Do you use the camera? Select a good snapshot, and tell two things about it: (a) what it represents; and (b) under what circumstances it was taken. Suppose you put this exercise in letter form, as if addressed to a friend, with the snapshot attached.

A Little Story of Adventure. using this scene as the place.

Write a short story of adventure, Make it worthy of the scene, or do not complete your story. Suppose you give an account of how a friend rescues you, as you attempt to climb down from the top of the Natural Bridge.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE PARAGRAPH

Deliberately plan your paragraphs.

- BARRETT Wendell.

Paragraph Defined. A paragraph is a sentence or a group of sentences so arranged as to develop a complete thought.

In the paragraph quoted below from Mark Twain, he sets out to do a certain thing and accomplishes it. As you read, one idea is clearly developed. You discover what was the ambition of every boy in the village where Mark Twain spent his boyhood.

When I was a boy, there was but one permanent ambition among my comrades in our village on the west bank of the Mississippi River. That was, to be a steamboatman. We had transient ambitions of other sorts, but they were only transient. When a circus came and went, it left us all burning to become clowns; the first negro minstrel show that ever came to our section left us all suffering to try that kind of life; now and then we had a hope that, if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates. These ambitions faded out, each in its turn; but the ambition to be a steamboatman always remained.

- Life on the Mississippi, Mark Twain.

The paragraph bears the same relation to sentences that sentences bear to words, phrases, and clauses. It is the arrangement of the parts of the sentence that brings out the complete thought in the sentence; and it is the

arrangement of the sentences composing the paragraph that brings out the complete thought of the paragraph.

Long and Short Paragraphs. - Paragraphs may be long or short. They are considered long if they contain more than one hundred words, short if they contain fewer than one hundred.

Effect Secured by Short and Long Paragraphs. Each style of paragraph is marked by a characteristic effect upon the mind of the reader. Short paragraphs are easier to read and understand; they have what may be said to be a light effect; they give quicker movement to the thought. Where events move rapidly, the paragraphs get shorter, until sometimes one sentence becomes a paragraph, and that one sentence may become a single word.

On the other hand, long paragraphs take longer to read, and they are correspondingly harder to master; they are said to produce a heavy effect; they give slower movement and more dignity to the thought. Short paragraphs would ill become portrayals of majestic events. Arguments addressed to thinking bodies of men would fail in their intended effect if they did not clothe themselves in sentences and paragraphs of befitting length and dignity.

Two Reasons for Paragraphing. There are two reasons for the use of pagraphs. The first is for the sake of the reader. He cannot readily take in the meaning of a full, unbroken page of printed matter, and so the writer simplifies things for him by breaking up the page into smaller sections, or paragraphs.

Secondly, the paragraph is important for the sake of the writer himself. The paragraph is the unit of prose. In order to make the whole composition effective, the writer must begin with the paragraph, and make it effective. The way to accomplish this is to plan your paragraphs. Planning Your Paragraphs. — You have already, in

Chapters IV and VII, studied how to plan your paragraphs. The method there suggested is still to be kept in mind. As you begin to think about the theme upon which you are to write or speak, first set down brief notes of your thoughts in whatever order they come to your mind. Then arrange each of these topics in a sentence, to be known as the topic sentence.

If you plan to use several paragraphs, write each of these topic sentences upon a separate slip, and arrange these slips in the order in which you desire them to come, until you have found the best possible order. Then rewrite these topic sentences in that order.

In no other way can you obtain so effectively a logical order. Your paragraphs will hold together, and your outline, made up of the topic sentences in proper order, will give you a brief of your entire composition.

Testing Your Paragraphs. -Not only does your topic sentence help you in writing your paragraph, but it is the best test of your paragraph after it is written. If all that your paragraph says can be summed up in one clear sentence, your paragraph is well written.

How to Arrange Your Paragraphs. There can be no fixed rule how to arrange your paragraphs. Your own judgment in each case must decide. This judgment, carefully exercised, will after some practice bring a certain skill in paragraph arrangement.

The following suggestions, however, may prove helpful:

1. In recalling an incident within your own knowledge, the order of events, or time order, may be most effective.

2. In reproducing a story, your paragraphs may be related by keeping in mind the thread of the story.

3. In description, the logical order may help; in an experiment, for instance, the steps of the experiment; in dealing with the makeup of the human body, the arrangement of the parts, and so on.

4. If you have unusual skill as a writer or speaker, it may show itself in an artistic arrangement, or in some strong dramatic effect.

Example from Burke. The selection from Burke, given below, shows how clearly each paragraph is outlined in a topic sentence, which in this case proves to be the opening sentence of each paragraph.

On the Use of Force

First, Sir, permit me to observe that the use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment, but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again; and a nation is not governed which is perpetually to be conquered.

My next objection is its uncertainty. Terror is not always the effect of force, and an armament is not a victory. If you do not succeed, you are without resource; for, conciliation failing, force remains; but, force failing, no further hope of conciliation is left. Power and authority are sometimes bought by kindness; but they can never be begged as alms by an impoverished and defeated violence.

A further objection to force is that you impair the object by your very endeavors to preserve it. The thing you fought for is not the thing which you recover; but depreciated, sunk, wasted, and consumed in the contest. Nothing less will content me than whole America. I do not choose to consume its strength along with our own, because in all parts it is the British strength that I consume. I do not choose to be caught by a foreign enemy at the end of this exhausting conflict; and still less in the midst of it. I may escape; but I can make no insurance against such an event. Let me add, that I do not choose wholly to break the American spirit; because it is the spirit that has made the country.

Lastly, we have no sort of experience in favor of force as an instrument in the rule of our Colonies. Their growth and their utility has been owing to methods altogether different. Our ancient indulgence has been said to be pursued to a fault.