Graded Lessons in English - Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg (classic reads txt) 📗

+Some Features of a Good Description+.—Does this author mention many features of the mill, of the stream, and of the horses pulling their load over the bridge? Do those that she does mention suggest to you everything else? Name some of the things suggested to you but not mentioned in this description. Does not some of the charm of a description lie in the reader’s having something left him to supply? If the author had given you every little detail of the mill, the stream, and the laboring horses, would not the description have been dull and tiresome? What things that the author imagined but did not really see are mentioned in the third paragraph? Do these touches of fancy or imagination help the picture? Do they show that the author was in love with her work? and do they therefore stimulate your fancy or imagination?

+The Framework+.—In making a framework for this description would you take for the general topic “The Scene from the Bridge” or “Things Seen from a Bridge”? or would you prefer some other wording of it? Now write out a framework, placing the sub-topics under the general topic as you have been taught.

ORIGINAL COMPOSITION.

Describe some scene that you greatly enjoy, or draw your picture from imagination. Make a framework and try to profit by all that we have said.

EXERCISES ON THE COMPOSITION OF THE SENTENCE AND THE PARAGRAPH.

SELECTION FROM THE BROTHERS GRIMM.

Once upon a time there was a very old man, whose eyes were dim, whose ears were dull, and whose knees trembled. When he sat at table, he could scarcely hold his spoon; and often he spilled his food over the tablecloth and sometimes down his clothes.

His son and daughter-in-law were much vexed about this, and at last they made the old man sit behind the oven in a corner, and gave him his food in an earthen dish, and not enough of it either; so that the poor man grew sad, and his eyes were wet with tears. Once his hand trembled so much that he could not hold the dish, and it fell upon the ground and broke all in pieces, so that the young wife scolded him; but he made no reply and only sighed. Then they brought him a wooden dish, and out of that he had to feed.

One day, as he was sitting in his usual place, he saw his little grandson, four years old, fitting together some pieces of wood. “What are you making?” asked the old man.

“I am making a wooden trough,” replied the child, “for father and mother to feed out of when I grow big.”

At these words the father looked at his wife for a moment, and presently they began to cry. Henceforth they let the old grandfather sit at the table with them, and they did not even say anything if he spilled a little food upon the cloth.

+The Uses of Words and Groups of Words+.—What is the order of subject and predicate in the first sentence of this selection? The word there does not tell where; it is put before was to let the subject follow. There is frequently so used and is then called an independent adverb. Find in the first sentence three adjective clauses. What connects each to man? What other office has this connective? How are these adjective clauses connected with one another? What is the office of the dependent clause in the next sentence? If this clause were placed after its principal clause, would the comma be needed? Are the clauses separated by the semicolon as closely connected as those divided by the comma?

After made and some other words the to before the infinitive is omitted. Find such an instance in the first sentence of the second paragraph. In this same sentence change gave him his food, making him come last. You have learned that a noun or a pronoun may be used without a preposition to do the work of an adverb phrase. What does one day do in the third paragraph? Is a preposition needed before day? In the same sentence years is used adverbially to modify the adjective old. It would be hard to find a preposition to put before years. We might say “old to the extent of four years,” but four years answers for the whole phrase. In this same paragraph what words are quoted exactly as the old man uttered them? Describe the quotation marks. Notice that the next quotation is broken by the words replied the child, and so each part of the quotation is separately inclosed within quotation marks.

+To the Teacher+.—We have here touched a few features of the sentences above. The exercises given with the preceding selections will suggest a fuller examination of the phrases and clauses.

+Suggestions from this Narrative+.—We see that this beautiful story has a purpose. Its purpose is to teach us kindness to our parents. It is well planned. Every sentence and every paragraph is adapted to the end in view. No useless item or circumstance is admitted. The story stops when the end is reached. Anything added to the fifth paragraph would spoil the story. We certainly can learn much from such a model.

+Paragraphs+.—Does every sentence in the first paragraph aid in picturing the helplessness of the old grandfather? Is the picture complete? Does the second paragraph strongly impress us with the unkindness of the son and daughter-in-law, who ought to have been moved to pity by the old man’s condition? Does it contain an unnecessary sentence? In telling how the grandchild unconsciously taught a lesson, a dialogue is introduced, and so what really belongs to one sub-topic is put in the form of two paragraphs. It is customary to make a separate paragraph of each single speech in a dialogue. Read the last paragraph carefully and see whether one could wish to know anything more about the effect of the lesson taught by the child.

