158.

Theme-model VIII. in Outline. The number of the paragraphs in the following outline is not fixed. Seven paragraphs are suggested, because, as a rule, we must not make descriptive themes very long.

First paragraph-the situation.

Second paragraph-description of sound, mood, place, character, or any other one motive that the subject calls for.

Paragraphs three to six-repetition of whatever motive is chosen for the second paragraph.

Seventh paragraph — a return to the situation, as in the conclusion of Theme-models II., III., and IV. (§§ 50, 69, and 79).

Exercise

Write according to Theme-model VIII. a description upon any of the following subjects, all of which repeat a motive. Introduce each with a situation in dialogue and return in the last paragraph to the situation, as in the conclusion of Theme-model II. Use a different fundamental device in each of the descriptive paragraphs.

1. Imagine a small child telling some one of the mode of life of his father, of his mother, of an older sister or brother, of himself. A theme on this subject describes for us the mode of life of several people.

Some of Riley's child poems may give suggestions for this theme.

2. Represent a traveler as describing to a listener different places he has visited. If you have not traveled yourself, you must depend upon books or upon what others can tell you of distant places. Your parents can probably give you some account of scenes familiar to them in youth or childhood.

3. Imagine a boy giving another a series of character sketches of the teachers whom he remembers most distinctly.

4. Imagine yourself looking out from a window. upon a street in which people are passing. Describe to a person in the room who cannot see the street, the personal appearance of different passers-by. Introduce the theme with a situation in dialogue (Situation-type II., §34), and use a different fundamental device in each paragraph.

The following quotation from Scott's Ivanhoe may show you how to begin such a description:

"And I must lie here like a bedridden monk," exclaimed Ivanhoe, "while the game that gives me freedom or death is played out by the hand of others!

Look from the window once again, kind maiden, but beware that you are not marked by the archers beneath. Look out once more and tell me if they yet advance to the storm. What dost thou see, Rebecca?"

CHAPTER X.

PARALLEL CONSTRUCTION

By

159. Definition of Parallel Construction. parallel construction is meant the use of a series of words, phrases, clauses, or statements in the same construction. The following quotations will serve to illustrate this use. The elements having the same construction should be pointed out in each of the sentences or paragraphs given below, and the punctuation of such series noted.

I. In prepositional phrases.

I thought sometimes I saw the flash of distant spires, the sunny gleam of upland pastures, the soft undulation of purple hills. - George WILLIAM CURTIS, Prue and I.

2. In independent statements.

a. The declarative statement.

I breathe (declarative statement) the soft air (noun) of the purple uplands (phrase) which they shall never tread (adjective clause). I hear (declarative statement) the sweet music (noun) of the voices (phrase) they long for in vain (adjective clause).

GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS, Prue and I.

b. The exclamatory statement.

How that long, wistful glance annihilated time and space, how forms and faces, unknown to any other, rose in sudden resurrection around her!

GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS, Prue and I.

C. The interrogative statement.

Another chance was given to our fathers; were they to throw it away as they had thrown away the former?

Were they again to be cozened by le Roy le veut? Were they again to advance their money on pledges which had been forfeited over and over again?

- THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY, Essay on Milton.

d. The imperative statement.

If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,
Speak to me:

If there be any good thing to be done,
That may to thee do ease and grace to me,
Speak to me:

If thou art privy to thy country's fate,
Which, happily, foreknowing may avoid,
O, speak!

- WILLIAM SHAKSPERE, Hamlet, Act I., Sc. 1.

3. In the participle.

So Minim goes on through the series, brandishing his ancestors about my head, and incontinently knocking me into admiration.

- GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS, Prue and I.

4. In the object clause.

But I knew, as I gazed enchanted, that the hills, so purple-soft of seeming, were hard, and gray, and barren in the wintry twilight; and that in the distance was the magic that made them fair.

GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS, Prue and I.

5. In the adverbial clause.

He finds only praise in the epitaphs, because the human heart is kind; because it yearns with wistful tenderness after all its brethren who have passed into the cloud. GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS, Prue and I.

If they were unacquainted with works of philosophers and poets, they were deeply read in the oracles of God. If their names were not found in the registers of heralds, they were recorded in the Book of Life.

-THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY, Essay on Milton.