifully on me as I went
to get the mail, told me better than words can express that the day would
be extremely hot.

The abbe then showed Dantes the sketch he had made for their
escape. It consisted of a plan of his own cell and that of Dantes, with the
corridor which united them. In this passage he proposed to form a
tunnel such as is employed in mines ; this tunnel would conduct the two
prisoners immediately beneath the gallery where the sentry kept watch :
once there, a large excavation would be made, and one of the flagstones

20 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

with which the gallery was paved be so completely loosened that at the
desired moment it would give way beneath the soldier's feet, who, falling
into the excavation below, would be immediately bound and gagged, ere,
stunned by the effect of his fall, he had power to offer any resistance.
The prisoners were then to make their way through one of the gallery win-
dows and to let themselves down from the outer walls by means of the
abbe's ladder of cords. The eyes of Dantes sparkled with joy and he
rubbed his hands with delight at the idea of a plan so simple, yet appar-
ently so certain to succeed. — The Count of Monte-Cristo, Dumas.

EXERCISE Vm

A. Write a composition on a point suggested by any of the following
subjects :

1 . Paper-making.

2. True sportsmanship.
3- Famous singers.

4. The practical value of the telephone.

5. Gymnastics.

6. Recent inventions.

7. A country auction.

8. Experimenting in physics.

9. Adventurous trips.

10. Milking.

1 1 . An afternoon's work.

B. In your composition :

1. What words suggest the subject and the point to be made?

2. What order of details have you used?

3. In what way is your final sentence a true conclusion?

4. What words help to make evident the relation of details to one

another and to the point?

C. Examine your work to see that you have expressed your ideas
accurately, that you have put the right mark of punctuation at the end of
each sentence, that you have used correct spelling and grammar.

D. Deliver before your class a four-minute talk on another point sug-
gested by this list of subjects.

I. What criticism did the class make on your talk?

Emphasis, or Mass. — A composition may be a true unit
and yet fail to impress the person addressed because the ar-

COMPOSITION 21

rangement and the expression of the ideas are not those best
fitted to bring out the point. If a composition is to catch
and to hold the attention of the person addressed, the im-
portant ideas must be made emphatic.

There are four ways of giving emphasis to important ideas.
First, they may be put into important places. The most im-
portant places in a composition are, naturally, the beginning
and the end : the beginning, because the first thing heard or
read is likely to catch the attention of the person addressed ;
the end, because the last thing heard or read is Hkely to be
longest remembered. Second, ideas may be arranged in the
order of increasing force ; i.e., in the order of climax. Third,
important ideas may be developed at greater length than
other ideas in the composition. Fourth, important ideas may
be expressed in clear, simple, vivid words that in themselves
catch and hold the attention.

Read the following selection, noticing how the deserved-
ness of the impeachment of Warren Hastings is emphasized
by the use of a climactic arrangement of ideas so that each
additional statement increases both the number and the im-
portance of the people whom Hastings has injured and the
seriousness of the injury he has inflicted :

... I impeach Warren Hastings of high crimes and misdemeanors.
I impeach him in the name of the Commons"' House of Parliament, whose
trust he has betrayed. I impeach him in the name of the English nation,
whose ancient honor he has sullied. I impeach him in the name of the
people of India, whose rights he has trodden under foot, and whose coun-
try he has turned into a desert. Lastly, in the name of human nature
itself, in the name of both sexes, in the name of every age, in the name of
every rank, I impeach the common enemy and oppressor of all I

— The Impeachment of Warren Hastings, Ed.mund Burke.

In the following selection, notice how the effectiveness of
the sermon is emphasized by the climactic arrangement of

2 2 PRACTICAL ENGLISH CUMPUiSlTlUN

the ideas which express the results of the sermon upon
Franklin :

... I happened soon after to attend one of his [Mr. Whitefield's]
sermons, in the course of which I perceived he intended to finish with a
collection and I silently resolved he should get nothing from me. I had
in my pocket a handful of copper money, three or four silver dollars, and
five pistoles in gold. As he proceeded 1 began to soften and concluded
to give the coppers. Another stroke of his oratory made me ashamed of
that and determined me to give the silver : and he finished so admirably,
that I emptied my pocket wholly into the collector's dish, gold and all.

— Autobiogrcip/iy, Franklin.

Read the following selection, noticing how the difference
in the amount of space given to the two travelers emphasizes
the difference in their importance :

Doesn^t anybody either get in or out of this train .'' Miss Gregory
wondered indignantly, and then composed herself swiftly to the incurious
and semi-torpid aspect proper to travel in the more civilized lands. The
tall station master was opening the door of her compartment to admit a
couple of travelers. Miss Gregory, with her hands in her lap, lifted her
eyes slowly to inspect them as they took their seats opposite to her.

The station master slammed the door and the train resumed its spas-
modic progress. When it was clear of the station. Miss Gregory looked
up again. One of her fellow travelers was plainly a maid, a servant : it was
the other whom she found interesting. She was a woman still short of
thirty years of age, dressed with an extreme simplicity, and she showed to
the light of the overhead lamp a thin, painful, desperate face. She leaned
back against the cushions as if she were shrinking from an attack, and,
though she held her features rigid, her fingers were fidgeting in a nervous
agony. Her attitude, her expression, spoke of an overmastering terror ; the
woman was tense as a fiddle-string with fear and fatigue.

Miss Gregory had forgotten to hide her inspection of her and found
suddenly that her gaze was being returned.

— The Adventures of Miss Gregory^ Percival Gibbon.

Read the following composition, noticing how the placing
and the wording of the ideas emphasizes the sacredness of

COMPOSITION 23

the cause for which the dead who fell at Gettysburg sacrificed
their lives :

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this
continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposi-
tion 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 dedi-
cated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield 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. But in a larger sense, we cannot
dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave
men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our
power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember,
what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us,
the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they
who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to
be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these
honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they
gave the last full measure of devotion ; that we here highly resolve that
these dead shall not have died in vain ; that this nation, under God, shall
have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the
people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

— The Gettysburg Address^ Lincoln.

SUMMARY V

Emphasis is the principle of composition which requires that important
ideas be so placed and so expressed as to catch and to hold the attention.
To conform to the principle of emphasis :

1. Put important ideas in important places.

2. Arrange ideas in the order of cUmax.

3. Give to ideas an amount of time or space proportionate to

their importance.

4. Express ideas in words which in themselves catch and hold the

attention.

EXERCISE IX

Show how emphasis is gained in each of the following compositions :

24 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

Into the room walked a man of fifty, with a long, pale, pock-marked
face, with long gray hair and a sparse reddish beard. He was of such vast
height, that, in order to pass through the door, he was obliged to bend
not only his head but his whole body. He wore a ragged garment which
resembled both a kaftan and a cassock : in his hand he carried a husfe
staff. As he entered the room, he smote the floor with it with all his
might ; opening his mouth and wrinkling his brows, he laughed in a ter-
rible and unnatural manner. He was blind of one eye ; and the white of
that eye hopped about incessantly and imparted to his already homely
countenance a still more repulsive expression.

"Aha! Fve found you!" he shouted, running up to Volodya with little
steps ; he seized his head and began a careful examination of his crown.
Then, with a perfectly serious expression, he left him, walked up to the
table and began to blow under the oilcloth, and to make the sign of the
cross over it. " 0-oh, it's a pity! O-oh, it^s sad! The dear children . . .
will fly away," he said in a voice quivering with tears, gazing feelingly at
Volodya; and he began to wipe away the tears, which were actually falling,
with his sleeve. *

His voice was coarse and hoarse, his movements hasty and rough ; his
talk was silly and incoherent (he never used any pronouns) ; but his in-
tonations were so touching, and his grotesque yellow face assumed at times
such a frankly sorrowful expression, that, in listening to him, it was impos-
sible to refrain from a feeling of mingled pity, fear, and grief.

This was the fool and pilgrim, Grischa. — Childhood^ ToLSTOl.

It was already dusk when we reached home. Mamma seated herself at
the piano, and we children fetched our paper, pencils, and paints, and
settled ourselves about the round table at our drawing. I had only blue
paint ; nevertheless, I undertook to depict the hunt. After representing,
in a very lively style, a blue boy mounted on a blue horse, and some blue
dogs, I was not quite sure whether I could paint a blue hare, and ran to
papa in his study to take advice on the matter. Papa was reading; and
in answer to my question, " Are there any blue hares? " he said, without
raising his head, "Yes, my dear, there are." I went back to the round
table and painted a blue hare ; then I found it necessary to turn the blue
hare into a bush. The bush did not please me either; I turned it into a

COMPOSITION

tree, and the tree into a stack of hay, and the haystack into a cloud ; and
finally I blotted my whole paper so with blue paint that I tore it up in
vexation and went off to doze on the long sofa-chair.

— Childhood, Tolstoi.

It matters very little what immediate spot may have been the birthplace
of such a man as Washington. No people can claim, no country can
appropriate, him. The boon of Providence to the human race, his fame
is eternity and his dwelling-place creation. — Everett.

Must I budge? Must I observe you? Must I stand and crouch under
your testy humor? — Julius Ccssar, Shakespeare.

CHAPTER II
ORAL COMPOSITION

Practically, the form of composition in which skill is most
widely useful is oral composition, because speech is the great
medium of intercourse in both the work and the social Ufe of
the world. The need of skill in handling formal oral com-
positions like talks, addresses, lectures, etc., is so evident that
the speaker naturally chooses his point with care and does
his best to develop it so as to interest and to impress his
hearers. In the less formal compositions of everyday hfe,
however, like the remarks which make up the casual business
conversation or the give and take of social talk, the need of
skill is so disregarded that too often the speaker gives no
thought as to just what point he shall make or just how he
shall make it. He speaks at random, leaves out necessary de-
tails, puts in unimportant details, wanders from the point, or
expresses himself in slipshod language. Yet it is in this less
formal oral composition that skill in construction is of greatest
importance to most people, because of the large part the abil-
ity to speak effectively plays in business and social success.

The kinds of informal oral composition in which skill is
most needed are ordinary conversations, answers to questions,
explanations, the giving of directions, and short reports.

Conversation. — Read the following conversation, noticing
that Mrs. Tulliver, first, by failing to suggest the point of her
call, second, by introducing details in no way connected with
the point, and, third, by using the wrong set of details, even
though they bear on the point, not only fails to accomplish

ORAL COMPOSITION 27

the purpose of her visit, but ruins her cause by bringing
about the direct opposite of what she set out to accomplish :

"Mrs. Tulliver, I think ? " said Mr. Wakem.

"Yes, sir; Miss Elizabeth Dodson as was."

" Pray be seated. You have some business with rae?"

" Well, sir, yes," said Mrs. Tulliver, beginning to feel alarmed at her
own courage, now she was really in presence of the formidable man, and
reflecting that she had not settled with herself how she should begin. Mr.
Wakem felt in his waistcoat pockets, and looked at her in silence.

" I hope, sir/' she began at last, — "I hope, sir, youVe not a-thinking as
/ bear you any ill-will because o' my husband's losing his lawsuit, and the
bailies being put in, and the linen being sold — oh dear! — for I wasn't
brought up in that way. I'm sure you remember my father, sir, for he was
close friends with Squire Darleigh, and we allays went to the dances there,
the Miss Dodsons, — nobody could be more looked on, — and justly, for
there was four of us, and you're quite aware as Mrs. Glegg and Mrs. Deane
are my sisters. And as for going to law and losing money, and having
sales before you're dead, I never saw anything o' that before I was married,
nor for a long while after. And I'm not to be answerable for my bad
luck i' marrying out o' my own family into one where the goings-on was
different. And as for being drawn in V abuse you as other folks abuse
you, sir, t/iat I niver was. and nobody can say it of me."

Mrs. Tulliver shook her head a little, and looked at the hem of her
pocket handkerchief.

" Pve no doubt of what you say, Mrs. Tulliver." said Mr. Wakem, with
cold politeness. " But you have some question to ask me ?"

"Well, sir, yes. But that's what I've said to myself, — Pve said you'd
had some natVal feeling ; and as for my husband, as hasn't been himself
for this two months, I'm not a-defending him, in no way, for being so hot
about th' erigation, — not but what there's worse men, for he never
wronged nobody of a shilling nor a penny, not willingly ; and as for his
fieriness and lawing. what could I do ? And him struck as if it was with
death when he got the letter as said you'd the hold upo' the land. But 1
can't believe but what you'll behave as a gentleman."

"What does all this mean, Mrs. Tulliver?" said Mr. Wakem, rather
sharply. "What do you want to ask me?"

"Why, sir, if you'll be so good,'' said Mrs. Tulliver. starting a little, and
speaking more hurriedly. — " if you'll he so good not to buy the mill an'

28 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

the land, — the land wouldn't so much matter, only my husband 'uU be like
mad at your having it."

Something like a new thought flashed across Mr. Wakem's face as he
said, '*Who told you I meant to buy it?"

"Why, sir, it's none o' my inventing, and I should never ha' thought of
it; for my husband, as ought to know about the law, he allays used to say
as lawyers had never no call to buy anything, — either lands or houses, —
for they allays got 'em into their hands other ways. An' I should think
that 'ud be the way with you, sir ; and I niver said as you'd be the man to
do contrairy to that."

" Ah, well, who was it that did say so? " said Wakem, opening his desk,
and moving things about, with the accompaniment of an almost inaudible
whistle.

" Why, sir, it was Mr. Glegg and Mr. Deane, as have all the manage-
ment, and Mr. Deane thinks as Guest & Co. 'ud buy the mill and let Mr.
Tulliver work it for 'em, if you didn't bid for it and raise the price. And
it 'ud be such a thing for my husband to stay where he is, if he could get
his Hving; for it was his father's before him, the mill was, and his grand-
father built it, though I wasn't fond o' the noise of it, when first I was mar-
ried, for there was no mills in our family, — not the Dodsons', — and if Fd
known as the mills had so much to do with the law, it wouldn't have been
me as 'ud have been the first Dodson to marry one ; but I went into it
blindfold, that I did, erigation and everything."

"What! Guest & Co. would keep the mill in their own hands, I sup-
pose, and pay your husband wages? "

" Oh, dear, sir, it's hard to think of," said poor Mrs. Tulliver, a little
tear making its way, "as my husband should take wage. But it 'ud look
more like what used to be, to stay at the mill than to go anywhere else ;
and if you'll only think — if you was to bid for the mill and buy it, my
husband might be struck worse than he was before, and niver get better
again as he's getting now."

" Well, but if I bought the mill and allowed your husband to act as my
manager in the same way, how then?" said Mr. Wakem.

" Oh, sir, I doubt he could niver be got to do it, not if the very mill stood
still to beg and pray of him. For your name's like poison to him, it's so as
never was ; and he looks upon it as you've been the ruin of him all along,
ever since you set the law on him about the road through the meadow, —
that's eight year ago, and he's been going on ever since — as I've allays
told him he was wrong — "

ORAL COMPOSITION ' 29

" He's a pig-headed, foul-mouthed fool!" burst out Mr. Wakem, forget-
ting himself.

"Oh, dear, sir!" said Mrs. Tulliver, frightened at a result so different
from the one she had fixed her mind on ; "I wouldn't wish to contradict
you, but it's like enough he's changed his mind with this illness, — he's
forgot a many things he used to talk about. And you wouldn't like to
have a corpse on your mind, if he was to die ; and they do say as it's allays
unlucky when Dorlcote Mill changes hands, and the water might all run
away, and theji — not as I'm wishing you any ill-luck, sir, for I forgot to
tell you as I remember your wedding as if it was yesterday ; Mrs. Wakem
was a Miss Clint, I know that ; and my boy, as there isn't a nicer, hand-
somer, straighter boy nowhere, went to school with your son — "

Mr. Wakem rose, opened the door, and called to one of his clerks.
"You must excuse me for interrupting you, Mrs. Tulliver; I have busi-
ness that must be attended to ; and I think there is nothing more necessary
to be said."

" But if you would ht2ir it in mind, sir," said Mrs. Tulliver, rising, "and
not run against me and my children ; and I'm not denying Mr. Tulliver's
been in the wrong, but he's been punished enough, and there's worse men,
for it's been giving to other folks has been his fault. He's done nobody
any harm but himself and his family, — the more's the pity, — and I go
and look at the bare shelves every day, and think where all my things used
to stand."

"Yes, yes, I'll bear it in mind," said Mr. Wakem, hastily, looking
towards the open door.

" And if you'd please not to say as I've been to speak to you, for my son
'ud be very angry with me for demeaning myself, I know he would, and
I've trouble enough without being scolded by my children."'

Poor Mrs. Tulliver's voice trembled a little, and she could make no
answer to the attorney's "good morning," but curtsied and walked out in
silence.

"Which day is it that Dorlcote Mill is to be sold? Where's the bill?"
said Mr. Wakem to his clerk when they were alone.

"Next Friday is the day, — Friday at six o'clock."

"Oh, just run to Winship's the auctioneer, and see if he's at home. I
have business for him ; ask him to come up."

Although, when Mr. Wakem entered his office that morning, he had
had no intention of purchasing Dorlcote Mill, his mind was already made
up. Mrs. Tulliver had suggested to him several determining motives, and

30 f'RAcrir\L i:.\(;lish c omi-osi i iov

his mental glance was very rapid ; he was one of those men who can be
prompt without being rash, because their motives nm in fixed tracks, and
they have no need to reconcile conflicting aims.

— The Mill on the Floss ^ George Eliot.

Success in Conversation. — The person who wishes to make
a success of his share in a conversation, whether business or
social, must at once do one of two things: (i) he must get
the trend of a conversation which has already been started,
or (2) he must give trend to conversation which he starts
himself. This done, he must see to it: (i) that he uses
details which will make his point; (2) that what he says is
always an advance toward the point of the conversation ;
(3) that it fits into the conversation at the place where he puts
it; (4) that he expresses himself in language so accurate and
so clear that he cannot fail to be understood.

For example, in the conversation in the following narrative
notice that Mr. Jefferson in his reply to the French Minister
made his point, Franklin's worth, by means of two well-
chosen details expressed in accurate and simple language:

"You replace Dr. Franklin, I hear," said the French iMinister, Count
de Vergennes, to Mr. JeiTerson, who had been sent to Paris to relieve our
most popular representative. "I succeed him; no man can replace him,"
was the felicitous. reply of the man who became highly esteemed in the
most polite court of Europe. — Pushing to tJic Front, O. S. Mardex.

The Anecdote. — As a whole, the preceding narrative is an
anecdote ; i.e., a short, pithy, pointed narration of a real
happening. It develops briefly and pointedly one of the
characteristics for which Mr. Jefferson was noted — social
tact. It may, therefore, be used to give point to a discussion
of Mr. Jefferson's character, or it may serve in a conversa-
tion or an address to illustrate the effective use of graceful,
courteous speech.

Because of the double significance of the anecdote, this

ORAL COMPOSITION 31

form of narrative is often used to give point to a conversation
or a public speech.

In the following anecdote, notice the directness and the
courtesy with which Mr. Jefferson at the same time gave a
reprimand and a lesson in politeness to his grandson :

President Jefferson was one day riding with his grandson, when they
met a slave, who took off his hat and bowed. The President returned the
salutation by raising his hat, but the grandson ignored the civility of the
negro. " Thomas," said the grandfather, '' do you permit a slave to be
more of a gentleman than yourself ? "

— Pushing to the Front, O. S. Marden.

Read the following anecdote, noticing the brevity and the
definiteness with which the double point is made :

A young man went to Socrates to learn oratory. On being introduced,
he talked so incessantly that Socrates asked for double fees. " Why
charge me double ? "" asked the young fellow. '' Because,'' said the orator,
" I must teach you two sciences : the one to hold your tongue, the other
how to speak." — Architects of Fate ^ O. S. Marden.

In the following anecdote, notice the quickness of wit with
which Henry Clay turned the ridiculousness of the accident
against the institution :

Many years ago Henry Clay visited Princeton and was asked by Presi-
dent McLean (Johnnie, as he was famiharly and popularly called) to sit
down in the president's study. The furniture was not elaborate in those
days, nor did it consist of the most solid material. Mr. Clay sat down,
and the rickety old chair which was proffered him sank beneath his weight.
The statesman, rising from the floor, said solemnly, '' Dr. McLean, I hope
that the other chairs of this institution are on a more permanent founda-
tion." — Cooper {The Century Magazine'),

EXERCISE I

1. Repeat an interesting conversation that you have heard recently.

2. Tell an anecdote about a well-known author, a famous statesman, a
noted musician, a brilliant general, a successful business man.

32 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

In each of your talks :

a. Did the class get the point ?

b. Did the class get the impression that you meant to give?

c. What did the class think of your presentation of details ?

d. What did the class think of your choice of language ?

Answering Questions. — The person who is answering ques-
tions must give close attention to each question and be sure
to take in its meaning; then (i) he must consider the ques-
tion to see what is required ; (2) he must mass his knowledge
on that point; (3) he must frame his answer in accurate
English, so clear that it camtot be misunderstood.

EXERCISE II

State to your class answers to the following questions :

1. What are the political parties in the United States at present, and
what is the platform of each ?

2. In what ways do the business occupations in your locality depend
upon the natural resources of your part of the country ?

3. Why is the United States Government preserving the forests ?

4. What steps are being taken in your community to create or to pre-
serve public parks and playgrounds ?

5. What are the advantages of public parks and playgrounds ?

6. What are the objections to public parks and playgrounds ?

7. What have strikes done for the laboring man?

8. How do you play hockey ?

9. What are the attractions in the favorite sport of your locality ?

10. What important discoveries have been made in the last five years ?
What is the practical advantage of each discovery ?

1 1 . What is the equipment for wireless telegraphy ?

12. How has wireless telegraphy affected business and social life ?

13. What was your last scheme for entertaining your friends and how
did it work out ?

14. What is the most effective labor-saving device used in your locality,
and what are its advantages ?

15. What is the practical value of the public library in your town or
locality ?

ORAL COMPOSITION

Explanations. — The person who has to make an explana-
tion must first state exactly what he is to explain ; second,
he must tell clearly, in language so simple that it must be
understood : {a) what the thing is ; or {b) why the thing is
done ; or {c) how the thing is done.

EXERCISE III

1 . Tell what a skee, a snowshoe, a roller skate, a bicycle, or a canoe is,
and tell how it is used.

2. Tell what an elevator is and explain how it is run.

3. Tell how to mend a tire, a harness, or a rudder.

4. Tell how to trim a sail, how to cut down a tree, how to drive a horse,
how to play chess, or how to fly a kite.

5. Tell why a camp fire should be put out before a camp is left alone.

6. Tell why it is harmful to push in a crowd.

7. Tell how a cranberry bog or a rice field is prepared and how the
crop is cared for.

8. Tell how sea walls, dikes, or irrigation systems are constructed and
used.

Giving Directions. — The person who has to give direc-
tions is called upon to give them in one of two ways : either
in the form of general directions to an expert who plans
out details for himself, or in the form of exact orders to
the untrained individual who can be expected to execute
only such details as are given to him. In giving orders to
people not experts, a person must know just what he wants
done and just what steps are necessary to accomplish it; he
must give as few commands as possible ; he must emphasize
those details the omission of which will produce an unsatis-
factory result ; he must use the language which the person
addressed canjiot fail to U7idersta7id.

EXERCISE IV

Give to an untrained person directions for managing a double-runner,
for making some fancy figure in skating, for rowing a boat, for making a

34 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

camp fire, for making butter, for making a trap, for using a kodak, for mak-
ing a pattern, for regukiting an oven, for washing china, for taking care of
a pantry, for running a machine, or for setting up apparatus for an
experiment.

Reports. — The person who is to make an oral report of
something that he has read, of something that he has heard,
or of something that he has investigated, must first get a
clear and true impression of the point made by the author
or of the pith of the matter investigated ; he must then
select the essential details ; i.e., those which give the true
impression of the thing to be reported on ; and he must
finally decide (i) upon the order in which these details must
be told to convey this true impression, (2) upon the pro-
portion of time to be given to each detail, and (3) upon the
words which will make the true impression vivid.

EXERCISE V

1. Summarize for your class in EngHsh the points made in the last
recitation of your class in history.

2. Give to your English chiss an account of a man who has been a
popular hero within the last five years.

3. Make clear to your class the nature and the practical value of some
recent invention that you have seen used.

4. Give to your class an abstract of some poem that has been assigned
to you for careful study.

5. Tell briefly the last long story that you read for pleasure.

6. Tell why your favorite magazine is worth reading.

7. Explain clearly to your class the purpose and the details of your last
experiment in botany, zoology, physics, or chemistry.

8. Explain the construction of such a bottle as the Thermos bottle.

9. Criticize for unity, coherence, and emphasis and for choice of words
your own recitations and the recitations of your classmates in .subjects
other than English.

Translation. — A somewhat different kind of oral com-
position, and one that is often handled very unskillfully, is

ORAL CDAII'OSTTrON

the translating a foreign language into English. If such
work is to be well done, the person who is translating must
first get the meaning of what he is to translate and must
then express the ideas in the English words and in the
English constructions that will give the same meaning and
the same impression as the original.

EXERCISE VI

Put into idiomatic English the following class translations :

1. The sick woman raised her head a little vividly. Madame Richard
possessed a voice singularly soft ; the governess of Wanda, simply but
correctly dressed, had a great air of distinction. The Princess who had
accepted the hand of her sister-in-law, to avoid all bustle, had not been
without inquietude to the subject. The rapid examination was very
favorable to Madame Richard. Her face, eyes, all the same might prove
an error; the voice, never.

2. When people are poor they are naturally found with the poor. But if
Wanda studied and played with the little butcher's daughter she did not
savor the shop. It will be a pity, I believe, that she forget her first vears.
When people are rich they are all naturally to be charitable, but when
people have seen misery near them they are charitable with grace.

3. It was a large season of working in the fields and Peter was very glad
to prove that he had not been inuseful to the farmer. He was often very
tired when evening would come, but he ate well, grew visibly stronger,
and everybody was content of him. It would seem to our poor little waif
who had almost died of hunger, whose endless days' journeys of the long
route had exhausted his strength, if not his courage, that he was between
a sort of paradise. He himself came to a great temptation to stay near
those brave people who had welcomed him. Yes! But what would
become to go his great resolutions?

4. It is still at Auvergne who was born, in the year 1768. a man of war
equally known by his courage and by his honesty: Desaix. Desaix, at
the age of twenty-six years, was already general. He took part at the
great wars of the French Revolution against the European allies.

Desaix had an extreme honesty. When they struck the enemies for a
contribution of war, he took nothing for him. and now he was poor himself.
" But," said he, "that which excuses the others is not permitted to those

36 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

who command the soldiers." So was he admired by all and esteemed by
his enemies. In Germany, where he made a long war, the German peas-
ants called him the ''Good General.^' In- Orient, in the war of Egypt,
where he followed Bonaparte, the Mussulmans who inhabited the country
had surnamed him the "Just Sultan," that is to say, the "Just Chief."

5. Caesar first, on the account of the great number of men, and on ac-
count of their eminent reputation for valor, decided to put off the battle ;
regularly, nevertheless, it was proved what their real eminence in valor
was and what our men dared.

The place in front of the camp was suitable and fit by character to draw
up the line of battle. But this hill, where the camp was placed, was
stretched out very little from the rising plain, facing the enemy greatly in
a lateral way, extending over as much space as the line of battle could
occupy, and on both sides of the flank was holding the sloping part.

Delivery. — A speaker may have planned excellent things
to say and yet receive very little attention because he de-
livers his remarks poorly. Much of the effect of spoken
English depends upon the general bearing of the speaker,
the tones of his voice, and his manner of pronouncing
and enunciating his words. If the speaker is to hold the
attention and the interest of his listeners, first of all he
must give himself to his listeners ; i.e., he must make them
feel that he wants to talk to them, that he has something to
say that he knows will interest them. Next, he must be
careful as to his position. If standing, he must stand firm,
with his weight thrown forward toward his hearers, and with
his body at ease under full control. If sitting, he must sit
up without lolling, throw his weight forward, be ready to rise,
if necessary, at a moment's notice. Whether giving a formal
or an informal speech, he should look straight at his hearers
and talk to them. He must modulate his voice to suit the
subject, the audience, and the size of the room ; but, whatever
he does, he must use voice enough to make himself heard.
He must be careful to throw his voice /// and over to the
farthest part of the room, for only in this way can he be sure

ORAL COMPOSITION 37

of being heard everywhere in the room. He must remember
that it is often not volume of tone, but management of tone,
that will make him understood. Screaming is often deafen-
ing rather than clear. Therefore, he must not only pro-
nounce words correctly, but he must enunciate them with
such care that every sound in them can be heard by his
farthest hearer. He must speak clearly all final consonants,
taking especial pains with k, ks, t, st, sts, g, ing, gth, and t/is.
He must give to vowels their correct sounds, taking care to
open his mouth to let his voice come out. A speaker should
not hold his jaws stiff and try to enunciate without moving
them. That is a feat which no one can accomplish. By ob-
serving such simple rules of elocution as these, any person
may present effectively what he has to say.

SUMMARY

Any one who is ever to become an easy, accurate, interesting talker
must keep himself constantly in training in three ways: first, he must
choose and mass his ideas so as to bring out a point ; second, he must
use clear, grammatical language ; third, as he speaks, he must hold him-
self well, think what he means to say, and enunciate every word clearly.

CHAPTER III
DESCRIPTION

Description is the kind of speech or of writing that aims
to give an exact impression of a thing that the speaker or the
writer has either perceived or imagined.

Whatever may be seen, heard, smelled, felt, or tasted, i.e.,
whatever may be perceived through the senses, is material
for description. A description must take one of two forms
according to its purpose: it must be either (i) artistic de-
scription, or (2) scientific, or enumerative, description.

Artistic Description. — Artistic description is description
which aims to arouse in the listener or the reader the same
feeling that the object described would arouse. Most artistic
descriptions are word pictures of landscapes, of settlements,
of buildings or parts of buildings, or of people.

Selection and Characterization of Details. — Read the fol-
lowing description, forming the picture as you read :

Immediately below him the hillside fell away, clean and cleared, for
fifteen hundred feet, where a little village of stone-walled houses, with
roofs of beaten earth, clung to the steep tilt. All around it the tiny ter-
raced fields lay out like aprons of patchwork on the knees of the mountain,
and cows no bigger than beetles grazed between the smooth stone circles
of the threshing floors. Looking across the valley, the eye was deceived
by the size of things and could not at first realize that what seemed to be
low scrub on the opposite mountain flank, was in truth a forest of hundred-
toot pines. Purun Bliagat saw an eagle swoop across the gigantic hollow,
but the great bird dwindled to a dot ere it was halfway over. A few
bands of scattered clouds strung up and down the valley, catching on a
shoulder of the hills or rising up and dying out when they were level with
the head of the pass. — The Miracle of Purun lihagat, Kipling.

DESCRIPTION

The selection gives a view in a high mountainous coun-
try by picturing the details prominent in the view in their
right relation to one another and in the order in which they
were noticed by the observer. Each of these main details,
i.e., the hillside, a village with its surrounding fields, the
valley, an eagle, and bands of scattered clouds, is brought
out by those of its characteristics which catch the attention
of the observer. For instance, the little village is pictured
by means of its " stone-walled houses with roofs of beaten
earth " ; the fields are pictured as ** aprons of patchwork,"
and the threshing floors as ** smooth stone circles." As each
new detail is given, its position is carefully suggested : the
little village ''clung to the steep tilt"; "the tiny terraced
fields lay out all rou7id the village " ; the eagle " swooped
across the valley." The details come into view from near to
far, the order in which they are naturally noticed by any
observer looking at the prospect from the point of view indi-
cated by the words, " Immediately below him the hillside fell
away, clean and cleared, for fifteen hundred feet," i.e., from a
spot on the hillside high above the view.

The Main Impression. — Every detail in the description
helps to bring out the main impression given by the view —
a sense of immense distance. From a point of view fifteen
hundred feet above a settlement only such details can be
seen as are in some way conspicuous at a distance. The
only details of the village and its surroundings which are
given are the stone walls and the dirt roofs of the houses,
the varied color of the fields, the moving cows, the shape
and the material of the threshing floors. From a point
of view far distant from the thing seen, only enormous
masses or enormous areas are noticeable. The only detail
noticeable across the wide valley is a forest of hundred-foot
pines. An object moving directly away from a point of view

40 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

gradually diminishes in size until it becomes lost in the dis-
tance. In this picture, the eagle, swooping across the valley,
dwindles to a dot before it is halfway over.

Summary. — This word picture has been made by using
the details which give the main impression of the view, by
picturing them by means of their most prominent character-
istics, by placing them in their right relation to one another,
and by giving them in the order in w^hich they naturally
come into sight from the point of view of the observer.

EXERCISE I

Picture the following scenes :

The road lay through the bleak countryside of the salt marshes which
stretched themselves away toward the sea, dotted here and there with hay-
cocks, and crossed in wavering lines by the inlets and ditches, filled now
with grayish ice, that was sinking and cracking as the tide ran out. The
marsh grass was wind-swept and beaten until it looked as soft and brown
as fur ; the wind had free course over it, and it looked like a deserted bit
of the world. — Deephaven^ Jewett.

The school was a long, cold-looking house, one story high, with a few
straggling out-buildings behind and a barn and stable adjoining.

— Nicholas Nkkleby, Dickens.

Genestas seated himself in a corner by the fireless hearth. A sublime
symbol met his eyes on the high mantel-shelf above him — a colored
plaster cast of the Virgin with the Child Jesus in her arms. Bare earth
made the flooring of the cottage. It had been beaten level in the first in-
stance, but in course of time it had grown rough and uneven, so that
though it was clean, its ruggedness was not unlike that of the magnified
rind of an orange. A sabot filled with salt, a frying pan, and a large
kettle hung inside the chimney. The farther end of the room was com-

DESCRIPTION

pletely filled by a four-post bedstead, with a scalloped valance for decora-
tion. The walls were black ; there was an opening to admit the light
above the worm-eaten door; and here and there were a few stools con-
sisting of rough blocks of beech wood, each set upon three wooden legs.
A hutch for bread, a large wooden dipper, a bucket and some earthen milk-
pans, a spinning wheel on the top of the bread-hutch, and a few wicker
mats for draining cheeses formed the remaining ornaments and household
furniture of the wretched dwelling.

— The Countryside and the Man, Balzac.

Ere twilight I examined John's room. It was a good deal changed;
the furniture was improved ; a score of ingenious little contrivances made
the tiny attic into a cozy bed-chamber. One corner was full of shelves
laden with books, chiefly of a scientific and practical nature. . . . He
evidently still practiced his old mechanical arts. There was lying in the
window a telescope — the cylinder made of pasteboard — into which the
lenses were ingeniously fitted. A rough telescope stand of common deal
stood on the ledge of the roof, from which the field of view must have been
satisfactory enough to the young astronomer. Other fragments of skillful
handiwork, chiefly meant for machinery on a Lilliputian scale, were strewn
about the floor ; and on a chair, just as he had left it that morning, stood a
loom, very small in size, but perfect in its neat workmanship, with a few
threads already woven, making some fabric not so very unlike cloth.

— John Halifax^ Gentleman^ Mulock.

It was a bitter cold morning. The snow, which had been falling
heavily all night, lay in great drifts on the eaves of the houses and almost
covered the fences, while the cutting north wind brought a sort of hail
with it that made one shiver. Everybody in the little village of Wynn
seemed cautious of \enturing forth ; the very houses looked sleepy and
cold in the semi-darkness of half-past seven o'clock on a December
morning. The low wooden tavern, with its yellow doors and green blinds,
seemed to be the only place where any life was stirring, and even that was
confined to a small group of three people, btanding huddled together in a
corner of the piazza which was most sheltered from the wind and hail.

— Marjorie''s Quests J. T. GouLD.

42 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

In each description :

1. State the point of view of the observer.

2. Name the chief impression given by the scene.

3. Name the details that help to give this impression and tell the

characteristics by which they are pictured.

4. Tell how the position of each detail is indicated.

THEME I

1. Describe some landscape which you know as it looks after a snow-
storm.

2. Describe the same landscape on a summer day.

3. Describe a room which gives a pleasant impression to a chance
observer.

4. Describe a room which gives an unpleasant impression to a chance
observer.

In each description :

a. How have you indicated your point of view?

b. What chief impression have you tried to suggest ?

c. How do the details you have used suggest this chief impression?
d. How have you indicated the position of the details ?

The Right Development of Details. — It is very important
that whatever is put into an artistic description shall suggest
the chief impression which the object described makes upon
an observer. Sometimes a detail in itself suggests the
chief impression, as flame suggests fire, icicle , winter cold,
marshy low, damp ground ; but, more often, a detail suggests
a chief impression, not in itself, but through some character-
istics which it has under particular circumstances. When
this is the case, it is important that the details be depicted
by the characteristics which together produce the chief im-
pression.

Picture the following scene :

It was high noon, and the rays of the sun, that hung poised directly
overhead in an intolerable white glory, fell straight as plummets upon the
roofs and streets of Guadalajara. The adobe walls and sparse brick side-

DESCRIPTION 43

walks of the drowsing town radiated the heat in an oily, quivering shimmer.
The leaves of the eucalyptus trees around the Plaza drooped motionless,
limp, and relaxed under the scorching, searching blaze. The shadows of
these trees had shrunk t6 their smallest circumference, contracting close
about the trunks. The shade had dwindled to the breadth of a mere line.
The sun was everywhere. The heat exhaling from brick and plaster and
metal met the heat that steadily descended blanketwise and smothering
from the pale, scorched sky. Only the lizards — they lived in chinks of
the crumbling adobe and in interstices of the sidewalk — remained without,
motionless, as if stuffed, their eyes closed to mere slits, basking, stupefied
with heat. At long intervals the prolonged drone of an insect developed
out of the silence, vibrated a moment in a soothing, somnolent, long note,
then trailed slowly into the quiet again. Somewhere in the interior of one
of the adobe houses a guitar snored and hummed sleepily. On the roof
of the hotel a group of pigeons cooed incessantly with subdued, liquid
murmurs, very plaintive ; a cat, perfectly white, with a pink nose and thin,
pink lips, dozed complacently on a fence rail, full in the sun. In a corner
of the Plaza three hens wallowed in the baking hot dust, their wings
fluttering, clucking comfortably.

And this was all. A Sunday repose pervaded the whole moribund
town, peaceful, profound. A certain pleasing numbness, a sense of grate-
ful enervation exhaled from the scorching plaster. There was no move-
ment, no sound of human business. The faint hum of the insect, the
intermittent murmur of the guitar, the mellow complainings of the pigeons,
the prolonged purr of the white cat, the contented cluckmg of the hens —
all these noises mingled together to form a faint, drowsy bourdon, pro-
longed, stupefying, suggestive of an infinite quiet, of a calm, complacent
life, centuries old, lapsing gradually to its end under the gorgeous loneli-
ness of a cloudless, pale blue sky and the steady fire of an interminable sun.

— The Octopus^ Norris.

The chief impression given by this scene is the intensity
of heat at high noon in Guadalajara. Noon in Guadalajara
is suggested by picturing details which are true only of a
tropical noontime: viz., (i) sun-rays poised directly overhead,
intolerably white, faUing straight as plummets; (2) shadows,
no broader than a line, contracted close to the tree trunks
that cast them; (3) the sunlight extending and penetrating

44 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

everywhere. The Jicat of this high noon is vividly suggested,
first, by picturing things and animals as they look or sound
when affected by great heat ; second, by showing the effect
of the heated town on the spirit of the observer. The adobe
walls and brick sidewalks quiver and shimmer with heat ; heat
radiates from brick and plaster and metal and is covered by a
smothering blanket of heat from above ; the eucalyptus leaves
droop, limp and motionless with heat ; the lizards lie motion-
less as if stuffed, stupefied by heat ; the note of the insect is
the long, rasping drone that vibrates through the silence of
heat; a guitar snores and hums with the sleepiness that heat
brings ; the cooing of the pigeons is the continuous, plaintive
cooing of heat ; the dozing cat basks in the heat ; three hens
take their comfort wallowing in the heated dust.

The effect of the town upon the spirit of the observer is
that of " Sunday repose, peaceful, profound." This idea of
repose is developed by giving that element of repose con-
tributed by each detail of the picture. The scorching plaster
"exhaled a certain pleasing numbness, a sense of grateful
enervation " ; the listlessness of living things resulted in " no
movement, no sound of human business " ; the various sounds
produced by the insect, the guitar, the pigeons, the cat, the
hens "mingled together to form a faint, drowsy bourdon, pro-
longed, stupefying, suggestive of an infinite quiet, of a calm,
complacent life, centuries old, lapsing gradually to its end
under the gorgeous loneliness of a cloudless, pale blue sky
and the steady fire of an interminable sun."

In this scene the details which depict noontime in the
tropics are in themselves suggestive of heat, the chief im-
pression given by the scene. The details of the town, how-
ever, adobe walls, brick sidewalks, plaster, metal, eucalyptus
leaves, the note of an insect, a guitar, cooing pigeons, a cat,
three hens, do not of themselves suggest heat. They sug-

DESCRIPTION 45

gest it in this view wholly because of the characteristics that
they have under these conditions. The chief impression given
by a view, then, may be produced in two ways : first, by the
details in themselves ; and, second, by characteristics which
the details have under the special conditions which produce
the chief impression.

It happens that the description of Guadalajara is also an
excellent illustration of a method frequently used to give
vividness to description. The chief impression, heat, is viv-
idly suggested by depicting the effects of which it is the
cause. Objects, both animate and inanimate, are portrayed
by means of characteristics which are the result of great heat.
This method of gaining vividness in description is known as
tJic 7netJiod of suggesting cause by portraying effect.

EXERCISE n

Picture the following scenes

By day it was still high summer in the woods, with slumbrous heat at
noon, and the murmur of insects under the thick foliage. But to the in-
itiated sense there was a difterence. A tang in the forest scents told the
nostrils that autumn had arrived. A crispness in the feel of the air, elu-
sive but persistent, hinted of approaching frost. The still warmth was
haunted, every now and then, by a passing ghost of chill. Here and there
the pale green of the birches was thinly webbed with gold. Here and
there a maple hung out amid its rich verdure a branch prematurely turned,
glowing like a banner of aerial rose. Along the edges of the little wild
meadows which bordered the loitering brooks the first thin blooms of the
asters began to show, like a veil of blown smoke. In open patches on the
hillsides the goldenrod burned orange and the fireweed spread its washes
of violet-pink. Somewhere in the top of a tall poplar, crowning the sum-
mit of a glaring white bluff, a locust twanged incessently its strident string.
Mysteriously, imperceptibly, without sound and without warning, the change
had come. — TJie House in the Wate>\ Roberts.

46 PRACTICAL KNGLISIf COMPOSITION

Not a breath of air stirred over the free and open prairie ; the clouds
were like light piles of cotton ; and where the blue sky was visible, it wore
a hazy and languid aspect. The sun beat down upon us with a sultry,
penetrating heat almost insupportable, and as our party crept slowly along
over the interminable level, the horses hung their heads as they waded fet-
lock deep through the mud, and the men slouched into the easiest positions
upon the saddle. — The Oregon Trails Parkman.

The cold wind blew from the plain ; the wood was dark, but there was
no rustling of leaves and none of the vague and fresh gleams of summer.
Large branches stood out frightfully, and shapeless, stunted bushes
soughed in the glades. The tall grass twined under the breeze like eels
and the brambles writhed like long arms provided with claws seeking to
clutch their prey. A few withered patches of fern, impelled by the breeze,
passed rapidly and seemed to be flying before something that was coming
up. — Les Miserables^ Hugo.

The day was not yet fled, but the light abroad — a sullen grayness,
splashed with angry red in the west, where the mist was thinning — was
fading fast and fearfully. And there was an ominous stirring of wind in
the east ; at intervals storm puffs came swirling over the hills from the
sea ; and they ran off inland like mad, leaving the air of a sudden once
more stagnant. Fresh and cool they were — grateful enough, indeed,
blowing through the thick, dead dusk — but sure warning, too, of great
gusts to come. — Doctor Luke of the Labrador, Duncan.

In each of the descriptions :

1. State the point of view.

2. Name the chief impression made by the scene.

3. Name the details which in themselves suggest the chief impres-

sion.

4. Name details which do not in themselves suggest the chief impres-

sion, and show by what characteristics they do suggest, the
chief impression.

5. Name the details which depict an effect of the chief impression.

DESCRIPTION ' 47

EXERCISE III

Criticize the following students' themes for choice and development of
details :

The Mountain Road on Mt. Calm in Summer

A person who travels along the mountain road of Mt. Calm can see far
ahead an irregular country road with a stretch of scraggly grass in the
center. On each side of this road are large, outspreading elm trees which
shade the young white birches and maples. Somewhat back of these
birches and maples lies an old broken-down stone wall, while far ahead in
the distance appears the faint outline of Ragged Mountain.

The Neponset Valley

•

From the summit of Milton Hill, the traveler, looking east, views the
Neponset River winding through the marsh which the inflowing tide often
covers, making it look like a small lake. On each side of the valley snug-
gle small towns and villages, separated by patches of forest. In the dis-
tance the waters of the harbor and of Dorchester Bay gleam blue in the
sunlight, while in and out among the islands steamboats and liners are
continually plying their way. To the southeast lie the green hills of Wol-
laston, where small figures are playing golf. In the river motor boats and
sailboats dot the water. This view can scarcely be surpassed.

An Unexpected Picture

I was sitting at my desk, trying hard to recall some interesting scene,
when, chancing to glance out of the western window, I saw to my surprise
and delight a very pretty picture. The sun had just sunk below the
horizon, leaving traces of its brightness on the western sky. Contrasting
with this bright setting, a cluster of dark pine trees rose in the distance,
among which there gleamed, here and there, the rippling water of a little
pond. Numerous patches of exceedingly bright red and yellow, which
seemed to be spreading rapidly among the trees and about the pond.
added the final touches to this picture.

THEME II

I. Depict a stormy day by portraying people and things as they appear
in the storm.

48 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

2. Depict a sunny spring day.

3. Depict a scene of enjoyment in a room or out of doors.

4. Depict a room which gives evidence of poverty and shiftlessness.

5. Depict a room which gives evidence of poverty and self-respect.

In each description :

a. What details have you used that in themselves suggest the chief

impression given by the scene ?

b. What characteristics of details have you used to suggest the chief

impression .-*

c. What details have you depicted that are the effect of the chief

impression ?

The Placing of Details. — If an artistic description is to
give a clear picture, the position of each detail must be defi-
nitely suggested. Notice the method of placing details in
the following description :

The road over which Presley was traveling ran almost diametrically
straight. In front of /ujh, but at a great distance, he could make out the
giant live oak and the red roof of Hooven^s barn that stood ftear it.

All aboid him the country was flat. /;/ all directio7is he could see for
tniles. The harvest was just over. Nothing but stubble remained on the
ground. With one exception of the live oak by Hoovois place there was
nothing green in sight. The wheat stubble was of a dirty yellow ; the
ground, parched, cracked, and dry, of a cheerless brown. By the roadside
the dust lay thick and gray, and, on either hand, stretching on toward the
horizon, losing itself m a mere smudge in the distance, ran the illimitable
parallels of the wire fence. And that was all ; that and the burnt out blue
of the sky and the steady shimmer of the heat. — The Octopus, NORRIS.

The details of this picture are placed both in relation to the
observer and in relation to one another.

EXERCISE IV

Select the words that place the details in the following description -.

The morning was a dazzle of sunshine. It touched the scattered houses
of the little village to brilliant whiteness, brought out the rainbow hues of
the gayly blooming flower gardens before each cottage door, and trans-

DESCRIPTION 49

formed the green slope stretching down to the sea into mossy velvet. The
bay itself lay still and burnished with changing colors. Within the
harbor the water took on the deep blue of the .sky, with here and there a
drift of fleecy white where some passing cloud reflected itself. In the
shadowy angle between Fox and Crow Islands the sea was wine dark,
as Homer saw it long ago ; farther on, Burnt Island rose out of a tide of
drifting silver, with shining white splashes here and there where the foam
broke over the rocks ; in the far outer harbor there was one dazzling spot
where the sun lay full upon the water and changed it into liquid, pellucid
gold. In the very heart of the glory, a white yacht, with sails curved into
snowy petals by the distant breeze, blossomed against the sky like Dante's
white rose of paradise. — Lias's Wife, Dunn.

Criticize the following students' themes for the placing of details :

Sunrise

A mist hung over the valley and the hills beyond. The foliage, verdant
green, was sparkling with drops of dew. The sun was just mounting over
the hills beyond. It rose slowly, grandly, dispelling the mist, and shedding
a crimson light over everything. A quail scuttled across the open, followed
by eight downy bits of fluffy wool. Innumerable birds flew about, streaks
of gold, crimson, blue, and garnet. Nature in her fairy palace was sending
forth glad harbingers of summer, that beautiful season of pleasure.

Home in Summer

A traveler passing the Aloha Manor in the early summer would probably
see a sight worth looking at twice. A httle back from the road lies a low,
white farmhouse well shaded by three huge pine trees. The large stone
wall around the drive is covered with trailing nasturtiums of all colors, reds,
yellows, and all shades of orange.

On the hillside the cattle are feeding ; in the barnyard the pigs are
basking in the sun ; the hens are proudly strutting around with their
broods of young chickens. Children are playing in a large swing hung
from one of the pine trees.

If one were passing at supper time, he would see a large family gathered
on the wide piazza for supper. Boys and girls are chatting and laughing
to the accompaniment of the brook near by where the young children of the
neighborhood are in wading.

50 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

Down to the river stretches the beautiful rolling valley, now all green,
with here and there a woodchuck's hole with its owner sitting beside it
taking a sun bath. The lambs and colts and calves are playing in the
field as if they were trying to express what some one else has said so
beautifully in the words, "What is so rare as a day in June ?"

THEME III

A. Write a description on each of the following subjects :

1. An Old-Fashiohed Homestead.

2. Day-break at Camp.

3. A Mountain View.

4. A Country Road.

5. The Market-Place on Market Day.

6. The Toy-Shop Window.

7. The Picnic Grounds.

8. The Beach at the Height of the Season.

In each description :

a. What words indicate the relation of details to one another ?

b. What words indicate the position of details with reference to the

observer ?

B. In each theme, be sure that the right mark of punctuation comes at
the end of each sentence, that each sentence is grammatical, and that the
spelling is correct.

Choice of Words. — If an artistic description is to give a true
picture, the details and their characteristics must be expressed
in words which suggest the chief impression accurately and
vividly.

Note the characteristics brought out by the italicized words
in the following description :

The tent was cosily pitched beneath a tree where the gurgle of the
stream was constantly /;/ ear. Overhead the broad leaves hung motionless
on their stems ; the delicate reed-stalks off in the pearly haze stood up
arrow-straight ; occasionally a hovie-returning bee shot humming athivart
the shade, and a partridge, creeping from the sedge drank, whistled to his
mate and ran away. — Ben Hur, Wallace.

DESCRIPTION

Now note the loss of accuracy and vividness of suggestion
when these words are replaced by others not so definite :

The tent was well placed beneath a tree where the sound of the stream
was constantly heard. Overhead the large leaves were still ; the slender
reeds off in the mist stood up straight ; occasionally a bee ^ew dy, and a
partridge, coming out from the grass, drank, called to his mate, and ran
away.

Accuracy and vividness of suggestion result: (i) from
specific rather than from general words ; (2) from words that
depict rather than from words that state opinion.

THEME IV

Describe each of the following things : an abandoned farm, the haunted
house, an amusement park, a sandy beach, a work-room, a river at low
tide, a blacksmith's shop, the trout stream, the morass.

a. What words in each theme are so specific as to suggest details

or their characteristics accurately and vividly?

b. Where in each theme have you expressed opinions of the scene

instead of picturing the scene ?

The Relation of Details to the Point of View. — In artistic
description, the choice of details and of characteristics of
details depends on what can actually be seen from the point
of view indicated. Picture the following scene :

Far up the lengthened lake were spied
Four darkening specks upon the tide.
That, slow enlarging on the view,
Four manned and masted barges grew,
And, bearing downwards from Glengyle,
Steered full upon the lonely isle ; • . .
Nearer and nearer as they bear.
Spears, pikes, and axes flash in air.
Now might you see the tartans brave.
And plaids and plumage dance and wave :
Now all the bonnets sink and rise.

52 PR.\CTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

As his tough oar the rower plies ;
See, flashing at each sturdy stroke,
The wave ascending into smolce ;
See the proud pipers on the bow.
And mark the gaudy streamers flow
From their loud chanters down, and sweep
The furrowed bosom of the deep.

— Lady of the Lake, ScoTT.

The gradual approach of the boats from a distance is sug-
gested by depicting them at six different stages of their ap-
proach. When first seen, the boats are so remote as to appear
mere "darkening specks upon the tide." At the second
stage, they have become "four manned and masted barges."
At the third, the weapons are seen flashing in the sunlight.
At the fourth, the plaid of the tartans becomes visible. At
the fifth, the fine spray, like smoke, thrown up in rowing, is
discernible, while at the sixth, individuals can be recognized
and such minute details as the ribbons on the bagpipes can
be seen. Although every one of the details in this description
was just as much a part of the boats when they were far
distant as it was when they were near at hand, no detail is
pictured until the boats are near enough to the observer for
him to see the detail.

THEME V

Describe the approach from a distance of a wagon, a motorcar, a steam-
boat, or a locomotive.

a. By what additional details or characteristics have you Indicated

the various stages of the progress toward the observer of the
object described ?

b. Have you used any detail which could not be seen by the obser\'er

at the given stage of progress ?

EXERCISE V

Criticize the following composition for choice of details and of chai-ac-
teristics of details as governed by point of view :

DESCRIPTION 55

A Description in the Winter Time

As I was skating around the pond, I could see the snow-capped hills in
the distance with small pine trees about three feet from the ground. There
was a long wooden shaft used for a toboggan slide just peeking above the
snow. At the top of this hill stood a large rock bearing a plate on which
was engraved the name of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

The Mental Point of View. — What a person sees depends
not only upon what is visible from tlie spot where he is, i.e.^
his physical point of view, but also upon his state of mind,
i.e.^ his mental point of view, at the time that he looks at the
scene. It is possible, indeed, for a person to be so influenced
by his own mental point of view as to get from objects im-
pressions that are actually incorrect. For example, in the
following description, Torfrida is so influenced by her own
feelings as to form false conceptions of her surroundings.

Packed uncomfortably under the awning on the poop, Torfrida looked
out from beneath it upon the rolling water-waste, with a heart full of gloomy
forebodings and a brain whirling with wild fancies. The wreathes of cloud
were gray witches, hurrying on with the ship to work her woe ; the low red
storm-dawn was streaked with blood ; the water which gurgled all night
under the lee was alive with hoarse voices ; and again and again she started
from fitful slumber to clasp the child closer to her, or look up for comfort
to the sturdy figure of her husband, as he stood, like a tower of strength,
steering and commanding, the long night through.

— Hereward the Wake, Kingsley.

She sees clouds, but sees them as gray witches. She sees
the red of the storm-dawn, but sees it as blood. She hears
the gurghng of the water, but hears it as hoarse voices.

The chief impression made by a scene, then, depends partly
upon the nature of the details and of the characteristics of
these details visible from the physical point of view, and
partly upon the state of mind, i.e., the mental point of view,
of the observer.

54 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

Definite Suggestion of Point of View. — The point of view in
artistic description must be definitely stated or clearly implied.
In many of the descriptions studied thus far, the point of
view has been definitely stated. In the following descrip-
tion the point of view from which the scene is observed is
not stated, but is clearly implied. It is a spot which com-
mands a view of Lily and of the landscape which she sees.
The point of view from which Lily sees the landscape is
stated in the words, *' Seating herself on the upper step of
the terrace, Lily leaned her head," etc. The details of the
landscape, as seen from Lily's point of view, are arranged
from near to far, the order in which they would appear to
any one occupying that point of view.

Seating herself on the upper step of the terrace, Lily leaned her head
against the honeysuckles wreathing the balustrade. The fragrance of the
late blossoms seemed an emanation of the tranquil scene, a landscape
tutored to the last degree of rural elegance. In the foreground glowed the
warm tints of the gardens. Beyond the lawn, with its pyramidal pale-gold
maples and velvety firs, sloped pastures dotted with cattle ; and through a
long glade the river widened like a lake under the silver light of September.

— The House of Mirth, Wharton.

EXERCISE VI

Select and bring to class two descriptions in which the point of view is
definitely stated and two descriptions in which the point of view is clearly
implied.

Changing Point of View. — In each of the descriptions
studied up to this point, the physical point of view is station-
ary; ^^.,it is that of a person who remains in one place with-
out change of position. In actual life, the physical point of
view is often a constantly changing one, as when an observer
is moving along a path or a road. A constantly changing, or
moving, point of view is in reality a more or less rapid sue-

DESCRIPTION 55

cession of stationary points of view. The effect of a chang-
ing point of view is to enable an observer to get in their
proper relation as parts of one impression a number of differ-
ent scenes not all of which could be observed from any one
point of view. This effect is shown in the description which
follows :

\/ On one side he had left the yellow earth with the coming noon, but it
was still morning as he ivefit down on the other side. The laurel and
rhododendron still reeked with dew in the deep, ever-shaded ravine. The
ferns drenched his stirrups, as he brushed through the7n^ and each dripping
tree top broke the sunlight and let it drop in tentlike beams through the
shimmering under-mist. A bird flashed here and there through the green
gloom, but there was no sound in the air but the footfalls of his horse atid
the easy creaking of leather beneath him., the drip of dew overhead and the
running of water below.

About him the beech leaves gave back the gold of the autumn sunlight,
and a little ravine, high under the crest of the mottled mountain, was on
fire with the scarlet of maple. Not even yet had the morning chill left the
densely shaded parts. When he got to the bare crest of a little rist, he
could see up the creek a spiral of blue rising swiftly from a stone chimney.
Geese and ducks were hunting crawfish in the little creek that ran from a
milk house of logs half hidden by willows at the edge of the forest, and a
turn in the path brought to view a log cabin well chinked with stones and
plaster and with a well-built porch. A fence ran around the yard and
there was a meat house near a little orchard of apple trees under which
were many hives of bee-gums. This man had things "hung up" and was
well-to-do. — The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, Fox.

Notice the continuous change of the point of view indicated
by the italicized words, and note that the successive scenes of
this description, no two of which could be seen from any one
point of view, together form one continuous or panoramic
picture because they portray the country through which the
rider passed.

The clearness with which details are seen from a chang-
ing point of view is affected by the speed with which the

56 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

point of view changes. If the observer has normal eyesight
and is moving at moderate speed, he will see details quite as
clearly as if his point of view were stationary. If he moves
at a somewhat rapid rate of speed, the smaller details become
invisible. As his speed increases, larger and larger details
become invisible, until, when his speed becomes very great,
objects rush past in an indistinguishable blur. Illustrations
of these effects occur when a person is moving at varying
degrees of railroad speed.

In order to form into one continuous picture the various
scenes observed from a changing point of view, each change
in point of view must be definitely stated or clearly impHed.
A series of scenes which differ greatly in chief impression
may become parts of one continuous picture if each change
in point of view be definitely stated or clearly implied.

EXERCISE VII

Study the following descriptions :

After a while the party came to a shallow wady, down which, turning to
the right hand, the guide led them. The bed of the cut was somewhat
soft from recent rains and quite bold in its descent. Momentarily, how-
ever, it widened ; and ere long the sides became bluffs ribbed with rocks
much scarred by floods rushing to lower depths ahead. Finally, from a
narrow passage, the travelers entered a spreading vale which was v^ry
delightful ; but come upon suddenly from the yellow, unrelieved, verdure-
less plain, it had the effect of a freshly discovered paradise. The water-
channels winding here and there, definable by crisp white shingling,
appeared like threads tangled among islands green with grasses and
fringed with reeds. Up from the final depths of the valley of the Jordan
some venturous oleanders had crept, and with their large bloom now-
starred the sunken place. One palm tree arose in royal assertion. The
bases of the boundary walls were cloaked with clambering vines, and
under a leaning cliff over on the left the mulberry grove had planted itself,
proclaiming the spring which the party were seeking. And thither the

DESCRIPTION 57

guide conducted them, careless of whistling partridges and lesser birds of
brighter hues roused whirring from the reedy coverts.

— Ben Htir^ Wallace.

Panting and fatigued, he threw himself, late in the afternoon, on a
green knoll covered with mountain herbage, that crowned the. brow of a
precipice. From an opening between the trees he could overlook all the
lower country for many a mile of rich woodland. He saw at a distance
the lordly Hudson, far, far below him, moving on its silent but majestic
course, with the reflection of a purple cloud, or the sail of a lagging bark,
here and there sleeping on its glassy bosom, and at last losing itself in its
blue highlands.

On the other side, he looked down into a deep mountain glen, wild,
lonely, and shagged, the bottom filled with fragments from the impending
cliffs and scarcely lighted by the reflecting rays of the setting sun.

— Rip Va7t Winkle^ Irving.

It was one of those spacious farmhouses, with high-ridged but low-
sloping roofs> built in the style handed down from the first Dutch settlers,
the low projecting eaves forming a piazza along the front, capable of being
closed up in bad weather. Under this were hung flails, harness, various
utensils of husbandry, and nets for fishing in the neighboring river.
Benches were built along the sides for summer use, and a great spinning-
wheel at one end, and a churn at the other, showed the various uses to
which this important porch might be devoted. From this piazza wonder-
ing Ichabod entered the hall which formed the center of the mansion and
the place of usual residence. Here, rows of resplendent pewter, ranged on
a long dresser, dazzled his eyes. In one corner stood a huge bag of linsey-
woolsey ready to be spun, in another, a quantity of linsey-woolsey just
from the loom; ears of Indian corn, and strings of dried apples and
peaches, hung in gay festoons along the walls, mingled with the gaud of
red peppers ; and a door left ajar gave him a peep into the best parlor,
where the claw-footed chairs and dark mahogany tables shone like
mirrors ; andirons, with their accompanying shovels and tongs, glistened
from their covert of asparagus tops: mock oranges and conch shells dec-
orated the mantelpiece ; strings of various-colored birds* eggs were sus-
pended above it, a great ostrich egg was hung from the center of the room,

58 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITIOxX

and a corner cupboard, knowingly left open, displayed immense treasures
of old silver and well-mended china.

— The Legend of Sleepy Hollow ^ Irving.

1 . State the number and the nature of the scenes which together form
one continuous picture in each description.

2. State the impression which each scene makes in itself.

3. Name the words or the groups of words which indicate a change in
the point of view,

THEME VI

I . Describe a park by depicting in some detail its various parts, indicat-
ing in as few words as possible your various changes in point of view.
-7.. Describe the same park from a single point of view.
a. What advantage has each point of view ?

3. Describe the view from a hill top or from a lookout.

4. Describe the view from a car window or from an automobile.

5. Describe the view seen in a stroll.

In each description :

a. How many points of view have you used ?

b. By what words have you indicated each change in point of view ?

The Order of Details. — While the order in which the details
of an artistic description are given must always be that in
which they catch the attention of the observer, the order will
vary according to the relative position of the conspicuous
details in the view.

From Near to Far. — The order in which the details are
presented in some of the descriptions already given is from
near to far, an order frequently used when there is in the
scene no one detail of sufficient interest to hold the attention
of the observer.

EXERCISE VIII

Study the following descriptions :

... in front of him was the misty darkness. Though he strained his
eyes to penetnate this misty distance, he could see nothing ; now it seemed

DESCRIPTION 59

to brighten up a little, then there seemed to be some black object ; then
he imagined that he saw a light which he thought must be the watch-fires
where the enemy were, and then again he told himself that his eyes had
deceived him. — Tolstoi.

From one of the windows of this saloon we may see a flight of broad
stone steps descending alongside the antique and massive foundation of
the capitol, toward the battered triumphal arch of Septimius Severus, right
below. Farther on, the eye skirts along the edge of the desolate Forum
(where Roman washer women hang out their linen to the sun), passing
over a shapeless confusion of modern edifices, piled rudely up with ancient
brick and stone, and over the domes of Christian churches, built on the
old pavements of heathen temples, and supported by the very pillars that
once held them. At a distance beyond — yet a little way, considering
how much history is heaped into the intervening space — rises that great
sweep of the Coliseum, with the blue sky brightening through its upper
tier of arches. Far off, the view is shut in by all the Alban Mountains,
looking just the same, amid all this decay and change, as when Romulus
gazed thitherward over his half-finished wall.

— The Marble Faun, H.\wthorne.

In each description :

1 . State the point of view.

2. Name the chief impression given by the scene.

3. State the order in which the details are presented.

4. Select the words which depict accurately or suggest vividly the

color, the shape, or the position of details.

5. Select from a standard author and bring to class a description

of a landscape and a description of a room in which the details
are presented from near to far.

a. Show that the arrangement of details is a natural one

from the nature of the scene and from the point of view

suggested.

The order of presenting details from near to far is only
one of several possible orders. Picture the following scene,
noticing the order in which the details come into view :

. . . from his station near the Green he had before him in one view
nearly all the typical features of this pleasant land. High up against the

6o PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

horizon were the huge, conical masses of hill, like giant mounds intended
to fortify this region of corn and grass against the keen and hungry winds
of the north ; not distant enough to be clothed in purple mystery, but with
somber greenish sides visibly speckled with sheep. . . . And directly
below them the eye rested on a more advanced line of hanging woods,
divided by bright patches of pasture or furrowed crops, and not yet deep-
ened into the uniform leafy curtains of high summer, but still showing the
warm tints of the young oak and the tender green of the ash and lime.
Then came the valley, where the woods grew thicker, as if they had rolled
down and hurried together from the patches left smooth on the slope, that
they might take the better care of the tall mansion which lifted its parapets
and sent its faint blue summer smoke among them. Doubtless there was
a large sweep of park and a broad, glassy pool in front of that mansion,
but the swelling slope of meadow would not let our traveler see them from
the village green. He saw instead a foreground that was just as lovely —
the level sunlight lying like transparent gold among the gently curving
stems of the feathered grass and the tall red sorrel, and the white umbels
of the hemlocks lining the busy hedgerows.

— Adam Bede, George Eliot.

From Far to Near. — The first detail that comes into view-
is a large detail on the horizon, each new detail is nearer to
the observer than is the one just before it, and the last details
are directly under the eye of the observer; i.e.y the order in
which these details come into view is from far to near. The
details of a view are usually seen from far to near when the
detail that is conspicuous enough to catch the observer's
attention first is in the distance.

EXERCISE IX

Study the following descriptions :

Steep banks, here wooded, there scarred by outcropping capes of pur-
plish red-rock, between them the wide blue avenue of the mighty river, an
avenue up which crawled a distant ocean steamship, a western sky dappled

DESCRIPTION "61

below, above striped with one dark, sinister band of cloud ; these were the
background. In the foreground, a little steamer bobbed and tossed on the
restless waves, small and fragile, reduced to the look of a child's toy in
comparison with the huge arms of steel lattice springing from the bank on
either hand. — The Bridge Builders, Ray.

The hall was arcaded, with a gallery supported on columns of pale
yellow marble. Tall clumps of flowering plants were grouped against a
background of dark foliage in the angles of the walls. On the crimson
carpet a deer hound and two or three spaniels dozed luxuriously before the
lire, and the light from the great central lantern overhead shed a brightness
on the women's hair and struck sparks from their jewels as they moved.

— The House of Mirth, Wharton.

Meanwhile, the Queen had no sooner stepped on the bridge than a new
spectacle was provided ; for, as soon as the music gave signal that she was
so far advanced, a raft, so disposed as to resemble a small floating island,
illuminated by a great variety of torches and surrounded by floating pag-
eants formed to represent sea horses, on which sat Tritons, Nereids, awd
other fabulous deities of the seas and rivers, made its appearance upon the
lake, and, issuing from behind a small heronry where it had been concealed,
floated gently towards the farther end of the bridge.

— Kenilworth, Scott.

As he rose, a flash of lightning that seemed as if the whole of the
heavens were opened, illuminated the darkness. By its light, between the
Isle of Lemaire and Croiselle, a quarter of a league distant, Dantes saw,
like a specter, a fishing boat driven rapidly on by the force of the winds
and waves. A second after, he saw it again approaching nearer. Dantes
cried at the top of his voice to warn them of their danger, but they saw it
themselves. Another flash showed him four men clinging to the shattered
mast and the rigging, while a fifth clung to the broken rudder.

The men he beheld saw him, doubtless, for their cries were carried to
his ears by the wind. Above the splintered mast a sail rent to tatters was

6i PRACTICAL ENGLISH CuMPOSiriOX

waving; suddenly the ropes that still held it gave way. and it disappeared
in the darkness of the night, like a vast seabird. At the same moment a
violent crash was heard, and cries of distress. Perched on the summit of
the rock, Dantes saw by the lightning the vessel in pieces ; and amongst
the fragments were visible the agonized features of the unhappy sailors.
Then all became dark again. — The Count of Monte Cristo^ Dumas.

In each desctiption :

1. State the point of view.

2. State the order in which the details are presented.

3. Explain why the details are presented in this order.

4. Name the connecting words or phrases that indicate the relative

position of details.

THEME VII

I. Write a description of a landscape which demands that the details
be presented from far to near.

a. By what words have you indicated the relative po.sition of the

details?

b. What characteristics of details have you depicted that in them-

selves suggest the distance of the details from the point of
view ?

Notice the order of details in the following scene :

Uncle Yeroshka's cottage was tolerably large, and not old, but the ab-
sence of a woman's hand was very noticeable in it . . . his whole apart-
ment was filthy and in the greatest disorder. On the table were flung his
blood-stained coat, a half of a cake, and ne.xt to it a plucked and torn jack-
daw, kept for his hawk to eat. Scattered about on the benches lay his
porshni, a gun, a dagger, a bag, wet garments, and rags. In the corner,
in a tub full of dirty, ill-smelling water, another pair of porshni were soak-
ing; there also stood a carbine and a pheasant-lure. On the dirty floc>r
were thrown a net and a few dead pheasants, and a pullet, fastened by its
leg, was wandering about, picking up what she could find. In the cold
oven stood a broken jug, filled with some sort of milk-like liquid. On the
oven sat a screaming falcon, trying to tear itself away from its cord, and on
the edge quietly sat a molting hawk, looking askance at the pullet, and
occasionally tipping his head to one side or the other.

DESCRIPTION 63

Uncle Yeroshka himself . . . lay on his back on his short bed, placed
between the wall and the oven. . . . The air of the whole room,
and especially the corner where the old man lay, was filled with that strong
but not disagreeable conglomeration of odors which the old man carried
about him. — The Cossacks^ Tolstoi.

From General to Specific. — In this description the first
thing given is a general notion of the size and the character
of the cottage. Then follow the details which help to give
it, put in the order of their conspicuousness in the room :
first, large things, easily seen, like the table and the benches
with what is on them ; next, things less quickly seen, like the
tub in the corner and the pheasants on the floor ; and, lastly,
smaller things, like the jug in the oven ; or more remote
things, like the falcon and the hawk. This arrangement of
details is known as from general to specific, and is used
whenever the general notion of a view impresses one first.

EXERCISE X

Explain the order of details in the following description :

The fire had left nothing but a few charred fragments of the wreck.
There had been no means of stopping it, and it had almost completely
swept away the cars in which it had broken out. Certain of the cars to
windward were not burnt ; these lay capsized beside the track, bent and
twisted, and burst athwart, fantastically, like the pictures of derailed cars
as Matt had seen them in the illustrated papers ; the locomotive, pitched
into a heavy drift, was like some dead monster that had struggled hard for
its life. Where the fire had raged, there was a wide black patch in the
whiteness glistening everywhere else ; there were ashes, and writhen iron-
work, and bits of charred woodwork ; but nothing to tell who or how many
had died there. — The Quality of Mercy, Howell.

THEME Vm

Using the method from general to specific :

1. Describe either an assembly hall or a class room.

2. Describe the village green in your town or some square in your city.

64 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

In each description:

a. By what words have you suggested a general notion of the

scene ?

b. What made you present the specific details in the order which

you used ?

Sometimes, ^s in the description given below, the interest
centers upon one object like "the little old gray house, with
its gray barn and low wagon shed," and all the other details
of the view seem to gather around this object as setting; i.e.^
to throw it into prominence.

The little old gray house, with its gray barn and low wagon shed, stood
in the full sun at the top of a gullied and stony lane. Behind it the ancient
forest, spruce and fir and hemlock, came down and brooded darkly over
the edge of the rough, stump-strewn pasture. The lane, leading up to the
house from the main road, climbed between a sloping buckwheat field on
the one hand and a buttercupped meadow on the other. On either side of
the lane, cutting it off from the fields, straggled a zigzag snake fence, with
milkweed, tansy, and mullein growing raggedly in its corners.

— The House in the Water, Roberts.

. Grouping Details about a Central Object. — Whenever in a
V description there is to be a chief object of interest, the
method of development to be used is the method of grouping
details about a central object. The order in zvJiicJi details are
introdiieed for setting depends npon their relation to the chiej
detail i}i position a?id importa7iee.

EXERCISE XI

Study the following descriptions :

Knockwinnock still preserved much of the external attributes of a
baronial castle. It had its drawbridge, though now never drawn up, and
its dry moat, the sides of which had been planted with shrubs, chiefly of
the evergreen trii)cs. Above these rose the old building, partly from a

DESCRIPTION 65

foundation of red rock scarped down to the sea beach, and partly from the
steep green verge of the moat. The building flung its broad shadow upon
the tufted foliage of the shrubs beneath it, while the front windows sparkled
in the sun. — The Antiquary^ Scott.

It was a little painted frame house, back from the street, fronted by a
precise bit of lawn, with a willow bush at one corner. A white picket
fence effectually separated it from a broad, shaded, not unpleasant street.
An osage hedge and a board fence respectively bounded the side and back.

— The Blazed Trail, S. E. White.

Buck lived at the big house in the sun-kissed Santa Clara Valley.
Judge Miller's place it was called. It stood back from the road, half hid-
den among the trees, through which glimpses could be caught of the wide
cool veranda that ran around its four sides. The house was approached
by graveled driveways which wound about through wide-spreading lawns
and under the interlacing boughs of tall poplars.

— The Call of the Wild, London.

In the Acadian land, on the shore of the Basin of Minas,
Distant, secluded, still, the little village of Grand-Prd
Lay in the fruitful valley. Vast meadows stretched to the eastward,
Giving the valley its name, and pasture to flocks without number.
Dikes, that the hands of the farmers had raised with labor incessant.
Shut out the turbulent tides ; but at stated seasons the floodgates
Opened, and welcomed the sea to wander at will o'er the meadows.
West and south there were fields of flax, and orchards and cornfields
Spreading afar and unfenced o'er the plain ; and away to the northward
Blomidon rose, and the forests old, and aloft on the mountains
Sea fogs pitched their tents, and mists from the mighty Atlantic
Looked on the happy valley, but ne'er from their station descended.
There, in the midst of its farms, reposed the Acadian village.

— Evangeline, Longfellow.

66 PR.\CTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

On the right amid a profusion of thickets, knolls, and crags, lay the bed
of a broad mountain lake, lightly curled into tiny waves by the breath of
the morning breeze, each glittering in its course under the influence of
the sunbeams. High hills, rocks, and banks, waving with natural forests
of birch and oak, formed the border of this enchanting sheet of water ;
and, as their leaves rustled in the wind and twinkled in the sun, gave to
the depth of solitude a sort of life and vivacity.

— Morniftg in the Highlands of Scotland.

The valley lay like a ribbon thrown into the midst of the encompassing
hills. The grass which grew there was soft and fine and abundant ; the
trees which sprang from its dark, rich mold were tall and great of girth.
A bright stream flashed through it, and the sunshine fell warm upon the
grass and changed the tassels of the maize into golden plumes. Above
the valley, east and north and south, rose the hills, clad in living green,
mantled with the purpling grape, wreathed morn and eve with trailing mist.
To the westward were the mountains, and they dwelt apart in a blue haze.

— Audrey <f Johnston.

EXERCISE XU
In each description :

1. State the point of view.

2. Name the chief impression given by the scene.

3. State the order in which the groups of details are presented.

4. Give the reason for presenting the groups of details in the order

in which they occur.

THEME IX

1. Portray a scene that you know in which a building or a group of
buildings is the central object of interest.

2. Portray a scene that you know in which anything other than a build-
ing or a group of buildings is the chief object of interest.

a. In what order have you depicted the details in each of the de-

scriptions?

b. What is there in the nature of the scenes depicted that demands

the order of presentation of details that you have used ,'

DESCRIPTION 67

Combination of Orders. — Many simple scenes may be de-
picted by the use of a single method of arrangement of details.
There are many scenes, however, which can be described sat-
isfactorily only by using successively two or more of these
methods. The nature of the scene and the point of view of
the observer determine what method or methods shall be used.

The following description illustrates the use of more than
one method of arranging details in describing a single scene :

As Pierre mounted the steps that led to the top of the mound, he looked
out over the prospect, and was overwhehned at the beauty of the spectacle.

It was the same panorama he had surveyed the day before from the same
elevation ; but now all those localities were covered with troops and the
smoke of the cannon ; and the slanting rays of the bright sun, rising be-
hind Pierre at the left, fell upon it through the clear morning atmosphere
in floods of light, shot with golden and rosy tones and intermingled with
long dark shadows.

The distant forests which bounded the panorama, just as if they were
hewn out of some precious yellow-green gem, could be traced by the curving
line of the tree tops against the horizon, and between them, beyond Valu-
yevo, the Smolensk highway, now all covered with troops, cut sharply.

Still nearer gleamed the golden fields and groves. Everywhere, in front
and behind, at the right hand and at the left, troops were swarming. The
whole scene was animated, majestic, and marvelous : but what surprised
Pierre more than all was the spectacle of the battlefield itself, Borodino,
and the vallev through which the Kalotcha River ran.

Over the Kalotcha at Borodino, and on both sides of the river, more
noticeably on the left bank, where, through marshy intervales, the Voina
falls into the Kalotcha, was that mist which so mysteriously veils, spreads,
and grows transparent as the bright sun mounts, and magically colors and
transforms everything that is seen through it.

The smoke of the cannon was blending with this mist, and over this
blended mist and smoke, everywhere, gleamed the lightning flashes of the
morning brilliancy, here over the water, there on dewy meadows, there on
the bayonets of the infantry swarming along the banks and in the village.

Through this mist could be seen a white church, a few roofs of Borodino
cottages, here and there compact masses of soldiers, here and there green
caissons, cannons. And this scene was in motion, or seemed to be in

68 PRACTICAL EXCiLISH COMPOSITION

motion, because this mist and smoke was stretched over the whole space.
On these lowlands around Borodino, covered with mist, so also above, and
especially at the left, over the whole line, over the woods, over the fields,
in the hollows, on the summits of the rising ground, constantly born, self-
evolved from nothing, rose the puffs of cannon smoke ; now singly, now
in groups ; now scattered, now clustered ; and as they formed, and grew,
and coalesced, and melted together, they seemed to cover the whole space.

— War and Peace, Tolstoi.

The first sentence gives the point of view and the chief
impression of the scene. The second sentence maps out the
scene as a whole by means of the method of presenting de-
tails by going from the general to the specific. The third,
fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh sentences give a sense of the
extent of the view by presenting two large details by proceed-
ing from far to near, though each of these details is incident-
ally developed by proceeding from the general to the specific.
The seventh sentence, which makes the Kalotcha River the
detail of chief interest for the minute, illustrates a use of the
method of grouping details about a central figure by pictur-
ing the mist as enveloping certain places which are indicated
in their relation to the Kalotcha. The remainder of the de-
scription is developed by the use of the method of presenting
details by going from the general to the specific.

EXERCISE Xm

Study the following descriptions :

It was an ancient, dark-looking room, with oaken wainscoting, a sanded
floor, and a high mantelpiece. The walls were ornamented with three or
four old colored prints in black frames, each print representing a naval
engagement, with a couple of men-of-war banging away at each other most
vigorously, while another vessel or two were blowing up in the distance,
and the foreground presented a miscellaneous collection of broken masts
and blue legs sticking up out of the water. Depending from the ceiling, in

DESCRIPTION 69

the center of the room, were a gaslight and bell pull ; on each side were
three or four long narrow tables, behind which was a thickly planted row
of those slippery, shiny-looking wooden chairs peculiar to hostelries of this
description. The monotonous appearance of the sanded boards was
relieved by an occasional spittoon, and a triangular pile of those useful
articles adorned the two upper corners of the apartment.

