y. k This book is DUE on thll last d tamped below A PRACTICAL COUESE IN /-y > ^ '-^ ENGLLSII COMPOSITION Bv ALPHONSO G. NKWOOMER ASSISTANT IMiOKESSlilt, OF ENULISH IN TllK I.Kl.A.NU STANKOKl) .TIINIOR UNIVEHSITV STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, LOS AKGEL^S. -•- OAL. BOSTON" GINN AND COMPANY , 1894 Copyright, 1893, By ALPHONSO G. NEWCOMER. All Rights Reserved. ©inn S. Compan'g Zbe "Btbcnxixm press asoston vi) A/H3 CONTENTS. PAOE PREFACE vii PART I. — Composition based on Experience and Observa- tion 1 Introductory: Ho^v to Find Material 3 Section I. — Narration '. 15 Exercise i. Incident 15 II. Simple Incident 17 in. Colored Incident 19 IV. Embellished Incident 21 N^ V. Incident from School Life 25 ir^ VI. Complex Incident 20 VII. Complex Incident, Revised 31 VIII. Games of Skill, etc. 33 "Y IX. Physical Contests 30 X. Intellectual Contests 39 XI. Outline Autobiotj;raphy 39 XII. Detailed Autobiography , 41 xiii. Imaginary Autobiography 42 XIV. Biography 44 Nv. History 45 Section II. — Description 47 Exercise xvi. JVIanufactureil Articles 47 XVII. Mechanical Contrivances, Scientific Instru- ments, etc , 49 XVIII. Buildings, Towns, etc. 51 XIX. l'r()ces.scs of Manufacture and Construction . 53 XX. Natural Objects. — The Mineral Kingdom ... 5fi XXI. Geological Formations 58 XXII. Tlie Vegetable World. — Fruits 61 IV CONTEXTS. Exercise xxiii. xxiv. XXV. XXVI. XXVII. XX\ III. XXIX. XXX. XX\I. XXXII. XXXIII. XXXIV. XXXV. PAOE Flowers 03 Plants 65 riant Growth and Activity 68 Aniinals 69 Animal Habits, etc 72 Nature at liest '. 75 Natural and Artificial Objects in rDiijuiiction 77 Nature in Activity bl Works of Art 85 Description of Persons 86 Cliaracter Descriptiiin. — Keal 80 Character Description. — Ideal U3 Imaginative Description 94 Section III. — Naukation and Desckii'iion Co:mi!im:i) 97 Exercise xxxvi. Social Gatherings, etc ;»7 XXXVII. Personal Adventures 98 xxxviii. Excursions, Travels ♦. 101 XXXIX. Scenes irom LUa 104 XL, Scenes from History 105 PART II. — Composition based on Reading and TnorrniT .... 109 Intkoductouv: Pkinciples of Composition Ill Section I. — Exposihon v Exercise xi.i 119 Introductory Practice 119 xLii. Informal Essays 122 XMii. Formal Essays 126 XLiv. Scientific Treatises 129 XLV. Criticism 132 Section II. — Argumentation...! 137 Exercise xi.vi. Argument from Self-evident Facts 137 XLvii. Argument by Careful Exposition 139 xLviii. Inductive Reasoning 143 xLix. Inductive Reasoning, continued 145 E. Deductive Reasoning 149 EI. Deductive Reasoning, continued 154 Lii. Evidence 157 Liii. Debate. — Questions of Fact 159 i-iv. Debate. — Questions of Oj)inion 162 Lv. Debate. — Questions of Probability 106 CONTENTS. V PAGE Section- III. — Persuasioj 171 Exercise lvi. Persuasive Discourse in General 171 Lvii. Persuasion by Appeal to Personal Interest ... 173 Lviir. Persuasion by Appeal to Social Duty 178 Lix. Persuasion by Appeal to Religious Duty 179 LX. Oratory. — Occasional Forms 183 Lxi. Oratory. —The Stump 188 Lxir. Oratory. —The Bar 190 Lxiii. Oratory. — The Legislature 195 Lxiv. Oratory. —The Pulpit 199 Lxv. Oratory. — The Platform 204 PART III. — Miscellaneous Forms 207 Introductory: Scoi'k and Comi-lkte Method of Composition 209 Exercise lxvi. News 211 Lxvii. Editorials 21(5 Lxviii. Book Reviews 220 Lxix. Letters 224 Lxx. Diaries 229 Lxxi. Dialogues 232 Lxxii. Humor 230 Lxxiii. The Short Story 240 PREFACE, This hook is intended primaril}- for use in high schools and academies. But, at the same time, it is issued in the confidence that it will be found sugges- tive and useful for the lower classes in colleges and universities, so long at least as our preparatory schools shall continue to send to them students practically un- trained, or sadly mistrained, in this important branch of English. Grammar is faitlifully tauglit the pupils tlirough text-books, and they come witli their heads full (A theory, and hundreds of rules at their tongues' end, hut they cannot write a single clear, smooth English sentence. Let tliem, at least once a week, devote a little time to putting these lailes and theories into practice. No doubt one reason wh}- this has not been done, is that so few text-books liave been available which would relieve the teacher of the Inirden of find- ing appropriate themes, and of setting the })upils to work in the right direction. 'J'hat is wliat this book aims to do. It is not intended to take the place of a Rhetoric, much less of a (h-ammar. There is not a formal nde in it, thougli numerous apposite sugges- tions are made, and certain fundamental principles aie everywhere kept in view. Tlie best results will be obtained by using tlie book to supplement some moi"e technical grammatical and rhetorical treatise, such as Vlll I'KEFACE. Mrs. S. E. II. Lockwood's excellent and comprehensive Lessons in JEnr/Ush published by Messrs. Ginn & Co. The object is to show the student, first of all, how simple a thing it is to HikI matei'ial ; and, secondly, how easy and delightful it is to work that material into good, interesting compositions. Each exercise deals with some particular kind of composition. Specimen subjects and themes are given, follow^ed by observations and suggestions in regard to the manner of treating them. Of course, everything cannot be provided for at once, and the pupil must be left for a while to keep out of error as best he can. Indeed, even if it were possible, ^ it is a question whether it would be best alwaj^s to warn the student beforehand, for sad experi- ence is admittedly the most effectual of teachers. Lastly, models are furnished of the various kinds of composition, sometimes taken from writers of recognized merit, often selected or adapted from work actually produced by students. The latter feature of the plan has been ventured upon because experience has shown that it is useless to set as a model before the average pupil a description from Ruskin, for example, or an essay of De Quincey. There is such a thing as aim- ing too high, as the ludicrously wild flight of many a young writer's eagle-feathered shaft has proved. If the models are within his reach, if lie can liope to equal or even excel them, he will obtiiin from them not only profit but an encouragement that is worth more than any false or over-wrought ins2)iration. The study of higher models seems desirable only in proportion as the student is able to appreciate them. References there- fore are often made to examples of this class, in the PREFACE. IX hope that those Avho have the taste and the ability will resort to them with profit. Reading up beforehand is l\y no means advised in every case. And yet tliere seems to be little warrant for the objections to this practice sometimes advanced of late. Tlie early work c)f neaiiy every great writer shows clearly that he began by conscious, if not delil»er- ate, imitation. Still, it will be appaivnt from even a hasty glance into this Ijook that style is not considered the all-important thing ; it is the snbject-matter of models and references that has in most cases led to their selection, even translations being admitted. After all else is done, one thing remains for the teacher — the criticism of the pn])irs work. There- fore, mechanical fanlts and minor individnal vices of style are not discnssed herein. They are as nnmerons and as diverse as are the individual writers. Often, too, they are not matters of absolute right or wrong. Many adventitious considerations, which cannot be foreseen here, must go to settle the question. The exercises, seventy-three in number, will furnish material for from one to four years' Avork, according to circumstances. They contemplate productions ranging from the simplest narration to the loftiest description, from clear, straightforward exposition to ingenious argument and eloquent persuasion. It is readily seen that exercises of this kind are not necessarily limited to pupils of any particular age or grade. Tn fa(;t, the same sul)ject which you set a ten-year old boy or girl at work upon may not be unworthy of the best effort of a literary master. Each must deal with it according to his ability. X PREFACE. The author's tlianks are due to his collaborators in the English department of the Leland Stanford Junior University, some of whose suggestions liave been used with protit in the lecture-room, and liave naturally been incorporated here. Professor Genung's Rhetoric has furnished a partial basis for the arrangement and ter- minology, and not iniprol)ably some of the matter, of Part II. The work owes its inception to the kindly en- couragement of ]\Ir. E. H. Woodruif, librarian of the above-named university, and formerly a very successful instructor in English at Cornell. Unfortunately, how- ever, some of the best portions of his method could not be embodied in a work which, while aiming at a certain completeness, is after all confessedly elementary. Palo Alto, Cal., April 18, 1893. PART I. Composition Based on Experience and Observation. Introductory: How to Find Material. " What sliall I write about ? " is the immediate exclamation of every one who is required to write a composition. It is an important question and cannot be answered briefly. But first let us give a few cautions. In selecting- subjects for compositions avoid i-n general those which are too Ijroad and comprehensive for concise treatment ; those wliicli are difficult and abstruse, requiring the knowledge and accuracy of one long trained in methods of scientific investigation, or the authority of a matured and logical thinker ; those whicli liave l)een worn out by the use and abuse of successive generations of essay- writers ; those which can have no living interest for your readers or hearers ; those which draw upon no personal experience, or appeal to no knowledge or taste of your own. Thus, avoid abstract subjects, sucli as Patience, Perseverance, Idleness, Duty, Character, True Manhood and Womanhood, and the old triad. Faith, Hope, and Charity. You can scarcely expect to say anything new upon these topics, or even to say anything old in a new way ; all iho changes have been rung upon them long aoro. Life and the world oiTer too much that is new and attractive, for us to be wasting our tinu^ on these out- woi-n themes. Do not allow yourself to be discouraged 4 INTRODTTTORY. l)y the oftr-repeated ytatement tliat \v(! can find notliing new to say. That is the cdoak which the (hiUard and the drone use to cover up their own incom])etence and indolence. We can say something new. In one sense Nature never repeats herself. Her laws, her methods of operation, may he uiu liangeahle always, hut lier products are intinitely diversitied. Every day brings to liglit some new form, some hitherto unheheld combina- tion. The same thing is true in other spheres — of social, political, and religious institutions. Keep your eyes and ears open. See and hear ; then think and write. Avoid old maxims and adages. Such are, Honesty is the Best Policy, Time and Tide Wait for No Man, Well Begun is Half Done, A Bird in the Hand, etc. Writing on such themes leads to the habit of making rajidom and sweeping general statements which, because they are founded upon no scientific demonstration, are worse than worthless. Besides, these old sayings often contain more poetry than truth. If you can detect and expose fallacies in them, they may be made to furnish material for argumentative essays. Only be careful that you rightly understand the spirit of the sayings and are competent to grapple witli the problem involved. Avoid subjects in which the words must be taken in some figurative or unusual sense. The device is an old one, still cherished by many good writers. But it adds no grace to the composition, while it leads to misconceptions on the part of the reader and fosters in the writer habits of loose and aimless thinking. This form of title too is often only another way of expressing the abstractions which have been objected to above. Familiar examples of this class of subjects are, Crown IXTRODUCTOEY. 5 Jewels, Sowing the Wind, iStemming the Tide, Sunken Reefs, Links, Stepping Stones, Growing toward the Light. If 3'ou must preach or moralize, seek more effective methods. It may l)e doubted whether these fancies and pretty conceits, seeking to draw a moral les- son from every curious fact and phenomenon in nature, ever yet convinced the skeptical or determined the wavering. Then there are whole classes of subjects tliat have about them a delightful indefiniteness which seems to fascinate young writers. A Pyramid of Vanities ; Yesterday, To-day, and To-morrow ; Two Builders ; Magic ; Good Soil ; A Little While ; etc., etc. There is the wonderfully broad subject. Life : write what you please, it will fit here ; though no two thoughts may have a common bearing, though no two sentences may fit together, they will all seem to harmonize with the title and the writer is content. But is the reader content? Read such an essay that has been Avritten by some one else and judge for yourself. Do you ask now what you shall select ? Consider a moment. First of all, you want to interest your reader. Your real object may be higher than this — it maybe to instruct, or to convince, or to arouse. But Avhatever be your object, if you do not interest first you will meet with small success. To interest keenly it is ab- solutely indispensable that you be interested yourself. The slightest weariness or indifference on your part will be detected at once and beget a corresponding weariness or indifference on the part of your readei'. What are you interested in most? What is there all about you, in your books, in your school, in your home, ; TNTrvODUCTORY. ill ilic (liitics and })lca.sures and sorrows of your daily experience, that makes life so little or so much worth liviiitr? Write about this. And vet use your judgment even here. You iiia\ l)e deeply interested in something, and may write (if it most sym])athetieally and entertaining-ly and still fail to entertain. You read for tlie first time the thrilling story of how Trojan Paris carried off the lieautifnl Greek Helen, and how tiu! (Jreeks went in revenge and besieged the city of Troy foi- ten years, until tlu'y razed it to the ground. You are lued at once with a generous zeal to rewrite this tale for your friends to enjoy as well as yourself. But they evince little interest, and you are disappointed. Soon you learu that they liay no means. Only let it be spontaneous, genuine, and not carried to excess. And on the other hand, if you care more for the scientific aspect of things, there is no reason Avhy you cannot do 8 IN ri;oDUCTORV. ()jiij;iiKil iiivcsligiilioii, and so liiitl luatcj'ial lor (jiiginal writing. Instead of cop3dng from others, simply record what yon liave seen yonrself. Late in the evening of that same Satnrday, as you Avcn' t nidging wearily homeward with your Imncli of white violets, you stopped ])y the edge of the marsh to listen to the concert of the frogs. You were re- minded of the story of the Irishman who Mas Itelated under somewhat similar circumstances. He was anxious to find the shortest way home, you know, and when a mischievous little frog down in the slough spoke up in a high-keyed voice telling him to "cut across, cut across, cut across," he somewhat hesitatingly ventured, lie Avas getting deeper and deeper in the mire with every step however when one old croaker came to his rescue with the sage advice, delivered in a stately orotund, to "go round ahout, go round ahout, go round al)out." Travelers in Greece assert that in the Thessalian marshes to-day may be heard the same strange chorus, Brekkekekex, ko-ax, ko-ax, hrekkek- ekex, ko-ax, ko-ax, which we know Aristophanes heard tAvo thousand years ago. Noav your frogs doubtless were neither Greek nor Hibernian, but they spoke none the less distinctly. What did they say? Could you catch it exactly? Could you reproduce it, even approximately? It might be worth your Avhile to try. Aristophanes caught and reproduced so well the croak of his native frogs that that line of out- landish Greek stands to-day as one of the monuments to his genius. But you live in the city ? and you cannot go on Saturday tramps finding Avood-flowers and listening to IXTEODUCTOEY. 9 frog-concerts? Very well. How many 8})arr()ws flew up from the curbstone this morning when you turned the corner into Elm Street? You could not count them, of course, but you could make a rough estimate. Perhaps some of them did not i\y up, they are such bold creatures — none of your timid wild-birds that A\ill not let you get within gun-shot of them. Now find out how widely distributed tliese English sparrows are. You will hardly find that in books ; you will have to ask some one who has been in Boston and New Oiieans and San Francisco. You will then get a good general idea of the entire number of these birds to be found in the country at present. Next, find out when they were introduced here from Europe, and compute the rate of increase. Why do they thrive so here ? AVill this thing continue ? Or is there a natural limit that prevents* any particular form of animal or vege- table life from exterminating all other forms ? If so, what is this natural limit and when is it reached ? Well, we are getting into deep '\^■ater, and we may not get out. But no matter. It is to l)e hoped you do not believe that asking questions is the special pre- rogative of fools. There are many questions that no fool Avas ever capable of asking. Indeed there is scarcely a better test of a man's intelligence than the sort of questions he asks. And so our questions may go unaiiswei-ed. What then ? AVc have at least had something to think about and to write about. There was another thing you noticed this morning. The little green-painted flower-pot with its blooming- geranium was not to l)e seen in its customary place on the window-sill of a certain house ; and a carriage 10 INTRODUCTORY. that looked suspiciously like a doctor's was waiting be- fore tlie door. Every morning lor several weidvs that pink geranium had greeted you, making a bright spot in the gloom of the narrow tenement-street. At noon wOien the sun beat in there pitilessly, the flower had disa2j})eared. A few streets back there are houses with great conservatories filled with gorgeous troj)ical plants. A gardener works among them constantly. But these flowers you suspect are ki;[)t for sliow, and you have been more interested in the little geranium whose comings and goings cfave evidence of lo\iim- care. Why, is it })ossible that you have ever sat for half an hour, scratching your head and gnawing the end of your pen-holder trying to think of " something to write about " ? If you have difficulty in finding something to write about, you may be sure it is because you have a wrong idea as to what constitutes a })roper theme. Perhaps you think it should be something remote in time or place, some description of Greenland or story of the South Sea Islands, some event in the past, some theory, some prophecy of the future — something in short that you never have seen, that has scarcely ever occupied your thoughts at all, and that in consequence you know little or nothing about. If such be your idea it is not strange that you should have to puzzle a long time be- fore lighting upon what seems to you a suitable subject. And then you will have to rack your brains a longer time to find something to write upon the subject, or else take refuge in what somebody else has written. Now "• racking the brains " is a thing good enough in itself, only we do not want to have too much of it to INTUODUCTOrtV. 11 do at the outset. What we \vant to do first is to write. Then after a whik^ we s]i;ill find that the expression of thought has oro-wn coni])aratively so easy that we can devote nearl}- all our time and energy to the thought itself. Thei'efoi'e do not s(^elv too far for material. Be satisfied for the present Avith home-topics and home- thoughts. Yon. are thinking about something perhaps every waking moment of your life. You talk fast enough too when you are among your companions, and withcnit even a thought of its difficulty. It ought to he almost as easy to write ; and it is. You will find it so if yon only write as you think and talk, taking the same subjects and treating them in much the same way. And you will find too that Avriting, far from being a task, is a real })leasure. Is it something new that you want? The chances are just as good that you Avill find it right at home as elsewhere. A thousand aspiring, or, it may l)e, chiven and desperate, young essayists have written upon the genius of Napoleon and the })leasures of hope and the blessings of civilization ; but ten to one nol)ody has ever yet written about your grandfather's barn with all its denizens from the calves in the basement to the pigeons in the roof, with its pulley-fork and grain chutes, its harness room and machinery sheds, and tlie inexhaustil)le i-esoui'ces for fun in its spacious carriage room and haymow on a rainy day. The loving and truthful touches which you ai'c sure to give to de- scriptions of this character Avill be worth more than all the artificial glamoi- your fancy may throw over "cloud- capped towers and gorgeous palaces." You have made a mistake at times, perhaps, in im- 12, INTKoni'CTOItV. ag'ining that wliat was new to you would l)e new to others. But you make a o-reater mistake in taking it for granted tliat wliat is old and familiar to you will be so to everyliody (dse. \'on walk Ihrougli the streets of youi' nati\e town or citN and lind it all too eommon- })lace to furnish you a lilting theme. I*>ut you travtd to a foreign conntry and \ isit its nictiopolis foi' the first time. Here everything is noyel, from the paving of the streets to the architect uic of the ])nl)lic buildings, from the signs oyer the shop-doors to the dress and manners of the clerk l)ehind the counter. You are inspired to record your impressions and you lill your journal with graphic descriptions, and write long letters home. You would like to tell all the w(trld of what you have seen and heard. But you fail to realize that there are thousands who have spent their lives in this city and who find no more inspiration here than you found in your native phice. They would not be half so much interested in what you micrht write alxmt it as in what you might write about your home. Realize this once and you go back with a sense of the rarity and im- portance of wdiat you had all along called common})lace. Here at liome you may not be able to write with quite the same keenness of interest, l)ut you can make up for this by fidelit}' and sympathy. And onco you fully feel that what is best kno^vn to yourself is least knoAvn to nearly eveiybody else, your interest will be aroused where it was never aroused before. Again ; are you (piite sure thei'e is not something new, even for you, in these old familiar scenes? We allow things to grow old to us too soon in tins world. Resolve every morning as you take your accustomed INTKODIH^TORY. 13 route to school that yon will seo something new — somethino- that you have not noticed hefore thouo-h it ma}' haye been there a long time. Rest assured you can find such things eyery day. And when looking for them has grown a habit, you will find yourself living as it were in anotlier and most wonderful world. You want a subject for an essay ; take '"The Street I Live 111."" ^lake a drawing of it first, what the surveyor calls a plot or plan. Locate the houses, the fences and gates, the walks, the trees. You Avill soon find it neces- sary to take a walk thr(Uigh tlie street in order to verify your plan ; and before you are through you will con- clude that you di\ 1 — pre- cipitated — water. Tell the story either In the first person or in the thirch from the standpoint of the cliief actoi' oi- fi'om 18 NAintATlOX. that of an eyo-witness. As the incident is pnrely imaginaiy j'on will have o-reat freedom in the choice of minor details hut will he met hy the (hllicnlty of telHiig them precisely as they might actually happen. Your ohject will he to make the incident seem entirely real and lifelike, to arouse and hold the reader's in- terest. 'J'herefore picturi^ to yourself tlie occurrence as vividl}^ as you can. Then tell it naturally, in the past tense and indicative mode, and with no hint of anything fictitious ahout it. The following may he studied as a model of this kind of composition. Do not assume that all the models here given are perfect or even excellent of their kind. Many of them are simply good specimens of work that has heen done hy students. It may well be that you can produce better. ALMOST A RUNAWAY. As I was passing the post-office yesterday morning a sudden gust of wind caught the corner of my cloak and sent it flapping out wildly behind me. A horse standing by the pavement took fright at the noise and the Itright color of the cloak-lining. lie wheeled around abruptly, overturning the buggy to which he was harnessed and throwing out its sole occupant, a little boy^ I was very much alarmed when I saw that the boy held on to the lines as the horse started to run, and that he and the vehicle were being dragged along dangerously close to each other. For- tunately, at this juncture, a man sprang forward, and seizing the horse by the bridle befoi-e he had fairly started, succeeded in checking and quieting hini. I>ittle damage had been done. The boy got up, scared but unliurt. I drew my offending garment closer about me and passed on. COLOKED INCIDENT. 19 EXERCISE III. COLORED IXCIDEXT. Thus far Ave have endeavored to confine ourselves to the plainest kind of narration, to the faithful and straightforward relation of real oi' imaginary oc- currences. Kead asj-ain the model Q-iven in Exercise II. Notice how entirely devoid it is of anything foreign to the subject or of anything in tlie nature of ornament. Every A\'ord is necessary, and you feel that every word is true. The Avriter de})ends solely u})on the inherent interestingness of the story to arouse the interest of the reader. In two places only — in the adverb toildly and the adjective offending — is there the slightest approach toward anything extraneous. But even these^ words, apart from their ornamental office, convey ideas that cannot well be omitted. Now com- pare with that selection the following : A DUDE'S DISCOMFITURE. It was at the Southern Pacilic Depot. We were sitting in a car of an outbound .suburl)an train, looking out of the window, waiting for the train's departure. A young fellow, whose dress proclaimed him a " dude," came sauntering down the depot plat- form, watching the people who were descending from a train that had just arrived. Three girls, talking and laughing merrily to- gether, seemed to absorb his attention. As he passed by he turned his liead to watch them, when he was suddenly brought to a standstill by coming into collision with on(3 of the pillars of the arcade. A particularly merry laugh from the girls just then, who may or may not liave seen him, made him flush hotly. lie glanced up at our car. We at least had seen him, and the row of smiling faces that filled the windows from one emi of the car 20 ^AKltATiON. to tlie other was not comforting. He hurried away, douhtless reflecting that this is an unsympathetic world. Here a^aiu tlu' ^\•l■itel• luis told his .story for the most l)art very simply and naturally, liut, it" you will ol)- serve carefully, there is something here tliat has been inserted not so nuich for accurate representation as for effect. The climax is heightened and coloriMl just a little, and at the end a bit of gratuitt)us speculation contributes to a nioie graceful close. The difference may be compared to the difference produced liy the retouching of a photograjdi. It is just such touches as these that make a part of the dift'ercnce between the great mass of writing and that portion of it which usually goes by the name of literature. Now rewrite your last essay — the incident developed from the skeleton given in Exercise II. — introducing as easily and skillfully as you can, a few of these touches. MODEL. .A CRUISE. The otlier day Will, Fred, Tom, and myself, were out for a ramble in the woods when we came upon a small pond on the l)ank of whieh was a raft. It did not take us long to decide that we wanted a ride, and so all four of us stepped aboard and shoved off. Will stood in the "bow" and directed the course of the craft, while the rest of us poled her along from the stern. The pond was full of reeds and high grass, and was nowhere more than four feet deep. Here and there were old, moss-covered logs or little mounds protruding above the surface of the water. After poling around in the deepest parts for some time, we decided to go for a cruise entirely around the pond. At one end we found a place whei-e it was very difficult to navigate on account of the shallowness of the water and the great number of ElVIBELLISHED INCIDENT. 21 logs. This place we named the Northwest Passage. After much trouble we succeeded in getting through and were going along at good speed when suddenly we struck a stone which our pilot had not seen because it did not reach to the surface. The sudden shock threw "Will off, and as there w'ere now three of us on one side and the balancing weight was removed from the othei', the raft tipped and we also fell in. We waded ashore with all possible speed but were afraid to go home in such a plight. Fortunately we had some matches which were not wet, and, having built a fire and sat aroimd it for several hours drying off, we set out for home where we arrived just in time for dinner. EXERCISE IV. EMBELLISHED IXCTDENT. When we s})oke of faithful and accurate narration as distinguished from a somewhat ornamental style of writing, we did not mean to imply that the latter wanders from fidelity or accuracy. By no means. Such a wandering would, under ordinary circumstances, be quite inexcusal)le. But there are always very many things which, while perfectly true or existent, are yet not at all essential to the understanding of the incident. For exam})le, in the case of the first incident cited here, '' Almost a Runaway," it may have been entirely true that the horse was ])lack, that the buggy was new, that the cloak-lining was scarlet, that the gentleman who caught the horse was lame. But, wliile the introduc- tion of these facts would have given us a more accurate picture of tliis particular incident, it would not have helped our understanding of what took place, of the incident itself. In so far, then, these facts are extra- 22 >;ak1w\ti()N. iieous and iiiiiu'cessary. Of coin-so we may use lliein if we like, foi' tlu-y liave an ol'licc of tlicii' own. But even here we nuist diuw a (listiiiction ; lliey are not equally available. Admiration of the gentleman's deed would be increased by tlic knowledge that he ])erformed it in spite of some physical disadvantage. W\' could imagine the horse's fright more readily if we knew the color of the cloak-lining to be scarlet, because this is a violent color and more exciting tlian a tamer one. We can even conceive how our interest might be slightly increased if we were told that the buggy was new, because the magnituvlo of the damao'e would in that case be increased. lUit can you imagine any purpose that would be served l)y telling us the horse was black? It is surely not to l)e supposed that black horses take fi-ight any more easily than those o-f any other color, or that they are any more dangerous when they do. Not every fact then may be introduced simply because it is a fact. If it docs not assist to a clearer understanding of the narrative, it must have some other justification foi- its insertion. This justification we find in a vital, active relation between it and the main facts of the narrative, which contributes to the interest and effectiveness of the Avhole. Consider for a moment again the other selection, "A Dude's Discomfiture." The information in regard to the young man's dress is wholly unnecessary ; is it likewise ineffective? No; for we are less ready to syjnpathize with one whose consideration for externals betrays a lack of depth in his nature. The knowledge here given us helps us to enjoy more unreservedly the humor of the situation. And so fullv has the writer EMBELLISHED INCIDENT. 23 appreciated tliis that he has even ventured to incorpo- rate in his title this unessential feature of the incident. The matter stands simply thus : That which is essen- tial "we must use ; that which is effective only we may use ; all else we had better omit. Select another incident — your daily life is so full of them that you can never exhaust subjects of this class — and write it out with such fullness of detail and such unessential touches as your judgment shall dictate. The following selection, taken from Houi Santa Claus Came to Simpson'' s Bar, by Bret Harte, shows what can l)e done in the way of embellishing a narrative by a master of the literary art. If any portions seem unnat- ural or overwrought, it must be remembered that this is only a fragment of the story ; the portion which pre- cedes fully prepares the reader for everything that is given here. " Dick " takes a wild ride of fifty miles the night before C'hristmas to bring some presents to a sick boy. His object is to reach the " Old Man's " cabin before dawn. The stoi'iu liatl cleared away, the air was brisk and cold, the outlines of adjacent landmarks were distinct, but it was liaLti past four before Dick reached the meeting-house and the crossing of the county road. To avoid the rising grade he had taken a longer and more circuitous road, in whose viscid mud Jovita sank fetlock deep at every bound. It was a poor preparation for a steady ascent of five miles more ; but Jovita, gathering her legs under her, took it with her usual blind, unreasoning fury, and a half hour later reached the long level that led to Rattlesnake Creek. Another half hour would bring him to the creek. He threw the reins lightly upon the neck of the mare, chirruped to her, and began to sing. Suddenly Jcjvita shied with a bound that would liave unseated a less practised ridei". Hanging to her rein was a figure that had 24 NAKUATION. leaped irom the bank, and at I lie same time iroiii llic road l)efore her arose a shadowy liorse and lidcr. "Throw up your hands !" commanded the second apparition, with an oath. Dick felt the mare tremble, quiver, and apparently sink under him. lie knew what it meant, and was prepared. " Stand aside. Jack Simpson. 1 know you, you thief ! Let me pass, or" — He (lid not finish the sentence. Jovita rose straight in tlie air with a terrific bound, throwing the figure from her liit ^^it]l a single sliake of her vicious head, and charged with deadly malevo- lence down on the impediment before her. An oath, a pistol-shot, horse and highwaynum rolled over in the road, and the next moment Jovita was a hundred yards away. But the good right arm of her rider, shattered by a bullet, drop^x^d helplessly at his side. Without slacking his speed he shifted the reins to his left hand. But a few moments later he was obliged to halt and tighten the saddle-gii'ths that had slipped in the onset. This in his crippled condition took some time. He had no fear of pursuit, but, looking up, he saw that the eastern stars were already paling, and that, the distant jieaks had lost their ghostly whiteness, and noAV stood out blackly against a lighter sky. Day was upon him. Then com- pletely absorbed in a single idea, he forgot the pain of his wound, and, mounting again, dashed on towards Rattlesnake Creek. But now Jovita's breath came broken by gasps, Dick reeled in the saddle, and brighter and brighter grew the sky. Ride, Richard ; run, Jovita ; linger, O day ! For the last few rods there was a roaring in his ears. Was it exhaustion from a loss of blood, or what? He was dazed and giddy as he swept down the hill, and did not recognize his sur- roundings. Had he taken the wrong road, or was this Rattlesnake Creek? ' It was. But the brawling creek he had swum a few hours be- fore had risen, more than doubled its volume, and now rolled a swift and resistless river between him and Rattlesnake Hill. For the first time that night Richard's heart sank within him. The river, the mountain, the quickening east, swam before his eyes. He shut them to recover his self-control. In that brief interval, INCIDENT FRO^[ SCHOOL LIFE. 25 by some fantastic mental process, the little room at Simpson's Bar and the figures of the sleeping father and son rose upon iiini. He opened his eyes wildly, cast off his coat, pistol, l)oots, and saddle, liuuud his precious pack tightly to his slioulders, grasped the bare flanks of Jovita with his bared knees, and with a shout dashed into the yelloAv A\ater. A cry rose from the opposite bank as the head of a man and horse struggled for a few moments against the battling current, and then were swept away amidst uprooted trees and whirling driftwd. The Old ]\Ian started and \\ olve. The fire on the hearth was dead, the candle in the outer room flickering in its socket, and somebody was rajiping at the door. He opened it, but fell back with a cry before the dripping, half-naked figure tliat reeled against the doorpost. . . . "Tell him," said Dick, with a weak little laugh, — -tell him Sandy Claus has come." And even so, bedraggled, ragged, unshaven and unshorn, with one arm hanging helplessly at his side, Santa Claus came to Simpson's Bar, and fell fainting on the first threshold. The Chi'istmas dawn came slowly after, touching the remoter peaks with the rosy warmth of ineffable love. And it looked so ten- derly on Simpson's Bar that the whole mountain, as if caught in a generous action, blushed to the skies. EXERCISE V. INCn)ENT FROM SCHOOL LIFE. Siihjerts : A School-room Episode. Novel Kcsult of an Old Trick. A Lesson in Coui-tesy. Master versus riqul. "Choosing Up." Two Ends to a String. The Ninth Tuning. Minnie's Freak. The Tatron of the W^iste-Basket. A Mouse's Surprise. 2ti NARKATION. Here we liave simply narrowed the choice of subjects to a field with which you are all equally well acquainted. It will be noticed that the first subject given is a rather general one, only somewhat narrower than the subject which stands at the head of the exercise. But even if you draw upon occurrences within the school-room for your intiident, it will be well to devise for it a more particular title. The question may be asked, Why select a title before writing, or why select one at all? It is true brief articles are sometimes printed in newspapers and else- where without titles. It is also true that the title of many a book has not l)een fixed u})on until after the book was written. Hut the })rinci})le holds none the less good, Select your title first. No man can write co- herently and effectively without having in his mind a definite idea of what he is writing about. And since language is the best means for crystallizing our ideas, for rendering them clear and definite, the sooner we put the subject of our thought into some formula of words, the better. This holds especially true in the more abstract themes which we sliall take up later, for in them the temptation to wander from the main line of thought is peculiarly great. But even in the writing of an ordinary incident, the selection of a title before- hand, and the endeavor to keep tliat title clearly in mind throughout, will give a directness and unity to the composition that could not otherwise be obtained. It will occasionally be found necessary in the course of writing, to introduce certain things that were not con- templated at first, or to extend or abridge the treatment of a subject in accordance with the requirements of INCIDENT FROM SCHOOL LIFE. 27 time and space, and this may necessitate a modification of tlie title. But such things should be foreseen as far as possible in advance, for if they are not they invari- ably entail extra labor, or else work seriously to the detriment of the composition as a whole. Very often there may be several available titles, almost or quite equally suital)le. Exactness should in general be the leading consideration in deciding between them, although at times attractiveness may be allowed to outweigh this. For the present work select anything that has hap- pened to vary the ordinary routine of school duties, and proceed as in the last exercise. The following is given as an exam[)le : JACK'S IGNOMINY. " Been at it again, eh," thought Mr. Bates, looking up over his spectacles. The little, dirty, ragged figure of Jack came slowly into the office, the great whites of his eyes rolling in marked con- trast to his intensely black face, so black indeed that it was void of the relief of shadows and could easily have been mistaken for the siu'face of a great India rubber ball. He came rubbing along the wall, picking the panels with his finger-nail, and at the planting of each foot glanced slyly and inquiringly at Mr. Bates. " What have you been doing now?" said IMr. Bates, sternly. Jack was vei-y confident that his conduct had l)een reputable and proceeded, in his own excited dialect, to demonstrate his innocence; but as this was a daily occurrence ]\Ir. Bates understood well how to weigh Jack's words. jNlr. Bates had arrived at the conclusion that ii was ho^icless fuitlicr to attempt to ai'ouse Jack by use of ruk'i- oi- appeals to his conscience. He would experimciil on otlicr thcoiies. Now Jack had a weakness. He esteemed his muscular powers very highly, and would hazard anything to jirove to the boys his ability to accomplish any feat given. To his mind, failure in an attempt 28 NARRATION. meant disgrace. Mr. Bates thought to come at Jack's morals by way of his pride. He led Jack out to the corner of the main hall where all the children passed in and out. "Stand in that corner, sir!" said Mr. Bates. Jack uhcyi'd. "Heels up close — raise your arms out this "vvay " (ilhistrating liy raising his own arms on a level in front). " Now stand there till I tell you to leave," said Mr. Bates, walking out to the center of tlie liall where he siojiped and stood regarding Jack closely. Jack's eyes were not tlie only white spots on his face at this period; a row of pearly teeth came into view. He thought if that was his punishment he didn't miiul so much. But his manner soon clianged; he seemed to take a more serious view of the prospect. His face drew down, his head was pressed hard back against the wall, and his arms com- menced to sink slowly to his sides, but on being rej^rehended by Mr. Bates he brought them to a level again. Mr. Bates looked at his w^atch: one, — two, — three minutes passed, the gong struck, the doors flew open, and the children began to file out. Jack gave one hurried glance at the coming colunnis, then gritted his teeth. He inust hold his hands steady now. " Keep them up ! " from Mr. Bates. Beads of perspiration stood out on Jack's forehead, and at each succeeding renewed struggle to raise his arms his appearance became more comical. He saw his playmates endeavoring to suppress their laughter, and made one final eifort to steady his arms, but they fell to his sides paralyzed. His disgrace had come. One mad lunge and he was out through the lines and away across the field, the peals of laughter from the children playing fainter and fainter on his ear. The experiment had proved successful. That evening Jack was not seen with his accustomed associates, but went about alone, nodding to himself knowingly, and mutter- ing, " Fool 'em one," as he stopped at each convenient corner and stood with his heels close together and ai-nis extended. C. W. H. COMPLEX INCIDENT. 