her lips, likewise, were tremulous; and the expression of her eye seemed to indicate that her soul was trembling too. Owing to the bewilderment and confusion which made almost a chaos of her intellect, it was impossible to discover what dire misfortune had thus shaken her nature to its depths; so that the stewards had admitted her to the table, not from any acquaintance with her history, but on the safe testimony of her miserable aspect. Some surprise was expressed at the presence of a bluff, red-faced gentleman, a certain Mr. Smith, who had evidently the fat of many a rich feast within him, and the habitual twinkle of whose eye betrayed a disposition to break forth into uproarious laughter for little cause or none. It turned out however, that with the best possible flow of spirits, our poor friend was afflicted with a physical disease of the heart, which threatened instant death on the slightest cachinnatory indulgence, or even that titillation of the bodily frame produced by merry thoughts. In this dilemma he had sought admittance to the banquet, on the ostensible plea of his irksome and miserable state, but, in reality, with the hope of imbibing a life-preserving melancholy. HAWTHORNE's The Christmas Banquet. II. Study the picture on the opposite page. Show that it may suggest any one of the four types of composition above defined. Write paragraphs or outlines to illustrate this. The Use of Exposition. We have said that Exposition means explanation. It is the most obvious of all our forms, for the simple reason that constantly, everywhere, you and I are called upon to explain or are asking for some explanation. Narration, Description, Argument, are for the most part our leisure forms of discourse; Exposition is our workaday form. As soon as we are able to talk we are asking for explanations; all of our education is procured, directly or indirectly, through explanation; we find our way in and about this world of ours by means of explanation; the newspapers and perhaps most of the books we read are predom inantly explanation; all of our serious questions are demands for explanation; every place we go, everything we see, needs to be explained or calls for explanation. The other forms are important, very important, but none of them is in such general use as Exposition. Its Importance. If, then, Exposition is of such wide use, it behooves us to study it with much care and to perfect ourselves in the expression of it. Perhaps we have asked some one to tell us how to drive to a lake or village, or how to play a game or solve a puzzle. And when he had "explained" perhaps we have been no wiser than before. He did not understand how to make a thing clear, though he may have had some conception of what we were inquiring about. As a rule, we must always mistrust the person who says "I' know but I cannot tell." This is a sorry confession to make, for knowing a thing thoroughly implies the ability to tell it to some one else clearly. Until we can do this, our knowledge is usually imperfect, and certainly sealed. If we study the following brief excerpts, we shall soon see that the writer knew not only his subject but he knew also how to make it clear to some one else. These two kinds of knowledge are equally valuable, and they usually go hand in hand: I. Examination, like fire, is a good servant but a bad master; and there seems to me to be some danger of its becoming our master. I by no means stand alone in this opinion. Experienced friends of mine do not hesitate to say that students whose career they watch appear to them to become deteriorated by the constant effort to pass this or that examination, just as we hear of men's brains becoming affected by the daily necessity of catching a train. They work to pass, not to know; and outraged Science takes her revenge. They do pass, and they don't know. - HUXLEY. 2. Argentina is by far the most advanced of South American countries, and the reasons are not difficult to understand. In the first place, Argentina extends from just within the torrid zone to the extreme southern end of South America. Thus the country is for the most part within the temperate zone, the climate of which favors the development of energetic people. Also the range of climate, from arid to rainy and from tropical to temperate, insures a considerable range of products. A second reason for rapid advancement is the fact that, while there are mountains in the west, the remainder of the country is largely one vast expense of pampas. These open, treeless plains have made it easy for settlers to move about and to carry on the industries of farming and ranching. This is quite in contrast to the unfavorable conditions in the Amazon valley; but it may be compared with the ease of settlement which the plains and prairies of the United States have afforded. Such favorable conditions have served to attract many immigrants from Europe, and there is, therefore, a larger percentage of pure-blooded whites here than in other parts of South America. Largely for this reason the government of Argentina is decidedly better than that in most South American countries. TARR AND MCMURRY'S Advanced Geography. 3. The Eaved Cornice: We may give it this name, as represented in the simplest form by cottage eaves. It is used, however, in bold projection, both in north and south and east; its use being, in the north, to throw the rain well away from the wall of the building; in the south, to give it shade; and it is ordinarily constructed of the ends of the timbers of the roof mask (with their tiles or shingles continued to the edge of the cornice), and sustained by spurs of timber. This is its most picturesque and natural form; not inconsistent with great splendor of architecture in the medieval Italian domestic buildings, superb in its mass of cast shadow, and giving rich effect to the streets of Swiss towns, even when they have no other claim to interest. A further value is given to it by its water spouts, for in order to avoid loading it with weight of water in the gutter at the edge, where it would be a strain on the fastenings of the pipe, it has spouts of discharge at intervals of three or four feet rows of magnificent leaden or iron dragons' heads, full of delightful character, except to any person passing along the middle of the street in a heavy shower. I have had my share of their kindness in my time, but owe them no grudge; on the contrary, much gratitude for the delight of their fantastic outline on the calm blue sky, when they had no work to do but to open their iron mouths and pant in the sunshine. RUSKIN'S Stones of Venice. 4. The best way to make a fire quickly is, first, to lay two goodsized sticks on the ground as a foundation, then across them at right angles lay a course of dry twigs, or splinters, not quite touching each other; on these, at one side, place your tinder, of paper, bark, or whatever it may be; then on top of this put two other crosssticks, smaller than the bed-sticks; over this a cross-layer of larger twigs, and so on, building the pile cob-house style, and gradually increasing the size of the sticks. Such a pile will roar within half a minute after a match is touched to it, and if the upper courses are of split hickory, or other good hard wood, it will all burn down to live coals together. — KEPHART's The Book of Camping and Woodcraft. THE FIRST REQUISITES IN EXPOSITION Clearness. Nowhere is perfect clearness so important as in Exposition. And we are of course aware that we cannot make anything clear to others until we ourselves have it clearly in mind. In order to get anything clear to ourselves, it is necessary to turn it inside out, so to speak, in our own thinking, until we see the relative value of its different divisions, until, in short, we get its plan. When we come to the expression of our thoughts, this formulation along the lines already laid down in earlier discussions of the plan will almost in itself insure clearness. Adaptation. But there are special problems and special aids for clearness that should be noted and experimented with at this point. First of all, in order to be clear, we must invariably adjust our explanation to the knowledge and the capacity of the hearer or reader. An explanation of how to catch a trout would necessarily have to be much fuller for a |