— Sketches by B03, Dickens.
B

The voice came from the further end of a long, spacious room sur-
rounded with shelves, on which books and antiquities were arranged in
scrupulous order. Here and there, on separate stands in front of the
shelves, were placed a beautiful feminine torso ; a headless statue, with an
uplifted muscular arm wielding a bladeless sword ; rounded, dimpled, in-
fantile limbs severed from the trunk, inviting the lips to kiss the cold mar-
ble ; some well-preserved Roman busts ; and two or three vases of AJagna
Graecia. A large table in the center was covered with antique bronze
lamps and small vessels in dark pottery. The color of these objects was
chiefly pale or somber ; the vellum bindings, with their deep-ridged backs,
gave little relief to the marble livid with long burial ; the once splendid
patch of carpet at the farther end of the room had long been worn to dim-
ness ; the dark bronzes wanted sunlight upon them to bring out their tinge
of green, and the sun was not yet high enough to send gleams of bright-
ness through the narrow windows that looked on to the Via de' Bardi.

— Romola^ Eliot.
In each description :

a. Name in succession the different orders in which the details are

arranged.

b. Show that the scene is best portrayed by the use of the various

orders of arrangement at the points where they occur.

THEME X

1. Describe a gathering of people where there are several centers of
interest.

2. Describe a room where there are several centers of interest.

In each of your compositions :

a. What orders for presenting details have you used ?

b. What in the scene made it necessary to use the particular orders

that you have used in presenting details ?

70 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

Activity. — Life and action are in themselves material for
depiction. Picture the following scene :

Annixter, arriving at the post office, found himself involved in a scene
of swiftly shifting sights and sounds. Saddle horses, farm wagons, — the
inevitable Studebakers, — buggies gray with the dust of country roads,
buckboards with squashes and grocery packages stowed under the seat,
two-wheeled sulkies and training carts, were hitched to the gnawed rail-
ings and zinc-sheathed telegraph poles along the curb. Here and there,
on the edge of the sidewalk, were bicycles, wedged into bicycle racks
painted with cigar advertisements. Upon the asphalt sidewalk itself, soft
and sticky with the morning's heat, was a continuous movement. Men
with large stomachs, wearing linen coats but no vests, labored ponder-
ously up and down. Girls in lawn skirts, shirt waists, and garden hats,
went to and fro, invariably in couples, coming in and out of the drug store,
the grocery store, and haberdasher's, or lingering in front of the post
office, which was on a corner under the I.O. O.F. hall. Young men, in
shirt sleeves, with brown, wicker cufF protectors over their forearms, and
pencils behind their ears, bustled in front of the grocery store, anxious
and preoccupied. A very old man, a Mexican, in ragged, white trousers and
bare feet, sat on a horse block in front of the barber shop, holding a horse
by a rope around its neck. A Chinaman went by, teetering under the
weight of his market baskets slung on a pole across his shoulders. In the
neighborhood of the hotel, the Yosemite House, traveling salesmen, drum-
mers for jewelry firms of San Francisco, commercial agents, insurance
men, well-dressed, metropolitan, debonair, stood about cracking jokes, or
hurried in and out of the flapping white doors of the Yosemite bar room.
The Yosemite 'bus and City 'bus passed up the street, on the way from the
morning train, each with its two or three passengers. A very narrow
wagon, belonging to the Cole & Colemore Harvester Works, went by,
loaded with long strips of iron that made a horrible din as they jarred
over the unevenness of the pavement. The electric car line, the city's
boast, did a bnsk business, its cars whirring from end to end of the street,
with a jangling of bells and a moaning plaint of gearing. On the stone
bulkheads of the grass plat around the new City Hall, the usual loafers sat,
chewing tobacco, swapping stories, in the park were the inevitable array
of nursemaids, skylarking couples, and ragged little boys. A single
policeman, in gray coat and helmet, friend and acquaintance of every man
and woman in the town, stood by the park entrance, leaning an elbow on
ihe fence post, twirling his club, — The Octopus. Norris.

DESCRIl'TION 71

Each of the details by which this description is developed,
whether it pictures a person or a thing as standing still or as
in action, suggests in one way or another activity of human
beings. The details which picture people or things as stand-
ing still picture them as they appear when they show the
result of action or the preparation for action. The details
which picture people or things in action picture them as per-
forming the action. The description as a whole pictures a
country town at a moment when it is showing the busy-ness
which is its typical characteristic.

Form a picture from the following description :

The harvester, shooting a column of thick smoke straight upward, vibrat-
ing to the top of the stack, hissed, clanked, and lurched forward. Instantly,
motion sprang to life in all its compound parts ; the header knives, cutting
a thirty-six foot swath, gnashed like teeth : beltings slid and moved like
smooth flowing streams ; the separator whirred, the agitator jarred and
crashed ; cylinders, augurs, fans, seeders and elevators, drapers and chaff
carriers clattered, rumbled, buzzed, and clanged. The steam hissed and
rasped ; the ground reverberated a hollow note, and the thousands upon
thousands of wheat stalks sliced and slashed in the clashing shears of the
header, rattled like dry rushes in a hurricane, as they fell inward and
were caught up by an endless belt, to disappear into the bowels of the vast
brute that devoured them. — The Octopus^ Norris.

The irresistible power of the harvester as it cuts through
the v^heat field is suggested by depicting the rapid motion of
each of its conspicuous parts and by picturing the rapidity
with which its work is accomplished. Each detail of the
description portrays rapid motion or the immediate effect of
rapid motion. The rapidity of the motion is suggested by
depicting the sounds which accompany the motion. The
description as a whole pictures the harvester at its moment
of greatest activity.

A description may portray activity in greater or less degree.
When activity is the chief impression of a scene, each of the

72 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

details must express the proper degree of activity. When
activity is not itself the chief impression, but is used in pictur-
ing the chief impression, the actions portrayed must express
the chief impression.

Form a picture from the following description :

M'Adam stooped down, . . . and beheld a tiny yellow puppy, crouching
defiant in the dark, and glaring out with fiery light eyes. Seeing itself
remarked, it bared its little teeth, raised its little bristles, and growled a
hideous menace. — Bob, Son of Battle, Ollivant.

In this description, the fearlessness of the dog's defiance is
pictured by the actions which it performs, one after another,
as it sees itself observed.

The description of the town, the description of the harvester,
and the description of the dog are alike in that all are devel-
oped by details which depict actions. They are unlike in that,
in the description of the town and of the harvester, the details
picture actions which are taking place at the same moment,
while in the description of the dog, the details picture
actions which take place one after another.

Description in Narrative Form. — A description which sug-
gests the chief impression given by a person or a thing by
picturing that person or thing as performing successive ac-
tions is description in narrative form.

EXERCISE XIV
Read the following descriptions :

The master in charge of the great silent schoolroom touched a bell.
Instantly the silence was broken with a variety of sounds. There was an
outburst of confused speech, a scraping of chairs and feet on the wooden
floor, a slamming together of books, and a banging of desk lids. For the
touching of the bell signified that the last study hour of this September
afternoon was ended. — Jfardim^ of St. Ti)notlifs, A. S. Pier.

DESCRIPTION ^ 73

A various scene the clansmen made,

Some sat, some stood, some slowly strayed ;

But most, with mantles folded round.

Were couched to rest upon the ground,

Scarce to be known by curious eye,

From the deep heather where they lie,

So well was matched the tartan screen

With heath bell dark and brackens green ;

Unless where, here and there, a blade

Or lance's point, a glimmer made.

Like glowworm twinkling through the shade.

— The Lady of the Lake, Scott.

There was a flash of gray, a swish of wings, a cry of pain, a squawking,
cowering, scattering flock of hens, a weakly fluttering pullet, and yonder,
swinging upward into the October sky, a marsh hawk, buoyant and gleaming
silvery in the sun. Over the trees he beat, circled once, and disappeared.

— The Face of the Fields^ D. L. Sharp.

St. Agnes' Eve — ah, bitter chill it was !

The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold ;

The hare leaped trembling through the frozen grass,

And silent was the flock in woolly fold ;

Numb were the beadsman's fingers, while he told

His rosary, and while his frosted breath.

Like pious incense from a censer old.

Seemed taking flight for heaven.

— The Eve of St. Agnes, Keats.

. . . suddenly abaft.
With a great rush of rain.
Making the ocean white with spume,
In darkness like the day of doom,
On came the hurricane.

74 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

The lightning flashed from cloud to cloud,

And rent the sky in two ;
A jagged flame, a single jet
Of white fire, like a bayonet,

That pierced the eyeball through.

Then all was dark again,

And blacker than before.

— The Ballad of Carmtlhany Longfellow.

A man rushed by him at a single stride,
Haggard, half-naked, without hat or cloak.
Who neither turned, nor looked at him, nor spoke,
But leaped into the blackness of the night.
And vanished like a specter from his sight.

— King Robert of Sicily, Longfellow.

A southwest wind was blowing and the sky was black when the fatal
moment came, but it was not yet raining. Those who were awake and
survived remember hearing the horrible subterranean thunder that preceded
the shock and might have been a warning to many in waking hours ; it
seemed to begin far away and to approach very quickly, swelling to a ter-
rific roar just before the crash. Another instant and the solid earth rose
and fell in long waves, twice, three times, four times perhaps, and the
houses and churches swayed from side to side, in the darkness ; for the
young moon had set before midnight, and it lacked more than an hour of
dawn. The whole city and the towns on the opposite side of the Straits
fell at once with a crash that no language can describe ; then followed the
long resounding rumble of avalanches of masonry : and when those awfiil
moments were over, nearly two hundred thousand human beings were
dead, on both sides of the Straits.

Almost at the same moment another sound was heard, almost more
terrible than the first — the sound of a moving mountain of water; for the
sea had risen bodily in a monstrous wave and was sweeping over the har-
bor, carrying away hundreds of tons of masonry from the outer pier, tearing
ships and iron steamers from their moorings like mere skiff"s and hurling
them against the ruins of the great Palazzata that was built along the

DESCRIPTION 75

semicircular quay, only to sweep them back, keel upwards and full of dead
and dying men, as the hill of water sank down and ebbed away. When it
had quite subsided, the inner portion of the harbor was half full of sand
and mud and stranded wrecks. — Outlook.

In each description :

1. State the chief impression given.

2. State the degree of activity displayed.

3. Name the details that depict color, sound, or odor.

4. Name the details that depict motion.

5. Name the words that state motion.

THEME XI

1. Describe a railroad station at the moment of greatest activity.

2. Describe the same station at the moment of least activity.

3. Describe a cat or a dog at the moment when it is about to spring at
something.

4. Describe the same animal as it appears when affected by intense heat.

5. Describe a person as he appears at a moment of great excitement.

In each of your compositions :

a. What are the main details .''

b. Which of these details depict action.^

c. Which of these details depict the effect of action

d. What actions take place at the same instant of time ?

e. What actions are successive ?

/. Which of the words that you have used of themselves express a

high degree of activity?
g. Which words suggest the absence of activity?

SUMMARY

To make artistic description:
I. Choose suitable material.

1. Select a subject that appeals to you.

2. Choose a point of view.

3. Observe the subject until you are sure of the chief impression

which it gives.

4. Decide what details and what characteristics of the details

express the chief impression.

76 PR.\CTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

6. Note the order in which the details and their characteristics
caught your eye.

II. Depict your subject so as to make others see it and feel about it as
you saw it and felt about it.

1. State or clearly indicate your point of view.

2. Present the details and the characteristics of the details in the

order in which they catch the attention from the point of view
selected.

3. Choose words which depict accurately or suggest vividly the

detail or the characteristics of the detail which you are por-
traying.

III. Criticize your work.

1. Review your work to see:

a. That the point of view is either expressed or clearly implied.

b. That you have omitted no detail necessary to express the

chief impression given by the scene described.

c. That you have included no detail and no characteristic of any

detail that is invisible from the point of view selected.

d. That the order in which you have presented the details is the

order in which you saw them when they suggested to you
the chief impression.

e. That the words chosen depict or suggest accurately and

vividly the details and the characteristics of details which
are portrayed.

2. Examine your written work a second time to see :

a. That each sentence makes a point.

b. That each sentence is grammatical.

c. That each sentence is properly pimctuated.

d. That each word is correctly spelled.

Word Portraiture. — Word portraiture is the depiction of
living beings. Form a picture from the following description :

... up the river not far away they beheld a person coming toward
them of such singular appearance they forgot all else.

Outwardly the man was rude and uncouth, even savage. Over a thin,
gaunt visage of the hue of brown parchment, over his shoulders and down
his back below the middle, in witch-like locks, fell a covering of sun-
scorched hair. His eyes were burning-bright. All his right side was
naked, and of the color of his face, and quite as meager; a shirt of the
coarsest camel's hair — coarse as Bedouin tent cloth — clothed the rest of

DESCRIPTION 77

his person to the knees, being gathered at the waist by a broad girdle of
untanned leather. His feet were bare. A scrip, also of untanned leather,
was fastened to the girdle. He used a knotted staff to help him forward.
His movement was quick, decided, and strangely watchful. Every little
while he tossed the unruly hair from his eyes and peered round as if
searching for somebody. — Be/i Nur, Wallace.

This description is developed in four stages :

I. The blocking out of the figure ; t.i\, the outlining of the
figure against a background.

II. The stating of the chief impression given by the man.

III. The filling in of the details of the figure:

1. The picturing of the head in the three details :
a. The face as a whole.

d. The hair, the frame of the face.

c. The eyes, the one conspicuous feature of the

face.

2. The picturing of the trunk in the two details :
a. The naked side.

d. The clothing.

3. The picturing of the feet.

IV. The picturing of movements of the man which are
indicative of character and of mood.

This description is developed entirely by the depicting of a
few conspicuous physical details, because the chief impres-
sion made by the man, rudeness and uncouthness, expresses
itself in physical quahties and actions. The details are pre-
sented from head to foot ; i.e., in the order in which, under
the circumstances, they would strike the eye of an observer.

Imagine the person portrayed in the following description:

He was a small and singularly thin man, with blue wandering eyes
under the blackest possible eyebrows and hair. The cheeks were hollow,
the complexion as yellow as that of the typical Anglo-Indian. The special
character of the mouth was hidden by a fine black mustache, but his pre-

78 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

vailing expression varied between irritability and a kind of plaintiveness.
The conspicuous blue eyes were as a rule melancholy ; but they could be
childishly bright and self-assertive. There was a general air of breeding
about Richard Boyce, of that air at any rate which our common generaliza-
tions connect with the pride of old family ; his dress was careful and correct
to the last detail ; and his hands with their long fingers were of an exces-
sive delicacy, though marred as to beauty by a thinness which nearly
amounted to emaciation. — Afarcella, Mrs. Humphrey Warp.

This description has been developed by first blocking out
the figure, and by then filling in details in the order in which
they would strike the eye of the observer. In this case, the
details at first filled in are those which portray physical pe-
culiarities of the face ; the details next filled in are details of
the face which indicate traits of character ; the details last
filled in are other details of the figure which express the domi-
nant quality of the man's character.

In this description the background is implied, not defi-
nitely suggested. The man is portrayed as he appears any-
where under ordinary circumstances. The only parts of the
figure described in detail are the face and the hands, the face
in minute detail, the hands in some detail. Emphasis is
given to those details of the face and the hands which indi-
cate character. The details of the face are presented in rela-
tion to the eyes, the most conspicuous feature of the face.

Picture the person portrayed in the following description :

Just as the minstrel sounds were staid,

A stranger climbed the steepy glade ;

His martial step, his stately mien.

His hunting suit of Lincoln green,

His eagle glance, remembrance claims —

'Tis Snowdoun's Knight, 'tis James Fitz-James.

— The Lady of the Lake, ScOTT.

In the verse, " a stranger climbed the steepy glade,", an
approaching figure is blocked out against a definite back-

DESCRIPTION 79

ground. The four details by which the picture is developed,
(a) **his martial step," (d) "his stately mien," {c) " his hunt-
ing suit of Lincoln green," (d) " his eagle glance," are given
in the order in which they would strike the eye of an observer
who was watching the stranger as he approached. While
these details do not delineate, they suggest outline of body
and the appearance of the eyes. Three of these details, the
" martial step," the " stately mien," the " eagle glance," are
details of appearance which indicate training and character.
Though only four details, so broad as to be noticeable at
some distance, are portrayed, they are so distinctive as to
identify the man in the setting in which he appears.

Picture the person portrayed in the following description :

She was a Phantom of delight
When first she gleam'd upon my sight ;
A lovely Apparition, sent
To be a moment's ornament ;
Her eyes as stars of twiHght fair.
Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair ;
But all things else about her drawn
From May-time and the cheerful dawn ;
A dancing shape, an image gay.
To haunt, to startle, and waylay.

— S/te was a Phantom of Delight^ Wordsworth.

The ethereal beauty of the girl is suggested at once in the
words, " a phantoyn of delight when first she gleam d upon
my sight." Each detail of the description is portrayed by
words which picture objects that in themselves have ethereal
beauty : the brightness and the color of the eyes are sug-
gested by picturing the eyes as " stars of twilight fair"; the
color and the texture of the hair are pictured as dusky like
twilight's ; the general brightness and softness of coloring is
pictured in the words, ''May-time and the cheerful dawn'':
the lightness and etherealness of the figure are pictured in

$0 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

the words, " a dancing shape, an image gay, to hamit, to
start ley and waylay."

Portraiture by Comparison. — This description differs from
those already given in the method of portraying details. The
characteristics of the details are not definitely stated, but are
suggested by picturing objects which have in the highest
degree the essential characteristics of the various details.
The method used is the method of comparison.

SUMMARY

To make a word portrait :

1. Realize the figure and its chief impression.

2. Imagine the person against a background that will emphasize the

chief impression.

3. Of the details visible in the pose chosen, select those which indi-

vidualize the person.

a. Decide upon those physical details which must strike the eye
of any observer,

b. Decide upon those physical details that betray character.

4. Block out the figure against a background either suggested or

implied.
6. Present details in the order in which they strike the eye of the
observer.

a. Remember that, ordinarily, the details of a figure are seen
from head to foot.

b. Remember that, when there is one conspicuous feature, other
details are seen in relation to that one.

6. Remember that, ordinarily, the best picture is the one given in a
few broad strokes that deUneate characteristics so marked as
to insure identification.

EXERCISE XV

Study the following descriptions :

. . . the door of the bedroom opened, and Drysdale emerged in a loose
jacket lined with silk, his veh'ct cap on his head, and otherwise gorgeously
attired. He was a pleasant-looking fellow of middle size, with dark hair.

DESCRIPTION 8l

and a merry brown eye, with a twinkle in it, which spoke well for his sense
of humor ; otherwise, his features were rather plain, but he had the look
and manners of a thoroughly well-bred gentleman.

— Tom Brown at Oxford^ HuGHES.

KThe candles lighted up Lord Steyne's shining bald head, which was
fringed with red hair. He had thick bushy eyebrows, with little twinkling
blood-shot eyes, surrounded by a thousand wrinkles. His jaw was under-
hung, and when he laughed two white buck-teeth protruded themselves and
glistened savagely in the midst of the grin. ... A short man was his lord-
ship, broad-chested and bow-legged, but proud of the fineness of his foot
and ankle, and always caressing his garter-knee.

— Vanity Fair, Thackeray.

He was a sour, small, bilious man, with a long face and very dark eyes ;
fifty-six years old, sound and active in body, and with an air somewhat
between that of a shepherd and that of a man following the sea.

— T/ie Merry Men, Stevenson.

In this moment of terror and perplexity, a human face, black, and having
grizzled hair hanging down over the forehead and cheeks, and mixing with
the mustaches and a beard of the same color, and as much matted and
tangled, looked down on them from a broken part of the rock above.

— Tales of my Landlord, ScoTT.

In another minute, a bouncing and scrattling was heard on the stairs,
and a white bulldog rushed in, a gem in his way ; for his brow was broad
and massive, and wrinkled about the eyes, his skin was as fine as a lady's,
and his tail taper and nearly as thin as a clay pipe ; but he had a way of
going '' snuzzling" about the calves of strangers which was not pleasant for
nervous people. — Tom Brown at Oxford, Hughes.

The intruder stood in the door — a stubby, grossly stout man, thin-
legged, thick-necked, all body and beard ; clad below in light trousers,

82 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

falling loose, however, over the boots ; swathed above in an absurdly inade-
quate pea-jacket, short in the sleeves and buttoned tight over a monstrous
paunch, which labored (and that right sturdily) to burst the bonds of its
confinement, but succeeded only in creating a vast confusion of wrinkles.
His attitude was that of a man for the moment amazed bevond utterance :
his head was thrown back, so that of his face nothing was to be seen but a
short, ragged growth of iron-gray beard and a ridge of bushy eyebrow ; his
hands were plunged deep in his trousers pockets, which the fists distended ;
his legs, the left deformed (being bent inward at the knee), were spread
wide. In the shadows beyond lurked a huge dog — a mighty, sullen beast,
which came stepping up, with lowered head, to peer at us from between his
master's legs. — Dr. Luke of the Labrador, Duncan.

Sonya was a slender, miniature little brunette, with a tawny tinted com-
plexion, especially noticeable on her neck and bare arms, which were
slender, but graceful and muscular. She had soft eyes shaded by long
lashes and she wore her thick black hair in a braid twined twice about her
head. By the easy grace of her movements, by the suppleness and softness
of her slender limbs, and by a certain cunning and coyness of manner, she
reminded one of a beautiful kitten which promises soon to grow into :i
lovely cat. — Tolstoi.

Immediately there appeared, coming slowly up above the bulkhead of
the cabin, another bulkhead — human, and very large — with one stationary
eye in a mahogany face, and one revolving one, on the principle of some
light-houses. This head was decorated with shaggy hair, like oakum,
which had no governing inclination toward the north, east, west, or south,
but inclined to all four quarters of the compass and to every point upon it.
The head was followed by a perfect desert of chin, and by a shirt collar and
neckerchief, and by a dreadnaught pilot coat, and by a pair of dreadnaught
pilot trousers, whereof the waistband was so very broad and high that it
became asuccedaneum for a waistcoat, being ornamented near the wearer's
breastbone with some massive wooden buttons, like backgammon men.
As the lower portions of these pantaloons became revealed, Bunsby stood
confessed; his hands in their pockets, which were of vast size, and his
gaze directed, not to Captain Cuttle or the ladies, but the masthead.

— Dombey and Son, Dickens.

UESCKIPIION 83

A very stout, puffy man in buskins and Hessian boots, with several im-
mense neckcloths that rose almost to his nose, with a red-striped waistcoat
and an apple-green coat with steel buttons almost as large as crown pieces,
was reading the paper by the fire when the two girls entered, and bounced
off his armchair, and blushed excessively, and hid his entire face almost
in his neckcloths at this apparition. — Vanity Fair. Thackeray.

There is a photograph of him . . . which depicts a refined, gentle,
dreamy-faced German boy, with a soft, girlish chin, small, arched lips with
a suggestion of dimples at the corners, and fine meditative eyes. The fore-
head, though not broad, is of fair height and fullness. The dominant effect
of the face is that of sweetness.

— The Vojoie^ Emperor, Harold Frederic.

Those who see the young German Emperor on a state occasion think
of him as almost a tall man, with a stern, thoughtful face, and the most
distinguished bearing of any sovereign in Europe. He holds himself with
arrowlike straightness, bears his uniform or robes with proud grace, and
draws his features into a kind of mask of imperial dignity and reserved
wisdom and strength very impressive to the beholder.

— The Youn^ Emperor, Harold Frederic.

A little farther on, a hard-featured old man, with a deeply wrinkled face,
was intently perusing a lengthy will with the aid of a pair of horn spectacles,
occasionally pausing from his task, and shyly noting down some brief memo-
randum of the bequests contained in it. Every wrinkle about his toothless
mouth and sharp keen eyes told of avarice and cunning. His clothes were
nearly threadbare, but it was easy to see that he wore them from choice,
and not from necessity ; all his looks and gestures, down to the very small
pinches of snuff which he every now and then took from a little tin canister,
told of wealth, and penury, and avarice. — Sketches by Boz, Dickens.

§4 PRACTICAL KxXGLISH COMPOSITION

EXERCISE XVI
In each description :

1. Name the physical features which would be noticed by any

observer.

2. Name the details which depict the physical markings of character.

3. Give the groups of words which name instead of depicting char-

acteristics.

4. Account for the selection and the arrangement of details.

5. Of the descriptions, which are sketches and which portraits.'*

THEME XII

1. Depict an approaching stranger.

2. Write a word portrait of some one whom you know intimately.

3. Write a description of a person whom you know who has a strongly
marked character.

4. Write a word portrait of a pet animal.

5. Write word portraits suggested by each of the following topics :

a. Bob^s Partner.

b. The Street Beggar.

c. The Commander.

• d. The Old-time Schoolmaster.

e. The Old Fiddler.

f. The Stray Dog.

g. My Baby Brother. ^
h. My Chum.

/. The Tramp.

j. The Neighborhood Torment.

6. Criticize each of your compositions by means of the suggestions
given in Exercise XVI.

7. Examine each written composition carefully to see that it is correct
as to grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

Scientific, or Enumerative, Description. — Scientific, or enu-
merative, description is the depiction in series of details and
characteristics of details so distinctive as to make certain the
identification of whatever is portrayed.

Whatever is perceived through the senses may be material

DESCRIPTION 85

for scientific description. The scientific descriptions most
common, however, are those which depict individuals of any
sort concerning which exact information is required, and those
which depict types of animals, plants, and rocks, types of their
products, such as coral, nests, fruits, and ores, and types of
manufactured articles, such as oils, leathers, machines, etc.

Compare the following descriptions of the same animal, a
badger :

I .... as we climbed to a higher level, the cry sounded close at our feet.
Just above a ledge, where the rock had broken recently, a long, little, bear-
like nose was thrust, and from the open mouth beneath it sounded the
wail that had so distressed us.

Peering over the edge, we saw a broad, flat body, with long, beautiful,
tawny hair, striped black and white. One short foreleg, its foot armed
with formidable claws, was braced against the rock ; the other was doubled
beneath the tawny breast. It was easy to see what had happened : the
creature was wedged tight in a cleft of the rock and held there by a broken
stone that had rolled upon its broad, flat back. . . .

2. The creature stirred a little and moaned feebly when he was turned
out upon the floor, and we got our first good look at him. He was then
a little more than half grown and measured eighteen or twenty inches from
nose to tail ; but he was almost as broad as long, and scarcely six inches
high. His long, soft fur was a tawny gray, shading from brownish yellow
to white on the under parts. Down his back went a beautiful stripe of
pure black, flanked by two perfectly white stripes. His head was long and
pointed, broad between the short, erect ears, and tapering to an inquisitive,
exquisitely sensitive black nose. His legs were very short and his feet
were armed with black claws, fully two inches long.

— Matthew^ A. Knapp.

In the first description of the animal, an artistic description,
the details of the animal which are portrayed are : ( i ) " a long,
little, bear-like nose ; " (2) ** from the open mouth beneath it
sounded the wail ; " (3) "a broad, flat body, with long, beauti-
ful tawny hair, striped black and white ; " (4) " one short fore-
leg, its foot armed with formidable claws;" (5) "the other

86 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

was doubled beneath the tawny breast." These details are
portrayed in the order in which they catch the eye of the ob-
server from a changing point of view definitely indicated.
The distinctive details, the nose, the leg, and the claws, are
portrayed in words which suggest vividly, but which do not
define exactly.

In the second description, which is scientific, or enumera-
tive, the details are : (i) ** he was then a little more than half
grown, and measured eighteen or twenty inches from nose to
tail ; but Ije was almost as broad as long, and scarcely six
inches high ; " (2) ** His long, soft fur was a tawny gray, shad-
ing from brownish yellow to white on the under parts ; "
(3)" down his back went a beautiful stripe of pure black, flanked
by two perfectly white stripes ; " (4) " his head was long and
pointed, broad between the short, erect ears, and tapering to
an inquisitive, exquisitely sensitive black nose ; " (5) " his legs
were very short and his feet were armed with black claws,
fully two inches long."

The first detail depicts the size of the entire body, giving
two dimensions with exactness. The second detail depicts the
general appearance of the fur of the entire body as to length,
texture, and coloring. The third detail depicts with exactness
as to position and color the markings of the fur on the back.
The fourth detail portrays, first, the head as a whole, second,
two important features of the head by means of distinctive
characteristics. The fifth detail depicts the legs by their most
marked characteristic, extreme shortness. The sixth detail
depicts the feet by their most distinctive feature, claws, which
are in turn depicted as to length and color with perfect exact-
ness.

From the nature of the details depicted, it is evident that
other details which are visible have been omitted. The de-
tails that arc depicted show the distinctive features which give

DESCRIPTION 87

evidence of the animal's mode of life and which are characteris-
tic of the species to which it belongs. The details are pre-
sented in three series : (i) the details relating to size, (2) the
details relating to fur, and (3) the details relating to structure
of the body. The details of each series depict first the whole
and then the part.

From the nature of the details depicted, from the nature of
the details omitted, and from the order in which details are
presented, it is evident that the details presented are observed
from different points of view, each detail being examined from
the point of view necessary to give the observer accurate
information concerning it.

Scientific description differs from artistic description as to
the choice and the arrangement of details, as to the choice of
words in which to depict details, and as to point of view.

In artistic description, the details and characteristics of
details chosen are those which, seen from a stationary or
from a changing point of view, best reproduce the chief im-
pression given by the scene. In scientific description, the
details and characteristics of details chosen are those which
mark the thing portrayed as belonging to a particular class,
and they are chosen regardless of point of view. In ar-
tistic description, the details must be presented in the order
in which they catch the eye of the observer. In scientific
description, the details are presented in series, the details
of each series depicting from whole to part whatever is
portrayed. The series are presented in the order best cal-
culated to give exact and minute knowledge of whatever is
described.

In artistic description, the words chosen are those which
suggest most vividly. In scientific description, the words
chosen are those which state exactly.

In artistic description, the point of view is either a station-

88 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

ary or a changing point of view, each change in which is either
stated or implied. In scientific description, there is neither
a stationary point of view nor a changing point of view, the
changes in which are stated or impHed. The details are ob-
served from any point of view or from as many points of view
as are requisite to give exact and minute information concern-
ing whatever is observed.

EXERCISE XVII

Study the following descriptions :

761. Merula migratoria (Linn.), American Robin

Adult, ?nale. Top and sides of the head black, a white spot above the
eye ; rest of the upper parts grayish slate color ; margins of wings slightly
lighter; tail black, the outer feathers with white spots at their tips; throat
white, spotted with black ; rest of the under parts rufous (tipped with white
in the fall), becoming white on the middle of the lower belly.

Adult, female. Similar, but back of head tipped with grayish ; back,
tail, and under parts lighter.

Young in nestling plumage. Back and under parts spotted with black.
Total length, 10.00; wing, 4.96; tail, 3.87; bill, .84.

Nest, of coarse grasses, leaves, rootlets, etc., with an inner wall of mud
and lining of fine grasses, most frequently in fruit or shade trees, five to
thirty feet up.

Eggs, three to five, greenish blue, very rarely with brownish markings,
1. 14 X .80. — Birds of Eastern IVorth A?nerica, F. M. Chapman.

LOST — Small fox terrier, black head and spots of tan over the eyes,
and wearing wide brass-studded collar without name. Answers to '' Jack."

FOR SALE, in beautiful Wedgemere, one ten-room new house, finished
in oak and red birch, hot water heat ; granolithic walks ; neighborhood
the best ; three minutes electric or steam trains.

DESCRIPTION 89

In a short time, details of the craft ahead, hitherto hidden by distance,
began to show. There was no sign of life aboard ; her spars were gone,
with the exception of the foremast, broken at the hounds, and she seemed
to be about a thousand tons burden, colored a mixed brown and dingy
gray, which, as they drew near, was shown as the action of iron rust on
black and lead-colored paint. Here and there were outlines of painted
ports. Under the stump of a shattered bowsprit projected from between
bluff bows a weather-worn figurehead, representing the god of the sea.
Above on the bows were wooden-stocked anchors stowed inboard, and aft
on the quarters were iron davits with blocks intact — but no falls. In a
few of the deadeyes in the channels could be seen frayed rope yarns,
rotten with age, and, with the stump of the foremast, the wooden stocks
of the anchors, and the teakwood rail, of a bleached gray color. On the
round stern, as they pulled under it, they spelled, in raised letters, flecked
here and there with discolored gilt, the name, "Neptune, of London."
Unkempt and forsaken, she had come in from the mysterious sea to tell
her story. — The Derelict Neptune^ Robertson.

A Kamtchadal village differs in some respects so widely from an Ameri-
can frontier settlement, that it is worthy, perhaps, of a brief description.
It is situated generally on a little elevation near the bank of some river or
stream, surrounded by scattered clumps of poplar and yellow birch, and
protected by high hills from the cold northern winds. Its houses, which
are clustered irregularly together near the beach, are very low and are
made of logs squared and notched at the ends and chinked with masses
of dry moss. The roofs are covered with a rough thatch of long coarse
grass, or with overlapping strips of tamarack bark, and project at the ends
and sides into wide overhanging eaves. The window frames, although
occasionally glazed, are more frequently covered with an irregular patch-
work of translucent fish bladders, sewn together with thread made of the
dried and pounded sinews of the reindeer. The doors are almost square,
and the chimneys are nothing but long straight poles, arranged in a circle
and plastered over with clay. Here and there between the houses stand
half a dozen curious architectural quadrupeds called '' bologans,'' or fish
storehouses. They are simply conical log tents, elevated from the ground
on four posts to secure their contents from the dogs, and resemble as much

QO PRACTK AL ENCLTSH COMPOSITION

as anything small haystacks trying to walk away, on four legs. High
square frames of horizontal poles stand beside every house, filled with
thousands of drying salmon; and "an ancient and fishlike smell," which
pervades the whole atmosphere, betrays the nature of the Kamtchadals'
occupation and of the food on which they live. Half a dozen dugout
canoes lie bottom upward on the sandy shelving beach, covered with
large, neatly tied seines; two or three long, narrow dog sledges stand up
on their ends against every house, and a hundred or more sharp-eared
wolfish dogs, tied at intervals to long heavy poles, lie panting in the sun,
snapping viciously at the flies and mosquitoes which disturb their rest.
In the center of the village, facing the west, stands, in all the glory of
Kamtchatko-Byzantine architecture, red paint, and glittering domes, the
omnipresent Greek church, contrasting strangely with the rude log houses
and conical ''bologans" over which it extends the spiritual protection of
its resplendent golden cross. It is built generally of carefully hewn logs,
painted a deep brick red, covered with a green sheet-iron roof, and sur-
mounted by two onion-shaped domes of tin, which are sometimes colored
a sky-blue and spangled with golden stars. Standing with all its glaring
contrasts of color among a few unpainted log houses in a primitive wilder-
ness, it has a strange picturesque appearance not easily described. If you
can imagine a rough American backwoods" settlement of low log houses,
clustered round a gayly colored Turkish mosque, half a dozen small hay-
stacks mounted on high vertical posts, fifteen or twenty Titanic wooden
gridirons similarly elevated and hung full of drying fish, a few dog sledges
and canoes lying carelessly around, and a hundred or more gray wolves
tied here and there between the houses to long heavy poles, you will have
a general but tolerably accurate idea of a Kamtchadal settlement of the
better class. They differ somewhat in respect to their size and their
churches ; but the gray log houses, conical •* bologans," drying fish, wolf-
ish dogs, canoes, sledges, and fishy odors are all invariable features.

— Tent Life in Siberia., Kennan.

In each description :

a. Tell the purpose of the description. '

b. Name the details portrayed.

c. State the kind of characteristics portrayed.

THEME XIII

I. Write an artistic description of a pet animal in a characteristic pose
against a customary background.

DESCRIPTION 91

2. Using the same animal as a model, write a scientific description of
the species to which the animal belongs.
] 3. Write an advertisement of the same animal as lost.
> a. In what way and for what reason do the choice and the arrange-
ment of details differ in your three compositions ?

4. Choosing, if possible, from the following list, write a scientific
description of each of two objects that should be familiar to your
class :

a. The drum major.

b. The dachshund, the wolfhound, the broncho.

c. The passenger train.

d. The hand car.

e. The rocking-chair.

f. The freighter.

g. The properly furnished dining room.
//. The grain elevator.

/. The window box.
/. The weather vane.

5. Read to your class each of your compositions, withholding in each
case the name of the thing described.

a. Did the class recognize the thing described.'' If not. what was
wrong with your choice or arrangement of characteristics?

6. Rewrite either composition that was faulty, making the corrections
suggested by the class.

7. Examine your corrected theme to see that every sentence is gram-
matical, that the theme is properly punctuated, and that there are no mis-
spelled words.

In each of your compositions:

a. Which of the details that you have used are characteristic of each

individual of the class ?

b. In what way does each of these details indicate the habits or the

use of the thing described?

General Description. — Description sometimes takes a form
which is in some respects like artistic description, and in
some respects like scientific description.

Read the following description :

The villages are straggling, queer, old-fashioned places, the houses
being dropped down without the least regularity, in nooks and out-of-the

92 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

way corners by the side of shadowy lanes and footpaths, each with its
patch of garden. They are built chiefly of good gray stone, and thatched.
. . . There are lots of waste ground by the side of the road in every vil-
\dg% amounting often to village greens, where feed the pigs and ganders of
the people ; and these roads are old-fashioned homely roads, very dirty and
badly made, and hardly endurable in winter, but still pleasant jog-trot roads,
running through the great pasture lands, dotted here and there with little
clumps of thorns, where the sleek kine are feeding, with no fence on either
side of them, and a gate at the end of each field.

— Tom Brown's School Days ^ Hughes.

This description is like artistic description in that the details
used are those which could be seen from a fixed or from a
moving point of view, and in that the order in which the
details are presented is the order in which they would be
perceived from a fixed or from a moving point of view.
It is like scientific description in that the details used are
those common to all of the villages of the countryside, and
in that the main purpose of the description is the giving of
information concerning the kind of life common to all the
villages. Description of this sort is called general descrip-
tion.

A general description is a description which presents in
the order in which they could be seen from a stationary or
from a moving point of view the details and the characteris-
tics of details common to a class of objects.

THEME XIV

1. Write a general description of the classrooms in your building.

2. Write a general description of the churches of your district.

3. Write a general description of the parks of your district or of the
farms of your district.

a. In what way is each of your general descriptions like artistic de-

scription?

b. In what way is each of your general descriptions like scientific

description ?

DESCRIPTION

ADDITIONAL SUBJECTS FOR ORAL OR WRITTEN DESCRIPTION

My Favorite Room.

39-

The Waiting-room at a Terml

A Squall.

nal Station.

A Local Character.

40.

The Board Walk.

The Audience at a Track-meet.

41.

The Easter Display.

A Quaker Village.

42.

The Horse-show.

The Passing Crowd.

43-

iMy Fellow-passengers.

The Antique Shop.

44.

The House-tops of the Town.

The Forsaken Hut.

45-

The Hillside.

The Lumber Camp.

46.

A Wonderful Spectacle.

lO.

The Aquarium.

47.

A Cheerful Stove.

II.

The Stage-coach.

48.

The Orchard in May.

12.

The Ruin.

49.

The Snow Man.

13-

The Soldiers' Home.

50.

My Easy-chair.

14.

Farmer Jones.

51-

The Busy Wharf.

15-

The Tornado.

52.

The Docking of an Ocear

16.

The Country Store.

Liner.

17-

Our Attic.

The Skating Field.

18.

The Drill.

54-

The New Subway.

19.

The Wreck.

55-

The Aurora Borealis.

20.

A Brilliant Sunset.

56.

The Harbor at Night.

21.

The Statue of Liberty.

57-

The Coal Mine.

22.

An Ocean Liner.

58.

The Lookout.

23-

A View from an Aeroplane.

59-

The Mill Village.

24.

A Spring Flood.

60.

The Blue Ribbon Dog.

25.

Waiting for the Signal.

61.

The Headland

26.

Our Signal.

62.

My Yacht.

27.

The Tower Clock.

63-

A Quiet Nook.

28.

The Old Boat on the Beach.

64.

The Midnight Express.

29.

Our Bungalow.

65.

The View from my Window.

30.

The Old Fiddler.

66.

The Waterfront.

31-

The Old Cemetery.

67.

The Old Jail.

32.

A Gypsy Camp.

68.

The Mountain Stream.

33-

The Light-house Keeper.

69.

The Charming Old Lady.

34.

The Forest in Winter.

70.

An Iceberg.

35-

The Circus Grounds.

71-

A Little Urchin.

36.

The Runaway.

72.

My Lucky Piece.

11-

The Snow Fight.

73-

The Golf Links.

The Promenade.

74.

The Forest Fire.

CHAPTER IV
NARRATION

Narration is the kind of speech or of writing that recounts
occurrences in sequence. Any happening of any sort, or
any series of happenings, real or imagined, may be material
for narration.

A narrative may recount events as they actually happened
in the life of a Hving being ; i.e., it may be biography. It
may recount events as they actually happened in the life of
a nation or of a people ; i.e., it may be history. It may
recount events typical of life as it is ; i.e., it may be realistic
fiction. It may recount events as they are presumed to take
place in an imaginary world ; i.e., it may be romantic or
idealistic fiction.
►z. Realistic fiction includes most novels and short stories.
Romantic or idealistic fiction includes romances, fairy tales,
allegories, fables, and parables.

The purpose of a narrative may be to give information, as

in biography and history ; it may be merely to entertain, as
in most short stories and many novels ; or it may be to
illustrate a point or to teach some lesson, as in the " problem
novel," allegories, fables, and parables.

The Development of a Narrative. — Whatever the nature
or the purpose of a narrative, the occurrences must be so re-
counted as to culminate in a point which in itself has interest
or value. Read the following narrative, noting the point and
the chief impression and the way in which they are made:

In the hottest days of last summer there appeared in the city of the
Straits one of those wandering rehgious fanatics whom the Italians call

NARRATION 95

'• Nazarenes ," a bare-headed, half-starved, wild-eyed man, dressed in a
sort of hermit's frock that did not reach his sandaled feet. A boy of twelve
or fourteen walked beside him, dressed in the same way, but with a shorter
frock that showed his bare legs, and he carried a cowbell in one hand and
a stick in the other. ' From time to time the two stopped, always at the
busiest corners, and tlie boy rang his bell, as the public criers still do in old
Italian towns, unless they are provided with a bugle horn instead. A few
grown people and many idle lads and youths stopped at the sound to see
what would happen. Then the "Nazarene" lifted up his voice, shrill and
clear, to utter his prophecy, and his wild eyes were suddenly still and
looked upward, fixed on the high houses opposite ; and this was what he
cried out :

" Be warned, take heed and repent, ye of Messina ! This year shall not
end before your city is utterly destroyed ! "

But they who were to perish laughed and jeered at the " Nazarene " and
went about their business, while he and his young companion proceeded
on their way ; and the street boys howled at them and pelted them with
bits of orange peel and peach stones ; but they passed on unheeding and
unflinching as if accomplishing a mission intrusted to them as a sacred
duty. — Outlook, Crawford.

The Selection of Details. — The point or culmination of the
narrative is the prophetic warning of Messina by the Naza-
rene. It is brought out in five incidents : (i) the appearance
of the Nazarene and his companion ; (2) the stopping of
the two at the busiest corners and the ringing of the bell ;
(3) the stopping of passers-by to listen ; (4) the uttering of
the prophetic warning; and (5) the contemptuous rejection of
the Nazarene's warning and the passing on of the Nazarene
and his companion.

The Development of Details. — Each incident is developed
by particulars essential to a clear understanding of the point.
The first incident suggests the time of the event, names the
place in which the event occurred, and introduces, first, the
chief actor and, then, his companion. The second incident
tells what the two did to srain the attention of an audience.
The third shows the kind of audience that they attracted.

96 PR.\CTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

The fourth is the uttering of the prophetic warning. The
fifth gives the result of the warning.

The Chief Impression. — Each incident, also, by at least one
particular helps to produce the chief impression given by the
narrative, the strangeness of the event. The first incident
gives the oddity of appearance of the chief actor and his
companion. The second incident suggests the unusualness
of the action by which the two gained the attention of an
audience. The third depicts the kind of audience attracted
by a strange action. The fourth recounts the peculiar
prophetic warning. The fifth emphasizes the peculiarity of
the warning by recounting its effect upon the crowd.

Each incident of the narrative, therefore, is developed by
particulars which are essential to a clear understanding of
the point or culmination, and which help to produce one
chief impression.

The Order of Details. — The order in which the incidents
are recounted is the order in which they occurred. Each
additional incident both advances the story in time and
emphasizes the chief impression.

The Point of View of a Bystander. — The event is re-
counted as if seen by a bystander on the streets of the city.
Each incident is developed by means of particulars that would
catch the attention of a bystander. No particular which
could not be perceived by a bystander is introduced. The
story is told, therefore, from the point of view of a bystander.

Summary. — A narrative should be recounted by means of
particulars which bring out the point or culmination, and
which suggest the chief impression. Ordinarily, particulars
are recounted in the order in which they occur. When a
narrative is told from the point of view of a bystander, only
such particulars may be used as would catch the attention of
a bystander.

NARRATION 97

THEME I

1. Write an account of an amusing event which you have seen happen.

2. Write an account of the most exciting event which you have seen
happen.

3. Write an account of the oddest event which you have seen happen.
a. In each of your narratives :

(i) What is the point?

(2) By what incidents have you developed it?

(3) Which incident contains the point?

(4) What does each incident contribute to the clear understand-

ing of the point?

(5) In what way does each incident suggest the chief impression ?

b. Read over each of your compositions to see that the story is told

clearly.

c. Examine each theme a second time to see that the grammar,

the punctuation, and the spelling are correct.

The Point of View in Narration. — The point of view from
which a narrative is told is not always that of a bystander.
Read the following selection :

Just after sundown, when all my work was over and I was on my way
to my berth, it occurred to me that I should like an apple. I ran on deck.
The watch was all forward looking out for the island. The man at the
helm was watching the luff of the sail and whistling away gently to him-
self; and that was the only sound excepting the swish of the sea against
the bows and around the side of the ship.

In I got bodily into the apple barrel and found there w-as scarce an
apple left ; but, sitting down there in the dark, what with the sound of
the waters and the rocking movement of the ship, I had either fallen
asleep, or was on the point of doing so, when a heavy man sat down with
rather a clash close by. The barrel shook as he leaned his shoulders
against it, and I was just about to jump up when the man began to speak.
It was Silver's voice, and, before I had heard a dozen words, I would not
have shown myself for all the world, but lay there, trembling and listening,
in the extreme of fear and curiosity; for from these dozen words I under-
stood that the lives of all the honest men aboard depended upon me alone.

— Treasure Island^ Stevenson.

yS PR.\CT1CAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

The Point of View of an Actor in the Events. — The point
of view from which the story is told is that of the chief actor.
The particulars which are recounted are those important to
the chief actor in the various situations in which he finds
himself. No particular is recounted which could not be per-
ceived by the chief actor. Each particular is introduced into
the story at the point at which the chief actor becomes con-
scious of it. Every particular recounted bears directly on the
point and is essential to the point. The first sentence gives
the time, the occasion, and the place of the event, introduces
the chief actor, and states his motive. The second sentence
recounts the action which takes the chief actor to the place
which is to be the scene of real interest. The third and
fourth sentences depict the watch and the helmsman as in
positions where they would neither see nor hear the chief
actor, and suggest the quietness of the ship. The fifth sen-
tence recounts the action that takes the chief actor into the
situation which makes the overhearing of Silver possible.
The last two sentences develop the situation which is the
point of the event; i.e., the hearing of the dozen words which
Silver spoke, and state the result of these words; i.e.^ the
determination of the chief actor to remain and listen.

All of the particulars but four recount actions essential to
the working out of the point. The four particulars which do
not recount actions establish conditions which make the event
possible. The actions are recounted in the order of their oc-
currence. Each condition is suggested at that moment in the
story at which it is perceived by the chief actor.

Summary. — When a narrative is told from the point of
view of an actor in the story, only such particulars may be
recounted as could be known by the actor who tells the story.
An actor in a story may recount whatever he sees or hears,
his own actions, his own thoughts, and his own feelings.

NARRATION 99

EXERCISE I
Read carefully each of the following selections :

... a door opened softly above, and a small figure stole out into
the dark hall. After listening a moment, this little figure went silentlv
down the stairs, paused at the line of light underneath the closed study
door, listened again, and then, convinced that all was safe, went into the
sitting room, took down the stockings one by one, and deliberately
inspected all their contents, sitting on a low stool before the fire. First
came the stockings of the boys ; each parcel was unrolled, down to the
last gingerbread camel, and as deftly enwrapped again by the skillful little
fingers. During this examination there was not so much an expression of
interest as of jealous scrutiny. But when the turn of her own stocking
came, the small face showed the most profound, almost weazened, solici-
tude. Package after package was swiftly opened and its contents spread
upon the mat beside her. The doll was cast aside with contempt, the
slippers examined and tried on with critical care, and then when the candy
and cake appeared and nothing else, the eyes snapped with anger.

The little brown hand felt down to the toe of the stocking ; no, there
was nothing more. " It is my opinion," said Tita, in her French island
patois^ half aloud, " that Annette is one stupid beast."

She then replaced everything, hung the stockings on their nails, and
stole back to her own room ; here, by the light of a secreted candle end,
she manufactured the following epistle, with heavy labor of brains and
hand : " Cher papa, — I hav dreemed that Sant Klos has hare-ribbans in
his pak. Will you ask him for sum for your little Tita .'' " This not seem-
ing sufficiently expressive, she inserted '^ trez affecsionay " before "Tita."'
and then, folding the epistle, she went softlv down the stairs again, and
stealing round in the darkness through several unused rooms, she entered
her father's bedroom, which communicated with the study, and by sense of
feeling pinned the paper carefully round his large pipe which lay in its
usual place on the table. For William Douglas always began smoking as
soon as he rose. . . . Having accomplished her little maneuver, Tita
went back upstairs to her own room like a small white ghost, and fell
asleep with the satisfaction of a successful diplomatist.

— Anne, Woolson.

lOO PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

"Now, John, give us a sample of the things they tell of thee. Take
the biggest of them sledge hammers and crack this rogue in two for us.
We have tried at him for a fortnight, and he is a nut worth cracking. But
we have no man who can swing that hammer, though all in the mine have
handled it."

" I will do my best," said I, pulling off my coat and waistcoat as if I
were going to wrestle ; " but I fear he will prove too tough for me."

" Ay, that her wull," grunted Master Carfax, '- lack'th a Carnishman, and
a beg one too, not a little charp such as I be. There be no man outside
Carnwall as can crack that boolder."

" Bless my heart," I answered, "but I know something of you, my friend,
or at any rate of your family. Well, I have beaten most of your Cornish-
men, though not my place to talk of it. But mind, if I crack this rock for
you, I must have some of the gold inside it."

" Dost think to see the gold come tumbling out like the kernel of a nut,
thou zany ? " asked Uncle Reuben, pettishly ; " now wilt thou crack it or
wilt thou not ? For I believe thou canst do it, though only a lad of
Somerset."

Uncle Reuben showed by saying this and by his glance at Carfax that
he was proud of his county and would be disappointed for it, if I failed to
crack the bowlder. So I begged him to stoop his torch a little, that I
might examine my subject. To me there appeared to be nothing at all
remarkable about it except that it sparkled here and there when the flash
of the flame fell upon it. A great, obstinate, oblong, sullen stone : how
could it be worth the breaking except for making roads with.-*

Nevertheless, I took up the hammer, and, swinging it far behind my
head, fetched it down, with all my power, upon the middle of the rock.
The roof rang mightily, and the echo went down delven galleries, so that
all the miners flocked to know what might be doing. But Master Carfax
only smiled, although the blow shook him where he stood ; for behold, the
stone was still unbroken and as firm as ever. Then I smote it again with
no better fortune, and Uncle Ben looked vexed and angry; but all the
miners grinned with triumph.

" This little tool is too light," I cried ; " one of you give me a piece of
strong cord."

Then I took two more of the weightiest hammers and lashed them fast
to the back of mine, not so as to strike, but to burden the fall. Having
made this firm, and with room to grasp the handle for the largest one only

NARRATION loi

— for the helves of the others were shorter — l smiled at Uncle Ben, and
whirled the mighty implement round my head, just to try whether I could
manage it. Upon that the miners gave a cheer, being honest men and
desirous of seeing fair play between this " shameless stone" (as Dan Homer
calls it) and me with my hammer hammering.

Then I swung me on high to the swing of the sledge, as a thresher
bends back to the rise of his flail, and with all my power descending, deliv-
ered the ponderous onset. Crashing and crushed, the great stone fell over,
and threads of sparkling gold appeared in the jagged sides of the break-
age.

''How now, Simon Carfax ?" cried Uncle Ben, triumphantly; "'wilt
thou find a man in Cornwall can do the like of that ? ''

" Ay, and more,'' he answered. " However, it is pretty fair for a lad of
these outiandish parts.'' — Lorna Doone, Blackmore.

In each selection :

1. State the point, or culmination, and the chief impression of the

story.

2. Name the chief actor and tell where in the story the chief actor is

introduced.

3. State the motive of the chief actor and tell at what point of the

story the motive is made evident.

4. State the main steps which lead to the point.

5. Give the particulars by which any one of these steps is recounted.

a. Name the particulars which recount actions.

b. Name the particulars which establish conditions.

6. State the point of view from which the story is told.

THEME II

^i. Narrate an incident from your own life in which an unexpected
occurrence befell you.

2. Recount the maneuvering of a person or of an animal that you
have watched trying to gain an end hiddenly.
3. Recount your own maneuvers to accomplish a purpose.

In each of your narratives :

a. What is the point ?

b. What is the chief impression?

c. What motive starts the series of actions?

d. What particulars lead to the point ?

I02 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

e. Which of the particulars recount actions?

f. Which of the particulars establish conditions?

g. Have you introduced any particular which could not have been

known by the narrator at the moment when the particular is
introduced into the story?

The point of view from which a story is told may bo
neither that of a bystander nor that of an actor in the events.
Read the following selection :

As the sun declined, Gerard's heart too sank and sank : with the waning
light even the embers of hope went out. He was faint, too, with hunger;
for he was afraid to ea.t the food Ghysbrecht had brought him ; and hunger
alone cows men. He sat upon the chest, his arms and his head drooping
before him, a picture of despondency. Suddenly something struck the wall
beyond him very sharply and then rattled on the floor at his feet. It was an
arrow; he saw the white feather. A chill ran through him — they meant
then to assassinate him from the outside. He crouched. No more mi.s-
siles came. He crawlea on all fours and took up the arrow ; there was no
head to it. He uttered a cry of hope : had a friendly hand shot it ? He
took it up and felt it all over ; he felt a soft substance attached to it. Then
one of his eccentricities was of grand use to him. His tinder box enabled
him to strike a light ; it showed him two things that made his heart bound
with delight, none the less thrilling for being somewhat vague. Attached
to the arrow was a skein of silk, and on the arrow itself were words
written.

How his eyes devoured them, his heart panting the while!

Well-beloved^ )nake fast the silk to thy knife and lower to us ; but hold
thine end fast ; then count an Jiundred and draw up.

Gerard seized the oek chest, and with almost superhuman energy
dragged it to the window ; a moment ago he could not have moved it.
Standing on the chest and looking down, he saw figures at the tower foot.
They were so indistinct they looked like one huge form. He waved his
bonnet to them with trembling hand ; then he undid the silk rapidly but
carefully, and made one end fast to his knife and lowered it till it ceased
to draw. Then he counted a hundred. Then he pulled the silk carefully
up ; it came up a little heavier. At last, he came to a large knot, and by
that knot a stout whipcord was attached to the silk. What could this
mean? While he was puzzling himself. Margaret's voice came up to him,

'-»

NARRATION

TO3

low but clear: "Draw up, Gerard, till you see liberty.'" At the word
Gerard drew the whipcord line up, and drew and drew till he came to
another knot, and found a cord of some thickness take the place of the
whipcord. He had no sooner begun to draw this up than he found that
he now had a heavy weight to deal with. Then the truth suddenly flashed
on him, and he went to work and pulled and pulled till the perspiration
rolled down him ; the weight got heavier and heavier and at last he was
w^ll-nigh exhausted ; looking down, he saw in the moonlight a sight that
revived him : it was as it were a great snake coming up to him out of the
deep shadow cast by the tower. He gave a shout of joy, and a score more
wild pulls, and lo! a stout new rope touched his hand; he hauled and
hauled, and dragged the end into his prison, and instantly passed it
through both handles of the chest in succession and knotted it firmly;
then sat for a moment to recover his breath and collect his courage. The
first thing was to make sure that the chest was sound and capable of
resisting his weight poised in mid-air. He jumped with all his force upon
it. At the third jump the whole side burst open and out scuttled the
contents, a host of parchments.

After the first start and misgiving this gave him, Gerard comprehended
that the chest had not burst but opened : he had doubtless jumped upon
some secret spring. Still it shook in some degree his confidence in the
chest's powers of resistance ; so he gave it an ally ; he took the iron bar
and fastened it with the small rope across the large rope and across the
window. He now mounted the chest, and from the chest put his feet
through the window, and sat half in and half out, with one hand on that
part of the rope which was inside. In the silent night he heard his own
heart beat.

The free air breathed on his face and gave him the courage to risk what
we must all lose one day — for liberty. Many dangers awaited him, but
the greatest was the first getting on to the rope outside. Gerard reflected.
Finally, he put himself in the attitude of a swimmer, his body to the waist
being in the prison, his legs outside. Then, holding the inside rope with
both hands, he felt anxiously with his feet for the outside rope, and, when
he had got it, he worked it in between the palms of his feet and kept it
there tight ; then he uttered a short prayer, and, all the calmer for it, put
his left hand on the sill and gradually wiggled out. Then he seized the
iron bar, and for one fearful moment hung outside from it by his right
hand, while his left hand felt for the rope down at his knees ; it was too
tight against the wall for his fingers to get round it higher up. The

I04 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSinOX

moment he had fairly grasped it, he left the bar, and swiftly seized the
rope with the right hand too; but in this maneuver his body necessarily
fell about a yard. A stifled cry came up from below. Gerard hung in
mid-air. He clenched his teeth and nipped the rope tight with his feet
and gripped it with his hands, and went down slowly, hand below hand.
He passed by one huge rough stone after another. He saw there was
green moss on one. He looked up and he looked down. The moon
shone into his prison window ; it seemed very near. The fluttering
figures below seemed an awful distance. It made him dizzy to look down ;
so he fixed his eyes steadily on the wall close to him, and went slowly
down, down, down.

He passed a rusty, slimy streak on the wall ; it was some ten feet long.
The rope made his hands very hot. He stole another look up.

The prison window was a good way off now.

Down — down — down — down.

The rope made his hand sore.

He looked up. The window was so distant, he ventured now to turn
his eyes downward again ; and there, not more than thirty feet below
him, were Margaret and Martin, their faithful hands upstretched to catch
him should he fall. He could see their eyes and their teeth shine in
the moonlight. For their mouths were open and they were breathing
hard.

" Take care, Gerard! O, take care! Look not down."

" Fear me not," cried Gerard, joyfully, and eyed the wall, but came
down faster.

In another minute his feet were at their hands. They seized him ere
he touched the ground, and all three clung together in one embrace.

— The Cloister and the Hearth, Reade.

The Point of View of a Person with Complete Knowledge. —

The point of the story is Gerard's escape from the tower.
The chief impression is the excitement of suspense. Most of
the particulars of the story recount in the order of their
occurrence actions as they would appear to an onlooker, but
some of the particulars recount sensations, thoughts, or emo-
tions which, at the point of their introduction into the story,
no mere onlooker could possibly know. The point of view
from which the story is told is, therefore, that of a person

NARRATION 105

who has complete knowledge both of what the actors do and
say and of what they think and feel.

When a narrative is recounted from the point of view of
complete knowledge, the narrator may recount anything con-
cerning the actors that bears upon the point of the story ;
i.e.^ he may recount not only the acts and the words, but also
the thoughts and the feelings of the actors, and may give
any necessary information concerning them.

Summary. — The choice of particulars for narrative, there-
fore, depends not only upon the point or culmination of the
event and upon the chief impression of the event, but also
upon the point of view of the narrator. The point of view of
a narrator may be that of a bystander, that of an actor in the
events recounted, or that of a person with complete knowledge.

Motivization. — In order to make the events recounted
seem reasonable, a narrator must use particulars which will
show why the characters in the story act as they do ; i.e., the
narrator must make evident the motives for actions.

Each of the events already studied is the working out of
a motive or of a series of motives. The first event is the
working out of a single motive, the Nazarene's desire to warn
the people of Messina. The second event is the working
out of two successive motives: (i) the chief actor's desire to
get an apple ; and (2) the chief actor's desire to hear what
Silver had to say. Gerard's escape is the working out of a
series of motives: (i) curiosity concerning the arrow; (2) a
wish to obey the instructions written on the arrow ; and (3)
the intent to escape.

The motive for the Nazarene's actions is clearly implied
at the point or culmination of the story. The two motives
for the actions of the chief actor in the second selection are
definitely stated. The series of motives for the actions of
Gerard are clearly implied.

Io6 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

Summary. — Every event is the working out of a motive
or of a series of motives. In good narrative, motives are
either definitely stated or clearly implied.

EXERCISE n

I . Read carefully the following selection :

It was not known whether, after the taking of the bastion, the Rochel-
lais had evacuated it or left a garrison in it ; the object then was to examine
the place near enough to ascertain the thing.

D'Artagnan set out with his four companions and followed the trench ;
the two guards marched abreast with him and the two soldiers followed
behind.

They arrived thus, screened by the lining of the trench, till they came
within a hundred paces of the bastion. There, on turning round, D'Arta-
gnan perceived that the two soldiers had disappeared.

He thought that, beginning to be afraid, they had stayed within about
sixty paces of the bastion. They saw no one, and the bastion seemed
abandoned.

The three composing our forlorn hope were deliberating whether they
should proceed any further, when all at once a circle of smoke enveloped
the giant of stones and a dozen balls came whistling round D'Artagnan
and his companions.

They knew all they wished to know : the bastion was guarded. A
longer stay in this dangerous spot would have been useless imprudence.
D'Artagnan and his two companions turned their backs, and commenced a
retreat which looked very much like a flight.

On arriving at the angle of the trench, which was to serve them as a
rampart, one of the guards fell ; a ball passed through his breast. The
other, who was safe and sound, continued on his way towards the camp.

D'Artagnan was not willing to abandon his companion thus, and
stooped down to raise him and assist him in regaining the lines ; but at
this moment two shots were fired ; one ball hit the head of the already
wounded guard, and the other was flattened against a rock after having
passed within two inches of D'Artagnan.

The young man turned round quickly, for this attack could not come
from the bastion, which was masked by the angle of the trench ; the idea
of the two soldiers who had abandoned him occurred to his mind, and with
them that of the assassins of two evenings before ; he resolved then, this

NARRATION 107

time, to know what he had to trust to, and fell upon the body of his com-
rade as if he had been dead.

He quickly saw two heads appear above an abandoned work, within
thirty paces of him ; they were the heads of two soldiers. D'Artagnan had
not been deceived, these two men had only followed him for the purpose
of assassinating him, hoping that the young man's death would be placed
to the account of the enemy.

Only, as he might be wounded and might denounce their crime, they
came up to him with the purpose of making sure of him ; fortunately,
deceived by D'Artagnan's trick, they neglected to reload their guns.

When they were within ten paces of him, D'Artagnan, who, in falling,
had taken care not to leave hold of his sword, sprang up close to them.

The assassins comprehended that if they fled towards the camp without
having killed their man, they should be accused by him ; therefore, their
first idea was to pass over to the enemy. One of them took his gun by the
barrel and used it as he would a club ; he aimed a terrible blow at D'Arta-
gnan, who avoided it by springing on one side ; but by this movement he
left a passage free to the bandit, who darted off towards the bastion. As
the Rochellais who guarded the bastion were ignorant of the intentions of
the man they saw coming towards them, they fired upon him. and he fell,
struck by a ball, which broke his shoulder.

In the meantime, D'Artagnan had thrown himself upon the other soldier,
attacking him with his sword ; the conflict was not long : the wretch had
nothing to defend himself with but his discharged arquebus : the sword of
the guard slipped down the barrel of the now useless weapon, and passed
through the thigh of the assassin, who fell.

— The Three Musketeers, Du.mas.

a. Quote the particulars which introduce into the story, at a point

where they could not be known to a mere onlooker, thoughts
or feelings of any of the actors.

b. Name the motives for the various actions, and tell whether they

are stated or implied.
2. Bring to class two examples of narrative told from the point of
view of complete knowledge, choosing one example from Cooper,
Dickens, Hawthorne, Irving, or Scott, and the other from some current
author.

a. Quote the particulars which show that the narrator has com-
plete knowledge of the thoughts, the feelings, and the motives
of the actors.

Io8 PRACTICAL E]\-GLISH COMPOSITION

b. Quote any particulars of the narrative which show change of
motive in the chief actor.

THEME III

A. From the point of view of complete knowledge, recount :

""^/l. The adventures of a person who has lost his way toward nightfall.
""— * 2. An attempt to rob an apple orchard, a grapevine, or a melon
patch .

"— *• 3. The rescue of a person from danger.
^. \ reconciliation.
In each of your narratives :

a. What particulars could not be known to a mere onlooker?

b. In what way do these particulars bear upon the point?

c. What motive or what series of motives is worked out in the

various actions recounted in each of your narratives?

B. Examine each of your compositions to see that the particulars that
you have used lead up to the point of the story and that you have arranged
them in the order in which they occurred.

C. Examine each of your compositions again to see that you have ex-
pressed yourself in clear grammatical sentent^es. that you have punctuated
each sentence correctly, that your theme contains no misspelled words.

D. Exchange your compositions with a classmate.

E. Criticize the composition that you have received ( i ) for the choice and
the order of the particulars that lead to the point, (2) for the reasonableness of
the motives suggested for actions, and (3) for accuracy in grammar, punctua-
tion, and spelling.

F. Recast your own compositions, making the corrections suggested
by the person who criticized them.

Movement. — The progression of events toward a point is
movement. Events take place at different degrees of speed.
Therefore, if a narrator is to give an exact impression of an
event, he must indicate the right degree of speed.

Read the following selections, noting the rate of speed : .

I. She cut his bonds. He stood upright, looked round with a laugh
of wild exultation, clapped his hands together, and sprung from the ground
as if in transport on finding himself at liberty. He looked so wild that
Jeanie trembled at what she had done. ,

" Let me out,'' said the young savage.

NARRATION

109

'< I wanna, unless you promise — "

"Then Til make you glad to let us both out."

He seized the lighted candle and threw it among the flax, which was
instantly in a flame. Jeanie screamed and ran out of the room ; the
prisoner rushed past her, threw open a window in the passage, jumped into
the garden, sprung over its inclosure, bounded through the woods like a
deer, and gained the seashore. Meantime, the fire was extinguished ; but
the prisoner was sought in vain. — The Heart of Midlothian^ Scott.

2. At my own writing table, pushed into a corner cumbered with little
bottles, Joe now sat down to his great work, first choosing a pen from
the pen trays as if it were a chest of large tools, and tucking up his sleeves
as if he were going to wield a crowbar or a sledge hammer. It was
necessary for Joe to hold on heavily to the table with his left elbow, and to
get his right leg well out behind him, before he could begin, and when
he did begin, he made every downstroke so slowly that it might have been
six feet long, while at every upstroke I could hear his pen spluttering
extensively. He had a curious idea that the inkstand was on the side of
him where it was not, and constantly dipped his pen into space, and
seemed quite satisfied with the result. Occasionally, he was tripped up
by some orthographical stumbling block, but on the whole he got on
very well indeed, and when he had signed his name, and had removed
a finishing blot from the paper to the crown of his head with his two fore-
fingers, he got up and hovered about the table, trying the effect of his
performance from various points of view as it lay there, with unbounded
satisfaction. — Great Expectations, Dickens.

The first selection recounts the rapid occurrence of an
exciting event. Each of the actions recounted is a vigorous
action. One important action follows close upon another
without interruption. Each additional action is a marked
advance toward the point or culmination of the story. The
conclusion of the event recounts briefly the final outcome of
the two incidents of chief importance, the fire and the flight.

The second selection recounts the long drawn-out occur-
rence of an event deliberately undertaken and painstakingly
performed. The actions recounted include not only those
which are necessary to the writing of a letter but also many

no PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

actions not necessary to the writing of a letter. The re-
counting of an action essential to the task is followed by the
recounting of several actions unessential to the task. All of
the actions, essential and unessential alike, are recounted as
performed with the utmost deliberation. The conclusion re-
counts with great elaboration the very unimportant acts which
mark the completion of the task.

In the first selection, the effect of rapidity is produced by
the recounting in the order of occurrence of only the most
important particulars, by the expressing of the particulars in
words which suggest vividly rapid actions. In the second
selection, the effect of slowness is produced by the recounting
of all the unnecessary actions by which the hero delays his
own speed, and by the choice of language which suggests
vividly the actor's unaccustomedness to his task.

Read the following anecdote :

3. With a view to escape from the crowd of Koraks who squatted
around us on the earthen floor, and whose watchful curiosity soon became
irksome, Dodd and I lifted up the fur curtain of the polog which the
major's diplomacy had secured, and crawled in to await the advent of
supper. The inquisitive Koraks, unable to find room in the narrow polog
for the whole of their bodies, lay down to the number of nine on the
outside, and poking their ugly, half-shaven heads under the curtain, re-
sumed their silent supervision. The appearance in a row of nine disem-
bodied heads, whose staring eyes rolled with synchronous motion from
.side to side as we moved, was so ludicrous that we involuntarily burst
into laughter. A responsive smile instantly appeared upon each of the
nine swarthy faces, whose simultaneous concurrence in the expression of
every motion suggested the idea of some huge monster with nine heads
and but one consciousness. Acting upon Dodd's suggestion that we try
and smoke them out, 1 took a brierwood pipe from my pocket and pro-
ceeded to light it with one of those peculiar snapping lucifers which were
among our most cherished relics of civilization. As the match, with a
miniature fusillade of sharp reports, burst suddenly into flame, the nine
startled heads instantly disappeared, and from beyond the curtain we could

NARRATION 1 1 1

hear a chorus of long-drawn '' tye-e-e's '' from the astonished natives, fol-
lowed by a perfect Babel of animated comments upon this diabolical
method of producing fire. Fearful, however, of losing some other equally
striking manifestation of the white men's supernatural power, the heads
soon returned, reenforced by several others which the report of the won-
derful occurrence had attracted. The fabled watchfulness of the hundred-
eyed Argus was nothing compared with the scrutiny to which we were now
subjected. Every wreath of curling smoke which rose from our lips was
watched by the staring eyes as intently as if it were some deadly vapor
from the bottomless pit, which would shortly burst into report and flame.
A loud and vigorous sneeze from Dodd was the signal for a second panic-
stricken withdrawal of the row of heads, and another comparison of re-
spective experiences outside the curtain. It was laughable enough; but,
tired of being stared at and anxious for something to eat, we crawled out
of our polog and watched with unassumed interest the preparation of
supper. — Tent Life in Siberia^ Kennan.

The anecdote recounts a series of incidents which occurred
at moderate speed. The particulars recount actions, explain
reasons for actions, or state impressions made by actions.
The particulars are narrated in the order of occurrence ; i.e.,
actions in the order in which they took place, reasons before
the actions which they explain, impressions after the actions
which produced them. The conclusion states brietiy the rea-
son for bringing the series of incidents to a close and recounts
the action by which it is brought to a close.

The effect of moderate speed is produced : (i ) by the inter-
posing between particulars which recount actions of greater
importance, particulars which narrate reasons for actions or
impressions made by actions or which describe conditions
under which actions occurred ; and (2) by the use of such
words to express action as express a moderate degree of
action.

Read the following selection, noticing the rate of speed :

4. Forgetting for a moment the purpose of his vigil, he was thinking
of a long morning's fishing, and had turned to pick up his plaid and go off

112 PRACTICWL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

to the house for his fishing rod, when he thought he heard the sound of
dry wood snapping. He Hstened intently ; and the next moment it came
again, some way off, but plainly to be heard in the intense stillness of the
morning. Some living thing was moving down stream. Another mo-
ment's listening, and he was convinced that the sound came from a hedge
some hundred yards below.

He had noticed the hedge before ; the keeper had stopped up a gap in
it the day before, at the place where it came down to the water, with some
old hurdles and dry thorns. He drew himself up behind his alder, looking
out from behind it cautiously toward the point from which the sound came.
He could just make out the hedge through the mist, but saw nothing.

But now the crackling began again, and he was sure that a man was
forcing his way over the keeper's barricade. A moment afterwards he saw
a figure drop from the hedge into the slip in which he stood. He drew
back his head hastily, and his heart beat like a hammer as he waited the
approach of the stranger. In a few seconds the suspense was too much
for him, for again there was perfect silence. He peered out a second time
cautiously around the tree, and now he could make out the figure of a man
stooping by the waterside just above the hedge, and drawing a line. This
was enough and he drew back again and made himself small behind the
tree ; now he was sure that the keeper's enemy, the man he had come out
to take, was here. His next halt would be at the line which was set within
a few yards of the place where he stood. So the struggle which he had
courted was come I All his doubts of the night wrestled in his mind for a
minute; but, forcing them down, he strung himself up for the encounter,
his whole frame trembling with excitement, and his blood tingling through
his veins as though it would burst them. The next minute was as severe
a trial of nerve as he had ever been put to, and the sound of a stealthy
tread on the grass just below came to him as a relief. It stopped, and he
heard the man stoop, then came a stir in the water and the flapping as of
a fish being landed.

Now was his time! He sprang from behind the tree, and the next
moment was over the stooping figure of the poacher.

— Totn Brown at Oxford, Hughes.

The selection recounts an incident which occurred at a
very slow rate of speed. Few physical actions on the part
of the chief actor are recounted. Twice in the narrative all
happenings stop. Of the many particulars which make up

NARRATION 1 13

this incident, only six recount movements on the part of the
chief actor. Of these six movements, only the one which is
the point or culmination of the incident is a vigorous action.
The others recount merely slight changes in position. Most
of the particulars of the incident recount the mental activity
of the chief actor; i.e., they recount: (i) his mental actions;
(2) his impressions ; (3) his sensations ; and (4) his judgments.
Two particulars recount moments at which all happenings
stop ; as, *' in a few seconds the suspense was too much for him,
for again there was perfect silence," and ** the next minute was
as severe a trial of nerve as he had ever been put to."

Whatever the particulars recount, whether physical or
mental actions, impressions, sensations, judgments, or pauses
in action, they recount everything in the order of occur-
rence, and each additional particular advances the incident
toward the point or culmination.

The effect of slowness is produced by the use of very few
particulars which recount actions, by the use of many par-
ticulars which do not recount actions, by the recounting of
actions which take time, by the indicating of interruptions of
actions and of pauses between actions, by the use of words
which suggest the performing of action slowly.

Summary. — The degree of rapidity at which a narrative
advances to the point, i.e., the movement of the narrative,
depends: (i) upon the number and the kind of the par-
ticulars recounted; (2) upon the arrangement of the par-
ticulars ; and (3) upon the choice of words which narrate the
particulars.

EXERCISE III

I. Bring to class an illustration : (i) of an event in which the incidents
took place rapidly; (2) of an event in which the incidents took place
slowly ; and (3) of an event in which the incidents took place at varying
degrees of speed.

114 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

In each selection :

a. Show whether the choice and arrangement of incidents suggest

the degree of rapidity at which the event occurred.

b. Show whether the language in which the narrative is recounted

helps to suggest the degree of rapidity at which the incidents
of the event occurred.

THEME IV

''^i. Recount the particulars of the trip of fire apparatus from the moment
that it leaves the engine house until the moment it returns.
- — 2. Recount the incidents of a recess period from the point of view of
the chief actor..

3. Recount the particulars of a shopping trip.

4. Recount the particulars of a journey in a belated accommodation
train.

In each of your compositions :

a. What is the degree of rapidity ?

b. How do the incidents that you have selected suggest the degree

of rapidity?

c. Which of the words that you have used in themselves suggest

rapid movement, moderate movement, slow movement ?

Environment or Setting. — Often the movement of a story
must be interrupted to give such surroundings or environ-
ment of the actors as will be of importance in its develop-
ment. Read the following selections :

I . Matcham was well rested and revived ; and the two lads, winged by
what Dick had seen, hurried through the remainder of the outwood,
crossed the road in safety, and began to mount into the high ground of
Tunstall Forest. The trees grew more and more in groves, with heathy
places in between, sandy, gorsy, and dotted with old yews. The ground
became more and more uneven, full of pits and hillocks. And with every
step of the ascent the wind still blew the shriller, and the trees bent before
the gusts like fishing rods.

They had just entered one of the clearings, when Dick suddenly clapped
down upon his face among the brambles and began to crawl slowly back-
ward towards the shelter of the grove. Matcham in great bewilderment,
for he could see no reason for this flight, still imitated his companion's

NAR RATION' II5

course ; and it was not until they had gained the harbor of a thicket that
he turned and begged him to explain.

For all reply, Dick pointed with his finger.

At the far end of the clearing, a fir grew high above the neighboring
wood and planted its black shock of foliage clear against the sky. For
about fifty feet above the ground the trunk grew straight and solid like a
column. At that level, it split into two massive boughs ; and in the fork,
like a mast-headed seaman, there stood a man in a green tabard, spying
far and wide. The sun glistened upon his hair ; with one hand he shaded
his eyes to look abroad, and he kept slowly rolling his head from side to
side with the regularity of a machine.

The lads exchanged glances.

"Let us try to the left,'' said Dick. "We had near fallen foully. Jack."

Ten minutes afterwards they struck into a beaten path.

— The Black Af-row, Stevenson.

Twice in this narrative the recounting of actions is inter-
rupted by the description of environment. The first descrip-
tion is of importance because it gives a clear understanding
of the conditions in Tunstall Forest which made the escape of
the boys possible. The second is important because it
pictures the scene which made Dick change their route. In
both instances, the environment depicted is physical.

2. He [Gashford] stopped in the middle of a laugh, listened, drew on
his gloves, and, clasping his hands behind him, paced the deserted room
for a long time, then bent his steps toward the busy town, and walked into
the streets.

They were filled with people, for the rumor of that day's proceedings
had made a great noise. Those persons who did not care to leave home
were at their doors or windows, and one topic of discourse prevailed on
every side. Some reported that the riots were effectually put down :
others that they had broken out again ; some said that Lord George
Gordon had been sent under a strong guard to the Tower ; others that an
attempt had been made upon the king's life, that the soldiers had been
called out again, and that the noise of the musketry in a distant part of the
town had been plainly heard within an hour. As it grew darker, these
stories became more direful and mysterious ; and often, when some fright-
ened passenger ran past with tidings that the rioters were not far oflF. and

Il6 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

were coming up, the doors were shut and barred, lower windows were
made secure, and as much consternation engendered as if the City were
invaded by a foreign army,

Gashford walked stealthily about, listening to all he heard, and diffusing
or confirming, whenever he had an opportunity, such false intelligence as
suited his own purpose ; and, busily occupied in this way, turned into Hol-
born for the twentieth time, when a great many women and children came
flying along the street — often panting and looking back — and the con-
fused murmur of numerous voices struck upon his ear. Assured by these
tokens and by the red light which began to flash upon the houses on
either side that some of his friends w^'e indeed approaching, he begged
a moment's shelter at a door which opened as he passed, and, running
with some other persons to an upper window, looked out upon the crowd.

— Barnaby Rudge, Dickens.

In this selection, the second paragraph expresses the ex-
citement and the fear which pervaded the streets into which
Gashford went; i.e.y it gives his 7ncntal environment. It is
of importance because it explains the conditions which gave
him opportunity to carry out his plans.

The Importance of Environment. — Environment may be-
come so important as to affect the mood of the actors and so
control their actions.

Read the following selections :

I. The white bull eyed his going proudly. Then he looked down at
the torn and lifeless body between his feet. He had not really taken note
of it before. Now he bent his head and sniffed at it with wondering
interrogation. The spreading blood, still warm, smote his nostrils ; and
all at once, it seemed, death and the fear of death were borne in upon his
arrogant heart. He tossed his head, snorting wildly, flung himself clear
of the uncomprehended, dreadful thing upon the ground, bounded over
the wallow as if it, too, had grown terrifying, and fled away up the trail
through the merciless, unconcealing moonlight, till he reached the end of
the open shelf and a black wood hid his sudden fear of the unknown.

— The House in the If a/er, Roberts.