29 EXERCISE VL COMPLEX INCIDENT. Subjects : Fido and the Ralibits. The " Awkward Squad " on Parade. The Triple Play That AVon the Game. A Complicated Aifair. So long as we confine ourselves to recounting the actions of one iDerson, we meet with few difficulties. For ordinarily a person does but one thing at a time, and to give a faithful account of his actions we have only to relate them in the order of their doing, our chief disadvantage here lying in the fact that we cannot always relate events in as ra].)id succession as they occur. But our deeds seldom stand alone. Perhaps the great majority of our acts derive their interest and their significance not merely from their relation to what has jireceded and to what shall follow, but also from their relation to something else, Avhether distant or close at hand, that is going on at the satne time. Human life is a wonderfully, even terribly, intricate and complex affair. So here the writer is met at once by an insupeiuble difficulty. How shall li;e carry along together these diverse occurrences? While one man runs up the railroad track signaling wildly and another works desperately to close the Ijroken switch, the train comes thundering down the grade witli its engineer vainly endeavoring to operate the air-brake and its 30 NARRATION. passengers readiiig- aiid talkiiio- unconcernedly inside. Jlere are half a dozen strands twisted into a sino-le string. But words are not strands and cannot be twisted into strings ; they are more like links, and can only be added, one at a time, and one after another, to form a continuous chain. You see the difficulty. We talk about the thread of a narrative, and the fiarure is better than we know. For, like most other threads, it usuall}^ consists of several strands. But it is sini[)ly impossible for the writer — the fabricator with words — to carry them along together. His material foi-bids that. He can only take up one strand at a time, carry it as far as he deems wise, and then leave it hano-ino- there while he goes back after another. That is, he can only show us first a portion of this strand and then a portion of that, and tell us that they ought to be woven together, leaving it to our imagination to carry out the process. The result at best will be imperfect. lUit that should not discourage ; it should only stimulate to greater effort. Where there are no problems, no difficulties, there is no incentive to work. If one man were to attain perfection, no man thereafter could hope to outdo him. Relate an incident from life in which there were two or more prominent actors, bearing in mind the difficul- ties pointed out above and overcoming them as best you can. Notice in the following model the ingenious inter- weaving of the actions of three persons. With that I tried to force my kinsman toward the black ; Imt lie felled me to the ground, burst from my grasp, leaving the shoulder of his jacket, and fled up the hillside toward the top of Aros like a deer. I staggered to my feet again, bruised and some- COMPLEX INCIDENT, REVISED. 31 what stunned ; the negro had paused in surprise, perhaps in terror, some half-way between me and the wreck ; my uncle was already far away, bounding from rock to rock ; and I thus found myself torn for a time between two duties. But I judged, and I pray Heaven that I judged rightly, in favor of the poor wTetch npon the sands ; his misfortune was at least not plainly of his own creation ; it was one, besides, that I could certainly relieve ; and I had begun 1>y that time to regard my uncle as an incurable and dismal huiatic. I advanced accordingly toward the black, who now awaited my approach w'ith folded arms, like one prepared for either destiny. As I came nearer, he reached forth his liand with a great gesture, such as I had seen from the pulpit, and spoke to me in sometliing of a pulpit voice, l>ut not a word was compre- hensible. I tried him tirst in English, tlien in Gaelic; both in vain ; so that it was clear we must rely upon the tongue of looks and gestures. Tliereupon I signed to him to follow me, which he did readily and witli a grave obeisance like a fallen king ; all the while there liad come no shade of alteration in his face, neither of anxiety wliile he was still waiting, nor of relief now that he was reassm-ed ; if he were a slave, as I supposed, I could not but judge he must have fallen from some high place in his own country, and fallen as he was, I could not but admire his bearing. As we passed the grave, I paused and raised my hands and eyes to heaven in token of respect and sorrow for the dead ; and he, as if in answer, bowed low and spread his liands abroad ; it was a strange motion, but done like a thing of common custom ; and I suppose it was ceremonial in the land from which he came. At the same time he pointed to my uncle, whom we could just see perched upon a knoll, and touched his head to indicate that he was mad. — From The Mern/ Men, by Kobert Louis Stevenson. EXERCISE VII. COMPLEX INCIDENT, REVISED. We used an illustration in the last exercise and the sentence ran thus : '' While one man runs up the rail- 32 NARRATION. road track signaling wildly and another works des- perately to close the broken switch, the train comes thundering down the grade with its engineer vainly endeavoring to operate the air-brake, and its passengers reading and talking unconcernedly inside." Here is an attempt to present four or five simultaneous actions. As a matter of fact they are presented, not together, but in succession — the only way possible with words. But they are given rapidly, they are crowded into one sentence, and the very first word of that sentence warns the reader that the action is complex and that he must hold the successive portions of the picture in mind until the whole is completed. This is one device — a conventional way of overcoming the difficulty. In narration of this kind we are compelled to use a great many such words and phrases as these : tvhile, mearv- while, in the meantime^ just then, simultaneously/, a moment before, etc. Participles also may often be used to ad- vantage, but you will need to handle this device with great care, for perhaps in the use of no other one form of speech is the young writer so likely to betray his inexpertness. Avoid such expressions as, " Let us now return to the chief actor in this scene ; " " We must now ask the reader to imagine himself," etc. They are too formal to suit tlie taste of the present day. Every transition from one stage of the action to another, whether backward or forward, should be made with the utmost smoothness and naturalness. Your object should be always to carry the reader with you, to make every- thing so clear tliat he cannot possibl}^ fail to follow, but at the same time to do this so skillfully that he will scarcely be aware of the transition. GAMES OF SKILL, ETC. 33 Examine 3'our last essay carefiill}' and critically. Rewrite it and see if, with the help of the above sug- gestions, you cannot ini[)r()ve upon it. Form the habit of criticising your own work dispassionately and un- sparingly. And if you care anything for literary finish or even for mere accuracy, form the habit of rewriting-, again and again if need l>e. It is all very well to talk about the "• first ins})ired utterances of a full mind." We do not learn to write, any more than we learn to talk, l)y inspiration. It takes long and laborious prac- tice. We find our encouragement in the fact that in time it may become almost as much a mechanical matter to write in a correct and })leasing style as it is to form tlie A\Titten characters themselves. EXERCISE VIII. GAMES OF SKILL, ETC. A little consideration will show that we are gradually getting beyond the domain of pure narration. A Avar- correspondent who, from some commanding height, watches tlie progress of a ])attle and writes up an account of it for the newspapers, is said to describe the battle. This is partly due to the fact that avc use the word describe somewhat loosely — no more loosely how- ever than its derivation warrants — and partly to the fact that there is here a real distinction. The reporter writes, not merely what is done, l)ut what he sees done. He strives to reproduce for olhei's a menial picture of what he has actually before his eyes. And the action is very complex. A Iniiidred things are going on at 34 NARKATION. once, so that in a certain sense they occupy space as well as time. An officer or soldier down in the lines would ])e conscious chiefly of a succession of events. After the battle he could narrate his experience, l)ut it would be a very different account from that of the reporter on the height. Thus it comes that narration from an outside point of view is frequently termed description. Taking this outside point of view write an account of some game you have witnessed — baseball, football, lawn tennis, croquet, anything with which you are familiar. It Avill be better, if you have an opportunity, to go and watch a game with this ol)ject in view. You can then make note of the most interesting points and be sure too of making an accurate report. You will of course need to understand the game well, and to have at your command all the technical terms used in it. The following account of a game of baseball is taken from the San Francisco Examiner, May 19, 1892: WON IN ONE INNING. CENTRAL LEAGUE TEAMS PLAY LIVELY BALL AT OAKLAND. There was a large crowd over at the Oakland grounds yesterday- afternoon at the Central California League game between the Morans of Oakland and the Havcrlys of San Francisco. The Oakland team started off with a rush, getting two men around the paths. But here their share of the run-getting stopped. The Haverlys made one in the first and tlien drew blanks until the sixth, when they tied up the score. In the seventh they com- menced hitting the ball hai'd, and befoi'e they quit five earned runs had been sent over the rubber. The playing of the old-timers was lively and full of ginger. " Pop " Swett was sick and his place was filled by Stevens, who GAMK8 OF SKILL, ETC. 35 caught Grant in good shape. Tlic tall sycamore of the IMission pitched like a man driving spikes and had more speed than a thoroughbred colt, retiring eleven men on strikes. His control was almost perfect, not a man going down the path on a walk except " Josh " Keilly, who caught one of the l)ig pitcher's in- shoots in the side and is sorry for it. Grant also hit hard and fielded his position finely. Jack Smitli, old pioneer Jack, liit hard and played first base just as well as he ever did. Fudger, the man who once pitched for Stockton, made his reappearance after having been reported dead in half a dozen different sections of the country, and played a good game in right field. For the Morans Nolan pitched good ball. Dunn played a superb game at second and Stultz handled some difiicult chances at short. All in all the old-timers made it extremely pleasant and interesting for the spectators, and held the large crowd untU the finish. The score : Ilaverlys, 7; jNIorans, 2. Since baseball has taken sucli a firm hold on the affections of the American people, the newspapers daily -give elaborate accounts of the most important games. Naturally reporters vie with one another in their en- deavors to make these accounts lively and interesting. Where the same kind of subject is treated day after day, variety in style and language nnist above all be sought for. The result is that, in addition to the regular technical terms of the game, new ones have been invented by the score and will continue to be invented. Fantastic turns of expression, local allu- sions, ridiculous figures and tropes, and slang, are all employed freely. Popular taste alone — not always the best by any means — is consulted and catered to. But in our work we shall avoid these extravagances, since our chief objects just now are clearness of thought and purity of language, though of course novelty and originality of expression are always to be encouraged. 36 NAltKATloN. EXEIUMSK IX. PHYSICAL CONTESTS. Ill the last exercise we (lealt witli a class of games to write au aeeonnt of which required a certain iiitiinate and technical knowledf^^e. The wa-itten accounts too were intended only I'or those who possess a similar knowledge. The average newspaper report of a hall game is the merest jargon to an uninitiated reader. To "write up" these games in a w^ay that shall he inter- esting to the general reader is indeed a difficult task, for after all details are eliminated and all technicalities suppressed, little remains. There is, however, a class of contests, less complex in their regulations and issues, which admit of heing described in general terms and which appeal to the understanding and interest of all alike. Sucli are almost all simple trials of strength, endurance, speed, or agility. Everyone is interested in the description of the chariot race in Ben Hur, though few have witnessed such a contest. A foot race, horse race, boat race, or any one of the contests of an athletic club's field day, will furnish good material for work of this kind. MIODKL. Ivouis Doiicet and Captain Cortes, met face to face and crossed swords near the middle of the little street. The Spaniard knew his man. Pauline's cry of recognition a while ago had told him who was the swift-footed and handsome young leader of the French detachment. As for Doucet he knew nothing more than that an enemy worthy of his steel was before him. A voice that he had heard a few moments before had seemed to him to utter his name with a sweet tenderness that recalled in some strange way the homesickness of his first year of absence from France. PHYSICAL CONTESTS. 37 It was no time for gentle reflections now ; the voice could not really have called him, he thought, and the mere flash of uostalgie passed as quickly as it came. His sword rang sharp and clear oil that of Cortes. The two men glared at eacli other, the concen- trated hatred of years of war luirning in their faces. They were well matched in every way. Cortes was a trifle tlie taller, but Doucet appeared rather more compactly built than his adversary. Both were sufficiently lieated by tlieir previous exertion to make their blood swift and their muscles ready. No time was lost ; the fight was desperate from the beginning, neither combatant at first thinking of anything but rushing upon and bearing down the other. Both, however, discovered very soon that it was necessary to have a care for self-defence as well as for attack. They fenced furiously and adroitly, neither giving an inch, utterly forgetful of what was going on around tliem, their whole souls focused, so to speak, in the one desire to kill, and, by killing, to live. Cortes was aware that Pauline was near by and probably look- ing on. The thought in some way nerved him powerfully. She should not see Louis Doucet vanquish him ; he would show her that a Sjianiard for once was superior to a Frenchman. Doucet had no such extra stimulus, but his was an iron frame and his courage and coolness needed no aid when a Spaniard dared cross weapons with him. With the dexterity drawn from long practice, and with the fierce fury of young tigers thirsting for each other's blood, they struggled back and forth and round and round, while their companions, fighting quite as madly, swept on down the street leaving them to occupy the already corpse- cumljcred and blood-stained ground. In those days soldiers of the better class knew the use of the sword and were over-proud of the knowledge. Under the excitement and exhilaration of a hand-to- hand combat the accomplished swordsman always feels that his strength is doubled ; but the peculiar circumstances attending the struggle between Cortes and Doucet added imineasural)ly to this feeling. Each found the other an antagonist whoso vigor and swiftness made every moment a crisis and whose steadfast gaze caught in advance every motion of wrist or body. 38 XAi; RATION. IJotli iiicu ln'i'iuiK' aware picisciitly (liuL tliu cauiioiiadiii^ liad ceased and that the rattle of inuskotry was no longer lieard. A t;real calm had fallen after Uic storm — the liatfle was over and the Spanish, to (he mimher of ei^■llteell hundred, had surrendered tliemselves i>risoners of war. One Sjianiaixl, however, was not yet conquered ; one FnMichman was still battling for victory From In Lore's i/a/zr/.s, by Maurice I'liompson. For additional cvainjdcs read the fcillowiiio- : Tlie Cliariot Race. BenHnr; book v, chapter xiv. — Gen. L(!w Wallace. The Tournament of Princt^ John. FranJioe ; chapter vii. — Sir AValter Scott. The Boat Race. 7'oin Jiro/m at O.rjhrd ; ciiapter xiii. — Tliomas Hughes. Chi'istian's Figlit with Apollyon. I'ilt/riin's /'ri>aron de la IMotte Fouque. The example here given and those referred to, dealing as they do with events so far removed from ordinary experience, will do little more tlian ludp one catch the spirit of this kind of work. But if they do that much it will be an ample return for the time spent in reading them. Of course a simple incident attracting only a mild interest will have to be treated with befitting- sim- plicity. Any attempt to attach to it, by an inflated style of writing, an importance it does not possess, is cei'tain to result in failure. OUTLINE AUTOBlOGEArHY, 39 EXERCISE X. INTELLECTUAL CONTESTS. Give an aceoimt now of a contest of a somewhat different kind — one involving the exhibition, not of physical prowess, bnt rather of intellectual ability and attainments. Perhaps spelling and pronouncing matches, being of common occurrence, will most readily suggest themselves. Joint meetings of literary societies, debates, suits and trials at law, and contests in decla- mation and oratory, if you have an opportunity of hearing them, will afford yet wider scojie for an exercise of this nature. Read The Debate in Will Carleton's Farm Festivals. EXERCISE XL . OUTLINE AUTOBIOGRAPHY. The length of the composition to l)e written must be determined by various considerations, chiefly b}^ the subject itself and the Avriter's knowledge of it. In general, write all that seems worthy of being said upon the subject, neither more nor less. It is sometimes neces- sary for a writer, as in the jjreparation of lectures, magazine articles, and newspa})er reports, to fix his limits exactly beforehand. But that can be done suc- cessfully only when by long training one has obtained perfect control over his pen. In order therefore to obtain this control it may be well occasionally to practice writing compositions of a definite lengtli. In every case the qualities to be sought for are unity, synnnetry. 40 NAliUATlON. compiictness, and coiiiplctcm'ss. Mere kniij^tli is in itself no indication whatever of merit, nor even of the amount of time or labor spent on the work. A student once presented an essay of only four sentences, which in all the qualities above named was excelled l)y no one of a hundivd other essays presented at the same time. It possessed in a rare degree that almost indeiinable virtue, literary finish. When you read it you felt that every- thing had been said and had been said in the best possible manner. One word more or one word less would have spoiled it. Naturally one whose aim is excellence only does not want to be hampered by any conditions in the matter of length. It is possible to expand or condense a written article within certain limits without serious harm ; but the limits are very narrow. Of the two processes expansion is the more hazardous. Indeed, so far as mere use of words goes, writers of every grade err ten times on the side of excess to once on the side of deficiency. So true is this that we have several familiar names by which to characterize different forms of the first vice — inflation, circumlocution, redundance, tautology, prolixity, diffuseness — but scarcely one for the second — rhetorical ellipsis. Condensation, "boiling down," is therefore recommended to young writers as a valuable practice. So long as the process is applied to the diction or wording of any thought there can be little question of its value. A review of what we have written will almost always show to us some expressions that add too little to warrant their retention, and some that are mere repetitions and add nothing at all. And sometimes the thought itself may be pruned to ad- DETAILED AUTOBIOGllAPHY. 41 vantage. On the other hand, if expansion is necessary, it must always be effected by the addition of thought, of subject-matter, not by juggling with words. Write a brief history of your life. There are a few facts that are necessary to every work of this kind, no matter how brief or incomplete it may be. In addition to these, relate the most important events and especially those events which, whether they appeared important or not at the time of their occurrence, p-ained siii'iiili- cance by their effect upon your subsequent life. Such an essay is not likely to have complete unity, since it will be made up largely of diverse and unrelated ex- periences — experiences that have fallen to the lot of a single individual, it is true, but quite as often by chance as l)y design. Still a certain unit}^ will Ijc secured if you continually bear in mind tliat all these experiences have contributed to make you what you now are. The opening chapter of Rohinmn Crusoe furnishes an excellent example of such a sketch of one's early life. Observe how it gives, in addition to those facts which are })atent to every one, considcraljle insight into young Robinson's character and proclivities, which is not oidy interesting but really essential. Read also The Author s Account of Hhnself, in Washington Irving's Sketclt-Book. EXERCISE XII. J DETAILED AUTUliKXiKAi'lI Y. Instead of trying to cover your wlioh' life-history, take a small ])orlion of it ordy and tn-at it more in dc- 42 NARRATION. tail, as if you were writiiio- a chapter of a complete foiinal autobiograpliy. Yon will thus Lave time and space to make note of minuter incidents, to in(^uire, if you choose, into the motives of actions, to indicate personal tastes and follow the development of particular traits of character. Perhaps some of this could be better done by anotlier than by yourself, still there is no reason why you should not attempt it. Try to be fair to yourself, erring if at all on the side of modesty. So far as may be, let motives shine through your actions rather than rest on your bare assertion. You will be more likely thus to win the reader's conlidence and impress him with your sincerity. The familiar Autobiographies of Benjamin Franklin, John B. Gough, Joseph Jefferson, etc., may be referred to as models. EXERCISE XIII. II\I AGINARY AUTOBlOGRAniY. There is a subject that has long been a favorite with young composition-writers — " The Autobiography of a Cent." It is an easy subject for several reasons. Being largely if not entirely fictitious it does not re- quire any preliminary investigation into facts. It affords am})le scope for the imagination, and yet in a wholly familiar field — everyday life. The use of the first person too instead of the third, seems to lead to the most natural and easy style of writing. If the title were changed to "-The History of a Cent," and the third person used, the narrative would be likely t*{ lose, IMAGINARY AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 43 not only in sini[)lieity, Iml also in liveliness and in- terest. Select sncli an "autolnography " and Avi-ite it in your best imaginative style. By InuKji native is not meant anything strained or artificial. On tlie contrary, the best imaginative writer in this case will be he who best succeeds in identifying himself with the object in question. Imagine yourself to l)e that object, as viv- idly as you can, and then, with all the feeling and naturalness possible to you, tell your story. Of course many things may be substituted for the word cent in the above title — pin, ribbon, pen-knife, horse-shoe, postage-stamp. A description of the manu- facture of these articles will not properly enter into a narration ; rather dwell upon the wanderings of the object, the various uses it has subserved, the vicissi- tudes of fortune it has witnessed and suffered — in short, all its experiences and observations in the world of men and things. One of the most successful essays of this nature that has come under the writer's observation was entitled "A Voice from the Belfry." The school- bell did all tlie talking, and the school-bell you must admit is in an admirable position to observe certain interesting phases of liuman life. Tliere is no need to coniine yourself to inanimate objects. The autobiography of a squirrel or a dog or horse may be made perhaps more interesting than any of the above. Somewliat in this style is a, well written plea for the horse, entitled Bhtck Beaut//, l)y Anna Sewell. If you ])i'efer, instead of writing a conqiosi- tion of yoiir own, take ji BelVs Bioiiraphy, in Haw- thorne's ^noiv Image, and Other Twire Told Tales, and 44 NABUATION. rewrite it in tlu> form of nii imtol)i()gra})hy with tlu> lu'll as speaker. EXERCISE XTV. IJlOGRArilY. r)ioL;'ra[)liy is a proxiiicc of Icth-rs to wliicii iiiauy authors of talent in all aj^cs have devoted themselves. It differs from autol)iog-ra})hy in that it is the life- history of one man written hy another. Plutarclis Lives have exerted an incalculahle inflnenee over many generations of enthusiastic youth and arc read still with scarcely diminished interest. The Memoira of old Frencli writers and their imitators are filled with hiographical material. From England we have, to men- tion only one striking example out of hundreds, Bos- well's monumental Life of Johnson. And tlie Amci- ican press of the present day has given us a large number of brief biographies of varying degrees of ex- cellence in the "Statesmen" series and "Men of Letters " series. Short sketches may be found in any Encyclopedia or Biographical Dictionary. Perhaps the most helpful exami)les will be found in Hawthorne's Biofiraphical Stories^ a collection of six short biogra- phies of Sir Isaac Newton, Queen C-hristina, etc. Anec- dotes are liberally interspersed to make tin; narrative as lively as possible. To write such works as the most of those mentioned al)ove requires time, talent, earnestness, and a full and definite knowledge of facts. Ij^evertheless such wi'it- ing may with advantage be praticed on a small scale. After learning all the facts you can, write a short biog- raph}' of one of your relatives or friends. HISTORY. 4 EXERCISE XV. r^ HISTORY. To tlie liistoiian falls the necessity of practicing tlie art of narration in all its branches and in its utmost complexity. He should have a lively imagination, a quick })erception, a keen sympathy, and a calm, un- erring judgment. He should l)e tlie ideal spectator of human activity, able to look u[)on the life of an indi- vidual as a mere incident in the life of a society or nation, and tlie life of a society or nation as a mere incident in tlie progress of the world. He may be likened to the re})orter on the heiglit watching the battle and sifting, judging, recording. From the height of the present he looks calmly dcnvn over the })anorama of the })ast ; or from the height of im]^)artiality he sur- veys and clu-onicles tlie events of the present. He must see and distinguish clearly all the multicolored threads of the tangled skein and — not unravel them, for above all else must he picture to us tilings as they are ; but lie must be able to lay his finger at one point and say, "• Here the thread enters the tangle," and lay it at another point and say, " Here it emerges again." But the ends of the thread no man sees. Still much of the historian's work requires no more skill than may be obtained in the practice of ordinary narration. He gathers his facts fi'om every accessible source and then selects, arranges, and classifies them according to whatever seems to him th(! luist jninciple. It will be easy enough for you to get an insight into this process and at the same time gain a little practical 4G NARRATION. experience. Read in two or tin-ee histories of the United States the acLoant ot some particular event, as llie Landinc^ of the Pilgrims, the Signing of tlie Declar- ation of Independence, the Battle of Lookout Moun- tain; then, from your memory and with only such recurrenc(^ to the sources of information as may be necessary to assist your memory and verify facts, write an independent account of the same event. Let the language, and indeed everything except the bare, in- disputal)le facts, be as far as possible your own. Or perhaps 3'ou can get not unworthy material near at hand. "• Our Class Election," " The Late Rebellion in the Third Ward School," "The Diplomacy of Briggs, Arbitrator," are suggestive subjects of this kind. Treated witli all the dignity of actual history they can be made extremel}' interesting and effective. 8E( TION TT. — 1)E8C IIIPTION. EXERCISE XVI. jMANrTFACTURED ARTICLES. Si/fi/c'fs : A RevolviiiL;- Book-case. A Hanging Lamp. An Ornamental AVaste-basket. My Mineral Cabinet. The School Benches of Our Grand- Novel Card Receiver. father's Time Compared with Annt's Cuckoo Clock. Those of Our Own. A Postage Stamp Album. An Ideal Office Desk. We enter here upon work of a very different nature from that which we luive l)een doing. We must deal now with objects as they exist in space and present tliemselves, complete and unchanging, to our senses. It may seem at first a very simple matter to represent in language an ol)ject which is presented to us tlius unchanging for an indefinite length of time. But there are many difficulties, some of which have already been hinted at. Our vocabulaiy with its wonderful wealth of resources can serve only very imperfectly for the portrayal of the infinite variety of o])jects Avith which we are surrounded, and so tlie writer is largely dependent on the knowledge and imagination of the reader. Consider this, too : All tlie colors of the rain- })ow strike tlie eye at the same moment; tlu; several 48 DESCllIPTION. notes of a chord combine for the ear into one mnsical sonnd ; the roundness, smoothness, and softness of a rubber ball give to the touch an instantaneous pleasure- able sensation. But lanoruagc must l)e content to })re- sent the separate elements of these complex impressions one at a time. Tf incmory did not come to the reader's assistance and hold lor him the separate elements until he has received them all, he could never get a complete picture through the medium of words. Language is evidently, from its very nature, far better adapted to narrating events which occur in succession than to describing objects all of whose parts have a contem- poraneous existence. Other dil'liculties will come to notice as we proceed. We shall simply have to rely on our ingenuity to devise ways of lessening or over- coming them. It is dif'iiculties to be overcome as well as effects to be sought that make of composition an art in itself with a full l)ody of ])rineiples — lawji ^md licenses and limitations. As an example of sim})le description take the follow- ing from Nathaniel Hawthorne : GRANDFATHER'S CHAIR. The cliair in which Graiulfatlier sat was made of oak, wliich had grown dark witli age, but liad been rubbed and polished till it shone as bright as mahogany. It was very large and heavy and liad a back that rose high above Grandfather's white head. "This back was curiously cai'ved in open work, so as to represent flowers, and foliage, and other devices, which the children had often gazed at, but could never luiderstand what they meant. On the very tip-top of the cliair, over the head of Grandfather himself, was a likeness of a lion's head, which had such a savage gi'in that yon would almost expect to hear it growl and snarl. The children had seen Grandfather sitting in this chair ever JVIECHANICAL CONTRIVANCES, ETC. 49 since they could remember anything. Perhaps the younger of them supposed that he and the chair had come into the world together, and that both had alwaj^s been as old as they were now. At this time, however, it happened to be the fashion for ladies to adorn their drawing-rooms with the oldest and oddest ciiairs that could be found. It seemed to cousin Clara that, if these ladies could have seen Grandfather's old chair, they would have thought it worth all the rest together. Slie wondered if it were not even older than Grandfather himself, and longed to know all about its history. Ill the above selection the first paragraph is }>urely descriptive ; the second is only indirectly so, being a fanciful way of dwelling upon the age and antique appearance of the chair. EXERCISE XVII. MECHANICAL CONTRIVANCES, SCIENTIFIC INSTRU- MENTS, ETC. In the last exercise we handled description in a very general way. There was no attempt to make it ex- haustive. Striking features alone were selected, and those perhaps from only one, external point of view. Here the problem is somewhat different. Have the ol)ject before you, then try to make your description of it so accurate and complete that any one may get a rea- sonably clear conception of it, even though he has never seen it. This will necessitate finding distinctive names for the various portions of the object. Such names do not always exist ; or if they do, unless we happen to l)e veiy well acquainted witli the object and its use, they do not readily suggest themselves to us. Notice what frtiipient use an awkwaid dcscriber makes 50 DESCRIPTION. of the words thing^ piee(\ affair^ contrivance., etc., — words that luive no specific meaning and scarcely help the description along at all, since their valne for con- veying dctinitc ideas is \ii'tnally ^ill. Notice too liow sucli a (k'scriljur, if hi; is talking, makes nse of any article that may he at hand to illustrate his mciining. If he is at the dinner table, knife and fork, cnp and saucer, salt-cellai' and tooth-picks, will all he pressed into service to make up for the deficiencies of language. Indeed in description of the kind here contemplated, a knowledge of technical terms is almost indispensable. For instance, if yon have to describe an air-pump, it will simplify the matter very much if you can use, without further explanation, such terms as eyHnder^ piston., valve. To describe one of the more complex kinds of steam engines or electrical dynamos, requires great familiarity with the terminology of mechanics. But whatever your own knowledge may be, you will still have to take into consideration the ability of your readers or hearers to understand. If they have not your acquaintance with these technical terms, then both they and you must be content with such imperfect conceptions as are to be derived from general terms which are more widely intelligible though necessarily less exact. Even when both writer and reader have an intimate knowledge of the exact terms, and description reaches its highest perfection, still drawings and photo- graphs are almost indispensable adjuncts. Witness any book or magazine devoted to the special sciences. There are certain terms, once considered technical perhaps, which to-day should constitute a part of every- one's vocabulary, whether he be specially educated or BUILDINGS, TOWNS, ETC. 61 not. Lever, cog, pivot, lens, may be instanced. Famil- iarize yourself with such as early as possible ; it will make you a more intelligent listener and reader and a more intelligible talker and writer in every department of modern life. The following are suggested as good objects to be described : A Needle Threader, Carpet Stretcher, Scroll Saw, Bicycle, Violin, Steam Engine, Air Pump, Re- fracting Telescope, Compound Microscope. Many others will readily occur to you. EXERCISE XVIII. BUILDINGS, TOWNS, ETC. Subjects : My Home. Tlie Woolen Mills. Grandfather's Ranch. The Whaleback Steamer. ]\Iy Birthplace. The Garden City. The Old Schoolhouse. A New England Hamlet. The City Waterworks System. We must recognize two fundamentally different classes of descriptive writing. Roughly speaking we may call the one Scientific, the other Literary. The first aims to give an exact picture of things as they are, the second aims to give a good picture of things as they appear to be. The object of the first is to explain and inform, the object of the second is to interest and please. The first may be compared to a pliotograph, the second to a more or less idealized painting. 52 DESCKII'TION. Ill Exercise XVI. the deseriptions were not limited to either kind, thougli they would probably be rather of the former than of the latter. Natiirall}^ many de- scriptions will partake of the characteristics of l)otli classes. In Exercise XVII. they were strictly of the scientific class. In the present exercise again they will iiol ])c limited to either class, though they will lean toward the literary. Much depends on the subject selected, if you_clioose a factory or a new schoolhouse, you can do little more than give a detailed description of the building. The subject lends itself only to the plainest kind of treat- ment. An architect could give a strictly " scientific " description ; one Avithout his knowledge and experience would have to be content with something less exact. On the other hand, if you choose to describe your home or the old schoolhouse in which you have spent many years, a thousand memories and associations will con- spire to brighten u[) the sombre tints and soften the harsh lines and lend beauty and grace to the homeliest features. You can hardly keep your personality from entering into and idealizing such a description. Nor will you be expected to do so. This is one of the characteristics of our best genuine literature. It is not meant that you shall be inaccurate or untruthful, only that you shall not be over-curious for accuracy, and in particular that you shall not strive, to the exclusion of better things, for absolute completeness of detail. The descriptions may well be made from memoiy, without having the object before you. Read as an ex- ample Hawthorne's description of The Old Manse. In the following model, though the language and con- PEOCESSES OF MANUFACTURE. 53 struction are not always the best tliat might be chosen, the expression is sincere and the feeling that inspired it was evidently genuine. A CABIN. All day we followed a dark windino- path which leads into the interior of AVahkiakuni County, Washington, with ' scarcely a gleam of snnliglit. At last, while descending one side of a gulch, there opened to us a striking scene. In the woods below us was a clearing, surrounded by a wall of dense evergreens. At the bottom of the gulch trickled a stream of sweet mountain water. In the opening on the opposite side of the stream was a bed of grass. Here and there were old moss- covered logs and brush piles. Then, as our eyes followed the path which led up tlie opposite bank, we caught sight of a small cabin which seemed to be stand- ing out fi'om the side of the hill. It was made of boards which had been manufactured without a sawmill, and the eaves came to to the gi-ound so that it looked like a potato house. Above it towered some gigantic firs which with swaying branches threat- ened to fall on the little cabin and bury it. As we approached we saw that the cabin had been recently deserted, and we inferred from the axes and saws which were scattered here and there that the desertion had been a hasty one. The loneliness told the story. Perhaps the rancher came into the woods to seek a fortune and went out to seek a wife. EXERCISE XIX. TROCESSES OF MANUFACTURE AND CONSTRUCTION. Subjects : How to IMake a WiUow Whistle ; Tlirough the United States a Floral Design ; a Kite ; a Mint. Photograph Receiver. An Improvised Hammock. A Home-Made Aquarium. How to Put Up a Swing. A Successful Rabbit Trap. A Visit to the Watch Factory. How Pasteboard Boxes are Made. 54 DESCRIPTION. We liave seen that there are kinds of narrative com- position that partake more or less of the nature of description. ITere we have a species of descriptive composition that horders on narration. Here action and time are again conspicuous ek^ments, only it is action producing a complex, material result. If we deal primarily with the actors, or makers, our composi- tion seems to be essentially narrative ; if we deal primarily with the things acted upon, or made, then it is essentially descriptive. But it is of little use to en- deavor always to keep the terms distinct. These con- siderations will merely help to fix the fundamental distinction. The laws of discourse and the characteris- tics of style are not limited to this or that kind of com- position. C'learness, Force, and Beauty, have as much place in one kind as in another. One, as another, may be interesting or dull, sublime or ridiculous, humorous or i)athetic. To tell how an article is made will often necessitate describing its various parts, but tliis in turn will prob- al)ly make it unnecessary to describe the article as a finished whole ; that will have been done well enough already. Indeed it is a very common resource in describing an object to tell how portions of it were constructed, and if you look over the descriptions you have written you will probably find instances of this. Models of this kind of Avriting will be of little service. If you know Iioav to make the article yourself you have only to seek the best words and simplest formulas by Avhich to give a clear explanation of the process to another. Clearness is the one thing to be sought. PROCESSES OF MANUFACTURE. 