a poor one selected for discussion. If these three compositions are copied on the blackboard by your best writers it will be easier to discover points of excellence and points of demerit. As you offer comment center your attention upon the main point of the lesson—namely, sentence variation to avoid monotony and to express ideas more exactly. leisure If you like adventure stories, read The Last Days of Read at Pompeii by Bulwer-Lytton. The beautiful Ione is kidnapped by the mysterious Egyptian, and Glaucus, her affianced husband, is wrongly accused of murder and condemned to the lions in the arena. Then the mighty forces of nature play a tremendous part in their story. 31 RAPID MOVEMENT Have you ever seen one of Fairbanks's acrobatic Find your movies? Perhaps you prefer some other athletic problem star. Entertain your friends with as good an account as you can give of a bit of swift action-from the movies, real life, or your own imagination. Try to make them see it and realize its rapidity. In order to make your audience comprehend the Study rapid-action scene which you mean to describe, you will have to sketch very briefly the plot or incidents leading to it. A short outline written on paper will help you to do this. Then practice your entire talk, thinking out carefully the words and sentences you will use to give the sense of swift movement. When your story is well prepared read the follow ing incident from Dumas's The Three Musketeers and try to discover just what words and phrases hurry the action along. Do the many short sentences contribute to the idea of rapid action? (D'Artagnan and his three companions with their servants have started for England on urgent business for the queen, but Porthos and Aramis have met with misfortune through the schemes of the Cardinal and have been left along the road. Athos and D'Artagnan stop at an inn where, upon a pretext, four armed men set upon Athos.) "I am taken!" shouted Athos with all the power of his lungs. "Go on, D'Artagnan! spur! spur!" and he fired two pistol shots. D'Artagnan and Planchet did not require twice bidding. They unfastened the two horses waiting at the door, leaped upon them, buried spurs in their sides, and set off at full gallop. "Do you know what has become of Athos?" asked D'Artagnan of Planchet as they galloped on. "Ah, master," said Planchet, "I saw one fall at each of his shots and he appeared to be fighting with his sword against two others." "Brave Athos!" murmured D'Artagnan. "To think that we are compelled to leave him. The same fate, perhaps, awaits us two paces hence! Forward, Planchet, forward! You are a brave fellow." "I am in my own country here," replied Planchet, "and that puts me on my mettle.” At St. Omer they breathed their horses with the bridles passed under their arms for fear of accident, and ate a morsel standing in the road, after which they set out again. At a hundred paces from the gate of Calais, D'Artagnan's horse sank under him and could not by any means be made to rise. There remained still Planchet's horse, but that, too, was so completely exhausted that it could with difficulty be urged to walk. Fortunately, as we have said, they were within a hundred paces of the city. Leaving their two nags upon the highroad they ran for the port. The vessel was quite ready to sail and the captain waiting. "Here is my pass," exclaimed D'Artagnan. "In that case we shall be gone," said the captain. "As soon as you please," replied D'Artagnan. He leaped with Planchet into the small boat, and five minutes later they were on board the vessel. It was time! They had scarcely sailed half a league when D'Artagnan saw a flash and heard a detonation. It was the cannon which announced the closing of the port! D'Artagnan was worn out with fatigue. A mattress was laid upon the deck for him. He threw himself upon it and fell fast asleep. As many stories as possible will be told in the Judge the period. Three clerks may work at the board, the stories first recording the name of the speaker and a summary in two or three sentences of his story, the second recording words and phrases which vividly express action, and the third recording entire sentences of interest used by the speaker. At the close of the story-telling period the class will discuss the merits and defects of the oral work from the material recorded on the blackboard. When we want amusement and relaxation we are Read at all attracted by stories in which the action is rapid leisure and more or less exciting. If you want some short stories with which to amuse yourself, read Stevenson's New Arabian Nights. They are not at all like the real Arabian Nights Entertainments, because there are no genii or supernatural beings in these stories, but there is a thrill in every page. 32 Study together VARIETY Your work upon the story of "Earning a Crown" has shown you how important is variety in the form of your sentences. The only means of variety suggested in that lesson were (1) simple, compound, and complex sentences, (2) active and passive voices, and (3) the order of the parts of the sentences. There are, however, some other very useful variations, most of them depending upon grammatical changes. In both these sentences the underlined parts modify pitcher and express practically the same idea, but they give that idea somewhat different emphasis. (a) The pitcher, who holds the most important posi tion on the team, frequently draws $5,000 a season. (b) The pitcher, holding the most important position on the team, frequently draws $5,000 a season. because because Phrases In (a) the modifier of pitcher is a- are named by the parts of speech which "introduce" A participle is a form of a verb used as an adjective. It keeps the verb's power to take an object or a predicate nominative. Holding modifies the noun pitcher, and is so far an adjective; but it expresses action and takes the object position, and is so far a verb. Notice that it has no subject and makes no statement; it merely implies action by the word it modifies, pitcher. Participles are sometimes spoken of as verbal adjectives. Naturally they are modified by adverbs. (c) Haskins, who was elected by purchased votes, has embezzled thousands of dollars of county funds. (d) Haskins, elected by purchased votes, has embezzled thousands of dollars of county funds. (e) Carlson, who has never driven any other car, is quite satisfied with this rickety old thing. (f) Carlson, never having driven any other car, is quite satisfied with this rickety old thing. These sentences present some other participial forms. Forms like holding, made by adding ing to the simple present verb, are present active participles. Elected, in (d), is the past [passive] participle, already familiar to you as part of passive verbs-e. g., was elected in (c)—and of present perfect and past perfect tenses in the active voice. Notice that it expresses action done to the word it modifies. For the formation of the past participle see page 173. Having driven, in (f) is the perfect active participle, made by chang |