The selection recounts the sudden change in the mood of
the animal. Three different moods are indicated : (i) pride;

NARRATION 1 17

(2) wondering interrogation; and (3) fear. The cause of the
first change of mood in the animal is the sight of the *' torn
and lifeless body between his feet." The cause of the
second change of mood is the odor of the " spreading
blood." In each case the change is due to something in
the physical environment of the animal that finally causes
it to run away in terror.

2. I come into the second best parlor after breakfast, with my books
and an exercise book and a slate. My mother is ready for me at her
writing desk, but not half so ready as Mr. Murdstone, in his easy-chair by
the window (though he pretends to be reading a book), or as Miss Murd-
stone, sitting near my mother stringing steel beads. The very sight of
these two has such an influence over me that I begin to feel the words I
have been at definite pains to get into my head, all sliding away, and going
I don't know where. I wonder where they do go, by the bye.

I hand the first book to my mother. Perhaps it is a grammar, perhaps
a history or geography. I take a last drowning look at the page as I give
it into my mother's hand, and start off aloud at a racing pace while I have
got it fresh. I trip over a word. Mr. Murdstone looks up. I trip over
another word. Miss Murdstone looks up. I redden, tumble over a half-
dozen words, and stop. I think my mother would show me the book if
she dared, but she does not dare, and she says softly :

"Oh, Davy, Davy!''

" Now, Clara," says Mr. Murdstone, " be firm with the boy. Don't say,
'Oh, Davy, Davy!' That's childish. He knows his lesson or he does not
know it."

'' He does not know it," Miss Murdstone interposes awfully.

" I am really afraid he does not," says my mother.

"Then, you see, Clara," returns Miss Murdstone, "you should just give
him the book back and make him know it."

" Yes, certainly," says my mother ; " that's what I intend to do, my dear
Jane. Now, Davy, try once more, and don't be stupid."

I obey the first clause of the injunction by trying once more, but am
not so successful with the second, for I am very stupid. I tumble down
before I get to the old place, at a point where I was all right before, and
stop to think. But I can't think about the lesson. I think of the number
of yards of net in Miss Murdstone's cap, or of the price of Mr. Murdstone's

IlS PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

dressing-gown, or any such ridiculous problem that I have no business
with, and don't want to have anything at all to do with. Mr. Murdstone
makes a movement of impatience which I have been expecting for a long
time. Miss Murdstone does the same. My mother glances submissively at
them, shuts the book, and lays it by as an arrear to be worked out wheni
my other tasks are done.

There is a pile of these arrears very soon, and it swells like a rolling,
snowball. The bigger it gets, the more stupid / get. The case is so
hopeless, that I feel I am wallowing in such a bog of nonsense that I
give up the idea of getting out and abandon myself to my fate. The
despairing way in which my mother and I look at each other as I blunder
on is truly melancholy. But the greatest effect in these miserable lessons
is when my mother (thinking nobody is observing her) tries to give me the
cue by the motion of her lips. At that instant Miss Murdstone, who has
been lying in wait for nothing else all along, says in a deep-warning voice :

" Clara ! "

My mother starts, colors, and smiles faintly. Mr. Murdstone comes
out of his chair, takes the book, throws it at me or boxes my ears with it,
and turns me out of the room by the shoulders.

— David Copperfield^ Dickens.

The selection recounts a boy's recitation in the presence of
two people who are on the watch for his failure. Two
different moods of the boy are indicated: (i) some degree
of confidence ; and (2) fear. The cause of the boy's change
of mood and consequent failure is the Murdstones' evident
desire that he fail ; i.e., it is the mental environment in which
the boy is reciting.

Summary. — The physical or the mental surroundings of a
person form environment or setting. Environment, either
physical or mental, may influence an actor: (i) by giving
opportunity for actions ; (2) by serving as motive for action ;
or (3) by affecting mood.

THEME V

Write a story on each of the following subjects :

1 . From Out the Fog.

2. The Contested Claim.

NARRATION

119

3. Mrs. L 's Social Ambition.

4. Caught in the Act.

5. A Lost Opportunity.

In each of your compositions :

a. What have you introduced as environment, or setting?
b» What environment that you have used gives opportunity for
action? What gives motive for action? What controls
action by affecting mood?

The Relation of Happenings to One Another. — The effec-
tiveness of a story depends not only upon the particulars
recounted, but also upon the kind of order in which they are
recounted. Read the following selections, noticing the order
in which the particulars are recounted.

I. So the child flew away like a bird, and, making bare her small
white feet, went pattering along the moist margin of the sea. Here and
there she came to a full stop, and peeped curiously into a pool, left
by the retiring tide as a mirror for Pearl to see her face in. Forth
peeped at her, out of the pool, with dark, glistening curls around her head
and an elf-like smile in her eyes, the image of the little maid, whom Pearl,
having no other playmate, invited to take her hand and run a race with
her. But the visionary little maid, on her part, beckoned likewise, as if to
say, " This is a better place ! Come thou into the pool ! " And Pearl,
stepping in, midleg deep, beheld her own white feet at the bottom ;
while, out of a still lower depth, came the gleam of a kind of fragmentary
smile, floating to and fro in the agitated water . . . Soon finding, however,
that either she or the image was unreal, she turned elsewhere for better
pastime. She made little boats out of birch bark, and freighted them with
snail shells, and sent out more ventures on the mighty deep than any mer-
chant in New England ; but the larger part of them foundered near the
shore. She seized a live horseshoe by the tail, and made prize of several
five-fingers, and laid out a jellyfish to melt in the warm sun. Then she
took up the white foam that streaked the line of the advancing tide, and
threw it upon the breeze, scampering after it with winged footsteps to
catch the great snowflakes ere they fell. Perceiving a flock of beach-
birds that fed and fluttered along the shore, the naughty child picked up
her apron full of pebbles, and. creeping from rock to rock after these small

I20 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

sea-fowl, displayed remarkable dexterity in pelting them. One little gray
bird, with a white breast, Pearl was almost sure had been hit by a pebble,
and fluttered away with a broken wing. But then the elf-child sighed,
and gave up her sport, because it grieved her to have done harm to a little
being that was wild as the sea breeze, or as wild as Pearl herself.

— The Scarlet Letter^ Hawthorne.

The selection recounts the series of incidents which occupy
the child's playtime. The motive suggested for the incidents
is the child's desire to amuse herself. The order in which the
incidents occur is due merely to the child's whim. In that
the successive incidents advance from the beginning to the
end of the child's playtime, they move toward a point in
time, but no incident depends upon the happening of any
other incident. The relation of the incidents to one another
is a mere time relation. This unrelatedness of incidents em-
phasizes the whimsicalness which is the chief impression of
the event.

2. The lama slowly shook his head and began to fold up the chart.
The Russian, on his side, saw no more than an unclean old man haggling
over a dirty piece of paper. He drew out half a handful of rupees, and
snitched half jestingly at the chart, which tore in the lama's grip. A low
murmur of horror went up from the coolies — some of whom were Spiti
men and, by their lights, good Buddhists. The lama rose at the insult;
his hand went to the heavy iron pencase that is the priest's weapon, and
the Babu danced in agony.

" Oh Sar ! Sar ! You must 7iot hit holy man ! "

'' Chela ! He has defiled the Written Word ! "

It was too late. Before Kim could ward him off, the Russian struck the
old man full in the face. Next instant he was rolling over and over down
hill with Kim at his throat. The blow had waked every unknown Irish
devil in the boy's blood, and the sudden fall of his enemy did the rest.
The lama dropped to his knees, half stunned ; the coolies under their loads
fled up the hill as fast as plainsmen run across the level. They had seen
sacrilege unspeakable, and it behooved them to get away before the gods
and devils of the hills took vengeance. The Frenchman ran towards the
lama, fumbling at his revolver w't.h some notion of making him a hostage

NARRATION 1 21

for his companion. A shower of cutting stones — hillmen are very straight
shots — drove him away, and a cooHe from Ao-chung snatched the lama
into the stampede. All came about as swiftly as the sudden mountain
darkness. — Kitn, Rudyard Kipling.

The second selection recounts the result of a lama's refusal
to sell a chart. Many of the actions recounted are at once
the result of a previous action and the cause of a subsequent
action. The lama's refusal to sell the chart results in the
Russian's snatching at and tearing the chart. This action
results, in turn, in three simultaneous actions: (i) the
murmur of horror from the coolies ; (2) the lama's reaching
for his pencase and speaking to his Chela ; and (3) the Babu's
dancing in agony and speaking to the Russian. The lama's
reaching for his pencase results in the Russian's striking him
in the face. The Russian's blow results in three simulta-
neous actions : (i) Kim's attack ; (2) the lama's dropping to
his knees; and (3) the flight of the coolies. One of these
actions — Kim's attack on the Russian — results in the
Frenchman's running toward the lama. 'The Frenchman's
action in turn results in the shower of cutting stones from
the hillmen and in the snatching away of the lama by a
coolie. Each of the actions which advances the story to-
ward the point is the immediate result of a previous action.

Summary. — A narrative may consist of a series of occur-
rences no one of which depends on the happening of any
other, or it may consist of a series of occurrences which stand
to one another in the relation of cause and result. If there is
no relation of cause and result between occurrences, good
narrative demands that each occurrence -contribute in a
marked degree to a chief impression in itself of interest.

Ordinarily, incidents are recounted in the order in which
they occur, whether they form a mere series in time or
whether they are in the relation of cause and result. Some-

122 PRACTICAL ExNGLISH COxMPUSITION

times, however, in the course of a narrative, a result is re-
counted before the cause, but, even then, most of the inci-
dents of the narrative are recounted in sequence of time.

THEME VI

A. Write a narrative upon each of three of the following subjects :

1. What Came of a Blunder.

2. A Day of Mishaps.

3. A Visit to a Man-of-War.

4. How I Earned my First Dollar.

5. A Day to be Remembered.

6. His Ambition. ;

7. Jack's First Lesson.

In each of your compositions :

a. What is the chief impression ?

b. What occurrences follow in mere time order?

c. What occurrences stand to one another in the relation of

cause and effect ?

B. Examine each of your themes to see that the occurrences lead to
the point with the right degree of speed, that you have used no environ-
ment that is unimportant in the story, that you have used environment
when it is important in the story, that you have indicated the right relation
between occurrences.

C. Reread each of your themes to see that you have expressed your
ideas grammatically, that you have punctuated each sentence accurately,
and that you have spelled all words correctly.

D. Read one theme to your class.

E. Rewrite your theme, making ^the improvements suggested by the
class.

Choice of Words in Narration. — The particulars of a narra-
tive must be expressed in words which will suggest the situa-
tion accurately and vividly. Read the following selection,
noticing the choice of words:

It was a terrible ride. Twice during the scrambling descent from the
hills, Presley'*s pony fell beneath him. Annixter, on his buckskin, and
Osterman, on his thoroughbred, good horsemen both, led the others, set-
ting a terrific pace. The hills were left behind. Broderson Creek was

NARRATION

1^3

crossed and on the levels of Quien Sabe, straight through the standing
wheat, the nine horses, flogged and spurred, stretched out to their utmost.
Their passage through the wheat sounded like the rip and tear of a gigantic
web of cloth. The landscape on either hand resolved itself into a long
blur. Tears came to the eyes, flying pebbles, clods of earth, grains of
wheat flung up in the flight, stung the face like shot. Osterman's thor-
oughbred took the second crossing of Broderson's Creek in a single leap.
Down under the long trestle tore the cavalcade in a shower of mud and
gravel; up again on the farther bank, the horses blowing like steam
engines ; on into the trail to Hooven's, single file now, Presley's pony
lagging, Hooven's horse bleeding at the eye.s, the buckskin, game as a
fighting cock, catching her second wind, far in the lead now, distancing
even the English thoroughbred that Osterman rode.

At last Hooven's unpainted house, beneath the enormous live oak tree,
came in sight. Across the Lower Road, breaking through fences and
into the yard around the house, thundered the Leaguers. Magnus was
waiting for them.

The riders dismounted, hardly less exhausted than their horses.

— The Octopus^ Norris.

The selection recounts the particulars of a long, hard ride.
While each additional particular advances the riders a long
distance toward the end of their journey, the chief impression
given b}^ the narrative, an impression of terrific speed, is
produced mainly by the use of words which express either
terrific speed or its result upon horses and riders.

Although the use of the right particulars and the right
arrangement of particulars must result in narrative which has
point and chief impression, the vividness of narrative depends
to a great extent upon the expression of the particulars in
the right words.

EXERCISE IV

Read the following selections carefully :

When he and I went in, we found that dinner was nearly ready in the
kitchen — for so I suppose the room ought to be called, as tliere were

124 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

oak dressers and cupboards all round, all over by the side of the fireplace,
and only a small Turkey carpet in the middle of the flag floor. The
room might have been easily made into a handsome dark oak dining par-
lor by removing the oven and a few other appurtenances of a kitchen,
which were evidently never used, the real cooking place being at some
distance.

We had pudding before meat ; and I thought Mr. Holbrook was going
to make some apology for his old-fashioned ways, for he began,

" I don^t know whether you like new-fangled ways."

" Oh, not at all ! '' said Miss Matty.

'• No more do I,'' said he. " My housekeeper wi'// have these in her
new fashion ; or else I tell her that, when I was a young man, we used to
keep strictly to my father's rule, 'No broth, no ball; no ball, no beef;'
and always began dinner with broth. Then we had suet puddings, boiled
in the broth with the beef, and then the meat itself. If we did not sup
our broth, we had no ball, which we liked a deal better ; and the beef came
last of all, and only those had it who had done justice to the broth and the
ball. Now folks begin with sweet things, and turn their dinners topsy-
turvey."

When the ducks and green peas came, we looked at each other in
dismay; we had only two-pronged black -handled forks. It is true the
steel was as bright as silver; but what were we to do? Miss Matty picked
up her peas, one by one, on the point of the prongs, much as Amine ate
her grains of rice after her previous feast with the Ghoul. Miss Pole
sighed over her delicate young peas as she left them on one side of her
plate untasted, for they would drop between the prongs. I looked at my
host : the peas were going wholesale into his capacious mouth, shovelled
up by his large, round-ended knife. I saw, I imitated, I survived! My
friends, in spite of my precedent, could not muster up courage enough to
do an ungenteel thing ; and, if Mr. Holbrook had not been so heartily
hungry, he would probably have seen that the good peas went away
almost untouched.

After dinner a clay pipe was brought in, and a spittoon ; and, asking us
to retire to another room, where he would soon join us, if we disliked
tobacco smoke, he presented his pipe to Miss Matty and requested her to
fill the bowl. This was a compliment to a lady in his youth ; but it was
rather inappropriate to propose it as an honor to Miss Matty, who had
been trained by her sister to hold smoking of every kind in utter abhor-
rence. But if it was a shock to her refinement, it was also a gratification to

NARRATION 1 25

her feelings to be thus selected : so she daintily stuffed the strong tobacco
into the pipe, and then we withdrew. — Cranford^ Gaskell.

Once when I was really scared, it was entirely my own doing. And,
furthermore, it served me right. It was on a very hot July morning that,
coming down Mulberry Street, I saw a big gray cat sitting on a small keg
outside a corner store. It is bad enough to have a man snore, but a
cat — ! It was not to be borne. I hauled off with my cane and gave the
beast a most cruel and undeserved blow to teach it better manners. The
snoring was smothered in a yell, the cat came down from the keg, and to
my horror there rose from behind the corner an angry Celt swearing a blue
streak. He seemed to my anguished gaze at least nine feet tall. He had
been asleep at his own door when my blow aroused him, and it was his
stocking feet, propped up on the keg as he dozed on his chair around the
corner, I had mistaken for a gray cat. It was not a time for explanations.
I did the only thing that was to be done ; I ran. Far and fist did I run.
It was my good luck that his smarting feet kept him from following, or I
might not have lived to tell this tale. As I said, it served me right.

— The Makmg of aft American^ Riis.

In each of the selections :

1. Name the chief impression.

2. Show in what way each particular contributes to the cnief im-

pression.

3. Show whether the incidents occur in mere sequence of time or

whether they stand to one another in the relation of cause and
result.
4. Quote the words which suggest ideas most accurately and vividly.

THEME VII

1. Narrate an incident which you have seen which made you angry.

2. Narrate an incident in which the chief actor became badly frightened.

3. Narrate an incident in which the chief actor was very greatly pleased.

In each of your compositions :

a. What is the chief impression?

b. In what way does each particular contribute to the chief im-

pression?
■ c. Which of the incidents are in the relation of cause and result?
d. What words suggest ideas most accurately and vividly?

126 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

Descriptive Narrative. — Sometimes the chief impression
of a narrative is given by recounting the particulars in lan-
guage which depicts the actions. Read the following :

On the hill where the enemy were arose a pufF of smoke, and a cannon
ball, whistling, flew over the heads of the squadron of hussars. The offi-
cers, who had been standing together, scattered to their posts ; the hussars
began to get their horses into regular line. No one spoke in the ranks.
All looked intently at the enemy and at the commander, and waited the
word of command.

A second, a third shot flew over them. Evidently, the enemy were
firing at the hussars, but the cannon balls, whistling as they flew swiftly
by, went far over their heads and fell somewhere in the rear.

The hussars did not look up, but each time that they heard the whiz/,
of the ball, the whole squadron, with their monotonously diverse faces,
holding their breaths until the cannon shot had passed over, raised them-
selves in their stirrups as if by orders, and then settled back again. The
soldiers, not turning their heads, looked at one another out of the corners
of their eyes, each curious to know what impression was produced upon his
neighbor. On every face, from Denisof's to the trumpeter's, there was
around the lips and chin a common expression of external struggle, excite-
ment, and agitation. The quartermaster frowned and looked at the men
as if he meditated inflicting punishment upon them. The yunker. Mironof,
ducked his head each time that the ball flew over. Rostof, posted on the
left flank, on his prancing Grachik, had the delighted look of a schoolboy
called out before a great audience to pass his examination, in which he
believes that he is going to distinguish himself. He looked at every one
with a face unclouded and bright, as if asking them to bear him witness
that he was perfectly calm under fire. But in even his face, the same
expression, indicative of something new and solemn, showed itself around
his mouth, against his will. — War and Peace, Tolstoi.

This selection is both good narrative and good description.
It is good narrative because it recounts the successive actions
which take place in final preparation for the battle. It is
good description because, with the exception of one sentence,
" No one spoke in the ranks," every sentence depicts a detail
of a scene.

NARRATION 1 27

Composition in which the elements are at the same time
the particulars of a narrative and the details of a description
is descriptive-narrative. A descriptive-narrative is really a
moving picture in words.

EXERCISE V

Read the following selections carefully :

The farther they went down the long slant of the ledge, the more inter-
ested the bears became. Here the crows and gulls had not had time to
capture all the prizes. There were savory blue-shelled mussels clinging
under the tips of the rocks ; plump spiral whelks between the oozy tresses
of the seaweed ; orange starfish and bristly sea urchins in the shallow
pools. All these dainties had shells that the cub's young teeth could easily
crush, and they yielded meaty morsels that made beetles and grubs seem
very meager fare. Moreover, in the salty flavor of this sea fruit, there was
something marvelously stimulating to the appetite. From pool to pool the
old bear wandered on, lured ever by richer prizes just ahead ; and the cub,
stuffed till his little stomach was like a black, furry ball, no longer frisked
and tumbled, but waddled along beside her with eyes of shining expectancy.
As long as he was not too full to walk, he was not too full to eat such deli-
cacies as these. The fascinating quest led them on and on till at last they
found themselves at the water's edge.

— Froin the Teeth of the Tide, Roberts.

They glide, like phantoms, into the wide hall ;

Like phantoms to the iron porch they glide,

Where lay the porter, in uneasy sprawl.

With a huge empty flagon by his side.

The wakeful bloodhound rose, and shook his hide.

But his sagacious eye an inmate owns.

By one, and one, the bolts full easy slide : —

The chains lie silent on the foot-worn stones :

The key turns, and the door upon its hinges groans.

And they are gone. . .

— The E-x'c of St . Ai^ius. Kkats.

128 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

The broad sky seemed on fire. Rising into the air with showers of
sparks, and rolling one above the other, were sheets of flame, lighting the
atmosphere for miles around, and driving clouds of smoke in the direction
where he stood. The shouts grew louder as new voices swelled the roar,
and he could hear the cry of Fire ! mingled with the ringing of an alarm
bell, the fall of heavy bodies, and the crackling of flames as they twined
round some new obstacle, and shot aloft as though refreshed by food.
The noise increased as he looked. There were people there — men and
women — light, bustle. It was like new life to him. He darted onward —
straight, headlong — dashing through brier and brake, and leaping gate
and fence as madly as the dog, who careered with loud and sounding bark
before him.

He came upon the spot. There were half-dressed figures tearing to and
fro, some endeavoring to drag the frightened horses from the stables, others
driving the cattle from the yard and outhouses, and others coming laden
from the burning pile, amidst a shower of falling sparks, and the tumbling
down of red-hot beams. The apertures, where doors and windows stood
an hour ago, disclosed a mass of raging fire ; walls rocked and crumbled
into the burning well ; the molten lead and iron poured down, white-hot,
upon the ground. Women and children shrieked, and men encouraged
each other with noisy shouts and cheers. The clanking of the engine
pumps, and the spurting and hissing of the water as it fell upon the
blazing wood, added to the tremendous roar. He shouted, too, till he was
hoarse ; and, flying from memory and himself, plunged into the thickest
of the throng.

Hither and thither he dived that night ; now working at the pumps, and
now hurrying through the smoke and flame, but never ceasing to engage
himself wherever noise and men were thickest. Up and down the ladders
upon the roofs of buildings, over floors that quaked and trembled with his
weight, under the lee of falling bricks and stones, in every part of that
great fire was he ; but he bore a charmed life, and had neither scratch nor
bruise, nor weariness nor thought, till morning dawned again, and only
smoke and blackened ruins remained. — Oliver Twisty Dickens.

It is purely a matter of taste, about shooting the rapids of the St.
Lawrence. The passengers like it better than the captain and the pilot,
to guess by their looks, and women and children like it better than the

NARRATION 1 29

men. It is no doubt very thrilling and picturesque and wildly beautiful :
the children crow and laugh, the women shout forth their delight, as the
boat enters the seething current; great foaming waves strike her bows,
and brawl away to the stern, while she dips, and rolls, and shoots onward,
light as a bird blown by the wind ; the wild shores and islands whirl out
of sight ; you feel in every fiber the careen of the vessel. But the captain
sits in front of the pilot house smoking with a grave face, the pilot tugs
hard at the wheel ; the hoarse roar of the waters fills the air; beneath the
smoother sweeps of the current you can see the brown rocks ; as you sink
from ledge to ledge in the writhing and twisting steamer, you have a vague
sense that all this is perhaps an achievement rather than an enjoyment.
When, descending the Long Sault, you look back up the hill, and behold
those billows leaping down the steep slope after you, " No doubt," you
confide to your soul, "it is magnificent; but it is not pleasure."

— Their Wedding Journey , Ho wells.

In each selection :

1. Name the chief impression.

2. Quote : (i) the elements which are both narrative and descriptive

in nature; (2) the elements which narrate without depicting;
(3) the elements which depict without narrating.

THEME VIII

1 . Write a descriptive narrative of a feast at a family reunion or of a
picnic dinner.

2. Write a descriptive narrative of any entertainment at which you have
been present.

3. Write a descriptive narrative of a visit to a machine shop, a foundry,
a factory, a mill, a department store, a dairy, or a harvest field.

4. Write a descriptive narrative of a circus or a country fair.

In each of your compositions :

a. What is the chief impression ?

b. What elements are purely narrative in nature?

c. What elements are purely descriptive in nature?

d. What words present elements that are both narrative and de-

scriptive in nature?

Plot. — While many actions are performed on the spur of
the moment, or in the carrying out of plans entered upon

I30

PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITIOX

with slight or no regard to the plans of others, many actions
are thought out and performed with the dehberate purpose
of frustrating the plans of others or of interfering with their
rights.

Study the plans in the following selections :

I. Lying at full length at her feet, ... he told the story.

"Mr. Litterny was in his office in the early afternoon of February i8,
when a man called him up on the telephone. Mr. Litterny did not recog-
nize the voice, but the man stated at once that he was Burr Claflin. whose
name you may know. He is a rich broker, and a personal friend of both
the Litternys. Voice is so uncertain a quantity over a telephone that it
did not occur to Mr. Litterny to be suspicious on that point, and the con-
versation was absolutely in character otherwise. The talker used ex-
pressions and a manner of saying things which the jeweler knew to be
characteristic of Claflin.

" He told Mr. Litterny that he had just made a lucky hit in stocks, and
' turned over a bunch of money,' as he put it. and that he wanted to make
his wife a present. ' Now — this afternoon — this minute.' he said, which
was just like Burr Claflin, who is an impetuous old chap. ' I want to give
her a diamond brooch, and I want her to wear it out to dinner to-night,' he
said. 'Can't you send two or three corkers up to the house for me?'
That surprised Mr. Litterny and he hesitated, but finally said that he
would do it. It was against the rules of the house, but. as it was for Mr.
Claflin, he would do it. They had a little talk about the details, and
Claflin arranged to call up his wife and tell her that the jewels would be
there at four-thirty, so that she could look out for them personally. All
that was the Litterny end of the aff'air. Simple enough, wasn't it? "

Katherine's eyes were so intent, so brilliant, that Norman North went
on with a pleased sense that he told the tale well.

" Now begins the Claflin experience. At half-past four a clerk from Lit-
terny's left a package at the Claflin house in Cleveland Avenue, which was
at once taken, as the man desired, to Mrs. Claflin. She opened it and
found three very handsome diamond brooches, which astonished her
extremely, as she knew nothing about them. However, it was not unusual
for Claflin to give her jewelry, and he is, as I have said, an impulsive man.
.so that unexpected presents had come once or twice before : and, alto-
gether, being much taken witii the stones, she concluded simply that she
would understand when her husband came home for dinner.

NARRATIOX 131

" However, her hopes were dashed, for twenty minutes later, barely long
enough for the clerk to have got back to the shop, she was called to the
telephone by a message, said to be from Litterny's, and a most polite and
apologetic person explained over the line that a mistake had been made';
that the diamonds had been addressed and sent to her by an error of the
shipping-clerk ; that they were not intended for Mrs. Burr Claflin, but for
Mrs. Bird Catlin, and that the change in name had been discovered on the
messenger's return. Would she pardon the trouble caused, and would
Mrs. Claflin be good enough to see that the package was given to their
man, who would call for it in fifteen minutes.-* Now the Bird Catlins, as
you must know, are richer people even than the Claflins. so the thing
was absolutely plausible. Mrs. Claflin tied up the jewels herself, and
intrusted them to her own maid, who had been with her for years, and this
woman answered the door and gave the parcel into the hands of a man
who said that he was sent from Litterny's for it. All that the maid could
say of him was that he was a ' pretty young man, with a speech like a gen-
tleman.' And that was the last that has been seen of the diamond
brooches. Wasn't it simple? Didn't I tell you that this aff"air was an
artistic one?" North demanded.

— The Diamond Brooches, M. R. S. Andrews.

This selection recounts the particulars of the carrying out
of a daring plan of robbery. The deed is recounted in
two main parts. The first part recounts the thief's method
of getting the jewels away from Litterny's into the hands of
Mrs. Claflin.

Most of the particulars of the first part establish conditions
which do one of two things : either they give to the listener
information which is essential to her understanding of the
point or they recount the means that the thief took: (V?) to
establish his identity as Burr Claflin ; {b) to make his request
seem a natural one ; {c) to arrange for the delivery of the
jewels.

Most of the particulars of the second part of the story
recount actions of two kinds: (i) actions which get the jew-
els into Mrs. Claflin's hands ; (2) actions which get the jewels

132

PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

out of Mrs. Claflin's hands into the thief's hands. The par-
ticulars which do not recount actions establish conditions of
•two kinds: (i) conditions which suggest to the listener the
outcome of the story ; (2) conditions which establish identity;
(a) that of the sender of the jewels as Burr Claflin ; (d) that
of the man who telephoned as a clerk at Litterny's.

2. " I tell thee/' said De Bracy, " that I mean to purvey me a wife after
the fashion of the tribe of Benjamin ; which is as much as to say, that in
this same equipment I will fall upon that herti of Saxon bullocks, who have
this night left the castle, and carrv off from them the lovelv Rowena."

"Art thou mad, De Bracy?" said Fitzurse. " Bethink thee that, though
the men be Saxons, they are rich and powerful, and regarded with the
more respect by their countrymen, that wealth and honor are the lot of but
few of Saxon descent."

" And should belong to none," said De Bracy. " The work of the Con-
quest should be completed."

" This is no time for it at least," said Fitzurse ; '' the approaching crisis
renders the favor of the multitude indispensable, and Prince John cannot
refuse justice to any one who injures their favorites."

" Let him grant it if he dare." said De Bracy ; " he will soon see the dif-
ference betwixt the support of such a lusty lot of spears as mine, and that
of a heartless mob of Saxon churls. Yet I mean no immediate discovery
of myself. Seem I not in this garb as bold a forester as ever blew horn?
The blame of the violence shall rest with the outlaws of the Yorkshire for-
ests. I have sure spies on the Saxons' motions. To-night they sleep in
the convent of Saint Wittol, or Withold, or whatever they call that churl
of a Saxon saint at Burton-on-Trent. Next day's march brings them
within our reach, and f;ilcon-ways, we swoop on them at once. Presently
after I will appear in mine own shape, play the courteous knight, rescue
the unfortunate and afflicted fair one from the hands of the rude ravishers,
conduct her to Front-de-Boeufs castle, or to Normandy, if it should be
necessary, and produce her not again to her kindred until she be the bride
and dame of Maurice De Bracy." — Ivanhoe^ Scott.

This selection recounts the main particulars of De
Bracy's plan to kidnap the Lady Rowena. The particulars
recount : (i) the purpose of the plan ; (2) two objections to the

NARRATION

^35

plan ; and (3) the main details of the plan. The particulars
which recount the details of the plan recount : (i) the point of
the disguise; (2) the reliability of De Bracy's information con-
cerning Cedric's movements; (3) Cedric's plans; and (4) De
Bracy's plan of action for the capture of the Lady Rovvena.

Each of the selections recounts the particulars of 2, plot, i.e.,
of a plan of action intended by the originator to thwart the
plans of other people.

The plot from Ivaiihoe, given above, is only one of many
minor or sub plots, each one of which has some special bear-
ing upon the main course of events worked out in the chief,
or main, plot of the story. A minor plot may serve (i) to
give motive for action, (2) to form setting, or (3) to throw light
on character.

A plan of action intended to thwart the plans or to interfere
with the rights of some person or persons is a plot.

A plot intended to prevent or to offset another plot is a
counterplot.

EXERCISE VI

Select from the works of some standard author :

1. An illustration of plot.

a. Show whether the plot selected provides motive for further
action, serves as setting, or throws light on character.

2. An illustration of plot and counterplot.

THEME IX

1. Write a story with plot in which the outcome is a surprise.

2. Construct plots from each of the following reports, and write narra-
tives developing each plot by means of the right particulars.

a. An ordinary coat button has just led to the capture of a murderer
after a search of many months. On March 29 last, a postcard publisher

named D F F , a native of Mauritius, was found murdered in

his offices in Paris. Near the body lay an overcoat bearing the mark of a
Brussels firm of outfitters. The coat was much worn, and had been fitted
with new buttons bearing a Buenos Ayres trade-mark.

134

PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPUSITIOX

Inquiries at Brussels were fruitless. The coat was then sent to Buenos
Ayres, where, after a painstaking search, it was recognized by a tailor who
did repairs for the customers of a small hotel there. He had sewn new
buttons on the coat eighteen months ago for a Belgian named K .

This man's movements were traced through a local shipping office to
Paris, and it was ascertained that he was here at the time of the murder.

Investigation into K 's career showed that he was a deserter from the

Belgian army. Eventually he was traced to Brussels and was arrested the
other day.

Charged with the murder of F , he at once made a full confession

that he had killed him in the course of a quarrel.

— Boston Evening Transcript.

b. Pittsburg, Sept. 26. — W M , the convict banker and

former friend of United States Senator M , was to-day started from

Riverside Penitentiary to the Government prison at Leavenworth, Kan.
This man, who was for many years the financial backer and confidential

advisor of Senator M . was driven through the streets, chained to

other convicts.

M had been a most unruly prisoner, and it is hinted that he was

at the head of a plot to liberate many prisoners soon and that this has-
tened his departure for the Government prison.

M , who was sentenced to fifteen years at hard labor for wrecking

the Allegheny National Bank for $2,000,000, had been head of the bankers'
colony in Riverside Penitentiary since his incarceration, and it is said
practically ran the prison to suit himself until the recent induction of

J F , M "s former pal, as warden. Instead of allowing him to

continue to run things in prison, F threw M into the dungeon.

— Neu* York Sun .

3. Write narratives with plot in which the interest centers in a missing
ring, a lost child, a stolen horse, a broken trap, a high-speed motor car, a
marked bank note, smuggled lace, a shifted landmark, a diverted stream, a
new lode, a four-footed thief, hidden treasure.

SUMMARY

To write narration :
I. Choose events worth recounting.

1. Decide upon the point, or culmination, and upon the chief im-
pression of the occurrences to be recounted.

NARR^^TION I - -

2. Decide upon the rate of speed at which the occurrences took

place.

3. Choose the point of view best calculated to emphasize the point,

or culmination, and the chief impression of the event or of the
series of events.

4. Choose the particulars necessary to bring out the point and to

give the right impression.

5. Note the order in which the occurrences happened.

II. Recount the particulars so as to give an exact impression of wnat
happened.

1. State or clearly indicate your point of view as narrator.

2. Early in the narrative indicate the time and the place at which the

event or the series of events occurred, introduce the chief actor,
and somewhere state or clearly imply the motive or motives
which incited him to action.

3. Recount the particulars in the order which, from the point of

view selected, best leads to the point, or culmination.

a. When your point of view is that of a bystander, recount par-

ticulars in the order in which they caught your attention.

b. When your point of view is that of an actor in the occurrences,

recount the particulars in the order in which you as actor
became aware of them.

c. When your point of view is that of complete knowledge,

recount the particulars in the order in which they must be
made known to give clearness and increasing interest to
the story.

4. Tell your story in words which bring out the occurrences accu-

rately and vividly.
III. Criticize your work.

1. Examine your work to see:

a. That the point of view is either stated or clearly implied.

b. That you have omitted no particular necessary to lead to the

point, or culmination, or to suggest the chief impression.

c. That you have included no particular which could not be

known at the time at which you introduceci, it from your
point of view as narrator.

d. That the order in which you recount the particulars is, in the

main, the order in which they occurred.

e. That you have told the occurrences in words which suggest

accurately and vividly the chief impression and the rate of
speed.

136

PRACTICAL ENCiLISH COMl'OSlTIOxN

IV. Review your work.

1. Examine your work to see :

a. That each sentence is grammatical.

b. That each sentence is accurately punctuated.

c. That each word is correctly spelled.

ADDITIONAL SUBJECTS FOR ORAL AND WRITTEN NARRATION

1 . The Test of Courage.

2. The Emergency Call.
3- Hard-won Success.

4. The Pot of Gold.

5. The Trial of Patience.

6. Out of Tune.

7. The Ringleader's Mistake.

8. The Battle for Supremacy.

9. The Unwelcome Guest.

10. A Devoted Friend.

11. A Trip across Country.

12. A Day's Sport.

13. The Coaching Parade.

14. Our Last Picnic.

15. Hunting for Antiques.

16. A Soldier's Tale.

17. The Explosion.

18. A Mountain Climb.

19. Lost in a Storm.

20. The Would-be Hero.

21. A Moment of Suspense.

22. The First Day of School.

23. Cramming.

24. One Valentine's Day.

25. A Greased-pig Race.

26. A Day in a Mining Camp.

27. My Experience with Cows.

28. The First Swimming Lesson.

29. A Strange Visitor.

30. The Legend of the Old House.

31. My First Fish.

32. A Hay-ride.

33. The Prize Contest.

34. The Escape.

35. The Sham Fight.

36. The Open Door.

37. A Pair of Skates.

38. At Pemberton Creek.

39. The Water-ghost.

40. The Clam-bake.

41. The Round-up.

42. A Water Carnival.

43. The Mardi-Gras.

44. Almost a Tragedy.

45. The Relay Race.

46. A Little Rebel.

47. Guard Mount.

48. Mustered Out.

CHAPTER V
THE PARAGRAPH

While a composition that is simple in nature often consists
of a single group of sentences so related and so arranged as to
develop a single point, a composition that is at all complex in
nature must consist of several or many groups of related
sentences, each group making a minor point which helps to
develop the main point of the entire composition.

Definition. — A group of related sentences that develop a
single point is a paragraph.

Read the following selection, noticing the point of each
paragraph and its relation to the main point of the selection :

Mrs. Maitland walked through her Iron Works as some women walk
through a garden, — lovingly. She talked to her son rapidly ; this was so
and so ; there was such and such a department ; in that new shed she
meant to put the draftsmen; over there the timekeeper, — she paused.
Blair had left her, and was standing in an open doorway of the foundry,
watching, breathlessly, a jibcrane bearing a great ladle full of tons of liquid
metal that shimmered above its white-hot expanse with the shifting blue
flames of escaping gas. Seething and bubbling, the molten iron slopped
in a flashing film over the side of the caldron, every drop, as it struck the
black earth, rebounding in a thousand exploding points of fire. Above
the swaying ladle, far up in the glooms under the roof, the shadows were
pierced by the lurching dazzle of arc-lamps ; but when the ladle tipped,
and with a crackling roar the stream of metal flowed into a mold, the siz-
zling violet gleam of the lamps was abruptly extinguished by the intoler-
able glare of light.

"Oh," Blair said breathlessly, "how wonderful I"

"It is wonderful," his mother said. " Thomas, here, can move the lever
that tips the ladle with his two fingers — and out comes the iron as neatly
as cream out of a jug ! "

137

138 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

Blair was so entirely absorbed in the fierce magnificence of light, and in
the glowing torsos of the molders, planted as they were against the pro-
found shadows of the foundry, that when she said, "Come on!" he did
not hear her. Mrs. Maitland, standing with her hands on her hips, her
feet well apart, held her head high ; she was intensely gratified by his
interest. "If his father had only lived to see him ! '' she said to herself.
In her pride, she almost swaggered; she nodded, chuckling, to the molder
at her elbow, " He takes to it like a duck to water, doesn't he, Jim? "

"And," said Jim, telling the story afterward, "I allowed Td never seen
a young feller as knowing about castings as him. She took it down
straight. You can't pile it on too thick for a woman, about her young
'un."

" Somebody ought to paint it," Blair said, under his breath.

Mrs, Maitland's face glowed ; she came and stood beside him a moment
in silence, resting her big, dirty hand on his shoulder. Then she said,
half sheepishly : " I call that ladle the ' cradle of civilization.' Think what's
inside of it! There are rails that will hold New York and San Francisco
together, and engines and machines for the whole world ; there are tele-
graph wires that will bring — think of all the kinds of news they will bring,
Blair, — wars, and births of babies! There are bridges in it, and pens that
may write — well, maybe love-letters," she said, with sly and clumsy humor,
" or even write, perhaps, the liberty of a race, as Lincoln's pen wrote it.
Yes!" she said, her face full of luminous abstraction, "the cradle of
civilization!" — The Iron Woman, Margaret Deland.

The first paragraph develops the kind of interest that each
of the two people concerned has in the Iron Works. The
second paragraph gives the effect of the works on the son.
The third paragraph gives the mother's interpretation of
what the son's exclamation means. The fourth paragraph
gives the mother's thoughts and feelings about her son's
interest. The fifth paragraph gives the workman's comment
on the situation. The sixth paragraph gives the son's opinion
about what he has seen. The seventh paragraph gives the
mother's thought about the same phase of the works. All
the paragraphs together develop the difference in the points
of view of mother and son.

THE PARAGRAPH 1 39

EXERCISE I

1. Choose from Scott, Dickens, Hawthorne, Poe, orany other standard
authors three selections, each of which consists of a group of paragraphs
which together form a unit.

2. State the point of each selection and tell what each paragraph con-
tributes to the development of the point.

3. Repeat the exercise, choosing selections from contemporary authors.

The Topical OuUine. — The giving in order of the points
of the paragraphs in a unit of composition forms a topical
outline.

For example, the topical outline of the selection from The
Iron WomaHy given above, is as follows :

I. The difference in the attitude of Mrs. Maitland and of Blair toward
the Iron Works.

A. Kind of interest in the scene at the Iron Works.

1. Mrs. Maitland's.

2. Blair's.

B. Blair's impression of the scene.

C Mrs. Maitland's impression of Blair's interest.

D. The workman's comment on the situation.

E. Blair's opinion of the value of the scene.

I. Good artistic material.
f. Mrs. Maitland's opinion of the value of the scene.
I . " Cradle of civiHzation."

EXERCISE II

1. Make a topical outline of each of the selections that you made for
Exercise I.

2. Write topical outlines for each of the following subjects :

a. Hay-making,

b. Buying the New Automobile.

c. Shopping.

d. Hunting for Mayflowers.
(. Catching the Thief.

/. The Surprise.

g. Building the Bungalow.

140 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

3. Develop into a composition any one of your outlines.

a. Exchange the outline that you developed for one developed by a

classmate.

b. Develop into a composition the outline that you have received.

c. Compare the two compositions developed from the same outline.
Which composition is the better?

In what way?

When a paragraph is a part of a larger composition, the
point which it is to make depends upon the part the paragraph
is to play in the composition.

Study the following selection, noticing the bearing of each
paragraph on the main point :

Humphrey Baskerville had sold his ponies in an hour, and was prepar-
ing to make a swift departure when accident threw him into the heart of a
disturbance and opened the way to significant incidents.

The old man met Jack Head and was speaking with him, but suddenly
Jack caught the other by his shoulders and pulled him aside just in time to
escape being knocked over. A dozen over-driven bullocks hurtled past
them with sweating flanks and dripping mouths. Behind came two drovers,
and a brace of barking dogs hung upon the flanks of the weary and
frightened cattle.

Suddenly, as the people parted, a big brute, dazed and maddened by
the yelping dogs now at his throat, now at his heels, turned and dashed
into the open gate of a cottage by the way.

The door of the dwelling stood open and before man or sheepdog had
time to turn him, the reeking bullock had rushed into the house. There
was a crash within, the agonized yell of a child and the scream of a woman.
Then rose terrified bellowings from the bullock, where it stood jammed in
a passageway with two frantic dogs at its rear.

A crowd collected, and Mr. Baskerville amazed himself by rushing
forward and shouting a direction. "Get round, somebody, and ope the
back door!"

A woman appeared at the cottage window with a screaming and bloody
child in her arms.

''There's no way out; there's no way out," she cried. "There's no
door to the garden!"

"Get round; get round! Climb over the back wall," repeated Basker-

THE PARAGR-\PH 1 41

ville. Then he turned to the woman. " Ope the window and come here,
you silly fool !" he said.

She obeyed, and Humphrey found the injured child was not much hurt,
save for a wound on its arm. Men soon opened the rear door of the
cottage and drove the bullock out of the house; then they turned him
round in the garden and drove him back again through the house into the
street.

The hysterical woman regarded Mr. Baskerville as her saviour and
refused to leave his side. — The Three Brothers, Eden Phillpotts.

The first paragraph, by introducing the chief actor and sug-
gesting his relation to the events about to follow, at once
suggests the subject, limits its scope, and indicates in a gen-
eral way the point to be made; i.e., it is an introductory
paragraph.

Each of the next nine paragraphs, by presenting in order
the various particulars of the event, contributes an important
point in the development of the main point of the composi-
tion ; i.e.^ it is a main unit of the body of the composition.

The last paragraph gives the final outcome, or conclusion,
of the event ; i.e., it is a concluding paragraph.

Read the following selection :

The English functionaries at Fort William had as yet paid little or no
attention to the internal government of Bengal. The only branch of poli-
tics about which they much busied themselves was negotiated with native
princes. The police, the administration of justice, the details of the collec-
tion of revenue, were almost entirely neglected. We may remark that the
phraseology of the Company's ser\'ants still bears the traces of this state of
things. To this day they always use the word " political'' as synonymous
with "diplomatic." We could name a gentleman still living who was
described by the highest authority as an invaluable public servant, eminently
fit to be at the head of the internal administration of a whole presidency,
but unfortunately quite ignorant of all political business.

The internal government of Bengal the English rulers delegated to a great
native minister, who was stationed at Moorshedabad. All military affairs,
and, with the exception of what pertains to mere ceremonial, all foreign

142 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITIOX

affairs, were withdrawn from his control ; but the other departments of the
administration were entirely confided to him. His own stipend amounted
to near a hundred thousand pounds sterling a year. The personal allow-
ance of the nabob, amounting to more than three hundred thousand pounds
a year, passed through the ministers hands and was, to a great extent, at
his disposal. The collection of the revenue, the administration of justice,
the maintenance of order, were left to this high functionary ; and for the
exercise of his immense power he was responsible to none but the British
masters of the country.

A situation so important, lucrative, and splendid, was naturally an object
of ambition to the ablest and most powerful natives. Clive had found it
difficult to decide between conflicting pretensions. Two candidates stood
out prominently from the crowd, each of them the representative of a race
and of a religion.

One of these was Mohammed Reza Khan, a Mussulman of Persian
extraction, able, active, religious after the fashion of his people, and highly
esteemed by them. In England he might perhaps have been regarded as
a corrupt and greedy politician. But, tried by the lower standard of Indian
morality, he might be considered as a man of integrity and honor.

His competitor was a Hindoo Brahmin whose name has, by a terrible
and melancholy event, been inseparably associated with that of Warren
Hastings, the Maharajah Nuncomar. This man had played an important
part in all the revolutions which, since the time of Surajah Dowlah, had taken
place in Bengal. To the consideration which in that country belongs to
high and pure caste, he added the weight which is derived from wealth,
talents, and experience. — Warren Hastings^ Macaulay.

The third paragraph of this selection, by summarizing in
the first part the two paragraphs which precede it and by sug-
gesting in the last part the trend of thought to be developed
in the two paragraphs to come, shows the relation in thought
between the first two and the last two paragraphs ; i.e., it is
a transitional paragraph.

SUMMARY

A paragraph may serve one of four purposes :

1. It may open a composition ; i.e., it may be an introductory paragraph.

2. It may be a main unit of the body of a composition.

THE PARAGRAPH

143

3. It may serve to connect two groups of main units in a composition ;

i.e., it may be a transitional paragraph.

4. It may close a composition ; i.e., it may be a concluding or summa-

rizing paragraph.

EXERCISE UI

1. Find three selections, each consisting of several paragraphs, which
together form a unit.

2. In each selection, tell what kind of paragraph each is, and give your
reasons for your opinion.

The Kind of Ideas needed in a Paragraph. — Many times,
as in much description and narration and in some exposi-
tion and argument, the point which a paragraph is to make
of itself determines the kind of material by which the para-
graph is to be developed. For example, in the selection
from T/ie Iron Womajt on page 137, the bulk of the first
paragraph is a word picture of the jibcrane at work ; the im-
portant part of the second paragraph is a mere exclamation ;
the bulk of the last paragraph is an explanation of what
may be done with steel. Each kind of material is the only
kind which could have brought out so effectively the
point of the particular paragraph in which it is found. Fre-
quently, however, the taste of the speaker or writer and the
intelligence of the person addressed have as much to do with
the kind of material to be used as has the point to be made.
For example, in inculcating moral principles, like the duty of
uprightness, the obligation of unselfishness, etc., a speaker or
writer must often exercise great care in order to select the
kind of material that will appeal to the person addressed. In
every paragraph, however, that kind of material which will
best impress the point of the paragraph upon the person ad-
dressed is the kind that should be used.

Methods of Paragraph Development. — The point of a para-
graph may be brought out by one of several methods.

144 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

Read the following paragraph, noting the method of de-
velopment used :

Fishing with a garden rake and a bicycle lamp is not sport, but it has
been found profitable in England, where fish are raised for the market in
much the same manner as pigs or chickens. The fish-cultivator utilizes stiff
clay lands, which are not valuable for agricultural purposes, and digs a
number of rather shallow ponds supplied with water from a convenient
stream. These ponds are stocked with such coarse fish as find a ready
market, — roach, perch, bream, and eels. The harvesting of the fish is
most easily accomplished at night, the fishing paraphernalia consisting of
an ordinary garden rake, a good bicycle lamp, or electric bull's eye, and a
basket. When the bright light is thrown upon the water, the fish crowd
into the lighted area in such numbers that the larger ones — the only ones
that should be taken from the ponds, of course — may be readily raked
ashore and placed in the basket. — Anon.

The Use of Minor Details. — The method of developing the
proposition stated in the first sentence is that of using the
minor details of the work, the only method that gives an an-
swer to the question which the proposition suggests, " How
can one fish with a garden rake and a bicycle lamp, let alone
make money out of it ? "

EXERCISE IV

1. Select from good authors and bring to class five paragraphs de-
veloped by minor details.

2. Develop each of the following topics by the method of using minor
details :

a. The Most Beautiful Garden I Ever Saw.
d. Dick's Last Escapade.

c. How I Prepare my Home Lessons.

d. How to Memorize a Poem.

3. Make a list of ten topics that could be developed into good para-
graphs by the use of minor details.

4. Develop any five topics from your list. In what order did you
arrange your details ? Why did that order seem best to you ?

THE PARAGRAPH 145

Read each of the following paragraphs, noting the method
of development used :

1 . What rings truest to the test of time is often what was passed over at
the moment with neglect. Nearly every one who heard Lincoln speak at
Gettysburg was disappointed in the short and simple oration which is now
hailed everywhere as one of the masterpieces of English composition.
Some of the greatest men of literature suffered shame and misery at the
hands of their fellows. The louder the acclaim of a man's contemporaries,
the more haste taken to do him honor, the more fearful should we be that
this fame is not to endure.

2. Increase of taxation, made necessary by great military establish-
ments, and decided gains in the Socialist vote have been the striking
features of European politics of late. France, where the budget has been
rising very rapidly in recent years, now has a Socialist for a Prime Minister.
In Germany, where tax troubles have fairly become chronic, the fall
elections were pretty largely carried by the Socialists. That party captured
fourteen Landtag seats in Berlin out of a possible sixteen, twenty districts
in Baden as against twelve before, and gained twenty-three districts in
Saxony. In Austria-Hungary similar results have been seen, while in
England the rise of the Socialist Labor party as a political party is well
known.

The Use of Examples or Specific Instances. — In the first
paragraph, the idea is developed by a single illustration or
example of the truth stated in the first sentence. In the
second, the idea stated in the first sentence is developed by
means of four examples. In each exposition, the method of
development used is the method of giving examples, or specific
instances, the particular method required by the nature of the
subject to be explained.

EXERCISE V

1. Select from good authors and bring to class five paragraphs de-
veloped by specific instances.

2. Develop each of the following topics into a good paragraph by using
specific instances :

a. The Difficulty of Keeping Good Resolutions.

b. The Benefits of an Eight-Hour Labor Law.

146 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

c. Bob's Pranks.

d. The Tricks of the Trade.

e. Handsome is as Handsome Does.

3. Make a list often topics that should be developed by using specific
instances.

4. Develop any five topics from your list.

In what order did you arrange your specific instances?
What is the advantage of this order?

Notice the method of development used in each of the fol-
lowing paragraphs :

1 . The gods of the Norseman were very like those of the Ancient Greek.
There is the same system, the father of the gods and his satellites great and
small. Zeus and Woden are practically the same, and Haephaestus, the
Greek God of Fire, corresponds to the great Norse Thor. They are alike,
too, in their habit of visiting the earth and mingling among mortals, in
their quarreling and bickering among themselves, and in many other
ways.

2. Talent and genius are widely different, one is the aptitude, generally
acquired by years of training, for some thing, as painting or oratory, the
other is the great power, born with a person, for some line of work which
makes him, even without training infinitely above all others in the line he
has chosen. Talent juay be acquired, but genius never.

*' Genius does what it must, and talent what it can." — Meredith.

3. For those who respond to the restless tap of the Harvard lecture
bell when it rings for morning prayers, Appleton Chapel shows a changed
interior. The Appleton Chapel that was had walls and windows that sug-
gested coats of many colors. The Appleton Chapel that is has a union of
dark wood and cool gray wall spaces denoting peace and quiet. The
florid frescoes, pews painted to an imitation of golden oak and colored
glass, which embarrassed without beautifying the light, have vanished.
The pews, galleries, and wainscot are the hue of dark oak, and the walls
a dull stone color, equally restful to the eye. The panes of uncertain
design have been replaced with clouded glass which freshens the light of
the whole interior, and the hues of the rose window over the chancel have
been agreeably softened. The interior has been altered from a place of
somew^hat clamorous detail to something which has, at least, a certain
quiet suggestion of worship. — Boston Herald.

THE PARAGRAPH

14:

The Use of Comparison. — In each of these paragraphs, the
subject to be developed is stated in the first sentence. In the
first paragraph, the subject is developed by details which state
definitely six points of resemblance between the gods of the
Norseman and those of the Ancient Greek. In the second
paragraph, the subject is developed by details which state defi-
nitely four points of difference or co7iti'ast between talent and
genius. In the third paragraph, the subject is developed by
seven details which state definitely four points of difference
between Appleton Chapel as it was and as it is. In each para-
graph, the method of development used is the method of com-
parison; i.e., the setting of two objects over against each other
and pointing out the respects in which they resemble each
other or the respects in which they differ from each other.
In each case, this method is the only one by which the sub-
ject can be adequately developed.

EXERCISE VI

1. Select from good authors and bring to class three paragraphs devel-
oped by resemblances or differences.

2. Develop each of the following topics into good paragraphs by point-
ing out resemblances or differences :

a. Our District To-day and Five Years Ago.

b. The Dinner I Planned and the Dinner I Had.

c. Careless Work and Faithful Work.

d. Motoring and Driving.

e. The Open Season and the Closed Season.

f. The Railway Station at Midday and at Midnight.

3. Make a list of ten subjects which should be developed into para-
graphs by pointing out resemblances or differences.

4. Develop into good paragraphs any five of your subjects.
Did you point out resemblances or differences .-* Why ?

Study the following paragraphs for method of development :

r. People talk of liberty as if it meant the liberty to do just what a man
likes. I call that man free who fears wrong, but fears nothing else. 1

148 PR.\CTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

call that man free who has learned the most blessed of all truths, — that
liberty consists in obedience to the power, and to the will, and to the law
that his higher soul reverences and approves. He is not free because he
does what he likes ; but he is free because he does what he ought, and
there is no protest in his soul against the doing.

2. Our whole system of Cabinet relations presents some anomalies.
Our executive departments are really business institutions of the first mag-
nitude. Every two years and eight months, on an average, a new man
comes in, usually without previous experience in the department of which
he is to assume full charge, with almost dictatorial powers, and with no
responsibility for "making it pay" as he would be under in private busi-
ness life. Sometimes the new Cabinet minister has been a successful mer-
chant ; more often he has been a good lawyer ; occasionally he has been a
commonplace man, with interests chiefly political. But these new Cabinet
officers are practically all alike in having no acquaintance with the business
which they are called upon to conduct. If they were suddenly drafted,
through political availability, to take charge of the largest publishing con-
cern in New York, or the largest hotel or department store, their training
for it would be just as ample, and their success in it just as assured. In
these circumstances, the average Cabinet officer falls a ready prey to syco-
phants and flatterers. If he is a small man, with an enlarged head, he is
almost sure to turn against the subordinate who tells him courageously of
the mistakes he has made. This tends to produce a sort of survival of the
unfittest in the Government's service. — Anon.

The Use of Repetition. — In each of these paragraphs, the
subject to be explained is stated in the first sentence. In the
first paragraph, the subject is developed by five details which
repeat in various ways what true liberty really is. In the
second paragraph the subject is develoi)ed by details which re-
peat in various ways the nature of the anomalies presented by
our whole system of Cabinet relations. In each paragraph,
the subject is developed by the method of repetition ; i.e., the
saying the same thing more than once in the same or in differ-
ent words.

EXERCISE Vn

I. Select from good authors and bring to class three paragraphs devel-
oped by repetition.

THE PARAGRAPH

149

2. Develop into good paragraphs the following topics by using repe-
tition :

a. The Day of Deadly Monotony.

b. The Interminable Wait.

3. Make a list of three topics that could be developed into paragraphs
by repetition.

4. Develop any two of your topics by repetition.

Did your use of repetition strengthen or weaken your thought?
In what way?

Notice the method of development used in the following
paragraph :

What are the essential characteristics of the spirit of our [the English]
nation? Not, certainly, an open and clear mind, not a quick and flexible
intelligence. Our greatest admirers would not claim for us that we have
these in a preeminent degree ; they might say that we had more of them
than our detractors gave us credit for ; but they would not assert them to
be our essential characteristics. They would rather allege, as our chief
spiritual characteristics, energy and honesty ; and, if we are judged favor-
ably and positively, not invidiously and negatively, our chief characteristics
are, no doubt, these : energy and honesty, not an open and clear mind, not
a quick and flexible intelligence. — Matthew Arnold.

The Use of the Obverse. — In this paragraph, the subject is
stated in the first sentence. It is developed by nine details,
six of which tell what the spirit of the English nation is not,
three of which tell what the spirit of the English nation is.
The method of development used is the method of the ob-
verse ; i.e., the telling what a thing is not. To be really
strong, the obverse should be followed, as in this case, by a
positive statement of what a thing is.

EXERCISE VIII

1 . Bring to class three examples, selected from good authors, of para-
graphs developed by the obverse.

2. Develop into a good paragraph, by using the obverse, each of the
following subiects :

150 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

a. What Faithful Work Means.

b. True Courage.

c. True Kindness.

d. Fancy Farming.

e. Good Times.

3. Make a list of five subjects that could be developed into good para-
graphs by the obverse.

4. Develop each of your subjects into a paragraph by using the obverse.
In what way did the obverse strengthen your composition?

Note the method of development used in the following
paragraphs :

I . When by the action of fire or wind, or through the agency of man,
portions of forests are partially or completely destroyed, a new set of
conditions is presented over these areas. One of the most important is
that light is admitted where before towering trees permitted but a limited
and characteristic undergrowth to remain. Hundreds of ferns, which for
years have been dormant, are now awakened from their long sleep, and
new and recent importations of seeds, which are constantly rushing in,
spring into existence to fill the gap. multiply their numbers, and make
more sure the perpetuation of their kind. — Lessons in Botany, Atkinson.
2. General Howe was quite well satisfied with what he had done. He
had defeated Washington at Brandywine, repulsed him at Germantown,
taken the forts on the Delaware, and was in possession of Philadelphia.
Reenforcements were on their way from England, his army was in good
condition, while Washington's was growing weaker. Many of the citizens
of Philadelphia had welcomed him with open arms as their deliverer, while
the farmers of the surrounding country hailed him with favor, for he had
British gold, which he was ready to pay for their garden sauce, butter,
cheese, eggs, cattle, and horses. — The Boys of ''76, Charles C. Coffin.

The Use of Cause and Effect. — In each of these paragraphs,
the subject is stated in the first sentence. In the first paragraph,
the subject is developed by five details, which state the effects or
results which follow from the cause stated in the first sentence.
In the second paragraph, the subject is developed by eleven
details, which state the causes of the effect or result stated
in the first sentence. In each paragraph, the method used to

THE PARAGRAPH 151

develop the subject is the method of giving details which
stand in the relation of cause and effect. As shown in
the two paragraphs given, sometimes the cause is stated
first, and is followed by a statement of the effect, and
sometimes the effect is stated first, and is followed by a state-
ment of the cause.

EXERCISE IX

1. Select from good authors, and bring to class three paragraphs de-
veloped by details that stand in the relation of cause and effect.

2. Develop into a good paragraph by using details that stand in the
relation of cause and effect each of the following subjects :

a. What happens when the trigger of a loaded gun is pulled.

b. Why you came to the high school.

c. Why my father's impressions of school athletics are incorrect.

d. How an alarm clock works.

3. Develop into good paragraphs, by using details that stand in the re-
lation of cause and effect, live subjects of your own choice.

What Method to Use. — In a paragraph which is mainly
descriptive or narrative in nature, the method of giving the
more minute essential details is always one of the methods
of development used, and is perhaps the only one. The
method of comparison, however, is often combined with it. In
a paragraph that is expository in nature, one method of de-
velopment is as commonly used as another ; while in a para-
graph that is argumentative in nature, though any method
of development may be used, the methods of giving specific
instances or examples of comparison, and of giving details
which stand in the relation of cause and effect, are used most
commonly. Whenever no one method will develop a paragraph
properly, two or more methods may be used successively.

EXERCISE X

Bring to class three paragraphs in each of which at least two methods of
paragraph development have been used successively.

152 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

SUMMARY

The method used to develop paragraphs may be the giving of minor
details, the use of specific instances, the pointing out of resemblances or
of differences in objects, the repeating of ideas, the telling what a thing
is not, and then what it is, or the giving of cause and result, or it may be
a combination of two or more of these methods.

The Topic Sentence. — Just as the whole composition should
have at the beginning a paragraph which indicates the subject,
limits its scope, and suggests in a general way the point of
the whole composition, so, often, the paragraph is better for
having at or near the beginning a sentence which indicates
the point that the paragraph is to make. Such a sentence is
called the topic sentence of the paragraph. While in the best
paragraphs this sentence is either the first or the second sen-
tence, it sometimes appears later in the paragraph and oc-
casionally is only suggested, not expressed.

Read the following selections, noticing the topic sen-
tence :

I . The propositioti to bring the governors of the States together once a
y ear ^ for a conference on matters pertaining to the States as a whole, has
much to commetid it. To be sure, they have no power to make laws or to
do things outside the line of their duties, but it can readily be understood
that such a conference would tend toward a more perfect union, for they
could make recommendations to their Legislatures that would be productive
of good. The States are not as much alike as they might be. Customs
vary, and what might be good public policy in one State would not be
practicable in another. State Sovereignty and National Unity have been
antagonistic ever since the adoption of the Constitution, and annual
assemblings of the governors might have a tendency to reduce the friction
and accomplish a more perfectly adjusted condition. There are many
things of common concern that would furnish topics for consideration, and
their discussion during the session of the " House of Governors," as it is
proposed to name it, could not fail to be productive of good. There has
been one such meeting and possibly more, and to repeat the experiment
would do no harm. — Boston Herald.

THE PARAGRAPH 1 53

The Boy in the Mine

2. After the explosion in the mine at Cherry, Illinois, among the first of
the dead bodies brought to the surface were those of boys under sixteen
years of age. Had the presence of such boys in the mine anything to do
with the cause of the disaster? Those who have worked in coal mines and
have intelligently thought about the matter are strongly convinced that
lack of skill and proper training in the miners themselves is a fruitful cause
of accidents. Boys under sixteen years of age cannot have the skill, the
training, or the judgment of their elders. They take chances that a grown
man would regard as foolhardy. They are often reckless and irresponsible.
Such a law as that of Illinois which forbids the employment of boys under
sixteen years of age in the mines is a safeguard not only to the boys but
also to all the mine workers. It has long been established that in all
dangerous occupations accidents to children form a much larger percentage
than accidents to adults. It might almost be regarded as a corollary that
accidents caused by children form a larger percentage than those caused
by adults. There is thus good ground for raising the question whether
this accident at Cherry, Illinois, might not be due to the employment of
boys. — Lynn I ton.

3. Only ten years ago the death-rate in the United States was seven-
teen and six tenths per thousand inhabitants. According to the latest
census bulletin, it is now fifteen and four tenths. The same remarkable
phenomenon is to be observed in European countries as well. Thirty
years ago the death-rate in England was twenty-one and three tenths ;
ten years ago it had fallen to eighteen and two tenths; last year it was
only fourteen and seven tenths. In Germany it has fallen from twenty-
seven to less than twenty. These figures are impressive evidence of the
progress that the world is snaking in fighting disease. The discovery of
the bacterial character of many diseases and the consequently improved
method of treatment and of preventive hygiene have done much to
lengthen man's days upon the earth. — Anon.

4. An alderman of New Haven, reading the report of the truant officers
that many children could not be expected to attend school because in-
sufficiently nourished, decided that he could do something to relieve the
situation, and sent word round the neighborhood that, if any were going
to school hungry, they must first come to his house for a "square meal."'
In the first batch fifty responded; yet, at last accounts, the invitation had
not been withdrawn, and it still stands, "Come over and get a square
meal and not miss school." This is fine for poor boys and girls, but it

154 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

staggers imagination to picture the flatness of the alderman's pocket book
if his words were taken literally and without the implied qualification of
inability to procure food elsewhere. — Anon.

In the first paragraph, the first sentence is the topic sen-
tence ; in the second paragraph, the second sentence is the
topic sentence ; in the third paragraph, the topic is expressed
in the last half of the sixth sentence ; while in the fourth para-
graph no topic sentence is expressed, though the topic sen-
tence, Say exactly wJiat you mean, is very clearly impHed.

Ordinarily, as indicated above, the topic sentence of a
paragraph should come at the beginning of the paragraph.
Sometimes, however, it may come later in the paragraph or
it may be omitted entirely. If, however, by any chance it is
omitted, the ideas of the paragraph must be so presented as
to imply the topic sentence so clearly that it cannot be mis-
understood.

The Order of Details in a Paragraph. — The order in which
details are arranged in a paragraph that is part of a larger
composition depends, of course, upon the nature of the sub-
ject matter of the paragraph and also upon the part that
the paragraph is to perform in the development of the
whole composition. For example, it may become neces-
sary at a given point in a composition that consists of a
number of paragraphs to give illustrations of the working
of some principle. A paragraph of specific instances natu-
rally follows. The order in which the instances are given
will depend on whether it is necessary at that point in the
composition to catch the attention of the persons addressed
by placing the strongest instance first or to drive home the
point by placing the strongest instance last. There must be
in every paragraph, however, a definite arrangement of de-
tails, which makes each new detail give added clearness and
added strength to the main idea of the paragraph.

THE PARAGRAPH 1 55

Coherence within the Paragraph. — It is not enough that
the ideas of a paragraph be arranged in coherent order ; the
ideas must be so expressed as to knit together the parts of
the paragraph.

Read the following selection :

Soon after six, in the dark of the January morning, the big bell
clangs with rapid stroke : a crowd of boys in the Home Hail scuffle and
romp from their rooms, hurrying down to the hot shower. In lines of
three they steam along under the pouring water, and then one by one stand
to the icy spray. Of a sudden a door is pulled open, and a valiant half-
dozen of them tear with a yell out into the freezing morning, and plunge,
pink-skinned, into a huge snowbank. Back they come instanter, stamping
off the great melting flakes. They quickly rub dry. and those who have
been the first down have ten spare minutes to squat in their dressing-
gowns and blink at the new-kindled, crackling wood fire in the master's
welcoming study. — The School with a Clear Aim, Carr.

In the second sentence, the word tkey refers to a crowd of
boys mentioned in the first sentence, and so knits the second
sentence to the first ; the word then knits the second part of
the second sentence to the first part by indicating that some-
thing is to follow as a result of the act related in the first part
of the second sentence, while the words one by one accomplish
a similar result by showing that the same individuals perform
the resulting act. The words of a sudden, in the third sen-
tence, suggest a quick change of action, while the word them,
which occurs later in the same sentence, knits the thought of
the third sentence to that of the second by showing that in-
dividuals from the same set of boys performed the new action
recounted. Similarly, the words back and they knit the fourth
sentence to the third, and the words they, those, and their knit
the fifth sentence to the fourth.

Elements which give Coherence. — The words which help to
knit the sentences of the selection given above together hap-
pen- tq.be personal pronouns, adverbs, an adverbial phrase, an

156 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

adjective pronoun, and a demonstrative pronoun. Other
classes of words commonly used are conjunctions, relative
pronouns, and nouns that repeat at intervals the name of the
subject that is being discussed.

Coherence between Paragraphs. — Whenever a composition
consists of a number of paragraphs, the order of the para-
graphs should be the order which will contribute to coherence
and emphasis in the whole composition.

In a long composition, it often happens that several sen-
tences are required to state the subject, limit its scope, and
indicate in a general way the point to be made. When
several sentences are required for this purpose, they together
form the opening or fundamental paragraph. The paragraphs
which follow must develop, in the order best suited to impress
the person or persons addressed, the ideas essential to an un-
derstanding of the main idea of the whole composition.

Transitional Elements. — In order that coherence between
paragraphs shall be evident, the content of each paragraph
should be summarized in its final sentence, and there should
be in one place or another, to show connection between para-
graphs, a transitional element, i.e., an element which pre-
pares in some way for the ideas about to be given. The
transitional element may be a word or a group of words in
the final sentence of the first of two paragraphs ; or it may
be a word or a group of words in the opening sentence
of the second of two paragraphs and refer to ideas in the
paragraph just completed ; or it may be an entire sentence,
or even an entire paragraph.

Examine the following selections for transitional elements :

I. Count Katsura received me pleasantly, and, after a few courteous
inquiries with regard to my voyage across the Pacific, looked again at my
letter of introduction, and said :

<' Baron Takahira tells me, Mr. Kennan, that it is your intention to

THE PARAGRAPH 157

write about Japan. Now I hope that when you do, you'll describe things
as they are, and especially things that seem to you bad. Most travelers
who come here praise us too much and with too little discrimination.
Three fourths of them try to make it appear that Japan is a sort of fairy-
land of picturesque scenery, beautiful geisha girls, fascinating tea houses,
wonderful flowers, men who are never discourteous, women who are never
immodest, and babies that never cry. Now that sort of thing doesn't do
any good, and, besides, it isn't wholly true. If you want to write some-
thing that will be useful and helpful in Japan as well as in America, wait
until you have been here long enough to form accurate opinions, and then
write about things that are of some consequence. And, above all, don't
hesitate to say that things are bad when they seem to you bad, and when
you have studied them enough to know why they are bad. If you do this,
your work will be useful to us, and perhaps it won't be any less interest-
ing in America."

I was not a little surprised and taken aback by this frank advice from
the Prime Minister, but I thanked him for it sincerely, and said that, al-
though I feared I should make a good many blunders, I would try hard to
see things aright, and, at any rate, would never call a bad spade a useful
agricultural implement, just out of courtesy. — The Outlook^ Kennan.

In this selection, the first paragraph, which develops Mr.
Kennan's reception by Count Katsura, is made coherent with
the second paragraph, which develops the advice given to
Mr. Kennan by the Count, by the transitional element, aiid
said, which occurs in the final sentence of the first para-
graph. The third paragraph, which develops the effect of
the Count's advice upon Mr. Kennan, is made coherent with
the second paragraph by the transitional element, by this
frank advice frojji the Prime Minister, which occurs in the
first sentence of the third paragraph.

2. If the man who discovered the North Pole were to trv to find it
again, it is not likely that he would locate it exactly in the same spot.
Absolute or even relative fixity of position is unknown in the universe, and
the poles of the earth are no exceptions to the rule. Long ago it was
suspected that minute changes of latitude were occurring. In other words,
New York and Paris were varying in position. Only in recent years, how-

158 PRACTICAL EXCiLISH COMPOSITION

ever, has any definite proof of that supposition been forthcoming. When
the announcement was first made by Doctor Kustner, of the Royal Ob-
servatory of Berlin, an international investigation was set on foot. We
now know that the pole wobbles in a slight but perceptible way, that the
wobbling is periodic, and that as a consequence the latitudes of places on
one side of the earth are regularly increasing, while those on the opposite
side are simultaneously diminishing.

A brilliant American astronomer, Dr. S. C. Chandler, made a special
study of this motion of the pole. He collected an immense mass of evi-
dence, involving the reduction of more than thirty-three thousand observa-
tions, which were made by nine different methods, and which comprised
the work of seventeen Northern and Southern observatories for about one
hundred and seventy-two years. He showed that the pole has two fluc-
tuations, the one having a period of four hundred and twenty-seven days,
and the other a period of seven years, and that the variation in latitude of
a given place amounts to about thirty or forty feet.

What's the practical good of the discovery? Simply this :

If the axis of the earth is executing small oscillations, the liquid ocean
should feel the wobble. The effect is a rise and fall of only a few inches,
but still unmistakable evidence that the earth, so far from spinning smoothly,
has that unbalanced vibration felt by passengers on an imperfectly engi-
neered twin-screw steamer. Earthquakes are more numerous at the time
when the vibration is greatest. The vibration waxes and wanes much as
that of the steamer waxes and wanes if the twin screws are not running
quite together. On the steamer breakages are more numerous during the
times of vigorous oscillation. In a similar way the little cracks of the
earth's skin, which we call great earthquakes, are more numerous when
these unbalanced vibrations are at their maximum — that is to say, about
once every seven years.

Hence it is rather interesting to note that the severe earthquakes of
1906 occurred soon after the time of maximum activity of the pole.
Clearly, we are in a fair way toward establishing an earthquake-forecasting
service — all because we discovered that the pole is wandering.

— Leslie's Magazine.

In this selection, the second paragraph is made coherent
with the first paragraph by the transitional element, this
niotio7i of the pole, which occurs in the first sentence of the
second paragraph. The third paragraph is made coherent

THE PARAGRAPH

159

with the second paragraph by the transitional element, made
up of the full sentence and the abbreviated or elHptical
sentence, Whafs the practical good of the discovery ? Simply
this. The fourth paragraph is made coherent with the third
paragraph by the transitional element, he7ice, which occurs in
the first sentence of the fourth paragraph.

Whatever form the transitional element may take, whether
it be a word, a phrase, a clause, a sentence, or an entire
paragraph, and whether it be placed in the final sentence of
the first of two paragraphs or in the first sentence of the sec-
ond of two paragraphs, a transitional element of some kind
there must be to mark the coherence of thought between
every two paragraphs of a composition.

The Order of Paragraphs. — In order that the paragraphs
of a composition may give due emphasis to the main point of
the entire composition, paragraphs which develop important
ideas should, of course, be placed at the beginning and at the
end. The force of a composition is greatly increased by a
final paragraph which summarizes briefly the most essential
points of the composition.

Paragraph Indention. — In written composition the first line
of every paragraph is indented beyond the regular page mar-
gin, in order that the reader may the more readily grasp
the thought developed in any single paragraph, may realize
when a new point is to be brought forward, and may get the
various paragraphs in proper perspective.

The Outline. — When a composition of any length is to be
prepared, an outUne or skeleton of the composition should first
be made. The simplest form of outline is an enumeration in
order of the points to be made by each paragraph and of the
main details to be developed in each.

Compare the following outlines :

l6o PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

L Executive department of the United States.

A. The Presidency :

1. Qualifications for the office.

2. The term of office.

B. Powers and duties of the President ;

1. As a commander in chief.

2. In respect to reprieves and pardons.

3. In respect to treaties with foreign powers.

4. In respect to the appointment of federal officers.

5. In respect to summoning and adjourning Congress.

6. In respect to reporting the state of affairs in the country to

Congress.
a. The President's message :

(i) The effectiveness of the message.

(2) Power and responsibility in the English system.

(3) Power and responsibility in the American system.

C. Executive departments :

1. The departments under Washington.

2. Later additions to the departments.

3. The " Cabinet."

a. The resemblance between the English cabinet and our

own.
d. The difference between the English cabinet and our own.
c. Members.

(i) The secretary of state :
(a) Duties :

(i) As administrator of diplomatic and consular
service.

(2) As keeper of national archives and of seal of

the United States.

(3) As superintendent of the publication of

laws, treaties, and proclamations.

(2) The secretary of the treasury :
(a) His rank and importance.
(d) His various duties.

(3) The secretary of war ;
(^7) His duties.

THE PARAGRAPH i6l

(4)

The

secretary of the navy :

(^)

His duties.

(5)

The

secretary of the interior:

(^)

His duties.

(6)

The

postmaster-general :

(^)

His duties.

(7)

The

attorney-general :

(^)

His duties.

(8)

The

secretary of commerce and labor :

(^)

His duties.

II. Conclusion: Summary.

Force cannot be used successfully against the American people ; for —
I. They are ardent lovers of liberty, because

a. They are descendants of Englishmen and possess English

traits.
(i) They emigrated when the spirit of liberty was highest.

(2) The English were always tender on taxation.

(3) The Colonies are tender on the same point.

b. Their form of legislature fosters liberty.

c. Religion in the North fosters liberty.
(i) They are Protestants, and,

(2) They are mainly dissenters from the Church of Eng-
land.

d. The presence of slavery in the South fosters the spirit of

liberty among the free.

e. Their education, especially in law, fosters the spirit of

liberty.

f. Their distance from the governing power has like effect.

The first outline is that of a composition on " The Execu
tive Department of the United States." It consists of a list
of topics, each topic suggesting the kind of material to be
used and the kind of point to be made. The position of the
topic in the outline indicates at what place in the composition
the topic is to be developed and what proportion of time or
space is to be given to it.

l62 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

The advantage of an outline of this type is that it indicates
clearly the ground to be covered and the amount and the kind
of material to be used. Its disadvantage is that it does not
give the exact points to be made.

Such an outHne is a topical outline or a synopsis.

The second outline is that of a section of Burke's ** Speech
on Conciliation with the American Colonies." It consists of
a series of statements, each statement giving briefly the exact
thought to be impressed. The position of a statement in the
outline shows at what point it is to be introduced into the com-
position and what degree of emphasis it is to receive.

The advantage of an outline of this type is that it is a digest
of the composition ; that is, it gives the gist of the composition.
Its disadvantage is that it does not indicate the exact material
to be used.

Such an outline is a syllabus.

The Practical Value of the Outline. — The value of an out-
Hne lies in the fact that it enables the person who prepares
it to see at a glance whether or not he has introduced all the
details essential to the development of the subject, whether
he has introduced any unessential details or digressions,
whether he has arranged details in the most desirable order,
and whether he has given the proper position and the due
amount of time or space to the most important ideas.

EXERCISE XI

Study the following selections :

I. America is, above everything else, a business nation. Especially dur-
ing the last quarter of a century the business development has exceeded the
wildest dreams of the most sanguine financiers. We are proud of the
reputation we have achieved. We extol our captains of industry; we
exult in our wonderful mechanical devices, in our superior methods of
transportation, in our enormous factories ; we reward with fame and for-
tune the mind that is capable of outlining a new scheme to add to oui

TITF. PARAGRAPH 163

prosperity. We have a commercial output of which we talk much ; we
rejoice in our unexplored resources. We, as a nation, have developed
from the land enormous wealth ; we are the richest nation in the world.
All this sounds like good business.

Yet it is not money which makes the heart of a nation. It is life — the
sturdy, rugged manhood of her citizens. Ayid life is the cheapest com-
modity of America ! ' '

We crush it in the thoroughfares ; we annihilate it in railroad wrecks ;
we grind it down to a worthless existence in the deadly monotony of ill-
paid labor. We starve it without compunction — unless a particular
example happens to shock our sensibilities ; we expose it to infectious and
loathsome diseases. We buy it at a dollar a day and reserve the right to
abuse it after purchase. We cage it in foul places ; we expose it to
the extremes of weather; we drive it to its utmost endurance until,
enfeebled, it is but a shadow of its real self.

This is poor business — mighty poor business.

What might the power of America be, think you, if to-day life should
receive its rights ; eighty millions of well creatures made in the image of
their creator, free from disease, free from fear, daring to let the God-spark
within them develop into its full maturity?

The business of a nation is the making of me)i . It has no other. No
industry, no masterpiece, no across-the-continent flyer, no amount of wealth,
is worth one iota unless it makes for the benefit of all mankind.

We have gone far in the path of commercial progress ; we can well
afford to take time to catch up in another. A badly balanced business is a
bad business, and when dollars and cents weigh more than human life,
there is something wrong with the balance.

Not until the health of her people is of equal concern with the interests
of industry and commerce can America deserve a reputation as a business
nation. — Anon.

2. A printing company, operating in a five-story building, employed a
Japanese watchman. He had instructions to stay with the plant, no
matter what happened — to stay always until relieved. The earthquake
found him on the top floor, where the heaviest presses were set. He
stayed with the job. Morning broke ; fires sprang up from all four
quarters of the horizon. Still he stayed with the job. A fire came his
way and a corner of the building caught. He satisfied himself that the
stairs were clear, and settled down to wait until his quarters became too
hot. Suddenly the floor sagged. Weakened by the shock and the fire, it

1 64 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

was giving way under the heavy presses. The Japanese skipped down to
the fourth floor. The presses came after him. Floor by floor, as he fled,
the presses followed from above ; he got out of the building a quarter of a
second before that junk shop of metal landed in the cellar.