55 and the test of excellence v/ill be the ability of the reader to make such an article from your description alone. However it is often desirable to descril)e certain un- usual processes, or the construction of unfamiliar ol> jects, not Avith any intention of enabling another to imitate the process, l)ut simply for the purpose of affording instruction or entertainment and gratifying an almost universal curiosity to hear about that Avhich is strange. The f()ltf)\\'iiig is an example of such a description. INDIAN BREAD MAKING. Along toward sunset of a hot summer afternoon I sauntered down to the Indians' liuts and watched two squaws on the bank of the river making acorn bread. They had set up some large willow boughs to protect them from the sun, and these formed an effective background for the ragged, dirty forms of the old squaws. By asking many questions I finally obtained from them the process of Indian bread making. It takes two days, one to gather the acorns, a second to grind them and bake the meal. After the grinding, the flour is washed with sand and water in a water-tight basket, such as Indians always use, and is then allowed to stand until the sand has settled to the bottom. Xext, tlic tup is jioured off into another basket and into this are thrust intensely hot stones, which cause the mixture to bubble and boil as though a fire were cooking it. After it has been boiled down to a thick paste it is set in the river to cool, and when cool enough to handle it is rolled into small loaves and again put into the river to harden. The bread, as I saw it, was of a pinkish color and looked sufficiently temi)ting. I was repeatedly urged to taste it, but when I glanced at the squaws' hands I felt constrained to decline. 56 DESCRIPTION. EXERCISE XX. NATURAL OBJECTS. — THE MINERAL KINGDOM. Si(hjects : IJuikliiig .Stone. Table Salt. New England Granite. Gold Mining. "Varieties of Marble. Treasures from the Sandpit. ^lica. Gems and Precious Stones. No doubt some knowledge of geology or mineralogy would contribute much toward giving an intrinsic value to descriptions of this class. But intrinsic value is not just now the one thing needful. We are writing English — writing it because we hope some day to write it well, very well, and because we know that every sentence we write, upon Avhatsoever subject, makes the next subject easier and better. We want practice too in the various fields of composition, scien- tific as well as literary. Now if you have no special knowledge in this line, the attempt to write in it will subserve another end — it will help to give you that knowledge. It will spur you on and compel you to learn. But learn for your- self and by yourself ; do your own investigating. Not only will this be vastly more profitable from every point of view, but it will be incomijarably more in- teresting : you will find genuine j^leasure in observing and recording ; writing will be transformed from a drudgery to a delight. The whole secret is this : Go to books, if you like, for your names, for your terminology — it is well for NATURAL OBJECTS. 57 US to observe uniformity in this respect — but fjo to nature for your facts. Write what you see, and it may even be that you will write something of intrinsic worth, for not everything has yet been seen. Write Avliat you see for yourself : thus only will your work be interesting, thus only will it liear the impi'ess of sincerity and conviction, and come to have authority among men. The folloAving outline is extracted from Baueiinan's Descriptive Mineralogy and will suggest a method of procedure for the description of other minerals. Of course in writing an essay, this abbreviated catalogue style must not be used. Let every sentence be com- plete in itself and let them all be connected as smoothly as possible. DIAMOND. Form, and Structure. — Crystals cubic; with brilliant faces; faces pitted ; faces striated or curved ; transparent, translucent. Lustre, adamantine. Colorless, or in tints of gray, yellow, brown, pink, or blue, the latter being the rarest. Refractive. Strong chromatic dispersion, causing a brilliant play of colors when faceted. Becomes positively electi'ic by friction; often phos- phorescent after exposure to sunlight. Composition. — Carbon, with minute traces of foreign sub- stances. Infusible. Orcitrrdire and Dls/rihu/inu. — Found in Brazil, the Ural, India, Australia, Borneo, and South Africa ; tlie first and last localities, esjiecially the latter, being the most productive at present. In South Africa the productive localities are the gravels of the Vaal and Orange rivers, and more particularly dykes or pipes of de- composing igneous rocks penetrating schists. These have now been worked several hundred feet below the surface without get- ting to undccomposed rock. The diamonds ai'e found irregularly interspersed through it, and may be an original constituent, but 58 DESCRIPTION. the general opinion of local investigators is that they have been derived from older rocks below. The largest known diamond is said to be in Borneo, and to ■weight .367 carats or 1284 Troy grains. The Pitt, a cut brilliant, is of 136 carats. Tlic Knh-i-Noor in tin' original oriental shape was 186, but has been reduced to a brilliant of 124 carats. ]\Iany large crystals have been discovered of late years in South Africa. Use. — The chief use of diamond is for ornamental purposes, the crystals being reduced by cutting or grinding with diamond dust upon a lapidary's wheel to a double jtyramidal form, unsyni- metrical to the base, being pointed at one end, and with a large flat surface at the other, as in hemimorphic crystals. The pyramid is cut with the largest number of faces possible, to obtain a maxi- mum of total reflecting surfaces ; the stone is mounted with the flat surface uppermost. These are known as brilliants, and can only be obtained fi'om well-shaped crystals. Those of less regu- lar form are cut as roses, in which the surface is covered with triangular facets, and the thinnest twins or flat cleavage pieces are made into tables, having only a narrow band of facets on the sides. Diamonds that, from want of lustre or defects, cannot be cut, are called Bort. For glass-cutting the apex of an octahedral crystal is required, so as to have a solid point, a cleavage frag- ment or other splinter being only useful for writing or scratching. EXERCISE XXL GEOLOGICAL FORMATIONS. SuJijects : A Fifty Foot Vertical Section A Visit to the Stone Quarry. of Our Soil. Washington County Fossils. Coal Deposits. Systems of Crystallization. Petrifaction. Stalactites and Stalagmites. How Stones Grow. GEOLOGICAL FORMATIONS. 59 The object here again is to describe what takes place. The problem is analogous to that of Exercise XXIV., the difference being that here we deal with natural instead of artificial processes. Select a subject, if possil^le, upon which you can write partially at least from first-hand knowledge. Watch the processes of inorganic nature ; examine snow crystals, watch the formation of ice, the erosion of rocks by tlie waters of a creek, the sedimentary deposits in the creek's bed. Or material may be obtained from simple experiments, sucli as suspending a string in a solution of sugar, as in the manufacture of rock-candy, or " crystallizing " grasses by dipping them in a solution of salt or alum. Then supplement your own knowledge by recourse to books on chemistry, mineralogy, and geology ; for example, Bauerman's Descriptive Mineraloriy^ Dana's Mitniial of Geology, Shaler's First Boole in Geology, Winchell's Walks and Talks in the Geological Field, Sparks from a Geologist's Hammer, Geological Fxeursions, and Geologi- cal Studies. The following extract, from a chapter on the Appli- cation of the Observational Method in Teachino-, in Alexander Winchell's Sliall We Teacli Geology? will afford many hints for the gathering of material for this kind of composition-writing. Professor Winchell sup- poses the student to be in " a quarry region, as at Potsdam, N. Y., Portland, Conn., Berea, O., Joliet, 111." You notice tliat tlie rocks which these workmen are quarrying lie in beds or hiyers. Eacli of these is a stratum. The sejiaration between one stratum and another is generally a very narrow fissure or joint. Often, however, you find the joint filled with some other kind of material. This ifi a seam. Sometimes the seam is of an t>0 DESCKIPTION. earlliy or chiyey character. Sometimes one .stratum is so closely joined to auotlier that one can scarcely say there exists either seam or joint. < )l)serve all this for yourself. Generally you find several strata in iiiiniediate succession niucli nlikf. Do you see them so here? Or do you find a decided contrast of two adjoining- strata? Tn Avhat does the contrast consist? Are they of dilt'crent color? Of (lirt'ercnt fineness? Of different degrees of homogeneity, or lii to? What renders them visible and distinguishable? These are lines of himinalion. U we have a sandstone here, per- haps we shall find some laminae running obliquely across the broken edges of certain strata. This is ()f)/i(/iic lauHiitilio/i. Look at some of these blocks which have been quarried ; tell me which was the nj^per side. IIow does the upper differ from the lower side ? Do these strata lie in a li^irizontal position ? Does the upper surface present any inclination ? What angle does it make with a horizontal plane? Is it five degrees? Is it twenty degrees? This angle is the dip of the stratum. Here is an angle of ninety degrees between this horizontal and this perpendicular line. Half of this is an angle of forty five-degrees ; and half of this is an angle of twenty-two and one-half degrees. Represent such an angle. Represent an angle of eleven degrees. Toward what direc- tion does this stratum dip? It is southwest, perlui] IS. Tlien tlie strike is northwest and southeast. How thick is this stratum ? Measure it with a rule. How thick is the next one ? Come to the wall of the quarry and measure its entire height. Sit down and make a sketch of this wall. Distinguish each stratum exactly as it is. Preserve their proportional thicknesses. Describe each stl-atum separately, beginning at the bottom. Let the strata be designated A, B, C, I), etc. In describing, give kind of rock, color, texture, solidity, purity or impurity, homogeneity or want of it, thickness. State which stratum is best adapted to the uses to which the stone is applied. As bearing on the uses, you may take a fragment ho7iie and weigh it in its natural condition — then weigh it after drying as completely as you have means for. If you have no balance, go to the apothecary, or omit this experi- ment. Then also with reference to use, you may observe whether THE VEGETABLE WORLD. FRUITS. 6l the stone wears away much on surfaces exposed to the weather. Does it iceather smooth ? Does it weather into concave depressions? Do fissures appear in it? Does it develop rusty specks or blotches? If so, these are probably caused by iron in it. EXERCISE XXII. THE VEGETABLE WORLD. — FRUITS. Subjects : The Acorn. Orange. Blackberry. Cocoanut. Pine-apple. Watermelon. Many subjects will readily occur, any one of whicli will offer material for a description of considerable length. Keep in mind what is wanted, and keep in mind the injunction to rely on your own observation. Avoid the style and method that have been so prevalent in juvenile compositions of this class, in which the writer begins, '•'- There are a great many kinds of apples, such as the Snow-apple, the Winesap, the Belltlower, etc.," and then wanders off in the second sentence to some statement about the uses of apples, and in the tliird to something entirely different still. Such com- positions are mere collections of detached thoughts, without unity or symmetry, alike uninteresting and unprofitable. Remember that what we want now is chiefly description. And if you have chosen to describe an apple, what you want first is not pen and ink and paper but an ap})le, and, if you cannot l)reak it, a knife to cut it. Then proceed in a methodical way. Note (»'2 DESCRIPTION'. lilt' si/.i', shape, and tdlor ; the siinjolhncss, thickness, and toughness of tli(> lind ; the firmness, taste, and color of tlic jiiilji ; the size of the core; the size and shape of the seeds, etc. <)idy hy proceediuL;- in tliis regidar way can you convey a good idea of the thing described. And l)esides that it will help you very much in finchng material. It will lessen the chances of omission, thus insuring a nioie exhaustive treatment of the subject. And as you proceed, one thing will suggest anothei' : the coloi- and size of the apple, for instance, will suggest its marketing value, the firmness of the fiesh will suggest its keeping qualities, the taste Avill suggest its uses. An enumeration of varieties will naturally follow the description of a single variety, for then differences can be more clearly indicated. TTere, too, method can still be observed : apples fall naturally into summer, autumn, and winter varieties ; and it may be well to limit yourself to kinds found in vour immediate neighborhood. Certain botanical terms will be useful here, sutdi as pome, herry, pepo, nut, pod, alccnc, drnpe, cone. Some of these are common enough but are occasionally mis- applied through ignorance of their exact meaning. I^eai'u to distinguish between true fruits, such as those mentioned above, and those which are popularly called fruits but are not such in the strict botanical sense, as the strawberiy. In the dii-ections given above, why were size, shape, and color mentioned first? Because they are tlie most obvious and striking features. By them we recognize at once that an ii])ple is au apple and not a plum or a pear or an orange. By them too we are enal)led either FLOWERS. 63 to determine its specific variety or to limit it to several closely allied varieties. The principle is simply this : Select the most salient characteristics first ; follow in description that order which you are obliged to follow in observation. EXERCISE XXIII. FLOWERS. Suhjects : The Violet. The Flowers of Western Xew York. Peach Blossoms. My Favorite Flower. The Wild Popjoy. Flowers as Xatioual Emlileins. Though in nature's order flowers come before fruits, they are placed second here as being more difficult to describe. The first four of the above subjects will serve for scientific description, the last two for more general, sympathetic, and imaginative treatment. For the first you can make good use again of botanical terms, <;aly.i\ aepal^ coroUa^ jjctid^ sfameu, anlltcr^ pistil, etc, AVith a microsco})e and a specime'n before you, you could get at the facts without these names, but in writing a de- scription it Avill be of advantage to use tlie same names that others use. Even without any knowledge whatever of l)otany you will be no worse off' than the first botan- ists who had to study the plants and flowers themselves instead of books. We of a later day cannot affect to despise books : they are time-savers, short cuts to knowledge ; they enable us to begin where our ances- 64 ' DESCRIPTION. tors left off. But first-liand knowledge will always be most liiglily prized. The following is an example of a popular description of a flower, in which free use is none the less made of technical terminology : tup: TKAILINU ARBUTUS. The trailing arbutus, known in botanies as Epigcea repens, is the earliest, sweetest, and most charming of our native flowers. It is an evergreen creeping plant, found mostly in mountainous regions, in ravines and on northern slopes. The leaves are deep green, from one to two inches long and about half as broad as long, borne on short petioles covered with brownish hairs. Each branch bears several of these leaves near its extremity, and then terminates in a crowded spike-like cluster of exquisite waxy flowers, varying in color from white to ricli rose, and emitting a delicious, aromatic fragrance. The flowers are tubulai-, the tulif being half an inch in lengtli and the expanded flower about half an inch across. They are enclosed in a membranous calyx of five pointed sejials, which are half as long as the tube, and these sepals are in turn embraced by three hairy, brownish bracts, somewhat broader and shorter than the sepals. The tube of the flower is wider at the base than above the sepals, and is densely set inside with long, silky, white hairs. It encloses entirely the pistil and ten stamens. The anthers are attached at one end, and borne upright ; the seeds are small and numerous. The buds are formed Ihe previous season, and maybe distinctly noticed in autumn. If the plants are lifted at that season and placed in a fernery kept in a cool room, as a partially heated bed- room, the buds will develop in February and yield their beauty and fragrance as freely as in their native haunts in spring. Left undisturbed where tliey grow, however, in the rich, sandy leaf- nujuld of a wooded northern slope, the buds are just ready to open on the approach of pleasant days, and may be found in perfection from the tenth of April till the first of May in the latitude of southern Pennsylvania Ladies' Home Companion. PLANTS. 65 EXERCISE XXIV. PLANTS. Suhjects : Water Lilies. The Cactus. Vegetable Parasites and Epiphytes. JNIaize. Geraniums. Evergreens. Ferns. The Oak. The Cotton Phiiit. The Palm. The term plants embraces the entire range of vege- table life from the gigantic forest tree to the moss that clings to its trunk and the toadstool that thrives beneath its shade. If tlie plant 3'ou select to write about l)ears ilowers and fruit, some description of tliese will be necessary, thougli it will naturally not be so minute or exhaustive as if you were writing about them alone. Keep in mind your sul^ject and observe throughout that symmetrical treatment which every subject demands. It would l)e manifestly absurd to devote half of an article on '•• The Cliestnut " to a description of the leaves and half of it to a history of the tree, or one-fourth to general features and the remainder to the nut Avhich the tree bears. Yet such absurdities are committed. A pupil has been known to write a six-page composition under the title of " The Maple," live pages of which were given up to an ac- count of the manufacture of maple sugar. The com- position was good enough in itself, but it needed re-christening. There was a manifest incongruity be- tween the subject and the subject-matter. Keep in ()<) DESCIIIPTION. sight the subject always, and llieu give each feature of the object described only that prominence which its importance warrants. It may be best to begin with a description of the general appearance of tbe j)lant. The read(;r will be better satisfied if he has at the outset some sort of out- bne 2)icture of the wliole. Then proceed to details. Take up in succession, so hir as the plant in (question possesses these organs, root, stem, brandies, foliage, flowers, fruit. General considerations will follow — varieties, uses, associations. If you are describing tlie oak, note its symbolism as illustrated in the derivation of our word rolmst ; note too its connection with Dodoiiiean and Druidic rites. In like manner the palm has a symbolism of its own and will call up more than one scriptural and classical allusion. There is a saying among the Arabs that "the palm tree lias three hundred and sixty uses." However, do not get the idea from what lias been said that one pai'ticular order must always be followed. Such a ])ractice would result in very mechanical, in- flexible, monotonous com])ositi()n. Many sul)jects will admit beiiip- IreattKl in half a dozen orders, each of wliich has a defensible claim to the attribute of natural. Writers of genius may even depart from natural order altogether and still produce a happy effect. When you have tlioroughly trained yourself in the systematic treatment of subjects so that the most intractable material will assume under your hands symmetry and just proportion, then you may more safely venture to strike out upon Avhatever lines j-our fancy suggests. Cultivated taste will have to be your guide. PLANTS. 67 ]\X O D E I^. THE JUDAS-TKEE. Those who have traveled througli the limestone districts of Pennsylvania during the early part of I\Iay, will remember with pleasure the beauty of the landscape. At that time the large trees of June-berry are a mass of white bloom, and every brake and thicket is richly decorated with the glowing red of the Judas- tree and the snowy flowers of the wild plum in pleasing contrast. All of these trees are desirable for ornamental planting, blooming as they do very early in the season, before the foliage has de- veloped, and making a gorgeous display by the profusion of flowers which they never fail to produce. But the most lasting and pleasing of the three is the Judas-tree, or red-bud, botan- ically known as Cercis Canadensis. This beautiful tree belongs to the great order Legianindsce, which includes the black locust, the honey locust, the coifee-tree, and many other trees prized in ornamental gardening. The flower buds, which are clustered at the leaf axils along the stem, begin to swell at the dawn of spring, and in southern Pennsyl- vania are showing their color by the middle of April. They continue to develop in size and brilliancy for several weeks, and it is not until the middle of May that the banner-like petals are unfolded nnd th(> bud assumes a peculiar bird-like form. A dozen or more of tliese little flowers are found in each cluster, and by a little stretch of the inuigination, they remind one of as many miniature humming-birds vying with each other for a share of the honey from some nectared flowei-s. The trees are often found from twenty tn thirty feet in height, with a branching, semi-globular top almost as many feet in diameter, supported by a trunk fifteen to twenty-five inches in circumference. In full bloom, sucli trees are a mass of soft crimson color, and may be seen across the landscape for miles. As the flowers begin to fade, the rich, broad, green leaves expand, and clothe the tree with dense verdure, which furnishes a deliglitful shade the entire season. This is further intensified by the profusion of long, compressed green seed-pods which turn to a brownish red during autumn, and by their number and 68 DESCRIPTION. length, as well as peculiar eulor, (>xcite. the curiosity and admira- tion of those who see the tree or enjoy its shade. Propagation is easily effected by seeds, and the trees are easily traiis]iliint('(| and do well in the most exposed sitnations. With all these characteristics, it seems strange that the Judas-tree is not generally used for ornamental gardening -Ladies' Home •Companion. EXERCISE XXV. PLANT GROWTH AND ACTIVITY. Svhjects : Germination. Plant Creepers and Climbers. Budding and Grafting. How Seeds are Scattered Abroad. Endogens and Exogens. The Sensitive Plant. Tree Rings. Venus's Fly-trap. Rapid and Rank (i rowers. Take half a dozen beans or grains of corn or other seed, and plant them in warm, moist earth. Examine one each day and from your examination describe as well as you can the process of growth. The more mysterious processes of change in organic structure, of cellular growth and multiplication, must of course be left for the microscope of the skilled botanist. This is very plainly description though it assumes to deal with activity. We describe the plant as it appears at different stages of the activity, and that is about all. We see it before the change takes place, we see it again afterward, but just what that change consists in deeper than this external manifestation of it, is extremely diffi- cult if not quite impossible to say. ANIMALS. GO There is to be noted in vegetable life much activity apart from mere growth, — movements that look toward self-defense, self-sustenance, self-preservation, — move- ments that exhibit many of the characteristics of animal instinct. This is one of the things that forbid us to draw a sharp line between the two kingdoms. The observation of these movements will furnish material for very interesting descriptions. EXERCISE XXVI. ANBIALS. Siihjerts : Butterflies. The King of Beasts : Fabulous Animals. The Humming Bird. A Dispute between Intelligence of Brutes. Robin Redbreast. tlie Elephant, the Physical Character- The Brook Trout. Lion, and the istics of a Good ]\Iy Pets. Horse. Trotting Horse. Any Natural History will furnish a wealth of infor- mation on these subiects. And various works of such authors as John Burroughs, Olive Thorne Miller, Maurice Thompson, and John B. Grant, may be con- sulted both for matter and for good examples of the way in which the matter should be treated. But do not consult these books first if you wish to get the maximum of profit from this exercise. Here, as always, observe for yourself. Half an hour spent before a cage of monkeys or a tank of fish, will be more fruitful than the reading of a chapter from any book. Go to books '0 DESCRIPTION. to settle pointvS that von liave no means of settling for yourself, and to verily tlu- results of your observation. Do not be disappointed to lind tlicni verified : tlie young investigator is sometimes apt to feel that way. Be eneouraged rather, for while tlie verifieation does not detract in the least from the meiit of your own discovery, it increases your confidence in your own poAvers. It is not intended here that you shall dissect an animal and describe it down to the minutest details of its organism, although tliat ma}- be done. But an abundance of subject-matter may be found apart from this. ]f you are interested in birds, note the varieties that are to be found in 3-()ur neighborhood ; the time of arriA'al and departure of the migratory ones ; the respective sizes, and lengths of beaks, wings, legs, claws ; the extremes of color variation in the same species ; the notes or calls ; tlie manner of running on the ground ; the favorite resorts, food, etc. Speak- ing of bird-notes calls to mind a very interesting essay read before a class b}^ a boy who had a good ear for music and a talent for whistling. Tie imitated so well the notes of half a dozen diiferent birds that they were immediately recognized by his hearers. The same thing may b(! conveyed to readers, though in a more imperfect way, by the use of musical notation. See S. P. Cheney's Wood Notes Wild. The numerous points just suggested Avould furnish too much matter for an ordinary composition. Either confine yourself to one species of animal, or to the comparison of different species in respect to some par- ticular feature. For example, "Bird Beaks" would ANIMALS. 71 of itself be a very comprehensive subject. The follow- ing descri})tion of the genus Ursus and the species Ursus Jwrribilis are taken from CeciVs Books of Natural History^ by Selim H. Peal)0(ly : All the species of bears have great size, large liiulis, and heavy gait. They walk upon the flat soles of their feet, and are, there- fore, with the raccoons, called plantigrades. The print of the foot of a black bear, left in the soft earth, resendiles very much the impression of a man's hand — fingers, thumb, and palm being distinctly marked. This form of foot takes away much of the swiftness which beasts of prey usually possess. The dog and cat families move upon their toes, or digits, and are called digitiyrades. Bears' feet have five toes, armed with large, strong claws, fit for digging and climbing, rather than for holding prey or tearing flesh. They eat a variety of food, and, besides flesh, are fond of nuts, acorns, berries, growing corn, and young grain. They seldom attack man, unless driven by severe hunger, or provoked ; but when angry, are very dangerous. They are not only savage, but solitary ; making their lonely dens in the most secret and inaccessible places. In winter they sleep in their dens, in some cavern of the rocks, or in the hollow of some old tree. Here they pass months, without food, in a torpid state, breathing so gently and slowly that one would hardly suppose them alive. As the winter passes, their fat wastes away ; until, when they crawl forth in the spring, they seem to have slept off all their flesh. . . . The Grizzly Bear, Ursus horribllis, is the most powerful and dangerous wild beast of America. He is from six to nine feet long, and sometimes weighs as much as eight hundred pounds. His hair is longer and finer than that of the black bear, and the color varies from a grizzly gray to a light brown. The hair on the legs and feet is darker and shorter than that on the body ; on the face it is so short and pale as to make the creature seem bald ; on the neck it grows to a stiff, coarse mane. The feet and claws are very large. The forefoot of a specimen measured by Lewis and Clarke, was nine inches broad, and was 72 DESCRIPTION. armed -with claws six inclies lonj^. These claws are not pointed, but are thin and wide, fitted to dig in the earth. Notwithstanding his size, his unwieldy form, and his shambling gait, he runs with great speed, and his strength overcomes even that of the bison. The Indians regard him with superstitious awe, and make preparations to hunt him with many ceremonies. A necklace of bears' claws, which can be worn only by the brave who has himself killed the bear, is a mark of great valor, and entitles the wearer to peculiar honors. Since the Indian has learned to use tlie rifle, the risk is somewhat less than when he fought Bruin with arrows and sj^ears ; yet, with fire-arms, a steady hand and sure aim are necessary, for a wounded, angry bear is very dangerous. There can be no escape ; life is staked against life. EXERCISE XXVIL ANIMAL HABITS, P:TC. Subjects : Insect Architectiu'e. Kittens at Play. Bees at Work. The Provident Squirrel. Nest Building. How Fish Swim. Bird Migrations. Fight between a Dog and a Snake. Do not feel restricted to the subjects given in these lists ; they are offered merely as examples. If no one of them suits you, select something else, provided only that it be in the line of the general subject. In the present exercise it should deal with some phase of animal liabits or animal activity. This is an interesting and almost inexhaustible field. Have you sometimes wished to visit a foreign land where new customs and laws obtain, where the food and dress of the inhabitants, the art and commerce, the ANIMAL HABITS, ETC. 73 implements of war and the regulations for peace, are all strange to you? It is easily done. Visit an ant-hill, a bee-hive, a bear-pit. Go out into the garden and overturn a stone, and see if you do not find there a most cosmopolitan community. The following is an example of a short essay written from observation of this kind : LILLIPUTIAN ENGINEERS. AVhile walking along a trail in the monntain one day, my atten- tion was attracted by a conimunity of red ants that were busily engaged about the little mound wliich arose above their under- gi'ound dwelling. Evidently they had a difficult task before them, to judge from the way in which some of them kept running about, while a few others stood surveying a pebble the size of a small mar- ble which lay dangerously close to the entrance in the top of the mound and which they seemed to want removed. Soon the en- gineers — for sirch I took those to be that were examining the pebble — seemed to have solved the problem, since all set busily to work excavating a ditch just beyond the pebble. "When this was almost completed the last grains of sand that held the pebble were carefully removed by two of them, and it gave a partial roll. The same operation was performed again and again, and they would surely have completed their task alone, had I not given them a helping hand. My theory was that the intelligent little creatures feared lest the pebble might cave in on them when they should tunnel out their upper compartments. F. G. K. Again we extract from CeciVs Books of Natvral History : HOW THE WASP MAKES HER NEST. When quite a little boy, the writer used to go away alone into a closet to learn his lesson. The blinds at the only window in the room were always closed, giving barely light enough to read 74 DESCRIPTION. when sitting on a stool beneath it. One spring day a wasp came between the blind and the glass, and after much buzzing and much walking about, began to build. She first laid down, beneath the under edge of the upper sash, a patch of paper about a third of an inch in dianietor ; then, standing on this, she raised cup- shaped edges all about her, increasing outward and downward, like the cup of an acorn, and then drawing together a little, until a little house was made just about the size and shape of a white- oak acorn, except that she left a hole in the bottom where she might go in and out. Then she began at the top, and laid another cover of paper over the first, just as far away as the length of her legs made it easy for her to work. Now it was clear that she made the first shell as a frame or a scaffold on which she might stand to make the second. She would fly away, and after a few minutes come back, with nothing that could be seen, either in her feet or in her jaws. But she at once set to laying her paper-stuff, which came out of her mouth, upon the edge of the work she had made before. As she laid the material she walked backward, building and walking, until she had laid a patch a little more than an eighth of an incli wide and half or three-quarters of an inch long. When laid, the pulp looked like wet brown paper, which soon dried to an ashen gi'ay, and still resembled coarse paper. As she laid the material, she occasionally went over it again, putting a little more here and there, in the thin places ; generally the work was well done the first time. So the work went on. The second paper shell was about as large as a pigeon's egg; then a third was made as large as a hen's egg; then another still larger. After a time the wasp seemed to go inside to get her material, and it appeared that she was taking down the first house and putting the paper upon the outside. If so, she did not bring out pieces and patch them together as a carpenter, saving of work, would do, but she chewed the paper up, and made fresh pulp of it, just as the first was made. Of course the boy did not open the window, for he was too curious to see the work go on, and then he was afraid of the sting. How large the nest grew he never learned, for he soon after left the school, and saw no more of it. NATURE AT REST. 75 EXERCISE XXVIII. NATURE AT REST. Subjects : View from My AViiidow. School- Girl's Glen. High Noon on the Plains. Yellowstone Park. Eagle Lake by Moonlight. A Winter Scene. Mt. Shasta. You must alread}- have realized how difficult it is to arouse and hokl tlie reader's interest by purely de- scriptive composition. Interest centers most naturally about life, — about the variety and uncertainty that are found wherever there are continual changes. In the description of inanimate or quiescent objects these ele- ments are lacking and the sources of interest must be souofht elsewhere. Much can be trusted to the sesthetic sense, more or less developed in all of us, which finds pleasure, or it may be, its opposite, in the mere contem- plation of form and color. But this sense will weary readily and the most exalted description which appeals to it alone may not safely be carried very far. There- fore brevity is to be sought. Even the Iniefest description may be made extremely monotonous. This inevitably happens when it is a mere catalogue of details, strung together like beads on a string, without any grou})ing or organic connection between them. " Give each feature only that promi- nence which its importance warrants," was recommended a few pages back. It might be inferi-ed from tliis that some features deserve more attention than others. And 76 DESCIIII'TION. SO they do. Everytliino-, from a leaf to a lantLscape, has its striking and distingniishing characteristics which must be seized npon and transmitted, first, Last, and always. That individuality which nothing permanent loses in natui-e should not for a moment be lost in art. Subordinate;, in spite of all temptation to the contrary, that which is manifestly subordinate. Is the view from your window charming? Discover, if you can, what particular elements in it make it so. Is it restful, or depressing, or inspiring, or sublime ? Try above all to convey to your reader the impression that it is restful, or depressing. Beware of telling him bluntly that it is so ; that were inartistic and ineffective. To assert aoain and again that a thing is beautiful, only tantalizes a reader. He can get little conception of beauty out of the word heautifuU and the little he gets may be entirely false. Give him the impression as nearly as you can in the way in which it was given to you. That is to say, reproduce the picture accurately for him and let it make its own impression. M:or)EL. MT. KENESAW. The sun was slowly sinking beneath the gray line of mountains in the west. The ascent had been steep. Leo and I had been climbing rapidly, pausing only once or twice on the way up to breathe. The air of northern Georgia makes one equal to almost any task, however, and we were at last standing upon the summit which Sherman, twenty-seven years before, had striven so vainly to reach. The only obstacle that Mt. Kenesaw had offered us was its own steep and rugged sides, and we now rested upon its huge, un- guarded embankments, the silent witnesses once of that bloody struggle, and looked down at the scene of beauty and repose lying NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL OBJECTS. 77 at oiu- feet. To tlie south stretches a valley marked here -with broad fields of red clay, and there with forest growth clothed in the first green of spring. At the foot of the mountain lies the little village of Marietta. Hills and gray mountains give a wilder aspect to the north and east. Just beneath us, circling the moun- tain's verge, are the rifle pits where death leaping fi'oni a thousand fiery throats had met the Northern soldiers. Everj-thing remains just as it was left twenty-seven years ago. Minie-balls and shells still lie about the works, while now and then a cannon-ball is picked up. Slowly the buzzards wheel overhead. The sun's last rays linger upon the peak, giving a fond good- night, and then silently vanish. The cool of evening begins to settle around. Gently the wind sth's the trees in the cemetery on the hill where ten thousand brave Xorthern boys sleep their last sleep. At last, roused from om- reveries by the evening chill, we begin slowly to descend the mountain. M G W EXERCISE XXIX. NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL OBJECTS IN CONJUNCTION. Subjects : A Rustic Bridge. The Old Mill. Central Park. A Visit to the Cliff House. Carmelo Mission. A Deserted Ranch. Light-House Rock. Ruins by Moonlight. Let us define clearly just what subjects are contem- plated in this exercise. On the one hand we have al- ready dealt with nature and her products, and on the other hand we have touched to some extent upon cer- 78 DESC'RII'TrON. tain creations of man, if we may call a creation that which is merely an adaptation and combination of the inanimate prodncts of natnrc. AVe shall return again to objects of this latter class as \\c find tlicm in their highest form of jaire art. Now between these two ex- tremes of nature and art lie all combinations of the two in which nature is animate and is allowed at least partial freedom to Avork out her own ends. Here we can distinguish l\\() pretty sharply defined cases, both of which come under the head of the present exercise. The one is exemplifuHl wherever man has attempted to control or direct the active forces of nature to subserve liis own ideals of usefulness or beauty. Thus we find the hillsides converted into vineyards, the prairies into farms, the waterfall into a mechanical power, the grove into a park with lakes and fountains and avenues. The other case is exemplified wherever nature has re- claimed and asserted dominion over the works of man. Thus a Pompeii is buried beneath ashes anhiin. . . . The farm by daylight was not as the farm by moonlight. The plain was a weary flat of loose, red sand, sparsely covered by dry "karroo " bushes, that cracked beneath the tread like tinder, and showed the red earth everywhere. Here and there a milk-bush lifted its pale-colored rods, and in every direction the ants and beetles rail about in the blazing sand. The red walls of the farm- house, the zinc roofs of the outbuildings, the stone walls of the kraals, all reflected the fierce sunlight, till the eye ached and blenched. No tree or shrub was to be seen far or near. The two sunflowers that stood before the door, outstared by the sun, drooped their brazen faces to the sand, and the little cicada-like insects cried aloud among the stones of the " kopje." The punctuation of the above may not always be the most rational, nor are the relative pronouns managed very skillfully, but as a piece of description it is strong and vivid. Notice how effectively the moonlight is NATURE IN ACTIVITY. 81 used to soften and blend the artificial with the natural objects, and then how sharply they all stand out in the sunlight. How is the point of view taken at the be- ginning ? EXERCISE XXX. ^ NATURE IN ACTIVITY. Si(hje.cts : A Sunrise at Sea. The Joliiistown Flood. Niagara Falls. Through a Forest Fire. A Thunderstorm. A Prairie Fire. A Windy Day. The Recent Eai-thquake. These subjects may seem to suggest only the most striking phenomena of nature and the great ravages which her forces effect. Such, it is true, make stronger impressions on the observer and awaken keener interest in the reader, so that they are favorite subjects for de- scription. But do not allow familiarity or indifference to blind you to the striking aspects of nature's chang- ing mood as exhibited about you daily. The sunrise from your window may be as beautiful as any at sea. The storm that breaks fiercely over your head may be little less sublime than that which hurtles about the peaks and careers down the valleys of the Al})s. Descriptions of this class do not often have for their design the mere imparting of information. That is, they are not usually of a scientific character, but rather of a literary or artistic one. The object is to interest and please the reader, to create in liis mind, in all its 82 DESCRIPTION. original vividness, the picture wliich the writer has seen, and to arouse in him the same emotions which the writer has felt. To compass this ohject in any satisfac- tory degree requires the use of considerably "height- ened" language ; for the strongest words are but weak picture-makers com})ared with the flying clouds and the everlasting hills. We use this heightened language whenever we introduce words or expressions that seem elevated above or in any way removed from the sphere of sober thought and simple feeling. Among other things, figures of speech, — simile and metaphor, per- sonification, exclamation, apostroj)he, antithesis, — are naturally and freely resorted to. We call these orna- ments of speech, and say they serve to give the artistic touches that we desire. Let us see now, if Ave can, just in what consist true artistic or literary touches, these ornaments of composi- tion. Are we at liberty to adopt anything that is in itself ornamental? Can we always depend upon its giving a happy effect? How is it in art in general? How is it in life ? Why are you not charmed with the savage's paint and feathers? Why does a costly watch chain not displease you, while a pair of diamond ear- rings does, and even a showy finger ring, in these days when seals are no more, sets you thinking? You say these things offend a cultivated taste. What is a culti- vated taste? Shall we say that, whatever else it may be, it is a taste that takes delight in things ornamental only when they at the same time plainly serve some ulterior end? If this is not the truth it is somewhere near it. Thus much we may safely say : that in litera- ture, as in art in general, as in all the avenues of life, NATURE IN ACTIVITV. 