Elementary Composition · Part 8

EXAMPLES. 1. The reports of the expedition demonstrated the practicability of establishing a line of communication across the continent, from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.

The reports of the expedition proved that it would be possible to build a road across the continent, from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.

2. Two leading objects of commercial gain have given birth to wide and daring enterprise in the early history of the Americas, the precious metals of the south and the rich peltries of the north. While the Spaniard, inflamed with the mania for gold, has extended his discoveries and conquests over those brilliant countries scorched by the ardent sun of the tropics, the Frenchman and Englishman have pursued the no less lucrative traffic in furs amid the hyperborean regions of the Canadas.--WASHINGTON IRVING: Astoria.

Two important objects of commerce have given birth to daring undertakings in the early history of North and South America. These are the gold and silver of the south and the rich furs of the north. The Spaniard, mad for gold, has explored and conquered the tropical countries. Meanwhile, the Frenchman and the Englishman have followed the equally profitable traffic in furs in the far northern regions of Canada.

3. Meanwhile the choleric captain strode wrathful away to the council, Found it already assembled, impatiently waiting his coming; Men in the middle of life, austere and grave in deportment, Only one of them old, the hill that was nearest to heaven, Covered with snow, but erect, the excellent Elder of Plymouth. --H. W. LONGFELLOW: The Courtship of Miles Standish.

Meanwhile the quick-tempered captain strode wrathfully away to the council, which he found already assembled, and impatiently waiting his coming. They were middle-aged men, stern and grave in bearing. Only one of them was old, the excellent Elder of Plymouth, but he still stood erect, though his hair was white--like the snow cap on a tall mountain.

Exercise 72.--Paraphrase the following; try to express the thought so simply that people who know less than you do can understand it.

1. It was not until the year 1776 that the fur trade regained its old channels; but it was then pursued with much avidity and emulation by individual merchants, and soon transcended its former bounds.--WASHINGTON IRVING: Astoria.

2. It is characteristic of such a people [the Aztecs] to find a puerile pleasure in a dazzling and ostentatious pageantry; to mistake show for substance; vain pomp for power; to hedge round the throne itself with barren and burdensome ceremonial, the counterfeit of real majesty.--W. H. PRESCOTT: The Conquest of Mexico.

3. The messenger found access to the benignant princess and delivered the epistle of the friar. Isabella had always been favorably disposed to the proposition of Columbus. She wrote in reply to Juan Perez, thanking him for his timely service, and requesting that he would repair immediately to the court, leaving Columbus in confident hope until he should hear further from her.--WASHINGTON IRVING: Life of Columbus.

4. It cannot be disputed that the light toil requisite to cultivate a moderately sized garden imparts such zest to kitchen vegetables as is never found in those of the market gardener. Childless men, if they would know something of the bliss of paternity, should plant a seed with their own hands and nurse it from infancy to maturity altogether by their own care.--NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE: Mosses from an Old Manse.

5. Dorcas nourished her apprehensions in silence till one afternoon when Reuben awoke from an unquiet sleep and seemed to recognize her more perfectly than at any previous time. She saw that his intellect had become composed, and she could no longer restrain her filial anxiety.--From the same.

Exercise 73.--Paraphrase the following passages:--

1. Ah, no longer wizard Fancy Builds her castles in the air, Luring me by necromancy Up the never-ending stair. But instead she builds me bridges Over many a dark ravine, Where beneath the gusty ridges Cataracts dash and roar unseen.

--H. W. LONGFELLOW: The Bridge of Cloud.

2. For a cap and bells our lives we pay, Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's tasking; 'Tis heaven alone that is given away, 'Tis only God may be had for the asking; No price is set on the lavish summer; June may be had by the poorest comer.

--J. R. LOWELL: The Vision of Sir Launfal.

3. Oh, for festal dainties spread, Like my bowl of milk and bread; Pewter spoon and bowl of wood, On the door stone, gray and rude! O'er me, like a regal tent, Cloudy-ribbed, the sunset bent, Purple-curtained, fringed with gold, Looped in many a wind-swung fold; While for music came the play Of the pied frogs' orchestra; And, to light the noisy choir, Lit the fly his lamp of fire. I was monarch: pomp and joy Waited on the barefoot boy. --J. G. WHITTIER: The Barefoot Boy.