One of his employers was in a hospital with typhoid fever. That
hospital lay in the fire track ; the nurses and doctors carried the patients
to a house on the outskirts of the city. * To the bedside of the typhoid
patient crept that afternoon a Japanese of sea-green complexion.

" I am sorry to say," he reported, " that the presses have emerged to the
ground as the result of a conflagration ! " — Success.

3. Four big banks in the Wall Street district resemble the great gold
mines of the West in one striking feature. They have three eight-hour
shifts of toilers and the work never stops. One set takes up the routine
where the other leaves off. All night long, Sundays, and holidays, a staff
of men in each of these banks is busy opening thousands of letters, sorting
and listing innumerable checks and drafts that represent fabulous sums of
money, and getting them ready for the day force, which is the only one
the public comes in contact with or ever hears about. If this work was
not carried on incessantly, the banks would soon be overwhelmed with a
mountainous accumulation of detail.

Two shifts — the "scouting force," as they call themselves — work be-
tween five in the afternoon and nine the next morning. Each bank has a
big drawer in the General Post Ofiice. Messengers clear this of its
letters every hour all night long. Three thousand letters a day is the
average mail of one of these large banks. Two thirds of it comes in
during the night. These letters, in the case of one of the biggest of these
banks, contain from 35,000 to 40,000 checks and drafts. At times these
inclosures represent as much as $30,000,000. Rarely does the total fall
below $20,000,000.

The letters are opened as fast as they are received, the checks are
counted, and the totals verified with the footings of the lists. The letters
are then stamped, which shows that they have been "proven in," as the
banks call it. After that they are turned over to the clerks who send out
the formal acknowledgments of the remittances they contain. The various
checks are assorted according to the numbers of the books in which they
are to be entered and otherwise ; the sight drafts are grouped according to
the routes of the bank's messengers, and all is made ready for turning the
night's accumulation over to the day force, so it may be handled by it as
expeditiously as possible.

THE PARAGRAPH 165

Each of these shifts of night workers at the banks consists of from
twelve to twenty men. Some banks get along with but one extra set of
clerks at night. These come on duty at midnight and leave at 8 a.m.
This plan of working all night long in order to keep up with the tremendous
amount of business that comes in by mail was inaugurated about five years
ago. The first bank that tried it found that so much valuable daytime
was saved, that one institution after another took it up, until now there are
four that have these three eight-shifts of clerks, and several more who work
only a part of the night. — Harper^s Weekly.

4. The late King Christian of Denmark was much interested in primary
education, and he used to go from school to school in the country, observ-
ing the work of the teachers, and sometimes interrupting it in order to ask
questions on his own account. His coming was naturally a great event in
the small Danish villages. The children were all dressed in the neatest
clothes. They sang the national air when the monarch entered the school-
house, which was usually draped and festooned with flowers and flags.

At one village school, after the king had listened intently to the recita-
tions in history, he called up one of the brightest-looking children and
began to question him.

"What great things did Julius Caesar do ?" asked the king.

The child gave a satisfactory answer.

"And what great things did Frederick the Great do?" resumed the king.

The child again answered glibly, as he did also to a like question about
Napoleon.

'' Now, then," said the king, "tell me the great things that I have done."

The urchin grew red in the face. He stammered and then became
tongue-tied in an agony of mortification and self-reproach. The question
was repeated again and again, until at last he said, in a gasping voice :

"I — I don't know any great things that your Majesty has done."

The king looked at him for a moment and then remarked: "Neither do I."

And then, bursting into laughter, he presented the boy with a gold piece
and departed in a state of high good humor.

5. What proportion of the coal which fills the firebox of the locomotive
actually drives it across the country at sixty miles an hour? About six per
cent ; the rest is simply wasted. What part of the fuel value of their coal
do the furnaces of the great manufacturing plants employ? Not over ten
per cent ; often less.

The rain of cinders from the stack of the locomotive, the pillar of black
smoke from the factory chimney, account conspicuously for part of the

1 66 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

waste. But these are minor issues. The chief difficulty lies in the failure
to use the oceans of combustible gases which arise from the burning coal.
They are either allowed to escape unignited, or are discharged, without
having done any service beneath the boilers, to expend their heat on the
thankless air.

The Geological Survey estimates that the '• smoke nuisance " costs the
country, through waste of fuel, injury to merchandise, and unnecessary
labor caused by the clouds of soot, over six hundred million dollars a year.
There is, moreover, an undeniable menace to the public health through the
polluted air of great manufacturing towns.

Much of this tremendous economic loss is at present unavoidable,
because we have not learned how to utilize the energy of coal directly.
Steam, and often electricity as well, must be generated before the power
can be applied. But there are improvements in furnace construction which
reduce the losses of imperfect combustion, and progressive manufacturers
are saving money for themselves and benefiting their communities by
adopting tliem.

The problem is still far from solution, however, and offers a splendid
opportunity for the ingenuity of American inventors. Although it lies out-
side the lime-lighted field of politics, here is one way in which a very
genuine conser\'ation of natural resources may be achieved.

The Secret Service

6. The secret service of the United States government is a growth
rather than a sudden single creation. For some time previous to i860
counterfeiting had been increasing, and in that year Congress appropriated
ten thousand dollars to be expended under the direction of the Secretary
of the Treasury in checking the evil. Private detectives were employed
and rewards were paid to the heads of municipal police departments for the
apprehension of counterfeiters.

By 1864 the issue of paper money in greatly increased quantities led to
a corresponding increase in counterfeiting. Congress therefore raised the
amount of the appropriation to one hundred thousand dollars, which the
Secretary of the Treasury used in the establishment of the permanent
detective bureau which has since been known as the secret service, and is a
branch of the Treasury Department.

The service consists of a chief, whose salary is four thousand dollars, an
assistant chief at thre^ thousand, and a small clerical force. All these
make Washingtort their' headquarters, and remain there most of the tim^v

THE PARAGRAPH I 67

but there are also twenty-five districts, into which the country is divided,
in each of which a representative is stationed. In addition, there is a
group of trained detectives who remain in Washington when not "on a
job," but hold themselves in readiness to go anywhere at a moment's
notice.

The two special duties which have always belonged to the secret service
are the detection of frauds upon the Treasury and the guarding of the per-
son of the President, both when he is in Washington and when he travels.
Within recent years, however, the force has been used for special investi-
gations in other departments, as, for example, the detection of postal frauds,
the examination of beef-packing methods, and the tracing of dishonest
dealings in public lands. In such cases the head of the department which
desired their services has proffered a request to the Treasury Department,
and has paid from his own appropriations the salaries of the men assigned.

The members of the service never knowingly allow themselves -to be
photographed, and seldom admit their identity. That there are plenty of
romantic persons who would like to join the force, in spite of small pay, is
evident from the existence of a waiting list of seven hundred names.

In each of the .selections :

1 . State the point of the entire composition.

2. State the point of each paragraph, and show that each additional para-
graph is a step in advance toward the point of the whole composition.

3. State the method of development of each paragraph.

4. In each paragraph, quote the topic sentence, if there is one, otherwise
state the topic sentence that is implied.

5. Quote the word or words that give transition between paragraphs.

6. From one paragraph in each selection, quote the words which knit
together the different sentences.

7. Make an outline in topical form of any one of the selections.

8. Make a digest of any other of the selections.

THEME

A. First writing the outline :

1. Write a composition showing that your home town is, or in ten

years will be, an advantageous place in which to found a home.

2. Write a composition showing the need and the practical wisdom

of some public improvement recently made by the city or the
town in which you live.

l68 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

3. Show that " It is never too late to mend '' and that " As the twig

is bent the tree is inclined/'

4. Point a moral by means of an amusing story.

5. Show the benefits derived from attending the circus.
In each of your compositions :

a. What point have you made in each paragraph?

b. What special advantage is gained by the order in which

you have arranged your paragraphs ?

c. What method of development have you used in each para-

graph ?

d. By what word or words have you given transition between

paragraphs ?

B. Read each of your themes to see that each paragraph develops a
point essential to develop the main point of the composition, that the para-
graphs are coherent within themselves and with one another, that they are
so arranged as to emphasize the point of the whole composition.

C. Examine each theme to see : (i) that every sentence is grammatical,
and is properly punctuated ; (2) that each word is properly spelled.

D. Read any two themes to your class.

E. Rewrite each of your themes, making the corrections suggested by
class criticism.

CHAPTER VI
THE SENTENCE

A COMPOSITION of any length, while in itself a unit of
thought, is an aggregate of smaller units of thought, the
smallest of which is a sentence.

Definition. — A sentence is a word or a group of words
expressing one complete thought.

Sentence usually a Unit in a Composition. — Occasionally a
single sentence is in itself an entire composition. Ordinarily,
however, a sentence is one of many similar units which to-
gether form a composition. A sentence which is a unit in a
composition may be a complete description ; as, for example :

A brown, decayed old town Piacenza is, — a deserted, solitary, grass-
grown place, with ruined ramparts ; half-filled-iip trenches, which afford a
frowzy pasturage to the lean kine that wander about them ; and streets of
stern houses, moodily frowning at the other houses over the way.

— Dickens.
or,

Just in the gray of the dawn, as the mists uprose from the meadows,
There was a stir and sound in the slumbering village of Plymouth ;
Clanging and clinking of arms, and the order imperative, '* Forward!"
Given in tones suppressed, a tramp of feet and then silence ;
Figures ten in the mist, marched slowly out of the village.

— Longfellow.

It may be a complete narrative ; as, for example :

Born of the poorest family in a district of poverty, his earliest recollec-
tion being the forced sale by auction of the few sticks of furniture that
belonged to his widowed mother, David Lloyd-George has climbed, by

169

lyo PRACTICAL KXCiLlSII COMl'OSniOX

sheer force of genius, indomitable hard work, and unflinching courage, to
the second highest position in the British Empire. — Robert Barr.

It may be a complete exposition ; as, for example :

Each man^s outfit of garments consisted of two pairs of Jaeger pajama
trousers, singlet, shirt, guernsey. Burberry overalls, ten pairs of heavy
socks, three pairs of finneskoe, Balaclava cap for the head, with Burberry
covering, large muffler, and fur mitts, hung from the neck by pieces of
lampwick so that they would not be lost when taken from the hands.

— In the Heart of the Antarctic^ Shackleton.

It may be a complete argument ; as, for example :

Considering that the murder was effected by a conspiracy ; considering
that he was one of the four conspirators ; considering that two of the con-
spirators have accounted for themselves on the night of the murder, and
were not in Brown Street : considering that the prisoner does not account
for himself, nor show where he was ; considering that Richard Crownin-
shield, the other conspirator and the perpetrator, is not accounted for, nor
shown to be elsewhere ; considering that it is now past all doubt that
two persons were seen lurking in and about Brown Street at different
times, avoiding observation, and exciting so much suspicion that the neigh-
bors actually watched them ; considering that, if these persons thus lurk-
ing in Brown Street at that hour were not the murderers, it remains to
this day wholly unknown who they were or what their business was ; con-
sidering the testimony of Miss Jaqueth. and that the club was afterwards
found near this place ; considering, finally, that Webster and Southwick
saw these persons, and then took one of them for the defendant, and that
Southwick then told his wife so, and that Bray and Mirick examined them
closely, and now swear to their belief that the prisoner was one of them :
it is for you to say, putting these considerations together, whether you be-
lieve the prisoner was actually in Brown Street at the time of the murder.
— Speech on the Murder of Captain foseph White, Daniel Webster.

It may be a complete expression of persuasion ; as, for
example :

masters, if I were disposed to stir
Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage,

1 should do Brutus wrong, and Cassius wrong,

THE SENTENCE 171

Who, you all know, are honorable men ;
I will not do them wrong ; I rather choose
To wrong the dead, to wrong myself and you,
Than I will wrong such honorable men.

— J7ilius Ccesar, Shakespeare.

Sentence composed of Elements differing in Nature. — While
a sentence must be in the main descriptive, narrative, exposi-
tional, argumentative, or persuasive in nature, it may be made
up of elements of different kinds. The following quotation
from The Mill on the Floss is an example of such a sentence :

Three weeks later, when Dorlcote Mill was at its prettiest moment in
all the year, — the great chestnuts in blossom, and the grass all deep and
daisied, — Tom Tulliver came home to it earlier than usual in the evening,
and as he passed over the bridge, he looked with the old deep-rooted
affection at the respectable red brick house, which always seemed cheerful
and inviting outside, let the rooms be as bare and the hearts as sad as they
might inside.

This sentence is narrative in nature, yet it contains both
descriptive and expositional elements needed to give infor-
mation concerning the time of the event, the place of hap-
pening, and the state of mind of the performer of the act
recounted.

No matter how many kinds of material a sentence contains,
it is a unit when the ideas are so selected, so arranged, and
so expressed as to convey a single thought.

EXERCISE I "^^

Bring to class five sentences that are complete descriptions.

2. Bring to class five sentences that are complete expositions, i.e.^ com-
plete explanations.

3. Bring to class five sentences that are in the main narrative, but that
contain descriptive or expositional elements.

4. Bring to class five sentences that are pure narrative, i.e., that contain
no other than narrative elements.

5. Bring to class five sentences that are convincing as argument.

172 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

THEME I

1 . In a single sentence, describe a comfortable chair, a hat, a flower bed,
a wood road, a dog or a cat, or a tree.

2. In a single sentence, explain how to chop wood, how to rake a lawn,
how to serve a ball at tennis, how to use a paddle, or how to sew on a button.

3. In a single sentence, give your reasons for choosing the course you
elected at school, for preferring your favorite pastime to all others, or for
selecting the particular thing that you bought last.

The structure and the length of sentences, as well as the
kind of material of which they consist, depend entirely upon
the nature of the thought to be brought out.

The Simple Sentence. — A thought that is not complicated
naturally finds expression in a simple sentence. If the thought
to be expressed is a command to be given peremptorily, the
simple sentence may consist of but one word, as " Go ! " or
" Hurry ! " When one word is not enough to express the
thought accurately, other words or groups of words are added
until the exact thought is stated, as ** Go to-day," "Go yourself
to-morrow on the noon train," etc. For any thought that does
not express a command, at least two words, a subject and a
predicate, are necessary, as '' John laughed." Such a sentence
as this, however, can be rightly only a link between two more
interesting or more important thoughts. If "John" is of
much importance, it may be necessary to indicate who he is,
how he appears as he laughs, what his manner of laughing is,
what he laughs at, etc., as "John, my brother's most intimate
friend, throwing back his head, laughed heartily at my little
sister's antics." Often the exact expression of a thought re-
quires the use of a simple sentence in which the subject and
the predicate have both been developed by the addition of
many words and phrases. The following sentence is an ex-
ample of this :

The two little strangers sat in cane-bottomed chairs before the open
door, still looking about them with curious eyes at the strings of things

THE SENTENCE

173

hanging from the smoke-browned rafters — beans, red pepper pods, and
twists of home-grown tobacco, the girl's eyes taking in the old spinning
wheel in the corner, the piles of brilliantly figured quilts between the foot-
boards of the two beds ranged along one side of the room, and the boy's
catching eagerly the butt of a big revolver projectmg from the mantelpiece,
a Winchester standing in one corner, a long, old-fashioned squirrel rifle
athwart a pair of buck antlers over the front door, and a bunch of cane
fishing poles aslant the wall of the back porch.

— The Heart of the Hills, John Fox, Jr.

The thoughts that naturally find expression in simple sen-
tences are either those which are unaccompanied by emotion,
like the thought in the preceding illustration, or those which
show a high degree of emotion, like the thoughts in the fol-
lowing passage :

"They've jumped the ranch, little girl," said Annixter, putting one arm
around Hilma. " They're in our house now. I'm oflf. Go to Derrick's
and wait for me there."

She put her arms around his neck. " You're going ? " she demanded.

"I must. Don't be frightened. It will be all right. Go to Derrick's
and — good-by."

She said never a word. She looked once long into his eyes, then kissed
him on the mouth. — The Octopus, Norris.

EXERCISE II

In the following sentences, select the simple subject and the simple
predicate, and state in what way each of the other words and phrases helps
to express the point clearly and vividly :

1. It was a very good dinner of broiled steak and mashed potatoes,
cucumber salad, and hot apple pie.

2. On all sides, the mountains rose dark and steep, the pointed tops of
the redwoods mounting evenly, tier on tier.

3. Night came swiftly to Kirkwood.

4. Finally, feeling cramped and chilly, he went stiffly indoors through
the hot bright halls.

5. He sat brooding in the darkness, discouraged and homesick.

6. She was, as always, quite unself-conscious.

174 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

7. Why should he have looked down at the dark, steep path?

8. The Nabobs soon became a most unpopular class of men.

9. Gabriel looked incredulous and sad, but between his movements
of incredulity, relieved.

10. Soft brown mosses, like faded velveteen, formed cushions upon the
stone tiling.

11. A single, gentle rain makes the grass many shades greener.

12. Around her shoulders she had thrown, according to her wont, a
home-knit, crewel shawl of black and purple.

13. In four days they reached the spacious valley.

14. Her hair, thick and straight and pasted down over the temples of
her small head, looked like a long-used wig.

15. At early candlelight that morning, the huge red stagecoach,
leaving town for his distant part of the country, had rolled, creaking and
rattling, to the dormitory entrance, the same stage that had conveyed him
thither.

16. Play not with paradoxes.

17. One must be poor to know the luxury of giving.

18. Mr. Linton and his daughter would frequently walk out among
the reapers.

19. What then of the third plan offered for our consideration?

20. These gardens of New College are indescribably beautiful, — not
gardens in an American sense, but lawns of the richest green and softest
velvet grass, shadowed over by ancient trees.

21. The whole furniture consisted of a chair, a clothes-press, and a
large oak case, with squares cut out near the top resembling coach
windows.

22. It is warmed by all the colors of an incredible sunset.

23. A national reserve is a tract of forest land owned and managed
by the national government under the most approved laws of modern
forestry.

24. I mean by cranuning that way of preparing for examinations by
committing "points'' to memory during a few hours or days of intense
application immediately preceding the final ordeal, little or no work hav-
ing been performed during the previous course of the term.

25. Over the horizon behind us, and a mile to our left, a solitary
camel with its rider came in sight, rapidly overtaking us.

26. The girl stood in a field of sunlight and corn, looking straight out
from the picture with eager curiosity.

THE SENTENCE

175

EXERCISE III

Develop each of the following sentences by adding words or phrases to
suggest characteristics and to specify such details as indicate time, place,
occasion, manner, method, means, reason, motive, or degree :

1. Shadows lay across the road.

2. Jack awoke.

3. She came into the room.

4. He raised his head.

5. They laid him down.

6. His eyes closed.

7. The warmth increased.

8. The moon rose.

9. Tom glared about the room.

10. It was approaching.

1 1 . They peered into the room.

12. She met them.

13. Stop here !

14. Her aunt looked at her.

15. The dinner was an occasion.

16. Grosvenor made a movement.

17. There was a little rush.

18. The weather broke.
Were the windows open ?

21.

22.

23-

24.

25.

19
20

Your shoemaker is intelligent.

28
29

30
31

33
34
35
36
37
38
39

The shepherd was seated on a

rock.
The machinery lay wrecked.
The foghorn sounds.

He was stared at.

The fire had died down.

26. He secured employment.

27. I am in time.
The wind blew.
I must speak to you.
Laura must telephone.
His mother wished him to go.
Taxes were raised.
Parliament met.
Will the choir sing ?
It is raining.
I stood.

He tooted his horn.
The floor creaked.
What is that ?

EXERCISE IV

1. Find in a current magazine or in the works of a standard author and
bring to class a descriptive passage made up largely of simple sentences.

2. From similar sources, bring to class a narrative passage made up
largely of simple sentences.

3. Select an explanation made up largely of simple sentences.
In each selection :

a. What in the thought makes the simple sentence the natural form
to use?

THEME n

I. Narrate an exciting event or describe an exciting scene.

a. Which of your sentences are simple sentences?

b. Which of them express strong emotion?

176 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

Compound Subject and Compound Predicate. — For some
purposes, a single word is not specific enough to express the
subject of a simple sentence or a single word is not definite
enough to express the predicate of a simple sentence accu-
rately. In many such cases, it becomes necessary to use a
simple sentence with a compound subject or a compound pred-
icate or both. For example, note the gain in clearness and ex-
actness by the use of the compound subject in the second
sentence :

1. The two men moved slowly away.

2. The old man and his attendant moved slowly away.

Note the gain in definiteness by the use of the compound
predicate in the second of the following sentences :

1. The beggar left the place.

2. The beggar drew back, turned sharply, and hurried from the place.

Note the gain in vividness and definiteness by the use of
both compound subject and compound predicate in the second
of the following sentences :

1. Many boats were in the bay.

2. Revenue cutters, stately yachts, busy tugs, fishing smacks, catboats,
modest little rowboats, noisy motor boats lay at anchor, moved out upon
their various courses, or sailed from point to point about the bay.

EXERCISE V

Develop each of the following simple sentences so as to make either the
subject, the predicate, or both more specific or more definite :

1. Tools lay on the ground.

2. Everything was covered.

3. They heard a sound.

4. Buy me some books.

5. They chose furniture.

6. She changed her position.

7. The children like to play.

THE SENTENCE 177

8. It was a trial of strength.

9. His expenses are small.

10. The two men made their arrangements together.

<^y^'

EXERCISE VI

In the following simple sentences, replace the specific terms of each
compound subject and compound predicate by single terms general
enough to include all the specific terms, and note the ioss of vividness and
definiteness :

1. Aged and middle-aged, youthful and young, gray and white, black
and brown, bearded and shorn, all came and went together.

2. She clenched her hands and bit her handkerchief.

3. Mary and Jack and their little brother picked, and" sorted the flowers.

4. Select, wash, and boil those vegetables for dinner.

5. Where are my notebook, my algebra, and my Latin grammar?

6. Friend and foe alike put aside all selfish interest and rallied to his

cause.

7. Edith and her sister made crabapple jelly, put up ten quarts of
tomatoes, and pickled a basketfial of peaches.

Whether or not either the subject or the predicate of a
simple sentence, or both, shall consist of one word or many
words depends entirely upon the thought to be expressed. I
While one thought gains in vividness and interest by expan-
sion, another loses in simplicity and force. "The lady
feared to cross the street " is made much more vivid and
forceful by being expanded into " The old lady looked ^

around timidly, hesitated, took a step forward, drew back, .,(/
then stood looking helplessly across the street." On the "^
other hand, "Henry started for school at eight o'clock" be-
comes tiresome and weak when expanded into " Henry rose,
dressed, ate his breakfast, gathered his books, put on his
coat and hat, and left the house at eight o'clock for school."
A thought gains by expansion when, for any reason, each of
its minute details is in itself important enough to hold the
attention. In all other cases, a thought loses by expansion.

lyS PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

The Complex Sentence. — A thought may not find adequate
expression in a simple sentence for one of two reasons. First,
one or more of the subordinate ideas essential to the thought
may stand in such relation to the main idea as to require ex-
pression in a clause instead of in a word or a phrase. Such
a thought must find expression in a complex sentence. For
example, in the sentence, ** Go whenever you are asked," no
single word and no phrase can express the exact idea of
relative time which the thought requires ; hence the subordi-
nate clause, "whenever you are asked," must be used. In
the sentence, " The boy who left the group suddenly is the
boy wanted," no word or phrase can point out the especial
boy as definitely as does the restrictive adjective clause. In
the sentence, " He admits that he meant to do it," no word
or phrase can express the exact idea expressed by the noun
clause, " that he meant to do it." Second, often, even though
an idea can be expressed intelligibly in a word or a phrase,
the idea is not given its correct shade of relation to other
ideas as well as if it were expressed in a clause. In each
of the following sentences,

1 . As he crossed the room, he paused a moment, and looked about him.

2. Crossing the room, he paused a moment, and looked about him.

3. He crossed the room, paused a moment, and looked about him.

the time of ** pausing " and " looking," and the importance
of the man's " crossing the room," differ. Only by the use of
the subordinate clause in the complex sentence can the exact
instant of time at which the man "paused" and "looked,"
and the exact degree of importance of his " crossing the
room," be expressed.

EXERCISE Vn

In each of the following sentences select each subordinate clause.
Tell in what way each adjective and each adverbial clause help to give
vividness or definiteness to the point.

THE SENTENCE

179

1. I would not eat or drink here if I were starving.

2. Then rose terrified bellowings from the bullock, where it stood
jammed in a passageway with two frantic dogs at its rear.

3. In some scattered groves beyond, he bagged a pigeon and missed
a quail which unexpectedly whirred out of a thicket.

4. As soon as Tom knew that his brother would come to San Fran-
cisco, he was unwilling to go away before September.

5. The greatest advantage of swimming as a physical developer is
that it develops all the muscles of the body in harmony.

o. She was lively, light-hearted, and could be very agreeable with those
who did not cross her will.

7. Yet, upon the whole, I believe she respected me more than she was
aware of.

8. Father says everything he has is mine.

9. "Did you want anything ?*' I inquired.

10. Not long after this proclamation, there arrived in his metropolis a
man so hideous that the very guards who arrested him were forced to
shut their eyes as they led him along.

1 1. Since you have already decided, why do you ask my opinion?

12. He retained a great deal of the reserve for which his boyhood was
remarkable.

13. Do you remember the old barn that stands by the roadside.''

14. The house in which lie was born has been kept in repair and is
still furnished as it was in his boyhood.

15. The turn in the road where the automobile ran down the wagon is
very sharp.

16. What I have told you is confidential.

17. The dog is so ugly that every one is afraid of him.

18. In the long evenings, while he sat in front of the great log fire,
he dreamed of the days when he, too, should be a great business mag-
nate.

19. Though it be honest, it is never wise to bring bad news.

20. The water washed in faster than they could bail it out.

21. She found it where she herself had left it — on the piano.

22. He is a jolly man, who has a joke for every one.

23. She sat smiling at the baby, who was playing with its toes and
gurgling happily.

24. Finally, they made their way back to the place where they had last ^
camped. L

1 8a PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

25. Suddenly, the time changed to a lively waltz, which made me feel
like dancing myself.

26. We sent news of the accident to him, for we feared that, if he heard
of it first through the papers, the shock might unnerve him.

27. She lived in a little white house which stood on the top of the hill.

28. He succeeded in his plan because he worked so persistently to
carry it through.

29. I must hurry home at once in order that mother may get started
early.

30. I kept this book so that you might read it.

31. One beautiful day last summer I roamed through the woods to find
a cozy nook where I -might read undisturbed.

32. She wore a big straw hat, which completely hid her face.

33. The older he grew, the more patient he grew.

34. The more, the merrier.

35. He died as he had lived — peacefully.

36. Take as many as you can carry.

37. Against the back porch stood the ladder by means of which the
thief must have entered.

EXERCISE VIII

Develop the following sentences by adding clauses to express qualities,
restrictions, time, place, cause, condition, manner, or degree.
Show in what way each added clause improves the sentence :

1. The broker was in his office.

2. Gulls flew before them.

3. The guard stood looking at the empty house.
' 4. The group had scattered.

5. She crossed the room.

6. The man stood at the river's edge.
j^ 7. Three men appeared in the road.

8. Sounds came from the woods.

9. The boys ate heartily.

10. Those women were not hurt.

11. I thought I had better do it that way.

12. We need a new man.

13. I could go perhaps.

14. I must stay here even longer.

15. There were so many at home!

THE SENTENCE l8l

*V ^ EXERCISE IX

In the following sentences, substitute in the place of adjectives and
adjective phrases or of adverbs and adverbial phrases such clauses as will
make the ideas suggested by the original form more vivid :

1. The old general looked angry.

2. The furnishings of the bedroom were dainty.

3. The large motor car went by very rapidly.

4. The little mill stood on the side of the stream.

5. She had a way of not hearing at times.

6. The whole affair made him unhappy.

7. Before them lay a fertile valley.

8. Go to see her soon.

9. On their way home, passing the Square, he left her.

10. Wait awhile.

11. The light began to fade.

12. After a few minutes, he answered.

13. The young girl laughed heartily at the sight.

14. He wore a peculiar mask.

15. The other man stood aside.

16. Being poor and very young, he was not able to secure work.

EXERCISE X

In the following sentences, change each subordinate clause to a corre-
sponding word or phrase, and note the difference in effect :

1. When I looked up. I saw a little child standing before me.

2. As I made a movement to enter, I was stopped by a large, black
dog.

3. I tried to run because I became frightened.

4. The fairy started to walk along ihe Dath while she motioned to me
to follow...

5. Her head, which was small and well shaped, and which was covered
with masses of golden hair, stood out in contrast to the dark curtains.

6. When I asked her to, she explained the different parts of the machine.

7. The little children, who were very happy, ran in and out among the
trees.

8. It was in a small country town in western Massachusetts that Roland
Rand was born.

l82 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

EXERCISE XI

Change the following complex sentences to simple sentences and note
the difference in effect :

1. It was an exceedingly hot day in the early part of August when I sat
reclining comfortably in a large armchair on the piazza of my summer home
on Cape Cod.

2. They were two boys who were utterly unlike in all respects.

3. The next day was the day for candidates who were new to try for
places on the ball team.

4. Tom, who was a genial, pleasant fellow, was chosen to make the
request for the boys as soon as the time seemed propitious.

5. The breezes which blew in from the gulf were cool.

6. He lives in the house which is at the angle of the crossroads.

The Compound Sentence. — A thought may actually be a
combination of several thoughts of equal importance, and so
require for its expression a compound sentence.

A. The thought which finds expression in a compound
sentence may consist of a combination of two thoughts.

I. The two thoughts which should be combined to form a
compound sentence may be :

1. An assertion and its explanation ; as, for example :

We are not surprised to find arrayed against us those who are the bene-
ficiaries of government favoritism : they have read our platform.

2. An assertion and its specification ; as, for example :

Two results followed : the number of those who held land directly of
the king increased rapidly, and this increase lowered the social and political
importance of the tenants-in-chief as a class ; at the same time, as more
and more land came to be held directly of the king, the matter of buying
and selling land was simplified and made easy.

3. An assertion and its repetition ; as, for example :

He was no impractical theorizer, he saw the evils of the time, and pro-
tested against them.

THE SENTENCE 1 83

4. An assertion and its logical outcome ; as, for example :

Great Britain taxed the American colonies without giving them direct
representation in Parliament ; therefore, the colonies rebelled.

5. An assertion and its contrast ; as, for example :

The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it
can never forget what they did here.

B. The thought which finds expression in a compound
sentence may consist of a group of thoughts.

I. A group of thoughts make one thought when they are
realized simultaneously. For example :

By this time the sun was driving broad, golden spokes through the lower
branches of the mango trees ; the parakeets and doves were coming home
in their hundreds ; the chattering, gray-backed Seven Sisters, talking over
the day's adventures, walked back and forth in twos and threes almost
under the feet of the travelers ; and shufflings and scufflings in the
branches showed that the bats were ready to go out on the night-picket.

— Ki))K RuDYARD Kipling.

II. A group of thoughts make one thought when they are
the enumeration of the specific details of a generalization.
For example :

You don't know the big men in music ; you don't know the pioneers and
the leaders even in any art ; you don't know the great literatures of the
world, and what they represent ; you don't know how other races are
working out their social destinies ; youVe never even stopped to examine
yourselves, to analyze your own society, to see the difference between a
civilization founded on the unit of the individual, and a civilization, like the
Latin, on the indestructible advance of the family.

— Stover at Yale, Owen Johnson.

III. A group of thoughts make one thought when they
express the parts of one action. For example :

Firm, light steps came hastily up to the outer door ; the door clicked
open and shut ; the steps came down the hall.

*>o

184 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

The Compound -Complex Sentence. — In the typical com-
pound sentence, each member has the construction of a
simple sentence. When such a structure will not express the
thought adequately, any one of the members of a compound
sentence or each of the members may take the structure of a
complex sentence, as in the following example :

It is not only for a past plot that these men are condemned, but also for
a plot which has not yet been executed ; and the devices that were lead-
ing to its execution are not put an end to ; the tyrant is still gathering his
forces in Romagna, and the enemies of Florence, who sit in the highest
places of Italy, are ready to hurl any stone that will crush her.

When the majority of the members of a compound sentence
are complex in structure, the sentence is called a compound-
, complex sentence.

EXERCISE XII

In each of the following compound sentences, name each member and
tell why the members are grouped into one sentence:

1. The years of "treatment" had had their effect; they had disturbed
the mind which in the end they must have overthrown.

2. Then Burns went back to his room to wait for Judd ; and at ten o^clock
Judd was announced, and Burns ordered the bell-boy to show him up.

3. At first she believed it to be the forefeet of some wandering horse as
he struck the ground with his hoofs in leisurely fashion, and slowly passed
along the deserted road ; then she perceived that it was the two feet of a
man moving briskly and carrying him swiftly forward.

4. There was a standing rule about marbles : if a boy ever came to our
house to complain, he got every marble in the house!

5. Handkerchiefs were pulled out ; smelling bottles were handed round ;
hysterical sobs and screams were heard ; and Mrs. Sheridan was carried
out in a fit. — IVarren Hastings, Macaulay.

6. Their (the American institutions of learning) libraries are filled with
books ; their laboratories contain expensive and elaborate modern appli-
ances ; their gymnasiums are preeminent in equipment ; their instructors
are drawn from the best scholars in the country and also from the finishing
schools of Europe ; the spirit of athletics and undergraduate leadership is,
as a rule, strongly emphasized, while the fraternity and social systems afford

THE SENTENCE 1 85

rare opportunities for friendship. Temptations and college evils vary com-
paratively little in different institutions. — C. S. Cooper.

7. A student from the School of Mines in Colorado considers the chief
value of his college training was the giving him "a vision of a life work
instead of a job " ; a graduate of the University of Louisiana writes that the
chief value to him was "a realization that I was worth as much as the average
man " ; while an alumnus of Vanderbilt University said that his course gave
him "the feeling of equality and of opportunity to do things and be some-
thing along with other men. It has meant, perhaps, a greater chance to
do my best." — C. S. Cooper.

8. At harvest time the village landings on the many creeks and rivers
were filled with a forest of masts and rigging, and its streets at night were
alive with these river and coastwise sailors. — L. M. Arthurs.

9. His words came in a bitter torrent, but their meaning might have
been stated in one breath. — E. M. Hornung.

10. Her long, plain face, habitually grave in expression, conveyed no
hint of exceptional emotion, but the fingers of the large, capable hands she
clasped before her writhed restlessly against one another, and there was a
husky threat of collapse in her voice as she spoke.

— Harold Frederic.

11. ... In the village of Adeni they sat perched like red-headed white
birds under a clump of gnarled, old olive trees, with a background of purple
mountains, lit up by a golden sunset ; and w^ith great enjoyment and
laughter they helped us to photograph two tiny girls in red, with the
blackest and velvetiest eyes ever seen. — Sir Henry Norman.

12. At the best our life together would be terribly cramped; I can't
even provide a suitable home as affairs are now.

13. The room was quite dark : the fire had died down.

14. He had broken his law, his own law ; and, mercifully, his law was
breaking him.

15. We cannot meet such heavy expenses any longer; we shall have
to drop out of our class.

16. Emergencies are forever arising; something unexpected is always
happening.

17. Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all
unnecessary actions. — Franklin.

18. She stretched forth her hands to take the flower; thereupon the
earth opened, and the king of the great nation of the dead sprang out
with his immortal horses. — Pater.

1 86 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

EXERCISE XIII

Change the following compound sentences to complex sentences.
Show in what way the change aftects the meaning of each sentence.

1 . It was a very hot morning and I was lying in a hammock reading a book.

2. I had not slept all night and soon fell asleep while reading.

3. Billy did not receive much pay and his wife became dissatisfied.

4. It was the night before Hallowe'en and I was waiting at the dress-
maker's for my costume to be finished.

5. A little flurry of snow danced in and out of the deep corners of the
dingy buildings and the wind swept through the street.

6. Maitland had kept informed of Wells's whereabouts and suddenly
he decided to renew the acquaintance.

EXERCISE XIV

Change the following compound sentences to simple sentences-
Show in what way the change affects the meaning of the sentence.

1 . The lady took her seat, and then she told me to sit down beside her.

2. His mornings were spent going about with Baker, and his evenings
were spent with his guests.

3. It was September and the girls decided that they must return to
their studio.

4. Mrs. Jack Benton stood at one end of the grandstand; she tapped
her foot impatiently ; then she walked up and down with short, rapid steps.

5. The grocer peered at the hungry-looking child, then he glanced at
the five-dollar bill, and then, without speaking, he handed out the change.

EXERCISE XV

Combine into one true sentence each of the following collections of
sentences :

1. It was a very cold night. Snow lay on the ground. It was piled
high against the windows of a certain old-fashioned farmhouse.

2. A great many years ago there lived a king named Elderfaunce. He
had a daughter named Nachette. Her beauty was famed throughout the
kingdom.

3. Once upon a time there lived in Scotland a mother and her little
daughter. They lived in a small cottage on a large farm. The mother
and the little girl raised all sorts of vegetables to take to market.

THE SENTENCE 1 87

4. At six o'clock all the boys in the camp got up. They were rolled
out of bed by the first one up. They washed and dressed. Then it was
time for breakfast.

5. I started for Brown's berry field at seven o'clock. I arrived at the
field about half past seven. I immediately began to pick berries.

6. I know a little girl. She is about seven years old. She is verv
handsome. She has large brown eyes. Her eyes have long, silky lashes.
Her eyebrows are black. Her hair is light brown and wavy. She wears
it hanging loose. It is parted in the middle and combed softly back from
her forehead.

EXERCISE XVI

In each of the following compound-complex sentences, name the mem-
bers and tell why they are grouped into one sentence.

State the value of the subordinate clauses in the complex members.

1 . They asked her kindly what she did there, alone ; and Demeter
answered, dissemblingly, that she was escaped from certain pirates, who
had carried her from her home and meant to sell her as a slave. — Pater.

2. There were slippers which enabled the feet to walk; knives that cut
without the motion of a hand ; sabres which dealt the blow at the person
they were wished to strike ; and the whole (was) enriched with gems that
were hitherto unknown. — Vaf/iek, W. Beckford.

3. The roughness and violence which he showed in society were to be
expected from a man whose temper, not naturally gentle, had been long
tried by the bitterest calamities, by the want of meat, of fire, and of clothes,
by the importunity of creditors, by the insolence of booksellers, by the de-
rision of fools, by the insincerity of patrons, by that bread which is the
bitterest of all food, by those stairs w^hich are the most toilsome of all
paths, by that deferred hope which makes the heart sick. — Macaulay.

4. Elizabeth, feeling really anxious, determined to go to her, though the
carriage was not to be had ; and, as she was no horsewoman, walking was
her only alternative. — Jane Austen.

The Order of Ideas in a Sentence. — The nature of the
thought to be expressed not only determines whether the
form of sentence to be used shall be simple, complex, com-
pound, or compound-complex, but also determines in what
order the ideas that form the sentence shall be presented.

1 88 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

The Loose Sentence. — In the sentence, ** His plan is neither
more nor less than that of requiring the paroled prisoner to
set aside a fixed sum from his earnings, varying according to
their amount, to be deposited in a savings bank, to furnish
the basis of a new start in life at the expiration of his sen-
tence," the thought is in the nature of a conversation, a style
of composition most commonly developed by the mere addi-
tion of details, therefore the ideas are expressed in such an
order that the sentence might be brought to a close at any
one of a number of points before the actual end. It might
stop with the word '* earnings," and still express a complete
thought, or it might stop with the word "amount," or with
the word "bank," or with the word "life," with the same
result. Such a sentence as this, i.e., a sentence that can be
brought to a close at one point or at more than one point be-
fore the actual end and still express a complete thought, is a
hose sentence.

The Periodic Sentence. — In the sentence, " Canada, grow-
ing in national spirit, conscious of its vast resources, confident
of a splendid future, not only desires to do its full share for
the common defense, as a part of the British Empire, but is
also ambitious to give expression to its own increasing im-
portance," the thought is one that rises with increasing force
to the end, therefore the ideas are expressed in such an order
that there is no point before the actual end at which the
sentence could be brought to a close and still express a com-
plete thought. A sentence of this kind, i.e., a sentence so
constructed that it keeps the thought in suspense until the
end, is a periodic sentence.

The Balanced Sentence. — In the sentence, "United, we
stand ; divided, we fall," the thought expresses deliberate con-
trast, therefore the ideas are so arranged that one group of
ideas is contrasted with another group, words opposite in sug-

THE SENTENCE 1 89

gestion being placed in the same construction in similar posi-
tions in the two members of the sentence. That is, the con-
trasted ideas of union and of lack of union are expressed by
the participles "united" and "divided," respectively, each
participle preceding the pronoun which it modifies. The re-
sult of union and of lack of union is expressed by the two
words of opposite meaning, "stand" and "fall," which are
the main verbs of their respective members and which im-
mediately follow their subjects. A sentence in which con-
trasted ideas, equal in importance, are expressed in like
constructions placed in similar positions in the sentence is a
balanced sentejice.

The Loose-Periodic Sentence. — In the sentence, " It is
painful to turn to the opening years of the Union, and see
how the great men whom we are taught to revere, and to
whose fostering care the beginning of the republic was in-
trusted, fanned their hatred and suspicion of each other," the
thought could be brought to a close with the word "Union,"
but from that point on the thought is held in suspense to the
end ; therefore the ideas are expressed in a loose sentence with
the ideas in the second part of the compound predicate ex-
pressed in periodic form. Such a sentence is sometimes called
a loose-periodic sentence.

EXERCISE XVII

^^'^uj^^

Show that each of the following sentences is loose, periodic, loose-
periodic, or balanced :

1. The Arab town is a rabbit-warren of interlaced streets, a maze of
stairways, narrow gateways, twisting streets, and blind alleys.

2. To walk from the French town to the Arab town in Algiers is to be
brought sharply up against the racial problem, always the most vital mat-
ter when East and West meet, with the significance of its contrasts and
the uncertainty of its future.

— The AjttomobiU in Africa^ Sir Henry Norman.

igo

PRACnCAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

3. In the beginning of the thirteenth century, when the clouds and
storms had come, when the gay sensuous pagan Hfe was gone, when men
were not living by the senses and understanding, when they were looking
for the speedy coming of Antichrist, there appeared in Italy, to the north
of Rome, in the beautiful Umbrian country at the foot of the Apennines, a
figure of the most magical power and charm, St. Francis. — Ruskin.

4. The shepherd, an old white-haired man, was seated on a rock, staff
in hand, watching his dog collect the sheep from the rocky slope on which
they were scattered.

5. That there are precedents against us, I allow.

6. From the situation that I held, and from the connections I had in
the city of Dublin, it was necessary for me to hold intercourse with various
descriptions of persons.

7. On the left are the mountains, their dark, perpendicular crags alone
rising clear of the snow ; on our right the valley is filled with innumerable
conical hills, each having a Kabyle village perched upon its top.

— T/ie Aiitfljnobile in Africa, Sir Henry Norman.

8. On one side was a high pink house, with clothes of every description
and color hanging out of every window ; on the other was a rather dilapi-
dated house which had probably once been a palace, with balconies, mar-
ble balustrades, and sculptured cornices.

— Cadenabbia, M. K. Waddington.

Basis of Choice between Loose and Periodic Forms. —

Whether ideas shall be expressed in loose or in periodic
sentences depends upon two things, the demands of coher-
ence and the demands of emphasis. For example, in the
sentence, " In a queer little hut beside a waterfall lived a
poor old man," the periodic form gives the full weight of
emphasis to " poor old man." Hence what follows in the
next sentence must be some definite development of " poor
old man." On the other hand, in either of the loose forms
of the sentence, ** A poor old man Hved in a queer little hut
beside a waterfall," or *' A poor old man Hved beside a
waterfall in a queer little hut," the emphasis is distributed,
in the first case between " old man and waterfall " and in the
second case between ** old man and hut." Which one of the

THE SENTENCE 191

forms is to be used must, then, be determined by the trend
of what is to be said.

Change the following sentences from loose to periodic, and state the
difference in emphasis.

Point out the instances in which the change in form evidently im-
proves the sentence and the instances in which the change in form evi-
dently injures the sentence.

1 . The child pocketed the money and tucked the bread under his thin
little arm, and trudged out of the shop.

2. Just then slie covered her face with her hands, for she could not
bear to watch the ascent.

3. He waited, standing in a bright spot, surrounded by glittering win-
dows filled with bright colors.

4. He heard the newsboys calling at the top of their voices the names
of the evening papers.

5. The young man referred to as Jack returned in the course of the
evening to see him.

6. No one knew the age of the old clock that stood in the corner of
the hall in a little old-fashioned house.

7. The house was small and rather old. yet. in spite of this, it was
neatly kept.

8. It had been snowing in a leisurely way all the long dreary day. so
that the roofs and window sills of the tiny scattered cottages in the little
village on the mountain were piled high with thick white covers of spotless
snow.

9. He started out hopefully every morning, bidding his wife and little
boy good-by, and trying to cheer them by saying. "Surely 1 shall find
something to do to-day, and then we shall have plenty to eat and coal to
keep us warm.''

10. Far greater than all of them was Thorne, their captain, and he was
worthy of being the leader ot those men.

EXERCISE XIX

Change the following sentences from periodic to loose, and state the
difterence in emphasis.

192 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

Point out the instances in which the sentence is improved and the
instances in which the sentence is injured by the change in form.

1. Timid, and with a frightened look on his little face, he picked his
way to the bakeshop.

2. Gradually the light faded.

3. With one mad plunge, speeding over the water and skimming along
the ground, the aeroplane reached the center of the field.

4. How she wished there had never been either a biplane or a mono-
plane.

5. When Grandmother Grandon died, she willed the old clock to her
oldest granddaughter.

6. After her mother was made comfortable and the house was neatly
arranged, Mary churned the butter.

7. It seemed to the village people, who looked with envious eyes upon
this child, that she was, perhaps, the happiest child that had ever lived.

8. Her soft snowy white hair, her large blue eyes, and her kindly
smile, so charmed the little beggar boy that he stared at her spellbound.

9. Apparently regardless of the bitter cold and wind, a young girl
threaded her way through the bleak streets.

10, Abraham Lincoln^s struggle and success in the pursuit of learning
illustrates this fact.

Effect of Loose, Periodic, and Balcnced Sentences. — Loose,
periodic, and balanced sentences differ widely in the effect
which they produce upon the person or persons addressed.

Compare the effect of the following selections :

I . They tell you a story in Quebec of a man who was coming one
winter morning down the long flight of stone steps leading from the upper
to the lower town. The steps were covered with ice. The man slipped
and started bumping down the long flight, on his back, feet foremost, with
incredible velocity. Just as he began to gain speed, he struck an old lady
who was carefully picking her way downward. She fell plump upon the
unfortunate man and held her seat through his dizzying flight until he
stopped with a bump at the end of the long journey. He was bruised and
his clothing was almost stripped from him. The woman retained her seat,
holding on with frantic grasp and breathing heavily. " Madam," said the
man, with grave politeness, '* youUl have to get oft here. I don't go any
farther." — Harper's Weekly.

THE SENTENCE 1 93

2. There is a lesson in such a career as that of General Wood. The
acceptance of every opportunity, the keenness to see and the trained ability
to perform each duty as it arises is the open sesame to success. Even a
cursory review of the career of General Wood leads to the conclusion that
the nev^r head of the army has won consistently because he deserved to win.

— Cleveland Plain Dealer.

3. In an Alabama jail there is a negro, Alonzo Bailey. He is the jail
cook. He is probably unconscious of the fact that he has raised a grave
Constitutional question. His case has been submitted to the Supreme Court
of the United States. Alonzo Bailey made a contract in writing to work
for the Riverside Company twelve months for twelve dollars a month. In
consideration of signing this contract, he received fifteen dollars. After
working one month and four days, he quit work and did not refund the
fifteen dollars that had been advanced to him. The Riverside Company,
charging that he had done this without just cause, and therefore had vio-
lated a criminal statute of the State, had him committed. This statute,
which applies to landlords as well as to employers, provides that any one
who makes a written contract to perform a service for pay, and after receiv-
ing money or other property fails to perform the service without refunding
the money or pay for the property, must be fined double the amount of
damage suffered by the injured party, but not more than three hundred
dollars, one half of the fine to go to the county and the other half to go to
the injured party. According to the penal methods of Alabama, a person
punished by fine, who is unable to pay, works out the amount at hard
labor under contractors who find such convict labor profitable. It is true
that the statute qualifies its provision by the phrase, " with intent to injure
or defraud his employer''; but this phrase is interpreted by the further
provision of the statute which declares that '' the refusal or failure of any
person who enters into such contract, to perform such act or service or to
cultivate such land, or refund such money, or pay for such property, with-
out just cause shall be pritna facie evidence of the intent to injure his em-
ployer or landlord or to defraud him." In other words, the fact that
Alonzo Bailey quit work in February, 1908, was, according to the statute
prima facie evidence that he intended to defraud his employer both at the
time he quit work and on the preceding December 26, the day that he
made the contract.

4. That this somewhat dramatically interprets a real difference between
the two administrations we do not doubt — a difference partly in tempera-
ment, partly in principle. In so far as it is temperamental, it is incapable

194 PR.\CT1CAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

of definition. It can only be said that one administration is more eager,
the other more cautious ; one puts greater emphasis on results, the other
on methods; one is impatient to achieve, the other waits to consider; one
assumes authority if it has not been denied, the other assumes no authority
until it has been granted ; one is Napoleonic, the other Fabian ; one is
militant, the other legal, both seek the same end, both are progressive, both
approve 'the proverb, "Make haste slowly,'' but one lays the emphasis on
''haste," the other on *' slowly''; the danger in the one temperament is
too great expedition, the danger in the other disastrous delay.
• The difference in principle may be somewhat more accurately defined.

We may hold that the Congress is the sole representative of the people,
and that the Executive Department has nothing to do but to carry out the
will of the people as it is expressed by the Acts of the Congress. Or we
may hold that the Executive is equally with the Congress the representative
of the people, and is empowered to exercise for the people all the functions
that in free, popular government are exercised by the Executive Depart-
ment. In the one case, the Congress is the servant of the people, and the
Executive is the servant of the Congress. In the other case, both are serv-
ants of the people, with commensurate powers, so that the Executive is
no more dependent on the Congress for authority to perform its legitimate
executive functions than the Congress is dependent on the Executive for
authority to perform its legitimate functions. — The Outlook.

The effect of the first selection, which is expressed ahnost
entirely in good loose sentences, is to suggest the ease and
the freedom of good conversation. The effect of the second
selection, which is expressed entirely in periodic sentences,
is to keep the person addressed in suspense until the end.
The same effect is produced by the third selection, in which
the periodic form predominates. The effect of the fourth
selection, in which balanced sentences are used almost en-
tirely, is to give clearness and force to the thought ex-
pressed.

Since the order in which the ideas of a sentence are ex-
pressed has much to do with the effect of the sentence, such
an arrangement of ideas should be used as will impress upon
the person or persons addressed the thought intended.

.-V

THE SENTENCE 1^5

Length of Sentences. — Sentences vary in length according
to the kind of thought to be expressed and the number of ideas
required to convey it effectively to the person or persons ad-
dressed. A sentence may be expressed in one word, as in the
simplest form of command, or it may consist of several hundred
words, as in a summing up of the points of an explanation or
of an argument. Strong feeling, such as excitement, fright,
indignation, anger, or intensity of purpose, naturally expresses
itself in short sentences, whereas calm judgment and more
equable emotion naturally find expression in long sentences.
Any one variety of sentence used to excess becomes tiresome.
Too many short sentences disrupt thought. A succession of
long, loose sentences is monotonous. An extended series of
periodic sentences wearies the mind until it ceases to grasp
the thought. A continued series of balanced sentences loses
force from its very weightiness. The most effective expres-
sion of thought comes through a happy mingling of many
varieties of sentences, so united as to give clearness, grace,
and force to style.

Unity, Coherence, and Emphasis of the Sentence. — No mat-
ter what varieties of sentences are used to express thought,
every sentence must be a unit ; that is, it must conform to the
principles of unity, coherence, and emphasis.

Sentence Unity. — The principle of unity requires that
all the ideas of a sentence bear upon and develop a single
central idea.

Violations of Sentence Unity. The Digression. — In the at-
tempt to select ideas that develop a single central idea, there
are several common ways in which sentence unity is violated.
The most common, perhaps, is the introducing of an idea that
does not bear on the central idea. For example, in the sen-
tence, " The chief products of the countryside are small fruits
and garden truck, tJioiigJi com is raised in considerable qtiaii-

196 PRACTICAL ExNGLISH COMPOSITION

titles only fifty miles away,'' the last clause has no bearing
whatever on the products of the countryside under discussion,
and is therefore a digression to be avoided.

Putting into One Sentence Ideas that belong in Two Sen-
tences. — Another common violation of unity in a sentence
consists of putting into one sentence ideas that belong in two
sentences. For example, in the sentence, ** I am a hard
worker, but my sister makes good bread," there is no connec-
tion whatever between the thoughts of the two parts, and the
ideas should be expressed in two disconnected sentences.

The Bad Loose Sentence or " Comma Blunder." — An aggra-
vated form of putting into one sentence ideas that belong in
more than one sentence occurs in the bad loose sentence. In
the sentence, *' As the trap jolted over the road toward our sum-
mer retreat I suddenly looked up at Arabella, who was perched
on the driver's seat, and mutely begged for the privilege of
saying a few kind words, for when Arabella drives she drives
with all her heart and soul ; and there had been times when
my conversation had caused her to pull the wrong rein, an
event which had always filled me with gratification and
delight until that fateful day when she had spilled us both
out into the blackberry bushes," so many ideas are introduced
that it is impossible to recognize any central thought. The
writer has simply added clause after clause, as one idea after
another came into his mind, and has paid no attention whatever
to the making of a single point. In order to become a unit,
the sentence must be entirely reconstructed.

Putting into Two Sentences Ideas that belong in One Sen-
tence. — A somewhat different violation of sentence unity
consists of putting into two sentences ideas that are really
parts of the same unit of thought. In the sentences, " Last
year less than forty thousand skins were sent abroad. And
they sold for about four dollars apiece," it is evident that the

THE SENTENCE 197

two sentences really belong to the same unit of thought
which develops as a central idea, the scarcity of skins with
which to profit from advanced prices. The two ideas should
therefore be included in one sentence.

Giving Sentence Form to a Construction not a Sentence. —
Still another violation of unity consists of expressing as a full
sentence a clause or a phrase that is only a part of a thought.
The following expressions show such constructions set off as
sentences:

Although it seemed time to go.

Hearing a sound. Why was I frightened?

I sent him to the store for help. While I waited in impatience.

These expressions, although it seemed time to go, hearing a
sound, and while I zvaited in impatience, express only parts
of thoughts and should not be written as if they were com-
plete sentences.

Unnecessary Change of Subject. — Another violation of
sentence unity consists in changing the subject of a sentence
when in reality the same agent performs or receives the action
expressed by the verb. In the sentence, " We entered the
motor boat, and it took us in and out among the islands of the
bay," there is a needless and confusing change of subject.
The sentence should read either, ** We entered the motor
boat and sailed in and out among the islands of the bay," or,
** We entered the motor boat and were taken in and out among
the islands of the bay."

SUMMARY

To make a sentence a unit :

1. Use the ideas which will bring out a single point.

2. Avoid digressions.

3. Avoid putting into one sentence ideas that belong in two or more

sentences.

igS PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

4. Avoid putting into two sentences ideas that belong in one sentence.
6. Avoid giving sentence form to constructions that are not sentences.
6. Avoid an unnecessary change of subject.

EXERCISE XX

Point out and correct the lack of unity in the following sentences :

1. The lady of the house rushed out and picked him up and carried him
home, he had fainted and had also broken his arm.

2. Like any other youngsters, the baby elephants will be playing about
the outer edge of the herd. At the first alarm the mothers rush about
trumpeting for their young, and it is in such a moment that the elephant
hunter's greatest danger lies.

3. He had corne as a barber to Monsieur Mirapoix, and when he had
arrived at Bath, England, he wished to have an introduction to the most
beautiful lady in Bath.

4. Near dusk" the next night the party happened to run across a
scout and two Mohicans who thought it funny to see such people in that
part of the country, and when the major asked him how near he was to
Fort George, the scout looked at him and said. " What brings you this far
from your path ? ^'

5. Belshazzar was much troubled at this, and called in all the great men
and wise men to decipher the writing, but none could do it until some one
suggested that Daniel, the seer, be brought in to see if he could not
decipher the quotation.

6. David's uncle was very surprised when he came down from the tower,
and the next day he was taken on board a ship and kidnapped, he tried to
get away, but was wounded and thrown into the hold of the ship.

7. There was one pas.senger in the coach. A small, dark-haired person
in a glossy buff calico dress.

8. Then they carried Felipe into the house ; that night Senora thought
that Felipe would like Alessandro to sing, so he did, and it soothed FeUpc
right away ; the next night he slept out-of-doors, and it was the custom to
see all the family on the south veranda with Felipe.

9. Ivanhoe's spear struck the noble Gilbert in the center of the shield,
and it was split into slivers.

10. I expected to go to-day. But I finally decided to wait until to-
morrow.

11. We arrived at Portland at 3 p..m., where the train was left in a
hurry, the motor car was tilled quickly, and we dashed oft" to Aunt Sue's.

THE SENTENCE 1 99 \^

12. Hearing sounds several times. My study was interrupted by my
stopping to listen.

13. De Bracy also planned to capture Rowena. And he confided his
plan to his friend.

14. Our house is so warm and sunny that we are comfortable in the
coldest weather, though our neighbor often suffers from the cold.

In order that a sentence may be a unit, ideas which bear
upon a single central thought must be so arranged and so
expressed as to make oneness of thought evident; i.e., the
ideas of a sentence must be presented in accordance with the
principles of coherence and of emphasis.

The Principle of Coherence. — The principle of coherence
requires that the ideas of a sentence be so arranged and so
expressed that the relation between ideas shall be evident.

If a sentence is to be coherent, the relation between two
words, one of which is dependent on the other, must be made
evident.

Faulty Use of Personal Pronouns. — One common cause of
incoherence in a sentence is the faulty use of personal pro-
nouns. For example, the sentence, " Charles asked James if
he could get him a knife as he knew he would have need of it,"
is incoherent because the antecedents of the personal pro-
nouns are not clear. The sentence may have one of several
meanings. It may mean that Charles asked James if Charles
could get a knife for himself because Charles knew that
Charles would have need of it ; or it may mean that Charles
asked James if Charles could get a knife for James because
Charles knew that James would have need of it : or it may
mean that Charles asked James if Charles could get a
knife for himself because James knew Charles would have
need of it ; and so on. The simplest way to correct so inco-
herent a sentence is to put the sentence into direct discourse ;
thus : Charles said to James, " May I get myself a knife, as

200 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

I know that I shall have need of it ? " or CJiaj'les said to James ^
" May I get a knife for you, as I know that you will have need
of it ? " or diaries said to James^ " May I get a knife for my-
self ? You know that I have need of it;" and so on. What-
ever the form of correction, the antecedents of the pronouns
must be made perfectly clear.

The Dangling Participle. — Another common error which
results in a lack of coherence in the sentence is a faulty use
of the participle. In the sentence, " While walking to the
station, the whistle of the train sounded, and I had to run," the
participle walking is used incorrectly, because there is in
the sentence no word which names the doer of the action
expressed by the participle. A participle so used is called a
dangling participle. To correct such an error, the sentence
must be so changed that the name of the doer of the action
suggested by the participle is properly expressed. The cor-
rection may be made in one of two ways : either by chang-
ing the main proposition so as to express the name of the
doer of the action, as, While walking to the station^ I Jieard
the traift whistle, and I had to rim ; or by making a subordi-
nate clause out of the participial construction, as, While I
was ivalking to the station, the whistle of the train soimded and
I had to ru7i. A speaker or writer cannot be too careful to
make evident the relation between a participle and the word
it modifies.

The Squinting Construction. — A very common failure to
obtain coherence in a sentence arises from the placing of a
modifier so that it is impossible to tell whether it modifies a
word which comes before it in the sentence or a word which
comes after it. In the sentence, "Tell Mary, if she comes
to-morrow, I shall not be able to see her," it is impossible to
tell whether the clause, if she comes to-morrow, modifies tell or
modifies see. A construction which, from the context, may

THE SENTENCE

modify either something before it or something after it i.
squinting construction. To correct such an error, the mis-
placed modifier must be put where it can modify but one
word. The sentence under discussion may be corrected in
one of two ways : (i) If she comes to-morrow^ tell Mary that
I shall not be able to see her ; or (2) Tell Mary that I shall not
be able to see her if she comes to-morrow.

The Misuse of Conjunctions. — A failure to show the cor-
rect relation of ideas comes often from the use of connectives
that express a relation different from that demanded by the
thought. The misuse of "and" and "but" is a common
error. In the sentence, " Father told me to wait for him, and
I went home," the thought expressed in the second member
suggests an act committed in direct opposition to the request
stated in the first member of the sentence ; hence the conjunc-
tion but should be used instead of the cumulative conjunction
and. The sentence should read, Father told me to iv ait for
him, but I went home. In making evident the relation be-
tween ideas, great care must be taken to use connectives that
express the right relation of ideas.

The Misplacing of Modifiers. — Another cause of incoherence
in the sentence is the failure to place modifiers as near as pos-
sible to the words which they modify. No errors in con-
struction occur more commonly in everyday speech and writing
than the misplacing of adjectives and adverbial elements and
of correlative conjunctions.

The Misplacing of Relative Clauses. — An adjective element
frequently misplaced is the adjective clause introduced by the
relative pronoun. A relative pronoun should be placed, if
possible, immediately after its antecedent. For example,

the sentence," Mr. A left the umbrella in the train which

he meant to give his wife," is incoherent because the relative
pronoun which is so placed that it modifies the noun train

^,^

202 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITIOxN

instead of the noun umbrella. The sentence should be cor-
rected to read, Mr. A left i7i the train the Jinibrella which

d he meant to give his zvife.
\\ The Misplacing of Adjective Phrases. — Adjective phrases

are also often misplaced. For example, in the sentence,
y " Every one ate his fill of the good things, including little Tim,"
the adjective modifier including little Tim is so placed as to
seem to modify the word things instead of the word every one
which it is meant to modify. The suggested meaning is, of
course, absurd. The sentence should be so corrected that
the modifier comes next the word it modifies ; as. Every one,
including little Tim, ate his Jill of the good thifigs.

The Misplacing of Adverbial Clauses and Adverbial Phrases. —
Adverbial clauses and adverbial phrases are frequently mis-
placed. In the sentence, ** I sent him to study after I had
finished speaking," the clause after I had finished speaking is
so placed as to modify the word st?idy instead of the word
sejit. The sentence should be corrected so that the clause
will modify the correct word; as, After I had finished speak-
ing I sent him to study. In the sentence, " I saw that the man
was hurrying at a glance," the adverbial phrase at a glance is
so placed as to seem to modify the verb was hurrying instead
of the verb saw, which it should modify. The corrected sen-
tence should read, I saw at a glance that the mati was hurry-

1)1 ST'

The Misuse of " Only " and "Alone." — Among the adverbial
elements that are most commonly misplaced are the adverbs
only 2iTL^ alone. In the sentence, '* The storekeeper would only
reserve two pairs of gloves for me," the word only should mod-
ify the word two and should be placed directly before it.
The sentence should read, ** The storekeeper would reserve
only two pairs of gloves for me." In the sentence, " The bur-
glar robbed one house alone," the meaning is not clear, for the

THE SENTENCE 203

sentence may mean that only one burglar robbed the house, <
or it may mean that the burglar robbed but one house.
The sentence must be corrected so that there can be no
question as to the meaning. It may read, Alofie, the burglar
robbed one house ; or the word alone may be changed to ojily^
and the sentence may read, The burglar robbed only one house.

The Misplacing of Correlatives. — The misplacing of correla-
tive conjunctions is another error which makes a sentence inco-
herent. In the sentence, ** You may either buy a picture or a
set of books with your money," the correlative conjunctions,
eitJier — <?r, are not placed before words in corresponding con-
structions, hence the sentence lacks clearness of expression.
The sentence should read. You may buy either a picture or a
set of books with your money.

In arranging adjective and adverbial elements, a speaker
or writer should be careful to see that no word comes between
the modifier and the word modified to steal the modification.
Whenever possible, modifiers should be placed immediately
before or immediately after the words they modify. When
using correlative conjunctions, a speaker or writer must be
careful to place the correlatives before words in correspond-
ing- constructions.

Similarity in Relation expressed in Similar Construction. —
Often, a sentence may be made coherent by putting into similar
constructions ideas that are similar in relation. In the sen-
tence, *' He seems well and to have an excellent appetite," the
change from a simple adjective to an infinitive construction
tends to be confusing. The mind expects either another ad-
jective or a sentence member coordinate with he seems zuell.
The ideas to be expressed are similar in relation and similar
in importance, and should be expressed in like constructions.
The sentence may be corrected to read. He seems well and
has a?i excellent appetite^ or. He seems to be ivell atid to have

204 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

an excellent appetite. In the sentence, ''Imagine yourself in
Paris, and that the time is that of the French Revolution,
lack of coherence is caused by putting into a noun clause an
idea that should be expressed in an adverbial phrase coordi-
nate with in Paris. The sentence should read. Imagine your-
self in Paris in the time of the French Revolution.

SUMMARY

To make a sentence coherent :

1. Make evident the relation between two words one of which is

dependent on the other by avoiding :
a. The faulty use of personal pronouns.
h. The dangling participle.

c. The squinting construction.

d. The misuse of conjunctions.

e. The misplacing of modifiers, such as :

(1) Relative clauses.

(2) Adjectives phrases.

(3) Adverbial clauses and phrases.

(4) Adverbs Uke only and alone.

f. The misplacing of correlative conjtmctions.

2. Put ideas similar in relation into similar constructions.

EXERCISE XXI

I Point out and correct the lack of coherence in the following sentences :
i I. After floating for a distance in the air, a revolver was to be shot off
for a signal to descend.

2. One day a boy wanted to climb a cherry tree in a woman's yard
whom he knew.

3. While sitting in the parlor, the doorbell rang.

~4. Behind the village the mountains rose up, which adds to its pretti-
ness.

5. Going up a hill, a church was seen.

6. There were two young women and a man who wore the stripes of a
major and an Indian scout.

THE SENTENCE 205

/ 7. The scout thought it best to capture the Indian, and though they
tried their hardest, the Indian escaped.

8. This rent Abraham's heart, but he bound his boy and put him on
the altar, when a voice flaming fire was seen writing on the wall.

9. When the fence is whitewashed, Tom goes away being richer by
bribing.

10. I only learned one of my lessons.

(a\. My cousin asked father if he could take a party of his friends out
sleighing next week with the new sled because he would have the time if
he would permit the horses to be used for a long trip.

^\t^ Tell my sister, when she goes away, I shall not hurry home.

13. I sent not only provisions, but I carried money as well.

14. Mary was either there or my eyesight played me a trick.

15. To throw the hammer requires one kind of strength and skill;
running requires a somewhat difi"erent kind.

16. To play all outdoor games well, walking, riding, and music were
her ambitions.

It is not enough that the ideas in a sentence be so arranged
and so expressed that the relation between them is evident;
they should be so arranged and so expressed that their relative
importance is evident.

The Principle of Emphasis. — The principle of emphasis
requires that the words which impress the central idea of a
sentence be made prominent.

Emphasis by Position. — The prominent places in a sentence
are the beginning and the end, hence they should be reserved
for words which express ideas that are important in developing
the central idea. Many times a sentence lacks emphasis be-
cause words which express ideas of little importance are given
one or both of these emphatic positions. In the sentence, '* It
will interest you to know that our trip was the most successful
of our entire experience," there is lack of emphasis because
the words at the beginning of the sentence express an idea
of no consequence whatever in its bearing on the central
idea, Our trip was the most successful of our expefience. The

2o6 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

emphasis is further impaired by the fact that, though the
words which express the central idea come last in the sen-
tence, the central idea is expressed in a subordinate clause
nistead of in a principal clause because of the construc-
tion necessitated by the weak beginning. Emphasis can be
gained easily by omitting the weak beginning and throwing
the central idea into the single main proposition, Our trip
zvas the most successful of our cntii'e experience. If, for any
reason, it is advisable to include the expression, You may be
interested to know, it should be put in the middle of the sen-
tence because it is parenthetical in nature. The sentence
may read. Our trip, you may be ijiterested to knozu, was the
most successful of our experience. Ideas should always be
expressed in constructions which indicate their relative im-
portance. Ideas of minor importance should be in the middle
of the sentence.

The sentence, "When the gold is about the 150,000th part
of an inch in thickness, it for the first time permits the trans-
mission of light, at the second hour," lacks emphasis because
the words at the end express an idea that is comparatively
unimportant, though it has some bearing on the central idea.
Emphasis is easily gained by transferring the phrase at the
end to the beginning ; thus. At tJie second Jwiu\ w/ie?t the gold
is about the 150,000th part of an inch in tJiickness, it for the
first time permits the transmission of light. The sentence,
"This bank will close at i p.m. from May 15 to Oct. i," is not
as emphatic as it should be because the words " This bank
will close," which are less important than the unusual time
of closing, are given one of the most important positions in
the sentence. The sentence should read. From May 75 to
Oct. I, this bank will close at i p.m.

Emphasis by Transposition. — Sometimes emphasis may be
gained by putting an idea out of its natural order. In the

THE SENTENCE

207

sentence, " Their guide, a little peasant in a gray kaftan and
a white cap, walked a short distance ahead of them," emphasis
is so evenly distributed that no idea stands out with marked
prominence. A marked increase in emphasis may be gained
by transposing the subject and the predicate of the sentence i
thus, A sJiort distance ahead of them walked their guide, a little
peasant in a gray kaftati and a white cap. In this sentence,
attention is focused on the central idea of the sentence, the
guide and his appearance. In transposing sentence elements,
a speaker or a writer must be careful not to violate the laws
of grammar or of coherence.

Emphasis by Use of Climax. — An excellent method of
gaining emphasis in a sentence is the arranging of ideas
in the order of increasing importance; i.e., in the order of
climax. In the sentence, " She (Elizabeth) listened, she
weighed, she used or put by the counsels of each in turn,
but her policy as a whole was her own," perfect emphasis
is gained through perfect climactic order. If the order of
climax is used, care must be taken to put the details in the
order of increasing importance. The sentence, *' Scarce an
enemy could be seen, though the forest resounded with their
yells ; though the lead flew like a hailstorm, and with every
moment the men went down by scores ; though every bush and
tree was alive with flashes," lacks emphasis because what are
really details of a climax are not expressed in climactic order.
The sentence should read, Scarce an enemy could be seefi,
though the forest resounded ivitJi their yells ; though e:'ery
busJi and ti'ee ivas alive with incessant flashes ; though the
lead fleiv like a hailstorm, a7id with every tnoment the vien
went dozvfi by scores. If a number of details are presented
in the order of decreasing importance, the result is an anti-
cUmax. If Caesar's famous utterance had been expressed
in reverse order, / conquered, I came, I saw, the effect would

2o8 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

have been weak and ridiculous. The anticlimax is to be
avoided, unless it is used for the purpose of wit or ridicule.

Emphasis by Kind and Number of Words. — If a sentence
is to be emphatic, it should be expressed in as few words
as will express the thought with accuracy and with clearness.
There are two ways in which too many words manifest them-
selves. In the sentence, " Have you any of those little, small,
tiny pins.'*" three words of similar meaning are used instead
of one word to indicate the kind of pins wanted. Such need-
less repetition of the same idea, i.e., tautology, should be
avoided. In the sentences, " The audience rose up and
cheered," *' The matter was referred back to me to be settled,"
the words up and back, respectively, are superfluous. They
should therefore be omitted.

SUMMARY

To make a sentence emphatic :

1. Avoid weak endings and weak beginnings.

2. Express ideas in constructions which indicate their relative im-

portance.

3. Put ideas of minor importance in the middle of the sentence.

4. If necessary, when it is grammatically possible, transpose ideas to

focus attention on them.

5. Arrange ideas in the order of climax.

6. Avoid tautology.

7. Avoid superfluous words.

EXERCISE XXII

Point out and correct in the following sentences the violations of the
principle of emphasis :

1. The major got very anxious finally as they were traveling in a
crooked course.

2. Before Rebecca became restless, they had gone a great distance,
when she called to the cab driver to please halt and let her climb up on
top with him.

THE SENTENCE 209

3. A great, big tree grew on the edge of the wood lot, and we children
used to play under it.

4. On the side of that mountain, there is a gloomy and dark cavern
where no one ever goes.

5. Imprisoned in bush through which elephants easily crash, the sports-
man is in collision with the beast before there is time to stop him with a
shot in the chest, the only vital spot in a charging African elephant, or
even time for the elephant, from surprise or fear, to swerve.

6. The speaker seated himself down on the bench rather quickly at this.

7. The Colonel asked and questioned all the slaves but no one had
seen a stranger about the plantation.

8. Nations make a common progress, like vessels on a common tide,
according to their several structures and management, all moved forward
by one mighty current, strong enough to bear onward whatever does not
sink beneath it, but propelled by the gales at different rates.

9. You may be sure that the boys hurried home as fast as they could
go when they heard the good news.

10. The question as to who should be class photographer was again
referred back to the class.

11. That play is against the rules of the game, at least I think it is.

Test of Sentence for Unity. — If the ideas of a sentence are
so selected, so arranged, and so expressed as to form a unit
of thought, the central idea of the sentence may be sum-
marized in a single word or in a group of words. For
example, in the sentence, "Valor is the expression of both
physical and moral courage," the central idea is the nature of
valor.

In the sentence, " This trusty emissary, keeping close to
Robert, was a witness of the meeting held by the conspirators
with the Genoese leaders under cover of this raid, and heard
it planned between them how on that very night, after the
Venetian mercenaries had been driven back, a sudden attack
should be made by the Genoese on the camp with the
assistance of the traitors within it, so that the rout and destruc-
tion of the besiegers should be certain and the way of exit
from Chiogga be thrown open," the central idea may be sum-

2IO PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

marized in the words, the spys discovery of the plot between
the Gejwese and the traitors in camp. If it is impossible to
summarize tlie thought of a sentence in a word or a group of
words, either because there are in the sentence so many diverse
ideas that there is no one central idea or because there is in
the sentence a single idea which does not bear on the prevail-
ing thought, then the sentence is not a unit of thought and
should be reconstructed.

EXERCISE XXIII

Point out and correct the errors in the following sentences, in each case
stating the rule which applies :

1. Pretty soon there were two ladies to be seen issuing from a build-
ing escorted by a man.

2. In it was a man dressed to represent Bonnie Prince Charlie. Also
three young girls in the regular costume.

3. We got leave from our mother to go, so we each took a pail and a
big hat to shade our eyes from the sun and our lunch.

4. The other evening, after the last large snowstorm, some friends
and myself were invited for a sleigh ride.

5. After he had stolen it, he was walking toward home when he
suddenly became aware of the fact that he was falling over a precipice. A
steep one at that.

6. One day, as I was walking along the street, I saw a banana cart
and purchased some of them.

7. While away on my summer vacation about four years ago. We
went to a very lonely place.

8. After we took it off from the stove, we put the vanilla in and began
beating it.

9. We used the right recipe and put it on to boil.

ID. I am sure every one had a splendid time and enjoyed themselves
that day.

u. What interested me very much as I looked around was that in the
Shubert theater they have women ushers instead of men, who are dressed
alike in blue serge uniforms.

12. Looking to the southwest was a large green field, where cows
were peacefully grazing in contentment. At the end of the field stood a

THE SENTENCE 211

barn and a row of houses. Then far away could be seen the Blue Hills in
the dark blue garments. On the top of the highest one stood the
observatory clearly seen against the sky.

13. The room was dark, and a big pumpkin was on the table, which
had been scooped out.

14. After pulling and batting with clubs and axes, the fish was killed
and towed ashore.

15. While walking along the street the other day, I came across a boy
of about fifteen years of age and five feet tall.

16. There she sat in the canoe as jolly and a perfect picture of girlhood.

17. I have a friend about fourteen years old, and is of about medium
size.

18. Her deep blue eyes were filled with mirth and her cheeks resembling
roses.

19. It was interesting to try and find where I lived and other buildings
near my home.

20. Caesar showed himself weak-willed when he refused the crown that
Mark Antony offered him three times, more hesitatingly each time.

21. Portia was a woman like Brutus was a man.

22. The most striking features of her face are her eyes which are large
brown ones and which shine like stars, and are almost hidden by her long
curly eyelashes which rest on her cheeks of rosy complexion.

23. This together with her firm chin show her character more than any
other feature.

24. He lay leaning up agaitist the counter of the cobbler's shop, long,
lank, and lean in all the glory of his height of six feet and his age of forty
years.

25. The place we had to pass there was a very old looking house and
very lonely looking.

26. Because, if Brutus did not join the conspiracy, Caesar would not
have received the death he did.

27. Portia and Calpurnia were very different in many respects. Portia
was strong-willed and strong-minded, while Calpurnia was weak in both of
these.

28. It shows his selfishness when he didn't have the courage to tell
Nancy Lammeter that he had been married before he married her. Because
he thought that if he told her, she would not marry him.

29. They thought him to be a wizard of some sort and they left him to
himself. None of the neighbors ever calling on him for sociability.

212 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

30. Gareth wanted to win the quest known as the kitchen scullion.

31. He received the armor with which he disguised himself from the
home of Elaine.

32. The guide now told us to be very careful as we were approaching
a dangerous place and that one misstep would mean death.

33. It was raining slowly, but steady, and the air was quite cool.

34. I now began to see that we would come short of provisions but
when I told the fellows, they told me to " forget it " and that they were
not going to starve.

35. He had very peculiar features, small head with a brown cap on one
side, and dark piercing eyes.

36. After waiting awhile, a window on the second floor was thrown
open, and a cross, tired man's voice asked what was wanted.

37. So he saw now that, since Darnay was doomed to death, he could
take his place as they looked alike, just for the love of Lucy.

38. Dickens has put it (the French Revolution) into story form where
it could be made history and has.

39. After a day^s travel they arrive at the station and all pile out jogging
one another where they pile into the wagons waiting for them ; finally, they
arrive at their destination where they all pile out and peel off their outer
clothing and prepare to build a log house which is thrown up in no time.

40. Lucy Manette was a very weak character. She was always fainting at
the critical minute.

41. One day Ruth's mother asked her to go to the store for her. But
Ruth wanted to play, and she fussed a great'deal.

42. We got into the house just as they were getting up from the supper
table. And we were rushed into dry clothes and put to bed, then the
other children gathered round and we told them of our experience.

43. When I was about three years old, I was always getting into some-
thing. Anywhere from getting into the kerosene can up to getting run
over by a bicycle or a team.

44. She curls her hair on either side and braids it.

45. There was a kitchenette, two sleeping and a dining room.

46. The waves are not very high, the rock shielding the bathers, and
only small ones come in.

47. The little cottage, surrounded by trees and bushes, held one en-
tranced as they gazed at it.

48. As an orator, the difference in the way Antony moves the mob and
the way Brutus does.

THE SENTENCE 213

49. When the table was all set, with the nicely cooked fish and nice new
milk and everything tempting.

50. One of the most important dangers to the writer and in fact which
most all his mistakes are based on, namely, false beginnings and digressions.

51. Her head thrown back as she offered a hand for assistance.

52. A little red house on the banks of a beautiful lake. Trees all round
it, and a little barn behind it.

53. The structure of both poems are contrasted with each other.

54. If one is walking along in a strange place and sees a sign, " Win-
throp five miles," they naturally think that if you go five miles in that
direction you will reach Winthrop.

55. The trees with the ice making it dazzling.

56. He wants to live like a hermit and attend to all its duties.

57. Here and there could be seen tall and medium-sized smokestacks
whose mouths would send forth great clouds of smoke, easily showing that it
was a manufacturing village. While between the town and me were many
houses of shapes and colors with a field or large garden surrounding it.

58. Most of the cooking utensils are kept at Dedham in our locker
saving us a little trouble.

59. While visiting in Maine this summer, my uncle took me through a
paper mill in which he worked.

60. When it grew dusk I laid my book aside to watch the sunset, which
was my favorite occupation at that time of day.

61. One of the boys threw a snowball, and hit a man who was passing
on the hat and knocked his hat off.

62. We set camp on a farmer's grounds named Brown.

63. One day in June, as I lay in my hammock in a half-dazed condition,
the silence was suddenly broken by the shrill laughter of a girl that sounded
familiar.