83 that which is artificial and purely ornamental may be enjoyed and even tolerated only when it does not so much shine with its own beauty as lend luster to that which it is intended to beautify. Every ornament must fit naturally in or appear to spring from what it adorns. You may not with impunity force a figure of speech into a composition ; it must seem to belong there by natural right. There will be the same differ- ence in effect that there is between the paint on the society woman's cheek and the color in the school-girl's. You could not take Wordsworth's ponderous figure, A liundred hills their dusky backs upheaved, and insert it in one of Shelley's delicate descriptions. If your figures help to convey to your readers your own impressions, if your heightened language actually arouses in them the emotions you desire to arouse, well and good. But be chary of ornament for ornament's sake. THE TORNADO. Soon the stars are hidden. A light breeze seems rather to tremble and hang poised than to blow. The rolling clouds, the dark wildei'uess, and the watery waste shine out every moment in the wide gleam of lightnings still hidden by the wood, and are wrapped again i;i ever-thickening darkness over which thunders roll and jar and answer one another across the sky. Then, like a charge of ten tliousand lancers, come the wind and the rain, their onset covered by all the artillery of heaven. The lightnings leap, hiss, and blaze; the thunders crack aiul roai-; the rain lashes; the waters writhe; the wind smites and howls. For five, for ten, for twenty minutes — for an hour, for two hours — the sky and the flood are never for an instant wholly dark, or the thunder for one moment silent ; but while the universal roar sinks and swells, 84 DESCRIPTION. and the wiilo, vibrant illumination shows all things in ghostly half-concealment, fresh floods of lightning every moment rend the dim curtain and Iraj) forth ; the glare of day falls upon the swaying Avood, the reeling, bovi'ing, tossing willows, the seething waters, the whirling rain, and in the midst the small form of the distressed steamer, her revolving paddle-wheels toiling behind to lighten the strain upon her anchor chains ; then all are di)n ghosts again, while a peal, as if the lieavens were rent, rolls off around the sky, comes back in shocks and throbs, and sinks in a long roar that before it can die is swallowed up in the next flash and peal. — George AV. Cable, in Bonavcnture {Au Lai-f/e, chapter xviii.). CLEARING WEATHER. It was a warm autumn afternoon, and there had been a heavy rain. The sun burst suddenly from among the clouds ; and the old battle-ground, sparkling brilliantly and cheerfully at sight of it in one green place, flashed a responsive welcome there, which spread along the country side as if a joyful beacon liad been lighted up, and answered from a thousand stations. IIow beautiful the landscape kindling in the light, and that luxuriant influence passing on like a celestial presence, bright- ening everything ! The wood, a sombre mass before, revealed its varied tints of yellow, green, brown, red : its different forms of trees, with rain-drops glittering on their leaves and twinkling as they fell. The verdant meadow-land, bright and glowing, seemed as if it had been blind a minute since, and now had found a sense of light wherewith to look up at the shining sky. Cornfields, hedge-rows, fences, homesteads, the clustered roofs, the steeple of the church, the stream, the watermill, all sprang out of the gloomy darkness, smiling. Birds sang sweetly, flowers raised their drooping heads, fresh scents arose from the invigor- ated ground ; the blue expanse above extended and diffused itself : already the sun's slanting rays pierced mortally the sullen bank of cloud that lingered in its flight ; and a rainbow, spirit of all the colors that adorned the earth and sky, spanned the whole arch with its triumphant glory. — Charles Dickens, in Christmas Books (The Battle of Life, part iii.). WORKS OF ART. ~ 85 The following descriptions ma}' 1)e read with profit : Sunrise in Venice. Poem by Joaquin INIiller. Hi(jh Tide nn the Coast of Lincolnshire. Poem by Jean Ingelow. The Plood. The Mill on the Floss, book vii, chapter v. George Eliot. Storm off the Coast of Scotland. Mucleod of Dare, last chapter. William Black. p]XERCTSE XXXI. WORKS OF ART. Snhjects : A Seaside Villa. An Etruscan Vase. St. Andrew's Church. Michael Angelo's " Last Judg- The Parthenon. ment." Indian Beadwork. The Laocoon Group. The difficulties of these descriptions will be greater of course in proportion as the object represents a higher stage of development in its own field of art. There is a vast difference between a Kafir hut and a Gothic cathecbal, between an Indian stone image and a Praxitelean statue. The Kafir hut may be pictur- es (pie enough in its way, but it is not a work of art and is not intended to be ; it is built for its utility. On the other hand a cathedral is useful in its way, but it is preeminently a work of art. In form and color, in light and shade, in mass and perspective, it is de- signed throughout to appeal to the cesthetic sense and to work on the emotions of the human heart. As a work of art therefore it must be described. We liave 86 DESCRIPTION. already described buildings from another point of view. But even an ordinary dwelling-house may be con- structed so as to attract the eye of the passer-by as well as to contribute to the comfort of those Avho live in it. Thus we have two radically different points of view. In the present exercise the point of view is that of a pei"son who has an eye for artistic effects. Note that the point of view is not said to be that of the student of the beautiful or the connoisseur in art. Tlie work before you is still description and not criticism, which latter involves comparisons and the passing of individual judgment. Try to tell what you can plainly see, and not all that your imagination may read into the object, nor all that you think shoidd be there and is not. Have the object before you if possible. It is not safe to trust to memory. Few paintere or sculptors will venture far without their models. You are a word-painter now. There are other fields of art in which the artist appeals to other senses than the sight. But descrip- tion here becomes so extremely difficult that it is deemed best to omit it. It Avould indeed be rash, unless one Avere exceptionally well equipped, to at- tempt to describe an organ fugue or an orchestral symphony. EXERCISE XXXII. DESCRIP'J'IOX OF TERSONS. Take as a subject one of your friends, or perhaps better some one whom you have seen only once or twice, and describe him (or her) as he would appear to DESCRIPTION OF PERSONS. 87 a peraon who met him for the first time. This means, of course, that the description shall be one almost en- tirely of externals, — of those qualities, essential or adventitious, which manifest themselves at once to the senses. Character will not pla}' any part in this except so far as it can be inferred from such features as eyes, complexion, gait, and even manner of dress. If the description is of some one who is well known to your readers or hearers, try to make it so accurate and life- like that they will recognize the subject at once. Here again let us insist upon the necessity of observ- ing a due proportion and relation of parts. Do not continually leap from one detail to another without any apparent connection between the two, whether that connection be expressed or understood. Now and then it may be necessary to do this. In any composition of length there must be some gaps in the train of thought wider than others ; and paragraph division is the exter- nal sign of this. But such gaps must not occur at every sentence, and even where they do occur let them be as narrow as possible. The following description is taken from Victor Hugo's Les Miff^rables, Part I, Book II, Chapter I. The point of view is that of a chance observer. Notice how the general appearance of wretchedness is heightened by dwelling on the details of clothing. One day early in the month of October, 1815, about an hour before sunset, a man traveling afoot entered the town of D . The few inhabitants who at this moment chanced to be at their windows or on the doorsteps of their houses, looked at this traveler with a vague sense of lyieasiness. One would not often meet a wayfarer more wretched in appearance. He was a man of medium height, thickset and sturdy, and in the full vigor of life. He might 88 DESCKIPTION. be forty-six or forty-eight years of age. A cap with a leather tip well pulled down partly concealed his face wliicli was bronzed by the sun and was dripping with sweat. His sliirt, of some coarse yellow stuff, fastened at the throat by a little silver anchor, fell opiMi sunicicnily to give a glimpsi^ of a shaggy breast. He wore a twisted cravat, shabby breeches of blue ticking, white at one knee, worn through at the other, and an old tattered gray blouse, pieced at one of the elbows with a patch of green cloth sewed on with jjack-t bread. On his back he carried a well filled knapsack, tiglitly Imcklcd and ipiite new ; in his hand an enor- mous knotted stick. His stockingless feet were encased in shoes shod with iron. His head was shaved, his beard long. ^,The perspiration, the heat, the journey on foot, the dust, gave to his wliole person an inexpressible air of misery and squalor. Com})aro with the above the following from Balzac's Pere Goriot^ and note that here more essential attributes are dwelt upon as indicative of the girl's spiritual environment. Though Mademoiselle Victorine ¥wiilafar was of a sickly paleness like a girl in feeble health, and though this iialeness, joined to an habitual expression of sadness and self-restraint, linked her with the general misery which formed the background of the life about her, yet her face was not an old face, and her movements and her voice were young and sprightly. She seemed like a sickly shrub transplanted into uncongenial soil. Her fair complexion, her auburn hair, her too-slender figure, gave her the grace that modern critics find in the art of the Middle Ages. Her eyes, which were gray with a radiation of dark streaks, expressed the sweetness and resignation of a Christian. Pier dress was simple and cheap, but it revealed a youthful form. She was pretty by juxtaposition. Had she been happy she might have been lovely ; for happiness lends poetic charm to women, and dress adorns them like a delicate tint of rouge. If the pleasures of a ball had called out the rose-tints on her jiallid face ; if the comforts and elegan- cies of life had filled out and remodeled her cheeks, already, alas, too hollow; if love had ever brightened her sad eyes; — then v., CHARACTER DESCRIPTIOX. — REAL. 89 Victorine might have held lier own among the fairest of her sex and age. She needed two things, — two things which are the second bii'th of women, — the pretty trifles of her sex, and the shy delight of love-letters. EXERCISE XXXIII. CIIAKACTER DESCRIPTION. — REAL. Subjects : One of My Friends. Jack : Poet and Optimist. A Sixteen Year Old Cynic. An Eccentric Character. A Ministering Angel. For this work you should know your subject well. The description of external and physical features is not intended to l)e excluded at all. It was said in the last exercise that these things may give a clue to the real character, and when you assume to know that character it will often be the happiest kind of description merely to suggest it by these features. The reader, knowing your purpose in introducing them, will trust to your more intimate knowledge and so not be afraid of mis- interpreting them. The characters described are to be real, that is, actually existing, with all their natural virtues and defects, though of course when 3'ou are dealing with a well-known person, even in a school essay, nothing can excuse the failure on your part to exercise both charity and courtesy. The last subject in the list above has been found an excellent one, and many interesting essays are recalled with such titles as "The Village Factotum," "The 90 DESCRIPTION. riiilosoi)licr of Pine Ridge," "Undo Billy/' "Old January," "Ben the Ubiquitous," "Garesche, Ord." Nearly every community can boast of one or more of those characters who, for some striking peculiarity or unusual originality in their natures, are l)randed as ec- centric. The term need not convey reproach — it is by no means always invidious. It simply means that these people, in their personal a^jpearance or in their habits of life, depart unusually far from the standards whicli the average man recognizes. The greatest genius may do that. Notice in the following how ingeniously the point of view is taken and how impressive the preliminary description of outward appearance makes tlie sudden revelation of the real man. A subject of this kind must be treated somewhat like those of the preceding exer- cise, for such a character cannot, from its very nature, be so intimately known to you as that of your bosom friend. THE HERMIT IN THE WILLOWS. I am sure I do not know what there is connected with the science of frog-catching so essentially different from all other sciences, and so very peculiar that only eccentric characters are able to pursue this profession with marked siiccess. Can it be that frogs are themselves eccentric, and so, since " not to sympa- thize is not to understand," only " eccentrics " have the power to comprehend the laws which govern them so as to be ever master of their situation? Whatever it is — and it is almost vain to attempt to solve the mystery — the fact remains that the afore- mentioned class of individuals does excel in the aforementioned vocation, and furthermore, veiy few who do not belong to that class ever attempt to become professors of that science. Happening to live in a country where frogs are as plentiful as flies are elsewhere, I have often had the opportunity of meeting CHARACTER DESCRIPTION. REAL. 91 some of the peculiar personages who have made the lucrative pro- fession of frog-catching their calling in life. Xor were the feelings awakened by these chance meetings altogether those of pleasure, for, so far as outward appearances were concerned, these oddities ranged all the way from the idiot to the madman. Oh, there was a variety of them ; representatives of nearly all nationalities, and, I am sorry to say, even some of the gentler sex were numbered among them. But by far the most strikingly curious of them all is "the old hermit in the willows," as he is generally called ; for no one knows his name. Nobody who has ever seen the little log hut situated at the very bottom of the ravine which opens into the south end of Lake IMerced, and several miles from any other habitation except of beast or bird, would doubt for a moment that no ordinaiy person dwelt within. Perched upon a slightly elevated island, yet crouch- ing so as to avoid coining in contact with the branches of the low- growing willows that surround and almost entirely conceal it, this dingy gray, moss-covered cabin, with its one length of rusty stove-pipe for a chimney, is a picture of utter solitariness. If you are awestruck by the aspect of the house, how can you describe the feeling that takes possession of you when you see its sole occupant ? A man of medium stature, although bent with age and labor, he would not present an altogether mean appear- ance if respectably dressed. But so few people have ever seen him ; and in his customary attire he is a picture at once ludicrous and pathetic. Coming upon him unawares in his lonely haunt, you would most likely find his costume to consist of a pair of rusty-brown pantaloons, with a huge patch of red flannel on one knee and one of blue drilling on the other ; a red and black checked flannel shirt, patched with calico of various colors ; a gigantic rul)ber boot on one foot and a low rubber overshoe on the other ; and i>erhaps a hat (though he rarely wears such a thing) which, judging from the number of holes in its crown and broad Iniiu, might at some time previous to the invention of modern targets have been used as a substitute for such. His entire make- up, so to .speak, strikes you as ridiculous, and you laugh aloud, thereby attracting his attention. He turns his face toward you and you stop so suddenly in your laughter that you almost choke. 92 DESCRIPTION. rerhaps soi net hint;' very dil't'orent from suppressed laughter helps to produce that choking sensation, for there is something strangely pathetic in the disappointed gaze of tlie eyes tliat meet yours. The grizzly beard and long, matted hair, both of a dirty gray, cannot conceal the fine intelligence of the face ; the high, broad loj-ejiead and fine blue-gray eyes are still there to tell their tale, and now and then you may catch a glimpse of a mouth that is pmud and sensitive, yet full of generosity and affection. Can it be ? Can it be that this hermit is proud, sensitive, gener- ous, affectionate? Everything about his clothing and his mean liabitation seems to say he is not. You are curious ; you would sjjcak to him if you dared. You own to yourself that you are a little afraid of him. Yet your dog trots ipiietly to his side and pokes her nose up into his face. She is not thrust aside, but gently l)atted. You are encouraged, and approaching, address him. — Is he fond of dogs ? — Yes, he is. — Why does he not kee]) one ? — It costs too much. — You drift from one subject to another, but you find him i>repared to discuss all topics. You are beginning to think liini a schoh\r, wIkmi two boys come crasliing through the willow branches, and before long the old man is solving geo- n'letrical jiroblems for them or translating long passages into Latin. Feeling that you are now intruding, you depart and endeavor to gather some information about tlie old hermit. From no one, however, can you learn more than that he is j)oor, lives in the "willows alone, and supports himself by catching frogs and selling them in the city. lie never rides either to or from the city, and never buys anything but salt and flour, and occasionally gunpowder and shot. He never speaks unless spoken to, and then rarely or never of himself. Surely this is an " eccentric," yet you respect him, and perhaps even Avish he were not. For a long time, per- haps for years after, you will never hear of the willows without hearing of the old hermit and seeing his great blue eyes with their sad, disappointed gaze. j^_ j^j_ ^ CHARACTER DESCRIPTION. — IDEAL. 93 EXERCISE XXXTV. CHARACTER DESCRTPTTOX. -- IDEAL. Siihjccts : My Hero. A Dream Incarnate. "A Knight of the Nineteenth Century." The Character o# Jesus. " A Perfect Woman, Xoblv Planne(i." The painter strives to put on canvas, the sculptor strives to fashion out of marble, his ideal. Why should not the literary artist strive to do the same thing with his pen? No one of them will get nearer to the heart and soul of another person, real or ideal, than their outward manifestations. But note that while the painter and sculptor are limited to color and form, the literary artist has both these and other resources at his command. Words and actions respond more constantly and quickly to the impulses within, and are therefore the more reliable indications of the character behind them. These words and actions the writer may use freely. Now ideals are not made of nothino'. The Venus of j\Iilo is only a combination of the most perfect features whicli the sculptor found in a dozen or a hundred human beings. It is a sort of composite photograph with all the distinctness of a simple one, because instead of all the features of all the models being taken, only certain ones are taken from each. It is evident that one man's ideal may sometimes be very nearly realized in a single person, though it is perhaps too nutch to 1)4 DESCRIPTION. hope from nature, human or otherwise, that it may be entirely so. You must have formed an ideal of what a great and good character should be. If not, it will do no harm to attempt to form one now. Physical features need not be disregarded here any more than in the last exercise, ihough naturally they will exact a minor share of your attention. Do not leave the character shadowy merely because it is ideal. Assume that it exists ; give it a name and a vocation if you like ; make a living man or woman of it, and then treat that man or woman as if you knew him or her intimately. Do not say he would have such and such qualities- — say explicitly that he has them. Nothing detracts from interest so much as distant, indirect treatment. EXERCISE XXXV. . IMAGINATIVE DESCRIPTION. Subjects : The Man witli the Golden Aim. The Eighth Voyage of Sinbad Santa Claus at Home. the Sailor. In the Land of the Fairies. Through the Gate of Dreams. An Earthly Paradise. A Chateau en Espagne. A Child's Idea of Heaven. In this exercise you will have perfect liberty to make use of all the descriptive materials at your command. One suggestion only : Remember still that the imagi- nation can be said to create only in a certain sense — it can construct and combine. It puts the head and arms IMAGINATIVE DESCRIPTION. 95 of a man on the body of a horse and we have a centaur; it makes a simihir combination of a woman and a fish and we have a mermaid. But when these combinations do such violence to all our preconceived ideas of congruity as to take on the cliaracter of monstrosities, not every taste will tolerate them. There is plenty of scope for the imagination witliout going so far. You may picture to yourself a spot more purely Arcadian than any Arcadia on earth and yet have in it nothing unnatural. You may conceive of beings more beauti- ful, more noble, more lovable, than any you have ever known, without in the least transcending the bounds of possibility. Imaginative work j)layed a great jiart in the beginnings of literature : witness the Somj of Solomon^ Hesiod's Theogony^ the Nihelungenlied. It plays a large part yet in the literary reading of children : witness the Arabian Nights^ the Fairy Tales of Perrault, the Grimm Ijrothers, and Andersen, and the folk-lore of any people. Read George Macdonald's At the Back of the North Wi7id, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps's Gates Ajar and Beyond the Gates. Nathaniel Hawthorne loved to dwell in these realms of the imagination, as many of his shorter tales show; read Tlie Hall of Fantasy in Mosses from an Old Manse. And Jules Verne, allowing his imagination to run riot in the field of modern science, has given us a score of very readable and even instructive books, of which A Trip to the Moon is a fair sample. Write a fairy story, or an addition to the Arabian Nights' Tales. For anyone of a lively imagination this will prove a real pastime as well as means of literary culture. 1% SECTION III. — NARRATION AND DESCRIPTIOX COMBINED. EXERCISE XXXVr. SOCIAL GATIIEIMXGS, ETC. Sid>jrefs : An Old-time Husking Bee. The Bachelor Club's Annual Ball. Nellie's Birthday Party. A Theatre Party. Our Sunday Sehoiil Picnic. We shall no longer attemjjt to keep narration and description apart. As a matter of fact very few pro- ductions are purely the one or purely the other ; we have seen in the preceding exercises how naturally and almost inevitably we mingle them. On the other hand very few productions })artalve of the characteristics of both narration and description in an e({ual degree. Taking advantage of this fact we have in the two fore- going sections pretty well covered the whole ground. There remain however a few classes of sul)jects into which both kinds of composition enter with nearly equal prominence. But even here you will in all prob- ability find, when j-ou have finished your productions, that they are still essentially narrative or essentially descri[)tive. That result will \)v due to yourself — 98 NARRATION AND DESCRIPTION COMBINED. to tlie point of view .you have chosen to take, or to your predilection for a particular style of treatment. Remember liowever that the condition is not imposed ; you have entire freedom and should endeavor to make use of it. In the ju-esent exercise wc; have scenes to l)e de- picted, with little or no real plot to be unfolded. Yet they are scenes in which there is much action and in which moreover you are supposed to have been one of the actors. This is somewhat different from standing passively by and watching the progress of events. Here you contribute your share toward the sum of accomplishment. The main tendency in treating such subjects as those given above will prol)ably be toward description. Therefore restrain it somewhat, or deflect it. Put all the life and action into the scenes that you can. Make the characters walk and talk, smile and frown, lauo-h and cry for us. If there is comedy let it come out, if there is tragedy let it be revealed. Read the old fairy tale of Cinderella; The Christmas Dinner in Irvino-'s Sketch-Booh; The Archery Tournament in Cupid's Arrows, Rudyard Kipling's Plain Tales from the Hills. EXERCISE XXXVII. PERSONAL ADVENTURES. Subjects : A Narrow Escape. On a Runaway Car. A Night in a Cemetery. The Ghost of Smith's Hollow. Our Burglar. My First Bear Hunt. Cauglit in a Squall. Ascent in a Balloon. PERSONAL ADVENTUKES. 99 The tenclenc}' here will be to lay stress on the narra- tive portions. But the scene of the adventure must be prepared, the circumstances detailed, the actors por- trayed ; and all of this involves description. The two must be judiciously interwoven. It is most natural to begin with description, and a little observation will show that the majority of tales do so begin. On the other hand a bit of narration at the first may sometimes be of advantage ; it will be more likely to catch and hold the reader's attention and make him willing to follow through the necessary description Avliich is then introduced later. Let it not be introduced too late, however. The insertion of even the briefest description at a point where the interest is thoroughly aroused will be resented by the reader. Let such passages come at the natural pauses or lulls in the action. As to the action itself, let it be developed with the utmost naturalness. One event grows out of another in fact ; it should seem to do so likewise in the recital. You have heard people attempt to tell a story who appear to lack what we may call a sense for sequence. They are constantly getting "ahead of themselves," that is, ahead of their story ; and then they have to retrace their steps and the story loses its charm. The fault is an inherent one and it will take close attention and practice to eradicate it. But in writing there is no excuse for it, for the writer has time to consider the sequence of events. Draw upon your own experience for this adventure, or, if the uneventfulness of your life a])solutely con- strains you, upon your imagination. Perhaps one of the incidents which you have recorded in the early part 1')() NAi;i;.\ri()N am> i>i:sri;i I'lmx ('(imhined. of tliis work may recur to you as an appropriate subject. If so. expand it to the proportions of a regular story or tale. It may have consisted of a single })aragraph then ; make eight or ten of it now. Enter into details of scenes and characters and make them contribute as much as possible to the realism of the events. It is scarcely necessary to give references to models of this kind of composition. Papers like the YoutJis Companion contain many such stories, and if you care for examples on a larger scale go to the tales of Sir Walter Scott, Jane Porter, J. Fenimore Cooper, and others. In the following sketch the writer was more a witness of the action than a participator in it, and therefore the language, while dealing unquestionably with good narrative material, is essentially descriptive, showing again how inseparable the two characteristics often are. mnXGTXG A SHAKK AROART). It is only on the days of calm in the doldrums, when passengers are moping and sailors are loafing, that a landsman gets a chance to learn the seaman's hatred of sharks and to see what pleasiu'e the capture of one gives him. One such a day a monster about eleven feet long was seen ploughing astern. Tii a few minutes a stout hook, baited with a jiuik of fat pork, was tlu'own overl)o{ird. The fish made for it immediately and gulped it dcnvn without examination. Then came a tug of war. The cond)ined strength of half a dozen men exerted on the tackle wliicli had been made fast to tlie end of the line, Avas just enough to budge the shark when in the water ; but when once his head Avas above the surface his power was gone, and very soon we saw him dangling from the stern, his tail just touch- ing the water. Then the purpose of the short chain fastened to the hook became apparent : as he swung there, his grinding rows EXCURSIONS, TRAVELS. 101 of teeth would have cut through a liiif in a moment and lie would have dropped in the Avater free, hut as it was, the only effect was a horrid scratching noise that sent tln-ougli most of us a shiver of fear. By means of a running loop passed over his head and drawn tight just aluive the tail, he was pulled up until he Avas level with the gunnel. TIumi with tlie aid of a guy rope he was liavded aboard and landed on deck, thrashing fiercely with liis tail and snapping ferociously. His eyes had to be put out first, for while he could see it was impossible to approach him ; A\'lien he was blind, however, it was an easy matter for one of the sailors to creep cautiously up to him and chop off his tail, thus rendering him powerless to do any damage. jSTow that he was comparatively quiet it was no great task to despatch him. All had a hand in the disemboweling, laughing triumphantly and joking over the possibility of finding a gold Avatch or other clue to liis former life in the capacious stomach. One sliced the liver and threw it into tlie pig-sty, Avlule another cut out the still beating heart and threw it to the dog ; and yet, with eyes out, tail off, disemboweled, with the pigs digesting his liver and the dog devouring his heart, he still spluttered and gasped, refusing to die. Soon however all the flesh was cut away and thrown overboard, the only things saved being the liackl)one, which makes a beauti- ful walking-stick the sailors say, and the rows of teeth, which passed into the hands of some of the ladies and which were after- wards seen in a little girl's possession in the shape of a necklace. R. L. D. EXERCISE XXXVIII. EXCURSIONS, TRAVELS. Our Expedition to Fall Creek. From Detroit to Chicago on a Camping on flu; Bluff. Bicycle. Through Colorado Canon. Climbing the Matterhorn. An Excursion to Niagara Falls. An Afternoon Outing. 102 NAUIlATloN AM) DESCUll'TlON COiMIUXED. Countless hooks of travel have heen written and jjuhlished, thong-h few of tlu'ni liave met with large sales and fewer still have found a place among works of recognized literary merit. The explanation lies in the fact that this is the most tempting field of letters because ai)parently the easiest. Every tyro who has been away from home awliile thinks he has materials for a book. ]?ut matter without rational form and becoming dress is not literature. Besides, ninety-nine times out of a hundred the tyro lias no materials of worth. lie has seen only wliat is on the surface, what everybody else can see for himself, and what therefore everybody else does not want to read about. One thing which will warrant the writing of books of this class is the fact that one has exj)lored a region of the earth or studied conditions of life little known and not accessible to the world at large. When a Livingstone or a Stanley has penetrated to the heart of the African continent, when a Kane has made an expedition into the Arctic seas, when a Kennan has explored the most hidden horrors of life in Russia and Siberia, the public read with avidity such books as Through the Bark Continent., Arctic Explorations^ and Siberia and the Exile System. Or when a naturalist travels over any jDortion of the earth with a keen eye and a quick ear for the marvels and mysteries of nature, we read with equal delight and profit an Alexander von Humboldt's Kosmos and an Agassiz's Journey in Brazil. Yet again, when a man can go among familiar scenes and well-known peoples, and from the materials always to be found there as well as anywhere can construct works of genuine literary EXCURSIONS, TRAVELS. 103 charm and merit, we shall always be ready to welcome them. Such books are Bayard Taylor's Views Afoot and Lono-fellow's Outre-Mer. O Let these facts serve as hints to guide us in our writing now. For though we are working here on a smaller scale, the problem before us is practically the same — to produce work which shall be valuable for the facts it contains, or interesting for the novelty of those facts, for the original light in which they are exhibited, or for the literary charm with which they are invested. It is certainly well worth while to keep a record of one's wanderings, however limited they may be, if he can succeed in producing such word- pastels as the writer of the following has done. A LEAF FROM MY DIARY. Malosand, Sweden, July 15, 1886.-— The candle flares so that I can hardly write, yet it is too warm to close the windows. The stars are twinkling outside in all their glory and the little Swedish village lies asleep at my feet. AVe had such a lovely walk this evening, my sister and I. It was one of those long beau- tiful summer evenings that are found only in northern countries. In our stroll we passed by the village square. It is surrounded by low w^ooden buildings, and in it was a circus. This was the center of attraction for a number of peasant children who were gaping at it in wonder and amazement. The whole scene was so like an American town and yet so diiferent that it made me homesick. We walked on to a little inn and there indulged in some tea and cake, and were sui'prised to find the total bill to be only six cents. It was dark when we again emerged into the open air, and nothing broke the perfect stillness of the night save the faint thump, thump of the bass drum coming over the meadow from the distant circus. We paused a moment to take in the tran- quillity of the scene and then silently retraced our steps. J. M. L. 104 NARRATION AND DESCRIPTION COMBINED. EXERCISE XXXIX. SCENES FROM LIFE. Subjects : ('oniiiR'iicement Day. Around the Hotel Stove. A Fire in Fourth Ward. In an East Side Tenement House. Slioppiug in Jonesville. An Hour on 'Cluuige. A Visit to Chinatown. The Farm at Five o'Clock in tlie An Auction. Morning. A Political Mass Meeting. A Boarding School Scene. Here is an inexhaustible field. It is preeminently the field of the dramatist, but that does not mean that all who work in it must be what are commonly known as dramatists. Much is dramatic in essence that is not so in form. Many of our best poems and perhaps most of our novels belong in this class. And there are newspaper pen-sketches innumerable that pretend to the same distinction ; they are nothing if not dramatic. What is it to be di'amatic? Broadly, it is to be exhibitive of the passions and actions that grow out of any given combination of character and circumstance ; it is to be a portraiture of some phase of human life. Balzac has given us a long series of such portraitures in his colossal work La Oomedie Humaijie^ which con- sists of a number of "scenes from private, jirovincial, Parisian, political, military, and country life," aiming to give a more or less complete and accurate picture of the France of his day. What are the requisites of a dramatic writer? First, that requisite of writers and artists in general, a gift for " the earliest and intense seizing of natural facts " SCENES FROM HISTORY. 105 — the words are Ruskin's ; secondly, a quick, unerring perception of the relations, causal or otherwise, that bind these facts together into a unified whole ; lastly, the power to reproduce through the medium of language these facts and relations without diminution of their original force and vitality. How shall these requisites be acquired? So far as they are acquirable and not dependent on native talent, thus : Observe human nature closely ; study it, ponder over it, note and compare ; read Shakespeare, Hugo, Browning, Scott, Balzac, Bret Harte, and wrest from them if you can something of their secret ; write unceasingly. For the work now in hand read the court scene in the fourth act of The Mercliajit of Venice ; the opening scene in Borneo and Juliet; read the tales of Kipling and of Bret Harte, the novels of Howells, the ballads of Will Carleton. Portray then, in a realistic manner, any scene from life that you have witnessed, from a street brawl to a presidential inauguration. Let your characters speak and act for themselves — it is the most effective kind of description. Moralize little or not at all ; depend on your story to point its own moral. EXERCISE XL. SCENES FROM HISTORY. Subjects : New England in tlie Early AV^ashiugton's Army at Valley Colonial Period. Forge. The South before the War. The Greeks before Troy. California in the 'Fifties. Rome under the Caesars. Christ before Pilate. 106 NARRATION AND DESCRirTION COMBINED. The compositions written in the last exercise were nothing more or less than chapters from contempo- raneons history. They differed from the historical sketches written in Exercise XV. in that they con- sisted of something more than a narration of events — they depicted characters and customs as well. This may be called pictorial or picturesque history, and we have begun to realize that a history without these characteristics is not worthy of the name. Let us try now to treat chapters from past history in the same way. It may be objected that past history cannot be written from observation and experience and there- fore does not come within the province of this portion of our work. But we have reached the transition point now, and whether this exercise falls upon one side or the other makes little difference. This may be said in favor of placing it here : picturesque history writing is chiefly a matter of the imagination, and the imagination is a kind of second sight. Given a few recorded facts, the imagination reconstructs, from these and from the material furnished the mind by actual observation and experience, scenes that are forever past the power of man to witness otherwise. When one reads, for instance, in the chapter on Pindar in John Addington Symonds's Studies of the Greek Poets^ a description of the Olympic games, one gets such a vivid picture of the scene that he can hardly believe the author never beheld it. And has he not in truth beheld it ? — with that mental vision that looks back over two thousand years as easily as over twenty. Precisely how faithful these reconstructions are we cannot of course determine. But there is about facts SCENES FROM HISTORY. 107 a certain " eternal fitness," and we shall hardly get a sense of this fitness from anything that is not a faithful portrayal of facts. The ability for such portrayal may be a gift, but Ave know that some have possessed it. For example, certain portions of Lew Wallace's Ben Hur^ vividly and accurately descriptive of oriental lands and scenes, are said to have been written before the author ever visited the particular region. For models, read the crucifixion scene in the last chapter of Ben Hur, the last chapter of Dickens's Tale of Two Cities^ and almost any chapter of George Lippard's LeyemJs of the Americayi lievolutton. PART II. Composition Based oii Piejidiug' and Tlioiig'lit. Introductory: Principles of Composition. We shall now enter a field of composition in which writers are too often expected to begin without any preparation snch as we have endeavored to obtain. New faculties will be taxed and new powers called into play. Experience and observation are by no means to be set aside, but they are to be supplemented by wider reading and particularly by leflection and independent thought. The material that we have been gathering all along will not be ignored ; we shall merely make a different use of it. We have been recording and chronicling and pictur- ing ; storing facts in places accessible to all ; fixing permanently the fleeting acts and feelings of the mo- ment ; reproducing beautiful forms and colors for fu- ture contemplation. Now we must organize these facts, discover the relations tlie}^ bear to one another, and draw from them, if may be, broader facts which lie beyond the range of ordinary observation ; we must transform the material lines and colors into emblems of spiritual beauty, and weave the threads of experience into a })hilosopliy of life. Thus will literature sub- serve its highest ends. Of the methods of finding material we spoke in the introduction to Part I. In tlie meantime we have gone ahead and worked that material into compositions 112 INTRODUCTORY. as best^we could. In regard to methods for the latter process some suggestions have been made, but much remains to be said, and perliaps the best place to say it once for all is here. As to mere mechanical execution, the writing of sentences on paper, let the printed page be your guide. You may not be able to equal, in writing, the neatness and precision of print, but by giving careful attention to margins, spacing, capitalization, punctuation, in- dentation for paragraphs, etc., you can approach them. The advantages of mechanical neatness and accuracy that make them worth striving for are so manifest that they do not need to be pointed out. Perhaps, too, these habits cultivated in mechanical matters will react upon thought and expression themselves, tending toward in- creased clearness and orderliness. Now as to the best expression of thought, the best way of putting into words what we think — that is to say, the best literary style — how shall it be attained ? In answer we can only go back to the fundamental principles of rhetorical science and say that the chief aims of every writer should be, in the order of their usual importance, clearness, force, and beauty ; and that these must be sought through unremitting atten- tion to the mediums of expression - — words, sentences, paragraphs, and whole compositions. • First of all, do not exaggerate to yourself the diffi- culty of writing. You can talk fluently enough by the hour ; why should jow not write as fluently ? Be simple and natural, correcting errors when the com- mitting of thought to writing discloses them, making improvement wherever reflection shows that improve- INTRODUCTORY. 