culture, and Nature has so endowed you that, instead of becoming indifferent to these things from familiarity, you have learned to value them more and more in every suc

cessive year. The plainest statement of your advantages

would sound like an extract from one of Disraeli's novels. Your father's principal castle is situated amongst the finest scenery in Britain, and his palace in London is filled with masterpieces of art. Wherever you have lived you have been surrounded by good literature and cultivated friends. Your health is steadily robust, you can travel wherever you choose, and all the benefits of all the capitals of Europe belong to you as much as to their own citizens. In all these gifts and opportunities there is but one evil - the bewilderment of their multiplicity. P. G. HAMERTON : The Intellectual Life.

"My instinct would certainly be to fight, whether fighting were of any use or not. But the propriety of fighting in such a case is a very nice question of judgment. So long as there is anything to fight for, no matter how hopeless the odds, a gentleman should go to the front - but no longer. The question must be to decide the precise point at which the position becomes untenable. So long as France makes our quarrel hers, every man should give his personal assistance to the cause; but it is absurd to suppose that if we were left alone, a handful of Romans against a great power, we could do more, or should do more, than make a formal show of resistance. It has been a rule in all ages that the general, however brave, who sacrifices the lives of his soldiers in a perfectly hopeless resistance, rather than accept the terms of an honorable capitulation, is guilty of a military crime. F. MARION CRAWFORD: Saracinesca.

The propositions of William were framed with a punctilious fairness, such as might have been expected rather from a disinterested umpire pronouncing an award than from a chivalrous prince dictating to a helpless enemy.

No fault could be found with them by the partisans of the king. But among the Whigs there was much murmuring. They wanted no reconciliation with the tyrant. They thought themselves absolved from all allegiance to him. They were not disposed to recognize the authority of a parliament convoked by his writ. They were averse to an armistice; and they could not conceive why, if there was to be an armistice, it should be an armistice on equal terms. By all the laws of war the stronger party had a right to take advantage of his strength; and what was there in the character of James to justify any extraordinary indulgence? Those who reasoned thus little knew from how elevated a point of view, and with how discerning an eye, the leader whom they censured contemplated the whole situation of England and Europe. They were eager to ruin James, and would therefore have refused to treat with him on any conditions, or have imposed on him conditions insupportably hard. To the success of William's vast and profound scheme of policy it was necessary that James should ruin himself by rejecting conditions ostentatiously liberal. The event proved the wisdom of the course which the majority of Englishmen at Hungerford were inclined to condemn. T. B. MACAULAY: History of England.

Even the invention of railroads has produced the unforeseen result of a return in the direction of barbarism. If there is one thing that distinguishes civilization, it is fixity of residence; and it is essential to the tranquil following of serious intellectual purposes that the student should remain for many months of the year in his own library or laboratory, surrounded by all his instruments of culture. But there are people of the highest rank in the England of to-day whose existence is as much nomadic as that of Red Indians in the reserved territories of North America. You cannot ascertain their whereabouts without consulting the most recent newspaper. Their life may be quite accurately described as a return, on a scale of unprecedented splendor and comfort, to the life of tribes in that

stage of human development which is known as the period. of the chase. They migrate from one hunting-ground to another as the diminution of the game impels them. Their residences, vast and substantial as they are, serve only as tents and wigwams. The existence of a monk in the cloister, of a prisoner in a fortress, is more favorable to the intellect than theirs. P. G. HAMERTON: The Intellectual Life.

to

EXERCISES.

1. Define a paragraph. Give reasons for your definition. Why are paragraphs important? What do they signify to the reader? How are they helpful to the

writer?

2. In the following outlines find the natural divisions of the subject, and arrange the ideas in paragraph groups under appropriate topics.

1. The Newspaper of To-day. One of the many advantages of printing. Country where the newspaper was first printed. A branch of the periodical press. Feeling that gave it birth. The province of the newspaper to-day. Date of the first newspaper,_ _Introduction into the United States. Influence upon the people. What has contributed to its circulation. Origin of the first newspaper. Process of printing a modern newspaper. The setting of the type by machinery. Electrotyping. The cylinder press. The circulation of a large paper. Contributions to freedom, justice, education. Influence on literary taste. Abuse of influence. Influence on civilization. Advantages to advertisers, merchants, readers. Duty of citizens with regard to newspapers.