32. Paraphrase of Complete Compositions.--It is also sometimes a helpful exercise to paraphrase, not an extract, but a complete poem or short piece of prose, in order to make sure that you understand it thoroughly. This often requires a good deal of study, for details, which you had not at first noticed, but which are essential to the meaning, need to be carefully thought out.

Read, for example, Longfellow's delightful poem, Walter Von der Vogelweid and then the paraphrase that follows.

Vogelweid the Minnesinger, When he left this world of ours, Laid his body in the cloister, Under Würtzburg's minster towers.

And he gave the monks his treasures, Gave them all with his behest: They should feed the birds at noontide Daily on his place of rest;

Saying, "From these wandering minstrels I have learned the art of song; Let me now repay the lessons They have taught so well and long."

Thus the bard of love departed; And, fulfilling his desire, On his tomb the birds were feasted By the children of the choir.

Day by day, o'er tower and turret, In foul weather and in fair, Day by day, in vaster numbers, Flocked the poets of the air.

On the tree, whose heavy branches Overshadowed all the place, On the pavement, on the tombstone, On the poet's sculptured face,

On the crossbars of each window, On the lintel of each door, They renewed the War of Wartburg, Which the bard had fought before.

There they sang their merry carols, Sang their lauds on every side; And the name their voices uttered Was the name of Vogelweid.

Till at length the portly abbot Murmured, "Why this waste of food? Be it changed to loaves henceforward For our fasting brotherhood."

Then in vain o'er tower and turret, From the walls and woodland nests, When the minster bells rang noontide, Gathered the unwelcome guests.

Then in vain, with cries discordant, Clamorous round the Gothic spire, Screamed the feathered Minnesingers For the children of the choir.

Time has long effaced the inscriptions On the cloister's funeral stones, And tradition only tells us Where repose the poet's bones.

But around the vast cathedral, By sweet echoes multiplied, Still the birds repeat the legend, And the name of Vogelweid.

Walter Von der Vogelweid was an old German Minnesinger, that is, a poet who sang of love, and his name means Walter of the Bird-meadow. When he passed from this world, his body was laid in the cloister under the towers of the cathedral of Würtzburg. He gave all his property to the monks, on condition that they should feed the birds that flew about his grave. "For," said he, "I want to repay the birds, who have taught me the art of song."

Every noon, as Walter had desired, the children of the choir fed the birds about his tomb. Day after day, in larger and larger numbers, these small wandering minstrels flocked to be fed, in fair or stormy weather. On the tree that overshadowed his grave, on the pavement, on the tombstone, even on the face of the marble statue of the poet, they would cluster, singing in rivalry as he had once sung in competition with other poets at the castle of Wartburg. And in their carols was always the name of Vogelweid.

At last the abbot determined that this waste of food should not continue, but that loaves of bread should be bought instead for the fasting priests. After this the birds clamored in vain for the children who had fed them.

Time has long since worn away the inscription on the tombstone of the cloister, and now there is nothing to tell us where the poet's bones rest; but around the cathedral the sweet voices of the birds still repeat the story and the name of Walter Von der Vogelweid.

Exercise 74. Paraphrase such complete poems or prose passages as your teacher may indicate.

Suggested poems:--1. Longfellow's The Legend of the Crossbill, or The Wreck of the Hesperus. 2. Tennyson's Lady Clare. 3. Browning's An Incident of the French Camp. 4. Scott's Lochinvar. 5. Campbell's Lord Ullin's Daughter. 6. Bayard Taylor's A Song of the Camp. 7. Whittier's Telling the Bees. 8. Kingsley's The Sands o' Dee. 9. Leigh Hunt's Abou Ben Adhem. 10. Lowell's The Courtin'.