113 ment is possible. In time no (lonl)t the habit of Avrit- ing with forethought and aftevtliought, of searching for more appropriate words and more effective forms, will develop a literary style considerably above the plane of 3-our ordinary conversational style. But do not make the mistake of thinking that yon must begin with this. It is not even necessary, for eminence in the field of letters, that you should ever reach it, and often the best means of reaching it is through simplic- ity. Mark how simply Washington Irving writes, or Benjamin Franklin in his Aiitohiograjihy, or Sir Charles Darwin in his Letters. And yet the writings of these men possess literary merit of a very high order. Endeavor to use oidy such words as shall be intelli- gible and inoffensive to all. 01)solete words, words that are gradually dropping out of use, and words that are just coming into use, sliould l)e employed, if at ail, with a full recognition of the risk incurred : the time may come when their presence will render the compo- sition worthless. Words from a foreign language that have not become naturalized are generally unnecessary and are best avoided. They throw the user under the suspicion of pedantry. Provincialisms, or words whose use is limited to certain localities, and peculiarities of dialect (except in " dialect pieces ") should likewise be eschewed. Slang is of course inadmissible. Between a long and a short word, other things being equal, the principle of economy would suggest the choice of the short one. Between Latin and Saxon derivatives there is perhaps no fixed consideration to govern our choice ; the peculiar virtues of the Saxon word are admitted, but they have pro])al)ly been overpraised. A specific 114 INTRODUCTORY. word will lend greater vigor tliaii a generic one, especially in descriptive Avriting. Occasionally a word, entirely unobjectionable in itself, must be rejected because it interferes too niucli with the rhythm and euphony of the sentence. Within these limitations choose always the word that seems to convey most exactly your meaning. Short sentences give clearness. Long sentences give dignity. Short sentences give the sparkle of the faceted diamond. Long sentences give the luster of the polished pearl. The long sentence offers many difficulties in construction and is full of pitfalls for the unskillful. The best style will exhibit both in ever varying pro- portions. It is in the construction of the individual sentence, the arrangement and conformity of its parts, more than in any other one thing, that the difficulty and therefore the test of good writing lies. Take almost any complex sentence and you will find that it can be arranged in several ways, some manifestly better than others. The problem is to find the best way. Looseness is avoided by seeking the periodic structure, that is, such a structure as will not yield a comj)lete meaning until the end of the sentence is reached. Parts that bear a close grammatical relation to each other should not be far separated except for emphasis. Remember that the emphatic positions in a sentence are the beginning and the end. The arrangement will often be controlled by the attractive forces of sentences that precede and that follow. The paragraph, of comparatively modern invention, is too useful to be slighted. It consists of a series of sentences that have a common bearing in thought. INTRODUCTORY. 115 But since it is intended for the guidance of the eye, its length is restricted, and therefore the basis of division will depend somewhat arbitrarily on the length of the whole composition. If you are treating a theme very briefly under a dozen heads, you will probably make a dozen corresponding paragraphs ; but if you are writing a whole volume on the same theme 'with the same divisions, you will have to confine your paragraphs to minuter subdivisions of the thought. Frequent paragraph division will give the page an open appearance that is more inviting to the average reader than a page of matter written or printed " solid." But the fundamental office of the paragraph should never be forgotten, or its value will be annulled. The whole composition should have unity and cohe- rence. The first is secured by narrowing the subject as much as possible or desirable and by keeping it steadily in mind throughout, resisting all temptations to digress. The second is secured by observing some natural order in the development of the theme, by remembering the office of the paragraph, and by indicating clearly the relation of paragiaph to paragraph and sentence to sentence through proper distribution of emphasis and the discriminating use of connecting words and un- ambiguous adverbs and pronouns of reference. Both are secured by making an outline of the composition before writing it out in detail. The standard by which all of these matters are meas- ured is good usage, and the best writers of the present day constitute the ultimate court of appeal. This does not mean that any one shall be a servile follower or imitator, repressing individuality and perpetuating 116 INTRODUCTORY. monotony. It only means that by familiarity with the best literature of the day -\ve come to recognize the limits within wliich li])erty is not license, and so are enabled to conform to the requirements of a somewhat variable and vaguely defined "cultivated taste." In- dividual taste must of course take the place of this in all Cases of doubt. When we use the word taste we imply, what has been so well brought out by Professor liarrett Wendell in his lectures on English Composi- tion, that the question here is always one of better or worse, not of right or wrong. Instead of asking whether a certain expression is correct or otherwise, we ask whether it is as clear as it might be, or as vigorous, or as beautiful. Thus composition is removed from the exact sciences to a place among the arts. We have spoken of the importance of clearness. It is perhaps not too much to say that almost everything else should be sacrificed to this. Certainly it should always be made the fiist consideration, for that which is obscure, however good it may be otherwise, will find no readers until they are assured of its merit, and even then is likely to find but few. It is not only a duty that every writer owes to his readers, to express him- self in the plainest terms possible, but it is the only safeguard against misinterpretation and would therefore seem to be dictated by the instinct of self-defense. After clearness seek strength. A vigorous style of Avriting is bound to move more effectually than a feeble one, and to move many readers who would not be moved at all by a weak appeal. Strength usually goes with rapidity and is therefore obtained by elimination and condensation. Diffuseness and prolixity are fatal INTRODUCTORY, 117 faults. As a rule, omit everything that is not strictly pertinent to the subject in hand and then abbreviate in form what still remains, stopping short always of the brevity which gives a sense of incompleteness or which leads to obscurity. Sometimes however force seems to be best gained by fullness and judicious repetition. Beauty is not found in every phase of life, nor shall we expect to find it in every form of literature. Still its presence is rarely resented, and even among the practical, plain, and homely things with wliich life and literature alike must deal, touches of genuine beauty will not seem obtrusive. But least of all is this element to be sought, for least of all Avill it come for the seeking. Like loveliness of form and face, grace of 2Jen and eloquence of speech do not hold themselves subject to our command. Partly they come, if at all, as a natural inheritance, and partly as the reward of long and patient wooing. And if they are not already ours, we can do no better than pursue our straight- fonvard course, lured by no false glitter, turning aside for no meretricious ornament, and perhaps in the end we too shall find some share of these elusive charms. SECTION I. — EXPOSITION. EXERCISE XLI. INTRODUCTORY PRACTICE. Subjects : Descriptive Composition. The Art of Narration. To expose or expound is to set forth, to lay open. Exposition then is the act of setting forth or haying open to view, the act of unfokling, defining, exphiining, in- terpreting. And whenever this act concerns itself with terms^ which denote objects of thought, or with 2>r6t|)- ositions, which express relations between objects of thought, we have rhetorical or literary exposition. We shall have to go a step further and say that rhe- torical exposition concerns itself, not with singular terms, which denote single objects only, Ijut with general terms, which stand for any one of a number of objects having certain qualities in common ; and the same is true of propositions. For example, you cannot expound James White. You can describe him. You can say that lie is a tall man with dark eyes and well chiseled features ; and this is description. But it is not expo- sition. Now notice that in this description a great deal is taken for granted. There is the general term man I'H) EXPOSITION. Mliii-li is not explained. Td an intelligence wliicli should know notliing ot" the meaning of the word man, the descn]3tion would be unintelligible until that word were explained. Such explanation would be technically called exposition. How shall we set al)out expounding general terms? Take the term man. We should not say, as we said of James White, that a man has dark eyes, for that is true of some men only. But Ave should say, among other things, that a. man is a creature with two eyes. That is, we should select only those qualities that are pos- sessed by every normal individual of the class compre- hended by the general term. Description deals with individuals, pointing out the features that distinguish one individual from, all others ; exposition deals with generals, with classes, pointing out the features that are common to all individuals of the class. The need of exposition in the above case may not be so obvious be- cause the term is well understood, but if I say " Paradise Lost is a sublime epic," many readers aaiII want the meaning of the term ej^ic expounded. Of course, from another point of view, these class features are distinctive. That is, the class is only one among other classes, and to be distinguished from them. The possession of two eyes marks off men at once from all creatures possessing more eyes or fewer. Man is but one division of a more comprehensive class, — animal. On the other hand classes may be subdivided, and features that are not common to the whole class may be common to the members of one of the sul)di- visions. For exam})le, while we cannot say that men are dark-eyed, we may fairly say that Italians are so. INTEODUCTORY PRACTICE. 121 And the Italian race may Avell ])o a subject for expo- sition. It is when we reach the individual in the last analysis that we have a- proper subject for description. There are many Italians — the term may be expounded ; there is only one Dante — he may be described. You may expound the meaning of tree and meadow and river, but you describe the landscape about you which has no exact counterpart among all the landscapes of the eartli. Strictly speaking, a. subject for exposition is neither a material ol)ject nor an actual event. It is merely a mental concept — a concept formed l)y putting together in thought a certain number of common qualities or actions. Every individual of a class has the common class-qualities, l)ut it has something more than these — it has in addition its individual characteristics. If it were possible to strip it of tliese latter, we should have our concept embodied, so to speak. But it is manifestly impossible to have a rose possessing size without being of any particular size, or possessing color without being of any particular color, although that is just what is contemplated by the concept called up in our mind hy the general term rose. For the present then rhetorical exposition may be defined as the process of defining and explaining the concepts called up in the mind by general terms or propositions. All that has been said thus far in this exercise may be taken as an example of this process : it is an expo- sition of the term exposition. Now take one of the two subjects given at the head of this exercise and write a brief expository essay upon it. You must have obtained 122 EXPOSITION. from your practice and lioiu the suggestions in the previous part of this book a pretty clear idea of what is comprehended l)y narrative or by descriptive compo- sition. Expound that idea. EXERCISE XLII. INFORMAL ESSAYS. Subjects : Games of Chance. A House Divided against- Itself. Popular Superstitions. Penny Wise, Pound Foolish. The Court Jester. The Child is Father of the ]\lan. ]\Iodern Chivalry. " Princes and Republics are Ungrateful." Expository composition is not, as might l)e inferred from the last exercise, limited to dry technical or ab- struse subjects. There are multitudes of more or less vague ideas and of imperfectly settled relations in every- day life that open a tempting field to the expositor ; the above list of subjects might be extended indefinitely. Remember only that you are to select general ideas and propositions : not, for instance, Triboulet, court jester to Francis 1. of France, but the genus court jester ; not the neglect of the United States Government in allow- ing Robert Morris to die in a debtor's prison, but the ungratefulness of republics. Moreover, while the i)rimary purpose of exposition is to assist the understanding, this does not forbid present- ing it in a popular and interesting shape. Informal essays on these topics were at one time very much in INFOE]MAL ESSAYS. 123 vogue, and their charni is l)y no means unappreciated to-day. One needs only to mention the names of Mon- taigne and Addison to prove tliis. We call these essays informal because they do not follow any rigid classifica- tion nor attempt to exhaust tlie subject or any phase of it. They are more or less rambling, though a cultivated literary sense will take care that they do not produce too disjointed an effect. Their interest is often heightened by giving them a personal tone, by pitching them in the colloquial key, as if tlie writer were conversing with his reader face to face instead of trying to reach him at lonof rano-e. To write in this style is not difticult, since it involves no very strenuous thouoht. But whatever the writinfj may lack, for tliis reason, in positive value, should be compensated for, if possible, by liveliness and pungency of style. For models, read the essays of Montaigne, of Addison, of Charles Lamb. Among tlie hitter's may be specified The Old and the New Schoolmaster^ Grace Before 3Ieat^ A Dissertation on Roast Pi[i^ Poor Re- lations. The essays of Bacon may be referred to, though the familiar tone and the personal element are lacking in them. But they consist for the most part of a series of such detached observations that they can hardly be dignified with the name of formal or scientific essays. The following model is extracted from A Co7nplaint of the Decay of Beggars., one of the Essags of Elia. The long succession of short sentences and the anti- quated forms are not commended for imitation. Poverty is a comparative thing. ... Its pretences to property are almost ludicrous. Its pitiful attempts to save excite a smile. Every scornful companion can weigh his trifle-bigger purse 124 EXPOSITION. against it. J'oor iiuiu reproaches poor man in the streets witli impolitic mention of his condition, liis own being a shade bettor, uliili' the rich pass l>y and jeer at ])<)(h. No rascally cduiparative insnlts a Beggar, or thinks of weigliing purses wit li liim. lie is not in the scale of comparison. He is imt under the measure of property. He confessedly hath none, any more than a dog or a sheep. No one twitleth him with ostentation above his means. Xo one accuselii liini of pride or upbraideth him with mock Ininiility. None jostle with him for the wall, or pick (juaircls for l)recedency. No wealthy neighbor seeketh to eject him fi-om his tenement. No man sues him. No man goes to law with him. ff I were not the independent gentleman that I am, rather than I \\c)id(l be a retainer to the great, a led captain, or a poor relation, I would choose, out of the delicacy and true greatness of my mind, to be a IJeggar. Kags, which are the reproach of poverty, are the Beggar's robes, and graceful insignia of his profession, his tenure, his full dress ; the suit in which he is expected to show himself in public. He is never out of the fashion, or limpeth awkwardly behind it. He is not required to put on court mourning. He weareth all colors, fearing none. His costume hath undergone less change than the Quaker's. He is the only man in the universe who is not obliged to study appearances. The ups and downs of the world concern him no longer. He alone continueth in one stay. The price of stock or land affecteth him not. The fluctuations of agricultural or commercial prosperity touch him not, or at worst but change his customers. He is not expected to become bail or security for any one. No man troubleth him with questioning his religion or politics. He is the only free man in the universe. I'he following is another example of this popular kind of exposition, though written in a very different style : ARISTOCRACY IN AMERICA. A word about American aristocracy, to begin with. What, American aristocracy ? Yes, certainly. INKOltMAL ESSAYS. 125 I assure you that there exist, iu America, social sauctuaries iuto which it is more difficult to penetrate tliau into the most exclusive mansions of the Faubourg .Saint-(iermain or of Mayfair and Belgravia. . . . The Americans, not having any king to give them titles of noliility, have created an aristocracy for themselves. This aris- tocracy boasts as yet no dukes, marquises, earls, or barons, but the blue blood is there, it appears — Dutch blood, as a rule — and that is sufficient. . . . A Xew York lady, who is quite an authority upon such matters, told me one day that Society in Xew Yoi'k was com- posed of only four hundred persons. Outside of this company of elect, all Philistines. Money or celebrity may allow you to enter info this charmed circle, but you will never belong to it. You will be in it, but not of it. The lady in question entered also into very minute details on the subject of what she called the difference between "Society people" and '-people in Society"; l)ut in spite of all her explanations I confess 1 did not seize the delicate shades of distinction she tried to convey. All 1 clearly understood was that the aristocracy of birth exists in America, not only in the brains of those who form part of it, but also iu the eyes of their compatriots. The desire to establish an aristocracy of some sort was bound to liaunt the breast of the Americans ; it was the only thing that their dollars seemed unable to procure them. The second aristocracy is the aristocracy of money, plutocracy. To belong to this it is not sufficient to be a millionaire, — you must, 1 am told, belong to a third generation of millionaii'es. Of such are the Astors, the Vanderbilts, and company. ... In the eyes of these people to have from thirty or forty to fifty thousand dollars a year is to be in decent poverty. To have two or three hundred thousand dollars a year is to be in easy circumstances. The thii-d aristocracy is the aristocracy of talent, — literary and artistic society. This third aristocracy is incontestably the first, if you will excuse the llil^ernicism. I do not think that one could find anywhere, or even imagine, a society more refined, more affable, more hospitable, more witty, or mor(^ bi-illiaut. 126 EXPOSITION. One of the consequences of tlie position wliich woman takes in the United States, is that in good American drawing-rooms conversation is never dull. " If I were queen," exclaimed Madame ll(5camier one day, "I should rommand Madame de Stael to talk to me all day long." One would like to be able to giv(^ the same order to plenty of American w'omen. — Max O'Rell, in Jonathan and His Continent. EXERCISE XLIII. FORMAL ESSAYS. Sitbjects : Our Public School System. Sunday Newspapers. Hypnotism : What It Is. Child Labor in the United Elements of Pleasure in Poetry. States. American Love of Sport. Many readers of tlie present day are not satisfied merely to be entertained — they demand accurate in- formation, instruction. And writers, inspired with something of tlie same spirit, seek to satisfy this d% mand. Thus has grown up the modern essay — a species of composition rather brief in form, impersonal in tone, shorn of all unnecessary allusions, addressed immediately to the intellect, and seeking to treat its subject exhaustively though not necessarily in minute detail. The old informal essay riiay convey much in- formation, but that information is not organized in such a way as to give it the greatest utility nor does it pretend to be complete ; it is suggestive rather than definitive. The writer has not taken the trouble to make himself thoroughly familiar with Iris subject, and the chances are that the reader will not go any farther ; FORMAL ESSAYS. 127 thus the value even of its suggest! veness is minimized. The more formal, didactic essay imposes a severer task on the writer. He must endeavor thoroughly to famil- iarize himself with his subject, to get a comprehensive view of it in all its bearings, so that he can treat it from the standpoint of one having authority to speak. We say this kind of essay is one bi the demands of the times. The entire field of legitimate knowledge has been so immeasurably broadened that each man must limit his own investigations to a very small })or- tion of it. But he naturally desires to know the re- sults of others' investigations, and therefore he expects from them, in a readily accessible form, such definite information as they alone can give. The didactic essay is one of the mediums of this interchange. In most cases perhaps it aims to be exhaustive, though within its ordinary limits it can be so only broadly, not minutely. For example, this result may be reached liy setting forth the most apparent divisions of a subject Avithout entering into the subdivisions. The method of treatment presupposes a definite plan in the writer's mind. Too much emphasis cannot be laid upon this plan. It is no exaggeration to say that every such essay will be the gainer if one half of the time allotted for its preparation is devoted to tlie con- struction of the plan. This involves the gathering of materials and then the fitting them together and the building them up into a framework of thought ; what remains thereafter is but a minor task for one who has any skill in composition. The plan should follow some fixed principle. This principle may l)c logical, historical, chronological, — 128 • KXi'osiriox. little mattiT wliat : diily it slioiild ])t; vigforously ad- hered to. Let tlie plan l)i' fully made' out before there is any attemjit toward writing the essay : the work of composition thru will consist merely in an ampliliea- tion of tilt' plan and will Ix' found (•oin[)aratively easy. The essays of Macanlay and De (^nincey fall under this class. Numerous examples may be found too in the current numbers of such magazines as the North American Meview, Atlantic MonthJij^ Popular Science Monthly^ Forum, Arena. Instead of appending here any model of this kind of composition, the following ])lans are presented for study. Tlie first is abstracted from an essay by Charles F. Thwing in the Educational Review for April, 1892. Tlie first main division is of the na- ture of an introduction and propounds a cpiestion. The body of the essay is devoted to ans-woring this question. In the conclusion a lesson is drawn — a way is suggested of a})plying to advantage the knowledge which has been arrived at. This plan may never have been wiitten out by the writer, but it must have been pretty clearly defined in his mind. THE COLLEGE PRESIDENT. Unusual amount of notice recently attracted to tins otfice. Frequent resignations, elections, declinations. Comparative lack ot" success. Wliat is tlie reason? The college president represents at least four distinct relations : Relation to the governing board, Relation to the faculty, Relation to the students, Relation to the general ^uiblic. These manifold and diverse relations demand rare ^-ersatility of talent. SCIENTIFIC TREATISES. 129 As a help toward lightening his difficulties, let the college presi- dent's work be made as definite as possihle. The following is an outline of a portion of an article by Henrietta L. Synnot in the Contemporary Reinew for November, 1874 : LITTLE PAUPERS. Discussion limited to tliose children who are adopted by the State through no fault of their own ; particularly to girls of tlie " Metropolitan District." Three classes : Orphans, Deserted, Casuals. Classes defined. Three methods of dealing with them (the methods not coincident with the classes) : Boarding out. Separate schools, District schools. Results of training. Conclusions drawn from official reports. Working system of schools. Later career of girls. Appearance and health. Indifference to praise or blame. Capabilities. Examples. Significance of these results. EXERCISE XLIV. SCIENTIFIC TREATISES. Subjects : The Flora of Our County. Evolution of Dress. Fauna of the Middle States. Social Orders of America. Lepidoptera. Newspapers of To-day. "^I'lii' A'iolct Family. 130 EXPOSITION. \\\' shall have to recognize here this chiss of" litera- ture, thoiigli it is (hl'licult to select from it suitable sub- jects for elementary exercise in composition. The sciciilitic treatise depends for its value so almost entirely on lahoiious research and severe thouglit that it seems scarcely worth considering at all from ihe standpoint of composition. It nuist 1r' of a length, too, even in monographs on the nai-rowest suljjects, tliat makes it inconvenient as a form of writing for mere practice. And yet a little I'eflection will show that we have already trenched upon this field. In the section devoted to Description, Exercises XVII. and XX.-XXVII., there were included among the subjects many general terms which called more properly for scientific expo- sition than for description. But the intention was rather that some individual of the class should be se- lected, in which case the description would not meet the requisites of an exposition. For exposition demands that we shall first observe large numbers of individuals until we sliall have formed a general conception from which we can be reasonably sure all particular qualities or temporary conditions have been excluded. One must have seen a great many violets, stemmed and stemless, white and yellow and blue, heart- an.d arrow- and palmate-leaved, before he can treat scientifically the violet fanuly. We have treated of exposition thus far as if it had to deal only with logical definition, that is, with the discovery of all the common qualities which the general term implies. But there is another side to it. It deals also with what is called logical division, that is, the enumeration of all the individuals to which the general SCIENTIFIC TREATISES. 131 term may be applied. The general term is said to con- 7iote the former and to denote the latter. Thus the word man connotes two eyes, ten fingers, an upright body, a reasoning faculty, etc. It denotes, according to geo- graphical divisions, Americans, Europeans, Africans, etc. ; or, according to one ethnological division, Caupa- sians, Mongolians, and Ethiopians. Again, men might be divided into Christians, Jews, Mahometans, etc. Let us give a scientific exposition of the term triangle : Triangle connotes a circnniscribcd space, three fines, three angles. It denotes plane ti'iangles, spherical triangles, curvilinear triangles. Plane triangle connotes a circumscribed space, three straight lines, three angles. It denotes, according to one division, triangles having no two sides equal — t^calene, ( all sides equal — cijuilateral, two sides equal -,,,., , • , ( not all sides equal — isot^celfs. According to another division, based on the diiference in angles instead of the differences in sides, it denotes triangles having one right angle — ri(/hl-(infjled, no right angle — \ one obtuse angle — ohtuse-aiu/lcd, oblique-a in/led \ no obtuse angle — (icute-aiKjled. And likewise witii the denotation of spherical and curvilinear triangles. Make a similar exposition of the term quadrangle. It is evident that logical division may often l)e made on a number of dilferent principles ; on so great a 132 EXPOSITION. number in the case of certain broad subjects, such for instance as mankind, that no exposition could ever hope to exhaust them. Still, an exposition may be considered complete which, after defining its subject, makes a care- ful division of it on some one principle. It may be advisable at times to select several, provided always that each division be complete in itself and there be no confusion. It would not do to classify newspapers as weekly, daily, democratic, and independent ; for these divisions not only fail to cover the whole class l)ut they overlap one another. It docs not come within our scope here to undertake anything of such magnitude as a genuine scientific treatise. We are concerned ordy with learning how to proceed when such a work is contemplated. Instead then of writing a regular essay, select a sul)ject which admits of some flexibility of treatment (note the last ones in the above list) and prepare an outline indicating how it may be treated. EXERCISE XLV. CRITICISM. Subjects : Wordsworth and Bryant. Realism in Art. Ibsen's Claim to Greatness. Standards of Eloquence. Light Literature. Neutrality as a Political Principle". The critic should bring to his work the utmost fair- ness of spirit. He should be ready to praise freely what he finds good as well as to condemn unreservedly ciriTiciSM. 13-3 what he finds bad in the object of his criticism. He must of course have certain standards in his own mind. Others will realize that these standards are personal and therefore not absolute. It is the critic's plain duty then to keep these standards as just as may be, and, for the rest, to judge unflinchingly by them. Thus while finality of judgment he may not attain, sincerity at least he can. Besides impartiality the critic should have a keen perception and a lively sympathy. This last quality is perhaps most essential of all. It is the fundamental principle of the greatest school of modern critics that the critic should endeavor to put himself in the place of the writer and enter into full sympathy with Iris work, to look at it from his standpoint, to take fully into account his motives and objects, and determine how well he has pei'formed his task and how nearly he has attained the ideal set before him. Criticism is ex|)Osition, for it is concerned with de- Iniing the province of art, letters, philosophy, etc., and with determining the place of any particular work in its own province. One valuable help in exposition is the making of comjjarisons of all kinds, bringing out similarities and dissimilarities. This is one of our most common resorts in the acquisition of all knowledge and therefore not to be overlooked here. Just as the artist puts a man at the base of the pyramid in his picture, or a tree on the mountain. side, or a boat on the river, in order that wo may have a more accurate idea of the respective sizes of these objects, so tlie skillful expositor will set before us familiar things by which to gauge and better under- 134 EXPOSITION. stand the unfamiliar. Such comparison will play a peculiarly large part in criticism, which involves either establishing standards or judging by them. I^'or exam])les read the critical works of Francis Jeffrey, Matthew Arnold, Professor Dowden, James Russell Lowell, John Ruskin. The following is ex- cerpted from Matthew Arnold's essay On Translating Homer : Therefore, I say, the translator of Homer should penetrate him- self with a sense of the plainness and directness of Homer's style; of the simplicity with wliich Homer's thought is evolved and ex- pressed. He has Pope's fate before his eyes to show him what a divorce may be created even between the most gifted translator and Homer by an artificial evolution of thought and a literary cast of style. Chapman's style is not artificial and literary like Pope's, nor Ills movement elaborate and self-retarding like the Miltonic move- ment of Cowper. He is plain-spoken, fresh, vigorous, and, to a certain degree, rapid ; and all these are Homeric qualities. 1 cannot say that I think the movement of his fourteen-syllable line, W'hich lias been so much commended, Homeric; but on this point I shall have more to say by and by, when I come to speak of I\Ir. Newman's exploits. But it is not distinctly anti-Homeric, like the movement of INIilton's blank verse; and it has a rapidity of its own. Chapman's diction, too, is generally good, that is, appro- priate to Homer; above all, the syntactical character of his style is appropriate. AVith tliesc merits, what prevents his translation from being a satisfactory version of Homer? Is it merely the want of literal faithfulness to his original, imposed upon him, it is said, by the exigencies of rhyme ? Has this celebrated version, which has so many advantages, no other and deeper defect than that? Its author is a poet, and a poet, too, of the Elizabetlian age ; the golden age of literature, as it is called, and on the whole truly called; for, whatever be the defects of Elizabethan literature (and they are great), we have no development of our literature to compare with it for vigor and richness. This age, too, showed CRITICISM. 135 what it could do iu translating by producing a masterpiece — its version of the Bible. Chajiman's translation has often been praised as eminently Homeric. Keats's fine sonnet in its honor every one knows; but Keats could not read the original, and therefore could not really judge the translation. Coleridge, in praising Chapnum's version, says at the same time, " It will give you small idea of Homer." But the grave authority of ]\Ir. Ilallam pronounces this transla- tion to be "often exceedingly Homeric " ; and its latest editor boldly declares that by what, with a deplorable style, he calls " his own innative Homeric genius," Chapman " has thoroughly identified himself with Homer"; and that "we pardon him even for his digressions, for they are such as we feel Homer himself would have written." I confess that I can never read twenty lines of Cliapinan's version without recurring to Bentley's cry, " This is not Homer ! " and that fronr a deeper cause than any unfaithfulness occasioned by the fetters of rliyme. I said that there were four things which eminently dis- tinguished Homer, and with a sense of which Homer's translator should penetrate himself as fully as possible. One of these four things was, the plainness and directness of Homer's ideas. I have just been speaking of the plainness and directness of his style; but the plainness and directness of the contents of his style, of his ideas themselves, is not less remarkable. But as eminently as Homer is plain, so eminently is the Elizabethan literature in general, and Chapman in particular, fanciful. . . . My limits will not allow me to do more than shortly illustrate, from Chapnum's version of the Iliad, what I mean when I speak of this vital difference between Homer and an Elizabethan poet in the quality of their thought ; between the plain simplicity of the thought of the one, and the curious complexity of the thought of the other. As in Pope's case, I carefully abstain from choosing passages for the express pui-pose of making Chapman appear ridiculous ; Chajiman, like Pope, merits in himself all respect, though he too, like Pope, fails to render Homer. 136 EXPOSITION. Jn tluiL tunic sp(.'t.'cli uf Surpedoii, uf wliich L have said so much, Homer, you may reuioiuber, has : — "if indeed, but once this battle avoided, We were forever to live without gi'owing old and immortal." Cluipman cannot be satisfied with this, but nmst add a fancy to it: — "if keeping back Would keep back age from us, and death, and that we might not xorack In this life's human sea at all "; and so on. Again: "For well I know this in my mind and in my heart, the day will be wlien sacred Troy shall perish." Chai> man makes this : — "And such a stormy day shall come, in mind and soul I know, When sacred Troy shall shed her towers, fur tears of overthrow.'''' I might go on forever, but I could not give you a better illustra- tion than this last, of what I mean by saying that the Elizabethan poet fails to render Homer because he cannot forbear to interpose a play of thought between his object and its expression. Cha]> man translates his object into Elizabethan, as Pope translates it into the Augustan of Queen Anne ; both convey it to us through a medium. Homer, on the other hand, sees his object and con- veys it to us immediately. SECTION II. — ARGUMENTATION, EXERCISE XLVI. ARGUMENT FROM SELF-EVIDENT FACTS. Subject : Groundlessness of Popular Superstitions. Belief, as we commonly understand the term, is not knowleds^e. If we could not have the first without the second, considering how very deficient we are in the second, we should be in a deplorable state. For it certainly is well for the average man that he should believe something in order that he may be able to de- cide and act at all. It is even an open question whether it is not better for the most of us that we should believe what is actually false rather than be in continual har- assing doubt. But when knowledge and belief shall be co-extensive, if that time ever comes ; when we shall positively know to be true all that we believe to be true ; then we shall have reached an ideal state. No less than this are the broad scope and the high purpose of argumentation. Exposition, we have seen, is concerned with what thinsrs are — that is, with truth embodied in facts and relations. Argumentation goes a step farther. It not 138 ARGUMENTATION. only seeks to discover truth and impart a knowledge of it, but it further insists that this truth is truth, and strives to enforce a knowledge of it and thus inspire an active belief in it. Men adopt beliefs on the strength of prejudices or of insufficient knowledge. They even come to believe things because they have desired to be- lieve them. These beliefs become second nature and are clung to with a pertinacity which even the disclosure of truth itself sometimes seems unavailing to remove. If it were not so, if men witliheld belief until knowledge came, and rested it on that alone, there would be no need for argumentation as we have defined it. Simple exposition would suffice. Exposition is addressed to ignorance which needs enlightenment. Argumentation is addressed to error which needs correction. Argumen- tation exposes the false as well as the true. It strives to overcome prejudice. Its purpose is thus twofold : it knocks down old error in order to set up new truth. " To err is human." The obverse of every advance toward higher Avisdom is a deeper sense of the preva- lence not only of ignorance but of actual error, until it may well-nigh seem that error is of indigenous growth among men. For it flourishes even in the presence of the most evident and incontrovertible facts. Where this is the case, argument may indeed seem of little avail, for all argument must rest immediately or ulti- mately on facts. If a Brother Jasper declares that the earth is flat and " the sun do move," how shall you convince him of the contrary? The gambler may change his cards a dozen times without succeeding in changing his luck, yet, declaring his belief in the charm, will change them the thirteenth time. There is ARGUIMENT BY CAREFUL EXPOSITION. 139 little encouragement for one to try to meet such obsti- nacy and such utter disregard of reason by any appeal to facts. Still we make the attempt, and we should make it too without any resort to ridicule until kindness and forbearance have proved unavailing. Take some of the superstitions of the day and deal with them in the liglit of facts that are accessible and evident to all. Much the same subject was proposed in the section devoted to exposition. But the intention there Avas merely to ferret out and explain these super- stitions and treat of them in a desultory but entertaining style ; the object here is to deal with them rigorously and inquiringly, and to show that they are without ground in easily observable facts. • EXERCISE XLVII. ARGUMENT BY CAREFUL, EXPOSITION. Subject : Selfishness the Mainspring of Human Action. Many an error lias arisen and l)een perpetuated merely through a misunderstanding of the terms in- volved, due either to ignorance of the facts or to a misinterpretation of them. And many an unpleasant dispute may be avoided if the disputants will only take the trouble at first to make suie that they have a like understanding of the terms hi the question, and that they are approaching it from the same point of view. One person declares that a piece of metal is 1^0 ARGUMENTATrON. warm to tlic Luuch uiul another declares that it is cold. They only need to have explained to them that warm and cold are relative terms, and they will understand how both assertions may be right. There is the old story of a dispute over a sign-board which one person declared to be red and another, Idiie. Had some one suggested that a sign-board has two sides, further trouble might liave been saved. Is interest on money, usury? is the taking of interest, extortion? It was held so once, but a clear exposition of th^ nature of money and of interest has reversed the opinion. Is money, capital? Well, what do we mean by money, and Avhat do we mean by capital ? A clear definition of these terms is about all that is needed. The logical process by which the question will then be answered is so simple that it scarcely needs elucidation. When we find people disposed to argue about things they do not comprehend, or to make declarations of truths when they do not understand the things which the truths concern, it is evident that we shall have to meet them with simple but forcible exposition. Take the old question : When a cart is moving forward does the uppermost portion of the tire of a wheel move faster than the portion on the ground ? Put the question to your friends and see how they will argue it. They will never come to an agreement, or at least will not arrive at a correct conclusion, until they settle the meaning of the terms motion and velocity. Is the one absolute or relative ? Is the other calculated from some point absolutely at rest or not? Relatively to the axle, both points are moving with the same velocity. Relatively to the earth, the motion of the ARGUMENT BY CArvEFITL EXPOSITION. 