64. A person's character is very often judged by the way other people
treat them.

65. The 191 5 Exposition afforded great enjoyment to the public as well
as being greatly instructive.

66. Anybody can learn to swim if they like the water and take time and
energy to practice it.

67. Sabrina's song shows the scene of the water where she lives bor-
dered on the banks by willow trees and shrubs.

68. Cranberries can grow most anywhere, but the best grow on the
Cape. They are picked different ways ; some women pick by hand, but

214

PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

the men pick with machines ; they grow on vines that creep on the ground ;
they have wiry leaves. The berry being ripe in the spring, it is made
into many things. The Portuguese men do most of the picking; after
they are picked, they are put into boxes, and then the women pick out the
best and put them in pans taken to the barn to be washed and then put in
barrels for shipping. They have two classes : the men or women that pick
by hand are not expected to pick as many as those who pick by machines,
although they get as much pay for doing so.

69. Once upon a time, while sitting on a couch reclining on my sofa
pillows, I gazed dreamily at the walls and ceilings, my mind wandering
back to some of my old acquaintances, especially one.

70. First he lighted two cigars, and, after placing one in his mouth, he
smoked the other at ease, and then calmly took the other out of his
mouth, which still continued to burn.

71. Around the platform stood the Indians, in a semicircle decked
with feathers and beads with very little clothing on.

72. Evening soon came on, and we retired early in our much upset
house, and with a great deal of broken furniture, not much the worse for
our day's experience.

A Fishing Experience

73. When I was in Wayland, Mass., a couple of other boys and myself
decided to go fishing over on the Sudbury River. John, Wes, and I. John
took his maple rod, Westly his bamboo, while I took my trusty rod of
steel. Going over the marsh we got our feet soaking wet. Right in front
of us we saw a wild duck rise, we at once let some bricks drive, one of
which came about six inches from the bird's body. Passing an apple tree
we got our pockets loaded with the fruit. As soon as we got to the edge
of the river we had a race to get the first fish. John made the first cast
while I was putting my beloved spoon on. Wes got his line all balled up
and it took him ten minutes to get it straight again. I got the first fish a
baby red perch about big enough for a cat's meal. We got quite a few
perch, when Wes got out on a rock to make a better cast. He took the
bait with him and got up and said to us 111 make the best catch of the
bunch, and letting his line go lost his balance, and kicked over the can of
bait. We yelled at him for drowning the poor little grasshoppers and
worms. We then sat down to have the apples we got coming over.
Pretty soon John got a bite, and pulled up a handsome speckled trout ; we
all gather round to see the prize. When Wes yelled " there goes your line,

THE SENTENXE 215

Rus." I turned round to see my rod fast vanishing into the water at a
rapid pace. I made a dive for it, it being my pet rod. In my haste, I fell
over a rock head first, just grabbing the tip end of the handle, I came up
soaked to the skin. I knew something was on my line because it pulled
like all mad things. I let the creature have full play when I realized my
reel was getting empty. I then clicked the reel into half play, and later
into tight, with that the fish jumped high into the air, and I saw a hand-
some bass on the end. Both John and Wes began to tell me he was a
stuffed rag to get me angry. It took all my skill to keep him clear of the
bank, for, if a fish gets near the bank and finds a snag, he will wind the
line around and snap the line after a long fight I finally landed the fellow
with some difficulty. I soon got my fish and paraphernalia together and
started for home. I got there and changed my clothes. I soon got into
the kitchen and weighed the bass ; he tipped the scales at four and three-
quarter pounds, which was soon going down our stomachs.

CHAPTER VII
WORDS

The clearness and the accuracy with which a thought is
understood depends in large measure upon the words in which
it is expressed. The choice of the words in which to express
thought depends in part upon the subject, in part upon the
person addressed. For example, in discussing bridge build-
ing, a person naturally uses the names of the parts of
bridges, words which he could not use in discussing a case of
scarlet fever or in explaining the act of plowing. Again, a
person does not use the same words to express the same
thought to a little child and to a grown person, nor to an un-
educated adult and to an educated adult. »

General or Specific Words. — Indeed, a person does not
always use the same words to present the same thing to the
same person. For example, if he wishes to give a general
idea of a horse's speed, he may say, *' The horse went fast,"
but if he wishes to give a clearer and more exact idea of
the degree of the horse's speed, he must make some such
statement as "The horse galloped,'' or "The horse ran'' ;
i.e., he must use a specific instead of a general word. If, on
the other hand, a person wishes to suggest the great multitude
of books which are inspiring and ennobling, he will not at-
tempt to name them individually, but will include them under
the term literaUire ; i.e., he will use 2i general instead of a
specific term. Whether a specific word or a general word shall
be used depends entirely upon circumstances.

3l6

WORDS

EXERCISE I

217

By consulting a dictionary of recognized authority, such as The Stand-
ard Dictionary^ Webster''s International Dictionary^ or Murray'^s New
English Dictionary :

I. Find specific words that correspond to the following general
words :

eat

injure

prepare

cold

storm

take

flowers

luxury

trees

crowd

sport

fun

papers

many

good

exercise

animal

some

comfortable

adventure

race

class

tax

2. Illustrate by means of sentences the correct use of each general term
and of each of the corresponding specific terms.

3. For each of the following specific words find a general word which
includes it :

creak doctor noun

giggle steer glance

lobster bumped village

coat cent sister

hammer lieutenant quinine

4. a. Illustrate by means of a sentence the correct use of each specific
word.

b. Replace each specific word by the general word which includes
it, and explain the difference in effect.

Synonyms. — Very often the thing that gives accuracy to
the expression of a thought is the use of exactly the right
one of a group of synonyms ; i.c.y of words that are similar in
meaning but that are more or less unlike in use. For example,
among the following synonyms of gi'eat, "large," "big,"
"vast," "huge," "bulky," "ample," "immense," "enormous,"
" Herculean," the word that best gives a sense of extent that
cannot be comprehended at once is the word vast, as a vast
expanse of water ; the word that best gives a sense of im-
measurable size or dimension is the word immense^ as an

2i8 PRACTICAL i:XGLISH COMPOSITION

immense depth; the word that best gives a sense of the
need of tremendous strength is the word HerculeaUy as
a Herculean task. Of a group of synonyms, that word
which suggests the idea to be expressed most clearly and
most accurately should be used.

EXERCISE II

I. Explain the difference in meaning in the following synonyms:

a. Ready, prompt, quick, expeditious, skillful.

b- Lock, fasten, confine.

L- Loose, untie, unbind, set free.

d. Lively, active, nimble, brisk, vivacious, keen, energetic.

e. Behind, at the back of, after, in the rear of.
/. Tardy, late, dilatory, behindhand.

g. Before, preceding, ahead of, in front of, face to face with, in

the sight of.
//. Bear, uphold, support, sustain, carry, endure, produce.
/. Gathering, assembly, company, meeting, concourse, congrega-
tion.
j. Generosity, liberality, bounty, charity, munificence.
k. Pretty, pleasing, comely, fair.
/. Beside, near, close to, at the side of.
m. Besides, except, save, in addition to.

ft. Rare, sparse, uncommon, extraordinary, choice, underdone.
o. Fine, minute, small, slender, delicate, keen, exquisite, excellent,
clear.
2. a. Find two synonyms for each of the following words :

change - firm oblige mad

censure fastidious particular fix

sure beautiful courteous borrow

challenge splendid show swell

hustle sorry gay put down

slow real make shine

aggravate lend provoke kind

h. Use each of the above words in a sentence.
c. Substitute for each given word each of its synonyms in turn,
and state the resulting difference in effect.

WORDS

219

3. Make a list of words which you hear used constantly when syno-
nyms would better express the ideas, and tell what synonyms should be
used.

Antonyms. — A great help in choosing the words which will
give accuracy and vigor to expression is a knowledge of
antonyms, i.e.^ of words which are directly opposite in meaning,
such as hot, cold; blacky white ; fail^ succeed; gain^ loss.
Such words are particularly valuable in expressing contrasts.

EXERCISE III

Find three

antonyms for each of the following words :

free

care

betray

immediately

generous

calm

innocent

hide

brave

awkward

dull

polite

disease

awful

inquisitive

honest

center

fiction

doubt

severe

cause

attack

confess

satisfy

Use each of the

given words

and one of its

antonyms in a balanced

sentence.

Homonyms. — In written EngHsh, accuracy of form de-
mands a knowledge of homonyms ; i.e., words which sound
alike, but which differ in spelling and in meaning ; such as
rap, wrap ; bread, bred ; son, sun; pale, pail; red, read.

Write correctly in a sentence each of the following homo-
nyms :

EXERCISE IV

not

practice

know

would

knot

practise

wood

hollo

threw

wring

hollow

through

too
two

ring

bear

hair

write

here

bare

hare

right

hear

220

PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

mail
male

straight
strait

by
buy

sale
sail

poll
pole

herd
heard

there
their

plait
plate

principal
principle

capital
capitol

bad
bade

draft
draught

Words Similar in Sound but Different in Spelling and in
Meaning. — In both written and spoken English, clearness
and accuracy in expression demand a discrimination between
words which are similar in sound, though different in spelling
and in meaning ; such as accept^ except ^ respectfully ^ respec-
tively y loosCy lose.

EXERCISE V

State the meaning of the words in each of the following groups and use
each word in each pair correctly in a sentence :

affect

costume

laid

effect

custom

lay

anecdote

credible

luxurious

antidote

creditable

luxuriant

barbaric

disinterested

manly

barbarous

uninterested

mannish

cemetery

enormity

practical

seminary

enormousness

practicable

clothes

fly

propose

cloths

flee

purpose

cockney

formally

quiet

hackney

formerly

quite

consciousness

genius

raise

conscientiousness

genus

rise

continual

healthful

receipt

continuous

healthy

recipe

council

hoarse

relations

counsel

horse

relatives

WORDS 221

respectfully specie than

respectively species then

sit stimulant womanly

set stimulus womanish

The Wise Use of Connectives. — A great help in indicating
the true relation of one thought to another is the use of the
right connective word or phrase. Words which serve as
connectives are conjunctions, conjunctive adverbs, rela-
tive pronouns, personal pronouns when their antecedents
have been expressed, demonstratives, many adverbs, ad-
verbial phrases, and prepositions, and often nouns through
repetition.

Whenever a connective is required, the particular word or
phrase which will express the exact shade of relation in
thought is the word to be used. For example, if the relation
in thought is additive, one of several connectives, such as
andy moreover^ also, likewise, besides, agai7i, fiirtJiermore, in
addition, finally, may be used. If the relation in thought is
one of contrast or opposition, such a connective as but, never-
theless, however, yet, on the co7itrary, on the other hand, still,
or in spite of may be used. If the relation in thought is one
of cause and result, such a connective as therefore, heiice,
consequently^ accordingly, as a result, then, or it follows that
may be used. If the relation in thought is one of time, such
a connective as while, when, as soon as, after, before, some-
what later than, months afterward, etc., may be used. While
at times any one of several connectives may serve to indicate
the kind of relation of thought well enough, usually exactness
requires the use of one particular connective.

Good Use. — If the expression of thought is to be clear and
accurate, words must be in good use ; i.e., they must be
words used and understood by educated people throughout
the country when dealing with the subject in question.

222 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

Violations of Good Use. — To speak or write in good lan-
guage, a person must avoid the three violations of good use :
barbarisms, improprieties, and solecisms.

Barbarisms. — A barbarism is a word not at present accepted
as a true part of the English language, such as foreign terms
not incorporated into the language, obsolete words (words
once, but no longer, a part of the language), incorrect abbre-
viations, and newly coined words. When there is question as
to whether a word is or is not a barbarism, a dictionary of
recognized standing should be consulted.

Improprieties. — An impropriety is the use of an EngUsh
word in a sense not English. Common improprieties include
most slang expressions and the substitution for the correct
word of a word much like it either in sound or in sense.

EXERCISE VI

1. Explain and correct the improprieties in the following sentences :

(I. His avocation was loading baggage trucks.

fi. There were quantities of people in the streets.

c. My father learned me to skate when I was little.

(/. Last night I had to commit to memory five eight-lined verses

of poetry.

e. My mother was kind of sorry about my not getting home in time.

/; His argument persuaded me that I had better change my course.

,i,^ I shall bring my tennis racket to the picnic.

//. Father reckons we can get there in three days more.

2. a. Bring to class a list of the slang expressions that you have heard
recently at school or among your acquaintances.

d. Change the slang expressions into correct, forceful English.

Solecisms. — A solecism is a construction that is either
ungrammatical or unidiomatic.

Examples of solecisms are: I seen, Be you going to-morroiv^
On the table I put it.

WORDS 223

EXERCISE VII

Point out and correct the solecisms in the following sentences:

1. There isn't but one orange in the dish.

2. She's a real good woman.

3. I didn't hardly get there before it began to rain.

4. Who did you say ?

5. I've got my wrong hat.

6. One of my books have been taken.

7. The clothes are froze stiff.

8. Him and me was great friends.

9. Was you to the beach last night?

10. The barn stood in back of the house.

1 1 . The baby hadn't ought to do that, for he will get hurt.

12. He said he would do it hisself.

13. Them's them lettuces you wanted.

14. I like a hunk of corn-beef; I like to feel it a-nourishing and
a-nourishing in my stomach.

15. I ketched cold riding on the open car.

16. He allowed as how the pedler did not know whose house he was
going into.

17. I could of told him better than that.

18. May I borrow a book off you for this period ?

19. They are only five chickens left in that brood.

20. You hurry off, I says, says I, or you'll be in trouble.

Trite, or Hackneyed, Expressions. — Among words and
expressions which are technically in good use there are some
which have been used for so many different purposes as to
have lost definiteness and force ; i.e., they are trite, or hack-
neyed, expressions. Examples of such expressions are sweet,
dear, lovely, nice, great, Oh, Pin tired to death. All such
expressions should be avoided.

EXERCISE Vm

1. Bring to class a list of ten words or expressions that are trite, or
hackneyed.

2. Give in vigorous English the equivalent of each of these expressions.

224 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

The Need of an Ample Vocabulary. — In order that a person
may have a wide range of words to choose from and may
gain the power to use words accurately and effectively, he
should take pains consciously to increase his vocabulary.
He may do this by observing in what he hears or reads the
words that are new to him and by then using them in con-
versation or in written composition if they prove to be in
good use. He may gain mastery of his vocabulary and of
English constructions by taking care in his translations from
foreign languages to express the ideas in clear, forcible,
idiomatic English. From whatever source a person gets his
vocabulary, it is only by careful and persistent practice in
using it that he can make his own English accurate, sugges-
tive, and vivid.

(

CHAPTER VIII

LETTER WRITING

Letters have several important uses. They serve as a
means of communication between people who wish
(i) to transact business,

(2) to interchange social courtesies, or

(3) to send friendly messages.

In order to be sure of accomplishing any one of these
purposes, the writer must use forms of letter writing that
have become established by custom. The form to be used in
any given letter depends upon the purpose for which the
letter is written and upon the relation of the writer of the
letter to the person or the persons to whom the letter is to
be sent.

The essential parts of a letter are as follows :

1. The heading. 5. The complimentary, or formal,

2. The address. close.

3. The salutation. 6. The signature.

4. The communication, or the body 7. The superscription.

of the letter.

The customary form of writing each one of these parts will
be given in the respective sections on letter writing.

Business Letters

I. The purpose of the headwg is to inform the reader of
the date and the place of writing. Unless the heading is
attended to at first, it is likely to be omitted, and the person
who receives the letter may not know where to send his reply.

225

226 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

The heading should give the writer's address and the date m
full. The heading may be written on one, two, or three lines.
It should not extend much to the left of the center of the page.

198 West Central Ave.,
Lake City, Fla.,

March 23, 191 2.

Box 17, Sladerville, W. Va.,
Jan. 29, 1 9 14.

The Birches,

TopsFiELD, Mi:.,
July 19, 1919.

San Lazaro Hospital,
Manila, P.I.,

Sept. 8, 191S.

R. F. D. No. I, Castine, Me.,
Nov. 28, 1908.

82 East tth St.,
Newark, N.J.,
Oct. 4, 191 7.

Intervale, N.H., Oct. 4, 1916,

The address consists of the name of the person to whom
the letter is written and of the place to which the letter is
to be sent. If possible, it should occupy only three lines.
It should begin at the margin, and not be indented like a
paragraph.

As a matter of courtesy, some title should always be used
before the name of a person or of a group of people ; as,
Mr., Mrs., Miss, Messrs., Dr., Hon., Prof., Rev.

Esq., the abbreviation of Esquire, which was once a more
dignified title than Mr., is now sometimes used in the com-
mercial world in place of the latter; as, Mr. Emmett K. VVil-
mond, or Emmett K. Wilmond, Esq.

LETTER WRITING 227

Messrs., the abbreviation of the French word Messieurs,
gentlemeriy is used in addressing a business firm. A corpora-
tion is addressed in its own name ; as, The Pepperell Card
and Paper Co.

Dr. is the abbreviation that is used in addressing a person
who has gained a college degree in medicine, divinity, or
philosophy.

Prof, is the abbreviation used in addressing one who holds
the position of professor in a college or university.

Rev. is the abbreviation used in addressing a clergyman.

Hon., the abbreviation of Honorable, is used in addressing
men who fill or have filled important government offices,
men like members of Congress and of the President's cabinet,
ambassadors, governors, and judges; as,

Hon. Henry Cabot Lodge, Hon. Eben S. Draper.

Hon. Whitelaw Reid, Hon. Woodrow Wilson.

Whenever any other title is used, Mr. should not be used ;
as. The Reverend Anson Bright.

Forms of Address

Mr. Henry L. Crowell.
14 Liberty St.,

Salem, Mass.

John Silver, Esq.,
107 E. io6th St.,
New York City.

228 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

Messrs. Esmond & Newcomb,
29 Exchange Place,
Chicago, 111.

The Metropolitan Ice Co.,
Westerly, R.l.

The Reverend Charles E. Jefferson,
49 W. 53d St.,

New York City.

The President of the United States,
Washington, D.C.

Hon. Frank B. Fay,

408 Beacon St.,
Boston, Mass.

The sahitatio7i consists of the formal address. It should
be followed by a colon or by a colon and a dash. The latter
form of punctuation implies greater formality. The first and
the last words of the salutation should be begun with capital
letters. The forms of salutation in general use are :

My dear Sir : Dear Sir : Gentlemen :

My dear Madam : Dear Madam : Ladies :

Note. — When the title Hon. is used, the salutation should be Sir:

LETTER WRITING 229

Gentlgmen :

Dear Sir:

Dear Madam :

The dody of a business letter should be courteous, brief,
but complete and clear. If it is a very short communication,
the neatest appearance is secured by leaving a liberal margin
on both the right and the left sides of the page and by hav-
ing the upper and lower margins nearly equal. If the
letter is long, the right and the left margins should be about
one half an inch wide and no margin should be left at the
bottom. The writing should cover only one side of the page.

A paragraph should be indented at least one half an inch
to the right of the margin. As each paragraph is concerned

27,0

PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

with only one point regarding the subject, paragraph inden-
tion is a distinct aid in presenting the subject to the reader.

The complimentary close or formal ending of a business
letter is one of the following :

Yours truly, Yours very truly, Truly yours,

Very truly yours, Yours respectfully, Yours very respectfully,

Respectfully yours, Very respectfully yours.

Note. — The complimentary close of a letter written to a government
official should be,

I have the honor to remain

Yours very respectfully,

The writer should consider his relations with the person
addressed and select the phrase that best expresses his feel-
ing toward that person. An inappropriate ending detracts
from the businesslike tone of a letter, and should, therefore,
be avoided.

The signature of a letter consists of the name of the writer
in full ; that is, his first name, his middle initial, and his last
name. It should be placed so that it will end near the right-
hand margin. A lady should prefix to her signature Miss or
Mrs. in parenthesis.

II Madison Ave.,

Chicago, III.,

Nov. i8, 1916.
Messrs. Walsh & Clapp.

211 W. Adams St.,

Newark, N.J.

Gentlemen : . .

LETTER WRITING

231

Very truly yours,

Malcolm Campbell.

The superscription is the address on the envelope. This
should be spaced carefully, each line beginning a little farther
to the right than the preceding one. If the address is very
long, one line may be written in the lower left-hand corner.
The address of the writer should be placed in the upper left-
hand corner. A comma should be placed at the end of each
line except the last, which should be followed by a period.
The names of states, territories, and possessions of the United
States should be abbreviated according to the following form :

Abbreviations for the names of the states, territories, and possessions
of the United States, authorized by the United States Official Postal
Guide :

Alabama Ala.

Arizona Ariz.

Arkansas Ark.

California Cal.

Colorado Colo.

Connecticut Conn.

Delaware Del.

District of Columbia . . . D.C.

Florida Fla.

Georgia Ga.

Illinois 111.

Indiana Ind.

Kansas Kans.

Kentucky Ky.

Louisiana La.

Maine Me.

Maryland Md.

Massachusetts Mass.

Michigan Mich.

Minnesota Minn.

Mississippi Miss.

Missouri Mo.

Montana Mont.

Nebraska Nebr.

Nevada Nev.

New Hampshire .... N.H.

New Jersey N.J.

New Mexico . . . . N. Mex.

New York N.Y.

North Carolina . . . . N.C.

232 PR

North Dakota .
Oklahoma .

Pennsylvania .

Porto Rico . .

Rhode Island .
South Carolina

South Dakota .

Tennessee . .

ACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

N. Dak.
Okl.
. Pa.

P.R.
R.I.
S.C.
S. Dak.
Tenn.

Texas Tex.

Vermont Ver.

Virginia Va.

Washington Wash.

West Virginia .... W. Va.

Wisconsin Wis.

Wyoming Wyo.

The following are not to be abbreviated :
Alaska, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Ohio, Oregon, Samoa, Utah.

Note. — Great care should be taken to make the superscription clear.
The United States government report of last year shows that an average
of more than thirty-five thousand pieces of mail per day was sent to the
Dead Letter Office. This was in large part due to the carelessness or the
ignorance of the persons who mailed parcels or letters that were not properly
addressed.

Superscriptions

i8 Lawrence Ave.,
RoxBURY, Mass.

Mr.

Herbert R. Love,

loi LANCiLEY Ave.,
Chic

:ago, III.

li:ttI':r writing

233

81 Fourth St.,
South Boro, Ind.

Box 49.

Mr. Hiram Peele,

Pine Ridge,

Adams Co.,

Miss.

Prof. Alton K. Bond,

Colorado University,

Bates Hall.

Den\'er, Colo.

234 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

67 Fairview Park,
Englewood, III.

His Excellency Alexander Smith,

Boston,

Mass.

Letters Ordering Goods

Carelessness in omitting to give full and exact specifica-
tions when ordering goods by letter often results in delay
and confusion. Orders are likely to be filled promptly and
accurately if the following rules are observed :

1. Make an itemized list of the goods ordered, beginning
the name of each article with a capital letter.

2. State the quantity and style of goods desired, using
numerals to indicate the desired amount.

3. Give clearly the exact address to which the goods are
to be sent.

4. Give shipping directions ; as, by mail, express, or
freight, when the firm from whom the goods are ordered
does not deliver them.

5. State the manner in which payment is to be made, and
the amount of money to be sent.

LETTER WRITING

235

Lee, Va.,

17 Vernon St.,

March 2, 1914.

Messrs. Teele & Lane,
29 State St.,

Richmond, Va.

Gentlemen
articles :

Please send C. O. D. by American Express the following

100 lb.
3 bu.
6 cakes
3 lb.
2 boxes
2 3-lb. cans
6 cans

Granulated Sugar.
Potatoes.
Sapolio.
Java Coffee.
Baker's Cocoa.
Champion Biscuit.
B. L. Tomatoes.
Tarragon Vinegar.

4 bottles

If possible, ship these goods the day this letter reaches you.

Yours truly

Lee C. Atcherson.

The Birches, Topsfield, Me.,
June 28, 1 91 5.

:ssRS. S. S. Pierce & Co.,

Tremont St.,

Boston, Mass.

Gentlemen : Please send to the above address the following goods

3 bbl.

King Arthur Elour.

I bbl.

Granulated Sugar.

2 lo-lb. pes.

Arlington Bacon.

2 boxes

Ivory Soap.

I sack

Java Coffee.

2 cases

Can Columbia Peas.

2 cases

Can Corn XX.

Ship the above articles by freight, and charge the same to my account.

Yours truly,

Jonathan Lane.

236 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

29 Pine St.,
Steelton, Pa.,
Sept. I, 1917.

Messrs. McFail & Co.,
no West Broadway,
Harrisburg, Pa.

Gentlemen : Kindly send me by return mail four (4) yards of lace like
inclosed sample, at fifty cents (50 /) a yard.

I inclose money order for two dollars and ten cents ($2.10), allowing-
ten cents (10 ^) for postage.

Yours truly,

(Mrs.) Warren Leeds.

Box 35, BucKSPORT, Me.,
Jan. 14, 1914.

The Outlook Co.,
287 Fourth Ave.,
New York City.

Gentlemen: Inclosed find check for three dollars ($3.00) for one year's
subscription for the Outlook.

Please send it to the above address, beginning with the February
number.

Yours truly,

(Miss) Edith Metcalf.

21 Park St.,

Dorchester, Mass.,
Jan. 26, 1916.
Houghton, Mifflin & Co.,
Boston, Mass.

Gentlemen : Please send to the above address the following books :
Over the Teacups^ by O. W. Holmes ($ 1.50) ; Strangers and Wayfarers^
by S. O. Jewett ($ 1.25).

I inclose a money order for two dollars and seventy-five cents ($2.75).

Yours very truly.

John H. Brown.

LETTER WRITING

Letter of Application

237

A letter of application for a position should contain : (i) a

short introduction stating whether the writer is answering an

advertisement or is applying on his own responsibility; (2) a

statement of his age, education, and experience; and (3) a

conclusion giving reference, testimonials, or an expression of

the applicant's earnestness of purpose.

23 Alden St.,
Chicago, III.,
June 28, 1914.
Messrs. Stanley, Winslow & Co.,
18 Canal St.,
Chicago, 111.

Ge?itle?nen : I wish to apply for the position of assistant bookkeeper in
your office, advertised in to-day's Tribune.

I am eighteen years old, and have just graduated from the Codman
High School. Last summer I kept books in my father's hardware store,
and I have been helping him during the last two months.

That is all my experience, outside of the two years' course in bookkeep-
ing at the high school ; but I am anxious to show what I can do, and you
will find me faithful and not afraid to work.

Respectfully yours,

Frank Bond.

WANTED. — A bright, energetic high school boy about
seventeen years old, for office work during July and August.
Wages $4.50. References required. Address Box 298 B,
Transcript.

25 Elm St., Arlington, Mass.,
June 25, 1915.
Box 298 B, Transcript r'

Dear Sirs : I wish to apply for the position which you advertised in
the Transcript of June 25.

I am a graduate of the Madison Grammar School, Arlington, and have
just completed the third year in the Arlington Latin School. Next month
I shall be seventeen years old.

238 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

During the summer vacation of last year I did office work for the firm
of Clinton, Ware & Co., 18 Hamilton St., Boston.

I give you as references :

Mr. John Hardman, of the firm of Clinton, Ware & Co. ;

Mr. Roger Cable, Principal of the Arlington Latin School ;

Rev. Mather P. Williams, Pastor of the Second Congregational Church,
Arlington.

Trusting that you may favor my application, I am

Yours truly,

Gilbert Drake.

EXERCISE I

Answer the following advertisements, applying for the positions :

1. BOY. — Bright, ambitious, in manufacturing concern ; office
hours 7 to 6 ; must be good penman and accurate at figures ;
state age, salary expected, and experience, if any. Address
B 132, Tribune.

2. BOY. — 16 to 18 yrs., for office and stock work; city refs.
M. Burton & Co., 173-175 Adams St.

3. BOY. — Bright, 16 or 17 yrs. old, to work in shipping de-
partment of engraving plant; no heavy work; good oppor-
tunity for advancement. Address, with full particulars,
C 262, Tribune.

4. BOY. — 16 to 18 yrs., for office and stock work; city refs.
73-75 Adams St.

5. BOY. — Bright boy, over 16, good education and good
writer, for wholesale clothing house. Answer in own hand-
writing, stating age and references. Address W T 486,
Tribune.

6. BOY. — For office work in Coal Company ; must be neat,
well recommended, and with intention to advance. Address
A 107, Tribune.

7. BOY. — Bright, 16 to 18 yrs. old. In a wholesale jewelry
establishment ; must furnish best of references. Address
B 592, Tribune.

8. BOY. — Bright, for errands in insurance office; state age,
salary, and references. Address K 297, Tribune.

LETTER WRITING 239

9. BOY. — Good boy for care of horses in town and light
work on a suburban place. Call F. S. Munro, 701 Tacoma
Bldg.

10. BOY. — Bright boy for R.R. office, over 16 years; $25
month ; reference desired. Address S VV 494, Tribune.

11. BOY. — About 17 yrs. old, to work in wholesale stock-
room ; permanent position ; salary to start $ 5 per week.
The Western News Company, 204 E. Madison St.

12. ERRAND BOY. — Good, strong, bright boy, 16 to 18
yrs.; deliver packages and run errands; $5 per week to
start. Chicago Rubber Co., 159 Franklin St.

13. BOY. — Bright, 16 to 18 years old; must be good writer;
$6 per week. Address S T 120, Tribune.

14. BOY. — Over 16, in office; fine chance for bright, enter-
prising, honest boy. Apply Sefton Manufg. Co., 1 153 35th St.

15. BOY. — High school, to start in stockroom of publishing
house ; excellent opportunity for advancement. Address
D 154, Tribune.

EXERCISE II

1. A boys' or a girls' club wishes to hire a piano for the eight months
from October to June. You, as secretary of the club, are to answer the
following advertisement :

TO RENT. — 200 fine new upright pianos, $3 and $4 per
month ; new styles, fancy light wood casings ; one year's
rent allowed if purchased. Barker, 207 Olive St.

2. Answer this advertisement, making arrangements to see the article
at a certain time :

TOBOGGAN SLED. — Not quite completed, will finish
to suit; was ordered, never called for; $20. Address K
324, Tribune.

3. You are to attend a preparatory school, and are attracted by the
announcement of the Irving School, Tarrytown-on-Hudson, N.Y. Write
a letter to the secretary asking for information concerning the school.
State definitely the questions which you wish him to answer.

4. Order by letter of Sinnott & Folsom, 14 Causeway St., Indianapolis,

240 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

Ind., C. O. D., a supply of groceries, including flour, sugar, tea, cheese,
butter, soap, kerosene, raisins, and a broom.

5. Write a letter to John Wanamaker & Co., Broadway, N.Y., order-
ing I pair Victor skates, size 11, i hockey stick, i copy Stevenson's Treas-
ure Islandy Home Reading Edition, i doz. cakes Ivory Soap, and i
Brownie Camera, size i. Direct the firm to charge the goods to your
account, and ship to the following address: Mr. Edward Bardwell, 16
Maple St., Yarmouthville, Me.

6. You have a tent in very good condition, which you would like to
sell. Answer this advertisement :

WANTED. — Good second-hand tent; state size and
price. Address C 311, Tribune.

7. You have an Iver Johnson bicycle two years old, but in perfect
repair. Its cost was sixty-five dollars. You cannot take it in yourself,
but are willing to send it by express, and offer it for sale at a minimum
price of ten dollars. Write a letter asking the firm to consider your propo-
sition.

WANTED. — 50 good second-hand wheels at once for
country orders ; bring wheels and get our cash offer. Mead
Cycle Co., 23-25 N. Clinton St.

8. Write a letter ofTering your motor cycle, 1912 model, for sale; state
how long used, and the price paid for it when new.

WANTED. — Motor Cycle, 1912 model; give complete de-
scription, lowest cash price. Address A F 368, Tribune.

9. Write a letter subscribing for one year for a magazine which you
really desire to take.

ID. Write to Messrs. D. C. Heath & Co., 120 Roylston St., Boston, an
order for two books, which you intend to use next term in school.

11. Your class is planning a sleighing party. Write to the Fairbank
Livery Stable, High Falls, Minn., stating the number going, and inquiring
the terms.

12. Send an order to Wilcox & Fearing Co., 169 State St., Minne-
apolis, Minn., for a folding pocket kodak. No. i, M. 14. Catalogue No. 80,
page 390. Inclose ten dollars, the price stated.

13. Write a second letter to Wilcox & Fearing Co., stating that two
weeks have passed since you sent the above order, and that you wish to
hear from them in regard to the matter.

LETTER WRITING 241

14. Order from Sterling, Merchant & Co., 141 Federal St., Pittsburg,
Pa., I doz. Arrow collars, at $1.50 per doz. ; i pair No. 7^ dogskin
gloves, at $1.25 a pair; I doz. men's plain linen handkerchiefs, J inch hem,
at 50 cents each. Inclose money order in payment.

15. a. Write a letter to a firm from whom you have received a dam-
aged article, asking them to make it good.

d. Write the firm's answer to you.

c. Write the firm's letter to the manufacturer who made the article.

d. Write the manufacturer's reply to the firm.

16. a. Write a letter to a firm from whom you have ordered goods,
stating that you have not received a certain article.

d. Write the firm's reply to your letter.

The Telegram

The two essentials of a telegram are brevity and exactness.
Ten words are allowed at a price proportioned to the distance,
and every additional word means additional expense. Initial
letters and abbreviations of weights and measures are each
counted as a word.

POSTAL

TELEGRAPH

COMMERCIAL

CABLES

Bangor,

Me.

, Feb

2, 1909.

TO Mrs

. Lawrence Hubbard,

Forest St., Cambridge,

Mass.

Steamer

delayed in port by fog.

Do not wait.

Mary

Hubbard.

242 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

EXERCISE III

1. Telegraph to a friend, asking him to secure two tickets for the
Harvard- Yale football game.

2. You are unable to go with your friend on a certain train. Telegraph
where and when you will meet her.

3. You are away from home and need a certain book. Telegraph to
your mother, asking her to send it by the next mail.

4. You are away with your brother. He has met with a slight accident
and you are going to take him home. Telegraph to your mother, telling
her oi the accident and giving the time of your expected arrival. Assure
her that there is no danger. Telegraph to your father news of the accident
and ask him to meet you.

5. Your brother has won distinction at Harvard. You are in the South.
Telegraph your congratulations.

6. During your mother's absence, your sister is taken ill. Telegraph
your mother to return quickly, but do not alarm her.

7. You are unable to meet a friend who is about to visit you for the
first time. Telegraph to a friend, asking her to do so in your stead.
Mention time and place of meeting.

8. A very dear friend expects you to go on a camping trip with him.
At the last moment, you secure a promising position. Telegraph to him,
telling of your change of plans.

Social Correspondence

A formal invitation should be written in the third person,
and should contain no heading, no salutation, and no compli-
mentary close. The writer's name should appear in the
body of the letter. The address of the writer and the date of
writing should be written at the left, below the communica-
tion.

The only abbreviations permitted are those of titles ; but
the title " Reverend " should be written in full and be pre-
ceded by " the " : The Reverend Minot Barry.

Figures should be used only for house numbers. Days of
the month and week and names of the months should be
written in full. The year may be omitted.

LETTER WRITING 243

A reply should contain the same forms of expression that
have been used in the invitation.

It should be written in the third person, and always repeat
the date and the time mentioned in the invitation. It is not
necessary to adjust the lines according to the form of the
invitation. A reply should be sent not later than the second
day after receiving an invitation.

The only marks of punctuation to be used in the super-
scription are those which occur after unavoidable abbrevia-
tions.

Formal Invitation

Mr. and Mrs. Eliot Towne

request the pleasure of

Miss Caroline Cheney's company at dinner

on Thursday, January twelfth,

at seven o'clock.

118 Drexel Boulevard,
January fifth.

Formal Acceptance

Miss Caroline Cheney accepts with pleasure the kind
invitation of Mr. and Mrs. Eliot Towne to dinner on
Thursday, January twelfth, at seven o'clock.

149 West Lafayette Street,
January seventh.

Formal Declination

Miss Caroline Cheney regrets that a previous engage-
ment prevents her accepting the kind invitation of Mr.
and Mrs. Eliot Towne to dinner on Thursday, January
twelfth, at seven o'clock.

149 West Lafayette Street,
January seventh.

244 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

Formal Invitation to a Reception

Mr. and Mrs. Alfred T. Bent

request the pleasure of Mr. Charles F. Brown's company

at a reception to be given at their home,

1326 Norris Street, Newton,

Tuesday evening, March ninth, at eight o'clock.

March second.

Formal Acceptance

Mr. Charles F. Brown accepts with pleasure the kind
invitation of Mr. and Mrs. Alfred T. Bent to the recep-
tion to be given at their home, 1326 Norris Street, Tues-
day evening, March ninth, at eight o'clock.

15 Samoset Avenue, Melrose,
March fourth.

Formal Declination

Mr. Charles F. Brown regrets that a previous engage-
ment prevents his accepting the kind invitation of Mr.
and Mrs. Alfred T. Bent to the reception to be given at
their home, 1326 Norris Street, Newton, Tuesday eve-
ning, March ninth, at eight o'clock.

15 Samoset Avenue, Melrose,
March fourth.

Formal Invitation

Miss Helen E. Dane

requests the pleasure of

Miss Emily C. Pierce's company at a party

to be given at her home,

14 Linden Street, Cambridge,

on Friday, October fourth,

from eight to eleven o'clock.

September twenty-fifth.

LETTER WRITING 245

Formal Declination

Miss Emily C. Pierce regrets that illness in her family
prevents her accepting the kind invitation of Miss Helen
E. Dane to the party to be given at her home, 14 Linden
Street, Cambridge, on Friday, October fourth, from eight
to eleven o'clock.

39 Maiden Avenue, Somerville,
September twenty-seventh.

Informal Notes

In an informal note, the address of the writer and the date
of the writing may be placed, as in a business letter, at the
right above the communication, or they may be written at the
left, below the body of the note. The latter form is favored
at present.

The salutations generally used are :

My dear Mrs. Anderson: Dear Mrs. Fielding:

My dear Miss Norton : Dear Charles :

Note. — The longer form is the more ceremonious. The punctuation
should be a colon, a comma and a dash, or, in very friendly notes, a
comma.

The formal close should harmonize with the salutation.
The customary forms are :

Sincerely yours,
Yours sincerely,
Yours very sincerely

1 .

Used in addressing persons older than the
writer, or persons with whom the writer
is on friendly but not intimate terms.

Cordially yours, Your loving daughter.

Yours cordially, Faithfully yours.

Yours with love, Yours faithfully,

Lovingly,

Only the first word of the complimentary close should be
begun with a capital letter.

246 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

Form of an Informal Note

SALUTATION

FORMAL CLOSE

SIGNATURE
ADDRESS OF WRITER

DATE OF WRITING

Informal Notes of Invitation

1. My dear Mrs. Norcross:

Will you give us the pleasure of your company at
dinner on the evening of Wednesday, the twentieth, at
seven o'clock ? We expect Mr. and Mrs. Farrar, whom,
I believe, you have met.

Very sincerely yours,

Anna L. Gaynor.
24 Evans Avenue,

November sixth.

2. My dear Miss Plummer, —

I ara asking a few friends to luncheon on Saturday and
wish much to have you among the number. Luncheon
will be served at two o'clock.

Your friend,

Martha L. Jackson.
17 Cliff Street, Brighton,
May fifth.

LETTER WRITING

Informal Acceptance

My dear Miss Jackson,

I shall be pleased to be with you at luncheon Satur-
day and to meet your friends. Thanking you for your
kind invitation, I am.

Your friend,

Elizabeth F. Plummer.
21 Corona Street,
Dorchester,

May seventh.

Informal Declination

My dear Miss Jackson,

I am sorry indeed that a previous engagement will
prevent me from being with you and your friends next
Saturday.

Your friend,

Elizabeth F. Plummer.
21 Corona Street,
Dorchester,

May seventh.

Informal Invitations

(i) My dear Florence, —

The time of your annual visit to Boston is near at
hand and we are looking forward with pleasure to the
time when you will be with us again.

I hope that nothing will hinder your coming, for the
new purchases for the Art Museum will be ready for
visitors by the first of May, and I know how anxious you
are to see them.

With kind regards to your mother, I am
Sincerely your friend,

Edith B. McLeod.
Roxbury,

April 3, 1918.

247

248 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

(2) 208 West 104TH Street,

New York City.

Jan. 22, 1914.
My dear Mattie, —

The "Clover Club" is to have an "experience social"
next Friday evening, at eight o'clock, at the home of the
president, Mrs. James Alden, 109 West 126th Street.

I hope that you will be able to come, as we shall cer-
tainly have a merry time. Mother and I will call for you.

Yours with love,

Florence Hammett.

(3) Dear Cousin Ruth,

Mother and I intend to have a house-warming in our
little "doll-house" next Tuesday evening. We have in-
vited as many of our kith and kin as we can possibly
squeeze in and expect to have a jolly good time. Do
come if you can ; "the more, the merrier."

Lovingly,

Mildred.
27 College Avenue,
Medford,

Feb. 5, 1914.

18 NoRWELL Street,
Jan. 14, 1915.
Dear Jack.

I wish that you and Tom would come over to the house
Thursday evening. It is my birthday and mother has
planned a good time for a few of us. Don't forget to
bring your music.

Your friend,

Walter.

EXERCISE IV

I. Mr. and Mrs. James Annixter Bowman of 15 15 Riverside Drive,
New York, decide to give a formal dinner three weeks from to-day.
(a) Write their invitation to Miss Mary Peterson of 210 West iiSth
Street ; (d) write her acceptance; (c) write the declination of Mr. Howard
Mannering.

LETTER WRITING 249

2. (a) Write an invitation to a formal reception to be given by Mr.
and Mrs. Malcolm Sterling of 21 18 Clay Street, San Francisco.

(d) Accept the invitation.
(c) Decline the invitation.

3. Your club is to entertain friends by giving a play. Write the invita-
tion which they should send out.

4. Write an invitation to an acquaintance party which your class is to
give to the entering class.

5. a. Write an informal invitation to a friend to attend a candy-pull at
your house.

d. Write his informal note accepting your invitation.

c. Write the note of a friend who must decline your invitation.

6. a. Write a note asking a friend to go on a camping trip with you.

d. Write his reply.

7. a. Write a note asking a friend to help you entertain an unexpected
guest.

d. Write the reply.

Notes of Acknowledgment

36 Onslow Square,

Dec. 27, 18 — .
Dear Carter, —

I should be an ungrateful wretch if I didn't tell you that the geese were

excellent. The servants polished theirs entirely off, and ours was admired

and appreciated by everybody who partook thereof. I carved it and I

need not say some of the best slices of the bosom were appropriated by

yours gratefully,

W. M. Thackeray.

PONKAPOG, MasSi
Dec. 13, 1875.
Dear Howells, —

We had so charming a visit at your house that I have about made up
my mind to reside with you permanently. I am tired of writing. I would
like to settle down in just such a comfortable home as yours, with a man
who can work regularly four or five hours a day, thereby relieving one of
all painful apprehensions in respect to clothes and pocket-money- I am
easy to get along with. 1 have few unreasonable wants and never com-
plain when they are constantly supplied. I think I could depend on you.

Ever yours,

T. B. A.

250 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

Vailima, Samoa,
July 8, 1894.
My dear St. Gi\UDENS, —

This is to tell you that the medallion has been at last triumphantly
transported up the hill and placed over my smoking-room mantelpiece.
It is considered by everybody a first-rate but flattering portrait. We have
it in a very good light, which brings out the artistic merits of the godlike
sculptor to great advantage. As for my opinion, I believe it to be a speak-
ing likeness, and not flattered at all, possibly a little the rev.erse. The
verses (curse the rhyme) look remarkably well.

Please do not longer delay, but send me an account for the expense of
the gilt letters. I was sorry indeed that they proved beyond the means
of a small farmer.

Yours very sincerely,

< Robert Louis Stevenson.

EXERCISE V

1 . Write notes acknowledging three Christmas gifts, one from a rela-
tive much older than you are, one from your most intimate friend, and
one from an acquaintance.

2. Write a note thanking your hostess for a pleasant week-end at her
house.

3. Write notes acknowledging a book, flowers, and some dainty sent
while you were ill.

4. Write a note thanking an acquaintance for sending you information
for which you had asked.

5. Write a note thanking a friend for a social courtesy shown to a
friend of yours for your sake.

Notes of Condolence

Abraham Lincoln to Mrs. Bixby.

ExEcirrivE Mansion,
Washington, Nov. 21, 1864.
To Mrs. Bixby, Boston, Mass.
Dear Madam :
I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of
the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five
sons, who have died gloriously on the field of battle.

LETTER WRITING 251

I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should
attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I
cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in
the thanks of the republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly
Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only
the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that
must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.

Yours very sincerely and respectfully,

A. Lincoln.

An Acknowledgment of a Letter of Condolence

31 Lowndes Square, S.W.,
April 17, 1885.

Dear Howells, —

I return your grasp of the hand with another as sincere, but in silence.
What is there to be said?

If all go well, I shall see you again in June — one of the greatest favors
I have to thank President Cleveland for.
With kindest regards to Mrs. Howells,

Affectionately yours,

J. R. Lowell.

Letters of Introduction

A letter of introduction is a letter written by one person
to another for the purpose of presenting to him a third
person. It should be left unsealed, as it is usually deUvered
by the person introduced.

A letter of introduction should be given only when the
person writing the letter is sufficiently well acquainted with
the person to whom he is writing and with the person whom
he is introducing to be sure that the two would probably like
to know each other.

While such letters are general in their character, they
should always contain elements which will give the persons
introduced some interest in common.

252 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

Business Letter of Introduction

1405 Wabash Ave.,
Chicago, III.,
Jan. 15, 1914.
Mr. Malcolm Hardwick,
40 Wall St.,

New York, N.Y.
Dear Mr. Hardwick :

This will introduce to you Mr. Francis Bolton, a promising young busi-
ness man of this city. He visits New York to interest some capitalists in
a new patent which he wishes to put upon the market. I know him to be
a man whose integrity and unusual ability make him worthy of confidence
and consideration, and I hope that you and some of your friends w^ill give
him an opportunity to explain his plans, and, if they prove practical, will
help him to carry them out.

Very truly yours,

Mark North.

Acknowledgment of Business Letter of Introduction

40 Wall St.,
New York, N.Y.,
Jan. 20, 1914.
Mr. Mark North,
1405 Wabash Ave.,
Chicago, 111.
Dear Mr. North :

I received your letter of Jan. 15 by Mr. Francis Bolton, and thank you
for giving me the opportunity to invest in what promises to be so
lucrative an enterprise.

Yours very truly,

Malcolm Hardwick.

Social Letter of Introduction

Boston, Mass.,

April ID, 1912.
My Dear Mr. Merriam :

I take pleasure in introducing to you Mr. Franklin Turner, a close
friend of mine, who will spend some months in California collecting botani-

LETTER WRITING 253

cal specimens, and who will make San Francisco his headquarters. Any
courtesy that you may show him I shall consider a personal obligation.

Sincerely yours,

Charles M. Summers.

Mr. James Merriam,

1506 Clay Street,

San Francisco,

California.

Acknowledgment of Social Letter of Introduction

San Francisco, Cal.,
April 10, 191 2.
Dear Mr. Summers:

Your friend Mr. Turner, who called last evening, gave us a most
amusing account of the hunting trip in which you so frequently rescued
him from dire mishap. He thereby rescued us from a dull evening. We
look forward to having him among us.

Sincerely yours,

James Merriam.
Mr. Charles M. Summers,
160 Beacon Street,
Boston, Mass.

Informal Letters of Introduction

Cambridge, Monday, Aug. 5, i860.
My dear young Friend, —

Here is a note to Mr. Hawthorne, which you can use if you have
occasion.

Don't print too much and too soon ; don't get married in a hurry ; read
what will make you think not dream] hold yourself dear, and more power
to your elbow! God bless you!

Cordially yours,

J. R. Lowell.

Cambridge, Aug. 5, i860.
My dear Hawthorne, —

I have no masonic claim upon you except community of tobacco, and
the young man who brings this does not smoke.

2 54 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

But he wants to look at you, which will do you no harm, and him a
great deal of good.

His name is Howells, and he is a fine young fellow, and has written
several poems in the Atlantic^ which of course you have never read, be-
cause you don't do such things yourself, and are old enough to know
better.

When I think how much you might have profited by the perusal of
certain verses of somebody who shall be nameless — but, no matter! If
my judgment is good for anything, this youth has more in him than any
of our younger fellows in the way of rhyme.

Of course he can't hope to rival the Co)isule Planco men. Therefore
let him look at you and charge it

To yours always,

J. R. Lowell.

Harvard Coli.f.gk,
Sept. 9, 1863.
Mv DEAR Hughes, —

Will you do anything that lies in your way for my young friend Mr.
Lincoln, and very much oblige me thereby? He wishes particularly to
see you, and would like a few hints about employing his very short time
in London well. He has been one of our tutors here.

To almost any other Englishman I should think it needful to explain
that he is not President Lincoln, you are all so " shady " in our matters.
The Times^ I see, has now sent over an '' Italian " to report upon us — a
clever man, but a double foreigner, as an Italian with an English wash over
him. Pray, don't believe a word he says about our longing to go to war
with England. We are all as cross as terriers with your kind of neutrality,
but the last thing we want is another war. If the iron-clads are allowed
to come out, there might be a change.

If you can give Mr. Hughes any hints or helps for seeing Oxford, you

would be doing him a great kindness, and adding another to the many you

have done me.

Cordially yours,

J. R. Lowell.

LETTER WRITING 255

Letters of Friendship

The writing of letters of friendship is distinctly a literary
art. The first essential is the selection of subjects of mutual
interest to the writer and to his friend, and the second is the
expression of the thought in a clear and agreeable manner.

Some of the best models for modern letter writing are
James Russell Lowell, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, and Robert
Louis Stevenson. Stevenson's letters give a vivid picture of
his daily life, his friends and associates, and his surroundings ;
and show what a brave struggle he made for health and
strength.

The date and place of writing may be put, as in a friendly
note, either at the right, above the body of the letter, or it
may be put at the end, at the left, below the communication.
The formal close should express the feehng of the writer
toward the receiver.

Forms of Friendly Letters

(l) ADDRESS OF WRITER

DATE OF WRITING
SALUTATION

FORMAL CLOSE

SIGNATURE

256 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

(2)

SALUTATION

FORMAL CLOSE

SIGNATURE

ADDRESS

OF WRITER

DATE OF WRITING

Dear Friend :

I, too, have a new plaything, the best I ever had — a wood lot. Last
fall I bought a piece of more than forty acres on the borders of a little lake,
half a mile wide and more, called Walden Pond — a place to which my feet
have for years been accustomed to bring me once or twice a week at all
seasons. My lot, to be sure, is on the farther side of the water, not so
familiar to me as the nearer shore. Some of the wood is an old growth,
but most of it has been cut off within twenty years and is growing thrifty.
In these May days, when maples, poplars, oaks, birches, walnut and pine
are in their glory, I go thither every afternoon and cut with my hatchet an
Indian path through the thicket all along the bold shore, and open the
finest pictures. My two little girls know the road now, though it is nearly
two miles from the house, and find their way to the spring at the foot of
the pine grove.

At a good distance in from the shore, the land rises to a rocky head
perhaps sixty feet above water. Thereon I think to place a tent, perhaps
it will have two stories and be a pretty tower, looking out to Monadnock
and other New Hampshire mountains. There I hope to go with book and
pen when good hours come. . . .

LETTER WRITING 257

What have we to do with old age? Our existence looks to me more
than ever initial. We have come to see the ground and look up materials
and tools. The men who have any positive quality are the flying advance
party for reconnoitering. We shall yet have a right to work, as kings and
competitors.

With ever affectionate remembrance to your wife,

Your friend,

Ralph W. Emerson.

68 Beacon St., Boston,
Feb. 2, 1886.
Dear Howells, —

I told you that I liked the plan of the new story when you gave me a
sketch of it.^ I like the story itself so thoroughly that I must please myself
by telling you so. So far, 'tis the best yet. It made me forget eighteen
hours in a sleeping-car and the loss of my only-wearable-in-Boston hat.

But I won't let you say (when you reprint) as you do on page 5, ist col.,
"bring us in closer relations," for that isn't what you mean. You don't
mean '' bring-in to us," but "bring us into "! That is what you mean! I
am going to get up a society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Prepositions
— I am getting so cross. Animals have certain natural means of defense.
They can bite and prepositions can't. The skunk — but I forbear — you
know what he can do in the newspapers. So beware, my dear boy! The
society will be immitigable. It will spare neither age nor sex, and will be
happiest when dancing a war-dance on the broken ties of friendship.

On second thought, however (the hat having meanwhile come back), I

still remain as always,

Affectionately yours,

J. R. L.

Barring this bit of fruitless brutality, the story is simply delightful.

Phillips Brooks to his mother.

Moscow, Aug. 18, 1872.
Dear Mother, —

Last Sunday when I wrote father, we were crossing the Gulf of Finland
making for St. Petersburg. We passed the great fortifications at Cron-
stadt, and landed at the city Sunday evening; the next three days I spent
in seeing the great capital. Everything in it is on a most enormous scale.

^ The Minister's Charge.

258 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

Its palaces, the biggest and most gorgeous ; its churches the richest ; its
squares the most magnificent in Europe. Its great church of St. Isaak is
a wonder of marble, gold, and jewels. It cost $ 35,000,000, or about one
hundred and fifty of Trinity. The picture gallery is one of the greatest in
the world, with pictures that one cannot see anywhere else. The whole
country about the city is full of magnificent palaces with splendid grounds
and fountains where one goes in the afternoon, and hears bands play in
the evening, and takes a quiet sail on the Neva back to St. Petersburg
with the moon shining on golden domes. What do you think of that .''

Grand as St. Petersburg is, it is only the vestibule to Moscow. You
come here by rail a long dreary ride of twenty hours, with poor sleeping
cars for which you pay fifteen dollars. This Russia is the most expensive
country I ever traveled in. But when you get here, you are in the midst
of picturesqueness such as you can see nowhere else. Think of three
hundred domes and spires, all different, all gold or silver, blue or green,
with golden stars, crosses, and crescents, and blazing under the intense sun
that beats down on this plain. Yesterday afternoon, I drove to a hill
near the city, the hill from which Napoleon first saw it, and the view, as it
lay glittering in the afternoon sun, was like fairyland. Then you step
inside a church or palace, and it is all brilliant with gold ; barbarous in
taste, but very gorgeous. The streets are full of splendor and squalidness,
all mixed together. First the grand coach and splendid horses of a noble-
man and then the wretched procession of convicts, chained together, men
and women, starting off on their long journey to Siberia. Everything has
the look of semi-civilization, exceedingly interesting, though not attractive ;
but a country with some vast future before it, certainly.

I hope you are all well ; but I have not heard yet, nor shall I for a
couple of weeks. I have been very unfortunate, but your letters at the
last must reach me at Copenhagen. The last tidings I had were dated
only a week after I sailed. It has detracted much from the pleasure of my
journey, which has otherwise been delightful. The weather here is ex-
quisite. I see no Americans and few English. I have been with an
Englishman, but leave him to-morrow to go to the Great Fair at Nijni-
Novgorod, where we have only the company of a French interpreter.
Thence in the last part of the week, I begin to turn my feet westward.
Next Sunday I shall probably write to you from somewhere outside of
Russia. . Love to all.

Yours affectionately,

Phillips.

LETTER WRITING

259

31 Lowndes Square, S.W.,
Oct. 9, 1884.
Dear Mrs. Clifford, —

. . . How delightful it is to have woman friends — they are such impar-
tial critics. No, I am not a genius, and very far from thinking myself one.
I was half meant for one, but only half. A genius has the gift of falling in
love with the side-face of truth, going mad for it, sacrificing all for it. But
1 must see the full face, and then the two sides have such different expres-
sions that I begin to doubt which is the sincere and cannot surrender
myself.

I was very sorry that I could not tea with you yesterday, but I got home
too late and fearfully tired. I shall try to find you this afternoon.

Yes, your note was a little extravagant, but I could not help liking it, all
the same. My address would have been far better if I had been plain
J. R. L. and not His Excellency.

Faithfully yours,

J. R. Lowell.

Deerfoot Farm,
Feb. 14, 1886.
My dear Valentine, —

Come to 68 Beacon Street Tuesday afternoon or late on Wednesday,
for I don't wish to miss you.

I ought to have said, but forgot it, that you will find plenty of authority
for in as you used it in our older writers. I remember it in Latimer (he
was burned alive for that among other heresies, however) and elsewhere.
But that sprang from a false analogy with the Latin, where the same prepo-
sition served both ends according to the case it governed. I believe some
grammars still give no cases, but we have at best only one distinctive case-
ending that I can think of — the genitive.

Affectionatelv vours,

J. R. Lowell.

My dear Pemberton, —

Don't be alarmed if you should hear of my having nearly blown the
top of my head off. Last Monday I had my face badly cut by the recoil
of an overloaded gun. I do not know yet beneath these bandages whether
I shall be permanently marked. At present I am invisible, and have tried
to keep the accident secret. When the surgeon was stitching me together,

26o PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

the son of the house, a boy of twelve, came timidly to the door of my room.
« Tell Mr. Bret Harte it's all right," he said ; " he killed the hare:'

Yours always,

Bret Harte.

Saranac Lake,
Oct. 1887.
My DEAR Henry James, —

This is to say. First, the voyage was a huge success. We all enjoyed
it (t)ar my wife) to the ground : sixteen days at sea with a cargo of hay,
matches, stallions, and monkeys, and in a ship with no style on, and plenty
of sailors to talk to, and the endless pleasure of the sea — the romance of
it, the sport of the scratch dinner and the smashing crockery, the pleasure
— an endless pleasure — of balancing to the swell : well, it's over.

Second, I had a fine time, rather a troubled one, at Newport and New
York ; saw much of and liked hugely the Fairchilds, St. Gaudens the
sculptor. Gilder of the Century — just saw the dear Alexander — saw a lot
of my old and admirable friend Will Low, whom I wish you knew and
appreciated — was medallioned by St. Gaudens and at last escaped.

Third, Saranac Lake, where we now are, and which I believe we mean
to like and pass the winter at. Our house — emphatically Baker's — is
on a hill, and has a sight of a stream turning a corner in the valley — bless
the face of running water ! — and sees some hills too, and the paganly pro-
saic roofs of Saranac itself; the Lake it does not see, nor do I regret that ;
I like water (fresh water I mean) either running swiftly among stones, or
else largely qualified with whisky. As I write, the sun (which has been
long a stranger) shines in at my shoulder ; from the next room, the bell of
Loyd's typewriter makes an agreeable music as it patters off (at a rate
which astonishes this experienced novelist) the early chapters of a humor-
ous romance ; from still farther off — the walls of Baker's are neither ancient
nor massive — rumors of Valentine about the kitchen stove come to my
ears ; of my mother and Fanny I hear nothing, for the excellent reason
that they have gone off, one to Niagara, one to Indianapolis. People com-
plain that I never give news in my letters. I have wiped out that reproach.
But now, fourth, I have seen the article ; and, it may be from natural par-
tiality, I think it the best you have written. Oh, I remember the Gautier,
which was an excellent performance ; and the Balzac, which was good ;
and the Daudet, over which I licked my chops ; but the R. L. S. is better
yet. It is so humorous and it hits my little frailties with so neat (and so

LETTER WRITING 261

friendly) a touch ; and Alan is the occasion for so much happy talk, and
the quarrel is so generously praised. I read it twice, though it was only
some hours in my possession ; and Low, who got it for me from the Cen-
tury^ sat up to finish it ere he returned it ; and, sir, we were all delighted.
Here is the paper out, nor will anything, not even friendship, not even
gratitude for the article, induce me to begin a second sheet ; so here with
the kindest remembrances and the warmest good wishes, I remain,

Yours affectionately,
R.L. S.

Elmwood, Cambridge, Mass.,
April 9, 1890.
Dear Mrs. Clifford, —

It was very good of you to be anxious about me, and I wish I could drop
in to ask you for a cup of coffee and thank you in person. That would be
delightful, but my gratitude must find vent in ink, which sometimes runs
cold in spite of us. Pen in hand, one hasn't always the courage of one's
feelings. Spoken words may be as warm as one likes — there is always
air enough to temper them to the right point. . . .

I have been really ill — six weeks on my back in bed, whither I refused
to go till I could sit up no longer. I couldn't conceive anything but Death
strong enough to throw me. And he did look in at the door once, they
tell me, when I was worst, but changed his mind and took his ugly mug
elsewhere.

I have now been mending for nearly three weeks, and begin once more
to have legs and things. But I have grown very weak, and am still very
easily tired. I have been out of doors thrice, once to bask for an hour in
the sun on the veranda, twice to crawl about a little — the last time for
nearly a hundred yards, one of the triumphs of pedestrianism. I am
bidden to recline as much as possible, and am on my back now in a chaise-
longue. The doctors say I must on no account venture across the water
this summer, and I myself haven't the courage, for I have had rather a
sharp warning that I am over forty — which I never believed before.
When you see me again I shall be an old man — that was a slip, I meant
to say " elderly,'' but it is out now, and I must make the best of it. I
shall be little better than a tame cat. You will stroke me in a pause of
your talk with some more suitable person, and I shall purr.

I couldn't endure my deprivation and did not think my renunciation this
year would ensure my coming next. Only by that time, I fear, you will

262 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

have forgotten me and wonder who I am when I caU. Please don't if you
can help it. And yet, if you have to make an effort, I shouldn't quite like
that either.

But I musn't write any more, for my head begins to grumble, and
already has the stitch in its side. Write when you happen to think of it.

Faithfully yours,

J. R. Lowell.

Yokohama, Oct. 29, 1894.
My dear Boys, —

We arrived here this morning at nine o'clock after twelve wretched
days, — a gale every day, — the roughest voyage, the captain says, that the
Empress of India has made in three years ! Your little mother and I
went to the table only once and were on deck only twice. . . . The day
before we sighted land, your mother and I suddenly recovered and had a
heavenly twenty-four hours. I can't tell you how glad we were to get on
shore. It was like getting into Paradise. Already that stormy ocean
seems like a dream. This is the loveliest place we ever saw. The little
houses are so funny and the little men and women moving about the
quaint streets look like figures from a chess board. I never saw anything
so curious as the streets. It is like being on the stage during a per-
formance of the "Mikado." The little Jap girls are awfully pretty and
do nothing but smile on us as they toddle by. We have had a delicious
breakfast and a long ride about town in 'rikishas — little two-wheeled
wagons drawn each by a little Jap who trots just like a pony and seems
never to get tired. The 'rikisha holds only one person, and costs 75 c.
per day ! A single course 10 c. It is perfectly charming to ride in
these toy carriages — they are set rather high, and I don't know what
would happen if the horse were to stumble. All the people are very gentle
and polite and soft-voiced. I think I should like to live in Japan. But
we haven't begun to see the best of it yet. We are told that we shall fall
wholly in love with Tokio, where we are to go in a few days in order to
attend the yearly garden party of the Emperor. I have written to our
Ambassador to obtain an invitation. We don't hear much about the war.
The Emperor doesn't allow correspondents to go with the army, so little
or nothing is known about the battles until the government gives out the
news. The harbor here is full of sunken torpedoes and our ship had to
be guided throu<i;h them by a Japanese gunboat. We have been wishing
all the morning that you two were with us, everything is so novel and

LETTER WRITING 263

fascinating. But you wouldn't have liked that sea voyage. I wouldn't
take it again for $5000. The Atlantic Ocean is an inland lake compared
with the Pacific. The fellow who named it the Pacific was a heartless

humorist. . . . Your mother and Miss have gone off in two

Vikishas on a shopping excursion, and I must end this in order to run
down to the pier and see the Empress of Japan start for Hong-Kong. We
made some lovely friends aboard — a Major Faithful in command of an
English regiment stationed at Hong-Kong, and two young English captains
sent over here to study the war.

Your ever affectionate

Father.

ToKio, Japan,
Nov. 7, 1894.
My dear Boys, —

Since I wrote you from Yokohama we have been traveling in the in-
terior of Japan. We have never been in a country so crowded with
novelty — the people, the streets, the manners, and the very scenery are
wholly unlike anything elsewhere. When we leave Japan at the end of
this month I fancy that we shall have left behind us the very best part of
our journey. We are spending a week here and are having a delightful
time. The night before last I went on a Japanese spree with a Mr. T.,
formerly of Boston, but now a permanent resident of Tokio, where he
dwells with Yum-yum in grand style. He invited me to a theater party —
five or six pretty Japanese ladies and two masculine Japs, none of whom
knew a word of English. But they were very charming and polite. I
went to the theater at six o'clock p.m. and witnessed the butt end of a play
that began at ten o'clock in the morning ! After the performance we took
Vikishas, each with its gaudy paper-lantern, and started for the tea house
some two miles distant. The ride through the streets under strings and
arcades of lanterns was a dream. I seemed to be wandering in fairyland.
At the tea house little Japanese women removed our shoes and gave us
slippers, for no one wears shoes within doors, where everybody sits on
the floor. We were shown into a room made of large screens and
carpeted with mats. The only furniture in this room was a nail, on
which I hung my hat — neither table nor chair. The supper, which
consisted of twelve elaborate courses, was served on trays placed on the
floor. Such food — green and purple fish, and meat black and red, and
straw-colored dishes composed of God knows what. Several of the

264 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

things were delicious, but the rest were like unpleasant drugs. While the
banquet was progressing three girls played on outlandish musical instru-
ments and three other maidens in beautiful costumes recited poems and
danced. The meal lasted two hours and a half, ending with sake^ a strong
native wine, and coffee. Then Yum-yum put on my shoes, bowed down
before me with her forehead on the matting, and a few minutes later I was
in my 'rikisha on the way through the lonely streets to our hotel. I didn't
have a headache, which I richly deserved, the next morning. I shouldn't
care to go to many such banquets, but it was well worth doing once. It
was a genuine page out of the Arabian Nights. It is impossible to
describe the wonders we have seen — the temples, the gardens, and
bazaars. On Friday, Nov. 9, we return to Yokohama, from which there
are several excursions to be made ; then we shall set out for Kobe, where
we are to take ship for Hong-Kong. The treaty ports of China are said to
be safe for Europeans, but the war fever increases as we go East and I'm
afraid that we shall not be allowed to visit Canton, which is a treaty port.
However, we intend to try it. . . .

Your affectionate

Father.

EXERCISE VI

1. Write to a classmate, describing a recent exciting game in which
your side won.

2. You are camping for the summer. Write to a friend, asking him
to join you for three or four weeks. Tell him what he will need during
his stay. Give him definite directions regarding his journey.

3. Write to a friend, inviting her to visit you. Describe three places
which you think she will enjoy seeing.

4. You have been delayed by a railroad accident in a small country
village overnight. Write a letter home, telling your experience.

5. Write to a friend who is confined to the house on account of an
accident. Tell him of two books that you are sending him, and give him
an amusing account of an accident that recently disabled you.

6. A member of the club to which you belong is away. Write him
a letter giving an account of an outing recently enjoyed by the club.

7. Your mother is away from home. Write a letter to her, telling
your experience as manager of the household.

8. a. Write to your cousin in a distant city, introducing a friend.

b. Write a letter to the friend, inclosing the letter of introduction.

LETTER WRITING 265

c. Write your cousin's letter in reply, telling how he likes your
friend and what he has done for your friend.

9. a. Write from camp to a friend, asking him to get some delicacies
and send them to your station.

b. Write the note that your friend will send, announcing that he
has started the goods to you.

c. Write a note to the station-agent, asking him to send the goods
on to you by stage when they arrive.

Postal Cards

Postal cards are not used in social correspondence ; but they
are useful in sending brief messages and greetings when one
is on a journey and nothing else is available. They are fre-
quently used by clubs to give notices of meetings. Figures
and abbreviations of places, of names of the months, and of
titles may be used. Terms of endearment should be avoided.
The salutation may be omitted.

Wilmington, Mass.,

July 2, 191 3.

We have arrived without any mishap, and the place looks
attractive.

I shall write a letter to-morrow.

Yours,

Helen F. Pratt.

>66 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

•

Warren

St., Roxbury,

Dec. 2, 1915.

The Committee on

the

Christmas en

tertainme

nt will meet at my

house next Thursday

evening at eight o

clock. I

mportant business

will be transacted.

Yours truly,

James

B. Cox, Sec'y.

42 India St., Boston, Mass.,

April 4, 191 4.

Dear Sir:

Our salesman,

Mr.

Kidder, will call on you

April 8th, with a full

line of samples of

summer goods.

You

rs truly.

■••■••

FiSKE,

Browning &. Co.

LETTER WRITING 267

Chelsea, Dec. 6th, 191 3.

A special meeting of the Women Workers will be held next

Thursday at 3 o'clock, to discuss the advisability of postponing the

Annual Supper.

Yours truly,

(Mrs.) Alice Burdett, Sec'y.

Boston, Oct. 8, 191 5.
Goods arrived in good condition.

Charles M. Day.

CHAPTER IX

RULES FOR SPELLING

Rule I. — Monosyllables ending in a single consonant
preceded by a single vowel double the final consonant before
a suffix beginning with a vowel.

bag

bag gage

bagged

clap

clapping

clapped

slip

slip ping

slip per

trim

trim ming

trimmed

wrap

wrap ping

wrapped

Rule II. — Polysyllables accented on the last syllable,
ending in a single consonant preceded by a single vowel,
double the final consonant before a suffix beginning with a
vowel.

ac quit

ac quit ting

ac quit ted

com pel

com pel ling

com pelled

con trol

con trol ling

con trolled

re fer

re fer ring

re ferred

sub mit

sub mit ting

sub mit ted

Note. — Polysyllables not accented on the last syllable, ending in a
single consonant preceded by a single vowel, do not double the final con-
sonant before a suffix beginning with a vowel.

bios som

bios som ing

bios somed

con sid er

con sid er ing

con sid ered

con quer

con quer ing

con quered

de vel op

de vel op ing

de vel oped

profit

profit ing

profited

Rule III. — Final silent e is dropped before a suffix
beginning with a vowel.

268

RULES FOR SPELLING 269

di vide di vi ding pur sue pur su ing

in ter fere in ter fer ing sup pose sup pos ing

per se vere per se ver ing

Exception I. — Final silent e preceded by ^ or ^ is retained before a
suffix beginning with a ox o\w order to preserve the soft sound.

ad van tage ad van ta geous peace peace a ble

dam age dam age a ble ser vice ser vice a ble

out rage out ra geous

Exceptio7i II. — Words ending in ie drop the e and change the / to/
before a suffix beginning with /.

die dy ing lie ly ing tie ty ing

• Exception III. — The following words retain final e before the suffix ing:

hoe hoe ing ' singe singe ing

shoe shoe ing tinge tinge ing

toe toe ing

Rule IV. — Final silent e is usually retained before a
suffix beginning with a consonant.

def i nite def i nite ly def i nite ness

en cour age en cour age ment

en force en force ment

en tire en tire ly

im me di ate im me di ate ly

lone lone ly lone li ness

Exception. — The following words drop final e before a suffix beginning
with a consonant :

ar gue ar gu ment due du ly

awe aw ful true tru ly

Rule V. — Use i before e except after c.

brief ceil ing niece re ceive

chief con ceit re lieve de ceit ful

hand ker chief con ceive yield re ceipt

270

PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

Rule VI. — The final letter of a word or prefix is usually
retained before the same letter in the suffix or root.

legal
il le gal

le gal ly
il le gal ly

sim i lar
solve

dis sim i lar
dis solve

Rule VII. — Final 7 preceded by a consonant is changed
into i before a suffix.

friend ly friend li ness

or di na ry or di na ri ly
mel o dv niel o di ous

read y

ac com pa ny

read i ly

ac com pa ni ment

Exception. — Final/ is retained before the suffix tng:

her ry ing
hur ry ing

mag ni fy ing
mul ti ply ing

tes ti fy ing

Rule VIII. — A prefix or a suffix ending in // usually
drops one /.

al to geth er
al ways

fulfil
truth ful

wel fare

JVote. — Credit is due to Daly's Rational Speller for some of the rules
for spelling.

ab bre vi a tion

ab so lute

a cad e my

ac cent

ac cept a ble

ac ci den tal

ac com mo date

ac com plish

ac cu rate

a chieve

ac knowl edg ment

ac quain tance

a cross

SPELLING LIST

ad dress

ad vance ment

ad van ta geous

a gree a ble

aisle

al lit er ation

all right

al read y

al ter nate

al though

al to geth er

am bi tious

an al y sis

an a lyze
an chor
an cient
an ec dote
an nounce
an nu al
an swer
an te ce dent
anx ious
a pos tro phe
ap pa ra tus
ap par ent
ap plaud

RULES FOR SPELLING

271

ap pre ci ate

bleach

civ i li za tion

ap prov al

book keep ing

clause

apron

bot a ny

clean li ness

ar chi tect

bou quet

cocoa

arc tic

bril liant

colo nel

ar gu ment

brit tie

CO lo ni al

ar range ment

bruise

com mer cial

ar ti cle

buoy ant

com mit tee

as sign

bu reau

com par a tive

as so ci ate

bus i ly

com pass

as sure

bus i ness

con ceal

ath let ic

con cede

at ten dance

cal cu late

con demn

au di ence

cal en dar

con fee tion er y

au thor i ty ^ _

cam paign

con science

au tumn

cam phor

con sci en tious

aux il i a ry

can eel

con scious

av er age

ca pa ble

con so nant

awk ward

cap tain

con ve nient

care less

con vey

bach e lor

car riage

cool ly

bal ance

car ry ing

cor dial

balky

cash ier

cor re spond ence

bal loon

cat a logue

coun ter feit

ba na na

cat a ract

cou ra geous^^

bap tize

cau tion

cour te ous

^ar gain

eel lar

cour te sy

bat tal ion

cham ois

cred it or

bay net

change a ble

cres cent

bea con

char ac ter

crit i cise

beau ti ful

chif fo nier

crys tal

be gin ning

chim ney

cus tom

be neath

chis el

cyl in der

ben e fi cial

choose

ben e fit

chron i cle

daily

bi cy cle

cir cuit

debt or

bis cuit

cir cu lar

de ceive

bla ma ble

cir cum fer ence

dec i mal

blame less

ci vil i ty

de clen sion

272

PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

de crease
de fi cient
de li cious
de liv er ance
de moc ra cy
de pos it
de scrip tion
de sign
de sir ous
de spair
des per ate
des troy
de ter mine
di am e ter
die tion a ry
differ ence
di lap i dat ed
diph the ri a
diph thong
dis ap pear ance
dis ap point
dis as trous
dis perse
di vis i ble
doc ile
du pli cate

ear nest

e clipse

ed i tor

eighth

e lee trie i ty

el i gi ble

el lipse

el o quence

em bar rass ment

em i grate

em ploy ee

cm ploy er

en cy clo pe di a

en deav or

en er gy

en gi neer

en thu si asm

ep och

e qual

e qual i ty

e qual ly

es sen tial

et i quette

ex ag ger ate

ex ceed

ex eel

ex eel lent

ex haust

ex pe ri ence

ex plain

ex pla na tion

ex plan a to ry

ex po si tion

ex treme ly

ex traor di na ry

fa cil i ty
fac tor
fac ul ty
fa mil iar
fas ci nate
fau cet
fi ber
flour ish
fore head
for eign
for feit
for got ten
friend ly

gaily
gaiety

gen er al ly

ge ni al

glac i er

gov em ment

grad ual

gram mar

grand daugh ter

gran deur

gran ite

guar an tee

guard i an

guest

guilty

gym na si um

gypsy

han die
heav y
height

hin drance ''
home ly
ho ri zon
hur ry ing
hy a cinth
hy dran ge a
hy dro gen
hymn
hy giene
hy phen

il lu mine
il lus trate
im ag i na tion
im mi grate
im par tial
im per a tive
in au gu rate
in CO her ent
in crease

RULES FOR SPELLING

273

in cred i ble

mas sa ere

ob ser vanee

in diet

med i cine

ob so lete

in di vid u al

me di e val

oc ca sion

in fin i tive

med ley

occur

in i tial

mel an chol y

oc cur rence

in nu mer a ble

mer chan dise

om e let

in sert

met a phor

paque

in ser tion

met on y my

op por tu ni ty

in tel lect

mi cro scope

op po si tion

in ter ro ga tion

mile age

or ches tra

is land

mis eel la ne ous

or di na ry

mis chie vous

ri ent

jeal ous

mod i fi er

ox y gen

jew el ry

mon syl la ble

jon quil

mort gage

par al lei

jour ney

mu tu al

par a graph

judge

mys ter y

pa ren the sis

judg ment

myth

par lia ment

juice

myth ol gy

par ti ci pie

jun ior

pat ent

keel

naph tha

pe nin su la

ker nel
kin die

nar ra tion

pen in su lar

nat u ral i za tion

per ceive

knack

ne ees si ty

per sist ence

knowl edsre

neg a tive

person ifi ca tion

1 * *

ne go ti ate

phy SI eian

label

neigh bor

phys i ol gy

lab ra to ry

nei ther

plan ning

lab y rinth

neph ew

pol y syl la ble

league

neu ter

pos ses sion

leg is la ture

niece

post pone

lei sure

nom i na tive

poul try

let tuce

no tice a ble

prai rie

li bra ry

nour ish

pre cede

lieu ten ant

nu mer al

pre ce dent

lit er a ture

nymph

prec i pice
pred i cate

man age a ble

be di ent

pre fer

ma noeu ver

ob lique

prep a ra tion

274

PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

prep si tion

scis sors

ta bleau

pres i dent

scru pu Ious

tel e graph

priv i lege

sec re ta ry

there fore

pro ceed

se cu ri ty

ther mom e ter

pro fess or

seize

thor ough

psalm

sep a rate

through

pulse

ser geant

tough

punc tu al

serv ice a ble

trag e dy

pur suit

shep herd

treas ur y

shi ning

tri umph

qual i fy

shoul der

tru Iv

ques tion

siege

twelfth

quo ta tion

sim i le

typ ic al

rasp ber ry

sit u a tion

tyr an ny

re al i ty

sketch

re al ly
re ceive

skill ful

um brel la

sleigh

up right

rec og nize

so cial

un til

reg u lar

sol dier

re hearse

sol emn

vague

re li ance

sov er eign

va lise

re lig ious

spin ach

val u a ble

re lieve

stom ach

veg e ta ble

rem e dy

strength en

ve loc i ty

re mem brance

sub or di nate

ver ti cal

res er voir

sub Stan tial

vil lage

re sist ance

sue cess ful

vine yard

re spon si ble

suf fi cient

vi lence

rhet ric

sug gest

vis i ble

rhyme

su per in tend ent

vol un ta ry

rib bon

sur geon

right eous

syl la ble

weap on

^ sym met ri cal

weary

safe ly

sym pa thy

weird

safe ty

syn ec do che

wher ev er

sal a ry

syn nym

whis tie

salm on

syn op sis

whith er

scheme

sur prise

whole sale

sci en tif ic

sys tern

whole some

RULES FOR SPELLING

275

wors ted

yacht

wrath

yeast

wreath

youth fill

wrist

•

Distinguish

between the following

ad vice

cur rant

ad vise

cur rent

ac cept

fi nal ly

ex cept

fine ly

breadth

form al ly

breath

for mer ly

breathe

freeze

cap i tal

frieze

cap i tol

knead

cloth

need

clothe
clothes

knew

new

com pie ment
com pli ment

know

coun cil

con sul

later

coun sel

lat ter

zeal

ze nith
zeph yr
zo ol o gy

prin ci pal
prin ci pie

qui et
quite

sta tion a ry
sta tion e ry

stat ue
stat ure
stat ute

their
there

too
two

weath er
wheth er

CHAPTER X
EXPOSITION

Exposition is the kind of speech or of writing that makes
clear the meaning of terms or of propositions.

The purpose of exposition is to convey ideas with such
clearness and exactness that they cannot be misunderstood.
Excepting as exposition occurs in oratory and in persuasion,
it usually appeals to the intellect rather than to the emotions.
Whatever may be explained or commented upon is material
for exposition.

Explanation by Synonym. — The simplest form of exposi-
tion is explanation by synonym (sometimes called definition
by synonym); i.e., the explanation of a term by means of
another term that will be more easily understood by the per-
son addressed ; as, for example, to comprehend means to
grasp with the mind ; to like means to have a taste for ;
likeness means similarity. More frequently, however, ex-
position takes the form of extended explanation.

