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it made?-Under what circumstances?-What is it like?-What is its intended use?-Is it well adapted to such use?-How does it compare with other objects of a similar kind or purpose ?-What are the benefits it confers, the disadvantages it overcomes?-What are its constituent parts, and properties, and dimensions, and relations to each other?-What is its color, strength, durability?—Of what things does it remind one ?—What does it illustrate ?-What impressions does it convey? &c.

Descriptive compositions should be so arranged, and so written, as to communicate, in as great a degree as possible, the pleasure and the information which might have been derived from the actual presence of the thing described. It is necessary to this end that the writer strongly imagine the presence of the object described, so as to select judiciously the prominent or more striking features, specify them picturesquely, and describe impressively.

EXERCISES.

Describe, 1. Your native place, and surroundings.

2. Any river or smaller stream.

8. A favorite walk, or ride, and the scenery passed through. 4. A party for pic-nic, hunting, or fishing, &c.

5. The manner of spending some holiday season-thanksgiving --Christmas-Fourth of July, &c.

6. Your habits of study-pursuit of particular studies.

7. Habits of your instructor as to modes of teaching.

8. Some public occasion-consecration of a church edifice, opening of a public hall, reception of some great man, &c.

Whoever aspires to be a good descriptive writer must adopt rigorously the plan pursued by Sir Walter Scott, who, perhaps, has no superiors in this kind of writing, either for style of language, or for faithfulness and accuracy in his word-pictures. Mr. Merrit (in Lockhart's "Life of Scott”) thus speaks of the labor which Sir Walter performed to secure accuracy and originality in his descriptions of nature:

"On his visiting Rokeby, he said to me, 'You have often given me materials for a romance; now I want a good robber's cave, and an old church of the right sort.' We rode out, and he found what he wanted in the old slate quarries of Brignal, and the ruined Abbey of Egglestone. I observed him noting down even the peculiar little wild-flowers an l herbs that accidentally grew around, and on the side of a bold crag, near his intended cave of Guy Denzil; and could not help saying, that as he was not

to be upon oath in his work, daisies, violets, and primroses would be as poetical as any of the humbler plants he was examining. I laughed, in short, at his scrupulousness; but I understood him when he replied, 'that in ature herself no two scenes are exactly alike; and that whoever copied truly what was before his eyes, would possess the same variety in his descriptions, and exhibit apparently an imagination as boundless as the range of nature in the scene he recorded; whereas, whoever trusted to imagination, would soon find his own mind circumscribed and contracted to a few favorite images, and the repetition of these would, sooner or later, produce that very monotony and barrenness which had always haunted descriptive poctry in the hands of any but patient worshippers of truth. Besides which,' he said, 'local names and peculiarities make a fictitious story look so much better in the face.' In fact, from his boyish habits, he was at half satisfied with the most beautiful scenery when he could not connect with it some local legend; and when I was forced sometimes to confess, with the knife-grinder, 'Story! God bless you! I have none to tell, sir,' -he would laugh, and say, 'Then let us make one,-nothing so easy as to make a tradition.'"

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This consists of a statement of events that have happened or that are imagined, and of persons engaged in bringing them about, or in some way related to them. These events are generally stated in the order of time in which they occurred.

This form of writing embraces tales, fables, novels, travels, biography, history.

Mr. Jacob Abbott, one of the most prolific, agreeable, and successful writers of narratives, real and fictitious, may here be quoted with great advantage. He says:

Every object in the room is the subject for a story of half an hour. A pin, a wafer, a key, a stick of wood-there is nothing which is not full of interest to children, if you will only be minute enough. Take a stick of wocd. Tell how the tree it came from sprung from the ground, years ago; how it grew every summer by the sap; how this stick was first a little bud, next year a shoot, and by-and-by a strong branch; how a bird perhaps built

her nest on it; how squirrels ran up and down, and ants crept over it; Low the woodman cut down the tree, &c., &c., expanding all the particulars into the most minute narrative.

Besides this class of subjects, i. e., descriptions of common things, there is not a half-hour in a day whose history would not furnish a highly interesting narrative to a child. Take, for instance, your first half-hour in the morning; how the room looked when you awoke-what you first thought of-how you proceeded in dressing-the little difficulties you met with, and their remedies-what you first saw when you came down stairs, and what you did, &c.

A walk in a village, any imaginary history of a man's bringing a load of wood to market, or an account of a boy's making a collection of playthings for a cabinet,-what he had, and how he arranged them; or the common every-day adventures of a cat about the house, now sleeping in the corner, now watching at a mouse's hole in the dark cellar, and now ascending to the house-top and walking along on the edge of the roof, looking down to the boys in the yard below. These are mentioned, not to propose them, particularly, but to show how wide is the field, and how endless the numver and the variety of the topics which are open before you.