141 axle may accelerate the velocity of one portion and i-etard that of another, and so on. Similar is the question. Can a man walk around a monkey when the monkey keeps turning so as to face the man ? The only argument necessary is the determination of what is meant by "going around." Enough lias been said perhaps to impress the ne- cessity of first of all clearly defining terms. This necessity is fully apparent in many of the larger questions of the day. In a current number of the Uducational Beview appears an article by Brandei- Matthews, entitled Can English Literature Be Taught ? Much of the article is taken up with an exposition of the term teaching^ and we quote from that portion as follows : One thing more an American discovers in reading Mr. Collins's pages, and the discovery thiis made is confirmed by reading tlie reviews wliicli the boolc has had in the British journals — and this is that the custom of examining for honors has obtained so lone in Great Britain, and has been carried to such extremes that a confusion has arisen between the end and the means. In other words, British writers on education, like ]\Ir. Collins, and like Mr. Andrew Lang, who reviewed Mr. Collins's book in the Illustrated London News, seem no longer able to distinguish between teaching and examining. When ]\[r. Collins asks the question which stands at the head of this paper and answers it in the affirmative, and when Mr. Lang answers it in the negative, both of them interpret the question to mean " Can English lit- erature be examined on ? " This insistence on examinations, this substitution of one of the instruments of teaching for the teaching itself, this ex- altation of the means above the end, has apparently the same result in the universities of England that it has in the public schools of New York City. A strict application of the marking system is little likely to encourage culture either in a university 142 ARGUMENT ATI ox. or in a public school. Narrowness is more easily i)i() pi'eciate this question we must first know what education means. Every man is born into this world ignorant both of himself and his surroundings, but to act his part so as to reach success and happiness needs to understand them both. Therefore, he must learn ; and, having to learn, must be educated. This will involve two processes : — 1. The development of man's power to master himself and cir- cumstances by ti'aining every capacity to its highest energy — discipline. 2. Communication of the most valuable knowledge — informa- tion. Both are necessary. Discipline precedes information, because power precedes acquisition. Information completes discipline by 1B6 ARGUMENTATrON. yielding actual re.sulls in (he worlil. In a word, (lisciiilinc gives power to acquire informal ion, and the (otal rcssult is culture. The two great instrunieiits of educational discipline and infor- ination have hitlierto been niatheniatics and language, leading to physical, intellectual, and social sciences, and these again culininid- ing in a i>hiloso2)hy or study of lirst principles of all things. On tiiis basis our college education has been built. None propose excluding iiuithematics. Few question th(' wovA of studying lan- guage in some form. But when the classical languages are proposed as essential to liberal education, objections arise and pronounced attacks are made. I propose merely three things : — I. To enumerate the objectors and answer their objections. 1 1. To state the positive argument for classical training. 111. To state the reasons for retaining Greek as well as Latin. exercisp: lv. DEBATE (CuNTixuKD). Questions of ProhahUltij : Resolved, That a Great European War is Inevitable. That Canada will be Annexed to the United Stat'is within Twenty-five Yeai's. That ]\Iars is Inhabited. That Electricity was Known to the ^Vncients. " Probability is the very guide of life," said Bishop Butler. You linger a little longer over your book be- cause you think it i)robable that by walking fast you will still have time to catch the train. You plant a tree because you think it j^robable that it will grow up to bear fruit and that you will live to reap the benefit. You refuse to invest your money in certain stocks be- DEBATE. 167 cause you think it improbable that they will ever pay dividends. You part from your dearest friend with a smile because you think it extremely improbable that anything will prevent your meeting again on the day appointed. Questions of probability are something more than a mathematician's pastime. Many questions of fact, past and jDresent, far and near, have not yet been settled, and may never be settled beyond a certain degree of probability. But there is another class of questions which we do not hope to settle beyond a degree of probability. Not because they do not involve facts, but because we recognize that the facts are beyond our reach, or because we know that the future alone will determine them, while our interest in them is purely a present one. For instance, we are content for the })resent to speculate upon the probaljle internal structure of the earth. Perhaps some day a serious attempt will be made to arrive at the facts. Again, we are confronted with the question of what the weather will Ije to-morrow. Now, it will either rain or not rain, but we cannot wait to learn the fact ; and we may not be half so much interested in knowing the fact when it comes as we are now in knowing the proba- bility, for now only can we decide the question whether we shall go on our journey provided with an umljrella or not. Governing our present action by the jjrobability we make up our minds to accept the future fact with as little concern as possible. How do we determine the 2)i'()l)a])ility, or, as we often say, the chances, that a thing is thus and thus or that an event will liappen in a certain manner ? l>y obser- vation and experience, by induction and deduction. 168 ARGUMENTATION. Every imperfect iiulucliou is luercly tlie exj)ressioii of a probability. Every deduction carried beyond the range of actual experience is likewise only a probability. There is another phase of this matter. There is a principle of reasoning, how obtained we cannot discuss here, which declares that " we must treat equals equally, and what we know of one case may be affirmed of every case resembling it in the necessary circumstances." Of course experiment may be necessary to determine whether things are equal or not, but starting with this principle we calculate probabilities without experiment- ation. Indeed in many cases the experiment proves nothing whatever in regard to future results, — it only proves the principle. I toss a penny into the air. It has two sides and so far as I know they are equal. I know it will fall upon one side or the other. The other conditions I do not know and can not control, and so I say that there is only an even chance that the head will fall uppermost. Suppose it falls so. I conclude noth- ing whatever from that in regard to the manner in which it will fall a second time. Suppose I toss it up ten times and the head comes up five times, the tail five times, can I reason that it will be so the next ten times ? Not at all. I know, each time I toss it, that there is an even chance of tlie head coming upper- most. Therefore it is entirely possible that it will come uppermost ten times in succession. But because the chances are even I say that such a result, though possible, is improbable ; that it is most probable that head and tail will each come uppermost five times ; that the next greatest probability is that one will come uppermost six times and the other four; that it is most DEBATE. 169 improbable that either one will eome up ten times in succession. By such laws of mere probability, without any degree of certainty whatever, are we compelled to determine a thousand acts of our everyday life. Though often a matter of mathematical computation, serious errors have been made and there is room for argument even here. There is still more room foi' argument in cases that are not susceptible of mathematical demonstration. Take a prophecy, as for example that the world will come to an end next week or in the year 2000, or let some member of the class write a prophecy, and then debate upon the probability of its being fulfilled. Or take any current newspaper report that is of a sur- prising or sensational nature and argue from antecedent probabilities that it is or is not true. Argumentative exercises of this nature may be made extremely interests ing and instructive. SECTION III. — rEPvSlT A8I0N. EXERCISE LVI. PERSUASIVE DTSCOTTKSE IN GENERAL. Suhjerfs : Have We a Code of Honor? Secrets of Success. The American Flag. Complete Living. "Conduct is tliree-fourtlis of life," says Matthew Ar- nold. Another amends this and says, "Conduct is the wliole of life." Living means something more than being ; it means something more than knowing or be- lieving : it means action, conduct, behavior. The man who knows without acting upon that knowledge is as cen- surable as the man who acts without knowledge. And what does the Apostle James say of faitli without works ? The office of persuasive discourse is to arouse men to action. Exposition, we said, presupposes some degree of ignorance on the part of those addressed, and argu- mentation presupposes error. Persuasion presupposes indifference, inaction, or misdirected action ; it appeals to tlie emotions, the feelings. Strange as it seems, we may know a truth, we may firmly believe it to be; tiuth, and yet fail to take it home to ourselves, to act upon it-, 172 PERSUASION. to live it, to concrete it, as it were, in our dii.ily conduct. We know it, we say, l>nt wc fiiil to realize it. 'i'hns we know that tlie earth is an inuuense si)here wliirlino- througli space at a liioh vehicity, but only seldom do we realize it, and it may he questioned whetlier some who know the fact ever realize it at all in the sense in which the astronomer does. Iii like; maiuuir we know, every one of us, as ])ositively as we know anything, that sooner or later we shall die, but only at rare intervals does that fact present itself to us in its full significance. We speak of it and write of it a hundred times to once that we act upon it. And so Ave know a thousand things with a sort of uncomprehending knowledge, a knowledge that leads to nothing. Strange iidiarmony of the human intellect and will ! Stamiation is death, we say ; and yet we stagnate unconcernedly whih; wc; shudder at and shiink from and rebel acfainst death. Disobedience to the laws of health is slow suicide ; — we do not for a moment question the truth of that ; and yet we go on disobeying those laws day after day like ignoramuses or skeptics. Rut we are neither one nor tlie other for we know and we believe ; we sim})ly will not act — we are fools. Manifestly there is a field for Persuasion, and mani- festly, too,' of all the various forms of literary art this may be made the most practical and helpful. It will be no mistaken endeavor to turn in this direction all the knowledge and power we have gained by our previ- ous practice, to concentrate it upon this, the supreme achievement of literary labor. No model will be given here. It may be noticed that what has just been written, though ostensibly exposi- APPEAL TO PERSONAL INTEREST. 173 toiy, is largely" persuasive in character. But it was written without any consciousness of an attempt to make it such. If it has been read with the same unconscious- ness so much the better. If it has in the slio-htest degree inspired you to act, to write, to attempt in par- ticular to persuade others to act upon tlieir knowledge and beliefs in a thousand matters of everyday life, tlien it has not been written in vain. EXERCISE LVII. PERSUASION r.Y APPEAL TO PERSONAL INTEREST. S'uhjecU : Why do I Need Exercise ? With All Thy Getting Get Understanding. — Prov. iv : 7. Self-Preservation is Nature's First Law. Motives of private and personal interest are con- fessedly determinative in most of our ordinary delibera- tions and actions. They are doubtless stronger with some than with others, and it is often difhcult to say just how far a man shall let these considerations carry him without laying liis action open to the charge of selfishness. There is a degree of egoism, a selfishness if you will, that few of us presume to Ijlame. Philoso- phers have declared that self-preservation is our first duty. And who would find fault with a man for seeking self-culture and self-advancement? Persuasion that would accomplish its end by ajipeals to these motives must Ix; founded upon a study and 174 PERSUASION. knowledofc of luiman nature. We must know the people to wlioin we appeal and we must vary our appeals to suit their various interests. The skillful politician works on one man's feelino's tln'on^j^li his pride, on another's through his love of indcipendcmce, on another's llnouo-h his avarice. Of course these appeals are often made witli unworthy cnids in view. It is only when the object is a worthy one that they are justifiable. Nor does that mean to say that a worthy end will justify any means whatsoever, but that the particular means contemplated here can scarcely be open to great objection. At the worst it is only taking advantage of men's faults for their own and others' good. If a mail notoriously fond of ease and inaction can l)e roused to action b}^ playing upon that very weakness, where is the hai-m? And besides that, as we have said, there Jire man}- kinds and degrees of egoistic desires that cannot be called faidts. Here is a case in point. A certain student was injuring his health by too severe mental work supple- mented l)y too little physical exercise. On the score of health his friends expostulated with him in vain. But when it was represented to him that if he would devote one-tenth of his time to exercise he would accomplish more and better work in the remaining nine-tenths than he could otherwise accomplish in the whole time, he was willing to make the experiment. Thus his friends effected that in which they were chiefly interested by liolding forth an inducement of a very different character — the only one that appealed to the student's self-interest as he was pleased to consider it. APPEAL TO PEltSONAL INTEREST. 175 That is one of tlie secrets of effective persuasion. Another is this. If you venture to appeal to a motive so conspicuously seltish as to he unworthy, you nuist either conceal the fact that you think it unworthy or else in some way ingeniously conceal the fact that you are appealing to the motive at all. But there is always the danger that ingenuity even in a good cause may descend to artifice, and though siu-h metliods are freely employed in liigh places the}^ are not always to be recommended. Self-respect should l)e maintained at any price, and if there is no otlier way of effecting an object excejtt l)y an appeal to base motives it may l)e better in tlie end t(^ leave the ol)ject uneffected. A delicate way of persuading otliers is to pretend to l)e persuading yourself. The sul)ject "Why do I Need Exercise?" suggests this method of procedure. In any case the address need not l)e direct. A case may be assumed and the person addressed l)e trusted to see the similarity between Jiis own case and the assumed one. Fables and paral)le8 are commonly constructed on this plan. Or direct address may be deemed the most cogent. The method pursued nuist depend on the time, the person, the nature of tlie appeal. The prime requisites are tact and the ability to read character and to divine motives. ivionrnr.. A PLEy\ FOTI MORE GENERAL INSTRUCTTOX TN PHYSIOLOGY. If anyonn {lnul)ts the iiiiportancc of an ao.quaint.anco with the fiiiidaineiital ]iriiici])l(>s of ^iliysiology as a means to coini^lete living, let liiiii look aidiiml ;in(l see how many men and women he '■ail (iiid ill iiiiildic (ir liili'i- lilr uIki arc I linroiighly well. Occa- 170 PERSUASION. sionally only do we moct. with an example of vigorous health continued to old age ; liouily do we meet with examples of acute disorder, chronic ailment, general (lel)ility, premature decrepitude. Scarcely is there one to whom you put the (juestion, who has not, in the course of his life, Itrought upon himself illnesses which a little knowledge would have saved him from. Here is a case of heart disease consequent on a rheumatic fever that followed reck- less exposure. There is a case of eyes spoiled for life by overstudy. Yesterday the account was of one whose long-enduring lameii<;ss was brought on by contiiniing, spite of the pain, to use a knee after it had been slightly injured. And to-day we are told of an- other who has had to lie by for years, because he did not know that the palpitation he suffered from resulted fr(im overtaxed bi-ain. Now we hear of an irremediable injury that followed some silly feat of strength ; and, again, of a constitution that has never recovei'ed from the effects of excessive work needlessly und(!rtaken. While on all sides we see the perpetual minor ailments which ac- company feebleness. Not to dwell on the natural pain, the weariness, the gloom, the waste of time and money thus entailed, only consider how greatly ill-health hinders the discharge of all duties — makes business often impossible and always more diffi- cult ; produces an irritability fatal to the right management of children ; puts the functions of citizenship out of the question, and makes amusement a bore. Is it not clear that the physical sins — partly our forefathers' and partly our own — which produce this ill-health, deduct more from complete living than anything else, and to a great extent make life a burden instead of a bene- faction and a pleasure? To all of which add the fact that life, besides being thus im- mensely deteriorated, is also cut short. It is not true, as we commonly suppose, that a disorder or a disease from which we have recovered leaves us as before. No disturbance of the normal course of the functions can pass away and leave things exactly as they were. In all cases a permanent damage is done — not im- mediately appreciable, it may be, but still there ; and, along with other such items which Nature in her strict account-keeping never drops, will tell against us to the inevitable shortening of our days. Throuuh the accumulations of small injuries it is that constitu- APPEAL TO PERSONAL INTEREST. 177 tions are commonly undermined, and break down, long before their time. And if we call to mind liow far the average duration of life falls below the possible duration, we see how immense is the loss. "When, to the numerous partial deductions wlucli bad liealth entails, we add this great final deduction, it results that, ordinarily, more than one-half of life is thrown away. Hence, knowledge which subserves direct self-preservation by preventing this loss of healtli, is of primary importance. We do not contend that possession of such knowledge would by any means wholly remedy the evil. For it is clear that in our present phase of civilization men's necessities often compel them to trans- gress. And it is clear fui'ther that, even in the absence of such compulsion, their inclinations would frequently lead them, spite of their knowledge, to sacrifice future good to present gratification. But we do contend that the right knowledge impressed in the right way would elfect much ; and we further contend that as the laws of health nnist be recognized before tliey can be fully conformed to, tlie imparting of such knowledge nuist precede more rational living — come when that may. We infer tliat as vigorous health and its accompanying high spirits are larger elements of happiness tluin any other things whatever, the teacliing how to maintain them is a teaching that yields in moment to no other whatever. And, therefore, we assert that such a course of physiology as is needful for the comprehension of its general truths, and their bearings on daily conduct, is an all-essential part of a rational education. Strange that the assertion should need making ! Stranger still that it should need defending ! Yet there are not a few by whom such a proposition will be received with something approaching to derision. Men who would blush if caught saying Iphig6nia instead of Iphigenia, or would resent as an insult any imputation of ignorance respecting the fabled la1)ors of a fabled demi-god, show not the slightest shame in confessing that they do not know where the Eustachian tubes are, what are tlie actions of the spinal cord, what is the normal rate of pulsation, or how the lungs are inflated. While anxious that their sous sliould be well up in the superstitions of two thousand years ago, they care not that they should be tauglit anytliing about the structure and functions of 178 PEIJSrTASTON. their own l>odi(»s — nay, WDiild evcu disapiu'oNc such ii:st ruction. So ovcrwlw'lniiiiL;' is flic iiillucuce of establishcil routine ! So ter- rihly in onr education does the ornamental override the useful ! — Ilrrhcrl S/iniccr. EXERC'ISE LVm. TEllSUASTON 15 Y APPEAL TO SOCIAL DUTY. SiiJ>jrrft< : A Soft Answer Turnetli Away ^^'rat!l. — Prov. xv : 1. Cultivate Courtesy. The Exercise of Intelligence in X'oting-. Shall We Foster the Spirit of Patriotism? Few if any of ns live entirely to ourselves ; we may not therefore live entirely for ourselves. As long as we continue to be the sociable creatures we are and take pleasure in human companionship, so long shall we recognize that there are certain duties which we owe to others in addition to the duties which we owe to our- selves. And just in proportion as any man conceives of this altruistic duty as paramount to the egoistic one is he hailed as philanthropist, public benefactor, patriot, hero, martyr. To say that the selfish ambition to shine in these roles is in all ciises the leading motive is to malign human nature, to make men out more selfish than some of the lower animals. These social duties are as a rule cheerfully performed and quite as often from instinct as from training and habit. They range from the unwritten laws of courtesy that are observed in our everyday intercourse to the codes which APPEAL TO KELTGIOUS DUTY. 179 bind together into one political and social organization entire communities and nations. . We recognize these duties and are in the main will- ing to fullill them. And yet, as with so many other tilings, we sometimes fail to realize them fully ; or we have a wrong conception of them ; or we neglect and forget them. Hence the necessity of frequent and and strong reminders, and hence the need of reformers and reforms. When an appeal is made to social duty there is no need of concealing the fact, for if one kind of action is more generally looked upon as praiseworthy than another it is the one in which no shadow of self-interest is discernible. The nature of the appeal will differ somewhat according to circumstances and object. It may be that we have unconsciously lapsed from a strict observance of a plain duty and simply need a timely reminder. It may be that we are insensible to the exigencies or the merits of the case and need to be enlightened and aroused. It may be that through a misunderstanding of our duty we are wasting good intentions in the wrong direction and need to be set right. It may be that new conditions bring with them new obligations which we need to have presented to us clearly and cogently. EXERCISE LIX. PERSUASION BY APPEAL TO RELIGIOUS DUTY. Subjects : Virtue Its Own Reward. The Sacredness of Life. The Spirit of Intolerance. Lack of Reverence in Ainci-ican Cruelty to Aninuils. Youth. 180 T'EIJSUASION. The most of us will not rest content with the per- formance of our duties toward ourselves and toward our fellowmen. We feel that if there is such a thin<'- as duty at all it extends further than this. The satis- fying of our sellish and social instincts leaves one instinct yet unsatisfied, — the religious. We recognize on the one hand the limitation of our powers and the finiteness of our intellect, and on the other hand the inscrutable mystery of things. We know the hopeless- ness of knowing everything ; know that the farther we extend our research tlie more thickly do the mysteries crowd U2)on us and the deeper do they grow, that each discovery instead of narrowing the realm of the un- known is but a further revelation of its vastness ; and we bow before an Intelligence that so infinitely tran- scends our own. We realize that we are but insignificant parts of the great Whole, and this brings with it a realization of a duty not only to ourselves and others like us, but also to the bird in the tree, the flower in the field, the shell on the shore, and to the Power that works in and through them all. This duty takes many forms, — non-interference, kindness, service, submission, love, reverence, j^raise. Why do we pity the caged bird, and step aside to let the flower grow unharmed, and treasure and study the curious shell ? Why do we stand in silent awe or burst into spontaneous tributes of admiiution before the terrors and glories of the natural world ? It is the gratifica- tion of a religious instinct, the performance of a relig- ious duty. An appeal to this duty is the loftiest appeal that can be made to man, since it is farthest removed from any APPEAL TO RELIGIOUS DUTY. 181 possible charge of sordid selfishness. Therefore to comport with this character, the language and style of composition should be reverent, dignified, lofty, and thoroughly sincere. The following, taken from an argument by Herbert Spencer on the relative value of various kinds of knowledge, is practically a plea for the study of science addressed to all wliose sense of religious duty has a controlling influence over their action. Lastly we have to assert — and the assertion will, we doubt not, cause extreme surprise — that the discipline of science is superior to that of our ordinary education, because of the religious culture that it gives. Of course we do not here use the words scientific and religious in their ordinary limited acceptations ; but in their widest and highest acceptations. Doubtless, to the superstitions that pass under the name of religion, science is antagonistic ; but not to the essential religion which these superstitions merely hide. Doubtless, too, in much of the science tliat is current, there is a pervading spirit of irreligion ; but not in that true science which has passed beyond the supei'ficial into the profound. So far from science being irreligious, as many think, it is the neglect of science that is irreligious — it is the refusal to study tlie surrounding creation that is irreligious. Take a humble simile. Suppose a writer were daily saluted with praises couched in superlative language. Suppose the wisdom, the grandeur, the beauty of his works, were the constant topics of the eulogies addressed to him. Suppose those who unceasingly uttered these eulogies on his works were content with looking at the outsides of them ; and had never opened them, much less tried to understand them. AVhat value should we put upon their praises? AVhat shoidd we think of their sincerity? Yet, comparing small things to great, such is the conduct of mankind in general, in reference to the Universe and its Cause. Nay, it is worse. Not only do they pass by without study, these things which they daily proclaim to be so wonderful ; but very frequently they condeinn as mere 182 PERSUASION. triflers those wlio give time to tlie observation of Nature — they actually scorn those who show any active interest in tliese niai-vels. AVe repeat, tlien, Uiat not science, but the neglect of science, is n-religious. Devotion to science is a tacit worship — a tacit recognition of worth in tlie things studied ; and by implication in their Cause. It is not a mere lii>-homage, but a homage ex- pressed in actions — not a mere professed respect, but a respect proved by the sacrifice of time, tliought, and hibor. Xor is it thus only that true science is essentially religions. It is religious, too, inasmuch as it generates a profound res2)ect for, and an implicit faitli in, those uniform laws which underlie all things. By accumulated experiences the man of science acquires a thorough belief in the unchanging relations of phenomena in the invariable connection of cause and consequence — in the necessity of good or evil results. Instead of the rewards and punishments of traditional belief, whicli men vaguely hope they may gain, or escape, spite of their disobedience; lie finds that there are rewards and punishments in the ordained constitution of things, and that the evil results of disobedience are inevitable. He sees that the laws to which we must submit are not oidy inexorable but beneficent. He sees that in virtue of tliese laws, the process of things is ever toward a greater perfection and a higher happiness. Hence he is led constantly to insist on these laws, and is indignant when men disregard them. And thus does he, by asserting the eternal principles of things and the necessity of conforming to them, prove liimself intrinsically religious. To all wliich, add the further religious aspect of science, tliat it alone can give us true conceijtions of ourselves and our relation to the mysteries of existence. At the same time that it shows us all which can be known, it shows us the limits beyond which we can know notliing. Not by dogmatic assertion does it teach the impossibility of comprehending the ultimate cause of things ; but it leads us clearly to recognize this impossibility by bringing us in every direction to boundaries we cannot cross. It realizes to us in a way which nothing else can, tlie littleness of human intelligence in the face of that which transcends human intelli- gence. While towards the traditions and authorities of men its attitude may be proud, before the impenetrable veil which hides OBATORY. 183 the Absolute its attitude is humble — a true pride and a true humility. Only the sincere man of science (and by this title we do not mean tlie mere calculator of distances, or analyzer of com- pounds, or labeller of species ; but him who through lower truths seeks higher, and eventually the highest) — only the genuine man of science, we say, can truly know how utterly beyond, not only human knowledge, but human conception, is the Universal Power of which Nature, and Life, and Thought are manifestations. EXERCISE LX. ORATORY. — OCCASIONAL FORMS. Sifhjects : Speech in Commemoration of Washington's Birthday. Longfellow's Birthday. Declaration of Independence. Address for Arbor Day. Memorial Day. Commencement. Thanksgiving. On the Unveiling of a Monument to General Grant. Dedication of the Public Library. President's Inaugural Address. Speech in Response to the Toast, " Our Guest." " The Prize-winners." <' Once Upon a Time." " Our Future." While Exposition, Argumentation, and Persuasion are clearly distinct, it is just as impossiljle to keep tliem always separate as it is to keep Narration and Descrip- tion separate. All tliree are often employed in the same discourse and there is no reason why they should lb-1 PERSUASION. not be. Still for convenience we may wish to dis- tingnish the discourse as belonging to one class or the other, and then we shall have to be guided by what seems to be its principal object, whether it is intended to inform, to correct, or to arouse, whether it aims to explain a fact, to prove a statement, or to influence an action. We have seen that an argument may be most effective sometimes if made up almost wholly of expo- sition. In like manner the ends of persuasion may often be effected by simple exposition or argument, or by a combination of the two. The citation from Herbert Spencer in the last exercise contained scarcely a directly persuasive word and yet it was offered as an exam})lc of persuasive discourse because its object so manifestly is to move people to lay more stress on scientific studies in ordinary education. The precise method adopted in any case will depend on many considerations, — on the general character of the persons appealed to, on their present attitude and feeling, on the kind of action desired, whether calm or violent, immechate or remote, etc. Thus far we have treated of persuasive discourse that is written and in- tended to be read. In such the calmer expository and argumentative methods are very appropriate. When we come, as we now do, to the more ordinary form under which this style of discourse is found, declama- tion, oratory, these methods will naturally fall into the background in order to give more j)rominence to direct address and stirring appeals. It has been said that oratory is on the decline, that we have no more Ciceros, Pitts, Burkes, Websters, Beechers. Perhaps this is true in a certain degree. It ORATORY. 185 may well be that the extension of printing, making it possible to appeal at once to a vast andience " in nearly every part of the world, has dwarfed the importance of oratory. Why shonld people crowd the galleries of our congressional halls when they can read the speeches over their coffee the next morning ? Or why should a speaker address a huncbed people here and another hundi-ed there, when he can with so little trouble put his speech in print and address thousands ? But of course the peculiar charm and value of oratory are not dead. People will still be made to listen who could never be made to read, and people hearing will be aroused who reading would sit unmoved. And men speaking will still find their tongues tipped with a fire which would never irradiate the point of their pens. Nor is the need for oratory past. A felicitous re- sponse to a toast will give a life, a character, and a unity to a dinner-party that nothing else can give. In no more fitting way than b}^ a fervent speech can we dedi- 'cate buildings and consecrate enterprises. Inaugural addi-esses, baccalaureate addresses, Labor-day speeches, memorial sermons, Fourth of July orations, — all of these occasional forms of oratory we still demand, to say nothing of the forms regularly practiced in politics, the law, the ministry, etc. It will be noticed that into some of these forms the element of persuasion scarcely enters at all, but since they come under the general head of oratory it seems best to include them here. The following plain but graceful speech was delivered at a public dinner in Philadelphia in 1846 by the Hon. Samuel Breck, who presided. The address is compli- 186 PERSUASION. mentary to Daniel Webster, in whose honor the dinner was given ; — Gentlemen : — I rise to propose a toast, expressive of the great esteem and honor in wliich we hold the ilhistrious guest whom we are assembled to welcome. It is cause for felicitation to have this oiiportunity to receive him, and to meet him at our festive board. Jn riiiladelphia we liave long been accustomed to follow him, with earnest attention, in his high vocations in the legislative hall and in the Cabinet ; and have always seen him there exercising liis great talents for the true interests of our wide-spread Ee]iubli('. And we, in common with the Amei-ican people, have felt the inlhi- ence of his wisdom and patriotism. In seasons of danger, he has been to us a living comforter ; and more than once has restored this nation to serenity, security, and prosperity. In a career of more than thirty years of political agitation, he, with coTirageous constancy, unwavering integrity, and eminent ability, has carried out, as far as his agency could prevail, the true principles of the American system of government. For his numerous public services we owe him mncli, and we open our grateful hearts to him in tlianks ; we say to him, with feelings of profound respect and warm affection, that we are re- joiced at his presence here, amid his Philadelpliia friends — his faithful Philadelphia friends and admirers. Tliirteen years hiter, and seven years after the death of Daniel Webster, the seventy-seventh anniversary of the great statesman's birthday was commemorated hj- a banquet at which tlie orator, Rufus Choate, made an adch-ess. The opening words of that address were as follow : — I would not have it snj^posed for a moment that I design to make any eulogy, or any speech, concerning the great man whose birthday we have met to observe. I hasten to assure you that I shall attempt to do no such thing. There is no longer need of it, or fitness for it, for any ])urpose. Times have been when such a thing might have been done with propriety. Whili! he was yet ORATORY. 187 personally among us, while he was yet walking in his strength in the paths or ascending the heights of active public life, or stand- ing upon them, — and so many of the good and wise, so many of the wisest and best of our country, from all parts of it, thought lie had title to the great office of our system, and would have had him formally presented for it, — it was fit that those who loved and honored him should publicly — • with effort, with passion, with argument, with contention — recall the series of his services, his life of elevated labors, finished and unfinished, display his large qualities of character and mind, and compare him, somewhat, in all these things, with the great. men, his competitors for the great prize. Then was there a battle to be fought, and it was needful to fight it. And so, again, in a later day, while our hearts were yet bleeding with the sense of recent loss, and he lay newly dead in his cham- ber, and the bells were tolling, and his grave was open, and the sunlight of an autumn day was falling on that long funeral train, I do not say it was fit only, it was unavoidable, that we all, in some choked utterance and some imperfect, sincere expression, should, if we could not praise the patriot, lament the man. But these times have gone by. The race of honor and duty is for him all run. The high endeavor is made, and it is finished. The monument is builded. lie is entered into his glory. The day of hope, of pride, of grief, has been followed by the long rest ; and the sentiments of grief, pride, and hope, are all merged in the sentiment of calm and implicit veneration. We have buried him in our hearts. That is enough to say. Our estimation of him is yiart of our creed. We have no argument to make or hear upon it. We enter into no dispute about him. We permit no longer any man to question us as to what he was, what he had done, how much we loved him, how much the country loved him, and how well he desei-ved it. We admire, we love, and we are still. Be this enough for us to say. Is it not enough that we just stand silent on the deck of the bark fast flying from the shore, and turn and see, as the line of coast disappears, and tin- headliuids and hills and all the land go down, and tlie islands are swallowed up, the great mountain standing there in its strenglli and majesty, supreme and still — to 188 PERSUASION. Bee liow it swells away up from the subject and fading vale ? to see that, thougli clouds and tempests, and the noise of waves, and the yelping of curs, may be at its feet, eternal sunshine has settled upon its head ? EXERCISE LXI. ORATORY. — THE STUMP. ' Subjects : The Need of Civil Service Reform. Down with INIonopolies. Irish Home Rule. Dignity of Labor. Freedom of the Press. Political Rings and Bosses. Purification of the Ballot. Female Suffrage. State Rights and Individual Rights. Municipal Misrule. Uphold the Constitution. In this country every Presidential campaign and indeed every local election involving important issues gives occasion to the politician to endeavor by public speeches to influence votes and increase his constituency or that of his favorite candidate. Owing to an early- day frontier practice of speaking from the stumps of trees, such speakers are still commonly said to " take the stump." In England and Ireland they '^ mount the hustings." Doubtless this method of electioneering is much abused ; but we may not decry it on that account. The addresses are made directly to the voters and often to a class of voters who do not read much and who need enlightenment on the issues of the day. The difficulty lies in the fact that nearly all of these great questions have two sides, each with its sincere advocates, ORATORY. 189 and a speaker is apt to be misled by his enthusiasm to make out a good case and unduly influence votes by representing his side in a too favorable light. But never- theless we indulge such championship even to the extent of partisanship, feeling that full discussion is better than none at all and trustino- that in the Iouq- run " ever the right comes uppermost, and ever is justice done." With pui'ely extemporaneous speaking we have noth- ing to do except in so far as the practice of writing speeches may assist in the development of an oratorical style. For speeches — even after-dinner speeches, even stump speeches — are written or prepared beforehand, the great majority of them. A really good extem- poraneous speech is rare, for it requires the happy combination of a rare man and a rare occasion. Given this combination, you have an ideal address. Right here we get a clew to the secret of writing a successful oration : we must make it conform as nearly as possible to our ideal of an extemporaneous one. That there should be certain differences between written discourse and spoken discourse, that is, between that which is intended to be read and that which is intended to be heard, few will deny. In delivering an adch-ess you will have to face an audience, look people in the eye, hold their attention, play on their feelings, endure their displeasure or receive their applause. In prepar- inor the address beforehand all this should be borne in mind. Imagine as vividly as you can that you have your audience before you ; do not lose sight of it for a moment ; write to it as you will have to talk to it ; use terms of direct address — gentlemen, friends, fellow- citizens — wherever they seem natural and not over- 190 PERSUASION. formal ; be genial, frank, gracions yet earnest, familiar yet dignified, 'i'he advantages of personal directness of addi"ess, of getting so close to your audience that they will almost feel as if you held them hy the hand, cannot be over-estimated. One of tlie most telling stump-speeches the present writer ever heard was addressed almost tlirougliout to a particular person in the audience who was a good type of the class whom the speaker wished to reach. lie proceeded in al)out this style : You know how it is, sir — you, sir, sitting there in the fourth row of seats on the right of the aisle. You will remember that Just four years ago tliis fall I was driving througli the country here and staid over night with you. You remember how you were disposed to complain then because you had not realized enough on your abundant wheat harvest to pay for the machinery you had bought that year and because you couldn't see how the corn-crop was going to clothe your family through the winter. I asked you how you were voting and you said that had nothing to do with the matter. And then I said that if you thought that had nothing to do with the matter you surely could not see any liarm in making the experiment of voting the other way and of getting a hundred other farmer's to make the experiment with you. Did you make the experiment? I am afraid not. Certain it is that the hundred others did not, for -wlion returns from the district came in you had rolled up the same old majority. And what is the result? Yom- receij)ts are just as far from covering your expenditures to-day as they were four years ago to-day. Deny it if you can. EXERCISE LXII. ORATORY. — THE BAR. Eloquence is oratory at its best ; it is chfficult to define it more accurately than that. True eloquence ORATORY. 