Читать книгу Composition-Rhetoric - Stratton D. Brooks - Страница 9

In each of the following selections decide where the interest reaches its climax. Has anything been said in the beginning of any of them which suggests what the point will be, or which helps you to appreciate it when you come to it?

1. The next evening our travelers encamped on a sand bar, or rather a great bank of sand, that ran for miles along one side of the river. They kept watch as usual, Leon taking the first turn. He seated himself on a pile of sand and did his best to keep awake; but in about an hour after the rest were asleep, he felt very drowsy and fell into a nap that lasted nearly half an hour, and might have continued longer had he not slid down the sand hill and tumbled over on his side. This awoke him. Feeling vexed with himself, he rubbed his eyes and looked about to see if any creature had ventured near. He first looked towards the woods, for of course that was the direction from which the tigers would come; but he had scarcely turned himself when he perceived a pair of eyes glancing at him from the other side of the fire. Close to them another pair, then another and another, until, having looked on every side, he saw himself surrounded by a complete circle of glancing eyes. It is true they were small ones, and some of the heads which he could see by the blaze were small. They were not jaguars, but they had an ugly look. They looked like the heads of serpents. Was it possible that a hundred serpents could have surrounded the camp?

Brought suddenly to his feet, Leon stood for some moments uncertain what to do. He believed that the eyes belonged to snakes which had just crept out of the river; and he feared that any movement on his part would lead them to attack him. Having risen to his feet, his eyes were above the level of the blaze, and he was able in a little while to see more clearly.

He now saw that the snakelike heads belonged to creatures with large oval bodies, and that, besides the fifty or more which had come up to look at the fire, there were whole droves of them upon the sandy beach beyond. As far as he could see on all sides, the bank was covered with them. A strange sight it was, and most fearful. For his life he could not make out what it meant, or by what sort of wild animals he was surrounded.

He could see that their bodies were not larger than those of small sheep; and, from the way in which they glistened in the moonlight, he was sure they had come out of the river. He called to the Indian guide, who awoke and started to his feet in alarm. The movement frightened the creatures round the fire; they rushed to the shore, and were heard plunging by hundreds into the water.

The Indian's ear caught the sounds, and his eye took in the whole thing at a glance.

"Turtles," he said.

"Oh," said the lad; "turtles, are they?"

"Yes, master," answered the guide. "I suppose this is one of their great hatching places. They are going to lay their eggs in the sand."

—Captain Mayne Reid.

Would the preceding incident be interesting if we were told at the beginning that the boy and the Indian had encamped near a hatching place of turtles?

2. Not every story that reads like fiction is fact, but the Brooklyn Eagle assures its readers that the one here quoted is quite true. The man who told it was for many years an officer of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company in Illinois, and had annual passes over all the important railroads in the country. His duties took him to Springfield, the state capital, and as he generally went by the Chicago, Alton & St. Louis road, the conductors on that line knew him so well that they never asked to see his pass.

"One day I received a telegram summoning me to meet one of the officers of my company at Aurora the next morning. I had only a short time to catch my train to Chicago, and in my haste left my passbook behind. I did not find this out until I reached Chicago, and was about to take the last train for Aurora that night. Then I saw that the conductor, a man brought over from the Iowa division, was a stranger, and the fact that I would need my pass reminded me that I did not have it.

"I told the conductor the situation, but he said he could not carry me on my mere representation that I had a pass.

"Why, man," said I, "I am an officer of the company, going to Aurora on company business, and this is the last train that will get me there in time. You must take me."

"He was polite, but firm. He said he was a new man on this division, and could not afford to make any mistakes.

"When I saw that he was determined, I rushed off to the telegraph office; but it was too late to catch anybody authorized to issue passes, so I settled it in my mind that I must go by carriage, and the prospect of an all-night ride over bad roads through the dark was anything but inviting. Indeed, it was so forbidding that I resolved to make one more appeal to the conductor.

"You simply must take me to Aurora!" I said, with intense earnestness.

"I can't do it," he answered. "But I believe you are what you represent yourself to be, and I will lend you the money personally. It is only one dollar and twelve cents."

"Well, sir, you could have knocked me down with the flat side of a palm-leaf fan. I had more than two thousand dollars in currency in my pocket, but it had never for an instant occurred to me that I could pay my fare and ride on that train. I showed the conductor a wad of money that made his eyes stick out.

"I thought it was funny," said he, "that a man in your position couldn't raise one dollar and twelve cents. It was that that made me believe you were playing a trick to see if I would violate the rule."

"The simple truth was, I had ridden everywhere on passes so many years, that it did not occur to me that I could ride in any other way."

+Oral Composition III.+[Footnote: Oral compositions should be continued throughout the course. A few minutes may be profitably used once or twice each week in having each member of the class stand before the class and relate briefly some incident which he has witnessed since the last meeting of the class. Exercises like those on page 53 also will furnish opportunities for oral work.]—Relate to the class some personal incident suggested by one of the following subjects:—

1. A day with my cousin. 2. Caught in the act. 3. A joke on me. 4. My peculiar mistake. 5. My experience on a farm. 6. My experience in a strange Sunday school. 7. What I saw when I was coming to school.

(In preparation for this exercise, consider the point of your story. What must you tell first in order to enable the hearers to understand the point? Can you say anything that will make them want to know what the point is without really telling them? Can you lead up to it without too long a delay? Can you stop when the point has been made?)

+8. Theme Writing and Correcting.+—Any written exercise, whether long or short, is called a theme throughout this book. Just as one learns to skate by skating, so one learns to write by writing; therefore many themes will be required. Since the clear expression of thought is one of the essential characteristics of every theme, theme correction should be primarily directed to improvement in clearness. The teacher will need to assist in this correction, but the really valuable part is that which you do for yourself. After you leave school you will need to decide for yourself what is right and what is best, and it is essential that you now learn how to make such decisions.

