receiving assurances of amity, had been perfidiously despatched at their instigation. Philip, therefore, gathered his fighting men about him; persuaded all strangers that he could to join his cause; sent the women and children to the Narragansetts for safety; and wherever he appeared, was continually surrounded by armed.

warriors.

WASHINGTON IRVING: The Sketch Book.

28. Development by Proofs. In argumentative discourse a theme is often developed by giving proofs. The topic-sentence is the proposition to be established; the other sentences give the proofs. These proofs will, of course, take different forms, varying from simple evidence in support of the principal statement to more formal and logical presentation of the proof.

The following paragraphs will illustrate this method. of development :

Cathedrals were essentially expressions of the popular will and the popular faith. They were the work neither of ecclesiastics nor of feudal barons. They represent in a measure the decline of feudalism, and the prevalence of the democratic element in society. No sooner did a city achieve its freedom than its people began to take thought for a cathedral. Of all arts, architecture is most quickly responsive to the instincts and the desires of a people. And in the cathedrals the popular beliefs, hopes, fears, fancies, and aspirations found expression, and were perpetuated in a language intelligible to all. The life of the Middle Ages is recorded on their walls. When the democratic element was subdued, as in Cologne by a prince bishop, or in Milan by a succession of tyrants, the cathedral was left unfinished. When, in the fifteenth century, all over

Europe, the turbulent, but energetic liberties of the people. were suppressed, the building of cathedrals ceased.

CHARLES ELIOT NORTON :

Notes of Travel and Study in Italy.

After all has been said that can be said of the horrors of war, it still remains that there are certain circumstances under which war is not only justifiable, but absolutely necessary. There are times when a people have been crushed in all of the rights of a nation which God has given to them; when all measures of redress for their wrongs have been spurned and contemned. Beyond that they see the gleam of freedom. Then it is that they are prompted to bare their breasts to the lightning and place their reliance, through God, in the argument of force. No nation can see its people bow their heads in shame before the rest of the people of the world. The nation's honor is the nation's soul; it is the nation's spirit and must be kept alive.

JOHN P. CHIDWICK: The Spanish-American War.

29. Irregular Development. We have described some of the more common forms of paragraph develop

ment. There are many others. As has been remarked

before, the real value of these methods is to teach the pupil to analyze his thought and to develop it coherently. Outside of the more severe forms of discourse paragraphs of these strict types are seldom found. In or dinary writing less formal types prevail. Again, it is rare that a paragraph is developed by one method only. If we take at random a paragraph from a book or a magazine, we shall find two or three methods employed in the same paragraph, sometimes obscure and hard to classify. For this reason and because of faulty construction the

ordinary magazine paragraph is a poor model of paragraph development.

Further, it is to be noted that many paragraphs show no regular method of development, or have even a topicsentence. This is true particularly of narration and description, which consist of a mere group of facts, having only a time or a space relation. In the former the paragraph is developed in the time order, the relation of sequence being the only one which any sentence in the paragraph has to another; in the latter, the paragraph is developed in the space order, and the only relation of sentence to sentence may be that of nearness of place, making a topic-sentence equally unnecessary. In some kinds of informal discourse the regular development of a topic-sentence would destroy the tone of the composition. Especially is this true where a light and graceful conversational air is to be maintained, as in the following:

1. What then? 2. Shall I betray a secret ? 3. I have already entertained this party in my humble little parlor at home; and Prue presided serenely as Semiramis over her court. 4. Have I not said that I defy time, and shall space hope to daunt me? 5. I keep books by day, but by night books keep me. 6. They leave me to dreams and reveries. 7. Shall I confess that sometimes when I have been sitting reading with my Prue - Cymbeline, perhaps, or a Canterbury tale — I have seemed to see clearly before me the broad highway to my castles in Spain; and as she looked up from her work, and smiled in sympathy, I have even fancied that I was already there.

GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS: Prue and I.

79

I.

EXERCISES.

What do you understand by the development of a paragraph? Why is the development of paragraphs a difficult subject to handle? Mention some of the common methods of development, and tell the kind of discourse in which each is most commonly used.

2. Point out the difference between development by repetition and development by details; between development by details and development by examples; between development by comparison and development by contrast; between development by cause and effect and develop ment by proof.

3. Bring to the class a number of paragraphs selected from the magazines. Be prepared to tell if each has any topic-sentence, and if so, explain how the paragraph has been developed from it. no topic-sentence, see if you can discern any logical If any of these paragraphs have method of development.

4. How is a paragraph of simple narration developed? Of simple description? Explain just how the two processes differ. Justify your opinions by bringing to the class examples of narration and description taken from the books, magazines, and papers that you read from day to day.

5. Look over the following paragraphs, and explain the method by which each has been developed, indicating topic-sentences when there are any.

There are few places more favorable to the study of character than an English country church. I was once passing a few weeks at the seat of a friend, who resided in the vicinity of one, the appearance of which particularly struck my fancy. It was one of those rich morsels of quaint antiquity which give such a peculiar charm to English landscape. It stood in the midst of a country filled with ancient families, and contained, within its cold and silent aisles, the congregated dust of many noble generations. The interior walls were incrusted with monuments of every age and style. The light streamed through windows dimmed with armorial bearings, richly em

to

blazoned in stained glass. In various parts of the church were tombs of knights and high-born dames, of gorgeous workmanship, with their effigies in colored marble. On every side, the eye is struck with some instance of aspiring mortality; some haughty memorial which human pride had erected over its kindred dust, in this temple of the most humble of all religions. WASHINGTON IRVING: The Sketch Book.

An American boy, who has received a fair common school education, and has an active, inquiring mind, does not willingly consent merely to drive oxen and hold the plow forever. He will do these with alacrity, if they come in his way; he will not accept them as the be-all and the end-all of his career. He will not sit down in a rude, slovenly, naked home, devoid of flowers, and trees, and books, and periodicals, and intelligent, inspiring, refining conversation, and there plod through a life of drudgery as hopeless and cheerless as any mule's. He has hopes, and needs, and aspirations, which this life does not, and should not satisfy. This might have served his progenitor in the ninth century; but this is the nineteenth, and Young America knows it. HORACE GREELEY: Agriculture.

(Energy is the steam-power, the motive principle of intellectual capacity. It is the propelling force; and, as in physics, momentum is resolvable into velocity and quantity of matter, so in metaphysics the extent of human accomplishment may be resolvable into the degree of intellectual endowment, and the energy with which it is directed. A small body driven by a great force will produce a result equal to, or even greater than that of a much larger body moved by a considerably less force. So it is with minds. Hence we often see men of comparatively small capacity, by greater energy alone, leave and justly leave- their superiors in natural gifts far behind them in the race for honors, distinction, and preferment. ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS: Energy.

Amid this mountainous region tempests give brief warning of their approach. Walled in as these lakes are by mountains, behind which the cloud gathers unseen, the coming of a storm is like the spring of a tiger. A sudden peal of thunder, a keen shaft of lightning, which cuts through the atmosphere in front of your startled vision, a puff of air, or the spinning of a whirlwind across the lake, and the tempest is upon you. So was it Even as I gazed into the white mist, a heavy bank of jet-black cloud rose up through its feathery depths, unrolled itself as a battery unlimbers for battle, and the next instant a

now.