191 does not lie in words alone ; nor in the speaker alone ; nor yet in the hearer or the occasion. Rather it seems to lie in all of these. For the same words uttered by the same man will seem sublime at one time and ridicu- lous at another, or will ring eloquent in the ears of one man, ])ombastic in the ears of another. When a man's words move and stir us to the very depths of our being, when they make us forget ourselves completely, so that we are ready to laugh and weep, even to rise and follow, at his command, we say that man is elo(|uent. But we do not analyze the spell he casts over us nor attempt to wrest from him the a\ liolc secret of liis power. But if we do not knoAV just what eloquence is, we know some thino-s that it is not. We know for one thing that it is not- grandiloquence. Long, sonorous Avords and lofty, higli-sounding plu'ases are no necessary part of it ; they are rather apt to Ije fatal to it. There may be more eloquence in one fitly spoken word, nay in silence itself, than in the most ingenious rhetoric. Read the twentieth chapter of the Gospel according to St. John and feel the effect of one word which Jesus utters : Jesus saith unto her, Mary. And can anything be more simple and more sublime than the prayer from the same lips as the rabble reviled him gathered about the cross. Father., forgive them ; for they know not what they do. Strained figures are as fatal to eloquence as fantastic words. It may be questioned whether a deliberate figure of speech is ever found in passages where elo- quence takes its highest flight. Indeed, violence of any kind, in words as well as in utterance and gesture, is to be sedulously avoided ; ranting and spread-eagleism find favor only with the indiscriminating few. This does li^'2 PERSUASION. not mean that there is to be no exhibition of life or energy. On the contrary, tJiis is usually a most essential thing in oratory. The precaution refers only to that affected energy or that excess of energy which over- shoots its mark. If we may draw any principle from these observa- tions, it would seem to be that fundamental principle of all literary effort, Be natural ; be true to yourself, to your audience, and to your theme. Fine language is well enough if it flows from lips familiar with its utter- ance. Sentiment is well enough if it springs from the heart. Fervor and enthusiasm are all rieht so Iouq- as they are sincere. Indeed, it is wholly useless to attempt to feign these things. Eloquence is not like a glove, to be put on and off at j^leasure.. Few men can be im- posed upon by a display of false sentiment. Assume an emotion you do not feel and the chances are ten to one that the deception will be detected at once and resented. Betray an emotion that the occasion does not warrant and the result will be equally disastrous. In the particular kind of oratory had in view in the present exercise, namely, the j^leading of an advocate at the bar of justice, argument will naturally constitute the staple of the material. But, as the ultimate object is not merely to demonstrate truths, but to persuade juries to act according to those truths, other than purely argumentative elements can not be excluded : the plea is bound to take on more or less of the nature of an appeal. It is difficult to suggest subjects for this work. The best method of getting material is to conduct a mock trial. Another method is to try some historical character before an imaginary tribunal for certain alleged acts of his or hers. ORATORY. 193 We give below an extract from a speecli made by- Daniel Webster before a jury in ISoO. J. F. Knapp and J. J. Knapp were charged with the murder of Captain Joseph White. J. J. Knapp confessed that one Richard C'rowninshield had been hired by them to commit tlie murder, whereupon Crowninshield com- mitted suicide. The confession Avas then withdrawn and the Knapps were indicted, with the result that they were convicted and executed. Webster spoke for the prosecution. Against the prisoner at tlie bar, as an individual, T cannot have the slightest prejudice. I vi^ould not do him the smallest injury or injustice. But I do not affect to be indifferent to the discovery and the punishment of this deep guilt. I cheerfully share in the opproln-iuin, how nnich soever it nuxy be, which is cast on those who feel and manifest an anxious concern that all who had a part in planning or a hand in executing this deed of midnight assas- sination may be brought to answer for their enormous crime at the bar of public justice. This is a most extraordinary case. In some respects it has hardly a precedent anywhere, certainly none in our New England Instory. This bloody drama exliibits no suddenly excited, ungovernable rage. . . . An aged man, without an enemy in the world, in his own house, and in his own bed, is made the victim of a butcherly murder for mere pay. Truly, here is a new lesson for painters and poets, whoever shall hereafter draw the portrait of murder, if he will show it as it has been exhibited in an example, where such ex- ample was last to have been looked for, in the very bosom of our Xew England society, let him not give it the grim visage of Moloch, tlie brow knitted by revenge, the face black with settled hate, and the blood-shot eye emitting livid fires of malice. Let him draw, rather, a decorous, sinooth-faced, bloodless demon ; a picture in repose, rather than in action ; not so much an example of human nature in its depravit}^, and in its paroxysms of crime. 194 PEKSUASION. as an infernal nature, a ficMid in Uif ordinary display and develoi> ment of his character. The deed was executed with a degree of self-possession and steadiness equal to the wickedness with which it was planned. The circumstances, now clearly in evidence, spread out the whole scene before us. J)eep sleep had fallen on the destined victim, and on all beneath his roof. A healthful old num, to whom sleep was sweet, the first sound slumbers of the night held him in their soft but strong embrace. The assassin enters through the window, already prepared, into an unoccupied apartment. With noiseless foot he paces the lonely hall, half-lighted by the moon ; lie winds up the ascent of the stairs, and reaches the door of the chamber. Of this, he moves the lock by soft and continued pressure till it turns ou its hinges without noise ; and he enters, and beholds his victim before him. The room was uncommonly open to the admission of light. The face of the innocent sleeper was turned from the murderer, and the beams of the moon, resting on the gray locks of his aged temple, showed him where to strike. The fatal blow is given ! and the victim passes, without a struggle or a motion, from the repose of sleep to the repose of death ! . . . Meantime the guilty soul cannot keep its own secret. It is false to itself, or rather it feels an ii-resistible impulse of con- science to be true to itself. It labors under its guilty possession and knows not what to do with it. The human heart was not made for the residence of such an inhabitant. It finds itself preyed on by a torment, w^hicli it dares not acknowledge to God or man. A viilture is devouring it, and it can ask no synii)athy or assistance either from heaven or earth. The secret which the murderer possesses soon comes to possess him ; and, like the evil spirits of which we read, it overcomes him, and leads him whither- soever it will. He feels it beating at his heart, rising to his throat, and demanding disclosm-e. He thinks the whole world sees it in his face, reads it in liis eyes, and almost hears its work- ings in the very silence of his thoughts. It has become his master. It betrays his discretion, it breaks down his courage, it conquers his prudence. When suspicions from without begin to embarrass him, and the net of circumstance to entangle him, the fatal secret struggles with still greater violence to burst forth. It must be ORATORY. 19^ confessed, it will be confessed : there is no refuge fi'om confession but suicide, and suicide is confession. EXERCISE LXIII. ORATORY. — THE LEGISLATURE. Svbjects : Plea for International Copyright. Needed Postal Legislation. Restriction of Foreign Immigration. Shall the State License Lot- Distribution of Public Lands. teries? Spoken discourse ranges from the plainest talk to the most elaborate address. At the one extreme will ho, found the easy, familiar, colloquial style of conversa- tion ; at the other the lofty diction that accompanies formal, dignified oratory. But there are certain char- acteristics that run through all varieties and grades and serve to distinguish tliem from written discourse. From a mere grammatical and rhetorical standpoint greater looseness of structure is admissible and greater license generally. Occasionally constructions which would not pass in writing may be ventured upon here l)ecause the intonation of the voice and the whole man- ner of the speaker can redeem them from any possilile charge of obscurity, weakness, or inelegance. Just as our everyday conversation is full of broken and unfin- ished sentences, so we may expect to find them in a speech w^here the speaker is supposed to adopt the sug- gestions of the occasion and to follow the impulses of his own emotions. Short sentences are to be chosen 196 PEESUASIOX. rather than long, and all lono- ones should be simple and straiu'htforward in (■(•nstnictioii. This is for clear- ness' sake, for a s])c;ikfr can lake no chances on that score. A reader can l;ii hack and read a sentence a sec- ond ur third time if lie docs not understand it the first, but an auditor must understand it at once or not at all. For the same reason frequent repetition, which is ol> jectionable in a book, is tolerable and even desirable in a speech. By this is meant a repetition of thought in a new form, though at times the repetition may extend to the words themselves and still be effective. And above all this we shall expect in spoken discourse a greater warmth of utterance, a freer display of emotion, and a fuller infusion of the speaker's personality. In the last exercise we dealt with oratory as an in- strument for protecting society by persuading men to fulfill the intent of the law. In the present exercise we deal with oratory of a broader scope ^ — -that which has for its aim the persuading of a recognized body of legislators to make, amend, modify, or repeal tlic laws by which civil institutions must stand or fall. This means in our country the oratory of the Senate and House of Representatives, of the State Assemblies and Legislatures, and various local Councils and Boards. There are numberless questions continually pressing upon the states and the nation that will afford a rich v^ariety of material for orations. Nearly every city, village, and school-district, too, has under deliberation questions that are just as vital to its prosperity as these larger, national ones — questions of sewerage systems, railway franchises, street-paving contracts, improvement of highways, etc., etc. Or, if you are drawing up a OKATOHY. 197 constitution for a debating society, or believe that the rules of any organization with which you are connected need modification or amendment, write a speech urging the measures you would like to have adopted. The language in all of these cases will be largely argu- mentative, of course, and the appeal will be to both personal and social duty. The following sentence from an editorial in the Christian Union will suggest one way of handling the third subject in the list given above : A clever Frenchnuui once said that the old aristocrats distributed jiublic wealth upon the principle, " To each according to his breed "; the plutocrats on the principle, '' To each according to his greed "; the communists on the principle, " To each according to liis need "; the socialists on tlie })rinciple, •' To each according to his deed." In Oklahoma the jarinciple is, " To each according to his speed," and it is certainly the most irrational of all. The following outline of the second subject is offered as a model : FOREIGN IMMIGKATION TO THE UNITED STATES SHOULD BE CHECKED. I. Introduction. (I. AVhen immigration is bcnelicial. //. >Mien should it be checked in the United States? II. Immigrants in general. a. Past conditions under which tliey began life in our country. h. Present conditions under which they begin life here. c. Their disappointment and its effect. III. Paupers. (I. Tlu'ir character and condition. h. TJieir effect upon our laboring class. c. Concrete examples from Pennsylvania, Ohio, New England, and Michigan. 108 PERSUASIOX. IV. Aiiarc-liists. a. Their ideas of government and religion. /'. Their power. r. Tlieir ignorance, and stand regarding education. (!. 'J'ht'ir moral condition. c. Wliy especially dangerous in the United States. V. Chinese. a. Ditfer Iroui Aiiiericaus in race, religion, and civiliza- tion. h. 0])j<'c't: in coniiug to America. c. Results : 1. They carry away our gold. 2. Lower standards of life. o. Hinder tlie development of the country. 4. Help monopolies. 5. Corrupt the youth. VI. Immigrants in general. a. Their great numbers. //. Tendency to colonize. r. Impossibility of Americanizing such vast numbers. d. Influence of clergy over certain classes. e. Their opposition to public schools. /. Their alarmingly bad moral influence in our cities. VII. Conclusion. a. Immigration should be checked in the United States because the conditions for such a coui'se are now realized. h. Self-preservation the first law of nature. c. How to protect our nation and secure its permanency. The following paragraphs are from a speech before the House of Rej)resentatives by the Hon. R. H. Hitt, on the bill to amend certain sections of the Revised Statutes relating to lotteries : IMr. Speaker : The lottery is the most pernicious and wide- spread form of gambling vice, because it uses for its instrument the Post-Office Department ; that is, the Government. The ORATOEY. 199 ordinary gambling-hell is confined to one house and its fre- quenters. A lottery spreads through the whole nation; it reaches everywhere, and it does it by the aid of the Government. It was not for this that we built up oiu" magnificent postal system, which is supported at such vast expense annually. Yet that postal system is the instrument to-day and might almost be called the partner or accessory of this great swindling scheme. . . . Without the aid of the Government through the Post-OfRce Department, the whole business would be cut down to a mere local gambling establishment answerable to the police powers of the local government. That is what I trust this bill will do. It broadens the present law so that a lottery letter can be followed after it is mailed at !N'ew Orleans or Washington, which are the centers of the lottery business, and the offenders punished W'herever the letter goes, — not alone in Louisiana, where juries can be readily affected by the tremendous power of the lottery company. It will close the mails to newspapers advertising lotteries, which will be a long step toward destroying their means of reaching and deluding the victim Ijy alluring advertisements and promises which appeal to the cupidity of the ignorant and unthinking who hasten to be rich without labor. Nor does it in the least interfere with the inviolability of the seal upon letters, which will be as sacred hereafter as they have been and always should be. It authorizes the Postmaster-General, upon satisfactory evidence, which will soon be obtained by the agents of the Department, in regard to the character of lottery letters, to stop their transmission tlu-ough the mails and institute proceedings to punish those sending. We know that the Postmaster-General will faithfully and zealously perform his part if we do ours and pass this bill. Let us do it, and do it now. EXERCISE LXIV. ORATORY. — THE PULPIT. Subjects : It is More Blessed to Give than Clu-istian Conduct. to Receive. Man shall Not Live by Bread Till' Diitv of Self-Abnegation. Alone;. 200 PEKSUASION. The orator's success depends in no small degree upon his skill ill adapting his style to his audience. A stump speaker in the backwoods will naturally adopt a very different tone from that of a legislator on the floor of Congress, even though he may be speaking on the same subject. An ignorant demagogue will hardly succeed in moving a cultivated audience, while, on the other hand, an address that is " over the heads " of the hearers is equally futile. Either extreme is to be avoided — that of descending below or of rising too far above the intellectual level of those addressed. It may be occa- sionally that an orator's end is best subserved by assuming to place his auditors on a higher plane, thus flattering their self-esteem. But if they are allowed to suspect that this is done purposely they will naturally feel insulted and withhold their sympathy. Again, it may' seem best to endeavor to strike their own level, to talk to them just as they might be expected to talk themselves. The danger here is that they may realize they are being " talked down to " and feel that their intelligence is being underrated. Tlie story is told of Patrick Henry that in certain of his speeches in Virginia he went so far as to imitate the very dialect of the backwoodsmen. But the effect was not what he calcu- lated upon. His hearers knew that this was only an imitation and therefore an artifice. They would have listened more respectfully and more willingly had he kept to his natural style. Taking all these things into consideration it would seem that in general the best tone to adoj)t is one some- what above the level of the audience, provided, of course, that this is natural to the speaker and not beyond ORATOKY. 201 his own powers. An audience naturally assumes that a speaker lias more knowledge or power than they of the kind he purposes to exhil)it or they would not come to hear him. And even if he does go beyond their in- telligence now and then they will hardl}^ resent it, for it is rather gratifying than otherwise to the average man to have it assumed that he knoA^'s somewhat more than he actually dues. Only, the speaker must guard against excursions and flights in which his audience will Avholly fail to follow him. Tlie intricacies of politics and the- ology, the technicalities of science, and the abstractions of philosophy, would clearly be out of place before a mixed assemblao-e. This maybe said further : In general, the higher the intelligence of the auditors the more averse will they be to rant aiul bombast, the more quickly will they re- sent any attem})t to influence tlieir judgment l)y emo- tional appeals, the more A\'ill they care for simple. facts and disj^assionate reason. Not that they are necessarily less emotional, or take less pleasure in giving play to their emotional natures, only they realize that action should be governed by wisdom and judgment rather than by mere impulse. If they wish to satisfy the cravings of this emotional nature they know they have other resources, the drama, for instance, and poetry, Avhere there is little or no ])ersuasion to positive and immediate action. Pul[)it oratory is i)eculiarly apt to be of the emotional type. If religion is a matter of sentiment, of the feel- ings purely, there certainly can be; no objection to this. But people are beginning to demand a reason for every- thing they do, aiid to suspect any religious movement. 202 PERSUASION. as they would suspect any political movement, whieh does not invite full intellectual investigation ; and so simple exhortation in the pulpit is more and more giving place to exposition and argument. A good example of the first kind of preaching may be found in the second chapter of George Eliot's Adam Bede. The following example of pulpit oratory is taken from the opening and close of a sermon by the Rev. Dr. Talmage : . . . There are ten thousand ways of telling a lie. A man's entire! life may be a falsehood, wlule with his lips he may not once directly falsify. There are those who state what is positively un- true, but afterward say " may be " softly. These departures from the truth are called white lies, but there is really no such thing as a white lie. The whitest lie that was ever told was as black as perdition. There are men high in church and state, actually use- ful, self-denying, and honest in many things, who, upon certain sidjjeets and in cei-tain spheres, are not at all to be depended upon for veracity. Indeed, there are multitudes of men who have their notion of truthfulness so thoroughly perverted that they do not know when they are lying. With many it is a cultivated sin ; with some it seems a natural infirmity. I have known people who seemed to have been born liars. The falsehoods of their lives ex- tended from cradle to grave. Prevarication, misrei:)resentation, and dishonesty of speech, appeared in their first utterances and were as natural to them as anj- of their infantile diseases, and were a sort of moral croup or spiritual scarlatina. But many have been placed in circumstances where this tendency has day by day and hour by hour been called to larger development. They have gone from attainment to attainment, ami fi-om class to class, until they have become regularly graduated liars. The air of the city is filled with falsehoods. They hang pendent from the chandeliers of our finest residences. They crowed the shelves of some of our merchant princes. They fill the sidewalk from curb-stone to brown-stone facing. They cluster ORATORY. 20 round the mechanic's hanniier, and Idossom from tlie end of the merchant's yardstick, and sit in the doors of churches. Some call them " fictiun." Some style them "fabrications." You might say that they were subterfuge, disguise, illusion, romance, evasion, pretence, fable, deception, misrepresentation ; but, as I am igno- rant of anything to be gained by the hiding of a God-defying out- rage under a lexicographer's blanket, I shall chiefly call them in plainest vernacular — lies. . . . Let us all strive to be Avluit we appear to be, and banish front our lives everything that looks like deception, remembering that God will yet reveal to the universe what we really are. To many, alas, this life is a masquerade l)all. As at such entertainments gentlemen and ladies appear in the dress of kings and queens, mountain bandits or clowns, and at the close of the dance throw oft" their disguises, so many all through life move in mask. Across the floor they trip merrily. The lights sparkle along the wall or drop from the ceiling, a very cohort of fire. The feet bound, gemmed hands stretched out clasp gemmed hands, dancing feet respond to dancing feet, gleaming brow bends low to gleaming brow. On with the dance ! Flash and rustle and laughter and immeasurable merrynraking ! But the languor of death comes over the limbs and blurs the sight. Lights lower ; floors hollow with selpulchral echo ; music saddens into a wail. Lights lower ; the maskers can hardly now be seen ; flowers exchange their fragrance for a sickening odor, such as comes from garlands that have lain in vaults of cemeteries. Lights lower; luists fill the room; glasses rattle as though shaken by sullen tluinder ; siglis seem caught among the curtains ; scarf falls from the shoulder of beauty — a shroud. Lights lower ; over the slippery boards in dance of death glide jealousies, dis- appointments, lust, despair ; torn leaves and withered garlands only half hide the ulcered feet ; the stench of the smoking lamp- wicks almost quenched, choking damps, chilliness, feet still, hands folded, eyes shut, voices hushed. Lights out ! 204 PERSUASION. EXERCTRI-: l.XV. ORA'J'ORY. — THE TLATFORM. Slihjf'rfs : The Greatest Need of tlie Age. " Sweetness and Light." The Passion Phiy at Obci-aniiiiergau. Tlie Stability of Aiuprican Stones of the Stars. Institutions. The Faculty of Appreciation. The Coming Race. The Puritans. On the public lecture platform oratory finds perhaps its broadest scope. Here subjects are drawn from every possible field, appeals are made to every conceivable motive, and the style i-anges from the humorous to the pathetic and the sublime. Here then the orator has full play of his powers and may be expected to use every resource at his command. The object of a public lecture is not in general to arouse people to any particular or hasty action ; oftener this would seem to be very far from its purpose. And no doubt the people are inclined to look upon it solely as a means for their instruction or entertainment. But it is more than that. The lecture platform is a means for bringing the great leaders of the world's thought and action into closer touch with the masses whom they lead. ""J'he true public orator realizes this. lie knows tliat Avhile he may instruct and amuse he does it to better purpose than that. He knows that his responsi- bility is great because his opportunity is great and his influence incalculal)le. He knows that the fitly and •fervently spoken word shall fall as a seed into the ORATORY, 205 hearts of his hearers to germinate in due season and blossom into lovely or unlovely characters and bear fruit in deeds that shall be a curse or a blessing to all humanity. With this realization full upon him he may well feel that there is no dignity or sincerity or wisdom or strength that he should not strive to attain. PART III. Miscellaneous Forms. Introductory : Scope and Complete Method of Composition. In the foregoing Parts, following the commonly accepted division of the subject of Composition, we have made a survey of the whole field, so far as seemed practicable. It has frequently been seen how the several divisions overlap and intermingle, making any- thing like a sharply defined and therefore exhaustive division impossible. It will be seen further that prom- inence of any element or attribute not made the basis of our division — peculiar qualities of style, specific practical or literary purposes, etc., — gives rise to forms not sufficiently provided for in our method. They could be fitted into our scheme of classification doubt- less, but the process would involve embarrassing distor- tion. All the old principles must hold good, too, but there will have to be modifications and adaptations to accord with the peculiar form or specific purpose. Because of this a few exercises are added here deal- ing with the more prominent forms of composition that thus arise. The list cannot be complete, and may not be very helpful, Ijut it will at least serve to show how varied and interesting, practice in writing can be made. Special subjects are not given, Imt the student will readily find oi' make them. A character self-developed and self-portrayed by speech or action ; a dialect sketch, Yankee, Hoosier, Creole, Negro, Chinese ; a critical review of a favorite book, of the last lecture, opera, play ; a fashion note, a bit of gossip ; a story from 210 MISCELLANEOUS FORMS. country, village, or city life; a romance, a ghost story; a reminiscence, a di'eain, a meditation; — the variety of themes is endless. One thing will bear emphasis here. It has already been dwelt upon in Exercises IV. and XXVIII.- XXX. It is the art of selection. It rests simply upon the fact that nothing is equally important at all times, nor all things at the same time. True gener- ally, this is particularly true in letters. The mere fact that a thing exists is not sufficient excuse for thrust- ing it upon our attention. We hold some things of more account than others and cannot afford to spend time over those that neither harm nor help nor interest us. And truth itself may often do none of these. Besides Ave have a higher conception of the province of art than the mere reproduction of things as they are without even a change of combination. Actual facts, truth — science is concerned with that. But there is another kind of truth, with which art is concerned — truth to what might be, ought to be, ought not to be. Fidelity, not only to what is, but to what is proI)able or j)ossible — grant this to be within the scope of art and you have a conception worthy of a creative mind. The art of selection therefore means much. It looks for- ward to combination, construction — such creation as we are capable of. It means that this feature must be taken intact, that feature must be modified, the other must be rejected. It means that each part must be good and appropriate and that all })arts must fit to- gether so that the whole shall be good. For practical suggestions relative to this process the student is referred to the Exercises cited above. More can be NEWS. 211 learned in the attempt to apply the principles and in' the study of successful work. And the mere keeping in mind the necessity of cultivating this art of selection and rejection will help toward its better attainment. If now we take Mr. Ruskin's canon — '•'■ Remember always, you have two characters in which all greatness of art consists : — First, the earnest and intense seizing of natural facts ; then the ordering those facts by strength of human intellect, so as to make them, for all who look upon them, to the utmost serviceable, memor- able, and beautiful" — if we take this and consider it as applicable to the art of composition, it will be seen that we have supplemented it ^\•ith two other '■' charac- ters " possibly comprehended by J\Ir. Ruskin in the above — selection and expression. After the "seizing of natural facts," which was the burden of the first part of our work, comes the discrimination among them and selection, spoken of there and repeated with emphasis here. Then follows the ordering of those facts — arrangement — - so eloquently insisted upon by Mr. Rus- kin. Lastly comes adequate expression, which together with arrangement has been specially discussed in the introduction to Part II. Such is the complete method of composition ; follow it in every endeavor, no matter how imperfectly, through tlie several stages, and the result cannot be whollv bad. EXERCISE LXVI. NEWS. Of the many departments of journalism, we shall consider two oi- three only, which especially demand the 212 MISCELLANEOUS FORMS. exercise of the pen. One of lliosc is the preparation of news for the daily and weekly press. NeAvs-gather- ing and reporting constitnte a profession in themselves and cannot be treated of at any length here. A h;w hints, however, cannot come amiss. For there is at least one kind of news-reporting common in tliis conntry which nuist ho undertaken by non-professionals. Tliis is the news-letter Avhich is sent at regular intervals to a city or county pajjcr by correspondents in adjacent towns or country districts too tliinly populated to sup- pfM't local papers of their own. Virtually the same principles hold good here as in the higher forms of joui-nalistic work ; and the lack of a knowledge of them is painfully evident in almost all the country news- papers in the land. In the first place, what is legitimate news ? All hap- penings, we say, of general interest and presumably not yet generally known, which it will do no harm, or at any rate, more good than harm, to communicate to the public. It is at once manifest that occurrences which are of interest only to those who are actual witnesses of them or participants in them, cannot properly be desig- nated news. On the other hand, when we say that they should be of general interest, we do not mean by that, universal interest. Such interest will attach to very few events, indeed. But the importance of the news will be measured by the degree and extent of the interest which it excites, and the news-gatherer, remem- bering this fact, and taking account of his public, will be able to discriminate accordingly. It should be con- sidered, too, that a piece of news may bear a very differ- ent importance, according as the j)ublic interest is NEWS. 213 absorbed or not by events of greater moment. Does any one want to know that a certain citizen of an Alpine town lias suddenly fallen ill, when the whole town is threatened by an avalanche ? In public crises, at times of local or national elections, celebrations, calamities, newspapers are fully warranted in rejecting items of news that at other times Avould be freely ad- mitted. Let everything of the nature of gossip l)e sedulously avoided. Do not descend to small talk, idle tales, vague rumors, innuendoes, matters that appeal to an unworthy curiosity rather than to a healthy interest. Let })urely 23rivate affairs remain private. It may be that people are no more prone to-day than they ever Avere to pry into their neigld)ors' secrets — it is extremely probable that they are eyen less so — but the increased facilities for the dissemination of news have undoubtedly con- tributed much to the violation of the sanctity of private life. It is safest and ])est to become no party to such violation. Remember, too, the incalculable power of the press for good as well as for evil. Search for that which is beneficial and ennoljling as studiously as you avoid that which is injurious and degrading. Seek to stimulate general interest in measures that are for the general good. You must deal with comparatively trivial mat- ters it may be, but none the less form a higher concep- tion of the office of newsmonger than the mere name implies. Parties and visits, accidents, crimes, sickness, births, marriages, and deaths, need not form the staple of news. The good or bad condition of the roads, the cleanliness of back dmnj'ards or the tidiness of front 214 MISCELLANEOUS FORMS. ones, the activity of trade, the organization of clubs, the progress of reforms, — in short, all matters affecting the health or prosperity of the community should not go unnoticed. Tt is surely as Avell woiih TC[)()rting that My. Brown has imported a fine painting or a rare book from London as that Mr. Green has dri\c'n all his hogs to market. Not that the latter may not be worth re- porting, only do not let it croAvd out the former. After due discrimination is made in regard to the nature of the items reported, there remains the (juestion of how much or how little is to be included in each item. Of course all the brevity and condensation pos- sible arc demanded here. But there must be complete- ness too. Consider what questions would naturally arise in your own mind on first hearing of the occur- rence to be reported. Has there been a fire ?" Then where was il ? When was it? How did it originate? How was it discovered? What measures Avere taken to extinguish it? What were the nature and extent of the damage ? Will it be repaired ? On whom falls the loss ? What is the amount of insurance ? Many a piece of news is unsatisfactory because it fails to answer these questions. And many a piece is unsatisfactory too because it makes unexplained allusions or takes for granted a knowledge of certain events which many readers cannot possibly have. The following item from a current newspaper seems to sin in this last regard : New York, November 10. H. Matelaud Jersey, the American representative of Lord Dunraven, received a cablegram to-day saying that Dunraveii's challenge for the America cup in 1893 is coming through the mails by the steamer Germanic, which is due here a week from to-morrf)\\'. NEWS. 215 Of course the news in a great daily newspaper must be in "many respects like the consecutive chapters of a serial story, and those who are not constant readers can- not expect to understand all that is printed. But it is nevertheless the duty of news-writers to make every sep- arate article as self-explanatory and intelligible as possible. News-letters and news '' specials " should of course be purely objective in character. They offer no occa- sion for the obtrusion of personal opinions ; there are other departments of a newspaper through Avhich these may find expression. Stick to facts : the temptation to depart from them is strongly felt and not always resisted by one who is constantly pandering to people's desire for the novel and curious. But the truth, more often than is suspected, is both new and strange. And the truth is ever best. Even the whole truth may not always be written and published either with safety to the writer or Avitli benefit to the public. That you know a man to be a coward does not make it incumbent upon you to proclaim him one from the housetops. Give facts, so many and such facts as are Avell to give, and give them without comment. Even praise for the public spirit of a citizen or for any virtuous act is more delicate and acceptable if left to be gathered from the straightforward account of deeds and not added explicitly and bluntly at the end of the account. Shun such old formulas as, " Our best wishes for success go with him," and, "We take pleasure in noting his com- mendable zeal." Lastly, give some heed to the composition, the style. News is necessarily the most hastily written of all matter intended for print. But clearness and simplic- 216 ]VUSCELLi\JS'EOUS FORMS. ity are the great essentials and tliese onglit to attend rapid writing more naturally than their opposites. There is no time to think so long that both thought and expression become involved, and there is no need to search for ornament. Vivacity of tone, whenever it can be imparted, will contribute much toward giving any article the character known as " newsy." News writing may not be the place for a display of person- ality, but some degree of it will be acceptable even here. For example, it would be a great relief to a long-suffering pul)lic to be able to read an account of a birth in which there is no mention of a "smiling" father, of a wedding in which the bride is not said to be "beautiful and accomplished," of a death without allusion to any who are "left to mourn the loss." A railroad wreck is not a " holocaust," nor a panic a " pandemonium." But it has long since been found almost useless to attempt to stem the tide of newspaper improprieties and barbarisms. No examples of articles of news need be given here, — they can be found in papers everywhere. For practice write out an account, as if for publication, of any recent occurrence with the particulars of which you are familiar. Or make up in the form of a news- letter from "A Correspondent " a budget of news items gathered from your immediate neighborhood. EXERCISE LXVII. EDITORIALS. News, we have said, should generally be written without comment. The editorial columns of a paper EDITORIALS. 217 supplement the newrf cohuiins l)y t'liriiishiiig this com- ment. No fact, however isolated in appearance, stands really alone in the economy of the universe. And so every event bears a more or less intimate relation to other events, and has an influence and a signiiicance that are not always immediately apparent. It is the editor's work to trace out this relation and to detect and explain this significance. Sometimes a moral may be pointed or a lesson needs to be drawn. One day comes the news that a man has Ijeen robbed of a large amount of money which he had hoarded in his house and the next day appears the following brief editorial : People who, in these days of banks and safe deposit companies, keep $85,000 in money in a bm-eau drawer deserve to be robbed. The New Jersey ship-owner who suffered from thieves will proba- bly never see his money again, l»ut it is to be honied that his misfortune will serve as a warning to others wlio hoard treasure. The old-time notion that money is safest in one's personal charge is exploded, and any one who secretes coin and so makes it useless for the purposes of trade deserves to have it stolen. Sometimes the comment takes a humorous or satirical turn and serves scarcely any other purpose than that of lending spice to the column, as in the following: The fellow from the State of Washington who devised the ingenious corset for can-ying sixty-eight valuable Swiss watches ought to have dressed before a mirror. Tlie fact that one con- cealed watch made a slight protuberance under his ov(!rcoat led to his undoing. It takes a very clever snniggler to run the gauntlet of the experts in New York who have had their detective abilities sharpened by moiitlis (jf ijaily oliservation. But it is in dealing with the great questions of the day, social, political, or religious, numicipal, national, 218 MISCELLANEOUS FOllMS. or international, that the editor's ability and resonrces are taxed to the utmost, lie must keep al)reast of all the news in order that he may grasp at onee the signif- icance of any ])articular item of it; he must watch every cloud on the social or ])olitical horizon and calcu- late the electric force wliich charges it ; he must be a student of medicine, law, theology, history, philoso- phy, literature, for he is a teacher of all of these in turn. Versatility of knowledge and talents is still in demand in the editor's chair, though the modern tendency toward specialization and division of labor is not unfelt even here. But how does one acquire this versatility ? So far as it is an acquisition, by cultivating active habits of both bod}' and mind ; by seeking wide acquaintance with men of the world, "men of affairs"; by studying, in the spirit of the historian, the life of the times. Of course even with the widest experience the editor is not omniscient. But he knows how to avail himself of resources not guessed at by many who accept his word for infallible doctrine. Is a measure proposed in Congress which is deemed unconstitutional? He goes at once to the constitution and the expositions of it. Does a war l)reak out unexpectedly in one of the unimportant South American republics? He turns to histories, atlases, cyclopedias, and political almanacs, and in several hours writes a column explaining the whole situation. He studies and writes for the thousantls who have no time to study for themselves, and thus his position becomes one of almost incalculable power and influence. The difficulty of the editor's task will be apparent at once to the inexperienced student who tries to perform EDITORIALS. 