EXERCISE IX.

PHYSICAL CONTESTS.

In the last exercise we dealt with a class of games to write an account of which required a certain intimate and technical knowledge. The written accounts too were intended only for those who possess a similar knowledge. The average newspaper report of a ball game is the merest jargon to an uninitiated reader. To "write up" these games in a way that shall be interesting to the general reader is indeed a difficult task, for after all details are eliminated and all technicalities suppressed, little remains. There is, however, a class of contests, less complex in their regulations and issues, which admit of being described in general terms and which appeal to the understanding and interest of all alike. Such are almost all simple trials of strength, endurance, speed, or agility. Everyone is interested in the description of the chariot race in Ben Hur, though few have witnessed such a contest. A foot race, horse race, boat race, or any one of the contests of an athletic club's field day, will furnish good material for work of this kind.

MODEL.

Louis Doucet and Captain Cortes met face to face and crossed swords near the middle of the little street. The Spaniard knew his man. Pauline's cry of recognition a while ago had told him who was the swift-footed and handsome young leader of the French detachment. As for Doucet he knew nothing more than that an enemy worthy of his steel was before him. A voice that he had heard a few moments before had seemed to him to utter his name with a sweet tenderness that recalled in some strange way the homesickness of his first year of absence from France.

It was no time for gentle reflections now; the voice could not really have called him, he thought, and the mere flash of nostalgie passed as quickly as it came. His sword rang sharp and clear on that of Cortes. The two men glared at each other, the concentrated hatred of years of war burning in their faces.

They were well matched in every way. Cortes was a trifle the taller, but Doucet appeared rather more compactly built than his adversary. Both were sufficiently heated by their previous exertion to make their blood swift and their muscles ready.

No time was lost; the fight was desperate from the beginning, neither combatant at first thinking of anything but rushing upon and bearing down the other. Both, however, discovered very soon that it was necessary to have a care for self-defence as well as for attack. They fenced furiously and adroitly, neither giving an inch, utterly forgetful of what was going on around them, their whole souls focused, so to speak, in the one desire to kill, and, by killing, to live.

Cortes was aware that Pauline was near by and probably looking on. The thought in some way nerved him powerfully. She should not see Louis Doucet vanquish him; he would show her that a Spaniard for once was superior to a Frenchman.

Doucet had no such extra stimulus, but his was an iron frame and his courage and coolness needed no aid when a Spaniard dared cross weapons with him. With the dexterity drawn from long practice, and with the fierce fury of young tigers thirsting for each other's blood, they struggled back and forth and round and round, while their companions, fighting quite as madly, swept on down the street leaving them to occupy the already corpsecumbered and blood-stained ground. In those days soldiers of the better class knew the use of the sword and were over-proud of the knowledge. Under the excitement and exhilaration of a hand-tohand combat the accomplished swordsman always feels that his strength is doubled; but the peculiar circumstances attending the struggle between Cortes and Doucet added immeasurably to this feeling.

Each found the other an antagonist whose vigor and swiftness made every moment a crisis and whose steadfast gaze caught in advance every motion of wrist or body.

Both men became aware presently that the cannonading had ceased and that the rattle of musketry was no longer heard. A great calm had fallen after the storm the battle was over and the Spanish, to the number of eighteen hundred, had surrendered themselves prisoners of war.

One Spaniard, however, was not yet conquered; one Frenchman was still battling for victory. From In Love's Hands, by Maurice Thompson.

For additional examples read the following:

The Chariot Race. Ben Hur; book v, chapter xiv. Gen. Lew Wallace.

The Tournament of Prince John. Ivanhoe; chapter vii.

Walter Scott.

- Sir

The Boat Race. Tom Brown at Oxford; chapter xiii. Thomas Hughes.

Christian's Fight with Apollyon. Pilgrim's Progress; Fourth Stage. John Bunyan.

The Duel. The Two Captains; chapter xviii. Baron de la Motte Fouqué.

The example here given and those referred to, dealing as they do with events so far removed from ordinary experience, will do little more than help one catch the spirit of this kind of work. But if they do that much it will be an ample return for the time spent in reading them. Of course a simple incident attracting only a mild interest will have to be treated with befitting simplicity. Any attempt to attach to it, by an inflated style of writing, an importance it does not possess, is certain to result in failure.

EXERCISE X.

INTELLECTUAL CONTESTS.

Give an account now of a contest of a somewhat different kind-one involving the exhibition, not of physical prowess, but rather of intellectual ability and attainments. Perhaps spelling and pronouncing matches, being of common occurrence, will most readily suggest themselves. Joint meetings of literary societies, debates, suits and trials at law, and contests in declamation and oratory, if you have an opportunity of hearing them, will afford yet wider scope for an exercise of this nature. Read The Debate in Will Carleton's Farm Festivals.

EXERCISE XI.

OUTLINE AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

The length of the composition to be written must be determined by various considerations, chiefly by the subject itself and the writer's knowledge of it. In general, write all that seems worthy of being said upon the subject, neither more nor less. It is sometimes necessary for a writer, as in the preparation of lectures, magazine articles, and newspaper reports, to fix his limits exactly beforehand. But that can be done successfully only when by long training one has obtained perfect control over his pen. In order therefore to obtain this control it may be well occasionally to practice writing compositions of a definite length. In every case the qualities to be sought for are unity, symmetry,

compactness, and completeness. Mere length is in itself no indication whatever of merit, nor even of the amount of time or labor spent on the work. A student once presented an essay of only four sentences, which in all the qualities above named was excelled by no one of a hundred other essays presented at the same time. It possessed in a rare degree that almost indefinable virtue, literary finish. When you read it you felt that everything had been said and had been said in the best possible manner. One word more or one word less would have spoiled it.

Naturally one whose aim is excellence only does not want to be hampered by any conditions in the matter of length. It is possible to expand or condense a written article within certain limits without serious harm; but the limits are very narrow. Of the two processes expansion is the more hazardous. Indeed, so far as mere use of words goes, writers of every grade err ten times on the side of excess to once on the side of deficiency. So true is this that we have several familiar names by which to characterize different forms of the first vice- inflation, circumlocution, redundance, tautology, prolixity, diffuseness - but scarcely one for the second rhetorical ellipsis. Condensation, "boiling down," is therefore recommended to young writers as a valuable practice. So long as the process is applied to the diction or wording of any thought there can be little question of its value. A review of what we have written will almost always show to us some expressions that add too little to warrant their retention, and some that are mere repetitions and add nothing at all. And sometimes the thought itself may be pruned to ad