To aid you in acquiring a habit of self-correction, questions or suggestions follow the directions for writing each theme. In Theme I you are to express clearly to others something that is already clear to you.

+Theme I.+-Write a short theme on one of the subjects that you have used for an oral composition.

(After writing this theme, read it aloud to yourself. Does it read smoothly? Have you told what actually happened? Have you told it so that the hearers will understand you? Have you said what you meant to say? Consider the introduction. Has the story a point?)

+9. The Conclusion.+—Since the point of a story marks the climax of interest, it is evident that the conclusion must not be long delayed after the point has been reached. If the story has been well told, the point marks the natural conclusion, and a sentence or two will serve to bring the story to a satisfactory end. If a suitable ending does not suggest itself, it is better to omit the conclusion altogether than to construct a forced or flowery one. Notice the conclusion of the incident of the Civil War related on page 18.

+Theme II.+-Write a short theme suggested by one of the following subjects:—

1. A school picnic. 2. A race. 3. The largest fire I have seen. 4. A skating accident. 5. A queer mistake. 6. An experience with a tramp.

(Correct with reference to meaning and clearness. Consider the introduction; the point; the conclusion.)

+10. Observation of Actions.+—Many of our most interesting experiences arise from observing the actions of others. A written description of what we have observed will gain in interest to the reader, if, in addition to telling what was done, we give some indication of the way in which it was done. A list of tools a carpenter uses and the operations he performs during the half hour we watch him, may be dull and uninteresting; but our description may have an added value if it shows his manner of working so that the reader can determine whether the carpenter is an orderly, methodical, and rapid worker or a mere putterer who is careless, haphazard, and slow. Two persons will perform similar actions in very different ways. Our description should be so worded as to show what the differences are.

+Theme III.+—Write a theme relating actions.

Suggested subjects:—

1. A mason, blacksmith, painter, or other mechanic at work.

2. How my neighbor mows his lawn.

3. What a man does when his automobile breaks down.

4. Describe the actions of a cat, dog, rabbit, squirrel, or other

animal.

5. Watch the push-cart man a half-hour and report what he did.

(Have you told exactly what was done? Can you by the choice of suitable words show more plainly the way in which it was done? Does this theme need to have an introduction? A point? A conclusion?)

+11. Selection of Details.+—You are at present concerned with telling events that actually happen; but this does not mean that you need to include everything that occurs. If you wish to tell a friend about some interesting or exciting incident at a picnic, he will not care to hear everything that took place during the day. He may listen politely to a statement of what train you took and what you had in your lunch basket, but he will be little interested in such details. In order to maintain interest, the point of your story must not be too long delayed. Brevity is desirable, and details that bear little relation to the main point, and that do not prepare the listener to understand and appreciate this point, are better omitted.

+Theme IV.+—Write about something that you have done. Use any of the following subjects, or one suggested by them:—

1. My first hunt. 2. Why I was tardy. 3. My first fishing trip. 4. My narrow escape. 5. A runaway. 6. What I did last Saturday.

(Read the theme aloud to yourself. Does it read smoothly? Have you said what you meant to say? Have you expressed it clearly? Consider the introduction; the point; the conclusion. Reject unnecessary details.)

+12. Order of Events.+—The order in which events occur will assist in establishing the order in which to relate them. If you are telling about only one person, you can follow the time order of the events as they actually happened; but if you are telling about two or more persons who were doing different things at the same time, you will need to tell first what one did and then what another did. You must, however, make it clear to the reader that, though you have told one event after the other, they really happened at the same time.

In the selection below notice how the italicized portions indicate the relation in time that the different events bear to one another.

At the beach yesterday a fat woman and her three children caused a great commotion. They had rigged themselves out in hired suits which might be described as an average fit, for that of the mother was as much too small as those of the children were too large. They trotted gingerly out into the surf, wholly unconscious that the crowd of beach loungers had, for the time, turned their attention from each other to the quartet in the water. By degrees the four worked out farther and farther until a wave larger than usual washed the smallest child entirely off his feet, and caused the mother to scream lustily for help. The people on the beach started up, and two or three men hastened to the rescue, but their progress was impeded by the crowd of frightened girls and women who were scrambling and splashing towards the shore. The mother's frantic efforts to reach the little boy were rendered ineffectual by the two girls, who at the moment of the first alarm had been strangled by the salt water and were now clinging desperately to her arms and attempting to climb up to her shoulders. Meanwhile, the lifeboat man was rowing rapidly towards the scene, but it seemed to the onlookers who had rushed to the platform railing that he would never arrive. At the same time a young man, who had started from the diving raft some time before, was swimming towards shore with powerful strokes. He now reached the spot, caught hold of the boy, and lifted him into the lifeboat, which had at last arrived.

Such expressions as meanwhile, in the meantime, during, at last, while, etc., are regularly used to denote the kind of time relations now under discussion. They should be used when they avoid confusion, but often a direct transition from one set of actions to another can be made without their use. Notice also the use of the relative clause to indicate time relations.

+Theme V.+-Write a short theme, using some one of the subjects named under the preceding themes or one suggested by them. Select one which you have not already used.

(Have you told enough to enable the reader to follow easily the thread of the story and to understand what you meant to tell? If your theme is concerned with more than one set of activities, have you made the transition from one to another in such a way as to be clear to the reader? Have you expressed the transitions with the proper time relations? What other questions should you ask yourself while correcting this theme?)