219 it. But several hints upon method liave ah-eady been given. The news of a current newspaper should be carefully studied and some item selected which affords plenty of matter for comment. If the news is inti- mately related to past events, the history and literature of the subject should be stutUed thoroughly. The Statesman's Year-Book, HazelFs Annual, Political Alma- nacs, Congressional records, census and financial reports, etc., will often be found valuable where ordinary books of reference fail because not late enough in date. A complete file of a good newspaper is likewise almost indispensable. Then, when the material is gathered, let the comment which is intended to take the form of an editorial be condensed, vigorous, and pointed. Following are a few titles of editorials appearing at the time of this writing : Undeveloped Wealth, The Farmer and the Consumer, Taxing Luxuries, English Agriculture, Making Plush in America, New York in Gala Dress, Cleveland's Prospects, Crespo in Caracas, An Educational Campaign, Edwin Booth, Keeping the Streets Clean, The Progress of Aluminum. Consult any of the great newspapers that are published in our larger cities for examples of editorials of this class. Subjoined is one from the New York Evening Post, which may be entitled INTELLIGENCE OF OUR IMMIGRANTS. Free evening scliools were established in New Haven about tliii-ty years ago, and have been maintained ever since, but for several winters jiast the attendance upon those conducted for English-speaking imjiils has been steadily diminishing. It might be supposed that this indicated less desire to overcome the defects of early education among the immigrants, who have always com- 220 MISCELLANEOUS FORMS. prised the lar<^er part of the pupils, than was the case in the ;sixties; but the Palladium, which appears to have investigated the nuitter, says that the truth is tliat tliere is nuich less occasion for such schools now tlian tlicic was a score of years ago. It says tliat young Irisli innnigrants now arc usually able to read witli ease and to write i'airlv well, and have a fair knowledge of the rudiments of arithmetic, and it seems doubtful whether it will long be necessary to maintain free evening schools for English- speaking pupils. Tliere has been a good attendance the past winter at the evening schools maintained lor Italians, Scandina- vians, and Russian Jews, biit the principal object of the pupils has been to learn the English language. Our Swedish and Norwegian immigrants are usually well educated when they arrive here, and the Palladium says that, so far as New Haven's experience goes, " the Italians are fau-ly well educated, and the Russians and Poles, while giving evidence of having had few or almost no advantages in this direction, show a brightness and industry which make their progress rapid." This is a very encouraging report, and deserves attention at a time when there is so much anxiety about the ignorance of our immigrants. EXERCISE LXVIII. BOOK REVIEWS. Criticism in general, as one form of exposition, is discussed in Exercise XLV. Book reviewing is only a department of criticism, and in scope a rather narrow one too, but an age of many books has made it so com- mon that it seems worth while to give it sjDCcial notice. The object of a book review is found in the desire of readers who cannot haunt the book stalls to know not only what new books are published but also Avhat are their character and comparative worth. And whatever may be the value of the judgment thus, often hastily. BOOK REVIEWS. 221 made, there can be little doubt that it has much influence in determining the immediate, though not the final, demand for the book. The reviewer's position is therefore one of some responsibility, too seldom felt and too often lightly assumed. One way of reviewing a book is merely to give an abstract of its contents — of an elaborate scientific treatise, for example, to give the divisions and general- izations, of an argumentative work the positions at- tacked and those defended, of a novel an outline of the plot. This method has much to recommend it. It gives the reader a better idea of the nature of the book than the mere title can afford, while it does not thrust upon liim personal opinions nor mislead him by what may possibly be an entirely wrong estimate: it is not likely either to prejudice the puljlic or to injure the author. But perhaps the public wants to know more. How does the book compare with other works by the same author? How does it compare with books by other authors in the same field? Does it contribute anything new or valuable to learning or literature ? Does it show that the author was competent to undertake his task? Is it well written? In short, what are its merits and defects? To answer these questions requires considerable critical acumen coupled with a wide knowledge of men, books, and subjects. As the questions indicate, the method to be followed is largely that of comparison. We cannot properly estimate Carlyle's work apart from Richter's, nor Emerson's apart from Carlyle's. A new text-book on chemistry must be judged according as it represents the latest stages in the development of the 222 MISCELLANEOUS FORMS. science, and is wvW adapted or not to the present methods of teaching it. Few reviewers however are able to deal in this way with all the hooks that come into their hands. The result is that the critical method of book reviewing is often looked upon with disfavor. Certain magazines have tried to find a way out of the difficulty by having every important book reviewed by a specialist in the department to which it belongs. The chief objection to this is that those most comj^etent to judge of the subject-matter of a book do not always possess other important qualifications of a literary critic. There is another question that a book review may very properly answer: What have the publishers done for the book? Where and by whom is it published? What are its size, style, and price ? Is it well printed, tastefully bound? These indeed become the important questions in all cases of reprints, art books, souv6nir books, editions de luxe, etc. Some familiarity with the printer's, engraver's, and bookbinder's arts is necessary in order to answer these questions well. And a little study of these arts, even from an outside point of view, will ami)ly repay any student in the increased pleasure he will find in well selected type, restful pro- portions, clean press work, and appropriate bindings. Let us take now, almost at random, a few examples of reviews. Here is a very brief notice of the latest number of a j)eriodical : Short Stories appears as a special Christmas number, ■with manjT pretty half-tone cuts and clever outline drawings by well-known artists. The tales are of exceptional interest, and among the authors are Frank Stockton, John Strange Winter, Alphonse Daudet, Henry Harland, and F. Anstey. BOOK REVIEWS. 223 A compilation, issued apparently in the interesrts both of religion and of art, is described thus : A dainty little book is " Selections from Isaac Pennington." The selections are extracts from letters of Pennington, who was a leader among the English Quakers. He was imprisoned five times because of his faith, but he bore all his sufferings with rare fortitude. Ilis eldest daughter married William Penn, and the compiler of this book has added Penn's tribute to his friend. The little volume is full of wise counsel and true religion. It is bound in vellum cloth with gilt edges and is put up in a box. [Boston : Roberts Brothers. Price, 75 cents.] A new edition of an old book requires different treatment : Few books lend themselves more gracefully to illustration than Longfellow's " Hyperion," which is brought out in fine dress with a large numlier of half-tone reproductions of photographs of the scenery of the Rhine and of Switzerland. This early prose romance, in wliich the poet embalmed his own love, has always been a favorite, for it breaths pure sentiment and it embodies the reverence of a student of German literature for the masters that he loved. The illustrations have been well selected, and many of them are from photographs which are not co)iimon. One of the most effective is the picture of the old watch tower at Andernach. The l»ook is Ijound in novel fashion and is put up in a pretty box. [Philadelphia : Porter & Coates. Price, |;3..50.] As an example of the more serious work that may l)e done in this line by those who are at once scholars and critics, take the following by Mr. Brander Matthews in the September, 1892, numlier of The Cosmopolitan : I\Ir. Bierce in Tales of Soldiers and Civilians has chosen to abjure love altogether and to deal wholly witli the other emotions — chiefly, indeed, with one of tliem, with the emotion of fear. Almost every one of the scant score of these tales is a study in the psychology of terror — the terror of men for the 224 MISCELLANEOUS FORMS. most part brave, luit lici-c taken at a disadvantaqo and ro(lnr(»d to abject, craven, crawling, animal fear. The book abounds in ghostly and ghoulish adventures ; it has a graveyard flavor to delight a resurrection man ; and at last the reader revolts against the unredeemed monotony of insistent horror. There is only a tint of humor now and then, grim always and growsomo. But the power of these tales is indisputable ; their brute-force is beyond question. Mr. Bierce has an astonishing faculty for the selection of the dr; Ixtki.- LECTUAL, 39. Convei-sation. See Dialogues. Cooper, J. r., 100. ClUTIClSM, V'i2. Criticism, 80; of Avi-ittcn work, 33. Cruifie, .1, 20. Darwin. 1 1:'., 1 17. Davis, Kichard II.. 24.-5. Debate, 150, 1()2, 100. Deductive Keasoni.ng, 140, 154. Definition, logical, 130. De Foe, Daniel, 41. Denotation, 131. De Quincey, Thos., 128, 232. Description, defined, 33, 34, 47, 54, 118 ; scientific, 51 ; literary, 51, 81 ; methodical, 61-03, 36, 87. Desckiption, of Persons, 80 ; Imaginative, 94. Dialect, 200, 235. Dialogues, 232. Diamond, 67. Diaries, 229. See also 103. Dickens, Chas., 84, 107. Diffuseness, 40, 116. Direct Address, 175, 189, 100. Division, logical, 130-132. Dowden, Prof., 134. Dude's Disco-mfiture, A, 19, 22. Editorials, 216. Eliot, George, 85, 202, 244. Eloquence, 190-192. Knijilia.si.s, 1 11, 115. E.s.say, the modern, 120. Essays of Elia, 123. Kupliony, 114. lOvioKNci:, 157. Excursions, 101. Expansion, 40. Exposition dcfiiici], 110 121. E.xtciiiporaneous .speaking, 189. Fallacies of reasoning, 155, 150. Fiction, 241. Fignres of .six.'cch, 35, 82, 191. FitzGerakl, Edward, 220. Fl.oWKHS. 03. Force, 54, 112, 110. Foreign hnmifjndion, 197. Formal Essays, 126. Foiiquf'', 38. Franklin, Benj., 42, 113. F'ruits, 61. Games of Skill, 33. Geological Formation.^-, 58. Gough, J. B., 42. Grant, JohnB., 69. Grimm Brothers, 95. Harris, Joel C, 235. Harte, Bret, 23, 105, 235, 243. Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 43, 44, 48, 52, 95. Hermit in the Willows, The, 90. History, 45. Ilitt, Hon. R. K., 198. Holmes, Dr. O. W., 235, 240. Howells, W. D., 105. ILoio the Wasp Makes Tier Nest, 73. Hughes, Thos., 38. Hugo, Victor, 87, 105. INDEX. 247 Humboldt, xVlex. von, 102. Hii.'NioR, 2;]G. Hyperbole, 230. Idealism, 52, 93, 210, 241. Illusions of sense, 158. Imitation, 78. Immigrants, Intell'ujence of Our, 219. Incident, 15; Simple, 17; Coi.- oKEO, 19; Emisellished, 21; Complex, 29, 31. Indian Bread Making, 55. Induction defined, 145-147. IxDrcTivE Reasoning, 143, 145. Informal Essays, 122. Ingelow, Jean, 85. Interest, 5. Irving, Washington, 41, 98, 113, 230, 240. Jnrk\s Ignominy, 27. Jefferson, Joseph, 42. Jeffrey, Francis, 134. Journalism, 211. Journals. See Diaries. Judas Tree, The, C>1. Kane, Elisha 'Kent, 102. Kennan, Geo., 102. Kipling, Rudyard, 98, 105. Land), C'has., 123, 2.36. Landor, W. S., 234. Leaf from My Diary, A, 103. Legislature, The, 195. Letters, 224. LiUipuUan Engineers, 73. Lippard, Geo., 107. Literary finish, 33, 40. Literature, 20 ; creative, 241, 244. Little Paupers, 129. Livingstone, David, 102. Longfellow, II. W., 103. Lotteries, 198. Lowell, J. R., 134. Macaulay, Lord, 128. MacDonald, Geo., 95, 235. Manufacture, Processes of, 53. Margins, 112. Material, how to find, 5-14, 50, 59, 209, 218, 219. Mathews, Win., 152. Matthews, Brander, 141, 223. Maxims, 4. Mechanical Contrivances, 49. Memoirs, 44. Miller, Joaquin, 85. Miller, Olive Thorne, 09. Mineral Kingdom, The, 50. Minto, Win., 152. Moli^re, 236. Montaigne, 123. Mt. Kenesaw, 70. Must the Classics Go ? 165. Narration, 15, 54 ; combined with description, 97 ; order of, 99. Natural Objects, 50) ; in Con- junction WITH Artificial, 77. Naturalness, 200, 22(i, 230. Nature, at Rest, 75 ; in Ac- tivity, 81. News, 211. New York Evening Past, 219. Nichol, I'rof., 239. Novels, 241. Novelty, 3, 7, 11-14, 35, 72, 102. "Nye, Bill," 237. 248 INDEX. Ubservatioii, 13, 57, 50, (il, (Jit, 105, 144. Occasional discourse, 185. On Translat'nu/ Ilonur, \:U. OUATOKV, ]K\. O'Rell, Max, 124. Originality, 35. Ornamental composition, li), 21, Outlines, 115, 127-120. Paragraphs, 112-115. Participles, 32. Peabody, Selini II., 71, 73. Pepys, Samuel, 230. Perrault, 05. Peksonal Adventurics, 08. Personal equation, 104. Personal Interest, Persuasion RY Appeal to, 173. Personal tone, 123. Persuasive Discourse, 171. Phelps, Eliz. S., 05. Photography, 20, 51. Physiology, A Plea for more Gen- eral Instruction in, 175. Plan. See Outlines. Plants, 05, 08. Platform, The, 204. Plato, 234. Plutarch, 44. Poetry, 244. Point of view, 70, 86. Popular taste, 35. Porter, Jane, 100. Probability, 100-100. Prolixity, 40, 110. Prophecy, 100. Proportion, 87. See also Sym- metry. Propositions, 110. Provincialisms, 113. Pulpit, The, 100. Punctuation, 112, 220. Questions, of fact, 150; of opin- ion, 162 ; of probability, 106 ; form of, 101. Kant, 101, 201. Religious Duty, Persuasion by Appeal to, 170. Repetition, 117, 100. Riley, J. W., 235. Rivals, The, 242. liousseau, J. J., 232. Ruskin, John, 1.34, 211. Scenes from History, 105. Scenes from Lu-k, 104. School Like, Incident from, 25. Schreiner, Olive, 70. Science, study of, 181. Scientific Treatises, 120. Scott, Walter, 38, 100, 105, 235. Selection, the art of, 21-23, 210, 242. Sentences, kinds, structure, and arrangement of, 114. Sewell, Anna, 43. Shakespeare, 105. Simplicity, 113, 215. Slang, 35, 113. Social Duty, Persuasion by Appeal to, 178. Social Gatherings, 07. Spencer, Herbert, 175, 181, 184. Spoken discourse, 180, 195. Stanley, Henry M., 102. Stevenson, R. L., 30. Stockton, F. R., 243. INDEX. 24 0(0 Story, The Siiokt, 240. Stump, The, 188. Style, liow to attain the best, 112 ; adaptation of, 200 ; inflated, 38 ; imaginative, 43, 03 ; dra- matic, 104 ; rambling, 123 ; colloquial, 123. Subjects, .suitable, 5, 209 ; to be avoided, 3—5, 10 ; abstract, 3 ; proverbial, 4 ; figurative, 4 ; indefinite, u. Syllogism, 150-152, 154-150. Symmetry, 30, Gl, 05, 75, 76. Symonds, J. A., 100. Synnot, Henrietta L. , 120. Talmage, T. D., 202. Taste, 00, 110. Tautology, 40. Taylor, Bayard, 103. Technical terms, 35, 50, 56, 62, 63. Terms, 119-121. Testimony, 158. Thompson, Maurice, 38, 69. Thread of narration, 30. Thwiug, C'has. F., 128. Title, appropriate, 16, 27 ; attrac- tive, 10 ; value of, 20 ; inter- rogative forms of, 158. Toasts, 185. Tornado, The, 83. Trailing Arbutus, The, 64. Transition, 32. Travels, 101. Troy, 6. "Twain, Mark," 237, 240. Unity, 39, 41, 01, 115. Usage, 115. Vegetable Wored, The, 61. Verne, Jules, 95. Wallace, Lew, 36, 107. Walpole, Horace, 228. "Ward, Artemus," 240. West, Prof. Andrew F., 105. Wilkins, Mary F., 243. Winchell, Alexander, 59. Won in One Inning, 34. Words, choice of, 113. GENTINO'S Outlines of Rhetoric. (Announced as High School Rhetoric.) By Professor John F. Genung of Amherst College, author of " Practical Elements of Rhetoric." Introduction price, $1.00. It is Practical. — The author has taken his time in preparing it, in order that every part might be tested and seasoned. Besides the years that have been devoted to the making of this book, he has had the advantage of long practical experience in the class-room ; and the prepa- ration and use of earlier text-books have enabled him to judge what is best adapted to work well in this. The result is a book of which every rule can be put to immediate use in the pupil's work. It is Clear. — Great care has been devoted to giving the principles in such plain and simple language that the pupil will not fail to understand ; and such is its clearness that even beginners will find many of the deeper prin- ciples of expression, as well as the simpler, both lucid and interesting. It is Full, yet Brief. — Enough explanation is given under each rule to explain it fully in all the applications needed for use ; yet not an unnecessary sentence or word has been admitted. Text and illustrations alike are crisp, pointed, definite. It is a Book to be Remembered. — From beginning to end the principles of rhetoric are condensed into brief, well-worded rules, such as can be easily carried in memory, and every one of which contains a precept worth remem- bering. 'I'his, a unique feature of the present book, will enable tlic student to carry the whole science of rhetoric compendiously, in very small and \ery usable compass. It is a Book for Drill. r>e_i;innini; with sentences to be corrected, compositions to be rewritten, problems to be worked out, it goes on by degrees to work that is more originative, all needed directions l^eing given by means of notes and references, until by the time the student has gone through the book he has exemplified all the great processes of composition, from choice of words up to the planning and working out of complete essays of his own. It is adapted to Rouse Thought. In every part the endeavor is made to develop and foster that contriving, originative spirit which every young person has in doing what interests him, and which every writer must have in order to bring anything to pass. It is a practical Handbook for every Writer, — The rules are a body of precepts such as any one will do well to have at hand ; all the parts of the book are .so arranged as to be easily found and consulted ; and the appendix contains, arranged in alphabetical order, a large body of words and phrases that a writer ought to heed if he would conform his work to good usage. The Teacher's Key will give such full directions that instructors will know how best to teach every exercise and what is especially to be noted in each. The author's Practical Elements of Rhetoric has proved no doubt the most successful college text-book on the subject published in recent years. It has been both "taking" and "lasting." The Outlines is in no sense a condensation or adaptation of that, but an entirely new book prepared for a different field after a lung and careful study of its peculiar needs. GINN & COMPANY, Publishers, BOSTON, NEW YORK, AND CHICAGO. 6 HIGHER ENGLISH. [See also Classics for Children, jtayes ii to 5.\ Lessons in English. Adapted to the study of American Classics. A text^book for High Schools and Academies. By Sara E. H. Lockwood, formerly teacher of English in the High School, New Haven, Conn. 12mo. Cloth, xix + 403 pages. Mailing price, ^1.25; for introduction, $1.12. Thanatopsis and Other Favorite Poems of Bryant. Prepared especially to accompany Lockwood's Lessons in English. 12mo. Paper. 61 pages. Mailing price, 12 cents; for introd., 10 cents. T^HIS is, in a word, a practical High School text-book of English, embracing langtiage, composition, rhetoric, and literature. It presents in simple and attractive style, the essentials of good English ; and, at the same time, develops a critical literary taste, by applying these rules and principles to the study of American Classics. The plan provides for a course in English extending over the pupil's first year and a half in the High School, the work being preparatory to the study of English Literature as usually pursued in schools of this grade. These " Lessons " include the most im- portant facts concerning the History and Elements of the Lan- guage, Common Errors in the Use of English, the Study of AVords, Rules for the Construction of Sentences, Figures of Speech, Punc- tuation, Letter-Writing, Composition, and Biographical Sketches of the seven authors particularly studied, — Irving, Bryant, Long- fellow, Whittier, Hawthorne, Holmes, and Lowell. Katharine Lee Bates, Professor of English, Welleslij College, Mass. : While the treatment of the various subjects included is thorough, sound and clear, the art of the teacher is most happily displayed throughout. English stucfy guided by this volume can hardly fail to bo at once profit- able and delightful. F. A. Hill, Frill. English High School, (Jm abridge., Mass.: The book opens to me like a very sensil)lo, prat^tical and attractive book ; and I may say that the author has hit the nail pretty squarely on the head. James Winne, Prin. High School, Poughkeepsie, A', i'. ; The more I examine it and other books, the more I like it. As yet I have found no text that I like so well as Lock- wood's. C. G. Dunlap, Prof, of English, Kas. State University : I know of no text-book on elementary English so satisfactory to me as this. Any student who masters it is soundly prepared in elementary English. R. E. Blackwell, Prof, of English, Randolph- Ma con College, Virginia: I was so pleased with the book that I j)Ut it into my preparatory class. It lias stirred more interest in tlie study of English than any book 1 have ever used iu that class. UlCillEK ENGLISH. 7 The Practical Elements of Rhetoric. By .lonN F. (Jknuno, I'li.l)., I'roffssor of Klictoric in Aiiilicrst Collc^ic. l^'iiio. Cloth, xiv + 483 pages. Mailing price, .$1.40; lor intnxL, .'g;i. 25. 'pilE treatment is characterized by good sense, simplicity, origi- nality, availability, completeness and ample illustration. It is throughout constructive and the student is regarded at every step as endeavoring to make litei'alure. All of the literary forms have been given something of the fulness hitherto accorded only to argument and oratory. No important principle has been presented without illustrations drawn from the usage of the best authorities. Genuiig's Khetoric, though a work on a trite subject, has aroused general enthusiasm by its freshness and practical worth. Among the many leading institutions tliat have introduced it are Welles- ley, Smith, Vassar Colleges ; Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Vanderbilt, Northwestern Universities ; and the Universities of Virginia, North Carolina, Illinois, Minnesota, Kansas, Michigan. T. W. Hunt, Prof, of End. Litera- ture, Princeton College, Priiieetoii., N. J. : It impresses nie as a philo- sophic ami useful manual. I like especially its literary spirit. w. H. iVIagruder, Prof, of English, Agrieidtural and Mechanical College of Missi.ssipjti : For clearness of tlionglit, lucidity of expression, apt- ness of illustration, — in short, for real teaching power, — I have never seen this work equalled. C. F. Richardson, Prof, (f English,, Literal inr, /Jarl mouth College, and author of a History of American. Literature : 1 tind it excellent hotli in jilan ami execution. Miss M. A. Jordan, Prof, of Phet- oric, Smith College, JS^of-thampton., Mass. : The critic is conscious of a feeling of surprise as he misses the orthodox dulness. The analysis of topics is clear, the illustrations are pertinent and of value in themselves, the rules are concise and portahle. A Handbook of Rhetorical Analysis. Studies in Style and Invention, designed to accompany the author's Practical Elements of Rhetoric. By John F. Genung, Ph.D., Pro- fessor of Rhetoric in Amherst College. 12mo. Cloth, xii + ;'.0G pages. Mailing Price, $1.25; Introduction and Teachers' Price, HI. 12. n^IIIS handbook follows the general plan of the larger text-book, being designed to alternate with that from tiine to time, aa different stages of the subject are reached. J. H. Gilmore, Prof, of Rhetoric, Whittenherg College, Springfield, Unlversili/ of Rochester, N. Y. : This Ohio : Its actual use in class work strikes me as a very significant at^ has confirmed my former favorable tempt to open a road that college judgment of it. It is not surpassed students especially need to travel. or equalled by any other work in the C. L. Ehrenfeid, Frof. English, same liue. 8 HIGHER ENGLISH. M into' a Manual of English Prose Literature. Designed maiuly to show characteristics of style. By William Minto, M.A., Professor of Logic aud Euglish Literature iu the Uuiver&ity of Aberdeen, Scotland. 12mo. Cloth. 5(j(j pages. Mailing price, $1.65; for introduction, ;gl.50. rpiIE niaiu design is to assist iii directing students in English composition to the merits and defects of the principal writers of prose, enabling them, in some degree at least, to acquire the one and avoid the other. The Introduction analyzes style : elements of style, qualities of style, kinds of composition. Part First gives exhaustive analyses of De Quincey, Macaulay, and Carlyle. These serve as a key to all the other authors treated. Part Second takes up the prose authors in historical order, from the fourteenth cen- tury up to the early part of the nineteenth. Hiram Corson, Prof. English Lit- erature, Cornell University: With- out going outside of this book, an ear- nest student could get a knowledge of English prose styles, based on the soundest principles of criticism, such as he could not get in any twenty volumes which I know of. Katherine Lee Bates, Prof, of Enf/lish, Wellesleij College : It is of sterling value. John M. Ellis, Prof, of English Literature, Oberlin College: I am using it for reference with great in- terest. The criticisms and comments on authors are admirable — the best, on the whole, that I have met with in any text-book. J. Scott Clark, Prof, of Rhetoric, Syracuse Unii'ersity : We have now given Minto's Euglish Prose a good trial, and I am so much pleased that I want some more of the same. A. W. Long, Wo ford College, Spar- tanhurg, S.C: I have used Minto's English Poets and English Prose the past year, and am greatly pleased with the results. Minto's Characteristics of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Shirley. By William Minto, M.A., Professor of Logic and English Literature in the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. 12mo. Cloth.. xi + 382 pages. Mailing price, $1.05; for introduction, ^L!jO. rPIIE chief objects of the author are: (1) To bring into clear light the characteristics of the several poets ; and (2) to trace bow far each was influenced by his literary predecessors and his contemporaries. IlKJUEK ENGLISH. 9 Selections in English Prose from Elizabeth to Victoria. 1580-1880. By Jamks M. Gaknktt, Professor of tlio Eii.nlisli Laiif^naRo and Liter- ature in the University of Virjiiiiia. 12ino. ('lotii. ix + 701 pages. lly mail, ■Sl-<>''>; for introduction, $\.TA). ^piIE selections arc accompanied by sucli explanatory notes as liave been deemed necessary, and will average some twenty pages each. The object is to provide students with the texts themselves of the most prominent writers of English prose for the past three hundred years in selections of sufficient length to be characteristic of tlie author, and, when possil)le, they are com- plete works or sections of works. F. B. Gummere, Prof, of English, Ihtmrfonl Collcf/e : I like the plan, the selections, and the making of the hook. H. N. Ogden, West Virginia Uni- versity : The hook fulfils my expec- tations in every respect, and will become an indispensable help in the work of our senior English class. Sidney's Defense of Poesy. Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Albert S. Cook, Professor of English in Yale University. 12mo. Cloth, xlv + 103 pages. By mail, 90 cents ; for introduction, 80 cents. A S a classic text-book of literary aesthetics, Sidney's Defense has enduring interest and value. Something of the character of Sidney as a man, of the grandeur of his tneme, of the signifi- cance of poetry, of sound methods of profiting by poetry and of judging it, — ought to be disclosed by study of the book. In the notes everything is considered with reference to the learner, as far as possible ; and the point of view is not exclusively that of the grammarian, the antiquary, the rhetorician, or the ex- plorer of Elizabethan literature, but has been chosen to include something of all these, and more. William Minto, Prof, of Litera- ture, University of Aberdeen: It seems to me to be a very thorough and instructive piece of work. The interests of the student are consulted in every sentence of the Introduction and Notes, and the paper of ques- tions is admirable as a guide to the thorough study of the substance of the essay. Homer T. Fuller, Pres. Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, Mass. : I think every lover of the best specimens of good thought and good writing in our mother tongiie must confess his obligations to both editor and publishers of such a volume as this. First, for the breadth and accuracy of the notes; second, for the historical research and good critical judgment displayed in the introduction ; third, for the good taste and clearness of the type and print; and fourth, for the timeliness of the appearance of a volume which just at present calls attention to some of the essentials of poetry. 10 HIGHER ENGLISH. Shelley's Defense of Poetry. Edited, with lutroduction and Notes, by Albert S. Cook, Professor of English in Yale University. 12mo. Cloth, xxvi + 8(5 pages. Price by mail, GO cents ; for introduction, 50 cents. OIIELLEY'S Defense may be regarded as a conipanion-piece to that of Sidney. In their diction, however, the one is of the sixteenth century and the other of the nineteenth. For this reason a comparison of the two is of interest to the student of historical English style. But, apart from this, the intrinsic merits of Shelley's essay must ever recommend it to the lover of poetry and of beauti- ful English. The truth which lie perceives and expounds is one which peculiarly needs enforcement at the present day, and it is nowhere presented in a more concise or attractive form. John F. Genung, Prof, of Rhetoric, Ain/ierat (JuUeije: By his excellent editions of these three works, Profes- sor Cook is doing invaluable service for the study of poetry. The works themselves, written by men who were masters alike of poetry and prose, are standard as literature; and in the introductions and notes, which evince in every jjart the thorough and sympathetic scholar, as also in the beautiful form given to the books by printer and binder, the student has :11 the help to the reading of them that he can desire. Cardinal Newman's Essay on Poetry, With reference to Aristotle's Poetics. Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by Albert S. Cook, Professor of English in Yale University. 8vo. Limp cloth, x + 36 pages. Mailing price, 35 cents ; for introduc- tion, 30 cents. rnilE study of what is essential and what accidental in poetry is more and more engaging the attention of thoughtful men, particularly those occupied with educational work. Newman's Essay expresses the view of one who was a man of both action and theory. Besides this, the Essay is a notable example of the literary work of one who has been considered the greatest master of style in this generation. The illustrative apparatus provided by the editor includes practical hints on the study of Greek drama in Englisli, an index, an analysis, and a few suggestive notes. Hiram Corson, Prof, of Enf/Iish, C'orni'U Universiti/. In its editorial character it's an elegant piece of work. . . . The introduction is a midtum in parvo bit of writing ; and the notes show the recherrhd scholar- ship of the editor. IlKillEU ENGLISH. 1 I The Art of Poetry : The Poetical Treatises of Horace, Vida, and Boileau, with the trans- lations by Howes, Pitt, and Soame. Eilitc'd by Alhkkt S Cook, Professor of the Eiiylisli Lauguiij;o iind Literature in Yale University. Linio. Cloth. 214 pages. Mailing priee, ^l-'if); for introduction, $1.12. ''pilIS voluino i.s iiiteiulod to meet tlie wants of three classes of teachers and stndents, those of Latin, French, and Englisli or comparative literature. To the first class it will furnish the best Latin metrical criticisms, ancient and modern, on poetry ; to the second, a classic -which every highly educated Frenchman is sup posed to know hy heart ; and to the third, an authoritative state- ment, by poets themselves, of the canons recognized in the Augustan ages of Latin, Italian, and French literature, and, to a very considerable extent, in the so-called Augustan period of English literature, the reign of Queen Anne. Those who read Latin and French will here find the origiiuxls, while those who read only English are provided with standard translations. A full index, containing lists of the Homeric and Virgilian passages illustrated and a topical analysis of the threefold work enhance its value for the class-room and the private student. as well as liis scholarship. ... I wish to express my admiration of such faithful and competent editing. Bliss Perry, Prof, of English, WUlhtins L'vlleye: The fullness and accuracy of the references in the notes is a testimony to his patience Addison's Criticisms on Paradise Lost. Eilited l)y Albert S. Cook, Professor of the En,i,disli Language and Lit- erature in Yale University. 12mo. Cloth, xxvi + 200 pages. Mailing price, $1.10; for introduction, $1.00. T^HE text of this edition is based upon the literal reproductions of Arber and Morley, and, allowing for the modernization of spelling and punctuation, is believed to be more correct than any published in this centiuy. The index is unusually full, and will enable Addison's comments on any particular passage of Paradise Lost, as well as on those of the aiacient epics with which it is compared, to be found with the least possible trouble. V. D. Scudder, Inst, in English Literature, WcHcsImj College: It seems to me admirably edited and to be welcome as an addition to our store of text-books. 12 HIGHER ENGLISH. ' What is Poetry ? ' Leigh Hunt's An Answer to the Question including Remarks on Versification. Edited by Albert S. Cook, Professor of the English Language and Literature in Yale University. 12nio. Cloth. 104 pages. Mailing price, 50 cents; for introduction, 60 cents. /^NE of the most delightful short papers on the subject of poetry is this of Leigh Hunt. Its definitions, its quotations, and especially its charm and spirit make it peculiarly valuable for school and college use as an introduction to a course in poetry or criticism. In this edition the quotations are conformed to the best texts, which cannot always be said of the ordinary issues. The notes are few and brief, and have, for convenience, been relegated to the foot of the page ; in many cases they are merely devoted to locating the quotations employed in the text, an aid for which both teacher and student will be thankful. The index, as in other books by the same editor, is a featm-e of the new edition. Analytics of Literature. By L. A. Sherman, Professor of English Literature in the University of Nebraska. 12mo. Cloth. 488 pages. Mailing price, |iL40; for introduction, .'5!1.25. 'T^HIS book was wi'itten to embody a new system of teaching literature that has been tried with great success. The chief features of the system are the recognition of elements, and insuring an exjierience of each., on the part of the learner, according to the laboratory plan. The principal stages in the evolution of form in literatujre are made especial subjects of study. It aims to make criticisni begin on less vague and more exact foundations. The discussion in each chapter is in the nature of a condensed lecture before laboratory experiment and verification in the topic treated. The text-pages of the volume proper are adapted alike to students of higher or lower gracle, and the treatment, so far as left incomplete, is continued in notes provided in an appen- dix. To aid teachers not acquainted with laboratory methods, hints and suggestions how to set the student at work for hinisclf are added to Tnany chapters. HIGHER ENGLISH. 13 Ben Jonson's Timber: or Discoueries ; Made upon Men and Matter, as they have Flowed out of his Daily Reading, or had their Reflux to his Peculiar Notions of the Times. Edited, with Iiilrodiiclion and Notes, by Fklix E. Schelling, Professor in tlie University of Peinisylviuiia. 12nio. Cloth, xxxviii + l(j() pages. Mailing price, ilO cents; for introduction, 80 cents. T^niS is the first attempt to edit a long-neglected English classic, which needs only to be better known to take its place among the best examples of the height of Elizabethan prose. 'J'he text — the restoration of wjiich entitles the book to a place in every library — is based on a carefnl collation of the folio of Kill with subsequent editions ; with such modernization in spelling and punctuation as a conservative judgment has deemed imperative. Tlie introdtiction and a copious body of notes have been framed with a view to the intelligent understanding of an author whose wide learning and wealth of allusion make him the fittest exponent of the scholarship as well as the literary style and feeling of his age. Edward Dowden, Prof, of English, Triiii/i/ College, iJublin, Ireland : It is a matter for rejoicing that so valu- able and interesting a piece of liter- ature as this prose work of Jonson, should be made easily accessible and should have all the advantages of scholarly editing. A Primer of English Verse. By Hiram Corson, Professor of English Literature in Cornell Univer- sity. 12mo. Cloth. iv + 232 pages. By mail, .$L10: for introduction, ^1.00. T^HE leading purpose of this volume is to introduce the student to the aesthetic and organic character of English Verse — to cultivate his susceptibility to verse as an inseparable part of poetic expression. To this end, the various effects provided for by the poet, either consciously or unconsciously on his part, are given for the student to practice upon, until those effects come out distinctly to his feelings. The University Magazine, New York: Prof. Corson lias given us a most interesting and thorough treatise on the characteristics and uses of English metres. He dis- cusses the force and effects of vari- ous metres, giving examples of usage from various poets. The book will be of great use to both the critical student and to those who recognize that iMietry, like music, is constructed on scientific and precise principles. 14 HIGHER ENGLISH. Fiue Short Courses of Reading in English Litera- ture. With Biographical aud Critical References. By C. T. Winchester, Professor of English Literatnre in Wesleyan University. Sq. 16mo.' Cloth. V + 99 pages. Mailing price, 4.5 cents ; for introdnction, 40 cents. T^HIS little book lays out five short courses of reading from the most prominent writers in pure literature of the last three centuries, beginning with ISIarlowe and ending with Tennyson. The book contains also information as to the best editions for student use, with extended and well chosen lists of critical and biographical authorities. Le Baron R. Briggs, Professor of much pleased with it. It cannot help English, Ihu-LKcrd University : I am being useful. Synopsis of English and American Literature. By G. J. Smith, Instructor of English, Washington (D.C.) Higli School. 8vo. Cloth. 125 pages. By mail, !>0 cents ; for introduction, 80 cents. QNE finds here in every case tlie author's full name, the dates of birth and death, the class of writers to which lie belongs, the clironological place of that class in the development of litera- ture, his most important works, his most distinguished contem- poraries, the leading events of the time, and, in most cases a few clear words of explanation or criticism. W. B. Chamberlain, Prof, of Rhetoric, Oherlin College : Its clear- ness, compactness, and readiness for reference must make it one of the most useful tools for either teacher or student. It gives a vast amount of most valuable information in the most economical manner possible. A very valuable feature is its correla- tion of literary with political and general historical events. I regard it as a decided success. Shakespeare's Tragedy of Hamlet For the use of Colleges, High Schools, Academies and Clubs. By Car- roll Lewis Maxcy, A.B., Associate Principal and Instructor in Eng- lish, Troy (N.Y.) Academy. Square Kimo. Cloth. 200 pages. Mail- ing price, 50 cents; for introtluction, 45 cents. A VERY few notes have been added to explain passages which would otherwise be unintelligible. The most famous quota- tions are grouped at tlie end of eacli act. The Philosophy of American Literature. By (;iu<:knougii White, A.M. ]2nio. Flexible cloth, iv + 6G pages. By mail, 35 cents; for intnxluctictn, ,'50 cents. • ''^ktclrMf^jArLisH. 15 1 The Best Elizabethan Plays. Edited with an Iiitroductiou by AVili.iam R. Thayer. i2mo. Cloth. 611 pages. By mail, ^1.40; for introduction, $1.25. rpiIE selection comprises The Jew of Malta, by Marlowe; Thb Alchemist, by Ben Jonson ; Philaster, by Beaumont and Fletcher; The Tioo Noble Kinsmen, by Fletcher and Shakespeare ; and The Duchess of Malfi, by Webster. It thus affords not only the best specimen of the dramatic work of each of the five Elizabetlian poets who rank next to Shakespeare, but also a general view of the development of English drama from its rise in Marlowe to its last strong expression in Webster. The necessary introduction to the reading of each play is concisely given in the Preface. Great care has been used in expurgating the text. Felix E. Schelling, Professor of Ewjlish, University of Pennsyl- vania: This has proved invaluable to me in my Seminar. All profes- sors of English literature must wel- come such intelligent and scholarly editions of our enduring classics. Charles F. Richardsoii, Prof, of Enylish, Dartmouth College: The book is an excellent one, intelligently edited, equipped with brief and sen- sible notes, and introduced l)y a preface of real critical insight. Alto- gether, it is well fitted for college use. A Method of English Composition. By T. Whiting B.» ncroft, late Professor of Rhetoric and English Lit- erature in Brown University. 12nio. Cloth. 101 pages. Mailing price, 55 cents ; for introduction, 50 cents. Notes on English Literature. By Fred Parker Emery, Instructor in English in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston. 12mo. Cloth. 152 pages. By mail, SI. 10; for introduction, gl.OO. ri^HIS book is a departure from the ordinary mode of teaching English Literature. It follows the critical, comparative, and . philosophical method of the best universities, and combines the advantages of the tabulated synopsis of authors and books with those of the critical literary history. History, politics, society, and religion are studied with the proper perspective in relation to liter- ature, and are made to show why literature is necessarily charac- teristic of the age that produced it. Leroy Stephens, Pres. Western Pennsylvania Classical and Scie?i- tific institute, Ml. Pleasant, Pa.: Nothing that I have seen compares with it in the value of the references by which history and literature are kept so closely linked together. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. to-URL JU^^ 1966 Os #^ ..•^ MAR 311: MAl^ 2 1 1975 Form L9— Series 444 University Of Calitornia. Los Angeles 19 L 007 626 225 2 < - r UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 000 352 161 4