Extended Explanation. — Many words and statements are
so complex in nature or so rich in meaning that they cannot
be explained in a single word or phrase. They can be made
clear only by means of analysis or of illustrations or com-
parisons given at some length and familiar to the person
addressed. Exposition developed by details is extended
explanation.

Read the following expositions :

1. More than two thousand years ago Hero of Alexandria produced the
first apparatus to which the name of steam engine could rightly be given.

276

EXPOSITION 277

Its principle was practically the same as that of the revolving jet used to
sprinkle lawns during dry weather, steam being used in the place of water.
From the top of a closed caldron rose two vertical pipes, which at their
upper ends had short, right angle bends. Between them was hung a hollow
globe, pivoted on two short tubes projecting from its sides into the upright
tubes. Two little L-shaped pipes projected from opposite sides of the
globe, at the ends of a diameter, in a plane perpendicular to the axis. On
fire being applied to the cauldron, steam was generated. It passed up
through the upright, through the pivots, and into the globe, from which it
escaped by the two L-shaped nozzles, causing rapid revolution of the ball.
In short, the first steam engine was a turbine.

— The Steatn Turbine, Archibald Williams.

After introducing the subject, the author at once makes
clear the principle of the first steam engine by an example
of the working of the principle familiar to nearly every one.
He follows this by an explanation of the mechanism of the
engine, so simple and so clear that any one can understand
it, and then ends by classifying the machine as a primitive
form of what every one knows to be the most highly devel-
oped modern engine. The language used is a help to a clear
understanding of the subject because it is the familiar lan-
guage of everyday life.

2. He (Charles the Fifth) was an enormous eater. He breakfasted at
five, on a fowl seethed in milk and dressed with sugar and spices. After
this he went to sleep again. He dined at twelve, partaking always of
twenty dishes. He supped twice, at first soon after vespers, and the sec-
ond time at midnight or one o'clock, which meal was, perhaps, the most
solid of the four. After meat he ate a great quantity of pastry and sweet-
meats, and he irrigated every repast by vast draughts of beer and wine.
His stomach, originally a wonderful one, succumbed after forty years of
such labors. — The Rise of the Dutch Republic, Motley.

The proposition, ** Charles the Fifth was an enormous
eater," is made so vivid as to be unforgettable by exhibiting
to the reader the amount and the richness of the food eaten,
the frequency of the meals, and the duration and the final

278 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

effect of Charles's gluttony. The magnitude of the gluttony
is emphasized by words which tell with exactness the kind of
food and the number of dishes and of meals, and which sug-
gest the consuming of amounts of food almost incredibly large.

3. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have
not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries,
and all knowledge ; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove
mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.

And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give
my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

Charity suffereth long, and is kind ; charity envieth not ; charity vaunteth
not itself, is not puffed up.

Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily pro-
voked, thinketh no evil ;

Rejoiceth not m iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth ;

Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all
things.

Charity never faileth : but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail ;
whether there be tongues, they shall cease ; whether there be knowledge,
it shall vanish away.

For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.

But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall
be done away.

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I
thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

For now we see through a glass, darkly ; but then face to face ; now I
know in part ; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three ; but the greatest of
these is charity. — i Cor. 13, The Bible.

This selection explains the meaning of the term '* charity "
by comparing the worth of "charity" with that of the powers
and qualities very highly valued by the people for whom the
address was prepared ; by pointing out twelve familiar ways
in which " charity " expresses itself ; by emphasizing by
comparisons the lastingness which is the unique element in

EXPOSITION

279

the value of " charity " ; and, lastly, by emphasizing the
supreme worth of " charity " as compared with other things
which endure. The language used is simple and clear, the
comparisons being made in phrases that particularly appealed
to the people addressed.

Each of these expositions begins with a statement which
indicates the subject to be explained. Each exposition is
developed by just those details which are essential to the
understanding of the subject. In each exposition the details
are arranged in the order which gives an increasingly clear
understanding of the subject. Each exposition ends with a
true conclusion. In all of the expositions, the words in which
the ideas are expressed are, with few exceptions, words com-
monly used by the majority of people. In each exposition,
the words used are words which are particularly fitted to
explain the subject to the people for whom the article was
prepared.

SUMMARY

To write extended explanation:

1. At the beginning, introduce the subject, define its scope, and sug-

gest in a general way the point to be made.

2. Develop the explanation by the details essential to a clear and

exact understanding of the subject.

3. Arrange the details in the order that gives an exact and increas-

ingly clear understanding of the subject.

4. Conclude with a statement that rounds out and completes the

subject.

5. Express the ideas in language that is exact and vivid in sugges-

tion and that is famiUar to the person addressed.

EXERCISE I

Read carefully the following expositions :

I. There is a form of sea roving which has been at times not very
different from piracy ; it is called privateerings and history shows a good
many cases where it has degenerated into sea robbery pure and simple.

28o PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

A privateer is a ship, owned by a private citizen or citizens, to which
authority is given by the government to act as an independent war vessel.
Its commission is called a " letter of marque '' {lettre de marque^ in French),
entitling it to " take, burn, and destroy " a certain enemy's property on the
sea or in its ports. It has no right, of course, to attack any one else.

— The Book of the Ocean, Ingersoll.

2. On a typical day during this backward march we would leave camp
at about 6.40 a.m., and half an hour later would have recovered our frost-
bitten fingers, while the moisture on our clothes, melted in the sleeping
bags, would have begun to abate, after having first frozen hard. We would
be beginning to march with some degree of comfort, and one of us would
remark, •' Well, boys, what are we going to have for breakfast to-day ? ''
We had just finished our breakfast as a matter of fact, consisting of half a
pannikin of semi-raw horse meat, one biscuit and a half and a pannikin of
tea, but the meal had not taken the keenness from our appetites. We used
to try to persuade ourselves that our half biscuit was not quite half, and
sometimes we managed to get a little bit more that way. The question
would receive our most serious and careful consideration at once, and we
would proceed to weave from our hungry imaginations a tale of a day spent
in eating. " Now we are on board ship," one man would say. "We wake
up in a bunk, and the first thing we do is to stretch out our hands to the
side of the bunk and get some chocolate, some Garibaldi biscuits, and some
apples. Breakfast will be at eight o'clock, and we will have porridge, fish,
bacon and eggs, cold ham, plum pudding, sweets, fresh roll and butter,
marmalade and coffee. At eleven o'clock we will have hot cocoa, open jam
tarts, fried cod's roe, and slices of heavy plum cake. That will be all until
lunch at one o'clock. For lunch we will have Wild roll, shepherd's pie, fresh
soda bread, hot milk, treacle pudding, nuts, raisins, and cake. After that
we will turn in for a sleep, and we will be called at 3.45, when we will
reach out again from the bunks and have doughnuts and sweets. We
will get up then and have big cups of hot tea and fresh cake and chocolate
creams. Dinner will be at six, and we will have thick soup, roast beef and
Yorkshire pudding, cauliflower, peas, asparagus, plum pudding, fruit, apple
pie with thick cream, scones and butter, port wine, nuts, and almonds and
raisins. Then at midnight we will have a really big meal, just before we go
to bed. There will be melon, grilled trout and butter sauce, roast chicken
with plenty of livers, a proper salad with eggs and very thick dressing,
green peas and new potatoes, a saddle of mutton, fried suet pudding, peaches
h la Melba, egg curry, plum pudding and sauce, Welsh rabbit. Queen's

EXPOSITION 281

pudding, angels on horseback, cream cheese and celery, fruit, nuts, port
wine, milk, and cocoa. Then we will go to bed and sleep till breakfast
time. We will have chocolate and biscuits under our pillows, and, if we
want anything to eat in the night, we will just have to get it.'' Three of us
would listen to this program and perhaps suggest amendments and im-
provements, generally in the direction of additional dishes, and then an-
other one of us would take up the running and sketch another glorious day
of feeding and sleeping. — In the Heart of the Antarctic^ Shackleton.

In each of the expositions :

a. Quote the words which state the subject.

b. Tell what each detail contributes to the clear understanding of the

subject.

c. Show that the order in which the details are given helps to a clear

understanding of the subject.

d. Quote the words which explain the subject : ( i ) by stating exactly ;

(2) by suggesting vividly, although not stating exactly.

THEME I

1. Explain the principle of action of each object in each of the follow-
ing groups of objects :

(i) Balloon, plow, shovel, top, tilt, scissors.

(2) Kitchen stove, egg beater, carpet sweeper, pump.

(3) Vacuum cleaner, mowing machine, cultivator, typewriter.

(4) Piano, flute, violin, loom, lobster pot, life boat.

2. Write an exposition in which you express clearly and definitely
your opinion as to a marked characteristic of some person, animal, place,
material, or object.

3. Write an exposition in which you express your opinion as to the
nature and the practical value of some quality of character, such as pluck,
perseverance, love of fun, endurance, agreeableness.

In each of your expositions :

a. In what words have you indicated your subject ?

b. What information essential to a clear understanding of the subject

is given by each detail ?

c. How does the order in which you have presented details increase

the clearness of understanding of the subject?

d. What words in your theme form a true conclusion ?

282 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

e. Which of the words that you have used explain the meaning of the
subject: (i) by stating exactly ; (2) by suggesting vividly with-
out stating exactly?

Common Varieties of Extended Explanation. — There are
several common varieties of extended explanation.

The Explanation of a Process. — One of the varieties of ex-
tended explanation most frequently used is the exposition of
a process.

Read the following expositions :

I. The Spartans . . . could maintain their rule only by making of them-
selves a standing army and by keeping up a constant military training.
Every Spartan must have a sound body to begin with. The father brought
his boy soon after birth to the elders of his tribe ; and if they found him
puny and ill-shaped, they ordered him to be exposed to death in a chasm
of the mountains near by, but if they judged the boy strong and healthy,
they assigned him a lot of land for his keeping. The Spartan boy was to
his seventh year in the care of his mother ; then the state took charge
of his education, and placed him in a company of lads under a trainer.
From the age of twelve he must gather reeds for his own bed from the
banks of the Eurotas, and must learn to live without underclothing and
to go barefoot winter and summer. Every year the boys must give a test
of their endurance by submitting to a whipping before the altar of the
Goddess Artemis, and he was the hero who could endure the flogging
longest. Boys, youths, and young men were organized in troops, and com-
panies, and exercised in marching, sham fighting, and gymnastics. They
were taught to hunt and to be nimble and cunning, but their only mental
culture was in music and poetry. The whole object of their education was
to make brave, strong, and well-disciplined soldiers.

— A History of Greece^ Botsford.

The process by which the Spartans became a nation of
soldiers is made clear by telling how they selected children
suitable for citizenship and provided for their support, by
indicating how the children were cared for until fit to undergo
training, by giving examples of the kind of training typical of
the Spartan method of developing endurance and skill.

EXPOSITION 283

2. After days of excitement and danger and after months of weary,
iTionotonous toil, the chosen ground is reached and the final camp pitched.
The footsore animals are turned loose to shift for themselves, outlying
camps of two or three men each being established to hem them in. Mean-
while the primitive ranchhouse, outbuildings, and corrals are built, the
unhewn cottonwood logs being chinked with moss and mud, while the
roofs are of branches covered with dirt, spades and axes being the only
tools needed for the work. Bunks, chairs, and tables are all home made
and as rough as the houses they are in. The supplies of coarse, rude food
are carried perhaps two or three hundred miles from the nearest town,
either in the ranch wagons or else by some regular freighting outfit, the
huge canvas-topped prairie schooners, each of which is drawn by several
yoke of oxen, or perhaps by six or eight mules. To guard against the
numerous mishaps of prairie travel, two or three of these prairie schooners
usually go together, the brawny teamsters, known either as " bull-whack-
ers" or as "mule-skinners," stalking beside their slow-moving teams.

The small outlying camps are often tents, or mere dugouts in the
ground. But at the main ranch there will be a cluster of log buildings,
including a separate cabin for the foreman or ranchman ; often another in
which to cook and eat ; a long house for the men to sleep in ; stables,
sheds, a blacksmith's shop, etc., — the whole group forming quite a little
settlement, with the corrals, the stacks of natural hay, and the patches of
fenced land for gardens or horse pastures. This little settlement may be
situated right out in the treeless, nearly level open, but much more often is
placed in the partly wooded bottom of a creek or river, sheltered by the
usual background of somber brown hills.

— Ranch Life of the Hunting Camp^ Roosevelt.

The formation of a winter camp for ranchmen is made
clear by showing how the cattle are cared for, how the camp
is constructed, how it is suppUed with necessities, and what it
is Hke when finished.

3. Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly
on the tongue : but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as
lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with
your hand, thus ; but use all gently : for in the very torrent, tempest, and,
as I may say, whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a
temperance that may give it smoothness. Be not too tame neither, but let

284 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

your own discretion be your tutor : suit the action to the word, the word to
the action ; with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty
of nature : for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose
end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up
to nature. — Hamlet, Shakespeare.

Instruction in acting is here given by telling what to do,
what not to do, and what the purpose and the end of acting
is.

Each of these expositions explains a process by develop-
ing the essential steps of the process in the order in which
they must be performed to make the process successful and
by stating at the end what the final outcome of the process
ought to be.

SUMMARY I

To explain a process :

1. Decide upon the steps necessary to work out the process.

2. Develop each step by essential details.

3. Give the steps in the order in which they must be performed

to make the process successful.

4. State at the end what the outcome of the process ought to be.

EXERCISE II

Read carefully the following expositions :

I. As soon as the ice was strong enough to bear in the bay, Murray
commenced his operations there. His object was the collection of the
ditTerent marine creatures that rest on the bottom of the sea or creep about
there, and he made extensive preparations for their capture. A hole was
dug through the ice and a trap let down to the bottom ; this trap was
baited with a piece of penguin or seal, and the shell-fish, Crustacea, and
other marine animals found their way in through the opening in the top,
and the trap was usually left down for a couple of days. When it was
hauled up, the contents were transferred to a tin containing water and
then taken to the hut and thawed out, for the contents always froze during
the quarter of a mile walk homeward. As soon as the animals thawed
out they were sorted into bottles and then killed by various chemicals,
put into spirits and bottled up for examination when they reached Eng-
land. — In the Heart of the Antarctic, Shackleton.

EXPOSITION 285

2. Partridges, ducks, quail, and other wild fowl are most delicious when
cooked in the ashes. The bird should be drawn in the ordinary manner,
and the inside washed perfectly clean. It should be embedded in the hot
coals and ashes, the feathers having been previously saturated with water.
When done, the skin and feathers will easily peel off and the flesh will be
found to be wonderfully sweet, tender, and juicy. A stuffing of pounded
crackers and minced meat of any kind, with plenty of seasoning, greatly im-
proves the result, or the Indian meal may be used if desired. A fowl thus
roasted is a rare delicacy. — Ca)np Life a?id the Tricks of Trapping, Gibson.

In each selection :

a. Quote the words that first indicate the result to be accomplished.

b. State the number and the nature of the details which form the pro-

cess by which the result is accomplished.

c. Explain why the details are presented in the given order.

d. Quote the words that suggest the exact outcome of the process.

THEME II

1. Explain a process which you have used in making some article, such
as a trap, a book rack, a plant stand, a bracket, a basket, a piece of fancy
work, an article of clothing.

2. Explain the method of using a meat chopper, a plow, a telephone.

3. Explain the method: (i) of harnessing a horse; (2) of setting a
table ; (3) of dusting a room ; (4) of building a camp fire.

4. Explain a successful method (i) of teaching a pet animal how to
perform a trick ; (2) of breaking in a colt ; (3) of sailing a boat ; (4)
of running a motor car.

5. Explain the usual method: (i) of laying a track; (2) of harvesting
grain.

In each of your compositions :

a. What words introduce the subject ?

b. In what way is each of the details essential to the accomplishing

of the desired end ?

c. How w'ould a change in the order in which the details are pre-

sented affect the clearness of the impression made upon the
listener or the reader ?

d. In what words have you made clear the final outcome of the

process ?

286 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

The Giving of Instructions or Directions. — A slightly differ-
ent variety of extended explanation is the giving of instruc-
tions, or directions.

Read the following exposition :

Headquarters, Red Army,

Aug. 12, '09, 10 P.M.

General Tasker H. Bliss,

Commanding ist Division, ist Corps,
Red Army.

General — It is reported that the enemy is concentrating militia and a
small force of regular troops for the defense of the Boston-Narragansett
District. Reliable information received through our spies indicates that
the fortifications in these districts are too strong to be carried by direct
assault.

Our main army is already mobilized, and its concentration is nearing
completion. Reinforcements will follow you as rapidly as our transport
service will permit.

It is desired that you take full advantage of the victory gained by our
navy. To this end you will press forward as rapidly as possible, land your
command, and turn the enemy^s fortifications from the rear. Endeavor to
capture and hold a good base for subsequent extensive land operations of
our armies.

To secure the greatest degree of mobility the transportation and
baggage of your command will be reduced to a minimum.

Captain Gulick, commanding your naval escort, has been directed to co-
operate with you.

Very respectfully,

Leonard Wood,

Major-General, Commanding.

Characterization. — Another variety of extended explana-
tion frequently found is exposition of character, or character-
ization. A characterization may point out the peculiarities
of an individual, of a class, or of a people.

Read the following expositions:

I. Oriental despots are perhaps the worst class of human beings; and
this unhappy boy (Surajah Dowlah) was one of the worst specimens of his

EXPOSITION 287

class. His understanding was naturally feeble and his temper naturally
unamiable. His education had been such as would have enervated even a
vigorous intellect and perverted even a generous disposition. He was
unreasonable because nobody ever dared to reason with him, and selfish,
because he had never been made to feel himself dependent on the good
will of others. Early debauchery had unnerved his body and his mind.
He indulged immoderately in the use of ardent spirits, which inflamed his
weak brain almost to madness. His chosen companions were flatterers,
sprung from the dregs of the people and recommended by nothing but
buffoonery and servility. It is said that he had arrived at that last stage
of human depravity, when cruelty becomes pleasing for its own sake, when
the sight of pain as pain, where no advantage is to be gained, no offense
punished, no danger averted, is an agreeable excitement. It had early
been his amusement to torture beasts and birds ; and when he grew up
he enjoyed with still keener relish the misery of his fellow-creatures.

— Lord Clive, Macaulay.

The qualities of character that distinguished Surajah
Dowlah are brought out, first, by giving him the character-
istics peculiar to his class and stating his place in that class ;
next, by showing how he came to have his qualities through
his natural inclination and his education, and the habits that
grew out of them ; last, by giving as conclusion a trait which
is evidence of perfect wickedness.

The qualities are presented in the order of their develop-
ment. They are expressed in clear, specific words, many of
which state a high degree of badness. The quaUties are fur-
ther emphasized by means of suggested comparisons with
their direct opposites.

2. Whatever Blaisdell undertook was initiated by pressing an electric
button in his inner ofiice. Through it and the telephone he aspired to rule
the world. Sooner or later there appeared his financial factotum, his
political man of all work, or whichever one of his salaried agents he
desired to consult. They were like so many stops in an organ ; he had
but to finger them in order to test and play on public sentiment. Through
them he had out feelers in diverse directions. His agents kept henchmen
on the lookout for promising investments, henchmen whose duty it was to

288 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

see that accommodating candidates were elected to the Legislature, hench-
men charged with the discovery of impecunious noblemen desirous to part
with artistic masterpieces. Blaisdell sitting in his inner sanctum was in
virtual touch with many corners of the earth.

— The Chippendales, Robert Grant.

The type of man that Blaisdell represents is set forth by-
showing the ends which Blaisdell wished to gain and the
methods which he used and permitted others to use in accom-
plishing his ends. A general idea of Blaisdell as a man of
affairs is first given by stating his usual method of beginning
business operations. This impression is deepened by sug-
gesting his overwhelming ambition, the variety and the extent
of his interests, the magnitude of the system of which he was
the center, and the unscrupulous methods which he required
his underlings to use. The impression is fixed by a conclud-
ing statement of the far-reaching effect of Blaisdell's power.

The details are presented in the order which, by giving,
first, the motive for action, second, the direction of effort,
third, the method of work, and fourth, the result, gives clearly
a sense of the enlarging scope of Blaisdell's influence.

The details are expressed in language which includes a
large proportion of words suggestive of interest in large
financial deals.

3. I come last to the character and ways of the Americans themselves,
in which there is a certain charm, hard to convey by description, but felt
almost as soon as one sets foot on their shore, and felt constantly there-
after. They are a kindly people. Good nature, heartiness, a readiness to
render small services to one another, an assumption that neighbors in the
country, or persons thrown together in travel, or even in a crowd, were
meant to be friendly rather than hostile to one another, seem to be every-
where in the air and in those who breathe it. Sociability is the rule, isola-
tion and moroseness the rare exception. It is not merely that people are
more vivacious or talkative than an Englishman expects to find them, for
the Western man is often taciturn and seldom wreathes his long face into

EXPOSITION 289

a smile. It is rather that you feel that the man next you, whether silent or
talkative, does not mean to repel intercourse, or convey by his manner his
low opinion of his fellow-creatures. Everybody seems disposed to think
well of the world and its inhabitants, well enough at least to wish to be on
easy terms with them and serve them in those little things whose trouble
to the doer is small in proportion to the pleasure they give to the receiver.
To help others is better recognized as a duty than in Europe. Nowhere is
money so readily given for any public purpose ; nowhere, I suspect, are
there so many acts of private kindness done, such, for instance, as paying
the college expenses of a promising boy, or aiding a widow to carry on her
husband's farm ; and these are not done with ostentation. People seem to
take their own troubles more lightly than they do in Europe, and to be more
indulgent to the faults by which troubles are caused. It is a land of hope,
and a land of hope is a land of good humor. And they have also, though
this is a quality more perceptible in women than in men, a remarkable
faculty for enjoyment, a power of drawing more happiness from obvious
pleasures, simple and innocent pleasures, than one often finds in over-
burdened Europe. — The American Commo)iwealth, Bryce.

The character of the American people is made clear by
first naming the effect, ** a certain charm," which they pro-
duce upon a stranger, and by then discussing the qualities
which help to produce this effect. The quahties are taken
in the order in which they would be noticed by a stranger.
They are expressed in language which makes an abstract
idea interesting and definite by means of words and phrases
that are familiar to every class of readers among English-
speaking people.

Each of these expositions begins by introducing the person
or persons to be characterized and suggesting the quality of
character to be brought out. Each is developed by the de-
tails best suited to bring out the quality in question, given in
the order best suited to strengthen belief in the quality in
question. Each is told in words suggestive of the environ-
ment of the character as well as of the quality to be brought
out.

290 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

SUMMARY II

To write a characterization :

1. Name the person to be characterized and indicate the quality of

character to be brought out.

2. Develop the theme by the details best suited to bring out this

quality.

3. Present characteristics in the order in which they developed, in

the order in which they would be noticed, or in the order of
increasing importance.

4. Use words suited to the subject and suggestive to the person

addressed.

EXERCISE III

Read the following expositions :

I. Among the people whom one must miss out of one's life, dead, or
worse than dead, by the time one is fifty-four, I can only say, for my own
part, that the one I practically and truly miss most, next to father and
mother (and putting losses of imaginary good out of the question), was
a " menial," my father's nurse and mine. She was one of our many —
our many being always but few — and from her girlhood to her old age
the entire ability of her life was given to serving us. She had a natural
gift and specialty for doing disagreeable things ; above all, the service of a
sick-room ; so that she was never quite in her glory unless some of us
were ill. She had also some parallel specialty for saying disagreeable
things ; and might be relied upon to give the extremely darkest view of
any subject before proceeding to ameliorative action upon it. And she
had a very creditable and republican aversion to doing immediately, or in
set terms, as she was bid ; so that when my mother and she got old to-
gether and my mother became very imperative and particular about having
her teacup set on one side of her little round table, Anne would observ-
antly and punctiliously put it always on the other ; which caused my
mother to state to me, every morning after breakfast, gravely, that if ever
a woman in this world was possessed by the Devil, Anne was that woman.
But in spite of these momentary and petulant aspirations to liberty and
independence of character, poor Anne remained verily servile in soul all
her days, and was altogether occupied from the age of fifteen to seventy-
two, in doing other people's wills instead of her own, and seeking other
people's good instead of her own ; nor did I ever hear on any occasion of
her doing harm to a human being, except by saving two hundred and some

EXPOSITION 291

odd pounds for her relations ; in consequence of which some of them, after
her funeral, did not speak to the rest for several months.

— Fors Clavigera, Ruskin.

2. By the untimely death of Frederic Remington, at the age of forty-
eight, the country loses an artist whose talents were devoted to the graphic
delineation of the American Indian, the American soldier, and the Ameri-
can cowboy, three types with which his name will be honorably associated.
He took for his chosen and congenial field the plains and desert regions of
the Far West, and the historic value of his pictorial records must be
enhanced materially by the changing conditions which, in a relatively
short time, will make the scenes and personages with which he dealt a part
of ancient history. His pencil has always been animated by a spirit of
vivid reality and veracity, and what might have struck the conventional
mind of an observer accustomed to the pictorial traditions of a generation
ago as hopelessly crude and ugly material was treated by him with so much
freshness and originality and zest, with such an uncompromising natural-
ism, that its essential truthfulness obtained recognition and approval.

The soldier, the cowboy, and the Indian, in their own habitual environ-
ment, have a picturesqueness which might be described as of an unexpected
quality ; and it was precisely this novel quality which Remington per-
ceived and expressed. It is certain that there was crudeness in it, both as
to local color and costume and the human type ; but to extenuate this
would have been entirely foreign to the artist's nature and purposes. His
art was masculine and aggressively modern, and it had, in an unusual
measure, the qualities of its defects. It was conceived without any
thought of pleasing a dilettante taste ; on the contrary, there may have
been a touch of the juvenile willingness to shock the tradition-bound mind.
This was but a part of the tremendous vitality and exuberant enthusiasm of
the man for the bigness and freedom of the West, its landscape and its
people, as he knew them. His vigor and virility spent themselves on
thoroughly congenial motives ; it was the strenuous life of the open that
appealed to him. His romance was somewhat hidden under his external
style of raw matter-of-fact description, but it was there all the same, for
those who had enough imagination to perceive it. Even the strange, dis-
cordant, hot coloring of the landscape of the Southwest, not so beautiful as
it is impressive, not so harmonious as it is prodigious, found in him its
interpreter, resolved to set it forth without any extenuation.

Remington had in excess the courage of his convictions, which were
not in all cases in line with sound aesthetic principles ; but, as he was true

292

PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

to his own ideals and his own purposes, and possessed a temperament
abounding in enthusiasm and ardor, his appeal to the public was strong
and his hold on popular approval was unquestionably great. As an illus-
trator of life in the West, one might or might not like Remington, but it
was impossible to overlook him. That he had power, that he told a story
well and that he represented something new in his own way sufficiently
explains the importance of the man. — Boston Transcript.

3. The Adelie is always comical. He pops out of the water with
startling suddenness, like a jack-in-the-box, alights on his feet, gives his
tail a shake, and toddles off about his business. He always knows where
he wants to go, and what he wants to do, and isn't easily turned aside
from his purpose. — In the Heart of the Antarctic^ Shackleton.

4. The advancing frontiers of American civilization have always nur-
tured a class of men of striking and peculiar character. The best
examples of this character have, perhaps, been found among the settlers of
western Virginia and the hardy progeny who have sprung from that
generous stock. The Virginian frontiersman was, as occasion called, a
farmer, a hunter, and a warrior, by turns. The well-beloved rifle was
seldom out of his hand ; and he never deigned to lay aside the fringed
frock, moccasins, and Indian leggins which formed the appropriate cos-
tume of the forest ranger. Concerning the business, pleasures, and re-
finements of cultivated life, he knew little and cared nothing ; and his
manners were usually rough and obtrusive to the last degree. Aloof from
mankind, he lived in a world of his own, which, in his view, contained all
that was deserving of admiration and praise. He looked upon himself and
his compeers as models of prowess and manhood, nay, of all that is elegant
and polite ; and the forest gallant regarded with peculiar complacency his
own half-savage dress, his swaggering gait, and his backwoods jargon.
He was willful, headstrong, and quarrelsome ; frank, straightforward, and
generous ; brave as the bravest, and utterly intolerant of arbitrary control.
His self-confidence mounted to audacity. Eminently capable of heroism,
both in action and endurance, he viewed every species of effeminacy with
supreme contempt ; and, accustomed as he was to entire self-reliance, the
mutual dependence of conventional life excited his especial scorn. With
all his ignorance, he had a mind by nature quick, vigorous, and penetrat-
ing ; and his mode of life, while it developed the daring energy of his
character, wrought some of his faculties to a high degree of acuteness.
Many of his traits have been reproduced in his offspring. From him have
sprung those hardy men whose struggles and sufferings on the bloody

EXPOSITION 293

ground of Kentucky will always form a striking page in American histor}' ;
and that band of adventurers before whose headlong charge, in the valley
of Chihuahua, neither breastworks, nor batteries, nor fivefold odds could
avail for a moment. — The Conspiracy of Fontiac^ Parkman.

5. " He was a rogue, and the worst sort of rogue — a chapel-going,
preaching, generous-handed, warm-hearted rogue. Such men are thieves
of virtue. 'Tis an infamous story."

The lawyer stared, and Humphrey continued :

"Such men are robbers, I tell you — robbers of more than money and
widows' houses. They are always seeming honest, and never being so.
They run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. They get the benefit
of being rogues, and the credit of honest men. They are imitation good
men, and at heart know not the meaning of real goodness. They have
the name of being generous and kind — they are neither. Look what this
man has left behind him — blessings turned to curses. All a sham and a
lifelong theft of men's admiration and esteem — a theft ; for he won it by
false pretenses and lived a lie."

— The Three Brothers^ Eden Phillpotts.

In each selection :

a. Quote the words which introduce the subject and define its scope.

b. Quote the words which indicate in a general way the point to be

made.

c. Enumerate the details by which the exposition is developed.

d. Show that the final statement is a true conclusion of the theme.

e. Show in what way the order in which the details are presented

helps to make the thought clear.
f. Quote the words which state characteristics exactly or suggest
them vividly.

THEME III

1. Write an exposition of the character of some person whom you know
well, who has some marked characteristic or characteristics.

2. Write an exposition in which you characterize a person whom you
know and whom you think a type of a class of people.

3. Write an exposition in which you characterize a community of peo-
ple familiar to you.

In each of your compositions :
a. By what words have you introduced the subject and indicated the
quality of character to be brought out .-*

294 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

b. By what details have you developed the exposition?

c. In what way is your final statement a true conclusion of your

theme ?

d. In what way does he order in which you have presented details

help to make the thought clear ?

e. What words state characteristics accurately ? What words sug-

gest them vividly ?

4. Read your themes to the class :

a. What criticism did the class make as to the clearness and definite-

ness^ of each characterization ?

b. What did they think of your choice and arrangement of details?

c. What did they say about the logic of your conclusion?

d. What was their comment upon your choice of words?

5. Rewrite the poorest theme, making the corrections suggested by the
class.

6. Review your theme to see that each sentence is grammatical, that it
is accurately punctuated, that it contains no misspelled words.

The Collating of Information. — A somewhat different vari-
ety of extended explanation is the setting forth of a body of
facts, impressions, opinions, or judgments collated for the
purpose of adding to the general knowledge of the subject.
In exposition of this sort, the kind of details selected and the
order in which details arc presented must be of a nature to
give extent of information. The language in which the ideas
are expressed must convey the thought clearly and accurately
to the persons addressed.

EXERCISE IV

Read the following expositions :

I. Emperors [a variety of penguins] are very ceremonious in meeting
other Emperors or men or dogs. They come up to a party of strangers in
a straggling procession, some big important aldermanic fellow leading. At
a respectful distance from the man or dog they halt, the old male waddles
close up and bows gravely till his beak is almost touching his breast.
Keeping his head bowed, he makes a long speech in a muttering manner,
short sounds following in groups of four or five. Having finished the

EXPOSITION

295

speech, the head is still kept bowed a few seconds for politeness' sake, then
it is raised and he describes with his bill as large a circle as the joints of his
neck will allow, looking in your face at last to see if you have understood.
If you have not comprehended, as is usually the case, he tries again. He
is very patient with your stupidity, and feels sure that he will get it into
your dull brain if he keeps at it long enough. By this time his followers
are getting impatient. They are sure he is making a mess of it. Another
male will waddle forward with dignity, elbow the first aside as if to say,
" ril show you how it ought to be done," and go through the whole business
again. Their most solemn ceremonies were used towards the dogs, and
three old fellows have been seen calmly bowing and speaking simultane-
ously to a dog, which for its part was yelping and straining at its chain in
the effort to get at them. — In the Heart of the Antarctic, Shackleton.

2. All warships are now classified by their work, not by their shape or

size or rig.

First, fewest and heaviest are the harbor-defense vessels — monitors and
massively walled floating batteries, intended to remain in harbors or close
to the coast as movable forts.

Second, battleships — the strongest, most thickly armored, heavily
armed style of ships that can be made and still be able to go to sea ; but
these are not expected to leave their home ports for a long time, nor to go
to any great distance unless compelled to do so in actual war.

Third, cruisers. These take the place of the old-fashioned lesser fighting
ships, the seventy-fours, frigates, corvettes, and sloops, and vary greatly in
size, model, speed, and power of armament.

Fourth, small, swift, strongly armed but lightly armored torpedo-boat
chasers, small gunboats for use in rivers and shallow coastal waters
dispatch boats, dynamite cruisers, such as our American Vesuvius, tow-
boats, and similar minor craft, — the runabouts of the naval service.

Fifth, torpedo boats. — The Book of the Oceati, Ingersoll.

3. Franklin is one of the most extraordinary men of our entire history.
Of unaffected manner and a most practical mind, he was an astute philos-
opher and a far-sighted statesman. His contributions to the cause of
education and science entitle him to a high position among the leaders in
those branches, and as a diplomat he is unexcelled among Americans.
Beginning life as a journeyman printer in Boston, he had run away to
Philadelphia, established a paper of his own, founded the University of
Pennsylvania, and brought the administration of the municipal government
in his adopted city to a high state of efficiency. He had gained a

296 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

world-wide reputation for his discoveries of electricity, had been assistant
postmaster-general for the colonies, and during the trying period immedi-
ately preceding the war had rendered invaluable service to the colonies
as a colonial agent in London. No one had done more than he to promote
colonial union, and when the Declaration of Independence was drawn up,
he was one of those selected for the task. His appointment to France was
wise beyond expectation, for no one could have foreseen that his services
to America in the next six years would be the most valuable of his remark-
able career. — History of the United States, Ashley.

In each selection :

1 . Quote the words which introduce the subject, define its scope, and
suggest in a general way the point to be made by the exposition.

2. Enumerate the main details by which the subject is developed.

3. Show in what way the final statement is a true conclusion.

4. Show that the details are of the nature to give extent of information.

5. Show that the order in which the details are presented helps to give
a clear understanding of the subject.

6. Quote the words which convey the thought with the greatest degree
of clearness and of accuracy.

THEME IV

1. Write an exposition setting forth the habits of some class of animals
with which you are familiar.

2. Write an exposition setting forth the requirements as to good be-
havior in public.

3. Write an exposition setting forth the advantages of one of the various
kinds of outdoor sports.

4. Write an exposition setting forth the value to your community of
some public-spirited citizen.

In each of your compositions :

a. What are the words which introduce the subject and indicate the

point to be made ?

b. What does each detail contribute to making the point clear ?

c. In what way does the order in which you present details help to

give a clear understanding of the subject ?

5. Exchange any one of your themes with a classmate.

6. Criticize the theme given to you to see that it begins by introducing

i:xposrnox 297

the subject and suggesting the point to be made, that each additional de-
tail helps to make the point clear, that the details are arranged in the order
best suited to bring out the point, that the final statement is a true con-
clusion, that the words give clearness and vividness to the point.

7. Examine the theme for errors in grammar, punctuation, or spelling.

8. Return the theme to the writer for correction.

9. Examine the rewritten theme and note the improvements.
ID. Rewrite your own theme, making the corrections suggested.

a. What improvement does your classmate think you have made?

The Interpretation or the Application of a Proverb or
an Adage. — Very often, as in the following example, an
exposition of opinions is given under the guise of an inter-
pretation or an application of a proverb or of an adage, the
truth of which is accepted by the world in general.

In the first Place, as an Oti7ice of Preventio7i is worth a Pound of Cure
I would advise 'em to take Care how they suffer living Brandsends, or Coals
in a full Shovel, to be carried out of one Room into another, or up or down
Stairs, unless in a Warmingpan shut ; for Scraps of Fire may fall into
chinks, and make no Appearance till Midnight ; when your Stairs being in
Flames, you may be forced, (as I once was) to leap out of your Windows,
and hazard your Necks to avoid being over-roasted.

And now we talk of Prevention, where would be the Damage, if, to the
Act for preventing Fires, by regulating Bakehouses and Coopers' Shops, a
Clause were added to regulate all other Houses in the particulars of too
shallow Hearths, and the detestable Practice of putting Wooden Mouldings
on each side of the Fire Place, which being commonly of Heart-of-Pine
and full of Turpentine, stand ready to flame as soon as a Coal or a small
Brand shall roll against them.

— Protection of Towns from Fire^ Franklin.

In using a proverb or an adage to give point to a set of
opinions, choose the proverb or adage that applies exactly.

THEME V

Write a composition on each of the following topics, giving point to
each theme by means of that one -of the subjoined adages or proverbs
which applies exactly :

298 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

Topics

a. Extravagant economies.

b. Spendthrift habits.

c. The wisdom of saving.

d. Obeying speed limitations.

e. Foresight.

f. Choosing an ambition.

g. Recognizing opportunity.
h. Pioneering.

i. Motoring.
j. Discoveries.

Proverbs or Adages

a. Make hay while the sun shines.

b. Hitch your wagon to a star.

c. Where there's a will, there's a wav.

d. Haste makes waste.

e. Time is money.

f. Don't count your chickens till the eggs are hatched.

g. Variety is the spice of life.
//. Penny wise, pound foolish.

/. The early bird catches the worm.
j. Trade follows the flag.

THEME VI

By means of each of the following proverbs or adages, give point to
any body of opinions that you choose :

a. Make haste slowly.

b. Great cry, little wool.

c. Brevity is the soul of wit.

d. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

e. Little venture, little have.

f. Put your best foot forward.

g. The mountain labored and a mouse came forth.
h. What's bred in the bone comes out in the flesh.

i. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

j. Faraway fields are always green.

k. Necessity is the mother of invention.

/. The borrower is servant to the lender.

EXPOSITION 299

m. A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches.

n. Sour grapes hang high.

0. He who will not when he may, may live to want another day.
p. Be not wise in your own conceits.

Logical Definition. — The most exact form of exposition is
logical definition ; i.e., the setting forth of the essential char-
acteristics of an object by placing it in its proper class and
pointing out the characteristics which distinguish it from all
other kinds of objects belonging to the same class.

Read the following logical definitions :

1. A privateer is a ship, owned by a private citizen or by private citi-
zens, to which authority is given by the government to act as an independ-
ent war vessel.

2. A torpedo boat Is a vessel fitted for operating projectiles that carry
a powerful detonating charge under water to a hostile vessel.

3. Mortar is a slaked lime mixed with water and three or four times its
bulk of sand.

4. A thermometer is an instrument which records temperature.

5. Suffering is a state of pain or anguish of body or of mind.

6. Comfort is a state of ease and satisfaction of body and of mind.

In the first logical definition, privateer is the term to be
defined ; the word sJiip names the next larger class of objects
to which the privateer belongs ; and the group of words,
oivned by a private citizett or by private citizens, to which
authority is given by the government to act as an independent
war vessel, give the characteristics that distinguish the priva-
teer from all other kinds of ships.

In the second logical definition, torpedo boat is the term to
be defined ; the word vessel names the next larger class of
objects to which the torpedo boat belongs; and the group of
words, fitted for operating projectiles that carry a powerful
detonating charge under water to a hostile vessel, give the
characteristics that distinguish the torpedo boat from all other
kinds of vessels.

300 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

In the third logical definition, mortar is the term to be
defined ; the word lijue names the next larger class of sub-
stances to which mortar belongs ; and the group of words,
slaked lime mixed with water and three or four times its bulk
of sand, give the characteristics that distinguish mortar from
all other kinds of lime.

In the fourth logical definition, thermometer is the term to
be defined ; the word instriimejit names the next larger class
of objects to which the thermometer belongs ; and the group
of words, wJiich records temperature, give the characteristic
that distinguishes the thermometer from all other kinds of
instruments.

In the fifth logical definition, sjifferiyig is the term to be
defined ; the word state names the next larger class of ideas
to which suffering belongs ; and the group of words, of pain
or anguish of body or of mijid, give the characteristics that
distinguish suffering from all other kinds of states.

In the sixth logical definition, comfort is the term to be
defined ; the word state names the next larger class of ideas
to which comfort belongs ; and the group of words, of ease
and satisfaction of body and of mind, give the characteristics
which distinguish comfort from all other kinds of states.

The Elements of a Logical Definition. — Each of the logical
definitions is a combination of three elements : ( i ) the name
of a kind of object to be defined ; i.e., the name of a species ;
(2) the name of a larger class of objects to which the kind
of object to be defined belongs ; i.e., the name of a genus ;
and (3) a group of words which give the characteristics that
distinguish the kind of object to be defined from all other
kinds of objects belonging to the same class ; i.e., a group
of words which give the differentia.

Each of the logical definitions is a statement that the group
of characteristics suggested by the name of the species is the

EXPOSITION 301

same group of characteristics as that suggested by the name
of the genus and the words that give the differentia.

Logical definition, then, is a statement which determines a
species by giving the genus to which it belongs and the char-
acteristics which distinguish it from all other species of the
genus.

SUMMARY III

Logical definition is exposition which determines a species by stating
the genus to which it belongs and the characteristi.s which form its
differentia.

A genus consists of the characteristics common to two or more groups
of objects which have in addition certain distinctive group characteristics.

A species consists of the characteristics of the genus to which it be-
longs and the characterisics which distinguish it from all other groups
of objects belonging to the same genus.

The differentia consists of the characteristics that distinguish a species
from all other species belonging to the same genus.

EXERCISE V

Study the following logical definitions :

1. History is the prose narrative of past events as true as the fallibility
of human testimony will allow.

2. Crown glass is a colorless window glass used for convex lenses.

3. A rectangle is a right-angled parallelogram.

4. A turnpike was a road on which were tollgates.

5. A canal is an artificial waterway.

6. A church is a building dedicated to Christian worship.

7. Soda water is pure water charged with carbonic acid gas.

8. Food is any substance that, being taken into the body of animal or
plant, serves, through organic action, to build up normal structure or supply
the waste of tissue.

9. A civil law is a rule of action by which a community is governed.

10. A lie is a statement made or an act performed with the intent to
deceive.

1 1 . Virtue is a state of right-mindedness.

In each logical definition, quote: (i) the word that names the species;
(2) the word that names the genus ; and (3) the words that give the
differentia.

302 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

THEME VII

I. Write a logical definition of each of the following terms: hammer,
sled, clay, form, carpet, obstinacy, perseverance.

In each of your logical definitions :

a. Quote (i) the word that names the species; (2) the word that
names the genus ; and (3) the words that give the differentia.

b. Show that the group of characteristics suggested by the word that
names the species is the same group of characteristics as that suggested
by the words which give the genus and the differentia.

Description and Narration in the Service of Exposition. — In

exposition of any length, it often happens that some of the
details used in developing the thought are in themselves
description or narration.

Read the following exposition :

After I had spent my morning over this picture {representing the dream
of a young princess), I had to go to Verona by the afternoon train. In
the carriage with me were two American girls with their father and mother,
people of the class which has lately made so much money suddenly, and
does not know what to do with it ; and these two girls, of about fifteen and
eighteen, had evidently been indulged in everything (since they had had
the means) which western civilization could imagine. And they were
specimens of the utmost which the money and invention of the nineteenth
century could produce in maidenhood. — children of its most progressive
race, — enjoying the full advantages of political liberty, of enlightened philo-
sophical education, of cheap pilfered literature, and of luxury at any cost.
Whatever money, machinery, or freedom of thought could do for these two
children had been done. No superstition had deceived, no restraint de-
graded them : — types they could not but be of maidenly wisdom and felicity,
as conceived by the forwardest intellects of our time.

And they were traveling through a district which, if any in the world,
should touch the hearts and delight the eyes of young girls. Between
Venice and Verona ! Portia's villa perhaps in sight upon the Brenta, —
Juliet's tomb to be visited in the evening, — blue against the southern sky,
the hills of Petrarch's home. Exquisite midsummer sunshine, with low
rays, glanced through the vine leaves ; all the Alps were clear, from the
lake of Garda to Cadore and to farthest Tyrol. What a princess's cham-

EXPOSITION

303

ber, this, if these are princesses, and what dreams might they not dream
therein !

But the two American girls were neither princesses, nor seers, nor
dreamers. By infinite self-indulgence, they had reduced themselves sim-
ply to two pieces of white putty that could feel pain. The flies and the
dust stuck to them as to clay, and they perceived, between Venice and
Verona, nothing but the flies and the dust. They pulled down the blinds
the moment they entered the carriage, and then sprawled and writhed and
tossed among the cushions of it, in vain contest, during the whole fifty
miles, with every miserable sensation of bodily affliction that could make
time intolerable. They were dressed in thin white frocks, coming vaguely
open at the backs as they stretched or wiggled ; they had French novels,
lemons, and lumps of sugar to beguile their state with ; the novels hang-
ing together by the ends of string that had once stitched them, or adher-
ing at the corners in densely bruised dog's-ears, out of which the girls,
wetting their fingers, occasionally extricated a gluey leaf. From time to
time they cut a lemon open, ground a lump of sugar backwards and for-
wards over it till every fiber was in a treacly pulp, then sucked the pulp,
and gnawed the white skin into leathery strings, for the sake of its bitter.
Only one sentence was exchanged, in the fifty miles, on the subject of
things outside the carriage (the Alps being once visible from a station
where they had drawn up the blinds).

" DonH those snow-caps make you cool ?"

"No — I wish they did."

And so they went their way, with sealed eyes and tormented limbs,
their numbered miles of pain. — Fors Clavigera, Ruskin.

1. State the point of the exposition.

2. Quote the details that are in themselves description or narration.

3. Show what each of these details contributes toward making the
point of the exposition clear.

SUMMARY IV
To write exposition :
I. Select proper material.

1. Choose a subject about which you have considerable definite

knowledge.

2. Decide upon the person or persons whom you intend to address.

3. Choose the details essential to the giving to the person or

persons addressed a clear and accurate understanding of the
subject.

304 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

a. Remember that these may be :
(i) The more minute details.

(2) Details which give specific instances.

(3) Details which point out resemblances or differences,

(4) Details which repeat ideas.

(5) Details which tell what a thing is not and then what it is.

(6) Details which set forth the relation of cause and effect.

II. Arrange material in the most effective order.

1. Arrange the steps of a process in the order in which they must

be performed.

2. Arrange the details of a characterization according to some defi-

nite plan. For example :
a. Arrange details giving characteristics: (i) in the order in
which the characteristics developed; (2) in the order in
which the characteristics would become known to a person
studying the original; or (3) in the order of increasing
importance.

3. Arrange the details of compiled information or of a body of opin-

ions in the order which the subject demands.

III. Express ideas in language suited to the subject and adapted to the

person or persons addressed.

1. Choose words that state exactly or suggest vividly the idea to be

expressed.

2. Choose words sure to be imderstood by the person or persons

addressed.

3. Remember that apt comparisons and appropriate figures of

speech give force and vitality to expression.

IV. Criticize your work.

1. Examine your work to see :

a. That the first statement of your exposition indicates the

subject, defines its scope, and suggests the point to be made
by the exposition.

b. That you have used no detail that does not bear upon the

point or that is not essential to the point.

c. That you have arranged details in the order best suited to

give to the person or persons addressed a clear and exact
understanding of the subject.

d. That the final statement of your exposition is a summary of

the details used.

e. That the words which you have used are words in keeping with

the subject and adapted to the persons addressed.

EXPOSITION 305

V. Review your work.

1. Examine your work to see :

a. That each sentence is grammatical.

b. That each sentence is accurately punctuated.

c. That each word is correctly spelled.

ADDITIONAL SUBJECTS FOR ORAL OR WRITTEN EXPOSITION

1. The Function of the Telephone.

2. The New Football Rules.

3. The Submarine.

4. Color Photography.

5. Our Flag: What it Means.

6. The Bread-mixer.

7. The Value of State Roads.

8. Government Ownership.

9. A Usehil Mechanical Contrivance.

10. A soft answer turneth away wrath.

11. The Duties of a District Nurse.

12. The Benefits of Long Walks.

13. Great oaks from little acorns grow.

14. The Manufacture of Paper Money.

15. Farming without Horses.

16. Making Maple Sugar.

17. Silence is Golden.

18. The Reflecting Telescope.

19. How Powder is Manufactured.

20. Every tub must stand on its own bottom.

21. House-moving.

22. A rolling stone gathers no moss.

23. Breaking-in Horses.

24. Silk-weaving.

25. A Popular Candidate.

26. Instinct.

27. Save the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves

28. The Economic Value of the Panama Canal.

29. The Place of Social Life in High Schools.

30. The Preparation of Wool for the Market.

31. My Pet Fad.

32. The Avocations of High School Students.

3o6 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

33. He laughs best who laughs last.

34. Undeveloped Resources of the United States.

35. Patient waiters are no losers.

36. It is hard for an empty sack to stand upright.
yj. Running a Sawmill.

38. Cleanliness is next to godliness.

39. Textile Manufactures.

40. Practical Management.

CHAPTER XI

ARGUMENT AND PERSUASION

When, in addition to explaining the meaning of a proposi-
tion, a composition aims to use the proposition to alter the
opinions, the beliefs, or the course of conduct of the person or
persons addressed, it must take the form of argument or of
persuasion or of a combination of both.

Argument. — Argument is the kind of speech or of writing
which aims to establish the truth or the falsity of a proposi-
tion. The purpose of argument is to present demonstrable
facts or accepted beliefs or judgments in such a way as to
win the person or persons addressed to the point of view of
the speaker or writer.

Like exposition, argument of itself appeals purely to the
understanding. Unlike exposition, argument deals only with
propositions, never with terms.

Whatever may be the basis of discussion for or agamst
a proposition is material for argument. The material com-
monly used consists of opinions or beliefs, judgments, prin-
ciples, and demonstrable facts.

Opinion and Fact. --To be trustworthy, opinion must coin-
cide with fact. Too frequently, however, opinion not only
fails to coincide with fact, but even contradicts fact. For
example, A glances out of the window and sees a person
whom he takes for his friend B disappearing around the
corner of the first cross street. The person is of B's height
and general appearance, walks like B, apparently is B. In
the course of a day or two, it develops that ^ is in a distant

307

3o8 PRACTICAL KXCiLISH COMPOSITION

city, where he has been for a month, and so could not have
been seen by A at the time and in the place where A thought
he saw B. In other words, As opinion that he saw B was
contrary to fact. An opinion that is not substantiated by
fact is, of course, valueless as argument.

Evidence. — Whatever tends to establish the truth or the
falsity of a proposition is evidence.

Evidence must be either testimonial or circumstantial.
Testimonial evidence, or testimony, consists of the sworn
statements of witnesses. The value of testimony necessarily
varies according to the character and the intellectual equip-
ment of the witness, for people differ in truthfulness and in
the power to observe accurately, to remember correctly, and
to tell exactly what they have observed.

The strongest kind of testimony is that of a truthful, accu-
rate witness who testifies to what he has himself observed.
Other varieties of testimony of greater or less value are ex-
pert testimony, authority, unwilling testimony, the testimony
of silence, incidental testimony, and undesigned testimony.

Expert Testimony. — Expert testimony is the opinion of a
person of recognized standing in his profession upon a mat-
ter about which his professional knowledge makes him com-
petent to form an accurate judgment.

The practical vakie of expert testimony depends entirely
upon the professional standing of the expert. It may be
considered worthless by the people to whom it is addressed
or it may have the weight of authority.

Authority. — Authority is expert opinion or decision that
is generally accepted. So long as the conditions which give
rise to it exist, authority is absolute.

Unwilling Testimony. — Unwilling testimony is testimony
given against one's preferences. For example, a man who
knows that the testimony he is giving must damage a person

ARGUMENT AND PERSUASION 309

or a cause dear to him gives unwilling testimony. The value
of unwilling testimony is exceedingly great.

The Testimony of Silence. — The testimony of silence is the
recognized failure to mention what naturally would be men-
tioned if it existed. For example, if it is the custom of a
university to post the names of students who have passed
examinations successfully, the omission of a name is evi-
dence that the person in question failed to pass. The value
of the testimony of silence is at times very great.

Incidental Testimony. — Incidental testimony is the casual
mention of a detail which throws light upon a matter not
immediately under discussion. For example, A is telling B
about a shopping trip, and casually mentions that she saw C
on the car. B, who has business to transact with C, but who
has supposed C out of town, incidentally gets information
of business value. The value of incidental testimony de-
pends upon circumstances.

Undesigned Testimony. — Undesigned testimony is the un-
intentional admission of a circumstance which one has meant
to keep secret. For example, a small boy in making book-
shelves injures a plane which he has been forbidden to use.
When asked if he has used it, he denies having touched it.
Some weeks later, when his work is praised by a visitor, he
remarks to his father, " It was very hard to get the shelves
so smooth — even with your best plane." His last words
are undesigned testimony to the fact that he had used the
plane. The value of undesigned testimony can hardly be
overestimated.

EXERCISE I

I. a. Name four people who at present are accepted as authority in
engineering problems, in interpretation of law, in surgery, in forestry, or
m finance.

/^. Cite instance's in which they have given expert testimony.

3IO PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

2. Give two illustrations of unwilling testimony of which you have
personal knowledge.

3. Cite two cases each of the testimony of silence, incidental testimony,
and undesigned testimony.

Circumstantial Evidence. — Circumstantial evidence is evi-
dence that tends to prove a fact by proving other events or
circumstances which are usually or always attended by the
fact in question.

Circumstantial evidence comprises such things as objects,
events, appearances, etc. ; in fact, it comprises everything
except the sworn statements of witnesses. For example, A
sees a man's footprints on the snow, leading from the high-
way across the fields to a house in a lane. The footprints
are circumstantial evidence that some one wearing a man's
boots passed from the highway across the fields to the house
in question. As sworn statement in court that he saw the
footprints is testimonial evidence, or testimony.

Evidence, Direct or Indirect. — Testimonial and circum-
stantial evidence may be either direct or indirect. Direct
evidence is evidence which bears directly upon the point at
issue. A man who sees a pickpocket snatch a watch and
testifies to that effect in court gives direct testimonial
evidence. A cream jug tipped over and a cat's creamy
footprints on the table, the floor, and the porch are direct
circumstantial evidence that a cat has been at the cream.
A noise of breaking glass, a shattered windowpane, and a
stone rolling on the library floor are direct circumstantial
evidence that some one has thrown a stone which has broken
the library window.

Indirect evidence is evidence which establishes a fact from
which an inference is to be drawn concerning the point at
issue. For example, A is accused of a burglary committed
in X on Oct. 15. Witnesses testify conclusively that A

ARGUMENT AND PERSUASION 311

was in the town of L from the evening of Oct. 14 to the

noon of Oct. 16. The inference is obvious. A could not
have committed the burglary in X on Oct. 15.

This particular instance illustrates a form of indirect
argument known as rediictio ad absiwdu^n, a reduction to
the absurd, because it proves the proposition, " A is innocent,"
by showing a belief in A' s guilt to be absurd.

A bag of coin is kept in a certain bureau drawer. The
owner goes to the drawer for money and finds the moneybag
gone and a pocketknife which belongs to a servant in the
drawer. The knife is direct circumstantial evidence that
some one dropped it into the drawer, but it is indirect
circumstantial evidence when applied to prove that the owner
of the knife stole the bag of money from the drawer. If,
when the servant and his belongings are searched, the money
is found in his possession, the indirect circumstantial evidence
of the knife has gained some value, but even then, it may be
misleading, for some one may have contrived the affair out
of spite to ruin the servant.

EXERCISE II

1. Cite a case of circumstantial evidence which caused you to alter one
of your plans during the last month.

2. Cite a case of circumstantial evidence which caused you to form an
opinion which you later found to be false.

3. a. Quote an assertion which you have heard a friend make and which

you know to be based on incomplete circumstantial evidence.
b. By completing the evidence, show wherein the assertion is false.

4. Cite a case in which the circumstantial evidence is obviously com-
plete and therefore conclusive.

a. In each case cited, show whether the circumstantial evidence
was direct or indirect.

Proof. — Evidence which is convincing is proof. Study
the evidence in the following selection :

312 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

She was set up so high on the rocks, and seemed so trim looking for a
wreck, that we were all mad to go aboard her at once. But she was beset
with ice, and after we had anchored as near as we could go, it took our
boats a long time to get alongside her. With no little excitement we
climbed her sides. Instead of the confusion that a hastily abandoned
wreck would suggest, perfect order reigned on deck. Hatches were not
only closed, but still sealed. Evidently no cargo had been jettisoned to
lighten the ship. Every door and hatch was neatly closed. The once
broken rudder chain had been neatly repaired. The ends of such ropes
as were left were all well fastened One block from the dismantled running
rigging which was loose on deck, was carefully marked in pencil " topgal-
lant haulyard," as if some lubber who did not know how to reset square
rigging had marked it, with the intention of putting it in the right place
next spring. But, oddest of all, only the starboard pump was in working
order, and the brasswork necessary to work the other was on the shelf in
the roundhouse. The statement that the ship was only abandoned to
save the lives of the crew was a false one. — Reported Lost^ Grenfell.

The opening sentences present details which "bring into
proper relation the man, the subject, and the occasion" ; i.e.^
they indicate the investigators, the subject to be investigated,
and the motive for the investigation. The adducing of
evidence begins in the fourth sentence, " Instead of the con-
fusion that a hastily abandoned wreck would suggest, perfect
order reigned on deck." The line of argument to be used is
indicated in the words, *' perfect order reigned on deck."
The perfection of the order is shown in six pieces of direct
evidence: (i) "hatches were not only closed, but still
sealed;" (2) "every door and hatch was neatly closed;"

(3) " the once broken rudder chain had been neatly repaired ; "

(4) " the ends of such ropes as were left were all well
fastened;" (5) "one block from the dismantled running
rigging, which was loose on deck, was carefully marked in
pencil, * topgallant haulyard ' ; " (6) " only the starboard
pump was in working order, and the brasswork necessary to
work the other was on the shelf in the roundhouse."

ARGUMENT AND PERSUASION

313

In addition to the direct evidence there are two inferences,
the first drawn from the sealed hatches, ** Evidently no cargo
had been jettisoned to lighten the ship," the second drawn
from the marked block, *' as if some lubber who did not know
how to reset square rigging had marked it with the intention
of putting it in the right place next spring."

The six pieces of direct evidence, together with the in-
ferences drawn from two of them, serve to bring the investi-
gators to the decision that the crew did not abandon the ship
to save their lives. In other words, the evidence, strengthened
by the inferences drawn from it, acts as proof of the truth of
the belief " The statement that the ship was only abandoned
to save the lives of the crew was a false one."

Induction. — When certainty as to the truth or falsity of a
belief is reached by putting together specific facts or in-
ferences which serve as proof, the decision reached is called
a conclusion, and the method of reasoning by which the con-
clusion is reached is called induction.

A conclusion reached by induction must not be accepted as
final unless it has been drawn by accurate reasoning from
complete evidence, i.e., from all of the evidence that could
bear upon the matter in question.

Fallacies of Induction. — Since it is easy to reason inaccu-
rately and since it is practically impossible to get complete
evidence in regard to many matters that must be dealt with,
errors in inductive reasoning, in other words, fallacies of in-
duction, often occur.

Reasoning from too Few Instances. — In reasoning by in-
duction, a common fallacy is the drawing of a false conclusion
by reasoning from too few instances. For example, if B
meets his friend A on the street and does not bow to him, A
is not justified in concluding that B meant to ignore him.
The chances are that B did not see him, for, even though

PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

B appeared to see him, it is probable that B was so absorbed
in thought as not to notice him. If, however, B meets A
five times in one week and each time fails to bow to him, A
is justified in concluding that B means to ignore him, for it is
not likely that a person will come within bowing distance of
a friend so often in so short a space of time and not see him
once.

Common instances of this fallacy occur through the failure
to investigate fully even when all the data are at hand. For
example, a mother told her little boy, who was in the habit
of taking jam from the pantry whenever the desire for it
seized him, that the next time he took jam from the pantry
without permission, she should punish him. Within two
days, he came running into the living room besmeared with
jam. Thereupon, without investigating the matter at all, his
mother whipped him, only to find after she had done so that
the child had not been near the pantry, but had been given
jam by a neighbor. She had drawn too hasty a conclusion
though all the facts were quite within her reach.

Assuming a Cause and Effect Relation where None exists. —
Perhaps the most common fallacy in reasoning by induction
is the assumption of a cause and effect relation where none
exists.

The Non Causa Pro Causa Fallacy. — A very common form
of this fallacy is the assuming that one thing is the cause of
another although no causal relation exists between the two.
For example, a man suffering from rheumatism carries two
horse-chestnuts in his pocket, and presently his rheumatism
disappears. He at once assumes that the horse-chestnuts
caused the cure of the rheumatism. His error in reasoning
consists in assuming as a cause a thing that has no relation
whatever to the result produced. A fallacy of this sort, i.e.,
the assumption that one circumstance or event is the cause of

ARGUMENT AND PERSUASION 315

another when no causal relation exists between the two, is
known' as the nofi causa pro causa fallacy.

The Post Hoc Propter Hoc Fallacy. — Another form of the
fallacy of assuming a cause and effect relation where none
exists, consists in the assumption that one thing is the effect
of another in no way related to it. For example, as A, who
has just entered the house, approaches the open door of B's
room, he sees the door close. He makes the inference that
B has shut the door against him, when, as a matter of fact,
the door has been closed by the draught from an open window
in B's room. A's error in reasoning is the result of his
thinking that because the door closed aftc}- his entrance, it
closed becaiisc of his entrance. A fallacy of this sort, i.e.^
the assumption that, because one circumstance or event fol-
lows another, it is the effect of that other, is known as the
post hoc propter hoc fallacy.

Reasoning from False Inferences. — An outgrowth of the
fallacy of assuming a cause and effect relation where none
exists is the drawing of a false conclusion as a result of using
illogical inferences as if they were facts. For example. A,
who has made the mistaken inference that B purposely shut
the door against him, reports the next day that B has been
so rude as to shut the door in his face. His fallacy in this
case consists in drawing the false conclusion that B is dis-
courteous by reasoning from an incorrect inference as if it
were fact.

Ignoring Instances that point to a Different Conclusion. —
Another fallacy of induction consists in ignoring instances
which point to a different conclusion from the one inferred.
For example, the fact that A, who seems to have money,
wears inexpensive clothes, seldom goes driving, never treats
his acquaintances to large amounts of candy, soda, and ice
cream, does not in itself prove A stingy or mean. He may

3i6 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

refrain from doing all of these things because his parents are
denying themselves to give him an education, and he feels it
wrong to waste their hard-earned money in trivial ways. He
may, indeed, be returning some of their money to them from
time to time, telling them that he does not need it. What
looks to an outsider like stinginess is really self-restraint and
integrity.

An aggravated form of this fallacy consists in accepting as
evidence only those facts which support an opinion already
formed, although strong contradictory evidence may exist.
For example, B with some reason has made up his mind that
A is inaccurate and extravagant in his statements. This
opinion becomes so firmly fixed in his mind that he completely
ignores As constant efforts to become exact in observation
and accurate in expression, and utterly fails to comprehend
the change that finally takes place in A's habits of thought
and of speech. He sees only the errors and inaccuracies of
which A, like everyone else, is occasionally guilty, and these
serve to strengthen his original opinion of A. He is guilty
of the fallacy of ignoring instances that point to a different
conclusion from the one originally inferred.

EXERCISE III

1. State five inductions which you have made within a week, in two of
which your conclusions have proved incorrect.

2. Tell from how many and what instances you drew your conclusion in
each case.

3. State the fallacy in each of the incorrect inductions.

4. Quote a case in which you have known a person to draw a false con-
clusion because he misinterpreted instances of which you and he had
common knowledge.

Deduction. — The conclusion reached by induction is often
used as a basis from which to reason. For example, the

ARGUMENT AND PERSUASION 317

cloth in a suit does not shrink when exposed to rain. The
owner of the suit at once concludes that the cloth must have
been previously thoroughly shrunk. His method of reasoning
is as follows :

Cloth which has been thoroughly shrunk shrinks little, if any, when

exposed to rain ;
The cloth in this suit shrinks little, if any, when exposed to rain ;
Therefore, the cloth in this suit has been thoroughly shrunk.

In this argument, the first statement, " Cloth which has
been thoroughly shrunk shrinks little, if any, when exposed
to rain," is itself a conclusion reached by reasoning from
hundreds of instances in which cloth that has been thoroughly
shrunk has shrunk little, if any, when exposed to rain.
Such a conclusion, because it asserts of an entire class what
is true of a body of individuals belonging to the class, is called
a generalization. The second statement, " The cloth in this
suit shrinks little, if any, when exposed to rain," asserts of an
individual /zV^^ ^^/^/Z; the truth asserted of the c\a.ss, c/ot/i
tJiat has been thoroiigJiIy shrunk. The third statement gives
the conclusion drawn from the first two statements ; viz.,
that since the same thing that is true of a class, shrinks little,
if any, when exposed to rain, is true of an individual, the in-
dividual must belong to the class in question ; i.e., the cloth
in this suit must be cloth that has been thoroughly shrunk.

Definition. — When conviction as to the truth or the falsity
of a belief is reached by reasoning from a generalization to
a specific case, the method of reasoning is called deduction.

The form that the argument takes is called a syllogism.

Sometimes the argument by syllogism works in a sHghtly
different way. For example, in the syllogism,

All men must die ;
/4 is a man;
Therefore, A must die,

3i8 PkACTICAL f:XGLISII COiM POSITION

the generalization, "All men must die," asserts something
of the class, men; the second statement, ''A is a man,"
asserts of an individual, A, that he belongs to the class, men ;
the third statement gives the conclusion drawn from the two
statements, namely, that what is true of a class is true of each
individual belonging to it, i.t\, that A must die.

The Syllogism. — A syllogism, then, consists of three parts :
(i) a generalization, or major premise ; (2) a second state-
ment, or minor premise ; (3) a third statement, which is de-
duced from the first two statements, i.e., a conclusion.

The major premise asserts something of a class.

The minor premise asserts one of two things : either
(a) that the thing asserted of a class in the major premise is
true of an individual named in the minor premise, or, {b) that
an individual belongs to the class concerning which something
is asserted in the major premise.

The conclusion, in turn, asserts one of two things : either
{a) that the individual named in the minor premise belongs
to the class concerning which something is asserted in the
major premise, or {b) that the thing asserted of a class in the
major premise must be true of the individual mentioned in
the minor premise as belonging to that class.

The Abbreviated Syllogism, or Enthymeme. — Reasoning by
deduction is quite as common in everyday Hfe as is reasoning
by induction, though it often happens that one part of the
syllogism is not stated. For example, such expressions as,
"You will get burned if you touch the stove," or "The sky
looks like rain," are really abbreviated forms of syllogisms;
i.e.y they are enthymemes. The entire syllogisms follow:

{a) Major premise : Hot stoves will burn you ;

Minor premise : this stove is a hot stove ;

Conclusion : therefore, this stove will burn you.

{b) Major premise : A dull, t!;ray sky is a sign of rain ;

ARGUMENT AND PERSUASION 319

Minor premise : the sky to-day is a dull, gray sky ;
Conclusion : therefore, the sky to-day is a sign of rain.

Fallacies of Deduction. — In deductive reasoning, the danger
of fallacy lies (i) in reasoning from a generalization which,
though true, does not apply to the case in question, and (2) in
reasoning from a generalization which is false. For example,
the generalization, " Boys who go in swimming get their hair
thoroughly wet," is perfectly true, yet it might not apply in
the case of any given boy with wet hair, for there are many
ways in which a boy might get his hair wet. The generaliza-
tion, " All men are rascals," is itself untrue, therefore the fact
that A is 3. man does not prove that A is a. rascal. Common
forms of these fallacies occur in argimig beside the poirt or
irrelcvajit co7tchision, and in begging tJie question.

Arguing beside the Point, or Irrelevant Conclusion. — As its
name implies, arguing beside the point consists in talking on
a topic quite apart from the question at issue. For example,
if the question up for discussion is a man's fitness to be
mayor, it is arguing beside the point to prove that he is an
able musician or a remarkable golf player. If a man is being
tried for robbery, it is arguing beside the point to prove that
the lawyer who is defending him smokes to excess. This
particular form of arguing beside the point, i.e., the showing
up of inconsistencies in the character, condition, or circum-
stances of a person concerned in the discussion, although these
inconsistencies have nothing: to do with the merits of the
question at issue, is known as arginnentuyn ad hoynineni. If
the question at issue is the need of a change in the form of
municipal government, it is arguing beside the point to tell
the body of listeners what fine fellows they are and how much
more they know than the average audience. This form of
arguing beside the point, i.e., the appeal to the prejudices or
emotions of a body of people so as to prevent them from

320

PRACTIC.\L ENGLISH COMPOSITION

judging impartially the question at issue, is known as argu-
mentiim ad popiiliwi.

Confusion of Terms or Ambiguity. — A common form in
which arguing beside the point, or irrelevant conclusion,
shows itself is in what is known as the fallacy of confzision of
terms, or ainbigiiity. This fallacy grows out of the use of a
term with one meaning in one place and with another meaning
in another place. The fallacy may degenerate into a mere
verbal puzzle, but often it is the result of an unintentional
variation in the meaning of a term, which, because of the
length of the address, remains undiscovered. For example,
the word liberty properly means lawf?i I freedom. To use it
in this sense in one part of an address and in the sense of
lice7ise in another part of the same address would be to be
guilty of the fallacy of confusion of terms, or ambiguity.

An illustration of a case where accurate reasoning is
essential, yet where the fallacy of confusion of terms almost
invariably creeps in, is quoted from Mill by Professor Jevons :

The mercantile public are frequently led into this fallacy by the phrase
"scarcity of money." In the language of commerce, "money" has two
meanings : C7irrency, or the circulating wediiim ; and capital seeking in-
vestment, especially investment on loan. In this last sense, the word is
used when the " money market " is spoken of, and when the " value of
money" is said to be high or low, the rate of interest being meant. The
consequence of this ambiguity is, that as soon as scarcity of money in the
latter of these senses begins to be felt, — as soon as there is difficulty of
obtaining loans, and the rate of interest is high, — it is concluded that
this must arise from causes acting upon the quantity of money in the
other and more popular sense; that the circulating medium must have
diminished in quantity, or ought to be increased. I am aware that, inde-
pendently of the double meaning of the term, there are in the tacts them-
selves some peculiarities, giving an apparent support to this error; but the
ambiguity of the language stands on the very threshold of the subject, and
intercepts all attempts to throw light upon it.

— Lessons in Logic, Jevons.

ARGUMENT AND PERSUASION

321

The way to avoid a fallacy of this kind is to insist upon a
careful definition of terms and a strict adherence to the given
meaning wherever the term appears.

Begging the Question. — Begging the question consists in
using a generalization to reach a conclusion and then using
the conclusion reached to prove the original generalization.
A common illustration is the famous one about the bear and
the porringer. A woman said to a child, " This must be the
little bear's porringer, it is so little," arguing the ownership of
the porringer from the size of the bear. Then she added,
" This bear must be smaller than we thought," arguing from
the size of the porringer the size of the bear, although the
smallness of the bear was the basis on which, in the first
place, she founded her argument about the ownership of the
porringer.

Question-begging Words. — A common method of begging
the question comes in the use of question-begging words.
For example, to say that valvular heart trouble is likely
to persist because it is chronic is to say that chronic val-
vular heart difficulty is chronic, which is manifestly to
beg the question. To say that a law is unconstitutional
without showing wherein the unconstitutionality lies, is to
beg the question. To say that trusts are widely and un-
pleasantly known because they are notorious is to say that
notorious trusts are notorious and thereby to beg the
question.

A reasoner must be constantly on the watch to avoid beg-
ging the question in any of its forms. He must test his own
arguments and his own use of words as well as the arguments
and the words used by his opponents. An excellent test of a
deductive argument consists in casting it into syllogistic form,
for a fallacy, if it exists, is thereby likely to be thrown into
relief and so to be readily detected.

322 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

EXERCISE IV

I a. Bring to class five examples of deductive reasoning drawn from
textbooks other than English textbooks.

b. In each case cast the reasoning into the form of a syllogism.

c. Name the parts of each syllogism and show that the conclusion

is logical.
3. a. Bring to class three deductions which you have heard made in
ordinary conversation.
b. Test each deduction by castmg it into the form of a syllogism,
and show that the reasoning is logical or fallacious.

3. Write and read to the class five original syllogisms.

a. What criticisms did the class make upon your syllogisms?

b. Reconstruct faulty syllogisms to make them correct.

4. a. Bring to class a short speech given in support of a prominent

candidate.
b. Bring to class a short speech given in opposition to a promi-
nent candidate.

Test each speech for the following fallacies :

(i) Arguing from too few instances.

(2) Assuming a cause and effect relation where none exists.

(3) Reasoning from false inferences.

(4) Ignoring mstances that point to a different conclusion.

(5) Arguing beside the point.

(6) Begging the question.

THEME I

Write an argument on either the affirmative or the negative side of two
of the following propositions :

1. Physical training should be persistently taken by students.

2. At least one foreign language should be studied by every stu-

dent.

3. Every student should have a definite aim in view.

4. Baseball requires more mtelligence m a player than does football.

In each of your themes :

a. Show what method of reasoning you used.

b. Show that your reasoning is free from fallacy.

ARGUMKXr AM) f'KRSUASIOX 323

The Relation between Induction and Deduction. — Funda-
mentally, all argument rests on induction, for the generaliza-
tions on which deductive argument rests are themselves the
product of induction. An excellent test, indeed, of the truth
of a conclusion drawn from induction is its application to a
specific case by means of the syllogism of deduction.

On the basis of the source from which they are derived,
arguments are often classified as arguments from antecedent
probability, arguments from example, or arguments from sign.

Argument from Antecedent Probability. — Argument from
antecedent probability is argument based on »the relation of
cause and effect. For example, a person argues from ante-
cedent probability that striking a match on a rough surface
or on a prepared surface will ignite the match because re-
peated experiments have shown him that the friction thus
caused does ignite a match. A person argues from antece-
dent probability that the exposure to cold and wet which has
frequently given him tonsilitis will again cause him to have
tonsilitis. A man argues from antecedent probability that
the superior skill which has made a champion golf player
win twenty important contests will cause him to win the
twenty-first important contest, and so on.

The Importance of Argument from Antecedent Probability. —
Argument from antecedent probability is the strongest kind
of argument, for the relation of cause and effect, once es-
tablished, is absolute. In fiction, in philosophy, in science,
in practical affairs, reasoning obtains credence in proportion
as it can stand the test of the cause and effect relation. No-
where is argument from antecedent probability more necessary
or more of a protection than in the court room, for no man
can be convicted unless it can be established beyond reason-
able doubt that he had a sufficient motive to commit the crime
of which he is accused.

324

PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

The Preponderance of Probability. — Argument from ante-
cedent probability can usually be brought in support of both
sides of a case. For example, a person may have a furious
temper that might lead him to commit murder in a fit of rage,
yet there may be an even stronger antecedent probability
that he will never commit such violence because of an in-
herited abhorrence of the sight of blood. Where a desire for
gain at any cost might lead to theft, a stronger desire for the
respect of society or a fear of certain punishment might deter
a person from committing such a crime. A reasoner must
take into account the various proclivities of the person in-
volved and be governed in his conclusions by the preponder-
ance of probability ; i.e., he must decide what proclivities
have the greater force and so are likely to be the controlling
factors in governing the actions of a person.

The Fallacies of Argument from Antecedent Probability. —
The fallacies of antecedent probability are naturally the as-
suming of a cause and effect relation where none exists (the
7ton causa pro causa and \\iQ post hoc propter hoc fallacies), the
giving too much weight to one cause or motive and neglect-
ing other possible causes and motives, the arguing from false
inferences or improbable fiction, and the ignoring of instances
that point to a different conclusion from the one inferred.

EXERCISE V

Bring to class four examples of argument from antecedent probability.
a. Read your illustrations to the class and discuss with them the
argumentative force of your illustrations.

THEME II
Arguing from antecedent probability, establish the truth or the falsity of
each of the following propositions:

1. Self-made men are the strongest men,

2. Capital and labor will always be at war.

3. Prejudice hinders progress.

ARGUMENT AND PERSUASION 325

In each of your themes :

a. Show that your arguments are convincing.

b. Show that your work contains no fallacies.

Argument from Example. — Argument from example con-
sists in proving the truth of an assertion by selecting certain
special instances which impress quickly and forcibly the truth
to be estabUshed.

Read the following selection :

In large bodies the circulation of power must be less vigorous at the
extremities. Nature has said it. The Turk cannot govern Egypt and
Arabia and Kurdistan as he governs Thrace, nor has he the same domin-
ion in Crimea and Algiers which he has in Brusa and Smyrna. Despotism
itself is obliged to truck and huckster. The Sultan gets such obedience as
he can. He governs with a loose rein that he may govern at all ; and the
whole of the force and vigor of his authority in his center is derived from
a prudent relaxation in all his borders. Spain, in her provinces, is, per-
haps, not so well obeyed as you are in yours. She complies, too. She
watches times. This is the immutable condition, the eternal law of exten-
sive and detached empire. — Speech oti Conciliationy Burke.

In this selection, the truth of the proposition, " In large
bodies the circulation of power must be less vigorous at the
extremities," is established by two instances which show the
impossibility of governing the borders of a large empire with
anything like the severity that can be exercised in the heart
of the country where the central governing power is situated.
The examples chosen are Turkey and Spain, the two coun-
tries that, more than any others at the time the speech was
delivered, held large dominions under their sway.

The Fallacy of Argument from Example. — The fallacy of
argument from example lies in overlooking or suppressing
instances which may tend to overthrow the argument.

Analogy. — Somewhat akin to argument from example is
argument from analogy, i.e., (i) argument based on resem-

326 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COiMPOSITION

blance of relations, or (2) argument based on the actual re-
semblance of objects, the inference being that objects alike
in several particulars will be alike in still another particular
in which they are not known to be alike.
Read the followins: selection :

The attempt of the Lords to stop the progress of reform reminds me
very forcibly of the great storm of Sidmouth, and of the conduct of the
excellent Mrs. Partington on that occasion. In the winter of 1824. there
set in a great flood upon that town — the tide rose to an incredible height
— the waves rushed in upon the houses, and everything was threatened
with destruction. In the midst of this sublime and terrible storm, Dame
Partington, who Hved upon the beach, was seen at the door of her house
with mop and pattens, trundling her mop, squeezing out the sea-water,
and vigorously pushing away the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic was
roused. Mrs. Partington's spirit was up; but I need not tell you that the
contest was unequal. The Atlantic Ocean beat Mrs. Partington. She
was excellent at a slop, or a puddle, but she should not have meddled with
a tempest. Gentlemen, be at your ease — be quiet and steady. You will
beat Mrs. Partington. — Sydney Smith.

In this selection, an analogy based on a resemblance of
relations, the Lords, who opposed reform, are likened to Mrs.
Partington, and the English people as a whole, who favored
reform, are likened to the Atlantic Ocean. The analogy lies
in the fact that the Lords opposed to reform were as power-
less to hinder the reformers from carrying out their projects
as Mrs. Partington was to stem the advance of the Atlantic
Ocean.

Read the following selection :

We may observe a very great similitude between this earth which we
inhabit and the other planets, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and Mer-
cury. They all revolve round the sun. as the earth does, although at dif-
ferent distances and in different periods. They borrow all their light from
the sun, as the earth does. Several of them are known to revolve round
their axis like the earth, and by that means have like succession of day
and night. Some of them have moons that serve to give them Liy^hL in

ARGUMENT AND PERSUASION 327

the absence of the sun, as our moon does to us. They are all. in their
motions, subject to the same law of gravitation as the earth is. From all
this similitude, it is not unreasonable to think that these planets may, like
our earth, be the habitation of various orders of living creatures. There is
some probability in this conclusion from analogy.

— Intellectual Powers^ Reid.

In this selection, an example of analogy based on the actual
resemblance of objects in several particulars, the argument
lies in the fact that objects which are alike in six funda-
mental respects, as are the earth and the other planets, are
probably alike in another important particular.