CHAPTER VI

WHOLE COMPOSITIONS; OUTLINES

33. Whole Compositions.--You have now studied the combination of words into sentences and the combination of sentences into paragraphs. You must meanwhile have guessed that there is a still larger process of composition,--the combining of paragraphs into the essay or chapter or book. This process we must now examine briefly.

Read the following passage, which, to be sure, is not exactly a whole composition in itself, for it forms a part of a long essay on a visit to Shakspere's birthplace. It is sufficiently long, however, to show how paragraphs are combined.

I had come to Stratford on a poetical pilgrimage. My first visit was to the house where Shakspere was born, and where, according to tradition, he was brought up to his father's craft of wool-combing. It is a small, mean-looking edifice of wood and plaster, a true nestling place of genius, which seems to delight in hatching its offspring in by-corners. The walls of its squalid chambers are covered with names and inscriptions in every language, by pilgrims of all nations, ranks, and conditions, from the prince to the peasant; and present a simple, but striking instance of the spontaneous and universal homage of mankind to the great poet of nature.

The house is shown by a garrulous old lady, in a frosty red face, lighted up by a cold blue anxious eye, and garnished with artificial locks of flaxen hair, curling from under an exceedingly dirty cap. She was peculiarly assiduous in exhibiting the relics with which this, like all other celebrated shrines, abounds. There was the shattered stock of the very matchlock with which Shakspere shot the deer, on his poaching exploits. There, too, was his tobacco box; which proves that he was a rival smoker of Sir Walter Raleigh; the sword also with which he played Hamlet; and the identical lantern with which Friar Laurence discovered Romeo and Juliet at the tomb!

The most favorite object of curiosity, however, is Shakspere's chair. It stands in the chimney nook of a small gloomy chamber, just behind what was his father's shop. Here he may many a time have sat when a boy, watching the slowing revolving spit with all the longing of an urchin; or of an evening, listening to the cronies and gossips of Stratford, dealing forth churchyard tales and legendary anecdotes of the troublesome times of England. In this chair it is the custom of every one that visits the house to sit: whether this be done with the hope of imbibing any of the inspiration of the bard I am at a loss to say--I merely mention the fact; and mine hostess privately assured me, that, though built of solid oak, such was the fervent zeal of devotees, that the chair had to be new bottomed at least once in three years. It is worthy of notice also, in the history of this extraordinary chair, that it partakes something of the volatile nature of the Santa Casa of Loretto, or the flying chair of the Arabian enchanter; for though sold some few years since to a northern princess, yet, strange to tell, it has found its way back again to the old chimney.

I am always of easy faith in such matters, and am ever willing to be deceived, where the deceit is pleasant and costs nothing. I am therefore a ready believer in relics, legends, and local anecdotes of goblins and great men; and would advise all travelers who travel for their gratification to be the same. What is it to us, whether these stories be true or false, so long as we can persuade ourselves into the belief of them, and enjoy all the charms of the reality? There is nothing like resolute good-humored credulity in these matters; and on this occasion I went even so far as willingly to believe the claims of mine hostess to a lineal descent from the poet, when, unluckily for my faith, she put into my hands a play of her own composition, which set all belief in her consanguinity at defiance.--WASHINGTON IRVING: Stratford-on-Avon.

You will notice that the opening sentences give you a hint of what is coming. You will also notice that the author has a separate thought for each paragraph:--

1. The house in general. 2. The relics exhibited by the housekeeper. 3. The most interesting relic; its history. 4. The author's "good-humored credulity."

These thoughts, when taken together, build up in the reader's mind a larger thought, just as the thoughts expressed in each sentence in a paragraph, when taken together, build up in the reader's mind a smaller idea.

Furthermore, you will notice how careful the writer has been to build up that idea in the reader's mind clearly and easily. He began with a thought that was easy to grasp and that gave you a hint of what was coming.

Here is another good instance of an author's skill in planning his work:--

Let us consider briefly the structure of the earth, studying first its crust, second its interior, third its atmosphere.

