Thomas Carlyle

Shakespeare, we may fancy, wrote with rapidity; but not till he had thought with intensity: long and sore had this man thought, as the seeing eye may well discern, and had dwelt and wrestled amid dark pains and throes,- though his great soul is silent about all that. It was for him to write rapidly at fit intervals, being ready to do it. And herein truly lies the secret of the matter: such swiftness of mere writing, after due energy of preparation, is doubtless the right method; the hot furnace having long worked and simmered, let the pure gold flow out at one gush. It was Shakespeare's plan; no easy writer he, or he had never been a Shakespeare. (119)

EXERCISES BASED ON PICTURES

Shakespeare at the Court of Elizabeth.

Tell the story of this

picture in your own way. You may give it as if it were your own experience as a courtier, or a lady at court that day. You may make believe that you have come upon some letters of the olden time,

among which is one describing this scene. Or you may tell the story as having been told by some one then present to some one else, who in turn passes it along till it is handed down in the family as a sort of household story. Choose whatever form of telling it appeals to you. When you have finished, revise it according to one of the methods just quoted from successful authors.

Important Cautions. It may be well for the permanent editorial committee, upon consultation with the instructor in English, to inquire carefully as to the following additional points1 with regard to the punctuation of the daily exercises of the pupils. These should be added to the lists on previous pages.

XXII. Use of quotation marks. (a) Note that these are used to inclose a direct quotation. He said: "James, I regret' to see you depart." Quotation marks are unnecessary in the case of an indirect quotation; as, He said to James that he regretted to see him depart.

(b) Quotation marks are not used to inclose each separate sentence unless each sentence is a separate remark. For example: He replied: "I cannot go now. Much as I desire to respect your wishes in everything, it is impossible for me to leave to-day. But I shall go at my earliest opportunity." Here are three sentences included between the one pair of quotation marks, because they make up one remark.

(c) Note that in the use of quotation marks the second mark is as important as the first. Quotation marks go in pairs, and mean nothing unless thus coupled together. Note also that two sets of marks are needed where the quotation is broken. "Come," he said, "tell me now."

Prepare a topical outline bringing out the salient points as you see them in this chapter. Prepare to recite from it.

1 From Requirements in Form, Illinois Association of Teachers of English.

EXERCISES IN EFFECTIVE REVISION

(a) Reshaping. Read the preceding selections over once for their own sake. Then read them again with a view to their restatement in your own words. You are to tell what each writer says, orally or in writing, but to say it in your own way. Sift it out. Study what he says, and express it in your way of saying things, except that you are to use no slang.

If any writer uses some unusual word or phrase, decide how you would say the same thing, putting it in some other way. See if you can improve on any word, phrase, sentence, or paragraph. It may be that you can. Try it, modestly but courageously.

In this sort of work, you are doing what others are required to do everywhere about you. The telegraph editor of a great newspaper uses a ten-word "wireless" message and makes it into a two-column news item on the first page. The sales manager of a strong corporation takes a sentence from the report of a field worker and restates it in a full-page letter, to be sent out to every representative employed by his company. A sentence or a paragraph from the President's message is restated in the editorials of a thousand news journals and magazines, all over the world.

(b) Condensing. In the following restatements, see if you can make what you write more effective than the original.

1. Give Cowper's statement in ten words.

2. Repeat in twenty-five words what Stevenson says; then in fifty words.

3. Tell in one hundred words how Maupassant was trained. 4. Detail in two hundred words, how Franklin discovered his faults as a writer, and how he set to work to improve his work.

5. Say what Smith says in seventy-five words.

(c) What a Good Story Depends Upon. — Give in one paragraph the requirements of a good story.

(d) The Value of Omission. What does a good story depend upon? Answer in twenty-five words, or less, quoting Hubbard.

(e) The Value of Training. — Tell in two hundred words, or more, why a good reporter may do better than a man intellectually his superior, when it comes to writing. Include in this what Arlo Bates says about "the blue pencil."

(f) A Social Project for the English Class. — Plan a day's outing in camp, arranging for a camp dinner and a gypsy supper, as a high school project in English. The appointment of committees, and the written statement to each member of the duties expected of him or her, will require much speaking and writing on the part of the secretarial committee, whose title indicates its duties.

The following additional committees are suggested. (1) An executive committee, whose chairman shall be in charge of the entire project; (2) a committee on preliminaries, whose members are to inform themselves and the class on what has been done by this and other schools on gypsying projects; (3) a committee on location and transportation, which is to select the site for the camp; (4) a committee on publicity and invitation; (5) a committee on chaperons; (6) a committee on "safety first," to provide pure drinking water, ice, etc., to insure camp hygiene, to guard against accidents, and to provide first aid to the injured, should this be necessary; (7) a committee on program and camp-fire entertainment; (8) a commissary committee, to provide for suitable things to eat; and as a subcommittee of this latter, the camp cooks.

Do not forget the camp stew, the clam bake, or roasting-ear bake, the marshmallow toast, the sausage roast, the fish fry, or the chance to barbecue the meat.

Letters, notes, lists, bulletins, suggestions, etc., will provide work in English for a week.

(g) Effective Revision. - Let one boy and one girl, selected for their keenness and judgment in correcting written work, deal with the letters and communications that go out from each committee with reference to the above project. Let nothing go from either committee or individual that has not received an "O.K." from this revision committee.

(h) Let the editorial committee take the following set of exercises in hand, for the purpose of making effective revision of the work done by the pupils under their direction, of course under the supervision of the instructor in English. After such revision, which should be keen but kindly, let the papers be rewritten, or the speeches revised.

1. Daniel and the Lion's Den. - Tell the story, as found in Daniel vi.

2. The Story of Samson. Judges xvi, 4 to 31.- Or tell the entire story. If you please, you may refer to Milton's Samson Agonistes. Give it orally. Seven to ten minutes.

3. Cinderella. Tell the story of Cinderella.

4. Dramatization. Robin Hood. Take the stories concerning Robin Hood and his Merry Men, and write a play to be presented before the English class. Do not introduce too many characters.

5. A Visit to Washington, D. C. Tell what you can about the City of Washington. Include what you please about the Capitol, the White House, the Washington Monument, the Corcoran Art Gallery, the Smithsonian Institution, the Pennsylvania Station, and anything else you like. Give it in the form of a talk, or of a letter. It would be well for an English class in any of the Washington high schools to make it a class letter to the English class of some other city.

6. A Rescue. Two girls are rowing in high glee, all unconscious of the fact that a stiff wind is blowing them out to sea. Tell the story of two boys, members of the same class in high school, as they row out to warn them, and help them back to safety.

7. Travel Letters. Some boy or girl of the class may have been abroad, or have just come to your school from some foreign country. Ask for a letter describing some such city as the following: (a) Quito, Ecuador; (b) Shanghai, China; (c) Cape Town, South Africa; (d) Calcutta, India; (e) Constantinople, Turkey; (f) Tokio, Japan; (g) Rome, Italy; (h) Nome, Alaska. Let every student who has lived in a foreign city, describe that city.

(i) The Skeleton in Armor. — Have Longfellow's poem of this title read aloud in class by one or two of the best readers in the class. Let the story be written in class. Each student will then revise his first draft, with the view of telling the story in his own way. He may discard such details as in his judgment hinder the story, or introduce