The Fallacy of Analogy. — In using analogy based on a re-
semblance of relations, the fallacy hes in an attempt to make
a comparison where there is no point of resemblance in the
relations between objects or where the resemblance is so
slight that an attempt to develop it is far-fetched. In using
analogy based on the actual resemblance of objects, the fal-
lacy lies in expecting a resemblance in some particular entirely
unconnected with the characteristics which show resemblance
in the objects.

EXERCISE VI

1 . Bring to class two illustrations of argument by example.

2. Bring to class two illustrations of argument by analogy based on a
resemblance of relations.

3. Bring to class two illustrations of argument by analogy based on the
actual resemblance of objects.

a. Read your illustrations to the class and discuss with them the
argumentative value of the illustrations.

THEME III

A. I. Arguing from example, prove the truth or the falsity of any three
of the following propositions :

a. Persistent effort wins success.

b. Irrigation greatly increases the value of land.

328 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

c. Care in diet is necessary to health.

d. Wise advertising increases business.

e. Unclean milk is a menace to public health.

2. Arguing from analogy based on relation, prove the truth of the fol-
lowing proposition.

a. Airships will become public necessities.

3. Arguing from analogy based on the actual resemblance of objects,
prove the truth of each of the following propositions :

a. The two strangers must be brothers.

b. The two pictures were painted by the same man.

c. These two machines will prove equally ineffective.

In each of your themes :

(i) See that the material you have used cannot fail to be convinc-
ing to any reasonable person.
(2) See that your work contains no fallacies.

B. Read any two of your themes to your class.

C. Rewrite each theme, correcting the faults pointed out by the class.

Argument from Sign. — A very common form of argument
occurs in argument from sign; i.e.^ argument which is based
on the association of ideas. For example, when a person sees
smoke he at once thinks that fire is near, because fire is
always associated with smoke. Similarly, when a person sees
that ice has formed on a pool out of doors, he at once thinks
that the temperature is below the freezing point, because a
low temperature always goes with the formation of ice.

The Importance of Argument from Sign. — Arguments from
sign vary in value according to their nature. When they
are based on cause and effect, as in the two preceding in-
stances, they are very forcible, but otherwise they are weak
unless used to support stronger arguments or unless supported
by stronger arguments.

Fallacies of Argument from Sign. — The fallacies of argu-
ment from sign are usually misinterpretations. A case of
illness is often taken as a sign of extreme care and worry

ARGUMENT AND PERSUASION 329

when it is in reality merely the result of careless eating.
Strikes, wars, and the overthrow of governments are taken
by some people to be signs of the coming of the end of the
world, while other people see in them merely the effect of the
oppression and greed of the rich and powerful. In the one
case, there is merely an arbitrary association of ideas, — there,
is really no connection between the fact known and the one
toward which the argument points, while, in the other case,
the signs are interpreted as the natural effects of certain
causes which are known to produce such effects. The fallacy,
then, consists in making inferences where there is no con-
nection whatever between the known fact and the fact toward
which the argument points, of attributing an effect to a wrong
cause, or, it may be, of overestimating the closeness or the
lastingness of the connection between two facts.

Sign opposed by Antecedent Probability. — Argument from
sign may be altered or disproved by argument from antecedent
probability. For example, a man seen lurking under a win-
dow of a house in which a burglary is shortly after committed
would naturally be suspected of the crime. When it is dis-
covered that he is a man of excellent character, a firm friend
of the owner, and that he himself has lost some property
which he had lent the owner for use on the night of the
robbery, argument from antecedent probability goes far to
establish his innocence.

EXERCISE Vn

Bring to class five illustrations of argument from sign.

a. Show whether or not your illustrations are based on cause and
effect, custom, or mere coincidence.

The Preparation of an Argument. — In preparing an argu-
ment or a debate, a speaker or writer should first prepare an
outline in sentence form, i.e., a brief, such as is to be found in

330 PRACTICAL KNCLlSIl COMPOSITIOxX

the chapter on the Paragrapli in this book. A brief will help
him to test the truth and the accuracy of the material that
he intends to use and will enable him to present it with the
greatest effectiveness. Whatever the method of reasoning
used, the speaker or writer must be careful to select the
.material, which from his point of view is best suited to
impress upon the person or persons addressed the truth or the
falsity of the proposition under discussion ; he must arrange
the material in the order demanded by the form of reasoning
chosen and in the order suited to impress upon the person or
persons addressed the point to be made by the argument; he
must express the ideas in language which is clear, simple,
and to the point; i.e.y in language suited to impress upon the
person or persons addressed the point to be made by the
argument.

Burden of Proof and Presumption. — In preparing an argu-
ment, it is well for the speaker or writer to remember that
the burden of proof, i.e.^ the obligation to show adequate
reason for changing the existing order of things, rests upon
the person who advocates such change ; and that the pre-
sumption, i.e., the advantage of the support of law and custom,
rests with the person who advocates existing conditions. In
the course of debate, the burden of proof and the presumption
may change many times from side to side, but it is wise to
note the time of change in order to get all the advantage
possible both from forcing an opponent to show adequate
reasons for what he is advocating and from using the weight
of established custom to support one's own position.

The Refutation of Argument. In the practical argument
of everyday life, a person has not only to establish the truth
of his own beliefs, but also to show the weakness in the
arguments of his opponent. To do this he must be familiar
with the subject, and, so far as possible, with the arguments

ARGUMENT AND PERSUASION 33 1

in support of both sides of the question at issue. Then he
must study the arguments used against him to find their weak
points, in order to show that the conclusion reached by his
opponent is false, because his opponent has reasoned from
too few instances, or else has reasoned from a generalization
which does not fit the case in question or from a generaliza-
tion which is in itself a mere assertion that is not true. In
answering his opponent, he must be careful to show the
weakness of the two or three main arguments on which his
opponent is depending for success.

Persuasion. — Persuasion is the kind of speech or of
writing which aims to alter the belief or the conduct of the
person or persons addressed by an appeal to the feelings.

Although, occasionally, persuasion is found by itself, ordi-
narily it is combined with argument to arouse emotion and incite
to action.

Read the following selection :

If I were to tell you the story of Napoleon, I should take it from the
lips of Frenchmen, who find no lansjuage rich enough to paint the great
captain of the nineteenth century. Were I to tell you of Washington. 1
should take it from your hearts, you who think no marble white enough on
which to carve the name of the Father of his Country. But I am to tell
you the story of a negro, Toussaint L'Ouverture, who has left hardly one
written line. I am to glean it from the reluctant testimony of his enemies,
men who despised him because he was a negro and a slave, hated him be-
cause he had beaten them in battle.

Napoleon, at the age of twenty-seven, was placed at the head of the
best troops Europe ever saw. Cromwell never saw an army till he was
forty. This man never saw a soldier till he was fifty. Cromwell manu-
factured his armv out of what? Out of Englishmen, the best blood in
Europe. And with it he conquered what? Englishmen, their equals.
This man manufactured his army out of what? Out of what you call the
despicable race of negroes, debased, demoralized by two hundred years of
slavery, 100,000 of them imported into the island within four years, unable
to speak a dialect intelligible even to each other. Yet out of this mixed
mass he forged a thunderbolt, and hurled it at what? At the proudest

332 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

blood in Europe, the Spaniard, and sent him home conquered; at the
most warlike blood in Europe, the French, and put them under his feet ;
at the pluckiest blood in Europe, the English, and they skulked home to
Jamaica. Now, if Cromwell was a general, at least this man was a
soldier. Cromwell was only a soldier ; his fame stops there. Not one
line in the statute book of Britain can be traced to Cromwell ; not one step
in the social life of England finds its native power in his brain. The
state he founded went down with him to its grave. But this man no
sooner put his hand on the helm of state, than the ship steadied with an
upright keel, and he began to evince a statesmanship as marvelous as his
military genius. In 1800, this negro made a proclamation; it runs thus :
" Sons of St. Domingo, come home. We never meant to take your houses
or your lands. The negro only asked that liberty that God gave him.
Your houses wait for you, your lands are ready ; come and cultivate them."
And from iMadrid and Paris, from Baltimore and New Orleans, the emi-
grant planters crowded home to enjoy their estates, under the pledged
word — that was never broken — of a victorious slave.

I would call him Napoleon, but Napoleon made his way to empire over
broken oaths and through a sea of blood. This man never broke his word.
" No retaliation," was his great motto and the rule of his life. I would
call him Cromwell, but Cromwell was only a soldier. I would call him
Washington, but the great Virginian held slaves. This man risked his
empire rather than permit the slave trade in the humblest village in his
dominions. You think me a fanatic, for you read history not with your
eyes, but with your prejudices. But when Truth gets a hearing, the muse
of history will put Phocion for the Greek, Brutus for the Roman, Hampden
for England, Fayette for France, Washington as the bright consummate
flower of our earlier civilization, and John Brown the ripe fruit of our noon-
day ; then dipping her pen in the sunlight, will write in the clear blue,
above them all, the name of the soldier, the statesman, the martyr —
Toussaint L'Ouverture. — Toussaint VOuvertiire, Wendell Phillips.

The Preparation of Persuasion. — In selecting, arranging,
and expressing ideas to form a good piece of persuasion, a
speaker or writer must take extreme care to use the kind of
details and the kind of language that will best appeal to both
the minds and the hearts of the persons addressed. He who
speaks truth with directness and with sincerity is most likely
to carry conviction.

ARGUMENT AND PERSUASIOxN 333

EXERCISE Vni

Read the following selections :

1. Next morning, waking with the day^s first beam,
He said within himself, " It was a dream! "

But the straw rustled as he turned his head ;
There were the cap and bells beside his bed,
Around him rose the bare discolored walls,
Close by the steeds were champing in their stalls,
And in the corner, a revolting shape,
Shivering and chattering sat the wretched ape.
It v*as no dream ; the world he loved so much
Had turned to dust and ashes at his touch !

— Robert of Sicily^ Longfellow.

We " MATCH " FOR SCRAPS OF FOOD

2. The next day was better, for I wrote :

"February 22d. A splendid day. We did twenty and a half miles
and on the strength of the distance had a good feed. About 11 a.m. we
suddenly came across the tracks of a party of four men with dogs. Evi-
dently the weather had been fine, and they had been moving at a good
pace toward the south. We could tell that the weather had been fine, for
they were wearing ski boots instead of finneskoe, and occasionally we saw
the stump of a cigarette. The length of the steps showed that they were
going fast. We are now camped on the tracks, which are fairly recent,
and we will try to follow them to the Bluff, for they must have come from
the depot. This assures us that the depot was laid all right. I cannot
imagine who the fourth man can be, unless he was Buckley, who might be
there now that the ship is in.

" We passed their noon camp, and I am certain that the ship is in, for
there were tins Iving round bearing brands different from those of the
original stores. We found three little bits of chocolate and a little bit of
biscuit at the camp, after carefully searching the ground for such uncon-
sidered trifles, and we * turned backs ' for them. I was unlucky enough to
get the bit of biscuit, and a curious unreasoning anger took possession of
me for a moment at my bad luck. It shows how primitive we have
become, and how much the question of even a morsel of food affects our
judgment. We are near the end of our food, but as we have staked every-

334 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

thing on the Bluff depot, we had a good feed to-night. If we do not pick
up the depot, there will be absolutely no hope for us."'

— In the Heart of the Antarctic, Shackleton.

3. Mr. X. points to his record as a logical reason why he should be
reelected, and would have it that this record shows "the real X."

What, then, does his record show ? It shows him lifted into office on a
reform wave, the crest of which had been produced by the revelations of
the original Finance Commission. He immediately put into effect such of
these recommendations as he could easily grasp. He did not borrow out-
side the debt limit or improperly inside the debt limit ; he swung his ax
over the heads of an uncertain number of laborers ; he made a few
excellent appointments; he abolished gift contracts. There he stopped.
He practically left untouched the unnecessary clerks and the excessive
salaries in the various departments. He took long vacations, made
speeches in New York and elsewhere glorifying reform as he knew it,
visited the relief work, was prominent at the National Conference of
Charities in Buffalo, and was ill. If he had had the modesty to realize
that without guidance he was incapable of administering intelligently the
affairs of this municipality and could thus have learned from others, he
might to-day be a leading figure in the great movement for municipal
reform. He did not remember that it is the meek who inherit the earth.

When the old Commission went out of office, his ship was without a
competent pilot. The character of his appointments steadily deteriorated.
The two additional assessors whom he insisted on appointing were super-
fluous. The two new commissioners in the School House Department
were unfit for their work. For the proposed Court House he selected an
architect whose wrongdoing when employed before by the city had been
admitted on the witness stand.

Not a department in the city shows the result of any study on his part.
Those departments in which the Commission had shown glaring defects,
the street, water, printing, health, weights and measures, collecting, and
fire were improved. Others, not fully reported on by the Commission,
penal institutions, soldiers' relief, clerk of committees, city messenger,
registry, overseers of the poor, remained practically untouched.

Mr. X. should have done constantly better with experience, but he did
not. Throughout his administration his alert-minded private secretary
usurped more and more the prerogatives of the mayor's office. When the
commissioner and the assistant commissioner had testified under oath
before the present Commission, it was the secretary who summoned them

ARGUMENT AND PERSUASION 335

to the mayor's office, in the mayor's absence, and practically notified them
that they were to be summarily discharged. The secretary has been as
busy as the mayor has been intellectually indolent. It is not merely lack
of voice on Mr. X.'s part which leads his secretary to represent him in this
campaign.

This is the real X., vain, elated by his sudden elevation to high office,
weak, well-meaning, helpless without guidance, prone to fall under evil
influences as soon as the good are removed, bitterly disappointed by the
lack of enthusiasm for him on the part of his fellow-citizens, afraid to seem
vacillating, and, when the test came, an incubus, a weight about the ankles
of the reformers, a man of broken pledges, finally classed as a partner with
the shameless mountebank whom he had himself defeated.

And the coming election probably depends on the number of citizens
who, blinding themselves to the living issues of the campaign, are about
to vote for X.

4. Laws thai are harmful to the community should be repealed ; the
anti-trust law is harmful to the community ; therefore the anti-trust law
should be repealed.

5. Laws which restrict personal liberty are impolitic; the law which
forbids smoking in closed cars is a law which restricts personal liberty ;
therefore the law which forbids smoking in closed cars is impolitic.

6. I know that Mr. A. has gone into town for he went down the street
in time for the eight o'clock train.

7. In answer to some Western men who were criticizing his adminis-
tration, President Lincoln said :

'• Gentlemen. I want you to suppose a case for a moment. Suppose
that all the property you were worth was in gold, and you had put it in the
hands of Blondin, the famous rope-walker, to carry across the Niagara
Falls on a tight rope. Would you shake the rope while he was passing
over it, or keep shouting to him. ' Blondin, stoop a little more! Go a little
faster!' No, I am sure you would not. You would hold your breath as
well as your tongue, and keep your hand off until he was safely over.
Now, the government is in the same situation. It is carrying an immense
weight across a stormv ocean. Untold treasures are in its hands. It is
doing the best it can. Don't badger it ! Just keep still, and it will get you
safely over."

8. In answer to another set of critics at another time. President Lincoln
remarked: " Would you advise a man to change horses in the middle of a
stream ? "'

336 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

In each selection :

a. Show whether the method of reasoning is inductive or deductive.

b. If the method is inductive, show : (i) whether the conclusion is

based on many instances ; (2) whether the instances stand to
one another in the relation of cause and effect ; (3) whether the
argument is argument from example ; (4) whether the argument
is argument from analogy.

c. If the method is deductive, give the parts of the syllogism, and

show that the reasoning is accurate or false.

THEME IV

First preparing a brief, write an argument on each of the following
propositions, proving either its truth or its falsity :

1 . Motor cars should pay toll on state highways.

2. Organized sport is necessary in school life.

3. Mr. should be the next captain of the football team.

4. The city boy has many more advantages than the country boy.

In each of your compositions :

a. State your conclusion.

b. Name the steps by which you have reached that conclusion.

c. Show how each detail that you have used as argument leads to the

conclusion.

THEME V

A. First preparing a brief, write an argument on any one of the following
propositions, using the method or methods of development best suited to
the proposition and to the persons addressed :

1. Walking is the best exercise.

2. Railroads should be owned and operated by the government.

3. Child labor should be prohibited.

4. The end justifies the means.

5. Good modern books are as essential in education as are classics.

B. Exchange your theme with a classmate.

C. Examine the theme given you to see that the details used as proof
lead logically to the conclusion, that there are no fallacies in reasoning,
that the details of proof are arranged so as to appeal with increasing power
to the person addressed.

D. Review the theme to see that each sentence is grammatical, is cor-
rectly punctuated, and contains no misspelled words.

ARGUMENT AND PERSUASION 337

E. Rewrite your own theme, making the improvements suggested by
your classmate.

THEME VI

1. Persuade your unwilling classmates to establish a scholarship fund.

2. Persuade a man to buy your automobile.

3. Persuade your little brother not to interfere with you while you are
studying.

4. Persuade your father to buy you a canoe.

THEME Vn

Using persuasion and argument, write an advertisement for each of the
following articles :

1. Blank's Soap.

2. The Perfect Sewing-machine.

3. The Biscuits.

4. The Improved Harvester.

5. Goods in a Marked-down Sale.

SUMMARY

To write an argument :

I. Choose a subject within your grasp.

1. Collect all the evidence bearing on the proposition, whether the

evidence tends to prove the truth or the falsity of the proposition.

2. Decide whether you will support the affirmative or the nega-

tive side of the proposition.

3. Select the evidence necessary to prove your point to the person

or persons to be addressed.

4. With the person or persons to be addressed in mind, decide

what method or methods of reasoning you will use.

II. Arrange material in the form of a brief.

1. Use the order best suited to impress upon the person or persons
addressed the point to be made by the argument.
a. State first your subject and your point of view.
ft. Follow the opening statement with an argument that will
catch and hold the attention of the person or persons
addressed,
c. Present arguments so as to end with the strongest one.

III. Develop your brief into a composition.

338 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

1. Express ideas in language adapted to the subject and chosen to
appeal to the minds and to the hearts of the persons ad-
dressed.

IV. Criticize your work.

1. Examine your work to see :

a. That you have stated clearly at the outset the proposition

the truth or falsity of which is to be estabUshed.

b. That you have then stated clearly your point of view; i.e.,

whether you intend to argue in favor of the proposition or
against it.

c. That the statements used as proof :

(1) Bear directly on the point.

(2) Are arranged in the order most likely to appeal to the

person or persons addressed.

(3) Are arranged in the most convincing order.

(4) Are free from fallacy.

(6) Are stated in the clearest, most appealing language at
your command.

V. Review your work.

1. Examine your work to see :

a. That each sentence is grammatical.

b. That each sentence is accurately punctuated.

c. That each word is correctly spelled.

ADDITIONAL SUBJECTS FOR ORAL OR WRITTEN ARGUMENT

OR DEBATE

1. The memory is trained better through the ear than through the eye.

2. Education should train the eye and the hand as well as the mind.

3. Street-car companies should furnish a seat for every fare paid.

4. Cheap apartments are injuring cities.

5. Trolley wires should be put under ground.

6. The United States should increase her navy.

7. The President should be elected directly by the people.

8. Labor-saving machinery has been an advantage to laborers.

9. The Indians are receiving proper treatment.

10. Shops should close at five o'clock.

1 1 . Play is as necessary as work.

12. Certain animals should be protected during certain seasons.

13. There should be a federal income tax.

CHAPTER XII
FIGURES OF SPEECH

Often, in ordinary conversation as well as in formal prose
and in poetry, speakers and writers use words or groups of
words which are not intended to be understood literally.
Among such expressions are : " at a/z>/^//," " a cloudedhro-w,''
"the crusade against bird-slaughter," " A storm is raging,''
"His cheeks ^<7w^^," "He burst into laughter," "The firm
employs fifty ha7ids,'' "in the teeth of the gale,"

" O'er me, like a regal tejtt,
Cloudy-ribbed, the sunset bent.''''

These expressions each suggest the meaning intended with
far more accuracy and vividness than literal statements could.
The effectiveness of such expressions is due either to the un-
expected turn given to the meaning of some word or words
or to the aptness of the resemblances or relations unexpectedly
pointed out as existing between objects.

An expression which gives vividness and force to thought
by an unexpected turn in the meaning of some word or words
or by the apt pointing out of unexpected resemblances or
relations between objects is a figure of speech.

Figures of speech may be placed in one of several groups
according to the basis of classification.

Simile. — A simile is a figure of speech in which likeness is
expressed between two objects belonging to different classes,
but having one characteristic in common.

The simile is usually introduced by a word of comparison,
such as /ike or as.

340 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

#
Examples :

I. His nose was shaped like the bill of a parrot ; his face slightly pitted
with smallpox, with a dry perpetual bloom on it like a frost-bitten leaf in
autumn. — Irving.

Like a leopard's tawny and spotted hide,
Stretches the plain. — Longfellow,

3. Books are as way marks for us, looking back,
Far up and down the road. — Larcom.

/ \. Watch the white glaciers blaze in their winding paths about the
mountains, like mighty serpents with scales of fire. — Ruskin.

Simile differs from literal comparison in that in simile the
objects compared belong to different classes and so have al-
most no points of resemblance, while in literal comparison
the objects or ideas compared belong to the same class and
therefore have many points of resemblance. The statement,

"At once they rush'd
Together, as two eagles on one prey
Come rushing down together from the clouds,
One from the east, one from the west,"

is a simile because the objects compared, men and eagles,
belong to different classes of animals and resemble one another
only in their manner of attack. The statement, "A hawk
is like an eagle," is, on the other hand, a literal comparison,
because the hawk and the eagle belong to the same class of
animals, birds of prey, and so resemble each other in many
typical characteristics and habits of life.

EXERCISE I

In the following selections, point out the similes, name the objects
compared, and tell how the thought of one object suggests that of the other ;

I . Like two cathedral towers these stately pines

Uplift their fretted summits tipped with cones. — Longfellow.

• FIGURES OF SPEECH 34 1

2. But pleasures are like poppies spread.
You seize the flower, its bloom is shed ;
Or like the snow-falls in the river,

A moment white — then melts forever ;
Or like the borealis race,
That flit ere you can point their place ;
Or like the rainbow's lovely form,
Evanishing amid the storm. — Burns.

3. When the moon shone we did not see the candle,

So doth the greater glory dim the less. — Shakespeare.

4. Like the leaves of the forest, when Summer is green,
That host with their banners, at sunset were seen ;
Like the leaves of the forest, when Autumn hath blown,
That host, on the morrow, lay withered and strown. — Byron.

5. Nature is full of a sublime family likeness throughout her works.
She delights in startling us with resemblances in the most unexpected
quarters. I have seen the head of an old sachem of the forest, which at
once reminded the eye of a bald mountain summit, and the furrows of the
brow suggested the strata of the rock. — Emerson.

6. Like as the waves make toward the pebbled shore.
So do our minutes hasten to their end ;

Each changing place with that which goes before.

In sequent toil all forwards do contend. — Shakespeare.

7. A man^s mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intelli-
gently cultivated, or allowed to run wild. — James Allen.

Metaphor. — A metaphor is a figure of speech which applies
to an object of one class the name of an object of a different
class to imply that the object spoken of is the same in essen-
tial quality as the object named.

Metaphor, like simile, is based on resemblance between ob-
jects. The metaphor, however, implies resemblance, while
the simile asserts it.

Examples :

Y I. Current events are the records of experiments in the laboratory of
laboratories — the world. — F. N. Thorpe.

342 ■ PRACTICAL ExXGLISH COMPOSITION *

2. Knowledge, in truth, is the great sun in the firmament. Life and
power are scattered with all its beams. — Webster.

3. Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire —
conscience. — Washington.

4. There's husbandry in heaven.
Their candles are all out. — Shakespeare.

5. Rumor is a pipe
Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures :
And of so easy and so plain a stop

That the blunt monster with uncounted beads,
The still-discordant wavering multitude,
Can play upon it. — Shakespeare.

6. Have I not heard great ordnance with the field.

And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies? — Shakespeare.

7. Come watch with me the shaft of fire that glows,
In yonder West : the fair frail palaces.

The fading Alps and archipelagoes.

And great cloud continents of sunset seas. — Aldrich.

Personification. — Personification is a figure of speech in
which life is ascribed to the lifeless or a higher degree of life
to the living.

Examples :

1. Memory standing near
Cast down her eyes, and in her throat
Her voice seemed distant. — Tennyson.

2. Grim-visaged war hath smoothed his wrinkled front. — Shakespeare

3. Laughter holding both his sides. — Milton.

4. The very stones of Rome will rise in mutiny. — Shakespeare.

5. Its arms outstretched, the druid wood
Waits with its benedicite. — Lowell.

6. The daisy's cheek is tipped with a blush,
She is of such low degree. — Hood.

Personification is of frequent occurrence both in speech
and in writing. It is found most extensively, perhaps, in the

FIGTRES OF SPFKCH 343

fable and the allegory. In fables in which personification
occurs, animals or inanimate objects are given some char-
acteristic of human nature. In allegories, abstract ideas or
quaUties are personified.

Examples :

The Mountain and the Squirrel {Fable)

The mountain and the squirrel

Had a quarrel,

And the former called the latter " Little Prig.''

Bun replied,

" You are doubtless very big,

But all sorts of things and weather

Must be taken in together.

To make up a year

And a sphere,

And I think it no disgrace

To occupy my place.

If I'm not so large as you,

You are not so small as I,

And not half so spry.

ril not deny you make

A very pretty squirrel track ;

Talents differ; all is well and wisely put;

If I cannot carry forests on my back.

Neither can you crack a nut." — Emerson.

The Day {Allegory)

"Come with me," said the Day, "and let us do things together!"'

"What kind of things?'" asked the man.

"Beautiful things!" said the Day. "Your friend is sick, and a visit
from you would give him infinite pleasure. Also, it is long since you saw
your sister, who is poor and sorrowful ; and on the way, you might get
some presents for her children, since they have no father to buy them gifts.
Then, suppose we take a walk in these woods, outside the city, where you
and your brother used to play! How long is it since you saw them? or
your brother? He is back again, I hear, and is minded to lead a new life.

344

PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

We might go to him, and take him by the hand, and go a few steps with
him Then we might . . .'"

"What nonsense is all this?" cried the man. "These are all things
that I should like well enough to do sometime, but not with you. I ex-
pect to make ten thousand dollars with your aid ; sit down with me at the
desk, instead of talking idly."

They sat down together, and the hours passed. "By and by it was time
for the Day to go on.

"Good-by!" she said.

" Oh, good-by ! " said the man. "Why do you look at me so sadly and
strangely? I mean to do all those things that you spoke of; I certainly
mean to do them with one of your sisters."

" I have no more sisters ! " said the Day.

And passing through the door she met the entering Night.

— The Golden Windows, Laura E. Richards.

Other examples of allegory are : Spenser's Faerie Queene,
Bunyan's Pilgrim s Progress, Swift's Tale of a Tub and
Gulliver s Travels ^ and The Visioft of Mirza and Luxury
and Avarice in Addison's Spectator.

EXERCISE n

In the following selections, state in what the personification consists:

1. But Freedom walks unarmed about the isle,

And Peace sits musing beside each man's door. — Austin.

2. Flowers preach to us if we will hear. — Rossetti.

3. Oh, the little bird is rocking in the cradle of the wind. — Dunbar.

4. The sun, a snow-blown traveler, sank

From sight beneath the smothering bank. — Whittier.

5. The forests with their myriad tongues

Shouted of liberty. — Longfellow.

6. — The streams

Wake, laughing from their winter dreams. — Whittier.

7. When breast-plated March his trumpets blew.

We laughed in his face, till he laughed, too. — Austin.

8. Conscience is harder than our enemies,

Knows more, accuses with more nicety. — George Eliot.

FIGURES OF SPEECH 345

Apostrophe. — An apostrophe is a direct address to the dead,
to the absent, or to a personified object or idea.

Examples :

1. O Captain ! my Captain ! rise up and hear the bells ;
Rise up, for you the flag is flung, for you the bugle trills.

— Whitman.

2. Lay aside your cloak, O Birch Tree !
Lay aside your white-skin wrapper.
For the sun is warm in heaven,

And you need no white-skin wrapper. — Longfellow.

3. O Nature, how fair is thy face,

And how light is thy heart ! — Meredith.

EXERCISE III

Name the figures with which apostrophe is combined in each of the
following quotations :

1. Angel of Peace, thou hast wandered too long.

Spread thy white wings to the sunshine of love.
Come while our voices are blended in song, —

Fly to our ark like the storm-beaten dove ! — Holmes.

2. Open afresh your round of starry folds,
Ye ardent marigolds !

Dry up the moisture of your golden lids,
For great Apollo bids. — Keats.

3. O herald skylarks, stay thy flight
One moment, for a nightingale
Floods us with sorrow and delight.
To-morrow thou shalt hoist the sail,

Leave us to-night the nightingale. — Rossetti.

4. O sleep, O gentle sleep.
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee.
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down

And steep my senses in forgetfulness ? — Shakespeare.

5. Ivy ! thy home is where each sound

Of revelry hath long been o'er ;
Where song and beaker once went round,

But now are known no more. — Mrs. Hemans.

346 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

Metonymy. — Metonymy is a figure of speech in which an
object is designated by the name of another object with which
it is closely associated.

Familiar examples of metonymy are the bench, for the
judges on the be?tch; an agreement in black and white, for an
agreement in writiyig ; the laurel, for success; following the
compass, for the ^wrtJi ; the House, for the tnembei's of the
House of Represe7itatives ; a company of hoj-se, for a company
of Iiorseme7i ; the chair, for the chairma?i ; reading Tennyson,
for reading the works of Tennyson.

Because of the many kinds of association between objects,
there are several varieties of metonymy.

A metonymy may result from the use of :

a. The sign for the thing signified.

l/^ Example : They fled to the stars and stripes for protection.

b. The container for the thing contained.

Examples : The kettle boils.

A beehive\s hum shall sooth my ear. — Rogers.

c. The cause for the effect or the effect for the cause.

Examples :

1. Have we not Shakespeare ? Is not Johnson ours ? — Churchill.

2. Ambition has but one reward for all. — Winter.

3. His silver hairs
Will purchase us a good opinion,

And buy men's votes to commend our deeds. — Shakespeare.

d. The material for the object made from it.

Examples :

1, The English oak commands the flood. — Churchill.

2. Arrayed in purple and fine linen.

e. The instrument for the agent.

t« /"^Example: The ballot is a mighty weapon.

FIGURES OF SPEECH 34

EXERCISE IV

State what variety of metonymy is used in the following quotations :

1. Once more, ye sacred towers,

Your solemn dirges sound. — Holmes.

2. With fire and sword the country round
Was wasted far and wide. — Southey.

3. His home was a freezing cabin. — Holmes.

4. Then here's to our boyhood, its gold and its gray. — Holmes.

5. But without bell or book they buried the farmer of Grand Prd.

— Longfellow.

6. Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon

How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair? — BURNS.

7. By torch and trumpet fast arrayM

Each horseman drew his battle-blade. — Campbell.

8. Our sacred hearths shall burn eternally. — Lovelace.

9. Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice. — Shakespeare.
10. Strike for your altars and your fires. — Halleck.

Synecdoche. — Synecdoche is a figure of speech in which
the whole is used to designate a part or a part to designate
the whole.

Synecdoche, like metonymy, is based not upon resemblance
between objects but upon relations between objects.

Examples :

1 . Uneasy lies the /tead that wears a crown. — Shakespeare.

2. The W(7r/^ knows his worth.

EXERCISE V

Point out the synecdoche in each of the following quotations :

1 . WeVe lived since then in calm and strife
Full fifty summers, a sailor's life. — Proctor.

2. Heavily closed, with a jarring sound, the valves of the barn doors.

— Holmes.

3. She, wretched matron, forced in age, for bread,

To strip the brook with mantling cresses spread. — Goldsmith.

4. The Scottish foe has fired his tent. — Scott.

348 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

5. Every day brings a ship,

Every ship brings a word ;
Well for those who have no fear,
Looking seaward well assured
That the word the vessel brings
Is the word they wish to hear, — Emerson.

Hyperbole. — Hyperbole is a figure of speech in which a
statement is made emphatic by exaggeration.

Examples :

1. I came like a flash of lightning, and now
I depart like the wind. — Arnold.

2. Why, man, if the river were dry, I am able to fill it with tears ; if the
wind were down, I could drive the boat with my sighs. — Shakespeare.

EXERCISE VI

Explain the use of the hyperbole in the following sentences:

1. The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars
As daylight doth a lamp ; her eye in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright

. That birds would sing, and think it were not night.

— Shakespeare.

2. The Hyrcanian deserts and the vasty wilds
Of wide Arabia — are as throughfares now

For princes to come view fair Portia, — Shakespeare,

3. Ev'n the slight harebell raised its head
Elastic from her airy tread. — Scott.

4. There is the sweet music here, that softer falls

Than, petals from blown roses on the grass.
Or night dews on still waters between walls

Of shadowy granite in gleaming pass. — Tennyson.

Vividness and force are given to thought not only by the
use of figures of speech, but also by the use of imitative words
or phrases and of special constructions somewhat similar in
effect to figures of speech.

FIGURES OF SPEECH 349

Onomatopceia is a form of speech in which words suggest
their meaning by their sound.

Examples :

1. The crickets tr^/rr/// in the hearth,
The crackling fagot flies. — Goldsmith.

2. The contrast strong

Then plunge along
As if a war waging

Its caverns and rocks among:
Collecting, projecting.
Receding and speeding.
And shocking and rocking
And darting and parting.
And threading and spreading,
And whizzing and hissing.
And dripping and skipping.
And hitting and spitting.
And shining and twining,
And rattling and battling,
And shaking and quaking,
And pouring and roaring.
And tossing and crossing.
And flowing and going,
And running and stunning.
And foaming and roaming.

— The Cataract of Lodore, Southey.

Alliteration. — Alliteration is the use of a succession of
words beginning with the same sound and usually with the
same letter.

Alliterative words may succeed one another immediately or
they may be separated by words of slight importance.

Examples :

I. High flames the frequent fire. — Southey.

3. Alone, alone, all, all alone.

Alone on a wide, wide sea. — Coleridge.

350 PRACTICAL i:\(.Lisn c().MiM)sn io\

Antithesis. — Antithesis is a form of expression in which
contrast in thought is emphasized by the use of contrasted
words, phrases, or clauses.

Examples :

1. I'd rather laugh, a bright-haired boy,
Than reign a gray-beard king. — Holmes.

2. Teach us like thee, in various temper wise,
To fall with dignity, with temper rise ;
Famed by thy converse, happily to steer

From grave to gay, from lively to severe. — Pope.

3. Not that I loved C«£sar less, but that I loved Rome more.

— Shakespeare.

The contrast may be emphasized by a parallel arrange-
ment of the contrasted elements; that is, contrasted thoughts
may be expressed in like constructions placed in the same
relative positions in the sentence.

Examples of antithesis with parallel arrangement :

1. Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice ;

Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.

— Shakespeare.

2. Youth is full of pleasure, age is full of care ;
Youth like summer morn, age like winter weather;
Youth like summer brave, age like winter bare ;
Youth is full of sport, age's breath is short ;
Youth is nimble, age is lame. — Shakespeare.

Contrast may be expressed without parallel arrangement.

Examples of antithesis without parallel arra>tgement :

1. Anger's my meat ; I sup upon myself,

And so shall starve with feeding. — Shakespeare.

2. O dark, dark amid the blaze of morn ;
Irrecoverably dark ! total eclipse.
Without all hope of day. — iMilton.

FIGURES OF SPEECH 351

EXERCISE VU

In the following selections (a) name the contrasted words, phrases, or
clauses ; (d) state whether there is parallel arrangement ; (c) tell what
other figures of speech are combined- with antithesis :

I . At night returning, every labor sped.

He sits him down, the monarch of a shed.

— Goldsmith.
.2. The hamlet now a city is,

Its log-built huts are palaces. — Whittier.

3. Come, Peace, not like a mourner bowed
For honor lost, and dear ones wasted,
But proud to meet a people proud,

With eager eyes that tell of triumph tasted. — Lowell.

4. It is better to fight for the good than to rail at the ill. — Tennyson.

5. Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow ;

He who would search for pearls must dive below.

» Dryden.

6. Guiltiness will speak

Though tongues were out of use. — Shakespeare.

7. Soar not too high, to fall : but stoop to rise. — Massinger.

8. Truth forever on the scaffold ; wrong forever on the throne.

— Lowell.

9. A falcon, towering in her pride of place.
Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at and kiird.

— Shakespeare.

Climax. — Climax is the arrangement of a series of ideas
in the order of increasing importance.

Exatnpies :

1. I came, I saw, I conquered. — CiESAR.

2. You stocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things !

O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome ! — Shakespeare.

Epigram. — Epigram is a pithy or antithetical phrasing of a
shrewd observation.

352

PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

Examples :

1. The child is father of the man.

2. Fools who came to scoff remained to pray.
3-

Handsome is as handsome does.

The Rhetorical Question. — The rhetorical question is an
expression of strong emotion in the form of a question to
which the answer is obvious and to which no reply is
expected.

Examples :

1. Must I budge ? Must I observe you ? Must I stand and crouch
under your testy humor? — Shakespeare.

2. What is so rare as a day in June .'' — Lowell.

3. What matter how the wind behave ?

What matter how the north wind rave ? — Whittier.

4. And do you now put on your best attire ?
And do you now cull out a holiday ?
And do you now strew flowers in his way

That comes in triumph over Pompey's blood ? — Shakespeare.

5. Now, what can England make for the poor white population of such
a future empire, and for her slave population ? What carpets, what linens,
what cottons, can you sell to them ? What machines, what looking-
glasses, what combs, what leather, what books, what pictures, what engrav-
ings ? You may sell ships to a few, but what ships can you sell to two
thirds of the population of poor whites and blacks ? — Beecher.

6. Is this the man who scourged or feasted kings? — Byron.

Suggestive Rules

Rightly used, figurative language gives strength to speech
and to writing ; wrongly used, it makes thought, strong in
itself, seem weak and ridiculous.

Use figurative language only when literal language fails
to express thought with strength and vividness.

When using figurative language :

FIGURES OF SPEECH 353

a. Avoid the pointing out of resemblances so familiar
as to be commonplace.

Examples : " Fleecy clouds," " the river of life/' " light as a feather,"
"treacherous as a serpent," "swift as an arrow," "the ship of state."

d. Point out resemblances in only such objects as may-
be appropriately compared,
(i) Do not compare the subUme with the ridiculous.
(2) Do not compare a low or degraded object with
an object that is lofty or elevated.

c. Maintain the comparison throughout the figure.
(i) Avoid mixed figures.

Example : He is a biting orator who thrusts hard and then turns the
blade around two or three times.

(2) Avoid the combining of literal and figurative
language in the expression of one thought.

Examples : Washington was a great general and the father of his
country.

Mr. Mann's address, like a perfect piece of cabinet work, or a beautiful
mosaic, was sound in argument, noble in sentiment, and abounding in rare
good sense.

d. Suggest only such associations or relations as
would seem apt to the majority of people.

EXERCISE VIII

\ T Name and explain the figures of speech in the following passages :

1. The long hall glittered like a bed of flowers. — Tennyson.

2. The world is all gates, all opportunities, strings of tension waiting
!o be struck. — Emerson.

3. Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy. — ShXkespeare.

4. Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells! — Whitman.

5. And through the glass the clothes-line posts
Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts. — Whittier.

354 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

6. That world's earthquake, Waterloo I — Tennyson.

7. Their welfare pleased him, and their care distressed. — Goldsmith.

8. The parson was a little meager, black-looking man, with a grizzled
wig that was too wide, and stood off from each ear, so that his head seemed
to have shrunk away within it, like a dried filbert in its shell. — Irving.

9. Hard by, a cottage chimney smokes
From betwixt two aged oaks. — Milton.

ID. Magna Charta is such a fellow that he will have no sovereign. —
Debate on the Co}fu>ions.

1 1 . Honor pricks me on. — Shakespeare.

12. From the low peasant to the lord,

The turkey smokes on every board. — Gay.

13. Through many a gorge the bristling hemlock crossed,
Their spears above the ice-enfettered brooks. — Stedman.

14. He lies like a hedgehog rolled up the wrong way.
Tormenting himself with his prickles. — Hood,

15. A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.

— Emerson.

16. His giant figure planted on the sand.
Sole, like some single tower, which a chief
Hath builded on the waste in former years
Against the robbers. — Arnold.

17. Just for a handful of silver he left us. — Browning

18. Wild words wander here and there. — Tennyson.

19. Old Time, in whose bank we deposit our notes,

Is a miser who always wants guineas for groats. — Holmes.

20. Bright on the banner of lily and rose,

Lo! the last sun of our century rose. — Holmes.

21. O, Freedom! thou art not, as poets dream,

A fair young girl, with light and delicate limbs,

And wavy tresses gushing from the cap

With which the Roman master crowned his slave

When he took off his gyves. A bearded man.

Armed to the teeth, art thou; one mailed liand

Grasping the broad shield, and one the sword, thy brow,

■ >(^

FIGURES OF SPEECH

Glorious in beauty though it be, is scarred
With tokens of old wars. — Bryant.

35^

22. A ship comes foaming up the bay. — Holmes.

23. Did make oflfense, his eyes did heal it up. — Shakespeare.

24. Come forth, sweet stars, and comfort heaven's heart ;
Glimmer, ye waves, round else unlighted sands. - Lanier.

25. England ne'er had a king until his time,

His banish'd sword did blind men with his beams,

His arms spread wider than a dragon's wings ;

His sparkling eyes, reflete with wrathful fire.

More dazzled and drove back his enemies

Than mid-day sun fierce befit against their faces. — Shakespeare.

26. Then to the well-trod stage anon.

If Johnson's learned sock be on. — Milton.

27. And over all is the sky, the clear and crystalline heaven.
Like the protecting hand of God inverted above them.

— Longfellow.

28. Resolve will melt no rocks.

But it can scale them. — Eliot.

29. As the bird trims her to the gale,

I trim myself to the storm of time,

I man the rudder, reef the sail.

Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime ;

Lowly faithful, banish fear.

Right onward drive unharmed ;

The port, well worth the cruise, is near, •

And every wave is charmed. — Emerson.

30. As in a building
Stone rests on stone, and w^anting the foundation,
All would be wanting, so in human life

Each action rests on the foregoing event.

That made it possible, but is forgotten and buried in the earth.

— Longfellow.

31. Every pine and fir and hemlock
Wore ermine too dear for an earl,
And the poorest twig on the elm tree

Was ridged inch deep with pearl. — Lowell.

356 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

32. Night's son was driving

His golden-haired horses up ;

Over the eastern firths

High flashed their manes. — Kingsley.

33. Hear it not, ye stars!

And thou, pale moon ! turn paler at the sound. — Young.

34. Not a sail returning will she loose. — Larcom.

35. November's sky is chill and drear. — Scott.

36. The steed along the drawbridge flies.
Just as it trembled on the rise ;

Nor lighter does the swallow skim

Along the smooth lake's level brim. — ScoTT.

37. Lift up your heads, O ye gates ;

And be ye lifted up ye everlasting doors ;
and the King of glory shall come in. — The Bible.

38. When Freedom from her mountain height

Unfurled her standard to the air,
She tore the azure robe of night.
And set the stars of glory there. — Joseph Drake.

39. Last night, above the whistling wind,
I heard the welcome rain, —

A fusillade upon the roof,

A tattoo on the pane :

The keyhole piped ; the chimney top

A warlike trumpet blew. — Bret Harte.

40. Be thou as lightning in the eyes of France. — Shakespeare.

41. Education is a capital to the poor man, and an interest to a rich
man. — Horace Mann.

42. Habits, soft and pliant at first, are like some coral stones, which are
easily cut when first quarried, but soon become hard as adamant.

— Spurgeon.

43. The cold marble leapt to life, a God. — Milman.

44. Shall 1 tell the fearful story.

How they surged above the breastwork, as a sea breaks over the
deck ?— Holmes.

45. Nature draws her random picture through the year. — Stedman.

FIGURES OF SPEECH 357

46. What would be the state of the highways of life, if we did not drive
our thought-sprinklers through them, with valve open sometimes.

— Holmes.

47. Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
(That last infirmity of noble mind)

To scorn delights and live laborious days ;
But the fair guerdon when we hope to find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears,
And slits the thin spun life. — Milton.

48. But the black Northeaster,

Through the snowstorm hurled,
Drives our English hearts of oak

Seaward round the world. — Kingsley.

49. The everyday cares and duties, which men call drudgery, are the
weights and counterpoises of the clock of time, giving its pendulum a true
vibration and its hands a regular motion, and when they cease to hang
upon its wheels, the pendulum no longer swings, the hands no longer
move, the clock stands still. — Longfellow.

50. Hark, 'tis the bluebird's venturous strain
High on the old fringed elm at the gate —
Sweet-voiced, valiant on the swaying bough,
Alert, elate,

Dodging the fitful spits of snow.

New England's poet-laureate.

Telling us Spring has come again ! — Aldrich.

51. I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the
lamp of experience. — Patrick Henry.

52. Justice is like the north star, which is fixed, and all the rest revolve
about it. — Confucius.

53. All the village came out and feasted. — Longfellow.

54. Only keen salt sea odors filled the air

Sea sounds, sea odors — these were all my world. — Aldrich.

55. Our ideas, like orange plants, spread out in proportion to the size of
the box which imprisons the roots. — Bulwer Lytton.

56. Years teach us more than books. — Auerbach.

57. His dress was a volcano of silk with lava buttons. — Sydney Smith.

358 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

58. Forever slaves at home and fools abroad. — Tennyson.

59. O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me ? — Shakespeare.

60. The fall sunrise of the day which peculiarly belongs to the Ameri-
can people in the progress of human events has flooded all the world at
last ; and we will live each golden moment of our mighty day in a way as
great as the dav itself. — A. J. Beveridge.

61. On either side the shoe-deep dusted lane

The meager wisps of fennel scorch to wire,
Slow lags a team that drags an empty wain,
And, creaking dry, a wheel runs off the tire.

— J. P. Irvine.

62. O'er night's brim, day boils at last,
Boils, pure gold, o'er the cloud-cup's brim
Where spurting and suppressed it lay,
For not a froth-flake touched the rim

Of yonder gap in the solid gray

Of the eastern cloud, an hour away. — Browning.

63. Heaven speed the canvas, gallantly unfurled,
To finish and accommodate a world,

To give the pole the produce of the sun,

And knit the unsocial climates into one. — Cowper.

64. Miles and miles of gold and green
Where the sunflowers blow

In a solid glow. — Browning.

65. Labor, wide as the earth, has its summit in heaven. — Carlyle.

66. If every one will sweep before his own door, the street will be clean.

— Henry.

67. Haste trips up its own heels, fetters, and stops itself. — Seneca.

68. O trembling Faith ! though dark the morn,
A heavenly torch is thine. — Holmes.

69. October is the treasure of the year.

And all the months pay bounty to her store.

The fields and orchards still their tribute bear.

And fill her brimming coffers more and more. — Dunbar.

70. Enthusiasm is the leaping lightning, not to be measured by the
horse power of the understandim^'. — 1^mi:ks(^n.

FIGURES OF SPEECH 359

71. The season brimmed all other things up

Full as the rain fills the pitcher-planfs cup. — Lowell.

72. A man's manners are a mirror, in which he shows his likeness to
an intelligent observer, — Goethe.

73. Such a noise arose

As the shrouds make at sea in a stiff tempest,

As loud and to as many tunes, — hats, cloaks,

Doublets, I think flew up ; and had their faces

Been loose, this day they had been lost. — Shakespeare.

74. Alas ! you know the cause too well ;
The salt is spilt, to me it fell. — Gay.

75. Each wave was crested with tawny foam,
Like the mane of a chestnut steed. — ScOTT.

76. Like heath-bird, when the hawks pursue,

A barge across Loch Katrine flew. — Scott.

CHAPTER XIII
POETIC FORM

A COMPOSITION which has as its main purpose the arousing
of emotions or the satisfying of the aesthetic sense, that is,
the satisfying of an appreciation of beauty of thought or of
form, is often expressed in verse.

Verse. — Verse is such a choice and arrangement of words
as results in an accented syllable occurring at fixed intervals.

The interval between two accented syllables may consist of
one unaccented syllable or of two unaccented syllables accord-
ing to the kind of verse.

Rhythm. — The regular recurrence of accented and unac-
cented syllables is rhythm.

The Poetic Foot. — An accented syllable with its accom-
panying unaccented syllable or syllables is called a poetic
foot. Poetic feet differ in the relative position of the accented
and unaccented syllables.

The Trochee. — A poetic foot which consists of an accented
syllable followed by one unaccented syllable is a trochee, or
trochaic foot. For example,

Come, and | trip it, | as you | go, |

On the I light fantastic ] toe. |

— L'AlUgro, Milton.

The Dactyl. — A poetic foot which consists of an accented
syllable followed by two unaccented syllables is a dactyl, or
dactyllic foot. For example,

360

POETIC FORM 361

Nothing was | heard in the j room but the I hurrying | pen of the [ stripling, |

— Miles Standish, Longfellow.

The Iambus. — A poetic foot which consists of an accented
syllable preceded by one unaccented syllable is an iambus,
or iambic foot. For example,

Thy voice | is heard | thro^ roll|ing dmms, |

That beat | to bat | tie where | he stands; |

\j \j — w \j

Thy face | across | his fan|cy comes, |

\J \J W \J

And gives | the bat | tie to | his hands. |

— The Princess, Tennyson.

The Anapest. — A poetic foot which consists of an accented
syllable preceded by two unaccented syllables is an anapest,
or anapestic foot. For example.

Shall the harp | then be si | lent when he, | who first gave |

To our coun|try a name, | is withdrawn | from all eyes? |

— Shall The Harp Then Be Silent ? MoORE.

The Amphibrach. — A poetic foot which consists of an
accented syllable preceded by one unaccented syllable and
followed by another unaccented syllable is an amphibrach.
For example,

\j .-^ \j \j WW \j \j

Flow gently, | sweet Afton, \ among thy | green braes, j

Flow gently, I TH sing thee j a song in j thy praise. |

— Burns.

362 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

The Spondee. — A poetic foot which consists of two equally
accented syllables is a spondee. For example,

Hark, nTrk!

The Pyrrhic Foot. — A poetic foot which consists of two
unaccented syllables is a pyrrhic foot. This is found most
commonly at the end of a verse ; as, for example, the last foot
in the second and fourth of the following verses :

V^ W \^ V-'

What wert | thou, maid? | — thy life | — thy name, |

Obli|vion hides | in mys|tery ; |

<<j \j — w \j

Though from | thy face | my heart | could frame |

w ^J ^^ <J \J

A long I roman|tic hisjtory. |

— Campbell.

A Verse. — Verse is so composed that while one poetic
foot sometimes forms a single line, or a verse, a verse usually
consists of several poetic feet.

Monometer. — A verse that consists of one poetic foot is
called monometer. For example,

Tolling.

Dimeter. — A verse that consists of two poetic feet is called
dimeter. For example,

Into the I moonlight j

w v^

Whiter than | snow |

\y \y w v^

Waving so | flower-like |

When the winds | blow.

— T/u: Ffltintain, Lowell.

POETIC FORM 363

Trimeter. — A verse that consists of three poetic feet is
called trimeter. For example,

v^ \^ "^

Once in | a goI|den hour |

I cast I to earth | a seed. |

w — w —

Up I there came | a flower, |

w \y w —

The peo|ple said, | a weed. |

— T/ie Flower^ Tennyson.

Tetrameter. — A verse that consists of four poetic feet is
called tetrameter. For example,

\J \u \J w

How sleep | the brave, | who sink | to rest |

By all 1 their counjtry's wishjes blest! |

— Ode^ Collins.

Pentameter. — A verse that consists of five poetic feet is
called pentameter. For example,

— The Deserted Village^ Goldsmith.

Hexameter. — A verse that consists of six poetic feet is
called hexameter. For example,

\J \J V^ \J WV_/ \J KJ \J

Occasionally, a writer chooses to use even a longer line
than the hexameter, as in the following verses,

\J \J \J \J \J w w

\J \J W KJ KJ V> V^

— Locksley Hall, Tennyson.

364 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

The Naming of Verse. — A verse is named by the kind of
poetic foot that prevails in it and by the number of poetic
feet that it contains. For example, a verse that consists of
five iambic feet is called iambic pentameter ; a verse that
consists of four trochaic feet is called trochaic tetrameter ;
a verse that consists of two anapests is called anapestic
dimeter. If the kind of foot in verse varies, as it often does,
it is necessary to read enough of a poem to determine the
kind of foot that prevails and so gives name to the verse.

The Relation of Rhythm to Thought. — The kind of verse
to be used in any given case depends entirely upon the
nature of the subject and the kind of thought to be expressed.

The Effect of Rhythm Suited to Thought. — A rhythm that
exactly suits the thought greatly strengthens the effect of a
poem, as in the following examples :

Where the bee sucks, there suck I :

In a cowslip's bell I lie ;

There I couch, when owls do cry :

On the bat's back I do fly

After summer merrily.

Merrily, merrily, shall I live now.

Under the blossom that hangs on the bough !

— Shakespeare.

The year's at the spring
And day's at the morn ;
Morning's at seven ;
The hillside's dew-pearled ;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn :
God's in his heaven —
All's right with the world!

— Pippa Passes, Browning.

Rockaby, baby, upon the tree-top ;

When the wind blows, the cradle will rock ;

POETIC FORM 365

When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall,
And down will come baby and cradle and all.

O hark, O hear ! how thin and clear,

And thinner, clearer, farther going !
O sweet and far from cliff and scar

The horns of Elfland faintly blowing !
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying :
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

— The Princess^ Tennyson.

The Effect of Rhythm Unsuited to Thought. — A rhythm
that does not suit the thought weakens the effect of a poem,
sometimes even to the point of grotesqueness. In the fol-
lowing verses, for example, the rhythm is so unsuited to the
thought as to tend to contradict it :

Wherever from kindred, torn rudely apart,
Comes the sorrowful wail of the broken in heart.

— Whittier.

Variation in Rhythm. — The Substituted Poetic Foot. In
order that rhythm may be suited to the thought to be ex-
pressed, it often happens that a verse must contain more than
one kind of poetic foot. For example, in the verses,

Merrily | swinging on | brier and | weed,

Near to the | nest of his | little | dame,

\j \j \j \j

Over the | mountain | side or | mead |

Robert of | Lincoln is | telling his | name,

the prevailing foot is the dactyl, yet in each verse a one-
syllabled or monosyllabic foot is used in place of a dactyl, i.e.,
is substituted for it, and in the second and third verses trochaic
feet are also substituted. In each case of substitution, how-

366 PRACTICAI. KXCilJSIl COMPOSITION

ever, the relative position of the accent remains the same,
and the time given to think or to pronounce the substituted
foot is the same as that given to any one of the dactyls.

Ordinarily, a poetic foot is replaced by a foot of similar
accent, as a dactyl by a trochee, an anapest by an iambus,
etc., and there is no change of time or of accent to interrupt
the cadence of the verse. Yet, if there is a marked change
in thought or if emphasis demands it, a foot of one accent
may be replaced by a foot of opposite accent, as an iambus
by a trochee, etc.

Hypercatalectic Verse. — Sometimes, variation in rhythm
results from the use of an extra syllable in a verse, as in the
first and third verses of the following :

O larks, | sing out | to the thrush|es,

\y \y w v^

And thrush |es, sing | to the sky! |

\^ KJ w v^

A verse of this kind, /.r., a verse which contains a syllable
more than is required by its meter, is said to be hypercatalectic
verse.

Catalectic Verse. — Sometimes vawation in rhythm results
from omitting from a verse one or two syllables of the num-
ber required by the meter, as in the fourth verse of the follow-
ing selection :

\J \J \J v^

Men loud | against | all forms | of power — |

\j \j \^ — w —

Unfurl nish'd brows, | tempes|tuous tongues —

Expect|ing all | things in | an hour — |

Brass mouths I and irlon lungs!

— Freedom, Tennyson

POETIC FORM 367

A verse of this kind, i.e., a verse which lacks one or two
of the syllables necessary to make up the exact number re-
quired by its meter, is said to be catalectic verse.

Acatalectic Verse. — A verse which consists of the exact
number of syllables required by its meter is said to be acatalectic
verse.

The Suppression of Syllables. — Sometimes an extra sylla-
ble in a verse must be slighted or suppressed for the sake of
the rhythm, as in the second foot of the following selection :

\J \J V^ \J \^

O Pa|triot States] man, be | thou wise | to know |

\j ^u \^ w \j

w w w \j \^

— To the Duke of Argyle^ Tennyson.

Slurring. — In the foot triot States, in the stanza above, the

vowel / is slighted and combined with ot ; i.e., it is slurred,
to give the proper accent and cadence to the foot.

Elision. — In the following verse the suppression in the
first foot takes place in a somewhat different way:

Here the vowel e is omitted, or elided, and the /// is com-
bined with the ap to make one syllable.

The slighting of a vowel within a word is called slurring.

The suppression of a vowel at the end of a word is called
elision.

Whatever the thought to be expressed, such rhythm and
such variation in rhythm must be used as is best suited to
express the thought.

368 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

The Cesura. — In reading verse the sense often requires a
break or pause in the middle of a foot, especially when the
middle of a foot is the end of a word. For example, in the
following verses,

^ \j

Hark! | they vvhisiper: ilan|gels say, |

\y — w — ^ —

Sis|ter spir|it, II come | away, |

after whisper and after spirit there is a break in the sense
which causes a pause, or cesura.

The cesura is often found, as in this selection, near the
middle of a verse, but it may come anywhere in the verse, or
it may be entirely lacking.

Scansion. — The reading of verse in such a way as to em-
phasize the accented syllable of each poetic foot is scansion.

Scan the following selections Note the substituted feet, the
slurred or elided vowels, and the cesural pauses.

I know the song that the bluebird is singing,
Out in the apple tree where he is swinging.
Brave little fellow ! the skies may be dreary, —
Nothing cares he while his heart is so cherry.

Hark ! how the music leaps out from his throat!
Hark! was there ever so merry a note ?
Listen awhile, and you'll hear what he's saying,
Up in the apple tree, swinging and swaying.

— The Bluebird, Emily Huntington Miller.

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean — roll \
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain.

— Apostrophe to the Ocean, Byron.

So light to the croup the fair lady he swung.
So light to the saddle before her he sprung.

— Lochim>at\ ScQTT.

POETIC FORM 369

He waved his proud hand, and the trumpets were blown.
The kettle-drums clashed, and the horsemen rode on,
Till on Ravelston's cliffs and on Clermiston's lea
Died away the wild war notes of bonnie Dundee.

— The Bonnets of Bonnie Dundee, Scott.

Bird of the wilderness,

Blithesome and cumberless,
Sweet be thy matin o'er moorland and lea !

Emblem of happiness.

Blest is thy dwelling-place :
Oh, to abide in the desert with thee !

— The Lark, James Hogg.

Break, break, break.
On thy cold, gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.

— Break, Break, Break^ Tennyson.

Blessings on thee, little man.
Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan !
With thy turned-up pantaloons.
And thy merry whistled tunes ;
With thy red lip, redder still.
Kissed by strawberries on the hill ;
With the sunshine on thy face,
Through thy torn brim's jaunty grace ;
From my heart I give thee joy :
I was once a barefoot boy !

— The Barefoot Boy, Whittier.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore —

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

— The Raven, Poe.

I am monarch of all I survey ;

My right there is none to dispute ;

370 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

From the center all round to the sea
I am lord of the fowl and the brute.

O Solitude ! where are the charms
That sages have seen in thy face?

Better dwell in the midst of alarms,
Than reign in this horrible place.

— The Soliloquy of Alexander Selkirk^ Cowper.

Rhyme. — The effectiveness of verse is often increased by
the use of rhyme ; i.e., by the use of a regular recurrence of
similar sounds produced by the use of the same vowel sound
succeeded in each word by the same consonant sound or
sounds, but pi^eceded by different consonant sounds. For ex-
ample, could, wood; viake, take, sake, flake ; growing, sow-
ing ; etc.

The Interval between Rhymes. — The interval between
rhymes may vary, but when it is once estabhshed, it should
be followed throughout a passage.

Read the following selections, noticing the different rhyme
schemes :

The Sun's rim dips ; the stars rush out :
At one stride comes the dark ;
With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea,
Off shot the specter-bark.

We listened and looked sideways up !

Fear at my heart, as at a cup,

My life-blood seemed to sip !

The stars were dim. and thick the night,

The steersman's face by his lamp gleamed white;

From the sails the dew did drip —

Till clomb above the eastern bar

The horned Moon, with one bright star

Within the nether tip.

— The Ancient Mariner, Coleridge.

Can storied urn or animated bust

Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath ?

POETIC FORM 371

Can Honor's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or Flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of death ?

— Elegy Written in a Cotmtry Churchyard^ Gray.

I held it truth, with him who sings

To one clear harp in divers tones.

That men may rise on steppin<^-stones
Of their dead selves to higher things.

— hi Memorial, Tennyson.

Blank Verse. — Verse without rhyme is blank verse. It
is usually, though not always, in iambic pentameter measure.
It is dignified and sustained in tone, and is especially suited
to the expression of lofty, solemn, or heroic thought.

Read the following selections, noticing the value of the
form in expressing the thought :

The quality of mercy is not strain'd, —

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath : it is twice blest, —

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes :

'Tis mightiest in the mightiest ; it becomes

The throned monarch better than his crown ;

His scepter shows the force of temporal power,

The attribute to awe and majesty.

Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings ;

But mercy is above this sceptred sway ;

It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,

It is an attribute to God himself;

And earthly power doth then show likest God's

When mercy seasons justice.

— The Merchaiit of Venice, Shakespeare.

Then rose the King and moved his host by night,
And ever push'd Sir Modred, league by league.
Back to the sunset bound of Lyonnesse —
A land of old upheave n from the abyss
By fire, to sink into the abyss again ;
Where fragments of forgotten peoples dwelt,

372 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

And the long mountains ended in a coast

Of ever-shifting sand, and far away

The phantom circle of a moaning sea.

There the pursuer could pursue no more ;

And he that fled no further fly the King;

And there, that day when the great light of heaven

Burned at his lowest in the rolling year,

On the waste sand by the waste sea they closed.

— The Passing of Arthur^ Tennyson.

The Stanza. — Sometimes verse is continuous, as in Brown-
ing's Sordello or Milton's Paradise Lost, but usually it is
divided into groups called stanzas. The length of a stanza
depends upon the rhyme and the rhythm. Usually the
stanzas of the same poem are alike in structure, though they
may vary.

The Couplet. — The shortest stanza is a two-verse stanza,
or couplet^ with end rhyme. For example.

He courted the eldest with glove and ring,
But he lo'ed the youngest aboon a* thing.

He courted the eldest with brooch and knife.

But he lo^ed the youngest aboon his life. — Binnori.

The Heroic Couplet. — A couplet in iambic pentameter
measure with end rhyme is an heroic couplet. The heroic
couplet is practically always found as a part of a long stanza
or of continuous verse. For example,

A man he was to all the country dear

And passing rich with forty pounds a year.

Remote from towns he ran his godly race.

Nor e'er had changed, or wished to change his place ;

Unskillful he to fawn, or seek for power,

By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour ;

For other aims his heart had learned to prize,

More bent to raise the wretched than to rise.

— The Deserted Village, Goldsmith.

POETIC FORAl 373

The Triplet, or Tercet. — A three-verse stanza is a triplet, or
tercet. For example,

Dark, deep, and cold the current flows

Unto the sea where no wind blows,

Seeking the land which no one knows. — Plaint^ Elliot.

The Quatrain. — One of the most common varieties of
stanza is the four-verse stanza, or quatrain. For example,

I murmur under moon and stars

In brambly wildernesses ;
I linger by my shingly bars ;

I loiter round my cresses ;

And out again I curve and flow

To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go

But I go on forever. — The Brook, Tennyson.

The Heroic Quatrain. — A four-verse stanza of iambic pen-
tameter, rhyming abab, is called an heroic quatrain. For ex-
ample,

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day.
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea.

The plowman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

— Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, Gray.

The Ballad Stanza. — A four-verse stanza in which the first
and third verses are iambic tetrameter and the second and
fourth are iambic trimeter is called a ballad stanza.

In this stanza, the rhyme scheme is usually abcb. For
example,

Now let us sing, long live the king !

And Gilpin, long live he ;
And when he next doth ride abroad,

May I be there to see !

— The Diverting History of John Gilpin, Cowper.

374

PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

The Tennysonian Stanza. — A four-verse iambic tetrameter

stanza, rhyming abba, is called a Tennysonian stanza. For

example,

I envy not in any moods

The captive void of noble rage.
The linnet born within the cage.
That never knew the summer woods.

— In Memoriatn^ Tennyson.

The five-verse stanza is common in English poetry as is
also the six-verse stanza. For example.

Hail to thee, blithe spirit !

Bird thou never wert,
That from heaven, or near it,

Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

— To a Skylark, Shelley.

God of our fathers, known of old —

Lord of our far-flung battle-line —
Beneath whose awful Hand we hold

Dominion over palm and pine —
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet.

Lest we forget, lest we forget !

— Recessional, RuDYARD Kipling.

Rhyme Royal. — A seven-verse stanza of iambic pentameter,
rhyming ababbcc is called rhyme royal. For example,

O yonge fresshe folkes, he or she,

In which that love up groweth with your age,

Replyreth hoom from worldly vanitee.

And of your herte upcastesth the visage

To thilke god that after his image

Yow made, and thinketh al nis but a fayre

This world, that passeth sone as floures fayre.

And loveth him, the which that right for love
Upon a cros, our soules for to beye,

POETIC FORM 375

First starf, and roos, and sit in hevene a-bove ;
For he nil talsen no wight, dar I seye,
That wol his herte al hooUy on him leye,
And sin he best to love is, and most mieke,
What nedeth feyned loves for to seke ?

— The Love Uyifeigned^ Geoffrey Chaucer.

The Spenserian Stanza. — A stanza of nine verses, the first
eight of which are iambic pentameter, while the ninth is an
iambic hexameter, or Alexandrine, is a Spenserian stanza.

The rhyme scheme in this stanza is ababbcbcc. For ex-
ample,

Arriving there, as did by chaunce befall,
He found the gate wide ope, and in he rode,
Ne stayd, till that he came into the hall ;
Where soft dismounting, like a weary lode,
Upon the ground with feeble feet he trode,
As he unable were for very neede
To move one foote, but there must make abode :
The whiles the salvage man did take his steede,
And in some stable neare did set him up to feede.

— The Faerie Queene^ Spenser.

The Sonnet. — A stanza, in itself a complete poem of
fourteen iambic pentameter verses, is a sonnet. There are
two kinds of sonnet; the Italian, or Petrarchan, sonnet and
the English sonnet.

The Italian sonnet consists of an octave with an invariable
rhyme scheme of abbaabba, and a sestet which may rhyme in
several ways, the most common being cdecde or cdcdcd.

Examples :

When I consider how my light is spent

Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent

To serve therewith my Maker, and present

376 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

My true account, lest he returning chide ;

" Doth God exact day-labor, light denied ? "

I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, '• God doth not need

Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best

Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly ; thousands at his bidding speed

And post o'er land and ocean without rest ;

They also serve who only stand and wait."

— On his Blindness^ MiLTON.

The world is too much with us ; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers :
Little we see in nature that is ours ;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

This sea that bares her bosom to the moon ;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gather'd now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune ;

It moves us not. — Great God! Pd rather be

A pagan suckled in a creed outworn :

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,

Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn ;

Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea ;

Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

— The World, Wordsworth.

The English sonnet, which is considered less artistically
perfect than the Italian sonnet, consists of three quatrains
and a couplet, the rhyme scheme being usually ababcdcd
efefgg. For example.

From you have I been absent in the spring,

When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim,

Hath put a spirit of youth in everything.

That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leaped with him.

Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell

Of different flowers in odor and in hue.

Could make me any summer's story tell.

Or from their proud lap pluck them where they erew ;

POETIC FORJVl 377

Nor did 1 wonder at the Lily's white,

Nor praise the deep vermiHon in the Rose ;

They were but sweet, but figures of dehght,

Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
Yet seemed it Winter still, and, you away,
As with your shadow I with these did play.

— Shakespeare.

Poetry. — Rhythmical language which expresses " the in-
vention, taste, thought, passion, and insight of the human
soul " is poetry.

Kinds of Poetry. — Poetry may be narrative, dramatic, or
lyric in nature.

Narrative Poetry. — Narrative poetry is poetry which re-
counts an event or a series of events. It takes several forms,
such as the epic, the metrical romance, the metrical tale, the
ballad, the pastoral, or idyl.

The Epic. — An epic is a narrative poem which recounts
in stately verse the deeds of a hero or of a demi-god. Some ex-
amples are Beowulf, Homer's Odyssey, Milton's Paradise Lost.

The Metrical Romance. — The metrical romance is a nar-
rative poem shorter and less formal in style than the epic
as well as less lofty in subject matter. Scott's Lady of the
Lake and Marmiofi, Longfellow's Eva7tgeli?ie and Miles
Standishy are examples.

The Metrical Tale. — The metrical tale is a short, simple
narrative poem. Longfellow's Tales of a Wayside Inn and
Chaucer's Canterbury Tales are well-known examples.

The Ballad. — The ballad is a short, condensed, rapid
narrative poem adapted for recitation or singing. Some
examples are Chevy Chase, the Robin Hood Ballads, The
Wreck of the Hesperus.

The Pastoral. — A pastoral poem is a narrative poem that
presents country life and scenes ; Goldsmith's Deserted Vil-
lage and Burns's Cotter's Saturday Night are examples.

378 PRACTICAL i:X(;iJSII COMPOSITION

The Idyl. — An idyl is properly a short pastoral poem,
highly finished in form. The Idyls of Theocritus are famous
examples.

Dramatic Poetry. — Dramatic poetry is poetry intended to
be acted on the stage. There are two great classes, tragedy
and comedy.

Tragedy. — Tragedy is the form of drama that deals with
the human soul in such conflict with great forces as must
end in defeat. Shakespeare's King Lear, Macbeth, Hamlet,
and Othello are examples.

Comedy. — Comedy is the form of drama that deals with
laughable or enjoyable incidents, the outcome of which is
happy. The Merchant of Venice and ^i" You Like It are
familiar examples of comedy.

Comedy sometimes takes the form of the farce, the melo-
drama, or the mask.

The Farce. — A farce is a brief comedy whose humor is
the result of the exaggeration or the distortion of incidents.
It is extravagant to the point of abandonment. The Garrot-
ers and Evening Dress are examples.

The Melodrama. — A melodrama is a comedy that contains
a romantic plot and sensational situations. With No Mother
to Guide Her is a well-known example. ,

The Mask. — A mask is a form of comedy that in
England consisted of lyric poetry and declamation accom-
panied by music, dancing, and magnificent scenic display.
Jonson's Masque of Blachiess and Masque of Queens and
Shirley's Triumph of Peace are examples.

Lyric Poetry. — Lyric poetry is poetry which expresses deep
emotion, such as love, hate, jealousy, fear, adoration, sorrow.
It was primarily intended to be sung to the lyre. It takes
several forms, among which, besides the sonnet, the most
important are the song, the hymn, the ode, and the elegy.

POETIC FORM 379

The Song. — A song is a short poem intended to be sung.
Songs may be either sacred or secular in nature. A hymn is
a sacred song of praise. Old Hundred and Lead, Kindly
Light are examples of sacred songs. Secular songs may be
sentimental, convivial, or patriotic in theme.

The Ode. — An ode is a lyric which is characterized by ex-
altation of feeling, dignity of theme, and complexity of struc-
ture. Among the most famous odes are Shelley's Ode to the
West Wind, Keats's Ode to a Greciaii Urn, Wordsworth's
Ode on the Intimations of hnmortality , Lowell's Commemora-
tion Ode.

The Elegy. — An elegy is a lament for the dead. Milton's
Lycidas, Shelley's Adonais, and Tennyson's In Memoriant
are the most famous elegies in the EngHsh language.

CHAPTER XIV
SUPPLEMENTARY READING

An important part of the work of a student who would
broaden his knowledge is the extensive reading of books
which have some intrinsic value.

The Value of a Book. — The value of a book may lie in a
series of interesting incidents, in a well-constructed plot, in
a character of vital personality, in interesting descriptions of
persons or places, in the vivid presentation of the life, the
manners, and the customs of people of modern or of past
times, in an account of the homes and the habits of plants or
animals, or in the clear explanation of scientific phenomena
and the application of natural forces in modern life. Every
book should be read as a whole for the sake of getting the
point and of getting in their right relations the chief details
which lead to the point.

Book Reports. — As a proof of inteUigent reading, reports
should be made at stated intervals upon books of different
kinds. A report should state briefly the content of a book,
and should comment upon those phases of the book which
give it special value.

Topics for General Outline. — In stating the content of a
short story or of a novel, the topics to be developed should
include :

1. The outline of the story; i.e.. (a) the recounting in sequence of the

chief events which lead to the point ; (d) the stating of the conclusion .

2. The naming of the characters :

a. The principal characters ; /.<?.. the characters who are the chief
actors in the story.

380

SUPPLEMENTARY READING 381

b. The secondary characters ; i.e.., the characters who, by at least one

decision, alter the course of events in the life of one of the chief
characters or in the lives of more than one of the chief characters.

c. The supernumerary characters : i.e., the characters who, while mak-

ing no important decisions, perform the minor actions necessary
in developing the various situations in the story.

3. The naming of three important moments in the life of the most impor-

tant of the principal characters, the hero :

a. The moment of rising action ; i.e.., the moment when the hero

enters upon the course of action which is to result in his final
reward or punishment.

b. The crisis, or turning point ; i.e.^ the moment when the hero makes

a decision which commits him to the course of action which will
end in his final reward or punishment.

c. The culmination : i.e., the moment when the hero receives final

reward or punishment.

4. The statement as to whether the book consists of {a) a series of inci-

dents which do not show plot ; />., do not show an attempt by some
character or characters to interfere with the course of events in the
life of some other characters, or {b) a series of incidents which show
plot, either (i) a simple plot or (2) a main plot and one or more
subordinate plots, or subplots.

Topics for Series of Incidents. — In commenting upon the
value of a short story or of a novel, when the value of the
book lies in a series of interesting incidents, the comment
should show :

I. Whether the characteristic quality of the incidents, as of novelty, humor,
pathos, tragedy, etc., is due {a) to the nature of the incidents them-
selves, or (<^) to the manner in which the incidents are told.

Topics for Plot. — When the value of the book lies in a
well-constructed plot, the comment should show :

.1. How the plot is worked out :

a. Whether the suspense is sustained throughout.

b. Whether the culmination of the plot is the reasonable outcome of

the events forming the plot.

382 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

c. Whether the culmination of the plot is a surprise.

d. Whether the culmination of the plot is foreshadowed from the mo-

ment of rising action or from the moment of crisis.

2. Whether interest in the plot centers {a) in incidents rather than in

people, {b) in incidents chiefly as they affect the welfare of some of
the characters.

3. Whether the plot is (a) probable or improbable ; i.e.y whether, in actual

life, the same incidents would be likely to take place under similar
conditions ; {b) possible or impossible ; i.e.^ whether, in actual life,
the same incidents could take place under similar conditions.

4. Whether the plot, whether probable or improbable, possible or impossi-

ble, is consistent ; i.e.^ not contradictory to the laws which govern the
world in which the events take place.

Topics for Character Study. — When the value of the book
centers in the personality of the characters, the report should
contain a discussion of important characters.

The estimate of the character should be based upon :

1. What the character does and says under the conditions which exist or

which he believes to exist at the moment when he acts or speaks.

2. What other characters say of him.

3. The manner of other characters toward him.

The estimate should show :

1. Whether or not a character is consistent; /.<?., {a) whether the domi-

nant qualities and controlling motives of his nature remain the same
throughout the book, even when, through change of circumstance or
opinion, he changes completely his course of action ; or (^b) whether
the dominant qualities remain the same, although, as a result of some
crucial experience, the controlling motives change ; or {c') whether,
as the result of some crucial experience, the dominant qualities, as
well as the controlling motives, change.

2. Whether or not a character is true to life; i.e.^ whether the character

in a book speaks and acts as a character in real life would, under
similar circumstances, speak and act.

3. Whether, as in real life, a character receives the due recompense for

his deeds; /'.<?., either (<z) reward, the just and certain compensation

SUPPLEMENTARY READING 383

which a right deed inevitably brings to the doer of the deed ; or {b)
nemesis, the just and certain punishment which a wrong deed in
evitably brings upon the doer of the deed.

Topics for Descriptive Elements. — When the value of the
book lies in the descriptions of persons and places, the com-
ment should show :

I. Whether the descriptions are interesting {a) because of the subjects
described, or {b) because of the art of the description.

Topics for Life, Manners, Customs of People. — When the
value of the book lies in the information concerning the life,
the manners, and the customs of people of modern times or
of past times, the comment should give :

1. A brief summary of the manners and customs indicated.

2. The kinds of life of which the manners and customs are evidence.

3. The ideals of which the life, the manners, and the customs are an ex-

pression ; as,

a. Ideals of social life, such as friendship, love, the family.

b. Practical ideals, such as road making, bridge building.

c. Moral ideals, such as courage, truthfulness, loyalty.

d. Religious ideals, such as loyalty to God, self-sacrifice for the sake

of right.

Topics for History, Mythology, Biography, Travel. — His-
tory, mythology, biography, and travel are of value (i) be-
cause they portray characters of vital personality, (2) because
they give interesting descriptions of persons or places, or
(3) because they present the life, the manners, and the cus-
toms of people of modern times or of past times. Therefore,
in commenting upon such books, the suggestions given under
similar topics in connection with the short story or the novel
may be used.

Topics for Scientific Works. — When the chief value of a
book lies in an account of the habits of plants or animals

384 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

or in the explanation of scientific phenomena and the appli-
cation of natural forces in modern life, the comment should
show :

1. Whether the book gives accurate information.

2. Whether the book is clear in explanation.

3. Whether the book is practical in suggestion.

SUPPLEMENTARY READING LLST

The books in the accompanying lists are of the following classes :

A. Short Stories.

B. Novels.

C. Mythology.

1 . Myths of the gods, showing {a) their attributes, (fi) their adventures.

2. Myths of the heroes.

D. Biography, History, and Travel.

E. Books recounting Outdoor Life.

F. Natural Science.

1. Accounts of habits of plants or animals.

2. Accounts of adventures of animals.

3. Explanation of scientific phenomena and accounts of the application

of natural forces in modern life.

A. Short Stories

Aldrich, Thomas Bailf.v : Marjorie Daw.

Andrews : The Perfect Tribute.

Arabian Nights' Entertainments : Story of Ali Baba and the Forty

Thieves ; Story of Sindbad, the Sailor ; Story of Aladdin, or the

Wonderful Lamp.
The Bible: The Offering Up of Isaac, Gen. 2, 1-19; Joseph and His

Brethren, Gen. 37; Ruth; David and Goliath, i Sam. 17, 1-54;

Esther; Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, Dan. 3; Daniel and the

Lions' Den, Dan. 6.
Brown, Alice: Meadow-grass.
Cable, George Washington : Old Creole Days.

SUPPLEMENTARY READING 385

Clemens, Samuel (Mark Twain) : A Dog's Tale.

Connor, Ralph : Glengarry School Days.

Cooke, Rose Terry : Freedom Wheeler's Controversy.

Daudet, Alphonse : The Siege of Berlin.

Davis, Richard Harding : Gallegher ; The Bar Sinister ; Van Bibber

and the Swan Boats.
Deland, Mrs. Margaret : Old Chester Tales.
Deming, Philander : Lida Ann ; Tompkins.

Dickens, Charles : A Christmas Carol ; Dr. Manette's Manuscript.
Doyle, A. Conan : The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
Freeman, Mrs. Mary Wilkins : A Humble Romance ; A Village

Singer ; The Revolt of Mother.
French, Alice (Octave Thanet) : The Bishop's Vagabond : The

Missionary Sheriff.
Hale, Edward Everett : A Man without a Country.
Hardy, Thomas : Wessex Tales.