It has been found that what is called the earth's crust--that is, the outside of the earth, as the peel is the outside of an orange--is composed of various rocks of different kinds and ages, all of them, however, belonging to two great classes: stratified [that is, deposited in layers] rocks and igneous [made by fire] rocks. The stratified rocks have been deposited by water, principally by the sea. This is proved by two facts: first, in their formation they resemble the beds lying deposited by water at the present time; secondly, they nearly all contain remains of fishes and shell-fish. Such remains, being dug out of the earth, are called fossils, from the Latin fossilis, dug. The whole series of sedimentary rocks have been disturbed by eruptions of volcanic materials. Molten rock ejected from the interior of the earth and cooling form the igneous rocks we have spoken of. They are easily distinguished from the sedimentary rock, as they have no appearance of stratification and contain no fossils.

We have numerous proofs that the interior of the earth is at a high temperature at present, although its surface has cooled. Our deepest mines are so hot that, without a perpetual current of cold air it would be impossible for the miners to live in them. The water brought up in artesian wells is found to increase in temperature one degree for from fifty to fifty-five feet of depth. In the hot lava emitted from volcanoes we have further evidence of this internal heat. It has been calculated that the temperature of the earth increases as we descend at the rate of one degree Fahrenheit in a little over fifty feet. We shall therefore have a temperature of two thousand seven hundred degrees at a depth of twenty-eight miles. At this temperature everything which we are acquainted with would be in a state of fusion.

We now pass to the atmosphere, which may be likened to a great ocean, covering the earth to a height not yet exactly determined. This height is generally supposed to be forty-five or fifty miles, but there is evidence to show that we have an atmosphere of some kind at a height of four hundred or five hundred miles. The chemical composition by weight of one hundred parts of the atmosphere at present is as follows: nitrogen, seventy-seven parts; oxygen, twenty-three parts. Besides these two main constituents, we have carbonic acid, whose quantity varies with the locality; aqueous vapor, variable with the temperature and humidity; and a trace of ammonia.--Adapted from LOCKYER'S Astronomy.

Here, as before, you will notice that the author has a separate idea for each paragraph, as follows:--

1. The three parts of the earth. 2. The crust. 3. The interior. 4. The atmosphere.

He has also begun in this case with a paragraph that states precisely what plan he is going to follow; namely, that he will treat the subject under three heads.

34. Outlines.--A full outline of the selection would be as follows:--

I. Introduction. A. Announces whole topic. B. Names subdivisions--crust, interior, atmosphere. II. Crust. A. Composed of two kinds of rocks:-- 1. Stratified. 2. Igneous. III. Interior. A. Heat (proofs). B. Molten state. IV. Atmosphere. A. Height. B. Chemical composition.

Now read the following composition:--

THE CUP OF WATER

No touch in the history of the minstrel-king David gives us a more warm and personal feeling toward him than his longing for the water at the well of Bethlehem. Standing as the incident does in the summary of the characters of his mighty men, it is apt to appear to us as if it had taken place in his latter days; but such is not the case. It befell while he was still under thirty, in the time of his persecution by Saul.

It was when the last attempt at reconciliation with the king had been made, when the affectionate parting with the generous and faithful Jonathan had taken place, when Saul was hunting him like a partridge on the mountains on the one side, and the Philistines had nearly taken his life on the other, that David, outlawed, yet loyal at the heart, sent his aged parents to the land of Moab for refuge, and himself took up his abode in the caves of the wild limestone hills that had become familiar to him when he was a shepherd. Brave captain and heaven-destined king as he was, his name attracted round him a motley group of those that were in distress, or in debt, or discontented, and among them were the "mighty men" whose brave deeds won them the foremost parts in that army with which David was to fulfill the ancient promises to his people. There were his three nephews, Joab, the ferocious and imperious, the chivalrous Abishai, and Asahel, the fleet of foot; there was the warlike Levite Benaiah, who slew lions and lionlike men, and others who, like David himself, had done battle with the gigantic sons of Anak. Yet even these valiant men, so wild and lawless, could be kept in check by the voice of their young captain; and outlaws as they were, they spoiled no peaceful villages, they lifted not their hands against the persecuting monarch, and the neighboring farms lost not one lamb through their violence. Some at least listened to the song of their warlike minstrel:--