Make a framework for this story.

ORIGINAL COMPOSITION.

Make up a short story from your own experience, or from your imagination, and try to profit by the suggestions above. Prepare a framework at the beginning.

+Exercises on the Composition of the Sentence and the Paragraph+.

SELECTION FROM BEECHER.

Overwork almost always ends in weakening the digestive organs. There are those who overtax their minds through months and years, forgetful that there is a close connection between overwork and dyspepsia. Everyone should remember that there is a point beyond which he cannot urge his brain without harm to his stomach; and that, when he loses his stomach, he loses the very citadel of health. The whole body is renewed from the blood, and the blood is made from the food taken into the stomach. The power of the blood to renew bone and brain and muscle depends upon a good digestion.

Too little sleep is fatal to health. Perhaps you have to work hard all day; but that is no reason why you should resolve, “If I cannot have pleasure by day, I will have it at night.” You are taking the very substance of your body when you burn the lamp of pleasure till one or two o’clock in the morning. God has made sleep to be a sponge with which to rub out fatigue. A man’s roots are planted in night, as a tree’s are planted in soil, and out of it he should come, at waking, with fresh growth and bloom. As a rule, you should take eight hours of the twenty-four, for sleep.

+The Uses of Words and Groups of Words+.—In the exercises under the selection from the Brothers Grimm what did you learn about there as used twice in the second sentence above? What does those mean? What long adjective clause is joined to those by who? Does this clause read so closely as not to need a comma before who? Does forgetful describe the persons represented by who? Why is a comma used before forgetful? You learned in a preceding exercise that a noun may do the work of an adverb phrase without the help of a preposition. A noun clause may do the same. The adjective forgetful is modified by the noun clause that … dyspepsia. If we say forgetful of the fact, we see that the noun clause means the same as fact and has the same office. What two long noun clauses aroused to complete should remember? What conjunction introduces each of these clauses? What conjunction joins them together? What mark of punctuation between? If one of these noun clauses were not itself divided into clauses by the comma, would the semicolon be needed? The clause beyond … stomach goes with what word? When … stomach modifies what verb? Classify the sentences of this paragraph as simple, complex, or compound.

+To the Teacher+.—We have here treated informally some difficult points. Perhaps these may be better understood when the book is reviewed.

+The Various Objects Writers Have+.—From your study of the preceding selections you learn that a writer may have any one of several objects in writing. He may wish simply to instruct the reader, as does Darwin in what he says of earthworms. He may wish merely to amuse the reader, as does Mr. Habberton in our extract from “Helen’s Babies.” He may wish only to put before them a picture which, like that of George Eliot’s, shall afford delight. Or he may wish to get hold of what we call our wills and lead us to do something, perform some duty. This is what the story from the Brothers Grimm aims at. And you saw how it does this—by working on our feelings. There are at least these four objects that a writer may propose to himself. Which of these four objects has Mr. Beecher in the paragraphs we quote? Does he instruct? Does he try to get us to do something? Would it help you to have clearly before you from the beginning the object you are seeking to accomplish?

+Figurative Expressions+.—In these paragraphs Mr. Beecher calls a man’s stomach the citadel of health, and sleep a sponge to rub out fatigue with, and says a man’s roots are planted in night. He does not use these words citadel, sponge, and roots in their first or common meaning. He uses them in what we call a +figurative+ sense. He means to say that a man’s stomach is to him what a fortress is to soldiers, a source of strength; that in sleep fatigue disappears as do figures on a slate or blackboard when a wet sponge is drawn across them; and that a man gets out of night what a tree’s roots draw out of the soil, nourishment and vigor. Such figurative uses of words give strength and beauty to style.

ORIGINAL COMPOSITION.

In the paragraphs quoted above you were told of the effects on health of overwork and of insufficient sleep. Perhaps you can write of exercise, of proper food, of clothes, or of some other things on which health may depend.

+Exercises on the Composition of the Sentence and the Paragraph+.

ADAPTED FROM DR. JOHN BROWN—“RAB AND HIS FRIENDS.”

Rab belonged to a lost tribe—there are no such dogs now. He was old and gray and brindled; and his hair short, hard, and close, like a lion’s. He was as big as a Highland bull, and his body was thickset. He must have weighed ninety pounds at least.

His large, blunt head was scarred with the record of old wounds, a series of battlefields all over it. His muzzle was as black as night, his mouth blacker than any night, and