Harte, Bret : The Luck of Roaring Camp ; The Outcasts of Poker Flat.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel: The Ambitious Guest ; The Birthmark; The

Great Stone Face ; Rappaccini's Daughter.
Irving, Washington : The Legend of Sleepy Hollow; Rip Van Winkle.
Jewett, Sarah Orne : Deephaven ; The White Heron.
Kipling, Rudyard : The Bank Fraud ; The Man Who Would Be King ;

Wee Willie Winkie.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth : King Robert of Sicily.
De Maupassant, Guy : The Necklace ; The String.
O'Brien, Fitz-James: The Diamond Lens.
Page, Thomas Nelson : Marse Chan ; Meh Lady.
Pater, Walter : Demeter and Persephone.
PoE, Edgar Allan : The Gold Bug ; The Purloined Letter.
Ramee, Louise de la (Ouida) : A Dog of Flanders.
Robertson, Harrison : How the Derby Was Won.
Stevenson, Robert Louis : Treasure Island ; Will o' the Mill.
Stockton, Frank R. : The Lady or the Tiger?
Tarkington, Booth : Monsieur Beaucaire.
Thackeray, William Makepeace : The Rose and the Ring.
Tolstoi : The Angel.

Ward, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps: Jonathan and David.
WiSTER, Owen : Twenty Minutes for Refreshments.
WOOLSON, CoNSTANCi: Fenimore : Peter, the Parson.

386 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

B. Novels

a. Standard novels :

Cooper, James Fenimore : The Deerslayer ; The Last of the Mohicans ;

The Pathfinder; The Pilot ; The Spy.
Dickens, Charles: Oliver Twist; Old Curiosity Shop; Martin Chuz-

zlewit ; Pickwick Papers.
Dumas, Alexandre : The Three Musketeers ; The Count of Monte

Cristo ; The Black Tulip.
Eliot, George (Mary Ann Evans) : The Mill on the Floss ; Adam

Bede ; Romola.
Gaskell, Mrs. Elizabp:th : Cranford.

Hughes, Thomas: Tom Brown's School Days; Tom Brown at Oxford.
Kingsley, Charles: Hereward, the Wake ; Westward Ho!
Scott, Sir Walter : Ivanhoe ; Kenilworth ; The Talisman ; Quentin

Durward.

b. Novels to be read because they give especially clear impressions of

the life of a particular place or period :

(i) Novels which give impressions of American life:

Altsheler : The Young Trailers.

Austin, Mary : Isidro.

Cable, George Washington : The Grandissimes ; Dr. Sevier.

Chestnutt, C. W. : The Conjure Woman ; The House behind the
Cedars ; The Marrow of Tradition ; The Wife of His Youth.

Deland, Margaret : The Iron Woman.

Duncan, Norman : Dr. Luke of the Labrador.

Eggleston, Edward : The Hoosier Schoolmaster.

FOOTE, Mary Halleck : The Led-Horse Claim.

Ford, Paul Leicester : Peter Stirling.

Fox, John, Jr. The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come ; The Trail of
the Lonesome Pine.

Fuller, H. B. : The Cliff Dwellers.

Herrick, Robert : The Common Lot.

Higginson, Tho.mas W. : Malbone, an Old Port.

Howells, William Dean : A Chance Acquaintance ; Their Wedding
Journey.

Jackson, Mrs. Helen Hunt: Ramona.

Jewett, Sarah Orne: Betty Leicester ; A Country Doctor ; The Coun-
try of the Pointed Firs ; Deephaven.

SUPPLEMENTARY READING 387

King, Charles : Cadet Days.

Kipling, Rudyard : Captains Courageous.

MURFREE, Mary (Charles Egbert Craddock) : The Prophet of the Great

Smoky Mountains.
NORRis, Frank : The Octopus ; The Pit.
Page, Thomas Nelson: Red Rock.
Pier, Stanwood : Harding of St. Timothy's.
Remington, Frederick : Pony Tracks.
Smith, F. Hopkinson : Caleb West ; Tom Grogan.
Stratton-Porter, Gene : Freckles ; The Harvester ; The Maid of

the Limberlost.
Tarkington, Booth : A Gentleman of Indiana.
Wharton, Edith: The Greater Inclination.
White, E. S. : The Blazed Trail.
Wister, Owen : The Virginian.
Woolson, Constance Fenimore : East Angel.

(2) Novels which give impressions of life in foreign countries :

Auerbach : On the Heights.

Barrie, James M. : The Little Minister.

Black, William : A Princess of Thule.

Bremer, Frederika: The Neighbours.

Craik, Mrs. Dinah Maria (Mulock) : John Halifax, Gentleman.

Crawford, F. Marion: A Roman Singer; Saracinesca; Sant' Ilario;

Don Orsino ; Zoroaster.
Du Chaillu, Paul: The Land of the Long Night.
HALfevY, Ludovic : Abb^ Constantin.
HowELLS, William Dean : The Lady of the Aroostook.
Kipling, Rudyard: Kim.
Macdonald, George: Sir Gibbie.
Merriman, Henry Seaton : The Sowers.
Parker, Gilbert : The Battle of the Strong.
Saintine, Xavier B. : Picciola.
Sherwood, Margaret: Daphne.
Trollope, Anthony: Barchester Towers ; The Last Chronicle of Barset.

(3) Novels which have some historical value :

Aguilar, Grace : The Days of Bruce.

Austin, Mrs. Jane C. : Betty Alden ; Standish of Standish.

388 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

Bulwer-Lyttox : The Last Days of Pompei.

Catherwood, Mrs. Mary H. : The Romance of Dollard.

Churchill, Wlmston : Richard Carvel ; The Crisis.

Coffin, Charles Castleton : Old Times in the Colonies.

Dickens, Charles : A Tale of Two Cities.

Doyle, A. Conan: The White Company.

Ebers, George : An Egyptian Princess ; Uarda.

Foote, Mary Halleck : Coeur d'Aldne.

Henty, G. a. : Wulf the Saxon.

Mitchell, S. Weir : Hugh Wynne.

Parker, Gilbert : The Seats of the Mighty.

Porter, Jane: Scottish Chiefs.

Ware, William : Zenobia.

Wyman, Stanley : A Gentleman of France ; Under the Red Robe.

(4) Novels which recount adventure :

Hope, Anthony : The Prisoner of Zenda.

Janvier, Thomas : Aztec Treasure-house.

Marryat, Frederick : Masterman Ready.

Stevenson, Robert Louis : Kidnapped ; David Balfour ; The Master of

Ballantrae.
Stockton, Frank R. : Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coast.
Verne, Jules: Michael Strogoff; Twenty Thousand Leagues under the

Sea; Around the World in Eighty Days.

(5) Novels which are humorous :

Cervantes : Don Quixote.

Clemens, Samuel (Mark Twain) : Huckleberry Finn ; The Adventures
of Tom Sawyer.

C. Mythology
I. Reconinioided Texts

Baldwin, James: The Story of Siegfried; Old Greek Stories; Story of

Roland.
Bulfinch, Tho.mas : Age of Fable.
Bryant, Wu.lia.m Cullen : Translation of the Iliad: Translation of the

Odyssey.
Church, A. J.: Pictures from Greek Life and Story ; Pictures from

Ronlan Life and Story : Stories from Homer ; Stories from Livy ; The

Iliad for Boys and Girls ; The Odyssey for Boys and Girls.

SUPPLEMENTARY READING 369

UAYLEY, C. M.: Classic Myths in English Literature.

KiNGSLEY, Charles : The Heroes.

Mabie, Hamilton Wright : Norse Legends.

Macaulay, Thomas B. : Lays of Ancient Rome.

Malory, Sir Thomas : Boys' King Arthur, edited by Sidney Lanier.

Palmer, George H. : Translation of the Odyssey.

Zitkala-Sa : Old Indian Legends.

2. Recommended Myths

a. Myths of the Creation :

(i) Prometheus and Pandora.
(2) Deucalion and Pyrrha.

b. Myths of the Great Gods :

(i) Myths of Jupiter and Juno : lo ; Callisto ; Europa ; Baucis and
Philemon.

(2) Myths of Minerva : Arachne.

(3) Myths of Apollo : Phaethon : Punishment of Niobe ; Apollo,
Pan, and Midas ; Daphne.

(4) Myths of Diana : Actaeon ; Endymion.

(5) Myths of Venus : Cupid and Psyche ; Atalanta's Race ; Hero
and Leander, Pvgmalion and the Statue: Pvramus and Thisbe.

(6) Myths of Pluto : Demeter and Persephone : Orpheus and
Eurydice.

c. Myths of the Heroes :

Perseus and Medusa ; Perseus and Atlas ; Perseus and Andromeda ;
Hercules and the Twelve Labors ; Jason and the Golden Fleece ;
Theseus and Ariadne : Ulysses among the Phaeacians.

D. Biography, History, and Travel
I . Biography

a. Biographies dealing with typical boyhood or typical girlhood:

Aldrich. Thomas Bailey : The Story of a Bad Boy.

Banks: An Oregon Boyhood.

CiPRiANA, L. C. : A Tuscan Childhood.

Eastman, Charles A.: Indian Boyhood ; Old Indian Days.

Franklin, Benjamin : Autobiography.

390 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

Grinnell, G. B. : The Story of an Indian.

Larcom, Lucy: A New England Girlhood.

Lee, Yan Phou : When I was a Boy in China.

Warner, Charles Dudley : Being a Boy.

WiNSLOW, A. G. : Diary of a Boston School-girl of 1771.

b. Biographies of famous people :

Baldwin, James : Four Great Americans.

Besant, Sir Walter : The Story of King Alfred.

Bolton, Mrs. Sarah: Famous American Statesmen; Famous English

Statesmen.
BouTET DE Monvel, M. de : Joan of Arc.
Brooks, N. : First Across the Continent.
Custer, Mrs. Elizabeth : Boots and Saddles ; Following the Guidon ;

Tenting on the Plains.
Evans, Robley D. : A Sailor's Log.

Frothingham, Jesse P. : Sea Fighters from Drake to Farragut.
Froude, J. a. : English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century.
Grant, U. S. : Personal Memoirs.
Johnston, C. J. L. : Famous Cavalry Leaders.
Kaufman, Rosalie: Queens of England.
NicoLAY, J. G. : A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln.
Oliphant, Mrs. M. O. W. : Makers of Venice.
Page, Thomas Nelson : Robert E. Lee. the Southerner.
Parton, James: Captains of Industry.

Plutarch's Lives : Edited by Rosalie Kaufman or by J. L. White.
Riis, Jacob: The Making of an American.
Roosevelt and Lodge : Hero Tales from American History.
ScHURZ, Carl : Abraham Lincoln.

Smith, F. Hopkinson : Captain Thomas A. Scott, Master Diver.
Washington, Booker T.: Up From Slavery.

2. History

Blumner, H. : Home Life of the Ancient Greeks.

Davis, Richard Harding : Cuban and Porto Rican Campaigns.

GUHL, E., AND KONER, W. : The Life of the Greeks and Romans.

Irving, Washington: The Alhambra; The Conquest of Granada.

Kennan, George: Tent Life in Siberia.

Mahaffey, J. T. : Social Life in Greece.

SUPPLICM RXTARY READING

391

Motley, John Lothrop : The Siege of Leyden.

Page, Thomas Nelson : The Old Dominion ; Her Making and Her

Manners.
Parkman, Francis: The Conspiracy of Pontiac ; The Jesuits in North

America; Montcalm and Wolfe; The Old Regime in Canada.
Roosevelt, Theodore : Rough Riders ; The Winning of the West.
Roosevelt and Lodge : Hero Tales from American History.

3. Travel

Amundsen, Roald : The Northwest Passage.

Brassey, Lady Anne : A Voyage in the Sunbeam.

BuLLEN, Frank Thomas : Cruise of the Cachalot.

Dana, Richard Henry : Two Years before the Mast.

Knox, Thomas W. : Travels of Marco Polo.

Stanley, Henry M. : Through the Dark Continent; How I Found

Livingstone.
Williams, Archibald : Romance of Modern Exploration.

E. Books of Outdoor Life

Gibson, William Hamilton : Camp Life in the Woods.
Grinnell and Roosevelt : Trail and Camp Fire.
Roosevelt, Theodore: The Hunting Trips of a Ranchman.
White, Edward Stewart : The Forest.

* F. Natural Science

I . Books which contain accounts of:

a. The habits of plants :

Allen, Grant: The Story of the Plants.

Bailey, L. H., Jr. : Talks Afield about Plants and the Science of Plants.

Conn : Bacteria, Yeasts, and Molds in the Home ; Story of Germ Life.

Harwood, W. S.': New Creations in Plant Life.

Sargent, Frederick L. : Corn Plants, Their Uses and Ways of Life.

Warner, Charles Dudley : My Summer in a Garden.

b. The habits of animals :

Baker, Sir Samuel W. : Wild Beasts and Their Ways.
BOSTOCK, F. C. : Training of Wild Animals.

392 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

Burroughs, John : Squirrels and Other Fur-bearers.

Gerard, Jules : Lion Hunting and Sporting Life in Algeria.

Hameston, p. G. : Chapters on Animals.

Holland, W. J. : Butterfly Book ; Moth Book.

Kellogg, Vernon : Insect Stories.

Walton, Charles : A Hermit's Wild Friends.

3. Books which contain accounts of the adventures of animals :

Brown, John : Rab and his Friends.

Jackson, Helen Hunt : Letters from a Cat.

Kipling, Rudyard: The Jungle Book.

London, Jack : The Call of the Wild.

Ollivant : Bob, Son of Battle.

Roberts, Charles : The Haunters of the Silences ; The House in the

Water; The Kindred of the Wild ; Watchers of the Trail ; Red Fox.
Selous, Edmund: Romance of the Animal World ; Romance of Insect

Life.
Seton, Ernest Thompson : The Biography of a Grizzly ; Lives of the

Hunted; Trail of the Sandhill Stag; Wild Animals I have Known.

4. Books which contain accounts of natural forces in action :

Baker, Ray Stannard: Boy's Book of Inventions.
Barnard : First Steps in Electricity.
Gibson, Charles R. : Romance of Modern Electricity.
Green, Homer : Coal and the Coal Mines. •

Harper'' s Practical Books for Boys

Harper's Outdoor Books for Boys. (Written by Joseph Adams and
Others.)

Harper's Electricity Book for Boys. T Written by Joseph H. Adams.)

Harper's Indoor Books for Boys. (Written by Joseph Adams and Others.)

Harper's How to Understand Electrical Works. (Written by William H.
Unkay, Jr., and Joseph B. Baker.)

Harper's Machinery Books for Boys. (Written by Joseph H. Adams.)

Hopkins, George M. : Experimental Science.

Houston, Edwin J.: The Wonder Book of Magnetism; The Wonder
Book of Volcanoes and Plarthquakes ; The Wonder Book of Atmos-
phere ; The Wonder Book ot Light.

SUPPLEMENTARY READING 393

Meadowcroft, W. H. : ABC of Electricity.

Santos-Dumont, Alberto : My Airships.

Shaler, N. S. : The Story of Our Continent.

St. John, T. M. : How Two Boys Made Their Own Electrical Apparatus ;
Things a Boy Should Know about Electricity ; Study of Elementary
Electricity and Magnetism by Experiment.

TissANDiER, Gaston : Scientific Amusements.

Williams, Archibald : How it is Made ; How it Works ; How it is
Done; Romance of Modern Mechanism; Romance of Modern Min-
ing; Romance of Modern Steam Locomotion; Romance of Modern
Invention ; Romance of Modern Engineering.

CHAPTER XV
THE PUNCTUATION OF THE SENTENCE

The Period

1. A period is used at the end of a declarative or of an
imperative sentence.

Ex. — The gray-eyed morn smiles on the frowning niglit,
Checkerins: the eastern clouds with streaks of lii^ht.

Turn thy distaff slowly, Clotho.

2. A period is used to mark an abbreviation.

Ex. — The devotional service was followed by addresses by Dr. Hale,
Prof. Arnold, and Hon. John U. Long.

The Interrogation Point

The interrogation point is used at the end of a direct ques-
tion.

Ex. — Can a Roman senate long debate

Which of the two to choose, slavery or death ?

The Exclamation Point

The exclamation point is used after interjections and
exjiressions of strong emotion.

Ex. — Ay! since the galloping Normans came,
En«;land's annals have known her name.

"A crown for York! and, lords, bow low to him!"

EXERCISE I

Insert the period, the interrogation point, or the exclamation point
wherever necessary in the following sentences :

304

THE PUNCTUATION OF THE SENTENCE 395

1 . " Speak long parley may last too long ''

2. The sun by this had risen, and cleared the fog
From the broad Oxus and the glittering sands

3. Self-respect is the foundation of all true manliness and womanliness

4. O childhood days enchanted
O the magic of the spring

5. Does your look fall like a sunbeam or shadow across the breakfast
table

6. No one can really know the forest without feeling the gentle influence
of one of the kindliest and strongest parts of nature

7. Did you know that all the civilized nations except China take care
to preserve their forests

8. Lo as he turned to depart Priscilla was standing beside him

9. No victory worth having was ever won without cost

10. " Had you rather Caesar were living, and die all slaves, than that
Caesar were dead, to live all freemen "

1 1. To see Charlotty Briggs, '' being a butterfly," with utter intensity of
joy and singleness of purpose, was a sight to be remembered

The Comma

1. Three or more words, phrases, or clauses in a series,
i.e., in the same construction, should be separated by commas.

Ex. — The old man looked irresolutely, first at her, then to the right
and left, then at her again, and shook his head.

He had a shrunken body, a curious melancholy face, and such a head
of dust-colored hair that he might have been shocked for a doormat.

Exception. — When the members of the series are con-
nected by conjunctions, the comma should be omitted.

Ex. — With its sweep and glide and its silvery laugh, the stream seems
to lead a merry life.

2. When words or expressions form a series of pairs, a
comma should be placed after each pair.

Ex. — In the cities and in the villages, in the public temples and in the
family circles, among all ages and sexes, gladdened voices to-day bespeak
grateful hearts and a freshened recollection of the virtues of the Father of
his Country.

■>

y6 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

EXERCISE II

Insert commas in the following sentences :

1. The roads the woods the heavens the hills are not a world to-day
But just a place God made for us to play.

2. The polo-ball was an old one scarred clipped and dented.

3. We highly resolve that the nation under God shall have a govern-
ment of the people by the people, and for the people that shall not perish
from the earth. /

4. She wore a light green shot-silk frock a blazing red shawl and a
yellow crape bonnet profusely decorated with azure orange and magenta
artificial flowers. ^

c. For hundreds of miles it wears and worries and undermines the
rocks to its destruction.

6. See how big he is and how old and gray^and grim^and how motion-
less and silent. ' "*

7. When I go back to Aunt Jane's garden I pass through the front yard
and the back yard between rows of lilac and syringa calycanthus and honey-
suckle. ^

8. In town or country wet or dry hot or cold Tom Codlin suffers.

3. Words, phrases, or clauses used in apposition are sepa-
rated from the rest of the sentence by commas.

Ex. — I seek one man, Rustum, my father.

Above upon a balcony commanding a view of the beautiful landscape
stood Boabdil, the last of the Moorish kings.

J\^ote. — In the case of a title, when the connection between
an appositive and a noun is very close, commas should be
omitted.

Ex. — Peter the Hermit made Europe resound with his recital of the
cruelties of the Turks at Jerusalem.

Walter the Penniless led the vanguard of the crusaders as far as Con-
stantinople.

4. Words or phrases used in direct address are separated
from the rest of the sentence by commas.

^v. — Mr. Swiveller, sir, is forturate to have your friendship.
Welcome, O wind of the East, from the caives of the mighty Atlantic.

THE PUNCTUATION OF THE SENTENCE

397

5. Phrases in the absolute construction are separated by-
commas.

Ex. — All others being excluded from the tent, the attendant relieved
his master from the more burdensome parts of his armor.

EXERCISE m

Insert commas in the following sentences :

1. I stand corrected, sir.

2. Not many miles from the village of El Pardillo stands the ruined

castle of Villafranco an ancient stronghold of the Moors.

3. Ensign Maccombich having gone to the Highland camp upon duty

Waverly proceeded to duty.

4. No more>gentlemen no more here comes my father.

5. Forth from the curtain of clouds from the tent of purple and scarlet^
Issued the sun the great high priest in his garment resplendent.

6. The door being forced quite open a square and sturdy little urchin
became apparent ^^vvith cheeks as red as an apple.

7. "Give ear O my people, to the law."

8. "Now smiling friends and shipmates all

Since half our battle's won,
A broadside for our Admiral ! "

6. When the thoughts are closely connected, the proposi-
tions of a compound sentence are separated by commas.

Ex. — The first gray of morning filled the east,
And the fog rose out of the Oxus stream.

EXERCISE IV

Insert commas in the following sentences :

I. So one by one ,they went out of the azure chamber with its silver
stars and Artaban was left in solitude.

. 2.. The air was temperate the sky was serene the silver orb of the moon
was reflected from the waters and all nature was silent.
3. The waves beside them danced but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee.

398 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

4. Day unto day uttereth speech and night unto night showeth knowl-
edge.

5. A little laughter is a beam of sunshine and a happy face is like a
piece of blue sky seen between the rolling clouds of a storm.

7. Words, phrases, or clauses used parenthetically are
separated from the rest of the sentence by commas.

Ex. — The Southrons, with one exception, were the last to arrive.

8. Modal adverbs or modal adverbial phrases are sepa-
rated from the rest of the sentence by commas.

Note. — Modal adverbs and modal adverbial phrases are
adverbs and adverbial phrases used to modify the sentence
as a whole rather than to modify a single word in a sentence.
Their purpose is either to indicate relation in thought between
two sentences or to emphasize the thought in the sentence in
which the modal adverb or modal adverbial phrase is found.

Ex. — The doors, too, were arched and low, with oaken panels and
quaint benches.

The disputants are, on the contrary, very good friends.
He is, indeed, a noted scholar.

The following expressions are generally modal in use :

according

however

in truth

consequei

itly

indeed

in fact

finally

in brief

in reality

in short

surely

moreover

therefore

no doubt

then

perhaps

too

EXERCISE V

Insert commas in the following sentences:

1. Artaban must indeed ride wiselv and well it he would keep the ap-
pointed hour with the other wise men.

2. She was certain however ihat she saw him sitting in the ancestral
armchair near the center of the room.

THE PUNCTUATION OF THE SENTENCE 399

3. Meantime, the inclosed space at the northern extremity of the lists
large as it was was completely crowded with the knights desirous to prove
their skill against the challengers.

4. The cabins not excepting that of the inspector of weights and meas-
ures, were mere huts.

5. And now the horses as though taught by instinct hastened with
increased speed. '

9. Adjective and adverbial clauses that are not restrictive
in meaning are separated from the rest of the sentence by
commas.

Ex. — His coat, that used to be glossy and trim, was white at the
seams, and the buttons showed the copper.

Note. — A clause is restrictive when it limits in meaning
the word that it modifies.

1. Restrictive adjective clause :

The sunshine was like gold that had been washed and polished.

2. Restrictive adverbial clause :
He comes whenever he can.

EXERCISE VI

Insert commas where necessary in the following sentences :

r. The miller who was a greedy man in his way and never forewent an
opportunity turned the mill into a little wayside inn.

2. The preparations that had been going on for months in the arsenals
and foundries of the north were nearly completed.

3. He talked less than any man I knew.

4. Little Pearl went capering down the hall so airily that old Mr. Wil-
son raised a question whether even her tiptoes touched the tioor.

5. But the Puritan's face scowled down out of the picture as if nothing
on the table pleased his appetite.

6. Once a rock broke loose and came tumbling down but plunged into a
thicket where it stayed.

7. Major would have perished forty times over if he had had forty

400 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

lives to throw away before he would have allowed one of those useless logs
to be thrown away.

8. There is one cock who gets upon a post to crow and seems to take
particular notice of me as I look at him through the kitchen window.

9. The sun was still concealed below the opposite hilltops although it
was shining not twenty feet away on our own mountain slope.

10. Transposed words, phrases, or clauses are separated
from the rest of the sentence by commas.

Ex. — Unfortunately for Anne, a professional elocutionist was staying
at the hotel and had consented to recite.

EXERCISE VII

Insert commas where necessary in the following sentences :

1. The commander and the second officer went up on deck again and
began to talk together walking side by side.

2. Beyond that and lower down a lilied pond widened out of a sluggish
brook with a cool and rustic spring house at the end.

3. One by one the archers stepping forward delivered their shafts yeo-
manlike and bravely.

4. As fast as the crowd increased regiments appeared and taking up
positions lay at ease.

5. As we gazed the van of the army began to roll out from the cover of
the trees and to darken the dusty road.

6. Farther back where the road turned and ran along the ridge of the
hill several horsemen could be seen plainly outlined against the evening sky.

7. As I advanced up the avenue I could see through the shadows of
twilight that the house was large.

11. Direct informal quotations are separated from the rest
of the sentence by commas.

Ex. — '^ There is nothing now left for us to do," said the blacksmith to
his little following, *' so I will go back to my forge, and you to your farm.'*

EXERCISE VIII

Insert commas where necessary in the following sentences :

I. "Mr. Carvel" he replied with an impressiveness that took me back
"reward is a thing that should not be spoken of between gentlemen."

THE PUNCTUATION OF THE SENTENCE 401

2. He thought a minute and then said in a low tone " I can't write and
I don't know when I shall be able to learn."

3. "It is farther on" I said "but observe the white web-work which
gleams from these cavern walls."

4. "Sir" said I "may I be so bold as to inquire if you are not Mr.
Rugg? for I think I have seen you before."

5. "I have frequently said to Sarah sir" replied Brass "that she was
of no use at all in the business."

12. In a compound sentence, the omission of a word is
indicated by a comma.

Ex. — Conscience is our magnetic needle, reason, our chart.

EXERCISE IX

Insert commas where necessary in the following sentences :

1. From our ancestors come our names from our virtues our honors.

2. Justice consists in doing no injury to men decency in giving no
offense.

13. Contrasted words, phrases, or clauses are separated
from the rest of the sentence by commas.

Ex. — Not hate, but glory made these chiefs content.

EXERCISE X

Insert commas where necessary in the following sentences :

1. Habits are at first cobwebs at last cables.

2. Our grand business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance but to
do what lies clearly at hand.

3. Strength of mind is exercise not rest.

4. What the Puritans gave the world was not thought but action.

5. All around him was calm but within him was motion and conflict.

EXERCISE XI

Insert commas where necessary in the following sentences. State the
rule for each comma supplied.

I. Muskrats swam noiselessly in the shadows diving with a great
commotion as the canoe ran upon them suddenly.

^02 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITlOxN

2. East and west as the lantern-bearer knew the rotten corduroy was
drawn in a straight line across the morass.

3. Joy comes grief goes we know not how.

4. Since the sun still rises since earth puts forth her blossoms anew
since the bird builds its nest and the mother smiles at her child let us have
courage to be men and commit the rest to Him who numbers the stars.

• 5. -'Ferwood and Persians and Tartars hear!''

6. My father too sat leaning his head on his two hands not unmoved.

7. He had apparently made an attempt at a toilet without the aid
of a mirror for there was a clean circle like a race-track round and grimy
from the center like a sort of judge's stand while the dusky rim outside
represented the space for audience seats.

8. While gazing at the portrait Hepzibah trembled under its eye.

9. But whatever may be our fate be assured that this Declaration will
stand.

10. "He is calling for you again dear lady" she said going up to
Madame de Florae who was still kneeling " and just now he wanted
Pendennis to take care of his bov."

11. It was a rude round towerlike structure about twenty teet high
heavily built of rough stones and with a hillock of earth heaped about the
larger part of its circumference so that the blocks and fragments of marble
might be drawn by cart-loads and thrown in at the top.

12. Everything that happens in this world is part of the great plan of
God running through all time.

13. Arras the blacksmith and armorer stood at the door of his hut in
the valley of the Alf on a summer evening.

14. John Paul paused a moment his hand upon the latch of the gate his
eyes drinking in the picture.

15. Purple and crimson and scarlet like the curtains of God's taber-
nacle the rejoicing trees sank into the valley in the showers of light.

16. ''Millions for defense but not one cent for tribute.''

17. '"And vet" said Scrooge '' you don't think me ill-used when I pay
a day's wages for no work."

18. Ethan Brand however drew quietly back and closed the door of the
kiln.

19. As their horses' hoofs died away Gurth said to his companion '* If
tliev follow thy wise direction the reverend fathers will hardly reach
Rotherwood this night."

20. The shoulder of the mountain which shuts in the canon alreadv

THE PUNCTUATION OF THE SENTENCE 403

glowed with sunlight in the wonderful compound of gold and rose and
green.

21. I see her standing among the strawberries, her black hair waving
in the wind and her red lips redder from the stains.

22. Greatness is not in being strong but in the right use of strength.

23. I knew every syllable that passed between them as well as they did.

24. '' Phineas" said he after having stopped a volley of poor JaePs
threats " Phineas my son I rejoice to see thy mind turning toward
business."

25. In came Mrs. Fezziwig one vast substantial smile.

26. The women lived in the huts and the men in the caves.

27. Ambition courage fortitude and all forms of self-control imply that
a person has respect for himself that he likes to fill his place well and to
hold his own in the world.

28. Knowledge in truth is the great sun in the firmament.

29. Cheerily then my little man
Live and laugh as boyhood can.

30. His hair once darker than the cliffs of Zageos was now as white as
the wintry snow that covered them.

The Semicolon

I. The members of a compound sentence are separated

by semicolons when the distinct units of thought require

emphasis.

Ex. — Cowards die many times before their death ;
The valiant never taste of death but once.

EXERCISE XII

Insert commas and semicolons where necessary in the following
sentences :

1. It is a wise man who knows his business and it is a wiser man who
attends to it.

2. Great hearts have largest room to bless the small
Strong natures give the weaker home and rest.

3. For 'tis the mind that makes the body rich

And as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds
So honor peereth in the meanest habit.

404 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COxMPOSITION

4. The flail was thrown on the barn floor the spade rusted in the
garden the plow stood idle in the furrow.

5- The reenforcements had not arrived a part of the command was
broken thousands had been taken prisoners and thousands had fled to the
rear.

6. Mrs. Halifax sat down by the roadside bathed Muriel's forehead and
smoothed her hair but still the little curls lay motionless and still to every
question she only answered that she was not hurt.

7. Boabdil still silent heard the groans and exclamations of his train he
turned to cheer or chide them and saw from his own watch tower with the
sun shining full upon its pure and dazzling surface the silver cross of Spain.

8. The left hand bore the distaff wrapped in soft wool the right hand
lightly withdrawing the threads with upturned fingers did shape them
twisting them with the thumb it turned the spindle.

2. The semicolon is used before " as," " that is," " namely,"
and other words that introduce examples and explanations.
Note. — Such introductory words are followed by a comma.

Ex. — Some abstract nouns are formed from verbs ; as, belief from
believe.

The inhabitants asked our favor; namely, permission to retain their
weapons, but this was denied.

Forests influence rainfall ; that is, more rain falls over the forest than
over open country similarly placed, but how much it is impossible to say.

EXERCISE XIII

Insert semicolons and commas where necessary in the following sen-
tences :

1. James I at once proclaimed the doctrine of the Divine Right of
Kings that is the theory that the king derives his power directly from God
and is in no way responsible to the people.

2. There is one great safeguard against European intrusion namely the
Monroe Doctrine.

3. Gladstone was willing to conciliate the Boers that is he was willing
to acknowledge their right to govern themselves subject to British control.

4. The plural sign of a compound word is usually added to the main
part of the compound as rear-admirals.

THE PUNCTUA'J'IOX OF THE SENTENCE 405

5. Let Washington's career be at once our inspiration and our rebulce
that is let it call forth whatever is lofty fair and patriotic and shame what-
ever is base selfish and unworthy.

3. A series of dependent clauses in the same construction
may be separated by semicolons.

Ex. — General Grant believed that we should turn our faces westward ;
that Europe already had a population equal to its capacity ; that the people
with whom we should cultivate alliance were the people south of us upon
this continent and the people west of us upon the Asiatic continent.

EXERCISE XIV

Insert the semicolon where necessary in the following sentences :

1. Peter the Hermit had proclaimed that Jerusalem was closed to
Christian nations and that pilgrims were massacred plundered and sold
into slavery.

2. I have heard much of the reverses that followed the war in the South
how the rich acres of the planters have become a squalid waste how the
negro dwells in the ruined mansion of his former master how the country
gentleman, with his horses and his hounds and all the splendid accessories
of his social life, has abandoned his ancestral estate forever.

I The Colon

1. A colon is used between a statement and its explanation
when the connective is omitted.

Ex. — The weakness of Russia lies within the nation itself: three
fourths of the people can neither read nor write ; there is no free press ;
and the Czar is controlled by his ministers who represent the interests of
the aristocracy.

2. A colon is used between a statement and a list of illus-
trations or specifications.

Ex. — A peace conference was organized in January, 1901, at the Hague
by the representatives of fifteen of the greater nations : Austria-Hungary,
Belgium, Denmark. France, England, Germany, Holland, Italy, Japan,
Portugal, Roumania, Russia, Spain, and the United States.

4o6 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITIOX

3. A colon is used before a long or a formal quotation.

Ex. — Charles Dickens said : " No one is useless in the world, who
lightens the burdens of it for any one else.''

Then he said with a smile : " I should have remembered the adage,
'If you would be well served, you must serve yourself ; and, moreover,
" No man can gather cherries in Kent at the season of Christmas ! ' "

EXERCISE XV

Insert commas, semicolons, and colons where necessary in the following
sentences :

1 . As the enemy did not move he sent off two parties one to lie con-
cealed in a wood on the left of the French and the other to set fire to
some houses behind the French after the battle should begin.

2. Four great watercourses having their sources in the same moun-
tains divided New France the St. Lawrence the River of the West the
Bourdon and the Meschacebe or Mississippi.

3. We feel the magic of the season in the words

" The year's at the spring
And day's at the morn
Morning's at seven
The hillside's dew-pearled
The lark's on the wing
The snail's on the thorn
God's in His Heaven —
All's right with the world."'

4. There are three wicks to the lamp of a man's life brain blood and
breath.

5. When King Ferdinand turned away from Columbus in scorn
Isabella the queen spoke her famous decision '' I will undertake the enter-
prise for mine own crown of Castile and am ready to pawn my crown
jewels for the expenses."

6. Time has not thrown dignity as a mantle over the old man there is
nothing venerable about him you pity him without scruple.

7. During the reign of Elizabeth the world had suddenly grown larger
it had opened toward the east in the revival of classic learning it had
opened toward the west in the discovery of a continent.

8. A Canadian writer lately states that his countrymen have been dis-
cussing four alternatives any one of which may become the destiny of

THK PUNXTUATION OF THE SENTENCE

407

Canada (i) remaining as it is (2) Annexation to the United States (3; In-
dependence (4) Membership in a new British Empire.

9. When Sir Walter presented the burgesses to the king they knelt
down and said " Gentle king behold here are we six who were burgesses of
Calais and great merchants. We have brought the keys of the town and
of the castle and we submit ourselves clearly into your will and pleasure,'"

10. In the year eighteen hundred and nine were born Gladstone the
statesman Darwin the scientist Tennyson the poet and Abraham Lincoln
the man of the people.

The Dash

1. An abrupt break in thought is indicated by a dash.

Ex. — If you wish me to sharpen your knife — by the way where did
you buy that knife ?

2. Words or groups of words which denote a sudden inter-
ruption in the thought of a sentence are separated from the
rest of the sentence by dashes.

Ex. — Some — and they were not a few — knelt down.

3. Strong emotion may be indicated by the dash.

Ex. — " O please drive on, sir — don't stop — and go toward the city,
will you ? "

EXERCISE XVI

Insert the dash where necessary in the following sentences :

1. Then, entering the cottage where all was in distress for the boy
Triptolemus seemed past recovery she restored the child to life and health.

2. "You are right,'' said the Saracen, and it was the first word that
either had spoken since their truce was concluded "your strong horse
deserves your care."

3. How's this from the Soldan!

4. Rough people paths never made for little feet like yours a dismal
blighted way is there no turning back my child !

5. It is clear that Kidd if Kidd indeed secreted the treasure which I
doubt not it is clear that he must have had assistance in the labor.

6. But to be a drummer a drummer one meter seventy in height, with

4o8 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

flaming red hair and a freckled face a drummer who was called little Tapin ;
and to have for one's most important duty, to drum the loungers out of a
public garden ! No, evidently he would desert.

7. Now, although Bayley left his son-in-law a hotel which sounds hand-
some he left him no guests ; for, about the period of the old man's death,
the old stage-coach died also.

8. There isn't any colonial mansion on the other side of the road, there
isn't any piazza, there isn't any hammock, there isn't any Margery Daw.

Parentheses

Explanatory expressions which are grammatically independ-
ent are inclosed in parentheses.

Ex. — Kit scraped his shoes very carefully (for he had not yet lost his
reverence for the bundles of papers and tin boxes) and tapped at the office
door, which was quickly opened by the notary himself.

Quotation Marks

1. A direct quotation is inclosed in double quotation marks.
Note I. — Indirect quotations are not inclosed in quotation

marks ; as,

The master said that he would consider the boy's request.

Note 2. — If a quotation consists of more than one para-
graph, double quotation marks are placed at the beginning
of each paragraph and at the end of the last.

2. Titles of books, essays, poems, and periodicals are often
inclosed in quotation marks.

Ex. — I have just ordered a copy of " Stories New and Old," edited by
Hamilton Wright Mabie.

''Dora," "The Gardner's Daughter," and -The Miller's Daughter"
present pictures of English country life.

Have you decided to subscribe for "The Atlantic Monthly" ?

In the "Essay on Johnson," Macaulay arouses our sympathy as well at»
our admiration.

THE PUNCTUATION OF HIE SENTENCE

409

3. A quotation within a quotation is inclosed in single
quotation marks.

Ex. — " These flowers," said she, " tempt me ; they seem to say, ' Come,
and do something with us ' ; but once I have cut them, the charm is gone."

4. When quotations occur one within another, double and
single marks are used alternately.

Ex. — "I heard my father say to my uncle, ' You said to me last year,
"I will never take such a risk again," and now you have not kept your
word.' "

EXERCISE XVII

Insert quotation marks and whatever other punctuation may be neces-
sary in the following sentences :

1. What is it now child asked the maiden lady rather impatiently did
you come back to shut the door

No answered the urchin pointing to the figure that had just been put
up I want that other Jim Crow

2. Come Phoebe said Hepzibah it is time to bring in the currants

3. Shall you subscribe for The Century or Harper's Magazine

4. Well well friend Scipio let your master know that I am coming said
the carpenter with a laugh

5. Messieurs said Montcalm advancing towards them a step in gen-
erous interest you little know Louis de St. Veran if you believe him capable
of profiting by this letter to humble brave men as to build up a dishonest
reputation for himself listen to my terms before you leave me

What .says the Frenchman demanded the veteran sternly does he make
a merit of having captured a scout with a note from headquarters sir he
had better raise this siege to go and sit down before Edward if he wishes
to frighten his enemy with words

Duncan explained the other's meaning

Monsieur de Montcalm we will hear you the veteran added more calmly
as Duncan ended

To retain the fort is now impossible said his liberal enemy and it is
necessary to the interests of my master that it should be destroyed but as
far as you and your brave comrades are concerned there is no privilege
dear to a soldier that shall be denied

Our colors demanded Hey ward

4IO

PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

Carry them to England and show them to your king

Our arms

Keep them none can use them better

Our march the surrender of the place

Shall be done in a way most honorable to you

Duncan now turned to explain these proposals to his commander who
heard with amazement and was deeply touched by such unusual unexpected
generosity

Go you Duncan he said go with this marquess as indeed marquess he
should be go to his marquee and arrange it all

So saying the veteran returned slowly to the fort exhibiting by the
dejection of his air to the anxious garrison a harbinger of evil tidings.

The Hyphen

1. The hyphen is used between the members of a com-
pound word ; as, Graeco-Persian, whip-poor-will, bird's-eye.

2. The hyphen is used to indicate the separation of a word
at the end of a line.

Note I. — The separation should be made only at the end of
a syllable.

Note 2. — When the syllable consists of a single letter, no
separation should be made.

Note 3. — When a hyphen is used between two syllables, one
of which comes at the end of one line and the other at the
beginning of the next line, the hyphen is used after the sylla-
ble at the end of the first line, never before the syllable at
the beginning of the second line.

Capital Letters

I. The first word of every sentence, the first word of every
Une of poetry, and the first word of every direct quotation
should begin with a capital letter.

Ex. — The picture represents a meadow, with a far-stretching, treeless
road fading into the sunset sky in the distance.

THE PUNCTUATION OF THE SENTENCE 411

" Your voices break and falter in the darkness, —
Break, falter, and are still."
He continued, " The man who is among us represents the king."

2. Official and honorary titles begin with capital letters
when they are used formally or when they precede a proper
name.

Ex. — King Edward VII caused much consternation by vetoing the bill.
Lieutenant Winston was the first witness.
The last speaker was the Honorable John Bell.
The President has just sent his message to Congress.

Note. — When the title is a compound word, each member
of the compound begins with a capital letter ; as, Brigadier-
General Miles.

3. All names of the Deity begin with capital letters.

Ex. — " 'Tis heaven alone that is given away,

'Tis only God may be had for the asking."
King of kings. Hear us, O Father.

4. Pronouns referring to the Deity usually begin with
capital letters for the sake of clearness and emphasis.

Ex. — Remember His words, '' Fear not, I am with thee."
O Thou Everlasting Father, look down upon us.

5. The words Bible and Scriptures, when referred to as
books of Holy Writ, begin with capital letters.

6. I and O are always written as capitals.

Ex. — Then Sohrab said, '' O Peran Wisa, it is I."

7. All proper nouns begin with capital letters.

Ex. — District of Columbia ; American Revolution ; Middle Ages ^
Episcopalians ; Republicans.

8. The words street, avenue, place, park, gulf, bay, strait,
cape, river, mountain, etc., when used as parts of proper
names begin with capital letters.

412 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

Ex. — The Colorado River rises in the Wind River Mountains in
Wyoming and empties into the Gulf of California.

9. When the words north, south, east, and west are used
as names of sections of a country, they begin with capital let-
ters.

Ex. — They have settled in the West.

Note. — North, south, east, and west do not begin with capi-
tals when they denote simply the points of the compass.

Ex. — The wind was blowing from the east.

10. Adjectives and verbs derived from proper nouns begin
with capital letters.

Ex. — The Sp:irtan force did not arrive in time.

1 1. The names of the days of the week and of the months
of the year begin with capital letters.

Ex. — Please return the book on or before Tuesday. August second.

Note. — Names of the seasons are not capitalized.

The winter was unusually long.

12. Words denoting kinship when used as names or as
parts of proper nouns begin with capital letters.

_. f Have vou heard from Mother or Father this week ?

I Aunt Augusta and Cousin Margaret have arrived.
\ Have you heard from your mother or father this week ?
[ My aunt and my cousin have arrived.

13. All important words in the titles of books, poems,
essays, and magazines begin with capital letters.

Ex. — " Toilers of the Sea."

''The Ring and the Book.''
''Oxford in the Vacation."
" The Outlook."

THE PUNCTUATION OF THE SENTENCE 413

EXERCISE XVIII

Insert the necessary capitals in the following sentences :

1 . I have written to mother that I shall return by way of Cleveland in
order to visit uncle John.

2. My father and my brother are graduates of harvard university.

3. The president of the united states is commander in chief of the
american army.

4. Ruskin says, " I think the noblest sea that turner has ever painted,
and, if so, the noblest ever painted by man, is that of the slave ship, the
chief academy picture of the exhibition of 1840."

5. The present shah of persia has granted many privileges to his
people.

6. Lincoln's favorite hymn o why should the spirit of mortal be proud
was sung in many schools on his centennial.

7. The fact that so many foreigners become americanized means much
to our nation.

8. eden phillpotts lived in chagford, dartmoor, while writing the chil-
dren of the mist the book by which he is known better than any other.

9. The village people are quite proud to own that billy blee was a real
chagford man, and any driver will go out of his way to point out the road
to fenworthy, which passes by the newtake farm, where will and phoebe
lived.

10. Last week, at the meeting of the civic forum in new york city, mr.
hardie described the aims and accomplishments of the party.

11. The rugged heroism of the Servian race did much in the middle
ages to save western Europe from the turks.

12. The united states senate has passed the anti-opium bill, which for-
bids the importation into this country after april i, 1909, of smoking opium
in any form. Opium for medicinal purposes may be imported under regu-
lations established by the secretary of agriculture.

13. The president sent a dispatch to the governor of California remon-
strating against the bill providing for the education of Japanese children
in separate schools.

14. "Vanity fair: a novel without a hero.'"
" Waverly ; or "tis si.xty years since.''

'' Impressions of a careless traveler."

15. I took the charcoal and bravely drew the outlines: •' very good."
said my master.

414 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

MISCELLANEOUS EXERCISES

Insert the marks of punctuation necessary in the following sentences,
and state rules for the marks used :

1. The singing birds have opened their bills returned Uncas in the
softest notes of his own musical voice and Tamenund has heard their song

2. He was stylishly dressed in a blue broadcloth coat with gold lace
at the seams an embroidered scarlet waistcoat a triangular hat with a loop
and broad binding of gold and wore a silver hilted hanger at his side

3. At a distance but distinctly to be seen high up in the golden light
of the setting sun appeared a great stone face with hoary mist around it
like the white hairs around the brow of christ.

4. miss Ophelia's ideas of education could be taught in very few words
to teach them to mind when spoken to to teach them the catechism sewing
and reading and to whip them if they told lies

5. As he caught their glances he drew his hard hand hastily across
his eyes again waved it on high for an adieu and uttering a forced cry
to his dogs who were crouching at his feet he entered the forest

6. Late in the evening I heard the distant rumbling of wagons over
bridges a sound heard farther than almost any other at night the baying
of dogs and sometimes again the lowing of some disconsolate cow in the
barnyard

7. And faith as the wife was aptly called thrust her own pretty head
into the street letting the wind play with the pink ribbons of her cap while
she called to goodman brown

8. And now glad leafy midsummer full of blossom and the song of
nightingales is come and in every village there is a maypole fifty feet high
with wreaths and roses and ribbands streaming in the wind and a noisy
weathercock on top to tell whence the wind cometh and whither it goeth

9. From its height the vale the river the spires of the tow^ers of Gra-
nada broke gloriously upon the view of the little band

10. The marsh grass was wind-swept and beaten until it looked as soft
and brown as fur the wind had free course over it and it looked like a
deserted bit of the world

11. The egremonts had never said anything that was remembered or
had done anything that could be recalled

12. My story being done she gave me for my pains a world of sighs

13. But our colonel we were all obliged to acknowledge was more our
friend of old days

THE PUNCTUATION OF THE SENTENCE

415

14. It is time too for me to leave off resting my arms on the bridge

15. The grand principle of war he said was that an army ought always
to be ready by day and by night and at all hours

16. Now while she wept bowed like a lotus flower
that watches its own shadow in the nile

a stillness seemed to fall upon the land

17. Every duty which is bidden to wait returns with seven fresh duties
at its back

18. The english adopted stern measures the boer farms were burned
their inhabitants gathered in prison camps and the country made a desert

19. Hail beauteous stranger of the grove
thou messenger of spring

20. Longfellow is telling of his boyhood days in the words

I remember the bulwarks by the shore

and the fort upon the hill
the sunrise gun with its hollow roar
the drum beat repeated o'er and o'er
the bugle wild and shrill
and the music of that old song
throbs in my memory still
a boy's will is the wind's will
and the thoughts of youth are long long thoughts

21. The rest of the pretty sitting room looking into the orchard and all
covered over with dancing tree shadows was fitted with books

22. The peasant is dependent on two things the field which yields his
nourishment the wood where he hides

23. It was in the time that lilies blow

24. To him replied the bold sir bedivere
it is not meet sir king to leave thee thus
aidless alone and smitten through the helm

25. When the night was come from the blackened sky
the spear tongued lightning slipped like a snake

26. How poor are they that have not patience

27. All great art is the expression of man's delight in God's work not
his own

28. Everything was locked up the salt box the meat safe the coal cellar
the candle box were all padlocked

29. Lo in the vapors the sun colossal and crimson and beamless
touches the woodland fingers of air prepare for the downfall

41 6 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

30. The petition of right known as the second great charter of the lib-
erties of england declared (i) that no one should be compelled to pay any
tax or to supply the king with money except by order of act of parliament

(2) that neither soldiers nor sailors should be quartered in private houses

(3) that no one should be imprisoned or punished contrary to law

31. Stretching far away at their feet were seen noble forests of oaks
sycamore and cedar and beyond yellow fields of maize and the towering
maguey intermingled with orchards and blooming gardens

32. Bronze has this advantage over stone stone although hard is brit-
tle but bronze is not only hard but tough

;^^. Finding nothing however very remarkable in his aspect nothing
but a sunburnt wayfarer in plain garb and dusty shoes who sat looking
into the fire as if he fancied pictures among the coals these young people
speedily grew tired of observing him

34. Happiness consists in activity it is a running stream not a stagnant
pool

35. Well here it is for you said hepzibah reaching it down but recogniz-
ing that this customer would not quit her on any other terms so long as
she had a gingerbread figure in her shop she partly drew back her
extended hand where is the cent

36. The state of California freely ceded the yosemite valley to the fed-
eral government

37. We watched the parade while it passed along the avenue and then
went to make a call on cedar avenue

38. While we were at intervale n h i climbed mount kearsarge

39. The mountain road was perilous but the view of crystal lake was
well worth both inconvenience and danger

40. They have decided to make their home in the west but I fear that
they will not be content western ways are not ways of the south

Insert the punctuation necessary in the following selections :

I. The Story of Cincinnatus

In the old days of Rome there lived a citizen Lucius Quinctius by name
called Cincinnatus or the crisp-haired on account of his long curly hair.
He cared nothing for wealth and lived contentedly on his small farm
across the Tiber.

While Cincinnatus was busy plowing his land Rome kept at its old
work of plowing the nations. The /Equians a neighboring people had
plundered the lands of .some of the allies of Kouu' and when dejnitics were

THE PUNCTUATION OF THE SENTENCE 417

sent to complain of the wrong Gracchus the .Equian chief received them
with mockery. He was sitting in his tent which was pitched in the shade
of a great oak when the deputies arrived.

I am busy with other matters he answered them I cannot hear you you
had better tell your message to the oak yonder

Yes said one of the deputies let this sacred oak hear and let all the gods
hear how treacherously you have broken the peace They shall hear it now
and soon avenge for you have scorned alike the laws of the gods and
men.

The deputies returned to Rome and reported how they had been in-
sulted. The senate at once declared war and an army was sent to Algidus
where the enemy lay.

Gracchus the yEquian general pretending to be afraid of the Romans
retreated before them drawing them into a narrow valley on each side of
which rose high steep and barren hills. Then he sent a force to close the
entrance to the valley. The Romans found themselves caught in a trap
impassable hills in front and on each side and a strong body of the
yEquians guarding the entrance

There was no grass for the horses no food for the men and no chance of
escape

But before the road was quite closed five horsemen had managed to break
through and these rode with all speed to Rome where they reported to the
senate the desperate situation of the consul and his army. A consultation
took place which ended in a decree of the senate appointing Lucius
Quinctius Dictator that is a man above the law with absolute power.

Early the ne.xt morning while Cincinnatus was at work on his farm
never dreaming that he a plain husbandman had been chosen to save
the state deputies from the senate arrived.

Hail to you Lucius Quinctius they said. The senate has declared you
Master of the People and has sent us to call you to the city for the consul
and the army in the country of the ^Equians are in danger.

Leaving his spade Cincinnatus hastened with the deputies to Rome
where he was received with the highest honor. There he quickly proved
himself worthy of the trust that had been placed in him. All booths were
closed and lawsuits were stopped men were forbidden to look after their
own affairs while a Roman army lay in peril. Orders were given that
every man old enough to go to battle should appear in the Field of Mars
before sunset with his arms five days' rations and twelve stakes. Such
haste was made that before the sun had set an army was ready equipped

4i8 PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION

as commanded in the Field of Mars and before midnight they were in the
vicinity of Algidus near the hostile camp of the ^quians.

After careful inspection Cincinnatus ordered his men to throw down
their baggage and to keep only their arms and stakes. Marching stealthily
forward they extended their lines until the ^^quians were completely sur-
rounded. Then at a given signal a shout was raised and each soldier be-
gan to dig a ditch where he stood and to plant his stakes in the ground.

The shout awakened the i^quians filling them with dismay and it
reached the ears of the despairing Romans in the valley inspiring them
with hope. Raising an answering battle shout they sallied forth and
fought so desperately that the ^quians were prevented from interrupting
the work of the outer army. All night the battle went on and when morn-
ing dawned the yEquians found that a ditch and a palisade had been made
around their camp. Finding themselves between two armies and as
closely walled in as the Romans in the valley had been they threw down
their arms and begged for mercy.

When asked on what terms he would spare their lives, Cincinnatus said
give me gracchus and your other chiefs bound. As for you you can have
your lives on one condition. I will set two spears upright in the ground
and put a third spear across. Every man giving up his arms and cloak
shall pass under this yoke and may then go free.

To go under the yoke was accounted the greatest dishonor to a soldier
but the yEquains were forced to submit. They delivered to the Romans
their king and their chiefs left their camp with all its spoils to the foe and
passed under the crossed spears their heads bowed with shame. Thus
was Gracchus punished for his pride.

That same evening Cincinnatus arrived in Rome with the two Roman
armies. In less than a day's time he had saved a roman army and humili-
ated the insolent ^quians. The senate decreed that Cincinnatus should
enter the city in triumph. He rode in his chariot through the gates
gracchus and the yEquian chiefs being led in fetters before him. All
Rome gave itself up to feasting and merrymaking.

Then Cincinnatus laid down his power and returned to his farm glad to
have served Rome but caring nothing for the pomp and authority that he
might have gained.

H. Apollo and Hvacinthus

Apollo dearly loved the youth Hyacinthus. He accompanied him in
his sports carried the nets when he went fishing led the dogs when he

THE PUNCTUATION OF THE SENTENCE

419

hunted and neglected for him his lyre and his arrows. One day as they
were playing a game of quoits Apollo heaving the discus with strength and
skill sent it high and far. Hyacinthus ran forward to seize it eager to
make his throw when the quoit bounded from the earth and struck him in
the forehead. He fainted and fell. The god as pale as the youth raised
him and tried with all his art to stanch the wound and retain the flitting
life but all in vain. The hurt was past the power of medicine. As when
one has broken the stem of a lily it hangs its head and turns its flowers to
the earth so the head of the boy fell over on his shoulder. Thou diest
Hyacinth so spake Phoebus robbed of thy youth by me. Thine is the
suffering: mine the crime. Would that I could die for thee ! But since
that may not be thou shalt live with me in memory and song. My lyre
shall celebrate thee my song shall tell thy fate and thou shalt become a
flower inscribed with my regrets. While Apollo spoke a flower of hue
more beautiful than the Tyrian purple sprang up resembling the lily if it
were not that this is purple and that silvery white. And this was not
enough for Phoebus but to confer still greater honor he marked the petals
with his sorrow and inscribed ah ah upon them as we see to this day.
The flower bears the memory of his fate.

INDEX

Abbreviations, 226, 227, 394; of states,
territories, and possessions of United
States, 231, 232; period after, 394.

Absolute construction, punctuation of
phrases in, 397.

Acatalectic verse, 367.

Adage, interpretation or application of,
297-299.

Address, direct, 396.

Adjective clause, punctuation of non-
restrictive, 399 ; of restrictive, 399.

Adjective phrase, misplacing of, 202.

Adverbial clause, misplacing of, 202 ;
punctuation of non-restrictive, 399.

Adverbial phrase, 155; misplacing of, 202.

Adverbs, 155; conjunctive, 221; modal,
398.

Allegory, personification in, 343.

Alliteration, 349.

alone, misuse of, 202.

Ambiguity, 320, 321.

Amphibrach, 361.

Analogy, argument from, 325 ; fallacy

of, 327-

Anapest, 361, 366.

Anapestic dimeter, 364.

Anecdote, defined, 30; uses of, 30, 31.

Antecedent probability, argument from,
323-324; fallacies of argument from,
324 ; importance of argument from,
324; opposing sign, 324.

Antecedents, 221.

Antithesis, 350. 35 1-

Antonyms, 219.

Apostrophe, 345.

Application, letters of, 237-241.

Apposition, 396.

Arguing beside the jxiint, 230, 319.

Argument, 143; burden of proof of, 330;
compared with exposition, 307 ; fal- J
lacy of, from example, 325 ; from
antecedent probability. 323-324; howl

to write (summary) 338; material
for, 307 ; preparation of, 329; refuta-
tion of, 33<>-33i-

Argumentum ad hominum, 319.

Argumentum ad populum, 320.

Arrangement, parallel in antithesis, 350.

Artistic description, 38-7O; main im-
pression in, 39-45 ; placing of details
in, 48 ; securing of main impression
in, 40 ; selection and characterization
of details of, 38, 39.

as, introducing simile, 339 ; preceded
by semicolon, 404.

Authority, 308.

Balanced sentence, 188-189, 192-194;
arrangement of ideas in, 188, 189;
effect of, 192-194.

Ballad, 377 ; stanza, 373.

Barbarism, 222.

Begging the question, 321.

Biography, 94, 384 ; topics for, 383.

Blank verse, 371.

Blocking out, 78.

Brief. 329.

Business letter, 225-234; address of,
226-228; body of, 229-230; com-
plimentary close of, 230 ; heading of,
225, 226; salutation in, 228, 229;
signature in, 230; superscription of,
231-234.

Cadence, 367.

Capital letters, 410-413; beginning ad-
jectives and adverbs derived from
proper nouns, 412; beginning all
proper nouns, 411; beginning days of
week and months of year, 412; begin-
ning first word of sentence, line
of poetry, direct quotation, 410, 411;
beginning important words in title
of book, poem, essay, and magazine,

422

INDEX

412; beginning name of Deity, 411;
beginning names of sections of country,
412; beginning ofl&cial and honorary
titles, 411; beginning pronouns re-
ferring to Deity, 411 ; beginning words
Bible and Scriptures, 411; beginning
words used as parts of proper
nouns, 411, 412; I and O, 411; in
compound title, 411; in words de-
noting kinship, 412.

Catalectic verse, 366, 367.

Cause and effect relation, assumed where
none exists, 314; use of, in paragraph
development, 150, 151.

Cesura, 368; cause of, 368; position of,
368.

Character, principal, 380 ; three important
moments in life of, 381.

Character study, topics for, 382, 383.

Characterization, 286-294; how to write
(summary), 290.

Characters, naming of, 380; principal,
380; secondary, 381; supernumer-
ary, 381 ;

Clauses, 395 ; in apposition, punctua-
tion of, 396; contrasted, punctuation
of, 401 ; transposed, punctuation of,
400; restricted adjective, 178, 399;
restricted adverbial, 399.

Climax, 351; emphasis by use of, 207;
order of, 21.

Coherence, principle of, 14, 17-18 ; between
paragraphs, 156-159; in paragraph,
155 ; in sentence, 199-205, 204 (sum-
mary).

Colon, 405-407 ; before long or formal
quotations, 406 ; between statement
and explanation when connective is
omitted, 405 ; between statement
and list of illustrations or specifica-
tions, 405.

Comedy, 378.

Comma, 395-403 ; after words, phrases,
and clauses in same construction, 395 ;
after words or expressions forming series
of pairs, 395, 396 ; between proposi-
tions of compound sentence, 397 ;
exceptions to rule for use of, 395 ; indi-
cating omission of word in compound
sentence, 401 ; following introductory
words, 404 ; omission of, in title, 396 ;

separating adjective and adverbial
clauses not restrictive, 399; separating
contrasted words, phrases, or clauses
from rest of sentence, 401 ; separating
direct informal quotation from rest
of sentence, 400; separating modal
adverbs and adverbial phrases from
rest of sentence, 398 ; separating
phrases in absolute construction, 397 ;
separating phrases in direct address
from rest of sentence, 396; separating
transposed words, phrases, or clauses
from rest of sentence, 400; separating
words in direct address from rest of
sentence, 396 ; separating words,
phrases, or clauses in apposition, 396.

Comma blunder, 196.

Comparison, literal, 340; use of, in para-
graph development, 147 ; word of,

339-

Compass, points of, 412.

Complex-compound sentence, 184-187.

Complimentary close, of business letter,
230.

Composition, 1-25, 137, 140, 156; an
aggregate of smaller units, 169 ; choice
of point of, limited by time and space,
6-8 ; choice of subject of, i ; defined
(summary), i, 3; effective and ineffec-
tive, 4, 5 ; general principles of, 10-25 ;
gist of, 162; how to make an effective
(summary), 3 ; kinds of, i ; list of
subjects for, 2, 3 ; nature of point in,
5; outline of, 159; selection and ar-
rangement of ideas in, 10-14; selection
of point to be made in, 3-6; subject
matter of (summary), 1-3 ; a unit of
thought, 169.

Compound-complex sentence, 184.

Compound sentence, 182-183, 184, 397,
401, 403; assertion in, 182, 183; asser-
tion and contrast in, 183 ; assertion
and explanation in, 182 ; assertion
and logical outcome in, 183; assertion
and specification in, 182; compared
with compound-complex sentence, 184;
consisting of combination of two
thoughts, 182; consisting of enumera-
tion of specific details of a generaliza-
tion, 183; consisting of group of
thoughts, 183; formed by group of

INDEX

423

thoughts realized simultaneously, 183 ;
consisting of group of thoughts express-
ing parts of action, 183 ; assertion
and repetition, 182 ; members of, sep-
arated by semicolon, 403 ; omission of
word is indicated by comma, 401 ;
punctuation of, 397 ; when required,
182.

Compound word, 410.

Conclusion, 318-321; false, 313; irrele-
vant, 319, 320; in syllogism, 318,

319-
Condolence, acknowledgment of letter of,

251; note of, 250, 251.
Confusion of terms, 320.
Conjunctions, 221; misuse of, 201.
Connective, replaced by colon, 405 ; wise

use of, 221.
Connective phrases, 221.
Connective words, 221.
Construction, squinting, 200, 201.
Conversation, 26; point in, 26; principles

of success in, 30.
Correlative, misplacing of, 203.
Correlative conjunction, position of, 203.
Correspondence, social, 242-267.
Counterplot, 133.
Couplet, 372; heroic, 372,
Crisis, 381.
Culmination, 381.

Dactyl, 360-361, 365-366.

Dash, 407, 408; indicating abrupt break
in thought, 407 ; indicating strong
emotion, 407 ; separating words or
groups of words denoting sudden in-
terruption in thought, 407.

Days of week, 412.

Dead Letter Office, 232.

Declarative sentence, 394; punctuation
of, 394.

Declination, formal, 245; informal, 247.

Deduction, 316-319; defined, 317; fal-
lacies of, 319-322; from specific case,

317-
Definition, logical, 299-302 ; summary, 301.
Deity, name of, 411.
Delivery, 36 ; how to secure good, 36, 37 ;

importance of, 36.
Demonstratives, 221.
Dependent clauses, 405.

Description, 38-93, 143, 169; additional
subjects for, 93 ; activity in, 70-75 ;
artistic, 38-76; blocking out of figures
in, 78, 79; defined, 38; enumerative,
84-88; forms of, 38; general, 91, 92;
in service of exposition, 302-303 ; nar-
rative, 72 ; order of details in, 17, 58-
60; right development of details in,
42 ; scientific, 84-88.

Details, combination of, 67-69; dcp>endent
upon relation to chief detail, 64 ; devel-
opment of, in description, 42 ; grouped
about central object, 64-66 ; in artistic
description, 58; in discussion, 17,18 ; in
paragraph, 154; from far to near, 60;
from near to far, 58 ; placing of, in de-
scription, 48, 49 ; right development of,
in description, 42-48; selection and
characterization of, 38, 39 ; suggesting
activity, 71, 72; use of minor, 144.

Digest, 162; advantage of, 162; defined,
162 ; disadvantage of, 162.

Digression, 195, 196; defined, 11.

Dimeter, 362.

Direct question, punctuation of, 394.

Directions, giving of, 33, 286; to expert,
3S ; to untrained individual, 33 ; ways
of, 33.

Discussion, order of details in, 17, 18.

Dramatic poetry, 377, 378; classes of,
378.

Elements, topics for descriptive, 383.

Elision, 367.

Emotion, indicated by dash, 407.

Emphasis, 190, 199; by kind and number
of words, 208; by position, 205, 206;
by transposition, 206, 207 ; by use of
cHmax, 207, 208; causes of lack of, 205 ;
principle of, 20-21, 205-209; summary
of principle of, 208.

Enumerative description, 84-88.

Environment, 114-119; importance of,
116-118; summary, 118.

Epic, 377-

Epigram, 351-352.

Essay, important words in title of, 412.

Evidence, 308, 310-313; circumstantial,
308, 310; direct, 310-311; direct cir-
cumstantial, 310; indirect. 310-311,'
testimonial, 308, 310.

424

INDEX

Example, argument from, 325; use of,

145-
Exclamation point, after expression of

emotion, 3g4 ; after interjection, 394 ;

use of, 394.
Explanation, 3s; of process, 282-286;

requirements in making, $$.
Explanation, extended, 276-29Q; common

varieties of, 282-299 ; how to write

(summary), 279.
Explanatory expressions, 408.
Exposition, 143, 276-306; additional

subjects for oral or written, 305, 306;

by synonym, 276; defined, 276;

description and narration in service of,

302-303 ; purpKJse of, 276 ; summar>',

303, 304.

Fable, personification in, 343.

Fact, 307, 308.

Fallacy, tion causa pro causa, 314, 315;
post hoc propter hoc, 315.

Farce, 378.

Fiction, 384-388 ; realistic, 94 : romantic
or idealistic, 94.

Figures, mixed, 353.

Figures of speech, 339-359; classification
of, 339-352; defined, 339; suggestive
rules for use of, 352, 353.

Foot, poetic, 360-367 ; kinds of, 365,
366; monosyllabic, 365, 366; sub-
stituted, 365, 366 ; suppression of
syllable in, 367.

Formal close, in informal notes, 245.

Formal ending of letter, 230.

General description, 91, 92.
Generalization, 183, 317-318, 321, 323.
(Jood use, 221 ; violations of, 222.

Hackneyed expressions, 223.

Heroic couplet, 372.

Heroic quatrain, 373.

Ifpxameter, 363.

History, 94. 383, 390-391; topics for,

383.
Homonyms, 219.
Honorable, salutation with, 228.
Hymn. 379.
Hyr>erbole, 348.
Hypercatalectic verse, 366.

Hyphen, between members of compound
word, 410; indicating separation of
word at end of a line, 410.

/, 411.

Iambic pentameter, 364, 372-375.

Iambic tetrameter, 374.

Iambic trimeter, 373.

Iambus, 361, 366.

Ideas, method of arrangement dependent

upon kind of composition, 17 ; selection

and arrangement of, 10.
Idyl, the, 377, 378.
Imperative sentence, 394 ; punctuation of,

394-
Improprieties, 222.
Incidents, topics for series of, 381. •
Incoherence, causes of, 199-204.
Indention, paragraph, 159, 229-230.
Indirect quotations, 408.
Induction, 313-317; and deduction, 323;

fallacies of, 313-316.
Informal notes, address in, 245 ; salutation

in, 245.
Information, colUiting of, 294-297.
Instances, pointing to difi'erent conclusion

ignored, 315-316; use of specific, 145.
Instructions, giving of, 286.
Interjection, punctuation after, 394.
Interrogation point, after direct question,

394-

Introduction, acknowledgment of business
letter of, 252 ; acknowledgment of social
letter of, 253 ; business letter of, 252 ;
informal letters of, 253 ; letters of, 251-
254 ; social letter of, 252, 253.

Invitation, formal, 242; informal, 247,
248 ; informal notes of, 246.

I-«iter, address of business, 226-228;
body of business, 229, 230; business
letter, 225-234 ; communication of, 225 ;
complimentary or formal close of, 225;
essential parts of, 225 ; heading of, 225 ;
of application, 237-241 ; of friendship,
255-265; of introduction, 251-254;
ordering goods, 234-236: salutation in
business, 22S, 229; signature in business,
230; superscription of, 231-234; uses
of, 225.

Letter writing, 225-267.

INDEX

4-'5

Literature, 216.

Loose-periodic sentence, i8q, 190.

Loose sentence, 190, 192; defined, 188;

effect of, 192, 194; how formed, 188;

order of ideas in, 188; and periodic, 190,

191.
Lyric poetry, 377, 378, 379 ; forms of, 378,

379.

Major premise, 318.

Manners of people, topics for, 383.

Margin, in business letter, 229.

Mask, the, 378.

Mass, 20.

Material, in paragraph, determined by

point to be made, 143; determined by

taste and intelligence, 143.
Melodrama, 378.
Metaphor, 341-342 ; compared with simile,

341 ; defmed, 341.
Meter, 366.
Methods of paragraph development, 143-

152 ; summary, 152.
Metonymy, 346, 347.
Metrical romance, 377.
Metrical tale, 377.
Minor premise, 318, 319.
Mixed figures, 353.

Modal adverbial phrases, separated by
comma, 398.

Modal adverbs, separated by comma,

398.
Modifiers, misplacing of, 201 ; position of,

203.
Monometer, 362.
Monosyllables, 268, 365 .
Months of year, 412.

Motivization, 105, 106 ; defined, 105 ; sum-
marized, 106.
Movement in narrative, defined, 108 ;

effect of moderate speed, no, in;

effect of rapidity, 108-110; effect of

slowness, no- 113; interrupted to give

surroundings or environment, 114-116;

summary, 113.
Mythology, list of recommended texts in,

388, 389 ; list of recommended myths,

398; topics for, 3 S3.

namely, preceded by semicolon, 404.
Names of seasons, 412.

Narration, 94-136. 143; additional subjects
for oral and written, 136; defined, 94;
environment or setting in, 114—119; in
service of exposition, 302, 303 ; kinds
of, 94 ; material for, 94 ; order in which
particulars are recounted, 1 19 ; relation
of happenings to one another in, 119-
122; summary, 134-136.

Narrative, bringing out of point or culmi-
nation in, 95; chief impression in, 96;
choice of particulars for, 105 ; choice of
words in, 122-125; defined, 133; de-
scriptive, 126-129; development of de-
tails in, 94-96 ; motive in, 105 ; move-
ment in, 108-114; order of details in,
96; plot in. 129-133; point of view of
actor in, 98 ; point of view of bystander
in, 96 ; point of view of person with com-
plete knowledge in, 102-105 ; purpose
of, 94 ; selection of details of, 95 ;
summary of, 96; vividness of, 123.

Narrative poetry, 377—378.

Non causa pro causa fallacy, 314-315.

Notes, 245-251; informal, 245-249; of
acknowledgment, 249, 250; of con-
dolence, 250, 251.

Nouns, connective through repetition,
221.

Novel, problem, 94.

Novels, list for supplementary reading, 384,
386-3S8; topics for general outline of,
380-381.

Ode, 379.

only, misuse of, 202, 203.

Onomatopoeia, 349.

Opinion, 307 ; and fact, 307, 308 ; value
of, in argument, 308.

Oral composition, i, 26-37; formal,
26 ; informal, 26 ; subject matter of,
I ; summary, 37.

Order, dep>endent upon kind of composi-
tion, 17, 18; of details in artistic
description, 58-69; of paragraphs,
159; of particulars in narration,
1 19-122.

Outline, 329; kinds of, 160-162; of
composition, 159-168; practical value
of. 162; simplest form of, 159;
topical, 159; topics for general, 380,
381.

426

INDEX

Paragraph, 137-168 ; coherence within, 155 ;
concluding, 141 ; defined, 137 ; in busi-
ness letter, 229, 230; indention, 159; in-
troductory, 141 ; kind of ideas needed
in, 143 ; material in, determined by
p>oint, 143 ; material in, determined
by taste and intelligence, 143 ; order
of details in, 154; point of, 137-143;
purposes of (summary), 142, 143;
topic sentence in, 152-154; transi-
tional, 142 ; a unit in main body of
composition, 141.

Paragraph development, by use of cause
and eflfect, 150, 151; by use of com-
parison, 147 ; by use of example or
specific details, 145 ; by use of the
obverse, 149; by use of repetition,
148; methods of, 143-152.

Paragraphs, order of, 156, 159.

Parentheses, inclosing explanatory expres-
sion, 408.

Participle, dangling, 200.

Pastoral, the, 377.

Pentameter, 363.

Period, after abbreviation, 394; after
declarative sentence, 394.

Periodic sentence, 188-192; eflfect of, 194.

Personal pronoun, antecedent of, 200;
faulty use of, 199, 200.

Personification, 342-344 ; defined, 342 ;
most extensive use of, 342, 343.

Persuasion, 307, 331-332; aim of, 331;
combined with argument, 331 ; prep-
aration of, 332.

Phrases, 395; abverbial, 221; punctua-
tion of, in absolute construction,
397 ; punctuation of, in apposition,
396; punctuation of, contrasted, 401 ;
punctuation of, in direct address, 396 ;
punctuation of, transposed, 400.

Plot, 12^133; counter-plot, 133; main,
133. 381; minor or sub-, 133; simple,
381 ; subordinate, 381 ; topics for,
381, 382.

Poetic foot, variation of, 364.

Poetic form, 360-379.

Poetry, 377-3791 dramatic, 377, 378;
kinds of, 377; lyric, 377, 378-379;
narrative, 377, 378.

Point, bringing out of, in composition,
8-10 (summary) ; choice of, limited by

time and space, 6-8 ; defined, 3 ;
double, 31; ideas not essential to, 10;
main, 137; minor, 137; nature of, 5;
selection of, 3, 4 ; when well chosen, 8.

Point of view, changing, 54-58; clearly
implied, 54, 56; definitely stated,
54, 56; definite suggestion of, 54; in
narrative (summary), 105 ; mental, 53 ;
of an actor in events, 98 ; of a by-
stander, 96; of person with complete
knowledge, 102-105; physical, 53, 54;
relation of details to, 51, 52.

Points, order of, in each paragraph, 139.

Polysyllables, 268.

Portrait, word (summary), 80.

Portraiture, word, 76-84 ; by depicting
few conspicuous details, 77 ; defined,
76.

Position, emphasis by, 205, 206.

Post, hoc propter hoc fallacy, 315.

Postal cards, 265-267.

PrepKjsitions, 221.

Presumption, 330.

ProbabiHty, antecedent, 323, 324; pre-
ponderance of, 324.

Process, explanation of (summary), 284.

Pronoun, adjective, 156; demonstrative,
156; personal, 155, 221; relative,
221.

Proof, 311, 312.

Proverb, interpretation or application
of, 297-299.

Punctuation of the sentence, 394-419.

Pyrrhic foot, 362.

Quatrain, 373 ; heroic, 373.

Question, answering, 32 ; begging the,
321 ; rhetorical, 352.

Quotation, direct, 408; direct informal,
400 ; indirect, 408 ; preceded by
colon, 406 ; within quotation, 409.

Quotation marks, 408-410; double, 408;
double and single, used alternately,
409; inclosed in quotation marks,
409; inclosing titles of books, essays,
poems, and periodicals, 408 ; with
quotation consisting of several para-
graphs, 408.

Reading, supplementary, 380-393.
Reasoning, deductive, 322; from false

INDEX

427

inferences 315; from too few in-
stances, 313, 314.

Refutation of argument, 330, 331.

Relation, additive, 221; cause and re-
sult, 221 ; contrast or opposition, 221 ;
exact shade of, 221; of time, 221.

Relation of happenings, cause and ef-
fect, 121, 122; time, 120, 121; sum-
mary, 121, 122.

Relative clause, misplacing of, 201, 202.

Relative pronoun, 201 ; antecedent of,
2or.

Repetition, use of, in paragraph develop-
ment, 148.

Reports, 34; book, 380; kinds of, 34;
necessity for point in, 34; order of
details in, 34; proportion of time to
details in, 34; selection of essential
details in, 34 ; words in, 34.

Restrictive clause, 399.

Rhetorical question, 352.

Rhyme, 370-377; different schemes of,
370-377; end, 372; how produced, 370.

Rhyme royal, 374, 375.

Rhymes, interval between, 370.

Rhythm, 360-367, 372 ; effect of, being
suited to thought, 364 ; effect of, being
unsuited to thought, 365 ; relation of,
to thought, 364; variation in, 365,
366.

Rising action, moment of, 381.

Romance, metrical, 377.

Salutation, capitals in, 228; forms of, in
business letters, 228; forms of, in in-
formal notes, 245 ; punctuation of, in
business letters, 228; punctuation of, in
informal notes, 245.

Scansion, 368.

Schemes, rhyme, 370-377.

Scientific description, 84-88.

Scientific works, topics for, 383-384.

Seasons, names of, 412.

Semicolon, 403-405.

Sentence, 169-215 ; balanced, 188-189, 195 ;
coherence of, 195 ; complex, 178; com-
plete description, 169 ; complete narra-
tion, 169 ; compound, 182-183, 187, 397 ;
compound-complex, 184-187; defined,
169; emphasis of, 195; form of, deter-
mined by nature of thought, 187 ;

group of, related, 137; length of, 195;
loose, 188, 195; loose-periodic, 189;
order of ideas in, 187; periodic,
188, 19s ; prominent places in, 205 ;
punctuation of, 394-419; simple, 187;
a unit in composition, 169; unity, 195,
197-198 (summary).

Series, punctuation of clauses in, 395 ;
punctuation of phrases in, 395 ; punc-
tuation of words in, 395.

Setting, 114-116.

Sign, argument from, 328, 329.

Signature, 230.

Simile, 33?^34i-

Slurring, 367.

Solecisms, 222.

Somewhat later than, 221.

Song, the, 378, 379.

Sonnet, 375, 376 ; English, 375-376 ; Italian
or Petrarchan, 375-376.

Speech, figures of, 339-359-

Spelling, rules for, 268-270.

Spelling list, 270-275.

Spondee, 362.

Stanza, 372-377 ; ballad, 373; classified,
372-377; defined, 372; length of, 372;
Spenserian, 375; Tennysonian, 374.

Story, chief events of, 380; conclusion of,
380; outline of, 380 ; short, list and topics
for, 380-381, 384-385-

Style, how secured in sentence, 195.

Subject, principles for choice of (summary),
3 ; principles for securing effectiveness
of (summary), 10; change of, 197.

Subplot, 133, 381.

Suggestion, 51.

Summary, argument, 338 ; characterization,
290; coherence, 18, 204; composition,
3. 37 ; definition, logical, 301 ; de-
scription, artistic, 75, 76 ; emphasis, 23,
208 ; exfMDsition, 303-305 ; explanation,
extended, 279 ; paragraph, 142-143, 152 ;
process, explanation of, 284 ; narration,
134-136; subject, 10; unity, 12, 197-
198; word portrait, 80.

Superscription, 231-234.

Supplementary reading, 380-393.

Suspense, how produced, 194.

Syllables, accented and unaccented, 360-
362 ; suppression of, 367.

Synecdoche, 347-348.

428

INDEX

Syllogism, 317-319.
Synonyms, 217, 218.
Synopsis, 162.

Tale, metrical, 377.

Tautology, 208.

Telegram, 241, 242.

Tennysonian stanza, 374.

Tercet, 373-

Terms, confusion of, 320, 321.

Testimony, 308-310.

Tetrameter, 363.

Titles of books, essays, periodicals, poems,

408.
Titles in address of letter, 226, 227.
Topical outline, 13Q, 162.
Topics, 381-383.
Topic sentence, 152-154.
Tragedy, 378.

Transitional elements, 156-159.
Translation, 34-35, 224.
Travel, topics and list of supplementary

reading for, 383, 384, 391.
Trimeter, 363.
Triplet, 373.
Trite expressions, 223.
Trochaic tetrameter, 364.

Trochee, 360, 366.
Turning point, 381.

Unity (summary), 12; sentence, 195-198;
of thought, 17.

Verse, 360-371; acatalectic, 367; blank,
371; cadence of, 366; catalectic, 366,
367; cesura in, 368; defined, 360;
elision, 367 ; hypercatalectic, 366 ;
kinds of, 362-363 ; naming of, 364 ;
scansion of, 368.

Vocabulary, 224.

Word portrait (summary), 80.

Word portraiture, 76-84.

Words, 216-224; in apposition, 396;
choice of, 50, 122, 216; contrasted,
401 ; in direct address, 396 ; intro-
ductory, 404; general, 216; good
use in, 221 ; omission of, 401 ; ques-
tion-begging, 321; separation of. at
end of line, 410; similar in sound but
different in spelling and meaning, 220;
specific, 216; specific and general, 217 ;
transposed, 400.