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Gray hairs, meaning old age.

The fatal cup, meaning the drink in the cup.

DEF. 9. Hy-per'bo-le consists in magnifying objects beyond their natural bounds to make a statement more emphatic. "Swift as the wind," "Rivers of blood, and hills of slain," are hyperbolical expressions.

DEF. 10. Apostrophe consists in addressing some absent person or thing as if present; as,

Milton, thou shouldst be with us at this hour!

DEF. 11. Irony is the use of words whose literal meaning is contrary to the real signification; as,Brutus is an honorable [meaning not honorable] man!

DEF. 12. Ellipsis is the omission of words grammatically necessary, but supplied by the thought.

II.

DEF. 13. The direct or grammatical order of words is their ordinary prose arrangement.

DEF. 14. The indirect or rhetorical order of words is an inverted arrangement of words adopted to make a statement more impressive.

In the sentence, "I shall neither attempt to palliate nor deny the atrocious crime of being a young man," the words are arranged in the grammatical order, -subject, verb, object; but in the form, "The atrocious crime of being a young man, I shall neither attempt to palliate nor deny," the words are arranged in the indirect or rhetorical order.

DEF. 15. A period is a sentence in which, by using an inverted order of words, the meaning is suspended till the close or near the close.

DEF. 16. A loose sentence is one which may be brought to a grammatical close at one or more points before the end.

PERIOD. On the rich and the eloquent, on nobles and priests, the Puritans looked down with contempt.

LOOSE SENTENCE. -The Puritans looked down with contempt on the rich and the eloquent, | on nobles and priests.

III.

DEF. 17. Description is the representation of things observed at any one point of time.

DEF. 18. Narration is the report of a succession of events observed in the order of time.

DEF. 19. Exposition is the discussion of principles. DEF. 20. Poetry, in its mechanism, is that kind of composition in which words are arranged in lines (verses) containing a definite number and succession of accented and unaccented syllables.

DEF. 21. Rhyme is that species of verse in which is found concord of sounds in words at the end of lines.

DEF. 22. Blank verse consists of unrhymed lines containing five feet of two syllables each, with the accent on the second syllable.

DEF. 23. A refrain is a phrase or verse which occurs at the end of each of the stanzas of a poem.

DEF. 24. Style is the peculiar manner in which thought is expressed in language.

There are many descriptive words used to denote the various kinds of style, and the meaning of these the pupil may look up in the dictionary; as, figurative, flowery, plain, verbose, terse, simple, sublime, witty, epigrammatic.

FIFTH READER.

1.- How to Write.

con-sist', to be made up of.

couch, to express, phrase, state. eū'ri-oŭs, inquisitive, anxious. head, topic, subdivision.

post, place, office.

re-gärd', respect, particular.
spûrt, casual effort.

tongue, language.

in-differ-ent, unheeding, uninter- trans-late', to express in other

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This lively and instructive piece is by Rev. Edward Everett Hale (b. 1822), an American essayist. His stie is clear, pointed, and vivacious.

(11) leading articles, called leaders for short, are editorial articles of a newspaper. — (5) capping verses: naming alternately verses beginning alike. — (13) Saxon words: those words which we owe to the Anglo-Saxons, German tribes who conquered Britain in the fifth century A.D. (13) Latin words here means those English words which are derived from the Latin language either directly or through French, Italian, or Spanish.

1. Whenever I am going to write anything, I find it best to think first what I am going to say. This is a lesson which nine writers out of ten have never

1 The numerals thus prefixed in the Preparatory Notes throughout this book indicate in each case the paragraph or stanza of the piece in which the word or phrase is found.

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learned. Even the people who write leading articles for the newspapers do not, half the time, know what they are going to say when they begin. And I have heard many a sermon which was evidently written by a man who, when he began, only knew what his first head was to be. The sermon was a sort of riddle to himself when he started, and he was curious as to how it would come out.

2. I remember a very worthy gentleman who sometimes spoke to the Sunday school when I was a boy. He would begin without the slightest idea of what he was going to say, but he was sure that the end of the first sentence would help him to the second. This is an example:

3. "My dear young friends, I do not know that I have any thing to say to you, but I am very much obliged to your teachers for asking me to address you this beautiful morning. The morning is so beautiful after the refreshment of the night, that as I walked to church, and looked around, and breathed the fresh air, I felt more than ever what a privilege it is to live in so wonderful a world. For the world, dear children, has been all contrived and set in order for us by a Power so much higher than our own, that we might enjoy our own lives and live for the happiness and good of our brothers and our sisters.

4. "Our brothers and our sisters they are indeed, though some of them are in distant lands, and beneath other skies, and parted from us by the broad oceans.

These oceans, indeed, do not so much divide the world as they unite it. They make it one. The winds which blow over them, and the currents which move their waters, all are ruled by a higher law, that they may contribute to commerce and to the good of man. And man, my dear children," etc., etc., etc.

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5. You see there is no end to it. It is a sort of capping verses with yourself, where you take up the last word or the last idea of one sentence, and begin the next with it, quite indifferent where you come out, if you only "occupy the time" that is appointed. It is very easy for you; but, my dear friends, it is very hard for those who read and who listen.

6. The vice goes so far, indeed, that you may divide literature into two great classes of books. The smaller class of the two consists of the books written by people who had something to say. They had in life learned. something, or seen something, or done something, which they really wanted and needed to tell to other people. They told it. And their writings make, perhaps, a twentieth part of the printed literature of the world. It is the part which contains all that is worth reading. The other nineteen twentieths make up the other class.

7. In learning to write, our first rule is: Know what you want to say. The second rule is: Say it. That is, do not begin by saying something else which you think will lead up to what you want to say. I remember, when they tried to teach me to sing, they told me to "think of eight and sing seven." That may be a very

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