Composition-Rhetoric - Stratton D. Brooks

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often use and whose meanings are best known to you.

      Because experience supplies an abundance of interesting, clear, and definite ideas, which are your own and which may be expressed in familiar language, it furnishes better material for training in expression than does either imagination or reading.

      +4. Essentials of Expression.+—The proper expression of ideas depends upon the observance of two essentials: first, you should say what you mean; and second, you should say it clearly. Without these, what you say may be not only valueless, but positively misleading. If you wish your hearer to understand what occurred at a certain time and place, you must first of all know yourself exactly what did occur. Then you must express it in language that shall make him understand it as clearly as you do. You will learn much about clearness, later; but even now you can tell whether you know what is meant by each sentence which you hear or read. It is not so easy to tell whether what you say will convey clearly to another the meaning you intend to convey, but you will be helped in this if you ask yourself the questions: "Do I know exactly what happened?" "Have I said what I intended to say?" "Have I said it so that it will be clear to the listener?"

      +Oral Composition 1.+—Report orally on one of the following:—

      1. Were you so interested in anything yesterday that you told it to your parents or friends? Tell the class about it.

      2. Tell about something that you have done this week, so that the class may know exactly what you did.

      3. Name some things in which you have been interested within the last two or three months. Tell the class about one of them.

      4. Tell the class about something that happened during vacation. Have you told the event exactly as it occurred?

      +5. Interest.+—In order to enjoy listening to a story we must take an interest in it, and the story should be so told as to arouse and maintain this interest. As you have listened to the reports of your classmates you have been more pleased with some than with others. Even though the meaning of each was clear, yet the interest aroused was in each case different. Since the purpose of a story is to entertain, any story falls short of its purpose when it ceases to be interesting. We must at all times say what we mean and say it clearly; but in story telling especially we must also take care that what we say shall arouse and maintain interest.

      +6. The Introduction.+—The story of an event should be introduced in such a manner as to enable the hearer to understand the circumstances that are related. Such an introduction contributes to clearness and has an important bearing upon the interest of the entire composition. In order to render our account of an event clear and interesting it is usually desirable to tell the hearers when and where the event occurred and who were present. Their understanding of it may be helped further by telling such of the attendant circumstances as will answer the question, Why? If I begin my story by saying, "Last summer John Anderson and I were on a camping trip in the Adirondacks," I have told when, where, and who; and the addition of the words "on a camping trip" tells why we were in the Adirondacks, and may serve to explain some of the events that are to follow. Even the statement of the place indicates in some degree the trend of the story, for many things that might occur "in the Adirondacks" could not occur in a country where there are no mountains. Certainly the story that would follow such an introduction would be expected to differ from one beginning with the words, "Last summer John Anderson and I went to visit a friend in New York."

      It is not always necessary to tell when, where, who, and why in the introduction, but it is desirable to do so in most cases of oral story telling. These four elements may not always be stated in incidents taken from books, for the reader may be already familiar with them from the preceding portions of the book. The title of a printed or written story may serve as an introduction and give us all needed information. In relating personal incidents the time element is seldom omitted, though it may be stated indirectly or indefinitely by such expressions as "once" or 'lately.' In many stories the interest depends upon the plot, and the time is not definitely stated.

      EXERCISE

      Notice what elements are included in each of the following introductions:—

      1. Saturday last at Mount Holly, about eight miles from this place, nearly three hundred people were gathered together to see an experiment or two tried on some persons accused of witchcraft.

      2. On the morning of the 10th instant at sunrise, they were discovered from Put-in-Bay, where I lay at anchor with the squadron under my command.

      3. It was on Sunday when I awoke to the realization that I had quitted civilization and was afloat on an unfamiliar body of water in an open boat.

      4. Up and down the long corn rows Pap Overholt guided the old mule and the small, rickety, inefficient plow, whose low handles bowed his tall, broad shoulders beneath the mild heat of a mountain June sun. As he went—ever with a furtive eye upon the cabin—he muttered to himself, shaking his head.

      5. After breakfast, I went down to the Saponey Indian town, which is about a musket shot from the fort.

      6. The lonely stretch of uphill road, upon whose yellow clay the midsummer sun beat vertically down, would have represented a toilsome climb to a grown and unencumbered man. To the boy staggering under the burden of a brimful carpet bag, it seemed fairly unscalable; wherefore he stopped at its base and looked up in dismay to its far-off, red-hot summit.

      7. One afternoon last summer, three or four people from New York, two from Boston, and a young man from the Middle West were lunching at one of the country clubs on the south shore of Long Island, and there came about a mild discussion of the American universities.

      8. "But where is the station?" inquired the Judge.

      "Ain't none, boss. Dis heah is jes a crossing. Train's about due now, sah; you-all won't hab long fer to wait. Thanky, sah; good-by; sorry you-all didn't find no birds."

      The Judge picked up his gun case and grip and walked toward his two companions waiting on the platform a few yards away. Silhouetted against the moonlight they made him think of the figure 10, for Mr. Appleton was tall and erect, and the little Doctor short and circular.

      9. I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris and he;

       I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three;

       "Good speed!" cried the watch, as the gate bolts undrew,

       "Speed!" echoed the wall to us galloping through.

       Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest,

       And into the midnight we galloped abreast.

      —Browning.

      +Oral Composition II.+—Relate orally to the class some incident in which you were personally concerned.

      The following may suggest a subject:—1. How I made friends with the squirrels. 2. A trick of a tame crow. 3. Why I missed the train. 4. How a horse was rescued. 5. Lost and found. 6. My visit to a menagerie.

      (When preparing to relate this incident ask yourself first whether you know exactly what happened. Consider then how to begin the story so that your hearer will know when and where it happened and who were there. Include in the beginning any statement that will assist the reader in understanding the events which follow.)

      +7. The Point of a Story.+—It is not necessary that a story be concerned with a thrilling event in order to be interesting. Even a most commonplace occurrence may be so told that it is worth listening to. It is more important that a story have a point and be so told that this point will be readily appreciated than that it deal with important or thrilling events. The story should lead easily and rapidly to its point, and when this is reached the end of the story should not be far distant. The beginning of a story will contain statements that will assist us in appreciating the point when we come to it, but if the point is plainly stated near the beginning, or even if it is too strongly suggested, our story will drag.

      At what point in the following selection is the interest greatest?

      During the Civil

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