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vantage. On the other hand, if expansion is necessary, it must always be effected by the addition of thought, of subject-matter, not by juggling with words.

Write a brief history of your life. There are a few facts that are necessary to every work of this kind, no matter how brief or incomplete it may be. In addition to these, relate the most important events and especially those events which, whether they appeared important or not at the time of their occurrence, gained significance by their effect upon your subsequent life. Such an essay is not likely to have complete unity, since it will be made up largely of diverse and unrelated experiences experiences that have fallen to the lot of a single individual, it is true, but quite as often by chance as by design. Still a certain unity will be secured if you continually bear in mind that all these experiences have contributed to make you what you

now are.

The opening chapter of Robinson Crusoe furnishes an excellent example of such a sketch of one's early life. Observe how it gives, in addition to those facts which are patent to every one, considerable insight into young Robinson's character and proclivities, which is not only interesting but really essential. Read also The Author's Account of Himself, in Washington Irving's Sketch-Book.

EXERCISE XII.

DETAILED AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

Instead of trying to cover your whole life-history, take a small portion of it only and treat it more in de

tail, as if you were writing a chapter of a complete formal autobiography. You will thus have time and space to make note of minuter incidents, to inquire, if you choose, into the motives of actions, to indicate personal tastes and follow the development of particular traits of character. Perhaps some of this could be better done by another than by yourself, still there is no reason why you should not attempt it. Try to be fair to yourself, erring if at all on the side of modesty. So far as may be, let motives shine through your actions rather than rest on your bare assertion. You will be more likely thus to win the reader's confidence and impress him with your sincerity.

The familiar Autobiographies of Benjamin Franklin, John B. Gough, Joseph Jefferson, etc., may be referred to as models.

EXERCISE XIII.

IMAGINARY AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

There is a subject that has long been a favorite with young composition-writers "The Autobiography of a Cent." It is an easy subject for several reasons. Being largely if not entirely fictitious it does not require any preliminary investigation into facts. It affords ample scope for the imagination, and yet in a wholly familiar field-everyday life. The use of the first person too instead of the third, seems to lead to the most natural and easy style of writing. If the title were changed to "The History of a Cent," and the third person used, the narrative would be likely to lose,

not only in simplicity, but also in liveliness and in

terest.

Select such an "autobiography" and write it in your best imaginative style. By imaginative is not meant anything strained or artificial. On the contrary,

the best imaginative writer in this case will be he who best succeeds in identifying himself with the object in question. Imagine yourself to be that object, as vividly as you can, and then, with all the feeling and naturalness possible to you, tell your story.

Of course many things may be substituted for the word cent in the above title-pin, ribbon, pen-knife, horse-shoe, postage-stamp. A description of the manufacture of these articles will not properly enter into a narration; rather dwell upon the wanderings of the object, the various uses it has subserved, the vicissitudes of fortune it has witnessed and suffered — in short, all its experiences and observations in the world of men and things. One of the most successful essays of this nature that has come under the writer's observation was entitled "A Voice from the Belfry." The schoolbell did all the talking, and the school-bell you must admit is in an admirable position to observe certain interesting phases of human life.

There is no need to confine yourself to inanimate objects. The autobiography of a squirrel or a dog or horse may be made perhaps more interesting than any of the above. Somewhat in this style is a well written plea for the horse, entitled Black Beauty, by Anna Sewell. If you prefer, instead of writing a composition of your own, take A Bell's Biography, in Hawthorne's Snow Image, and Other Twice Told Tales, and

rewrite it in the form of an autobiography with the bell as speaker.

EXERCISE XIV.

BIOGRAPHY.

Biography is a province of letters to which many authors of talent in all ages have devoted themselves. It differs from autobiography in that it is the lifehistory of one man written by another. Plutarch's Lives have exerted an incalculable influence over many generations of enthusiastic youth and are read still with scarcely diminished interest. The Memoirs of old French writers and their imitators are filled with biographical material. From England we have, to mention only one striking example out of hundreds, Boswell's monumental Life of Johnson. And the American press of the present day has given us a large number of brief biographies of varying degrees of excellence in the "Statesmen" series and "Men of Letters" series. Short sketches may be found in any Encyclopedia or Biographical Dictionary. Perhaps the most helpful examples will be found in Hawthorne's Biographical Stories, a collection of six short biographies of Sir Isaac Newton, Queen Christina, etc. Anecdotes are liberally interspersed to make the narrative as lively as possible.

To write such works as the most of those mentioned above requires time, talent, earnestness, and a full and definite knowledge of facts. Nevertheless such writing may with advantage be praticed on a small scale. After learning all the facts you can, write a short biography of one of your relatives or friends.

EXERCISE XV.

HISTORY.

To the historian falls the necessity of practicing the art of narration in all its branches and in its utmost complexity. He should have a lively imagination, a quick perception, a keen sympathy, and a calm, unerring judgment. He should be the ideal spectator of human activity, able to look upon the life of an individual as a mere incident in the life of a society or nation, and the life of a society or nation as a mere incident in the progress of the world. He may be likened to the reporter on the height watching the battle and sifting, judging, recording. From the height of the present he looks calmly down over the panorama of the past; or from the height of impartiality he surveys and chronicles the events of the present. He must see and distinguish clearly all the multicolored threads of the tangled skein and-not unravel them, for above all else must he picture to us things as they are; but he must be able to lay his finger at one point and say, "Here the thread enters the tangle," and lay it at another point and say, "Here it emerges again.' the ends of the thread no man sees.

But

Still much of the historian's work requires no more skill than may be obtained in the practice of ordinary narration. He gathers his facts from every accessible source and then selects, arranges, and classifies them according to whatever seems to him the best principle. It will be easy enough for you to get an insight into this process and at the same time gain a little practical

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