As to the method of writing a story, every thing should be presented in such a way as to convey vivid pictures to the mind. This is the key to one of the great secrets of interesting the young. Approach their minds through the senses. Describe every thing as it presents itself to the eye and to the ear. A different course is, indeed, often wise; as, for example, when you wish to exercise and develop the power of generalization and abstraction; but, generally, when your wish is merely to interest, or to convey knowledge, i. e., where you wish to gain the readiest and most complete access to the heart, these are the doors.

Another direction: Be exceedingly minute in the details of what you describe. In writing even for the mature, the success of the composition depends much upon the degree of fidelity with which those most minute circumstances which give to any scene its expression, are described to the mind. Every event, every incident, every fact, every phenomenon, however common, and every object of sight or hearing is connected with a thousand associations and trains of thought, which may be expanded.

Another direction: Let the style be abrupt and striking, and give the reins entirely to the imagination. For a more full illustration of these topics, refer to Abbott's "Way to Do Good," chap. ix., whence the preceding observations and illustrations have been taken.

PERSONAL NARRATIVE.

The following directions for this may be observed: Imagine the ordinary events of your daily experience. Dwell on the subject till you feel an interest in it. Ask yourself the questions, what did I do first, what did I see, whom did I meet, what was said or done by me, or by the person met, and other questions of the sort. The answers to such questions presented in a connected order will furnish the desired narrative. An example is subjoined from "Smart's Manual."

1. MY HISTORY OF TO-DAY.

I rose at six o'clock. It was a fine summer's morning, and as my hour of study was not till seven, I went to take a walk. The air was fresh; the sun shone; and the larks were singing above my head. I passed through corn-fields, meadows, and pastures; returning by the road that winds with the river. Reaching home at the appointed hour, I sat down to my cask, and prepared for construing, parsing, and scanning twenty lines of Virgil, beginning at the second Book. Then we breakfasted, and played for an hour. At nine I went up with my class, and got successfully through the lesson I had prepared. From ten till twelve we were employed in writing and ciphering; and then came our lessons in history and geography; after which we dined. When dinner was over, we had another hour's play. Our lesson in English followed, and the drawingmaster came at four. At five I had a lesson in music, which occupied me till our evening meal. Afterwards came the dancing-master, and he tired us out; so that, having furnished you, at your request, with this history, I am glad to say good night, and go to bed.

It is plain that all this might be a little more particularized. The twenty lines of Virgil are stated, but the other lessons are spoken of in general terms. The morning's walk might have been more minutely described, and the fields specified. But it is only fair to leave to the narrator a choice of circumstances for description; it is in the selection that he shows his taste; and his taste will improve, if he observes how far he fails, and how far he succeeds, in every attempt to frame a description of the kind here exemplified.

2. The narration of a story unconnected with yourself, will also be a useful occasion of trying your powers.

Doubtless this occasion has often happened. What you have been told by one person you have reported to others; and you may have related in a worse, or in a better manner, the tale which you heard. Your aim must be to relate, in the best manner you can, whatever narrative is proposed: all that your teacher ought to do, is, to put you in possession of the subject and the facts; and when your exercise is brought to him, to point out to you, as a guide for future attempts, how it might have been better.

Suppose you are required to tell, from early Roman history, the story or legend of Camillus, and the schoolmaster of the Falisci? Starting on this suggestive title, and presuming you to know the rest, or to be told of it, or have it read to you, you can have no difficulty in reporting the facts to another person,namely, "that the schoolmaster having under his care the sons of all the principal families of the place, led them out of the town under pretence of a walk for pleasure and exercise, and then went and gave them up to the commander of the besieging army; but Camillus, disdaining such baseness, refused to take advantage of it, and ordered the boys to flog the schoolmaster back into the city." When you have thus briefly repeated the facts, you may be required to write them down, and improve the effect of the whole by certain additions, which will not fail to suggest themselves to your fancy, provided you think very earnestly on what you have to communicate, and try, as you go on, to make the strongest impression you can on your reader. You should, in the first place, consider what qualities of heart or mind the chief actors in the story exhibit; and you may state these qualities by way of title, as the moral purpose or intention of your story.

BASENESS AND GENEROSITY CONTRASTED.

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When Camillus, in the early times of Rome, was besieging Falerii, a city which belonged to the people called Falisci, he was one day surprised to see a man approach him from the town, who brought with him a number of boys that seemed to be under his care. 'Camillus," "said the man, as soon as he was in the general's presence, "I deliver into your hands these youths, and in delivering them, I deliver to you the city you are besieging. am a schoolmaster; and there is not one person of any rank in the town,

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