should be annexed to the

admission to college. IO. United States. II. The United States should adopt a freetrade policy. 12. Cabot should be recognized as the discoverer of America. 13. Major André should not have been executed. 14. Thackeray is a greater novelist than Scott. 15 The President should be elected by direct popular vote. 16. Science should be studied in the high school. 17. Greece has done more than Rome for modern civilization. 18. Capital punishment should be abolished. 19. We should have a school paper. 20. The "honor system" should be used in examinations. 21. The present

distribution of vacation periods is not satisfactory. 22. The study of current events should form a part of the school work. 23. High school secret societies should not be allowed. 24. An athletic field should be given us by the school board. 25. Recitation periods should be an hour in length. 26. The weekly holiday should be changed from Saturday to Monday. 27. The citizens of this town should not be taxed to support 28. The water

supply system should be improved. 29. The paving of our streets with asphalt would be unwise. 30. The town should be lighted by electricity.

46. Persuasion. - Persuasion partakes of the nature of both argument and exposition. In his effort to induce the reader to enter on a certain line of action, the writer attempts partly to convince him that such a line of action is logical under the circumstances, partly to induce him to undertake it because it can be shown to be for his interest, or pleasure, or for the welfare of others. No hard and fast principles or rules can be laid down on the subject. Usually it is well to begin with a clear statement of the action

desired, and then to give, one by one, the chief reasons why the reader should adopt that line of action, and to answer possible objections, ending with whatever reasons seem, under the circumstances, most potent. Or, one may begin by drawing a vivid picture of an existing situation, show that nothing else than a certain action would solve the problem, and close by urging that action upon the reader.

EXERCISE 23

The class should first prepare, under the direction of the instructor, a list of a dozen or more questions of local or general importance, of the same character as those suggested under Exercise 22. On one of these each student should write an essay of several hundred words, in which he should attempt to persuade the members of the class to accept a certain line of thought, or adopt a certain line of action.

47. Exposition, Argument, and Persuasion in Literature. Argument and persuasion often occur together in literature; each is necessarily often mingled with exposition. In most writing that is not fiction, all three will be found. Argument may perhaps be best studied in the great speeches of Burke and Webster; persuasion in these also, and in less celebrated addresses, such as the speeches of Wendell Phillips, or the sermons of Phillips Brooks; exposition in the famous English and American essayists of the nineteenth century.

CHAPTER VII

COMPOSITION IN VERSE

EXERCISE

55. THE

48. COMPOSITION IN VERSE. 49. ACCENTS IN VERSE. - 50. LINES AND FEET. EXERCISE 24.51. KINDS OF FEET. - 52. HOVERING ACCENT. EXERCISE 25.- 53. KINDS OF LINES. 26.54. DIFFERENT FEET IN THE SAME LINE. CÆSURA OR VERSE-PAUSE. 56. FAMOUS ENGLISH METRES. — EXERCISE 27.—57. STANZAS. — 58. FAMOUS ENGLISH STANZAS. EXERCISE 28.59. THE SONNET.-60. FRENCH FORMS Of Verse.

48. Composition in Verse. In verse composition, or poetry, all the kinds of writing which we have discussed are represented, though argument, on account of its more abstract nature, occurs only rarely. The essential characteristics of poetry, however, cannot be properly understood by reference to narration, description, exposition, argument, and persuasion. Whether the element of narrative or that of description is the more prominent in a poem, the method and the aim are the same the appeal to the emotions of the reader rather than to his understanding. This appeal is made in two ways: (1) by the sound of words; (2) by the associations connected with them. In the first respect the poet is a musician. He chooses words of such a sort as to gratify the ear; he combines them so that their accents fall at regular intervals; and at regular intervals he may also

make use of rhyme. By these means the senses are stimulated, the emotions aroused, and the mind made ready for the reception of the poet's thought. In the second respect the poet is more like the painter. He deals with the concrete rather than with the abstract. His aim is to enable the reader to construct a series of visual images, whereby he shall behold the world of fact or the world of imagination in a new, fresh, and beautiful light. He does this by means of illustration, example, figure, by using words that are potent to awake in us delightful associations.

Many who will read these words have no difficulty in appreciating poetry. They have learned as children to love and understand it. Those to whom poetry still seems a strange and unnatural sort of composition will find that they come nearer to the appreciation of its beauty if they put themselves into the receptive mood of children, and simply let themselves be delighted by the charm of its pictures and its pleasing sounds and measures. They will also be helped by understanding better the ways in which sounds are so combined as to please the ear, and by trying themselves so to combine words; and those who have already learned to enjoy verse will find that study and experiment of this sort will increase their enjoyment. The side of the poet's art that has to do with the awakening of delightful associations is not a proper subject for study here; the simpler side the more mechanical side of verse we shall now take up in its main outlines.

49. Accents in Verse. One marked point in which verse differs from prose is in the use of rhyme. But rhyme is not essential to verse, for much poetry is not rhymed. All English poetry, however, is rhythmical or metrical;1 that is, the accents which we naturally give to the words occur, not in any order, as in prose, but at regular, or approximately regular, intervals, as in the lines that follow:

(1) The curfew tolls the knell of parting day.

(2) Say that health and wealth have missed me.

(3) For a laggard in love and a dastard in war
Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar.

(4) This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks.

In

Here, in (1) and (2), we can scarcely read the words without emphasizing every other syllable; and, in (3) and (4), without emphasizing every third syllable. (1) and (3) the verses begin with the unaccented syllables; in (2) and (4), with the accented syllables. In each case the pleasing quality of the line arises from the fact that the ear comes to understand the system, and expects to find the accent recurring regularly. It is like keeping step to a drum. An

1 Metre is more regular than rhythm. Writing is rhythmical when the accent tends to recur with something like regularity. In metre it recurs, as in music, at approximately regular intervals.