SELECTION FROM BEECHER.
Overwork almost always ends in weakening the digestive organs. There are those who overtax their minds through months and years, forgetful that there is a close connection between overwork and dyspepsia. Everyone should remember that there is a point beyond which he cannot urge his brain without harm to his stomach; and that, when he loses his stomach, he loses the very citadel of health. The whole body is renewed from the blood, and the blood is made from the food taken into the stomach. The power of the blood to renew bone and brain and muscle depends upon a good digestion.
Too little sleep is fatal to health. Perhaps you have to work hard all day; but that is no reason why you should resolve, "If I cannot have pleasure by day, I will have it at night." You are taking the very substance of your body when you burn the lamp of pleasure till one or two o'clock in the morning. God has made sleep to be a sponge with which to rub out fatigue. A man's roots are planted in night, as a tree's are planted in soil, and out of it he should come, at waking, with fresh growth and bloom. As a rule, you should take eight hours of the twenty-four, for sleep.
+The Uses of Words and Groups of Words+.—In the exercises under the selection from the Brothers Grimm what did you learn about there as used twice in the second sentence above? What does those mean? What long adjective clause is joined to those by who? Does this clause read so closely as not to need a comma before who? Does forgetful describe the persons represented by who? Why is a comma used before forgetful? You learned in a preceding exercise that a noun may do the work of an adverb phrase without the help of a preposition. A noun clause may do the same. The adjective forgetful is modified by the noun clause that … dyspepsia. If we say forgetful of the fact, we see that the noun clause means the same as fact and has the same office. What two long noun clauses aroused to complete should remember? What conjunction introduces each of these clauses? What conjunction joins them together? What mark of punctuation between? If one of these noun clauses were not itself divided into clauses by the comma, would the semicolon be needed? The clause beyond … stomach goes with what word? When … stomach modifies what verb? Classify the sentences of this paragraph as simple, complex, or compound.
+To the Teacher+.—We have here treated informally some difficult points.
Perhaps these may be better understood when the book is reviewed.
+The Various Objects Writers Have+.—From your study of the preceding selections you learn that a writer may have any one of several objects in writing. He may wish simply to instruct the reader, as does Darwin in what he says of earthworms. He may wish merely to amuse the reader, as does Mr. Habberton in our extract from "Helen's Babies." He may wish only to put before them a picture which, like that of George Eliot's, shall afford delight. Or he may wish to get hold of what we call our wills and lead us to do something, perform some duty. This is what the story from the Brothers Grimm aims at. And you saw how it does this—by working on our feelings. There are at least these four objects that a writer may propose to himself. Which of these four objects has Mr. Beecher in the paragraphs we quote? Does he instruct? Does he try to get us to do something? Would it help you to have clearly before you from the beginning the object you are seeking to accomplish?
+Figurative Expressions+.—In these paragraphs Mr. Beecher calls a man's stomach the citadel of health, and sleep a sponge to rub out fatigue with, and says a man's roots are planted in night. He does not use these words citadel, sponge, and roots in their first or common meaning. He uses them in what we call a +figurative+ sense. He means to say that a man's stomach is to him what a fortress is to soldiers, a source of strength; that in sleep fatigue disappears as do figures on a slate or blackboard when a wet sponge is drawn across them; and that a man gets out of night what a tree's roots draw out of the soil, nourishment and vigor. Such figurative uses of words give strength and beauty to style.