at our feet. To the south stretches a valley marked here with broad fields of red clay, and there with forest growth clothed in the first green of spring. At the foot of the mountain lies the little village of Marietta. Hills and gray mountains give a wilder aspect to the north and east. Just beneath us, circling the mountain's verge, are the rifle pits where death leaping from a thousand fiery throats had met the Northern soldiers.

Everything remains just as it was left twenty-seven years ago. Minie-balls and shells still lie about the works, while now and then a cannon-ball is picked up.

Slowly the buzzards wheel overhead.

The sun's last rays linger upon the peak, giving a fond goodnight, and then silently vanish.

The cool of evening begins to settle around. Gently the wind stirs the trees in the cemetery on the hill where ten thousand brave Northern boys sleep their last sleep.

At last, roused from our reveries by the evening chill, we begin slowly to descend the mountain. M. G. W.

Let us define clearly just what subjects are contemplated in this exercise. On the one hand we have already dealt with nature and her products, and on the other hand we have touched to some extent upon cer

tain creations of man, if we may call a creation that which is merely an adaptation and combination of the inanimate products of nature. We shall return again to objects of this latter class as we find them in their highest form of pure art. Now between these two extremes of nature and art lie all combinations of the two in which nature is animate and is allowed at least partial freedom to work out her own ends. Here we can distinguish two pretty sharply defined cases, both of which come under the head of the present exercise. The one is exemplified wherever man has attempted to control or direct the active forces of nature to subserve his own ideals of usefulness or beauty. Thus we find the hillsides converted into vineyards, the prairies into farms, the waterfall into a mechanical power, the grove into a park with lakes and fountains and avenues. The other case is exemplified wherever nature has reclaimed and asserted dominion over the works of man. Thus a Pompeii is buried beneath ashes and scoriæ, a deserted dwelling becomes the lair of wild beasts, a tower falls stone from stone while flowers bloom in its crannies and ivy and mosses make beautiful the most repulsive final stages of decay. Each has its charm, distinct and unmistakable, for though man's work is ever imitation, it is imitation that makes no attempt to deceive.

Some features may in themselves deserve more attention than others, and yet the relative prominence given to various features of the object described may depend on external considerations. It may safely be asserted that no two people get exactly the same impression from the same object. The farmer and the business

man and the artist will look upon a stretch of hill and valley with very different eyes. Now no one of us can get these different impressions in their entire vividness, and yet it becomes our duty in describing to consult as far as possible the tastes and views of those whom we are addressing and to emphasize the points which they would care particularly to have emphasized. In like manner, not only the class of readers addressed, but the time and place and circumstances generally, should have much influence in determining our method of treatment. All of this is only another way of saying that in description we should select a definite point of view. The point of view is here taken to mean, in the description of a landscape for instance, not only the topical position of the describer, but also his mental attitude, so to speak. We want to know how he is inclined to look at things. If he describes a meadowlark we want to know whether he does it as a poet or as a naturalist, so that we shall know from what standpoint we are to read and criticise. This point of view should be clearly indicated somewhere in the beginning, and if it is shifted at any time, as of course it may be occasionally, the reader should have full warning.

The following sample description is taken from Olive Schreiner's Story of an African Farm:

The full African moon poured down its light from the blue sky into the wide, lonely plain. The dry, sandy earth with its coating of stunted "karroo" bushes a few inches high, the low hills that skirted the plain, the milk-bushes with their long fingerlike leaves, all were touched by a weird and almost oppressive beauty as they lay in the white light.

In one spot only was the solemn monotony of the plain broken. Near the centre a small solitary "kopje" rose. Alone it lay there, a heap of round ironstones piled one upon another, as over some giant's grave. Here and there a few tufts of grass or small succulent plants had sprung up among its stones, and on the very summit a clump of prickly pears lifted their thorny arms, and reflected, as from mirrors, the moonlight on their broad fleshy leaves. At the foot of the "kopje" lay the homestead. First, the stone-walled sheep kraals and Kaffir huts; beyond them the dwelling-house · a square red brick building with thatched roof. Even on its bare red walls, and the wooden ladder that led up to the loft, the moonlight cast a kind of dreamy beauty, and quite etherealized the low brick wall that ran before the house, and which enclosed a bare patch of sand and two straggling sunflowers. On the zinc roof of the great open wagon-house, on the roofs of the outbuildings that jutted from its side, the moonlight glinted with a quite peculiar brightness, till it seemed that every rib in the metal was of burnished silver.

Sleep ruled everywhere, and the homestead was not less quiet than the solitary plain.

The farm by daylight was not as the farm by moonlight. The plain was a weary flat of loose, red sand, sparsely covered by dry "karroo" bushes, that cracked beneath the tread like tinder, and showed the red earth everywhere. Here and there a milk-bush lifted its pale-colored rods, and in every direction the ants and beetles ran about in the blazing sand. The red walls of the farmhouse, the zinc roofs of the outbuildings, the stone walls of the kraals, all reflected the fierce sunlight, till the eye ached and blenched. No tree or shrub was to be seen far or near. The two sunflowers that stood before the door, outstared by the sun, drooped their brazen faces to the sand, and the little cicada-like insects cried aloud among the stones of the " "kopje."

The punctuation of the above may not always be the most rational, nor are the relative pronouns managed very skillfully, but as a piece of description it is strong and vivid. Notice how effectively the moonlight is

used to soften and blend the artificial with the natural objects, and then how sharply they all stand out in the sunlight. How is the point of view taken at the beginning?

EXERCISE XXX.

NATURE IN ACTIVITY.

A Sunrise at Sea.
Niagara Falls.

A Thunderstorm.
A Windy Day.

Subjects:

The Johnstown Flood.
Through a Forest Fire.
A Prairie Fire.

The Recent Earthquake.

These subjects may seem to suggest only the most striking phenomena of nature and the great ravages which her forces effect. Such, it is true, make stronger impressions on the observer and awaken keener interest in the reader, so that they are favorite subjects for description. But do not allow familiarity or indifference to blind you to the striking aspects of nature's changing mood as exhibited about you daily. The sunrise from your window may be as beautiful as any at sea. The storm that breaks fiercely over your head may be little less sublime than that which hurtles about the peaks and careers down the valleys of the Alps.

Descriptions of this class do not often have for their design the mere imparting of information. That is, they are not usually of a scientific character, but rather of a literary or artistic one. The object is to interest and please the reader, to create in his mind, in all its