2. The Benefits of Travel. Broadens the mind. Gives many useful ideas. Objects of travel. Means of making important discoveries. Travel more common now than formerly. Promotes general intercourse. Is a means of education. It acquaints us with the manners and customs of others. Affords pleasant recollections and instruction. Makes one contented. Is a source of pleasure. A means of transacting business. It makes an agreeable change.

3. Life of Washington Irving. Early home. His parentage. Beginning of his literary career. Third voyage to Europe, when and why? Date and place of birth. His

3

journey through the West. His law studies. Character. First literary work. Second voyage to Europe. Schooling. His last book. Vacation rambles. His different publications. Home influences. Editor of a magazine. First voyage to Europe. Death and burial. Public offices. Impressions of him from what we read.

3. Make outlines showing the divisions of thought in six of these subjects. Gather material on four of these subjects, and arrange it in paragraph groups under appropriate topics. Justify your arrangement, showing why you group your ideas as you do. Assume that the divisions

you are making are for a theme of three hundred or four hundred words.

1. Michael Angelo.

2. An amateur photographer.

3.

The French Academy.

4. How a hailstone is formed.

5. The Chicago fire.

6. The method of securing a patent.

7. The Siege of Troy.

8. Twenty miles on a bicycle.

9. A Florida river.

10. Building a railroad in China.

11. King Alfred and the cakes.

12. The college boat-race.

13. How a caucus is conducted.
14. Old Ironsides.

15. Roman writing materials.

16. Feudalism.

17.

The Reign of Terror.

18. A sky-scraper.

19. Flying-fish.

20. A Klondike experience.

21. An Indian war-dance.

22. An orange grove.

23. The delta of the Mississippi.

24. How the President of the United States is elected.

25. The colonies of the United States.

26. Municipal government in the United States.

27. A summer on a farm.

4. Have the following selections been properly paragraphed? Make any changes you think proper, and give

reasons.

SIR ROGER IN LONDON.

1. I was this morning surprised with a great knocking at the door, when my landlady's daughter came up to me, and told me that there was a man below desired to speak with me. Upon my asking her who it was, she told me it was a very grave, elderly person, but that she did not know his name.

I immediately went down to him, and found him to be the coachman of my worthy friend Sir Roger de Coverley. He told me that his master came to town last night, and would be glad to take a turn with me in Gray's Inn walks.

As I was wondering in myself what had brought Sir Roger to town, not having lately received any letter from him, he told me that his master was come up to get a sight of Prince Eugene, and that he desired I would immediately meet him.

I was not a little pleased with the curiosity of the old knight, though I did not much wonder at it, having heard him say more than once in private discourse, that he looked on Prince Eugenio (for so the knight always calls him) to be a greater man than Scanderbeg. I was no sooner come into Gray's Inn walks, but I heard my friend upon the terrace hemming twice or thrice to himself with great vigor, for he loves to clear his pipes in good air (to make use of his own phrase), and is not a little pleased with any one who takes notice of the strength which he still exerts in his morning hems.

SQUIRE BULL.

2. John Bull was a choleric old fellow, who held a good manor in the middle of a great mill-pond, which, by reason of its being quite surrounded by water, was generally called "Bullock Island."

Bull was an ingenious man; an exceedingly good blacksmith, a dexterous cutter, and a notable weaver besides. He was, in fact, a sort of Jack-at-all-trades, and good at each.

In addition to these, he was a hearty fellow, a jolly companion, and passably honest, as the times go.

But what tarnished all these qualities, was an exceedingly quarrelsome, overbearing disposition, which was always getting him into some scrape or other.

The truth is, he never heard of a quarrel going on among his neighbors, but his fingers itched to take a part in it; so he was hardly ever seen without a broken head, a black eye, or a bloody nose.

Such was Squire Bull, as he was commonly called by his neighbors - one of those odd, testy, grumbling, boasting old codgers, that never get credit for what they are, because they are always pretending to be what they are not.